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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50, 961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75, 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20, 908.59, 911.20, 902.83, 907.68, 777.76, 804.83, 823.98, 818.41, 821.80, 831.53, 907.94, 886.62, 899.07, 895.03, 921.79, 924.67, 921.01, 892.69, 901.54, 917.59, 919.75, 921.59, 919.50, 920.38, 970.40, 989.02, 1011.80, 1029.91, 1042.90, 1027.34, 1038.15, 1061.35, 1063.07, 994.38, 988.67, 1004.45, 999.18.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-02-12]
Volume: 67530000, RSI (14-day): 55.44, 50-day EMA: 934.21, 200-day EMA: 770.58
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Valve Software to Shutter Steam Greenlight Program for Indie Game Developers: Valve Software announced yesterday that it will end the Greenlight program, which allowed community members to support the addition of independent games to the Steam online games marketplace. The move aims at giving developers and publishers "a more direct publishing path" on Steam. Greenlight, which Valve described as part of Steam's gradual transition "from a tightly curated store to a more direct distribution model," gave gamers greater access to independent titles, and Valve says that more than 100 Greenlight titles have sales of $1 million or more. Steam, which debuted 13 years ago, was one of the earliest places where games could be purchased for download, and has arguably remained the most important sales platform for PC games. Get Data Sheet , Fortune 's technology newsletter. Greenlight promised to give smaller developers access to that market, but it has been persistently troubled. As detailed by Kotaku , by relying on users to upvote games they wanted to see on Steam, Valve inadvertently pushed developers to curry public favor, including by giving away free copies of games in exchange for votes. At the same time, Valve's lax internal quality control still meant many Greenlight games were low-quality 'shovelware.' In Kotaku's words, while Greenlight was intended to be the backbone of a symbiotic community, in practice, it "subtly pits users and developers against each other in a relationship that's turned toxic ." In one particularly notorious incident, the developer Digital Homicide became the target of a group of activist Steam users who worked to have its games removed from the service. Digital Homicide filed an $18 million lawsuit against that group, alleging its members had crossed the line between activism and harassment. Steam will not be reverting to its old walled-garden approach. In place of the complex Greenlight voting system, it will begin charging developers a flat fee to have their games listed on Steam. The new system, called "Steam Direct," is projected to go live in Spring of 2017. Steam is weighing how high to set its publishing fee, which they say could be anywhere from $100 to $5,000. While a higher fee would help filter out low-quality games, it would also be a major barrier for many legitimate developers, particularly those outside the U.S. Story continues See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Google Earth For Virtual Reality Lets You Fly Like Superman Disney Infinity Closing Down For Good in March 2017 Free Virtual Reality Lightsaber Game Coming Monday from Lucasfilm Steam Computer Gaming Network Now Accepting Bitcoin Ikea Embraces Virtual Reality With Virtual Kitchen || Valve Software to Shutter Steam Greenlight Program for Indie Game Developers: Valve Softwareannounced yesterdaythat it will end the Greenlight program, which allowed community members to support the addition of independent games to the Steam online games marketplace. The move aims at giving developers and publishers "a more direct publishing path" on Steam.
Greenlight, which Valve described as part of Steam's gradual transition "from a tightly curated store to a more direct distribution model," gave gamers greater access to independent titles, and Valve says that more than 100 Greenlight titles have sales of $1 million or more. Steam, which debuted 13 years ago, was one of the earliest places where games could be purchased for download, and has arguably remained the most important sales platform for PC games.
Get Data Sheet,Fortune'stechnology newsletter.
Greenlight promised to give smaller developers access to that market, but it has been persistently troubled. Asdetailed by Kotaku, by relying on users to upvote games they wanted to see on Steam, Valve inadvertently pushed developers to curry public favor, including by giving away free copies of games in exchange for votes. At the same time, Valve's lax internal quality control still meant many Greenlight games were low-quality 'shovelware.'
In Kotaku's words, while Greenlight was intended to be the backbone of a symbiotic community, in practice, it "subtly pits users and developers against each other in a relationship that'sturned toxic." In one particularly notorious incident, the developer Digital Homicide became the target of a group of activist Steam users who worked to have its games removed from the service. Digital Homicide filed an $18 million lawsuit against that group, alleging its members had crossed the line between activism and harassment.
Steam will not be reverting to its old walled-garden approach. In place of the complex Greenlight voting system, it will begin charging developers a flat fee to have their games listed on Steam. The new system, called "Steam Direct," is projected to go live in Spring of 2017. Steam is weighing how high to set its publishing fee, which they say could be anywhere from $100 to $5,000. While a higher fee would help filter out low-quality games, it would also be a major barrier for many legitimate developers, particularly those outside the U.S.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Google Earth For Virtual Reality Lets You Fly Like Superman
• Disney Infinity Closing Down For Good in March 2017
• Free Virtual Reality Lightsaber Game Coming Monday from Lucasfilm
• Steam Computer Gaming Network Now Accepting Bitcoin
• Ikea Embraces Virtual Reality With Virtual Kitchen || The First New Trump ETF? Not Quite: I won’t pretend to know the motivation of an ETF issuer when it comes to investment theses behind new products, but the timing of last week’s new global-ex Mexico ETF launch is tremendous, or maybe sad. Or maybe it’s just coincidental timing. My perception of the WisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Fund (XMX) that was launched last Friday is splintered, that is on the surface. You could perceive this to be a play on Donald’s Trump presidential victory and his antagonistic economic and immigration stance against Mexico. We all know that since the prospect of Trump’s presidential reality landed, the peso has taken more hits than Julio Cesar Chavez . For an ETF perspective, the iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW) , a market-cap-weighted index of Mexico equities, is down more than 8% since Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate for president back on July 19. Since the outcome of the election was clear, in early November, the fund has declined more than 11%. But what’s interesting is that the Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund (VT) —a global equity ETF with less than 0.5% allocated to Mexico—is up about 8% during that same period, as is the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI) , which has only 0.385% tied to Mexico equities. These allocations are extremely small, so don’t blame Mexico for any perceived drag on ACWI or VT. Performance of EWW, ACWI & VT Since July 19, 2016 Why This Is Not A Designed Trump Play Launching under the context of Trump’s first month in the office—yes, it has not been a month yet—the “perception is stronger than reality” notion hovers over the WisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Fund (XMX) like the morning fog over Pebble Beach. But the fact is that for an ETF issuer to exploit a recent geopolitical moment—the reality of Trump as president was fantasy up until it happened last November—is fanciful because of the process. You don’t snap your fingers and launch a cool and timely investment security like that. Ask the Winklevoss Twins, who have been waiting on the SEC for years. ( Decision On Bitcoin ETF Coming March 11 ) Story continues So the idea that this was designed as a ploy to attract Trump voters or the like with an anti-Mexico investment theme rings as hollow as an empty tunnel. What this comes down to is timing, a coincidental thing in the ETF world. Remember November 2015? People will invest in all kinds of things for different reasons, but if you are buying XMX because you want to feel good about your investment dollar aligning with Trump policies, you are sadly mistaken. Sure, investors may want to limit their exposure to Mexico, but that is not what I see here. WisdomTree has already cross-listed some 32 ETFs on the Mexico stock exchange, and if it does the same with XMX, there is likely to be interest from Mexico investors in a global fund that excludes domestic exposure. The real news is that for all intents and purposes, this looks to be designed for the Mexico market, not Trump voters. On top of that—here is where air comes out of the “New Trump ETF Lands” fake news—Wisdom Tree filed its first SEC proposal for XMX in November 2015, one year before Trump was elected, when he was presumed to be a laughable, but entertaining, candidate at best. While XMX is the first global ex-Mexico ETF to be listed in the U.S., the idea that this was created with a Trump presidency in mind is fiction. There is such a thing as getting lucky with the timing of a product launch. Assets may begin to flow into XMX because this false pretense begins to propagate through Twitter or financial websites looking for a fresh ETF angle. But if you are really looking to apply a “Make America Great” sleeve to your portfolio, there is the ProShares UltraShort MSCI Mexico Capped IMI (SMK) , which shorts the Mexico stock market. SMK is down 21% since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 19, while EWW has risen more than 11%. Good luck with that investment thesis. Performance of EWW, SMK, ACWI & VTI Since Jan. 19, 2017 Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com . At the time of writing, the author held none of the securities mentioned. Drew Voros can be reached at [email protected] . Recommended Stories Swedroe: The Downside Of Momentum 15 Most Volatile ETFs Of 2015 How Revenue Weighted ETFs Work Gartman: Don't Buy Stocks, Consider Gold 3 Simple Rules For Tactical Asset Allocation Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || The First New Trump ETF? Not Quite: I won’t pretend to know the motivation of an ETF issuer when it comes to investment theses behind new products, but the timing of last week’s new global-ex Mexico ETF launch is tremendous, or maybe sad. Or maybe it’s just coincidental timing.
My perception of theWisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Fund (XMX)that was launched last Friday is splintered, that is on the surface.
You could perceive this to be a play on Donald’s Trump presidential victory and his antagonistic economic and immigration stance against Mexico. We all know that since the prospect of Trump’s presidential reality landed, the peso has taken more hits thanJulio Cesar Chavez.
For an ETF perspective, theiShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW), a market-cap-weighted index of Mexico equities, is down more than 8% since Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate for president back on July 19. Since the outcome of the election was clear, in early November, the fund has declined more than 11%.
But what’s interesting is that theVanguard Total World Stock Index Fund (VT)—a global equity ETF with less than 0.5% allocated to Mexico—is up about 8% during that same period, as is theiShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI), which has only 0.385% tied to Mexico equities.
These allocations are extremely small, so don’t blame Mexico for any perceived drag on ACWI or VT.
Performance of EWW, ACWI & VT Since July 19, 2016
Why This Is Not A Designed Trump Play
Launching under the context of Trump’s first month in the office—yes, it has not been a month yet—the “perception is stronger than reality” notion hovers over theWisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Fund (XMX)like the morning fog over Pebble Beach.
But the fact is that for an ETF issuer to exploit a recent geopolitical moment—the reality of Trump as president was fantasy up until it happened last November—is fanciful because of the process. You don’t snap your fingers and launch a cool and timely investment security like that. Ask the Winklevoss Twins, who have been waiting on the SEC for years. (Decision On Bitcoin ETF Coming March 11)
So the idea that this was designed as a ploy to attract Trump voters or the like with an anti-Mexico investment theme rings as hollow as an empty tunnel.
What this comes down to is timing, a coincidental thing in the ETF world.
Remember November 2015?
People will invest in all kinds of things for different reasons, but if you are buying XMX because you want to feel good about your investment dollar aligning with Trump policies, you aresadlymistaken. Sure, investors may want to limit their exposure to Mexico, but that is not what I see here.
WisdomTree has already cross-listed some 32 ETFs on the Mexico stock exchange, and if it does the same with XMX, there is likely to be interest from Mexico investors in a global fund that excludes domestic exposure. The real news is that for all intents and purposes, this looks to be designed for the Mexico market, not Trump voters.
On top of that—here is where air comes out of the “New Trump ETF Lands” fake news—Wisdom Treefiled its first SEC proposal for XMXin November 2015, one year before Trump was elected, when he was presumed to be a laughable, but entertaining, candidate at best.
While XMX is the first global ex-Mexico ETF to be listed in the U.S., the idea that this was created with a Trump presidency in mind is fiction. There is such a thing as getting lucky with the timing of a product launch.
Assets may begin to flow into XMX because this false pretense begins to propagate through Twitter or financial websites looking for a fresh ETF angle. But if you are really looking to apply a “Make America Great” sleeve to your portfolio, there is theProShares UltraShort MSCI Mexico Capped IMI (SMK), which shorts the Mexico stock market.
SMK is down 21% since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 19, while EWW has risen more than 11%. Good luck with that investment thesis.
Performance of EWW, SMK, ACWI & VTI Since Jan. 19, 2017
Charts courtesy ofStockCharts.com.
At the time of writing, the author held none of the securities mentioned. Drew Voros can be reached [email protected].
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || A Chinese clampdown reveals a fundamental problem with the bitcoin markets: An illustration photo of Bitcoin (virtual currency) coins are seen at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris China used to dominate global bitcoin trading , but not anymore. After a series of interventions by the Chinese central bank and self-imposed restrictions by Chinese exchange operators, the share of the global bitcoin trade denominated in yuan has plummeted from over 95% to about 20%. A snow moon, lunar eclipse, and comet will light up the sky tonight. Heres how to watch The reason yuan volumes have dropped off a cliff is that the major exchanges ended ended the practice of allowing customers to place trades for free. Zero-fee trading has long been viewed as the culprit for Chinas apparent dominance of the bitcoin markets. Chinese exchanges typically let customers place trades for free, but charged for withdrawals. Critics have said this allowed them to project the appearance of robust volumes. But Chinese regulators wanted more real volumes reflected on exchange order books, the chief executive of one major exchange, BTCC, told trade publication CoinDesk , so the platforms started charging. The Chinese model was in contrast to platforms in the United States and elsewhere, which charge a fee for every trade. The three biggest Chinese exchanges ended free trading around Jan. 22, and an almost immediate drop in yuan trading volume followed. Within the week the yuans share of global bitcoin trading was about on par with the dollar. Spreading lies is a classic authoritarian power move. Dont let Trump get away with it As the yuan volumes plunged, a new currency rose to take its place. Unexpectedly, it was the Japanese yen, which has rarely featured strongly in the bitcoin markets. At first glance, there appears to be a rebalancing of global bitcoin trading volumes, spread among the dollar, yen, and yuan. But look closer and youll find the problem: Japan-based exchanges like Quoine and BitFlyer, which account for over 30% of the last months yen volumes, had zero-fee trading in place . In other words, it looks like Japanese platforms and their customers are now engaged in the same volume inflation their Chinese counterparts used to partake in. Story continues For now, this doesnt seem to have impacted the bitcoin price too negatively. It fell about 10% on news that Chinese exchanges were temporarily halting bitcoin withdrawals another self-imposed measurewhile they improved money laundering controls. It has since recovered slightly, and is still buoyant at around $970, which is still more than double its price 12 months ago. Bitcoin traders may have hoped that the end of zero-fee trading in China would produce a clearer picture of the nascent cryptocurrency markets; instead, they now have a new source of distortion to filter away. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: A reporter is suing the US government to learn how it vetted Trumps advisers for security clearances The power play behind Trumps penchant for uncomfortably long handshakes || A Chinese clampdown reveals a fundamental problem with the bitcoin markets: An illustration photo of Bitcoin (virtual currency) coins are seen at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris China used to dominate global bitcoin trading , but not anymore. After a series of interventions by the Chinese central bank and self-imposed restrictions by Chinese exchange operators, the share of the global bitcoin trade denominated in yuan has plummeted from over 95% to about 20%. A snow moon, lunar eclipse, and comet will light up the sky tonight. Heres how to watch The reason yuan volumes have dropped off a cliff is that the major exchanges ended ended the practice of allowing customers to place trades for free. Zero-fee trading has long been viewed as the culprit for Chinas apparent dominance of the bitcoin markets. Chinese exchanges typically let customers place trades for free, but charged for withdrawals. Critics have said this allowed them to project the appearance of robust volumes. But Chinese regulators wanted more real volumes reflected on exchange order books, the chief executive of one major exchange, BTCC, told trade publication CoinDesk , so the platforms started charging. The Chinese model was in contrast to platforms in the United States and elsewhere, which charge a fee for every trade. The three biggest Chinese exchanges ended free trading around Jan. 22, and an almost immediate drop in yuan trading volume followed. Within the week the yuans share of global bitcoin trading was about on par with the dollar. Spreading lies is a classic authoritarian power move. Dont let Trump get away with it As the yuan volumes plunged, a new currency rose to take its place. Unexpectedly, it was the Japanese yen, which has rarely featured strongly in the bitcoin markets. At first glance, there appears to be a rebalancing of global bitcoin trading volumes, spread among the dollar, yen, and yuan. But look closer and youll find the problem: Japan-based exchanges like Quoine and BitFlyer, which account for over 30% of the last months yen volumes, had zero-fee trading in place . In other words, it looks like Japanese platforms and their customers are now engaged in the same volume inflation their Chinese counterparts used to partake in. Story continues For now, this doesnt seem to have impacted the bitcoin price too negatively. It fell about 10% on news that Chinese exchanges were temporarily halting bitcoin withdrawals another self-imposed measurewhile they improved money laundering controls. It has since recovered slightly, and is still buoyant at around $970, which is still more than double its price 12 months ago. Bitcoin traders may have hoped that the end of zero-fee trading in China would produce a clearer picture of the nascent cryptocurrency markets; instead, they now have a new source of distortion to filter away. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: A reporter is suing the US government to learn how it vetted Trumps advisers for security clearances The power play behind Trumps penchant for uncomfortably long handshakes || Bitcoin drops by $100 as China's central bank corrals the market: Chinesebitcoinexchanges have disabled withdrawals of the cryptocurrency after meeting with the People's Bank of China, indicating the central bank has stepped up its efforts to regulate the market.
Throughout January, the PBoC made announcements that it was looking into bitcoin, including setting up a task force to carry out inspections and ensure bitcoin exchanges had implemented anti-money laundering systems.
Then on Thursday, the central bank announced it had met with nine exchanges to warn them they would be closed if they violated regulations. This prompted the three main Chinese bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Houbi and OKCoin to temporarily disable bitcoin withdrawal (users can deposit and withdraw yuan but not bitcoins) for the next 30 days, while they improve their anti-money laundering systems and customer identification measures.
The news caused the price for bitcoin to drop sharply on Thursday, from near a one-month high of around $1063 to as low as $954. Bitcoin prices recovered marginally, and are currently trading around $964.
Despite the hit to prices, bitcoin analysts believe the move by the PBoC will be healthy for the market.
"The PBoC moves to regulate Bitcoin more stringently will bring short term woes but will ultimately strengthen the ecosystem," Charles Hayter, chief executive and founder of digital currency comparison website CryptoCompare, told CNBC via email.
The moves by the PBoC and the improved systems will add respectability and rigor to the bitcoin market, according to Hayter.
These measures, along with the introduction of standard trading fees by Chinese exchanges, should also slow down the volume of bitcoin trading across China, which had become a cause for concern.
According to CryptoCompare data, trading volumes on Chinese exchanges have fallen from 10 million bitcoins per day to a range of 30,000 to 90,000. Bitcoin-yuan trades made up 98 percent of market share, but this is now around 26 percent, behind bitcoin-dollar and bitcoin-yen pairs.
"This has been a long time coming and many in the industry view these developments as a positive clean up. We already see liquidity resettling in other trading pairs like BTC/JPY(Exchange: BTCJPY=)& BTC/USD(Exchange: BTC=-USS)," Fran Strajnar, co-founder & CEO of data and research company Brave New Coin, told CNBC via email.
"These marketplace changes will inevitably slow nefarious activity and open channels to more and more institutional investors. In my opinion the 'PBoC cleanup' is the best thing that could have happened to bitcoin this year."
Other central banks may now be considering how to regulate bitcoin activity.
"I think all governments are trying to figure out how they can adjust laws and regulations to this new field, allowing them to get the benefit of the technology while at the same time curbing any usage for illicit purposes," Linus Lindgren, strategic investor and advisor at BTCXIndia, told CNBC via email.
"My recommendation to any regulator wondering how to go ahead with this would be to involve the industry and work together to reach common goals."
Follow CNBC International onTwitterandFacebook. || Bitcoin drops by $100 as China's central bank corrals the market: Chinese bitcoin exchanges have disabled withdrawals of the cryptocurrency after meeting with the People's Bank of China, indicating the central bank has stepped up its efforts to regulate the market. Throughout January, the PBoC made announcements that it was looking into bitcoin, including setting up a task force to carry out inspections and ensure bitcoin exchanges had implemented anti-money laundering systems. Then on Thursday , the central bank announced it had met with nine exchanges to warn them they would be closed if they violated regulations. This prompted the three main Chinese bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Houbi and OKCoin to temporarily disable bitcoin withdrawal (users can deposit and withdraw yuan but not bitcoins) for the next 30 days, while they improve their anti-money laundering systems and customer identification measures. The news caused the price for bitcoin to drop sharply on Thursday, from near a one-month high of around $1063 to as low as $954. Bitcoin prices recovered marginally, and are currently trading around $964. Despite the hit to prices, bitcoin analysts believe the move by the PBoC will be healthy for the market. "The PBoC moves to regulate Bitcoin more stringently will bring short term woes but will ultimately strengthen the ecosystem," Charles Hayter, chief executive and founder of digital currency comparison website CryptoCompare, told CNBC via email. The moves by the PBoC and the improved systems will add respectability and rigor to the bitcoin market, according to Hayter. These measures, along with the introduction of standard trading fees by Chinese exchanges, should also slow down the volume of bitcoin trading across China, which had become a cause for concern. According to CryptoCompare data, trading volumes on Chinese exchanges have fallen from 10 million bitcoins per day to a range of 30,000 to 90,000. Bitcoin-yuan trades made up 98 percent of market share, but this is now around 26 percent, behind bitcoin-dollar and bitcoin-yen pairs. Story continues "This has been a long time coming and many in the industry view these developments as a positive clean up. We already see liquidity resettling in other trading pairs like BTC/JPY (Exchange: BTCJPY=) & BTC/USD (Exchange: BTC=-USS) ," Fran Strajnar, co-founder & CEO of data and research company Brave New Coin, told CNBC via email. "These marketplace changes will inevitably slow nefarious activity and open channels to more and more institutional investors. In my opinion the 'PBoC cleanup' is the best thing that could have happened to bitcoin this year." Other central banks may now be considering how to regulate bitcoin activity. "I think all governments are trying to figure out how they can adjust laws and regulations to this new field, allowing them to get the benefit of the technology while at the same time curbing any usage for illicit purposes," Linus Lindgren, strategic investor and advisor at BTCXIndia, told CNBC via email. "My recommendation to any regulator wondering how to go ahead with this would be to involve the industry and work together to reach common goals." Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook . || Bitcoin drops by $100 as China's central bank corrals the market: Chinesebitcoinexchanges have disabled withdrawals of the cryptocurrency after meeting with the People's Bank of China, indicating the central bank has stepped up its efforts to regulate the market.
Throughout January, the PBoC made announcements that it was looking into bitcoin, including setting up a task force to carry out inspections and ensure bitcoin exchanges had implemented anti-money laundering systems.
Then on Thursday, the central bank announced it had met with nine exchanges to warn them they would be closed if they violated regulations. This prompted the three main Chinese bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Houbi and OKCoin to temporarily disable bitcoin withdrawal (users can deposit and withdraw yuan but not bitcoins) for the next 30 days, while they improve their anti-money laundering systems and customer identification measures.
The news caused the price for bitcoin to drop sharply on Thursday, from near a one-month high of around $1063 to as low as $954. Bitcoin prices recovered marginally, and are currently trading around $964.
Despite the hit to prices, bitcoin analysts believe the move by the PBoC will be healthy for the market.
"The PBoC moves to regulate Bitcoin more stringently will bring short term woes but will ultimately strengthen the ecosystem," Charles Hayter, chief executive and founder of digital currency comparison website CryptoCompare, told CNBC via email.
The moves by the PBoC and the improved systems will add respectability and rigor to the bitcoin market, according to Hayter.
These measures, along with the introduction of standard trading fees by Chinese exchanges, should also slow down the volume of bitcoin trading across China, which had become a cause for concern.
According to CryptoCompare data, trading volumes on Chinese exchanges have fallen from 10 million bitcoins per day to a range of 30,000 to 90,000. Bitcoin-yuan trades made up 98 percent of market share, but this is now around 26 percent, behind bitcoin-dollar and bitcoin-yen pairs.
"This has been a long time coming and many in the industry view these developments as a positive clean up. We already see liquidity resettling in other trading pairs like BTC/JPY(Exchange: BTCJPY=)& BTC/USD(Exchange: BTC=-USS)," Fran Strajnar, co-founder & CEO of data and research company Brave New Coin, told CNBC via email.
"These marketplace changes will inevitably slow nefarious activity and open channels to more and more institutional investors. In my opinion the 'PBoC cleanup' is the best thing that could have happened to bitcoin this year."
Other central banks may now be considering how to regulate bitcoin activity.
"I think all governments are trying to figure out how they can adjust laws and regulations to this new field, allowing them to get the benefit of the technology while at the same time curbing any usage for illicit purposes," Linus Lindgren, strategic investor and advisor at BTCXIndia, told CNBC via email.
"My recommendation to any regulator wondering how to go ahead with this would be to involve the industry and work together to reach common goals."
Follow CNBC International onTwitterandFacebook. || Why bitcoin will surge to $25,000: By Yves Lamoureux, president and chief behavioral strategist of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co. Bitcoin is on a trajectory that will eventually catapult it into bubble territory, with an end target of $25,000 or more. Many of the key ingredients present in past bubbles are now present to create the next one in bitcoin. What makes this possible is the mathematics of finite supply, which we will show you in a chart and is at the core of our argument. One of the reasons people buy gold is to avoid the dilution of fiat money. In other words, gold investors care about keeping their purchasing power. The alternative is an unlimited supply of paper money over time. This is why we are convinced that digital money or cryptocurrencies will eventually find its appeal with hard asset investors — or a rare chance to get in on a venture capital style bet. We fought tooth and nails to get the media to cover gold when it traded at $300. These events work out over cycles measured in decades, which is the amount of time required to convince the majority. Whether tulips, housing or tech stocks, bubbles require public participation. And as blockchain becomes more ubiquitous, it lends credibility to the technology behind bitcoin. We feel that digital currencies, such as bitcoin, have now entered a similar cycle. It will take many years of great returns to remove the current skepticism on digital money. And there will be pressure from governments to regulate it, which in the end, will only lend it more legitimacy. People trade today as they did last year, as they did 100 years ago. The psychology remains the same. Behaviour does not change. Provide the same set of incentives throughout time and the Pavlovian bell rings the same. When I saw this chart, immediately I saw dollar signs. Source: stackexchange.com Over the lifetime of mining bitcoins, the final amount is set to be 21 million coins. Nothing more and nothing less. For the time being, it is way too early to ascribe a final end of the road valuation target to bitcoin, even if we hint at a level. Story continues Prior articles: Why hyperinflation is coming Why the crisis of 2019 begins now How to prepare for the next major selloff in stocks: trader By Yves Lamoureux, January 16, 2017 ©Copyright, Lamoureux & Co. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product or service.This publication is proprietary and is intended for the use of the subscriber only. All information provided is impersonal and not tailored to the needs of any person, entity or group or persons. Lamoureux & Co. shall not be liable for any claims. || Why bitcoin will surge to $25,000: ByYves Lamoureux, president and chief behavioral strategist of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co.
Bitcoin is on a trajectory that will eventually catapult it into bubble territory, with an end target of $25,000 or more.
Many of the key ingredients present in past bubbles are now present to create the next one in bitcoin. What makes this possible is the mathematics of finite supply, which we will show you in a chart and is at the core of our argument.
One of the reasons people buy gold is to avoid the dilution of fiat money. In other words, gold investors care about keeping their purchasing power. The alternative is an unlimited supply of paper money over time.
This is why we are convinced that digital money or cryptocurrencies will eventually find its appeal with hard asset investors — or a rare chance to get in on a venture capital style bet.
We fought tooth and nails to get the media to cover gold when it traded at $300. These events work out over cycles measured in decades, which is the amount of time required to convince the majority.
Whether tulips, housing or tech stocks, bubbles require public participation. And as blockchain becomes more ubiquitous, it lends credibility to the technology behind bitcoin. We feel that digital currencies, such as bitcoin, have now entered a similar cycle.
It will take many years of great returns to remove the current skepticism on digital money. And there will be pressure from governments to regulate it, which in the end, will only lend it more legitimacy.
People trade today as they did last year, as they did 100 years ago. The psychology remains the same. Behaviour does not change. Provide the same set of incentives throughout time and the Pavlovian bell rings the same.
When I saw this chart, immediately I saw dollar signs.
Over the lifetime of mining bitcoins, the final amount is set to be 21 million coins. Nothing more and nothing less.
For the time being, it is way too early to ascribe a final end of the road valuation target to bitcoin, even if we hint at a level.
Prior articles:
Why hyperinflation is coming
Why the crisis of 2019 begins now
How to prepare for the next major selloff in stocks: trader
By Yves Lamoureux, January 16, 2017 ©Copyright, Lamoureux & Co.
This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product or service.This publication is proprietary and is intended for the use of the subscriber only. All information provided is impersonal and not tailored to the needs of any person, entity or group or persons. Lamoureux & Co. shall not be liable for any claims. || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalise to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalise to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalise to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalize to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalize to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalize to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Bitcoin is tanking after Chinese exchanges block withdrawals: Bitcoin (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch) Bitcoin was down by 8%, or $85, at $975 a coin as of 4:06 p.m. ET on Thursday after at least two of China's biggest bitcoin exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The announcements followed Wednesday's meeting between the People's Bank of China and the bitcoin exchanges. Thursday's announcements are notable because nearly 100% of all bitcoin transactions take place on Chinese exchanges. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016, when it became the top-performing currency for a second straight year. Bitcoin gained more than 20% in the opening week of 2017 before crashing by 35% on concerns China would start cracking down on trading . China's largest bitcoin exchanges recently announced they would charge a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions. Thursday's steep slide has pushed bitcoin to its lowest level since the final trading day of January. It is still higher by 3.6% for the year. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider Bitcoin is zooming higher Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day Bitcoin is back above $1,000 || Bitcoin is tanking after Chinese exchanges block withdrawals: (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch)
Bitcoin was down by 8%, or $85, at $975 a coin as of 4:06 p.m. ET on Thursday after at leasttwoofChina'sbiggest bitcoin exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The announcements followedWednesday's meetingbetween the People's Bank of China and the bitcoin exchanges.
Thursday's announcements are notable becausenearly 100% of all bitcoin transactionstake place on Chinese exchanges. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016, when it became thetop-performing currencyfor a second straight year.
Bitcoin gained more than 20% in the opening week of 2017 before crashing by 35% on concerns China would startcracking down on trading. China's largest bitcoin exchanges recently announced they would charge a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions.
Thursday's steep slide has pushed bitcoin to its lowest level since the final trading day of January. It is still higher by 3.6% for the year.
(Investing.com)
NOW WATCH:Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin
More From Business Insider
• Bitcoin is zooming higher
• Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day
• Bitcoin is back above $1,000 || Bitcoin is tanking after Chinese exchanges block withdrawals: (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch)
Bitcoin was down by 8%, or $85, at $975 a coin as of 4:06 p.m. ET on Thursday after at leasttwoofChina'sbiggest bitcoin exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The announcements followedWednesday's meetingbetween the People's Bank of China and the bitcoin exchanges.
Thursday's announcements are notable becausenearly 100% of all bitcoin transactionstake place on Chinese exchanges. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016, when it became thetop-performing currencyfor a second straight year.
Bitcoin gained more than 20% in the opening week of 2017 before crashing by 35% on concerns China would startcracking down on trading. China's largest bitcoin exchanges recently announced they would charge a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions.
Thursday's steep slide has pushed bitcoin to its lowest level since the final trading day of January. It is still higher by 3.6% for the year.
(Investing.com)
NOW WATCH:Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin
More From Business Insider
• Bitcoin is zooming higher
• Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day
• Bitcoin is back above $1,000
[Social Media Buzz]
$1004.00 at 07:45 UTC [24h Range: $997.04 - $1020.00 Volume: 3969 BTC] || #Bitcoin ⇩
Ultima: R$ 3129.90 Alta: R$ 3150.00 Baixa: R$ 3112.09
Fonte: Foxbit || #Bitcoin ⇩
Ultima: R$ 3114.77 Alta: R$ 3150.00 Baixa: R$ 3106.01
Fonte: Foxbit || 現在の価格は 113945円(http://blockchain.info )です。前回比は0円(0.00%)です。http://konvert.in/currency/1-bitcoin-to-japanese-yen … #ビットコイン #bitcoin via @konvertin || #EuropeCoin #ERC $0.038565 (-9.74%) 0.00003858 BTC (-9.00%) || #AudioCoin #ADC $0.000364 (11.18%) 0.00000036 BTC...
|
990.64, 1004.55, 1007.48, 1027.44, 1046.21, 1054.42, 1047.87, 1079.98, 1115.30, 1117.44
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 217.11, 222.27, 227.75, 223.41, 220.11, 219.84, 219.18, 221.76, 235.43, 257.32, 234.82, 233.84, 243.61, 236.33, 240.28, 243.78, 244.53, 235.98, 238.89, 238.74, 237.47, 236.43, 253.83, 254.26, 260.20, 275.67, 281.70, 273.09, 276.18, 272.72, 276.26, 274.35, 289.61, 291.76, 296.38, 294.35, 285.34, 281.89, 286.39, 290.59, 285.51, 256.30, 260.93, 261.75, 260.02, 267.96, 266.74, 245.60, 246.20, 248.53, 247.03, 252.80, 242.71, 247.53, 244.22, 247.27, 253.01, 254.32, 253.70, 260.60, 255.49, 253.18, 245.02, 243.68, 236.07, 236.55, 236.15, 224.59, 219.16, 223.83, 228.57, 222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63, 235.27, 234.18, 236.46, 231.27, 226.39, 219.43, 229.29, 225.85, 225.81, 236.15, 232.08, 234.93, 240.36, 239.02, 236.12.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-05-05]
Volume: 23929100, RSI (14-day): 51.06, 50-day EMA: 239.94, 200-day EMA: 265.13
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1193.20, Gold RSI: 49.68
Oil Price: 60.40, Oil RSI: 68.84
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Lucrazon Global Helps Merchants by Integrating Cryptocurrency With Bitcoin Payment Acceptance: IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - May 4, 2015) - California-based Lucrazon Global (http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/), a fully integrated Ecommerce platform and Global Business Network designed specifically for Internet entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type, reinforces its services offered by accommodating encrypted digital currency Bitcoin payments. The integration of Bitcoins aims at protecting merchants from online fraud and other threats, and comes shortly after Californian Governor, Jerry Brown, passed a bill to approve Bitcoins as a legitimate form of currency for financial transactions in the state (source:http://cointelegraph.com/news/113235/bitcoin-becomes-legal-tender-for-transactions-in-california).
Cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that is managed and utilized with the help of encryption techniques such as cryptography (source:http://www.investopeia.com/articles/forex/091013/future-cryptocurrency.asp). The technology is increasingly popular among ecommerce vendors who use it to process transactions and verifications with the help of networks. After initial security hiccups, Federal Reserve recently declared it a trustworthy alternative to paper money. The fact that cryptocurrency is irreversible allowsLucrazon Globalto protect paying customers against chargebacks -- a type of fraud that is possible through more conventional transaction methods like credit card payments.
Lucrazon Global's introduction of the encrypted currency comes at a favorable time that holds a lot of potential for international merchants in circumventing certain risks: According to an annual report by LexisNexis merchants incurred a loss of about $3.4 billion in 2011 through online fraud alone (source:http://btctheory.com/2013/10/30/fraud-chargebacks-and-Bitcoin/). Alex Pitt, CEO ofLucrazon Global, knows that chargebacks have been the bane of ecommerce ventures for years. These can be filed against a customer's billing statement on his credit card if a charge is disputed. Since there are no chargebacks in cryptocurrency, Lucrazon Global's incentive is designed to protect merchants from such malicious schemes thereby keeping transactions secure.
Bitcoins are originally bought from exchange companies by investors and traders by using valuable currencies. Online businesses that utilize the technology require customers to store the digital funds in online storage software such as eWallets, on their PCs, or on the web. Payments with the currency are enabled through "Pay with Bitcoin" options on these sites. In 2013, Bitcoins grew exponentially and have become a preferred currency for several types of ecommerce transactions. A number of online stores have adopted the currency as their payments of choice. Brands who have gotten on the Bitcoin trend include Target, Victoria's Secret, the car company Tesla, Zynga, Apple's App Store, Home Depot, Wikipedia, and Subway to name a few (source:http://www.Bitcoinvalues.net/who-accepts-Bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-Bitcoins.html). By offering Bitcoins as a payment option, Lucrazon Global now introduces the cryptocurrency to smaller stores and businesses.
A fully integrated e-commerce platform and Global Business Network, Lucrazon Global is designed specifically for Internet Entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type. Specializing in providing multi functional websites such as ecommerce stores, the company offers solutions like product inventories, integrated shopping carts, drop shipments, access to multiple suppliers, and real time account activation. The company has become a leader in ecommerce solutions by working closely with suppliers, manufactures, fulfillment centers centralizing opportunity making it simple for anyone to become an online business professional.
For more information or to become a Brand Partner, visit:http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/
Lucrazon Global's blog:http://lucrazonglobalnews.com/
Lucrazon Global Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/LucrazonGlobal
Lucrazon Global - Twitter:https://twitter.com/lucrazon
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815608Embedded Video Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815611 || Lucrazon Global Helps Merchants by Integrating Cryptocurrency With Bitcoin Payment Acceptance: IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - May 4, 2015) - California-based Lucrazon Global ( http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/ ), a fully integrated Ecommerce platform and Global Business Network designed specifically for Internet entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type, reinforces its services offered by accommodating encrypted digital currency Bitcoin payments. The integration of Bitcoins aims at protecting merchants from online fraud and other threats, and comes shortly after Californian Governor, Jerry Brown, passed a bill to approve Bitcoins as a legitimate form of currency for financial transactions in the state (source: http://cointelegraph.com/news/113235/bitcoin-becomes-legal-tender-for-transactions-in-california ). Cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that is managed and utilized with the help of encryption techniques such as cryptography (source: http://www.investopeia.com/articles/forex/091013/future-cryptocurrency.asp ). The technology is increasingly popular among ecommerce vendors who use it to process transactions and verifications with the help of networks. After initial security hiccups, Federal Reserve recently declared it a trustworthy alternative to paper money. The fact that cryptocurrency is irreversible allows Lucrazon Global to protect paying customers against chargebacks -- a type of fraud that is possible through more conventional transaction methods like credit card payments. Lucrazon Global's introduction of the encrypted currency comes at a favorable time that holds a lot of potential for international merchants in circumventing certain risks: According to an annual report by LexisNexis merchants incurred a loss of about $3.4 billion in 2011 through online fraud alone (source: http://btctheory.com/2013/10/30/fraud-chargebacks-and-Bitcoin/ ). Alex Pitt, CEO of Lucrazon Global , knows that chargebacks have been the bane of ecommerce ventures for years. These can be filed against a customer's billing statement on his credit card if a charge is disputed. Since there are no chargebacks in cryptocurrency, Lucrazon Global's incentive is designed to protect merchants from such malicious schemes thereby keeping transactions secure. Story continues Bitcoins are originally bought from exchange companies by investors and traders by using valuable currencies. Online businesses that utilize the technology require customers to store the digital funds in online storage software such as eWallets, on their PCs, or on the web. Payments with the currency are enabled through "Pay with Bitcoin" options on these sites. In 2013, Bitcoins grew exponentially and have become a preferred currency for several types of ecommerce transactions. A number of online stores have adopted the currency as their payments of choice. Brands who have gotten on the Bitcoin trend include Target, Victoria's Secret, the car company Tesla, Zynga, Apple's App Store, Home Depot, Wikipedia, and Subway to name a few (source: http://www.Bitcoinvalues.net/who-accepts-Bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-Bitcoins.html ). By offering Bitcoins as a payment option, Lucrazon Global now introduces the cryptocurrency to smaller stores and businesses. A fully integrated e-commerce platform and Global Business Network, Lucrazon Global is designed specifically for Internet Entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type. Specializing in providing multi functional websites such as ecommerce stores, the company offers solutions like product inventories, integrated shopping carts, drop shipments, access to multiple suppliers, and real time account activation. The company has become a leader in ecommerce solutions by working closely with suppliers, manufactures, fulfillment centers centralizing opportunity making it simple for anyone to become an online business professional. For more information or to become a Brand Partner, visit: http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/ Lucrazon Global's blog: http://lucrazonglobalnews.com/ Lucrazon Global Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucrazonGlobal Lucrazon Global - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lucrazon Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815608 Embedded Video Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815611 || Lucrazon Global Helps Merchants by Integrating Cryptocurrency With Bitcoin Payment Acceptance: IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - May 4, 2015) - California-based Lucrazon Global (http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/), a fully integrated Ecommerce platform and Global Business Network designed specifically for Internet entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type, reinforces its services offered by accommodating encrypted digital currency Bitcoin payments. The integration of Bitcoins aims at protecting merchants from online fraud and other threats, and comes shortly after Californian Governor, Jerry Brown, passed a bill to approve Bitcoins as a legitimate form of currency for financial transactions in the state (source:http://cointelegraph.com/news/113235/bitcoin-becomes-legal-tender-for-transactions-in-california).
Cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that is managed and utilized with the help of encryption techniques such as cryptography (source:http://www.investopeia.com/articles/forex/091013/future-cryptocurrency.asp). The technology is increasingly popular among ecommerce vendors who use it to process transactions and verifications with the help of networks. After initial security hiccups, Federal Reserve recently declared it a trustworthy alternative to paper money. The fact that cryptocurrency is irreversible allowsLucrazon Globalto protect paying customers against chargebacks -- a type of fraud that is possible through more conventional transaction methods like credit card payments.
Lucrazon Global's introduction of the encrypted currency comes at a favorable time that holds a lot of potential for international merchants in circumventing certain risks: According to an annual report by LexisNexis merchants incurred a loss of about $3.4 billion in 2011 through online fraud alone (source:http://btctheory.com/2013/10/30/fraud-chargebacks-and-Bitcoin/). Alex Pitt, CEO ofLucrazon Global, knows that chargebacks have been the bane of ecommerce ventures for years. These can be filed against a customer's billing statement on his credit card if a charge is disputed. Since there are no chargebacks in cryptocurrency, Lucrazon Global's incentive is designed to protect merchants from such malicious schemes thereby keeping transactions secure.
Bitcoins are originally bought from exchange companies by investors and traders by using valuable currencies. Online businesses that utilize the technology require customers to store the digital funds in online storage software such as eWallets, on their PCs, or on the web. Payments with the currency are enabled through "Pay with Bitcoin" options on these sites. In 2013, Bitcoins grew exponentially and have become a preferred currency for several types of ecommerce transactions. A number of online stores have adopted the currency as their payments of choice. Brands who have gotten on the Bitcoin trend include Target, Victoria's Secret, the car company Tesla, Zynga, Apple's App Store, Home Depot, Wikipedia, and Subway to name a few (source:http://www.Bitcoinvalues.net/who-accepts-Bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-Bitcoins.html). By offering Bitcoins as a payment option, Lucrazon Global now introduces the cryptocurrency to smaller stores and businesses.
A fully integrated e-commerce platform and Global Business Network, Lucrazon Global is designed specifically for Internet Entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type. Specializing in providing multi functional websites such as ecommerce stores, the company offers solutions like product inventories, integrated shopping carts, drop shipments, access to multiple suppliers, and real time account activation. The company has become a leader in ecommerce solutions by working closely with suppliers, manufactures, fulfillment centers centralizing opportunity making it simple for anyone to become an online business professional.
For more information or to become a Brand Partner, visit:http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/
Lucrazon Global's blog:http://lucrazonglobalnews.com/
Lucrazon Global Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/LucrazonGlobal
Lucrazon Global - Twitter:https://twitter.com/lucrazon
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815608Embedded Video Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815611 || Chrysler joins Starbucks in 'schooling' American workers: The hot new corporate “perk” is: education.
Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) is now offering free college tuition to its 188,000 dealership employees.The programprovides a no-cost online bachelor’s degree through the for-profit Strayer University (STRA), and is similar toa planannounced earlier this year between Starbucks (SBUX) and Arizona State University.
Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer points out that in the current work environment, firms need to both build a smarter workforce…and give smart people a reason to join their operations.
“Increasingly, companies are frustrated about getting educated workers and they’re looking to differentiate and attract workers,” he says. “I think you’re going to see more and of this, particularly as wages rise and the competition-- the supply/demand balance-- shifts to making it difficult to find good workers.”
Fiat Chrysler executive Al Gardner makes that point in explaining why the carmaker is launching this program.
“Many of our dealers have expressed concern over the availability of talent to fill open positions due to business growth and turnover in their stores, especially in metro markets.”
That doesn’t surprise Yahoo Finance’s Jen Rogers.
“Once you find them you want to keep them,” she says. “And the turnover is a real issue in dealerships--between 45% and 60%.”
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli adds many businesses are responding like Fiat Chrysler to what they recognize as a real need.
“Corporate America is stepping in where they see gaps in educating workers, retaining them and essentially having people get what they feel like they ought to get out of a career,” he explains.
Serwer sees that as well.
“There’s a story in theNew York Timestoday about income mobility and how, in certain parts of the country, there is none anymore,” he points out. “So companies are going to step into the breach here. I think they’re going to have to add on all kinds of perks.”
And Serwer believes offering free college tuition is a really important perk considering the divide between people’s skills and what’s needed in the 21st century workplace.
“God knows there’s a gap,” he says. “We need to educate people in this country.”
Also from Yahoo Finance
Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing
McDonald's comeback plan: Is it enough? || Chrysler joins Starbucks in 'schooling' American workers: The hot new corporate perk is: education. Fiat Chrysler ( FCAU ) is now offering free college tuition to its 188,000 dealership employees. The program provides a no-cost online bachelors degree through the for-profit Strayer University ( STRA ), and is similar to a plan announced earlier this year between Starbucks ( SBUX ) and Arizona State University. Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer points out that in the current work environment, firms need to both build a smarter workforce
and give smart people a reason to join their operations. Increasingly, companies are frustrated about getting educated workers and theyre looking to differentiate and attract workers, he says. I think youre going to see more and of this, particularly as wages rise and the competition-- the supply/demand balance-- shifts to making it difficult to find good workers. Fiat Chrysler executive Al Gardner makes that point in explaining why the carmaker is launching this program. Many of our dealers have expressed concern over the availability of talent to fill open positions due to business growth and turnover in their stores, especially in metro markets. That doesnt surprise Yahoo Finances Jen Rogers. Once you find them you want to keep them, she says. And the turnover is a real issue in dealerships--between 45% and 60%. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli adds many businesses are responding like Fiat Chrysler to what they recognize as a real need. Corporate America is stepping in where they see gaps in educating workers, retaining them and essentially having people get what they feel like they ought to get out of a career, he explains. Serwer sees that as well. Theres a story in the New York Times today about income mobility and how, in certain parts of the country, there is none anymore, he points out. So companies are going to step into the breach here. I think theyre going to have to add on all kinds of perks. Story continues And Serwer believes offering free college tuition is a really important perk considering the divide between peoples skills and whats needed in the 21st century workplace. God knows theres a gap, he says. We need to educate people in this country. Also from Yahoo Finance Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing McDonald's comeback plan: Is it enough? || UK Takes The Spotlight With Uncertain Elections Looming: Although Greece's debt drama has been paramount for investors over the past few months, this week may see more of a focus on what has historically been one of the most stable economies in Europe— the UK. On Thursday, the region will hold its national elections which have set up a fierce battle between its Labour and Conservative parties. A Close Race Opinion polls in the past weeks have shown that both parties are neck and neck, something many believe will end with neither gaining an overall majority when the vote is over. Investors are beginning to worry that the May 7 election could end with a hung parliament and a possible multi-party coalition. UK Position In Eurozone At Stake The Conservative party has promised to hold a referendum on the UK's membership in the European Union if elected into power. Although most surveys suggest that the British population is in support of remaining a part of the EU, a referendum vote could have a negative impact on the region's market. Related Link: U.S. Tech Firms Prepare To Go To Battle Scottish National Party Gains Ground Polls have shown that the Scottish National Party is on track to win a sweeping majority of Scotland's seats in parliament, making the group a powerful ally for the Labour Party. Representatives from the SNP have voiced their willingness to form a coalition government with the Labour party, but say they would refuse to partner with the Conservatives. This is another concern for markets as it could reignite bitter feelings from last year's Scottish independence vote. No Right Answer No matter this week's outcome, most expect to see UK markets take a beating in the days following the election. Because of the fragmented nature of this year's vote, a decisive outcome is considered very unlikely. For that reason, investors will be on edge about the region's future, which could drive the pound and the FTSE lower. See more from Benzinga Here's Where To Invest If You Believe In Self-Driving Cars Tesla's New Battery Could Save Money For Pot Growers Bitcoin Goes To The Movies © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || UK Takes The Spotlight With Uncertain Elections Looming: Although Greece's debt drama has been paramount for investors over the past few months, this week may see more of a focus on what has historically been one of the most stable economies in Europe— the UK.
On Thursday, the region will hold its national elections which have set up afierce battlebetween its Labour and Conservative parties.
A Close Race
Opinion polls in the past weeks have shown that both parties are neck and neck, something many believe will end with neither gaining an overall majority when the vote is over.
Investors are beginning to worry that the May 7 election could end with a hung parliament and a possible multi-party coalition.
UK Position In Eurozone At Stake
The Conservative party has promised to hold a referendum on the UK's membership in the European Union if elected into power.
Although most surveys suggest that the British population is in support of remaining a part of the EU, a referendum vote could have a negative impact on the region's market.
Related Link:U.S. Tech Firms Prepare To Go To Battle
Scottish National Party Gains Ground
Polls have shown that the Scottish National Party is on track to win a sweeping majority of Scotland's seats in parliament, making the group a powerful ally for the Labour Party.
Representatives from the SNP have voiced their willingness to form a coalition government with the Labour party, but say they would refuse to partner with the Conservatives. This is another concern for markets as it could reignite bitter feelings from last year's Scottish independence vote.
No Right Answer
No matter this week's outcome, most expect to see UK markets take a beating in the days following the election. Because of the fragmented nature of this year's vote, a decisive outcome is considered very unlikely.
For that reason, investors will be on edge about the region's future, which could drive the pound and the FTSE lower.
See more from Benzinga
• Here's Where To Invest If You Believe In Self-Driving Cars
• Tesla's New Battery Could Save Money For Pot Growers
• Bitcoin Goes To The Movies
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Meet Europe's newest tax haven and micro-state: Europe's newest "state" welcomed its first citizens this weekend, after a small group of libertarians declared independence for a patch of land on the border between Croatia and Serbia. The "Free Republic of Liberland" has received no official recognition, but celebrated its first "Liberty Day" on May 1, doling out honorary citizenship to the first 100 attendees to arrive at the party in country. Its "president", Vit Jedlicka, is a 31-year-old Czech, who is a former financial analyst and self-described libertarian. He said that long-term, he hoped Liberland could become a successful financial center due to its loose tax laws. "I would categorize it as a tax heaven," Jedlicka said. "The reason why Liberland was created was that the rest of the world ended up being a tax hell." Nearly 300,000 people have already applied for Liberland citizens, 80 of whom are billionaires, according to Jedlicka. Jedlicka and two other Czechs formed the new state on April 13 on a patch of woodland near the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia in South East Europe. Liberland said the area was left unclaimed following a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia in the 1940s. For much of the 20th century, both states were part of Yugoslavia. The new country measures only 2.7 square miles in area, meaning it would rank among Vatican City and Monaco as one of the world's smallest "micro-states." Jedlicka said forming Liberland was an attempt to shake up the political status quo. "I tried for five years to change something in politics, but taxes were still rising, regulations were more and more intruding into people's lives, so I sort of found out that I couldn't change it for better," Jedlicka told CNBC. "My political opponents always told me I should create my own state to show how my liberalism would work. And then I did." Neither Croatia nor Serbia has recognized Liberland's sovereignty. In an official statement sent to CNBC, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Jedlicka as a right-wing politician and said the "newly created country" was outside Serbia's territory. Story continues "The Ministry also considers this a frivolous act which needs no further comment," the Serbian Ministry added. A spokesperson for Croatia's Foreign Ministry reiterated a Facebook comment posted shortly after Liberland declared independence in mid-April. "Virtual quips, no matter how interesting they occasionally sound, remain what they are-virtual quips, and for them we do not have any official comment," the spokesperson said. But Jedlicka still hopes to gain recognition from other nations and has already set up an an office in Serbia that he plans to convert to an embassy. Liberland's founders have pulled out all the stops, providing the country with its own laws, constitution, flag and motto: "To live and let live." For those who missed gaining citizenship on Liberty Day, the country continues to accept citizenship applications online. Anyone is allowed to become a citizen as long as they have a clean criminal record and "do not have communist, Nazi or other extremist past." Jedlicka said costs of developing and running the country would initially come from citizens, some of whom had already helped raise $15,000 to fund accommodation for the 20 volunteers running the presidential office. Liberland will be run as a constitutional republic with elements of direct democracy, according to its website. Any currency will be accepted, including Bitcoin (: BTC=) , Jedlicka said. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Meet Europe's newest tax haven and micro-state: Europe's newest "state" welcomed its first citizens this weekend, after a small group of libertarians declared independence for a patch of land on the border between Croatia and Serbia.
The "Free Republic of Liberland" has received no official recognition, but celebrated its first "Liberty Day" on May 1, doling out honorary citizenship to the first 100 attendees to arrive at the party in country.
Its "president", Vit Jedlicka, is a 31-year-old Czech, who is a former financial analyst and self-described libertarian. He said that long-term, he hoped Liberland could become a successful financial center due to its loose tax laws.
"I would categorize it as a tax heaven," Jedlicka said. "The reason why Liberland was created was that the rest of the world ended up being a tax hell."
Nearly 300,000 people have already applied for Liberland citizens, 80 of whom are billionaires, according to Jedlicka.
Jedlicka and two other Czechs formed the new state on April 13 on a patch of woodland near the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia in South East Europe. Liberland said the area was left unclaimed following a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia in the 1940s. For much of the 20th century, both states were part of Yugoslavia.
The new country measures only 2.7 square miles in area, meaning it would rank among Vatican City and Monaco as one of the world's smallest "micro-states."
Jedlicka said forming Liberland was an attempt to shake up the political status quo.
"I tried for five years to change something in politics, but taxes were still rising, regulations were more and more intruding into people's lives, so I sort of found out that I couldn't change it for better," Jedlicka told CNBC.
"My political opponents always told me I should create my own state to show how my liberalism would work. And then I did."
Neither Croatia nor Serbia has recognized Liberland's sovereignty. In an official statement sent to CNBC, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Jedlicka as a right-wing politician and said the "newly created country" was outside Serbia's territory.
"The Ministry also considers this a frivolous act which needs no further comment," the Serbian Ministry added.
A spokesperson for Croatia's Foreign Ministry reiterated a Facebook comment posted shortly after Liberland declared independence in mid-April.
"Virtual quips, no matter how interesting they occasionally sound, remain what they are-virtual quips, and for them we do not have any official comment," the spokesperson said.
But Jedlicka still hopes to gain recognition from other nations and has already set up an an office in Serbia that he plans to convert to an embassy.
Liberland's founders have pulled out all the stops, providing the country with its own laws, constitution, flag and motto: "To live and let live."
For those who missed gaining citizenship on Liberty Day, the country continues to accept citizenship applications online. Anyone is allowed to become a citizen as long as they have a clean criminal record and "do not have communist, Nazi or other extremist past."
Jedlicka said costs of developing and running the country would initially come from citizens, some of whom had already helped raise $15,000 to fund accommodation for the 20 volunteers running the presidential office.
Liberland will be run as a constitutional republic with elements of direct democracy, according to its website. Any currency will be accepted, including Bitcoin(: BTC=), Jedlicka said.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Thoughts on The Future of Bitcoin From Genesis-Minings CEO Marco Streng – Established Bitcoin Cloud Mining Company: Established In 2013 And One Of The Largest Bitcoin Cloud Mining Platforms In The World, Genesis-Mining's CEO Marco Streng Shares His Thoughts On The Possible Future Of Bitcoin
Hong Kong / ACCESSWIRE / May 2, 2015 /Writing about the future of Bitcoin with any certainty is like saying someone knows a certain horse will definitely win the Triple Crown this year. The fact is that the technology could go anywhere, legislation could change everything, andBitcoin culture continues to evolve somewhat sporadically. But there is no fun in not speculating; so Genesis Mining CEO Marco Streng decided to answer the impossible questions.BecauseGenesis Mining is one of the largest suppliers of any Bitcoin company in the world, Streng is uniquely informed about what new technologies are coming into vogue, which are over-hyped, and what research could change the technology tomorrow.
"There is a lot of innovation and pioneering going on in the mining world. Advancements range from innovative data center structures, intelligent and more powerful mining farm monitoring solutions, to more and more optimized chip designs for lower and lower nanometer scales."
Bitcoin culture today places a premium on the crowd-monitored nature of the technology, but as the power continually gravitates towards large companies and large data centers, that culture's voice is losing its thunder. The question is whether the average user will embrace the new era of mining or reject Bitcoin altogether. While the currency still represents the most regulatory-free currency in the world, its early adopters envisioned nothing short of utopia. Big companies are as prone to corruption as any other organization, or so the argument goes.
Streng got the question if the consolidation of mining will hurt or help the Bitcoin movement, especially concerning the Bitcoin faithful.
"What people may forget is that the higher the total mining power in the network, the less vulnerable Bitcoin is. In the early days, a private individual could possibly gain enough influence to control the Bitcoin network by a large enough investment in mining. Times have changed and it is much harder to do that now."
One of the biggest obstacles still facing the currency is evangelizing the many millions of people who believe it is a fringe movement, a fad, one that will disappear quietly in a few years. It does continue to edge its way in to the mainstream with small but notable successes, like Rand Paul’s new presidential campaign website accepting donations in BTC. And the technology does continue to gain high profile backers from numerous industries. But even with the most rose colored lenses, no one can say that Bitcoin is mainstream. Streng doesn’t think we will have to wait too long for that to happen.
"For those of us born in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we grew up with the internet being a major part of our lives. We didn’t have to adopt the technology, we simply had to learn to use it and convince our parents we needed to upgrade our dial up connection. Change is hard, and we saw older generations struggle to use Google instead of libraries and Amazon instead of RadioShack. Despite some people opposing it and all the negativity it received, the internet prevailed and has changed the daily lives of billions of people. I understand that Bitcoin sounds crazy to some, but inmany ways it is following the same path as the internet, and I think it will change the world just as profoundly."
Time will tell if Streng is right — if a more centralized infrastructure can mesh with Bitcoin culture, if the technology will be embraced by the general public, and if officials in the US and other countries decide not to regulate. But one thing is for sure, many thousands of highly informed critics said Bitcoin would never last as long as it has.
About Genesis-Mining:Hong Kong basedGenesis-Mining was established in October 2013 with Bitcoin cloud mining facilities located in Iceland, USA and Canada. Genesis-Mining has a partnership with the world's largest ASIC manufacturer; Spondoolies Tech.For more information about us, please visithttps://www.genesis-mining.com/a/47631
Contact:Paulo [email protected]
Source:Genesis-Mining || Thoughts on The Future of Bitcoin From Genesis-Minings CEO Marco Streng – Established Bitcoin Cloud Mining Company: Established In 2013 And One Of The Largest Bitcoin Cloud Mining Platforms In The World, Genesis-Mining's CEO Marco Streng Shares His Thoughts On The Possible Future Of Bitcoin
Hong Kong / ACCESSWIRE / May 2, 2015 /Writing about the future of Bitcoin with any certainty is like saying someone knows a certain horse will definitely win the Triple Crown this year. The fact is that the technology could go anywhere, legislation could change everything, andBitcoin culture continues to evolve somewhat sporadically. But there is no fun in not speculating; so Genesis Mining CEO Marco Streng decided to answer the impossible questions.BecauseGenesis Mining is one of the largest suppliers of any Bitcoin company in the world, Streng is uniquely informed about what new technologies are coming into vogue, which are over-hyped, and what research could change the technology tomorrow.
"There is a lot of innovation and pioneering going on in the mining world. Advancements range from innovative data center structures, intelligent and more powerful mining farm monitoring solutions, to more and more optimized chip designs for lower and lower nanometer scales."
Bitcoin culture today places a premium on the crowd-monitored nature of the technology, but as the power continually gravitates towards large companies and large data centers, that culture's voice is losing its thunder. The question is whether the average user will embrace the new era of mining or reject Bitcoin altogether. While the currency still represents the most regulatory-free currency in the world, its early adopters envisioned nothing short of utopia. Big companies are as prone to corruption as any other organization, or so the argument goes.
Streng got the question if the consolidation of mining will hurt or help the Bitcoin movement, especially concerning the Bitcoin faithful.
"What people may forget is that the higher the total mining power in the network, the less vulnerable Bitcoin is. In the early days, a private individual could possibly gain enough influence to control the Bitcoin network by a large enough investment in mining. Times have changed and it is much harder to do that now."
One of the biggest obstacles still facing the currency is evangelizing the many millions of people who believe it is a fringe movement, a fad, one that will disappear quietly in a few years. It does continue to edge its way in to the mainstream with small but notable successes, like Rand Paul’s new presidential campaign website accepting donations in BTC. And the technology does continue to gain high profile backers from numerous industries. But even with the most rose colored lenses, no one can say that Bitcoin is mainstream. Streng doesn’t think we will have to wait too long for that to happen.
"For those of us born in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we grew up with the internet being a major part of our lives. We didn’t have to adopt the technology, we simply had to learn to use it and convince our parents we needed to upgrade our dial up connection. Change is hard, and we saw older generations struggle to use Google instead of libraries and Amazon instead of RadioShack. Despite some people opposing it and all the negativity it received, the internet prevailed and has changed the daily lives of billions of people. I understand that Bitcoin sounds crazy to some, but inmany ways it is following the same path as the internet, and I think it will change the world just as profoundly."
Time will tell if Streng is right — if a more centralized infrastructure can mesh with Bitcoin culture, if the technology will be embraced by the general public, and if officials in the US and other countries decide not to regulate. But one thing is for sure, many thousands of highly informed critics said Bitcoin would never last as long as it has.
About Genesis-Mining:Hong Kong basedGenesis-Mining was established in October 2013 with Bitcoin cloud mining facilities located in Iceland, USA and Canada. Genesis-Mining has a partnership with the world's largest ASIC manufacturer; Spondoolies Tech.For more information about us, please visithttps://www.genesis-mining.com/a/47631
Contact:Paulo [email protected]
Source:Genesis-Mining || Thoughts on The Future of Bitcoin From Genesis-Minings CEO Marco Streng Established Bitcoin Cloud Mining Company: Established In 2013 And One Of The Largest Bitcoin Cloud Mining Platforms In The World, Genesis-Mining's CEO Marco Streng Shares His Thoughts On The Possible Future Of Bitcoin Hong Kong / ACCESSWIRE / May 2, 2015 / Writing about the future of Bitcoin with any certainty is like saying someone knows a certain horse will definitely win the Triple Crown this year. The fact is that the technology could go anywhere, legislation could change everything, and Bitcoin culture continues to evolve somewhat sporadically. But there is no fun in not speculating; so Genesis Mining CEO Marco Streng decided to answer the impossible questions . Because Genesis Mining is one of the largest suppliers of any Bitcoin company in the world , Streng is uniquely informed about what new technologies are coming into vogue, which are over-hyped, and what research could change the technology tomorrow. "There is a lot of innovation and pioneering going on in the mining world. Advancements range from innovative data center structures, intelligent and more powerful mining farm monitoring solutions, to more and more optimized chip designs for lower and lower nanometer scales." Bitcoin culture today places a premium on the crowd-monitored nature of the technology, but as the power continually gravitates towards large companies and large data centers, that culture's voice is losing its thunder. The question is whether the average user will embrace the new era of mining or reject Bitcoin altogether. While the currency still represents the most regulatory-free currency in the world, its early adopters envisioned nothing short of utopia. Big companies are as prone to corruption as any other organization, or so the argument goes. Streng got the question if the consolidation of mining will hurt or help the Bitcoin movement, especially concerning the Bitcoin faithful. "What people may forget is that the higher the total mining power in the network, the less vulnerable Bitcoin is. In the early days, a private individual could possibly gain enough influence to control the Bitcoin network by a large enough investment in mining. Times have changed and it is much harder to do that now." Story continues One of the biggest obstacles still facing the currency is evangelizing the many millions of people who believe it is a fringe movement, a fad, one that will disappear quietly in a few years. It does continue to edge its way in to the mainstream with small but notable successes, like Rand Pauls new presidential campaign website accepting donations in BTC. And the technology does continue to gain high profile backers from numerous industries. But even with the most rose colored lenses, no one can say that Bitcoin is mainstream. Streng doesnt think we will have to wait too long for that to happen. "For those of us born in the late 80s and early 90s, we grew up with the internet being a major part of our lives. We didnt have to adopt the technology, we simply had to learn to use it and convince our parents we needed to upgrade our dial up connection. Change is hard, and we saw older generations struggle to use Google instead of libraries and Amazon instead of RadioShack. Despite some people opposing it and all the negativity it received, the internet prevailed and has changed the daily lives of billions of people. I understand that Bitcoin sounds crazy to some, but inmany ways it is following the same path as the internet, and I think it will change the world just as profoundly." Time will tell if Streng is right if a more centralized infrastructure can mesh with Bitcoin culture, if the technology will be embraced by the general public, and if officials in the US and other countries decide not to regulate. But one thing is for sure, many thousands of highly informed critics said Bitcoin would never last as long as it has. About Genesis-Mining: Hong Kong based Genesis-Mining was established in October 2013 with Bitcoin cloud mining facilities located in Iceland, USA and Canada . Genesis-Mining has a partnership with the world's largest ASIC manufacturer; Spondoolies Tech. For more information about us, please visit https://www.genesis-mining.com/a/47631 Contact: Paulo Fiorio [email protected] Genesis-Mining Source: Genesis-Mining || Your first trade for Monday: The " Fast Money " traders closed the show with their first ideas for Monday. Tim Seymour was a buyer of CLF ( CLF ) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of BAC ( BAC ) . Brian Kelly was a seller of the XLU (NYSE Arca: XLE) . Guy Adami was a buyer of MET ( MET ) . Trader disclosure: On May 1, 2015 , the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long T, BAC, DIS, EUO, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, AAPL, CLF, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BAC, BTU, DD, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR, GDX, his firm is long TWTR, WYNN, AMZN, AMD, FCX, OXY, RIG, NE, TSE, VALE his kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Brian Kelly is long BTC=, BBRY, SPY puts, U.S. Dollar, he is short Australian Dollar, he is short Yen, he is short Yuan. Today he sold Crude Oil, GLD, GSG, and covered his 30-year bond short position. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Your first trade for Monday: The "Fast Money" traders closed the show with their first ideas for Monday.
Tim Seymour was a buyer of CLF(CLF).
Steve Grasso was a buyer of BAC(BAC).
Brian Kelly was a seller of the XLU(NYSE Arca: XLE).
Guy Adami was a buyer of MET(MET).
Trader disclosure: On May 1, 2015 , the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Tim Seymour is long T, BAC, DIS, EUO, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, AAPL, CLF, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BAC, BTU, DD, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR, GDX, his firm is long TWTR, WYNN, AMZN, AMD, FCX, OXY, RIG, NE, TSE, VALE his kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.Brian Kelly is long BTC=, BBRY, SPY puts, U.S. Dollar, he is short Australian Dollar, he is short Yen, he is short Yuan. Today he sold Crude Oil, GLD, GSG, and covered his 30-year bond short position.
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• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Buffett's Berkshire bash brings some intrigue: It’s called “Woodstock for Capitalists.” Berkshire Hathaway’s ( BRK-A ) annual meeting in Omaha is a little bit business, a little bit circus and always entertaining for the participants. But this weekend’s gathering has an added touch: intrigue. That’s because 84-year-old CEO Warren Buffett has been hinting he’s getting ready to announce when he’ll finally step down…and who he’s picking to replace him. But Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer isn’t holding his breath expecting that announcement this time around. “I suspect not,” he says. “He’s in control of this thing and he plays this out very, very slowly. There’s sort of a group of successors and every year or so he kind of narrows it down a little more.” Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task adds the rumor mill has been buzzing about Berkshire’s plans for a long time now. “They’ve talked about succession and they’ve named a couple people,” he explains. “It could be Ajit Jain, who runs Berkshire Reinsurance. You’ve got the guys who run the investment portfolio. Maybe they split it off. I suspect that’s what’s going to happen.” Task doesn’t think Berkshire investors should be worried when someone else finally takes the reins from the Oracle of Omaha because the company he’ll leave behind is such a juggernaut. “Berkshire IS Warren Buffett, but he wants you to think it’s bigger than Warren Buffett,” he notes. “So maybe they don’t get the same kind of terms as Warren Buffett, but all the deals are still going to come their way because they have the cash.” Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Serwer also points out Buffett’s famous golden investing touch has gotten a bit tarnished recently. “His performance has lagged slightly over the past five years,” he says. “It’s very tough when you’re that big to grow and beat the market year after year.” Still, Serwer doesn’t believe anyone in Omaha this weekend will be complaining. “They’re 40,000 of the happiest people on the planet,” he explains. “And just to give you an idea why they’re so happy-- If you invested $100 when he started this thing in 1965, that $100 is worth $1,826,163.” Story continues And as for finding a replacement for Buffett? “They hope he lives forever and never has a successor,” Serwer laughs. Also from Yahoo Finance Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman's backing It's no secret, 'Secret' is no more || Buffett's Berkshire bash brings some intrigue: It’s called “Woodstock for Capitalists.” Berkshire Hathaway’s ( BRK-A ) annual meeting in Omaha is a little bit business, a little bit circus and always entertaining for the participants. But this weekend’s gathering has an added touch: intrigue. That’s because 84-year-old CEO Warren Buffett has been hinting he’s getting ready to announce when he’ll finally step down…and who he’s picking to replace him. But Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer isn’t holding his breath expecting that announcement this time around. “I suspect not,” he says. “He’s in control of this thing and he plays this out very, very slowly. There’s sort of a group of successors and every year or so he kind of narrows it down a little more.” Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task adds the rumor mill has been buzzing about Berkshire’s plans for a long time now. “They’ve talked about succession and they’ve named a couple people,” he explains. “It could be Ajit Jain, who runs Berkshire Reinsurance. You’ve got the guys who run the investment portfolio. Maybe they split it off. I suspect that’s what’s going to happen.” Task doesn’t think Berkshire investors should be worried when someone else finally takes the reins from the Oracle of Omaha because the company he’ll leave behind is such a juggernaut. “Berkshire IS Warren Buffett, but he wants you to think it’s bigger than Warren Buffett,” he notes. “So maybe they don’t get the same kind of terms as Warren Buffett, but all the deals are still going to come their way because they have the cash.” Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Serwer also points out Buffett’s famous golden investing touch has gotten a bit tarnished recently. “His performance has lagged slightly over the past five years,” he says. “It’s very tough when you’re that big to grow and beat the market year after year.” Still, Serwer doesn’t believe anyone in Omaha this weekend will be complaining. “They’re 40,000 of the happiest people on the planet,” he explains. “And just to give you an idea why they’re so happy-- If you invested $100 when he started this thing in 1965, that $100 is worth $1,826,163.” Story continues And as for finding a replacement for Buffett? “They hope he lives forever and never has a successor,” Serwer laughs. Also from Yahoo Finance Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman's backing It's no secret, 'Secret' is no more || Mom launches company to cure daughter's fatal disorder: If your child was sick you would do everything in your power to make them feel better, right? Well, when Karen Aiach’s daughter, Ornella, was diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrome she went above and beyond what most parents would do.
Aiach explains the disease as “an awful neurological disease where the child will apparently develop normally up to a certain age, the age of two, and from that age start regressing from a cognitive standpoint and start entering into severe behavioral disorders.”
She adds the disease is fatal and those affected seldom see their 20th birthday.
So when her daughter was diagnosed with Sanfilippo, Aiach did what any parent would do, which is to try and fix it. While many would try in vain to find a cure, Aiach assembled a group of experts and created a company whose sole purpose was to end the horrible disease.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
“Lysogenewas started in response to my daughter being diagnosed with that disease,” she says. “Facing the impossible and the unbelievable, I tried to react in a positive way and started discussing and meeting with researchers to find potential solutions to treat that disease and we eventually came altogether with a very promising approach which is gene therapy.”
Gene therapy is a process in which doctors introduce a kind of virus into the patient that carries specialized genes meant to replace missing or broken genes in the cells of a given patient.
Lysogene has completed what is called a “Phase I/II trial” in France with promising results that prove the therapy is safe and show encouraging signs of efficacy in treating the disease.
The next step is to start a Phase II/III clinical trial of its treatment beginning in 2016, using what is called LYS-SAF302 gene therapy. The trials will be conducted both in the United States and Europe. Pre-clinical trials used in Sanfilippo-infected mice show the potential to stop the course of the disease and extend their lifespan close to normal.
If all goes well Lysogene hopes for market approval for the therapy sometime in 2019-2020.
Aiach is content knowing her work could one day help thousands of children afflicted with the condition. As for Ornella, she says, “We have done the maximum that we could do and so we are all very proud of that, I think. And when Ornella looks at me I’m sure she has a tremendous amount of love and recognition because thanks to that experimental treatment we’ve helped her to live better and to have a better quality of life.”
More from Yahoo FinanceBudweiser's 'no' must go: social media
Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing
Uber now drops off food, not just people || Mom launches company to cure daughter's fatal disorder: If your child was sick you would do everything in your power to make them feel better, right? Well, when Karen Aiach’s daughter, Ornella, was diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrome she went above and beyond what most parents would do. Aiach explains the disease as “an awful neurological disease where the child will apparently develop normally up to a certain age, the age of two, and from that age start regressing from a cognitive standpoint and start entering into severe behavioral disorders.” She adds the disease is fatal and those affected seldom see their 20th birthday. Karen Aiach and her daughter Ornella who was diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrom in 2009. So when her daughter was diagnosed with Sanfilippo, Aiach did what any parent would do, which is to try and fix it. While many would try in vain to find a cure, Aiach assembled a group of experts and created a company whose sole purpose was to end the horrible disease. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App “ Lysogene was started in response to my daughter being diagnosed with that disease,” she says. “Facing the impossible and the unbelievable, I tried to react in a positive way and started discussing and meeting with researchers to find potential solutions to treat that disease and we eventually came altogether with a very promising approach which is gene therapy.” Gene therapy is a process in which doctors introduce a kind of virus into the patient that carries specialized genes meant to replace missing or broken genes in the cells of a given patient. Lysogene has completed what is called a “Phase I/II trial” in France with promising results that prove the therapy is safe and show encouraging signs of efficacy in treating the disease. The next step is to start a Phase II/III clinical trial of its treatment beginning in 2016, using what is called LYS-SAF302 gene therapy. The trials will be conducted both in the United States and Europe. Pre-clinical trials used in Sanfilippo-infected mice show the potential to stop the course of the disease and extend their lifespan close to normal. Story continues If all goes well Lysogene hopes for market approval for the therapy sometime in 2019-2020. Aiach is content knowing her work could one day help thousands of children afflicted with the condition. As for Ornella, she says, “We have done the maximum that we could do and so we are all very proud of that, I think. And when Ornella looks at me I’m sure she has a tremendous amount of love and recognition because thanks to that experimental treatment we’ve helped her to live better and to have a better quality of life.” More from Yahoo Finance Budweiser's 'no' must go: social media Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing Uber now drops off food, not just people || Circle Attracts Goldman Sachs To The Bitcoin Space: Circle Internet Financial, a bitcoin-based startup, confirmed rumors that it was in the midst of a large fundraising effort this week after the New York Times reported that the company received a generous sum from financial giant Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ). The news brought a great deal of attention to the cryptocurrency and gave investors a reason to take a second look at Circle now that it had the backing of a major player in the finance space. Goldman Sachs Takes An Interest Goldman Sachs announced on Wednesday that it had partnered with China's IDG Capital Partners to lead a $50 million investment into Circle. The funds are expected to be used by Circle executives to further the company's mission to improve the bitcoin payments system. Circle plans to make peer to peer exchanges faster, easier and more cost effective using bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Security Conference Planned For May 2015 Bitcoin Businesses Present New Opportunities Goldman Sachs' investment marks a growing interest in the technology that powers bitcoin. While investors have been wary of the cryptocurrency itself due to its erratic swings in value, more and more firms have taken an interest in smaller companies that are creating platforms with which to use bitcoin. The idea of sending money across boarders instantly and with a minimal cost has proven to be a unique opportunity for finance firms, who may soon need to compete with small startups like Circle as they gain popularity. See more from Benzinga Is The Euro Moving Higher Or Lower? And What Should You Do About It? Meet The 3 Companies Goldman Sachs Says Are Leading The Bitcoin Revolution © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Circle Attracts Goldman Sachs To The Bitcoin Space: Circle Internet Financial, a bitcoin-based startup, confirmed rumors that it was in the midst of a large fundraising effort this week after theNew York Timesreported that the company received a generous sum from financial giantGoldman Sachs(NYSE:GS).
The news brought a great deal of attention to the cryptocurrency and gave investors a reason to take a second look at Circle now that it had the backing of a major player in the finance space.
Goldman Sachs Takes An Interest
Goldman Sachs announced on Wednesday that it had partnered with China's IDG Capital Partners to lead a $50 million investment into Circle.
The funds are expected to be used by Circle executives to further the company's mission— to improve the bitcoin payments system. Circle plans to make peer to peer exchanges faster, easier and more cost effective using bitcoin.
Related Link:Bitcoin Security Conference Planned For May 2015
Bitcoin Businesses Present New Opportunities
Goldman Sachs' investment marks a growing interest in the technology that powers bitcoin.
While investors have been wary of the cryptocurrency itself due to its erratic swings in value, more and more firms have taken an interest in smaller companies that are creating platforms with which to use bitcoin.
The idea of sending money across boarders instantly and with a minimal cost has proven to be a unique opportunity for finance firms, who may soon need to compete with small startups like Circle as they gain popularity.
See more from Benzinga
• Is The Euro Moving Higher Or Lower? And What Should You Do About It?
• Meet The 3 Companies Goldman Sachs Says Are Leading The Bitcoin Revolution
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: 234.79$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-05 00:40:03 EDT || LIVE: Profit = $875.30 (24.09 %). BUY B15.37 @ $236.22 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $246.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 208.05€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-05 13:00:05 CEST || LIVE: Profit = $879.61 (24.23 %). BUY B15.37 @ $235.87 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $246.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15087.00 INR Sell : 14610....
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229.78, 237.33, 243.86, 241.83, 240.30, 242.16, 241.11, 236.38, 236.93, 237.60
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97, 35697.61, 34616.07, 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-08-05]
Volume: 35185031017, RSI (14-day): 63.63, 50-day EMA: 36838.72, 200-day EMA: 38674.49
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1805.10, Gold RSI: 47.70
Oil Price: 69.09, Oil RSI: 42.95
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Checker, LLP: Final Deadline Reminder for Coinbase Global Inc. Investors - COIN: Radnor, Pennsylvania--(Newsfile Corp. - August 4, 2021) - The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP announces that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed against Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) ("Coinbase") on behalf of those who purchased or acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Offering Materials") for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the "Offering") . Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased or acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Offering may, no later than September 20, 2021 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP: James Maro, Esq. (484) 270-1453; toll free at (844) 887-9500; via e-mail at [email protected] ; or click https://www.ktmc.com/coinbase-global-class-action-lawsuit?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=coinbase According to the complaint, Coinbase "powers the cryptoeconomy," offering a "trusted platform" for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries. On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on a Form 424B4, which forms part of the registration statement. Coinbase registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. According to the registration statement, the resale of Coinbase's stock was not underwritten by any investment bank and the registered stockholders would purportedly elect whether or not to sell their shares. Such sales, if any, would be brokerage transactions on the NASDAQ, and Coinbase would purportedly not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the registered stockholders. Thus, Coinbase's operations would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. As of December 31, 2020, Coinbase had cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion, exclusive of restricted cash and customer custodial funds. Story continues The complaint alleges that one month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users' ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including "delays . . . due to network congestion" affecting those who want to get their money out. Following this news, Coinbase's share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10%, over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021. By the time the complaint was filed, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share. The complaint alleges that the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) Coinbase required a sizeable cash injection; (2) Coinbase's platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as Coinbase scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, the defendants' positive statements about Coinbase's business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. Coinbase investors may, no later than September 20, 2021 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP please visit www.ktmc.com . CONTACT: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP James Maro, Jr., Esq. 280 King of Prussia Road Radnor, PA 19087 (844) 887-9500 (toll free) [email protected] To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/92140 || Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Checker, LLP: Final Deadline Reminder for Coinbase Global Inc. Investors - COIN: Radnor, Pennsylvania--(Newsfile Corp. - August 4, 2021) - The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP announces that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed against Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) ("Coinbase") on behalf of those who purchased or acquired CoinbaseClass A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Offering Materials") for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the "Offering").
Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased or acquired Coinbase Class A common stockpursuant and/or traceable to the Offering may,no later than September 20, 2021, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP: James Maro, Esq. (484) 270-1453; toll free at (844) 887-9500; via e-mail [email protected];orclickhttps://www.ktmc.com/coinbase-global-class-action-lawsuit?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=coinbase
According to the complaint, Coinbase "powers the cryptoeconomy," offering a "trusted platform" for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries.
On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on a Form 424B4, which forms part of the registration statement. Coinbase registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. According to the registration statement, the resale of Coinbase's stock was not underwritten by any investment bank and the registered stockholders would purportedly elect whether or not to sell their shares. Such sales, if any, would be brokerage transactions on the NASDAQ, and Coinbase would purportedly not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the registered stockholders. Thus, Coinbase's operations would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. As of December 31, 2020, Coinbase had cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion, exclusive of restricted cash and customer custodial funds.
The complaint alleges that one month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users' ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including "delays . . . due to network congestion" affecting those who want to get their money out.
Following this news, Coinbase's share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10%, over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021. By the time the complaint was filed, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share.
The complaint alleges that the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) Coinbase required a sizeable cash injection; (2) Coinbase's platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as Coinbase scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, the defendants' positive statements about Coinbase's business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
Coinbase investors may,no later than September 20, 2021, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP please visitwww.ktmc.com.
CONTACT:
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPJames Maro, Jr., Esq.280 King of Prussia RoadRadnor, PA 19087(844) 887-9500 (toll free)[email protected]
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/92140 || Oscar Mayer Auctions Off Single Pack of ‘Hot Doge Wieners’ Worth 10,000 Dogecoins: Oscar Mayer, a unit of food giant Kraft Heinz, finally got around to issuing a product that takes advantage of this year’s massivedogecoinhype.
• The longtime hot dog maker has put a limited-edition pack of “Hot Doge Wieners” that “comes with the cash value of…10,000 Dogecoins” for saleon eBay.
• The company said in atweetWednesday that it was only making one pack of the special wieners.
• Bidding had reached $3,450 by late Wednesday but ended abruptly before publication. The auction was set to end on Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. UTC. In a subsequenttweeton Wednesday, Oscar Mayer wrote that “You guys really took this to the moon…the link is down but will be up soon!”
• At current prices, 10,000 dogecoins would be worth about $2,000.
• It was unclear how the dogecoins would be transferred to the winning bidder.
• Earlier this year, smoked meat vendorSlim Jim, a unit of Conagra Brands, saw significant increases in customer interactions after embarking on a dogecoin-focused marketing strategy that also helped boost the price of the cryptocurrency.
UPDATE (August 5, 14:28 UTC):Updated with information about the auction in third bullet point.
• Burger King Brazil Will Accept Dogecoin for ‘Dogpper’ Dog Food
• Coinbase Commerce Adds Support for Dogecoin Payments
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Climbs as Elon Musk Tames Shorts
• Elon Musk Says SpaceX Holds Bitcoin at ‘B Word’ Conference || Oscar Mayer Auctions Off Single Pack of ‘Hot Doge Wieners’ Worth 10,000 Dogecoins: Oscar Mayer, a unit of food giant Kraft Heinz, finally got around to issuing a product that takes advantage of this year’s massive dogecoin hype. The longtime hot dog maker has put a limited-edition pack of “Hot Doge Wieners” that “comes with the cash value of…10,000 Dogecoins” for sale on eBay . The company said in a tweet Wednesday that it was only making one pack of the special wieners. Bidding had reached $3,450 by late Wednesday but ended abruptly before publication. The auction was set to end on Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. UTC. In a subsequent tweet on Wednesday, Oscar Mayer wrote that “You guys really took this to the moon…the link is down but will be up soon!” At current prices, 10,000 dogecoins would be worth about $2,000. It was unclear how the dogecoins would be transferred to the winning bidder. Earlier this year, smoked meat vendor Slim Jim , a unit of Conagra Brands, saw significant increases in customer interactions after embarking on a dogecoin-focused marketing strategy that also helped boost the price of the cryptocurrency. UPDATE (August 5, 14:28 UTC): Updated with information about the auction in third bullet point. Related Stories Burger King Brazil Will Accept Dogecoin for ‘Dogpper’ Dog Food Coinbase Commerce Adds Support for Dogecoin Payments Market Wrap: Bitcoin Climbs as Elon Musk Tames Shorts Elon Musk Says SpaceX Holds Bitcoin at ‘B Word’ Conference || Why Web 3.0 Tokens Might Be the Next Hot Trade in Cryptocurrencies: With bitcoin prices stuck in a months-long holding pattern, some cryptocurrency traders are speculating on what might be the next hot market bet: digital assets associated with visions of a decentralized Internet, referred to colloquially as Web 3.0 tokens. Data tracked by Messari and published by Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman shows the cryptocurrency sub-sector of “Web 3.0 tokens” gained 22% in the week ended Aug. 1, outshining bitcoin and every other sub-sector, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, rallied 10%. On a year-to-date basis, tokens associated with decentralized Internet applications have seen an average 244% rise, trailing the NFT sub-sector’s 2,726% gain but beating bitcoin’s 37% appreciation. Related: Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K Some of the most prominent Web 3.0 coins, such as livepeer (LPT), helium (HNT), and bittorrent (BTT), are up at least 800% this year, despite a slump in cryptocurrency markets since April, according to Messari. “Seeing the Web 3.0 ecosystem grow exponentially since the beginning of the year and keep the majority of their gains after the capitulation even in May is very positive for the crypto market,” Nick Mancini, a research analyst for Trade The Chain, told CoinDesk. “Higher prices are directly linked to increased demand and expansion of services in each layer, and because of this, the ecosystem is able to continue its growth.” Web 3.0 refers to a paradigm shift for the Internet run by network participants worldwide and defined by a set of open, trust-minimized and decentralized networks and protocols offering services such as computing, storage, bandwidth, finance and identity. For instance, the Ethereum-based Livepeer protocol offers a marketplace for video infrastructure providers and streaming applications, while Filecoin and The Graph provide decentralized file storage and data management networks. Helium uses blockchains and tokens to incentivize consumers and small businesses to provide and validate wireless coverage and transfer device data over the network. Story continues Related: Bitcoin Again Falters at $40K as Ether Retreats From Two-Month High Messari’s tracker shows the Web 3.0 tokens sub-sector, which includes over 40 coins, has a total market valuation of $25 billion, excluding oracle provider Chainlink. (The oracle provider is widely associated with decentralized finance and has a market cap of $10 billion). However, just considering prominent projects like The Graph, Filecoin, Helium and Livepeer, the market capitalization of Web 3.0 tokens tallies less than $15 billion. That’s just 2% of bitcoin’s total market capitalization of $735 billion. But it’s similar to the size of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space a year ago. Messari data shows the DeFi subsector now includes 137 assets and is worth over $50 billion. Awaiting Mainstream Attention While the Web 3.0 tokens have outperformed bitcoin and other major coins by a big margin this year, the sector is yet to witness the euphoria or mainstream attention that Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, NFT, and even Ethereum layer 2 projects have received since October 2020. That’s probably because the underlying technology is relatively complex. “Web 3 is not quite as easy as DeFi is to understand, and it’s probably 12 months behind DeFi in terms of mainstream awareness,” Kyle Samani, co-founder and managing partner at Multicoin Capital, said. “We expect this to change as consumer-facing applications based on NFTs, social tokens and creator monetization grow over the next 12 months such as Audius, Mirror, and many others.” The DeFi boom began a year ago and has remained intact to date. That sector’s market cap has grown from roughly $5 billion in early 2020 to over $50 billion at press time. Samani is confident that Web 3.0 tokens will play catch up as DeFi sometimes gets a bad rep; however, there is no negativity associated yet with the idea of a decentralized internet. Recently, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Dan Berkovitz said that DeFi derivatives might be illegal in the U.S. “No one really says that The Graph, an indexing protocol for querying networks like Ethereum and Solana and IPFS, is bad, whereas a lot of people in the existing financial system say that DeFi is bad,” Samani said. “So as the awareness of Web 3 grows, it’s hard to see anything but general support and enthusiasm.” Institutions Chip In While mainstream adoption is still at least a year away, deep-pocketed investors are pouring money into Web 3.0 tokens. Multicoin Capital is invested in The Graph, Helium, and Livepeer, according to the official website . Grayscale, the world’s largest digital assets manager and preferred venue for institutional investors to gain exposure to digital assets, launched a livepeer trust in March. Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, director of investor relations at Grayscale Investments, told CoinDesk last month that investors are diversifying into Web 3.0 tokens. “It’s diversification within the asset class, whether investors want exposure to bitcoin as a store of value, Ethereum for smart contracts,” Sharif-Askary said. “And then the other applications beyond that are building upon those networks, and solving other real-world problems,” she said, adding that Grayscale’s Livepeer trust is structurally identical to the landmark Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, an investment holding company that is also the parent of CoinDesk.) Livepeer’s LPT token is up 1,050% this year. The protocol’s weekly revenue surged 10-fold to over $10,000 in the February-to-June period, according to data provided by Web3Index . Doug Petkanics, CEO and co-founder at Livepeer, told CoinDesk that online streaming is a $70 billion market and accounts for 80% of the Internet traffic today. Further, the market is set to grow from $70 billion to $250 billion in the next five years, according to analysts’ projections, Petkanics said. The prospects for The Graph, and Ocean Protocol are also looking bright, as Messari’s second quarter review said. Aside from the strong use case, many of these Web 3.0 tokens offer attractive yields via Staked , a platform that allows investors to earn yield from staking and DeFi without taking custody of their crypto assets. For instance, Helium’s HNT token currently offers an annualized 8.7% nominal yield, while The Graph’s GRT offers a 15% yield and LPT offers 30% returns. The high returns led to positive sentiment for these tokens, as reflected in the below sentiment chart. “Traders have been feeling bullish in regard to them, which fuels a network effect,” Mancini said. “Traders profit and stake, and, in turn, tell others about the outsized opportunity.” Crypto Market Is Much More Than Bitcoin The days of investors considering crypto markets synonymous with bitcoin are passé. While bitcoin remains the top cryptocurrency by market value, the recent underperformance relative to other coins suggests investors are diving deeper into digital-asset markets to find investments with faster growth potential. “One-week data may not mean much, but if we look over three months, six months, and 12 months, there’s a clear shift away from bitcoin into other sub-sectors, Web 3.0 being one of them,” Arca’s Jeff Dorman said in a Telegram call. Per Arca’s research note published earlier this week, bitcoin has had “both poor up-capture and poor down-capture” this year. In plain English, bitcoin struggled to outperform other major coins during the market-wide downturn observed after mid-April but also underwhelmed as the market recovered in the past couple of weeks. According to Dorman, the data shows that some new investors are bypassing bitcoin and ether and going directly into other industry sub-sectors. Historically, investors have used the top two coins as gateways. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment Bitcoin News Update for August 4, 2021 || Why Web 3.0 Tokens Might Be the Next Hot Trade in Cryptocurrencies: Withbitcoinprices stuck in a months-long holding pattern, some cryptocurrency traders are speculating on what might be the next hot market bet: digital assets associated with visions of a decentralized Internet, referred to colloquially as Web 3.0 tokens.
Data tracked by Messari and published by Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman shows the cryptocurrency sub-sector of “Web 3.0 tokens” gained 22% in the week ended Aug. 1, outshining bitcoin and every other sub-sector, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, rallied 10%.
On a year-to-date basis, tokens associated with decentralized Internet applications have seen an average 244% rise, trailing the NFT sub-sector’s 2,726% gain but beating bitcoin’s 37% appreciation.
Related:Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K
Some of the most prominent Web 3.0 coins, such as livepeer (LPT), helium (HNT), andbittorrent(BTT), are up at least 800% this year, despite a slump in cryptocurrency markets since April, according to Messari.
“Seeing the Web 3.0 ecosystem grow exponentially since the beginning of the year and keep the majority of their gains after the capitulation even in May is very positive for the crypto market,” Nick Mancini, a research analyst for Trade The Chain, told CoinDesk. “Higher prices are directly linked to increased demand and expansion of services in each layer, and because of this, the ecosystem is able to continue its growth.”
Web 3.0 refers to a paradigm shift for the Internet run by network participants worldwide and defined by a set of open, trust-minimized and decentralized networks and protocols offering services such as computing, storage, bandwidth, finance and identity.
For instance, the Ethereum-based Livepeer protocol offers a marketplace for video infrastructure providers and streaming applications, while Filecoin and The Graph provide decentralized file storage and data management networks. Helium uses blockchains and tokens to incentivize consumers and small businesses to provide and validate wireless coverage and transfer device data over the network.
Related:Bitcoin Again Falters at $40K as Ether Retreats From Two-Month High
Messari’s trackershows the Web 3.0 tokens sub-sector, which includes over 40 coins, has a total market valuation of $25 billion, excluding oracle provider Chainlink. (The oracle provider is widely associated with decentralized finance and has a market cap of $10 billion).
However, just considering prominent projects like The Graph, Filecoin, Helium and Livepeer, the market capitalization of Web 3.0 tokens tallies less than $15 billion. That’s just 2% of bitcoin’s total market capitalization of $735 billion. But it’s similar to the size of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space a year ago.Messari datashows the DeFi subsector now includes 137 assets and is worth over $50 billion.
While the Web 3.0 tokens have outperformed bitcoin and other major coins by a big margin this year, the sector is yet to witness the euphoria or mainstream attention that Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, NFT, and even Ethereum layer 2 projects have received since October 2020.
That’s probably because the underlying technology is relatively complex.
“Web 3 is not quite as easy as DeFi is to understand, and it’s probably 12 months behind DeFi in terms of mainstream awareness,” Kyle Samani, co-founder and managing partner at Multicoin Capital, said. “We expect this to change as consumer-facing applications based on NFTs, social tokens and creator monetization grow over the next 12 months such as Audius, Mirror, and many others.”
The DeFi boom began a year ago and has remained intact to date. That sector’s market cap has grown from roughly $5 billion in early 2020 to over $50 billion at press time.
Samani is confident that Web 3.0 tokens will play catch up as DeFi sometimes gets a bad rep; however, there is no negativity associated yet with the idea of a decentralized internet. Recently, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Dan Berkovitz said that DeFi derivatives might be illegal in the U.S.
“No one really says that The Graph, an indexing protocol for querying networks like Ethereum and Solana and IPFS, is bad, whereas a lot of people in the existing financial system say that DeFi is bad,” Samani said. “So as the awareness of Web 3 grows, it’s hard to see anything but general support and enthusiasm.”
While mainstream adoption is still at least a year away, deep-pocketed investors are pouring money into Web 3.0 tokens. Multicoin Capital is invested in The Graph, Helium, and Livepeer, according to theofficial website.
Grayscale, the world’s largest digital assets manager and preferred venue for institutional investors to gain exposure to digital assets, launched a livepeer trust in March. Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, director of investor relations at Grayscale Investments, told CoinDesk last month that investors are diversifying into Web 3.0 tokens.
“It’s diversification within the asset class, whether investors want exposure to bitcoin as a store of value, Ethereum for smart contracts,” Sharif-Askary said.
“And then the other applications beyond that are building upon those networks, and solving other real-world problems,” she said, adding that Grayscale’s Livepeer trust is structurally identical to the landmark Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, an investment holding company that is also the parent of CoinDesk.)
Livepeer’s LPT token is up 1,050% this year. The protocol’s weekly revenue surged 10-fold to over $10,000 in the February-to-June period, according to data provided byWeb3Index.
Doug Petkanics, CEO and co-founder at Livepeer, told CoinDesk that online streaming is a $70 billion market and accounts for 80% of the Internet traffic today. Further, the market is set to grow from $70 billion to $250 billion in the next five years, according to analysts’ projections, Petkanics said. The prospects for The Graph, and Ocean Protocol are also looking bright, asMessari’s second quarterreview said.
Aside from the strong use case, many of these Web 3.0 tokens offer attractive yields viaStaked, a platform that allows investors to earn yield from staking and DeFi without taking custody of their crypto assets.
For instance, Helium’s HNT token currently offers an annualized 8.7% nominal yield, while The Graph’sGRToffers a 15% yield and LPT offers 30% returns. The high returns led to positive sentiment for these tokens, as reflected in the below sentiment chart.
“Traders have been feeling bullish in regard to them, which fuels a network effect,” Mancini said. “Traders profit and stake, and, in turn, tell others about the outsized opportunity.”
The days of investors considering crypto markets synonymous with bitcoin are passé. While bitcoin remains the top cryptocurrency by market value, the recent underperformance relative to other coins suggests investors are diving deeper into digital-asset markets to find investments with faster growth potential.
“One-week data may not mean much, but if we look over three months, six months, and 12 months, there’s a clear shift away from bitcoin into other sub-sectors, Web 3.0 being one of them,” Arca’s Jeff Dorman said in a Telegram call.
Per Arca’s research notepublishedearlier this week, bitcoin has had “both poor up-capture and poor down-capture” this year. In plain English, bitcoin struggled to outperform other major coins during the market-wide downturn observed after mid-April but also underwhelmed as the market recovered in the past couple of weeks.
According to Dorman, the data shows that some new investors are bypassing bitcoin andetherand going directly into other industry sub-sectors. Historically, investors have used the top two coins as gateways.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment
• Bitcoin News Update for August 4, 2021 || Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment: Bitcoin bounced back toward $39,000 on Wednesday as buyers responded toshort-term oversoldconditions. The cryptocurrency is up about 4% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 9% rise in ether during the same period.
“If BTC holds above $40K for a week, the probability of a breakout would increase,” Pankaj Balani, CEO ofDelta Exchange, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “We believe, on a conclusive breakout of $40K level, BTC could challenge the $48K level. On the downside, traders will keenly monitor the $36K level.”
Cryptocurrencies:
• Bitcoin(BTC) $39845.8, +4.44%
• Ether(ETH) $2699.8, +8.6%
Related:Ether Price Jumps After London Hard Fork Takes Effect
Traditional markets:
• S&P 500: 4402.7, -0.46%
• Gold: $1814.2, +0.21%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.16%, compared with 1.181% on Tuesday.
A bitcoin breakout could encourage ether buying, as well. If support holds, ether could rally further and test the $3,000 mark, according to Balani.
“ETH can outperform BTC in the medium- to long-term, but for the next few quarters, ETH should continue to exhibit strong correlation with BTC,” Balani wrote.
Some analysts, however, expect the recent bitcoin bounce to fade.
Related:Ethereum’s Hotly Anticipated ‘London’ Hard Fork Is Now Live
“Today’s near-term recovery snapping a four-day losing streak can be interpreted as just a rebound with resistance around $42K to $45K,” DailyFX analystMichael Boutroswrote.
Additionally, a rebound in the U.S. dollar could limit bitcoin’s advance in the near-term, according to Boutros.
Roughly 33% of the totalbitcoin supplywas moved on the blockchain over the past six months, according todatafrom Glassnode. The chart below shows the percent of active bitcoin supply, which could be a potential indicator of holders’ mentality.
Bitcoin active supply is the number of coins transacted at least once over a given period of time. The supply metric declined from a recent peak in April, which coincided with a top in bitcoin’s price of around $63,000. Lower active supply suggests investors are holding their coins, which further reduces the total supply available to be sold.
Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold turned negative for the first time since November 2017. The cryptocurrency is up about 34% year to date, compared with a 4% loss in gold during the same period. The negative correlation underscores the potential diversification benefits of holding bitcoin in a multi-asset portfolio, albeit with greater volatility.
Stocks have also decoupled from bitcoin over the past year. The S&P 500 is less correlated with bitcoin since the March 2020 pandemic shock caused a sell-off across “risk” assets, including cryptocurrencies.
The exchange reserves of many altcoins such as COMP, UMA, SNX and MKR have been increasing since June, noted @kryptonitetrading on CryptoQuant. However, the exchange reserves of AAVE and UNIhave been declining, which may indicate that “healthy accumulation has been occurring during this bearish phase in the market,” according to @kryptonitetrading. As the tokens move off exchanges into wallets, it shows investor preference to hold rather than sell.
• Ether’s London Hard Fork:As the crypto community awaits the supposedly bullish London hard fork on the Ethereum blockchain, some analysts aretaking a cautious stanceon ether and foresee little price reaction after the upgrade. “I don’t expect much action in any direction,” trader and analyst Alex Kruger told CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. “The upgrade itself is overrated, and what matters is what happens after.” Ether is the native token of Ethereum’s blockchain, which is scheduled to undergo a hard fork, or backward-incompatible upgrade, called “London,” on Thursday. Once the upgrade takes effect, it is expected to bring a deflationary asset appeal to ether, possibly drawing more investment demand for the cryptocurrency.
• Kitco to Issue Gold-Backed Stablecoin:Kitco, a Canada-based provider of news and data on gold and other precious metals, isgetting intothe stablecoin game. Kitco Gold (KGLD) will be fully backed by physical gold held in Kitco’s DirectReserve vaults and will track the real-time market value of the yellow metal, CoinDesk’s Sebastian Sinclair reports.
• New CoinDesk 20 List – MATIC Is In:MATIC, the native currency of the Polygon layer-2 network built on top of the Ethereum blockchain,has been addedtoCoinDesk 20, which ranks the most heavily traded assets in crypto, as measured by dollar volume on trusted exchanges. Beyond the addition of MATIC, dogecoin and ethereum classic have returned to the ranks of the CoinDesk 20 after being outperformed last quarter by a slew of decentralized finance (DeFi) assets. The three assets that were removed from the CoinDesk 20 in the third quarter were yearn.finance (YFI), nucypher (NU) and XTZ.
• SEC Needs Clear Authority Over Crypto Platforms, Gensler Says
• Chinese Crypto Traders Remain Confident in Binance Despite Regulatory Woes
• British Fashion Brand Burberry Releases First NFTs
• Crypto Tax Exemptions Floated for $1T US Senate Bill
• Grayscale Hires David LaValle to Be ETF Head
• BSV Suffers 51% Attack: Report
Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended up higher on Wednesday. In fact everything was in the green except for dollar-linked stablecoins.
Notable winners of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
Polkadot(DOT) +11.16%
Uniswap(UNI) +8.74%
Aave(AAVE) +8.68%
• Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K
• Bitcoin Again Falters at $40K as Ether Retreats From Two-Month High || Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment: Bitcoin bounced back toward $39,000 on Wednesday as buyers responded toshort-term oversoldconditions. The cryptocurrency is up about 4% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 9% rise in ether during the same period.
“If BTC holds above $40K for a week, the probability of a breakout would increase,” Pankaj Balani, CEO ofDelta Exchange, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “We believe, on a conclusive breakout of $40K level, BTC could challenge the $48K level. On the downside, traders will keenly monitor the $36K level.”
Cryptocurrencies:
• Bitcoin(BTC) $39845.8, +4.44%
• Ether(ETH) $2699.8, +8.6%
Related:Ether Price Jumps After London Hard Fork Takes Effect
Traditional markets:
• S&P 500: 4402.7, -0.46%
• Gold: $1814.2, +0.21%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.16%, compared with 1.181% on Tuesday.
A bitcoin breakout could encourage ether buying, as well. If support holds, ether could rally further and test the $3,000 mark, according to Balani.
“ETH can outperform BTC in the medium- to long-term, but for the next few quarters, ETH should continue to exhibit strong correlation with BTC,” Balani wrote.
Some analysts, however, expect the recent bitcoin bounce to fade.
Related:Ethereum’s Hotly Anticipated ‘London’ Hard Fork Is Now Live
“Today’s near-term recovery snapping a four-day losing streak can be interpreted as just a rebound with resistance around $42K to $45K,” DailyFX analystMichael Boutroswrote.
Additionally, a rebound in the U.S. dollar could limit bitcoin’s advance in the near-term, according to Boutros.
Roughly 33% of the totalbitcoin supplywas moved on the blockchain over the past six months, according todatafrom Glassnode. The chart below shows the percent of active bitcoin supply, which could be a potential indicator of holders’ mentality.
Bitcoin active supply is the number of coins transacted at least once over a given period of time. The supply metric declined from a recent peak in April, which coincided with a top in bitcoin’s price of around $63,000. Lower active supply suggests investors are holding their coins, which further reduces the total supply available to be sold.
Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold turned negative for the first time since November 2017. The cryptocurrency is up about 34% year to date, compared with a 4% loss in gold during the same period. The negative correlation underscores the potential diversification benefits of holding bitcoin in a multi-asset portfolio, albeit with greater volatility.
Stocks have also decoupled from bitcoin over the past year. The S&P 500 is less correlated with bitcoin since the March 2020 pandemic shock caused a sell-off across “risk” assets, including cryptocurrencies.
The exchange reserves of many altcoins such as COMP, UMA, SNX and MKR have been increasing since June, noted @kryptonitetrading on CryptoQuant. However, the exchange reserves of AAVE and UNIhave been declining, which may indicate that “healthy accumulation has been occurring during this bearish phase in the market,” according to @kryptonitetrading. As the tokens move off exchanges into wallets, it shows investor preference to hold rather than sell.
• Ether’s London Hard Fork:As the crypto community awaits the supposedly bullish London hard fork on the Ethereum blockchain, some analysts aretaking a cautious stanceon ether and foresee little price reaction after the upgrade. “I don’t expect much action in any direction,” trader and analyst Alex Kruger told CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. “The upgrade itself is overrated, and what matters is what happens after.” Ether is the native token of Ethereum’s blockchain, which is scheduled to undergo a hard fork, or backward-incompatible upgrade, called “London,” on Thursday. Once the upgrade takes effect, it is expected to bring a deflationary asset appeal to ether, possibly drawing more investment demand for the cryptocurrency.
• Kitco to Issue Gold-Backed Stablecoin:Kitco, a Canada-based provider of news and data on gold and other precious metals, isgetting intothe stablecoin game. Kitco Gold (KGLD) will be fully backed by physical gold held in Kitco’s DirectReserve vaults and will track the real-time market value of the yellow metal, CoinDesk’s Sebastian Sinclair reports.
• New CoinDesk 20 List – MATIC Is In:MATIC, the native currency of the Polygon layer-2 network built on top of the Ethereum blockchain,has been addedtoCoinDesk 20, which ranks the most heavily traded assets in crypto, as measured by dollar volume on trusted exchanges. Beyond the addition of MATIC, dogecoin and ethereum classic have returned to the ranks of the CoinDesk 20 after being outperformed last quarter by a slew of decentralized finance (DeFi) assets. The three assets that were removed from the CoinDesk 20 in the third quarter were yearn.finance (YFI), nucypher (NU) and XTZ.
• SEC Needs Clear Authority Over Crypto Platforms, Gensler Says
• Chinese Crypto Traders Remain Confident in Binance Despite Regulatory Woes
• British Fashion Brand Burberry Releases First NFTs
• Crypto Tax Exemptions Floated for $1T US Senate Bill
• Grayscale Hires David LaValle to Be ETF Head
• BSV Suffers 51% Attack: Report
Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended up higher on Wednesday. In fact everything was in the green except for dollar-linked stablecoins.
Notable winners of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
Polkadot(DOT) +11.16%
Uniswap(UNI) +8.74%
Aave(AAVE) +8.68%
• Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K
• Bitcoin Again Falters at $40K as Ether Retreats From Two-Month High || Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment: Bitcoin bounced back toward $39,000 on Wednesday as buyers responded to short-term oversold conditions. The cryptocurrency is up about 4% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 9% rise in ether during the same period. “If BTC holds above $40K for a week, the probability of a breakout would increase,” Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange , wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “We believe, on a conclusive breakout of $40K level, BTC could challenge the $48K level. On the downside, traders will keenly monitor the $36K level.” Latest prices Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) $39845.8, +4.44% Ether (ETH) $2699.8, +8.6% Related: Ether Price Jumps After London Hard Fork Takes Effect Traditional markets: S&P 500: 4402.7, -0.46% Gold: $1814.2, +0.21% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.16%, compared with 1.181% on Tuesday. A bitcoin breakout could encourage ether buying, as well. If support holds, ether could rally further and test the $3,000 mark, according to Balani. “ETH can outperform BTC in the medium- to long-term, but for the next few quarters, ETH should continue to exhibit strong correlation with BTC,” Balani wrote. Some analysts, however, expect the recent bitcoin bounce to fade. Related: Ethereum’s Hotly Anticipated ‘London’ Hard Fork Is Now Live “Today’s near-term recovery snapping a four-day losing streak can be interpreted as just a rebound with resistance around $42K to $45K,” DailyFX analyst Michael Boutros wrote. Additionally, a rebound in the U.S. dollar could limit bitcoin’s advance in the near-term, according to Boutros. Bitcoin active supply Roughly 33% of the total bitcoin supply was moved on the blockchain over the past six months, according to data from Glassnode. The chart below shows the percent of active bitcoin supply, which could be a potential indicator of holders’ mentality. Bitcoin active supply is the number of coins transacted at least once over a given period of time. The supply metric declined from a recent peak in April, which coincided with a top in bitcoin’s price of around $63,000. Lower active supply suggests investors are holding their coins, which further reduces the total supply available to be sold. Declining correlations Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold turned negative for the first time since November 2017. The cryptocurrency is up about 34% year to date, compared with a 4% loss in gold during the same period. The negative correlation underscores the potential diversification benefits of holding bitcoin in a multi-asset portfolio, albeit with greater volatility. Story continues Stocks have also decoupled from bitcoin over the past year. The S&P 500 is less correlated with bitcoin since the March 2020 pandemic shock caused a sell-off across “risk” assets, including cryptocurrencies. AAVE and UNI’s decline in exchange reserves The exchange reserves of many altcoins such as COMP, UMA, SNX and MKR have been increasing since June, noted @kryptonitetrading on CryptoQuant. However, the exchange reserves of AAVE and UNI have been declining , which may indicate that “healthy accumulation has been occurring during this bearish phase in the market,” according to @kryptonitetrading. As the tokens move off exchanges into wallets, it shows investor preference to hold rather than sell. Altcoin roundup Ether’s London Hard Fork: As the crypto community awaits the supposedly bullish London hard fork on the Ethereum blockchain, some analysts are taking a cautious stance on ether and foresee little price reaction after the upgrade. “I don’t expect much action in any direction,” trader and analyst Alex Kruger told CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. “The upgrade itself is overrated, and what matters is what happens after.” Ether is the native token of Ethereum’s blockchain, which is scheduled to undergo a hard fork, or backward-incompatible upgrade, called “London,” on Thursday. Once the upgrade takes effect, it is expected to bring a deflationary asset appeal to ether, possibly drawing more investment demand for the cryptocurrency. Kitco to Issue Gold-Backed Stablecoin: Kitco, a Canada-based provider of news and data on gold and other precious metals, is getting into the stablecoin game. Kitco Gold (KGLD) will be fully backed by physical gold held in Kitco’s DirectReserve vaults and will track the real-time market value of the yellow metal, CoinDesk’s Sebastian Sinclair reports. New CoinDesk 20 List – MATIC Is In: MATIC, the native currency of the Polygon layer-2 network built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, has been added to CoinDesk 20 , which ranks the most heavily traded assets in crypto, as measured by dollar volume on trusted exchanges. Beyond the addition of MATIC, dogecoin and ethereum classic have returned to the ranks of the CoinDesk 20 after being outperformed last quarter by a slew of decentralized finance (DeFi) assets. The three assets that were removed from the CoinDesk 20 in the third quarter were yearn.finance (YFI), nucypher (NU) and XTZ. Relevant news: SEC Needs Clear Authority Over Crypto Platforms, Gensler Says Chinese Crypto Traders Remain Confident in Binance Despite Regulatory Woes British Fashion Brand Burberry Releases First NFTs Crypto Tax Exemptions Floated for $1T US Senate Bill Grayscale Hires David LaValle to Be ETF Head BSV Suffers 51% Attack: Report Other markets Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended up higher on Wednesday. In fact everything was in the green except for dollar-linked stablecoins. Notable winners of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): Polkadot (DOT) +11.16% Uniswap (UNI) +8.74% Aave (AAVE) +8.68% Related Stories Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K Bitcoin Again Falters at $40K as Ether Retreats From Two-Month High View comments || Uruguayan Lawmaker Proposes Bill to Allow Crypto to be Used for Payments: CORRECTION (Aug. 4, 2021, 21:45 UTC):An earlier version of this article said Sartori’s bill would treat crypto as legal tender. The lawmaker later said it would only allow businesses to accept crypto as payments.
A senator from Uruguay has introduced a bill to allow businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as payments and regulate their use within the South American country.
Thebill, which was presented on Tuesday by Sen. Juan Sartori, seeks to provide “legal, financial and fiscal security in the business derived from the production and commercialization” of cryptocurrencies.
Related:Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K
“Crypto assets will be recognized and accepted by law and applicable in any legal business. They will be considered a valid means of payment, in addition to those included in the financial inclusion law, as long as they comply with the rules set forth in the law and the regulations,” the bill said.
Sartori’s bill would establish that cryptocurrencies “are products of free sale by those entities and individuals who wish to commercialize them,” and states that any natural or legal person “may receive and/or send funds in legal tender from and to their own bank accounts or those of licensed companies.”
However, the bill stops short of actually treating cryptocurrencies as legal tender, he told CoinDesk.
If the bill becomes law, the government would issue a “first license” that would enable companies to trade crypto assets on exchanges. A second license would allow “storing, holding or safekeeping crypto assets,” while a third would be used to issue crypto assets or utility tokens with “financial characteristics.”
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment
According to the bill, Uruguay’s executive branch would grant the licenses to entities that are in compliance with anti-money laundering secretariat (Senaclaft) and the Central Bank of Uruguay. For other transactions, the “use of all these instruments will be free and will not require prior consent, permits or licenses.”
Sartori’s bill also stipulates the regulation of crypto mining. Miners wouldn’t need a special license like a doctor, but would need permits from Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining in order to operate.
The measure also includes the “promotion of technical training for electrical, civil and computer engineers in the generation of virtual assets.”
According to the bill, Senaclaft “will keep a registry of virtual asset service providers” and of those individuals or legal entities that wish to carry out activities of generation and commercialization of virtual assets.
Sartori belongs to the ruling National Party. He ran for the National Party’s nomination for president in 2019.
In the Senate, the National Party and its allies, which form a coalition named Coalición Multicolor, hold the majority, with 17 of the 30 seats.
To date only one country has adoptedbitcoinas legal tender: El Salvador, whichapproved a billearlier this year.
• Bitcoin Stuck Below $40K, Eyes Short-Term Oversold Bounce
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin in Pullback Mode as Regulatory Concerns Rise || Uruguayan Lawmaker Proposes Bill to Allow Crypto to be Used for Payments: CORRECTION (Aug. 4, 2021, 21:45 UTC): An earlier version of this article said Sartori’s bill would treat crypto as legal tender. The lawmaker later said it would only allow businesses to accept crypto as payments. A senator from Uruguay has introduced a bill to allow businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as payments and regulate their use within the South American country. The bill , which was presented on Tuesday by Sen. Juan Sartori, seeks to provide “legal, financial and fiscal security in the business derived from the production and commercialization” of cryptocurrencies. Related: Bitcoin Oversold Bounce Fades; Support at $34K-$36K “Crypto assets will be recognized and accepted by law and applicable in any legal business. They will be considered a valid means of payment, in addition to those included in the financial inclusion law, as long as they comply with the rules set forth in the law and the regulations,” the bill said. Sartori’s bill would establish that cryptocurrencies “are products of free sale by those entities and individuals who wish to commercialize them,” and states that any natural or legal person “may receive and/or send funds in legal tender from and to their own bank accounts or those of licensed companies.” However, the bill stops short of actually treating cryptocurrencies as legal tender, he told CoinDesk. If the bill becomes law, the government would issue a “first license” that would enable companies to trade crypto assets on exchanges. A second license would allow “storing, holding or safekeeping crypto assets,” while a third would be used to issue crypto assets or utility tokens with “financial characteristics.” Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin and Ether Rise on Bullish Sentiment According to the bill, Uruguay’s executive branch would grant the licenses to entities that are in compliance with anti-money laundering secretariat (Senaclaft) and the Central Bank of Uruguay. For other transactions, the “use of all these instruments will be free and will not require prior consent, permits or licenses.” Story continues Sartori’s bill also stipulates the regulation of crypto mining. Miners wouldn’t need a special license like a doctor, but would need permits from Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining in order to operate. The measure also includes the “promotion of technical training for electrical, civil and computer engineers in the generation of virtual assets.” According to the bill, Senaclaft “will keep a registry of virtual asset service providers” and of those individuals or legal entities that wish to carry out activities of generation and commercialization of virtual assets. Sartori belongs to the ruling National Party. He ran for the National Party’s nomination for president in 2019. In the Senate, the National Party and its allies, which form a coalition named Coalición Multicolor, hold the majority, with 17 of the 30 seats. To date only one country has adopted bitcoin as legal tender: El Salvador, which approved a bill earlier this year. Related Stories Bitcoin Stuck Below $40K, Eyes Short-Term Oversold Bounce Market Wrap: Bitcoin in Pullback Mode as Regulatory Concerns Rise || FOREX-Dollar rebound holds as yields steady ahead of jobs data: * Dollar up 0.2% after yields rise on Fed official's comments * Dollar recovers from disappointing private jobs report * Ether rises ahead of change in blockchain network (Updates prices, market activity.) By David Henry NEW YORK, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The dollar held gains on Wednesday after a quick recovery from an earlier fall as markets chose to focus on a suggestion from a top U.S. Federal Reserve official that the central bank may reduce support for the improving economy more quickly than widely thought. The bullish comments on the U.S. economy, by Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida, triggered a rebound in U.S. Treasury yields and turned market attention away from the release two hours earlier of an unexpectedly weak private employment report that had driven the dollar down. The dollar swung from being down 0.3% for the day to up 0.3%on the opposing clues on whether the United States will see strong economic growth and higher interest rates or a serious drag from the coronavirus pandemic. The ADP National Employment Report was seen as possibly foreshadowing softness in July jobs data due on Friday. But there were doubts about its value as a predictor and another report showed U.S. service industry activity jumping to a record high in July. The currency markets have been expecting Friday's non-farm payrolls report to be the next big catalyst for exchange rates, followed by comments expected at a symposium of central bankers at the end of this month in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In the afternoon in New York, the dollar index against major currencies was up 0.2% to 92.246. The Japanese yen, often seen as a competing safe haven, was a big beneficiary of the dollar's initial fall on the ADP report and gained to 108.77 per dollar, but couldn't hold its break below 109. The dollar was last trading at 109.45 yen, up 0.4%. The euro and British pound also swung against the greenback. The euro was last trading at $1.1840, off 0.2% for the day. Sterling was down 0.2% to $1.3889. The initial downdraft came when the ADP report showed U.S. private payrolls increased about half as much as economists had expected, likely constrained by shortages of workers and raw materials. "It was a fairly big disappointment," said Mazen Issa, senior currency strategist at TD Securities. The ADP report has a mixed record of predicting the government report, Issa said, but added, "the miss is substantial enough that the markets may be a little bit more nervous going into Friday's report." Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other policy makers have recently emphasized that upcoming employment reports will be critical to the board's decisions about when and how to cut back on support for the economy. Fed policy maker Robert Kaplan told Reuters on Wednesday that more "progress" in the July and August jobs reports would be reason to start pulling back on bond purchases "soon." The dollar has lost value in recent weeks as declining yields made strategists question whether the U.S. economy will grow as much as they had expected in light of the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, rose 7% to $2,690 ahead of an upcoming change in the Ethereum blockchain network that will take some tokens out of circulation. Bitcoin rose 4% to $39,640. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:14PM (1914 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Dollar index 92.2460 92.0360 +0.24% 2.517% +92.3110 +91.8140 Euro/Dollar $1.1840 $1.1865 -0.21% -3.09% +$1.1899 +$1.1833 Dollar/Yen 109.4500 109.0300 +0.39% +5.94% +109.6700 +108.7250 Euro/Yen 129.58 129.35 +0.18% +2.10% +129.8100 +129.1500 Dollar/Swiss 0.9062 0.9041 +0.25% +2.45% +0.9076 +0.9019 Sterling/Dollar $1.3889 $1.3914 -0.18% +1.67% +$1.3957 +$1.3889 Dollar/Canadian 1.2549 1.2535 +0.12% -1.45% +1.2562 +1.2516 Aussie/Dollar $0.7381 $0.7393 -0.14% -4.02% +$0.7426 +$0.7370 Euro/Swiss 1.0728 1.0726 +0.02% -0.73% +1.0740 +1.0724 Euro/Sterling 0.8522 0.8529 -0.08% -4.64% +0.8532 +0.8506 NZ $0.7045 $0.7019 +0.41% -1.86% +$0.7088 +$0.7018 Dollar/Dollar Dollar/Norway 8.8365 8.8215 +0.15% +2.89% +8.8480 +8.7780 Euro/Norway 10.4630 10.4650 -0.02% -0.04% +10.4778 +10.4180 Dollar/Sweden 8.6058 8.5979 -0.15% +4.99% +8.6126 +8.5666 Euro/Sweden 10.1894 10.2049 -0.15% +1.12% +10.2130 +10.1838 (Reporting by David Henry in New York and Iain Withers in London; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Sonya Hepinstall) || FOREX-Dollar rebound holds as yields steady ahead of jobs data: * Dollar up 0.2% after yields rise on Fed official's comments * Dollar recovers from disappointing private jobs report * Ether rises ahead of change in blockchain network (Updates prices, market activity.) By David Henry NEW YORK, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The dollar held gains on Wednesday after a quick recovery from an earlier fall as markets chose to focus on a suggestion from a top U.S. Federal Reserve official that the central bank may reduce support for the improving economy more quickly than widely thought. The bullish comments on the U.S. economy, by Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida, triggered a rebound in U.S. Treasury yields and turned market attention away from the release two hours earlier of an unexpectedly weak private employment report that had driven the dollar down. The dollar swung from being down 0.3% for the day to up 0.3%on the opposing clues on whether the United States will see strong economic growth and higher interest rates or a serious drag from the coronavirus pandemic. The ADP National Employment Report was seen as possibly foreshadowing softness in July jobs data due on Friday. But there were doubts about its value as a predictor and another report showed U.S. service industry activity jumping to a record high in July. The currency markets have been expecting Friday's non-farm payrolls report to be the next big catalyst for exchange rates, followed by comments expected at a symposium of central bankers at the end of this month in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In the afternoon in New York, the dollar index against major currencies was up 0.2% to 92.246. The Japanese yen, often seen as a competing safe haven, was a big beneficiary of the dollar's initial fall on the ADP report and gained to 108.77 per dollar, but couldn't hold its break below 109. The dollar was last trading at 109.45 yen, up 0.4%. The euro and British pound also swung against the greenback. The euro was last trading at $1.1840, off 0.2% for the day. Sterling was down 0.2% to $1.3889. The initial downdraft came when the ADP report showed U.S. private payrolls increased about half as much as economists had expected, likely constrained by shortages of workers and raw materials. "It was a fairly big disappointment," said Mazen Issa, senior currency strategist at TD Securities. The ADP report has a mixed record of predicting the government report, Issa said, but added, "the miss is substantial enough that the markets may be a little bit more nervous going into Friday's report." Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other policy makers have recently emphasized that upcoming employment reports will be critical to the board's decisions about when and how to cut back on support for the economy. Fed policy maker Robert Kaplan told Reuters on Wednesday that more "progress" in the July and August jobs reports would be reason to start pulling back on bond purchases "soon." The dollar has lost value in recent weeks as declining yields made strategists question whether the U.S. economy will grow as much as they had expected in light of the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, rose 7% to $2,690 ahead of an upcoming change in the Ethereum blockchain network that will take some tokens out of circulation. Bitcoin rose 4% to $39,640. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:14PM (1914 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Dollar index 92.2460 92.0360 +0.24% 2.517% +92.3110 +91.8140 Euro/Dollar $1.1840 $1.1865 -0.21% -3.09% +$1.1899 +$1.1833 Dollar/Yen 109.4500 109.0300 +0.39% +5.94% +109.6700 +108.7250 Euro/Yen 129.58 129.35 +0.18% +2.10% +129.8100 +129.1500 Dollar/Swiss 0.9062 0.9041 +0.25% +2.45% +0.9076 +0.9019 Sterling/Dollar $1.3889 $1.3914 -0.18% +1.67% +$1.3957 +$1.3889 Dollar/Canadian 1.2549 1.2535 +0.12% -1.45% +1.2562 +1.2516 Aussie/Dollar $0.7381 $0.7393 -0.14% -4.02% +$0.7426 +$0.7370 Euro/Swiss 1.0728 1.0726 +0.02% -0.73% +1.0740 +1.0724 Euro/Sterling 0.8522 0.8529 -0.08% -4.64% +0.8532 +0.8506 NZ $0.7045 $0.7019 +0.41% -1.86% +$0.7088 +$0.7018 Dollar/Dollar Dollar/Norway 8.8365 8.8215 +0.15% +2.89% +8.8480 +8.7780 Euro/Norway 10.4630 10.4650 -0.02% -0.04% +10.4778 +10.4180 Dollar/Sweden 8.6058 8.5979 -0.15% +4.99% +8.6126 +8.5666 Euro/Sweden 10.1894 10.2049 -0.15% +1.12% +10.2130 +10.1838 (Reporting by David Henry in New York and Iain Withers in London; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Sonya Hepinstall) || For Crypto Derivatives Trading — Bybit Packs a Trifecta of Core Perks: The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Photo by Pierre Borthiry on Unsplash For any current crypto trader or anyone looking to get into it, many hurdles can be snags or dealbreakers. Let’s say you’re sitting at a coffee shop and are trading a bucket of Bitcoin — are you secure using their Wi-Fi? Even though cryptocurrencies themselves are secured on a blockchain, this does not necessarily mean that the actual account infrastructure is as lock-tight. A significant number of investors and traders take overall safety as a significant concern. Combining this with the high speed and stakes of derivatives trading, especially in the volatile cryptocurrency market, downtime and latencies are not an option. One company that attempts to tackle these issues head-on is trading company Bybit . Bybit describes itself as "the biggest crypto company you haven’t heard of," partly due to its focus on derivatives trading, which is performed by a smaller number of traders than simple cryptocurrency market trading (it also runs a learning center for those who want to learn more about crypto and derivatives). To facilitate an optimal environment for crypto derivatives traders, Bybit focuses its platform to be able to meet the specialized needs of such a clientele. Its core mission is ultimately to provide three main areas of value for its users. Top-Notch Liquidity - Bybit focuses on having “one of the best open interest in the world for BTC and ETH futures contracts, as well as the smallest spread to minimize price slippage.” For most traders, liquidity is crucial for reliable, smooth and efficient trading. In the crypto markets, where liquidity can be harder to come by than large-cap stocks (especially before innovations such as liquidity pools), Bybit offers a standout focus on this important aspect of trading. Industry-Leading Reliability Story continues - Bybit “always executes, treats your trade fairly and makes sure you will never be left hanging, especially when you most need assistance.” Since cryptocurrencies do not operate on any canonical or physical exchange, the market is always open. For traders, this means that platform reliability can be a must at all times of the day and week. World-Class Security - Bybit states that, “the extent of security investment reflects the overall security commitment and capabilities of a company. Bybit leads the industry in security investment, with 25% of its budget to this area.” For any trader, security is crucial, especially when operating within so-called “hot” storage of crypto assets, which are constantly linked to the internet. While Bybit’s platform is not yet available in the United States, for crypto traders elsewhere who are interested in the platform, signing up is accessible right here . The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice. © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || For Crypto Derivatives Trading — Bybit Packs a Trifecta of Core Perks: The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.
Photo byPierre BorthiryonUnsplash
For any current crypto trader or anyone looking to get into it, many hurdles can be snags or dealbreakers. Let’s say you’re sitting at a coffee shop and are trading a bucket of Bitcoin — are you secure using their Wi-Fi? Even though cryptocurrencies themselves are secured on a blockchain, this does not necessarily mean that the actual account infrastructure is as lock-tight.
A significant number of investors and traders take overall safety as a significant concern. Combining this with the high speed and stakes of derivatives trading, especially in the volatile cryptocurrency market, downtime and latencies are not an option.
One company that attempts to tackle these issues head-on is trading companyBybit. Bybit describes itself as "the biggest crypto company you haven’t heard of," partly due to its focus on derivatives trading, which is performed by a smaller number of traders than simple cryptocurrency market trading (it also runs alearning centerfor those who want to learn more about crypto and derivatives).
To facilitate an optimal environment for crypto derivatives traders, Bybit focuses its platform to be able to meet the specialized needs of such a clientele. Its core mission is ultimately to provide three main areas of value for its users.
Top-Notch Liquidity
- Bybit focuses on having “one of the best open interest in the world for BTC and ETH futures contracts, as well as the smallest spread to minimize price slippage.” For most traders, liquidity is crucial for reliable, smooth and efficient trading. In the crypto markets, where liquidity can be harder to come by than large-cap stocks (especially before innovations such as liquidity pools), Bybit offers a standout focus on this important aspect of trading.
Industry-Leading Reliability
- Bybit “always executes, treats your trade fairly and makes sure you will never be left hanging, especially when you most need assistance.” Since cryptocurrencies do not operate on any canonical or physical exchange, the market is always open. For traders, this means that platform reliability can be a must at all times of the day and week.
World-Class Security
- Bybit states that, “the extent of security investment reflects the overall security commitment and capabilities of a company. Bybit leads the industry in security investment, with 25% of its budget to this area.” For any trader, security is crucial, especially when operating within so-called “hot” storage of crypto assets, which are constantly linked to the internet.
While Bybit’s platform is not yet available in the United States, for crypto traders elsewhere who are interested in the platform, signing up is accessibleright here.
The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Gold Price Prediction – Gold Prices Whipsaw Following ADP and ISM: Gold prices attempted to move higher on Wednesday but were rejected at higher levels. The initial surge came following the softer than expected U.S. ADP private payrolls report that showed fewer jobs created during July. The number was countered by the stronger than expected ISM services report which buoyed yields. The greenback moved higher as yields rose, which seemed counterintuitive. This comes ahead of Friday’s government employment report, which is scheduled to be released by the Department of Labor. Technical analysis Gold prices moved sideways but attempted to move higher early on Wednesday but were rejected strongly. Prices came off after the initial reaction to the weaker than expected U.S. labor report. Support is seen near the 10-day moving average at 1,809. Resistance is seen near the July highs at 1,834. Momentum is neutral as the fast stochastic continues to flip-flop and generate buy and sell signals. Medium-term positive momentum is decelerating as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) histogram is printing in positive territory with a downward sloping trajectory which points to consolidation. Jobs Data Disappoints According to ADP, Private payrolls (non-government jobs) tumbled in July as fears mounted over the spreading Covid-19 delta variant. Employers added 330,000 positions for the month, a sharp deceleration of 680,000 in June. The number was well below the 653,000 estimates. June’s final total fell from the initial estimate of 692,000. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Break Out on Warm Weather Forecast Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Continues to Drift Lower on Reopening Trade Fears Gold Price Prediction – Gold Prices Whipsaw Following ADP and ISM AMC Chief Braces for Questions on Dividend and Debt Why General Motors Stock Is Down By 8% Today Grayscale Deepens Its Bitcoin ETF Bench as Regulatory Waters Stir || Gold Price Prediction – Gold Prices Whipsaw Following ADP and ISM: Gold prices attempted to move higher on Wednesday but were rejected at higher levels. The initial surge came following the softer than expected U.S. ADP private payrolls report that showed fewer jobs created during July. The number was countered by the stronger than expected ISM services report which buoyed yields. The greenback moved higher as yields rose, which seemed counterintuitive. This comes ahead of Friday’s government employment report, which is scheduled to be released by the Department of Labor.
Gold prices moved sideways but attempted to move higher early on Wednesday but were rejected strongly. Prices came off after the initial reaction to the weaker than expected U.S. labor report. Support is seen near the 10-day moving average at 1,809. Resistance is seen near the July highs at 1,834. Momentum is neutral as the fast stochastic continues to flip-flop and generate buy and sell signals. Medium-term positive momentum is decelerating as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) histogram is printing in positive territory with a downward sloping trajectory which points to consolidation.
According to ADP, Private payrolls (non-government jobs) tumbled in July as fears mounted over the spreading Covid-19 delta variant. Employers added 330,000 positions for the month, a sharp deceleration of 680,000 in June. The number was well below the 653,000 estimates. June’s final total fell from the initial estimate of 692,000.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Break Out on Warm Weather Forecast
• Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Continues to Drift Lower on Reopening Trade Fears
• Gold Price Prediction – Gold Prices Whipsaw Following ADP and ISM
• AMC Chief Braces for Questions on Dividend and Debt
• Why General Motors Stock Is Down By 8% Today
• Grayscale Deepens Its Bitcoin ETF Bench as Regulatory Waters Stir || Gary Gensler Speaks. The Reviews From Crypto Aren’t Terrible: SEC head Gary Gensler signaled Tuesday that the agency would aggressively regulate cryptocurrency markets using existing rules. That sounds scary, but markets have barely blinked – Bitcoin even ticked up slightly this morning. Responses from some industry leaders and analysts were accepting, and even positive.
That’s surprising in an industry used to fending off harmful regulation, and more than anything reflects faith in Gensler’s deep knowledge of both the promise and technical underpinnings of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Gensler affirmedon CNBC this morningthat he is “pro innovation,” and broadly, it seems a lot of crypto types actually believe him.
David Z. Morris is CoinDesk’s chief insights columnist. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the fullnewsletter here.
Related:US Considers Banking Regulator Who’s Wary of Crypto: Report
Gensler’scommentswere delivered at the Aspen Security Forum yesterday. The prepared statement can beread in full here.
Among other points, Gensler reiterated the enduring importance of the Howey Test: If a financial instrument promises returns from the efforts of others, it’s a security and can be regulated by the SEC. “I believe we have a crypto market now where many tokens may be unregistered securities,” Gensler said. This was most pointedly a reference to Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, a fundraising process in which founders sell tokens to investors before building a system. They have beenrife with fraudas unethical operators stand up fake or deceptive “projects” and sell tokens for them.
File that one under “Dog Bites Man” – there have been dozens of prosecutions of individual token issuers on those exact grounds. And while there are still plenty of operators clinging to the idea that “decentralization” makes it okay to issue unregulated securities, their numbers have dwindled.
The takeaway for some was that Gensler would continue focusing on deceptive“shitcoins”, a likely net positive for the industry. One of the more surprising expressions of approval came from Bruce Fenton, founder of the strongly libertarian Satoshi Roundtable, whowrote this morningthat “we need securities markets to work right and help capital formation & building businesses and jobs.”
Related:Invesco Files With SEC for Bitcoin Strategy ETF
That sort of openness speaks volumes about the unique degree of respect Gensler enjoys from crypto leaders, thanks to his performance as head of the CFTC following the Financial Crisis and his three years as a professor at MIT, where he taught classes on blockchain topics. Crypto consultant Jeff Bandman summed up the consensus when hewrote of Genslerin January that “he gets it. He has clearly devoted himself immersively to understanding the space on many levels.” It’s unclear, though, whether Gensler can shift the SEC’s slow-moving whack-a-mole approach on ICOs towards something more systematic and consistent.
Michael Saylor, CEO of software firm/bitcoin holding entity MicroStrategy,declaredthat “Regulatory clarity will benefit #Bitcoin.” That’s certainly talking his own book, but Saylor has a leg to stand on: Bitcoin, thanks to its absent creator and itsbasically fair launch, has the single best claim in crypto to avoid classification as a security.
Gensler himself appeared to draw a moat around Bitcoin in the remarks, saying that after his time researching cryptocurrency at MIT, “I came to believe that, though there was a lot of hype masquerading as reality in the crypto field, [Satoshi] Nakamoto’s innovation is real. Further, it has been and could continue to be a catalyst for change in the fields of finance and money.”
On CNBC today, Gensler even went so far as to retell Bitcoin’s origin story and conclude “that part of it is okay” – strongly signalling he does not consider bitcoin a security. Gensler has also laid out a pathway to a long-dreamed-ofBitcoin ETF.
There was plenty to set other segments of the industry on edge, though. Gensler said that “stablecoins may also be securities,” a claimcritics have questionedin part because it’s hard to see how a coin explicitly intended to not change in price can entail the expectation of profit.
Gensler also signaled real headwinds for exchanges like Coinbase: Many are not licensed as securities brokers, but Gensler seems to think they should be. “The probability is quite remote that, with 50 or 100 tokens, any given [crypto exchange] platform has zero securities,” he said.
Love it or hate it, the consensus is that Gensler’s speech has broad implications. Nic Carter, a CoinDesk columnist,described itas “catalytic” and “a significant show of intent” for the SEC.
Coming from another regulator, that could have meant panic. Take for comparison the crypto-taxation fiasco still working its way towards resolution in the U.S. legislature. A few lines of poorly crafted language threatened to completely disrupt the sector by imposingtechnologically impossible reporting requirements, and lobbyists had to spring into action to try and push things in the right direction. A lot is riding on the belief that Gensler is smart enough to avoid similar destructive screwups.
• What’s Really Behind SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s Crypto Speech
• CBDCs Can Stop Aid Falling Into Terrorist Hands || Gary Gensler Speaks. The Reviews From Crypto Aren’t Terrible: SEC head Gary Gensler signaled Tuesday that the agency would aggressively regulate cryptocurrency markets using existing rules. That sounds scary, but markets have barely blinked – Bitcoin even ticked up slightly this morning. Responses from some industry leaders and analysts were accepting, and even positive. That’s surprising in an industry used to fending off harmful regulation, and more than anything reflects faith in Gensler’s deep knowledge of both the promise and technical underpinnings of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Gensler affirmed on CNBC this morning that he is “pro innovation,” and broadly, it seems a lot of crypto types actually believe him. David Z. Morris is CoinDesk’s chief insights columnist. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here . Related: US Considers Banking Regulator Who’s Wary of Crypto: Report Gensler’s comments were delivered at the Aspen Security Forum yesterday. The prepared statement can be read in full here . Among other points, Gensler reiterated the enduring importance of the Howey Test: If a financial instrument promises returns from the efforts of others, it’s a security and can be regulated by the SEC. “I believe we have a crypto market now where many tokens may be unregistered securities,” Gensler said. This was most pointedly a reference to Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, a fundraising process in which founders sell tokens to investors before building a system. They have been rife with fraud as unethical operators stand up fake or deceptive “projects” and sell tokens for them. File that one under “Dog Bites Man” – there have been dozens of prosecutions of individual token issuers on those exact grounds. And while there are still plenty of operators clinging to the idea that “decentralization” makes it okay to issue unregulated securities, their numbers have dwindled. Story continues The takeaway for some was that Gensler would continue focusing on deceptive “shitcoins” , a likely net positive for the industry. One of the more surprising expressions of approval came from Bruce Fenton, founder of the strongly libertarian Satoshi Roundtable, who wrote this morning that “we need securities markets to work right and help capital formation & building businesses and jobs.” Related: Invesco Files With SEC for Bitcoin Strategy ETF That sort of openness speaks volumes about the unique degree of respect Gensler enjoys from crypto leaders, thanks to his performance as head of the CFTC following the Financial Crisis and his three years as a professor at MIT, where he taught classes on blockchain topics. Crypto consultant Jeff Bandman summed up the consensus when he wrote of Gensler in January that “he gets it. He has clearly devoted himself immersively to understanding the space on many levels.” It’s unclear, though, whether Gensler can shift the SEC’s slow-moving whack-a-mole approach on ICOs towards something more systematic and consistent. Michael Saylor, CEO of software firm/bitcoin holding entity MicroStrategy, declared that “Regulatory clarity will benefit #Bitcoin.” That’s certainly talking his own book, but Saylor has a leg to stand on: Bitcoin, thanks to its absent creator and its basically fair launch , has the single best claim in crypto to avoid classification as a security. Gensler himself appeared to draw a moat around Bitcoin in the remarks, saying that after his time researching cryptocurrency at MIT, “I came to believe that, though there was a lot of hype masquerading as reality in the crypto field, [Satoshi] Nakamoto’s innovation is real. Further, it has been and could continue to be a catalyst for change in the fields of finance and money.” On CNBC today, Gensler even went so far as to retell Bitcoin’s origin story and conclude “that part of it is okay” – strongly signalling he does not consider bitcoin a security. Gensler has also laid out a pathway to a long-dreamed-of Bitcoin ETF . There was plenty to set other segments of the industry on edge, though. Gensler said that “stablecoins may also be securities,” a claim critics have questioned in part because it’s hard to see how a coin explicitly intended to not change in price can entail the expectation of profit. Gensler also signaled real headwinds for exchanges like Coinbase: Many are not licensed as securities brokers, but Gensler seems to think they should be. “The probability is quite remote that, with 50 or 100 tokens, any given [crypto exchange] platform has zero securities,” he said. Love it or hate it, the consensus is that Gensler’s speech has broad implications. Nic Carter, a CoinDesk columnist, described it as “catalytic” and “a significant show of intent” for the SEC. Coming from another regulator, that could have meant panic. Take for comparison the crypto-taxation fiasco still working its way towards resolution in the U.S. legislature. A few lines of poorly crafted language threatened to completely disrupt the sector by imposing technologically impossible reporting requirements , and lobbyists had to spring into action to try and push things in the right direction. A lot is riding on the belief that Gensler is smart enough to avoid similar destructive screwups. Related Stories What’s Really Behind SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s Crypto Speech CBDCs Can Stop Aid Falling Into Terrorist Hands || Crypto Tax Exemptions Floated for $1T US Senate Bill: Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) want to ensure miners, node operators, developers and other non-custodial crypto industry participants are exempt from a crypto tax reporting provision in the U.S.’ infrastructure bill.
The bill, which seeks to fund$1 trillion in infrastructureimprovements at least in part throughwidened tax enforcementon crypto entities,sparked backlashfrom the crypto community due to the possibility that it might broaden the definition of a broker to include non-custodial entities that don’t have customers nor provide those types of services. Wyden and Lummis’amendment, proposed Thursday, seeks to limit this definition specifically to trading platforms and similar types of entities.
The amendment said:
Related:Ohio Sen. Rob Portman Defends Crypto Provision in US Infrastructure Bill
The amendment also includes a provision that the section on crypto brokers will not modify the Securities Act of 1933 or Securities Exchange Act of 1934, two major laws overseeing the federal securities markets.
The Senate is currently debating and voting on a number of possible amendments to the bill, which has bipartisan support in the upper house of the U.S. Congress. Another of these amendments, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) seeks to “strike” the provision, although the text of that amendment was not immediately available.
In a statement, Lummis said that the amendment is a first step to integrating crypto with the current U.S. economy, though “much more work needs to be done.”
Related:Crypto Tax Proposal in US Has Had Limited Impact on Bitcoin Market
“The digital asset and financial technology space is incredibly complicated, and we have spent long hours working in the Senate, with industry stakeholders, and with the Administration to find a way to effectively integrate digital assets into our tax code without harming the technology or stifling innovation. I look forward to continuing this bipartisan work to bring our financial industry into the 21st Century,” she said.
Wyden said that investors “failing to pay tax” through cryptocurrencies “is a real problem” and that he supports the overall thrust of the provision in requiring third-party reporting.
“Our amendment makes clear that reporting does not apply to individuals developing block chain technology and wallets. This will protect American innovation while at the same time ensuring those who buy and sell cryptocurrency pay the taxes they already owe,” he said in a statement.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who likely introduced the original provision into the tax bill,defended the phrasingin a Twitter thread late Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in a joint statement, the Blockchain Association, Coinbase, Coin Center, Ribbit Capital and Square expressed support for the amendment, pointing to the original broad definition of “broker.”
“Clarifying the provision to address our concerns would not affect the reporting requirements on crypto exchanges that operate on behalf of customers. We support sensible reporting requirements that are consistent with those that apply to traditional financial services,” the statement said.
Separately, Lummis filed another amendment with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) that would task federal regulators with evaluating different tools to track illegal transactions made using cryptocurrencies.
The amendment would apply to a section on cybersecurity within the infrastructure bill.
If the amendment is adopted and the bill is passed, these federal agency heads, which include the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and FBI, as well as the Secretary of Homeland Security and Attorney General, would have 180 days to develop a joint agreement on what digital asset analytics tools can and can’t do, as well as possible improvements.
The agencies would also have to provide any recommendations on how they can mitigate any illegal activity occurring through the use of cryptocurrencies.
Lummis said cryptocurrencies could be used for both good and bad purposes, just as cash can.
“We need to ensure that agencies of jurisdiction have the strategies and resources to harness that built-in security to combat money laundering and other nefarious activity. This amendment will do just that, and I’m grateful to Senator Blackburn for working with me to make this happen,” she said in a statement.
The amendments still need to be voted on, and the Senate is expected to discuss these issues through the rest of the week. At the end of the amendment period, lawmakers will vote to actually advance the bill.
However, the overall process of passing the infrastructure bill into law is likely to take months. After the Senate completes its work, the bill will go to the House of Representatives, which will also discuss the bill before voting on it.
UPDATE (Aug. 4, 2021, 18:55 UTC):Updated with link to amendment and statements from associated parties.
• ‘Cautiously Optimistic’: Crypto Brings Lobbying Muscle to Infrastructure Debate
• State of Crypto: Infrastructure Bill Shows Congress Sees Crypto as Here to Stay
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 581.65, 574.63, 577.47, 606.73, 672.78, 704.38, 685.56, 694.47, 766.31, 748.91, 756.23, 763.78, 737.23, 666.65, 596.12, 623.98, 665.30, 665.12, 629.37, 655.28, 647.00, 639.89, 673.34, 676.30, 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55, 654.47, 658.08, 663.26, 660.77, 679.46, 673.11, 672.86, 665.68, 665.01, 650.62, 655.56, 661.28, 654.10, 651.78, 654.35, 655.03, 656.99, 655.05, 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56, 585.59, 570.47, 567.24, 577.44, 573.22, 574.32, 575.63, 581.70, 581.31, 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-09-05]
Volume: 82446800, RSI (14-day): 61.32, 50-day EMA: 595.98, 200-day EMA: 539.60
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
With millions of helpers (and $100M), SETI 'still hasn't found ET'— here's why: What would Enrico Fermi do?
For those unfamiliar with the name,Fermi was a famous scientistwho postulated that if intelligent life on other planets actually existed, we would have found them by now — or they certainly would have found us. It's an idea that resonates, especially with vast sums of public and privatemoney being thrown at space travel, accompanied by rapid advances in modern technology.
Approximately a year ago, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner gave a $100 million gift to over a ten year span to the University of California to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since then, the SETI Institute has been occupied with its prime directive—understanding the universe and trying to contact aliens.
Milner, a venture capitalist who was among the early investors in tech giants like Twitter and Facebook,is convinced that— given the billions of Earth-like planets and even more galaxies that exist — it's all but inconceivable that the human race is alone.
SETI is flush with new riches and interest in outer space has reached a crescendo unseen since at least the 'Space Race' of the last century. Yet for years, skeptics have argued that attempting to explore the outer reaches of space was a waste of time.
So it begs the question: Exactly why does discovering intelligent life outside of Earth remain so elusive, and why can't they (as in the aliens) be coaxed out of hiding?
"We haven't found E.T.," Dan Werthimer, SETI's chief scientist and an astronomer at University of California at Berkeley, joked to a panel discussion at "Star Trek: Mission New York" on Saturday.
E.T., of course, is a reference to the classic 1982 Steven Spielberg movie where an alien falls to earth, bringing a combination of delight and trouble to a group of kids.
As Werthimer explained in more sophisticated fashion to the legions of Trekkies assembled to commemorate "Star Trek's" 50th anniversary, maybe E.T. doesn't want to phone home — or maybe he can't.
Even with the morale and logistical boost $100 million can bring, it's quite possible E.T. may not exist.
"Maybe they're [aliens] waiting for us to stop killing each other," Werthimer said in response to a question about why extraterrestrial life hadn't yet reached out to the human race. He posited that they themselves could be lower than earthlings on the evolutionary and technological scale, or perhaps we're beneath them.
"There [are] a lot of different scenarios but the other possibility is that we really are alone and that's why we don't see them zooming around the galaxy," the scientist said.
According to SETI, on any given day there are at millions of volunteers around the world working on various projects to prove there's life outside of earth. On Saturday, Werthimer joked that at least a million of them "bounded by optimism leave their [computers] on" in the hopes of intercepting a message from another world.
"We've only had 100 years, but we'd be kind of lucky to find [alien life] now because we don't know what frequency to look at, we don't know if they're broadcasting radio and we can't cover the whole spectrum. But I'm optimistic because the technology is changing so fast."
According to Werthimer, some SETI volunteers, perhaps impatient waiting all these years for E.T.'s arrival, are moonlighting by mining for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that's can be 'mined' using special software and solving complex math problems.
Although numerous SETI volunteers take on side projects, digital currency mining is not a side gig Werthimer would recommend.
Bitcoin is attractive "because you can make money that way. Although you can't make much [because] I think your power bill is more expensive," he said. "I dont think it's a good idea."
All of which brings us full circle to the estimable Fermi. With all the technology surrounding human civilization andbillions being invested in space exploration, what exactly is preventing E.T.'s eagerly anticipated arrival?
One answer may be that aliens haven't yet caught up to humans technologically. "We don't know how to find them if they are more primitive than we are," Werthimer said. "What's the chance we can find a civilization that's just invented radio? It's kind of small in the 4 billion years of life on this planet."
The scientist added that same optimism keeps him reasonably hopeful that extraterrestrial life would eventually be found, as Earthlings were "just getting in the game" of trying to locate life on other planets—but no one should hold their breath.
"I think it's not going to be in my lifetime [that we find aliens], I think its going to be my students or my students students...it will take a couple of generations," Werthimer added.
"It's hard to predict but my guess is that it's going to be a generation or two" before the discovery is made, he said.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || With millions of helpers (and $100M), SETI 'still hasn't found ET'— here's why: What would Enrico Fermi do? For those unfamiliar with the name, Fermi was a famous scientist who postulated that if intelligent life on other planets actually existed, we would have found them by now — or they certainly would have found us. It's an idea that resonates, especially with vast sums of public and private money being thrown at space travel , accompanied by rapid advances in modern technology. Approximately a year ago, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner gave a $100 million gift to over a ten year span to the University of California to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since then, the SETI Institute has been occupied with its prime directive—understanding the universe and trying to contact aliens. Milner, a venture capitalist who was among the early investors in tech giants like Twitter and Facebook, is convinced that — given the billions of Earth-like planets and even more galaxies that exist — it's all but inconceivable that the human race is alone. SETI is flush with new riches and interest in outer space has reached a crescendo unseen since at least the 'Space Race' of the last century. Yet for years, skeptics have argued that attempting to explore the outer reaches of space was a waste of time. So it begs the question: Exactly why does discovering intelligent life outside of Earth remain so elusive, and why can't they (as in the aliens) be coaxed out of hiding? "We haven't found E.T.," Dan Werthimer, SETI's chief scientist and an astronomer at University of California at Berkeley, joked to a panel discussion at "Star Trek: Mission New York" on Saturday. E.T., of course, is a reference to the classic 1982 Steven Spielberg movie where an alien falls to earth, bringing a combination of delight and trouble to a group of kids. As Werthimer explained in more sophisticated fashion to the legions of Trekkies assembled to commemorate "Star Trek's" 50th anniversary, maybe E.T. doesn't want to phone home — or maybe he can't. Story continues Even with the morale and logistical boost $100 million can bring, it's quite possible E.T. may not exist. "Maybe they're [aliens] waiting for us to stop killing each other," Werthimer said in response to a question about why extraterrestrial life hadn't yet reached out to the human race. He posited that they themselves could be lower than earthlings on the evolutionary and technological scale, or perhaps we're beneath them. "There [are] a lot of different scenarios but the other possibility is that we really are alone and that's why we don't see them zooming around the galaxy," the scientist said. According to SETI, on any given day there are at millions of volunteers around the world working on various projects to prove there's life outside of earth. On Saturday, Werthimer joked that at least a million of them "bounded by optimism leave their [computers] on" in the hopes of intercepting a message from another world. "We've only had 100 years, but we'd be kind of lucky to find [alien life] now because we don't know what frequency to look at, we don't know if they're broadcasting radio and we can't cover the whole spectrum. But I'm optimistic because the technology is changing so fast." According to Werthimer, some SETI volunteers, perhaps impatient waiting all these years for E.T.'s arrival, are moonlighting by mining for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that's can be 'mined' using special software and solving complex math problems. Although numerous SETI volunteers take on side projects, digital currency mining is not a side gig Werthimer would recommend. Bitcoin is attractive "because you can make money that way. Although you can't make much [because] I think your power bill is more expensive," he said. "I dont think it's a good idea." All of which brings us full circle to the estimable Fermi. With all the technology surrounding human civilization and billions being invested in space exploration , what exactly is preventing E.T.'s eagerly anticipated arrival? One answer may be that aliens haven't yet caught up to humans technologically. "We don't know how to find them if they are more primitive than we are," Werthimer said. "What's the chance we can find a civilization that's just invented radio? It's kind of small in the 4 billion years of life on this planet." The scientist added that same optimism keeps him reasonably hopeful that extraterrestrial life would eventually be found, as Earthlings were "just getting in the game" of trying to locate life on other planets—but no one should hold their breath. "I think it's not going to be in my lifetime [that we find aliens], I think its going to be my students or my students students...it will take a couple of generations," Werthimer added. "It's hard to predict but my guess is that it's going to be a generation or two" before the discovery is made, he said. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || America’s big banks are staffing up—for blockchain: IBM this week announced a massive internal re-organization to cater to blockchain. It is one of many recent signs that the peer-to-peer ledger technology, which first came along with the digital currency bitcoin, has serious future applications in big business . Or it is at least a sign that big companies are convinced they ought to examine it further. (What exactly is blockchain? Watch this primer video .) The computing giant will create a new unit called Watson Financial Services to encompass Watson, cloud, and all blockchain-related offerings and strategy. Bridget van Kralingen, IBM’s senior VP of global banking services, will take on the role of building the unit, and take a new title, VP of industry platforms. To replace van Kralingen in global banking services, IBM has hired Mark Foster, a former Accenture executive. IBM says that it has created new roles specifically devoted to blockchain, and will create more, but it declines to share how many. Search for “blockchain jobs” on job sites like Monster.com and Indeed and you’ll find more than 100 at some, posted by companies like IBM, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Capital One, American Express, Citigroup, Cognizant and Infosys. Blockchain job openings on Monster.com There are, of course, many jobs listed at companies like Circle, a payments app that uses the bitcoin blockchain , and at Chain, which creates custom blockchains for clients like Visa, Citi and Nasdaq (see below video from May), but those are the companies you would expect. They are companies that exist squarely in the digital currency or blockchain space. To see blockchain job openings at big banks, payment processors, or financial firms is the surprise. It suggests that blockchain tech is creating new jobs—hundreds of them, for now, not thousands. As Computer World UK wrote in May, “ Demand for distributed ledger expertise is on the rise .” (While many jobs require coding and technical proficiency, some of them are closer to traditional management positions.) And J. Christopher Giancarlo, commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), wrote an op-ed in May encouraging companies to “ Do no harm to the blockchain ” because “American jobs depends on it.” Story continues Getting rid of friction—and maybe humans—in banking To be sure, blockchain will likely eliminate jobs in the long run, too, if it fulfills its promise as an efficiency-improver for big financial giants. Giancarlo had to acknowledge such in his own op-ed about the job benefits of blockchain: “Still, the blockchain revolution will not come without adverse consequences, including a likely drop in the human capital that supports the recordkeeping and transaction processing of today’s financial markets.” A report from Citi this year predicted that blockchain and other automation in retail banking could eventually eliminate 30% of jobs at banks in the US and Europe. “That’s absolutely right,” says Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s VP of blockchain, who will report to Van Kralingen in the new unit. “At some level, the efficiency you get from blockchain is to create more of a B2B service without the friction. And many financial services companies are the friction in the system, by design.” But companies exploring blockchain are still in the experimenting stage, where they need to bring new people on, rather than cut people because blockchain tech has made them non-essential. “I think the year started with blockchain tourism running rampant—in a good way,” says Cuomo. “And the tourism business is rapidly turning into hands-on engagement. I think this is where blockchain as a service really aided that desire to enable developers to rapidly experiment with applications, and business folks to witness the transformative power. Users and institutions have gone from, ‘What is this thing? I want to know more about it,’ to, ‘Okay, I’m in.’” IBM has rolled out a bevy of new blockchain services over the last year, including its own IBM Blockchain that runs on Bluemix, IBM’s cloud infrastructure, and this month a new secure blockchain platform for developers to access Hyperledger, a large-scale blockchain project with many different companies on board. And IBM is working on separate blockchains for specific business needs of IBM clients, such as, to name one example, dispute management. In official press releases, the company is already calling itself “the leader in blockchain.” Blockchain as a service (BaaS) But IBM is hardly the only big corporation jumping in. Intel, JPMorgan, and Accenture are all “premier level” members of the Hyperledger project, along with IBM. And Cisco, BNY Mellon, and Wells Fargo are among the general level of members. Microsoft took a different tack, launching its own Project Bletchley over its Azure cloud platform in June. PC Magazine writes that IBM and Microsoft are the two giants “defining” the new blockchain as a service (BaaS) market , and called their efforts “dueling initiatives.” For what it’s worth, based on a check of three job web sites, IBM is hiring many more blockchain-related positions than Microsoft at the moment. Tension between bank chains and bitcoin blockchain Meanwhile, a core tension still exists between the bitcoin community, where blockchain technology first came around, and those in banking and finance that want to create their own private blockchain applications. The difference is one of not just practice but theory: Bitcoin and digital currency believers feel that the very point of blockchain is to be open, “permissionless,” anonymized, accessible to anyone. Those in the banking world are alarmed by such a lack of restriction, and instead are working on safer, “permissioned” blockchains, where participants must be verified and known. It’s also about speed, says Ludwin of Chain. Because of the limited, processing power of the bitcoin blockchain, big companies like Visa, Citi, and Nasdaq “don’t build on bitcoin, and probably won’t if the goal is to keep bitcoin decentralized.” Cuomo of IBM has his own explanation: regulatory concerns. “We’re still very much [focused] on the permissioned blockchain, which could either be public or private, but you need a membership card to get in,” he says. “That seems to be resonating with any client or user group that falls under any kind of regulation. If the data you use falls under regulatory rule, where you need to know your customer who is accessing your data, Ethereum and bitcoin-based blockchains aren’t going to help you with that. That would be a very large group to say no to, and we’re saying yes to them.” But Cuomo gives a caveat: no one quite knows where all of this is heading for sure. “I don’t believe there will be one blockchain to rule them all,” he says. “I believe there will be many. This is all going to take time. And I think we will get there.” — Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency The latest Bitcoin price hike is not all about Brexit British bitcoin market sent incredible signals ahead of Brexit Here’s why 21 Inc. is the most exciting bitcoin company right now || America’s big banks are staffing up—for blockchain: IBM this week announced a massive internal re-organization to cater to blockchain.
It is one of many recent signs that the peer-to-peer ledger technology, which first came along with the digital currency bitcoin, hasserious future applications in big business. Or it is at least a sign that big companies are convinced they ought to examine it further.(What exactly is blockchain?Watch this primer video.)
The computing giant will create a new unit called Watson Financial Services to encompass Watson, cloud, and all blockchain-related offerings and strategy. Bridget van Kralingen, IBM’s senior VP of global banking services, will take on the role of building the unit, and take a new title, VP of industry platforms. To replace van Kralingen in global banking services, IBM has hired Mark Foster, a former Accenture executive.
IBM says that it has created new roles specifically devoted to blockchain, and will create more, but it declines to share how many.
Search for “blockchain jobs” on job sites like Monster.com and Indeed and you’ll find more than 100 at some, posted by companies like IBM, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Capital One, American Express, Citigroup, Cognizant and Infosys.
There are, of course, many jobs listed at companies likeCircle, a payments app that uses the bitcoin blockchain, and at Chain, which creates custom blockchains for clients like Visa, Citi and Nasdaq (see below video from May), but those are the companies you would expect. They are companies that exist squarely in the digital currency or blockchain space.
To see blockchain job openings at big banks, payment processors, or financial firms is the surprise. It suggests that blockchain tech is creating new jobs—hundreds of them, for now, not thousands.
As Computer World UK wrote in May, “Demand for distributed ledger expertise is on the rise.” (While many jobs require coding and technical proficiency, some of them are closer to traditional management positions.) And J. Christopher Giancarlo, commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), wrote an op-ed in May encouraging companies to “Do no harm to the blockchain” because “American jobs depends on it.”
To be sure, blockchain will likely eliminate jobs in the long run, too, if it fulfills its promise as an efficiency-improver for big financial giants. Giancarlo had to acknowledge such in his own op-ed about the job benefits of blockchain: “Still, the blockchain revolution will not come without adverse consequences, including a likely drop in the human capital that supports the recordkeeping and transaction processing of today’s financial markets.” A report from Citi this year predicted thatblockchain and other automation in retail banking could eventually eliminate 30% of jobsat banks in the US and Europe.
“That’s absolutely right,” says Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s VP of blockchain, who will report to Van Kralingen in the new unit. “At some level, the efficiency you get from blockchain is to create more of a B2B service without the friction. And many financial services companies are the friction in the system, by design.”
But companies exploring blockchain are still in the experimenting stage, where they need to bring new people on, rather than cut people because blockchain tech has made them non-essential.
“I think the year started with blockchain tourism running rampant—in a good way,” says Cuomo. “And the tourism business is rapidly turning into hands-on engagement. I think this is where blockchain as a service really aided that desire to enable developers to rapidly experiment with applications, and business folks to witness the transformative power. Users and institutions have gone from, ‘What is this thing? I want to know more about it,’ to, ‘Okay, I’m in.’”
IBM has rolled out a bevy of new blockchain services over the last year, including its ownIBM Blockchainthat runs on Bluemix, IBM’s cloud infrastructure, and this month a newsecure blockchain platform for developersto accessHyperledger, a large-scale blockchain projectwith many different companies on board. And IBM is working on separate blockchains for specific business needs of IBM clients, such as, to name one example, dispute management.
In official press releases, the company is already calling itself “the leader in blockchain.”
But IBM is hardly the only big corporation jumping in. Intel, JPMorgan, and Accenture are all “premier level” members of the Hyperledger project, along with IBM. And Cisco, BNY Mellon, and Wells Fargo are among the general level of members.
Microsoft took a different tack, launching its ownProject Bletchleyover its Azure cloud platform in June. PC Magazine writes thatIBM and Microsoft are the two giants “defining” the new blockchain as a service (BaaS) market, and called their efforts “dueling initiatives.”
For what it’s worth, based on a check of three job web sites, IBM is hiring many more blockchain-related positions than Microsoft at the moment.
Meanwhile, a core tension still exists between the bitcoin community, where blockchain technology first came around, and those in banking and finance that want to create their own private blockchain applications. The difference is one of not just practice but theory: Bitcoin and digital currency believers feel that the very point of blockchain is to be open, “permissionless,” anonymized, accessible to anyone. Those in the banking world are alarmed by such a lack of restriction, and instead are working on safer, “permissioned” blockchains, where participants must be verified and known.
It’s also about speed, says Ludwin of Chain. Because of the limited, processing power of the bitcoin blockchain, big companies like Visa, Citi, and Nasdaq “don’t build on bitcoin, and probably won’t if the goal is to keep bitcoin decentralized.”
Cuomo of IBM has his own explanation: regulatory concerns. “We’re still very much [focused] on the permissioned blockchain, which could either be public or private, but you need a membership card to get in,” he says. “That seems to be resonating with any client or user group that falls under any kind of regulation. If the data you use falls under regulatory rule, where you need to know your customer who is accessing your data, Ethereum and bitcoin-based blockchains aren’t going to help you with that. That would be a very large group to say no to, and we’re saying yes to them.”
But Cuomo gives a caveat: no one quite knows where all of this is heading for sure. “I don’t believe there will be one blockchain to rule them all,” he says. “I believe there will be many. This is all going to take time. And I think we will get there.”
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency
The latest Bitcoin price hike is not all about Brexit
British bitcoin market sent incredible signals ahead of Brexit
Here’s why 21 Inc. is the most exciting bitcoin company right now || Your first trade for Friday, September 2: The " Fast Money " traders shared their first moves for the market open. Dan Nathan was a seller of the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSE Arca: XRT) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ: TLT) . Karen Finerman said Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU) , which reported quarterly earnings and disappointing guidance after the market close, could be a 'buy' once the volatility settles. Steve Grasso was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE Arca: XLF) . Trader disclosure: On September 1,2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX Grasso's Kids Own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY No Shorts Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its Partners have a financial interest in LDP, WDR, AVP, CVX, FCX, ICE, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OLN, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TEX, TITXF, URI, VALE, WDR, WYNN, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, MJNA, TITXF, NXTD, SPY, QQQ, DIA, XLI, BGCP, VIRT, JCP, GE, AIR FP. Karen Finerman is long AAL, BAC, C, DAL, DRII, DRII calls, FB, FL, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, DRII, DRII calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Dan Nathan is Long TWTR, IWM long Sept put, long PYPL call calendar, XOP Sept put spread, BAC long Sept put, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long FB Sept put spread. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Your first trade for Friday, September 2: The "Fast Money" traders shared their first moves for the market open.
Dan Nathan was a seller of the SPDR S&P Retail ETF(NYSE Arca: XRT).
Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF(NASDAQ: TLT).
Karen Finerman said Lululemon(NASDAQ: LULU), which reported quarterly earnings and disappointing guidance after the market close, could be a 'buy' once the volatility settles.
Steve Grasso was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF(NYSE Arca: XLF).
Trader disclosure: On September 1,2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX Grasso's Kids Own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY No Shorts Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its Partners have a financial interest in LDP, WDR, AVP, CVX, FCX, ICE, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OLN, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TEX, TITXF, URI, VALE, WDR, WYNN, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, MJNA, TITXF, NXTD, SPY, QQQ, DIA, XLI, BGCP, VIRT, JCP, GE, AIR FP. Karen Finerman is long AAL, BAC, C, DAL, DRII, DRII calls, FB, FL, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, DRII, DRII calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Dan Nathan is Long TWTR, IWM long Sept put, long PYPL call calendar, XOP Sept put spread, BAC long Sept put, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long FB Sept put spread.
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• Personal Finance || How Bitcoin was brought down by its own potentialand the banks: Wouldn't it be so much easier if they just looked like this? The best that can be said about Bitcoin right now is that it still exists . Split by internal divisions while its most useful aspects are harvested by the very financial behemoths it once hoped to destroy, Bitcoin is fast becoming the tech worlds version of Waiting for Godot , wherein a hermetically sealed community squabbles and bickers over arcane points of code and law as their world slowly crumbles around them. In the last 12 months, attempts made to produce a road map for the cryptocurrencys future have come to naught, all while core developers abandon the project and opaque Chinese mining concerns wield outlandish power . What it feels like to be the last generation to remember life before the internet Welcome to todays Bitcoina phenomenon so internally focused that its advocates have barely noticed the battle has already been lost. Back at its inception, the conversation around the currency was driven by an almost unconscionable optimism. This wasnt simply a mechanism for the easy transfer of capital: This was a tool by which the entire international financial system could be made anew, with corrupt central banks, inflationary currencies, and immoral stockbrokers consigned to the dustbin of history. In a world still reeling from the chaos of the global financial crisis, Bitcoin seemed less like a currency and more like a way of future-proofing the global economy from ever having to deal with something so awful again. The Bitcoin boom of late 2013 brought greater mainstream attention to the cryptocurrency. Bitcoins value surged from $200 to $1,200 over the space of a few weeks, temporarily rendering it more valuable than gold . This was to be a short-lived state of affairs, however, as a string of scandals, hacks, exchange collapses, anddare I say itcommon sense brought the price of Bitcoin plummeting back to Earth. Cue three years of stagnation and false promise , as Bitcoin has struggled to prove its use for, well
anything, really. Even after all this time, Bitcoin is still an economy driven almost entirely by potentialby the dream that, one day soon, Bitcoin will become the lingua franca of the global economic order. Story continues Giving up alcohol opened my eyes to the infuriating truth about why women drink But Bitcoins spike and crash did have one unintended effect: It shone a bright light on a delicate, still-evolving financial ecosystem and shouted to the world, Theres gold in them thar hills! While the currency itself struggled to rediscover the magic of that first almighty explosion in 2013, the circling sharks of international finance spotted opportunity. Soon Bitcoin seemed primarily valuable for its blockchain, the distributed, unalterable public ledger that allows it to operate without trusted intermediaries. If Bitcoin is the power grid, blockchain is the electricity giving it life. But electricity doesnt need to be bound to a particular power gridyou can find ways to create your own. At least in the early days, the shift seemed largely semantic; a question of emphasis. But as time wore on, the discussion surrounding Bitcoin increasingly became focused on how banks, governments, and financial systems could create or use their own blockchains, of which Bitcoin would be, at best, an incidental part. The revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Soon, Nasdaq, the worlds second-largest stock exchange, had declared 2015 to be the year of the blockchain . They even created their very own blockchain-enabled trading platform, Nasdaq Linq . The momentum has continued to build: A company called R3CEV is working with a consortium of 45 of the worlds most powerful banks and investment firms to create a modified blockchain that would allow companies to pick and choose what information they actually decentralize and what they keep held tight . Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation has joined forces with a whos-who of the tech and business worlds to create the Hyperledger Project , an open-source attempt to find new use cases for blockchain technology. Goldman Sachs has even patented its very own cryptocurrency, SETLcoin, to permit the instantaneous execution of trades on the stock market . One thing that links all of these projects? None of them use the word Bitcoin. For these financial behemoths, the appeal of the blockchain is obvious. Companies spend an inordinate amount of money on the intermediaries that facilitate the flow of capital between markets. Blockchain technology offers the possibility of those issues being delegated to a few lines of immutable computer code that, by their very nature, guarantee the legitimacy of the transaction. Vast swathes of complex transnational banking and investment apparatus could be rendered obsolete in a few comparatively minor technological adjustments. Bitcoin may be the platform on which this coming blockchain boom operates, or it may not. I imagine this will depend on some purely economic calculations being done by unfathomably vast and powerful financial institutions. In comparison to the almost $5 trillion traded on the international currency markets each and every day, Bitcoins $10 billion market cap is next best thing to a rounding error. It could vanish entirely and only a small cadre of true believers (and high-end drug dealers) would even mark its passing. What does seem certain is that the revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Dont get me wrong: I think Bitcoin is a fundamentally useful thing. Its myriad advantages over fiat currency would seem to demand its widespread adoption. But at a basic level, Bitcoin is trying to disrupt money . As it turns out, this may be like trying to refashion water, or the second law of thermodynamics. And like so many technologically disrupted fields before it, the promise of great change has given way to the reality of great consolidation. Whereas we once dreamed of a flat, universal currency with an equal value for all players, irrespective of size, now we face the reality of an international financial system thats almost entirely the samejust with a new coat of paint. Technological innovations of all stripes have long wrestled with a tension between revolution and legitimacy, and Bitcoin has perhaps felt the tension more keenly than most. To put the dilemma another way: Is Bitcoin trying to replace the international economic order, or work within it? Does it want to destroy Goldman Sachs, or be bought by it? To many within the movement, this is still an active question. But as the shadows lengthen on Bitcoins moment in the sun, its increasingly hard to believe in its initial promise of changing money for good. You can follow Luke on Twitter at @lukeayresryan . We welcome your comments at [email protected] . Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: I got scammed: A tech workers awful story shows the gap between idealism and reality in Silicon Valley Chinese people want renewable energy more than anyone, but nobodys selling it to them || How Bitcoin was brought down by its own potentialand the banks: Wouldn't it be so much easier if they just looked like this? The best that can be said about Bitcoin right now is that it still exists . Split by internal divisions while its most useful aspects are harvested by the very financial behemoths it once hoped to destroy, Bitcoin is fast becoming the tech worlds version of Waiting for Godot , wherein a hermetically sealed community squabbles and bickers over arcane points of code and law as their world slowly crumbles around them. In the last 12 months, attempts made to produce a road map for the cryptocurrencys future have come to naught, all while core developers abandon the project and opaque Chinese mining concerns wield outlandish power . What it feels like to be the last generation to remember life before the internet Welcome to todays Bitcoina phenomenon so internally focused that its advocates have barely noticed the battle has already been lost. Back at its inception, the conversation around the currency was driven by an almost unconscionable optimism. This wasnt simply a mechanism for the easy transfer of capital: This was a tool by which the entire international financial system could be made anew, with corrupt central banks, inflationary currencies, and immoral stockbrokers consigned to the dustbin of history. In a world still reeling from the chaos of the global financial crisis, Bitcoin seemed less like a currency and more like a way of future-proofing the global economy from ever having to deal with something so awful again. The Bitcoin boom of late 2013 brought greater mainstream attention to the cryptocurrency. Bitcoins value surged from $200 to $1,200 over the space of a few weeks, temporarily rendering it more valuable than gold . This was to be a short-lived state of affairs, however, as a string of scandals, hacks, exchange collapses, anddare I say itcommon sense brought the price of Bitcoin plummeting back to Earth. Cue three years of stagnation and false promise , as Bitcoin has struggled to prove its use for, well
anything, really. Even after all this time, Bitcoin is still an economy driven almost entirely by potentialby the dream that, one day soon, Bitcoin will become the lingua franca of the global economic order. Story continues Giving up alcohol opened my eyes to the infuriating truth about why women drink But Bitcoins spike and crash did have one unintended effect: It shone a bright light on a delicate, still-evolving financial ecosystem and shouted to the world, Theres gold in them thar hills! While the currency itself struggled to rediscover the magic of that first almighty explosion in 2013, the circling sharks of international finance spotted opportunity. Soon Bitcoin seemed primarily valuable for its blockchain, the distributed, unalterable public ledger that allows it to operate without trusted intermediaries. If Bitcoin is the power grid, blockchain is the electricity giving it life. But electricity doesnt need to be bound to a particular power gridyou can find ways to create your own. At least in the early days, the shift seemed largely semantic; a question of emphasis. But as time wore on, the discussion surrounding Bitcoin increasingly became focused on how banks, governments, and financial systems could create or use their own blockchains, of which Bitcoin would be, at best, an incidental part. The revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Soon, Nasdaq, the worlds second-largest stock exchange, had declared 2015 to be the year of the blockchain . They even created their very own blockchain-enabled trading platform, Nasdaq Linq . The momentum has continued to build: A company called R3CEV is working with a consortium of 45 of the worlds most powerful banks and investment firms to create a modified blockchain that would allow companies to pick and choose what information they actually decentralize and what they keep held tight . Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation has joined forces with a whos-who of the tech and business worlds to create the Hyperledger Project , an open-source attempt to find new use cases for blockchain technology. Goldman Sachs has even patented its very own cryptocurrency, SETLcoin, to permit the instantaneous execution of trades on the stock market . One thing that links all of these projects? None of them use the word Bitcoin. For these financial behemoths, the appeal of the blockchain is obvious. Companies spend an inordinate amount of money on the intermediaries that facilitate the flow of capital between markets. Blockchain technology offers the possibility of those issues being delegated to a few lines of immutable computer code that, by their very nature, guarantee the legitimacy of the transaction. Vast swathes of complex transnational banking and investment apparatus could be rendered obsolete in a few comparatively minor technological adjustments. Bitcoin may be the platform on which this coming blockchain boom operates, or it may not. I imagine this will depend on some purely economic calculations being done by unfathomably vast and powerful financial institutions. In comparison to the almost $5 trillion traded on the international currency markets each and every day, Bitcoins $10 billion market cap is next best thing to a rounding error. It could vanish entirely and only a small cadre of true believers (and high-end drug dealers) would even mark its passing. What does seem certain is that the revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Dont get me wrong: I think Bitcoin is a fundamentally useful thing. Its myriad advantages over fiat currency would seem to demand its widespread adoption. But at a basic level, Bitcoin is trying to disrupt money . As it turns out, this may be like trying to refashion water, or the second law of thermodynamics. And like so many technologically disrupted fields before it, the promise of great change has given way to the reality of great consolidation. Whereas we once dreamed of a flat, universal currency with an equal value for all players, irrespective of size, now we face the reality of an international financial system thats almost entirely the samejust with a new coat of paint. Technological innovations of all stripes have long wrestled with a tension between revolution and legitimacy, and Bitcoin has perhaps felt the tension more keenly than most. To put the dilemma another way: Is Bitcoin trying to replace the international economic order, or work within it? Does it want to destroy Goldman Sachs, or be bought by it? To many within the movement, this is still an active question. But as the shadows lengthen on Bitcoins moment in the sun, its increasingly hard to believe in its initial promise of changing money for good. You can follow Luke on Twitter at @lukeayresryan . We welcome your comments at [email protected] . Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: I got scammed: A tech workers awful story shows the gap between idealism and reality in Silicon Valley Chinese people want renewable energy more than anyone, but nobodys selling it to them || How Bitcoin was brought down by its own potentialand the banks: Wouldn't it be so much easier if they just looked like this? The best that can be said about Bitcoin right now is that it still exists . Split by internal divisions while its most useful aspects are harvested by the very financial behemoths it once hoped to destroy, Bitcoin is fast becoming the tech worlds version of Waiting for Godot , wherein a hermetically sealed community squabbles and bickers over arcane points of code and law as their world slowly crumbles around them. In the last 12 months, attempts made to produce a road map for the cryptocurrencys future have come to naught, all while core developers abandon the project and opaque Chinese mining concerns wield outlandish power . What it feels like to be the last generation to remember life before the internet Welcome to todays Bitcoina phenomenon so internally focused that its advocates have barely noticed the battle has already been lost. Back at its inception, the conversation around the currency was driven by an almost unconscionable optimism. This wasnt simply a mechanism for the easy transfer of capital: This was a tool by which the entire international financial system could be made anew, with corrupt central banks, inflationary currencies, and immoral stockbrokers consigned to the dustbin of history. In a world still reeling from the chaos of the global financial crisis, Bitcoin seemed less like a currency and more like a way of future-proofing the global economy from ever having to deal with something so awful again. The Bitcoin boom of late 2013 brought greater mainstream attention to the cryptocurrency. Bitcoins value surged from $200 to $1,200 over the space of a few weeks, temporarily rendering it more valuable than gold . This was to be a short-lived state of affairs, however, as a string of scandals, hacks, exchange collapses, anddare I say itcommon sense brought the price of Bitcoin plummeting back to Earth. Cue three years of stagnation and false promise , as Bitcoin has struggled to prove its use for, well
anything, really. Even after all this time, Bitcoin is still an economy driven almost entirely by potentialby the dream that, one day soon, Bitcoin will become the lingua franca of the global economic order. Story continues Giving up alcohol opened my eyes to the infuriating truth about why women drink But Bitcoins spike and crash did have one unintended effect: It shone a bright light on a delicate, still-evolving financial ecosystem and shouted to the world, Theres gold in them thar hills! While the currency itself struggled to rediscover the magic of that first almighty explosion in 2013, the circling sharks of international finance spotted opportunity. Soon Bitcoin seemed primarily valuable for its blockchain, the distributed, unalterable public ledger that allows it to operate without trusted intermediaries. If Bitcoin is the power grid, blockchain is the electricity giving it life. But electricity doesnt need to be bound to a particular power gridyou can find ways to create your own. At least in the early days, the shift seemed largely semantic; a question of emphasis. But as time wore on, the discussion surrounding Bitcoin increasingly became focused on how banks, governments, and financial systems could create or use their own blockchains, of which Bitcoin would be, at best, an incidental part. The revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Soon, Nasdaq, the worlds second-largest stock exchange, had declared 2015 to be the year of the blockchain . They even created their very own blockchain-enabled trading platform, Nasdaq Linq . The momentum has continued to build: A company called R3CEV is working with a consortium of 45 of the worlds most powerful banks and investment firms to create a modified blockchain that would allow companies to pick and choose what information they actually decentralize and what they keep held tight . Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation has joined forces with a whos-who of the tech and business worlds to create the Hyperledger Project , an open-source attempt to find new use cases for blockchain technology. Goldman Sachs has even patented its very own cryptocurrency, SETLcoin, to permit the instantaneous execution of trades on the stock market . One thing that links all of these projects? None of them use the word Bitcoin. For these financial behemoths, the appeal of the blockchain is obvious. Companies spend an inordinate amount of money on the intermediaries that facilitate the flow of capital between markets. Blockchain technology offers the possibility of those issues being delegated to a few lines of immutable computer code that, by their very nature, guarantee the legitimacy of the transaction. Vast swathes of complex transnational banking and investment apparatus could be rendered obsolete in a few comparatively minor technological adjustments. Bitcoin may be the platform on which this coming blockchain boom operates, or it may not. I imagine this will depend on some purely economic calculations being done by unfathomably vast and powerful financial institutions. In comparison to the almost $5 trillion traded on the international currency markets each and every day, Bitcoins $10 billion market cap is next best thing to a rounding error. It could vanish entirely and only a small cadre of true believers (and high-end drug dealers) would even mark its passing. What does seem certain is that the revolution heralded by Bitcoin now looks more likely to be transactional rather than transformational. Dont get me wrong: I think Bitcoin is a fundamentally useful thing. Its myriad advantages over fiat currency would seem to demand its widespread adoption. But at a basic level, Bitcoin is trying to disrupt money . As it turns out, this may be like trying to refashion water, or the second law of thermodynamics. And like so many technologically disrupted fields before it, the promise of great change has given way to the reality of great consolidation. Whereas we once dreamed of a flat, universal currency with an equal value for all players, irrespective of size, now we face the reality of an international financial system thats almost entirely the samejust with a new coat of paint. Technological innovations of all stripes have long wrestled with a tension between revolution and legitimacy, and Bitcoin has perhaps felt the tension more keenly than most. To put the dilemma another way: Is Bitcoin trying to replace the international economic order, or work within it? Does it want to destroy Goldman Sachs, or be bought by it? To many within the movement, this is still an active question. But as the shadows lengthen on Bitcoins moment in the sun, its increasingly hard to believe in its initial promise of changing money for good. You can follow Luke on Twitter at @lukeayresryan . We welcome your comments at [email protected] . Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: I got scammed: A tech workers awful story shows the gap between idealism and reality in Silicon Valley Chinese people want renewable energy more than anyone, but nobodys selling it to them || Cable & Wireless partners with Ericsson and Cisco to enhance its Caribbean IP networks: • C&W Communications invests in new network that will serve as backbone for IPTV services, fixed operations and part of business-to-business services
• Ericsson and Cisco will deliver an IP/MPLS network for C&W in three markets: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados
• An IP backbone network in the Bahamas will be upgraded to support traffic growth and improve performance on the fixed network
MIAMI, FL - August 30, 2016Ericsson (ERIC) and Cisco (CSCO) today announced an agreement to supply and install IP networks forC&W Communications, which operates the retail brand Flow, in three Caribbean markets. The plans include an upgrade to the IP backbone network in the Bahamas to improve performance and support an increase of traffic, and a new business-to-business IP/MPLS network in Jamaica and Barbados.
The partnership is part of C&W`s investment plan for the region to continue transforming its customer experience. As part of the partnership, Cisco will provide the necessary hardware while Ericsson will provide project management services.
"We needed a powerful and intelligent solution to bring IP networking to both Jamaica and Barbados, while at the same time improving the IP network in the Bahamas," says Carlo Alloni, Executive Vice-president and CTIO, C&W. "This partnership will allow us to offer even more value-added services including our world class IPTV services as well as introduce more innovative solutions to our customers."
"Our teams complemented each other with the right approach, from network analysis and planning to systems integration and customer support from Ericsson, to selecting the right routers and switches from Cisco, and finally ensuring the right flow along every step with Ericsson services," says Clayton Cruz, Vice President Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean. "The partnership has delivered real value to Cable & Wireless in terms of accelerating their IP transformation by combining end-to-end business transformation competence and experience with deep product and domain expertise."
The deal includes Cisco® routers and switches (ASR9000, ASR900 and WR4500 families), supply and installation of NMS system (EPN-M), overall project management, and customer support.
"Cisco and Ericsson working together have the combined breadth, depth and lifecycle engagement required to help operators like Cable & Wireless succeed in their transformation to an IP-centric network," says Jordi Botifoll, Cisco President Latin America & Senior Vice President in the Americas. "Working together on this project will lead Cable & Wireless to a standardized approach across other markets, so that all their business-to-business and IP fixed networks will be supported by IP/MPLS, helping them do things better and faster."
Ericsson and Cisco - two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud - formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. The first product from the partnership, Ericsson Dynamic Service Manager, was announced in February 2016. To date, over 200 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. Multiple deals, spread around the world, are in IP (routing and transport) and services. The companies announced deals with 3 Italy, Vodafone Portugal and Aster Dominican Republic earlier this year.
The Cisco-Ericsson partnership has been cleared by Brazilian regulatory authorities and will be implemented there under local agreements.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Ericsson and Cisco team up for next generation Network Service Management
For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society - a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure - especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries,we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world`s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions - and our customers - stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
www.ericsson.comwww.ericsson.com/newswww.twitter.com/ericssonpresswww.facebook.com/ericssonwww.youtube.com/ericsson
About CiscoCisco (CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products, and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow`s digital opportunity today. Discover more at newsroom.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco`s trademarks can be found atwww.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Ericsson Corporate CommunicationsPhone: +46 10 719 69 92E-mail:[email protected]
Ericsson Investor RelationsPhone: +46 10 719 00 00E-mail:[email protected]
Cisco PR ContactSara CiceroCisco Service Provider Public RelationsE-Mail:[email protected]
CWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region - in over 30 markets.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global is the world`s largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global`s businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ: LILA and LILAK, OTC Link: LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
C&W Communications
Investor Relations:Kunal Patel+1 (786) 376 9294
Media Relations:Claudia Restrepo+1 (786) 218 0407
Ericsson-Cisco CW deal_Press Release_final
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: Ericsson via GlobeNewswireHUG#2038210 || Cable & Wireless Partners With Ericsson and Cisco to Enhance Its Caribbean IP Networks: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Aug 30, 2016) - C&W Communications invests in new network that will serve as backbone for IPTV services, fixed operations and part of business-to-business services Ericsson and Cisco will deliver an IP/MPLS network for C&W in three markets: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados An IP backbone network in the Bahamas will be upgraded to support traffic growth and improve performance on the fixed network Ericsson ( NASDAQ : ERIC ) and Cisco ( NASDAQ : CSCO ) today announced an agreement to supply and install IP networks for C&W Communications , which operates the retail brand Flow, in three Caribbean markets. The plans include an upgrade to the IP backbone network in the Bahamas to improve performance and support an increase of traffic, and a new business-to-business IP/MPLS network in Jamaica and Barbados. The partnership is part of C&W's investment plan for the region to continue transforming its customer experience. As part of the partnership, Cisco will provide the necessary hardware while Ericsson will provide project management services. "We needed a powerful and intelligent solution to bring IP networking to both Jamaica and Barbados, while at the same time improving the IP network in the Bahamas," says Carlo Alloni, Executive Vice-president and CTIO, C&W. "This partnership will allow us to offer even more value-added services including our world class IPTV services as well as introduce more innovative solutions to our customers." "Our teams complemented each other with the right approach, from network analysis and planning to systems integration and customer support from Ericsson, to selecting the right routers and switches from Cisco, and finally ensuring the right flow along every step with Ericsson services," says Clayton Cruz, Vice President Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean. "The partnership has delivered real value to Cable & Wireless in terms of accelerating their IP transformation by combining end-to-end business transformation competence and experience with deep product and domain expertise." Story continues The deal includes Cisco® routers and switches (ASR9000, ASR900 and WR4500 families), supply and installation of NMS system (EPN-M), overall project management, and customer support. "Cisco and Ericsson working together have the combined breadth, depth and lifecycle engagement required to help operators like Cable & Wireless succeed in their transformation to an IP-centric network," says Jordi Botifoll, Cisco President Latin America & Senior Vice President in the Americas. "Working together on this project will lead Cable & Wireless to a standardized approach across other markets, so that all their business-to-business and IP fixed networks will be supported by IP/MPLS, helping them do things better and faster." Ericsson and Cisco -- two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud -- formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. The first product from the partnership, Ericsson Dynamic Service Manager, was announced in February 2016. To date, over 200 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. Multiple deals, spread around the world, are in IP (routing and transport) and services. The companies announced deals with 3 Italy, Vodafone Portugal and Aster Dominican Republic earlier this year. The Cisco-Ericsson partnership has been cleared by Brazilian regulatory authorities and will be implemented there under local agreements. NOTES TO EDITORS Ericsson and Cisco team up for next generation Network Service Management For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visit www.ericsson.com/press Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society -- a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future. Our services, software and infrastructure -- especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud -- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities. With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world's mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions -- and our customers -- stay in front. Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in 2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York. www.ericsson.com www.ericsson.com/news www.twitter.com/ericssonpress www.facebook.com/ericsson www.youtube.com/ericsson About Cisco Cisco ( NASDAQ : CSCO ) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products, and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at newsroom.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks . About C&W Communications CWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region -- in over 30 markets. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . || Cable & Wireless Partners With Ericsson and Cisco to Enhance Its Caribbean IP Networks: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Aug 30, 2016) -
• C&W Communications invests in new network that will serve as backbone for IPTV services, fixed operations and part of business-to-business services
• Ericsson and Cisco will deliver an IP/MPLS network for C&W in three markets: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados
• An IP backbone network in the Bahamas will be upgraded to support traffic growth and improve performance on the fixed network
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) today announced an agreement to supply and install IP networks forC&W Communications, which operates the retail brand Flow, in three Caribbean markets. The plans include an upgrade to the IP backbone network in the Bahamas to improve performance and support an increase of traffic, and a new business-to-business IP/MPLS network in Jamaica and Barbados.
The partnership is part of C&W's investment plan for the region to continue transforming its customer experience. As part of the partnership, Cisco will provide the necessary hardware while Ericsson will provide project management services.
"We needed a powerful and intelligent solution to bring IP networking to both Jamaica and Barbados, while at the same time improving the IP network in the Bahamas," says Carlo Alloni, Executive Vice-president and CTIO, C&W. "This partnership will allow us to offer even more value-added services including our world class IPTV services as well as introduce more innovative solutions to our customers."
"Our teams complemented each other with the right approach, from network analysis and planning to systems integration and customer support from Ericsson, to selecting the right routers and switches from Cisco, and finally ensuring the right flow along every step with Ericsson services," says Clayton Cruz, Vice President Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean. "The partnership has delivered real value to Cable & Wireless in terms of accelerating their IP transformation by combining end-to-end business transformation competence and experience with deep product and domain expertise."
The deal includes Cisco® routers and switches (ASR9000, ASR900 and WR4500 families), supply and installation of NMS system (EPN-M), overall project management, and customer support.
"Cisco and Ericsson working together have the combined breadth, depth and lifecycle engagement required to help operators like Cable & Wireless succeed in their transformation to an IP-centric network," says Jordi Botifoll, Cisco President Latin America & Senior Vice President in the Americas. "Working together on this project will lead Cable & Wireless to a standardized approach across other markets, so that all their business-to-business and IP fixed networks will be supported by IP/MPLS, helping them do things better and faster."
Ericsson and Cisco -- two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud -- formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. The first product from the partnership, Ericsson Dynamic Service Manager, was announced in February 2016. To date, over 200 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. Multiple deals, spread around the world, are in IP (routing and transport) and services. The companies announced deals with 3 Italy, Vodafone Portugal and Aster Dominican Republic earlier this year.
The Cisco-Ericsson partnership has been cleared by Brazilian regulatory authorities and will be implemented there under local agreements.
NOTES TO EDITORSEricsson and Cisco team up for next generation Network Service ManagementFor media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society -- a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure -- especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud -- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world's mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions -- and our customers -- stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
www.ericsson.comwww.ericsson.com/newswww.twitter.com/ericssonpresswww.facebook.com/ericssonwww.youtube.com/ericsson
About CiscoCisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Our people, products, and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at newsroom.cisco.com and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found atwww.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
About C&W CommunicationsCWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region -- in over 30 markets.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || 3 of Murray Stahl's Latest Investment Ideas: - By Bram de Haas
FRMO Corp. (FRMO) is out with another annual letter to investors by CEOMurray Stahl(Trades,Portfolio) and CFO Steven Bregman, and as always, it is highly interesting and a must-read for any enterprising value investor who enjoys creative ideas. The full letter can be read here, but I have taken the liberty to summarize the actionable investment ideas for you:
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with PM. Click here to check it out.
• FRMO 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of FRMO
• Peter Lynch Chart of FRMO
1. CASH
If there is one important idea in the letter it is to keep cash. For some time now, Stahl and Bregman have been fairly bearish on the outlook for the investment landscape. Especially liquid investments contained in many ETF's are highly unattractive to them.
Readers of our Shareholder Letter for 2015 will recall that in the first paragraph we made reference to exceedingly low interest rates. We did not imagine the appearance of negative interest rates. As far as we can determine, after consulting Sidney Homer's classic text The History of Interest Rates , we are now in the lowest interest rate environment in the last 5,000 years. This is important, since interest rates establish value for all financial assets. Consequently, valuations for many types of financial assets are high. The investment opportunity set is, therefore, unusually narrow. It is for this reason that we carry about $49 million of cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet. Indeed, viewed on a tangible assets basis, we are largely uninvested, since much of the balance sheet valuation of our Horizon Kinetics LLC assets is necessarily intangible.
One of the solutions proposed and put in practice by the duo is to hoard cash in large quantities. Not just as a defensive measure, but also in an offensive way. The cash can be used ONCE asset prices go down. What is merely zero yielding cash now, can be highly lucrative firepower later. Their argumentation strongly reminds me of " The Dao Of Capital" by Spitznagel. From the blurb:
We arrive at his central investment methodology ofAustrian Investing, where victory comes not from waging the immediate decisive battle, but rather from theroundaboutapproach of seeking the intermediate positional advantage (what he callsshi), of aiming at the indirect means rather than directly at the ends.
The roundabout is where he bets first on something that will decline in crisis, to reap rewards exactly at a time where liquidity comes at a premium. It is then the Austrian Investor is flush with cash and can harvest.
2. BITCOIN
Stahl and Bregman have, as long as I have tracked their moves, taken optionality very seriously. One outgrowth of that preference is the ownership interests in many exchanges of financial assets carried by FRMO. Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins are, in essence, exchanges as well. They represent a method to exchange value or store value. Still in the early innings of what they could be, there is tremendous optionality within Bitcoin, the blockchain and other altcoins. FRMO holds an investment in the Digital Currency Group, which is an investor in many different bitcoin and blockchain related companies. Among other assets, it holds a stake in Coinbase (a very user friendly bitcoin and ethereum wallet) and the GBTC, which is one of the few ways institutional investors can buy Bitcoin. In addition in 2016, as per the annual letter, Horizon Kinetics also established a fund that invests in bitcoin:
The fund established an investment maximum of $50,000 per client. We are not aware of any other firm that so constrains client contributions. However, we believe it is the easiest and most obvious way to control risk. We simply limit the amount of money that can possibly be lost to an amount that is tolerable. Investment firms often complain about the short-term focus of clients. The short-term focus is more understandable if the investment in failure mode could quite negatively impact their lives. In any case, we rapidly sold essentially every available slot in the fund.
I like this for two reasons: 1) the fact that they set up another successful fund and 2) This increases FRMO's exposure to crytocurrency, a currency or asset class (however you want to call it) that I'm bullish on as it solves real-world problems. For a more in-depth discussion, you can reference my writing in 5 reasons to buy bitcoin and 6 reasons why you shouldn't invest in bitcoin .
MICROCAPS
As an extension of Stahl and Bregman's distrust of large liquid assets, they pursue lots of illiquid assets but also have become interested in the micro cap space.
As a consequence of the industrial scale upon which indexes operate, the largest companies frequently have valuations far in excess of smaller companies. For example, large-capitalization shares have outperformed micro-capitalization equities for years. The S&P 500 trades at nearly two times the price-to-book-value ratio of a typical micro-capitalization index. This is very unusual. However, the enormous industrial scale of indexation investing, as well as the market capitalization float adjusted methodology of weighting, requires maximum trading liquidity that simply cannot be provided by genuinely small companies. Another factor, the importance of which is difficult to quantify, is that the large companies frequently pay robust dividends. This is not usually true of small firms. There are many large capitalization equity indexes that are marketed as so-called "bond substitutes." This is nothing other than a consequence of the worldwide central bank effort to lower interest rates, to zero in many instances. The theory behind this effort was to essentially force investors into risk-based assets and, hence, stimulate economic growth.
It is not referenced by name in the current annual letter, but I believe their investment in the Royce Microcap Trust (RMT), through Horizon Kinetics funds, is inspired by this idea. This is a closed-end fund that is trading at a historically very sizeable discount, while micro caps have underperformed for years on end. Lots of potential to get a double whammy here if both micro caps close the valuation gap with large caps and the discount to intrinsic value narrows. As you can see below, the discount is really much wider than it has historically been:
Disclosure: Long FRMO Corp and Bitcoin.
Start afree 7-day trial of Premium Membershipto GuruFocus.
This article first appeared onGuruFocus.
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with PM. Click here to check it out.
• FRMO 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of FRMO
• Peter Lynch Chart of FRMO || 3 of Murray Stahl's Latest Investment Ideas: - By Bram de Haas FRMO Corp. (FRMO) is out with another annual letter to investors by CEO Murray Stahl ( Trades , Portfolio ) and CFO Steven Bregman, and as always, it is highly interesting and a must-read for any enterprising value investor who enjoys creative ideas. The full letter can be read here, but I have taken the liberty to summarize the actionable investment ideas for you: Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with PM. Click here to check it out. FRMO 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of FRMO Peter Lynch Chart of FRMO 1. CASH If there is one important idea in the letter it is to keep cash. For some time now, Stahl and Bregman have been fairly bearish on the outlook for the investment landscape. Especially liquid investments contained in many ETF's are highly unattractive to them. Readers of our Shareholder Letter for 2015 will recall that in the first paragraph we made reference to exceedingly low interest rates. We did not imagine the appearance of negative interest rates. As far as we can determine, after consulting Sidney Homer's classic text The History of Interest Rates , we are now in the lowest interest rate environment in the last 5,000 years. This is important, since interest rates establish value for all financial assets. Consequently, valuations for many types of financial assets are high. The investment opportunity set is, therefore, unusually narrow. It is for this reason that we carry about $49 million of cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet. Indeed, viewed on a tangible assets basis, we are largely uninvested, since much of the balance sheet valuation of our Horizon Kinetics LLC assets is necessarily intangible. One of the solutions proposed and put in practice by the duo is to hoard cash in large quantities. Not just as a defensive measure, but also in an offensive way. The cash can be used ONCE asset prices go down. What is merely zero yielding cash now, can be highly lucrative firepower later. Their argumentation strongly reminds me of " The Dao Of Capital" by Spitznagel. From the blurb: Story continues We arrive at his central investment methodology of Austrian Investing , where victory comes not from waging the immediate decisive battle, but rather from the roundabout approach of seeking the intermediate positional advantage (what he calls shi ), of aiming at the indirect means rather than directly at the ends. The roundabout is where he bets first on something that will decline in crisis, to reap rewards exactly at a time where liquidity comes at a premium. It is then the Austrian Investor is flush with cash and can harvest. 2. BITCOIN Stahl and Bregman have, as long as I have tracked their moves, taken optionality very seriously. One outgrowth of that preference is the ownership interests in many exchanges of financial assets carried by FRMO. Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins are, in essence, exchanges as well. They represent a method to exchange value or store value. Still in the early innings of what they could be, there is tremendous optionality within Bitcoin, the blockchain and other altcoins. FRMO holds an investment in the Digital Currency Group, which is an investor in many different bitcoin and blockchain related companies. Among other assets, it holds a stake in Coinbase (a very user friendly bitcoin and ethereum wallet) and the GBTC, which is one of the few ways institutional investors can buy Bitcoin. In addition in 2016, as per the annual letter, Horizon Kinetics also established a fund that invests in bitcoin: The fund established an investment maximum of $50,000 per client. We are not aware of any other firm that so constrains client contributions. However, we believe it is the easiest and most obvious way to control risk. We simply limit the amount of money that can possibly be lost to an amount that is tolerable. Investment firms often complain about the short-term focus of clients. The short-term focus is more understandable if the investment in failure mode could quite negatively impact their lives. In any case, we rapidly sold essentially every available slot in the fund. I like this for two reasons: 1) the fact that they set up another successful fund and 2) This increases FRMO's exposure to crytocurrency, a currency or asset class (however you want to call it) that I'm bullish on as it solves real-world problems. For a more in-depth discussion, you can reference my writing in 5 reasons to buy bitcoin and 6 reasons why you shouldn't invest in bitcoin . MICROCAPS As an extension of Stahl and Bregman's distrust of large liquid assets, they pursue lots of illiquid assets but also have become interested in the micro cap space. As a consequence of the industrial scale upon which indexes operate, the largest companies frequently have valuations far in excess of smaller companies. For example, large-capitalization shares have outperformed micro-capitalization equities for years. The S&P 500 trades at nearly two times the price-to-book-value ratio of a typical micro-capitalization index. This is very unusual. However, the enormous industrial scale of indexation investing, as well as the market capitalization float adjusted methodology of weighting, requires maximum trading liquidity that simply cannot be provided by genuinely small companies. Another factor, the importance of which is difficult to quantify, is that the large companies frequently pay robust dividends. This is not usually true of small firms. There are many large capitalization equity indexes that are marketed as so-called "bond substitutes." This is nothing other than a consequence of the worldwide central bank effort to lower interest rates, to zero in many instances. The theory behind this effort was to essentially force investors into risk-based assets and, hence, stimulate economic growth. It is not referenced by name in the current annual letter, but I believe their investment in the Royce Microcap Trust ( RMT ), through Horizon Kinetics funds, is inspired by this idea. This is a closed-end fund that is trading at a historically very sizeable discount, while micro caps have underperformed for years on end. Lots of potential to get a double whammy here if both micro caps close the valuation gap with large caps and the discount to intrinsic value narrows. As you can see below, the discount is really much wider than it has historically been: discountNAV.jpg Disclosure: Long FRMO Corp and Bitcoin. Start a free 7-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus . Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with PM. Click here to check it out. FRMO 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of FRMO Peter Lynch Chart of FRMO || Cyber threat grows for bitcoin exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency. The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange in early 2014 -- is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies. New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene. This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact there is no depositor's insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks. Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with under-capitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would. "There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk," said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article. "So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins," the trader said. The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency. "I am skeptical there's going to be any technological silver bullet that's going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks," said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa's Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges. Story continues His study, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin's creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world. In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That's roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks. Among the world's stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack. Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie. In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research entitled Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013. In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore's research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case. "A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology," said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world. Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat. Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges' are required to put up. Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times. RECOVERING LOSSES A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy's Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges are real. In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company. At Tokyo's MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after closure. Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users' digital currencies like banks control customer deposits. "The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers," said ShapeShift's Voorhees, "and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds." When customers' checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft. Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges. "Unfortunately because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Edward Tobin) || Cyber threat grows for bitcoin exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency. The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange in early 2014 -- is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies. New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene. This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact there is no depositor's insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks. Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with under-capitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would. "There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk," said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article. "So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins," the trader said. The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency. "I am skeptical there's going to be any technological silver bullet that's going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks," said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa's Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges. Story continues His study, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin's creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world. In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That's roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks. Among the world's stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack. Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie. In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research entitled Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013. In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore's research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case. "A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology," said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world. Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat. Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges' are required to put up. Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times. RECOVERING LOSSES A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy's Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges are real. In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company. At Tokyo's MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after closure. Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users' digital currencies like banks control customer deposits. "The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers," said ShapeShift's Voorhees, "and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds." When customers' checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft. Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges. "Unfortunately because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Edward Tobin) || Cyber threat grows for bitcoin exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency. The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange in early 2014 -- is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies. New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene. This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact there is no depositor's insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks. Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with under-capitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would. "There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk," said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article. "So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins," the trader said. The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency. "I am skeptical there's going to be any technological silver bullet that's going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks," said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa's Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges. His study, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin's creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world. In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That's roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks. Among the world's stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack. Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie. In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research entitled “Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk” was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013. In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore's research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case. "A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology," said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world. Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat. Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges' are required to put up. Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times. RECOVERING LOSSES A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy's Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges are real. In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company. At Tokyo's MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after closure. Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users' digital currencies like banks control customer deposits. "The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers," said ShapeShift's Voorhees, "and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds." When customers' checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft. Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges. "Unfortunately because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Edward Tobin) || Cyber threat grows for bitcoin exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency. The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange in early 2014 -- is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies. New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene. This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact there is no depositor's insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks. Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with under-capitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would. "There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk," said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article. "So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins," the trader said. The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency. "I am skeptical there's going to be any technological silver bullet that's going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks," said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa's Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges. His study, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin's creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world. In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That's roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks. Among the world's stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack. Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie. In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research entitled Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013. In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore's research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case. "A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology," said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world. Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat. Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges' are required to put up. Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times. RECOVERING LOSSES A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy's Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges are real. In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company. At Tokyo's MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after closure. Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users' digital currencies like banks control customer deposits. "The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers," said ShapeShift's Voorhees, "and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds." When customers' checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft. Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges. "Unfortunately because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Edward Tobin)
[Social Media Buzz]
#ChainCoin #CHC $0.000078 (-0.36%) 0.00000013 BTC (-0.00%) || Current price of Bitcoin is $606.00. || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000098 BTC YoBit 0.00000062 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000090 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-09-05 06:00 pic.twitter.com/je8QanvcxF || 1 #bitcoin = $11144.00 MXN | $603.36 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 18.47MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || LIVE: Profit = $64.00 (0.14 %). BUY B72.81 @ $604.57 (#BTCe). SELL @ $608.39 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || In the last 10 mins, t...
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610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 2518.44, 2372.56, 2337.79, 2398.84, 2357.90, 2233.34, 1998.86, 1929.82, 2228.41, 2318.88, 2273.43, 2817.60, 2667.76, 2810.12, 2730.40, 2754.86, 2576.48, 2529.45, 2671.78, 2809.01, 2726.45, 2757.18, 2875.34, 2718.26, 2710.67, 2804.73, 2895.89, 3252.91, 3213.94, 3378.94, 3419.94, 3342.47, 3381.28, 3650.62, 3884.71, 4073.26, 4325.13, 4181.93, 4376.63, 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12, 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94, 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-10-06]
Volume: 1069939968, RSI (14-day): 57.88, 50-day EMA: 3988.22, 200-day EMA: 2915.02
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1271.60, Gold RSI: 37.33
Oil Price: 49.29, Oil RSI: 46.27
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
BlackRock Exec: No Point in Bitcoin ETF: An executive for the world's largest asset manager said this week that he doesn't see the case for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Speaking with Bloomberg on October 3, Mark Wiedman, who serves as Global Head of iShares and Index Investments for BlackRock, was asked about his views on the prospects of a cryptocurrency-tied ETF. A number of firms have attempted to launch such a product, but to date the SEC has been largely dismissive of the concept, issuing notable rejections in the public and, in other cases, prompting some bitcoin ETF backers to withdraw their efforts. Wiedman said in the interview that he doesn't see it happening, citing other ETF-related products that the firm would encourage clients to hold "in perpetuity." In the case of bitcoin, Wiedman said that he "would not encourage a client to hold bitcoin in perpetuity." On the question of an ETF specifically, Wiedman went on to say: "I don’t quite get the point of a bitcoin ETF in any case, because we’re talking about...trading products that are difficult to access. If bitcoin is ever successful – and again not my thing but – I wouldn’t recommend it. But if it were [successful], why would you need an ETF to access it?" Wiedman isn't the only BlackRock executive to comment on cryptocurrencies this week. That same day, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was quoted as saying that he is a "big believer" in the potential of cryptocurrencies. That said, he took aim at the speculation in the market and suggested that cryptocurrencies are being buoyed by money laundering. Image via YouTube/Bloomberg Related Stories BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Is a 'Big Believer' in Cryptocurrency VanEck's Bitcoin Futures ETF Effort Dealt Blow By SEC Two More Bitcoin Futures ETFs Are Up for SEC Approval Bitcoin Short: ETF Firm Rex Eyes Downside Potential With Fund Filing View comments || BlackRock Exec: No Point in Bitcoin ETF: An executive for the world's largest asset manager said this week that he doesn't see the case for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Speaking withBloombergon October 3, Mark Wiedman, who serves as Global Head of iShares and Index Investments for BlackRock, was asked about his views on the prospects of a cryptocurrency-tied ETF. A number of firms have attempted to launch such a product, but to date the SEC has been largely dismissive of the concept, issuing notable rejections in the public and, in other cases, prompting some bitcoin ETF backers to withdraw their efforts.
Wiedman said in the interview that he doesn't see it happening, citing other ETF-related products that the firm would encourage clients to hold "in perpetuity." In the case of bitcoin, Wiedman said that he "would not encourage a client to hold bitcoin in perpetuity."
On the question of an ETF specifically, Wiedman went on to say:
"I don’t quite get the point of a bitcoin ETF in any case, because we’re talking about...trading products that are difficult to access. If bitcoin is ever successful – and again not my thing but – I wouldn’t recommend it. But if it were [successful], why would you need an ETF to access it?"
Wiedman isn't the only BlackRock executive to comment on cryptocurrencies this week.
That same day,BlackRock CEO Larry Finkwas quoted as saying that he is a "big believer" in the potential of cryptocurrencies. That said, he took aim at the speculation in the market and suggested that cryptocurrencies are being buoyed by money laundering.
Image viaYouTube/Bloomberg
• BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Is a 'Big Believer' in Cryptocurrency
• VanEck's Bitcoin Futures ETF Effort Dealt Blow By SEC
• Two More Bitcoin Futures ETFs Are Up for SEC Approval
• Bitcoin Short: ETF Firm Rex Eyes Downside Potential With Fund Filing || BlackRock Exec: No Point in Bitcoin ETF: An executive for the world's largest asset manager said this week that he doesn't see the case for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Speaking withBloombergon October 3, Mark Wiedman, who serves as Global Head of iShares and Index Investments for BlackRock, was asked about his views on the prospects of a cryptocurrency-tied ETF. A number of firms have attempted to launch such a product, but to date the SEC has been largely dismissive of the concept, issuing notable rejections in the public and, in other cases, prompting some bitcoin ETF backers to withdraw their efforts.
Wiedman said in the interview that he doesn't see it happening, citing other ETF-related products that the firm would encourage clients to hold "in perpetuity." In the case of bitcoin, Wiedman said that he "would not encourage a client to hold bitcoin in perpetuity."
On the question of an ETF specifically, Wiedman went on to say:
"I don’t quite get the point of a bitcoin ETF in any case, because we’re talking about...trading products that are difficult to access. If bitcoin is ever successful – and again not my thing but – I wouldn’t recommend it. But if it were [successful], why would you need an ETF to access it?"
Wiedman isn't the only BlackRock executive to comment on cryptocurrencies this week.
That same day,BlackRock CEO Larry Finkwas quoted as saying that he is a "big believer" in the potential of cryptocurrencies. That said, he took aim at the speculation in the market and suggested that cryptocurrencies are being buoyed by money laundering.
Image viaYouTube/Bloomberg
• BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Is a 'Big Believer' in Cryptocurrency
• VanEck's Bitcoin Futures ETF Effort Dealt Blow By SEC
• Two More Bitcoin Futures ETFs Are Up for SEC Approval
• Bitcoin Short: ETF Firm Rex Eyes Downside Potential With Fund Filing || Losing Steam? Dash Price Rallies Over $300 But Upside in Doubt: With a rally in bitcoin pushing up the wider cryptocurrency asset class, dash is back above $300. At press time, the dash-US dollar ( DASH/USD ) exchange rate is down over the last week ( as expected ) falling to $285 on October 3; its lowest level since September 17. The cryptocurrency is now trading at $306; down 1.6 percent in the last 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap. Yet, the sell-off seen over the last week serves to highlight a peculiarity of the cryptocurrency – that is proving somewhat disconnected with the broader market. For example, while bitcoin remained strongly bid over the weekend, dash suffered losses. One possible explanation for the behavior, however, is that the market is becoming more conscious that dash is seeking to compete with bitcoin as a payment network focused on consumer transactions. As the bitcoin blockchain has hung tightly to limitations on network storage (see: the scaling debate ), other blockchains, dash included, are seeking to compete. At press time, the average dash transaction fee was $0.02, or about $1.50 at current prices. Larger debates about blockchain mechanics aside, dash could remain well bid above $300, and any signs that this value proposition is strengthening could potentially lead it to act as a viable bitcoin hedge. However, the price action analysis suggests, the uptick in dash could run out of steam around $320 levels. 4-hour chart A bullish break of the falling channel would open doors for a rally to $324 (4-hour 200-MA) and $330 levels. Daily chart The chart above shows: 5-day moving average and 10-day moving average is sloping downwards. Thus, upticks above $320 could be short-lived. The 50-day moving average is still sloping upwards and currently, stands at $323 levels. View In the short-run, a move to $320-330 looks likely. Caution is advised above $320 levels as the 10-day moving average is still sloping downwards. Only two consecutive days-end close above the 50-day moving average would open doors for a rally to $373 levels (Sep 27 high). Story continues Billiards image via Shutterstock Related Stories Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods? Ripple Price Consolidates, But Could It 'Swell' Higher? $100 Ahead? Monero Price Holding Strong Above Key Support Level Golden Crossover: Bitcoin Charts Suggest Price Readying for Bump || Losing Steam? Dash Price Rallies Over $300 But Upside in Doubt: With a rally in bitcoin pushing up the wider cryptocurrency asset class, dash is back above $300.
At press time, the dash-US dollar (DASH/USD) exchange rate is down over the last week (as expected) falling to $285 on October 3; its lowest level since September 17. The cryptocurrency is now trading at $306; down 1.6 percent in the last 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap.
Yet, the sell-off seen over the last week serves to highlight a peculiarity of the cryptocurrency – that is proving somewhat disconnected with the broader market. For example, while bitcoin remained strongly bid over the weekend, dash suffered losses.
One possible explanation for the behavior, however, is that the market is becoming more conscious that dash is seeking to compete with bitcoin as a payment network focused on consumer transactions.
As the bitcoin blockchain has hung tightly to limitations on network storage (see: thescaling debate), other blockchains, dash included, are seeking to compete. At press time, the average dash transaction fee was $0.02, or about $1.50 at current prices.
Larger debates about blockchain mechanics aside, dash could remain well bid above $300, and any signs that this value proposition is strengthening could potentially lead it to act as a viable bitcoin hedge.
However, the price action analysis suggests, the uptick in dash could run out of steam around $320 levels.
• A bullish break of the falling channel would open doors for a rally to $324 (4-hour 200-MA) and $330 levels.
The chart above shows:
• 5-day moving average and 10-day moving average is sloping downwards. Thus, upticks above $320 could be short-lived.
• The 50-day moving average is still sloping upwards and currently, stands at $323 levels.
View
• In the short-run, a move to $320-330 looks likely. Caution is advised above $320 levels as the 10-day moving average is still sloping downwards.
• Only two consecutive days-end close above the 50-day moving average would open doors for a rally to $373 levels (Sep 27 high).
Billiards imagevia Shutterstock
• Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods?
• Ripple Price Consolidates, But Could It 'Swell' Higher?
• $100 Ahead? Monero Price Holding Strong Above Key Support Level
• Golden Crossover: Bitcoin Charts Suggest Price Readying for Bump || 14% Upside Seen For Nvidia Shares On PC Gaming, Bitcoin Mining Strength: NVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) could see a boost from ahighly-hypedslate of new video games.
Ahead of last fall’s “Battlefield 1,” “Gears of War 4” and “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” releases, computergamersupgraded to Nvidia’s Pascal-based GeForce GPUs and drove quarterly gaming revenue above $1.24 billion.
Loop Capital Markets expects this fall’s “Destiny 2,” “Call of Duty: WWII,” “Star Wars: Battlefront 2” and “Middle Earth: Shadow of War” to inspire a similar wave of upgrades to GeForce GTX series GPUs. The product’s 1080 Ti and 1070 segments are currently sold out online, justifying Loop estimates of $1.292 million in quarterly gaming revenue against last quarter’s $1.245 million.
Ethereum
Although management guided for a sequential drop incryptocurrencyrevenue, Loop anticipates steady performance driven byEthereumblockchain activity.
“While we have been cautious on the adoption of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, our checks point to mining demand for ether tokens remains intact,” analyst Betsy Van Hees wrote (see her track record here).
Last quarter, Nvidia brought in about $150 million from its OEM and IP client segment consisting largely of ether miners, and Van Hees predicts comparable third-quarter results.
Data Centers
At the same time, Nvidia’s production and shipment status for Volta GPUs drive Loop expectations for double-digit sequential growth in data center revenue.
The firm’s client list for Tesla V100 GPUs recently expanded to includeAlibaba Group Holding Ltd(NYSE:BABA),Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU),Tencent Holdings Ltd,Dell EMC,Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co(NYSE:HPE),International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) andSuper Micro Computer, Inc.(NASDAQ:SMCI); andHuawei,InspurandLenovouse its HGX server hardware.
The Bottom Line
Loop reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and raise its price target from $181 to $205. It also raised its quarterly estimates to $1.11 earnings per share and $2.39 billion revenue.
“We believe NVDA should trade well above the blended peer group average of 23x given its impressive growth opportunities across multiple end-markets,” Van Hees wrote.
Related Links:
Expect Nvidia, AMD To Ride Cryptocurrency Wave Into 2018
Looking Beyond The Shiny Surface Of Nvidia’s Big Q2 Beat
Latest Ratings for NVDA
[{"Oct 2017": "Sep 2017", "Barclays": "Bank of America", "Maintains": "Maintains", "": "", "Equal-Weight": "Buy"}, {"Oct 2017": "Aug 2017", "Barclays": "Canaccord Genuity", "Maintains": "Maintains", "": "", "Equal-Weight": "Buy"}]
View More Analyst Ratings for NVDAView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• Chinese OEMs Will Use Nvidia's HGX Reference Architecture For Data Centers
• AMD Might Be Working With Tesla On An AI Chip
• All The Stocks That Moved During Apple's Product Unveil Event
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 14% Upside Seen For Nvidia Shares On PC Gaming, Bitcoin Mining Strength: NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA ) could see a boost from a highly-hyped slate of new video games. Ahead of last fall’s “Battlefield 1,” “Gears of War 4” and “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” releases, computer gamers upgraded to Nvidia’s Pascal-based GeForce GPUs and drove quarterly gaming revenue above $1.24 billion. Loop Capital Markets expects this fall’s “Destiny 2,” “Call of Duty: WWII,” “Star Wars: Battlefront 2” and “Middle Earth: Shadow of War” to inspire a similar wave of upgrades to GeForce GTX series GPUs. The product’s 1080 Ti and 1070 segments are currently sold out online, justifying Loop estimates of $1.292 million in quarterly gaming revenue against last quarter’s $1.245 million. Ethereum Although management guided for a sequential drop in cryptocurrency revenue, Loop anticipates steady performance driven by Ethereum blockchain activity. “While we have been cautious on the adoption of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, our checks point to mining demand for ether tokens remains intact,” analyst Betsy Van Hees wrote (see her track record here). Last quarter, Nvidia brought in about $150 million from its OEM and IP client segment consisting largely of ether miners, and Van Hees predicts comparable third-quarter results. Data Centers At the same time, Nvidia’s production and shipment status for Volta GPUs drive Loop expectations for double-digit sequential growth in data center revenue. The firm’s client list for Tesla V100 GPUs recently expanded to include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA ), Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ: BIDU ), Tencent Holdings Ltd , Dell EMC , Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE: HPE ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ) and Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI ); and Huawei , Inspur and Lenovo use its HGX server hardware. The Bottom Line Loop reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and raise its price target from $181 to $205. It also raised its quarterly estimates to $1.11 earnings per share and $2.39 billion revenue. “We believe NVDA should trade well above the blended peer group average of 23x given its impressive growth opportunities across multiple end-markets,” Van Hees wrote. Related Links: Expect Nvidia, AMD To Ride Cryptocurrency Wave Into 2018 Looking Beyond The Shiny Surface Of Nvidia’s Big Q2 Beat Latest Ratings for NVDA Oct 2017 Barclays Maintains Equal-Weight Sep 2017 Bank of America Maintains Buy Aug 2017 Canaccord Genuity Maintains Buy View More Analyst Ratings for NVDA View the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga Chinese OEMs Will Use Nvidia's HGX Reference Architecture For Data Centers AMD Might Be Working With Tesla On An AI Chip All The Stocks That Moved During Apple's Product Unveil Event © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || 14% Upside Seen For Nvidia Shares On PC Gaming, Bitcoin Mining Strength: NVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) could see a boost from ahighly-hypedslate of new video games.
Ahead of last fall’s “Battlefield 1,” “Gears of War 4” and “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” releases, computergamersupgraded to Nvidia’s Pascal-based GeForce GPUs and drove quarterly gaming revenue above $1.24 billion.
Loop Capital Markets expects this fall’s “Destiny 2,” “Call of Duty: WWII,” “Star Wars: Battlefront 2” and “Middle Earth: Shadow of War” to inspire a similar wave of upgrades to GeForce GTX series GPUs. The product’s 1080 Ti and 1070 segments are currently sold out online, justifying Loop estimates of $1.292 million in quarterly gaming revenue against last quarter’s $1.245 million.
Ethereum
Although management guided for a sequential drop incryptocurrencyrevenue, Loop anticipates steady performance driven byEthereumblockchain activity.
“While we have been cautious on the adoption of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, our checks point to mining demand for ether tokens remains intact,” analyst Betsy Van Hees wrote (see her track record here).
Last quarter, Nvidia brought in about $150 million from its OEM and IP client segment consisting largely of ether miners, and Van Hees predicts comparable third-quarter results.
Data Centers
At the same time, Nvidia’s production and shipment status for Volta GPUs drive Loop expectations for double-digit sequential growth in data center revenue.
The firm’s client list for Tesla V100 GPUs recently expanded to includeAlibaba Group Holding Ltd(NYSE:BABA),Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU),Tencent Holdings Ltd,Dell EMC,Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co(NYSE:HPE),International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) andSuper Micro Computer, Inc.(NASDAQ:SMCI); andHuawei,InspurandLenovouse its HGX server hardware.
The Bottom Line
Loop reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and raise its price target from $181 to $205. It also raised its quarterly estimates to $1.11 earnings per share and $2.39 billion revenue.
“We believe NVDA should trade well above the blended peer group average of 23x given its impressive growth opportunities across multiple end-markets,” Van Hees wrote.
Related Links:
Expect Nvidia, AMD To Ride Cryptocurrency Wave Into 2018
Looking Beyond The Shiny Surface Of Nvidia’s Big Q2 Beat
Latest Ratings for NVDA
[{"Oct 2017": "Sep 2017", "Barclays": "Bank of America", "Maintains": "Maintains", "": "", "Equal-Weight": "Buy"}, {"Oct 2017": "Aug 2017", "Barclays": "Canaccord Genuity", "Maintains": "Maintains", "": "", "Equal-Weight": "Buy"}]
View More Analyst Ratings for NVDAView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• Chinese OEMs Will Use Nvidia's HGX Reference Architecture For Data Centers
• AMD Might Be Working With Tesla On An AI Chip
• All The Stocks That Moved During Apple's Product Unveil Event
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Glance Technologies and Netcoins Inc. Form Alliance Expediting Settlement of Bitcoin Transactions for Their Customers - Video Available on Investmentpitch.com: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 5, 2017) - Glance Technologies (CSE: GET) (CSE: GET.WT) (FSE: GJT) (OTCQB: GLNNF) has entered into an alliance with Netcoins Inc. Canadian-based Netcoins, (www.gonetcoins.com) currently provides virtual ATM software to more than 4,000 retail locations, allowing users to instantly purchase bitcoins with cash or debit.
InvestmentPitch Media has produced a "video news alert" which provides a brief overview of the company. If this link is not enabled, please visitwww.InvestmentPitch.comand enter "Glance" in the search box.
Cannot view this video? Visit:http://www.investmentpitch.com/video/0_gs8u4v51/Glance-Technologies-CSE-GET-Has-Entered-into-an-Alliance-with-Netcoins-Inc
Glance Technologies owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to dine, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, earn great rewards and interact with merchants.
The alliance between Glance and Netcoins will give people better access to both buying and spending bitcoin. Having recently traded as high as US$5,000, and with as estimated 16 million bitcoins in existence, the market capitalization for bitcoins has surpassed US$80 billion.
On of the current difficulties in using bitcoin is the time it takes to complete a transaction, which can vary from minutes to, in many cases, hours. Glance allows bitcoins to be converted to Glance Dollars, giving customers the ability to make "lightning fast transactions".
Michael and Dominic Vogel, Netcoins' founders, will act as advisors to Glance, as Glance enters the exciting cryptocurrency sector. These advisors join top global Fintech influencer, Spiros Margaris, who recently joined Glance's advisory board.
Spiros Margaris commented: "I see Glance Pay as one of the great fintech opportunities that one does not come across often. The team has proven that it knows how to execute its strategy successfully in Canada and I am convinced they can do the same in the U.S. I am excited to be part of such a great team and to contribute as an Advisory Board member to the Glance Pay success story."
As part of his engagement, Spiros will assist Glance in identifying opportunities for growth in the FinTech sector internationally and provide advice on strategy.
Dominic Vogel, Co-founder of NetCoin stated: "We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the awesome people at Glance Technologies and offer up our collective bitcoin and cyber security expertise."
Desmond Griffin, CEO of Glance, stated: "Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are transforming payments and security. We are committed to being at the forefront of payments, security, and mobile technologies and are excited by the possibilities of combining our anti-fraud technologies with cryptocurrencies. We are also thrilled to add 2 more experts to our advisory board as we continue innovating in these leading-edge domains."
Glance has entered into significant licensing agreements to access the cannabis, fitness and wellness industries through Active Pay Distribution Inc. and Cannapay Financial Inc. Cannapay, a partially owned subsidiary, combines traditional financial services with innovative technology to provide enhanced digital financial services to legally operating businesses in the cannabis industry.
Glance is well financed having recently added $5.2 million to its treasury through the exercise of options and warrants. The shares are trading at $0.90, and with 94 million shares outstanding, the company is capitalized at $85 million.
For more information please visit the company's websitewww.glance.techor contact Christina Rao, Vice President, Investor Relations, at 604-723-7480 or [email protected].
About InvestmentPitchMedia
InvestmentPitch Media leverages the power of video, which together with its extensive distribution, positions a company's story ahead of the 1,000's of companies seeking awareness and funding from the financial community. The company specializes in producing short videos based on significant news releases, research reports and other content of interest to investors.
CONTACT:InvestmentPitch MediaBarry Morgan, [email protected] || Glance Technologies and Netcoins Inc. Form Alliance Expediting Settlement of Bitcoin Transactions for Their Customers - Video Available on Investmentpitch.com: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 5, 2017) - Glance Technologies (CSE: GET) (CSE: GET.WT) (FSE: GJT) (OTCQB: GLNNF) has entered into an alliance with Netcoins Inc. Canadian-based Netcoins, ( www.gonetcoins.com ) currently provides virtual ATM software to more than 4,000 retail locations, allowing users to instantly purchase bitcoins with cash or debit. InvestmentPitch Media has produced a " video news alert " which provides a brief overview of the company. If this link is not enabled, please visit www.InvestmentPitch.com and enter "Glance" in the search box. Cannot view this video? Visit: http://www.investmentpitch.com/video/0_gs8u4v51/Glance-Technologies-CSE-GET-Has-Entered-into-an-Alliance-with-Netcoins-Inc Glance Technologies owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to dine, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, earn great rewards and interact with merchants. The alliance between Glance and Netcoins will give people better access to both buying and spending bitcoin. Having recently traded as high as US$5,000, and with as estimated 16 million bitcoins in existence, the market capitalization for bitcoins has surpassed US$80 billion. On of the current difficulties in using bitcoin is the time it takes to complete a transaction, which can vary from minutes to, in many cases, hours. Glance allows bitcoins to be converted to Glance Dollars, giving customers the ability to make "lightning fast transactions". Michael and Dominic Vogel, Netcoins' founders, will act as advisors to Glance, as Glance enters the exciting cryptocurrency sector. These advisors join top global Fintech influencer, Spiros Margaris, who recently joined Glance's advisory board. Spiros Margaris commented: " I see Glance Pay as one of the great fintech opportunities that one does not come across often. The team has proven that it knows how to execute its strategy successfully in Canada and I am convinced they can do the same in the U.S. I am excited to be part of such a great team and to contribute as an Advisory Board member to the Glance Pay success story ." Story continues As part of his engagement, Spiros will assist Glance in identifying opportunities for growth in the FinTech sector internationally and provide advice on strategy. Dominic Vogel, Co-founder of NetCoin stated: " We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the awesome people at Glance Technologies and offer up our collective bitcoin and cyber security expertise ." Desmond Griffin, CEO of Glance, stated: " Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are transforming payments and security. We are committed to being at the forefront of payments, security, and mobile technologies and are excited by the possibilities of combining our anti-fraud technologies with cryptocurrencies. We are also thrilled to add 2 more experts to our advisory board as we continue innovating in these leading - edge domains ." Glance has entered into significant licensing agreements to access the cannabis, fitness and wellness industries through Active Pay Distribution Inc. and Cannapay Financial Inc. Cannapay, a partially owned subsidiary, combines traditional financial services with innovative technology to provide enhanced digital financial services to legally operating businesses in the cannabis industry. Glance is well financed having recently added $5.2 million to its treasury through the exercise of options and warrants. The shares are trading at $0.90, and with 94 million shares outstanding, the company is capitalized at $85 million. For more information please visit the company's website www.glance.tech or contact Christina Rao, Vice President, Investor Relations, at 604-723-7480 or email [email protected] . About InvestmentPitch Media InvestmentPitch Media leverages the power of video, which together with its extensive distribution, positions a company's story ahead of the 1,000's of companies seeking awareness and funding from the financial community. The company specializes in producing short videos based on significant news releases, research reports and other content of interest to investors. CONTACT: InvestmentPitch Media Barry Morgan, CFO [email protected] || Glance Technologies and Netcoins Inc. Form Alliance Expediting Settlement of Bitcoin Transactions for Their Customers - Video Available on Investmentpitch.com: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 5, 2017) - Glance Technologies (CSE: GET) (CSE: GET.WT) (FSE: GJT) (OTCQB: GLNNF) has entered into an alliance with Netcoins Inc. Canadian-based Netcoins, (www.gonetcoins.com) currently provides virtual ATM software to more than 4,000 retail locations, allowing users to instantly purchase bitcoins with cash or debit.
InvestmentPitch Media has produced a "video news alert" which provides a brief overview of the company. If this link is not enabled, please visitwww.InvestmentPitch.comand enter "Glance" in the search box.
Cannot view this video? Visit:http://www.investmentpitch.com/video/0_gs8u4v51/Glance-Technologies-CSE-GET-Has-Entered-into-an-Alliance-with-Netcoins-Inc
Glance Technologies owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to dine, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, earn great rewards and interact with merchants.
The alliance between Glance and Netcoins will give people better access to both buying and spending bitcoin. Having recently traded as high as US$5,000, and with as estimated 16 million bitcoins in existence, the market capitalization for bitcoins has surpassed US$80 billion.
On of the current difficulties in using bitcoin is the time it takes to complete a transaction, which can vary from minutes to, in many cases, hours. Glance allows bitcoins to be converted to Glance Dollars, giving customers the ability to make "lightning fast transactions".
Michael and Dominic Vogel, Netcoins' founders, will act as advisors to Glance, as Glance enters the exciting cryptocurrency sector. These advisors join top global Fintech influencer, Spiros Margaris, who recently joined Glance's advisory board.
Spiros Margaris commented: "I see Glance Pay as one of the great fintech opportunities that one does not come across often. The team has proven that it knows how to execute its strategy successfully in Canada and I am convinced they can do the same in the U.S. I am excited to be part of such a great team and to contribute as an Advisory Board member to the Glance Pay success story."
As part of his engagement, Spiros will assist Glance in identifying opportunities for growth in the FinTech sector internationally and provide advice on strategy.
Dominic Vogel, Co-founder of NetCoin stated: "We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the awesome people at Glance Technologies and offer up our collective bitcoin and cyber security expertise."
Desmond Griffin, CEO of Glance, stated: "Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are transforming payments and security. We are committed to being at the forefront of payments, security, and mobile technologies and are excited by the possibilities of combining our anti-fraud technologies with cryptocurrencies. We are also thrilled to add 2 more experts to our advisory board as we continue innovating in these leading-edge domains."
Glance has entered into significant licensing agreements to access the cannabis, fitness and wellness industries through Active Pay Distribution Inc. and Cannapay Financial Inc. Cannapay, a partially owned subsidiary, combines traditional financial services with innovative technology to provide enhanced digital financial services to legally operating businesses in the cannabis industry.
Glance is well financed having recently added $5.2 million to its treasury through the exercise of options and warrants. The shares are trading at $0.90, and with 94 million shares outstanding, the company is capitalized at $85 million.
For more information please visit the company's websitewww.glance.techor contact Christina Rao, Vice President, Investor Relations, at 604-723-7480 or [email protected].
About InvestmentPitchMedia
InvestmentPitch Media leverages the power of video, which together with its extensive distribution, positions a company's story ahead of the 1,000's of companies seeking awareness and funding from the financial community. The company specializes in producing short videos based on significant news releases, research reports and other content of interest to investors.
CONTACT:InvestmentPitch MediaBarry Morgan, [email protected] || Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods?: The bitcoin-US dollar (BTC/USD) exchange rate is gaining altitude after the bearish Doji reversal seen earlier this week failed to keep the cryptocurrency below its 50-day moving average.
At press time, bitcoin is trading at $4,325; up 1.46 percent as per data from CoinMarketCap. The two-day sell-off ran out of steam earlier today at the low of $4,150. The subsequent rebound then gathered pace above the 50-day moving average of $4,187.
However, the rebound from the 50-day moving average support seen in the one hour indicates the fears over the event are overblown. So, is bitcoin set to fly high or is the rally a bull trap?
The price action analysis suggests the cryptocurrency is currently hovering in the no man's land.
A solid rally from the 50-day moving average support, though encouraging, is not enough. BTC needs to take the rising trend line, in which case the odds of a rally to $4,700 levels would improve significantly.
Golden crossoverwas confirmed on Tuesday. Today's rally from the low of $4,150 to $4,325 adds credence to the argument that moving average crossovers tend to work after a time lag.
But while there's reason for optimism, bitcoin is not out of the woods yet. Investors need to watch out for a failure at the resistance offered by the rising trend line as it could lead to a head and shoulders pattern.
Head and shoulders formation consists of a left shoulder, a head, and a right shoulder and a line drawn as the neckline. A break below the neckline indicates a bearish trend reversal.
View
• An end of the day close above the rising trend line would open doors for a rally to $4,700
• Meanwhile, a failure to take the rising trend line followed by a break below the head and shoulders neckline support of $4,170 would open up downside towards $3,870.
Teddy bearimage via Shutterstock
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• $100 Ahead? Monero Price Holding Strong Above Key Support Level || Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods?: The bitcoin-US dollar ( BTC/USD ) exchange rate is gaining altitude after the bearish Doji reversal seen earlier this week failed to keep the cryptocurrency below its 50-day moving average. At press time, bitcoin is trading at $4,325; up 1.46 percent as per data from CoinMarketCap. The two-day sell-off ran out of steam earlier today at the low of $4,150. The subsequent rebound then gathered pace above the 50-day moving average of $4,187. However, the rebound from the 50-day moving average support seen in the one hour indicates the fears over the event are overblown. So, is bitcoin set to fly high or is the rally a bull trap? The price action analysis suggests the cryptocurrency is currently hovering in the no man's land. Daily chart A solid rally from the 50-day moving average support, though encouraging, is not enough. BTC needs to take the rising trend line, in which case the odds of a rally to $4,700 levels would improve significantly. 4-hour chart Golden crossover was confirmed on Tuesday. Today's rally from the low of $4,150 to $4,325 adds credence to the argument that moving average crossovers tend to work after a time lag. Bearish Scenario - Potential Head and Shoulders But while there's reason for optimism, bitcoin is not out of the woods yet. Investors need to watch out for a failure at the resistance offered by the rising trend line as it could lead to a head and shoulders pattern. Head and shoulders formation consists of a left shoulder, a head, and a right shoulder and a line drawn as the neckline. A break below the neckline indicates a bearish trend reversal. View An end of the day close above the rising trend line would open doors for a rally to $4,700 Meanwhile, a failure to take the rising trend line followed by a break below the head and shoulders neckline support of $4,170 would open up downside towards $3,870. Teddy bear image via Shutterstock Related Stories 'Solstice' Approaching: Mimblewimble Blockchain Considers Fork Schedule Money on Mougayar? Business Blockchain Author Launches Crypto Fund Ripple Price Consolidates, But Could It 'Swell' Higher? $100 Ahead? Monero Price Holding Strong Above Key Support Level || Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods?: The bitcoin-US dollar (BTC/USD) exchange rate is gaining altitude after the bearish Doji reversal seen earlier this week failed to keep the cryptocurrency below its 50-day moving average.
At press time, bitcoin is trading at $4,325; up 1.46 percent as per data from CoinMarketCap. The two-day sell-off ran out of steam earlier today at the low of $4,150. The subsequent rebound then gathered pace above the 50-day moving average of $4,187.
However, the rebound from the 50-day moving average support seen in the one hour indicates the fears over the event are overblown. So, is bitcoin set to fly high or is the rally a bull trap?
The price action analysis suggests the cryptocurrency is currently hovering in the no man's land.
A solid rally from the 50-day moving average support, though encouraging, is not enough. BTC needs to take the rising trend line, in which case the odds of a rally to $4,700 levels would improve significantly.
Golden crossoverwas confirmed on Tuesday. Today's rally from the low of $4,150 to $4,325 adds credence to the argument that moving average crossovers tend to work after a time lag.
But while there's reason for optimism, bitcoin is not out of the woods yet. Investors need to watch out for a failure at the resistance offered by the rising trend line as it could lead to a head and shoulders pattern.
Head and shoulders formation consists of a left shoulder, a head, and a right shoulder and a line drawn as the neckline. A break below the neckline indicates a bearish trend reversal.
View
• An end of the day close above the rising trend line would open doors for a rally to $4,700
• Meanwhile, a failure to take the rising trend line followed by a break below the head and shoulders neckline support of $4,170 would open up downside towards $3,870.
Teddy bearimage via Shutterstock
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• $100 Ahead? Monero Price Holding Strong Above Key Support Level || Money on Mougayar? Business Blockchain Author Launches Crypto Fund: Author and investor William Mougayar has launched a blockchain-based cryptocurrency index fund.
Announced yesterday, Mougayar is one of 12 managers to open up a fund on iconomi, a blockchain-based digital asset management platform. According to Mougayar, however, his fund will distinguish itself by allowing investors to benefit from something he is uniquely able to provide – his expertise.
"I'm able to balance and rebalance the basket in a favorable way. And that insulates the average user from some of the blind spots that they may be facing," he said.
On this point, Mougayar offers no shortage of credentials, having authored a book "The Business Blockchain," published by Wiley last year, as well as launching a popular conference focused on the emerging digital asset economy last May.
Mougayar, who has alsocontributed articlesto CoinDesk, said:
"The value proposition is that I am part of this market. I talk to these companies. I know their CEOs. I know their founders. I know the real story."
Notably, for more novice investors, the fund will seek to invest in the broader cryptocurrency asset class, beyond better-known options such as bitcoin.
Toward that end, the fund will include allocations of 15 cryptocurrencies that will change based on Mougayar's outlook on the cryptocurrency space. Currently, Mougayar will hold the largest allocation, at 20 percent of the total index, inether, and 10 percent in bitcoin.
Three lesser-known cryptocurrencies – steem, nexium and cofoundit – will each represent 10 percent of the index's holdings. The remaining 10 cryptocurrencies, which include melon, augur and basic attention token, will each represent 4 percent of the holdings.
"Having a basket of cryptocurrencies, managed by someone who knows what they are doing, in a way removes some of the risks for the average consumer," Mougayar said.
But while new crypto index funds are launching almost daily, Mougayar's fund seems to be courting a new class of retail investor – those with more experience in cryptocurrency than in traditional markets.
Mougayar's index charges a relatively low total fee of 5 percent, which is in stark contrast to the very high "two and twenty" fee structure fiat-based hedge funds sometimes charge.
Managers of those funds will typically argue that their research work, and sometimes active trading, drive up costs – and that their returns justify their fees, though that assertionis a highly controversial one. Mougayar told CoinDesk that he charges a premium over the 2 percent sometimes charged bylow-fee passive fundsbecause he believes active management can provide investors with substantial additional value creation.
Also, unlike other cryptocurrency hedge funds, Mougayar's does not require a minimum investment, something that should appeal to smaller retail investors.
"It's like you're on an exchange. You can buy 0.1 bitcoin. There is no minimum," he said.
Diving deeper, Mougayar's partnership with Iconomi divides two responsibilities typically consolidated in a single firm in other lower-fee tracking funds. (In some ways, you can think of the partnership as a kind of mashup between a low-cost tracking fund and a blockchain-based crypto exchange like ShapeShift.)
In order to invest in Mougayar's fund, users must first load their account by depositing bitcoin or ether on the Iconomi platform. While Mougayar selects the initial portfolio allocations and re-weights regularly, the investor's user account will reside on the Iconomi blockchain platform.
An additional advantage of partnering with Iconomi, Mougayar argued, is that investors do not need to manage the custody of their own key pairs.
William Mougayarimage via YouTube
• Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods?
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• Blockchain History? IBM Ventures Is Close to Making Its First Industry Investment || Money on Mougayar? Business Blockchain Author Launches Crypto Fund: Author and investor William Mougayar has launched a blockchain-based cryptocurrency index fund. Announced yesterday, Mougayar is one of 12 managers to open up a fund on iconomi, a blockchain-based digital asset management platform. According to Mougayar, however, his fund will distinguish itself by allowing investors to benefit from something he is uniquely able to provide – his expertise. "I'm able to balance and rebalance the basket in a favorable way. And that insulates the average user from some of the blind spots that they may be facing," he said. On this point, Mougayar offers no shortage of credentials, having authored a book "The Business Blockchain," published by Wiley last year, as well as launching a popular conference focused on the emerging digital asset economy last May. Mougayar, who has also contributed articles to CoinDesk, said: "The value proposition is that I am part of this market. I talk to these companies. I know their CEOs. I know their founders. I know the real story." Notably, for more novice investors, the fund will seek to invest in the broader cryptocurrency asset class, beyond better-known options such as bitcoin. Toward that end, the fund will include allocations of 15 cryptocurrencies that will change based on Mougayar's outlook on the cryptocurrency space. Currently, Mougayar will hold the largest allocation, at 20 percent of the total index, in ether , and 10 percent in bitcoin. Three lesser-known cryptocurrencies – steem, nexium and cofoundit – will each represent 10 percent of the index's holdings. The remaining 10 cryptocurrencies, which include melon, augur and basic attention token, will each represent 4 percent of the holdings. "Having a basket of cryptocurrencies, managed by someone who knows what they are doing, in a way removes some of the risks for the average consumer," Mougayar said. Fund costs and structure But while new crypto index funds are launching almost daily, Mougayar's fund seems to be courting a new class of retail investor – those with more experience in cryptocurrency than in traditional markets. Story continues Mougayar's index charges a relatively low total fee of 5 percent, which is in stark contrast to the very high " two and twenty " fee structure fiat-based hedge funds sometimes charge. Managers of those funds will typically argue that their research work, and sometimes active trading, drive up costs – and that their returns justify their fees, though that assertion is a highly controversial one . Mougayar told CoinDesk that he charges a premium over the 2 percent sometimes charged by low-fee passive funds because he believes active management can provide investors with substantial additional value creation. Also, unlike other cryptocurrency hedge funds, Mougayar's does not require a minimum investment, something that should appeal to smaller retail investors. "It's like you're on an exchange. You can buy 0.1 bitcoin. There is no minimum," he said. Diving deeper, Mougayar's partnership with Iconomi divides two responsibilities typically consolidated in a single firm in other lower-fee tracking funds. (In some ways, you can think of the partnership as a kind of mashup between a low-cost tracking fund and a blockchain-based crypto exchange like ShapeShift.) In order to invest in Mougayar's fund, users must first load their account by depositing bitcoin or ether on the Iconomi platform. While Mougayar selects the initial portfolio allocations and re-weights regularly, the investor's user account will reside on the Iconomi blockchain platform. An additional advantage of partnering with Iconomi, Mougayar argued, is that investors do not need to manage the custody of their own key pairs. William Mougayar image via YouTube Related Stories Above $4,300: Bitcoin Is Up, But Is It Out of the Woods? 'Solstice' Approaching: Mimblewimble Blockchain Considers Fork Schedule AngelList Creator Naval Ravikant Backs S&P-Style Cryptocurrency Fund Blockchain History? IBM Ventures Is Close to Making Its First Industry Investment || Former Bundesbank Chief: Bitcoin Doesn't Meet Full Definition of a Currency: The chairman of Swiss banking giant UBS doesn't believe that bitcoin meets the full definition of a currency, according to new statements.
Axel Weber, who previously served as head of the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, made the remarks during an event in Zürich earlier today, according toReuters.
After noting that his skepticism toward the cryptocurrency "probably comes from my background as a central banker," Weber argued that in spite of arguments to the contrary, bitcoin only partially satisfies the common definition of a currency.
He told event attendees:
"The important function of a currency is, it’s a means of payment, it has to be generally accepted, it has to be a store of value and it’s a transaction currency. Bitcoin is only a transaction currency."
Weber reportedly criticized the cryptocurrency market back in late 2015, according to a report at the time fromCity A.M. He is said to have remarked that the bitcoin model is set to fail "because there is no lender of last resort – there will always be boom and bust."
The UBS chairman becomes the latest figure from a major financial institution to weigh in on the topic of cryptocurrencies. Just yesterday, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs,took to Twitterto offer an open (if not neutral) perspective on bitcoin.
Image Credit: International Monetary Fund/Flickr
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• Barclays, HSBC Join Settlement Coin as Bank Blockchain Test Enters New Phase || Former Bundesbank Chief: Bitcoin Doesn't Meet Full Definition of a Currency: The chairman of Swiss banking giant UBS doesn't believe that bitcoin meets the full definition of a currency, according to new statements. Axel Weber, who previously served as head of the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, made the remarks during an event in Zürich earlier today, according to Reuters . After noting that his skepticism toward the cryptocurrency "probably comes from my background as a central banker," Weber argued that in spite of arguments to the contrary, bitcoin only partially satisfies the common definition of a currency. He told event attendees: "The important function of a currency is, it’s a means of payment, it has to be generally accepted, it has to be a store of value and it’s a transaction currency. Bitcoin is only a transaction currency." Weber reportedly criticized the cryptocurrency market back in late 2015, according to a report at the time from City A.M . He is said to have remarked that the bitcoin model is set to fail "because there is no lender of last resort – there will always be boom and bust." The UBS chairman becomes the latest figure from a major financial institution to weigh in on the topic of cryptocurrencies. Just yesterday, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, took to Twitter to offer an open (if not neutral) perspective on bitcoin. Image Credit: International Monetary Fund/Flickr Related Stories New Banks Join UBS-Backed Blockchain Trade Finance Platform Germany's Central Bank: Consumers Won't Use Blockchain for Payments IBM Joins Automakers, Banks in Blockchain Wallet Project Expansion Barclays, HSBC Join Settlement Coin as Bank Blockchain Test Enters New Phase || Former Bundesbank Chief: Bitcoin Doesn't Meet Full Definition of a Currency: The chairman of Swiss banking giant UBS doesn't believe that bitcoin meets the full definition of a currency, according to new statements.
Axel Weber, who previously served as head of the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, made the remarks during an event in Zürich earlier today, according toReuters.
After noting that his skepticism toward the cryptocurrency "probably comes from my background as a central banker," Weber argued that in spite of arguments to the contrary, bitcoin only partially satisfies the common definition of a currency.
He told event attendees:
"The important function of a currency is, it’s a means of payment, it has to be generally accepted, it has to be a store of value and it’s a transaction currency. Bitcoin is only a transaction currency."
Weber reportedly criticized the cryptocurrency market back in late 2015, according to a report at the time fromCity A.M. He is said to have remarked that the bitcoin model is set to fail "because there is no lender of last resort – there will always be boom and bust."
The UBS chairman becomes the latest figure from a major financial institution to weigh in on the topic of cryptocurrencies. Just yesterday, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs,took to Twitterto offer an open (if not neutral) perspective on bitcoin.
Image Credit: International Monetary Fund/Flickr
• New Banks Join UBS-Backed Blockchain Trade Finance Platform
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• Barclays, HSBC Join Settlement Coin as Bank Blockchain Test Enters New Phase || 3 Reasons Visa (V) Stock Will Keep Surging — and 3 Reasons It Won’t: Visa Inc(NYSE:V) has delivered eye-popping returns for investors. Visa stock has more than quadrupled over the past six years and the gains haven’t let up. Already, year-to-date, Visa stock is up another 35%.
Source: Shutterstock
It goes without saying that Visa stock looks expensive. But then again, it pretty much always has since going public. Yet, in hindsight, there has rarely been a bad time to pick up more Visa.
Is it more clear sailing ahead for this all-star stock, or will it finally correct in the coming months?
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
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Really Expensive Stock: Visa is one of the most reliable performers in the stock market today. Since going public, Visa has beaten earnings expectations 36 out of 38 quarters. That’s an amazing track record.
So, while analysts are forecasting a huge earnings per share growth rate going forward — 14%/year over the next five years — there’s reason to think Visa will deliver. Unfortunately, they’ll have to in order to justify the current V stock price. Visa presently sells at 39 times trailing earnings and 27x forward earnings. CompetitorMastercard Inc(NYSE:MA) has also skyrocketed. Even still, it is at 35x earnings. V stock stands alone at the top of the valuation spectrum. It’s not just expensive on earnings, Visa is also selling at 9x book value and a remarkable 14x sales. This stock is priced for many years of great times ahead.
Locked out of China Market: It’s logical to think of Visa as the world’s largest payments company. But it actually lost the crown recently to China’s state-backedUnionPaynetwork. Based on2015 data, UnionPay controls 37% of the global market, compared to 32% for Visa and 20% for Mastercard.
While UnionPay is accepted in more than 100 countries, it is primarily a China-focused service. The fact that there are already more than 5 billion UnionPay cards shows the huge lead they have in that market, considering that there are only 1.4 billion Chinese people. Chinahaslifted regulations that had kept Visa and Mastercard out of the market, but, at this point, it will be hard for either to disrupt the entrenched the giant.
Blockchain Disruption Looms: Assuming current technologies persist, Visa seemingly has an impenetrable moat. The world continues to move away from cash and Visa will collect more and more of the spoils as transactions go digital.
Now, though, a new threat has arisen. It’s hard to quantify the exact nature of a potential challenge to Visa from Bitcoin and other digital currencies, but given the huge rise in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other such products this year, Visa stock owners must take the threat seriously.
Blockchain-based payment systems offer several inherent advantages compared to credit cards, including better security and freedom from hacking, along with lower marginal transaction costs. On the other hand, blockchain payment systems face several huge hurdles, including a lack of credible oversight, government scrutiny/regulatory risk and difficulty in scaling up; Bitcoin, for example, processes transactions at a glacial pace compared to credit card networks. At this point, blockchain isn’t an imminent risk to V stock, but investors should still monitor digital alternatives to Visa closely.
Still Strong Moat: While blockchain is a real threat, there’s little sign that it will imminently disrupt existing business models. A few years ago, we were hearing a lot about potential rivals such asApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and its Apple Pay orAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOGL) and its Google Wallet.
But these have largely disappeared as threats to Visa. That’s because they didn’t build their own widespread payment networks. Apple Pay, for example, works on top of existing networks, including Visa, thus complementing, rather than taking away, business from Visa. Visa is accepted in more than 200 countries and partners with 44 million merchants and 17,000 banks and financial institutions. Even the largest tech companies would struggle to disrupt a competitor with that much size.
Surprisingly Recession-Proof: Bears will point to the consumer-spending driven nature of Visa’s business. Surely, with the American economy in its eighth year of recovery, the economically-sensitive Visa stock will eventually face some headwind, right?
Not so fast. Between 2008 and 2009, the company’s revenues, earnings, and EBITDA all increased. And V stock fell far less than the market as a whole. From mid-2008 to the March 2009 bottom, Visa stock only declined around 25%. It’s true that Visa benefits from a continuing economic expansion, but since Visa doesn’t take credit risk, it just gets a cut of fees as a middle man between the consumer and the bank. A recession wouldn’t be nearly as bad for Visa as one might expect.
Huge Dividend Growth: While Visa stock may not seem like a typical dividend play, yield investors shouldn’t overlook the potential here. Yes, it’s easy to look at the 0.6% dividend offered today on Visa stock and forget about it.
However, this small yield is growing quickly. In fact, like the stock price, the dividend is exploding higher. It’s grown at a 30% annualized rate over the past five years. In 2011, Visa was paying just 16 cents/share a year in dividends. It’s up to 66 cents a year now. That’s more than a 300% increase in six years. The company is due for another dividend hike before the year ends. With their payout ratio at just 24%, expect plenty more double-digit dividend increases ahead.
Visa looks like a perfect stock. Even the risks to the business aren’t anything too threatening in the near term. However, V stock is priced accordingly. It will take years of strong growth to justify Visa’s current price. Investors are very optimistic — and with good reason. But risk is still tilted to the downside, as business could hardly get better for Visa.
• Verizon's (VZ) Stock Dividend Likely to Get Slashed
For investors wanting a payments play, it’s worth taking a look atDiscover Financial Services(NYSE:DFS). Yes, Discover isn’t nearly as big as Visa or Mastercard, but it has a key alliance with UnionPay, among other international partners.
It is also selling at just 11x earnings (compared to 39x and 35x for Visa and Mastercard, respectively). And it pays a much larger dividend. While Visa stock may continue to rally, Discover offers a larger margin of safety here.
As of this writing, Ian Bezek owned DFS stock and had no positions in any of the other aforementioned securities. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek.
The post3 Reasons Visa (V) Stock Will Keep Surging — and 3 Reasons It Won’tappeared first onInvestorPlace.
[Social Media Buzz]
10/07 08:00 Crypto currency sentiment analysis.
BTC : Positive
BCC : Neutral
ETH : Positive
ETC : Positive
https://goo.gl/5hp6Cz #BTC || $3,300.00 IN HAND AntMiner L3+ 504MH/s Scrypt ASIC Litecoin Miner (6) for sale! #Bitcoin #Mining #Cryptocurrency http://bit.ly/2yOIkx7 pic.twitter.com/sFZGurhGeu || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo dedi ··=> https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ > #España || 10/06 15:00 Crypto currency sentiment analysis.
BTC : Posi...
|
4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 8723.79, 8929.04, 8942.81, 8706.25, 8657.64, 8745.89, 8680.88, 8406.52, 8445.43, 8367.85, 8596.83, 8909.82, 9358.59, 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53, 9392.88, 9344.37, 9293.52, 9180.96, 9613.42, 9729.80, 9795.94, 9865.12, 10116.67, 9856.61, 10208.24, 10326.05, 10214.38, 10312.12, 9889.42, 9934.43, 9690.14, 10142.00, 9633.39, 9608.48, 9686.44, 9663.18, 9924.52, 9650.17, 9341.71, 8820.52, 8784.49, 8672.46, 8599.51, 8562.45, 8869.67, 8787.79, 8755.25, 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12, 7923.64, 7909.73, 7911.43, 4970.79, 5563.71, 5200.37, 5392.31, 5014.48, 5225.63, 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80, 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84, 6438.64, 6606.78, 6793.62, 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13, 7271.78, 7176.41, 7334.10, 7302.09, 6865.49, 6859.08, 6971.09, 6845.04, 6842.43.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-04-14]
Volume: 34110434052, RSI (14-day): 49.17, 50-day EMA: 7177.04, 200-day EMA: 7980.95
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1756.70, Gold RSI: 67.62
Oil Price: 20.11, Oil RSI: 34.93
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets: Bitcoin slid Monday to its lowest point in the past seven days, with traders saying bearish signals are appearing after the cryptocurrency’s 30 percent rebound from a market bottom in mid-March.
After recovering from the depths of the coronavirus-induced sell-off, bitcoin repeatedly failed to break above a price of $7,400.
Bitcoin(BTC) prices fell Monday by 1.6 percent to 20:45 UTC (4:45 p.m. EDT) whileetherfell 1.8 percent.
Related:Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving
Most major digital assets were down on the day.Bitcoin cash(BCH) was down 4.8 percent,EOS(EOS) dipped 2.6 percent andbitcoin sv(BSV) lost 1.9 percent. All price changes are from 0:00 UTC.
Bitcoin futures contracts for June on exchanges such as Kraken are trading around $6,750, which suggests traders are pricing in further downside. Such “backwardation” — where futures trade at a discount to the spot price — represents a shift from last week, when futures were trading at a premium.
“Futures and our own activity indicate that speculators expect to see lower prices in the short term,” said Maxine Boonen, CEO of over-the-counter (OTC) bitcoin liquidity provider B2C2. “One particular hedge fund sold us $20 million of bitcoin today and they have usually been right.”
Early losses on Monday triggered $29 million in position liquidations for futures traders on the BitMEX exchange, exacerbating the sell-off. Hourly liquidations on BitMEX had averaged just $200,000 over the past few days.
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into ‘Backwardation’ Despite Fed’s Trillions
In traditional markets, the S&P 500 of large U.S. stocks fell 1 percent as the death toll from the coronavirus continued to cast a pall. New York state, now the epicenter of the pandemic,surpassed 10,000 deaths, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Constantine Kogan, a partner at crypto fund BitBull Capital, said the “macroeconomic trend isn’t positive so it will continue to put pressure on crypto,” Kogan said.
Elsewhere, gold, a classic haven asset and hedge against inflation, is currently trading up at 1.2 percent.
Although some cryptocurrency analysts and investors think bitcoin could prove to be a hedge against inflation, the yellow metal is outperforming it.
“A break below $6,500 will likely lead to another round of liquidations and send the price towards the $6,100 to $6,200 area,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at crypto investment brokerage Bequant, said of bitcoin.
“For the bulls, a break below will be particularly painful,” he said. “There really isn’t much support until the $5,000 zone. This cautious tone is supported by a shift in the futures curve.”
• Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets: Bitcoin slid Monday to its lowest point in the past seven days, with traders saying bearish signals are appearing after the cryptocurrencys 30 percent rebound from a market bottom in mid-March. After recovering from the depths of the coronavirus-induced sell-off, bitcoin repeatedly failed to break above a price of $7,400. Bitcoin (BTC) prices fell Monday by 1.6 percent to 20:45 UTC (4:45 p.m. EDT) while ether fell 1.8 percent. Related: Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving Most major digital assets were down on the day. Bitcoin cash (BCH) was down 4.8 percent, EOS (EOS) dipped 2.6 percent and bitcoin sv (BSV) lost 1.9 percent. All price changes are from 0:00 UTC. Bitcoin futures contracts for June on exchanges such as Kraken are trading around $6,750, which suggests traders are pricing in further downside. Such backwardation where futures trade at a discount to the spot price represents a shift from last week, when futures were trading at a premium. Futures and our own activity indicate that speculators expect to see lower prices in the short term, said Maxine Boonen, CEO of over-the-counter (OTC) bitcoin liquidity provider B2C2. One particular hedge fund sold us $20 million of bitcoin today and they have usually been right. Early losses on Monday triggered $29 million in position liquidations for futures traders on the BitMEX exchange, exacerbating the sell-off. Hourly liquidations on BitMEX had averaged just $200,000 over the past few days. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into Backwardation Despite Feds Trillions In traditional markets, the S&P 500 of large U.S. stocks fell 1 percent as the death toll from the coronavirus continued to cast a pall. New York state, now the epicenter of the pandemic, surpassed 10,000 deaths , Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. Constantine Kogan, a partner at crypto fund BitBull Capital, said the macroeconomic trend isnt positive so it will continue to put pressure on crypto, Kogan said. Story continues Elsewhere, gold, a classic haven asset and hedge against inflation, is currently trading up at 1.2 percent. Although some cryptocurrency analysts and investors think bitcoin could prove to be a hedge against inflation, the yellow metal is outperforming it. A break below $6,500 will likely lead to another round of liquidations and send the price towards the $6,100 to $6,200 area, said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at crypto investment brokerage Bequant, said of bitcoin. For the bulls, a break below will be particularly painful, he said. There really isnt much support until the $5,000 zone. This cautious tone is supported by a shift in the futures curve. Related Stories Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets: Bitcoin slid Monday to its lowest point in the past seven days, with traders saying bearish signals are appearing after the cryptocurrency’s 30 percent rebound from a market bottom in mid-March.
After recovering from the depths of the coronavirus-induced sell-off, bitcoin repeatedly failed to break above a price of $7,400.
Bitcoin(BTC) prices fell Monday by 1.6 percent to 20:45 UTC (4:45 p.m. EDT) whileetherfell 1.8 percent.
Related:Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving
Most major digital assets were down on the day.Bitcoin cash(BCH) was down 4.8 percent,EOS(EOS) dipped 2.6 percent andbitcoin sv(BSV) lost 1.9 percent. All price changes are from 0:00 UTC.
Bitcoin futures contracts for June on exchanges such as Kraken are trading around $6,750, which suggests traders are pricing in further downside. Such “backwardation” — where futures trade at a discount to the spot price — represents a shift from last week, when futures were trading at a premium.
“Futures and our own activity indicate that speculators expect to see lower prices in the short term,” said Maxine Boonen, CEO of over-the-counter (OTC) bitcoin liquidity provider B2C2. “One particular hedge fund sold us $20 million of bitcoin today and they have usually been right.”
Early losses on Monday triggered $29 million in position liquidations for futures traders on the BitMEX exchange, exacerbating the sell-off. Hourly liquidations on BitMEX had averaged just $200,000 over the past few days.
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into ‘Backwardation’ Despite Fed’s Trillions
In traditional markets, the S&P 500 of large U.S. stocks fell 1 percent as the death toll from the coronavirus continued to cast a pall. New York state, now the epicenter of the pandemic,surpassed 10,000 deaths, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Constantine Kogan, a partner at crypto fund BitBull Capital, said the “macroeconomic trend isn’t positive so it will continue to put pressure on crypto,” Kogan said.
Elsewhere, gold, a classic haven asset and hedge against inflation, is currently trading up at 1.2 percent.
Although some cryptocurrency analysts and investors think bitcoin could prove to be a hedge against inflation, the yellow metal is outperforming it.
“A break below $6,500 will likely lead to another round of liquidations and send the price towards the $6,100 to $6,200 area,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at crypto investment brokerage Bequant, said of bitcoin.
“For the bulls, a break below will be particularly painful,” he said. “There really isn’t much support until the $5,000 zone. This cautious tone is supported by a shift in the futures curve.”
• Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Huobi’s New Crypto Transaction Monitor Will Automatically Freeze Suspicious Accounts: Huobi Group has launched an in-house transaction intelligence tool to snuff out illicit activity across its crypto exchanges.
The new program, called “Star Atlas,” will automatically freeze accounts deemed to be engaging in “suspicious” transactions until a compliance officer follows up on the case, according to a Monday press release. It will help Huobi’s exchanges target “abnormal behaviors” and “problematic transactions” in real time.
What the exchange group deems illicit behavior patterns was not immediately clear – the firm did not respond to requests for comment by press time. However, the press release said Star Altas will reference a trove of blacklisted addresses in its monitoring of user transactions.
Related:Exchange Banking on TON’s Gram Tokens to Shut Down After Telegram Court Order
Read more:Huobi Exchange Plots Return to US Crypto Market as Soon as This Month, Exec Says
Global Business VP Ciara Sun said in the press release that Star Atlas will help the group’s exchanges crack down on “bad actors” whose shady dealings imperil crypto for the majority of rule-following users.
Those bad actors have shown an apparent penchant for Huobi,according to a 2019 crypto money laundering reportby Chainalysis, which develops enterprise intelligence software much like Star Atlas. Chainalysis claimed Huobi was the off-ramp for nearly 25 percent of the $2.8 billion in illicitbitcoin(BTC) transactions Chainalysis traced in 2019. Only Binance had a higher share.
Star Atlas’ launch comes as Huobi prepares to re-enter the U.S. market with anunnamed regulated partner. Sun previously told CoinDesk that it hopes to comply with local regulations more easily through the partnership than its previous Huobi US affiliate could manage.
• Fidelity Taps ErisX Exchange to Boost Crypto Trading Liquidity
• Dutch Brokerage Launches Crypto Trading for the Euro Market
• Huobi Exchange Plots Return to US Crypto Market as Soon as This Month, Exec Says || Huobi’s New Crypto Transaction Monitor Will Automatically Freeze Suspicious Accounts: Huobi Group has launched an in-house transaction intelligence tool to snuff out illicit activity across its crypto exchanges. The new program, called “Star Atlas,” will automatically freeze accounts deemed to be engaging in “suspicious” transactions until a compliance officer follows up on the case, according to a Monday press release. It will help Huobi’s exchanges target “abnormal behaviors” and “problematic transactions” in real time. What the exchange group deems illicit behavior patterns was not immediately clear – the firm did not respond to requests for comment by press time. However, the press release said Star Altas will reference a trove of blacklisted addresses in its monitoring of user transactions. Related: Exchange Banking on TON’s Gram Tokens to Shut Down After Telegram Court Order Read more: Huobi Exchange Plots Return to US Crypto Market as Soon as This Month, Exec Says Global Business VP Ciara Sun said in the press release that Star Atlas will help the group’s exchanges crack down on “bad actors” whose shady dealings imperil crypto for the majority of rule-following users. Those bad actors have shown an apparent penchant for Huobi, according to a 2019 crypto money laundering report by Chainalysis, which develops enterprise intelligence software much like Star Atlas. Chainalysis claimed Huobi was the off-ramp for nearly 25 percent of the $2.8 billion in illicit bitcoin (BTC) transactions Chainalysis traced in 2019. Only Binance had a higher share. Star Atlas’ launch comes as Huobi prepares to re-enter the U.S. market with an unnamed regulated partner . Sun previously told CoinDesk that it hopes to comply with local regulations more easily through the partnership than its previous Huobi US affiliate could manage. Related Stories Fidelity Taps ErisX Exchange to Boost Crypto Trading Liquidity Dutch Brokerage Launches Crypto Trading for the Euro Market Huobi Exchange Plots Return to US Crypto Market as Soon as This Month, Exec Says || US Treasury Approves Square as Coronavirus Stimulus Lender: The bitcoin-friendly company behind Cash App, Square, announced Monday it isparticipatingin the U.S. government’s emergency Paycheck Protection Program.
This $350 billion lending program for small businesses provides loans that keep employees on payroll for at least two months, as part of the $2.3 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress. PayPal and Intuit (maker of QuickBooks) are the other fintech firms included in theprogram.
Jackie Reses, head of Square Capital,tweetedthat Square will work with Salt Lake City-based Celtic Bank to roll out the lending program this week.
Related:Filipino Pawnshops Bank on Crypto Remittances During Crisis
“We will notify sellers when their application is available via Square Dashboard, starting with employers whose application data we can verify automatically,” shetweeted.
Last Friday, Square founder and Twitter CEO Jack Dorseytweetedthat Cash App offers routing numbers so people who didn’t file tax returns can still acceptstimulus checks. This long-standing feature has been used since 2018 to accept direct deposits from employers, even for those without a bank account.
Although the publicly traded Square has yet to release revenue statistics from Q1 2020, it would be surprising if Cash App didn’t profit from thesurgein speculativebitcoin(BTC) trading in March. Bitcoin sales accounted for nearly half of thecompany’s quarterly revenuein Q4 2019. Last year, Dorsey said he wanted to help bitcoin achieve “currency status.”
It’s clear different components of the Square empire will take complementary approaches to fintech. The Square Crypto team, a skunkworks unit not related to Cash App’s bitcoin efforts, released an open sourceLightning development toolkitin January.
Related:FBI Warns COVID-19 Scammers Are Targeting Crypto Holders
Overall, one might expect to see more nimble moves from the fintech giant as it adjusts to users’ changing needs during the coronavirus crisis.
“We should always maintain flexibility,”Dorsey told CoinDesklate last year.
• Europe Debates COVID-19 Contact Tracing That Respects Privacy
• Open Source PPE: Inside the Project Decentralizing Face Mask Production || US Treasury Approves Square as Coronavirus Stimulus Lender: The bitcoin-friendly company behind Cash App, Square, announced Monday it is participating in the U.S. government’s emergency Paycheck Protection Program. This $350 billion lending program for small businesses provides loans that keep employees on payroll for at least two months, as part of the $2.3 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress. PayPal and Intuit (maker of QuickBooks) are the other fintech firms included in the program . Jackie Reses, head of Square Capital, tweeted that Square will work with Salt Lake City-based Celtic Bank to roll out the lending program this week. Related: Filipino Pawnshops Bank on Crypto Remittances During Crisis “We will notify sellers when their application is available via Square Dashboard, starting with employers whose application data we can verify automatically,” she tweeted . Last Friday, Square founder and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that Cash App offers routing numbers so people who didn’t file tax returns can still accept stimulus checks . This long-standing feature has been used since 2018 to accept direct deposits from employers, even for those without a bank account. Although the publicly traded Square has yet to release revenue statistics from Q1 2020, it would be surprising if Cash App didn’t profit from the surge in speculative bitcoin (BTC) trading in March. Bitcoin sales accounted for nearly half of the company’s quarterly revenue in Q4 2019. Last year, Dorsey said he wanted to help bitcoin achieve “currency status.” It’s clear different components of the Square empire will take complementary approaches to fintech. The Square Crypto team, a skunkworks unit not related to Cash App’s bitcoin efforts, released an open source Lightning development toolkit in January. Related: FBI Warns COVID-19 Scammers Are Targeting Crypto Holders Overall, one might expect to see more nimble moves from the fintech giant as it adjusts to users’ changing needs during the coronavirus crisis. Story continues “We should always maintain flexibility,” Dorsey told CoinDesk late last year. Related Stories Europe Debates COVID-19 Contact Tracing That Respects Privacy Open Source PPE: Inside the Project Decentralizing Face Mask Production || Blockchain Bites: ‘Immunity Passports,’ a Darknet Pharmacist and How Bitcoin Miners Prepare for the Halving: You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here.
PrivacyTechnologists building blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) tools arecollaborating on an “immunity passport”to help stop the spread of COVID-19 without compromising the privacy of users. The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI) is working on a digital certificate, using the recently approved World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials standard. The certificate lets individuals prove (and request proof from others) that they’ve recovered from the novel coronavirus, have tested positive for antibodies or have received a vaccination, once one is available.
Mobile movesHTC’s Exodusblockchain phonewill allow users to minemonero(XMR), in an attempt to further decentralize the cryptocurrency’s security protocol. Miners can earn users up to $0.0038 worth of XMR (at current prices) per day, while the electricity used to carry out the mining tasks would come to less than half the income from mining.
Related:Blockchain Bites: The Global Lockdown, Privacy Preserving Cryptography and Bitmain’s Cash Rebates
A Venezuelan crypto exchange has developed a service that supports crypto payments via SMS text messages, allowing users to enter the financial fold without an internet connection. (Decrypt)
Scaling backAfter years of being unable to close a Series B, enterprise blockchain company Factom, Inc.slashed its staff from 10 to just two, with six employees retained on a contract basis. The company isn’t going into receivership, however, as its investor, FastForward Innovations, claimed last week, said Factom COO Jay Smith.
Legal momentumOneCoin – the cryptocurrency investment scheme accused by the U.S. of being a Ponzi-type scam –may escape from a class-action lawsuitdue to procedural mishaps by the lead plaintiffs. The lead plaintiffs, who accuse the firm of misleading investors, have not been filing monthly updates on their efforts to serve court papers to all the listed defendants, and may have their case thrown out with prejudice, if they do not “show cause” by April 16.
Craig Wright has dropped his lawsuit against Blockstream CEO Adam Back, covering $8,400 in legal fees. The suit was filed last year, after the Blockstream CEO said Wright and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, were not one and the same person. (Decrypt)
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into ‘Backwardation’ Despite Fed’s Trillions
Blockchain’s bestBrazilian financial regulators’ new PIER data-sharingblockchain cost about $250,000to build and it runs on the Quorum blockchain. The system is a way for several state regulators to digitize their databases and move away from paper-based record keeping.
Bitfinex moved $1.1 billion inbitcoin(BTC), the largest transaction to date on the network, for less than a dollar. (Decrypt)
ScamsChainalysis has foundcrypto scams have taken a hitfrom COVID-19-led market turbulence. On a seven-day moving average, revenue earned by scammers plummeted from $800,000 worth of crypto in the middle of January to below $300,000 at the beginning of April – almost entirely due to the dramatic market drop earlier this year.
A darknet “pharmacist” who sold various opiates, benzodiazepines and other narcotics and accepted payments in cryptocurrency has been busted by the FBI. Undercover agents discovered the alleged criminal by tracking his bitcoin wallet held at Coinbase. (Modern Consensus)
Patent trendChinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba sought 20 percent of all blockchain patents filed last year. According to The Block, Tencent and its affiliates filed for 718 blockchain patents, while Alibaba Group filed 470 in 2019. (The Block)
Bearish caseBitcoin isreporting losseson Monday, having ended last week with its longest weekly winning streak in nearly a year. The short-term trend has turned bearish following a drop to $6,600, with a close above the 50-day average at $7,145 needed to neutralize the bearish case.
Miners’ anticipationAs the latest bitcoin halving approaches,miners are upgrading equipment, optimizing arrangements, conserving powerand more in the race to dominate. On this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Halving 2020: Miner Perspectives,” Kristy-Leigh Minehan and Pavel Moravec give an in-depth explanation of what miners are doing to maximize profits and increase operational efficiency.
CoinDesk ResearchMarch 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which assets outperformed, and how the participants in crypto markets are shifting in the wake of Q1’s defining event.
CoinDesk Research WebinarMarch 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum. On Wednesday, April 15 at 2pm ET, CoinDesk Research hosts a webinar to review and discuss our analysis.Sign up here.
Reading TelegramTelegramlost another round in courtagainst the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and now can’t launch its $1.7 billion token sale. What does it mean for the crypto industry and other startups that sold tokens? Gabriel Shapiro of BSV Law and Phillip Moustakis of Seward & Kissel unpack the case likely to set precedence for future crypto rulings.
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship
• First Mover: Bitcoin’s Market Cap Eclipses Citigroup’s as Yellen Calls for Big-Bank Dividend Cuts || Blockchain Bites: ‘Immunity Passports,’ a Darknet Pharmacist and How Bitcoin Miners Prepare for the Halving: You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here.
PrivacyTechnologists building blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) tools arecollaborating on an “immunity passport”to help stop the spread of COVID-19 without compromising the privacy of users. The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI) is working on a digital certificate, using the recently approved World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials standard. The certificate lets individuals prove (and request proof from others) that they’ve recovered from the novel coronavirus, have tested positive for antibodies or have received a vaccination, once one is available.
Mobile movesHTC’s Exodusblockchain phonewill allow users to minemonero(XMR), in an attempt to further decentralize the cryptocurrency’s security protocol. Miners can earn users up to $0.0038 worth of XMR (at current prices) per day, while the electricity used to carry out the mining tasks would come to less than half the income from mining.
Related:Blockchain Bites: The Global Lockdown, Privacy Preserving Cryptography and Bitmain’s Cash Rebates
A Venezuelan crypto exchange has developed a service that supports crypto payments via SMS text messages, allowing users to enter the financial fold without an internet connection. (Decrypt)
Scaling backAfter years of being unable to close a Series B, enterprise blockchain company Factom, Inc.slashed its staff from 10 to just two, with six employees retained on a contract basis. The company isn’t going into receivership, however, as its investor, FastForward Innovations, claimed last week, said Factom COO Jay Smith.
Legal momentumOneCoin – the cryptocurrency investment scheme accused by the U.S. of being a Ponzi-type scam –may escape from a class-action lawsuitdue to procedural mishaps by the lead plaintiffs. The lead plaintiffs, who accuse the firm of misleading investors, have not been filing monthly updates on their efforts to serve court papers to all the listed defendants, and may have their case thrown out with prejudice, if they do not “show cause” by April 16.
Craig Wright has dropped his lawsuit against Blockstream CEO Adam Back, covering $8,400 in legal fees. The suit was filed last year, after the Blockstream CEO said Wright and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, were not one and the same person. (Decrypt)
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into ‘Backwardation’ Despite Fed’s Trillions
Blockchain’s bestBrazilian financial regulators’ new PIER data-sharingblockchain cost about $250,000to build and it runs on the Quorum blockchain. The system is a way for several state regulators to digitize their databases and move away from paper-based record keeping.
Bitfinex moved $1.1 billion inbitcoin(BTC), the largest transaction to date on the network, for less than a dollar. (Decrypt)
ScamsChainalysis has foundcrypto scams have taken a hitfrom COVID-19-led market turbulence. On a seven-day moving average, revenue earned by scammers plummeted from $800,000 worth of crypto in the middle of January to below $300,000 at the beginning of April – almost entirely due to the dramatic market drop earlier this year.
A darknet “pharmacist” who sold various opiates, benzodiazepines and other narcotics and accepted payments in cryptocurrency has been busted by the FBI. Undercover agents discovered the alleged criminal by tracking his bitcoin wallet held at Coinbase. (Modern Consensus)
Patent trendChinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba sought 20 percent of all blockchain patents filed last year. According to The Block, Tencent and its affiliates filed for 718 blockchain patents, while Alibaba Group filed 470 in 2019. (The Block)
Bearish caseBitcoin isreporting losseson Monday, having ended last week with its longest weekly winning streak in nearly a year. The short-term trend has turned bearish following a drop to $6,600, with a close above the 50-day average at $7,145 needed to neutralize the bearish case.
Miners’ anticipationAs the latest bitcoin halving approaches,miners are upgrading equipment, optimizing arrangements, conserving powerand more in the race to dominate. On this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Halving 2020: Miner Perspectives,” Kristy-Leigh Minehan and Pavel Moravec give an in-depth explanation of what miners are doing to maximize profits and increase operational efficiency.
CoinDesk ResearchMarch 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which assets outperformed, and how the participants in crypto markets are shifting in the wake of Q1’s defining event.
CoinDesk Research WebinarMarch 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum. On Wednesday, April 15 at 2pm ET, CoinDesk Research hosts a webinar to review and discuss our analysis.Sign up here.
Reading TelegramTelegramlost another round in courtagainst the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and now can’t launch its $1.7 billion token sale. What does it mean for the crypto industry and other startups that sold tokens? Gabriel Shapiro of BSV Law and Phillip Moustakis of Seward & Kissel unpack the case likely to set precedence for future crypto rulings.
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship
• First Mover: Bitcoin’s Market Cap Eclipses Citigroup’s as Yellen Calls for Big-Bank Dividend Cuts || Blockchain Bites: ‘Immunity Passports,’ a Darknet Pharmacist and How Bitcoin Miners Prepare for the Halving: You’re reading Blockchain Bites , the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here . Top shelf Privacy Technologists building blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) tools are collaborating on an “immunity passport” to help stop the spread of COVID-19 without compromising the privacy of users. The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI) is working on a digital certificate, using the recently approved World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials standard. The certificate lets individuals prove (and request proof from others) that they’ve recovered from the novel coronavirus, have tested positive for antibodies or have received a vaccination, once one is available. Mobile moves HTC’s Exodus blockchain phone will allow users to mine monero (XMR), in an attempt to further decentralize the cryptocurrency’s security protocol. Miners can earn users up to $0.0038 worth of XMR (at current prices) per day, while the electricity used to carry out the mining tasks would come to less than half the income from mining. Related: Blockchain Bites: The Global Lockdown, Privacy Preserving Cryptography and Bitmain’s Cash Rebates A Venezuelan crypto exchange has developed a service that supports crypto payments via SMS text messages, allowing users to enter the financial fold without an internet connection. ( Decrypt ) Scaling back After years of being unable to close a Series B, enterprise blockchain company Factom, Inc. slashed its staff from 10 to just two , with six employees retained on a contract basis. The company isn’t going into receivership, however, as its investor, FastForward Innovations, claimed last week, said Factom COO Jay Smith. Legal momentum OneCoin – the cryptocurrency investment scheme accused by the U.S. of being a Ponzi-type scam – may escape from a class-action lawsuit due to procedural mishaps by the lead plaintiffs. The lead plaintiffs, who accuse the firm of misleading investors, have not been filing monthly updates on their efforts to serve court papers to all the listed defendants, and may have their case thrown out with prejudice, if they do not “show cause” by April 16. Craig Wright has dropped his lawsuit against Blockstream CEO Adam Back, covering $8,400 in legal fees. The suit was filed last year, after the Blockstream CEO said Wright and Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, were not one and the same person. ( Decrypt ) Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Market Goes Into ‘Backwardation’ Despite Fed’s Trillions Story continues Blockchain’s best Brazilian financial regulators’ new PIER data-sharing blockchain cost about $250,000 to build and it runs on the Quorum blockchain. The system is a way for several state regulators to digitize their databases and move away from paper-based record keeping. Bitfinex moved $1.1 billion in bitcoin (BTC), the largest transaction to date on the network, for less than a dollar. ( Decrypt ) Scams Chainalysis has found crypto scams have taken a hit from COVID-19-led market turbulence. On a seven-day moving average, revenue earned by scammers plummeted from $800,000 worth of crypto in the middle of January to below $300,000 at the beginning of April – almost entirely due to the dramatic market drop earlier this year. A darknet “pharmacist” who sold various opiates, benzodiazepines and other narcotics and accepted payments in cryptocurrency has been busted by the FBI. Undercover agents discovered the alleged criminal by tracking his bitcoin wallet held at Coinbase. ( Modern Consensus ) Patent trend Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba sought 20 percent of all blockchain patents filed last year. According to The Block, Tencent and its affiliates filed for 718 blockchain patents, while Alibaba Group filed 470 in 2019. ( The Block ) Market intel Bearish case Bitcoin is reporting losses on Monday, having ended last week with its longest weekly winning streak in nearly a year. The short-term trend has turned bearish following a drop to $6,600, with a close above the 50-day average at $7,145 needed to neutralize the bearish case. Miners’ anticipation As the latest bitcoin halving approaches, miners are upgrading equipment, optimizing arrangements, conserving power and more in the race to dominate. On this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Halving 2020: Miner Perspectives,” Kristy-Leigh Minehan and Pavel Moravec give an in-depth explanation of what miners are doing to maximize profits and increase operational efficiency. CoinDesk Research March 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which assets outperformed, and how the participants in crypto markets are shifting in the wake of Q1’s defining event. CoinDesk Research Webinar March 12 changed how investors look at crypto markets and assets, shook out some participants and left others unmoved. The CoinDesk Quarterly Review is a Q1 analysis of how the narrative has changed for crypto blue-chips like Bitcoin and Ethereum. On Wednesday, April 15 at 2pm ET, CoinDesk Research hosts a webinar to review and discuss our analysis. Sign up here. Podcasts Reading Telegram Telegram lost another round in court against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and now can’t launch its $1.7 billion token sale. What does it mean for the crypto industry and other startups that sold tokens? Gabriel Shapiro of BSV Law and Phillip Moustakis of Seward & Kissel unpack the case likely to set precedence for future crypto rulings. Who Won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship First Mover: Bitcoin’s Market Cap Eclipses Citigroup’s as Yellen Calls for Big-Bank Dividend Cuts View comments || Bitcoin Vaults: Developer Bryan Bishop Releases Prototype for Secure On-Chain Storage: “People are not good at securing their keys,” said Bryan Bishop, a longtime bitcoin developer. “To the extent that we can write software better and secure [bitcoin] better, that’s a win.
As CoinDeskpreviously reported, the idea of a bitcoin vault has been around since 2016. Theoriginal proposalrequired a hard fork that core developers never implemented.
But as of today, Bishop is rolling out a fork-free prototypeon GitHuband sharing it out over the Bitcoin Core email list.
Related:Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving
The basic idea involves storingbitcoin(BTC) on-chain in a particularly secure manner that allows for recovery from security mistakes. The on-chain approach is part of what makes Bishop’s vault distinct from a cold wallet.
Cornell professor and Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer was part of the team that proposed bitcoin vaults backin 2016. He told CoinDesk he’s been watching Bishop’s work closely.
“It’s fantastic to see vaults go from concept to reality,” he told CoinDesk in an email. “We would like to see vaults become a standard feature on all cryptocurrencies, as they have the potential to avoid what are called ‘Sorry For Your Loss (SFYL)’ events.”
The thing about a normal wallet is you only have your own security model to protect you. If someone gets your private key, you have no recourse.
Related:Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High
Vaults, as proposed by Bishop and others, offer a Plan B. If your security falters somehow, you have a clawback mechanism.
Users of such vaults would effectively be deciding to limit the pace at which their bitcoin (BTC) could be released in the event of a breach. The stored bitcoin would be divided into a series of what Bishop is calling “shards.” These shards could only release their bitcoin to a hot wallet one at a time at some pre-set interval.
The proposal also calls for something called a watchtower which would monitor vaults. Any time it saw BTC move from a shard, it would likely notify the owner. If the attempt to transfer the bitcoin had not been authorized, the user could activate a pre-signed transaction that would move all the BTC to an off-chain cold wallet, before the bitcoin could unlock for use by the attacker.
Under certain conditions, the watchtower might skip the notification step and simply initiate moving to the cold wallet anyway.
“To operate this vault and everything that runs with it will require software at a minimum. This is not a manual procedure,” Bishop said. It’s not yet clear whether users would run their own watchtowers or if that will need to be something that’s shared by users.
Here is one adversary vaults might help users defend against: themselves. This model of timed release could be useful, for example, for bitcoin holders to “pay themselves” at set intervals, while introducing self-imposed friction over their ability to spend profligately.
“I want to make it clear that this is experimental, it’s a prototype,” Bishop said.
It’s worth noting Bishop’s implementation has been written assuming thatBitcoin Improvement Proposal 119will one day be adopted. It will work as is now, but if BIP 119 is adopted, “It makes some of the security a little bit tighter,” Bishop said.
Bishop is known these days as part ofthe team launching Avanti Bankin Wyoming, but this project is independent work. There are no immediate plans for Avanti, founded by blockchain advocate Caitlin Long, to adopt it.
Meanwhile, Bishop is not the only person to work on vaults for bitcoin’s existing codebase.
Since proposing the design last year, Kevin Loaec of Chainsmiths took it and modified it into something “targetted at people (actually: companies) who need to move the funds often and relatively fast … It’s a whole other level than the ‘multisig’ used today by most,” Loaec wrote to CoinDesk in an email.
Chainsmiths calls the productRevault, and expects to raise money around it soon.
Bob McElrath, formerly of Fidelity, is working on a similar implementation with several collaborators now, which he says will be described soon in academic papers. His description broadly applies to Bishop’s work as well.
“This kind of wallet is terribly complex,” McElrath wrote, “having at least three distinct wallets: an ‘active’ wallet (used to send & receive), a ‘vault’ (timelocked storage), and a ‘recovery’ wallet (destination for funds in case of attack).”
Ittay Eyal, a developer who was also part of the team that made the original vault proposal with Sirer, told CoinDesk, “We are actually in the process of developing a provably secure implementation of a vault for Ethereum in collaboration with Certora.”
• Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Bitcoin Vaults: Developer Bryan Bishop Releases Prototype for Secure On-Chain Storage: People are not good at securing their keys, said Bryan Bishop, a longtime bitcoin developer. To the extent that we can write software better and secure [bitcoin] better, thats a win. As CoinDesk previously reported , the idea of a bitcoin vault has been around since 2016. The original proposal required a hard fork that core developers never implemented. But as of today, Bishop is rolling out a fork-free prototype on GitHub and sharing it out over the Bitcoin Core email list. Related: Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving The basic idea involves storing bitcoin (BTC) on-chain in a particularly secure manner that allows for recovery from security mistakes. The on-chain approach is part of what makes Bishops vault distinct from a cold wallet. Cornell professor and Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer was part of the team that proposed bitcoin vaults back in 2016 . He told CoinDesk hes been watching Bishops work closely. Its fantastic to see vaults go from concept to reality, he told CoinDesk in an email. We would like to see vaults become a standard feature on all cryptocurrencies, as they have the potential to avoid what are called Sorry For Your Loss (SFYL) events. How it works The thing about a normal wallet is you only have your own security model to protect you. If someone gets your private key, you have no recourse. Related: Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High Vaults, as proposed by Bishop and others, offer a Plan B. If your security falters somehow, you have a clawback mechanism. Users of such vaults would effectively be deciding to limit the pace at which their bitcoin (BTC) could be released in the event of a breach. The stored bitcoin would be divided into a series of what Bishop is calling shards. These shards could only release their bitcoin to a hot wallet one at a time at some pre-set interval. The proposal also calls for something called a watchtower which would monitor vaults. Any time it saw BTC move from a shard, it would likely notify the owner. If the attempt to transfer the bitcoin had not been authorized, the user could activate a pre-signed transaction that would move all the BTC to an off-chain cold wallet, before the bitcoin could unlock for use by the attacker. Story continues Under certain conditions, the watchtower might skip the notification step and simply initiate moving to the cold wallet anyway. To operate this vault and everything that runs with it will require software at a minimum. This is not a manual procedure, Bishop said. Its not yet clear whether users would run their own watchtowers or if that will need to be something thats shared by users. Here is one adversary vaults might help users defend against: themselves. This model of timed release could be useful, for example, for bitcoin holders to pay themselves at set intervals, while introducing self-imposed friction over their ability to spend profligately. I want to make it clear that this is experimental, its a prototype, Bishop said. Its worth noting Bishops implementation has been written assuming that Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 119 will one day be adopted. It will work as is now, but if BIP 119 is adopted, It makes some of the security a little bit tighter, Bishop said. Bishop is known these days as part of the team launching Avanti Bank in Wyoming, but this project is independent work. There are no immediate plans for Avanti, founded by blockchain advocate Caitlin Long, to adopt it. Related projects Meanwhile, Bishop is not the only person to work on vaults for bitcoins existing codebase. Since proposing the design last year, Kevin Loaec of Chainsmiths took it and modified it into something targetted at people (actually: companies) who need to move the funds often and relatively fast
Its a whole other level than the multisig used today by most, Loaec wrote to CoinDesk in an email. Chainsmiths calls the product Revault , and expects to raise money around it soon. Bob McElrath, formerly of Fidelity, is working on a similar implementation with several collaborators now, which he says will be described soon in academic papers. His description broadly applies to Bishops work as well. This kind of wallet is terribly complex, McElrath wrote, having at least three distinct wallets: an active wallet (used to send & receive), a vault (timelocked storage), and a recovery wallet (destination for funds in case of attack). Ittay Eyal, a developer who was also part of the team that made the original vault proposal with Sirer, told CoinDesk, We are actually in the process of developing a provably secure implementation of a vault for Ethereum in collaboration with Certora. Related Stories Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Bitcoin Vaults: Developer Bryan Bishop Releases Prototype for Secure On-Chain Storage: “People are not good at securing their keys,” said Bryan Bishop, a longtime bitcoin developer. “To the extent that we can write software better and secure [bitcoin] better, that’s a win.
As CoinDeskpreviously reported, the idea of a bitcoin vault has been around since 2016. Theoriginal proposalrequired a hard fork that core developers never implemented.
But as of today, Bishop is rolling out a fork-free prototypeon GitHuband sharing it out over the Bitcoin Core email list.
Related:Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving
The basic idea involves storingbitcoin(BTC) on-chain in a particularly secure manner that allows for recovery from security mistakes. The on-chain approach is part of what makes Bishop’s vault distinct from a cold wallet.
Cornell professor and Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer was part of the team that proposed bitcoin vaults backin 2016. He told CoinDesk he’s been watching Bishop’s work closely.
“It’s fantastic to see vaults go from concept to reality,” he told CoinDesk in an email. “We would like to see vaults become a standard feature on all cryptocurrencies, as they have the potential to avoid what are called ‘Sorry For Your Loss (SFYL)’ events.”
The thing about a normal wallet is you only have your own security model to protect you. If someone gets your private key, you have no recourse.
Related:Bitcoin Stuck Below $7K Even as Gold Surges to Over 7-Year High
Vaults, as proposed by Bishop and others, offer a Plan B. If your security falters somehow, you have a clawback mechanism.
Users of such vaults would effectively be deciding to limit the pace at which their bitcoin (BTC) could be released in the event of a breach. The stored bitcoin would be divided into a series of what Bishop is calling “shards.” These shards could only release their bitcoin to a hot wallet one at a time at some pre-set interval.
The proposal also calls for something called a watchtower which would monitor vaults. Any time it saw BTC move from a shard, it would likely notify the owner. If the attempt to transfer the bitcoin had not been authorized, the user could activate a pre-signed transaction that would move all the BTC to an off-chain cold wallet, before the bitcoin could unlock for use by the attacker.
Under certain conditions, the watchtower might skip the notification step and simply initiate moving to the cold wallet anyway.
“To operate this vault and everything that runs with it will require software at a minimum. This is not a manual procedure,” Bishop said. It’s not yet clear whether users would run their own watchtowers or if that will need to be something that’s shared by users.
Here is one adversary vaults might help users defend against: themselves. This model of timed release could be useful, for example, for bitcoin holders to “pay themselves” at set intervals, while introducing self-imposed friction over their ability to spend profligately.
“I want to make it clear that this is experimental, it’s a prototype,” Bishop said.
It’s worth noting Bishop’s implementation has been written assuming thatBitcoin Improvement Proposal 119will one day be adopted. It will work as is now, but if BIP 119 is adopted, “It makes some of the security a little bit tighter,” Bishop said.
Bishop is known these days as part ofthe team launching Avanti Bankin Wyoming, but this project is independent work. There are no immediate plans for Avanti, founded by blockchain advocate Caitlin Long, to adopt it.
Meanwhile, Bishop is not the only person to work on vaults for bitcoin’s existing codebase.
Since proposing the design last year, Kevin Loaec of Chainsmiths took it and modified it into something “targetted at people (actually: companies) who need to move the funds often and relatively fast … It’s a whole other level than the ‘multisig’ used today by most,” Loaec wrote to CoinDesk in an email.
Chainsmiths calls the productRevault, and expects to raise money around it soon.
Bob McElrath, formerly of Fidelity, is working on a similar implementation with several collaborators now, which he says will be described soon in academic papers. His description broadly applies to Bishop’s work as well.
“This kind of wallet is terribly complex,” McElrath wrote, “having at least three distinct wallets: an ‘active’ wallet (used to send & receive), a ‘vault’ (timelocked storage), and a ‘recovery’ wallet (destination for funds in case of attack).”
Ittay Eyal, a developer who was also part of the team that made the original vault proposal with Sirer, told CoinDesk, “We are actually in the process of developing a provably secure implementation of a vault for Ethereum in collaboration with Certora.”
• Bitcoin Drops as Traders See Bearish Signals in Futures Markets
• Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Bitcoin miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day if prices hold steady after subsidy halving: Bitcoin miners are on the cusp of seeing their revenue fall by half after the network's block reward subsidy is cut next month.
The scheduled reduction will see bitcoin's block reward fall from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.Current estimatesindicate that the halving will occur on May 12th or 13th, though this date could shift depending on the frequency of block production leading up to that point.
And as The Block's Larry Cermak noted ina column published Monday, miners currently make about $13.4 million a day in terms of revenue (profits depend on the cost of electricity, labor and other expenses).
But after the halving – and if prices remain about the same in the wake of it – miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day.
[caption id="attachment_61661" align="alignnone" width="1600"]
Source: Coin Metrics, The Block[/caption]
The implications of this are significant for the financial health of miners. Those running inefficient hardware will face increasing pressure, especiallythose wallopedby recent market gyrations. On the other hand, miners with healthier financial outlooks – in particular the businessesable to secureand stand up more efficient hardware – will likely find themselves in a more competitive position. || Bitcoin miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day if prices hold steady after subsidy halving: Bitcoin miners are on the cusp of seeing their revenue fall by half after the network's block reward subsidy is cut next month. The scheduled reduction will see bitcoin's block reward fall from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. Current estimates indicate that the halving will occur on May 12th or 13th, though this date could shift depending on the frequency of block production leading up to that point. And as The Block's Larry Cermak noted in a column published Monday , miners currently make about $13.4 million a day in terms of revenue (profits depend on the cost of electricity, labor and other expenses). But after the halving and if prices remain about the same in the wake of it miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day. [caption id="attachment_61661" align="alignnone" width="1600"] Source: Coin Metrics, The Block [/caption] The implications of this are significant for the financial health of miners. Those running inefficient hardware will face increasing pressure, especially those walloped by recent market gyrations. On the other hand, miners with healthier financial outlooks in particular the businesses able to secure and stand up more efficient hardware will likely find themselves in a more competitive position. || Bitcoin miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day if prices hold steady after subsidy halving: Bitcoin miners are on the cusp of seeing their revenue fall by half after the network's block reward subsidy is cut next month.
The scheduled reduction will see bitcoin's block reward fall from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.Current estimatesindicate that the halving will occur on May 12th or 13th, though this date could shift depending on the frequency of block production leading up to that point.
And as The Block's Larry Cermak noted ina column published Monday, miners currently make about $13.4 million a day in terms of revenue (profits depend on the cost of electricity, labor and other expenses).
But after the halving – and if prices remain about the same in the wake of it – miner revenue will drop to $6.7 million per day.
[caption id="attachment_61661" align="alignnone" width="1600"]
Source: Coin Metrics, The Block[/caption]
The implications of this are significant for the financial health of miners. Those running inefficient hardware will face increasing pressure, especiallythose wallopedby recent market gyrations. On the other hand, miners with healthier financial outlooks – in particular the businessesable to secureand stand up more efficient hardware – will likely find themselves in a more competitive position. || Post COVID-19, Companies Must Be Resilient, Not Just Efficient: Preston Byrne, a CoinDesk columnist, is a partner in Anderson Kill’s Technology, Media and Distributed Systems Group. He advises software, internet and fintech companies. His biweekly column, “Not Legal Advice,” is a roundup of pertinent legal topics in the crypto space. It is most definitely not legal advice. Everyone has a bad take about what the world is going to look like after COVID-19. “Coronavirus is making the future happen faster,” or “ It’s not changing the future, it’s accelerating it!” is one common refrain . What the hell does that even mean? In most cases, it means the writer-flack usually points to some technology that already exists but nobody uses because current implementations mostly suck (videoconferencing, 3D printing, or VR) and are only regarded as mainstream in dissident tech applications, e.g. firearms manufacturing. Related: Europe Debates COVID-19 Contact Tracing That Respects Privacy See also: Preston Byrne – How to Survive the Coronavirus and Keep Your Startup Alive “Will the Coronavirus kill globalization?” is another seemingly insightful-yet-not-really observation. This literally asked by Foreign Policy magazine – not when Donald Trump was elected, or when Salvini or Orban or Boris Johnson were elected, or when the U.S. shut its borders to China, or even when the U.S. shut its doors to Europe, but rather this week , under circumstances where global trade has ground to a halt. Any country capable of doing so has sealed its borders, and both Democrats and Republicans are openly discuss re-on-shoring supply lines. Journalism is a lagging indicator. With the exception perhaps of the feeds belonging to Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), Ben Hunt (@epsilontheory), and Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes), Twitter is not much better. Internet macro takes on COVID that appear, at first brush, to be insightful and quantitative are usually also easily debunked. On Twitter, I have seen COVID described as an impossibly unlikely event, a seven-sigma or even 12 -sigma occurrence. Story continues Translating from math-ese into English, a 12-sigma event would be the sort of thing we might expect to see twice every 10,000 years. But pandemics like COVID-19 are far more common on far shorter timescales: major plagues have swept the world at least 20 times in the last 2,000 years, and at least three global influenzas, AIDS, polio, Ebola and now COVID-19 have each presented global threats in merely the last 102 years. Resiliency over efficiency Related: Open Source PPE: Inside the Project Decentralizing Face Mask Production So if we’re not going to wake up in six months and find ourselves in either “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior ,” revisiting the 1881-1914 New Imperialism of hyper-nationalistic great power conflict, or an episode of “The Jetsons,” what should we expect the world to look like in a few weeks when the first wave of COVID recedes? Probably, we will return to a world much like we left, except businesses will no longer be run with the assumption that raw efficiency should always take precedence over resiliency. This is not the way most people, and nearly all institutionalized corporate executives, are currently trained to think. I recall a friend who worked at a bank in Canary Wharf, in London, telling me several years ago his bank “did not plan for any contingency that the British Army and a couple of tanks showing up at the front door couldn’t fix.” By which he meant the bank’s official policy considered real-world business interruption events which the British Army could not handle – including, presumably, a global pandemic which shut down the entirety of the United Kingdom – to be so unlikely as to be not worth preparing for. Everyone has a bad take about what the world is going to look like after COVID-19. The most interesting business thinking today is likely not to be found in think-pieces or industry panels (if conferences ever return, that is), but rather behind closed doors among the members of boards of major corporations, law firms, importers, and others trying to dissect what has happened to their businesses in the last 30 days, and how to best position themselves to prevent this from happening again. I’m not privy to those discussions – I am too young and too beautiful to sit on such committees. But having run three of my own businesses I can guess what their conclusions might be. I am guessing (a) strategic cash reserves and (b) wider geographic distribution of staff will be the more important issues. See also: Preston Byrne – How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus First, firms will be looking to increase their cash reserves, substantially. This includes companies like law firms which historically distribute most of their profits and don’t sit on cash for very long. For most small and medium-sized companies, the idea of building a nest egg is an unfamiliar one. For the better part of the last 10 years the strategy has been to pour profits into further growth; demand shocks were nowhere to be seen, and there would always be another customer, or failing that another venture raise, another something around the corner to tide you over, if only you pitched it hard enough, no matter how insane your business model might be. See: WeWork . I prefer caution. When I ran a small law firm of my own, I kept my burn rate very low by, for example, setting up shop in Connecticut rather than New York. I always aimed to have sufficient opex in the bank, so I could survive in the (extremely unlikely) event the phone stopped ringing for a few months. Fortunately, that never happened, but I would have been ready for it if it had. After COVID-19, rational business leaders will understand that lengthy cashflow interruptions can sometimes occur. American companies never expected they would require a federal-government-degree-of-planning to manage their own day-to-day affairs. Second, although work from home will increase in frequency, it is horrible from both a team communication and business development standpoint. I hate it. I expect businesses to prioritize the establishment of self-sufficient satellite offices with very small teams in small, geographically distant exurban communities. If we need a precedent for this, we should look to the government which has, for at least 70 years, had sweeping contingency plans, chiefly to survive a nuclear war. All federal agencies develop and maintain comprehensive continuity of operations , or COOP: plans to relocate their agencies outside of Washington, D.C. and continue working remotely in the event of a major disaster. COVID-19 was one such disaster. In a little under a week starting on March 19 and ending on March 26, the lights winked out everywhere between Boston and Washington, D.C., a megalopolis 400 miles where much of America’s commerce is conducted. Millions of jobs were lost. Based on the level of corporate paralysis that has gripped much of the United States during COVID-19, we may safely infer that American companies never expected they would require a federal-government-degree-of-planning to manage their own day-to-day affairs. See also: Nic Carter – Corporate America Knows the Bailout Is Baked In What I’ve personally taken away from this disaster is that even geographic spread between cities is a unique form of exposure to cities. There are meaningful differences between the experience of my friends who are stuck in New York and those of us who are “stuck” in more rural areas. Rural zones continue to enjoy greater freedom of movement and action, and less oversight from, for example, overzealous urban police than the people living in built up metropolises. The lower density often, but not always, can result in lower amounts of disease transmission. Between these two measures – maintaining larger liquid cash reserves and promoting the wide dispersal of small teams capable of fully independent operation – companies of all sizes, large and small, will seek to address pandemic risk. Clever emergency planners will recognize that the risk of a statewide shutdown is not the only risk they face. Pandemic prepping will also mean preparedness for currency devaluations, bank failures, government property seizures, financial censorship, and other threats that lurk in the background. There will be myriad opportunities to develop business in this new world, including for Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency companies that can assist businesses in building robust, automated, cryptographically secure financial architectures. I expect that businesses selling credible software-based resilience will be profitable indeed. Related Stories US Treasury Approves Square as Coronavirus Stimulus Lender Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Post COVID-19, Companies Must Be Resilient, Not Just Efficient: Preston Byrne, a CoinDesk columnist, is a partner in Anderson Kill’s Technology, Media and Distributed Systems Group. He advises software, internet and fintech companies. His biweekly column, “Not Legal Advice,” is a roundup of pertinent legal topics in the crypto space. It is most definitely not legal advice. Everyone has a bad take about what the world is going to look like after COVID-19. “Coronavirus is making the future happen faster,” or “ It’s not changing the future, it’s accelerating it!” is one common refrain . What the hell does that even mean? In most cases, it means the writer-flack usually points to some technology that already exists but nobody uses because current implementations mostly suck (videoconferencing, 3D printing, or VR) and are only regarded as mainstream in dissident tech applications, e.g. firearms manufacturing. Related: Europe Debates COVID-19 Contact Tracing That Respects Privacy See also: Preston Byrne – How to Survive the Coronavirus and Keep Your Startup Alive “Will the Coronavirus kill globalization?” is another seemingly insightful-yet-not-really observation. This literally asked by Foreign Policy magazine – not when Donald Trump was elected, or when Salvini or Orban or Boris Johnson were elected, or when the U.S. shut its borders to China, or even when the U.S. shut its doors to Europe, but rather this week , under circumstances where global trade has ground to a halt. Any country capable of doing so has sealed its borders, and both Democrats and Republicans are openly discuss re-on-shoring supply lines. Journalism is a lagging indicator. With the exception perhaps of the feeds belonging to Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), Ben Hunt (@epsilontheory), and Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes), Twitter is not much better. Internet macro takes on COVID that appear, at first brush, to be insightful and quantitative are usually also easily debunked. On Twitter, I have seen COVID described as an impossibly unlikely event, a seven-sigma or even 12 -sigma occurrence. Story continues Translating from math-ese into English, a 12-sigma event would be the sort of thing we might expect to see twice every 10,000 years. But pandemics like COVID-19 are far more common on far shorter timescales: major plagues have swept the world at least 20 times in the last 2,000 years, and at least three global influenzas, AIDS, polio, Ebola and now COVID-19 have each presented global threats in merely the last 102 years. Resiliency over efficiency Related: Open Source PPE: Inside the Project Decentralizing Face Mask Production So if we’re not going to wake up in six months and find ourselves in either “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior ,” revisiting the 1881-1914 New Imperialism of hyper-nationalistic great power conflict, or an episode of “The Jetsons,” what should we expect the world to look like in a few weeks when the first wave of COVID recedes? Probably, we will return to a world much like we left, except businesses will no longer be run with the assumption that raw efficiency should always take precedence over resiliency. This is not the way most people, and nearly all institutionalized corporate executives, are currently trained to think. I recall a friend who worked at a bank in Canary Wharf, in London, telling me several years ago his bank “did not plan for any contingency that the British Army and a couple of tanks showing up at the front door couldn’t fix.” By which he meant the bank’s official policy considered real-world business interruption events which the British Army could not handle – including, presumably, a global pandemic which shut down the entirety of the United Kingdom – to be so unlikely as to be not worth preparing for. Everyone has a bad take about what the world is going to look like after COVID-19. The most interesting business thinking today is likely not to be found in think-pieces or industry panels (if conferences ever return, that is), but rather behind closed doors among the members of boards of major corporations, law firms, importers, and others trying to dissect what has happened to their businesses in the last 30 days, and how to best position themselves to prevent this from happening again. I’m not privy to those discussions – I am too young and too beautiful to sit on such committees. But having run three of my own businesses I can guess what their conclusions might be. I am guessing (a) strategic cash reserves and (b) wider geographic distribution of staff will be the more important issues. See also: Preston Byrne – How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus First, firms will be looking to increase their cash reserves, substantially. This includes companies like law firms which historically distribute most of their profits and don’t sit on cash for very long. For most small and medium-sized companies, the idea of building a nest egg is an unfamiliar one. For the better part of the last 10 years the strategy has been to pour profits into further growth; demand shocks were nowhere to be seen, and there would always be another customer, or failing that another venture raise, another something around the corner to tide you over, if only you pitched it hard enough, no matter how insane your business model might be. See: WeWork . I prefer caution. When I ran a small law firm of my own, I kept my burn rate very low by, for example, setting up shop in Connecticut rather than New York. I always aimed to have sufficient opex in the bank, so I could survive in the (extremely unlikely) event the phone stopped ringing for a few months. Fortunately, that never happened, but I would have been ready for it if it had. After COVID-19, rational business leaders will understand that lengthy cashflow interruptions can sometimes occur. American companies never expected they would require a federal-government-degree-of-planning to manage their own day-to-day affairs. Second, although work from home will increase in frequency, it is horrible from both a team communication and business development standpoint. I hate it. I expect businesses to prioritize the establishment of self-sufficient satellite offices with very small teams in small, geographically distant exurban communities. If we need a precedent for this, we should look to the government which has, for at least 70 years, had sweeping contingency plans, chiefly to survive a nuclear war. All federal agencies develop and maintain comprehensive continuity of operations , or COOP: plans to relocate their agencies outside of Washington, D.C. and continue working remotely in the event of a major disaster. COVID-19 was one such disaster. In a little under a week starting on March 19 and ending on March 26, the lights winked out everywhere between Boston and Washington, D.C., a megalopolis 400 miles where much of America’s commerce is conducted. Millions of jobs were lost. Based on the level of corporate paralysis that has gripped much of the United States during COVID-19, we may safely infer that American companies never expected they would require a federal-government-degree-of-planning to manage their own day-to-day affairs. See also: Nic Carter – Corporate America Knows the Bailout Is Baked In What I’ve personally taken away from this disaster is that even geographic spread between cities is a unique form of exposure to cities. There are meaningful differences between the experience of my friends who are stuck in New York and those of us who are “stuck” in more rural areas. Rural zones continue to enjoy greater freedom of movement and action, and less oversight from, for example, overzealous urban police than the people living in built up metropolises. The lower density often, but not always, can result in lower amounts of disease transmission. Between these two measures – maintaining larger liquid cash reserves and promoting the wide dispersal of small teams capable of fully independent operation – companies of all sizes, large and small, will seek to address pandemic risk. Clever emergency planners will recognize that the risk of a statewide shutdown is not the only risk they face. Pandemic prepping will also mean preparedness for currency devaluations, bank failures, government property seizures, financial censorship, and other threats that lurk in the background. There will be myriad opportunities to develop business in this new world, including for Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency companies that can assist businesses in building robust, automated, cryptographically secure financial architectures. I expect that businesses selling credible software-based resilience will be profitable indeed. Related Stories US Treasury Approves Square as Coronavirus Stimulus Lender Crypto Long & Short: DeFi and Traditional Finance Are Forming an Unlikely Friendship || Stabletown: The Stablecoin Exchange All Set to Expand Operations in Japan: LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / April 13, 2020 / The unpredictability of the Bitcoin market and the tendency of the major players to alienate them from banking structures have seen an increase in the trading of stablecoins. Predicted to be the future of cryptocurrency, most of the top cryptocurrency exchanges have added stablecoins to their portfolios. Stabletown is one of the most recent additions to the list of exchanges focused on stablecoin trading. The stablecoin exchange is a digital currency wallet and platform where market makers, institutional clients, and individuals can transact with new stable digital currencies. The UK based exchange founded the previous year is already well on its way to becoming one of the most trusted exchanges. They are facilitating market makers, institutional and individual clients to trade on new stable currencies. The exchange with state of the art risk management system is providing trust to exchanges, market makers, and institutional clients of the assets that they deliver to other investors. "We provide liquidity utilizing specifics of different exchanges and crypto exchanges in attracting organic liquidity for listed instruments." stated George Anderson the CEO of Stabletown when asked about stability and operations. Stablecoins offer a safe option for traders to store their assets. Cryptocurrency users can easily and in instantly convert their non-backed assets to stablecoins. The traders can safeguard themselves of the sudden dip in the cryptocurrency prices. This, apart from minimizing risks, decreases the dependency on a fiat economy. These reasons coupled with the fact that it is cheaper to convert the cryptocurrency to stablecoins and the rate of conversion of stablecoins to fiat are less expensive than the transformation of crypto currency to fiat, have attracted old and new users alike to invest in stablecoins. With decreased risk and lower volatility of the exchange rates, stablecoins are eyed to be the most viable options for new users to begin trading. Story continues As the search for exchanges that offer traders complete control of their portfolios is on the rise, Stabletown is offering a fully automated platform for both new and experienced users. It is one of the few exchanges offering services dedicated entirely to stablecoins. According to the CEO of Stabletown : "We strive to offer a unique trading experience and continuously improve existing products while expanding our scope to introduce new services." The statement in light of the recent allocation of $4,500,000 to develop in Japan, the exchange is indeed expanding. Stabletown was launched for professional High volume of trading over the counter (OTC) and is currently trading in Tether, TrueUSD, Paxos Standard, and USDC. Boasting of the best exchange rates in the market, the CEO emphasized the focus on larger trades and the same-day execution of OTC transactions starting from $500,000 equivalent. Armed with the best trade engine, low fees, and the highest state of the art risk security system, the platform is aiming to gain ground amongst the best exchanges. The team of Financial and IT experts are convinced of stable cryptocurrencies being the future of value exchange. Continually working on adding to the existing products, they plan to expand exponentially. At a time when most of the top ten cryptocurrency exchanges have just begun adding stablecoins to their lists of products, Stabletown has already marched ahead, with the best trading pairs in the market. The announcement of Facebook launching their reserve-based stablecoin Libra gave the cryptocurrency market the much-needed boost. The world for the first time in two years saw a growth in the Bitcoin prices. Binance, the leader amongst the cryptocurrency exchanges, announced the launch of their stablecoin BUSD and most of the leading market players around the world have either launched stablecoins or have pegged their products. In these scenarios, the possibility of Stabletown launching its stablecoin has not been overlooked by the founders. When asked if the launch of their stablecoin is on the cards, George Anderson (CEO) stated, "We aim to be number one on stablecoin trading around the world, so yes it's possible." CONTACT: George Anderson [email protected] SOURCE: Stabletown LTD View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/584828/Stabletown-The-Stablecoin-Exchange-All-Set-to-Expand-Operations-in-Japan || Stabletown: The Stablecoin Exchange All Set to Expand Operations in Japan: LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / April 13, 2020 /The unpredictability of the Bitcoin market and the tendency of the major players to alienate them from banking structures have seen an increase in the trading of stablecoins. Predicted to be the future of cryptocurrency, most of the top cryptocurrency exchanges have added stablecoins to their portfolios.Stabletownis one of the most recent additions to the list of exchanges focused on stablecoin trading.
The stablecoin exchange is a digital currency wallet and platform where market makers, institutional clients, and individuals can transact with new stable digital currencies. The UK based exchange founded the previous year is already well on its way to becoming one of the most trusted exchanges. They are facilitating market makers, institutional and individual clients to trade on new stable currencies. The exchange with state of the art risk management system is providing trust to exchanges, market makers, and institutional clients of the assets that they deliver to other investors. "We provide liquidity utilizing specifics of different exchanges and crypto exchanges in attracting organic liquidity for listed instruments." stated George Anderson the CEO of Stabletown when asked about stability and operations.
Stablecoins offer a safe option for traders to store their assets. Cryptocurrency users can easily and in instantly convert their non-backed assets to stablecoins. The traders can safeguard themselves of the sudden dip in the cryptocurrency prices. This, apart from minimizing risks, decreases the dependency on a fiat economy. These reasons coupled with the fact that it is cheaper to convert the cryptocurrency to stablecoins and the rate of conversion of stablecoins to fiat are less expensive than the transformation of crypto currency to fiat, have attracted old and new users alike to invest in stablecoins. With decreased risk and lower volatility of the exchange rates, stablecoins are eyed to be the most viable options for new users to begin trading.
As the search for exchanges that offer traders complete control of their portfolios is on the rise, Stabletown is offering a fully automated platform for both new and experienced users. It is one of the few exchanges offering services dedicated entirely to stablecoins. According to the CEO of Stabletown : "We strive to offer a unique trading experience and continuously improve existing products while expanding our scope to introduce new services." The statement in light of the recent allocation of $4,500,000 to develop in Japan, the exchange is indeed expanding.
Stabletownwas launched for professional High volume of trading over the counter (OTC) and is currently trading in Tether, TrueUSD, Paxos Standard, and USDC. Boasting of the best exchange rates in the market, the CEO emphasized the focus on larger trades and the same-day execution of OTC transactions starting from $500,000 equivalent. Armed with the best trade engine, low fees, and the highest state of the art risk security system, the platform is aiming to gain ground amongst the best exchanges. The team of Financial and IT experts are convinced of stable cryptocurrencies being the future of value exchange. Continually working on adding to the existing products, they plan to expand exponentially. At a time when most of the top ten cryptocurrency exchanges have just begun adding stablecoins to their lists of products, Stabletown has already marched ahead, with the best trading pairs in the market.
The announcement of Facebook launching their reserve-based stablecoin Libra gave the cryptocurrency market the much-needed boost. The world for the first time in two years saw a growth in the Bitcoin prices. Binance, the leader amongst the cryptocurrency exchanges, announced the launch of their stablecoin BUSD and most of the leading market players around the world have either launched stablecoins or have pegged their products. In these scenarios, the possibility of Stabletown launching its stablecoin has not been overlooked by the founders. When asked if the launch of their stablecoin is on the cards, George Anderson (CEO) stated, "We aim to be number one on stablecoin trading around the world, so yes it's possible."
CONTACT:
George [email protected]
SOURCE:Stabletown LTD
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/584828/Stabletown-The-Stablecoin-Exchange-All-Set-to-Expand-Operations-in-Japan
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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6642.11, 7116.80, 7096.18, 7257.67, 7189.42, 6881.96, 6880.32, 7117.21, 7429.72, 7550.90
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12, 7923.64, 7909.73, 7911.43, 4970.79, 5563.71, 5200.37, 5392.31, 5014.48, 5225.63, 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80, 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84, 6438.64, 6606.78, 6793.62, 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13, 7271.78, 7176.41, 7334.10, 7302.09, 6865.49, 6859.08, 6971.09, 6845.04, 6842.43, 6642.11, 7116.80, 7096.18, 7257.67, 7189.42, 6881.96, 6880.32, 7117.21, 7429.72, 7550.90, 7569.94, 7679.87, 7795.60, 7807.06, 8801.04, 8658.55, 8864.77, 8988.60, 8897.47, 8912.65, 9003.07, 9268.76, 9951.52, 9842.67, 9593.90, 8756.43, 8601.80, 8804.48, 9269.99, 9733.72, 9328.20, 9377.01, 9670.74, 9726.58, 9729.04, 9522.98, 9081.76, 9182.58, 9209.29, 8790.37, 8906.93, 8835.05, 9181.02, 9525.75, 9439.12, 9700.41, 9461.06, 10167.27, 9529.80.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-06-02]
Volume: 39137252109, RSI (14-day): 54.24, 50-day EMA: 8813.87, 200-day EMA: 8302.40
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1725.20, Gold RSI: 52.57
Oil Price: 36.81, Oil RSI: 64.27
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests: The old Wall Street maxim “sell in May and go away” is detrimental to bitcoin investors, market data from Messari suggests.
The largest cryptocurrency generated positive returns during eight of the past 10 Mays, outperforming its monthly average for that year during six of them.
“Sell in May” refers to an old investmentstrategythat advises against holding investments during summer months, starting in May. While there may betruthto the adage for traditional markets, some bitcoin investors don’t give the idea much credence.
“It’s just a meme to me,” said Qiao Wang, a cryptocurrency startup investor and former quantitative trader at Tower Research.
Read More:Bitcoin News Roundup for June 1, 2020
In May of last year, for example, bitcoin’s price gained more than 54% while the 2019 monthly average return was less than 8%. Bitcoin climbed almost 9% last month, just above the year-to-date monthly average of roughly 8.5%.
“It seems clear to me that you want to buy in May and go away,” Wang said of bitcoin.
Related:‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests
During bearish cycles in 2015 and 2018, bitcoin performed worse in May than the year’s monthly average. But in 2011, during the cryptocurrency’s first bearish cycle, May returns outshined the year’s monthly average by 120 percentage points.
Nonetheless, market sayings like “Sell in May,” while lacking supporting fundamentals, often become self-fulfilling or are just simply the results of a statistical anomaly, said Sam Trabucco, a quantitative cryptocurrency trader at Alameda Research.
Speaking to bitcoin’s historical outperformance in May, Trabucco said, “I don’t see a reason to believe this particular pattern is anything but variance.”
• Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities
• Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues || ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests: The old Wall Street maxim “sell in May and go away” is detrimental to bitcoin investors, market data from Messari suggests.
The largest cryptocurrency generated positive returns during eight of the past 10 Mays, outperforming its monthly average for that year during six of them.
“Sell in May” refers to an old investmentstrategythat advises against holding investments during summer months, starting in May. While there may betruthto the adage for traditional markets, some bitcoin investors don’t give the idea much credence.
“It’s just a meme to me,” said Qiao Wang, a cryptocurrency startup investor and former quantitative trader at Tower Research.
Read More:Bitcoin News Roundup for June 1, 2020
In May of last year, for example, bitcoin’s price gained more than 54% while the 2019 monthly average return was less than 8%. Bitcoin climbed almost 9% last month, just above the year-to-date monthly average of roughly 8.5%.
“It seems clear to me that you want to buy in May and go away,” Wang said of bitcoin.
Related:‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests
During bearish cycles in 2015 and 2018, bitcoin performed worse in May than the year’s monthly average. But in 2011, during the cryptocurrency’s first bearish cycle, May returns outshined the year’s monthly average by 120 percentage points.
Nonetheless, market sayings like “Sell in May,” while lacking supporting fundamentals, often become self-fulfilling or are just simply the results of a statistical anomaly, said Sam Trabucco, a quantitative cryptocurrency trader at Alameda Research.
Speaking to bitcoin’s historical outperformance in May, Trabucco said, “I don’t see a reason to believe this particular pattern is anything but variance.”
• Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities
• Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues || ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests: The old Wall Street maxim “sell in May and go away” is detrimental to bitcoin investors, market data from Messari suggests. The largest cryptocurrency generated positive returns during eight of the past 10 Mays, outperforming its monthly average for that year during six of them. “Sell in May” refers to an old investment strategy that advises against holding investments during summer months, starting in May. While there may be truth to the adage for traditional markets, some bitcoin investors don’t give the idea much credence. “It’s just a meme to me,” said Qiao Wang, a cryptocurrency startup investor and former quantitative trader at Tower Research. Read More: Bitcoin News Roundup for June 1, 2020 In May of last year, for example, bitcoin’s price gained more than 54% while the 2019 monthly average return was less than 8%. Bitcoin climbed almost 9% last month, just above the year-to-date monthly average of roughly 8.5%. “It seems clear to me that you want to buy in May and go away,” Wang said of bitcoin. Related: ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests During bearish cycles in 2015 and 2018, bitcoin performed worse in May than the year’s monthly average. But in 2011, during the cryptocurrency’s first bearish cycle, May returns outshined the year’s monthly average by 120 percentage points. Nonetheless, market sayings like “Sell in May,” while lacking supporting fundamentals, often become self-fulfilling or are just simply the results of a statistical anomaly, said Sam Trabucco, a quantitative cryptocurrency trader at Alameda Research. Speaking to bitcoin’s historical outperformance in May, Trabucco said, “I don’t see a reason to believe this particular pattern is anything but variance.” Related Stories Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues || Chinese Chip Maker With a Hand in Crypto Mining Plans $2.8B IPO: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), one of the largest computing chip producers in China, plans to raise $2.8 billion through an initial public offering on the Sci-Tech Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).
The exchange has accepted SMIC’s application, according to adocumentfiled Monday with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), where it is already listed. The company said part of the proceeds will be focused on developing 14nm chips, which will be used for crypto mining.
The move comes just two months after the companyannounceda partnership with crypto miner maker Canaan Creative. The two companies plan to develop a mining machine for an undisclosed cryptocurrency with a relatively small market cap, rather than bitcoin due to current technical limitations.
Read More:Canaan Reports $5.6M Loss in Q1 Despite Bitcoin Miner Price Cut
SMIC’s chip-making capabilities still lag behind Bitmain’s major chip supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), as well as Samsung, which works closely with Whatsminer and MicroBT. For example, Samsung has announced its intention to mass-produce 8nm chips in the first quarter, while TSMC is developing 5nm chips.
Founded in mainland China in 2000, SMIC could be one of China’s best hopes to advance its chip-making technologies and become less dependent on manufacturers that have deeper connections with the U.S. government amid increasing tension between the two countries.
Strong support from the Chinese government can put SMIC on the fast track to catch up with its competitors. The company has received substantial financial windfalls since the U.S. put forward new restrictions that could limit chip-makers such as TSMC and Samsung from manufacturing chips for Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei.
Related:Chinese Chip Maker With a Hand in Crypto Mining Plans $2.8B IPO
Read More:Bitcoin Mining Hardware War Is Heating Up Ahead of the Halving
The Sci-Tech Innovation Board of the SSE, where SMIC wants to go public,went livelast June in Shanghai. The new market is touted to be part of China’s capital market reform and support technology companies that are in line with national strategies.
SMIC also received a$2.2 billion investmentin May from National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund II and Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund II, which are two of the largest national investment funds.
The government fund came as the U.S. Department of Commerce expanded a restriction known asthe Foreign Direct Product Ruleto make it harder for China to import chips from Samsung and TSMC. It alsocut offchip supply to Huawei in May, while setting up a new plant in the U.S.
• Bitcoin Miner Maker Ebang Files for a $100M US IPO
• CEO Says BlockFi Is Lending to Crypto Miners as Other Providers Pull Back || Chinese Chip Maker With a Hand in Crypto Mining Plans $2.8B IPO: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), one of the largest computing chip producers in China, plans to raise $2.8 billion through an initial public offering on the Sci-Tech Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE). The exchange has accepted SMICs application, according to a document filed Monday with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), where it is already listed. The company said part of the proceeds will be focused on developing 14nm chips, which will be used for crypto mining. The move comes just two months after the company announced a partnership with crypto miner maker Canaan Creative. The two companies plan to develop a mining machine for an undisclosed cryptocurrency with a relatively small market cap, rather than bitcoin due to current technical limitations. Read More: Canaan Reports $5.6M Loss in Q1 Despite Bitcoin Miner Price Cut SMICs chip-making capabilities still lag behind Bitmains major chip supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), as well as Samsung, which works closely with Whatsminer and MicroBT. For example, Samsung has announced its intention to mass-produce 8nm chips in the first quarter, while TSMC is developing 5nm chips. Founded in mainland China in 2000, SMIC could be one of Chinas best hopes to advance its chip-making technologies and become less dependent on manufacturers that have deeper connections with the U.S. government amid increasing tension between the two countries. Strong support from the Chinese government can put SMIC on the fast track to catch up with its competitors. The company has received substantial financial windfalls since the U.S. put forward new restrictions that could limit chip-makers such as TSMC and Samsung from manufacturing chips for Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei. Related: Chinese Chip Maker With a Hand in Crypto Mining Plans $2.8B IPO Read More: Bitcoin Mining Hardware War Is Heating Up Ahead of the Halving Story continues The Sci-Tech Innovation Board of the SSE, where SMIC wants to go public, went live last June in Shanghai. The new market is touted to be part of Chinas capital market reform and support technology companies that are in line with national strategies. SMIC also received a $2.2 billion investment in May from National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund II and Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund II, which are two of the largest national investment funds. The government fund came as the U.S. Department of Commerce expanded a restriction known as the Foreign Direct Product Rule to make it harder for China to import chips from Samsung and TSMC. It also cut off chip supply to Huawei in May, while setting up a new plant in the U.S. Related Stories Bitcoin Miner Maker Ebang Files for a $100M US IPO CEO Says BlockFi Is Lending to Crypto Miners as Other Providers Pull Back || Fintech expert responds to Goldman Sachs’ Bitcoin scepticism: Marc J.J. Fleury, the CEO of fintech company Two Prime, has responded to Goldman Sachs’ recent analysis of Bitcoin. The multinational investment bank made a series of comments on the viability of Bitcoin as a potential investment. It stated that it was still prone to uncertain market volatility, as demonstrated during the sell-off to $4,000 in March, while also adding that there was no evidence of it being a hedge to inflation. The report was met with defensive anger and confusion across Bitcoin social media channels, with many alluding to JP Morgan’s infamous u-turn on Bitcoin. Fleury took a more diplomatic approach, giving examples of how the report was wrong by listing how it can be a store of value. “There are many forms of crypto — some of which are volatile, offering great upside potential (BTC, ETH); some are fully stable, offering downside protection (USDT); whereas others are balanced hybrids, offering both downside protection and upside potential (FF1 by Two Prime).” He said. “As a store of value, cryptos have shined during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the ongoing monetary expansion, high net worth individuals and savers will be ill advised to ignore this numerus clausus asset class.” For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || Fintech expert responds to Goldman Sachs’ Bitcoin scepticism: Marc J.J. Fleury, the CEO of fintech company Two Prime, has responded to Goldman Sachs’ recent analysis of Bitcoin. The multinational investment bank made a series of comments on the viability of Bitcoin as a potential investment. It stated that it was still prone to uncertain market volatility, as demonstrated during the sell-off to $4,000 in March, while also adding that there was no evidence of it being a hedge to inflation. The report was met with defensive anger and confusion across Bitcoin social media channels, with many alluding to JP Morgan’s infamous u-turn on Bitcoin. Fleury took a more diplomatic approach, giving examples of how the report was wrong by listing how it can be a store of value. “There are many forms of crypto — some of which are volatile, offering great upside potential (BTC, ETH); some are fully stable, offering downside protection (USDT); whereas others are balanced hybrids, offering both downside protection and upside potential (FF1 by Two Prime).” He said. “As a store of value, cryptos have shined during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the ongoing monetary expansion, high net worth individuals and savers will be ill advised to ignore this numerus clausus asset class.” For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || Fintech expert responds to Goldman Sachs’ Bitcoin scepticism: Marc J.J. Fleury, the CEO of fintech company Two Prime, has responded to Goldman Sachs’ recent analysis of Bitcoin. The multinational investment bank made a series of comments on the viability of Bitcoin as a potential investment. It stated that it was still prone to uncertain market volatility, as demonstrated during the sell-off to $4,000 in March, while also adding that there was no evidence of it being a hedge to inflation. The report was met with defensive anger and confusion across Bitcoin social media channels, with many alluding to JP Morgan’s infamous u-turn on Bitcoin. Fleury took a more diplomatic approach, giving examples of how the report was wrong by listing how it can be a store of value. “There are many forms of crypto — some of which are volatile, offering great upside potential (BTC, ETH); some are fully stable, offering downside protection (USDT); whereas others are balanced hybrids, offering both downside protection and upside potential (FF1 by Two Prime).” He said. “As a store of value, cryptos have shined during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the ongoing monetary expansion, high net worth individuals and savers will be ill advised to ignore this numerus clausus asset class.” For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues: Both bitcoin and oil were relatively calm Monday, but that when it comes to volatility over the past couple of months, it’s crude, the backbone of global industrialization, that’s seeing wilder swings as of late.
Bitcoin(BTC) was changing hands around $9,575 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. EDT), gaining less than a percent over the previous 24 hours. Despite a small rally of around $250 on Sunday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization still spent much of the weekend in the mid-$9,000s.
“We are still waiting on a breakout above $10,055 as a positive catalyst,” said Katie Stockton, an analyst at Fairfield Strategies. Stockton sees signs of price appreciation in the near-term. “There is an upturn in one of my preferred gauges that suggests this week will have a bullish bias within the framework of neutral short-term momentum and positive intermediate-term momentum.”
The wait-and-see approach for traders to get over $10,000 bitcoin hump continues. In the meantime, traders have pointed to increased excitement in the oil markets over the past two months.
Jose Llisterri, co-founder of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Interdax, says geopolitical tensions, combined with economic issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, have created a truly unique situation for crude. Oil is climbing 1% with a barrel of crude at $35 as of press time.
TheRussia-Saudi Arabia price war, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, have immensely impacted oil’s roller coaster, ride Llisterri told CoinDesk. “All these events are still playing out, so unless they are fully resolved markets should expect sudden swings in prices. These events have attracted many crypto traders who are lured into volatile markets.”
Read More:Iran Issues License for Nation’s Biggest Bitcoin Mining Operation
Related:Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues
While bitcoin has gyrated from as high as $10,081 to as low at $3,866 since March, oil’s price has been more rocky. In fact, oil has been much more volatile than bitcoin since April, with the spot price for crude as high as $48.56 and as low as $0.04 since March.
David Russell, vice president of market intelligence at TradeStation Group, a brokerage firm, says bitcoin’s fundamental aspects are very distinct from the crude markets. “Bitcoin couldn’t be more different than oil. It has limited supply, which just got even smaller because of halving. Crypto markets also had their last big volatility storm in 2018 and have been getting calmer since.”
Indeed, in 2020, the bitcoin rollercoaster has had nothing on oil.
The high volatility of production, demand and supply is weighing on crude markets, affecting its price tremendously, Russell noted to CoinDesk. “One has finite supply (bitcoin), while the other has a long history of gluts and overproduction (oil).”
Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mixed on Monday. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), gained less than a percent in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT).
Read More:Ether Leads Bitcoin on Price as Investors Prepare for Staking Arrival
Cryptocurrency winners on the day includeneo(NEO) up 7.5%,qtum(QTUM) in the green 3.2% anddecred(DCR) up 2%. Losers on the day includeethereum classic(ETC) in the red 3%,tron(TRX) down 2.6% andmonero(XMR) slipping 2.4%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT) Monday.
Read More:0x’s ZRX Token Surged 67% in May to Become Month’s Top Performer
Gold is in the green on the day, with the yellow metal gaining less than a percent and closing at $1,740 at the end of New York trading.
In the United States, the S&P 500 index was up less than a percent. U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed on the day. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, in the red 3.6%
In Europe, the FTSE Eurotop 100 index of the largest stocks by market capitalization ended up 1%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was in the green 1%.
• BitMEX Sees Biggest Short Squeeze in 8 Months After Bitcoin Surge
• Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities || Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues: Both bitcoin and oil were relatively calm Monday, but that when it comes to volatility over the past couple of months, it’s crude, the backbone of global industrialization, that’s seeing wilder swings as of late.
Bitcoin(BTC) was changing hands around $9,575 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. EDT), gaining less than a percent over the previous 24 hours. Despite a small rally of around $250 on Sunday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization still spent much of the weekend in the mid-$9,000s.
“We are still waiting on a breakout above $10,055 as a positive catalyst,” said Katie Stockton, an analyst at Fairfield Strategies. Stockton sees signs of price appreciation in the near-term. “There is an upturn in one of my preferred gauges that suggests this week will have a bullish bias within the framework of neutral short-term momentum and positive intermediate-term momentum.”
The wait-and-see approach for traders to get over $10,000 bitcoin hump continues. In the meantime, traders have pointed to increased excitement in the oil markets over the past two months.
Jose Llisterri, co-founder of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Interdax, says geopolitical tensions, combined with economic issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, have created a truly unique situation for crude. Oil is climbing 1% with a barrel of crude at $35 as of press time.
TheRussia-Saudi Arabia price war, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, have immensely impacted oil’s roller coaster, ride Llisterri told CoinDesk. “All these events are still playing out, so unless they are fully resolved markets should expect sudden swings in prices. These events have attracted many crypto traders who are lured into volatile markets.”
Read More:Iran Issues License for Nation’s Biggest Bitcoin Mining Operation
Related:Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues
While bitcoin has gyrated from as high as $10,081 to as low at $3,866 since March, oil’s price has been more rocky. In fact, oil has been much more volatile than bitcoin since April, with the spot price for crude as high as $48.56 and as low as $0.04 since March.
David Russell, vice president of market intelligence at TradeStation Group, a brokerage firm, says bitcoin’s fundamental aspects are very distinct from the crude markets. “Bitcoin couldn’t be more different than oil. It has limited supply, which just got even smaller because of halving. Crypto markets also had their last big volatility storm in 2018 and have been getting calmer since.”
Indeed, in 2020, the bitcoin rollercoaster has had nothing on oil.
The high volatility of production, demand and supply is weighing on crude markets, affecting its price tremendously, Russell noted to CoinDesk. “One has finite supply (bitcoin), while the other has a long history of gluts and overproduction (oil).”
Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mixed on Monday. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), gained less than a percent in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT).
Read More:Ether Leads Bitcoin on Price as Investors Prepare for Staking Arrival
Cryptocurrency winners on the day includeneo(NEO) up 7.5%,qtum(QTUM) in the green 3.2% anddecred(DCR) up 2%. Losers on the day includeethereum classic(ETC) in the red 3%,tron(TRX) down 2.6% andmonero(XMR) slipping 2.4%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT) Monday.
Read More:0x’s ZRX Token Surged 67% in May to Become Month’s Top Performer
Gold is in the green on the day, with the yellow metal gaining less than a percent and closing at $1,740 at the end of New York trading.
In the United States, the S&P 500 index was up less than a percent. U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed on the day. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, in the red 3.6%
In Europe, the FTSE Eurotop 100 index of the largest stocks by market capitalization ended up 1%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was in the green 1%.
• BitMEX Sees Biggest Short Squeeze in 8 Months After Bitcoin Surge
• Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities || Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues: Both bitcoin and oil were relatively calm Monday, but that when it comes to volatility over the past couple of months, it’s crude, the backbone of global industrialization, that’s seeing wilder swings as of late. Bitcoin (BTC) was changing hands around $9,575 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. EDT), gaining less than a percent over the previous 24 hours. Despite a small rally of around $250 on Sunday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization still spent much of the weekend in the mid-$9,000s. “We are still waiting on a breakout above $10,055 as a positive catalyst,” said Katie Stockton, an analyst at Fairfield Strategies. Stockton sees signs of price appreciation in the near-term. “There is an upturn in one of my preferred gauges that suggests this week will have a bullish bias within the framework of neutral short-term momentum and positive intermediate-term momentum.” The wait-and-see approach for traders to get over $10,000 bitcoin hump continues. In the meantime, traders have pointed to increased excitement in the oil markets over the past two months. Jose Llisterri, co-founder of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Interdax, says geopolitical tensions, combined with economic issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, have created a truly unique situation for crude. Oil is climbing 1% with a barrel of crude at $35 as of press time. The Russia-Saudi Arabia price war , combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, have immensely impacted oil’s roller coaster, ride Llisterri told CoinDesk. “All these events are still playing out, so unless they are fully resolved markets should expect sudden swings in prices. These events have attracted many crypto traders who are lured into volatile markets.” Read More: Iran Issues License for Nation’s Biggest Bitcoin Mining Operation Related: Market Wrap: As Bitcoin Steadies, Oil’s Turmoil Continues While bitcoin has gyrated from as high as $10,081 to as low at $3,866 since March, oil’s price has been more rocky. In fact, oil has been much more volatile than bitcoin since April, with the spot price for crude as high as $48.56 and as low as $0.04 since March. Story continues David Russell, vice president of market intelligence at TradeStation Group, a brokerage firm, says bitcoin’s fundamental aspects are very distinct from the crude markets. “Bitcoin couldn’t be more different than oil. It has limited supply, which just got even smaller because of halving. Crypto markets also had their last big volatility storm in 2018 and have been getting calmer since.” Indeed, in 2020, the bitcoin rollercoaster has had nothing on oil. The high volatility of production, demand and supply is weighing on crude markets, affecting its price tremendously, Russell noted to CoinDesk. “One has finite supply (bitcoin), while the other has a long history of gluts and overproduction (oil).” Other markets Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mixed on Monday. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), gained less than a percent in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT). Read More: Ether Leads Bitcoin on Price as Investors Prepare for Staking Arrival Cryptocurrency winners on the day include neo (NEO) up 7.5%, qtum (QTUM) in the green 3.2% and decred (DCR) up 2%. Losers on the day include ethereum classic (ETC) in the red 3%, tron (TRX) down 2.6% and monero (XMR) slipping 2.4%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT) Monday. Read More: 0x’s ZRX Token Surged 67% in May to Become Month’s Top Performer Gold is in the green on the day, with the yellow metal gaining less than a percent and closing at $1,740 at the end of New York trading. In the United States, the S&P 500 index was up less than a percent. U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed on the day. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, in the red 3.6% In Europe, the FTSE Eurotop 100 index of the largest stocks by market capitalization ended up 1%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was in the green 1%. Related Stories BitMEX Sees Biggest Short Squeeze in 8 Months After Bitcoin Surge Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities || Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013: Cynthia Lummis was the U.S. Representative for Wyoming from 2009 to 2017, and is now running for U.S. Senate. A budget hawk and founding member of the Freedom Caucus, she first bought bitcoin in 2013 after a tip from her son-in-law. She’s been an advocate ever since. A rancher with sandy blonde hair and a warm chuckle, Lummis spoke over the phone while she was looking out her window at hundreds of heads of steer. Birds were chirping in the background. We discussed what is a good store-of-value, how she thinks about her digital assets and running a senate campaign in the midst of a pandemic. “Each of those cattle,” she said, pointing outside, “they’ve decreased by over $400 a piece because of coronavirus. We need stores of value that are decoupled from the economy.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity. BP: Wyoming is leading the country in integrating blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into its banking and regulatory frameworks. What interested you in these technologies to begin with? CL: I served eight years as Wyoming state treasurer and so I got to invest Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund. It’s essentially a sovereign wealth fund. I was always trying to do was find something that was a good store-of-value. Largely through my son in law Will Cole and his friends I learned about bitcoin as a store-of-value. I bought my first bitcoin in 2013. See also: Most Influential 2019 – Caitlin Long BP: Wow, so a pretty good time to do so. Related: Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013 CL : Oh my god, yes, I think it was about $320 for a bitcoin that time. I’ve watched it mature as a store-of-value. I’ve watched the fundamentals of Bitcoin play out as something that has scarcity built into it, with only 21 million bitcoin being issued. That scarcity, which under economic theory should store value, has done so. The more I watched it since originally buying, the more I’ve come to believe that those overarching economic principles that underlie Bitcoin are playing out the way that one would hope and expect they would. As a person who’s always looking for a store-of-value, I’m impressed with that. Story continues I’m a budget, debt, and deficit hawk. I’ve watched us print money and avoid the scarcity principle by printing more and more money and watching the value of the dollar decline as a result of that. Alternatives to fiat currency are ready for primetime. This is the 21st century. Fiat currency may be on the decline, and I believe that cryptocurrencies may be on the uptick. We were seeing that dynamic play out more quickly because of coronavirus. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S, as opposed to something more scarce, I don’t think it can add value. BP: As China moves ahead with a digital yuan, should the U.S. be pursuing a digital dollar so we aren’t falling behind? CL : I don’t know that a government-issued currency is going to be necessary. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S., as opposed to something more scarce, then I don’t think it can add value. But maybe the goal of a digital dollar is not to store value but a matter of convenience, and it’s a matter of avoiding the ridiculous fees associated with having a non-digital fiat based currency. So, there may be consumer benefits to having a digital dollar that I have not fully explored. See also: Yang 2020 and the Search for the Next Crypto Candidate BP: How viable are blockchain and cryptocurrencies as issues for a candidate’s platform today? I noticed they weren’t mentioned on your website. CL: I have not talked about them as much as I think about them. That needs to change. The Wyoming legislature has been so advanced in its thinking about these issues. People like Caitlin Long, Will Cole and Parker Lewis are furthering Wyoming’s embrace of digital and cryptocurrency platforms. We are in this unique position. I need to talk about it more because these areas are going to become an important component of Wyoming’s contribution to advancing a whole variety of technologies that will set us free going forward. BP: I was in South Carolina covering the primary before the pandemic and many people I spoke to said they wanted to hear the candidates plans and thoughts on issues like cryptocurrencies. How would engage on this in Washington? CL: I would hope that I can be part of that in the U.S. Senate and find allies and other people who are interested. I don’t know how many members of the Senate are as pessimistic as I am about the future of fiat currency. That will be something I want to explore with members of the Senate when I get there and find out if not, then why not. Why do you think we can keep raising the debt ceiling and printing money without it having an effect on the value of the U.S. dollar and its ability to protect people? My generation, the Baby Boomers, are going into retirement, only to see their life savings become less valuable every day. Isn’t it better to acknowledge that circumstances within our control, meaning overspending, followed by a coronavirus that resulted in overspending by necessity, has now put us into such a deep hole that we need to explore alternatives to fiat currency? BP: The idea of a digital dollar was raised briefly in the context of the stimulus bill to send money directly to Americans. Would you have preferred to see an approach like that to get money to people quickly? CL: I don’t have any criticism of how the President and Congress handled this rapid response to the coronavirus. They truly didn’t have time to create the architecture for efficient distribution of these payments digitally. If that architectural framework had been in existence prior to this crisis, we would have been in a different situation. So now that we have the benefit of hindsight, creating that architecture as a means to more efficiently address crises and the delivery of benefits via the social safety net really may be one of the silver linings of having gone through this. BP: So did you hold on to that first bitcoin? CL: Yes, I am a HODLer. I’ve never sold. I was and am a buyer. I feel like that will always be the case for me. Because, going back to my store-of-value means of investing and diversifying, I want to have a diversified asset allocation. I want some assets that produce no income to me, but I can hold as a store-of-value. For someone my age who has other investments that are more vulnerable to our current economy I am delighted to have one that seems a little bit decoupled from our current economy. Looking at my own day-to-day business as a rancher and seeing how coronavirus affected my role in the traditional economy, I want to find ways in the non-traditional economy to protect my personal future and that of other Americans. Related Stories Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests || Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013: Cynthia Lummis was the U.S. Representative for Wyoming from 2009 to 2017, and is now running for U.S. Senate. A budget hawk and founding member of the Freedom Caucus, she first bought bitcoin in 2013 after a tip from her son-in-law. She’s been an advocate ever since. A rancher with sandy blonde hair and a warm chuckle, Lummis spoke over the phone while she was looking out her window at hundreds of heads of steer. Birds were chirping in the background. We discussed what is a good store-of-value, how she thinks about her digital assets and running a senate campaign in the midst of a pandemic. “Each of those cattle,” she said, pointing outside, “they’ve decreased by over $400 a piece because of coronavirus. We need stores of value that are decoupled from the economy.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity. BP: Wyoming is leading the country in integrating blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into its banking and regulatory frameworks. What interested you in these technologies to begin with? CL: I served eight years as Wyoming state treasurer and so I got to invest Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund. It’s essentially a sovereign wealth fund. I was always trying to do was find something that was a good store-of-value. Largely through my son in law Will Cole and his friends I learned about bitcoin as a store-of-value. I bought my first bitcoin in 2013. See also: Most Influential 2019 – Caitlin Long BP: Wow, so a pretty good time to do so. Related: Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013 CL : Oh my god, yes, I think it was about $320 for a bitcoin that time. I’ve watched it mature as a store-of-value. I’ve watched the fundamentals of Bitcoin play out as something that has scarcity built into it, with only 21 million bitcoin being issued. That scarcity, which under economic theory should store value, has done so. The more I watched it since originally buying, the more I’ve come to believe that those overarching economic principles that underlie Bitcoin are playing out the way that one would hope and expect they would. As a person who’s always looking for a store-of-value, I’m impressed with that. Story continues I’m a budget, debt, and deficit hawk. I’ve watched us print money and avoid the scarcity principle by printing more and more money and watching the value of the dollar decline as a result of that. Alternatives to fiat currency are ready for primetime. This is the 21st century. Fiat currency may be on the decline, and I believe that cryptocurrencies may be on the uptick. We were seeing that dynamic play out more quickly because of coronavirus. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S, as opposed to something more scarce, I don’t think it can add value. BP: As China moves ahead with a digital yuan, should the U.S. be pursuing a digital dollar so we aren’t falling behind? CL : I don’t know that a government-issued currency is going to be necessary. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S., as opposed to something more scarce, then I don’t think it can add value. But maybe the goal of a digital dollar is not to store value but a matter of convenience, and it’s a matter of avoiding the ridiculous fees associated with having a non-digital fiat based currency. So, there may be consumer benefits to having a digital dollar that I have not fully explored. See also: Yang 2020 and the Search for the Next Crypto Candidate BP: How viable are blockchain and cryptocurrencies as issues for a candidate’s platform today? I noticed they weren’t mentioned on your website. CL: I have not talked about them as much as I think about them. That needs to change. The Wyoming legislature has been so advanced in its thinking about these issues. People like Caitlin Long, Will Cole and Parker Lewis are furthering Wyoming’s embrace of digital and cryptocurrency platforms. We are in this unique position. I need to talk about it more because these areas are going to become an important component of Wyoming’s contribution to advancing a whole variety of technologies that will set us free going forward. BP: I was in South Carolina covering the primary before the pandemic and many people I spoke to said they wanted to hear the candidates plans and thoughts on issues like cryptocurrencies. How would engage on this in Washington? CL: I would hope that I can be part of that in the U.S. Senate and find allies and other people who are interested. I don’t know how many members of the Senate are as pessimistic as I am about the future of fiat currency. That will be something I want to explore with members of the Senate when I get there and find out if not, then why not. Why do you think we can keep raising the debt ceiling and printing money without it having an effect on the value of the U.S. dollar and its ability to protect people? My generation, the Baby Boomers, are going into retirement, only to see their life savings become less valuable every day. Isn’t it better to acknowledge that circumstances within our control, meaning overspending, followed by a coronavirus that resulted in overspending by necessity, has now put us into such a deep hole that we need to explore alternatives to fiat currency? BP: The idea of a digital dollar was raised briefly in the context of the stimulus bill to send money directly to Americans. Would you have preferred to see an approach like that to get money to people quickly? CL: I don’t have any criticism of how the President and Congress handled this rapid response to the coronavirus. They truly didn’t have time to create the architecture for efficient distribution of these payments digitally. If that architectural framework had been in existence prior to this crisis, we would have been in a different situation. So now that we have the benefit of hindsight, creating that architecture as a means to more efficiently address crises and the delivery of benefits via the social safety net really may be one of the silver linings of having gone through this. BP: So did you hold on to that first bitcoin? CL: Yes, I am a HODLer. I’ve never sold. I was and am a buyer. I feel like that will always be the case for me. Because, going back to my store-of-value means of investing and diversifying, I want to have a diversified asset allocation. I want some assets that produce no income to me, but I can hold as a store-of-value. For someone my age who has other investments that are more vulnerable to our current economy I am delighted to have one that seems a little bit decoupled from our current economy. Looking at my own day-to-day business as a rancher and seeing how coronavirus affected my role in the traditional economy, I want to find ways in the non-traditional economy to protect my personal future and that of other Americans. Related Stories Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests || Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013: Cynthia Lummis was the U.S. Representative for Wyoming from 2009 to 2017, and is now running for U.S. Senate. A budget hawk and founding member of the Freedom Caucus, she first bought bitcoin in 2013 after a tip from her son-in-law. She’s been an advocate ever since. A rancher with sandy blonde hair and a warm chuckle, Lummis spoke over the phone while she was looking out her window at hundreds of heads of steer. Birds were chirping in the background. We discussed what is a good store-of-value, how she thinks about her digital assets and running a senate campaign in the midst of a pandemic. “Each of those cattle,” she said, pointing outside, “they’ve decreased by over $400 a piece because of coronavirus. We need stores of value that are decoupled from the economy.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity. BP: Wyoming is leading the country in integrating blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into its banking and regulatory frameworks. What interested you in these technologies to begin with? CL: I served eight years as Wyoming state treasurer and so I got to invest Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund. It’s essentially a sovereign wealth fund. I was always trying to do was find something that was a good store-of-value. Largely through my son in law Will Cole and his friends I learned about bitcoin as a store-of-value. I bought my first bitcoin in 2013. See also: Most Influential 2019 – Caitlin Long BP: Wow, so a pretty good time to do so. Related: Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013 CL : Oh my god, yes, I think it was about $320 for a bitcoin that time. I’ve watched it mature as a store-of-value. I’ve watched the fundamentals of Bitcoin play out as something that has scarcity built into it, with only 21 million bitcoin being issued. That scarcity, which under economic theory should store value, has done so. The more I watched it since originally buying, the more I’ve come to believe that those overarching economic principles that underlie Bitcoin are playing out the way that one would hope and expect they would. As a person who’s always looking for a store-of-value, I’m impressed with that. Story continues I’m a budget, debt, and deficit hawk. I’ve watched us print money and avoid the scarcity principle by printing more and more money and watching the value of the dollar decline as a result of that. Alternatives to fiat currency are ready for primetime. This is the 21st century. Fiat currency may be on the decline, and I believe that cryptocurrencies may be on the uptick. We were seeing that dynamic play out more quickly because of coronavirus. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S, as opposed to something more scarce, I don’t think it can add value. BP: As China moves ahead with a digital yuan, should the U.S. be pursuing a digital dollar so we aren’t falling behind? CL : I don’t know that a government-issued currency is going to be necessary. As long as a dollar-based digital currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S., as opposed to something more scarce, then I don’t think it can add value. But maybe the goal of a digital dollar is not to store value but a matter of convenience, and it’s a matter of avoiding the ridiculous fees associated with having a non-digital fiat based currency. So, there may be consumer benefits to having a digital dollar that I have not fully explored. See also: Yang 2020 and the Search for the Next Crypto Candidate BP: How viable are blockchain and cryptocurrencies as issues for a candidate’s platform today? I noticed they weren’t mentioned on your website. CL: I have not talked about them as much as I think about them. That needs to change. The Wyoming legislature has been so advanced in its thinking about these issues. People like Caitlin Long, Will Cole and Parker Lewis are furthering Wyoming’s embrace of digital and cryptocurrency platforms. We are in this unique position. I need to talk about it more because these areas are going to become an important component of Wyoming’s contribution to advancing a whole variety of technologies that will set us free going forward. BP: I was in South Carolina covering the primary before the pandemic and many people I spoke to said they wanted to hear the candidates plans and thoughts on issues like cryptocurrencies. How would engage on this in Washington? CL: I would hope that I can be part of that in the U.S. Senate and find allies and other people who are interested. I don’t know how many members of the Senate are as pessimistic as I am about the future of fiat currency. That will be something I want to explore with members of the Senate when I get there and find out if not, then why not. Why do you think we can keep raising the debt ceiling and printing money without it having an effect on the value of the U.S. dollar and its ability to protect people? My generation, the Baby Boomers, are going into retirement, only to see their life savings become less valuable every day. Isn’t it better to acknowledge that circumstances within our control, meaning overspending, followed by a coronavirus that resulted in overspending by necessity, has now put us into such a deep hole that we need to explore alternatives to fiat currency? BP: The idea of a digital dollar was raised briefly in the context of the stimulus bill to send money directly to Americans. Would you have preferred to see an approach like that to get money to people quickly? CL: I don’t have any criticism of how the President and Congress handled this rapid response to the coronavirus. They truly didn’t have time to create the architecture for efficient distribution of these payments digitally. If that architectural framework had been in existence prior to this crisis, we would have been in a different situation. So now that we have the benefit of hindsight, creating that architecture as a means to more efficiently address crises and the delivery of benefits via the social safety net really may be one of the silver linings of having gone through this. BP: So did you hold on to that first bitcoin? CL: Yes, I am a HODLer. I’ve never sold. I was and am a buyer. I feel like that will always be the case for me. Because, going back to my store-of-value means of investing and diversifying, I want to have a diversified asset allocation. I want some assets that produce no income to me, but I can hold as a store-of-value. For someone my age who has other investments that are more vulnerable to our current economy I am delighted to have one that seems a little bit decoupled from our current economy. Looking at my own day-to-day business as a rancher and seeing how coronavirus affected my role in the traditional economy, I want to find ways in the non-traditional economy to protect my personal future and that of other Americans. Related Stories Bitcoin Rises Above $10K for First Time in 25 Days as Protests Roil US Cities ‘Sell in May’ Wall Street Adage Doesn’t Apply to Bitcoin, Data Suggests || The Power and Peril of the Bitcoin Fixes This Meme: As the U.S. experiences the most sustained civil disobedience in more than a generation, an exploration of what role bitcoin has to play in building a better system. For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and police brutality? Is the looting covertly being driven by white supremacists on the one hand or ANTIFA on the other? In the Bitcoin community, some have plumbed the Bitcoin Fixes This meme to argue that the core underlying issue has to do with a monetary system that structurally creates inequality. Others have clapped back against pushing that meme in this moment. See also: Minsky Moments and the Financial History of Pandemics In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW looks at: What bitcoiners are trying to say when they apply the Bitcoin Fixes This meme to this moment. Why the current system structurally exacerbates inequality. Why the meme fails to capture additional economic, political and power dimensions of whats going on. Why the meme in this moment might feel so out of place as to inspire the opposite of its intended effect: turning people away from bitcoin rather than making them want to learn more. Why Satoshis If you dont get it, I dont have time to explain it to you quote is the most misused and abused of his sayings. Why complexity and nuance, not memes, are needed now. Related: The Power and Peril of the Bitcoin Fixes This Meme For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . Related Stories We Need 30 Different Words for Censorship, Feat. Andreas M. Antonopoulos The Battle for the Future of Money, Feat. Lawrence Summers, CZ, Michelle Phan, the Winklevoss Brothers, The Chainsmokers and More || The Power and Peril of the ‘Bitcoin Fixes This’ Meme: As the U.S. experiences the most sustained civil disobedience in more than a generation, an exploration of what role bitcoin has to play in building a better system.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byBitstampandCiphertrace
Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and police brutality? Is the looting covertly being driven by white supremacists on the one hand or ANTIFA on the other?
In the Bitcoin community, some have plumbed the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to argue that the core underlying issue has to do with a monetary system that structurally creates inequality. Others have clapped back against pushing that meme in this moment.
See also:‘Minsky Moments’ and the Financial History of Pandemics
In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW looks at:
• What bitcoiners are trying to say when they apply the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to this moment.
• Why the current system structurally exacerbates inequality.
• Why the meme fails to capture additional economic, political and power dimensions of what’s going on.
• Why the meme in this moment might feel so out of place as to inspire the opposite of its intended effect: turning people away from bitcoin rather than making them want to learn more.
• Why Satoshi’s “If you don’t get it, I don’t have time to explain it to you” quote is the most misused and abused of his sayings.
• Why complexity and nuance, not memes, are needed now.
Related:The Power and Peril of the ‘Bitcoin Fixes This’ Meme
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• ‘We Need 30 Different Words for Censorship,’ Feat. Andreas M. Antonopoulos
• The Battle for the Future of Money, Feat. Lawrence Summers, CZ, Michelle Phan, the Winklevoss Brothers, The Chainsmokers and More || The Power and Peril of the ‘Bitcoin Fixes This’ Meme: As the U.S. experiences the most sustained civil disobedience in more than a generation, an exploration of what role bitcoin has to play in building a better system.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byBitstampandCiphertrace
Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and police brutality? Is the looting covertly being driven by white supremacists on the one hand or ANTIFA on the other?
In the Bitcoin community, some have plumbed the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to argue that the core underlying issue has to do with a monetary system that structurally creates inequality. Others have clapped back against pushing that meme in this moment.
See also:‘Minsky Moments’ and the Financial History of Pandemics
In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW looks at:
• What bitcoiners are trying to say when they apply the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to this moment.
• Why the current system structurally exacerbates inequality.
• Why the meme fails to capture additional economic, political and power dimensions of what’s going on.
• Why the meme in this moment might feel so out of place as to inspire the opposite of its intended effect: turning people away from bitcoin rather than making them want to learn more.
• Why Satoshi’s “If you don’t get it, I don’t have time to explain it to you” quote is the most misused and abused of his sayings.
• Why complexity and nuance, not memes, are needed now.
Related:The Power and Peril of the ‘Bitcoin Fixes This’ Meme
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• ‘We Need 30 Different Words for Censorship,’ Feat. Andreas M. Antonopoulos
• The Battle for the Future of Money, Feat. Lawrence Summers, CZ, Michelle Phan, the Winklevoss Brothers, The Chainsmokers and More || Private Swiss Bank Rolls Out New Premium Crypto Trading Service: Private Swiss bank Maerki Baumann’s new crypto trading service shows there’s a growing market for providing premium execution for an institutional or wealthy clientele. The entity promised its new crypto trading and custody service would provide clients with the best trading experience in a blog post last week. “The trading orders placed with Maerki Baumann are directed to professional crypto brokers and the world’s largest and most liquid crypto exchanges via proven partner companies,” Maerki Baumann announced. “This ensures that transactions are carried out quickly and with a narrow trading range between the buy and sell price (spread).” Maerki Baumann’s clientele includes institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). The bank has also offered corporate accounts for qualifying crypto businesses ever since it first made its entry into the space in April 2019. Regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the new offering is set to go live sometime this month. Starting with bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), XRP (XRP), litecoin (LTC) and ether (ETH), the bank said it will gradually expand its list of supported assets based, in part, on client feedback. See also: Swiss Crypto Firm Closes $14.5M Series B to Help Secure Brokerage License But the takeaway here is premier crypto trading services, to a select, exclusive clientele, is a growing and lucrative market. Just last month, FalconX – a company offering best trade execution to institutional and professional clients with a minimum $10 million in assets under management (AUM) – raised more than $17 million in pre-seed and seed round funding. Related: Private Swiss Bank Rolls Out New Premium Crypto Trading Service Reading through the description, FalconX’s offering sounds near-identical to Maerki Baumann’s: Both are hooked up to the order books from multiple crypto exchanges, giving clients an overview of the market that allows them to transact at the best available price and with minimal slippage. Story continues And they aren’t the only ones. Coinbase , Genesis Trading (CoinDesk’s sister company), and BitGo have all made plans to become prime brokers – a type of fixer that provide specialized trading services for institutional investors, including best trade execution. See also: Crypto Data Provider Skew Raises $5M, Laun c hes Trade Execution Platform Maerki Baumann has already said its new crypto trading and custody offering may just be the start. It wants to offer some of its private banking products to its crypto clients as well as launch a new crypto investment service, which could possibly include opportunities to invest directly in selected blockchain companies. CoinDesk reached out to Maerki Baumann to comment on whether it thought its newly launched crypto trading service had any rivals to speak of. We hadn’t received a response by press time. Related Stories Genesis Hires Ex-Galaxy Digital Staffer to Run New Derivatives Trading Desk Blockchain Bites: Google Validates Theta, Coinbase and BitGo Eye Crypto Prime Brokerage || Private Swiss Bank Rolls Out New Premium Crypto Trading Service: Private Swiss bank Maerki Baumann’s new crypto trading service shows there’s a growing market for providing premium execution for an institutional or wealthy clientele. The entity promised its new crypto trading and custody service would provide clients with the best trading experience in a blog post last week. “The trading orders placed with Maerki Baumann are directed to professional crypto brokers and the world’s largest and most liquid crypto exchanges via proven partner companies,” Maerki Baumann announced. “This ensures that transactions are carried out quickly and with a narrow trading range between the buy and sell price (spread).” Maerki Baumann’s clientele includes institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). The bank has also offered corporate accounts for qualifying crypto businesses ever since it first made its entry into the space in April 2019. Regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the new offering is set to go live sometime this month. Starting with bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), XRP (XRP), litecoin (LTC) and ether (ETH), the bank said it will gradually expand its list of supported assets based, in part, on client feedback. See also: Swiss Crypto Firm Closes $14.5M Series B to Help Secure Brokerage License But the takeaway here is premier crypto trading services, to a select, exclusive clientele, is a growing and lucrative market. Just last month, FalconX – a company offering best trade execution to institutional and professional clients with a minimum $10 million in assets under management (AUM) – raised more than $17 million in pre-seed and seed round funding. Related: Private Swiss Bank Rolls Out New Premium Crypto Trading Service Reading through the description, FalconX’s offering sounds near-identical to Maerki Baumann’s: Both are hooked up to the order books from multiple crypto exchanges, giving clients an overview of the market that allows them to transact at the best available price and with minimal slippage. Story continues And they aren’t the only ones. Coinbase , Genesis Trading (CoinDesk’s sister company), and BitGo have all made plans to become prime brokers – a type of fixer that provide specialized trading services for institutional investors, including best trade execution. See also: Crypto Data Provider Skew Raises $5M, Laun c hes Trade Execution Platform Maerki Baumann has already said its new crypto trading and custody offering may just be the start. It wants to offer some of its private banking products to its crypto clients as well as launch a new crypto investment service, which could possibly include opportunities to invest directly in selected blockchain companies. CoinDesk reached out to Maerki Baumann to comment on whether it thought its newly launched crypto trading service had any rivals to speak of. We hadn’t received a response by press time. Related Stories Genesis Hires Ex-Galaxy Digital Staffer to Run New Derivatives Trading Desk Blockchain Bites: Google Validates Theta, Coinbase and BitGo Eye Crypto Prime Brokerage || BEQUANT Launches Prime Brokerage, engages with Cryptocurrency Exchange OKEx: LONDON , UK / ACCESSWIRE / June 1, 2020 / BEQUANT has launched its prime brokerage platform, and has engaged with OKEx - one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchanges as a counterpart. Using the OKEx exchange platform will allow BEQUANT to grow its liquidity base as well as provide more choice to its large institutional clients. The global footprint will enable both companies to take advantage of the growing popularity of digital assets among the best financial institutions. "We are happy to be able to offer our clients the opportunities OKEx provides, and connect with such a well known market leader." commented BEQUANT CEO George Zarya. BEQUANT will continue to grow its partnerships with leading companies in the digital asset space and the OKEx partnership will strengthen its positions as a provider of digital asset services to large institutional clients. "The cooperation with Bequant is an example of OKEx's dedication to working with other service providers to provide better services to institutions. Prime Brokerage is going to be a crucial piece for the institutional space." commented OKEx Director of Financial Markets - Lennix Lai. BEQUANT has begun a large expansion into digital asset services. Through its prime brokerage and Bequant Solutions units, the company will provide an unprecedented level of digital asset integration for the financial services industry, from trading terminals, cross-border compliance, matching engines to deep liquidity and tokenization. In June, BEQUANT will also be featuring a series of Digital Asset webinars together with partners Cryptocompare and Cointelegraph, as well as continue its exclusive interviews on London's City Am website - one of the financial news hubs for the City of London. About BEQUANT BEQUANT is a one stop solution for professional digital-assets investors and institutions. Our breadth of products include prime brokerage, custody, fund administration enhanced by an institutional trading platform providing low-latency, liquidity and direct market access. Story continues BEQUANT is dedicated to providing solutions that create market efficiencies by reducing friction while delivering exceptional client services. The BEQUANT team is composed of experts from institutional, retail and digital financial services with experience in banking, derivatives, electronic trading and prime brokerage. About OKEx The world's largest and most diverse cryptocurrency marketplace, OKEx is where global crypto traders, miners, and institutional investors come to manage crypto assets, enhance investment opportunities, and hedge risks. We provide spot and derivatives trading, including futures, perpetual swap, and options, of major cryptocurrencies, offering investors great flexibility in formulating their strategies to maximize gains and mitigate risks. Our BTC futures trade has nearly $1.5B of volume daily, and is widely recognized as the gold standard for the industry. Media Contact: BEQUANT Sunil Chauhan T - +44 (0)20 3893 3214 E - [email protected] SOURCE: BEQUANT View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/591810/BEQUANT-Launches-Prime-Brokerage-engages-with-Cryptocurrency-Exchange-OKEx
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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9656.72, 9800.64, 9665.53, 9653.68, 9758.85, 9771.49, 9795.70, 9870.09, 9321.78, 9480.84
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 666.65, 596.12, 623.98, 665.30, 665.12, 629.37, 655.28, 647.00, 639.89, 673.34, 676.30, 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55, 654.47, 658.08, 663.26, 660.77, 679.46, 673.11, 672.86, 665.68, 665.01, 650.62, 655.56, 661.28, 654.10, 651.78, 654.35, 655.03, 656.99, 655.05, 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56, 585.59, 570.47, 567.24, 577.44, 573.22, 574.32, 575.63, 581.70, 581.31, 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-09-18]
Volume: 48679400, RSI (14-day): 56.03, 50-day EMA: 602.44, 200-day EMA: 548.47
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Your first trade for Friday, September 16: The " Fast Money " traders shared their first moves for the market open. Tim Seymour was a buyer of Nike (NYSE: NKE) . David Seaburg was a seller of Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of Disney (NYSE: DIS) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) . Trader disclosure: On September 15, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, HD, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short HYG, IWM, UAL. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, CHK, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX Grasso's Kids Own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY NO SHORTS Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its Partners have a financial interest in DVN, LDP, WDR, AVP, CVX, FCX, ICE, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OLN, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TEX, TITXF, URI, VALE, WDR, WYNN, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, MJNA, TITXF, NXTD, SPY, QQQ, DIA, XLI, BGCP, VIRT, JCP, GE, AIR FP . David Seaburg: Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc. David Seaburg and Cowen have a financial interest in EDIT. Diamond Offshore: an employee of Cowen and Company, LLC serves on the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore. EXPE, HZNP, VA – Not Approved. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Your first trade for Friday, September 16: The "Fast Money" traders shared their first moves for the market open.
Tim Seymour was a buyer of Nike(NYSE: NKE).
David Seaburg was a seller of Qualcomm(NASDAQ: QCOM).
Brian Kelly was a buyer of Disney(NYSE: DIS).
Steve Grasso was a buyer of Chesapeake Energy(NYSE: CHK).
Trader disclosure: On September 15, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Tim Seymour is long APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, HD, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short HYG, IWM, UAL. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, CHK, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX Grasso's Kids Own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY NO SHORTS Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its Partners have a financial interest in DVN, LDP, WDR, AVP, CVX, FCX, ICE, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OLN, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TEX, TITXF, URI, VALE, WDR, WYNN, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, MJNA, TITXF, NXTD, SPY, QQQ, DIA, XLI, BGCP, VIRT, JCP, GE, AIR FP.David Seaburg: Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc. David Seaburg and Cowen have a financial interest in EDIT. Diamond Offshore: an employee of Cowen and Company, LLC serves on the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore. EXPE, HZNP, VA – Not Approved.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defenses against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defenses, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defenses against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defenses, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defenses against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it.
The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output.
It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks.
On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system.
"The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said.
Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly.
"A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defenses, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said.
Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defenses against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defenses, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defences against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defences, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defences against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defences, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: (Adds detail of proposals)
LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defences against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it.
The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output.
It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks.
On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system.
"The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said.
Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly.
"A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defences, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said.
Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. ($1 = 0.7592 pounds) (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: (Adds detail of proposals) LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defences against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defences, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. ($1 = 0.7592 pounds) (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Inbenta Raises $12 Million in Oversubscribed Series B Round to Expand Market Leadership in Enterprise Artificial Intelligence and Chatbot Solutions: SAN MATEO, CA --(Marketwired - September 14, 2016) - Inbenta ( https://www.inbenta.com ), the company behind enterprise-grade artificial intelligence solutions, today announced an oversubscribed Series B fundraising round totaling $12 million, led by Level Equity , with participation by Amasia and Series A investor Scale Capital through its Amérigo Chile fund. Level Equity founder and partner George McCulloch and Amasia chairman Ramanan Raghavendran joined Inbenta's board of directors. "Inbenta was founded in 2005 with a vision of leveraging artificial intelligence in an entirely new manner to transform how companies and customers interact," said Jordi Torras, founder and CEO, Inbenta. "That vision has been realized, and now Inbenta is in a period of dramatic and profitable growth including global expansion into 23 countries and support for over 20 languages. This Series B financing will help bring our technology to a much larger group of demanding customers who need enterprise-grade solutions, and to further drive the innovation that underpins our technology." The funding will be used to expand sales and marketing, and to further drive product development for Inbenta's industry-leading natural language processing (NLP) technology that powers search, chatbots, and self-service solutions for customer support and e-commerce. Inbenta's products are now used by over 200 customers around the world, including Ticketmaster, B&H, CA Technologies and 8x8 to enhance customer engagement, increase retention, and drive sales. Bitcoin marketplace Xapo has a chatbot that helps educate consumers about the Bitcoin industry and answer specific questions about a customer's account, purchases, or how to execute a trade. "Customers ask us a lot of questions about our product and the industry as a whole. They want a one-to-one experience that makes them feel like they're being heard," said Jessie Blocker, Lead Customer Support, Xapo. "Through Inbenta's Intelligent Chatbot platform, we've been able to provide this experience without having to break the bank by adding entire teams of live support agents." Story continues Inbenta leads the global market in terms of scale and reach. Based on the Meaning-Text Theory , which conceives natural language from lexicon to semantics, Inbenta's team of expert linguists has developed proprietary lexicons that make search and chatbot experiences possible for nearly all native language speakers across the globe. Built on a crowd-sourced machine learning program, the scope of Inbenta's AI improves with each new customer question that is asked. "Level Equity has met and evaluated dozens of companies in the artificial intelligence sector," said George McCulloch, founder and partner, Level Equity. "Inbenta is our first AI investment, which reflects our confidence in the company's technology, the giant opportunity in this sector, and the capabilities of the Inbenta team behind Jordi." "It's 'chatbot season' these days, with large companies and startups alike embracing the AI revolution," said Ramanan Raghavendran, Amasia chairman. "Inbenta has gone after, and solved, the hardest problem in the field -- industry leading natural language processing -- and implemented its AI solutions in high-volume, real-time enterprise settings." Inbenta is headquartered in San Mateo, California with offices in Spain, France, Brazil, and Chile. About Inbenta: Inbenta specializes in Natural Language Processing and semantic search to improve the customer experience. Support services such as dynamic FAQs , knowledge management and chatbots improve business website searches, customer self-service, and e-commerce conversions. With a team of expert linguists assigned to each client to help them understand the root cause of queries and make suggestions on updates to FAQs, Inbenta's products help businesses improve the overall online experience offered to customers. Inbenta's patented technology has greatly reduced incoming customer service emails and calls to call centers for industry-leading companies including Ticketmaster, CA Technologies and Schlage Locks. Additional information: Watch an introduction to Inbenta: https://youtu.be/J5V-f5kBS_Y Watch an introduction to Inbenta's Chatbot Development Platform: https://youtu.be/NhkZ81QnKdY Press Images: http://bit.ly/29qackh Follow Inbenta on Twitter: @inbenta About Level Equity Based in New York, NY, Level Equity is a growth equity firm focused on providing growth capital to rapidly growing software and internet companies. Principals at Level Equity have invested in over 50 technology businesses over the past 15 years. For more information about Level Equity, visit www.levelequity.com . About Amasia Amasia ( www.amasia.vc ), with offices in San Francisco and Singapore, is a venture capital firm that specializes in helping its portfolio companies "get global". Embedded Video Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5V-f5kBS_Y&feature=youtu.be || Inbenta Raises $12 Million in Oversubscribed Series B Round to Expand Market Leadership in Enterprise Artificial Intelligence and Chatbot Solutions: SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - September 14, 2016) -Inbenta (https://www.inbenta.com), the company behind enterprise-grade artificial intelligence solutions, today announced an oversubscribed Series B fundraising round totaling $12 million, led byLevel Equity, with participation byAmasiaand Series A investorScale Capitalthrough its Amérigo Chile fund. Level Equity founder and partner George McCulloch and Amasia chairman Ramanan Raghavendran joined Inbenta's board of directors.
"Inbenta was founded in 2005 with a vision of leveraging artificial intelligence in an entirely new manner to transform how companies and customers interact," said Jordi Torras, founder and CEO, Inbenta. "That vision has been realized, and now Inbenta is in a period of dramatic and profitable growth including global expansion into 23 countries and support for over 20 languages. This Series B financing will help bring our technology to a much larger group of demanding customers who need enterprise-grade solutions, and to further drive the innovation that underpins our technology."
The funding will be used to expand sales and marketing, and to further drive product development for Inbenta's industry-leading natural language processing (NLP) technology that powers search, chatbots, and self-service solutions for customer support and e-commerce. Inbenta's products are now used by over 200 customers around the world, including Ticketmaster, B&H, CA Technologies and 8x8 to enhance customer engagement, increase retention, and drive sales.
Bitcoin marketplace Xapo has a chatbot that helps educate consumers about the Bitcoin industry and answer specific questions about a customer's account, purchases, or how to execute a trade.
"Customers ask us a lot of questions about our product and the industry as a whole. They want a one-to-one experience that makes them feel like they're being heard," said Jessie Blocker, Lead Customer Support, Xapo. "Through Inbenta's Intelligent Chatbot platform, we've been able to provide this experience without having to break the bank by adding entire teams of live support agents."
Inbenta leads the global market in terms of scale and reach. Based on theMeaning-Text Theory, which conceives natural language from lexicon to semantics, Inbenta's team of expert linguists has developed proprietary lexicons that make search and chatbot experiences possible for nearly all native language speakers across the globe. Built on a crowd-sourced machine learning program, the scope of Inbenta's AI improves with each new customer question that is asked.
"Level Equity has met and evaluated dozens of companies in the artificial intelligence sector," said George McCulloch, founder and partner, Level Equity. "Inbenta is our first AI investment, which reflects our confidence in the company's technology, the giant opportunity in this sector, and the capabilities of the Inbenta team behind Jordi."
"It's 'chatbot season' these days, with large companies and startups alike embracing the AI revolution," said Ramanan Raghavendran, Amasia chairman. "Inbenta has gone after, and solved, the hardest problem in the field -- industry leading natural language processing -- and implemented its AI solutions in high-volume, real-time enterprise settings."
Inbenta is headquartered in San Mateo, California with offices in Spain, France, Brazil, and Chile.
About Inbenta:Inbenta specializes inNatural Language Processingandsemantic searchto improve the customer experience. Support services such asdynamic FAQs, knowledge management and chatbots improve business website searches, customer self-service, and e-commerce conversions.
With a team of expert linguists assigned to each client to help them understand the root cause of queries and make suggestions on updates to FAQs, Inbenta's products help businesses improve the overall online experience offered to customers. Inbenta's patented technology has greatly reduced incoming customer service emails and calls to call centers for industry-leading companies including Ticketmaster, CA Technologies and Schlage Locks.
Additional information:
• Watch an introduction to Inbenta:https://youtu.be/J5V-f5kBS_Y
• Watch an introduction to Inbenta's Chatbot Development Platform:https://youtu.be/NhkZ81QnKdY
• Press Images:http://bit.ly/29qackh
• Follow Inbenta on Twitter:@inbenta
About Level EquityBased in New York, NY, Level Equity is a growth equity firm focused on providing growth capital to rapidly growing software and internet companies. Principals at Level Equity have invested in over 50 technology businesses over the past 15 years. For more information about Level Equity, visitwww.levelequity.com.
About AmasiaAmasia (www.amasia.vc), with offices in San Francisco and Singapore, is a venture capital firm that specializes in helping its portfolio companies "get global".
Embedded Video Available:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5V-f5kBS_Y&feature=youtu.be || Your first trade for Wednesday, September 14: The "Fast Money" traders shared their first moves for the market open.
Pete Najarian was a buyer of Lululemon(LULU).
Dan Nathan was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund(NYSE Arca: XLF).
Brian Kelly was a seller of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF(NYSE Arca: EEM).
Guy Adami was a buyer of Allergan(AGN).
Trader disclosure: On September 13, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Pete Najarian was longAAPL, BAC, BMY, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMI.A, KO, LUX, PEP, PFE, VIAB; Long Calls: AAL, AMD, ABT, AKS, BAC, CIT, CNX, COP, CRM, CSCO, CYH, DISH, DVN, EGO, ETP, FSLR, FXI, GLD, GS, HALO, JBLU, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LULU, M, MS, MT, NEM, SBUX, SLV, SWKS, SYMC, TGT, TWTR, TTS, UA, VRX, XLE Long Puts: CLV, MBLY, MRO, TSLA, EEM. Brian Kelly was long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Dan Nathan was long TWTR, IWM long Sept put, long PYPL call calendar, XOP Sept put spread, BAC long Sept put, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long FB Sept put spread, AAPL long Nov 105/95 put spread, long XLK Jan put spread. Guy Adami was long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. || Your first trade for Wednesday, September 14: The " Fast Money " traders shared their first moves for the market open. Pete Najarian was a buyer of Lululemon ( LULU ) . Dan Nathan was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLF) . Brian Kelly was a seller of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE Arca: EEM) . Guy Adami was a buyer of Allergan ( AGN ) . Trader disclosure: On September 13, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Pete Najarian was long AAPL, BAC, BMY, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMI.A, KO, LUX, PEP, PFE, VIAB; Long Calls: AAL, AMD, ABT, AKS, BAC, CIT, CNX, COP, CRM, CSCO, CYH, DISH, DVN, EGO, ETP, FSLR, FXI, GLD, GS, HALO, JBLU, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LULU, M, MS, MT, NEM, SBUX, SLV, SWKS, SYMC, TGT, TWTR, TTS, UA, VRX, XLE Long Puts: CLV, MBLY, MRO, TSLA, EEM. Brian Kelly was long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=. Dan Nathan was long TWTR, IWM long Sept put, long PYPL call calendar, XOP Sept put spread, BAC long Sept put, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long FB Sept put spread, AAPL long Nov 105/95 put spread, long XLK Jan put spread. Guy Adami was long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. || And this is why you don’t scam a security professional on Reddit: Trying to scam someone on the internet is always a bad idea, but if that someone turns out to be the head of a security research company, you're in for a whole world of hurt. Christian Haschek is an Austrian security researcher who was trying to sell $500 in US Apple gift cards on Reddit, since they're a pain to use from overseas. He thought he had struck a deal with a buyer, but that buyer turned out to be less than honest . DON'T MISS: Reaction roundup: How angry are people about the iPhone 7’s missing headphone jack? After attempting to verify the buyer through an eBay account, Haschek mailed the cards to the buyer. He was expecting Bitcoin payment sometime soon after, but that never came. Getting angry , he messaged the verified eBay account, only to get a message denying any knowledge of the sale. At the same time, the Reddit account he had been dealing with was deleted. So, Haschek embarked on a slightly more low-key and geeky version of Liam Neeson's Taken . He used the Reddit and eBay account names to track down a Steam name, and through that, a Facebook account of the scammer's friend. He used that and some painstaking Facebook stalking to find the scammer's full name and all of his family, and that's where things got really good. He sent a message to the scammer's mom and brother outlining the situation, and said that something had to be done or he would got to the cops. Unsurprisingly, the Bitcoin for the gift cards came quickly thereafter, along with a grovelling apology. In the end, there was no harm done on either side. But it also goes to show that little on the internet is really anonymous. If you want to scam someone -- or conduct perfectly legitimate business on the internet without being found -- remember to start with brand-new accounts. You can (and should) read the full account here . Trending right now: Ultimate Pokemon Go cheat lets you walk anywhere in the game without moving an inch Apple’s dual camera system will remain an iPhone Plus exclusive with the iPhone 8 Steve Jobs’ thoughts on ‘courage’ help explain why Apple removed the iPhone 7’s headphone jack See the original version of this article on BGR.com || And this is why you don’t scam a security professional on Reddit: Trying to scam someone on the internet is always a bad idea, but if that someone turns out to be the head of a security research company, you're in for a whole world of hurt. Christian Haschek is an Austrian security researcher who was trying to sell $500 in US Apple gift cards on Reddit, since they're a pain to use from overseas. He thought he had struck a deal with a buyer, but that buyer turned out to be less than honest . DON'T MISS: Reaction roundup: How angry are people about the iPhone 7’s missing headphone jack? After attempting to verify the buyer through an eBay account, Haschek mailed the cards to the buyer. He was expecting Bitcoin payment sometime soon after, but that never came. Getting angry , he messaged the verified eBay account, only to get a message denying any knowledge of the sale. At the same time, the Reddit account he had been dealing with was deleted. So, Haschek embarked on a slightly more low-key and geeky version of Liam Neeson's Taken . He used the Reddit and eBay account names to track down a Steam name, and through that, a Facebook account of the scammer's friend. He used that and some painstaking Facebook stalking to find the scammer's full name and all of his family, and that's where things got really good. He sent a message to the scammer's mom and brother outlining the situation, and said that something had to be done or he would got to the cops. Unsurprisingly, the Bitcoin for the gift cards came quickly thereafter, along with a grovelling apology. In the end, there was no harm done on either side. But it also goes to show that little on the internet is really anonymous. If you want to scam someone -- or conduct perfectly legitimate business on the internet without being found -- remember to start with brand-new accounts. You can (and should) read the full account here . Trending right now: Ultimate Pokemon Go cheat lets you walk anywhere in the game without moving an inch Apple’s dual camera system will remain an iPhone Plus exclusive with the iPhone 8 Steve Jobs’ thoughts on ‘courage’ help explain why Apple removed the iPhone 7’s headphone jack See the original version of this article on BGR.com
[Social Media Buzz]
1 KOBO = 0.00000384 BTC
= 0.0023 USD
= 0.6992 NGN
= 0.0328 ZAR
= 0.2328 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-09-18 10:00 pic.twitter.com/wy4ieTY45D || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$603.10/$603.90 #Bitstamp
$606.00/$606.99 #BTCe
⇢$2.10/$3.89
$604.66/$610.76 #Coinbase
⇢$0.76/$7.66 || $607.62 at 14:15 UTC [24h Range: $601.10 - $608.00 Volume: 1349 BTC] || 1 KOBO = 0.00000384 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-09-18 05:00 pic.twitter.com/UfZVR8kmPk || $606.85 at 19...
|
609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29, 8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75, 7296.58, 7397.80, 7047.92, 7146.13, 7218.37, 7531.66, 7463.11, 7761.24, 7569.63.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-30]
Volume: 17158194786, RSI (14-day): 40.53, 50-day EMA: 8356.34, 200-day EMA: 8581.16
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bakkt CEO Will Be Asked to Fill Georgia Senate Seat in 2020: Report: Crypto custodian Bakkt’s chief executive Kelly Loeffler has reportedly been picked by Governor Brian Kemp to serve in the U.S. Senate until the special election in November 2020.
Loeffler will likely be asked next week to serve as the replacement ofU.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, who has announced plans to vacate his senate seat on December 31, according to areportby The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing “several senior GOP officials.”
Last re-elected in 2016, Isakson is set to leave office before the expiration of his term in 2022. Kemp has authority to pick a replacement to fill in until the special election in November 2020.
Related:Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Launch in Singapore in Just Two Weeks
The governor’s office, The Republican National Committee, Georgia Republican Party and Senator Isakson’s office have not responded to a request for comment from CoinDesk. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) declined to comment.
A subsidiary of ICE announced in 2018, Bakkt said itwas clearedto launch in September, providing physically-settled bitcoin futures contracts. It also has plans fora consumer facing appnext year.
Loefller previously served as chief communication and marketing director at ICE.
Additional reporting by Brady Dale.
• Bakkt, Fidelity Will Store Galaxy Digital’s New Bitcoin Fund Holdings
• Bakkt in Discussions to Offer Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures in Singapore
• Bakkt Expands Bitcoin Custody Service Beyond Futures Trading Clients || Bakkt CEO Will Be Asked to Fill Georgia Senate Seat in 2020: Report: Crypto custodian Bakkt’s chief executive Kelly Loeffler has reportedly been picked by Governor Brian Kemp to serve in the U.S. Senate until the special election in November 2020. Loeffler will likely be asked next week to serve as the replacement of U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson , who has announced plans to vacate his senate seat on December 31, according to a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing “several senior GOP officials.” Last re-elected in 2016, Isakson is set to leave office before the expiration of his term in 2022. Kemp has authority to pick a replacement to fill in until the special election in November 2020. Related: Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Launch in Singapore in Just Two Weeks The governor’s office, The Republican National Committee, Georgia Republican Party and Senator Isakson’s office have not responded to a request for comment from CoinDesk. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) declined to comment. A subsidiary of ICE announced in 2018, Bakkt said it was cleared to launch in September, providing physically-settled bitcoin futures contracts. It also has plans for a consumer facing app next year. Loefller previously served as chief communication and marketing director at ICE. Additional reporting by Brady Dale. Related Stories Bakkt, Fidelity Will Store Galaxy Digital’s New Bitcoin Fund Holdings Bakkt in Discussions to Offer Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures in Singapore Bakkt Expands Bitcoin Custody Service Beyond Futures Trading Clients View comments || Fidelity creates blockchain token to reward employees: Fidelity’s Center for Applied Technology (FCAT) has successfully completed trials of a new digital token to reward employees for performance and attendance. In collaboration with San Francisco-based security token platform TokenSoft, Fidelity has now created and deployed an internal token using the ERC-1404 token standard. ERC-1404 tokens are compliant with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines for securities, and like ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, they can be tailored to specific use cases. Mason Borde, TokenSoft’s CEO, announced the initiative back in June at FCAT’s ‘Bits and Blocks Club’ – a Fidelity employee learning group for digital assets. At the time, Juri Bulovic, Blockchain Product Manager at FCAT, commented: “For employees, it’s a real use case for restricted tokens and gives them an opportunity to get hands-on experience with tokens, wallets, and other blockchain technology to understand how it works and how we might apply this in other areas.” The token, referred to as ‘BBT Token’, was deployed as a restricted token standard used by Fidelity’s Bits and Blocks Club. Members could use the BBT Token as part of a closed-loop rewards system, which rewarded employees for attending internal training events. Most importantly for Fidelity, it was the first use of a token which could have complex regulatory and operational requirements coded into its contract. The token was controlled via TokenSoft’s Token Administration Platform, which has been designed specifically for institutional-grade scenarios. Fidelity’s focus on digital assets Fidelity has long held a focus on bringing digital assets to institutional investors, announcing in October 2018 that it would be offering “ enterprise-quality ” custody and trading for Bitcoin to its customers. The firm reiterated its positive stance on blockchain with the live launch of Fidelity Digital Assets early in 2019, created to offer cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based assets to family offices, pensions, and hedge funds. Story continues Abigail Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Investments, has previously shared that the firm’s crypto efforts are part of a bid to attract Wall Street investors into the digital asset space. Johnson shared in January: “Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as Bitcoin, more accessible to investors.” Fidelity’s deployment of an internal token is evidence of its commitment to educating its employees on digital assets and wrestling with some of the toughest regulatory and technical challenges in the space. The post Fidelity creates blockchain token to reward employees appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Fidelity creates blockchain token to reward employees: Fidelity’s Center for Applied Technology (FCAT) has successfully completed trials of a new digital token to reward employees for performance and attendance. In collaboration with San Francisco-based security token platform TokenSoft, Fidelity has now created and deployed an internal token using the ERC-1404 token standard. ERC-1404 tokens are compliant with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines for securities, and like ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, they can be tailored to specific use cases. Mason Borde, TokenSoft’s CEO, announced the initiative back in June at FCAT’s ‘Bits and Blocks Club’ – a Fidelity employee learning group for digital assets. At the time, Juri Bulovic, Blockchain Product Manager at FCAT, commented: “For employees, it’s a real use case for restricted tokens and gives them an opportunity to get hands-on experience with tokens, wallets, and other blockchain technology to understand how it works and how we might apply this in other areas.” The token, referred to as ‘BBT Token’, was deployed as a restricted token standard used by Fidelity’s Bits and Blocks Club. Members could use the BBT Token as part of a closed-loop rewards system, which rewarded employees for attending internal training events. Most importantly for Fidelity, it was the first use of a token which could have complex regulatory and operational requirements coded into its contract. The token was controlled via TokenSoft’s Token Administration Platform, which has been designed specifically for institutional-grade scenarios. Fidelity’s focus on digital assets Fidelity has long held a focus on bringing digital assets to institutional investors, announcing in October 2018 that it would be offering “ enterprise-quality ” custody and trading for Bitcoin to its customers. The firm reiterated its positive stance on blockchain with the live launch of Fidelity Digital Assets early in 2019, created to offer cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based assets to family offices, pensions, and hedge funds. Story continues Abigail Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Investments, has previously shared that the firm’s crypto efforts are part of a bid to attract Wall Street investors into the digital asset space. Johnson shared in January: “Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as Bitcoin, more accessible to investors.” Fidelity’s deployment of an internal token is evidence of its commitment to educating its employees on digital assets and wrestling with some of the toughest regulatory and technical challenges in the space. The post Fidelity creates blockchain token to reward employees appeared first on Coin Rivet . || WATCH: Thiel Capital’s Eric Weinstein Talks About the Nature of Money: Eric Weinstein of Thiel Capital, which invested in EOS issuer Block.One among other crypto startups, hopes the bitcoin ecosystem will eventually find a way to operate without a public blockchain. He sat down with CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen to talk about Austrian economics and the nature of money. Related Stories What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400 || WATCH: Thiel Capital’s Eric Weinstein Talks About the Nature of Money: Eric Weinstein of Thiel Capital, which invested in EOS issuer Block.One among other crypto startups, hopes the bitcoin ecosystem will eventually find a way to operate without a public blockchain. He sat down with CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen to talk about Austrian economics and the nature of money.
• What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month
• What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400 || Litecoin set to buck bear market trend with breakout above $50: Litecoin (LTC) has recovered impressively over the past four days following last weekend’s nervous descent to $43. It has now risen by more than 11% since November 24, with price currently residing at around $48.39. The next key level for Litecoin is the psychological level of support at $50, which was a bitter point of resistance in March and a key level of support in October. It’s been a difficult year for Litecoin traders, with the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency down by more than 55% since the highly anticipated halving and 67% from yearly highs. If price gets rejected at the $50 level, Litecoin can be expected to fall back down to the $39 and $27 levels of support, which coincidentally is where it dropped to this time last year. From a bullish perspective, if Litecoin can spur a rally above $50 this weekend, it will likely test $53 before attempting to break out above the daily 100 exponential moving average at $62. The market cap of Litecoin has lost a staggering $4.5 billion since June’s high of $145. It now stands at $3 billion, which is $1 billion less than both Bitcoin Cash and Bitfinex’s controversial stablecoin Tether. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Litecoin set to buck bear market trend with breakout above $50 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Litecoin set to buck bear market trend with breakout above $50: Litecoin (LTC) has recovered impressively over the past four days following last weekend’s nervous descent to $43. It has now risen by more than 11% since November 24, with price currently residing at around $48.39. The next key level for Litecoin is the psychological level of support at $50, which was a bitter point of resistance in March and a key level of support in October. It’s been a difficult year for Litecoin traders, with the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency down by more than 55% since the highly anticipated halving and 67% from yearly highs. If price gets rejected at the $50 level, Litecoin can be expected to fall back down to the $39 and $27 levels of support, which coincidentally is where it dropped to this time last year. From a bullish perspective, if Litecoin can spur a rally above $50 this weekend, it will likely test $53 before attempting to break out above the daily 100 exponential moving average at $62. The market cap of Litecoin has lost a staggering $4.5 billion since June’s high of $145. It now stands at $3 billion, which is $1 billion less than both Bitcoin Cash and Bitfinex’s controversial stablecoin Tether. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Litecoin set to buck bear market trend with breakout above $50 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Today's Pickup: UPS Employees Charged In Drug-Smuggling Case: Good day,
At least 11UPS Inc(NYSE:UPS) employees, including two supervisors and drivers, have beenarrested on state charges of drug trafficking, based on a decade-long joint investigation by local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. The UPS employees are accused of helping smuggle huge volumes of drugs vaping oils from Mexico into the U.S., exploiting a vulnerability in the UPS distribution system.
This drug-trafficking operation reportedly was done by erasing the origin and destination of drug parcels and using UPS trucks to deliver them – circumventing security measures set in place to intercept drugs in the distribution network. In its statement, UPS said it was cooperating with law enforcement agencies, but refused to share further details, citing the ongoing investigation.
Did you know?
In October 2019, EU commercial vehicle registrations declined by 7.3%, following a 10.0% decrease in September. Demand fell in all segments, although the slowdown in van sales – making up more than 80% of EU commercial vehicle demand – had a major impact on the overall results for October. With the exception of Italy (+0.7%) and Spain (+0.9%), the major EU markets posted declines. Germany saw the strongest drop last month (-11.4%), followed by the UK (-9.3%) and France (-2.6%).
Quotable
"The ‘bicycle theory' used to be a metaphor for international trade policy. Just as standing still on a bicycle is not an option – one must keep moving forward or else fall over – so it was said that trade negotiators must engage in successive rounds of liberalisation. Otherwise, global openness would gradually succumb to protectionist interests."
– Jeffrey Frankel, professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government,commentingon why governments should stop their tariff wars and look to integrate for reducing trade inequality.
In other news
FCA, PSA work to avoid antitrust problems in merger
PSA Group andFiat Chrysler Automobiles(NYSE:FCAU) will continue to operate as competitors until their planned $50 billion merger gets approval by the various antitrust authorities around the world, a process that could take over a year. (Automotive News Europe)
Why OPEC should worry about Russia's latest oilfield
Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, has started domestic crude oil deliveries from one of the country's biggest oil fields, just days before Russia and OPEC are set to sit down to discuss their ongoing production cuts. (Oilprice)
Trouva, an online marketplace for independent boutiques, raises $22 million
Trouva is an online marketplace for brick-and-mortar independent boutiques selling "beautiful" and hard-to-find pieces. (TechCrunch)
Solid state battery breakthrough could double the density of lithium-ion cells
Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have managed to open the door to double-density solid state lithium batteries that won't explode or catch fire if they overheat. (New Atlas)
Alibaba, OneConnect lead China's blockchain patent race
Alibaba(NYSE:BABA) and OneConnect scored the highest in China's recent Blockchain Patents list after they both filed IPO prospectuses at the same time. (Bitcoinist)
Final Thoughts
The city of Oxford has addressed U.K.'s need for electric charging infrastructure by installing on-street chargers that pop-up from pavements when there's a vehicle that's looking to get charged. When not in use, these installations will retract into the pavement.
Six such chargers have been installed in North Oxford, providing users with charging capacity of up to 7kW. Interested users can install a smartphone application that shows them where the charging points are located and if they are currently in use. Users can summon the chargers using the application. If a vehicle is left plugged in overnight, the station looks to charge intelligently by doing it during the hours when electricity is cheaper – providing tangible savings to the user.
Hammer down everyone!
Image by sudheir kumar from Pixabay
0
See more from Benzinga
• Mexico Tops List Of International Importer Of Christmas Trees From Oregon And Washington
• Financial Turmoil Clouds Future Of Scottish Air Cargo Airport
• Peter Levesque To Become President At Ports America
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Today's Pickup: UPS Employees Charged In Drug-Smuggling Case: Good day, At least 11 UPS Inc (NYSE: UPS ) employees, including two supervisors and drivers, have been arrested on state charges of drug trafficking , based on a decade-long joint investigation by local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. The UPS employees are accused of helping smuggle huge volumes of drugs vaping oils from Mexico into the U.S., exploiting a vulnerability in the UPS distribution system. This drug-trafficking operation reportedly was done by erasing the origin and destination of drug parcels and using UPS trucks to deliver them – circumventing security measures set in place to intercept drugs in the distribution network. In its statement, UPS said it was cooperating with law enforcement agencies, but refused to share further details, citing the ongoing investigation. Did you know? In October 2019, EU commercial vehicle registrations declined by 7.3%, following a 10.0% decrease in September. Demand fell in all segments, although the slowdown in van sales – making up more than 80% of EU commercial vehicle demand – had a major impact on the overall results for October. With the exception of Italy (+0.7%) and Spain (+0.9%), the major EU markets posted declines. Germany saw the strongest drop last month (-11.4%), followed by the UK (-9.3%) and France (-2.6%). Quotable "The ‘bicycle theory' used to be a metaphor for international trade policy. Just as standing still on a bicycle is not an option – one must keep moving forward or else fall over – so it was said that trade negotiators must engage in successive rounds of liberalisation. Otherwise, global openness would gradually succumb to protectionist interests." – Jeffrey Frankel, professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, commenting on why governments should stop their tariff wars and look to integrate for reducing trade inequality. In other news FCA, PSA work to avoid antitrust problems in merger PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE: FCAU ) will continue to operate as competitors until their planned $50 billion merger gets approval by the various antitrust authorities around the world, a process that could take over a year. ( Automotive News Europe ) Story continues Why OPEC should worry about Russia's latest oilfield Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, has started domestic crude oil deliveries from one of the country's biggest oil fields, just days before Russia and OPEC are set to sit down to discuss their ongoing production cuts. ( Oilprice ) Trouva, an online marketplace for independent boutiques, raises $22 million Trouva is an online marketplace for brick-and-mortar independent boutiques selling "beautiful" and hard-to-find pieces. ( TechCrunch ) Solid state battery breakthrough could double the density of lithium-ion cells Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have managed to open the door to double-density solid state lithium batteries that won't explode or catch fire if they overheat. ( New Atlas ) Alibaba, OneConnect lead China's blockchain patent race Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) and OneConnect scored the highest in China's recent Blockchain Patents list after they both filed IPO prospectuses at the same time. (Bitcoinist) Final Thoughts The city of Oxford has addressed U.K.'s need for electric charging infrastructure by installing on-street chargers that pop-up from pavements when there's a vehicle that's looking to get charged. When not in use, these installations will retract into the pavement. Six such chargers have been installed in North Oxford, providing users with charging capacity of up to 7kW. Interested users can install a smartphone application that shows them where the charging points are located and if they are currently in use. Users can summon the chargers using the application. If a vehicle is left plugged in overnight, the station looks to charge intelligently by doing it during the hours when electricity is cheaper – providing tangible savings to the user. Hammer down everyone! Image by sudheir kumar from Pixabay 0 See more from Benzinga Mexico Tops List Of International Importer Of Christmas Trees From Oregon And Washington Financial Turmoil Clouds Future Of Scottish Air Cargo Airport Peter Levesque To Become President At Ports America © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoins Bounce Bumped Into The Resistance: In June and October, this area was a significant support that now may become serious resistance. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a decline in trading volumes to $20bn on the way to growth against $45bn at the beginning of the week, which calls into question the short-term outlook for the benchmark cryptocurrency, pointing to the wait-and-see approach of investors. Judging by the record statistics from Bakkts platform on Wednesday, institutional investors show much higher determination. It became known that the daily volume of the company reached a maximum of $42.5mln. With the extremely disappointing start, the current events may indicate a gradual increase in demand from institutional investors. Even more positive is the fact that a sharp rise in the volume of Bakkt coincided with the rebound of Bitcoin price from $7K to $7.5K. Everyone knows that the crypto market is relatively small compared to the traditional sector. Therefore, it is much easier victim for manipulations. The collapse at the beginning of the working week may be since hedge funds on CME have $50 mln in short positions for Bitcoin. Quite enough to strengthen the adverse reaction of the market, already affected by the actions of the Chinese authorities. In addition, the situation with the miners exodus also helped to form a perfect storm. Some analysts call the current crypto market bounce dead cat bounce, treating everything as a bounce in the downstream channel. Some media also expressed an opinion that crypto-winter did not end at all, which caused a fierce reaction of crypto-community, which is not famous for its tolerance to the opposite position and supports only the growth theory. Nevertheless, there is a relatively large camp of experts who still believe that the value of Bitcoin is zero. Regulators effectively stopped off all massive projects based on blockchain or any other monetary surrogate. There is growing confidence that the cryptocurrency will not be allowed to become the mainstream unless it is the right state-owned cryptocurrency. Story continues Ceteris Paribus has estimated that the current cost of producing one bitcoin is $7,100. Past average values of around $4,300 named incorrect, as they do not take into account equipment depreciation. A lousy situation for small miners, who may gradually leave the market, strengthening consolidation in the industry. This article was written by FxPro This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast British Pound Continues Break Out Against Japanese Yen S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast Stock Markets Continue To Go Higher Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold Markets Continue To Find Support At Major Level GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast British Pound Continues Upward Momentum AUD/USD Price Forecast Australian Dollar Continues To Struggle EUR/USD Price Forecast Euro Looking For Buyers || Bitcoin’s Bounce Bumped Into The Resistance: In June and October, this area was a significant support that now may become serious resistance. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a decline in trading volumes to $20bn on the way to growth against $45bn at the beginning of the week, which calls into question the short-term outlook for the benchmark cryptocurrency, pointing to the “wait-and-see” approach of investors.
Judging by the record statistics from Bakkt’s platform on Wednesday, institutional investors show much higher determination. It became known that the daily volume of the company reached a maximum of $42.5mln. With the extremely disappointing start, the current events may indicate a gradual increase in demand from institutional investors. Even more positive is the fact that a sharp rise in the volume of Bakkt coincided with the rebound ofBitcoin pricefrom $7K to $7.5K.
Everyone knows that the crypto market is relatively small compared to the traditional sector. Therefore, it is much easier victim for manipulations. The collapse at the beginning of the working week may be since hedge funds on CME have $50 mln in short positions for Bitcoin. Quite enough to strengthen the adverse reaction of the market, already affected by the actions of the Chinese authorities. In addition, the situation with the “miners’ exodus” also helped to form a “perfect storm”.
Some analysts call the currentcrypto market bounce“dead cat bounce”, treating everything as a bounce in the downstream channel. Some media also expressed an opinion that crypto-winter did not end at all, which caused a fierce reaction of crypto-community, which is not famous for its tolerance to the opposite position and supports only the “growth theory”.
Nevertheless, there is a relatively large camp of experts who still believe that the value of Bitcoin is zero. Regulators effectively stopped off all massive projects based on blockchain or any other monetary surrogate. There is growing confidence that the cryptocurrency will not be allowed to become the mainstream unless it is the “right” state-owned cryptocurrency.
Ceteris Paribus has estimated that the current cost of producing one bitcoin is $7,100. Past average values of around $4,300 named incorrect, as they do not take into account equipment depreciation. A lousy situation for small miners, who may gradually leave the market, strengthening consolidation in the industry.
This article was written byFxPro
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Continues Break Out Against Japanese Yen
• S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue To Go Higher
• Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold Markets Continue To Find Support At Major Level
• GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Continues Upward Momentum
• AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Continues To Struggle
• EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Looking For Buyers || Bitcoin’s Bounce Bumped Into The Resistance: In June and October, this area was a significant support that now may become serious resistance. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a decline in trading volumes to $20bn on the way to growth against $45bn at the beginning of the week, which calls into question the short-term outlook for the benchmark cryptocurrency, pointing to the “wait-and-see” approach of investors.
Judging by the record statistics from Bakkt’s platform on Wednesday, institutional investors show much higher determination. It became known that the daily volume of the company reached a maximum of $42.5mln. With the extremely disappointing start, the current events may indicate a gradual increase in demand from institutional investors. Even more positive is the fact that a sharp rise in the volume of Bakkt coincided with the rebound ofBitcoin pricefrom $7K to $7.5K.
Everyone knows that the crypto market is relatively small compared to the traditional sector. Therefore, it is much easier victim for manipulations. The collapse at the beginning of the working week may be since hedge funds on CME have $50 mln in short positions for Bitcoin. Quite enough to strengthen the adverse reaction of the market, already affected by the actions of the Chinese authorities. In addition, the situation with the “miners’ exodus” also helped to form a “perfect storm”.
Some analysts call the currentcrypto market bounce“dead cat bounce”, treating everything as a bounce in the downstream channel. Some media also expressed an opinion that crypto-winter did not end at all, which caused a fierce reaction of crypto-community, which is not famous for its tolerance to the opposite position and supports only the “growth theory”.
Nevertheless, there is a relatively large camp of experts who still believe that the value of Bitcoin is zero. Regulators effectively stopped off all massive projects based on blockchain or any other monetary surrogate. There is growing confidence that the cryptocurrency will not be allowed to become the mainstream unless it is the “right” state-owned cryptocurrency.
Ceteris Paribus has estimated that the current cost of producing one bitcoin is $7,100. Past average values of around $4,300 named incorrect, as they do not take into account equipment depreciation. A lousy situation for small miners, who may gradually leave the market, strengthening consolidation in the industry.
This article was written byFxPro
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Continues Break Out Against Japanese Yen
• S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue To Go Higher
• Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold Markets Continue To Find Support At Major Level
• GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Continues Upward Momentum
• AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Continues To Struggle
• EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Looking For Buyers || Russian central bank backs crypto payment ban: The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has thrown its weight behind proposals to ban Bitcoin payments. Chairman Elvira Nabiullina told Russian news agency RIA Novosti the decision was made because of concerns over crime and market volatility. She said: The ruble is the only legal tender in the Russian Federation. We continue to believe that cryptocurrencies carry significant risks, including in the field of laundering of proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism , as well as in conducting exchange transactions due to sharp exchange rate fluctuations. Nabiullina compared investments in cryptocurrencies to casino gambling. In our opinion, private cryptocurrencies cannot be equated with fiat money and cannot be legal tender, she added. If it is decided to ban cryptocurrencies as a means of payment at the legislative level, we consider it appropriate to support this position. crime Blackmailers often demand ransoms are paid in crypto The legal status of cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and mining in Russia has not yet been laid out. Earlier this month, a BBC investigation revealed Russias FSB intelligence agency may have played a role in the disappearance of $450 million worth of crypto from the Wex exchange. The Wex exchange, previously known as BTC-E, collapsed in 2018 after user wallets were frozen, with many claiming the exchanges founders had pulled an exit scam . However, a BBC Russia investigation has revealed that the exchange may have been at the centre of a much more sinister plot orchestrated by FSB officials, whose ex-officer Anton Nemkin allegedly seized keys to the exchanges cold wallets. The post Russian central bank backs crypto payment ban appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Russian central bank backs crypto payment ban: The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has thrown its weight behind proposals to ban Bitcoin payments. Chairman Elvira Nabiullina told Russian news agency RIA Novosti the decision was made because of concerns over crime and market volatility. She said: The ruble is the only legal tender in the Russian Federation. We continue to believe that cryptocurrencies carry significant risks, including in the field of laundering of proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism , as well as in conducting exchange transactions due to sharp exchange rate fluctuations. Nabiullina compared investments in cryptocurrencies to casino gambling. In our opinion, private cryptocurrencies cannot be equated with fiat money and cannot be legal tender, she added. If it is decided to ban cryptocurrencies as a means of payment at the legislative level, we consider it appropriate to support this position. crime Blackmailers often demand ransoms are paid in crypto The legal status of cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and mining in Russia has not yet been laid out. Earlier this month, a BBC investigation revealed Russias FSB intelligence agency may have played a role in the disappearance of $450 million worth of crypto from the Wex exchange. The Wex exchange, previously known as BTC-E, collapsed in 2018 after user wallets were frozen, with many claiming the exchanges founders had pulled an exit scam . However, a BBC Russia investigation has revealed that the exchange may have been at the centre of a much more sinister plot orchestrated by FSB officials, whose ex-officer Anton Nemkin allegedly seized keys to the exchanges cold wallets. The post Russian central bank backs crypto payment ban appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD): The price of Ripple (XRP) has fallen over 40% since the beginning of November and is currently hovering around $0.22. Since late June, Ripple has been bouncing between lower highs and lower lows – a clear sign the cryptocurrency could be in trouble. Not only that, price is now below all its EMAs and XRP is currently trading around its yearly low. Will the altcoin recover soon? Or will it fall further? Let’s take a look at the XRP chart, courtesy of TradingView . As you can see from the chart above, the price of XRP recovered during late October before crashing over 40% as we moved through November. The October gains were lost and the price came crawling back down to below $0.28 as the huge market-wide meltdown hit the coin hard. At its lowest point over the past week, XRP touched $0.20 before recovering almost immediately. This week , I claimed it was probable that XRP would start seeing some positive momentum as its price was recording higher lows. If we do see XRP start to recover, I need confidence the coin can hold. As such, I’m waiting until it breaks the major resistance levels around $0.26 and near $0.30 to make new entries. For the time being, I expect XRP to trade below its EMAs for a while and to attempt to recover towards the 200-day EMA. Right now, volume is sitting at just above $1.2 billion – around half of what it was last week. Safe trades! Latest Ripple price Current live Ripple pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Ripple price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – XRPtoUSD British Pound Sterling – XRPtoGBP Japanese Yen – XRPtoJPY Euro – XRPtoEUR Australian Dollar – XRPtoAUD Russian Rouble – XRPtoRUB Bitcoin – XRPtoBTC About Ripple Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) developed by the Ripple company. It is also referred to as the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP) or Ripple protocol. It can trace its roots to 2004 when a web developer called Ryan Fugger had the idea to create a monetary system that was decentralised and could effectively allow individuals to create their own money. Story continues Ripple is one of the largest cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Ripple news and information If you want to find out more information about Ripple or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s a recent article to get you started: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse hits back at critics: ‘XRP is not a security’ By Oliver Knight – November 29, 2019 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. The post Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD): The price of Ripple (XRP) has fallen over 40% since the beginning of November and is currently hovering around $0.22. Since late June, Ripple has been bouncing between lower highs and lower lows – a clear sign the cryptocurrency could be in trouble. Not only that, price is now below all its EMAs and XRP is currently trading around its yearly low. Will the altcoin recover soon? Or will it fall further? Let’s take a look at the XRP chart, courtesy of TradingView . As you can see from the chart above, the price of XRP recovered during late October before crashing over 40% as we moved through November. The October gains were lost and the price came crawling back down to below $0.28 as the huge market-wide meltdown hit the coin hard. At its lowest point over the past week, XRP touched $0.20 before recovering almost immediately. This week , I claimed it was probable that XRP would start seeing some positive momentum as its price was recording higher lows. If we do see XRP start to recover, I need confidence the coin can hold. As such, I’m waiting until it breaks the major resistance levels around $0.26 and near $0.30 to make new entries. For the time being, I expect XRP to trade below its EMAs for a while and to attempt to recover towards the 200-day EMA. Right now, volume is sitting at just above $1.2 billion – around half of what it was last week. Safe trades! Latest Ripple price Current live Ripple pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Ripple price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – XRPtoUSD British Pound Sterling – XRPtoGBP Japanese Yen – XRPtoJPY Euro – XRPtoEUR Australian Dollar – XRPtoAUD Russian Rouble – XRPtoRUB Bitcoin – XRPtoBTC About Ripple Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) developed by the Ripple company. It is also referred to as the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP) or Ripple protocol. It can trace its roots to 2004 when a web developer called Ryan Fugger had the idea to create a monetary system that was decentralised and could effectively allow individuals to create their own money. Story continues Ripple is one of the largest cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Ripple news and information If you want to find out more information about Ripple or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s a recent article to get you started: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse hits back at critics: ‘XRP is not a security’ By Oliver Knight – November 29, 2019 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. The post Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin Faces Biggest Monthly Price Drop of 2019 Despite Late Upturn: • Bitcoin looks set to end November on a negative note. A monthly close below $8,300 could yield a deeper drop in December, according to a popular analyst.
• The hourly chart continues to call a move higher to $7,800–$8,200. A bull reversal would be confirmed on the three-day chart if prices close (UTC) above $7,380 today.
• Acceptance below $6,515 would invalidate the bullish hammer candle seen on the three-day chart and invite stronger selling pressure.
Bitcoin looks poised to post the biggest monthly loss of 2019, despite the recent recovery from six-month lows.
At press time, the number one cryptocurrency is priced at $7,530 on Bitstamp, representing a 17.6 percent loss from the Nov. 1 opening price of $9,586.
The percentage drop would have been over 30 percent had prices stayed at the six-month low of $6,515 hit on Nov. 25.
Related:What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin
Bitcoin last suffered a bigger monthly loss in November 2018. Back then, prices had tanked 37 percent, reviving the sell-off from the record high of $20,000 reached in December 2017. The cryptocurrency went on to hit a low of $3,122 in December 2018.
Bitcoinwas expectedto put on a good show in November with the miners’ reward halving due in May 2020. Historically, the cryptocurrency has picked up a bid six months ahead of the supply-cutting event.
This time, the run-up period has begun with a price drop, possibly due to miners selling off their bitcoin,as notedby popular analyst Willy Woo.
Bitcoin dropped from $13,000 to $7,500 in the third quarter and the price slide took a toll on miners’ profitability. Weak hands likely sold coins in November to recover their costs, strengthening bearish pressures around the cryptocurrency.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month
Looking forward, BTCmay suffera deeper drop in December if prices end the current month below $8,300, according to Woo.
Currently, a firm monthlyclose (Nov. 30, UTC) above $8,300 looks unlikely. That said, prices could riseto $8,000 before Saturday’s UTC close, as short-term technical charts areflashing bullish signals.
Bitcoin has bounced up from the former resistance-turned-support of the inverse head-and-shoulders neckline at $7,360, reinforcing the bullish breakout.
The moving averages (MAs) are indicating the path of least resistance is to the higher side. For instance, the 50- and 200-hour MAs have produced a bullish crossover and the 100-day MA looks set to cross above the 200-hour MA soon.
Meanwhile, therelative strength index is reporting bullish conditions with an above-50 print.
Bitcoin could rise to resistance near $7,800. A violation there would expose $8,200 (inverse head-and-shoulders target).
With the hourly chartreporting bullish conditions, BTC’s current 3-day candle looks set to end(Friday, UTC) above $7,380.
That would confirm the bearish-to-bullish trend change signaled by the hammer candle created in the three days to Nov. 26, and possibly yielding a rise to $8,200.
Sellers will likely make a strong comeback if prices drop below the hammer candle’s low of $6,515, although that looks unlikely at press time.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
• Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving || Bitcoin Faces Biggest Monthly Price Drop of 2019 Despite Late Upturn: • Bitcoin looks set to end November on a negative note. A monthly close below $8,300 could yield a deeper drop in December, according to a popular analyst.
• The hourly chart continues to call a move higher to $7,800–$8,200. A bull reversal would be confirmed on the three-day chart if prices close (UTC) above $7,380 today.
• Acceptance below $6,515 would invalidate the bullish hammer candle seen on the three-day chart and invite stronger selling pressure.
Bitcoin looks poised to post the biggest monthly loss of 2019, despite the recent recovery from six-month lows.
At press time, the number one cryptocurrency is priced at $7,530 on Bitstamp, representing a 17.6 percent loss from the Nov. 1 opening price of $9,586.
The percentage drop would have been over 30 percent had prices stayed at the six-month low of $6,515 hit on Nov. 25.
Related:What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin
Bitcoin last suffered a bigger monthly loss in November 2018. Back then, prices had tanked 37 percent, reviving the sell-off from the record high of $20,000 reached in December 2017. The cryptocurrency went on to hit a low of $3,122 in December 2018.
Bitcoinwas expectedto put on a good show in November with the miners’ reward halving due in May 2020. Historically, the cryptocurrency has picked up a bid six months ahead of the supply-cutting event.
This time, the run-up period has begun with a price drop, possibly due to miners selling off their bitcoin,as notedby popular analyst Willy Woo.
Bitcoin dropped from $13,000 to $7,500 in the third quarter and the price slide took a toll on miners’ profitability. Weak hands likely sold coins in November to recover their costs, strengthening bearish pressures around the cryptocurrency.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month
Looking forward, BTCmay suffera deeper drop in December if prices end the current month below $8,300, according to Woo.
Currently, a firm monthlyclose (Nov. 30, UTC) above $8,300 looks unlikely. That said, prices could riseto $8,000 before Saturday’s UTC close, as short-term technical charts areflashing bullish signals.
Bitcoin has bounced up from the former resistance-turned-support of the inverse head-and-shoulders neckline at $7,360, reinforcing the bullish breakout.
The moving averages (MAs) are indicating the path of least resistance is to the higher side. For instance, the 50- and 200-hour MAs have produced a bullish crossover and the 100-day MA looks set to cross above the 200-hour MA soon.
Meanwhile, therelative strength index is reporting bullish conditions with an above-50 print.
Bitcoin could rise to resistance near $7,800. A violation there would expose $8,200 (inverse head-and-shoulders target).
With the hourly chartreporting bullish conditions, BTC’s current 3-day candle looks set to end(Friday, UTC) above $7,380.
That would confirm the bearish-to-bullish trend change signaled by the hammer candle created in the three days to Nov. 26, and possibly yielding a rise to $8,200.
Sellers will likely make a strong comeback if prices drop below the hammer candle’s low of $6,515, although that looks unlikely at press time.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
• Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving || Bitcoin Faces Biggest Monthly Price Drop of 2019 Despite Late Upturn: View Bitcoin looks set to end November on a negative note. A monthly close below $8,300 could yield a deeper drop in December, according to a popular analyst. The hourly chart continues to call a move higher to $7,800$8,200. A bull reversal would be confirmed on the three-day chart if prices close (UTC) above $7,380 today. Acceptance below $6,515 would invalidate the bullish hammer candle seen on the three-day chart and invite stronger selling pressure. Bitcoin looks poised to post the biggest monthly loss of 2019, despite the recent recovery from six-month lows. At press time, the number one cryptocurrency is priced at $7,530 on Bitstamp, representing a 17.6 percent loss from the Nov. 1 opening price of $9,586. The percentage drop would have been over 30 percent had prices stayed at the six-month low of $6,515 hit on Nov. 25. Related: What the Fed Reserves Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin Bitcoin last suffered a bigger monthly loss in November 2018. Back then, prices had tanked 37 percent, reviving the sell-off from the record high of $20,000 reached in December 2017. The cryptocurrency went on to hit a low of $3,122 in December 2018. Historical pattern fails Bitcoin was expected to put on a good show in November with the miners reward halving due in May 2020. Historically, the cryptocurrency has picked up a bid six months ahead of the supply-cutting event. This time, the run-up period has begun with a price drop, possibly due to miners selling off their bitcoin, as noted by popular analyst Willy Woo. Bitcoin dropped from $13,000 to $7,500 in the third quarter and the price slide took a toll on miners profitability. Weak hands likely sold coins in November to recover their costs, strengthening bearish pressures around the cryptocurrency. Related: Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month Looking forward, BTC may suffer a deeper drop in December if prices end the current month below $8,300, according to Woo. Story continues Currently, a firm monthlyclose (Nov. 30, UTC) above $8,300 looks unlikely. That said, prices could riseto $8,000 before Saturdays UTC close, as short-term technical charts areflashing bullish signals. Hourly chart Bitcoin has bounced up from the former resistance-turned-support of the inverse head-and-shoulders neckline at $7,360, reinforcing the bullish breakout. The moving averages (MAs) are indicating the path of least resistance is to the higher side. For instance, the 50- and 200-hour MAs have produced a bullish crossover and the 100-day MA looks set to cross above the 200-hour MA soon. Meanwhile, therelative strength index is reporting bullish conditions with an above-50 print. Bitcoin could rise to resistance near $7,800. A violation there would expose $8,200 (inverse head-and-shoulders target). 3-day chart With the hourly chartreporting bullish conditions, BTCs current 3-day candle looks set to end(Friday, UTC) above $7,380. That would confirm the bearish-to-bullish trend change signaled by the hammer candle created in the three days to Nov. 26, and possibly yielding a rise to $8,200. Sellers will likely make a strong comeback if prices drop below the hammer candles low of $6,515, although that looks unlikely at press time. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Related Stories What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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7424.29, 7321.99, 7320.15, 7252.03, 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35, 7400.90, 7278.12
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-10-25]
Volume: 31064911614, RSI (14-day): 64.81, 50-day EMA: 53432.60, 200-day EMA: 45373.49
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1806.00, Gold RSI: 61.35
Oil Price: 83.76, Oil RSI: 73.33
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Main Trend Up, but Momentum Trending Lower; Reaction to .7463 Sets the Tone: The Australian Dollar in inching higher early Monday as traders make another attempt to recover from last Thursday’s steep sell-off and potentially bearish closing price reversal top.
Concerns over China Evergrande debt are weighing on risk sentiment, while speculators betting on an earlier-than-expected rate hike by the Reserve Bank (RBA) are helping to prop up prices. Also weighing on prices is last week’s move by the RBA to stop a sell-off in government bonds that had been driving yields sharply higher.
At 11:02 GMT, theAUD/USDis trading .7468, down 0.0001 or -0.00%.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart. However, momentum is trending lower following the confirmation of last Thursday’s potentially bearish closing price reversal top.
A trade through .7547 will negate the closing price reversal top and signal a resumption of the uptrend. A move through .7226 will change the main trend to down.
The minor trend is also up. A trade through .7379 will change the minor trend to down. This will confirm the shift in momentum.
The first minor range is .7379 to .7547. The AUD/USD is currently straddling its 50% level or pivot at .7463.
The second minor range is .7324 to .7547. Its 50% level at .7435 is the next target. If this level fails then look for an acceleration into the support cluster at .7379.
The direction of the AUD/USD early Monday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the pivot at .7463.
A sustained move over .7463 will indicate the presence of buyers. If this creates enough upside momentum then look for a surge into .7499.
Overtaking .7499 will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could help extend the rally into the main top at .7547.
A sustained move under .7463 will signal the presence of sellers. The first downside target is .7435.
Since the main trend is up, buyers could come in on the first test of .7435. However, if it fails then look for an acceleration to the downside with the .7379 pivot the next target.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• A Quieter Economic Calendar Leaves the EUR and the Pound in Focus
• Bitcoin and Ethereum – Weekly Technical Analysis – October 25th, 2021
• Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today
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• eNaira, Africa’s First Central Bank Digital Currency, Debuts On Monday || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Main Trend Up, but Momentum Trending Lower; Reaction to .7463 Sets the Tone: The Australian Dollar in inching higher early Monday as traders make another attempt to recover from last Thursdays steep sell-off and potentially bearish closing price reversal top. Concerns over China Evergrande debt are weighing on risk sentiment, while speculators betting on an earlier-than-expected rate hike by the Reserve Bank (RBA) are helping to prop up prices. Also weighing on prices is last weeks move by the RBA to stop a sell-off in government bonds that had been driving yields sharply higher. At 11:02 GMT, the AUD/USD is trading .7468, down 0.0001 or -0.00%. Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart. However, momentum is trending lower following the confirmation of last Thursdays potentially bearish closing price reversal top. A trade through .7547 will negate the closing price reversal top and signal a resumption of the uptrend. A move through .7226 will change the main trend to down. The minor trend is also up. A trade through .7379 will change the minor trend to down. This will confirm the shift in momentum. The first minor range is .7379 to .7547. The AUD/USD is currently straddling its 50% level or pivot at .7463. The second minor range is .7324 to .7547. Its 50% level at .7435 is the next target. If this level fails then look for an acceleration into the support cluster at .7379. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast The direction of the AUD/USD early Monday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the pivot at .7463. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over .7463 will indicate the presence of buyers. If this creates enough upside momentum then look for a surge into .7499. Overtaking .7499 will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could help extend the rally into the main top at .7547. Bearish Scenario A sustained move under .7463 will signal the presence of sellers. The first downside target is .7435. Since the main trend is up, buyers could come in on the first test of .7435. However, if it fails then look for an acceleration to the downside with the .7379 pivot the next target. For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: A Quieter Economic Calendar Leaves the EUR and the Pound in Focus Bitcoin and Ethereum Weekly Technical Analysis October 25th, 2021 Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis Strengthens Over $1800.00, Weakens Under $1795.00 Shiba Inu Soars in Record-Setting Bull Run eNaira, Africas First Central Bank Digital Currency, Debuts On Monday View comments || Quick Take Technical Analysis: Beyond Meat, Inc: Beyond Meat, Inc (NASDAQ: BYND ) gapped down about 14% on Friday after lowering its quarterly revenue guidance. Beyond Meat will print its third-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Nov. 8 and although the lower-than-expected results are now likely priced in, the stock is still trading in a solid downtrend. Beyond Meat neared a support level at $90.54 and rallied almost 5% higher intraday on almost five times the average 10-day volume. There is a gap above, between $97.50 and $106.76, which is likely to be filled in the future. Beyond Meat’s relative strength index (RSI) is nearing oversold conditions, which indicates the stock may bounce soon. When Beyond Meat’s RSI reached 30% Sept. 16 and Oct. 5 the stock bounced up 10% and 9%, respectively, over the days that followed. Outside of Beyond Meat printing a bullish Marubozu candlestick on Friday, there is nothing to indicate the bottom is in and traders will need to watch the price action on Monday. It could be ideal if Beyond Meat back tests the $91.55 range and bounces to create a bullish double bottom pattern. Beyond Meat has resistance above at $100.20 and $105.28 and support below at $90.54 and $82.82. bynd_oct._24.png Want direct analysis? Find me in the BZ Pro lounge! Click here for a free trial. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Set Up Trades for Bulls, Bears: How To Play The Cryptos Coinbase, Tilray, Exxon Stocks Retrace Into This Bullish Pattern: What To Watch For © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Quick Take Technical Analysis: Beyond Meat, Inc: Beyond Meat, Inc(NASDAQ:BYND) gapped down about 14% on Friday afterloweringits quarterly revenue guidance. Beyond Meat will print its third-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Nov. 8 and although the lower-than-expected results are now likely priced in, the stock is still trading in a solid downtrend.
• Beyond Meat neared a support level at $90.54 and rallied almost 5% higher intraday on almost five times the average 10-day volume.
• There is a gap above, between $97.50 and $106.76, which is likely to be filled in the future.
• Beyond Meat’s relative strength index (RSI) is nearing oversold conditions, which indicates the stock may bounce soon. When Beyond Meat’s RSI reached 30% Sept. 16 and Oct. 5 the stock bounced up 10% and 9%, respectively, over the days that followed.
• Outside of Beyond Meat printing a bullish Marubozu candlestick on Friday, there is nothing to indicate the bottom is in and traders will need to watch the price action on Monday. It could be ideal if Beyond Meat back tests the $91.55 range and bounces to create a bullish double bottom pattern.
• Beyond Meat has resistance above at $100.20 and $105.28 and support below at $90.54 and $82.82.
Want direct analysis? Find me in the BZ Pro lounge!Click herefor a free trial.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Set Up Trades for Bulls, Bears: How To Play The Cryptos
• Coinbase, Tilray, Exxon Stocks Retrace Into This Bullish Pattern: What To Watch For
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Solana Eyes The $200 Mark After Surpassing XRP To Become Sixth-Largest Cryptocurrency: Solana has become the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap after overtaking XRP and could reach the $200 level again if the current momentum is maintained.
The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish trend for the past few hours. Bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies have been trading in the red zone despite reaching a new all-time high a few days ago.
However,Solanaremains one of the top performers in the market despite the general bearish trend in the market. Solana overtakes XRP to become the sixth-largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap above $56 billion.
At the time of this review,SOLis down by 2.37% over the past 24 hours and is trading at $190 per coin. However, the SOL/USD 4-hour chart is in the bullish zone, indicating that the coin could surge higher over the coming hours or days.
The MACD line is in the bullish zone, while the relative strength index of 52 shows thatSOLis heading into the overbought region. If Solana maintains its current momentum, then it could look to its first major resistance level at $201.
An extended bullish performance could allowSOLto test its all-time high level of $213 again over the coming days. Solana reached its current all-time high on September 9 but has been struggling to reach that level again. For Solana to rally towards a new all-time high, it would need the support of the broader cryptocurrency market. Currently, the broader crypto market is in a consolidation period following the rally earlier this week.
Solana’s latest mini-rally was boosted by recent reports that the Total Value Locked (TVL) on DeFi protocols on the blockchainsurpassed the $12 billionfor the first time in history. Ethereum remains the number one DeFi blockchain in the world. However, Solana has experienced massive growth in this area in recent months.
The surge in Solana’s TVL comes thanks to the cryptocurrency’s increase in price over the past few weeks. IfSolanacan continue on its current path and surpass the $200 level, then it stands a chance of surpassing Cardano and becoming the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – October 24th, 2021
• European Equities: German Business Sentiment and Earnings in Focus
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• Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today
• Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week
• eNaira, Africa’s First Central Bank Digital Currency, Debuts On Monday || Solana Eyes The $200 Mark After Surpassing XRP To Become Sixth-Largest Cryptocurrency: Solana has become the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap after overtaking XRP and could reach the $200 level again if the current momentum is maintained. Solana Approaching the $200 Level Again The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish trend for the past few hours. Bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies have been trading in the red zone despite reaching a new all-time high a few days ago. However, Solana remains one of the top performers in the market despite the general bearish trend in the market. Solana overtakes XRP to become the sixth-largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap above $56 billion. At the time of this review, SOL is down by 2.37% over the past 24 hours and is trading at $190 per coin. However, the SOL/USD 4-hour chart is in the bullish zone, indicating that the coin could surge higher over the coming hours or days. The MACD line is in the bullish zone, while the relative strength index of 52 shows that SOL is heading into the overbought region. If Solana maintains its current momentum, then it could look to its first major resistance level at $201. SOL/USD chart. Source: FXEMPIRE An extended bullish performance could allow SOL to test its all-time high level of $213 again over the coming days. Solana reached its current all-time high on September 9 but has been struggling to reach that level again. For Solana to rally towards a new all-time high, it would need the support of the broader cryptocurrency market. Currently, the broader crypto market is in a consolidation period following the rally earlier this week. Solanas TVL Tops $12 Billion Solanas latest mini-rally was boosted by recent reports that the Total Value Locked (TVL) on DeFi protocols on the blockchain surpassed the $12 billion for the first time in history. Ethereum remains the number one DeFi blockchain in the world. However, Solana has experienced massive growth in this area in recent months. The surge in Solanas TVL comes thanks to the cryptocurrencys increase in price over the past few weeks. If Solana can continue on its current path and surpass the $200 level, then it stands a chance of surpassing Cardano and becoming the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers October 24th, 2021 European Equities: German Business Sentiment and Earnings in Focus U.S Dollar Fights For Supremacy Amid A Moderate Federal Reserve Bank Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week eNaira, Africas First Central Bank Digital Currency, Debuts On Monday || ProShares Seeks Waiver From CME for Position Limits on New Bitcoin Futures ETF: Report: ProShares, the sponsor of the first-ever exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by bitcoin futures, has applied for a waiver to limit the amount of bitcoin futures a buyer can purchase in the new fund, Barron’sreported.
• Starting with the November front-month contract, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will limit the number of futures a buyer can buy in the new ETF to 4,000, dropping to 2,000 three days before expiration. As each contract represents five bitcoin, total ownership is limited to 20,000 bitcoin.
• To get around this limit, ProShares has already split its futures portfolio, with half in October and half in November.
• CEO Michael Sapir told Barron’s that if the CME doesn’t grant the waiver, ProShares could shift assets into later-dated contracts, structured notes or swaps. Barron’s also noted that ProShares’ prospectus for the ETF says the fund could also invest in equities with crypto exposure. || ProShares Seeks Waiver From CME for Position Limits on New Bitcoin Futures ETF: Report: ProShares, the sponsor of the first-ever exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by bitcoin futures, has applied for a waiver to limit the amount of bitcoin futures a buyer can purchase in the new fund, Barron’s reported . Starting with the November front-month contract, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will limit the number of futures a buyer can buy in the new ETF to 4,000, dropping to 2,000 three days before expiration. As each contract represents five bitcoin, total ownership is limited to 20,000 bitcoin. To get around this limit, ProShares has already split its futures portfolio, with half in October and half in November. CEO Michael Sapir told Barron’s that if the CME doesn’t grant the waiver, ProShares could shift assets into later-dated contracts, structured notes or swaps. Barron’s also noted that ProShares’ prospectus for the ETF says the fund could also invest in equities with crypto exposure. View comments || ProShares Seeks Waiver From CME for Position Limits on New Bitcoin Futures ETF: Report: ProShares, the sponsor of the first-ever exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by bitcoin futures, has applied for a waiver to limit the amount of bitcoin futures a buyer can purchase in the new fund, Barron’sreported.
• Starting with the November front-month contract, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will limit the number of futures a buyer can buy in the new ETF to 4,000, dropping to 2,000 three days before expiration. As each contract represents five bitcoin, total ownership is limited to 20,000 bitcoin.
• To get around this limit, ProShares has already split its futures portfolio, with half in October and half in November.
• CEO Michael Sapir told Barron’s that if the CME doesn’t grant the waiver, ProShares could shift assets into later-dated contracts, structured notes or swaps. Barron’s also noted that ProShares’ prospectus for the ETF says the fund could also invest in equities with crypto exposure. || As the CME’s Volume Gets Pumped, the Bitcoin ETF’s Quirky Structure Could Explain Some of It: Last week’s launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) was a smash hit by any measure. Yet, it may be that at least part of its success could be the result of how the instrument is structured rather than pure demand from buyers hoping for bitcoin exposure.
In just a few hours, the futures-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) amassed $570 million in assets under management (AUM), making itone of the most successful debutsof an ETF in history. Within a few more hours, that number just about doubled.
You’re readingCrypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor.Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Sunday.
BITO’s assets are mostly invested on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which saw an expected increase in both open interest and volume for bitcoin futures. One question is whether some of that volume could be the result of traders positioning for profit from the way this particular ETF is structured.
Currently, for every dollar it takes in,ProShares allocates 40.2%to buying CME bitcoin futures contracts that settle in October and 31.2% for futures that settle in November. The remaining 28% or so is put in U.S. Treasury bills. Reminder: On the CME, bitcoin futures are settled in cash, meaning no actual bitcoin changes hands. It’s basically a side bet on the price of the asset.
So if by Wednesday there were $1.108 billion in AUM, $791 million of it was bitcoin futures on the CME. That’s the equivalent of 13.8% of the CME’s bitcoin open interest of $5.745 billion.
From Monday to Wednesday, open interest soared to $5.745 billion from $4 billion, an increase that was more than double the ProShares ETF’s holdings.
Meanwhile, volume was up, too, to levels never seen before on bitcoin futures: Tuesday saw $5.9 billion in futures change hands on the CME, and Wednesday’s figure was north of $7.5 billion. In the 19 trading days prior, the average was $2.5 billion per day.
Higher volumes? Higher interest? Why, of course that’s bullish, right? Perhaps, but maybe not 100%.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
BITO isn’t structured like a typical stock ETF. Rather, some of its features are more likely to be found in ETFs that own bonds and other types of financial instruments.
With a lot of stock ETFs, “authorized participants” (AP for short) accumulate and deliver a basket of shares to the ETF provider in exchange for shares in the ETF in a rather Biblical-sounding process called “creation.” APs aren’t average Joes, however. They are institutions and the like that can do this sort of thing in bulk and have the sort of relationships that allow such a trade to take place.
The APs do this kind of a trade if the value of the ETFs they get in return (which they then can sell in the market) is significantly higher than the stocks they deliver. And by “significantly higher” we’re talking just 1%. That may not sound like a lot for a retail trader hoping to win big on something she saw on Reddit, but for institutions that do trades in the millions, this starts to add up to real money.
If this sort of trade is done enough times, the price of the underlying basket of stocks will rise as they get bought up and the price of the ETF shares will fall as they get sold until the prices of the two converge.
The also-Biblical-sounding “redemption” process is the reverse of the creation process, where APs get a basket of shares in exchange for redeeming their ETF shares to the provider. (ETF.comhas anice little primer on all of this, if you’re so inclined.)
BITO, though, does something similar to bond ETFs called “cash creation,” meaning the AP delivers cash rather than the underlying asset to the ETF provider in exchange for shares.
That could make for some quirky movements in the market,as noted in a Twitter thread by Dave Nadig, chief investment officer and director of research for news and data sites ETF Trends and ETF Database.
If BITO were to trade well above fair value during a hot trading day – say, the day of a long-anticipated premiere for an SEC-regulated bitcoin ETF – an AP could sell shares of the ETF “naked,” effectively short without borrowing (the minimum size the AP can create is 10,000 shares or about $4 million-worth as of Thursday). Simultaneously, the AP could offset much of that risk by buying futures on the CME or even some other bitcoin-related asset (bitcoin itself or shares of MicroStrategy or whatever).
At the end of the trading day, the AP would give cash to the ETF provider (in this case, ProShares) in exchange for shares of BITO. ProShares then would take the money and buy futures contracts on the CME because that’s what it’s supposed to do when an AP gives it cash. At the same time, the AP would most probably (though it’s not a given) unwind that hedge taken in other bitcoin assets when it initiated the short earlier in the day.
Again, should this trade get done by more than a few APs, prices of BITO and bitcoin futures would theoretically start to converge, though up to a point. The maximum amount of October bitcoin contracts an entity can hold is 2,000 and up to 5,000 total for all expiries; each contract holds five bitcoin. (BITO is now just about at those limitsandthe CME is set to increase those limits.)
All this could do a funny thing to volume, though. “AP activity will show up in underlying [CME contracts] twice,”tweeted Nadig. “One quick hedging round trip, followed by one long position until roll/redemption.”
As it turns out, the ratio of volume to open interest in CME bitcoin futures averaged 1.3x Tuesday and Wednesday compared to a 1.0x over the previous 19 days. Thus, open interest those two days averaged $5.3 billion but volume averaged $6.7 billion.
That’s not saying $2.8 billion in above-average volume was necessarily the result of APs seeking out arbitrage opportunities. Indeed, Nadig, speaking to CoinDesk, made it clear that he didn’t know if it happened at all.
Nonetheless, the outsized spike in volume relative to open interest indicates that traders were doing at least some amount of flipping.
Thus, when looking at data price and volume data, it helps to remember that sometimes how an instrument is structured can explain some of it.
In the end, if one wants to own bitcoin, the purest play is buying bitcoin itself. Everything else comes with its own idiosyncrasies. || As the CME’s Volume Gets Pumped, the Bitcoin ETF’s Quirky Structure Could Explain Some of It: Last week’s launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) was a smash hit by any measure. Yet, it may be that at least part of its success could be the result of how the instrument is structured rather than pure demand from buyers hoping for bitcoin exposure.
In just a few hours, the futures-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) amassed $570 million in assets under management (AUM), making itone of the most successful debutsof an ETF in history. Within a few more hours, that number just about doubled.
You’re readingCrypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor.Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Sunday.
BITO’s assets are mostly invested on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which saw an expected increase in both open interest and volume for bitcoin futures. One question is whether some of that volume could be the result of traders positioning for profit from the way this particular ETF is structured.
Currently, for every dollar it takes in,ProShares allocates 40.2%to buying CME bitcoin futures contracts that settle in October and 31.2% for futures that settle in November. The remaining 28% or so is put in U.S. Treasury bills. Reminder: On the CME, bitcoin futures are settled in cash, meaning no actual bitcoin changes hands. It’s basically a side bet on the price of the asset.
So if by Wednesday there were $1.108 billion in AUM, $791 million of it was bitcoin futures on the CME. That’s the equivalent of 13.8% of the CME’s bitcoin open interest of $5.745 billion.
From Monday to Wednesday, open interest soared to $5.745 billion from $4 billion, an increase that was more than double the ProShares ETF’s holdings.
Meanwhile, volume was up, too, to levels never seen before on bitcoin futures: Tuesday saw $5.9 billion in futures change hands on the CME, and Wednesday’s figure was north of $7.5 billion. In the 19 trading days prior, the average was $2.5 billion per day.
Higher volumes? Higher interest? Why, of course that’s bullish, right? Perhaps, but maybe not 100%.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
BITO isn’t structured like a typical stock ETF. Rather, some of its features are more likely to be found in ETFs that own bonds and other types of financial instruments.
With a lot of stock ETFs, “authorized participants” (AP for short) accumulate and deliver a basket of shares to the ETF provider in exchange for shares in the ETF in a rather Biblical-sounding process called “creation.” APs aren’t average Joes, however. They are institutions and the like that can do this sort of thing in bulk and have the sort of relationships that allow such a trade to take place.
The APs do this kind of a trade if the value of the ETFs they get in return (which they then can sell in the market) is significantly higher than the stocks they deliver. And by “significantly higher” we’re talking just 1%. That may not sound like a lot for a retail trader hoping to win big on something she saw on Reddit, but for institutions that do trades in the millions, this starts to add up to real money.
If this sort of trade is done enough times, the price of the underlying basket of stocks will rise as they get bought up and the price of the ETF shares will fall as they get sold until the prices of the two converge.
The also-Biblical-sounding “redemption” process is the reverse of the creation process, where APs get a basket of shares in exchange for redeeming their ETF shares to the provider. (ETF.comhas anice little primer on all of this, if you’re so inclined.)
BITO, though, does something similar to bond ETFs called “cash creation,” meaning the AP delivers cash rather than the underlying asset to the ETF provider in exchange for shares.
That could make for some quirky movements in the market,as noted in a Twitter thread by Dave Nadig, chief investment officer and director of research for news and data sites ETF Trends and ETF Database.
If BITO were to trade well above fair value during a hot trading day – say, the day of a long-anticipated premiere for an SEC-regulated bitcoin ETF – an AP could sell shares of the ETF “naked,” effectively short without borrowing (the minimum size the AP can create is 10,000 shares or about $4 million-worth as of Thursday). Simultaneously, the AP could offset much of that risk by buying futures on the CME or even some other bitcoin-related asset (bitcoin itself or shares of MicroStrategy or whatever).
At the end of the trading day, the AP would give cash to the ETF provider (in this case, ProShares) in exchange for shares of BITO. ProShares then would take the money and buy futures contracts on the CME because that’s what it’s supposed to do when an AP gives it cash. At the same time, the AP would most probably (though it’s not a given) unwind that hedge taken in other bitcoin assets when it initiated the short earlier in the day.
Again, should this trade get done by more than a few APs, prices of BITO and bitcoin futures would theoretically start to converge, though up to a point. The maximum amount of October bitcoin contracts an entity can hold is 2,000 and up to 5,000 total for all expiries; each contract holds five bitcoin. (BITO is now just about at those limitsandthe CME is set to increase those limits.)
All this could do a funny thing to volume, though. “AP activity will show up in underlying [CME contracts] twice,”tweeted Nadig. “One quick hedging round trip, followed by one long position until roll/redemption.”
As it turns out, the ratio of volume to open interest in CME bitcoin futures averaged 1.3x Tuesday and Wednesday compared to a 1.0x over the previous 19 days. Thus, open interest those two days averaged $5.3 billion but volume averaged $6.7 billion.
That’s not saying $2.8 billion in above-average volume was necessarily the result of APs seeking out arbitrage opportunities. Indeed, Nadig, speaking to CoinDesk, made it clear that he didn’t know if it happened at all.
Nonetheless, the outsized spike in volume relative to open interest indicates that traders were doing at least some amount of flipping.
Thus, when looking at data price and volume data, it helps to remember that sometimes how an instrument is structured can explain some of it.
In the end, if one wants to own bitcoin, the purest play is buying bitcoin itself. Everything else comes with its own idiosyncrasies. || As the CMEs Volume Gets Pumped, the Bitcoin ETFs Quirky Structure Could Explain Some of It: Last weeks launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) was a smash hit by any measure. Yet, it may be that at least part of its success could be the result of how the instrument is structured rather than pure demand from buyers hoping for bitcoin exposure. In just a few hours, the futures-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) amassed $570 million in assets under management (AUM), making it one of the most successful debuts of an ETF in history. Within a few more hours, that number just about doubled. Youre reading Crypto Long & Short , our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Sunday. BITOs assets are mostly invested on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which saw an expected increase in both open interest and volume for bitcoin futures. One question is whether some of that volume could be the result of traders positioning for profit from the way this particular ETF is structured. Currently, for every dollar it takes in, ProShares allocates 40.2% to buying CME bitcoin futures contracts that settle in October and 31.2% for futures that settle in November. The remaining 28% or so is put in U.S. Treasury bills. Reminder: On the CME, bitcoin futures are settled in cash, meaning no actual bitcoin changes hands. Its basically a side bet on the price of the asset. So if by Wednesday there were $1.108 billion in AUM, $791 million of it was bitcoin futures on the CME. Thats the equivalent of 13.8% of the CMEs bitcoin open interest of $5.745 billion. From Monday to Wednesday, open interest soared to $5.745 billion from $4 billion, an increase that was more than double the ProShares ETFs holdings. Meanwhile, volume was up, too, to levels never seen before on bitcoin futures: Tuesday saw $5.9 billion in futures change hands on the CME, and Wednesdays figure was north of $7.5 billion. In the 19 trading days prior, the average was $2.5 billion per day. Story continues Higher volumes? Higher interest? Why, of course thats bullish, right? Perhaps, but maybe not 100%. Heres where it gets interesting. Creation and redemption BITO isnt structured like a typical stock ETF. Rather, some of its features are more likely to be found in ETFs that own bonds and other types of financial instruments. With a lot of stock ETFs, authorized participants (AP for short) accumulate and deliver a basket of shares to the ETF provider in exchange for shares in the ETF in a rather Biblical-sounding process called creation. APs arent average Joes, however. They are institutions and the like that can do this sort of thing in bulk and have the sort of relationships that allow such a trade to take place. The APs do this kind of a trade if the value of the ETFs they get in return (which they then can sell in the market) is significantly higher than the stocks they deliver. And by significantly higher were talking just 1%. That may not sound like a lot for a retail trader hoping to win big on something she saw on Reddit, but for institutions that do trades in the millions, this starts to add up to real money. If this sort of trade is done enough times, the price of the underlying basket of stocks will rise as they get bought up and the price of the ETF shares will fall as they get sold until the prices of the two converge. The also-Biblical-sounding redemption process is the reverse of the creation process, where APs get a basket of shares in exchange for redeeming their ETF shares to the provider. ( ETF.com has a nice little primer on all of this , if youre so inclined.) BITO, though, does something similar to bond ETFs called cash creation, meaning the AP delivers cash rather than the underlying asset to the ETF provider in exchange for shares. That could make for some quirky movements in the market, as noted in a Twitter thread by Dave Nadig , chief investment officer and director of research for news and data sites ETF Trends and ETF Database. Pump up the volume If BITO were to trade well above fair value during a hot trading day say, the day of a long-anticipated premiere for an SEC-regulated bitcoin ETF an AP could sell shares of the ETF naked, effectively short without borrowing (the minimum size the AP can create is 10,000 shares or about $4 million-worth as of Thursday). Simultaneously, the AP could offset much of that risk by buying futures on the CME or even some other bitcoin-related asset (bitcoin itself or shares of MicroStrategy or whatever). At the end of the trading day, the AP would give cash to the ETF provider (in this case, ProShares) in exchange for shares of BITO. ProShares then would take the money and buy futures contracts on the CME because thats what its supposed to do when an AP gives it cash. At the same time, the AP would most probably (though its not a given) unwind that hedge taken in other bitcoin assets when it initiated the short earlier in the day. Again, should this trade get done by more than a few APs, prices of BITO and bitcoin futures would theoretically start to converge, though up to a point. The maximum amount of October bitcoin contracts an entity can hold is 2,000 and up to 5,000 total for all expiries; each contract holds five bitcoin. ( BITO is now just about at those limits and the CME is set to increase those limits .) All this could do a funny thing to volume, though. AP activity will show up in underlying [CME contracts] twice, tweeted Nadig . One quick hedging round trip, followed by one long position until roll/redemption. As it turns out, the ratio of volume to open interest in CME bitcoin futures averaged 1.3x Tuesday and Wednesday compared to a 1.0x over the previous 19 days. Thus, open interest those two days averaged $5.3 billion but volume averaged $6.7 billion. Thats not saying $2.8 billion in above-average volume was necessarily the result of APs seeking out arbitrage opportunities. Indeed, Nadig, speaking to CoinDesk, made it clear that he didnt know if it happened at all. Nonetheless, the outsized spike in volume relative to open interest indicates that traders were doing at least some amount of flipping. Thus, when looking at data price and volume data, it helps to remember that sometimes how an instrument is structured can explain some of it. In the end, if one wants to own bitcoin, the purest play is buying bitcoin itself. Everything else comes with its own idiosyncrasies. || Shiba Inu Hits Record High as Bitcoin Eyes Weekly Price Loss: Shiba Inu (SHIB), the self-proclaimed dogecoin killer, tapped lifetime highs on Sunday as bitcoin appeared on track to snap its three-week winning streak. The Shiba Inu coin traded at $0.0000455 at 11:20 UTC, topping the previous record price of $0.0000388 reached on May 10, according to data source Messari. Prices for the meme token have risen by nearly 50% in the past 24 hours, extending the month-to-date gain to almost 500%. SHIBs latest leg higher from $0.0000270 comes amid rumors that online brokerage platform Robinhood may soon list the cryptocurrency. Prices surged over 200% in the months first week on the back of increased buying by whales or large investors. Read more: Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB): A Beginners Guide 2021 The SHIB coin has picked up a strong bid four days after bitcoins move to a new record high of $66,975 on Oct. 20 and points to an increased risk appetite in the cryptocurrency markets. The last SHIB pump observed in early May also came after bitcoins ascent to its then record high of $64,888 reached on April 14 and had pundits warning of excessive speculation by retail investors and potential for market-wide correction. Bitcoin and the broader crypto market crashed hard in the latter half of that month. While SHIB has gone ballistic this month, DOGE has gained just 27% and still trades well below its August high of $0.35. DOGE hit a peak price of over $0.73 in early May. Bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market value, has chalked up a 37% rally this month on increased evidence of inflation and expectations that the recently launched futures-based exchange-traded funds would bring more mainstream money into the crypto market. See also: Why Shiba Inu Has Been More Resilient Than Some SHIB Haters Would Like to Admit At the current price of $60,060, the cryptocurrency is nursing a 2.3% weekly loss. Should the decline hold through Sundays UTC close, it would be bitcoins first weekly drop since the third week of September. A failure to end the week above the previous peak price of $64,888 would imply temporary uptrend exhaustion and perhaps a deeper pullback. || Shiba Inu Hits Record High as Bitcoin Eyes Weekly Price Loss: Shiba Inu (SHIB), the self-proclaimed dogecoin killer, tapped lifetime highs on Sunday as bitcoin appeared on track to snap its three-week winning streak.
The Shiba Inu coin traded at $0.0000455 at 11:20 UTC, topping the previous record price of $0.0000388 reached on May 10, according to data source Messari.
Prices for the meme token have risen by nearly 50% in the past 24 hours, extending the month-to-date gain to almost 500%.
SHIB’s latest leg higher from $0.0000270 comesamid rumorsthat online brokerage platform Robinhood may soon list the cryptocurrency. Prices surged over 200% in the month’s first week on the back ofincreased buyingby whales or large investors.
Read more:Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB): A Beginner’s Guide 2021
The SHIB coin has picked up a strong bid four days after bitcoin’s move to a new record high of $66,975 on Oct. 20 and points to an increased risk appetite in the cryptocurrency markets.
The last SHIB pump observed in early May also came after bitcoin’s ascent to its then record high of $64,888 reached on April 14 andhad pundits warningof excessive speculation by retail investors and potential for market-wide correction. Bitcoin and the broader crypto market crashed hard in the latter half of that month.
While SHIB has gone ballistic this month, DOGE has gained just 27% and still trades well below its August high of $0.35. DOGE hit a peak price of over $0.73 in early May.
Bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market value, has chalked up a 37% rally this month on increased evidence of inflation and expectations that the recently launched futures-based exchange-traded funds would bring more mainstream money into the crypto market.
See also:Why Shiba Inu Has Been More Resilient Than Some SHIB Haters Would Like to Admit
At the current price of $60,060, the cryptocurrency is nursing a 2.3% weekly loss. Should the decline hold through Sunday’s UTC close, it would be bitcoin’s first weekly drop since the third week of September.
A failure to end the week above the previous peak price of $64,888 would imply temporary uptrend exhaustion and perhaps a deeper pullback. || Shiba Inu Hits Record High as Bitcoin Eyes Weekly Price Loss: Shiba Inu (SHIB), the self-proclaimed dogecoin killer, tapped lifetime highs on Sunday as bitcoin appeared on track to snap its three-week winning streak.
The Shiba Inu coin traded at $0.0000455 at 11:20 UTC, topping the previous record price of $0.0000388 reached on May 10, according to data source Messari.
Prices for the meme token have risen by nearly 50% in the past 24 hours, extending the month-to-date gain to almost 500%.
SHIB’s latest leg higher from $0.0000270 comesamid rumorsthat online brokerage platform Robinhood may soon list the cryptocurrency. Prices surged over 200% in the month’s first week on the back ofincreased buyingby whales or large investors.
Read more:Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB): A Beginner’s Guide 2021
The SHIB coin has picked up a strong bid four days after bitcoin’s move to a new record high of $66,975 on Oct. 20 and points to an increased risk appetite in the cryptocurrency markets.
The last SHIB pump observed in early May also came after bitcoin’s ascent to its then record high of $64,888 reached on April 14 andhad pundits warningof excessive speculation by retail investors and potential for market-wide correction. Bitcoin and the broader crypto market crashed hard in the latter half of that month.
While SHIB has gone ballistic this month, DOGE has gained just 27% and still trades well below its August high of $0.35. DOGE hit a peak price of over $0.73 in early May.
Bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market value, has chalked up a 37% rally this month on increased evidence of inflation and expectations that the recently launched futures-based exchange-traded funds would bring more mainstream money into the crypto market.
See also:Why Shiba Inu Has Been More Resilient Than Some SHIB Haters Would Like to Admit
At the current price of $60,060, the cryptocurrency is nursing a 2.3% weekly loss. Should the decline hold through Sunday’s UTC close, it would be bitcoin’s first weekly drop since the third week of September.
A failure to end the week above the previous peak price of $64,888 would imply temporary uptrend exhaustion and perhaps a deeper pullback. || Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week: Facebook Inc. (FB) has sliced and diced shareholders since September, dropping more than 15% from an all-time high before bouncing strongly at a 19-month trendline on Oct. 12. It jumped more than 20 points off the low into Wednesday of last week and then plummeted after Snap Inc. (SNAP) warned about the revenue impact of new iPhone ad tracking blockers. The stock is back to trendline support, just in time for Monday’s post-market earnings report. General Motors Corp. (GM) profits have been hurt by persistent supply disruptions so far in 2021, with the automaker forced to idle factories despite the enthusiastic reception of new models and a major commitment to electric vehicles. The stock bounced at an 8-month low in August and closed half the distance back to June’s all-time high in the 60s, before the rally stalled about two-weeks ago. All eyes are now focused squarely on Wednesday’s post-market report and further comments about supply issues. Dow component Chevron Corp. (CVX) was left for dead in 2020, with the election of an environmentally friendly president heralding in an era of alternative energy. The crude oil futures market promptly took off for the heavens, reacting to political pressure on drilling and production that could trigger worldwide shortages until clean energy can replace fossil fuels, which might take a decade or more. Integrated oil and gas companies reacted slowly to the rally but are now getting bought aggressively and could hit new highs in 2022. Bitcoin bottomed out at 40,000 in September after dropping nearly 25% and turned sharply higher, heading in a straight line into the April high near 65,000. The digital giant broke out for a single session last week before turning tail in a decline that’s typical when financial instruments test prior highs. The reversal left behind a weekly shooting star candlestick that predicts at least several weeks of relative weakness before the cryptocurrency can successfully break out to new highs. Story continues The Russell-2000 ETF (IWM) more than doubled in price into March 2021 before topping out above 233. Price action since that time has carved a narrow symmetrical triangle that, when taken together with the vertical uptick, has completed a bullish ‘flag at the top of a flagpole’ that predicts a measured move equal to the prior rally. Small caps have just entered their most seasonally favorable time of year, raising odds for a breakout that could last through the first quarter of 2022. For a look at this week’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Aussie Bond Market Volatility Forces RBA to Step In U.S Dollar Fights For Supremacy Amid A Moderate Federal Reserve Bank Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today U.S Mortgage Rates Rise Again. The Upward Trend Looks Set to Continue… Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 24th, 2021 The Week Ahead – The BoC and the ECB to Address Inflation in Monetary Policy Decisions… || Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week: Facebook Inc. (FB)has sliced and diced shareholders since September, dropping more than 15% from an all-time high before bouncing strongly at a 19-month trendline on Oct. 12. It jumped more than 20 points off the low into Wednesday of last week and then plummeted afterSnap Inc. (SNAP)warned about the revenue impact of new iPhone ad tracking blockers. The stock is back to trendline support, just in time for Monday’s post-market earnings report.
General Motors Corp. (GM)profits have been hurt by persistent supply disruptions so far in 2021, with the automaker forced to idle factories despite the enthusiastic reception of new models and a major commitment to electric vehicles. The stock bounced at an 8-month low in August and closed half the distance back to June’s all-time high in the 60s, before the rally stalled about two-weeks ago. All eyes are now focused squarely on Wednesday’s post-market report and further comments about supply issues.
Dow componentChevron Corp. (CVX)was left for dead in 2020, with the election of an environmentally friendly president heralding in an era of alternative energy. The crude oil futures market promptly took off for the heavens, reacting to political pressure on drilling and production that could trigger worldwide shortages until clean energy can replace fossil fuels, which might take a decade or more. Integrated oil and gas companies reacted slowly to the rally but are now getting bought aggressively and could hit new highs in 2022.
Bitcoinbottomed out at 40,000 in September after dropping nearly 25% and turned sharply higher, heading in a straight line into the April high near 65,000. The digital giant broke out for a single session last week before turning tail in a decline that’s typical when financial instruments test prior highs. The reversal left behind a weekly shooting star candlestick that predicts at least several weeks of relative weakness before the cryptocurrency can successfully break out to new highs.
TheRussell-2000 ETF (IWM)more than doubled in price into March 2021 before topping out above 233. Price action since that time has carved a narrow symmetrical triangle that, when taken together with the vertical uptick, has completed a bullish ‘flag at the top of a flagpole’ that predicts a measured move equal to the prior rally. Small caps have just entered their most seasonally favorable time of year, raising odds for a breakout that could last through the first quarter of 2022.
For a look at this week’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Aussie Bond Market Volatility Forces RBA to Step In
• U.S Dollar Fights For Supremacy Amid A Moderate Federal Reserve Bank
• Why Shiba Inu Is Exploding Today
• U.S Mortgage Rates Rise Again. The Upward Trend Looks Set to Continue…
• Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 24th, 2021
• The Week Ahead – The BoC and the ECB to Address Inflation in Monetary Policy Decisions… || What CBDCs Mean for the Future of DeFi and Stablecoins: Over the last year, the narrative surrounding central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has advanced considerably. From an almost entirely conceptual discussion, CBDCs are now in various stages of research and development to ascertain how they could work in practice.
China’s digital yuan is currently leading the pack. Following several pilots, the Chinese government isexpectedto roll out its CBDC to a population of over a billion people in 2022. While no other country has yet reached the same stage of CBDC development, there has been surprisingly rapid progress. Recently, G7 finance heads met and reached a consensus over somedefining principlesfor CBDCs. But outside China, some of the most significant results have also been emerging from Asian countries.
Charles d’Haussy is a managing director at ConsenSys based in Hong Kong. This op-ed is part of CoinDesk’s“Policy Week,”a forum for discussing how regulators are reckoning with crypto (and vice versa).
The efforts of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and its collaborative endeavors are of particular note. Since 2017, the HKMA has been investigating the idea of a CBDC. In the first instance, dubbed Project LionRock, it researched the concept of a so-called “wholesale” CBDC, a digital currency for settlement between banks.
By 2019, it had joined forces with the Bank of Thailand to study CBDCs for cross-border payment. After the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) became involved, the collaboration entered a new phase to develop a multiple CBDC bridge, dubbed mBridge.
However, the newest development is the one that could have the biggest impact on the status quo. In particular, CBDCs are an existential threat for permissionless finance to which crypto has grown accustomed.
In early October, the HKMApublished a CBDC white paper, calling for input regarding the prospect of an electronic Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD) from experts in monetary policy, banking and distributed ledger technology.
The paper poses many questions, such as how monetary responsibility will be divided between central banks and the financial sector. But for those of us in the blockchain and cryptocurrency community, there’s plenty more to chew on.
Read more:Hong Kong Monetary Authority Releases CBDC White Paper to Study Prospect of e-HKD
While the paper is agnostic regarding the technological infrastructure needed for a CBDC, it invites consultation on seven “problem statements.” They are privacy, interoperability, scalability and performance, cybersecurity, compliance, operational robustness and resilience, and the technology-enabled functional capabilities offered by a retail CBDC.
Any enterprise or organization that has considered implementing blockchain or decentralized ledger technology has been faced with some or all of these questions. Ultimately, they come down to this: Do the benefits of a permissionless, open and decentralized public network such as Ethereum outweigh the drawbacks? Or would a permissioned implementation be a better option?
In the context of CBDCs, there are far-reaching implications in deciding between permissioned and permissionless ledgers. Providing an adequate solution to one of the problem statements inevitably creates issues in another.
For instance, we could make a safe assumption that a central bank wouldn’t want a CBDC to offer the same level of pseudonymity as a cryptocurrency like bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) and would seize on an opportunity to build compliance-based measures into the architecture. Requiring a user to undergo know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks to open an account is one obvious example.
But, in turn, introducing identity checks generates legitimate questions around government surveillance and user privacy, which need to be balanced against the need to accommodate financial law enforcement and prevent CBDCs from being used in criminal activity.
There’s a similar trade-off in balancing operational robustness and resilience with cybersecurity. Permissionless blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin have proven over many years that they are robust against attacks, thanks to the sheer size of their networks. The permissionless nature encourages participation and creates a highly resilient architecture that’s prohibitively expensive to attack.
However, from the CBDC perspective, there are drawbacks; most significantly, a lack of control over performance and scalability. The process of upgrading public blockchain networks can also be protracted, particularly where it requires consensus from a majority of participants in a decentralized network.
There are arguments for and against on-chain governance, but it seems unlikely a central bank would want to cede full governance control of national currency to a decentralized network, even if it could somehow verify that all of the network participants were honest and the span of control was limited.
Ultimately, it seems likely that a permissioned implementation of some description may prevail. However, central banks will need to solve privacy and security challenges without compromising on their need for compliance, control and performance.
One aspect missing from the HKMA paper, and in fact, the CBDC debate in general, is the opportunities in decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi emerged and evolved due to the specific features and advantages inherent in crypto; for instance, the ability to create programmable money with automated transactions governed by smart contracts. Traders can take advantage of arbitrage in the moment and settle payments of any value almost instantaneously, 24/7, from anywhere in the world. As such, CBDCs offer truly transformative potential to the broader global asset markets.
However, this raises many difficult questions about the future of stablecoins. As the value in crypto and DeFi markets has grown and institutional interestrises by the week, regulators have become increasingly vocal in urging caution. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Genslerrecently referredto stablecoins as “poker chips” and it seems as ifsome kind of legislationgoverning dollar-like digital equivalents could be a matter of time.
See also:Fed Reserve Governor Quarles Doesn’t See Reasoning Behind CBDCs
It’s a matter that’s becoming more prominent to lawyers, analysts and consultants from across the spectrum of crypto, finance and technology. McKinsey recently issued its ownview on the situation, stating that although regulated stablecoins could co-exist with CBDCs, it’s equally plausible that one will prevail over the other.
It’s worth noting that CBDCs have two distinct advantages over stablecoins from the outset. Firstly, as outlined previously, CBDCs offer the ability to embed compliance and digital identity features from the outset. In contrast, stablecoins such as tether (USDT), issued across multiple blockchains, operate within the confines of the platform rules.
In its current format, Tether couldn’t unilaterally insist on KYC checks to use USDT. However, such a feature would lower the compliance burden and cost to financial institutions, which can swallowup to 5%of banking revenues.
Secondly, CBDCs could also automate the collection and distribution of taxes, reducing another headache for banks. In many jurisdictions, such as Switzerland, banks withhold tax from some transactions, such as those for foreign residents, at the source. In all countries, banks are compelled to comply with disclosure orders from the authorities in cases of tax evasion.
In light of these advantages, given a choice between CBDCs and regulated stablecoins, CBDCs would be a no-brainer for virtually all financial institutions.
The many dilemmas involved in launching a retail CBDC mean that it could still be several years before the true impact is clear. However, it’s already apparent that CBDCs will bring substantial opportunities for the financial system but could ultimately represent an existential threat to stablecoins and the current DeFi landscape. || What CBDCs Mean for the Future of DeFi and Stablecoins: Over the last year, the narrative surrounding central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has advanced considerably. From an almost entirely conceptual discussion, CBDCs are now in various stages of research and development to ascertain how they could work in practice. China’s digital yuan is currently leading the pack. Following several pilots, the Chinese government is expected to roll out its CBDC to a population of over a billion people in 2022. While no other country has yet reached the same stage of CBDC development, there has been surprisingly rapid progress. Recently, G7 finance heads met and reached a consensus over some defining principles for CBDCs. But outside China, some of the most significant results have also been emerging from Asian countries. Charles d’Haussy is a managing director at ConsenSys based in Hong Kong. This op-ed is part of CoinDesk’s “Policy Week,” a forum for discussing how regulators are reckoning with crypto (and vice versa). The efforts of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and its collaborative endeavors are of particular note. Since 2017, the HKMA has been investigating the idea of a CBDC. In the first instance, dubbed Project LionRock, it researched the concept of a so-called “wholesale” CBDC, a digital currency for settlement between banks. By 2019, it had joined forces with the Bank of Thailand to study CBDCs for cross-border payment. After the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) became involved, the collaboration entered a new phase to develop a multiple CBDC bridge, dubbed mBridge. However, the newest development is the one that could have the biggest impact on the status quo. In particular, CBDCs are an existential threat for permissionless finance to which crypto has grown accustomed. An invitation to consult on a retail CBDC In early October, the HKMA published a CBDC white paper , calling for input regarding the prospect of an electronic Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD) from experts in monetary policy, banking and distributed ledger technology. Story continues The paper poses many questions, such as how monetary responsibility will be divided between central banks and the financial sector. But for those of us in the blockchain and cryptocurrency community, there’s plenty more to chew on. Read more: Hong Kong Monetary Authority Releases CBDC White Paper to Study Prospect of e-HKD While the paper is agnostic regarding the technological infrastructure needed for a CBDC, it invites consultation on seven “problem statements.” They are privacy, interoperability, scalability and performance, cybersecurity, compliance, operational robustness and resilience, and the technology-enabled functional capabilities offered by a retail CBDC. A familiar set of conundrums Any enterprise or organization that has considered implementing blockchain or decentralized ledger technology has been faced with some or all of these questions. Ultimately, they come down to this: Do the benefits of a permissionless, open and decentralized public network such as Ethereum outweigh the drawbacks? Or would a permissioned implementation be a better option? In the context of CBDCs, there are far-reaching implications in deciding between permissioned and permissionless ledgers. Providing an adequate solution to one of the problem statements inevitably creates issues in another. For instance, we could make a safe assumption that a central bank wouldn’t want a CBDC to offer the same level of pseudonymity as a cryptocurrency like bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH) and would seize on an opportunity to build compliance-based measures into the architecture. Requiring a user to undergo know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks to open an account is one obvious example. But, in turn, introducing identity checks generates legitimate questions around government surveillance and user privacy, which need to be balanced against the need to accommodate financial law enforcement and prevent CBDCs from being used in criminal activity. Strength in numbers There’s a similar trade-off in balancing operational robustness and resilience with cybersecurity. Permissionless blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin have proven over many years that they are robust against attacks, thanks to the sheer size of their networks. The permissionless nature encourages participation and creates a highly resilient architecture that’s prohibitively expensive to attack. However, from the CBDC perspective, there are drawbacks; most significantly, a lack of control over performance and scalability. The process of upgrading public blockchain networks can also be protracted, particularly where it requires consensus from a majority of participants in a decentralized network. There are arguments for and against on-chain governance, but it seems unlikely a central bank would want to cede full governance control of national currency to a decentralized network, even if it could somehow verify that all of the network participants were honest and the span of control was limited. Ultimately, it seems likely that a permissioned implementation of some description may prevail. However, central banks will need to solve privacy and security challenges without compromising on their need for compliance, control and performance. An uneasy future for stablecoins One aspect missing from the HKMA paper, and in fact, the CBDC debate in general, is the opportunities in decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi emerged and evolved due to the specific features and advantages inherent in crypto; for instance, the ability to create programmable money with automated transactions governed by smart contracts. Traders can take advantage of arbitrage in the moment and settle payments of any value almost instantaneously, 24/7, from anywhere in the world. As such, CBDCs offer truly transformative potential to the broader global asset markets. However, this raises many difficult questions about the future of stablecoins. As the value in crypto and DeFi markets has grown and institutional interest rises by the week , regulators have become increasingly vocal in urging caution. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Gensler recently referred to stablecoins as “poker chips” and it seems as if some kind of legislation governing dollar-like digital equivalents could be a matter of time. See also: Fed Reserve Governor Quarles Doesn’t See Reasoning Behind CBDCs It’s a matter that’s becoming more prominent to lawyers, analysts and consultants from across the spectrum of crypto, finance and technology. McKinsey recently issued its own view on the situation , stating that although regulated stablecoins could co-exist with CBDCs, it’s equally plausible that one will prevail over the other. An unfair advantage? It’s worth noting that CBDCs have two distinct advantages over stablecoins from the outset. Firstly, as outlined previously, CBDCs offer the ability to embed compliance and digital identity features from the outset. In contrast, stablecoins such as tether (USDT), issued across multiple blockchains, operate within the confines of the platform rules. In its current format, Tether couldn’t unilaterally insist on KYC checks to use USDT. However, such a feature would lower the compliance burden and cost to financial institutions, which can swallow up to 5% of banking revenues. Secondly, CBDCs could also automate the collection and distribution of taxes, reducing another headache for banks. In many jurisdictions, such as Switzerland, banks withhold tax from some transactions, such as those for foreign residents, at the source. In all countries, banks are compelled to comply with disclosure orders from the authorities in cases of tax evasion. In light of these advantages, given a choice between CBDCs and regulated stablecoins, CBDCs would be a no-brainer for virtually all financial institutions. The many dilemmas involved in launching a retail CBDC mean that it could still be several years before the true impact is clear. However, it’s already apparent that CBDCs will bring substantial opportunities for the financial system but could ultimately represent an existential threat to stablecoins and the current DeFi landscape. || Galina Tackles Payment Processing with New Ethereum Tech: MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / October 24, 2021 /Flex the tech, a battle cry you hear come from Phil Gallina when it comes to the various projects he's a part of. Known throughout the crypto industry for pushing the envelope and being on the cutting edge of what's coming in the blockchain universe. Gallina decided it was time to try his hand in the payment processing space.
Utilizing a new protocol within the Ethereum platform, ERC-1363, Gallina set out to change the way people process payments. To understand a bit better Ethereum is one of the most commonly known crypto currencies in the world. It is synonymous with Bitcoin and they are often referred to in the same breath.
What makes Ethereum different from Bitcoin is that it's whole purpose is to allow individuals to develop various forms of technology off of it's platform. To those familiar with technology think of Ethereum as an open source platform that invites others to build on it to make any type of technology they desire.
Within Ethereum there are Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC) and Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) this essentially allows the community at large the ability to request changes to not only Ethereum itself but also the way in which it's used. ERC-1363 is an improvement in the way that Ethereum is used.
Gallina sought out to use ERC-1363 which now gives users the ability to create invoices, pay for services, and even create subscriptions using the popular Ethereum Coin. Gallina wasn't simply going to stop at creating a usage with that functionality. Phil, being Phil wanted to take things a step further and solve another problem. Ethereum is known to have high transaction costs which would make using ERC-1363 cost prohibitive for any and all businesses wishing to utilize that piece of technology.
Gallina who from previous projects had an expert knowledge of xDai sought to bridge the gap between ERC-1363 and xDai. xDai is known for having low transaction costs and fast transaction speeds, ideal for merchants. Merging the two pieces of technology Gallina was able to create $Epay. Utilizing both ERC-1363 and xDai $Epay is able to utilize the popularity of Ethereum and reduce transaction costs to mere pennies and exponentially increase the speed of transactions. A revolutionary breakthrough for those in the cryptocurrency space, while inching one step closer to bringing this technology to the mainstream.
Not stopping there Gallina leveraged the newly created $Epay technology and implemented the ability to instantly convert Ethereum to a stable token. To those unfamiliar with what a stable token is, it's a token based on the cost of the U.S. Dollar and remains a stable price thus making it a safer investment to that of the ever volatile crypto market where prices can swing rapidly in a matter of seconds. To a merchant wishing to transact using crypto currency it's an attractive piece as they don't need to worry about price fluctuations at the point of sale.
Gallina has since improved upon $Epay allowing it to transact all forms of cryptocurrency while converting it immediately into Stable coin or token. Giving it immense capabilities in the commerce sector of the world. As the world starts to adopt crypto currency more and more, having a piece of technology such as $Epay to seamlessly bridge the gap to the mainstream public is increasingly necessary. This was evidenced when $Epay made its public debut at the Rolling Loud Music festival in Miami Florida. Patrons of the Loud Club were able to transact using $Epay and were taken back by how seamless, easy and quickly the transactions were able to go through. Oftentimes being much faster than those using a standard credit card Point of Sale System. As the mass adoption of blockchain technology continues to grow more and more tools such as $Epay will be leading the way in making it easy for people to start taking cryptocurrency in their places of business.
Company: EthereumPayPOC: Kyle KlemmerEmail Address:[email protected] Number:305-509-9272Website:www.ethereumpay.org
SOURCE:EthereumPay
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/669401/Galina-Tackles-Payment-Processing-with-New-Ethereum-Tech
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76, 239.14, 236.69, 236.06, 237.55, 237.29, 238.73, 238.26, 240.38, 246.06, 242.97, 242.30, 243.93, 244.94, 247.05, 245.31, 249.51, 251.99, 254.32, 262.87, 270.64, 261.64, 263.44, 269.46, 266.27, 274.02, 276.50, 281.65, 283.68, 285.30, 293.79, 304.62, 313.86, 328.02, 314.17, 325.43, 361.19, 403.42, 411.56, 386.35, 374.47, 386.48, 373.37, 380.26, 336.82, 311.08, 338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17, 330.75, 335.09, 334.59, 326.15, 322.02, 326.93, 324.54, 323.05, 320.05, 328.21, 352.68, 358.04, 357.38, 371.29, 377.32, 362.49.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-12-01]
Volume: 60452200, RSI (14-day): 58.94, 50-day EMA: 323.12, 200-day EMA: 280.33
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1063.80, Gold RSI: 33.60
Oil Price: 41.85, Oil RSI: 43.83
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc., Releases HempCoin Audio Interview: DOVER, DE--(Marketwired - Nov 30, 2015) - Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc., a holding company ( OTC PINK : RMTN ), has released an Internet link to an Audio Interview performed by one of its Directors, David Tobias. During the interview, David discusses the technical aspects and the future plans for RMTN's Crypto-Currency, HempCoin. The Audio-Interview can be heard at: http://smallcapvoice.com/blog/11-19-15-smallcapvoice-interview-with-rocky-mountain-ayre-inc-rmtn About HempCoin. HempCoin (HMP) runs on its own peer to peer blockchain like BitCoin (BTC) but at a faster rate because it is using the script technique like LiteCoin. So in addition to having the advantage of being able to move HMP around faster than BTC, HMP is backed by the marketable securities of RMTN. BTC is strictly a fiat currency like the US Dollar, however, BTC has the potential to go up in value against the Dollar because of supply and demand factors and HMP has this same built in advantage because unlike the Dollar, both BTC and HMP have a limited amount of coins in circulation, while the Dollar is ever increasing in supply. About Rocky Mountain, Inc. Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc. ( www.rockymountainayre.com ) is a publicly traded company listed on the OTCmarkets under the "RMTN" trading symbol. It is a holding company increasing its asset and revenue base through acquisition of fast-growing food and hospitality, manufacturing and retail businesses. All inquiries should be directed to: [email protected] . Safe Harbor Statement This Press Release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company has tried, whenever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "potential" and similar expressions. These statements reflect the Company's current beliefs and are based upon information currently available to it. Accordingly, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or advise in the event of any change, addition or alteration to the information catered in this Press Release including such forward-looking statements. || Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc., Releases HempCoin Audio Interview: DOVER, DE--(Marketwired - Nov 30, 2015) - Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc., a holding company ( OTC PINK : RMTN ), has released an Internet link to an Audio Interview performed by one of its Directors, David Tobias. During the interview, David discusses the technical aspects and the future plans for RMTN's Crypto-Currency, HempCoin. The Audio-Interview can be heard at: http://smallcapvoice.com/blog/11-19-15-smallcapvoice-interview-with-rocky-mountain-ayre-inc-rmtn About HempCoin. HempCoin (HMP) runs on its own peer to peer blockchain like BitCoin (BTC) but at a faster rate because it is using the script technique like LiteCoin. So in addition to having the advantage of being able to move HMP around faster than BTC, HMP is backed by the marketable securities of RMTN. BTC is strictly a fiat currency like the US Dollar, however, BTC has the potential to go up in value against the Dollar because of supply and demand factors and HMP has this same built in advantage because unlike the Dollar, both BTC and HMP have a limited amount of coins in circulation, while the Dollar is ever increasing in supply. About Rocky Mountain, Inc. Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc. ( www.rockymountainayre.com ) is a publicly traded company listed on the OTCmarkets under the "RMTN" trading symbol. It is a holding company increasing its asset and revenue base through acquisition of fast-growing food and hospitality, manufacturing and retail businesses. All inquiries should be directed to: [email protected] . Safe Harbor Statement This Press Release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company has tried, whenever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "potential" and similar expressions. These statements reflect the Company's current beliefs and are based upon information currently available to it. Accordingly, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or advise in the event of any change, addition or alteration to the information catered in this Press Release including such forward-looking statements. || A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world: (RealVision Television)Tech entrepreneur and bitcoin guru Wences Casares saw his family lose their entire wealth three times in Argentina because ofhyperinflation, a currency collapse and confiscation.
"[There's] more people in the world who need a currency they can trust than the opposite," Casares toldDan Morehead,the ex-head of macro trading at Tiger Management, in a new interview onRealVision Television,a subscription financial news service.
Those instances are what ultimately led him to the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin.
Casares created Argentina's first internet provider and later sold his online brokerage firm to Banco Santander for $750 million in 2000. He is now a star of the Silicon Valley bitcoin scene,headingXapo, a company that provides a bitcoin wallet and storage vault.
The real "a-ha" moment for bitcoin happened when he was planning a trip with a group of childhood friends back in Argentina.
"We all had to chip in some money. They were all in Argentina except me, I'm here in California. They all got together and gave the cash to one of them. And I was trying to find a way to send money. At the time, PayPal had to stop sending money to Argentina and wire transfers were not working because of the currency control."
That's when one of his friends suggested using bitcoin.
"I was very skeptical because this particular friend of mine is not particularly tech savvy or financially sophisticated."
(REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado)Mauricio Macri was elected president of Argentina in NovemberCasares did some research online and arranged a meeting in a Palo Alto cafe with someone he connected with on Craigslist. He gave the man cash and got some bitcoin in return. He immediately sent the bitcoin to his friend in Argentina.
"By the time I made it back to the office my friend had sold it for pesos in Argentina. I was like, 'Wow that's incredible. It's like magic.'"
Casares compared the power of bitcoin in the developing world to the cellphone.
"I think it's obvious the cellphone had a lot more impact in developing world than the developed world because most phones in the developing world are cellphones. If it weren't for cellphones the developing world would not be communicating so it really changed the lives of people in emerging markets."
That's not to say that cellphones aren't important in the developed world though. Bitcoin will be important there too, Casares said.
"It's easier to see how [bitcoin can be] transformative and it can change the lives of people in emerging markets, but it also has an important role to play in the developed world."
Watch the teaser below. You can watch the full interview bysubscribing to RealVision:
NOW WATCH:How a successful investment banker used insider information to bankroll his mistress and child
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• Coinbase introduces Bitcoin debit card
• The man everyone thinks is the creator of bitcoin gave a rare speech discussing the history of the technology
• Microsoft goes big on bitcoin || A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world: Wences Casares (RealVision Television) Tech entrepreneur and bitcoin guru Wences Casares saw his family lose their entire wealth three times in Argentina because of hyperinflation, a currency collapse and confiscation. "[There's] more people in the world who need a currency they can trust than the opposite," Casares told Dan Morehead, the ex-head of macro trading at Tiger Management, in a new interview on RealVision Television, a subscription financial news service. Those instances are what ultimately led him to the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin. Casares created Argentina's first internet provider and later sold his online brokerage firm to Banco Santander for $750 million in 2000. He is now a star of the Silicon Valley bitcoin scene, heading Xapo, a company that provides a bitcoin wallet and storage vault. The real "a-ha" moment for bitcoin happened when he was planning a trip with a group of childhood friends back in Argentina. 'I was very skeptical' "We all had to chip in some money. They were all in Argentina except me, I'm here in California. They all got together and gave the cash to one of them. And I was trying to find a way to send money. At the time, PayPal had to stop sending money to Argentina and wire transfers were not working because of the currency control." That's when one of his friends suggested using bitcoin. "I was very skeptical because this particular friend of mine is not particularly tech savvy or financially sophisticated." Mauricio Macri Argentina Argentinian President (REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado) Mauricio Macri was elected president of Argentina in November Casares did some research online and arranged a meeting in a Palo Alto cafe with someone he connected with on Craigslist. He gave the man cash and got some bitcoin in return. He immediately sent the bitcoin to his friend in Argentina. "By the time I made it back to the office my friend had sold it for pesos in Argentina. I was like, 'Wow that's incredible. It's like magic.'" Casares compared the power of bitcoin in the developing world to the cellphone. Story continues "I think it's obvious the cellphone had a lot more impact in developing world than the developed world because most phones in the developing world are cellphones. If it weren't for cellphones the developing world would not be communicating so it really changed the lives of people in emerging markets." That's not to say that cellphones aren't important in the developed world though. Bitcoin will be important there too, Casares said. "It's easier to see how [bitcoin can be] transformative and it can change the lives of people in emerging markets, but it also has an important role to play in the developed world." Watch the teaser below. You can watch the full interview by subscribing to RealVision: NOW WATCH: How a successful investment banker used insider information to bankroll his mistress and child More From Business Insider Coinbase introduces Bitcoin debit card The man everyone thinks is the creator of bitcoin gave a rare speech discussing the history of the technology Microsoft goes big on bitcoin || YOUR MONEY-Giving to charity gears up after a crisis: By Beth Pinsker NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - During the first two weeks after an earthquake hit Nepal in April, Fidelity Charitable sent out 4,400 grants totaling almost $5.3 million from donors using special charitable accounts called donor-advised funds at the Boston-based nonprofit associated with Fidelity Investments. Now a few months later, the total is up to 6,000 grants totaling $7.8 million. Within hours of something bad happening around the globe - whether its a hurricane or a humanitarian crisis like the flow of refugees from Syria - people start calling places like Fidelity Charitable, to ask where their donations would be most useful. In the philanthropic circles, motivating folks to give can be a costly and fickle marketing exercise. Donor-advised funds, which operate like mini-foundations, help to bridge the gap. "What we know about individuals, when it comes to disasters, is that they are highly influenced by media coverage and by the type of disaster," said Bob Ottenhoff, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a nonprofit based in Washington. "That is why so much money flows immediately after there is a certain type of disaster, and it dries up after a couple of days." Individuals gave an estimated 72 percent of the $358.38 billion donated to charity in 2014, according to Giving USA, with the rest coming from foundations and corporations. Donor-advised funds make up a very small but growing part of that individual pie, granting $12.5 billion in 2014, up from $9.7 billion in 2013, according to the National Philanthropic Trust, which operates a donor-advised fund. And overall assets held in those accounts rose to $70 billion from $58 billion. At Fidelity Charitable, one of the largest providers, you will need $5,000 to open a donor-advised fund. Most of those who open accounts like these have planned giving on their minds - to their alma maters, religious organizations, health concerns or local communities. But account holders at Schwab Charitable, for instance, leave about 30 percent of their assets free to fund causes that come along. Story continues "It's hard to know how many are pulling a credit card out and donating directly rather than using their donor-advised funds," said Kim Laughton, president of Schwab Charitable . "But I think they understand they can do it quickly through the fund. They can even grant from a cellphone, which is really nice." The advantages of giving through a donor-advised fund are that the money can be set aside and noted on tax returns, but granted later. Also, the fund groups take care of much of the paperwork involved in a donation - especially helpful for non-cash gifts like stocks or even Bitcoin, at some organizations. Donors should note, however, that brokerage management fees do apply to the accounts, as in regular investment accounts. While Fidelity and Schwab send out email blasts and newsletter updates to their donor bases when a major disaster occurs, they worry about creating disaster-giving fatigue. This has made some other donor-advised funds very cautious about pushing out notices. "We wait for donors to come to us, rather than becoming an annoying dinging to them," said Eileen Heisman, president and CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust. All the funds are especially cautious about looking beyond the immediate emotional need to help when they select charities to highlight. That is what Fidelity tried to steer with its Nepal effort, said Elaine Martyn, vice president of the private donor group at Fidelity Charitable. While the website highlighted just a few charities to start, by the time those 6,000 grants were given out, they went to hundreds of different organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and smaller ones that focused on eye health and animal welfare, many of which will be providing long-term support for rebuilding. "Lot of donors want to give to the first responders, then they forget about it. There's a whole other set of organizations that are good at hanging in there," added Heisman. Ottenhoff suggests breaking up gifts into two parts, one for immediate need and one for long-term building. "It should be a time to take a moment of reflection - what do you want to accomplish? What organization can do it?" he said. (Editing by Lauren Young and Jonathan Oatis) || YOUR MONEY-Giving to charity gears up after a crisis: By Beth Pinsker
NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - During the first two weeks after an earthquake hit Nepal in April, Fidelity Charitable sent out 4,400 grants totaling almost $5.3 million from donors using special charitable accounts called donor-advised funds at the Boston-based nonprofit associated with Fidelity Investments. Now a few months later, the total is up to 6,000 grants totaling $7.8 million.
Within hours of something bad happening around the globe - whether its a hurricane or a humanitarian crisis like the flow of refugees from Syria - people start calling places like Fidelity Charitable, to ask where their donations would be most useful.
In the philanthropic circles, motivating folks to give can be a costly and fickle marketing exercise. Donor-advised funds, which operate like mini-foundations, help to bridge the gap.
"What we know about individuals, when it comes to disasters, is that they are highly influenced by media coverage and by the type of disaster," said Bob Ottenhoff, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a nonprofit based in Washington. "That is why so much money flows immediately after there is a certain type of disaster, and it dries up after a couple of days."
Individuals gave an estimated 72 percent of the $358.38 billion donated to charity in 2014, according to Giving USA, with the rest coming from foundations and corporations.
Donor-advised funds make up a very small but growing part of that individual pie, granting $12.5 billion in 2014, up from $9.7 billion in 2013, according to the National Philanthropic Trust, which operates a donor-advised fund. And overall assets held in those accounts rose to $70 billion from $58 billion.
At Fidelity Charitable, one of the largest providers, you will need $5,000 to open a donor-advised fund. Most of those who open accounts like these have planned giving on their minds - to their alma maters, religious organizations, health concerns or local communities. But account holders at Schwab Charitable, for instance, leave about 30 percent of their assets free to fund causes that come along.
"It's hard to know how many are pulling a credit card out and donating directly rather than using their donor-advised funds," said Kim Laughton, president of Schwab Charitable . "But I think they understand they can do it quickly through the fund. They can even grant from a cellphone, which is really nice."
The advantages of giving through a donor-advised fund are that the money can be set aside and noted on tax returns, but granted later. Also, the fund groups take care of much of the paperwork involved in a donation - especially helpful for non-cash gifts like stocks or even Bitcoin, at some organizations.
Donors should note, however, that brokerage management fees do apply to the accounts, as in regular investment accounts.
While Fidelity and Schwab send out email blasts and newsletter updates to their donor bases when a major disaster occurs, they worry about creating disaster-giving fatigue. This has made some other donor-advised funds very cautious about pushing out notices.
"We wait for donors to come to us, rather than becoming an annoying dinging to them," said Eileen Heisman, president and CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust.
All the funds are especially cautious about looking beyond the immediate emotional need to help when they select charities to highlight. That is what Fidelity tried to steer with its Nepal effort, said Elaine Martyn, vice president of the private donor group at Fidelity Charitable. While the website highlighted just a few charities to start, by the time those 6,000 grants were given out, they went to hundreds of different organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and smaller ones that focused on eye health and animal welfare, many of which will be providing long-term support for rebuilding.
"Lot of donors want to give to the first responders, then they forget about it. There's a whole other set of organizations that are good at hanging in there," added Heisman.
Ottenhoff suggests breaking up gifts into two parts, one for immediate need and one for long-term building.
"It should be a time to take a moment of reflection - what do you want to accomplish? What organization can do it?" he said.
(Editing by Lauren Young and Jonathan Oatis) || Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs: The music industry has been plagued by problems ever since the advent of the Internet and digital file sharing. Free file sharing, illegal downloads and streaming services that offer unlimited listening for a low monthly fee have all contributed to a growing resentment among artists who say that the value their work isn't being recognized adequately.
However, the bitcoin community is looking to all of that by using blockchain, the ledger-like technology that the cryptocurrency runs on, to create more transparent contracts.
Royalty Distribution
As many artists have their royalty fees negotiated by their labels, undesirable contracts with streaming services are often outside of their control. That means that their music can be played on services likeApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)'s Apple Music or Spotify for a minor fee that the artist often find insufficient. In order to combat this, Ujo Music is working to create a system in which artists contracts are secured via blockchain. That way, transparency between the artist, the label and the streaming service is ensured and artists have more control over how and where their music is sold.
Related Link:Is Adele Giving Pandora's Stock A Boost? Maybe, But A Major Copyright Overhang May Have Just Been Removed
Peer-To-Peer Sharing
A service called Peertracks is looking to use an alt-coin in order to deliver value to artists that choose to share their music on the service. The company uses "artist tokens" which increase in value as a particular track gains popularity. Music that doesn't reach many people would generate tokens with less value. In such a system artists are paid for the consumption of their music and rewarded for songs that are particularly catchy.
Bitcoin Payments
Bittunes is another startup aiming to the music industry, only this service is hoping to keep things simple and use bitcoin as a form of payment. The company allows users to play new tracks for $0.50, half of which goes to the artist while the other half is redistributed to a group of buyers. That way, the company's managing director Simon Edhouse has said, the transaction remains between an artist and their fans. Songs that make it to the service's Top 100 increase in price to $1.00, leaving the artist with 40 percent of the sale, the buyers sharing an additional 40 percent between themselves while Bittunes collects the remaining 20 percent.
A World Outside Of Cryptocurrency
Blockchain's entrance into the music space underscores the growing enthusiasm surrounding the technology. While bitcoin itself has raised questions about safety and reliability, the technology behind the cryptocurrency is often dubbed one of the most important technological advances of the decade. For that reason, many startups are focusing on how to implement blockchain into new industries rather than on ways to help spread the word about bitcoin.
Many believe that bitcoin may never make it as a widely accepted form of currency, but on the other hand blockchain has the potential to revolutionize several different industries.
See more from Benzinga
• 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World
• 8 Ways To Add Solar To Your Portfolio
• Obamacare Is Still Under Pressure; Here's Why
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs: The music industry has been plagued by problems ever since the advent of the Internet and digital file sharing. Free file sharing, illegal downloads and streaming services that offer unlimited listening for a low monthly fee have all contributed to a growing resentment among artists who say that the value their work isn't being recognized adequately.
However, the bitcoin community is looking to all of that by using blockchain, the ledger-like technology that the cryptocurrency runs on, to create more transparent contracts.
Royalty Distribution
As many artists have their royalty fees negotiated by their labels, undesirable contracts with streaming services are often outside of their control. That means that their music can be played on services likeApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)'s Apple Music or Spotify for a minor fee that the artist often find insufficient. In order to combat this, Ujo Music is working to create a system in which artists contracts are secured via blockchain. That way, transparency between the artist, the label and the streaming service is ensured and artists have more control over how and where their music is sold.
Related Link:Is Adele Giving Pandora's Stock A Boost? Maybe, But A Major Copyright Overhang May Have Just Been Removed
Peer-To-Peer Sharing
A service called Peertracks is looking to use an alt-coin in order to deliver value to artists that choose to share their music on the service. The company uses "artist tokens" which increase in value as a particular track gains popularity. Music that doesn't reach many people would generate tokens with less value. In such a system artists are paid for the consumption of their music and rewarded for songs that are particularly catchy.
Bitcoin Payments
Bittunes is another startup aiming to the music industry, only this service is hoping to keep things simple and use bitcoin as a form of payment. The company allows users to play new tracks for $0.50, half of which goes to the artist while the other half is redistributed to a group of buyers. That way, the company's managing director Simon Edhouse has said, the transaction remains between an artist and their fans. Songs that make it to the service's Top 100 increase in price to $1.00, leaving the artist with 40 percent of the sale, the buyers sharing an additional 40 percent between themselves while Bittunes collects the remaining 20 percent.
A World Outside Of Cryptocurrency
Blockchain's entrance into the music space underscores the growing enthusiasm surrounding the technology. While bitcoin itself has raised questions about safety and reliability, the technology behind the cryptocurrency is often dubbed one of the most important technological advances of the decade. For that reason, many startups are focusing on how to implement blockchain into new industries rather than on ways to help spread the word about bitcoin.
Many believe that bitcoin may never make it as a widely accepted form of currency, but on the other hand blockchain has the potential to revolutionize several different industries.
See more from Benzinga
• 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World
• 8 Ways To Add Solar To Your Portfolio
• Obamacare Is Still Under Pressure; Here's Why
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs: The music industry has been plagued by problems ever since the advent of the Internet and digital file sharing. Free file sharing, illegal downloads and streaming services that offer unlimited listening for a low monthly fee have all contributed to a growing resentment among artists who say that the value their work isn't being recognized adequately. However, the bitcoin community is looking to all of that by using blockchain, the ledger-like technology that the cryptocurrency runs on, to create more transparent contracts. Royalty Distribution As many artists have their royalty fees negotiated by their labels, undesirable contracts with streaming services are often outside of their control. That means that their music can be played on services like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL )'s Apple Music or Spotify for a minor fee that the artist often find insufficient. In order to combat this, Ujo Music is working to create a system in which artists contracts are secured via blockchain. That way, transparency between the artist, the label and the streaming service is ensured and artists have more control over how and where their music is sold. Related Link: Is Adele Giving Pandora's Stock A Boost? Maybe, But A Major Copyright Overhang May Have Just Been Removed Peer-To-Peer Sharing A service called Peertracks is looking to use an alt-coin in order to deliver value to artists that choose to share their music on the service. The company uses "artist tokens" which increase in value as a particular track gains popularity. Music that doesn't reach many people would generate tokens with less value. In such a system artists are paid for the consumption of their music and rewarded for songs that are particularly catchy. Bitcoin Payments Bittunes is another startup aiming to the music industry, only this service is hoping to keep things simple and use bitcoin as a form of payment. The company allows users to play new tracks for $0.50, half of which goes to the artist while the other half is redistributed to a group of buyers. That way, the company's managing director Simon Edhouse has said, the transaction remains between an artist and their fans. Songs that make it to the service's Top 100 increase in price to $1.00, leaving the artist with 40 percent of the sale, the buyers sharing an additional 40 percent between themselves while Bittunes collects the remaining 20 percent. Story continues A World Outside Of Cryptocurrency Blockchain's entrance into the music space underscores the growing enthusiasm surrounding the technology. While bitcoin itself has raised questions about safety and reliability, the technology behind the cryptocurrency is often dubbed one of the most important technological advances of the decade. For that reason, many startups are focusing on how to implement blockchain into new industries rather than on ways to help spread the word about bitcoin. Many believe that bitcoin may never make it as a widely accepted form of currency, but on the other hand blockchain has the potential to revolutionize several different industries. See more from Benzinga 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World 8 Ways To Add Solar To Your Portfolio Obamacare Is Still Under Pressure; Here's Why © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have seen a drop in enthusiasm over the past year as more people have become wary toward the currencies.
A spate of high profile scams and illegal transactions that involved bitcoin painted the cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals and an unsafe avenue with which to move money. While bitcoin enthusiasts continue to rework the currency's image in order to gain mainstream approval, others say the coin itself isn't what the world should be focused on.
Blockchain, the ledger-like technology that bitcoin runs on, has instead emerged as one of the most important technological advancements from the past decade. Blockchain's ability to facilitate transactions seamlessly without a third party intermediary has been driving bitcoin's popularity over the past few years.
Related Link:Ben Bernanke Sees Serious Problems With Bitcoin
While the system was developed in order to easily transfer bitcoins from party to party, many believe that supporting a bitcoin market is one of many uses blockchain could have in the future.
Some analysts believe that blockchain could significantly change the way that the financial system operates, overhauling everything from banks to exchanges. Others say the financial space is just the starting point for blockchain; the technology could be applicable to a wide range of industries and activities as it becomes more and more advanced.
Here's a look at 6 ways blockchain may be seen in the future.
1. Banks
One of the first places blockchain is likely to turn up is at banks.
As bitcoin threatened to disrupt the traditional finance system, many big banks created dedicated teams to study the cryptocurrency and experiment with its use. While the majority of banks are still wary of bitcoin itself, many have become increasingly interested in how bitcoin might improve their operations.
So far, the best use-case for blockchain within a bank has been to . At the moment, sending money from one country to another requires a great deal of time and administration, but using blockchain to run those payments could change that. For one, the system would likely make such transactions cheaper by eliminating the need for a middleman. Not only that, but blockchain would also speed up processing, a benefit to both banks and customers.
Related Link:Trading Bitcoin Binary Options
2. Exchanges
Blockchain has also been touted as a viable way to run an exchange. Using a ledger like blockchain would make trade data much more accurate by conducting the trades on a peer-to-peer basis.
Applying this technology to an exchange would cut down on the need for supervisors, a cost-saving measure that would also reduce the instances of human error. Not only that, but a blockchain-run exchange would also speed up transaction times, allowing traders to see real-time results when their trades are placed.
Nasdaq Inc(NASDAQ:NDAQ) has already begun for a blockchain-based exchange; the company has partnered with Chain, a blockchain infrastructure provider, to work on integrating blockchain into the exchange's operations.
While blockchain may be a good way to overhaul U.S. exchanges, many worry about technological problems that might arise, especially after several mishaps delayed trading on U.S. exchanges this year.
3. Legal Contracts
The legal space could also be turned on its head by blockchain, as the ledger has been suggested as a way to facilitate contracts. Dubbed "smart contracts," blockchain-supported contracts would be able to essentially enforce themselves without the need for a third party.
Computer programs would be able to set conditions laid out in a contract and when they were satisfied, the next part of the contract would be released. That means contractual obligations could be easier to enforce, as they would be automated and security surrounding such transactions would be enhanced.
One example would be the ability for a customer to pay for a package at the moment it was delivered.International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) has a dedicated research team to investigate the possibility of creating smart contracts. The firm believes that such a system would enhance privacy for participating businesses and ensure that required conditions are met.
4. Politics
This year was the first year that a presidential candidate accepted bitcoin donations for their campaign, but many believe that blockchain will truly revolutionize politics in the years to come.
Voting has always been a hot topic among the U.S. public; each election ends with questions about accuracy and efficiency, as well as calls to reform the system and update the technology used. Blockchain supporters say that the ledger bitcoin runs on could the voting process by making it more secure. In such a voting system, blockchain would store each vote with an encrypted hash.
These encryptions are exceedingly difficult to break and would require a hacker with an impossible amount of computer power in order to change just one vote without being noticed. The Liberal Alliance, a political party in Denmark, has already to run its internal voting system using blockchain, making it the first political group in the world to integrate blockchain into its voting practices.
Related Link:Paris Attacks Weigh On Bitcoin
5. Microtransactions
Companies likeNetflix, Inc.(NASDAQ:NFLX) have revolutionized the way people view content by disrupting traditional cable broadcasters and pushing more people to watch TV and movies online.
However, subscription services like that one may be under fire in the coming years if blockchain is used to facilitate . This type of system would allow users to pay per minute, or per show in a pay-as-you-go manner.
Such payment systems could benefit both customers and content providers, as it gives a more realistic view of what people are actually using. Subscription bundles often result in a great deal of unused services, which customers may be overpaying for. On the flip side, cheaper bundles or less complex bundled options could sway customers away from one subscription service to another, but a pay-as-you-go option allows customers to view and pay for exactly what they want.
5. Tipping
Another way micropayments might enhance online content is through a tipping service. Allowing users to "tip" for particularly entertaining or insightful social media posts or blogs would diminish the need for online advertising and give content creators a new source of income.
Many believe that such a system would improve the quality of online content and help eliminate some of the spam that circulates throughout the Internet. This kind of system would also be facilitated through blockchain, and many believe that a cryptocurrency like bitcoin would make such a tipping scheme possible.
6. Music
The music industry has been alight with debates over whether artists are being fairly compensated for the value of their work. Many believe that big name labels likeSonyare unfairly negotiating royalty fees with music distributors in a way that doesn't deliver that value back to the content creators themselves.
However, with the help of blockchain, some say the music industry could shift to a more artist-driven model in which blockchain makes artists' contracts more transparent, thus eliminating arguments over how royalties are distributed when their label makes a deal with a firm like Spotify.
In 2016, a company called is planning to work together with music companies and artists to see how blockchain-supported infrastructure might improve the way business is conducted within the industry.
Image Credit:
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• Can Subscription Services Take Over The Movies As Well?
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have seen a drop in enthusiasm over the past year as more people have become wary toward the currencies. A spate of high profile scams and illegal transactions that involved bitcoin painted the cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals and an unsafe avenue with which to move money. While bitcoin enthusiasts continue to rework the currency's image in order to gain mainstream approval, others say the coin itself isn't what the world should be focused on. Blockchain, the ledger-like technology that bitcoin runs on, has instead emerged as one of the most important technological advancements from the past decade. Blockchain's ability to facilitate transactions seamlessly without a third party intermediary has been driving bitcoin's popularity over the past few years. Related Link: Ben Bernanke Sees Serious Problems With Bitcoin While the system was developed in order to easily transfer bitcoins from party to party, many believe that supporting a bitcoin market is one of many uses blockchain could have in the future. Some analysts believe that blockchain could significantly change the way that the financial system operates, overhauling everything from banks to exchanges. Others say the financial space is just the starting point for blockchain; the technology could be applicable to a wide range of industries and activities as it becomes more and more advanced. Here's a look at 6 ways blockchain may be seen in the future. 1. Banks One of the first places blockchain is likely to turn up is at banks. As bitcoin threatened to disrupt the traditional finance system, many big banks created dedicated teams to study the cryptocurrency and experiment with its use. While the majority of banks are still wary of bitcoin itself, many have become increasingly interested in how bitcoin might improve their operations. So far, the best use-case for blockchain within a bank has been to . At the moment, sending money from one country to another requires a great deal of time and administration, but using blockchain to run those payments could change that. For one, the system would likely make such transactions cheaper by eliminating the need for a middleman. Not only that, but blockchain would also speed up processing, a benefit to both banks and customers. Story continues Related Link: Trading Bitcoin Binary Options 2. Exchanges Blockchain has also been touted as a viable way to run an exchange. Using a ledger like blockchain would make trade data much more accurate by conducting the trades on a peer-to-peer basis. Applying this technology to an exchange would cut down on the need for supervisors, a cost-saving measure that would also reduce the instances of human error. Not only that, but a blockchain-run exchange would also speed up transaction times, allowing traders to see real-time results when their trades are placed. Nasdaq Inc (NASDAQ: NDAQ ) has already begun for a blockchain-based exchange; the company has partnered with Chain, a blockchain infrastructure provider, to work on integrating blockchain into the exchange's operations. While blockchain may be a good way to overhaul U.S. exchanges, many worry about technological problems that might arise, especially after several mishaps delayed trading on U.S. exchanges this year. 3. Legal Contracts The legal space could also be turned on its head by blockchain, as the ledger has been suggested as a way to facilitate contracts. Dubbed "smart contracts," blockchain-supported contracts would be able to essentially enforce themselves without the need for a third party. Computer programs would be able to set conditions laid out in a contract and when they were satisfied, the next part of the contract would be released. That means contractual obligations could be easier to enforce, as they would be automated and security surrounding such transactions would be enhanced. One example would be the ability for a customer to pay for a package at the moment it was delivered. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ) has a dedicated research team to investigate the possibility of creating smart contracts. The firm believes that such a system would enhance privacy for participating businesses and ensure that required conditions are met. 4. Politics This year was the first year that a presidential candidate accepted bitcoin donations for their campaign, but many believe that blockchain will truly revolutionize politics in the years to come. Voting has always been a hot topic among the U.S. public; each election ends with questions about accuracy and efficiency, as well as calls to reform the system and update the technology used. Blockchain supporters say that the ledger bitcoin runs on could the voting process by making it more secure. In such a voting system, blockchain would store each vote with an encrypted hash. These encryptions are exceedingly difficult to break and would require a hacker with an impossible amount of computer power in order to change just one vote without being noticed. The Liberal Alliance, a political party in Denmark, has already to run its internal voting system using blockchain, making it the first political group in the world to integrate blockchain into its voting practices. Related Link: Paris Attacks Weigh On Bitcoin 5. Microtransactions Companies like Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX ) have revolutionized the way people view content by disrupting traditional cable broadcasters and pushing more people to watch TV and movies online. However, subscription services like that one may be under fire in the coming years if blockchain is used to facilitate . This type of system would allow users to pay per minute, or per show in a pay-as-you-go manner. Such payment systems could benefit both customers and content providers, as it gives a more realistic view of what people are actually using. Subscription bundles often result in a great deal of unused services, which customers may be overpaying for. On the flip side, cheaper bundles or less complex bundled options could sway customers away from one subscription service to another, but a pay-as-you-go option allows customers to view and pay for exactly what they want. 5. Tipping Another way micropayments might enhance online content is through a tipping service. Allowing users to "tip" for particularly entertaining or insightful social media posts or blogs would diminish the need for online advertising and give content creators a new source of income. Many believe that such a system would improve the quality of online content and help eliminate some of the spam that circulates throughout the Internet. This kind of system would also be facilitated through blockchain, and many believe that a cryptocurrency like bitcoin would make such a tipping scheme possible. 6. Music The music industry has been alight with debates over whether artists are being fairly compensated for the value of their work. Many believe that big name labels like Sony are unfairly negotiating royalty fees with music distributors in a way that doesn't deliver that value back to the content creators themselves. However, with the help of blockchain, some say the music industry could shift to a more artist-driven model in which blockchain makes artists' contracts more transparent, thus eliminating arguments over how royalties are distributed when their label makes a deal with a firm like Spotify. In 2016, a company called is planning to work together with music companies and artists to see how blockchain-supported infrastructure might improve the way business is conducted within the industry. Image Credit: See more from Benzinga Can Subscription Services Take Over The Movies As Well? Is The Video Subscription Space Saturated? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Best Gift Cards for the Geeks on Your List: (Photo: Thinkstock.com) Gift cards might be the last refuge of scoundrels who cant be bothered to put any thought into the whole buying-and-wrapping process. But they can also be handy ways to get something for people whose interests you just dont understand. So if your gift list includes someone whos obsessed with technology of one sort or another, and you have no idea what shes talking about half the time, a gift card could be the perfect solution. But not just any card: You want one thats just right for your geeky giftee. Here are some suggestions. The generalists Of course, pretty much every big-name tech brand that sells anything online including Apple , Google , Microsoft sells gift cards of its own these days. Note that Apple cards occasionally go on sale at other retailers, allowing you to buy a $100 card for, say, $80. Its worth keeping an eye out for such bargains, as they come and go quickly. (Photo: Apple.com) If your recipient isnt so brand-specific, most of the major online retailers who sell electronics offer gift cards, too: Amazon ; Best Buy ; Walmart . Tech stores Then there are the technology specialists, retailers such as Crutchfield , Newegg , TigerDirect , who sell technology products and almost nothing else. One personal favorite in this bunch: B&H Photo , which began life as (yes) a camera store in Manhattan but has morphed into a smorgasbord of digital goodies of almost every kind, from computers and their accessories to tablets, smartphones, TVs, media players, and wearables, as well as a truly remarkable range of photo and video hardware. (Photo: B&H Photo) True specialists Then there are the true specialists: sites that focus on one particular type of technology or another. The Dynamism store, for example, specializes in 3D technology (in addition to notebooks and some other general tech stuff). Thinkgeek specializes in geek culture: Shopping for someone obsessed with Star Wars , Star Trek , Doctor Who , Minecraft, Marvel Comics, Game of Thrones , or pretty much any other nerdy franchise? This is your store. Story continues (Image: Thinkgeek.com) For gamers, consider a XBox Gift Card or a Playstation Store Cash Card . Have someone on your list who you dont want to see for a while? Get a Minecraft gift card : You buy a physical card at a retailer (including Target, Best Buy, even 7-11), then redeem it online for a downloadable copy of the Minecraft game. Your recipient wont resurface for months . Finally, two honorable mentions: Skype has gift cards , which you can give to loved ones who cant seem to stay in touch. And Gyft offers perhaps the geekiest offer of all: The mobile gift-card app works with Bitcoin . Dan Miller is an editor at Yahoo. He hardly ever gives anyone a gift card. || The Best Gift Cards for the Geeks on Your List: (Photo: Thinkstock.com) Gift cards might be the last refuge of scoundrels who cant be bothered to put any thought into the whole buying-and-wrapping process. But they can also be handy ways to get something for people whose interests you just dont understand. So if your gift list includes someone whos obsessed with technology of one sort or another, and you have no idea what shes talking about half the time, a gift card could be the perfect solution. But not just any card: You want one thats just right for your geeky giftee. Here are some suggestions. The generalists Of course, pretty much every big-name tech brand that sells anything online including Apple , Google , Microsoft sells gift cards of its own these days. Note that Apple cards occasionally go on sale at other retailers, allowing you to buy a $100 card for, say, $80. Its worth keeping an eye out for such bargains, as they come and go quickly. (Photo: Apple.com) If your recipient isnt so brand-specific, most of the major online retailers who sell electronics offer gift cards, too: Amazon ; Best Buy ; Walmart . Tech stores Then there are the technology specialists, retailers such as Crutchfield , Newegg , TigerDirect , who sell technology products and almost nothing else. One personal favorite in this bunch: B&H Photo , which began life as (yes) a camera store in Manhattan but has morphed into a smorgasbord of digital goodies of almost every kind, from computers and their accessories to tablets, smartphones, TVs, media players, and wearables, as well as a truly remarkable range of photo and video hardware. (Photo: B&H Photo) True specialists Then there are the true specialists: sites that focus on one particular type of technology or another. The Dynamism store, for example, specializes in 3D technology (in addition to notebooks and some other general tech stuff). Thinkgeek specializes in geek culture: Shopping for someone obsessed with Star Wars , Star Trek , Doctor Who , Minecraft, Marvel Comics, Game of Thrones , or pretty much any other nerdy franchise? This is your store. Story continues (Image: Thinkgeek.com) For gamers, consider a XBox Gift Card or a Playstation Store Cash Card . Have someone on your list who you dont want to see for a while? Get a Minecraft gift card : You buy a physical card at a retailer (including Target, Best Buy, even 7-11), then redeem it online for a downloadable copy of the Minecraft game. Your recipient wont resurface for months . Finally, two honorable mentions: Skype has gift cards , which you can give to loved ones who cant seem to stay in touch. And Gyft offers perhaps the geekiest offer of all: The mobile gift-card app works with Bitcoin . Dan Miller is an editor at Yahoo. He hardly ever gives anyone a gift card. || In taking economic war to Islamic State, U.S. developing new tools: By Yeganeh Torbati and Brett Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since last month, U.S. warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third. In finding their targets, U.S. military planners have relied in part on an unconventional source of intelligence: access to banking records that provide insight into which refineries and oil pumps are generating cash for the extremist group, current and former officials say. The intent is to choke off the Islamic State's funding by tracking its remaining ties to the global financial system. By identifying money flowing to and from the group, U.S. officials have been able to get a glimpse into how its black-market economy operates, people with knowledge of the effort have said. That in turn has influenced decisions about targeting for air strikes in an effort that began before Islamic State's Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and has intensified since, they said. While Islamic State's access to formal banking has been restricted, it retains some ties that U.S. military and financial officials can use against it, the current and former officials said. "We have done a really good job of largely keeping the Islamic State out of the formal financial system," said Matthew Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the U.S. Treasury in the George W. Bush administration. "But we haven't been entirely successful, and that may not be a bad thing." Reuters was unable to verify key aspects of the campaign, including when it started or exactly which facilities have been destroyed as a result. Two current officials who confirmed the operations in outline declined to comment on their details. It was unclear how U.S. intelligence, Treasury, and military officials working on what the government calls "counter threat finance" operations have used banking records to identify lucrative Islamic State oil-related targets in Syria and whether that involved local banks. A report this year by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force found there were more than 20 Syrian financial institutions with operations in Islamic State territory. In Iraq, Treasury has worked with government officials to cut off bank branches in the group's territory from the Iraqi and international financial systems. Gerald Roberts, section chief of the FBI's terrorist financing operations section, said that Islamic State's recruits from outside Syria often come with financial trails that officials tracking them can "exploit." "We are seeing them using traditional banking systems," he said at a banking conference last week in Washington, adding that young, tech-savvy Islamic State members are also familiar with virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, is sometimes forced to use commercial banks because the amounts involved are too large to move using other means, said Levitt. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) uses a set of "business rules" to screen the roughly 55,000 reports it receives daily from financial institutions for signs of activity involving Islamic State, a spokesman said. He declined to describe the rules, but law enforcement sources say names, IP addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers are among the data that intelligence authorities try to match. The matches allow FinCEN "to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated individuals and entities," the FinCEN spokesman said. At present, FinCEN finds about 1,200 matches suggesting possible Islamic State-linked financial activity each month, up from 800 in April, the spokesman said. Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo declined to comment on whether they provided financial reports to the U.S. government. Such reports are supplied confidentially. Citigroup, HSBC, and Standard Chartered did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "TIDAL WAVE II" The use of financial records linked to Islamic State is only one part of the intelligence-gathering exercise for air strikes in Syria that also includes methods such as aerial surveillance by drones, officials said. One former military official familiar with the process said that any financial intelligence collected by FinCEN would require "significant vetting" before the military acted on it. Earlier this month, U.S.-led coalition planes struck 116 fuel trucks used to smuggle Islamic State oil 45 minutes after dropping leaflets warning drivers to flee, a Pentagon spokesman said. Coalition strikes destroyed another 283 Islamic State fuel trucks on Saturday, the Pentagon said. On Nov. 8, a coalition air strike destroyed three oil refineries in Syria near the border with Turkey. U.S. defense officials estimate that Islamic State, an adversary the United States calls the wealthiest terrorist group of its kind in history, was earning about $47 million per month from oil sales prior to October. That month, the U.S. military launched an intensified effort to go after oil infrastructure, dubbed "Tidal Wave II," named after the bombing campaign targeting Romanian oil fields in World War Two. The Pentagon estimates the strikes have reduced the Islamic State's income from oil sales by about 30 percent, one U.S. defense official with knowledge of the previously unreported estimate said. Reuters was unable to confirm this. The use of financial records in helping to pick U.S. targets was first disclosed last week at the banking conference in Washington. At the conference, Kurt Gredzinski, the Counter Threat Finance Team Chief at U.S. Special Operations Command, cited the importance of information provided by banks in the war against Islamic State. "That to me is the first time in my recollection that we strategically targeted based on threat finance information," he said at the conference. He declined to comment further on which strike he had been referring to. "RESILIENT FINANCIAL PORTFOLIO" U.S. officials believe that diminished funding could gradually undermine Islamic State's grip on the area it controls in Iraq and Syria, because it needs revenue to pay salaries and keep public infrastructure operating, said two former officials with knowledge of the Obama administration's thinking. Experts caution that Islamic State, which rules an area the size of Austria, has surprisingly deep pockets due to the various revenue streams it controls. It has built up what amounts to a "durable and resilient financial portfolio," funded by oil sales, extortion, and sales of antiquities, said Thomas Sanderson, an expert on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Money can be strapped to the backs of mules," Sanderson said. "It's easy to move things across a border during a time of deprivation and chaos." Despite some initial success, cutting off its funding will require deeper cooperation from governments from Turkey to Russia, experts say. The group has shown the ability to bounce back from previous U.S. strikes on its oil facilities. Counter-terrorism experts say that Islamic State appears to have learned from U.S. successes in cracking down on funding for al-Qaeda, which relied heavily on support from wealthy donors in the Gulf region. "IS has learned that you don't want to be reliant on too many outside sources," said Sanderson. "Donors are fickle and subject to pressure and (IS) wants to be in control." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Brett Wolf of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence. Additional reporting by Joel Schectman, Warren Strobel, and Jonathan Landay in Washington.; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Stuart Grudgings) || In taking economic war to Islamic State, U.S. developing new tools: By Yeganeh Torbati and Brett Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since last month, U.S. warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third. In finding their targets, U.S. military planners have relied in part on an unconventional source of intelligence: access to banking records that provide insight into which refineries and oil pumps are generating cash for the extremist group, current and former officials say. The intent is to choke off the Islamic State's funding by tracking its remaining ties to the global financial system. By identifying money flowing to and from the group, U.S. officials have been able to get a glimpse into how its black-market economy operates, people with knowledge of the effort have said. That in turn has influenced decisions about targeting for air strikes in an effort that began before Islamic State's Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and has intensified since, they said. While Islamic State's access to formal banking has been restricted, it retains some ties that U.S. military and financial officials can use against it, the current and former officials said. "We have done a really good job of largely keeping the Islamic State out of the formal financial system," said Matthew Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the U.S. Treasury in the George W. Bush administration. "But we haven't been entirely successful, and that may not be a bad thing." Reuters was unable to verify key aspects of the campaign, including when it started or exactly which facilities have been destroyed as a result. Two current officials who confirmed the operations in outline declined to comment on their details. It was unclear how U.S. intelligence, Treasury, and military officials working on what the government calls "counter threat finance" operations have used banking records to identify lucrative Islamic State oil-related targets in Syria and whether that involved local banks. A report this year by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force found there were more than 20 Syrian financial institutions with operations in Islamic State territory. In Iraq, Treasury has worked with government officials to cut off bank branches in the group's territory from the Iraqi and international financial systems. Gerald Roberts, section chief of the FBI's terrorist financing operations section, said that Islamic State's recruits from outside Syria often come with financial trails that officials tracking them can "exploit." "We are seeing them using traditional banking systems," he said at a banking conference last week in Washington, adding that young, tech-savvy Islamic State members are also familiar with virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, is sometimes forced to use commercial banks because the amounts involved are too large to move using other means, said Levitt. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) uses a set of "business rules" to screen the roughly 55,000 reports it receives daily from financial institutions for signs of activity involving Islamic State, a spokesman said. He declined to describe the rules, but law enforcement sources say names, IP addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers are among the data that intelligence authorities try to match. The matches allow FinCEN "to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated individuals and entities," the FinCEN spokesman said. At present, FinCEN finds about 1,200 matches suggesting possible Islamic State-linked financial activity each month, up from 800 in April, the spokesman said. Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo declined to comment on whether they provided financial reports to the U.S. government. Such reports are supplied confidentially. Citigroup, HSBC, and Standard Chartered did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "TIDAL WAVE II" The use of financial records linked to Islamic State is only one part of the intelligence-gathering exercise for air strikes in Syria that also includes methods such as aerial surveillance by drones, officials said. One former military official familiar with the process said that any financial intelligence collected by FinCEN would require "significant vetting" before the military acted on it. Earlier this month, U.S.-led coalition planes struck 116 fuel trucks used to smuggle Islamic State oil 45 minutes after dropping leaflets warning drivers to flee, a Pentagon spokesman said. Coalition strikes destroyed another 283 Islamic State fuel trucks on Saturday, the Pentagon said. On Nov. 8, a coalition air strike destroyed three oil refineries in Syria near the border with Turkey. U.S. defense officials estimate that Islamic State, an adversary the United States calls the wealthiest terrorist group of its kind in history, was earning about $47 million per month from oil sales prior to October. That month, the U.S. military launched an intensified effort to go after oil infrastructure, dubbed "Tidal Wave II," named after the bombing campaign targeting Romanian oil fields in World War Two. The Pentagon estimates the strikes have reduced the Islamic State's income from oil sales by about 30 percent, one U.S. defense official with knowledge of the previously unreported estimate said. Reuters was unable to confirm this. The use of financial records in helping to pick U.S. targets was first disclosed last week at the banking conference in Washington. At the conference, Kurt Gredzinski, the Counter Threat Finance Team Chief at U.S. Special Operations Command, cited the importance of information provided by banks in the war against Islamic State. "That to me is the first time in my recollection that we strategically targeted based on threat finance information," he said at the conference. He declined to comment further on which strike he had been referring to. "RESILIENT FINANCIAL PORTFOLIO" U.S. officials believe that diminished funding could gradually undermine Islamic State's grip on the area it controls in Iraq and Syria, because it needs revenue to pay salaries and keep public infrastructure operating, said two former officials with knowledge of the Obama administration's thinking. Experts caution that Islamic State, which rules an area the size of Austria, has surprisingly deep pockets due to the various revenue streams it controls. It has built up what amounts to a "durable and resilient financial portfolio," funded by oil sales, extortion, and sales of antiquities, said Thomas Sanderson, an expert on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Money can be strapped to the backs of mules," Sanderson said. "It's easy to move things across a border during a time of deprivation and chaos." Despite some initial success, cutting off its funding will require deeper cooperation from governments from Turkey to Russia, experts say. The group has shown the ability to bounce back from previous U.S. strikes on its oil facilities. Counter-terrorism experts say that Islamic State appears to have learned from U.S. successes in cracking down on funding for al-Qaeda, which relied heavily on support from wealthy donors in the Gulf region. "IS has learned that you don't want to be reliant on too many outside sources," said Sanderson. "Donors are fickle and subject to pressure and (IS) wants to be in control." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Brett Wolf of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence. Additional reporting by Joel Schectman, Warren Strobel, and Jonathan Landay in Washington.; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Stuart Grudgings) || Insight - In taking economic war to Islamic State, U.S. developing new tools: By Yeganeh Torbati and Brett Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since last month, U.S. warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third. In finding their targets, U.S. military planners have relied in part on an unconventional source of intelligence: access to banking records that provide insight into which refineries and oil pumps are generating cash for the extremist group, current and former officials say. The intent is to choke off the Islamic State's funding by tracking its remaining ties to the global financial system. By identifying money flowing to and from the group, U.S. officials have been able to get a glimpse into how its black-market economy operates, people with knowledge of the effort have said. That in turn has influenced decisions about targeting for air strikes in an effort that began before Islamic State's Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and has intensified since, they said. While Islamic State's access to formal banking has been restricted, it retains some ties that U.S. military and financial officials can use against it, the current and former officials said. "We have done a really good job of largely keeping the Islamic State out of the formal financial system," said Matthew Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the U.S. Treasury in the George W. Bush administration. "But we haven't been entirely successful, and that may not be a bad thing." Reuters was unable to verify key aspects of the campaign, including when it started or exactly which facilities have been destroyed as a result. Two current officials who confirmed the operations in outline declined to comment on their details. It was unclear how U.S. intelligence, Treasury, and military officials working on what the government calls "counter threat finance" operations have used banking records to identify lucrative Islamic State oil-related targets in Syria and whether that involved local banks. A report this year by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force found there were more than 20 Syrian financial institutions with operations in Islamic State territory. In Iraq, Treasury has worked with government officials to cut off bank branches in the group's territory from the Iraqi and international financial systems. Gerald Roberts, section chief of the FBI's terrorist financing operations section, said that Islamic State's recruits from outside Syria often come with financial trails that officials tracking them can "exploit." "We are seeing them using traditional banking systems," he said at a banking conference last week in Washington, adding that young, tech-savvy Islamic State members are also familiar with virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, is sometimes forced to use commercial banks because the amounts involved are too large to move using other means, said Levitt. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) uses a set of "business rules" to screen the roughly 55,000 reports it receives daily from financial institutions for signs of activity involving Islamic State, a spokesman said. He declined to describe the rules, but law enforcement sources say names, IP addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers are among the data that intelligence authorities try to match. The matches allow FinCEN "to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated individuals and entities," the FinCEN spokesman said. At present, FinCEN finds about 1,200 matches suggesting possible Islamic State-linked financial activity each month, up from 800 in April, the spokesman said. Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo declined to comment on whether they provided financial reports to the U.S. government. Such reports are supplied confidentially. Citigroup, HSBC, and Standard Chartered did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "TIDAL WAVE II" The use of financial records linked to Islamic State is only one part of the intelligence-gathering exercise for air strikes in Syria that also includes methods such as aerial surveillance by drones, officials said. One former military official familiar with the process said that any financial intelligence collected by FinCEN would require "significant vetting" before the military acted on it. Earlier this month, U.S.-led coalition planes struck 116 fuel trucks used to smuggle Islamic State oil 45 minutes after dropping leaflets warning drivers to flee, a Pentagon spokesman said. Coalition strikes destroyed another 283 Islamic State fuel trucks on Saturday, the Pentagon said. On Nov. 8, a coalition air strike destroyed three oil refineries in Syria near the border with Turkey. U.S. defence officials estimate that Islamic State, an adversary the United States calls the wealthiest terrorist group of its kind in history, was earning about $47 million per month from oil sales prior to October. That month, the U.S. military launched an intensified effort to go after oil infrastructure, dubbed "Tidal Wave II," named after the bombing campaign targeting Romanian oil fields in World War Two. The Pentagon estimates the strikes have reduced the Islamic State's income from oil sales by about 30 percent, one U.S. defence official with knowledge of the previously unreported estimate said. Reuters was unable to confirm this. The use of financial records in helping to pick U.S. targets was first disclosed last week at the banking conference in Washington. At the conference, Kurt Gredzinski, the Counter Threat Finance Team Chief at U.S. Special Operations Command, cited the importance of information provided by banks in the war against Islamic State. "That to me is the first time in my recollection that we strategically targeted based on threat finance information," he said at the conference. He declined to comment further on which strike he had been referring to. "RESILIENT FINANCIAL PORTFOLIO" U.S. officials believe that diminished funding could gradually undermine Islamic State's grip on the area it controls in Iraq and Syria, because it needs revenue to pay salaries and keep public infrastructure operating, said two former officials with knowledge of the Obama administration's thinking. Experts caution that Islamic State, which rules an area the size of Austria, has surprisingly deep pockets due to the various revenue streams it controls. It has built up what amounts to a "durable and resilient financial portfolio," funded by oil sales, extortion, and sales of antiquities, said Thomas Sanderson, an expert on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Money can be strapped to the backs of mules," Sanderson said. "It's easy to move things across a border during a time of deprivation and chaos." Despite some initial success, cutting off its funding will require deeper cooperation from governments from Turkey to Russia, experts say. The group has shown the ability to bounce back from previous U.S. strikes on its oil facilities. Counter-terrorism experts say that Islamic State appears to have learned from U.S. successes in cracking down on funding for al-Qaeda, which relied heavily on support from wealthy donors in the Gulf region. "IS has learned that you don't want to be reliant on too many outside sources," said Sanderson. "Donors are fickle and subject to pressure and (IS) wants to be in control." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Brett Wolf of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence. Additional reporting by Joel Schectman, Warren Strobel, and Jonathan Landay in Washington.; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Stuart Grudgings) || Insight - In taking economic war to Islamic State, U.S. developing new tools: By Yeganeh Torbati and Brett Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since last month, U.S. warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third. In finding their targets, U.S. military planners have relied in part on an unconventional source of intelligence: access to banking records that provide insight into which refineries and oil pumps are generating cash for the extremist group, current and former officials say. The intent is to choke off the Islamic State's funding by tracking its remaining ties to the global financial system. By identifying money flowing to and from the group, U.S. officials have been able to get a glimpse into how its black-market economy operates, people with knowledge of the effort have said. That in turn has influenced decisions about targeting for air strikes in an effort that began before Islamic State's Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and has intensified since, they said. While Islamic State's access to formal banking has been restricted, it retains some ties that U.S. military and financial officials can use against it, the current and former officials said. "We have done a really good job of largely keeping the Islamic State out of the formal financial system," said Matthew Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the U.S. Treasury in the George W. Bush administration. "But we haven't been entirely successful, and that may not be a bad thing." Reuters was unable to verify key aspects of the campaign, including when it started or exactly which facilities have been destroyed as a result. Two current officials who confirmed the operations in outline declined to comment on their details. It was unclear how U.S. intelligence, Treasury, and military officials working on what the government calls "counter threat finance" operations have used banking records to identify lucrative Islamic State oil-related targets in Syria and whether that involved local banks. A report this year by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force found there were more than 20 Syrian financial institutions with operations in Islamic State territory. In Iraq, Treasury has worked with government officials to cut off bank branches in the group's territory from the Iraqi and international financial systems. Gerald Roberts, section chief of the FBI's terrorist financing operations section, said that Islamic State's recruits from outside Syria often come with financial trails that officials tracking them can "exploit." "We are seeing them using traditional banking systems," he said at a banking conference last week in Washington, adding that young, tech-savvy Islamic State members are also familiar with virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, is sometimes forced to use commercial banks because the amounts involved are too large to move using other means, said Levitt. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) uses a set of "business rules" to screen the roughly 55,000 reports it receives daily from financial institutions for signs of activity involving Islamic State, a spokesman said. He declined to describe the rules, but law enforcement sources say names, IP addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers are among the data that intelligence authorities try to match. The matches allow FinCEN "to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated individuals and entities," the FinCEN spokesman said. At present, FinCEN finds about 1,200 matches suggesting possible Islamic State-linked financial activity each month, up from 800 in April, the spokesman said. Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo declined to comment on whether they provided financial reports to the U.S. government. Such reports are supplied confidentially. Citigroup, HSBC, and Standard Chartered did not immediately respond to requests for comment. "TIDAL WAVE II" The use of financial records linked to Islamic State is only one part of the intelligence-gathering exercise for air strikes in Syria that also includes methods such as aerial surveillance by drones, officials said. One former military official familiar with the process said that any financial intelligence collected by FinCEN would require "significant vetting" before the military acted on it. Earlier this month, U.S.-led coalition planes struck 116 fuel trucks used to smuggle Islamic State oil 45 minutes after dropping leaflets warning drivers to flee, a Pentagon spokesman said. Coalition strikes destroyed another 283 Islamic State fuel trucks on Saturday, the Pentagon said. On Nov. 8, a coalition air strike destroyed three oil refineries in Syria near the border with Turkey. U.S. defence officials estimate that Islamic State, an adversary the United States calls the wealthiest terrorist group of its kind in history, was earning about $47 million per month from oil sales prior to October. That month, the U.S. military launched an intensified effort to go after oil infrastructure, dubbed "Tidal Wave II," named after the bombing campaign targeting Romanian oil fields in World War Two. The Pentagon estimates the strikes have reduced the Islamic State's income from oil sales by about 30 percent, one U.S. defence official with knowledge of the previously unreported estimate said. Reuters was unable to confirm this. The use of financial records in helping to pick U.S. targets was first disclosed last week at the banking conference in Washington. At the conference, Kurt Gredzinski, the Counter Threat Finance Team Chief at U.S. Special Operations Command, cited the importance of information provided by banks in the war against Islamic State. "That to me is the first time in my recollection that we strategically targeted based on threat finance information," he said at the conference. He declined to comment further on which strike he had been referring to. "RESILIENT FINANCIAL PORTFOLIO" U.S. officials believe that diminished funding could gradually undermine Islamic State's grip on the area it controls in Iraq and Syria, because it needs revenue to pay salaries and keep public infrastructure operating, said two former officials with knowledge of the Obama administration's thinking. Experts caution that Islamic State, which rules an area the size of Austria, has surprisingly deep pockets due to the various revenue streams it controls. It has built up what amounts to a "durable and resilient financial portfolio," funded by oil sales, extortion, and sales of antiquities, said Thomas Sanderson, an expert on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Money can be strapped to the backs of mules," Sanderson said. "It's easy to move things across a border during a time of deprivation and chaos." Despite some initial success, cutting off its funding will require deeper cooperation from governments from Turkey to Russia, experts say. The group has shown the ability to bounce back from previous U.S. strikes on its oil facilities. Counter-terrorism experts say that Islamic State appears to have learned from U.S. successes in cracking down on funding for al-Qaeda, which relied heavily on support from wealthy donors in the Gulf region. "IS has learned that you don't want to be reliant on too many outside sources," said Sanderson. "Donors are fickle and subject to pressure and (IS) wants to be in control." (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Brett Wolf of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence. Additional reporting by Joel Schectman, Warren Strobel, and Jonathan Landay in Washington.; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Stuart Grudgings)
[Social Media Buzz]
1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$361.00/$362.00 #Bitstamp
$355.35/$355.76 #BTCe
⇢$-6.65/$-5.24
$361.40/$361.41 #Coinbase
⇢$-0.60/$0.41 || LIVE: Profit = $6.88 (0.52 %). BUY B3.64 @ $365.18 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $366.00 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || $363.00 #bitfinex;
$362.78 #bitstamp;
$362.75 #coinbase;
$359.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc || Current price: 342.74€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-12-02 01:00:12 CET || $362.28 at 20:00 UTC [24h Range: $354.56 - $380.00 Volume: 18300 B...
|
359.19, 361.05, 363.18, 388.95, 388.78, 395.54, 415.56, 417.56, 415.48, 451.94
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 1166.72, 1173.68, 1143.84, 1165.20, 1179.97, 1179.97, 1222.50, 1251.01, 1274.99, 1255.15, 1267.12, 1272.83, 1223.54, 1150.00, 1188.49, 1116.72, 1175.83, 1221.38, 1231.92, 1240.00, 1249.61, 1187.81, 1100.23, 973.82, 1036.74, 1054.23, 1120.54, 1049.14, 1038.59, 937.52, 972.78, 966.72, 1045.77, 1047.15, 1039.97, 1026.43, 1071.79, 1080.50, 1102.17, 1143.81, 1133.25, 1124.78, 1182.68, 1176.90, 1175.95, 1187.87, 1187.13, 1205.01, 1200.37, 1169.28, 1167.54, 1172.52, 1182.94, 1193.91, 1211.67, 1210.29, 1229.08, 1222.05, 1231.71, 1207.21, 1250.15, 1265.49, 1281.08, 1317.73, 1316.48, 1321.79, 1347.89, 1421.60, 1452.82, 1490.09, 1537.67, 1555.45, 1578.80, 1596.71, 1723.35, 1755.36, 1787.13, 1848.57, 1724.24, 1804.91, 1808.91, 1738.43, 1734.45, 1839.09, 1888.65, 1987.71, 2084.73, 2041.20, 2173.40, 2320.42.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-05-23]
Volume: 1378749952, RSI (14-day): 83.69, 50-day EMA: 1574.32, 200-day EMA: 1147.23
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1254.80, Gold RSI: 54.68
Oil Price: 51.47, Oil RSI: 64.40
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Defense stocks soar to all-time highs on $110 billion US-Saudi Arabia weapons deal: Defense stocks took off on Monday after PresidentDonald Trumpsigned a nearly $110 billion weapons dealwith Saudi Arabia. The deal will be worth $350 billion over 10 years.
On Monday,Lockheed Martin(LMT)closed up more than 1 percent and General Dynamics(GD)closed up about 1 percent. These stocks, along with Raytheon(RTN)and Northrop Grumman(NOC), hit all-time highs earlier in the day.
Additionally, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA)(NYSE Arca: ITA)closed nearly 1 percent higher.
Jet maker Boeing(BA)also signed a handful of deals with Saudi Arabia during Trump's weekend visit, involving the sale of military and passenger aircraft. Its stock closed up more than 1 percent.
These types of arms deals have caused defense stocks to rally in the past, according to CNBC analysis using Kensho.
One month after about 40 U.S.-Saudi Arabia arms deals — going back to 2009 — the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF(NYSE Arca: ITA)was up 3.3 percent, on average, almost double the return of the S&P 500(^GSPC), according to data compiled by Kensho.
"The key, and as yet unknown, issue will be (1) when/if all the various items mentioned are put under contract and (2) when they are to be delivered," Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr wrote in a note to clients.
"Given the generally extended period required to finalize foreign arms contracts, we'd expect little impact on 2017 results, with some potential benefit in 2018 and more in 2019," Rumohr said.
Lockheed Martin is slated to be the biggest potential winner after this news, with Raytheon being a "potential dark horse winner," should its Patriot missile be purchased, Rumohr said.
Trump's deal with the Saudis solidifies a decades-long alliance with the world's largest oil exporter and will be worth $350 billion over 10 years.
Lockheed Martin said in a statement that the deal "will directly contribute to [Saudi Arabia's] Vision 2030 by opening the door for thousands of highly skilled jobs in new economic sectors."
— CNBC's Javier David contributed to this report.
CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is a minority investor in Kensho.
Correction: President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. An earlier version misstated the figure.
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• Bitcoin jumps $200 in single day on surging global demand
• Op-Ed: CEO ejection hardly gets Ford back in the race
• Tech rally may lead to calls to redistribute Silicon Valley's wealth: Strategist || Defense stocks soar to all-time highs on $110 billion US-Saudi Arabia weapons deal: Defense stocks took off on Monday after President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal will be worth $350 billion over 10 years. On Monday,Lockheed Martin ( LMT ) closed up more than 1 percent and General Dynamics ( GD ) closed up about 1 percent. These stocks, along with Raytheon ( RTN ) and Northrop Grumman ( NOC ) , hit all-time highs earlier in the day. Additionally, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) (NYSE Arca: ITA) closed nearly 1 percent higher. Jet maker Boeing ( BA ) also signed a handful of deals with Saudi Arabia during Trump's weekend visit, involving the sale of military and passenger aircraft. Its stock closed up more than 1 percent. These types of arms deals have caused defense stocks to rally in the past, according to CNBC analysis using Kensho. One month after about 40 U.S.-Saudi Arabia arms deals — going back to 2009 — the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSE Arca: ITA) was up 3.3 percent, on average, almost double the return of the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) , according to data compiled by Kensho. "The key, and as yet unknown, issue will be (1) when/if all the various items mentioned are put under contract and (2) when they are to be delivered," Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr wrote in a note to clients. "Given the generally extended period required to finalize foreign arms contracts, we'd expect little impact on 2017 results, with some potential benefit in 2018 and more in 2019," Rumohr said. Lockheed Martin is slated to be the biggest potential winner after this news, with Raytheon being a "potential dark horse winner," should its Patriot missile be purchased, Rumohr said. Trump's deal with the Saudis solidifies a decades-long alliance with the world's largest oil exporter and will be worth $350 billion over 10 years. Lockheed Martin said in a statement that the deal "will directly contribute to [Saudi Arabia's] Vision 2030 by opening the door for thousands of highly skilled jobs in new economic sectors." — CNBC's Javier David contributed to this report. CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is a minority investor in Kensho. Correction: President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. An earlier version misstated the figure. More From CNBC Bitcoin jumps $200 in single day on surging global demand Op-Ed: CEO ejection hardly gets Ford back in the race Tech rally may lead to calls to redistribute Silicon Valley's wealth: Strategist View comments || If You Bought $5 of Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, You’d Be $4.4 Million Richer: Seven years ago, the value of a single bitcoin was worth a quarter-of-a-cent. Today, that single bitcoin isworth upwards of $2,200.
Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of bitcoin used in a real world transaction. Over the course of seven years, bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars back then on about 2,000 bitcoins, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.
The early months of 2017 have been particularly heady days for bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, the value of the cryptocurrencyhas surged as it gains legitimacy in countries like Japan. Investors have also come to see the currency as something of a safe haven asset amid geopolitical turmoil -- and there’s been plenty of that in recent months, in both Europe and the United States.
And that first transaction? A software programmer on “Bitcoin Talk” known as Lazlo Hanyecz offered to 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. For a least three days, no one took bite of the offer, with Hanyecz writing: “So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I’m offering too low?”
A user eventually paid about$25 for two pizzas. In today’s bitcoins, those pizzas cost Hanyecz $22 million.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns
• Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor
• 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000
• Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week
• Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite || If You Bought $5 of Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, You’d Be $4.4 Million Richer: Seven years ago, the value of a single bitcoin was worth a quarter-of-a-cent. Today, that single bitcoin isworth upwards of $2,200.
Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of bitcoin used in a real world transaction. Over the course of seven years, bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars back then on about 2,000 bitcoins, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.
The early months of 2017 have been particularly heady days for bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, the value of the cryptocurrencyhas surged as it gains legitimacy in countries like Japan. Investors have also come to see the currency as something of a safe haven asset amid geopolitical turmoil -- and there’s been plenty of that in recent months, in both Europe and the United States.
And that first transaction? A software programmer on “Bitcoin Talk” known as Lazlo Hanyecz offered to 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. For a least three days, no one took bite of the offer, with Hanyecz writing: “So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I’m offering too low?”
A user eventually paid about$25 for two pizzas. In today’s bitcoins, those pizzas cost Hanyecz $22 million.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns
• Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor
• 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000
• Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week
• Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite || If You Bought $5 of Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, Youd Be $4.4 Million Richer: Seven years ago, the value of a single bitcoin was worth a quarter-of-a-cent. Today, that single bitcoin is worth upwards of $2,200 . Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of bitcoin used in a real world transaction. Over the course of seven years, bitcoins value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars back then on about 2,000 bitcoins, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today. The early months of 2017 have been particularly heady days for bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, the value of the cryptocurrency has surged as it gains legitimacy in countries like Japan . Investors have also come to see the currency as something of a safe haven asset amid geopolitical turmoil -- and theres been plenty of that in recent months, in both Europe and the United States. And that first transaction? A software programmer on Bitcoin Talk known as Lazlo Hanyecz offered to 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. For a least three days, no one took bite of the offer, with Hanyecz writing: So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount Im offering too low? A user eventually paid about $25 for two pizzas . In todays bitcoins, those pizzas cost Hanyecz $22 million. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000 Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite || Bitcoin Flying As ETF Gets Second Shot: Would-be bitcoin ETF investors are in wait-and-see mode as the Securities and Exchange Commission reconsiders whether to allow the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund to come to fruition. To the dismay of many,the SEC rejected the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF (COIN)in a March 10 decision, citing a lack of regulation and surveillance-sharing agreements between exchanges.
Bats Global Markets, operator of the exchange on which the ETF would trade and which is owned by the same parent company—CBOE—as ETF.com, responded to the SEC's verdict by filing a "petition for review" of the disapproval on March 24.
Bats argued that the commission's initial conclusion "is clearly erroneous," "inconsistent with prior ETP [exchange-traded products] approval orders" and that "the manipulation concerns ... are overstated and largely theoretical."
Bats urged the SEC to approve its proposed rule change, which would open the door to the listing of the ETF and "provide investors access to bitcoin through a regulated and transparent investment vehicle."
On April 24, the SEC agreed to consider Bats’ petition for review, and asked for public comments on the original disapproval order. The last of those comments was submitted on May 15, setting the stage for a new round of deliberations by the commission.
High Bar For Approval
Though hopes are high that the bitcoin ETF will eventually be approved―public comments on the fund have been largely positive―analysts aren't confident the SEC will turn around so soon after its previous negative ruling and suddenly give it the green light.
Spencer Bogart, managing director and head of research for Blockchain Capital, is skeptical that the SEC will change its tune on the bitcoin ETF.
"Their reason for disapproval was the underlying markets for bitcoin, which haven't changed in the weeks since they made their decision,” he said. “One of the issues was that Bats hadn't set up surveillance-sharing agreements with the major exchanges on which bitcoin is traded, with the purpose of identifying and stomping out market manipulation. Even if they did, a lot of those exchanges reside in jurisdictions that don't have much of a regulatory body that can go and take action against people that are doing something bad to the market."
However, Bogart did leave open the possibility that the SEC's thinking could change on the ETF if a new set of people look into the matter.
“It is possible that, in the short time period from when the SEC disapproved to when the petition was granted, there was a significant regime change at the SEC," explained Bogart. "You could have a different group of people who want to review the matter because they aren't sure the decision to disapprove was a good choice. I’ve heard whisperings that there are many people within this administration who are friendly or at least amicable to digital currencies like bitcoin."
Bitcoin Surging Even Without ETF
Regardless of what the future holds for bitcoin ETFs, the digital currency itself isn't fazed. Since March 10—the day the SEC originally rejected the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF—the price of bitcoin is up an incredible 91%, last hitting an all-time high of more than $2,200 on Monday. Year-to-date, bitcoin is up 130%.
If anything, the price only accelerated on the upside after the SEC's disapproval, though most analysts attribute the surge to other factors.
"The big driver of the rally seems to be what’s going on in Japan and Korea," noted Bogart. "In Japan, recently there's been a change to acknowledge bitcoin as a legal payment method. That in and of itself wasn't significant as, generally, people don't like to spend bitcoin; they like to hold it."
"But Japan's move provides some regulatory clarity, and now there are major tech companies that want to open up bitcoin exchanges in Japan,” Bogart said. “So what you saw was volume in existing bitcoin exchanges in Japan went through the roof and pushed the prices up. Koreans look closely at Japan and tend to imitate a lot of activity there, so there's been a lot of demand from that area of the world also."
"That's been the story of bitcoin,” added Bogart. “A lot of times it's just sitting there doing nothing and then either something falls apart in a particular corner of the world, or in some corner of the world, some regulatory agency decides to be favorable to bitcoin and then you see these random rallies. Then as you begin to rally, speculators pile in, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle."
Contact Sumit Roy [email protected].
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Bitcoin Flying As ETF Gets Second Shot: Would-be bitcoin ETF investors are in wait-and-see mode as the Securities and Exchange Commission reconsiders whether to allow the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund to come to fruition. To the dismay of many,the SEC rejected the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF (COIN)in a March 10 decision, citing a lack of regulation and surveillance-sharing agreements between exchanges.
Bats Global Markets, operator of the exchange on which the ETF would trade and which is owned by the same parent company—CBOE—as ETF.com, responded to the SEC's verdict by filing a "petition for review" of the disapproval on March 24.
Bats argued that the commission's initial conclusion "is clearly erroneous," "inconsistent with prior ETP [exchange-traded products] approval orders" and that "the manipulation concerns ... are overstated and largely theoretical."
Bats urged the SEC to approve its proposed rule change, which would open the door to the listing of the ETF and "provide investors access to bitcoin through a regulated and transparent investment vehicle."
On April 24, the SEC agreed to consider Bats’ petition for review, and asked for public comments on the original disapproval order. The last of those comments was submitted on May 15, setting the stage for a new round of deliberations by the commission.
High Bar For Approval
Though hopes are high that the bitcoin ETF will eventually be approved―public comments on the fund have been largely positive―analysts aren't confident the SEC will turn around so soon after its previous negative ruling and suddenly give it the green light.
Spencer Bogart, managing director and head of research for Blockchain Capital, is skeptical that the SEC will change its tune on the bitcoin ETF.
"Their reason for disapproval was the underlying markets for bitcoin, which haven't changed in the weeks since they made their decision,” he said. “One of the issues was that Bats hadn't set up surveillance-sharing agreements with the major exchanges on which bitcoin is traded, with the purpose of identifying and stomping out market manipulation. Even if they did, a lot of those exchanges reside in jurisdictions that don't have much of a regulatory body that can go and take action against people that are doing something bad to the market."
However, Bogart did leave open the possibility that the SEC's thinking could change on the ETF if a new set of people look into the matter.
“It is possible that, in the short time period from when the SEC disapproved to when the petition was granted, there was a significant regime change at the SEC," explained Bogart. "You could have a different group of people who want to review the matter because they aren't sure the decision to disapprove was a good choice. I’ve heard whisperings that there are many people within this administration who are friendly or at least amicable to digital currencies like bitcoin."
Bitcoin Surging Even Without ETF
Regardless of what the future holds for bitcoin ETFs, the digital currency itself isn't fazed. Since March 10—the day the SEC originally rejected the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF—the price of bitcoin is up an incredible 91%, last hitting an all-time high of more than $2,200 on Monday. Year-to-date, bitcoin is up 130%.
If anything, the price only accelerated on the upside after the SEC's disapproval, though most analysts attribute the surge to other factors.
"The big driver of the rally seems to be what’s going on in Japan and Korea," noted Bogart. "In Japan, recently there's been a change to acknowledge bitcoin as a legal payment method. That in and of itself wasn't significant as, generally, people don't like to spend bitcoin; they like to hold it."
"But Japan's move provides some regulatory clarity, and now there are major tech companies that want to open up bitcoin exchanges in Japan,” Bogart said. “So what you saw was volume in existing bitcoin exchanges in Japan went through the roof and pushed the prices up. Koreans look closely at Japan and tend to imitate a lot of activity there, so there's been a lot of demand from that area of the world also."
"That's been the story of bitcoin,” added Bogart. “A lot of times it's just sitting there doing nothing and then either something falls apart in a particular corner of the world, or in some corner of the world, some regulatory agency decides to be favorable to bitcoin and then you see these random rallies. Then as you begin to rally, speculators pile in, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle."
Contact Sumit Roy [email protected].
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Jaxx Announces Massive Expansion, Partnering and Integrating With 70+ Top Blockchain Projects, Exchanges, & Platforms to Make Digital Currencies More Accessible to Masses: TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - May 22, 2017) - Decentral ( http://decentral.ca/ ) today announced that its flagship product, Jaxx ( https://jaxx.io/ ), the leading user-controlled, multi-asset, multi-platform digital currency wallet and exchange, has secured over 70 new partners and integrations on the way to bolster its mission to become the ultimate command centre for all things blockchain. Just as the browser unleashed the power of the Internet, Jaxx will be the tool that brings digital currencies and digital assets to the masses. "We are bringing together all facets of the blockchain ecosystem with Jaxx to provide a universal interoperable interface so that non-technical people, like my dad, can easily use these decentralized technologies," said Anthony Di Iorio, Founder and CEO of Decentral & Jaxx. "Simple tools and intuitive UI / UX will bring adoption to the masses and assist all projects and companies." The following partners will integrate with the Jaxx universal key management system and backend blockchain infrastructures to create a simple point of entry into various areas of blockchain technology-- including user-controlled payments and exchange, identity, communications, value movement, privacy, smart contracts, document signing and decentralized storage: RSK Labs operates RSK, a smart-contract platform with a two-way peg to the Bitcoin blockchain. BitPay is the first and most experienced company in bitcoin payments, building powerful tools for spending, accepting, and building with Bitcoin. Coinbase is a digital currency wallet and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies. Purse.io allows anyone to save 15% off Amazon with Bitcoin. Bittrex provides individuals and businesses a world-class experience for buying and selling digital tokens with lightning-fast trade execution, stable wallets, and industry-best security practices. Blockchain Capital is the premier venture capital firm investing in blockchain tech companies and tokens. BitGo empowers businesses to integrate digital currencies into their existing financial systems. Civic uses a verified identity for multi-factor authentication on web and mobile apps without the need for usernames or passwords. Changelly is a multi-currency exchange service that provides solutions for the last mile problem of crypto exchanges. Trezor is the original hardware wallet and supports both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ledger Wallet is a blockchain hardware wallet that provides cold storage for multiple digital currencies. Opendime by Coinkite is a small USB stick that allows spending of Bitcoin like a dollar bill. QTUM is a hybrid blockchain application platform aimed at building blockchains for business, with a strong foothold in China. Coinfabrik helps customers define their product specifications, design user interfaces, integrate applications, and deploy products. Signatura is the world's most secure and resilient digital signature platform. Wall of Coins is available in many countries and directly connects buyers and sellers of digital currencies. Bitnovo allows for the simple purchase of Bitcoin and offers a refillable wallet card. Story continues These partners and integrations will continue to power Jaxx's mission to create a unified, cross-platform experience for all blockchain assets. Jaxx aims to become the ultimate dashboard for all things blockchain, tailored to provide newcomers and power users with a simple, intuitive experience. "We're excited to partner with the like-minded team at Jaxx who are making it easy for users to securely manage and transfer their blockchain assets," said Bill Shihara, CEO of Bittrex.com. Jaxx also today announced its future coin and token addition roadmap and will be working with teams and communities from Ripple, Monero, Tether, Stellar Lumens, PIVX, Factom, Steem, NEM, QTUM, Bytecoin, Bitshares, MaidSafeCoin, Siacoin, Waves, Lisk, Omni, Stratus, GameCredits, Ardor, SingularDTV, Round, Decred, NXT, Byteball, DigiByte, FirstBlood, IExec RLX, Emercoin, Syscoin, Etheroll, Komodo, Namecoin, Storjcoin, Chronobank, Melonport, WeTrust, Counterparty, TokenCard, Matchpool, Edgeless, Xaurum, CreditBit, MonaCoin, NovaCoin, RubyCoin, Bitcrystals, BitShares, BlackCoin, Expanse, Gulden, Namecoin, NAV Coin, NEM, Peercoin, PotCoin, Tezos and Wings among others to bring more projects into Jaxx across all platforms and devices. These new tokens and coins join Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Augur, Golem, Gnosis, DigixDAO, Iconomi, Zcash, Dogecoin, RSK Testnet, and Blockchain Capital to make Jaxx the most versatile, non-custodial wallet with a built-in crypto-exchange available. "We're glad that Jaxx has decided to attempt Monero integration again, because we believe that users need more options with respect to Monero onboarding, not less, and welcome all work being done in that space," said Monero Core Developer Riccardo "Fluffypony" Spagni. "As a company that operates in the Monero space, we are happy to provide them with as much support as possible, and look forward to a successful release." Jaxx will be present in New York at Consensus May 22-24, 2017 and at Token Summit May 25, 2017. Companies and projects interested in partnering with Jaxx to bring cryptocurrency to the masses are invited to reach out to Charlie Shrem, Director of Business & Community Development at Decentral & Jaxx. ( [email protected] ). About Jaxx Jaxx is the first multi-asset wallet that syncs across all devices and provides users the ability to manage, send, receive and exchange digital currencies while users remain in full control of their keys. With Shapeshift onboard and available on 9 platforms, setting up a Jaxx wallet is frictionless and requires no onboarding, verification, usernames or password, making it a seamless experience for blockchain novices and power users alike. Jaxx will soon release its "Orange Paper" (a consumer-friendly version of a white paper) and a company roadmap outlining its long-term vision to provide software and hardware that supports the entire blockchain ecosystem and takes decentralized technologies mainstream. To learn more about Jaxx, please visit: https://jaxx.io/ || Jaxx Announces Massive Expansion, Partnering and Integrating With 70+ Top Blockchain Projects, Exchanges, & Platforms to Make Digital Currencies More Accessible to Masses: TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - May 22, 2017) - Decentral (http://decentral.ca/) today announced that its flagship product, Jaxx (https://jaxx.io/), the leading user-controlled, multi-asset, multi-platform digital currency wallet and exchange, has secured over 70 new partners and integrations on the way to bolster its mission to become the ultimate command centre for all things blockchain. Just as the browser unleashed the power of the Internet, Jaxx will be the tool that brings digital currencies and digital assets to the masses.
"We are bringing together all facets of the blockchain ecosystem with Jaxx to provide a universal interoperable interface so that non-technical people, like my dad, can easily use these decentralized technologies," said Anthony Di Iorio, Founder and CEO of Decentral & Jaxx. "Simple tools and intuitive UI / UX will bring adoption to the masses and assist all projects and companies."
The following partners will integrate with the Jaxx universal key management system and backend blockchain infrastructures to create a simple point of entry into various areas of blockchain technology-- including user-controlled payments and exchange, identity, communications, value movement, privacy, smart contracts, document signing and decentralized storage:
• RSK Labsoperates RSK, a smart-contract platform with a two-way peg to the Bitcoin blockchain.
• BitPayis the first and most experienced company in bitcoin payments, building powerful tools for spending, accepting, and building with Bitcoin.
• Coinbaseis a digital currency wallet and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies.
• Purse.ioallows anyone to save 15% off Amazon with Bitcoin.
• Bittrexprovides individuals and businesses a world-class experience for buying and selling digital tokens with lightning-fast trade execution, stable wallets, and industry-best security practices.
• Blockchain Capitalis the premier venture capital firm investing in blockchain tech companies and tokens.
• BitGoempowers businesses to integrate digital currencies into their existing financial systems.
• Civicuses a verified identity for multi-factor authentication on web and mobile apps without the need for usernames or passwords.
• Changellyis a multi-currency exchange service that provides solutions for the last mile problem of crypto exchanges.
• Trezoris the original hardware wallet and supports both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• Ledger Walletis a blockchain hardware wallet that provides cold storage for multiple digital currencies.
• OpendimebyCoinkiteis a small USB stick that allows spending of Bitcoin like a dollar bill.
• QTUMis a hybrid blockchain application platform aimed at building blockchains for business, with a strong foothold in China.
• Coinfabrikhelps customers define their product specifications, design user interfaces, integrate applications, and deploy products.
• Signaturais the world's most secure and resilient digital signature platform.
• Wall of Coinsis available in many countries and directly connects buyers and sellers of digital currencies.
• Bitnovoallows for the simple purchase of Bitcoin and offers a refillable wallet card.
These partners and integrations will continue to power Jaxx's mission to create a unified, cross-platform experience for all blockchain assets. Jaxx aims to become the ultimate dashboard for all things blockchain, tailored to provide newcomers and power users with a simple, intuitive experience.
"We're excited to partner with the like-minded team at Jaxx who are making it easy for users to securely manage and transfer their blockchain assets," said Bill Shihara, CEO of Bittrex.com.
Jaxx also today announced its future coin and token addition roadmap and will be working with teams and communities from Ripple, Monero, Tether, Stellar Lumens, PIVX, Factom, Steem, NEM, QTUM, Bytecoin, Bitshares, MaidSafeCoin, Siacoin, Waves, Lisk, Omni, Stratus, GameCredits, Ardor, SingularDTV, Round, Decred, NXT, Byteball, DigiByte, FirstBlood, IExec RLX, Emercoin, Syscoin, Etheroll, Komodo, Namecoin, Storjcoin, Chronobank, Melonport, WeTrust, Counterparty, TokenCard, Matchpool, Edgeless, Xaurum, CreditBit, MonaCoin, NovaCoin, RubyCoin, Bitcrystals, BitShares, BlackCoin, Expanse, Gulden, Namecoin, NAV Coin, NEM, Peercoin, PotCoin, Tezos and Wings among others to bring more projects into Jaxx across all platforms and devices. These new tokens and coins join Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Augur, Golem, Gnosis, DigixDAO, Iconomi, Zcash, Dogecoin, RSK Testnet, and Blockchain Capital to make Jaxx the most versatile, non-custodial wallet with a built-in crypto-exchange available.
"We're glad that Jaxx has decided to attempt Monero integration again, because we believe that users need more options with respect to Monero onboarding, not less, and welcome all work being done in that space," said Monero Core Developer Riccardo "Fluffypony" Spagni. "As a company that operates in the Monero space, we are happy to provide them with as much support as possible, and look forward to a successful release."
Jaxx will be present in New York at Consensus May 22-24, 2017 and at Token Summit May 25, 2017. Companies and projects interested in partnering with Jaxx to bring cryptocurrency to the masses are invited to reach out to Charlie Shrem, Director of Business & Community Development at Decentral & Jaxx. ([email protected]).
About JaxxJaxx is the first multi-asset wallet that syncs across all devices and provides users the ability to manage, send, receive and exchange digital currencies while users remain in full control of their keys. With Shapeshift onboard and available on 9 platforms, setting up a Jaxx wallet is frictionless and requires no onboarding, verification, usernames or password, making it a seamless experience for blockchain novices and power users alike. Jaxx will soon release its "Orange Paper" (a consumer-friendly version of a white paper) and a company roadmap outlining its long-term vision to provide software and hardware that supports the entire blockchain ecosystem and takes decentralized technologies mainstream. To learn more about Jaxx, please visit:https://jaxx.io/ || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Trudeau prom (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jogging past a group of high-school students dressed for their prom in Vancouver, British Columbia.Reuters/Adam Scotti/Courtesy Prime Minister's Office) Here is what you need to know. Oil nears $51. West Texas Intermediate crude oil is higher by 0.7% at $50.70 a barrel ahead of OPEC's Thursday meeting in Vienna. Bitcoin explodes past $2,100. The cryptocurrency trades up by $202, or 10.4%, at $2,140 a coin. It's up by 125% this year. Japan's trade surplus shrinks . Japan's trade surplus narrowed to 481.7 billion yen in April as exports to China rose by 14.8% versus a year ago. S&P is sounding the alarm on Australian financial institutions . The ratings agency downgraded 21 Australian financial institutions, citing the risk of a sharp drop in property prices. Clariant and Hunstman are merging . The two chemical companies are joining forces in a deal that values the combined entity at about $20 billion including debt, Reuters says. Ford is reportedly firing its CEO . Mark Fields is reportedly out as CEO because of the recent performance of the company's stock, and he will be replaced by James Hackett, the chairman of the Ford unit that works on autonomous vehicles, Forbes and The New York Times say. Ford shares have tumbled by almost 40% since Fields took the helm at Ford more than three years ago. Italian regulators have seized documents from IBM . Authorities have seized documents from IBM as part of their investigation into allegations of fraud against one of its customers, BT Italy, Reuters says, citing sources. IBM is not under investigation. Stock markets around the world are higher . Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.9%) led the gains in Asia, and Britain's FTSE (+0.4%) paces the advance in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,380. Earnings reporting is light. Agilent and Nordson will be releasing their quarterly results after markets close. Fed speak is heavy. Patrick Harker, Neel Kashkari, Lael Brainard, and Charles Evans will all be taking the mic Monday. More From Business Insider 13 best-selling online classes you can enroll in for $10 right now You're wasting money if you use a modem from your cable company — here's a cheap replacement 10 things you need to know today || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jogging past a group of high-school students dressed for their prom in Vancouver, British Columbia.Reuters/Adam Scotti/Courtesy Prime Minister's Office)
Here is what you need to know.
Oil nears $51.West Texas Intermediate crude oil is higher by 0.7% at $50.70 a barrel ahead of OPEC's Thursday meeting in Vienna.
Bitcoin explodes past $2,100.The cryptocurrency trades up by $202, or 10.4%, at $2,140 a coin. It's up by 125% this year.
Japan's trade surplus shrinks.Japan's trade surplus narrowed to 481.7 billion yen in April as exports to China rose by 14.8% versus a year ago.
S&P is sounding the alarm on Australian financial institutions.The ratings agency downgraded 21 Australian financial institutions, citing the risk of a sharp drop in property prices.
Clariant and Hunstman are merging.The two chemical companies are joining forces in a deal that values the combined entity at about $20 billion including debt, Reuters says.
Ford is reportedly firing its CEO.Mark Fields is reportedly out as CEO because of the recent performance of the company's stock, and he will be replaced by James Hackett, the chairman of the Ford unit that works on autonomous vehicles, Forbes and The New York Times say. Ford shares have tumbled by almost 40% since Fields took the helm at Ford more than three years ago.
Italian regulators have seized documents from IBM.Authorities have seized documents from IBM as part of their investigation into allegations of fraud against one of its customers, BT Italy, Reuters says, citing sources. IBM is not under investigation.
Stock markets around the world are higher.Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.9%) led the gains in Asia, and Britain's FTSE (+0.4%) paces the advance in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,380.
Earnings reporting is light.Agilent and Nordson will be releasing their quarterly results after markets close.
Fed speak is heavy.Patrick Harker, Neel Kashkari, Lael Brainard, and Charles Evans will all be taking the mic Monday.
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• 10 things you need to know today || If you bought $100 of bitcoin 7 years ago, you'd be sitting on $72.9 million now after new record high: Monday marks the seven-year anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day the moment a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 bitcoin on two Papa John's pizzas. More important than the episode being widely recognized as the first transaction using the cryptocurrency is what it tells us about the bitcoin rally that saw it break through the $2,100 mark on Monday. Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) was trading as high as $2,185.89 in the early hours of Monday morning, hitting a fresh record high, after first powering through the $2,000 barrier over the weekend, according to CoinDesk data. On May 22, 2010, Hanyecz asked a fellow enthusiast on a bitcoin forum to accept 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's Pizzas. At the time, Hanyecz believed that the coins he had "mined" on his computer were worth around 0.003 cents each. Bitcoin mining involves solving a complex mathematical solution with the miner being rewarded in bitcoin. This is how Hanyecz got his initial coins. The cryptocurrency has many doubters as it continues to be associated with criminal activity, but it has still seen a stunning rally. Here are two facts, on Bitcoin Pizza Day, however, that highlight this: While being worth $30 at the time, Hanyecz pizzas would now cost $21.8 million at current bitcoin prices If you bought $100 of bitcoin at the 0.003 cent price on May 22, 2010, you'd now be sitting on around $72.9 million A number of factors have been driving the rally: Recently passed legislation in Japan that allows retailers to start accepting bitcoin as a legal currency has boosted trading in yen, which now accounts for over 40 percent of all bitcoin trade Political uncertainty globally has driven demand for bitcoin as a safe haven asset A debate within the bitcoin community about the future of the underlying technology behind bitcoin known as the blockchain has been taking place. There was fear at one point this could lead to the creation of two separate cryptocurrencies but those worries have largely subsided with an alternative, more palatable option now being put forward. Story continues For an in-depth look at the factors driving bitcoin, click here . Bitcoin has rallied over 117 percent year to-date. year to-date. Also From CNBC Watch The Profit on Yahoo View , available now on iOS and Android . More From CNBC Massive cyberattack 'huge screw-up' by government, Wikipedia's founder says Daily Mail has 'mastered the art of running' fake news, Wikipedia founder says Bitcoin hits $1,900 record high with market cap up $4 billion this week alone || If you bought $100 of bitcoin 7 years ago, you'd be sitting on $72.9 million now after new record high: Monday marks the seven-year anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day – the moment a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 bitcoin on two Papa John's pizzas.
More important than the episode being widely recognized as the first transaction using the cryptocurrency is what it tells us about the bitcoin rally that saw it break through the $2,100 mark on Monday.
Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)was trading as high as $2,185.89 in the early hours of Monday morning, hitting a fresh record high, after firstpowering through the $2,000 barrierover the weekend, according to CoinDesk data.
On May 22, 2010, Hanyecz asked a fellow enthusiast on a bitcoin forum to accept 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa John's Pizzas. At the time, Hanyecz believed that the coins he had "mined" on his computer were worth around 0.003 cents each.
Bitcoin mining involves solving a complex mathematical solution with the miner being rewarded in bitcoin. This is how Hanyecz got his initial coins.
The cryptocurrency has many doubters as it continues to be associated with criminal activity, but it has still seen a stunning rally. Here are two facts, on Bitcoin Pizza Day, however, that highlight this:
• While being worth $30 at the time, Hanyecz pizzas would now cost $21.8 million at current bitcoin prices
• If you bought $100 of bitcoin at the 0.003 cent price on May 22, 2010, you'd now be sitting on around $72.9 million
A number of factors have been driving the rally:
• Recently passed legislation in Japanthat allows retailers to start accepting bitcoin as a legal currency has boosted trading in yen, which now accounts for over 40 percent of all bitcoin trade
• Political uncertainty globally has driven demand for bitcoin as a safe haven asset
• Adebate within the bitcoin communityabout the future of the underlying technology behind bitcoin known as the blockchain has been taking place. There was fear at one point this could lead to the creation of two separate cryptocurrencies but those worries have largely subsided with an alternative, more palatable option now being put forward.
For an in-depth look at thefactors driving bitcoin, click here.
Bitcoin has rallied over 117 percent year to-date. year to-date.
Also From CNBC
WatchThe ProfitonYahoo View, available now oniOSandAndroid.
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• Massive cyberattack 'huge screw-up' by government, Wikipedia's founder says
• Daily Mail has 'mastered the art of running' fake news, Wikipedia founder says
• Bitcoin hits $1,900 record high with market cap up $4 billion this week alone || Bitcoin options exchange raises $11.4 million in funding: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ledger Holdings, the New York-based parent company of bitcoin options exchange LedgerX, said on Monday it closed $11.4 million in funding led by Miami International Holdings Inc and China's Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments.
The funding supports LedgerX's plan to operate a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin and other digital currencies.
LedgerX is awaiting regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate the first U.S. regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options. On approval, participating institutions can use the LedgerX platform to obtain and hedge bitcoin using exchange-traded and centrally cleared options contracts.
"In the short term, these investments will further our application to become a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options," Paul Chou, chief executive officer of LedgerX LLC, said in a statement.
"In the long term, these strategic investors will help us enter additional marketplaces and territories," he added.
Chou sits on the CFTC's Technology Advisory Committee.
Miami International Holdings is the parent company of Miami International Securities Exchange LLC and MIAX PEARL LLC, two fully electronic options trading exchanges.
MIAX Options lists and trades options on more than 2,600 multi-listed classes. Huiyin Blockchain Venture is a subsidiary of investment conglomerate Huiyin Group.
LedgerX earlier raised $1.5 million from funders led by Google Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved like money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. It hit a record high over the weekend, with one unit of bitcoin trading above $2,000 on the BitStamp platform (BTC=BTSP).
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Peter Cooney) || Bitcoin options exchange raises $11.4 million in funding: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ledger Holdings, the New York-based parent company of bitcoin options exchange LedgerX, said on Monday it closed $11.4 million in funding led by Miami International Holdings Inc and China's Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments. The funding supports LedgerX's plan to operate a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin and other digital currencies. LedgerX is awaiting regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate the first U.S. regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options. On approval, participating institutions can use the LedgerX platform to obtain and hedge bitcoin using exchange-traded and centrally cleared options contracts. "In the short term, these investments will further our application to become a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options," Paul Chou, chief executive officer of LedgerX LLC, said in a statement. "In the long term, these strategic investors will help us enter additional marketplaces and territories," he added. Chou sits on the CFTC's Technology Advisory Committee. Miami International Holdings is the parent company of Miami International Securities Exchange LLC and MIAX PEARL LLC, two fully electronic options trading exchanges. MIAX Options lists and trades options on more than 2,600 multi-listed classes. Huiyin Blockchain Venture is a subsidiary of investment conglomerate Huiyin Group. LedgerX earlier raised $1.5 million from funders led by Google Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved like money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. It hit a record high over the weekend, with one unit of bitcoin trading above $2,000 on the BitStamp platform (BTC=BTSP). (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Peter Cooney) || Bitcoin options exchange raises $11.4 million in funding: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ledger Holdings, the New York-based parent company of bitcoin options exchange LedgerX, said on Monday it closed $11.4 million in funding led by Miami International Holdings Inc and China's Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments.
The funding supports LedgerX's plan to operate a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin and other digital currencies.
LedgerX is awaiting regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate the first U.S. regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options. On approval, participating institutions can use the LedgerX platform to obtain and hedge bitcoin using exchange-traded and centrally cleared options contracts.
"In the short term, these investments will further our application to become a regulated exchange and clearing house for bitcoin options," Paul Chou, chief executive officer of LedgerX LLC, said in a statement.
"In the long term, these strategic investors will help us enter additional marketplaces and territories," he added.
Chou sits on the CFTC's Technology Advisory Committee.
Miami International Holdings is the parent company of Miami International Securities Exchange LLC and MIAX PEARL LLC, two fully electronic options trading exchanges.
MIAX Options lists and trades options on more than 2,600 multi-listed classes. Huiyin Blockchain Venture is a subsidiary of investment conglomerate Huiyin Group.
LedgerX earlier raised $1.5 million from funders led by Google Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved like money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. It hit a record high over the weekend, with one unit of bitcoin trading above $2,000 on the BitStamp platform (BTC=BTSP).
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Peter Cooney) || IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns: A closely-watchedfightbetween the Internal Revenue Service and a popular bitcoin exchange took a new twist last week, as senior Republicans in Congress sent a sharply-wordedletterthat suggests the tax agency is overstepping its powers.
The letter concerns an IRS investigation into possible tax evasion by customers who use Coinbase, a San Francisco-based company that many people use to buy digital currencies. As part of the investigation, which began last year, officials demanded that Coinbase turn over information for every one of its accounts.
Coinbaseandits customersare currently in court trying to block the demand, saying it’s too broad, and now the letter from the Republicans is likely to give them extra ammunition.
“The summons is estimated to affect 500,000 active Coinbase customers and would result in the production of millions of pages of associated records, many of which contain personally identifiable information … Based on the information before us,this summons seems overly broad, extremely burdensome, and highly intrusive to a large population of individuals,” says the letter, which is signed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and by Vern Buchanan and Kevin Brady, who head the House Committee on Ways and Means. (my emphasis)
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The Republicans’ concerns echo those of Coinbase and its customers, who argue the IRS does not need every single Coinbase account to carry out its audit, and that the investigation sweeps in people who have clearly done nothing wrong.
The tax agency, for its part, has pointed out thatonly 802 Coinbase users filed a tax formrelated to bitcoin in 2015, which suggests large number of people have failed to declare capital gains related to bitcoin.
The IRS investigation also comes at a time when the price of bitcoin has been on an incredible tear, climbing from $13 in 2013 toa new highof over $2,000 last week. Those who profited from the higher prices--either by selling bitcoin for dollars or exchanging it for merchandise--are required to pay taxes on the gain.
Some Coinbase customers, however, have not sold any bitcoin at all while many others hold only a minimal amount, raising questions of why the IRS demanded information about every account.
One theory, according to a lawyerwho spoke withFortunelate last year, is that the IRS’s sweeping demand is a negotiating tactic to make Coinbase more cooperative, and that the two sides will reach an agreement to allow the agency to inspect some, but not all, of the accounts.
The letter from the Republicans, which asks the IRS to explain its strategy for enforcing tax payments on digital currency by June 7, is likely to put pressure on the agency to come to a deal with Coinbase.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor
• 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000
• Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week
• Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite
• Why Bitcoin's Price Has Been Surging and Where It Could Go From Here || IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns: A closely-watched fight between the Internal Revenue Service and a popular bitcoin exchange took a new twist last week, as senior Republicans in Congress sent a sharply-worded letter that suggests the tax agency is overstepping its powers. The letter concerns an IRS investigation into possible tax evasion by customers who use Coinbase, a San Francisco-based company that many people use to buy digital currencies. As part of the investigation, which began last year, officials demanded that Coinbase turn over information for every one of its accounts. Coinbase and its customers are currently in court trying to block the demand, saying it’s too broad, and now the letter from the Republicans is likely to give them extra ammunition. “The summons is estimated to affect 500,000 active Coinbase customers and would result in the production of millions of pages of associated records, many of which contain personally identifiable information … Based on the information before us, this summons seems overly broad, extremely burdensome, and highly intrusive to a large population of individuals ,” says the letter, which is signed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and by Vern Buchanan and Kevin Brady, who head the House Committee on Ways and Means. (my emphasis) Get Data Sheet , Fortune 's technology newsletter. The Republicans’ concerns echo those of Coinbase and its customers, who argue the IRS does not need every single Coinbase account to carry out its audit, and that the investigation sweeps in people who have clearly done nothing wrong. The tax agency, for its part, has pointed out that only 802 Coinbase users filed a tax form related to bitcoin in 2015, which suggests large number of people have failed to declare capital gains related to bitcoin. The IRS investigation also comes at a time when the price of bitcoin has been on an incredible tear, climbing from $13 in 2013 to a new high of over $2,000 last week. Those who profited from the higher prices--either by selling bitcoin for dollars or exchanging it for merchandise--are required to pay taxes on the gain. Story continues Some Coinbase customers, however, have not sold any bitcoin at all while many others hold only a minimal amount, raising questions of why the IRS demanded information about every account. One theory, according to a lawyer who spoke with Fortune late last year, is that the IRS’s sweeping demand is a negotiating tactic to make Coinbase more cooperative, and that the two sides will reach an agreement to allow the agency to inspect some, but not all, of the accounts. The letter from the Republicans, which asks the IRS to explain its strategy for enforcing tax payments on digital currency by June 7, is likely to put pressure on the agency to come to a deal with Coinbase. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000 Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite Why Bitcoin's Price Has Been Surging and Where It Could Go From Here || IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns: A closely-watchedfightbetween the Internal Revenue Service and a popular bitcoin exchange took a new twist last week, as senior Republicans in Congress sent a sharply-wordedletterthat suggests the tax agency is overstepping its powers.
The letter concerns an IRS investigation into possible tax evasion by customers who use Coinbase, a San Francisco-based company that many people use to buy digital currencies. As part of the investigation, which began last year, officials demanded that Coinbase turn over information for every one of its accounts.
Coinbaseandits customersare currently in court trying to block the demand, saying it’s too broad, and now the letter from the Republicans is likely to give them extra ammunition.
“The summons is estimated to affect 500,000 active Coinbase customers and would result in the production of millions of pages of associated records, many of which contain personally identifiable information … Based on the information before us,this summons seems overly broad, extremely burdensome, and highly intrusive to a large population of individuals,” says the letter, which is signed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and by Vern Buchanan and Kevin Brady, who head the House Committee on Ways and Means. (my emphasis)
Get Data Sheet,Fortune'stechnology newsletter.
The Republicans’ concerns echo those of Coinbase and its customers, who argue the IRS does not need every single Coinbase account to carry out its audit, and that the investigation sweeps in people who have clearly done nothing wrong.
The tax agency, for its part, has pointed out thatonly 802 Coinbase users filed a tax formrelated to bitcoin in 2015, which suggests large number of people have failed to declare capital gains related to bitcoin.
The IRS investigation also comes at a time when the price of bitcoin has been on an incredible tear, climbing from $13 in 2013 toa new highof over $2,000 last week. Those who profited from the higher prices--either by selling bitcoin for dollars or exchanging it for merchandise--are required to pay taxes on the gain.
Some Coinbase customers, however, have not sold any bitcoin at all while many others hold only a minimal amount, raising questions of why the IRS demanded information about every account.
One theory, according to a lawyerwho spoke withFortunelate last year, is that the IRS’s sweeping demand is a negotiating tactic to make Coinbase more cooperative, and that the two sides will reach an agreement to allow the agency to inspect some, but not all, of the accounts.
The letter from the Republicans, which asks the IRS to explain its strategy for enforcing tax payments on digital currency by June 7, is likely to put pressure on the agency to come to a deal with Coinbase.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor
• 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000
• Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week
• Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite
• Why Bitcoin's Price Has Been Surging and Where It Could Go From Here || Hackers are trying to bring the WannaCry ransomware back from the dead: A little more than a week ago, a particularly nasty piece of ransomware dubbed WannaCry began spreading at an impressive clip all across the globe. Targeting Windows machines and based off of a leaked NSA exploit impacted users found that all of their computer files had been encrypted and could only be recovered by making a $300 payment in Bitcoin. With the ransomware showing no signs of slowing down, an enterprising researcher named Marcus Hutchins managed to effectively stop WannaCry dead in its tracks by inadvertently enabling a kill-switch. As we noted last week , WannaCry at the point of infection attempts to communicate with a domain name consisting of a long string of nonsensical characters. If the domain is registered, WannaCry will stop spreading. If the domain is not registered, WannaCry will go on about its havoc-wreaking business. Don't Miss : You wont have to wait until November to buy Apples next-gen iPhone 8 After taking a look at the WannaCry code, Hutchins spotted an odd-looking domain name and out of mere curiosity registered it, having no idea at the time that he was enabling the ransomwares kill-switch. Without question, Hutchins action here helped stopped the malware from spreading even wider, but not before it managed to infect more than 300,000 computers across the globe. Interestingly enough, security researchers now claim that theres a clever and concerted campaign to bring the malware back from the dead. The strategy? Taking the kill-switch domain off-line by any means necessary. According to a report from Wired , botnets are now being mobilized to launch a DDoS attack against the kill-switch domain. Now a few devious hackers appear to be trying to combine those two internet plagues: Theyre using their own copycats of the Mirai botnet to attack WannaCrys kill-switch. So far, researchers have managed to fight off the attacks. But in the unlikely event that the hackers succeed, the ransomware could once again start spreading unabated.
If the DDoS assault did succeed, not all WannaCry infections would immediately reignite. The ransomware stops scanning for new victims 24 hours after installing itself on a computer, says Matt Olney, a security researcher with Ciscos Talos team. But anytime one of those infected machines reboots, it starts scanning again. The ones that were successfully encrypted are in this zombie state, where theyre waiting to be reactivated if that domain goes away, says Olney. Story continues At this point, theres no way of knowing if the folks behind WannaCry are the ones trying to resurrect the malware. Some security researchers, though, believe that the new botnet campaign is actually being carried out by folks looking to have a bit of ill-advised fun at the expense of innocent users. Incidentally, French security researchers have since come up with a fix for the WannaCry ransomware called wannakiwi that can be downloaded here. Trending right now: Android Os most exciting new feature is a total game-changer You wont have to wait until November to buy Apples next-gen iPhone 8 The hottest new Nintendo Switch game that isnt Mario Kart is $20 off on Amazon See the original version of this article on BGR.com
[Social Media Buzz]
#Monacoin 39.9円↑[Zaif] -円→[もなとれ]
#NEM #XEM 34.22円↓[Zaif]
#Bitcoin 297,285円↑[Zaif]
05/24 10:00
口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO || $2245.00 at 19:30 UTC [24h Range: $2001.00 - $2268.12 Volume: 16922 BTC] || Average Bitcoin market price is: USD 2,141.00, EUR 1,902.70 || One Bitcoin now worth $2150.01@bitstamp. High $2230.34. Low $2001.00. Market Cap $35.143 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/KwR3RFNHLb || $2185.88 at 05:30 UTC [24h Range: $2001.00 - $2230.34 Volume: 16135 BTC] || Bitcoin tops $2000...
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2443.64, 2304.98, 2202.42, 2038.87, 2155.80, 2255.61, 2175.47, 2286.41, 2407.88, 2488.55
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 6409.22, 6411.27, 6371.27, 6359.49, 5738.35, 5648.03, 5575.55, 5554.33, 5623.54, 4871.49, 4451.87, 4602.17, 4365.94, 4347.11, 3880.76, 4009.97, 3779.13, 3820.72, 4257.42, 4278.85, 4017.27, 4214.67, 4139.88, 3894.13, 3956.89, 3753.99, 3521.10, 3419.94, 3476.11, 3614.23, 3502.66, 3424.59, 3486.95, 3313.68, 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18, 3998.98, 4078.60, 3815.49, 3857.30, 3654.83, 3923.92, 3820.41, 3865.95, 3742.70, 3843.52, 3943.41, 3836.74, 3857.72, 3845.19, 4076.63, 4025.25, 4030.85, 4035.30, 3678.92, 3687.37, 3661.30, 3552.95, 3706.05, 3630.68, 3655.01, 3678.56, 3657.84, 3728.57, 3601.01, 3576.03, 3604.58, 3585.12, 3600.87, 3599.77, 3602.46, 3583.97, 3470.45, 3448.12, 3486.18, 3457.79, 3487.95, 3521.06, 3464.01, 3459.15, 3466.36, 3413.77, 3399.47.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-02-07]
Volume: 5004962683, RSI (14-day): 36.07, 50-day EMA: 3734.73, 200-day EMA: 5162.95
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1309.40, Gold RSI: 63.90
Oil Price: 52.64, Oil RSI: 50.57
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV: Price Analysis, Feb. 6: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. The article has been updated to reflect a mistake in the name of the Sheikh involved in the crypto funding, who is Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, not Sheikh Ahmed bin Al Maktoum. Cryptocurrencies are struggling to move up, even after having been in a bear market for over a year and falling anywhere between 85 and 99 percent from their individual all-time-highs. Investors with open positions are experiencing huge losses, and the ones sitting on the sidelines are scared to enter, as the market continues to make new lows on a regular basis. This has resulted in a drop in trading volumes across crypto exchanges. While many retail traders are turning away from cryptocurrencies, the same cannot be said about institutional investors. The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, a Dubai royal, is helping cryptocurrency fund manager Invao raise funds in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Still, the big players have been slow to enter the nascent market of crypto. None of the institutions have truly committed yet. With no retail investors and no large-scale institutional demand, the markets are reeling and are unable to absorb even a small amount of selling pressure. Lets see if the prices are likely to turn around from the current levels or are they getting ready to plunge even deeper. BTC/USD Although Bitcoin ( BTC ) has been trading in a small range, the sentiment remains bearish. The price continues to trade below both moving averages, and the RSI has been in the negative territory since Jan. 10. The failure of the bulls to scale above the 20-day EMA shows weakness. The bears will now try to resume the downtrend by breaking down of the yearly low at $3,236.09. Repeated failure of the BTC/USD pair to stage a decent recovery deters the traders who are waiting to buy upon the confirmation of a bottom. The critical levels to watch on the downside are $3,000, which is more of a psychological support, and below it $2,600. Story continues Conversely, if the cryptocurrency rebounds sharply from the current levels, or from $3,236.09, it can move up to the moving averages and above them to the downtrend line. We shall wait for a trend reversal before recommending a trade. XRP/USD Ripple ( XRP ) has been unable to find any buying support. It is likely to drop to $0.27795 for the third time since mid-December of last year. The 20-day EMA is sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the sellers have the upper hand. On a break below $0.27795, the fall can stretch to the yearly low of $0.24508. Our bearish view will be invalidated if the bulls rebound sharply from $0.27795 and carry the XRP/USD pair above both moving averages. Such a move will signal strength and we might suggest long positions on a close above the 50-day SMA. Until then, we remain neutral-to-bearish on the pair. ETH/USD Ethereum ( ETH ) has dropped to the bottom of the range. The downsloping 20-day EMA, and the RSI in the negative zone, show that the sellers have the upper hand. A break below $103.2 will invite further selling that can drag the digital currency to $83. Our bearish assumption will prove to be wrong if the ETH/USD pair bounces sharply from the current levels and rises above $116.3. We believe that such a move would signal a probable change in trend. Therefore, we propose a long position on a close (UTC time frame) above $116.3. The targets to watch on the upside are $134.5, and above it $167.32. EOS/USD After failing to break out of the 50-day SMA, EOS is likely to drop to the support at $2.1733. Both moving averages are flat, and the RSI is just below the 50 level, which shows that a consolidation between $2.1733 and $2.5944 might continue for a few more days. Contrary to our opinion, if the bears break down of the support at $2.1733, the EOS/USD pair can slide to $1.7746, and below it to $1.55. The cryptocurrency will show first signs of strength after the bulls scale the moving averages and the $2.5944 mark. We shall wait for the price to close (UTC time frame) above $2.5944 before suggesting any long positions. BCH/USD Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) has been trading inside a tight range of $105$121.3 since Jan. 28. The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the supply is exceeding the demand. A breakdown of $105 will be a bearish indication that can result in a drop to $73.5. There might be a minor attempt to defend the psychological level at $100, but we dont expect it to hold. Conversely, if the BCH/USD pair breaks out of the consolidation, it can move up to $141, where it will be likely to face a stiff resistance. Upon crossing the 50-day SMA, we expect the pair to show strength. Until then, we suggest traders remain on the sidelines. LTC/USD After sustaining above $33 for the past four days, Litecoin ( LTC ) has again turned down. It is currently at the moving averages, which are likely to offer strong support. However, if the LTC/USD pair breaks down of the moving averages and the small uptrend line, it can slide to $29.349, and below it to $27.701. Below that level, a retest of $23.090 is likely. The traders can keep the stop loss at $27.5. On the upside, $36.428 is the critical level to watch out for. A failure to break out of this level shows a lack of demand at higher levels. Both of the moving averages are flat, and the RSI is at 50 levels, which indicates the possibility of a consolidation in the near term. TRX/USD Tron ( TRX ) failed to break out and sustain above the overhead resistance of $0.02815521 on Feb. 4, which is a negative sign. The TRX/USD pair has formed a symmetrical triangle and its next move will start after a breakout or breakdown from it. The 20-day EMA has turned flat, and the RSI has dipped to the midpoint, which points to a range bound action in the short-term. A break out of the triangle can carry the coin to $0.03575668, and above it to $0.038. However, if the bears break below the triangle, a drop to $0.02113440 is probable. The traders can continue to protect their long positions with the stop loss at $0.023. XLM/USD Stellar ( XLM ) is not showing any signs of buying as it continues to slide through the support levels. Having broken down of $0.07864971, it can now slide to the next support at $0.05795397. Both moving averages are sloping down, which shows weakness. However, the RSI has entered deep oversold territory, which suggests that a pullback is possible. Any attempt to recover will face a stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA, and above it at the breakdown level of $0.09285498. The XLM/USD pair will show signs of a reversal if the price breaks out and sustains above the downtrend line. Until then, every pullback will be sold into. BNB/USD Binance Coin ( BNB ) has been one of the strongest performers among the major cryptocurrencies this year. It has secured its place in our analysis after rising to the tenth spot by market capitalization. After a long downtrend, the BNB/USD pair is attempting to change its trend. It broke out of the descending channel on Feb. 2 and has continued to move up since then. It can now reach the level of $10, which had previously acted as a strong resistance. Both moving averages are gradually sloping up, and the RSI is in the overbought territory. This shows that the bulls have the upper hand, but a minor correction to $7 is probable. Since the start of the year, the 50-day SMA has been offering a strong support whenever the price dipped to it. If the bears break down of the 50-day SMA, the cryptocurrency can turn negative. BSV/USD After holding on to the critical support of $65.031 for eight days, Bitcoin SV resumed its downward movement on Feb. 5. Although the pair had dipped lower today, currently it is attempting to climb back above the overhead resistance of $65.031. If the bulls scale above the 20-day EMA, a rally to $80.352 will be probable. The 50-day SMA is located just above this level, so we anticipate a strong resistance at these levels. A break out of the 50-day SMA can result in a move to $102.58, and above it to $123.98. On the other hand, if the bears reverse the direction of the BSV/USD pair, a fall to the next support at $57, and below that a drop to the low at $38.528, will be probable. The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. The charts for the analysis are provided by TradingView . Related Articles: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 4 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 1 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 30 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 28 || Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV: Price Analysis, Feb. 6: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange.
The article has been updated to reflect a mistake in the name of the Sheikh involved in the crypto funding, who is Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, not Sheikh Ahmed bin Al Maktoum.
Cryptocurrencies are struggling to move up, even after having been in a bear market for over a year and falling anywhere between 85 and 99 percent from their individual all-time-highs.
Investors with open positions are experiencing huge losses, and the ones sitting on the sidelines are scared to enter, as the market continues to make new lows on a regular basis. This has resulted in adropin trading volumes across crypto exchanges.
While many retail traders are turning away from cryptocurrencies, the same cannot be said about institutional investors. The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, a Dubai royal, ishelpingcryptocurrency fund manager Invao raise funds in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Still, the big players have been slow to enter the nascent market of crypto. None of the institutions have truly committed yet.
With no retail investors and no large-scale institutional demand, the markets are reeling and are unable to absorb even a small amount of selling pressure. Let’s see if the prices are likely to turn around from the current levels or are they getting ready to plunge even deeper.
Although Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a small range, the sentiment remains bearish. The price continues to trade below both moving averages, and the RSI has been in the negative territory since Jan. 10. The failure of the bulls to scale above the 20-day EMA shows weakness.
The bears will now try to resume the downtrend by breaking down of the yearly low at $3,236.09. Repeated failure of theBTC/USDpair to stage a decent recovery deters the traders who are waiting to buy upon the confirmation of a bottom. The critical levels to watch on the downside are $3,000, which is more of a psychological support, and below it $2,600.
Conversely, if the cryptocurrency rebounds sharply from the current levels, or from $3,236.09, it can move up to the moving averages and above them to the downtrend line. We shall wait for a trend reversal before recommending a trade.
Ripple (XRP) has been unable to find any buying support. It is likely to drop to $0.27795 for the third time since mid-December of last year. The 20-day EMA is sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the sellers have the upper hand. On a break below $0.27795, the fall can stretch to the yearly low of $0.24508.
Our bearish view will be invalidated if the bulls rebound sharply from $0.27795 and carry theXRP/USDpair above both moving averages. Such a move will signal strength and we might suggest long positions on a close above the 50-day SMA. Until then, we remain neutral-to-bearish on the pair.
Ethereum (ETH) has dropped to the bottom of the range. The downsloping 20-day EMA, and the RSI in the negative zone, show that the sellers have the upper hand. A break below $103.2 will invite further selling that can drag the digital currency to $83.
Our bearish assumption will prove to be wrong if theETH/USDpair bounces sharply from the current levels and rises above $116.3. We believe that such a move would signal a probable change in trend. Therefore, we propose a long position on a close (UTC time frame) above $116.3. The targets to watch on the upside are $134.5, and above it $167.32.
After failing to break out of the 50-day SMA,EOSis likely to drop to the support at $2.1733. Both moving averages are flat, and the RSI is just below the 50 level, which shows that a consolidation between $2.1733 and $2.5944 might continue for a few more days.
Contrary to our opinion, if the bears break down of the support at $2.1733, theEOS/USDpair can slide to $1.7746, and below it to $1.55.
The cryptocurrency will show first signs of strength after the bulls scale the moving averages and the $2.5944 mark. We shall wait for the price to close (UTC time frame) above $2.5944 before suggesting any long positions.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been trading inside a tight range of $105–$121.3 since Jan. 28. The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the supply is exceeding the demand.
A breakdown of $105 will be a bearish indication that can result in a drop to $73.5. There might be a minor attempt to defend the psychological level at $100, but we don’t expect it to hold.
Conversely, if theBCH/USDpair breaks out of the consolidation, it can move up to $141, where it will be likely to face a stiff resistance. Upon crossing the 50-day SMA, we expect the pair to show strength. Until then, we suggest traders remain on the sidelines.
After sustaining above $33 for the past four days, Litecoin (LTC) has again turned down. It is currently at the moving averages, which are likely to offer strong support.
However, if theLTC/USDpair breaks down of the moving averages and the small uptrend line, it can slide to $29.349, and below it to $27.701. Below that level, a retest of $23.090 is likely. The traders can keep the stop loss at $27.5.
On the upside, $36.428 is the critical level to watch out for. A failure to break out of this level shows a lack of demand at higher levels. Both of the moving averages are flat, and the RSI is at 50 levels, which indicates the possibility of a consolidation in the near term.
Tron (TRX) failed to break out and sustain above the overhead resistance of $0.02815521 on Feb. 4, which is a negative sign.
TheTRX/USDpair has formed a symmetrical triangle and its next move will start after a breakout or breakdown from it. The 20-day EMA has turned flat, and the RSI has dipped to the midpoint, which points to a range bound action in the short-term.
A break out of the triangle can carry the coin to $0.03575668, and above it to $0.038. However, if the bears break below the triangle, a drop to $0.02113440 is probable. The traders can continue to protect their long positions with the stop loss at $0.023.
Stellar (XLM) is not showing any signs of buying as it continues to slide through the support levels. Having broken down of $0.07864971, it can now slide to the next support at $0.05795397. Both moving averages are sloping down, which shows weakness. However, the RSI has entered deep oversold territory, which suggests that a pullback is possible.
Any attempt to recover will face a stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA, and above it at the breakdown level of $0.09285498.
TheXLM/USDpair will show signs of a reversal if the price breaks out and sustains above the downtrend line. Until then, every pullback will be sold into.
Binance Coin (BNB) has been one of the strongest performers among the major cryptocurrencies this year. It has secured its place in our analysis after rising to the tenth spot by market capitalization.
After a long downtrend, theBNB/USDpair is attempting to change its trend. It broke out of the descending channel on Feb. 2 and has continued to move up since then. It can now reach the level of $10, which had previously acted as a strong resistance.
Both moving averages are gradually sloping up, and the RSI is in the overbought territory. This shows that the bulls have the upper hand, but a minor correction to $7 is probable.
Since the start of the year, the 50-day SMA has been offering a strong support whenever the price dipped to it. If the bears break down of the 50-day SMA, the cryptocurrency can turn negative.
After holding on to the critical support of $65.031 for eight days, Bitcoin SV resumed its downward movement on Feb. 5. Although the pair had dipped lower today, currently it is attempting to climb back above the overhead resistance of $65.031.
If the bulls scale above the 20-day EMA, a rally to $80.352 will be probable. The 50-day SMA is located just above this level, so we anticipate a strong resistance at these levels. A break out of the 50-day SMA can result in a move to $102.58, and above it to $123.98.
On the other hand, if the bears reverse the direction of theBSV/USDpair, a fall to the next support at $57, and below that a drop to the low at $38.528, will be probable.
The market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange. The charts for the analysis are provided byTradingView.
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 4
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 1
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 30
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 28 || Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV: Price Analysis, Feb. 6: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange.
The article has been updated to reflect a mistake in the name of the Sheikh involved in the crypto funding, who is Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, not Sheikh Ahmed bin Al Maktoum.
Cryptocurrencies are struggling to move up, even after having been in a bear market for over a year and falling anywhere between 85 and 99 percent from their individual all-time-highs.
Investors with open positions are experiencing huge losses, and the ones sitting on the sidelines are scared to enter, as the market continues to make new lows on a regular basis. This has resulted in adropin trading volumes across crypto exchanges.
While many retail traders are turning away from cryptocurrencies, the same cannot be said about institutional investors. The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, a Dubai royal, ishelpingcryptocurrency fund manager Invao raise funds in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Still, the big players have been slow to enter the nascent market of crypto. None of the institutions have truly committed yet.
With no retail investors and no large-scale institutional demand, the markets are reeling and are unable to absorb even a small amount of selling pressure. Let’s see if the prices are likely to turn around from the current levels or are they getting ready to plunge even deeper.
Although Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a small range, the sentiment remains bearish. The price continues to trade below both moving averages, and the RSI has been in the negative territory since Jan. 10. The failure of the bulls to scale above the 20-day EMA shows weakness.
The bears will now try to resume the downtrend by breaking down of the yearly low at $3,236.09. Repeated failure of theBTC/USDpair to stage a decent recovery deters the traders who are waiting to buy upon the confirmation of a bottom. The critical levels to watch on the downside are $3,000, which is more of a psychological support, and below it $2,600.
Conversely, if the cryptocurrency rebounds sharply from the current levels, or from $3,236.09, it can move up to the moving averages and above them to the downtrend line. We shall wait for a trend reversal before recommending a trade.
Ripple (XRP) has been unable to find any buying support. It is likely to drop to $0.27795 for the third time since mid-December of last year. The 20-day EMA is sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the sellers have the upper hand. On a break below $0.27795, the fall can stretch to the yearly low of $0.24508.
Our bearish view will be invalidated if the bulls rebound sharply from $0.27795 and carry theXRP/USDpair above both moving averages. Such a move will signal strength and we might suggest long positions on a close above the 50-day SMA. Until then, we remain neutral-to-bearish on the pair.
Ethereum (ETH) has dropped to the bottom of the range. The downsloping 20-day EMA, and the RSI in the negative zone, show that the sellers have the upper hand. A break below $103.2 will invite further selling that can drag the digital currency to $83.
Our bearish assumption will prove to be wrong if theETH/USDpair bounces sharply from the current levels and rises above $116.3. We believe that such a move would signal a probable change in trend. Therefore, we propose a long position on a close (UTC time frame) above $116.3. The targets to watch on the upside are $134.5, and above it $167.32.
After failing to break out of the 50-day SMA,EOSis likely to drop to the support at $2.1733. Both moving averages are flat, and the RSI is just below the 50 level, which shows that a consolidation between $2.1733 and $2.5944 might continue for a few more days.
Contrary to our opinion, if the bears break down of the support at $2.1733, theEOS/USDpair can slide to $1.7746, and below it to $1.55.
The cryptocurrency will show first signs of strength after the bulls scale the moving averages and the $2.5944 mark. We shall wait for the price to close (UTC time frame) above $2.5944 before suggesting any long positions.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been trading inside a tight range of $105–$121.3 since Jan. 28. The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping down, and the RSI is in the negative zone, which shows that the supply is exceeding the demand.
A breakdown of $105 will be a bearish indication that can result in a drop to $73.5. There might be a minor attempt to defend the psychological level at $100, but we don’t expect it to hold.
Conversely, if theBCH/USDpair breaks out of the consolidation, it can move up to $141, where it will be likely to face a stiff resistance. Upon crossing the 50-day SMA, we expect the pair to show strength. Until then, we suggest traders remain on the sidelines.
After sustaining above $33 for the past four days, Litecoin (LTC) has again turned down. It is currently at the moving averages, which are likely to offer strong support.
However, if theLTC/USDpair breaks down of the moving averages and the small uptrend line, it can slide to $29.349, and below it to $27.701. Below that level, a retest of $23.090 is likely. The traders can keep the stop loss at $27.5.
On the upside, $36.428 is the critical level to watch out for. A failure to break out of this level shows a lack of demand at higher levels. Both of the moving averages are flat, and the RSI is at 50 levels, which indicates the possibility of a consolidation in the near term.
Tron (TRX) failed to break out and sustain above the overhead resistance of $0.02815521 on Feb. 4, which is a negative sign.
TheTRX/USDpair has formed a symmetrical triangle and its next move will start after a breakout or breakdown from it. The 20-day EMA has turned flat, and the RSI has dipped to the midpoint, which points to a range bound action in the short-term.
A break out of the triangle can carry the coin to $0.03575668, and above it to $0.038. However, if the bears break below the triangle, a drop to $0.02113440 is probable. The traders can continue to protect their long positions with the stop loss at $0.023.
Stellar (XLM) is not showing any signs of buying as it continues to slide through the support levels. Having broken down of $0.07864971, it can now slide to the next support at $0.05795397. Both moving averages are sloping down, which shows weakness. However, the RSI has entered deep oversold territory, which suggests that a pullback is possible.
Any attempt to recover will face a stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA, and above it at the breakdown level of $0.09285498.
TheXLM/USDpair will show signs of a reversal if the price breaks out and sustains above the downtrend line. Until then, every pullback will be sold into.
Binance Coin (BNB) has been one of the strongest performers among the major cryptocurrencies this year. It has secured its place in our analysis after rising to the tenth spot by market capitalization.
After a long downtrend, theBNB/USDpair is attempting to change its trend. It broke out of the descending channel on Feb. 2 and has continued to move up since then. It can now reach the level of $10, which had previously acted as a strong resistance.
Both moving averages are gradually sloping up, and the RSI is in the overbought territory. This shows that the bulls have the upper hand, but a minor correction to $7 is probable.
Since the start of the year, the 50-day SMA has been offering a strong support whenever the price dipped to it. If the bears break down of the 50-day SMA, the cryptocurrency can turn negative.
After holding on to the critical support of $65.031 for eight days, Bitcoin SV resumed its downward movement on Feb. 5. Although the pair had dipped lower today, currently it is attempting to climb back above the overhead resistance of $65.031.
If the bulls scale above the 20-day EMA, a rally to $80.352 will be probable. The 50-day SMA is located just above this level, so we anticipate a strong resistance at these levels. A break out of the 50-day SMA can result in a move to $102.58, and above it to $123.98.
On the other hand, if the bears reverse the direction of theBSV/USDpair, a fall to the next support at $57, and below that a drop to the low at $38.528, will be probable.
The market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange. The charts for the analysis are provided byTradingView.
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 4
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 1
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 30
• Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 28 || Survey of Customer Comfort With Amazon-Branded Products Includes Crypto: Shoppers of e-commerce giant Amazon would like to be able to purchase a wider variety of products, including cryptocurrency , according to a recent report published by a financial portal Investing.com. In the course of the survey, Investing.com reportedly surveyed over 1,000 Amazon shoppers in order to discover ordering frequency and the trust level customers have in the company. Notably, the survey polled customers on what products they are comfortable buying under an Amazon brand. When asked what kind of products they feel comfortable buying under the Amazon brand, 12.7 percent of the respondents named cryptocurrencies. Other hypothetical Amazon-branded products included medical marijuana (13.5 percent), prescription drugs (9.3 percent), computers (72.9 percent), coupons and deals (10.6 percent) and even healthcare (15.3 percent). Shoppers were allowed to pick more than one option. The survey also revealed that nearly one in three respondents made a monthly purchase on Amazon, while 43 percent of the survey participants said they would no longer shop at malls. In regard to age, Baby Boomers responded they spend about $102.14 on Amazon each month, Generation X-ers said they spend around $118.78, and Millennials spend about $123.49. This week, the CEO of top crypto exchange Binance , Changpeng Zhao, claimed that Amazon cannot avoid issuing its own altcoin . For any internet (non-physical) based business, I don't understand why anyone would not accept crypto for payments. It is easier, faster and cheaper to integration than traditional payment gateways. Less paperwork. And reaches more diverse demographic and geography, said Zhao. In November 2018, Amazon announced its two new blockchain-related services, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain. While QLDB is a ledger database designed to provide transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable log of transactions, which is overseen by a central trusted authority, Managed Blockchain product is designed to operate with QLDB, allowing users to adjust and manage a scalable blockchain network. Related Articles: Amazon Will Have to Create Its Own Crypto in Future, Binance CEO Says Bitcoin Stuck Around $3,400 as the Stock Market Sees a Minor Downturn BitTorrent Partners with CoinPayments to Launch Support for Native BTT Token Binance CEO CZ: Crypto Growth Needs Entrepreneurs and Projects, Not ETFs || Survey of Customer Comfort With Amazon-Branded Products Includes Crypto: Shoppers of e-commerce giantAmazonwould like to be able to purchase a wider variety of products, includingcryptocurrency, according to a recent reportpublishedby a financial portal Investing.com.
In the course of the survey, Investing.com reportedly surveyed over 1,000 Amazon shoppers in order to discover ordering frequency and the trust level customers have in the company. Notably, the survey polled customers on what products they are comfortable buying under an Amazon brand.
When asked what kind of products they feel comfortable buying under the Amazon brand, 12.7 percent of the respondents named cryptocurrencies. Other hypothetical Amazon-branded products included medicalmarijuana(13.5 percent), prescription drugs (9.3 percent), computers (72.9 percent), coupons and deals (10.6 percent) and evenhealthcare(15.3 percent). Shoppers were allowed to pick more than one option.
The survey also revealed that nearly one in three respondents made a monthly purchase on Amazon, while 43 percent of the survey participants said they would no longer shop at malls. In regard to age, Baby Boomers responded they spend about $102.14 on Amazon each month, Generation X-ers said they spend around $118.78, and Millennials spend about $123.49.
This week, the CEO of topcrypto exchangeBinance, Changpeng Zhao,claimedthat Amazon cannot avoid issuing its ownaltcoin. “For any internet (non-physical) based business, I don't understand why anyone would not accept crypto for payments. It is easier, faster and cheaper to integration than traditional payment gateways. Less paperwork. And reaches more diverse demographic and geography,” said Zhao.
In November 2018, Amazonannouncedits two new blockchain-related services, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain. While QLDB is a ledger database designed to provide transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable log of transactions, which is overseen by a central trusted authority, Managed Blockchain product is designed to operate with QLDB, allowing users to adjust and manage a scalable blockchain network.
• Amazon ‘Will Have to’ Create Its Own Crypto in Future, Binance CEO Says
• Bitcoin Stuck Around $3,400 as the Stock Market Sees a Minor Downturn
• BitTorrent Partners with CoinPayments to Launch Support for Native BTT Token
• Binance CEO CZ: Crypto Growth Needs Entrepreneurs and Projects, Not ETFs || Bitcoin Could Experience a Resurgence of Interest on Wall Street: JPMorgan Strategist: JPMorgan’sGlobal Market Strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou says that Bitcoin (BTC) could make a resurgence onWall Street, according to anarticlepublished by CNBC on Feb 6.
“The stability that we are seeing right now in thecryptocurrencymarket is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future,” said Panigirtzoglou, “The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst.”
Panigirtzoglou predicts that firms will show a renewed interest in cryptocurrencies as stability in the market grows and as Bitcoin’s underlyingblockchaintechnology grows more important. He added that a Bitcoin’s resurgence could be years away, as regulators are a “bit slow to realize” the potential of the cryptocurrency.
Many have predicted that increased involvement from institutional investors on Wall Street would inject much-needed capital into the cryptocurrency space, particularly after markets suffered a bear year in 2018. In June 2018, Cardano (ADA) co-founder Charles Hoskinson,saidthat the entry of Wall Street into the sector will bring in “tens of trillions of dollars.”
However, some reports from late last year suggest that Wall Street has postponed its crypto plans, as the bear market continued to sink lower. In late December, Bloombergreportedthat financial sector majors like banking giantGoldman Sachs, multinational financial services companyMorgan Stanleyand banking conglomerateCitigroup Inc.have shelved crypto-related projects for the foreseeable future.
Twitter’sCEO Jack Dorseyremainsoptimistic about the future of Bitcoin as it is purportedly the only cryptocurrency that he owns. Dorsey said that Bitcoin had a “great brand” and that, “Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals.”
Dorsey has gone so far as to say that Bitcoin will become the world’s single currency within a decade,stating, “The world ultimately will have a single currency, the Internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin.”
• Report: Bitcoin Transactions Per Day Increase to January 2018 Levels
• Bitcoin Stuck Around $3,400 as the Stock Market Sees a Minor Downturn
• Investing App Invstr Launches Cryptocurrency Index
• Crypto Exchange ErisX Appoints Three New Execs From Barclays, YouTube, CBOE || Bitcoin Could Experience a Resurgence of Interest on Wall Street: JPMorgan Strategist: JPMorgans Global Market Strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou says that Bitcoin ( BTC ) could make a resurgence on Wall Street , according to an article published by CNBC on Feb 6. The stability that we are seeing right now in the cryptocurrency market is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future, said Panigirtzoglou, The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst. Panigirtzoglou predicts that firms will show a renewed interest in cryptocurrencies as stability in the market grows and as Bitcoins underlying blockchain technology grows more important. He added that a Bitcoins resurgence could be years away, as regulators are a bit slow to realize the potential of the cryptocurrency. Many have predicted that increased involvement from institutional investors on Wall Street would inject much-needed capital into the cryptocurrency space, particularly after markets suffered a bear year in 2018. In June 2018, Cardano ( ADA ) co-founder Charles Hoskinson, said that the entry of Wall Street into the sector will bring in tens of trillions of dollars. However, some reports from late last year suggest that Wall Street has postponed its crypto plans, as the bear market continued to sink lower. In late December, Bloomberg reported that financial sector majors like banking giant Goldman Sachs , multinational financial services company Morgan Stanley and banking conglomerate Citigroup Inc. have shelved crypto-related projects for the foreseeable future. Twitters CEO Jack Dorsey remains optimistic about the future of Bitcoin as it is purportedly the only cryptocurrency that he owns. Dorsey said that Bitcoin had a great brand and that, Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals. Dorsey has gone so far as to say that Bitcoin will become the worlds single currency within a decade, stating , The world ultimately will have a single currency, the Internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin. Related Articles: Report: Bitcoin Transactions Per Day Increase to January 2018 Levels Bitcoin Stuck Around $3,400 as the Stock Market Sees a Minor Downturn Investing App Invstr Launches Cryptocurrency Index Crypto Exchange ErisX Appoints Three New Execs From Barclays, YouTube, CBOE || Bitcoin Could Experience a Resurgence of Interest on Wall Street: JPMorgan Strategist: JPMorgan’sGlobal Market Strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou says that Bitcoin (BTC) could make a resurgence onWall Street, according to anarticlepublished by CNBC on Feb 6.
“The stability that we are seeing right now in thecryptocurrencymarket is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future,” said Panigirtzoglou, “The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst.”
Panigirtzoglou predicts that firms will show a renewed interest in cryptocurrencies as stability in the market grows and as Bitcoin’s underlyingblockchaintechnology grows more important. He added that a Bitcoin’s resurgence could be years away, as regulators are a “bit slow to realize” the potential of the cryptocurrency.
Many have predicted that increased involvement from institutional investors on Wall Street would inject much-needed capital into the cryptocurrency space, particularly after markets suffered a bear year in 2018. In June 2018, Cardano (ADA) co-founder Charles Hoskinson,saidthat the entry of Wall Street into the sector will bring in “tens of trillions of dollars.”
However, some reports from late last year suggest that Wall Street has postponed its crypto plans, as the bear market continued to sink lower. In late December, Bloombergreportedthat financial sector majors like banking giantGoldman Sachs, multinational financial services companyMorgan Stanleyand banking conglomerateCitigroup Inc.have shelved crypto-related projects for the foreseeable future.
Twitter’sCEO Jack Dorseyremainsoptimistic about the future of Bitcoin as it is purportedly the only cryptocurrency that he owns. Dorsey said that Bitcoin had a “great brand” and that, “Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals.”
Dorsey has gone so far as to say that Bitcoin will become the world’s single currency within a decade,stating, “The world ultimately will have a single currency, the Internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin.”
• Report: Bitcoin Transactions Per Day Increase to January 2018 Levels
• Bitcoin Stuck Around $3,400 as the Stock Market Sees a Minor Downturn
• Investing App Invstr Launches Cryptocurrency Index
• Crypto Exchange ErisX Appoints Three New Execs From Barclays, YouTube, CBOE || Thousands of crypto investors may never see their money again after exchange founder's death: Thousands of Bitcoin investors will likely be left holding the bag after a Nova Scotia judge granted QuadrigaCX, one of Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, creditor protection on Tuesday.
Gerald Cotten, QuadrigaCX’s 30-year old co-founder, died suddenly in India due to complications from Crohn’s disease in December.The problem is, he apparently stashed around $180 million on digital wallets and didn’t share the passwords with anyone – not his business partners, and not even his wife.
“Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find the passwords,” said widow Jennifer Robertson, according to court documents.
QuadrigaCXis safe from creditor lawsuits for 30 days while it tries to crack the code and come up with clients’ funds. Ernst & Young has been appointed to help manage the company’s finances during the process.
The exchange remains shuttered, leaving angry customers wondering when – or if – they will ever get their money.
Court documents show Cotten filed a will 12 days before his death. There is even some speculation – which has not been proven – that his death may be an elaborate scam designed to bilk investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. At the very least, it’s a case of very poor estate planning.
Either way, it’s a black eye for an asset class struggling for legitimacy.
“We believe in the future of cryptocurrency, however we think that incidents like this hurt the growth and adoption,” Adam Goldman, President and Founder of cryptocurrency exchange Bitbuy, toldYahoo Finance Canada.
Regulators around the world are paying close to attention to the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Most purists want governments to keep their hands out of their digital wallets, but some think intervention is warranted.
“Many industry participants including Bitbuy operate with a forward-looking approach regarding regulation, and welcome more official guidance from the government,” says Goldman.
An uncertain future
QuadrigaCX customers have been trying to get their money back for months. Still, many remain undeterred and continue to trade cryptocurrencies. Goldman says thousands have migrated toBitbuy.
QuadrigaCX’s future appears far from certain. It posted a message for customers on its site after the hearing.
“We are sure you have many questions. We are in the early stages of a long process and we do not have all the answers right now,” the post said.
“What we can tell you is that the CCAA process will allow QuadrigaCX to keep all options open to attempt to maximize the funds available for the company’s stakeholders.”
A motion for the appointment of representative counsel for the affected users of QuadrigaCX will be heard in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia at 9:30 on Thursday, February 14.
Lack of regulation
Canadian Securities Administrators are urging Canadians to be cautious about investing in trading platforms through its awareness campaign. Cryptocurrency exchanges are not currently regulated, but CSA is working on a plan.
“We are currently working with IIROC to develop an appropriate regulatory framework for platforms trading crypto-assets that are securities/derivatives,” CSA toldYahoo Finance Canada.
“Additionally, we continue to work with firms that are operating crypto-asset trading platforms and that are required to be registered as dealers and/or recognized as marketplaces.”
Download the Yahoo Finance app, available forAppleandAndroid. || QuadrigaCX founders death leaves thousands holding the bag: QuadrigaCX granted creditor protection while it searches for $250M in cryptocurrency (CBC) Thousands of Bitcoin investors will likely be left holding the bag after a Nova Scotia judge granted QuadrigaCX, one of Canadas biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, creditor protection on Tuesday. Gerald Cotten, QuadrigaCXs 30-year old co-founder, died suddenly in India due to complications from Crohns disease in December. The problem is, he apparently stashed around $180 million on digital wallets and didnt share the passwords with anyone not his business partners, and not even his wife. Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find the passwords, said widow Jennifer Robertson, according to court documents. QuadrigaCX is safe from creditor lawsuits for 30 days while it tries to crack the code and come up with clients funds. Ernst & Young has been appointed to help manage the companys finances during the process. The exchange remains shuttered, leaving angry customers wondering when or if they will ever get their money. Court documents show Cotten filed a will 12 days before his death. There is even some speculation which has not been proven that his death may be an elaborate scam designed to bilk investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. At the very least, its a case of very poor estate planning. Either way, its a black eye for an asset class struggling for legitimacy. We believe in the future of cryptocurrency, however we think that incidents like this hurt the growth and adoption, Adam Goldman, President and Founder of cryptocurrency exchange Bitbuy, told Yahoo Finance Canada. Regulators around the world are paying close to attention to the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Most purists want governments to keep their hands out of their digital wallets, but some think intervention is warranted. Many industry participants including Bitbuy operate with a forward-looking approach regarding regulation, and welcome more official guidance from the government, says Goldman. An uncertain future QuadrigaCX customers have been trying to get their money back for months. Still, many remain undeterred and continue to trade cryptocurrencies. Goldman says thousands have migrated to Bitbuy . Story continues QuadrigaCXs future appears far from certain. It posted a message for customers on its site after the hearing. We are sure you have many questions. We are in the early stages of a long process and we do not have all the answers right now, the post said. What we can tell you is that the CCAA process will allow QuadrigaCX to keep all options open to attempt to maximize the funds available for the companys stakeholders. A motion for the appointment of representative counsel for the affected users of QuadrigaCX will be heard in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia at 9:30 on Thursday, February 14. Lack of regulation Canadian Securities Administrators are urging Canadians to be cautious about investing in trading platforms through its awareness campaign. Cryptocurrency exchanges are not currently regulated, but CSA is working on a plan. We are currently working with IIROC to develop an appropriate regulatory framework for platforms trading crypto-assets that are securities/derivatives, CSA told Yahoo Finance Canada. Additionally, we continue to work with firms that are operating crypto-asset trading platforms and that are required to be registered as dealers and/or recognized as marketplaces. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android . || Why the Latest Bitcoin Dump Could Actually Launch the Crypto Market into Bullish Territory: bitcoin price The bitcoin price on Wednesday depreciated as much as 2.56 percent on the back of a stronger US dollar. Paradoxically, that might not be such a bad thing for the crypto market. The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate (BTC/USD) bottomed at $3,340 on an intraday basis, while retesting the low of January 29 trading session. There was a little attempt from bulls to reverse the price action with the bearish bias intact. Nevertheless, the pair consolidated above $3,340, which served as an opportunity to reclaim $3,400 in the near-term. Bitcoin’s Six Triangles bitcoin, BTC/USD, bitcoin price BITCOIN (BTC/USD) 4H | SOURCE: COINBASE, TRADINGVIEW.COM In our previous analysis published Monday, we had predicted a bitcoin dump as the cryptocurrency’s volatility and volume went lower than normal. We also noted a strikingly similar pattern between bitcoin’s current and previous price actions. In this analysis, we aim to elaborate on the same to predict where the next bitcoin move could be. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Why the Latest Bitcoin Dump Could Actually Launch the Crypto Market into Bullish Territory: bitcoin price The bitcoin price on Wednesday depreciated as much as 2.56 percent on the back of a stronger US dollar. Paradoxically, that might not be such a bad thing for the crypto market. The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate (BTC/USD) bottomed at $3,340 on an intraday basis, while retesting the low of January 29 trading session. There was a little attempt from bulls to reverse the price action with the bearish bias intact. Nevertheless, the pair consolidated above $3,340, which served as an opportunity to reclaim $3,400 in the near-term. Bitcoin’s Six Triangles bitcoin, BTC/USD, bitcoin price BITCOIN (BTC/USD) 4H | SOURCE: COINBASE, TRADINGVIEW.COM In our previous analysis published Monday, we had predicted a bitcoin dump as the cryptocurrency’s volatility and volume went lower than normal. We also noted a strikingly similar pattern between bitcoin’s current and previous price actions. In this analysis, we aim to elaborate on the same to predict where the next bitcoin move could be. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Why the Latest Bitcoin Dump Could Actually Launch the Crypto Market into Bullish Territory: bitcoin price The bitcoin price on Wednesday depreciated as much as 2.56 percent on the back of a stronger US dollar. Paradoxically, that might not be such a bad thing for the crypto market. The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate (BTC/USD) bottomed at $3,340 on an intraday basis, while retesting the low of January 29 trading session. There was a little attempt from bulls to reverse the price action with the bearish bias intact. Nevertheless, the pair consolidated above $3,340, which served as an opportunity to reclaim $3,400 in the near-term. Bitcoin’s Six Triangles bitcoin, BTC/USD, bitcoin price BITCOIN (BTC/USD) 4H | SOURCE: COINBASE, TRADINGVIEW.COM In our previous analysis published Monday, we had predicted a bitcoin dump as the cryptocurrency’s volatility and volume went lower than normal. We also noted a strikingly similar pattern between bitcoin’s current and previous price actions. In this analysis, we aim to elaborate on the same to predict where the next bitcoin move could be. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Why This Former JP Morgan Bitcoin Bear Says Crypto Could Make a Major Comeback: Less than two months ago, JP Morgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou found himself firmly inside the crowded group of Wall Street’s bitcoin bears. Now, he’s predicting that the flagship cryptocurrency could be poised for a major comeback — at least in the long run.
Speaking during an interview on CNBC’sFutures Now, Panigirtzoglou said that the cryptocurrency market’s recent struggles could set the stage for future institutional adoption, which many bulls predict will spur the next greatbitcoinbull run.
“The stability that we are seeing right now in the cryptocurrency market is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future,” said Panigirtzoglou, whose official title at JP Morgan is global market strategist. “The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst.”
That’s a much more positive take then he had in mid-December 2018 when he wrote in a note to clients that the prolonged bear market hadspooked crypto-curious firmson Wall Street and caused institutional interest to fade.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Why This Former JP Morgan Bitcoin Bear Says Crypto Could Make a Major Comeback: Less than two months ago, JP Morgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou found himself firmly inside the crowded group of Wall Street’s bitcoin bears. Now, he’s predicting that the flagship cryptocurrency could be poised for a major comeback — at least in the long run. JP Morgan Analyst Backtracks on Bitcoin Speaking during an interview on CNBC’s Futures Now , Panigirtzoglou said that the cryptocurrency market’s recent struggles could set the stage for future institutional adoption, which many bulls predict will spur the next great bitcoin bull run. “The stability that we are seeing right now in the cryptocurrency market is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future,” said Panigirtzoglou, whose official title at JP Morgan is global market strategist. “The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst.” That’s a much more positive take then he had in mid-December 2018 when he wrote in a note to clients that the prolonged bear market had spooked crypto-curious firms on Wall Street and caused institutional interest to fade. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Why This Former JP Morgan Bitcoin Bear Says Crypto Could Make a Major Comeback: Less than two months ago, JP Morgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou found himself firmly inside the crowded group of Wall Street’s bitcoin bears. Now, he’s predicting that the flagship cryptocurrency could be poised for a major comeback — at least in the long run.
Speaking during an interview on CNBC’sFutures Now, Panigirtzoglou said that the cryptocurrency market’s recent struggles could set the stage for future institutional adoption, which many bulls predict will spur the next greatbitcoinbull run.
“The stability that we are seeing right now in the cryptocurrency market is setting the stage for more participation by institutional investors in the future,” said Panigirtzoglou, whose official title at JP Morgan is global market strategist. “The cryptocurrency market was a new market. It went through a bubble phase [and] the burst.”
That’s a much more positive take then he had in mid-December 2018 when he wrote in a note to clients that the prolonged bear market hadspooked crypto-curious firmson Wall Street and caused institutional interest to fade.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Winter Has Come For Bitcoin And Legacy Cryptos: Crypto market today saw sharp downside action as all major cryptocurrencies lost nearly 1.5% to 2% value resulting in a total market worth going down by $2billion. Bitcoin and all other major legacy crypto coins today saw sharp downside move as they declined below a major support level that prevented downside action so far this year. Winter is coming to crypto market and no one can really predict how long it will last this time as even news that would normally give the market a solid boost failed to create any sort of lasting or short term impact on price action. Two such major news that failed to generate momentum are:
• Wyoming legalizing virtual money as a payment option.
• Solicitation notice issues by U.S. SEC which was viewed by many analysts as a signal for possible approval of CBOE’s Bitcoin ETF request.
Market views the current scenario in which crypto assets failed to react positively to news that was highly anticipated by traders as an alarming issue. However, the real grim fact is that winter has already begun for the crypto market. And this is clearly visible in Bitcoin, the progenitor of cryptocurrencies which is currently experiencing its longest ever bearish price momentum since its debut 10-years ago. Bitcoin is currently on its 60thweek of bearish price action having begun its decline on the third week of December 2017. Bitcoin is now trading well near 2018 lows and a breach below said level will likely open doors for further declines which could go as low as $1200 to $1000 before achieving any sense of stability. Aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum is also suffering sharp declines. Ethereum was one of the oldest widely adapted cryptocurrencies and is among the first to gain popularity following Bitcoin.
As such, the recent string of events namely – security vulnerabilities which have been discovered back to back just ahead of Constantinople network upgrade is raising lots of red flags and questions in market adding bearish pressure to market which has already suffered serious loss. Both BTC & ETH are trading at critical price levels today. As of writing this article, BTCUSD pair is trading at $3389.6 down by 1.5% having fallen below $3400 handle, while ETHUSD pair fell below $105 handle and is trading at $104.25 down by 2.10% having tested an intra-day low of $101.25 earlier in the day. Given clear lack of fundamental support for crypto bulls in the current market, it is merely a matter of days before key psychological price levels are breached and price moves towards new all-time lows following the crypto bubble.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian dollar falls
• Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil markets find support on Wednesday
• USDCAD Daily Price Forecast – US Dollar Aims For Stability Mid-1.32 Handle
• Crude Oil Price Update – Trading on Weak Side of Short-Term Pivot at $53.54
• USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar drifts lower
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Tone of Market to be Determined by NZ Employment Data || Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Winter Has Come For Bitcoin And Legacy Cryptos: Crypto market today saw sharp downside action as all major cryptocurrencies lost nearly 1.5% to 2% value resulting in a total market worth going down by $2billion. Bitcoin and all other major legacy crypto coins today saw sharp downside move as they declined below a major support level that prevented downside action so far this year. Winter is coming to crypto market and no one can really predict how long it will last this time as even news that would normally give the market a solid boost failed to create any sort of lasting or short term impact on price action. Two such major news that failed to generate momentum are:
• Wyoming legalizing virtual money as a payment option.
• Solicitation notice issues by U.S. SEC which was viewed by many analysts as a signal for possible approval of CBOE’s Bitcoin ETF request.
Market views the current scenario in which crypto assets failed to react positively to news that was highly anticipated by traders as an alarming issue. However, the real grim fact is that winter has already begun for the crypto market. And this is clearly visible in Bitcoin, the progenitor of cryptocurrencies which is currently experiencing its longest ever bearish price momentum since its debut 10-years ago. Bitcoin is currently on its 60thweek of bearish price action having begun its decline on the third week of December 2017. Bitcoin is now trading well near 2018 lows and a breach below said level will likely open doors for further declines which could go as low as $1200 to $1000 before achieving any sense of stability. Aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum is also suffering sharp declines. Ethereum was one of the oldest widely adapted cryptocurrencies and is among the first to gain popularity following Bitcoin.
As such, the recent string of events namely – security vulnerabilities which have been discovered back to back just ahead of Constantinople network upgrade is raising lots of red flags and questions in market adding bearish pressure to market which has already suffered serious loss. Both BTC & ETH are trading at critical price levels today. As of writing this article, BTCUSD pair is trading at $3389.6 down by 1.5% having fallen below $3400 handle, while ETHUSD pair fell below $105 handle and is trading at $104.25 down by 2.10% having tested an intra-day low of $101.25 earlier in the day. Given clear lack of fundamental support for crypto bulls in the current market, it is merely a matter of days before key psychological price levels are breached and price moves towards new all-time lows following the crypto bubble.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian dollar falls
• Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil markets find support on Wednesday
• USDCAD Daily Price Forecast – US Dollar Aims For Stability Mid-1.32 Handle
• Crude Oil Price Update – Trading on Weak Side of Short-Term Pivot at $53.54
• USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar drifts lower
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Tone of Market to be Determined by NZ Employment Data || Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast Winter Has Come For Bitcoin And Legacy Cryptos: Crypto market today saw sharp downside action as all major cryptocurrencies lost nearly 1.5% to 2% value resulting in a total market worth going down by $2billion. Bitcoin and all other major legacy crypto coins today saw sharp downside move as they declined below a major support level that prevented downside action so far this year. Winter is coming to crypto market and no one can really predict how long it will last this time as even news that would normally give the market a solid boost failed to create any sort of lasting or short term impact on price action. Two such major news that failed to generate momentum are: Wyoming legalizing virtual money as a payment option. Solicitation notice issues by U.S. SEC which was viewed by many analysts as a signal for possible approval of CBOEs Bitcoin ETF request. Key Psychological levels Likely To Be Breached Soon Market views the current scenario in which crypto assets failed to react positively to news that was highly anticipated by traders as an alarming issue. However, the real grim fact is that winter has already begun for the crypto market. And this is clearly visible in Bitcoin, the progenitor of cryptocurrencies which is currently experiencing its longest ever bearish price momentum since its debut 10-years ago. Bitcoin is currently on its 60 th week of bearish price action having begun its decline on the third week of December 2017. Bitcoin is now trading well near 2018 lows and a breach below said level will likely open doors for further declines which could go as low as $1200 to $1000 before achieving any sense of stability. Aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum is also suffering sharp declines. Ethereum was one of the oldest widely adapted cryptocurrencies and is among the first to gain popularity following Bitcoin. As such, the recent string of events namely security vulnerabilities which have been discovered back to back just ahead of Constantinople network upgrade is raising lots of red flags and questions in market adding bearish pressure to market which has already suffered serious loss. Both BTC & ETH are trading at critical price levels today. As of writing this article, BTCUSD pair is trading at $3389.6 down by 1.5% having fallen below $3400 handle, while ETHUSD pair fell below $105 handle and is trading at $104.25 down by 2.10% having tested an intra-day low of $101.25 earlier in the day. Given clear lack of fundamental support for crypto bulls in the current market, it is merely a matter of days before key psychological price levels are breached and price moves towards new all-time lows following the crypto bubble. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Price Forecast Australian dollar falls Crude Oil Price Forecast crude oil markets find support on Wednesday USDCAD Daily Price Forecast US Dollar Aims For Stability Mid-1.32 Handle Crude Oil Price Update Trading on Weak Side of Short-Term Pivot at $53.54 USD/JPY Price Forecast US dollar drifts lower AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast Tone of Market to be Determined by NZ Employment Data || 4 Reasons to Believe the Deep State (or the NSA) Created Bitcoin: Bitcoin Who is the creator of Bitcoin? The mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, who has written the Bitcoin Whitepaper, has never been identified. Since 2009, there have been many theories of whom created Bitcoin . Some even think the NSA created it . 1.) They did create part of it for sure SHA-256 is the secure hashing algorithm which is an essential part of Bitcoin’s architecture. It is an NSA hash function algorithm first published in 2001. “How Bitcoin Protocol Works” – Andreas Antonopoulos This is a really excellent lecture about SHA-256 and how it is used by the Bitcoin protocol, because it’s very technical (instead of using metaphors to describe how Bitcoin works), and someone who isn’t a computer nerd can take most of it in and understand what he’s saying: Read the full story on CCN.com .
[Social Media Buzz]
最もBTC/JPYのスプレッドが狭いのは？(2019-02-08 04:00:06 現在)
bitbank 1.00
coincheck 44.00
Liquid 57.68
bitFlyer 236.00
Zaif 270.00
BITPoint 1175.82 || 02/07 19:00現在
#Bitcoin : 370,040円↑
#NEM #XEM : 4.2475円↑
#Monacoin : 134円→
#Ethereum : 11,470円↑
#Zaif : 0.1333円↓ || SELL BTC@$3373.5 47.75% -0.80 (SHORT TERM)
BUY LTC@$32.88 66.38% 25.09
SELL BTC@$3373.5 -341.15% -2485.50 (LONG TERM)
SELL BTC@$3376.9 47.68% -0.83 (SHORT TERM)
SELL BTC@$3376.9 -341.08% -2485.00 (LONG TE...
|
3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 224.32, 224.95, 225.62, 222.88, 228.49, 229.05, 228.80, 229.71, 229.98, 232.40, 233.54, 236.82, 250.90, 249.28, 249.01, 244.61, 245.21, 243.94, 246.99, 244.30, 240.51, 242.80, 243.59, 250.99, 249.01, 257.06, 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22, 276.05, 288.28, 288.70, 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88, 278.58, 279.58, 261.00, 265.08, 264.47, 270.39, 266.38, 264.08, 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39, 228.17, 210.49, 221.61, 225.83, 224.77, 231.40, 229.78, 228.76, 230.06, 228.12.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-09-01]
Volume: 20575200, RSI (14-day): 40.59, 50-day EMA: 250.26, 200-day EMA: 257.24
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1138.70, Gold RSI: 55.84
Oil Price: 45.41, Oil RSI: 51.83
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
SunGard And HSBC's Massive IT Glitches: Why Customers Freaked Out Last Friday: Last Friday, two major banks were reported to be experienced big IT problems, affecting thousands of customers. HSBC Leaves Thousands Without Salaries According to a recent Finextra article , a big tech issue surfaced on Friday morning when HSBC customers checking their account balances noticed their latest monthly salaries were not accounted for. Apparently, the glitch affected roughly 275,000 Bacs payments Bacs is the system used for fund transfers in the UK. Bacs released a statement assuring that it is "aware of an isolated issue that has affected one of its member organizations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we [Bacs] are currently working with our partners to help them resolve this as quickly as possible." Related Link: Barclays Becomes First Big UK Bank To Accept Bitcoin The HSBC bank is owned by HSBC Holdings plc (ADR) (NYSE: HSBC ), which fell 0.65 percent on Friday trading and continues to tumble on Monday. BNY Mellon, Mispriced Funds Cause Panic Another third-party service provider that had trouble on Friday is SunGard. It seems like its InvestOne system, used by custody bank Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE: BK ) to price funds, failed on Friday, causing panic among the banks U.S. fund management clients. The main fear was that the system failure had led to a mispricing of hundreds of funds during a week of especially high market volatility, another Finextra article explained. In a public statement, SunGard assured that, while they are confident that no data was lost as a result of the incident, calculation and processing of net asset values (NAVs) of certain mutual funds and ETFs was disrupted." They added that, despite the speculation, no external or unauthorized systems access had caused the glitch, which wasnt a result of "recent turmoil in the equity markets either. Instead, the issued derived from an unforeseen complication resulting from an operating system change carried out by SunGard last Saturday. SunGard pledges this was an isolated incident, and that it is now working with Bank of New York Mellon to resolve the problems caused. Research firm Morningstar calculated that approximately 796 funds were missing NAVs as of Wednesday. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Social Media Pulse: Volatility, The Fed Meeting, Oil -- And A Look At 3 Related ETFs This Analyst Loves Depomed And Its Nucynta Prescription Seabridge Gold's Stock Could Hit , Another Deposit Site Extended © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || SunGard And HSBC's Massive IT Glitches: Why Customers Freaked Out Last Friday: Last Friday, two major banks were reported to be experienced big IT problems, affecting thousands of customers.
HSBC Leaves Thousands Without Salaries
According to a recent Finextraarticle, a big tech issue surfaced on Friday morning when HSBC customers checking their account balances noticed their latest monthly salaries were not accounted for. Apparently, the glitch affected roughly 275,000 Bacs payments – Bacs is the system used for fund transfers in the UK.
Bacs released a statement assuring that it is "aware of an isolated issue that has affected one of its member organizations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we [Bacs] are currently working with our partners to help them resolve this as quickly as possible."
Related Link:Barclays Becomes First Big UK Bank To Accept Bitcoin
The HSBC bank is owned byHSBC Holdings plc (ADR)(NYSE:HSBC), which fell 0.65 percent on Friday trading and continues to tumble on Monday.
BNY Mellon, Mispriced Funds Cause Panic
Another third-party service provider that had trouble on Friday is SunGard. It seems like its InvestOne system, used by custody bankBank of New York Mellon Corp(NYSE:BK) to price funds, failed on Friday, causing panic among the bank’s U.S. fund management clients.
The main fear was that the system failure had led to a mispricing of hundreds of funds “during a week of especially high market volatility,” another Finextraarticleexplained.
In a public statement, SunGard assured that, while they “are confident that no data was lost as a result of the incident, calculation and processing of net asset values (NAVs) of certain mutual funds and ETFs was disrupted."
They added that, despite the speculation, no “external or unauthorized systems access” had caused the glitch, which wasn’t a result of "recent turmoil in the equity markets” either. Instead, the issued derived from “an unforeseen complication resulting from an operating system change carried out by SunGard last Saturday.” SunGard pledges this was an isolated incident, and that it is now working with Bank of New York Mellon to resolve the problems caused.
Research firm Morningstar calculated that approximately 796 funds were missing NAVs as of Wednesday.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Social Media Pulse: Volatility, The Fed Meeting, Oil -- And A Look At 3 Related ETFs
• This Analyst Loves Depomed And Its Nucynta Prescription
• Seabridge Gold's Stock Could Hit , Another Deposit Site Extended
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Flow to Establish State-of-the-Art Customer Call Centre of Excellence Bringing More Than 300 New Jobs to Jamaica: KINGSTON, JAMAICA--(Marketwired - Aug 31, 2015) - Flow, the new Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) consumer retail brand, today announced plans to establish a new, state-of-the-art Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Kingston, Jamaica and create more than 300 full-time jobs over the next two years. The innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence is part of the Company's bid to become the leader in service excellence and revolutionise customer experience across the Caribbean. The Customer Call Centre of Excellence, to be established in the coming months, follows the recent merger with Columbus International Inc and is part of Flow's new compelling plan to provide an enhanced customer experience. This initiative is also consistent with plans laid out by CEO Phil Bentley last year that will see C&W invest US$1.5bn over 3 years to upgrade infrastructure and overhaul service delivery throughout the Caribbean and Latin American region. "Through investments like these, we are putting the customer at the heart of the business," said Bentley. "We are committed to anticipating their needs at every contact point and to delivering a customer care experience that is unparalleled across the region. Together, with our other existing Call Centre in Trinidad, we will revolutionise customer service in the Caribbean, and be the leader in recruiting the best talent in the region. We want Flow to be a business that everyone in the Caribbean is proud of," said Bentley. Branded as an innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence, the facility is being designed to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems . Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience. Managing Director, Flow Jamaica, Garry Sinclair is extremely pleased that the new Centre will be located on the island. "It is a testament to the growing confidence of Jamaica as a central hub for investment, the large pool of skilled labour that exists here, and the rapid growth of the ICT sector led by Flow, that we are making this investment here in Kingston." He added, "In addition to the investment in the new Customer Call Centre of Excellence, Flow is also investing in the best mobile and fibre networks across the island to deliver more technologically advanced quad play products, better value, and superior broadband connectivity to exceed our customers' expectations." Sinclair also stated that, "We are excited to recruit the best team on the island for this Centre and we will implement an extensive training programme to deliver an incomparable customer experience." Story continues Responding to the announcement, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining commended Flow's decision to establish the Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica. "The establishment of Flow's Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica attests to the tremendous growth potential of the nation's ICT sector and affirms Flow's commitment to development of the local and regional economies. With the commitment to create new jobs, the investment also supports the country's goals to reduce unemployment, builds new skill sets and advances the country's vision to make Jamaica a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business." Since 2012, the Jamaican Government has had an ongoing drive to engage the private sector in the 'Jamaica Employ' programme, which seeks to increase prospects for job seekers and to bring critical new jobs to the island. "We love doing business in Jamaica and we are happy to partner with the Government in their various initiatives, including the 'Jamaica Employ' programme," Phil Bentley concluded. About Cable & Wireless Communications: Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information please visit: www.cwc.com || Flow to Establish State-of-the-Art Customer Call Centre of Excellence Bringing More Than 300 New Jobs to Jamaica: KINGSTON, JAMAICA--(Marketwired - Aug 31, 2015) - Flow, the newCable & Wireless CommunicationsPlc (CWC) consumer retail brand, today announced plans to establish a new, state-of-the-art Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Kingston, Jamaica and create more than 300 full-time jobs over the next two years. The innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence is part of the Company's bid to become the leader in service excellence and revolutionise customer experience across the Caribbean.
The Customer Call Centre of Excellence, to be established in the coming months, follows the recent merger with Columbus International Inc and is part of Flow's new compelling plan to provide an enhanced customer experience. This initiative is also consistent with plans laid out by CEO Phil Bentley last year that will see C&W invest US$1.5bn over 3 years to upgrade infrastructure and overhaul service delivery throughout the Caribbean and Latin American region.
"Through investments like these, we are putting the customer at the heart of the business," said Bentley. "We are committed to anticipating their needs at every contact point and to delivering a customer care experience that is unparalleled across the region. Together, with our other existing Call Centre in Trinidad, we will revolutionise customer service in the Caribbean, and be the leader in recruiting the best talent in the region. We want Flow to be a business that everyone in the Caribbean is proud of," said Bentley.
Branded as an innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence, the facility is being designed to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems.Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience.
Managing Director, Flow Jamaica, Garry Sinclair is extremely pleased that the new Centre will be located on the island. "It is a testament to the growing confidence of Jamaica as a central hub for investment, the large pool of skilled labour that exists here, and the rapid growth of the ICT sector led by Flow, that we are making this investment here in Kingston." He added, "In addition to the investment in the new Customer Call Centre of Excellence, Flow is also investing in the best mobile and fibre networks across the island to deliver more technologically advanced quad play products, better value, and superior broadband connectivity to exceed our customers' expectations." Sinclair also stated that, "We are excited to recruit the best team on the island for this Centre and we will implement an extensive training programme to deliver an incomparable customer experience."
Responding to the announcement, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining commended Flow's decision to establish the Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica. "The establishment of Flow's Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica attests to the tremendous growth potential of the nation's ICT sector and affirms Flow's commitment to development of the local and regional economies. With the commitment to create new jobs, the investment also supports the country's goals to reduce unemployment, builds new skill sets and advances the country's vision to make Jamaica a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business."
Since 2012, the Jamaican Government has had an ongoing drive to engage the private sector in the 'Jamaica Employ' programme, which seeks to increase prospects for job seekers and to bring critical new jobs to the island. "We love doing business in Jamaica and we are happy to partner with the Government in their various initiatives, including the 'Jamaica Employ' programme," Phil Bentley concluded.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America.
For more information please visit:www.cwc.com || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 10 things in tech you need to know today: Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC 2015 (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith) Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know to start off your week. 1. Netflix will no longer be able to show high-profile Hollywood movies like Transformers and the Hunger Games to US viewers . Netflix isn't renewing its distribution deal with Epix, and will be focusing on its original-content efforts instead. 2. Apple is reportedly planning a big increase in the price of the new Apple TV. The new version of Apple TV will be available in October and could cost about $200. 3. The US may have to go after the 'Great Firewall' to stop China's cyber-attacks. President Obama is expected talk to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next month about cyber espionage. 4. Minecraft founder Markus Persson went on a tweetstorm this weekend to talk about the empty side of success, and selling his company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion . Microsoft bought Minecraft almost a year ago, and the founder did not join Microsoft after the sale. 5 . Uber has hired the two security researchers famous for hacking into a Jeep and stopping it while driving. Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek will be announced as new hires today, Reuters reports. 6. In the wake of his company's data breach, Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman has resigned. He is no longer with the company. 7 . Apple launched two new Apple Music TV ads last night during the MTV Video Music Awards featuring The Weeknd and actor John Travolta. The two-part, episodic series of ads highlights Apple Music's user interface, and its playlist feature in particular. 8. Investors are starting to worry that some big-name startups are overvalued. Investors in late-stage startups worry that the stock market's six-year bull run is coming to an end, and that today's super valuable private tech companies won't live up to their valuations when they go public. 9. Starting tomorrow, Google Chrome will be blocking Flash ads entirely by default. Google, which warned advertisers in advance, says it's blocking Flash ads for its performance-hindering effects. Story continues 10. Wall Street is paying attention to Bitcoin. The New York Times reports that executives from more than 12 large banks gathered earlier this year to confidentially discuss how the technology behind Bitcoin could be used to change foreign currency trading. NOW WATCH: 2 texting tricks you didn't know you could do on your iPhone More From Business Insider Google is showing developers how to turn off iOS 9's security features so it can load ads 'I've never felt more isolated': The man who sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion reveals the empty side of success A leaked part of an iPhone 6S shows a bigger, more powerful front camera || 10 things in tech you need to know today: (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)
Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know to start off your week.
1.Netflix will no longer be able to show high-profile Hollywood movies like Transformers and the Hunger Games to US viewers.Netflix isn't renewing its distribution deal with Epix, and will be focusing on its original-content efforts instead.
2.Apple is reportedly planning a big increase in the price of the new Apple TV.The new version of Apple TV will be available in October and could cost about $200.
3.The US may have to go after the 'Great Firewall' to stop China's cyber-attacks.President Obama is expected talk to hisChinese counterpart Xi Jinping next month about cyber espionage.
4.Minecraft founder Markus Perssonwent on a tweetstorm this weekend to talk about the empty side of success, and selling his company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.Microsoft bought Minecraft almost a year ago, and the founder did not join Microsoft after the sale.
5.Uber has hired the two security researchers famous for hacking into a Jeep and stopping it while driving.Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek will be announced as new hires today, Reuters reports.
6.In the wake of his company's data breach, Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman has resigned.He is no longer with the company.
7.Apple launched two new Apple Music TV ads last night during the MTV Video Music Awards featuring The Weeknd and actor John Travolta.The two-part, episodic series of ads highlights Apple Music's user interface, and its playlist feature in particular.
8.Investors are starting to worry that some big-name startups are overvalued.Investors in late-stage startups worry that the stock market's six-year bull run is coming to an end, and that today's super valuable private tech companies won't live up to their valuations when they go public.
9.Starting tomorrow, Google Chrome will be blocking Flash ads entirely by default.Google, which warned advertisers in advance, says it's blocking Flash ads for its performance-hindering effects.
10.Wall Street is paying attention to Bitcoin.The New York Times reports thatexecutives from more than 12 large banks gathered earlier this year to confidentially discuss how the technology behind Bitcoin could be used to changeforeign currency trading.
NOW WATCH:2 texting tricks you didn't know you could do on your iPhone
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• Google is showing developers how to turn off iOS 9's security features so it can load ads
• 'I've never felt more isolated': The man who sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion reveals the empty side of success
• A leaked part of an iPhone 6S shows a bigger, more powerful front camera || Fidelity May Abandon American Express. What's Wrong With AmEx?: This week, Bloomberg reported that Fidelity Investments is considering dropping American Express Company (NYSE: AXP ) to search for new partners. The company may bring Visa Inc (NYSE: V ) or MasterCard Inc (NYSE: MA ) onboard instead, something that traders see as a significant threat to American Express' growth model. A Concern For AmEx? American Express' Global Network Services business represents a major growth catalyst for the company, so being abandoned by Fidelity could be a blow to the firm's future plans. The rumors about Fidelity came shortly after AmEx split from partnerships with Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST ) and JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ: JBLU ), a worrying trend for investors. Facilitating transactions is an important part of American Express' business, and many analysts believe that the recent failed partnerships suggest that the company is facing competitive challenges. Related Link: Baird: Mastercard's Growth 'Is A Little Bit Slower,' Next Year 'Should Have Nice Acceleration' Bigger And Better While the break-up rumors are concerning, things aren't all bad for the credit card company. Earlier this year, American Express revealed a new loyalty program that included partnerships with several big name retailers. Companies like AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: ATT ), Macy's, Inc. (NYSE: M ) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM ) have signed on to AmEx's latest loyalty program, Plenti. Plenti, though managed by American Express, allows members of the loyalty program to use any purchase, whether it's with an AmEx card or not, at a participating partner toward their loyalty points. Points accrued at one retailer can then be spent at another. What's Next For AmEx? While Plenti represents an opportunity for American Express, many wonder if the loyalty program is enough to offset the company's difficult year. Merchant coalitions like Plenti are generally difficult to manage as they require that none of the participating companies are competitors. That will limit the number of vendors who can participate and could make it difficult for the scheme to grow its customer base. Story continues Image credit: Marcus Quigmire, Wikimedia See more from Benzinga What Effect Does Marijuana Have On Your Brain? Bitcoin To Expand In Iran Another Trading Glitch Underscores The Need For Backup Plans © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fidelity May Abandon American Express. What's Wrong With AmEx?: This week,Bloombergreported that Fidelity Investments is considering droppingAmerican Express Company(NYSE:AXP) to search for new partners. The company may bringVisa Inc(NYSE:V) orMasterCard Inc(NYSE:MA) onboard instead, something that traders see as a significant threat to American Express' growth model.
A Concern For AmEx?
American Express' Global Network Services business represents a major growth catalyst for the company, so being abandoned by Fidelity could be a blow to the firm's future plans.
The rumors about Fidelity came shortly after AmEx split from partnerships withCostco Wholesale Corporation(NASDAQ:COST) andJetBlue Airways Corporation(NASDAQ:JBLU), a worrying trend for investors. Facilitating transactions is an important part of American Express' business, and many analysts believe that the recent failed partnerships suggest that the company is facing competitive challenges.
Related Link:Baird: Mastercard's Growth 'Is A Little Bit Slower,' Next Year 'Should Have Nice Acceleration'
Bigger And Better
While the break-up rumors are concerning, things aren't all bad for the credit card company. Earlier this year, American Express revealed anew loyalty programthat included partnerships with several big name retailers. Companies likeAT&T, Inc.(NYSE:ATT),Macy's, Inc.(NYSE:M) andExxon Mobil Corporation(NYSE:XOM) have signed on to AmEx's latest loyalty program, Plenti.
Plenti, though managed by American Express, allows members of the loyalty program to use any purchase, whether it's with an AmEx card or not, at a participating partner toward their loyalty points. Points accrued at one retailer can then be spent at another.
What's Next For AmEx?
While Plenti represents an opportunity for American Express, many wonder if the loyalty program is enough to offset the company's difficult year. Merchant coalitions like Plenti are generally difficult to manage as they require that none of the participating companies are competitors. That will limit the number of vendors who can participate and could make it difficult for the scheme to grow its customer base.
Image credit: Marcus Quigmire, Wikimedia
See more from Benzinga
• What Effect Does Marijuana Have On Your Brain?
• Bitcoin To Expand In Iran
• Another Trading Glitch Underscores The Need For Backup Plans
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || U.K. Cops Arrest 6 Teens Linked to Sony, Microsoft Cyber-Attacks: British law-enforcement officials have arrested six male teenagers suspected of being members of the Lizard Squad hacking crew that disabled Sony s PlayStation Network and Microsoft s Xbox Live last year. The U.K.s National Crime Agency, the equivalent to the U.S.s Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the suspects used a tool to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to cripple online servers of gaming companies as well as e-retailers, a national British newspaper and a school. The NCA did not identify the targeted companies but reports said the arrests are related to several attacks on the PlayStation and Xbox networks last year . Amazon also was among the sites attacked by the group, Bloomberg reported . The NCAs Operation Vivarium tracked down individuals who bought Lizard Stresser, software for launching DDoS attacks that flood servers with bogus data, using payment services such as Bitcoin to remain anonymous. The suspects detained for questioning this week are all between the ages of 15 and 18. This multiagency operation illustrates the commitment of the NCA and its partners to pursuing people who think they can criminally disrupt important public services or legitimate businesses, Tony Adams, head of investigations for the NCAs National Cyber Crime Unit, said in announcing the arrests Friday. Adams added, One of our key priorities is to engage with those on the fringes of cyber criminality, to help them understand the consequences of cyber crime and how they can channel their abilities into productive and lucrative legitimate careers. Earlier this year, the NCA arrested two other British teens suspected of using Lizard Stresser. In addition, the agency said, officials are investigating approximately 50 addresses linked to individuals registered on the Lizard Stresser website but who are currently not believed to have carried out any attacks. The NCAs arrests this week are unrelated to the devastating hack on Sony Pictures systems last November , which resulted in a massive breach of internal studio documents and leaks of several films to piracy networks . U.S. officials have accused the North Korean regime of facilitating that attack. Story continues Related stories Amazon to Launch Prime Instant Video in Japan, Taking on Netflix Maria Bello to Co-Star Opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Amazon's Legal Drama 'Trial' TV Review: 'Hand of God' Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || U.K. Cops Arrest 6 Teens Linked to Sony, Microsoft Cyber-Attacks: British law-enforcement officials have arrested six male teenagers suspected of being members of the Lizard Squad hacking crew that disabled Sony s PlayStation Network and Microsoft s Xbox Live last year. The U.K.s National Crime Agency, the equivalent to the U.S.s Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the suspects used a tool to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to cripple online servers of gaming companies as well as e-retailers, a national British newspaper and a school. The NCA did not identify the targeted companies but reports said the arrests are related to several attacks on the PlayStation and Xbox networks last year . Amazon also was among the sites attacked by the group, Bloomberg reported . The NCAs Operation Vivarium tracked down individuals who bought Lizard Stresser, software for launching DDoS attacks that flood servers with bogus data, using payment services such as Bitcoin to remain anonymous. The suspects detained for questioning this week are all between the ages of 15 and 18. This multiagency operation illustrates the commitment of the NCA and its partners to pursuing people who think they can criminally disrupt important public services or legitimate businesses, Tony Adams, head of investigations for the NCAs National Cyber Crime Unit, said in announcing the arrests Friday. Adams added, One of our key priorities is to engage with those on the fringes of cyber criminality, to help them understand the consequences of cyber crime and how they can channel their abilities into productive and lucrative legitimate careers. Earlier this year, the NCA arrested two other British teens suspected of using Lizard Stresser. In addition, the agency said, officials are investigating approximately 50 addresses linked to individuals registered on the Lizard Stresser website but who are currently not believed to have carried out any attacks. The NCAs arrests this week are unrelated to the devastating hack on Sony Pictures systems last November , which resulted in a massive breach of internal studio documents and leaks of several films to piracy networks . U.S. officials have accused the North Korean regime of facilitating that attack. Story continues Related stories Amazon to Launch Prime Instant Video in Japan, Taking on Netflix Maria Bello to Co-Star Opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Amazon's Legal Drama 'Trial' TV Review: 'Hand of God' Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || Overstock to Buy SpeedRoute for More Transparent Trading: Online retailerOverstock.com, Inc.’s OSTK cryptofinance subsidiary, t0, has signed a deal to acquire SpeedRoute and related group of privately held financial technology companies.Though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, the total purchase price will be paid in cash and Overstock common stock. The acquisition of certain assets remains subject to regulatory requirements, with the majority of the deal already closed.SpeedRoute LLC, founded in Apr 2000, is a brokerage firm that currently handles approximately 2.5% of U.S. equity order flow.Overstock, a Bitcoin supporter, hopes to reinvent the public stock market using cryptosecurities, or virtual stocks based on bitcoin's blockchain technology. Bitcoin is a digital currency platform with no central regulating authority involved in the transactions. It is also called crypto currency because it utilizes military-grade cryptography to protect users against fraud. Bitcoin and other cryptocurencies operate on blockchain which is a distributed public ledger.Cryptosecurities will likely be the next major change in the stock market. With this deal, Overstock will enter a new financial technology space. SpeedRoute’s infrastructure and its underlying technologies will help the company to connect t0 securities trading platform with the entire U.S. equity market. This will bring in more transparency and efficiency to the existing capital markets, which was the basic idea behind t0.com.The blockchain technology allows investors and buyers to trail down their purchases and ownership of cryptosecurities, ensuring complete transparency. Moreover, the t0.com blockchain technology facilitates same-day settlement of the securities.In June, Overstock offered its first corporate bond, valued at US$25 million, as cryptosecurities to qualified institutional investors. This revolutionary development is part of the company's larger cryptofinance initiative known as Medici.Overstock.com is engaged in selling branded as well as non-branded merchandise through its websites. Customers can bargain before purchase and often get discounts. A major portion of its revenues is generated in the U.S. In the last reported quarter, the company’s earnings of 7 cents missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 46.15%.Currently, Overstock has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the technology sector are Amazon AMZN, Stamps.com STMP and Travelport Worldwide Limited TVPT. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportAMAZON.COM INC (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis ReportOVERSTOCK.COM (OSTK): Free Stock Analysis ReportSTAMPS.COM INC (STMP): Free Stock Analysis ReportTRAVELPORT WWD (TVPT): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Overstock to Buy SpeedRoute for More Transparent Trading: Online retailer Overstock.com, Inc. ’s OSTK cryptofinance subsidiary, t0, has signed a deal to acquire SpeedRoute and related group of privately held financial technology companies. Though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, the total purchase price will be paid in cash and Overstock common stock. The acquisition of certain assets remains subject to regulatory requirements, with the majority of the deal already closed. SpeedRoute LLC, founded in Apr 2000, is a brokerage firm that currently handles approximately 2.5% of U.S. equity order flow. Overstock, a Bitcoin supporter, hopes to reinvent the public stock market using cryptosecurities, or virtual stocks based on bitcoin's blockchain technology. Bitcoin is a digital currency platform with no central regulating authority involved in the transactions. It is also called crypto currency because it utilizes military-grade cryptography to protect users against fraud. Bitcoin and other cryptocurencies operate on blockchain which is a distributed public ledger. Cryptosecurities will likely be the next major change in the stock market. With this deal, Overstock will enter a new financial technology space. SpeedRoute’s infrastructure and its underlying technologies will help the company to connect t0 securities trading platform with the entire U.S. equity market. This will bring in more transparency and efficiency to the existing capital markets, which was the basic idea behind t0.com. The blockchain technology allows investors and buyers to trail down their purchases and ownership of cryptosecurities, ensuring complete transparency. Moreover, the t0.com blockchain technology facilitates same-day settlement of the securities. In June, Overstock offered its first corporate bond, valued at US$25 million, as cryptosecurities to qualified institutional investors. This revolutionary development is part of the company's larger cryptofinance initiative known as Medici. Overstock.com is engaged in selling branded as well as non-branded merchandise through its websites. Customers can bargain before purchase and often get discounts. A major portion of its revenues is generated in the U.S. In the last reported quarter, the company’s earnings of 7 cents missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 46.15%. Currently, Overstock has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the technology sector are Amazon AMZN, Stamps.com STMP and Travelport Worldwide Limited TVPT. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AMAZON.COM INC (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report OVERSTOCK.COM (OSTK): Free Stock Analysis Report STAMPS.COM INC (STMP): Free Stock Analysis Report TRAVELPORT WWD (TVPT): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || 5 technology stocks to buy at a discount: After a day of relief fromChina-fueled concerns, some CNBC"Fast Money"traders looked to a Chinese company for upside.
Major U.S. averagesjumped sharply Wednesdayin their best day since 2011, as investors shrugged off fears about the world's second-largest economy. U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba(NYSE: BABA), though, closed barely higher and are down 33 percent this year.
"Alibaba is always a play on the Chinese consumer," said trader Brian Kelly, saying it "is the buy here" for the long term.
Trader Tim Seymour-who owns the stock-said he would stick with it. Alibaba makes an appealing play on its current valuation and projected growth, he added.
Read MoreApple stock flashes a warning signal
Big U.S. tech stocks, meanwhile, helped drive the rally. Netflix(NASDAQ: NFLX)-which climbed 8 percent on the day-looks like a buy after a stark drop earlier this month, said trader Guy Adami.
"The market's changed. Netflix hasn't," he said.
Meanwhile, Google(NASDAQ: GOOGL)and Facebook(NASDAQ: FB)jumped 8 and 5 percent, respectively, on Wednesday. Priceline(NASDAQ: PCLN)also climbed 4 percent.
Read MoreThe morning tech rally scares Mark Cuban
Trader Steve Grasso contended that all of those stocks look appealing, even after their surges.
Disclosures:
Tim Seymour
Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO.
Steve Grasso
Grasso is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX. His kids are long EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. His firm and some of its partners are long DVN, BP, COP, CVX, FCX, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, VALE
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TWTR call spread, U.S. Dollar; he is short Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries.
Guy Adami
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Personal Finance || 5 technology stocks to buy at a discount: After a day of relief from China -fueled concerns, some CNBC "Fast Money" traders looked to a Chinese company for upside. Major U.S. averages jumped sharply Wednesday in their best day since 2011, as investors shrugged off fears about the world's second-largest economy. U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) , though, closed barely higher and are down 33 percent this year. "Alibaba is always a play on the Chinese consumer," said trader Brian Kelly, saying it "is the buy here" for the long term. Trader Tim Seymour-who owns the stock-said he would stick with it. Alibaba makes an appealing play on its current valuation and projected growth, he added. Read More Apple stock flashes a warning signal Big U.S. tech stocks, meanwhile, helped drive the rally. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) -which climbed 8 percent on the day-looks like a buy after a stark drop earlier this month, said trader Guy Adami. "The market's changed. Netflix hasn't," he said. Meanwhile, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) jumped 8 and 5 percent, respectively, on Wednesday. Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) also climbed 4 percent. Read More The morning tech rally scares Mark Cuban Trader Steve Grasso contended that all of those stocks look appealing, even after their surges. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Steve Grasso Grasso is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX. His kids are long EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. His firm and some of its partners are long DVN, BP, COP, CVX, FCX, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, VALE Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TWTR call spread, U.S. Dollar; he is short Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Digital-Based Markets Ramp Up in 2015, Lead By Under-the-Radar Gems: SALT LAKE CITY, UT / ACCESSWIRE / August 25, 2015 /In 2015, digital-based markets have emerged as standard bearers across the entire financial landscape. Mobile gaming, in particular, has stood out as a front-runner in the digital sector, with mobile games projected to gross between 20 and 30 billion this year alone. These games can be programmed and sold inexpensively allowing mobile gaming companies to thrive thanks to low production costs and budget expenses. Meanwhile, in-app purchases often entice consumers to spend ever-increasing amounts for digital content. When a new, free-to-play mobile game goes viral, but offers numerous in-game purchases, total revenues resulting from a single game can be substantial.
While the viral, swift dominance of the mobile gaming industry isn't news to most, the important thing for investors is the ability to identify which companies have the potential to be the next big thing. One possible candidate isTapinator Inc(TAPM). In the last two trading sessions,TAPMhas experienced big gains, rising over 60% to settle in at .255 per share. The company continues to crack Google Play's lists of the most popularly downloaded mobile games, and Tapinator's recent financial and operating results demonstrated quarterlyrevenues that grew 172%year-over-year and 49% quarter over quarter. Tapinator was also able to eliminate all previously outstanding debt via a financing transaction that improved the company's liquidity.
This is the company's fifth quarter in a row with substantial revenue growth. Coupled with a consistent schedule of newly released games, such as the extremely popularBurn It Down, which became a Top 50 iOS game, Tapinator appears to be on the right track for sustained long term growth. Average new daily downloads are up 268% year-over-year and 139% sequentially. In this industry, that kind of activity can only be achieved through strong word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty, which are the keys to producing the next big game to go viral.
Also making waves in the digital sector isAvra, IncDigital Currencies(AVRN). Like Tapinator, Avra is a potential new leader in their field that has also experienced recent gains. The company saw heavy volume on Friday that raised its stock up 27%, even despite downward trends in the Dow and Nasdaq figures for that particular session. Avra aims to be one of the first major players to bring one of the internet's biggest phenomena bitcoin to the masses.
Bitcoin is a digital currency traded online to make payments and buy merchandise. It exists without the regulation of a centralized banking system, which allows for lower fees, faster service, and less hassle. Avra's systems specialize in the use of bitcoin for the purpose of travel-based purchases in popular tourist stops like casinos, hotels, and airports. The locations targeted by the company are frequented by a tech-savvy demographic that falls between the ages of 21 and 35. Using bitcoin for their purchases allows for an easy, quick, and safe method of payment for customers who tend to be pressed for time and seeking an easy payment method.
Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc.(EKSO)is another new player in digital technologies with a product that has potential to break into a number of markets like healthcare, military, and consumer. Trading at 1.10 per share with an average volume of 731K, the company manufactures wearable bionic exoskeletons that increase human strength, endurance, and mobility - a product with multiple purposes such as aiding the disabled or increasing the efficiency of military tactics. The company has gained traction recently with a software upgrade earlier in the summer, and its CEO appearing on FOX Business Network at the beginning of August.
For investors interested in TAPM or EKSO, a company with a similar profile isAnavex Life Sciences Corp(AVXL), a clinical-stage bio pharmaceutical company with a varied portfolio of potential drug candidates to treat CNS disorders such as Alzheimer's. AVXL trades at 1.46 with a market cap of over 175M.
With multiple industries driving toward digital products and services, the tech giants of today could soon be yesterday's news, supplanted by young companies on the rise like Tapinator, Inc. or Avra. Mobile gaming in particular is one of the most exciting, rapidly moving sectors on Wall Street. A stock like TAPM could be the seed that fuels growth for investors.
DISCLAIMER:
Seraphim Strategies is a third party publisher. Not a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may not sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. Market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are not a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is not to be interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. For full disclaimer please readhttp://tomorrowsbluechips.com/disclaimer/This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
"Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may," "future," "plan" or "planned," "will" or "should," "expected," "anticipates," "draft," "eventually," or "projected." You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements.
SOURCE:Seraphim Strategies || Digital-Based Markets Ramp Up in 2015, Lead By Under-the-Radar Gems: SALT LAKE CITY, UT / ACCESSWIRE / August 25, 2015 / In 2015, digital-based markets have emerged as standard bearers across the entire financial landscape. Mobile gaming, in particular, has stood out as a front-runner in the digital sector, with mobile games projected to gross between 20 and 30 billion this year alone. These games can be programmed and sold inexpensively allowing mobile gaming companies to thrive thanks to low production costs and budget expenses. Meanwhile, in-app purchases often entice consumers to spend ever-increasing amounts for digital content. When a new, free-to-play mobile game goes viral, but offers numerous in-game purchases, total revenues resulting from a single game can be substantial. While the viral, swift dominance of the mobile gaming industry isn't news to most, the important thing for investors is the ability to identify which companies have the potential to be the next big thing. One possible candidate is Tapinator Inc (TAPM) . In the last two trading sessions, TAPM has experienced big gains, rising over 60% to settle in at .255 per share. The company continues to crack Google Play's lists of the most popularly downloaded mobile games, and Tapinator's recent financial and operating results demonstrated quarterly revenues that grew 172% year-over-year and 49% quarter over quarter. Tapinator was also able to eliminate all previously outstanding debt via a financing transaction that improved the company's liquidity. This is the company's fifth quarter in a row with substantial revenue growth. Coupled with a consistent schedule of newly released games, such as the extremely popular Burn It Down , which became a Top 50 iOS game, Tapinator appears to be on the right track for sustained long term growth. Average new daily downloads are up 268% year-over-year and 139% sequentially. In this industry, that kind of activity can only be achieved through strong word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty, which are the keys to producing the next big game to go viral. Story continues Also making waves in the digital sector is Avra, Inc Digital Currencies (AVRN) . Like Tapinator, Avra is a potential new leader in their field that has also experienced recent gains. The company saw heavy volume on Friday that raised its stock up 27%, even despite downward trends in the Dow and Nasdaq figures for that particular session. Avra aims to be one of the first major players to bring one of the internet's biggest phenomena bitcoin to the masses. Bitcoin is a digital currency traded online to make payments and buy merchandise. It exists without the regulation of a centralized banking system, which allows for lower fees, faster service, and less hassle. Avra's systems specialize in the use of bitcoin for the purpose of travel-based purchases in popular tourist stops like casinos, hotels, and airports. The locations targeted by the company are frequented by a tech-savvy demographic that falls between the ages of 21 and 35. Using bitcoin for their purchases allows for an easy, quick, and safe method of payment for customers who tend to be pressed for time and seeking an easy payment method. Ekso Bionics Holding s, Inc. (EKSO) is another new player in digital technologies with a product that has potential to break into a number of markets like healthcare, military, and consumer. Trading at 1.10 per share with an average volume of 731K, the company manufactures wearable bionic exoskeletons that increase human strength, endurance, and mobility - a product with multiple purposes such as aiding the disabled or increasing the efficiency of military tactics. The company has gained traction recently with a software upgrade earlier in the summer, and its CEO appearing on FOX Business Network at the beginning of August. For investors interested in TAPM or EKSO, a company with a similar profile is Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL) , a clinical-stage bio pharmaceutical company with a varied portfolio of potential drug candidates to treat CNS disorders such as Alzheimer's. AVXL trades at 1.46 with a market cap of over 175M. With multiple industries driving toward digital products and services, the tech giants of today could soon be yesterday's news, supplanted by young companies on the rise like Tapinator, Inc. or Avra. Mobile gaming in particular is one of the most exciting, rapidly moving sectors on Wall Street. A stock like TAPM could be the seed that fuels growth for investors. DISCLAIMER: Seraphim Strategies is a third party publisher. Not a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may not sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. Market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are not a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is not to be interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. For full disclaimer please read http://tomorrowsbluechips.com/disclaimer/ This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may," "future," "plan" or "planned," "will" or "should," "expected," "anticipates," "draft," "eventually," or "projected." You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. SOURCE: Seraphim Strategies
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: 145.52£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-01 09:00:04 BST || BTCTurk 681.98 TL BTCe 225.36 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 227.67 $ Cavirtex 301.87 $ CEXIO 228.07 $ Bitcoin.de 206.00 € #Bitcoin #btc || Current price: 227.97$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-01 20:00:02 EDT || Current price: 203.43€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-02 02:00:02 CEST || Current price: 202.78€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-02 00:00:03 CEST || Federal Agent Investigating Silk Road Admits to Stealing $800,000.00 in Bitcoin ...
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229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10051.70, 10311.55, 10374.34, 10231.74, 10345.81, 10916.05, 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-11]
Volume: 20265510765, RSI (14-day): 46.70, 50-day EMA: 8967.46, 200-day EMA: 8724.24
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1455.50, Gold RSI: 36.69
Oil Price: 56.86, Oil RSI: 56.49
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Rising Treasury Yields, Demand for Risk Will Provide Support: The Dollar/Yen finished sharply higher last week, driven by a widening of the spread between U.S. Government bonds and Japanese Government bonds, which made the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment. The catalyst behind the rally was the progress being made in U.S.-China trade deal negotiations. The rally took the Forex pair to its highest level since the week-ending May 31.
Last week, theUSD/JPYsettled at 109.243, up 1.052 or +0.97%.
The dollar climbed to more than a five-month peak against the safe-haven Yen, bolstered by expectations the United States and China were inching closer to a trade deal.
The world’s two largest economies have agreed to roll back tariffs on each other’s goods as part of the first phase of a trade deal, officials from both countries said on Thursday, offering a new sign of progress despite the two sides’ ongoing divisions over trade.
The Chinese commerce ministry, without laying out a timetable, said the two countries had agreed to cancel the tariffs in phases. There was a little controversy, however, on Friday after President Trump said he had not agreed to any rollback in tariffs.
Before Thursday’s announcement on trade, hopes for a deal had been waning after a senior Trump administration official told Reuters on Wednesday a meeting to sign the agreement could be delayed until December and that a venue had not yet been agreed.
Long-term U.S. government debt yields climbed last week as warmer trade relations between Washington and Beijing buoyed equities and pressured bonds.
The 10-year yield jumped to its highest level since August. More importantly, the yield curve, which inverted over the summer and stoked recession fears, also steepened to the widest since January last week. The spread between the 10-year yield and the 2-year yield was last seen at 26 basis points; the 10-year/3 month spread was at 38 basis points.
The surge in yields drove up the U.S. Dollar against the Japanese Yen.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said last week additional monetary easing by the central bank will not be limited to cutting interest rates, while adding that the economy is likely to stay firm despite the recent consumption tax hike.
On October 31, the BOJ said it would further lower borrowing costs if necessary, sending a clearer message to markets as pressure builds on it to follow its U.S. and European counterparts in extending stimulus amid signs of a global economic slowdown.
Under the new guidance, the BOJ is expecting short- and long-term interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels as long as there is a possibility of losing momentum toward its 2 percent inflation goal.
USD/JPY traders are going to continue to monitor the progress of the trade talks between the U.S. and China. They be looking for both parties to announce a signing date and venue of phase one of the partial trade deal and new details about the roll back of the tariffs.
The direction of Treasury yields and demand for risky assets will also be monitored closely. Rising yields will continue to make the U.S. Dollar an attractive asset.
There are no major reports from Japan scheduled, however, traders will get the chance to react to U.S. reports on Consumer Inflation and Retail Sales. Furthermore, Fed Chair Jerome Powell will give Congressional Testimony on Wednesday and Thursday.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Crude Oil Price Update – Weakens Under $56.81, Strengthens Over $58.21
• U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis – Testing Key RT Zone; Strengthens Over 98.380, Weakens Under 98.095
• Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal News Supportive, but Supply Worries Could Cap Gains
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/11/19
• The Week Ahead – Geopolitics, Powell, the RBNZ and Economic Data in Focus
• Brent Crude Oil Price Update – Testing Upper End of Major Retracement Zone at $61.29 to $62.64 || USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Rising Treasury Yields, Demand for Risk Will Provide Support: The Dollar/Yen finished sharply higher last week, driven by a widening of the spread between U.S. Government bonds and Japanese Government bonds, which made the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment. The catalyst behind the rally was the progress being made in U.S.-China trade deal negotiations. The rally took the Forex pair to its highest level since the week-ending May 31. Last week, the USD/JPY settled at 109.243, up 1.052 or +0.97%. U.S.-China Trade Relations The dollar climbed to more than a five-month peak against the safe-haven Yen, bolstered by expectations the United States and China were inching closer to a trade deal. The world’s two largest economies have agreed to roll back tariffs on each other’s goods as part of the first phase of a trade deal, officials from both countries said on Thursday, offering a new sign of progress despite the two sides’ ongoing divisions over trade. The Chinese commerce ministry, without laying out a timetable, said the two countries had agreed to cancel the tariffs in phases. There was a little controversy, however, on Friday after President Trump said he had not agreed to any rollback in tariffs. Before Thursday’s announcement on trade, hopes for a deal had been waning after a senior Trump administration official told Reuters on Wednesday a meeting to sign the agreement could be delayed until December and that a venue had not yet been agreed. U.S. Treasury Yields Long-term U.S. government debt yields climbed last week as warmer trade relations between Washington and Beijing buoyed equities and pressured bonds. The 10-year yield jumped to its highest level since August. More importantly, the yield curve, which inverted over the summer and stoked recession fears, also steepened to the widest since January last week. The spread between the 10-year yield and the 2-year yield was last seen at 26 basis points; the 10-year/3 month spread was at 38 basis points. Story continues The surge in yields drove up the U.S. Dollar against the Japanese Yen. Bank of Japan News Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said last week additional monetary easing by the central bank will not be limited to cutting interest rates, while adding that the economy is likely to stay firm despite the recent consumption tax hike. On October 31, the BOJ said it would further lower borrowing costs if necessary, sending a clearer message to markets as pressure builds on it to follow its U.S. and European counterparts in extending stimulus amid signs of a global economic slowdown. Under the new guidance, the BOJ is expecting short- and long-term interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels as long as there is a possibility of losing momentum toward its 2 percent inflation goal. Weekly Forecast USD/JPY traders are going to continue to monitor the progress of the trade talks between the U.S. and China. They be looking for both parties to announce a signing date and venue of phase one of the partial trade deal and new details about the roll back of the tariffs. The direction of Treasury yields and demand for risky assets will also be monitored closely. Rising yields will continue to make the U.S. Dollar an attractive asset. There are no major reports from Japan scheduled, however, traders will get the chance to react to U.S. reports on Consumer Inflation and Retail Sales. Furthermore, Fed Chair Jerome Powell will give Congressional Testimony on Wednesday and Thursday. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Update – Weakens Under $56.81, Strengthens Over $58.21 U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis – Testing Key RT Zone; Strengthens Over 98.380, Weakens Under 98.095 Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal News Supportive, but Supply Worries Could Cap Gains Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/11/19 The Week Ahead – Geopolitics, Powell, the RBNZ and Economic Data in Focus Brent Crude Oil Price Update – Testing Upper End of Major Retracement Zone at $61.29 to $62.64 || What causes a Bitcoin bubble?: Bitcoin bubbles generally tend to grow after a fresh wave of new users join the market. The first registered Bitcoin bubble popped in 2011. This was then followed by a second bubble in late 2013. After that bubble burst, the market had to wait over four years before the biggest Bitcoin bubble of them all exploded spectacularly. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached $20,000 – a record price in the history of any cryptocurrency. But once the bubble burst, the digital asset came crashing down to lows of $3,150. Given that Bitcoin’s price is currently around 50% of its all-time high, will we ever see another massive run? Let’s take a look at what causes a Bitcoin bubble and whether it’s possible to predict one. Bitcoin price history Looking at the chart above, you can see how Bitcoin’s price bottomed at around $3,150. Price action, in terms of US dollars, has been showing bullish signals recently as the EMAs are once more starting to diverge and point upwards. The same signal appeared between April and September 2019. During this period, BTC climbed around 180% from about $5,000 to nearly $14,000. Not only that, but looking at the volume profile, you can see that volume is building up and creating a safety net below $9,000. This means, in terms of probabilities, there’s a higher chance of price breaking above $9,000 than below. Moreover, not only has volume grown 550% since January 2019, it has also reached over $44 billion twice during the same period. Bitcoin is gaining new whales Since early 2019, Bitcoin seems to have gained new strength as new investors have started pouring into the market. Number of #Bitcoin addresses holding more than 1000 $BTC 👀 pic.twitter.com/SGdBXrob5e — glassnode (@glassnode) October 11, 2019 Although one can never be sure if different addresses belong to different people, I’m going to assume there aren’t many people or businesses that own over 1,000 Bitcoin in one single address. Story continues In that case, the above chart should shock you. It shows that the number of addresses with over 1,000 Bitcoin, which at the current price represents a whopping $9,300,000, has grown substantially. From late 2019 to today, about 600 addresses with over 1,000 BTC were created – or funded to be precise. Should we assume institutional investors and VCs are betting heavy on the king of cryptocurrencies? I suspect so. Is a Bitcoin bubble on the horizon? If the first ingredient of a Bitcoin bubble is new players, the second is the sudden reduction in supply. This event is usually referred to as the “Bitcoin halving”, and it represents the date at which Bitcoin’s block rewards are halved. Around May 2020, Bitcoin miners will start to receive 6.25 BTC per block mined rather than the current 12.5 BTC. If today about 1,800 BTC are mined per day, after the supply cut, we should see around 900 BTC being mined on average each day. What will happen to Bitcoin’s price in USD terms? Even though I cannot foresee the future, I imagine there will be extra pressure for price to rise. After all, miners’ profits will be cut in half. According to the graph above, courtesy of @100trillionUSD , a few months after each halving event, BTC’s price action has gone through the roof. At the same time, past history doesn’t dictate future price, so the same “expected” bull run might not take place. In conclusion, Bitcoin bubbles are formed when there’s new people coming into the market, which is driven by miners selling at higher prices to maintain profits. The post What causes a Bitcoin bubble? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What causes a Bitcoin bubble?: Bitcoin bubbles generally tend to grow after a fresh wave of new users join the market. The first registered Bitcoin bubble popped in 2011. This was then followed by a second bubble in late 2013. After that bubble burst, the market had to wait over four years before the biggest Bitcoin bubble of them all exploded spectacularly. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached $20,000 – a record price in the history of any cryptocurrency. But once the bubble burst, the digital asset came crashing down to lows of $3,150. Given that Bitcoin’s price is currently around 50% of its all-time high, will we ever see another massive run? Let’s take a look at what causes a Bitcoin bubble and whether it’s possible to predict one. Bitcoin price history Looking at the chart above, you can see how Bitcoin’s price bottomed at around $3,150. Price action, in terms of US dollars, has been showing bullish signals recently as the EMAs are once more starting to diverge and point upwards. The same signal appeared between April and September 2019. During this period, BTC climbed around 180% from about $5,000 to nearly $14,000. Not only that, but looking at the volume profile, you can see that volume is building up and creating a safety net below $9,000. This means, in terms of probabilities, there’s a higher chance of price breaking above $9,000 than below. Moreover, not only has volume grown 550% since January 2019, it has also reached over $44 billion twice during the same period. Bitcoin is gaining new whales Since early 2019, Bitcoin seems to have gained new strength as new investors have started pouring into the market. Number of #Bitcoin addresses holding more than 1000 $BTC 👀 pic.twitter.com/SGdBXrob5e — glassnode (@glassnode) October 11, 2019 Although one can never be sure if different addresses belong to different people, I’m going to assume there aren’t many people or businesses that own over 1,000 Bitcoin in one single address. Story continues In that case, the above chart should shock you. It shows that the number of addresses with over 1,000 Bitcoin, which at the current price represents a whopping $9,300,000, has grown substantially. From late 2019 to today, about 600 addresses with over 1,000 BTC were created – or funded to be precise. Should we assume institutional investors and VCs are betting heavy on the king of cryptocurrencies? I suspect so. Is a Bitcoin bubble on the horizon? If the first ingredient of a Bitcoin bubble is new players, the second is the sudden reduction in supply. This event is usually referred to as the “Bitcoin halving”, and it represents the date at which Bitcoin’s block rewards are halved. Around May 2020, Bitcoin miners will start to receive 6.25 BTC per block mined rather than the current 12.5 BTC. If today about 1,800 BTC are mined per day, after the supply cut, we should see around 900 BTC being mined on average each day. What will happen to Bitcoin’s price in USD terms? Even though I cannot foresee the future, I imagine there will be extra pressure for price to rise. After all, miners’ profits will be cut in half. According to the graph above, courtesy of @100trillionUSD , a few months after each halving event, BTC’s price action has gone through the roof. At the same time, past history doesn’t dictate future price, so the same “expected” bull run might not take place. In conclusion, Bitcoin bubbles are formed when there’s new people coming into the market, which is driven by miners selling at higher prices to maintain profits. The post What causes a Bitcoin bubble? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What causes a Bitcoin bubble?: Bitcoin bubbles generally tend to grow after a fresh wave of new users join the market. The first registered Bitcoin bubble popped in 2011. This was then followed by a second bubble in late 2013. After that bubble burst, the market had to wait over four years before the biggest Bitcoin bubble of them all exploded spectacularly. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached $20,000 – a record price in the history of any cryptocurrency. But once the bubble burst, the digital asset came crashing down to lows of $3,150. Given that Bitcoin’s price is currently around 50% of its all-time high, will we ever see another massive run? Let’s take a look at what causes a Bitcoin bubble and whether it’s possible to predict one. Bitcoin price history Looking at the chart above, you can see how Bitcoin’s price bottomed at around $3,150. Price action, in terms of US dollars, has been showing bullish signals recently as the EMAs are once more starting to diverge and point upwards. The same signal appeared between April and September 2019. During this period, BTC climbed around 180% from about $5,000 to nearly $14,000. Not only that, but looking at the volume profile, you can see that volume is building up and creating a safety net below $9,000. This means, in terms of probabilities, there’s a higher chance of price breaking above $9,000 than below. Moreover, not only has volume grown 550% since January 2019, it has also reached over $44 billion twice during the same period. Bitcoin is gaining new whales Since early 2019, Bitcoin seems to have gained new strength as new investors have started pouring into the market. Number of #Bitcoin addresses holding more than 1000 $BTC 👀 pic.twitter.com/SGdBXrob5e — glassnode (@glassnode) October 11, 2019 Although one can never be sure if different addresses belong to different people, I’m going to assume there aren’t many people or businesses that own over 1,000 Bitcoin in one single address. Story continues In that case, the above chart should shock you. It shows that the number of addresses with over 1,000 Bitcoin, which at the current price represents a whopping $9,300,000, has grown substantially. From late 2019 to today, about 600 addresses with over 1,000 BTC were created – or funded to be precise. Should we assume institutional investors and VCs are betting heavy on the king of cryptocurrencies? I suspect so. Is a Bitcoin bubble on the horizon? If the first ingredient of a Bitcoin bubble is new players, the second is the sudden reduction in supply. This event is usually referred to as the “Bitcoin halving”, and it represents the date at which Bitcoin’s block rewards are halved. Around May 2020, Bitcoin miners will start to receive 6.25 BTC per block mined rather than the current 12.5 BTC. If today about 1,800 BTC are mined per day, after the supply cut, we should see around 900 BTC being mined on average each day. What will happen to Bitcoin’s price in USD terms? Even though I cannot foresee the future, I imagine there will be extra pressure for price to rise. After all, miners’ profits will be cut in half. According to the graph above, courtesy of @100trillionUSD , a few months after each halving event, BTC’s price action has gone through the roof. At the same time, past history doesn’t dictate future price, so the same “expected” bull run might not take place. In conclusion, Bitcoin bubbles are formed when there’s new people coming into the market, which is driven by miners selling at higher prices to maintain profits. The post What causes a Bitcoin bubble? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Why Bitcoin’s Next ‘Halving’ May Not Pump the Price Like Last Time: Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and CoinDesk’s Director of Research. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here . To find out more about crypto valuation metrics, download our free report here . Whether you call it the “halving” or the “halvening,” one of the few things we can be sure of in crypto is that the conversation around bitcoin’s upcoming reduction in mining reward will intensify over the next six months. Related: How Bitcoin’s Lightning Can Be Used for Private Messaging Why? Because previous halvings have triggered bull runs. And who doesn’t like a bull run? Many are convinced that the next halving will have the same market effect, and it’s not just a belief that history repeats itself – models have emerged to support this theory. But if the bull run is expected, why hasn’t it already happened? Why isn’t the halving already priced in? Because the halving is much more than an event – it is also a narrative, and an uncertain one at that. What and why Related: Bitcoin’s Weekly Chart May See Golden Cross for First Time in 3.5 Years First, a review of what the halving is and why it happens. To keep inflation under control, the bitcoin protocol was programmed with a hard limit of 21 million, with new bitcoins entering the system as an incentive for network processors (“miners”) in a gradual and controlled rhythm. The rate at which they are created is reduced by half every four years, ostensibly to mimic the increased difficulty of gold mining. On Nov. 28, 2012, the initial reward of 50 new bitcoins was halved to 25, and since July 9, 2016, miners have been receiving 12.5 bitcoins for each block successfully processed. The next reduction, after which the network incentives will be 6.25 bitcoins per block, is expected in May 2020. Story continues (source: Digital Asset Research – statistical model, not price predictions) The above chart shows that the price (represented by the light blue line) started moving up before each of the previous halvings, and continued for some time after. Yet the data set is limited – the market has only experienced two of these events, and it could be a stretch to assume that the pattern will repeat itself. That’s where some fundamental supply/demand analysis comes in. Supply shock Bitcoin investor and analyst Tuur Demeester recently pointed out that , for the cryptocurrency to maintain a price of over $8,000 until the next halving, the market would need to see $2.9 billion of investment inflow to offset the deflationary effect of new bitcoins entering the system. Even assuming investment growth remains constant, the reduction in selling pressure after the halving (with fewer new coins hitting the market) would lead to a price boost. Pseudonymous trader Plan B has gone a step further and used the stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio – which divides current inventory by annual production – to create a model that retroactively predicts past price movements for bitcoin with a high degree of accuracy, using gold and silver as benchmarks. This model predicts a bitcoin price of almost $60,000 after the next halving (the black line in the chart above). While this model has its critics , it has undergone rigorous cross-examination , and it seems that the regression holds up . It also makes intuitive sense: a reduction in supply should enhance value, all else being equal. So why isn’t the price already heading up to that lofty level? This is where narrative comes in. Technically, the halving isn’t a “fundamental” event, in that it does not represent a value driver in traditional investment terms. “Fundamental” in asset analysis refers to variable yet quantifiable features that can drive a valuation, such as profit, market size and balance sheet. In this sense, pre-programmed scarcity is not fundamental, it’s factual. We can hope that facts themselves are not open to interpretation, but their impact almost always is. No one doubts the halving will happen – yet the narrative around its influence is not clear. Let’s look at why. Reasons for skepticism First, some argue that the halving is already priced in. The move from $3,300 to $12,000 earlier this year? That was it. The market is relatively efficient in terms of information distribution, the argument goes, so smart investors would obviously have incorporated the supply adjustment into their models and taken positions accordingly. Second, models tend to fit until they don’t. The bitcoin ecosystem today is arguably very different from previous halvings: four years ago, crypto derivatives markets were in their infancy, institutional involvement was slim and valuation frameworks were practically non-existent. It’s not unreasonable for investors to believe that “this time it’s different.” Some industry insiders have hinted that the halving could be negative if it reduces miners’ profitability and forces many of the smaller ones out of the market. True, this could be offset by a price increase, but if that turns out to not be proportional, increased network centralization could trigger concerns about security. Also, in traditional markets, price is rarely a function of supply. It’s more influenced by demand, which the S2F model does not take into account. In the absence of an established and widespread fundamental use case (for now), demand in crypto markets is narrative-driven. Bull run ahead? Yet in recursive logic, demand could be affected by the halving narrative. The widely held expectation that it will influence the price could stimulate demand for bitcoin as an investment asset, which will influence its price, especially as new investors – attracted by the supply models and historical correlation – enter the sector. And asymmetric risk comes into the picture: the chance that the models are wrong and I lose everything will have less of an impact on my portfolio than the possibility the models are right and I make a 500% return. So, even if the supply-driven models are trying to re-write traditional investing principles, it doesn’t mean that we won’t see a price rally. If that happens, the narrative will coalesce around the confirmation that the supply-based models were right, even if they weren’t the cause. We could end up with the head-spinning cycle of narrative influencing price, and price influencing narrative. Even so, this would not be the only head-spinning feature of the crypto markets over the coming months. The buzz around bitcoin’s supply schedule will highlight its unique economics, which in turn should awaken even more investor interest. If this leads to more inflows at a time when new supply falls, the charts that predict a post-halving rally will turn out to have been right all along. Then again, narratives can be fickle, and brave is the investor who assumes they’ll hold. They also rarely thrive in isolation – and, let’s face it, there are a lot of things going on out there that can have as great an influence on bitcoin’s price. Either way, it’s hard to deny that the emergence of forecasting models is a positive step that will help us understand market dynamics and bitcoin’s role in a broader financial market. Sophisticated investors will no doubt both welcome these and treat the underlying assumptions with a healthy dose of skepticism. Disclosure: the author holds small amounts of bitcoin and ether, with no short positions. Halved persimmon fruit image by Rodrigo Argenton via Wikimedia Commons Related Stories Bitcoin Price Risks Drop Below $9K if Bulls Can’t Muster Rally Soon Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases || Why Bitcoin’s Next ‘Halving’ May Not Pump the Price Like Last Time: Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and CoinDesk’s Director of Research. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here . To find out more about crypto valuation metrics, download our free report here . Whether you call it the “halving” or the “halvening,” one of the few things we can be sure of in crypto is that the conversation around bitcoin’s upcoming reduction in mining reward will intensify over the next six months. Related: How Bitcoin’s Lightning Can Be Used for Private Messaging Why? Because previous halvings have triggered bull runs. And who doesn’t like a bull run? Many are convinced that the next halving will have the same market effect, and it’s not just a belief that history repeats itself – models have emerged to support this theory. But if the bull run is expected, why hasn’t it already happened? Why isn’t the halving already priced in? Because the halving is much more than an event – it is also a narrative, and an uncertain one at that. What and why Related: Bitcoin’s Weekly Chart May See Golden Cross for First Time in 3.5 Years First, a review of what the halving is and why it happens. To keep inflation under control, the bitcoin protocol was programmed with a hard limit of 21 million, with new bitcoins entering the system as an incentive for network processors (“miners”) in a gradual and controlled rhythm. The rate at which they are created is reduced by half every four years, ostensibly to mimic the increased difficulty of gold mining. On Nov. 28, 2012, the initial reward of 50 new bitcoins was halved to 25, and since July 9, 2016, miners have been receiving 12.5 bitcoins for each block successfully processed. The next reduction, after which the network incentives will be 6.25 bitcoins per block, is expected in May 2020. Story continues (source: Digital Asset Research – statistical model, not price predictions) The above chart shows that the price (represented by the light blue line) started moving up before each of the previous halvings, and continued for some time after. Yet the data set is limited – the market has only experienced two of these events, and it could be a stretch to assume that the pattern will repeat itself. That’s where some fundamental supply/demand analysis comes in. Supply shock Bitcoin investor and analyst Tuur Demeester recently pointed out that , for the cryptocurrency to maintain a price of over $8,000 until the next halving, the market would need to see $2.9 billion of investment inflow to offset the deflationary effect of new bitcoins entering the system. Even assuming investment growth remains constant, the reduction in selling pressure after the halving (with fewer new coins hitting the market) would lead to a price boost. Pseudonymous trader Plan B has gone a step further and used the stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio – which divides current inventory by annual production – to create a model that retroactively predicts past price movements for bitcoin with a high degree of accuracy, using gold and silver as benchmarks. This model predicts a bitcoin price of almost $60,000 after the next halving (the black line in the chart above). While this model has its critics , it has undergone rigorous cross-examination , and it seems that the regression holds up . It also makes intuitive sense: a reduction in supply should enhance value, all else being equal. So why isn’t the price already heading up to that lofty level? This is where narrative comes in. Technically, the halving isn’t a “fundamental” event, in that it does not represent a value driver in traditional investment terms. “Fundamental” in asset analysis refers to variable yet quantifiable features that can drive a valuation, such as profit, market size and balance sheet. In this sense, pre-programmed scarcity is not fundamental, it’s factual. We can hope that facts themselves are not open to interpretation, but their impact almost always is. No one doubts the halving will happen – yet the narrative around its influence is not clear. Let’s look at why. Reasons for skepticism First, some argue that the halving is already priced in. The move from $3,300 to $12,000 earlier this year? That was it. The market is relatively efficient in terms of information distribution, the argument goes, so smart investors would obviously have incorporated the supply adjustment into their models and taken positions accordingly. Second, models tend to fit until they don’t. The bitcoin ecosystem today is arguably very different from previous halvings: four years ago, crypto derivatives markets were in their infancy, institutional involvement was slim and valuation frameworks were practically non-existent. It’s not unreasonable for investors to believe that “this time it’s different.” Some industry insiders have hinted that the halving could be negative if it reduces miners’ profitability and forces many of the smaller ones out of the market. True, this could be offset by a price increase, but if that turns out to not be proportional, increased network centralization could trigger concerns about security. Also, in traditional markets, price is rarely a function of supply. It’s more influenced by demand, which the S2F model does not take into account. In the absence of an established and widespread fundamental use case (for now), demand in crypto markets is narrative-driven. Bull run ahead? Yet in recursive logic, demand could be affected by the halving narrative. The widely held expectation that it will influence the price could stimulate demand for bitcoin as an investment asset, which will influence its price, especially as new investors – attracted by the supply models and historical correlation – enter the sector. And asymmetric risk comes into the picture: the chance that the models are wrong and I lose everything will have less of an impact on my portfolio than the possibility the models are right and I make a 500% return. So, even if the supply-driven models are trying to re-write traditional investing principles, it doesn’t mean that we won’t see a price rally. If that happens, the narrative will coalesce around the confirmation that the supply-based models were right, even if they weren’t the cause. We could end up with the head-spinning cycle of narrative influencing price, and price influencing narrative. Even so, this would not be the only head-spinning feature of the crypto markets over the coming months. The buzz around bitcoin’s supply schedule will highlight its unique economics, which in turn should awaken even more investor interest. If this leads to more inflows at a time when new supply falls, the charts that predict a post-halving rally will turn out to have been right all along. Then again, narratives can be fickle, and brave is the investor who assumes they’ll hold. They also rarely thrive in isolation – and, let’s face it, there are a lot of things going on out there that can have as great an influence on bitcoin’s price. Either way, it’s hard to deny that the emergence of forecasting models is a positive step that will help us understand market dynamics and bitcoin’s role in a broader financial market. Sophisticated investors will no doubt both welcome these and treat the underlying assumptions with a healthy dose of skepticism. Disclosure: the author holds small amounts of bitcoin and ether, with no short positions. Halved persimmon fruit image by Rodrigo Argenton via Wikimedia Commons Related Stories Bitcoin Price Risks Drop Below $9K if Bulls Can’t Muster Rally Soon Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases || Why Bitcoin’s Next ‘Halving’ May Not Pump the Price Like Last Time: Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and CoinDesk’s Director of Research. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here . To find out more about crypto valuation metrics, download our free report here . Whether you call it the “halving” or the “halvening,” one of the few things we can be sure of in crypto is that the conversation around bitcoin’s upcoming reduction in mining reward will intensify over the next six months. Related: How Bitcoin’s Lightning Can Be Used for Private Messaging Why? Because previous halvings have triggered bull runs. And who doesn’t like a bull run? Many are convinced that the next halving will have the same market effect, and it’s not just a belief that history repeats itself – models have emerged to support this theory. But if the bull run is expected, why hasn’t it already happened? Why isn’t the halving already priced in? Because the halving is much more than an event – it is also a narrative, and an uncertain one at that. What and why Related: Bitcoin’s Weekly Chart May See Golden Cross for First Time in 3.5 Years First, a review of what the halving is and why it happens. To keep inflation under control, the bitcoin protocol was programmed with a hard limit of 21 million, with new bitcoins entering the system as an incentive for network processors (“miners”) in a gradual and controlled rhythm. The rate at which they are created is reduced by half every four years, ostensibly to mimic the increased difficulty of gold mining. On Nov. 28, 2012, the initial reward of 50 new bitcoins was halved to 25, and since July 9, 2016, miners have been receiving 12.5 bitcoins for each block successfully processed. The next reduction, after which the network incentives will be 6.25 bitcoins per block, is expected in May 2020. Story continues (source: Digital Asset Research – statistical model, not price predictions) The above chart shows that the price (represented by the light blue line) started moving up before each of the previous halvings, and continued for some time after. Yet the data set is limited – the market has only experienced two of these events, and it could be a stretch to assume that the pattern will repeat itself. That’s where some fundamental supply/demand analysis comes in. Supply shock Bitcoin investor and analyst Tuur Demeester recently pointed out that , for the cryptocurrency to maintain a price of over $8,000 until the next halving, the market would need to see $2.9 billion of investment inflow to offset the deflationary effect of new bitcoins entering the system. Even assuming investment growth remains constant, the reduction in selling pressure after the halving (with fewer new coins hitting the market) would lead to a price boost. Pseudonymous trader Plan B has gone a step further and used the stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio – which divides current inventory by annual production – to create a model that retroactively predicts past price movements for bitcoin with a high degree of accuracy, using gold and silver as benchmarks. This model predicts a bitcoin price of almost $60,000 after the next halving (the black line in the chart above). While this model has its critics , it has undergone rigorous cross-examination , and it seems that the regression holds up . It also makes intuitive sense: a reduction in supply should enhance value, all else being equal. So why isn’t the price already heading up to that lofty level? This is where narrative comes in. Technically, the halving isn’t a “fundamental” event, in that it does not represent a value driver in traditional investment terms. “Fundamental” in asset analysis refers to variable yet quantifiable features that can drive a valuation, such as profit, market size and balance sheet. In this sense, pre-programmed scarcity is not fundamental, it’s factual. We can hope that facts themselves are not open to interpretation, but their impact almost always is. No one doubts the halving will happen – yet the narrative around its influence is not clear. Let’s look at why. Reasons for skepticism First, some argue that the halving is already priced in. The move from $3,300 to $12,000 earlier this year? That was it. The market is relatively efficient in terms of information distribution, the argument goes, so smart investors would obviously have incorporated the supply adjustment into their models and taken positions accordingly. Second, models tend to fit until they don’t. The bitcoin ecosystem today is arguably very different from previous halvings: four years ago, crypto derivatives markets were in their infancy, institutional involvement was slim and valuation frameworks were practically non-existent. It’s not unreasonable for investors to believe that “this time it’s different.” Some industry insiders have hinted that the halving could be negative if it reduces miners’ profitability and forces many of the smaller ones out of the market. True, this could be offset by a price increase, but if that turns out to not be proportional, increased network centralization could trigger concerns about security. Also, in traditional markets, price is rarely a function of supply. It’s more influenced by demand, which the S2F model does not take into account. In the absence of an established and widespread fundamental use case (for now), demand in crypto markets is narrative-driven. Bull run ahead? Yet in recursive logic, demand could be affected by the halving narrative. The widely held expectation that it will influence the price could stimulate demand for bitcoin as an investment asset, which will influence its price, especially as new investors – attracted by the supply models and historical correlation – enter the sector. And asymmetric risk comes into the picture: the chance that the models are wrong and I lose everything will have less of an impact on my portfolio than the possibility the models are right and I make a 500% return. So, even if the supply-driven models are trying to re-write traditional investing principles, it doesn’t mean that we won’t see a price rally. If that happens, the narrative will coalesce around the confirmation that the supply-based models were right, even if they weren’t the cause. We could end up with the head-spinning cycle of narrative influencing price, and price influencing narrative. Even so, this would not be the only head-spinning feature of the crypto markets over the coming months. The buzz around bitcoin’s supply schedule will highlight its unique economics, which in turn should awaken even more investor interest. If this leads to more inflows at a time when new supply falls, the charts that predict a post-halving rally will turn out to have been right all along. Then again, narratives can be fickle, and brave is the investor who assumes they’ll hold. They also rarely thrive in isolation – and, let’s face it, there are a lot of things going on out there that can have as great an influence on bitcoin’s price. Either way, it’s hard to deny that the emergence of forecasting models is a positive step that will help us understand market dynamics and bitcoin’s role in a broader financial market. Sophisticated investors will no doubt both welcome these and treat the underlying assumptions with a healthy dose of skepticism. Disclosure: the author holds small amounts of bitcoin and ether, with no short positions. Halved persimmon fruit image by Rodrigo Argenton via Wikimedia Commons Related Stories Bitcoin Price Risks Drop Below $9K if Bulls Can’t Muster Rally Soon Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases || Bitcoin is not real, and any purchase amounts to speculation, says ECB's ex-chief as he pours cold water on cryptocurrency: The European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet said he is doubtful that cryptocurrencies can ever become the future of money, becoming the latest monetary authority to pour cold water on the simmering technology that seeks to disrupt and disintermediate global central banks from their control of currencies.
"I am strongly against bitcoin, and I think we are a little complacent," Trichet said during a panel discussion at Caixin's 10th annual conference on Sunday in Beijing. "The [crypto]currency itself is not real, with the characteristics that a currency must have."
Buying a cryptocurrency is "in many respects pure speculation," said Trichet, who led the ECB from 2003 to 2011, after a decade as governor of the Bank of France. "Even if [the cryptocurrency] is supposed to be based on underlying assets, I am observing a lot of speculation. It is not healthy."
Trichet's comment echoes the concern shared by global central banks about the threat posed by cryptocurrencies, for their decentralisation of traditional currencies, disruption of the global financial system and hindrance to monetary authorities in controlling the value of money. The ECB's board member Benoit Soeure went as far in September as warning that cryptocurrencies could "challenge the supremacy of the US dollar," in a report on CNBC.
European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse alt=European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse
At the summit, the 76-year-old French economist said he was also "very much against" Libra, a cryptocurrency project proposed by Facebook in June. Originally announced alongside a list of corporate backers, the social media site has faced scrutiny over entering the financial services space causing firms like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to pull support in October.
Cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital currencies, traded without a central bank or administrator. Transactions between users, without the traditional middle man, are recorded in a digital ledger of blockchain.
China has taken atough stanceagainst cryptocurrencies. China's central bank and financial regulators in September 2017banned initial coin offerings (ICOs), in which companies could raise funds by issuing digital tokens, or coins. Localtrading platforms were shut, and access to all domestic and foreign platforms related to cryptocurrency trading and ICOs were blocked in February 2018, in attempts to quash the market.
Chinese banks are barred from handling bitcoin or any cryptocurrency, although individuals are not barred from holding them. China hosts some of the world's largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency mines.
Bitcoin is the world's first, and most popular cryptocurrency, founded in 2009 by an unknown developer known as " what's commonly thought to be a pseudonym " Satoshi Nakamoto. The value of bitcoin has swung from US$0.003 in March 2010 to a record US$20,000 at the end of 2017, before crashing the following year, now trading at around US$8,800 each.
Nevertheless, some central banks like Sweden's Riksbank are embracing technology, seeking to createdigital versions of their currenciesto cater for the explosive growth of e-payment and cashless remittance platforms. The People's Bank of China is poised toroll out a digital currencythat can be used across major payment platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay " not to be confused with a cryptocurrency " while the Bank of England's Mark Carney has also proposed a digital reserve currency.
A monetary tool that Trichet prefers is the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose value is pegged to the US dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the renminbi and the yen.
"I have great doubts of keeping control of monetary value in [the cryptocurrency] domain," said Trichet. "In the so-called new stable international currencies ... the SDR would be the right basket."
The world may be moving away from physical coins and notes, but that path may not be in the direction of cryptocurrency, Trichet said.
"We are already in a domain which has much less physical currency," he said. "Whether we are in a domain where that will be replaced with crypto? I have doubts there."
For more insights into China tech, sign up for ourtech newsletters, subscribe to ourInside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive2019 China Internet Report. Also roamChina Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister siteAbacus.
This article originally appeared in theSouth China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore theSCMP appor visit the SCMP'sFacebookandTwitterpages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin is not real, and any purchase amounts to speculation, says ECB's ex-chief as he pours cold water on cryptocurrency: The European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet said he is doubtful that cryptocurrencies can ever become the future of money, becoming the latest monetary authority to pour cold water on the simmering technology that seeks to disrupt and disintermediate global central banks from their control of currencies. "I am strongly against bitcoin, and I think we are a little complacent," Trichet said during a panel discussion at Caixin's 10th annual conference on Sunday in Beijing. "The [crypto]currency itself is not real, with the characteristics that a currency must have." Buying a cryptocurrency is "in many respects pure speculation," said Trichet, who led the ECB from 2003 to 2011, after a decade as governor of the Bank of France. "Even if [the cryptocurrency] is supposed to be based on underlying assets, I am observing a lot of speculation. It is not healthy." Trichet's comment echoes the concern shared by global central banks about the threat posed by cryptocurrencies, for their decentralisation of traditional currencies, disruption of the global financial system and hindrance to monetary authorities in controlling the value of money. The ECB's board member Benoit Soeure went as far in September as warning that cryptocurrencies could "challenge the supremacy of the US dollar," in a report on CNBC. European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse alt=European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse At the summit, the 76-year-old French economist said he was also "very much against" Libra, a cryptocurrency project proposed by Facebook in June. Originally announced alongside a list of corporate backers, the social media site has faced scrutiny over entering the financial services space causing firms like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to pull support in October. Story continues Cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital currencies, traded without a central bank or administrator. Transactions between users, without the traditional middle man, are recorded in a digital ledger of blockchain. China has taken a tough stance against cryptocurrencies. China's central bank and financial regulators in September 2017 banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) , in which companies could raise funds by issuing digital tokens, or coins. Local trading platforms were shut , and access to all domestic and foreign platforms related to cryptocurrency trading and ICOs were blocked in February 2018, in attempts to quash the market. Chinese banks are barred from handling bitcoin or any cryptocurrency, although individuals are not barred from holding them. China hosts some of the world's largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency mines. Bitcoin is the world's first, and most popular cryptocurrency, founded in 2009 by an unknown developer known as " what's commonly thought to be a pseudonym " Satoshi Nakamoto. The value of bitcoin has swung from US$0.003 in March 2010 to a record US$20,000 at the end of 2017, before crashing the following year, now trading at around US$8,800 each. Nevertheless, some central banks like Sweden's Riksbank are embracing technology, seeking to create digital versions of their currencies to cater for the explosive growth of e-payment and cashless remittance platforms. The People's Bank of China is poised to roll out a digital currency that can be used across major payment platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay " not to be confused with a cryptocurrency " while the Bank of England's Mark Carney has also proposed a digital reserve currency. A monetary tool that Trichet prefers is the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose value is pegged to the US dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the renminbi and the yen. "I have great doubts of keeping control of monetary value in [the cryptocurrency] domain," said Trichet. "In the so-called new stable international currencies ... the SDR would be the right basket." The world may be moving away from physical coins and notes, but that path may not be in the direction of cryptocurrency, Trichet said. "We are already in a domain which has much less physical currency," he said. "Whether we are in a domain where that will be replaced with crypto? I have doubts there." For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters , subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast , and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report . Also roam China Tech City , an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus . This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) , the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin is not real, and any purchase amounts to speculation, says ECB's ex-chief as he pours cold water on cryptocurrency: The European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet said he is doubtful that cryptocurrencies can ever become the future of money, becoming the latest monetary authority to pour cold water on the simmering technology that seeks to disrupt and disintermediate global central banks from their control of currencies.
"I am strongly against bitcoin, and I think we are a little complacent," Trichet said during a panel discussion at Caixin's 10th annual conference on Sunday in Beijing. "The [crypto]currency itself is not real, with the characteristics that a currency must have."
Buying a cryptocurrency is "in many respects pure speculation," said Trichet, who led the ECB from 2003 to 2011, after a decade as governor of the Bank of France. "Even if [the cryptocurrency] is supposed to be based on underlying assets, I am observing a lot of speculation. It is not healthy."
Trichet's comment echoes the concern shared by global central banks about the threat posed by cryptocurrencies, for their decentralisation of traditional currencies, disruption of the global financial system and hindrance to monetary authorities in controlling the value of money. The ECB's board member Benoit Soeure went as far in September as warning that cryptocurrencies could "challenge the supremacy of the US dollar," in a report on CNBC.
European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse alt=European Central Bank's former president Jean-Claude Trichet during a press conference in Frankfurt on April 7, 2011. Photo Agence-France Presse
At the summit, the 76-year-old French economist said he was also "very much against" Libra, a cryptocurrency project proposed by Facebook in June. Originally announced alongside a list of corporate backers, the social media site has faced scrutiny over entering the financial services space causing firms like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to pull support in October.
Cryptocurrencies are decentralised digital currencies, traded without a central bank or administrator. Transactions between users, without the traditional middle man, are recorded in a digital ledger of blockchain.
China has taken atough stanceagainst cryptocurrencies. China's central bank and financial regulators in September 2017banned initial coin offerings (ICOs), in which companies could raise funds by issuing digital tokens, or coins. Localtrading platforms were shut, and access to all domestic and foreign platforms related to cryptocurrency trading and ICOs were blocked in February 2018, in attempts to quash the market.
Chinese banks are barred from handling bitcoin or any cryptocurrency, although individuals are not barred from holding them. China hosts some of the world's largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency mines.
Bitcoin is the world's first, and most popular cryptocurrency, founded in 2009 by an unknown developer known as " what's commonly thought to be a pseudonym " Satoshi Nakamoto. The value of bitcoin has swung from US$0.003 in March 2010 to a record US$20,000 at the end of 2017, before crashing the following year, now trading at around US$8,800 each.
Nevertheless, some central banks like Sweden's Riksbank are embracing technology, seeking to createdigital versions of their currenciesto cater for the explosive growth of e-payment and cashless remittance platforms. The People's Bank of China is poised toroll out a digital currencythat can be used across major payment platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay " not to be confused with a cryptocurrency " while the Bank of England's Mark Carney has also proposed a digital reserve currency.
A monetary tool that Trichet prefers is the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose value is pegged to the US dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the renminbi and the yen.
"I have great doubts of keeping control of monetary value in [the cryptocurrency] domain," said Trichet. "In the so-called new stable international currencies ... the SDR would be the right basket."
The world may be moving away from physical coins and notes, but that path may not be in the direction of cryptocurrency, Trichet said.
"We are already in a domain which has much less physical currency," he said. "Whether we are in a domain where that will be replaced with crypto? I have doubts there."
For more insights into China tech, sign up for ourtech newsletters, subscribe to ourInside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive2019 China Internet Report. Also roamChina Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister siteAbacus.
This article originally appeared in theSouth China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore theSCMP appor visit the SCMP'sFacebookandTwitterpages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. || Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Looking for More Downside Pressure as Yields Approach August Highs: Gold plunged last week, extending its losses to a three-month low as well as posting its biggest weekly decline in three years. Traders said that positive developments in the U.S.-China trade tarnished the precious metal’s safe-haven appeal, sending it to its biggest weekly loss since November 2016. Last week’s low of $1457.00 was also its lowest level since August 5.
Last week,December Comex goldsettled at $1462.90, down $48.50 or -3.21%.
Essentially, investors who had been building bullish positions since August on the fear that the U.S.-China trade war would lead to a U.S. recession, liquidated in a major way last week.
However, there’s more to the selling pressure than just long liquidation due to improving U.S.-China trade relations.
In early August, U.S. Treasury yields inverted – a usually reliable signal of a future recession – and the major central banks presented dovish monetary policies, driving up demand for gold.
However, just two weeks ago the Fed made its third rate cut of the year then signaled it was pausing future rate cuts, bringing an end to its “mini-rate cut” cycle. The Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Reserve Bank of Australia, all left their benchmark interest rates unchanged recently.
A slowdown and perhaps a shutdown of near-term rate cuts eliminated one of the main reasons for buying gold in the first place. This encouraged gold buyers to reduce their positions.
One of the biggest influences on gold prices last week was the rapid rise in U.S. Treasury yields. Aggressive bond sellers drove yields to their highest levels since early August. The higher yields helped make the U.S. Dollar a more attractive asset. At the same time, the rising greenback dampened demand for dollar-denominated gold.
Gold traders are going to continue to follow the movement in Treasury yields and the direction of the U.S. Dollar next week. Of particular interest will be the 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds reaction to the 2.06 percent yield. This was its August 1 high. Taking out this level could trigger a steep break in gold. The daily chart indicates the market is vulnerable to another $50 dollar plunge.
Potential catalysts that could influence the price action are U.S.-China trade relations, reports on U.S. consumer inflation and retail sales, and two-days of testimony by Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 || Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Looking for More Downside Pressure as Yields Approach August Highs: Gold plunged last week, extending its losses to a three-month low as well as posting its biggest weekly decline in three years. Traders said that positive developments in the U.S.-China trade tarnished the precious metal’s safe-haven appeal, sending it to its biggest weekly loss since November 2016. Last week’s low of $1457.00 was also its lowest level since August 5. Last week, December Comex gold settled at $1462.90, down $48.50 or -3.21%. Essentially, investors who had been building bullish positions since August on the fear that the U.S.-China trade war would lead to a U.S. recession, liquidated in a major way last week. However, there’s more to the selling pressure than just long liquidation due to improving U.S.-China trade relations. In early August, U.S. Treasury yields inverted – a usually reliable signal of a future recession – and the major central banks presented dovish monetary policies, driving up demand for gold. However, just two weeks ago the Fed made its third rate cut of the year then signaled it was pausing future rate cuts, bringing an end to its “mini-rate cut” cycle. The Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Reserve Bank of Australia, all left their benchmark interest rates unchanged recently. A slowdown and perhaps a shutdown of near-term rate cuts eliminated one of the main reasons for buying gold in the first place. This encouraged gold buyers to reduce their positions. One of the biggest influences on gold prices last week was the rapid rise in U.S. Treasury yields. Aggressive bond sellers drove yields to their highest levels since early August. The higher yields helped make the U.S. Dollar a more attractive asset. At the same time, the rising greenback dampened demand for dollar-denominated gold. Weekly Forecast Gold traders are going to continue to follow the movement in Treasury yields and the direction of the U.S. Dollar next week. Of particular interest will be the 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds reaction to the 2.06 percent yield. This was its August 1 high. Taking out this level could trigger a steep break in gold. The daily chart indicates the market is vulnerable to another $50 dollar plunge. Story continues Potential catalysts that could influence the price action are U.S.-China trade relations, reports on U.S. consumer inflation and retail sales, and two-days of testimony by Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Update – Weakens Under $56.81, Strengthens Over $58.21 AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Downside Momentum Traders Targeting .6809 to .6800 Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/11/19 European Equities: A Week in Review – 08/11/19 The Week Ahead – Geopolitics, Powell, the RBNZ and Economic Data in Focus The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 || Bobby Lee talked me out of 50 euros in less than 15 minutes: It wasnt long since my plane had hit the tarmac on the Blockchain Island. I arrived at my hotel. They had no record of my booking, the taxi had left, and I had to walk to my new lodgings some 10 minutes away. Not that far, you might say. But thats perhaps because you havent dragged a suitcase across Maltas charming cobbled streets (or swerved by its not-so-charming gaping chasms in the pavement). In the drizzly November rain. Bobby Lee can be very persuasive I quickly refreshed at the hotel I eventually found with the aid of Google Maps and then rushed to meet Bobby Lee at the Intercontinental. If youre not familiar with the name, hes the co-founder of the first Chinese exchange BTCC , founder and CEO of Ballet hardware cryptocurrency wallet and brother of the charismatic Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee. He also exchanged some heated words with Nouriel Roubini at last months CC Forum. He wasnt here to swap travel stories though. When I enquired about his journey, he said it was long and quickly followed up with sorry, how long will this take? While he didnt immediately put me at ease, he had a point. If were to take Bitcoin to the masses and really make this permissionless technology work, theres a lot to be done. Less idle chat and more action. That may be why his new hardware wallet Ballet went from a conception in January to its sixth iteration and pre-sale sample in under a year. Clearly, when Bobby gets an idea in his head, hes like a dog with a bone. And before I knew what was happening, I was handing him over 50 euros and he was sending me the corresponding BTC to my new Ballet wallet. Onboarding the masses Ill admit to a little healthy scepticism when it comes to the Ballet. After all, its a hardware wallet with no back-up seed. Your private keys are also engraved on the front. What does this mean? Well, several things. One, its a heck of a lot easier to onboard people when they dont have to go through the cumbersome and stressful experience that hardware wallets evoke. Story continues It makes it really easy for normal people to buy and hold Bitcoin, he says. Theres no setup, the address is pre-generated on here, so they just use it. We wanted to create a wallet that was simple to use with no setup at all. But, to do that, of course, they had to make a trade-off. Having a Ballet wallet is literally like holding a bar of gold or rare piece of jewellery. Great, if its in your hands; lose it and your investment is gone forever. Not exactly a comforting thought. Bobby says, Its not like a credit or debit card. If you were to lose it, sorry, its like a piece of gold, do not lose it, he reiterates for emphasis, dont lose it. Bitcoin for everyday people If you want backup there are many other solutions out there, he continues, such as Coinbase or one of the hardware wallets you mentioned [Ledger and Trezor]. Ballet is a bare instrument, with this, you can give a gift. I stop him at that moment and ask whether the fact that he called it a gift meant that it was for small-time holders, sort of like a gift card. Its for everyone, he replies. So, then, would Bobby Lee keep all his bitcoin on it? Not on your life. I dont, he admits, but I am a very advanced user so I keep my personal coins in different places, different devices, different technologies. If you have $1,000 of cryptocurrency, you can keep it here, he points to the Ballet wallet. If you have $1 million, youre probably an advanced user and have different solutions. Everything about Ballet is designed to easily onboard new users including its name. To convey elegance, simplicity, and to be female-friendly. Bobby says that to attract a wider audience, they decided to choose that name, all the names if you look at the conference rooms, all very geeky, male-dominated tech names, so we wanted something approachable. Give me 50 euros and I will show you how this works Like any great salesman, Bobby understands the psychology of selling well (for as much as he studied computer science and has always worked in tech). He first gifted me the wallet. He then asked me for cash to purchase the coin of my choice BTC obviously although you can store multiple coins on this wallet. I didnt want to look cheap in front of the Chinese millionaire who had been swapping stories with (and gifting Ballets to) Bruce Willis days before, so I said Id buy 50 euros worth. What did Bobby think of the American actor, by the way? Hes not really into Bitcoin, he laughs. I asked if he managed to convince him. No, he sighed and chortled, he said I should talk to his wife. We went through the process of sending and receiving BTC from one Ballet wallet to another. Its extremely simple and exceptionally fastnear-instant, in fact. You dont have to wait for blockchain confirmation times either, but can immediately start to convert, send, or use your digital assets. Elegant and graceful, just as the name. And a whole lot easier than plugging in your Trezor. Chinese regulation and the development of the space We speak a little more about the enthusiasm for blockchain coming out of China and whether its bullish for the space or not. I am a purist when it comes to blockchain, he says. I think blockchain is only blockchain if its a decentralised public blockchain. Anything thats private or controlled really isnt a blockchain. So, Chinas advances arent bullish for the industry then? He shakes his head, thats not what Im saying. He believes that having a digital RMB will be good by making its movement much easier, without third party entities or bank accounts. This will also, he believes, eventually bring eyes onto Bitcoin. It will get people used to using the technology and make it easier to buy Bitcoin with a digital RMB. Ballet cryptocurrency wallet the takeaway Honestly, I love Ballet for what its trying to achieve and I think Bobby is attempting to counter a serious issue. But, he himself more or less called it a gift card, and thats a pretty good description of it. You would be extremely unwise to hold all your crypto in a wallet that you can never regain access to or that has your private keys stamped on the front. Its not an oversight, though. I think Bobby Lee sees Ballet as a sort of a gateway drug to the world of Bitcoin and a stepping stone to people finding out about different cold storage options. Just like the dance, Ballet may not be to everyones taste. But if youre the sort of person who always knows exactly where your belongings are and youre interested in buying crypto, it could be a good place to start. The post Bobby Lee talked me out of 50 euros in less than 15 minutes appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bobby Lee talked me out of 50 euros in less than 15 minutes: It wasnt long since my plane had hit the tarmac on the Blockchain Island. I arrived at my hotel. They had no record of my booking, the taxi had left, and I had to walk to my new lodgings some 10 minutes away. Not that far, you might say. But thats perhaps because you havent dragged a suitcase across Maltas charming cobbled streets (or swerved by its not-so-charming gaping chasms in the pavement). In the drizzly November rain. Bobby Lee can be very persuasive I quickly refreshed at the hotel I eventually found with the aid of Google Maps and then rushed to meet Bobby Lee at the Intercontinental. If youre not familiar with the name, hes the co-founder of the first Chinese exchange BTCC , founder and CEO of Ballet hardware cryptocurrency wallet and brother of the charismatic Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee. He also exchanged some heated words with Nouriel Roubini at last months CC Forum. He wasnt here to swap travel stories though. When I enquired about his journey, he said it was long and quickly followed up with sorry, how long will this take? While he didnt immediately put me at ease, he had a point. If were to take Bitcoin to the masses and really make this permissionless technology work, theres a lot to be done. Less idle chat and more action. That may be why his new hardware wallet Ballet went from a conception in January to its sixth iteration and pre-sale sample in under a year. Clearly, when Bobby gets an idea in his head, hes like a dog with a bone. And before I knew what was happening, I was handing him over 50 euros and he was sending me the corresponding BTC to my new Ballet wallet. Onboarding the masses Ill admit to a little healthy scepticism when it comes to the Ballet. After all, its a hardware wallet with no back-up seed. Your private keys are also engraved on the front. What does this mean? Well, several things. One, its a heck of a lot easier to onboard people when they dont have to go through the cumbersome and stressful experience that hardware wallets evoke. Story continues It makes it really easy for normal people to buy and hold Bitcoin, he says. Theres no setup, the address is pre-generated on here, so they just use it. We wanted to create a wallet that was simple to use with no setup at all. But, to do that, of course, they had to make a trade-off. Having a Ballet wallet is literally like holding a bar of gold or rare piece of jewellery. Great, if its in your hands; lose it and your investment is gone forever. Not exactly a comforting thought. Bobby says, Its not like a credit or debit card. If you were to lose it, sorry, its like a piece of gold, do not lose it, he reiterates for emphasis, dont lose it. Bitcoin for everyday people If you want backup there are many other solutions out there, he continues, such as Coinbase or one of the hardware wallets you mentioned [Ledger and Trezor]. Ballet is a bare instrument, with this, you can give a gift. I stop him at that moment and ask whether the fact that he called it a gift meant that it was for small-time holders, sort of like a gift card. Its for everyone, he replies. So, then, would Bobby Lee keep all his bitcoin on it? Not on your life. I dont, he admits, but I am a very advanced user so I keep my personal coins in different places, different devices, different technologies. If you have $1,000 of cryptocurrency, you can keep it here, he points to the Ballet wallet. If you have $1 million, youre probably an advanced user and have different solutions. Everything about Ballet is designed to easily onboard new users including its name. To convey elegance, simplicity, and to be female-friendly. Bobby says that to attract a wider audience, they decided to choose that name, all the names if you look at the conference rooms, all very geeky, male-dominated tech names, so we wanted something approachable. Give me 50 euros and I will show you how this works Like any great salesman, Bobby understands the psychology of selling well (for as much as he studied computer science and has always worked in tech). He first gifted me the wallet. He then asked me for cash to purchase the coin of my choice BTC obviously although you can store multiple coins on this wallet. I didnt want to look cheap in front of the Chinese millionaire who had been swapping stories with (and gifting Ballets to) Bruce Willis days before, so I said Id buy 50 euros worth. What did Bobby think of the American actor, by the way? Hes not really into Bitcoin, he laughs. I asked if he managed to convince him. No, he sighed and chortled, he said I should talk to his wife. We went through the process of sending and receiving BTC from one Ballet wallet to another. Its extremely simple and exceptionally fastnear-instant, in fact. You dont have to wait for blockchain confirmation times either, but can immediately start to convert, send, or use your digital assets. Elegant and graceful, just as the name. And a whole lot easier than plugging in your Trezor. Chinese regulation and the development of the space We speak a little more about the enthusiasm for blockchain coming out of China and whether its bullish for the space or not. I am a purist when it comes to blockchain, he says. I think blockchain is only blockchain if its a decentralised public blockchain. Anything thats private or controlled really isnt a blockchain. So, Chinas advances arent bullish for the industry then? He shakes his head, thats not what Im saying. He believes that having a digital RMB will be good by making its movement much easier, without third party entities or bank accounts. This will also, he believes, eventually bring eyes onto Bitcoin. It will get people used to using the technology and make it easier to buy Bitcoin with a digital RMB. Ballet cryptocurrency wallet the takeaway Honestly, I love Ballet for what its trying to achieve and I think Bobby is attempting to counter a serious issue. But, he himself more or less called it a gift card, and thats a pretty good description of it. You would be extremely unwise to hold all your crypto in a wallet that you can never regain access to or that has your private keys stamped on the front. Its not an oversight, though. I think Bobby Lee sees Ballet as a sort of a gateway drug to the world of Bitcoin and a stepping stone to people finding out about different cold storage options. Just like the dance, Ballet may not be to everyones taste. But if youre the sort of person who always knows exactly where your belongings are and youre interested in buying crypto, it could be a good place to start. The post Bobby Lee talked me out of 50 euros in less than 15 minutes appeared first on Coin Rivet . || U.S Mortgage Rates See Red for the First Time in 4-Weeks: Mortgage rates eased back in the week ending 7th November. 30-year fixed rates fell by 9 basis points to 3.69%, reversing a 3 basis point rise in the week prior.
With the 9 basis points pullback, 30-year rates remained relatively close to levels last seen in early November of 2016, according to figures released byFreddie Mac.
Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were down by 125 basis points.
30-year fixed rates are also down by 125 basis points since last November’s most recent peak of 4.94%.
Economic data was relatively busy in the week.
Key stats included September factory orders and trade data, and October service sector PMI numbers.
Factory orders slid by 0.6%, with the Markit Survey reporting slower growth in the service sector. The PMI fell from 51.0 to 50.6 to leave the Composite PMI down from 51.2 to 50.9.
Also negative in the week were falls in the JOLTs job openings in September and nonfarm productivity in the 3rd quarter, which declined by 0.3%
On the positive front, the market’s preferred ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI rose from 52.6 to 54.7. With service sector activity accounting for the lion’s share of the U.S economy, the pickup was key. 3rd quarter unit labor costs were also positive, with unit labor costs rising by 3.6% following a 2.4% rise in the 2nd quarter.
The fall in mortgage rates came in spite of a pickup in U.S Treasury yields through the week, supported by optimism over trade.
The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 7th November were quoted byFreddie Macto be:
• 30-year fixed rates decreased by 9 basis points to 3.69% in the week. Rates were down from 4.94% from a year ago. The average fee held steady at 0.5 points.
• 15-year fixed rates fell by 6 basis points to 3.13% in the week. Rates were down from 4.23% from a year ago. The average fee fell from 0.6 points to 0.4 points.
• 5-year fixed rates decreased by 4 basis points to 3.39% in the week. Rates were down by 75 basis points from last year’s 4.14%. The average fee fell back from 0.4 points to 0.3 points.
According to Freddie Mac, rates had been risen in six out of the last nine weeks due to marginally better economic data and optimism on trade.
The improved sentiment supported a rise in the U.S equity markets to record levels that should support consumer spending going into the holiday season.
For the week ending 1st November,rateswere quoted to be:
• Average interest rates for 30-year fixed, backed by the FHA, decreased from 3.83% to 3.79%. Points declined from 0.28 to 0.21 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances fell from 4.05% to 3.98%. Points remained unchanged at 0.37 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances decreased from 4.01% to 3.97%. Points decreased from 0.30 to 0.24 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
Weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the Market Composite Index, which is a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased by 0.1% in the week ending 1st November. In the week ending 25th October, the Market Composite Index had risen by 0.6%.
The Refinance Index rose by 2% in the week ending 1st November, leaving the index up by 144% from a year earlier. The Index had fallen by 1% in the week ending 25th October.
The share of refinance mortgage activity increased from 58.0 to 59.5%, in the week, reversing a fall from 58.5% to 58.0% in the week prior.
According to the MBA, there was some volatility in the Treasury markets before a late slide in yields at the end of the week.
The late pullback led to the fall in mortgage rates in the week, which supported a pickup in refinance applications. While purchase applications fell slightly, applications were still up by close to 7% year-on-year.
It’s a relatively quiet first half of the week on the economic data front.
Key stats due out of the U.S include October inflation figures due out on Wednesday that will influence mortgage rates.
On Thursday, wholesale inflation figures are also due out that will provide U.S Treasury yields with further direction.
While the numbers will influence, chatter on trade will likely have the greatest impact in the week. The markets will be looking for Beijing and Washington to announce a signing date and location for the phase 1 agreement.
From elsewhere, industrial production figures out of China on Thursday may test market risk appetite…
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Under $1471.00 Could Trigger Near-Term Break into $1412.10 || U.S Mortgage Rates See Red for the First Time in 4-Weeks: Mortgage rates eased back in the week ending 7th November. 30-year fixed rates fell by 9 basis points to 3.69%, reversing a 3 basis point rise in the week prior. With the 9 basis points pullback, 30-year rates remained relatively close to levels last seen in early November of 2016, according to figures released by Freddie Mac . Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were down by 125 basis points. 30-year fixed rates are also down by 125 basis points since last Novembers most recent peak of 4.94%. Economic Data from the Week Economic data was relatively busy in the week. Key stats included September factory orders and trade data, and October service sector PMI numbers. Factory orders slid by 0.6%, with the Markit Survey reporting slower growth in the service sector. The PMI fell from 51.0 to 50.6 to leave the Composite PMI down from 51.2 to 50.9. Also negative in the week were falls in the JOLTs job openings in September and nonfarm productivity in the 3rd quarter, which declined by 0.3% On the positive front, the markets preferred ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI rose from 52.6 to 54.7. With service sector activity accounting for the lions share of the U.S economy, the pickup was key. 3rd quarter unit labor costs were also positive, with unit labor costs rising by 3.6% following a 2.4% rise in the 2nd quarter. The fall in mortgage rates came in spite of a pickup in U.S Treasury yields through the week, supported by optimism over trade. Freddie Mac Rates The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 7th November were quoted by Freddie Mac to be : 30-year fixed rates decreased by 9 basis points to 3.69% in the week. Rates were down from 4.94% from a year ago. The average fee held steady at 0.5 points. 15-year fixed rates fell by 6 basis points to 3.13% in the week. Rates were down from 4.23% from a year ago. The average fee fell from 0.6 points to 0.4 points. 5-year fixed rates decreased by 4 basis points to 3.39% in the week. Rates were down by 75 basis points from last years 4.14%. The average fee fell back from 0.4 points to 0.3 points. According to Freddie Mac, rates had been risen in six out of the last nine weeks due to marginally better economic data and optimism on trade. The improved sentiment supported a rise in the U.S equity markets to record levels that should support consumer spending going into the holiday season. Mortgage Bankers Association Rates For the week ending 1st November, rates were quoted to be : Average interest rates for 30-year fixed, backed by the FHA, decreased from 3.83% to 3.79%. Points declined from 0.28 to 0.21 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances fell from 4.05% to 3.98%. Points remained unchanged at 0.37 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances decreased from 4.01% to 3.97%. Points decreased from 0.30 to 0.24 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Story continues Weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the Market Composite Index, which is a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased by 0.1% in the week ending 1st November. In the week ending 25th October, the Market Composite Index had risen by 0.6%. The Refinance Index rose by 2% in the week ending 1st November, leaving the index up by 144% from a year earlier. The Index had fallen by 1% in the week ending 25th October. The share of refinance mortgage activity increased from 58.0 to 59.5%, in the week, reversing a fall from 58.5% to 58.0% in the week prior. According to the MBA, there was some volatility in the Treasury markets before a late slide in yields at the end of the week. The late pullback led to the fall in mortgage rates in the week, which supported a pickup in refinance applications. While purchase applications fell slightly, applications were still up by close to 7% year-on-year. For the week ahead Its a relatively quiet first half of the week on the economic data front. Key stats due out of the U.S include October inflation figures due out on Wednesday that will influence mortgage rates. On Thursday, wholesale inflation figures are also due out that will provide U.S Treasury yields with further direction. While the numbers will influence, chatter on trade will likely have the greatest impact in the week. The markets will be looking for Beijing and Washington to announce a signing date and location for the phase 1 agreement. From elsewhere, industrial production figures out of China on Thursday may test market risk appetite
This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Strengthens Over .6335, Weakens Under .6304 The Week Ahead Geopolitics, Powell, the RBNZ and Economic Data in Focus The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Downside Momentum Traders Targeting .6809 to .6800 Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 09/11/19 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis Sustained Move Under $1471.00 Could Trigger Near-Term Break into $1412.10 View comments || Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Traders Looking for Another Gap Opening; New Forecasts Will Determine Direction: Natural gas futures finished higher last week after gapping higher on Monday. Early in the week, the market hit its highest level since the week-ending May 31, however, the buying quickly dried up and prices retreated late in the week. However, buyers were able to prevent the gap from being filled and the market from turning lower for the week.
The late-in-the-week price action suggests traders were a little reluctant to commit in a big way to either side of the market ahead of the weekend. This is due to the uncertainty of the forecasts over the weekend. Recent changes in the forecast over the weekend have led to two consecutive gap-higher openings on Mondays. Traders are anticipating another gap-opening this Monday.
NatGasWeather said on Friday, “…There are big risks again holding this weekend as there’s likely to be a gap in prices depending on temperature trends for November 18-25. The GFS might have lost a little too much demand this run, but if it didn’t, or if it were to trend further milder, a gap lower should be expected.”
Last week,December natural gassettled at $2.789, up $0.075 or +2.76%.
“A cold front was expected to exit the East on Friday, leaving chilly temperatures behind, including lows from the single digits to the 30s across much of the Lower 48 aside from the Southwest, according to NatGasWeather.
According to Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI), “The forecaster (NatGasWeather) called for the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast to see a “brief break” in the cold temperatures late in the weekend, with highs climbing into the 40s and 50s, resulting in lighter demand.”
“However, a frigid Arctic blast remains on track to arrive” during the upcoming week, impacting areas “east of the Rockies with very cold air and lows” ranging from below zero to the 30s, including lows in the teens to 30s for Texas and the southern United States, NatGasWeather said. “A second cold shot will follow across the Northeast” late in the week ahead. “The West will be mild to warm due to high pressure.”
The EIA reported Thursday that domestic supplies of natural gas rose 34 billion cubic feet for the week-ended November 1. That was below the expected build of 46 Bcf.
Total stocks now stand at 3.729 trillion cubic feet, up 530 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 29 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said.
Additionally, the United States injected a near-record amount of natural gas during the April 1-October 31 period, according to the EIA.
The pace of injections enabled inventories to rebound from a relatively low 1,155 Bcf at the start of April to an end-October carryout of 3,724 Bcf, the agency said in a research note Friday.
“From April 1 through October 31, more than 2,569 Bcf of natural gas was placed into storage in the Lower 48 states,” EIA said. “This volume was the second-highest net injected volume for the injection season, falling short of the record 2,727 Bcf injected during the 2014 injection season.”
That record-setting year followed and unusually cold winter that depleted Lower 48 inventories to just 837 Bcf, the lowest level for that time of year since 2003, EIA noted.
Traders should be prepared for another gap opening on Monday. The direction is unknown because it will depend on the forecasts from over the weekend.
A gap over $2.905 will take out last week’s high and signal a resumption of the uptrend. This could trigger a rally into the next main top at $3.009. This is the last main top before the March 5 top at $3.165.
A gap below $2.753 will take out last week’s low. A trade to $2.738 will fill in last week’s gap.
The current short-term range is $2.388 to $2.905. If the selling pressure continues through $2.738 then look for the selling to possibly extend into its retracement zone at $2.647 to $2.585. Buyers could re-emerge on a test of this area.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 || Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Traders Looking for Another Gap Opening; New Forecasts Will Determine Direction: Natural gas futures finished higher last week after gapping higher on Monday. Early in the week, the market hit its highest level since the week-ending May 31, however, the buying quickly dried up and prices retreated late in the week. However, buyers were able to prevent the gap from being filled and the market from turning lower for the week. The late-in-the-week price action suggests traders were a little reluctant to commit in a big way to either side of the market ahead of the weekend. This is due to the uncertainty of the forecasts over the weekend. Recent changes in the forecast over the weekend have led to two consecutive gap-higher openings on Mondays. Traders are anticipating another gap-opening this Monday. NatGasWeather said on Friday, “…There are big risks again holding this weekend as there’s likely to be a gap in prices depending on temperature trends for November 18-25. The GFS might have lost a little too much demand this run, but if it didn’t, or if it were to trend further milder, a gap lower should be expected.” Last week, December natural gas settled at $2.789, up $0.075 or +2.76%. Short-Term Weather Outlook “A cold front was expected to exit the East on Friday, leaving chilly temperatures behind, including lows from the single digits to the 30s across much of the Lower 48 aside from the Southwest, according to NatGasWeather. According to Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI), “The forecaster (NatGasWeather) called for the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast to see a “brief break” in the cold temperatures late in the weekend, with highs climbing into the 40s and 50s, resulting in lighter demand.” “However, a frigid Arctic blast remains on track to arrive” during the upcoming week, impacting areas “east of the Rockies with very cold air and lows” ranging from below zero to the 30s, including lows in the teens to 30s for Texas and the southern United States, NatGasWeather said. “A second cold shot will follow across the Northeast” late in the week ahead. “The West will be mild to warm due to high pressure.” Story continues U.S. Energy Information Administration Weekly Storage Report The EIA reported Thursday that domestic supplies of natural gas rose 34 billion cubic feet for the week-ended November 1. That was below the expected build of 46 Bcf. Total stocks now stand at 3.729 trillion cubic feet, up 530 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 29 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. Additionally, the United States injected a near-record amount of natural gas during the April 1-October 31 period, according to the EIA. The pace of injections enabled inventories to rebound from a relatively low 1,155 Bcf at the start of April to an end-October carryout of 3,724 Bcf, the agency said in a research note Friday. “From April 1 through October 31, more than 2,569 Bcf of natural gas was placed into storage in the Lower 48 states,” EIA said. “This volume was the second-highest net injected volume for the injection season, falling short of the record 2,727 Bcf injected during the 2014 injection season.” That record-setting year followed and unusually cold winter that depleted Lower 48 inventories to just 837 Bcf, the lowest level for that time of year since 2003, EIA noted. Weekly December Natural Gas Weekly Forecast Traders should be prepared for another gap opening on Monday. The direction is unknown because it will depend on the forecasts from over the weekend. A gap over $2.905 will take out last week’s high and signal a resumption of the uptrend. This could trigger a rally into the next main top at $3.009. This is the last main top before the March 5 top at $3.165. A gap below $2.753 will take out last week’s low. A trade to $2.738 will fill in last week’s gap. The current short-term range is $2.388 to $2.905. If the selling pressure continues through $2.738 then look for the selling to possibly extend into its retracement zone at $2.647 to $2.585. Buyers could re-emerge on a test of this area. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/11/19 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Under $1471.00 Could Trigger Near-Term Break into $1412.10 AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Downside Momentum Traders Targeting .6809 to .6800 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Traders Looking for Another Gap Opening; New Forecasts Will Determine Direction The Week Ahead – Geopolitics, Powell, the RBNZ and Economic Data in Focus The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 || Crude Oil Price Update – Weakens Under $56.81, Strengthens Over $58.21: U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures finished higher on Friday after recovering from early session weakness. The early sell-off was fueled by concerns over whether OPEC and its allies would agree to deepen production cuts when they meet on December 5-6, and renewed uncertainty over a trade deal between the United States and China after President Trump said he had not agreed to rollback tariffs as previously reported the day before. On Friday, December WTI crude oil futures settled at $57.24, up $0.09 or +0.16%. The price action suggests that the intraday short-sellers may not have believed Trump. This shifted investor sentiment as investors renewed their optimism over a trade deal, triggering Friday’s short-covering rally. Daily December WTI Crude Oil Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart, however, momentum is trending lower. A trade through $57.88 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. The main trend will change to down on a move through the last swing bottom at $53.71. The minor trend is down. It turned down on Friday. This move changed momentum to the downside. The main range is $62.74 to $50.89. Its retracement zone at $56.81 to $58.21 is resistance. This zone is also controlling the near-term direction of the market. Last week, this zone stopped the rally at $57.88 on November 7. The market also closed on Friday inside this zone. The intermediate range is $59.11 to $50.89. Its retracement zone at $55.97 to $55.00 is new support. The short-term range is $50.89 to $57.88. If the sell-off resumes then its retracement zone at $54.39 to $53.56 will become the primary downside target. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast Based on Friday’s price action and the close at $57.24, the direction of the December WTI crude oil market on Monday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the main 50% level at $56.81. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over $56.81 will indicate the presence of buyers. The first targets are the minor top at $57.88 and the main Fibonacci level at $58.21. Overcoming $58.21 will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could trigger a further rally into the September 23 top at $59.11. Story continues Bearish Scenario A sustained move under $56.81 will signal the presence of sellers. The first target is the intermediate Fibonacci level at $55.97. This is a potential trigger point for a break into the intermediate 50% level at $55.00. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -10/11/19 US Stock Market Overview – Stock Rise, Led By Healthcare, Yield Continue to Climb Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 09/11/19 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Under $1471.00 Could Trigger Near-Term Break into $1412.10 The Weekly Wrap – A Busy Week Saw the Greenback Bounce Back to Life U.S Mortgage Rates See Red for the First Time in 4-Weeks
[Social Media Buzz]
@novogratz If America didn't try to create their own shitcoin and just went full bitcoin maximalist. It would cement its place as the power house of the world for the 21st century! || coincheck取引所での価格は 974090円/BTCです。短期間で見ると安くなっているようです。詳しくは https://t.co/YJ0LPqEup8 || Block Number: 603,328
Time: 11/11/2019, 5:17:21 PM UTC
Miner: AntPool
Transactions: 1,652
Block Value: 3,395.898 BTC
Size: 1,150,687 bytes
Total Supply: 18,041,600
(85.91238% BTC issued)
Price: $8766.12 || 🗯Don’t forget! You c...
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8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29, 8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-12-15]
Volume: 81580096, RSI (14-day): 63.23, 50-day EMA: 734.33, 200-day EMA: 639.06
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1127.80, Gold RSI: 23.34
Oil Price: 50.90, Oil RSI: 55.81
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: 1000 Rupee Note Early in November, India abolished the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called " black money ". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system. Who Uses Bitcoin in India? So who uses Bitcoin in India? According to Sunny Ray , who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchange Unocoin , there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country. In an interview with Bitcoin Uncensored co-host Chris DeRose just before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get." Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country. During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data. Trading Volume Has More Than Doubled Since the Ban So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray told CoinJournal that Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days. An increase in trading volume can also be seen on LocalBitcoins , where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th. Story continues It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust. Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market. In a blog post on their website, BitGo has noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September. Larger Effects May Be Seen Over the Long Term While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term. "Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Sports car drivers make for lousy hedge fund managers, according to new research: Fade the fund manager with the brand-new Maserati, put your faith in the one who just bought a Honda Odyssey.
At least, that's what a recent research paper from a trio of finance professors, entitled "Sensation Seeking, Sports Cars, and Hedge Funds," suggests.
"We find that hedge fund managers who own powerful sports cars take on more investment risk," wrote Yan Lu of the University of Central Florida, Sugata Ray of the University of Florida and Melvyn Teo of the Singapore Management University. "The incremental risk taking by performance car buyers does not translate to higher returns."
Lu, Ray and Tao are not out to obsess over the makes and models of various fund managers' rides. Rather, their principal point is about how the emotional makeup of those making investment decisions could impact outcomes.
"We argue that the purchase of a powerful sports car, more often than not, conveys the intent to drive in a spirited fashion and therefore signals an inclination for sensation seeking," they wrote, going on to show that these "sensation seekers" deliver strikingly more volatile returns, that are not more favorable in a risk-adjusted framework.
Interestingly, the converse is also true: Drivers of minivans tend to deliver less volatile returns, the authors found.
Bolstering their point, the authors further found that drivers of sports cars are more likely to terminate their funds and to report regulatory and criminal violations than the average fund manager — while drivers of "practical but unexciting cars" are less likely to do so.
The authors say that other factors such as fund age or the wealth level of the managers are not likely to explain the disparate results.
"The cars that people drive just provide another data point into who they are," Ray said in a Monday interview on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "In this case, [sports car buyers] reveal something about themselves, … and that is reflected in their funds taking more risk."
To generate their findings, the culled multiple sources of fund performance data, and "hand-collect[ed]" vehicle purchase information from the websiteVIN.place, which utilizes data from dealerships and auto insurance companies.
More From CNBC
• Bitcoin is surging – but that might not mean what you think
• It’s time to ditch one of the past year’s hottest trades
• This stock is up 100% in one year, but may still be cheap || Hackers Refining Tools For Attacking Banks: A letter from the Swift network to member banks warns hackers are refining their cyberattack tools and the global bank transfer system remains vulnerable. Reuters reported Monday the letter, dated Nov. 2, warned the threat is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated and it is here to stay. Reuters said the letter is evidence the Belgium-based cooperative Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication remains vulnerable a year after $81 million was stolen from Bangladeshs central bank. Among the tactics now being used by hackers is software allowing technicians access to computers for technical support. "We unfortunately continue to see cases in which some of our customers environments are being compromised," the letter said, noting a meaningful number of attacks have been made on both central and commercial banks, and 20 percent of them have resulted in stolen funds. Bangladeshi officials told Reuters several central bank officials enabled the theft, which was the result of malware inserted into the banks system. Bitcoin News Service reported the central bank has managed to recoup a portion of the stolen funds from a casino in the Philippines. Investigators determined the money was sold on the black market to a foreign exchange broker who transferred the funds to three casinos. A Philippines court ordered the Solaire Resort and casino to surrender the money to Bangladesh. Some $10 million was handed over. A commercial bank in Ecuador said it was held up for $12 million last year. In Vietnam thieves tried and failed to make off with $1.1 million in what investigators said may have been a practice run for the attack on Bangladesh. Russia security services warned earlier this month that foreign spy agencies were preparing attacks on Russian banks in dozens of cities to destabilize the financial system of the Russian Federation. The Federal Security Bureau didnt specify who was preparing the attack. Related Articles After Hacks, Banks Push Swift To Boost Security New York Governor Issues Cybersecurity Proposal || Hackers Refining Tools For Attacking Banks: A letter from the Swift network to member banks warns hackers are refining their cyberattack tools and the global bank transfer system remains vulnerable. Reuters reported Monday the letter, dated Nov. 2, warned the threat is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated and it is here to stay. Reuters said the letter is evidence the Belgium-based cooperative Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication remains vulnerable a year after $81 million was stolen from Bangladeshs central bank. Among the tactics now being used by hackers is software allowing technicians access to computers for technical support. "We unfortunately continue to see cases in which some of our customers environments are being compromised," the letter said, noting a meaningful number of attacks have been made on both central and commercial banks, and 20 percent of them have resulted in stolen funds. Bangladeshi officials told Reuters several central bank officials enabled the theft, which was the result of malware inserted into the banks system. Bitcoin News Service reported the central bank has managed to recoup a portion of the stolen funds from a casino in the Philippines. Investigators determined the money was sold on the black market to a foreign exchange broker who transferred the funds to three casinos. A Philippines court ordered the Solaire Resort and casino to surrender the money to Bangladesh. Some $10 million was handed over. A commercial bank in Ecuador said it was held up for $12 million last year. In Vietnam thieves tried and failed to make off with $1.1 million in what investigators said may have been a practice run for the attack on Bangladesh. Russia security services warned earlier this month that foreign spy agencies were preparing attacks on Russian banks in dozens of cities to destabilize the financial system of the Russian Federation. The Federal Security Bureau didnt specify who was preparing the attack. Related Articles After Hacks, Banks Push Swift To Boost Security New York Governor Issues Cybersecurity Proposal || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago. Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month. Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India. The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever)
[Social Media Buzz]
1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-12-15 10:00 pic.twitter.com/SIP1PLr5Rl || $778.45 at 09:45 UTC [24h Range: $770.74 - $781.00 Volume: 2479 BTC] || $777.06 at 19:15 UTC [24h Range: $771.00 - $779.08 Volume: 2697 BTC] || $777.00 at 06:15 UTC [24h Range: $770.74 - $781.00 Volume: 2439 BTC] || One Bitcoin now worth $776.69@bitstamp. High $779.08. Low $771.00. Market Cap $12.461 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/1GANN5EMsS || $776.64 ...
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784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-09-08]
Volume: 49007762488, RSI (14-day): 45.99, 50-day EMA: 45163.15, 200-day EMA: 41256.76
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1790.70, Gold RSI: 47.63
Oil Price: 69.30, Oil RSI: 52.50
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Factbox-A glimpse under the hood of El Salvador's bitcoin experiment: By Anthony Esposito and Nelson Renteria SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - El Salvador on Tuesday rolled out cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender, an unprecedented move that faced some technical hiccups on its first day and left many wondering how it will work. President Nayib Bukele, who has championed the initiative, said the digital currency will be optional in the poor, dollarized country but that using it will eliminate commissions Salvadorans abroad pay to send home remittances. WHAT THE LAW SAYS El Salvador's bitcoin law states the market will establish the exchange rate between the crytpocurrency and the U.S. dollar, the nation's other legal tender. It says all prices may be expressed in bitcoin and tax contributions can be paid in digital currency, while currency transactions in bitcoin are not subject to capital gains taxes. For accounting purposes, the dollar will be the currency of reference. The law states that "economic agents" should accept bitcoin as payment for goods and services offered, though it makes exceptions for those lacking access to technology needed for such transactions. Bukele has said companies can choose at the moment of a bitcoin transaction whether to receive dollars or the digital currency as payment. "The use of bitcoin will be optional, nobody will receive bitcoin if they don't want it... If someone receives a payment in bitcoin they can choose to automatically receive it in dollars," Bukele said in late June. The popular Bukele, 40, has also said salaries and pensions will continue to be paid in U.S. dollars, without specifying if that included salaries paid to state workers and private sector employees. CHIVO WALLET At least 200 ATMs and 50 consulting centers from the government digital wallet app "Chivo" are being installed around the country where users can deposit and withdraw money without paying commissions, Bukele has said. His plan includes a bonus of $30 worth of bitcoin for those who use "Chivo," named after a local word for something "good" or "nice." Story continues El Salvador's Congress in late August approved a law to create a $150 million fund to facilitate conversions from bitcoin to U.S. dollars. Chivo was available on platforms hosted by Apple and Huawei on Tuesday, after Bukele railed against the tech giants for not carrying the application. THE TECHNOLOGY Fintech Bitso, a cryptocurrency platform, said it will be the core service provider for Chivo and will work with Silvergate Bank, a U.S. federally regulated and California state-chartered bank, to facilitate transactions in U.S. dollars. McDonald's Corp and Starbucks said they began accepting the cryptocurrency in its restaurants in El Salvador. OpenNode, a bitcoin payment processor, said McDonald's was accepting payments on the Lightning Network platform it powers. The El Salvadoran beach town of El Zonte, part of an experiment started in 2019 called Bitcoin Beach, has been using the Lightning Network to enable smaller transactions. Its use has helped overcome some technical and practical obstacles to using bitcoin, Bitcoin Beach's founders say. But some in El Zonte say they rarely use bitcoin because of problems with outdated and battered smartphones or insufficient data plans. A 2020 study by Microsoft and the Interamerican Development Bank concluded that El Salvador had the second lowest internet penetration of 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. At 45%, connectivity was only lower in neighboring Honduras. Salvadorans are also wary of volatility. Bitcoin can shed hundreds of dollars in value in a day. Ahead of the launch, El Salvador bought 400 bitcoins worth around $20 million, Bukele said, helping drive the price of the currency above $52,000 for the first time since May. Hours later, bitcoin had weakened and last traded up 0.23% at $46,906.11. (Compiled by Anthony Esposito and Nelson Renteria; Editing by David Gregorio) || Factbox-A glimpse under the hood of El Salvador's bitcoin experiment: By Anthony Esposito and Nelson Renteria
SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - El Salvador on Tuesday rolled out cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender, an unprecedented move that faced some technical hiccups on its first day and left many wondering how it will work.
President Nayib Bukele, who has championed the initiative, said the digital currency will be optional in the poor, dollarized country but that using it will eliminate commissions Salvadorans abroad pay to send home remittances.
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
El Salvador's bitcoin law states the market will establish the exchange rate between the crytpocurrency and the U.S. dollar, the nation's other legal tender. It says all prices may be expressed in bitcoin and tax contributions can be paid in digital currency, while currency transactions in bitcoin are not subject to capital gains taxes.
For accounting purposes, the dollar will be the currency of reference.
The law states that "economic agents" should accept bitcoin as payment for goods and services offered, though it makes exceptions for those lacking access to technology needed for such transactions.
Bukele has said companies can choose at the moment of a bitcoin transaction whether to receive dollars or the digital currency as payment.
"The use of bitcoin will be optional, nobody will receive bitcoin if they don't want it... If someone receives a payment in bitcoin they can choose to automatically receive it in dollars," Bukele said in late June.
The popular Bukele, 40, has also said salaries and pensions will continue to be paid in U.S. dollars, without specifying if that included salaries paid to state workers and private sector employees.
CHIVO WALLET
At least 200 ATMs and 50 consulting centers from the government digital wallet app "Chivo" are being installed around the country where users can deposit and withdraw money without paying commissions, Bukele has said.
His plan includes a bonus of $30 worth of bitcoin for those who use "Chivo," named after a local word for something "good" or "nice."
El Salvador's Congress in late August approved a law to create a $150 million fund to facilitate conversions from bitcoin to U.S. dollars.
Chivo was available on platforms hosted by Apple and Huawei on Tuesday, after Bukele railed against the tech giants for not carrying the application.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Fintech Bitso, a cryptocurrency platform, said it will be the core service provider for Chivo and will work with Silvergate Bank, a U.S. federally regulated and California state-chartered bank, to facilitate transactions in U.S. dollars.
McDonald's Corp and Starbucks said they began accepting the cryptocurrency in its restaurants in El Salvador. OpenNode, a bitcoin payment processor, said McDonald's was accepting payments on the Lightning Network platform it powers.
The El Salvadoran beach town of El Zonte, part of an experiment started in 2019 called Bitcoin Beach, has been using the Lightning Network to enable smaller transactions.
Its use has helped overcome some technical and practical obstacles to using bitcoin, Bitcoin Beach's founders say. But some in El Zonte say they rarely use bitcoin because of problems with outdated and battered smartphones or insufficient data plans.
A 2020 study by Microsoft and the Interamerican Development Bank concluded that El Salvador had the second lowest internet penetration of 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. At 45%, connectivity was only lower in neighboring Honduras.
Salvadorans are also wary of volatility. Bitcoin can shed hundreds of dollars in value in a day.
Ahead of the launch, El Salvador bought 400 bitcoins worth around $20 million, Bukele said, helping drive the price of the currency above $52,000 for the first time since May. Hours later, bitcoin had weakened and last traded up 0.23% at $46,906.11.
(Compiled by Anthony Esposito and Nelson Renteria; Editing by David Gregorio) || Fintech Focus For September 8, 2021: Quote To Start The Day:“Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?”
Source:Robin Williams
One Big Thing In Fintech:El Salvador has become the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender.
Source:NPR
Other Key Fintech Developments:
• ONT ID hassurpassed1.5M users.
• NeobanksintroducingSaaS offers.
• Standard Charteredeyesneobank.
• JCB, Checkoutgrowingpartnership.
• Squire Cardtargetingunderserved.
• CashfreedebutsBaaS fintech offer.
• MVB, Victor, NYDIGpartneringup.
• CoinSwitch Kuber looking toraise.
• HoneyBeesecured$5.7M in equity.
• BeaxyseeksBlockdaemon for tech.
• Baanxacquiresstake in a US bank.
• Cboe, EuroCCPintroCEDX market.
• Bitso, El Salvadorworkon cryptos.
• Waveadds$200M Series A round.
• Finance app Jeffadds$1.5M seed.
Watch Out For This:Three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as of Tuesday, according to the White House, setting a new milestone in the country’s fight against the pandemic.
Source:Bloomberg
Interesting Reads:
• PEpaydayfrom Build Back Better.
• FordhiresApple Car Chief in coup.
• Soroscautionson China exposure.
• NFLstanceon crypto partnerships.
• Microsoftlaunchesa news service.
Market Moving Headline:“People pretty much stopped buying S&P 500 puts [last] week. At the same time, people are overexposed to changes in VIX, and will be hurt more than usual if VIX starts moving up. Historically, this means SPX down, VIX up.”
Source:SqueezeMetrics
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Fintech Focus For September 7, 2021
• Fintech Focus For September 6, 2021
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus For September 8, 2021: Fintech Header Quote To Start The Day: “Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?” Source: Robin Williams One Big Thing In Fintech: El Salvador has become the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender. Source: NPR Other Key Fintech Developments: ONT ID has surpassed 1.5M users. Neobanks introducing SaaS offers. Standard Chartered eyes neobank. JCB, Checkout growing partnership. Squire Card targeting underserved. Cashfree debuts BaaS fintech offer. MVB, Victor, NYDIG partnering up. CoinSwitch Kuber looking to raise . HoneyBee secured $5.7M in equity. Beaxy seeks Blockdaemon for tech. Baanx acquires stake in a US bank. Cboe, EuroCCP intro CEDX market. Bitso, El Salvador work on cryptos. Wave adds $200M Series A round. Finance app Jeff adds $1.5M seed. Watch Out For This: Three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as of Tuesday, according to the White House, setting a new milestone in the country’s fight against the pandemic. Source: Bloomberg Interesting Reads: PE payday from Build Back Better. Ford hires Apple Car Chief in coup. Soros cautions on China exposure. NFL stance on crypto partnerships. Microsoft launches a news service. Market Moving Headline: “People pretty much stopped buying S&P 500 puts [last] week. At the same time, people are overexposed to changes in VIX, and will be hurt more than usual if VIX starts moving up. Historically, this means SPX down, VIX up.” Source: SqueezeMetrics See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Fintech Focus For September 7, 2021 Fintech Focus For September 6, 2021 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Major losses in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins erase nearly $400 billion in market value: Bitcoin and Ethereum—along with several altcoins—plummeted Tuesday, erasing nearly $400 billion in market value and all of last week’s gains.
The total value of the world’s cryptocurrencies fell to about $1.9 trillion Tuesday morning, marking a loss of $410 billion over the last 24 hours,according to CoinMarketCap.
On the same day El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, the cryptocurrency led the price retreat,falling 11% to a low of about $43,000, the biggest drop since mid-June. The fall comes despite some proponents onReddit attempting to organize a movement of Bitcoin purchasesto support El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption.
The retreat comes as El Salvador’s governmentreported issues with its state-sponsored crypto wallet, Chivo,ahead of the country’s Bitcoin adoption at 3 p.m. EST. The government said it was working to solve the technical glitches by Tuesday afternoon.
Following Bitcoin’s decline Tuesday, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the country purchased an additional 150 Bitcoins, andnow holds 550 of the coins, about $25 million worth of crypto.
Ether also experienced a decline of nearly 12%, erasing gains that pushed the cryptocurrencypast the closely watched $4,000 mark last week.
Altcoins, or crypto alternatives to Bitcoin and Ether, also fell Tuesday, with well-known coins such as Cardano’s ADA, Binance Coin, and Dogecoin dropping more than 10%.
One of the only cryptocurrencies to experience gains Tuesday wasSolana’s Sol coin, which jumped 40% in 24 hours to a record of about $195, before slightly retreating.
Following a major drop in the morning, most coins pared losses in the early afternoon. Still, about $3 billion in crypto long positions were liquidated Tuesday,according to BlockWorks.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Major losses in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins erase nearly $400 billion in market value: Bitcoin and Ethereum—along with several altcoins—plummeted Tuesday, erasing nearly $400 billion in market value and all of last week’s gains.
The total value of the world’s cryptocurrencies fell to about $1.9 trillion Tuesday morning, marking a loss of $410 billion over the last 24 hours,according to CoinMarketCap.
On the same day El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, the cryptocurrency led the price retreat,falling 11% to a low of about $43,000, the biggest drop since mid-June. The fall comes despite some proponents onReddit attempting to organize a movement of Bitcoin purchasesto support El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption.
The retreat comes as El Salvador’s governmentreported issues with its state-sponsored crypto wallet, Chivo,ahead of the country’s Bitcoin adoption at 3 p.m. EST. The government said it was working to solve the technical glitches by Tuesday afternoon.
Following Bitcoin’s decline Tuesday, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the country purchased an additional 150 Bitcoins, andnow holds 550 of the coins, about $25 million worth of crypto.
Ether also experienced a decline of nearly 12%, erasing gains that pushed the cryptocurrencypast the closely watched $4,000 mark last week.
Altcoins, or crypto alternatives to Bitcoin and Ether, also fell Tuesday, with well-known coins such as Cardano’s ADA, Binance Coin, and Dogecoin dropping more than 10%.
One of the only cryptocurrencies to experience gains Tuesday wasSolana’s Sol coin, which jumped 40% in 24 hours to a record of about $195, before slightly retreating.
Following a major drop in the morning, most coins pared losses in the early afternoon. Still, about $3 billion in crypto long positions were liquidated Tuesday,according to BlockWorks.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Major losses in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins erase nearly $400 billion in market value: Bitcoin and Ethereum—along with several altcoins—plummeted Tuesday, erasing nearly $400 billion in market value and all of last week’s gains. The total value of the world’s cryptocurrencies fell to about $1.9 trillion Tuesday morning, marking a loss of $410 billion over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap . On the same day El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, the cryptocurrency led the price retreat, falling 11% to a low of about $43,000 , the biggest drop since mid-June. The fall comes despite some proponents on Reddit attempting to organize a movement of Bitcoin purchases to support El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption. The retreat comes as El Salvador’s government reported issues with its state-sponsored crypto wallet, Chivo, ahead of the country’s Bitcoin adoption at 3 p.m. EST. The government said it was working to solve the technical glitches by Tuesday afternoon. Following Bitcoin’s decline Tuesday, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the country purchased an additional 150 Bitcoins, and now holds 550 of the coins, about $25 million worth of crypto . Ether also experienced a decline of nearly 12%, erasing gains that pushed the cryptocurrency past the closely watched $4,000 mark last week . Altcoins, or crypto alternatives to Bitcoin and Ether, also fell Tuesday, with well-known coins such as Cardano’s ADA, Binance Coin, and Dogecoin dropping more than 10%. One of the only cryptocurrencies to experience gains Tuesday was Solana’s Sol coin, which jumped 40% in 24 hours to a record of about $195 , before slightly retreating. Following a major drop in the morning, most coins pared losses in the early afternoon. Still, about $3 billion in crypto long positions were liquidated Tuesday, according to BlockWorks . This story was originally featured on Fortune.com View comments || Teen Artists Are Making Millions on NFTs. How Are They Doing It?: 18-year-old artist Victor Langlois. Credit - Courtesy Josh White
Jaiden Stipp was watching a Star Wars movie at his afternoon youth group in Tacoma, Washington, last March when the bids started coming in. First it was a fragment of an Ethereum coin, worth about $300 at the time. Then it was more. Eventually Stipp—who is 15 years old and will soon be starting his sophomore year of high school—sold his artwork, adigital illustrationof a waving, astronaut-like cartoon figure, for 20ETH. (That converted to over $30,000; it was traded a month later for nearly $60,000.) “My dad was like, ‘No way this is actual money,’” Stipp says. “It seems like it’s a lot of fake money being passed around. So we took some of the money out just to see what’s actually real. And then at the bank. I was like, ‘Whoa.’”
Stipp had been making and selling logo designs for customers found on the social app Discord for $20 to $70. On a whim, he made his astronaut cartoon into anNFT(non-fungible token), put it up for auction, and became a blue-chip artist overnight. He’s since soldfour more pieces, and cashed out enough to help his parents pay off their house and cars. The rest, he invests in the early works of other young artists who are bypassing the traditional art market to find a stable of eager buyers in the world of cryptoart on theblockchain.
NFTs, likeBitcoinand other cryptocurrencies, have been subject to bouts of volatility since hitting the mainstreamin the spring. The early bubble, in which artists likeBeeplesold his work for $69 million, has burst. But what remains is a steadily flourishing market for digitally-native art and collectible virtual paraphernalia. One major marketplace called OpenSea, for instance, justsurpassed26,000 users, with over$3 billionin sales volume in August alone—a tenfold increase from July.
For some of the younger creators in this Wild West of art, the wave may not have even crested yet. Noah Davis, head of digital sales at Christie’s, is bullish on the future, particularly for the young artists who are flooding the space. “They have the keys to the castle,” Davis says. “It’s not a strictly aesthetic game. It’s not about the same ideals and goals that fine artists used to have. This is a space that really values community and the identity of the artists behind the project in a way that was not nearly as important before.” Recent weeks have seen newer and younger artists thrive; Davis calls it “unmitigated insanity,” with record prices for projects from cryptonative artists like 12-year-oldBenyamin Ahmedand his Weird Whales series. “There is a premium for artists who look and feel like they’re part of this community and part of this world,” Davis says. Whether or not it’s a bubble is beside the point to the buyers who are willing to invest in these NFTs—buyers whose mindset, Davis says, is that “the future is now.”
One of the first to bid on Jaiden Stipp’s work was Victor Langlois, another digital artist—himself 18 years old—who goes by the mononym FEWOCiOUS and has receivedcritical accoladesfor his colorful, identity-focused work. (He has reportedly cashed in over $18 million in the past year on his own NFT sales; when asked about that figure, though, Langlois just laughs and says he has no idea what he’s really made.) Langlois, Stipp, and a growing community of cryptoartist teens are discovering that their status as digital natives gives them a leg up in the NFT market. “We just grew up messing around on social media, watching YouTube videos, or playing video games. So we understand, since growing up, trading digital assets in a video game and, like, working to get [things like] armor and leveling up,” Langlois says. “It just translates naturally to NFTs, because it’s like trading collectibles, or trading your art.”
Plus, the free-for-all experience means there’s no barrier to entry, or to investment. The process of minting an NFT goes like this: first, you apply to be featured on a marketplace like SuperRare; it took Stipp about a month to be accepted. Then, you access a site where you upload the digital file you’d like to list and “tokenize” it, including paying a minting fee. (Since he’s a minor, Stipp’s mom has helped him set up a PayPal account and a Bitcoin wallet to use for his transactions.) From there, it’s about developing hype and connecting with other artists and collectors, who bid on each other to boost visibility and sales. Some artists, like Weird Whales’ Ahmed and 12-year-old Nyla Hayes, are selling collectible series of thousands of works, taking advantage of computer generation to iterate on a concept. (Her series is calledLong Neckie Ladies.)
“It’s accessible to anybody, anywhere, anytime to meet on the blockchain,” Stipp says. “And you get people to notice your work easier than if you were to be in a traditional gallery or traditional art setting.” It means teens can circumvent the stuffier side of art sales and the obstacles that more established gallery processes present. And they can create a community that’s independent of outside arbiters of taste.
Not everyone has bought into this future. Cat Graffam, an artist and art educator who hasbeen outspokenon Twitter and YouTube about their concerns, warns about the potentially predatory nature of the marketplace and investors. “I think that people who stand to gain the most are people like the Winklevoss twins, who are already mega rich and own an NFT platform,” Graffam says. “The biggest losers are the wide majority of unestablished artists that are attempting to break into NFT sales.” Regardless of whether or not it sells, artists pay to mint their work on the blockchain, and the owners of sales platforms inevitably benefit from this influx of NFT art. Ultimately, not everyone’s story is as successful as that of Stipp or Langlois. The tricky thing about NFT art is that its very existence turns art works into pure currency—a flattening of creative expression that some artists will always chafe at. “Valuing art solely based on how much money you make people really is reductive and detracts from the personal value, the cultural value that art can have,” Graffam says, echoing critiques of the broader contemporary art market. Other concerns include potential for fraud and art theft, as well as the frequently-citedenvironmental downside.
Graffam understands that the art world is particularly enamored with youth; they were just 19 when an online magazine associated with the Saatchi Gallery first wrote about them, anointing them as a rising star and providing them with a springboard to their first exhibition. But while Graffam, now 28, applauds artists like Langlois, they remain skeptical of the broader potential.
But for Langlois, Stipp and artists like 14-year-oldErin Beesleyfrom North Carolina, the future seems bright—and Beesley hasn’t even started high school yet. She learned about NFTs in 2017, playing an online game calledCryptokitties. (Think Neopets, but simpler.) She’s been an artist since she was a toddler, taught herself to code in 2019, and now produces generative art—images and videos made using code she’s written. Types of generative art havebeen aroundfor decades, but coded projects like Beesley’s suit today’s digital space particularly well. Most recently, her work—which she lists on the platform SuperRare, the same one that Langlois and Stipp have used—is selling for 14ETH, or about $50,000. She says she’s trying to be “slow and meticulous” about releasing and selling pieces, and has been reinvesting in both NFTs and physical art. As for her parents and friends? ”I think they’re very impressed but don’t 100% get the technical stuff, so it’s a bit confusing to them,” she says, nonchalant.
Like Beesley, Stipp has been low-key about his digital fame; he just started at a new high school, and other than his best friend who’s helped him with sales, he doesn’t think anyone knows about his NFT successes. He has also kept to a strategy of more limited one-off releases. The income is just a bonus for him. He didn’t even really feel a change when thesummer’s “crash”tanked crypto values in June, perhaps sparked by hesitations from Elon Musk. Since then, the markets climbed back to over $2 trillion across exchanges, but remain subject to bouts of major volatility; on Sept. 7, for instance, they droppedabout 15%. For teenage NFT artists, the ups and downs are the sideshow. It’s the community that matters most.
“I feel even more connected than I was back in March,” Stipp says. Langlois, too, is bright-eyed. “Anytime I see someone young, I’m like, Yes, I believe in you,” he says. “And the fact that you even know what this is and you knew how to make something? I want to support you so hard because I don’t know what you’re going to do in three years; you could invent the future… something!” || Disney And Apple Lead The Dow Jones: U.S. indices had a mixed day of trading Tuesday as investors continue to weigh an increase in COVID-19 deaths nationwide. President Biden on Thursday will lay out a six-pronged strategy aimed at stopping the spread of the Delta variant, Bloomberg reported.
• TheSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NASDAQ:SPY) lost 0.36% to $451.46
• TheInvesco QQQ Trust Series 1(NASDAQ:QQQ) gained 0.14% to $382.11
• TheSPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust(NASDAQ:DIA) fell 0.76% to $351.44
Here are the day's winners and losers from the Nasdaq-100, according to data fromBenzinga Pro.
Walt Disney Co(NYSE:DIS),Apple Inc(NASDAQ:AAPL) andVisa Inc(NYSE:V) were among the top gainers for the Dow Jones Tuesday.
3M Co(NYSE:MMM),Honeywell International Inc(NASDAQ:HON) andAmgen, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMGN) were among the top losers for the Dow.
Elsewhere On The Street
El Salvador's government had to pull itsBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) wallet off from the application stores after finding its servers could not manage all the users who flocked to the app...Read More
Apple made a new all-time high on Tuesday morning. The stock broke up and went on a blue sky run from an ascending triangle Benzinga called out on Aug. 16...Read More
Marathon Digital Holdings Inc.(NASDAQ:MARA) shares were trading lower Tuesday after the cryptocurrency market dropped lower.Ethereum(CRYPTO: ETH) and Bitcoin led the market, both dropping lower by a significant percentage...Read More
See more from Benzinga
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• Moderna And Nvidia Lead The Nasdaq-100
• Marathon Oil And Occidental Lead The S&P 500
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Disney And Apple Lead The Dow Jones: U.S. indices had a mixed day of trading Tuesday as investors continue to weigh an increase in COVID-19 deaths nationwide. President Biden on Thursday will lay out a six-pronged strategy aimed at stopping the spread of the Delta variant, Bloomberg reported. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NASDAQ: SPY ) lost 0.36% to $451.46 The Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (NASDAQ: QQQ ) gained 0.14% to $382.11 The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NASDAQ: DIA ) fell 0.76% to $351.44 Here are the day's winners and losers from the Nasdaq-100, according to data from Benzinga Pro . Walt Disney Co (NYSE: DIS ), Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Visa Inc (NYSE: V ) were among the top gainers for the Dow Jones Tuesday. 3M Co (NYSE: MMM ), Honeywell International Inc (NASDAQ: HON ) and Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN ) were among the top losers for the Dow. Elsewhere On The Street El Salvador's government had to pull its Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) wallet off from the application stores after finding its servers could not manage all the users who flocked to the app... Read More Apple made a new all-time high on Tuesday morning. The stock broke up and went on a blue sky run from an ascending triangle Benzinga called out on Aug. 16... Read More Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA ) shares were trading lower Tuesday after the cryptocurrency market dropped lower. Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Bitcoin led the market, both dropping lower by a significant percentage... Read More See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Moderna And Nvidia Lead The Nasdaq-100 Marathon Oil And Occidental Lead The S&P 500 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Stock Market Today: Stocks Sluggish as Wall Street Weighs Delta Threat: concept art of COVID-19 Getty Images Investors returned to their desks Tuesday for a holiday-shortened week of trading stocks with little to guide them. No major U.S. economic data releases were slated for today (and few are on deck this week). And the Q2 earnings slate is thinning out. However, BMO Capital Markets Senior Economist Sal Guatieri notes that this week, "there will be plenty of Fed chatter to mull over, with no less than eight officials hitting the podium." SEE MORE 6 Beautifully Boring Dividend Stocks "Recent talk has landed on the positive side of the ledger, including from the Chair," he adds. "Any fading optimism would push a taper announcement to later this year." So what influenced stocks on Tuesday? The predominant driver seemed to be a slew of U.S. GDP estimate downgrades in the wake of last week's jobs report and rising concerns about the COVID-19 Delta variant. BMO shaved its forecasts for both Q3 growth (to 5.0% from 6.0%) and Q4 (to 4.0% from 5.0%). Other analyst firms, such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, also lowered their expectations. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. The industrial sector (-1.8%) led the way lower, with Dow Jones Industrial Average components 3M ( MMM , -4.5%) and Honeywell ( HON , -2.4%) contributing to the DJIA's 0.8% decline to 35,100. The S&P 500 finished with a thinner loss, off 0.3% to 4,520. However, the Nasdaq Composite managed to squeeze out its fourth consecutive record close – a marginal gain to 15,374. It was helped by Apple ( AAPL , +1.6%), which hit another all-time high after announcing a Sept. 14 event where it's widely expected to reveal the iPhone 13 and other product updates . SEE MORE 25 Stocks Billionaires Are Selling Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 dipped 0.7% to 2,275. Moderna ( MRNA , +4.7%) shares recorded their fifth consecutive gain in the wake of a massive price-target upgrade from Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Harrison. “We continue to see COVID-19 revenues declining over time, but we do not see that starting to happen until 2023/2024 versus our prior estimate of 2022,” says Harrison, who raised his price target to $337 per share from $190 previously. “We have also added in the potential for a combination COVID/respiratory vaccine.” U.S. crude futures declined 1.4% to $68.35 per barrel. Gold futures also retreated amid a strong U.S. dollar, settling 1.8% lower to hit $1,800.40 per ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 9.6% to 17.98. Bitcoin , in what might have been a "buy the rumor, sell the news" event, took a big intraday dive on Tuesday as it became legal tender in El Salvador. Bitcoin, which dropped below $43,000 at one point, finished at $46,709.91 – still a 7.4% decline from Friday's levels. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Story continues stock chart for 090721 YCharts Be Cautious on Recovery Plays, But Don't Shun Them "Delta is a material wild card." So says a team of JPMorgan Securities global equity strategists reflecting on the current environment for stocks. SEE MORE 10 Best REITs for the Rest of 2021 Consider the situation here in the U.S.: Vaccination rates continue to crawl higher, but only 53% of the population (and 64% of adults) is fully immunized against COVID. Medical resources are being stretched thin again, with the country recently surpassing 100,000 COVID-related hospitalizations every day. But at the same time, Wall Street analysts largely agree there will be no return to 2020-esque shutdowns. From an investing standpoint, this means so-called "recovery stocks" could still deliver additional rewards down the road – though some patience might be required. That's especially true in the travel sector. "The rise in COVID cases attributed to the Delta variant has weighed on the spending in categories such as restaurants, lodging and airlines," say JPMorgan's strategists. "However, we expect consumer spending in these sectors to rebound strongly as things stabilize." If you think you have the stomach for it, here are five travel stocks that could make the wait worth it . Each of these picks offers something to set them apart, whether that's a business model that's right for the times, a bulletproof balance sheet to help them wait out more COVID turbulence, or other competitive advantages. Check them out. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Spend Without Worry in Retirement 11 Recovery Stocks That Could Get a Vaccine Spark || Stock Market Today: Stocks Sluggish as Wall Street Weighs Delta Threat: concept art of COVID-19 Getty Images Investors returned to their desks Tuesday for a holiday-shortened week of trading stocks with little to guide them. No major U.S. economic data releases were slated for today (and few are on deck this week). And the Q2 earnings slate is thinning out. However, BMO Capital Markets Senior Economist Sal Guatieri notes that this week, "there will be plenty of Fed chatter to mull over, with no less than eight officials hitting the podium." SEE MORE 6 Beautifully Boring Dividend Stocks "Recent talk has landed on the positive side of the ledger, including from the Chair," he adds. "Any fading optimism would push a taper announcement to later this year." So what influenced stocks on Tuesday? The predominant driver seemed to be a slew of U.S. GDP estimate downgrades in the wake of last week's jobs report and rising concerns about the COVID-19 Delta variant. BMO shaved its forecasts for both Q3 growth (to 5.0% from 6.0%) and Q4 (to 4.0% from 5.0%). Other analyst firms, such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, also lowered their expectations. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. The industrial sector (-1.8%) led the way lower, with Dow Jones Industrial Average components 3M ( MMM , -4.5%) and Honeywell ( HON , -2.4%) contributing to the DJIA's 0.8% decline to 35,100. The S&P 500 finished with a thinner loss, off 0.3% to 4,520. However, the Nasdaq Composite managed to squeeze out its fourth consecutive record close – a marginal gain to 15,374. It was helped by Apple ( AAPL , +1.6%), which hit another all-time high after announcing a Sept. 14 event where it's widely expected to reveal the iPhone 13 and other product updates . SEE MORE 25 Stocks Billionaires Are Selling Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 dipped 0.7% to 2,275. Moderna ( MRNA , +4.7%) shares recorded their fifth consecutive gain in the wake of a massive price-target upgrade from Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Harrison. “We continue to see COVID-19 revenues declining over time, but we do not see that starting to happen until 2023/2024 versus our prior estimate of 2022,” says Harrison, who raised his price target to $337 per share from $190 previously. “We have also added in the potential for a combination COVID/respiratory vaccine.” U.S. crude futures declined 1.4% to $68.35 per barrel. Gold futures also retreated amid a strong U.S. dollar, settling 1.8% lower to hit $1,800.40 per ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 9.6% to 17.98. Bitcoin , in what might have been a "buy the rumor, sell the news" event, took a big intraday dive on Tuesday as it became legal tender in El Salvador. Bitcoin, which dropped below $43,000 at one point, finished at $46,709.91 – still a 7.4% decline from Friday's levels. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Story continues stock chart for 090721 YCharts Be Cautious on Recovery Plays, But Don't Shun Them "Delta is a material wild card." So says a team of JPMorgan Securities global equity strategists reflecting on the current environment for stocks. SEE MORE 10 Best REITs for the Rest of 2021 Consider the situation here in the U.S.: Vaccination rates continue to crawl higher, but only 53% of the population (and 64% of adults) is fully immunized against COVID. Medical resources are being stretched thin again, with the country recently surpassing 100,000 COVID-related hospitalizations every day. But at the same time, Wall Street analysts largely agree there will be no return to 2020-esque shutdowns. From an investing standpoint, this means so-called "recovery stocks" could still deliver additional rewards down the road – though some patience might be required. That's especially true in the travel sector. "The rise in COVID cases attributed to the Delta variant has weighed on the spending in categories such as restaurants, lodging and airlines," say JPMorgan's strategists. "However, we expect consumer spending in these sectors to rebound strongly as things stabilize." If you think you have the stomach for it, here are five travel stocks that could make the wait worth it . Each of these picks offers something to set them apart, whether that's a business model that's right for the times, a bulletproof balance sheet to help them wait out more COVID turbulence, or other competitive advantages. Check them out. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Spend Without Worry in Retirement 11 Recovery Stocks That Could Get a Vaccine Spark || Marathon Digital Holdings Sets September 2021 Conference Schedule: LAS VEGAS, Sept. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA ) ("Marathon" or "Company") , one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, is scheduled to participate at the following conferences in September 2021: Bitmain’s Digital Mining Energy Conference Presenting Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 2:50 p.m. Eastern time Miami, FL 1 st Annual Needham Crypto Conference Participating Thursday, September 9, 2021 Virtual H.C. Wainwright 23 rd Annual Global Investment Conference Presenting Monday, September 13, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time Virtual Webcast BTIG Future of Digital Assets Conference Presenting Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time Virtual For additional information or to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Marathon’s management, please contact [email protected] . Investor Notice Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hash rate may also materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production of Bitcoin. Additionally, all discussions of financial metrics assume mining difficulty rates as of September 2021. See "Safe Harbor" below. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements Statements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise. About Marathon Digital Holdings Marathon is a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets. Marathon Digital Holdings Company Contact: Charlie Schumacher Telephone: 800-804-1690 Email: [email protected] || Marathon Digital Holdings Sets September 2021 Conference Schedule: LAS VEGAS, Sept. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA ) ("Marathon" or "Company") , one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, is scheduled to participate at the following conferences in September 2021: Bitmain’s Digital Mining Energy Conference Presenting Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 2:50 p.m. Eastern time Miami, FL 1 st Annual Needham Crypto Conference Participating Thursday, September 9, 2021 Virtual H.C. Wainwright 23 rd Annual Global Investment Conference Presenting Monday, September 13, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time Virtual Webcast BTIG Future of Digital Assets Conference Presenting Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time Virtual For additional information or to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Marathon’s management, please contact [email protected] . Investor Notice Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hash rate may also materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production of Bitcoin. Additionally, all discussions of financial metrics assume mining difficulty rates as of September 2021. See "Safe Harbor" below. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements Statements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise. About Marathon Digital Holdings Marathon is a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets. Marathon Digital Holdings Company Contact: Charlie Schumacher Telephone: 800-804-1690 Email: [email protected] || Taiwan police arrest 14 suspects who allegedly ran a crypto scam worth $5.4 million, report says: Representation of Bitcoin cryptocurrency is seen in this illustration photo Getty Images Police in Taiwan have arrested 14 people in connection with a $5.41 million crypto investment scam. A businessman allegedly led the scheme and promoted cryptocurrency investments on social media. He reportedly lured investors to his scheme using photos of attractive women. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . Taiwan's police administration arrested 14 people in connection with a cryptocurrency investment scam that defrauded investors out of about $5.41 million, according to a report from local Taiwan news site, the Taipei Times. The report, which cited information from Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau, said that the suspects face charges of both fraud and money laundering. According to CIB investigator Kuo Yu-chih, a businessman with the last name "Chen" led the scheme and promoted cryptocurrency investments on social media. Chen also allegedly ran Taipei-based Azure Crypto Co, a platform that offered cryptocurrency transaction services. "Chen and his staff set up web sites, and allegedly used photographs of pretty women to attract mainly male victims, many of whom were in retirement with substantial savings," Kuo told the Taipei Times. Additionally, Chen and his staff presented themselves as financial advisers who specialized in mining cryptocurrencies, Kuo said. The alleged fraudster focused on ether, tether, and tronix, and promised victims high investment returns through blockchain technology, he added. According to the Taipei Times, more than 100 people were caught up in the scam, and one person who lost the most had invested over $1 million in two months. The news comes as cases of fraud in the cryptocurrency space hit record highs. An analysis last week found that 32 incidents of hacks and fraud for a total value of $2.99 billion have taken place so far in 2021. That's on course to break the 38 cases tallied in 2020. Read the original article on Business Insider || Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Slide Forming Outside Day: Natural gas prices moved lower on Tuesday following the long holiday weekend. Prices ran up into the close on Friday, but profit-taking weighed on prices, and they generated an outside reversal day. The weather is expected to be warmer than normal over both the 6-10 and 8-14 day periods. There is a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico which has a 30% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone over the next 48-hours. Hurricane Larry is headed for Bermuda and is unlikely to impact any natural gas installations.
Natural gas prices moved lower, forming an outside day: a high high, a lower low, and a lower close. This is generally considered a reversal day. Support is seen near the 10-day moving average at 4.36. Resistance is seen near the 2018 highs at 4.85. Short-term momentum has turned negative as the fast stochastic generated a crossover sell signal. Prices are oversold. The fast stochastic is printing a reading of 81, above the overbought trigger level of 80 and could foreshadow a correction.
Average U.S. natural gas consumption decreases compared with previous report week due to lower demand for electric power generation. Average total U.S. consumption of natural gas fell by 1.4%, or 1.0 Bcf per day, compared with the prior report week. Natural gas demand for power generation fell by 2.3%, or 0.9 Bcf per day, as temperatures moderated near the end of the report week across the central and northeastern United States.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Dancing Around 50 Day EMA || Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Slide Forming Outside Day: Natural gas prices moved lower on Tuesday following the long holiday weekend. Prices ran up into the close on Friday, but profit-taking weighed on prices, and they generated an outside reversal day. The weather is expected to be warmer than normal over both the 6-10 and 8-14 day periods. There is a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico which has a 30% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone over the next 48-hours. Hurricane Larry is headed for Bermuda and is unlikely to impact any natural gas installations. Technical Analysis Natural gas prices moved lower, forming an outside day: a high high, a lower low, and a lower close. This is generally considered a reversal day. Support is seen near the 10-day moving average at 4.36. Resistance is seen near the 2018 highs at 4.85. Short-term momentum has turned negative as the fast stochastic generated a crossover sell signal. Prices are oversold. The fast stochastic is printing a reading of 81, above the overbought trigger level of 80 and could foreshadow a correction. Consumption Declined in Latest Week Average U.S. natural gas consumption decreases compared with previous report week due to lower demand for electric power generation. Average total U.S. consumption of natural gas fell by 1.4%, or 1.0 Bcf per day, compared with the prior report week. Natural gas demand for power generation fell by 2.3%, or 0.9 Bcf per day, as temperatures moderated near the end of the report week across the central and northeastern United States. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for September 8, 2021 Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Remains Under Pressure ‘Bitcoin Pullback Should Not Come as a Surprise,’ Says Analyst Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Hit Major Milestone Why Coinbase Stock Is Down By 4% Today EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Dancing Around 50 Day EMA || Gen Z turns to TikTok, Instagram for personal finance advice despite misleading investment tips: Bill Campling/USA Today Network; Getty Images Young Americans – including Generation Z and millennials – have turned to social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for investing advice to get trade ideas and swap tips in a virtual trading floor. Their newfound power on their smartphones comes with risks. Financial regulators worry that this year’s viral trading craze of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies has fueled unrealistic expectations for first-time investors, who face the possibility of losing money because of the spread of misinformation and fraudsters, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority , a brokerage watchdog. “Investing is fundamentally complex. You can’t boil it down in a single tweet. You can’t distill it to just a few words or images,” says Gerri Walsh, president of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. “There is a great deal of information that is good on social media platforms, but there is also a great deal of information that is bad, whether it’s people who don’t know what they're talking about or malicious intent, which is frightening for regulators,” Walsh says. Gen Z turns to TikTok, Instagram for financial advice and takes it Social media and the internet have become important tools for investors to research stocks and find guidance on investing strategies. Young investors can more easily access the stock market and other investments than previous generations after the rise of online trading platforms such as Robinhood, which helped shape their investment behaviors. Young Americans, who have been hit by the second recession in their lifetimes and prime earning years, are flush with stimulus money and savings in the pandemic. There’s a fear of missing out (FOMO) to cash in big on everything from GameStop to cryptocurrencies. Meme stocks such as GameStop and AMC are companies whose share price doesn't match their underlying business fundamentals such as profitability from producing and selling goods and services. Story continues This year, small-time investors on Reddit took on a few hedge funds in the GameStop “short squeeze” frenzy. That spurred millions of others to join in, as their effort to drive up the price of a stock perceived as undervalued soon shifted to a campaign to “Stick it to Wall Street.” They used the “squeeze” to rally the share price and make profits for themselves while forcing the hedge funds who had bet it would fall to buy it to prevent greater losses. Investor knowledge in the USA is low, and many are confused about the various fees they pay for investing, according to FINRA. Few young and new investors rely on financial professionals for their investing decisions, according to a study in 2020 from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the NORC research organization at the University of Chicago. White investors (44%) were much more likely to use a financial professional than Black (28%) or Latino (23%) investors. Those under 30 were nearly three times more likely to use social media as a source of information for their investing decisions, and new investors were twice as likely than more experienced investors, according to the study. Using social media for investing decisions was much more popular for Black investors (21%) than for white (8%) or Latino (4%) investors. Young investors have sought help from social media to assist with their meme-inspired investing ideas and for personal finance advice on everything from budgeting, taxes, credit card debt and home buying. About 56% of Gen Zers (born between 1997 and 2012) and millennials (born between 1981 and the mid-1990s) say they intentionally seek out information or advice about personal finance online or through social media. The majority of Gen Z seek this information on Instagram (57%) and TikTok (52%), according to a study conducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Credit Karma. Millennials mainly seek out this kind of information and advice on Facebook (53%) and Instagram (39%), the study found. Although technology and social media can be a powerful tool for young Americans who have taken steps to inform themselves on their finances, it’s important for consumers to do their research and verify the information they find online before taking action, according to Colleen McCreary, chief people officer at Credit Karma. She says this is especially true when it comes to more risky advice such as investing in the stock market or cryptocurrencies. “Most of the time, you don’t know who these people are, and they don’t know you. You may be taking advice that doesn’t necessarily apply to your financial situation,” McCreary says. “I’d strongly encourage people to use this as an entry point to get more clarity on their personal finances and then decide to talk to an expert.” Young generations most confused about investing and filing taxes Lofty values and the wealth generated in the pandemic have drawn young Americans to investing, even though they have been hit by two “once-in-a-lifetime” recessions early in their prime earning years and may feel that they have not saved enough for their nest eggs. The ability to become rich quick seems close at hand. But the drive to get in on the action comes with big risks: Low levels of financial knowledge leave most Americans at risk of losing more money than they can spare when markets turn volatile or crash. “In many situations, you hear people boast about how much money they’ve made trading, but you never hear about people who lost money. People tend not to brag as much about things that don’t go in their favor,” McCreary says. “There are a lot of stories recently where I don’t know how much of it is skill versus luck.” Younger generations are most confused about investing (24%), filing their taxes (21%) and credit score factors (18%), according to the study. The study shows that when it comes to the parts of their financial lives that feel too daunting to even address, Gen Z and millennials list 401(k) vs. Roth IRA options (27%), stock market investments (25%) and cryptocurrency and digital assets investments as the most daunting. Gen Z has received home buying advice (26%) and advice on opening a credit card or bank account (22%), while millennials have received advice on how to invest in the stock market (29%) and advice on credit card rewards and points (28%), the study shows. Twenty-two percent of millennials have received advice on investing in bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, which are essentially digital coins created and exchanged over a decentralized computer network where transactions are secured and verified through coding. Among cryptocurrency owners, the top sources of information are Facebook (46%), Twitter (41%), friends and family (37%), Reddit and Instagram (35%), according to a Harris Poll, whose data of more than 2,000 adults was given exclusively to USA TODAY. That poll found Reddit (68%) is regarded as the most credible social media platform, followed by Twitter (63%), Facebook (62%) and Instagram (59%). Bitcoin, the world’s most popular digital coin, has been highly volatile. In late 2017, the digital token rose to nearly $20,000 before crashing to almost $3,000 the following year. It had a dizzying rise this year when it doubled in value to above $64,000, then it briefly tumbled below $30,000 this summer as regulators called for tighter controls on cryptocurrencies. The stock market has surged more than 100% since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a huge blow to the economy. “The stock market has been on a tear, but how long will the good times last? You have to ask yourself whether you are preparing yourself for shocks or risks if things don’t sustain over the long term,” McCreary says. More than a third of Gen Z, millennials say they would take financial advice at face value without fact checking Though social media can provide many benefits for investors, it also presents opportunities for fraudsters. This year, FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued warnings about the risks that come with social-media-influenced investing. Through social media, fraudsters can spread false or misleading information about a stock to large numbers of people with minimum effort and at a relatively low cost, according to the SEC. They can conceal their identities by acting anonymously or even impersonating credible sources of market information. Some social media influencers use their platforms to artificially inflate or depress the prices of stocks, according to Mark Gorzycki, an investor behavior expert and co-founder of OVTLYR, a behavioral analytics tool for retail investors. “The most clear-cut, surefire way to protect yourself from a malicious actor is to understand their motivation,” Gorzycki says. “Why are they giving you information to follow? If the answer is because they want to have a big following on their YouTube channel, that’s wrong.” Roughly 75% of Gen Z and millennial respondents who intentionally seek financial advice online or through social media say they follow specific social media influencers who create content relating to personal finance, the Credit Karma study shows. Forty-five percent of those who sought out this information say they have taken financial advice from someone they didn’t know online, and 69% of those who took advice say the advice they received made a positive impact on their lives. In a troubling sign, many young Americans don’t fact check information on social media, according to Credit Karma. Among all Gen Z and millennial respondents in the Credit Karma report, including those who have and haven’t taken advice from someone they didn’t know online, 37% say they would take such financial advice at face value without feeling the need to fact check the information. The report found nearly half of respondents say they’re likely to share financial advice or information found online with a friend or family member. Of those who have taken advice from someone they didn’t know online and intentionally sought advice, 25% received tips on investing in the stock market and 19% got advice on investing in bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, according to Credit Karma. Deacon Hayes, 38, is a personal finance TikToker and founder of Well Kept Wallet, a financial education company that provides investing curriculum. Personal finance influencers see the pros & cons of TikTok Deacon Hayes, 38, a personal finance TikToker, is an influencer who takes a measured approach with investment advice when it comes to meme stocks and cryptocurrencies. Hayes, who has more than 15,000 followers on TikTok, worked as a financial planner at Ronald Blue, an investment management firm that assists high net worth individuals. He and his wife, Kim, who reside in Scottsdale, Arizona, paid off $52,000 in consumer debt in an 18-month span in 2009 and 2010 after the global financial crisis. The payoffs included car and student loans to credit card debt. After that experience, he decided he wanted to work with average Americans to give them personal finance and investment advice. Hayes founded Well Kept Wallet, a personal finance site aimed at helping visitors save and grow their money with financial tips. He’s found that TikTok is a popular way to share his advice, which he’s noticed has helped boost interest in investing, saving and retirement topics among young adults. He’s also seen incomplete information on risky investments on the platform for things such as meme stocks. In July, TikTok barred the promotion of financial services including cryptocurrencies, unless users disclose it through a branded content option in the app. Hayes had a mixed reaction to the decision but thought it was needed, he says. “TikTok as a platform has a responsibility to make sure people have accurate information,” Hayes says. “It’s important that people aren't being taken advantage of. You do have to have checks and balances on those platforms." Hayes, who says he doesn’t sell products on the platform, asks, "What’s in it for them? Are they trying to sell you a product or a course to ‘get rich’?” Red flags to watch on social media Investment fraud criminals use a wide array of sophisticated and highly effective tactics to target and influence prospective victims. Learning to recognize such tactics can help Americans avoid being a victim, says Walsh of the FINRA foundation. To avoid becoming drawn into a scam, look for warning signs of investment fraud. Be suspicious of anyone who guarantees an investment will perform a certain way because all investments carry some degree of risk, financial experts say. Many investment scams involve unlicensed individuals selling unregistered securities –ranging from stocks, bonds, notes, hedge funds, oil or gas deals – or fictitious instruments, such as prime bank investments, according to FINRA. Any investment that goes up month after month – or that provides remarkably steady returns regardless of market conditions – should raise suspicions, especially during turbulent times, Walsh says. “When you’re dealing with somebody who is giving investment advice but isn't licensed, all of the investor protections that surround a registered professional, whether they’re a broker or adviser, don’t exist,” Walsh says. Take our financial literacy quiz: How high can you score? Be sure to deal with licensed professionals. “Even when it comes to a well-intended person who is giving advice, if it ends up turning sour for you, none of those investor protections that a regulated person would be subject to would apply to that person,” Walsh says. To be a professional trader requires exams and a FINRA license to execute orders for a Wall Street securities or brokerage firm. An average person isn't required to do that if they're day trading for themselves. “The perfect storm is brewing. Young retail traders have seen success with things like meme stocks,” Gorzycki says. “They’ve had some early wins. But when you mix early success with inexperience, you get overconfidence real fast. You can’t go into the market thinking you’re bulletproof. Be sure to get education on how markets function.” GRAPHICS George Petras/USA TODAY “Young Investors: Risk and Reward” is a series that examines the aspirations and anxieties of young Americans as they invest money in the market boom, which is lifting traditional stock prices to record highs and elevating a new, risky marketplace for virtual goods, from digital art to Dogecoin. Have a tip on personal finance or market stories? Reach the reporter at [email protected] or on Twitter @JessicaMenton . This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stock market: Gen Z turns to TikTok for investing advice despite risks || Gen Z turns to TikTok, Instagram for personal finance advice despite misleading investment tips: Young Americans – including Generation Z and millennials – have turned to social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for investing advice to get trade ideas and swap tips in a virtual trading floor.
Their newfound power on their smartphones comes with risks.
Financial regulators worry that this year’s viral trading craze of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies has fueled unrealistic expectations for first-time investors, who face the possibility of losing money because of the spread of misinformation and fraudsters, according to theFinancial Industry Regulatory Authority, a brokerage watchdog.
“Investing is fundamentally complex. You can’t boil it down in a single tweet. You can’t distill it to just a few words or images,” says Gerri Walsh, president of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
“There is a great deal of information that is good on social media platforms, but there is also a great deal of information that is bad, whether it’s people who don’t know what they're talking about or malicious intent, which is frightening for regulators,” Walsh says.
Social media and the internet have become important tools for investors to research stocks and find guidance on investing strategies.
Young investors can more easily access the stock market and other investments than previous generations after the rise of online trading platforms such as Robinhood, which helped shape their investment behaviors.
Young Americans, who have been hit by the second recession in their lifetimes and prime earning years, are flush with stimulus money and savings in the pandemic. There’s a fear of missing out (FOMO) to cash in big on everything from GameStop to cryptocurrencies.
Meme stocks such as GameStop and AMC are companies whose share price doesn't match their underlying business fundamentals such as profitability from producing and selling goods and services.
This year, small-time investors on Reddit took on a few hedge funds in the GameStop “short squeeze” frenzy. That spurred millions of others to join in, as their effort to drive up the price of a stock perceived as undervalued soon shifted to a campaign to “Stick it to Wall Street.” They used the “squeeze” to rally the share price and make profits for themselves while forcing the hedge funds who had bet it would fall to buy it to prevent greater losses.
Investor knowledge in the USA is low, and many are confused about the various fees they pay for investing, according to FINRA.
Few young and new investors rely on financial professionals for their investing decisions, according to astudy in 2020from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the NORC research organization at the University of Chicago. White investors (44%) were much more likely to use a financial professional than Black (28%) or Latino (23%) investors.
Those under 30 were nearly three times more likely to use social media as a source of information for their investing decisions, and new investors were twice as likely than more experienced investors, according to the study. Using social media for investing decisions was much more popular for Black investors (21%) than for white (8%) or Latino (4%) investors.
Young investors have sought help from social media to assist with their meme-inspired investing ideas and for personal finance advice on everything from budgeting, taxes, credit card debt and home buying.
About 56% of Gen Zers (born between 1997 and 2012) and millennials (born between 1981 and the mid-1990s) say they intentionally seek out information or advice about personal finance online or through social media.
The majority of Gen Z seek this information on Instagram (57%) and TikTok (52%), according to astudyconducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Credit Karma.
Millennials mainly seek out this kind of information and advice on Facebook (53%) and Instagram (39%), the study found.
Although technology and social media can be a powerful tool for young Americans who have taken steps to inform themselves on their finances, it’s important for consumers to do their research and verify the information they find online before taking action, according to Colleen McCreary, chief people officer at Credit Karma.
She says this is especially true when it comes to more risky advice such as investing in the stock market or cryptocurrencies.
“Most of the time, you don’t know who these people are, and they don’t know you. You may be taking advice that doesn’t necessarily apply to your financial situation,” McCreary says. “I’d strongly encourage people to use this as an entry point to get more clarity on their personal finances and then decide to talk to an expert.”
Lofty values and the wealth generated in the pandemic have drawn young Americans to investing, even though they have been hit by two “once-in-a-lifetime” recessions early in their prime earning years and may feel that they have not saved enough for their nest eggs.
The ability to become rich quick seems close at hand.
But the drive to get in on the action comes with big risks: Low levels of financial knowledge leave most Americans at risk of losing more money than they can spare when markets turn volatile or crash.
“In many situations, you hear people boast about how much money they’ve made trading, but you never hear about people who lost money. People tend not to brag as much about things that don’t go in their favor,” McCreary says. “There are a lot of stories recently where I don’t know how much of it is skill versus luck.”
Younger generations are most confused about investing (24%), filing their taxes (21%) and credit score factors (18%), according to the study.
The study shows that when it comes to the parts of their financial lives that feel too daunting to even address, Gen Z and millennials list 401(k) vs. Roth IRA options (27%), stock market investments (25%) and cryptocurrency and digital assets investments as the most daunting.
Gen Z has received home buying advice (26%) and advice on opening a credit card or bank account (22%), while millennials have received advice on how to invest in the stock market (29%) and advice on credit card rewards and points (28%), the study shows.
Twenty-two percent of millennials have received advice on investing in bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, which are essentially digital coins created and exchanged over a decentralized computer network where transactions are secured and verified through coding.
Among cryptocurrency owners, the top sources of information are Facebook (46%), Twitter (41%), friends and family (37%), Reddit and Instagram (35%), according to a Harris Poll, whose data of more than 2,000 adults was given exclusively to USA TODAY.
That poll found Reddit (68%) is regarded as the most credible social media platform, followed by Twitter (63%), Facebook (62%) and Instagram (59%).
Bitcoin, the world’s most popular digital coin, has been highly volatile.
In late 2017, the digital token rose to nearly $20,000 before crashing to almost $3,000 the following year. It had a dizzying rise this year when it doubled in value to above $64,000, then it briefly tumbled below $30,000 this summer as regulators called for tighter controls on cryptocurrencies.
The stock market has surged more than 100% since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a huge blow to the economy.
“The stock market has been on a tear, but how long will the good times last? You have to ask yourself whether you are preparing yourself for shocks or risks if things don’t sustain over the long term,” McCreary says.
Though social media can provide many benefits for investors, it also presents opportunities for fraudsters.
This year, FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued warnings about the risks that come with social-media-influenced investing.
Through social media, fraudsters can spread false or misleading information about a stock to large numbers of people with minimum effort and at a relatively low cost, according to the SEC.
They can conceal their identities by acting anonymously or even impersonating credible sources of market information.
Some social media influencers use their platforms to artificially inflate or depress the prices of stocks, according to Mark Gorzycki, an investor behavior expert and co-founder of OVTLYR, a behavioral analytics tool for retail investors.
“The most clear-cut, surefire way to protect yourself from a malicious actor is to understand their motivation,” Gorzycki says. “Why are they giving you information to follow? If the answer is because they want to have a big following on their YouTube channel, that’s wrong.”
Roughly 75% of Gen Z and millennial respondents who intentionally seek financial advice online or through social media say they follow specific social media influencers who create content relating to personal finance, the Credit Karma study shows.
Forty-five percent of those who sought out this information say they have taken financial advice from someone they didn’t know online, and 69% of those who took advice say the advice they received made a positive impact on their lives.
In a troubling sign, many young Americans don’t fact check information on social media, according to Credit Karma.
Among all Gen Z and millennial respondents in the Credit Karma report, including those who have and haven’t taken advice from someone they didn’t know online, 37% say they would take such financial advice at face value without feeling the need to fact check the information.
The report found nearly half of respondents say they’re likely to share financial advice or information found online with a friend or family member.
Of those who have taken advice from someone they didn’t know online and intentionally sought advice, 25% received tips on investing in the stock market and 19% got advice on investing in bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, according to Credit Karma.
Deacon Hayes, 38, a personal finance TikToker, is an influencer who takes a measured approach with investment advice when it comes to meme stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Hayes, who has more than 15,000 followers on TikTok, worked as a financial planner at Ronald Blue, an investment management firm that assists high net worth individuals.
He and his wife, Kim, who reside in Scottsdale, Arizona, paid off $52,000 in consumer debt in an 18-month span in 2009 and 2010 after the global financial crisis. The payoffs included car and student loans to credit card debt.
After that experience, he decided he wanted to work with average Americans to give them personal finance and investment advice.
Hayes founded Well Kept Wallet, a personal finance site aimed at helping visitors save and grow their money with financial tips.
He’s found that TikTok is a popular way to share his advice, which he’s noticed has helped boost interest in investing, saving and retirement topics among young adults. He’s also seen incomplete information on risky investments on the platform for things such as meme stocks.
In July, TikTok barred the promotion of financial services including cryptocurrencies, unless users disclose it through a branded content option in the app.
Hayes had a mixed reaction to the decision but thought it was needed, he says.
“TikTok as a platform has a responsibility to make sure people have accurate information,” Hayes says. “It’s important that people aren't being taken advantage of. You do have to have checks and balances on those platforms."
Hayes, who says he doesn’t sell products on the platform, asks, "What’s in it for them? Are they trying to sell you a product or a course to ‘get rich’?”
Investment fraud criminals use a wide array of sophisticated and highly effective tactics to target and influence prospective victims. Learning to recognize such tactics can help Americans avoid being a victim, says Walsh of the FINRA foundation.
To avoid becoming drawn into a scam, look for warning signs of investment fraud. Be suspicious of anyone who guarantees an investment will perform a certain way because all investments carry some degree of risk, financial experts say.
Many investment scams involve unlicensed individuals selling unregistered securities –ranging from stocks, bonds, notes, hedge funds, oil or gas deals – or fictitious instruments, such as prime bank investments, according to FINRA.
Any investment that goes up month after month – or that provides remarkably steady returns regardless of market conditions – should raise suspicions, especially during turbulent times, Walsh says.
“When you’re dealing with somebody who is giving investment advice but isn't licensed, all of the investor protections that surround a registered professional, whether they’re a broker or adviser, don’t exist,” Walsh says.
Take our financial literacy quiz:How high can you score?
Be sure to deal with licensed professionals.
“Even when it comes to a well-intended person who is giving advice, if it ends up turning sour for you, none of those investor protections that a regulated person would be subject to would apply to that person,” Walsh says.
To be a professional trader requires exams and a FINRA license to execute orders for a Wall Street securities or brokerage firm. An average person isn't required to do that if they're day trading for themselves.
“The perfect storm is brewing. Young retail traders have seen success with things like meme stocks,” Gorzycki says. “They’ve had some early wins. But when you mix early success with inexperience, you get overconfidence real fast. You can’t go into the market thinking you’re bulletproof. Be sure to get education on how markets function.”
GRAPHICSGeorge Petras/USA TODAY
“Young Investors: Risk and Reward” is a series that examines the aspirations and anxieties of young Americans as they invest money in the market boom, which is lifting traditional stock prices to record highs and elevating a new, risky marketplace for virtual goods, from digital art to Dogecoin.
Have a tip on personal finance or market stories? Reach the reporter at [email protected] or on Twitter@JessicaMenton.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Stock market: Gen Z turns to TikTok for investing advice despite risks || El Salvador's president said on Twitter that the nation bought the dip in bitcoin as the cryptocurrency plunged: • El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele doubled down on his bitcoin bet as a sudden price crash threw the country's rollout into chaos.
• "150 new coins added," he tweeted, thanking the International Monetary Fund, which has been critical of his crypto ambitions, for the dip.
• But reports of service outages on the government's new Chivo digital wallet forced Bukele to pull it offline to scale up server capacity.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele doubled down on his nationalbitcoinbet as a sudden price crash threw the country's rollout into chaos.
As El Salvador took the bitcoin plunge on Tuesday, the price of the volatile cryptocurrency did the same,hurtling as much as 17%. But that didn't stop Bukele from buying the dip to the tune of 150 bitcoin, as he announced in atweet.
"150 new coins added," he tweeted with the hashtag #BitcoinDay. Bukele then thanked the International Monetary Fund, which has been critical of his crypto ambitions, for the dip. Analysts havefeared El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender could imperil crucial financial-assistance talks with the IMF.
"We saved a million in printed paper," he added. The country now holds 550 bitcoin on top of a$150 million fund for helping Salvadorans convert between dollars and bitcoin.
Yet Bukele's triumphant tone was quickly eclipsed by events.Reportsof service outages on the government's new Chivo digital wallet forced Bukele to pull it offline to scale up server capacity. Other users reported issues signing up or unexplained fluctuations in their displayed account balance, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Glitches aside, companies in El Salvador appear to be getting slowly on board with the bitcoin rollout, withMcDonald'snowreportedlyaccepting bitcoin payments in the country.
One bitcoin writer retweeted by Bukele posted a picture of his bitcoin-purchased McDonald's meal.
"Just walked into a McDonald's in San Salvador to see if I could pay for my breakfast with bitcoin," he said. "Now I'm enjoying my desayuno [breakfast] traditional!"
Read the original article onBusiness Insider
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 6225.98, 6300.86, 6329.70, 6321.20, 6351.80, 6517.31, 6512.71, 6543.20, 6517.18, 6281.20, 6371.30, 6398.54, 6519.67, 6734.95, 6721.98, 6710.63, 6595.41, 6446.47, 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48, 6588.31, 6602.95, 6652.23, 6642.64, 6585.53, 6256.24, 6274.58, 6285.99, 6290.93, 6596.54, 6596.11, 6544.43, 6476.71, 6465.41, 6489.19, 6482.35, 6487.16, 6475.74, 6495.84, 6476.29, 6474.75, 6480.38, 6486.39, 6332.63, 6334.27, 6317.61, 6377.78, 6388.44, 6361.26, 6376.13, 6419.66, 6461.01, 6530.14, 6453.72, 6385.62, 6409.22, 6411.27, 6371.27, 6359.49, 5738.35, 5648.03, 5575.55, 5554.33, 5623.54, 4871.49, 4451.87, 4602.17, 4365.94, 4347.11, 3880.76, 4009.97, 3779.13, 3820.72, 4257.42, 4278.85, 4017.27, 4214.67, 4139.88, 3894.13, 3956.89, 3753.99, 3521.10.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-12-06]
Volume: 5878333109, RSI (14-day): 26.11, 50-day EMA: 5167.79, 200-day EMA: 6487.72
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1238.10, Gold RSI: 59.93
Oil Price: 51.49, Oil RSI: 32.31
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analyst: On the back of a grueling quarter, the bitcoin price could still see tougher times ahead. One analyst over at Bloomberg sees the flagship cryptocurrency possibly heading toward $1,500.
Indeed, bitcoin had adismal November, as part of a difficult year overall for the crypto market, though the past few days have seen slightly morestabilityfrom crypto’s largest asset. However, today it seems that the selling has resumed. Bitcoin hasdropped nearly $200already today, from just over $3,900 down to $3,739 as of the time of writing.
In areportreleased today, Bloomberg technical analyst Mike McGlone explained that bitcoin is currently stuck in stiff downward momentum.
According to a chart indicator called the Average Directional Index (ADI for short), BTC is at a peak not seen since July. If the indicator is high, it shows high levels of downward trend vigor. McGlone said that he sees a possible price target of $1,500 for bitcoin. Hitting that price would mean another 60 percent fall from its current rate, which is already down 81 percent from last year’s all-time high.
“There’s little to prevent fading bitcoin prices from reaching the continuous mean of $1,500 […] A rush to the exits among investors seems to be in place,” said McGlone, who fingered the Bitcoin Cash hard fork and tax-based selling as catalysts for the downward momentum.
“The hard fork was a key trigger that signaled the technology is way too nascent. You had these dicey characters threatening to destroy each other and institutions said ‘It might be best if we stay away from this for a while.'”
The Bloomberg report also mentions the recent SEC crackdown onICOsand the commission’s hesitancy to approve abitcoin ETF.
November, as CCNreported, saw bitcoin dive over 40 percent, racking up the largest monthly price drop for the asset in the past seven years.
“The trend is lower prices, lower volatility, reduced speculation, and the preponderance of stable coins,” said McGlone. He indicates the need for crypto assets to set a firm price base. Unfortunately, “we’re not near that base yet,” he said.
Other crypto experts see bitcoin dropping further as well, but some see a bottom possibly higher than $1,500. Last month CCNreportedon Anthony Pompliano’s thoughts on a bottom for bitcoin.
“85 percent from the all-time high is about where we’ll end up. Puts it around $3,000. Came close over the weekend but probably a little bit more to fall,” Pomliano stated.
On the flip side, there is still the $15,000 end of yearforecastfrom Tom Lee, though that target appears less likely by the day.
Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView.
The postBitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analystappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analyst: bitcoin price fall off cliff On the back of a grueling quarter, the bitcoin price could still see tougher times ahead. One analyst over at Bloomberg sees the flagship cryptocurrency possibly heading toward $1,500. Indeed, bitcoin had a dismal November , as part of a difficult year overall for the crypto market, though the past few days have seen slightly more stability from cryptos largest asset. However, today it seems that the selling has resumed. Bitcoin has dropped nearly $200 already today, from just over $3,900 down to $3,739 as of the time of writing. bitcoin price chart In a report released today, Bloomberg technical analyst Mike McGlone explained that bitcoin is currently stuck in stiff downward momentum. According to a chart indicator called the Average Directional Index (ADI for short), BTC is at a peak not seen since July. If the indicator is high, it shows high levels of downward trend vigor. McGlone said that he sees a possible price target of $1,500 for bitcoin. Hitting that price would mean another 60 percent fall from its current rate, which is already down 81 percent from last years all-time high. Theres little to prevent fading bitcoin prices from reaching the continuous mean of $1,500 [
] A rush to the exits among investors seems to be in place, said McGlone, who fingered the Bitcoin Cash hard fork and tax-based selling as catalysts for the downward momentum. The hard fork was a key trigger that signaled the technology is way too nascent. You had these dicey characters threatening to destroy each other and institutions said It might be best if we stay away from this for a while.' The Bloomberg report also mentions the recent SEC crackdown on ICOs and the commissions hesitancy to approve a bitcoin ETF . November, as CCN reported , saw bitcoin dive over 40 percent, racking up the largest monthly price drop for the asset in the past seven years. The trend is lower prices, lower volatility, reduced speculation, and the preponderance of stable coins, said McGlone. He indicates the need for crypto assets to set a firm price base. Unfortunately, were not near that base yet, he said. Story continues Other crypto experts see bitcoin dropping further as well, but some see a bottom possibly higher than $1,500. Last month CCN reported on Anthony Pomplianos thoughts on a bottom for bitcoin. 85 percent from the all-time high is about where well end up. Puts it around $3,000. Came close over the weekend but probably a little bit more to fall, Pomliano stated. On the flip side, there is still the $15,000 end of year forecast from Tom Lee, though that target appears less likely by the day. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts from TradingView . The post Bitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analyst appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analyst: On the back of a grueling quarter, the bitcoin price could still see tougher times ahead. One analyst over at Bloomberg sees the flagship cryptocurrency possibly heading toward $1,500.
Indeed, bitcoin had adismal November, as part of a difficult year overall for the crypto market, though the past few days have seen slightly morestabilityfrom crypto’s largest asset. However, today it seems that the selling has resumed. Bitcoin hasdropped nearly $200already today, from just over $3,900 down to $3,739 as of the time of writing.
In areportreleased today, Bloomberg technical analyst Mike McGlone explained that bitcoin is currently stuck in stiff downward momentum.
According to a chart indicator called the Average Directional Index (ADI for short), BTC is at a peak not seen since July. If the indicator is high, it shows high levels of downward trend vigor. McGlone said that he sees a possible price target of $1,500 for bitcoin. Hitting that price would mean another 60 percent fall from its current rate, which is already down 81 percent from last year’s all-time high.
“There’s little to prevent fading bitcoin prices from reaching the continuous mean of $1,500 […] A rush to the exits among investors seems to be in place,” said McGlone, who fingered the Bitcoin Cash hard fork and tax-based selling as catalysts for the downward momentum.
“The hard fork was a key trigger that signaled the technology is way too nascent. You had these dicey characters threatening to destroy each other and institutions said ‘It might be best if we stay away from this for a while.'”
The Bloomberg report also mentions the recent SEC crackdown onICOsand the commission’s hesitancy to approve abitcoin ETF.
November, as CCNreported, saw bitcoin dive over 40 percent, racking up the largest monthly price drop for the asset in the past seven years.
“The trend is lower prices, lower volatility, reduced speculation, and the preponderance of stable coins,” said McGlone. He indicates the need for crypto assets to set a firm price base. Unfortunately, “we’re not near that base yet,” he said.
Other crypto experts see bitcoin dropping further as well, but some see a bottom possibly higher than $1,500. Last month CCNreportedon Anthony Pompliano’s thoughts on a bottom for bitcoin.
“85 percent from the all-time high is about where we’ll end up. Puts it around $3,000. Came close over the weekend but probably a little bit more to fall,” Pomliano stated.
On the flip side, there is still the $15,000 end of yearforecastfrom Tom Lee, though that target appears less likely by the day.
Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView.
The postBitcoin Price Will Likely Fall to $1,500: Bloomberg Analystappeared first onCCN. || R3 Announces Global Payment App With XRP as Base Currency: R3 hasunveileda new app on their international blockchain, a global payment platform that uses Ripple’s XRP as its initial base currency.
The app, dubbed Corda Settler, continues R3’s track record for pursuing ambitious blockchain projects, and it is allegedly “purpose-built to allow for payment obligations raised on the Corda blockchain platform to be made through any of the world’s payment systems, both traditional and blockchain-based.” The press release clarifies that XRP will be the first cryptocurrency specifically supported by Settler, but also stated outright that it would not be the only one in the foreseeable future.
In the release, Richard Gendal Brown, R3’s Chief Technology Officer, offers some clarification on his company’s choice of XRP specifically.
“The deployment of the Corda Settler and its support for XRP as the first settlement mechanism is an important step in showing how the powerful ecosystems cultivated by two of the of the world’s most influential crypto and blockchain communities can work together,” said Brown in the press release, adding that “while the Settler will be open to all forms of crypto and traditional assets, this demonstration with XRP is the next logical step.”
R3’s Corda blockchain has already demonstrated its ability to handlea variety of different appsfor different use-cases, and the Settler app will continue to operate on the same standard. According to the release, Settler will allow payments of all sorts to be “settled via any parallel rail supporting cryptocurrencies or other crypto assets, and any traditional rail capable of providing cryptographic proof of settlement.”
The press release concludes by describing a new functionality of Corda transactions, without specifically naming Corda Settler: namely, that parties in payment obligations now have the ability to request funds specifically in XRP. The team working on these updates at R3 evidently has some genuine confidence in XRP’s appeal as a cryptocurrency and payment vehicle,despite having legal troubleswith Ripple in the past.
The new app is hardly their first attempt to use a financial blockchain to reach clients all over the world, and they have had a solid track record in that field to boot. Earlier this year, R3 launched atestof a Know Your Customer (KYC) app on Corda, which went off without a hitch as it dealt with various banking institutions on several continents.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || R3 Announces Global Payment App With XRP as Base Currency: R3 Corda R3 has unveiled a new app on their international blockchain, a global payment platform that uses Ripples XRP as its initial base currency. The app, dubbed Corda Settler, continues R3s track record for pursuing ambitious blockchain projects, and it is allegedly purpose-built to allow for payment obligations raised on the Corda blockchain platform to be made through any of the worlds payment systems, both traditional and blockchain-based. The press release clarifies that XRP will be the first cryptocurrency specifically supported by Settler, but also stated outright that it would not be the only one in the foreseeable future. In the release, Richard Gendal Brown, R3s Chief Technology Officer, offers some clarification on his companys choice of XRP specifically. The deployment of the Corda Settler and its support for XRP as the first settlement mechanism is an important step in showing how the powerful ecosystems cultivated by two of the of the worlds most influential crypto and blockchain communities can work together, said Brown in the press release, adding that while the Settler will be open to all forms of crypto and traditional assets, this demonstration with XRP is the next logical step. R3s Corda blockchain has already demonstrated its ability to handle a variety of different apps for different use-cases, and the Settler app will continue to operate on the same standard. According to the release, Settler will allow payments of all sorts to be settled via any parallel rail supporting cryptocurrencies or other crypto assets, and any traditional rail capable of providing cryptographic proof of settlement. The press release concludes by describing a new functionality of Corda transactions, without specifically naming Corda Settler: namely, that parties in payment obligations now have the ability to request funds specifically in XRP. The team working on these updates at R3 evidently has some genuine confidence in XRPs appeal as a cryptocurrency and payment vehicle, despite having legal troubles with Ripple in the past. Story continues The new app is hardly their first attempt to use a financial blockchain to reach clients all over the world, and they have had a solid track record in that field to boot. Earlier this year, R3 launched a test of a Know Your Customer (KYC) app on Corda, which went off without a hitch as it dealt with various banking institutions on several continents. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || State #29: Robinhood Brings Zero-Fee Crypto Trading to Illinois: illinois robinhood crypto Residents of the 6 th most populous U.S. state, Illinois, can now access the cryptocurrency trading services of Robinhood . In a tweeted statement, the trading app disclosed that Robinhood Crypto was now available in the prairie state, making it the 29 th state in the U.S. to get the commission-free round-the-clock trading service. Trade winds are blowing in Illinois. You can now use Robinhood Crypto to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto in the Prairie State! pic.twitter.com/uKUgrxxu1e — Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) December 5, 2018 As the financial services startup promised earlier in the year, it has been rolling out the crypto trading features across the U.S. gradually. While Illinois is the only state to get Robinhood Crypto this month so far, the trading app launched in two states last month – North Dakota and South Dakota. Relatively speaking October was busier with the app launching cryptocurrency trading services in Rhode Island, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Wyoming. Additionally, Robinhood Crypto also became available in Ohio, marking the halfway milestone in its coverage of all the states in the Union, as CCN reported. Six Tradeable Cryptocurrencies Though the pace of the geographical rollout has been at a steady pace, the same cannot be said of the cryptocurrency assets that have been made available for trading so far. Initially, Robinhood Crypto only allowed the trading of bitcoin and ether but has only added four more almost one year later – litecoin, bitcoin cash, dogecoin, and ethereum classic. The most recent tradeable digital asset to be added on Robinhood Crypto was ethereum classic, and that was back in August, as CCN reported. Ethereum Classic Becomes the 6th Cryptocurrency Listed on Robinhood Crypto https://t.co/SOGVRjLb4G — CCN (@CryptoCoinsNews) August 6, 2018 Despite the relative scarcity of tradeable digital assets on the app, users can still add 16 cryptocurrencies to a watch list and access market data, news, and price alerts on the same. The “watchlist” cryptocurrencies include ripple (XRP), zcash, monero, dash, stellar, qtum, bitcoin gold, omisego, NEO, and lisk. Rapid Growth The receipt of a money transmitter license in Illinois comes at a time when the trading app has been beefing up its executive suite. Towards the end of last month, the trading startup hired two executives from established tech giants, Amazon and Google. Gretchen Howard, an alumna of Google, joined Robinhood as the vice president of operations, while Jason Warnick, an alumnus of Amazon , was hired as the startup’s chief financial officer. Story continues Howard’s appointment, in particular, was notable because it signaled that the startup is ready to embark on the next level of growth, as indicated in the responsibilities of her new role: “Gretchen will oversee various operational functions that are critical to growing our business, including customer support. Her expertise in scaling operations will help us accelerate our product and business growth even faster,” a blog post read late last month. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post State #29: Robinhood Brings Zero-Fee Crypto Trading to Illinois appeared first on CCN . View comments || First Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018: htc exodus 1 phil chen blockchain smartphone slush 2018 Ten years ago, consumer electronics manufacturer HTC made history when it released the HTC Dream, the first commercial device to utilize the Android operating system. A few months later, another monumental event took place, when Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto mined the BTC Genesis Block, birthing what Phil Chen — HTC’s “chief decentralized officer” — coined a “quiet revolution.” Now, a decade later, HTC hopes to marry those two revolutions in the Exodus 1 , the first “blockchain smartphone” produced by a mainstream electronics manufacturer. Chen unveiled more information about the much-anticipated device on Wednesday at Slush 2018 in Helsinki during a presentation that featured an appearance from Litecoin creator Charlie Lee . Crypto Can Rescue Users from Digital ‘Feudal System’ charlie lee litecoin phil chen htc exodus 1 Speaking at the event, Chen said that HTC believes in an “open internet,” and just as the Dream became the first commercial smartphone to feature an open-source operating system, the Exodus 1 will be an important first step to helping users reclaim their personal information and digital identities from the “tyranny” of technology. “This whole movement has been hijacked,” Chen said, arguing that the world’s seven largest tech conglomerates had turned the digital world into a new “feudal system.” “This thing that was open source became a railway to owning all of our digital identities, all of our digital personal data, and all of our digital assets.” Chen said that, if made available to consumers through user-friendly devices, blockchain technology can change that by giving users control of their private keys. HTC Exodus 1: First Look htc exodus 1 slush 2018 Today’s HTC Exodus 1 demo comes less than a week after upstart smartphone manufacturer Sirin Labs — who says that it raised more than $157 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) — formally released the FINNEY , which it claims is the “world’s first blockchain smartphone.” From a visual standpoint, the Exodus 1 is at first glance much sleeker than the FINNEY, though — unlike the Sirin Labs device — it does not appear to feature a true cold storage wallet. Instead, the Exodus 1 stores private keys in a secure enclave called Zion, which isolates them from the remainder of the operating system. While perhaps less secure than cold storage, it is a significant step up from the software wallets — whether custodial or non-custodial — where most mobile users currently store their cryptocurrency funds. Story continues Both phones feature flagship specs, and — at least right now — both can be pre-ordered exclusively with cryptocurrency, with estimated ship dates by the end of the month. During his presentation, Chen formally announced that, in addition to bitcoin and ethereum , users can purchase the Exodus 1 with litecoin at a fixed rate of just under 20 LTC. Images from Slush 2018/ YouTube The post First Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018 appeared first on CCN . || First Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018: Ten years ago, consumer electronics manufacturer HTC made history when it released the HTC Dream, the first commercial device to utilize the Android operating system. A few months later, another monumental event took place, when Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto mined the BTC Genesis Block, birthing what Phil Chen — HTC’s “chief decentralized officer” — coined a “quiet revolution.”
Now, a decade later, HTC hopes to marry those two revolutions in theExodus 1, the first “blockchain smartphone” produced by a mainstream electronics manufacturer. Chen unveiled more information about the much-anticipated device on Wednesday atSlush 2018in Helsinki during a presentation that featured an appearance from Litecoin creatorCharlie Lee.
Speaking at the event, Chen said that HTC believes in an “open internet,” and just as the Dream became the first commercial smartphone to feature an open-source operating system, the Exodus 1 will be an important first step to helping users reclaim their personal information and digital identities from the “tyranny” of technology.
“This whole movement has been hijacked,” Chen said, arguing that the world’s seven largest tech conglomerates had turned the digital world into a new “feudal system.”
“This thing that was open source became a railway to owning all of our digital identities, all of our digital personal data, and all of our digital assets.”
Chen said that, if made available to consumers through user-friendly devices,blockchain technologycan change that by giving users control of their private keys.
Today’s HTC Exodus 1 demo comes less than a week after upstart smartphone manufacturer Sirin Labs — who says that it raised more than $157 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) — formally released theFINNEY, which it claims is the “world’s first blockchain smartphone.”
From a visual standpoint, the Exodus 1 is at first glance much sleeker than the FINNEY, though — unlike the Sirin Labs device — it does not appear to feature a true cold storage wallet. Instead, the Exodus 1 stores private keys in a secure enclave called Zion, which isolates them from the remainder of the operating system. While perhaps less secure than cold storage, it is a significant step up from the software wallets — whether custodial or non-custodial — where most mobile users currently store their cryptocurrency funds.
Both phones feature flagship specs, and — at least right now — both can be pre-ordered exclusively with cryptocurrency, with estimated ship dates by the end of the month. During his presentation, Chen formally announced that, in addition tobitcoinandethereum, users can purchase the Exodus 1 withlitecoinat a fixed rate of just under 20 LTC.
Images from Slush 2018/YouTube
The postFirst Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018appeared first onCCN. || BitGive Launches Bitcoin Donation Platform GiveTrack 1.0 on Mainnet: Having announced the beta version of itsblockchain-based donationplatform GiveTrack in 2017, theBitGive Foundationhas now launched theGiveTrack 1.0on the mainnet.
The GiveTrack platform was created to bring transparency to the donation process. Using the platform, donations can be made with bitcoin, allowing donors to track the progress of the funds in real time, ensuring donations make it to the intended charities and get used for their intended causes.
The latest version of GiveTrack, which was launched at the Latin American Bitcoin and Blockchain Conference in Chile, is an upgrade to the beta product, featuring a brand new technology stack and easy onboarding for donors and nonprofits.
BitGive is the first bitcoin-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that uses bitcoin to support global charity projects. The foundation has funded numerous projects in the past, such as theMaternal & Neonatal India Programand the Chandolo Primary School Water Project.
"We are very excited to launch GiveTrack 1.0 after many months of hard work from our team. It is an honor to launch with four amazing NGO partners who are doing important work around the world, and a pleasure to have this occasion at the Latin American Bitcoin Conference where we have always received a tremendous amount of support," Connie Gallippi, founder and executive director of BitGive, remarked in an interview withBitcoin Magazine.
In addition to the launch, the nonprofit also announced a Global Bitcoin Fundraiser to support the first group of nonprofits added to the newly releasedGiveTrack 1.0platform. Afghanistan-based coding academy for girlsCode to Inspire,Desafío Levantemos Chile,America SolidariaandRun for Waterare the first participating nonprofits in the fundraiser. As the holiday season approaches, BitGive hopes that the community will be encouraged to give to these charities using the new platform.
Commenting on the decision-making process used to choose the nonprofits for the campaign, Gallippi said:
"We sought out NGOs with a variety of missions and locations globally, who were interested in being on the forefront of bitcoin and blockchain technology, and had some experience under their belts in the nonprofit sector for reaching the right audiences."
Going forward, nonprofits can leverage the power of the blockchain for giving by registering on the GiveTrack platform to have their projects published.
BitGive is also running a #Give1BTC campaign, where it encourages corporate donors to give 1 bitcoin or $5,000 this holiday season to support nonprofits on the GiveTrack 1.0 platform. RSK and Bloq are both kickstarting the campaign with a $5,000 donation each.
"We are grateful to our development partner Koibanx for their dedication to the project, and to our kickoff donors RSK and Bloq to get the campaign started. We look forward to the Bitcoin and Blockchain community embracing this campaign to keep the spirit of giving alive and demonstrate a powerful use case for this technology beyond speculation," Gallippi said.
Last month, BitGiveparticipatedin the AmazonSmile program, where Amazon shoppers were able to passively donate a portion of their total purchase price to BitGive.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || BitGive Launches Bitcoin Donation Platform GiveTrack 1.0 on Mainnet: Having announced the beta version of itsblockchain-based donationplatform GiveTrack in 2017, theBitGive Foundationhas now launched theGiveTrack 1.0on the mainnet.
The GiveTrack platform was created to bring transparency to the donation process. Using the platform, donations can be made with bitcoin, allowing donors to track the progress of the funds in real time, ensuring donations make it to the intended charities and get used for their intended causes.
The latest version of GiveTrack, which was launched at the Latin American Bitcoin and Blockchain Conference in Chile, is an upgrade to the beta product, featuring a brand new technology stack and easy onboarding for donors and nonprofits.
BitGive is the first bitcoin-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that uses bitcoin to support global charity projects. The foundation has funded numerous projects in the past, such as theMaternal & Neonatal India Programand the Chandolo Primary School Water Project.
"We are very excited to launch GiveTrack 1.0 after many months of hard work from our team. It is an honor to launch with four amazing NGO partners who are doing important work around the world, and a pleasure to have this occasion at the Latin American Bitcoin Conference where we have always received a tremendous amount of support," Connie Gallippi, founder and executive director of BitGive, remarked in an interview withBitcoin Magazine.
In addition to the launch, the nonprofit also announced a Global Bitcoin Fundraiser to support the first group of nonprofits added to the newly releasedGiveTrack 1.0platform. Afghanistan-based coding academy for girlsCode to Inspire,Desafío Levantemos Chile,America SolidariaandRun for Waterare the first participating nonprofits in the fundraiser. As the holiday season approaches, BitGive hopes that the community will be encouraged to give to these charities using the new platform.
Commenting on the decision-making process used to choose the nonprofits for the campaign, Gallippi said:
"We sought out NGOs with a variety of missions and locations globally, who were interested in being on the forefront of bitcoin and blockchain technology, and had some experience under their belts in the nonprofit sector for reaching the right audiences."
Going forward, nonprofits can leverage the power of the blockchain for giving by registering on the GiveTrack platform to have their projects published.
BitGive is also running a #Give1BTC campaign, where it encourages corporate donors to give 1 bitcoin or $5,000 this holiday season to support nonprofits on the GiveTrack 1.0 platform. RSK and Bloq are both kickstarting the campaign with a $5,000 donation each.
"We are grateful to our development partner Koibanx for their dedication to the project, and to our kickoff donors RSK and Bloq to get the campaign started. We look forward to the Bitcoin and Blockchain community embracing this campaign to keep the spirit of giving alive and demonstrate a powerful use case for this technology beyond speculation," Gallippi said.
Last month, BitGiveparticipatedin the AmazonSmile program, where Amazon shoppers were able to passively donate a portion of their total purchase price to BitGive.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || BitGive Launches Bitcoin Donation Platform GiveTrack 1.0 on Mainnet: Bitgive Givetrack Having announced the beta version of its blockchain-based donation platform GiveTrack in 2017, the BitGive Foundation has now launched the GiveTrack 1.0 on the mainnet. The GiveTrack platform was created to bring transparency to the donation process. Using the platform, donations can be made with bitcoin, allowing donors to track the progress of the funds in real time, ensuring donations make it to the intended charities and get used for their intended causes. The latest version of GiveTrack, which was launched at the Latin American Bitcoin and Blockchain Conference in Chile, is an upgrade to the beta product, featuring a brand new technology stack and easy onboarding for donors and nonprofits. BitGive is the first bitcoin-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that uses bitcoin to support global charity projects. The foundation has funded numerous projects in the past, such as the Maternal & Neonatal India Program and the Chandolo Primary School Water Project. "We are very excited to launch GiveTrack 1.0 after many months of hard work from our team. It is an honor to launch with four amazing NGO partners who are doing important work around the world, and a pleasure to have this occasion at the Latin American Bitcoin Conference where we have always received a tremendous amount of support," Connie Gallippi, founder and executive director of BitGive, remarked in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine. In addition to the launch, the nonprofit also announced a Global Bitcoin Fundraiser to support the first group of nonprofits added to the newly released GiveTrack 1.0 platform. Afghanistan-based coding academy for girls Code to Inspire , Desafío Levantemos Chile , America Solidaria and Run for Water are the first participating nonprofits in the fundraiser. As the holiday season approaches, BitGive hopes that the community will be encouraged to give to these charities using the new platform. Commenting on the decision-making process used to choose the nonprofits for the campaign, Gallippi said: Story continues "We sought out NGOs with a variety of missions and locations globally, who were interested in being on the forefront of bitcoin and blockchain technology, and had some experience under their belts in the nonprofit sector for reaching the right audiences." Going forward, nonprofits can leverage the power of the blockchain for giving by registering on the GiveTrack platform to have their projects published. #Give1BTC BitGive is also running a #Give1BTC campaign, where it encourages corporate donors to give 1 bitcoin or $5,000 this holiday season to support nonprofits on the GiveTrack 1.0 platform. RSK and Bloq are both kickstarting the campaign with a $5,000 donation each. "We are grateful to our development partner Koibanx for their dedication to the project, and to our kickoff donors RSK and Bloq to get the campaign started. We look forward to the Bitcoin and Blockchain community embracing this campaign to keep the spirit of giving alive and demonstrate a powerful use case for this technology beyond speculation," Gallippi said. Last month, BitGive participated in the AmazonSmile program, where Amazon shoppers were able to passively donate a portion of their total purchase price to BitGive. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Crypto Downturn Claims Another Victim: Ethereum Classic Dev. Team ETCDEV Shuts Down: The crypto industry has the urge to purge amid the prolonged bear market. The latest victim is ETCDEV, a major Ethereum Classic development team that launched in 2016.
Igor Artamonov, the founder and chief technology officer of ETCDEV, announced that the group is shutting down due to lack of funds.
“As is publicly known, we have struggled with funding our operation in the last few weeks,” Artamonov wrote on Twitter.” This was partially due to the market crash, combined with a cash crunch in the company.”
Artamonov noted that several attempts to find alternative sources of short-term funding proved futile.
The disheartening message comes a week after the Russian software developer lamented that many startups are stumbling into cash crunches.
“As everyone knows, we are going through really tough times,” Artamonov wrote in a Nov. 27Mediumpost. “Markets are crashing and startups are running out of money. That’s a big problem for most of the companies in our space and that includes ETCDEV, of course.”
Six hours after Igor Artamonov’s announcement, the verified Twitter account ofEthereum Classicunderscored that just because ETCDEV went under, that does not mean that Ethereum itself is going anywhere.
“Keep Calm, and Build On,” Ethereum Classic exhorted.
Like Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, Ethereum Classic has suffered amassive sell-offamid the current crypto downturn. That, in turn, has led to a devastating fallout in the nascent industry.
Just last week, Steemit — the decentralized social media platform — announced that it waslaying off 70%of its employees, as CCN reported.
Ned Scott, the founder and CEO of Steemit, said the company’s bullish market projections from earlier this year fell abysmally short of expectations due to the recent crash.
“While we were building up our team over the last months, we had been relying on projections of basically a higher bottom for the market,” Scott noted. “Since that’s no longer there, we’ve been forced to lay off more than 70% of our organization.”
Earlier this week, Ethereum giant ConsenSys announced that it was restructuring as part of a move to streamline its business amid the crypto bear market, asCCN reported.
In a company-wide letter to employees, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin — the co-founder ofEthereum— said the group needs to cut down on costs, eliminate underperforming projects, and focus on creating tangible value with positive returns on investments.
“We must retain, and in some cases regain, the lean and gritty startup mindset that made us who we are,” Lubin wrote.
As the industry flails through an unexpected crypto winter, many bulls remain unfazed, pointing out that the market — like life itself — is cyclical. So everyone needs to calm down and get a grip.
Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group, said the market’s dramatic recent fluctuations are the inevitable growing pains that occur in any new industry.
Silbert said you have to look back at past bubbles and corrections to gain perspective, asCCN reported.
“We’re 5, 6, 7, times through this now,” he said. “The first couple of times you see your balance sheet drop by 80 percent, it’s kind of rough on the stomach. By the third or fourth time, you get used to it. Now we view this as a fantastic opportunity.”
Silbert noted that game-changing disruptions are happening behind the scenes that are not reflected in hourly bitcoin price changes.
“What’s happening behind the scenes is companies are being built to create infrastructure to enable the on-boarding of awhole new category of investors,” Silbert said. “That’s the institutional investors. So behind the scenes, nobody has slowed down.”
Featured Image from Shutterstock.
The postCrypto Downturn Claims Another Victim: Ethereum Classic Dev. Team ETCDEV Shuts Downappeared first onCCN. || Crypto Downturn Claims Another Victim: Ethereum Classic Dev. Team ETCDEV Shuts Down: ethereum classic etcdev The crypto industry has the urge to purge amid the prolonged bear market. The latest victim is ETCDEV, a major Ethereum Classic development team that launched in 2016. Igor Artamonov, the founder and chief technology officer of ETCDEV, announced that the group is shutting down due to lack of funds. “As is publicly known, we have struggled with funding our operation in the last few weeks,” Artamonov wrote on Twitter.” This was partially due to the market crash, combined with a cash crunch in the company.” Unfortunately ETCDEV cannot continue to work in the current situation and has to announce shutdown of our current activities pic.twitter.com/N6xWnpBNJJ — ETCDEV (@etcdev) December 3, 2018 Artamonov noted that several attempts to find alternative sources of short-term funding proved futile. The disheartening message comes a week after the Russian software developer lamented that many startups are stumbling into cash crunches. “As everyone knows, we are going through really tough times,” Artamonov wrote in a Nov. 27 Medium post. “Markets are crashing and startups are running out of money. That’s a big problem for most of the companies in our space and that includes ETCDEV, of course.” Ethereum Classic: ‘Keep Calm and Build On’ Six hours after Igor Artamonov’s announcement, the verified Twitter account of Ethereum Classic underscored that just because ETCDEV went under, that does not mean that Ethereum itself is going anywhere. “Keep Calm, and Build On,” Ethereum Classic exhorted. Ethereum Classic is not ETCDEV Ethereum Classic is IOHK, ETC Co-op, ETC Labs, ETCDEV, and a litany of volunteers. Keep Calm, and Build On. https://t.co/J4IYvC906j — Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) December 3, 2018 Like Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, Ethereum Classic has suffered a massive sell-off amid the current crypto downturn. That, in turn, has led to a devastating fallout in the nascent industry. Story continues Just last week, Steemit — the decentralized social media platform — announced that it was laying off 70% of its employees, as CCN reported. Ned Scott, the founder and CEO of Steemit, said the company’s bullish market projections from earlier this year fell abysmally short of expectations due to the recent crash. “While we were building up our team over the last months, we had been relying on projections of basically a higher bottom for the market,” Scott noted. “Since that’s no longer there, we’ve been forced to lay off more than 70% of our organization.” ConsenSys Streamlines Business, Cuts Costs Earlier this week, Ethereum giant ConsenSys announced that it was restructuring as part of a move to streamline its business amid the crypto bear market, as CCN reported . In a company-wide letter to employees, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin — the co-founder of Ethereum — said the group needs to cut down on costs, eliminate underperforming projects, and focus on creating tangible value with positive returns on investments. “We must retain, and in some cases regain, the lean and gritty startup mindset that made us who we are,” Lubin wrote. Ethereum Giant ConsenSys Tightens Belt, Will Axe Underperforming Projects https://t.co/ba5AFx73FB — CCN (@CryptoCoinsNews) December 3, 2018 As the industry flails through an unexpected crypto winter, many bulls remain unfazed, pointing out that the market — like life itself — is cyclical. So everyone needs to calm down and get a grip. Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group, said the market’s dramatic recent fluctuations are the inevitable growing pains that occur in any new industry. Silbert: Crypto Prices Don’t Tell the Whole Story Silbert said you have to look back at past bubbles and corrections to gain perspective, as CCN reported . “We’re 5, 6, 7, times through this now,” he said. “The first couple of times you see your balance sheet drop by 80 percent, it’s kind of rough on the stomach. By the third or fourth time, you get used to it. Now we view this as a fantastic opportunity.” Silbert noted that game-changing disruptions are happening behind the scenes that are not reflected in hourly bitcoin price changes. “What’s happening behind the scenes is companies are being built to create infrastructure to enable the on-boarding of a whole new category of investors ,” Silbert said. “That’s the institutional investors. So behind the scenes, nobody has slowed down.” Featured Image from Shutterstock. The post Crypto Downturn Claims Another Victim: Ethereum Classic Dev. Team ETCDEV Shuts Down appeared first on CCN . || The Dark Side of the Cryptocurrency World: When cryptocurrencies were flying high in late 2017 and early 2018, the initial coin offering, or ICO, market was raking in billions from investors with dollar signs in their eyes. Unfortunately, the majority of ICOs ended up being money losers for their investors, and some people who promoted them are now in hot water -- including two celebrities.
In thisIndustry Focus: Financialsclip, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, discuss how poorly the overall ICO market has performed and what it could mean for the future.
A full transcript follows the video.
More From The Motley Fool
• 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know
• Experts Warned – The Crypto ‘Bloodbath’ Is Here
• How to Buy Bitcoin
This video was recorded on Dec. 3, 2018.
Jason Moser:Let's talk about something a little bit, I don't want to say the lighter side of news, because I'm sure there are some people that probably ended up losing a little bit from something these guys were pushing. We were reading an article over the weekend in regard to this massive gold rush of cryptocurrency and these ICOs, initial coin offerings, that seem to be popping up left and right. It's difficult enough for someone to explain bitcoin and how it works and why it matters. Now, we've got all of these other coins that are coming from these ICOs. And apparently, there are some celebrities that felt like they would get in there and get a little piece of the action.
DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather are in a little bit of trouble with the SEC. It sounds like they may have been able to come to a resolution there. These two guys were backing these ICOs, they were pushing these ICOs, telling consumers, telling people, "Man, you've got to get in while the getting's good. You have to get in on this game-changer." Bottom line was, they never disclosed the fact that they were actually being paid to tell people that. It wasn't like they were doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Lo and behold, the SEC finds out, and now they've found themselves in a little bit of hot water. It sounds like the SEC is settling, the two individuals will pay fairly heavy fines and, I think, give back all the money that they were paid in doing the promotions there.
It goes back a little bit to this crypto craze, Matt. I understand why it exists. I understand that there's potentially a future there. We had Aaron Bush on here a few weeks back to talk a little bit more about it. But when I see stuff like this, I become so disenchanted.
Matt Frankel:It's completely understandable. People have lost enough money in legitimate cryptocurrencies lately. Not even counting the ICOs, the total cryptocurrency market cap has gone down by about $700 billion since the peak.
Moser:That's phenomenal!
Frankel:So there's been some money lost here. With these ICOs, personally, I hope that DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather aren't the only two who get in some kind of trouble for pumping these ICOs over the past few years. Just to give you a little bit of context, in 2018, so far, there have been about $12 billion raised with these ICOs. A study found that only 8% of them ever even make it to a cryptocurrency exchange. The rest either fizzle out, get stuck in the fundraising stages, or just disappear and fail entirely. Only 8% make it to an exchange at all. The rest are complete money losers. The study found that 81% were flat-out scams. I even heard a bitcoin expert on CNBC recently talking about how the ICO market is dead now, that it's been so bad, it's turned off so many investors, that it's just not a way that companies are going to be able to raise capital anymore. It's just been ruined. It's kind of crazy, what's happened there.
Moser:It really is. It's been a mania. I was thinking about this, and it strikes me, one the investing lessons I take away from something like this, it's a good reminder that it's OK to just look at something and admit to yourself that you don't know enough about it to really be able to offer an educated opinion, where you're going to put money behind it. It's OK to just take a pass. Warren Buffett does it all the time. He'll read through something and be like, "Nah, I'm just going to throw that in the 'too hard' pile." I've heard many people talk about crypto, and bitcoin in particular. I understand what they're telling me. It's difficult for me to still quite connect the dots there in understanding why I personally want to be exposed to that. So I throw it in the "too hard" pile. I just don't want to mess with it. I don't want to bother with it.
It strikes me that in the case of crypto, with the ICOs and the mania that came about, I bet you 98% of the people who were actually piling money into this didn't really have a clue as to how this works and why it matters, or why it doesn't matter.
Frankel:It's kind of the greater fool theory at work here. People see these things going up and up and up and up, and they say, "I'm going to buy it and someone else will pay more for it." Kind of the same thing that led to the housing meltdown in '07-'08. People saw other people getting rich on real estate, so they bought real estate at these inflated, astronomical prices, saying, "Oh, the next guy's going to pay me $100,000 more for the same house." The same thing is happening here, and it's really not panning out very well.
Moser:No, it's not working out very well. I never ended up investing any money in any type of crypto. Did you?
Frankel:I actually mined about 30 bitcoins when they were worth about $10. I really wish I had those back.
Moser:Mined a couple? What did you do to do that?
Frankel:Well, back then, it was really easy. In the early days, you could do with a basic graphics card or repurposed graphics chip. Now, you need these giant mining rigs. And I just did it to figure out how everything worked and what it was all about, and I wound up getting about 30 coins. I think I bought about 10 of them and mined about 20 of them.
Moser:What did you do with the coins that you had?
Frankel:I sold them when it was about $200.
Moser:At least you made something out of it.
Frankel:I sold it thinking I made the best move ever. Then I watched them go up to about $20,000 a piece. You do the math, $20,000 times 30.
Moser:That's better than the story of the guy who used his bitcoin back in the day to buyPapa John'spizza or something. You made out better than that individual, at least yeah.
Frankel:There was another guy who threw out a hard drive that had the encryption key for about $100 million in bitcoin.
Moser:Lord!
Frankel:He actually paid somebody a couple of hundred thousand dollars to search an entire landfill for it, and they never found it.
Moser:The hits just keep coming. Well, it's a good reminder for investors out there, make sure you know what you're getting into. And when you hear these celebrities screaming from the mountaintops about it, maybe give it a second look there and make sure they have a clue as to what's going on before you just start buying in based on their word.
Jason Moserhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Matthew Frankel, CFPhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in anycryptocurrencies or stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The Dark Side of the Cryptocurrency World: When cryptocurrencies were flying high in late 2017 and early 2018, the initial coin offering, or ICO, market was raking in billions from investors with dollar signs in their eyes. Unfortunately, the majority of ICOs ended up being money losers for their investors, and some people who promoted them are now in hot water -- including two celebrities. In this Industry Focus: Financials clip, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, discuss how poorly the overall ICO market has performed and what it could mean for the future. A full transcript follows the video. More From The Motley Fool 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know Experts Warned – The Crypto ‘Bloodbath’ Is Here How to Buy Bitcoin This video was recorded on Dec. 3, 2018. Jason Moser: Let's talk about something a little bit, I don't want to say the lighter side of news, because I'm sure there are some people that probably ended up losing a little bit from something these guys were pushing. We were reading an article over the weekend in regard to this massive gold rush of cryptocurrency and these ICOs, initial coin offerings, that seem to be popping up left and right. It's difficult enough for someone to explain bitcoin and how it works and why it matters. Now, we've got all of these other coins that are coming from these ICOs. And apparently, there are some celebrities that felt like they would get in there and get a little piece of the action. DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather are in a little bit of trouble with the SEC. It sounds like they may have been able to come to a resolution there. These two guys were backing these ICOs, they were pushing these ICOs, telling consumers, telling people, "Man, you've got to get in while the getting's good. You have to get in on this game-changer." Bottom line was, they never disclosed the fact that they were actually being paid to tell people that. It wasn't like they were doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Lo and behold, the SEC finds out, and now they've found themselves in a little bit of hot water. It sounds like the SEC is settling, the two individuals will pay fairly heavy fines and, I think, give back all the money that they were paid in doing the promotions there. Story continues It goes back a little bit to this crypto craze, Matt. I understand why it exists. I understand that there's potentially a future there. We had Aaron Bush on here a few weeks back to talk a little bit more about it. But when I see stuff like this, I become so disenchanted. Matt Frankel: It's completely understandable. People have lost enough money in legitimate cryptocurrencies lately. Not even counting the ICOs, the total cryptocurrency market cap has gone down by about $700 billion since the peak. Moser: That's phenomenal! Frankel: So there's been some money lost here. With these ICOs, personally, I hope that DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather aren't the only two who get in some kind of trouble for pumping these ICOs over the past few years. Just to give you a little bit of context, in 2018, so far, there have been about $12 billion raised with these ICOs. A study found that only 8% of them ever even make it to a cryptocurrency exchange. The rest either fizzle out, get stuck in the fundraising stages, or just disappear and fail entirely. Only 8% make it to an exchange at all. The rest are complete money losers. The study found that 81% were flat-out scams. I even heard a bitcoin expert on CNBC recently talking about how the ICO market is dead now, that it's been so bad, it's turned off so many investors, that it's just not a way that companies are going to be able to raise capital anymore. It's just been ruined. It's kind of crazy, what's happened there. Moser: It really is. It's been a mania. I was thinking about this, and it strikes me, one the investing lessons I take away from something like this, it's a good reminder that it's OK to just look at something and admit to yourself that you don't know enough about it to really be able to offer an educated opinion, where you're going to put money behind it. It's OK to just take a pass. Warren Buffett does it all the time. He'll read through something and be like, "Nah, I'm just going to throw that in the 'too hard' pile." I've heard many people talk about crypto, and bitcoin in particular. I understand what they're telling me. It's difficult for me to still quite connect the dots there in understanding why I personally want to be exposed to that. So I throw it in the "too hard" pile. I just don't want to mess with it. I don't want to bother with it. It strikes me that in the case of crypto, with the ICOs and the mania that came about, I bet you 98% of the people who were actually piling money into this didn't really have a clue as to how this works and why it matters, or why it doesn't matter. Frankel: It's kind of the greater fool theory at work here. People see these things going up and up and up and up, and they say, "I'm going to buy it and someone else will pay more for it." Kind of the same thing that led to the housing meltdown in '07-'08. People saw other people getting rich on real estate, so they bought real estate at these inflated, astronomical prices, saying, "Oh, the next guy's going to pay me $100,000 more for the same house." The same thing is happening here, and it's really not panning out very well. Moser: No, it's not working out very well. I never ended up investing any money in any type of crypto. Did you? Frankel: I actually mined about 30 bitcoins when they were worth about $10. I really wish I had those back. Moser: Mined a couple? What did you do to do that? Frankel: Well, back then, it was really easy. In the early days, you could do with a basic graphics card or repurposed graphics chip. Now, you need these giant mining rigs. And I just did it to figure out how everything worked and what it was all about, and I wound up getting about 30 coins. I think I bought about 10 of them and mined about 20 of them. Moser: What did you do with the coins that you had? Frankel: I sold them when it was about $200. Moser: At least you made something out of it. Frankel: I sold it thinking I made the best move ever. Then I watched them go up to about $20,000 a piece. You do the math, $20,000 times 30. Moser: That's better than the story of the guy who used his bitcoin back in the day to buy Papa John's pizza or something. You made out better than that individual, at least yeah. Frankel: There was another guy who threw out a hard drive that had the encryption key for about $100 million in bitcoin. Moser: Lord! Frankel: He actually paid somebody a couple of hundred thousand dollars to search an entire landfill for it, and they never found it. Moser: The hits just keep coming. Well, it's a good reminder for investors out there, make sure you know what you're getting into. And when you hear these celebrities screaming from the mountaintops about it, maybe give it a second look there and make sure they have a clue as to what's going on before you just start buying in based on their word. Jason Moser has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Matthew Frankel, CFP has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any crypto currencies or stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin Dips Below $4,000 Level in Subdued Trade: Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies failed to remain in the green on Wednesday, as Japan’s financial watchdog plan to require exchanges to provide information on clients.
Bitcoin fell 2% to $3,922.0 on the Investing.com Index, as of 8:32 AM ET (13:32 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $125 billion at the time of writing, compared to $129 on Tuesday.
Ethereum,or Ether, decreased 2% to $108.83 and Litecoin was at $30.897, down almost 3%, while XRP slumped 1% to $0.35047.
Digital coins have fallen dramatically in recent weeks, with Bitcoin trading at 80% less than its value a year ago as traders worry about increased regulatory scrutiny and volatility.
In Japan, the government is considering requiring digital exchanges to provide information on clients suspected of tax evasion. Income from cryptos is considered taxable in Japan and anyone with an income of 200,000 yen or more per year must declare their digital coins as income.
The new tax system would legally require exchanges to disclose client names, addresses and ID numbers to the National Tax Agency.
In other news, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published guidelines for its Fintech license being released on Jan. 1. The permit hopes to promote more innovation in Switzerland, including in cryptocurrency and blockchain, by easing existing regulations that could be a barrier to entry.
The guidelines provide more information about the application process, including disclosing shareholders, business plans and legal procedures.
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Switzerland to Boost Crypto, Blockchain Business with FinTech License || Bitcoin Dips Below $4,000 Level in Subdued Trade: Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies failed to remain in the green on Wednesday, as Japan’s financial watchdog plan to require exchanges to provide information on clients.
Bitcoin fell 2% to $3,922.0 on the Investing.com Index, as of 8:32 AM ET (13:32 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $125 billion at the time of writing, compared to $129 on Tuesday.
Ethereum,or Ether, decreased 2% to $108.83 and Litecoin was at $30.897, down almost 3%, while XRP slumped 1% to $0.35047.
Digital coins have fallen dramatically in recent weeks, with Bitcoin trading at 80% less than its value a year ago as traders worry about increased regulatory scrutiny and volatility.
In Japan, the government is considering requiring digital exchanges to provide information on clients suspected of tax evasion. Income from cryptos is considered taxable in Japan and anyone with an income of 200,000 yen or more per year must declare their digital coins as income.
The new tax system would legally require exchanges to disclose client names, addresses and ID numbers to the National Tax Agency.
In other news, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published guidelines for its Fintech license being released on Jan. 1. The permit hopes to promote more innovation in Switzerland, including in cryptocurrency and blockchain, by easing existing regulations that could be a barrier to entry.
The guidelines provide more information about the application process, including disclosing shareholders, business plans and legal procedures.
Related Articles
Thai Exchange Operator Satang Plans $10M Security Token Sale
EOS Community Is Challenged After Node Announces Financial Rewards for Votes
Switzerland to Boost Crypto, Blockchain Business with FinTech License || Bitcoin Dips Below $4,000 Level in Subdued Trade: Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies failed to remain in the green on Wednesday, as Japans financial watchdog plan to require exchanges to provide information on clients. Bitcoin fell 2% to $3,922.0 on the Investing.com Index, as of 8:32 AM ET (13:32 GMT). Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $125 billion at the time of writing, compared to $129 on Tuesday. Ethereum,or Ether, decreased 2% to $108.83 and Litecoin was at $30.897, down almost 3%, while XRP slumped 1% to $0.35047. Digital coins have fallen dramatically in recent weeks, with Bitcoin trading at 80% less than its value a year ago as traders worry about increased regulatory scrutiny and volatility. In Japan, the government is considering requiring digital exchanges to provide information on clients suspected of tax evasion. Income from cryptos is considered taxable in Japan and anyone with an income of 200,000 yen or more per year must declare their digital coins as income. The new tax system would legally require exchanges to disclose client names, addresses and ID numbers to the National Tax Agency. In other news, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published guidelines for its Fintech license being released on Jan. 1. The permit hopes to promote more innovation in Switzerland, including in cryptocurrency and blockchain, by easing existing regulations that could be a barrier to entry. The guidelines provide more information about the application process, including disclosing shareholders, business plans and legal procedures. Related Articles Thai Exchange Operator Satang Plans $10M Security Token Sale EOS Community Is Challenged After Node Announces Financial Rewards for Votes Switzerland to Boost Crypto, Blockchain Business with FinTech License || Nearly Every Major Cryptocurrency is Down at Least 90% from All-Time High: Earlier this year, in February, Tom Lee — co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, the first Wall Street strategy firm to embrace bitcoin —opinedthat the crypto market had turned a corner and would see new highs in July. Nine months and several year-end price target reductions later, cryptocurrency assets remain firmly in the red. In fact, according to data fromOnChainFX, nearly every major cryptocurrency is down at least 90 percent from its all-time high.
Ripple (XRP), which has distinguished itself as the second-largest cryptocurrency since knocking ethereum off this pedestal last month, is one of the handful of large-cap crypto tokens whose one-year return remains positive. However, this will not be true for long, as theripple priceis down a full 91 percent since it made a parabolic run to $3.84 in early January. As it stands, XRP — whichstill hasn’t been listed on Coinbase— can be purchased for about $0.34.
Theethereum (ETH) price, meanwhile, now sits at $107, down 92 percent from its all-time high at $1,431. This is particularly remarkable considering that, as CCNreported, crypto whales have been stockpiling ETH throughout the year, offsetting sales from their disillusioned counterparts who have already exited the market. Altogether, these whales have expanded their holdings by 80 percent to around 20 million ETH — nearly a fifth of the cryptocurrency’s total supply.
The large-cap coins hardest hit by the downturn have beenbitcoin cash(BCH) andcardano(ADA), each of which has taken a 97 percent haircut since peaking at $4,329 and $1.33, respectively. Bitcoin cash, as CCNreported, has struggled to rebound after acontentious hard forkthat split BCH — which itself had splintered away from BTC — into two competing currencies. Cardano, on the other hand, has made developmental strides throughout the year but has not been immune from the “ICO Winter.”
NEOandNEM(XEM) have each declined by 96 percent from their peaks, with the latter never quite recovering from the downturn that set in after hackersstole$530 million worth of XEM from Tokyo-based crypto exchange Coincheck in January. Following closely behind,tron(TRX),IOTA, anddashare each trading at 95 percent discounts to their late 2017 and early 2018 highs. Other top 15-cryptocurrencies facing declines of 90 percent or greater includeEOSandlitecoin(LTC).
Among the 15 largest cryptocurrencies by circulating market cap (stablecoinsexcluded, for obvious reasons), every blockchain has seen its native cryptocurrency decline by at least 70 percent, and just four have declined by less than 90 percent:bitcoin(BTC),stellar(XLM),monero(XMR), andBinance coin(BNB).
Bitcoin, the crypto market’s bellwether, hasplunged by 81 percentsince peaking around $20,000 and can now be acquired for just $3,812. Stellar, which often mirrors ripple’s movements, has actually outperformed XRP by a small margin, though it still trades 85 percent below its early-year peak. The privacy-centric monero, meanwhile, is down 89 percent despite the fact that one of its more established use cases — dark web transactions — is largely market agnostic andrecent network upgradeshave greatly reduced transaction fees.
The top 15’s “best” performer is BNB, which — unlike its peers — has consistent buy support in the form of Binance’s quarterly buyback program, through which thecrypto exchangehas committed to using 20 percent of its profits to repurchase and destroy BNB tokens until the supply has been cut in half. Even so, at $6.08, the crypto market has dealt BNB a 73 percent blow.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postNearly Every Major Cryptocurrency is Down at Least 90% from All-Time Highappeared first onCCN. || Nearly Every Major Cryptocurrency is Down at Least 90% from All-Time High: ripple price rally ends cryptocurrency crypto Earlier this year, in February, Tom Lee — co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, the first Wall Street strategy firm to embrace bitcoin — opined that the crypto market had turned a corner and would see new highs in July. Nine months and several year-end price target reductions later, cryptocurrency assets remain firmly in the red. In fact, according to data from OnChainFX , nearly every major cryptocurrency is down at least 90 percent from its all-time high. Three-Fourths of Top Cryptocurrencies Down 90% or More Ripple (XRP), which has distinguished itself as the second-largest cryptocurrency since knocking ethereum off this pedestal last month, is one of the handful of large-cap crypto tokens whose one-year return remains positive. However, this will not be true for long, as the ripple price is down a full 91 percent since it made a parabolic run to $3.84 in early January. As it stands, XRP — which still hasn’t been listed on Coinbase — can be purchased for about $0.34. The ethereum (ETH) price , meanwhile, now sits at $107, down 92 percent from its all-time high at $1,431. This is particularly remarkable considering that, as CCN reported , crypto whales have been stockpiling ETH throughout the year, offsetting sales from their disillusioned counterparts who have already exited the market. Altogether, these whales have expanded their holdings by 80 percent to around 20 million ETH — nearly a fifth of the cryptocurrency’s total supply. cryptocurrency crypto market cap The large-cap coins hardest hit by the downturn have been bitcoin cash (BCH) and cardano (ADA), each of which has taken a 97 percent haircut since peaking at $4,329 and $1.33, respectively. Bitcoin cash, as CCN reported , has struggled to rebound after a contentious hard fork that split BCH — which itself had splintered away from BTC — into two competing currencies. Cardano, on the other hand, has made developmental strides throughout the year but has not been immune from the “ ICO Winter .” Story continues NEO and NEM (XEM) have each declined by 96 percent from their peaks, with the latter never quite recovering from the downturn that set in after hackers stole $530 million worth of XEM from Tokyo-based crypto exchange Coincheck in January. Following closely behind, tron (TRX), IOTA , and dash are each trading at 95 percent discounts to their late 2017 and early 2018 highs. Other top 15-cryptocurrencies facing declines of 90 percent or greater include EOS and litecoin (LTC). Top-Performing Cryptocurrency Assets Still Down at Least 70% Among the 15 largest cryptocurrencies by circulating market cap ( stablecoins excluded, for obvious reasons), every blockchain has seen its native cryptocurrency decline by at least 70 percent, and just four have declined by less than 90 percent: bitcoin (BTC), stellar (XLM), monero (XMR), and Binance coin (BNB). Bitcoin, the crypto market’s bellwether, has plunged by 81 percent since peaking around $20,000 and can now be acquired for just $3,812. Stellar, which often mirrors ripple’s movements, has actually outperformed XRP by a small margin, though it still trades 85 percent below its early-year peak. The privacy-centric monero, meanwhile, is down 89 percent despite the fact that one of its more established use cases — dark web transactions — is largely market agnostic and recent network upgrades have greatly reduced transaction fees. The top 15’s “best” performer is BNB, which — unlike its peers — has consistent buy support in the form of Binance’s quarterly buyback program, through which the crypto exchange has committed to using 20 percent of its profits to repurchase and destroy BNB tokens until the supply has been cut in half. Even so, at $6.08, the crypto market has dealt BNB a 73 percent blow. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Nearly Every Major Cryptocurrency is Down at Least 90% from All-Time High appeared first on CCN .
[Social Media Buzz]
Dec 06, 2018 22:01:00 UTC | 3,627.10$ | 3,186.60€ | 2,836.40£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/02H0hG26YT || #BTCUSD Market #1H timeframe on December 6 at 10:00 (UTC) is #Bearish. #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #btc #crypto #trading #idea #report technical analysis || Euro promedio en Venezuela $ (657,43 BsS.)
6 Dic, 2018 1:00 PM
#caraotatoday @DolarCucutaBs @copipega @caraotatoday @BTC_Play @VEN_TC @bolivarcucuta @DolarToday @MoviCambios @Cotizaciones_ @DolarTrue_ @intermoneyC @theairtm @mkambio ...
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3419.94, 3476.11, 3614.23, 3502.66, 3424.59, 3486.95, 3313.68, 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 655.56, 661.28, 654.10, 651.78, 654.35, 655.03, 656.99, 655.05, 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56, 585.59, 570.47, 567.24, 577.44, 573.22, 574.32, 575.63, 581.70, 581.31, 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-10-20]
Volume: 56957300, RSI (14-day): 57.45, 50-day EMA: 616.93, 200-day EMA: 567.78
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1265.60, Gold RSI: 38.34
Oil Price: 50.43, Oil RSI: 59.17
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (This version of the story adds the dropped word "bitcoin" in the 7th paragraph, fixes a typographical error in the 10th paragraph and corrects source to say 'according to company data' instead of 'Gemini said on Tuesday') (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(This version of the story adds the dropped word "bitcoin" in the 7th paragraph, fixes a typographical error in the 10th paragraph and corrects source to say 'according to company data' instead of 'Gemini said on Tuesday')
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: (Adds dropped word "bitcoin" in 7th paragraph, fixes typographical error in 10th paragraph and corrects source to say ... according to company data ... instead of ... Gemini said on Tuesday) By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data. Story continues The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: (Adds dropped word "bitcoin" in 7th paragraph, fixes typographical error in 10th paragraph and corrects source to say ... according to company data ... instead of ... Gemini said on Tuesday)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || Your first trade for Wednesday, October 19: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Pete Najarian is a buyer of Citi (C).
Tim Seymour is a buyer of Avon (AVP).
Brian Kelly is a buyer of Chevron (CVX).
Guy Adami is a buyer of SuperValu (SVU).
Trader disclosure: OnTuesday, October 18the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:
PETE NAJARIAN is long AAPL, BAC, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, ATVI, BABA, BAC, BBY, BHI, BSX, CNX, COP, COTY, CRM, CS, CSCO, CXW, DAL, DISH, ECA, ETP, gm, GS, HAL, INTC, JBLU, JCP, KBE, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LOW, M, MOS, MRO, MRVL, MUR, NAV, NBR, P, RIO, SBUX, SLV, TMUS, TTS, TV, TWTR, VRX, WFT, WLL, XLF. Puts: CLF, EEM, MBLY, WFC
Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Personal Finance || Your first trade for Wednesday, October 19: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Pete Najarian is a buyer of Citi (C). Tim Seymour is a buyer of Avon (AVP). Brian Kelly is a buyer of Chevron (CVX). Guy Adami is a buyer of SuperValu (SVU). Trader disclosure: On Tuesday, October 18 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: PETE NAJARIAN is l ong AAPL, BAC, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, ATVI, BABA, BAC, BBY, BHI, BSX, CNX, COP, COTY, CRM, CS, CSCO, CXW, DAL, DISH, ECA, ETP, gm, GS, HAL, INTC, JBLU, JCP, KBE, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LOW, M, MOS, MRO, MRVL, MUR, NAV, NBR, P, RIO, SBUX, SLV, TMUS, TTS, TV, TWTR, VRX, WFT, WLL, XLF. Puts: CLF, EEM, MBLY, WFC Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY= Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Traders debate buying pullback in Intel after earnings: The "Fast Money" traders debated whether to jump on a dip in Intel(INTC)after the company gavecurrent-quarter guidance that slightly missedWall Street expectations.
Trader Guy Adami said Intel slightly lowered its gross margins guidance, which he found "potentially concerning."
Trader Pete Najarian said he would be a buyer of Intel shares, as the stock fell more than 5 percent in extended trading on Tuesday.
Trader Brian Kelly said he's concerned about Nvidia(NVDA), another semiconductor stock, and would be taking profits off the table in the company. He also said he would buy Intel.
Disclosures:
PETE NAJARIAN
Long stock: AAPL, BAC, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, ATVI, BABA, BAC, BBY, BHI, BSX, CNX, COP, COTY, CRM, CS, CSCO, CXW, DAL, DISH, ECA, ETP, GM, GS, HAL, INTC, JBLU, JCP, KBE, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LOW, M, MOS, MRO, MRVL, MUR, NAV, NBR, P, RIO, SBUX, SLV, TMUS, TTS, TV, TWTR, VRX, WFT, WLL, XLF and puts: CLF, EEM, MBLY, WFC
TIM SEYMOUR
Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM short: SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP. He is short the euro and Japanese yen.
GUY ADAMI
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Traders debate buying pullback in Intel after earnings: The " Fast Money " traders debated whether to jump on a dip in Intel ( INTC ) after the company gave current-quarter guidance that slightly missed Wall Street expectations. Trader Guy Adami said Intel slightly lowered its gross margins guidance, which he found "potentially concerning." Trader Pete Najarian said he would be a buyer of Intel shares, as the stock fell more than 5 percent in extended trading on Tuesday. Trader Brian Kelly said he's concerned about Nvidia ( NVDA ) , another semiconductor stock, and would be taking profits off the table in the company. He also said he would buy Intel. Disclosures: PETE NAJARIAN Long stock: AAPL, BAC, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, ATVI, BABA, BAC, BBY, BHI, BSX, CNX, COP, COTY, CRM, CS, CSCO, CXW, DAL, DISH, ECA, ETP, GM, GS, HAL, INTC, JBLU, JCP, KBE, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LOW, M, MOS, MRO, MRVL, MUR, NAV, NBR, P, RIO, SBUX, SLV, TMUS, TTS, TV, TWTR, VRX, WFT, WLL, XLF and puts: CLF, EEM, MBLY, WFC TIM SEYMOUR Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM short: SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM BRIAN KELLY Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP. He is short the euro and Japanese yen. GUY ADAMI Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. Story continues The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday. The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. Story continues The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Netscape Co-Founder: Passwords Are the Weak Link in Cyber Security: Jim Clark, co-founder of Netscape and Shutterfly, weighs in on the flaws of current cyber security efforts in place to prevent hacks.
Clark discussed the rise in security breaches facing business of all sizes as well as organizations and government agencies.
“Recently there’s been a spate as you know of disruptions, the DNC getting emails tapped and small business owners getting their machines encrypted so that they couldn’t do business and having to pay Bitcoin ransom and there’s, you know, massive password theft at companies like Yahoo. So we’re seeing it in a lot of different places,” Clark told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
Clark sees the use of passwords as a weak link in efforts to improve cyber security.
“In the end it all, in one way or another, points to this deficiency I call it, that we call a password.”
Clark then went into greater depth as to why he sees the use of passwords as a deficiency.
“You don’t want to use it for access to a site because that requires that the site have a copy. You see, passwords are deficient because they amount to a shared secret. And there’s that old joke, ‘a secret is something you tell one person at a time.’ And the thing about a secret, this particular secret, you don’t want anyone to know.”
Because of this, Clark added, “You’ve got to get out of passwords, there’s no question about that.”
Clark explained the certificate concept used to authenticate websites.
“The certificate concept has been around for years. It’s used to authenticate and make sure that you’re connecting to Google, make sure you’re connected to Yahoo. Any site you go to has a certificate. And that certificate is issued by a certification authority – there’s a complete infrastructure for dealing with that kind of issue.”
Clark says that this certification could be implemented for users as well to replace the need for passwords.
“The exact same mechanism can be used to authenticate users, so users need to be issued a certificate, then they don’t need a password and this certificate gets shared with everyone because it can’t be altered, it can’t be messed with. If you mess with it, It’s no longer valid.”
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• Nissan to appoint CEO Ghosn as Mitsubishi Motors chairman: sources || Dave Nadig's Deep Dive On New ETF Liquidity Rules: When the SEC published draft rules for mutual fund and ETF liquidity last year,I was less than complimentary. I pointed out that, for instance, virtually all corporate and high-yield bond ETFs would fail to meet the requirements on illiquid assets.
That rule issailing through(with some small changes) for mutual funds, but the press is reporting that ETFs got a pass. That’s not quite true.
Some BackgroundThe original proposal—and the current version—focused on all open-ended funds maintaining a liquidity risk management program with the intent to ensure that it could always meet shareholder redemptions in an orderly fashion.
It was a clear response—or convenient timing at least—to the shenanigans that happened to Third Avenue’s mutual fund in the summer of 2015, when it closed for redemptions because it couldn’t sell its junk bonds fast enough.
The original proposal received an enormous amount of industry commentary, and rather than publishing a revised rule for comment, the SEC simply published a final rule, which will go into effect for most funds in December 2018.
The key components of the final rule are threefold:
1. Rules that ensure a fund always have highly liquid securities to meet redemptions
2. Rules that ensure a fund doesn’t have more than 15% of its investments in illiquid investment
3. A reporting regime that has funds classify all of their positions at least monthly and report each security as belonging to one of four liquidity buckets (the two above and two in the middle)
Much of what the SEC requested was pretty noncontroversial; however, the ETF industry argued in its various comment letters that since ETFs meet redemptions generally by in-kind transfer of underlying securities, it should be exempt from large swaths of the program.
They got a small slice of what they wanted, and it will have significant implications.
What About The ETF Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card?The SEC has defined for the first time a class of ETFs it refers to as “In-kind ETFs.” In-kind ETFs are those that use only a de minimis amount of cash in any redemption activity. The commission goes out of its way to say that it really means this: If you regularly use cash redemptions, you’re not covered here.
The second big issue is that, to qualify, you must publish your complete portfolio every single day—the same transparency standard the SEC has so far held actively managed ETFs to.
If you’re an in-kind ETF by this definition, you cansort ofavoid two components of the program: You don’t have to hold a bunch of highly liquid investments to meet redemptions, and you don’t have to classify all your portfolio holdings.
I say "sort of" because the wording of the final rule is, in my opinion, a bit different than the actual discussion of the rule in the SEC’s 400-page final rulemaking document. The actual rule simply says in-kind ETFs can consider the fact that they can redeem-out shares when drafting their liquidity risk management program. It doesn’t actually say in-kind ETFs are exempt from holding those highly liquid assets or that they don’t have to comply with the fairly onerous reporting process.
I imagine that will get cleared up and clarified, but it’s frustrating when the final rule doesn’t match the stated intent. But let’s assume that ETFs get at least a little relief there.
The Big Whammy: The 15% RuleSo what’s the big deal? The 15% illiquid cap is problematic. There’s an enormous amount of wiggle room in how to meet the assessment that a given position can be liquidated without significant impact in seven days, and all that wiggle room lands on the fund board to interpret.
The SEC discussion clearly shows that the commission understands it could be upsetting the apple cart, going so far as to say some funds will have to consider closing:
“In circumstances in which it appears unlikely that the fund will be able to reduce its illiquid investment holdings to or below 15% within a period of time commensurate with its redemption obligations, a fund’s periodic liquidity risk review could lead the fund to reconsider its continued operation as an open-end fund.”
So Who Could Get Hit Hardest Here?There are two groups that have an immediate problem. The first is ETFs that invest in less liquid securities. Funds that invest primarily in high-yield debt or bank loans may be able to argue that they can unload their whole portfolios without impact, but ultimately fund boards will have to decide how much risk they want to take in defining liberal interpretations of “illiquid.”
The second issue is large funds. Because there’s no scaling here, funds that are very large have a much higher burden than small funds. I can own 100 shares of the most illiquid microcap and probably claim correctly that I could find a buyer in week. Not so for a $100 billion fund trying to own a proportionally similar position in the same company.
This second issue is a big one, particularly for Vanguard.Vanguard’s ETFsare share classes of mutual funds. My assumption is that the root fund is what will have to make the test, not each individual share class, so it won’t get the pass on the reporting or highly liquid requirements. And Vanguard will be hit harder on the 15% illiquid cap than it would if its ETFs were in fact separate funds.
While most of Vanguard’s 70 ETFs are in highly liquid corners of the market, it’s possible that funds like theVanguard Small Cap Index Fund (VB)or theVanguard Short Term Corporate Bond Index Fund (VCSH)could face real hurdles. When I ran the volume numbers on VCSH holdings last year, I estimated that even swamping the market, it would take VCSH 16 days to trade out.
So without market impact, that’s probably a multiple—clearly a fund that probably won’t be in compliance without a pretty liberal interpretation of how the short-term corporate markets can absorb big sales.
Could Vanguard solve this problem? It would be tricky. It would need to spin the ETFs out and adopt full disclosure. That’s a lot of work to save a few funds. Then again, I’m not sure what the options are.
In the end, it does seem like ETFs dodged a BB here, if not a bullet, but the ripples from this earthquake will be felt for quite some time. I’m not suggesting we’ll see a huge raft of fund closures, but at a minimum, it’s a good year to be a lawyer advising fund boards.
At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Dave Nadig is the director of exchange-traded funds at FactSet Research Systems. You can reach him [email protected], or on Twitter @DaveNadig.
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || Dave Nadig's Deep Dive On New ETF Liquidity Rules: When the SEC published draft rules for mutual fund and ETF liquidity last year, I was less than complimentary . I pointed out that, for instance, virtually all corporate and high-yield bond ETFs would fail to meet the requirements on illiquid assets. That rule is sailing through (with some small changes) for mutual funds, but the press is reporting that ETFs got a pass. That’s not quite true. Some Background The original proposal — and the current version—focused on all open-ended funds maintaining a liquidity risk management program with the intent to ensure that it could always meet shareholder redemptions in an orderly fashion. It was a clear response — or convenient timing at least — to the shenanigans that happened to Third Avenue’s mutual fund in the summer of 2015, when it closed for redemptions because it couldn’t sell its junk bonds fast enough. The original proposal received an enormous amount of industry commentary, and rather than publishing a revised rule for comment, the SEC simply published a final rule, which will go into effect for most funds in December 2018. The key components of the final rule are threefold: Rules that ensure a fund always have highly liquid securities to meet redemptions Rules that ensure a fund doesn’t have more than 15% of its investments in illiquid investment A reporting regime that has funds classify all of their positions at least monthly and report each security as belonging to one of four liquidity buckets (the two above and two in the middle) Much of what the SEC requested was pretty noncontroversial; however, the ETF industry argued in its various comment letters that since ETFs meet redemptions generally by in-kind transfer of underlying securities, it should be exempt from large swaths of the program. They got a small slice of what they wanted, and it will have significant implications. What About The ETF Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card? The SEC has defined for the first time a class of ETFs it refers to as “In-kind ETFs.” In-kind ETFs are those that use only a de minimis amount of cash in any redemption activity. The commission goes out of its way to say that it really means this: If you regularly use cash redemptions, you’re not covered here. Story continues The second big issue is that, to qualify, you must publish your complete portfolio every single day — the same transparency standard the SEC has so far held actively managed ETFs to. If you’re an in-kind ETF by this definition, you can sort of avoid two components of the program: You don’t have to hold a bunch of highly liquid investments to meet redemptions, and you don’t have to classify all your portfolio holdings. I say "sort of" because the wording of the final rule is, in my opinion, a bit different than the actual discussion of the rule in the SEC’s 400-page final rulemaking document. The actual rule simply says in-kind ETFs can consider the fact that they can redeem-out shares when drafting their liquidity risk management program. It doesn’t actually say in-kind ETFs are exempt from holding those highly liquid assets or that they don’t have to comply with the fairly onerous reporting process. I imagine that will get cleared up and clarified, but it’s frustrating when the final rule doesn’t match the stated intent. But let’s assume that ETFs get at least a little relief there. The Big Whammy: The 15% Rule So what’s the big deal? The 15% illiquid cap is problematic. There’s an enormous amount of wiggle room in how to meet the assessment that a given position can be liquidated without significant impact in seven days, and all that wiggle room lands on the fund board to interpret. The SEC discussion clearly shows that the commission understands it could be upsetting the apple cart, going so far as to say some funds will have to consider closing: “In circumstances in which it appears unlikely that the fund will be able to reduce its illiquid investment holdings to or below 15% within a period of time commensurate with its redemption obligations, a fund’s periodic liquidity risk review could lead the fund to reconsider its continued operation as an open-end fund.” So Who Could Get Hit Hardest Here? There are two groups that have an immediate problem. The first is ETFs that invest in less liquid securities. Funds that invest primarily in high-yield debt or bank loans may be able to argue that they can unload their whole portfolios without impact, but ultimately fund boards will have to decide how much risk they want to take in defining liberal interpretations of “illiquid.” The second issue is large funds. Because there’s no scaling here, funds that are very large have a much higher burden than small funds. I can own 100 shares of the most illiquid microcap and probably claim correctly that I could find a buyer in week. Not so for a $100 billion fund trying to own a proportionally similar position in the same company. This second issue is a big one, particularly for Vanguard. Vanguard’s ETFs are share classes of mutual funds. My assumption is that the root fund is what will have to make the test, not each individual share class, so it won’t get the pass on the reporting or highly liquid requirements. And Vanguard will be hit harder on the 15% illiquid cap than it would if its ETFs were in fact separate funds. While most of Vanguard’s 70 ETFs are in highly liquid corners of the market, it’s possible that funds like the Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund (VB) or the Vanguard Short Term Corporate Bond Index Fund (VCSH) could face real hurdles. When I ran the volume numbers on VCSH holdings last year, I estimated that even swamping the market, it would take VCSH 16 days to trade out. So without market impact, that’s probably a multiple —c learly a fund that probably won’t be in compliance without a pretty liberal interpretation of how the short-term corporate markets can absorb big sales. Could Vanguard solve this problem? It would be tricky. It would need to spin the ETFs out and adopt full disclosure. That’s a lot of work to save a few funds. Then again, I’m not sure what the options are. In the end, it does seem like ETFs dodged a BB here, if not a bullet, but the ripples from this earthquake will be felt for quite some time. I’m not suggesting we’ll see a huge raft of fund closures, but at a minimum, it’s a good year to be a lawyer advising fund boards. At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Dave Nadig is the director of exchange-traded funds at FactSet Research Systems. You can reach him at [email protected] , or on Twitter @DaveNadig. Recommended Stories Swedroe: Cross Trading Boosts Mutual Funds Returns Dave Nadig's Deep Dive On New ETF Liquidity Rules SEC Approves Fund Liquidity Rules, Goes Easy On ETFs SEC Wants To Hear From You On Bitcoin ETF 6 ETFs To Gain From Money Market Mutual Fund Reform Permalink | © Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Blockchain could soon power stock markets, music sales, and even prevent child labor — here's how it works: (.)
It's a technology conceived by the mysterious creator ofbitcoin— the digital currency championed by a motley crew of privacy-obsessed libertarians, social activists, and some criminals.
(AP Photo)
Now the idea of blockchain has gripped Wall Street's biggest institutions.
Its enthusiasts think it could change the world. Sure, it would make contracts more enforceable and speed up the settlement of stock trades — hence the interest from big banks. But some see it going much further, cracking down onsex trafficking, music piracy, and child labor.
And the key to all that — what attracts these different factions — is something that, on the surface at least, sounds rather banal: a digital ledger, like the one in your checkbook.
"Blockchain is a truly extraordinary technology that does really mundane things," said Paul Brody, Ernst & Young's global blockchain leader.
But for all the promise, these big questions remain: Who will foot the bill, and is it really as secure as supporters say?
In the non-blockchain world, we keep separate records of transactions. If you write your friend a check, you balance your own checkbook and your friend does the same when they deposit it. But things can go wrong. They might forget to update their checkbook ledger. And each bank has no way to know immediately if the person has enough in their bank account to cover it.
(Flickr / oblivion9999)
With a blockchain, instead of two separate checkbooks with two records of debits and credits, you'd both look at the same ledger of transactions. It's private (encrypted, in computer-speak), and decentralized, so neither of you controls the ledger.
This "distributed ledger" operates on consensus. Both of you can look at the ledger. Each transaction gets put into a block. If you both say that block is valid and correct, it's added to a chain. And that chain is protected by sophisticated cryptography: No one can change the chain after the fact.
Now imagine this in a more complex form. This is what gets people in finance and technology excited.
Say you want to buy a stock. Right now, your bank, brokerage, the stock exchange, and the company you're buying all have separate, private records of transactions. They can't see each other's ledgers. Nor can they verify that everything is accurate among all involved.
With blockchain, they can all be on the same page — literally.
Your bank can verify that you have enough money to transfer to your brokerage. That transfer is added to the ledger of transactions that everyone involved can see. Then your broker executes a trade for 100 shares. That gets added to the blockchain, too. Everyone involved verifies it's legitimate.
The exchange receives the order — also added and verified. And then the company's shares end up in your account. You could see the record of all the shares you buy and sell in the permanent record. If you decide to sell the shares later, that transaction gets added to the blockchain.
And because it's a consensus model in which every party confirms a transaction, "it gets more secure the more people you add" to the blockchain, Brody said. "When a transaction is completed, everyone has to get a copy of the transaction."
That's blockchain in its purest form. In reality, however, different companies are experimenting with different forms. A blockchain used in financial services could be private, or a hybrid model between the decentralized vision and a more traditional centralized model that bankers are used to. A regulator, for instance, could hold the key to a blockchain, and some companies are thinking about how to maintain a middleman.
No one knows who invented blockchain. The idea for it came from apaper published online eight years agothat unveiled bitcoin, the digital currency. The author, Satoshi Nakamoto, is thought to be using a pseudonym. The true identity remains a mystery, and there's debate over whether it was created by an individual or group.
At first, bitcoin got all the attention. The idea of a secure, private currency, divorced from a specific government, captured the imaginations of technologists, libertarians, and people concerned about the power of big banks and government regulation. Bitcoin transactions occur peer-to-peer, meaning no government or third party is involved.
(Goldman SachsYouTube/Goldman Sachs)
Today, bitcoin and blockchain still attract privacy-minded and antigovernment types. But it also increasingly appeals to people like Grainne McNamara. She spent years building out technology at banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Now she's a leader of PricewaterhouseCooper's blockchain for financial services. And that means she spends a lot of time attending and hosting blockchain conferences.
At one, a speaker showed a picture of a shed in his presentation. McNamara remembers him jokingly saying, "Take the bankers behind the shed and kill them." He didn't know his audience.
McNamara was sitting next to former bankers, who found the whole thing humorous, she said.
Despite the shed metaphor, "it's a peaceful cohabitation," McNamara told Business Insider. "People genuinely appreciate the disruptive element to spawn innovation."
One area blockchain proponents get excited about is the idea of a "smart contract." While most bank agreements are still paper documents — banks are awash in paper, even in 2016 — a smart contract is a computer program that helps keeps everyone accountable.
(People play a video game on the stand of Acer at the IFA Electronics show in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2015.Reuters/Axel Schmidt)
Let's say you're a company that designs and sells video game consoles. You work with suppliers and shipping companies, and have a number of serious concerns. You want to make sure they're manufactured well and on time. You want to make sure there are no labor violations, such as children working on the assembly line. And you want to make sure everyone gets paid on time.
In the old way of doing things, numerous contracts might be involved to manufacture one video game console. And each side may have its own paper copies.
Smart contracts provide automated accountability.
(Samantha Lee / Business Insider)
Because this is blockchain, everyone involved looks at the same contract; no one can change it without the permission of most others.
Here's an example: When a truck picks up finished video game consoles from a factory in, say, China, the shipping company scans each box. Those are added to the blockchain, triggering a release of funds from the video game company's bank account. No one has to invoice and chase a payment.
"You can marry up the delivery and payment of services," Brody said.
It can go beyond getting paid, too. Each worker on the assembly line could scan their identification card, which is then verified by multiple sources such as government agencies and third-party auditors, ensuring the workers are not underage or overworked. And because it's a blockchain, no one can alter the record later.
Some have discussed blockchain as a possible tool to help prevent sex trafficking and other scourges. And there are other uses for it that may become big parts of our lives.
(Samantha Lee / Business Insider)
Smart contracts in healthcare could do things such as trigger an insurance payment to a doctor when a patient undergoes a CT scan.
A blockchain could also be a secure place to store electronic medical records.
It would detail all patient-doctor communication, illness and treatment information, vaccination records, medical bills etc. Every subsequent doctor visit or treatment would be added to the blockchain, including those in different cities and countries, creating a complete, historical record of the patient's health.
In this case, the blockchain is private, and only certain participants would have the encryption keys to see the record.
Musicians may wish there had been blockchain when Napster undermined music sales around the turn of the century through file-sharing.
(Blockchain could prevent music piracyFlickr/Kelsey)
Now some are thinking blockchain could prevent piracy and help boost sales. Artists could provide their music directly off a ledger, and smart contracts might ensure the right people are paid and only those with rights play the tracks.
A similar model could help fund news outlets and other media organizations.
Some companies' whole job is tracking down property records. Blockchain could change that.
If property deeds were on a blockchain, the other participants (known as "network nodes") that validate the transaction could be real-estate agents, financing banks, and a land registry authority.
Once the transaction is validated, it is added to the blockchain, and the updated state of the blockchain is broadcast to the participants in real time. As the blockchain maintains the history of all transactions, the entire history of the property and its owners is on the blockchain.
The Australian Securities Exchange — ASX — plans to decide by mid-2017 if it will replace its post-trade clearing and settlement systemwith a blockchain version. This could be a turning point for blockchain and potentially a catalyst for widespread adoption.
(Bank of EnglandJim Edwards)
Central bankers are also getting in on the action. The Bank of England and the People's Bank of China are discussing issuing their national currencies — the pound and the renminbi, respectively — on blockchain. If successful, the technology would make the currencies more traceable, allowing the banks to track them through the financial system in real time.
Right now, this use of blockchain is limited to discussion and research papers, but if implemented, other central banks are likely to follow suit. The US Federal Reserve is closely following developments as well, with Fed Gov. Lael Brainard in charge of keeping an eye on the new technology.
It's also rumored that other items such as diamonds, art, and food could be put on blockchain so the entire history of the items could be traced.
There are over120 blockchain projectsspanning a variety of industries, and theannual budget for blockchain initiativesin 2016 is estimated to be $1 billion.
In financial services, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are among the big names that have partnered withR3, a startuptrying to bring blockchain technology to the finance world.
But if blockchain is going to work, it needs an industrywide standard. For the first bank to adopt this digital system and overhaul existing infrastructure, it could mean a risky and expensive investment, and that bank would have to hope others follow suit. No one wants to be the first to test that theory.
That's why this is one of the few cutting-edge technologies that is generating a lot of talk but not a lot of action among banks. While they are dabbling in the technology, attending conferences and partnering with R3,no bank is taking the leadand going from proofs of concept to using it in the real world.
"To get the true value, you need the network effect," said Graham Warner, head of global transaction banking product development in the Americas at Deutsche Bank. The more people and companies use blockchain, the more valuable the technology becomes.
For all its promise, some major impediments could prevent blockchain's widespread deployment, including regulation, cost, and security issues.
Implementing and standardizing blockchain could cost in the billions of dollars, and it would mean an overhaul of legacy systems that people are used to and understand. Today's technology works, and replacing it with something unproven is seen as an expensive risk.
Blockchain technology would also potentially mean a huge number of job losses, especially in middle- and back-office functions. Banks would have to get the remaining employees up to speed on the new technology, and using it would initially be a trial-and-error process.
(Ethereum)
In August, hackers stole $72 million worth of bitcoin from accounts at the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. And in June, hackers stole $55 million worth of ether, a bitcoin rival. The nonprofit that runs ether, Ethereum Foundation, just rolled back the chain. It's as if the hack never took place, and business returned to normal. But that worries purists.
The Ethereum hack — and the response to it — led Accenture tocreatean "editable blockchain model," to "resolve human errors, accommodate legal and regulatory requirements, and address mischief and other issues," according to anews release.
Blockchain enthusiasts say this threatens the very nature of the blockchain itself. One of the fundamental benefits of blockchain technology is its immutability — the blockchain represents a "golden record" of transactions, a complete, historical record that technically cannot be interfered with or undone.
But there "isn't one blockchain to rule them all," Warner said. "It will be an evolutionary, Darwinian process" to figure out which version of the blockchain applies to which use case.
When McNamara learned about blockchain, she said she was "a little bit of a skeptic. But I've been proven wrong."
The ecosystem is evolving, she said, and people involved, whether they're activists or bankers, are getting together and talking about "shared values and pain points."
(ASXAP)
While some big players like the ASX may be using some form of blockchain as early as next year, some issues are holding blockchain back.
Different versions of blockchain are in development, and there's little agreement on what's the best or purest version to deploy. And dozens of startups are working on their own takes on blockchain. Innovation is happening, but all the competing ideas makes big companies cautious to commit to any one type.
But most proponents think everything will be worked out in due time, and that in the next few years, blockchain and its smart contracts would improve our lives, even if it operates quietly in the background, invisible to most people.
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$626.53 at 18:15 UTC [24h Range: $625.00 - $630.22 Volume: 2517 BTC] || $628.10 at 21:15 UTC [24h Range: $625.00 - $630.22 Volume: 2132 BTC] || One Bitcoin now worth $627.22@bitstamp. High $630.22. Low $625.00. Market Cap $ 9.997 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/DXYjBr7fSS || $627.72 at 23:31 UTC [24h Range: $625.00 - $630.22 Volume: 2064 BTC] || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 10 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $95.80 #bitcoin #btc || 現在の価格は 65187円...
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632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29, 8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75, 7296.58, 7397.80, 7047.92, 7146.13, 7218.37, 7531.66, 7463.11, 7761.24, 7569.63, 7424.29, 7321.99, 7320.15, 7252.03, 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35, 7400.90, 7278.12, 7217.43, 7243.13, 7269.68, 7124.67, 7152.30, 6932.48, 6640.52, 7276.80, 7202.84, 7218.82, 7191.16, 7511.59, 7355.63, 7322.53, 7275.16, 7238.97, 7290.09, 7317.99, 7422.65, 7293.00, 7193.60, 7200.17, 6985.47, 7344.88, 7410.66, 7411.32, 7769.22, 8163.69, 8079.86, 7879.07, 8166.55, 8037.54, 8192.49, 8144.19, 8827.76, 8807.01, 8723.79, 8929.04, 8942.81, 8706.25, 8657.64, 8745.89, 8680.88.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-01-22]
Volume: 22600204051, RSI (14-day): 62.51, 50-day EMA: 8008.54, 200-day EMA: 8229.25
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1555.30, Gold RSI: 64.48
Oil Price: 56.74, Oil RSI: 34.92
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Stock market news live: Stocks end lower as China virus rattles markets; Netflix and IBM top expectations: Stocks were under pressure Tuesday coming off a three-day weekend in the U.S., with concerns over apotentially deadly virus outbreak in Chinaknocking global markets.
With a light line-up of corporate earnings results and economic data on the schedule for the session, attention instead turned to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the start of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.
—
Following on the heels ofNetflix’s quarterly earnings beat, IBM (IBM) posted itsfirst revenue gain in over a year, as its bottom line got a lift from cloud computing.
The old-line technology giant saw its cloud revenue jump 21% to $6.8 billion in the fourth quarter, amid CEO Ginny Rometty’s focus on the high-margin business and away from IBM’s traditional stalwarts. The stock finished the session up modestly around $139.17.
—
Here’s where the major indices had settled as of 4:07 p.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.27% or -8.83 points to 3,320.79
• Dow (^DJI):-0.52% or -152.06 points to 29,196.04
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): -0.19% or -18.14 points to 9,370.81
• Crude oil (CL=F):-0.50% or -0.29 to 58.25 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F):-0.13% or -2.10 to 1,558.20 per ounce
Stocks held lower Tuesday afternoon after the CDC’s confirmation of a U.S. case of the Wuhan coronavirus jolted global markets.
Here were the main moves in markets, as of 2:44 p.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.26% or -8.69 points to 3,320.93
• Dow (^DJI):-0.6% or -174.81 points to 29,173.29
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): -0.28% or -26.23 points to 9,362.85
• Crude oil (CL=F):-0.5% or -$0.29 to $58.25 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F):-0.14% or -$2.20 to $1,558.10 per ounce
—
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday announced its first confirmed U.S. case of the coronavirus that killed at least six people in China.
A male traveler from China was diagnosed with the coronavirus in Washington State, according to the CDC. The illness has sickened hundreds so far in China, and the U.S.began screeningfor the virus at airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Friday.
Shares of airline stocks including Delta (DAL) and American Airlines (AAL), along with tourism-related stocks including Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS), slumped following the news.
—
Shares of Boeing (BA) hit a 52-week low of $310.81 Tuesday according to Yahoo Finance data. The dip followed a CNBCreportthat Boeing pushed back its expectation for when federal regulators will sign off on the 737 Max 8 to June 2020 at the soonest.
—
A new virus originating in China has sentanxiety rippling across global markets, and weighed on Tuesday’s trading. Yet Capital Economics says the history suggests those fears “rarely have a long-lasting and widespread effects on equities:”
Admittedly, the most obvious comparator to the latest outbreak is the 2003 SARS epidemic, whichdidhave a clear economic and financial market impact. ThisUpdateon ourEmerging Asiaservice describes the economic fallout of that event in the region in detail – in short, travel and tourism spending in particular was initially hit hard. And in the weeks after the Chinese authorities eventually went public about the spread of the disease and informed the World Health Organisation, MSCI’s index of China’s equities fell by more than 10%.
—
Reuters reports that President Donald Trump, fresh off the dais at Davos where he took avictory lap for the U.S. economy’s strength, willdine with Apple’s Tim Cook and other CEOs. Daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump organized the confab.
—
Stocks were mixed during the intraday session, with the S&P 500 hovering near unchanged. The Dow pared losses of as many as 112 points from the lows of the session.
Here were the main moves in markets, as of 11:42 a.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.06% or -1.92 points to 3,327.7
• Dow (^DJI):-0.1% or -30.35 points to 29,317.75
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): +0.07% or +6.27 points to 9,395.02
• Crude oil (CL=F):-0.48% or -$0.28 to $58.26 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F):-0.23% or -$3.60 to $1,549.70 per ounce
—
Starbucks’ (SBUX)decision to pursue sustainable business alternatives— including plant-based options on its menu — has created a halo effect for Beyond Meat (BYND). The fake-meat companyis spiking by over 11% in mid-morning trading, as investors bet on the coffee giant becoming the latest company to offer its product.
Beyond Meat has alreadygotten traction with other major chains, including McDonald’s (MCD), Dunkin Donuts (DNKN) and KFC.
—
Stocks opened slightly lower, coming off Friday’s record highs.
Here were the main moves in markets, as of 9:34 a.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.2% or -6.67 points to 3,322.94
• Dow (^DJI):-0.08% or -23.52 points to 29,324.58
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): -0.25% or -22.84 points to 9,365.41
• Crude oil (CL=F):-0.6% or -$0.35 to $58.19 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F):-0.7% or -$11.00 to $1,549.30 per ounce
—
Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Golub raised his2020 price target for the S&P 500to 3,600 from 3,425 previously, suggesting about 8% upside from levels as of Friday’s close.
The call is based on an S&P 500 earnings per share estimate of $175, representing 6.2% growth over last year and accelerating after a sluggish 1% rise in 2019. He expects EPS will rise to $184 in 2021.
Three main factors inform Golub’s new price target: First, he believes the domestic economy will firm further in the first half of the year, bringing both bond yields and equity prices higher. Second, he said the headwinds facing energy and big tech stocks in 2019 will reverse this year amid an improving economic backdrop, driving earnings growth for cyclical stocks. And third, multiples could have more room to expand.
“With multiples at 18.7x – versus a 50-year average of 14.4x – investors are reluctant to project higher PEs despite an abundant return of capital to shareholders (div + buyback yield = 4.1%), and depressed volatility, rates and spreads. By contrast, P/FCF (price to free cash flow) is roughly in line with long-term averages,” Golub said. “Our work indicates that stocks are undervalued on a discounted cash flow basis, and should grind higher.”
—
Peter Schiff, a noted cryptocurrency skeptic who’s relentlessly bearish on Fiat currencies — and a fierce critic of Fed policy — said over the weekend that he’dlost access to his bitcoin stash.Apparently his digital wallet stopped accepting his password:
Schiff has promoted bullion for years, but was one ofa handful of gold bugs willing to publicly denouncebitcoin (BTC).
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The 50th annual World Economic Forum continues Tuesday through the end of the week, bringing together some of the world’s most powerful leaders in Davis, Switzerland.
President Donald Trump delivered a speech at 9 a.m. local time, touting the strength of the U.S. economy and his administration’s phase one trade agreement with China signed last week.
“I told you we had launched the ‘Great American comeback.’ Today, I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of a great economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” Trump told the audience at the World Economic Forum.
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Stocks paced toward their first down day in four sessions, with contracts on each of the three major indices slightly in the red in early trading. On Friday, stocks hadclosed at record highs.
Here were the main moves during the pre-market session, as of 7:45 a.m. ET:
• S&P futures (ES=F): 3,315.25, down 9.75 points or 0.29%
• Dow futures (YM=F):29,231, down 48 points or 0.16%
• Nasdaq futures (NQ=F):9,140.00, down 34.5 points or 0.38%
• Crude oil (CL=F):$57.74 per barrel, down $0.80 or 1.37%
• Gold (GC=F):$1,557.60 per ounce, down $2.70 or 0.17%
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Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news || Stock market news live: Stocks end lower as global elite flock to Davos; Boeing slumps: Stocks were under pressure Tuesday coming off a three-day weekend in the U.S., with concerns over a potentially deadly virus outbreak in China knocking global markets. With a light line-up of corporate earnings results and economic data on the schedule for the session, attention instead turned to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the start of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. — 4:15 p.m. ET: IBM, Netflix top Q4 expectations A man stands near an IBM logo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez Following on the heels of Netflix’s quarterly earnings beat , IBM ( IBM ) posted its first revenue gain in over a year , as its bottom line got a lift from cloud computing. The old-line technology giant saw its cloud revenue jump 21% to $6.8 billion in the fourth quarter, amid CEO Ginny Rometty’s focus on the high-margin business and away from IBM’s traditional stalwarts. The stock finished the session up modestly around $139.17. — 4:07 p.m. ET: Stocks end lower Here’s where the major indices had settled as of 4:07 p.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -0.27% or -8.83 points to 3,320.79 Dow ( ^DJI ): -0.52% or -152.06 points to 29,196.04 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -0.19% or -18.14 points to 9,370.81 Crude oil ( CL=F ): -0.50% or -0.29 to 58.25 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ): -0.13% or -2.10 to 1,558.20 per ounce 2:44 p.m. ET: Stocks hold lower after CDC announces U.S. case of potentially deadly coronavirus Stocks held lower Tuesday afternoon after the CDC’s confirmation of a U.S. case of the Wuhan coronavirus jolted global markets. Here were the main moves in markets, as of 2:44 p.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -0.26% or -8.69 points to 3,320.93 Dow ( ^DJI ): -0.6% or -174.81 points to 29,173.29 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -0.28% or -26.23 points to 9,362.85 Crude oil ( CL=F ): -0.5% or -$0.29 to $58.25 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ): -0.14% or -$2.20 to $1,558.10 per ounce — 2:21 p.m. ET: CDC announces first U.S. case of Wuhan coronavirus in Washington state The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday announced its first confirmed U.S. case of the coronavirus that killed at least six people in China. A male traveler from China was diagnosed with the coronavirus in Washington State, according to the CDC. The illness has sickened hundreds so far in China, and the U.S. began screening for the virus at airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Friday. Shares of airline stocks including Delta ( DAL ) and American Airlines ( AAL ), along with tourism-related stocks including Wynn Resorts ( WYNN ) and Las Vegas Sands ( LVS ), slumped following the news. — 1:48 p.m. ET: Boeing swoons to 52-week low on expected delays Shares of Boeing ( BA ) hit a 52-week low of $310.81 Tuesday according to Yahoo Finance data. The dip followed a CNBC report that Boeing pushed back its expectation for when federal regulators will sign off on the 737 Max 8 to June 2020 at the soonest. Story continues — 12:15 p.m. ET: Worried about the new virus? Don’t, says Wall Street firm Market reaction to SARS outbreak in 2003 A new virus originating in China has sent anxiety rippling across global markets , and weighed on Tuesday’s trading. Yet Capital Economics says the history suggests those fears “rarely have a long-lasting and widespread effects on equities:” Admittedly, the most obvious comparator to the latest outbreak is the 2003 SARS epidemic, which did have a clear economic and financial market impact. This Update on our Emerging Asia service describes the economic fallout of that event in the region in detail – in short, travel and tourism spending in particular was initially hit hard. And in the weeks after the Chinese authorities eventually went public about the spread of the disease and informed the World Health Organisation, MSCI’s index of China’s equities fell by more than 10%. — 12:06 p.m. ET: Guess who’s coming to dinner in Davos? U.S. President Donald Trump reacts after addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020. The 50th annual meeting of the forum will take place in Davos from Jan. 21 until Jan. 24, 2020. Left is Ivanka Trump. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Reuters reports that President Donald Trump, fresh off the dais at Davos where he took a victory lap for the U.S. economy’s strength , will dine with Apple’s Tim Cook and other CEOs . Daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump organized the confab. — 11:41 a.m. ET: Stocks mixed as session rolls on Stocks were mixed during the intraday session, with the S&P 500 hovering near unchanged. The Dow pared losses of as many as 112 points from the lows of the session. Here were the main moves in markets, as of 11:42 a.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -0.06% or -1.92 points to 3,327.7 Dow ( ^DJI ): -0.1% or -30.35 points to 29,317.75 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : +0.07% or +6.27 points to 9,395.02 Crude oil ( CL=F ): -0.48% or -$0.28 to $58.26 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ): -0.23% or -$3.60 to $1,549.70 per ounce — 11:28 a.m. ET: Beyond Meat spikes on Starbucks climate plan IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR BEYOND MEAT - In this image taken on Oct. 23, 2019, Snoop Dogg surprised fans in celebration of the national launch of Dunkin’s new Beyond Sausage Sandwich in partnership with Beyond Meat at Dunkin’ in Los Angeles. (Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for Beyond Meat/AP Images) Starbucks’ ( SBUX ) decision to pursue sustainable business alternatives — including plant-based options on its menu — has created a halo effect for Beyond Meat ( BYND ). The fake-meat company is spiking by over 11% in mid-morning trading , as investors bet on the coffee giant becoming the latest company to offer its product. Beyond Meat has already gotten traction with other major chains , including McDonald’s ( MCD ), Dunkin Donuts ( DNKN ) and KFC. — 9:32 a.m. ET: Stocks edge down slightly around market open Stocks opened slightly lower, coming off Friday’s record highs. Here were the main moves in markets, as of 9:34 a.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -0.2% or -6.67 points to 3,322.94 Dow ( ^DJI ): -0.08% or -23.52 points to 29,324.58 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -0.25% or -22.84 points to 9,365.41 Crude oil ( CL=F ): -0.6% or -$0.35 to $58.19 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ): -0.7% or -$11.00 to $1,549.30 per ounce — 8:22 a.m. ET: Credit Suisse raises S&P 500 year-end target to 3,600 Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Golub raised his 2020 price target for the S&P 500 to 3,600 from 3,425 previously, suggesting about 8% upside from levels as of Friday’s close. The call is based on an S&P 500 earnings per share estimate of $175, representing 6.2% growth over last year and accelerating after a sluggish 1% rise in 2019. He expects EPS will rise to $184 in 2021. Three main factors inform Golub’s new price target: First, he believes the domestic economy will firm further in the first half of the year, bringing both bond yields and equity prices higher. Second, he said the headwinds facing energy and big tech stocks in 2019 will reverse this year amid an improving economic backdrop, driving earnings growth for cyclical stocks. And third, multiples could have more room to expand. “With multiples at 18.7x – versus a 50-year average of 14.4x – investors are reluctant to project higher PEs despite an abundant return of capital to shareholders (div + buyback yield = 4.1%), and depressed volatility, rates and spreads. By contrast, P/FCF (price to free cash flow) is roughly in line with long-term averages,” Golub said. “Our work indicates that stocks are undervalued on a discounted cash flow basis, and should grind higher.” — 8:02 a.m. ET: Uber-bearish investor loses bitcoin stash Peter Schiff, a noted cryptocurrency skeptic who’s relentlessly bearish on Fiat currencies — and a fierce critic of Fed policy — said over the weekend that he’d lost access to his bitcoin stash. Apparently his digital wallet stopped accepting his password: I just lost all the #Bitcoin I have ever owned. My wallet got corrupted somehow and my password is no longer valid. So now not only is my Bitcoin intrinsically worthless; it has no market value either. I knew owning Bitcoin was a bad idea, I just never realized it was this bad! pic.twitter.com/6SJvDJOZU6 — Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 19, 2020 Schiff has promoted bullion for years, but was one of a handful of gold bugs willing to publicly denounce bitcoin ( BTC ). — 7:59 a.m. ET: World Economic Forum under way The 50th annual World Economic Forum continues Tuesday through the end of the week, bringing together some of the world’s most powerful leaders in Davis, Switzerland. President Donald Trump delivered a speech at 9 a.m. local time, touting the strength of the U.S. economy and his administration’s phase one trade agreement with China signed last week. “I told you we had launched the ‘Great American comeback.’ Today, I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of a great economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” Trump told the audience at the World Economic Forum. READ MORE — 7:45 a.m. ET: Stock futures edge down slightly Stocks paced toward their first down day in four sessions, with contracts on each of the three major indices slightly in the red in early trading. On Friday, stocks had closed at record highs . Here were the main moves during the pre-market session, as of 7:45 a.m. ET: S&P futures ( ES=F ) : 3,315.25, down 9.75 points or 0.29% Dow futures ( YM=F ): 29,231, down 48 points or 0.16% Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 9,140.00, down 34.5 points or 0.38% Crude oil ( CL=F ): $57.74 per barrel, down $0.80 or 1.37% Gold ( GC=F ): $1,557.60 per ounce, down $2.70 or 0.17% Traders work during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images) — Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , and reddit . Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news View comments || Bitfinex Addresses Institutional Demand With New Sub-Account Feature: Bitfinex, a digital asset trading platform, formally announced the addition of a sub-accountfeaturewhich allows users to set up multiple trading accounts under one master account.
“There is a huge pent-up demand among institutional traders for a more sophisticated way of accessing crypto markets,” Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex said in a statement. “The sub-account feature will facilitate myriad trading strategies across different accounts, and further underlines our capacity to meet the needs of institutional traders pursuing increasingly complex strategies.”
The following are core features:
• Shared volume with fee discounts across all accounts
• Simultaneous deployment of various trading strategies
This development comes after a round of increased interest in digital assets; last week,CME Group Inc.(NASDAQ:CME), a derivaitves and options exchange operating in Chicago and New York, formally announced the launch of options on Bitcoin (BTC) futures, delivering on growing retail and institutional interest demand for levered exposure to the cryptocurrency market.
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See more from Benzinga
• JPMorgan Sees Institutional Interest In Options On CME Bitcoin Futures
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitfinex Addresses Institutional Demand With New Sub-Account Feature: Bitfinex, a digital asset trading platform, formally announced the addition of a sub-account feature which allows users to set up multiple trading accounts under one master account. There is a huge pent-up demand among institutional traders for a more sophisticated way of accessing crypto markets, Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex said in a statement. The sub-account feature will facilitate myriad trading strategies across different accounts, and further underlines our capacity to meet the needs of institutional traders pursuing increasingly complex strategies. The following are core features: Shared volume with fee discounts across all accounts Simultaneous deployment of various trading strategies This development comes after a round of increased interest in digital assets; last week, CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME ), a derivaitves and options exchange operating in Chicago and New York, formally announced the launch of options on Bitcoin (BTC) futures, delivering on growing retail and institutional interest demand for levered exposure to the cryptocurrency market. 0 See more from Benzinga JPMorgan Sees Institutional Interest In Options On CME Bitcoin Futures © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Blockchain Finally Ready For Prime Time?: Blockchain technology has had an interesting couple of years. The technology that underpins Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies has developed a complicated reputation. Is it the savior of all things logistics or another fad destined to build a market, only to bring down all those involved? Is it creating the new dot-com bubble? The technology certainly has its detractors, and it unfortunately has become synonymous with Bitcoin, which saw a rapid rise in value in 2017 only to come crashing down months later as the promised replacement for the world's global currencies failed to live up to expectations. Blockchain, though, remains a viable technology that will ultimately alter the landscape of many segments of the global economy — it just needs time. "We are seeing some interesting real-world applications emerging," said Patrick Duffy, president of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA). BiTA is the leading global organization supporting the development of blockchain and blockchain standards within the supply chain. Walmart has been testing blockchain-based tracking in its logistics operation, and IBM (NYSE: IBM ) has been a leading proponent. The Maersk (CSE: AMKBF) The Maersk project has led to the development of the blockchain-based TradeLens platform for global shipping. Walmart Canada just announced it would deploy blockchain technology starting in January for its third-party carriers. It is companies like these that convince Duffy blockchain will eventually move into the mainstream. "The solutions will be pushed, in my opinion, by major retailers when they are ready. When Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT ) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and the major retailers in the world are ready to go all in on blockchain technology, there will be a way for these smaller players to use it. They won't need to develop it themselves," he said. Duffy explained that blockchain will eventually be a background system for transportation management systems (TMS) and other solutions, meaning fleets and shippers, regardless of size, will not need to have blockchain experts on staff. Story continues "They will be uploading information from Shipper A needing to send a 53-foot trailer to Retailer A's warehouse in Virginia, and [blockchain] will take the unstructured data, put it into structures, and share it to provide complete visibility into the process," Duffy said. "If something goes wrong, it will provide a complete and immutable trail to find where something went wrong and why." At its recent Chicago meeting, BiTA announced it would participate in two real-world tests of blockchain. One will be BiTA-led and will use a permission blockchain. The organization will also be involved in a project with the Port of Miami and the Florida Blockchain Foundation on a multi-modal blockchain-enabled platform. A shipping line, terminal operator, freight forwarder, airport organization, insurer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and customs are involved in the project as well. Blockchain breaks through trust barriers, which is why so many believe the supply chain is the perfect use case for it. With multiple parties involved in moving freight — including, among others, shippers, ocean carriers, port operators, truck drivers, warehouse workers and the end customer, none of whom know or trust each other — blockchain's ability to verify that each party has executed its part of the freight contract correctly is the solution so many in the industry are searching for. Getting there has just taken awhile. "This is not a technology play, this is a business model shift, so it needs to be approached that way," Duffy said. "It's not just your tech team that is involved in this journey. It's your whole organization that is going to be affected by this." The examples cited above provide clear evidence that blockchain has arrived as a technology. Getting buy-in from executives, though, is taking a bit longer. Dr. Mary Lacity, director of the Blockchain Center of Excellence at the Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas, said her team analyzed 36,000 10-k forms of publicly held companies, and only 242 mentioned blockchain or distributed ledger technology. "Our C-suites are getting really fatigued by blockchain, so we have to shift the conversation to the value it provides," she said. That value proposition, including operational efficiencies, cost reductions and verification, is what will bring blockchain to new heights. One of the companies showing the value exists is FreightTrust. The San Francisco-based company offers a cloud EDI (electronic data interchange) and paperless document platform for supply chain businesses. Among the business cases the company can solve for is the automation of detention claims. Leveraging blockchain technology, FreightTrust is able to integrate finance and factoring into operations. Real-time GPS tracking of deliveries allows it to instantly update timestamps to make detention payout resolutions quick and accurate. U.S. Customs duties payments are also integrated, along with the opportunity to validate insurance for new shipments. All of these processes, while common on many logistics platforms, benefit from the immutability that a blockchain-based platform provides. All parties to the transaction can be assured that the information is correct and verified. FreightTrust's platform can be integrated with leading telematics solutions, including PC*Miler, BlueJay Solutions, Trimble, SMC3, McLeod Software and Descartes. Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay 0 See more from Benzinga Freight Futures Daily Curve: 1/21 Hydrogen Costs Could Fall Quickly For Heavy-Duty Trucks Commentary: Is Saving Coal A Fool's Errand? © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Blockchain Finally Ready For Prime Time?: Blockchain technology has had an interesting couple of years. The technology that underpins Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies has developed a complicated reputation. Is it the savior of all things logistics or another fad destined to build a market, only to bring down all those involved? Is it creating the new dot-com bubble?
The technology certainly has its detractors, and it unfortunately has become synonymous with Bitcoin, which saw a rapid rise in value in 2017 only to come crashing down months later as the promised replacement for the world's global currencies failed to live up to expectations.
Blockchain, though, remains a viable technology that will ultimately alter the landscape of many segments of the global economy — it just needs time.
"We are seeing some interesting real-world applications emerging," said Patrick Duffy, president of theBlockchain in Transport Alliance(BiTA). BiTA is the leading global organization supporting the development of blockchain and blockchain standards within the supply chain.
Walmart has been testing blockchain-based tracking in its logistics operation, andIBM(NYSE:IBM) has been a leading proponent. The Maersk (CSE: AMKBF) The Maersk project has led to the development of the blockchain-based TradeLens platform for global shipping.
Walmart Canada just announced it would deploy blockchain technology starting in January for its third-party carriers.
It is companies like these that convince Duffy blockchain will eventually move into the mainstream.
"The solutions will be pushed, in my opinion, by major retailers when they are ready. WhenWalmart Inc(NYSE:WMT) andAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) and the major retailers in the world are ready to go all in on blockchain technology, there will be a way for these smaller players to use it. They won't need to develop it themselves," he said.
Duffy explained that blockchain will eventually be a background system for transportation management systems (TMS) and other solutions, meaning fleets and shippers, regardless of size, will not need to have blockchain experts on staff.
"They will be uploading information from Shipper A needing to send a 53-foot trailer to Retailer A's warehouse in Virginia, and [blockchain] will take the unstructured data, put it into structures, and share it to provide complete visibility into the process," Duffy said. "If something goes wrong, it will provide a complete and immutable trail to find where something went wrong and why."
At its recent Chicago meeting, BiTA announced it would participate in two real-world tests of blockchain. One will be BiTA-led and will use a permission blockchain. The organization will also be involved in a project with the Port of Miami and the Florida Blockchain Foundation on a multi-modal blockchain-enabled platform. A shipping line, terminal operator, freight forwarder, airport organization, insurer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and customs are involved in the project as well.
Blockchain breaks through trust barriers, which is why so many believe the supply chain is the perfect use case for it. With multiple parties involved in moving freight — including, among others, shippers, ocean carriers, port operators, truck drivers, warehouse workers and the end customer, none of whom know or trust each other — blockchain's ability to verify that each party has executed its part of the freight contract correctly is the solution so many in the industry are searching for.
Getting there has just taken awhile.
"This is not a technology play, this is a business model shift, so it needs to be approached that way," Duffy said. "It's not just your tech team that is involved in this journey. It's your whole organization that is going to be affected by this."
The examples cited above provide clear evidence that blockchain has arrived as a technology. Getting buy-in from executives, though, is taking a bit longer.
Dr. Mary Lacity, director of theBlockchain Center of Excellenceat the Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas, said her team analyzed 36,000 10-k forms of publicly held companies, and only 242 mentioned blockchain or distributed ledger technology.
"Our C-suites are getting really fatigued by blockchain, so we have to shift the conversation to the value it provides," she said.
That value proposition, including operational efficiencies, cost reductions and verification, is what will bring blockchain to new heights.
One of the companies showing the value exists is FreightTrust. The San Francisco-based company offers a cloud EDI (electronic data interchange) and paperless document platform for supply chain businesses. Among the business cases the company can solve for is the automation of detention claims.
Leveraging blockchain technology, FreightTrust is able to integrate finance and factoring into operations. Real-time GPS tracking of deliveries allows it to instantly update timestamps to make detention payout resolutions quick and accurate. U.S. Customs duties payments are also integrated, along with the opportunity to validate insurance for new shipments.
All of these processes, while common on many logistics platforms, benefit from the immutability that a blockchain-based platform provides. All parties to the transaction can be assured that the information is correct and verified.
FreightTrust's platform can be integrated with leading telematics solutions, including PC*Miler, BlueJay Solutions, Trimble, SMC3, McLeod Software and Descartes.
Image byPete LinforthfromPixabay
0
See more from Benzinga
• Freight Futures Daily Curve: 1/21
• Hydrogen Costs Could Fall Quickly For Heavy-Duty Trucks
• Commentary: Is Saving Coal A Fool's Errand?
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high: Litecoin has been faced with a daunting rejection of the 200 exponential moving average (EMA) after making a fifth consecutive lower high since June. The world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency is now in danger of dropping back towards the $47 level of support. Litecoin’s four-hour chart also shows the early stages of a head and shoulders pattern, with the left shoulder and neckline both seeing surges of volume. Head and shoulders patterns are typically indicative of a reversal in price action, which would be in keeping with the recent rally. Despite trading at just $37 before the new year, Litecoin spiked all the way up to $64 on January 17 before beginning a corrective move to the downside. If LTC is to pick itself back up and rally to the upside, it needs to close daily candles above the 200 exponential moving average, which has historically been a bitter point of resistance. The 200 EMA is also in confluence with the $59 level of resistance that suppressed price on numerous occasions throughout October and November. A breakout above $59, coupled with Bitcoin’s upcoming halving, could indicate a transition into a bull market, with upside price targets of $77, $90, and $100. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high: Litecoin has been faced with a daunting rejection of the 200 exponential moving average (EMA) after making a fifth consecutive lower high since June. The world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency is now in danger of dropping back towards the $47 level of support. Litecoin’s four-hour chart also shows the early stages of a head and shoulders pattern, with the left shoulder and neckline both seeing surges of volume. Head and shoulders patterns are typically indicative of a reversal in price action, which would be in keeping with the recent rally. Despite trading at just $37 before the new year, Litecoin spiked all the way up to $64 on January 17 before beginning a corrective move to the downside. If LTC is to pick itself back up and rally to the upside, it needs to close daily candles above the 200 exponential moving average, which has historically been a bitter point of resistance. The 200 EMA is also in confluence with the $59 level of resistance that suppressed price on numerous occasions throughout October and November. A breakout above $59, coupled with Bitcoin’s upcoming halving, could indicate a transition into a bull market, with upside price targets of $77, $90, and $100. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Self-hosted bitcoin payments processor BTCPay launches new ‘Vault’ desktop app: BTCPay has released a new desktop application – BTCPay Vault – to integrate user hardware wallets into its system and allow more users to take advantage of its full Bitcoin node. Established in 2017, BTCPay is a self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payments processor. According to an official blog post , the platform does not store private keys on its system and requires users to have an external wallet. But as BTCPay went on to note in its post: "However, to spend the received funds from your wallet, you need access to your private keys, which we do not store on BTCPay. That required users to use an external wallet, and due to severe limitations of almost every wallet on the market(gap limit, trusted third-parties, no xpub export support, etc), a majority of users often opted to use wallet solutions such as Electrum and leak their sensitive financial information to a third party server." The Vault product aims to solve this problem by enabling integration between BTCPay Server and any hardware wallet connected to users’ personal computers. All funds will be validated against users’ own Bitcoin full nodes. As a result, users can spend their funds on BTCPay Server without ever relinquishing control of their private keys. Last year, the platform created an internal wallet system with support for Ledger Nano S and ColdCard. The newly launched BTCPay Vault would extend compatibility to all other wallet options. BTCPay’s goal, according to founder Nicolas Dorier, is to provide an alternative platform to payment service giant BitPay. As Dorier told Bitcoin Magazine in October 2018, his priority is to “make sure that all software written to work on BitPay will work on BTCPay with minimal (or no) change.” || Self-hosted bitcoin payments processor BTCPay launches new ‘Vault’ desktop app: BTCPay has released a new desktop application – BTCPay Vault – to integrate user hardware wallets into its system and allow more users to take advantage of its full Bitcoin node.
Established in 2017, BTCPay is a self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payments processor. According to an officialblog post, the platform does not store private keys on its system and requires users to have an external wallet.
But as BTCPay went on to note in its post: "However, to spend the received funds from your wallet, you need access to your private keys, which we do not store on BTCPay. That required users to use an external wallet, and due to severe limitations of almost every wallet on the market(gap limit, trusted third-parties, no xpub export support, etc), a majority of users often opted to use wallet solutions such as Electrum and leak their sensitive financial information to a third party server."
The Vault product aims to solve this problem by enabling integration between BTCPay Server and any hardware wallet connected to users’ personal computers. All funds will be validated against users’ own Bitcoin full nodes. As a result, users can spend their funds on BTCPay Server without ever relinquishing control of their private keys.
Last year, the platform created aninternal wallet systemwith support for Ledger Nano S and ColdCard. The newly launched BTCPay Vault would extend compatibility to all other wallet options.
BTCPay’s goal, according to founder Nicolas Dorier, is to provide an alternative platform to payment service giant BitPay.
As DoriertoldBitcoin Magazine in October 2018, his priority is to “make sure that all software written to work on BitPay will work on BTCPay with minimal (or no) change.” || Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020?: Bitcoin has been accused many times in the recent past of lacking innovation and quality developers working on its core protocol. However, if you look at whats going on under the hood, youll see a great deal of exciting new features have been added over the last few years, with even more scheduled for this year. For example, last year, blockchain technology company Blockstream released Miniscript , a new scripting compiler for Bitcoin that aims to improve its programmability without compromising security. Recent technology proposals include Schnorr signatures (a new signature scheme ), MAST (a brand new Merkle tree data structure), and Taproot, which offers a way to allow all participants to agree on an outcome and sign off on a settlement transaction. These three developments alone would greatly improve Bitcoins fungibility and privacy-preserving functions. In this article, I will discuss how these technologies work and what we can expect from Bitcoin after they have been implemented. MAST MAST , or Merkelised Abstract Syntax Trees, provides the ability to lock BTC using P2SH in different scripts all linked to the same Merkle tree. This technology was developed by Blockstream developers Russell OConnor, Peter Wuille, and Peter Todd. P2SH, or Pay to Script Hash, simply lays out a path to create an address which contains a script. You lock up your BTC in a script (output) that can be unlocked by the right key (hash). A script is nothing more than a list of instructions recorded with each transaction that describe how a peer may unlock those Bitcoins. A Merkle tree is essentially how Bitcoins data structure technology has been designed. It is a mathematical structure that hashes different sets of data into a single hash. MAST is essentially P2SH combined with Merkle tree technology. With MAST, the same set of Bitcoins (one input) can then be linked to many scripts containing different conditions for unlocking those Bitcoins. Story continues Essentially, MAST extends Bitcoins smart contract flexibility, improves scalability, and increases privacy. Taproot Taproot creates signature outputs which contain instructions about what happens when conditions are met. Essentially, Taproot technology adds similar smart contract-like functionality within the Bitcoin network. Users can add logic to transactions through scripts that are outputted as simple payment transactions. Taproot is best used with the P2SH functionality as it reveals only the part of the script youre going to use under the assumption that youre going to split your script into a collection of disjunctive statements. It allows for the signees to only reveal a log scale number of branches. This gives users considerably more privacy and increases scalability as no extra storing requirements are needed. Taproot technology works to make Bitcoin transactions look exactly the same on any blockchain explorer, making it impossible to tell the difference between transactions and therefore boosting Bitcoins privacy considerably. As you can imagine, Taproot makes use of Schnorr signatures by aggregating a number of signatures into a single signature. It is therefore the perfect link between Schnorr signatures and MAST , as explained by Greg Maxwell, the developer behind Taproot. If youre not familiar with Schnorr signatures, let me explain why this new signature aggregation scheme is so exciting. Schnorr signatures Schnorr is a new signature aggregation scheme that uses Bitcoins technology in a quite spectacular way. In order to combine all the transaction inputs signatures into one, we dont need a multisignature scheme, but rather an aggregate signature scheme. The distinction is simply that in an aggregate signature scheme, each signer has their own message rather than one message shared by all. Schnorr signatures do not release any information about the inputs when a verifier looks at the signature key. Therefore, a transaction output would look like a regular address to all outside viewers. The only people capable of unlocking scripts within the address would be the owners of the private keys. With Schnorr signatures and signature aggregation technology, it becomes possible to create smart contract functionality. Logic that contains if this/then that can be linked to the signature spending conditions. Finally, Schnorr signatures are easily verifiable and offer a greater degree of robustness, correctness, and flexibility when compared to traditional ECDSA signatures. Will these new features be added to Bitcoin via soft forks throughout 2020 and 2021? Lets hope so. The post Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020?: Bitcoin has been accused many times in the recent past of lacking innovation and quality developers working on its core protocol. However, if you look at whats going on under the hood, youll see a great deal of exciting new features have been added over the last few years, with even more scheduled for this year. For example, last year, blockchain technology company Blockstream released Miniscript , a new scripting compiler for Bitcoin that aims to improve its programmability without compromising security. Recent technology proposals include Schnorr signatures (a new signature scheme ), MAST (a brand new Merkle tree data structure), and Taproot, which offers a way to allow all participants to agree on an outcome and sign off on a settlement transaction. These three developments alone would greatly improve Bitcoins fungibility and privacy-preserving functions. In this article, I will discuss how these technologies work and what we can expect from Bitcoin after they have been implemented. MAST MAST , or Merkelised Abstract Syntax Trees, provides the ability to lock BTC using P2SH in different scripts all linked to the same Merkle tree. This technology was developed by Blockstream developers Russell OConnor, Peter Wuille, and Peter Todd. P2SH, or Pay to Script Hash, simply lays out a path to create an address which contains a script. You lock up your BTC in a script (output) that can be unlocked by the right key (hash). A script is nothing more than a list of instructions recorded with each transaction that describe how a peer may unlock those Bitcoins. A Merkle tree is essentially how Bitcoins data structure technology has been designed. It is a mathematical structure that hashes different sets of data into a single hash. MAST is essentially P2SH combined with Merkle tree technology. With MAST, the same set of Bitcoins (one input) can then be linked to many scripts containing different conditions for unlocking those Bitcoins. Story continues Essentially, MAST extends Bitcoins smart contract flexibility, improves scalability, and increases privacy. Taproot Taproot creates signature outputs which contain instructions about what happens when conditions are met. Essentially, Taproot technology adds similar smart contract-like functionality within the Bitcoin network. Users can add logic to transactions through scripts that are outputted as simple payment transactions. Taproot is best used with the P2SH functionality as it reveals only the part of the script youre going to use under the assumption that youre going to split your script into a collection of disjunctive statements. It allows for the signees to only reveal a log scale number of branches. This gives users considerably more privacy and increases scalability as no extra storing requirements are needed. Taproot technology works to make Bitcoin transactions look exactly the same on any blockchain explorer, making it impossible to tell the difference between transactions and therefore boosting Bitcoins privacy considerably. As you can imagine, Taproot makes use of Schnorr signatures by aggregating a number of signatures into a single signature. It is therefore the perfect link between Schnorr signatures and MAST , as explained by Greg Maxwell, the developer behind Taproot. If youre not familiar with Schnorr signatures, let me explain why this new signature aggregation scheme is so exciting. Schnorr signatures Schnorr is a new signature aggregation scheme that uses Bitcoins technology in a quite spectacular way. In order to combine all the transaction inputs signatures into one, we dont need a multisignature scheme, but rather an aggregate signature scheme. The distinction is simply that in an aggregate signature scheme, each signer has their own message rather than one message shared by all. Schnorr signatures do not release any information about the inputs when a verifier looks at the signature key. Therefore, a transaction output would look like a regular address to all outside viewers. The only people capable of unlocking scripts within the address would be the owners of the private keys. With Schnorr signatures and signature aggregation technology, it becomes possible to create smart contract functionality. Logic that contains if this/then that can be linked to the signature spending conditions. Finally, Schnorr signatures are easily verifiable and offer a greater degree of robustness, correctness, and flexibility when compared to traditional ECDSA signatures. Will these new features be added to Bitcoin via soft forks throughout 2020 and 2021? Lets hope so. The post Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020?: Bitcoin has been accused many times in the recent past of lacking innovation and quality developers working on its core protocol. However, if you look at whats going on under the hood, youll see a great deal of exciting new features have been added over the last few years, with even more scheduled for this year. For example, last year, blockchain technology company Blockstream released Miniscript , a new scripting compiler for Bitcoin that aims to improve its programmability without compromising security. Recent technology proposals include Schnorr signatures (a new signature scheme ), MAST (a brand new Merkle tree data structure), and Taproot, which offers a way to allow all participants to agree on an outcome and sign off on a settlement transaction. These three developments alone would greatly improve Bitcoins fungibility and privacy-preserving functions. In this article, I will discuss how these technologies work and what we can expect from Bitcoin after they have been implemented. MAST MAST , or Merkelised Abstract Syntax Trees, provides the ability to lock BTC using P2SH in different scripts all linked to the same Merkle tree. This technology was developed by Blockstream developers Russell OConnor, Peter Wuille, and Peter Todd. P2SH, or Pay to Script Hash, simply lays out a path to create an address which contains a script. You lock up your BTC in a script (output) that can be unlocked by the right key (hash). A script is nothing more than a list of instructions recorded with each transaction that describe how a peer may unlock those Bitcoins. A Merkle tree is essentially how Bitcoins data structure technology has been designed. It is a mathematical structure that hashes different sets of data into a single hash. MAST is essentially P2SH combined with Merkle tree technology. With MAST, the same set of Bitcoins (one input) can then be linked to many scripts containing different conditions for unlocking those Bitcoins. Story continues Essentially, MAST extends Bitcoins smart contract flexibility, improves scalability, and increases privacy. Taproot Taproot creates signature outputs which contain instructions about what happens when conditions are met. Essentially, Taproot technology adds similar smart contract-like functionality within the Bitcoin network. Users can add logic to transactions through scripts that are outputted as simple payment transactions. Taproot is best used with the P2SH functionality as it reveals only the part of the script youre going to use under the assumption that youre going to split your script into a collection of disjunctive statements. It allows for the signees to only reveal a log scale number of branches. This gives users considerably more privacy and increases scalability as no extra storing requirements are needed. Taproot technology works to make Bitcoin transactions look exactly the same on any blockchain explorer, making it impossible to tell the difference between transactions and therefore boosting Bitcoins privacy considerably. As you can imagine, Taproot makes use of Schnorr signatures by aggregating a number of signatures into a single signature. It is therefore the perfect link between Schnorr signatures and MAST , as explained by Greg Maxwell, the developer behind Taproot. If youre not familiar with Schnorr signatures, let me explain why this new signature aggregation scheme is so exciting. Schnorr signatures Schnorr is a new signature aggregation scheme that uses Bitcoins technology in a quite spectacular way. In order to combine all the transaction inputs signatures into one, we dont need a multisignature scheme, but rather an aggregate signature scheme. The distinction is simply that in an aggregate signature scheme, each signer has their own message rather than one message shared by all. Schnorr signatures do not release any information about the inputs when a verifier looks at the signature key. Therefore, a transaction output would look like a regular address to all outside viewers. The only people capable of unlocking scripts within the address would be the owners of the private keys. With Schnorr signatures and signature aggregation technology, it becomes possible to create smart contract functionality. Logic that contains if this/then that can be linked to the signature spending conditions. Finally, Schnorr signatures are easily verifiable and offer a greater degree of robustness, correctness, and flexibility when compared to traditional ECDSA signatures. Will these new features be added to Bitcoin via soft forks throughout 2020 and 2021? Lets hope so. The post Bitcoin technology: Whats coming in 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Square Crypto Is Creating a Lightning Development Kit for Bitcoin Wallets: Square Crypto, the payment companys bitcoin-focused wing, is building a Lightning Development Kit for wallet and app developers to more easily build on the layer-2 solution. Announced Tuesday, the new kit includes an API, language tools, demo apps and other features to help developers integrate support for Lightning payments into their own wallets. Existing bitcoin wallets will also be able to support Lightning through the new kit, rather than requiring companies to build a separate wallet. The tools will help developers create better user experiences, a Medium post explained. Related: Bitcoin Price Indicator Eyes First Bullish Turn Since August For bitcoin to become a widely used global currency one that cant be stopped, tampered with or rigged in anyones favor improvements to bitcoins UX, security, privacy, and scaling are required, the group said. The post indicated the kit is still being built out and did not provide a timeline for release, but said todays Lightning infrastructure is incomplete without features like these. Related Stories Blockstream Co-Founder Joins Bitcoin-Only Start-up River Financial After Sudden 8% Drop, Bitcoin Bulls Must Defend Price Support at $8,460 Grasping Lightning: Mapping the Key Players in Bitcoins Next Phase || Square Crypto Is Creating a ‘Lightning Development Kit’ for Bitcoin Wallets: Square Crypto, the payment company’s bitcoin-focused wing, is building a “Lightning Development Kit” for wallet and app developers to more easily build on the layer-2 solution.
Announced Tuesday,the new kit includes an API, language tools, demo apps and other features to help developers integrate support for Lightning payments into their own wallets. Existing bitcoin wallets will also be able to support Lightning through the new kit, rather than requiring companies to build a separate wallet.
The tools will help developers create better user experiences, a Medium post explained.
Related:Bitcoin Price Indicator Eyes First Bullish Turn Since August
“For bitcoin to become a widely used global currency – one that can’t be stopped, tampered with or rigged in anyone’s favor – improvements to bitcoin’s UX, security, privacy, and scaling are required,” the group said.
The post indicated the kit is still being built out and did not provide a timeline for release, but said “today’s Lightning infrastructure is incomplete without features like these.”
• Blockstream Co-Founder Joins Bitcoin-Only Start-up River Financial
• After Sudden 8% Drop, Bitcoin Bulls Must Defend Price Support at $8,460
• Grasping Lightning: Mapping the Key Players in Bitcoin’s Next Phase || Square Crypto Is Creating a ‘Lightning Development Kit’ for Bitcoin Wallets: Square Crypto, the payment company’s bitcoin-focused wing, is building a “Lightning Development Kit” for wallet and app developers to more easily build on the layer-2 solution.
Announced Tuesday,the new kit includes an API, language tools, demo apps and other features to help developers integrate support for Lightning payments into their own wallets. Existing bitcoin wallets will also be able to support Lightning through the new kit, rather than requiring companies to build a separate wallet.
The tools will help developers create better user experiences, a Medium post explained.
Related:Bitcoin Price Indicator Eyes First Bullish Turn Since August
“For bitcoin to become a widely used global currency – one that can’t be stopped, tampered with or rigged in anyone’s favor – improvements to bitcoin’s UX, security, privacy, and scaling are required,” the group said.
The post indicated the kit is still being built out and did not provide a timeline for release, but said “today’s Lightning infrastructure is incomplete without features like these.”
• Blockstream Co-Founder Joins Bitcoin-Only Start-up River Financial
• After Sudden 8% Drop, Bitcoin Bulls Must Defend Price Support at $8,460
• Grasping Lightning: Mapping the Key Players in Bitcoin’s Next Phase || Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust is now registered with the SEC as reporting company: Crypto asset manager Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust has been officially registered as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company.
As previouslyreported, the New York-based firm filed a registration statement on Form 10 with the SEC in Nov. 2019 on behalf of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). It has been over 60 days after the initial filing – the typical wait period before Form 10 filings automatically go effective – and GBTC is now the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, according to apress statement.
The fund was offered a private placement exemption from SEC registration in 2013, but decided to pursue this registration voluntarily to boost its compliance standard and gain confidence from investors.
“Grayscale voluntarily pursued this designation and will continue to work within existing regulatory frameworks,” said Michael Sonnenshein, managing director at Grayscale Investment. “Today’s announcement should signal to investors that our regulators are willing to engage with our products and our space as a whole."
The trust will now have to turn in its quarterly and annual reports, audited financial statements as well as other required forms to the SEC.
Additionally, Grayscale is set to reduce the statutory holding periods for shares purchased from the trust’s private placement from 12 months to 6 months, the statement said, which would give accredited investors an earlier liquidity opportunity. The change will take place at least 90 days from now on the condition that the trust has met all relevant requirements under the Securities Act.
GBTC has seen considerable success in 2019, a company spokesperson told The Block, with over $471 million total inflow into private placement, almost twice the amount in 2018.
Sonnenshein previously emphasized that the filing was not a move to turn GBTC into an exchange-traded fund (ETF), although its products were modeled after popular investment products and have a familiar structure, according to a Nov.statement. || Grayscales Bitcoin Trust is now registered with the SEC as reporting company: Crypto asset manager Grayscales Bitcoin Trust has been officially registered as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company. As previously reported , the New York-based firm filed a registration statement on Form 10 with the SEC in Nov. 2019 on behalf of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). It has been over 60 days after the initial filing the typical wait period before Form 10 filings automatically go effective and GBTC is now the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, according to a press statement . The fund was offered a private placement exemption from SEC registration in 2013, but decided to pursue this registration voluntarily to boost its compliance standard and gain confidence from investors. Grayscale voluntarily pursued this designation and will continue to work within existing regulatory frameworks, said Michael Sonnenshein, managing director at Grayscale Investment. Todays announcement should signal to investors that our regulators are willing to engage with our products and our space as a whole." The trust will now have to turn in its quarterly and annual reports, audited financial statements as well as other required forms to the SEC. Additionally, Grayscale is set to reduce the statutory holding periods for shares purchased from the trusts private placement from 12 months to 6 months, the statement said, which would give accredited investors an earlier liquidity opportunity. The change will take place at least 90 days from now on the condition that the trust has met all relevant requirements under the Securities Act. GBTC has seen considerable success in 2019, a company spokesperson told The Block, with over $471 million total inflow into private placement, almost twice the amount in 2018. Sonnenshein previously emphasized that the filing was not a move to turn GBTC into an exchange-traded fund (ETF), although its products were modeled after popular investment products and have a familiar structure, according to a Nov. statement. || Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust is now registered with the SEC as reporting company: Crypto asset manager Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust has been officially registered as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company.
As previouslyreported, the New York-based firm filed a registration statement on Form 10 with the SEC in Nov. 2019 on behalf of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). It has been over 60 days after the initial filing – the typical wait period before Form 10 filings automatically go effective – and GBTC is now the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, according to apress statement.
The fund was offered a private placement exemption from SEC registration in 2013, but decided to pursue this registration voluntarily to boost its compliance standard and gain confidence from investors.
“Grayscale voluntarily pursued this designation and will continue to work within existing regulatory frameworks,” said Michael Sonnenshein, managing director at Grayscale Investment. “Today’s announcement should signal to investors that our regulators are willing to engage with our products and our space as a whole."
The trust will now have to turn in its quarterly and annual reports, audited financial statements as well as other required forms to the SEC.
Additionally, Grayscale is set to reduce the statutory holding periods for shares purchased from the trust’s private placement from 12 months to 6 months, the statement said, which would give accredited investors an earlier liquidity opportunity. The change will take place at least 90 days from now on the condition that the trust has met all relevant requirements under the Securities Act.
GBTC has seen considerable success in 2019, a company spokesperson told The Block, with over $471 million total inflow into private placement, almost twice the amount in 2018.
Sonnenshein previously emphasized that the filing was not a move to turn GBTC into an exchange-traded fund (ETF), although its products were modeled after popular investment products and have a familiar structure, according to a Nov.statement. || Grayscales Bitcoin Trust Is Now Open to More Investors as SEC Reporting Company: Grayscale Investments bid to register its Bitcoin Trust as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company has succeeded. The trust became the first publicly traded bitcoin investment vehicle on an over-the-counter market in May 2015, and Grayscale filed a Form 10 to the SEC in November , opening the trust up to investors currently restricted from participating in non-regulated vehicles. The Form 10 filing was automatically deemed effective 60 days after it was filed. The trusts shares are now registered under the Exchange Act of 1934, making the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to become a reporting company. The trust now has to publicly file its quarterly and annual reports as 10-Qs and 10-Ks with the SEC and publish updates on unscheduled material events and corporate changes. Related: SEC: Cash-Strapped Telegram Launched 2018 Token Sale to Pay for Servers The new status also reduces the statutory holding period for accredited investors from 12 months to six months. Related Stories SEC Charges ICO Operator Who Used Alias After Past Conviction Coinbase-Led Crypto Ratings Council Plans Transparency Boost as New Members Join Liquid Exchange Cancels Sale of Telegrams Gram Tokens
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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8406.52, 8445.43, 8367.85, 8596.83, 8909.82, 9358.59, 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53, 9392.88
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 7511.59, 7355.63, 7322.53, 7275.16, 7238.97, 7290.09, 7317.99, 7422.65, 7293.00, 7193.60, 7200.17, 6985.47, 7344.88, 7410.66, 7411.32, 7769.22, 8163.69, 8079.86, 7879.07, 8166.55, 8037.54, 8192.49, 8144.19, 8827.76, 8807.01, 8723.79, 8929.04, 8942.81, 8706.25, 8657.64, 8745.89, 8680.88, 8406.52, 8445.43, 8367.85, 8596.83, 8909.82, 9358.59, 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53, 9392.88, 9344.37, 9293.52, 9180.96, 9613.42, 9729.80, 9795.94, 9865.12, 10116.67, 9856.61, 10208.24, 10326.05, 10214.38, 10312.12, 9889.42, 9934.43, 9690.14, 10142.00, 9633.39, 9608.48, 9686.44, 9663.18, 9924.52, 9650.17, 9341.71, 8820.52, 8784.49, 8672.46, 8599.51, 8562.45, 8869.67, 8787.79, 8755.25, 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12, 7923.64, 7909.73, 7911.43, 4970.79, 5563.71, 5200.37, 5392.31, 5014.48, 5225.63, 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-03-20]
Volume: 54442976103, RSI (14-day): 39.08, 50-day EMA: 7881.52, 200-day EMA: 8341.28
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1484.00, Gold RSI: 35.21
Oil Price: 22.43, Oil RSI: 24.74
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Thousands of These Computers Were Mining Cryptocurrency. Now They’re Working on Coronavirus Research: CoreWeave, the largest U.S. miner on the Ethereum blockchain, is redirecting the processing power of 6,000 specialized computer chips toward research to find a therapy for the coronavirus.
These graphics processing units (GPUs) will be pointed toward Stanford University’s Folding@home, a long-standing research effort that unveileda projecton Feb. 27 specifically to boost coronavirus research by way of a unique approach to developing pharmaceutical drugs: connecting thousands of computers from around the world to form a distributed supercomputer for disease research.
CoreWeave co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Brian Venturo said the project has at least a shot at finding a drug for the virus. As such, CoreWeave has responded by doubling the power of the entire network with its GPUs, which are designed to handle repetitive calculations.
Related:State Power After Coronavirus, Feat. Peter McCormack
See also:Bitcoiners Are Biohacking a DIY Coronavirus Vaccine
According to Venturo, those 6,000 GPUs made up about 0.2 percent of Ethereum’s total hashrate, earning roughly 28 ETH per day, worth about $3,600 at press time.
There is no cure for the coronavirus just yet (thoughvarious groupsare working on vaccines and research to combat the disease, includingIBM’s supercomputer). Venturo noted that Folding@home has been used to contribute to breakthroughs in the creation of other important drugs.
“Their research had profound impacts on the development of front-line HIV defense drugs, and we are hoping our [computing power] will aid in the fight against coronavirus,” Venturo said.
Related:‘SkyWeaver’ Didn’t Plan for a Captive Audience of Millions but It Sure Helps
The coronavirus is taking a toll across the world. Italy and Spain are onlockdown. Conferences, stores and restaurants are closing to stem the spread of the disease; by stoking fears, it’sslamming the financial marketsin the process.
When the idea of using GPUs for coronavirus research was mentioned to CoreWeave, the team didn’t think twice.
They had a test system up and running “within minutes,” Venturo said. Since then, the project quickly snowballed. CoreWeave has been contributing over half of the overall computing power going into the coronavirus wing of Folding@home.
“The idea of ‘should we do this?’ was never really brought up, it kind of just happened. We were all enthusiastic that we might be able to help,” Venturo added.
Folding@home is a decentralized project in the same vein as Bitcoin. Instead of one research firm alone using a massive computer to do research, Folding@home uses the computing power of anyone who wants to participate from around the world – even if it’s just a single laptop with a little unused computing power to spare.
Seealso:Bitcoiners in Europe Reflect on Economic Shocks as Coronavirus Spreads
In this case, the computing power is used to find helpful information relating to the coronavirus. Much like in bitcoin mining, one user might detect a “solution” to the problem at hand, distributing this information to the rest of the group.
“Their protein simulations attempt to find potential ‘pockets’ where existing [U.S. federal agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approved drugs or other known compounds could help inhibit or treat the virus,” Venturo said.
Viruses have proteins “that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves. To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them,” a Folding@home blog postexplains.
Simulating these proteins and then looking at them from different angles helps scientists to understand them better, with the potential of finding an antidote. Computers accelerate this process by shuffling through the variations very quickly.
“Our specialty is in using computer simulations to understand proteins’ moving parts. Watching how the atoms in a protein move relative to one another is important because it captures valuable information that is inaccessible by any other means,” the post reads.
Folding@home could use even more power. Venturo urges other GPU miners to join the cause.
Even without these calls for participation, though, miners of other cryptocurrencies are already independently taking action. Tulip.tools founder Johann Tanzer put out a call to action to Tezos bakers (that blockchain’s equivalent of miners)last week, promising to send the leading contributor to Folding@home a modest 15 XTZ, worth roughly $20 at press time.
The initiative blew up, to Tanzer’s surprise. Though they might not be contributing as much power as CoreWeave,20 groupsof Tezos miners are now contributing a slice of their hashing power to the cause. Tanzer’s pot has swelled to roughly $600 as Tezos users caught wind of the effort and donated.
But that’s not to say all miners can participate. While GPUs are flexible, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a type of chip designed specifically for mining, aren’t, according to Venturo. Though ASICs are more powerful than GPUs, they’re really only made for one thing: To mine cryptocurrency. This is one advantage Venturo thinks Ethereum has over Bitcoin, since GPU mining still works on the former, whereas the latter is now dominated by ASICs.
See also:Israeli Bitcoiners See Surveillance as Unavoidable During Coronavirus Crisis
“This is one of the great things about the Ethereum mining ecosystem, it’s basically the largest GPU compute resource on the planet. We were able to redeploy our hardware to help fight a global pandemic in minutes,” Venturo said. (However, it’s worth noting that Ethereum has seenASICsenter the fray. Not to mention, ether miners might soon go extinct when apivotal upgrademakes its way into the network.)
ASICs are useless for the Folding@Home effort, but if bitcoin miners have old GPUs lying around from the early days that they could contribute, too.
Even if other miners join up, though, it’s still a long shot that the effort will lead to a helpful drug.
“After discussing with some industry experts […] we believe the chance of success in utilizing the work done on Folding@Home to deliver a drug to market to be in the 2-5% range,” Venturo said.
• How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus
• What an Uptick in ‘Coinjoins’ Says About Bitcoin’s Value Proposition || Thousands of These Computers Were Mining Cryptocurrency. Now Theyre Working on Coronavirus Research: CoreWeave, the largest U.S. miner on the Ethereum blockchain, is redirecting the processing power of 6,000 specialized computer chips toward research to find a therapy for the coronavirus. These graphics processing units (GPUs) will be pointed toward Stanford Universitys Folding@home, a long-standing research effort that unveiled a project on Feb. 27 specifically to boost coronavirus research by way of a unique approach to developing pharmaceutical drugs: connecting thousands of computers from around the world to form a distributed supercomputer for disease research. CoreWeave co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Brian Venturo said the project has at least a shot at finding a drug for the virus. As such, CoreWeave has responded by doubling the power of the entire network with its GPUs, which are designed to handle repetitive calculations. Related: State Power After Coronavirus, Feat. Peter McCormack See also: Bitcoiners Are Biohacking a DIY Coronavirus Vaccine According to Venturo, those 6,000 GPUs made up about 0.2 percent of Ethereums total hashrate, earning roughly 28 ETH per day, worth about $3,600 at press time. There is no cure for the coronavirus just yet (though various groups are working on vaccines and research to combat the disease, including IBMs supercomputer ). Venturo noted that Folding@home has been used to contribute to breakthroughs in the creation of other important drugs. Their research had profound impacts on the development of front-line HIV defense drugs, and we are hoping our [computing power] will aid in the fight against coronavirus, Venturo said. Related: SkyWeaver Didnt Plan for a Captive Audience of Millions but It Sure Helps The coronavirus is taking a toll across the world. Italy and Spain are on lockdown . Conferences, stores and restaurants are closing to stem the spread of the disease; by stoking fears, its slamming the financial markets in the process. World computer When the idea of using GPUs for coronavirus research was mentioned to CoreWeave, the team didnt think twice. Story continues They had a test system up and running within minutes, Venturo said. Since then, the project quickly snowballed. CoreWeave has been contributing over half of the overall computing power going into the coronavirus wing of Folding@home. The idea of should we do this? was never really brought up, it kind of just happened. We were all enthusiastic that we might be able to help, Venturo added. Folding@home is a decentralized project in the same vein as Bitcoin. Instead of one research firm alone using a massive computer to do research, Folding@home uses the computing power of anyone who wants to participate from around the world even if its just a single laptop with a little unused computing power to spare. See also: Bitcoiners in Europe Reflect on Economic Shocks as Coronavirus Spreads In this case, the computing power is used to find helpful information relating to the coronavirus. Much like in bitcoin mining, one user might detect a solution to the problem at hand, distributing this information to the rest of the group. Their protein simulations attempt to find potential pockets where existing [U.S. federal agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approved drugs or other known compounds could help inhibit or treat the virus, Venturo said. Viruses have proteins that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves. To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them, a Folding@home blog post explains . Simulating these proteins and then looking at them from different angles helps scientists to understand them better, with the potential of finding an antidote. Computers accelerate this process by shuffling through the variations very quickly. Our specialty is in using computer simulations to understand proteins moving parts. Watching how the atoms in a protein move relative to one another is important because it captures valuable information that is inaccessible by any other means, the post reads. Long shot Folding@home could use even more power. Venturo urges other GPU miners to join the cause. Even without these calls for participation, though, miners of other cryptocurrencies are already independently taking action. Tulip.tools founder Johann Tanzer put out a call to action to Tezos bakers (that blockchains equivalent of miners) last week , promising to send the leading contributor to Folding@home a modest 15 XTZ, worth roughly $20 at press time. The initiative blew up, to Tanzers surprise. Though they might not be contributing as much power as CoreWeave, 20 groups of Tezos miners are now contributing a slice of their hashing power to the cause. Tanzers pot has swelled to roughly $600 as Tezos users caught wind of the effort and donated. But thats not to say all miners can participate. While GPUs are flexible, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a type of chip designed specifically for mining, arent, according to Venturo. Though ASICs are more powerful than GPUs, theyre really only made for one thing: To mine cryptocurrency. This is one advantage Venturo thinks Ethereum has over Bitcoin, since GPU mining still works on the former, whereas the latter is now dominated by ASICs. Se e also: Israeli Bitcoiners See Surveillance as Unavoidable During Coronavirus Crisis This is one of the great things about the Ethereum mining ecosystem, its basically the largest GPU compute resource on the planet. We were able to redeploy our hardware to help fight a global pandemic in minutes, Venturo said. (However, its worth noting that Ethereum has seen ASICs enter the fray. Not to mention, ether miners might soon go extinct when a pivotal upgrade makes its way into the network.) ASICs are useless for the Folding@Home effort, but if bitcoin miners have old GPUs lying around from the early days that they could contribute, too. Even if other miners join up, though, its still a long shot that the effort will lead to a helpful drug. After discussing with some industry experts [
] we believe the chance of success in utilizing the work done on Folding@Home to deliver a drug to market to be in the 2-5% range, Venturo said. Related Stories How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus What an Uptick in Coinjoins Says About Bitcoins Value Proposition || 450 free Ivy League university courses you can take online: Woman uses computer in lounge area This is an updated version of a story Quartz published in January 2019 . The eight Ivy League schools are among the most prestigious colleges in the world. They include Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia universities, and the University of Pennsylvania. Indians come out in hordes to celebrate Modi’s call for social distancing These Ivy League schools are highly selective and extremely hard to get into. But the good news is that all these universities now offer free online courses across multiple online course platforms. Here’s a collection of all of them, split into courses in the following subjects: Computer Science, Data Science, Programming, Humanities, Business, Art & Design, Science, Social Sciences, Health & Medicine, Engineering, Education & Teaching, Mathematics, and Personal Development. Computer Science (40) For the first time in 228 years, the New York Stock Exchange will open without its trading floor CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science Harvard University Algorithms, Part I Princeton University Algorithms, Part II Princeton University Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies Princeton University Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics Columbia University Machine Learning Columbia University Artificial Intelligence (AI) Columbia University Reinforcement Learning Brown University Machine Learning Georgia Institute of Technology Software Defined Networking Princeton University Computer Architecture Princeton University Enabling Technologies for Data Science and Analytics: The Internet of Things Columbia University Analysis of Algorithms Princeton University Robotics: Perception University of Pennsylvania Machine Learning: Unsupervised Learning Brown University Animation and CGI Motion Columbia University Networks Illustrated: Principles without Calculus Princeton University Linux Basics: The Command Line Interface Dartmouth C Programming: Modular Programming and Memory Management Dartmouth Story continues CS50’s Understanding Technology Harvard University CS50’s Computer Science for Business Professionals Harvard University CS50’s AP® Computer Science Principles Harvard University Algorithm Design and Analysis University of Pennsylvania HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Administrative/IT Perspective) Columbia University HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Clinical Perspective) Columbia University Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes Princeton University C Programming: Using Linux Tools and Libraries Dartmouth C Programming: Pointers and Memory Management Dartmouth C Programming: Language Foundations Institut Mines-Télécom [New] CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python Harvard University CS50 for Lawyers Harvard University [New] Robotics: Vision Intelligence and Machine Learning University of Pennsylvania Data Structures and Software Design University of Pennsylvania Computational Thinking for Problem Solving University of Pennsylvania Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: An Introduction to Digital Currencies University of Pennsylvania HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Social/Peer Perspective) Columbia University Computer Science: Algorithms, Theory, and Machines from Princeton University Computer Science: Programming with a Purpose Princeton University C Programming: Advanced Data Types Dartmouth C Programming: Getting Started Dartmouth Data Science (18) Statistics and R Harvard University Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics Columbia University Data Science: R Basics Harvard University People Analytics University of Pennsylvania High-Dimensional Data Analysis Harvard University Data Science: Visualization Harvard University Data Science: Machine Learning Harvard University Case study: DNA methylation data analysis Harvard University Causal Diagrams: Draw Your Assumptions Before Your Conclusions Harvard University Data Science: Linear Regression Harvard University Data Science: Inference and Modeling Harvard University Data Science: Probability Harvard University Data Science: Wrangling Harvard University Data Science: Productivity Tools Harvard University Big Data and Education Columbia University Principles, Statistical and Computational Tools for Reproducible Data Science Harvard University Data Science: Capstone Harvard University Data, Models and Decisions in Business Analytics Columbia University Programming (8) Using Python for Research Harvard University CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript Harvard University Programming for the Web with JavaScript University of Pennsylvania The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone Cornell University CS50’s Mobile App Development with React Native Harvard University CS50’s Introduction to Game Development Harvard University Software Development Fundamentals University of Pennsylvania Quantitative Methods for Biology Harvard University Humanities (81) Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”) University of Pennsylvania HOPE: Human Odyssey to Political Existentialism from Princeton University Moralities of Everyday Life Yale University Greek and Roman Mythology University of Pennsylvania Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Predecessors University of Pennsylvania Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle and His Successors University of Pennsylvania China (Part 1): Political and Intellectual Foundations: From the Sage Kings to Confucius and the Legalists Harvard University Visualizing Japan (1850s-1930s): Westernization, Protest, Modernity Harvard University Religious Literacy: Traditions and Scriptures Harvard University English for Career Development University of Pennsylvania Literati China: Examinations, Neo-Confucianism, and Later Imperial China Harvard University Modern China’s Foundations: The Manchus and the Qing Harvard University China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism Harvard University English for Journalism University of Pennsylvania Effective Altruism Princeton University Buddhism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Creating Modern China: The Republican Period to the Present Harvard University Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization University of Pennsylvania The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1850-1861: A House Divided Columbia University The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1865-1890: The Unfinished Revolution Columbia University The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1861 – 1865: A New Birth of Freedom Columbia University Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University Cosmopolitan Tang: Aristocratic Culture in China Harvard University Shakespeare’s Hamlet : The Ghost Harvard University Global China: From the Mongols to the Ming Harvard University Invasions, Rebellions, and the Fall of Imperial China Harvard University China and Communism Harvard University Contemporary China: The People’s Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong Harvard University Global History Lab Princeton University The Ethics of Eating Cornell University Christianity Through Its Scriptures Harvard University PredictionX: John Snow and the Cholera Outbreak of 1854 Harvard University Islam Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life Yale University A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 – 1650) Yale University American Capitalism: A History Cornell University Question Reality! Science, philosophy, and the search for meaning Dartmouth Bioethics: The Law, Medicine, and Ethics of Reproductive Technologies and Genetics Harvard University Books in the Medieval Liturgy Harvard University Religion, Conflict and Peace Harvard University Shakespeare’s Othello : The Moor Harvard University The Ancient Greek Hero Harvard University The Medieval Book of Hours: Art and Devotion in the Later Middle Ages Harvard University Wonders of Ancient Egypt University of Pennsylvania Poetry in America: Whitman Harvard University Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice : Shylock Harvard University Hinduism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Judaism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Ancient Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University The Tabernacle in Word & Image: An Italian Jewish Manuscript Revealed University of Pennsylvania English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics University of Pennsylvania English for Business and Entrepreneurship University of Pennsylvania Seeking Women’s Rights: Colonial Period to the Civil War Columbia University Women Have Always Worked: The US Experience 1700 – 1920 Columbia University John Milton: Paradise Lost Dartmouth The American Renaissance: Classic Literature of the 19th Century Dartmouth Power and Responsibility: Doing Philosophy with Superheroes Harvard University Sikhism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories Harvard University Shakespeare’s Life and Work Harvard University Poetry in America: The Poetry of Early New England Harvard University Book Sleuthing: The Nineteenth Century Harvard University PredictionX: Lost Without Longitude Harvard University Introduction to Digital Humanities Harvard University China Humanities: The Individual in Chinese Culture Harvard University Poetry in America: Whitman Harvard University Poetry in America: The Civil War and Its Aftermath Harvard University Poetry in America: Modernism Harvard University China’s Political and Intellectual Foundations: From Sage Kings to Confucius Harvard University Modern Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University [New] Japanese Books: From Manuscript to Print Harvard University The Worldview of Thomas Berry: The Flourishing of the Earth Community Yale University Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism Columbia University Women Have Always Worked: The US Experience 1920 – 2016 Columbia University Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018 Columbia University Negotiating a Changing World: 1920-1950 Columbia University Wage Work for Women Citizens: 1870-1920 Columbia University Writing Case Studies: Science of Delivery Princeton University Fantastic Places, Unhuman Humans: Exploring Humanity Through Literature Brown University The Ethics of Memory Brown University Libertarian Free Will: Neuroscientific and Philosophical Evidence Dartmouth Business (68) Introduction to Marketing University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Financial Accounting University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Operations Management Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Financial Markets Yale University Introduction to Corporate Finance Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Customer Analytics University of Pennsylvania Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content University of Pennsylvania The Global Financial Crisis Yale University Financial Engineering and Risk Management Part I Columbia University Entrepreneurship 2: Launching your Start-Up University of Pennsylvania Operations Analytics University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Spreadsheets and Models University of Pennsylvania Accounting Analytics University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 1: Developing the Opportunity University of Pennsylvania More Introduction to Financial Accounting University of Pennsylvania Fundamentals of Quantitative Modeling University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 3: Growth Strategies University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 4: Financing and Profitability University of Pennsylvania Social Impact Strategy: Tools for Entrepreneurs and Innovators University of Pennsylvania Analytics in Python Columbia University Improving Your Business Through a Culture of Health Harvard University Introducción a las Finanzas Corporativas University of Pennsylvania Arts and Culture Strategy University of Pennsylvania Financial Engineering and Risk Management Part II Columbia University Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies Harvard University Decision-Making and Scenarios University of Pennsylvania Introducción al Marketing University of Pennsylvania Crowdfunding University of Pennsylvania Construction Project Management Columbia University Introduction to Global Hospitality Management Cornell University Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A Strategic Approach University of Pennsylvania Financial Acumen for Non-Financial Managers University of Pennsylvania Introducción a la Contabilidad Financiera University of Pennsylvania Leading the Life You Want University of Pennsylvania Global Trends for Business and Society University of Pennsylvania 市场营销概论 (中文版） University of Pennsylvania Construction Finance Columbia University Construction Cost Estimating and Cost Control Columbia University Construction Scheduling Columbia University Entrepreneurship and Healthcare in Emerging Economies Harvard University Launching Breakthrough Technologies Harvard University Modeling Risk and Realities University of Pennsylvania What is Corruption: Anti-Corruption and Compliance University of Pennsylvania What is Compliance? University of Pennsylvania Management Fundamentals University of Pennsylvania Building High-Performing Teams University of Pennsylvania Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning University of Pennsylvania Effective Compliance Programs University of Pennsylvania Application of AI, InsurTech, and Real Estate Technology University of Pennsylvania Managing Social and Human Capital University of Pennsylvania Lending, Crowdfunding, and Modern Investing University of Pennsylvania FinTech: Foundations, Payments, and Regulations University of Pennsylvania Influence University of Pennsylvania 运营管理概论（中文版） University of Pennsylvania 财务会计概论（中文版） University of Pennsylvania 企业金融概论（中文版） University of Pennsylvania Introducción a la Gestión de Operaciones University of Pennsylvania Optimizing Diversity on Teams University of Pennsylvania The Power of Team Culture University of Pennsylvania Marketing Analytics Columbia University Demand and Supply Analytics Columbia University Free Cash Flow Analysis Columbia University Introduction to Corporate Finance Columbia University Connected Strategy Capstone Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Retail Fundamentals Dartmouth Omnichannel Strategy and Management Dartmouth Developing Breakthrough Innovations with the Three Box Solution Dartmouth Executing Breakthrough Innovations with the Three Box Solution Dartmouth Art & Design (20) Gamification University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Classical Music Yale University Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society University of Pennsylvania Roman Architecture Yale University 18th-Century Opera: Handel & Mozart Harvard University The Architectural Imagination Harvard University Hollywood: History, Industry, Art University of Pennsylvania First Nights – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and the 19th Century Orchestra Harvard University First Nights – Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio Harvard University Reinventing the Piano Princeton University First Nights – Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and the Birth of Opera Harvard University First Nights – Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring: Modernism, Ballet, and Riots Harvard University First Nights – Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Program Music in the 19th Century Harvard University Introduction to Italian Opera Dartmouth 19th-Century Opera: Meyerbeer, Wagner, & Verdi Harvard University Exposing Digital Photography Harvard University Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology Harvard University Music and Social Action Yale University Age of Cathedrals Yale University Introduction to German Opera Dartmouth Science (31) Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us University of Pennsylvania Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management (HE) Harvard Medical School Fundamentals of Neuroscience, Part 1: The Electrical Properties of the Neuron Harvard University Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (part 1) Harvard University Principles of Biochemistry Harvard University Fundamentals of Neuroscience, Part 2: Neurons and Networks Harvard University Introduction to Environmental Science Dartmouth Super-Earths and Life Harvard University Shark MOOC 2020 Cornell University Relativity and Astrophysics Cornell University Imagining Other Earths Princeton University The Quantum World Harvard University The Climate-Energy Challenge Harvard University Introduction to Bioconductor: Annotation and Analysis of Genomes and Genomic Assays Harvard University Case Studies in Functional Genomics Harvard University Cell Biology: Mitochondria Harvard University The Health Effects of Climate Change Harvard University Fundamentals of Neuroscience, Part 3: The Brain Harvard University MalariaX: Defeating Malaria from the Genes to the Globe Harvard University Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (physics) Harvard University Backyard Meteorology: The Science of Weather Harvard University High-performance Computing for Reproducible Genomics Harvard University Philosophy of Science University of Pennsylvania Journey Conversations: Weaving Knowledge and Action Yale University Introduction to Climate Change and Health Yale University 宇宙之旅：对话 (Journey of the Universe: Weaving Knowledge and Action) Yale University Thomas Berry的世界观：地球社区的繁荣 (The Worldview of Thomas Berry: The Flourishing of the Earth Community) Yale University Climate Adaptation for Human Health Yale University 宇宙之旅：展现生命 (Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life) Yale University Communicating Climate Change and Health Yale University Bipedalism: The Science of Upright Walking Dartmouth Social Sciences (79) Justice Harvard University Constitutional Interpretation Princeton University An Introduction to American Law University of Pennsylvania Moral Foundations of Politics Yale University The Age of Sustainable Development Columbia University Paradoxes of War Princeton University Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract Harvard University America’s Written Constitution Yale University The Science of Well-Being Yale University Tangible Things: Discovering History Through Artworks, Artifacts, Scientific Specimens, and the Stuff Around You Harvard University Designing Cities University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases University of Pennsylvania Microeconomics: The Power of Markets University of Pennsylvania Civil Liberties Princeton University Global History of Capitalism Princeton University Revolutionary Ideas: Utility, Justice, Equality, Freedom University of Pennsylvania A Law Student’s Toolkit Yale University Making and Meaning in the Medieval Manuscript Harvard University Monasteries, Schools, and Notaries, Part 1: Reading the Late Medieval Marseille Archive Harvard University Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills University of Pennsylvania America’s Unwritten Constitution Yale University JuryX: Deliberations for Social Change Harvard University Monasteries, Schools, and Notaries, Part 2: Introduction to the Transitional Gothic Script Harvard University The History of Medieval Medicine Through Jewish Manuscripts University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Psychology Yale University Economics of Money and Banking Columbia University Making Government Work in Hard Places Princeton University Networks, Crowds and Markets Cornell University Wiretaps to Big Data Cornell University Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy, and the Press Harvard University PredictionX: Omens, Oracles & Prophecies Harvard University Scrolls in the Age of the Book Harvard University The History of the Book in 17th and 18th Century Europe Harvard University Print and Manuscript in Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East (1450-1650) Harvard University Intellectual Property Law and Policy: Part 1 University of Pennsylvania Social Norms, Social Change II University of Pennsylvania Microeconomics: When Markets Fail University of Pennsylvania Corruption University of Pennsylvania English for Media Literacy University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology: Applications and Interventions University of Pennsylvania Social Norms, Social Change I University of Pennsylvania Network Dynamics of Social Behavior University of Pennsylvania Intellectual Property Law and Policy: Part 2 University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science University of Pennsylvania Revolutionary Ideas: Borders, Elections, Constitutions, Prisons University of Pennsylvania Everyday Parenting: The ABCs of Child Rearing Yale University Global Muckraking: Investigative Journalism and Global Media Columbia University Risk & Return Columbia University Reclaiming Broken Places: Introduction to Civic Ecology Cornell University Child Protection: Children’s Rights in Theory and Practice Harvard University US Public Policy: Social, Economic, and Foreign Policies Harvard University American Government: Constitutional Foundations Harvard University Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media Harvard University US Political Institutions: Congress, Presidency, Courts, and Bureaucracy Harvard University CitiesX: The Past, Present and Future of Urban Life Harvard University Creating an Effective Child Welfare System University of Pennsylvania Intellectual Property in the Healthcare Industry University of Pennsylvania Privacy Law and HIPAA University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Intellectual Property University of Pennsylvania Trademark Law University of Pennsylvania Copyright Law University of Pennsylvania Patent Law University of Pennsylvania Privacy Law and Data Protection University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology: Character, Grit and Research Methods University of Pennsylvania Exploring Renewable Energy Schemes University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being University of Pennsylvania The Top 10 Social Issues for the First 100 Days University of Pennsylvania American Contract Law II Yale University American Contract Law I Yale University Poverty & Population: How Demographics Shape Policy Columbia University Health, Housing, and Educational Services Columbia University Social Services for Families, Seniors and Those with Disabilities Columbia University US Social Services Compared Columbia University US Social Services: Where did they come from? Columbia University Protecting Children in Humanitarian Settings Columbia University Freedom of Expression in the Age of Globalization Columbia University Freedom of Expression and Information in the Time of Globalization: Foundational Course Columbia University Freedom of Expression and Information in the Time of Globalization: Advanced Course Columbia University Structuring Successful Business Deals Cornell University Health & Medicine (34) Buddhism and Modern Psychology Princeton University Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster Harvard University Introduction to Breast Cancer Yale University Introduction to Dental Medicine University of Pennsylvania Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety Harvard University Going Out on a Limb: Anatomy of the Upper Limb University of Pennsylvania The Science and Politics of the GMO Cornell University United States Health Policy Harvard University AnatomyX: Musculoskeletal Cases Harvard University Fundamentals of Clinical Trials Harvard University Anatomy of the Chest, Abdomen, and Pelvis Yale University Readings in Global Health Harvard University Global Health Case Studies From a Biosocial Perspective Harvard University Prescription Drug Regulation, Cost, and Access: Current Controversies in Context Harvard University Health and Society Harvard University The Opioid Crisis in America Harvard University Health Care Innovation University of Pennsylvania Essentials of Global Health Yale University Innovating in Health Care Harvard University Lessons from Ebola: Preventing the Next Pandemic Harvard University Practical Improvement Science in Health Care: A Roadmap for Getting Results Harvard University Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs Harvard University US Health Law Fundamentals University of Pennsylvania Comparative Health Systems University of Pennsylvania The Economics of Health Care Delivery University of Pennsylvania The Oral Cavity: Portal to Health and Disease University of Pennsylvania Feeding the World University of Pennsylvania Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers Yale University Traitement antirétroviral pour lutter contre le VIH : mise en œuvre de l’approche « traiter tout le monde » Columbia University Soins infirmiers en VIH pédiatrique Columbia University Pediatric HIV Nursing Columbia University Fighting HIV with Antiretroviral Therapy: Implementing the Treat-All Approach Columbia University Artful Medicine Brown University Beyond Medical Histories: Gaining Insight from Patient Stories Brown University Engineering (15) The Art of Structural Engineering: Vaults Princeton University Robotics: Aerial Robotics University of Pennsylvania The Art of Structural Engineering: Bridges Princeton University Robotics: Computational Motion Planning University of Pennsylvania Energy Within Environmental Constraints Harvard University Robotics: Mobility University of Pennsylvania [New] Robotics: Kinematics and Mathematical Foundations University of Pennsylvania Robotics Columbia University A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations Cornell University The Engineering of Structures Around Us Dartmouth Robotics: Estimation and Learning University of Pennsylvania MOS Transistors Columbia University [New] Robotics: Dynamics and Control University of Pennsylvania [New] Robotics: Locomotion Engineering University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Engineering and Design Brown University Education & Teaching (21) Leaders of Learning Harvard University Applying to US Universities University of Pennsylvania American Education Reform: History, Policy, Practice University of Pennsylvania Saving Schools Mini-Course 1: History and Politics of US Education Harvard University Saving Schools, Mini-Course 3: Accountability and National Standards Harvard University Saving Schools Mini-Course 4: School Choice Harvard University Introduction to Family Engagement in Education Harvard University Saving Schools, Mini-Course 2: Teacher Policies Harvard University Saving Schools Harvard University Orchestrating Whole Classroom Discussion University of Pennsylvania How to Apply to College University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Online and Blended Teaching University of Pennsylvania The Science of Learning – What Every Teacher Should Know Columbia University Analytics in Course Design: Leveraging Canvas Data (HE) Dartmouth Introduction to Data Wise: A Collaborative Process to Improve Learning & Teaching Harvard University Understanding Classroom Interaction University of Pennsylvania Innovating Instruction: Reimagining Teaching with Technology Columbia University Attaining Higher Education Columbia University University Studies for Student Veterans Columbia University Inclusive Teaching: Supporting All Students in the College Classroom Columbia University Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom Cornell University Mathematics (15) Introduction to Linear Models and Matrix Algebra Harvard University Calculus: Single Variable Part 1 – Functions University of Pennsylvania Fat Chance: Probability from the Ground Up Harvard University Calculus: Single Variable Part 3 – Integration University of Pennsylvania Calculus: Single Variable Part 2 – Differentiation University of Pennsylvania Statistical Inference and Modeling for High-throughput Experiments Harvard University Calculus: Single Variable Part 4 – Applications University of Pennsylvania Analytic Combinatorics Princeton University A Crash Course in Causality: Inferring Causal Effects from Observational Data University of Pennsylvania Calculus Applied! Harvard University Introduction to Probability Harvard University Single Variable Calculus University of Pennsylvania Single Variable Calculus University of Pennsylvania Causal Inference Columbia University Causal Inference 2 Columbia University Personal Development (6) Introduction to Negotiation: A Strategic Playbook for Becoming a Principled and Persuasive Negotiator Yale University Success University of Pennsylvania Improving Communication Skills University of Pennsylvania Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking Harvard University مقدمة عن التفاوض: دليل استراتيجي لتصبح مُفاوضًا ذا مبادئ ومُقنعًا Yale University Find Your Calling: Career Transition Principles for Returning Veterans Columbia University A version of this post originally appeared on Medium . Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Americans are turning to one of Africa’s most common prescribed drugs to battle coronavirus This interactive map from Johns Hopkins University shows the effects of coronavirus in real time || 450 free Ivy League university courses you can take online: Woman uses computer in lounge area This is an updated version of a story Quartz published in January 2019 . The eight Ivy League schools are among the most prestigious colleges in the world. They include Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia universities, and the University of Pennsylvania. Indians come out in hordes to celebrate Modi’s call for social distancing These Ivy League schools are highly selective and extremely hard to get into. But the good news is that all these universities now offer free online courses across multiple online course platforms. Here’s a collection of all of them, split into courses in the following subjects: Computer Science, Data Science, Programming, Humanities, Business, Art & Design, Science, Social Sciences, Health & Medicine, Engineering, Education & Teaching, Mathematics, and Personal Development. Computer Science (40) For the first time in 228 years, the New York Stock Exchange will open without its trading floor CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science Harvard University Algorithms, Part I Princeton University Algorithms, Part II Princeton University Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies Princeton University Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics Columbia University Machine Learning Columbia University Artificial Intelligence (AI) Columbia University Reinforcement Learning Brown University Machine Learning Georgia Institute of Technology Software Defined Networking Princeton University Computer Architecture Princeton University Enabling Technologies for Data Science and Analytics: The Internet of Things Columbia University Analysis of Algorithms Princeton University Robotics: Perception University of Pennsylvania Machine Learning: Unsupervised Learning Brown University Animation and CGI Motion Columbia University Networks Illustrated: Principles without Calculus Princeton University Linux Basics: The Command Line Interface Dartmouth C Programming: Modular Programming and Memory Management Dartmouth Story continues CS50’s Understanding Technology Harvard University CS50’s Computer Science for Business Professionals Harvard University CS50’s AP® Computer Science Principles Harvard University Algorithm Design and Analysis University of Pennsylvania HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Administrative/IT Perspective) Columbia University HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Clinical Perspective) Columbia University Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes Princeton University C Programming: Using Linux Tools and Libraries Dartmouth C Programming: Pointers and Memory Management Dartmouth C Programming: Language Foundations Institut Mines-Télécom [New] CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python Harvard University CS50 for Lawyers Harvard University [New] Robotics: Vision Intelligence and Machine Learning University of Pennsylvania Data Structures and Software Design University of Pennsylvania Computational Thinking for Problem Solving University of Pennsylvania Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: An Introduction to Digital Currencies University of Pennsylvania HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Social/Peer Perspective) Columbia University Computer Science: Algorithms, Theory, and Machines from Princeton University Computer Science: Programming with a Purpose Princeton University C Programming: Advanced Data Types Dartmouth C Programming: Getting Started Dartmouth Data Science (18) Statistics and R Harvard University Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics Columbia University Data Science: R Basics Harvard University People Analytics University of Pennsylvania High-Dimensional Data Analysis Harvard University Data Science: Visualization Harvard University Data Science: Machine Learning Harvard University Case study: DNA methylation data analysis Harvard University Causal Diagrams: Draw Your Assumptions Before Your Conclusions Harvard University Data Science: Linear Regression Harvard University Data Science: Inference and Modeling Harvard University Data Science: Probability Harvard University Data Science: Wrangling Harvard University Data Science: Productivity Tools Harvard University Big Data and Education Columbia University Principles, Statistical and Computational Tools for Reproducible Data Science Harvard University Data Science: Capstone Harvard University Data, Models and Decisions in Business Analytics Columbia University Programming (8) Using Python for Research Harvard University CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript Harvard University Programming for the Web with JavaScript University of Pennsylvania The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone Cornell University CS50’s Mobile App Development with React Native Harvard University CS50’s Introduction to Game Development Harvard University Software Development Fundamentals University of Pennsylvania Quantitative Methods for Biology Harvard University Humanities (81) Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”) University of Pennsylvania HOPE: Human Odyssey to Political Existentialism from Princeton University Moralities of Everyday Life Yale University Greek and Roman Mythology University of Pennsylvania Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Predecessors University of Pennsylvania Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle and His Successors University of Pennsylvania China (Part 1): Political and Intellectual Foundations: From the Sage Kings to Confucius and the Legalists Harvard University Visualizing Japan (1850s-1930s): Westernization, Protest, Modernity Harvard University Religious Literacy: Traditions and Scriptures Harvard University English for Career Development University of Pennsylvania Literati China: Examinations, Neo-Confucianism, and Later Imperial China Harvard University Modern China’s Foundations: The Manchus and the Qing Harvard University China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism Harvard University English for Journalism University of Pennsylvania Effective Altruism Princeton University Buddhism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Creating Modern China: The Republican Period to the Present Harvard University Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization University of Pennsylvania The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1850-1861: A House Divided Columbia University The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1865-1890: The Unfinished Revolution Columbia University The Civil War and Reconstruction – 1861 – 1865: A New Birth of Freedom Columbia University Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University Cosmopolitan Tang: Aristocratic Culture in China Harvard University Shakespeare’s Hamlet : The Ghost Harvard University Global China: From the Mongols to the Ming Harvard University Invasions, Rebellions, and the Fall of Imperial China Harvard University China and Communism Harvard University Contemporary China: The People’s Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong Harvard University Global History Lab Princeton University The Ethics of Eating Cornell University Christianity Through Its Scriptures Harvard University PredictionX: John Snow and the Cholera Outbreak of 1854 Harvard University Islam Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life Yale University A Journey through Western Christianity: from Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200 – 1650) Yale University American Capitalism: A History Cornell University Question Reality! Science, philosophy, and the search for meaning Dartmouth Bioethics: The Law, Medicine, and Ethics of Reproductive Technologies and Genetics Harvard University Books in the Medieval Liturgy Harvard University Religion, Conflict and Peace Harvard University Shakespeare’s Othello : The Moor Harvard University The Ancient Greek Hero Harvard University The Medieval Book of Hours: Art and Devotion in the Later Middle Ages Harvard University Wonders of Ancient Egypt University of Pennsylvania Poetry in America: Whitman Harvard University Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice : Shylock Harvard University Hinduism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Judaism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Ancient Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University The Tabernacle in Word & Image: An Italian Jewish Manuscript Revealed University of Pennsylvania English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics University of Pennsylvania English for Business and Entrepreneurship University of Pennsylvania Seeking Women’s Rights: Colonial Period to the Civil War Columbia University Women Have Always Worked: The US Experience 1700 – 1920 Columbia University John Milton: Paradise Lost Dartmouth The American Renaissance: Classic Literature of the 19th Century Dartmouth Power and Responsibility: Doing Philosophy with Superheroes Harvard University Sikhism Through Its Scriptures Harvard University Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories Harvard University Shakespeare’s Life and Work Harvard University Poetry in America: The Poetry of Early New England Harvard University Book Sleuthing: The Nineteenth Century Harvard University PredictionX: Lost Without Longitude Harvard University Introduction to Digital Humanities Harvard University China Humanities: The Individual in Chinese Culture Harvard University Poetry in America: Whitman Harvard University Poetry in America: The Civil War and Its Aftermath Harvard University Poetry in America: Modernism Harvard University China’s Political and Intellectual Foundations: From Sage Kings to Confucius Harvard University Modern Masterpieces of World Literature Harvard University [New] Japanese Books: From Manuscript to Print Harvard University The Worldview of Thomas Berry: The Flourishing of the Earth Community Yale University Indian & Tibetan River of Buddhism Columbia University Women Have Always Worked: The US Experience 1920 – 2016 Columbia University Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018 Columbia University Negotiating a Changing World: 1920-1950 Columbia University Wage Work for Women Citizens: 1870-1920 Columbia University Writing Case Studies: Science of Delivery Princeton University Fantastic Places, Unhuman Humans: Exploring Humanity Through Literature Brown University The Ethics of Memory Brown University Libertarian Free Will: Neuroscientific and Philosophical Evidence Dartmouth Business (68) Introduction to Marketing University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Financial Accounting University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Operations Management Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Financial Markets Yale University Introduction to Corporate Finance Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Customer Analytics University of Pennsylvania Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content University of Pennsylvania The Global Financial Crisis Yale University Financial Engineering and Risk Management Part I Columbia University Entrepreneurship 2: Launching your Start-Up University of Pennsylvania Operations Analytics University of Pennsylvania Introduction to Spreadsheets and Models University of Pennsylvania Accounting Analytics University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 1: Developing the Opportunity University of Pennsylvania More Introduction to Financial Accounting University of Pennsylvania Fundamentals of Quantitative Modeling University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 3: Growth Strategies University of Pennsylvania Entrepreneurship 4: 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More stories from Quartz: Americans are turning to one of Africa’s most common prescribed drugs to battle coronavirus This interactive map from Johns Hopkins University shows the effects of coronavirus in real time || Bitcoin shows resilience with 10% surge as stocks stutter: Bitcoin is on its way to reinstating its reputation as a safe haven asset as it rallied by more than 10% in the past 24-hours. The sudden move to the upside coincided with a further correction in global stock market indexes, with the Dow Jones and FTSE100 tumbling towards key levels of support. At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading above $5,600 as it takes aim at the $5,800 level of resistance after consolidating over the past week. A break above $5,800 moving into the typically low-volume weekend will be key for Bitcoin if it is to continue rallying until Mays halving event. However, a rejection from this level could prompt a test of last weeks low of $3,600, which would in itself come alongside an abundance of fear and panic from investors. The fact that Bitcoin seems to be finally decoupling with the stock market is undoubtedly bullish in the short term, with the global economy facing a daunting task to recover from the impact of coronavirus. If a sudden spike in cases or mortality rates comes to fruition it would almost certainly worsen the plunge in global equities, especially as economic stimulus from developed nations has already been squeezed. This is when Bitcoin will need to perform as many thought it would; by acting as a hedge to the traditional financial system in the same way gold has for decades. That belief has been damaged over the past month with Bitcoin losing half of its value while several altcoins have fallen by more than 70%. But the recent show of strength has clawed back the negative perception, with investors now eyeing up Bitcoin ahead of a potential breakout. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: Story continues US Dollar BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY Euro BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Bitcoin shows resilience with 10% surge as stocks stutter: Bitcoin is on its way to reinstating its reputation as a safe haven asset as it rallied by more than 10% in the past 24-hours. The sudden move to the upside coincided with a further correction in global stock market indexes, with the Dow Jones and FTSE100 tumbling towards key levels of support. At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading above $5,600 as it takes aim at the $5,800 level of resistance after consolidating over the past week. A break above $5,800 moving into the typically low-volume weekend will be key for Bitcoin if it is to continue rallying until Mays halving event. However, a rejection from this level could prompt a test of last weeks low of $3,600, which would in itself come alongside an abundance of fear and panic from investors. The fact that Bitcoin seems to be finally decoupling with the stock market is undoubtedly bullish in the short term, with the global economy facing a daunting task to recover from the impact of coronavirus. If a sudden spike in cases or mortality rates comes to fruition it would almost certainly worsen the plunge in global equities, especially as economic stimulus from developed nations has already been squeezed. This is when Bitcoin will need to perform as many thought it would; by acting as a hedge to the traditional financial system in the same way gold has for decades. That belief has been damaged over the past month with Bitcoin losing half of its value while several altcoins have fallen by more than 70%. But the recent show of strength has clawed back the negative perception, with investors now eyeing up Bitcoin ahead of a potential breakout. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: Story continues US Dollar BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY Euro BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Bitcoin shows resilience with 10% surge as stocks stutter: Bitcoin is on its way to reinstating its reputation as a safe haven asset as it rallied by more than 10% in the past 24-hours. The sudden move to the upside coincided with a further correction in global stock market indexes, with the Dow Jones and FTSE100 tumbling towards key levels of support. At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading above $5,600 as it takes aim at the $5,800 level of resistance after consolidating over the past week. A break above $5,800 moving into the typically low-volume weekend will be key for Bitcoin if it is to continue rallying until Mays halving event. However, a rejection from this level could prompt a test of last weeks low of $3,600, which would in itself come alongside an abundance of fear and panic from investors. The fact that Bitcoin seems to be finally decoupling with the stock market is undoubtedly bullish in the short term, with the global economy facing a daunting task to recover from the impact of coronavirus. If a sudden spike in cases or mortality rates comes to fruition it would almost certainly worsen the plunge in global equities, especially as economic stimulus from developed nations has already been squeezed. This is when Bitcoin will need to perform as many thought it would; by acting as a hedge to the traditional financial system in the same way gold has for decades. That belief has been damaged over the past month with Bitcoin losing half of its value while several altcoins have fallen by more than 70%. But the recent show of strength has clawed back the negative perception, with investors now eyeing up Bitcoin ahead of a potential breakout. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: Story continues US Dollar BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY Euro BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Judge Calls Out Kleiman Attorneys Over ‘Excessive’ Fees in Craig Wright Case: The legal team representing the brother of Craig Wright’s deceased business partner greatly overclaimed on legal fees, according to the judge overseeing the case.
Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart of the federal court of the Southern District of Florida criticized the fees claimed by the attorneys representing Ira Kleiman – who is suing Wright for 50 percent of thebitcoin(BTC) and intellectual property he owned before 2014 – as “excessive” and ruled they wouldn’t be granted in full.
Kleiman’s four-man legal team filed for a total of $658,500, comprised of more than $592,000 in attorney fees, as well as roughly $66,000 in other expenses like subject experts.
Related:Crypto Investor’s Case Against AT&T Over $24M SIM Hack Can Proceed, Judge Rules
But finding these rates too high, the judge slashed what the Kleiman team can actually claim to $113,760 in fees and $52,000 in expenses. That’s a grand total of $165,800 – approximately a quarter of the amount originally sought.
Kleiman’s suit against Wright – which claims Wright had tried to seize assets that rightfully belonged to his dead brother’s estate – has been rocky for the Australian tech entrepreneur (who also claims he’s bitcoin’s inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto). Wright has been found incontempt of courtfor not revealing bitcoin holdings and accused ofabusing privilegeto withhold documents potentially crucial to the case.
In November 2019, Wrightpulled outof an out of court settlement that had beententatively agreed upontwo months previously.
See also:Judge Blasts Craig Wright’s Evidence, ‘Inconsistent’ Testimony in Kleiman Trial
Related:Craig Wright Doubles Down on Satoshi Claim, Says Bitcoin Core Infringes His ‘Database Rights’
But in this week’s order, Judge Reinhart found Kleiman’s four attorneys claimed fees at rates that either exceeded their experience or were simply out of proportion to the amount usually charged in the Florida court system. He also found the legal team inflated billable hours, by either overstaffing or exaggerating the time it took to perform tasks.
“I find all these rates to be excessive. I am personally familiar with the hourly rates charged by the top civil litigators in Palm Beach County,” said Judge Reinhart.
In one example, the judge asked why three attorneys were needed to prepare and review the response to a motion from the defendant. “It was not reasonable to have three lawyers involved to this extent to review a draft [for] a relatively straight-forward pleading,” he said. In another instance, Judge Reinhart said the attendance of three attorneys at an evidentiary hearing was excessive.
The costs were awarded due to “protracted litigation over production of documents identifying Dr. Wright’s bitcoin holdings,” according to the order.
Wright now has until March 30 to pay out the legal team’s reduced fees and expenses.
• Craig Wright ‘Abusing’ Privilege to Block 11,000 Documents, Kleiman Lawyers Say
• Ethereum-Based Ad Firm Bidooh Sues Founders in Tech Ownership Dispute || Judge Calls Out Kleiman Attorneys Over Excessive Fees in Craig Wright Case: The legal team representing the brother of Craig Wrights deceased business partner greatly overclaimed on legal fees, according to the judge overseeing the case. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart of the federal court of the Southern District of Florida criticized the fees claimed by the attorneys representing Ira Kleiman who is suing Wright for 50 percent of the bitcoin (BTC) and intellectual property he owned before 2014 as excessive and ruled they wouldnt be granted in full. Kleimans four-man legal team filed for a total of $658,500, comprised of more than $592,000 in attorney fees, as well as roughly $66,000 in other expenses like subject experts. Related: Crypto Investors Case Against AT&T Over $24M SIM Hack Can Proceed, Judge Rules But finding these rates too high, the judge slashed what the Kleiman team can actually claim to $113,760 in fees and $52,000 in expenses. Thats a grand total of $165,800 approximately a quarter of the amount originally sought. Kleimans suit against Wright which claims Wright had tried to seize assets that rightfully belonged to his dead brothers estate has been rocky for the Australian tech entrepreneur (who also claims hes bitcoins inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto). Wright has been found in contempt of court for not revealing bitcoin holdings and accused of abusing privilege to withhold documents potentially crucial to the case. In November 2019, Wright pulled out of an out of court settlement that had been tentatively agreed upon two months previously. See also: Judge Blasts Craig Wrights Evidence, Inconsistent Testimony in Kleiman Trial Related: Craig Wright Doubles Down on Satoshi Claim, Says Bitcoin Core Infringes His Database Rights But in this weeks order, Judge Reinhart found Kleimans four attorneys claimed fees at rates that either exceeded their experience or were simply out of proportion to the amount usually charged in the Florida court system. He also found the legal team inflated billable hours, by either overstaffing or exaggerating the time it took to perform tasks. Story continues I find all these rates to be excessive. I am personally familiar with the hourly rates charged by the top civil litigators in Palm Beach County, said Judge Reinhart. In one example, the judge asked why three attorneys were needed to prepare and review the response to a motion from the defendant. It was not reasonable to have three lawyers involved to this extent to review a draft [for] a relatively straight-forward pleading, he said. In another instance, Judge Reinhart said the attendance of three attorneys at an evidentiary hearing was excessive. The costs were awarded due to protracted litigation over production of documents identifying Dr. Wrights bitcoin holdings, according to the order. Wright now has until March 30 to pay out the legal teams reduced fees and expenses. Related Stories Craig Wright Abusing Privilege to Block 11,000 Documents, Kleiman Lawyers Say Ethereum-Based Ad Firm Bidooh Sues Founders in Tech Ownership Dispute || Bitcoin in Zimbabwe – Part 1 of a New Documentary Podcast Series: After three weeks of listening, recording and talkingbitcoin(BTC) in Africa, podcaster Anita Posch shares her experiences in part one of this new six-part documentary podcast series.
Listen/subscribe to the CoinDesk Podcast feed for unique perspectives and fresh daily insight withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,IHeartRadioorRSS.
In this first part of the “Bitcoin in Africa” podcast documentary series, join Anita as she learns about the current living situation of Zimbabweans and the country’s political history. Combining on-the-ground recordings, interviews and thoughtful narration, she paints a picture of why things are how they are, as well as the state of human rights and free speech.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for March 20, 2020
“I wanted to see by myself if this is true and how far bitcoin is known and used there,” said Anita Posch.
Recorded February 2020 in the run-up to the growing quarantine movement and coronavirus travel restrictions, Anita traveled to Zimbabwe and Botswana to listen, learn and record about the usage of bitcoin in these countries. In the world of bitcoin, countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela are frequently mentioned as places where the cryptocurrency could or perhaps should be making a difference and where they can really help the people’s economic situations.
Check out another ofAnita’s favorite episodes featuring Andreas M. Antonopoulos debunking arguments against bitcoinlike high volatility, energy consumption, inequalities and the exaggerated risk of possible failure.
TRANSCRIPT:“Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way” – Part 1 – Zimbabwe: Ideal conditions for Bitcoin?
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for March 19, 2020
ANITA
Hello friends, bitcoiners and pre-coiners alike! This is the first episode of a multipart series called “Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way”
In February 2020 I travelled to Zimbabwe and Botswana to find out, if and howbitcoin(BTC) is used there. I spent three weeks in Zimbabwe, two weeks of that time I was in Harare the capital and I travelled for one week to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. After that I spent some days in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana to meet and talk with the founder of the Satoshicentre Alakanani Itireleng.
ANITA
The instrument you heard is a mbira (pronounced m-BEER-ra , IPA (ə)mˈbɪəɾə) it is an African musical instrument, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Why did I visit Zimbabwe?
I wanted to see with my own eyes how the living situation is for people and, more importantly, to research the usage of bitcoin. Bitcoin is in my eyes first and foremost not a speculative, trading object, where everything is about price. For me it’s a tool of liberation that enables individuals and communities to free themselves of tight restrictions by authoritarian or totalitarian nation states that harm people’s human rights. This has many faces. In the so-called western world, in countries with freedom of speech, safety and a high level of wealth, it is the possibility to free oneself from the banking system. The banking system has in the last 30 years in combination with national and global regulations evolved into a very strict system of surveillance and allowances. Where we – the majority people of integrity are being policed by the banks – because of fear of money laundering and terrorism finance done by the few. In conjunction with “surveillance capitalism” – a term coined by Shoshana Zuboff in her book well worth reading – surveillance capitalism – which is the permanent recording of all our digital traces on Facebook, Google and Co. – that are being used not only to comfort us with better search results and convenience, but also to manipulate our decisions and extort our data for money and higher profits. This has had disastrous consequences for democracy, freedom and our privacy. So in countries with high living standards, safety and a relatively good working banking system with a low inflation rate controlled by so called “independent” central banks, I would argue that governments try to regulate bitcoin in the face of “money laundering and financing terrorism” – while in countries like Zimbabwe bitcoin has to be tamed or controlled by the governing elite, because of the possibility for more “human rights and freedom” for its citizens and their loss of power.
This podcast special and my trip to Africa would not have been possible without my sponsors and supporters.
I want to thank my sponsors first: Thank you: Peter McCormack and the whatbitcoindid podcast, Coinfinity and theCardWallet, LocalBitcoins.com a person-to-person bitcoin trading site, SHIFT Cryptosecurity, manufacturer of the hardware walletBitBox02and many thanks to several unknown private donors, who sent me Satoshis over the lightning network.
This special is edited by CoinDesk’s Podcasts Editor Adam B. Levine and published first on the CoinDesk Podcast Network. Thank you very much for supporting the Bitcoin in Africa series with your work.
Thanks goes also out to stakwork.com – stakwork is a great project that brings bitcoin into the world through earning. One can do microjobs on stakwork, earning Satoshis and cash them out without even having an understanding about the lightning network or bitcoin. I think we need more projects like that to spread the usage of bitcoin around the world.
Thank you also to GoTenna, for donating several gotenna devices to set up a mesh network in Zimbabwe and to Team Satoshi, the decentralized sports team for supporting my work.
This special is also brought to you by the Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network.
Voice of captain:Mascati…. Welcome on board… Make yourself comfortable….
ANITA:
I did talks about bitcoin in both countries and introduced around 100 people to the possibilities of using and earning bitcoin and showed them how it can improve their living situation in the short and long run.
I met with many people from different backgrounds with a diverse set of goals and interests. I talked with them about their daily life, how the economic situation has changed in the last 20 – 40 years, about their hopes and fears for the future and of course about bitcoin and its chances and challenges in Africa. In 2014 Alakanani Itireleng a true Bitcoin OG founded the Satoshicentre in Gaborone to educate her fellow citizens about bitcoin:
INTERVIEWEE:“I want to help people get into the Bitcoin ecosystem and set the ecosystem to make it like work for Africa, not only for Botswana to make it to work for for Africa, you know, we are the very people that need bitcoin. Yeah.
We are the people. I think so too. Yeah, we are actually this is the place where it is needed the most. Like I was shocked when I was in the U.S. in Orange County. I saw a drive through bank. Yeah. I was like why do you guys have a drive through banks? You don’t need Bitcoin. So we need bitcoin.”
ANITA
February 2020: My trip to Zimbabwe starts. I arrive at Harare airport – before I am allowed to join the queue in front of the immigration desk my body temperature is measured – it is coronavirus season. All is good. They ask me where I come from: I say Austria. The answer is a question: Australia? I say no: Austria in Europe, next to Germany. Ah. Austria. Alright. I join the queue for the immigration procedure. I apply for a visa – and pay 30 U.S. dollar in cash. This, despite the fact, that in June 2019 the use of U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies was outlawed by the government
So, if the government outlawed the use of foreign currencies, why did I just pay my visa fees with U.S. dollar cash? This is just one of many questions I ask myself during the three weeks of my stay in Zimbabwe.
Next step, customs control: I am very nervous, because my suitcase is packed with devices for bitcoin use. I am bringing donations from my sponsors, several Hardware wallets, the BitBox02 by SHIFT cryptosecurity, several Card Wallets, a RaspiBlitz, which is a Bitcoin and Lightning Fullnode and several GoTenna devices to set up a mesh network to communicate and even send bitcoin, while being off the grid. So coming from the immigration desk I try to stay behind a couple to sneak through and I am lucky, the custom officers are not interested in me or my suitcase. I feel a great relief.
After arrival my friends immediately take me out to an event. They say, you have to see that. And they were right.
It was the Austrian new year’s concert in Harare. It felt a little weird. Being in a church, with an audience of 99 percent whites – so called “Murungus” in the local Shona language – attending. A group of elderly Rhodesians coming together to listen to a classical concert in the tradition of Vienna philharmonic orchestra. That’s not quite what I expected to find. But this audience is also a part of the country’s history and current life. This shows that Zimbabwe is a land of many contrasts.
In the three weeks of my stay, I showered exactly one time. Bah, you might think. No, I did wash myself, but only in a so-called shallow bath. You fill the bathtub just a little bit, like 2 cm high and then you wash yourself sitting and pouring the water over yourself with a jug. Why? Because of the water drought, there is no public water supply. So people try to save as much water as possible, you don’t even flush the toilet, when you have been on the small side. You have to buy water privately, that is delivered every two weeks with a truck. And if possible, you collect the rainwater. Even though there is no water supply: the water company still sends bills and you have to pay them.
Same with electricity: It depends in which area you live. If you are close to hospitals or to the areas where people from the government live, then your chances to have water and electricity all the time are high. If not, then you have to suffer from power outages. At the place where I was staying, the power went on around 11 p.m. and went off around 5 a.m. in the morning. That means that people – and there are a lot of them – who cannot afford to buy a solar panel and an inverter – have to work by night. If you cannot afford a gas stove, you have to cook by night. And still: the electricity provider ZESA sends you bills and you have to pay them.
So I travelled the country and arranged a number of interviews. Three of my interview partners in Zimbabwe wanted to stay anonymous. One person is working for a human rights organization in Harare. Another one feared about his professional career and the third one is a teacher in a public school who is also afraid of possible threats. The other two I was talking with would have been ok with their names in the public, but I decided to leave their names out, too. Why? Because people are scared. As my interview partner who is working for a human rights organization puts it:
HUMAN RIGHTS SPEAKER
“The human rights situation here right now is really poor. I don’t, I haven’t I haven’t been this pessimistic about it in 10-15 years. It’s really is-. It’s as repressive as it has been with like, an added layer of like a sinister, vindictive.
And I think that there’s a small number of activists or organizations trying to do something. And in some ways, because there’s so few of them, it’s really easy to just sit really hard. So if you are one of those handful of people you can get kidnapped, raped, beaten up and stuff. You know, you fight life, you know, every day.
And like, how long does the energy last? So because some people I mean, that’s my observation on my feet, you know, just that you can do it for a certain period of time. And then you just I don’t know, it’s almost like a, like a fading out, you know?”
ANITA
So one can say there’s no free speech in this country?
HR SPEAKER
Yeah. And adding up –Especially what you receive from a kind of like whatever in form of like a global support network coverage of it’s very poor, you know? I mean, you get a headline in the media and like this, and this happens, but actually, the peer support internationally, I also like find quite poor.
ANITA
One of my interviews was taking place at a self-service restaurant in the middle of Harare. My guest and I started talking and I recorded with my audio recorder and two handheld microphones. After 20 minutes a woman from the restaurant approached us:
UNKNOWN SPEAKER:
….recording is not allowed….
ANITA
We continued and finished our interview and left for another restaurant. But this was a disturbing experience. At least for me. I am used to being able to record my own conversations wherever I want. But people here are scared. And as I realized afterwards reports from foreigners about Zimbabwe require a permit. Also you are not allowed to take pictures of government buildings.
With all those complicated living conditions, what are the positives about living in Zimbabwe?
HR SPEAKER
The people, the people, people it is and yeah, the climate. And the possibilities. You know, if you are an entrepreneurial person you are very free to start new things – there are not so many strict regulations for starting a business. In fact, you have to have this self-sovereign attitude otherwise you couldn’t survive here. Still, it is very different, if you have the possibility to leave the country or not.
Because It’s tough. I mean, I think that’s a big part of why people leave, is the combination of kind of lack of civic freedom and lack of economic prospects. And it’s a little bit like what we were just saying about the colleague who’s gone to work in London, like you had an opportunity like that, you take it and if you mean, even if, even if the choice was like, be a tomato vendor here, or work as a waiter in South Africa, I’ll work as a waiter in South Africa, or for any other foreign currency, I can send it home. I can support my family.
ANITA:
There are 16 million people living in Zimbabwe and only about 800.000 of them have a formal employment. That are only 5 percent of the population, that means 95% are informal unemployed, they hustle, they live off nothing. Of the 5 percent with a formal employment, most of them work for the government, are civil servants or teachers in public schools.
This is what the headmistress of a school told me:
TEACHER:
“And everybody else is just living hustling. Yeah, we hustle. Oh, yeah, it’s … you have people who work but and who are self-employed. But very few people are like working from a for a proper institution, because even the institutions are in a difficult place because you’ll have rentals for example, charged in U.S. dollars, even though the government would say no, it’s not allowed Even if they rate it, it will be like astronomical prices. We like I don’t even earn that much.
So typical rental, for example, for a one bedroom apartment, let’s call it that, which is pretty standard. You’re looking at about 250 – 350 US dollars, the average person at most is maybe earning 2500 Zim dollars, which is about 100 hundred dollars. So how do you pay your rent, but then and so now like it’s become, employment has almost become like a jail, because it’s like, because now you don’t have time, because they’ll take all your time, you don’t have time to find that additional 200 or $250 to pay your rent. But really, and truly, you need additional maybe $400 because you’ve got the other bills outside of rent.
So it’s almost like being employed is almost a disadvantage almost in this country because you’re locked down at that price and even if everything goes up, every month, your salary will remain the same. And a lot of companies struggle to put, what did they call it? Something allowance of forgetting the term an adjustment, as Yeah, it’s called a salary adjustment to move with the market. It’s never really completely what you actually need. They’ll try maybe you get an extra 200 bond or an extra 500 bond. But it’s difficult, you know, it’s difficult to keep up with that corporate struggling as well. Very few corporates are able to pay people very well for it to make sense.”
ANITA
As a teacher and headmistress. she can tell about the situation in schools:
Wow, I mean, I work in education. I work in education, and I can tell you, it’s difficult. It’s difficult. Have a staff complement of 14 and they, my, you have to then obviously get money from school fees. So you have a lot of schools now. Trying to diversify. Because if you put all that pressure on the parents, then your parents can’t afford to send their children to your school. So it’s like, Okay, what do you do? We need to increase our fees because I need to be able to pay my teachers more. But if I throw that burden on the parents,
I, as a parent know that I can’t even afford that, you know, per term for every child that I’ve got some parents of two, three, four children, and they need to bring your children so what do you do you end up subsidizing? That’s when you have schools that have maybe a little Market Garden, you know, where you commercialize your kitchen and you start baking. You know, when you’re not making lunch for the kids, you’re selling food on the side so that you supplement your income. It is difficult and teachers have struggled the most, especially who work for state schools, public schools, they are in the worst possible position. Those who work in private schools are in much better position because they can afford to charge more government schools can’t charge what private schools are charging, because government schools supposed to the public schools supposed to be affordable for anyone to send their child to school, then they put in a difficult position where you’re told you cannot not accept a child because they haven’t paid fees. So you have to accept them.
So you’ll have, let’s say, 50 children, and maybe only 15 of them have paid the school fees. But because as a government school, you’re not allowed to send children home because they have a right to education. How do you take care of the other 35 off 15 and still take care of your teachers and it’s, it’s our country, is madness, you know, the more I talk about it, you know, it sounds terrible.
ANITA
Not only that prices are rising daily, the whole society is crippled by corruption. Before 2017, when Robert Mugabe still was the country’s leader, there were roadblocks by police everywhere. They would stop your car and say that you have done something wrong or mock you about small things they find in your car – ending with demanding money. Friends told me that they stopped driving through the city of Harare, because at one time they were stopped by five roadblocks inside the city and had to pay around 100 USD in fines only to get from one side of town to the other. With the new government, this has changed. No more roadblocks inside Harare. When I was there, it was almost spooky. Because I did not see any police. A friend said: If you need the police at your home, because something has happened, you cannot just call them and they’ll come, you have to go and fetch them.
And still there are roadblocks. A thing that I have never encountered in my life before: when we were on our roadtrip to Victoria Falls, we were stopped by roadblocks at the borders of each city. Coming from Austria, I have never seen something like that before. And it feels creepy. It’s like, every time I see police and I have to stop – or maybe they wave us through, you never know – it feels like you have done something wrong. Uncertainty, being at the mercy of their whims – that’s not a good feeling.
INTERVIEWEE 2:
As any person I hate talking ill about my country, but it’s the truth, sadly, sadly is the truth. We are struggling. We are struggling. We have doctors are not paid nearly what a doctor should be paid realistically. We don’t have equipment. We don’t have the right medication the cost of medication alone is unbelievable. You can’t afford to get sick. We were in a fuel queue with car behind us was a doctor, a doctor was in there. And he eventually was he was actually a doctor on call. And he’d also been in this queue for like, two hours or so. And the guy was supposed to be on call and knowing already that was so severely understaffed. A doctor who supposed to be attending to patients, but it’s stuck in a fuel queue is a problem. So he went up to the front and he tried to get fuel, at least in a jerrycan and he showed them his card and the fact that he was on coal and it was a huge fight. But I think in the end, he only got like 10 liters, which is enough just to get him to work and get back home at the end of it. And as we’re trying to help him sort of fill up his car. He then says, As a doctor, I can safely say to you cannot afford to get sick. Please do not get sick in this country, because it’s one of two things It’s either you cannot afford it, because they are hospitals that are beautifully equipped, fully staffed, all the medication, all these hospitals are here right now in this country, but you know you are paying a premium for it. Even our medical aids, not all of them are accepted at these hospitals. But then you have our government hospitals, which are not as well equipped. And if you don’t have the kind of money that is required to get proper health care, your chances of not making it or you know, probably not getting the best health care you possibly could a very, very high, very high and if a doctor can say, don’t get sick, what does that what does that tell you?
ANITA:
While traveling from Harare to Bulawayo I met a doctor, who lived a big part of his life in Zimbabwe. I would say, he is in his early 70s and he fought in the Rhodesian Bush War, which was a guerilla war to fight for the independence of Zimbabwe in the 1970s. It ended with the declaration of independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 with a new leader called Robert Mugabe. This doctor lives in Europe now, but every year he returns to his old home country to stay for some weeks. He brought a suitcase full of medical supplies with him, to donate it to a hospital, because public hospitals are lacking everything. At the airport, custom officers opened his suitcase and demanded money for the supplies.
ANITA:
Corruption is everywhere. And it seems that there are different rules for different people. Yes, I think one can say that for every country, but the differences are so big here. If you have USD, if you are in a high position, if you are in the right network, you can have a great life in Zimbabwe. I have seen private houses with swimming pools blue as the sky, many shiny SUVs and most of the better off people employ gardeners, maids and other staff.
When I was there a new rule by the government was published. The minimum wage for a gardener or worker is allowed to be as little as 8 USD. Per month. And of course: this is not paid in USD, but in Zimbabwe dollar.
For instance: The maid in a house – close to where I stayed – works seven days a week, from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., doing housework, cooking, taking care of the kids. She is a so-called live-in maid. Due to the power cuts she has to iron by night. She also sleeps in the house of her employer. For this, she earns 10 USD per month. Most of the time the families of workers like her live in another part of town, where the rents are cheaper. So, because they cannot afford a car, if they want to go home, they have to take the bus which costs them around 1-2 USD. How should anyone be able to live from that?
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I could go on with these examples of mismanagement and corruption. For instance: MealieMeal – which is like a cornmeal- it is the Zimbabweans staple diet… The thing people eat on a daily basis like rice in Asia, noodles in Italy or potatoes in Germany. It’s part of their diet and normally relatively affordable. But it is not available at the moment. The producers of MealieMeal are being forced by the government to get paid in Zimbabwe Dollars. So they decided, before they are paid in this bad money that loses its value daily, they rather store the MealieMeal in their warehouses and wait for better deals. This is something that hits people in towns worse, than those in the countryside. Because there either you have your own corn or the local chief settles a deal with the producers so that his people get MealieMeal.
Basically much of the conversation is about where to get what, at which prices:
STREET AUDIO: Do you know that they have chibage?
Anita:
And I did not even mention the fuel queues up until now. So petrol. The urban spaces in Harare, Bulawayo and other towns are not densely populated in general. That means, that distances are very great. And there is no public transport like we know it.
Yes there are a lot of mini buses and also bigger buses to travel over land. Someone like me would be completely lost, because there are no timetables or stops with signs. And yeah, there are no road signs at all. Nowhere. So you really need to know your way or ask people. That means everything is depending on cars and buses. If you cannot afford that, you have to walk. And I saw a lot of people walking. Women, who were carrying heavy bags on their heads – yes like we see it on television – and men, who interestingly enough, carry much less than their accompanying women. And yes, I have asked. It is a very patriarchal society.
Coming back to the petrol.
There are severe petrol shortages. You never know when and where you can get petrol. I was told that most of the time, when fuel shortages occured, the price was raised afterwards. In the weeks I was in the country, I saw many many people queueing for petrol. Long lines of cars are parked at the side of the streets waiting for the petrol station to open. People spend nights and days queueing, never knowing for how long the petrol will last? One of my interview partners excused himself for not calling me at the time we agreed upon, because he was in the petrol queue for such a long time, that he did not have power anymore in his cell phone.
Before we dive deeper into the current situation in the following episodes, let’s take a look back and take a look into the history of this beautiful land Zimbabwe and its people.
TheEncyclopædia Britannica begins its history of Zimbabwewith “The Stone Age”
The first Bantu people are thought to have reached Zimbabwe between the 5th and 10th centuries CE. Zimbabwe is home to many stone ruins, including those known asGreat Zimbabwe, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.
Overview of Great Zimbabwe. The large walled construction is the Great Enclosure. Some remains of the valley complex can be seen in front of it.
The Portuguese, who arrived on the east coast of Africa at the end of the 15th century, dreamed of opening up the interior and establishing a route to connect their eastern settlements with Angola in the west. The first European to enter Zimbabwe was probably Antonio Fernandes, who tried to cross the continent and reached the neighborhood of Que Que (now Kwekwe).
A second great movement of the Bantu peoples began in 1830, this time from the south. The Ndebele, carved out a kingdom. The Ndebele were warriors and pastoralists, in the Zulu tradition, and they mastered and dispossessed the weaker tribes, known collectively as Shona (Mashona), who were sedentary, peaceful tillers of the land.
For more than half a century, until the coming of European rule, the Ndebele continued to enslave and plunder the Shona. This is an important fact for the later development.
During this period, however, British and Afrikaner hunters, traders, and prospectors had begun to move up from the south, and with them came the missionaries.
In South Africa Cecil Rhodes formed the British South Africa Company, which received its charter in October 1889. Its objects were to extend the railway, to encourage immigration and colonization, to promote trade and commerce, and – of course – to secure all mineral rights, in return for guarantees of protection and security of rights to the tribal chiefs.
The Ndebele resented this European invasion, and in 1893 they took up arms, being defeated only after months of strenuous fighting. The Shona had at first accepted the Europeans, but they too became rebellious, and the whole country was not pacified until 1897.
“The Rhodes Colossus” by Edward Linley Sambourne, published in Punch after Rhodes announced plans for a telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo in 1892.
By 1892 about 1,500 settlers from the south had arrived in Rhodesia. The railway reached Bulawayo in 1896 and Victoria Falls in 1904. After Cecil Rhodes’s death in 1902 he was buried in the Matopos Hills and they built him a monument that stands on top of these hills destroying the beauty of the land.
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In 1922 – British South Africa Company administration ended, the white minority opts for self-government.
1930 – Land Apportionment Act restricts black access to land, forcing many people into wage labour. Between 1930-1960s – Black opposition to colonial rule was growing.
1965 – Prime minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom under white minority rule, sparking international outrage and economic sanctions.
The Rhodesian Bush War lasted from 1972 to 1979 it was a Guerrilla war against white rule.
According to Rhodesian government statistics, more than 20,000 people were killed during the war. Rhodesian security forces, guerrillas and around 8.000 black civilians, and 500 white civilians were killed.
In 1980 – Zanu leader Robert Mugabe won independence elections. He became the first prime minister as Zimbabwe achieved an internationally recognized independence on April 18, 1980.
He stayed president of Zimbabwe until 2017.
Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family – hence remember how the Ndebele enslaved and plundered the Shona, before the European rule.
Because between 1982 and 1985, Mugabe sent the military and the so called 5th brigade – trained by North Korean – to crush armed resistance against him from Ndebele groups – in a military crackdown known as Gukurahundi, a Shona term which translates roughly to mean “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. The Gukurahundi campaigns were also known as the Matabeleland Massacres. Approximately 20,000 Matabele were murdered in these first years after the war; most of those killed were victims of public executions.
Margaret Thatcher’s U.K. government was aware of the killings but remained silent on the matter, cautious not to anger Mugabe and threaten the safety of white Zimbabweans. The United States also did not raise strong objections, with President Ronald Reagan welcoming Mugabe to the White House in September 1983. In October 1983, Mugabe attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi, where no participating states mentioned the Gukurahundi.
Economically, Southern Rhodesia developed an economy that was narrowly based on production of a few primary products, notably, chrome and tobacco. It was therefore vulnerable to the economic cycle. The deep recession of the 1930s gave way to a post-war boom. This boom prompted the immigration of about 200,000 whites between 1945 and 1970, taking the white population up to 307,000. They established a relatively balanced economy, transforming what was once a primary producer dependent on backwoods farming into an industrial giant which spawned a strong manufacturing sector, iron and steel industries, and modern mining ventures. These economic successes owed little to foreign aid.
In the 1990s hundreds of thousands of acres of largely white-owned land were expropriated. In April 1994, a newspaper investigation found that not all of this was redistributed to landless blacks; much of the expropriated land was being leased to ministers and senior officials. Responding to this scandal, in 1994 the U.K. government – which had supplied £44 million for land redistribution – halted its payments.
Over the course of the 1990s, Zimbabwe’s economy steadily deteriorated. By 2000, living standards had declined from 1980; life expectancy was reduced, average wages were lower, and unemployment had trebled. By 1998, unemployment was almost at 50%. As of 2009, three to four million Zimbabweans – the greater part of the nation’s skilled workforce – had left the country. Mugabe increasingly blamed the country’s economic problems on Western nations and the white Zimbabwean minority, who still controlled most of its commercial agriculture, mines, and manufacturing industry.
From a human rights perspective I also want to talk about Mugabe’s growing preoccupation with homosexuality, lambasting it as an “un-African” import from Europe. He described gay people as being “guilty of sub-human behavior”, and of being “worse than dogs and pigs”. This attitude may have stemmed in part from his strong conservative values, but it was strengthened by the fact that several ministers in the British government were gay. Mugabe began to believe that there was a “gay mafia” and that all of his critics were homosexuals. Critics also accused Mugabe of using homophobia to distract attention from the country’s problems.
In February 2000, land invasions began as armed gangs attacked and occupied white-owned farms. The farm seizures were often violent; by 2006 a reported sixty white farmers had been killed, with many of their employees experiencing intimidation and torture. A large number of the seized farms remained empty, while many of those redistributed to black peasant-farmers were unable to engage in production for the market because of their lack of access to fertilizer.
The farm invasions severely impacted agricultural development. Zimbabwe had produced over two million tons of maize in 2000; by 2008 this had declined to approximately 450,000. By 2009, 75% of Zimbabwe’s population were relying on food aid, the highest proportion of any country at that time. Zimbabwe faced continuing economic decline. Hyperinflation resulted in economic crisis. By 2007, Zimbabwe had the highest inflation rate in the world, at 7600 percent. By 2008, inflation exceeded 100,000% and a loaf of bread cost a third of the average daily wage. Increasing numbers of Zimbabweans relied on remittances from relatives abroad.
The country’s lucrative tourist industry was decimated, and there was a rise in poaching, including of endangered species. Mugabe directly exacerbated this problem when he ordered the killing of 100 elephants to provide meat for an April 2007 feast.
In 2008, the parliamentary and presidential elections were held. After the election, Mugabe’s government deployed its ‘war veterans’ in a violent campaign against his opponent Tsvangirai supporters. Between March and June 2008, at least 153 MDC supporters were killed. There were reports of women affiliated with the MDC being subjected to gang rape by Mugabe supporters. Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans were internally displaced by the violence. These actions brought international condemnation of Mugabe’s government.
This is only 12 years ago. No wonder, that people are scared.
In 2009, Mugabe’s government declared that – to combat rampant inflation – it would recognize U.S. dollars as legal tender and would pay government employees in this currency. This helped to stabilize prices. But then in November 2016 a new national currency called bond notes was introduced amid public resistance.
In 2017 Mr. Mugabe resigns after the military takes control. Former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa becomes president.
People have hope, that from now on Zimbabwe might become a better place. But as it seems, nothing really has changed.
In January 2019, protests break out in major cities after the government more than doubles fuel prices in an attempt to tackle shortages and the black market.
In June 2019, Zimbabwe outlaws the use of any other foreign currency. Only Zimbabwean dollars are allowed as legal tender.
That meant that All USD one had held on a bank account in the country were changed into Zimbabwe dollar at the exchange rate of 1:1. This did not last long. Today – 9 months afterwards – the exchange rate on the streets is 1:43. So now 43 Zim Dollar are equivalent to 1 US Dollar.
INTERVIEW:
When I came here two and a half weeks ago, I think the official exchange rate was one to 17. And in the shops, we had one to 20 or 25. Today, we got one to 30 in a shop. While so in, yeah, in two and a half weeks, the rtgs or the bond, Zimbabwe bond lost a lot. I don’t know how many percent that exactly now, but actually a lot of Yes. value. Yeah. So what do you see? Or what do you think is coming next? I mean, do you think you’re going into hyperinflation again?
Speaker 2
We are in hyperinflation.
Anita Posch
You are still in again? Yes.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think we are. It’s just that it’s not. t’s not on the scale, where last time we just like I feel like it just ran out of people’s hands like when we will became trillionaires. And quadrillion is like it just there was no control left like no one’s Coming and no one knew how to deal with it. We’ve been there before. So now it’s like okay, let’s try and control it. But it is in we are in currently in hyperinflation, I believe so maybe an economist will tell me I’m wrong.
Anita:
In the three weeks of my stay the exchange rate on the street went from 1:20 to 1:30 in only three weeks, this is a huge change. This is a sad situation because for the people living is getting difficult again.
And by the way: The Reserve bank of Zimbabwe maintains a Twitter account, where you can find tweets, which paint a picture about what is happening in the country.
For instance, one tweet is threatening people with disciplinary measures for posting pictures of new banknotes on social media!
In the next episode you will hear more about the banking situation and how people here are used to living in a multicurrency system, which theoretically is a perfect starting point for people to adopt bitcoin.
If you like my show please subscribe to it in your podcast player and share the episode on social media. You can find additional pictures and videos from my travel on the episode page at bitcoinundco.com.
Please do follow me on Twitter, my handle is@anitaposch, or write an email to hello @ anitaposch.com . If you want to sponsor the podcast – I am currently looking for new partners please feel free to send me a message.
Thanks for listening.
Music: Start with yes Delicate beats, editing by Adam B. Levine and the CoinDesk podcast network, Idea content and production yours truly Anita Posch.
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• Can Open Source Networks Address Medical Shortages? Feat. Bruce Fenton
• Why Bitcoin Is the Only Truly Free Market, Feat. Dan Tapiero || Bitcoin in Zimbabwe – Part 1 of a New Documentary Podcast Series: After three weeks of listening, recording and talkingbitcoin(BTC) in Africa, podcaster Anita Posch shares her experiences in part one of this new six-part documentary podcast series.
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In this first part of the “Bitcoin in Africa” podcast documentary series, join Anita as she learns about the current living situation of Zimbabweans and the country’s political history. Combining on-the-ground recordings, interviews and thoughtful narration, she paints a picture of why things are how they are, as well as the state of human rights and free speech.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for March 20, 2020
“I wanted to see by myself if this is true and how far bitcoin is known and used there,” said Anita Posch.
Recorded February 2020 in the run-up to the growing quarantine movement and coronavirus travel restrictions, Anita traveled to Zimbabwe and Botswana to listen, learn and record about the usage of bitcoin in these countries. In the world of bitcoin, countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela are frequently mentioned as places where the cryptocurrency could or perhaps should be making a difference and where they can really help the people’s economic situations.
Check out another ofAnita’s favorite episodes featuring Andreas M. Antonopoulos debunking arguments against bitcoinlike high volatility, energy consumption, inequalities and the exaggerated risk of possible failure.
TRANSCRIPT:“Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way” – Part 1 – Zimbabwe: Ideal conditions for Bitcoin?
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for March 19, 2020
ANITA
Hello friends, bitcoiners and pre-coiners alike! This is the first episode of a multipart series called “Bitcoin in Africa: The Ubuntu Way”
In February 2020 I travelled to Zimbabwe and Botswana to find out, if and howbitcoin(BTC) is used there. I spent three weeks in Zimbabwe, two weeks of that time I was in Harare the capital and I travelled for one week to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. After that I spent some days in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana to meet and talk with the founder of the Satoshicentre Alakanani Itireleng.
ANITA
The instrument you heard is a mbira (pronounced m-BEER-ra , IPA (ə)mˈbɪəɾə) it is an African musical instrument, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Why did I visit Zimbabwe?
I wanted to see with my own eyes how the living situation is for people and, more importantly, to research the usage of bitcoin. Bitcoin is in my eyes first and foremost not a speculative, trading object, where everything is about price. For me it’s a tool of liberation that enables individuals and communities to free themselves of tight restrictions by authoritarian or totalitarian nation states that harm people’s human rights. This has many faces. In the so-called western world, in countries with freedom of speech, safety and a high level of wealth, it is the possibility to free oneself from the banking system. The banking system has in the last 30 years in combination with national and global regulations evolved into a very strict system of surveillance and allowances. Where we – the majority people of integrity are being policed by the banks – because of fear of money laundering and terrorism finance done by the few. In conjunction with “surveillance capitalism” – a term coined by Shoshana Zuboff in her book well worth reading – surveillance capitalism – which is the permanent recording of all our digital traces on Facebook, Google and Co. – that are being used not only to comfort us with better search results and convenience, but also to manipulate our decisions and extort our data for money and higher profits. This has had disastrous consequences for democracy, freedom and our privacy. So in countries with high living standards, safety and a relatively good working banking system with a low inflation rate controlled by so called “independent” central banks, I would argue that governments try to regulate bitcoin in the face of “money laundering and financing terrorism” – while in countries like Zimbabwe bitcoin has to be tamed or controlled by the governing elite, because of the possibility for more “human rights and freedom” for its citizens and their loss of power.
This podcast special and my trip to Africa would not have been possible without my sponsors and supporters.
I want to thank my sponsors first: Thank you: Peter McCormack and the whatbitcoindid podcast, Coinfinity and theCardWallet, LocalBitcoins.com a person-to-person bitcoin trading site, SHIFT Cryptosecurity, manufacturer of the hardware walletBitBox02and many thanks to several unknown private donors, who sent me Satoshis over the lightning network.
This special is edited by CoinDesk’s Podcasts Editor Adam B. Levine and published first on the CoinDesk Podcast Network. Thank you very much for supporting the Bitcoin in Africa series with your work.
Thanks goes also out to stakwork.com – stakwork is a great project that brings bitcoin into the world through earning. One can do microjobs on stakwork, earning Satoshis and cash them out without even having an understanding about the lightning network or bitcoin. I think we need more projects like that to spread the usage of bitcoin around the world.
Thank you also to GoTenna, for donating several gotenna devices to set up a mesh network in Zimbabwe and to Team Satoshi, the decentralized sports team for supporting my work.
This special is also brought to you by the Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network.
Voice of captain:Mascati…. Welcome on board… Make yourself comfortable….
ANITA:
I did talks about bitcoin in both countries and introduced around 100 people to the possibilities of using and earning bitcoin and showed them how it can improve their living situation in the short and long run.
I met with many people from different backgrounds with a diverse set of goals and interests. I talked with them about their daily life, how the economic situation has changed in the last 20 – 40 years, about their hopes and fears for the future and of course about bitcoin and its chances and challenges in Africa. In 2014 Alakanani Itireleng a true Bitcoin OG founded the Satoshicentre in Gaborone to educate her fellow citizens about bitcoin:
INTERVIEWEE:“I want to help people get into the Bitcoin ecosystem and set the ecosystem to make it like work for Africa, not only for Botswana to make it to work for for Africa, you know, we are the very people that need bitcoin. Yeah.
We are the people. I think so too. Yeah, we are actually this is the place where it is needed the most. Like I was shocked when I was in the U.S. in Orange County. I saw a drive through bank. Yeah. I was like why do you guys have a drive through banks? You don’t need Bitcoin. So we need bitcoin.”
ANITA
February 2020: My trip to Zimbabwe starts. I arrive at Harare airport – before I am allowed to join the queue in front of the immigration desk my body temperature is measured – it is coronavirus season. All is good. They ask me where I come from: I say Austria. The answer is a question: Australia? I say no: Austria in Europe, next to Germany. Ah. Austria. Alright. I join the queue for the immigration procedure. I apply for a visa – and pay 30 U.S. dollar in cash. This, despite the fact, that in June 2019 the use of U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies was outlawed by the government
So, if the government outlawed the use of foreign currencies, why did I just pay my visa fees with U.S. dollar cash? This is just one of many questions I ask myself during the three weeks of my stay in Zimbabwe.
Next step, customs control: I am very nervous, because my suitcase is packed with devices for bitcoin use. I am bringing donations from my sponsors, several Hardware wallets, the BitBox02 by SHIFT cryptosecurity, several Card Wallets, a RaspiBlitz, which is a Bitcoin and Lightning Fullnode and several GoTenna devices to set up a mesh network to communicate and even send bitcoin, while being off the grid. So coming from the immigration desk I try to stay behind a couple to sneak through and I am lucky, the custom officers are not interested in me or my suitcase. I feel a great relief.
After arrival my friends immediately take me out to an event. They say, you have to see that. And they were right.
It was the Austrian new year’s concert in Harare. It felt a little weird. Being in a church, with an audience of 99 percent whites – so called “Murungus” in the local Shona language – attending. A group of elderly Rhodesians coming together to listen to a classical concert in the tradition of Vienna philharmonic orchestra. That’s not quite what I expected to find. But this audience is also a part of the country’s history and current life. This shows that Zimbabwe is a land of many contrasts.
In the three weeks of my stay, I showered exactly one time. Bah, you might think. No, I did wash myself, but only in a so-called shallow bath. You fill the bathtub just a little bit, like 2 cm high and then you wash yourself sitting and pouring the water over yourself with a jug. Why? Because of the water drought, there is no public water supply. So people try to save as much water as possible, you don’t even flush the toilet, when you have been on the small side. You have to buy water privately, that is delivered every two weeks with a truck. And if possible, you collect the rainwater. Even though there is no water supply: the water company still sends bills and you have to pay them.
Same with electricity: It depends in which area you live. If you are close to hospitals or to the areas where people from the government live, then your chances to have water and electricity all the time are high. If not, then you have to suffer from power outages. At the place where I was staying, the power went on around 11 p.m. and went off around 5 a.m. in the morning. That means that people – and there are a lot of them – who cannot afford to buy a solar panel and an inverter – have to work by night. If you cannot afford a gas stove, you have to cook by night. And still: the electricity provider ZESA sends you bills and you have to pay them.
So I travelled the country and arranged a number of interviews. Three of my interview partners in Zimbabwe wanted to stay anonymous. One person is working for a human rights organization in Harare. Another one feared about his professional career and the third one is a teacher in a public school who is also afraid of possible threats. The other two I was talking with would have been ok with their names in the public, but I decided to leave their names out, too. Why? Because people are scared. As my interview partner who is working for a human rights organization puts it:
HUMAN RIGHTS SPEAKER
“The human rights situation here right now is really poor. I don’t, I haven’t I haven’t been this pessimistic about it in 10-15 years. It’s really is-. It’s as repressive as it has been with like, an added layer of like a sinister, vindictive.
And I think that there’s a small number of activists or organizations trying to do something. And in some ways, because there’s so few of them, it’s really easy to just sit really hard. So if you are one of those handful of people you can get kidnapped, raped, beaten up and stuff. You know, you fight life, you know, every day.
And like, how long does the energy last? So because some people I mean, that’s my observation on my feet, you know, just that you can do it for a certain period of time. And then you just I don’t know, it’s almost like a, like a fading out, you know?”
ANITA
So one can say there’s no free speech in this country?
HR SPEAKER
Yeah. And adding up –Especially what you receive from a kind of like whatever in form of like a global support network coverage of it’s very poor, you know? I mean, you get a headline in the media and like this, and this happens, but actually, the peer support internationally, I also like find quite poor.
ANITA
One of my interviews was taking place at a self-service restaurant in the middle of Harare. My guest and I started talking and I recorded with my audio recorder and two handheld microphones. After 20 minutes a woman from the restaurant approached us:
UNKNOWN SPEAKER:
….recording is not allowed….
ANITA
We continued and finished our interview and left for another restaurant. But this was a disturbing experience. At least for me. I am used to being able to record my own conversations wherever I want. But people here are scared. And as I realized afterwards reports from foreigners about Zimbabwe require a permit. Also you are not allowed to take pictures of government buildings.
With all those complicated living conditions, what are the positives about living in Zimbabwe?
HR SPEAKER
The people, the people, people it is and yeah, the climate. And the possibilities. You know, if you are an entrepreneurial person you are very free to start new things – there are not so many strict regulations for starting a business. In fact, you have to have this self-sovereign attitude otherwise you couldn’t survive here. Still, it is very different, if you have the possibility to leave the country or not.
Because It’s tough. I mean, I think that’s a big part of why people leave, is the combination of kind of lack of civic freedom and lack of economic prospects. And it’s a little bit like what we were just saying about the colleague who’s gone to work in London, like you had an opportunity like that, you take it and if you mean, even if, even if the choice was like, be a tomato vendor here, or work as a waiter in South Africa, I’ll work as a waiter in South Africa, or for any other foreign currency, I can send it home. I can support my family.
ANITA:
There are 16 million people living in Zimbabwe and only about 800.000 of them have a formal employment. That are only 5 percent of the population, that means 95% are informal unemployed, they hustle, they live off nothing. Of the 5 percent with a formal employment, most of them work for the government, are civil servants or teachers in public schools.
This is what the headmistress of a school told me:
TEACHER:
“And everybody else is just living hustling. Yeah, we hustle. Oh, yeah, it’s … you have people who work but and who are self-employed. But very few people are like working from a for a proper institution, because even the institutions are in a difficult place because you’ll have rentals for example, charged in U.S. dollars, even though the government would say no, it’s not allowed Even if they rate it, it will be like astronomical prices. We like I don’t even earn that much.
So typical rental, for example, for a one bedroom apartment, let’s call it that, which is pretty standard. You’re looking at about 250 – 350 US dollars, the average person at most is maybe earning 2500 Zim dollars, which is about 100 hundred dollars. So how do you pay your rent, but then and so now like it’s become, employment has almost become like a jail, because it’s like, because now you don’t have time, because they’ll take all your time, you don’t have time to find that additional 200 or $250 to pay your rent. But really, and truly, you need additional maybe $400 because you’ve got the other bills outside of rent.
So it’s almost like being employed is almost a disadvantage almost in this country because you’re locked down at that price and even if everything goes up, every month, your salary will remain the same. And a lot of companies struggle to put, what did they call it? Something allowance of forgetting the term an adjustment, as Yeah, it’s called a salary adjustment to move with the market. It’s never really completely what you actually need. They’ll try maybe you get an extra 200 bond or an extra 500 bond. But it’s difficult, you know, it’s difficult to keep up with that corporate struggling as well. Very few corporates are able to pay people very well for it to make sense.”
ANITA
As a teacher and headmistress. she can tell about the situation in schools:
Wow, I mean, I work in education. I work in education, and I can tell you, it’s difficult. It’s difficult. Have a staff complement of 14 and they, my, you have to then obviously get money from school fees. So you have a lot of schools now. Trying to diversify. Because if you put all that pressure on the parents, then your parents can’t afford to send their children to your school. So it’s like, Okay, what do you do? We need to increase our fees because I need to be able to pay my teachers more. But if I throw that burden on the parents,
I, as a parent know that I can’t even afford that, you know, per term for every child that I’ve got some parents of two, three, four children, and they need to bring your children so what do you do you end up subsidizing? That’s when you have schools that have maybe a little Market Garden, you know, where you commercialize your kitchen and you start baking. You know, when you’re not making lunch for the kids, you’re selling food on the side so that you supplement your income. It is difficult and teachers have struggled the most, especially who work for state schools, public schools, they are in the worst possible position. Those who work in private schools are in much better position because they can afford to charge more government schools can’t charge what private schools are charging, because government schools supposed to the public schools supposed to be affordable for anyone to send their child to school, then they put in a difficult position where you’re told you cannot not accept a child because they haven’t paid fees. So you have to accept them.
So you’ll have, let’s say, 50 children, and maybe only 15 of them have paid the school fees. But because as a government school, you’re not allowed to send children home because they have a right to education. How do you take care of the other 35 off 15 and still take care of your teachers and it’s, it’s our country, is madness, you know, the more I talk about it, you know, it sounds terrible.
ANITA
Not only that prices are rising daily, the whole society is crippled by corruption. Before 2017, when Robert Mugabe still was the country’s leader, there were roadblocks by police everywhere. They would stop your car and say that you have done something wrong or mock you about small things they find in your car – ending with demanding money. Friends told me that they stopped driving through the city of Harare, because at one time they were stopped by five roadblocks inside the city and had to pay around 100 USD in fines only to get from one side of town to the other. With the new government, this has changed. No more roadblocks inside Harare. When I was there, it was almost spooky. Because I did not see any police. A friend said: If you need the police at your home, because something has happened, you cannot just call them and they’ll come, you have to go and fetch them.
And still there are roadblocks. A thing that I have never encountered in my life before: when we were on our roadtrip to Victoria Falls, we were stopped by roadblocks at the borders of each city. Coming from Austria, I have never seen something like that before. And it feels creepy. It’s like, every time I see police and I have to stop – or maybe they wave us through, you never know – it feels like you have done something wrong. Uncertainty, being at the mercy of their whims – that’s not a good feeling.
INTERVIEWEE 2:
As any person I hate talking ill about my country, but it’s the truth, sadly, sadly is the truth. We are struggling. We are struggling. We have doctors are not paid nearly what a doctor should be paid realistically. We don’t have equipment. We don’t have the right medication the cost of medication alone is unbelievable. You can’t afford to get sick. We were in a fuel queue with car behind us was a doctor, a doctor was in there. And he eventually was he was actually a doctor on call. And he’d also been in this queue for like, two hours or so. And the guy was supposed to be on call and knowing already that was so severely understaffed. A doctor who supposed to be attending to patients, but it’s stuck in a fuel queue is a problem. So he went up to the front and he tried to get fuel, at least in a jerrycan and he showed them his card and the fact that he was on coal and it was a huge fight. But I think in the end, he only got like 10 liters, which is enough just to get him to work and get back home at the end of it. And as we’re trying to help him sort of fill up his car. He then says, As a doctor, I can safely say to you cannot afford to get sick. Please do not get sick in this country, because it’s one of two things It’s either you cannot afford it, because they are hospitals that are beautifully equipped, fully staffed, all the medication, all these hospitals are here right now in this country, but you know you are paying a premium for it. Even our medical aids, not all of them are accepted at these hospitals. But then you have our government hospitals, which are not as well equipped. And if you don’t have the kind of money that is required to get proper health care, your chances of not making it or you know, probably not getting the best health care you possibly could a very, very high, very high and if a doctor can say, don’t get sick, what does that what does that tell you?
ANITA:
While traveling from Harare to Bulawayo I met a doctor, who lived a big part of his life in Zimbabwe. I would say, he is in his early 70s and he fought in the Rhodesian Bush War, which was a guerilla war to fight for the independence of Zimbabwe in the 1970s. It ended with the declaration of independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 with a new leader called Robert Mugabe. This doctor lives in Europe now, but every year he returns to his old home country to stay for some weeks. He brought a suitcase full of medical supplies with him, to donate it to a hospital, because public hospitals are lacking everything. At the airport, custom officers opened his suitcase and demanded money for the supplies.
ANITA:
Corruption is everywhere. And it seems that there are different rules for different people. Yes, I think one can say that for every country, but the differences are so big here. If you have USD, if you are in a high position, if you are in the right network, you can have a great life in Zimbabwe. I have seen private houses with swimming pools blue as the sky, many shiny SUVs and most of the better off people employ gardeners, maids and other staff.
When I was there a new rule by the government was published. The minimum wage for a gardener or worker is allowed to be as little as 8 USD. Per month. And of course: this is not paid in USD, but in Zimbabwe dollar.
For instance: The maid in a house – close to where I stayed – works seven days a week, from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., doing housework, cooking, taking care of the kids. She is a so-called live-in maid. Due to the power cuts she has to iron by night. She also sleeps in the house of her employer. For this, she earns 10 USD per month. Most of the time the families of workers like her live in another part of town, where the rents are cheaper. So, because they cannot afford a car, if they want to go home, they have to take the bus which costs them around 1-2 USD. How should anyone be able to live from that?
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I could go on with these examples of mismanagement and corruption. For instance: MealieMeal – which is like a cornmeal- it is the Zimbabweans staple diet… The thing people eat on a daily basis like rice in Asia, noodles in Italy or potatoes in Germany. It’s part of their diet and normally relatively affordable. But it is not available at the moment. The producers of MealieMeal are being forced by the government to get paid in Zimbabwe Dollars. So they decided, before they are paid in this bad money that loses its value daily, they rather store the MealieMeal in their warehouses and wait for better deals. This is something that hits people in towns worse, than those in the countryside. Because there either you have your own corn or the local chief settles a deal with the producers so that his people get MealieMeal.
Basically much of the conversation is about where to get what, at which prices:
STREET AUDIO: Do you know that they have chibage?
Anita:
And I did not even mention the fuel queues up until now. So petrol. The urban spaces in Harare, Bulawayo and other towns are not densely populated in general. That means, that distances are very great. And there is no public transport like we know it.
Yes there are a lot of mini buses and also bigger buses to travel over land. Someone like me would be completely lost, because there are no timetables or stops with signs. And yeah, there are no road signs at all. Nowhere. So you really need to know your way or ask people. That means everything is depending on cars and buses. If you cannot afford that, you have to walk. And I saw a lot of people walking. Women, who were carrying heavy bags on their heads – yes like we see it on television – and men, who interestingly enough, carry much less than their accompanying women. And yes, I have asked. It is a very patriarchal society.
Coming back to the petrol.
There are severe petrol shortages. You never know when and where you can get petrol. I was told that most of the time, when fuel shortages occured, the price was raised afterwards. In the weeks I was in the country, I saw many many people queueing for petrol. Long lines of cars are parked at the side of the streets waiting for the petrol station to open. People spend nights and days queueing, never knowing for how long the petrol will last? One of my interview partners excused himself for not calling me at the time we agreed upon, because he was in the petrol queue for such a long time, that he did not have power anymore in his cell phone.
Before we dive deeper into the current situation in the following episodes, let’s take a look back and take a look into the history of this beautiful land Zimbabwe and its people.
TheEncyclopædia Britannica begins its history of Zimbabwewith “The Stone Age”
The first Bantu people are thought to have reached Zimbabwe between the 5th and 10th centuries CE. Zimbabwe is home to many stone ruins, including those known asGreat Zimbabwe, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.
Overview of Great Zimbabwe. The large walled construction is the Great Enclosure. Some remains of the valley complex can be seen in front of it.
The Portuguese, who arrived on the east coast of Africa at the end of the 15th century, dreamed of opening up the interior and establishing a route to connect their eastern settlements with Angola in the west. The first European to enter Zimbabwe was probably Antonio Fernandes, who tried to cross the continent and reached the neighborhood of Que Que (now Kwekwe).
A second great movement of the Bantu peoples began in 1830, this time from the south. The Ndebele, carved out a kingdom. The Ndebele were warriors and pastoralists, in the Zulu tradition, and they mastered and dispossessed the weaker tribes, known collectively as Shona (Mashona), who were sedentary, peaceful tillers of the land.
For more than half a century, until the coming of European rule, the Ndebele continued to enslave and plunder the Shona. This is an important fact for the later development.
During this period, however, British and Afrikaner hunters, traders, and prospectors had begun to move up from the south, and with them came the missionaries.
In South Africa Cecil Rhodes formed the British South Africa Company, which received its charter in October 1889. Its objects were to extend the railway, to encourage immigration and colonization, to promote trade and commerce, and – of course – to secure all mineral rights, in return for guarantees of protection and security of rights to the tribal chiefs.
The Ndebele resented this European invasion, and in 1893 they took up arms, being defeated only after months of strenuous fighting. The Shona had at first accepted the Europeans, but they too became rebellious, and the whole country was not pacified until 1897.
“The Rhodes Colossus” by Edward Linley Sambourne, published in Punch after Rhodes announced plans for a telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo in 1892.
By 1892 about 1,500 settlers from the south had arrived in Rhodesia. The railway reached Bulawayo in 1896 and Victoria Falls in 1904. After Cecil Rhodes’s death in 1902 he was buried in the Matopos Hills and they built him a monument that stands on top of these hills destroying the beauty of the land.
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In 1922 – British South Africa Company administration ended, the white minority opts for self-government.
1930 – Land Apportionment Act restricts black access to land, forcing many people into wage labour. Between 1930-1960s – Black opposition to colonial rule was growing.
1965 – Prime minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom under white minority rule, sparking international outrage and economic sanctions.
The Rhodesian Bush War lasted from 1972 to 1979 it was a Guerrilla war against white rule.
According to Rhodesian government statistics, more than 20,000 people were killed during the war. Rhodesian security forces, guerrillas and around 8.000 black civilians, and 500 white civilians were killed.
In 1980 – Zanu leader Robert Mugabe won independence elections. He became the first prime minister as Zimbabwe achieved an internationally recognized independence on April 18, 1980.
He stayed president of Zimbabwe until 2017.
Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family – hence remember how the Ndebele enslaved and plundered the Shona, before the European rule.
Because between 1982 and 1985, Mugabe sent the military and the so called 5th brigade – trained by North Korean – to crush armed resistance against him from Ndebele groups – in a military crackdown known as Gukurahundi, a Shona term which translates roughly to mean “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. The Gukurahundi campaigns were also known as the Matabeleland Massacres. Approximately 20,000 Matabele were murdered in these first years after the war; most of those killed were victims of public executions.
Margaret Thatcher’s U.K. government was aware of the killings but remained silent on the matter, cautious not to anger Mugabe and threaten the safety of white Zimbabweans. The United States also did not raise strong objections, with President Ronald Reagan welcoming Mugabe to the White House in September 1983. In October 1983, Mugabe attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi, where no participating states mentioned the Gukurahundi.
Economically, Southern Rhodesia developed an economy that was narrowly based on production of a few primary products, notably, chrome and tobacco. It was therefore vulnerable to the economic cycle. The deep recession of the 1930s gave way to a post-war boom. This boom prompted the immigration of about 200,000 whites between 1945 and 1970, taking the white population up to 307,000. They established a relatively balanced economy, transforming what was once a primary producer dependent on backwoods farming into an industrial giant which spawned a strong manufacturing sector, iron and steel industries, and modern mining ventures. These economic successes owed little to foreign aid.
In the 1990s hundreds of thousands of acres of largely white-owned land were expropriated. In April 1994, a newspaper investigation found that not all of this was redistributed to landless blacks; much of the expropriated land was being leased to ministers and senior officials. Responding to this scandal, in 1994 the U.K. government – which had supplied £44 million for land redistribution – halted its payments.
Over the course of the 1990s, Zimbabwe’s economy steadily deteriorated. By 2000, living standards had declined from 1980; life expectancy was reduced, average wages were lower, and unemployment had trebled. By 1998, unemployment was almost at 50%. As of 2009, three to four million Zimbabweans – the greater part of the nation’s skilled workforce – had left the country. Mugabe increasingly blamed the country’s economic problems on Western nations and the white Zimbabwean minority, who still controlled most of its commercial agriculture, mines, and manufacturing industry.
From a human rights perspective I also want to talk about Mugabe’s growing preoccupation with homosexuality, lambasting it as an “un-African” import from Europe. He described gay people as being “guilty of sub-human behavior”, and of being “worse than dogs and pigs”. This attitude may have stemmed in part from his strong conservative values, but it was strengthened by the fact that several ministers in the British government were gay. Mugabe began to believe that there was a “gay mafia” and that all of his critics were homosexuals. Critics also accused Mugabe of using homophobia to distract attention from the country’s problems.
In February 2000, land invasions began as armed gangs attacked and occupied white-owned farms. The farm seizures were often violent; by 2006 a reported sixty white farmers had been killed, with many of their employees experiencing intimidation and torture. A large number of the seized farms remained empty, while many of those redistributed to black peasant-farmers were unable to engage in production for the market because of their lack of access to fertilizer.
The farm invasions severely impacted agricultural development. Zimbabwe had produced over two million tons of maize in 2000; by 2008 this had declined to approximately 450,000. By 2009, 75% of Zimbabwe’s population were relying on food aid, the highest proportion of any country at that time. Zimbabwe faced continuing economic decline. Hyperinflation resulted in economic crisis. By 2007, Zimbabwe had the highest inflation rate in the world, at 7600 percent. By 2008, inflation exceeded 100,000% and a loaf of bread cost a third of the average daily wage. Increasing numbers of Zimbabweans relied on remittances from relatives abroad.
The country’s lucrative tourist industry was decimated, and there was a rise in poaching, including of endangered species. Mugabe directly exacerbated this problem when he ordered the killing of 100 elephants to provide meat for an April 2007 feast.
In 2008, the parliamentary and presidential elections were held. After the election, Mugabe’s government deployed its ‘war veterans’ in a violent campaign against his opponent Tsvangirai supporters. Between March and June 2008, at least 153 MDC supporters were killed. There were reports of women affiliated with the MDC being subjected to gang rape by Mugabe supporters. Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans were internally displaced by the violence. These actions brought international condemnation of Mugabe’s government.
This is only 12 years ago. No wonder, that people are scared.
In 2009, Mugabe’s government declared that – to combat rampant inflation – it would recognize U.S. dollars as legal tender and would pay government employees in this currency. This helped to stabilize prices. But then in November 2016 a new national currency called bond notes was introduced amid public resistance.
In 2017 Mr. Mugabe resigns after the military takes control. Former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa becomes president.
People have hope, that from now on Zimbabwe might become a better place. But as it seems, nothing really has changed.
In January 2019, protests break out in major cities after the government more than doubles fuel prices in an attempt to tackle shortages and the black market.
In June 2019, Zimbabwe outlaws the use of any other foreign currency. Only Zimbabwean dollars are allowed as legal tender.
That meant that All USD one had held on a bank account in the country were changed into Zimbabwe dollar at the exchange rate of 1:1. This did not last long. Today – 9 months afterwards – the exchange rate on the streets is 1:43. So now 43 Zim Dollar are equivalent to 1 US Dollar.
INTERVIEW:
When I came here two and a half weeks ago, I think the official exchange rate was one to 17. And in the shops, we had one to 20 or 25. Today, we got one to 30 in a shop. While so in, yeah, in two and a half weeks, the rtgs or the bond, Zimbabwe bond lost a lot. I don’t know how many percent that exactly now, but actually a lot of Yes. value. Yeah. So what do you see? Or what do you think is coming next? I mean, do you think you’re going into hyperinflation again?
Speaker 2
We are in hyperinflation.
Anita Posch
You are still in again? Yes.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think we are. It’s just that it’s not. t’s not on the scale, where last time we just like I feel like it just ran out of people’s hands like when we will became trillionaires. And quadrillion is like it just there was no control left like no one’s Coming and no one knew how to deal with it. We’ve been there before. So now it’s like okay, let’s try and control it. But it is in we are in currently in hyperinflation, I believe so maybe an economist will tell me I’m wrong.
Anita:
In the three weeks of my stay the exchange rate on the street went from 1:20 to 1:30 in only three weeks, this is a huge change. This is a sad situation because for the people living is getting difficult again.
And by the way: The Reserve bank of Zimbabwe maintains a Twitter account, where you can find tweets, which paint a picture about what is happening in the country.
For instance, one tweet is threatening people with disciplinary measures for posting pictures of new banknotes on social media!
In the next episode you will hear more about the banking situation and how people here are used to living in a multicurrency system, which theoretically is a perfect starting point for people to adopt bitcoin.
If you like my show please subscribe to it in your podcast player and share the episode on social media. You can find additional pictures and videos from my travel on the episode page at bitcoinundco.com.
Please do follow me on Twitter, my handle is@anitaposch, or write an email to hello @ anitaposch.com . If you want to sponsor the podcast – I am currently looking for new partners please feel free to send me a message.
Thanks for listening.
Music: Start with yes Delicate beats, editing by Adam B. Levine and the CoinDesk podcast network, Idea content and production yours truly Anita Posch.
Listen/subscribe to the CoinDesk Podcast feed for unique perspectives and fresh daily insight withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,IHeartRadioorRSS.
• Can Open Source Networks Address Medical Shortages? Feat. Bruce Fenton
• Why Bitcoin Is the Only Truly Free Market, Feat. Dan Tapiero || Coronacrisis as an Impulse for Faster Monetary System Digitalization: After a short two-way deviation, the cryptocurrency returns to the current price level. Over the previous 24 hours, bitcoin climbed by a per cent and changed hands at $5,300. According to CoinMarketCap, since March 17, daily trading volumes have been stable at around $40bn.
TheBitcoinDominance Index is at 64.2%, having lost about a percentage point over the week. Like bitcoin, altcoins have fallen just as much, so they can also attract investor demand.
Technical indicators, including Crypto Fear & Greed Index and RSI, show that the first cryptocurrency is still in the deep oversold territory. At the moment, the most acute problem is the growth in the number of infected. It seems that investors can stay away from active purchases until this indicator begins to show a steady decline.
The spread of the virus, closed borders, destruction of supply chains, falling demand for commodities, rising unemployment and a crushing blow to small businesses are what awaits us. The consequences may turn out to be what they were after the wars, while the tools of central banks are rapidly reducing. The longer countries are isolated, the more global the consequences will be.
Apart from the purely negative consequences, we can also observe quite exciting processes, like faster digitalization of our life. Remote work has long been gaining popularity around the world. Now it is a necessity. The Internet had a long time ago made it possible to work from home in many sectors of the economy.
There is a growing expectation that against the backdrop of the coronavirus epidemic, many employers will finally choose this employment model. Remote work, online education, online medical consultations, even robot management in factories, ordering products at home – the economy is becoming more and more digital. Digital currencies in it look like a natural evolutionary stage.
Recently, we are continually witnessing comparisons with the Great Depression. Indeed, a lot of things are similar except for technology. The authorities of all countries of the world should take the next step and create, for example, their digital national currencies with limited emission and much greater transparency.
The Fed should understand that cryptocurrencies are already playing in its field with competitive advantages that will become increasingly evident as the new crisis grows.
by Alex Kuptsikevich, the FxPro senior financial analyst.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for March 19, 2020
• Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Starting to Stabilize || Coronacrisis as an Impulse for Faster Monetary System Digitalization: After a short two-way deviation, the cryptocurrency returns to the current price level. Over the previous 24 hours, bitcoin climbed by a per cent and changed hands at $5,300. According to CoinMarketCap, since March 17, daily trading volumes have been stable at around $40bn. The Bitcoin Dominance Index is at 64.2%, having lost about a percentage point over the week. Like bitcoin, altcoins have fallen just as much, so they can also attract investor demand. Technical indicators, including Crypto Fear & Greed Index and RSI, show that the first cryptocurrency is still in the deep oversold territory. At the moment, the most acute problem is the growth in the number of infected. It seems that investors can stay away from active purchases until this indicator begins to show a steady decline. The spread of the virus, closed borders, destruction of supply chains, falling demand for commodities, rising unemployment and a crushing blow to small businesses are what awaits us. The consequences may turn out to be what they were after the wars, while the tools of central banks are rapidly reducing. The longer countries are isolated, the more global the consequences will be. Apart from the purely negative consequences, we can also observe quite exciting processes, like faster digitalization of our life. Remote work has long been gaining popularity around the world. Now it is a necessity. The Internet had a long time ago made it possible to work from home in many sectors of the economy. There is a growing expectation that against the backdrop of the coronavirus epidemic, many employers will finally choose this employment model. Remote work, online education, online medical consultations, even robot management in factories, ordering products at home – the economy is becoming more and more digital. Digital currencies in it look like a natural evolutionary stage. Recently, we are continually witnessing comparisons with the Great Depression. Indeed, a lot of things are similar except for technology. The authorities of all countries of the world should take the next step and create, for example, their digital national currencies with limited emission and much greater transparency. Story continues The Fed should understand that cryptocurrencies are already playing in its field with competitive advantages that will become increasingly evident as the new crisis grows. by Alex Kuptsikevich, the FxPro senior financial analyst . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Gains Capped by Mild Weather, Low Demand Expectations Oil Rebounds But Coronavirus Worries Persist AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Bounce Is Hard During Volatile Session GBP/USD Price Forecast – British Pound Searching For a Bottom EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for March 19, 2020 Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Starting to Stabilize || CME Bitcoin Options Volume Hits Record Low, While Bakkt Goes Weeks With No Trades: Demand for bitcoin (BTC) options on regulated U.S. derivatives exchanges has dried up even as price volatility reaches record highs. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) traded just three bitcoin options contracts on Tuesday, with a notional amount of 15 bitcoin (approximately $80,000), the exchange told CoinDesk. That is CMEs lowest daily volume for bitcoin options on record, according to crypto derivatives firm Skew Markets. The previous record low of $125,000 was registered Jan. 24. CMEs product went live on Jan. 13 and traded a total of $2.2 million in notional value on the first day, beating its rival, the Intercontinental Exchanges Bakkt platform, which had traded roughly $1 million since its open on Dec. 9. Related: Bitcoin Claws Back Over 40% of Recent Price Sell-off With Surge Above $6.8K Volumes on CME rose to a record high of $5.4 million on Jan. 17, but have been declining ever since. As of Tuesday, trading volumes were down 96 percent from the minor spike of $2.1 million seen March 9. Meanwhile, Bakkt has seen no options trading activity since Feb. 27. Bakkt rolled out its product on Dec. 9 and saw a record volume of $528,000 in notional value on Jan. 8. However, its options volume evaporated following the launch of CMEs options in mid-January. Notably, Bakkt has traded option contracts on just four days since mid-January. Related: What an Uptick in Coinjoins Says About Bitcoins Value Proposition The slowdown in activity on both CME and Bakkt is perhaps surprising, given that bitcoins price volatility has soared over the last few days. The cryptocurrencys three-month implied volatility the option markets opinion of bitcoins potential moves rose from 3.5 percent (66.9 percent annualized) to a record high of 6.8 percent (130 percent annualized) on a daily basis in the seven days to March 17, according to Skew data. Heightened volatility typically fuels demand for hedging instruments like options, which are derivative contracts that give holders the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy, while a put option gives the right to sell. Story continues However, the opposite has happened in bitcoin on regulated U.S. exchanges: volumes have actually dropped precipitously as volatility has skyrocketed. See also: Bitcoin Sees 9% Gain as Turmoil Hits the Forex Markets The decline in options volume seems to have been caused by institutional traders treating bitcoin as a source of liquidity during the past weeks massive stock market sell-off, which triggered a multitude of margin calls. Last weeks market rout saw institutional investors selling many risk assets, including bitcoin. CME is a regulated platform designed for traditional investment managers seeking bitcoin exposure without a priority of ownership or utilization, and therefore saw a drop in volume as their customers led the flight to cash, Tom Lombardi, director at digital asset management firm Wave Financial told CoinDesk. Supplementing that argument is the fact that open interest, or open positions on CMEs option market, fell to a five-week low of $6.5 million of notional value on March 12 and stood at $8.4 million on March 17. Thats down significantly from the record high of $22 million witnessed Feb. 28. Bitcoin futures listed on CME have also seen a slowdown in activity. Open interest declined to a two-month low of $171 million last week, having hit a high of $338 million on Feb, 12. Meanwhile, trading volume dropped to a three-month low of $88 million on March 6, after a record high of $1.1 billion on Feb. 18. It was $212 million on Tuesday. The recent slide in volumes and open interest suggest traders likely closed out hedges (calls/puts) while liquidating positions in the spot and the futures market. Broad-based slowdown Options trading volume on Deribit, the worlds biggest crypto options exchange, slipped to $52 million on Tuesday to register its lowest level since March 1. Volume hit a record high of $248 million March. 12 as bitcoin crashed by a staggering 39 percent from $7,950 to $4,850, tracking risk aversion in the traditional markets. The downside move was likely exaggerated due to forced liquidations on the BitMEX exchange. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing . Related Stories Israeli Bitcoiners See Surveillance as Unavoidable During Coronavirus Crisis Huobi Adds Crypto Circuit Breaker After Last Weeks Mass Liquidations || CME Bitcoin Options Volume Hits Record Low, While Bakkt Goes Weeks With No Trades: Demand for bitcoin (BTC) options on regulated U.S. derivatives exchanges has dried up even as price volatility reaches record highs. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) traded just three bitcoin options contracts on Tuesday, with a notional amount of 15 bitcoin (approximately $80,000), the exchange told CoinDesk. That is CMEs lowest daily volume for bitcoin options on record, according to crypto derivatives firm Skew Markets. The previous record low of $125,000 was registered Jan. 24. CMEs product went live on Jan. 13 and traded a total of $2.2 million in notional value on the first day, beating its rival, the Intercontinental Exchanges Bakkt platform, which had traded roughly $1 million since its open on Dec. 9. Related: Bitcoin Claws Back Over 40% of Recent Price Sell-off With Surge Above $6.8K Volumes on CME rose to a record high of $5.4 million on Jan. 17, but have been declining ever since. As of Tuesday, trading volumes were down 96 percent from the minor spike of $2.1 million seen March 9. Meanwhile, Bakkt has seen no options trading activity since Feb. 27. Bakkt rolled out its product on Dec. 9 and saw a record volume of $528,000 in notional value on Jan. 8. However, its options volume evaporated following the launch of CMEs options in mid-January. Notably, Bakkt has traded option contracts on just four days since mid-January. Related: What an Uptick in Coinjoins Says About Bitcoins Value Proposition The slowdown in activity on both CME and Bakkt is perhaps surprising, given that bitcoins price volatility has soared over the last few days. The cryptocurrencys three-month implied volatility the option markets opinion of bitcoins potential moves rose from 3.5 percent (66.9 percent annualized) to a record high of 6.8 percent (130 percent annualized) on a daily basis in the seven days to March 17, according to Skew data. Heightened volatility typically fuels demand for hedging instruments like options, which are derivative contracts that give holders the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy, while a put option gives the right to sell. Story continues However, the opposite has happened in bitcoin on regulated U.S. exchanges: volumes have actually dropped precipitously as volatility has skyrocketed. See also: Bitcoin Sees 9% Gain as Turmoil Hits the Forex Markets The decline in options volume seems to have been caused by institutional traders treating bitcoin as a source of liquidity during the past weeks massive stock market sell-off, which triggered a multitude of margin calls. Last weeks market rout saw institutional investors selling many risk assets, including bitcoin. CME is a regulated platform designed for traditional investment managers seeking bitcoin exposure without a priority of ownership or utilization, and therefore saw a drop in volume as their customers led the flight to cash, Tom Lombardi, director at digital asset management firm Wave Financial told CoinDesk. Supplementing that argument is the fact that open interest, or open positions on CMEs option market, fell to a five-week low of $6.5 million of notional value on March 12 and stood at $8.4 million on March 17. Thats down significantly from the record high of $22 million witnessed Feb. 28. Bitcoin futures listed on CME have also seen a slowdown in activity. Open interest declined to a two-month low of $171 million last week, having hit a high of $338 million on Feb, 12. Meanwhile, trading volume dropped to a three-month low of $88 million on March 6, after a record high of $1.1 billion on Feb. 18. It was $212 million on Tuesday. The recent slide in volumes and open interest suggest traders likely closed out hedges (calls/puts) while liquidating positions in the spot and the futures market. Broad-based slowdown Options trading volume on Deribit, the worlds biggest crypto options exchange, slipped to $52 million on Tuesday to register its lowest level since March 1. Volume hit a record high of $248 million March. 12 as bitcoin crashed by a staggering 39 percent from $7,950 to $4,850, tracking risk aversion in the traditional markets. The downside move was likely exaggerated due to forced liquidations on the BitMEX exchange. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing . Related Stories Israeli Bitcoiners See Surveillance as Unavoidable During Coronavirus Crisis Huobi Adds Crypto Circuit Breaker After Last Weeks Mass Liquidations || CME Bitcoin Options Volume Hits Record Low, While Bakkt Goes Weeks With No Trades: Demand for bitcoin (BTC) options on regulated U.S. derivatives exchanges has dried up even as price volatility reaches record highs. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) traded just three bitcoin options contracts on Tuesday, with a notional amount of 15 bitcoin (approximately $80,000), the exchange told CoinDesk. That is CMEs lowest daily volume for bitcoin options on record, according to crypto derivatives firm Skew Markets. The previous record low of $125,000 was registered Jan. 24. CMEs product went live on Jan. 13 and traded a total of $2.2 million in notional value on the first day, beating its rival, the Intercontinental Exchanges Bakkt platform, which had traded roughly $1 million since its open on Dec. 9. Related: Bitcoin Claws Back Over 40% of Recent Price Sell-off With Surge Above $6.8K Volumes on CME rose to a record high of $5.4 million on Jan. 17, but have been declining ever since. As of Tuesday, trading volumes were down 96 percent from the minor spike of $2.1 million seen March 9. Meanwhile, Bakkt has seen no options trading activity since Feb. 27. Bakkt rolled out its product on Dec. 9 and saw a record volume of $528,000 in notional value on Jan. 8. However, its options volume evaporated following the launch of CMEs options in mid-January. Notably, Bakkt has traded option contracts on just four days since mid-January. Related: What an Uptick in Coinjoins Says About Bitcoins Value Proposition The slowdown in activity on both CME and Bakkt is perhaps surprising, given that bitcoins price volatility has soared over the last few days. The cryptocurrencys three-month implied volatility the option markets opinion of bitcoins potential moves rose from 3.5 percent (66.9 percent annualized) to a record high of 6.8 percent (130 percent annualized) on a daily basis in the seven days to March 17, according to Skew data. Heightened volatility typically fuels demand for hedging instruments like options, which are derivative contracts that give holders the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy, while a put option gives the right to sell. Story continues However, the opposite has happened in bitcoin on regulated U.S. exchanges: volumes have actually dropped precipitously as volatility has skyrocketed. See also: Bitcoin Sees 9% Gain as Turmoil Hits the Forex Markets The decline in options volume seems to have been caused by institutional traders treating bitcoin as a source of liquidity during the past weeks massive stock market sell-off, which triggered a multitude of margin calls. Last weeks market rout saw institutional investors selling many risk assets, including bitcoin. CME is a regulated platform designed for traditional investment managers seeking bitcoin exposure without a priority of ownership or utilization, and therefore saw a drop in volume as their customers led the flight to cash, Tom Lombardi, director at digital asset management firm Wave Financial told CoinDesk. Supplementing that argument is the fact that open interest, or open positions on CMEs option market, fell to a five-week low of $6.5 million of notional value on March 12 and stood at $8.4 million on March 17. Thats down significantly from the record high of $22 million witnessed Feb. 28. Bitcoin futures listed on CME have also seen a slowdown in activity. Open interest declined to a two-month low of $171 million last week, having hit a high of $338 million on Feb, 12. Meanwhile, trading volume dropped to a three-month low of $88 million on March 6, after a record high of $1.1 billion on Feb. 18. It was $212 million on Tuesday. The recent slide in volumes and open interest suggest traders likely closed out hedges (calls/puts) while liquidating positions in the spot and the futures market. Broad-based slowdown Options trading volume on Deribit, the worlds biggest crypto options exchange, slipped to $52 million on Tuesday to register its lowest level since March 1. Volume hit a record high of $248 million March. 12 as bitcoin crashed by a staggering 39 percent from $7,950 to $4,850, tracking risk aversion in the traditional markets. The downside move was likely exaggerated due to forced liquidations on the BitMEX exchange. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing . Related Stories Israeli Bitcoiners See Surveillance as Unavoidable During Coronavirus Crisis Huobi Adds Crypto Circuit Breaker After Last Weeks Mass Liquidations || Crypto Progressives Become Conservative With Their Own Chains: CoinDesk columnist Nic Carter is partner at Castle Island Ventures, a public blockchain-focused venture fund based in Cambridge, Mass. He is also the cofounder of Coin Metrics, a blockchain analytics startup. Most burgeoning crypto enthusiasts go through a phase in life where they think to themselves: “Bitcoin is neat, but it would be so much better if it could just do x and y?” At this point, they either decide to hop aboard a new blockchain project (typically seeking to own a larger fraction of the supply than the share of bitcoin they own), or they reject the notion and stick with bitcoin. I’ll call this former group (it could be better) “crypto progressives.” Like political progressives, they are interested in making changes to society, unsatisfied with the status quo. Related: How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus Crypto progressives often wonder why Bitcoiners are interested only in bitcoin (BTC), given that so many apparently technically superior alternatives exist. How could they possibly ignore a dizzying buffet of alternatives? The crypto progressive sometimes accuse Bitcoiners of falling prey to the endowment effect, of refusing to budge because of their established stake in the Bitcoin system. And indeed, there are significant transaction costs involved with taking one’s bitcoin wealth and embracing a new blockchain. But this is not the chief reason for rejecting alternatives. See also: Nic Carter – How to Stop the Next Quadriga: Make Exchanges Prove Their Reserves Bitcoiners tend to resent the accusation that their adherence to a sole project is merely contingent – a historical coincidence which they clung to out of habit. When pressed, they typically refer to one of two main justifications: 1. Bitcoin is the sole instantiation of a set of political and economic conditions for a successful monetary project. In a sense, Bitcoin fulfilled requirements it may have already had for a successful monetary alternative, and it was only in 2009 that these requirements were met. Story continues Related: Banks Have to Embrace Distributed Ledger Tech, Even if It Kills Them 2. Monetary goods rely on network effects by design; once a market leader is established, efforts at fragmentation are counterproductive. I tend to think the first set of arguments is persuasive on its own. Bitcoin prides certain important qualities that other alternatives jettison, and is genuinely unique in this way. This is not to say that other protocols are without merit but they generally opt for different tradeoffs, tending to prioritize innovation over institutional stability. Some of bitcoin’s underlying principles include: A strong regard for property rights, manifesting itself in a predefined monetary schedule with no discretion, a commitment to cheap validation, easily concealable information as keys to one’s assets and the minimization of Cantillon insiders – i.e. people who can monetize their proximity to the money spigot. A development philosophy that stresses the opt-in nature of significant change. Hard forks are de-emphasized and soft forks encouraged. This allows the protocol to resist arbitrary change and protects the asset from expropriation, especially in a covert manner. A “governance” regime in which power is divided among developers, miners and economic node operators, with no group having sole discretion over changes. Fairness in issuance and an absence of seigniorage (more precisely, a free market for seigniorage , meaning that miner margins are generally slim), enabled by Proof-of-Work. There’s other ways to describe the economic and political nature of bitcoin, but I would posit these as the most important. If you think values are important in the design of a monetary system, you are a Bitcoiner out of deliberate choice, not contingency. But there’s an even more persuasive argument to be made against mutinous alternatives. It is the logical incoherence of crypto progressivism. Crypto progressivism This is the idea that, if you replace a monetary standard and propose your own, you have no reasonable grounds to defend against someone else’s rebellion over your standard, and their campaign to replace it with their own. And so, if you commit to the permanent revolution, you end up with a recursive situation where no stable monetary standard is ever selected. Hal Finney was perhaps one of the first Bitcoiners to ever make this point. In a comment on Bitcointalk in 2011, he pithily explained the issue with crypto progressivism: “Any successful replacement of the Bitcoin blockchain will forever undermine the credibility of any successor. How is an investor to know that it won’t happen again? Rebooting now may benefit a few thousand early adopters. What happens when hundreds of millions use Bitcoin 2? They’ll be just as jealous and envious of you as you are of others. Given the precedent you want to set, how will you argue against yet another reboot?” Interestingly, Hal was responding to a thread (written in May 2011, when the price of bitcoin was about $8) suggesting the stash of coins Satoshi Nakamoto and others mined early in 2009 constituted a “tax” on late adopters, and agitating for a relaunch of bitcoin. See also: Nic Carter – Policymakers Shouldn’t Fear Digital Money: So Far It’s Maintaining the Dollar’s Status Hal understood that if one’s objection to bitcoin was the empowerment of early adopters this would be a problem for all other would-be replacements. Interestingly, the circumstances of bitcoin’s birth were rather favorable as far as distribution is concerned. Satoshi appears to not have claimed his million or so coins. Many cheaply acquired coins from that era are lost. And due to the lack of a pre-mine and the presence of PoW, everyone who earned coins had to pay market price for them (either at an exchange or with electricity). It’s an inescapable reality that the rise of any novel monetary system – which entails demonetizing an existing Store-of-Value asset in favor of a new one, as has happened countless times in history – will benefit those earliest to make the switch. This is the case, for example, in dollarization events, when it is those who are earliest to desert the local currency that benefit from favorable exchange rates, to the detriment of their laggard peers. So monetary transitions involve wealth redistribution by their very nature. So far, we have not devised a means to take a snapshot of the distribution of wealth and replicate it in a new monetary medium. The more pressing questions to me are: how frequently should we churn monetary systems? And how much better must a successor be, to justify replacing an established one? Those who style themselves crypto progressives when rejecting the orthodoxy almost inevitably become crypto conservatives as they settle on a system they like. The example of Ethereum is telling. Ethereum initially competed with Bitcoin on features such as a more expressive base layer, theoretically cheaper transactions, greater throughput, and a commitment to rapid innovation. But when other blockchains like EOS came about and took these ideas to their extreme (by compromising on validation costs, EOS offers more block space than Ethereum), most Ethereans did not desert their blockchain in favor of the newcomer. Even though they had justified their initial rejection of bitcoin with recourse to the exact same language that EOS fans were now using to renounce Ethereum, they for the most part held firm, making reference to the growing network effects in the Ethereum infrastructure that had been built so far. And this was a reasonable retort! From a societal perspective, it is costly to upend an established system every few years. So, those who style themselves crypto progressives when rejecting the orthodoxy almost inevitably become crypto-conservatives as they settle on a system they like. Therein lies the paradox. Now I am not suggesting that novel alternative blockchains that explore the tradeoff space are illegitimate. Rather, their proponents should admit that they are simply positing a different set of values to those espoused by established blockchains, rather than blandly touting their improved feature-set and assuming that users will make the switch. Monetary systems are fraught and political by their very nature, and coaxing users away is a matter of convincing them to upend an established institution that they have come to trust. The permanent revolution gets tiresome. Most people eventually want to settle down and cultivate their own garden. Related Stories MakerDAO’s Problems Are a Textbook Case of Governance Failure Why Bitcoin’s Safe-Haven Narrative Has Flown Out the Window || Crypto Progressives Become Conservative With Their Own Chains: CoinDesk columnist Nic Carter is partner at Castle Island Ventures, a public blockchain-focused venture fund based in Cambridge, Mass. He is also the cofounder of Coin Metrics, a blockchain analytics startup.
Most burgeoning crypto enthusiasts go through a phase in life where they think to themselves: “Bitcoin is neat, but it would be so much better if it could just do x and y?” At this point, they either decide to hop aboard a new blockchain project (typically seeking to own a larger fraction of the supply than the share of bitcoin they own), or they reject the notion and stick with bitcoin.
I’ll call this former group (it could be better) “crypto progressives.” Like political progressives, they are interested in making changes to society, unsatisfied with the status quo.
Related:How to Escape Contracts That Are Killing Your Company During Coronavirus
Crypto progressives often wonder why Bitcoiners are interested only inbitcoin(BTC), given that so many apparently technically superior alternatives exist. How could they possibly ignore a dizzying buffet of alternatives? The crypto progressive sometimes accuse Bitcoiners of falling prey to the endowment effect, of refusing to budge because of their established stake in the Bitcoin system. And indeed, there are significant transaction costs involved with taking one’s bitcoin wealth and embracing a new blockchain. But this is not the chief reason for rejecting alternatives.
See also:Nic Carter – How to Stop the Next Quadriga: Make Exchanges Prove Their Reserves
Bitcoiners tend to resent the accusation that their adherence to a sole project is merely contingent – a historical coincidence which they clung to out of habit. When pressed, they typically refer to one of two main justifications:
1. Bitcoin is the sole instantiation of a set of political and economic conditions for a successful monetary project. In a sense, Bitcoin fulfilled requirements it may have already had for a successful monetary alternative, and it was only in 2009 that these requirements were met.
Related:Banks Have to Embrace Distributed Ledger Tech, Even if It Kills Them
2. Monetary goods rely on network effects by design; once a market leader is established, efforts at fragmentation are counterproductive.
I tend to think the first set of arguments is persuasive on its own. Bitcoin prides certain important qualities that other alternatives jettison, and is genuinely unique in this way. This is not to say that other protocols are without merit but they generally opt for different tradeoffs, tending to prioritize innovation over institutional stability. Some of bitcoin’s underlying principles include:
• A strong regard for property rights, manifesting itself in a predefined monetary schedule with no discretion, a commitment to cheap validation, easily concealable information as keys to one’s assets and the minimization ofCantillon insiders– i.e. people who canmonetize their proximityto the money spigot.
• A development philosophy that stresses the opt-in nature of significant change. Hard forks are de-emphasized and soft forks encouraged. This allows the protocol to resist arbitrary change and protects the asset from expropriation, especially in a covert manner.
• A “governance” regime in which power is divided among developers, miners and economic node operators, with no group having sole discretion over changes.
• Fairness in issuance and an absence of seigniorage (more precisely, a free market forseigniorage, meaning that miner margins are generally slim), enabled by Proof-of-Work.
There’s other ways to describe the economic and political nature of bitcoin, but I would posit these as the most important. If you think values are important in the design of a monetary system, you are a Bitcoiner out of deliberate choice, not contingency. But there’s an even more persuasive argument to be made against mutinous alternatives. It is the logical incoherence of crypto progressivism.
This is the idea that, if you replace a monetary standard and propose your own, you have no reasonable grounds to defend against someone else’s rebellion over your standard, and their campaign to replace it with their own. And so, if you commit to the permanent revolution, you end up with a recursive situation where no stable monetary standard is ever selected.
Hal Finney was perhaps one of the first Bitcoiners to ever make this point. In acommenton Bitcointalk in 2011, he pithily explained the issue with crypto progressivism:
“Any successful replacement of the Bitcoin blockchain will forever undermine the credibility of any successor. How is an investor to know that it won’t happen again?
Rebooting now may benefit a few thousand early adopters. What happens when hundreds of millions use Bitcoin 2? They’ll be just as jealous and envious of you as you are of others. Given the precedent you want to set, how will you argue against yet another reboot?”
Interestingly, Hal was responding to a thread (written in May 2011, when the price of bitcoin was about $8) suggesting the stash of coins Satoshi Nakamoto and others mined early in 2009 constituted a “tax” on late adopters, and agitating for a relaunch of bitcoin.
See also:Nic Carter – Policymakers Shouldn’t Fear Digital Money: So Far It’s Maintaining the Dollar’s Status
Hal understood that if one’s objection to bitcoin was the empowerment of early adopters this would be a problem for all other would-be replacements. Interestingly, the circumstances of bitcoin’s birth were rather favorable as far as distribution is concerned. Satoshi appears to not have claimed his million or so coins. Many cheaply acquired coins from that era are lost. And due to the lack of a pre-mine and the presence of PoW, everyone who earned coins had to pay market price for them (either at an exchange or with electricity).
It’s an inescapable reality that the rise of any novel monetary system – which entails demonetizing an existing Store-of-Value asset in favor of a new one, as has happened countless times in history – will benefit those earliest to make the switch.
This is the case, for example, in dollarization events, when it is those who are earliest to desert the local currency that benefit from favorable exchange rates, to the detriment of their laggard peers. So monetary transitions involve wealth redistribution by their very nature. So far, we have not devised a means to take a snapshot of the distribution of wealth and replicate it in a new monetary medium. The more pressing questions to me are: how frequently should we churn monetary systems? And how much better must a successor be, to justify replacing an established one?
Those who style themselves crypto progressives when rejecting the orthodoxy almost inevitably become crypto conservatives as they settle on a system they like.
The example of Ethereum is telling. Ethereum initially competed with Bitcoin on features such as a more expressive base layer, theoretically cheaper transactions, greater throughput, and a commitment to rapid innovation. But when other blockchains like EOS came about and took these ideas to their extreme (by compromising on validation costs, EOS offers more block space than Ethereum), most Ethereans did not desert their blockchain in favor of the newcomer. Even though they had justified their initial rejection of bitcoin with recourse to the exact same language that EOS fans were now using to renounce Ethereum, they for the most part held firm, making reference to the growing network effects in the Ethereum infrastructure that had been built so far. And this was a reasonable retort! From a societal perspective, it is costly to upend an established system every few years.
So, those who style themselves crypto progressives when rejecting the orthodoxy almost inevitably become crypto-conservatives as they settle on a system they like. Therein lies the paradox. Now I am not suggesting that novel alternative blockchains that explore the tradeoff space are illegitimate. Rather, their proponents should admit that they are simply positing a different set of values to those espoused by established blockchains, rather than blandly touting their improved feature-set and assuming that users will make the switch.
Monetary systems are fraught and political by their very nature, and coaxing users away is a matter of convincing them to upend an established institution that they have come to trust. The permanent revolution gets tiresome. Most people eventually want to settle down and cultivate their own garden.
• MakerDAO’s Problems Are a Textbook Case of Governance Failure
• Why Bitcoin’s Safe-Haven Narrative Has Flown Out the Window || Crypto-market infrastructure creaks amid volatility test: By Tom Wilson
LONDON (Reuters) - As worries over the economic hit from the coronavirus outbreak spread from stocks, oil and bonds to cryptocurrencies late last week, bitcoin crashed to its worst day in seven years. But plummeting prices weren't the only problem for investors.
As volatility and volumes spiked, the infrastructure underpinning digital coin trading creaked under the strain.
Futures exchanges saw a rash of electronically-triggered liquidations of leveraged positions, fuelling pressure on prices. Spreads between exchanges jumped. And at least two major exchanges went down, leaving investors locked out of the market for well over an hour.
Bitcoin prices collapsed nearly 40% on March 12, the biggest one-day drop since spring 2013, before jumping 16% a day later.
Volatility raced to its highest in seven years, with volumes across major cryptocurrency exchanges soaring to $30.8 billion on March 12-13, data from industry website CryptoCompare shows -- among the four highest two-day totals on record.
As the turmoil gripped markets, New York exchange Gemini said it fell offline for less than 90 minutes. Seychelles-based BitMEX, one of the world's biggest platforms for leveraged derivatives trading, went down twice, for a total of 45 minutes.
A spokeswoman for Gemini said the exchange "observed a technical issue impacting a subset of our customers."
"In an abundance of caution, and to protect the integrity of our marketplace, we paused the market to resolve the issue and ensure all market services were back online in a healthy state prior to reopening," she said.
Gemini declined to detail the problem, or comment on whether it was caused or exacerbated by market moves.
BitMEX said its outages were due to denial-of-service cyberattacks that stopped messages from reaching its trading engines. The unidentified attackers "waited for the moment their attack would make the most market impact" and overwhelmed the platform "during a moment of peak volatility", it said.
The outages were a reminder of the fragility of key components in crypto markets, underscoring the dangers of a high-risk asset that large investors typically steer clear of.
And while most exchanges continued as normal during the turbulence, the Gemini and BitMEX episodes may also fuel doubts that bitcoin's infrastructure is solid enough for it to work as an alternative to traditional currencies.
"There's no way to say it's good for the ecosystem when exchanges go down," said Richard Galvin of crypto fund Digital Asset Capital Management.
(GRAPHIC: Bitcoin plummets - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H9CE4/eikon.png)
FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURE?
As bitcoin struggles to evolve from rebel technology into mainstream asset, the outages underscore the fragility of the sector at times of stress, industry figures said.
"Volatility is not an issue -- it's whether the technology can deal with the volatility." said Denis Vinokourov at crypto exchange BeQuant.
Most crypto exchanges have bolstered their capacity to deal with high volatility and volumes, and the majority of major exchanges continued operating normally late last week.
But with crypto markets having been dogged by cyberattacks since their birth 12 years ago, exchanges should be better prepared, said Tim Swinson, head of market intelligence at Clearmatics, a London-based blockchain startup that designs peer-to-peer payment platforms.
"The fact that exchanges are still being taken down is par for the course, but it shouldn't be an excuse," he said. "It shouldn't be normal."
(GRAPHIC: Volatile times - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H6CDY/eikon.png)
CIRCUIT BREAKERS
As bitcoin fell on Thursday, positions on major derivatives exchanges such as BitMEX, which offers highly leveraged trading, were automatically liquidated. That stoked pressure on prices, amplifying moves and accelerating bitcoin's fall, traders said.
Yet unlike major stock exchanges that use circuit breakers to slam the brakes on trading during disruption or panic selling, crypto exchanges generally lack devices to arrest extraordinary price moves.
And in contrast to foreign exchange markets, in which central banks sometimes intervene, the mostly unregulated crypto sector is left to its own devices in times of unruly trading.
Last week's moves raised questions over whether circuit breakers are needed in crypto.
"The tech is important," said Vinokourov at BeQuant. "You're inviting traditional, big firms to trade on platforms that may not be able to withstand the amount of trading."
Circuit breakers do already exist at some exchanges.
Deribit, a Panama-based derivatives exchange, in November brought in circuit breakers to counter erratic price swings, said Chief Commercial Officer Luuk Strijers. They were triggered on Thursday "to protect the market and our clients from extreme price volatility," he added.
Yet many in the crypto sector say circuit breakers would be impractical for digital coin trading, which takes place across multiple exchanges, without coordinated introduction.
Asked whether it operates or plans to introduce circuit breakers, Gemini said: "The cryptocurrency market does not have circuit breakers."
BitMEX said it does not operate circuit breakers. "To prevent negative feedback loops, we do not use the last price of our derivatives to trigger liquidations," it added.
Others cite likely opposition to controls on crypto markets, rooted in the technology's libertarian roots.
"If you put circuit breakers in, you also give up the freedoms of markets to find prices on their own," said Galvin of the fund DACM.
"If you're playing markets so that you can get super-high returns, you also need an approach that can sustain the bad sides."
(GRAPHIC: Volume overload? - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H5CDV/eikon.png)
(Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Catherine Evans) || Crypto-market infrastructure creaks amid volatility test: By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - As worries over the economic hit from the coronavirus outbreak spread from stocks, oil and bonds to cryptocurrencies late last week, bitcoin crashed to its worst day in seven years. But plummeting prices weren't the only problem for investors. As volatility and volumes spiked, the infrastructure underpinning digital coin trading creaked under the strain. Futures exchanges saw a rash of electronically-triggered liquidations of leveraged positions, fuelling pressure on prices. Spreads between exchanges jumped. And at least two major exchanges went down, leaving investors locked out of the market for well over an hour. Bitcoin prices collapsed nearly 40% on March 12, the biggest one-day drop since spring 2013, before jumping 16% a day later. Volatility raced to its highest in seven years, with volumes across major cryptocurrency exchanges soaring to $30.8 billion on March 12-13, data from industry website CryptoCompare shows -- among the four highest two-day totals on record. As the turmoil gripped markets, New York exchange Gemini said it fell offline for less than 90 minutes. Seychelles-based BitMEX, one of the world's biggest platforms for leveraged derivatives trading, went down twice, for a total of 45 minutes. A spokeswoman for Gemini said the exchange "observed a technical issue impacting a subset of our customers." "In an abundance of caution, and to protect the integrity of our marketplace, we paused the market to resolve the issue and ensure all market services were back online in a healthy state prior to reopening," she said. Gemini declined to detail the problem, or comment on whether it was caused or exacerbated by market moves. BitMEX said its outages were due to denial-of-service cyberattacks that stopped messages from reaching its trading engines. The unidentified attackers "waited for the moment their attack would make the most market impact" and overwhelmed the platform "during a moment of peak volatility", it said. Story continues The outages were a reminder of the fragility of key components in crypto markets, underscoring the dangers of a high-risk asset that large investors typically steer clear of. And while most exchanges continued as normal during the turbulence, the Gemini and BitMEX episodes may also fuel doubts that bitcoin's infrastructure is solid enough for it to work as an alternative to traditional currencies. "There's no way to say it's good for the ecosystem when exchanges go down," said Richard Galvin of crypto fund Digital Asset Capital Management. (GRAPHIC: Bitcoin plummets - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H9CE4/eikon.png) FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURE? As bitcoin struggles to evolve from rebel technology into mainstream asset, the outages underscore the fragility of the sector at times of stress, industry figures said. "Volatility is not an issue -- it's whether the technology can deal with the volatility." said Denis Vinokourov at crypto exchange BeQuant. Most crypto exchanges have bolstered their capacity to deal with high volatility and volumes, and the majority of major exchanges continued operating normally late last week. But with crypto markets having been dogged by cyberattacks since their birth 12 years ago, exchanges should be better prepared, said Tim Swinson, head of market intelligence at Clearmatics, a London-based blockchain startup that designs peer-to-peer payment platforms. "The fact that exchanges are still being taken down is par for the course, but it shouldn't be an excuse," he said. "It shouldn't be normal." (GRAPHIC: Volatile times - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H6CDY/eikon.png) CIRCUIT BREAKERS As bitcoin fell on Thursday, positions on major derivatives exchanges such as BitMEX, which offers highly leveraged trading, were automatically liquidated. That stoked pressure on prices, amplifying moves and accelerating bitcoin's fall, traders said. Yet unlike major stock exchanges that use circuit breakers to slam the brakes on trading during disruption or panic selling, crypto exchanges generally lack devices to arrest extraordinary price moves. And in contrast to foreign exchange markets, in which central banks sometimes intervene, the mostly unregulated crypto sector is left to its own devices in times of unruly trading. Last week's moves raised questions over whether circuit breakers are needed in crypto. "The tech is important," said Vinokourov at BeQuant. "You're inviting traditional, big firms to trade on platforms that may not be able to withstand the amount of trading." Circuit breakers do already exist at some exchanges. Deribit, a Panama-based derivatives exchange, in November brought in circuit breakers to counter erratic price swings, said Chief Commercial Officer Luuk Strijers. They were triggered on Thursday "to protect the market and our clients from extreme price volatility," he added. Yet many in the crypto sector say circuit breakers would be impractical for digital coin trading, which takes place across multiple exchanges, without coordinated introduction. Asked whether it operates or plans to introduce circuit breakers, Gemini said: "The cryptocurrency market does not have circuit breakers." BitMEX said it does not operate circuit breakers. "To prevent negative feedback loops, we do not use the last price of our derivatives to trigger liquidations," it added. Others cite likely opposition to controls on crypto markets, rooted in the technology's libertarian roots. "If you put circuit breakers in, you also give up the freedoms of markets to find prices on their own," said Galvin of the fund DACM. "If you're playing markets so that you can get super-high returns, you also need an approach that can sustain the bad sides." (GRAPHIC: Volume overload? - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-CRYPTOCURRENCIES/0H001R8H5CDV/eikon.png) (Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Catherine Evans)
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80, 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82, 11970.48, 11414.03, 10245.30, 10511.81, 10169.57, 10280.35, 10369.56, 10131.52, 10242.35, 10363.14, 10400.92, 10442.17, 10323.76, 10680.84, 10796.95, 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72, 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-11-24]
Volume: 51469565009, RSI (14-day): 82.20, 50-day EMA: 14849.11, 200-day EMA: 11711.04
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1804.80, Gold RSI: 34.43
Oil Price: 44.91, Oil RSI: 67.96
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Price Holds Strong, Ethereum Reaches $600: Crypto Markets Brief: What Happened:Bitcoinprice has been going steady, gaining 9.57% over a week. It traded at $18,334.95 at press time.
The leading altcoin Ethereum price has reached the $600 mark for the first time since July 2018. The digital coin gained 32.29% over the week and was traded at $605.
The current market capitalization of the crypto industry is $551,092,579,109.
Why It Matters:The crypto industry has seen major institutional players coming this quarter, more than in the previous one, according to aJPMorgan Chase & Co.(NYSE:JPM)report, as per CoinDesk.
The banking giant launched a blockchain unit called Onyx with a JPM Coin ready for commercial use in October, a crypto publication and research platform the Blockhas reported.
Paypal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL)'s crypto payment and trading platformwent livefor US citizens on Nov. 12.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• VanEck Report Says Bitcoin Less Volatile Than Many Stocks
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Price Holds Strong, Ethereum Reaches $600: Crypto Markets Brief: What Happened:Bitcoinprice has been going steady, gaining 9.57% over a week. It traded at $18,334.95 at press time.
The leading altcoin Ethereum price has reached the $600 mark for the first time since July 2018. The digital coin gained 32.29% over the week and was traded at $605.
The current market capitalization of the crypto industry is $551,092,579,109.
Why It Matters:The crypto industry has seen major institutional players coming this quarter, more than in the previous one, according to aJPMorgan Chase & Co.(NYSE:JPM)report, as per CoinDesk.
The banking giant launched a blockchain unit called Onyx with a JPM Coin ready for commercial use in October, a crypto publication and research platform the Blockhas reported.
Paypal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL)'s crypto payment and trading platformwent livefor US citizens on Nov. 12.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• VanEck Report Says Bitcoin Less Volatile Than Many Stocks
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Price Holds Strong, Ethereum Reaches $600: Crypto Markets Brief: What Happened: Bitcoin price has been going steady, gaining 9.57% over a week. It traded at $18,334.95 at press time. The leading altcoin Ethereum price has reached the $600 mark for the first time since July 2018. The digital coin gained 32.29% over the week and was traded at $605. The current market capitalization of the crypto industry is $551,092,579,109. Why It Matters: The crypto industry has seen major institutional players coming this quarter, more than in the previous one, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM ) report , as per CoinDesk. The banking giant launched a blockchain unit called Onyx with a JPM Coin ready for commercial use in October, a crypto publication and research platform the Block has reported . Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL )'s crypto payment and trading platform went live for US citizens on Nov. 12. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga VanEck Report Says Bitcoin Less Volatile Than Many Stocks © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc., an emerging leader in blockchain-powered financial platforms, provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.com, and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.com.
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$18,388.41", "-$0.01", "$0.10", "$42,439 M", "$341,148 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$599.86", "$0.05", "$0.30", "$27,195 M", "$68,114 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.58", "$0.24", "$1.03", "$19,385 M", "$26,151 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$315.52", "$0.09", "$0.26", "$5,013 M", "$5,863 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$88.07", "$0.04", "$0.24", "$7,110 M", "$5,806 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$194.22", "$0.06", "$0.22", "$1,243 M", "$3,608 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$3.37", "$0.09", "$0.31", "$5,265 M", "$3,161 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.12", "$0.12", "$0.45", "$743 M", "$2,503 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$130.38", "$0.04", "$0.11", "$1,089 M", "$2,316 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$94.23", "$0.03", "$0.16", "$649 M", "$926 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency, and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell, and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker-Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma, Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/618070/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2020 / ALT 5 Sigma Inc., an emerging leader in blockchain-powered financial platforms, provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD). Real-Time Market Data is available at www.alt5pro.com , and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available at www.alt5sigma.com . ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH Market Summary Monday, November 23, 2020 at 4:38:05 PM Digital Asset Pair Price 24hr Chg 7d Chg 24/hr Volume MarketCap Bitcoin BTC/USD $18,388.41 -$0.01 $0.10 $42,439 M $341,148 M Ethereum ETH/USD $599.86 $0.05 $0.30 $27,195 M $68,114 M XRP XRP/USD $0.58 $0.24 $1.03 $19,385 M $26,151 M Bitcoin Cash BCH/USD $315.52 $0.09 $0.26 $5,013 M $5,863 M Litecoin LTC/USD $88.07 $0.04 $0.24 $7,110 M $5,806 M Bitcoin SV BSV/USD $194.22 $0.06 $0.22 $1,243 M $3,608 M EOS EOS/USD $3.37 $0.09 $0.31 $5,265 M $3,161 M Stellar XLM/USD $0.12 $0.12 $0.45 $743 M $2,503 M Monero XMR/USD $130.38 $0.04 $0.11 $1,089 M $2,316 M Dash DASH/USD $94.23 $0.03 $0.16 $649 M $926 M About ALT 5 Sigma Inc. ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency, and compliance. ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell, and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker-Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers. ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services. For more information, visit www.alt5sigma.com . Story continues Contact: Andre Beauchesne Tel. 1-800-204-6203 [email protected] For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visit www.alt5pay.com For more information on ALT 5 Pro, visit www.alt5pro.com SOURCE: ALT 5 Sigma, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/618070/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc., an emerging leader in blockchain-powered financial platforms, provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.com, and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.com.
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$18,388.41", "-$0.01", "$0.10", "$42,439 M", "$341,148 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$599.86", "$0.05", "$0.30", "$27,195 M", "$68,114 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.58", "$0.24", "$1.03", "$19,385 M", "$26,151 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$315.52", "$0.09", "$0.26", "$5,013 M", "$5,863 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$88.07", "$0.04", "$0.24", "$7,110 M", "$5,806 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$194.22", "$0.06", "$0.22", "$1,243 M", "$3,608 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$3.37", "$0.09", "$0.31", "$5,265 M", "$3,161 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.12", "$0.12", "$0.45", "$743 M", "$2,503 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$130.38", "$0.04", "$0.11", "$1,089 M", "$2,316 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$94.23", "$0.03", "$0.16", "$649 M", "$926 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency, and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell, and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker-Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma, Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/618070/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts: In their “Flows & Liquidity” report, JPMorgan analysts say institutions are piling into bitcoin at a stronger pace this quarter than they were in Q3, and may have a bigger role in price movement than commodity trading advisors, or CTA.
• The Friday report was written by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, Mika Inkenen and Ekansh Agarwal.
• They said institutional investors are looking atbitcoinas a long-term investment. As proof, they cited the growing size in Q4 of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, whose customers are mostly institutional.
• In Q3, retail customers bought $1.6 billion worth of bitcoin using Square’s Cash App, some three times more than what was invested in Grayscale’s bitcoin product.
• This quarter, however, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is at three times its Q3 numbers. There is no data at present for Square customers’ bitcoin buys.
• Grayscale Investments is a digital asset management firm owned by venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), which also owns CoinDesk.
• JP Morgan also speculates bitcoin’s failure to revert to its mean price in recent weeks is a sign that momentum traders such as CTAs have had a shrinking role in the market relative to institutions.
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts || More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts: In their “Flows & Liquidity” report, JPMorgan analysts say institutions are piling into bitcoin at a stronger pace this quarter than they were in Q3, and may have a bigger role in price movement than commodity trading advisors, or CTA. The Friday report was written by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, Mika Inkenen and Ekansh Agarwal. They said institutional investors are looking at bitcoin as a long-term investment. As proof, they cited the growing size in Q4 of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, whose customers are mostly institutional. In Q3, retail customers bought $1.6 billion worth of bitcoin using Square’s Cash App, some three times more than what was invested in Grayscale’s bitcoin product. This quarter, however, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is at three times its Q3 numbers. There is no data at present for Square customers’ bitcoin buys. Grayscale Investments is a digital asset management firm owned by venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), which also owns CoinDesk. JP Morgan also speculates bitcoin’s failure to revert to its mean price in recent weeks is a sign that momentum traders such as CTAs have had a shrinking role in the market relative to institutions. Related Stories More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts || More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts: In their “Flows & Liquidity” report, JPMorgan analysts say institutions are piling into bitcoin at a stronger pace this quarter than they were in Q3, and may have a bigger role in price movement than commodity trading advisors, or CTA.
• The Friday report was written by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, Mika Inkenen and Ekansh Agarwal.
• They said institutional investors are looking atbitcoinas a long-term investment. As proof, they cited the growing size in Q4 of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, whose customers are mostly institutional.
• In Q3, retail customers bought $1.6 billion worth of bitcoin using Square’s Cash App, some three times more than what was invested in Grayscale’s bitcoin product.
• This quarter, however, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is at three times its Q3 numbers. There is no data at present for Square customers’ bitcoin buys.
• Grayscale Investments is a digital asset management firm owned by venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), which also owns CoinDesk.
• JP Morgan also speculates bitcoin’s failure to revert to its mean price in recent weeks is a sign that momentum traders such as CTAs have had a shrinking role in the market relative to institutions.
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts
• More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin, Say JPMorgan Analysts || Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs: It has become clear by now that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, will be in our future and the technology will fundamentally change the use of money and the economic system as a whole.
The world’s biggest economies and theircentral banks have announced they are working on CBDCs: the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank are trailing behind the People’s Bank of China, which already is testing its CBDC with more than 50,000 citizens.The Bahamasissuedits central bank digital currency – the “sand dollar” – in October.
Dr. Wolf von Laer is the CEO of Students For Liberty, an international educational non-profit operating in over 100 countries. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy from King’s College London and a Master’s in Austrian Economics from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.
Related:Latin America's Big Blockchain Opportunity
CBDCspromisefaster settlements, better security, ease of use, instant implementation of monetary policy (if you consider that an improvement) and transaction costs that are lower than cash. In the future, these advantages will be stressedad nauseamby pundits and politicians to make the technology palatable to the whole population.
While all of the advantages are true, it is also crucial to think through the implication of the technology and how it could negatively affect the economy and the citizenry. Thereare different types of CBDCswith varying degrees of risks, and it’s important to understand the subtleties of these systems. However, all CBDCs need to be centralized and manipulatable to some extent because otherwise monetary policy would not be possible.
As a contrast, Bitcoin is booming due to its decentralized, open, public, borderless, neutral and tamper and censorship-resistant properties. Depending on the type of CBDC, CBDCs can become the exact opposite, especially if central banks offer accounts to the public at large, implementing what is known as adirect model of CBDC.
This article outlines four scenarios of how CBDCs have the potential to undermine economic stability and eradicate privacy.
Related:Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short
Governments are fallible. In the U.S., think back to the launch of healthcare.gov or federal- and state-level breaches involvingsensitive datain more than 300 million cases in the last 10 years. With CBDCs, the whole economic system could be brought to the brink by bad updates or data leaks of the centralized ledger, which won’t be protected by proof-of-work in the same way as Bitcoin. For Bitcoin, it took a decade to build a robust decentralized computing power to assure the integrity of the blockchain. Governments won’t go to such lengths, and they need to rely on different, more fragile ways of protecting the centralized ledger.
Government tends to collect as much data about its citizens as they can get away with. This happens under the guise of safety, as in the governor of the state of Michigan’s decree to document every customer’s personal information to contain the spread of COVID-19 or under the pretext of nudging people to become model citizens in the case of China. Imagine asocial credit scoring systemcoupled with a CBDC. All your purchasing decisions could influence your score on which you depend for everything. Donate to the “wrong” non-profit like WikiLeaks? Whoops, you cannot purchase train tickets anymore. Bought some interesting adult toys for your spouse? Oh no, your credit score might drop, or your application for the government job does not get accepted.
What sounds like a far-fetched dystopian nightmare is already a reality in China. If you hang out with the wrong crowd, your citizen score, which is crucial for purchases, jobs, travel and so much more suffers. Pair this level of surveillance with the ability to track any purchasing decision you make and you have the perfect recipe for Big Brother on crypto-steroids.
More than60% of all jobs around the worldoperate in the informal economy. This results from the lack of free-market institutions like the rule of law, property rights and stable money in many developing countries. But even in developed countries like the U.S., the informal economy plays a huge role. Here theInternational Labor Organizationestimates there are at least 30 million jobs that rely on the informal market. That’s a lot of livelihoods threatened by CBDCs. The informal economy includes innocuous things like paying your neighbor to fix your roof or paying a teenager to take care of your yard.
See also: Ajit Tripathi –4 Reasons Central Banks Should Launch Retail Digital Currencies
Many activities we all engage in fall within the informal economy, and they are efficient. They make life easier, they overcome useless red tape and they save money. The government does not like this because it cannot generate tax revenue. Having a government ledger that tracks every transaction would make it virtually impossible to do anything within the informal economy, and a huge chunk of the 30 million jobs would vanish. A CBDC paves the way for a cashless society, which is very much in the government’s interest. Thus, it could be the end of informal markets, which are often a safe haven for many people in light of anever-expanding regulatory state.
Admittedly, the pandemic has made central banks’ work almost in unison with fiscal policy. Governments “stimulate” the economy like never before. Of course, they run massive deficits doing that. Due to depressed interest rates, bond yields are historically low and demand for bonds is low. Normally, what happens? Governments would not issue as much debt. But governments do not have to worry if there is infinite demand produced at the push of a button by the Fed. The Fed predominantly buys all of the new debt and then some in secondary markets. This is an indirect monetization of government debt.
Now, CBDCs could completely do away with fiscal policy. Central banks could immediately generate cash and hand it out to small and medium-sized businesses. People with higher savings could get higher interest rates than the ones who do not save. Fiscal stimulus and a multi-layered interest rate approach are all possible when the government has all of your financial data. Governments will argue this is highly beneficial. Still, it bears the danger of manipulation, economic mismanagement and leads to an even faster monetization of government debt, the cost of which we all have to face by holding money with less and less purchasing power.
There are many more reasons to be wary of CBDCs, but I hope this article encourages you to think through this technology’s effects and what it means for you and your future.
The article benefited from comments from Marcelo Prates. All remaining errors are my own. The article reflects the opinion of the author and not the opinion of Students For Liberty.
• Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs
• Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs || Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs: It has become clear by now that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, will be in our future and the technology will fundamentally change the use of money and the economic system as a whole. The world’s biggest economies and their central banks have announced they are working on CBDCs : the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank are trailing behind the People’s Bank of China, which already is testing its CBDC with more than 50,000 citizens. The Bahamas issued its central bank digital currency – the “sand dollar” – in October. Dr. Wolf von Laer is the CEO of Students For Liberty, an international educational non-profit operating in over 100 countries. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy from King’s College London and a Master’s in Austrian Economics from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Related: Latin America's Big Blockchain Opportunity CBDCs promise faster settlements, better security, ease of use, instant implementation of monetary policy (if you consider that an improvement) and transaction costs that are lower than cash. In the future, these advantages will be stressed ad nauseam by pundits and politicians to make the technology palatable to the whole population. While all of the advantages are true, it is also crucial to think through the implication of the technology and how it could negatively affect the economy and the citizenry. There are different types of CBDCs with varying degrees of risks, and it’s important to understand the subtleties of these systems. However, all CBDCs need to be centralized and manipulatable to some extent because otherwise monetary policy would not be possible. As a contrast, Bitcoin is booming due to its decentralized, open, public, borderless, neutral and tamper and censorship-resistant properties. Depending on the type of CBDC, CBDCs can become the exact opposite, especially if central banks offer accounts to the public at large, implementing what is known as a direct model of CBDC . Story continues This article outlines four scenarios of how CBDCs have the potential to undermine economic stability and eradicate privacy. Centralizing power in the economic system Related: Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short Governments are fallible. In the U.S., think back to the launch of healthcare.gov or federal- and state-level breaches involving sensitive data in more than 300 million cases in the last 10 years. With CBDCs, the whole economic system could be brought to the brink by bad updates or data leaks of the centralized ledger, which won’t be protected by proof-of-work in the same way as Bitcoin. For Bitcoin, it took a decade to build a robust decentralized computing power to assure the integrity of the blockchain. Governments won’t go to such lengths, and they need to rely on different, more fragile ways of protecting the centralized ledger. CBDCs = a dystopian nightmare Government tends to collect as much data about its citizens as they can get away with. This happens under the guise of safety, as in the governor of the state of Michigan’s decree to document every customer’s personal information to contain the spread of COVID-19 or under the pretext of nudging people to become model citizens in the case of China. Imagine a social credit scoring system coupled with a CBDC. All your purchasing decisions could influence your score on which you depend for everything. Donate to the “wrong” non-profit like WikiLeaks? Whoops, you cannot purchase train tickets anymore. Bought some interesting adult toys for your spouse? Oh no, your credit score might drop, or your application for the government job does not get accepted. What sounds like a far-fetched dystopian nightmare is already a reality in China. If you hang out with the wrong crowd, your citizen score, which is crucial for purchases, jobs, travel and so much more suffers. Pair this level of surveillance with the ability to track any purchasing decision you make and you have the perfect recipe for Big Brother on crypto-steroids. End to the informal economy More than 60% of all jobs around the world operate in the informal economy. This results from the lack of free-market institutions like the rule of law, property rights and stable money in many developing countries. But even in developed countries like the U.S., the informal economy plays a huge role. Here the International Labor Organization estimates there are at least 30 million jobs that rely on the informal market. That’s a lot of livelihoods threatened by CBDCs. The informal economy includes innocuous things like paying your neighbor to fix your roof or paying a teenager to take care of your yard. See also: Ajit Tripathi – 4 Reasons Central Banks Should Launch Retail Digital Currencies Many activities we all engage in fall within the informal economy, and they are efficient. They make life easier, they overcome useless red tape and they save money. The government does not like this because it cannot generate tax revenue. Having a government ledger that tracks every transaction would make it virtually impossible to do anything within the informal economy, and a huge chunk of the 30 million jobs would vanish. A CBDC paves the way for a cashless society, which is very much in the government’s interest. Thus, it could be the end of informal markets, which are often a safe haven for many people in light of an ever-expanding regulatory state . Central banks and fiscal policy Admittedly, the pandemic has made central banks’ work almost in unison with fiscal policy. Governments “stimulate” the economy like never before. Of course, they run massive deficits doing that. Due to depressed interest rates, bond yields are historically low and demand for bonds is low. Normally, what happens? Governments would not issue as much debt. But governments do not have to worry if there is infinite demand produced at the push of a button by the Fed. The Fed predominantly buys all of the new debt and then some in secondary markets. This is an indirect monetization of government debt. Now, CBDCs could completely do away with fiscal policy. Central banks could immediately generate cash and hand it out to small and medium-sized businesses. People with higher savings could get higher interest rates than the ones who do not save. Fiscal stimulus and a multi-layered interest rate approach are all possible when the government has all of your financial data. Governments will argue this is highly beneficial. Still, it bears the danger of manipulation, economic mismanagement and leads to an even faster monetization of government debt, the cost of which we all have to face by holding money with less and less purchasing power. There are many more reasons to be wary of CBDCs, but I hope this article encourages you to think through this technology’s effects and what it means for you and your future. The article benefited from comments from Marcelo Prates. All remaining errors are my own. The article reflects the opinion of the author and not the opinion of Students For Liberty. Related Stories Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs Privacy, Power, Fiscal Policy, the Poor: 4 Reasons to Worry About CBDCs || Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective: The U.S. government is using Circle’s USDC to bypass Venezuelan blockades. Chainalaysis is looking to raise $100 million in fresh capital at a $1 billion valuation. Billions of dollars from institutional players are flowing into Coinbase. And VanEck found that bitcoin is less volatile than a quarter of S&P500 stocks, reigniting the case for a bitcoin ETF.
Injecting “stability”An unnamed U.S. government agency hasenlisted dollar-backed stablecoin provider Circleand P2P payments startup Airtm to support Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó’s bid for office. The plan is to distribute relief funds to medical workers and other Venezuelan locals, bypassing restrictions set up by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected in a 2018 election, by converting U.S. seized funds into Circle’sUSDCproduct and dispersed via Airtm’s mobile phone network. “This is, in a sense, a way to bypass the state-controlled banking system and just directly distribute to people,” Circle’s Jeremy Allaire said, adding this is likely the first U.S. foreign policy objective utilizing a cryptographic stablecoin.
Private eyesChainalysis expects to raise $100 million venture capital at a$1 billion valuationin a fast-approaching Series C. Led by VC newcomer Addition with participation expected from Accel, Benchmark and Ribbit, the round could propel the blockchain analysis startup to unicorn status (a rarity for crypto). Several governments, banks, regulators and crypto firms rely on Chainalysis technology, seen in the company’s financial status: The firm increased its customer base 65% from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020. In other blockchain sleuthing news, analytics firm Coinfirm found government agents frequently leave behind “substantial” amounts offorked cryptos in seized wallets. Finally, CipherTrace has filed fortwo patentsrelated to sniffing out privacy-preservingmonero(XMR) transactions.
Related:Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017
Open bankingThe U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a national bank regulator led by former Coinbase counsel Brian Books, has proposed a rule that wouldforbid banks to blacklist legal, but unsavory businesses– potentially including crypto firms. Under the proposed rule, banks could deny financial services to customers only on the basis of “quantitative, risk-based standards established in advance,” not in response to political pressures. Crypto firms have long struggled to obtain or keep bank accounts in the U.S., with only a handful of friendly providers – namely, Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank, and Metropolitan Commercial Bank. The proposal is open for public comment through Jan. 4.
$20B BTCCoinbase now custodies$20 billion in institutional assets, an exchange executive claims. Brett Tejpaul said the institutional assets business was under $6 billion when he joined the firm in April and has grown by $14 billion under his watch. Notably, Tejpaul pointed to Coinbase’s Tagomi acquisition in May as a boost. “It radically transformed our ability to cater to institutional clients that want to use smart order routing and algorithmic execution,” he said. The veteran banker also said that adding JPMorgan Chase as its banking partner and Deloitte as its auditor has given Coinbase more compliance credibility. The firm is now measuring new capital coming in for bitcoin in the billions, Tejpaul said.
CBDCs not crypto?China Construction Bank (CCB), the world’s second-largest bank, has suspended the upcoming listing of a$3 billion bond issuancethat was intended to be tradable forbitcoinand U.S. dollars. The bank was sponsoring the issuance of the Longbond debt securities, set to be traded via the Fusang digital asset exchange. Now the program is being re-evaluated. In other news out of China, the city of Suzhou will hold thesecond lottery of the country’s central bank digital currency(CBDC) next month (this time with additional features like smart touch payments.) This follows on China’s President Xi Jinping comments at the G20 thatCBDCs are to be embracedby developed nations.
• YER ORANGES:Sean Ono Lennon, musician and younger son of Beatles legend John Lennon, appeared on the Orange Pill Podcast on Sunday to saybitcoin is a tool for empowermentand among a few optimistic developments for “the future and humanity in general.”
• UP & RUNNING:KuCoin, the Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange that was hacked to the tune of $281 million in September, said it has restored the deposit and withdrawalservices of all tokensas of Sunday.
• DOMAIN BREACH:Cryptocurrency trading platform liquid.com and crypto mining firm NiceHash were two of at least six firms that had control of their domains briefly transferred to malicious actors last week after employees at GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, weretricked by fraudsters.
• YOU GOTTA BE GERKIN ME?!Popular decentralized finance protocolPickle Finance was hackedon Saturday, draining $19.7 million in DAI, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, from Pickle’s latest arbitraging smart contract.
• MOVING IMAGE:A programmable painting of Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin set records this weekend when “EthBoy”sold for 260 ETH(ETH, +12.69%). The painting utilizes new cryptographic tooling to refashion itself everyday based on a bevy of market and community data.
Leveraged buyersSome BTC traders may have becomeoverleveraged during the recent rallyabove $18,000, according to one key metric. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data source Glassnode. The funding rate reflects the cost of holding long positions – measured by the premium derivative plays pay over spot prices. A higher number indicates excessively bullish, and therefore overbought, conditions. In such situations, a pullback or consolidation can trigger an unwinding of longs, leading to a deeper drop and a pick up in price volatility.
Related:Blockchain Bites: BlockRock Exec Says Bitcoin Is 'Here to Stay,' Investors Load Into BTC Puts
XRP pumpsXRP, the native asset of the XRP ledger, isriding 16-month highs. On Saturday the third-largest crypto by market cap climbed to $0.437564, the highest price since July 2019, according to the CoinDesk 20. It has continued to rise, with minor contractions, since. Now above the $0.50 level, XRP has appreciated over 120% since the start of the year.
Volatility, market data and ETFsA new analysis from VanEck, a major investment management firm, found that bitcoin is less volatile than the S&P’s benchmark stock index.
Thereport, published Nov. 20, compared BTC to the companies listed on the S&P 500, finding the cryptocurrency was less volatile than 22% of these stocks over the past three months.
“Historically, bitcoin has been discussed in the news and among investors as a nascent and volatile asset outside of the traditional stock and capital markets,” the report reads. VanEck attributed this volatility to bitcoin’s relatively small total market size, regulatory blockers and limited participation from traditional asset managers.
But bitcoin’s volatility is not an aberration, as over the 90-day period measured ending Nov. 13 some 112 stocks experienced as much or more price volatility. Further, over the past year, 29% of S&P stocks were more volatile than bitcoin.
As CoinDesk Director of Research Noelle Acheson noted in a September newsletter, volatility is frequently anderroneously conflated with risk.
“Volatility is a metric, a number, a measurement. Risk is an ambiguous concept,” she writes, adding that volatility can be an attractive attribute for a well-weighted portfolio.
In Acheson’s analysis, she found bitcoin volatility is often correlated with the asset’s price direction: That is, when the price comes down, so usually does the volatility.
In comparison, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the S&P 500 implied volatility, tends to move inversely to the S&P 500. “The average 60-day correlation between the two for the month of August was -0.84, an almost perfect negative association. Using bitcoin’s 30-day realized volatility as a proxy for a bitcoin VIX, we get an average 60-day correlation for August of 0.45. A very different scenario,” she found.
What’s more, bitcoin’s volatility is more measurable than traditional markets, as the crypto trades 24/7 freely across the world. More data points means more data to analyze.
It’s for these reasons, bitcoin’s similar volatility and market information, that many feel comfortable for agitating for a BTC exchange-traded fund. As reported, U.S. regulators have been hesitant to accept crypto ETF products, often citing a lack ofcohesive market data.
But a sober look at the real market conditions may point the other way.
VanEck ends its report saying: “While there are no U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available today, we believe such products may show similar volatility characteristics – based on the comparison above – as many stocks in well-known indices and ETFs, such as the S&P 500 and related products.”
• Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective
• Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective || Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective: The U.S. government is using Circle’s USDC to bypass Venezuelan blockades. Chainalaysis is looking to raise $100 million in fresh capital at a $1 billion valuation. Billions of dollars from institutional players are flowing into Coinbase. And VanEck found that bitcoin is less volatile than a quarter of S&P500 stocks, reigniting the case for a bitcoin ETF. Top shelf Injecting “stability” An unnamed U.S. government agency has enlisted dollar-backed stablecoin provider Circle and P2P payments startup Airtm to support Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó’s bid for office. The plan is to distribute relief funds to medical workers and other Venezuelan locals, bypassing restrictions set up by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected in a 2018 election, by converting U.S. seized funds into Circle’s USDC product and dispersed via Airtm’s mobile phone network. “This is, in a sense, a way to bypass the state-controlled banking system and just directly distribute to people,” Circle’s Jeremy Allaire said, adding this is likely the first U.S. foreign policy objective utilizing a cryptographic stablecoin. Private eyes Chainalysis expects to raise $100 million venture capital at a $1 billion valuation in a fast-approaching Series C. Led by VC newcomer Addition with participation expected from Accel, Benchmark and Ribbit, the round could propel the blockchain analysis startup to unicorn status (a rarity for crypto). Several governments, banks, regulators and crypto firms rely on Chainalysis technology, seen in the company’s financial status: The firm increased its customer base 65% from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020. In other blockchain sleuthing news, analytics firm Coinfirm found government agents frequently leave behind “substantial” amounts of forked cryptos in seized wallets . Finally, CipherTrace has filed for two patents related to sniffing out privacy-preserving monero (XMR) transactions. Related: Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017 Open banking The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a national bank regulator led by former Coinbase counsel Brian Books, has proposed a rule that would forbid banks to blacklist legal, but unsavory businesses – potentially including crypto firms. Under the proposed rule, banks could deny financial services to customers only on the basis of “quantitative, risk-based standards established in advance,” not in response to political pressures. Crypto firms have long struggled to obtain or keep bank accounts in the U.S., with only a handful of friendly providers – namely, Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank, and Metropolitan Commercial Bank. The proposal is open for public comment through Jan. 4. Story continues $20B BTC Coinbase now custodies $20 billion in institutional assets , an exchange executive claims. Brett Tejpaul said the institutional assets business was under $6 billion when he joined the firm in April and has grown by $14 billion under his watch. Notably, Tejpaul pointed to Coinbase’s Tagomi acquisition in May as a boost. “It radically transformed our ability to cater to institutional clients that want to use smart order routing and algorithmic execution,” he said. The veteran banker also said that adding JPMorgan Chase as its banking partner and Deloitte as its auditor has given Coinbase more compliance credibility. The firm is now measuring new capital coming in for bitcoin in the billions, Tejpaul said. CBDCs not crypto? China Construction Bank (CCB), the world’s second-largest bank, has suspended the upcoming listing of a $3 billion bond issuance that was intended to be tradable for bitcoin and U.S. dollars. The bank was sponsoring the issuance of the Longbond debt securities, set to be traded via the Fusang digital asset exchange. Now the program is being re-evaluated. In other news out of China, the city of Suzhou will hold the second lottery of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) next month (this time with additional features like smart touch payments.) This follows on China’s President Xi Jinping comments at the G20 that CBDCs are to be embraced by developed nations. Quick bites YER ORANGES: Sean Ono Lennon, musician and younger son of Beatles legend John Lennon, appeared on the Orange Pill Podcast on Sunday to say bitcoin is a tool for empowerment and among a few optimistic developments for “the future and humanity in general.” UP & RUNNING: KuCoin, the Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange that was hacked to the tune of $281 million in September, said it has restored the deposit and withdrawal services of all tokens as of Sunday. DOMAIN BREACH: Cryptocurrency trading platform liquid.com and crypto mining firm NiceHash were two of at least six firms that had control of their domains briefly transferred to malicious actors last week after employees at GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, were tricked by fraudsters . YOU GOTTA BE GERKIN ME?! Popular decentralized finance protocol Pickle Finance was hacked on Saturday, draining $19.7 million in DAI, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, from Pickle’s latest arbitraging smart contract. MOVING IMAGE: A programmable painting of Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin set records this weekend when “EthBoy” sold for 260 ETH ( ETH , +12.69%). The painting utilizes new cryptographic tooling to refashion itself everyday based on a bevy of market and community data. Market intel Leveraged buyers Some BTC traders may have become overleveraged during the recent rally above $18,000, according to one key metric. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data source Glassnode. The funding rate reflects the cost of holding long positions – measured by the premium derivative plays pay over spot prices. A higher number indicates excessively bullish, and therefore overbought, conditions. In such situations, a pullback or consolidation can trigger an unwinding of longs, leading to a deeper drop and a pick up in price volatility. Related: Blockchain Bites: BlockRock Exec Says Bitcoin Is 'Here to Stay,' Investors Load Into BTC Puts XRP pumps XRP , the native asset of the XRP ledger, is riding 16-month highs . On Saturday the third-largest crypto by market cap climbed to $0.437564, the highest price since July 2019, according to the CoinDesk 20. It has continued to rise, with minor contractions, since. Now above the $0.50 level, XRP has appreciated over 120% since the start of the year. At stake Volatility, market data and ETFs A new analysis from VanEck, a major investment management firm, found that bitcoin is less volatile than the S&P’s benchmark stock index. The report , published Nov. 20, compared BTC to the companies listed on the S&P 500, finding the cryptocurrency was less volatile than 22% of these stocks over the past three months. “Historically, bitcoin has been discussed in the news and among investors as a nascent and volatile asset outside of the traditional stock and capital markets,” the report reads. VanEck attributed this volatility to bitcoin’s relatively small total market size, regulatory blockers and limited participation from traditional asset managers. But bitcoin’s volatility is not an aberration, as over the 90-day period measured ending Nov. 13 some 112 stocks experienced as much or more price volatility. Further, over the past year, 29% of S&P stocks were more volatile than bitcoin. As CoinDesk Director of Research Noelle Acheson noted in a September newsletter, volatility is frequently and erroneously conflated with risk . “Volatility is a metric, a number, a measurement. Risk is an ambiguous concept,” she writes, adding that volatility can be an attractive attribute for a well-weighted portfolio. In Acheson’s analysis, she found bitcoin volatility is often correlated with the asset’s price direction: That is, when the price comes down, so usually does the volatility. In comparison, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the S&P 500 implied volatility, tends to move inversely to the S&P 500. “The average 60-day correlation between the two for the month of August was -0.84, an almost perfect negative association. Using bitcoin’s 30-day realized volatility as a proxy for a bitcoin VIX, we get an average 60-day correlation for August of 0.45. A very different scenario,” she found. What’s more, bitcoin’s volatility is more measurable than traditional markets, as the crypto trades 24/7 freely across the world. More data points means more data to analyze. It’s for these reasons, bitcoin’s similar volatility and market information, that many feel comfortable for agitating for a BTC exchange-traded fund. As reported, U.S. regulators have been hesitant to accept crypto ETF products, often citing a lack of cohesive market data . But a sober look at the real market conditions may point the other way. VanEck ends its report saying: “While there are no U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available today, we believe such products may show similar volatility characteristics – based on the comparison above – as many stocks in well-known indices and ETFs, such as the S&P 500 and related products.” Food for thought Related Stories Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective View comments || Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective: The U.S. government is using Circle’s USDC to bypass Venezuelan blockades. Chainalaysis is looking to raise $100 million in fresh capital at a $1 billion valuation. Billions of dollars from institutional players are flowing into Coinbase. And VanEck found that bitcoin is less volatile than a quarter of S&P500 stocks, reigniting the case for a bitcoin ETF.
Injecting “stability”An unnamed U.S. government agency hasenlisted dollar-backed stablecoin provider Circleand P2P payments startup Airtm to support Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó’s bid for office. The plan is to distribute relief funds to medical workers and other Venezuelan locals, bypassing restrictions set up by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected in a 2018 election, by converting U.S. seized funds into Circle’sUSDCproduct and dispersed via Airtm’s mobile phone network. “This is, in a sense, a way to bypass the state-controlled banking system and just directly distribute to people,” Circle’s Jeremy Allaire said, adding this is likely the first U.S. foreign policy objective utilizing a cryptographic stablecoin.
Private eyesChainalysis expects to raise $100 million venture capital at a$1 billion valuationin a fast-approaching Series C. Led by VC newcomer Addition with participation expected from Accel, Benchmark and Ribbit, the round could propel the blockchain analysis startup to unicorn status (a rarity for crypto). Several governments, banks, regulators and crypto firms rely on Chainalysis technology, seen in the company’s financial status: The firm increased its customer base 65% from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020. In other blockchain sleuthing news, analytics firm Coinfirm found government agents frequently leave behind “substantial” amounts offorked cryptos in seized wallets. Finally, CipherTrace has filed fortwo patentsrelated to sniffing out privacy-preservingmonero(XMR) transactions.
Related:Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017
Open bankingThe U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a national bank regulator led by former Coinbase counsel Brian Books, has proposed a rule that wouldforbid banks to blacklist legal, but unsavory businesses– potentially including crypto firms. Under the proposed rule, banks could deny financial services to customers only on the basis of “quantitative, risk-based standards established in advance,” not in response to political pressures. Crypto firms have long struggled to obtain or keep bank accounts in the U.S., with only a handful of friendly providers – namely, Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank, and Metropolitan Commercial Bank. The proposal is open for public comment through Jan. 4.
$20B BTCCoinbase now custodies$20 billion in institutional assets, an exchange executive claims. Brett Tejpaul said the institutional assets business was under $6 billion when he joined the firm in April and has grown by $14 billion under his watch. Notably, Tejpaul pointed to Coinbase’s Tagomi acquisition in May as a boost. “It radically transformed our ability to cater to institutional clients that want to use smart order routing and algorithmic execution,” he said. The veteran banker also said that adding JPMorgan Chase as its banking partner and Deloitte as its auditor has given Coinbase more compliance credibility. The firm is now measuring new capital coming in for bitcoin in the billions, Tejpaul said.
CBDCs not crypto?China Construction Bank (CCB), the world’s second-largest bank, has suspended the upcoming listing of a$3 billion bond issuancethat was intended to be tradable forbitcoinand U.S. dollars. The bank was sponsoring the issuance of the Longbond debt securities, set to be traded via the Fusang digital asset exchange. Now the program is being re-evaluated. In other news out of China, the city of Suzhou will hold thesecond lottery of the country’s central bank digital currency(CBDC) next month (this time with additional features like smart touch payments.) This follows on China’s President Xi Jinping comments at the G20 thatCBDCs are to be embracedby developed nations.
• YER ORANGES:Sean Ono Lennon, musician and younger son of Beatles legend John Lennon, appeared on the Orange Pill Podcast on Sunday to saybitcoin is a tool for empowermentand among a few optimistic developments for “the future and humanity in general.”
• UP & RUNNING:KuCoin, the Singapore-headquartered digital asset exchange that was hacked to the tune of $281 million in September, said it has restored the deposit and withdrawalservices of all tokensas of Sunday.
• DOMAIN BREACH:Cryptocurrency trading platform liquid.com and crypto mining firm NiceHash were two of at least six firms that had control of their domains briefly transferred to malicious actors last week after employees at GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, weretricked by fraudsters.
• YOU GOTTA BE GERKIN ME?!Popular decentralized finance protocolPickle Finance was hackedon Saturday, draining $19.7 million in DAI, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, from Pickle’s latest arbitraging smart contract.
• MOVING IMAGE:A programmable painting of Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin set records this weekend when “EthBoy”sold for 260 ETH(ETH, +12.69%). The painting utilizes new cryptographic tooling to refashion itself everyday based on a bevy of market and community data.
Leveraged buyersSome BTC traders may have becomeoverleveraged during the recent rallyabove $18,000, according to one key metric. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data source Glassnode. The funding rate reflects the cost of holding long positions – measured by the premium derivative plays pay over spot prices. A higher number indicates excessively bullish, and therefore overbought, conditions. In such situations, a pullback or consolidation can trigger an unwinding of longs, leading to a deeper drop and a pick up in price volatility.
Related:Blockchain Bites: BlockRock Exec Says Bitcoin Is 'Here to Stay,' Investors Load Into BTC Puts
XRP pumpsXRP, the native asset of the XRP ledger, isriding 16-month highs. On Saturday the third-largest crypto by market cap climbed to $0.437564, the highest price since July 2019, according to the CoinDesk 20. It has continued to rise, with minor contractions, since. Now above the $0.50 level, XRP has appreciated over 120% since the start of the year.
Volatility, market data and ETFsA new analysis from VanEck, a major investment management firm, found that bitcoin is less volatile than the S&P’s benchmark stock index.
Thereport, published Nov. 20, compared BTC to the companies listed on the S&P 500, finding the cryptocurrency was less volatile than 22% of these stocks over the past three months.
“Historically, bitcoin has been discussed in the news and among investors as a nascent and volatile asset outside of the traditional stock and capital markets,” the report reads. VanEck attributed this volatility to bitcoin’s relatively small total market size, regulatory blockers and limited participation from traditional asset managers.
But bitcoin’s volatility is not an aberration, as over the 90-day period measured ending Nov. 13 some 112 stocks experienced as much or more price volatility. Further, over the past year, 29% of S&P stocks were more volatile than bitcoin.
As CoinDesk Director of Research Noelle Acheson noted in a September newsletter, volatility is frequently anderroneously conflated with risk.
“Volatility is a metric, a number, a measurement. Risk is an ambiguous concept,” she writes, adding that volatility can be an attractive attribute for a well-weighted portfolio.
In Acheson’s analysis, she found bitcoin volatility is often correlated with the asset’s price direction: That is, when the price comes down, so usually does the volatility.
In comparison, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the S&P 500 implied volatility, tends to move inversely to the S&P 500. “The average 60-day correlation between the two for the month of August was -0.84, an almost perfect negative association. Using bitcoin’s 30-day realized volatility as a proxy for a bitcoin VIX, we get an average 60-day correlation for August of 0.45. A very different scenario,” she found.
What’s more, bitcoin’s volatility is more measurable than traditional markets, as the crypto trades 24/7 freely across the world. More data points means more data to analyze.
It’s for these reasons, bitcoin’s similar volatility and market information, that many feel comfortable for agitating for a BTC exchange-traded fund. As reported, U.S. regulators have been hesitant to accept crypto ETF products, often citing a lack ofcohesive market data.
But a sober look at the real market conditions may point the other way.
VanEck ends its report saying: “While there are no U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available today, we believe such products may show similar volatility characteristics – based on the comparison above – as many stocks in well-known indices and ETFs, such as the S&P 500 and related products.”
• Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective
• Blockchain Bites: XRP’s Rally, Chainalysis’ $1B Valuation, Bitcoin’s Volatility in Perspective || Beneath the Surface of Square Inc's (NYSE:SQ) Huge Revenue Beat: Square Inc ( NYSE:SQ ) has been a talking point in the investment universe lately and it is not hard to see why. The stock price is up more than fivefold from its March lows of around $35 to more than $175 recently, and the last few months have been particularly volatile for the stock. Considering the majority of the company's offering is focused on helping small businesses with their operations, Square has done well to not only survive the turbulent year so far but actually thrive. We can attribute a lot of the recent success to the fast growth of the consumer-facing side of the business, which is the company's Cash App, but we will get into that later. Why is Square's stock price moving Square posted its Q3 earnings result on November 5th, and on virtually all fronts, its performance smashed estimates of growth out of the park. Unsurprisingly, the stock price jumped around 13% following the release. This growth was most notable in Square's revenue, where the company recorded $3.03bn for the third quarter, which surpassed analysts' estimates of $2.08bn by around 45%. Below is a chart of Square's revenue and earnings, including the third-quarter results. NYSE:SQ Earnings and Revenue history to 30 September 2020. Source Simply Wall St While this looks impressive, it's worth delving deeper into the number to get a better picture of how impactful this is to the underlying business and how the company was able to post such impressive revenues. Check out our latest analysis of Square Inc Bitcoin was the driving force, but there's a catch Looking at the results more closely, we can see that bitcoin revenue has surged dramatically from the same quarter last year. At that time, revenue from bitcoin was about US$148m, whereas this quarter it was US$1.63bn, a staggering 1,101% increase in only 12 months. As a result, the quarterly revenue for the company as a whole increased 140% on last year's figure. However, despite the astonishing growth, this Bitcoin revenue is not likely to lead to a meaningful increase in Square's profits. A difference in the accounting treatment for bitcoin revenues compared to the company's Gross Payment Volume (GPV) has led to the revenue growth looking a lot better than it is. Story continues NYSE:SQ - Consolidated Statements of Operations - Q3 2020 In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Square states that “ bitcoin revenue is the total sale amount of bitcoin to customers. Bitcoin costs are the total amount of bitcoin that we purchase. We purchase bitcoin to facilitate customers' access to bitcoin”. Meaning, rather than acting as a traditional broker and simply providing a platform for the user to buy bitcoin without involving Square, the company actually buys the bitcoin for the user and the user pays Square for the bitcoin, plus any fees associated with the transaction. Or to put it another way - due to a quirk in accounting policies, Square records the total dollar value of bitcoin sold as revenue, because users are paying the company for the bitcoin. However, for transactions using the Cash App and Seller Ecosystem, Square records only its fee as revenue, rather than the dollar value of total transactions they process. So while Square sold $1.63bn bitcoin (including fees) to users and recorded it as revenue, the GPV on the Cash App and Seller Ecosystem was USD $2.85bn and USD $28.84bn respectively, both of which aren't recorded as revenue. Simply put; the two types of revenues are not comparable to each other and the reported growth due to bitcoin revenues is a bit illusory in that sense. Thankfully, Square recognizes this and makes an effort to clarify in their reports what their figures are when you include and exclude bitcoin. Additionally, it's worth noting that while Square's revenue from the service has skyrocketed, it consequently means their costs associated with that offering have followed suit. Because as mentioned, Square needs to purchase the coins to facilitate access. To put it in perspective, the section above from the company's quarterly report shows bitcoin revenue was USD $1.63bn for the quarter, while its bitcoin costs were USD $1.60bn, meaning 2% gross margins, which are very slim on anyone's account. Bitcoin vs Square's core business While the ability to purchase bitcoin through the Cash App is a nice additional feature for users, it isn't Square's core business. Nor is it the driving force behind the company's profitability, since it only contributed USD $32m (or 4%) to the USD $794m gross profit for the third quarter, despite being 53% of total revenue. When we compare the bitcoin gross profit margins with the rest of Square's business, it starts to pale in comparison. More specifically, Cash App derives gross profit margins of an amazing 81% and the Seller Ecosystem earns a solid 42%. If we exclude the bitcoin revenue, the Cash App and the Seller Ecosystem contributed 32% and 68% to the company's revenue respectively. Importantly, the Cash App is growing revenue hand over fist at 174% year-on-year (YoY) meanwhile, Seller Ecosystem revenue only grew 5%. So if Cash App maintains this growth, this revenue split will likely be very different in a few years. Interestingly, if you exclude the bitcoin revenue, the company's revenue only increased by 25% YoY, which is substantially less than the 140% reported in many of the headlines. What we can see here is that while revenue is surging, a large portion of it is this unique bitcoin revenue, which should be interpreted more as GPV than revenue, per see. The key takeaway At a product level, Square's operations appear quite profitable, and in the case of the Cash App, they're growing very quickly. However, what we've learned here is that headline figures can sometimes be deceptive. In Square's case, we learned that the bitcoin revenue is causing the topline to grow incredibly quickly, but this growth should be taken with a grain of salt because of how little it adds to the bottom line. While the underlying business is still performing well, it's just worth being aware of these nuances. If you're interested in finding other companies that are experiencing high growth, it's worth knowing Square isn't alone. We've made a list of other popular and high growth US companies that might be worth the hype , which you can check out by clicking the link. Neither Simply Wall St analyst Michael Paige nor Simply Wall St hold any position in any of the companies mentioned. This article is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected] . || Beneath the Surface of Square Inc's (NYSE:SQ) Huge Revenue Beat: Square Inc (NYSE:SQ)has been a talking point in the investment universe lately and it is not hard to see why. The stock price is up more than fivefold from its March lows of around $35 to more than $175 recently, and the last few months have been particularly volatile for the stock. Considering the majority of the company's offering is focused on helping small businesses with their operations, Square has done well to not only survive the turbulent year so far but actually thrive. We can attribute a lot of the recent success to the fast growth of the consumer-facing side of the business, which is the company's Cash App, but we will get into that later.
Square posted its Q3 earnings result on November 5th, and on virtually all fronts, its performance smashed estimates of growth out of the park. Unsurprisingly, the stock price jumped around 13% following the release.This growth was most notable in Square's revenue, where the company recorded $3.03bn for the third quarter, which surpassed analysts' estimates of $2.08bn by around 45%. Below is a chart of Square's revenue and earnings, including the third-quarter results.
NYSE:SQ Earnings and Revenue history to 30 September 2020. SourceSimply Wall St
While this looks impressive, it's worth delving deeper into the number to get a better picture of how impactful this is to the underlying business and how the company was able to post such impressive revenues.
Check out our latest analysis of Square Inc
Looking at the results more closely, we can see that bitcoin revenue has surged dramatically from the same quarter last year. At that time, revenue from bitcoin was about US$148m, whereas this quarter it was US$1.63bn, a staggering 1,101% increase in only 12 months. As a result, the quarterly revenue for the company as a whole increased 140% on last year's figure.However, despite the astonishing growth, this Bitcoin revenue is not likely to lead to a meaningful increase in Square's profits. A difference in the accounting treatment for bitcoin revenues compared to the company's Gross Payment Volume (GPV) has led to the revenue growth looking a lot better than it is.
NYSE:SQ - Consolidated Statements of Operations - Q3 2020
In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Square states that “bitcoin revenue is the total sale amount of bitcoin to customers. Bitcoin costs are the total amount of bitcoin that we purchase. We purchase bitcoin to facilitate customers' access to bitcoin”.Meaning, rather than acting as a traditional broker and simply providing a platform for the user to buy bitcoin without involving Square, the company actually buys the bitcoin for the user and the user pays Square for the bitcoin, plus any fees associated with the transaction.Or to put it another way - due to a quirk in accounting policies, Square records the total dollar value of bitcoin sold as revenue, because users are paying the company for the bitcoin. However, for transactions using the Cash App and Seller Ecosystem, Square records only its fee as revenue, rather than the dollar value of total transactions they process. So while Square sold $1.63bn bitcoin (including fees) to users and recorded it as revenue, the GPV on the Cash App and Seller Ecosystem was USD $2.85bn and USD $28.84bn respectively, both of which aren't recorded as revenue. Simply put; the two types of revenues are not comparable to each other and the reported growth due to bitcoin revenues is a bit illusory in that sense. Thankfully, Square recognizes this and makes an effort to clarify in their reports what their figures are when you include and exclude bitcoin.
Additionally, it's worth noting that while Square's revenue from the service has skyrocketed, it consequently means their costs associated with that offering have followed suit. Because as mentioned, Square needs to purchase the coins to facilitate access. To put it in perspective, the section above from the company's quarterly report shows bitcoin revenue was USD $1.63bn for the quarter, while its bitcoin costs were USD $1.60bn, meaning 2% gross margins, which are very slim on anyone's account.
While the ability to purchase bitcoin through the Cash App is a nice additional feature for users, it isn't Square's core business. Nor is it the driving force behind the company's profitability, since it only contributed USD $32m (or 4%) to the USD $794m gross profit for the third quarter, despite being 53% of total revenue.When we compare the bitcoin gross profit margins with the rest of Square's business, it starts to pale in comparison. More specifically, Cash App derives gross profit margins of an amazing 81% and the Seller Ecosystem earns a solid 42%.If we exclude the bitcoin revenue, the Cash App and the Seller Ecosystem contributed 32% and 68% to the company's revenue respectively. Importantly, the Cash App is growing revenue hand over fist at 174% year-on-year (YoY) meanwhile, Seller Ecosystem revenue only grew 5%. So if Cash App maintains this growth, this revenue split will likely be very different in a few years.
Interestingly, if you exclude the bitcoin revenue, the company's revenue only increased by 25% YoY, which is substantially less than the 140% reported in many of the headlines. What we can see here is that while revenue is surging, a large portion of it is this unique bitcoin revenue, which should be interpreted more as GPV than revenue, per see.
At a product level, Square's operations appear quite profitable, and in the case of the Cash App, they're growing very quickly. However, what we've learned here is that headline figures can sometimes be deceptive. In Square's case, we learned that the bitcoin revenue is causing the topline to grow incredibly quickly, but this growth should be taken with a grain of salt because of how little it adds to the bottom line. While the underlying business is still performing well, it's just worth being aware of these nuances.If you're interested in finding other companies that are experiencing high growth, it's worth knowing Square isn't alone. We've made a list of otherpopular and high growth US companies that might be worth the hype, which you can check out by clicking the link.Neither Simply Wall St analyst Michael Paige nor Simply Wall St hold any position in any of the companies mentioned. This article is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content?Get in touchwith us directly.Alternatively, [email protected]. || CEO’s of PayPal, Logiq, Peak Fintech, and Square Discuss Bitcoin, Fintech and New Growth Opportunities in Digital Wallets: NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wall Street Reporter, the trusted name in financial news since 1843, has published reports on the latest comments and insights from leaders at: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), and Square (NYSE:SQ).
The convergence of AI, Big Data, Smart Phones, and financial innovation is driving massive new growth opportunities in all aspects of financial services.Wall Street Reporter highlights the latest comments from industry thought leaders:
PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) CEO Dan Schulman:“Rise of Digital Wallets Will Drive PayPal’s Growth”
“...The digitization of the global economy combined with the rise of digital wallets will drive our growth over the next decade. Our scale, two-sided network, trusted brand, our strong relationships with the regulators around the world, and our AI and data modeling capabilities can all be leveraged to ensure our PayPal and Venmo apps are essential parts of our customers’ daily lives...This is beginning to play out in our strong Q3 results. In Q3, our total payment volume grew by a record 36% on an FX neutral basis to $247 billion in annual run rate, just shy of $1 trillion.”
“Over the next year, both the Venmo and PayPal apps will undergo a fundamental transformation intended to dramatically increase their functionality and drive engagement...This expanded suite of services will include enhanced direct deposit and check cashing, budget and savings tools, bill pay, investment alternatives, including crypto, subscription management, buy now, pay later optionality and all of Honey’s shopping tools from wish list, price monitoring, deals, coupons, and rewards…We recently announced that PayPal will allow account holders to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies first, in the U.S. and then expanding to international markets in the Venmo platform in the first half of next year…We will rapidly move at the beginning of next year and allow consumers to use cryptocurrencies as a funding instrument to shop across all 28 million of our merchants. This solution will not involve any additional integrations, volatility risk or incremental transaction fees for either consumers or merchants and will fundamentally bolster the utility of cryptocurrencies…”
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights:https://bit.ly/3fsidCx
Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph: “China Fintech Revenues Ready to Explode”
NEXT SUPER STOCK conference presenter Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph, recently spoke with Wall Street Reporter’s investor audience about PKKFF fast growing China fintech business which connects small-medium business with commercial lending solutions. Joseph explained how Peak Fintech has already gained significant traction, generating over C$7.2 million revenue in Q 2020, and is now ready to start scaling revenues as it enters new markets in coming months. PKKFF’s recently announced partnerships open opportunities to reach thousands more new fintech customers.
Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video:https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk
November 19 - PKKFF signs agreement with packaged foods wholesale distributor Beijing Jingying Corporate Management Ltd. ("BJM") to bring PKKFF’s Cubeler Lending Hub financing solution to BJM and its more than 250,000 retail clients. BJM is a major distributor of a variety of popular products from China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), for which it has exclusive distribution rights to approximately 200,000 Petro-China convenience stores and on online retail giant JD.com. COFCO is China's largest food processor, manufacturer and commodities trader and one of the largest agribusiness groups in all of Asia.
November 6 - PKKFF hires former People's Bank of China senior manager, Mr. Wenjun Wu, as a special advisor to assist the Company in various business development capacities and in preparing the Company's Cubeler Lending Hub platform for China's upcoming digital currency.
October 20 - PKKFF signed an exclusive agreement with the parent company of national consumer electronics distributor Beijing Dianjing Company Ltd. ("BDC") to bring financing solutions to BDC's 60,000 online retail clients. BDC is a wholesale distributor of consumer electronics whose online retail clients sell laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronic products on China's top three e-commerce portals: Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo. BDC's clients, who collectively sell about $50B worth of consumer electronics per year, will be able to have up to 90% of the price of the products they purchase from BDC financed. Peak typically earns service fees ranging from 1% to 3% of the value of the credit amounts it helps facilitate, and this represents a total market opportunity of up to $1.35B in annual revenue potential.
Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video:https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk
Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020:https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH
Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ) President, Brent Suen: “Southeast Asia Fintech/Ecomm with 10X Upside Potential”
Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), a regular presenter at Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream events, is rapidly growing it’s mobile e-commerce, and fintech business in Southeast Asia, with revenues accelerating to a $40 million run-rate.
In a recent livestream event, LGIQ President Brent Suen discussed the company’s new partnership with Indonesia’s government agency which can potentially offer it’s fintech services to 48 million members. Brent also explained why LGIQ has compelling upside, based on valuation comparables to it’s peers in the e-commerce/fintech space. While LGIQ trades at about 2X revenues, it’s peers such as SHOP, SE, STNE, and JMIA, are often trading at 20-30X revenues.
Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream:https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU
November 18 - LGIQ has launched its previously announced mobile fintech platform in Indonesia, in an exclusive strategic alliance with Indonesia’s social security program provider, Koperasi Mona Santoso Berjaya (KMSB). Using the new fintech platform, KMSB will provide micro-lending services to Badan Perlayanan Jaminan Sosial Ketenagakerjaan (BPJSTK), Indonesia’s social security agency that administers retirement and pension plans on behalf of Indonesian government entities and about 600,000 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), with a combined total of 48 million individual members.
LGIQ and KMSB will jointly own and operate the new mobile fintech platform that will deliver mobile financial services. Logiq, through its Indonesian operations, will provide platform design and technology, management, ongoing hosting and technical support. KMSB will provide the financial institutional relationships for enabling the microlending program. The partners will then work together to launch a new marketing and advertising campaign that will encourage adoption and regular use of the mobile fintech offerings. The pilot program will provide mobile micro-lending and related services to 6,000 BPJSTK employees who will be able to borrow up to 20% of their annual salary.
“Through this exclusive strategic alliance with KMSB, we have a tremendous opportunity to improve the lives of nearly 20% of the Indonesian population who normally do not have access to traditional financial services,” stated LGIQ president, Brent Suen. “The opportunities for new revenue streams from microlending, mobile payments, and our eCommerce solutions with this enormous user base are also phenomenal, potentially generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue annually…”
Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream:https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU
Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020:https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH
Square (NYSE: SQ) CEO Jack Dorsey: “Scaling Business and Consumer Fintech Ecosystems”
“...We have scaled not one but two ecosystems focused on expanding access to financial services for sellers and individuals…Let’s start with Seller. We’re focused on providing sellers with fast and flexible access to their funds, which has proven to be especially important this year. Square Card, our business debit card, which we launched last year, provides sellers with a way to immediately access and spend earned funds without setting up a bank account. Adoption of Square Card has increased each quarter since launch...We also work to provide employees easier access to funds. In the third quarter, we launched two new features for Square Payroll, Instant Payments and On-Demand Pay. Instant Payments allows Square Payroll merchants to pay employees using earned funds next business day with direct deposit or instantly when employees use Cash App. This strengthens the integration between our Seller and Cash App ecosystems, and it was a great example of what we can do when we connect the two ecosystems together…”
“For Cash App, we’ve continued to find ways to make financial services more relatable and accessible for individuals. We’ve seen strong adoption across the Cash App ecosystem, including our stock brokerage product, which has seen the fastest adoption of any product to-date. Since launching it less than a year ago, more than 2.5 million customers have bought stocks using Cash App and billions of dollars have been traded by the end of the third quarter...This quarter we launched Auto-Invest, which allows for dollar-cost averaging from recurring daily or weekly purchase of Bitcoin or stocks.”
Square (NYSE:SQ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights:https://bit.ly/2UCHP6s
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www.WallStreetReporter.com || CEO’s of PayPal, Logiq, Peak Fintech, and Square Discuss Bitcoin, Fintech and New Growth Opportunities in Digital Wallets: NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wall Street Reporter, the trusted name in financial news since 1843, has published reports on the latest comments and insights from leaders at: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), and Square (NYSE: SQ ). The convergence of AI, Big Data, Smart Phones, and financial innovation is driving massive new growth opportunities in all aspects of financial services.Wall Street Reporter highlights the latest comments from industry thought leaders: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) CEO Dan Schulman: “Rise of Digital Wallets Will Drive PayPal’s Growth” “...The digitization of the global economy combined with the rise of digital wallets will drive our growth over the next decade. Our scale, two-sided network, trusted brand, our strong relationships with the regulators around the world, and our AI and data modeling capabilities can all be leveraged to ensure our PayPal and Venmo apps are essential parts of our customers’ daily lives...This is beginning to play out in our strong Q3 results. In Q3, our total payment volume grew by a record 36% on an FX neutral basis to $247 billion in annual run rate, just shy of $1 trillion.” “Over the next year, both the Venmo and PayPal apps will undergo a fundamental transformation intended to dramatically increase their functionality and drive engagement...This expanded suite of services will include enhanced direct deposit and check cashing, budget and savings tools, bill pay, investment alternatives, including crypto, subscription management, buy now, pay later optionality and all of Honey’s shopping tools from wish list, price monitoring, deals, coupons, and rewards…We recently announced that PayPal will allow account holders to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies first, in the U.S. and then expanding to international markets in the Venmo platform in the first half of next year…We will rapidly move at the beginning of next year and allow consumers to use cryptocurrencies as a funding instrument to shop across all 28 million of our merchants. This solution will not involve any additional integrations, volatility risk or incremental transaction fees for either consumers or merchants and will fundamentally bolster the utility of cryptocurrencies…” Story continues PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights: https://bit.ly/3fsidCx Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph: “China Fintech Revenues Ready to Explode” NEXT SUPER STOCK conference presenter Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph, recently spoke with Wall Street Reporter’s investor audience about PKKFF fast growing China fintech business which connects small-medium business with commercial lending solutions. Joseph explained how Peak Fintech has already gained significant traction, generating over C$7.2 million revenue in Q 2020, and is now ready to start scaling revenues as it enters new markets in coming months. PKKFF’s recently announced partnerships open opportunities to reach thousands more new fintech customers. Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video: https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk November 19 - PKKFF signs agreement with packaged foods wholesale distributor Beijing Jingying Corporate Management Ltd. ("BJM") to bring PKKFF’s Cubeler Lending Hub financing solution to BJM and its more than 250,000 retail clients. BJM is a major distributor of a variety of popular products from China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), for which it has exclusive distribution rights to approximately 200,000 Petro-China convenience stores and on online retail giant JD.com. COFCO is China's largest food processor, manufacturer and commodities trader and one of the largest agribusiness groups in all of Asia. November 6 - PKKFF hires former People's Bank of China senior manager, Mr. Wenjun Wu, as a special advisor to assist the Company in various business development capacities and in preparing the Company's Cubeler Lending Hub platform for China's upcoming digital currency. October 20 - PKKFF signed an exclusive agreement with the parent company of national consumer electronics distributor Beijing Dianjing Company Ltd. ("BDC") to bring financing solutions to BDC's 60,000 online retail clients. BDC is a wholesale distributor of consumer electronics whose online retail clients sell laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronic products on China's top three e-commerce portals: Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo. BDC's clients, who collectively sell about $50B worth of consumer electronics per year, will be able to have up to 90% of the price of the products they purchase from BDC financed. Peak typically earns service fees ranging from 1% to 3% of the value of the credit amounts it helps facilitate, and this represents a total market opportunity of up to $1.35B in annual revenue potential. Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video: https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020: https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ) President, Brent Suen: “Southeast Asia Fintech/Ecomm with 10X Upside Potential” Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), a regular presenter at Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream events, is rapidly growing it’s mobile e-commerce, and fintech business in Southeast Asia, with revenues accelerating to a $40 million run-rate. In a recent livestream event, LGIQ President Brent Suen discussed the company’s new partnership with Indonesia’s government agency which can potentially offer it’s fintech services to 48 million members. Brent also explained why LGIQ has compelling upside, based on valuation comparables to it’s peers in the e-commerce/fintech space. While LGIQ trades at about 2X revenues, it’s peers such as SHOP, SE, STNE, and JMIA, are often trading at 20-30X revenues. Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream: https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU November 18 - LGIQ has launched its previously announced mobile fintech platform in Indonesia, in an exclusive strategic alliance with Indonesia’s social security program provider, Koperasi Mona Santoso Berjaya (KMSB). Using the new fintech platform, KMSB will provide micro-lending services to Badan Perlayanan Jaminan Sosial Ketenagakerjaan (BPJSTK), Indonesia’s social security agency that administers retirement and pension plans on behalf of Indonesian government entities and about 600,000 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), with a combined total of 48 million individual members. LGIQ and KMSB will jointly own and operate the new mobile fintech platform that will deliver mobile financial services. Logiq, through its Indonesian operations, will provide platform design and technology, management, ongoing hosting and technical support. KMSB will provide the financial institutional relationships for enabling the microlending program. The partners will then work together to launch a new marketing and advertising campaign that will encourage adoption and regular use of the mobile fintech offerings. The pilot program will provide mobile micro-lending and related services to 6,000 BPJSTK employees who will be able to borrow up to 20% of their annual salary. “Through this exclusive strategic alliance with KMSB, we have a tremendous opportunity to improve the lives of nearly 20% of the Indonesian population who normally do not have access to traditional financial services,” stated LGIQ president, Brent Suen. “The opportunities for new revenue streams from microlending, mobile payments, and our eCommerce solutions with this enormous user base are also phenomenal, potentially generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue annually…” Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream: https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020: https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH Square (NYSE: SQ) CEO Jack Dorsey: “Scaling Business and Consumer Fintech Ecosystems” “...We have scaled not one but two ecosystems focused on expanding access to financial services for sellers and individuals…Let’s start with Seller. We’re focused on providing sellers with fast and flexible access to their funds, which has proven to be especially important this year. Square Card, our business debit card, which we launched last year, provides sellers with a way to immediately access and spend earned funds without setting up a bank account. Adoption of Square Card has increased each quarter since launch...We also work to provide employees easier access to funds. In the third quarter, we launched two new features for Square Payroll, Instant Payments and On-Demand Pay. Instant Payments allows Square Payroll merchants to pay employees using earned funds next business day with direct deposit or instantly when employees use Cash App. This strengthens the integration between our Seller and Cash App ecosystems, and it was a great example of what we can do when we connect the two ecosystems together…” “For Cash App, we’ve continued to find ways to make financial services more relatable and accessible for individuals. We’ve seen strong adoption across the Cash App ecosystem, including our stock brokerage product, which has seen the fastest adoption of any product to-date. Since launching it less than a year ago, more than 2.5 million customers have bought stocks using Cash App and billions of dollars have been traded by the end of the third quarter...This quarter we launched Auto-Invest, which allows for dollar-cost averaging from recurring daily or weekly purchase of Bitcoin or stocks.” Square (NYSE: SQ ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights: https://bit.ly/2UCHP6s WALL STREET REPORTER Wall Street Reporter (Est. 1843) is the leading financial news provider, focused on giving investors direct access to CEO's of promising, publicly-traded companies, and market experts. www.WallStreetReporter.com About Wall Street Reporter’s Next Super Stock conference: Wall Street Reporter's NEXT SUPER STOCK Live! conference is dedicated to featuring select companies that have near-term catalysts in place which can drive transformational growth (and stock appreciation) in the months ahead. Click here to join next livestream event: https://www.wallstreetreporter.com/next-superstock-online-investor-conference/ CONTACT: WALL STREET REPORTER (212) 871-2057 ext 7 www.WallStreetReporter.com || CEO’s of PayPal, Logiq, Peak Fintech, and Square Discuss Bitcoin, Fintech and New Growth Opportunities in Digital Wallets: NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wall Street Reporter, the trusted name in financial news since 1843, has published reports on the latest comments and insights from leaders at: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), and Square (NYSE:SQ).
The convergence of AI, Big Data, Smart Phones, and financial innovation is driving massive new growth opportunities in all aspects of financial services.Wall Street Reporter highlights the latest comments from industry thought leaders:
PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) CEO Dan Schulman:“Rise of Digital Wallets Will Drive PayPal’s Growth”
“...The digitization of the global economy combined with the rise of digital wallets will drive our growth over the next decade. Our scale, two-sided network, trusted brand, our strong relationships with the regulators around the world, and our AI and data modeling capabilities can all be leveraged to ensure our PayPal and Venmo apps are essential parts of our customers’ daily lives...This is beginning to play out in our strong Q3 results. In Q3, our total payment volume grew by a record 36% on an FX neutral basis to $247 billion in annual run rate, just shy of $1 trillion.”
“Over the next year, both the Venmo and PayPal apps will undergo a fundamental transformation intended to dramatically increase their functionality and drive engagement...This expanded suite of services will include enhanced direct deposit and check cashing, budget and savings tools, bill pay, investment alternatives, including crypto, subscription management, buy now, pay later optionality and all of Honey’s shopping tools from wish list, price monitoring, deals, coupons, and rewards…We recently announced that PayPal will allow account holders to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies first, in the U.S. and then expanding to international markets in the Venmo platform in the first half of next year…We will rapidly move at the beginning of next year and allow consumers to use cryptocurrencies as a funding instrument to shop across all 28 million of our merchants. This solution will not involve any additional integrations, volatility risk or incremental transaction fees for either consumers or merchants and will fundamentally bolster the utility of cryptocurrencies…”
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights:https://bit.ly/3fsidCx
Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph: “China Fintech Revenues Ready to Explode”
NEXT SUPER STOCK conference presenter Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph, recently spoke with Wall Street Reporter’s investor audience about PKKFF fast growing China fintech business which connects small-medium business with commercial lending solutions. Joseph explained how Peak Fintech has already gained significant traction, generating over C$7.2 million revenue in Q 2020, and is now ready to start scaling revenues as it enters new markets in coming months. PKKFF’s recently announced partnerships open opportunities to reach thousands more new fintech customers.
Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video:https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk
November 19 - PKKFF signs agreement with packaged foods wholesale distributor Beijing Jingying Corporate Management Ltd. ("BJM") to bring PKKFF’s Cubeler Lending Hub financing solution to BJM and its more than 250,000 retail clients. BJM is a major distributor of a variety of popular products from China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), for which it has exclusive distribution rights to approximately 200,000 Petro-China convenience stores and on online retail giant JD.com. COFCO is China's largest food processor, manufacturer and commodities trader and one of the largest agribusiness groups in all of Asia.
November 6 - PKKFF hires former People's Bank of China senior manager, Mr. Wenjun Wu, as a special advisor to assist the Company in various business development capacities and in preparing the Company's Cubeler Lending Hub platform for China's upcoming digital currency.
October 20 - PKKFF signed an exclusive agreement with the parent company of national consumer electronics distributor Beijing Dianjing Company Ltd. ("BDC") to bring financing solutions to BDC's 60,000 online retail clients. BDC is a wholesale distributor of consumer electronics whose online retail clients sell laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronic products on China's top three e-commerce portals: Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo. BDC's clients, who collectively sell about $50B worth of consumer electronics per year, will be able to have up to 90% of the price of the products they purchase from BDC financed. Peak typically earns service fees ranging from 1% to 3% of the value of the credit amounts it helps facilitate, and this represents a total market opportunity of up to $1.35B in annual revenue potential.
Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video:https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk
Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020:https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH
Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ) President, Brent Suen: “Southeast Asia Fintech/Ecomm with 10X Upside Potential”
Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), a regular presenter at Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream events, is rapidly growing it’s mobile e-commerce, and fintech business in Southeast Asia, with revenues accelerating to a $40 million run-rate.
In a recent livestream event, LGIQ President Brent Suen discussed the company’s new partnership with Indonesia’s government agency which can potentially offer it’s fintech services to 48 million members. Brent also explained why LGIQ has compelling upside, based on valuation comparables to it’s peers in the e-commerce/fintech space. While LGIQ trades at about 2X revenues, it’s peers such as SHOP, SE, STNE, and JMIA, are often trading at 20-30X revenues.
Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream:https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU
November 18 - LGIQ has launched its previously announced mobile fintech platform in Indonesia, in an exclusive strategic alliance with Indonesia’s social security program provider, Koperasi Mona Santoso Berjaya (KMSB). Using the new fintech platform, KMSB will provide micro-lending services to Badan Perlayanan Jaminan Sosial Ketenagakerjaan (BPJSTK), Indonesia’s social security agency that administers retirement and pension plans on behalf of Indonesian government entities and about 600,000 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), with a combined total of 48 million individual members.
LGIQ and KMSB will jointly own and operate the new mobile fintech platform that will deliver mobile financial services. Logiq, through its Indonesian operations, will provide platform design and technology, management, ongoing hosting and technical support. KMSB will provide the financial institutional relationships for enabling the microlending program. The partners will then work together to launch a new marketing and advertising campaign that will encourage adoption and regular use of the mobile fintech offerings. The pilot program will provide mobile micro-lending and related services to 6,000 BPJSTK employees who will be able to borrow up to 20% of their annual salary.
“Through this exclusive strategic alliance with KMSB, we have a tremendous opportunity to improve the lives of nearly 20% of the Indonesian population who normally do not have access to traditional financial services,” stated LGIQ president, Brent Suen. “The opportunities for new revenue streams from microlending, mobile payments, and our eCommerce solutions with this enormous user base are also phenomenal, potentially generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue annually…”
Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream:https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU
Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020:https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH
Square (NYSE: SQ) CEO Jack Dorsey: “Scaling Business and Consumer Fintech Ecosystems”
“...We have scaled not one but two ecosystems focused on expanding access to financial services for sellers and individuals…Let’s start with Seller. We’re focused on providing sellers with fast and flexible access to their funds, which has proven to be especially important this year. Square Card, our business debit card, which we launched last year, provides sellers with a way to immediately access and spend earned funds without setting up a bank account. Adoption of Square Card has increased each quarter since launch...We also work to provide employees easier access to funds. In the third quarter, we launched two new features for Square Payroll, Instant Payments and On-Demand Pay. Instant Payments allows Square Payroll merchants to pay employees using earned funds next business day with direct deposit or instantly when employees use Cash App. This strengthens the integration between our Seller and Cash App ecosystems, and it was a great example of what we can do when we connect the two ecosystems together…”
“For Cash App, we’ve continued to find ways to make financial services more relatable and accessible for individuals. We’ve seen strong adoption across the Cash App ecosystem, including our stock brokerage product, which has seen the fastest adoption of any product to-date. Since launching it less than a year ago, more than 2.5 million customers have bought stocks using Cash App and billions of dollars have been traded by the end of the third quarter...This quarter we launched Auto-Invest, which allows for dollar-cost averaging from recurring daily or weekly purchase of Bitcoin or stocks.”
Square (NYSE:SQ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights:https://bit.ly/2UCHP6s
WALL STREET REPORTER
Wall Street Reporter (Est. 1843) is the leading financial news provider, focused on giving investors direct access to CEO's of promising, publicly-traded companies, and market experts.www.WallStreetReporter.com
About Wall Street Reporter’s Next Super Stock conference:
Wall Street Reporter's NEXT SUPER STOCK Live! conference is dedicated to featuring select companies that have near-term catalysts in place which can drive transformational growth (and stock appreciation) in the months ahead. Click here to join next livestream event:https://www.wallstreetreporter.com/next-superstock-online-investor-conference/
CONTACT:
WALL STREET REPORTER
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www.WallStreetReporter.com || First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week: Bitcoin is trading above $18,500, having charted a minor pullback to $17,800 over the weekend. The cryptocurrency’s one-month implied volatility metric has jumped to four-month highs, suggesting increased expectations for price turbulence over the next four weeks. “It’s likely the week ahead is filled with volatility with the possibility of a trading range between $19,000 and $17,000 the likely outcome. However, if the bulls take charge, then we could be discussing new all-time highs for BTC,” noted crypto exchange EQUOS in its daily bitcoin analysis email. In traditional markets, safe havens such as the U.S. dollar and gold are trading heavily alongside stock market gains. Risk appetite has been boosted by more positive news on the coronavirus vaccine front, this time from AstraZeneca and Moncef Slaoui, head of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed. “Vaccinations against COVID-19 will ‘hopefully’ start in less than three weeks,” Slaoui said on Sunday. Market moves Related: Cypherpunk, Crypto Anarchy and How Bitcoin Lost the Narrative Hindsight is 20/20. That said, when it comes to bitcoin this year, some of the biggest names in global finance were WRONG and LOSERS, as ( lame duck? ) U.S. President Donald Trump might put it. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon , Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett , Bridgewater Associates CEO Ray Dalio , Goldman Sachs . All of these Wall Street titans steered investors away from the largest cryptocurrency this year as its price soared more than 150%. They were on the wrong side of the market while just-as-big traditional-finance names including Fidelity Investments , Paul Tudor Jones II , Stanley Druckenmiller , Bloomberg Intelligence and now the $7 trillion money manager BlackRock touted bitcoin’s potential as the future of money , a hedge against inflation , a peer-to-payment system, an alternative to the U.S. dollar or merely a speculative investment . Story continues Related: Gazprombank Switzerland Executes First Bitcoin Trades, Announces Payments Initiative Even if bitcoin’s price once again plunged 39%, as it did in March when the deep economic toll of the coronavirus became clear to global investors (before the Federal Reserve bailed out financial markets ), the price would still be roughly $11,370, up some 59% from the Dec. 31, 2019, price of $7,168. For comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500 is up 11% this year and gold has gained 24%. Few of the biggest banks and brokerage firms even had bitcoin on their radar at the start of this calamitous year. Some investors came around to the concept sooner than others . In just 11 years, bitcoin has gone from nothing to an awe-inspiring creator of wealth . At this point, whether prices go to the moon or stagnate or correct, the cryptocurrency is becoming impossible to ignore in an increasingly dysfunctional global financial and monetary system . – Bradley Keoun Bitcoin watch There seems to be no stopping the bitcoin freight train. The cryptocurrency jumped over 15% in the seven days leading up to Nov. 22 to register its biggest weekly gain since October 2019. That was also the seventh straight weekly rise. What’s more, prices ended last week (Sunday, UTC) above $18,400 – the second-highest weekly close on record. Bitcoin is now just 6.5% short of challenging the record high of $19,783 reached in December 2017. A move to record highs could easily happen in a matter of a few hours, given the recent strong momentum. That said, a metric from bitcoin’s perpetual futures market now suggests the market is getting excessively skewed to the bullish side and could experience a rise in volatility. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data source Glassnode . “Rising funding rates have in the past been associated with a larger portion of the market utilizing leverage via perpetuals,” Matthew Dibb, CEO of Stack Funds, told CoinDesk. “The high funding rate can cause somewhat of a ‘shakeout’ due to increasing margin liquidations.” So far, pullbacks have been shallow and restricted near the ascending 10-day simple moving average (SMA), currently at $17,640. As such, the SMA line is a key support to watch out for in the short-term. Bitcoin has immediate resistance at $19,000, followed by the record high of $19,783. – Omkar Godbole What’s hot Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017 ( CoinDesk ) John Lennon’s Son Says Bitcoin ‘Empowers’ People Like Never Before ( CoinDesk ) China to Hold Second Lottery Trial of the Digital Yuan ( CoinDesk ) CipherTrace Says Homeland Security Work Gave Rise to Monero-Tracking Patent Filings ( CoinDesk ) Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short ( CoinDesk ) China Construction Bank Pulls Planned Listing of Bitcoin-Tradable Bond ( CoinDesk ) Analogs The latest on the economy and traditional finance Vaccine developments keep dollar down; Kiwi hits two-year high ( Reuters ) Risk appetite in currency markets was boosted by progress towards a COVID-19 vaccine rollout even as PMI data showed a sharp contraction in euro zone business activity as a result of lockdown restrictions. Five crypto bulls predict what’s next for bitcoin as it closes in on an all-time high ( CNBC ) As bitcoin gets closer to its record high of almost $20,000, CNBC asked five crypto experts for their take on the rally. ‘Big War’ in Bonds Escalates as Treasury Rift Puts Fed in Play ( Bloomberg ) Expectation for Fed action “is keeping bonds from selling off.” The Stocks the Pros Own Usually Beat the Market. Here’s a List of Their 10 Most Popular Bets. ( Barron’s ) “Quarterly baskets of the 10 (plus) most owned stocks by mutual funds and hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 six and 12 months later,” Citigroup equity strategists said. Bank Stocks Already Had a Wild 2020. Then November Got Even Crazier. ( WSJ ) The day after the election was one of the worst ever for bank stocks; three trading sessions later, they had one of their best days. Tweet of the day Related Stories First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41, 18177.48, 19625.84, 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40, 18699.77
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 243.86, 241.83, 240.30, 242.16, 241.11, 236.38, 236.93, 237.60, 236.15, 236.80, 233.13, 231.95, 234.02, 235.34, 240.35, 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10, 233.35, 230.19, 222.93, 225.80, 225.87, 224.32, 224.95, 225.62, 222.88, 228.49, 229.05, 228.80, 229.71, 229.98, 232.40, 233.54, 236.82, 250.90, 249.28, 249.01, 244.61, 245.21, 243.94, 246.99, 244.30, 240.51, 242.80, 243.59, 250.99, 249.01, 257.06, 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22, 276.05, 288.28, 288.70, 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-08-05]
Volume: 20128000, RSI (14-day): 51.32, 50-day EMA: 272.32, 200-day EMA: 261.75
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1085.70, Gold RSI: 28.59
Oil Price: 45.15, Oil RSI: 25.74
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Obama's Clean Power Plan: Winners & Losers: On Monday, the Obama administration together with the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a new set of guidelines aimed at reducing emissions in the United States. The Clean Power Plan will reduce carbon emissions by 32 percent from their 2005 levels by 2030. Obama plans to allow states to create their own individual plans to meet their designated targets, which they will need to submit in the coming years. Controversial Plan The Clean Power Plan has been heralded by environmentalists as a necessary step forward in the battle against climate change. Obama called the proposal "the biggest, most important step" the nation has ever taken. However, not everyone agrees. Critics of the plan say Obama has waged a war on coal and that the new rules will stifle job growth and raise the cost of energy in the US. See Also: Why Are Solar Stocks Down After Obama's Carbon Announcement? Losers Should the plan make it through a barrage of criticism in Washington, it is expected to have an uneven impact across the US. Much of whether or not a specific state will benefit depends on that particular state's reliance on coal and how its industry is regulated. Despite that, the coal industry as a whole is expected to suffer under the new regulations. Companies like Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. (OTC: ANRZ ) and Xinergy Ltd. which are already struggling to stay afloat, are likely to face a bumpy road ahead. Winners Nuclear power is expected to see a boost from the Clean Power Plan as it is an effective way to generate power without major greenhouse gas emissions. Renewables like solar and wind power are also expected to gain momentum as more and more states turn to alternative energy sources to meet their new targets. See more from Benzinga Fed Stuck In The Middle Of Marijuana Debate Australian Government Takes Steps Toward Becoming A Bitcoin-Friendly Nation Tech Firms Gear Up For 2016 Presidential Race © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Obama's Clean Power Plan: Winners & Losers: On Monday, the Obama administration together with the Environmental Protection Agencyunveileda new set of guidelines aimed at reducing emissions in the United States. The Clean Power Plan will reduce carbon emissions by 32 percent from their 2005 levels by 2030. Obama plans to allow states to create their own individual plans to meet their designated targets, which they will need to submit in the coming years.
Controversial Plan
The Clean Power Plan has been heralded by environmentalists as a necessary step forward in the battle against climate change. Obama called the proposal "the biggest, most important step" the nation has ever taken.
However, not everyone agrees.
Critics of the plan say Obama has waged a war on coal and that the new rules will stifle job growth and raise the cost of energy in the US.
See Also:Why Are Solar Stocks Down After Obama's Carbon Announcement?
Losers
Should the plan make it through a barrage of criticism in Washington, it is expected to have an uneven impact across the US. Much of whether or not a specific state will benefit depends on that particular state's reliance on coal and how its industry is regulated. Despite that, the coal industry as a whole is expected to suffer under the new regulations. Companies likeAlpha Natural Resources, Inc.(OTC:ANRZ) and Xinergy Ltd. which are already struggling to stay afloat, are likely to face a bumpy road ahead.
Winners
Nuclear power is expected to see a boost from the Clean Power Plan as it is an effective way to generate power without major greenhouse gas emissions. Renewables like solar and wind power are also expected to gain momentum as more and more states turn to alternative energy sources to meet their new targets.
See more from Benzinga
• Fed Stuck In The Middle Of Marijuana Debate
• Australian Government Takes Steps Toward Becoming A Bitcoin-Friendly Nation
• Tech Firms Gear Up For 2016 Presidential Race
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fed Stuck In The Middle Of Marijuana Debate: One of the major issues plaguing the United States' newly developing marijuana industry has been banking. Although President Barack Obama has granted states the right to determine their own marijuana laws, the substance is still classed as illegal in the federal government's eyes. For that reason, banks bound by federal law have been unable to engage with marijuana firms even in states where the drug is legal.
Fed Lawsuit
Last week, Colorado's Fourth Corner Credit Unionsuedthe Kansas City Fed after its application for federal insurance was rejected. The credit union was denied a routing number in order to set up its master account, meaning that Fourth Corner would be unable to operate. The firm said the Fed's decision to reject Fourth Corner is an unreasonable restraint of trade and commerce and that the credit union's receipt of a state charter should have given it access to federal insurance.
Fed Pushes Back
The Fed has argued that it has the right to use its own discretion when it comes to opening new master accounts. The bank claims it was unable to accurately asses the risks associated with Fourth Corner's business and therefore is allowed to reject the application.
Conflicting Laws
The legal battle underscored the pitfalls of conflicting laws at the federal and state level. While legalization efforts have been successful in many states across the US, the banking issue will likely continue to plague the industry as long as federal law continues to class marijuana as illegal.
See more from Benzinga
• Australian Government Takes Steps Toward Becoming A Bitcoin-Friendly Nation
• Tech Firms Gear Up For 2016 Presidential Race
• Are Tethered Drones The Answer To Safety Concerns?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fed Stuck In The Middle Of Marijuana Debate: One of the major issues plaguing the United States' newly developing marijuana industry has been banking. Although President Barack Obama has granted states the right to determine their own marijuana laws, the substance is still classed as illegal in the federal government's eyes. For that reason, banks bound by federal law have been unable to engage with marijuana firms even in states where the drug is legal. Fed Lawsuit Last week, Colorado's Fourth Corner Credit Union sued the Kansas City Fed after its application for federal insurance was rejected. The credit union was denied a routing number in order to set up its master account, meaning that Fourth Corner would be unable to operate. The firm said the Fed's decision to reject Fourth Corner is an unreasonable restraint of trade and commerce and that the credit union's receipt of a state charter should have given it access to federal insurance. Fed Pushes Back The Fed has argued that it has the right to use its own discretion when it comes to opening new master accounts. The bank claims it was unable to accurately asses the risks associated with Fourth Corner's business and therefore is allowed to reject the application. Conflicting Laws The legal battle underscored the pitfalls of conflicting laws at the federal and state level. While legalization efforts have been successful in many states across the US, the banking issue will likely continue to plague the industry as long as federal law continues to class marijuana as illegal. See more from Benzinga Australian Government Takes Steps Toward Becoming A Bitcoin-Friendly Nation Tech Firms Gear Up For 2016 Presidential Race Are Tethered Drones The Answer To Safety Concerns? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 10 things you need to know today: (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)An image of Cecil the lion was projected onto the Empire State Building as part of a projection to raise awareness for endangered animals, in New York on Saturday.
Happy Monday! Here's what you need to know.
The Greek stock market is crashing.The Greek stock market reopened for the first time in five weeks, and it's ugly. The benchmarkASE index plummeted 22.8%before recovering some of its losses. Piraeus Bank and National Bank of Greece crashed the maximum 30% before being halted.
The Greek economy is crashing. Greece's economy screeched as political turmoil took over. The Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) reflected a record contraction,crashing to 30.2 in Julyfrom 46.9 in June. Any reading below 50 signals contraction. "Manufacturing output collapsed in July as the debt crisis came to a head," Markit's Phil Smith said. "Factories faced a record drop in new orders and were often unable to acquire the inputs they needed, particularly from abroad, as bank closures and capital restrictions badly hampered normal business activity. Demand was hit amid the heightened uncertainty surrounding Greece's future, leading both total new business and exports to contract sharply, and it remains to be seen how long it takes these to recover."
The rest of Europe is doing much better. Thecomposite eurozone manufacturing PMI signaled growth, registering at 52.4 in July, which was higher than the earlier estimate of 52.2. Germany, Spain, and Italy all grew. "The eurozone manufacturing economy showed encouraging resilience in the face of the Greek debt crisis in July," Markit's Chris Williamson noted. "The PMI held close to its June level, which had been the highest for over a year, coming in ahead of the earlier flash estimate largely on the back of stronger than previously recorded growth in Germany."
China is definitely slowing.China's official manufacturing PMI fell to 50.0 in Julyfrom 50.2 in June.China's Caixin manufacturing PMI fell to 47.8 in Julyfrom 49.4 in June; this was the weakest reading since July 2013. The numbers werejust as ugly in Taiwan, Indonesia, and South Korea.
Markets are mixed.Europe is mostly up, with Germany's DAX up 0.4%, France's CAC 40 up 0.3%, and Spain's IBEX up 0.3%. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed down 0.9%, and China's Shanghai composite tumbled 1.1%. US futures are down modestly, with Dow futures down 11 points, S&P futures down 2.2 points, and Nasdaq futures down 4.7 points.
Get ready for a ton of data. On Monday, we'll get reports on US personal income and spending (8:30 a.m. ET), manufacturing (9:45 a.m. and 10 a.m.), construction spending (10 a.m.), and auto sales (all day). This, as we kick off jobs week in America. Read our complete preview inBusiness Insider's Monday Scouting Report.
HSBC beats. "HSBC Holdings beat expectations with a 10% rise in first-half profitthanks to a strong performance in Hong Kong and said it had agreed a $5.2 billion sale of its business in Brazil," Reuters reported. "Europe's biggest bank by market value is to sell the unprofitable Brazilian arm to Banco Bradesco SA, Brazil's second-biggest private-sector bank, for a higher than expected 17.6 billion reais ($5.2 billion)."
Puerto Rico will default. "Puerto Rico will miss a payment on debt due Aug. 1, the governor's chief of staff said on Friday, an event that will be considered a default by investors as the commonwealth lurches towards what could be one of the largest US municipal debt restructurings in history," Reuters reported. "The missed payment will mark the first default by the commonwealth and shows the depth of the island's economic and cashflow problems. Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla shocked investors in June when he said the island's debt, totaling $72 billion, was unpayable and required restructuring."
Private-equity pioneer Jerome Kohlberg has died. "Jerome Kohlberg Jr., a founder of the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.and a pioneer of the leveraged buyout, died on Thursday at his home in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, aged 90," Reuters reported. "Kohlberg's death was confirmed by his former partners at KKR on Saturday. His son, James, said the cause of death was cancer."
Bitcoin-exchange CEO arrested. "Mark Karpeles, the head of the collapsed MtGox Bitcoin exchange who was arrested in Tokyo, is facing fresh allegations that he misused $8.9 million in customers' deposits, Japanese media reported Sunday," AFP said. "French-born Karpeles, 30, was arrested on Saturday after a series of fraud allegations led to the Tokyo-based exchange's spectacular collapse last year and hammered the digital currency's reputation."
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• 10 things you need to know today || 10 things you need to know today: Cecil the lion Empire State Building (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz) An image of Cecil the lion was projected onto the Empire State Building as part of a projection to raise awareness for endangered animals, in New York on Saturday. Happy Monday! Here's what you need to know. The Greek stock market is crashing. The Greek stock market reopened for the first time in five weeks, and it's ugly. The benchmark ASE index plummeted 22.8% before recovering some of its losses. Piraeus Bank and National Bank of Greece crashed the maximum 30% before being halted. The Greek economy is crashing . Greece's economy screeched as political turmoil took over. The Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) reflected a record contraction, crashing to 30.2 in July from 46.9 in June. Any reading below 50 signals contraction. "Manufacturing output collapsed in July as the debt crisis came to a head," Markit's Phil Smith said. "Factories faced a record drop in new orders and were often unable to acquire the inputs they needed, particularly from abroad, as bank closures and capital restrictions badly hampered normal business activity. Demand was hit amid the heightened uncertainty surrounding Greece's future, leading both total new business and exports to contract sharply, and it remains to be seen how long it takes these to recover." The rest of Europe is doing much better . The composite eurozone manufacturing PMI signaled growth, registering at 52.4 in July , which was higher than the earlier estimate of 52.2. Germany, Spain, and Italy all grew. "The eurozone manufacturing economy showed encouraging resilience in the face of the Greek debt crisis in July," Markit's Chris Williamson noted. "The PMI held close to its June level, which had been the highest for over a year, coming in ahead of the earlier flash estimate largely on the back of stronger than previously recorded growth in Germany." China is definitely slowing . China's official manufacturing PMI fell to 50.0 in July from 50.2 in June. China's Caixin manufacturing PMI fell to 47.8 in July from 49.4 in June; this was the weakest reading since July 2013. The numbers were just as ugly in Taiwan, Indonesia, and South Korea . Story continues Markets are mixed . Europe is mostly up, with Germany's DAX up 0.4%, France's CAC 40 up 0.3%, and Spain's IBEX up 0.3%. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed down 0.9%, and China's Shanghai composite tumbled 1.1%. US futures are down modestly, with Dow futures down 11 points, S&P futures down 2.2 points, and Nasdaq futures down 4.7 points. Get ready for a ton of data . On Monday, we'll get reports on US personal income and spending (8:30 a.m. ET), manufacturing (9:45 a.m. and 10 a.m.), construction spending (10 a.m.), and auto sales (all day). This, as we kick off jobs week in America. Read our complete preview in Business Insider's Monday Scouting Report . HSBC beats . " HSBC Holdings beat expectations with a 10% rise in first-half profit thanks to a strong performance in Hong Kong and said it had agreed a $5.2 billion sale of its business in Brazil," Reuters reported. "Europe's biggest bank by market value is to sell the unprofitable Brazilian arm to Banco Bradesco SA, Brazil's second-biggest private-sector bank, for a higher than expected 17.6 billion reais ($5.2 billion)." Puerto Rico will default . " Puerto Rico will miss a payment on debt due Aug. 1 , the governor's chief of staff said on Friday, an event that will be considered a default by investors as the commonwealth lurches towards what could be one of the largest US municipal debt restructurings in history," Reuters reported. "The missed payment will mark the first default by the commonwealth and shows the depth of the island's economic and cashflow problems. Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla shocked investors in June when he said the island's debt, totaling $72 billion, was unpayable and required restructuring." Private-equity pioneer Jerome Kohlberg has died . " Jerome Kohlberg Jr., a founder of the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and a pioneer of the leveraged buyout, died on Thursday at his home in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, aged 90," Reuters reported. "Kohlberg's death was confirmed by his former partners at KKR on Saturday. His son, James, said the cause of death was cancer." Bitcoin-exchange CEO arrested . " Mark Karpeles, the head of the collapsed MtGox Bitcoin exchange who was arrested in Tokyo , is facing fresh allegations that he misused $8.9 million in customers' deposits, Japanese media reported Sunday," AFP said. "French-born Karpeles, 30, was arrested on Saturday after a series of fraud allegations led to the Tokyo-based exchange's spectacular collapse last year and hammered the digital currency's reputation." NOW WATCH: Ridley Scott is about to show us a world where the Allies lost World War II More From Business Insider 10 things you need to know today 10 things you need to know before the opening bell 10 things you need to know today || Global Equity International Inc. Signed a Revised Agreement With AuthentaTrade, a Global Digital Currency Exchange Seeking Regulation in Europe and Asia: DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) -Global Equity International Inc.(OTCQB:GEQU) and its fully owned subsidiary,Global Equity Partners Plc(GEP), a business consulting services firm and M&A specialist to SMEs worldwide, today announced that it has signed a revised consultancy agreement withAuthentaTrade, an innovative FINTECH company firm based in Seychelles and Cyprus (Website:http://www.authenta.trade/).
Global Equity International Inc., through its fully owned subsidiary Global Equity Partners Plc., will assist AuthentaTrade with pre-IPO funding amounting to, but not limited to, US$32 million as well as a public listing of its shares on a recognized international stock exchange post pre-IPO funding. As part of the consultancy agreement, GEP will hold a meaningful equity position in AuthentaTrade (post IPO).
Peter Smith, CEO of Global Equity International Inc., said:"We are extremely excited about signing this revised agreement with AuthentaTrade as we believe that there is a lot of potential for the Company's proprietary solutions. We have met with the Authenta Team in Dubai on two occasions now and have already introduced them to various financial institutions in Dubai, some of which are interested in looking at the possibility of investing in the Company. This great addition to our portfolio of clients will undoubtedly bring good value to our Company in the long run."
Gwyn Jones, CEO of AuthentaTrade,stated:"We're working hard to fulfill the promise of Digital Currencies, especially Bitcoin, and believe there is a substantial opportunity to create 'banking-like' financial products, but with much lower transactional costs than in traditional banking. We look forward to working with GEP, and raising the funding we need to take AuthentaTrade, and our Bitcoin Exchange, to the next level."
About AuthentaTradeDevelopment began on the AuthentaTrade platform in early 2015. AuthentaTrade has assembled a team spearheaded by Gwyn Jones, a co-founder and former Vice President of Product Development, of "Vistaprint," a billion dollar ecommerce leader. AuthentaTrade's management is fascinated by Digital Currencies and their potential to bridge financial markets across the globe. There is a huge opportunity in Digital Currencies as a global transactional medium using a decentralized digital store of value.
AuthentaTrade will offer a suite of services for its clients including FOREX (both "Fiat" and "Digital" currencies) trading, banking and international payment solutions, along with proprietary regulated trading products designed by institutional traders that will help create an efficient market for participants.
AuthentaTrade has chosen to target European and Asian markets as management feels the clientele there will stand to gain the most from the regulated products soon to be introduced. The Asian market in particular has an appetite for speculative trading on volatility; their desire to transact plays into the new and explosive market of Digital Currencies such as Bitcoin.
About Global Equity International Inc.Global Equity International Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Global Equity Partners Plc, advises worldwide business leaders with their most critical decisions and opportunities pertaining to growth, capital needs, structure and the development of a global presence. With offices in Dubai and London, Global Equity Partners has developed significant relationships in the US, UK, Central Europe, the Middle East and South-east Asia to assist clients in realizing their full value and potential by bringing them to external capital and resources that place an emphasis on collaborative thinking. Furthermore, because Global Equity Partners has offices in key financial centers of the world, they are able to introduce their clients to a unique opportunity of listing their shares on one of the many stock exchanges worldwide.
Safe Harbor StatementThis press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, operating cash flows, the outlook for markets and the demand for products. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Suchstatements are based upon, among other things, assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management, including management's own knowledge and assessment of the Company's industry and competition. The Company refers interested persons to its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other SEC filings for a description of additional uncertainties and factors, which may affect forward-looking statements. The company assumes no duty to update its forward-looking statements. || Global Equity International Inc. Signed a Revised Agreement With AuthentaTrade, a Global Digital Currency Exchange Seeking Regulation in Europe and Asia: DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - Global Equity International Inc. ( OTCQB : GEQU ) and its fully owned subsidiary, Global Equity Partners Plc (GEP), a business consulting services firm and M&A specialist to SMEs worldwide, today announced that it has signed a revised consultancy agreement with AuthentaTrade , an innovative FINTECH company firm based in Seychelles and Cyprus (Website: http://www.authenta.trade/ ). Global Equity International Inc., through its fully owned subsidiary Global Equity Partners Plc., will assist AuthentaTrade with pre-IPO funding amounting to, but not limited to, US$32 million as well as a public listing of its shares on a recognized international stock exchange post pre-IPO funding. As part of the consultancy agreement, GEP will hold a meaningful equity position in AuthentaTrade (post IPO). Peter Smith, CEO of Global Equity International Inc. , said: "We are extremely excited about signing this revised agreement with AuthentaTrade as we believe that there is a lot of potential for the Company's proprietary solutions. We have met with the Authenta Team in Dubai on two occasions now and have already introduced them to various financial institutions in Dubai, some of which are interested in looking at the possibility of investing in the Company. This great addition to our portfolio of clients will undoubtedly bring good value to our Company in the long run." Gwyn Jones, CEO of AuthentaTrade, stated: "We're working hard to fulfill the promise of Digital Currencies, especially Bitcoin, and believe there is a substantial opportunity to create 'banking-like' financial products, but with much lower transactional costs than in traditional banking. We look forward to working with GEP, and raising the funding we need to take AuthentaTrade, and our Bitcoin Exchange, to the next level." About AuthentaTrade Development began on the AuthentaTrade platform in early 2015. AuthentaTrade has assembled a team spearheaded by Gwyn Jones, a co-founder and former Vice President of Product Development, of "Vistaprint," a billion dollar ecommerce leader. AuthentaTrade's management is fascinated by Digital Currencies and their potential to bridge financial markets across the globe. There is a huge opportunity in Digital Currencies as a global transactional medium using a decentralized digital store of value. Story continues AuthentaTrade will offer a suite of services for its clients including FOREX (both "Fiat" and "Digital" currencies) trading, banking and international payment solutions, along with proprietary regulated trading products designed by institutional traders that will help create an efficient market for participants. AuthentaTrade has chosen to target European and Asian markets as management feels the clientele there will stand to gain the most from the regulated products soon to be introduced. The Asian market in particular has an appetite for speculative trading on volatility; their desire to transact plays into the new and explosive market of Digital Currencies such as Bitcoin. About Global Equity International Inc. Global Equity International Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Global Equity Partners Plc, advises worldwide business leaders with their most critical decisions and opportunities pertaining to growth, capital needs, structure and the development of a global presence. With offices in Dubai and London, Global Equity Partners has developed significant relationships in the US, UK, Central Europe, the Middle East and South-east Asia to assist clients in realizing their full value and potential by bringing them to external capital and resources that place an emphasis on collaborative thinking. Furthermore, because Global Equity Partners has offices in key financial centers of the world, they are able to introduce their clients to a unique opportunity of listing their shares on one of the many stock exchanges worldwide. Safe Harbor Statement This press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, operating cash flows, the outlook for markets and the demand for products. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon, among other things, assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management, including management's own knowledge and assessment of the Company's industry and competition. The Company refers interested persons to its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other SEC filings for a description of additional uncertainties and factors, which may affect forward-looking statements. The company assumes no duty to update its forward-looking statements. || BTCS Doubles Capacity at Its North Carolina Facility: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, doubled its operating capacity at its North Carolina facility from 1.5 megawatts ("mw") to 3 mw. "Using only 0.65mw of our capacity, and approximately 891 Th/s, we were able to earn 552 Bitcoins in the second quarter," stated Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of BTCS. "By increasing our operating capacity to 3mw, we've set the stage for significant growth in the quarters ahead, which we believe we can leverage even further through our pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech. The addition of Spondoolies' third-generation Application Specific Integrated Circuit ("ASIC") servers upon closing of the pending merger is expected to provide a 3x-5x efficiency improvement to our operations. We believe this should translate to a significant boost in our hashing power." BTCS estimates that it currently costs the Company approximately $100-$120 to earn each Bitcoin. Assuming the implementation of third-generation ASIC servers from Spondoolies at the Company's facility in North Carolina, the increased capacity of 3mw is expected to power a hash rate of between 13,000 and 29,000 Th/s. Allen continued, "Our refined focus on securing the blockchain minimizes risk and positions us to capitalize on the massive market potential of the blockchain across all industries. We believe we selected an ideal timing for market entry that allowed us to pass over the high-risk period of extreme volatility that knocked many smaller players out of the space. With this latest increase in capacity, we believe we are well positioned to become a dominant player for the long-term." About BTCS: The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger that has the ability to fundamentally impact, on a global basis, all industries that require trust and rely on or utilize record keeping. BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. || BTCS Doubles Capacity at Its North Carolina Facility: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) -BTCS Inc.(OTCQB:BTCS) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, doubled its operating capacity at its North Carolina facility from 1.5 megawatts ("mw") to 3 mw.
"Using only 0.65mw of our capacity, and approximately 891 Th/s, we were able to earn 552 Bitcoins in the second quarter," stated Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of BTCS. "By increasing our operating capacity to 3mw, we've set the stage for significant growth in the quarters ahead, which we believe we can leverage even further through our pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech. The addition of Spondoolies' third-generation Application Specific Integrated Circuit ("ASIC") servers upon closing of the pending merger is expected to provide a 3x-5x efficiency improvement to our operations. We believe this should translate to a significant boost in our hashing power."
BTCS estimates that it currently costs the Company approximately $100-$120 to earn each Bitcoin. Assuming the implementation of third-generation ASIC servers from Spondoolies at the Company's facility in North Carolina, the increased capacity of 3mw is expected to power a hash rate of between 13,000 and 29,000 Th/s.
Allen continued, "Our refined focus on securing the blockchain minimizes risk and positions us to capitalize on the massive market potential of the blockchain across all industries. We believe we selected an ideal timing for market entry that allowed us to pass over the high-risk period of extreme volatility that knocked many smaller players out of the space. With this latest increase in capacity, we believe we are well positioned to become a dominant player for the long-term."
About BTCS:The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger that has the ability to fundamentally impact, on a global basis, all industries that require trust and rely on or utilize record keeping. BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit:www.btcs.com
Forward-Looking Statements:Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. || Costas Inc. Announces New Agreement Regarding Platforms for Digital Currency Transactions: CYPRESS, TX--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - Costas Inc. (OTC PINK:CSSI) today announces the mutual termination and replacement of a previously announced Original Share Exchange Agreement with AuthentaTrade Inc., an Alberta, Canada corporation.
The initial agreement, in which Costas would acquire 48% of the shares AuthentaTrade in exchange for 250,000 shares of Costas, has not been completed and has been replaced by an agreement with AuthentaTrade Ltd. (a Republic of Seychelles corporation, "AuthentaTrade Seychelles"). AuthentaTrade Seychelles is currently in negotiations with an Asian based company that brings significant value to their business. Based on the value added in AuthentaTrade Seychelles, Costas has negotiated an increase in shares used as consideration in this new share swap agreement. Details on the letter of intent between AuthenaTrade Seychelles and the Asian based group will be released shortly.
Pursuant to the new agreement, Costas will own 48% of the AuthentaTrade Seychelles in exchange for 4,000,000 shares of Costas. The physical share exchange is expected to occur within the next 30 days. In addition, AuthentaTrade Seychelles shall remain liable to pay to Costas USD $200,000 as a debt owning.
AuthentaTrade Seychelles is in the business of developing a high security digital currency exchange. Costas believes that the management of digital currencies is a burgeoning market ripe with opportunity. To this accord, AuthentaTrade Seychelles is developing technology to simplify transactions in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, while specifically addressing security concerns of the broader digital currency market.
AuthentaTrade Seychelles' operations in the Province of Alberta will cease, and will now be managed outside of Alberta. Costas advises that it is subject to a cease trade order issued by the Alberta Securities Commission for its jurisdiction of Alberta.
Safe Harbor Act Notice:
Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. || Costas Inc. Announces New Agreement Regarding Platforms for Digital Currency Transactions: CYPRESS, TX--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - Costas Inc. ( OTC PINK : CSSI ) today announces the mutual termination and replacement of a previously announced Original Share Exchange Agreement with AuthentaTrade Inc., an Alberta, Canada corporation. The initial agreement, in which Costas would acquire 48% of the shares AuthentaTrade in exchange for 250,000 shares of Costas, has not been completed and has been replaced by an agreement with AuthentaTrade Ltd. (a Republic of Seychelles corporation, "AuthentaTrade Seychelles"). AuthentaTrade Seychelles is currently in negotiations with an Asian based company that brings significant value to their business. Based on the value added in AuthentaTrade Seychelles, Costas has negotiated an increase in shares used as consideration in this new share swap agreement. Details on the letter of intent between AuthenaTrade Seychelles and the Asian based group will be released shortly. Pursuant to the new agreement, Costas will own 48% of the AuthentaTrade Seychelles in exchange for 4,000,000 shares of Costas. The physical share exchange is expected to occur within the next 30 days. In addition, AuthentaTrade Seychelles shall remain liable to pay to Costas USD $200,000 as a debt owning. AuthentaTrade Seychelles is in the business of developing a high security digital currency exchange. Costas believes that the management of digital currencies is a burgeoning market ripe with opportunity. To this accord, AuthentaTrade Seychelles is developing technology to simplify transactions in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, while specifically addressing security concerns of the broader digital currency market. AuthentaTrade Seychelles' operations in the Province of Alberta will cease, and will now be managed outside of Alberta. Costas advises that it is subject to a cease trade order issued by the Alberta Securities Commission for its jurisdiction of Alberta. Safe Harbor Act Notice: Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. || Rick Perry Voices Bitcoin Support: With bitcoin still struggling to gain mainstream approval, the cryptocurrency has been largely absent on the campaign trail for most of the 2016 Presidential hopefuls. However, Republican candidate Rick Perry remarked in a New York Observer interview that he is in support of "regulatory breathing room" for digital currencies, giving bitcoin enthusiasts a reason to pay attention to the former Texas governor. Progressive On Fintech In the interview, Perry framed his views on the economy as progressive, criticizing some of his opponents from the Democrat party for being too close-minded about new startups. His openness to startup growth appeared to extend to those in the digital currency world, as he remarked that digital currency firms shouldn't be stifled by regulators. Related Link: Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin? What Does It Mean? The cryptocurrency community has latched on to Perry's "regulatory breathing room" comment, calling it a confirmation of his support for bitcoin. While Perry hasn't outwardly backed the currency, the phrase suggests that he would help support the growing industry should he make it to the White House. While most agree that more regulation is needed in order to make bitcoin a viable option for the general public, supporters of digital currencies say that too much regulatory interference would undermine the general principal of establishing cryptocurrencies in the first place. Bitcoin In The White House Perry isn't the only candidate to give bitcoin a nod; earlier this year fellow Republican candidate Rand Paul announced that he would accept bitcoin donations to his campaign. Paul's decision to appeal to bitcoin donors not only exposed him to a new source of campaign funds, but positioned him as a cryptocurrency-friendly candidate. See more from Benzinga NHTSA Comes Down Hard On Auto Industry; Fiat Chrysler Gets Slammed Privacy Emerges As Main Concern For EU Digital Market Overhaul Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Rick Perry Voices Bitcoin Support: With bitcoin still struggling to gain mainstream approval, the cryptocurrency has been largely absent on the campaign trail for most of the 2016 Presidential hopefuls.
However, Republican candidate Rick Perry remarked in aNew York Observerinterview that he is in support of "regulatory breathing room" for digital currencies, giving bitcoin enthusiasts a reason to pay attention to the former Texas governor.
Progressive On Fintech
In the interview, Perry framed his views on the economy as progressive, criticizing some of his opponents from the Democrat party for being too close-minded about new startups. His openness to startup growth appeared to extend to those in the digital currency world, as he remarked that digital currency firms shouldn't be stifled by regulators.
Related Link:Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin?
What Does It Mean?
The cryptocurrency community has latched on to Perry's "regulatory breathing room" comment, calling it a confirmation of his support for bitcoin. While Perry hasn't outwardly backed the currency, the phrase suggests that he would help support the growing industry should he make it to the White House.
While most agree that more regulation is needed in order to make bitcoin a viable option for the general public, supporters of digital currencies say that too much regulatory interference would undermine the general principal of establishing cryptocurrencies in the first place.
Bitcoin In The White House
Perry isn't the only candidate to give bitcoin a nod; earlier this year fellow Republican candidate Rand Paul announced that he would accept bitcoin donations to his campaign. Paul's decision to appeal to bitcoin donors not only exposed him to a new source of campaign funds, but positioned him as a cryptocurrency-friendly candidate.
See more from Benzinga
• NHTSA Comes Down Hard On Auto Industry; Fiat Chrysler Gets Slammed
• Privacy Emerges As Main Concern For EU Digital Market Overhaul
• Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Rick Perry Voices Bitcoin Support: With bitcoin still struggling to gain mainstream approval, the cryptocurrency has been largely absent on the campaign trail for most of the 2016 Presidential hopefuls.
However, Republican candidate Rick Perry remarked in aNew York Observerinterview that he is in support of "regulatory breathing room" for digital currencies, giving bitcoin enthusiasts a reason to pay attention to the former Texas governor.
Progressive On Fintech
In the interview, Perry framed his views on the economy as progressive, criticizing some of his opponents from the Democrat party for being too close-minded about new startups. His openness to startup growth appeared to extend to those in the digital currency world, as he remarked that digital currency firms shouldn't be stifled by regulators.
Related Link:Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin?
What Does It Mean?
The cryptocurrency community has latched on to Perry's "regulatory breathing room" comment, calling it a confirmation of his support for bitcoin. While Perry hasn't outwardly backed the currency, the phrase suggests that he would help support the growing industry should he make it to the White House.
While most agree that more regulation is needed in order to make bitcoin a viable option for the general public, supporters of digital currencies say that too much regulatory interference would undermine the general principal of establishing cryptocurrencies in the first place.
Bitcoin In The White House
Perry isn't the only candidate to give bitcoin a nod; earlier this year fellow Republican candidate Rand Paul announced that he would accept bitcoin donations to his campaign. Paul's decision to appeal to bitcoin donors not only exposed him to a new source of campaign funds, but positioned him as a cryptocurrency-friendly candidate.
See more from Benzinga
• NHTSA Comes Down Hard On Auto Industry; Fiat Chrysler Gets Slammed
• Privacy Emerges As Main Concern For EU Digital Market Overhaul
• Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 6 social trades on Facebook earnings: Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) topped quarterly expectations on most key metrics Wednesday, and CNBC "Fast Money" traders believe the results will give its stock enough leverage to keep inching higher. The social media giant topped analysts' estimates for earnings, revenue and monthly active users. Still, its shares traded down about 5 percent in extended hours and lingered in negative territory despite paring some losses. Read More Facebook quarterly results beat on most metrics Though the stock sat around $94 per share in the after-hours session, traders contended that it will not stay there long. "I think it's going to blast through $100," said trader Brian Kelly. Traders Dan Nathan and Guy Adami agreed that it would break that level. Adami said he was impressed with Facebook's 55 percent operating margin. Twitter Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) shares were pummeled on Wednesday, falling more than 14 percent a day after executives warned that user growth may stay sluggish for the foreseeable future. The social media company posted earnings and revenue that topped estimates Tuesday, but fell short of projections for monthly active user growth. Read More Twitter shares sink as execs warn on user growth Still, Twitter is a young company with a "unique" platform, said trader Tim Seymour. "If nothing else, someone is a lot closer to buying them," he said. LinkedIn Professional social network LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) reports quarterly earnings on Thursday. Its shares closed Wednesday 1.5 percent higher at $232. Adami contended that it could rise to $250 per share after earnings. "I think you stay with this one," Seymour added. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Dan Nathan Dan is long QQQ sept put, CMG July weekly put spread, JOY sept calls, TWTR, TWTR sept call spreads, SO, BA sept put spread, COST Aug put spread, TJX aug put , PG july weekly put, SLB aug 28th put spread. Story continues Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; ITB, TAN, TLT, TSL, US dollar; he is short Oil, Ruble, Yuan and Yen. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || 6 social trades on Facebook earnings: Facebook(NASDAQ: FB)topped quarterly expectations on most key metrics Wednesday, and CNBC "Fast Money" traders believe the results will give its stock enough leverage to keep inching higher.
The social media giant topped analysts' estimates for earnings, revenue and monthly active users. Still, its shares traded down about 5 percent in extended hours and lingered in negative territory despite paring some losses.
Read MoreFacebook quarterly results beat on most metrics
Though the stock sat around $94 per share in the after-hours session, traders contended that it will not stay there long.
"I think it's going to blast through $100," said trader Brian Kelly.
Traders Dan Nathan and Guy Adami agreed that it would break that level. Adami said he was impressed with Facebook's 55 percent operating margin.
Twitter
Twitter(NYSE: TWTR)shares were pummeled on Wednesday, falling more than 14 percent a day after executives warned that user growth may stay sluggish for the foreseeable future. The social media company posted earnings and revenue that topped estimates Tuesday, but fell short of projections for monthly active user growth.
Read MoreTwitter shares sink as execs warn on user growth
Still, Twitter is a young company with a "unique" platform, said trader Tim Seymour.
"If nothing else, someone is a lot closer to buying them," he said.
LinkedIn
Professional social network LinkedIn(NYSE: LNKD)reports quarterly earnings on Thursday. Its shares closed Wednesday 1.5 percent higher at $232.
Adami contended that it could rise to $250 per share after earnings.
"I think you stay with this one," Seymour added.
Disclosures:
Tim Seymour
Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO.
Dan Nathan
Dan is long QQQ sept put, CMG July weekly put spread, JOY sept calls, TWTR, TWTR sept call spreads, SO, BA sept put spread, COST Aug put spread, TJX aug put , PG july weekly put, SLB aug 28th put spread.
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; ITB, TAN, TLT, TSL, US dollar; he is short Oil, Ruble, Yuan and Yen.
Guy Adami
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Leading Global Bitcoin Adoption, HashingSpace Corporation Uplifts to the OTCQB: US Based Hashingspace Corporation Announced It Has Been Uplifted To A Higher Reporting Status On The OTC Market. Hashingspace Will Now Be Listed As OTCQB: HSHS. Hashingspace Provides Scalable Datacenter and Technology Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin Including Bitcoin Atms and Hosted ASIC Mining WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2015 / HashingSpace Corporation ( HSHS ), a company focused on the global adoption of Bitcoin, announced today that it has officially been uplifted to a higher reporting status. HashingSpace will no longer be listed on the Pink Sheets and has been moved to OTCQB status. HashingSpace Corporation submitted all the mandatory documents and has successfully met all of the initial requirements to receive this upgrade. The upgrade became official on July 23, 2015. "We are pleased to learn that we have been upgraded to a higher status," stated Terry Taylor, Chief Financial Officer of HashingSpace. "This upgrade reflects on our plan to bring better value to our shareholders. This shows that we are current in our SEC compliance reporting and will undergo an annual verification and certification process. Providing accurate information to our investors is a top priority." Included in our new OTCQB designation will be real-time level 2 quote display. Quotes can be found at www.otcmarkets.com . Weekly OTC Market Reports summarizing the activity in our security will be available. All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the new upgrade, OTCQB: HSHS. HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include: - HASHHOSTING Servers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING - CLOUDHASH Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power - HASHMINING Our own Mining Farm - HASHATM Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines - HASHWALLET Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions - HASHPOOL Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid) - HASHTICKER Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid) - HASHVAR A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines Story continues About HashingSpace Corporation HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically. HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information. HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visit www.hashingspace.com . Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visit http://www.hashingspace.com or call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464). Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For more information please visit: http://www.hashingspace.com/ Company Contact: HashingSpace Corporation 5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900 Los Angeles, CA, 90036 855 – HASHING (427-4464) Investor Relations: Email: [email protected] SOURCE: HashingSpace Corporation || Leading Global Bitcoin Adoption, HashingSpace Corporation Uplifts to the OTCQB: US Based Hashingspace Corporation Announced It Has Been Uplifted To A Higher Reporting Status On The OTC Market. Hashingspace Will Now Be Listed As OTCQB: HSHS. Hashingspace Provides Scalable Datacenter and Technology Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin Including Bitcoin Atms and Hosted ASIC Mining
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS), a company focused on the global adoption of Bitcoin, announced today that it has officially been uplifted to a higher reporting status. HashingSpace will no longer be listed on the Pink Sheets and has been moved to OTCQB status.
HashingSpace Corporation submitted all the mandatory documents and has successfully met all of the initial requirements to receive this upgrade. The upgrade became official on July 23, 2015.
"We are pleased to learn that we have been upgraded to a higher status," stated Terry Taylor, Chief Financial Officer of HashingSpace. "This upgrade reflects on our plan to bring better value to our shareholders. This shows that we are current in our SEC compliance reporting and will undergo an annual verification and certification process. Providing accurate information to our investors is a top priority."
Included in our new OTCQB designation will be real-time level 2 quote display. Quotes can be found atwww.otcmarkets.com.
Weekly OTC Market Reports summarizing the activity in our security will be available.
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the new upgrade, OTCQB: HSHS.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
- HASHHOSTINGServers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING- CLOUDHASHCloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power- HASHMININGOur own Mining Farm- HASHATMOwner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines- HASHWALLETBitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions- HASHPOOLPublic Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHTICKERFree Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHVARA wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For more information please visit:http://www.hashingspace.com/
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855 – HASHING (427-4464)
Investor Relations:
Email:[email protected]
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation || Leading Global Bitcoin Adoption, HashingSpace Corporation Uplifts to the OTCQB: US Based Hashingspace Corporation Announced It Has Been Uplifted To A Higher Reporting Status On The OTC Market. Hashingspace Will Now Be Listed As OTCQB: HSHS. Hashingspace Provides Scalable Datacenter and Technology Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin Including Bitcoin Atms and Hosted ASIC Mining
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS), a company focused on the global adoption of Bitcoin, announced today that it has officially been uplifted to a higher reporting status. HashingSpace will no longer be listed on the Pink Sheets and has been moved to OTCQB status.
HashingSpace Corporation submitted all the mandatory documents and has successfully met all of the initial requirements to receive this upgrade. The upgrade became official on July 23, 2015.
"We are pleased to learn that we have been upgraded to a higher status," stated Terry Taylor, Chief Financial Officer of HashingSpace. "This upgrade reflects on our plan to bring better value to our shareholders. This shows that we are current in our SEC compliance reporting and will undergo an annual verification and certification process. Providing accurate information to our investors is a top priority."
Included in our new OTCQB designation will be real-time level 2 quote display. Quotes can be found atwww.otcmarkets.com.
Weekly OTC Market Reports summarizing the activity in our security will be available.
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the new upgrade, OTCQB: HSHS.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
- HASHHOSTINGServers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING- CLOUDHASHCloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power- HASHMININGOur own Mining Farm- HASHATMOwner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines- HASHWALLETBitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions- HASHPOOLPublic Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHTICKERFree Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHVARA wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For more information please visit:http://www.hashingspace.com/
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855 – HASHING (427-4464)
Investor Relations:
Email:[email protected]
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: 261.64€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-05 04:00:03 CEST || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18395.00 INR Sell : 17829.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18543.00 INR Sell : 17965.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 20 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $720.75 #bitcoin #btc || buysellbitco.in #b...
|
278.58, 279.58, 261.00, 265.08, 264.47, 270.39, 266.38, 264.08, 265.68, 261.55
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48, 63326.99, 67566.83, 66971.83, 64995.23, 64949.96, 64155.94, 64469.53, 65466.84, 63557.87, 60161.25, 60368.01, 56942.14, 58119.58, 59697.20, 58730.48, 56289.29, 57569.07, 56280.43, 57274.68, 53569.77, 54815.08, 57248.46, 57806.57.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-11-29]
Volume: 32370840356, RSI (14-day): 47.14, 50-day EMA: 58306.38, 200-day EMA: 49859.12
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1782.30, Gold RSI: 40.91
Oil Price: 69.95, Oil RSI: 32.10
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
First Mover Asia: Bitcoin, Altcoins Rebound From ‘Black Friday’ Plummet: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Market moves:Bitcoin was trading at over $57,000, although investors are nervous about the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Technician’s take (Editor’s Note):Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will include a column in place of the usual Technician’s take.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin: (BTC): $57,254 +4.5%
Ether (ETH): $4,290 +4.5
S&P 500: $4,594 -2.4%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,899 -2.5%
Nasdaq: $15,491 -2.3%
Bitcoin recovered some of its losses from the “Black Friday” shopping day when it declined by more than 8% following news of a new COVID-19 strain called Omicron. At the time of publication, bitcoin was trading over $57,000, up over 4.5%
The World Health OrganizationlabeledOmicron “a variant of concern,” meaning that it could be more transmissible and virulent. The U.S., among other countries,imposedtravel restrictions on South African, where the variant seemed to appear first, and seven other countries in southern Africa.
Prices for most alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) also plummeted on Friday. Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell briefly below $4,000 on Friday and then again on Sunday, despite Ethereum, its underlying blockchain, reaching a new milestone.Datafrom Dune Analytics showed that unique addresses on Ethereum – the total decentralized finance users on the blockchain – broke four million this past week (Note that one user may have multiple addresses). At the time of publication ether had risen to almost $4,300.
Similar tothe traditional asset market, the fate of the crypto market could face weeks of uncertainty as investors await omicron’s potential impact. The bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, which measures market emotions, entered “extreme fear” territory on Saturday, the lowest level since the end of September.
‘Probably Nothing’: Why People Still Hate Crypto: Backlash to Discord potentially integrating an Ethereum wallet shows how skeptical the greater public really is.
(In this column from earlier in the month, CoinDesk writer Daniel Kuhn considers Discord backlash following a tweet by its CEO Jason Citron that the popular messaging platform would be adding crypto functionality and the wider issue of crypto skepticism.)
It ended pretty much the same way it began, with a tweet. Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron yesterday went to reassure users that the popular messaging platform will not be integrating crypto after all. This comes after a period of public backlash, where users threatened to or shared screenshots of deactivating their paid Nitro memberships, over the possibility that Discord would lean into crypto.
Earlier this week, over Twitter, Citron seemed to suggest that someone at Discord was working onEthereum functionality. A screenshot showed MetaMask and WalletConnect, a tool used by many mobile crypto wallets, among the possible integrations alongside existing YouTube, Reddit and Facebook widgets.
“Probably nothing,” Citron said, the ironic phrase used by crypto enthusiasts to say something is a big deal. Indeed, it would be something. People read into the comment that Discord might soon add native tooling useful for non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). Already the chosen home for many Web 3 projects, it seemed like Discord was joining the decentralized legion.
But not everyone was pleased with this potential new direction – a move that would reflect changing consumer behavior and perhaps a value shift at the gaming-focused company. It’s a useful reminder that even as crypto surges, becoming a darling of venture capitalists and a significant cultural and economic field, there’s still a significant amount of people that just don’t like what the industry stands for.
Slacktivists responded to Citron’s tweet calling for others to ditch the platform and cancel their paid subscriptions, one of the main revenue streams for a company that has resisted advertising. Many regurgitated claims of Ethereum’s intense energy use and noted how crypto scams have proliferated on the platform. Others just noted how annoying “NFT bros” can be.
Discord listened. Citron said Wednesday evening the platform has “no current plans” to integrate crypto wallets into its app. Indeed, this was never a formal announcement, and the tooling was likely part of a hackathon.
“We’re excited about the potential for Web 3 technology and the positive ways these communities are coming together on Discord, especially those organized around environmentally friendly, creator-focused projects,” the company told TechCrunch. “However, we also recognize there are some problems we need to work through. For now, we’re focused on protecting users from spams, scams and fraud.”
Web 3, the generic term for a blockchain-based alternative to the internet where users can own their data and hold stake in the tools they use, is a positive development. Outside of legal challenges to monopolistic internet giants, crypto presents the best way to counteract “surveillance capitalism.”
But for those who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid, crypto appears to be hyper-capitalistic, capitalism-plus. It prefers markets over the state to find solutions and protect everyday people. It’s an avenue for the already rich to make almost insultingly large amounts of money. It advances the “neoliberal turn” towards financialization, globalization and commodification of everything.
Although crypto promises a lot – in a phrase, “digital sovereignty” – it hasn’t achieved much over its decade-long existence. (Discounting the $3 trillion market cap.) That was a point repeatedly made last month, when Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supporters took umbrage that the nonprofit focused on digital rights took a stand against overregulation of crypto.
The EFF shared over Twitter an op-ed written by heads of Fight For The Future and the Blockchain Association, two technology lobbying groups, that argued for crypto users to “confront” the “existential threat” of regulation. People were miffed – again, primarily, over environmental concerns and rampant scams. Some vowed to never again financially support the EFF.
Read more:More Firms Embracing the Metaverse and Gaming Stocks Have Already Benefited, Morgan Stanley Says
These are people who conceivably might support crypto from a digital rights and privacy perspective. But like the angry Discord mob, they seem to have already made up their minds about the industry. In both cases, these are likely savvy internet users and are not dismissing crypto out of hand.
There are legitimate reasons to be suspicious of crypto. Its current privacy issues (everything stays on a blockchain) and carbon footprint are solvable. It’ll be harder to reconcile crypto’s capitalistic aims – call it what you want, say bitcoin is for all, but the money doesn’t lie – at a time when more people than ever are skeptical of the economic status quo.
Does crypto subvert the system or play into it? Is the discord it creates adding value? For now, as far most people are concerned, it’s “probably nothing.”
8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia company gross operating profits (Q3)
4 p.m. HKT/SGT (8 a.m. UTC): Spain consumer price index (Nov. YoY)
4:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (8:30 a.m. UTC): Press conference by Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda
5:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (9:30 a.m. UTC): U.K. money supply (Oct. YoY)
In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
(Editor’s Note: Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will replace the usual CoinDesk TV First Mover summary with the Nov. 24 episode of “All About Bitcoin”):
El Salvador Ambassador to the US Emphasizes Bitcoin Leadership, India’s Crypto Ban and More
“All About Bitcoin” host Christine Lee spoke with Bitstamp U.S. Chief Compliance Officer Thomas Hook for an insider look at India’s crypto ban. This comes as El Salvador is doubling down on its bitcoin plan. The episode also includes bitcoin price analysis from Galen Moore, CoinDesk director of data & indexes.
Celsius CFO Arrested on Charges Tied to Former Job at Moshe Hogeg’s Firm
Hackers Are Attacking Cloud Accounts to Mine Cryptocurrencies, Google Says
El Salvador Buys 100 More Bitcoins as Crypto Market Falls
Goldman Says Fed May Accelerate Tapering from January: Report
Grayscale Says Metaverse Is a Trillion-Dollar Market Opportunity
5 Reasons for Crypto to Be Thankful
Today’s Crypto Explainer:Can the Bitcoin Network Scale? || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin, Altcoins Rebound From ‘Black Friday’ Plummet: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Market moves:Bitcoin was trading at over $57,000, although investors are nervous about the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Technician’s take (Editor’s Note):Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will include a column in place of the usual Technician’s take.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin: (BTC): $57,254 +4.5%
Ether (ETH): $4,290 +4.5
S&P 500: $4,594 -2.4%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,899 -2.5%
Nasdaq: $15,491 -2.3%
Bitcoin recovered some of its losses from the “Black Friday” shopping day when it declined by more than 8% following news of a new COVID-19 strain called Omicron. At the time of publication, bitcoin was trading over $57,000, up over 4.5%
The World Health OrganizationlabeledOmicron “a variant of concern,” meaning that it could be more transmissible and virulent. The U.S., among other countries,imposedtravel restrictions on South African, where the variant seemed to appear first, and seven other countries in southern Africa.
Prices for most alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) also plummeted on Friday. Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell briefly below $4,000 on Friday and then again on Sunday, despite Ethereum, its underlying blockchain, reaching a new milestone.Datafrom Dune Analytics showed that unique addresses on Ethereum – the total decentralized finance users on the blockchain – broke four million this past week (Note that one user may have multiple addresses). At the time of publication ether had risen to almost $4,300.
Similar tothe traditional asset market, the fate of the crypto market could face weeks of uncertainty as investors await omicron’s potential impact. The bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, which measures market emotions, entered “extreme fear” territory on Saturday, the lowest level since the end of September.
‘Probably Nothing’: Why People Still Hate Crypto: Backlash to Discord potentially integrating an Ethereum wallet shows how skeptical the greater public really is.
(In this column from earlier in the month, CoinDesk writer Daniel Kuhn considers Discord backlash following a tweet by its CEO Jason Citron that the popular messaging platform would be adding crypto functionality and the wider issue of crypto skepticism.)
It ended pretty much the same way it began, with a tweet. Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron yesterday went to reassure users that the popular messaging platform will not be integrating crypto after all. This comes after a period of public backlash, where users threatened to or shared screenshots of deactivating their paid Nitro memberships, over the possibility that Discord would lean into crypto.
Earlier this week, over Twitter, Citron seemed to suggest that someone at Discord was working onEthereum functionality. A screenshot showed MetaMask and WalletConnect, a tool used by many mobile crypto wallets, among the possible integrations alongside existing YouTube, Reddit and Facebook widgets.
“Probably nothing,” Citron said, the ironic phrase used by crypto enthusiasts to say something is a big deal. Indeed, it would be something. People read into the comment that Discord might soon add native tooling useful for non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). Already the chosen home for many Web 3 projects, it seemed like Discord was joining the decentralized legion.
But not everyone was pleased with this potential new direction – a move that would reflect changing consumer behavior and perhaps a value shift at the gaming-focused company. It’s a useful reminder that even as crypto surges, becoming a darling of venture capitalists and a significant cultural and economic field, there’s still a significant amount of people that just don’t like what the industry stands for.
Slacktivists responded to Citron’s tweet calling for others to ditch the platform and cancel their paid subscriptions, one of the main revenue streams for a company that has resisted advertising. Many regurgitated claims of Ethereum’s intense energy use and noted how crypto scams have proliferated on the platform. Others just noted how annoying “NFT bros” can be.
Discord listened. Citron said Wednesday evening the platform has “no current plans” to integrate crypto wallets into its app. Indeed, this was never a formal announcement, and the tooling was likely part of a hackathon.
“We’re excited about the potential for Web 3 technology and the positive ways these communities are coming together on Discord, especially those organized around environmentally friendly, creator-focused projects,” the company told TechCrunch. “However, we also recognize there are some problems we need to work through. For now, we’re focused on protecting users from spams, scams and fraud.”
Web 3, the generic term for a blockchain-based alternative to the internet where users can own their data and hold stake in the tools they use, is a positive development. Outside of legal challenges to monopolistic internet giants, crypto presents the best way to counteract “surveillance capitalism.”
But for those who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid, crypto appears to be hyper-capitalistic, capitalism-plus. It prefers markets over the state to find solutions and protect everyday people. It’s an avenue for the already rich to make almost insultingly large amounts of money. It advances the “neoliberal turn” towards financialization, globalization and commodification of everything.
Although crypto promises a lot – in a phrase, “digital sovereignty” – it hasn’t achieved much over its decade-long existence. (Discounting the $3 trillion market cap.) That was a point repeatedly made last month, when Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supporters took umbrage that the nonprofit focused on digital rights took a stand against overregulation of crypto.
The EFF shared over Twitter an op-ed written by heads of Fight For The Future and the Blockchain Association, two technology lobbying groups, that argued for crypto users to “confront” the “existential threat” of regulation. People were miffed – again, primarily, over environmental concerns and rampant scams. Some vowed to never again financially support the EFF.
Read more:More Firms Embracing the Metaverse and Gaming Stocks Have Already Benefited, Morgan Stanley Says
These are people who conceivably might support crypto from a digital rights and privacy perspective. But like the angry Discord mob, they seem to have already made up their minds about the industry. In both cases, these are likely savvy internet users and are not dismissing crypto out of hand.
There are legitimate reasons to be suspicious of crypto. Its current privacy issues (everything stays on a blockchain) and carbon footprint are solvable. It’ll be harder to reconcile crypto’s capitalistic aims – call it what you want, say bitcoin is for all, but the money doesn’t lie – at a time when more people than ever are skeptical of the economic status quo.
Does crypto subvert the system or play into it? Is the discord it creates adding value? For now, as far most people are concerned, it’s “probably nothing.”
8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia company gross operating profits (Q3)
4 p.m. HKT/SGT (8 a.m. UTC): Spain consumer price index (Nov. YoY)
4:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (8:30 a.m. UTC): Press conference by Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda
5:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (9:30 a.m. UTC): U.K. money supply (Oct. YoY)
In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
(Editor’s Note: Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will replace the usual CoinDesk TV First Mover summary with the Nov. 24 episode of “All About Bitcoin”):
El Salvador Ambassador to the US Emphasizes Bitcoin Leadership, India’s Crypto Ban and More
“All About Bitcoin” host Christine Lee spoke with Bitstamp U.S. Chief Compliance Officer Thomas Hook for an insider look at India’s crypto ban. This comes as El Salvador is doubling down on its bitcoin plan. The episode also includes bitcoin price analysis from Galen Moore, CoinDesk director of data & indexes.
Celsius CFO Arrested on Charges Tied to Former Job at Moshe Hogeg’s Firm
Hackers Are Attacking Cloud Accounts to Mine Cryptocurrencies, Google Says
El Salvador Buys 100 More Bitcoins as Crypto Market Falls
Goldman Says Fed May Accelerate Tapering from January: Report
Grayscale Says Metaverse Is a Trillion-Dollar Market Opportunity
5 Reasons for Crypto to Be Thankful
Today’s Crypto Explainer:Can the Bitcoin Network Scale? || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin, Altcoins Rebound From ‘Black Friday’ Plummet: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening this morning: Market moves: Bitcoin was trading at over $57,000, although investors are nervous about the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant. Technician’s take (Editor’s Note): Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will include a column in place of the usual Technician’s take. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Prices Bitcoin: ( BTC ): $57,254 +4.5% Ether ( ETH ): $4,290 +4.5 Equity markets S&P 500: $4,594 -2.4% Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,899 -2.5% Nasdaq: $15,491 -2.3% Market moves Bitcoin recovered some of its losses from the “Black Friday” shopping day when it declined by more than 8% following news of a new COVID-19 strain called Omicron. At the time of publication, bitcoin was trading over $57,000, up over 4.5% The World Health Organization labeled Omicron “a variant of concern,” meaning that it could be more transmissible and virulent. The U.S., among other countries, imposed travel restrictions on South African, where the variant seemed to appear first, and seven other countries in southern Africa. Prices for most alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) also plummeted on Friday. Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell briefly below $4,000 on Friday and then again on Sunday, despite Ethereum, its underlying blockchain, reaching a new milestone. Data from Dune Analytics showed that unique addresses on Ethereum – the total decentralized finance users on the blockchain – broke four million this past week (Note that one user may have multiple addresses). At the time of publication ether had risen to almost $4,300. Similar to the traditional asset market , the fate of the crypto market could face weeks of uncertainty as investors await omicron’s potential impact. The bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, which measures market emotions, entered “extreme fear” territory on Saturday, the lowest level since the end of September. Story continues Opinion ‘Probably Nothing’: Why People Still Hate Crypto: Backlash to Discord potentially integrating an Ethereum wallet shows how skeptical the greater public really is. (In this column from earlier in the month, CoinDesk writer Daniel Kuhn considers Discord backlash following a tweet by its CEO Jason Citron that the popular messaging platform would be adding crypto functionality and the wider issue of crypto skepticism.) It ended pretty much the same way it began, with a tweet. Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron yesterday went to reassure users that the popular messaging platform will not be integrating crypto after all. This comes after a period of public backlash, where users threatened to or shared screenshots of deactivating their paid Nitro memberships, over the possibility that Discord would lean into crypto. Earlier this week, over Twitter, Citron seemed to suggest that someone at Discord was working on Ethereum functionality . A screenshot showed MetaMask and WalletConnect, a tool used by many mobile crypto wallets, among the possible integrations alongside existing YouTube, Reddit and Facebook widgets. “Probably nothing,” Citron said, the ironic phrase used by crypto enthusiasts to say something is a big deal. Indeed, it would be something. People read into the comment that Discord might soon add native tooling useful for non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). Already the chosen home for many Web 3 projects, it seemed like Discord was joining the decentralized legion. But not everyone was pleased with this potential new direction – a move that would reflect changing consumer behavior and perhaps a value shift at the gaming-focused company. It’s a useful reminder that even as crypto surges, becoming a darling of venture capitalists and a significant cultural and economic field, there’s still a significant amount of people that just don’t like what the industry stands for. Slacktivists responded to Citron’s tweet calling for others to ditch the platform and cancel their paid subscriptions, one of the main revenue streams for a company that has resisted advertising. Many regurgitated claims of Ethereum’s intense energy use and noted how crypto scams have proliferated on the platform. Others just noted how annoying “NFT bros” can be. Discord listened. Citron said Wednesday evening the platform has “no current plans” to integrate crypto wallets into its app. Indeed, this was never a formal announcement, and the tooling was likely part of a hackathon. “We’re excited about the potential for Web 3 technology and the positive ways these communities are coming together on Discord, especially those organized around environmentally friendly, creator-focused projects,” the company told TechCrunch. “However, we also recognize there are some problems we need to work through. For now, we’re focused on protecting users from spams, scams and fraud.” Web 3, the generic term for a blockchain-based alternative to the internet where users can own their data and hold stake in the tools they use, is a positive development. Outside of legal challenges to monopolistic internet giants, crypto presents the best way to counteract “surveillance capitalism.” But for those who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid, crypto appears to be hyper-capitalistic, capitalism-plus. It prefers markets over the state to find solutions and protect everyday people. It’s an avenue for the already rich to make almost insultingly large amounts of money. It advances the “neoliberal turn” towards financialization, globalization and commodification of everything. Although crypto promises a lot – in a phrase, “digital sovereignty” – it hasn’t achieved much over its decade-long existence. (Discounting the $3 trillion market cap.) That was a point repeatedly made last month, when Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supporters took umbrage that the nonprofit focused on digital rights took a stand against overregulation of crypto. The EFF shared over Twitter an op-ed written by heads of Fight For The Future and the Blockchain Association, two technology lobbying groups, that argued for crypto users to “confront” the “existential threat” of regulation. People were miffed – again, primarily, over environmental concerns and rampant scams. Some vowed to never again financially support the EFF. Read more: More Firms Embracing the Metaverse and Gaming Stocks Have Already Benefited, Morgan Stanley Says These are people who conceivably might support crypto from a digital rights and privacy perspective. But like the angry Discord mob, they seem to have already made up their minds about the industry. In both cases, these are likely savvy internet users and are not dismissing crypto out of hand. There are legitimate reasons to be suspicious of crypto. Its current privacy issues (everything stays on a blockchain) and carbon footprint are solvable. It’ll be harder to reconcile crypto’s capitalistic aims – call it what you want, say bitcoin is for all, but the money doesn’t lie – at a time when more people than ever are skeptical of the economic status quo. Does crypto subvert the system or play into it? Is the discord it creates adding value? For now, as far most people are concerned, it’s “probably nothing.” Important events 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia company gross operating profits (Q3) 4 p.m. HKT/SGT (8 a.m. UTC): Spain consumer price index (Nov. YoY) 4:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (8:30 a.m. UTC): Press conference by Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda 5:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (9:30 a.m. UTC): U.K. money supply (Oct. YoY) CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV : (Editor’s Note: Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will replace the usual CoinDesk TV First Mover summary with the Nov. 24 episode of “ All About Bitcoin ”): El Salvador Ambassador to the US Emphasizes Bitcoin Leadership, India’s Crypto Ban and More “All About Bitcoin” host Christine Lee spoke with Bitstamp U.S. Chief Compliance Officer Thomas Hook for an insider look at India’s crypto ban. This comes as El Salvador is doubling down on its bitcoin plan. The episode also includes bitcoin price analysis from Galen Moore, CoinDesk director of data & indexes. Latest headlines Celsius CFO Arrested on Charges Tied to Former Job at Moshe Hogeg’s Firm Hackers Are Attacking Cloud Accounts to Mine Cryptocurrencies, Google Says El Salvador Buys 100 More Bitcoins as Crypto Market Falls Goldman Says Fed May Accelerate Tapering from January: Report Grayscale Says Metaverse Is a Trillion-Dollar Market Opportunity Longer reads 5 Reasons for Crypto to Be Thankful Today’s Crypto Explainer: Can the Bitcoin Network Scale? || USD/JPY Forex Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Over 113.173 Could Trigger Rally Back to 114.124 – 114.287: The Dollar/Yen plunged on Friday as investors reacted to a sharp break in U.S. Treasury yields which tightened the spread between U.S. Government bonds and Japanese Government bonds, making the U.S. Dollar a less-attractive asset. The Forex pair reversed recent gains which drove the Dollar/Yen to nearly a 5-year high, amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa. On Friday, the USD/JPY settled at 113.343, down 2.032 or -1.76% Two schools of thought were at play on Friday. One claimed thin post-holiday volume exaggerated the selling, while another said fear of the unknown over the new variant was the correct response. It may take two weeks to figure out if this variant is vaccine-resistant and this could fuel more uncertainty. We should know more about how investors feel about the new developments on Monday because the USD/JPY is either going to follow-through to the downside, or recapture some of its losses. Daily USD/JPY Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. The trend turned down on Friday when sellers took out the last swing bottom at 113.591. A trade through 113.055 will signal a resumption of the downtrend and a move through 112.728 will reaffirm the downtrend. The main trend will change to up on a trade through 115.519. The main range is 110.826 to 115.519. On Friday, the USD/JPY tested its retracement zone at 113.173 to 112.619. The short-term range is 112.728 to 115.519. Its 50% level at 114.124 is the first upside target. The new minor range is 115.519 to 113.055. It 50% level or pivot comes in at 114.287. Short-Term Outlook The retracement zone at 113.173 to 112.619 is controlling the near-term direction of the USD/JPY If traders feel that Friday’s move was exaggerated then they could try to establish support inside 113.173 to 112.619. If successful, this could trigger an acceleration to the upside with 114.124 and 114.287 the primary upside targets. Story continues If traders feel there is more to the variant story with further risks to follow then Sellers should take out the lower end of the zone at 112.619. This could trigger the start of an acceleration to the downside with the October 4 main bottom at 110.826 the next likely target. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Eurozone Member State Inflation and FED Chair Powell Put the EUR and USD in Focus ASX200: Company Gross Operating Profits and COVID-19 News to Influence NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Bears Hoping for Start of Sharp Break Under .6805 U.S Mortgage Rates Hold Steady. COVID-19 Could Send Rates back below 3%, However AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume After the Bull Run: Is Another Seismic Bitcoin Crash on the Horizon? || USD/JPY Forex Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Over 113.173 Could Trigger Rally Back to 114.124 – 114.287: The Dollar/Yen plunged on Friday as investors reacted to a sharp break in U.S. Treasury yields which tightened the spread between U.S. Government bonds and Japanese Government bonds, making the U.S. Dollar a less-attractive asset.
The Forex pair reversed recent gains which drove the Dollar/Yen to nearly a 5-year high, amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa.
On Friday, theUSD/JPYsettled at 113.343, down 2.032 or -1.76%
Two schools of thought were at play on Friday. One claimed thin post-holiday volume exaggerated the selling, while another said fear of the unknown over the new variant was the correct response. It may take two weeks to figure out if this variant is vaccine-resistant and this could fuel more uncertainty.
We should know more about how investors feel about the new developments on Monday because the USD/JPY is either going to follow-through to the downside, or recapture some of its losses.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. The trend turned down on Friday when sellers took out the last swing bottom at 113.591. A trade through 113.055 will signal a resumption of the downtrend and a move through 112.728 will reaffirm the downtrend. The main trend will change to up on a trade through 115.519.
The main range is 110.826 to 115.519. On Friday, the USD/JPY tested its retracement zone at 113.173 to 112.619.
The short-term range is 112.728 to 115.519. Its 50% level at 114.124 is the first upside target.
The new minor range is 115.519 to 113.055. It 50% level or pivot comes in at 114.287.
The retracement zone at 113.173 to 112.619 is controlling the near-term direction of the USD/JPY
If traders feel that Friday’s move was exaggerated then they could try to establish support inside 113.173 to 112.619. If successful, this could trigger an acceleration to the upside with 114.124 and 114.287 the primary upside targets.
If traders feel there is more to the variant story with further risks to follow then Sellers should take out the lower end of the zone at 112.619. This could trigger the start of an acceleration to the downside with the October 4 main bottom at 110.826 the next likely target.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• After the Bull Run: Is Another Seismic Bitcoin Crash on the Horizon? || NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Bears Hoping for Start of Sharp Break Under .6805: The New Zealand Dollar hit a more than 3-month low on Friday amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa. The move was part of the overall sell-off that began on October 21 and accelerated this week after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) hiked rates only 25 basis points instead of the 50 basis points that 40% of the market had expected.
On Friday, theNZD/USDsettled at .6821, down 0.0036 or -0.52%.
It’s anyone’s guess how the New Zealand government and the RBNZ will react to the news of the new variant. Most countries have responded with a travel shutdown from countries of origin of the virus with more moves likely to follow as the variant is tracked domestically. Furthermore, scientists expect to know within two weeks whether the variant is resistive to the vaccine. If it is then expect the government and RBNZ to take more aggressive actions, which could further downside pressure on the NZD/USD.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through last week’s low at .6805 will signal a resumption of the downtrend.
The new minor range is .7053 to .6805. Its 50% level at .6929 is new resistance.
The fundamentals are bearish and the trend is down. We don’t expect to see a change in trend but there is room for a short-covering rally back to the minor pivot at .6929. Since the trend is down, short-sellers are likely to defend this level.
On the downside, the market pierced the August 20 main bottom at .6806 before stopping at .6805.
This suggests that new bears were unwilling to sell weakness. This solidifies the chances of a counter-trend rally and new shorting opportunity.
If sellers regroup enough to drive the NZD/USD through .6805 with strong volume then look out to the downside. The daily chart indicates there is no major support until the November 2, 2020 main bottom at .6589.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Earnings Week Ahead: Salesforce, Five Below, Dollar General and Cooper Companies in Focus || NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Bears Hoping for Start of Sharp Break Under .6805: The New Zealand Dollar hit a more than 3-month low on Friday amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa. The move was part of the overall sell-off that began on October 21 and accelerated this week after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) hiked rates only 25 basis points instead of the 50 basis points that 40% of the market had expected. On Friday, the NZD/USD settled at .6821, down 0.0036 or -0.52%. It’s anyone’s guess how the New Zealand government and the RBNZ will react to the news of the new variant. Most countries have responded with a travel shutdown from countries of origin of the virus with more moves likely to follow as the variant is tracked domestically. Furthermore, scientists expect to know within two weeks whether the variant is resistive to the vaccine. If it is then expect the government and RBNZ to take more aggressive actions, which could further downside pressure on the NZD/USD. Daily NZD/USD Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through last week’s low at .6805 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. The new minor range is .7053 to .6805. Its 50% level at .6929 is new resistance. Short-Term Outlook The fundamentals are bearish and the trend is down. We don’t expect to see a change in trend but there is room for a short-covering rally back to the minor pivot at .6929. Since the trend is down, short-sellers are likely to defend this level. On the downside, the market pierced the August 20 main bottom at .6806 before stopping at .6805. This suggests that new bears were unwilling to sell weakness. This solidifies the chances of a counter-trend rally and new shorting opportunity. If sellers regroup enough to drive the NZD/USD through .6805 with strong volume then look out to the downside. The daily chart indicates there is no major support until the November 2, 2020 main bottom at .6589. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – November 29th, 2021 Eurozone Member State Inflation and FED Chair Powell Put the EUR and USD in Focus Omicron Batters Crypto Market, Bitcoin Loses Grip U.S Mortgage Rates Hold Steady. COVID-19 Could Send Rates back below 3%, However Earnings Week Ahead: Salesforce, Five Below, Dollar General and Cooper Companies in Focus View comments || USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Uncertainty Over New Variant Could Slow Fed’s Faster Tapering Plans: The Dollar/Yen finished lower last week after giving back all of its weekly gains in one day amid reports of a recently discovered coronavirus variant. After the news broke late Thursday, investors wasted no time in liquidating riskier positions for the safety of the Japanese Yen in a textbook flight-to-safety reaction.
On Friday, theUSD/JPYsettled at 113.343, down 2.032 or -1.76%.
News of a new coronavirus variant potentially resistant to current vaccines sent investors dashing for the safety of the Japanese Yen on Friday, while the possible unwinding of U.S. rate hike bets weighed on the U.S. Dollar.
The Yen’s gains came at the expense of growth sensitive currencies like the U.S.,AustralianandNew Zealand Dollarsthough thinner volumes after Thursday’s U.S. Thanksgiving holiday made market moves more volatile.
According to early reports, little is known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations that may make it able to evade immune responses and be more transmissible.
Earlier in the week, the Dollar/Yen hit a five-year high, but by the end of the week, the Japanese Yen was in a position to post its best day since March 2020, or near the start of the pandemic.
U.S. Treasury yields slid on Friday, reversing recent gains amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped by more than 15 basis points to 1.485%. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell more than 14 basis points to 1.826%.
Traders said investors started selling U.S. Treasury bonds as fears of a new COVID variant found in South Africa started to rise after the U.K. suspended flights from six African countries. More than 30 mutations have been detected in the new variant, raising concern that it could possibly better evade the antibody protection created by vaccines and prior infections.
Investors will be watching the volume closely on Monday as U.S. banks and institutions return after the extended U.S. holiday. If they feel that Friday’s move was overcooked then look for a snapback rally.
The big worry for Dollar/Yen bulls is the Federal Reserve. They would like to see the Fed continue on a path toward a faster tapering and sooner-than-expected rate hike. However, this all depends on what the experts say about the COVID-19 variant.
If the scientists determine the variant is vaccine resistant then look for the Fed to delay its plans for a speedier tapering. This could pressure yields and consequently the Dollar/Yen.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Preview: What to Expect From Five Below’s Earnings on Wednesday || USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Uncertainty Over New Variant Could Slow Fed’s Faster Tapering Plans: The Dollar/Yen finished lower last week after giving back all of its weekly gains in one day amid reports of a recently discovered coronavirus variant. After the news broke late Thursday, investors wasted no time in liquidating riskier positions for the safety of the Japanese Yen in a textbook flight-to-safety reaction. On Friday, the USD/JPY settled at 113.343, down 2.032 or -1.76%. News of a new coronavirus variant potentially resistant to current vaccines sent investors dashing for the safety of the Japanese Yen on Friday, while the possible unwinding of U.S. rate hike bets weighed on the U.S. Dollar. The Yen’s gains came at the expense of growth sensitive currencies like the U.S., Australian and New Zealand Dollars though thinner volumes after Thursday’s U.S. Thanksgiving holiday made market moves more volatile. According to early reports, little is known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations that may make it able to evade immune responses and be more transmissible. Earlier in the week, the Dollar/Yen hit a five-year high, but by the end of the week, the Japanese Yen was in a position to post its best day since March 2020, or near the start of the pandemic. Treasury Yields Sink Amid Concerns around a New COVID Variant, 10-Year Yield Falls Below 1.5% U.S. Treasury yields slid on Friday, reversing recent gains amid concerns around a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped by more than 15 basis points to 1.485%. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell more than 14 basis points to 1.826%. Traders said investors started selling U.S. Treasury bonds as fears of a new COVID variant found in South Africa started to rise after the U.K. suspended flights from six African countries. More than 30 mutations have been detected in the new variant, raising concern that it could possibly better evade the antibody protection created by vaccines and prior infections. Story continues Short-Term Outlook Investors will be watching the volume closely on Monday as U.S. banks and institutions return after the extended U.S. holiday. If they feel that Friday’s move was overcooked then look for a snapback rally. The big worry for Dollar/Yen bulls is the Federal Reserve. They would like to see the Fed continue on a path toward a faster tapering and sooner-than-expected rate hike. However, this all depends on what the experts say about the COVID-19 variant. If the scientists determine the variant is vaccine resistant then look for the Fed to delay its plans for a speedier tapering. This could pressure yields and consequently the Dollar/Yen. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Eurozone Member State Inflation and FED Chair Powell Put the EUR and USD in Focus Bitcoin and Ethereum – Weekly Technical Analysis – November 29th, 2021 After the Bull Run: Is Another Seismic Bitcoin Crash on the Horizon? European Equities: COVID-19 News and Member State Inflation in Focus Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch – Visa, Shiba Inu and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) in Focus Preview: What to Expect From Five Below’s Earnings on Wednesday || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast Investors Flee Riskier Aussie, Kiwi for Safe-Havens: The Australian and New Zealand Dollar plunged on Friday as investors shed riskier assets for the relative safety of safe-haven currencies following the discovery of a new coronavirus variant that could resist current vaccines. Despite the sharp break, some traders cast doubts on the size of the move with some chalking it up to thin post-holiday volume in the United States following Thursdays Thanksgiving holiday. On Friday, the AUD/USD settled at .7122, down 0.0113 or -1.56% and the NZD/USD finished at .6821, down 0.0176 or -2.52%. Overnight headlines ahead of Fridays opening took traders by surprise with little known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations and may be able to evade immune responses or make it more transmissible. The move by the Aussie and Kiwi were described as textbook as investors fled the currencies and moved their money into the traditional safe-havens U.S. Treasury bonds, U.S. Dollar, Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc. Compounding the excessive selling pressure was thin liquidity. This was especially seen in the unwinding of Australian and New Zealand Government bond positions. Australian Retail Sales Surge in October as Economy Revives Australian retail sales rebounded with a bang in October as the lifting of many stay-at-home restrictions unleashed a wave of pent-up shopping, further evidence the economy is recovering rapidly from a pandemic-induced slump, Reuters reported. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics out on Friday showed retail sales jumped 4.9% in October to A$31.1 billion ($22.31 billion), extending Septembers already strong 1.7% bounce. That was almost double market forecasts of a 2.5% rise, with clothing stores boasting gains of almost 28%; department stores 22% and restaurants 12%. The cash slash means the A$360 billion retail sector will make a major contribution to economic growth, Reuters said. Story continues Real consumer spending could bounce back by 10% this quarter, leaving it very close to its pre-delta peak, said Marcel Thieliant, a senior economist at Capital Economics. And with the household savings rate still very high, consumption will continue to expand at a rapid pace next year. Short-Term Outlook Aussie and Kiwi traders may decide to delay their reactions to any economic news until they get some clarity about the potential impact from the new COVID-19 variant. As of Fridays close there is just too much uncertainty over how rapidly it is spreading and how the governments of Australia and New Zealand are likely to respond to the new developments. For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Omicron Batters Crypto Market, Bitcoin Loses Grip Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch Visa, Shiba Inu and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) in Focus The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers November 28th, 2021 NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Bears Hoping for Start of Sharp Break Under .6805 Earnings Week Ahead: Salesforce, Five Below, Dollar General and Cooper Companies in Focus AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast Investors Flee Riskier Aussie, Kiwi for Safe-Havens || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Investors Flee Riskier Aussie, Kiwi for Safe-Havens: The Australian and New Zealand Dollar plunged on Friday as investors shed riskier assets for the relative safety of safe-haven currencies following the discovery of a new coronavirus variant that could resist current vaccines. Despite the sharp break, some traders cast doubts on the size of the move with some chalking it up to thin post-holiday volume in the United States following Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday.
On Friday, theAUD/USDsettled at .7122, down 0.0113 or -1.56% and theNZD/USDfinished at .6821, down 0.0176 or -2.52%.
Overnight headlines ahead of Friday’s opening took traders by surprise with little known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations and may be able to evade immune responses or make it more transmissible.
The move by the Aussie and Kiwi were described as textbook as investors fled the currencies and moved their money into the traditional safe-havens – U.S. Treasury bonds, U.S. Dollar, Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc. Compounding the excessive selling pressure was thin liquidity. This was especially seen in the unwinding of Australian and New Zealand Government bond positions.
Australian retail salesrebounded with a bang in October as the lifting of many stay-at-home restrictions unleashed a wave of pent-up shopping, further evidence the economy is recovering rapidly from a pandemic-induced slump, Reuters reported.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics out on Friday showed retail sales jumped 4.9% in October to A$31.1 billion ($22.31 billion), extending September’s already strong 1.7% bounce. That was almost double market forecasts of a 2.5% rise, with clothing stores boasting gains of almost 28%; department stores 22% and restaurants 12%.
The cash slash means the A$360 billion retail sector will make a major contribution to economic growth, Reuters said.
“Real consumer spending could bounce back by 10% this quarter, leaving it very close to its pre-delta peak,” said Marcel Thieliant, a senior economist at Capital Economics. “And with the household savings rate still very high, consumption will continue to expand at a rapid pace next year.”
Aussie and Kiwi traders may decide to delay their reactions to any economic news until they get some clarity about the potential impact from the new COVID-19 variant. As of Friday’s close there is just too much uncertainty over how rapidly it is spreading and how the governments of Australia and New Zealand are likely to respond to the new developments.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Omicron Batters Crypto Market, Bitcoin Loses Grip
• Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch – Visa, Shiba Inu and SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) in Focus
• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 28th, 2021
• NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Bears Hoping for Start of Sharp Break Under .6805
• Earnings Week Ahead: Salesforce, Five Below, Dollar General and Cooper Companies in Focus
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Investors Flee Riskier Aussie, Kiwi for Safe-Havens || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume: News of a new coronavirus variant potentially resistance to current vaccines encouraged Australian Dollar investors to seek shelter in safe-havens such as the U.S. Dollar, Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc on Friday. Little is known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations that may make it able to evade immune responses and be more transmissible. On Friday, the AUD/USD settled at .7122, down 0.0067 or -0.93%. News of the new variant likely means another government shutdown of travel and perhaps areas of the country at risk. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the new variant and we may not know its potential impact for about two weeks. In the meantime, traders are expected to remain on edge, which means expectations of heightened volatility. Daily AUD/USD Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through .7113 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. A move through the August 20 main bottom at .7106 will reaffirm the downtrend. On the upside, the first minor resistance is a 50% level at .7242, followed by a minor retracement zone at .7272 to .7310. Short-Term Outlook The fundamentals are bearish and another COVID wave would likely further delay any rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The down trend means traders will likely sell rallies into the retracement levels at .7242, .7272 and .7310. Aggressive counter-trend buyers may have come in at .7113 on Friday to defend the August 20 main bottom at .7106, but we think that this is just the calm before the storm. Taking out .7106 with a new wave of selling pressure would likely trigger an acceleration to the downside with the November 2, 2020 main bottom at .6991 the next target. For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Omicron Batters Crypto Market, Bitcoin Loses Grip iShares Semiconductor ETF is Still a Strong ETF Despite Recent Dip The Week Ahead Central Bank Chatter, Economic Data, and COVID-19 in Focus AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume U.S Mortgage Rates Hold Steady. COVID-19 Could Send Rates back below 3%, However USD/JPY Forex Technical Analysis Sustained Move Over 113.173 Could Trigger Rally Back to 114.124 114.287 || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume: News of a new coronavirus variant potentially resistance to current vaccines encouraged Australian Dollar investors to seek shelter in safe-havens such as the U.S. Dollar, Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc on Friday.
Little is known of the new COVID-19 variant, detected in South Africa Botswana and Hong Kong. But scientists reckon it has an unusual combination of mutations that may make it able to evade immune responses and be more transmissible.
On Friday, theAUD/USDsettled at .7122, down 0.0067 or -0.93%.
News of the new variant likely means another government shutdown of travel and perhaps areas of the country at risk. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the new variant and we may not know its potential impact for about two weeks. In the meantime, traders are expected to remain on edge, which means expectations of heightened volatility.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through .7113 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. A move through the August 20 main bottom at .7106 will reaffirm the downtrend.
On the upside, the first minor resistance is a 50% level at .7242, followed by a minor retracement zone at .7272 to .7310.
The fundamentals are bearish and another COVID wave would likely further delay any rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).
The down trend means traders will likely sell rallies into the retracement levels at .7242, .7272 and .7310.
Aggressive counter-trend buyers may have come in at .7113 on Friday to defend the August 20 main bottom at .7106, but we think that this is just the calm before the storm.
Taking out .7106 with a new wave of selling pressure would likely trigger an acceleration to the downside with the November 2, 2020 main bottom at .6991 the next target.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Omicron Batters Crypto Market, Bitcoin Loses Grip
• iShares Semiconductor ETF is Still a Strong ETF Despite Recent Dip
• The Week Ahead – Central Bank Chatter, Economic Data, and COVID-19 in Focus
• AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Likely to Plunge to .6991 if .7106 is Taken Out With Heavy Selling Volume
• U.S Mortgage Rates Hold Steady. COVID-19 Could Send Rates back below 3%, However
• USD/JPY Forex Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Over 113.173 Could Trigger Rally Back to 114.124 – 114.287 || ASX200: Company Gross Operating Profits and COVID-19 News to Influence: Company Gross Operating Profits (QoQ) (Q3)
Building Approvals (MoM) (Oct)
Current Account (Q3)
Private Sector Credit (MoM) (Oct)
AIG Manufacturing Index (Nov)
GDP (YoY) (Q3)
GDP (QoQ) (Q3)
Trade Balance (Oct)
It was a bearish end to the week for the ASX200 on Friday.
Reversing a 0.11% gain from Thursday, the ASX200 slid by 1.73% to end the day at 7,279.
Upbeat retail sales figures for October failed to provide support, with a flight to safety sinking the index on the day.
News of a new COVID-19 strain and government plans to contain the spread of the more virulent strain led to a broad-based equity market sell-off.
In October, retail sales jumped by 4.9% versus a forecasted 2.5% rise, according to prelim figures. Retail sales had risen by 1.3% in September.
According to theABS,
• Food retailing fell by 0.5%, while household goods retailing increased by 4.5% in the month.
• There were also increases in retailing for:Clothing, footwear, & personal accessories (+27.7%).Department stores (+22.4%).Other retailing (+2.2%).Cafes, restaurants, & takeaway food services (+12.3%).
It was a bearish day for the banks.Macquarie Groupled the way down, sliding by 3.22%, withNABandWestpacseeing heavy losses of 2.37% and 2.54% respectively.CBAandANZended the day down by 1.00% and by 0.73% respectively.
Commodity stocks also took a hit.Fortescue Metals Group Ltdslid by 3.86% to lead the way down, withRio TintoandBHP Groupending the day down by 2.25% and by 1.53% respectively.Newcrest Miningbucked the trend, however, rising by 0.83%.
Elsewhere, it was also a bearish session. The Nikkei and the Hang Seng Index slid by 2.53% and by 2.67% respectively, with the CSI300 falling by 0.74%.
It’s another relatively quiet day ahead on the Aussieeconomic calendar. Company gross operating profit figures for the 3rdquarter will be in focus later this morning.
While the figures tend to draw plenty of interest, COVID-19 news will remain the key driver on the day. The markets will be looking for updates on the new strain’s resilience against existing vaccines…
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• After the Bull Run: Is Another Seismic Bitcoin Crash on the Horizon?
• AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – News Driven Market Strengthens Over .7113, Weakens Under .7106
• European Equities: COVID-19 News and Member State Inflation in Focus
• ASX200: Company Gross Operating Profits and COVID-19 News to Influence
• Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – November 29th, 2021
• iShares Semiconductor ETF is Still a Strong ETF Despite Recent Dip || ASX200: Company Gross Operating Profits and COVID-19 News to Influence: Economic Calendar Monday, 29 th November Company Gross Operating Profits (QoQ) (Q3) Tuesday, 30 th November Building Approvals (MoM) (Oct) Current Account (Q3) Private Sector Credit (MoM) (Oct) Wednesday, 1 st December AIG Manufacturing Index (Nov) GDP (YoY) (Q3) GDP (QoQ) (Q3) Thursday, 2 nd December Trade Balance (Oct) The ASX200 It was a bearish end to the week for the ASX200 on Friday. Reversing a 0.11% gain from Thursday, the ASX200 slid by 1.73% to end the day at 7,279. Upbeat retail sales figures for October failed to provide support, with a flight to safety sinking the index on the day. News of a new COVID-19 strain and government plans to contain the spread of the more virulent strain led to a broad-based equity market sell-off. The Stats In October, retail sales jumped by 4.9% versus a forecasted 2.5% rise, according to prelim figures. Retail sales had risen by 1.3% in September. According to the ABS , Food retailing fell by 0.5%, while household goods retailing increased by 4.5% in the month. There were also increases in retailing for: Clothing, footwear, & personal accessories (+27.7%). Department stores (+22.4%). Other retailing (+2.2%). Cafes, restaurants, & takeaway food services (+12.3%). The Market Movers It was a bearish day for the banks. Macquarie Group led the way down, sliding by 3.22%, with NAB and Westpac seeing heavy losses of 2.37% and 2.54% respectively. CBA and ANZ ended the day down by 1.00% and by 0.73% respectively. Commodity stocks also took a hit. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd slid by 3.86% to lead the way down, with Rio Tinto and BHP Group ending the day down by 2.25% and by 1.53% respectively. Newcrest Mining bucked the trend, however, rising by 0.83%. Other Asian Markets Elsewhere, it was also a bearish session. The Nikkei and the Hang Seng Index slid by 2.53% and by 2.67% respectively, with the CSI300 falling by 0.74%. The Day Ahead It’s another relatively quiet day ahead on the Aussie economic calendar . Company gross operating profit figures for the 3 rd quarter will be in focus later this morning. Story continues While the figures tend to draw plenty of interest, COVID-19 news will remain the key driver on the day. The markets will be looking for updates on the new strain’s resilience against existing vaccines… This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: After the Bull Run: Is Another Seismic Bitcoin Crash on the Horizon? AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – News Driven Market Strengthens Over .7113, Weakens Under .7106 European Equities: COVID-19 News and Member State Inflation in Focus ASX200: Company Gross Operating Profits and COVID-19 News to Influence Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – November 29th, 2021 iShares Semiconductor ETF is Still a Strong ETF Despite Recent Dip || Here’s why Congress is so worried about the Tether stablecoin: Bitcoin and all the other digital cryptocurrencies out there have had a massive year so far, with several of them reaching new all-time high valuations. Bitcoin’s latest high was just above $69,000 a few days ago, but other digital tokens have witnessed similar surges this year. As more money poured in digital coins and more companies started buying bitcoin, scrutiny from US regulators intensified. Some of the most notable developments include the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple and the bitcoin tax provisions in the infrastructure bill. Joining the list is a new US Congress investigation of Tether. That’s a company that issues a digital US dollar cryptocurrency of the same name that has no connection with the US government. It’s a “stablecoin” pegged to the dollar, meaning that a single tether will always have a value of one dollar. But, with a tether supply of $73 billion, regulators are increasingly concerned about this particular stablecoin. Today's Top Deals These are the best Cyber Monday deals everyone is buying in 2021 Brand new AirPods Pro with MagSafe have a massive Cyber Monday discount you won't believe This hidden page has all the deepest discounts of Cyber Monday 2021! Don't Miss : 150+ Amazon Cyber Monday 2021 deals you can already get now The purpose of stablecoins like tether People looking to invest in bitcoin and other digital tokens have two ways of doing it. One involves minting the coins using expensive computers that need the latest GPUs or dedicated mining processors. The other is much simpler, as it involves buying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from exchanges. The latter involves funding an account with debit cards or credit cards or transfers from a bank account. PayPal also supports bitcoin purchases and works with exchanges like Coinbase . But buyers might not be able to pay with regular fiat for specific cryptocurrencies. Or they might not be able to access certain exchanges or specific digital tokens. That’s where tether comes into play. Story continues You can buy tether at an exchange, then swap it for tether without losing any value. You can then transfer tether to a different exchange almost instantly and purchase the coin you want. It’s not just tether that works like that. You can use other stablecoins for the same purpose. But US Congress is explicitly interested in how Tether (the company) issues tether. The US Congress investigation On Tuesday, the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban sent a letter to Tether CEO Jean-Louis van der Velde. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spearheaded the effort as the chair of the Committee. Worth noting: Senator Sherrod Brown's questions are addressed to #Tether CEO Jean Louis van der Velde, who hasn't been seen or heard from in years (though I've been told he may live in Hong Kong). pic.twitter.com/gHvjsvnOnq — Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) November 24, 2021 Brown sent similar letters to various companies, not just Tether. The list includes crypto exchanges and other stablecoin issuers: Coinbase, Gemini, Paxos, TrustToken, Binance.US, and Centre. Brown says that “stablecoins present investor protection risks and raise several market integrity concerns.” That’s why he’s seeking more information from all these companies. Tether might be the biggest worry, as it’s the most popular stablecoin out there. Tether has been at the center of other inquiries in the past. They are all looking to determine whether the company has actual US dollar reserves to match the number of tether tokens in circulation. A report from Bloomberg revealed last month that $48 billion worth of tether were issued this year, out of a total of $69 billion. Since then, the number of tether in circulation has increased to $73 billion, and the figure is rising. A tether collapse might have massive repercussions on the entire crypto landscape and could impact the financial system. Brown’s letter has six questions for Tether, with the senator giving the company until December 3rd to respond. Questions from the US Congress for Tether Here are Brown’s questions, as listed in the letter: Please describe the basic purchase, exchange, or minting process[es] by which customers can acquire Tether for US dollars. In your answer, explain any relevant limitations or qualifications to engaging in and completing that process. Please detail the process to redeem Tether and receive US dollars. Here, also, identify any requirements or limits, including any minimum redemption size, waiting period, or qualifications. Since Tether’s inception, how many Tether tokens have been issued, and how many have been redeemed? Over the last 12 months, what is the greatest percentage of the Tether in circulation at the beginning of a calendar week to be redeemed in the subsequent seven days? Briefly characterize the market or operational conditions that would prevent the purchase, or redemption, of Tether for US dollars, or another digital asset. For purposes of answering this question, do not list or describe legal or regulatory limitations currently described in a user agreement or terms of service. For each condition identified, please provide at least one example that occurred in the past 12 months and its duration. Please identify any trading platforms that have enhanced capabilities, privileges, or special arrangements with respect to Tether, identifying those features and their basis (e.g., contractual or common control). Please summarize any internal reviews or studies your company has conducted about how specific levels of redemptions would affect Tether, including its convertibility into US dollars, or would affect the financial position of your company. See the original version of this article on BGR.com || Here’s why Congress is so worried about the Tether stablecoin: Bitcoin and all the other digital cryptocurrencies out there have had a massive year so far, with several of them reaching new all-time high valuations. Bitcoin’s latest high was just above $69,000 a few days ago, but other digital tokens have witnessed similar surges this year. As more money poured in digital coins and more companies started buying bitcoin, scrutiny from US regulators intensified. Some of the most notable developments include the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple and the bitcoin tax provisions in the infrastructure bill. Joining the list is a new US Congress investigation of Tether. That’s a company that issues a digital US dollar cryptocurrency of the same name that has no connection with the US government. It’s a “stablecoin” pegged to the dollar, meaning that a single tether will always have a value of one dollar. But, with a tether supply of $73 billion, regulators are increasingly concerned about this particular stablecoin. Today's Top Deals These are the best Cyber Monday deals everyone is buying in 2021 Brand new AirPods Pro with MagSafe have a massive Cyber Monday discount you won't believe This hidden page has all the deepest discounts of Cyber Monday 2021! Don't Miss : 150+ Amazon Cyber Monday 2021 deals you can already get now The purpose of stablecoins like tether People looking to invest in bitcoin and other digital tokens have two ways of doing it. One involves minting the coins using expensive computers that need the latest GPUs or dedicated mining processors. The other is much simpler, as it involves buying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from exchanges. The latter involves funding an account with debit cards or credit cards or transfers from a bank account. PayPal also supports bitcoin purchases and works with exchanges like Coinbase . But buyers might not be able to pay with regular fiat for specific cryptocurrencies. Or they might not be able to access certain exchanges or specific digital tokens. That’s where tether comes into play. Story continues You can buy tether at an exchange, then swap it for tether without losing any value. You can then transfer tether to a different exchange almost instantly and purchase the coin you want. It’s not just tether that works like that. You can use other stablecoins for the same purpose. But US Congress is explicitly interested in how Tether (the company) issues tether. The US Congress investigation On Tuesday, the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban sent a letter to Tether CEO Jean-Louis van der Velde. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spearheaded the effort as the chair of the Committee. Worth noting: Senator Sherrod Brown's questions are addressed to #Tether CEO Jean Louis van der Velde, who hasn't been seen or heard from in years (though I've been told he may live in Hong Kong). pic.twitter.com/gHvjsvnOnq — Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) November 24, 2021 Brown sent similar letters to various companies, not just Tether. The list includes crypto exchanges and other stablecoin issuers: Coinbase, Gemini, Paxos, TrustToken, Binance.US, and Centre. Brown says that “stablecoins present investor protection risks and raise several market integrity concerns.” That’s why he’s seeking more information from all these companies. Tether might be the biggest worry, as it’s the most popular stablecoin out there. Tether has been at the center of other inquiries in the past. They are all looking to determine whether the company has actual US dollar reserves to match the number of tether tokens in circulation. A report from Bloomberg revealed last month that $48 billion worth of tether were issued this year, out of a total of $69 billion. Since then, the number of tether in circulation has increased to $73 billion, and the figure is rising. A tether collapse might have massive repercussions on the entire crypto landscape and could impact the financial system. Brown’s letter has six questions for Tether, with the senator giving the company until December 3rd to respond. Questions from the US Congress for Tether Here are Brown’s questions, as listed in the letter: Please describe the basic purchase, exchange, or minting process[es] by which customers can acquire Tether for US dollars. In your answer, explain any relevant limitations or qualifications to engaging in and completing that process. Please detail the process to redeem Tether and receive US dollars. Here, also, identify any requirements or limits, including any minimum redemption size, waiting period, or qualifications. Since Tether’s inception, how many Tether tokens have been issued, and how many have been redeemed? Over the last 12 months, what is the greatest percentage of the Tether in circulation at the beginning of a calendar week to be redeemed in the subsequent seven days? Briefly characterize the market or operational conditions that would prevent the purchase, or redemption, of Tether for US dollars, or another digital asset. For purposes of answering this question, do not list or describe legal or regulatory limitations currently described in a user agreement or terms of service. For each condition identified, please provide at least one example that occurred in the past 12 months and its duration. Please identify any trading platforms that have enhanced capabilities, privileges, or special arrangements with respect to Tether, identifying those features and their basis (e.g., contractual or common control). Please summarize any internal reviews or studies your company has conducted about how specific levels of redemptions would affect Tether, including its convertibility into US dollars, or would affect the financial position of your company. See the original version of this article on BGR.com || Forget Cathie Wood’s $500K Bitcoin call — the new price target is $560K: After a glorious rally in October, Bitcoin has pulled back below $60,000. Still, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood remains optimistic about the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
In fact, she’s even more bullish than before.
Last week, Wood told Barron’s that if “institutional investors move into Bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,” the price of the cryptocurrency would soar to about $560,000 by 2026.
Her latest projection implies an upside of over 800%. That might seem far-fetched, but remember Wood was right on the money when she predicted a 1,200% upside in Tesla.
So here’s a look at a couple of ways to play the crypto boom — including options withsmall price tags and zero commissions.
Wood herself is offering a new way to invest in cryptocurrency. In September, Ark Next Generation Internet ETF tweaked its prospectus to include exposure to Bitcoin via Canadian ETFs.
The first bitcoin ETF on the New York Stock Exchange started trading last month, but Canada has been ahead of the U.S. for a while. Several Bitcoin ETFs launched in Canada this year, including Purpose Bitcoin ETF, 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF and Evolve Bitcoin ETF.
In the U.S., the debut of the ProShare Bitcoin Strategy ETF was arguably a major catalyst behind Bitcoin’s rally in October. The fund holds bitcoin futures contracts that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Investors who want exposure to the crypto market can invest in these ETFs, but you can also buy Bitcoin directly. Some investing apps allow you to buy both cryptocurrencies and ETFscommission-free.
Companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market provide another way for investors to benefit from the crypto rally.
For instance, enterprise software company MicroStrategy purchased 9,000 bitcoins in Q3. That brings its total bitcoin count to 114,042, a stockpile worth roughly $6.7 billion.
Because of MicroStrategy’s huge Bitcoin stake, some investors have used it as a proxy for investing in the cryptocurrency. In the past, rallies in Bitcoin usually led to similar moves in MicroStrategy’s share price.
Then there’s Riot Blockchain, which mines Bitcoin and hosts Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. Thanks to soaring Bitcoin prices, Riot shares have returned a staggering 492% over the past 12 months.
Investors can also check out Coinbase, which runs the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. The company’s share price fell below its IPO price of $250 during the summer, but the pop in cryptocurrencies last month has brought it back to over $300.
And while crypto stocks can be pricey, you can get a piece of these companies using a popular app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you’re willing to spend.
At the end of the day, cryptocurrencies are volatile. Not everyone feels comfortable holding an asset that seems to make wild swings every week.
If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market and the crypto market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset:fine art.
Contemporary artwork has already outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174% over the past 25 years, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart.
Investing in art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich, like Wood. But with a new investing platform, you caninvest in iconic artworks, too, just like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || Forget Cathie Wood’s $500K Bitcoin call — the new price target is $560K: Forget Cathie Wood’s $500K Bitcoin call — the new price target is $560K After a glorious rally in October, Bitcoin has pulled back below $60,000. Still, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood remains optimistic about the world’s largest cryptocurrency. In fact, she’s even more bullish than before. Last week, Wood told Barron’s that if “institutional investors move into Bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,” the price of the cryptocurrency would soar to about $560,000 by 2026. Her latest projection implies an upside of over 800%. That might seem far-fetched, but remember Wood was right on the money when she predicted a 1,200% upside in Tesla. So here’s a look at a couple of ways to play the crypto boom — including options with small price tags and zero commissions . Bitcoin ETFs lp-studio / Shutterstock Wood herself is offering a new way to invest in cryptocurrency. In September, Ark Next Generation Internet ETF tweaked its prospectus to include exposure to Bitcoin via Canadian ETFs. The first bitcoin ETF on the New York Stock Exchange started trading last month, but Canada has been ahead of the U.S. for a while. Several Bitcoin ETFs launched in Canada this year, including Purpose Bitcoin ETF, 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF and Evolve Bitcoin ETF. In the U.S., the debut of the ProShare Bitcoin Strategy ETF was arguably a major catalyst behind Bitcoin’s rally in October. The fund holds bitcoin futures contracts that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Investors who want exposure to the crypto market can invest in these ETFs, but you can also buy Bitcoin directly. Some investing apps allow you to buy both cryptocurrencies and ETFs commission-free . Cryptocurrency stocks JOCA_PH / Shutterstock Companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market provide another way for investors to benefit from the crypto rally. For instance, enterprise software company MicroStrategy purchased 9,000 bitcoins in Q3. That brings its total bitcoin count to 114,042, a stockpile worth roughly $6.7 billion. Because of MicroStrategy’s huge Bitcoin stake, some investors have used it as a proxy for investing in the cryptocurrency. In the past, rallies in Bitcoin usually led to similar moves in MicroStrategy’s share price. Story continues Then there’s Riot Blockchain, which mines Bitcoin and hosts Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. Thanks to soaring Bitcoin prices, Riot shares have returned a staggering 492% over the past 12 months. Investors can also check out Coinbase, which runs the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. The company’s share price fell below its IPO price of $250 during the summer, but the pop in cryptocurrencies last month has brought it back to over $300. And while crypto stocks can be pricey, you can get a piece of these companies using a popular app that allows you to buy fractions of shares with as much money as you’re willing to spend. A 'finer' alternative? Giorgiolo / Shutterstock At the end of the day, cryptocurrencies are volatile. Not everyone feels comfortable holding an asset that seems to make wild swings every week. If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market and the crypto market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset: fine art . Contemporary artwork has already outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174% over the past 25 years, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart. Investing in art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich, like Wood. But with a new investing platform, you can invest in iconic artworks , too, just like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || Forget Cathie Wood’s $500K Bitcoin call — the new price target is $560K: After a glorious rally in October, Bitcoin has pulled back below $60,000. Still, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood remains optimistic about the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
In fact, she’s even more bullish than before.
Last week, Wood told Barron’s that if “institutional investors move into Bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,” the price of the cryptocurrency would soar to about $560,000 by 2026.
Her latest projection implies an upside of over 800%. That might seem far-fetched, but remember Wood was right on the money when she predicted a 1,200% upside in Tesla.
So here’s a look at a couple of ways to play the crypto boom — including options withsmall price tags and zero commissions.
Wood herself is offering a new way to invest in cryptocurrency. In September, Ark Next Generation Internet ETF tweaked its prospectus to include exposure to Bitcoin via Canadian ETFs.
The first bitcoin ETF on the New York Stock Exchange started trading last month, but Canada has been ahead of the U.S. for a while. Several Bitcoin ETFs launched in Canada this year, including Purpose Bitcoin ETF, 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF and Evolve Bitcoin ETF.
In the U.S., the debut of the ProShare Bitcoin Strategy ETF was arguably a major catalyst behind Bitcoin’s rally in October. The fund holds bitcoin futures contracts that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Investors who want exposure to the crypto market can invest in these ETFs, but you can also buy Bitcoin directly. Some investing apps allow you to buy both cryptocurrencies and ETFscommission-free.
Companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market provide another way for investors to benefit from the crypto rally.
For instance, enterprise software company MicroStrategy purchased 9,000 bitcoins in Q3. That brings its total bitcoin count to 114,042, a stockpile worth roughly $6.7 billion.
Because of MicroStrategy’s huge Bitcoin stake, some investors have used it as a proxy for investing in the cryptocurrency. In the past, rallies in Bitcoin usually led to similar moves in MicroStrategy’s share price.
Then there’s Riot Blockchain, which mines Bitcoin and hosts Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. Thanks to soaring Bitcoin prices, Riot shares have returned a staggering 492% over the past 12 months.
Investors can also check out Coinbase, which runs the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. The company’s share price fell below its IPO price of $250 during the summer, but the pop in cryptocurrencies last month has brought it back to over $300.
And while crypto stocks can be pricey, you can get a piece of these companies using a popular app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you’re willing to spend.
At the end of the day, cryptocurrencies are volatile. Not everyone feels comfortable holding an asset that seems to make wild swings every week.
If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market and the crypto market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset:fine art.
Contemporary artwork has already outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174% over the past 25 years, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart.
Investing in art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich, like Wood. But with a new investing platform, you caninvest in iconic artworks, too, just like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
57005.43, 57229.83, 56477.82, 53598.25, 49200.70, 49368.85, 50582.62, 50700.09, 50504.80, 47672.12
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 9190.85, 9137.99, 9228.33, 9123.41, 9087.30, 9132.49, 9073.94, 9375.47, 9252.28, 9428.33, 9277.97, 9278.81, 9240.35, 9276.50, 9243.61, 9243.21, 9192.84, 9132.23, 9151.39, 9159.04, 9185.82, 9164.23, 9374.89, 9525.36, 9581.07, 9536.89, 9677.11, 9905.17, 10990.87, 10912.82, 11100.47, 11111.21, 11323.47, 11759.59, 11053.61, 11246.35, 11205.89, 11747.02, 11779.77, 11601.47, 11754.05, 11675.74, 11878.11, 11410.53, 11584.93, 11784.14, 11768.87, 11865.70, 11892.80, 12254.40, 11991.23, 11758.28, 11878.37, 11592.49, 11681.83, 11664.85, 11774.60, 11366.13, 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82, 11970.48, 11414.03, 10245.30, 10511.81, 10169.57, 10280.35, 10369.56, 10131.52, 10242.35, 10363.14, 10400.92, 10442.17, 10323.76, 10680.84, 10796.95, 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-09-26]
Volume: 46852525493, RSI (14-day): 49.54, 50-day EMA: 10795.31, 200-day EMA: 9844.33
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Two Experts, Same Forecast: The elite pedigree behind our newest analyst … what he and Matt McCall see coming in the crypto world
Here’s how the text exchange went:
“Go on the send bitcoin page now.”
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
“Can we do a test? I want to try doing a send back and forth if we can. But I hope you’re not offended that I’m not super trusting of people on the internet yet. My son usually helps me with this stuff but he’s not around.”
“Well I feel slightly offended but it’s alright although I’ll be glad if you would just follow my instructions which I’m sure will cause you no problems.”
The above exchange took place between a bitcoin expert and a scammer about a year ago.
Ben Perrin runs a YouTube channel that educates investors about bitcoin.
He was amused when he received an unsolicited Instagram message offering to double his investment if he’d just send thousands of dollars’ worth of bitcoin to this investment “expert.”
Playing along, Perrin pretended to be a bitcoin newcomer.
He created a fake bitcoin wallet, then responded to the scammer, claiming he would gladly send $20,000 if the scammer would first send $100, just to make sure everything was legit.
The scammer met Perrin halfway, sending him $50.
Here’s theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC) with the rest of the story:
Perrin then dropped the bluff, called the fraudster out, and let them know he donated their money to charity.
He sent the money to Bitcoin Venezuela, which helps people there buy food using the cryptocurrency, as the Venezuelan bolivar has collapsed.
Though the above scam is easy to see, discerning between true bitcoin experts andself-proclaimedbitcoin experts, who have no real expertise, is a bit trickier.
After all, anyone who held their breath and bought some bitcoin, say, around the beginning of last year, when it was trading at about $4,000, could easily claim “I’m up over 150%. I’m clearly an expert.”
I bring this up as Matt McCall just launched a new altcoin service calledCrypto Investor Networkwith a real expert named Charlie Shrem.
But what exactly makes Charlie an authority?
And let’s just name the real, underlying question: “why should you, the reader, trust one dime of your money on his recommendations?”
Let’s find out.
***One of the first bitcoin tycoons
Let’s begin with Charlie’s background and select bona fides as described byCrypto Investor Network:
Charlie became one of bitcoin’s earliest backers and today is considered one of the most influential people in cryptocurrencies …
Charlie and friend Gareth Nelson launched BitInstant, one of the first and ultimately largest bitcoin exchanges, at the dawn of the crypto era in 2011 …
He was also one of the founding members of the Bitcoin Foundation in 2012, which aimed at bringing mainstream awareness to the digital currency world …
(He) has advised and invested in more than two dozen digital currency companies, launched and managed numerous partnerships between crypto and non-crypto companies, and is the go-to guy for some of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.
He’s been mentioned in Fortune … Forbes … CNN … 60 Minutes … TED Talks … Bloomberg … and The Wall Street Journal … to name a few.
His story has been featured in numerous Netflix documentaries and best-selling books, including the seminal blockbuster Bitcoin Billionaires.
He’s been called one of bitcoin’s first tycoons … bitcoin royalty … and a crypto visionary.
I think it’s fair to say that’s a remarkable pedigree.
But what’s not in Charlie’s website-bio is just as interesting.
As Wikipedia reports, Charlie was buying bitcoin in 2011 as a college senior. When the bitcoin service he was using crashed, he lost his entire stake.
This was, in part, what led him to create BitInstant, referenced above.
It turns out the company operated until July 2013, at which point it was processing about 30% of all bitcoin transactions.
Since then, Charlie has followed a fascinating career path that’s included business development consulting … owning a Manhattan bar which become the first bar in New York to accept bitcoin … founding a crypto startup venture … serving as Chief Operating Officer for the crypto wallet Jaxx … and helping create the altcoin “Dash,” among other twists and turns.
And to answer the question that’s likely on your mind, yes, his early involvement in bitcoin has resulted in a fortune.
The blockchain media site bull.io pegged Charlie’s 2019 net worth at $45 million.
I think the term “expert” is fair to use in this situation.
***The wealth-generating potential behind altcoins today
Our own Matt McCall is no altcoin novice himself.
He’s led subscribers to a slew of altcoins that are up triple-digits so far in 2020.
And today, both Matt and Charlie are incredibly bullish on altcoins.
From Matt:
My new business partner and I believe that not one in a thousand people know this is coming.
And yet, it will change virtually everything about your daily life.
It will affect everyone in America, no matter who you are and where you live.
How you buy everyday goods and services … how you pay your taxes … how you buy a home … and even the way you vote.
All this disruption and change is creating a once-in-a-lifetime financial opportunity for you and anyone else who acts today.
Matt goes on to explain that he believes we are at the beginning of the next surge that will take the strongest cryptos many times higher …
In short, Matt and Charlie agree that our broader culture is waking up to the fact that cryptocurrencies are one of the most valuable, revolutionary technologies ever created.
And as this awareness spreads, there will be an enormous rush into this asset class — or as Matt calls it, an “awakening.”
This was what Matt and Charlie discussed this past Monday. It was a special, live event in which the two experts discussed the future of the altcoin universe.
Matt and Charlie explained how most investors don’t fully understand the altcoin world. But that’s not going to stop the changes from coming.
Back to Matt:
We know that for all the hype surrounding the blockchain technology cryptos are built on, very few people understand WHY it’s so revolutionary.
That’s okay.
It’s actually common with big breakthrough technologies that change our world. They exist for years in the periphery before the world realizes their true importance.
Then BOOM! They take off!
Matt believes we’re at that “boom” inflection point today …
This awakening could singlehandedly drive the price of bitcoin and several other select cryptocurrencies to never-before-seen heights.
If you position yourself correctly, it could hand you a fortune that you could only previously dream of.
If you’ve ever been the least bit curious about altcoins and the crypto universe, I encourage you to watch a playback of Monday’s event byclicking here.
At a minimum, you’ll learn how two legitimate experts are viewing this dynamic asset class today.
They even give away the name of their top altcoin recommendation for free. Watch and decide for yourself. There’s zero obligation.
Here’s Matt with the final word:
… you simply can’t have this amount of innovation and change without shaking things up. The bigger the change, the bigger the gains.
Have a good evening,
Jeff Remsburg
The postTwo Experts, Same Forecastappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Two Experts, Same Forecast: The elite pedigree behind our newest analyst … what he and Matt McCall see coming in the crypto world Here’s how the text exchange went: “Go on the send bitcoin page now.” InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips “Can we do a test? I want to try doing a send back and forth if we can. But I hope you’re not offended that I’m not super trusting of people on the internet yet. My son usually helps me with this stuff but he’s not around.” “Well I feel slightly offended but it’s alright although I’ll be glad if you would just follow my instructions which I’m sure will cause you no problems.” The above exchange took place between a bitcoin expert and a scammer about a year ago. Ben Perrin runs a YouTube channel that educates investors about bitcoin. He was amused when he received an unsolicited Instagram message offering to double his investment if he’d just send thousands of dollars’ worth of bitcoin to this investment “expert.” Playing along, Perrin pretended to be a bitcoin newcomer. He created a fake bitcoin wallet, then responded to the scammer, claiming he would gladly send $20,000 if the scammer would first send $100, just to make sure everything was legit. The scammer met Perrin halfway, sending him $50. Here’s the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ( CBC ) with the rest of the story: Perrin then dropped the bluff, called the fraudster out, and let them know he donated their money to charity. He sent the money to Bitcoin Venezuela, which helps people there buy food using the cryptocurrency, as the Venezuelan bolivar has collapsed. Though the above scam is easy to see, discerning between true bitcoin experts and self-proclaimed bitcoin experts, who have no real expertise, is a bit trickier. After all, anyone who held their breath and bought some bitcoin, say, around the beginning of last year, when it was trading at about $4,000, could easily claim “I’m up over 150%. I’m clearly an expert.” Story continues I bring this up as Matt McCall just launched a new altcoin service called Crypto Investor Network with a real expert named Charlie Shrem. But what exactly makes Charlie an authority? And let’s just name the real, underlying question: “why should you, the reader, trust one dime of your money on his recommendations?” Let’s find out. ***One of the first bitcoin tycoons Let’s begin with Charlie’s background and select bona fides as described by Crypto Investor Network : Charlie became one of bitcoin’s earliest backers and today is considered one of the most influential people in cryptocurrencies … Charlie and friend Gareth Nelson launched BitInstant, one of the first and ultimately largest bitcoin exchanges, at the dawn of the crypto era in 2011 … He was also one of the founding members of the Bitcoin Foundation in 2012, which aimed at bringing mainstream awareness to the digital currency world … (He) has advised and invested in more than two dozen digital currency companies, launched and managed numerous partnerships between crypto and non-crypto companies, and is the go-to guy for some of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. He’s been mentioned in Fortune … Forbes … CNN … 60 Minutes … TED Talks … Bloomberg … and The Wall Street Journal … to name a few. His story has been featured in numerous Netflix documentaries and best-selling books, including the seminal blockbuster Bitcoin Billionaires. He’s been called one of bitcoin’s first tycoons … bitcoin royalty … and a crypto visionary. I think it’s fair to say that’s a remarkable pedigree. But what’s not in Charlie’s website-bio is just as interesting. As Wikipedia reports, Charlie was buying bitcoin in 2011 as a college senior. When the bitcoin service he was using crashed, he lost his entire stake. This was, in part, what led him to create BitInstant, referenced above. It turns out the company operated until July 2013, at which point it was processing about 30% of all bitcoin transactions. Since then, Charlie has followed a fascinating career path that’s included business development consulting … owning a Manhattan bar which become the first bar in New York to accept bitcoin … founding a crypto startup venture … serving as Chief Operating Officer for the crypto wallet Jaxx … and helping create the altcoin “Dash,” among other twists and turns. And to answer the question that’s likely on your mind, yes, his early involvement in bitcoin has resulted in a fortune. The blockchain media site bull.io pegged Charlie’s 2019 net worth at $45 million. I think the term “expert” is fair to use in this situation. ***The wealth-generating potential behind altcoins today Our own Matt McCall is no altcoin novice himself. He’s led subscribers to a slew of altcoins that are up triple-digits so far in 2020. And today, both Matt and Charlie are incredibly bullish on altcoins. From Matt: My new business partner and I believe that not one in a thousand people know this is coming. And yet, it will change virtually everything about your daily life. It will affect everyone in America, no matter who you are and where you live. How you buy everyday goods and services … how you pay your taxes … how you buy a home … and even the way you vote. All this disruption and change is creating a once-in-a-lifetime financial opportunity for you and anyone else who acts today. Matt goes on to explain that he believes we are at the beginning of the next surge that will take the strongest cryptos many times higher … In short, Matt and Charlie agree that our broader culture is waking up to the fact that cryptocurrencies are one of the most valuable, revolutionary technologies ever created. And as this awareness spreads, there will be an enormous rush into this asset class — or as Matt calls it, an “awakening.” This was what Matt and Charlie discussed this past Monday. It was a special, live event in which the two experts discussed the future of the altcoin universe. Matt and Charlie explained how most investors don’t fully understand the altcoin world. But that’s not going to stop the changes from coming. Back to Matt: We know that for all the hype surrounding the blockchain technology cryptos are built on, very few people understand WHY it’s so revolutionary. That’s okay. It’s actually common with big breakthrough technologies that change our world. They exist for years in the periphery before the world realizes their true importance. Then BOOM! They take off! Matt believes we’re at that “boom” inflection point today … This awakening could singlehandedly drive the price of bitcoin and several other select cryptocurrencies to never-before-seen heights. If you position yourself correctly, it could hand you a fortune that you could only previously dream of. If you’ve ever been the least bit curious about altcoins and the crypto universe, I encourage you to watch a playback of Monday’s event by clicking here . At a minimum, you’ll learn how two legitimate experts are viewing this dynamic asset class today. They even give away the name of their top altcoin recommendation for free. Watch and decide for yourself. There’s zero obligation. Here’s Matt with the final word: … you simply can’t have this amount of innovation and change without shaking things up. The bigger the change, the bigger the gains. Have a good evening, Jeff Remsburg The post Two Experts, Same Forecast appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community: BASED has a new method for aligning decentralized finance (DeFi) projects with each other. At its core is a smart contract called Moonbase, CoinDesk has learned. Based.Money is a project of the Ghouls, a loose consortium of crypto developers, artists, designers and meme makers. Friday night, the outfit will release its newest project since BASED, the rebasing game dropped this summer during the boom of Weird DeFi . Based.Money is a game that riffs on Ampleforth’s rebasing mechanic, where it makes a daily readjustment in the supply of BASED tokens, adjusting the amount in everyone’s wallet. It’s a game of optimizing for the right time to get in and get out. Related: The Inevitable Marriage of Yield Farming and NFTs, Explained But Moonbase is a bit more serious. As the project’s pseudonymous proximal leader, Based Money God, told CoinDesk over Jitsi: “What we’re all about is creating a fair launch movement. An ecosystem of projects that are self-sustaining and don’t require traditional venture capital or institutional investment in order to succeed. We want to create a collaborative space of builders in which we all benefit. Read more: How DeFi ‘Degens’ Are Gaming Ethereum’s Money Legos Fair launches are a way to get lots of people involved in a new DeFi project without relying on traditional seed capital. Yearn.Finance is often credited for popularizing the term after announcing a governance token and a way for liquidity providers (LPs) to earn them without setting tokens aside for anyone else, even the creator. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Low Exchange Balance Looks Bullish but Chart Looks Bearish as $11K Nears “Most of these DeFi projects aren’t inherently decentralized. They are inherently skewed or biased because VCs back them,” Based Money God said. “When these projects raise, the VC allocations have a disproportionate amount of tokens.” A new alliance Moonbase creates a way that new projects can offer tribute to the BASED community such that they have an incentive to back, promote and support the new project for at least a year. It could almost be called community mining. “You can see the power of our community because our memes are dope and our messaging is cool,” Based Money God said. “Moonbase, the intent, socially, is trying to help these projects and bootstrap community and aligning themselves to Based.” It might also be thought of hiring the Based community, in a way. Some crypto projects hire PR firms; some will hire the memesters of the Moonbase. Story continues Read more: Yearn, YAM and the Rise of Crypto’s ‘Weird DeFi’ Moment So how does it work? DeFi projects that want to get degenerate will mint a new smart contract called a Rover. Each Rover will be distinct for each project. The core idea of a Rover is that any assets that go in it will go through a yearlong unlocking period (so if 365 DAI went in, the last DAI would unlock at the end of a year). As the underlying assets get unlocked, they will get swapped for BASED and be sent to the Moonbase, rewarding everyone participating there proportionally. Basically, Moonbase is another smart contract where anyone can put in BASED and get back mbBASED, which represents a proportional share of BASED in the contract (like Compound’s cTokens ). That means mbBASED holders will want any assets in Rovers to grow in value. However, the alignment is meant to go further. A project can put anything they want in a Rover with any logic they want. They could throw 1,000 ETH into a Rover and send the Moonbase a message that just said “Please help,” but that’s not actually how the Ghouls foresee it working. Instead, they expect projects will create special liquidity vaults for mbBASED that will have their own formulas for earning liquidity mining rewards, and earnings for that pool wouldn’t go to the depositor but to the Rover. Read more: Uniswap’s Distribution Is Built on Something That Can’t Be Forked: Actual Users So, imagine a decentralized exchange called RDEX that launched this way. It could set up an mbBASED-DAI pool where half the mining rewards (RBT, say?) go to the depositor (for the DAI) and half the rewards go to REDEX Rover. “It’s like a tribute to Based God,” Based Money God said. By setting it up this way, the project has an incentive to try to really grab the attention of Moonbase depositors, because no rewards go to the Rover if no one deposits. This is why they are called Rovers. “The Rover is bringing things back to the moonbase,” Based Money God said. The Moonbase has an incentive to drive value to RBT, because eventually that RBT will turn into more BASED for the Moonbase. Finally, anyone can set up a Rover. It’s permissionless. But obviously, there’s a need to get the attention of the Moonbase. So, there will be a page on Snapshot where projects can submit what they are doing and the community will vote on one question or another: “Is it BASED?” The vote has no impact on the smart contract. On a technical level, it does nothing, but it might be the most important step. Said Based Money God: “If you want that social validation, if you want to really take advantage of the social advantages of our community, you need to present to our community. There needs to be a ceremony.” Watch the Twitter account because Moonbase opens tonight. Actual DeFi projects will launch Rovers over the weekend and the smart contract that makes it easy for others to do the same will follow. “We are writing out a manifesto,” Based Money God said. “BASED is whatever the community decides is based.” Related Stories Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community View comments || Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community: BASED has a new method for aligningdecentralized finance (DeFi)projects with each other. At its core is a smart contract called Moonbase, CoinDesk has learned.
Based.Moneyis a project of the Ghouls, a loose consortium of crypto developers, artists, designers and meme makers. Friday night, the outfit will release its newest project since BASED, the rebasing game dropped this summer during the boom ofWeird DeFi.
Based.Money is a game that riffs onAmpleforth’srebasing mechanic, where it makes a daily readjustment in the supply of BASED tokens, adjusting the amount in everyone’s wallet. It’s a game of optimizing for the right time to get in and get out.
Related:The Inevitable Marriage of Yield Farming and NFTs, Explained
But Moonbase is a bit more serious. As the project’s pseudonymous proximal leader, Based Money God, told CoinDesk over Jitsi:
“What we’re all about is creating a fair launch movement. An ecosystem of projects that are self-sustaining and don’t require traditional venture capital or institutional investment in order to succeed. We want to create a collaborative space of builders in which we all benefit.
Read more:How DeFi ‘Degens’ Are Gaming Ethereum’s Money Legos
Fair launches are a way to get lots of people involved in a new DeFi project without relying on traditional seed capital. Yearn.Finance is often credited forpopularizing the termafter announcing a governance token and a way for liquidity providers (LPs) to earn them without setting tokens aside for anyone else, even the creator.
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Low Exchange Balance Looks Bullish but Chart Looks Bearish as $11K Nears
“Most of these DeFi projects aren’t inherently decentralized. They are inherently skewed or biased because VCs back them,” Based Money God said. “When these projects raise, the VC allocations have a disproportionate amount of tokens.”
Moonbase creates a way that new projects can offer tribute to the BASED community such that they have an incentive to back, promote and support the new project for at least a year. It could almost be called community mining.
“You can see the power of our community because our memes are dope and our messaging is cool,” Based Money God said. “Moonbase, the intent, socially, is trying to help these projects and bootstrap community and aligning themselves to Based.”
It might also be thought of hiring the Based community, in a way. Some crypto projects hire PR firms; some will hire the memesters of the Moonbase.
Read more:Yearn, YAM and the Rise of Crypto’s ‘Weird DeFi’ Moment
So how does it work?
DeFi projects thatwant to get degeneratewill mint a new smart contract called a Rover. Each Rover will be distinct for each project. The core idea of a Rover is that any assets that go in it will go through a yearlong unlocking period (so if 365 DAI went in, the last DAI would unlock at the end of a year).
As the underlying assets get unlocked, they will get swapped for BASED and be sent to the Moonbase, rewarding everyone participating there proportionally.
Basically, Moonbase is another smart contract where anyone can put in BASED and get back mbBASED, which represents a proportional share of BASED in the contract (likeCompound’s cTokens).
That means mbBASED holders will want any assets in Rovers to grow in value. However, the alignment is meant to go further.
A project can put anything they want in a Rover with any logic they want. They could throw 1,000 ETH into a Rover and send the Moonbase a message that just said “Please help,” but that’s not actually how the Ghouls foresee it working.
Instead, they expect projects will create special liquidity vaults for mbBASED that will have their own formulas for earning liquidity mining rewards, and earnings for that pool wouldn’t go to the depositor but to the Rover.
Read more:Uniswap’s Distribution Is Built on Something That Can’t Be Forked: Actual Users
So, imagine a decentralized exchange called RDEX that launched this way. It could set up an mbBASED-DAI pool where half the mining rewards (RBT, say?) go to the depositor (for the DAI) and half the rewards go to REDEX Rover.
“It’s like a tribute to Based God,” Based Money God said.
By setting it up this way, the project has an incentive to try to really grab the attention of Moonbase depositors, because no rewards go to the Rover if no one deposits. This is why they are called Rovers.
“The Rover is bringing things back to the moonbase,” Based Money God said.
The Moonbase has an incentive to drive value to RBT, becauseeventuallythat RBT will turn into more BASED for the Moonbase.
Finally, anyone can set up a Rover. It’s permissionless. But obviously, there’s a need to get the attention of the Moonbase.
So, there will be apage on Snapshotwhere projects can submit what they are doing and the community will vote on one question or another: “Is it BASED?”
The vote has no impact on the smart contract. On a technical level, it does nothing, but it might be the most important step.
Said Based Money God:
“If you want that social validation, if you want to really take advantage of the social advantages of our community, you need to present to our community. There needs to be a ceremony.”
Watchthe Twitter accountbecause Moonbase opens tonight. Actual DeFi projects will launch Rovers over the weekend and the smart contract that makes it easy for others to do the same will follow.
“We are writing out a manifesto,” Based Money God said. “BASED is whatever the community decides is based.”
• Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community
• Degens for Hire: Based.Money Is Launching Moonbase, a Place for DeFi Projects to Find Community || Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster: A Nevada woman is facing federal charges for allegedly paying a darkweb hitman $5,000 worth of bitcoin to murder her ex-husband in a case that shares striking parallels with another recent murder-for-hire plot.
• The hit, ordered in spring 2016, did not go through. But 36-year-old Kristy Lynn Felkins was indicted in California federal court Thursday for allegedly paying a phony hitman 12 BTC (at the time worth $5,000) to see that it did.
• Homeland Security agents traced the murder-for-hire bitcoin to a LocalBitcoins account associated with Felkins, who, through a pseudonym, had allegedly discussed mixing her bitcoin with the scammer prior to allegedly paying him, authorities said.
• Chat logs cited in acriminal complaintdetail a month-long back-and-forth in which the scammer tries and fails to up-sell the Felkins-linked pseudonym on a more expensive method of killing before ultimately ghosting her, the murder uncommitted.
• Federal agents said their tip came from an unnamed foreign hacker who “scraped” the murder-for-hire site for information, chat logs and bitcoin addresses and then handed it to the Feds “in or about January 2019.”
• The Felkins hacker-tipster generally matches the description and circumstances of another hacker-tipster federal agents cited in a separate but similar darkweb murder-for-hire investigation CoinDeskcovered last month.
• In that case, agents said their source was providing information in multiple ongoing investigations but declined to provide his name or the site he had scraped.
• The hacker-tipster is additionally described in this case’s filings as a foreigner convicted outside the U.S. of possessing child pornography. His information has proven “to be reliable,” agents wrote.
• He is working with the U.S. government without any expectation of monetary gain or get-out-of-jail-free cards, according to the Felkins complaint.
• A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for confirmation that the two hacker-tipster sources are the same.
The charges demonstrate how individuals who view bitcoin as a gateway to criminal dealings – thinking, perhaps, that the crypto provides unparalleled economic anonymity in a digital-first world – can readily wind up in the Fed’s crosshairs when bitcoin’s immutable and highly traceable ledger gives their transactions away.
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster || Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster: A Nevada woman is facing federal charges for allegedly paying a darkweb hitman $5,000 worth of bitcoin to murder her ex-husband in a case that shares striking parallels with another recent murder-for-hire plot.
• The hit, ordered in spring 2016, did not go through. But 36-year-old Kristy Lynn Felkins was indicted in California federal court Thursday for allegedly paying a phony hitman 12 BTC (at the time worth $5,000) to see that it did.
• Homeland Security agents traced the murder-for-hire bitcoin to a LocalBitcoins account associated with Felkins, who, through a pseudonym, had allegedly discussed mixing her bitcoin with the scammer prior to allegedly paying him, authorities said.
• Chat logs cited in acriminal complaintdetail a month-long back-and-forth in which the scammer tries and fails to up-sell the Felkins-linked pseudonym on a more expensive method of killing before ultimately ghosting her, the murder uncommitted.
• Federal agents said their tip came from an unnamed foreign hacker who “scraped” the murder-for-hire site for information, chat logs and bitcoin addresses and then handed it to the Feds “in or about January 2019.”
• The Felkins hacker-tipster generally matches the description and circumstances of another hacker-tipster federal agents cited in a separate but similar darkweb murder-for-hire investigation CoinDeskcovered last month.
• In that case, agents said their source was providing information in multiple ongoing investigations but declined to provide his name or the site he had scraped.
• The hacker-tipster is additionally described in this case’s filings as a foreigner convicted outside the U.S. of possessing child pornography. His information has proven “to be reliable,” agents wrote.
• He is working with the U.S. government without any expectation of monetary gain or get-out-of-jail-free cards, according to the Felkins complaint.
• A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for confirmation that the two hacker-tipster sources are the same.
The charges demonstrate how individuals who view bitcoin as a gateway to criminal dealings – thinking, perhaps, that the crypto provides unparalleled economic anonymity in a digital-first world – can readily wind up in the Fed’s crosshairs when bitcoin’s immutable and highly traceable ledger gives their transactions away.
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster
• Nevada Woman Charged in Bitcoin Murder-for-Hire as a Mystery Hacker Again Turns Tipster || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours: Buying volume is pushing bitcoin higher. Meanwhile, DeFi investors continue to seek places to park crypto for steady yield.
• Bitcoin (BTC)is trading around $10,730 as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT). Gaining 0.50% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,550-$10,795
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price was able to cling to $10,700 territory, rebounding from a bit of a dip after the cryptocurrency rallied on Thursday. It was changing hands around $10,730 as of press time Friday
Read more:Up 5%: Bitcoin Sees Biggest Single-Day Price Gain for 2 Months
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Low Exchange Balance Looks Bullish but Chart Looks Bearish as $11K Nears
Guy Hirsch, managing director and U.S. head for multi-asset broker eToro, points to fundamentals for a bullish bitcoin case.
He cites bitcoin’s mining hashrate and difficulty hitting all-time highs, along with heightened economic uncertainty in the face of rising COVID-19. “$11,000 is the only barrier to a parabolic run towards $12,000 or higher,” Hirsch told CoinDesk.
Neil Van Huis, head of institutional trading at liquidity provider Blockfills, said he is just happy bitcoin has been able to stay over $10,000, which he contends feels is a key price point.
“I think we’ve seen that test of $10,000 hold which keeps me a level-headed bull,” he said.
Related:Bitcoin Has Been Less Volatile Than Tesla Stock for Months
The last time bitcoin dipped below $10,000 was Sept. 9.
“Below $10,000 makes me worried about a pullback to $9,000,” Van Huis added.
The weekend should be relatively calm for crypto, according to Jason Lau, chief operating officer for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin.
He pointed to open interest in the futures market as the source of that assessment. “BTC aggregate open interest is still flat despite bitcoin’s overnight price gain – nobody is opening new positions at this price level,” Lau noted.
Another indicator of expected calm is bitcoin swaps funding, which remains in negative or near zero territory – a signal derivatives traders are still hesitant to place bullish bets.
Lau said there would need to be positive funding rates in the derivatives market before another big price pop.
“Until funding goes positive again, it’s hard to see us going much higher – for me that’s the best indicator of where we are at the moment,” said Lau. “Longs are being paid to open positions, so it confirms that there’s still a lot of hesitation at current price levels.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether (ETH), was up Thursday, trading around $355 and climbing 2.7% in 24 hours as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT).
Read more:Fintech Giant Plaid Has a Hidden Passion for DeFi
DeFi project dForce, a decentralized exchange, has seen its total value locked (TVL) almost double over the past 24 hours, from $58 million Thursday to over $108 million as of press time.
Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of Tellurian Capital, which invests in the DeFi ecosystem, says some investors should be wary of trendy projects cropping up in the ecosystem.
“There’s a great pace of innovation, but in some cases, project releases are not even a minimum viable product,” he said. “So the chances for breaking are pretty high which implies a huge risk premium and high volatility for the tokens as we have seen over the last few weeks.”
It’s possible, then, that crypto traders like dForce for parking assets while waiting for more exciting opportunities. According to the project’s website, dForce users are currently getting a 7% annual yield on thedai (DAI)stablecoin.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT):
• chainlink(LINK) + 10.6%
• stellar(XLM) + 7.1%
• 0x(ZRX) + 6%
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT):
• ethereum classic(ETC) – 1.2%
• bitcoin sv(BSV) – 0.61%
Read more:OneCoin Investors Allege BNY Mellon Aided $4B Fraud
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day up 0.51% onhopes fresh coronavirus-related stimulus from the U.S. will provide a boost to the global economy.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed in the green 0.34% asinvestors weighed the impact of rising COVID cases on the continent.
• In the U.S., the S&P 500 gained 1.8% astech stocks led the index higher, including Apple up 3.7% and Microsoft in the green 2.8%.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.22%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.05.
• Gold was in the red 0.24% and at $1,862 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields all fell Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, dipping to 0.129 and in the red 8.3%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours: Buying volume is pushing bitcoin higher. Meanwhile, DeFi investors continue to seek places to park crypto for steady yield. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $10,730 as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT). Gaining 0.50% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,550-$10,795 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price was able to cling to $10,700 territory, rebounding from a bit of a dip after the cryptocurrency rallied on Thursday. It was changing hands around $10,730 as of press time Friday Read more: Up 5%: Bitcoin Sees Biggest Single-Day Price Gain for 2 Months Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Low Exchange Balance Looks Bullish but Chart Looks Bearish as $11K Nears Guy Hirsch, managing director and U.S. head for multi-asset broker eToro, points to fundamentals for a bullish bitcoin case. He cites bitcoin’s mining hashrate and difficulty hitting all-time highs, along with heightened economic uncertainty in the face of rising COVID-19. “$11,000 is the only barrier to a parabolic run towards $12,000 or higher,” Hirsch told CoinDesk. Neil Van Huis, head of institutional trading at liquidity provider Blockfills, said he is just happy bitcoin has been able to stay over $10,000, which he contends feels is a key price point. “I think we’ve seen that test of $10,000 hold which keeps me a level-headed bull,” he said. Related: Bitcoin Has Been Less Volatile Than Tesla Stock for Months The last time bitcoin dipped below $10,000 was Sept. 9. “Below $10,000 makes me worried about a pullback to $9,000,” Van Huis added. The weekend should be relatively calm for crypto, according to Jason Lau, chief operating officer for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin. He pointed to open interest in the futures market as the source of that assessment. “BTC aggregate open interest is still flat despite bitcoin’s overnight price gain – nobody is opening new positions at this price level,” Lau noted. Story continues Another indicator of expected calm is bitcoin swaps funding, which remains in negative or near zero territory – a signal derivatives traders are still hesitant to place bullish bets. Lau said there would need to be positive funding rates in the derivatives market before another big price pop. “Until funding goes positive again, it’s hard to see us going much higher – for me that’s the best indicator of where we are at the moment,” said Lau. “Longs are being paid to open positions, so it confirms that there’s still a lot of hesitation at current price levels.” Investors hunting for yield plow into dForce The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH) , was up Thursday, trading around $355 and climbing 2.7% in 24 hours as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT). Read more: Fintech Giant Plaid Has a Hidden Passion for DeFi DeFi project dForce, a decentralized exchange, has seen its total value locked (TVL) almost double over the past 24 hours, from $58 million Thursday to over $108 million as of press time. Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of Tellurian Capital, which invests in the DeFi ecosystem, says some investors should be wary of trendy projects cropping up in the ecosystem. “There’s a great pace of innovation, but in some cases, project releases are not even a minimum viable product,” he said. “So the chances for breaking are pretty high which implies a huge risk premium and high volatility for the tokens as we have seen over the last few weeks.” It’s possible, then, that crypto traders like dForce for parking assets while waiting for more exciting opportunities. According to the project’s website, dForce users are currently getting a 7% annual yield on the dai (DAI) stablecoin. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT): chainlink (LINK) + 10.6% stellar (XLM) + 7.1% 0x (ZRX) + 6% Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT): ethereum classic (ETC) – 1.2% bitcoin sv (BSV) – 0.61% Read more: OneCoin Investors Allege BNY Mellon Aided $4B Fraud Equities: Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day up 0.51% on hopes fresh coronavirus-related stimulus from the U.S. will provide a boost to the global economy . Europe’s FTSE 100 closed in the green 0.34% as investors weighed the impact of rising COVID cases on the continent . In the U.S., the S&P 500 gained 1.8% as tech stocks led the index higher, including Apple up 3.7% and Microsoft in the green 2.8% . Commodities: Oil was down 0.22%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.05. Gold was in the red 0.24% and at $1,862 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields all fell Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, dipping to 0.129 and in the red 8.3%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours: Buying volume is pushing bitcoin higher. Meanwhile, DeFi investors continue to seek places to park crypto for steady yield.
• Bitcoin (BTC)is trading around $10,730 as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT). Gaining 0.50% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,550-$10,795
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price was able to cling to $10,700 territory, rebounding from a bit of a dip after the cryptocurrency rallied on Thursday. It was changing hands around $10,730 as of press time Friday
Read more:Up 5%: Bitcoin Sees Biggest Single-Day Price Gain for 2 Months
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Low Exchange Balance Looks Bullish but Chart Looks Bearish as $11K Nears
Guy Hirsch, managing director and U.S. head for multi-asset broker eToro, points to fundamentals for a bullish bitcoin case.
He cites bitcoin’s mining hashrate and difficulty hitting all-time highs, along with heightened economic uncertainty in the face of rising COVID-19. “$11,000 is the only barrier to a parabolic run towards $12,000 or higher,” Hirsch told CoinDesk.
Neil Van Huis, head of institutional trading at liquidity provider Blockfills, said he is just happy bitcoin has been able to stay over $10,000, which he contends feels is a key price point.
“I think we’ve seen that test of $10,000 hold which keeps me a level-headed bull,” he said.
Related:Bitcoin Has Been Less Volatile Than Tesla Stock for Months
The last time bitcoin dipped below $10,000 was Sept. 9.
“Below $10,000 makes me worried about a pullback to $9,000,” Van Huis added.
The weekend should be relatively calm for crypto, according to Jason Lau, chief operating officer for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin.
He pointed to open interest in the futures market as the source of that assessment. “BTC aggregate open interest is still flat despite bitcoin’s overnight price gain – nobody is opening new positions at this price level,” Lau noted.
Another indicator of expected calm is bitcoin swaps funding, which remains in negative or near zero territory – a signal derivatives traders are still hesitant to place bullish bets.
Lau said there would need to be positive funding rates in the derivatives market before another big price pop.
“Until funding goes positive again, it’s hard to see us going much higher – for me that’s the best indicator of where we are at the moment,” said Lau. “Longs are being paid to open positions, so it confirms that there’s still a lot of hesitation at current price levels.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether (ETH), was up Thursday, trading around $355 and climbing 2.7% in 24 hours as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT).
Read more:Fintech Giant Plaid Has a Hidden Passion for DeFi
DeFi project dForce, a decentralized exchange, has seen its total value locked (TVL) almost double over the past 24 hours, from $58 million Thursday to over $108 million as of press time.
Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of Tellurian Capital, which invests in the DeFi ecosystem, says some investors should be wary of trendy projects cropping up in the ecosystem.
“There’s a great pace of innovation, but in some cases, project releases are not even a minimum viable product,” he said. “So the chances for breaking are pretty high which implies a huge risk premium and high volatility for the tokens as we have seen over the last few weeks.”
It’s possible, then, that crypto traders like dForce for parking assets while waiting for more exciting opportunities. According to the project’s website, dForce users are currently getting a 7% annual yield on thedai (DAI)stablecoin.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT):
• chainlink(LINK) + 10.6%
• stellar(XLM) + 7.1%
• 0x(ZRX) + 6%
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT):
• ethereum classic(ETC) – 1.2%
• bitcoin sv(BSV) – 0.61%
Read more:OneCoin Investors Allege BNY Mellon Aided $4B Fraud
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day up 0.51% onhopes fresh coronavirus-related stimulus from the U.S. will provide a boost to the global economy.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed in the green 0.34% asinvestors weighed the impact of rising COVID cases on the continent.
• In the U.S., the S&P 500 gained 1.8% astech stocks led the index higher, including Apple up 3.7% and Microsoft in the green 2.8%.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.22%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.05.
• Gold was in the red 0.24% and at $1,862 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields all fell Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, dipping to 0.129 and in the red 8.3%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $10.7K; DeFi Site dForce Doubles TVL in 24 Hours || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 25, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.comALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
CONTACT:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/607899/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 25, 2020 / ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD). Real-Time Market Data is available at www.alt5pro.com and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available at www.alt5sigma.com ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH About ALT 5 Sigma Inc. ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance. ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers. ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services. For more information, visit www.alt5sigma.com . CONTACT: Andre Beauchesne Tel. 1-800-204-6203 [email protected] For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visit www.alt5pay.com For more information on ALT 5 Pro, visit www.alt5pro.com SOURCE: ALT 5 Sigma Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/607899/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Ebang International Holdings Inc. Reports Unaudited Financial Results for The First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020: HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ebang International Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: EBON, the “Company,” “we” or “our”), a leading application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”) chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first six months of fiscal year 2020. Operational and Financial Highlights for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020 Total computing power sold in the first six months of 2020 was 0.25 million Thash/s, representing a year-over-year decrease of 86.02% from 1.82 million Thash/s in the same period of 2019. Total net revenues in the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019. Gross loss in the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019. Net loss in the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019. Mr. Dong Hu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented, “The outbreak of the COVID-19 has significantly affected business and manufacturing activities worldwide. Measures to contain COVID-19, such as travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines and suspension of business activities have caused severe disruptions and uncertainties to our business operations and adversely affected our results of operations and financial condition. Our chip suppliers have reduced their production capacity due to the impact of the COVID-19, resulting in our shortage of raw materials during the first six months of 2020. Faced with the turbulent social and industrial environment, we have taken timely and proactive measures to ensure the resilience of our business operations and allow us to deliver solid performance after the market condition resumes normal. In light of this, our management has been actively optimizing our revenue structure based on the productivity ratio and strategically exploring expansion into blockchain-enabled financial services.” Story continues Mr. Hu continued, “With the preparatory work we have initiated in Singapore and Canada, we are at an initial preparatory stage of executing our plan to launch blockchain-enabled financial business by establishing cryptocurrency exchange(s) and online brokerage(s) and by combining the blockchain-enabled financial businesses with the traditional ones to capture the entire value chain of the blockchain industry. Marching into these new fields, we are staying true to our mission in strengthening the technological innovation in our products and services to ensure their competitiveness in the market.” Unaudited Financial Results for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020 Total net revenues in the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in total net revenues were mainly due to the combined impact of COVID-19 and Bitcoin halving event, which significantly affect the expected returns on Bitcoin related activities such as mining, and in turn resulted in a much lower demand and average selling price of our Bitcoin mining machines. Cost of revenues in the first six months of 2020 was US$12.01 million compared to US$40.21 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in cost of revenues were in line with the changes in the Company’s sales and the decrease in inventory write-down. Gross loss in the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019. Total operating expenses in the first six months of 2020 were US$7.71 million compared to US$9.60 million in the same period of 2019. Selling expenses in the first six months of 2020 were US$0.45 million compared to US$0.49 in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in selling expenses was mainly caused by reduced salary and bonus expenses relating to selling activities. General and administrative expenses in the first six months of 2020 were US$7.26 million compared to US$9.10 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in general and administrative expenses was mainly caused by a decrease in research and development expenses due to decreased purchase in materials used for research and development purposes in the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to the same period of 2019. Loss from operations in the first six months of 2020 was US$8.68 million compared to US$27.47 million in the same period of 2019. Other income in the first six months of 2020 was US$0.02 million compared to US$0.03 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in other income was mainly caused by the decrease in investment income from wealth management products purchased from the banks in the six months ended June 30, 2020. Government grants in the first six months of 2020 were US$2.54 million compared to US$6.18 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in government grants was mainly caused by the decrease of tax rewards from government. Net loss in the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019. Net loss attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc. in the first six months of 2020 was US$6.21 million compared to US$18.11 million in the same period of 2019. Basic and diluted net loss per shares in the first six months of 2020 were both US$0.06 compared to US$0.16 in the same period of 2019. About Ebang International Holdings Inc. Ebang International Holdings Inc. is a leading application-specific integrated circuit ASIC chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines. The Company has strong ASIC chip design capability underpinned by nearly a decade of industry experience and expertise in the telecommunications business. The Company is one of the few fabless integrated circuit design companies with the advanced technology to independently design ASIC chips, established access to third-party wafer foundry capacity and a proven in-house capability to produce blockchain products*. The Company was also a leading Bitcoin mining machine producer in the global market in terms of computing power sold in 2019*. For more information, please visit https://ir.ebang.com.cn/. * According to an industry report prepared by Frost & Sullivan in 2019 Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Company’s development plans and business outlook, which can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “potential,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “continue,” “likely to” and other similar expressions. Such statements are not historical facts, and are based upon the Company’s current beliefs, plans and expectations, and the current market and operating conditions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company’s control, which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. Investor Relations Contact For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Ebang International Holdings Inc. Email: [email protected] Ascent Investor Relations LLC Ms. Tina Xiao Tel: (917) 609-0333 Email: [email protected] EBANG INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Stated in US dollars) June 30, 2020 December 31, 2019 (Unaudited) ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 1,089,933 $ 3,464,262 Restricted cash, current 824,291 2,270,588 Accounts receivable, net 7,546,319 8,128,178 Bank acceptance notes from customers 707,394 - Advances to suppliers 1,191,368 1,062,049 Inventories, net 8,822,464 13,088,542 VAT recoverables 19,859,583 21,954,169 Prepayments 8,493,421 13,272,775 Other current assets, net 219,270 224,452 Total current assets 48,754,043 63,465,015 Non-current assets: Property, plant and equipment, net 20,904,153 13,224,761 Intangible assets, net 3,418,247 3,784,153 Operating lease right-of-use assets 1,125,288 1,280,076 Operating lease right-of-use assets - related party 23,016 37,266 Restricted cash, non-current 21,182 43,317 Other assets 830,338 776,458 Total non-current assets 26,322,224 19,146,031 Total assets $ 75,076,267 $ 82,611,046 LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 7,173,801 $ 11,832,003 Bank acceptance notes to vendors 1,431,765 - Accrued liabilities and other payables 14,346,108 13,739,041 Loans due within one year, less unamortized debt issuance costs - 4,864,697 Operating lease liabilities, current 687,107 793,521 Operating lease liabilities – related party, current 32,732 37,266 Income taxes payable 841,725 521,648 Due to related parties 6,908,102 6,242,824 Advances from customers 1,662,352 1,015,675 Total current liabilities 33,083,692 39,046,675 Non-current liabilities: Long-term loans – related party 24,113,700 17,632,000 Operating lease liabilities, non-current 461,236 361,747 Total non-current liabilities 24,574,936 17,993,747 Total liabilities 57,658,628 57,040,422 Shareholders’ equity: Common share, HKD0.001 par value, 380,000,000 shares authorized, 111,771,000 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2019 - 14,330 Class A common share, HKD0.001 par value, 333,374,217 shares authorized, 84,409,554 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2020 10,822 - Class B common share, HKD0.001 par value, 46,625,783 shares authorized, 46,625,783 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2020 5,978 - Additional paid-in capital 115,570,313 23,888,023 Subscription receivable (91,684,760 ) - Statutory reserves 11,483,844 11,049,847 Accumulated deficit (14,552,283 ) (7,905,999 ) Accumulated other comprehensive loss (10,131,056 ) (9,066,842 ) Total Ebang International Holdings Inc. shareholder’s equity 10,702,858 17,979,359 Non-controlling interest 6,714,781 7,591,265 Total shareholders’ equity 17,417,639 25,570,624 Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity $ 75,076,267 $ 82,611,046 EBANG INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC. UNAUDITED INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS AND COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (Stated in US dollars) For the six months ended June 30, 2020 For the six months ended June 30, 2019 Product revenue $ 4,954,499 $ 15,111,199 Service revenue 6,087,856 7,240,536 Total revenues 11,042,355 22,351,735 Cost of revenues 12,009,303 40,219,588 Gross loss (966,948 ) (17,867,853 ) Operating expenses: Selling expenses 452,608 494,792 General and administrative expenses 7,257,855 9,102,696 Total operating expenses 7,710,463 9,597,488 Loss from operations (8,677,411 ) (27,465,341 ) Other income (expenses): Interest income 12,714 32,111 Interest expenses (579,486 ) (1,315,770 ) Other income 16,080 29,240 Exchange gain 474,488 3,986,019 Government grants 2,541,708 6,184,035 VAT refund - 9,306 Other expenses (16,436 ) (101,999 ) Total other income 2,449,068 8,822,942 Loss before income taxes provision (6,228,343 ) (18,642,399 ) Income taxes provision 735,048 428,596 Net loss (6,963,391 ) (19,070,995 ) Less: net income attributable to non-controlling interest (751,104 ) (959,154 ) Net loss attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc. $ (6,212,287 ) $ (18,111,841 ) Comprehensive loss Net loss $ (6,963,391 ) $ (19,070,995 ) Other comprehensive loss: Foreign currency translation adjustment (1,189,594 ) 536,529 Total comprehensive loss (8,152,985 ) (18,534,466 ) Less: comprehensive loss attributable to non-controlling interest (125,380 ) - Comprehensive loss attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc. $ (7,276,501 ) $ (17,575,312 ) Net loss per common share attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc. Basic $ (0.06 ) $ (0.16 ) Diluted $ (0.06 ) $ (0.16 ) Weighted average common shares outstanding Basic 111,876,848 111,771,000 Diluted 111,876,848 111,771,000 || Ebang International Holdings Inc. Reports Unaudited Financial Results for The First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020: HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ebang International Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: EBON, the “Company,” “we” or “our”), a leading application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”) chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first six months of fiscal year 2020.
Operational and Financial Highlights for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020
Total computing power soldin the first six months of 2020 was 0.25 million Thash/s, representing a year-over-year decrease of 86.02% from 1.82 million Thash/s in the same period of 2019.
Total net revenuesin the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019.
Gross lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019.
Net lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019.Mr. Dong Hu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented, “The outbreak of the COVID-19 has significantly affected business and manufacturing activities worldwide. Measures to contain COVID-19, such as travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines and suspension of business activities have caused severe disruptions and uncertainties to our business operations and adversely affected our results of operations and financial condition. Our chip suppliers have reduced their production capacity due to the impact of the COVID-19, resulting in our shortage of raw materials during the first six months of 2020. Faced with the turbulent social and industrial environment, we have taken timely and proactive measures to ensure the resilience of our business operations and allow us to deliver solid performance after the market condition resumes normal. In light of this, our management has been actively optimizing our revenue structure based on the productivity ratio and strategically exploring expansion into blockchain-enabled financial services.”
Mr. Hu continued, “With the preparatory work we have initiated in Singapore and Canada, we are at an initial preparatory stage of executing our plan to launch blockchain-enabled financial business by establishing cryptocurrency exchange(s) and online brokerage(s) and by combining the blockchain-enabled financial businesses with the traditional ones to capture the entire value chain of the blockchain industry. Marching into these new fields, we are staying true to our mission in strengthening the technological innovation in our products and services to ensure their competitiveness in the market.”
Unaudited Financial Results for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020
Total net revenuesin the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in total net revenues were mainly due to the combined impact of COVID-19 and Bitcoin halving event, which significantly affect the expected returns on Bitcoin related activities such as mining, and in turn resulted in a much lower demand and average selling price of our Bitcoin mining machines.
Cost of revenuesin the first six months of 2020 was US$12.01 million compared to US$40.21 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in cost of revenues were in line with the changes in the Company’s sales and the decrease in inventory write-down.
Gross lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019.
Total operating expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$7.71 million compared to US$9.60 million in the same period of 2019.
• Selling expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$0.45 million compared to US$0.49 in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in selling expenses was mainly caused by reduced salary and bonus expenses relating to selling activities.
• General and administrative expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$7.26 million compared to US$9.10 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in general and administrative expenses was mainly caused by a decrease in research and development expenses due to decreased purchase in materials used for research and development purposes in the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to the same period of 2019.
Loss from operationsin the first six months of 2020 was US$8.68 million compared to US$27.47 million in the same period of 2019.
Other incomein the first six months of 2020 was US$0.02 million compared to US$0.03 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in other income was mainly caused by the decrease in investment income from wealth management products purchased from the banks in the six months ended June 30, 2020.
Government grantsin the first six months of 2020 were US$2.54 million compared to US$6.18 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in government grants was mainly caused by the decrease of tax rewards from government.
Net lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019.
Net loss attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc.in the first six months of 2020 was US$6.21 million compared to US$18.11 million in the same period of 2019.
Basic and diluted net loss per sharesin the first six months of 2020 were both US$0.06 compared to US$0.16 in the same period of 2019.
About Ebang International Holdings Inc.
Ebang International Holdings Inc. is a leading application-specific integrated circuit ASIC chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines. The Company has strong ASIC chip design capability underpinned by nearly a decade of industry experience and expertise in the telecommunications business. The Company is one of the few fabless integrated circuit design companies with the advanced technology to independently design ASIC chips, established access to third-party wafer foundry capacity and a proven in-house capability to produce blockchain products*. The Company was also a leading Bitcoin mining machine producer in the global market in terms of computing power sold in 2019*. For more information, please visit https://ir.ebang.com.cn/.
[]
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Company’s development plans and business outlook, which can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “potential,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “continue,” “likely to” and other similar expressions. Such statements are not historical facts, and are based upon the Company’s current beliefs, plans and expectations, and the current market and operating conditions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company’s control, which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.
Investor Relations Contact
For investor and media inquiries, please contact:
Ebang International Holdings Inc.Email: [email protected]
Ascent Investor Relations LLCMs. Tina XiaoTel: (917) 609-0333Email: [email protected]
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Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.comALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
CONTACT:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/607899/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It: The first time he was SIM-swapped in 2018, Haseeb Awan took it on the chin and hoped it wouldn’t happen again. Then came the second incident. Then the third. Then the fourth. After the last swap, Awan stopped trusting his mobile provider to keep his account safe and took matters into his own hands: He started his own cell service company.
It was a major pivot from his former day job running the BitAccess Bitcoin ATM network, a company he co-founded and which, incidentally, made him a prime target for SIM-swapping.
His new venture,Efani, is dedicated to stopping a problem that is all-too-prevalent for cryptocurrency users – a problem which most mobile carriers, as evidenced by Awan’s own problems, have failed to adequately address.
Related:Most Attacks on Cybersecurity Firm’s Decoy Servers Aimed at Mining Crypto: Report
Sim swapping is a socially engineered hack wherein an attacker ports a victim’s phone number onto a SIM card they control. To hijack a mobile account, an attacker may impersonate a victim to convince a customer service representative to swap the number to the new SIM card. In more elaborate cases, a SIM swap may occur as an inside job or by way of bribing a customer service rep.
These socially engineered attacks have become anall-too-common problemin the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency realm, particularly for its higher-profile personalities. Typically, SIM swappers will target cryptocurrency users with the hope of accessing their exchange accounts through text-message, two-factor authentication.
Perhaps the most famous example of this attack vector comes from Michael Terpin, who lost some $24 million from a SIM swap, prompting a$220 lawsuit against AT&T. Plenty ofother cryptocurrency usershave fallen prey to such attacks and subsequently had their exchange accounts drained of funds. The 2020 Twitter hacker was evenpart of a syndicate that orchestrated SIM swaps.
Read more:Judge Dismisses $200M Damages Claim in AT&T Crypto Hack Lawsuit
Related:
Awan is on the long roster of crypto SIM swap victims, which is why he founded Efani in 2019.
The company operates a bit like a mobile virtual network operator. It uses the network infrastructure of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to service its customers. But it only relies on this infrastructure to provide cell coverage. Everything else for the $99/month plan, from data management to customer service, is managed in house according to Efani’s own practices.
“Our focus is cyber security. Other companies are telecom providers which have other companies provide security for them. We are a cybersecurity firm that provides telecom services.”
According to Awan, most mobile providers only require a phone and account number to make changes to an existing plan. They also give users the option to set a PIN, but even this layer of protection can be bypassed if the hacker is savvy enough. More difficult to control still are bribes and inside jobs.
Efani’s solution to this problem? Making it so damn difficult to make changes to an account that an attack is virtually impossible.
“You cannot make a change for your account by calling customer service,” Awan told CoinDesk. “Even if you call in, they are not authorized to make any changes. For something like changing a SIM card, you may have to go through 11 layers of authentication.”
Those 11 layers of authentication are the maximum number of verification methods available to Efani users, while every account has a minimum of 7 authentication steps when a user wants to replace their SIM card. These verifications involve providing the last four digits of the credit card on file, phone number, SIM card number, and other information.
“We have made it so rigorous that it eliminates any chance of SIM swapping. Most people give up after the second or third authentication step,” Awan said.
Read more:Social Engineering: A Plague on Crypto and Twitter, Unlikely to Stop
Perhaps the most important feature – and the last step for authorizing a change to an account – involves notarizing a letter of intent. Each user must visit a notary public to authorize a change to their service, and this notary is verified by Efani’s legal team.
Even after this final step, a 7-day “cool-off” period goes into effect before the new SIM card can be activated. And it can’t be any old SIM card bought at your local convenience store, either; Efani sends each account holder two encrypted SIM cards when they sign up with the service, and only the backup is authorized to carry the user’s number if the old card is lost.
On top of these measures, Efani conducts background checks of all employees, requires multi-employee authorization to make account changes and stores customer information in server silos to keep data segregated. Additionally, customer names and phone numbers are kept separate.
Efani’s plans are also insured up to $5 million by Lloyd’s of London for any theft or data breach that may occur through Efani’s services.
Awan, who bootstrapped the company with his own finances, said that it’s profitable and on track to hit 7 figures in revenue this year. About a third of its clients are cryptocurrency users, he said, adding that the rest are typically high profile individuals, including professional athletes for the L.A. Lakers and San Francisco Giants, other celebrities and a fair number of lawyers.
When asked what can be done to “fix” the current state of SIM swapping (without starting a competing business), Awan was pessimistic about the capacity for change in legacy providers. Most customer service employees, who are contractors to begin with, “are not sophisticated enough to understand the threat level.”
Moreover, changing something that affects so few customers anyway is probably not on their radar, especially considering it would require a complete overhaul of their processes.
“I don’t think this problem will be solved by any carrier. Changing the current system would require updating the system and processes for every mobile account in America and this is not easy to do,” Awan said.
“The second problem is that the carriers want to believe this is not an issue. It affects probably 1% of the population. It’d be like saying, “Ok, every car sold in the U.S. comes with bulletproof glass.”
• This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It
• This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It || This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It: The first time he was SIM-swapped in 2018, Haseeb Awan took it on the chin and hoped it wouldnt happen again. Then came the second incident. Then the third. Then the fourth. After the last swap, Awan stopped trusting his mobile provider to keep his account safe and took matters into his own hands: He started his own cell service company. It was a major pivot from his former day job running the BitAccess Bitcoin ATM network, a company he co-founded and which, incidentally, made him a prime target for SIM-swapping. His new venture, Efani , is dedicated to stopping a problem that is all-too-prevalent for cryptocurrency users a problem which most mobile carriers, as evidenced by Awans own problems, have failed to adequately address. What is SIM swapping? Related: Most Attacks on Cybersecurity Firms Decoy Servers Aimed at Mining Crypto: Report Sim swapping is a socially engineered hack wherein an attacker ports a victims phone number onto a SIM card they control. To hijack a mobile account, an attacker may impersonate a victim to convince a customer service representative to swap the number to the new SIM card. In more elaborate cases, a SIM swap may occur as an inside job or by way of bribing a customer service rep. These socially engineered attacks have become an all-too-common problem in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency realm, particularly for its higher-profile personalities. Typically, SIM swappers will target cryptocurrency users with the hope of accessing their exchange accounts through text-message, two-factor authentication. Perhaps the most famous example of this attack vector comes from Michael Terpin, who lost some $24 million from a SIM swap, prompting a $220 lawsuit against AT&T . Plenty of other cryptocurrency users have fallen prey to such attacks and subsequently had their exchange accounts drained of funds. The 2020 Twitter hacker was even part of a syndicate that orchestrated SIM swaps. Story continues Read more: Judge Dismisses $200M Damages Claim in AT&T Crypto Hack Lawsuit Efani: A cybersecurity firm that provides telecom services Related: Awan is on the long roster of crypto SIM swap victims, which is why he founded Efani in 2019. The company operates a bit like a mobile virtual network operator. It uses the network infrastructure of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to service its customers. But it only relies on this infrastructure to provide cell coverage. Everything else for the $99/month plan, from data management to customer service, is managed in house according to Efanis own practices. Our focus is cyber security. Other companies are telecom providers which have other companies provide security for them. We are a cybersecurity firm that provides telecom services. According to Awan, most mobile providers only require a phone and account number to make changes to an existing plan. They also give users the option to set a PIN, but even this layer of protection can be bypassed if the hacker is savvy enough. More difficult to control still are bribes and inside jobs. 11 layers of defense Efanis solution to this problem? Making it so damn difficult to make changes to an account that an attack is virtually impossible. You cannot make a change for your account by calling customer service, Awan told CoinDesk. Even if you call in, they are not authorized to make any changes. For something like changing a SIM card, you may have to go through 11 layers of authentication. Those 11 layers of authentication are the maximum number of verification methods available to Efani users, while every account has a minimum of 7 authentication steps when a user wants to replace their SIM card. These verifications involve providing the last four digits of the credit card on file, phone number, SIM card number, and other information. We have made it so rigorous that it eliminates any chance of SIM swapping. Most people give up after the second or third authentication step, Awan said. Read more: Social Engineering: A Plague on Crypto and Twitter, Unlikely to Stop Perhaps the most important feature and the last step for authorizing a change to an account involves notarizing a letter of intent. Each user must visit a notary public to authorize a change to their service, and this notary is verified by Efanis legal team. Even after this final step, a 7-day cool-off period goes into effect before the new SIM card can be activated. And it cant be any old SIM card bought at your local convenience store, either; Efani sends each account holder two encrypted SIM cards when they sign up with the service, and only the backup is authorized to carry the users number if the old card is lost. Old tricks, new dogs On top of these measures, Efani conducts background checks of all employees, requires multi-employee authorization to make account changes and stores customer information in server silos to keep data segregated. Additionally, customer names and phone numbers are kept separate. Efanis plans are also insured up to $5 million by Lloyds of London for any theft or data breach that may occur through Efanis services. Awan, who bootstrapped the company with his own finances, said that its profitable and on track to hit 7 figures in revenue this year. About a third of its clients are cryptocurrency users, he said, adding that the rest are typically high profile individuals, including professional athletes for the L.A. Lakers and San Francisco Giants, other celebrities and a fair number of lawyers. When asked what can be done to fix the current state of SIM swapping (without starting a competing business), Awan was pessimistic about the capacity for change in legacy providers. Most customer service employees, who are contractors to begin with, are not sophisticated enough to understand the threat level. Moreover, changing something that affects so few customers anyway is probably not on their radar, especially considering it would require a complete overhaul of their processes. I dont think this problem will be solved by any carrier. Changing the current system would require updating the system and processes for every mobile account in America and this is not easy to do, Awan said. The second problem is that the carriers want to believe this is not an issue. It affects probably 1% of the population. Itd be like saying, Ok, every car sold in the U.S. comes with bulletproof glass. Related Stories This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It This Entrepreneur Was SIM Swapped So Often, He Started a Company to Fight It || Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money: Before we get into this week’s column, an announcement, one I’m super excited about.
Today, we’re simultaneously launching a new podcast under the same name as this newsletter: CoinDesk’s Money Reimagined. Like the newsletter, it’s a conversation around the technological, political and social forces reshaping our financial system. For each show, I’ll be joined by the tremendous Sheila Warren, blockchain lead at the World Economic Forum, as we sit down with insightful guests from around the world.
Below you’ll find links to the first show which you can use to subscribe with your preferred podcast player. In it, we dive more deeply into the “culture of money” theme addressed in this week’s newsletter, including a four-way interview with multimedia artist Nicky Enright and University of Virginia Media Studies Professor Lana Swartz.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Crypto Tax Switcheroo, Stablecoin Confusion, the Post-Capitalist Plunge
For free, early access to new episodes of Money Reimagined subscribe to CoinDesk Reports withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher,CastBoxordirect RSS for your favorite podcast player.
Sushi, Hotdogs, Yams, Shrimp.
The whimsical, food-obsessed names of of the latest decentralized finance (DeFi) outfits are antithetical to the stodgy imagery of the mainstream financial system they seek to disrupt. Banks’ memes, by contrast, skew toward strength and durability. (Think of the lion statues and Roman columns guarding bank branches in old parts of London, New York or Paris.)
DeFi’s critics say the silly names show it’s merely a fad, a game – or worse – a scam. It’s all imaginary, they say. It’s not real.
Related:First Mover: Tron's Play for WBTC Shows Competition to Relieve Ethereum Congestion
The problem with that perspective is thatallaspects of money, including the financial systems built on top of it, are imaginary.
And, in case you’re wondering, that’s a feature, not a bug.
Israeli historian Yuval Hararicalls money“the most successful story ever told,” even more important to the evolution of society than religion, corporations and a host of other human-imagined institutions. Like those concepts, money’s power hinges on the collective adoption of a common belief system. It takes a set of mutually understood rules and gives them symbolic representation in a token we call a currency. In exchanging that token, we reach agreements that reflect those rules and so enable commerce, collaboration, value creation and, ultimately, civilization.
Storytelling and cultural creation have always been integral to how society fosters this belief system, how we’ve forged communities around currencies. It’s why representations of money and the conversations around it are rich with iconography, foundational myths and stirring language.
This process of collective imagination has become firmly tied to another powerful imaginary concept: the nation-state. This combination has been so effective that it has survived the introduction of new technologies and tokens over time. We’ve gone from shells to coins to banknotes to checks to credit cards to Venmo, and each time we’ve just accepted that a new transfer vehicle can convey the same rules and values we’ve always attached to our national currencies.
This is a useful lens to apply to the many new ideas for money bubbling up in the crypto world. Whether it’s bitcoin’s bid to become a digital gold-like currency or the fight between Uniswap and SushiSwap to dominate liquidity in DeFi’s lending markets, the semiotic process for creating memes and stories is vital to the establishment of a new system. We need toreimaginemoney.
If you have a $100 bill in your wallet, take a good look at it.
On one side, there’s Ben Franklin’s balding head and torso, behind which are a quill, an inkwell with the Liberty Bell superimposed onto it, and an extract from the Declaration of Independence. There are also the seals of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, the signatures of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer, a serial number and other identifying numerals.
On the other, we see Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where Franklin and other Founding Fathers signed the declaration, along with the words “In God We Trust.” On both sides, the number 100 appears numerous times in and around a highly ornate border.
Combined with cotton threads and watermarks, the baroque design helps make the note difficult to counterfeit. But more importantly, the imagery appeals directly to patriotism. It’s all associated with the nation-state to which the dollar, we are encouraged to believe, is indelibly linked.
Now think about the actual value of the note, by which I mean the physical piece of paper. You could use it as a bookmark, maybe, make a paper plane out of it, or write a very small amount of information in very small print on it. But none of those uses add up to $100 in utility.
A banknote’s value comes almost entirely from our shared imagination, a commonality of beliefs fed by centuries of cultural production that forges a type of community. It’s only because the payer and the payee share those beliefs that this piece of paper can function as an instrument for clearing that community’s debts.
Each tribe of cryptocurrency advocates is endeavoring to create the same sense of community and belief around its preferred token. How they attain that is a cultural challenge.
In November 2014,I created a video for The Wall Street Journal with Nicky Enright, a multimedia artist. We filmed him walking the streets of the Diamond District in New York’s Midtown as he wore an A-frame sandwich board and held a wad of “Globos,” his personal currency, in hand. The beautifully ornate notes were on sale for a $1, he told passersby, in a special two-for-one deal.
The interactions with people were fascinating. One of the most common questions was, “Is it real?” Enright’s answer was always something like, “Of course it’s real. You can see and hold it, right?” As a guest on this week’s inaugural Money Reimagined podcast, Enright reflected on those exchanges, noting that “people will question the Globo in a way that they rarely, if ever, question their own currency” and yet the very same questions about what is “real” could be applied to the purely symbolic value of the dollar.
The pertinent question for cryptocurrency advocates is: How do the purveyors and believers in a particular currency similarly get enough people to believe in it, to view it as “real?” And that’s again where the cultural conversation comes in.
It’s why Bitcoin’s culture is filled with ideas, phrases and iconography that help build community. Think of the word “HODL,” or the concept that Bitcoin is “The Honey Badger of Money,” or the almost religious devotion to the mysterious founding father, Satoshi. (By the way, it’s irrelevant that these ideas, like DeFi’s, seem frivolous to traditionalists. They are appropriately in line with the meme culture of the digital age, and consistent with the liberal conventions that internet culture unleashed, as names like Yahoo and Google became corporate mainstays.)
University of Virginia media studies professor Lana Swartz, author of the newly publishedNew Money: How Payment Became Social Media, has some thoughts on all this.
As the second guest on this week’s podcast, she reflected on thevery early research that she and two colleagues did into Bitcoin’s culture in 2013. At that time, she said, “there was a real fixation on the idea that Bitcoin would be free from human institutions, free from human foibles and free from the need for human governance. … But then all these early Bitcoin people ever really did was to talk and create community, and create ways to govern themselves, and create ways to think about this project.”
It’s a great insight. Money is inseparable from community, and community is about values, the expression of which involves governance. (Not government per se, but governance.)
This brings us full circle to DeFi, where tribes conduct meme warfare on Twitter and elsewhere to promote their tokens. Each of those tokens is tied to a protocol, which offers a different form of governance.
The difference with traditional money is that the enforcement of each token’s particular governance model comes via a decentralized network rather than the centralized institutions of a nation-state.
That shift is what makes it so promising. But it’s also why the cultural creation process is so challenging, as it must compete with the giant mindshare that traditional finance occupies. It’s why the meme-ing must continue.
Hats off to Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal for coming up with a killer graph. (Sadly, I’m using that descriptive literally.) The chart, which appearedTuesday in Bloomberg’s daily “Five Things to Start your Day” newsletter, maps the reservations at New York restaurants recorded by OpenTable and subway turnstile receipts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, against the price of shares in SL Green, a real estate investment trust focused on Manhattan office space. COVID-19 has done a number on all three.
I include this here, because when thinking about the future of Manhattan real estate, it’s hard not to think about the future of Wall Street. Banks, brokerages and other financial institutions are giant contributors to the city’s commercial rents, occupying large open-plan trading areas on multiple floors of some of NYC’s prime real estate. But in the COVID-19 era, banks have learned that, with the help of new low-latency connectivity packages, their traders can work pretty well from home, offering the prospect that the firms can save millions in rents if they pare back their footprint in the city.
An exodus from New York by bankers, traders and brokers would mark an end to an era. Hollywood’s movies about testosterone-fueled trading floors will become period pieces. The bigger question is what it means for the idea of Wall Street as a New York institution and, by extension, for the city’s outsized role in the regulation of the global financial system.
There are plenty of reasons for banks to maintain a legal residence in New York. Most important, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has a unique role within the Fed’s monetary system, as it conducts the open-market operations by which the central bank implements monetary policy. To act as a counterparty with FRBNY in those trades and gain access to that vital flow of monetary liquidity, banks need, at the very least, a capital markets subsidiary domiciled in New York. Their presence for that purpose in turn gives local regulators such as the New York Department of Financial Services a critical role in world finance.
But it’s not hard to imagine that a physical downgrading of banks’ physical presence in New York could, over time, degrade the city’s dominance. Will the rest of the U.S. continue to grant NYC its gatekeeping role? And as central banks, potentially armed with digital currencies, move to expand the range of counter parties they deal with to include non-banks such as large companies and municipalities, New York’s centrality in the process could be further diminished. It’s yet another way in which the seismic events of 2020 could prove a turning point for the world of finance.
CRYPTO-DERIVATIVES BOOM.According to a comprehensive report by CoinDesk Research Hub contributorBlockchain Valley Ventures (BCC), “future contracts volume on cryptocurrencies has surged by close to 300% between H1 2019 and H2 2020,” mostly driven by institutional players using platforms such as Bakkt and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Other interesting takeaways:
• Asia accounted for 95% of all futures trading in the second quarter of 2020.
• DeFi appears to be increasing the demand crypto derivatives as its smart-contract-based model has the potential to mitigate counter party risks and other dangers of trading in derivatives.
• BVV is predicting this boom will inspire mergers and acquisitions in the crypto exchange space as the derivatives market has the potential to grow to 10 times the size of the spot market.
Pro-bitcoin market professionals have long encouraged the development of derivatives markets, as they are supposed to bring two-sided liquidity to the overall market. That, in turn, should reduce volatility, protect investors from excessive losses, build efficiency and contribute to the overall development of crypto as an asset class. But it’s worth contemplating how that process plays out, because it’s not yet translating into immediate payouts to investors in crypto spot markets. Consider, for example, the fact that despite the boom in derivatives, bitcoin’s price can’t seem to get sustainably above $11,000, even as it also tends to find strong support at $10,000 or just below it.
In other words, the idea that market sophistication will translate into a higher bitcoin price isn’t yet playing out.
Despite talk of a bull market and signs of buy-in by mainstream players such asMicroStrategy’s Michael Saylorandformer Prudential Securities chief George Ball, bitcoin remains well below its 2019 high of $13,789. At this stage of development, the two-sided liquidity of derivatives markets seems to be doing a reasonable job of containing excesses in the spot market. But it will take time for that improved efficiency to breed confidence among institutional and other, more cautious investors, to take actual long-term bets on bitcoin itself.
DEFI’S WHITEHAT SAVIORS.Some students of the 2008 financial crisis look at the highly complex world of DeFi protocols, tokens and lending markets and see parallels. An opaque, hard-to-understand market in which interrelated credit risks are poorly understood seems ripe for the kind of cascading failures that the similarly complex world of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations delivered 12 years ago.
They’re right to be concerned, but I think the core risks come in a very different form. Algorithmic, decentralized collateral delivery should, in theory, reduce the kind of counterparty risks markets faced in 2008, when fears that debtors did not have the assets they’d pledged created a downward spiral of selling, fear and self-fulfilling collateral demands. What it doesn’t solve for is software risk. The big danger for DeFi is that bugs in multiple smart contracts will be exploited to steal funds in a synchronized manner, triggering a mass panic from which hackers can profit.
So, it was a bit alarming to readthis gripping accountby a prolific “whitehat” coder who goes by the handle @SamCzSun about a recent all-nighter he pulled to rescue $9.6 million worth of ether. The funds were sitting in a smart contract associated with Lien Finance, an Ethereum-based protocol for decentralized options and stablecoins, and were vulnerable to a bug that he’d discovered. Being the honest player that he is, he felt compelled to place the funds into a safe environment before someone could dishonestly claim them. The security researcher talks about the challenge he faced in reaching out to someone from the Lien Finance team, since its leadership is all anonymous. Who could he trust? And when he did find someone to help, they faced the challenge of ensuring that their rescue operation wouldn’t tip off others and create a front-running opportunity for them.
The whole thing demonstrates the downside of decentralized finance. The absence of a middleman and the use of decentralized governance might well create special opportunities for financial creativity and access to finance. But, when things go wrong, the under-regulated structure of DeFi makes it extremely difficult for people to appeal to the one thing they often need in a crisis: someone to trust. It also reminded me of the vital role played by white hackers like @SamCzSun, who could have easily grabbed the $9.6 million for himself. Not only do they keep people safe from bad guys, but, in finding flaws, they help developers fix and strengthen the system.
DATA, CLIMATE AND FINANCE.In last week’s column, we discussed how important it is that blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies be calibrated to the challenge of mitigating climate change. But it’s not just this new form of finance that needs alignment with a healthier planet, it’s also old finance, whose investment priorities have for too long skewed in favor of fossil fuel-reliant industries, even though many economists now argue that those investments represent “stranded assets.” Asthis report from Refinitiv and OMFIF points out, to get financial services to invest more sustainably requires “clear and consistent Environmental, Social and Governance data.” The idea behind ESG is that if reliable data can be provided on environmental performance, more effective mechanisms for rewarding carbon-reducing investments can arise. But right now, both data and the regulations surrounding environmentally sound investments are inconsistent across the globe.
Interestingly, the report makes a clear case for central banks to play a role in setting consistent standards. But what if, as we’ve discussed in a few Money Reimagined newsletters, the whole function of central banks comes into question as technology, economic imperatives and geopolitical tensions move us to a more fragmented, multi-currency world? It’s my view that the world needs data sources that can be trusted across borders, regardless of where they are collected and regardless of the local regulator’s reputation and enforcement capability. It’s where there has to eventually be a place for decentralized systems that can both affirm the reliability of environment-measuring devices and immutably record their data in distributed ledgers that all can access.
Things get really interesting when there’s an intersection between decentralized environmental data and decentralized finance. (See Ian Allison’s piece on Ocean Protocol below.) That’s when carbon markets can be spun up by anyone anywhere so that any innovator with a climate change-fighting project can unlock the capital they need from anywhere else in the world.
Digital Euro Would Provide Alternative to Cryptos, ECB President Lagarde Says.Europe’s goal to develop a central bank digital currency was given a boost when Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, gave a forceful speech in its favor. As the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde is something of an international finance rockstar. Her words matter. Dan Palmer reports.
The Currency Cold War: Four Scenarios.In the currency war of the future, who ends up on top? The U.S.? China? Bitcoin? Or some multi-currency world. Jeff Wilser surveys four futurists on what to expect as part of our Internet 2030 series.
Ocean Protocol and Balancer Want to Do for Data What Uniswap Did for Coins. DeFi for data markets. This is when things get really interesting. Ian Allison reports on Ocean Protocol’s use of a DeFi-inspired automated market maker (AMM) model for achieving something many have struggled to achieve.
How Small Business Can Achieve ‘Economies of Scale’ by 2030.In another contribution to our Internet 2030 series, EY’s Paul Brody foretells a future of “re-decentralization” in which smart contracts and seamless, digitized commercial systems create new opportunities for small businesses to work together and once again compete with the big monopolies that currently dominate our world.
• Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money
• Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money || Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money: Before we get into this week’s column, an announcement, one I’m super excited about. Today, we’re simultaneously launching a new podcast under the same name as this newsletter: CoinDesk’s Money Reimagined. Like the newsletter, it’s a conversation around the technological, political and social forces reshaping our financial system. For each show, I’ll be joined by the tremendous Sheila Warren, blockchain lead at the World Economic Forum, as we sit down with insightful guests from around the world. Below you’ll find links to the first show which you can use to subscribe with your preferred podcast player. In it, we dive more deeply into the “culture of money” theme addressed in this week’s newsletter, including a four-way interview with multimedia artist Nicky Enright and University of Virginia Media Studies Professor Lana Swartz. Related: Blockchain Bites: Crypto Tax Switcheroo, Stablecoin Confusion, the Post-Capitalist Plunge For free, early access to new episodes of Money Reimagined subscribe to CoinDesk Reports with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher , CastBox or direct RSS for your favorite podcast player . Those silly DeFi memes, they’re really important Sushi, Hotdogs, Yams, Shrimp. The whimsical, food-obsessed names of of the latest decentralized finance (DeFi) outfits are antithetical to the stodgy imagery of the mainstream financial system they seek to disrupt. Banks’ memes, by contrast, skew toward strength and durability. (Think of the lion statues and Roman columns guarding bank branches in old parts of London, New York or Paris.) DeFi’s critics say the silly names show it’s merely a fad, a game – or worse – a scam. It’s all imaginary, they say. It’s not real. Related: First Mover: Tron's Play for WBTC Shows Competition to Relieve Ethereum Congestion The problem with that perspective is that all aspects of money, including the financial systems built on top of it, are imaginary. Story continues And, in case you’re wondering, that’s a feature, not a bug. Israeli historian Yuval Harari calls money “the most successful story ever told,” even more important to the evolution of society than religion, corporations and a host of other human-imagined institutions. Like those concepts, money’s power hinges on the collective adoption of a common belief system. It takes a set of mutually understood rules and gives them symbolic representation in a token we call a currency. In exchanging that token, we reach agreements that reflect those rules and so enable commerce, collaboration, value creation and, ultimately, civilization. Storytelling and cultural creation have always been integral to how society fosters this belief system, how we’ve forged communities around currencies. It’s why representations of money and the conversations around it are rich with iconography, foundational myths and stirring language. This process of collective imagination has become firmly tied to another powerful imaginary concept: the nation-state. This combination has been so effective that it has survived the introduction of new technologies and tokens over time. We’ve gone from shells to coins to banknotes to checks to credit cards to Venmo, and each time we’ve just accepted that a new transfer vehicle can convey the same rules and values we’ve always attached to our national currencies. This is a useful lens to apply to the many new ideas for money bubbling up in the crypto world. Whether it’s bitcoin’s bid to become a digital gold-like currency or the fight between Uniswap and SushiSwap to dominate liquidity in DeFi’s lending markets, the semiotic process for creating memes and stories is vital to the establishment of a new system. We need to reimagine money. Imagined communities If you have a $100 bill in your wallet, take a good look at it. On one side, there’s Ben Franklin’s balding head and torso, behind which are a quill, an inkwell with the Liberty Bell superimposed onto it, and an extract from the Declaration of Independence. There are also the seals of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, the signatures of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer, a serial number and other identifying numerals. On the other, we see Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where Franklin and other Founding Fathers signed the declaration, along with the words “In God We Trust.” On both sides, the number 100 appears numerous times in and around a highly ornate border. Combined with cotton threads and watermarks, the baroque design helps make the note difficult to counterfeit. But more importantly, the imagery appeals directly to patriotism. It’s all associated with the nation-state to which the dollar, we are encouraged to believe, is indelibly linked. Now think about the actual value of the note, by which I mean the physical piece of paper. You could use it as a bookmark, maybe, make a paper plane out of it, or write a very small amount of information in very small print on it. But none of those uses add up to $100 in utility. A banknote’s value comes almost entirely from our shared imagination, a commonality of beliefs fed by centuries of cultural production that forges a type of community. It’s only because the payer and the payee share those beliefs that this piece of paper can function as an instrument for clearing that community’s debts. Each tribe of cryptocurrency advocates is endeavoring to create the same sense of community and belief around its preferred token. How they attain that is a cultural challenge. What’s real? In November 2014, I created a video for The Wall Street Journal with Nicky Enright , a multimedia artist. We filmed him walking the streets of the Diamond District in New York’s Midtown as he wore an A-frame sandwich board and held a wad of “Globos,” his personal currency, in hand. The beautifully ornate notes were on sale for a $1, he told passersby, in a special two-for-one deal. The interactions with people were fascinating. One of the most common questions was, “Is it real?” Enright’s answer was always something like, “Of course it’s real. You can see and hold it, right?” As a guest on this week’s inaugural Money Reimagined podcast, Enright reflected on those exchanges, noting that “people will question the Globo in a way that they rarely, if ever, question their own currency” and yet the very same questions about what is “real” could be applied to the purely symbolic value of the dollar. The pertinent question for cryptocurrency advocates is: How do the purveyors and believers in a particular currency similarly get enough people to believe in it, to view it as “real?” And that’s again where the cultural conversation comes in. It’s why Bitcoin’s culture is filled with ideas, phrases and iconography that help build community. Think of the word “HODL,” or the concept that Bitcoin is “The Honey Badger of Money,” or the almost religious devotion to the mysterious founding father, Satoshi. (By the way, it’s irrelevant that these ideas, like DeFi’s, seem frivolous to traditionalists. They are appropriately in line with the meme culture of the digital age, and consistent with the liberal conventions that internet culture unleashed, as names like Yahoo and Google became corporate mainstays.) Meme governance University of Virginia media studies professor Lana Swartz, author of the newly published New Money: How Payment Became Social Media , has some thoughts on all this. As the second guest on this week’s podcast, she reflected on the very early research that she and two colleagues did into Bitcoin’s culture in 2013 . At that time, she said, “there was a real fixation on the idea that Bitcoin would be free from human institutions, free from human foibles and free from the need for human governance. … But then all these early Bitcoin people ever really did was to talk and create community, and create ways to govern themselves, and create ways to think about this project.” It’s a great insight. Money is inseparable from community, and community is about values, the expression of which involves governance. (Not government per se, but governance.) This brings us full circle to DeFi, where tribes conduct meme warfare on Twitter and elsewhere to promote their tokens. Each of those tokens is tied to a protocol, which offers a different form of governance. The difference with traditional money is that the enforcement of each token’s particular governance model comes via a decentralized network rather than the centralized institutions of a nation-state. That shift is what makes it so promising. But it’s also why the cultural creation process is so challenging, as it must compete with the giant mindshare that traditional finance occupies. It’s why the meme-ing must continue. The end of wall street as we know it? Hats off to Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal for coming up with a killer graph. (Sadly, I’m using that descriptive literally.) The chart, which appeared Tuesday in Bloomberg’s daily “Five Things to Start your Day” newsletter , maps the reservations at New York restaurants recorded by OpenTable and subway turnstile receipts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, against the price of shares in SL Green, a real estate investment trust focused on Manhattan office space. COVID-19 has done a number on all three. I include this here, because when thinking about the future of Manhattan real estate, it’s hard not to think about the future of Wall Street. Banks, brokerages and other financial institutions are giant contributors to the city’s commercial rents, occupying large open-plan trading areas on multiple floors of some of NYC’s prime real estate. But in the COVID-19 era, banks have learned that, with the help of new low-latency connectivity packages, their traders can work pretty well from home, offering the prospect that the firms can save millions in rents if they pare back their footprint in the city. An exodus from New York by bankers, traders and brokers would mark an end to an era. Hollywood’s movies about testosterone-fueled trading floors will become period pieces. The bigger question is what it means for the idea of Wall Street as a New York institution and, by extension, for the city’s outsized role in the regulation of the global financial system. There are plenty of reasons for banks to maintain a legal residence in New York. Most important, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has a unique role within the Fed’s monetary system, as it conducts the open-market operations by which the central bank implements monetary policy. To act as a counterparty with FRBNY in those trades and gain access to that vital flow of monetary liquidity, banks need, at the very least, a capital markets subsidiary domiciled in New York. Their presence for that purpose in turn gives local regulators such as the New York Department of Financial Services a critical role in world finance. But it’s not hard to imagine that a physical downgrading of banks’ physical presence in New York could, over time, degrade the city’s dominance. Will the rest of the U.S. continue to grant NYC its gatekeeping role? And as central banks, potentially armed with digital currencies, move to expand the range of counter parties they deal with to include non-banks such as large companies and municipalities, New York’s centrality in the process could be further diminished. It’s yet another way in which the seismic events of 2020 could prove a turning point for the world of finance. The global town hall CRYPTO-DERIVATIVES BOOM. According to a comprehensive report by CoinDesk Research Hub contributor Blockchain Valley Ventures (BCC) , “future contracts volume on cryptocurrencies has surged by close to 300% between H1 2019 and H2 2020,” mostly driven by institutional players using platforms such as Bakkt and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Other interesting takeaways: Asia accounted for 95% of all futures trading in the second quarter of 2020. DeFi appears to be increasing the demand crypto derivatives as its smart-contract-based model has the potential to mitigate counter party risks and other dangers of trading in derivatives. BVV is predicting this boom will inspire mergers and acquisitions in the crypto exchange space as the derivatives market has the potential to grow to 10 times the size of the spot market. Pro-bitcoin market professionals have long encouraged the development of derivatives markets, as they are supposed to bring two-sided liquidity to the overall market. That, in turn, should reduce volatility, protect investors from excessive losses, build efficiency and contribute to the overall development of crypto as an asset class. But it’s worth contemplating how that process plays out, because it’s not yet translating into immediate payouts to investors in crypto spot markets. Consider, for example, the fact that despite the boom in derivatives, bitcoin’s price can’t seem to get sustainably above $11,000, even as it also tends to find strong support at $10,000 or just below it. In other words, the idea that market sophistication will translate into a higher bitcoin price isn’t yet playing out. Despite talk of a bull market and signs of buy-in by mainstream players such as MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor and former Prudential Securities chief George Ball , bitcoin remains well below its 2019 high of $13,789. At this stage of development, the two-sided liquidity of derivatives markets seems to be doing a reasonable job of containing excesses in the spot market. But it will take time for that improved efficiency to breed confidence among institutional and other, more cautious investors, to take actual long-term bets on bitcoin itself. DEFI’S WHITEHAT SAVIORS. Some students of the 2008 financial crisis look at the highly complex world of DeFi protocols, tokens and lending markets and see parallels. An opaque, hard-to-understand market in which interrelated credit risks are poorly understood seems ripe for the kind of cascading failures that the similarly complex world of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations delivered 12 years ago. They’re right to be concerned, but I think the core risks come in a very different form. Algorithmic, decentralized collateral delivery should, in theory, reduce the kind of counterparty risks markets faced in 2008, when fears that debtors did not have the assets they’d pledged created a downward spiral of selling, fear and self-fulfilling collateral demands. What it doesn’t solve for is software risk. The big danger for DeFi is that bugs in multiple smart contracts will be exploited to steal funds in a synchronized manner, triggering a mass panic from which hackers can profit. So, it was a bit alarming to read this gripping account by a prolific “whitehat” coder who goes by the handle @SamCzSun about a recent all-nighter he pulled to rescue $9.6 million worth of ether. The funds were sitting in a smart contract associated with Lien Finance, an Ethereum-based protocol for decentralized options and stablecoins, and were vulnerable to a bug that he’d discovered. Being the honest player that he is, he felt compelled to place the funds into a safe environment before someone could dishonestly claim them. The security researcher talks about the challenge he faced in reaching out to someone from the Lien Finance team, since its leadership is all anonymous. Who could he trust? And when he did find someone to help, they faced the challenge of ensuring that their rescue operation wouldn’t tip off others and create a front-running opportunity for them. The whole thing demonstrates the downside of decentralized finance. The absence of a middleman and the use of decentralized governance might well create special opportunities for financial creativity and access to finance. But, when things go wrong, the under-regulated structure of DeFi makes it extremely difficult for people to appeal to the one thing they often need in a crisis: someone to trust. It also reminded me of the vital role played by white hackers like @SamCzSun, who could have easily grabbed the $9.6 million for himself. Not only do they keep people safe from bad guys, but, in finding flaws, they help developers fix and strengthen the system. DATA, CLIMATE AND FINANCE. In last week’s column, we discussed how important it is that blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies be calibrated to the challenge of mitigating climate change. But it’s not just this new form of finance that needs alignment with a healthier planet, it’s also old finance, whose investment priorities have for too long skewed in favor of fossil fuel-reliant industries, even though many economists now argue that those investments represent “ stranded assets .” As this report from Refinitiv and OMFIF points out , to get financial services to invest more sustainably requires “clear and consistent Environmental, Social and Governance data.” The idea behind ESG is that if reliable data can be provided on environmental performance, more effective mechanisms for rewarding carbon-reducing investments can arise. But right now, both data and the regulations surrounding environmentally sound investments are inconsistent across the globe. Interestingly, the report makes a clear case for central banks to play a role in setting consistent standards. But what if, as we’ve discussed in a few Money Reimagined newsletters, the whole function of central banks comes into question as technology, economic imperatives and geopolitical tensions move us to a more fragmented, multi-currency world? It’s my view that the world needs data sources that can be trusted across borders, regardless of where they are collected and regardless of the local regulator’s reputation and enforcement capability. It’s where there has to eventually be a place for decentralized systems that can both affirm the reliability of environment-measuring devices and immutably record their data in distributed ledgers that all can access. Things get really interesting when there’s an intersection between decentralized environmental data and decentralized finance. (See Ian Allison’s piece on Ocean Protocol below.) That’s when carbon markets can be spun up by anyone anywhere so that any innovator with a climate change-fighting project can unlock the capital they need from anywhere else in the world. Relevant reads Digital Euro Would Provide Alternative to Cryptos, ECB President Lagarde Says . Europe’s goal to develop a central bank digital currency was given a boost when Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, gave a forceful speech in its favor. As the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde is something of an international finance rockstar. Her words matter. Dan Palmer reports. The Currency Cold War: Four Scenarios . In the currency war of the future, who ends up on top? The U.S.? China? Bitcoin? Or some multi-currency world. Jeff Wilser surveys four futurists on what to expect as part of our Internet 2030 series. Ocean Protocol and Balancer Want to Do for Data What Uniswap Did for Coins . DeFi for data markets. This is when things get really interesting. Ian Allison reports on Ocean Protocol’s use of a DeFi-inspired automated market maker (AMM) model for achieving something many have struggled to achieve. How Small Business Can Achieve ‘Economies of Scale’ by 2030 . In another contribution to our Internet 2030 series, EY’s Paul Brody foretells a future of “re-decentralization” in which smart contracts and seamless, digitized commercial systems create new opportunities for small businesses to work together and once again compete with the big monopolies that currently dominate our world. Related Stories Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money || Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum: When Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey spoke at the virtual Oslo Freedom Forum 2020 on Friday, he said blockchain technology is the future of Twitter. “Blockchain and bitcoin point to a future, point to a world, where content exists forever,” Dorsey said. “We’re not in the content hosting business anymore, we’re in the discovery business.” In short, Dorsey expects the nonprofit Blue Sky to create an open Twitter protocol, which users can contribute to and access data from instead of a centralized service where the social media platform hosts content on its website. Related: Messaging Giant LINE Launches Token Reward Program “[Blue Sky] is a completely separate nonprofit from the company [Twitter],” Dorsey said. “We’ll focus on becoming a client of it so we can build a compelling service and business where anyone can access and anyone can contribute.” Read more: Jack Dorsey Announces New Twitter Team: Square Crypto, but for Social Media He added the nonprofit is still looking to hire at least five roles, tasked with creating a public blockchain platform. “You see this most fundamentally in bitcoin and in blockchain,” Dorsey said, describing the shift from centralized service providers to diverse network participants. “The keys will be more and more in the hands of the individual.” Related: IoT Startup Helium Floats New Hardware Device for Mining Its HNT Crypto Tokens As for Bitcoin Twitter, as it exists today, Dorsey broadly spoke to the importance of safeguarding users’ identities, which may be the key to healthy discourse. Plus, Twitter’s staff are amping up reliance and machine-learning tools to help identify non-authentic user behavior, aka propaganda. “I appreciate the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity,” he said. “Pseudonymity is built identity. … We want to protect that,” he said. Story continues The appearance comes after the now-infamous Twitter hack of July 2020 , when the platform suffered its most prominent attack in years. A 17-year-old hacker is still being tried for multiple fraud charges in Florida for infiltrating some of the world’s most prominent accounts and soliciting bitcoin payments. “Security is not anything that can ever be perfected, it’s a constant race,” Dorsey said. “The more we’re giving the individual the keys, the safer we’re going to be.” Related Stories Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum || Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum: When Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey spoke at the virtual Oslo Freedom Forum 2020 on Friday, he said blockchain technology is the future of Twitter.
“Blockchain and bitcoin point to a future, point to a world, where content exists forever,” Dorsey said. “We’re not in the content hosting business anymore, we’re in the discovery business.”
In short, Dorsey expects the nonprofitBlue Skyto create an open Twitter protocol, which users can contribute to and access data from instead of a centralized service where the social media platform hosts content on its website.
Related:Messaging Giant LINE Launches Token Reward Program
“[Blue Sky] is a completely separate nonprofit from the company [Twitter],” Dorsey said. “We’ll focus on becoming a client of it so we can build a compelling service and business where anyone can access and anyone can contribute.”
Read more:Jack Dorsey Announces New Twitter Team: Square Crypto, but for Social Media
He added the nonprofit is still looking to hire at least five roles, tasked with creating a public blockchain platform.
“You see this most fundamentally in bitcoin and in blockchain,” Dorsey said, describing the shift from centralized service providers to diverse network participants. “The keys will be more and more in the hands of the individual.”
Related:IoT Startup Helium Floats New Hardware Device for Mining Its HNT Crypto Tokens
As for Bitcoin Twitter, as it exists today, Dorsey broadly spoke to the importance of safeguarding users’ identities, which may be the key to healthy discourse. Plus, Twitter’s staff are amping up reliance and machine-learning tools to help identify non-authentic user behavior, aka propaganda.
“I appreciate the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity,” he said. “Pseudonymity is built identity. … We want to protect that,” he said.
The appearance comes after the now-infamousTwitter hack of July 2020, when the platform suffered its most prominent attack in years. A17-year-old hackeris still being tried for multiplefraud chargesinFloridafor infiltrating some of the world’s most prominent accounts and soliciting bitcoin payments.
“Security is not anything that can ever be perfected, it’s a constant race,” Dorsey said. “The more we’re giving the individual the keys, the safer we’re going to be.”
• Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum
• Jack Dorsey Details Twitter’s Blockchain Strategy at Oslo Freedom Forum
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94, 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59, 5605.51, 5590.69, 5708.52, 6011.45, 6031.60, 6008.42, 5930.32, 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38, 7459.69, 7143.58, 6618.14, 6357.60, 5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75, 7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49, 8200.64, 8071.26, 8253.55, 8038.77, 8253.69, 8790.92, 9330.55, 9818.35, 10058.80, 9888.61, 10233.60, 10975.60, 11074.60, 11323.20, 11657.20, 11916.70.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-12-05]
Volume: 6895260160, RSI (14-day): 85.22, 50-day EMA: 7984.66, 200-day EMA: 4980.04
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1261.60, Gold RSI: 40.75
Oil Price: 57.62, Oil RSI: 58.85
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50%: Investing.com – Bitcoin eased from record highs but remained well supported amid growing expectations of a surge in demand for the popular digital currency after two major exchanges announced plans to launch bitcoin futures by year-end.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, bitcoin fell to $11,131, down $31, or 0.28% after hitting an all-time high of $11,843 earlier in the session. The popular digital currency market cap rose to $189 billion.
Cboe Global Markets Inc. said Monday it will start trading bitcoin futures on Dec. 10, after receiving the go ahead last week from US futures regulator CFTC. The news comes after CME group announced last week that it would launch bitcoin futures on Dec. 18.
"We are pleased to bring Bitcoin futures to market after working closely with the CFTC and market participants to design a regulated offering that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery, and risk transfer capabilities," said Terry Duffy, CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer on Friday.
The recent wave of optimism concerning bitcoin futures has added to investor hopes that bitcoin exchange-traded funds will follow the launch of bitcoin futures, which would cement bitcoin as an established asset class, raising hopes of a surge in institutional demand.
Bitcoin cash fell 1.43% to $1,481.70, while bitcoin gold fell 0.55% to $302.34.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell 1.93% to $450.20.
IOT/USD surged as much as 70% after announcing upcoming partnerships with tech firms including Microsoft and Samsung.
Related Articles
Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50%
Cboe Says It Will Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on Dec. 10
Bitcoin dips below $11,000 after setting another record high || Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50%: Investing.com Bitcoin eased from record highs but remained well supported amid growing expectations of a surge in demand for the popular digital currency after two major exchanges announced plans to launch bitcoin futures by year-end. On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, bitcoin fell to $11,131, down $31, or 0.28% after hitting an all-time high of $11,843 earlier in the session. The popular digital currency market cap rose to $189 billion. Cboe Global Markets Inc. said Monday it will start trading bitcoin futures on Dec. 10, after receiving the go ahead last week from US futures regulator CFTC. The news comes after CME group announced last week that it would launch bitcoin futures on Dec. 18. "We are pleased to bring Bitcoin futures to market after working closely with the CFTC and market participants to design a regulated offering that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery, and risk transfer capabilities," said Terry Duffy, CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer on Friday. The recent wave of optimism concerning bitcoin futures has added to investor hopes that bitcoin exchange-traded funds will follow the launch of bitcoin futures, which would cement bitcoin as an established asset class, raising hopes of a surge in institutional demand. Bitcoin cash fell 1.43% to $1,481.70, while bitcoin gold fell 0.55% to $302.34. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell 1.93% to $450.20. IOT/USD surged as much as 70% after announcing upcoming partnerships with tech firms including Microsoft and Samsung. Related Articles Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50% Cboe Says It Will Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on Dec. 10 Bitcoin dips below $11,000 after setting another record high || Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50%: Investing.com – Bitcoin eased from record highs but remained well supported amid growing expectations of a surge in demand for the popular digital currency after two major exchanges announced plans to launch bitcoin futures by year-end.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, bitcoin fell to $11,131, down $31, or 0.28% after hitting an all-time high of $11,843 earlier in the session. The popular digital currency market cap rose to $189 billion.
Cboe Global Markets Inc. said Monday it will start trading bitcoin futures on Dec. 10, after receiving the go ahead last week from US futures regulator CFTC. The news comes after CME group announced last week that it would launch bitcoin futures on Dec. 18.
"We are pleased to bring Bitcoin futures to market after working closely with the CFTC and market participants to design a regulated offering that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery, and risk transfer capabilities," said Terry Duffy, CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer on Friday.
The recent wave of optimism concerning bitcoin futures has added to investor hopes that bitcoin exchange-traded funds will follow the launch of bitcoin futures, which would cement bitcoin as an established asset class, raising hopes of a surge in institutional demand.
Bitcoin cash fell 1.43% to $1,481.70, while bitcoin gold fell 0.55% to $302.34.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell 1.93% to $450.20.
IOT/USD surged as much as 70% after announcing upcoming partnerships with tech firms including Microsoft and Samsung.
Related Articles
Bitcoin Eases From Record Highs, IOTA Surges 50%
Cboe Says It Will Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on Dec. 10
Bitcoin dips below $11,000 after setting another record high || This Bitcoin Fund Could Plunge When Bitcoin Futures Begin Trading: Cboe Global Markets (NASDAQ: CBOE) will soon list a futures contract for bitcoin, which could be very bad news for Grayscale Investment's Bitcoin Investment Trust (NASDAQOTH: GBTC) and the people who own it. Bitcoin Investment Trust has enjoyed a lofty premium to the market value of its bitcoin because it was the only "easy" way to speculate on the price of the digital currency. Each share of Bitcoin Investment Trust is backed by roughly 0.092 bitcoin. Based on current market prices, the trust trades for a price about 70% higher than the underlying value of its bitcoin. The premium price is a direct result of an imbalance of supply and demand among retail traders, but it makes Bitcoin Investment Trust an unreliable way to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin. If the premium shrinks, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares could fall in value even if bitcoin goes up in value. A roulette table with chips stacked around the wheel. Image source: Getty Images. The new (better) way to speculate Bitcoin futures are a much better way for speculators to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin's market value. Even people who have small accounts can use Cboe's bitcoin futures to initiate trades with position sizes of just one bitcoin. With a minimum maintenance margin of 30%, speculators can put up just $3,381 to profit on the ups and downs of one bitcoin currently worth $11,270. Why would any rational speculator pay a 70% premium for bitcoin by purchasing shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust when the Cboe's bitcoin futures contract enables one to speculate through a brokerage account without paying a large premium? Many retail stock brokers plan to offer bitcoin futures when they begin trading. TD Ameritrade and Ally Financial 's Ally Invest (previously known as TradeKing) will both offer bitcoin futures to their clients, according to Bloomberg , while other brokers haven't commented on whether they will open up the contracts to their clients. Fidelity told Bloomberg it doesn't plan to offer bitcoin futures, an interesting decision given its customers love Bitcoin Investment Trust. The trust ranks as the 10th most-traded stock among Fidelity clients on Monday. Story continues Cboe's bitcoin futures start trading on Dec. 10. CME Group will launch its own contracts by Dec. 18. When that happens, retail investors who have used Bitcoin Investment Trust as an expensive vehicle for speculation may turn to the futures market to place their bets on the digital currency. In such a scenario, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares stand to lose at least 40% of their value should the sky high premium come back to earth. Related: Watch original series, sports and more on go90. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Why You're Smart to Buy Shopify Inc. (US) -- Despite Citron's Report Jordan Wathen has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cboe Global Markets and CME Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || This Bitcoin Fund Could Plunge When Bitcoin Futures Begin Trading: Cboe Global Markets(NASDAQ: CBOE)will soon list a futures contract for bitcoin, which could be very bad news for Grayscale Investment'sBitcoin Investment Trust(NASDAQOTH: GBTC)and the people who own it.
Bitcoin Investment Trust has enjoyed a lofty premium to themarket value of its bitcoinbecause it was the only "easy" way to speculate on the price of the digital currency. Each share of Bitcoin Investment Trust is backed by roughly 0.092 bitcoin. Based on current market prices, the trust trades for a price about 70% higher than the underlying value of its bitcoin.
The premium price is a direct result of an imbalance of supply and demand among retail traders, but it makes Bitcoin Investment Trust an unreliable way to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin. If the premium shrinks, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares could fall in value even if bitcoin goes up in value.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bitcoin futures are a much better way for speculators to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin's market value. Even people who have small accounts can use Cboe's bitcoin futures to initiate trades with position sizes of just one bitcoin. With a minimum maintenance margin of 30%, speculators can put up just $3,381 to profit on the ups and downs of one bitcoin currently worth $11,270.
Why would any rational speculator pay a 70% premium for bitcoin by purchasing shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust when the Cboe's bitcoin futures contract enables one to speculate through a brokerage account without paying a large premium?
Manyretail stock brokersplan to offer bitcoin futures when they begin trading.TD AmeritradeandAlly Financial's Ally Invest (previously known as TradeKing) will both offer bitcoin futures to their clients, according toBloomberg, while other brokers haven't commented on whether they will open up the contracts to their clients. Fidelity told Bloomberg it doesn't plan to offer bitcoin futures, an interesting decision given its customers love Bitcoin Investment Trust. The trust ranks as the 10th most-traded stock among Fidelity clients on Monday.
Cboe's bitcoin futures start trading on Dec. 10.CME Groupwill launch its own contracts by Dec. 18. When that happens, retail investors who have used Bitcoin Investment Trust as an expensive vehicle for speculation may turn to the futures market to place their bets on the digital currency. In such a scenario, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares stand to lose at least 40% of their value should the sky high premium come back to earth.
Related:
Watch original series, sports and more ongo90.
More From The Motley Fool
• 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices
• 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018
• 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing
• 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
• The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss
• Why You're Smart to Buy Shopify Inc. (US) -- Despite Citron's Report
Jordan Wathenhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cboe Global Markets and CME Group. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || This Bitcoin Fund Could Plunge When Bitcoin Futures Begin Trading: Cboe Global Markets(NASDAQ: CBOE)will soon list a futures contract for bitcoin, which could be very bad news for Grayscale Investment'sBitcoin Investment Trust(NASDAQOTH: GBTC)and the people who own it.
Bitcoin Investment Trust has enjoyed a lofty premium to themarket value of its bitcoinbecause it was the only "easy" way to speculate on the price of the digital currency. Each share of Bitcoin Investment Trust is backed by roughly 0.092 bitcoin. Based on current market prices, the trust trades for a price about 70% higher than the underlying value of its bitcoin.
The premium price is a direct result of an imbalance of supply and demand among retail traders, but it makes Bitcoin Investment Trust an unreliable way to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin. If the premium shrinks, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares could fall in value even if bitcoin goes up in value.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bitcoin futures are a much better way for speculators to profit on the ups and downs of bitcoin's market value. Even people who have small accounts can use Cboe's bitcoin futures to initiate trades with position sizes of just one bitcoin. With a minimum maintenance margin of 30%, speculators can put up just $3,381 to profit on the ups and downs of one bitcoin currently worth $11,270.
Why would any rational speculator pay a 70% premium for bitcoin by purchasing shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust when the Cboe's bitcoin futures contract enables one to speculate through a brokerage account without paying a large premium?
Manyretail stock brokersplan to offer bitcoin futures when they begin trading.TD AmeritradeandAlly Financial's Ally Invest (previously known as TradeKing) will both offer bitcoin futures to their clients, according toBloomberg, while other brokers haven't commented on whether they will open up the contracts to their clients. Fidelity told Bloomberg it doesn't plan to offer bitcoin futures, an interesting decision given its customers love Bitcoin Investment Trust. The trust ranks as the 10th most-traded stock among Fidelity clients on Monday.
Cboe's bitcoin futures start trading on Dec. 10.CME Groupwill launch its own contracts by Dec. 18. When that happens, retail investors who have used Bitcoin Investment Trust as an expensive vehicle for speculation may turn to the futures market to place their bets on the digital currency. In such a scenario, Bitcoin Investment Trust shares stand to lose at least 40% of their value should the sky high premium come back to earth.
Related:
Watch original series, sports and more ongo90.
More From The Motley Fool
• 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices
• 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018
• 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing
• 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
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Jordan Wathenhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cboe Global Markets and CME Group. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Tech the market laggard as stocks take off: Stocks getting another boost as the Senate squeaks tax reform through, but is now the right time for fiscal stimulus? Plus, there’s lots of optimism on the Street for tax reform, but the evidence is growing that- corporate tax cuts don’t work for Main Street. We explain. And, CVS buys Aetna in a mega deal – but is the real target here … Amazon? Catch The Final Round at 3:55 p.m. with Jen Rogers and Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer. Winners and losers Stocks in the red today include Finisar on a bearish MKM Partners note claiming weak numbers when the fiber optics communications company reports on Thursday; Mazor Robotics on reports its CEO is under investigation by the Israel Securities Authority for insider trading; and Nokia, with shares slipping after BNP Paribas downgraded shares to Underperform claiming its rival Ericsson will gain market share in the mobile equipment space. Stocks in the green today include Exactech as the medical devicemaker will be bought by TPG Capital for $737 million; Blue Apron as Barclays upgraded the meal-kit delivery service to Equalweight citing the new CEO and better risk/reward opportunity; and Disney, with shares getting a lift on a Journal report the company’s talks to buy some of Fox’s media assets is ‘gaining momentum.’ Lee Munson on the markets Trump Bump, FAANG rally, Bitcoin bubble: 2017 has seen us repeatedly hit record highs. More to come? Lee Munson, President and CIO, Portfolio Wealth Advisors joins us now. || Dow surges as tax bill passes Senate: Stocks getting another boost as the Senate squeaks tax reform through, but is now the right time for fiscal stimulus? Plus, there’s lots of optimism on the Street for tax reform, but the evidence is growing that- corporate tax cuts don’t work for Main Street. We explain. And, CVS buys Aetna in a mega deal – but is the real target here … Amazon? Catch The Final Round at 3:55 p.m. with Jen Rogers and Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer.
Winners and losers
Stocks in the red today include Finisar on a bearish MKM Partners note claiming weak numbers when the fiber optics communications company reports on Thursday; Mazor Robotics on reports its CEO is under investigation by the Israel Securities Authority for insider trading; and Nokia, with shares slipping after BNP Paribas downgraded shares to Underperform claiming its rival Ericsson will gain market share in the mobile equipment space.
Stocks in the green today include Exactech as the medical devicemaker will be bought by TPG Capital for $737 million; Blue Apron as Barclays upgraded the meal-kit delivery service to Equalweight citing the new CEO and better risk/reward opportunity; and Disney, with shares getting a lift on a Journal report the company’s talks to buy some of Fox’s media assets is ‘gaining momentum.’
Lee Munson on the markets
Trump Bump, FAANG rally, Bitcoin bubble: 2017 has seen us repeatedly hit record highs. More to come? Lee Munson, President and CIO, Portfolio Wealth Advisors joins us now. || Brainstorm Health: CVS Aetna Takeaways, Prescription Videogames, Sanofi Dengue Vaccine Probe: Hello, readers! This is Sy. On Sunday, CVS and Aetna announced what would be one of the largest health care deals of all time. The retail pharmacy giant agreed to buy the health insurerone of the biggest in America with more than $63 billion in 2016 revenues in a deal valued at $69 billion. And, if approved by the companies boards and federal regulators, the corporate marriage has the potential transform the way the health industry does business and how millions of Americans receive their medical care. Consolidation is certainly nothing new in the U.S. health care sector. Traditional pharmaceutical giants regularly scoop up leaner, meaner biotechs to insource drug innovation; hospital chains join forces to grapple with shifting reimbursement models . But, within the insurance industry, recent attempts to integrate horizontallysuch as Anthems bid for fellow insurer Cigna and Aetnas proposed deal for rival Humanahave faced roadblocks over antitrust concerns. Both those proposed M&As died following regulatory pushback. Those failures may be, in part, what helped prompt a different kind of consolidation strategy for CVS and Aetna . Unlike going horizontal within their own industries, a deal with each other would present a more diversified consolidated company that moves vertically through the health care supply chain and could provide consumers with a new kind of health care experience, the firms top executives argue. CVS pharmacies and in-store MinuteClinics would gain access to Aetnas millions of plan holders, including its giant footprint in the employer health coverage market; Aetna customers would be able to walk into a local CVS pharmacy to discuss primary care treatment options and get their prescription drugs without having to trudge through the various middlemen that pepper Americas fragmented medical system. Consider: CVS is also one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the country through its Caremark arm, so insurance coverage, filling prescriptions, and treating chronic health conditions like diabetes could all be housed under one company. Story continues [I]ts really the perfect time to bring these two companies together, to create a new health care platform that can be easier to use and less expensive for consumers, and really create a new front door to health care in our country, CVS Health CEO Larry Merlo told CNBC on Monday. Aetna chief Mark Bertolini added that there would be about 10,000 of these new front doors created by the merger thanks to CVS ubiquitous pharmacies and clinics. (My Fortune colleague Phil Wahba has a great piece on what CVS stores could look like if the Aetna deal goes through.) One broader result of the deal may be an even larger push for cross-sector mergersespecially with the specter of Amazon reportedly vying for a foothold in the pharmacy business. Leerink Partners analyst Dr. Ana Gupte has argued that a successful CVS-Aetna M&A could spur Wal-Mart to pursue a deal with insurer Humana , with which the retail titan has a long-standing relationship. But the critical question will be whether such deals will ultimately prove fruitful for patients. Merlo and Bertolini say the cost-savings and efficiencies will clearly cut costs for consumers. Critics, though, point out that driving customers to fewer and fewer options across the gamut of health services could prove risky for them in the long run. Read on for the days other news. DIGITAL HEALTH A prescription video game for treating ADHD. A clinical trial of children with ADHD suggests that prescribing them with special, tailor-made video games could help control the behavioral condition. In fact, the company, Akili, is planning to file its digital treatment for Food and Drug Administration approval in what would be a first-of-its-kind clearance. ( Reuters ) INDICATIONS Sanofis dengue vaccine is in the hot seat. Sanofis landmark dengue vaccine is under fire following reports from the company that the product could actually worsen the condition in people who have never had it in the first place (although effective in in preventing those who have already been infected from contracting another strain later on). The Phillipines has suspended a mass immunization campaign of Dengvaxia and launched an investigation into it, while Sanofi has said it will cooperate with probes into the vaccine. ( Wall Street Journal ) THE BIG PICTURE States and families are getting anxious about the Childrens Health Insurance Program. The Senate passed a sweeping tax reform billwith many implications for U.S. health care, since it would gut Obamacares insurance mandatelast week. But Congress appears no closer to reauthorizing the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers the medical needs of nine million children in low- to middle-income families, prompting rebukes from state health officials and families covered by the program as funding threatens to dry out in many regions by years end. REQUIRED READING Bitcoin Futures Could Trigger a Lehman-Style Collapse, Billionaire Warns , by Jeff John Roberts Chinas Trade-First Policy , by Adam Lashinsky Uber Is Joining a Global Public Transport Association , by Reuters Sheryl Sandberg: Todays Sexual Harassment Moment Is Not Enough , by Natasha Bach Produced by Sy Mukherjee @the_sy_guy [email protected] Find past coverage. Sign up for other Fortune newsletters . || Brainstorm Health: CVS Aetna Takeaways, Prescription Videogames, Sanofi Dengue Vaccine Probe: Hello, readers! This is Sy.
On Sunday,CVS and Aetna announcedwhat would be one of the largest health care deals of all time. The retail pharmacy giant agreed to buy the health insurer—one of the biggest in America with more than$63 billion in 2016 revenues—in a deal valued at $69 billion. And, if approved by the companies’ boards and federal regulators, the corporate marriage has the potential transform the way the health industry does business and how millions of Americans receive their medical care.
Consolidation is certainly nothing new in the U.S. health care sector. Traditional pharmaceutical giants regularlyscoop up leaner, meaner biotechsto insource drug innovation; hospital chains join forces to grapple withshifting reimbursement models. But, within the insurance industry, recent attempts to integrate horizontally—such as Anthem’s bid for fellow insurerCignaand Aetna’s proposed deal for rival Humana—have faced roadblocks over antitrust concerns. Both those proposed M&As died following regulatory pushback.
Those failures may be, in part, what helped prompt a different kind of consolidation strategy forCVSandAetna. Unlike going horizontal within their own industries, a deal with each other would present a more diversified consolidated company that moves vertically through the health care supply chain and could provide consumers with a new kind of health care experience, the firm’s top executives argue. CVS’ pharmacies and in-store MinuteClinics would gain access to Aetna’s millions of plan holders, including its giant footprint in the employer health coverage market; Aetna customers would be able to walk into a local CVS pharmacy to discuss primary care treatment options and get their prescription drugs without having to trudge through the various middlemen that pepper America’s fragmented medical system. Consider: CVS is also one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the country through its Caremark arm, so insurance coverage, filling prescriptions, and treating chronic health conditions like diabetes could all be housed under one company.
“[I]t’s really the perfect time to bring these two companies together, to create a new health care platform that can be easier to use and less expensive for consumers, and really create a new front door to health care in our country,” CVS Health CEO Larry Merlotold CNBCon Monday. Aetna chief Mark Bertolini added that there would be about 10,000 of these new “front doors” created by the merger thanks to CVS’ ubiquitous pharmacies and clinics. (MyFortunecolleague Phil Wahba has a great piece onwhat CVS stores could look likeif the Aetna deal goes through.)
One broader result of the deal may be an even larger push for cross-sector mergers—especially with the specter ofAmazonreportedly vying for a foothold in the pharmacy business. Leerink Partners analyst Dr. Ana Gupte has argued that a successful CVS-Aetna M&A could spurWal-Marttopursue a deal with insurer Humana, with which the retail titan has a long-standing relationship.
But the critical question will be whether such deals will ultimately prove fruitful for patients. Merlo and Bertolini say the cost-savings and efficiencies will clearly cut costs for consumers. Critics, though, point out that driving customers to fewer and fewer options across the gamut of health services could prove risky for them in the long run.
Read on for the day’s other news.
A prescription video game for treating ADHD.A clinical trial of children with ADHD suggests that prescribing them with special, tailor-made video games could help control the behavioral condition. In fact, the company, Akili, is planning to file its “digital treatment” for Food and Drug Administration approval in what would be a first-of-its-kind clearance.(Reuters)
Sanofi’s dengue vaccine is in the hot seat.Sanofi’s landmark dengue vaccine is under fire following reports from the company that the product could actually worsen the condition in people who have never had it in the first place (although effective in in preventing those who have already been infected from contracting another strain later on). The Phillipines has suspended a mass immunization campaign of Dengvaxia and launched an investigation into it, while Sanofi has said it will cooperate with probes into the vaccine.(Wall Street Journal)
States and families are getting anxious about the Children’s Health Insurance Program.The Senate passed a sweeping tax reform bill—with many implications for U.S. health care, since it would gut Obamacare’s insurance mandate—last week. But Congress appears no closer to reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers the medical needs of nine million children in low- to middle-income families, prompting rebukes from state health officials and families covered by the program as funding threatens to dry out in many regions by year’s end.
Bitcoin Futures Could Trigger a Lehman-Style Collapse, Billionaire Warns,by Jeff John Roberts
China’s Trade-First Policy,by Adam Lashinsky
Uber Is Joining a Global Public Transport Association,by Reuters
Sheryl Sandberg: Today’s Sexual Harassment ‘Moment’ Is Not Enough,by Natasha Bach
Produced by Sy Mukherjee@[email protected]. Sign up for otherFortunenewsletters. || 10 Losers That Will Be 2018’s Best Stocks to Buy: 2017 has been a good year for stocks as a whole, although not every stock has participated in the gains. Broad market indices are at record highs, with the S&P 500 up 16% year-to-date. But roughly 30% of the stocks in the index have seen their share prices decline this year, including widely owned issues like General Electric Company (NYSE: GE ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T ) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM ). With the year coming to an end, many of 2017’s losers already are looking to 2018 in hopes of brighter days. In some areas — like the retail sector — this year’s laggards will need more than just a change of the calendar. Many have real risks, given their declines against the rising trend of the overall market. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Warren Buffett's 7 Best Stock Picks of 2017 But these 10 stocks that have been dogs in 2017 look like they should be winners in 2018 — and beyond. Best Stocks to Buy: Walgreens 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) Source: Shutterstock Year-to-date performance: -13% At the moment, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ: WBA ) looks like another victim of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ). WBA shares have fallen almost 20% just since early September, and hasn’t recovered from the initial reports about Amazon’s interest in the space back in May. But the declines at this point look overblown. The company’s long-awaited acquisition of stores from Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE: RAD ) should pay dividends next year. Amazon’s entry seems more a threat to PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) like Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ: ESRX ) than to Walgreens’ retail business. This still is a defensive stock with a major moat — and a cheap valuation. WBA now trades at roughly 11x 2018 analyst EPS estimates, a multiple that suggests profits will decline going forward. Amazon or not, that seems too negative an outlook. And $67 seems too cheap a price. Story continues Best Stocks to Buy: AMC Entertainment Source: Dave Dugdale via Flickr Year-to-date performance: -58% No stock on this list has performed worse than AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE: AMC ) — and no stock has more risk. AMC has lost nearly two-thirds of its value so far this year. The stock is coming off a horrible Q2 report. Investors clearly are concerned about the long-term health of the movie industry, with streaming options proliferating from Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX ) and its myriad rivals. And AMC’s balance sheet is loaded with debt after a number of recent acquisitions, with its debt-to-EBITDA ratio likely near a dangerous 6x. And yet all isn’t lost. 2017 results have been poor — but so has the slate of movie releases. What looks like consumers abandoning movie theaters very well could be consumers avoiding movies that simply don’t look very interesting. 10 A-Rated Tech Stocks to Grow Your Returns The potential death of the movie theater has been predicted for years — but 2017 results aside, it hasn’t happened yet. If this year’s weakness is just a case of bad movies, and not a case of consumers staying home for good, then AMC’s dividend, yielding 6.6%, might be sustainable — and AMC stock will have more upside. Best Stocks to Buy: Netgear Source: Sinchen.Lin Via Flickr Year-to-date performance: -6% Netgear, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR ) is another company facing possible external threats. NTGR’s dominance in wireless routers is being challenged by ‘mesh’ products from Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) and startup Eero , among others. Operating margins in the second half of 2017 are being compressed by increasing marketing spend behind Netgear’s Orbi mesh product, as well as its Arlo cameras and high-end Nighthawk routers. Fears of declining revenue and compressed margins have kept a lid on NTGR stock so far this year, even after back-to-back earnings beats. But here, too, the narrative looks far too negative. Arlo sales are soaring: they’ve more than doubled this year and now account for over 30% of total sales. Netgear has battled larger tech rivals in routers for years — and continues to win, with over 50% market share. Meanwhile, the balance sheet is pristine, with nearly $12 per share in cash and no debt. Margins should expand next year, returning Netgear to profit growth. And a sub-12x forward EPS multiple excluding that cash looks far too low in that scenario. Arlo growth alone should drive growth – and a higher multiple. That should make 2018 a much better year for Netgear stock. Best Stocks to Buy: Smart & Final 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Smart & Final (SFS) Source: Susan Goulding Year-to-date performance: -35% Amazon, of course, has disrupted the grocery space as well, with the acquisition of Whole Foods Market this summer. Grocery stocks have tumbled, among them Smart & Final Stores Inc (NYSE: SFS ). Amazon isn’t Smart & Final’s only competitive problem. European retailer Aldi has entered the southern California market, which led to rising short interest in SFS even before Amazon’s surprise move. With a decent amount of debt on the balance sheet, decelerating (and eventually negative) same-store sales growth, and margins compressing, there are some pillars for a short case here. But here, too, the decline seems overwrought. About 45% of revenue actually comes from sales to businesses like restaurants, much of that through the company’s Cash & Carry brand. Management has largely dismissed the Aldi threat, citing a roughly $1,000-$2,000 impact per store per week. Direct competition with Whole Foods should be limited as well. 8 Bitcoin Stocks That You Won't Lose Your Shirt Over Investors who believe the market has overreacted to the Amazon- Whole Foods tie-up naturally look toward Kroger Co (NYSE: KR ), as Laura Hoy argued on this site last month. But Smart & Final looks cheaper, potentially more protected and an intriguing choice for investors who believe the grocery space can survive Amazon. Best Stocks to Buy: GGP Inc 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: GGP Inc (GGP) Source: David DeHetre via Flickr Year-to-date performance: -5.5% The weakness in retail stocks has bled into retail landlords like GGP Inc (NYSE: GGP ). GGP was down about 30% from mid-2016 highs and declined nearly 24% in 2017 before bouncing back in early November. Fellow ‘Class A’ mall operators Simon Property Group Inc (NYSE: SPG ) and Macerich Co (NYSE: MAC ) similarly have struggled. A disastrous third-quarter report and dividend cut from CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. (NYSE: CBL ) only added to the pressure and sent GGP to its lowest level in some four years. But the argument for GGP is that its higher-end properties should be more immune to retail pressure than those of lower-end operators like CBL and Washington Prime Group Inc (NYSE: WPG ). It’s an argument that makes some sense, given that results at GGP still show little sign of weakness. Same-store net operating income rose in its third quarter, and occupancy actually rose 80 bps from Q2, clearing 95%. Q4 guidance was strong as well. Yet GGP now trades at barely 12x its guidance for 2017 FFO (funds from operations), and yields 4.6% — not including a special dividend paid earlier this year. GGP management — echoing commentary from Simon and Macerich — insists that demand exceeds supply for its Class A properties, and long-term even exits by big-box retailers like Sears Holdings Corp (NASDAQ: SHLD ) and J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE: JCP ) should be a benefit, by creating room for smaller tenants at higher rates per square foot. If investors begin to believe those management teams, GGP should have a solid rebound next year. Best Stocks to Buy: Hawaiian Airlines 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Hawaiian Airlines (HA) Source: Bill Abbott via Flickr Year-to-date performance: -28.2% Somewhat surprisingly for a macro-sensitive group, airline stocks have not performed all that well in 2017, and Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: HA ) has had the worst performance among U.S. passenger carriers. The issue has been competition. In June, United Continental Holdings Inc (NYSE: UAL ) announced it was adding flights to HA’s home market. Combined with a downgrade to “sell” from Stifel Nicolaus, HA shares fell 10.5%. Now, reports suggest that Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE: LUV ) will enter the market area, further pressuring HA stock, which now trades at a 21-month low. As a result, HA stock now trades at under 8x next year’s EPS and 17% below even the target set by Stifel Nicolaus in June. Management has argued that it can manage the new competition, given already-full capacity on flights to Hawaii from Hawaiian and its rivals. The same stronger economy helping broad markets should boost demand, and a moderation in jet fuel prices could help as well. 7 Best Dividend Funds for Retirement The airline sector always has been a tough place to invest — but even Warren Buffett has changed his mind on the space. At the moment, HA looks like the most intriguing play in the industry. Best Stocks to Buy: Edgewell Personal Care 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Edgewell Personal Care (EPC) Source: [email protected] Year-to-date performance: -20% Shares of Edgewell Personal Care Co (NYSE: EPC ) have fallen off a cliff of late, touching their lowest levels in almost five years on Friday. Here, too, the decline seems overwrought. There are concerns. Pricing pressure on core shaving brand Schick appears to be mounting, with Procter & Gamble Co (NYSE: PG ) brand Gillette advertising a broad range of price cuts. Edgewell guided for organic sales to decline 1%-2% in its fiscal 2017, with weakness expected in its Feminine Care business as well. But EPS guidance actually was raised coming out of the quarter, with the company expecting 11% growth this year. Another $25 million-$30 million in cost savings is expected next year, itself enough to drive high-single-digit EPS growth on its own. EPC now trades at just 16x the midpoint of FY17 guidance, a significant discount to PG (which itself is struggling with growth) and the personal products space as a whole. EPC’s size — enterprise value is under $5 billion — and brands make it an intriguing acquisition target as well. But on its own or in a buyout, either way EPC looks just too cheap. Best Stocks to Buy: Fairmount Santrol 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Fairmount Santrol (FMSA) Source: SMelindo via Flickr (Modified) Year-to-date performance: -58% To give an idea of how 2017 has gone for proppant manufacturer Fairmount Santrol Holdings Inc (NYSE: FMSA ), the stock has risen 87% from its August lows — and still is down about 60% since the start of the year. But there’s reason to see the recent rebound continuing. FMSA posted a strong Q3, with volumes of its “frac sand” used in shale drilling rising 9% quarter-over-quarter. Pricing strengthened as well, leading to a 26% rise in revenue. The company also announced the completion of a debt refinancing that should take restructuring fears off the table – and give the company time to continue its growth.ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff 3 Great BlackRock Funds You Have to Own FMSA unquestionably is a high-risk play, given its direct reliance on U.S. shale, in particular. But that industry looks increasingly healthy, and higher oil prices should continue to support drilling output. Both FMSA and rival U.S. Silica Holdings Inc (NYSE: SLCA ) should benefit in that scenario — and FMSA, in particular, should have plenty of room to run. Best Stocks to Buy: Duluth Holdings 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Duluth Holdings (DLTH) Source: Bill McChesney via Flickr (modified) Year-to-date performance: -25.6% One of 2016’s better-performing IPOs has turned into one of 2017’s more disappointing stocks. Duluth Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: DLTH ) now is down by more than half from late 2016 lows, in large part due to a couple of disappointing earnings reports, including a fiscal Q1 release in June that led the stock to drop almost 19% . But this may be a case where expectations simply were too high – as Duluth’s performance still seems reasonably strong. Sales rose 31% in the second quarter, for instance, with Adjusted EBITDA climbing 27% and net income rising 18%. And yet with the recent pullback, DLTH trades at just 26x the midpoint of FY18 guidance, with room for expansion both in terms of its retail stores and its direct-to-consumer business. There’s a reason why DLTH’s IPO was successful. Duluth still has an intriguing concept — and still is driving plenty of growth on the top and bottom lines. That growth may have disappointed, but not enough to support a 50%-plus haircut to DLTH stock. Best Stocks to Buy: Goodyear Tire & Rubber 10 Loser Stocks to Buy: Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT) Source: Mike Mozart via Flickr Year-to-date performance: + 4% Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co (NASDAQ: GT ) hasn’t had a bad 2017, necessarily, with the stock down a touch under 5% YTD before recovering over the past month. Investors who bought the dip were rewarded, as GT stock traded at its lowest levels in about eleven months after a modestly disappointing Q3 report in late October. There are challenges. Input costs have risen, and “peak auto” concerns are hitting valuations across the space. Revenue is down 1% so far this year, with tire volumes off 6%. Adjusted net income has declined 30%. 10 Cheap Stocks to Buy With Only $12 But GT also trades at under 10x 2017 EPS estimates, with analysts projecting a rebound in 2018. If those analysts are right — or close — GT’s 2018 should be much better than its 2017. As of this writing, Vince Martin was long shares of NTGR stock. The post 10 Losers That Will Be 2018’s Best Stocks to Buy appeared first on InvestorPlace . || 10 Losers That Will Be 2018’s Best Stocks to Buy: 2017 has been a good year for stocks as a whole, although not every stock has participated in the gains.
Broad market indices are at record highs, with theS&P 500up 16% year-to-date. But roughly 30% of the stocks in the index have seen their share prices decline this year, including widely owned issues likeGeneral Electric Company(NYSE:GE),AT&T Inc.(NYSE:T) andExxon Mobil Corporation(NYSE:XOM).
With the year coming to an end, many of 2017’s losers already are looking to 2018 in hopes of brighter days. In some areas — like the retail sector — this year’s laggards will need more than just a change of the calendar. Many have real risks, given their declines against the rising trend of the overall market.
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• Warren Buffett's 7 Best Stock Picks of 2017
But these 10 stocks that have been dogs in 2017 look like they should be winners in 2018 — and beyond.
Source: Shutterstock
Year-to-date performance:-13%
At the moment,Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc(NASDAQ:WBA) looks like another victim ofAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN). WBA shares have fallen almost 20% just since early September, and hasn’t recovered from the initial reports aboutAmazon’s interest in the space backin May.
But the declines at this point look overblown. The company’s long-awaited acquisition of stores fromRite Aid Corporation(NYSE:RAD) should pay dividends next year. Amazon’s entry seems more a threat to PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) likeExpress Scripts Holding Company(NASDAQ:ESRX) than to Walgreens’ retail business.
This still is a defensive stock with a major moat — and a cheap valuation. WBA now trades at roughly 11x 2018 analyst EPS estimates, a multiple that suggests profits will decline going forward. Amazon or not, that seems too negative an outlook. And $67 seems too cheap a price.
Source:Dave Dugdale via Flickr
Year-to-date performance:-58%
No stock on this list has performed worse thanAMC Entertainment Holdings Inc(NYSE:AMC) — and no stock has more risk.
AMC has lost nearly two-thirds of its value so far this year. The stock is coming off a horrible Q2 report. Investors clearly are concerned about the long-term health of the movie industry, with streaming options proliferating fromNetflix, Inc.(NASDAQ:NFLX) and its myriad rivals.
And AMC’s balance sheet is loaded with debt after a number of recent acquisitions, with its debt-to-EBITDA ratio likely near a dangerous 6x.
And yet all isn’t lost. 2017 results have been poor — but so has the slate of movie releases. What looks like consumers abandoning movie theaters very well could be consumers avoiding movies that simply don’t look very interesting.
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The potential death of the movie theater has been predicted for years — but 2017 results aside, it hasn’t happened yet. If this year’s weakness is just a case of bad movies, and not a case of consumers staying home for good, then AMC’s dividend, yielding 6.6%, might be sustainable — and AMC stock will have more upside.
Source:Sinchen.Lin Via Flickr
Year-to-date performance:-6%
Netgear, Inc.(NASDAQ:NTGR) is another company facing possible external threats. NTGR’s dominance in wireless routers is being challenged by ‘mesh’ products fromAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) and startupEero, among others. Operating margins in the second half of 2017 are being compressed by increasing marketing spend behind Netgear’s Orbi mesh product, as well as its Arlo cameras and high-end Nighthawk routers.
Fears of declining revenue and compressed margins have kept a lid on NTGR stock so far this year, even after back-to-back earnings beats. But here, too, the narrative looks far too negative. Arlo sales are soaring: they’ve more than doubled this year and now account for over 30% of total sales. Netgear has battled larger tech rivals in routers for years — and continues to win, with over 50% market share.
Meanwhile, the balance sheet is pristine, with nearly $12 per share in cash and no debt. Margins should expand next year, returning Netgear to profit growth. And a sub-12x forward EPS multiple excluding that cash looks far too low in that scenario. Arlo growth alone should drive growth – and a higher multiple. That should make 2018 a much better year for Netgear stock.
Source:Susan Goulding
Year-to-date performance:-35%
Amazon, of course, has disrupted the grocery space as well, with theacquisitionof Whole Foods Market this summer. Grocery stocks have tumbled, among themSmart & Final Stores Inc(NYSE:SFS).
Amazon isn’t Smart & Final’s only competitive problem. European retailerAldihas entered the southern California market, which led to rising short interest in SFS even before Amazon’s surprise move. With a decent amount of debt on the balance sheet, decelerating (and eventually negative) same-store sales growth, and margins compressing, there are some pillars for a short case here.
But here, too, the decline seems overwrought. About 45% of revenue actually comes from sales to businesses like restaurants, much of that through the company’s Cash & Carry brand. Management has largely dismissed the Aldi threat, citing a roughly $1,000-$2,000 impact per store per week. Direct competition with Whole Foods should be limited as well.
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Investors who believe the market has overreacted to the Amazon-Whole Foodstie-up naturally look towardKroger Co(NYSE:KR), as Laura Hoyargued on this sitelast month.
But Smart & Final looks cheaper, potentially more protected and an intriguing choice for investors who believe the grocery space can survive Amazon.
Source:David DeHetre via Flickr
Year-to-date performance:-5.5%
The weakness in retail stocks has bled into retail landlords likeGGP Inc(NYSE:GGP). GGP was down about 30% from mid-2016 highs and declined nearly 24% in 2017 before bouncing back in early November. Fellow ‘Class A’ mall operatorsSimon Property Group Inc(NYSE:SPG) andMacerich Co(NYSE:MAC) similarly have struggled.
Adisastrous third-quarter reportand dividend cut fromCBL & Associates Properties, Inc.(NYSE:CBL) only added to the pressure and sent GGP to its lowest level in some four years. But the argument for GGP is that its higher-end properties should be more immune to retail pressure than those of lower-end operators like CBL andWashington Prime Group Inc(NYSE:WPG).
It’s an argument that makes some sense, given that results at GGP still show little sign of weakness. Same-store net operating income rose in its third quarter, and occupancy actually rose 80 bps from Q2, clearing 95%. Q4 guidance was strong as well. Yet GGP now trades at barely 12x its guidance for 2017 FFO (funds from operations), and yields 4.6% — not including a special dividend paid earlier this year.
GGP management — echoing commentary from Simon and Macerich — insists that demand exceeds supply for its Class A properties, and long-term even exits by big-box retailers likeSears Holdings Corp(NASDAQ:SHLD) andJ C Penney Company Inc(NYSE:JCP) should be a benefit, by creating room for smaller tenants at higher rates per square foot.
If investors begin to believe those management teams, GGP should have a solid rebound next year.
Source:Bill Abbott via Flickr
Year-to-date performance:-28.2%
Somewhat surprisingly for a macro-sensitive group, airline stocks have not performed all that well in 2017, andHawaiian Holdings, Inc.(NASDAQ:HA) has had the worst performance among U.S. passenger carriers.
The issue has been competition. In June,United Continental Holdings Inc(NYSE:UAL)announced it was adding flightsto HA’s home market. Combined with a downgrade to “sell” from Stifel Nicolaus, HA shares fell 10.5%. Now, reports suggest thatSouthwest Airlines Co(NYSE:LUV) will enter the market area, further pressuring HA stock, which now trades at a 21-month low.
As a result, HA stock now trades at under 8x next year’s EPS and 17% below even the target set by Stifel Nicolaus in June. Management has argued that it can manage the new competition, given already-full capacity on flights to Hawaii from Hawaiian and its rivals. The same stronger economy helping broad markets should boost demand, and a moderation in jet fuel prices could help as well.
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The airline sector always has been a tough place to invest — buteven Warren Buffett has changed his mindon the space. At the moment, HA looks like the most intriguing play in the industry.
Source:[email protected]
Year-to-date performance:-20%
Shares ofEdgewell Personal Care Co(NYSE:EPC) have fallen off a cliff of late, touching their lowest levels in almost five years on Friday. Here, too, the decline seems overwrought.
There are concerns. Pricing pressure on core shaving brand Schick appears to be mounting, withProcter & Gamble Co(NYSE:PG) brand Gillette advertising a broad range of price cuts. Edgewell guided for organic sales to decline 1%-2% in its fiscal 2017, with weakness expected in its Feminine Care business as well.
But EPS guidance actually was raised coming out of the quarter, with the company expecting 11% growth this year. Another $25 million-$30 million in cost savings is expected next year, itself enough to drive high-single-digit EPS growth on its own. EPC now trades at just 16x the midpoint of FY17 guidance, a significant discount to PG (which itself is struggling with growth) and the personal products space as a whole.
EPC’s size — enterprise value is under $5 billion — and brands make it an intriguing acquisition target as well. But on its own or in a buyout, either way EPC looks just too cheap.
Source:SMelindo via Flickr (Modified)
Year-to-date performance:-58%
To give an idea of how 2017 has gone for proppant manufacturerFairmount Santrol Holdings Inc(NYSE:FMSA), the stock has risen 87% from its August lows — andstillis down about 60% since the start of the year. But there’s reason to see the recent rebound continuing.
FMSA posted a strong Q3, with volumes of its “frac sand” used in shale drilling rising 9% quarter-over-quarter. Pricing strengthened as well, leading to a 26% rise in revenue. The company also announced the completion of a debt refinancing that should take restructuring fears off the table – and give the company time to continue its growth.ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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FMSA unquestionably is a high-risk play, given its direct reliance on U.S. shale, in particular. But that industry looks increasingly healthy, and higher oil prices should continue to support drilling output. Both FMSA and rivalU.S. Silica Holdings Inc(NYSE:SLCA) should benefit in that scenario — and FMSA, in particular, should have plenty of room to run.
Source:Bill McChesney via Flickr (modified)
Year-to-date performance:-25.6%
One of 2016’s better-performing IPOs has turned into one of 2017’s more disappointing stocks.Duluth Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:DLTH) now is down by more than half from late 2016 lows, in large part due to a couple of disappointing earnings reports, including a fiscal Q1 release in June thatled the stock to drop almost 19%.
But this may be a case where expectations simply were too high – as Duluth’s performance still seems reasonably strong. Sales rose 31% in the second quarter, for instance, with Adjusted EBITDA climbing 27% and net income rising 18%. And yet with the recent pullback, DLTH trades at just 26x the midpoint of FY18 guidance, with room for expansion both in terms of its retail stores and its direct-to-consumer business.
There’s a reason why DLTH’s IPO was successful. Duluth still has an intriguing concept — and still is driving plenty of growth on the top and bottom lines. That growth may have disappointed, but not enough to support a 50%-plus haircut to DLTH stock.
Source:Mike Mozart via Flickr
Year-to-date performance: +4%
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co(NASDAQ:GT) hasn’t had a bad 2017, necessarily, with the stock down a touch under 5% YTD before recovering over the past month. Investors who bought the dip were rewarded, as GT stock traded at its lowest levels in about eleven months aftera modestly disappointing Q3 reportin late October.
There are challenges. Input costs have risen, and“peak auto”concerns are hitting valuations across the space. Revenue is down 1% so far this year, with tire volumes off 6%. Adjusted net income has declined 30%.
• 10 Cheap Stocks to Buy With Only $12
But GT also trades at under 10x 2017 EPS estimates, with analysts projecting a rebound in 2018. If those analysts are right — or close — GT’s 2018 should be much better than its 2017.
As of this writing, Vince Martin was long shares of NTGR stock.
The post10 Losers That Will Be 2018’s Best Stocks to Buyappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Here's how to buy bitcoin: The price of the bitcoin again hit a new all-time high on Dec. 3, edging close to $12,000. It’s up more than 1,300% in 2017.
Bitcoin’s market cap is up to $193 billion. For some perspective on how fast it’s flying: bitcoin’s market cap was less than a quarter of that as recently as June.
So, you want to get in?
Even though you may be wishing you bought sooner, it still may not be too late: big believers like Mike Novogratz arepredicting $40,000 per coin by the end of 2018.
(Caveat: bitcoin is extremely volatile, with big swings up and down, week in and week out; Yahoo Finance is not dispensing investing advice, just giving you instructions on how to buyif you wish.)
First, you’ll need a bitcoin wallet.
To be clear, this digital wallet doesn’t hold actual coins (since bitcoins are intangible) and it doesn’t even hold any files. What it stores are your private keys, which are strings of numbers and letters that allow you to access your coins. A bitcoin key looks like this: 01TK23tktk4t5tk678TK9tk.
For extra security,you’ll want to save your keys somewhere that isn’t connected to the internet; cryptocurrency people call this “cold storage.”There are a number of companies now that make hardware wallets for your keys (like a fob, with changing digits every 30 seconds), or you can simply write your key down on a piece of paper stashed somewhere secure in your home. (Just don’t forget where.)
A company called Blockchain (not to be confused with the bitcoin blockchain) offers a free bitcoin wallet you can download, or you can get one from Coinapult, BitGo, BitPay, or any number of wallet providers. Not all wallet providers allow you to buy bitcoins on their site; there are wallets, exchanges, and some businesses that are both. (Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrongexamines this confusion here.)
The simplest place for a newbie to buy some bitcoins isCoinbase, which was an early leader in bitcoin-buyingand remains the most popular mainstream option. The site has more than 13 million registered users (more customers than Charles Schwab) with more than 30 million wallets. Coinbase has raised $217 million in funding and is bitcoin’s first “unicorn,” with a $1.6 billion valuation.
When you register for Coinbase, you can get a wallet and buy bitcoins, all in one place, though you don’t have to get your wallet from Coinbase. (Another good crypto site for a first-timer isUphold, which calls itself a “cloud bank.” The peer-to-peer payments app Circle, which launched in 2013,originally enabled bitcoin-buying but has moved away from that.) Coinbase also allows for buying of ethereum and litecoin.
There are a number of security questions Coinbase makes you answer to get set up with an account, but once you’re approved, you buy bitcoins (or ether, or litecoins) using US dollars.
Coinbase, as the leading US bitcoin brokerage, also has connectivity to a number of third-party apps and developers. To give just one example, Lawnmower is an app that gives pricing charts and data and allows you to set a monthly amount of bitcoin you want it to buy for you. (The apprecently sold to the bitcoin news site Coindesk, and will shut down its bitcoin-purchasing feature soon.)
One thing to keep in mind about bitcoins: you own your coins, regardless of what site you used to buy them; that is, they don’t live on Coinbase. You can go to another bitcoin exchange site and sell bitcoins, from your wallet, by entering in your key.
And there are many bitcoin exchange sites these days, though some are only for institutional investors: Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTCC, itBit, Kraken, and OKcoin are some of the biggest. TheWinklevoss brothers launched a bitcoin exchange called Gemini.
These are fast-paced platforms where you can trade bitcoin, but they aren’t typically the best, easiest-to-use place to buy for first time buyers.
What can you do once you own bitcoin?
You could use it as payment at a growing list of online retailers, but for now its biggest appeal is as a speculative investment. The so-called “killer app” for bitcoin—a use case that would make it relevant and crucial to the average person on the street—still hasn’t come. (Wall Street and financial institutions, meanwhile, have warmed to other uses of blockchain, thetechnology that underlies bitcoin.)
Just remember, if you do buy some coins: cold storage.Do not lose your keys.
Disclosure: The author owns less than 1 bitcoin, purchased in 2015 for reporting purposes.
—
Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
Why bitcoin matters
Bitcoin is becoming the new gold
The 11 biggest names in crypto right now
Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency
Here’s why 21 Inc. is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
How bitcoin company Coinbase is staying relevant amid the blockchain craze || How to buy bitcoin: The price of the bitcoin again hit a new all-time high on Dec. 3, edging close to $12,000. Its up more than 1,300% in 2017. Bitcoins market cap is up to $193 billion. For some perspective on how fast its flying: bitcoins market cap was less than a quarter of that as recently as June. So, you want to get in? Even though you may be wishing you bought sooner, it still may not be too late: big believers like Mike Novogratz are predicting $40,000 per coin by the end of 2018 . (Caveat: bitcoin is extremely volatile, with big swings up and down, week in and week out; Yahoo Finance is not dispensing investing advice, just giving you instructions on how to buy if you wish .) Bitcoin price in 2017 through Dec. 4 Download a wallet First, youll need a bitcoin wallet. To be clear, this digital wallet doesnt hold actual coins (since bitcoins are intangible) and it doesnt even hold any files. What it stores are your private keys, which are strings of numbers and letters that allow you to access your coins. A bitcoin key looks like this: 01TK23tktk4t5tk678TK9tk. For extra security, youll want to save your keys somewhere that isnt connected to the internet; cryptocurrency people call this cold storage. There are a number of companies now that make hardware wallets for your keys (like a fob, with changing digits every 30 seconds), or you can simply write your key down on a piece of paper stashed somewhere secure in your home. (Just dont forget where.) A company called Blockchain (not to be confused with the bitcoin blockchain) offers a free bitcoin wallet you can download, or you can get one from Coinapult, BitGo, BitPay, or any number of wallet providers. Not all wallet providers allow you to buy bitcoins on their site; there are wallets, exchanges, and some businesses that are both. (Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong examines this confusion here .) Choose where to buy The simplest place for a newbie to buy some bitcoins is Coinbase, which was an early leader in bitcoin-buying and remains the most popular mainstream option. The site has more than 13 million registered users ( more customers than Charles Schwab ) with more than 30 million wallets. Coinbase has raised $217 million in funding and is bitcoins first unicorn, with a $1.6 billion valuation. Story continues When you register for Coinbase, you can get a wallet and buy bitcoins, all in one place, though you dont have to get your wallet from Coinbase. (Another good crypto site for a first-timer is Uphold, which calls itself a cloud bank . The peer-to-peer payments app Circle, which launched in 2013, originally enabled bitcoin-buying but has moved away from that .) Coinbase also allows for buying of ethereum and litecoin. There are a number of security questions Coinbase makes you answer to get set up with an account, but once youre approved, you buy bitcoins (or ether, or litecoins) using US dollars. Coinbase, as the leading US bitcoin brokerage, also has connectivity to a number of third-party apps and developers. To give just one example, Lawnmower is an app that gives pricing charts and data and allows you to set a monthly amount of bitcoin you want it to buy for you. (The app recently sold to the bitcoin news site Coindesk , and will shut down its bitcoin-purchasing feature soon.) One thing to keep in mind about bitcoins: you own your coins, regardless of what site you used to buy them; that is, they dont live on Coinbase. You can go to another bitcoin exchange site and sell bitcoins, from your wallet, by entering in your key. And there are many bitcoin exchange sites these days, though some are only for institutional investors: Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTCC, itBit, Kraken, and OKcoin are some of the biggest. The Winklevoss brothers launched a bitcoin exchange called Gemini . These are fast-paced platforms where you can trade bitcoin, but they arent typically the best, easiest-to-use place to buy for first time buyers. What can you do once you own bitcoin? You could use it as payment at a growing list of online retailers, but for now its biggest appeal is as a speculative investment. The so-called killer app for bitcoina use case that would make it relevant and crucial to the average person on the streetstill hasnt come. ( Wall Street and financial institutions, meanwhile, have warmed to other uses of blockchain , the technology that underlies bitcoin .) Just remember, if you do buy some coins: cold storage. Do not lose your keys . Disclosure: The author owns less than 1 bitcoin, purchased in 2015 for reporting purposes. Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Why bitcoin matters Bitcoin is becoming the new gold The 11 biggest names in crypto right now Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency Heres why 21 Inc. is the most exciting bitcoin company right now How bitcoin company Coinbase is staying relevant amid the blockchain craze || Time to Buy the Nvidia Corporation Dip?: Shares inNvidia Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) have fallen 8% over the last five trading days as speculation rose that the cryptocurrency “arms race” may be ending.
Source: Shutterstock
Time to buy the dip?
Analysts now predicta slowdown in sales to cryptocurrency “miners,”who use fast graphics cards to find decryption keys for things like Bitcoin. This hit NVDA shares hard in the most recent trading week.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
The fall was possible because the valuation of Nvidia had become almost as divorced from gravity as Bitcoin itself. The stock is up 85% in the last year, and opened for trade on Dec. 4 at a price to earnings ratio of 49.4, against 15.6 for rivalIntel Corporation(NASDAQ:INTC).
When values are stretched, stocks become like balloons, rising and falling with the wind rather than fundamentals. The question for investors becomes, do the fundamentals of the stock make it worth buying?
WhenI last wrote about Nvidia, on Nov. 7, I described those fundamentals as being related to a new buzzword called “fog computing.”
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Fog computing is important for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, like self-driving cars, requiring fast chips on both the client and server end of the information transaction. When you tell yourAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) Alexa device to play Jason Isbell’sIf We Were Vampiresfrom your music collection, the device in your home must find out whether you own the song, then access a stream of it, within a few seconds.
Future applications of AI will require even more speed and coordination. That means faster clouds as well as more speed on clients. Nvidia GeForce chips, originally designed for graphics processing on video games, are perfect for this task. Thus, the bullish case states, expect huge orders from cloud providers upgrading to support these applications, and from client device makers delivering them.
The bull case for Nvidia is clear. What about the bear case?
The bear case hinges on companies that control the new market arbitraging Nvidia against other suppliers to keep down costs, asTesla Inc(NASDAQ:TSLA) is doing on itscar infotainment systems, despite Nvidia having named one of its chip boardsTesla, after the inventor.
Nvidia is trying to make itself indispensable to the AI push through venture capital investmentsin small companies developing the applications, but the cloud czars are notoriously cheap when it comes to chips. This was the whole idea of clouds, to cut server processing costs with cheap hardware and open source software, delivering huge amounts of it using parallel processing techniques, and making it universally available with virtual operating systems on top of applications.
So far, the cloud czars are making nice with Nvidia.Alphabet Inc.(NASDAQ:GOOGL) isoffering access to Tesla chip setsdespite having its own cloud AI hardware, theTensor Processing Unit.Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT) is alsotoutingits use of Tesla chips, and Amazon offers Nvidia hardwarefor AI “instances.”
All this would seem to make the dipworth buying, especially with Nvidia’s client market share, mostly used in gaming machines,continuing to rise.
Assuming Nvidia delivers $3 billion in revenue for its current quarter, to be reported February 8, you will be paying 12 times sales for the company at its December 4 market cap of $120 billion. Stocks at these levels make for great trades, both bullish and bearish, because there’s action and rumors can send it down.
• Why It's Time to Get Bullish on AT&T Inc. Stock
For investors, the question is whether Nvidia will grow into its present valuation, whether sales might double or triple from here over the next five years.
Indications right now are that they will. That is the kind of analysis that leads to buying the dip.
Dana Blankenhornis a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romanceThe Reluctant Detective Travels in Time, available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him [email protected] follow him on Twitter at@danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in MSFT and AMZN.
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The postTime to Buy the Nvidia Corporation Dip?appeared first onInvestorPlace. || Time to Buy the Nvidia Corporation Dip?: Shares in Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA ) have fallen 8% over the last five trading days as speculation rose that the cryptocurrency “arms race” may be ending. NVDA Stock: Time to Buy the Nvidia Corporation Dip? Source: Shutterstock Time to buy the dip? Analysts now predict a slowdown in sales to cryptocurrency “miners,” who use fast graphics cards to find decryption keys for things like Bitcoin. This hit NVDA shares hard in the most recent trading week. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The fall was possible because the valuation of Nvidia had become almost as divorced from gravity as Bitcoin itself. The stock is up 85% in the last year, and opened for trade on Dec. 4 at a price to earnings ratio of 49.4, against 15.6 for rival Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC ). When values are stretched, stocks become like balloons, rising and falling with the wind rather than fundamentals. The question for investors becomes, do the fundamentals of the stock make it worth buying? Into the Fog When I last wrote about Nvidia, on Nov. 7 , I described those fundamentals as being related to a new buzzword called “fog computing.” 12 Best Dividend Stocks for the Next 12 Months Fog computing is important for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, like self-driving cars, requiring fast chips on both the client and server end of the information transaction. When you tell your Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Alexa device to play Jason Isbell’s If We Were Vampires from your music collection, the device in your home must find out whether you own the song, then access a stream of it, within a few seconds. Future applications of AI will require even more speed and coordination. That means faster clouds as well as more speed on clients. Nvidia GeForce chips, originally designed for graphics processing on video games, are perfect for this task. Thus, the bullish case states, expect huge orders from cloud providers upgrading to support these applications, and from client device makers delivering them. Story continues Seeking Alternatives in Nvidia The bull case for Nvidia is clear. What about the bear case? The bear case hinges on companies that control the new market arbitraging Nvidia against other suppliers to keep down costs, as Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) is doing on its car infotainment systems , despite Nvidia having named one of its chip boards Tesla , after the inventor. Nvidia is trying to make itself indispensable to the AI push through venture capital investments in small companies developing the applications , but the cloud czars are notoriously cheap when it comes to chips. This was the whole idea of clouds, to cut server processing costs with cheap hardware and open source software, delivering huge amounts of it using parallel processing techniques, and making it universally available with virtual operating systems on top of applications. So far, the cloud czars are making nice with Nvidia. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) is offering access to Tesla chip sets despite having its own cloud AI hardware, the Tensor Processing Unit . Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also touting its use of Tesla chips, and Amazon offers Nvidia hardware for AI “instances.” The Bottom Line All this would seem to make the dip worth buying , especially with Nvidia’s client market share, mostly used in gaming machines, continuing to rise. Assuming Nvidia delivers $3 billion in revenue for its current quarter, to be reported February 8, you will be paying 12 times sales for the company at its December 4 market cap of $120 billion. Stocks at these levels make for great trades, both bullish and bearish, because there’s action and rumors can send it down. Why It's Time to Get Bullish on AT&T Inc. Stock For investors, the question is whether Nvidia will grow into its present valuation, whether sales might double or triple from here over the next five years. Indications right now are that they will. That is the kind of analysis that leads to buying the dip. Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romance The Reluctant Detective Travels in Time , available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn . As of this writing he owned shares in MSFT and AMZN. More From InvestorPlace 10 A-Rated Tech Stocks to Grow Your Returns 10 Best Stocks I Wish I Bought in 2017 Walt Disney Co Leads 5 Dividend Stocks Boosting Payouts The post Time to Buy the Nvidia Corporation Dip? appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Apple to Pay Ireland Billions in Back Taxes: Starting next year, will have to start paying Ireland back billions of back taxes. The European Commission ruled last year that a tax deal that Ireland gave Apple was illegal, and that it owed the country $14.5 billion in back taxes. Ireland has been dragging their feet a little bit when it comes to collecting on that debt, The Wall Street Journal reports . Both Apple and Ireland have argued against the ruling . Apple says the amount it's being told to repay is inaccurate, and Ireland says that the European Union has overstepped its authority by requiring it to make Apple Pay that debt. According to the EU, the tax deal allowed Apple to pay almost nothing in tax on its European profits between 2003 and 2014. While both have appealed the decision, the money Apple owes will be put in escrow while everything is being hashed out -- but it will start being paid. We can expect to hear more about the timing and management of those payments during the company's earnings call in January. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Apple's Rumored In-House Chip Making Sends This Company's Shares Into a Tailspin Apple AirPods Shipments Expected to Double in 2018 Despite Brexit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China Still Pursues Globalization Data Sheet--After Brexit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Globalization Is Still in Vogue in China Inside the Bitcoin $10,000 Party, Apple's Bungled Patch, Uber Security Exodus || Apple to Pay Ireland Billions in Back Taxes: Starting next year, will have to start paying Ireland back billions of back taxes.
The European Commission ruled last year that a tax deal that Ireland gave Apple was illegal, and that it owed the country $14.5 billion in back taxes. Ireland has been dragging their feet a little bit when it comes to collecting on that debt,The Wall Street Journalreports.
Both Apple and Irelandhave argued against the ruling. Apple says the amount it's being told to repay is inaccurate, and Irelandsays that the European Union has overstepped its authorityby requiring it to make Apple Pay that debt. According to the EU, the tax deal allowed Apple to pay almost nothing in tax on its European profits between 2003 and 2014.
While both have appealed the decision, the money Apple owes will be put in escrow while everything is being hashed out -- but it will start being paid. We can expect to hear more about the timing and management of those payments during the company's earnings call in January.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Apple's Rumored In-House Chip Making Sends This Company's Shares Into a Tailspin
• Apple AirPods Shipments Expected to Double in 2018
• Despite Brexit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China Still Pursues Globalization
• Data Sheet--After Brexit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Globalization Is Still in Vogue in China
• Inside the Bitcoin $10,000 Party, Apple's Bungled Patch, Uber Security Exodus || What you need to know on Wall Street today: Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign uphere to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.
On Sunday,CVS Healthagreed to buy insurance giantAetna for $69 billion. The bankers who spent their weekend closing the transaction, the latest ina wave of megadeals, stand to earn a colossal amount of fees for their firms.
Between advising on the transaction — which could generate significant regulatory scrutiny — and arranging more than $40 billion in financing,seven banks could split more than $500 million if the deal closes. Here's the latest:
• Investors don't look particularly confident that the mega-deal will be approved
• CVS and Aetna used one word that should make employees nervous
• RBC: CVS buying Aetna has nothing to do with Amazon's healthcare ambitions
• LOPEZ: If CVS can pull this off, it'll change what millions of Americans do when they get sick
In Wall Street news,Morgan Stanley is getting in on thehottest trend in investing.Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Business Insiderthat 2018 is a wild card for rate hikes.
And in an interview with Business Insider, President Barack Obama’s former economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, now back at the University of Chicago, said stagnant wages representone key factor that could prevent the Federal Reserve from continue raising interest rates in 2018 and 2019.
Bitcoin hit a new high above $11,500, as the Winklevoss twinsbecame the first bitcoin billionaires. Cboe is racingto launch bitcoin futures trading ahead of rival CME. And a brand-new cybersecurity watchdog just shut downa $15 million cryptocurrency scam.
Lastly, go inside New York City's most festive bar, where they spendmore than $60,000 a year getting ready for Christmas.
NOW WATCH:Economist Jim Rickards on gold versus bitcoin — intrinsic value is meaningless for both but the bitcoin prices aren't real
See Also:
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• What you need to know on Wall Street today
• What you need to know on Wall Street today || What you need to know on Wall Street today: Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox . On Sunday, CVS Health agreed to buy insurance giant Aetna for $69 billion . The bankers who spent their weekend closing the transaction, the latest in a wave of megadeals , stand to earn a colossal amount of fees for their firms. Between advising on the transaction — which could generate significant regulatory scrutiny — and arranging more than $40 billion in financing, seven banks could split more than $500 million if the deal closes . Here's the latest: Investors don't look particularly confident that the mega-deal will be approved CVS and Aetna used one word that should make employees nervous RBC: CVS buying Aetna has nothing to do with Amazon's healthcare ambitions LOPEZ: If CVS can pull this off, it'll change what millions of Americans do when they get sick In Wall Street news, Morgan Stanley is getting in on the hottest trend in investing. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Business Insider that 2018 is a wild card for rate hikes. And in an interview with Business Insider, President Barack Obama’s former economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, now back at the University of Chicago, said stagnant wages represent one key factor that could prevent the Federal Reserve from continue raising interest rates in 2018 and 2019 . Bitcoin hit a new high above $11,500, as the Winklevoss twins became the first bitcoin billionaires . Cboe is racing to launch bitcoin futures trading ahead of rival CME . And a brand-new cybersecurity watchdog just shut down a $15 million cryptocurrency scam . Lastly, go inside New York City's most festive bar, where they spend more than $60,000 a year getting ready for Christmas . NOW WATCH: Economist Jim Rickards on gold versus bitcoin — intrinsic value is meaningless for both but the bitcoin prices aren't real See Also: What you need to know on Wall Street today What you need to know on Wall Street today What you need to know on Wall Street today
[Social Media Buzz]
The current price of 1 $BTC on December 5, 2017 at 10:59AM is $11850.00. || #Bitcoin 0.47%
Ultima: R$ 42394.92 Alta: R$ 42680.00 Baixa: R$ 41500.00
Fonte: Foxbit || Loose all creditability for $588.75 USD ... They probably thought BITCOIN wasn't goin to break $10,000.00 OH ye of little faith. Shame on you. Pay everybody that posted for thier time and beg thier forgiveness. || 3hours ranking 12/06 00:00～03:00
↑BTC_STR ↑ETH_LSK ↑BTC_LSK ↓BTC_GNO ↑BTC_BTM pic.twitter.com/k8qHad720v || 1 Bitcoi...
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14291.50, 17899.70, 16569.40, 15178.20, 15455.40, 16936.80, 17415.40, 16408.20, 16564.00, 17706.90
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22, 276.05, 288.28, 288.70, 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88, 278.58, 279.58, 261.00, 265.08, 264.47, 270.39, 266.38, 264.08, 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39, 228.17, 210.49, 221.61, 225.83, 224.77, 231.40, 229.78, 228.76, 230.06, 228.12, 229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76, 239.14, 236.69, 236.06, 237.55, 237.29, 238.73, 238.26, 240.38, 246.06, 242.97.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-10-07]
Volume: 22999200, RSI (14-day): 59.10, 50-day EMA: 239.29, 200-day EMA: 250.58
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1149.00, Gold RSI: 58.72
Oil Price: 47.81, Oil RSI: 57.45
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Ripple Adds Santander InnoVentures Fund as Series A Investor: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 6, 2015) -Ripple, provider of global financial settlement technology (formerly known as Ripple Labs), today announced thatSantander InnoVentures--Santander Group's $100 million fintech venture capital fund -- has joined itsrecent Series A funding roundas an investor, bringing the round's total to $32 million.
Ripple's Series A funding round included a mix of traditional investment firms and global strategic investors that all support the vision for Ripple to enable an Internet of Value (IoV) by powering the real-time, secure settlement of funds for financial institutions and their customers worldwide.
"Santander InnoVentures is a natural fit in this round because of their demonstrated support for real-time international payments and their commitment to new technologies that enable Santander to empower its customers," said Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen. "We are excited to work closely with them in building the Internet of Value and accelerating adoption amongst financial institutions, market makers and businesses worldwide."
The Santander InnoVentures fund is an investment vehicle designed to partner with portfolio companies and explore new technologies that can be used in support of Santander's customer base.
"Santander has long been an advocate for modernizing banking infrastructure," said Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner of Santander InnoVentures. "In our recentFintech 2.0 report, we highlighted the $20 billion opportunity available to the financial services industry, and many of the scenarios where distributed ledger technology will have a positive impact."
Belinky added: "We believe Ripple possesses the talent, technology, and momentum to address many of these scenarios, and are actively exploring where and how best to apply Ripple technology inside the bank. Ripple and Santander share a common vision of the future of the industry, and we intend to jointly advocate it in the community."
Other investors in Ripple's Series A round includeIDG Capital Partners, the venture arms ofCME Groupand global data storage companySeagate Technology, Jerry Yang'sAME Cloud Ventures,ChinaRock Capital Management,China Growth Capital, Wicklow Capital, the investment vehicle for Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler, co-founders of GETCO (now KCG),Bitcoin Opportunity Corp.,Core Innovation Capital,Route 66 Ventures,RRE Ventures,Vast Ventures, andVenture 51.
Ripple provides bank-grade solutions that enable the world's disparate financial networks to securely transfer funds in any currency in real time. Financial institutions use Ripple as an alternative to correspondent banking to facilitate real-time, certain settlement at the lowest total cost possible.
Ripple was created to enable the world to move value as easily as information moves today, giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV) akin to today's Internet of Knowledge. For more information about Ripple, please visithttp://www.ripple.com.
About Ripple
Rippleprovides global financial settlement solutions to ultimately enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information - giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, without correspondent banks, and with real-time certainty of settlement. Banks around the world are partnering with Ripple to improve their cross-border payment offerings, and to join the growing, global network of financial institutions and market makers laying the foundation for the Internet of Value.
Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York and Sydney. As an industry advocate for the Internet of Value, Ripple sits on theFederal Reserve's Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committeeand is a member of theW3C's Web Payments Interest Group.
About Santander InnoVentures
Launched in July 2014 with a global remit to invest in transformational fintech business, Santander InnoVentures is based in London. The fund builds on the bank's philosophy of collaboration and partnership with small and start-up companies. Santander InnoVentures provides fintech companies with growth finance, industry expertise and access to Santander's internal technology and operations organisations.
Through this hybrid approach to investing, Santander Group ensures continuous innovation within its own business to the benefit of customers around the world, as well as helping new fintech businesses to succeed. Santander InnoVentures focuses on working with fintech businesses operating within digital delivery of financial services, e-commerce and payments, online lending, e-financial investments, big data and analytics.
The Fintech 2.0 Paper is a call to action for both banks and fintechs to consider the multi-billion dollar opportunities available through partnership. Download the full paper, exploring these opportunities in-depth and identifying specific use-cases, here:www.santanderinnoventures.com/fintech2
For more information, visitwww.santanderinnoventures.com. Follow Santander InnoVentures on Twitter:@SanInnoventures.
Banco Santander(SAN.MC, STD.N, BNC.LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, based in Spain, with a meaningful market share in 10 core countries in Europe and the Americas. Santander is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization and among the top 12 banks on a global basis. Founded in 1857, Santander had EUR 1.51 trillion in managed funds, 12,910 branches and 190,000 employees at the close of June 2015. In the first half of 2015, Santander made ordinary attributable profit of EUR 3,426 million, a 24% increase. || Ripple Adds Santander InnoVentures Fund as Series A Investor: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 6, 2015) - Ripple , provider of global financial settlement technology ( formerly known as Ripple Labs ), today announced that Santander InnoVentures -- Santander Group 's $100 million fintech venture capital fund -- has joined its recent Series A funding round as an investor, bringing the round's total to $32 million. Ripple's Series A funding round included a mix of traditional investment firms and global strategic investors that all support the vision for Ripple to enable an Internet of Value (IoV) by powering the real-time, secure settlement of funds for financial institutions and their customers worldwide. "Santander InnoVentures is a natural fit in this round because of their demonstrated support for real-time international payments and their commitment to new technologies that enable Santander to empower its customers," said Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen. "We are excited to work closely with them in building the Internet of Value and accelerating adoption amongst financial institutions, market makers and businesses worldwide." The Santander InnoVentures fund is an investment vehicle designed to partner with portfolio companies and explore new technologies that can be used in support of Santander's customer base. "Santander has long been an advocate for modernizing banking infrastructure," said Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner of Santander InnoVentures. "In our recent Fintech 2.0 report , we highlighted the $20 billion opportunity available to the financial services industry, and many of the scenarios where distributed ledger technology will have a positive impact." Belinky added: "We believe Ripple possesses the talent, technology, and momentum to address many of these scenarios, and are actively exploring where and how best to apply Ripple technology inside the bank. Ripple and Santander share a common vision of the future of the industry, and we intend to jointly advocate it in the community." Other investors in Ripple's Series A round include IDG Capital Partners , the venture arms of CME Group and global data storage company Seagate Technology , Jerry Yang's AME Cloud Ventures , ChinaRock Capital Management , China Growth Capital , Wicklow Capital, the investment vehicle for Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler, co-founders of GETCO (now KCG), Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., Core Innovation Capital , Route 66 Ventures , RRE Ventures , Vast Ventures , and Venture 51 . Ripple provides bank-grade solutions that enable the world's disparate financial networks to securely transfer funds in any currency in real time. Financial institutions use Ripple as an alternative to correspondent banking to facilitate real-time, certain settlement at the lowest total cost possible. Story continues Ripple was created to enable the world to move value as easily as information moves today, giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV) akin to today's Internet of Knowledge. For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com . About Ripple Ripple provides global financial settlement solutions to ultimately enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information - giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, without correspondent banks, and with real-time certainty of settlement. Banks around the world are partnering with Ripple to improve their cross-border payment offerings, and to join the growing, global network of financial institutions and market makers laying the foundation for the Internet of Value. Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York and Sydney. As an industry advocate for the Internet of Value, Ripple sits on the Federal Reserve's Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committee and is a member of the W3C's Web Payments Interest Group . About Santander InnoVentures Launched in July 2014 with a global remit to invest in transformational fintech business, Santander InnoVentures is based in London. The fund builds on the bank's philosophy of collaboration and partnership with small and start-up companies. Santander InnoVentures provides fintech companies with growth finance, industry expertise and access to Santander's internal technology and operations organisations. Through this hybrid approach to investing, Santander Group ensures continuous innovation within its own business to the benefit of customers around the world, as well as helping new fintech businesses to succeed. Santander InnoVentures focuses on working with fintech businesses operating within digital delivery of financial services, e-commerce and payments, online lending, e-financial investments, big data and analytics. The Fintech 2.0 Paper is a call to action for both banks and fintechs to consider the multi-billion dollar opportunities available through partnership. Download the full paper, exploring these opportunities in-depth and identifying specific use-cases, here: www.santanderinnoventures.com/fintech2 For more information, visit www.santanderinnoventures.com . Follow Santander InnoVentures on Twitter: @SanInnoventures . Banco Santander (SAN.MC, STD.N, BNC.LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, based in Spain, with a meaningful market share in 10 core countries in Europe and the Americas. Santander is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization and among the top 12 banks on a global basis. Founded in 1857, Santander had EUR 1.51 trillion in managed funds, 12,910 branches and 190,000 employees at the close of June 2015. In the first half of 2015, Santander made ordinary attributable profit of EUR 3,426 million, a 24% increase. View comments || New York regulator issues license to Winkelvoss bitcoin venture: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has been granted a license to operate as a chartered limited liability trust company by the New York State Department of Financial Services, the state regulator announced on Monday.
Under the charter, Gemini will operate a bitcoin exchange and will officially open for trading on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT)) serving both individual and institutional customers, Gemimi said in a separate statement on Monday.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control.
"In New York, we are continuing to move forward on licensing and chartering virtual currency firms," said Anthony J. Albanese, acting superintendent of Financial Services. "Smart, targeted regulation that helps protect consumers and prevent illicit activity is vital to the long-term future of this industry."
Gemini is the first licensed crypto currency business for the Winklevoss brothers, best known for accusing Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.
"Our focus right now is operating a spot bitcoin exchange. In many ways, we're not really re-inventing the wheel," said Gemini chief executive Tyler Winklevoss told Reuters in August.
The Winklevoss brothers filed an application to operate as a trust company with the New York's banking regulator in July.
A trust company is a type of financial institution technically different from a bank, analysts said. Under New York banking law, a trust company has all the powers of a bank to take deposits and make loans, alongside certain fiduciary powers such as acting as an agent for government bodies.
As a limited liability trust company, Gemini will maintain significant capital reserves consistent with that of a premier fiduciary business, the company said.
Gemini added that it will hold in custody all bitcoin deposits, the majority of which will be held in its offline, multi-signature, geographically distributed cold storage system.
Gemini said all fiat currency such as U.S. dollars transferred to Gemini will be deposited in a New York state chartered bank, headquartered in midtown Manhattan, and eligible for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp insurance, subject to applicable limitations. It did not name the bank.
Bitcoin's value has been highly volatile, having peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing after the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange. One bitcoin is currently worth around $238.17 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Editing by W Simon) || New York regulator issues license to Winkelvoss bitcoin venture: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has been granted a license to operate as a chartered limited liability trust company by the New York State Department of Financial Services, the state regulator announced on Monday. Under the charter, Gemini will operate a bitcoin exchange and will officially open for trading on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT)) serving both individual and institutional customers, Gemimi said in a separate statement on Monday. Bitcoin is a virtual currency bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. "In New York, we are continuing to move forward on licensing and chartering virtual currency firms," said Anthony J. Albanese, acting superintendent of Financial Services. "Smart, targeted regulation that helps protect consumers and prevent illicit activity is vital to the long-term future of this industry." Gemini is the first licensed crypto currency business for the Winklevoss brothers, best known for accusing Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. "Our focus right now is operating a spot bitcoin exchange. In many ways, we're not really re-inventing the wheel," said Gemini chief executive Tyler Winklevoss told Reuters in August. The Winklevoss brothers filed an application to operate as a trust company with the New York's banking regulator in July. A trust company is a type of financial institution technically different from a bank, analysts said. Under New York banking law, a trust company has all the powers of a bank to take deposits and make loans, alongside certain fiduciary powers such as acting as an agent for government bodies. As a limited liability trust company, Gemini will maintain significant capital reserves consistent with that of a premier fiduciary business, the company said. Gemini added that it will hold in custody all bitcoin deposits, the majority of which will be held in its offline, multi-signature, geographically distributed cold storage system. Story continues Gemini said all fiat currency such as U.S. dollars transferred to Gemini will be deposited in a New York state chartered bank, headquartered in midtown Manhattan, and eligible for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp insurance, subject to applicable limitations. It did not name the bank. Bitcoin's value has been highly volatile, having peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing after the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange. One bitcoin is currently worth around $238.17 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Editing by W Simon) || Pot Resort To Open Fully Booked On New Year's Eve: In September, the Santee Sioux tribe of South Dakota announced that it was embracing new laws that allow Native American Tribes to sell and consume marijuana on their reservations by opening a marijuana-themed resort. The tribe outlined plans to create the ultimate "adult playground" where people could come to relax and enjoy marijuana in public spaces without fear of being prosecuted.
Now, the Tribe's lawyers say thatreservationsfor the resort's opening night are flying in, and that the establishment will likely open its doors for the first time to a sold out weekend.
See Also:Relax And Get High
New Year's Eve Opening
The marijuana resort is slated to open on New Year's Eve, providing the perfect atmosphere for partygoers who are interested in making cannabis a part of their 2016 celebrations. The venue will feature dance clubs and a dedicated smoking lounge where around 30 different strains of cannabis will be on offer. The tribe's attorney Seth Pearmansaidthe resort has already booked in rooms for 100 people as interest continues to grow.
Tribal Revenue
Much like casinos, many Native American tribes are hoping to bring in revenue from marijuana sales as laws allow them to sell and use the drug even if the state they reside in has classed it as illegal. For the Santee Sioux tribe, that has opened the door for a revolutionary idea to create the world's first cannabis resort. However, the venture comes with its own risks as the marijuana industry is still under the microscope.
For one, the tribe will have to ensure that marijuana isn't taken off the reservation and that visitors aren't buying too much of the stuff. However, for the tribe, which has struggled to stay afloat financially, the estimated $2 million per month the resort is forecast to bring in is well worth it.
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia
• Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders
• As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Pot Resort To Open Fully Booked On New Year's Eve: In September, the Santee Sioux tribe of South Dakota announced that it was embracing new laws that allow Native American Tribes to sell and consume marijuana on their reservations by opening a marijuana-themed resort. The tribe outlined plans to create the ultimate "adult playground" where people could come to relax and enjoy marijuana in public spaces without fear of being prosecuted. Now, the Tribe's lawyers say that reservations for the resort's opening night are flying in, and that the establishment will likely open its doors for the first time to a sold out weekend. See Also: Relax And Get High New Year's Eve Opening The marijuana resort is slated to open on New Year's Eve, providing the perfect atmosphere for partygoers who are interested in making cannabis a part of their 2016 celebrations. The venue will feature dance clubs and a dedicated smoking lounge where around 30 different strains of cannabis will be on offer. The tribe's attorney Seth Pearman said the resort has already booked in rooms for 100 people as interest continues to grow. Tribal Revenue Much like casinos, many Native American tribes are hoping to bring in revenue from marijuana sales as laws allow them to sell and use the drug even if the state they reside in has classed it as illegal. For the Santee Sioux tribe, that has opened the door for a revolutionary idea to create the world's first cannabis resort. However, the venture comes with its own risks as the marijuana industry is still under the microscope. For one, the tribe will have to ensure that marijuana isn't taken off the reservation and that visitors aren't buying too much of the stuff. However, for the tribe, which has struggled to stay afloat financially, the estimated $2 million per month the resort is forecast to bring in is well worth it. See more from Benzinga Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia: Bitcoin has gained popularity across the globe in recent years, but concerns about safety have kept the cryptocurrency from becoming a mainstream means of payment. For that reason, banks in Australia have begun to move away from cryptocurrency, deciding last month to close the accounts of 13 of the continent's 17 bitcoin exchanges.
The decision has had a ripple effect on the bitcoin industry in Australia as more and more businesses similarly turn their backs on digital currencies.
Bye-Bye Bitcoin
In Australia, many businesses began accepting bitcoin payments when the coin gained popularity. As the digital payments trend expanded, some firms hoped to use bitcoin in order to tap into a greater pool of potential clients and make it easier for international customers to pay. However, the nation's banks' decision to shut bitcoin exchanges out has led many Australian firms to rethink their decisions. Many worry that the banks are only the beginning of a backlash against cryptocurrencies, and that by participating in the trend they could tarnish their reputations.
Related Link:Bitcoin Gains Deeper Foothold In Latin America Through MercadoLibre
Big Blow To Cryptocurrencies
Although cryptocurrencies are still receiving a lot of positive attention in places like Europe and the US, the changing attitude in Australia could put a dent in the industry's momentum. Australia makes up around7 percentof bitcoin's $3.5 billion global value, a significant portion. Not only will a negative attitude toward bitcoin affect the Australian market, but it could spread further afield. Some worry that the negative reputation could eventually influence the opinions of consumers and lawmakers in other countries as well.
See more from Benzinga
• Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders
• As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge
• Is Europe Recovering Or Not?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia: Bitcoin has gained popularity across the globe in recent years, but concerns about safety have kept the cryptocurrency from becoming a mainstream means of payment. For that reason, banks in Australia have begun to move away from cryptocurrency, deciding last month to close the accounts of 13 of the continent's 17 bitcoin exchanges.
The decision has had a ripple effect on the bitcoin industry in Australia as more and more businesses similarly turn their backs on digital currencies.
Bye-Bye Bitcoin
In Australia, many businesses began accepting bitcoin payments when the coin gained popularity. As the digital payments trend expanded, some firms hoped to use bitcoin in order to tap into a greater pool of potential clients and make it easier for international customers to pay. However, the nation's banks' decision to shut bitcoin exchanges out has led many Australian firms to rethink their decisions. Many worry that the banks are only the beginning of a backlash against cryptocurrencies, and that by participating in the trend they could tarnish their reputations.
Related Link:Bitcoin Gains Deeper Foothold In Latin America Through MercadoLibre
Big Blow To Cryptocurrencies
Although cryptocurrencies are still receiving a lot of positive attention in places like Europe and the US, the changing attitude in Australia could put a dent in the industry's momentum. Australia makes up around7 percentof bitcoin's $3.5 billion global value, a significant portion. Not only will a negative attitude toward bitcoin affect the Australian market, but it could spread further afield. Some worry that the negative reputation could eventually influence the opinions of consumers and lawmakers in other countries as well.
See more from Benzinga
• Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders
• As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge
• Is Europe Recovering Or Not?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia: Bitcoin has gained popularity across the globe in recent years, but concerns about safety have kept the cryptocurrency from becoming a mainstream means of payment. For that reason, banks in Australia have begun to move away from cryptocurrency, deciding last month to close the accounts of 13 of the continent's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The decision has had a ripple effect on the bitcoin industry in Australia as more and more businesses similarly turn their backs on digital currencies. Bye-Bye Bitcoin In Australia, many businesses began accepting bitcoin payments when the coin gained popularity. As the digital payments trend expanded, some firms hoped to use bitcoin in order to tap into a greater pool of potential clients and make it easier for international customers to pay. However, the nation's banks' decision to shut bitcoin exchanges out has led many Australian firms to rethink their decisions. Many worry that the banks are only the beginning of a backlash against cryptocurrencies, and that by participating in the trend they could tarnish their reputations. Related Link: Bitcoin Gains Deeper Foothold In Latin America Through MercadoLibre Big Blow To Cryptocurrencies Although cryptocurrencies are still receiving a lot of positive attention in places like Europe and the US, the changing attitude in Australia could put a dent in the industry's momentum. Australia makes up around 7 percent of bitcoin's $3.5 billion global value, a significant portion. Not only will a negative attitude toward bitcoin affect the Australian market, but it could spread further afield. Some worry that the negative reputation could eventually influence the opinions of consumers and lawmakers in other countries as well. See more from Benzinga Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge Is Europe Recovering Or Not? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || XBT Provider AB: Bitcoin Tracker EUR to start trading on Nasdaq Nordic today: Stockholm, SWEDEN (October 5th, 2015) -XBT Provider AB is proud to announce the launch of Bitcoin tracker Euro.
Starting today anyone with a brokerage account connected to Nasdaq Nordic can trade the ETN "Bitcoin Tracker EUR" The ticker code is Bitcoin XBTE. ISIN: SE0007525332
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is designed to mirror the return of the underlying asset, U.S. dollar (USD) per Bitcoin. The product is an exchange traded note designed to track the movement of the underlying asset after fees.
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is our second Bitcoin-based security available on Nasdaq Nordic. XBT Provider launched this financial instrument to meet the needs of investors` growing appetite for exposure to Bitcoin prices.
"Bitcoin tracker EUR" (BTE) is listed on Nasdaq Nordic in Stockholm and traded in the same manner as any share or instrument listed on the Nasdaq exchange in Stockholm. BTE is also available via Bloomberg terminals through the ticker code COINXBE.
The full prospectus is available onxbtprovider.com
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is issued under the same prospectus as Bitcoin Tracker One which isapproved by Sweden`s financial supervisory authority, Finansinspektionen.
ABOUT XBT PROVIDERXBT Provider AB (publ) is a public limited liability company formed in Sweden with statutory seat in Stockholm. The issuer is incorporated under Swedish law and registered with the Swedish companies` registration office under registration number 559001-3313.
ABOUT THE MARKET MAKER: MANGOLD FONDKOMMISSIONMangold Fondkommission is a Stockholm based Brokerage and Investment bank. As a member of Nasdaq Nordic the company assists XBT Provider with clearing services and acts as a liquidity provider for Bitcoin Tracker One and Bitcoin Tracker EUR.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Alexander MarshE-mail:[email protected]
Johan WattenströmE-mail:[email protected]
Press release (PDF)
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: XBT Provider AB via GlobeNewswireHUG#1956529 || XBT Provider AB: Bitcoin Tracker EUR to start trading on Nasdaq Nordic today: Stockholm, SWEDEN (October 5th, 2015) -XBT Provider AB is proud to announce the launch of Bitcoin tracker Euro.
Starting today anyone with a brokerage account connected to Nasdaq Nordic can trade the ETN "Bitcoin Tracker EUR" The ticker code is Bitcoin XBTE. ISIN: SE0007525332
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is designed to mirror the return of the underlying asset, U.S. dollar (USD) per Bitcoin. The product is an exchange traded note designed to track the movement of the underlying asset after fees.
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is our second Bitcoin-based security available on Nasdaq Nordic. XBT Provider launched this financial instrument to meet the needs of investors` growing appetite for exposure to Bitcoin prices.
"Bitcoin tracker EUR" (BTE) is listed on Nasdaq Nordic in Stockholm and traded in the same manner as any share or instrument listed on the Nasdaq exchange in Stockholm. BTE is also available via Bloomberg terminals through the ticker code COINXBE.
The full prospectus is available onxbtprovider.com
Bitcoin Tracker EUR is issued under the same prospectus as Bitcoin Tracker One which isapproved by Sweden`s financial supervisory authority, Finansinspektionen.
ABOUT XBT PROVIDERXBT Provider AB (publ) is a public limited liability company formed in Sweden with statutory seat in Stockholm. The issuer is incorporated under Swedish law and registered with the Swedish companies` registration office under registration number 559001-3313.
ABOUT THE MARKET MAKER: MANGOLD FONDKOMMISSIONMangold Fondkommission is a Stockholm based Brokerage and Investment bank. As a member of Nasdaq Nordic the company assists XBT Provider with clearing services and acts as a liquidity provider for Bitcoin Tracker One and Bitcoin Tracker EUR.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Alexander MarshE-mail:[email protected]
Johan WattenströmE-mail:[email protected]
Press release (PDF)
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: XBT Provider AB via GlobeNewswireHUG#1956529 || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people. "We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office. Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment. Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system. The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value. "It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee. BANK SHUTDOWN The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts. The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association. Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base". Australia's organised crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs. In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank. CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations. The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks. Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options. "It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange. Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore. Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts. RETAIL PULLOUT Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem. At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency. "If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014. Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue. "They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade. An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it". (Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people. "We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office. Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment. Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system. The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value. "It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee. BANK SHUTDOWN The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts. The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association. Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base". Australia's organised crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs. In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank. CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations. The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks. Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options. "It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange. Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore. Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts. RETAIL PULLOUT Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem. At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency. "If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014. Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue. "They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade. An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it". (Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people. "We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office. Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment. Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system. The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value. "It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee. BANK SHUTDOWN The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts. The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association. Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base". Australia's organised crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs. In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank. CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations. The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks. Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options. "It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange. Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore. Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts. RETAIL PULLOUT Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem. At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency. "If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014. Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue. "They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade. An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it". (Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading.
Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges.
The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people.
"We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office.
Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment.
Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system.
The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value.
"It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee.
BANK SHUTDOWN
The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts.
The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association.
Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base".
Australia's organized crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs.
In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank.
CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND
The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations.
The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks.
Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options.
"It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange.
Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore.
Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts.
RETAIL PULLOUT
Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem.
At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency.
"If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014.
Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue.
"They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade.
An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it".
(Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people. "We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office. Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment. Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system. The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value. "It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee. BANK SHUTDOWN The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts. The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association. Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base". Story continues Australia's organized crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs. In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank. CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations. The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks. Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options. "It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange. Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore. Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts. RETAIL PULLOUT Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem. At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency. "If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014. Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue. "They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade. An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it". (Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) View comments || Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite: By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading.
Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges.
The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the currency's $3.5 billion global value, a sizeable figure in a country of just 24 million people.
"We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this," said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office.
Forsyth had offered to collect home deposits and other realtor fees via bitcoin to cater to international buyers. The tax office probe found no wrongdoing but Forsyth was burned by the negative publicity and bailed out before ever taking a bitcoin payment.
Although most mainstream banks in Europe and the U.S. already refuse to keep bitcoin-affiliated accounts, developments in Australia represent the first coordinated shutdown of bitcoin exchanges by a country's banking system.
The move makes it much harder for people to convert regular currencies in to or out of bitcoin, threatening its long-term value.
"It really runs on people using bitcoin, and if nobody uses it then it's worthless," said University of Technology Sydney senior finance lecturer Adrian Lee.
BANK SHUTDOWN
The banks' shutdown appears at odds with a government inquiry which in August recommended removing sales tax for people who buy bitcoin. The Australian anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, told Reuters that banks have no legal obligation to close bitcoin accounts.
The so-called "Big Four" banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank - directed inquiries about bitcoin to the Australian Bankers' Association.
Tony Pearson, the association's acting chief executive, wouldn't confirm the coordinated rejection of bitcoin but said in an email that its "lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raises a number of risks for users and also poses risks for the payments system, the integrity of the financial system and the erosion of the tax base".
Australia's organized crime agency has said it is concerned the currency's untraceable nature makes it attractive for money laundering and selling illicit drugs.
In the U.K. and the U.S., most large banks have already cut ties with bitcoin account holders, but lack of industry co-ordination has left room for individual lenders to support the currency, including Germany's Fidor Bank AG, which operates in Britain, and tech-focused Californian lender Silicon Valley Bank.
CLOSE, MOVE OFFSHORE OR SNEAK AROUND
The 13 Australian bitcoin exchanges whose accounts were closed by the banks have shut operations.
The remaining four have had their accounts frozen, and now face three options: close, move overseas or spread their business into several smaller bank accounts to avoid detection by their banks.
Buyabitcoin.com.au, one of the remaining four exchanges, said it is still considering its options.
"It makes it, obviously, hard to take payments from our customers, but we have a couple of relationships left," said Andrew Smith, general manager of the Melbourne-based exchange.
Smith declined to identify which bank his firm is now using from fear of repercussions but said he plans to move the business offshore.
Two sources told Reuters that regional lender Bank of Queensland still held some bitcoin accounts. The bank said in an email that "virtual currencies fall outside of our risk appetite" but did not deny or confirm it had these accounts.
RETAIL PULLOUT
Some industry watchers believe ambivalence may be bitcoin's biggest problem.
At least six Australian retail businesses, which as recently as 2014 courted publicity for offering sales by bitcoin, told Reuters they were considering exiting the currency.
"If governments begin to aggressively attack the whole idea of cryptocurrencies and give it a bad name, it might have an adverse effect on our brand by accepting it," said David Brim, co-founder of off-road vehicle maker Tomcar Australia, which has sold one car using bitcoin since introducing it in November 2014.
Grant Fairweather, owner of the Metropolitan Hotel in Sydney, said he started accepting bitcoin when a group of digital currency fans chose his pub as their regular meeting venue.
"They tell me that it's doing quite well, but that doesn't transpose into here," said Fairweather, who sells about A$100 ($70) worth of drinks via bitcoin from the meetings and does no other bitcoin trade.
An online clothing retailer told Reuters she had made no bitcoin sales since introducing the service in 2013 and asked not to be named, saying "since bitcoin's going out anyway, we'd rather not throw our name back into it".
(Additional reporting by Nathan Lynch in SYDNEY and Jemima Kelly in LONDON. Editing by Jane Wardell and Rachel Armstrong) || Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders: The tech sector has reached into a new industry over the past year, as more firms rush tomake loansto small businesses. Despite the U.S.'s recovery since the financial crisis, banks have been cautious about doling out small business loans.
In 2008, banks held $711 in small business loans; that figure has decreased significantly to just $599 billion as of the second quarter of 2015. For that reason, there has been a gap in the marketplace as entrepreneurs look for ways to fund their growing companies.
Lending To Well Known Firms
While small business owners might be required to make a pitch to a bank or private investor in order to secure funding, some companies are using their existing relationships with entrepreneurs in order to make loans.
Intuit Inc.(NASDAQ:INTU) together withOn Deck Capital Inc(NYSE:ONDK) havelaunched a financing productthat allows users of the firm's QuickBooks to secure small loans.
Related Link:Intuit And OnDeck To Launch 0M Small Business Lending Fund
The firm is able to use existing data from the user to determine how risky the loan would be, making it easier to deliver lower-rate loans for businesses with strong financials.
Knowledge Is Power
Other firms have created similar programs that use data gathered from customers in order to determine whether a loan is worthwhile.
Online lender Kabbage Inc. has partnered withUnited Parcel Service, Inc.(NYSE:UPS) to make loans using the firm's shipping history as a gauge of how many orders they're fulfilling.PayPal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL) similarly uses vendors' transaction history to determine whether a loan would be high-risk.
High Interest Rates
However, such loans can be difficult for small business owners to repay. As online lenders become plentiful, many are jockeying for clients by offering more money at higher rates.
The ease of borrowing money online has also given rise to a slew of cash advance firms that are able to approve huge sums of money quickly, but charge annual percentage rates of more than 100 percent.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Logistics Firms Prepare For 3D Printing's Future
• The Biggest Losers From Monday's Market Meltdown
• Louis C.K. Embraces Bitcoin
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders: The tech sector has reached into a new industry over the past year, as more firms rush to make loans to small businesses. Despite the U.S.'s recovery since the financial crisis, banks have been cautious about doling out small business loans. In 2008, banks held $711 in small business loans; that figure has decreased significantly to just $599 billion as of the second quarter of 2015. For that reason, there has been a gap in the marketplace as entrepreneurs look for ways to fund their growing companies. Lending To Well Known Firms While small business owners might be required to make a pitch to a bank or private investor in order to secure funding, some companies are using their existing relationships with entrepreneurs in order to make loans. Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU ) together with On Deck Capital Inc (NYSE: ONDK ) have launched a financing product that allows users of the firm's QuickBooks to secure small loans. Related Link: Intuit And OnDeck To Launch 0M Small Business Lending Fund The firm is able to use existing data from the user to determine how risky the loan would be, making it easier to deliver lower-rate loans for businesses with strong financials. Knowledge Is Power Other firms have created similar programs that use data gathered from customers in order to determine whether a loan is worthwhile. Online lender Kabbage Inc. has partnered with United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS ) to make loans using the firm's shipping history as a gauge of how many orders they're fulfilling. PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL ) similarly uses vendors' transaction history to determine whether a loan would be high-risk. High Interest Rates However, such loans can be difficult for small business owners to repay. As online lenders become plentiful, many are jockeying for clients by offering more money at higher rates. The ease of borrowing money online has also given rise to a slew of cash advance firms that are able to approve huge sums of money quickly, but charge annual percentage rates of more than 100 percent. Story continues Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Logistics Firms Prepare For 3D Printing's Future The Biggest Losers From Monday's Market Meltdown Louis C.K. Embraces Bitcoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge: California's severe drought is dragging through its fourth year, leaving the state to continue finding ways to cut back on water usage.
Many of California's biggest businesses have been hard hit by the shortage, but other firms are using the crisis as an opportunity.
Agriculture
Water usage in agriculture is essential, so regulations cutting back on the amount farmers can use each day have been detrimental to the industry. This is especially true for poultry processors who use gallons of water to sanitize and clean each chicken. California's poultry farms process about 3 percent of the U.S. total, adding up to a great deal of water use.
Related Link:California Drought Stocks To Look At
Organics Suffer
Farms throughout California have been required toreduce their water useby 25 percent and cut back on outdoor watering – something that has taken a toll on the state's crops, especially those that are organic.
As organic crops are typically more difficult to grow and require more resources, prices have risen to cope with smaller yields in the wake of the shortage.
However, for companies likeMonsanto Company(NYSE:MON),E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co(NYSE:DD) andSyngenta AG (ADR)(NYSE:SYT), the drought has had the opposite effect. The shortage of water has created a demand for seeds that have been genetically modified to increase crop yields and reduce costs for farmers.
Cutting Back Is A Big Business
California residents have also been subjected to strict water usage limits, making everyday tasks like watering their lawns or even showering more complicated.
However, businesses who help track and cut down on water consumption have seen a boost in sales, as meters are installed and efficient usage gadgets are put to use.Mueller Water Products, Inc.(NYSE:MWA), a company that makes water meters, andRexnord Corp(NYSE:RXN), which focuses on efficient plumbing systems, are both expecting the drought to boost sales and increase their bottom lines.
Image Credit:Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Is Europe Recovering Or Not?
• In An Effort To Shore Up Cyberdefense, The FBI Looks To Teens
• Europol Highlights Bitcoin Use Among Criminals
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
1 #bitcoin 715.97 TL, 240.912 $, 213.3 €, GBP, 15408.00 RUR, 28942 ¥, CNH, 317.61 CAD #btc || LIVE: Profit = $105.21 (1.49 %). BUY B28.73 @ $244.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $245.51 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current value of DOGE in BTC: Cryptsy: 0.00000048 -- Volume: 47748671.64016468 Today's trend: stable at 10/07/15 00:55 || Current price: 243.42$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-10-07 07:00:11 EDT || Average Bitcoin market price is: USD 246.00, EUR 219.41 || Current price: 1...
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242.30, 243.93, 244.94, 247.05, 245.31, 249.51, 251.99, 254.32, 262.87, 270.64
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 8598.31, 9494.63, 10166.40, 10233.90, 11112.70, 10551.80, 11225.30, 11403.70, 10690.40, 10005.00, 10301.10, 9813.07, 9664.73, 10366.70, 10725.60, 10397.90, 10951.00, 11086.40, 11489.70, 11512.60, 11573.30, 10779.90, 9965.57, 9395.01, 9337.55, 8866.00, 9578.63, 9205.12, 9194.85, 8269.81, 8300.86, 8338.35, 7916.88, 8223.68, 8630.65, 8913.47, 8929.28, 8728.47, 8879.62, 8668.12, 8495.78, 8209.40, 7833.04, 7954.48, 7165.70, 6890.52, 6973.53, 6844.23, 7083.80, 7456.11, 6853.84, 6811.47, 6636.32, 6911.09, 7023.52, 6770.73, 6834.76, 6968.32, 7889.25, 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05, 9348.48, 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01, 9235.92, 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01, 9234.82, 9325.18, 9043.94, 8441.49, 8504.89, 8723.94.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-05-13]
Volume: 5866379776, RSI (14-day): 46.99, 50-day EMA: 8842.50, 200-day EMA: 8857.07
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
3 Smart Retirement Savings Moves You Can Make Right Now: There's nothing more satisfying at the end of your career than being able to retire comfortably. But you can't expect the retirement you truly want if you don't save for it . With millions of people having no retirement savings at all, the burden is on you to take advantage of the many ways you can save for retirement effectively. Successful retirement savers use a variety of different methods to set money aside for their golden years. The following three moves are smart for just about anyone, and the benefit they share is that you don't have to wait to get started with them. Jar with sticky paper saying retirement on it, and cash pouring out on table next to calculator. Image source: Getty Images. 1. Let the IRS help you out Saving for retirement isn't just a matter of finding money to put aside. You also have to put it in the right place. The best option for those who have it is a 401(k) plan or similar employer-sponsored retirement plan. 401(k)s allow you to save money on a pre-tax basis, which can produce thousands of dollars in immediate tax savings. Many employers also add matching contributions or profit sharing on top of what you contribute from your paycheck, getting you even closer to your retirement goals without any extra effort on your part. Even those who don't have access to a 401(k) or similar plan at work can still use an IRA to reap many of the same benefits. You have a choice between traditional IRAs that give you upfront tax deductions or Roth IRAs that promise tax-free distributions in retirement. Either way, with the tax-deferred growth that will help you retirement savings grow faster, IRAs and 401(k)s both put the IRS on your side in your quest toward building up a good-sized nest egg. 2. Check out what Social Security will do for you Social Security will play an important part in your financial security in retirement. It's one of the only financial resources you'll have that promises an unending stream of monthly payments that lasts throughout your lifetime, and it also can help support a surviving spouse or other family members even after your death. Story continues It's easy to get a sense of what to expect from Social Security. Check out the Social Security Administration's my Social Security website , and you'll see a key resource for information about what your monthly benefits will be under various assumptions. You'll also learn how much you could receive if you become disabled before reaching retirement age, as well as what a spouse or children would collect. The service is free and easy to access, and it'll give you a much better sense of how much you really need to draw from your savings to cover all your financial needs once you retire. 3. Pre-plan your spend-down strategy Most retirees are reluctant to spend down their retirement savings after their careers end, as they fear they'll run out of money too soon. That's a legitimate concern, but you also don't want to shortchange yourself by spending less than your retirement savings could support. Following two simple steps can give you a better strategy for spending your nest egg in retirement. First, realize that even once you retire, you'll still need to invest so that some of your money will keep growing. With retirements that can last 30 years or longer, that growth will be crucial to sustaining your financial needs later in life. Second, giving yourself a cash cushion that will take care of a year or two of expenses can help you weather any market downturns that temporarily send your portfolio lower. Under ordinary circumstances, you can use a system like the 4% rule to replenish that cash during good market years, but not having to sell during market crashes gives you the peace of mind you'll need to stay invested for the long run. Remember, it's about you Financial security isn't just about numbers. It's about what makes you emotionally comfortable as you move forward with the rest of your life beyond work. By looking at these three things, you'll be more likely to have the confidence and comfort you need to retire the way you want when the time comes. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 3 Smart Retirement Savings Moves You Can Make Right Now: There's nothing more satisfying at the end of your career than being able to retire comfortably. But you can't expect the retirement you truly want if you don'tsave for it. With millions of people having no retirement savings at all, the burden is on you to take advantage of the many ways you can save for retirement effectively.
Successful retirement savers use a variety of different methods to set money aside for their golden years. The following three moves are smart for just about anyone, and the benefit they share is that you don't have to wait to get started with them.
Image source: Getty Images.
Saving for retirement isn't just a matter of finding money to put aside. You also have to put it in the right place. The best option for those who have it is a401(k) planor similar employer-sponsored retirement plan. 401(k)s allow you to save money on a pre-tax basis, which can produce thousands of dollars in immediate tax savings. Many employers also add matching contributions or profit sharing on top of what you contribute from your paycheck, getting you even closer to your retirement goals without any extra effort on your part.
Even those who don't have access to a 401(k) or similar plan at work can stilluse an IRAto reap many of the same benefits. You have a choice between traditional IRAs that give you upfront tax deductions or Roth IRAs that promise tax-free distributions in retirement. Either way, with the tax-deferred growth that will help you retirement savings grow faster, IRAs and 401(k)s both put the IRS on your side in your quest toward building up a good-sized nest egg.
Social Security will play an important part in your financial security in retirement. It's one of the only financial resources you'll have that promises an unending stream of monthly payments that lasts throughout your lifetime, and it also can help support a surviving spouse or other family members even after your death.
It's easy to get a sense of what to expect from Social Security. Check out the Social Security Administration'smy Social Security website, and you'll see a key resource for information about what your monthly benefits will be under various assumptions. You'll also learn how much you could receive if you become disabled before reaching retirement age, as well as what a spouse or children would collect. The service is free and easy to access, and it'll give you a much better sense of how much you really need to draw from your savings to cover all your financial needs once you retire.
Most retirees are reluctant to spend down their retirement savings after their careers end, as they fear they'll run out of money too soon. That's a legitimate concern, but you also don't want to shortchange yourself by spending less than your retirement savings could support.
Following two simple steps can give you a better strategy for spending your nest egg in retirement. First, realize that even once you retire, you'll still need to invest so that some of your money will keep growing. With retirements that can last 30 years or longer, that growth will be crucial to sustaining your financial needs later in life. Second, giving yourself a cash cushion that will take care of a year or two of expenses can help you weather any market downturns that temporarily send your portfolio lower. Under ordinary circumstances, you can use a system like the4% ruleto replenish that cash during good market years, but not having to sell during market crashes gives you the peace of mind you'll need to stay invested for the long run.
Financial security isn't just about numbers. It's about what makes you emotionally comfortable as you move forward with the rest of your life beyond work. By looking at these three things, you'll be more likely to have the confidence and comfort you need to retire the way you want when the time comes.
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The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Will Tencent Holdings Rebound From its 2018 Lows?: Tencent 's (NASDAQOTH: TCEHY) stock surged nearly 1,100% between the end of 2010 and 2017 as the Chinese tech giant evolved into the top social networking player in China and the world's biggest video game publisher. However, the stock has slumped this year, tumbling about 20% peak-to-trough as of this writing. Tencent's big decline started in late March after its fourth-quarter report. Its rising expenses overshadowed a 51% annual jump in revenue, a 98% increase in net earnings (boosted heavily by investments), and 42% growth in non-GAAP earnings. Tencent's pledge to keep boosting investments in high-growth markets like streaming video, digital payments, cloud services, AI technologies, and smart retail convinced investors that its margins would remain under pressure. Tencent building in Shenzhen. Image source: Tencent. But as all long-term investors should know, high-growth tech companies usually use their cash to expand their ecosystems. Therefore, it's common for analysts -- who are more interested in a business' quarter-to-quarter performance -- to overreact to aggressive spending plans. Shortly after Tencent's report, South African media firm Naspers -- one of the company's earliest investors -- sold a 2% stake in the company. President Trump then announced plans to impose tariffs against China, which stoked fears of a trade war and sank many Chinese stocks. That triple whammy of bad news knocked Tencent to its 2018 lows. But I think the stock could be primed for a rebound, for two simple reasons. 1. Tencent's expansion widens its moat Tencent's ecosystem covers lots of markets. WeChat, the most popular messaging app in China, grew its monthly active users (MAUs) 11% annually to 989 million last quarter. The expansion of WeChat -- which offers ride hailing, delivery services, e-commerce features, games, payments, and other services -- widens Tencent's moat against search giant Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) and e-commerce heavyweight Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) . Story continues Tencent's older messaging platform QQ, which is integrated into many websites, is also making the leap from PCs to mobile devices. QQ's smart device MAUs rose 2% annually to 683 million during the quarter. Tencent's video game portfolio is also growing. It owns e-sport favorite League of Legends , mobile hits like Clash of Clans and Arena of Valor , and stakes in Activision Blizzard and Glu Mobile . Tencent's Arena of Valor. Tencent's Arena of Valor. Image source: Google Play. In the payments market, its WeChat Pay platform holds a duopoly with Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial's Alipay. In streaming video , it ranks second after Baidu's iQiyi and remains ahead of Alibaba's Youku Tudou. In streaming music , Tencent Music is the clear market leader. Tencent is also following Alibaba and Baidu into the cloud and AI markets. The expansion of that sprawling ecosystem requires lots of cash. Therefore, investors shouldn't be worried about a slight contraction in margins as long as Tencent keeps growing its revenue and earnings. Analysts expect Tencent's revenue to rise 42% this year, and for its earnings to dip 8% on higher expenses and tough comparisons to 2017. But for 2019, they expect its sales and earnings to rise 34% and 32%, respectively. 2. Misunderstanding Naspers and Trump Second, the damage caused to Tencent by Naspers' sale and Trump's tariffs was unjustified. Naspers didn't sell its stake in Tencent because it was bearish on the company's prospects. It did so to raise cash to expand its other businesses. Naspers subsequently issued a statement calling Tencent "one of the very best growth enterprises in any industry in the world, managed by an exceptionally able team" -- and pledged to not sell any more shares for at least three more years. Trump's tariffs should also have a limited impact on Tencent, since Tencent generates most of its revenue in China. Its only US interests are its stakes in companies like Snap , Activision, Glu, and Tesla Motors , but those are minority stakes that haven't attracted any regulatory scrutiny. Therefore, selling Chinese tech giants like Tencent on tariff fears would be a short-sighted move. Will Tencent rebound soon? Tencent's stock isn't cheap at 35 times forward earnings, but it's a reasonable valuation for one of China's biggest tech companies. If you think Tencent still has room to run, you should consider buying this stock on these dips. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Leo Sun owns shares of Baidu and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Baidu, Tencent Holdings, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends iQiyi. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Will Tencent Holdings Rebound From its 2018 Lows?: Tencent's(NASDAQOTH: TCEHY)stock surged nearly 1,100% between the end of 2010 and 2017 as the Chinese tech giant evolved into the top social networking player in China and the world's biggest video game publisher. However, the stock has slumped this year, tumbling about 20% peak-to-trough as of this writing.
Tencent's big decline started in late March after itsfourth-quarterreport. Its rising expenses overshadowed a 51% annual jump in revenue, a 98% increase in net earnings (boosted heavily by investments), and 42% growth in non-GAAP earnings. Tencent's pledge to keep boosting investments in high-growth markets like streaming video, digital payments, cloud services, AI technologies, and smart retail convinced investors that its margins would remain under pressure.
Image source: Tencent.
But as all long-term investors should know, high-growth tech companies usually use their cash to expand their ecosystems. Therefore, it's common for analysts -- who are more interested in a business' quarter-to-quarter performance -- to overreact to aggressive spending plans.
Shortly after Tencent's report, South African media firmNaspers-- one of the company's earliest investors -- sold a 2% stake in the company. President Trump then announced plans to impose tariffs against China, which stoked fears of a trade war and sank many Chinese stocks. That triple whammy of bad news knocked Tencent to its 2018 lows.
But I think the stock could be primed for a rebound, for two simple reasons.
Tencent's ecosystem covers lots of markets. WeChat, the most popular messaging app in China, grew its monthly active users (MAUs) 11% annually to 989 million last quarter. The expansion of WeChat -- which offers ride hailing, delivery services, e-commerce features, games, payments, and other services -- widens Tencent's moat against search giantBaidu(NASDAQ: BIDU)and e-commerce heavyweightAlibaba(NYSE: BABA).
Tencent's older messaging platform QQ, which is integrated into many websites, is also making the leap from PCs to mobile devices. QQ's smart device MAUs rose 2% annually to 683 million during the quarter.
Tencent's video game portfolio is also growing. It owns e-sport favoriteLeague of Legends, mobile hits likeClash of ClansandArena of Valor, and stakes inActivision BlizzardandGlu Mobile.
Tencent's Arena of Valor. Image source: Google Play.
In the payments market, its WeChat Pay platform holds a duopoly with Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial's Alipay. Instreaming video, it ranks second after Baidu'siQiyiand remains ahead of Alibaba's Youku Tudou. Instreaming music, Tencent Music is the clear market leader. Tencent is also following Alibaba and Baidu into the cloud and AI markets.
The expansion of that sprawling ecosystem requires lots of cash. Therefore, investors shouldn't be worried about a slight contraction in margins as long as Tencent keeps growing its revenue and earnings.
Analysts expect Tencent's revenue to rise 42% this year, and for its earnings to dip 8% on higher expenses and tough comparisons to 2017. But for 2019, they expect its sales and earnings to rise 34% and 32%, respectively.
Second, the damage caused to Tencent by Naspers' sale and Trump's tariffs was unjustified.
Naspers didn't sell its stake in Tencent because it was bearish on the company's prospects. It did so to raise cash to expand its other businesses. Naspers subsequently issued a statement calling Tencent "one of the very best growth enterprises in any industry in the world, managed by an exceptionally able team" -- and pledged to not sell any more shares for at least three more years.
Trump's tariffs should also have alimited impacton Tencent, since Tencent generates most of its revenue in China. Its only US interests are itsstakes in companieslikeSnap, Activision, Glu, andTesla Motors, but those are minority stakes that haven't attracted any regulatory scrutiny. Therefore, selling Chinese tech giants like Tencent on tariff fears would be a short-sighted move.
Tencent's stock isn't cheap at 35 times forward earnings, but it's a reasonable valuation for one of China's biggest tech companies. If you think Tencent still has room to run, you should consider buying this stock on these dips.
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Leo Sunowns shares of Baidu and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Baidu, Tencent Holdings, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends iQiyi. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Here's Why Marvell's Pending Purchase of Cavium Networks Looks Brilliant: Over the last several years, there has been a flurry of merger and acquisition activity in the chip industry. Last year, one of the more notable announced deals was Marvell 's (NASDAQ: MRVL) planned acquisition of specialty data-center chip maker Cavium Networks (NASDAQ: CAVM) in a combination cash and stock deal that valued Cavium at $6 billion. When the two companies announced this business combination in November, Marvell spent a great deal of time explaining to investors why the acquisition is in the best interests of both Marvell and Cavium stockholders. The deal is expected to close in the middle of calendar year 2018 and so far there haven't been any obvious regulatory hurdles to the deal closing. So it looks like the deal will go through and here's why it makes sense to stay invested in Marvell after the deal closes. a drawing of globes and charts and numbers and lines Image source: Getty Images. Complementing Marvell's product portfolio Marvell sells chips into the storage, networking, and wireless connectivity markets. Cavium sells products into the computing, networking, storage connectivity, and security markets. While both Marvell and Cavium offer products to the storage and networking markets, keep in mind that those markets are vast and the two companies focus on different areas within those markets, meaning that their respective storage and networking businesses should be quite complementary. Additionally, by scooping up Cavium, Marvell will get access to the data-center processor market as well as the security processor market. Marvell estimates that its served addressable market, excluding Cavium, is about $8 billion (and growing), and that Cavium's served addressable market is also $8 billion. So that gives the combined entities a combined revenue opportunity of at least $16 billion. That's not to say that they'll be successful in capturing all of it; competition across all of these markets is fierce. But ideally, the greater financial might and scale of the combined entities will make revenue-share gains across the board easier to achieve. Story continues A compelling financial argument Marvell argued that the combined entity will have a "best-in-class financial model." Although Cavium generates less revenue than Marvell, Cavium's gross profit margin is higher, as is its EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margin. Without any cost synergies -- such as eliminating redundant positions, or combining marketing and engineering efforts where possible -- the combined entity would enjoy higher gross profit margin and higher EBITDA margin (though operating income margin would be slightly down, as Cavium's is 100 basis points lower than Marvell's). However, Marvell thinks that it can realize between $150 million and $175 million in cost synergies within 18 months following the close of the deal. Looking out longer term, Marvell says that it hopes that the combined entity will enjoy 6% to 8% compounded annual revenue growth, with gross profit margin expansion to around 65% (up from 61%) and operating income margin of around 35% (up from around 26%). In other words, not only will bringing Cavium into the fold allow Marvell to enjoy better long-term revenue growth prospects, but both companies together could be substantially more profitable than either would be as a stand-alone entity. This looks like a good deal for both As the chip industry matures, it's only natural that smaller companies like Marvell and Cavium would want to combine to form a larger, more powerful entity. Scale is a critical competitive advantage in the chip industry, and the ability to offer a wider portfolio of products to potential customers (Marvell and Cavium sell to many of the same customers) can be the difference between closing the deal and not. Marvell's acquisition of Cavium should clearly accelerate Marvell's revenue and profit growth in the years ahead. For Cavium stockholders, this deal looks pretty good, too. The deal consists of $40 per share in cash, as well as 2.1757 shares of Marvell stock for each share of Cavium stock. This gives Cavium stockholders more for their shares than the stock ever traded for before the deal was announced, and it allows them to remain significantly invested in the combined company. Both Marvell and Cavium stockholders should be happy with this deal. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Ashraf Eassa has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Here's Why Marvell's Pending Purchase of Cavium Networks Looks Brilliant: Over the last several years, there has been aflurry of merger and acquisition activityin the chip industry. Last year, one of the more notable announced deals wasMarvell's(NASDAQ: MRVL)planned acquisition of specialty data-center chip makerCavium Networks(NASDAQ: CAVM)in a combination cash and stock deal that valued Cavium at $6 billion.
When the two companies announced this business combination in November, Marvell spent a great deal of time explaining to investors why the acquisition is in the best interests of both Marvell and Cavium stockholders.
The deal is expected to close in the middle of calendar year 2018 and so far there haven't been any obvious regulatory hurdles to the deal closing. So it looks like the deal will go through and here's why it makes sense to stay invested in Marvell after the deal closes.
Image source: Getty Images.
Marvell sells chips into the storage, networking, and wireless connectivity markets. Cavium sells products into the computing, networking, storage connectivity, and security markets. While both Marvell and Cavium offer products to the storage and networking markets, keep in mind that those markets are vast and the two companies focus on different areas within those markets, meaning that their respective storage and networking businesses should be quite complementary.
Additionally, by scooping up Cavium, Marvell will get access to the data-center processor market as well as the security processor market.
Marvell estimates that its served addressable market, excluding Cavium, is about $8 billion (and growing), and that Cavium's served addressable market is also $8 billion. So that gives the combined entities a combined revenue opportunity of at least $16 billion.
That's not to say that they'll be successful in capturing all of it; competition across all of these markets is fierce. But ideally, the greater financial might and scale of the combined entities will make revenue-share gains across the board easier to achieve.
Marvell argued that the combined entity will have a "best-in-class financial model." Although Cavium generates less revenue than Marvell, Cavium's gross profit margin is higher, as is itsEBITDA(earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margin.
Without any cost synergies -- such as eliminating redundant positions, or combining marketing and engineering efforts where possible -- the combined entity would enjoy higher gross profit margin and higher EBITDA margin (though operating income margin would be slightly down, as Cavium's is 100 basis points lower than Marvell's).
However, Marvell thinks that it can realize between $150 million and $175 million in cost synergies within 18 months following the close of the deal. Looking out longer term, Marvell says that it hopes that the combined entity will enjoy 6% to 8% compounded annual revenue growth, with gross profit margin expansion to around 65% (up from 61%) and operating income margin of around 35% (up from around 26%).
In other words, not only will bringing Cavium into the fold allow Marvell to enjoy better long-term revenue growth prospects, but both companies together could be substantially more profitable than either would be as a stand-alone entity.
As the chip industry matures, it's only natural that smaller companies like Marvell and Cavium would want to combine to form a larger, more powerful entity. Scale is a critical competitive advantage in the chip industry, and the ability to offer a wider portfolio of products to potential customers (Marvell and Cavium sell to many of the same customers) can be the difference between closing the deal and not.
Marvell's acquisition of Cavium should clearly accelerate Marvell's revenue and profit growth in the years ahead.
For Cavium stockholders, this deal looks pretty good, too. The deal consists of $40 per share in cash, as well as 2.1757 shares of Marvell stock for each share of Cavium stock. This gives Cavium stockholders more for their shares than the stock ever traded for before the deal was announced, and it allows them to remain significantly invested in the combined company.
Both Marvell and Cavium stockholders should be happy with this deal.
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Ashraf Eassahas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Greek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnik: alexander vinnik Greek authorities have reportedly managed to uncover a murder plot targeting Russian national Alexander Vinnik, which was arrested in the country earlier this year, suspected of laundering $4 billion in bitcoin through cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e. According to news source Sputnik , Greek police received information about the murder plot earlier this year, but decided not to make it public to assist investigators. Per Sputniks source: It all began after Vinniks extradition to the United States was blocked. There people who are extremely interested in him not coming to Russia. The assassination was ordered by some unknown person from Russia. The murder plot, the source added, isnt connected to any special services, as it is linked to the criminal world. It added that it all began when Vinniks extradition to the United States was blocked, as there are individuals who are extremely interested in him not coming to Russia. Per his words, the assassination plot was ordered by someone in Russia. Notably, Vinnik reportedly wrote an acknowledgement of guilt in Russia, and is set to testify in the country to assist investigators. This, after he admitted to knowing about crimes committed in the sphere of financial technologies. The Russian nationals lawyers, in response to the situation, stated: Such statement should be investigated via a proper procedure, rather than through public statements and discussions. As covered by CCN, Vinnik was arrested at the request of the US government. At the time, it was believed he was BTC-es chief executive, but the exchange soon denied he was even an employee there , while Vinnik claimed innocence . For a time, Vinniks future was thrown into turmoil , as he and his lawyers argued he should stand trial in Russia, while a Greek court agreed to a US extradition request. His fate was in the hands of Greeces Minister of Justice, Nikos Paraskevopoulos. At the time of Vinniks arrest, BTC-es domain was seized and taken down. The embattled exchange managed to come back online , and rebranded to WEX. WEX has, as covered, seen its share of controversy as some of its users funds were stuck in limbo, while the company blamed a third party . Since CCNs report, the exchange has helped users get their money back. The post Greek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnik appeared first on CCN . || Greek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnik: Greek authorities have reportedly managed to uncover a murder plot targeting Russian national Alexander Vinnik, which was arrested in the country earlier this year, suspected oflaundering $4 billion in bitcoin through cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e.
According to news sourceSputnik, Greek police received information about the murder plot earlier this year, but decided not to make it public to assist investigators. Per Sputnik’s source:
“It all began after Vinnik’s extradition to the United States was blocked. There people who are extremely interested in him not coming to Russia. The assassination was ordered by some unknown person from Russia.”
The murder plot, the source added, isn’t connected to any special services, as it is “linked to the criminal world.” It added that it all began when Vinnik’s extradition to the United States was blocked, as there are individuals who are “extremely interested in him not coming to Russia.” Per his words, the assassination plot was ordered by someone in Russia.
Notably, Vinnik reportedly wrote an acknowledgement of guilt in Russia, and is set to testify in the country to assist investigators. This, after he admitted to knowing about crimes “committed in the sphere of financial technologies.”
The Russian national’s lawyers, in response to the situation, stated:
“Such statement should be investigated via a proper procedure, rather than through public statements and discussions.”
As covered by CCN, Vinnik was arrested at the request of the US government. At the time, it was believed he was BTC-e’s chief executive, but theexchange soon denied he was even an employee there, whileVinnik claimed innocence.
For a time,Vinnik’s future was thrown into turmoil, as he and his lawyers argued he should stand trial in Russia, while a Greek court agreed to a US extradition request. His fate was in the hands of Greece’s Minister of Justice, Nikos Paraskevopoulos.
At the time of Vinnik’s arrest, BTC-e’s domain was seized and taken down. The embattled exchangemanaged to come back online, and rebranded to WEX. WEX has, as covered, seen its share of controversy as some of its users’ funds were stuck in limbo, while thecompany blamed a third party. Since CCN’s report, the exchange has helped users get their money back.
The postGreek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnikappeared first onCCN. || Greek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnik: Greek authorities have reportedly managed to uncover a murder plot targeting Russian national Alexander Vinnik, which was arrested in the country earlier this year, suspected oflaundering $4 billion in bitcoin through cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e.
According to news sourceSputnik, Greek police received information about the murder plot earlier this year, but decided not to make it public to assist investigators. Per Sputnik’s source:
“It all began after Vinnik’s extradition to the United States was blocked. There people who are extremely interested in him not coming to Russia. The assassination was ordered by some unknown person from Russia.”
The murder plot, the source added, isn’t connected to any special services, as it is “linked to the criminal world.” It added that it all began when Vinnik’s extradition to the United States was blocked, as there are individuals who are “extremely interested in him not coming to Russia.” Per his words, the assassination plot was ordered by someone in Russia.
Notably, Vinnik reportedly wrote an acknowledgement of guilt in Russia, and is set to testify in the country to assist investigators. This, after he admitted to knowing about crimes “committed in the sphere of financial technologies.”
The Russian national’s lawyers, in response to the situation, stated:
“Such statement should be investigated via a proper procedure, rather than through public statements and discussions.”
As covered by CCN, Vinnik was arrested at the request of the US government. At the time, it was believed he was BTC-e’s chief executive, but theexchange soon denied he was even an employee there, whileVinnik claimed innocence.
For a time,Vinnik’s future was thrown into turmoil, as he and his lawyers argued he should stand trial in Russia, while a Greek court agreed to a US extradition request. His fate was in the hands of Greece’s Minister of Justice, Nikos Paraskevopoulos.
At the time of Vinnik’s arrest, BTC-e’s domain was seized and taken down. The embattled exchangemanaged to come back online, and rebranded to WEX. WEX has, as covered, seen its share of controversy as some of its users’ funds were stuck in limbo, while thecompany blamed a third party. Since CCN’s report, the exchange has helped users get their money back.
The postGreek Police Uncover Plot to Murder Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Alexander Vinnikappeared first onCCN. || Better Buy: Altria Group vs. Coca-Cola: Altria Group(NYSE: MO)andCoca-Cola(NYSE: KO)have long been bastions of bountiful dividend income for investors. With the tobacco titan and soda giant currently yielding 5% and 3.6%, respectively, that remains the case today.
But which of these dividend stalwarts is the better buy? Let's find out.
Image source: Getty Images.
Altria once enjoyed a seemingly unassailable competitive position, but the cigarette colossus is now facingpotential disruptionfrom new forms of nicotine inhalation, such asvaping. Altria is attempting to counter this threat by introducing newheated tobacco products, but it's not yet clear whether these moves will be enough to offset declining sales of traditional tobacco products.
Like Altria, Coca-Cola finds itself on the wrong side of several trends, as consumers shift away from high-sugar and artificially sweetened beverages. But while its soda business stagnates, Coca-Cola has moved todiversify its beverage empireinto naturally flavored juices, teas, and bottled water, among other areas. Coca-Cola therefore enjoys broader revenue diversification than the largely tobacco-focused Altria and a stronger overall competitive position.
Advantage: Coca-Cola
Let's now take a look at some key metrics to see how Altria and Coca-Cola stack up in regards to financial fortitude.
[{"Revenue": "Operating income", "$19.49 billion": "$9.59 billion", "$35.41 billion": "$9.43 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Operating cash flow", "$19.49 billion": "$4.92 billion", "$35.41 billion": "$7.11 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Free cash flow", "$19.49 billion": "$4.72 billion", "$35.41 billion": "$5.43 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Cash", "$19.49 billion": "$1.25 billion", "$35.41 billion": "$20.68 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Debt", "$19.49 billion": "$13.89 billion", "$35.41 billion": "$47.75 billion"}]
Data sources: Morningstar, Yahoo! Finance.
Altria and Coca-Cola excel at turning cigarettes and soda into cash for investors. However, Coca-Cola has a far more cash-rich balance sheet, which makes it the more financially sound business.
Advantage: Coca-Cola
With demand forcigarettesandsodalikely to decline further in the years ahead, revenue growth will remain a challenge for both Altria and Coca-Cola in the coming years. Still, thanks toprice hikesand cost cuts, Altria's earnings per share are forecast to grow by about 10% annually over the next five years. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola's EPS is expected to rise by less than 8% annually over the next half-decade, driven mostly by the company'smargin-expansion initiatives. Thus, Altria has the edge when it comes to expected EPS growth.
Advantage: Altria
No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's check out some key value metrics for Coca-Cola and Altria, including price-to-free cash flow, price-to-earnings, and price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratios.
[{"P/FCF": "Forward P/E", "22.56": "12.95", "33.78": "18.99"}, {"P/FCF": "PEG", "22.56": "1.43", "33.78": "2.73"}]
Data sources: Morningstar, Yahoo! Finance.
On all three metrics, Altria's stock is considerably less expensive than that of Coca-Cola. Investors appear to be pricing in the possibility that a slowdown inheated-tobacco product salescould cause Altria to fall short of analysts' growth projections. That may prove to be the case, but at this point, much of this risk is already baked into Altria's stock price. And at these levels, Altria is the better bargain.
Advantage: Altria
Ultimately, you'll need to decide which of these factors is more important to you. Investors with low risk tolerance will find Coca-Cola's broader revenue diversification and balance sheet strength more attractive. Value investors will likely be more intrigued by Altria's lower-priced stock. Either way, you'll be buying a proven business that should continue to deliver bountiful dividend income for many years to come.
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Joe Tenebrusohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Better Buy: Altria Group vs. Coca-Cola: Altria Group (NYSE: MO) and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) have long been bastions of bountiful dividend income for investors. With the tobacco titan and soda giant currently yielding 5% and 3.6%, respectively, that remains the case today. But which of these dividend stalwarts is the better buy? Let's find out. Rising stacks of gold coins with dice above them that spell yield Image source: Getty Images. Competitive advantage Altria once enjoyed a seemingly unassailable competitive position, but the cigarette colossus is now facing potential disruption from new forms of nicotine inhalation, such as vaping . Altria is attempting to counter this threat by introducing new heated tobacco products , but it's not yet clear whether these moves will be enough to offset declining sales of traditional tobacco products. Like Altria, Coca-Cola finds itself on the wrong side of several trends, as consumers shift away from high-sugar and artificially sweetened beverages. But while its soda business stagnates, Coca-Cola has moved to diversify its beverage empire into naturally flavored juices, teas, and bottled water, among other areas. Coca-Cola therefore enjoys broader revenue diversification than the largely tobacco-focused Altria and a stronger overall competitive position. Advantage: Coca-Cola Financial strength Let's now take a look at some key metrics to see how Altria and Coca-Cola stack up in regards to financial fortitude. Revenue $19.49 billion $35.41 billion Operating income $9.59 billion $9.43 billion Operating cash flow $4.92 billion $7.11 billion Free cash flow $4.72 billion $5.43 billion Cash $1.25 billion $20.68 billion Debt $13.89 billion $47.75 billion Data sources: Morningstar, Yahoo! Finance. Altria and Coca-Cola excel at turning cigarettes and soda into cash for investors. However, Coca-Cola has a far more cash-rich balance sheet, which makes it the more financially sound business. Advantage: Coca-Cola Growth With demand for cigarettes and soda likely to decline further in the years ahead, revenue growth will remain a challenge for both Altria and Coca-Cola in the coming years. Still, thanks to price hikes and cost cuts, Altria's earnings per share are forecast to grow by about 10% annually over the next five years. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola's EPS is expected to rise by less than 8% annually over the next half-decade, driven mostly by the company's margin-expansion initiatives . Thus, Altria has the edge when it comes to expected EPS growth. Story continues Advantage: Altria Valuation No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's check out some key value metrics for Coca-Cola and Altria, including price-to-free cash flow, price-to-earnings, and price-to-earnings-to-growth ( PEG ) ratios. P/FCF 22.56 33.78 Forward P/E 12.95 18.99 PEG 1.43 2.73 Data sources: Morningstar, Yahoo! Finance. On all three metrics, Altria's stock is considerably less expensive than that of Coca-Cola. Investors appear to be pricing in the possibility that a slowdown in heated-tobacco product sales could cause Altria to fall short of analysts' growth projections. That may prove to be the case, but at this point, much of this risk is already baked into Altria's stock price. And at these levels, Altria is the better bargain. Advantage: Altria The better buy is... Ultimately, you'll need to decide which of these factors is more important to you. Investors with low risk tolerance will find Coca-Cola's broader revenue diversification and balance sheet strength more attractive. Value investors will likely be more intrigued by Altria's lower-priced stock. Either way, you'll be buying a proven business that should continue to deliver bountiful dividend income for many years to come. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || The FDA Cracks Down on a Leading E-Cig Maker: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is sending a very clear message to the electronic cigarette industry: Keep your products out of the hands of minors or we are coming after you. The regulatory agency launched a sweeping offensive against leading e-cig manufacturer JUUL Labs, and retailers who sell its devices to minors. It issued warnings to 40 retailers, including national chains like 7-Eleven and Cumberland Farms, as part of a monthlong crackdown against illegal sales of the JUUL e-cig to underage users. And in a rare move, it also asked JUUL Labs to turn over documents about the design, marketing, and ingredients found in its product. JUUL Labs’ electronic cigarette Teens are apparently drawn to the thumb-drive look of the JUUL e-cig. Image source: JUUL Labs. The new digital face of vaping Unlike other electronic cigarettes, which resemble actual cigarettes or large, flute-like vaping devices, the JUUL e-cig is a sleek device that more closely resembles a thumb drive. That apparently has made it easier for teens to bring the devices to school and is making them more difficult to detect. The FDA admits it doesn't understand why kids prefer JUUL's e-cigs to others; in a letter to the device maker requesting documentation, the regulatory agency speculated, "JUUL products may have features that make them more appealing to kids and easier to use, thus causing increased initiation and/or use among youth." It wants to learn right away what the appeal is and nip it in the bud. JUUL Labs is cooperating with the regulatory agency and announced a $30 million campaign against improper and illegal use of its products, as well as support for raising the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21. But it also reiterated that its devices are intended to help smokers wean themselves off traditional cigarettes, and are not intended for nonsmokers or for kids. In a statement JUUL Labs said, "We cannot be more emphatic on this point: No young person or non-nicotine user should ever try JUUL." Story continues A different kind of electronic cigarette The JUUL electronic cigarette has come virtually out of nowhere to displace Reynolds American's Vuse e-cig as the top-selling device on the market , commanding a nearly 55% share. The device from Reynolds American, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco (NYSE: BTI) , has a shrinking 19% share. The JUUL device uses a completely different technology than traditional e-cigs, or even the heat-not-burn technology being popularized by Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) with its iQOS device. Although (like many e-cigs) the JUUL uses e-liquids in its pods, the type of nicotine JUUL's liquids contain is different: naturally occurring nicotine salts that are attached to other organic compounds, rather than so-called "freebase" nicotine, which isn't bonded to other compounds. Bottles of electronic cigarette e-liquids Nicotine-infused e-liquids are coming under closer FDA scrutiny. Image source: Getty Images. JUUL Labs uses a proprietary formulation that was patented by Pax Labs (from which JUUL was spun out from last year), which reportedly delivers a nicotine hit virtually identical to that of combustible cigarettes. And because JUUL Labs uses benzoic acid, it reportedly provides an incredibly smooth taste that allows the use of higher nicotine levels in the e-liquid. That could be a big problem for the device maker because the FDA seems particularly concerned over the use of nicotine in these products, noting that some users may not even realize they're ingesting nicotine when they vape. Challenging market forces The crackdown comes at an awkward time for other e-cig manufacturers. Philip Morris is trying to gain FDA regulatory approval to market its iQOS device in the U.S., possibly with a reduced-risk label. It needs to break into more markets with the device because its earnings report showed its biggest and best market, Japan, had seemingly already plateaued . The U.S. is the largest market for electronic cigarettes, followed by the U.K. and China, and forecasters estimate that the global reach of e-cigs will hit $48 billion by 2023. Gaining approval to sell the iQOS device here would help Philip Morris regain momentum, but there have been continuing concerns that e-cigs induce kids to end up smoking. A crackdown on e-cigs because retailers are selling them to minors doesn't help Philip Morris' case or that of the industry. While the primary focus has been on JUUL Labs and its particular electronic cigarette, all e-cig manufacturers have been put on notice that preventing kids from getting their hands on the devices is a top priority of the agency. Although the FDA reiterated it sees e-cigs as an avenue for weaning people off traditional cigarettes, a more concerted effort to combat underage use may be required if the industry wants to avoid an even greater regulatory backlash. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || The FDA Cracks Down on a Leading E-Cig Maker: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is sending a very clear message to the electronic cigarette industry: Keep your products out of the hands of minors or we are coming after you. The regulatory agency launched a sweeping offensive against leading e-cig manufacturer JUUL Labs, and retailers who sell its devices to minors. It issued warnings to 40 retailers, including national chains like 7-Eleven and Cumberland Farms, as part of a monthlong crackdown against illegal sales of the JUUL e-cig to underage users. And in a rare move, it also asked JUUL Labs to turn over documents about the design, marketing, and ingredients found in its product. JUUL Labs’ electronic cigarette Teens are apparently drawn to the thumb-drive look of the JUUL e-cig. Image source: JUUL Labs. The new digital face of vaping Unlike other electronic cigarettes, which resemble actual cigarettes or large, flute-like vaping devices, the JUUL e-cig is a sleek device that more closely resembles a thumb drive. That apparently has made it easier for teens to bring the devices to school and is making them more difficult to detect. The FDA admits it doesn't understand why kids prefer JUUL's e-cigs to others; in a letter to the device maker requesting documentation, the regulatory agency speculated, "JUUL products may have features that make them more appealing to kids and easier to use, thus causing increased initiation and/or use among youth." It wants to learn right away what the appeal is and nip it in the bud. JUUL Labs is cooperating with the regulatory agency and announced a $30 million campaign against improper and illegal use of its products, as well as support for raising the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21. But it also reiterated that its devices are intended to help smokers wean themselves off traditional cigarettes, and are not intended for nonsmokers or for kids. In a statement JUUL Labs said, "We cannot be more emphatic on this point: No young person or non-nicotine user should ever try JUUL." Story continues A different kind of electronic cigarette The JUUL electronic cigarette has come virtually out of nowhere to displace Reynolds American's Vuse e-cig as the top-selling device on the market , commanding a nearly 55% share. The device from Reynolds American, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco (NYSE: BTI) , has a shrinking 19% share. The JUUL device uses a completely different technology than traditional e-cigs, or even the heat-not-burn technology being popularized by Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) with its iQOS device. Although (like many e-cigs) the JUUL uses e-liquids in its pods, the type of nicotine JUUL's liquids contain is different: naturally occurring nicotine salts that are attached to other organic compounds, rather than so-called "freebase" nicotine, which isn't bonded to other compounds. Bottles of electronic cigarette e-liquids Nicotine-infused e-liquids are coming under closer FDA scrutiny. Image source: Getty Images. JUUL Labs uses a proprietary formulation that was patented by Pax Labs (from which JUUL was spun out from last year), which reportedly delivers a nicotine hit virtually identical to that of combustible cigarettes. And because JUUL Labs uses benzoic acid, it reportedly provides an incredibly smooth taste that allows the use of higher nicotine levels in the e-liquid. That could be a big problem for the device maker because the FDA seems particularly concerned over the use of nicotine in these products, noting that some users may not even realize they're ingesting nicotine when they vape. Challenging market forces The crackdown comes at an awkward time for other e-cig manufacturers. Philip Morris is trying to gain FDA regulatory approval to market its iQOS device in the U.S., possibly with a reduced-risk label. It needs to break into more markets with the device because its earnings report showed its biggest and best market, Japan, had seemingly already plateaued . The U.S. is the largest market for electronic cigarettes, followed by the U.K. and China, and forecasters estimate that the global reach of e-cigs will hit $48 billion by 2023. Gaining approval to sell the iQOS device here would help Philip Morris regain momentum, but there have been continuing concerns that e-cigs induce kids to end up smoking. A crackdown on e-cigs because retailers are selling them to minors doesn't help Philip Morris' case or that of the industry. While the primary focus has been on JUUL Labs and its particular electronic cigarette, all e-cig manufacturers have been put on notice that preventing kids from getting their hands on the devices is a top priority of the agency. Although the FDA reiterated it sees e-cigs as an avenue for weaning people off traditional cigarettes, a more concerted effort to combat underage use may be required if the industry wants to avoid an even greater regulatory backlash. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Oil Stocks: Why This Time Is Different: After three challenging years, the oil market is showing real signs of improvement. Oil prices, which many in the industry expected would be at or below $50 a barrel this year, are now above $70. Crude might not be done running higher due in part to the fact that oil producers in the U.S. are taking a much different approach to how they allocate their oil-fueled cash flows.
That trend was one of the central themes on the first-quarter conference call of oil-field technology companyCore Labs(NYSE: CLB), where CEO David Demshur provided his take for why things are different in the oil market this time around.
Image source: Getty Images.
Demshur led off the call by diving into some industry trends, saying, "Core is encouraged that operating companies are buying into living within free cash flow and emphasizing returns on invested capital as demanded by today's investors." What he means is that most oil producers are setting their drilling budgets to live within anticipated cash flow as opposed to their previous approach of outspending their means to grow faster. Furthermore, they're focused on drilling wells that earn high returns on capital instead of drilling just to drill.
Because of that shift to drilling for returns as opposed to simply increasing output, industry spending levels remain well off their peak. Demshur pointed out that expected U.S. capital spending in 2018 is "still 45% below 2014 peak levels," which was "when record amounts of capital were being employed but destroyed, leading to over 130 U.S. E&P bankruptcies." One stunning example of this came fromChesapeake Energy, which stated that more than 50% of the wells it drilled in 2012 weren't even profitable.
Today, however, many drillers are setting a high bar for new wells.EOG Resources(NYSE: EOG)has been one of the leaders indisruptingthe former way of thinking by establishing a high return hurdle rate for new wells of 30% after-tax at $40 oil. Others followed with similar return-focused approaches, includingEncana(NYSE: ECA), which needs locations to achieve a 35% after-tax return at $50 oil to meet its premium hurdle rate.
Producers are also setting their budgets to the cash flows they can generate at lower oil prices. EOG Resources and Encana are among the many that set $50 oil as the baseline for their budgets. As a result, both are generating excess cash at current prices, which they're allocating toward other things like returning more money to investors via dividends and buybacks as well as paying off debt.
Image source: Getty Images.
The trend of investing to generate high returns has significantly improved capital efficiency because oil companies are now producing more oil while drilling fewer wells. Demshur put numbers behind it, saying, "Core projects that in the U.S., in 2018, we will drill 18,000 less wells when compared to 2014 but still add about 1 million barrels a day of production to our 10-plus million barrels of oil being produced per day. The industry is drilling fewer wells but better more efficient wells."
That efficiency was evident in the first quarter when companies likeDevon Energy(NYSE: DVN)andMarathon Oil(NYSE: MRO)drilled record-breaking wells. In Devon Energy's case, it completed two of the highest-rate wells ever drilled in the nearly 100-year history of theDelaware Basin. Those wells, when combined with some prolific ones in theSTACK shale play, enabled Devon toproduce a huge profit in the first quarter. Marathon Oil, meanwhile, drilled record-setting wells in two formations of theBakken regionas well as several high-rate ones in the STACK, which fueled strong profits for the driller in thefirst quarter.
Drillers, however, are only just starting to scratch the surface according to Demshur, who noted that his company is working to help them increase the amount of oil and gas they pull out of a shale reservoir from an average of 9% of what's there to a low to mid-teens percentage. While it would cost drillers about an incremental $2 million per well to implement some of these changes, they can add 500,000 barrels of additional oil production over the life of a well, boosting total output by 50%. That's a "real return winner" in Demshur's view.
Oil companies have shifted their focus from drilling just to grow production to investing in wells that will earn lucrative returns at lower oil prices. That's a real difference maker for profitability, which is soaring, especially with oil prices currently well above their baseline levels. With more efficiency gains still in the works, oil company profitability could continue rising in the coming years, even if crude comes back down a bit, which would create significant value for investors, making return-focused drillers ideal oil stocks to hold for the long haul.
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Matthew DiLalloowns shares of Core Laboratories. The Motley Fool recommends Core Laboratories. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Oil Stocks: Why This Time Is Different: After three challenging years, the oil market is showing real signs of improvement. Oil prices, which many in the industry expected would be at or below $50 a barrel this year, are now above $70. Crude might not be done running higher due in part to the fact that oil producers in the U.S. are taking a much different approach to how they allocate their oil-fueled cash flows. That trend was one of the central themes on the first-quarter conference call of oil-field technology company Core Labs (NYSE: CLB) , where CEO David Demshur provided his take for why things are different in the oil market this time around. Oil pumps with a red and blue sky in the background. Image source: Getty Images. Buying into a new way of thinking Demshur led off the call by diving into some industry trends, saying, "Core is encouraged that operating companies are buying into living within free cash flow and emphasizing returns on invested capital as demanded by today's investors." What he means is that most oil producers are setting their drilling budgets to live within anticipated cash flow as opposed to their previous approach of outspending their means to grow faster. Furthermore, they're focused on drilling wells that earn high returns on capital instead of drilling just to drill. Because of that shift to drilling for returns as opposed to simply increasing output, industry spending levels remain well off their peak. Demshur pointed out that expected U.S. capital spending in 2018 is "still 45% below 2014 peak levels," which was "when record amounts of capital were being employed but destroyed, leading to over 130 U.S. E&P bankruptcies." One stunning example of this came from Chesapeake Energy , which stated that more than 50% of the wells it drilled in 2012 weren't even profitable. Today, however, many drillers are setting a high bar for new wells. EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) has been one of the leaders in disrupting the former way of thinking by establishing a high return hurdle rate for new wells of 30% after-tax at $40 oil. Others followed with similar return-focused approaches, including Encana (NYSE: ECA) , which needs locations to achieve a 35% after-tax return at $50 oil to meet its premium hurdle rate. Story continues Producers are also setting their budgets to the cash flows they can generate at lower oil prices. EOG Resources and Encana are among the many that set $50 oil as the baseline for their budgets. As a result, both are generating excess cash at current prices, which they're allocating toward other things like returning more money to investors via dividends and buybacks as well as paying off debt. An oil field at sunset. Image source: Getty Images. More oil for less money is a game changer for profitability The trend of investing to generate high returns has significantly improved capital efficiency because oil companies are now producing more oil while drilling fewer wells. Demshur put numbers behind it, saying, "Core projects that in the U.S., in 2018, we will drill 18,000 less wells when compared to 2014 but still add about 1 million barrels a day of production to our 10-plus million barrels of oil being produced per day. The industry is drilling fewer wells but better more efficient wells." That efficiency was evident in the first quarter when companies like Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) and Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) drilled record-breaking wells. In Devon Energy's case, it completed two of the highest-rate wells ever drilled in the nearly 100-year history of the Delaware Basin . Those wells, when combined with some prolific ones in the STACK shale play , enabled Devon to produce a huge profit in the first quarter . Marathon Oil, meanwhile, drilled record-setting wells in two formations of the Bakken region as well as several high-rate ones in the STACK, which fueled strong profits for the driller in the first quarter . Drillers, however, are only just starting to scratch the surface according to Demshur, who noted that his company is working to help them increase the amount of oil and gas they pull out of a shale reservoir from an average of 9% of what's there to a low to mid-teens percentage. While it would cost drillers about an incremental $2 million per well to implement some of these changes, they can add 500,000 barrels of additional oil production over the life of a well, boosting total output by 50%. That's a "real return winner" in Demshur's view. Just getting started Oil companies have shifted their focus from drilling just to grow production to investing in wells that will earn lucrative returns at lower oil prices. That's a real difference maker for profitability, which is soaring, especially with oil prices currently well above their baseline levels. With more efficiency gains still in the works, oil company profitability could continue rising in the coming years, even if crude comes back down a bit, which would create significant value for investors, making return-focused drillers ideal oil stocks to hold for the long haul. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matthew DiLallo owns shares of Core Laboratories. The Motley Fool recommends Core Laboratories. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || The Sucker at the Token Table: Who Loses in the ICO Bust: “If you sit in on a poker game and don’t see a sucker, get up. You’re the sucker.” Warren Buffett and other famous investors have recitedversionsof this quote for years, and it seems especially apt for today’s "initial coin offering" economy.
Recall how a year ago, in the crescendo of ICO mania, people could market and sell digital tokens--many of them worthless--to anyone with an Internet connection. Then, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionfired its first warning shotlast July, the party slowed down (or at least became more exclusive) but didn’t stop.
Instead, the action shifted to ICO pre-sales where wealthy investors gobbled up tokens, counting on an untested legal theory that a blatantly speculative investment would transform into a “utility token” that could be sold to the public. But in January, the chairman of the SEC, who had clearly seen enough, basically putallICOs on ice--and chewed out the lawyers for good measure.
The upshot is a lot of wealthy investors are now sitting with bags of tokens, nervously waiting for others to sit down at the ICO poker table. They might have to wait for a while.
“If your tokens look like a security, you’re restricted to holding onto them or finding another sophisticated investor,” says Blake Estes, a securities lawyer at Alston & Bird. “They’re no better off than if they participated in an early venture capital round.”
Estes sees echoes of the mortgage mess of 2007, when banks used financial engineering to create and circulate gimmicky debt investments. He does, though, think the token economy will offer legitimate paths to wealth but it will take time.
“Eventually, we'll see registered token offerings. But it’ll be a vastly different undertaking than just writing some terms and conditions, building a website and hiring an ICO PR firm.”
So what happens to the ICO poker players in the meantime? According toPreston Byrne, an attorney and well-regarded observer of the ICO economy, some will be left with piles of worthless tokens.
“If you look at some of the ERC 20 ICOs that took in $40 million for a few lines of code, it’s clear some investors had all of the technical sophistication of a drunken beaver,” Byrne said. “It’s a case of invest in haste, repent at leisure.”
But while some amateur investors may feel burned, he added there are also smart players at the table, such as venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. These firms are able to pick quality projects--Byrne cites Filecoin as an example--and can afford to wait to offload their tokens.
“Remember for many of these VCs, these are small bets and they’re playing on a five- or 10-year time horizon. They’re willing tohodlin the medium and long term like they did with Bitcoin," Byrne says.
Of course, in poker, one way to make money is not by sitting at the table--but by renting out the room for the game and selling the drinks and other comforts to keep the players playing through the night. That could be an analogy for the strategy of Richard Dulude, a co-founder of Underscore VC in Boston, a firm that doesn’t hold tokens but is instead focused on key infrastructure of the cryptocurrency and smart contract economy. "Success in this model is around long-term appreciation,” he says.
The bottom line is that, even though the current ICO chill will expose some suckers, a lot of sophisticated players are still in the game and could be in line for big wins a few years from now.
This article originally appeared in theThe Ledger,Fortune's weekly newsletter on the intersection of finance and tech.Subscribe here.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Kodak's Not-Quite ICO to Launch May 21, As the SEC Cracks Down
• SEC Commissioner on Bitcoin: 'That Space Is Full of Troubling Developments'
• It Started With the Rockefellers. Now It's Taking on Crypto
• SEC Charges $32 Million DJ Khaled-Backed Centra ICO With Fraud
• Even as Bitcoin Languishes, Telegram Raises $1.7 Billion Ahead of Largest ICO Ever || The Sucker at the Token Table: Who Loses in the ICO Bust: If you sit in on a poker game and dont see a sucker, get up. Youre the sucker. Warren Buffett and other famous investors have recited versions of this quote for years, and it seems especially apt for todays "initial coin offering" economy. Recall how a year ago, in the crescendo of ICO mania, people could market and sell digital tokens--many of them worthless--to anyone with an Internet connection. Then, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fired its first warning shot last July, the party slowed down (or at least became more exclusive) but didnt stop. Instead, the action shifted to ICO pre-sales where wealthy investors gobbled up tokens, counting on an untested legal theory that a blatantly speculative investment would transform into a utility token that could be sold to the public. But in January, the chairman of the SEC, who had clearly seen enough, basically put all ICOs on ice --and chewed out the lawyers for good measure. The upshot is a lot of wealthy investors are now sitting with bags of tokens, nervously waiting for others to sit down at the ICO poker table. They might have to wait for a while. If your tokens look like a security, youre restricted to holding onto them or finding another sophisticated investor, says Blake Estes, a securities lawyer at Alston & Bird. Theyre no better off than if they participated in an early venture capital round. Estes sees echoes of the mortgage mess of 2007, when banks used financial engineering to create and circulate gimmicky debt investments. He does, though, think the token economy will offer legitimate paths to wealth but it will take time. Eventually, we'll see registered token offerings. But itll be a vastly different undertaking than just writing some terms and conditions, building a website and hiring an ICO PR firm. So what happens to the ICO poker players in the meantime? According to Preston Byrne , an attorney and well-regarded observer of the ICO economy, some will be left with piles of worthless tokens. If you look at some of the ERC 20 ICOs that took in $40 million for a few lines of code, its clear some investors had all of the technical sophistication of a drunken beaver, Byrne said. Its a case of invest in haste, repent at leisure. But while some amateur investors may feel burned, he added there are also smart players at the table, such as venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. These firms are able to pick quality projects--Byrne cites Filecoin as an example--and can afford to wait to offload their tokens. Story continues Remember for many of these VCs, these are small bets and theyre playing on a five- or 10-year time horizon. Theyre willing to hodl in the medium and long term like they did with Bitcoin," Byrne says. Of course, in poker, one way to make money is not by sitting at the table--but by renting out the room for the game and selling the drinks and other comforts to keep the players playing through the night. That could be an analogy for the strategy of Richard Dulude, a co-founder of Underscore VC in Boston, a firm that doesnt hold tokens but is instead focused on key infrastructure of the cryptocurrency and smart contract economy. "Success in this model is around long-term appreciation, he says. The bottom line is that, even though the current ICO chill will expose some suckers, a lot of sophisticated players are still in the game and could be in line for big wins a few years from now. This article originally appeared in the The Ledger , Fortune's weekly newsletter on the intersection of finance and tech. Subscribe here. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Kodak's Not-Quite ICO to Launch May 21, As the SEC Cracks Down SEC Commissioner on Bitcoin: 'That Space Is Full of Troubling Developments' It Started With the Rockefellers. Now It's Taking on Crypto SEC Charges $32 Million DJ Khaled-Backed Centra ICO With Fraud Even as Bitcoin Languishes, Telegram Raises $1.7 Billion Ahead of Largest ICO Ever View comments || McDonald's Adds a Golden Crown to Its Arches With Industry-Leading Growth: McDonald's(NYSE: MCD)announced impressive earnings results this month that kept the fast-food titan firmly on top of its industry, both in terms of sales growth and profitability.
How did the company deliver such stellar results?
During the earnings call, company leadership shared important details regarding the progress they've made with store redesigns, menu improvements, and an expanding bottom line. Here are the key highlights fromthat discussion.
Image source: Getty Images.
To put our 5.5% comparable-store sales increase in perspective, it equates to over $1 billion of growth across the system for the quarter. Each of our operating segments contributed to this growth. -- COO Kevin Ozan
McDonald's growth significantlyoutpaced the broader industry, which management estimates was roughly flat in the U.S. Comparable-store sales, or sales at existing locations, rose 3% in that market compared to a 2% gain forStarbucksand a slight decline atDunkin' Brands.
McDonald's growth was powered by menu price increases and high demand for new premium products. Check averages also rose as customers added to orders from the refreshed value menu.
One of our challenges in the U.S. is consistently growing comparable guest counts, especially when overall industry traffic is negative. U.S. guest counts declined in the first quarter due to the very competitive breakfast day part and our conscious decision to simplify our value platform, eliminating most local value offers. -- Ozan
Like Starbucks, which posted flat traffic, and Dunkin' Brands, whose traffic level declined this past quarter, McDonald's guest counts slipped in the U.S. division. That's not much of a surprise as each of these companies has targeted breakfast hours as a key growth avenue.
We're beginning to see the benefits of our more heavily franchised business model in our operating margin, as it grew from around 36% in the first quarter last year to nearly 42% this year. -- Ozan
McDonald's has been aggressive at transitioning to an almost 100% franchised business model. While its proportion of company-owned locations sat at 19% in 2015, that number fell to 15% in the year-ago period and reached 8% in the first quarter. As a result of trading those lower-margin food sales for higher-margin franchise fees and rent, profitability hit a new high of over 40% of sales.
That figure should climba bit higher, too, as the chain lowers its ownership to its long-term target of 5%.
Data byYCharts.
We are reclaiming leadership and serving great-tasting burgers through product innovation and elevating our core offerings. -- CEO Steve Easterbrook
After recent success at marketing its iconic burgers and breakfast sandwiches, in addition to new premium offerings, McDonald's is pushing ahead with strategies that lean on a mix of both menu staples.
Image source: Getty Images.
Its new fresh beef quarter-pounder rolls out nationally this quarter, and executives are putting final touches on a global celebration of the Big Mac, which turns 50 years old this year. These events should join with other popular promotions like all-day breakfast and premium burgers and sandwiches, to protect the positive sales momentum.
Since the start of the year, the [U.S.] market has modernized and improved hospitality in nearly 1,000 restaurants, setting the pace to bring [these upgrades] to an additional 1,000 restaurants every quarter this year. This is an aggressive pace. 1,000 projects would be like modernizing every McDonald's restaurant in Australia, and we're doing that each and every quarter in the U.S. -- Easterbrook
Mickey D's is on its way to spending $2.4 billion on its restaurants this year, up from about $2 billion in 2017. These investments are bringing more modern designs, technology like digital ordering kiosks, and improvements to the eat-in, take-out, drive-thru, and delivery service models.
Together, they constitute massive changes that are being introduced at a rate that's bound to create some bumps along the way. "We're asking a lot of everybody in the McDonald's system," Easterbrook said. But he explained, "this is what it takes to keep pace with today's rising customer expectations."
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Demitrios Kalogeropoulosowns shares of Dunkin' Brands Group, McDonald's, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool recommends Dunkin' Brands Group. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || McDonald's Adds a Golden Crown to Its Arches With Industry-Leading Growth: McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) announced impressive earnings results this month that kept the fast-food titan firmly on top of its industry, both in terms of sales growth and profitability. How did the company deliver such stellar results? During the earnings call, company leadership shared important details regarding the progress they've made with store redesigns, menu improvements, and an expanding bottom line. Here are the key highlights from that discussion . Friends sharing a fast food meal. Image source: Getty Images. Market-beating growth To put our 5.5% comparable-store sales increase in perspective, it equates to over $1 billion of growth across the system for the quarter. Each of our operating segments contributed to this growth. -- COO Kevin Ozan McDonald's growth significantly outpaced the broader industry , which management estimates was roughly flat in the U.S. Comparable-store sales, or sales at existing locations, rose 3% in that market compared to a 2% gain for Starbucks and a slight decline at Dunkin' Brands . McDonald's growth was powered by menu price increases and high demand for new premium products. Check averages also rose as customers added to orders from the refreshed value menu. Traffic struggles One of our challenges in the U.S. is consistently growing comparable guest counts, especially when overall industry traffic is negative. U.S. guest counts declined in the first quarter due to the very competitive breakfast day part and our conscious decision to simplify our value platform, eliminating most local value offers. -- Ozan Like Starbucks, which posted flat traffic, and Dunkin' Brands, whose traffic level declined this past quarter, McDonald's guest counts slipped in the U.S. division. That's not much of a surprise as each of these companies has targeted breakfast hours as a key growth avenue. Profits are rising We're beginning to see the benefits of our more heavily franchised business model in our operating margin, as it grew from around 36% in the first quarter last year to nearly 42% this year. -- Ozan Story continues McDonald's has been aggressive at transitioning to an almost 100% franchised business model. While its proportion of company-owned locations sat at 19% in 2015, that number fell to 15% in the year-ago period and reached 8% in the first quarter. As a result of trading those lower-margin food sales for higher-margin franchise fees and rent, profitability hit a new high of over 40% of sales. That figure should climb a bit higher , too, as the chain lowers its ownership to its long-term target of 5%. MCD Operating Margin (TTM) Chart Data by YCharts . Menu improvements We are reclaiming leadership and serving great-tasting burgers through product innovation and elevating our core offerings. -- CEO Steve Easterbrook After recent success at marketing its iconic burgers and breakfast sandwiches, in addition to new premium offerings, McDonald's is pushing ahead with strategies that lean on a mix of both menu staples. A man takes a bite out of a burger. Image source: Getty Images. Its new fresh beef quarter-pounder rolls out nationally this quarter, and executives are putting final touches on a global celebration of the Big Mac, which turns 50 years old this year. These events should join with other popular promotions like all-day breakfast and premium burgers and sandwiches, to protect the positive sales momentum. Expect volatility ahead Since the start of the year, the [U.S.] market has modernized and improved hospitality in nearly 1,000 restaurants, setting the pace to bring [these upgrades] to an additional 1,000 restaurants every quarter this year. This is an aggressive pace. 1,000 projects would be like modernizing every McDonald's restaurant in Australia, and we're doing that each and every quarter in the U.S. -- Easterbrook Mickey D's is on its way to spending $2.4 billion on its restaurants this year, up from about $2 billion in 2017. These investments are bringing more modern designs, technology like digital ordering kiosks, and improvements to the eat-in, take-out, drive-thru, and delivery service models. Together, they constitute massive changes that are being introduced at a rate that's bound to create some bumps along the way. "We're asking a lot of everybody in the McDonald's system," Easterbrook said. But he explained, "this is what it takes to keep pace with today's rising customer expectations." More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Demitrios Kalogeropoulos owns shares of Dunkin' Brands Group, McDonald's, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool recommends Dunkin' Brands Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Inside NVIDIA's Fastest-Growing Business: Graphics specialist NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been one of the hottest tech stocks, with shares growing in value by more than 15x over the last five years. That means a $10,000 investment just five years ago is now worth over $150,000. Although the stock is by no means cheap -- it trades at about 50x trailing twelve month earnings -- the company's revenue and profit growth continues to impress. During its fiscal year 2018, the company generated $9.7 billion in sales and a whopping $3.2 billion in operating profit -- both up 41% and 66%, respectively, year-over-year. An NVIDIA data center graphics processor. Image source: NVIDIA. The comparison looks even more impressive when we consider that back in fiscal year 2015, NVIDIA generated just $4.68 billion in revenue and $758 million in operating income. One of the main growth drivers behind NVIDIA's stellar financial performance has been its data center business, which grew 133% (no, that's not a typo) in fiscal 2018 to $1.93 billion. Let's dive into the background behind this segment, the profitability of the revenue it generates, and what opportunities and challenges it faces in the years ahead. Some background NVIDIA's data center business essentially sells very high performance graphics processors to major data center customers. Although these graphics processors aren't suited for every kind of workload that a potential data center operator will want to run, the number of applications that can see increased speed from being run on NVIDIA's graphics processors compared to traditional processor technologies continues to increase. The idea here is simple: Applications that can be made to run effectively on NVIDIA's graphics processors can often deliver speed-ups of 10x, or even more. This means that a data center operator can replace ten expensive traditional processors with a single NVIDIA GPU, giving that customer the same computing power at a fraction of the acquisition costs. That's a compelling value proposition to data center operators looking to get the most out of every dollar they spend. Additionally, the graphics processor solution in this case is going to be much more power efficient, meaning that data center operators can save a lot of money by way of lower power consumption (one of the biggest costs associated with running a data center) as well as less expensive cooling solutions (also a significant cost). Story continues NVIDIA's success can, of course, be partially attributed to the fact that it builds arguably the world's best graphics processors. However, the company's real genius has been that it continues to invest heavily in software libraries and tools to make it as easy as possible for software developers to take advantage of those graphics processors for data center applications. The strong revenue growth that NVIDIA's data center business has seen in the last couple of years (133% in fiscal 2018 and 205% in fiscal 2017) is a result of that diligent, focused investment in building a broad software and hardware ecosystem around its graphics processor technology. Very profitable revenue NVIDIA's data center business isn't the company's largest business by revenue -- that honor goes to the company's gaming business which generated $5.5 billion during fiscal 2018. However, it's the fastest growing by far, and it also enjoys the highest profit margins. For some context, NVIDIA indicates that its data center gross margin was substantially higher than that of any of its other business units during fiscal 2018. In terms of raw gross profit dollars, the data center business still didn't generate as much as the gaming-oriented graphics processors. However, based on the current trajectories of both businesses, it won't be long before NVIDIA's data center business overtakes its gaming graphics processor segment in terms of pure gross profit contribution. As long as the data center business continues to outgrow the other businesses, then we should continue to see NVIDIA's overall gross margin expand as it has over the last three fiscal years. That, in a nutshell, could mean faster overall bottom line growth for the company. Opportunities and challenges The opportunities for NVIDIA's data center business seem quite straightforward -- as developers increasingly take advantage of graphics processor-accelerated computing, NVIDIA is poised to benefit. Indeed, NVIDIA shared data at its analyst day showing that the number of developers that build software for major data center applications (e.g. high performance computing, consumer internet, and cloud computing) continues to grow. We're quite a ways off from the point where every software shop that can take advantage of graphics processor acceleration has done so. And in addition to increasing penetration of graphics processors in data centers, NVIDIA should also be able to ride the secular growth in demand for data center processing. Now, while the story looks good, it's not without challenges. First, there are many start-ups and even large cloud computing and consumer internet providers that are trying to build their own specialized chips for the sorts of applications that NVIDIA's graphics processors are really good at, like machine learning. Alphabet , for example, builds its own Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) that's far more efficient than even the best graphics processors for a narrow set of tasks. Facebook is also reportedly recruiting to try to build its own chip for machine learning tasks. These tech giants could pose a long-term threat to the growth rate and adoption of NVIDIA's graphics processors in many areas the data center business relies on for growth. Beyond specialized chips, NVIDIA is eventually bound to bump into the law of large numbers as well. It's easy to post 100% to 200% growth off of a relatively small base, but it's much harder to keep that growth up as the baseline gets bigger (and the baseline is now quite large). On top of that, NVIDIA is currently benefiting from a wave of new customers beginning to utilize its graphics processors in the data center, but once the saturation point hits, the segment could become a replacement business with much slower growth rates. But at least for now, investors should expect to see NVIDIA's data center business continue to deliver solid revenue and profit growth -- something that should be music to investors' ears. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Ashraf Eassa has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Social Media Buzz]
Último: R$ 32.996,00 ▲
Alta: R$ 33.110,69 ▼
Baixa: R$ 31.575,00 ▲
Volume: 58.56006567 BTC ▼
Taxa 30min: 20 sat/byte (~R$ 1,689) ▼
#bitcoin #blockchain #cryptocurrency || May 14, 2018 00:30:00 UTC | 8,649.10$ | 7,236.30€ | 6,383.00£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/9jE5lmKQDy || #BTC Average: 8425.96$
#Bitfinex - 8384.90$
#Poloniex - 8372.00$
#Bitstamp - 8394.72$
#Coinbase - 8387.80$
#Binance - 8370.64$
#CEXio - 8605.40$
#Kraken - 8380.10$
#Cryptopia - 8363.42$
#Bittrex - 8400.00$
#GateCoin...
|
8716.79, 8510.38, 8368.83, 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78, 7557.82
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59, 5605.51, 5590.69, 5708.52, 6011.45, 6031.60, 6008.42, 5930.32, 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38, 7459.69, 7143.58, 6618.14, 6357.60, 5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75, 7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49, 8200.64, 8071.26, 8253.55, 8038.77, 8253.69, 8790.92, 9330.55, 9818.35, 10058.80, 9888.61, 10233.60, 10975.60, 11074.60, 11323.20, 11657.20, 11916.70, 14291.50, 17899.70, 16569.40, 15178.20, 15455.40, 16936.80, 17415.40, 16408.20, 16564.00, 17706.90, 19497.40, 19140.80.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-12-17]
Volume: 13314599936, RSI (14-day): 75.06, 50-day EMA: 11447.71, 200-day EMA: 6334.51
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
North Korea hackers steal bitcoin by targeting currency insiders: Bitcoin values are skyrocketing, andNorth Koreaappears to be trying to profit from that virtual gold rush. Secureworksreportsthat theLazarus Group(a team linked to the North Korean government) has been conducting a spearphishing campaign against cryptocurrency industry workers in a bid to steal bitcoin. The attacks have tried to trick workers into compromising their computers by including a seemingly innocuous Word file that claims they need to enable editing to see the document. If they fell prey, it installed a rogue macro that quietly loaded a PC-hijacking trojan while staffers were busy looking at the bogus document.
Attempts have been taking place as recently as November, but Secureworks' analysts saw activity as early as 2016. The organization adds that the campaign is likely still going, and that this is a preliminary report. You may get a better sense of the scope in the future.
It's easy to see why Lazarus would try a campaign like this. It has already conducted money-grabbing efforts like the 2016 bank attack thatswiped $81 million, and taking even a handful of bitcoins could reap a windfall when just one is worth roughly $19,400 as of this writing. North Korea could spend relatively little effort to swipe a lot of money and circumvent the many sanctions that prevent money from flowing in. || North Korea hackers steal bitcoin by targeting currency insiders: Bitcoin values are skyrocketing, andNorth Koreaappears to be trying to profit from that virtual gold rush. Secureworksreportsthat theLazarus Group(a team linked to the North Korean government) has been conducting a spearphishing campaign against cryptocurrency industry workers in a bid to steal bitcoin. The attacks have tried to trick workers into compromising their computers by including a seemingly innocuous Word file that claims they need to enable editing to see the document. If they fell prey, it installed a rogue macro that quietly loaded a PC-hijacking trojan while staffers were busy looking at the bogus document.
Attempts have been taking place as recently as November, but Secureworks' analysts saw activity as early as 2016. The organization adds that the campaign is likely still going, and that this is a preliminary report. You may get a better sense of the scope in the future.
It's easy to see why Lazarus would try a campaign like this. It has already conducted money-grabbing efforts like the 2016 bank attack thatswiped $81 million, and taking even a handful of bitcoins could reap a windfall when just one is worth roughly $19,400 as of this writing. North Korea could spend relatively little effort to swipe a lot of money and circumvent the many sanctions that prevent money from flowing in. || North Korea hackers steal bitcoin by targeting currency insiders: Bitcoin values are skyrocketing , and North Korea appears to be trying to profit from that virtual gold rush. Secureworks reports that the Lazarus Group (a team linked to the North Korean government) has been conducting a spearphishing campaign against cryptocurrency industry workers in a bid to steal bitcoin. The attacks have tried to trick workers into compromising their computers by including a seemingly innocuous Word file that claims they need to enable editing to see the document. If they fell prey, it installed a rogue macro that quietly loaded a PC-hijacking trojan while staffers were busy looking at the bogus document. Attempts have been taking place as recently as November, but Secureworks' analysts saw activity as early as 2016. The organization adds that the campaign is likely still going, and that this is a preliminary report. You may get a better sense of the scope in the future. It's easy to see why Lazarus would try a campaign like this. It has already conducted money-grabbing efforts like the 2016 bank attack that swiped $81 million , and taking even a handful of bitcoins could reap a windfall when just one is worth roughly $19,400 as of this writing. North Korea could spend relatively little effort to swipe a lot of money and circumvent the many sanctions that prevent money from flowing in. || North Korea hackers steal bitcoin by targeting currency insiders: Bitcoin values are skyrocketing , and North Korea appears to be trying to profit from that virtual gold rush. Secureworks reports that the Lazarus Group (a team linked to the North Korean government) has been conducting a spearphishing campaign against cryptocurrency industry workers in a bid to steal bitcoin. The attacks have tried to trick workers into compromising their computers by including a seemingly innocuous Word file that claims they need to enable editing to see the document. If they fell prey, it installed a rogue macro that quietly loaded a PC-hijacking trojan while staffers were busy looking at the bogus document. Attempts have been taking place as recently as November, but Secureworks' analysts saw activity as early as 2016. The organization adds that the campaign is likely still going, and that this is a preliminary report. You may get a better sense of the scope in the future. It's easy to see why Lazarus would try a campaign like this. It has already conducted money-grabbing efforts like the 2016 bank attack that swiped $81 million , and taking even a handful of bitcoins could reap a windfall when just one is worth roughly $19,400 as of this writing. North Korea could spend relatively little effort to swipe a lot of money and circumvent the many sanctions that prevent money from flowing in. View comments || CSX CEO Hunter Harrison Dies at 73, Company Confirms: CEO Hunter Harrison has died,the company announced on Saturday. He was 73.
Harrison’s death comes just a day after thetransportation company announced that he had been placed on medical leavedue to an unspecified illness, causing shares in the nation’s third-largest railway carrier to plummet. Harrison died in Wellington, Fla., from “unexpectedly severe complications from a recent illness,” according to CSX’s announcement.
The railroad veteran was placed at the helm of CSX less than a year ago, and wasset to be paid $300 million for his work. Harrison hadpromised to turn around CSX, and by August had succeeded in increasing the company’s valuation to $46 billion, a 36% increase since he took the reigns in March.
Without the transportation titan at the controls, the fate of CSX is unclear. Jim Foote, formerly the company’s chief operating officer, has been named acting CEO, according to the company announcement.
“With the passing of Hunter Harrison, CSX has suffered a major loss,” Chairman of the CSX Board of Directors Edward Kelly III said in a statement. “Notwithstanding that loss, the Board is confident that Jim Foote, as acting Chief Executive Officer, and the rest of the CSX team will capitalize on the changes that Hunter has made. The Board will continue to consider in a deliberative way how best to maximize CSX's performance over the long term.”
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Firefox Users Cry Foul Over 'Mr. Robot' Ad Installed As Research Program || CSX CEO Hunter Harrison Dies at 73, Company Confirms: CEO Hunter Harrison has died, the company announced on Saturday . He was 73. Harrisons death comes just a day after the transportation company announced that he had been placed on medical leave due to an unspecified illness, causing shares in the nations third-largest railway carrier to plummet. Harrison died in Wellington, Fla., from unexpectedly severe complications from a recent illness, according to CSXs announcement. The railroad veteran was placed at the helm of CSX less than a year ago, and was set to be paid $300 million for his work . Harrison had promised to turn around CSX , and by August had succeeded in increasing the companys valuation to $46 billion, a 36% increase since he took the reigns in March. Without the transportation titan at the controls, the fate of CSX is unclear. Jim Foote, formerly the companys chief operating officer, has been named acting CEO, according to the company announcement. With the passing of Hunter Harrison, CSX has suffered a major loss, Chairman of the CSX Board of Directors Edward Kelly III said in a statement. Notwithstanding that loss, the Board is confident that Jim Foote, as acting Chief Executive Officer, and the rest of the CSX team will capitalize on the changes that Hunter has made. The Board will continue to consider in a deliberative way how best to maximize CSX's performance over the long term. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Billionaire Sebastian Pinera Recaptures Chile's Presidency With a Resounding Win A Suspected North Korean 'Agent' Has Been Arrested in Australia Bitcoin Is Now Trading on the World's Largest Futures Exchange Demand For Rental Homes is Finally Easing Across U.S., Study Says Firefox Users Cry Foul Over 'Mr. Robot' Ad Installed As Research Program || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Dow Posts Solid Gains on Optimism Over Tax Reform: March E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures posted a solid gain on Friday as investors shrugged off early concerns about tax reform only to be rewarded later in the session with news that the long-awaited bill to cut corporate tax rates looked like it would win enough support from lawmakers to pass. The futures contract posted both a record high and record close, settling at 24677, up 120.00 or +0.49%. The intraday surge in the Dow was fueled when Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Corker, who had criticized the proposal, signaled support for the bill in the late afternoon. Daily March E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Daily Technical Analysis The E-mini Dow poked through the previous closing price reversal top at 24703, reaching a high of 24708, but the rally stalled there with most of the speculative money moving into the NASDAQ Composite which posted a 1.40% gain. The main trend is up and very strong. This means the rally is likely to continue over the near-term. The nearest swing bottom is 24086. A trade through this level will change the main trend to down. Daily March E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (Close-Up) The Dow is also trading on the strong side of a major uptrending Gann angle. This angle provided support and guidance on Friday at 24545, which was approximately the low for the session. Although the trend is up, the market could face some headwinds over the federal deficit and government funding, but lately it has proven to be resilient, shrugging off a missile test in North Korea, a terror attack in New York, and tax reform issues. This serves as proof that it is going to take a major event to derail the current rally. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis ETH/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Dow Posts Solid Gains on Optimism Over Tax Reform USD/CAD Fundamental Analysis – week of December 18, 2017 Dow Jones 30 and NASDAQ 100 forecast for the week of December 15, 2017, Technical Analysis S&P 500 Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Dow Posts Solid Gains on Optimism Over Tax Reform: March E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures posted a solid gain on Friday as investors shrugged off early concerns about tax reform only to be rewarded later in the session with news that the long-awaited bill to cut corporate tax rates looked like it would win enough support from lawmakers to pass.
The futures contract posted both a record high and record close, settling at 24677, up 120.00 or +0.49%.
The intraday surge in the Dow was fueled when Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Corker, who had criticized the proposal, signaled support for the bill in the late afternoon.
The E-mini Dow poked through the previous closing price reversal top at 24703, reaching a high of 24708, but the rally stalled there with most of the speculative money moving into the NASDAQ Composite which posted a 1.40% gain.
The main trend is up and very strong. This means the rally is likely to continue over the near-term. The nearest swing bottom is 24086. A trade through this level will change the main trend to down.
The Dow is also trading on the strong side of a major uptrending Gann angle. This angle provided support and guidance on Friday at 24545, which was approximately the low for the session.
Although the trend is up, the market could face some headwinds over the federal deficit and government funding, but lately it has proven to be resilient, shrugging off a missile test in North Korea, a terror attack in New York, and tax reform issues. This serves as proof that it is going to take a major event to derail the current rally.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
• ETH/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Dow Posts Solid Gains on Optimism Over Tax Reform
• USD/CAD Fundamental Analysis – week of December 18, 2017
• Dow Jones 30 and NASDAQ 100 forecast for the week of December 15, 2017, Technical Analysis
• S&P 500 Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || Milan-Based Ancora Pen Company Releases Production and Pre-Sale Details of World's Most Luxurious 'Bitcoin' Pen: One of the Oldest Pen Producers in the World, "Ancora Pen Company", which was Founded in 1919 Announced the Production of Their Bitcoin Pen. It's the First Pen in Their Brand-new Crypto Pens Series MILAN, ITALY / ACCESSWIRE / December 16, 2017 / Ancora is one of the founding fathers in the pen producing industry, designing and producing luxury pens since 1919. They have been known to go above and beyond when designing and developing their pens. For their "Titanic" pen, they used part of the first class cabin from the ship in order to create the body of the pen. With the current emerging technology, Ancora has announced the production of their first-ever bitcoin pen, causing a lot of excitement. Ancora has decided to start sales of the pen using the ICO model on Monday 18th December, 12:00 GMT - during which period, customers will have an early opportunity to buy these pens with a lower price tag than if they were to purchase at a retail store due to being at a stage of early production. Ancora will be announcing in February the production of another cryptocurrency pen, however, what cryptocurrency will be up to the customers. Ancora will be allowing customers to vote for which currency they would like the pen to be available in. Customers can take part in this and have their say in the Ancora Telegram channel. The amount of pens distributed will be limited, with 88 fountain pens with a gold nib being produced and 888 roller balls. Each pen has its own personalized production number. The Platinum Numbers (highly coveted numbers such as 01/88, 88/88, 001/888 and 888/888) will be available for sale for Bitcoins and Ethereum. For that extra special touch, Ancora has gone the extra mile by adding a limited number of "gold" numbers for each pen line. Each of these small extra special touches - from the way the materials are gathered to the artisan design process - makes these pens very desirable. Ancora explains that these pens will be available to buy in either Bitcoin or Ethereum, further incentivizing consumers. Story continues About Ancora Ancora's brand history is as one of the first Italian companies to produce pens. No doubt that Ancora's history is the history of its founder - Giuseppe Zanini , who in the early part of the twentieth century was able by having gained the necessary experience to realize his dream - to create perfect pens in his own factory. For More Information, Please Visit the Website: www.bitcoinpens.com Chat on Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/Bb62whIuoNLDmnoApX1vFA Media Contact Contact Name: Matvey Brilling Contact Email: [email protected] Ancora is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Additional Links Ancora Bitcoin PR Buzz SOURCE: Ancora || Milan-Based Ancora Pen Company Releases Production and Pre-Sale Details of World's Most Luxurious 'Bitcoin' Pen: One of the Oldest Pen Producers in the World, "Ancora Pen Company", which was Founded in 1919 Announced the Production of Their Bitcoin Pen. It's the First Pen in Their Brand-new Crypto Pens Series
MILAN, ITALY / ACCESSWIRE / December 16, 2017 /Ancorais one of the founding fathers in the pen producing industry, designing and producing luxury pens since 1919. They have been known to go above and beyond when designing and developing their pens. For their "Titanic" pen, they used part of the first class cabin from the ship in order to create the body of the pen. With the current emerging technology, Ancora has announced the production of their first-ever bitcoin pen, causing a lot of excitement.
Ancorahas decided to start sales of the pen using the ICO model onMonday 18th December, 12:00 GMT- during which period, customers will have an early opportunity to buy these pens with a lower price tag than if they were to purchase at a retail store due to being at a stage of early production. Ancora will be announcing in February the production of another cryptocurrency pen, however, what cryptocurrency will be up to the customers.Ancorawill be allowing customers to vote for which currency they would like the pen to be available in. Customers can take part in this and have their say in the AncoraTelegramchannel.
The amount of pens distributed will be limited, with 88 fountain pens with a gold nib being produced and 888 roller balls. Each pen has its own personalized production number. The Platinum Numbers (highly coveted numbers such as 01/88, 88/88, 001/888 and 888/888) will be available for sale for Bitcoins and Ethereum.
For that extra special touch,Ancorahas gone the extra mile by adding a limited number of "gold" numbers for each pen line. Each of these small extra special touches - from the way the materials are gathered to the artisan design process - makes these pens very desirable. Ancora explains that these pens will be available to buy in either Bitcoin or Ethereum, further incentivizing consumers.
About Ancora
Ancora's brand history is as one of the first Italian companies to produce pens. No doubt that Ancora's history is the history of its founder -Giuseppe Zanini, who in the early part of the twentieth century was able by having gained the necessary experience to realize his dream - to create perfect pens in his own factory.
For More Information, Please Visit the Website:www.bitcoinpens.comChat on Telegram:https://t.me/joinchat/Bb62whIuoNLDmnoApX1vFA
Media ContactContact Name:Matvey BrillingContact Email:[email protected]
Ancora is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.
Additional LinksAncoraBitcoin PR Buzz
SOURCE:Ancora || Milan-Based Ancora Pen Company Releases Production and Pre-Sale Details of World's Most Luxurious 'Bitcoin' Pen: One of the Oldest Pen Producers in the World, "Ancora Pen Company", which was Founded in 1919 Announced the Production of Their Bitcoin Pen. It's the First Pen in Their Brand-new Crypto Pens Series
MILAN, ITALY / ACCESSWIRE / December 16, 2017 /Ancorais one of the founding fathers in the pen producing industry, designing and producing luxury pens since 1919. They have been known to go above and beyond when designing and developing their pens. For their "Titanic" pen, they used part of the first class cabin from the ship in order to create the body of the pen. With the current emerging technology, Ancora has announced the production of their first-ever bitcoin pen, causing a lot of excitement.
Ancorahas decided to start sales of the pen using the ICO model onMonday 18th December, 12:00 GMT- during which period, customers will have an early opportunity to buy these pens with a lower price tag than if they were to purchase at a retail store due to being at a stage of early production. Ancora will be announcing in February the production of another cryptocurrency pen, however, what cryptocurrency will be up to the customers.Ancorawill be allowing customers to vote for which currency they would like the pen to be available in. Customers can take part in this and have their say in the AncoraTelegramchannel.
The amount of pens distributed will be limited, with 88 fountain pens with a gold nib being produced and 888 roller balls. Each pen has its own personalized production number. The Platinum Numbers (highly coveted numbers such as 01/88, 88/88, 001/888 and 888/888) will be available for sale for Bitcoins and Ethereum.
For that extra special touch,Ancorahas gone the extra mile by adding a limited number of "gold" numbers for each pen line. Each of these small extra special touches - from the way the materials are gathered to the artisan design process - makes these pens very desirable. Ancora explains that these pens will be available to buy in either Bitcoin or Ethereum, further incentivizing consumers.
About Ancora
Ancora's brand history is as one of the first Italian companies to produce pens. No doubt that Ancora's history is the history of its founder -Giuseppe Zanini, who in the early part of the twentieth century was able by having gained the necessary experience to realize his dream - to create perfect pens in his own factory.
For More Information, Please Visit the Website:www.bitcoinpens.comChat on Telegram:https://t.me/joinchat/Bb62whIuoNLDmnoApX1vFA
Media ContactContact Name:Matvey BrillingContact Email:[email protected]
Ancora is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.
Additional LinksAncoraBitcoin PR Buzz
SOURCE:Ancora || Even Responsible Savers Make Retirement Mistakes: There actually are people out there diligently saving for retirement. SEE ALSO: A 10-Stock DRIP Portfolio to Get Rich Slowly Yes, you read that correctly. It may not seem like it, given the media's constant focus on Baby Boomers' shaky financial future . But there are pre-retirees who have been putting away money for decades in preparation for a long and happy retirement. If you're in that group, good for you. But even people who have been responsible with their money can run into challenges when they enter retirement. It requires a monumental shift in your mindset, and it's easy to make mistakes. Here are four missteps that even skillful savers need to learn to avoid: 1. Don't become too enamored with cash. I often find that people who are naturally gifted at saving money have far too much sitting in cash. And I understand that. Many fear investing in the market because of previous tumbles. In the last 16 years, we've had two major drops, and that puts people on edge. It's important to always have some emergency money available, but holding too much cash in your portfolio or in the bank opens you up to inflation risk. As the years pass, you'll lose purchasing power. And then there's the issue of taxes. If you keep your money in a taxable savings, money market, brokerage or other cash account, you'll have an ever-growing tax liability. If safety is a priority, talk to your adviser about alternatives that protect your principal and offer a reasonable rate of return. 2. Don't take too much risk. If you've been enjoying this long-running bull market, like so many have, it's likely your risk meter is broken. And again, that makes sense. If you lost money in your 401(k) or IRA back in 2000 or 2008, I'm sure you didn't like it much, but if you were still working and earning a paycheck, it probably didn't affect your day-to-day lifestyle. Your expenses were met and you were still contributing to your retirement accounts. But in retirement, you won't have that paycheck anymore. And because your nest egg must generate income, market volatility can have a much greater impact. Story continues Completely avoiding the markets is not a solution for most retirees -- especially if you're going to keep pace with inflation and retain the opportunity for growth and future income. But saving for retirement and planning for retirement are two different things. It's important to take a balanced approach between income and growth to help prepare for good and bad economic times. See Also: How To Maximize Your Social Security Benefits 3. Don't forget about the tax "time bomb." Tax planning should be a part of your decision-making as soon as you begin retirement planning. Believe it or not, taxes don't end when you retire. Many people think they do -- or, at least, they think taxes will be greatly reduced. That's a myth -- especially now, as so many retirees have most of their savings in tax-deferred accounts. When you withdraw money from those accounts in retirement, you'll be taxed on your contributions and the account growth. It may not seem like it, but today's taxes are low compared to what past generations experienced. Do you think you'll be alive when taxes are higher than they are now? Remember, the federal debt now stands at $20 trillion, and projections suggest that amount will continue to rise. Somebody is going to have to pay that bill. Unfortunately, tax-deferred accounts are vulnerable to tax hikes. It's probably a good idea to take advantage of those low rates while you can by working with a certified tax planner to help find ways to get your tax rate closer to zero. Some possibilities to explore include converting part of your traditional IRA each year to a Roth IRA. You'll owe taxes on the amount converted, but it may be at a lower rate since you're retired, and the Roth has no required minimum distributions. 4. Don't neglect to live a little. Some retirees have trouble remembering what they worked so hard to save for. They had an idea of the life they wanted in retirement, but they worry so much about running out of money, they let that dream go. A comprehensive retirement plan can help you transition from a saving mindset and help give you the confidence to spend on the things you always hoped and dreamed for, and for which you worked so hard to save. Whether your retirement assets are modest or massive, there are common challenges for all retirees. From day one, you'll need reliable income streams so you can pay your basic bills. That money will form the foundation for the rest of your retirement -- and once that foundation is in place, you can build your lifestyle around it. Lifestyle income is the money you spend for fun, family, travel, adventure, etc. It's going to fluctuate as the markets traverse their inevitable ups and downs, but it should be part of your plan. Retirement shouldn't be a time of worry and stress. It should be a time to relax and enjoy life after years of working. But just saving up a big stash of money isn't enough to guarantee success. A plan that addresses current and future needs will help keep you on track and help you reach your retirement goals. See Also: Retirees Can't Underestimate This Stock Market Risk Kim Franke-Folstad contributed to this article. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC (BCM), a registered investment advisor. BCM and Carolina Retirement Resources are independent of each other. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Any references to protection benefits or safety generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investment products. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Comments are suppressed in compliance with industry guidelines. Click here to learn more and read more articles from the author. This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA . EDITOR'S PICKS 7 Places to Find Income Once You Retire Don\'t Overlook These 5 Retirement Income Risks Should I Be Tempted to Invest in Bitcoin? Copyright 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors || Even Responsible Savers Make Retirement Mistakes: There actually are people out there diligently saving for retirement. SEE ALSO: A 10-Stock DRIP Portfolio to Get Rich Slowly Yes, you read that correctly. It may not seem like it, given the media's constant focus on Baby Boomers' shaky financial future . But there are pre-retirees who have been putting away money for decades in preparation for a long and happy retirement. If you're in that group, good for you. But even people who have been responsible with their money can run into challenges when they enter retirement. It requires a monumental shift in your mindset, and it's easy to make mistakes. Here are four missteps that even skillful savers need to learn to avoid: 1. Don't become too enamored with cash. I often find that people who are naturally gifted at saving money have far too much sitting in cash. And I understand that. Many fear investing in the market because of previous tumbles. In the last 16 years, we've had two major drops, and that puts people on edge. It's important to always have some emergency money available, but holding too much cash in your portfolio or in the bank opens you up to inflation risk. As the years pass, you'll lose purchasing power. And then there's the issue of taxes. If you keep your money in a taxable savings, money market, brokerage or other cash account, you'll have an ever-growing tax liability. If safety is a priority, talk to your adviser about alternatives that protect your principal and offer a reasonable rate of return. 2. Don't take too much risk. If you've been enjoying this long-running bull market, like so many have, it's likely your risk meter is broken. And again, that makes sense. If you lost money in your 401(k) or IRA back in 2000 or 2008, I'm sure you didn't like it much, but if you were still working and earning a paycheck, it probably didn't affect your day-to-day lifestyle. Your expenses were met and you were still contributing to your retirement accounts. But in retirement, you won't have that paycheck anymore. And because your nest egg must generate income, market volatility can have a much greater impact. Story continues Completely avoiding the markets is not a solution for most retirees -- especially if you're going to keep pace with inflation and retain the opportunity for growth and future income. But saving for retirement and planning for retirement are two different things. It's important to take a balanced approach between income and growth to help prepare for good and bad economic times. See Also: How To Maximize Your Social Security Benefits 3. Don't forget about the tax "time bomb." Tax planning should be a part of your decision-making as soon as you begin retirement planning. Believe it or not, taxes don't end when you retire. Many people think they do -- or, at least, they think taxes will be greatly reduced. That's a myth -- especially now, as so many retirees have most of their savings in tax-deferred accounts. When you withdraw money from those accounts in retirement, you'll be taxed on your contributions and the account growth. It may not seem like it, but today's taxes are low compared to what past generations experienced. Do you think you'll be alive when taxes are higher than they are now? Remember, the federal debt now stands at $20 trillion, and projections suggest that amount will continue to rise. Somebody is going to have to pay that bill. Unfortunately, tax-deferred accounts are vulnerable to tax hikes. It's probably a good idea to take advantage of those low rates while you can by working with a certified tax planner to help find ways to get your tax rate closer to zero. Some possibilities to explore include converting part of your traditional IRA each year to a Roth IRA. You'll owe taxes on the amount converted, but it may be at a lower rate since you're retired, and the Roth has no required minimum distributions. 4. Don't neglect to live a little. Some retirees have trouble remembering what they worked so hard to save for. They had an idea of the life they wanted in retirement, but they worry so much about running out of money, they let that dream go. A comprehensive retirement plan can help you transition from a saving mindset and help give you the confidence to spend on the things you always hoped and dreamed for, and for which you worked so hard to save. Whether your retirement assets are modest or massive, there are common challenges for all retirees. From day one, you'll need reliable income streams so you can pay your basic bills. That money will form the foundation for the rest of your retirement -- and once that foundation is in place, you can build your lifestyle around it. Lifestyle income is the money you spend for fun, family, travel, adventure, etc. It's going to fluctuate as the markets traverse their inevitable ups and downs, but it should be part of your plan. Retirement shouldn't be a time of worry and stress. It should be a time to relax and enjoy life after years of working. But just saving up a big stash of money isn't enough to guarantee success. A plan that addresses current and future needs will help keep you on track and help you reach your retirement goals. See Also: Retirees Can't Underestimate This Stock Market Risk Kim Franke-Folstad contributed to this article. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC (BCM), a registered investment advisor. BCM and Carolina Retirement Resources are independent of each other. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Any references to protection benefits or safety generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investment products. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Comments are suppressed in compliance with industry guidelines. Click here to learn more and read more articles from the author. This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA . EDITOR'S PICKS 7 Places to Find Income Once You Retire Don\'t Overlook These 5 Retirement Income Risks Should I Be Tempted to Invest in Bitcoin? Copyright 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors || ETH/USD Forecast for the Week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis: Ethereumrallied significantly during the trading week, reaching almost as high as $800 on Coinbase. However, the exchange has had several problems over the week, closing down due to the inability to facilitate the trading volume. Because of this, the real value in Ethereum is going to be difficult to determine, as it appears the institutional money flooding into space is overwhelming the infrastructure. Eventually, this causes a major problem.
Get Into Ethereum Trading Today
In the meantime, it looks to me as if the market is trying to break above the $800 level, but it’s difficult to justify buying at these prices based upon the weekly chart. I think if you can look to shorter-term charts, perhaps a buy on the dips strategy will be the best way to play this market. I also believe that $400 will be a bit of a hard floor, so I would be very surprised if we managed to break below that level. Ultimately, this is a market that I think continues to be very noisy, offering a lot of trading opportunities for short-term traders, but difficult to hang on to the longer-term move based upon technical analysis. At this point, if you are buying Ethereum on a longer-term chart, you are simply basing your trade on faith of value more than anything else. It is almost impossible to do any technical analysis on moves like this other than to say we are far too overbought. However, that typically will give us an opportunity to pick up a value trade underneath, so perhaps if you are patient enough you may get the opportunity.
Buy & Sell Ethereum Instantly
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• NZD/USD Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
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• BTC/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
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• Silver Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || ETH/USD Forecast for the Week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis: Ethereum rallied significantly during the trading week, reaching almost as high as $800 on Coinbase. However, the exchange has had several problems over the week, closing down due to the inability to facilitate the trading volume. Because of this, the real value in Ethereum is going to be difficult to determine, as it appears the institutional money flooding into space is overwhelming the infrastructure. Eventually, this causes a major problem. Get Into Ethereum Trading Today In the meantime, it looks to me as if the market is trying to break above the $800 level, but its difficult to justify buying at these prices based upon the weekly chart. I think if you can look to shorter-term charts, perhaps a buy on the dips strategy will be the best way to play this market. I also believe that $400 will be a bit of a hard floor, so I would be very surprised if we managed to break below that level. Ultimately, this is a market that I think continues to be very noisy, offering a lot of trading opportunities for short-term traders, but difficult to hang on to the longer-term move based upon technical analysis. At this point, if you are buying Ethereum on a longer-term chart, you are simply basing your trade on faith of value more than anything else. It is almost impossible to do any technical analysis on moves like this other than to say we are far too overbought. However, that typically will give us an opportunity to pick up a value trade underneath, so perhaps if you are patient enough you may get the opportunity. Buy & Sell Ethereum Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NZD/USD Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis ETH/USD Forecast for the Week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis BTC/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis Natural Gas forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis Silver Price forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero Price Forecast December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis: Bitcoin Goldrally during the day on Friday after initially going sideways, breaking above the $300 level. However, that area was a bit too exhaustive for the buyers to continue to push higher, so I think the pullback is justified down to roughly $280 where we should see a bit of an uptrend come back into play. If we can break above the $310 level, the market should then go to the $350 level above. In general, I’m seeing a lot of volatility in this market, but also a lot of positivity when looked at from a longer-term perspective.
Get Into Dash Trading Today
DASHcontinues to be choppy as well, as the $1000 level was a bit too difficult to overcome. I think that the $800 level underneath will be support, so every time we pull back I’m willing to add a little bit, because I think most of the pullback is due to the $1000 level being difficult to overcome, and of course has a certain amount of psychological resistance. Ultimately, buying dips and adding slowly as the market should continue to go higher, but we will course have a lot of noise.
Monerohas been noisy as well, initially falling rather significantly and down to the $280 level on Friday, but then bouncing to break above the $300 level. If we can clear the $320 level, this would be a complete round-trip, sending this market much higher. I think that $330 level is resistance, but a break above there should then have Monero looking for the $350 level, which is my longer-term target. If we were to break down below the $280 level, then I think the market will probably drop down to the $250 level underneath which is massive support.
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Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• EUR/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
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• USD/CAD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero Price Forecast December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis: Bitcoin Goldrally during the day on Friday after initially going sideways, breaking above the $300 level. However, that area was a bit too exhaustive for the buyers to continue to push higher, so I think the pullback is justified down to roughly $280 where we should see a bit of an uptrend come back into play. If we can break above the $310 level, the market should then go to the $350 level above. In general, I’m seeing a lot of volatility in this market, but also a lot of positivity when looked at from a longer-term perspective.
Get Into Dash Trading Today
DASHcontinues to be choppy as well, as the $1000 level was a bit too difficult to overcome. I think that the $800 level underneath will be support, so every time we pull back I’m willing to add a little bit, because I think most of the pullback is due to the $1000 level being difficult to overcome, and of course has a certain amount of psychological resistance. Ultimately, buying dips and adding slowly as the market should continue to go higher, but we will course have a lot of noise.
Monerohas been noisy as well, initially falling rather significantly and down to the $280 level on Friday, but then bouncing to break above the $300 level. If we can clear the $320 level, this would be a complete round-trip, sending this market much higher. I think that $330 level is resistance, but a break above there should then have Monero looking for the $350 level, which is my longer-term target. If we were to break down below the $280 level, then I think the market will probably drop down to the $250 level underneath which is massive support.
Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• GBP/JPY forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
• ETH/USD Forecast December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis
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• USD/CAD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero Price Forecast December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis: Bitcoin Gold Bitcoin Gold rally during the day on Friday after initially going sideways, breaking above the $300 level. However, that area was a bit too exhaustive for the buyers to continue to push higher, so I think the pullback is justified down to roughly $280 where we should see a bit of an uptrend come back into play. If we can break above the $310 level, the market should then go to the $350 level above. In general, Im seeing a lot of volatility in this market, but also a lot of positivity when looked at from a longer-term perspective. Get Into Dash Trading Today BTG/USD DASH USD and XMR USD Video 18.12.17 DASH/USD DASH continues to be choppy as well, as the $1000 level was a bit too difficult to overcome. I think that the $800 level underneath will be support, so every time we pull back Im willing to add a little bit, because I think most of the pullback is due to the $1000 level being difficult to overcome, and of course has a certain amount of psychological resistance. Ultimately, buying dips and adding slowly as the market should continue to go higher, but we will course have a lot of noise. DASH/USD daily chart, December 18, 2017 XMR/USD Monero has been noisy as well, initially falling rather significantly and down to the $280 level on Friday, but then bouncing to break above the $300 level. If we can clear the $320 level, this would be a complete round-trip, sending this market much higher. I think that $330 level is resistance, but a break above there should then have Monero looking for the $350 level, which is my longer-term target. If we were to break down below the $280 level, then I think the market will probably drop down to the $250 level underneath which is massive support. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly Monero/USD daily Chart, December 18, 2017 This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis Natural Gas forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis GBP/JPY forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis ETH/USD Forecast December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis Dow Jones 30 and NASDAQ 100 forecast for the week of December 15, 2017, Technical Analysis USD/CAD forecast for the week of December 18, 2017, Technical Analysis || TD Ameritrade to Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on Monday: Brokerage TD Ameritrade said on Friday it willallow clients to trade bitcoinfutures on the newly minted CBOE Futures Exchange from Dec. 18.
TD Ameritrade’s shares were up 2.4% in extended trading.
Bitcoin prices hit a record high of $17,428 on Friday, amid warnings that itwas a bubble on the verge of bursting.
Cboe Global Markets launched its bitcoin futures contract on Dec. 10, just over a week ahead of rival CME Group, as the exchange operator takes the next step toward launching an exchange-traded fund based on the digital currency.
Bitcoin futures and other derivatives would make it easier for more investors and speculators to trade the new asset class.
The first bitcoin futures trades kicked off on Sunday at 6 p.m. on the CBOE Futures Exchange.
Electronic brokerage firm Interactive Brokers Group earlier this week said it is offering bitcoin futures under the ticker symbol “GXBT” on the CFE and plans to offer the same on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from Dec. 18. || TD Ameritrade to Start Bitcoin Futures Trading on Monday: Brokerage TD Ameritrade said on Friday it will allow clients to trade bitcoin futures on the newly minted CBOE Futures Exchange from Dec. 18. TD Ameritrades shares were up 2.4% in extended trading. Bitcoin prices hit a record high of $17,428 on Friday, amid warnings that it was a bubble on the verge of bursting . Cboe Global Markets launched its bitcoin futures contract on Dec. 10, just over a week ahead of rival CME Group, as the exchange operator takes the next step toward launching an exchange-traded fund based on the digital currency. Bitcoin futures and other derivatives would make it easier for more investors and speculators to trade the new asset class. The first bitcoin futures trades kicked off on Sunday at 6 p.m. on the CBOE Futures Exchange. Electronic brokerage firm Interactive Brokers Group earlier this week said it is offering bitcoin futures under the ticker symbol GXBT on the CFE and plans to offer the same on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from Dec. 18.
[Social Media Buzz]
One Bitcoin now worth $19075.00@bitstamp. High $19666.00. Low $18465.00. Market Cap $319.430 Billion #bitcoin || BTC Real Time Price: $19222.03 #GDAX;
$18679.06 #bitstamp;
$19033.00 #gemini;
$18626.37 #hitbtc;
$18800.10 #kraken;
$20395.00 #cex; || Lol 10 years? Two years max #bitcoin $10,00,000 || Sign up for Luno and get ZAR 10.00 worth of Bitcoin when you buy or sell ZAR 500.00 (exchange excluded), using https://www.luno.com/invite/D5MQK || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e USD Bitstamp 19075.00 USD Coinba...
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19114.20, 17776.70, 16624.60, 15802.90, 13831.80, 14699.20, 13925.80, 14026.60, 16099.80, 15838.50
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50, 961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75, 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20, 908.59, 911.20, 902.83, 907.68, 777.76, 804.83, 823.98, 818.41, 821.80, 831.53, 907.94, 886.62, 899.07, 895.03, 921.79, 924.67, 921.01, 892.69, 901.54, 917.59, 919.75, 921.59, 919.50, 920.38, 970.40, 989.02, 1011.80, 1029.91, 1042.90, 1027.34, 1038.15, 1061.35, 1063.07, 994.38, 988.67, 1004.45, 999.18, 990.64, 1004.55, 1007.48, 1027.44, 1046.21, 1054.42, 1047.87, 1079.98, 1115.30, 1117.44, 1166.72, 1173.68, 1143.84, 1165.20, 1179.97.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-02-27]
Volume: 131570000, RSI (14-day): 73.45, 50-day EMA: 1008.53, 200-day EMA: 815.19
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1257.40, Gold RSI: 70.35
Oil Price: 54.05, Oil RSI: 55.97
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange , before easing to about $1,190. http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. [nL8N1G85HI] But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange , before easing to about $1,190. http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. [nL8N1G85HI] But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange , before easing to about $1,190. http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. [nL8N1G85HI] But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190. That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190. That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190. That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: * Graphic: bitcoin price and percentage daily moveshttp://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval.
Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value.
But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year.
It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190.http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk
That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy.
Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market.
But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency.
"Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London.
"We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that."
Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval.
The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: * Graphic: bitcoin price and percentage daily moveshttp://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval.
Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value.
But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year.
It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190.http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk
That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy.
Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market.
But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency.
"Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London.
"We manage billions and billions of dollars – we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that."
Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval.
The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: * Graphic: bitcoin price and percentage daily moves http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk By Jemima Kelly LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190. http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk Bitcoin prices. That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) View comments || Traders reexamine Nvidia after analyst downgrade: One"Fast Money"trader said he has not lost faith in Nvidia's(NVDA)stock, despite a downgrade from Nomura analystsand a 9 percent tumble on Thursday.
Trader Guy Adami said he likes the graphics chipmaker, because the company is pivoting from gaming to autonomous cars and will become a leader in the space.
Trader Pete Najarian said he prefers Intel(INTC), which he says is a competitor in the artificial intelligence and data center arenas that Nvidia is trying to grow into. He said he would buy Nvidia at $90, a level slightly below the stock's Thursday close of $100.49.
Shares of Nvidia have skyrocketed 218 percent in the last 12 months.
Disclosures:
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV
Pete Najarian owns calls: AAL, AMJ, AKS, BVN, BZH, C, CCL, CSCO, CHK, CLF COP, CRM, ETP, GE, GDX, GLD, GILD, IBN, INTC, JBLU, HUM, HMY, KORS, KMB, MT, MTW, ORCL, P, PAA, POT, RIO, SVU, SV, UAL, UNP, WFT, WLL, WY, WLC, GLD, UUP, ZIOP LONG: AAPL, BAC, BLL, DLTR, DIS, EBAY, GILD, GM, HAIN, HD, HUM, IBM, INTC, JWN, K, KMI.A, KO, KORS, LUX, MOS, MSFT, MRK, MRVL, RW, RHT. Puts: PJC
Dan Nathan is long XLV March put spread, SPY May put spread, VIX march call spread || Traders reexamine Nvidia after analyst downgrade: One "Fast Money" trader said he has not lost faith in Nvidia's ( NVDA ) stock, d espite a downgrade from Nomura analysts and a 9 percent tumble on Thursday. Trader Guy Adami said he likes the graphics chipmaker, because the company is pivoting from gaming to autonomous cars and will become a leader in the space. Trader Pete Najarian said he prefers Intel ( INTC ) , which he says is a competitor in the artificial intelligence and data center arenas that Nvidia is trying to grow into. He said he would buy Nvidia at $90, a level slightly below the stock's Thursday close of $100.49. Shares of Nvidia have skyrocketed 218 percent in the last 12 months. Disclosures: Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV Pete Najarian owns calls: AAL, AMJ, AKS, BVN, BZH, C, CCL, CSCO, CHK, CLF COP, CRM, ETP, GE, GDX, GLD, GILD, IBN, INTC, JBLU, HUM, HMY, KORS, KMB, MT, MTW, ORCL, P, PAA, POT, RIO, SVU, SV, UAL, UNP, WFT, WLL, WY, WLC, GLD, UUP, ZIOP LONG: AAPL, BAC, BLL, DLTR, DIS, EBAY, GILD, GM, HAIN, HD, HUM, IBM, INTC, JWN, K, KMI.A, KO, KORS, LUX, MOS, MSFT, MRK, MRVL, RW, RHT. Puts: PJC Dan Nathan is long XLV March put spread, SPY May put spread, VIX march call spread || CEOs love the corner office, but research says it's overrated: ("The Office"/NBC)
Corner offices are a coveted piece of corporate real estate — but they probably shouldn't be.
According tonewly published researchfrom office design company Steelcase, corner offices meet only a small percentage of modern CEOs' needs. Many leaders say they value teamwork over unilateral decision-making, yet still work in fixed spaces designed to isolate.
Patricia Kammer, senior design researcher at Steelcase, says the corner office does a disservice for companies with flatter organizational structures where consensus trumps top-down commands.
"If they don't have that [flexibility], the organization's agility and ability to respond to market demands are at stake," Kammer tells Business Insider.
Steelcase conducted a two-year study of more than 20 companies around the world to learn how CEOs and other executives spent their working hours. The company found leaders face a battery of challenges in any given day. They switch between tasks, manage stress, rely on assistants, and wrestle with always staying available by phone or email.
"It's not that they misunderstand how their work gets done," Kammer says of CEOs retaining their corner offices. "It's that their jobs have gotten harder."
Steelcase's research finds there are a number of strategies, ranging from tiny tweaks to elaborate overhauls, that CEOs could make to help themselves. Kammer says the simplest approach is building environments that promote exercise and social interaction during the day.
That could mean setting up a more communal work area for executives and their team, such as standing desks far away from the fixed office, but which encourage interaction with others on the way there.
More involved solutions include building whole new rooms for executives that serve a different function from their personal offices. The spaces could be used for reflection or creative thought, rather than business dealings, and reserved exclusively for leaders.
As workplaces continue to get more farflung — arecent surveyfound remote work is gaining in popularity — leaders have to make sure they can connect with everyone effectively, Kammer says. That means being visible to people at a main branch but available when someone in a different time zone needs them.
"This is an interesting paradox," Kammer says.
Business are getting more global at the same time they're getting less hierarchical. People need to see their leaders more as equals but with the understanding that their jobs are still measurably harder, and their schedules more demanding. According to Kammer, success in this new world of work means being as nimble as possible.
"To achieve all of this," she says, "CEOs and their executive teams cannot afford to be hidden away in traditional private executive suites that potentially undermine a free-flowing exchange of ideas."
NOW WATCH:CEOs and business leaders are 4 times more likely to be psychopaths than the average person
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• Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it
• Trump has a problem: Americans increasingly think he's incompetent
• Britain's former business secretary: It's not globalisation killing jobs — it's technology || CEOs love the corner office, but research says it's overrated: michael scott the office ("The Office"/NBC) Corner offices are a coveted piece of corporate real estate — but they probably shouldn't be. According to newly published research from office design company Steelcase, corner offices meet only a small percentage of modern CEOs' needs. Many leaders say they value teamwork over unilateral decision-making, yet still work in fixed spaces designed to isolate. Patricia Kammer, senior design researcher at Steelcase, says the corner office does a disservice for companies with flatter organizational structures where consensus trumps top-down commands. "If they don't have that [flexibility], the organization's agility and ability to respond to market demands are at stake," Kammer tells Business Insider. Steelcase conducted a two-year study of more than 20 companies around the world to learn how CEOs and other executives spent their working hours. The company found leaders face a battery of challenges in any given day. They switch between tasks, manage stress, rely on assistants, and wrestle with always staying available by phone or email. "It' s not that they misunderstand how their work gets done," Kammer says of CEOs retaining their corner offices. "It's that their jobs have gotten harder." Steelcase's research finds there are a number of strategies, ranging from tiny tweaks to elaborate overhauls, that CEOs could make to help themselves. Kammer says the simplest approach is building environments that promote exercise and social interaction during the day. That could mean setting up a more communal work area for executives and their team, such as standing desks far away from the fixed office, but which encourage interaction with others on the way there. More involved solutions include building whole new rooms for executives that serve a different function from their personal offices. The spaces could be used for reflection or creative thought, rather than business dealings, and reserved exclusively for leaders. As workplaces continue to get more farflung — a recent survey found remote work is gaining in popularity — leaders have to make sure they can connect with everyone effectively, Kammer says. That means being visible to people at a main branch but available when someone in a different time zone needs them. Story continues "This is an interesting paradox," Kammer says. Business are getting more global at the same time they're getting less hierarchical. People need to see their leaders more as equals but with the understanding that their jobs are still measurably harder, and their schedules more demanding. According to Kammer, success in this new world of work means being as nimble as possible. "To achieve all of this," she says, "CEOs and their executive teams cannot afford to be hidden away in traditional private executive suites that potentially undermine a free-flowing exchange of ideas." NOW WATCH: CEOs and business leaders are 4 times more likely to be psychopaths than the average person More From Business Insider Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it Trump has a problem: Americans increasingly think he's incompetent Britain's former business secretary: It's not globalisation killing jobs — it's technology || Bitcoin is surging – but that might not mean what you think: Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)– the volatile digital currency that is used for a bevy of transaction, investment and value-storing purposes – is hovering around all-time highs, and its value has surged 175 percent in the past year.
But even though bitcoin is rising alongside gold, and it is often seen as an alternative "safe haven asset," this rally may actually be confirming the rally in stocks, rather than presenting a warning sign.
The currency has become more mainstream as additional companies accept bitcoin as a form of payment, Miller Tabak equity strategist Matt Maley said Wednesday on "Trading Nation." According to this thinking, demand for bitcoin will rise as economic activity increases.
Bitcoin was created in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis as a brand-new currency and payment network, and remains somewhat in the Wild West of currencies, without universal regulation, no central authority and tracked by ledger-like blockchain technology maintained by different firms.
Companiesfrom MicrosofttoSubwayto popular blog platformWordPressnow accept bitcoin as a form of payment.
More recently, Switzerland's financial regulatory authoritygranted a bitcoin firm approvalto operate, Reuters reported, andin late 2016JPMorgan was reported to have been working on its own type of blockchain technology to support bitcoin. Perhaps boosting bitcoin activity, too, is the prospect of bitcoinexchange-traded fund creationand bitcoin storage providers.
In the past, bitcoin rallies have frequently been seen as signs that investors are turning away from conventional assets, and hunting for places to stash their money. But as bitcoin has developed more "mainstream" business uses, Maley argued, it has become more correlated with equities.
A look at bitcoin's performance relative to the S&P 500(INDEX: .SPX)'s over the last five years does not show any particularly close mathematical relationship between the two.
Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitzsaid in Januaryat the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the United States moving toward digital currency would have meaningful benefits like curbing corruption and increasing transparency in global financial markets, two themes from this most recent meeting.
"There are important issues of privacy, cybersecurity, but it would certainly have big advantages," he said.
Bitcoin is not fiat currency, with no backing from a government that issues it, and the space is volatile given its lack of regulation. This month alone, bitcoin has risen 25 percent after dipping nearly 5 percent in January. It has climbed nearly 22,000 percent in five years while the dollar is up 28 percent in the same time period.
"The big fear around bitcoin is just one day when the governments come out and say, 'We're no longer going to allow this,' and we're going to shut it down. But in a world of Armageddon, where the world ends, currencies will go by the way of the countries; bitcoin, like gold, will still have value because of the blockchain-ing that goes on behind it," Dennis Davitt, portfolio manager at Harvest Volatility Management, said Wednesday on "Trading Nation."
The digital currency has a ways to go before becoming a full-on "mainstream" currency, but it's very much a real system of payment, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex, told CNBC on Wednesday. Given bitcoin's volatility, every time investors buy the currency at new highs, "you kind of want to hold your nose," Colas said, given its volatile nature and all the hills and valleys that come along with it.
Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based digital currency exchange,went bankrupt in 2014after substantial losses in the bitcoin space, sending the value of bitcoin tanking.
— CNBC's Alex Rosenberg contributed reporting. || Bitcoin is surging – but that might not mean what you think: Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)– the volatile digital currency that is used for a bevy of transaction, investment and value-storing purposes – is hovering around all-time highs, and its value has surged 175 percent in the past year.
But even though bitcoin is rising alongside gold, and it is often seen as an alternative "safe haven asset," this rally may actually be confirming the rally in stocks, rather than presenting a warning sign.
The currency has become more mainstream as additional companies accept bitcoin as a form of payment, Miller Tabak equity strategist Matt Maley said Wednesday on "Trading Nation." According to this thinking, demand for bitcoin will rise as economic activity increases.
Bitcoin was created in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis as a brand-new currency and payment network, and remains somewhat in the Wild West of currencies, without universal regulation, no central authority and tracked by ledger-like blockchain technology maintained by different firms.
Companiesfrom MicrosofttoSubwayto popular blog platformWordPressnow accept bitcoin as a form of payment.
More recently, Switzerland's financial regulatory authoritygranted a bitcoin firm approvalto operate, Reuters reported, andin late 2016JPMorgan was reported to have been working on its own type of blockchain technology to support bitcoin. Perhaps boosting bitcoin activity, too, is the prospect of bitcoinexchange-traded fund creationand bitcoin storage providers.
In the past, bitcoin rallies have frequently been seen as signs that investors are turning away from conventional assets, and hunting for places to stash their money. But as bitcoin has developed more "mainstream" business uses, Maley argued, it has become more correlated with equities.
A look at bitcoin's performance relative to the S&P 500(INDEX: .SPX)'s over the last five years does not show any particularly close mathematical relationship between the two.
Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitzsaid in Januaryat the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the United States moving toward digital currency would have meaningful benefits like curbing corruption and increasing transparency in global financial markets, two themes from this most recent meeting.
"There are important issues of privacy, cybersecurity, but it would certainly have big advantages," he said.
Bitcoin is not fiat currency, with no backing from a government that issues it, and the space is volatile given its lack of regulation. This month alone, bitcoin has risen 25 percent after dipping nearly 5 percent in January. It has climbed nearly 22,000 percent in five years while the dollar is up 28 percent in the same time period.
"The big fear around bitcoin is just one day when the governments come out and say, 'We're no longer going to allow this,' and we're going to shut it down. But in a world of Armageddon, where the world ends, currencies will go by the way of the countries; bitcoin, like gold, will still have value because of the blockchain-ing that goes on behind it," Dennis Davitt, portfolio manager at Harvest Volatility Management, said Wednesday on "Trading Nation."
The digital currency has a ways to go before becoming a full-on "mainstream" currency, but it's very much a real system of payment, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex, told CNBC on Wednesday. Given bitcoin's volatility, every time investors buy the currency at new highs, "you kind of want to hold your nose," Colas said, given its volatile nature and all the hills and valleys that come along with it.
Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based digital currency exchange,went bankrupt in 2014after substantial losses in the bitcoin space, sending the value of bitcoin tanking.
— CNBC's Alex Rosenberg contributed reporting. || Bitcoin is surging but that might not mean what you think: Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) the volatile digital currency that is used for a bevy of transaction, investment and value-storing purposes is hovering around all-time highs, and its value has surged 175 percent in the past year. But even though bitcoin is rising alongside gold, and it is often seen as an alternative "safe haven asset," this rally may actually be confirming the rally in stocks, rather than presenting a warning sign. The currency has become more mainstream as additional companies accept bitcoin as a form of payment, Miller Tabak equity strategist Matt Maley said Wednesday on " Trading Nation ." According to this thinking, demand for bitcoin will rise as economic activity increases. Bitcoin was created in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis as a brand-new currency and payment network, and remains somewhat in the Wild West of currencies, without universal regulation, no central authority and tracked by ledger-like blockchain technology maintained by different firms. Companies from Microsoft to Subway to popular blog platform WordPress now accept bitcoin as a form of payment. More recently, Switzerland's financial regulatory authority granted a bitcoin firm approval to operate, Reuters reported, and in late 2016 JPMorgan was reported to have been working on its own type of blockchain technology to support bitcoin. Perhaps boosting bitcoin activity, too, is the prospect of bitcoin exchange-traded fund creation and bitcoin storage providers. In the past, bitcoin rallies have frequently been seen as signs that investors are turning away from conventional assets, and hunting for places to stash their money. But as bitcoin has developed more "mainstream" business uses, Maley argued, it has become more correlated with equities. A look at bitcoin's performance relative to the S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX) 's over the last five years does not show any particularly close mathematical relationship between the two. Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz said in January at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the United States moving toward digital currency would have meaningful benefits like curbing corruption and increasing transparency in global financial markets, two themes from this most recent meeting. Story continues "There are important issues of privacy, cybersecurity, but it would certainly have big advantages," he said. Bitcoin is not fiat currency, with no backing from a government that issues it, and the space is volatile given its lack of regulation. This month alone, bitcoin has risen 25 percent after dipping nearly 5 percent in January. It has climbed nearly 22,000 percent in five years while the dollar is up 28 percent in the same time period. "The big fear around bitcoin is just one day when the governments come out and say, 'We're no longer going to allow this,' and we're going to shut it down. But in a world of Armageddon, where the world ends, currencies will go by the way of the countries; bitcoin, like gold, will still have value because of the blockchain-ing that goes on behind it," Dennis Davitt, portfolio manager at Harvest Volatility Management, said Wednesday on "Trading Nation." The digital currency has a ways to go before becoming a full-on "mainstream" currency, but it's very much a real system of payment, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex, told CNBC on Wednesday. Given bitcoin's volatility, every time investors buy the currency at new highs, "you kind of want to hold your nose," Colas said, given its volatile nature and all the hills and valleys that come along with it. Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based digital currency exchange, went bankrupt in 2014 after substantial losses in the bitcoin space, sending the value of bitcoin tanking. CNBC's Alex Rosenberg contributed reporting. || CaribbeanTales Flow into Production: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2017) - Three of the Caribbean's leading film producers will now develop pilots for their original TV series projects, via funding fromFlowand CaribbeanTales Media Group.
With $40,000 funding for each project, production work will begin onBattledream Chronicle,a sci-fi/drama animated series created by Alain Bidard, which is based on his groundbreaking multi-award winning feature film;Heat,a sweltering crime/drama series filmed in Barbados from iconic filmmaker Menelik Shabazz (Burning an Illusion, The Story of Lover's Rockand more);andCaribbean Girl NYC,an ensemble female-driven sitcom from NY-based Guadeloupian filmmaker/producer Mariette Monpierre, whose award-winning filmElzawon, among others, the prestigious NYT award.
Support for these pilots is part of CaribbeanTales Incubator Program (CTI), a year-round development and production hub for Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora Producers to assist in the creation of strong, compelling and sustainable regional content for the global market.
"We recognise the significant hurdles that Caribbean Producers face in financing and producing their content, and getting it out to audiences," said John Reid, CEO ofCable and Wireless, operator of Flow and lead sponsor of CTI. "We are honoured to help support this programme that is enabling the production and monetisation of this exciting emerging cultural industry."
Production on the pilots will begin in April 2017. They will premier later this year at the twelfth annualCaribbeanTales International Film Festival(CTFF). Flow is also the lead sponsor of CTFF, a mix of exciting and dynamic films that showcase diverse, shared stories and cultures, and celebrates the talents of established and emerging filmmakers of Caribbean heritage. The festival will be held in Toronto, Canada between September 6 and September 20, 2017.
As an added bonus, an eight-part documentary series has been filmed and is currently in post-production. The series follows the ten teams of filmmakers who competed for this prestigious award, and will be shown onFlow1later this year.
Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of CaribbeanTales, states, "We are delighted that, together with Flow, we are able to provide the Caribbean's top filmmakers with funding and a platform to produce top quality, local, content with the capacity to reach audiences across the region and the world."
Visit the CTIwebsitefor more information and to apply for the 2017 CTI programme. And follow Flow and CaribbeanTales onTwitter,FacebookandInstagramto stay up to date.
CTI is now accepting applications for its 2017 programme:http://caribbeantales.ca/cti.
About C&W Communications
C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through next generation networks that connect our 25 million customers who subscribe to over 50 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve over 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across 5 million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 11 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The Liberty Global Group also owns 50% of VodafoneZiggo, a Dutch joint venture, which has 4 million customers, 10 million fixed-line subscribers and 5 million mobile subscribers. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Más Móvil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a sub-sea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || CaribbeanTales Flow into Production: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2017) - Three of the Caribbean's leading film producers will now develop pilots for their original TV series projects, via funding from Flow and CaribbeanTales Media Group. With $40,000 funding for each project, production work will begin on Battledream Chronicle , a sci-fi/drama animated series created by Alain Bidard, which is based on his groundbreaking multi-award winning feature film; Heat , a sweltering crime/drama series filmed in Barbados from iconic filmmaker Menelik Shabazz ( Burning an Illusion, The Story of Lover's Rock and more ); and Caribbean Girl NYC , an ensemble female-driven sitcom from NY-based Guadeloupian filmmaker/producer Mariette Monpierre, whose award-winning film Elza won, among others, the prestigious NYT award. Support for these pilots is part of CaribbeanTales Incubator Program (CTI), a year-round development and production hub for Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora Producers to assist in the creation of strong, compelling and sustainable regional content for the global market. "We recognise the significant hurdles that Caribbean Producers face in financing and producing their content, and getting it out to audiences," said John Reid, CEO of Cable and Wireless , operator of Flow and lead sponsor of CTI. "We are honoured to help support this programme that is enabling the production and monetisation of this exciting emerging cultural industry." Production on the pilots will begin in April 2017. They will premier later this year at the twelfth annual CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (CTFF) . Flow is also the lead sponsor of CTFF, a mix of exciting and dynamic films that showcase diverse, shared stories and cultures, and celebrates the talents of established and emerging filmmakers of Caribbean heritage. The festival will be held in Toronto, Canada between September 6 and September 20, 2017. As an added bonus, an eight-part documentary series has been filmed and is currently in post-production. The series follows the ten teams of filmmakers who competed for this prestigious award, and will be shown on Flow1 later this year. Story continues Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of CaribbeanTales, states, "We are delighted that, together with Flow, we are able to provide the Caribbean's top filmmakers with funding and a platform to produce top quality, local, content with the capacity to reach audiences across the region and the world." Visit the CTI website for more information and to apply for the 2017 CTI programme. And follow Flow and CaribbeanTales on Twitter , Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date. CTI is now accepting applications for its 2017 programme: http://caribbeantales.ca/cti . About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through next generation networks that connect our 25 million customers who subscribe to over 50 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve over 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across 5 million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 11 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The Liberty Global Group also owns 50% of VodafoneZiggo, a Dutch joint venture, which has 4 million customers, 10 million fixed-line subscribers and 5 million mobile subscribers. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Más Móvil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a sub-sea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . || Trump Trick and Tweets: These ETFs May Prosper Ahead: This article is part of a regular series of thought leadership pieces from some of the more influential ETF strategists in the money management industry. Today's article is by Scott Kubie, CFA, chief strategist of Omaha, Nebraska-based CLS Investments.
Donald Trump’s narrow presidential victory, Brexit and stronger nationalist tendencies in Europe and Asia indicate an underlying shift in the emphasis of consumers and government policy.
While it may continue to cause some volatility, the shift will benefit economic growth through a few key changes in behavior:
• Greater consumer optimism fuels increased consumption
• Expansionary fiscal policies support infrastructure projects
• Regulatory reform increases potential business investment
Economic trends show this transition is already in motion. Research originally conducted by MSCI and updated by CLS separates economic regimes into the four different quadrants seen in the chart below. This chart shows the global economy has moved from the slow-growth quadrant to the heating-up quadrant. The heating-up quadrant is associated with stronger economic growth and increasing inflation.
For a larger view, please click on the image above.
This shift will create opportunities for the patient investor in the coming years. There will be numerous ways to tilt portfolios toward these themes. This article briefly summarizes three opportunities CLS sees in the current environment.
Value Over Growth
All three of the key changes noted above should boost value stocks relative to growth stocks. Rising consumption broadens sales growth, infrastructure projects increase demand for physical goods, and a more favorable regulatory environment benefits energy and materials stocks. All of those trends should boost interest rates and loan demand, supporting financials as well.
Prior to 2016, value had lagged growth in six of the previous nine years, and had never outperformed by more than 2.3%. In the six years growth outperformed, three of them (2007, 2009 and 2015) did so by 9.5% or more.
Cumulatively, growth outpaced value by more than 50% from 2007 to 2015. Last year, value picked up more than 10% on growth in the U.S. (see chart above). While value did well last year, we expect the trend to continue to favor value stocks over the intermediate term. Two ETFs that offer exposure to this trend are:
• iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (VLUE)
• Guggenheim S&P 500 Pure Value ETF (RPV)
Diversify Creatively
While this economic recovery has been very long by historical standards, it has also been slow. Only in recent periods have we seen wage pressures starting to break through after a long wintry economic recovery.
Global supply chains have helped keep wages low by allowing firms to transfer production to cheaper areas. The new nationalists will pressure companies to keep more production in the home country. That in turn will push up prices, inflation and interest rates.
If the economic trend continues, we expect new quarterly inflation data to continue to be above the past quarter’s data. Based on our higher expectations for inflation, we believe TIPS will outperform nominal U.S. Treasury bonds of similar duration. Bank loans also look attractive in a scenario where credit risk is dropping because of good economic growth and increasing yields. In these bond segments, some holdings include:
• iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)
• PowerShares Senior Loan Portfolio (BKLN)
• PIMCO 1-5 Year U.S. TIPS Index ETF (STPZ)
Index Smartly
The financial crisis has provided the dominant market narrative for investment results since 2007. Any narrative that lasts that long begins to creep into capitalization-weighted indexes.
With a new narrative of economic populism usurping the financial crisis as the defining trend in global economics, investors should expect shifts in leadership around the world.
If this trend-shift proves to be lasting, cap-weighted indexes will be overexposed to the beneficiaries of recent years and underexposed to value stocks, especially financial stocks. Smart-beta alternatives seem more likely than normal to outperform during a period of rapid change.
Here is a sample ofsmart-beta ETFs, excluding the value ETFs mentioned above:
• iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM)
• J.P. Morgan Diversified Return International Equity ETF (JPIN)
• Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP)
At the time of this writing, CLS Investments invests in all of the securities mentioned above for its clients. CLS Investments is a third-party investment manager and ETF strategist. It began to emphasize ETFs in individual investor portfolios in 2002, and is now one of the largest active money managers using ETFs. Contact CLS' Chief Strategist Scott Kubie, CFA, at 402-896-7406 or [email protected]. Please clickherefor a complete list of relevant disclosures and definitions.
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• Why Low Vol Funds Are Bleeding
Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Trump Trick and Tweets: These ETFs May Prosper Ahead: This article is part of a regular series of thought leadership pieces from some of the more influential ETF strategists in the money management industry. Today's article is by Scott Kubie, CFA, chief strategist of Omaha, Nebraska-based CLS Investments. Donald Trumps narrow presidential victory, Brexit and stronger nationalist tendencies in Europe and Asia indicate an underlying shift in the emphasis of consumers and government policy. While it may continue to cause some volatility, the shift will benefit economic growth through a few key changes in behavior: Greater consumer optimism fuels increased consumption Expansionary fiscal policies support infrastructure projects Regulatory reform increases potential business investment Economic trends show this transition is already in motion. Research originally conducted by MSCI and updated by CLS separates economic regimes into the four different quadrants seen in the chart below. This chart shows the global economy has moved from the slow-growth quadrant to the heating-up quadrant. The heating-up quadrant is associated with stronger economic growth and increasing inflation. Inflation Ratio For a larger view, please click on the image above. This shift will create opportunities for the patient investor in the coming years. There will be numerous ways to tilt portfolios toward these themes. This article briefly summarizes three opportunities CLS sees in the current environment. Value Over Growth All three of the key changes noted above should boost value stocks relative to growth stocks. Rising consumption broadens sales growth, infrastructure projects increase demand for physical goods, and a more favorable regulatory environment benefits energy and materials stocks. All of those trends should boost interest rates and loan demand, supporting financials as well. Prior to 2016, value had lagged growth in six of the previous nine years, and had never outperformed by more than 2.3%. In the six years growth outperformed, three of them (2007, 2009 and 2015) did so by 9.5% or more. Story continues Cumulatively, growth outpaced value by more than 50% from 2007 to 2015. Last year, value picked up more than 10% on growth in the U.S. (see chart above). While value did well last year, we expect the trend to continue to favor value stocks over the intermediate term. Two ETFs that offer exposure to this trend are: iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (VLUE) Guggenheim S&P 500 Pure Value ETF (RPV) Diversify Creatively While this economic recovery has been very long by historical standards, it has also been slow. Only in recent periods have we seen wage pressures starting to break through after a long wintry economic recovery. Global supply chains have helped keep wages low by allowing firms to transfer production to cheaper areas. The new nationalists will pressure companies to keep more production in the home country. That in turn will push up prices, inflation and interest rates. If the economic trend continues, we expect new quarterly inflation data to continue to be above the past quarters data. Based on our higher expectations for inflation, we believe TIPS will outperform nominal U.S. Treasury bonds of similar duration. Bank loans also look attractive in a scenario where credit risk is dropping because of good economic growth and increasing yields. In these bond segments, some holdings include: iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP) PowerShares Senior Loan Portfolio (BKLN) PIMCO 1-5 Year U.S. TIPS Index ETF (STPZ) Index Smartly The financial crisis has provided the dominant market narrative for investment results since 2007. Any narrative that lasts that long begins to creep into capitalization-weighted indexes. With a new narrative of economic populism usurping the financial crisis as the defining trend in global economics, investors should expect shifts in leadership around the world. If this trend-shift proves to be lasting, cap-weighted indexes will be overexposed to the beneficiaries of recent years and underexposed to value stocks, especially financial stocks. Smart-beta alternatives seem more likely than normal to outperform during a period of rapid change. Here is a sample of smart-beta ETFs , excluding the value ETFs mentioned above: iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM) J.P. Morgan Diversified Return International Equity ETF (JPIN) Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) At the time of this writing, CLS Investments invests in all of the securities mentioned above for its clients. CLS Investments is a third-party investment manager and ETF strategist. It began to emphasize ETFs in individual investor portfolios in 2002, and is now one of the largest active money managers using ETFs. Contact CLS' Chief Strategist Scott Kubie, CFA, at 402-896-7406 or at [email protected] . Please click here for a complete list of relevant disclosures and definitions. Recommended Stories Wednesdays Hot Reads: Approving Bitcoin ETFs Will Lead Investors To Slaughter Rebalancing Of Smart Beta ETFs Often Overlooked 2 Smart Beta ETFs Killing It In Emerging Markets February ETF Flows Point To Passive Opportunity Why Low Vol Funds Are Bleeding Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved
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1179.97, 1222.50, 1251.01, 1274.99, 1255.15, 1267.12, 1272.83, 1223.54, 1150.00, 1188.49
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-11-26]
Volume: 54962700, RSI (14-day): 56.67, 50-day EMA: 696.71, 200-day EMA: 612.63
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Tips on How to Protect Your Private Information On Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Americans will line up around stores and standby their computers or smartphones to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but protecting their private information should also be priority for shoppers. During the holiday season many shoppers are harmed by failing to take simple precautions, says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchange , a network for technology professionals. In Store Vs. Online Retail stores are one of the top areas identity thieves go after, Richardson said in an email to the IBTimes. A large number of some of the biggest identity thefts in the past few years were at large retail stores, he says. Long lines and busy cashiers could potentially put your private information at risk. “All the clerk cares about is getting you through the line as fast as they can so they can deal with the next customer and hope that none of you are angry,” says Richardson. “So, if there is a hiccup with your transaction, they will take “backup” paths to complete your transaction like entering your credit card number by hand.” Richardson, who is also the former head of the data security teams IBM, Charles Schwab and Motorola, says customers should never give their credit card to someone to perform a transaction by entering a card number. “Hand transactions are a huge risk for identity theft,” he says. Customers should also avoid buying if a cashier’s computer is down or too busy, unless it’s with cash, or try to go back later. Credit card scanners are also a threat to customers, as some of them may be rigged to copy a person’s information so that a duplicate credit card can be made. People may be less exposed to this action in large retail stores, but the risk is higher in smaller boutiques shops, says Richardson. Customers should also make sure their credit card number is not printed on receipts and should instead have XXX's where the number is displayed. But online purchases can be riskier because of all the extra information customers hand over, like their name, address, phone number, credit card information, expiration date and CSV. Story continues “They ask for so much more information from you to validate who you are than a purchase in a retail store,” says Richardson. “You have no control of who or where that information is going.” Tips to Protect Yourself Here are Richardson’s tips for shoppers on how they can protect themselves on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ensure that the website address is secure and has a valid encryption certificate. It will usually display a “locked, green” indicator in front of the website name. If it doesn’t have that, it does not have a higher level of security that has been guaranteed by a known entity like Verisign, Symantec and others. Ensure your system has the most recent recommended system and security patches. Always use a credit card that is not tied directly to your personal bank account(s), even if you are using PayPal, Bitcoin or some other payment method. Never give anything other than name, address and phone number. You should not need to answer security or privacy questions when making a purchase or checking out. If they ask, see if you can checkout as a “guest” instead. Monitor your credit through a third party for identify theft and have SMS and email alerts sent to you immediately. Set-up alerts with your credit card company that send both SMS and emails when any purchases are made and the credit card was not scanned (meaning, it wasn’t in someone’s hand when the charge was made). Set them as low as $25 per purchase. Also, set-up alerts for total purchases over $500 in a billing period to protect multiple $24.99 purchases. And if possible, a maximum amount of purchases allowed in a billing period such as $1500 before card will get declined. Ensure that you have a reputable Antivirus program running on your computer and that your browser has an Ad blocking plug-in. (Richardson recommends Norton, McAfee or ESET.) Ensure that the network your computer/device is on is secure and you know who has access to your network. This is usually done with your router. You want to lock down your router so that traffic can be initiated from the inside-out but you do not want traffic to be initiated from the outside-in. If you are using a WiFi connection, make sure that network is also secure and requires a password to join. If it is a public WiFi network that doesn’t require a password, then the traffic coming from your device can be monitored and stolen. (Link to onsite how-to article?) Any passwords that you use should be strong, hard to guess ones. Or, even better, hard to guess, but easy to remember . Don’t click on unfamiliar links to sites advertising sales, coupons, etc. Use two-factor authentication/verification, if it is offered. Shopping on Mobile Devices One in 10 mobile apps that are found through searching “Black Friday” are blacklisted as malicious, according to cyber security company RiskIQ An estimated 30 percent of purchases will be made on mobile devices, RiskIQ says. Shopping on mobile devices can substantially increase the risk of encountering phishing pages, malicious apps, and viruses that infect customers’ smartphones and tablets to steal money and private information. There are also fake apps out there that contain malware that can steal customers’ data or lock the device until the user pays a ransom, says RiskIQ. Other malicious apps may ask consumers to use their Facebook or Gmail logins, which could compromise their private information. Tips For Safe Shopping on Mobile Devices Here are some tips from RiskIQ: Ensure that you are only downloading apps from official app stores such as Google or Apple Be wary of applications that ask for suspicious permissions, like access to contacts, text messages, administrative features, stored passwords, or credit card info. Just because an app appears to have a good reputation doesn’t make it so. Rave reviews can be forged, and a high amount of downloads can simply indicate a threat actor was successful in fooling a lot of victims. Before downloading an app, be sure to take a look at the developer—if it’s not a brand you recognize or has a strange appearance or spelling, think twice. You can even do a Google search on the developer for more clues about its reputation. Make sure to take a deep look at each app. New developers, or developers that leverage free email services (e.g., @gmail) for their developer contact, can be enormous red flags— threat actors often use these services to produce mass amounts of malicious apps in a short period. Also, poor grammar in the description highlights the haste of development and the lack of marketing professionalism that are hallmarks of mobile malware campaigns. Check website addresses after following links on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels to be sure you end up on the true website of the retailer you want. Look for the “S” in HTTPS when you visit shopping sites. Beware of shopping sites that do not use HTTPS in their website addresses or do not display the symbol of a lock next to the web address. Secure sites use HTTPS, and without that, you’re dealing with unsecured connections or weak encryption of personal data. Never provide your credit card information unless you are in a secure online shopping portal. Sites that ask for it in return for “coupons” or to win “free” merchandise are almost always scams. Protect Yourself From a Major Headache For those who might not want to go through the hassle of setting up credit card alerts on purchases or locking down their router, it’s important to remember that it can and save consumers from a major headache. “Identity theft could cost you several thousand dollars in actual money and can cost you a lot more in your personal time and future anticipated losses cleaning up after the fact,” Richardson said. “The impact of identity theft could last years as you personally have to work to call all your creditors to fix your credit, loss of credibility for future purchases of a home, car, etc. as your credit scores will have been impacted, the effect on future employment opportunities as background checks are run and many, many more,” he added. Related Articles $100 Off HTC Vive On Black Friday and Cyber Monday American Consumers Prep For Cyber Monday || Tips on How to Protect Your Private Information On Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Americans will line up around stores and standby their computers or smartphones to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but protecting their private information should also be priority for shoppers. During the holiday season many shoppers are harmed by failing to take simple precautions, says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchange , a network for technology professionals. In Store Vs. Online Retail stores are one of the top areas identity thieves go after, Richardson said in an email to the IBTimes. A large number of some of the biggest identity thefts in the past few years were at large retail stores, he says. Long lines and busy cashiers could potentially put your private information at risk. “All the clerk cares about is getting you through the line as fast as they can so they can deal with the next customer and hope that none of you are angry,” says Richardson. “So, if there is a hiccup with your transaction, they will take “backup” paths to complete your transaction like entering your credit card number by hand.” Richardson, who is also the former head of the data security teams IBM, Charles Schwab and Motorola, says customers should never give their credit card to someone to perform a transaction by entering a card number. “Hand transactions are a huge risk for identity theft,” he says. Customers should also avoid buying if a cashier’s computer is down or too busy, unless it’s with cash, or try to go back later. Credit card scanners are also a threat to customers, as some of them may be rigged to copy a person’s information so that a duplicate credit card can be made. People may be less exposed to this action in large retail stores, but the risk is higher in smaller boutiques shops, says Richardson. Customers should also make sure their credit card number is not printed on receipts and should instead have XXX's where the number is displayed. But online purchases can be riskier because of all the extra information customers hand over, like their name, address, phone number, credit card information, expiration date and CSV. Story continues “They ask for so much more information from you to validate who you are than a purchase in a retail store,” says Richardson. “You have no control of who or where that information is going.” Tips to Protect Yourself Here are Richardson’s tips for shoppers on how they can protect themselves on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ensure that the website address is secure and has a valid encryption certificate. It will usually display a “locked, green” indicator in front of the website name. If it doesn’t have that, it does not have a higher level of security that has been guaranteed by a known entity like Verisign, Symantec and others. Ensure your system has the most recent recommended system and security patches. Always use a credit card that is not tied directly to your personal bank account(s), even if you are using PayPal, Bitcoin or some other payment method. Never give anything other than name, address and phone number. You should not need to answer security or privacy questions when making a purchase or checking out. If they ask, see if you can checkout as a “guest” instead. Monitor your credit through a third party for identify theft and have SMS and email alerts sent to you immediately. Set-up alerts with your credit card company that send both SMS and emails when any purchases are made and the credit card was not scanned (meaning, it wasn’t in someone’s hand when the charge was made). Set them as low as $25 per purchase. Also, set-up alerts for total purchases over $500 in a billing period to protect multiple $24.99 purchases. And if possible, a maximum amount of purchases allowed in a billing period such as $1500 before card will get declined. Ensure that you have a reputable Antivirus program running on your computer and that your browser has an Ad blocking plug-in. (Richardson recommends Norton, McAfee or ESET.) Ensure that the network your computer/device is on is secure and you know who has access to your network. This is usually done with your router. You want to lock down your router so that traffic can be initiated from the inside-out but you do not want traffic to be initiated from the outside-in. If you are using a WiFi connection, make sure that network is also secure and requires a password to join. If it is a public WiFi network that doesn’t require a password, then the traffic coming from your device can be monitored and stolen. (Link to onsite how-to article?) Any passwords that you use should be strong, hard to guess ones. Or, even better, hard to guess, but easy to remember . Don’t click on unfamiliar links to sites advertising sales, coupons, etc. Use two-factor authentication/verification, if it is offered. Shopping on Mobile Devices One in 10 mobile apps that are found through searching “Black Friday” are blacklisted as malicious, according to cyber security company RiskIQ An estimated 30 percent of purchases will be made on mobile devices, RiskIQ says. Shopping on mobile devices can substantially increase the risk of encountering phishing pages, malicious apps, and viruses that infect customers’ smartphones and tablets to steal money and private information. There are also fake apps out there that contain malware that can steal customers’ data or lock the device until the user pays a ransom, says RiskIQ. Other malicious apps may ask consumers to use their Facebook or Gmail logins, which could compromise their private information. Tips For Safe Shopping on Mobile Devices Here are some tips from RiskIQ: Ensure that you are only downloading apps from official app stores such as Google or Apple Be wary of applications that ask for suspicious permissions, like access to contacts, text messages, administrative features, stored passwords, or credit card info. Just because an app appears to have a good reputation doesn’t make it so. Rave reviews can be forged, and a high amount of downloads can simply indicate a threat actor was successful in fooling a lot of victims. Before downloading an app, be sure to take a look at the developer—if it’s not a brand you recognize or has a strange appearance or spelling, think twice. You can even do a Google search on the developer for more clues about its reputation. Make sure to take a deep look at each app. New developers, or developers that leverage free email services (e.g., @gmail) for their developer contact, can be enormous red flags— threat actors often use these services to produce mass amounts of malicious apps in a short period. Also, poor grammar in the description highlights the haste of development and the lack of marketing professionalism that are hallmarks of mobile malware campaigns. Check website addresses after following links on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels to be sure you end up on the true website of the retailer you want. Look for the “S” in HTTPS when you visit shopping sites. Beware of shopping sites that do not use HTTPS in their website addresses or do not display the symbol of a lock next to the web address. Secure sites use HTTPS, and without that, you’re dealing with unsecured connections or weak encryption of personal data. Never provide your credit card information unless you are in a secure online shopping portal. Sites that ask for it in return for “coupons” or to win “free” merchandise are almost always scams. Protect Yourself From a Major Headache For those who might not want to go through the hassle of setting up credit card alerts on purchases or locking down their router, it’s important to remember that it can and save consumers from a major headache. “Identity theft could cost you several thousand dollars in actual money and can cost you a lot more in your personal time and future anticipated losses cleaning up after the fact,” Richardson said. “The impact of identity theft could last years as you personally have to work to call all your creditors to fix your credit, loss of credibility for future purchases of a home, car, etc. as your credit scores will have been impacted, the effect on future employment opportunities as background checks are run and many, many more,” he added. Related Articles $100 Off HTC Vive On Black Friday and Cyber Monday American Consumers Prep For Cyber Monday || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 / First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors. A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies. Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges. Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain. "Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering." Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX. Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company. Story continues About the company: First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets. www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.com company website. www.CoinQX.com Cryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN. www.iCoiNEWS.com real time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site. www.BITminer.cc providing mining pool management services. www.2016coin.org online daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com . Contact us via: [email protected] or visit http://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies.
Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges.
Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering."
Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX.
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:[email protected] visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies.
Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges.
Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering."
Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX.
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:[email protected] visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || John Reid Confirmed as CEO of Cable and Wireless: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 21, 2016) - John Reid has been confirmed as Chief Executive Officer ofC&W Communications("C&W", or the "Company") effective November 7, 2016. C&W serves 18 countries and is one of the largest full service telecommunications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Company was recently acquired byLiberty Globalplc "Liberty Global", the world's largest international TV and broadband company.
"This is a time of meaningful change and development for C&W, and I am excited for the expertise and continuity that John brings to this growing region," said Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global. Reid is tasked with aligning the former UK-based company with Liberty's Latin America and Caribbean ("LiLAC Group") division, while strengthening the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, and seizing on the significant business-to-business and wholesale opportunities in the region.
"I am honored to lead C&W Communications into the next phase of our development. I look forward to achieving our growth objectives, creating greater value for our stakeholders, and transforming our employee and customer experience," Reid said.
Reid, a Canadian national, is uniquely positioned to take C&W to its next chapter as he has over 28 years of telecommunications and cable television experience, and has spearheaded complex integrations and pioneered a culture of transformation and engagement, first in Canada, and during the past 11 years, across the Caribbean. Prior to his role as Interim CEO of C&W, Reid served as C&W's President, Consumer Division and was part of the executive leadership team at C&W that achieved in excess of $100m in synergies in less than 18 months following the Columbus transaction.
At Columbus, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer, he led the Company to become a leader and innovator in the broadband and entertainment industry across the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to Columbus John held various roles with Canadian MSO Persona, holding the position of Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer.
John holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, serves as the Chairman of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), a 49% subsidiary of C&W, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Caribbean Tales.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3082861 || John Reid Confirmed as CEO of Cable and Wireless: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 21, 2016) - John Reid has been confirmed as Chief Executive Officer of C&W Communications ("C&W", or the "Company") effective November 7, 2016. C&W serves 18 countries and is one of the largest full service telecommunications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Company was recently acquired by Liberty Global plc "Liberty Global", the world's largest international TV and broadband company. "This is a time of meaningful change and development for C&W, and I am excited for the expertise and continuity that John brings to this growing region," said Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global. Reid is tasked with aligning the former UK-based company with Liberty's Latin America and Caribbean ("LiLAC Group") division, while strengthening the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, and seizing on the significant business-to-business and wholesale opportunities in the region. "I am honored to lead C&W Communications into the next phase of our development. I look forward to achieving our growth objectives, creating greater value for our stakeholders, and transforming our employee and customer experience," Reid said. Reid, a Canadian national, is uniquely positioned to take C&W to its next chapter as he has over 28 years of telecommunications and cable television experience, and has spearheaded complex integrations and pioneered a culture of transformation and engagement, first in Canada, and during the past 11 years, across the Caribbean. Prior to his role as Interim CEO of C&W, Reid served as C&W's President, Consumer Division and was part of the executive leadership team at C&W that achieved in excess of $100m in synergies in less than 18 months following the Columbus transaction. At Columbus, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer, he led the Company to become a leader and innovator in the broadband and entertainment industry across the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to Columbus John held various roles with Canadian MSO Persona, holding the position of Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer. Story continues John holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, serves as the Chairman of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), a 49% subsidiary of C&W, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Caribbean Tales. About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3082861
[Social Media Buzz]
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#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || Current value of DOGE in BTC: Vircurex: 0.0000003 -- Volume: Today's trend: stable at 11/26/16 00:00 || #U...
|
732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22, 276.05, 288.28, 288.70, 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88, 278.58, 279.58, 261.00, 265.08, 264.47, 270.39, 266.38, 264.08, 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39, 228.17, 210.49, 221.61, 225.83, 224.77, 231.40, 229.78, 228.76, 230.06, 228.12, 229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-09-27]
Volume: 14179900, RSI (14-day): 47.95, 50-day EMA: 239.15, 200-day EMA: 251.76
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Mission Accomplished -- CWC's Chris Dehring Departs: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 25, 2015) - Cable & Wireless Communications , Plc (CWC) announced today that Chris Dehring, Chairman of LIME Jamaica and a member of the senior executive team, has decided to return to the forays of entrepreneurship after six transformative years with the Company, effective September 30, 2015. "On behalf of the Board of Directors and the management and staff of C&W, I want to thank Chris for his outstanding contributions to our business during his time with the Company," said Phil Bentley, C&W's CEO. "Chris has been a key leader in our business, spearheading the largest market in the Caribbean for over six years as Chairman, and building a solid foundation to drive growth and profitability in one of our most important markets. His outstanding reputation throughout the Caribbean and strategic acumen proved invaluable to the success of the merger with Columbus and we thank him for his leadership, and wish him well in his future endeavours," said Bentley. "On a personal note, I'd like to thank Chris for working so closely and effectively with me on gaining the support across the Caribbean for the acquisition of Columbus -- this has been a game changer for C&W!" added Bentley. Chris, who has an outstanding track record in business across the region, orchestrated new emergency legislation and the historic regulatory rulings that redressed the anomalies in the Jamaican telecommunications market, paving the way for the company to grow its mobile subscriber base from just over 200k to 900k currently. He was instrumental in reviving the LIME brand (now Flow), and business with innovative marketing and innovations such as LIME Skool Aid which continues today. Considered a maverick among his peers, Chris played a key role in the regulatory approval negotiations across the region to facilitate the successful merger with Columbus International Inc. Commenting on his tenure, the affable Chairman and Senior Vice President for Government and Regulatory Affairs, said, "It was an honour to serve with so many outstanding colleagues at Cable & Wireless Communications and to be able to close this remarkable era of my career by playing such an integral role in finalising what undoubtedly is a transformational merger with Columbus. Similar to the regulatory obstacles we overcame in Jamaica, there were massive regulatory hurdles with the merger, but I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to leverage my expertise and be a part of a US$3 billion dollar transaction spanning 42 countries. Coupled with the turnaround and upward trajectory of C&W in Jamaica and the Caribbean, I feel like my mission has been accomplished and it is time to move on to my next adventure!" Story continues Prior to joining C&W, Chris earned a solid reputation in Jamaica and across the Caribbean as a marketing specialist and entrepreneur. He was one of the founders of Jamaica's first investment bank and the Caribbean's first sports television cable channel, and as Managing Director & CEO, led the region in staging its first global sporting event -- the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007. About Cable & Wireless Communications: Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information please visit: www.cwc.com Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2894129 || Mission Accomplished -- CWC's Chris Dehring Departs: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 25, 2015) -Cable & Wireless Communications, Plc (CWC) announced today that Chris Dehring, Chairman of LIME Jamaica and a member of the senior executive team, has decided to return to the forays of entrepreneurship after six transformative years with the Company, effective September 30, 2015.
"On behalf of the Board of Directors and the management and staff of C&W, I want to thank Chris for his outstanding contributions to our business during his time with the Company," said Phil Bentley, C&W's CEO. "Chris has been a key leader in our business, spearheading the largest market in the Caribbean for over six years as Chairman, and building a solid foundation to drive growth and profitability in one of our most important markets. His outstanding reputation throughout the Caribbean and strategic acumen proved invaluable to the success of the merger with Columbus and we thank him for his leadership, and wish him well in his future endeavours," said Bentley.
"On a personal note, I'd like to thank Chris for working so closely and effectively with me on gaining the support across the Caribbean for the acquisition of Columbus -- this has been a game changer for C&W!" added Bentley.
Chris, who has an outstanding track record in business across the region, orchestrated new emergency legislation and the historic regulatory rulings that redressed the anomalies in the Jamaican telecommunications market, paving the way for the company to grow its mobile subscriber base from just over 200k to 900k currently. He was instrumental in reviving the LIME brand (now Flow), and business with innovative marketing and innovations such as LIME Skool Aid which continues today. Considered a maverick among his peers, Chris played a key role in the regulatory approval negotiations across the region to facilitate the successful merger with Columbus International Inc.
Commenting on his tenure, the affable Chairman and Senior Vice President for Government and Regulatory Affairs, said, "It was an honour to serve with so many outstanding colleagues at Cable & Wireless Communications and to be able to close this remarkable era of my career by playing such an integral role in finalising what undoubtedly is a transformational merger with Columbus. Similar to the regulatory obstacles we overcame in Jamaica, there were massive regulatory hurdles with the merger, but I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to leverage my expertise and be a part of a US$3 billion dollar transaction spanning 42 countries. Coupled with the turnaround and upward trajectory of C&W in Jamaica and the Caribbean, I feel like my mission has been accomplished and it is time to move on to my next adventure!"
Prior to joining C&W, Chris earned a solid reputation in Jamaica and across the Caribbean as a marketing specialist and entrepreneur. He was one of the founders of Jamaica's first investment bank and the Caribbean's first sports television cable channel, and as Managing Director & CEO, led the region in staging its first global sporting event -- the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America.
For more information please visit:www.cwc.com
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2894129 || How Bitcoins Have Evolved: CFTC Rules to Define Bitcoins as Commodities
Introduction of the bitcoin
The bitcoin, which made its debut in 2009, is often referred to as the world’s first decentralized digital currency, and it has the highest market capitalization when compared to its peers. Its invention is credited to Satoshi Nakamoto. Like other virtual currencies, bitcoins can be used as a form of payment.
Bitcoins are initially created by an activity known as mining, where a person who completes a specific online task is rewarded with bitcoins. As with any conventional currency, inflation affects bitcoins too, so a control process was set up so that the reward goes on decreasing over time for a work of similar difficulty. The major advantages of using bitcoin as a payment method includes anonymity, no taxes on sales through bitcoins, and low transaction costs.
Bitcoin price movements since inception
The Cyprus bailout in 2013 was a major break for bitcoins, as people tried to preserve their wealth before the bailout condition took effect by buying bitcoins. As a result, the bitcoin price nearly tripled in March 2013. After the Cyprus bailout, the bitcoin was trading nearly flat for some time, as virtual currencies like bitcoins were under the radar, as they began to be used for criminal activities.
The next major boost for the bitcoin came towards the end of 2013 with both the US Senate and the People’s Bank of China giving positive remarks about the virtual currency. This drove more investments, especially from China, as the bitcoin scaled all-time high levels in November 2013. In December 2013 however, the Chinese government took action to curb the increasing popularity of the bitcoin, as the official currency, the renminbi, was under pressure. The government banned financial institutions from the use of bitcoins.
After the Chinese governments’ measures, bitcoins failed to recover and have been on a downward trend since then. Part two of the series will look into the latest development in bitcoins with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) declaring bitcoins and other virtual currencies as commodities.
Market impact
Companies like WPCS International (WPCS) will be sensitive to updates on bitcoins, since they own a bitcoin trading platform. Other stocks that will be majorly impacted are pro bitcoin companies like Tesla Motors (TSLA), Zynga (ZNGA), and eBay (EBAY).
The registration process is ongoing for bitcoin ETFs with the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN) set to become the first bitcoin ETF if authorities approve it. The bitcoin ETF is expected to be similar to other commodity ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the United States Oil Fund ETF (USO), which deal with gold and crude oil, respectively.
Continue to Next Part
Browse this series on Market Realist:
• Part 2 - CFTC Rules Bitcoins Be Regarded as Commodity || How Bitcoins Have Evolved: CFTC Rules to Define Bitcoins as Commodities Introduction of the bitcoin The bitcoin, which made its debut in 2009, is often referred to as the worlds first decentralized digital currency, and it has the highest market capitalization when compared to its peers. Its invention is credited to Satoshi Nakamoto. Like other virtual currencies, bitcoins can be used as a form of payment. Bitcoins are initially created by an activity known as mining, where a person who completes a specific online task is rewarded with bitcoins. As with any conventional currency, inflation affects bitcoins too, so a control process was set up so that the reward goes on decreasing over time for a work of similar difficulty. The major advantages of using bitcoin as a payment method includes anonymity, no taxes on sales through bitcoins, and low transaction costs. Bitcoin price movements since inception The Cyprus bailout in 2013 was a major break for bitcoins, as people tried to preserve their wealth before the bailout condition took effect by buying bitcoins. As a result, the bitcoin price nearly tripled in March 2013. After the Cyprus bailout, the bitcoin was trading nearly flat for some time, as virtual currencies like bitcoins were under the radar, as they began to be used for criminal activities. The next major boost for the bitcoin came towards the end of 2013 with both the US Senate and the Peoples Bank of China giving positive remarks about the virtual currency. This drove more investments, especially from China, as the bitcoin scaled all-time high levels in November 2013. In December 2013 however, the Chinese government took action to curb the increasing popularity of the bitcoin, as the official currency, the renminbi, was under pressure. The government banned financial institutions from the use of bitcoins. After the Chinese governments measures, bitcoins failed to recover and have been on a downward trend since then. Part two of the series will look into the latest development in bitcoins with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) declaring bitcoins and other virtual currencies as commodities. Story continues Market impact Companies like WPCS International (WPCS) will be sensitive to updates on bitcoins, since they own a bitcoin trading platform. Other stocks that will be majorly impacted are pro bitcoin companies like Tesla Motors (TSLA), Zynga (ZNGA), and eBay (EBAY). The registration process is ongoing for bitcoin ETFs with the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN) set to become the first bitcoin ETF if authorities approve it. The bitcoin ETF is expected to be similar to other commodity ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the United States Oil Fund ETF (USO), which deal with gold and crude oil, respectively. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Part 2 - CFTC Rules Bitcoins Be Regarded as Commodity || How Bitcoins Have Evolved: CFTC Rules to Define Bitcoins as Commodities
Introduction of the bitcoin
The bitcoin, which made its debut in 2009, is often referred to as the world’s first decentralized digital currency, and it has the highest market capitalization when compared to its peers. Its invention is credited to Satoshi Nakamoto. Like other virtual currencies, bitcoins can be used as a form of payment.
Bitcoins are initially created by an activity known as mining, where a person who completes a specific online task is rewarded with bitcoins. As with any conventional currency, inflation affects bitcoins too, so a control process was set up so that the reward goes on decreasing over time for a work of similar difficulty. The major advantages of using bitcoin as a payment method includes anonymity, no taxes on sales through bitcoins, and low transaction costs.
Bitcoin price movements since inception
The Cyprus bailout in 2013 was a major break for bitcoins, as people tried to preserve their wealth before the bailout condition took effect by buying bitcoins. As a result, the bitcoin price nearly tripled in March 2013. After the Cyprus bailout, the bitcoin was trading nearly flat for some time, as virtual currencies like bitcoins were under the radar, as they began to be used for criminal activities.
The next major boost for the bitcoin came towards the end of 2013 with both the US Senate and the People’s Bank of China giving positive remarks about the virtual currency. This drove more investments, especially from China, as the bitcoin scaled all-time high levels in November 2013. In December 2013 however, the Chinese government took action to curb the increasing popularity of the bitcoin, as the official currency, the renminbi, was under pressure. The government banned financial institutions from the use of bitcoins.
After the Chinese governments’ measures, bitcoins failed to recover and have been on a downward trend since then. Part two of the series will look into the latest development in bitcoins with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) declaring bitcoins and other virtual currencies as commodities.
Market impact
Companies like WPCS International (WPCS) will be sensitive to updates on bitcoins, since they own a bitcoin trading platform. Other stocks that will be majorly impacted are pro bitcoin companies like Tesla Motors (TSLA), Zynga (ZNGA), and eBay (EBAY).
The registration process is ongoing for bitcoin ETFs with the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN) set to become the first bitcoin ETF if authorities approve it. The bitcoin ETF is expected to be similar to other commodity ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the United States Oil Fund ETF (USO), which deal with gold and crude oil, respectively.
Continue to Next Part
Browse this series on Market Realist:
• Part 2 - CFTC Rules Bitcoins Be Regarded as Commodity || Medical Marijuana May Help Transplant Patients: In recent years, the use case for marijuana for medicinal reasons has expanded exponentially. As the drug becomes widely accepted across the US, more research has been done to better understand the effects of marijuana on certain ailments. Everything from Alzheimer's to Epilepsy is said to benefit from the components of a marijuana plant and now a new study shows that the drug which has long disqualified patients from receiving a transplant could actually aid in their recovery. Mouse Study Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found that Tetrahyrodcannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana, may help to delay the rejection of organs in transplant patients. The study examined the effects of THC on mice that received skin grafts and found that those exposed to the drug were better able to accept a foreign graft. Related Link: Marijuana-Specific Doctors Can Make It Difficult To Take Medical Marijuana Seriously New Uses Based on this data, scientists believe that THC suppresses a patient's immune response, something that could prove beneficial for transplant patients or those struggling with other inflammatory diseases. For marijuana supporters, the data represents another reason why federal laws should be relaxed in order to make studies like this one more accessible. Still Some Concerns Much like many other studies touting the effectiveness of marijuana treatments, the scientists at the University of South Carolina cautioned that the results don't tell the whole story. So much is unknown about how marijuana affects the human body that the possibility of using THC in this capacity for humans any time soon is slim. However, it illuminates a new use case and will likely encourage researchers to continue finding ways to use marijuana components to fight illnesses and improve patients' quality of life. See more from Benzinga Netflix Viewing Stats Reveal That All Shows Aren't Created Equally Charlie Shrem Weighs In On Bitcoin From His Prison Cell China's Weakness Isn't All Bad © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Medical Marijuana May Help Transplant Patients: In recent years, the use case for marijuana for medicinal reasons has expanded exponentially. As the drug becomes widely accepted across the US, more research has been done to better understand the effects of marijuana on certain ailments.
Everything from Alzheimer's to Epilepsy is said to benefit from the components of a marijuana plant and now a newstudyshows that the drug which has long disqualified patients from receiving a transplant could actually aid in their recovery.
Mouse Study
Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found that Tetrahyrodcannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana, may help to delay the rejection of organs in transplant patients. The study examined the effects of THC on mice that received skin grafts and found that those exposed to the drug were better able to accept a foreign graft.
Related Link:Marijuana-Specific Doctors Can Make It Difficult To Take Medical Marijuana Seriously
New Uses
Based on this data, scientists believe that THC suppresses a patient's immune response, something that could prove beneficial for transplant patients or those struggling with other inflammatory diseases. For marijuana supporters, the data represents another reason why federal laws should be relaxed in order to make studies like this one more accessible.
Still Some Concerns
Much like many other studies touting the effectiveness of marijuana treatments, the scientists at the University of South Carolina cautioned that the results don't tell the whole story. So much is unknown about how marijuana affects the human body that the possibility of using THC in this capacity for humans any time soon is slim. However, it illuminates a new use case and will likely encourage researchers to continue finding ways to use marijuana components to fight illnesses and improve patients' quality of life.
See more from Benzinga
• Netflix Viewing Stats Reveal That All Shows Aren't Created Equally
• Charlie Shrem Weighs In On Bitcoin From His Prison Cell
• China's Weakness Isn't All Bad
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || What Oil Recovery?: Oil prices have been on the decline this year as the global supply glut continues to weigh on markets. Despite some signs of falling production, most analysts still see a relatively gloomy future for the commodity in the near term, but long-term investors are looking for a bottom in order to find some bargain buys within the sector.
Where Are Prices Headed
A survey by theWall Street Journalshowed that analysts are becoming increasingly bearish on the price of oil through 2016. The 13 investment banks questioned all cut their average forecast for Brent crude oil in the coming year by about $9. The banks said they see both Brent and WTI prices remaining below $60 well into the coming year.
Who Survived?
While oil producers have taken a beating this year, refiners likeValero Energy Corporation(NYSE:VLO) andPhillips 66(NYSE:PSX) may have actually benefited from lower crude prices. Not only did the commodity's downward trajectory increase their margins, but the demand for cheaper refined products like diesel increased as consumers felt more comfortable driving further and purchasing higher consumption vehicles like SUV's and trucks.
What About The Long Term?
While most analysts agree that 2016 isn't looking much brighter for crude, they also say that oil won't be down in the dumps forever. The ultra low prices seen in today's market are unsustainable, and producers are already starting to feel the burn.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration has shown that U.S. production is on the decline and many expect it to continue that way until prices improve. It may take awhile, but many investors are betting that oil will make its way back toward $70 and $80 per barrel in the longer term.
See more from Benzinga
• What To Expect From Xi Jinping's Visit To The US
• New Website Could Become The Playboy Of Pot
• Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || What Oil Recovery?: Oil prices have been on the decline this year as the global supply glut continues to weigh on markets. Despite some signs of falling production, most analysts still see a relatively gloomy future for the commodity in the near term, but long-term investors are looking for a bottom in order to find some bargain buys within the sector. Where Are Prices Headed A survey by the Wall Street Journal showed that analysts are becoming increasingly bearish on the price of oil through 2016. The 13 investment banks questioned all cut their average forecast for Brent crude oil in the coming year by about $9. The banks said they see both Brent and WTI prices remaining below $60 well into the coming year. Who Survived? While oil producers have taken a beating this year, refiners like Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO ) and Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX ) may have actually benefited from lower crude prices. Not only did the commodity's downward trajectory increase their margins, but the demand for cheaper refined products like diesel increased as consumers felt more comfortable driving further and purchasing higher consumption vehicles like SUV's and trucks. What About The Long Term? While most analysts agree that 2016 isn't looking much brighter for crude, they also say that oil won't be down in the dumps forever. The ultra low prices seen in today's market are unsustainable, and producers are already starting to feel the burn. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration has shown that U.S. production is on the decline and many expect it to continue that way until prices improve. It may take awhile, but many investors are betting that oil will make its way back toward $70 and $80 per barrel in the longer term. See more from Benzinga What To Expect From Xi Jinping's Visit To The US New Website Could Become The Playboy Of Pot Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New Website Could Become The Playboy Of Pot: This week, the marijuana industry saw rapper Snoop Dogg announce a new marijuana lifestyle platform called Merry Jane. Snoop unveiled his intentions while joking about the marijuana culture and promising to feature smoking celebrities recounting their first pot experiences.
While the site is likely to appeal to college students and even young adults who are a part of the marijuana culture that Snoop Dogg represents, it will do little to draw in thousands of other users like the elderly, working professionals and athletes.
Civilized Pot
EnterCivilized. On Tuesday, startup Saint Johns Revolution Strategy launched a new website called Civilized which targets marijuana's "high brow" users. The company's founder and publisher Derek Riedlesaidthat the site's style is designed to appeal to the underserved pot market-- working professionals who aren't defined by marijuana usage, but enjoy its effects to relax or be creative.
Related Link:Is Snoop Dogg's Marijuana Platform Good For The Industry?
Transforming Pot Perceptions
The site includes pertinent topics relating to marijuana, but also encompasses broader lifestyle topics. Riedle wants the site to attract people based on their other interests as well, so it will include topics that may appeal to business people, teachers and athletes who happen to smoke marijuana in their free time.
While marijuana-related sites are a dime-a-dozen at the moment, Civilized is hoping to appeal to an undeserved part of the marijuana movement. Some have likened the company's mission to that of Playboy, saying it takes something considered taboo or indecent and normalizes it.
Funding
So far, Civilized has gained the backing of 14 angel investors and is expected to continue growing once the content is monetized. At the moment, the stories are free, but Riedle is planning to support the site through advertising in the future.
See more from Benzinga
• Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution
• European Investments, Greek Bonds Beginning To Look More Attractive
• U.S. Firms Brace For EU Ruling That Could Change The Way They Do Business
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New Website Could Become The Playboy Of Pot: This week, the marijuana industry saw rapper Snoop Dogg announce a new marijuana lifestyle platform called Merry Jane. Snoop unveiled his intentions while joking about the marijuana culture and promising to feature smoking celebrities recounting their first pot experiences. While the site is likely to appeal to college students and even young adults who are a part of the marijuana culture that Snoop Dogg represents, it will do little to draw in thousands of other users like the elderly, working professionals and athletes. Civilized Pot Enter Civilized . On Tuesday, startup Saint Johns Revolution Strategy launched a new website called Civilized which targets marijuana's "high brow" users. The company's founder and publisher Derek Riedle said that the site's style is designed to appeal to the underserved pot market-- working professionals who aren't defined by marijuana usage, but enjoy its effects to relax or be creative. Related Link: Is Snoop Dogg's Marijuana Platform Good For The Industry? Transforming Pot Perceptions The site includes pertinent topics relating to marijuana, but also encompasses broader lifestyle topics. Riedle wants the site to attract people based on their other interests as well, so it will include topics that may appeal to business people, teachers and athletes who happen to smoke marijuana in their free time. While marijuana-related sites are a dime-a-dozen at the moment, Civilized is hoping to appeal to an undeserved part of the marijuana movement. Some have likened the company's mission to that of Playboy, saying it takes something considered taboo or indecent and normalizes it. Funding So far, Civilized has gained the backing of 14 angel investors and is expected to continue growing once the content is monetized. At the moment, the stories are free, but Riedle is planning to support the site through advertising in the future. See more from Benzinga Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution European Investments, Greek Bonds Beginning To Look More Attractive U.S. Firms Brace For EU Ruling That Could Change The Way They Do Business © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution: Bitcoin has been slow to catch on across the globe as uncertainty about safety and security has kept the general public from embracing the cryptocurrency. However, many businesses are preparing themselves for a day when cryptocurrencies are widely accepted as such a time may not be far off in the future.
Bank of America Corp(NYSE:BAC) is one such firm, which has seen the potential of using bitcoin to improve its operations.
Patent Application
On September 17, Bank of Americasubmitteda patent application for the use of bitcoin in order to facilitate international money transfers. The bank is not the first to see bitcoin as a game-changer when it comes to cross border payments. At the moment, sending money to an account abroad is time consuming and costly, but using bitcoin for the same transaction would significantly reduce the time spent and fees charged as the cryptocurrency eliminates the need for a third party intermediary.
Related Link: Bitcoin Gaining Traction At Colleges Around The World
Bitcoin Catching On
Bank of America's application is the first from a major retail bank, suggesting that bitcoin may finally be shedding its "dangerous" image. However, this is not the first time a big name firm has applied for a bitcoin-related patent,Mastercard Inc(NYSE:MA),International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) andAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) have all applied for patents to protect their own proposed usage of the cryptocurrency.
Patents Criticized
Some within the bitcoin community have been critical of companies like Bank of America and bitcoin firm Coinbase, which recently applied for bitcoin patents. As bitcoin was designed to be an open source software that works around traditional financial models, many believe that patenting bitcoin systems goes against the purpose of digital currencies. However, others say it is a necessary step for businesses that want to get into the space and if one firm doesn't patent something, another eventually will.
See more from Benzinga
• Fed Could Raise Rates In September: What Does It Mean?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution: Bitcoin has been slow to catch on across the globe as uncertainty about safety and security has kept the general public from embracing the cryptocurrency. However, many businesses are preparing themselves for a day when cryptocurrencies are widely accepted as such a time may not be far off in the future. Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC ) is one such firm, which has seen the potential of using bitcoin to improve its operations. Patent Application On September 17, Bank of America submitted a patent application for the use of bitcoin in order to facilitate international money transfers. The bank is not the first to see bitcoin as a game-changer when it comes to cross border payments. At the moment, sending money to an account abroad is time consuming and costly, but using bitcoin for the same transaction would significantly reduce the time spent and fees charged as the cryptocurrency eliminates the need for a third party intermediary. Related Link: B itcoin Gaining Traction At Colleges Around The World Bitcoin Catching On Bank of America's application is the first from a major retail bank, suggesting that bitcoin may finally be shedding its "dangerous" image. However, this is not the first time a big name firm has applied for a bitcoin-related patent, Mastercard Inc (NYSE: MA ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) have all applied for patents to protect their own proposed usage of the cryptocurrency. Patents Criticized Some within the bitcoin community have been critical of companies like Bank of America and bitcoin firm Coinbase, which recently applied for bitcoin patents. As bitcoin was designed to be an open source software that works around traditional financial models, many believe that patenting bitcoin systems goes against the purpose of digital currencies. However, others say it is a necessary step for businesses that want to get into the space and if one firm doesn't patent something, another eventually will. Story continues See more from Benzinga Fed Could Raise Rates In September: What Does It Mean? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution: Bitcoin has been slow to catch on across the globe as uncertainty about safety and security has kept the general public from embracing the cryptocurrency. However, many businesses are preparing themselves for a day when cryptocurrencies are widely accepted as such a time may not be far off in the future.
Bank of America Corp(NYSE:BAC) is one such firm, which has seen the potential of using bitcoin to improve its operations.
Patent Application
On September 17, Bank of Americasubmitteda patent application for the use of bitcoin in order to facilitate international money transfers. The bank is not the first to see bitcoin as a game-changer when it comes to cross border payments. At the moment, sending money to an account abroad is time consuming and costly, but using bitcoin for the same transaction would significantly reduce the time spent and fees charged as the cryptocurrency eliminates the need for a third party intermediary.
Related Link: Bitcoin Gaining Traction At Colleges Around The World
Bitcoin Catching On
Bank of America's application is the first from a major retail bank, suggesting that bitcoin may finally be shedding its "dangerous" image. However, this is not the first time a big name firm has applied for a bitcoin-related patent,Mastercard Inc(NYSE:MA),International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) andAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) have all applied for patents to protect their own proposed usage of the cryptocurrency.
Patents Criticized
Some within the bitcoin community have been critical of companies like Bank of America and bitcoin firm Coinbase, which recently applied for bitcoin patents. As bitcoin was designed to be an open source software that works around traditional financial models, many believe that patenting bitcoin systems goes against the purpose of digital currencies. However, others say it is a necessary step for businesses that want to get into the space and if one firm doesn't patent something, another eventually will.
See more from Benzinga
• Fed Could Raise Rates In September: What Does It Mean?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || MarilynJean Media Interactive (OTCQB:MJMI) Today Announced Cancellation of Over 100,000,000 Convertible Preferred Shares: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 22, 2015 / MarilynJean Media Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced cancellation of over 100,000,000 convertible preferred shares representing over 35% of its fully diluted share total. As previously disclosed, on March 28, 2013, we acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding common shares of MarilynJean Media Inc.. Pursuant to that transaction, 106,651,250 Exchangeable Preferred Shares were issued. These were convertible into common shares of our Company on a one-for-one basis. On September 22, 2015 all 106,651,250 Exchangeable Preferred Shares were cancelled and returned to treasury, pursuant to Return to Treasury Agreements entered into with the holders of these shares. The shareholders agreed to cancel the shares and return them to treasury, in consideration for the issuance of promissory notes in the aggregate amount of $226,756. The promissory notes are due and payable upon our company completing a financing for gross proceeds of not less than $375,000. The cancelled shares represent 35.4% of the Company's fully diluted share total. Peter Janosi, MJMIs president said: With the cancellation of a significant portion of the Company's fully diluted share total, we believe we have dramatically increased the companys options for financing and growth. MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships with several existing Bitcoin and crypto-currency exchanges as well as manufacturers and operators of Bitcoin ATMs. Such a combination would place the company in an exciting position to offer an end to end solution for trading in various crypto-currencies and potentially capture a share of the lucrative markets of Bitcoin trading and remittance services, just as these markets appear poised to undergo massive growth. About Bitcoin and Crypto-Currencies Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. Story continues Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group, is quoted on his company's website as saying: I have invested in Bitcoin because I believe in its potential, the capacity it has to transform global payments is very exciting. Heavyweight investment bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), announced on April 30th 2015 that it had partnered with Chinese investment firm IDG Capital partners to invest $50 million in a Bitcoin start-up. Numerous high-profile firms have begun accepting Bitcoin as a payment method including: Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH), Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK). MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focussed on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is OTCQB:MJMI. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: [email protected] SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || MarilynJean Media Interactive (OTCQB:MJMI) Today Announced Cancellation of Over 100,000,000 Convertible Preferred Shares: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 22, 2015 /MarilynJean Media Interactive (MJMI) today announced cancellation of over 100,000,000 convertible preferred shares representing over 35% of its fully diluted share total.
As previously disclosed, on March 28, 2013, we acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding common shares of MarilynJean Media Inc.. Pursuant to that transaction, 106,651,250 Exchangeable Preferred Shares were issued. These were convertible into common shares of our Company on a one-for-one basis.
On September 22, 2015 all 106,651,250 Exchangeable Preferred Shares were cancelled and returned to treasury, pursuant to Return to Treasury Agreements entered into with the holders of these shares. The shareholders agreed to cancel the shares and return them to treasury, in consideration for the issuance of promissory notes in the aggregate amount of $226,756. The promissory notes are due and payable upon our company completing a financing for gross proceeds of not less than $375,000. The cancelled shares represent 35.4% of the Company's fully diluted share total.
Peter Janosi, MJMIs president said: With the cancellation of a significant portion of the Company's fully diluted share total, we believe we have dramatically increased the companys options for financing and growth.
MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies.
MJMI is currently exploring partnerships with several existing Bitcoin and crypto-currency exchanges as well as manufacturers and operators of Bitcoin ATMs. Such a combination would place the company in an exciting position to offer an end to end solution for trading in various crypto-currencies and potentially capture a share of the lucrative markets of Bitcoin trading and remittance services, just as these markets appear poised to undergo massive growth.
About Bitcoin and Crypto-Currencies
Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence.
Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group, is quoted on his company's website as saying: I have invested in Bitcoin because I believe in its potential, the capacity it has to transform global payments is very exciting.
Heavyweight investment bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), announced on April 30th 2015 that it had partnered with Chinese investment firm IDG Capital partners to invest $50 million in a Bitcoin start-up. Numerous high-profile firms have begun accepting Bitcoin as a payment method including: Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH), Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK).
MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focussed on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is OTCQB:MJMI.
Website:www.marilynjean.comPress Contact:[email protected]
SOURCE:MarilynJean Media Interactive || Is Snoop Dogg's Marijuana Platform Good For The Industry?: Snoop Dogg's persona has long been synonymous with marijuana as the 43-year-old has always been open about his drug use, even before the drug became legal. However, with the marijuana industry growing rapidly and many trying to spread awareness of the drug's medical benefits, some wonder if icons like Snoop Dogg are good for the industry.
Merry Jane
On Monday, Snoop Doggannouncedplans to create a pot-lifestyle platform called Merry Jane. The site will include news and information about marijuana and is intended to give marijuana enthusiasts a dedicated place to share and read about their hobby. When describing the website, Snoop Dogg said he intends to include cooking tutorials, celebrity appearances and even business advice for gangaprenuers.
Related Link:Marijuana Posts A Major Win On The Campaign Trail
A Good Move?
While Snoop's website will likely appeal to a large number of the nation's pot users, some worry that it sends the wrong message at a time when marijuana needs to be taken seriously.
With the 2016 elections coming up, many in the marijuana industry are worried about how a change to the administration could affect their business. Some of the candidates have pledged to reverse decisions regarding pot laws, while others have said they are uncertain about relaxing cannabis laws at a federal level. In order for the marijuana industry to continue growing, federal laws labeling marijuana as a dangerous, criminal substance need to change.
One argument for marijuana has been widespread acceptance as more and more people come out in support of the drug. That acceptance has changed the portrait of an average pot smoker from a teenage burnout to an elderly pain patient or a working professional. Such shifts in perception are necessary, some say, in order to convince policy-makers in Washington to take the drug seriously.
See more from Benzinga
• 21 Inc's Bitcoin Computer Seeks To Redefine The Internet
• Apple Moves Forward On Auto Plans
• Forget The 2016 Election Candidates, CEOs Are Driving Change
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Snoop Dogg's Marijuana Platform Good For The Industry?: Snoop Dogg's persona has long been synonymous with marijuana as the 43-year-old has always been open about his drug use, even before the drug became legal. However, with the marijuana industry growing rapidly and many trying to spread awareness of the drug's medical benefits, some wonder if icons like Snoop Dogg are good for the industry. Merry Jane On Monday, Snoop Dogg announced plans to create a pot-lifestyle platform called Merry Jane. The site will include news and information about marijuana and is intended to give marijuana enthusiasts a dedicated place to share and read about their hobby. When describing the website, Snoop Dogg said he intends to include cooking tutorials, celebrity appearances and even business advice for gangaprenuers. Related Link: Marijuana Posts A Major Win On The Campaign Trail A Good Move? While Snoop's website will likely appeal to a large number of the nation's pot users, some worry that it sends the wrong message at a time when marijuana needs to be taken seriously. With the 2016 elections coming up, many in the marijuana industry are worried about how a change to the administration could affect their business. Some of the candidates have pledged to reverse decisions regarding pot laws, while others have said they are uncertain about relaxing cannabis laws at a federal level. In order for the marijuana industry to continue growing, federal laws labeling marijuana as a dangerous, criminal substance need to change. One argument for marijuana has been widespread acceptance as more and more people come out in support of the drug. That acceptance has changed the portrait of an average pot smoker from a teenage burnout to an elderly pain patient or a working professional. Such shifts in perception are necessary, some say, in order to convince policy-makers in Washington to take the drug seriously. See more from Benzinga 21 Inc's Bitcoin Computer Seeks To Redefine The Internet Apple Moves Forward On Auto Plans Forget The 2016 Election Candidates, CEOs Are Driving Change © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Texan pleads guilty to running bitcoin Ponzi scheme: By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Texas man accused of operating a Ponzi scheme involving bitcoins pleaded guilty on Monday in what prosecutors say was the first U.S. criminal securities fraud case related to the digital currency. Trendon Shavers, who authorities said defrauded investors after raising more than $4.5 million worth of bitcoins while operating Bitcoin Savings and Trust, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one count of securities fraud. "I know what I did was wrong, and I'm very sorry," Shavers said in court. Under a plea deal, Shavers has agreed not to appeal any sentence at or below 41 months in prison. Sentencing before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan is scheduled for Feb. 3. Shavers, who went by "pirateat40" online, was arrested in November, two months after a federal judge in Texas ordered him to pay $40.7 million in a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit. Prosecutors said Shavers, who turned 33 on Monday, raised at least 764,000 bitcoins worth more than $4.5 million based on the average price of bitcoin during the period of the scheme from investors from September 2011 to September 2012. He promised interest rates of 7 percent per week or 3,641 percent a year. The indictment said Shavers solicited the investments on the website Bitcoin Forum, offering to pay interest to investors who loaned bitcoins to Bitcoin Savings and Trust while he pursued a market arbitrage strategy. Michael Ferrara, a prosecutor, in court on Monday said Shavers had invested some of the bitcoins with Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Tokoyo-based bitcoin exchange. But Ferrara said Shavers, who lived in McKinney, Texas, largely instead used new investors' bitcoins to pay back prior investors. "In other words, he had the telltale signs of a Ponzi scheme," Ferrara said. In court papers, prosecutors had also accused Shavers of misappropriating bitcoins to buy a used BMW M5 sedan and a $1,000 steakhouse dinner in Las Vegas, and to go to spas and casinos. Story continues At the peak of the scheme, Shavers controlled about 7 percent of bitcoins in public circulation, prosecutors said. In total, prosecutors said he misappropriated 146,000 bitcoins and caused 48 investors to suffer losses. The case is U.S. v. Shavers, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00157. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) || Texan pleads guilty to running bitcoin Ponzi scheme: By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Texas man accused of operating a Ponzi scheme involving bitcoins pleaded guilty on Monday in what prosecutors say was the first U.S. criminal securities fraud case related to the digital currency. Trendon Shavers, who authorities said defrauded investors after raising more than $4.5 million worth of bitcoins while operating Bitcoin Savings and Trust, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one count of securities fraud. "I know what I did was wrong, and I'm very sorry," Shavers said in court. Under a plea deal, Shavers has agreed not to appeal any sentence at or below 41 months in prison. Sentencing before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan is scheduled for Feb. 3. Shavers, who went by "pirateat40" online, was arrested in November, two months after a federal judge in Texas ordered him to pay $40.7 million in a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit. Prosecutors said Shavers, who turned 33 on Monday, raised at least 764,000 bitcoins worth more than $4.5 million based on the average price of bitcoin during the period of the scheme from investors from September 2011 to September 2012. He promised interest rates of 7 percent per week or 3,641 percent a year. The indictment said Shavers solicited the investments on the website Bitcoin Forum, offering to pay interest to investors who loaned bitcoins to Bitcoin Savings and Trust while he pursued a market arbitrage strategy. Michael Ferrara, a prosecutor, in court on Monday said Shavers had invested some of the bitcoins with Mt. Gox, the now-defunct Tokoyo-based bitcoin exchange. But Ferrara said Shavers, who lived in McKinney, Texas, largely instead used new investors' bitcoins to pay back prior investors. "In other words, he had the telltale signs of a Ponzi scheme," Ferrara said. In court papers, prosecutors had also accused Shavers of misappropriating bitcoins to buy a used BMW M5 sedan and a $1,000 steakhouse dinner in Las Vegas, and to go to spas and casinos. Story continues At the peak of the scheme, Shavers controlled about 7 percent of bitcoins in public circulation, prosecutors said. In total, prosecutors said he misappropriated 146,000 bitcoins and caused 48 investors to suffer losses. The case is U.S. v. Shavers, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00157. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
[Social Media Buzz]
#RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $9.0E-6 per #reddcoin
20:15:00 || [Bitcoin] Bitcoin and United States Dollar: 0.0100 BTC = 2.34 USD
1.00 USD = 0.0043 BTCConverter #YAF || Current price: 206.69€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-27 08:00:06 CEST || RT Finanzabolsillo: josepimpo mañana nos visita con todo lo relacionado a #Bitcoin a las 19:00
http://www.podermexico.com
BitsoMx
#Fintech || LIVE: Profit = $62.22 (1.41 %). BUY B18.90 @ $233.00 (#BTCe). SEL...
|
239.14, 236.69, 236.06, 237.55, 237.29, 238.73, 238.26, 240.38, 246.06, 242.97
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 313.86, 328.02, 314.17, 325.43, 361.19, 403.42, 411.56, 386.35, 374.47, 386.48, 373.37, 380.26, 336.82, 311.08, 338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17, 330.75, 335.09, 334.59, 326.15, 322.02, 326.93, 324.54, 323.05, 320.05, 328.21, 352.68, 358.04, 357.38, 371.29, 377.32, 362.49, 359.19, 361.05, 363.18, 388.95, 388.78, 395.54, 415.56, 417.56, 415.48, 451.94, 435.00, 433.76, 444.18, 465.32, 454.93, 456.08, 463.62, 462.32, 442.68, 438.64, 436.57, 442.40, 454.98, 455.65, 417.27, 422.82, 422.28, 432.98, 426.62, 430.57, 434.33, 433.44, 430.01, 433.09, 431.96, 429.11, 458.05, 453.23, 447.61, 447.99, 448.43, 435.69, 432.37, 430.31, 364.33, 387.54, 382.30, 387.17, 380.15, 420.23, 410.26, 382.49, 387.49, 402.97, 391.73, 392.15.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-01-26]
Volume: 58147000, RSI (14-day): 44.60, 50-day EMA: 406.73, 200-day EMA: 340.73
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1121.70, Gold RSI: 62.91
Oil Price: 31.45, Oil RSI: 44.72
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Australia's ASX invests in blockchain to simplify markets: SYDNEY (Reuters) - Markets operator ASX Ltd on Friday said it has made a minority investment in U.S.-based Digital Asset Holdings to develop distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, to potentially simplify Australias post-trade equity market. Blockchain technology, pioneered by Bitcoin, maintains a continuously growing list of transaction data which cannot be tampered with or revised. ASX paid A$14.9 million ($10.43 million) for a 5.0 percent equity interest in Digital Asset along with funding an initial phase of development and acquiring a warrant that will give it the right to purchase further equity and appoint a director to the board. ASX will work with Digital Asset to design a new post-trade solution for the Australian equity market, it said in a statement on Friday. Over the past year, interest in blockchain technology has grown rapidly. It has already attracted significant investment from many major banks, which reckon it could save them money by making their operations faster, more efficient and more transparent. (Reporting by Swati Pandey) || Australia's ASX invests in blockchain to simplify markets: SYDNEY (Reuters) - Markets operator ASX Ltd on Friday said it has made a minority investment in U.S.-based Digital Asset Holdings to develop distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, to potentially simplify Australias post-trade equity market. Blockchain technology, pioneered by Bitcoin, maintains a continuously growing list of transaction data which cannot be tampered with or revised. ASX paid A$14.9 million ($10.43 million) for a 5.0 percent equity interest in Digital Asset along with funding an initial phase of development and acquiring a warrant that will give it the right to purchase further equity and appoint a director to the board. ASX will work with Digital Asset to design a new post-trade solution for the Australian equity market, it said in a statement on Friday. Over the past year, interest in blockchain technology has grown rapidly. It has already attracted significant investment from many major banks, which reckon it could save them money by making their operations faster, more efficient and more transparent. (Reporting by Swati Pandey) || Cybersecurity A Hot Topic At Davos: Cybersecurity has been a hot-button issue in both the public and private sectors over the past year after a spate of hacking attacks left several companies in jeopardy and illustrated that the U.S. government is struggling to keep pace with hackers. With concerns about cyber-terrorism ramping up in the wake of several terror strikes around the world, the Word Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has become a battle ground for world leaders and tech firms to discuss how to protect each nation's security without compromising customers' privacy, according to the Wall Street Journal. Data Tug Of War Government officials are pushing tech firms like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR ) to make their data more accessible in order to give law enforcement better surveillance options. Related Link: Bitcoin Makes An Appearance At Davos They argue current encryption processes make it impossible for the firms to give officials access to communications that could be essential in preventing further terror attacks. However, tech firms say that making data more accessible would land them in a difficult position, as it makes customer data more accessible to everyone, not just law enforcement. Brad Smith, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT )'s chief legal officer said that loosening encryption could violate customer privacy laws in the United States, causing tech firms to choose which laws they want to break in order to comply with government requests. Making Customers Happy Companies like Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) have ramped up their privacy protection in the years since U.S. contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents detailing the Untied States' widespread surveillance practices. Since that time, many consumers have become much more conscious about their privacy protection, and companies like Google and Apple have responded by using encryption that even they don't have the keys to. Story continues Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Apple Moves Into India Twitter Begins The Year On A Low Are Share Repurchases On The Horizon? © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cybersecurity A Hot Topic At Davos: Cybersecurity has been a hot-button issue in both the public and private sectors over the past year after a spate of hacking attacks left several companies in jeopardy and illustrated that the U.S. government is struggling to keep pace with hackers.
With concerns about cyber-terrorism ramping up in the wake of several terror strikes around the world, the Word Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has become abattle groundfor world leaders and tech firms to discuss how to protect each nation's security without compromising customers' privacy, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Data Tug Of War
Government officials are pushing tech firms likeFacebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) andTwitter Inc(NYSE:TWTR) to make their data more accessible in order to give law enforcement better surveillance options.
Related Link:Bitcoin Makes An Appearance At Davos
They argue current encryption processes make it impossible for the firms to give officials access to communications that could be essential in preventing further terror attacks.
However, tech firms say that making data more accessible would land them in a difficult position, as it makes customer data more accessible to everyone, not just law enforcement. Brad Smith,Microsoft Corporation(NASDAQ:MSFT)'s chief legal officer said that loosening encryption could violate customer privacy laws in the United States, causing tech firms to choose which laws they want to break in order to comply with government requests.
Making Customers Happy
Companies likeAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) andApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) have ramped up their privacy protection in the years since U.S. contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents detailing the Untied States' widespread surveillance practices. Since that time, many consumers have become much more conscious about their privacy protection, and companies like Google and Apple have responded by using encryption that even they don't have the keys to.
Image Credit:Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Apple Moves Into India
• Twitter Begins The Year On A Low
• Are Share Repurchases On The Horizon?
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have had a lot of negative attention over the past year, as several hacking attacks and scams have painted the coins as an unsafe way to make transactions. However, blockchain, the ledger-like system that bitcoin runs on, has received a great deal of praise across several industries that say the technology has the potential to completely reform the way they do business. This is especially true in the financial space, where banks say that although they are still wary of bitcoin transactions, incorporating blockchain into their operations could actually improve their businesses. Related Link: Now You Can Play The Lottery With Bitcoin Cross-Border Payments One way blockchain could improve the financial industry is by improving the way banks make cross-border transactions. The current system is cumbersome and takes a great deal of time and effort for both the sending and receiving bank. This process has made it difficult for banks to interact with one another from country to country, but incorporating blockchain could change all of that. The ledger system would streamline cross-border payments and take out much of the administrative work associated with processing international transactions. Closer To Integration From January 11 to January 15, several major banks began testing whether blockchain could be used in this way and the results looked promising, according to the Wall Street Journal. Eleven different banks were able to use a private blockchain in order to exchange tokens across several continents. The test included big name financial institutions like Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE: BCS ), Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR) (NYSE: CS ) and Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC ), and it is expected to pave the way for future blockchain investments. While this initial test provided only a small snapshot of what blockchain is capable of, many believe that its success will push banks to continue testing the technology and eventually put it into practice. Story continues See more from Benzinga Top 5 Losers When The Fed Raises Rates © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have had a lot of negative attention over the past year, as several hacking attacks and scams have painted the coins as an unsafe way to make transactions.
However, blockchain, the ledger-like system that bitcoin runs on, has received a great deal of praise across several industries that say the technology has the potential to completely reform the way they do business. This is especially true in the financial space, where banks say that although they are still wary of bitcoin transactions, incorporating blockchain into their operations could actually improve their businesses.
Related Link:Now You Can Play The Lottery With Bitcoin
Cross-Border Payments
One way blockchain could improve the financial industry is by improving the way banks make cross-border transactions.
The current system is cumbersome and takes a great deal of time and effort for both the sending and receiving bank. This process has made it difficult for banks to interact with one another from country to country, but incorporating blockchain could change all of that. The ledger system would streamline cross-border payments and take out much of the administrative work associated with processing international transactions.
Closer To Integration
From January 11 to January 15, several major banks begantestingwhether blockchain could be used in this way and the results looked promising, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Eleven different banks were able to use a private blockchain in order to exchange tokens across several continents. The test included big name financial institutions likeBarclays PLC (ADR)(NYSE:BCS),Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR)(NYSE:CS) andWells Fargo & Co(NYSE:WFC), and it is expected to pave the way for future blockchain investments. While this initial test provided only a small snapshot of what blockchain is capable of, many believe that its success will push banks to continue testing the technology and eventually put it into practice.
See more from Benzinga
• Top 5 Losers When The Fed Raises Rates
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its leading news outlet: There is one trade publication in the digital currency industry that every mainstream news outlet knows well, and cites regularly in stories about bitcoin:CoinDesk. It is a source of news about bitcoin investments, price spikes or crashes, and executive hires, and it is a regular destination for journalists who write about bitcoin (as well as for bitcoin enthusiasts who don't get paid to write about the currency).
Last week, CoinDesk reported some newsabout itself. The website has been bought by Digital Currency Group, the investment firm of Barry Silbert, who in 2004 founded SecondMarket, which allows for the trading of private-company stock. He sold the platform to Nasdaq (NDAQ) last year. This is DCG's first full acquisition; it did not disclose the sale price, but sources tell Yahoo Finance it was around $750,000.
DCG has invested in 60 different digital currency companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of the venture capital in the industry. You might think that creates an obvious conflict of interest here. Silbert owning CoinDesk is like Red Sox co-owner John Henry buying the Boston Globe (which actually happened), or Peyton Manning buying the Denver Post, or Donald Trump buying Politico.
But Ryan Selkis, the DCG executive who will oversee business at CoinDesk for the time being, insists that won't be a problem. Nonetheless, he says the possibility did concern him at first.
The subject of changing ownership at a bitcoin news site may seem like granular inside-baseball, but it is significant when viewed in the context of ongoing fears about who owns the media. From NewsCorp to Bloomberg to recent changes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it is a topic on the minds of both journalists and their readers.
Is bitcoin's primary news site selling to bitcoin's biggest investment firm another piece of bad news for the industry? Selkis, DCG's director of growth, spoke to Yahoo Finance about that question and about DCG's plans for the site. What follows is an edited transcript.
Yahoo Finance:Before we get into CoinDesk, what was your take on the fallout from Mike Hearn's post last week? [Hearn, a bitcoin developer,declaredthat bitcoin had "failed" and that he was leaving the industry; it resulted in a media firestorm.]
Ryan Selkis:I won’t comment on the theatrics of it. I will say that Mike Hearn was one of the really solid developers, he’s contributed a good chunk of his life and energy into making bitcoin what it is today, so, style aside, there’s not a whole lot people can say to critique his overall contribution to the industry. But this [ongoing debateover the size of blocks, or bundles of transactions, recorded on bitcoin's public ledger] is more of a governance issue than it is a bitcoin issue, in terms of how this will get resolved. I think it will get resolved. But the governance of the overall project needs to be better.
What was DCG's approach to buying CoinDesk, what were the considerations?
The first priority we had when we considered this acquistion, my main hesitation, was whether we’d be able to preserve CoinDesk’s editorial independence. And it’s why I’m working with the team full-time now on operating activities. We are going to create both informational and physical barriers between the editorial team and Digital Currency Group. From a policy standpoint, I’ve recused myself from all investing activity at DCG. I was its director of investments; I have completely transitioned away from that and now I’m director of growth.
How does handling growth for DCG pertain to CoinDesk?
In this particular instance it means making sure we have a smooth transition post-acquisition. We’re combining two teams. We’ve kept all the CoinDesk employees and our plan is to continue to employ everyone that came over, hopefully for a long time. But we also have a professional events team we’ve been working with that were already in the midst of planning a large conference in May, and now we’re merging those two teams to plan one event, Consensus 2016. So now everyone, with the exception of myself, is a CoinDesk employee. And functionally, I’m full time with the CoinDesk team.
So how are you separating CoinDesk from DCG?
We are physically relocating offices to a different part of Manhattan. So the CoinDesk folks are not going to be sitting right next to our Genesis [a broker dealer that is another DCG subsidiary] trading team or our investment team, which has proprietary information on how 60 or so bitcoin companies that we are invested in are performing.
What if CoinDesk is now afraid to write bad news about companies DCG is invested in? Or it could go the other way: Will CoinDesk start getting all the scoops on DCG companies?
On the latter point, I’m not concerned because even before this, CoinDesk had established itself as a clear industry leader in terms of a trade journal. So they were already getting most of the scoops. When you talk about embargoed news releases, they are going to continue to be on the same lists as the other folks that DCG reaches out to. So that doesn’t really change. To be honest, CoinDesk was typically part of a broad group of outlets that would be contacted whenever there was news about a DCG company, because we never want to restrict press attention to just one outlet for any of its business interests. So that is the much easier question to answer.
With respect to editorial conflicts, look, that’s what I’m here for, is to make sure there’s a buffer between both entities. So on the one hand, I’m not influencing CoinDesk editorial, but on the other hand, I’m leading the team on a day-to-day basis, and I’m able to interface with DCG but I’m no longer privy to any inside-baseball related to the portfolio companies.
That seems like a contradiction: You won't influence CoinDesk editorial, but you'll lead CoinDesk day to day? So will you be full time at CoinDesk, or at DCG?
I’m DCG's director of growth, but I'm focused full time on CoinDesk and this acquisition, and the 10 or so employees we’ve absorbed, and the large-scale conference we’re producing in May. That makes CoinDesk our top priortity in terms of growth initiatives.
Is the conference the main reason DCG bought CoinDesk? Why else?
We think there’s a lot of organic growth potential for CoinDesk. They’ve had display advertising and various sponsors, but last year they hosted Consensus 2015, it was profitable, it was well-attended, folks were raving about the content of the event. And in mid-2015 they also began publishing paid research reports. As we continue new investments in CoinDesk, paid research and live events are going to be meaningful drivers of growth for the business.
We have the resources to invest not only in fantastic new editorial talent, as in full-time reporters, but also strengthen the ranks of freelance contributors. One area we will invest in is looking beyond just bitcoin the currency and the very insular community there, and branching much further out into blockchain applications that enterprise is taking a look at. Now, that doesn’t mean we are on this "blockchain, not bitcoin" bandwagon, because I don’t want to give that impression at all and it’s a very shrill conversation that happens on Twitter and Reddit when you bring it up. But I do think there will be private ledger solutions that work for enterprise where bitcoin isn’t necessarily a good alternative.
Yes, big financial institutions and banks, from Nasdaq to JPMorgan, have been on the "blockchain, not bitcoin" trend lately. Do you think that's all talk?
I think the interest is definitely real. The bigger question is, over what time frame does this play out? I don’t think that anyone should expect fully functioning products in the next year, two years, handful of years. It will take many years to build some of these core products that are used currently for clearing and settlement. But I think it’s not just a buzzword, I think "blockchain for banks" truly is more relevant in many cases than using the bitcoin blockchain. If you’re a large institution and you’re looking to create an open ledger where you can move securities around safely and transparently to other regulated institutions, you don’t need a native currency like bitcoin or a consensus mechanism that uses anonymous miners. You already know the parties. You could have five banks that are the only signatories to that particular blockchain. So that would be interesting.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin
Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer || Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its leading news outlet: There is one trade publication in the digital currency industry that every mainstream news outlet knows well, and cites regularly in stories about bitcoin:CoinDesk. It is a source of news about bitcoin investments, price spikes or crashes, and executive hires, and it is a regular destination for journalists who write about bitcoin (as well as for bitcoin enthusiasts who don't get paid to write about the currency).
Last week, CoinDesk reported some newsabout itself. The website has been bought by Digital Currency Group, the investment firm of Barry Silbert, who in 2004 founded SecondMarket, which allows for the trading of private-company stock. He sold the platform to Nasdaq (NDAQ) last year. This is DCG's first full acquisition; it did not disclose the sale price, but sources tell Yahoo Finance it was around $750,000.
DCG has invested in 60 different digital currency companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of the venture capital in the industry. You might think that creates an obvious conflict of interest here. Silbert owning CoinDesk is like Red Sox co-owner John Henry buying the Boston Globe (which actually happened), or Peyton Manning buying the Denver Post, or Donald Trump buying Politico.
But Ryan Selkis, the DCG executive who will oversee business at CoinDesk for the time being, insists that won't be a problem. Nonetheless, he says the possibility did concern him at first.
The subject of changing ownership at a bitcoin news site may seem like granular inside-baseball, but it is significant when viewed in the context of ongoing fears about who owns the media. From NewsCorp to Bloomberg to recent changes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it is a topic on the minds of both journalists and their readers.
Is bitcoin's primary news site selling to bitcoin's biggest investment firm another piece of bad news for the industry? Selkis, DCG's director of growth, spoke to Yahoo Finance about that question and about DCG's plans for the site. What follows is an edited transcript.
Yahoo Finance:Before we get into CoinDesk, what was your take on the fallout from Mike Hearn's post last week? [Hearn, a bitcoin developer,declaredthat bitcoin had "failed" and that he was leaving the industry; it resulted in a media firestorm.]
Ryan Selkis:I won’t comment on the theatrics of it. I will say that Mike Hearn was one of the really solid developers, he’s contributed a good chunk of his life and energy into making bitcoin what it is today, so, style aside, there’s not a whole lot people can say to critique his overall contribution to the industry. But this [ongoing debateover the size of blocks, or bundles of transactions, recorded on bitcoin's public ledger] is more of a governance issue than it is a bitcoin issue, in terms of how this will get resolved. I think it will get resolved. But the governance of the overall project needs to be better.
What was DCG's approach to buying CoinDesk, what were the considerations?
The first priority we had when we considered this acquistion, my main hesitation, was whether we’d be able to preserve CoinDesk’s editorial independence. And it’s why I’m working with the team full-time now on operating activities. We are going to create both informational and physical barriers between the editorial team and Digital Currency Group. From a policy standpoint, I’ve recused myself from all investing activity at DCG. I was its director of investments; I have completely transitioned away from that and now I’m director of growth.
How does handling growth for DCG pertain to CoinDesk?
In this particular instance it means making sure we have a smooth transition post-acquisition. We’re combining two teams. We’ve kept all the CoinDesk employees and our plan is to continue to employ everyone that came over, hopefully for a long time. But we also have a professional events team we’ve been working with that were already in the midst of planning a large conference in May, and now we’re merging those two teams to plan one event, Consensus 2016. So now everyone, with the exception of myself, is a CoinDesk employee. And functionally, I’m full time with the CoinDesk team.
So how are you separating CoinDesk from DCG?
We are physically relocating offices to a different part of Manhattan. So the CoinDesk folks are not going to be sitting right next to our Genesis [a broker dealer that is another DCG subsidiary] trading team or our investment team, which has proprietary information on how 60 or so bitcoin companies that we are invested in are performing.
What if CoinDesk is now afraid to write bad news about companies DCG is invested in? Or it could go the other way: Will CoinDesk start getting all the scoops on DCG companies?
On the latter point, I’m not concerned because even before this, CoinDesk had established itself as a clear industry leader in terms of a trade journal. So they were already getting most of the scoops. When you talk about embargoed news releases, they are going to continue to be on the same lists as the other folks that DCG reaches out to. So that doesn’t really change. To be honest, CoinDesk was typically part of a broad group of outlets that would be contacted whenever there was news about a DCG company, because we never want to restrict press attention to just one outlet for any of its business interests. So that is the much easier question to answer.
With respect to editorial conflicts, look, that’s what I’m here for, is to make sure there’s a buffer between both entities. So on the one hand, I’m not influencing CoinDesk editorial, but on the other hand, I’m leading the team on a day-to-day basis, and I’m able to interface with DCG but I’m no longer privy to any inside-baseball related to the portfolio companies.
That seems like a contradiction: You won't influence CoinDesk editorial, but you'll lead CoinDesk day to day? So will you be full time at CoinDesk, or at DCG?
I’m DCG's director of growth, but I'm focused full time on CoinDesk and this acquisition, and the 10 or so employees we’ve absorbed, and the large-scale conference we’re producing in May. That makes CoinDesk our top priortity in terms of growth initiatives.
Is the conference the main reason DCG bought CoinDesk? Why else?
We think there’s a lot of organic growth potential for CoinDesk. They’ve had display advertising and various sponsors, but last year they hosted Consensus 2015, it was profitable, it was well-attended, folks were raving about the content of the event. And in mid-2015 they also began publishing paid research reports. As we continue new investments in CoinDesk, paid research and live events are going to be meaningful drivers of growth for the business.
We have the resources to invest not only in fantastic new editorial talent, as in full-time reporters, but also strengthen the ranks of freelance contributors. One area we will invest in is looking beyond just bitcoin the currency and the very insular community there, and branching much further out into blockchain applications that enterprise is taking a look at. Now, that doesn’t mean we are on this "blockchain, not bitcoin" bandwagon, because I don’t want to give that impression at all and it’s a very shrill conversation that happens on Twitter and Reddit when you bring it up. But I do think there will be private ledger solutions that work for enterprise where bitcoin isn’t necessarily a good alternative.
Yes, big financial institutions and banks, from Nasdaq to JPMorgan, have been on the "blockchain, not bitcoin" trend lately. Do you think that's all talk?
I think the interest is definitely real. The bigger question is, over what time frame does this play out? I don’t think that anyone should expect fully functioning products in the next year, two years, handful of years. It will take many years to build some of these core products that are used currently for clearing and settlement. But I think it’s not just a buzzword, I think "blockchain for banks" truly is more relevant in many cases than using the bitcoin blockchain. If you’re a large institution and you’re looking to create an open ledger where you can move securities around safely and transparently to other regulated institutions, you don’t need a native currency like bitcoin or a consensus mechanism that uses anonymous miners. You already know the parties. You could have five banks that are the only signatories to that particular blockchain. So that would be interesting.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin
Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer || Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its leading news outlet: There is one trade publication in the digital currency industry that every mainstream news outlet knows well, and cites regularly in stories about bitcoin: CoinDesk . It is a source of news about bitcoin investments, price spikes or crashes, and executive hires, and it is a regular destination for journalists who write about bitcoin (as well as for bitcoin enthusiasts who don't get paid to write about the currency). Last week, CoinDesk reported some news about itself . The website has been bought by Digital Currency Group, the investment firm of Barry Silbert, who in 2004 founded SecondMarket, which allows for the trading of private-company stock. He sold the platform to Nasdaq ( NDAQ ) last year. This is DCG's first full acquisition; it did not disclose the sale price, but sources tell Yahoo Finance it was around $750,000. DCG has invested in 60 different digital currency companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of the venture capital in the industry . You might think that creates an obvious conflict of interest here. Silbert owning CoinDesk is like Red Sox co-owner John Henry buying the Boston Globe (which actually happened), or Peyton Manning buying the Denver Post, or Donald Trump buying Politico. But Ryan Selkis, the DCG executive who will oversee business at CoinDesk for the time being, insists that won't be a problem. Nonetheless, he says the possibility did concern him at first. The subject of changing ownership at a bitcoin news site may seem like granular inside-baseball, but it is significant when viewed in the context of ongoing fears about who owns the media. From NewsCorp to Bloomberg to recent changes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it is a topic on the minds of both journalists and their readers. Is bitcoin's primary news site selling to bitcoin's biggest investment firm another piece of bad news for the industry? Selkis, DCG's director of growth, spoke to Yahoo Finance about that question and about DCG's plans for the site. What follows is an edited transcript. Yahoo Finance : Before we get into CoinDesk, what was your take on the fallout from Mike Hearn's post last week? [Hearn, a bitcoin developer, declared that bitcoin had "failed" and that he was leaving the industry; it resulted in a media firestorm.] Ryan Selkis: I won’t comment on the theatrics of it. I will say that Mike Hearn was one of the really solid developers, he’s contributed a good chunk of his life and energy into making bitcoin what it is today, so, style aside, there’s not a whole lot people can say to critique his overall contribution to the industry. But this [ ongoing debate over the size of blocks, or bundles of transactions, recorded on bitcoin's public ledger] is more of a governance issue than it is a bitcoin issue, in terms of how this will get resolved. I think it will get resolved. But the governance of the overall project needs to be better. Story continues What was DCG's approach to buying CoinDesk, what were the considerations? The first priority we had when we considered this acquistion, my main hesitation, was whether we’d be able to preserve CoinDesk’s editorial independence. And it’s why I’m working with the team full-time now on operating activities. We are going to create both informational and physical barriers between the editorial team and Digital Currency Group. From a policy standpoint, I’ve recused myself from all investing activity at DCG. I was its director of investments; I have completely transitioned away from that and now I’m director of growth. How does handling growth for DCG pertain to CoinDesk? In this particular instance it means making sure we have a smooth transition post-acquisition. We’re combining two teams. We’ve kept all the CoinDesk employees and our plan is to continue to employ everyone that came over, hopefully for a long time. But we also have a professional events team we’ve been working with that were already in the midst of planning a large conference in May, and now we’re merging those two teams to plan one event, Consensus 2016. So now everyone, with the exception of myself, is a CoinDesk employee. And functionally, I’m full time with the CoinDesk team. So how are you separating CoinDesk from DCG? We are physically relocating offices to a different part of Manhattan. So the CoinDesk folks are not going to be sitting right next to our Genesis [a broker dealer that is another DCG subsidiary] trading team or our investment team, which has proprietary information on how 60 or so bitcoin companies that we are invested in are performing. What if CoinDesk is now afraid to write bad news about companies DCG is invested in? Or it could go the other way: Will CoinDesk start getting all the scoops on DCG companies? On the latter point, I’m not concerned because even before this, CoinDesk had established itself as a clear industry leader in terms of a trade journal. So they were already getting most of the scoops. When you talk about embargoed news releases, they are going to continue to be on the same lists as the other folks that DCG reaches out to. So that doesn’t really change. To be honest, CoinDesk was typically part of a broad group of outlets that would be contacted whenever there was news about a DCG company, because we never want to restrict press attention to just one outlet for any of its business interests. So that is the much easier question to answer. With respect to editorial conflicts, look, that’s what I’m here for, is to make sure there’s a buffer between both entities. So on the one hand, I’m not influencing CoinDesk editorial, but on the other hand, I’m leading the team on a day-to-day basis, and I’m able to interface with DCG but I’m no longer privy to any inside-baseball related to the portfolio companies. That seems like a contradiction: You won't influence CoinDesk editorial, but you'll lead CoinDesk day to day? So will you be full time at CoinDesk, or at DCG? I’m DCG's director of growth, but I'm focused full time on CoinDesk and this acquisition, and the 10 or so employees we’ve absorbed, and the large-scale conference we’re producing in May. That makes CoinDesk our top priortity in terms of growth initiatives. Is the conference the main reason DCG bought CoinDesk? Why else? We think there’s a lot of organic growth potential for CoinDesk. They’ve had display advertising and various sponsors, but last year they hosted Consensus 2015, it was profitable, it was well-attended, folks were raving about the content of the event. And in mid-2015 they also began publishing paid research reports. As we continue new investments in CoinDesk, paid research and live events are going to be meaningful drivers of growth for the business. We have the resources to invest not only in fantastic new editorial talent, as in full-time reporters, but also strengthen the ranks of freelance contributors. One area we will invest in is looking beyond just bitcoin the currency and the very insular community there, and branching much further out into blockchain applications that enterprise is taking a look at. Now, that doesn’t mean we are on this "blockchain, not bitcoin" bandwagon, because I don’t want to give that impression at all and it’s a very shrill conversation that happens on Twitter and Reddit when you bring it up. But I do think there will be private ledger solutions that work for enterprise where bitcoin isn’t necessarily a good alternative. Yes, big financial institutions and banks, from Nasdaq to JPMorgan, have been on the "blockchain, not bitcoin" trend lately. Do you think that's all talk? I think the interest is definitely real. The bigger question is, over what time frame does this play out? I don’t think that anyone should expect fully functioning products in the next year, two years, handful of years. It will take many years to build some of these core products that are used currently for clearing and settlement. But I think it’s not just a buzzword, I think "blockchain for banks" truly is more relevant in many cases than using the bitcoin blockchain. If you’re a large institution and you’re looking to create an open ledger where you can move securities around safely and transparently to other regulated institutions, you don’t need a native currency like bitcoin or a consensus mechanism that uses anonymous miners. You already know the parties. You could have five banks that are the only signatories to that particular blockchain. So that would be interesting. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer View comments || Your first trade for Wednesday: The "Fast Money" traders delivered their final trades of the day.
Tim Seymour was a seller of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF(NYSE Arca: TLT)while Brian Kelly was a buyer.
Dan Nathan was a buyer of Twitter(TWTR).
Peter Najarian was bullish on Viacom(VIAB), a name he highlighted as a stock which could soon be aligned for stratospheric returns.
Trader disclosure: On January 19, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, CLF, DIS, F, FCX, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, IWM, JCP, JPM, KO, LGF, RL, T, TWTR. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, SBUX, YHOO. Pete Najarian is long AAPL, BAC, BKE, BMY, BP, DIS, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KO, MRK, PEP, PFE, he is long calls AAL, BAC, BX, CHS, GE, GDX, HAIN, LC, MSFT, NRF, WMB, WYNN, XBI, YDKN, he is long puts FCX, MRO. Dan Nathan is long WMT Feb Put Spread, long PFE buy-write, long VZ Buy-write, long XLU Feb Call Spread, long QCOM Feb Calls, long UUP, long TWTR, long TLT Apr risk reversal; he is short SPY. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, EWH, HSBC, SPY, Yuan.
SunTrust Managing Director Robert Peck: Firm makes a market in Netflix.
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• Personal Finance || Your first trade for Wednesday: The " Fast Money " traders delivered their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour was a seller of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE Arca: TLT) while Brian Kelly was a buyer. Dan Nathan was a buyer of Twitter ( TWTR ) . Peter Najarian was bullish on Viacom ( VIAB ) , a name he highlighted as a stock which could soon be aligned for stratospheric returns. Trader disclosure: On January 19, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, CLF, DIS, F, FCX, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, IWM, JCP, JPM, KO, LGF, RL, T, TWTR. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, SBUX, YHOO. Pete Najarian is long AAPL, BAC, BKE, BMY, BP, DIS, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KO, MRK, PEP, PFE, he is long calls AAL, BAC, BX, CHS, GE, GDX, HAIN, LC, MSFT, NRF, WMB, WYNN, XBI, YDKN, he is long puts FCX, MRO. Dan Nathan is long WMT Feb Put Spread, long PFE buy-write, long VZ Buy-write, long XLU Feb Call Spread, long QCOM Feb Calls, long UUP, long TWTR, long TLT Apr risk reversal; he is short SPY. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, EWH, HSBC, SPY, Yuan. SunTrust Managing Director Robert Peck: Firm makes a market in Netflix. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Celltick Partners With Cable & Wireless to Bring Startscreen to Android Devices: MIAMI, FL and SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 19, 2016) -Celltick, a global leader in mobile marketing announces a partnership with leading Caribbean and Latin American network provider,Cable & Wireless Communications(C&W) (LSE:CWC). C&W will provide a branded, localized and customized version of Celltick's Start on its android phones across its Caribbean and Latin American markets.
Start provides users with an intelligent next-generation startscreen giving users what they want most when they wake up their phones. The Start platform learns from the way users operate their phone and provides convenient productive ways to enhance the intelligence of the device. C&W users will get a new startscreen on their android devices under the C&W brands -- Flow, LIME, Mas Movil and BTC. Users will be able to better utilize their phones and personalize their devices with stickers, interactive themes as well as play games on their first screen.
"Through this partnership, our customers will now have the benefit of a much more personalized, interactive start screen on their mobile device that meets their specific individual needs," said John Reid, President of C&W's Consumer Group. C&W will provide users with local 'infotainments' such as news and weather, rapid access to social media feeds, web search, latest videos and more on the startscreen. "This underscores our ongoing commitment to continuously innovate and transform the total telecommunications experience across the region," added Reid.
"We're excited to partner with Cable & Wireless across its 14 mobile markets to provide an enhanced user experience for their subscribers," said Fernando Bortman, GM CALA, Celltick. "The selection of Start by C&W highlights the innovative approach that we have taken in delighting consumers and the excellence of the product."
Start's growing ecosystem includes hundreds of themes, plug-ins, stickers and lockgames. Celltick's Start has been adopted by over 40 large operators, OEMs and media companies who distribute over 100M devices around the globe. In 2014, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 150 million active consumers across 25 countries.
About Cable & Wireless Communications
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,200 employees serving over 6.3 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 465k and Broadband 680k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America.
For more information visit:www.cwc.com.
About Celltick
Celltick is a global leader in mobile marketing. Celltick's Start is a next generation personalized intelligent interface for Android devices. Celltick is unique in creating and managing mass market mobile marketing solutions for mobile operators, large media companies, device manufacturers and large brands. Celltick enables its partners to engage and monetize their users on the mobile. The company drives billions of transactions annually across more than 150 million active consumers across its different mobile platforms in over 25 countries. A rapidly growing company, Celltick has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S. For more information, visitwww.celltick.com. || Celltick Partners With Cable & Wireless to Bring Startscreen to Android Devices: MIAMI, FL and SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 19, 2016) - Celltick , a global leader in mobile marketing announces a partnership with leading Caribbean and Latin American network provider, Cable & Wireless Communications (C&W) ( LSE : CWC ). C&W will provide a branded, localized and customized version of Celltick's Start on its android phones across its Caribbean and Latin American markets. Start provides users with an intelligent next-generation startscreen giving users what they want most when they wake up their phones. The Start platform learns from the way users operate their phone and provides convenient productive ways to enhance the intelligence of the device. C&W users will get a new startscreen on their android devices under the C&W brands -- Flow, LIME, Mas Movil and BTC. Users will be able to better utilize their phones and personalize their devices with stickers, interactive themes as well as play games on their first screen. "Through this partnership, our customers will now have the benefit of a much more personalized, interactive start screen on their mobile device that meets their specific individual needs," said John Reid, President of C&W's Consumer Group. C&W will provide users with local 'infotainments' such as news and weather, rapid access to social media feeds, web search, latest videos and more on the startscreen. "This underscores our ongoing commitment to continuously innovate and transform the total telecommunications experience across the region," added Reid. "We're excited to partner with Cable & Wireless across its 14 mobile markets to provide an enhanced user experience for their subscribers," said Fernando Bortman, GM CALA, Celltick. "The selection of Start by C&W highlights the innovative approach that we have taken in delighting consumers and the excellence of the product." Start's growing ecosystem includes hundreds of themes, plug-ins, stickers and lockgames. Celltick's Start has been adopted by over 40 large operators, OEMs and media companies who distribute over 100M devices around the globe. In 2014, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 150 million active consumers across 25 countries. Story continues About Cable & Wireless Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,200 employees serving over 6.3 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 465k and Broadband 680k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit: www.cwc.com . About Celltick Celltick is a global leader in mobile marketing. Celltick's Start is a next generation personalized intelligent interface for Android devices. Celltick is unique in creating and managing mass market mobile marketing solutions for mobile operators, large media companies, device manufacturers and large brands. Celltick enables its partners to engage and monetize their users on the mobile. The company drives billions of transactions annually across more than 150 million active consumers across its different mobile platforms in over 25 countries. A rapidly growing company, Celltick has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S. For more information, visit www.celltick.com . || XBT Provider AB: Bitcoin Tracker EUR (COINXBE) Now Available on Nasdaq Nordic through Interactive Brokers: Stockholm, Sweden (January 19, 2016) - XBT Provider AB (publ) announced today the availability of the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR in 179 countries. Starting today anyone with an Interactive Brokers account can trade the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR. The ticker code is COINXBE. ISIN: SE0007525332
The tracker is an exchange traded note designed to mirror the return of the underlying asset, U.S. dollar (USD) per bitcoin.
This is the first bitcoin-based security denominated in Euro available on a regulated exchange. XBT Provider launched this financial instrument to meet the needs of investors` growing appetite for exposure to bitcoin prices.
"Bitcoin tracker EUR" is listed on Nasdaq Nordic and traded in the same manner as any share or instrument listed on the Nasdaq exchange in Stockholm. COINXBE is also available via Bloomberg terminals.
Direct link to specifications at Nasdaq:http://www.nasdaqomxnordic.com/etp/etn/etninfo?Instrument=SSE113749
Direct link to specifications at Bloomberg:http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/COINXBE:SS
The full prospectus and more information is available onxbtprovider.com
ABOUT THE ISSUER: XBT PROVIDER
XBT Provider AB (publ) is a public limited liability company formed in Sweden with statutory seat in Stockholm. The issuer is incorporated under Swedish law and registered with the Swedish companies` registration office under registration number 559001-3313.
Press release (PDF)
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: XBT Provider AB via GlobeNewswireHUG#1975095 || XBT Provider AB: Bitcoin Tracker EUR (COINXBE) Now Available on Nasdaq Nordic through Interactive Brokers: Stockholm, Sweden (January 19, 2016) - XBT Provider AB (publ) announced today the availability of the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR in 179 countries. Starting today anyone with an Interactive Brokers account can trade the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR. The ticker code is COINXBE. ISIN: SE0007525332
The tracker is an exchange traded note designed to mirror the return of the underlying asset, U.S. dollar (USD) per bitcoin.
This is the first bitcoin-based security denominated in Euro available on a regulated exchange. XBT Provider launched this financial instrument to meet the needs of investors` growing appetite for exposure to bitcoin prices.
"Bitcoin tracker EUR" is listed on Nasdaq Nordic and traded in the same manner as any share or instrument listed on the Nasdaq exchange in Stockholm. COINXBE is also available via Bloomberg terminals.
Direct link to specifications at Nasdaq:http://www.nasdaqomxnordic.com/etp/etn/etninfo?Instrument=SSE113749
Direct link to specifications at Bloomberg:http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/COINXBE:SS
The full prospectus and more information is available onxbtprovider.com
ABOUT THE ISSUER: XBT PROVIDER
XBT Provider AB (publ) is a public limited liability company formed in Sweden with statutory seat in Stockholm. The issuer is incorporated under Swedish law and registered with the Swedish companies` registration office under registration number 559001-3313.
Press release (PDF)
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: XBT Provider AB via GlobeNewswireHUG#1975095
[Social Media Buzz]
LIVE: Profit = $46.29 (3.38 %). BUY B3.60 @ $380.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $392.18 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000005 Bittrex: 0.00000006 Average $2.0E-5 per #reddcoin 00:15:01 via #p…pic.twitter.com/sarkob4qOZ || Current price: 392.72$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2016-01-26 03:00:10 EST || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 11 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $64.85 #bitcoin #btc || $393.30...
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394.97, 380.29, 379.47, 378.26, 368.77, 373.06, 374.45, 369.95, 389.59, 386.55
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 9330.55, 9818.35, 10058.80, 9888.61, 10233.60, 10975.60, 11074.60, 11323.20, 11657.20, 11916.70, 14291.50, 17899.70, 16569.40, 15178.20, 15455.40, 16936.80, 17415.40, 16408.20, 16564.00, 17706.90, 19497.40, 19140.80, 19114.20, 17776.70, 16624.60, 15802.90, 13831.80, 14699.20, 13925.80, 14026.60, 16099.80, 15838.50, 14606.50, 14656.20, 12952.20, 14156.40, 13657.20, 14982.10, 15201.00, 15599.20, 17429.50, 17527.00, 16477.60, 15170.10, 14595.40, 14973.30, 13405.80, 13980.60, 14360.20, 13772.00, 13819.80, 11490.50, 11188.60, 11474.90, 11607.40, 12899.20, 11600.10, 10931.40, 10868.40, 11359.40, 11259.40, 11171.40, 11440.70, 11786.30, 11296.40, 10106.30, 10221.10, 9170.54, 8830.75, 9174.91, 8277.01, 6955.27, 7754.00, 7621.30, 8265.59, 8736.98, 8621.90, 8129.97, 8926.57, 8598.31, 9494.63, 10166.40, 10233.90, 11112.70, 10551.80, 11225.30, 11403.70, 10690.40, 10005.00, 10301.10.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-02-23]
Volume: 7739500032, RSI (14-day): 50.53, 50-day EMA: 10783.21, 200-day EMA: 9033.83
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1328.20, Gold RSI: 49.54
Oil Price: 63.55, Oil RSI: 57.63
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Here's How You Might Manage to Pay Off Half of Your Credit Card Debt: Though I've argued many times in the past that the average American should not be getting a tax refund , the fact of the matter is that year after year, the majority of filers wind up with money back from the IRS. In fact, the agency predicts that roughly 70% of taxpayers will end up with refunds in 2018 -- which is good news for those saddled with credit card debt. That's because the average refund should be enough to help the typical American pay off just over half of his or her outstanding balance. The average tax refund for 2016 was $3,050, and according to ValuePenguin , that's enough to cover 55% of the average U.S. credit card balance of $5,551. Not only will knocking out half of your debt save you money on interest charges, but it might, in some cases, help bring your credit score up. That's because the less credit you're using at once, the lower your utilization ratio will fall, and that, in turn, could boost your credit. Couple covering their mouths while looking at papers IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. But while some tax filers may indeed use their refunds this year to pay down debt, you can bet there will be plenty of folks who take that money and spend it elsewhere instead. And they're the ones who will be more likely to carry that debt for the long haul. Don't blow that refund The danger in getting a tax refund is that you might look at that lump sum as free money, when, in fact, it's your money that you earned last year but failed to collect. And if you don't use that money wisely, you could end up hurting yourself financially. Imagine you owe $3,050 on your credit card and it takes five years to pay it off at 20% interest. In that scenario, you'll wind up throwing out about $1,800 on interest charges. But if you use your refund to pay off that sum, you'll have an extra $1,800 to work with. And that's not the sort of savings you want to forgo, especially since the majority of Americans have less than $1,000 in the bank . Story continues Tempting as it might be to spend your tax refund on something fun this year, resist the urge to indulge if you have credit card debt hanging over your head. You'll be thankful for it in the long run. Other smart uses for your refund Of course, not everybody has credit card debt, and if you've managed to avoid it thus far, you're ahead of the game. Still, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use your refund responsibly. If you don't have a balance to pay off, your refund can help you amass a more substantial emergency fund , which, as we just saw, is something most Americans need. Another option for your tax refund this year? Stick it in your IRA or 401(k). Both accounts let your money grow on a tax-deferred basis, which means that if you invest $3,050, leave it alone for 30 years, and manage a 7% average annual return on investment, you'll come away with $23,000. And that sort of money can buy you a lot more financial flexibility in retirement. Ways to pay down debt While it's a good thing that the average tax refund could be enough to help the typical American pay off half of his or her debt, there's still that other half to contend with. But worry not -- there are several steps you can take to eliminate that remaining debt sooner. For one thing, be strategic about how you pay off your balances. If you owe money on several cards, tackle the ones with the highest interest rates first, and then work your way downward. Another option? Look into a balance transfer, where you move your debts to a new credit card with a lower interest rate, thus reducing your payments on that total sum. Finally, consider taking steps to boost your income so you have the option to pay off your debt sooner. If you're willing to work a side hustle for, say, the remainder of the year, that extra money might allow you to knock out your debt well before next year's tax refund even comes into the picture. Whether you use your tax refund this year to pay off a chunk of your debt, pad your existing savings, or add to your nest egg, the key is to use that money responsibly. Otherwise, you may come to regret it later on. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Here's How You Might Manage to Pay Off Half of Your Credit Card Debt: Though I've argued many times in the past that the average Americanshould not be getting a tax refund, the fact of the matter is that year after year, the majority of filers wind up with money back from the IRS. In fact, the agency predicts that roughly 70% of taxpayers will end up with refunds in 2018 -- which is good news for those saddled with credit card debt. That's because the average refund should be enough to help the typical American pay off just over half of his or her outstanding balance.
The average tax refund for 2016 was $3,050, andaccording to ValuePenguin, that's enough to cover 55% of the average U.S. credit card balance of $5,551. Not only will knocking out half of your debt save you money on interest charges, but it might, in some cases, help bring your credit score up. That's because the less credit you're using at once, the lower yourutilization ratiowill fall, and that, in turn, could boost your credit.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
But while some tax filers may indeed use their refunds this year to pay down debt, you can bet there will be plenty of folks who take that money and spend it elsewhere instead. And they're the ones who will be more likely to carry that debt for the long haul.
The danger in getting a tax refund is that you might look at that lump sum as free money, when, in fact, it'syourmoney that you earned last year but failed to collect. And if you don't use that money wisely, you could end up hurting yourself financially.
Imagine you owe $3,050 on your credit card and it takes five years to pay it off at 20% interest. In that scenario, you'll wind up throwing out about $1,800 on interest charges. But if you use your refund to pay off that sum, you'll have an extra $1,800 to work with. And that's not the sort of savings you want to forgo, especially since the majority of Americans haveless than $1,000 in the bank.
Tempting as it might be to spend your tax refund on something fun this year, resist the urge to indulge if you have credit card debt hanging over your head. You'll be thankful for it in the long run.
Of course, not everybody has credit card debt, and if you've managed to avoid it thus far, you're ahead of the game. Still, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use your refund responsibly. If you don't have a balance to pay off, your refund can help you amass a more substantialemergency fund, which, as we just saw, is something most Americans need.
Another option for your tax refund this year? Stick it in your IRA or 401(k). Both accounts let your money grow on a tax-deferred basis, which means that if you invest $3,050, leave it alone for 30 years, and manage a 7% average annual return on investment, you'll come away with $23,000. And that sort of money can buy you a lot more financial flexibility in retirement.
While it's a good thing that the average tax refund could be enough to help the typical American pay off half of his or her debt, there's still that other half to contend with. But worry not -- there are several steps you can take to eliminate that remaining debt sooner.
For one thing, be strategic about how you pay off your balances. If you owe money on several cards, tackle the ones with the highest interest rates first, and then work your way downward. Another option? Look into abalance transfer,where you move your debts to a new credit card with a lower interest rate, thus reducing your payments on that total sum.
Finally, consider taking steps to boost your income so you have the option to pay off your debt sooner. If you're willing to work aside hustlefor, say, the remainder of the year, that extra money might allow you to knock out your debt well before next year's tax refund even comes into the picture.
Whether you use your tax refund this year to pay off a chunk of your debt, pad your existing savings, or add to your nest egg, the key is to use that money responsibly. Otherwise, you may come to regret it later on.
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The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || MGM Resorts Struggles on the Las Vegas Strip: MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM) reported earnings on Tuesday, and it wasn't all good news for the gaming giant. The Las Vegas Strip appears to have had a pretty weak fourth quarter and that more than offset gains in Macau. But the results were largely overshadowed by the market's bullishness on MGM Cotai's opening and the potential impact of the new resort. Here's a look at earnings and what investors should be watching at this gaming company. Slot machine showing all 7s. Image source: Getty Images. The big picture Revenue was up 5.5% for MGM Resorts to $2.6 billion and net income jumped from $24.7 million a year ago to $1.4 billion, or $2.42 per share. But that was driven by a $1.4 billion tax benefit due to the tax law passed in December. Without that, MGM would have reported a loss of $0.10 per share compared to a per-share profit of $0.04 a year ago. Adjusted property EBITDA , which investors use as a proxy for cash flow coming from a resort, rose just 0.6% in the quarter to $674.6 million due to some disappointing results at some of MGM's best-known resorts. The Las Vegas Strip struggled to end 2017 Digging into the numbers, you get a picture of why MGM Resorts had an underwhelming quarter in what seemed to be a favorable operating environment. Revenue per available room was down 4.9% on the Las Vegas Strip, driven by high-end resorts like Bellagio, MGM Grand Las Vegas, and Mandalay Bay all having both lower average daily room rates and lower occupancy versus a year ago. Results would have been worse if it wasn't for some good luck on the gaming floor. Table game drop, which measures the volume of play at table games, was $909 million in the fourth quarter, down 4.2% versus a year ago. But that decline was offset by table game win percentage improving from 23.5% to 25.3%. At slot machines, slot handle was down 5.6% to $3.13 billion and slot hold percentage increased 100 basis points to 8.9%. The decline in room rates and gaming play indicates the Las Vegas Strip overall had a fairly weak quarter. That's what weighed most on MGM's results. Story continues One eye on Macau If you look at the results of competitors like Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) , they were both helped immensely by growth in Macau . MGM is a little different because it had a smaller presence in Macau -- a single resort -- until MGM Cotai opened a few days ago . MGM China's operating income fell from $72 million a year ago to $43 million, although adjusted EBITDA was up 7% to $147 million in the fourth quarter. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $520.7 million, which isn't bad for a resort on the Macau Peninsula. As MGM Cotai ramps up, I would expect property EBITDA to be higher than the Macau Peninsula property (and with a $3.4 billion price tag, it needs to perform better to make money long term). Is MGM stuck in place? MGM Resorts is certainly generating a lot of cash, but it isn't growing like it was a few years ago. Macau is becoming more competitive and the Las Vegas Strip just isn't a growth market these days. Given the slow growth, investors need to look at MGM's value. Net debt of $11.5 billion and a market cap of $19.6 billion gives us an enterprise value of $31.1 billion, which is nearly 10 times the adjusted EBITDA of $3.2 billion generated in 2017. That's not a bad value, especially given the opening of MGM Cotai, but it isn't a steal in today's market -- particularly if this is the start of a broader decline in Las Vegas. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Travis Hoium owns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || MGM Resorts Struggles on the Las Vegas Strip: MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM) reported earnings on Tuesday, and it wasn't all good news for the gaming giant. The Las Vegas Strip appears to have had a pretty weak fourth quarter and that more than offset gains in Macau. But the results were largely overshadowed by the market's bullishness on MGM Cotai's opening and the potential impact of the new resort. Here's a look at earnings and what investors should be watching at this gaming company. Slot machine showing all 7s. Image source: Getty Images. The big picture Revenue was up 5.5% for MGM Resorts to $2.6 billion and net income jumped from $24.7 million a year ago to $1.4 billion, or $2.42 per share. But that was driven by a $1.4 billion tax benefit due to the tax law passed in December. Without that, MGM would have reported a loss of $0.10 per share compared to a per-share profit of $0.04 a year ago. Adjusted property EBITDA , which investors use as a proxy for cash flow coming from a resort, rose just 0.6% in the quarter to $674.6 million due to some disappointing results at some of MGM's best-known resorts. The Las Vegas Strip struggled to end 2017 Digging into the numbers, you get a picture of why MGM Resorts had an underwhelming quarter in what seemed to be a favorable operating environment. Revenue per available room was down 4.9% on the Las Vegas Strip, driven by high-end resorts like Bellagio, MGM Grand Las Vegas, and Mandalay Bay all having both lower average daily room rates and lower occupancy versus a year ago. Results would have been worse if it wasn't for some good luck on the gaming floor. Table game drop, which measures the volume of play at table games, was $909 million in the fourth quarter, down 4.2% versus a year ago. But that decline was offset by table game win percentage improving from 23.5% to 25.3%. At slot machines, slot handle was down 5.6% to $3.13 billion and slot hold percentage increased 100 basis points to 8.9%. The decline in room rates and gaming play indicates the Las Vegas Strip overall had a fairly weak quarter. That's what weighed most on MGM's results. Story continues One eye on Macau If you look at the results of competitors like Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) , they were both helped immensely by growth in Macau . MGM is a little different because it had a smaller presence in Macau -- a single resort -- until MGM Cotai opened a few days ago . MGM China's operating income fell from $72 million a year ago to $43 million, although adjusted EBITDA was up 7% to $147 million in the fourth quarter. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $520.7 million, which isn't bad for a resort on the Macau Peninsula. As MGM Cotai ramps up, I would expect property EBITDA to be higher than the Macau Peninsula property (and with a $3.4 billion price tag, it needs to perform better to make money long term). Is MGM stuck in place? MGM Resorts is certainly generating a lot of cash, but it isn't growing like it was a few years ago. Macau is becoming more competitive and the Las Vegas Strip just isn't a growth market these days. Given the slow growth, investors need to look at MGM's value. Net debt of $11.5 billion and a market cap of $19.6 billion gives us an enterprise value of $31.1 billion, which is nearly 10 times the adjusted EBITDA of $3.2 billion generated in 2017. That's not a bad value, especially given the opening of MGM Cotai, but it isn't a steal in today's market -- particularly if this is the start of a broader decline in Las Vegas. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Travis Hoium owns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || MercadoLibre Takes a Loss, Suspends Dividends: MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) has been remarkable in its ability to take command of the e-commerce market in Latin America . Yet because it operates in some countries that don't have the financial stability found in other parts of the world, MercadoLibre is vulnerable to adverse economic events that can have a dramatic impact on its financial results from time to time. Coming into Thursday's fourth-quarter financial report, MercadoLibre investors were already prepared for some reductions in profit due to tough conditions in some of its key markets, and their high expectations for sales growth turned out to be quite reasonable. Yet MercadoLibre ended up taking a big hit from its business in Venezuela, and even beyond that troubled nation, the e-commerce business saw some challenges that investors will want to pay attention to. Let's take a closer look at MercadoLibre and what its results say about its future. Two people looking at computer screen in front of a wall with the MercadoLibre logo on it. Image source: MercadoLibre. What happened to MercadoLibre? MercadoLibre's fourth-quarter numbers showed continued sales strength but less-than-ideal conditions on the bottom line. Revenue overall soared more than 70%, to $437 million, which was even better than the 58% growth rate that most investors were looking to see. Yet the company reported a net loss of $67.7 million, and even after accounting for some one-time items, adjusted earnings of $0.20 per share were much worse than the $0.51 per-share consensus forecast among those following the stock. As we've seen before , the business metrics that MercadoLibre reported pointed to sustained growth. Gross merchandise volume was higher by 63%, to $3.62 billion, and the number of items sold climbed by 57%, to 81.2 million. The number of listings that the e-commerce platform featured climbed 56%, to 114.2 million, and each unique buyer purchased an average of 4.6 items successfully, up from 3.9 this time last year. Confirmed registered user counts reached 211.9 million, up 22% during the past year, including 10.7 million new users just in the fourth quarter. Story continues Ancillary services also did well, as MercadoPago showed even greater success on the payment-processing side of the business. Total payment volume soared 78%, to $4.34 billion, with 73.2 million transactions processed through the service. Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina have already been using MercadoPago extensively, but penetration rates in countries like Colombia and Chile also soared, topping the 80% and 75% marks, respectively. In the shipping division, MercadoEnvios saw an 87% rise in items shipped, to 48.3 million, and about three-quarters of all items in Brazil and Mexico are shipping through the service, with lower, but still-promising, numbers elsewhere in its network. Yet the big factor hurting earnings came from Venezuela. As of Dec. 1, MercadoLibre decided that it no longer has control of its Venezuelan subsidiaries due to the country's actions, including operating restrictions in areas like foreign exchange and determination of default events. Accordingly, the company deconsolidated its Venezuelan operations. That forced the company to take an $85.8 million loss. Can MercadoLibre make more money? CFO Pedro Arnt was upbeat about the business prospects for MercadoLibre. "Some of the structural factors that underpin e-commerce and fintech in Latin America are beginning to take shape," Arnt said, "through the growth of the installed base of smartphones, increasing consumer familiarity and affinity with buying and transacting online, greater number of broadband users, rising demand for online financial services, and growing interest on behalf of traditional retailers and brands to find technology partners to support them in developing their digital strategies." The CFO thinks that MercadoLibre can capitalize on all of those fronts going forward. MercadoLibre is also taking steps to try to enhance its business. The company reported "meaningful advances" in building up its classified ad business, making a transition toward a transactional model with a pilot launch in its key markets of Brazil and Argentina. In addition, the e-commerce giant has introduced huge numbers of mobile point-of-sale devices to support MercadoPago, and broader use of mobile devices has justified the investment that MercadoLibre has made in technology to adapt to the shift away from desktop-centered use of the platform. One of those steps involved diverting capital away from paying dividends. MercadoLibre determined that it would be better for the business to use that money internally, and so it suspended its $0.60 per-share annual dividend to redirect cash toward multiple-platform projects. MercadoLibre investors weren't happy about that and the shortfall on the bottom line, and the stock fell 7% in after-hours trading following the announcement. Yet given how Venezuela has been a tough market for the company for a long time, the decision to separate its Venezuelan business financially from the rest of its operations is likely to turn out well in the long run. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || MercadoLibre Takes a Loss, Suspends Dividends: MercadoLibre(NASDAQ: MELI)has been remarkable in its ability to take command of thee-commerce market in Latin America. Yet because it operates in some countries that don't have the financial stability found in other parts of the world, MercadoLibre is vulnerable to adverse economic events that can have a dramatic impact on its financial results from time to time.
Coming into Thursday's fourth-quarter financial report, MercadoLibre investors were already prepared for some reductions in profit due to tough conditions in some of its key markets, and their high expectations for sales growth turned out to be quite reasonable. Yet MercadoLibre ended up taking a big hit from its business in Venezuela, and even beyond that troubled nation, the e-commerce business saw some challenges that investors will want to pay attention to. Let's take a closer look at MercadoLibre and what its results say about its future.
Image source: MercadoLibre.
MercadoLibre's fourth-quarter numbers showed continued sales strength but less-than-ideal conditions on the bottom line. Revenue overall soared more than 70%, to $437 million, which was even better than the 58% growth rate that most investors were looking to see. Yet the company reported a net loss of $67.7 million, and even after accounting for some one-time items, adjusted earnings of $0.20 per share were much worse than the $0.51 per-share consensus forecast among those following the stock.
Aswe've seen before, the business metrics that MercadoLibre reported pointed to sustained growth. Gross merchandise volume was higher by 63%, to $3.62 billion, and the number of items sold climbed by 57%, to 81.2 million. The number of listings that the e-commerce platform featured climbed 56%, to 114.2 million, and each unique buyer purchased an average of 4.6 items successfully, up from 3.9 this time last year. Confirmed registered user counts reached 211.9 million, up 22% during the past year, including 10.7 million new users just in the fourth quarter.
Ancillary services also did well, as MercadoPago showed even greater success on the payment-processing side of the business. Total payment volume soared 78%, to $4.34 billion, with 73.2 million transactions processed through the service. Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina have already been using MercadoPago extensively, but penetration rates in countries like Colombia and Chile also soared, topping the 80% and 75% marks, respectively. In the shipping division, MercadoEnvios saw an 87% rise in items shipped, to 48.3 million, and about three-quarters of all items in Brazil and Mexico are shipping through the service, with lower, but still-promising, numbers elsewhere in its network.
Yet the big factor hurting earnings came from Venezuela. As of Dec. 1, MercadoLibre decided that it no longer has control of its Venezuelan subsidiaries due to the country's actions, including operating restrictions in areas like foreign exchange and determination of default events. Accordingly, the company deconsolidated its Venezuelan operations. That forced the company to take an $85.8 million loss.
CFO Pedro Arnt was upbeat about the business prospects for MercadoLibre. "Some of the structural factors that underpin e-commerce and fintech in Latin America are beginning to take shape," Arnt said, "through the growth of the installed base of smartphones, increasing consumer familiarity and affinity with buying and transacting online, greater number of broadband users, rising demand for online financial services, and growing interest on behalf of traditional retailers and brands to find technology partners to support them in developing their digital strategies." The CFO thinks that MercadoLibre can capitalize on all of those fronts going forward.
MercadoLibre is also taking steps to try to enhance its business. The company reported "meaningful advances" in building up its classified ad business, making a transition toward a transactional model with a pilot launch in its key markets of Brazil and Argentina. In addition, the e-commerce giant has introduced huge numbers of mobile point-of-sale devices to support MercadoPago, and broader use of mobile devices has justified the investment that MercadoLibre has made in technology to adapt to the shift away from desktop-centered use of the platform.
One of those steps involved diverting capital away from paying dividends. MercadoLibre determined that it would be better for the business to use that money internally, and so it suspended its $0.60 per-share annual dividend to redirect cash toward multiple-platform projects.
MercadoLibre investors weren't happy about that and the shortfall on the bottom line, and the stock fell 7% in after-hours trading following the announcement. Yet given how Venezuela has been a tough market for the company for a long time, the decision to separate its Venezuelan business financially from the rest of its operations is likely to turn out well in the long run.
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Dan Caplingerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || French Regulator Says No to Online Crypto Derivatives Ads: France's stock market regulator released a statement about cryptocurrency-tied derivatives on Thursday, which includes a curb on the advertising of such products. In its statement , L'Autorite Des Marches Financiers (AMF) said that trading platforms should not be allowed to market cryptocurrency derivative products electronically, per regulations that cover derivatives more broadly. The publication followed a months-long review process, according to the AMF. The agency said: "The AMF concludes that a cash-settled cryptocurrency contract may qualify as a derivative, irrespective of the legal qualification of a cryptocurrency. As a result, online platforms which offer cryptocurrency derivatives fall within the scope of MiFID 2 and must therefore comply with the authorisation, conduct of business rules, and the EMIR trade reporting obligation to a trade repository. Above all, these products are subject to the provisions of the Sapin 2 law, and notably the ban of advertisements for certain financial contracts." The EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) is an update to previous legislation, with the stated goal of providing greater transparency across asset classes in the name of investor protection. The initiative came into effect on Jan. 3. The AMF's missive is the latest from the agency on the topic of cryptocurrencies, coming months after it first weighed in initial coin offerings (ICOs). In October, the agency launched an ICO-focused initiative , dubbed the Universal Node to ICO Research Network (UNICORN). The effort, according to statements at the time, was aimed at "offering to these carriers of projects a frame allowing the development of their operations and to ensure the protection of actors and investors wishing to participate." Other regulatory bodies within the EU have been looking into the issue of crypto derivatives as well. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is investigating if such contracts comply with MiFID rules, and announced in January that it was seeking public input on potential rule changes. Story continues Bitcoin and French flag image via Shutterstock Related Stories Austria Planning New Regulations for Cryptocurrency, ICOs French, German Finance Ministers Call for G20 Crypto Discussion ESMA Seeks Public Input on Cryptocurrency Derivatives Policy France Creates Working Group for Cryptocurrency Regulation || French Regulator Says No to Online Crypto Derivatives Ads: France's stock market regulator released a statement about cryptocurrency-tied derivatives on Thursday, which includes a curb on the advertising of such products.
Inits statement, L'Autorite Des Marches Financiers (AMF) said that trading platforms should not be allowed to market cryptocurrency derivative products electronically, per regulations that cover derivatives more broadly. The publication followed a months-long review process, according to the AMF.
The agency said:
"The AMF concludes that a cash-settled cryptocurrency contract may qualify as a derivative, irrespective of the legal qualification of a cryptocurrency. As a result, online platforms which offer cryptocurrency derivatives fall within the scope ofMiFID 2and must therefore comply with the authorisation, conduct of business rules, and the EMIR trade reporting obligation to a trade repository. Above all, these products are subject to the provisions of the Sapin 2 law, and notably the ban of advertisements for certain financial contracts."
The EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) is an update to previous legislation, with the stated goal of providing greater transparency across asset classes in the name of investor protection. The initiative came into effect on Jan. 3.
The AMF's missive is the latest from the agency on the topic of cryptocurrencies, coming months after it first weighed in initial coin offerings (ICOs). In October, the agencylaunched an ICO-focused initiative, dubbed the Universal Node to ICO Research Network (UNICORN).
The effort, according to statements at the time, was aimed at "offering to these carriers of projects a frame allowing the development of their operations and to ensure the protection of actors and investors wishing to participate."
Other regulatory bodies within the EU have been looking into the issue of crypto derivatives as well.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is investigating if such contracts comply with MiFID rules, andannouncedin January that it was seeking public input on potential rule changes.
Bitcoin and French flagimagevia Shutterstock
• Austria Planning New Regulations for Cryptocurrency, ICOs
• French, German Finance Ministers Call for G20 Crypto Discussion
• ESMA Seeks Public Input on Cryptocurrency Derivatives Policy
• France Creates Working Group for Cryptocurrency Regulation || Should You Buy Arista Networks After its Post-Earnings Plunge?: Arista Networks'(NYSE: ANET)200% rally over the past 12 months came to an abrupt halt on Feb. 15, when the stock plunged almost 20% after the company released its fourth-quarter earnings. That big drop was surprising, since Arista soundly beat analyst expectations and provided solid guidance for the first quarter.
Investors might be wondering if it's wise to buy Arista's post-earnings dip. Let's take a closer look at Arista's growth figures to see if it's a worthy investment.
Image source: Getty Images.
Arista sells switches for generic "white box" network hardware. On their own, these devices are cheaper and less powerful thanCisco's(NASDAQ: CSCO)hardware, but they use cloud-based software -- like Arista's EOS platform -- to do the heavy lifting.
White box networks are cheaper to set up, and can be mixed and matched among multiple hardware vendors and tethered to open source cloud operating systems. This makes them more scalable and flexible than Cisco's all-in-one hardware and software bundles.
Cisco recognized thedisruptive threatof Arista's hardware and software years ago. That's why it acquired cloud networking service provider Meraki in 2012, and why it repeatedly sued Arista over patent infringement issues to prevent it from importing its products into the US.
Yet Arista kept growing. Between 2013 and 2016, its annual sales rose more than 200% as its non-GAAP earnings more than tripled.
In 2017, its revenue rose 46% to $1.6 billion, as its non-GAAP gross margin expanded 40 basis points to 64.8%. Its non-GAAP net income jumped 83% to $442.8 million, while its GAAP net income surged 130% to $423.2 million.
Analysts expect Arista's revenue and non-GAAP earnings to rise 27% and 23%, respectively, in 2018. However, some investors were concerned about CFO Ita Brennan's vague comment about potentially "tough comparables" to its 2017 performance during the fourth quarter conference call.
Arista finished the year with 4,900 customers, with orders fromMicrosoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)accounting for 16% of its total revenue. Microsoft's use of Arista's products in its data centers complements its decision to use cheaperAMDserver chips alongsideIntel's Xeons.
Image source: Getty Images.
The reason is simple -- tech giants like Microsoft need cheaper and more scalable solutions, like the ones Arista or AMD provide, instead of pricier "industry standard" products from companies like Cisco and Intel.
That's why the enterprise market became Arista's strongest vertical for the first time in its history during the fourth quarter. Cloud platform providers came in second.
That support boosted Arista's share of the global switching market 150 basis points annually to 5.6% during the third quarter of 2017 according to IDC. Cisco's share fell from 57% to 56.7% during the same period. Arista doesn't compete against Cisco in routers, but it believes that it caneventually replacetraditional routers with its FlexRoute software.
Arista is also generating plenty of revenue in overseas markets, which softens the impact of Cisco's legal attacks in the American market. 73% of Arista's revenues came from the Americas in 2017, with the remaining 27% coming from International markets. In 2016, 77% of its revenues came from the Americas, while 23% came from other international markets.
The bears believe that Cisco could marginalize Arista by beefing up Meraki and integrating the platform more aggressively into its other hardware and software products.
Cisco also plans to repatriate $67 billion of its overseas cash, and over $20 billion of that total could be used on R&D or domestic acquisitions aimed at countering Arista. However, many bulls have suggested that it might simply be easier for Cisco to buy Arista, which has an enterprise value of $17 billion.
The bulls will also note that if Cisco had the power to crush Arista, it would have done so years ago instead of trying to throttle its growth with desperate lawsuits.
Arista's 43% sales growth and 77% jump in non-GAAP earnings during the fourth quartereasily beatanalyst expectations. Its forecast for 34%-40% sales growth during the first quarter also matched analyst expectations.
Therefore, Arista's sell-off was likely caused by simple profit-taking, over-analyzing Brennan's comments, or mild concerns about its forward P/E of 36, which looks a bit frothy in a volatile market.
It probably wasn't caused by any fundamental problems with Arista, or real fears that Cisco is catching up. I believe investors who buy this dip in Arista could be well rewarded over the next few quarters.
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Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.Leo Sunhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Arista Networks. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Intel. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Should You Buy Arista Networks After its Post-Earnings Plunge?: Arista Networks ' (NYSE: ANET) 200% rally over the past 12 months came to an abrupt halt on Feb. 15, when the stock plunged almost 20% after the company released its fourth-quarter earnings. That big drop was surprising, since Arista soundly beat analyst expectations and provided solid guidance for the first quarter. Investors might be wondering if it's wise to buy Arista's post-earnings dip. Let's take a closer look at Arista's growth figures to see if it's a worthy investment. A businessman holds a cloud icon in his hands. Image source: Getty Images. What does Arista Networks do? Arista sells switches for generic "white box" network hardware. On their own, these devices are cheaper and less powerful than Cisco 's (NASDAQ: CSCO) hardware, but they use cloud-based software -- like Arista's EOS platform -- to do the heavy lifting. White box networks are cheaper to set up, and can be mixed and matched among multiple hardware vendors and tethered to open source cloud operating systems. This makes them more scalable and flexible than Cisco's all-in-one hardware and software bundles. Cisco recognized the disruptive threat of Arista's hardware and software years ago. That's why it acquired cloud networking service provider Meraki in 2012, and why it repeatedly sued Arista over patent infringement issues to prevent it from importing its products into the US. Firing on all cylinders Yet Arista kept growing. Between 2013 and 2016, its annual sales rose more than 200% as its non-GAAP earnings more than tripled. In 2017, its revenue rose 46% to $1.6 billion, as its non-GAAP gross margin expanded 40 basis points to 64.8%. Its non-GAAP net income jumped 83% to $442.8 million, while its GAAP net income surged 130% to $423.2 million. Analysts expect Arista's revenue and non-GAAP earnings to rise 27% and 23%, respectively, in 2018. However, some investors were concerned about CFO Ita Brennan's vague comment about potentially "tough comparables" to its 2017 performance during the fourth quarter conference call. Story continues Big customers and robust overseas growth Arista finished the year with 4,900 customers, with orders from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) accounting for 16% of its total revenue. Microsoft's use of Arista's products in its data centers complements its decision to use cheaper AMD server chips alongside Intel 's Xeons. Servers in a data center. Image source: Getty Images. The reason is simple -- tech giants like Microsoft need cheaper and more scalable solutions, like the ones Arista or AMD provide, instead of pricier "industry standard" products from companies like Cisco and Intel. That's why the enterprise market became Arista's strongest vertical for the first time in its history during the fourth quarter. Cloud platform providers came in second. That support boosted Arista's share of the global switching market 150 basis points annually to 5.6% during the third quarter of 2017 according to IDC. Cisco's share fell from 57% to 56.7% during the same period. Arista doesn't compete against Cisco in routers, but it believes that it can eventually replace traditional routers with its FlexRoute software. Arista is also generating plenty of revenue in overseas markets, which softens the impact of Cisco's legal attacks in the American market. 73% of Arista's revenues came from the Americas in 2017, with the remaining 27% coming from International markets. In 2016, 77% of its revenues came from the Americas, while 23% came from other international markets. The bulls and bears are split on Cisco The bears believe that Cisco could marginalize Arista by beefing up Meraki and integrating the platform more aggressively into its other hardware and software products. Cisco also plans to repatriate $67 billion of its overseas cash, and over $20 billion of that total could be used on R&D or domestic acquisitions aimed at countering Arista. However, many bulls have suggested that it might simply be easier for Cisco to buy Arista, which has an enterprise value of $17 billion. The bulls will also note that if Cisco had the power to crush Arista, it would have done so years ago instead of trying to throttle its growth with desperate lawsuits. The verdict: Buy the dip Arista's 43% sales growth and 77% jump in non-GAAP earnings during the fourth quarter easily beat analyst expectations. Its forecast for 34%-40% sales growth during the first quarter also matched analyst expectations. Therefore, Arista's sell-off was likely caused by simple profit-taking, over-analyzing Brennan's comments, or mild concerns about its forward P/E of 36, which looks a bit frothy in a volatile market. It probably wasn't caused by any fundamental problems with Arista, or real fears that Cisco is catching up. I believe investors who buy this dip in Arista could be well rewarded over the next few quarters. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Arista Networks. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks fell off from highs of the day on Wednesday, but two of the major benchmarks still ended the session in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) closed just short of 25,000 and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) posted a small gain. Today's stock market Index Percentage Change Point Change Dow 0.66% 164.70 S&P 500 0.10% 2.63 Data source: Yahoo! Finance. A spate of earnings reports and a rise in crude oil prices propelled energy stocks, with the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSEMKT: XOP) gaining 2.2%. Concerns about rising rates eased today, hurting bank stocks; the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (NYSEMKT: KRE) fell 1.9%. As for individual stocks, Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) reported blowout earnings and Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) beat expectations but shares sank anyway. Stock prices and arrows going up and down. Image source: Getty Images. Chesapeake Energy soars on turnaround hopes Shares of natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy soared 21.7% after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results on strong production gains and cost savings, and increased its forecast for 2018 production. Revenue jumped 24.6% to $2.52 billion, compared with analyst expectations of $2.3 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.30, compared with $0.07 in the period a year earlier and Wall Street estimates for $0.24 per share. Average daily production was 593,200 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), up 15% from Q4 last year and 10% sequentially. Combined production and general and administrative expenses were $3.84 per BOE, down 10% from last year. Chesapeake raised its outlook for production in 2018 to increase 1% to 5%, adjusted for asset sales, after delivering a forecast for flat production growth in 2018 just over two weeks ago. Chesapeake's shares were hammered in 2017, losing 44% as the company sold off wells in order to pay down debt by $1.3 billion and return to growth. The earnings beat and good news on production growth had investors believing that the turnaround could be taking hold, even though the company still has a long way to go, and shares are still selling for less than half of their 52-week high. Story continues Roku surprises with a profit Roku, the maker of streaming-media devices, reported Q4 results that beat expectations but shares tanked anyway, falling 17.7%. Revenue increased 28% to $188.3 million compared with the analyst consensus for $182.5 million in sales. Wall Street was expecting Roku to report a per-share loss of $0.10, but the company earned $0.06 per share instead. Active accounts increased 44% to $19.3 million, streaming hours grew 55%, and average revenue per user grew 48% to $13.78. Roku reports its business according to two segments: player and platform. Unit sales of the hardware players increased 8% year over year, but a 14% decline in average selling price resulted in a 7% decline in segment revenue to $102.8 million. Where Roku really makes its money is the platform business, which includes advertising and content distribution. Platform revenue grew 129% to $85.4 million and generated a 74.6% gross margin, down from 77.5% in Q3. The rapid growth of the platform segment caused the company's overall gross margin to increase to 39% from 30% a year ago. Looking forward, Roku projected Q1 revenue of $120 million to $130 million, which was below analyst expectations of $132 million. However, the forecast for full-year revenue between $660 million and $690 million was largely above Wall Street's estimate of $662 million. It would be tough to find fault with Roku's results last quarter, and the lowball guidance for next quarter would hardly seem to be an issue, given that expectations for the full year are well on track. But even after today's setback, the stock has roughly tripled since the IPO less than five months ago, so this may just be a case of investors adjusting near-term expectations and taking some profits. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Jim Crumly has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks fell off from highs of the day on Wednesday, but two of the major benchmarks still ended the session in the green. TheDow Jones Industrial Average(DJINDICES: ^DJI)closed just short of 25,000 and theS&P 500(SNPINDEX: ^GSPC)posted a small gain.
[{"Index": "Dow", "Percentage Change": "0.66%", "Point Change": "164.70"}, {"Index": "S&P 500", "Percentage Change": "0.10%", "Point Change": "2.63"}]
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
A spate of earnings reports and a rise in crude oil prices propelled energy stocks, with theSPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF(NYSEMKT: XOP)gaining 2.2%. Concerns about rising rates eased today, hurting bank stocks; theSPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF(NYSEMKT: KRE)fell 1.9%.
As for individual stocks,Chesapeake Energy(NYSE: CHK)reported blowout earnings andRoku(NASDAQ: ROKU)beat expectations but shares sank anyway.
Image source: Getty Images.
Shares of natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy soared 21.7% afterthe company reportedbetter-than-expected fourth-quarter results on strong production gains and cost savings, and increased its forecast for 2018 production. Revenue jumped 24.6% to $2.52 billion, compared with analyst expectations of $2.3 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.30, compared with $0.07 in the period a year earlier and Wall Street estimates for $0.24 per share.
Average daily production was 593,200 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), up 15% from Q4 last year and 10% sequentially. Combined production and general and administrative expenses were $3.84 per BOE, down 10% from last year. Chesapeake raised its outlook for production in 2018 to increase 1% to 5%, adjusted for asset sales, after delivering a forecast for flat production growth in 2018 just over two weeks ago.
Chesapeake's shares were hammered in 2017, losing 44% as the company sold off wells in order to pay down debt by $1.3 billion and return to growth. The earnings beat and good news on production growth had investors believing that the turnaround could be taking hold, even though the company still has a long way to go, and shares are still selling for less than half of their 52-week high.
Roku, the maker of streaming-media devices, reportedQ4 resultsthat beat expectations but shares tanked anyway, falling 17.7%. Revenue increased 28% to $188.3 million compared with the analyst consensus for $182.5 million in sales. Wall Street was expecting Roku to report a per-share loss of $0.10, but the company earned $0.06 per share instead.
Active accounts increased 44% to $19.3 million, streaming hours grew 55%, and average revenue per user grew 48% to $13.78.
Roku reports its business according to two segments: player and platform. Unit sales of the hardware players increased 8% year over year, but a 14% decline in average selling price resulted in a 7% decline in segment revenue to $102.8 million. Where Roku really makes its money is the platform business, which includes advertising and content distribution. Platform revenue grew 129% to $85.4 million and generated a 74.6% gross margin, down from 77.5% in Q3. The rapid growth of the platform segment caused the company's overall gross margin to increase to 39% from 30% a year ago.
Looking forward, Roku projected Q1 revenue of $120 million to $130 million, which was below analyst expectations of $132 million. However, the forecast for full-year revenue between $660 million and $690 million was largely above Wall Street's estimate of $662 million.
It would be tough to find fault with Roku's results last quarter, and the lowball guidance for next quarter would hardly seem to be an issue, given that expectations for the full year are well on track. But even after today's setback, the stock has roughly tripled since the IPO less than five months ago, so this may just be a case of investors adjusting near-term expectations and taking some profits.
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Jim Crumlyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Tesla, Inc. Expands Model 3 Orders to New Customers: In a move that demonstrates progress on the important Model 3 production ramp, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has started accepting orders for the new vehicle from reservation holders who were not previous Tesla owners. After the electric-car maker announced two delays to its Model 3 production targets, mounting evidence that Model 3 production is finally on track with the company's aggressive production plans is good news for shareholders. Rising production The Model 3 launched last year, but initial deliveries have been limited to employees and to customers who had purchased Tesla's pricier vehicles. By prioritizing employee deliveries, Tesla was reducing the feedback loop for early production models to more easily address faults before expanding deliveries to new customers. In addition, Tesla prioritized deliveries to previous Tesla owners as a means to reward early adopters for betting on the company in its earlier years. A woman unlocks her Model 3 with a Tesla app on her smartphone Model 3. Image source: Tesla. But Tesla gradually started contacting some first-time owners on Thursday, inviting them to configure and order their Model 3 sedans, Tesla confirmed with The Motley Fool. In addition, a Tesla spokesperson said that customers can expect to take delivery of their Model 3s about four weeks after their orders are placed. This is welcome news after Tesla's Model 3 production challenges in the beginning. In Tesla's most recently ended quarter, the company delivered just 1,542 Model 3 units. The minuscule deliveries, which were way below what investors were expecting , made it unclear if Tesla could ramp up production fast enough to begin delivering to customers who were new to the brand during the first quarter of 2018. Can Tesla start hitting targets? After the company pushed back its Model 3 production targets by about six months, investors have been watching the important vehicle's production ramp-up closely. The last delay was announced a few days into the year, alongside Tesla's quarterly vehicle delivery report. But when Tesla released its fourth-quarter results in February, the company said it was on track with its most recently announced production targets. And Thursday's news about opening up orders to new customers suggests the Model 3's production ramp-up continues to go smoothly. Story continues Management expects Model 3 production to increase exponentially, aiming to end its first quarter at a production rate of 2,500 Model 3 units per week and to achieve a rate of 5,000 units per week by the end of its second quarter. With Tesla now accepting orders from new customers, is Model 3 production finally kicking into high gear? Tesla vehicle production line Tesla factory. Image source: author. Tesla needs Model 3 production to accelerate quickly in order to help cover the costs of its hefty capital spending. The automaker expects capital expenditures in 2018 to be slightly higher than the record $3.4 billion recorded in 2017. The high capital expenditures last year led to significant negative free cash flow, to the tune of $3.5 billion. Until Model 3 production and deliveries ramp up to the point the vehicle begins contributing positive operating cash flow, Tesla is at risk of needing to raise more capital through debt or equity. Fortunately, Tesla expects Model 3's gross profit margin to get to around 25% after production reaches 5,000 units per week. But Tesla investors have good reason to be skeptical after the company's recent production-target misses. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Daniel Sparks owns shares of Tesla. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Tesla, Inc. Expands Model 3 Orders to New Customers: In a move that demonstrates progress on the important Model 3 production ramp,Tesla(NASDAQ: TSLA)has started accepting orders for the new vehicle from reservation holders who were not previous Tesla owners. After the electric-car maker announced two delays to its Model 3 production targets, mounting evidence that Model 3 production is finally on track with the company's aggressive production plans is good news for shareholders.
The Model 3 launched last year, but initial deliveries have been limited to employees and to customers who had purchased Tesla's pricier vehicles. By prioritizing employee deliveries, Tesla was reducing the feedback loop for early production models to more easily address faults before expanding deliveries to new customers. In addition, Tesla prioritized deliveries to previous Tesla owners as a means to reward early adopters for betting on the company in its earlier years.
Model 3. Image source: Tesla.
But Tesla gradually started contacting some first-time owners on Thursday, inviting them to configure and order their Model 3 sedans, Tesla confirmed with The Motley Fool. In addition, a Tesla spokesperson said that customers can expect to take delivery of their Model 3s about four weeks after their orders are placed.
This is welcome news after Tesla's Model 3 production challenges in the beginning. In Tesla's most recently ended quarter, the company delivered just 1,542 Model 3 units. The minuscule deliveries, which wereway below what investors were expecting, made it unclear if Tesla could ramp up production fast enough to begin delivering to customers who were new to the brand during the first quarter of 2018.
After the company pushed back its Model 3 production targets by about six months, investors have been watching the important vehicle's production ramp-up closely. The last delay was announced a few days into the year, alongside Tesla's quarterly vehicle delivery report. But when Tesla released its fourth-quarter results in February, the company said it wason trackwith its most recently announced production targets. And Thursday's news about opening up orders to new customers suggests the Model 3's production ramp-up continues to go smoothly.
Management expects Model 3 production to increase exponentially, aiming to end its first quarter at a production rate of 2,500 Model 3 units per week and to achieve a rate of 5,000 units per week by the end of its second quarter.
With Tesla now accepting orders from new customers, is Model 3 production finally kicking into high gear?
Tesla factory. Image source: author.
Tesla needs Model 3 production to accelerate quickly in order to help cover the costs of its hefty capital spending. The automaker expects capital expenditures in 2018 to be slightly higher than the record $3.4 billion recorded in 2017. The high capital expenditures last year led to significant negative free cash flow, to the tune of $3.5 billion.
Until Model 3 production and deliveries ramp up to the point the vehicle begins contributing positive operating cash flow, Tesla is at risk of needing to raise more capital through debt or equity. Fortunately, Tesla expects Model 3's gross profit margin to get to around 25% after production reaches 5,000 units per week. But Tesla investors have good reason to be skeptical after the company's recent production-target misses.
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Daniel Sparksowns shares of Tesla. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin Drops Another 6% -- Is This Profit-Taking or Something Worse?: Thursday has been a gloomy day in the cryptocurrency markets, with more than 95% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies in the red. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), which had rallied to more than $11,000 recently, is back below the key psychological $10,000 level again. Is this just profit-taking as many experts are suggesting, or is demand for cryptocurrencies starting to fade? The back of a man with his hands on his head looking at financial charts. Image source: Getty Images. Today's cryptocurrency prices Here's a quick look at the five largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and how much each has changed over the past 24 hours. Cryptocurrency Name (Code) Price in U.S. Dollars Day's Change Bitcoin (BTC-USD) $9,906.30 (6.2%) Ethereum (ETH-USD) $804.89 (3.5%) Ripple (XRP-USD) $0.87 (9.5%) Bitcoin Cash (BCH-USD) $1,191.50 (8.3%) Litecoin (LTC-USD) $193.72 (8.5%) Data Source: www.investing.com. Prices and daily changes as of Feb. 22, 2018 at 2:30 p.m. EST, and prices are rounded to the nearest cent where appropriate. The major cryptocurrencies are all in the red today. In fact, of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, only three are in positive territory on Thursday. Just profit-taking? Many cryptocurrency analysts are brushing off the recent drop in bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies as profit-taking, and not anything investors should be too concerned about. In an interview with CNBC, Nick Kirk, quantitative developer and data scientist at Cypher Capital, said that the bitcoin (BTC-USD) sell-off is profit-taking and "a bit of resistance at the 10k to 11k price point." This is certainly a logical explanation. After all, even with the drop of the past couple of days, the cryptocurrency market has risen from a low market capitalization of $276 billion on Feb. 6 to about $445 billion now. So, it's certainly conceivable that many people have made profits and are cashing in. It's also common for assets (stocks, bonds, and even cryptocurrencies) to run into resistance, especially at key psychological levels like $10,000 for bitcoin (BTC-USD) or $1 for Ripple (XRP-USD). These are logical selling points for profitable investors, so it makes sense that it can be tough to remain over these thresholds. Story continues Some concerning news While the profit-taking argument certainly has merit, the latest downward move comes after the SEC charged former cryptocurrency exchange BitFunder and its founder with fraud, alleging that they ran an "unregistered securities exchange." There is lots of uncertainty among U.S. investors concerning how the government will ultimately classify, and therefore regulate, cryptocurrencies. This latest news could be adding to that uncertainty, and therefore could be weighing on the industry. The bottom line is that for the time being, there's no reason to panic. A 6% drop in a cryptocurrency is actually a rather mild move, and most cryptocurrencies are still well above their lows reached earlier this month. Demand doesn't seem to be falling much One thing is for sure. The demand for cryptocurrency trading doesn't appear to be dying out. Quite the opposite, actually. A few weeks ago, commission-free stock-trading company Robinhood announced its plans to offer commission-free bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD) trading through its platform, and the company has now begun to slowly roll out the new features. So far, only certain users in a few states have access, but the company plans to continue its rollout. And there are lots of interested people. As of this writing, the waitlist to get access to Robinhood's cryptocurrency trading is more than 1 million names long. There are several negative catalysts that could cause cryptocurrencies to fall, but it doesn't appear that "lack of interest" will be the reason, at least not anytime soon. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matt Frankel owns Ethereum and Litecoin tokens. The Motley Fool has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin Drops Another 6% -- Is This Profit-Taking or Something Worse?: Thursday has been a gloomy day in the cryptocurrency markets, with more than 95% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies in the red. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), which had rallied to more than $11,000 recently, is back below the key psychological $10,000 level again.
Is this just profit-taking as many experts are suggesting, or is demand for cryptocurrencies starting to fade?
Image source: Getty Images.
Here's a quick look at the five largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and how much each has changed over the past 24 hours.
[{"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Bitcoin (BTC-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$9,906.30", "Day's Change": "(6.2%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Ethereum (ETH-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$804.89", "Day's Change": "(3.5%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Ripple (XRP-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$0.87", "Day's Change": "(9.5%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Bitcoin Cash (BCH-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$1,191.50", "Day's Change": "(8.3%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Litecoin (LTC-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$193.72", "Day's Change": "(8.5%)"}]
Data Source: www.investing.com. Prices and daily changes as of Feb. 22, 2018 at 2:30 p.m. EST, and prices are rounded to the nearest cent where appropriate.
The major cryptocurrencies are all in the red today. In fact, of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, only three are in positive territory on Thursday.
Many cryptocurrency analysts are brushing off the recent drop in bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies as profit-taking, and not anything investors should be too concerned about.
In an interview with CNBC, Nick Kirk, quantitative developer and data scientist at Cypher Capital, said that the bitcoin (BTC-USD) sell-off is profit-taking and "a bit of resistance at the 10k to 11k price point."
This is certainly a logical explanation. After all, even with the drop of the past couple of days, the cryptocurrency market has risen from a low market capitalization of $276 billionon Feb. 6to about $445 billion now. So, it's certainly conceivable that many people have made profits and are cashing in.
It's also common for assets (stocks, bonds, and even cryptocurrencies) to run into resistance, especially at key psychological levels like $10,000 for bitcoin (BTC-USD) or $1 for Ripple (XRP-USD). These are logical selling points for profitable investors, so it makes sense that it can be tough to remain over these thresholds.
While the profit-taking argument certainly has merit, the latest downward move comes after the SEC charged former cryptocurrency exchange BitFunder and its founder with fraud, alleging that they ran an "unregistered securities exchange."
There is lots of uncertainty among U.S. investors concerning how the government will ultimately classify, and therefore regulate, cryptocurrencies. This latest news could be adding to that uncertainty, and therefore could be weighing on the industry.
The bottom line is that for the time being, there's no reason to panic. A 6% drop in a cryptocurrency is actually a rather mild move, and most cryptocurrencies are still well above their lows reached earlier this month.
One thing is for sure. The demand for cryptocurrency trading doesn't appear to be dying out. Quite the opposite, actually.
A few weeks ago, commission-free stock-trading company Robinhoodannounced its plansto offer commission-free bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD) trading through its platform, and the company has now begun to slowly roll out the new features.
So far, only certain users in a few states have access, but the company plans to continue its rollout. And there are lots of interested people. As of this writing, the waitlist to get access to Robinhood's cryptocurrency trading is more than 1 million names long.
There are several negative catalysts that could cause cryptocurrencies to fall, but it doesn't appear that "lack of interest" will be the reason, at least not anytime soon.
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Matt Frankelowns Ethereum and Litecoin tokens. The Motley Fool has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin Drops Another 6% -- Is This Profit-Taking or Something Worse?: Thursday has been a gloomy day in the cryptocurrency markets, with more than 95% of the top 100 cryptocurrencies in the red. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), which had rallied to more than $11,000 recently, is back below the key psychological $10,000 level again.
Is this just profit-taking as many experts are suggesting, or is demand for cryptocurrencies starting to fade?
Image source: Getty Images.
Here's a quick look at the five largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and how much each has changed over the past 24 hours.
[{"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Bitcoin (BTC-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$9,906.30", "Day's Change": "(6.2%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Ethereum (ETH-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$804.89", "Day's Change": "(3.5%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Ripple (XRP-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$0.87", "Day's Change": "(9.5%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Bitcoin Cash (BCH-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$1,191.50", "Day's Change": "(8.3%)"}, {"Cryptocurrency Name (Code)": "Litecoin (LTC-USD)", "Price in U.S. Dollars": "$193.72", "Day's Change": "(8.5%)"}]
Data Source: www.investing.com. Prices and daily changes as of Feb. 22, 2018 at 2:30 p.m. EST, and prices are rounded to the nearest cent where appropriate.
The major cryptocurrencies are all in the red today. In fact, of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, only three are in positive territory on Thursday.
Many cryptocurrency analysts are brushing off the recent drop in bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies as profit-taking, and not anything investors should be too concerned about.
In an interview with CNBC, Nick Kirk, quantitative developer and data scientist at Cypher Capital, said that the bitcoin (BTC-USD) sell-off is profit-taking and "a bit of resistance at the 10k to 11k price point."
This is certainly a logical explanation. After all, even with the drop of the past couple of days, the cryptocurrency market has risen from a low market capitalization of $276 billionon Feb. 6to about $445 billion now. So, it's certainly conceivable that many people have made profits and are cashing in.
It's also common for assets (stocks, bonds, and even cryptocurrencies) to run into resistance, especially at key psychological levels like $10,000 for bitcoin (BTC-USD) or $1 for Ripple (XRP-USD). These are logical selling points for profitable investors, so it makes sense that it can be tough to remain over these thresholds.
While the profit-taking argument certainly has merit, the latest downward move comes after the SEC charged former cryptocurrency exchange BitFunder and its founder with fraud, alleging that they ran an "unregistered securities exchange."
There is lots of uncertainty among U.S. investors concerning how the government will ultimately classify, and therefore regulate, cryptocurrencies. This latest news could be adding to that uncertainty, and therefore could be weighing on the industry.
The bottom line is that for the time being, there's no reason to panic. A 6% drop in a cryptocurrency is actually a rather mild move, and most cryptocurrencies are still well above their lows reached earlier this month.
One thing is for sure. The demand for cryptocurrency trading doesn't appear to be dying out. Quite the opposite, actually.
A few weeks ago, commission-free stock-trading company Robinhoodannounced its plansto offer commission-free bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD) trading through its platform, and the company has now begun to slowly roll out the new features.
So far, only certain users in a few states have access, but the company plans to continue its rollout. And there are lots of interested people. As of this writing, the waitlist to get access to Robinhood's cryptocurrency trading is more than 1 million names long.
There are several negative catalysts that could cause cryptocurrencies to fall, but it doesn't appear that "lack of interest" will be the reason, at least not anytime soon.
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Matt Frankelowns Ethereum and Litecoin tokens. The Motley Fool has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 1 Big Misconception About Apple's Upcoming 6.1-Inch LCD iPhone: It's widely believed that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is planning to introduce three new iPhone models later this year. The cheapest of the bunch is expected to have a 6.1-inch liquid crystal display (LCD), while the two higher-end models are expected to incorporate 5.85-inch and 6.46-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, as well as some aesthetic and internal hardware improvements. In Forbes , contributor Ewan Spence refers to the presumed 6.1-inch LCD model as the iPhone SE 2, implying that it is a successor to the budget-friendly iPhone SE that launched back in March of 2016 . This notion is reasonably popular among those who follow Apple, but I don't think it's correct. Apple's iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 shown being splashed with water. Image source: Apple. The 6.1-inch LCD is the next iPhone In the fall of 2017, Apple introduced three new iPhone models: iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were the next steps in their respective evolutionary lines, which began with the introductions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the fall of 2014. The 5.8-inch iPhone X represented, in effect, an entirely new category of iPhone -- an ultra-premium device with a price tag to match. It's probably helpful to think of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus as the newest iterations of the iPhone line, while the iPhone X is the first of an entirely new line of ultra-premium smartphones from Apple. In other words, Apple now has two smartphone product lines: iPhone and iPhone X. Apple's iPhones in a mosaic pattern. Image source: Apple. The 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, then, is likely simply the next step for the iPhone family, replacing both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus . It's possible for Apple to replace both of those devices with a single model because of new screen technology that'll allow Apple to offer users the display area of the larger iPhone 8 Plus (5.5 inches) in a physical footprint that's similar to that of the smaller iPhone 8 (4.7 inches), so there's no reason for Apple's mainstream iPhone models to come in two sizes any longer. The iPhone X series, on the other hand, is expected to come in two sizes because Apple might view potential iPhone X customers as its best, most enthusiastic customers (since they're willing to pay more), and as such, is willing to put in the work to offer them different screen size choices. It's no different from what Apple is doing with the iPad lineup: The low-cost iPad comes in a single display size (9.7 inches) while the higher-priced iPad Pro lineup comes in two display sizes (10.5 inches and 12.9 inches). What of the new iPhone SE? There continue to be rumors that Apple is working on an updated version of the iPhone SE , and I think they're credible: The success of the iPhone SE means that it makes business sense for Apple to release an updated model. However, it's clear that the iPhone SE branding will be reserved for lower-cost/smaller-screen iPhone models that don't enjoy annual refreshes because the kinds of customers that are interested in such devices aren't likely to value rapid innovation as much as customers who prefer the larger-screen iPhone models do. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Ashraf Eassa has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || 1 Big Misconception About Apple's Upcoming 6.1-Inch LCD iPhone: It's widely believed thatApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)is planning to introduce three new iPhone models later this year. The cheapest of the bunch is expected to have a 6.1-inch liquid crystal display (LCD), while the two higher-end models are expected to incorporate 5.85-inch and 6.46-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, as well as some aesthetic and internal hardware improvements.
InForbes, contributor Ewan Spence refers to the presumed 6.1-inch LCD model as the iPhone SE 2, implying that it is a successor to the budget-friendly iPhone SE that launchedback in March of 2016.
This notion is reasonably popular among those who follow Apple, but I don't think it's correct.
Image source: Apple.
In the fall of 2017, Apple introduced three new iPhone models: iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were the next steps in their respective evolutionary lines, which began with the introductions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the fall of 2014. The 5.8-inch iPhone X represented, in effect, an entirely new category of iPhone -- an ultra-premium device with a price tag to match.
It's probably helpful to think of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus as the newest iterations of the iPhone line, while the iPhone X is the first of an entirely new line of ultra-premium smartphones from Apple. In other words, Apple now has two smartphone product lines: iPhone and iPhone X.
Image source: Apple.
The 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, then, is likely simply the next step for the iPhone family, replacing both theiPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. It's possible for Apple to replace both of those devices with a single model because of new screen technology that'll allow Apple to offer users the display area of the larger iPhone 8 Plus (5.5 inches) in a physical footprint that's similar to that of the smaller iPhone 8 (4.7 inches), so there's no reason for Apple's mainstream iPhone models to come in two sizes any longer.
The iPhone X series, on the other hand, is expected to come in two sizes because Apple might view potential iPhone X customers as its best, most enthusiastic customers (since they're willing to pay more), and as such, is willing to put in the work to offer them different screen size choices.
It's no different from what Apple is doing with the iPad lineup: The low-cost iPad comes in a single display size (9.7 inches) while the higher-priced iPad Pro lineup comes in two display sizes (10.5 inches and 12.9 inches).
There continue to be rumors that Apple is working on anupdated version of the iPhone SE, and I think they're credible: The success of the iPhone SE means that it makes business sense for Apple to release an updated model. However, it's clear that the iPhone SE branding will be reserved for lower-cost/smaller-screen iPhone models that don't enjoy annual refreshes because the kinds of customers that are interested in such devices aren't likely to value rapid innovation as much as customers who prefer the larger-screen iPhone models do.
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Ashraf Eassahas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Time to Invest in This Growing Corner of the Travel Industry?: Cruises make up only a small sliver of the global travel and leisure sector, but the leading companies in that space offer significant potential for investors.
In this episode ofIndustry Focus: Consumer Goods, Vincent Shen and Motley Fool contributor Dan Kline take a look at the global cruise industry, including its three biggest players:Carnival(NYSE: CCL),Royal Caribbean(NYSE: RCL), andNorwegian Cruise Line(NASDAQ: NCLH).
A full transcript follows the video.
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This video was recorded on Feb. 20, 2018.
Vincent Shen:Welcome toIndustry Focus, the podcast that dives into a different sector of the stock market every day. It's Tuesday, February 20th, and I'm your host, Vincent Shen.
Earlier this month, we talked about recreational vehicles, RVs, learning aboutThor IndustriesandWinnebagoin our first show of 2018 dedicated to travel and leisure. Today, we're going to continue our coverage of that sector, but this time, our focus will turn to the sea and the three major cruise operators. Those are Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line.
Joining me for this discussion in the Fool HQ studio is Motley Fool contributor, Dan Kline. Hey, Dan! Good to see you again so soon!
Dan Kline:Hey, Vince! How are you?
Shen:You're back three weeks later in studio with us.
Kline:Fresh off a cruise, as well.
Shen:There you go. You have some recent firsthand experience to speak to us for this. To get our conversation started, I think it's important that investors that are new to this industry, this business, that they understand some big picture things about the industry. Dan, feel free to chime in as I walk through some of these numbers here. It's really interesting, actually.
First, I'm going to give some scale. The global ocean cruise fleet I could find is 310 ships with a capacity for about 540,000 passengers. And that number is growing as new ships come online. There's actually an estimated 90 new ships that will be delivered between now and 2025, and that totals an investment of $55 billion.
Kline:It's also important to remember that doesn't always raise the total. Ships do come out of circulation.
Shen:Absolutely. Some of our operators, for example, will retire about one or two ships a year as they bring in new ones.
Kline:And ships generally move down the line. The three major companies we're talking about today will buy a ship, use it for its lifespan, sell it to one of the smaller companies or regional operators, and then eventually it will come off the sea completely.
Shen:So the scale again, that capacity, with over 300 ships, 540,000 passengers, it sounds pretty impressive, but you have to keep in mind that cruising only represents a small portion of the global travel and leisure industry. Various sources value global annual bookings in this industry for total travel and leisure at $1.2 trillion, but the cruise industry revenue last year was only about $30 billion, that's only about 3% of the total. By comparison, commercial airlines accounts for closer to $800 billion travel spending. You could consider this a niche within the sector.
Kline:You also very rarely take a cruise to get to a business meeting.
Shen:Yes, that's very fair. Overall, the cruises are becoming more popular worldwide, they're seeing strong growth rates. Average annual passenger growth since 1980 has been about 7%, and if we go back only 10 years, it's been about 4.5%. A lot of that is coming from newer developing markets like Asia.
The second thing I want to focus on beyond scale is who the customer is in this industry. There's definitely a concentration of them here in the U.S. In this corner of travel and leisure, there are over 1,000 port cities, there are destinations across dozens of countries. I think cruises will stop in every single continent. But the U.S. consumer is by far the leader in terms of cruise travel. The cruise industry only started to resemble its current state once cruises became more popular in the North American market. A few decades later, U.S. cruise travelers number about 11.5 million in a year. The next three largest markets are Germany, the U.K., and China. They each account for only about two million. That's out of about 26 million passengers annually.
Kline:It's a mature market in the U.S. There's growth potential.
Shen:Absolutely, and we'll get to that.
Kline:[laughs] Then I won't say it now.
Shen:[laughs] So the point I wanted to make on that is, close to you, Dan, Port of Miami is the largest cruise port in the world. They handle about five million passengers each year. Because of the concentration of popularity in the U.S., the most popular port destination in the world is not too far away, it's the Caribbean and the Bahamas, which make up one-third of all cruise capacity each year, while the Mediterranean, which is the next biggest destination, makes up about 15%. I was pretty surprised by that.
Kline:The Caribbean is sort of a starter cruise. That's where I went. I went in a family cruise. You can have a short itinerary. You can do a three day, a four day, we did a six day. And it doesn't take much. You don't even need a passport when you get off in most countries. The first cruise you go on, and the industry sort of knows this, is almost like where you get your sea legs. You figure out how it works, you understand how the ship is, what the ports are like. And then they're more likely to sell you on a more exotic destination.
Shen:Absolutely. And management speaks to that, about how the Caribbean and the Bahamas, for example, they feel like a safer destination for the U.S. consumer. It's close by and it's much more accessible in that way.
Kline:And there's nothing particularly adventurous about it. Most of those itineraries include a day at a private beach where it's very simple. You get off the boat, there's a barbecue, there's a beach. You're not exploring ancient ruins. The excursions are not anything particularly daring, maybe a zip line or a hotel pool or something. But if you've never been to a big resort or a theme park before, to go to one for a couple of days, you're probably going to have a better experience the next time, and the industry is absolutely understanding that one cruise is the gateway to another.
Shen:The third thing I wanted to talk to you about in terms of high-level takeaways is the long-term potential for this industry. Even though the U.S. has a relatively high penetration, two-thirds of Americans have actually never been on a cruise, which actually also surprised me. Only 3.5% of U.S. consumers will travel on cruises annually, and that number drops to less than 2% for Europeans, and again, the opportunity for Asia, 0.1% for that region. As you can imagine, with the low number in Asia, that market, and China especially, is a big opportunity for these companies. And it gets mentioned in just about every single earnings call, industry outlook, and financial report that I could find.
The last thing I want to touch on is some of the more specific industry dynamics and things to know about how management teams plan out each year. A big part of that is seasonality, if you could touch on that, Dan?
Kline:Basically, we're in the heart of the booking season. They call it the "WAVE" season. It's not an official period, but it's roughly three months, where the goal is to fill the ships at the best price possible. For a consumer, that tends to be maybe a little higher than you'd get at the last minute, but you get the most perks, usually, if you book early. Everything is about taking that boat and going, seven months from now, 12 months from now, whatever it is, it varies a little bit, up to about maybe about 18 months, we're at 60% capacity before anything has happened, or whatever the profitability number is, we've broke even.
And then they work their magic. Then you start to get, Dan has booked, and he's booked the cheapest possible cabin. For an extra $5 a day, do you want the next best cabin? Because that will free up a low-price cabin, which they can then market. Or maybe all the balconies have sold out, so they upmarket you a suite. It's a very intricate dance that starts in this season. And they push very hard, because they have to plan. You can't build a cruise ship in a day. As a matter of fact, you can't build one in six months. [laughs] I mean, I could, but they can't. So they have to figure out what their capacity is going to be. And if they have specific cruise lines, a seven-day trip that's not selling, they could cancel that trip, they could move the capacity elsewhere, they could reposition the ship. There's a lot of different ways. It's a very far-thinking industry.
Shen:I'll add to that that right now, the first three months of the year, that wave season that a lot of management teams will speak to, is the heavy booking season. The people who are booking trips, the busiest time of the year is obviously dictated by the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere. They account for by far the most demand, the best ticket prices that these companies can get, and also the largest share of their operating income coming from this period.
Kline:And they also use a very smart strategy. We talked about this a little bit before. If you're booking aWaltDisneyWorld vacation, you generally have to pay for it. You have to buy your airline tickets. Maybe you don't pay for the hotel all at once, but you order your Disney tickets, you're paying for that within a couple of weeks, for all three pieces of it, or all at once. What the cruise lines do, specifically the more mass-market cruises, is this time of year, they let you book with a low deposit.
Shen:Get the reservation.
Kline:So it locks you in. Maybe it's $150, $200 a person. Maybe at a low-level cabin, you're getting $50 in onboard credit or free something for doing that. Then you can pay as you go. The brilliance of this is, by the time you get to the cruise, of course, you've paid it off, and you never wrote a big check. You most likely paid it off in little chunks. Which makes you feel freer when you get there about your ability to spend money. So then maybe you book some excursions, maybe you buy more drinks, maybe you up-sale a restaurant. It's a very smart strategy where at no point, if you want to do it this way, do you ever feel the pain of, "Oh, my god, I just spent $2,000 on a vacation."
Shen:Sure. So the last thing I'll get into in terms of high-level stuff in the industry before we start looking at those three companies. If you're an investor, with these companies, you're going to be able to compare the common financial metrics that we talk about, things like revenue and earnings growth, what their margins are like, what their return on invested capital is. But the big number that the industry monitors is revenue yield, or revenue per available passenger cruise day. Different companies call it different things, but ultimately what this tells us is how much the company is making across its fleet given the availability of rooms on each ship, and then the length of the cruising season for that ship.
So with that background, we're going to look at some of the actual players now. For our purposes, the three companies that really matter here are Carnival, ticker CCL, Royal Caribbean, ticker RCL, and Norwegian Cruise Line, ticker NCLH. Together, they claim over 80% of the market share in this industry. It's pretty impressive. Let's start with Carnival.
Kline:It's important to note, too, that Carnival is the big boy.
Shen:Yes.
Kline:By passenger total, not by revenue, Carnival has about half of the total cruising market.
Shen:Yes. 50% market share by passengers. As you mentioned, 12.1 million that they handled in 2017. They have by far the largest fleet, too, over 100 ships. Their passenger capacity is about 230,000, which is really cool. They operate a number of different cruise lines in their portfolio.
In addition to their namesake Carnival line, they have Princess, Costa, and additional cruise lines that will target specific geographies usually. Carnival, for example, operates almost entirely out of U.S. homeports. Costa is in Italy, France, and Spain. AIDA for Germany. The company had $17.5 billion of revenue in 2107. And for this industry, you'll see their net income margins, for example, usually around 15% to 20%. These companies spend a ton of money in their capex building out new ships, but they also generate a ton of cash. Carnival, for example, last year, had free cash flow of $1.5 billion, and that was after $3 billion of capex spending on their investments in current ships and new ones.
Kline:And their return on investment in a new ship is quick, much like when a new hotel opens at a theme park. It's pretty much the same. People want to stay there. So when a new Carnival ship, especially the biggest classes that have new amenities, they will sell out faster at higher prices. So you might hurt yourself down the line in taking away what would have been lower-paying business from older ships, but in general, there's a huge push when a new ship comes out.
Shen:So that metric that I mentioned, the revenue yield, the gross revenue yield for this company is growing. I should also mention that 2017 was a very strong year for the industry overall. To give you an idea of what they're dealing with here, their gross revenue yield hit about $210 in 2017, so it was up 3.9%. Keep in mind, in terms of the revenue breakdown for these companies, their passenger ticket revenue usually makes up about 75% to 80% of the top line, and everything else is onboard. The extra pass at the bar, and the excursions, and things like that.
Kline:It's a little harder for Carnival, because the ticket prices tend to be lower, so in the mix, the onboard is a little bit more important.
Shen:Then, something else to note that I thought was really jaw-dropping is, as of November 30th, the company has 18 cruise ships on schedule for delivery between 2018 and 2022. That adds for them passenger capacity of over 72,000. That's not net, because as you mentioned, some older ships will drop out of the fleet in that time.
But the thing that I've seen with Carnival, and also the other cruise operators, too, they say outright that their largest long-term growth opportunity period is the Chinese market. And Australia and Asia accounted for only 15% of their revenue last year, so there's still quite a bit of opportunity there.
Kline:There's absolutely a risk of having too much capacity. And just because ships are ordered, there are points where they could be canceled. So yes, they have their long-range plans. But the other thing we didn't mention about the past year, which was very strong, and it speaks to the revenue model, is we had a terrible hurricane season. And the hurricanes devastated many of the traditional ports.
One of the nice things about the revenue model is, I booked a cruise eight months ago. Pretend I did. The hurricane season happens, and we were supposed to stop in Nassau, well, the port in Nassau was destroyed. It wasn't, but let's pretend it was. The cruise line already has your money. You're already booked. Maybe you have travel insurance. Maybe you paid for the ability to cancel. But they don't cancel that cruise. They change where the cruise is going. And they have a period of time to market, "Hey, just because this happened doesn't mean we aren't cruising, doesn't mean you won't still have fun." So they have a little bit more, call it long-term flexibility. If a theme park loses a week due to a hurricane, there's kind of no way to make that up. But with the cruise ships, they don't sail through hurricanes, they move them around so they don't get hit, they can change itineraries, they can market to you, "Hey, I know you're not going where you think you were going, but it's still going to work for you."
Shen:And that's something that I think appeals to a lot of people who invest in these cruise stocks, there is still that stability in their business model.
Kline:They can fix a mistake.
Shen:So they have that seasonality, and there's going to be lumps there, obviously, in terms of the demand with the seasons. But we haven't really seen a big downturn for this industry since the financial crisis.
Kline:And actually, all three of these companies, though didn't look like they do now, they were all very resilient during the crash partly because there's a certainty to the price you're paying, at least in your head, and people were booked before their stocks tanked.
Shen:So they will take their blows, for sure, when there's a broader economic downturn. But overall, keep in mind that these companies also, with Carnival and Royal Caribbean, they returned lots of capital to their shareholders. The company pays I believe a 2.5% dividend or so, and they repurchased 63 million shares, about $3.1 billion, since late 2015. So just in the past couple of years. And they're operating with a very reasonable payout ratio, so that's not something that's really at risk. Again, I think that's something that really appeals to the investors that like that more stable business.
Otherwise, before we look at the comparable operations and details for Royal Caribbean and Norwegian, I want to talk about something that a lot of the operators are investing in, and that's the integration of technology on these ships. Hopefully can speak to that from your recent experience.
Kline:Absolutely.
Shen:Carnival has something called the OCEAN experience. They've been rolling that out very recently with a Medallion, it's Bluetooth enabled, it offers things like streamlined boarding to get rid of pain points in the vacation process like waiting in line, keyless access, they offer guides to the different activities that are happening on board, you can stay in contact with your fellow travelers. Last time I was on a cruise, this stuff wasn't really available.
Kline:And we're sort of at a midpoint now. Carnival is just rolling out the new technology. When you're on a cruise, everything is based on your key. Your key is your ability to buy a drink at the bar, you can take out an advance at the casino if you want, whatever you're going to do on board. On a cruise ship now, you get your key, which I wore on a dumb looking lanyard around my neck. And you're wearing it at the pool, you're wearing it because you don't want to lose it, it's a long line to get a new one.
And most of the cruise lines now, Carnival certainly, have an app. When you're on board, the days where you have to wait for a paper newspaper to tell you what's happening tomorrow, that's gone. You can look at the whole itinerary for the trip. You can see, there's sports trivia three days from now and I want to go, and one of the dinner choices tonight is venison, and boy I'd like to try that, so I'll go to the dining room. And you can communicate.
We've talked about this before. For a $5 additional fee on Carnival -- and everything is seemingly an additional fee -- you can have a ship-based chat app that lets you keep in contact with your group. Your phone is just in airplane mode on the ship wifi, and I can send you a text message, "Hey, meet me at the pool, meet me at this bar," and it takes away a major pain point, especially for parents who are traveling with children. My son could be getting a pizza at two in the morning, and I would have some sense of where he was. Or at I least could ping him. And that happened. [laughs]
Shen:Going to the other two players now, smaller but still the dominant ones in this industry, first we have Royal Caribbean. They're the second-largest cruise operator. They have owned and partnered brands that combine for 49 ships and capacity of about 123,000 passengers. Royal Caribbean, I think, is notable in their fleet, because they have some of the biggest ships. Their largest ones can accommodate over 5,000 passengers. I was looking at the list of largest cruise ships in the world, and I think something like the top five out of six, for example, are all the Royal Caribbean line.
Kline:They're pushing the boundaries with things like ice skating rinks and rock climbing walls in addition to water parks on board. We parked next one, or berthed next to one, and it was really impressive to look at.
Shen:Royal Caribbean, I mentioned to some of those owned and partnered brands. They have their namesake Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Azamara Club Cruises. They also partner with, in Germany and Spain and China, some other companies as well. Again, to give you a sense of how confident right now the management team seems to be in terms of growth for this industry, and the increased capacity that they want to be able to deliver, they have nine ships that are expected to be delivered between 2018 and 2022. That would add over 30,000 in passenger capacity to their fleet. Not net, again, because they're going to retire some older ship, most likely. The metric that we've been talking about, the revenue yield, for Royal Caribbean, was incredibly strong in 2017.
Kline:They've been laser-focused, since 2014, on doubling their return on invested capital and doubling their earnings per share. That's been all they talk about in every earnings call.
Shen:The double-double, yeah.
Kline:And they've reached it.
Shen:That revenue yield number was up 5.9% in 2017. This was the eighth consecutive year of yield growth, very impressive. And then, with that double-double milestone that they reached, the company is granting equity bonuses to all of its employees, except corporate officers, that equal about 5% annual salary. So it's interesting to follow.
Something else I noted is, the companies will also calculate, on the flip side, their cost yields. For example, here, while their revenue yields were up, like I said, about 5.9%, really strong growth, cost yields were only up about 2%. So profitability for Royal Caribbean has been really strong. Their gross and net income margins were up over three percentage points each in 2017. Again, dividend payer, very manageable payout ratio. They've repurchased about $1 billion of stocks since 2014. The actual raw gross yield number was about $237 last year, compared to $200 for Carnival. We're going to see for this last company we talk about, Norwegian, how it goes up due to a bit more of a focus on a premium clientele, premium experience.
Last one, Norwegian Cruise Lines. $5.3 billion revenue in the trailing 12-month period, so the smaller of the three.
Kline:And about 25 boats.
Shen:Yeah, 25 ships.
Kline:So, a quarter the size of Carnival.
Shen:50,000 berths, or passenger capacity. I wanted to hone in on a specific piece of their business recently. They've been talking a lot about the Norwegian Joy recently. This is a recent ship that was delivered last year. It caters specifically to the Chinese market. A big part of the ship that they've touted is, for example, the technological integration, this one zone with different gaming and virtual reality experiences and things like that, really appeals to the consumers in that market. But I also thought it was really interesting, management spoke to some quirks, call it, with Chinese consumers, that they're still adjusting to. It seems like all the operators are kind of working to adjust the business model to this.
Kline:The technology, we should also talk about, it isn't just for customer enjoyment. There's an analytics aspect to it.
Shen:Yes, absolutely.
Kline:So, what they're figuring out, in the U.S. market, they have a long history of, when a person who looks like me, traveling with one child in a family group, they know what I'm going to spend, they know what I'm probably going to do, they're going to have to figure that out, but the technology makes it faster. They can see, Dan browsed this excursion, but he didn't buy it. And then, if they're light on that excursion the next day, maybe I get a coupon. Maybe I got a deal. So they're going to come up to speed in China a lot faster than they've come up to speed in other markets.
Shen:And the analytics aspect of it is really big. As they serve more passengers in that market, they learn more about the consumer. But a few things but they've noted, higher food costs. Chinese cruise passengers love to eat. They've noticed a little bit higher food cost in that region. But they've also been hurt in some ways, because, we're talking about that onboard revenue, usually about 25% of the top line for these companies, more of the revenue in the Chinese market is coming from shopping and less of it is coming from excursions. They're not as interested in those port excursions, and that's hurting some of their profitability.
Kline:And some of it is just cultural. We've seen, things like pay-per-view have not worked in the Chinese market, because there's not a history of paying for add-ons. That's sort of the same things that cruise ships have to figure out. And they might have to do things like, the price is going to be higher, but this add-on is now included. And you do see that in the U.S. market, where you could pay twice as much for a cruise but it's all you can drink, and the internet is thrown in. It's really just getting that data and tweaking it to hit how you price, whether it's onboard revenue or ticketing revenue.
Shen:Last point, Carnival, gross yield $200. Royal Caribbean, $230. Norwegian, about $300. So, take from that what you will in terms of how they target the different --
Kline:And it speaks to ticket price. That's basically the order of low-end, medium-end, and high-end in the industry.
Shen:I want to end now, just a couple of more minutes, talking about some of the strengths that really speak to the stability and how favorable it is, the operating conditions, for the top three companies here in cruising. If there's any industry out there with high barriers to entry, I think this is definitely one, considering a new ship can cost $500 million to build. Not only that: Even if you have the money to build the ship, there's a very limited shipbuilding industry that can put together these massive ships. And they operate at capacity with commitments with the major operators for years and years, so it's really tough to even get your name into the queue, essentially.
Kline:Which is why ships get cycled down the line.
Shen:And something else is the logistics involved in operating a cruise line. Going through the annual report for these companies, it's fascinating to see all the different things that they keep in mind in terms of building the ship, the food and services on board, safety regulations, staffing, finding ports, the marketing. It's jaw-dropping, how much complexity there is in the logistics. Again, another barrier to entry, and why it's very favorable to be a Carnival, for example, with 50% market share in this space.
Overall, I think travel and leisure is definitely positioned to benefit from the Baby Boomers, who are looking to travel more. Gen X and Millennials -- there might be some debate around this in terms of the appeal of cruising. We were talking about this before the show.
Kline:Cruising has a reputation as being older folks. And if you go on Princess or certain lines, that's still what it's going to be in. If you go now, when kids are in school, of course there's going to be older folks. I went during Christmas vacation. Yes, there were absolutely plenty of grandparents, but it was largely a family atmosphere. So really, for the industry, they're running a lot of two-day cruises to try to attract younger people. And they're very much booze cruises, and the goal is to party. But the more you get people familiar with it, we talked about this a little, I don't see that as they get older, younger people aren't going to want to do it. Every vacation can't be rock climbing once you get to 50.
Shen:Sure. They say that Millennials, especially, spending more money on experiences and less on material goods, that's definitely a benefit overall for travel and leisure.
Kline:And a cruise is like a sample pack.
Shen:Yes.
Kline:If you go on a seven-day cruise with a Caribbean destination, or, my son and I are looking at a Cuba cruise this summer, you can go someplace and spend either part of the day or sometimes an overnight --
Shen:Get a sense of what it's like.
Kline:Yeah, and then decide if you want to take a vacation there.
Shen:Absolutely. So, these management teams in the short to mid-term, they're thinking about that seasonality that we talked about, they're thinking about the ships that are going to be coming online soon, there's always weather concerns with things like hurricane season, and fuel cost is always a big thing these companies are thinking about, too. But it comes down to, I think, long-term, all three of these companies are definitely in a position of strength, especially with the low penetration even in the established markets like the U.S. But, how that can grow in Europe, and of course in China and Asia, where you have this massively growing middle class, strong economy.
Kline:You can also grow the market by adding ships to ports that were previously underserved. Where I live in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, that's the hub of cruising in the U.S. People fly in to hit all those destinations. There aren't actually that many cruises that leave from the West Coast. And you're starting to see companies target West Coast itineraries, at least seasonally. So you're going to see, you can cruise from Boston, New York, all sorts of different markets. When you take away the need to get on an airplane in addition to getting to your cruise, right then and there you've increased your market capacity, because when I'm pricing out a vacation, if I have to take a family of three and add $1,000 in airfare, that might make a cruise not viable. So when they open in a port near here and you can take a cruise without having to fly, that will increase the industry. And they've been slowly adding capacity to different ports.
Shen:There you go. Thanks a lot, Dan! That's all the time we have today. I appreciate you joining me. I'm sure we'll be updating on some of these companies in the near future.
Kline:Thanks for having me!
Shen:Thanks for listening, Fools! Austin Morgan is our man behind the glass. People on the program may own companies discussed on the show, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against stocks mentioned, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear during the program. Thanks again for listening and Fool on!
Daniel B. Klinehas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Vincent Shenhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Carnival and Thor Industries. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
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FINANCIAL INDICATORS:
$ trading at R11.6734
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A Bitcoin costs R119899.00
Brent Crude $66.38 || 2018/02/23 17:00
#BTC 1020960.5円
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#仮想...
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9813.07, 9664.73, 10366.70, 10725.60, 10397.90, 10951.00, 11086.40, 11489.70, 11512.60, 11573.30
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40, 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97, 35697.61, 34616.07, 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-07-28]
Volume: 38702404695, RSI (14-day): 70.52, 50-day EMA: 35576.71, 200-day EMA: 38546.08
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1799.50, Gold RSI: 45.15
Oil Price: 72.39, Oil RSI: 52.88
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up: How After yesterday’s tremendous rise in Bitcoin and Bitcoin futures, today BTC gave up about half of Monday’s gains, and currently, as of 2 PM Eastern Standard Time, the most active August contract of BTC futures is trading down a little over 4% or $1625 on the day at $37,835.
The description in the posting was worded in a way that had many believing that the juggernaut of e-commerce was looking into accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option in the future. This belief was enough to shift market sentiment, which at the time was extremely bearish. The result was the liquidation of over $950 million worth of crypto shorts which was enough to propel Bitcoin above $40,000 intraday on Monday.
The optimism was squelched when an Amazon spokesperson denied that the company would accept Bitcoin as a payment option this year. This brought pricing well off of the highs, but the statement did not state that Bitcoin wouldn’t be accepted in the following year or that another crypto isn’t being considered for a possible sooner integration. Nonetheless, when the announcement was made at around 4 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bitcoin’s price fell from its highs at around $40,000 down to approximately $37,750 in a single hour.
On a technical basis, BTC futures still remain within the downward channel it has followed since the all-time highs in April. However, a few levels of resistance have now become areas of possible support. This includes the 50 and 200-day moving averages as well as the 2.618 Fibonacci extension at $33,000. As well as the current support level at the 50% retracement residing at $36,500. The volume levels in BTC had a dramatic spike today, giving the above-mentioned areas of support more validity.
Resistance remains at $40,000, and the ultimate support level at the 61.8% retracement of $29,750 has remained intact.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• USD/MXN tests its 200-day moving average ahead of the FOMC decision || Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up: How After yesterday’s tremendous rise in Bitcoin and Bitcoin futures, today BTC gave up about half of Monday’s gains, and currently, as of 2 PM Eastern Standard Time, the most active August contract of BTC futures is trading down a little over 4% or $1625 on the day at $37,835.
The description in the posting was worded in a way that had many believing that the juggernaut of e-commerce was looking into accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option in the future. This belief was enough to shift market sentiment, which at the time was extremely bearish. The result was the liquidation of over $950 million worth of crypto shorts which was enough to propel Bitcoin above $40,000 intraday on Monday.
The optimism was squelched when an Amazon spokesperson denied that the company would accept Bitcoin as a payment option this year. This brought pricing well off of the highs, but the statement did not state that Bitcoin wouldn’t be accepted in the following year or that another crypto isn’t being considered for a possible sooner integration. Nonetheless, when the announcement was made at around 4 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bitcoin’s price fell from its highs at around $40,000 down to approximately $37,750 in a single hour.
On a technical basis, BTC futures still remain within the downward channel it has followed since the all-time highs in April. However, a few levels of resistance have now become areas of possible support. This includes the 50 and 200-day moving averages as well as the 2.618 Fibonacci extension at $33,000. As well as the current support level at the 50% retracement residing at $36,500. The volume levels in BTC had a dramatic spike today, giving the above-mentioned areas of support more validity.
Resistance remains at $40,000, and the ultimate support level at the 61.8% retracement of $29,750 has remained intact.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Slide on Profit Taking
• Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout
• Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Rangebound; Breakout Trigger Points at $1816.10 and $1786.80
• US Stock Index Futures Flat as Investors Eye Asia Markets Ahead of Fed Decisions, Earnings Reports
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Australian CPI Spikes in Q2, but Core Inflation Subdued
• USD/MXN tests its 200-day moving average ahead of the FOMC decision || Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up: How After yesterdays tremendous rise in Bitcoin and Bitcoin futures, today BTC gave up about half of Mondays gains, and currently, as of 2 PM Eastern Standard Time, the most active August contract of BTC futures is trading down a little over 4% or $1625 on the day at $37,835. The description in the posting was worded in a way that had many believing that the juggernaut of e-commerce was looking into accepting cryptocurrency as a payment option in the future. This belief was enough to shift market sentiment, which at the time was extremely bearish. The result was the liquidation of over $950 million worth of crypto shorts which was enough to propel Bitcoin above $40,000 intraday on Monday. The optimism was squelched when an Amazon spokesperson denied that the company would accept Bitcoin as a payment option this year. This brought pricing well off of the highs, but the statement did not state that Bitcoin wouldnt be accepted in the following year or that another crypto isnt being considered for a possible sooner integration. Nonetheless, when the announcement was made at around 4 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bitcoins price fell from its highs at around $40,000 down to approximately $37,750 in a single hour. On a technical basis, BTC futures still remain within the downward channel it has followed since the all-time highs in April. However, a few levels of resistance have now become areas of possible support. This includes the 50 and 200-day moving averages as well as the 2.618 Fibonacci extension at $33,000. As well as the current support level at the 50% retracement residing at $36,500. The volume levels in BTC had a dramatic spike today, giving the above-mentioned areas of support more validity. Resistance remains at $40,000, and the ultimate support level at the 61.8% retracement of $29,750 has remained intact. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Prediction Prices Slide on Profit Taking Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis Rangebound; Breakout Trigger Points at $1816.10 and $1786.80 US Stock Index Futures Flat as Investors Eye Asia Markets Ahead of Fed Decisions, Earnings Reports AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast Australian CPI Spikes in Q2, but Core Inflation Subdued USD/MXN tests its 200-day moving average ahead of the FOMC decision || Today’s Market Wrap Up and a Glimpse Into Wednesday: A winning streak on Wall Street came to a screeching halt today after all three of the major indices finished in the red. TheDow Jones Industrial Average,S&P 500andNasdaqall ended the day lower after Monday’s record session.
The Nasdaq fell more than 1% as tech stocks tumbled. Investors appear to be taking some profits after five days of gains.
Technology leaders reported their earnings after the closing bell, including Google parentAlphabet,MicrosoftandApple. All three companies shined in different areas, while revenues were strong all around.
Durable Goods orders for items such as vehicles and appliances increased last month, the latest data show, in yet another sign that the economic recovery is in full swing. Supply-chain constraints continue to be a problem, however.
The results buoyedGeneral Electricshares, which climbed 1% higher. GE also reported Q2 earnings, and its aviation division is poised to benefit from a rebound in the travel industry.
The FOMC began a two-day meeting today. And while inflation will no doubt be at the center of the discussions, economists are not expecting any surprises. Stock index futures are under pressure, with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all moving lower. Dow futures are down nearly 100 points on Tuesday evening.
• Apple’s earnings were better than expected, while iPhone sales increased 50% vs. year-ago levels to USD 39.6 billion. The stock is down more than 1% in extended-hours trading asinvestors worryif Apple can keep the good times rolling, especially in light of chip supply issues.
• Microsoft just flipped green in after-hours trading with the stock up 1%. The company outperformed analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines. Fourth-quarter revenues soared more than 20% to USD 46.2 billion. Microsoft has a market cap of USD 2.15 trillion.
• Google parent Alphabet far exceeded Wall Street estimates and benefited from robust online advertising sales.
The earnings parade is far from over, with Facebook, PayPal, McDonald’s and more all on tap for Wednesday. In addition, Dow stockBoeingwill unveil its Q2 results before the opening bell. The company is widely expected to report a loss as it continues to grapple with 787 jet airliner setbacks.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – July 28th, 2021
• Today’s Market Wrap Up and a Glimpse Into Wednesday
• USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Bounces Ahead of Canadian CPI
• Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout
• European Equities: German Economic Data and Sentiment Towards the FED to Influence
• Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up || Today’s Market Wrap Up and a Glimpse Into Wednesday: A winning streak on Wall Street came to a screeching halt today after all three of the major indices finished in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average , S&P 500 and Nasdaq all ended the day lower after Monday’s record session. The Nasdaq fell more than 1% as tech stocks tumbled. Investors appear to be taking some profits after five days of gains. Technology leaders reported their earnings after the closing bell, including Google parent Alphabet , Microsoft and Apple . All three companies shined in different areas, while revenues were strong all around. Durable Goods orders for items such as vehicles and appliances increased last month, the latest data show, in yet another sign that the economic recovery is in full swing. Supply-chain constraints continue to be a problem, however. The results buoyed General Electric shares, which climbed 1% higher. GE also reported Q2 earnings, and its aviation division is poised to benefit from a rebound in the travel industry. The FOMC began a two-day meeting today. And while inflation will no doubt be at the center of the discussions, economists are not expecting any surprises. Stock index futures are under pressure, with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all moving lower. Dow futures are down nearly 100 points on Tuesday evening. Stocks to Watch Apple’s earnings were better than expected, while iPhone sales increased 50% vs. year-ago levels to USD 39.6 billion. The stock is down more than 1% in extended-hours trading as investors worry if Apple can keep the good times rolling, especially in light of chip supply issues. Microsoft just flipped green in after-hours trading with the stock up 1%. The company outperformed analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines. Fourth-quarter revenues soared more than 20% to USD 46.2 billion. Microsoft has a market cap of USD 2.15 trillion. Google parent Alphabet far exceeded Wall Street estimates and benefited from robust online advertising sales. Story continues Look Ahead The earnings parade is far from over, with Facebook, PayPal, McDonald’s and more all on tap for Wednesday. In addition, Dow stock Boeing will unveil its Q2 results before the opening bell. The company is widely expected to report a loss as it continues to grapple with 787 jet airliner setbacks. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – July 28th, 2021 Today’s Market Wrap Up and a Glimpse Into Wednesday USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Bounces Ahead of Canadian CPI Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout European Equities: German Economic Data and Sentiment Towards the FED to Influence Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up || Mining Difficulty Expected to Increase for the First Time Since China Crackdown: Bitcoin’s mining difficulty may be set to increase for the first time since China’s crackdown on crypto mining in May.
A rapid expansion of mining facilities in North America and the return of Chinese miners through overseas hosting sites are two major factors that will drive up mining difficulty, according to industry pros.
Mining difficulty is a metric to describe how hard it is to mine a block and get rewards inbitcoin. An increase in mining difficulty requires a miner to use more computing power to earn bitcoin, which reduces the miner’s profit margin. The more mining machines are online, the higher the mining difficulty and the more secure the Bitcoin network..
Related:Luxor Technologies Launches Index of Crypto Mining Stocks
Mining difficulty has seen a continuous decrease since the Chinese central governmentcalledfor local authorities to shut off bitcoin mining operations across the country on May 21. The latest bi-weekly difficulty level posted on July 17 is the fourth downward adjustment since the crackdown.
“For the first time since China’s hashrate went lights out, we’re anticipating next week’s adjustment to be positive, a roughly 1.75% increase,” according to Seattle-based mining Luxor’s newsletter on Saturday.
Even before China’s crackdown, big North American mining companies such as Marathon and Riot were already expanding their operations due to bitcoin’s historic bull run in early 2021, Luxor CEO Nick Hansen said.
“While we saw the big hashrate drop across the network during that time, other miners were also deploying new hardware,” Hansen said. “It was just drowned out by the disconnections in China.”
Related:Genesis Digital Assets Raises $125M to Fuel US and Nordic Expansion
Marathon said it entered a bindingletter of intentwith the U.S.-based miner hosting services provider Compute North in May to run about 73,000 bitcoin miners as part of the hosting firm’s 300-megawatts (gw) data center in Texas. The Las Vegas-based company claimed its hashrate would reach 10.37 EH/s after all its mining machines are fully deployed.
“I am personally expecting a positive difficulty adjustment next month because the displaced miners (from China) have since found new homes and they aren’t coming offline anytime soon,” said Azam Roslan, senior sales associate at Wattum, a New York-based mining company that offers hosting and mining machine brokerage services.
Most of the growth that will drive up mining difficulty in the coming months would still be from the North American miners who planned expansion ahead of Beijing’s crackdown last year or in early 2021, Daniel Frumkin, researcher at Prague-based mining company Slush Pool, said.
“The Chinese miners that were forced offline in the crackdown and did not find capacity available right away are more likely to take more than three months to get back online because, in most cases, they have to collaborate on building out more infrastructure,” Frumkin said.
The positive adjustment could be the beginning of a drastic surge in hashrate in the coming year.
“I think we have reached that minimum low difficulty point and now we are going to start to grow unless there are other big government shakeups or changing bitcoin price,” Hansen said.
So while Beijing’s crackdown on crypto mining might be a disaster for Chinese miners, it could be a windfall for the miners in the rest of the world.
Mining companies in North America and central Asia have raked in wide profit margins due to the low mining difficulty. However, the window of opportunity is slowly closing on miners as mining companies across the world are scrambling to build out new hosting sites to run mining machines.
“We are a long, long way away from where we were before the crackdown, but my guess is that adjustments will be positive for a long time,” Frumkin said.
Hasen expects that in about 12 months hashrate would return to the level before China’s crackdown, based on the average lead time to build out new mining facilities to host both new machines and those that come from the Chinese miners.
“I do not think the positive adjustment is just a blip and we will see significant growth and probably exceed the all-time high before the crackdown given how much new capacities are being built,” Hansen said.
• BIT Mining Buys 2,500 More Mining Machines for Kazakhstan Data Center
• Stronghold Digital Mining Files for $100M IPO || Mining Difficulty Expected to Increase for the First Time Since China Crackdown: Bitcoin’s mining difficulty may be set to increase for the first time since China’s crackdown on crypto mining in May. A rapid expansion of mining facilities in North America and the return of Chinese miners through overseas hosting sites are two major factors that will drive up mining difficulty, according to industry pros. Mining difficulty is a metric to describe how hard it is to mine a block and get rewards in bitcoin . An increase in mining difficulty requires a miner to use more computing power to earn bitcoin, which reduces the miner’s profit margin. The more mining machines are online, the higher the mining difficulty and the more secure the Bitcoin network.. Related: Luxor Technologies Launches Index of Crypto Mining Stocks Mining difficulty has seen a continuous decrease since the Chinese central government called for local authorities to shut off bitcoin mining operations across the country on May 21. The latest bi-weekly difficulty level posted on July 17 is the fourth downward adjustment since the crackdown. “For the first time since China’s hashrate went lights out, we’re anticipating next week’s adjustment to be positive, a roughly 1.75% increase,” according to Seattle-based mining Luxor’s newsletter on Saturday. Even before China’s crackdown, big North American mining companies such as Marathon and Riot were already expanding their operations due to bitcoin’s historic bull run in early 2021, Luxor CEO Nick Hansen said. “While we saw the big hashrate drop across the network during that time, other miners were also deploying new hardware,” Hansen said. “It was just drowned out by the disconnections in China.” Related: Genesis Digital Assets Raises $125M to Fuel US and Nordic Expansion Marathon said it entered a binding letter of intent with the U.S.-based miner hosting services provider Compute North in May to run about 73,000 bitcoin miners as part of the hosting firm’s 300-megawatts (gw) data center in Texas. The Las Vegas-based company claimed its hashrate would reach 10.37 EH/s after all its mining machines are fully deployed. Story continues “I am personally expecting a positive difficulty adjustment next month because the displaced miners (from China) have since found new homes and they aren’t coming offline anytime soon,” said Azam Roslan, senior sales associate at Wattum, a New York-based mining company that offers hosting and mining machine brokerage services. Most of the growth that will drive up mining difficulty in the coming months would still be from the North American miners who planned expansion ahead of Beijing’s crackdown last year or in early 2021, Daniel Frumkin, researcher at Prague-based mining company Slush Pool, said. “The Chinese miners that were forced offline in the crackdown and did not find capacity available right away are more likely to take more than three months to get back online because, in most cases, they have to collaborate on building out more infrastructure,” Frumkin said. Closing in The positive adjustment could be the beginning of a drastic surge in hashrate in the coming year. “I think we have reached that minimum low difficulty point and now we are going to start to grow unless there are other big government shakeups or changing bitcoin price,” Hansen said. So while Beijing’s crackdown on crypto mining might be a disaster for Chinese miners, it could be a windfall for the miners in the rest of the world. Mining companies in North America and central Asia have raked in wide profit margins due to the low mining difficulty. However, the window of opportunity is slowly closing on miners as mining companies across the world are scrambling to build out new hosting sites to run mining machines. “We are a long, long way away from where we were before the crackdown, but my guess is that adjustments will be positive for a long time,” Frumkin said. Hasen expects that in about 12 months hashrate would return to the level before China’s crackdown, based on the average lead time to build out new mining facilities to host both new machines and those that come from the Chinese miners. “I do not think the positive adjustment is just a blip and we will see significant growth and probably exceed the all-time high before the crackdown given how much new capacities are being built,” Hansen said. Related Stories BIT Mining Buys 2,500 More Mining Machines for Kazakhstan Data Center Stronghold Digital Mining Files for $100M IPO || Fed makes progress towards normalising policy: Jerome Powell warned supply disruptions could lead to more persistent high inflation, as the Federal Reserve said the US economy was making progress towards a situation where ultra-loose monetary policy could be eased.
The Fed chairman said “bottleneck” effects leading to soaring freight costs risked driving sustained price rises.
“As the reopening continues, other constraints could continue to limit how quickly supply can adjust, raising the possibility that inflation could turn out to be higher and more persistent than we expect,” he said.
As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to keep interest rates unchanged at a record low of 0.25pc, but ratesetters said “progress” had been made towards the conditions needed to dial back its asset purchases.
Most economists expect policy will remain unchanged until early 2022 at the earliest.
“The path of the economy continues to depend on the course of the virus,” the FOMC said. “Progress on vaccinations will likely continue to reduce the effects of the public health crisis on the economy, but risks to the economic outlook remain.”
Mr Powell said “substantial further progress” was still needed in areas including employment.
“We have some ground to cover,” he said, adding: “I would like to see some stronger job numbers.”
America’s labour market has not fully recovered from the pandemic, with total employment 6.7m below pre-pandemic levels in May, and unemployment claims figures showing continued high levels of churn.
US consumer prices were 5.4pc higher in June than a year earlier, the steepest climb since August 2008. With the volatile elements of food and energy taken out, prices were 4.5pc higher – the biggest climb in 30 years. Both are well above the Fed’s 2pc target.
The Fed and many economists expect high inflation to be temporary, pointing to the effects of reopening and a drive in exceptional price increases across certain categories such as used vehicles.
The IMF predicts the US economy will grow more than 7pc this year, the fastest rate among developing nations.
That is all from us today - here are some of our top stories:
• Companies told to give two in five board seats to women
• Second shareholder comes out against Morrisons takeover
• House prices finally cool, but the boom is not about to bust
• Gary Neville teams up with KKR for £200m Manchester development
• Aston Martin sales surge – but it won't make cars aimed at women
Thank you for following along!
It seems as though the Fed's decision to keep rates unchanged, and its (vague) signal that a tapering decision will be closer to when economic progress is made, has proved some boost to Wall Street.
The benchmark S&P 500, which was in the red prior to the announcement, is now on the rise. It is currently up a slight 0.05pc by mid afternoon New York time.
The Dow Jones, however, remains in the red. The index is currently down 0.3pc.
Hinesh Patel, portfolio manager at Quilter Investors said:
“With the economic recovery playing out and inflation continuing to rise, it would be thought the Federal Reserve would have no choice but to act sooner or later."But Jerome Powell and co. like where the economy is heading and seem content to wait until the data becomes even clearer and as such will continue to sit on their hands for just a while longer yet.“Unfortunately for them there is very little they can do just now. The effects of this pandemic, and the subsequent recovery, have been felt very differently by varying groups of the population."With so many still relying on government support and not yet back in work or seeking employment, Powell will keep the spending taps on to support the wider economy.“However, a time will come when the market will need to see a clearer plan for the reduction in quantitative easing. Inflation is a beast that can quickly get out of control and if the Fed has to act harsher than it would have done if it did so previously volatility would ensue.“Powell obviously doesn’t want to act too early or make a misstep, but communicating further under what conditions tightening would take place may go some way to placating markets that are worried about price rises getting out of control.”
Richard Flynn, UK Director at financial services firm Charles Schwab, said:
“As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee made no formal change to its interest rate. Weak economic data in 2020 implied easier monetary policy and acted as a boon to stocks, as investors began to price in a turnaround."But, today, strong data may suggest tighter policy is forthcoming. This will likely begin to weigh on stocks and investors will likely begin to expect an eventual downturn.“The US economy can withstand tighter monetary policy and continue to produce solid growth after achieving “escape velocity”. So, it may no longer need the boost from the Fed’s extraordinary stimulus."But, in the near-term, it is possible that good economic data, especially on jobs could be interpreted as bad news for the US stock market if it prompts the Fed to unwind earlier and faster.”
For more background, the Fed had set the amount of its monthly purchases of Treasuries at $80bn since last September, and of mortgage-backed securities at $40bn in order to boost the economy in its recovery from the pandemic.
Chairman Jerome Powell has said the Fed would begin talking about when and how to taper its bond purchases at this meeting. He has also said there will be an advanced warning before any decision is made on scaling them back.
Some officials have said they would like to taper sooner rather than later on concerns of financial stability including the steep rise in house prices.
The next FOMC gathering is September 21-22.
The Fed has said it will keep rates unchanged and maintain easy money policies until "further progress" is achieves.
The central bank kept the target range for its benchmark policy rate unchanged at zero to 0.25pc. It also adjusted language to say that it had pledged in December to continue asset purchases at a $120bn monthly pace until “substantial further progress” had been made on employment and inflation.
In a statement the Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) said: “The economy has made progress toward these goals, and the committee will continue to assess progress in coming meetings".
They repeated language that inflation had run persistently below the Fed's long-run 2pc goal.
Officials indicated they have begun discussing when to tap the brakes on their robust support for the US economy amid an inflation surge, even as the delta variant of the coronavirus poses a increasing threat to growth.
ICYMI,my colleagues Oliver Gill and Laura Onitahave a fresh story about the Morrisons' takeover saga.
Fortress, the US private equity firm seeking to take over Morrisons, was fighting a rearguard action after top ten investor JO Hambro was the second shareholder to come out against its £9.5bn bid.
JO Hambro said its 254p a share offer was too low, a day after Morrsions' biggest shareholder Silchester said it was opposed to the deal.
Read the full story here.
US equities are mixed today as investors assessedsome stellar earnings from some of the biggest tech firmsahead of the Fed’s rate decision which will come after 7pm UK time this evening. Officials are expected to discuss how and when to taper stimulus.
Strong earnings have been boosting confidence in the economic and corporate recovery, but investors remain nervous about the threat to global growth from the Delta variant and the potential for tighter monetary policy.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices are both down, but the Nasdaq is up following strong earnings from Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple.
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is planning to open a Miami-based investment firm with an office in Israel later this year, reported Bloomberg.
He is in the final stages of starting the investment office, called Affinity Partners, according to other reports. There are no details on potential investors yet.
The Israel office will pursue regional investments to connect its economy to India, North Africa and the Gulf, reported Reuters. Mr Kushner brokered a deal between Israel and several Middle Eastern countries in his last year in the White House.
Since leaving the White House, Mr Kushner has moved to Miami with wife Ivanka Trump and has been working on a book which is scheduled to come out early next year.
Google has said it will ask staff who are coming back to its offices to have had coronavirus jabs. The online giant will also push back its return-to-office date from September to mid-October, as cases of the Delta variant rise.
Chief executive of parent company Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, was expected to announce the news this morning (US time) in a note to employees, which was reviewed byThe New York Times.
In it, he wrote: “Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead", adding that the rule would apply to US offices “in the coming weeks” and to other regions “in the coming months.”
Mr Pichai said it was “encouraging to see very high vaccination rates” among staff in places where vaccines were widely available.
Amanda Pritchard is to become the new head of the NHS in England.
Ms Pritchard, who has worked as chief operating officer under outgoing boss Lord Stevens, will take up her new role on Sunday.
She has held a number of roles across the health service since joining via the grad scheme in 1997, including running the London trust of Guy's and St Thomas' and chief executive of NHS Improvement. As COO of NHS England she was in charge of operational performance and implementation of service transformation and improvements in patient care.
Ms Pritchard ssaid in a statement: "I am honoured to lead the NHS, particularly as the first woman chief executive of an organisation whose staff are more than three-quarters female."I have always been incredibly proud to work in the health service but never more so than over the last 18 months as nurses, doctors, therapists, paramedics, pharmacists, porters, cleaners and other staff have responded so magnificently to the Covid pandemic."There are big challenges ahead as NHS staff continue to deal with significant pressures while maintaining the rollout of the hugely successful NHS vaccination programme and tackle backlogs that have inevitably built up in the face of rising Covid infections."However the skill, determination and 'can do' spirit that NHS staff have shown in the face of the greatest challenge in the health service's history means we face the future with confidence."
Shares in language learning app Duolingo rose nearly 39pc in their Wall Street debut today, giving it a valuatino of $6.5bn (£4.7bn).
Duolingo's stock opened at $141.4 per share, far higher than the listing price of $102 per share, which was already at the top end of its target range.
It raised nearly $521m by selling about 5.1m shares. Around 1.4m of those were sold by stockholders and the proceeds will not go to thePennsylvania-based app.
Earlier this week Duolingo raised its price target range to between $95 and $100 per share, up from earlier aims of between $85 and $95 per share.
A bipartisan group of US senators has reached an agreement on a broad infrastructure deal, paving the way for a procedural vote on the measure later today.
Bloomberg has more:
“We now have an agreement on the major issues,” said Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman after meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.“Senators continue to make good progress on both tracks of legislation,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, referring to the infrastructure package and a separate, Democrats-only budget bill that incorporates much of President Joe Biden’s social-spending agenda.“Members should be prepared to vote again on cloture on the motion to proceed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill as early as tonight.”Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney said he is “confident we will be able to get this across the finish line.”The Senate this week also has to deal with a more than $2bn emergency spending bill to pay for security costs at the US Capitol stemming from the Ja. 6 riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump, and resettling Afghan nationals who assisted American forces.It has to pass the House and Senate by the end of the week to prevent cutbacks for both the Capitol Police and the National Guard. It would take just one senator’s objection to slow down consideration of the bill for days, however.
The FTSE 100's 0.4pc rise by close today has propelled London's benchmark back above the psychologically significant level of 7,000.
It dipped below the marker two weeks ago, before rising above it late last week. Losses yesterday, however, meant it slipped below the marker once again until today. The index has consistently been above the level since late May - earlier that month the FTSE 100 breached it for the first time since before the pandemic.
Rises today were helped by travel and leisure stocks after it was confirmed the UK will exempt fully vaccinated travellers from the EU and US from quarantining from August 2nd. Strong earnings are also helping, while falling Covid cases are boosting optimism.
Tech resale site musicMagpie said British shoppers are adapting to a circular economy and boosting the company's sales.
UK revenue grew 6.8pc in the year's first half however the company still reported a £17.7m pre-tax loss compared to a profit of £2.6m a year earlier.
Much of this was costs surrounding shares and the £4.1m price tag the company paid to list.
The company's shares dropped 2.9pc.
Chief executive Steve Oliver said:
This has been a landmark period for musicMagpie, and we are very pleased with the performance of the business as it has adapted quickly to life as a public company.We are seeing strong and growing demand for our unique circular economy model, as consumers continue to realise the benefits of buying and renting refurbished consumer technology products.
Read more aboutmusicMagpie's IPO here.
ITV shares are now down 2.5pc.
The stock initially lifted this morning, after the broadcaster said the worst of the pandemic was over and revealed a strong advertising rebound.
However shares slid throughout the day as investors probed the company's half-year report in more detail.
"Despite ITV’s rosy outlook and improved numbers, it looks like the lack of an interim dividend has negated any positive reaction from investors," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.
"ITV’s position was similar to banks, where strong share price gains since October had been chipped away in recent weeks, but a return to dividends and buybacks has helped prop up sentiment. ITV’s numbers today lacked this piece of good news, putting them on a back foot and leaving the short-term bearish trend intact."
A German rocket company has secured backing from the family behind sports car maker Porsche as the country seeks to build a homegrown rival to Elon Musk’sSpaceX, reports my colleague Matthew Field.
He writes:
Isar Aerospace secured $75m (£54m) in a funding round supported by investors including Porsche, which is still owned by the eponymous Porsche dynasty.Isar, a company spun out of Munich Technical University, is building a lightweight rocket designed for small satellites, aiming to provide cheaper and more flexible launches than current leaders.The new investment brings the total funding in Isar to $180m, with further backing from existing investors Airbus Ventures and Lakestar.The investment comes a week after Amazon founder,Jeff Bezos, successfully flew to the edge of space aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
Read Matthew's full story here.
The FTSE 250 has reached a new record high today, after the mid cap index was boosted by travel stocks including food-on-the-go group SPP, airline Wizz Air and Easyjet.
The index has lifted 0.6pc to reach 23011.03 points.
The FTSE 100 however is more than 600 points away from its 2017 all time high of 7,687.77. It is currently trading at 7,014.47.
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, comments:
A big sigh of relief has rippled through the travel and aviation sector with the confirmation from the UK Transport Secretary that double jabbed arrivals from the US and the European Union will no longer have to isolate.Speculation that a decision was imminent had pushed up shares in British Airways owner IAG which is heavily reliant on transatlantic bookings. Rolls Royce was also among the FTSE 100 risers, given that the group’s bread and butter comes from servicing and delivering wide body aircraft engines, which are used primarily for long-haul flights. There are higher hopes its recovery will materialise more quickly with normality beginning to return for the airline industry.But questions remain about just how many tourists will come flocking, given that travel to the UK still isn’t advised for US tourists. But it is another hurdle knocked over in the attempt to offer the industry some semblance of a summer season.In the FTSE 250, EasyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air maintained their higher trajectory with investors hopeful that EU travellers might now widen their travel plans, which have been largely limited to inside the block. Ryanair took delivery of its first batch of “Gamechanger” aircraft just days after Portugal was removed from the green list, so a reopening of routes for vaccinated tourists will be particularly reassuring.The relaxation of the rules for double jabbed tourists is the comfort blanket caterer SSP has longed for, and it was one of the top risers on the FTSE 250. It relies on travellers to pick up snacks from its Upper Crust kiosks, Ritazza cafes and other franchise outlets. Investors are clearly hoping that now the stage is set for tourists to return, footfall will finally rebound across its airport and train station network, where the chain runs concessions.
GlaxoSmithKline has brushed off pressure from activist Elliott Management as it beat earnings forecasts and struck a new deal with the EU for its experimental Covid-19 drug, writesHannah Boland.
Britain's second largest pharmaceutical company said it was now expecting to record 2021 earnings at the better end of its guidance, after reporting revenue of £8.1bn for the second quarter, a 6pc rise on last year and 7pc ahead of analyst forecasts. It had previously forecast earnings would slip by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, excluding any contribution from its Covid-19 work.
Boss Dame Emma Walmsley said the results, together with a deal struck with the European Union for 200,000 doses of its Covid-19 antibody therapy, were all positives for the company following months of pressure from Elliott. The therapy could be used to treat high-risk patients with coronavirus who are suffering from mild symptoms.
Dame Emma said: "We listen to all of our shareholders, we talk to them, and what they are telling us matters is that we are focusing on delivery and execution."
She said the updates were "a building block in getting where we want to be".
GSK's shares ticked up 0.4pc on the updates, following months of decline, with 12.5pc having been wiped off GSK's market capitalisation over the past year.
Tom Thackray, CBI's Director of Infrastructure, commented:
Restriction-free international travel will be a vital piece of the recovery jigsaw, and ending quarantine requirements for fully-vaccinated arrivals from the US and EU is a huge step towards that goal.The news will come as a significant boost to the beleaguered travel industry, while also restoring important business links with key trading partners.The task now is to implement these changes as rapidly and smoothly as possible, which should include an efficient pre-travel system of assessing passengers’ Covid-status to prevent congestion at airports.
Airline stocks have continued their ascent today, after ministers decided double jabbed EU and US citizens will be allowed to enter Englandwithout having to quarantinefrom August 2.
Engine makerRolls Royceis up 4.4pc, British Airways ownerIAGis up 3.8pc,Wizz Airis up 6pc andEasyjetis up 5.2pc.
The Nasdaq rose this morning in New York, as record quarterly earnings from Google-parent Alphabet helped heavyweight technology stocks steady after their worst sell-off in more than two months yesterday.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 55.1 points or 0.38pc to 14,715.664 at the opening bell
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51.4 points or 0.15pc at the open to 35,109.95 while the S&P 500 rose 1.5 points or 0.03pc at the open to 4,402.95.
The London Stock Exchange finally has its first Spac listing of 2021, one day after UK regulators introduced new rules to encourage blank cheque firms to list in the UK.
Spinnaker Acquisitions Plc surged as much as 25pc today after raising £2m.
Special purpose acquisition companies sell shares to raise money before deciding on a takeover target. They can offer private companies a path to markets without the rigorous scrutiny of a traditional initial public offering.
One of the key changes to the UK's Spac rules was that firms that raise at least £100m at listing no longer will be required to suspend trading when they reveal plans for an acquisition. The cutoff is down from £200m pounds.
Double jabbed EU and US citizens will be allowed to enter England without having to quarantine from August 2, ministers have decided, my colleagueCharles Hymasreports.
He writes:
The Cabinet’s Covid-O committee agreed on Wednesday toopen the borders from next monthto double jabbed citizens from the US and EU countries, most of which are on the amber list.The move follows warnings from industry that the UK risked falling behind the EU which has already largely opened up to citizens from both the US and other countries.Research from the World Travel and Tourism Council suggests the economy is losing £639m a day because of the squeeze on inbound tourism.The current exemptions from quarantine for double jabbed travellers fromamber list countriescurrently only cover Britons who have been vaccinated by the NHS.
Read the full story here.
My colleagueAlan Toveyhas more on the Boeing's earnings report:
Global aviation markets’ strengthening recovery means US aerospace giant Boeing is cutting 10,000 fewer jobs than it warned it would be forced to axe because of the pandemic.Posting second-quarter results on Wednesday, Boeing reported its first profit since the end of 2019 as the company went into a tailspin because of the 737 Max grounding after two fatal crashes.Revealing it made a quarterly profit of $587m on revenues 44pc higher at $17bn, against a $2.4bn loss in the same period a year ago as the pandemic hammered the aerospace industry, Boeing said it would not be making the harsh cutbacks it predicted in October.Boeing now expects to cut about 20,000 jobs, taking its workforce down to 140,000, rather than the 130,000 it had signalled.In a letter to staff David Calhoun, chief executive, said: “We’re now seeing more stability in our staffing levels, as the commercial market recovery accelerates, our defence and government services business target growth opportunities, and we increase investments to further strengthen engineering.”Despite the positive results, there are still worries about Boeing’s dominant commercial aerospace business which makes up the bulk of its sales.Boeing recently halted deliveries of its 787 wide-body jets because they need “reworking” to solve manufacturing problems.China, the world’s fastest growing region for airliner sales, has still not recertified Boeing’s bestselling 737 Max small airliner despite work to rectify faults which led to its crashes and subsequent grounding.
Oil prices are rising today after an industry report pointed to a decline in US fuel and crude stockpiles, compounding signs that demand is tightening global markets.
Brent added 0.5pc to $74.82 while West Texas Intermediate futures added 0.7pc to trade above $72 a barrel.
The American Petroleum Institute reported a 6.23m-barrel weekly drop in gasoline inventories, according to people familiar with the figures. That would be the biggest draw in motor fuel stockpiles since March if confirmed by government data later today.
Global inventories are expected to tighten through the rest of the year as key energy consumers continue to rebound from the pandemic. But at the same time, the latest Covid-19 resurgence is raising concerns about the short-term demand outlook.
“Pricing pressures have been temporarily put on hold amid the ongoing tug-of-war between delta variant concerns and expectations of crude deficits,” said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd.
Planemaker Boeing has made its first profit in nearly two years, the company said in its second quarter earnings report.
The Chicago based aviation giant reported a second-quarter profit of $587m, compared with a loss of $2.4bn in the same three months of 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
Revenue rose 44pc to $17bn, surprising analysts who had expected another loss.
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund (GIC) has joined the Fortress-led private equity consortium seeking to buy Morrisons, reportsLaura Onita.
She writes:
SoftBank-backed Fortress said GIC would provide £100m of funding, giving it more firepower to potentially increase its £6.3bn offer afterMorrisons' largest shareholder came out against the bid on Tuesday.Earlier this month, rival investment firm Apollo also said it was in talks to join the Fortress bid and would not make a separate offer for Britain’s fourth-largest grocer after an unsuccessful tilt at Asda.The Fortress-led bid is already backed by a Canadian pension fund and the real estate arm of US oil billionaire Charles Koch.
Read Laura's full story here.
Swedish music streaming company Spotify has warned user growth has slowed as listeners switch off as lockdowns end, reportsMatthew Field.
The US-listed company said its total monthly active users, a key metric for how many people are using its app, increased to 365m, up around 9m or 3pc. Paying customers were up 4pc to 165m and it reported revenues of €2.3bn.
Daniel Ek, Spotify chief executive, said Spotify had experienced an "exceptional 2020" for growth that had been hard to match. "I am comfortable of 1bn plus users when it comes to Spotify," he said.
Spotify said monthly user performance was "slower than expected due primarily to lighter user intake during the first half of the quarter. COVID-19 continued to weigh on our performance in several markets, and, in some instances, we paused marketing campaigns due to the severity of the pandemic."
The company said it is facing increasing pressure from Apple Music and has complained to regulators around the iPhone-maker's "walled garden" and app store fees.
Spotify said that revenue from podcasting revenues increased more than 600pc as the Swedish firm invests aggressively in long-form listening and podcast creators. It also launched Spotify Greenroom, a live music and talk show experience, in June.
Shares in Spotify fell 1.5pc in early trading.
Bitcoin has crossed the $40,000 threshold again, as the world's most popular cryptocurrency recovers from a rout earlier this month.
It’s advanced for eight straight days, its longest winning streak since December.
There has been a resurgence in enthusiasm for Bitcoin since Amazon posteda job advert for a digital currency and blockchain product lead. Although a company spokesperson denied the token will be accepted for payments this year, the coin has held onto its gains and remains 17pc up compared to the start of the week.
“The current momentum is strong” and $45,000 is in sight but a conclusive break above $50,000 “will take some doing,” Pankaj Balani, chief executive officer of crypto derivatives exchange Delta Exchange, wrote in a note Tuesday.
The coin is up 7pc compared to yesterday's close and is currently at $40,750.
Coronavirus vaccine sales helped US drugmaker Pfizer nearly double its second-quarter revenue and boost its profit 59pc.
During the pandemic, the company's Covid-19 vaccine has become its top seller, bringing in $7.84bn from direct sales and revenue split with German partner BioNTech.
Pfizer said in a presentation accompanying its earnings release that emerging real-world data “suggests immunity against infection and symptomatic disease may wane,” meaning there could be a wide demand for boosters.
The company now anticipates revenue from the vaccine this year to reach $33.5bn (£24.1bn) for the 2.1bn doses it's contracted to provide by year end.
Operating profit at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline increased 23pc to £2.1bn in the second quarter, as the firm's vaccine arm saw turnover increase by 39pc to £1.57bn.
However that growth was not replicated in the company's other divisions. GSK's pharmaceutical business reported a 4pc increase while consumer healthcare reported a 3pc decline.
GSK is working on a Covid vaccine in partnership with Sanofi. The companies said in May the vaccine had entered phase 3 trials.
The company's shares dropped 0.4pc.
Emma Walmsley, chief executive officer at GSK, said:
We expect this positive momentum to continue through the second half of the year, driving us towards the better end of our earnings guidance range for 2021, and meaningful performance improvement in 2022.Our clear priority is to focus on execution, unlocking the value of consumer healthcare and delivering the step-change in growth and performance we now see for GSK.
US futures have edged marginally higher ahead of this evening's Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, where officials are expected to discuss how and when to taper stimulus.
Futures tied to the Dow crept 0.01pc higher and S&P 500 futures lifted 0.12pc.
Nasdaq futures rose 0.3pc after big tech companies reported earnings way above analyst expectations.
While strong earnings are boosting confidence in the corporate recovery, this week’s China selloff added to investor worries about the threat to global growth from the delta variant and the potential for tighter policy.
“Investors appear to be grappling with the diverging risks of a slowing of the global economy, due to rising infection rates, against the risks of rising prices,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
While the Fed meeting is “unlikely to change the overall narrative when it comes to the timing of a taper,” it may offer an insight into whether the recent hawkishness from Fed officials such as James Bullard and Raphael Bostic is starting to spread to other members, he added.
Santander said it has closed around 25 bank branches due to staff shortages caused by the "pingdemic".
UK outgoing chief executive Nathan Bostock said between 3pc and 5pc of the bank's 465 branches are being closed for around a week because staff are having to self-isolate.
Rival lender Metro Bank also said separately earlier today that it was suffering operational difficulties from staff self-isolating, which was causing a slowdown in customer activity this month.
Today, Spanish-owned Santander's half-year results showed rocketing mortgage lending helped the group's pre-tax profits jump more than five fold to £751m in the six months to June 30.
Net mortgage lending grew by £3.6bn, with demand spiking ahead of the end of full stamp duty relief on June 30.
The group said £4.6bn of gross lending was made just in June, with half of what was normally seen in an average month last year being lent in the final five days of June alone. It also hailed a £3.3bn increase in customer deposits, with retail customers having saved more amid the pandemic.
Figures were also boosted as the group cut its credit provisions for debts expected to turn sour due to the pandemic by £104m.
The UK's strong mortgage lending performance helped the wider Banco Santander group post a net profit of €2bn (£1.7bn) for the three months to June, against losses of more than €11bn (£9.4bn) a year ago.
Women should make up at least 40pc of the boards of all listed companies and the UK's financial watchdog said today.
The Financial Conduct Authority added that at least one of the senior board positions - chair, chief executive officer, chief financial officer or senior independent director - should be a woman and boards should include at least one non-white ethnic minority director,
The changes to the FCA's listing rules are expected to take effect in late 2021 after a public consultation on the proposals that would affect 1,106 companies.
UK and overseas companies listed in London would have to comply with the targets or explain to shareholders in their annual reports why they have fallen short.
"The Listing Rule diversity targets are not mandatory for companies to meet, so the FCA is not setting ‘quotas’, but providing a positive benchmark for issuers to report against," the watchdog said.
The winding down of the stamp duty holiday triggered the biggest fall in house prices in more than a year in July, reportTim WallaceandRachel Mortimer.
They write:
Average prices slipped 0.5pc compared to the previous month to £244,229 as the red-hot property market started to cool, according to Nationwide Building Society’s monthly report.The fall in prices from record highs was the sharpest drop since June 2020 when the first lockdown pulled down prices. Annual growth eased off the 17-year high of 13.4pc in June but remained elevated at 10.5pc.The stamp duty holiday has protected the property market from the blow of the pandemic, fuelling a surge in prices despite the biggest recession in 300 years. Nationwide said shifting housing preferences has also been key to driving activity as homeowners reconsider their location in the wake of the pandemic.
Read their full story here.
The UK's largest wealth manager, St James's Place is still the top riser on the FTSE 100 this morning, after it said its first half was boosted by a jump in household savings during coronavirus lockdowns.
The asset manager said it attracted £5.5bn in net inflows in the first half, prompting its shares to jump more than 6pc.
FTSE 250 listed Man Group and Rathbone Brothers both increased their interim dividends after reporting their funds also swelled.
Total funds under management and administration at Rathbone Brothers jumped 8.2pc to £59.2bn, while Man Group said its fund under management rose 1.6pc to $135.3bn (£97.5bn).
Both companies increased their interim dividend.
Marston's has joined an industry push for taxes to be permanently slashed for pub groups in a bid to aid ailing operators which have taken a heavy hit from the pandemic, reports my colleagueHannah Boland.
Ralph Findlay, the chief executive of Marston's, which operates around 1,500 pubs across the UK, said the outlook for the sector remained "uncertain and operationally disrupted" in the immediate short term.
"The tone of Government messaging will be an important influence on consumer confidence. At present, the message is one of caution."
Mr Findlay branded a government review of the business rates system as "long overdue" and said he believed "that VAT reduction should be permanent since the hospitality industry remains one of the most heavily taxed sectors".
"This would assist an industry that has been hit hard and aid hospitality’s employment and development of young workers which will be a key part of the UK’s economic recovery."
His comments come weeks after Wetherspoon warned that an increase in VAT risked leading to higher prices in pubs. The tax is due to increase in September, and then return to normal levels within the next year. "The VAT rise will make the entire hospitality industry less competitive vis a vis powerful supermarkets," Wetherspoons said.
The latest move to pile pressure on the Government to halt tax increases came as Marston's issued a trading update in which it said trading had significantly improved since the middle of May, when sites were able to start trading indoors again.
The company said between May 17 and July 24, sales had been at around 92pc of 2019 levels, better than it had expected.
Aluminum is heading for a seismic shift as a long-running supply glut starts to fade, setting the stage for shortages and a price rally that could run for years.
Bloomberghas more details:
Demand is set to surge on the back of climate-change investment, and mega-producer China - which accounts for more than half of global output - is cracking down on smelting to reduce pollution and meet green targets.Those combined forces mean the oversupply that’s dominated the market and restrained prices for more than a decade is on the way out, leaving buyers bracing for a new era of scarcityand higher costs.With aluminum a feature of everyday items, from food packaging and beer cans to iPhones and cars, what’s playing out in markets has implications for inflation and consumers’ pockets.It’s already jumped 27pc to about $2,500 a ton this year, the second-best performer after tin on the London Metal Exchange. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is among those seeing more gains ahead, forecasting record prices above $3,000 by late next year.For those counting on market dislocations proving temporary, lumber offers some hope. Having rallied to a record in May on the back of a U.S. homebuilding boom, prices are now fast tumbling back toward pre-pandemic levels.
Joshua Mahony, Senior Market Analyst at IG, comments;
European markets are making tentative gains in early trade today, with a wave of earnings from US tech giants Apple, Alphabet, AMD, and Microsoft doing little to steer sentiment despite some pretty impressive figures.[...] Travel stocks are leading the way higher for the FTSE today, with First Group, Wizz Air, easyJet, and IAG forming the leading pack within the sector. Plans for the UK to allow double-jabbed visitors from the EU and US without the need to quarantine marks a welcome albeit belated boost for the travel and tourism sector.With summer in full swing, the airlines will hope that this measure drives a swift and sharp rise in bookings as they aim to make up for an incredibly tough period.[...] Banking stocks are enjoying a boost today, with Barclays seeing their profits almost triple over the first half of the year. Understandably the reliance upon their investment banking division does highlight why we are likely to continue seeing underperformance for the UK banks compared with their US counterparts.However, with the government mitigating much of the economic fallout of the pandemic, and spending likely to gradually increase, banking stocks remain a strong pro-cyclical pick going forward.
Metro Bank boss, Daniel Frumkin, has said the post-lockdown activity increase at the bank has been interrupted by staff being forced to self-isolate by the "pingdemic".
"We have definitely seen a pickup in activity in the economy since it started to reopen, our stores are a bit busier. We actually saw a pretty good FX (currency exchange) volume in the month of May and again a bit in June," he said.
"The pingdemic in July has kind of slowed things down. Even from an operational perspective, managing through the number of people who have to self-isolate, including myself, over the last few weeks, has been a challenge."
The bank slashed its pre-tax losses by around £100m to just under £139m in the opening six months of the year.
"So we're already starting to see a reduction in the losses. Now I accept the losses are still significant, I'm not making light of them, we have a lot of work to do," Mr Frumkin added.
Shailesh Raikundlia, an analyst at Liberum, said: "Overall, a decent quarter with revenue benefiting from non-lending assets than our forecasts, but we continue to expect the bank to be loss-making for the foreseeable future."
Here's the day's best stories from The Telegraph's Money team:
• Homeowners cashing in on house price boom to buy more property:Cheap remortgage rates, the stamp duty holiday and rising values have created the "perfect storm"
• 'My husband doesn't know I don’t save into a pension. Do I have to tell him?'Moral Money: should our reader tell her husband she has no retirement savings?
• How to make £250 from the 'pingdemic':Millions fail to claim tax breaks
Shares of St James's Place have reached an all time high of £15.92 after the wealth management business reported a sharp increase in its funds under management.
For the six months to June 30, the asset manager said funds under management jumped 11.3pc compared to the previous year to a record £143.8bn.
Andrew Croft, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
During the first half, the Partnership attracted £9.2bn of new client investments, with strong flows reflecting a combination of factors including improving client sentiment, a sharp increase in household savings rates, and high levels of client engagement.
The company's shares were the top riser on the FTSE 100 today, up 5.7pc.
Fresnillo shares lifted 4.5pc, after the precious metals miner said first half silver production rose 2.7pc while quarterly gold output climbed 12.3pc.
Chief executive Octavio Alvídrez said: "We remain on track to meet our full-year targets and our production guidance for 2021 is unchanged, though we remain vigilant around the continued evolution of the pandemic and its potential future effect on our operations, in particular the implementation of any future new work restrictions."
One of the key events for markets today is the US Federal Reserve meeting, with a statement expected at 7pm UK time and a news conference by Chairman Jerome Powell expected half an hour later.
Investors will be looking out for clues on when the central bank will start reducing its purchases of government bonds and any fresh insight into its views on inflation.
Economists are not expecting strong guidance about when the bank’s asset purchases will wind down. However they will look for clues about whether a consensus is emerging among Fed officials.
So far, rhetoric hints at a split between central bankers on the timing, pace and composition of tapering as US consumer price inflation accelerates.
Wizz Air is not the only airline stock rising this morning.
British Airways owner IAG is up 3.3pc, EasyJet is up 4.2pc and RyanAir is up 2pc as Britain is set to exempt fully vaccinated travellers from EU and US from quarantine in the coming days.
My colleaguesBen Riley-SmithandCharles Hymasreport:
Boris Johnson has decided that,from August 16, those who have been fully vaccinated will not be required to take a test if they come into contact with someone with Covid unless they have symptoms.It had previously been reported that workers would only bereleased from self-isolation after a negative test, and health officials had been planning for a major new system of compulsory testing to free people from isolating.With Covid casesfalling for a seventh successive day, Mr Johnson has also decided to reopen the country to foreign tourists from the EU and North America who have been fully vaccinated. Travel to the UK was previously only possible without quarantine from a handful ofgreen list countries.
Read the full story here:Freedom for double jabbed as UK opens to world
Wizz Air shares rose 4.1pc after the FTSE 250 listed airline said it expected capacity to ramp up to between 90pc and 100pc of pre-pandemic levels in July and August.
"We have now entered a busy part of the summer, ramping up our operations to meet increased demand whilst maintaining operational flexibility to deal with evolving travel restrictions as a result of Covid-19 developments, particularly with respect to new variants," said chief executive József Váradi.
He added the company had recruited 600 new crew members but said he could not give guidance beyond August as changing restrictions are too difficult to predict.
For the three months to the end of June, Wizz's first quarter period, the company flew only 33pc of its pre-pandemic capacity, a total of 2.95m people.
The company reported an underlying net loss of €118.7m and liquidity of €1.7bn.
Aston Martin more than quadrupled revenue last quarter, thanks to sales of the carmaker's first-ever SUV
The $180,000 DBX made up more than half of Aston Martin’s deliveries in the first half, fuelling a revenue resurgence to £274.4m from £57.2m a year ago.
Aston Martin racked up losses and debt after going public in 2018 and has spent the last year restructuring after a rescue by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.
The former fashion has been credited with injectingmuch-needed cash, paring bloated vehicle inventory and forging closer ties with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, after luring away the head of performance division AMG..
Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, commented on the results:
After what can only be described as a car-crash stock market debut in 2018, it seems Aston Martin has turned a corner. The group’s on track to deliver on its full year target to sell 6,000 vehicles. With dealer supply chains now rebalanced, the average selling price is starting to creep upward and more profitable Specials sales are on the rise. The group’s Project Horizon cost savings programme is also starting to bear fruit.All told, it was a solid six months for the luxury car-maker, but the group’s far from being able to set the cruise control. Aston Martin’s undoubtedly behind the curve with its electric vehicle strategy, a market that will likely become a much bigger piece of the puzzle as time goes on. We’re encouraged by the partnership with Mercedes to bring EVs to market, but it’s unclear whether a dressed-up Merc engine will be enough to wow potential buyers.
Broadcaster ITV reported pre-tax profits jumped to £133m from £15m a year ago, driven partly by a rebound in advertising.
"Our half-year results demonstrate that ITV is emerging from the worst effects of the pandemic," chief executive Carolyn McCall, said:
"We are optimistic about the future, despite the ongoing pandemic risk on our advertising and ITV Studios revenues."
The group behind hit shows including I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and Love Island said external revenues rose 27pc to £1.5bn and total advertising revenues rose 29pc to £866m in the six months to June 30.
Pre-tax profits more than doubled on an underlying basis to £301m from £143m.
The group pledged to restart shareholder dividends with plans for a 3.3p-a-share final payout at the 2021 full-year results.
The FTSE 100 is treading water this morning, as gains by banks and housebuilders are countered by losses in the mining sector.
Lender Barclays was up 4pc after first-half profit nearly quadrupled as it followed Wall Street rivals in reaping bumper investment banking fees from frenzied dealmaking.
Homebuilders were also among the top gainers, up 1.4pc, after British house prices rose 10.5pc in July compared with the same month last year - although prices fell by 0.5pc from June.
Miners BHP Group , Rio Tinto and Anglo American were among top drags despite Rio Tinto reporting its highest-ever interim profit this morning.
Another company beating analysts estimates this morning is British American Tobacco, which said revenue for the first half of the year had been boosted by its vaping products.
The London-listed company said it added 2.6m more customers in the first half, bringing its total user base of non-combustible products to 16.1m - a new record.
Those new customers helped push total adjusted revenue for this year's first half to £12.18bn, beyond the £12.02bn analysts had expected.
Adjusted earnings per share for the first half came in at 154.2p, ahead of the 151.5p average estimate.
The company also kept its full-year forecast for over 5pc sales growth.
Big tech profits soared way beyond analysts expectations last night, with Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple reported around $57bn in combined profit in a record-busting quarter,
• Microsoft topped analyst expectations by around $2bn
• Google parent Alphabet beat analyst expectations by close to $6bn
• And Apple beat revenue expectations by $8bn
My colleagues James Titcomb and Io Dodds havemore on this story here.
The FTSE 100 opened 0.1pc or 6.96 points lower than yesterday's close at 6,989.13.
The FTSE 250 opened 79.16 points or 0.4pc higher at 22,956.17.
Miner Rio Tinto has reported its highest-ever interim profit this morning, as the company cashes in on this year’s commodities rally.
Rio's underlying earnings more than doubled to $12.2bn from the same period last year, with the company adding it will pay $9.1bn in dividends as a result - a regular interim dividend of $6.1bn and a special dividend of $3bn.
Rio's results kick off a reporting season that is expected to see some of the world's largest mining companies report record results across the board.
The mining sector has been one of the biggest beneficiaries from the world’s efforts to emerge from the pandemic. The trillions of dollars poured into recovery packages have ignited demand for commodities like steel, iron ore and aluminum, driving prices sharply higher and sending inflation pressures rippling through the global economy.
“Government stimulus in response to ongoing Covid-19 pressures has driven strong demand for our products at a time of constrained supply resulting in a significant spike in most prices,” chief executive Jakob Stausholm said.
Barclays profits exceed analysts expectations in the first six months of the year, after the FTSE 100 listed bank released money it had set aside to cover the cost of bad loans.
The bank said pre-tax profits soared to £5bn, far outstripping analyst forecasts of £4.1bn and a four-fold increase from the same period last year when it had taken £3.7bn of impairment charges linked to the pandemic.
But today, bosses said the improving economic outlook will allow the bank to free up £742m from the impairment pot.
As a result, Barclays unveiled a 2p-per-share dividend, higher than the 1.8p that had been expected.
Chief executive Jes Staley said:
This has been a strong first half, clearly demonstrating the benefits of our resilient and diversified universal bank in supporting the growth of capital markets, our corporate clients and retail customers.Our investment banking fees and equities businesses have delivered record income, and we are seeing encouraging signs of recovery in consumer banking.Our profitability, strong capital position and balance sheet have enabled us to increase capital distributions to shareholders.
Good morning. FTSE 100 futures are pointing 0.3pc lower this morning, after Asian markets mostly sank again as fears over China's regulatory crackdown continued to reverberate through the region.
Barclays is the first in a series of blue-chip banks reporting half-year results this week. The bank said pre-tax profits soared to £5bn, compared with the £4.1bn that analysts had forecast.
The nearly four-fold increase from the same period last year came as Barclays released impairment cash - money it had reserved during last year's uncertainty to cover the costs of loans that might turn bad.
5 things to start your day
1)Morrisons' biggest investor will not support takeover deal:Silchester says there is 'little in the recommended offer that could not be achieved by Morrisons as a listed company'.
2)Apple, Google and Microsoft post another quarter of record profits:Apple’s net income came in at $21.7bn for the three months to the end of June, almost double the figure from the same quarter a year earlier.
3)Cobham offers separate US-UK boards to win control of Ultra Electronics:Creating two management structures expected to ease national security concerns about £2.6bn deal masterminded by US private equity firm.
4)Guardian owner to pump more money into private equity:Scott Trust says the overall value of its assets increased by almost a fifth to £1.1bn for the year to March.
5)Black British Business Awards announce 2021 finalists:The annual event, in its eighth year, celebrates the achievements of some of the UK's top corporate bosses and entrepreneurs.
What happened overnight
Asian stock markets declined on Wednesday after Wall Street pulled back from a record as investors awaited a Federal Reserve report for signs of when US stimulus might be withdrawn.
Investors also were uncertain how much farther China will go with a regulatory crackdown that set off a slide in its internet share prices.
Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney retreated while Hong Kong advanced.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.6pc to 3,363.00, declining for a third day, while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 1.5pc to 27,561.50. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed 0.2pc to 25,027.16.
The Kospi in Seoul lost 0.4pc to 3,220.17, while Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 gave up 0.8pc to 7,369.70. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets declined.
Coming up today
• Corporate: Aston Martin Lagonda, Barclays, British American Tobacco, Dignity, Foxtons, GlaxoSmithKline, ITV, Man Group, Metro Bank, Rio Tinto, St James's Place, Smurfit Kappa, Rathbone Brothers, Primary Health Properties, FDM Group(Interim)
• Economics:Consumer confidence(Germany),trade balance(US) || FTSE rises as lockdown savings boost UK funds - live updates: • House prices slip as stamp duty holiday winds down
• FTSE 100 lifts 0.2pc after earnings boost
• US market declined ahead of Fed meeting
• Singapore joins Fortress bid for Morrisons
• Sheffield Forgemasters nationalised to protect nuclear submarine fleet
• Jeremy Warner:Airlines face massive change, but Europe’s head is buried in the sand
• Sign up here for our daily business briefing newsletter
The Nasdaq rose this morning in New York, as record quarterly earnings from Google-parent Alphabet helped heavyweight technology stocks steady after their worst sell-off in more than two months yesterday.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 55.1 points or 0.38pc to 14,715.664 at the opening bell
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51.4 points or 0.15pc at the open to 35,109.95 while the S&P 500 rose 1.5 points or 0.03pc at the open to 4,402.95.
The London Stock Exchange finally has its first Spac listing of 2021, one day after UK regulators introduced new rules to encourage blank cheque firms to list in the UK.
Spinnaker Acquisitions Plc surged as much as 25pc today after raising £2m.
Special purpose acquisition companies sell shares to raise money before deciding on a takeover target. They can offer private companies a path to markets without the rigorous scrutiny of a traditional initial public offering.
One of the key changes to the UK's Spac rules was that firms that raise at least £100m at listing no longer will be required to suspend trading when they reveal plans for an acquisition. The cutoff is down from £200m pounds.
Double jabbed EU and US citizens will be allowed to enter England without having to quarantine from August 2, ministers have decided, my colleagueCharles Hymasreports.
He writes:
The Cabinet’s Covid-O committee agreed on Wednesday toopen the borders from next monthto double jabbed citizens from the US and EU countries, most of which are on the amber list.The move follows warnings from industry that the UK risked falling behind the EU which has already largely opened up to citizens from both the US and other countries.Research from the World Travel and Tourism Council suggests the economy is losing £639m a day because of the squeeze on inbound tourism.The current exemptions from quarantine for double jabbed travellers fromamber list countriescurrently only cover Britons who have been vaccinated by the NHS.
Read the full story here.
My colleagueAlan Toveyhas more on the Boeing's earnings report:
Global aviation markets’ strengthening recovery means US aerospace giant Boeing is cutting 10,000 fewer jobs than it warned it would be forced to axe because of the pandemic.Posting second-quarter results on Wednesday, Boeing reported its first profit since the end of 2019 as the company went into a tailspin because of the 737 Max grounding after two fatal crashes.Revealing it made a quarterly profit of $587m on revenues 44pc higher at $17bn, against a $2.4bn loss in the same period a year ago as the pandemic hammered the aerospace industry, Boeing said it would not be making the harsh cutbacks it predicted in October.Boeing now expects to cut about 20,000 jobs, taking its workforce down to 140,000, rather than the 130,000 it had signalled.In a letter to staff David Calhoun, chief executive, said: “We’re now seeing more stability in our staffing levels, as the commercial market recovery accelerates, our defence and government services business target growth opportunities, and we increase investments to further strengthen engineering.”Despite the positive results, there are still worries about Boeing’s dominant commercial aerospace business which makes up the bulk of its sales.Boeing recently halted deliveries of its 787 wide-body jets because they need “reworking” to solve manufacturing problems.China, the world’s fastest growing region for airliner sales, has still not recertified Boeing’s bestselling 737 Max small airliner despite work to rectify faults which led to its crashes and subsequent grounding.
Oil prices are rising today after an industry report pointed to a decline in US fuel and crude stockpiles, compounding signs that demand is tightening global markets.
Brent added 0.5pc to $74.82 while West Texas Intermediate futures added 0.7pc to trade above $72 a barrel.
The American Petroleum Institute reported a 6.23m-barrel weekly drop in gasoline inventories, according to people familiar with the figures. That would be the biggest draw in motor fuel stockpiles since March if confirmed by government data later today.
Global inventories are expected to tighten through the rest of the year as key energy consumers continue to rebound from the pandemic. But at the same time, the latest Covid-19 resurgence is raising concerns about the short-term demand outlook.
“Pricing pressures have been temporarily put on hold amid the ongoing tug-of-war between delta variant concerns and expectations of crude deficits,” said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd.
Planemaker Boeing has made its first profit in nearly two years, the company said in its second quarter earnings report.
The Chicago based aviation giant reported a second-quarter profit of $587m, compared with a loss of $2.4bn in the same three months of 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
Revenue rose 44pc to $17bn, surprising analysts who had expected another loss.
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund (GIC) has joined the Fortress-led private equity consortium seeking to buy Morrisons, reportsLaura Onita.
She writes:
SoftBank-backed Fortress said GIC would provide £100m of funding, giving it more firepower to potentially increase its £6.3bn offer afterMorrisons' largest shareholder came out against the bid on Tuesday.Earlier this month, rival investment firm Apollo also said it was in talks to join the Fortress bid and would not make a separate offer for Britain’s fourth-largest grocer after an unsuccessful tilt at Asda.The Fortress-led bid is already backed by a Canadian pension fund and the real estate arm of US oil billionaire Charles Koch.
Read Laura's full story here.
Swedish music streaming company Spotify has warned user growth has slowed as listeners switch off as lockdowns end, reportsMatthew Field.
The US-listed company said its total monthly active users, a key metric for how many people are using its app, increased to 365m, up around 9m or 3pc. Paying customers were up 4pc to 165m and it reported revenues of €2.3bn.
Daniel Ek, Spotify chief executive, said Spotify had experienced an "exceptional 2020" for growth that had been hard to match. "I am comfortable of 1bn plus users when it comes to Spotify," he said.
Spotify said monthly user performance was "slower than expected due primarily to lighter user intake during the first half of the quarter. COVID-19 continued to weigh on our performance in several markets, and, in some instances, we paused marketing campaigns due to the severity of the pandemic."
The company said it is facing increasing pressure from Apple Music and has complained to regulators around the iPhone-maker's "walled garden" and app store fees.
Spotify said that revenue from podcasting revenues increased more than 600pc as the Swedish firm invests aggressively in long-form listening and podcast creators. It also launched Spotify Greenroom, a live music and talk show experience, in June.
Shares in Spotify fell 1.5pc in early trading.
Bitcoin has crossed the $40,000 threshold again, as the world's most popular cryptocurrency recovers from a rout earlier this month.
It’s advanced for eight straight days, its longest winning streak since December.
There has been a resurgence in enthusiasm for Bitcoin since Amazon posteda job advert for a digital currency and blockchain product lead. Although a company spokesperson denied the token will be accepted for payments this year, the coin has held onto its gains and remains 17pc up compared to the start of the week.
“The current momentum is strong” and $45,000 is in sight but a conclusive break above $50,000 “will take some doing,” Pankaj Balani, chief executive officer of crypto derivatives exchange Delta Exchange, wrote in a note Tuesday.
The coin is up 7pc compared to yesterday's close and is currently at $40,750.
Coronavirus vaccine sales helped US drugmaker Pfizer nearly double its second-quarter revenue and boost its profit 59pc.
During the pandemic, the company's Covid-19 vaccine has become its top seller, bringing in $7.84bn from direct sales and revenue split with German partner BioNTech.
Pfizer said in a presentation accompanying its earnings release that emerging real-world data “suggests immunity against infection and symptomatic disease may wane,” meaning there could be a wide demand for boosters.
The company now anticipates revenue from the vaccine this year to reach $33.5bn (£24.1bn) for the 2.1bn doses it's contracted to provide by year end.
Operating profit at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline increased 23pc to £2.1bn in the second quarter, as the firm's vaccine arm saw turnover increase by 39pc to £1.57bn.
However that growth was not replicated in the company's other divisions. GSK's pharmaceutical business reported a 4pc increase while consumer healthcare reported a 3pc decline.
GSK is working on a Covid vaccine in partnership with Sanofi. The companies said in May the vaccine had entered phase 3 trials.
The company's shares dropped 0.4pc.
Emma Walmsley, chief executive officer at GSK, said:
We expect this positive momentum to continue through the second half of the year, driving us towards the better end of our earnings guidance range for 2021, and meaningful performance improvement in 2022.Our clear priority is to focus on execution, unlocking the value of consumer healthcare and delivering the step-change in growth and performance we now see for GSK.
US futures have edged marginally higher ahead of this evening's Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, where officials are expected to discuss how and when to taper stimulus.
Futures tied to the Dow crept 0.01pc higher and S&P 500 futures lifted 0.12pc.
Nasdaq futures rose 0.3pc after big tech companies reported earnings way above analyst expectations.
While strong earnings are boosting confidence in the corporate recovery, this week’s China selloff added to investor worries about the threat to global growth from the delta variant and the potential for tighter policy.
“Investors appear to be grappling with the diverging risks of a slowing of the global economy, due to rising infection rates, against the risks of rising prices,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
While the Fed meeting is “unlikely to change the overall narrative when it comes to the timing of a taper,” it may offer an insight into whether the recent hawkishness from Fed officials such as James Bullard and Raphael Bostic is starting to spread to other members, he added.
Santander said it has closed around 25 bank branches due to staff shortages caused by the "pingdemic".
UK outgoing chief executive Nathan Bostock said between 3pc and 5pc of the bank's 465 branches are being closed for around a week because staff are having to self-isolate.
Rival lender Metro Bank also said separately earlier today that it was suffering operational difficulties from staff self-isolating, which was causing a slowdown in customer activity this month.
Today, Spanish-owned Santander's half-year results showed rocketing mortgage lending helped the group's pre-tax profits jump more than five fold to £751m in the six months to June 30.
Net mortgage lending grew by £3.6bn, with demand spiking ahead of the end of full stamp duty relief on June 30.
The group said £4.6bn of gross lending was made just in June, with half of what was normally seen in an average month last year being lent in the final five days of June alone. It also hailed a £3.3bn increase in customer deposits, with retail customers having saved more amid the pandemic.
Figures were also boosted as the group cut its credit provisions for debts expected to turn sour due to the pandemic by £104m.
The UK's strong mortgage lending performance helped the wider Banco Santander group post a net profit of €2bn (£1.7bn) for the three months to June, against losses of more than €11bn (£9.4bn) a year ago.
Women should make up at least 40pc of the boards of all listed companies and the UK's financial watchdog said today.
The Financial Conduct Authority added that at least one of the senior board positions - chair, chief executive officer, chief financial officer or senior independent director - should be a woman and boards should include at least one non-white ethnic minority director,
The changes to the FCA's listing rules are expected to take effect in late 2021 after a public consultation on the proposals that would affect 1,106 companies.
UK and overseas companies listed in London would have to comply with the targets or explain to shareholders in their annual reports why they have fallen short.
"The Listing Rule diversity targets are not mandatory for companies to meet, so the FCA is not setting ‘quotas’, but providing a positive benchmark for issuers to report against," the watchdog said.
The winding down of the stamp duty holiday triggered the biggest fall in house prices in more than a year in July, reportTim WallaceandRachel Mortimer.
They write:
Average prices slipped 0.5pc compared to the previous month to £244,229 as the red-hot property market started to cool, according to Nationwide Building Society’s monthly report.The fall in prices from record highs was the sharpest drop since June 2020 when the first lockdown pulled down prices. Annual growth eased off the 17-year high of 13.4pc in June but remained elevated at 10.5pc.The stamp duty holiday has protected the property market from the blow of the pandemic, fuelling a surge in prices despite the biggest recession in 300 years. Nationwide said shifting housing preferences has also been key to driving activity as homeowners reconsider their location in the wake of the pandemic.
Read their full story here.
The UK's largest wealth manager, St James's Place is still the top riser on the FTSE 100 this morning, after it said its first half was boosted by a jump in household savings during coronavirus lockdowns.
The asset manager said it attracted £5.5bn in net inflows in the first half, prompting its shares to jump more than 6pc.
FTSE 250 listed Man Group and Rathbone Brothers both increased their interim dividends after reporting their funds also swelled.
Total funds under management and administration at Rathbone Brothers jumped 8.2pc to £59.2bn, while Man Group said its fund under management rose 1.6pc to $135.3bn (£97.5bn).
Both companies increased their interim dividend.
Marston's has joined an industry push for taxes to be permanently slashed for pub groups in a bid to aid ailing operators which have taken a heavy hit from the pandemic, reports my colleagueHannah Boland.
Ralph Findlay, the chief executive of Marston's, which operates around 1,500 pubs across the UK, said the outlook for the sector remained "uncertain and operationally disrupted" in the immediate short term.
"The tone of Government messaging will be an important influence on consumer confidence. At present, the message is one of caution."
Mr Findlay branded a government review of the business rates system as "long overdue" and said he believed "that VAT reduction should be permanent since the hospitality industry remains one of the most heavily taxed sectors".
"This would assist an industry that has been hit hard and aid hospitality’s employment and development of young workers which will be a key part of the UK’s economic recovery."
His comments come weeks after Wetherspoon warned that an increase in VAT risked leading to higher prices in pubs. The tax is due to increase in September, and then return to normal levels within the next year. "The VAT rise will make the entire hospitality industry less competitive vis a vis powerful supermarkets," Wetherspoons said.
The latest move to pile pressure on the Government to halt tax increases came as Marston's issued a trading update in which it said trading had significantly improved since the middle of May, when sites were able to start trading indoors again.
The company said between May 17 and July 24, sales had been at around 92pc of 2019 levels, better than it had expected.
Aluminum is heading for a seismic shift as a long-running supply glut starts to fade, setting the stage for shortages and a price rally that could run for years.
Bloomberghas more details:
Demand is set to surge on the back of climate-change investment, and mega-producer China - which accounts for more than half of global output - is cracking down on smelting to reduce pollution and meet green targets.Those combined forces mean the oversupply that’s dominated the market and restrained prices for more than a decade is on the way out, leaving buyers bracing for a new era of scarcityand higher costs.With aluminum a feature of everyday items, from food packaging and beer cans to iPhones and cars, what’s playing out in markets has implications for inflation and consumers’ pockets.It’s already jumped 27pc to about $2,500 a ton this year, the second-best performer after tin on the London Metal Exchange. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is among those seeing more gains ahead, forecasting record prices above $3,000 by late next year.For those counting on market dislocations proving temporary, lumber offers some hope. Having rallied to a record in May on the back of a U.S. homebuilding boom, prices are now fast tumbling back toward pre-pandemic levels.
Joshua Mahony, Senior Market Analyst at IG, comments;
European markets are making tentative gains in early trade today, with a wave of earnings from US tech giants Apple, Alphabet, AMD, and Microsoft doing little to steer sentiment despite some pretty impressive figures.[...] Travel stocks are leading the way higher for the FTSE today, with First Group, Wizz Air, easyJet, and IAG forming the leading pack within the sector. Plans for the UK to allow double-jabbed visitors from the EU and US without the need to quarantine marks a welcome albeit belated boost for the travel and tourism sector.With summer in full swing, the airlines will hope that this measure drives a swift and sharp rise in bookings as they aim to make up for an incredibly tough period.[...] Banking stocks are enjoying a boost today, with Barclays seeing their profits almost triple over the first half of the year. Understandably the reliance upon their investment banking division does highlight why we are likely to continue seeing underperformance for the UK banks compared with their US counterparts.However, with the government mitigating much of the economic fallout of the pandemic, and spending likely to gradually increase, banking stocks remain a strong pro-cyclical pick going forward.
Metro Bank boss, Daniel Frumkin, has said the post-lockdown activity increase at the bank has been interrupted by staff being forced to self-isolate by the "pingdemic".
"We have definitely seen a pickup in activity in the economy since it started to reopen, our stores are a bit busier. We actually saw a pretty good FX (currency exchange) volume in the month of May and again a bit in June," he said.
"The pingdemic in July has kind of slowed things down. Even from an operational perspective, managing through the number of people who have to self-isolate, including myself, over the last few weeks, has been a challenge."
The bank slashed its pre-tax losses by around £100m to just under £139m in the opening six months of the year.
"So we're already starting to see a reduction in the losses. Now I accept the losses are still significant, I'm not making light of them, we have a lot of work to do," Mr Frumkin added.
Shailesh Raikundlia, an analyst at Liberum, said: "Overall, a decent quarter with revenue benefiting from non-lending assets than our forecasts, but we continue to expect the bank to be loss-making for the foreseeable future."
Here's the day's best stories from The Telegraph's Money team:
• Homeowners cashing in on house price boom to buy more property:Cheap remortgage rates, the stamp duty holiday and rising values have created the "perfect storm"
• 'My husband doesn't know I don’t save into a pension. Do I have to tell him?'Moral Money: should our reader tell her husband she has no retirement savings?
• How to make £250 from the 'pingdemic':Millions fail to claim tax breaks
Shares of St James's Place have reached an all time high of £15.92 after the wealth management business reported a sharp increase in its funds under management.
For the six months to June 30, the asset manager said funds under management jumped 11.3pc compared to the previous year to a record £143.8bn.
Andrew Croft, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
During the first half, the Partnership attracted £9.2bn of new client investments, with strong flows reflecting a combination of factors including improving client sentiment, a sharp increase in household savings rates, and high levels of client engagement.
The company's shares were the top riser on the FTSE 100 today, up 5.7pc.
Fresnillo shares lifted 4.5pc, after the precious metals miner said first half silver production rose 2.7pc while quarterly gold output climbed 12.3pc.
Chief executive Octavio Alvídrez said: "We remain on track to meet our full-year targets and our production guidance for 2021 is unchanged, though we remain vigilant around the continued evolution of the pandemic and its potential future effect on our operations, in particular the implementation of any future new work restrictions."
One of the key events for markets today is the US Federal Reserve meeting, with a statement expected at 7pm UK time and a news conference by Chairman Jerome Powell expected half an hour later.
Investors will be looking out for clues on when the central bank will start reducing its purchases of government bonds and any fresh insight into its views on inflation.
Economists are not expecting strong guidance about when the bank’s asset purchases will wind down. However they will look for clues about whether a consensus is emerging among Fed officials.
So far, rhetoric hints at a split between central bankers on the timing, pace and composition of tapering as US consumer price inflation accelerates.
Wizz Air is not the only airline stock rising this morning.
British Airways owner IAG is up 3.3pc, EasyJet is up 4.2pc and RyanAir is up 2pc as Britain is set to exempt fully vaccinated travellers from EU and US from quarantine in the coming days.
My colleaguesBen Riley-SmithandCharles Hymasreport:
Boris Johnson has decided that,from August 16, those who have been fully vaccinated will not be required to take a test if they come into contact with someone with Covid unless they have symptoms.It had previously been reported that workers would only bereleased from self-isolation after a negative test, and health officials had been planning for a major new system of compulsory testing to free people from isolating.With Covid casesfalling for a seventh successive day, Mr Johnson has also decided to reopen the country to foreign tourists from the EU and North America who have been fully vaccinated. Travel to the UK was previously only possible without quarantine from a handful ofgreen list countries.
Read the full story here:Freedom for double jabbed as UK opens to world
Wizz Air shares rose 4.1pc after the FTSE 250 listed airline said it expected capacity to ramp up to between 90pc and 100pc of pre-pandemic levels in July and August.
"We have now entered a busy part of the summer, ramping up our operations to meet increased demand whilst maintaining operational flexibility to deal with evolving travel restrictions as a result of Covid-19 developments, particularly with respect to new variants," said chief executive József Váradi.
He added the company had recruited 600 new crew members but said he could not give guidance beyond August as changing restrictions are too difficult to predict.
For the three months to the end of June, Wizz's first quarter period, the company flew only 33pc of its pre-pandemic capacity, a total of 2.95m people.
The company reported an underlying net loss of €118.7m and liquidity of €1.7bn.
Aston Martin more than quadrupled revenue last quarter, thanks to sales of the carmaker's first-ever SUV
The $180,000 DBX made up more than half of Aston Martin’s deliveries in the first half, fuelling a revenue resurgence to £274.4m from £57.2m a year ago.
Aston Martin racked up losses and debt after going public in 2018 and has spent the last year restructuring after a rescue by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.
The former fashion has been credited with injectingmuch-needed cash, paring bloated vehicle inventory and forging closer ties with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, after luring away the head of performance division AMG..
Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, commented on the results:
After what can only be described as a car-crash stock market debut in 2018, it seems Aston Martin has turned a corner. The group’s on track to deliver on its full year target to sell 6,000 vehicles. With dealer supply chains now rebalanced, the average selling price is starting to creep upward and more profitable Specials sales are on the rise. The group’s Project Horizon cost savings programme is also starting to bear fruit.All told, it was a solid six months for the luxury car-maker, but the group’s far from being able to set the cruise control. Aston Martin’s undoubtedly behind the curve with its electric vehicle strategy, a market that will likely become a much bigger piece of the puzzle as time goes on. We’re encouraged by the partnership with Mercedes to bring EVs to market, but it’s unclear whether a dressed-up Merc engine will be enough to wow potential buyers.
Broadcaster ITV reported pre-tax profits jumped to £133m from £15m a year ago, driven partly by a rebound in advertising.
"Our half-year results demonstrate that ITV is emerging from the worst effects of the pandemic," chief executive Carolyn McCall, said:
"We are optimistic about the future, despite the ongoing pandemic risk on our advertising and ITV Studios revenues."
The group behind hit shows including I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and Love Island said external revenues rose 27pc to £1.5bn and total advertising revenues rose 29pc to £866m in the six months to June 30.
Pre-tax profits more than doubled on an underlying basis to £301m from £143m.
The group pledged to restart shareholder dividends with plans for a 3.3p-a-share final payout at the 2021 full-year results.
The FTSE 100 is treading water this morning, as gains by banks and housebuilders are countered by losses in the mining sector.
Lender Barclays was up 4pc after first-half profit nearly quadrupled as it followed Wall Street rivals in reaping bumper investment banking fees from frenzied dealmaking.
Homebuilders were also among the top gainers, up 1.4pc, after British house prices rose 10.5pc in July compared with the same month last year - although prices fell by 0.5pc from June.
Miners BHP Group , Rio Tinto and Anglo American were among top drags despite Rio Tinto reporting its highest-ever interim profit this morning.
Another company beating analysts estimates this morning is British American Tobacco, which said revenue for the first half of the year had been boosted by its vaping products.
The London-listed company said it added 2.6m more customers in the first half, bringing its total user base of non-combustible products to 16.1m - a new record.
Those new customers helped push total adjusted revenue for this year's first half to £12.18bn, beyond the £12.02bn analysts had expected.
Adjusted earnings per share for the first half came in at 154.2p, ahead of the 151.5p average estimate.
The company also kept its full-year forecast for over 5pc sales growth.
Big tech profits soared way beyond analysts expectations last night, with Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple reported around $57bn in combined profit in a record-busting quarter,
• Microsoft topped analyst expectations by around $2bn
• Google parent Alphabet beat analyst expectations by close to $6bn
• And Apple beat revenue expectations by $8bn
My colleagues James Titcomb and Io Dodds havemore on this story here.
The FTSE 100 opened 0.1pc or 6.96 points lower than yesterday's close at 6,989.13.
The FTSE 250 opened 79.16 points or 0.4pc higher at 22,956.17.
Miner Rio Tinto has reported its highest-ever interim profit this morning, as the company cashes in on this year’s commodities rally.
Rio's underlying earnings more than doubled to $12.2bn from the same period last year, with the company adding it will pay $9.1bn in dividends as a result - a regular interim dividend of $6.1bn and a special dividend of $3bn.
Rio's results kick off a reporting season that is expected to see some of the world's largest mining companies report record results across the board.
The mining sector has been one of the biggest beneficiaries from the world’s efforts to emerge from the pandemic. The trillions of dollars poured into recovery packages have ignited demand for commodities like steel, iron ore and aluminum, driving prices sharply higher and sending inflation pressures rippling through the global economy.
“Government stimulus in response to ongoing Covid-19 pressures has driven strong demand for our products at a time of constrained supply resulting in a significant spike in most prices,” chief executive Jakob Stausholm said.
Barclays profits exceed analysts expectations in the first six months of the year, after the FTSE 100 listed bank released money it had set aside to cover the cost of bad loans.
The bank said pre-tax profits soared to £5bn, far outstripping analyst forecasts of £4.1bn and a four-fold increase from the same period last year when it had taken £3.7bn of impairment charges linked to the pandemic.
But today, bosses said the improving economic outlook will allow the bank to free up £742m from the impairment pot.
As a result, Barclays unveiled a 2p-per-share dividend, higher than the 1.8p that had been expected.
Chief executive Jes Staley said:
This has been a strong first half, clearly demonstrating the benefits of our resilient and diversified universal bank in supporting the growth of capital markets, our corporate clients and retail customers.Our investment banking fees and equities businesses have delivered record income, and we are seeing encouraging signs of recovery in consumer banking.Our profitability, strong capital position and balance sheet have enabled us to increase capital distributions to shareholders.
Good morning. FTSE 100 futures are pointing 0.3pc lower this morning, after Asian markets mostly sank again as fears over China's regulatory crackdown continued to reverberate through the region.
Barclays is the first in a series of blue-chip banks reporting half-year results this week. The bank said pre-tax profits soared to £5bn, compared with the £4.1bn that analysts had forecast.
The nearly four-fold increase from the same period last year came as Barclays released impairment cash - money it had reserved during last year's uncertainty to cover the costs of loans that might turn bad.
5 things to start your day
1)Morrisons' biggest investor will not support takeover deal:Silchester says there is 'little in the recommended offer that could not be achieved by Morrisons as a listed company'.
2)Apple, Google and Microsoft post another quarter of record profits:Apple’s net income came in at $21.7bn for the three months to the end of June, almost double the figure from the same quarter a year earlier.
3)Cobham offers separate US-UK boards to win control of Ultra Electronics:Creating two management structures expected to ease national security concerns about £2.6bn deal masterminded by US private equity firm.
4)Guardian owner to pump more money into private equity:Scott Trust says the overall value of its assets increased by almost a fifth to £1.1bn for the year to March.
5)Black British Business Awards announce 2021 finalists:The annual event, in its eighth year, celebrates the achievements of some of the UK's top corporate bosses and entrepreneurs.
What happened overnight
Asian stock markets declined on Wednesday after Wall Street pulled back from a record as investors awaited a Federal Reserve report for signs of when US stimulus might be withdrawn.
Investors also were uncertain how much farther China will go with a regulatory crackdown that set off a slide in its internet share prices.
Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney retreated while Hong Kong advanced.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.6pc to 3,363.00, declining for a third day, while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 1.5pc to 27,561.50. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed 0.2pc to 25,027.16.
The Kospi in Seoul lost 0.4pc to 3,220.17, while Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 gave up 0.8pc to 7,369.70. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets declined.
Coming up today
• Corporate: Aston Martin Lagonda, Barclays, British American Tobacco, Dignity, Foxtons, GlaxoSmithKline, ITV, Man Group, Metro Bank, Rio Tinto, St James's Place, Smurfit Kappa, Rathbone Brothers, Primary Health Properties, FDM Group(Interim)
• Economics:Consumer confidence(Germany),trade balance(US) || Cryptocurrencies are rebounding, should you invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin right now?: After a multi-week streak of losses, the crypto world saw a surprise rebound this week. Tokens like Bitcoin , Ethereum, and Dogecoin were up as much as 20.5%, which raises a question: Should you invest in cryptocurrencies right now? Between the afternoon of Sunday 25 and Monday 26 July, several digital currencies recovered from the sell-off that hit their market just a week ago, when Bitcoin fell below $ 30,000 . In a matter of hours, Bitcoin went from $ 34,485 per unit at 5:04 p.m. (GMT-6), to $ 38,300 by 8:54 p.m., an increase of 11% . The price of BTC continued to climb to a high of $ 40,169 on Monday at 2:19 PM. This means a total increase of almost 16.5% in one day , according to data from CoinMarketCap. Source: CoinMarketCap . For its part, Ethereum was trading at $ 2,113 on Sunday at 9:34 a.m. (GMT-6), and at 9:39 p.m. it was already priced at $ 2,320, a jump of almost 10%. On Monday at 2:24 p.m., ETH reached $ 2,420 per token , that is, a cumulative increase of 14.5% on the day. Source: CoinMarketCap . Another beneficiary was Elon Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin . The token inspired by the DOGE puppy meme cost $ 0.1926 at 11:49 a.m., and by 1:24 a.m. it reached its peak of $ 0.2318 , a jump of 20.3% in less than 14 hours. Source: CoinMarketCap . Did you notice that the three graphs follow a similar pattern? In these examples you can notice an increase in the price of the cryptocurrency, followed by a plateau with an upward trend, and then a fall that shows signs of recovery. Other digital currencies such as Binance Coin , Cardano , XRP , Polkadot , Uniswap , Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin , registered almost the same patterns as those already mentioned in their behavior charts. It may interest you: Get to know Xoycoin, the Mexican cryptocurrency linked to Ethereum in which you can invest from 20 pesos Why did cryptocurrencies rebound? Several specialists agree that Jeff Bezos played a crucial role. Rumors that Amazon might accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment would have spurred investment in tokens, Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, was quoted as saying by CNN . Story continues Additionally, a job listing for a "blockchain and digital currency product leader" can be found on Amazon's website, whose job would be to help the company's payments team develop "new capabilities," the statement read. Job Description. Other tech billionaires, such as Elon Musk , CEO of Tesla, and Jack Dorsey , CEO of Twitter, have also done their part. Both have made statements on how they will integrate cryptocurrency payments into their respective businesses. During an event with Dorsey on Wednesday, Elon Musk confirmed that he has heavy investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin, coincidentally the three that rallied the most. Also read: You can now pay with Dogecoin in Coinbase Commerce, we tell you how it works For his part, last Thursday Jack Dorsey told investors and analysts that Bitcoin would be a fundamental part of Twitter's strategy. "There are three relevant trends for Twitter and you, our shareholders: artificial intelligence, decentralization, and the internet finally having access to a global native currency in bitcoin. (...) We intend to lead the way in each ," Dorsey said on the call. . Should you invest in cryptocurrencies right now? All investments in any type of asset carry risk, and cryptocurrencies are no exception. The Bitcoin price charts in the last year, to mention the most popular, seem like a roller coaster. Although it reached an all-time high of $ 64,000 per unit last April, on July 20 it fell below $ 30,000 , confirming its now famous volatility. #Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin hit a six-week high of nearly $ 39,043 and Ethereum hit 2,363. https://t.co/tMSZdCBAT3 - Entrepreneur in Spanish (@SoyEntrepreneur) July 27, 2021 Investing in cryptocurrencies has several advantages, such as diversifying your investment portfolio and the risks of these, as well as the fact that they are increasingly accepted as a form of payment , and the trend is growing. In the case of Bitcoin , it is a decentralized digital currency whose value does not depend on any economic or political body, so many holders see it as insurance against a possible economic crisis . Also, there will only be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins on the market, so as you mine BTC, less is left and it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to mine. The decrease in supply would increase its price , especially if demand also grows. So the answer is yes, you should invest in cryptocurrencies . With everything and the ups and downs of the market, digital currencies are here to stay, and in this case it is better to join early. You can start with a discreet investment, buying a bit of various cryptocurrencies that catch your eye (choose between three and five to begin with). As the days go by, you will see how they behave and you will start to play with the sale. When you least realize it, you will already be an expert in 'crypto' assets and you will lose your fear of this new type of investment. Just choose the exchange to invest carefully and make sure you put your money on a regulated site, like Bitso , Binance, or Coinbase . We recommend: 3 popular myths about cryptocurrencies (and a truth that does matter) || Cryptocurrencies are rebounding, should you invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin right now?: After a multi-week streak of losses, thecryptoworld saw a surprise rebound this week. Tokens likeBitcoin,Ethereum,andDogecoinwere up as much as 20.5%, which raises a question:Should you invest in cryptocurrencies right now?
Between the afternoon of Sunday 25 and Monday 26 July, several digital currencies recovered from the sell-off that hit their market just a week ago, whenBitcoinfell below $ 30,000.
In a matter of hours,Bitcoinwent from $ 34,485 per unit at 5:04 p.m. (GMT-6), to $ 38,300 by 8:54 p.m.,an increase of 11%. The price of BTC continued to climb to a high of$ 40,169on Monday at 2:19 PM. This means a total increase of almost16.5% in one day, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
For its part,Ethereumwas trading at $ 2,113 on Sunday at 9:34 a.m. (GMT-6), and at 9:39 p.m. it was already priced at $ 2,320, a jump of almost 10%. On Monday at 2:24 p.m., ETH reached$ 2,420 per token, that is, acumulative increase of 14.5%on the day.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
Another beneficiary wasElon Musk'sfavoritecryptocurrency,Dogecoin. The token inspired by the DOGE puppy meme cost $ 0.1926 at 11:49 a.m., and by 1:24 a.m. it reached itspeak of $ 0.2318, a jump of20.3%in less than 14 hours.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
Did you notice that the three graphs follow a similar pattern?In these examples you can notice an increase in the price of the cryptocurrency, followed by a plateau with an upward trend, and then a fall that shows signs of recovery.
Other digital currencies such asBinance Coin,Cardano,XRP,Polkadot,Uniswap,Bitcoin CashandLitecoin, registered almost the same patterns as those already mentioned in their behavior charts.
• It may interest you:Get to know Xoycoin, the Mexican cryptocurrency linked to Ethereum in which you can invest from 20 pesos
Several specialists agree thatJeff Bezosplayed a crucial role. Rumors thatAmazonmight acceptBitcoinand othercryptocurrenciesas a form of paymentwould have spurred investment in tokens, Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, was quoted as saying byCNN.
Additionally, a job listingfor a"blockchain and digital currency product leader"can be found on Amazon's website, whose job would be to help the company's payments team develop"new capabilities," the statementread. Job Description.
Other tech billionaires, such asElon Musk, CEO of Tesla, andJack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, have also done their part. Both have made statements on how they will integrate cryptocurrency payments into their respective businesses.
During an event with Dorsey on Wednesday,Elon Muskconfirmed that he has heavy investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin, coincidentally the three that rallied the most.
• Alsoread: You can now pay with Dogecoin in Coinbase Commerce, we tell you how it works
For his part, last Thursday Jack Dorsey told investors and analysts that Bitcoin would be a fundamental part of Twitter's strategy.
"There are three relevant trends for Twitter and you, our shareholders: artificial intelligence, decentralization, and the internet finally having access to a global native currency in bitcoin. (...) We intend to lead the way in each," Dorsey said on the call. .
All investments in any type of asset carry risk, and cryptocurrencies are no exception. TheBitcoin pricecharts in the last year, to mention the most popular, seem like a roller coaster. Although it reached anall-time high of $ 64,000per unit last April, on July 20 it fellbelow $ 30,000, confirming its now famous volatility.
Investing in cryptocurrencies has several advantages, such asdiversifying your investment portfolioand the risks of these, as well as the fact that they are increasinglyaccepted as a form of payment, and the trend is growing.
In the case ofBitcoin, it is a decentralized digital currency whose value does not depend on any economic or political body, so many holders see it asinsurance against a possible economic crisis.
Also, there will only be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins on the market, so as you mine BTC, less is left and it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to mine.The decrease in supply would increase its price, especially if demand also grows.
So the answer isyes, you should invest in cryptocurrencies. With everything and the ups and downs of the market, digital currencies are here to stay, and in this case it is better to join early.
You can start with a discreet investment, buying a bit of various cryptocurrencies that catch your eye (choose between three and five to begin with). As the days go by, you will see how they behave and you will start to play with the sale. When you least realize it, you will already be an expert in 'crypto' assets and you will lose your fear of this new type of investment. Just choose the exchange to invest carefully and make sure you put your money on a regulated site, likeBitso,Binance,orCoinbase.
• We recommend:3 popular myths about cryptocurrencies (and a truth that does matter) || Cryptocurrencies are rebounding, should you invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin right now?: After a multi-week streak of losses, thecryptoworld saw a surprise rebound this week. Tokens likeBitcoin,Ethereum,andDogecoinwere up as much as 20.5%, which raises a question:Should you invest in cryptocurrencies right now?
Between the afternoon of Sunday 25 and Monday 26 July, several digital currencies recovered from the sell-off that hit their market just a week ago, whenBitcoinfell below $ 30,000.
In a matter of hours,Bitcoinwent from $ 34,485 per unit at 5:04 p.m. (GMT-6), to $ 38,300 by 8:54 p.m.,an increase of 11%. The price of BTC continued to climb to a high of$ 40,169on Monday at 2:19 PM. This means a total increase of almost16.5% in one day, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
For its part,Ethereumwas trading at $ 2,113 on Sunday at 9:34 a.m. (GMT-6), and at 9:39 p.m. it was already priced at $ 2,320, a jump of almost 10%. On Monday at 2:24 p.m., ETH reached$ 2,420 per token, that is, acumulative increase of 14.5%on the day.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
Another beneficiary wasElon Musk'sfavoritecryptocurrency,Dogecoin. The token inspired by the DOGE puppy meme cost $ 0.1926 at 11:49 a.m., and by 1:24 a.m. it reached itspeak of $ 0.2318, a jump of20.3%in less than 14 hours.
Source:CoinMarketCap.
Did you notice that the three graphs follow a similar pattern?In these examples you can notice an increase in the price of the cryptocurrency, followed by a plateau with an upward trend, and then a fall that shows signs of recovery.
Other digital currencies such asBinance Coin,Cardano,XRP,Polkadot,Uniswap,Bitcoin CashandLitecoin, registered almost the same patterns as those already mentioned in their behavior charts.
• It may interest you:Get to know Xoycoin, the Mexican cryptocurrency linked to Ethereum in which you can invest from 20 pesos
Several specialists agree thatJeff Bezosplayed a crucial role. Rumors thatAmazonmight acceptBitcoinand othercryptocurrenciesas a form of paymentwould have spurred investment in tokens, Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, was quoted as saying byCNN.
Additionally, a job listingfor a"blockchain and digital currency product leader"can be found on Amazon's website, whose job would be to help the company's payments team develop"new capabilities," the statementread. Job Description.
Other tech billionaires, such asElon Musk, CEO of Tesla, andJack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, have also done their part. Both have made statements on how they will integrate cryptocurrency payments into their respective businesses.
During an event with Dorsey on Wednesday,Elon Muskconfirmed that he has heavy investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin, coincidentally the three that rallied the most.
• Alsoread: You can now pay with Dogecoin in Coinbase Commerce, we tell you how it works
For his part, last Thursday Jack Dorsey told investors and analysts that Bitcoin would be a fundamental part of Twitter's strategy.
"There are three relevant trends for Twitter and you, our shareholders: artificial intelligence, decentralization, and the internet finally having access to a global native currency in bitcoin. (...) We intend to lead the way in each," Dorsey said on the call. .
All investments in any type of asset carry risk, and cryptocurrencies are no exception. TheBitcoin pricecharts in the last year, to mention the most popular, seem like a roller coaster. Although it reached anall-time high of $ 64,000per unit last April, on July 20 it fellbelow $ 30,000, confirming its now famous volatility.
Investing in cryptocurrencies has several advantages, such asdiversifying your investment portfolioand the risks of these, as well as the fact that they are increasinglyaccepted as a form of payment, and the trend is growing.
In the case ofBitcoin, it is a decentralized digital currency whose value does not depend on any economic or political body, so many holders see it asinsurance against a possible economic crisis.
Also, there will only be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins on the market, so as you mine BTC, less is left and it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to mine.The decrease in supply would increase its price, especially if demand also grows.
So the answer isyes, you should invest in cryptocurrencies. With everything and the ups and downs of the market, digital currencies are here to stay, and in this case it is better to join early.
You can start with a discreet investment, buying a bit of various cryptocurrencies that catch your eye (choose between three and five to begin with). As the days go by, you will see how they behave and you will start to play with the sale. When you least realize it, you will already be an expert in 'crypto' assets and you will lose your fear of this new type of investment. Just choose the exchange to invest carefully and make sure you put your money on a regulated site, likeBitso,Binance,orCoinbase.
• We recommend:3 popular myths about cryptocurrencies (and a truth that does matter) || KEY Difference Media Promotes Verizon Media’s Campaign of School of Block: Miami, FL, July 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) Verizon Media is now working with KEY Difference Media and they are proud to announce their joint effort to promote Ledger’s School of Block to a blockchain enthusiastic audience. Logo Available: Verizon Media & KEY Difference Media KEY Difference Media is a blockchain full suite marketing agency with an impressive 15 years track record within the content marketing space.It has been a prominent blockchain player since 2013. It has raised over $550M in token sales. KEY Difference Media has worked with the earliest of the gaming companies that incorporated Bitcoin as a payment option to the earliest of exchanges, NFTs and multiverses. With a 350+ experts team led by the CEO, Karnika E. Yashwant, KEY Difference Media offers advisory, content marketing, influencer marketing, and public relations, among many other services. “Karnika is a very reliable and useful partner in terms of blockchain and crypto industry. If you need any assistance or help - just ask him!”, Sergey Maslennikov, Chief Communications Officer, 1inch Network. Verizon Media is an advertising and publicity outlet with a hallowed history working with the biggest names and brands across various industries. It is headed by a diverse team of experts with decades of experience between them at the highest level of their respective fields. They own brands that lead their respective sectors like Yahoo and AOL. Finally, it is a branch of Verizon Communications that focuses on media and online businesses. KEY Difference Media remains a pacesetter in blockchain marketing. The blockchain industry remains relatively young and extremely promising. However, there are as many opportunities as there are cautionary tales. KEY Difference Media has become synonymous with trustworthy, timely, and effective blockchain marketing within this growing industry. Since 2013, KEY Difference Media has worked with an enviable list of partners accompanied by glowing reputations. Story continues Verizon Media’s latest venture is in collaboration with KEY Difference Media to promote School of Block by Ledger to a stratified audience that KEY Difference Media provides access to. “Even before we set out on this journey, we always had a clear vision for KEY Difference Media. We understand the role of generating the right kind of noise and publicity around our clients’ endeavors. It is just as important as building a strong team with everyone pulling in the same direction. That is why we were thrilled to be associated with one of the biggest names in the publicity and brand marketing space, and there aren’t many bigger than Verizon Media. We are confident that associations like ours and Verizon Media – two heavyweights in our respective spaces – would attract the kind of crowd we envisaged for this project,” explained Karnika E. Yashwant , CEO, KEY Difference Media To learn more about KEY Difference Media, their process and success click here . Contact: Foivos Floros KEY Difference Media [email protected] https://keydifferencemedia.com || KEY Difference Media Promotes Verizon Media’s Campaign of School of Block: Miami, FL, July 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) Verizon Media is now working with KEY Difference Media and they are proud to announce their joint effort to promote Ledger’s School of Block to a blockchain enthusiastic audience. Logo Available: Verizon Media & KEY Difference Media KEY Difference Media is a blockchain full suite marketing agency with an impressive 15 years track record within the content marketing space.It has been a prominent blockchain player since 2013. It has raised over $550M in token sales. KEY Difference Media has worked with the earliest of the gaming companies that incorporated Bitcoin as a payment option to the earliest of exchanges, NFTs and multiverses. With a 350+ experts team led by the CEO, Karnika E. Yashwant, KEY Difference Media offers advisory, content marketing, influencer marketing, and public relations, among many other services. “Karnika is a very reliable and useful partner in terms of blockchain and crypto industry. If you need any assistance or help - just ask him!”, Sergey Maslennikov, Chief Communications Officer, 1inch Network. Verizon Media is an advertising and publicity outlet with a hallowed history working with the biggest names and brands across various industries. It is headed by a diverse team of experts with decades of experience between them at the highest level of their respective fields. They own brands that lead their respective sectors like Yahoo and AOL. Finally, it is a branch of Verizon Communications that focuses on media and online businesses. KEY Difference Media remains a pacesetter in blockchain marketing. The blockchain industry remains relatively young and extremely promising. However, there are as many opportunities as there are cautionary tales. KEY Difference Media has become synonymous with trustworthy, timely, and effective blockchain marketing within this growing industry. Since 2013, KEY Difference Media has worked with an enviable list of partners accompanied by glowing reputations. Story continues Verizon Media’s latest venture is in collaboration with KEY Difference Media to promote School of Block by Ledger to a stratified audience that KEY Difference Media provides access to. “Even before we set out on this journey, we always had a clear vision for KEY Difference Media. We understand the role of generating the right kind of noise and publicity around our clients’ endeavors. It is just as important as building a strong team with everyone pulling in the same direction. That is why we were thrilled to be associated with one of the biggest names in the publicity and brand marketing space, and there aren’t many bigger than Verizon Media. We are confident that associations like ours and Verizon Media – two heavyweights in our respective spaces – would attract the kind of crowd we envisaged for this project,” explained Karnika E. Yashwant , CEO, KEY Difference Media To learn more about KEY Difference Media, their process and success click here . Contact: Foivos Floros KEY Difference Media [email protected] https://keydifferencemedia.com || Robust Earnings, Revenue Numbers from Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft After-Bell Fail to Turn NASDAQ Futures Green: The major U.S. stock index futures are trading lower following the release of earnings numbers from Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple after the bell. The trio of tech heavyweights had been pressured during the cash market session, declining about 1% each ahead of their numbers. In the futures markets at 20:00 GMT, the September E-mini S&P 500 Index was trading 4394.75. At 20:36 GMT, they were trading 4389.75. At 20:00 GMT, the September E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading 34952. At 20:36 GMT, it was trading 34886 and at 20:00 GMT, the September E-min NASDAQ-100 Index was trading 14950.50. At 20:37 GMT, it was at 14911.00. In the cash market on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P 500 Index settled at 4396.48, down 25.82 or -0.58%, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 35047.32, down 96.99 or -0.28% and the tech-driven NASDAQ Composite closed at 14638.77, down 201.94 or -1.36%. The earnings are out and here are the numbers. Alphabet Jumps 3% in After-Hours Trade After Earnings Beat Alphabet Earnings per share (EPS) was reported at $27.26 versus $19.34 per share, according to Refinitiv estimates. Revenue was $61.88 billion versus $56.16 billion, according to Refinitiv. YouTube advertising revenue was $7.00 billion versus $6.37 billion expected, according to StreetAccount estimates. Google Cloud revenue was $4.63 billion versus $4.40 billion expected, according to Street Account estimates. Traffic acquisition costs (TAC) revenue came in at $10.93 billion versus $9.74 billion expected, according to Street Account estimates. Microsoft Beat Expectations on the Top and Bottom Lines Microsoft shares fell 3% in extended trading on Tuesday after the software and hardware company reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. The report showed earnings of $2.17 per share, adjusted, vs $1.92 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue was $46.15 billion, versus $44.24 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Story continues Revenue rose 21% year over year in the quarter, which ended June 30, according to a statement. In the previous quarter revenue had increased by 19%. Apple Earnings Blow Away Forecasts Apple reported strong fiscal third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, demolishing Wall Street expectations, according to CNBC. Additionally, every one of Apple’s major product lines grew over 12% on an annual basis. Overall, Apple’s sales were up 36% from the June quarter last year. iPhones sales increased nearly 50% on an annual basis. Apple’s Earnings per Share (EPS) came in at $1.30 versus $1.01 estimated. Revenue was $81.40 billion versus $73.30 billion estimated. Starbucks Credits Strong Cold Beverage Sales in U.S. for Fueling Earnings Beat In other non-tech-related earnings news, Starbucks topped Wall Street’s estimates for its fiscal third-quarter earnings and revenue. The company also tightened its forecast for fiscal 2021 same-store sales growth. Starbucks on Tuesday reported soaring cold drink sales in the United States, fueling an earnings and revenue beat for the company. The company also narrowed its forecast for same-store sales growth for rascal 2021. Here’s a comparison between the company’s numbers and Wall Street analyst expectations. Earnings per share was $1.01 adjusted versus 78 cents expected. Revenue came in at $7.50 billion versus $7.29 billion expected. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Slide on Profit Taking Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Rangebound; Breakout Trigger Points at $1816.10 and $1786.80 Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – July 28th, 2021 Robust Earnings, Revenue Numbers from Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft After-Bell Fail to Turn NASDAQ Futures Green || Robust Earnings, Revenue Numbers from Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft After-Bell Fail to Turn NASDAQ Futures Green: The major U.S. stock index futures are trading lower following the release of earnings numbers from Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple after the bell. The trio of tech heavyweights had been pressured during the cash market session, declining about 1% each ahead of their numbers. In the futures markets at 20:00 GMT, the September E-mini S&P 500 Index was trading 4394.75. At 20:36 GMT, they were trading 4389.75. At 20:00 GMT, the September E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading 34952. At 20:36 GMT, it was trading 34886 and at 20:00 GMT, the September E-min NASDAQ-100 Index was trading 14950.50. At 20:37 GMT, it was at 14911.00. In the cash market on Tuesday, the benchmark S&P 500 Index settled at 4396.48, down 25.82 or -0.58%, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 35047.32, down 96.99 or -0.28% and the tech-driven NASDAQ Composite closed at 14638.77, down 201.94 or -1.36%. The earnings are out and here are the numbers. Alphabet Jumps 3% in After-Hours Trade After Earnings Beat Alphabet Earnings per share (EPS) was reported at $27.26 versus $19.34 per share, according to Refinitiv estimates. Revenue was $61.88 billion versus $56.16 billion, according to Refinitiv. YouTube advertising revenue was $7.00 billion versus $6.37 billion expected, according to StreetAccount estimates. Google Cloud revenue was $4.63 billion versus $4.40 billion expected, according to Street Account estimates. Traffic acquisition costs (TAC) revenue came in at $10.93 billion versus $9.74 billion expected, according to Street Account estimates. Microsoft Beat Expectations on the Top and Bottom Lines Microsoft shares fell 3% in extended trading on Tuesday after the software and hardware company reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. The report showed earnings of $2.17 per share, adjusted, vs $1.92 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue was $46.15 billion, versus $44.24 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Story continues Revenue rose 21% year over year in the quarter, which ended June 30, according to a statement. In the previous quarter revenue had increased by 19%. Apple Earnings Blow Away Forecasts Apple reported strong fiscal third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, demolishing Wall Street expectations, according to CNBC. Additionally, every one of Apple’s major product lines grew over 12% on an annual basis. Overall, Apple’s sales were up 36% from the June quarter last year. iPhones sales increased nearly 50% on an annual basis. Apple’s Earnings per Share (EPS) came in at $1.30 versus $1.01 estimated. Revenue was $81.40 billion versus $73.30 billion estimated. Starbucks Credits Strong Cold Beverage Sales in U.S. for Fueling Earnings Beat In other non-tech-related earnings news, Starbucks topped Wall Street’s estimates for its fiscal third-quarter earnings and revenue. The company also tightened its forecast for fiscal 2021 same-store sales growth. Starbucks on Tuesday reported soaring cold drink sales in the United States, fueling an earnings and revenue beat for the company. The company also narrowed its forecast for same-store sales growth for rascal 2021. Here’s a comparison between the company’s numbers and Wall Street analyst expectations. Earnings per share was $1.01 adjusted versus 78 cents expected. Revenue came in at $7.50 billion versus $7.29 billion expected. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Slide on Profit Taking Asia-Pacific Shares Called Mixed to Lower on Opening; Investors Hoping for US Tech Stock Bailout Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Rangebound; Breakout Trigger Points at $1816.10 and $1786.80 Bitcoin Gets Bumped Up but not Pumped Up The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – July 28th, 2021 Robust Earnings, Revenue Numbers from Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft After-Bell Fail to Turn NASDAQ Futures Green || GLOBAL MARKETS-U.S. stocks, real U.S. bond yields slip as Fed meets; China tremors: * S&P 500 down 0.6% before Tuesday's Fed meeting * Hang Seng Tech index tumbles 8% * STOXX 600 index loses 0.5% * World stock index sheds 0.7%. By Koh Gui Qing NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell from record highs on Tuesday while real U.S. bond yields hit all-time lows, as a sell-off in Chinese shares, economic growth concerns and the Federal Reserve's policy meeting put investors on guard and drove profit taking. Unsettled by events in China overnight, where share prices skidded on concerns about the impact of a recent tightening in government regulations, global stock markets pulled back on Tuesday as volatility spiked. In the United States, investors turned cautious as they awaited the Fed's policy statement at the close of its two-day meeting, which began on Tuesday. All eyes will be on what Fed Chair Jerome Powell says at a post-meeting news conference on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), especially in relation to inflation, economic growth, interest rates and when the Fed will likely start reducing its purchases of government bonds. Some investors worry that the fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus may thwart the global economic recovery, at a time when inflation in countries such as the United States has accelerated faster than expected. A stalled economic recovery and rising price pressures would complicate monetary policy, and force central banks to balance the objectives of supporting growth and tempering price rises. "There is some concern over where we are on monetary policy," said Peter Kenny, founder of Kenny’s Commentary LLC and Strategic Board Solutions Llc in New York. "There's no question that the Fed is going to address the elephant in the room, and that is inflation," Kenny said. "It appears that inflation is not transitory." Analysts agree that low interest rates are generally a boon for equities and any sign of a faster-than-expected tightening in the Fed's policy - whether raising interest rates or tapering bond purchases - could rattle the stock market. Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.2% at 35,059 points, and the S&P 500 shed 0.5% to end at 4,401 points. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1.2% to 14,660 points, its biggest one-day drop since May 12, hurt by some bets that the earnings growth of tech stocks is already priced into valuations. The pan-European STOXX 600 index finished 0.54% lower and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.81%. Still, losses on Wall Street and in Europe were modest compared with overnight declines in China. The blue-chip Chinese CSI300 index plunged 3.5%, while the Hang Seng Tech index tumbled almost 8%, losing a whopping 17% in just three days. In keeping with the muted mood in markets, the yield on 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) hit an all-time low of -1.147% before rebounding to -1.129%. Real, or inflation-adjusted, bond yields across major economies have fallen in recent sessions, which analysts attribute to growing concern about the economic outlook, as well as technical factors such as hefty bond-buying by central banks. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was down at 1.238%. Currency investors also played it safe before the Fed meeting outcome. The dollar, which has risen broadly for more than a month on expectations that, as the economy strengthened, the Fed would tighten its policies, gave up some gains on Tuesday as investors shunned big bets before Powell's remarks. The dollar index fell 0.17%, and a softer dollar lifted the euro by 0.16% to $1.1821. The somber mood led oil prices to give up earlier gains. U.S. crude settled 0.36% lower at $71.65 per barrel and Brent was at $74.48, down 0.03% on the day. The slight risk aversion amongst investors benefited bullion. Spot gold added 0.1% to $1,799.64 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.28% to $1,799.50 an ounce. Cryptocurrencies, a barometer of investors' risk appetites, also succumbed to the cautious overtone in markets and pared earlier gains. Bitcoin last rose 1.8% to $37,960.44, recouping some losses after Amazon.com Inc offered a qualified denial of a weekend news report that said it was preparing to accept cryptocurrencies. (Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn, Dhara Ranasinghe, Sujata Rao in London and Alun John in Hong Kong; editing by Steve Orlofsky, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis) || GLOBAL MARKETS-U.S. stocks, real U.S. bond yields slip as Fed meets; China tremors: * S&P 500 down 0.6% before Tuesday's Fed meeting
* Hang Seng Tech index tumbles 8%
* STOXX 600 index loses 0.5%
* World stock index sheds 0.7%.
By Koh Gui Qing
NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell from record highs on Tuesday while real U.S. bond yields hit all-time lows, as a sell-off in Chinese shares, economic growth concerns and the Federal Reserve's policy meeting put investors on guard and drove profit taking.
Unsettled by events in China overnight, where share prices skidded on concerns about the impact of a recent tightening in government regulations, global stock markets pulled back on Tuesday as volatility spiked.
In the United States, investors turned cautious as they awaited the Fed's policy statement at the close of its two-day meeting, which began on Tuesday.
All eyes will be on what Fed Chair Jerome Powell says at a post-meeting news conference on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), especially in relation to inflation, economic growth, interest rates and when the Fed will likely start reducing its purchases of government bonds.
Some investors worry that the fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus may thwart the global economic recovery, at a time when inflation in countries such as the United States has accelerated faster than expected. A stalled economic recovery and rising price pressures would complicate monetary policy, and force central banks to balance the objectives of supporting growth and tempering price rises.
"There is some concern over where we are on monetary policy," said Peter Kenny, founder of Kenny’s Commentary LLC and Strategic Board Solutions Llc in New York.
"There's no question that the Fed is going to address the elephant in the room, and that is inflation," Kenny said. "It appears that inflation is not transitory."
Analysts agree that low interest rates are generally a boon for equities and any sign of a faster-than-expected tightening in the Fed's policy - whether raising interest rates or tapering bond purchases - could rattle the stock market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.2% at 35,059 points, and the S&P 500 shed 0.5% to end at 4,401 points. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1.2% to 14,660 points, its biggest one-day drop since May 12, hurt by some bets that the earnings growth of tech stocks is already priced into valuations.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index finished 0.54% lower and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.81%.
Still, losses on Wall Street and in Europe were modest compared with overnight declines in China. The blue-chip Chinese CSI300 index plunged 3.5%, while the Hang Seng Tech index tumbled almost 8%, losing a whopping 17% in just three days.
In keeping with the muted mood in markets, the yield on 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) hit an all-time low of -1.147% before rebounding to -1.129%.
Real, or inflation-adjusted, bond yields across major economies have fallen in recent sessions, which analysts attribute to growing concern about the economic outlook, as well as technical factors such as hefty bond-buying by central banks.
The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was down at 1.238%.
Currency investors also played it safe before the Fed meeting outcome. The dollar, which has risen broadly for more than a month on expectations that, as the economy strengthened, the Fed would tighten its policies, gave up some gains on Tuesday as investors shunned big bets before Powell's remarks.
The dollar index fell 0.17%, and a softer dollar lifted the euro by 0.16% to $1.1821.
The somber mood led oil prices to give up earlier gains. U.S. crude settled 0.36% lower at $71.65 per barrel and Brent was at $74.48, down 0.03% on the day.
The slight risk aversion amongst investors benefited bullion. Spot gold added 0.1% to $1,799.64 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.28% to $1,799.50 an ounce.
Cryptocurrencies, a barometer of investors' risk appetites, also succumbed to the cautious overtone in markets and pared earlier gains.
Bitcoin last rose 1.8% to $37,960.44, recouping some losses after Amazon.com Inc offered a qualified denial of a weekend news report that said it was preparing to accept cryptocurrencies.
(Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn, Dhara Ranasinghe, Sujata Rao in London and Alun John in Hong Kong; editing by Steve Orlofsky, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis) || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stalls After Short-Squeeze Rally: Bitcoin took a breather on Tuesday after a near-20% price rally over the past few days. The cryptocurrency declined from $40,000 resistance as Amazon denied rumors it will accept bitcoin payments. Bitcoin was trading around $37,000 at press time and is down about 4% over the past 24 hours. Technical data suggests lower support around $34,000 could stabilize the current pullback. “Going forward, we expect bitcoin to keep pushing higher and test the upper end of the $30,000-$42,000 trading range,” wrote Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange , in an email to CoinDesk. “We expect to see similar moves in altcoins, too, led by ether.” Latest prices Related: Crypto CEOs Are Still Six-Figures Bullish on Bitcoin’s Price Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) $37,896.6, -3.95% Ether (ETH) $2,244.3, -4.27% Traditional markets: S&P 500: 4401.5, -0.47% Gold: 1799.2, +0.1% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.238%, compared with 1.293% on Monday “Only a conclusive break above $50,000 in BTC would attract fresh flows and signal a change in the broader direction for the market,” Balani wrote. Some analysts expect further upside in bitcoin as institutional buyers find value opportunities across cryptocurrencies. Related: Bitcoin Returns Near $40K Resistance; Support at $36K “As institutional investors have been waiting on the sideline to take positions, the current market move could be sustained during the week” wrote Elie Le Rest, partner at crypto hedge fund Exo Alpha , in an email to CoinDesk. The short-squeeze rally triggered the most active trading session this quarter in crypto markets, according to data from Skew. The increase in volumes has been driven by large buyers, typically institutions that have waited for a more directional trend on bitcoin since the end of May, according to Le Rest. Brief return to profitability Over 2 million BTC have returned to profitability based on their realized price after bitcoin rallied over the past few days, according to data from Glassnode. Story continues “This indicates that 11.2% of the circulating supply has an on-chain cost basis between $29K and $38K,” Glassnode tweeted Monday. Bitcoin drawdown Bitcoin’s drawdown, or the percentage decline from the peak near $63,000, narrowed to around 40% over the past week. Typically, drawdowns exceeding 50% indicate the start of a bearish trend, similar to 2014 and 2017-2018. The current drawdown suggests bitcoin’s intermediate-term downtrend is stabilizing given the sharp price bounce over the past few days. However, drawdowns can last much longer towards 70%-80%, which previously occurred near bear market troughs. Options less bearish Bitcoin’s one-month put-call skew, which measures the cost of puts, or bearish bets, relative to calls, or bullish bets, has come off sharply to 2% from 13% late last week, according to data provided by crypto derivatives analytics firm Skew . The one-week put-call skew has declined from 13% to 5%. The narrowing of the spread between prices for puts and calls essentially means investors are no longer seeking downside hedges in anticipation of an extended price drop, wrote CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. Bitcoin futures back in contango “After Monday’s short squeeze, some unregulated futures are back in a 10% contango, but the basis varies across the various venues, and the institutional traders still seem cautious,” according to a Tuesday report by Arcane Research. Contango, a term used to describe the bullish arbitrage, occurs when the bitcoin futures price is higher than the spot price. Since April, bitcoin’s contango has narrowed as bullish sentiment waned. “We’re still far away from the extreme contango of 50% from mid-April, but it is concerning that the traders in the unregulated offshore futures once again outpace the CME traders,” Arcane wrote. “The growing contango occurs as traders with a short bias are reluctant to re-enter short positions after Monday’s massive short squeeze.” The Tether put With largest stablecoin, USDT , in the news again for inauspicious reasons, worried perma-bears might now be searching for the crypto market equivalent of a credit default swap – a derivatives instrument that allows buyers to bet on another trading counterparty’s creditworthiness. The answer to that might be a put option on tether, essentially a bet that the stablecoin’s price will fall below its ostensible redemption value of $1. Some traders have been actively scouting around for such a trade, according to some players in digital-asset markets. Although market makers have seen demand for a tether put, fulfilling that demand is difficult, wrote CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. Currently, there is no active market for put options on tether. Exchanges don’t find a business case there because, technically, there is no exposure to offset. Participants fearing a tether collapse need to find a put seller in over-the-counter (OTC) markets or approach market makers. That’s a costly affair. The solution may be dealing in a tether put at a much lower or out-of-the-money strike below $1.00. That would cost relatively less than buying a put at $1.00. Altcoin roundup Senator Warren fires on crypto again: Longtime crypto skeptic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is urging the U.S. government yet again to form a regulatory strategy to “mitigate the growing risks that cryptocurrencies pose to the financial system.” In an open letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on July 26, Warren urged the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Yellen leads to bring about a “coordinated and holistic” response to the risks of crypto. Warren cited decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto-enabled cyber attacks and unique threats posed by stablecoins as risks to the financial system. Eco raises $60M for high-yield USDC savings app: Eco is raising another $60 million to propel its early hit stablecoin crossover as regulators turn up the pressure on the sector. Eco is part of a wave of fintechs hawking bank-like services to a fiat audience – but one of the few with a crypto back-end: It generates returns on clients’ deposits by lending them out to institutions in the form of stablecoin USDC . That model may come under scrutiny as world regulators probe the stablecoin sector with new force, reports CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. Solana’s Saber Labs Raises $7.7M: Saber Labs, a core contributor to a cross-chain stablecoin exchange bearing its name and built on Solana, has raised a $7.7 million seed round. The funding was led by Race Capital with participation from Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital, Jump Capital, Multicoin Capital and Solana Foundation, among others. DeFi Insurance Platform Goes Live on Polygon: Tidal Finance, an insurance offering aimed at the growing DeFi space, has launched its mainnet and token reward system for participants providing capital to its reserve pools. Announced Tuesday, Tidal Finance goes live on Ethereum layer 2 network Polygon with a handful of initial clients for its subscription-based insurance model, including StaFi, Xend Finance, Marlin, EasyFi and bZx. Relevant News: Binance’s CZ Is Looking for His Replacement as Exchange Gets Regulatory House in Order Amazon: No, We Have No Plans to Accept Bitcoin Payments Goldman Sachs Applies for DeFi ETF Huobi Shuts Down Beijing Entity Amid Crypto Crackdown Mastercard Adds a Crypto Track to Its Incubator Program Other markets Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended lower on Tuesday. In fact, everything was in the red except for dollar-linked stablecoins. Notable losers of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): aave (AAVE) -11.31% tezos (XTZ) -9.1% uniswap (UNI) -8.03% Related Stories XRP Cheers Ripple’s Japan-Philippines Corridor as Bitcoin Breaks Above $40K Ahead of Fed Ether Trading Volume Surged 1,400% in First Half as Institutions Took Exposure: Coinbase || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stalls After Short-Squeeze Rally: Bitcoin took a breather on Tuesday after a near-20% price rally over the past few days. The cryptocurrency declined from $40,000 resistance as Amazon denied rumors it will accept bitcoin payments. Bitcoin was trading around $37,000 at press time and is down about 4% over the past 24 hours. Technical data suggests lower support around $34,000 could stabilize the current pullback. “Going forward, we expect bitcoin to keep pushing higher and test the upper end of the $30,000-$42,000 trading range,” wrote Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange , in an email to CoinDesk. “We expect to see similar moves in altcoins, too, led by ether.” Latest prices Related: Crypto CEOs Are Still Six-Figures Bullish on Bitcoin’s Price Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) $37,896.6, -3.95% Ether (ETH) $2,244.3, -4.27% Traditional markets: S&P 500: 4401.5, -0.47% Gold: 1799.2, +0.1% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.238%, compared with 1.293% on Monday “Only a conclusive break above $50,000 in BTC would attract fresh flows and signal a change in the broader direction for the market,” Balani wrote. Some analysts expect further upside in bitcoin as institutional buyers find value opportunities across cryptocurrencies. Related: Bitcoin Returns Near $40K Resistance; Support at $36K “As institutional investors have been waiting on the sideline to take positions, the current market move could be sustained during the week” wrote Elie Le Rest, partner at crypto hedge fund Exo Alpha , in an email to CoinDesk. The short-squeeze rally triggered the most active trading session this quarter in crypto markets, according to data from Skew. The increase in volumes has been driven by large buyers, typically institutions that have waited for a more directional trend on bitcoin since the end of May, according to Le Rest. Brief return to profitability Over 2 million BTC have returned to profitability based on their realized price after bitcoin rallied over the past few days, according to data from Glassnode. Story continues “This indicates that 11.2% of the circulating supply has an on-chain cost basis between $29K and $38K,” Glassnode tweeted Monday. Bitcoin drawdown Bitcoin’s drawdown, or the percentage decline from the peak near $63,000, narrowed to around 40% over the past week. Typically, drawdowns exceeding 50% indicate the start of a bearish trend, similar to 2014 and 2017-2018. The current drawdown suggests bitcoin’s intermediate-term downtrend is stabilizing given the sharp price bounce over the past few days. However, drawdowns can last much longer towards 70%-80%, which previously occurred near bear market troughs. Options less bearish Bitcoin’s one-month put-call skew, which measures the cost of puts, or bearish bets, relative to calls, or bullish bets, has come off sharply to 2% from 13% late last week, according to data provided by crypto derivatives analytics firm Skew . The one-week put-call skew has declined from 13% to 5%. The narrowing of the spread between prices for puts and calls essentially means investors are no longer seeking downside hedges in anticipation of an extended price drop, wrote CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. Bitcoin futures back in contango “After Monday’s short squeeze, some unregulated futures are back in a 10% contango, but the basis varies across the various venues, and the institutional traders still seem cautious,” according to a Tuesday report by Arcane Research. Contango, a term used to describe the bullish arbitrage, occurs when the bitcoin futures price is higher than the spot price. Since April, bitcoin’s contango has narrowed as bullish sentiment waned. “We’re still far away from the extreme contango of 50% from mid-April, but it is concerning that the traders in the unregulated offshore futures once again outpace the CME traders,” Arcane wrote. “The growing contango occurs as traders with a short bias are reluctant to re-enter short positions after Monday’s massive short squeeze.” The Tether put With largest stablecoin, USDT , in the news again for inauspicious reasons, worried perma-bears might now be searching for the crypto market equivalent of a credit default swap – a derivatives instrument that allows buyers to bet on another trading counterparty’s creditworthiness. The answer to that might be a put option on tether, essentially a bet that the stablecoin’s price will fall below its ostensible redemption value of $1. Some traders have been actively scouting around for such a trade, according to some players in digital-asset markets. Although market makers have seen demand for a tether put, fulfilling that demand is difficult, wrote CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. Currently, there is no active market for put options on tether. Exchanges don’t find a business case there because, technically, there is no exposure to offset. Participants fearing a tether collapse need to find a put seller in over-the-counter (OTC) markets or approach market makers. That’s a costly affair. The solution may be dealing in a tether put at a much lower or out-of-the-money strike below $1.00. That would cost relatively less than buying a put at $1.00. Altcoin roundup Senator Warren fires on crypto again: Longtime crypto skeptic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is urging the U.S. government yet again to form a regulatory strategy to “mitigate the growing risks that cryptocurrencies pose to the financial system.” In an open letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on July 26, Warren urged the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Yellen leads to bring about a “coordinated and holistic” response to the risks of crypto. Warren cited decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto-enabled cyber attacks and unique threats posed by stablecoins as risks to the financial system. Eco raises $60M for high-yield USDC savings app: Eco is raising another $60 million to propel its early hit stablecoin crossover as regulators turn up the pressure on the sector. Eco is part of a wave of fintechs hawking bank-like services to a fiat audience – but one of the few with a crypto back-end: It generates returns on clients’ deposits by lending them out to institutions in the form of stablecoin USDC . That model may come under scrutiny as world regulators probe the stablecoin sector with new force, reports CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. Solana’s Saber Labs Raises $7.7M: Saber Labs, a core contributor to a cross-chain stablecoin exchange bearing its name and built on Solana, has raised a $7.7 million seed round. The funding was led by Race Capital with participation from Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital, Jump Capital, Multicoin Capital and Solana Foundation, among others. DeFi Insurance Platform Goes Live on Polygon: Tidal Finance, an insurance offering aimed at the growing DeFi space, has launched its mainnet and token reward system for participants providing capital to its reserve pools. Announced Tuesday, Tidal Finance goes live on Ethereum layer 2 network Polygon with a handful of initial clients for its subscription-based insurance model, including StaFi, Xend Finance, Marlin, EasyFi and bZx. Relevant News: Binance’s CZ Is Looking for His Replacement as Exchange Gets Regulatory House in Order Amazon: No, We Have No Plans to Accept Bitcoin Payments Goldman Sachs Applies for DeFi ETF Huobi Shuts Down Beijing Entity Amid Crypto Crackdown Mastercard Adds a Crypto Track to Its Incubator Program Other markets Most digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended lower on Tuesday. In fact, everything was in the red except for dollar-linked stablecoins. Notable losers of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): aave (AAVE) -11.31% tezos (XTZ) -9.1% uniswap (UNI) -8.03% Related Stories XRP Cheers Ripple’s Japan-Philippines Corridor as Bitcoin Breaks Above $40K Ahead of Fed Ether Trading Volume Surged 1,400% in First Half as Institutions Took Exposure: Coinbase
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-09-09]
Volume: 38672657013, RSI (14-day): 46.92, 50-day EMA: 45211.32, 200-day EMA: 41307.85
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1797.40, Gold RSI: 49.82
Oil Price: 68.14, Oil RSI: 48.52
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
OCTION Announces a Blockchain-Based Platform That Allows Anyone to Trade Options in a Fuss-Free Manner: It is the first of its kind in the Binance ecosystem Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform SINGAPORE, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OCTION has launched a fully non-custodial and decentralized options trading platform that eliminates middlemen fees and allows for full transparency of the entire transaction and trade settlement process. Founded in 2019 by a team of Singaporeans who have a total of 7 different blockchain projects under their belts, OCTION seeks to solve some of the limitations of options trading in the traditional finance world vis-à-vis blockchain technology: Because it is built on a blockchain, OCTION democratizes access to options trading. Even the unbanked can now get involved with options trading. OCTION makes it easy for new users to enter the options trading space, as the otherwise complex act of writing CALL/PUT options is simplified into a straightforward contribution of liquidity into an OCTION Writer's Pool As it is fully decentralized, OCTION removes the need for a middleman to execute trade settlements, because the whole process can now be done using smart contracts . This means that the transaction fee for each option contract can be as low as 0.25 USD, as FX Fees, admin fees, withdrawal fees and deposit fees can all be saved. Because it is decentralized, OCTION users will never face issues of unwanted interventions and disruptions, a problem that is prevalent in the traditional finance space , and that may unfairly negatively impact traders' portfolios. OCTION allows for full transparency of all transaction details, and of the trade settlement process, because all of these can be viewed by anyone and everyone on the block explorer . OCTION will also offer an insurance product called the OCTION Positional Shield, that allows anyone who has bought an options contract with OCTION to give up their position before the expiry of the contract in return for a portion of the premium paid back, despite being out of the money . Story continues OCTION also has a native token ($OCTI) that grants its holders additional benefits: Writers can stake in the liquidity pool and earn premiums from every options contract purchased. Buyers will receive discounts on premiums when buying options contracts and will also get free access to the OCTION Positional Shield. $OCTI holders who do want to participate in the buying and/or selling of contracts can instead choose to stake in a [settlement pool] ( https://oction.io/settlement ) to earn from the premiums paid per options contract About OCTION As the world's first CeDeFi Options Trading Platform built on the Binance Smart Chain, OCTION represents a transformative technology that stands firmly in support of financial freedom backed by the liberty that Bitcoin provides globally through voluntary participation in a permissionless and decentralized network. For more information, please visit https://oction.io/home Connect with OCTION on LinkedIn and Telegram Press Contact: [email protected] Related Files Screenshot 2021-09-08 165958.jpg Screenshot 2021-09-08 170035.jpg Related Images Image 1: Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com . Attachment Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform || OCTION Announces a Blockchain-Based Platform That Allows Anyone to Trade Options in a Fuss-Free Manner: It is the first of its kind in the Binance ecosystem
SINGAPORE, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --OCTIONhas launched a fully non-custodial and decentralized options trading platform that eliminates middlemen fees and allows for full transparency of the entire transaction and trade settlement process.
Founded in 2019 by a team of Singaporeans who have a total of 7 different blockchain projects under their belts, OCTION seeks to solve some of the limitations of options trading in the traditional finance world vis-à-vis blockchain technology:
• Because it is built on a blockchain, OCTIONdemocratizes accessto options trading. Even the unbanked can now get involved with options trading.
• OCTION makes it easy for new users to enter the options trading space, as the otherwise complex act of writing CALL/PUT options is simplified into a straightforwardcontribution of liquidity into an OCTION Writer's Pool
• As it is fully decentralized, OCTION removes the need for a middleman to execute trade settlements, because the whole process can now be done usingsmart contracts. This means that the transaction fee for each option contract can be as low as 0.25 USD, as FX Fees, admin fees, withdrawal fees and deposit fees can all be saved.
• Because it is decentralized, OCTION users will never face issues of unwanted interventions and disruptions, a problem that isprevalent in the traditional finance space, and that may unfairly negatively impact traders' portfolios.
• OCTION allows for full transparency of all transaction details, and of the trade settlement process, because all of these can be viewed by anyone and everyone on theblock explorer.
OCTION will also offer an insurance product called the OCTION Positional Shield, that allows anyone who has bought an options contract with OCTION to give up their position before the expiry of the contract in return for a portion of the premium paid back, despite beingout of the money.
OCTION also has anative token($OCTI) that grants its holders additional benefits:
• Writers canstake in the liquidity pooland earn premiums from every options contract purchased.
• Buyers will receive discounts on premiums when buying options contracts and will also get free access to the OCTION Positional Shield.
• $OCTI holders who do want to participate in the buying and/or selling of contracts can instead choose to stake in a [settlement pool] (https://oction.io/settlement) to earn from the premiums paid per options contract
About OCTION
As the world's first CeDeFi Options Trading Platform built on the Binance Smart Chain, OCTION represents a transformative technology that stands firmly in support of financial freedom backed by the liberty that Bitcoin provides globally through voluntary participation in a permissionless and decentralized network.
For more information, please visithttps://oction.io/home
Connect with OCTION onLinkedInandTelegram
Press Contact: [email protected]
Related Files
Screenshot 2021-09-08 165958.jpg
Screenshot 2021-09-08 170035.jpg
Related Images
Image 1: Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform
This content was issued through thepress release distribution service at Newswire.com.
Attachment
• Screenshot of OCTION's options trading platform || Glitches still plague bitcoin rollout in El Salvador: SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) Salvadorans trying to pay for a cup of coffee or receive money sent from relatives in the United States using the cryptocurrency bitcoin continued struggling to perform transactions Wednesday, a day after El Salvador made it legal tender. Problems still plagued the digital wallet Chivo. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele kept citizens apprised of advances of gradually expanding the ability to download the application throughout the day. The idea is to go bit by bit to not saturate the servers with so many enrollments at the same time, Bukele said via Twitter. We are still fine tuning small details. In the street, problems persisted. Carlos Soriano, 29, visited one of the Chivo automatic tellers to receive remittance money sent by a relative in the United States. Sending that money to relatives back home allegedly without transaction fees was one of Bukeles biggest selling points for bitcoin adoption. I receive remittances and they sent me this months, but I wasnt able to take out the money, Soriano said. They tell me it isnt working, that I should come back later or tomorrow. At a Chivo help center, an attendant explained that the digital wallet was still experiencing problems. The servers collapsed, more than a million people were trying to download the application Chivo wallet, said the man who identified himself as Kike. There has been skepticism about the governments enthusiastic adoption of bitcoin since Bukele announced it in a video recorded in English and played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami in June. Bitcoin is subject to wild swings in value in a matter of minutes. An analysis by the Science, Technology and Innovation Institute at Francisco Gavidia University said that the investment the government made in buying 550 bitcoins had already lost money. On Tuesday, bitcoin joined the U.S. dollar as legal tender in El Salvador. Any business with the technological capacity to do so is required to accept payment in bitcoin. Recent public opinion surveys in El Salvador have shown a majority of Salvadorans oppose making it an official currency. Story continues Garth Kiser, a 43-year-old from Oregon, Illinois, visited a Chivo automatic teller Wednesday hoping to exchange dollars for bitcoin. The machine isnt working, Ill come back later, he said. Kiser and friends came to El Salvador with the idea of helping Salvadorans use bitcoin. Ive been using it for a long time. When an AP journalist who successfully downloaded the Chivo digital wallet tried to use the $30 bonus the government offered to incentivize adoption, he was told there were more steps. At a Starbucks, the cashier explained that before using any of the $30 bitcoin credit he would have to transfer at least $1 to a friend or someone else and then it will be activated to buy or pay for whatever you want. She said Starbucks accepted not only payment through Chivo, but other digital wallets as well. Oscar Cosme, 37, also had managed to download Chivo, but went to a help center for assistance because he hadnt been able to use the $30 credit. He said the attendant told him the digital wallet was undergoing maintenance and he would have to wait to use it. Cosme downloaded the wallet because he was curious and for the credit. But now he was worried because they say once you download it, the government is spying on us. || Glitches still plague bitcoin rollout in El Salvador: SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) Salvadorans trying to pay for a cup of coffee or receive money sent from relatives in the United States using the cryptocurrency bitcoin continued struggling to perform transactions Wednesday, a day after El Salvador made it legal tender. Problems still plagued the digital wallet Chivo. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele kept citizens apprised of advances of gradually expanding the ability to download the application throughout the day. The idea is to go bit by bit to not saturate the servers with so many enrollments at the same time, Bukele said via Twitter. We are still fine tuning small details. In the street, problems persisted. Carlos Soriano, 29, visited one of the Chivo automatic tellers to receive remittance money sent by a relative in the United States. Sending that money to relatives back home allegedly without transaction fees was one of Bukeles biggest selling points for bitcoin adoption. I receive remittances and they sent me this months, but I wasnt able to take out the money, Soriano said. They tell me it isnt working, that I should come back later or tomorrow. At a Chivo help center, an attendant explained that the digital wallet was still experiencing problems. The servers collapsed, more than a million people were trying to download the application Chivo wallet, said the man who identified himself as Kike. There has been skepticism about the governments enthusiastic adoption of bitcoin since Bukele announced it in a video recorded in English and played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami in June. Bitcoin is subject to wild swings in value in a matter of minutes. An analysis by the Science, Technology and Innovation Institute at Francisco Gavidia University said that the investment the government made in buying 550 bitcoins had already lost money. On Tuesday, bitcoin joined the U.S. dollar as legal tender in El Salvador. Any business with the technological capacity to do so is required to accept payment in bitcoin. Recent public opinion surveys in El Salvador have shown a majority of Salvadorans oppose making it an official currency. Story continues Garth Kiser, a 43-year-old from Oregon, Illinois, visited a Chivo automatic teller Wednesday hoping to exchange dollars for bitcoin. The machine isnt working, Ill come back later, he said. Kiser and friends came to El Salvador with the idea of helping Salvadorans use bitcoin. Ive been using it for a long time. When an AP journalist who successfully downloaded the Chivo digital wallet tried to use the $30 bonus the government offered to incentivize adoption, he was told there were more steps. At a Starbucks, the cashier explained that before using any of the $30 bitcoin credit he would have to transfer at least $1 to a friend or someone else and then it will be activated to buy or pay for whatever you want. She said Starbucks accepted not only payment through Chivo, but other digital wallets as well. Oscar Cosme, 37, also had managed to download Chivo, but went to a help center for assistance because he hadnt been able to use the $30 credit. He said the attendant told him the digital wallet was undergoing maintenance and he would have to wait to use it. Cosme downloaded the wallet because he was curious and for the credit. But now he was worried because they say once you download it, the government is spying on us. || Chinese Bonds: More Income, with Risks Ebbing a Bit: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
Finding the income with fixed income is becoming a daunting task in 2021, particularly for investors sticking with Treasuries.
The safest government debt isn't yielding much, crimping income investors in the process. History also says that the lower a bond's yield is upon purchase, the more upside is limited going forward. It's no wonder some well-known investors are bashing bonds these days.
With yields on Treasuries and municipal bonds so low, it's not surprising that some investors looking for income are embracing international bonds, particularly emerging markets debt. One way of doing that with a lower risk profile is with Chinese bonds and theVanEck Vectors China Bond ETF (CBON).
Fears of distress in China's real estate sector caused credit spreads to widen. China Fortune Land Development defaulted, and developer China Evergrande is under considerable duress. Those situations should be acknowledged, but the case for CBON isn't dead.
“The silver lining is that the impact of these moves appears to be contained. Market declines in the Chinese real estate sector have not spread to other sectors within China, all of which have positive total returns year to date,”says Fran Rodilosso, VanEck head of fixed income ETF portfolio management. “Within real estate, lower-rated names have been hit hardest. At a broader level, China is the only country among the ten largest by weights in the ICE BofA Diversified High Yield US Emerging Markets Corporate Plus Index to have experienced overall spread widening this year.”
CBON, which tracks the ChinaBond China High-Quality Bond Index,sports a 30-day SEC yieldof 2.62%, or double the comparable metric on 10-year Treasuries. The exchange traded fund holds 89 bonds with an average maturity of 6.42 years.
Fortunately, CBON is lightly allocated to real estate debt, the obvious corner of bond weakness in the world's second-largest economy. Real estate bonds represent just 2.7% of CBOn's roster, according to issuer data.
“Whether current spread levels in the real estate sector represent value depends on developers’ ability to deleverage and adhere to requirements, as well as the potential for additional regulations. Real estate is indeed the largest sector exposure within the high yield China corporate universe, but we note that containment of the market impact aligns with the approach of policymakers, which has been deliberate and targeted,” adds Rodilosso.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit theBeyond Basic Beta Channel.
POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Chinese Bonds: More Income, with Risks Ebbing a Bit: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Finding the income with fixed income is becoming a daunting task in 2021, particularly for investors sticking with Treasuries. The safest government debt isn't yielding much, crimping income investors in the process. History also says that the lower a bond's yield is upon purchase, the more upside is limited going forward. It's no wonder some well-known investors are bashing bonds these days. With yields on Treasuries and municipal bonds so low, it's not surprising that some investors looking for income are embracing international bonds, particularly emerging markets debt. One way of doing that with a lower risk profile is with Chinese bonds and the VanEck Vectors China Bond ETF (CBON) . Fears of distress in China's real estate sector caused credit spreads to widen. China Fortune Land Development defaulted, and developer China Evergrande is under considerable duress. Those situations should be acknowledged, but the case for CBON isn't dead. The silver lining is that the impact of these moves appears to be contained. Market declines in the Chinese real estate sector have not spread to other sectors within China, all of which have positive total returns year to date, says Fran Rodilosso , VanEck head of fixed income ETF portfolio management. Within real estate, lower-rated names have been hit hardest. At a broader level, China is the only country among the ten largest by weights in the ICE BofA Diversified High Yield US Emerging Markets Corporate Plus Index to have experienced overall spread widening this year. CBON, which tracks the ChinaBond China High-Quality Bond Index, sports a 30-day SEC yield of 2.62%, or double the comparable metric on 10-year Treasuries. The exchange traded fund holds 89 bonds with an average maturity of 6.42 years. Fortunately, CBON is lightly allocated to real estate debt, the obvious corner of bond weakness in the world's second-largest economy. Real estate bonds represent just 2.7% of CBOn's roster, according to issuer data. Story continues Whether current spread levels in the real estate sector represent value depends on developers ability to deleverage and adhere to requirements, as well as the potential for additional regulations. Real estate is indeed the largest sector exposure within the high yield China corporate universe, but we note that containment of the market impact aligns with the approach of policymakers, which has been deliberate and targeted, adds Rodilosso. For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Beyond Basic Beta Channel . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs VIX ETFs Climb As Investors Ponder A Stock Pull-Back Or Correction Bitcoin Price Falls Amid El Salvadoran Adoption Of Cryptocurrency ETF Prime: Dave Nadig Talks Recent ETF Filings & Launches How the sale of a Sting CD sparked an entire industry The Economics of Rudeness READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Stock market news live updates: Stocks struggle amid Delta variant, economy concerns: Stocks fell on Wednesday, extending a losing streak to a third day as rising COVID-19 infections momentarily unsettled investors, and scrambled expectations about growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index posted their 3rd consecutive day of losses, and the technology-laced Nasdaq fell for the first time since last week. The market has mostly taken disappointing news in stride, but August's jobs datafalling far short of market expectationslast week tempered hopes for the fourth quarter.
On Wednesday, two releases underscored how investors are trying to calibrate a jobs market that remains historically hot against growth that's clearly losing momentum, based on the resurgence of COVID-19 infections led by the Delta variant.
The U.S. economy"downshifted slightly" in Augustas concerns grew over how the renewed surge of coronavirus cases would affect the economic rebound, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its latest Beige Book. Separately, however, Labor Department data showed that open jobs hit yet another series record, with workers quitting their jobs en masse, and nearly 11 million positions unfilled.
That data contrasted sharply with August payrolls, which showed the economy creating a relatively slim 235,000 new positions, and stoked speculation that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) could alter its timetable for scaling back its stimulative bond-buying, which has propped up investor confidence.
It also prompted analysts to scale back expectations for the economy for the remainder year. Goldman Sachs cut its forecast for fourth-quarter growth, citing a "harder path ahead" for consumer spending in the face of rising COVID-19 infections.
However, Wall Street does not appear overly-concerned, at least for now, given that stocks are still within view of recent highs.
"We think the fundamental drivers of strong earnings, an accommodative Fed, and still a healthy appetite for risk taking are really what's going to support the market for the rest of the year," Yung-Yu Ma, BMO Harris' chief investment strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday.
While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic fueled by the Delta variant figured prominently in the jobs miss, especially for softness in the leisure, hospitality and bars/restaurant sector, some analysts have also pointed to the labor shortage becoming a drag on jobs creation. A lack of available workers have prompted businesses to hike pay, adjust hours, and even lose some business.
—
Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:04 p.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -5.96 (-0.13%) to 4,514.07
• Dow (^DJI): -68.93 (-0.20%) to 35,031.07
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): -87.69 (-0.57%) to 15,286.64
• Crude (CL=F): +$0.99 (+1.45%) to $69.34 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F): -$7.00 (-0.39%) to $1,791.50 per ounce
• 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -3.6 bps to yield 1.3340%
—
The U.S. economy"downshifted slightly" in Augustas concerns grew over how the renewed surge of coronavirus cases would affect the economic recovery, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its latest Beige Book compendium of anecdotal reports about the economy.
Stocks have been heavy all day, but are off the lows of the session as the final hour of trading looms.
—
The auction for the 10-year Treasury note was a good one, with yields checking in below issued level, and bid to cover (2.59) comfortably above the 12-month average (2.42).
While it may be too soon to tell, there may be a "flight to quality" element behind the demand in the latest auction, especially with Delta variant fears swirling and prices still rising. Market veteran Peter Boockvar imagines what Treasuries would say if they had a voice:
Bottom line, if bonds could speak. Is this aggressive demand because buyers see a stagflationary environment and are more worried about the stag part? Is the demand great because there is the assumption that the Fed taper is soon beginning and it always pays to flatten the curve when done so? Are the buyers in the ‘inflation is transitory’ camp even though 10 yr inflation breakevens are only a few bps from the highest since early June? Is it the Delta variant? If bonds could speak. Either way, the 10 yr yield is just below 1.34% from 1.35% just before the results.
—
Here's where markets were trading around midday:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): 4,501.17,-18.86 (-0.42%)
• Dow (^DJI): 34,969.76,-130.24 (-0.37%)
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): 15,228.57,-145.76 (-0.95%)
—
In spite of Delta variant concerns, job openings in July as measured by JOLTS soared by a staggering 749,000 — hitting yet another all-time high just shy of 11 million open jobs. All the concerns about COVID aside, this is one of the hottest job markets in history — if not THE hottest.
JPMorgan Chase noted that the number of hires fell to 6.67M from 6.83M in June:
Thus, the ratio of openings to hires—which is a measure of labor market tightness and the ease with which firms can find workers—moved upward to 1.64, a historically high level of tightness. At the same time, the rate of quits was unchanged in July at 2.7%, remaining at a level higher than any attained prior to the pandemic.The tightening of the labor market in July after easing modestly in June suggests that labor demand is continuing to outpace labor supply.
—
The world's premier digital currency has lots of fans and, as of Tuesday, thebacking of a national government. However that's done little to curb bitcoin's (BTC-USD) wild price swings, like the one yesterday that saw the unit tumble by over 17% intraday before recovering.
According to Sultan Ahmed, analyst at GlobalData, Tuesday's "flash crash" and the rocky El Salvador rollout "are two uncorrelated events. Many have linked the drop in value to initial functional issues of Chivo [El Salvador’s Bitcoin wallet] during the early hours of beta testing, but we believe that the drop in Bitcoin was instead due to excessive leverage trading within the cryptocurrency market."
Bitcoin last traded around $46,283, down over 7% on the day. The cryptocurrency is still up over 50% over the past 50 days, according to Ahmed, in the wake of over $3 billion in liquidation.
—
Here's where markets were trading at the opening bell
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): 4,515.55,-4.48 (-0.10%)
• Dow (^DJI): 35,137.11,+37.11 (+0.11%)
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): 15,314.88, -59.45 (-0.39%)
• Crude (CL=F): $69.64 per barrel,+$1.29 (+1.89%)
• Gold (GC=F): $1,798.70,+0.20 (+0.01%)
• 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -1.2 bps to yield 1.353%
—
Here's where markets were trading ahead of the opening bell:
• S&P 500 futures (ES=F):4,518.50,-0.75 (-0.02%)
• Dow futures (YM=F):35,086.00-5.00 (-0.01%)
• Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): 15,669.00,-5.75 (-0.04%)
—
Here's where markets were trading in the after-hours session:
• S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 4518, -1.25
• Dow futures (YM=F): 35,082,-9.00
• Nasdaq futures (NQ=F):15,673.00,-2.00
—
ByJavier E. David, editor atYahoo Finance. Follow him at@Teflongeek
— || Stock market news live updates: Stocks struggle amid Delta variant, economy concerns: Stocks fell on Wednesday, extending a losing streak to a third day as rising COVID-19 infections momentarily unsettled investors, and scrambled expectations about growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index posted their 3rd consecutive day of losses, and the technology-laced Nasdaq fell for the first time since last week. The market has mostly taken disappointing news in stride, but August's jobs data falling far short of market expectations last week tempered hopes for the fourth quarter. On Wednesday, two releases underscored how investors are trying to calibrate a jobs market that remains historically hot against growth that's clearly losing momentum, based on the resurgence of COVID-19 infections led by the Delta variant. The U.S. economy "downshifted slightly" in August as concerns grew over how the renewed surge of coronavirus cases would affect the economic rebound, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its latest Beige Book. Separately, however, Labor Department data showed that open jobs hit yet another series record, with workers quitting their jobs en masse, and nearly 11 million positions unfilled. That data contrasted sharply with August payrolls, which showed the economy creating a relatively slim 235,000 new positions, and stoked speculation that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) could alter its timetable for scaling back its stimulative bond-buying, which has propped up investor confidence. It also prompted analysts to scale back expectations for the economy for the remainder year. Goldman Sachs cut its forecast for fourth-quarter growth, citing a "harder path ahead" for consumer spending in the face of rising COVID-19 infections. However, Wall Street does not appear overly-concerned, at least for now, given that stocks are still within view of recent highs. "We think the fundamental drivers of strong earnings, an accommodative Fed, and still a healthy appetite for risk taking are really what's going to support the market for the rest of the year," Yung-Yu Ma, BMO Harris' chief investment strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday. Story continues While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic fueled by the Delta variant figured prominently in the jobs miss, especially for softness in the leisure, hospitality and bars/restaurant sector, some analysts have also pointed to the labor shortage becoming a drag on jobs creation. A lack of available workers have prompted businesses to hike pay, adjust hours, and even lose some business. — 4:04 p.m. ET: Stocks drift lower, Dow, S&P notch 3rd straight day of losses as economy concerns linger Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:04 p.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -5.96 (-0.13%) to 4,514.07 Dow ( ^DJI ) : -68.93 (-0.20%) to 35,031.07 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -87.69 (-0.57%) to 15,286.64 Crude ( CL=F ) : +$0.99 (+1.45%) to $69.34 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ) : -$7.00 (-0.39%) to $1,791.50 per ounce 10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : -3.6 bps to yield 1.3340% — 2:55 p.m. ET: Fed's Beige Book notes 'downshift' in economy last month The U.S. economy "downshifted slightly" in August as concerns grew over how the renewed surge of coronavirus cases would affect the economic recovery, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its latest Beige Book compendium of anecdotal reports about the economy. Stocks have been heavy all day, but are off the lows of the session as the final hour of trading looms. — 1:15 p.m. ET: 'If bonds could speak' The auction for the 10-year Treasury note was a good one, with yields checking in below issued level, and bid to cover (2.59) comfortably above the 12-month average (2.42). While it may be too soon to tell, there may be a "flight to quality" element behind the demand in the latest auction, especially with Delta variant fears swirling and prices still rising. Market veteran Peter Boockvar imagines what Treasuries would say if they had a voice: Bottom line, if bonds could speak. Is this aggressive demand because buyers see a stagflationary environment and are more worried about the stag part? Is the demand great because there is the assumption that the Fed taper is soon beginning and it always pays to flatten the curve when done so? Are the buyers in the ‘inflation is transitory’ camp even though 10 yr inflation breakevens are only a few bps from the highest since early June? Is it the Delta variant? If bonds could speak. Either way, the 10 yr yield is just below 1.34% from 1.35% just before the results. — 12:05 a.m. ET: Stocks sag in directionless trade Here's where markets were trading around midday: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : 4,501.17, -18.86 (-0.42%) Dow ( ^DJI ) : 34,969.76, -130.24 (-0.37%) Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : 15,228.57, -145.76 (-0.95%) — 11:45 a.m. ET: Jobs market still JOLT-ed by turnover Muhlenberg, PA - August 26: A help wanted sign that reads "Now Hiring!" in the window of the PetSmart location along 5th Street Highway in Muhlenberg Twp. Thursday morning August 26, 2021. (Photo by Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images) (MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images via Getty Images) In spite of Delta variant concerns, job openings in July as measured by JOLTS soared by a staggering 749,000 — hitting yet another all-time high just shy of 11 million open jobs. All the concerns about COVID aside, this is one of the hottest job markets in history — if not THE hottest. JPMorgan Chase noted that the number of hires fell to 6.67M from 6.83M in June: Thus, the ratio of openings to hires—which is a measure of labor market tightness and the ease with which firms can find workers—moved upward to 1.64, a historically high level of tightness. At the same time, the rate of quits was unchanged in July at 2.7%, remaining at a level higher than any attained prior to the pandemic.The tightening of the labor market in July after easing modestly in June suggests that labor demand is continuing to outpace labor supply. — 10:30 a.m. ET: Bitcoin heavy as traders mull 'flash crash' A barber works at Sevilla Barber Shop where Bitcoin is accepted as a payment method, in Santa Tecla, El Salvador September 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas (Jose Cabezas / reuters) The world's premier digital currency has lots of fans and, as of Tuesday, the backing of a national government . However that's done little to curb bitcoin's ( BTC-USD ) wild price swings, like the one yesterday that saw the unit tumble by over 17% intraday before recovering. According to Sultan Ahmed, analyst at GlobalData, Tuesday's "flash crash" and the rocky El Salvador rollout "are two uncorrelated events. Many have linked the drop in value to initial functional issues of Chivo [El Salvador’s Bitcoin wallet] during the early hours of beta testing, but we believe that the drop in Bitcoin was instead due to excessive leverage trading within the cryptocurrency market." Bitcoin last traded around $46,283, down over 7% on the day. The cryptocurrency is still up over 50% over the past 50 days, according to Ahmed, in the wake of over $3 billion in liquidation. — 9:30 a.m. ET: Stocks dip at the open Here's where markets were trading at the opening bell S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : 4,515.55, -4.48 (-0.10%) Dow ( ^DJI ) : 35,137.11 , +37.11 (+0.11%) Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : 15,314.88, -59.45 (-0.39%) Crude ( CL=F ) : $69.64 per barrel, +$1.29 (+1.89%) Gold ( GC=F ) : $1,798.70, +0.20 (+0.01%) 10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : -1.2 bps to yield 1.353% — 7:35 a.m. ET Wednesday: Stock futures marginally lower Here's where markets were trading ahead of the opening bell: S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) : 4,518.50, -0.75 (-0.02%) Dow futures ( YM=F ) : 35,086.00 -5.00 (-0.01%) Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 15,669.00, -5.75 (-0.04%) — 6:15 p.m. ET Tuesday evening: Stock futures weaken Here's where markets were trading in the after-hours session: S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) : 4518, -1.25 Dow futures ( YM=F ) : 35,082, -9.00 Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 15,673.00, -2.00 — By Javier E. David , editor at Yahoo Finance . Follow him at @Teflongeek — || Riot Blockchain: Is this Crypto Play Worth the Risk?: Blockchain and cryptocurrency are two major buzzwords in the investor world today. Once an asset class only invested in by aggressive millennials banking on a massive paradigm shift, more and more investors are now piling into this space.
Among the crypto-related investments aficionados are gravitating to for returns are crypto miners. One of the prominent names in this space is Riot Blockchain Inc. (RIOT).
Riot is one of the leading public Bitcoin mining companies in the United States, and has shown impressive success of late. Driven by rising Bitcoin prices, this miner posted strong second-quarter results in August, surpassing analyst estimates in terms of revenue and sales.
However, investing in cryptocurrency comes with a certain level of associated risk. I am neutral on the stock. (SeeRIOT stock chartson TipRanks)
Riot Blockchain posted stunning second-quarter results. The company reported revenues of $31.5 million, blowing away the $1.9 million Riot reported in the same quarter last year. This represents a massive 1,540% jump in revenue.
The crypto miner's net income for Q2 2021 stood at $0.22 per share, in comparison to a loss of $0.31 last year. Any company that moves into the black in terms of earnings is worth considering. Indeed, crypto enthusiasts are on board with Riot right now.
This bottom-line performance was driven by margins, which improved to 70% this past quarter. These margins dwarf the 25% margins reported the same time last year.
This was a huge win for Riot shareholders, and those bullish on this sector. Riot's share price has reacted accordingly.
Given where the average price of Bitcoin stood last quarter (around $46,000), there's plenty of upside potential for Riot, should Bitcoin prices remain elevated. That said, Riot looks to be in a solid financial position to weather any storms that may arise. The company reported total cash and Bitcoin of $195.4 million as of the end of last quarter.
Riot Blockchain has filed a prospectus with SEC, which enables the company to offer, sell, and issue up to $600 million of common stock. According to the prospectus, company shares can be issued or sold from time to time under an agreement with the sales agents of Riot.
Shares of RIOT stock traded lower following the announcement, as would be expected. In general, share issuances tend to be dilutive and negative for existing shareholders. Additionally, one might wonder why Riot would do such an offering, given the company's existing cash and cash equivalents position.
However, this issuance could be spun in a bullish way, from a growth perspective. Should Riot use this capital to fund an aggressive expansion program, long-term investors could potentially benefit.
As mentioned, due to the recent issuance, and otherwise bearish sentiment in certain hyper-growth segments of the market, companies like Riot have not seen the enthusiasm you might expect.
Riot's share price has moved substantially higher since the beginning of the year. That said, RIOT stock still remains more than 50% below its retail mania-fueled peak earlier this year.
With crypto prices taking off again, one would think that this stock would take off. However, RIOT stock actually dropped 9% in July, while Bitcoin prices increased.
This divergence suggests investors may be getting wary of Riot's valuation. The company's top- and bottom-line growth suggests some elevated multiple makes sense. However, the extent to which Riot can maintain this sky-high growth appears to be the question on many investors' minds right now.
According to TipRanks' analyst rating consensus, Riot stock is a Strong Buy. Out of four analyst ratings, there are four Buy recommendations.
Theaverage RIOT price targetis $47.75, implying 57.2% upside potential.
Cryptocurrency mining is a risky sector in which to invest. Investors who are diving into this sector need to be aware of the wild swings that might come. Needless to say, investing in Riot Blockchain requires a considerable risk appetite.
Interestingly, Riot has witnessed a 930% return, while Bitcoin has gained 354% in the past 52 weeks. So, the argument can be made that the upside with crypto miners exceeds that of the underlying cryptocurrency itself.
However, one must have a heavy stomach to handle the volatility that is likely to materialize over time.
Disclosure: At the time of publication, Chris MacDonald did not have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article represents the views and opinion of the writer only, and not the views or opinion of TipRanks or its affiliates, and should be considered for informational purposes only. TipRanks makes no warranties about the completeness, accuracy or reliability of such information. Nothing in this article should be taken as a recommendation or solicitation to purchase or sell securities. Nothing in the article constitutes legal, professional, investment and/or financial advice and/or takes into account the specific needs and/or requirements of an individual, nor does any information in the article constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters or subject discussed therein. TipRanks and its affiliates disclaim all liability or responsibility with respect to the content of the article, and any action taken upon the information in the article is at your own and sole risk. The link to this article does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by TipRanks or its affiliates. Past performance is not indicative of future results, prices or performance. || Riot Blockchain: Is this Crypto Play Worth the Risk?: Blockchain and cryptocurrency are two major buzzwords in the investor world today. Once an asset class only invested in by aggressive millennials banking on a massive paradigm shift, more and more investors are now piling into this space. Among the crypto-related investments aficionados are gravitating to for returns are crypto miners. One of the prominent names in this space is Riot Blockchain Inc. ( RIOT ). Riot is one of the leading public Bitcoin mining companies in the United States, and has shown impressive success of late. Driven by rising Bitcoin prices, this miner posted strong second-quarter results in August, surpassing analyst estimates in terms of revenue and sales. However, investing in cryptocurrency comes with a certain level of associated risk. I am neutral on the stock. (See RIOT stock charts on TipRanks) Record Q2 Results Riot Blockchain posted stunning second-quarter results. The company reported revenues of $31.5 million, blowing away the $1.9 million Riot reported in the same quarter last year. This represents a massive 1,540% jump in revenue. The crypto miner's net income for Q2 2021 stood at $0.22 per share, in comparison to a loss of $0.31 last year. Any company that moves into the black in terms of earnings is worth considering. Indeed, crypto enthusiasts are on board with Riot right now. This bottom-line performance was driven by margins, which improved to 70% this past quarter. These margins dwarf the 25% margins reported the same time last year. This was a huge win for Riot shareholders, and those bullish on this sector. Riot's share price has reacted accordingly. Given where the average price of Bitcoin stood last quarter (around $46,000), there's plenty of upside potential for Riot, should Bitcoin prices remain elevated. That said, Riot looks to be in a solid financial position to weather any storms that may arise. The company reported total cash and Bitcoin of $195.4 million as of the end of last quarter. Story continues Riot Files Automatic Shelf Registration Offering Riot Blockchain has filed a prospectus with SEC, which enables the company to offer, sell, and issue up to $600 million of common stock. According to the prospectus, company shares can be issued or sold from time to time under an agreement with the sales agents of Riot. Shares of RIOT stock traded lower following the announcement, as would be expected. In general, share issuances tend to be dilutive and negative for existing shareholders. Additionally, one might wonder why Riot would do such an offering, given the company's existing cash and cash equivalents position. However, this issuance could be spun in a bullish way, from a growth perspective. Should Riot use this capital to fund an aggressive expansion program, long-term investors could potentially benefit. RIOT Stock Has Underperformed Crypto of Late As mentioned, due to the recent issuance, and otherwise bearish sentiment in certain hyper-growth segments of the market, companies like Riot have not seen the enthusiasm you might expect. Riot's share price has moved substantially higher since the beginning of the year. That said, RIOT stock still remains more than 50% below its retail mania-fueled peak earlier this year. With crypto prices taking off again, one would think that this stock would take off. However, RIOT stock actually dropped 9% in July, while Bitcoin prices increased. This divergence suggests investors may be getting wary of Riot's valuation. The company's top- and bottom-line growth suggests some elevated multiple makes sense. However, the extent to which Riot can maintain this sky-high growth appears to be the question on many investors' minds right now. Wall Street’s Take According to TipRanks' analyst rating consensus, Riot stock is a Strong Buy. Out of four analyst ratings, there are four Buy recommendations. The average RIOT price target is $47.75, implying 57.2% upside potential. Bottom Line Cryptocurrency mining is a risky sector in which to invest. Investors who are diving into this sector need to be aware of the wild swings that might come. Needless to say, investing in Riot Blockchain requires a considerable risk appetite. Interestingly, Riot has witnessed a 930% return, while Bitcoin has gained 354% in the past 52 weeks. So, the argument can be made that the upside with crypto miners exceeds that of the underlying cryptocurrency itself. However, one must have a heavy stomach to handle the volatility that is likely to materialize over time. Disclosure: At the time of publication, Chris MacDonald did not have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article Disclaimer: The information contained in this article represents the views and opinion of the writer only, and not the views or opinion of TipRanks or its affiliates, and should be considered for informational purposes only. TipRanks makes no warranties about the completeness, accuracy or reliability of such information. Nothing in this article should be taken as a recommendation or solicitation to purchase or sell securities. Nothing in the article constitutes legal, professional, investment and/or financial advice and/or takes into account the specific needs and/or requirements of an individual, nor does any information in the article constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters or subject discussed therein. TipRanks and its affiliates disclaim all liability or responsibility with respect to the content of the article, and any action taken upon the information in the article is at your own and sole risk. The link to this article does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by TipRanks or its affiliates. Past performance is not indicative of future results, prices or performance. || Riot Blockchain Announces August Production and Operations Updates: Riot produces 441 Bitcoins in August 2021
Castle Rock, CO, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) ("Riot”, “Riot Blockchain” or the “Company"), a Nasdaq-listed industry leader in Bitcoin (“BTC”) mining and hosting, announces its August production and operations updates, including its unaudited Bitcoin production for August 2021 and its miner deployment status.
Production and Operations Updates
• In August 2021, Riot produced 441 BTC, an increase of approximately 451% over its August 2020 production of 80 BTC.
• Year to date through August 2021, the Company produced a total of 2,051 BTC, an increase of approximately 221% over its production during the same 2020 period of 639 BTC.
• As of August 31, 2021, Riot held approximately 3,128 BTC, all of which were produced by its self-mining operations.
• The Company currently has a deployed fleet of approximately 22,050 miners, with a hash rate capacity of 2.2 exahash per second (“EH/s”).
Riot plans to continue providing monthly operational updates and unaudited production results through the end of 2021. These updates are intended to keep shareholders informed of the Company’s mining and operations development as it continues to build additional Bitcoin mining infrastructure.
Miner Deployment Updates
As part of a December 2020 purchase order with Bitmain Technologies Limited (“Bitmain”), approximately 3,600 S19 Pro Antminers (110 TH) recently received at Riot’s Whinstone Facility are expected to be deployed by the end of September 2021. By the end of September 2021, Riot anticipates that it will have a total of 25,650 Antminers in operation, utilizing approximately 83 megawatts (“MW”) of energy, with an estimated hash rate capacity of 2.6 EH/s.
Infrastructure and Hash Rate Growth
The previously disclosed expansion of the Company’s Whinstone Facility continues, including delivery of the structural steel and power transformers for the expanding electrical substation. The underground and concrete infrastructure is now complete for the first new building, referenced as Building “D”, in the current four-building expansion program, while drainage installation and site access road development are well underway.
The expansion project at the Whinstone Facility includes four additional buildings, referenced as D, E, F and G, totaling approximately 240,000 sq/ft with 400 MW of capacity. This expansion is anticipated to provide the capacity to house approximately 112,000 S19 series Antminers when completed.
By Q4 2022, Riot anticipates a self-mining total hash rate capacity of 7.7 EH/s, assuming full deployment of approximately 81,150 Antminers acquired from Bitmain. Of this mining fleet, approximately 95% will be the latest generation S19 series model of miners. Upon full deployment, the Company’s total self-mining fleet is expected to consume approximately 257 MW of energy, with approximately 206 MW deployed at Riot’s Whinstone Facility and approximately 51 MW deployed at Coinmint, LLC’s facility. In addition to the Company’s self-mining operations, Whinstone hosts approximately 200 MW of institutional Bitcoin mining clients.
About Riot Blockchain, Inc.
Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) focuses on mining Bitcoin, and through Whinstone, its subsidiary, hosting Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. The Company is expanding and upgrading its mining operations through industrial-scale infrastructure development and latest-generation miner procurement. Riot is headquartered in Castle Rock, Colorado, and the Whinstone Facility operates out of Rockdale, Texas. The Company also has mining equipment operating in upstate New York under a co-location hosting agreement with Coinmint, LLC. For more information, visitwww.RiotBlockchain.com.
Safe Harbor
Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect management’s current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Such statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Words such as "anticipates," “believes,” "plans," "expects," "intends," "will," "potential," "hope" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may never materialize or may prove to be incorrect. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about the benefits of the acquisition of Whinstone, including financial and operating results, and the Company’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Among the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to: unaudited estimates of BTC production; our future hash rate growth (EH/s); our expected schedule of new miner deliveries; our ability to successfully deploy new miners; MW capacity under development; the integration of the businesses of the Company and Whinstone may not be successful, or such integration may take longer or be more difficult, time-consuming or costly to accomplish than anticipated; failure to otherwise realize anticipated efficiencies and strategic and financial benefits from the acquisition of Whinstone; and the impact of COVID-19 on us, our customers, or on our suppliers in connection with our estimated timelines. Detailed information regarding other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by statements in this press release may be found in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including in the sections entitled "Risk Factors" and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, and our other filings with the SEC, including, but not limited to the additional risk factors set forth in the Company’s Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 26, 2021, copies of which may be obtained from the SEC's website atwww.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release, and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that subsequently occur, or of which the Company hereafter becomes aware, except as required by law. Persons reading this press release are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Attachments
• DJI_0114 2
• Sept HR growth
CONTACT: Media Contact - Trystine Payfer Riot Blockchain, Inc. [email protected] Investor Contact - Phil McPherson Riot Blockchain, Inc. 303-794-2000 ext. 110 [email protected] || Riot Blockchain Announces August Production and Operations Updates: Riot produces 441 Bitcoins in August 2021 Riot's Whinstone Facility - Expansion Progress Riot's Whinstone Facility - Expansion Progress Riot's Hash Rate Growth Riot's Hash Rate Growth Castle Rock, CO, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) ("Riot”, “Riot Blockchain” or the “Company") , a Nasdaq-listed industry leader in Bitcoin (“BTC”) mining and hosting, announces its August production and operations updates, including its unaudited Bitcoin production for August 2021 and its miner deployment status. Production and Operations Updates In August 2021, Riot produced 441 BTC, an increase of approximately 451% over its August 2020 production of 80 BTC. Year to date through August 2021, the Company produced a total of 2,051 BTC, an increase of approximately 221% over its production during the same 2020 period of 639 BTC. As of August 31, 2021, Riot held approximately 3,128 BTC, all of which were produced by its self-mining operations. The Company currently has a deployed fleet of approximately 22,050 miners, with a hash rate capacity of 2.2 exahash per second (“EH/s”). Riot plans to continue providing monthly operational updates and unaudited production results through the end of 2021. These updates are intended to keep shareholders informed of the Company’s mining and operations development as it continues to build additional Bitcoin mining infrastructure. Miner Deployment Updates As part of a December 2020 purchase order with Bitmain Technologies Limited (“Bitmain”), approximately 3,600 S19 Pro Antminers (110 TH) recently received at Riot’s Whinstone Facility are expected to be deployed by the end of September 2021. By the end of September 2021, Riot anticipates that it will have a total of 25,650 Antminers in operation, utilizing approximately 83 megawatts (“MW”) of energy, with an estimated hash rate capacity of 2.6 EH/s. Infrastructure and Hash Rate Growth The previously disclosed expansion of the Company’s Whinstone Facility continues, including delivery of the structural steel and power transformers for the expanding electrical substation. The underground and concrete infrastructure is now complete for the first new building, referenced as Building “D”, in the current four-building expansion program, while drainage installation and site access road development are well underway. Story continues The expansion project at the Whinstone Facility includes four additional buildings, referenced as D, E, F and G, totaling approximately 240,000 sq/ft with 400 MW of capacity. This expansion is anticipated to provide the capacity to house approximately 112,000 S19 series Antminers when completed. By Q4 2022, Riot anticipates a self-mining total hash rate capacity of 7.7 EH/s, assuming full deployment of approximately 81,150 Antminers acquired from Bitmain. Of this mining fleet, approximately 95% will be the latest generation S19 series model of miners. Upon full deployment, the Company’s total self-mining fleet is expected to consume approximately 257 MW of energy, with approximately 206 MW deployed at Riot’s Whinstone Facility and approximately 51 MW deployed at Coinmint, LLC’s facility. In addition to the Company’s self-mining operations, Whinstone hosts approximately 200 MW of institutional Bitcoin mining clients. About Riot Blockchain, Inc. Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) focuses on mining Bitcoin, and through Whinstone, its subsidiary, hosting Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. The Company is expanding and upgrading its mining operations through industrial-scale infrastructure development and latest-generation miner procurement. Riot is headquartered in Castle Rock, Colorado, and the Whinstone Facility operates out of Rockdale, Texas. The Company also has mining equipment operating in upstate New York under a co-location hosting agreement with Coinmint, LLC. For more information, visit www.RiotBlockchain.com . Safe Harbor Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect management’s current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Such statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Words such as "anticipates," “believes,” "plans," "expects," "intends," "will," "potential," "hope" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may never materialize or may prove to be incorrect. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about the benefits of the acquisition of Whinstone, including financial and operating results, and the Company’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Among the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to: unaudited estimates of BTC production; our future hash rate growth (EH/s); our expected schedule of new miner deliveries; our ability to successfully deploy new miners; MW capacity under development; the integration of the businesses of the Company and Whinstone may not be successful, or such integration may take longer or be more difficult, time-consuming or costly to accomplish than anticipated; failure to otherwise realize anticipated efficiencies and strategic and financial benefits from the acquisition of Whinstone; and the impact of COVID-19 on us, our customers, or on our suppliers in connection with our estimated timelines. Detailed information regarding other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by statements in this press release may be found in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including in the sections entitled "Risk Factors" and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, and our other filings with the SEC, including, but not limited to the additional risk factors set forth in the Company’s Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 26, 2021, copies of which may be obtained from the SEC's website at www.sec.gov . All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release, and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that subsequently occur, or of which the Company hereafter becomes aware, except as required by law. Persons reading this press release are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Attachments DJI_0114 2 Sept HR growth CONTACT: Media Contact - Trystine Payfer Riot Blockchain, Inc. [email protected] Investor Contact - Phil McPherson Riot Blockchain, Inc. 303-794-2000 ext. 110 [email protected] || Fetch AI demo Deep Parking application in Tesla: Deep parking systems – powered by Fetch AI’s blockchain artificial intelligence – have been showcased for the first time. In a demonstration at the IAA, CEO Humayun Sheikh revealed a Tesla, a BMW, and a Jaguar iPace all integrated with Fetch AI’s deep parking application. Ready. Set. Go. 🚗 @CedricVanDuffel @Fetch_ai going for a ride! #mobility #demo #Tesla #BlueLane @IAAmobility pic.twitter.com/ERCK1IJFog — Maria Minaricova (@MariaMinaricova) September 7, 2021 Smart parking concepts aim to find parking spaces in busy cities by feeding the driver a stream of real-time information, Sheikh’s company do this by using blockchain-powered autonomous economic agents. These agents effectively conduct search and discovery of live on-chain data from sources such as Electric Vehicle charging points, and constantly applies the information to Fetch’s innovative machine learning processes. This allows the Deep Parking application to build predictive models that can forecast available parking to a driver, and allows them to ‘book’ the parking space. Booking directly with the parking space through AEAs from @Fetch_ai . Aggregators, what aggregators?? @Tesla $fet pic.twitter.com/4Hdiav3bsK — Humayun (@HMsheikh4) September 8, 2021 Conference attendees were quick to share their experiences of the first-of-its-kind intelligent parking technology. Story continues Fetch AI CEO explains the demo Intelligent parking technology has been quietly developed under the works in Cambridge for years. The demonstration was the culmination of a huge effort to deliver genuine functional usages for Fetch’s autonomous economic agents. Fetch AI FET CEO Humayun Sheikh deep parking IAA Speaking with Coin Rivet, Fetch AI CEO Humayun Sheikh explained the significance of the ground-breaking usage case demonstration. “The IAA demonstration showcases the huge impact our agents play in the future of the mobility sector, in particular their crucial role in tackling urban planning and climate change related challenges,” he explained. “We have been working with industry leaders like Bosch and BMW to create a smart parking application that leverages AI and blockchain technology to enable smart mobility. “Fetch agents autonomously plan users’ journeys and find available parking spaces and the benefits are numerous and exciting, such as efficiency, lower carbon emissions from drivers and it even allows an opportunity for individuals to rent their unused parking spaces as assets. “This is only the beginning of integrated Fetch agents amongst industry to help solve every day economic, social and environmental problems”. Fetch AI is clearly a project focused on real world integrations. The choice of the IAA (the world’s largest mobility conference) as a launch venue suggests the UK company is intent on attracting the interest of top dogs in the automobile industry. This could be considered as part of a wider strategy at Fetch which seeks to prioritise the development of functional working industry use cases – a refreshing change in a crypto industry characterised all too often by glossy marketing and promise-driven ICOs. Prominent working relationships with industrial giants like BMW and Bosch form the backbone of Fetch AI’s adoption approach. After all, the automated economic agents aren’t a consumer-facing technology, and future partnerships will inevitably result from this exciting demonstration. Clearly this approach is exciting investors. The Deep Parking demo has fuelled a stunning 60% surge in the FET price this week, with the unveiling so electrifying that the rally pushed through yesterday’s devastating Bitcoin flash crash . The FET token is now the fourth most searched digital asset on coinmarketcap. This comes amid a flurry of exciting news for the Fetch.AI project, with the CoLearn Paint event behind the creation of the world’s first machine-learning generated AI NFTs – for auction on OpenSeas soon. More crypto news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. || Fetch AI demo Deep Parking application in Tesla: Deep parking systems – powered by Fetch AI’s blockchain artificial intelligence – have been showcased for the first time. In a demonstration at the IAA, CEO Humayun Sheikh revealed a Tesla, a BMW, and a Jaguar iPace all integrated with Fetch AI’s deep parking application. Ready. Set. Go. 🚗 @CedricVanDuffel @Fetch_ai going for a ride! #mobility #demo #Tesla #BlueLane @IAAmobility pic.twitter.com/ERCK1IJFog — Maria Minaricova (@MariaMinaricova) September 7, 2021 Smart parking concepts aim to find parking spaces in busy cities by feeding the driver a stream of real-time information, Sheikh’s company do this by using blockchain-powered autonomous economic agents. These agents effectively conduct search and discovery of live on-chain data from sources such as Electric Vehicle charging points, and constantly applies the information to Fetch’s innovative machine learning processes. This allows the Deep Parking application to build predictive models that can forecast available parking to a driver, and allows them to ‘book’ the parking space. Booking directly with the parking space through AEAs from @Fetch_ai . Aggregators, what aggregators?? @Tesla $fet pic.twitter.com/4Hdiav3bsK — Humayun (@HMsheikh4) September 8, 2021 Conference attendees were quick to share their experiences of the first-of-its-kind intelligent parking technology. Story continues Fetch AI CEO explains the demo Intelligent parking technology has been quietly developed under the works in Cambridge for years. The demonstration was the culmination of a huge effort to deliver genuine functional usages for Fetch’s autonomous economic agents. Fetch AI FET CEO Humayun Sheikh deep parking IAA Speaking with Coin Rivet, Fetch AI CEO Humayun Sheikh explained the significance of the ground-breaking usage case demonstration. “The IAA demonstration showcases the huge impact our agents play in the future of the mobility sector, in particular their crucial role in tackling urban planning and climate change related challenges,” he explained. “We have been working with industry leaders like Bosch and BMW to create a smart parking application that leverages AI and blockchain technology to enable smart mobility. “Fetch agents autonomously plan users’ journeys and find available parking spaces and the benefits are numerous and exciting, such as efficiency, lower carbon emissions from drivers and it even allows an opportunity for individuals to rent their unused parking spaces as assets. “This is only the beginning of integrated Fetch agents amongst industry to help solve every day economic, social and environmental problems”. Fetch AI is clearly a project focused on real world integrations. The choice of the IAA (the world’s largest mobility conference) as a launch venue suggests the UK company is intent on attracting the interest of top dogs in the automobile industry. This could be considered as part of a wider strategy at Fetch which seeks to prioritise the development of functional working industry use cases – a refreshing change in a crypto industry characterised all too often by glossy marketing and promise-driven ICOs. Prominent working relationships with industrial giants like BMW and Bosch form the backbone of Fetch AI’s adoption approach. After all, the automated economic agents aren’t a consumer-facing technology, and future partnerships will inevitably result from this exciting demonstration. Clearly this approach is exciting investors. The Deep Parking demo has fuelled a stunning 60% surge in the FET price this week, with the unveiling so electrifying that the rally pushed through yesterday’s devastating Bitcoin flash crash . The FET token is now the fourth most searched digital asset on coinmarketcap. This comes amid a flurry of exciting news for the Fetch.AI project, with the CoLearn Paint event behind the creation of the world’s first machine-learning generated AI NFTs – for auction on OpenSeas soon. More crypto news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. || Coinbase says delayed ICP issue is resolved but accounts are still suspended: Coinbase says it is continuing to investigate yesterday’s delayed withdrawals, but claim the issue has now been resolved. However, there are still numerous reports of account suspensions and duplicated transactions. It’s understood Coinbase’s issues were possibly connected to the sudden drop in crypto prices which saw Bitcoin fall 10% in under an hour. The negative trend continued in pre-market trade amid the overall crypto market crash. At the time of writing, Bitfinex was also down from a DDOS. However, the outages weren’t Coinbase’s only concern on the day. Coinbase receives Wells Notice from SEC The San Francisco-based exchange revealed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) threatened to take the company to court over plans to launch its new high-yield product called Lend. According to its official blog , Coinbase received a so-called ‘Wells Notice’ from the SEC last week. A Wells Notice is a letter issued by the SEC to firms when it is planning to bring an enforcement. The Lend program said it will give owners of USD Coin (USDC) – the second-largest cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar – 4% interest on their holdings. Despite six months of discussion between Coinbase and the SEC, the agency is now allegedly considering the product a security offering. The SEC offered Coinbase to submit a written letter defending Lend. Even though the SEC’s reasons for these measures were unclear, Coinbase said it would not be launching Lend until at least October, as it awaited “additional regulatory clarity”. After months of trying to engage with the @SECGov on our planned Coinbase Lend product, we recently received notice that it intends to pursue legal action against us. We believe dialogue is at the heart of good regulation, even if the SEC may not. https://t.co/OumvyTPQdj — Coinbase (@coinbase) September 8, 2021 ‘Sketchy’ behaviour coming out of the SEC Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong branded the SEC’s actions “sketchy” and added that Coinbase was committed to following the law. Story continues “Sometimes the law is unclear,” he said. “So if the SEC wants to publish guidance, we are also happy to follow that (it’s nice if you actually enforce it evenly across the industry equally btw).” 1/ Some really sketchy behavior coming out of the SEC recently. Story time… — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2021 He added that when the company initially reached out to the SEC for a briefing ahead of the launch, the regulator responded by saying the Lend feature was a security. According to Armstrong, the SEC refused to explain why they believed it was a security, “and instead subpoena a bunch of records from us (we comply), demand testimony from our employees (we comply), and then tell us they will be suing us if we proceed to launch, with zero explanation as to why”. 12/ Ostensibly the SEC's goal is to protect investors and create fair markets. So who are they protecting here and where is the harm? People seem pretty happy to be earning yield on these various products, across lots of other crypto companies. — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2021 || Coinbase says delayed ICP issue is resolved but accounts are still suspended: Coinbase says it is continuing to investigate yesterday’s delayed withdrawals, but claim the issue has now been resolved. However, there are still numerous reports of account suspensions and duplicated transactions. It’s understood Coinbase’s issues were possibly connected to the sudden drop in crypto prices which saw Bitcoin fall 10% in under an hour. The negative trend continued in pre-market trade amid the overall crypto market crash. At the time of writing, Bitfinex was also down from a DDOS. However, the outages weren’t Coinbase’s only concern on the day. Coinbase receives Wells Notice from SEC The San Francisco-based exchange revealed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) threatened to take the company to court over plans to launch its new high-yield product called Lend. According to its official blog , Coinbase received a so-called ‘Wells Notice’ from the SEC last week. A Wells Notice is a letter issued by the SEC to firms when it is planning to bring an enforcement. The Lend program said it will give owners of USD Coin (USDC) – the second-largest cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar – 4% interest on their holdings. Despite six months of discussion between Coinbase and the SEC, the agency is now allegedly considering the product a security offering. The SEC offered Coinbase to submit a written letter defending Lend. Even though the SEC’s reasons for these measures were unclear, Coinbase said it would not be launching Lend until at least October, as it awaited “additional regulatory clarity”. After months of trying to engage with the @SECGov on our planned Coinbase Lend product, we recently received notice that it intends to pursue legal action against us. We believe dialogue is at the heart of good regulation, even if the SEC may not. https://t.co/OumvyTPQdj — Coinbase (@coinbase) September 8, 2021 ‘Sketchy’ behaviour coming out of the SEC Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong branded the SEC’s actions “sketchy” and added that Coinbase was committed to following the law. Story continues “Sometimes the law is unclear,” he said. “So if the SEC wants to publish guidance, we are also happy to follow that (it’s nice if you actually enforce it evenly across the industry equally btw).” 1/ Some really sketchy behavior coming out of the SEC recently. Story time… — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2021 He added that when the company initially reached out to the SEC for a briefing ahead of the launch, the regulator responded by saying the Lend feature was a security. According to Armstrong, the SEC refused to explain why they believed it was a security, “and instead subpoena a bunch of records from us (we comply), demand testimony from our employees (we comply), and then tell us they will be suing us if we proceed to launch, with zero explanation as to why”. 12/ Ostensibly the SEC's goal is to protect investors and create fair markets. So who are they protecting here and where is the harm? People seem pretty happy to be earning yield on these various products, across lots of other crypto companies. — Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2021 || Why Perrigo's Stock Is Trading Higher Today: Perrigo Company plc(NYSE:PRGO) shares are trading higher after the company announced it will acquire HRA Pharma for $2.1 billion in cash.
"The acquisition of HRA would be the crowning achievement in that transformation. With the addition of HRA and its talented leadership team,
Perrigo would be a consumer self-care global leader that is poised to deliver top tier net sales growth and double-digit EPS growth in the near-term while concurrently expanding margins," said Murray S. Kessler, CEO and President, Perrigo.
Perrigo is the leading provider of over-the-counter generic drugs with over 100 global locations. The company was formed in 1887 as a packager of home remedies and has grown with the migration of prescriptions switching to OTC and later with strategic acquisitions.
Perrigo's stock was trading about 8.9% higher at $45.31 per share at the time of publication. The stock has a 52-week high of $51.10 and a 52-week low of $38.20.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Why Perrigo's Stock Is Trading Higher Today: Perrigo Company plc (NYSE: PRGO ) shares are trading higher after the company announced it will acquire HRA Pharma for $2.1 billion in cash. "The acquisition of HRA would be the crowning achievement in that transformation. With the addition of HRA and its talented leadership team, Perrigo would be a consumer self-care global leader that is poised to deliver top tier net sales growth and double-digit EPS growth in the near-term while concurrently expanding margins," said Murray S. Kessler, CEO and President, Perrigo. Perrigo is the leading provider of over-the-counter generic drugs with over 100 global locations. The company was formed in 1887 as a packager of home remedies and has grown with the migration of prescriptions switching to OTC and later with strategic acquisitions. Perrigo's stock was trading about 8.9% higher at $45.31 per share at the time of publication. The stock has a 52-week high of $51.10 and a 52-week low of $38.20. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Why Bitcoin-Related And Ethereum-Related Stocks Are Moving Today Why Globalstar's Stock Is Trading Higher Today © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bad news, bulls: Bank of America sees stocks flatlining through 2022: The S&P 500 has posted a mighty rally so far this year, having already more than doubled from pandemic lows last year while reporting massive earnings growth. But some more bearish strategists aren’t convinced the party can go on into 2022. Bank of America , for one, is now predicting stocks will largely flatline through next year. Given the recent rally, Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s chief quantitative and equity strategist, now believes the S&P 500 will round out 2021 at 4,250 points, she wrote in a Wednesday note. That’s a march upward from her previous, bearish-at-the-time estimate of 3,800, but would still represent a 6% decline for the benchmark index from its Tuesday close of 4,520. And next year doesn’t bode much better, according to Subramanian: Bank of America now predicts the S&P 500 will finish 2022 at 4,600, a mere 2% higher than Tuesday’s close. Subramanian has been among the more bearish voices on the Street at a time when stocks have been posting record highs. In recent weeks, slowing economic growth, rising inflation, and Delta variant concerns have begun to weigh on investors, fueling pessimism on the Street. And though she boosted the bank’s 2021 target, Subramanian sees reasons for caution moving forward. “This may not end now. But when it ends, it could end badly,” she wrote of the latest market trends. “Investor sentiment and valuations are extended—a lot of optimism is already priced in—and our Long-Term Valuation Model indicates negative returns for the S&P 500 over the next decade (–0.8% annualized returns) for the first time since the Tech Bubble,” she added. Key reasons for Subramanian’s cautious view include increasing wage and input costs and supply chain issues that are threatening companies’ profit margins, generating what she calls “downside risks to earnings amid rising inflationary pressure.” Indeed, inflation and the all-important Federal Reserve remain a concern. With the Fed signaling it could begin tapering its asset purchases this year, stocks could see muted (or poorer) performance ahead, argues Subramanian, considering that returns have been heavily tied to the Fed’s balance sheet expansion in the years following the Great Financial Crisis. Meanwhile, based on consensus equity allocation, Wall Street is “neutral on U.S. stocks, but remains closest to a ‘Sell’ signal since 2007, indicating tepid 12 [month] returns on the S&P 500,” she wrote. Of course, not all analysts share Bank of America’s relatively bleak view of stocks. LPL Financial’s Ryan Detrick notes that, with stocks having had such a strong year so far, “looking at the previous top 10 starts to a year ever, the final four months have gained eight times,” he wrote in a Wednesday note (see LPL’s chart below). Story continues Lauren Goodwin, economist and portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments, argued in a Tuesday note that “strong economic and corporate fundamentals mean that recovery can be sustained and risk assets will [go] higher,” though she added that she expects “moderating equity gains” and “more frequent pullbacks” ahead. But what should investors own if they expect a more tepid environment? According to Subramanian, “inflation-protected yield is the scarce resource in a low-rate world where inflation is brewing.” In that environment, she favors dividend growth stocks in sectors “that benefit from inflation,” namely in energy, financials, and materials. Small-caps should also “outperform from here,” argues Subramanian, as “they are more tethered to U.S. GDP/capex, and unlike the S&P 500, current valuations suggest gains over the next 10 [years].” More finance coverage from Fortune : Got an IRS “math error” letter in the mail? Here’s what’s going on This cannabis company’s mission to address social injustice attracted La La Anthony to invest A shock is headed for the housing market How 9/11 gave rise to a massive “Camo Economy” This “financial astrologer” sees the future of Bitcoin —and says it could go to zero This story was originally featured on Fortune.com View comments || Bad news, bulls: Bank of America sees stocks flatlining through 2022: The S&P 500 has posted a mighty rally so far this year, having alreadymore than doubled from pandemic lowslast year while reporting massive earnings growth. But some more bearish strategists aren’t convinced the party can go on into 2022.Bank of America, for one, is now predicting stocks will largely flatline through next year.
Given the recent rally, Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s chief quantitative and equity strategist, now believes the S&P 500 will round out 2021 at 4,250 points, she wrote in a Wednesday note. That’s a march upward from her previous, bearish-at-the-time estimate of 3,800, but would still represent a 6% decline for the benchmark index from its Tuesday close of 4,520. And next year doesn’t bode much better, according to Subramanian: Bank of America now predicts the S&P 500 will finish 2022 at 4,600, a mere 2% higher than Tuesday’s close.
Subramanian has been among the more bearish voices on the Street at a time whenstocks have been posting record highs.In recent weeks,slowing economic growth,rising inflation, and Delta variant concernshavebegun to weigh on investors,fueling pessimism on the Street. And though she boosted the bank’s 2021 target, Subramanian sees reasons for caution moving forward.
“This may not end now. But when it ends, it could end badly,” she wrote of the latest market trends. “Investor sentiment and valuations are extended—a lot of optimism is already priced in—and our Long-Term Valuation Model indicates negative returns for the S&P 500 over the next decade (–0.8% annualized returns) for the first time since the Tech Bubble,” she added.
Key reasons for Subramanian’s cautious view include increasing wage and input costs and supply chain issues that are threatening companies’ profit margins, generating what she calls “downside risks to earnings amid rising inflationary pressure.”
Indeed, inflation and the all-important Federal Reserve remain a concern. With the Fed signalingit could begin tapering its asset purchasesthis year, stocks could see muted (or poorer) performance ahead, argues Subramanian, considering that returns have been heavily tied to the Fed’s balance sheet expansion in the years following the Great Financial Crisis.
Meanwhile, based on consensus equity allocation, Wall Street is “neutral on U.S. stocks, but remains closest to a ‘Sell’ signal since 2007, indicating tepid 12 [month] returns on the S&P 500,” she wrote.
Of course, not all analysts share Bank of America’s relatively bleak view of stocks. LPL Financial’s Ryan Detrick notes that, with stocks having had such a strong year so far, “looking at the previous top 10 starts to a year ever, the final four months have gained eight times,” hewrote in a Wednesday note(see LPL’s chart below).
Lauren Goodwin, economist and portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments, argued in a Tuesday note that “strong economic and corporate fundamentals mean that recovery can be sustained and risk assets will [go] higher,” though she added that she expects “moderating equity gains” and “more frequent pullbacks” ahead.
But what should investors own if they expect a more tepid environment? According to Subramanian, “inflation-protected yield is the scarce resource in a low-rate world where inflation is brewing.”
In that environment, she favors dividend growth stocks in sectors “that benefit from inflation,” namely in energy, financials, and materials. Small-caps should also “outperform from here,” argues Subramanian, as “they are more tethered to U.S. GDP/capex, and unlike the S&P 500, current valuations suggest gains over the next 10 [years].”
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• This “financial astrologer”sees the future of Bitcoin—and says it could go to zero
This story was originally featured onFortune.com
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11916.70, 14291.50, 17899.70, 16569.40, 15178.20, 15455.40, 16936.80, 17415.40, 16408.20, 16564.00, 17706.90, 19497.40, 19140.80, 19114.20, 17776.70, 16624.60, 15802.90, 13831.80, 14699.20, 13925.80, 14026.60, 16099.80, 15838.50, 14606.50, 14656.20, 12952.20, 14156.40, 13657.20, 14982.10, 15201.00, 15599.20, 17429.50, 17527.00, 16477.60, 15170.10, 14595.40, 14973.30, 13405.80, 13980.60, 14360.20, 13772.00, 13819.80, 11490.50, 11188.60, 11474.90, 11607.40, 12899.20, 11600.10, 10931.40, 10868.40, 11359.40, 11259.40, 11171.40, 11440.70, 11786.30, 11296.40, 10106.30, 10221.10, 9170.54, 8830.75, 9174.91, 8277.01, 6955.27, 7754.00, 7621.30, 8265.59, 8736.98, 8621.90, 8129.97, 8926.57, 8598.31, 9494.63, 10166.40, 10233.90, 11112.70, 10551.80, 11225.30, 11403.70, 10690.40, 10005.00, 10301.10, 9813.07, 9664.73, 10366.70, 10725.60, 10397.90, 10951.00, 11086.40, 11489.70, 11512.60.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-03-04]
Volume: 6084149760, RSI (14-day): 58.71, 50-day EMA: 10766.90, 200-day EMA: 9175.77
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Royal Dutch Shell to Investors: The World Needs (Lots) More LNG: In an incredibly rapid yet somewhat overlooked shift, global trade volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have doubled since 2005 -- and they're not done growing yet. Demand will continue to rise, and the countries lucky enough to be flush with natural gas reserves are racing to keep up with it. The United States will boast 9.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of LNG export capacity by the end of 2019. That will make it the third-largest LNG exporter on the planet, right behind Australia and Qatar. While that alone is amazing, the U.S.'s overnight ascension up the global rankings is even more incredible: America had just 0.8 Bcf/d of export capacity at the start of 2016. Judging by the supply growth in the U.S. and elsewhere, it seems the market will have plenty of LNG to go around. But an astonishing industry outlook published by Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) (NYSE: RDS-B) sounded the alarm bells, concluding that the world soon won't have enough LNG production to meet demand. That flies in the face of what investors have been told over the years. Is the world really headed for an LNG crunch? Two ships sitting idle at port. Image source: Getty Images. Why Shell thinks an LNG shortage is possible Countries around the globe have turned to LNG imports for various reasons -- sometimes to displace dirtier coal-fired power generation, sometimes to replace falling domestic production of natural gas, sometimes to lower geopolitical risk, and sometimes for all those reasons. Cheap and abundant natural gas reserves in Australia and the U.S. have made the global LNG boom possible, as have billions in investments planned years ago. Royal Dutch Shell is a majority owner in a floating LNG (FLNG) facility hovering over the massive Prelude field in Australia, which is nearly 300 miles offshore. Meanwhile, Cheniere Energy (NYSEMKT: LNG) , America's top LNG exporter, employs more traditional land-based liquefaction facilities along the Gulf Coast. The company actually embodies the national and global trends in the industry quite well. Story continues Cheniere made huge bets a decade ago on the potential opportunity in LNG exports. It will see most of its production capacity (nearly half of America's total) come online between 2017 and 2019, and then it plans to kick back and let cash flows accumulate. According to Shell, that last part is the problem facing the global industry. The awesome growth in global LNG trade, which reached 293 million metric tons in 2017, has been made possible by hundreds of billions of dollars invested in supply expansion. From 2015 to 2019, the world will add roughly 150 million tons per year of production capacity, including over 40 million tons of annual capacity expansion both this year and next. But a strange thing happens after that: Planned capacity expansions fall to virtually zero in 2020 and beyond. A Chinese city in the background with energy infrastructure in the foreground. Image source: Getty Images. What's the reason? Well, it's not because LNG consumption growth stops. To the contrary, Royal Dutch Shell expects global LNG demand to nearly double again by 2035. Instead, the global energy leader points to a stalemate between the needs of producers and buyers. Buyers are increasingly seeking smaller and more flexible volumes in order to make LNG more competitive for an expanding list of downstream applications, ranging from industrial use to vehicle fuels. From 2011 to 2014, the average LNG supply contract had a length of over 12 years and volume of over 1.3 million tons per year. From 2015 to 2017, those metrics slipped to just seven years and 0.7 million metric tons per year. The problem is that producers have come to rely on signing massive long-term contracts up front in order to secure the financing needed to construct export terminals. That's because export terminals are incredibly expensive to build, and financiers want revenue certainty before handing over money. Case in point: Cheniere Energy may be barreling its way toward 4.5 Bcf/d of export capacity , but it had $25.3 billion (and counting) in long-term debt at the end of 2017. Luckily, the stalemate doesn't appear to be bad news for investors. In fact, investors stand to win almost no matter what. An aerial view of an LNG tanker at port. Image source: Getty Images. A boon for business? While investors have become accustomed to seeing Cheniere Energy announce supply agreements lasting 15 years or longer, that will become increasingly rare going forward. The good news: America's largest LNG exporter will be largely unaffected by the shifting market dynamics for the foreseeable future. That's because 85% of the company's capacity -- including most of the expansions coming online between now and the end of the decade -- is entered into long-term contracts . Things could get interesting as existing contracts begin to expire closer to 2030, but that's a pretty long time away. The supply crunch Royal Dutch Shell is warning against is expected to become a problem in the early 2020s. In fact, given the mismatch between supply and demand, it may make sense for Cheniere Energy to reserve a certain portion of its production capacity for spot markets, where prices have periodically tripled those in long-term contracts. And the company seems to have left that door open, as the liquefaction trains at its Corpus Christi expansion project are smaller than those at its flagship Sabine Pass facility. That would be a win for investors, perhaps providing lucrative incremental income under the right market conditions. Royal Dutch Shell's Prelude FLNG project should be able to fly above market turbulence, too, as it's smaller and close to the world's fastest-growing LNG markets in Asia. There's almost no set of market conditions under which it couldn't thrive. Long story short, the changing dynamics in global LNG trade appear to have caused a dramatic underinvestment in new liquefaction capacity. That could create problems for supply sold on the spot market -- especially if prices skyrocket as product becomes scarce -- and affect planning and investment in new production facilities. But Cheniere Energy and Royal Dutch Shell should avoid the worst of the fallout. In fact, it could even be a boon for business. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Maxx Chatsko has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Royal Dutch Shell to Investors: The World Needs (Lots) More LNG: In an incredibly rapid yet somewhat overlooked shift, global trade volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have doubled since 2005 -- and they're not done growing yet. Demand will continue to rise, and the countries lucky enough to be flush with natural gas reserves are racing to keep up with it.
The United States will boast 9.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of LNG export capacity by the end of 2019. That will make it the third-largest LNG exporter on the planet, right behind Australia and Qatar. While that alone is amazing, the U.S.'s overnight ascension up the global rankings is even more incredible: America had just 0.8 Bcf/d of export capacity at the start of 2016.
Judging by the supply growth in the U.S. and elsewhere, it seems the market will have plenty of LNG to go around. But an astonishingindustry outlookpublished byRoyal Dutch Shell(NYSE: RDS-A)(NYSE: RDS-B)sounded the alarm bells, concluding that the world soonwon't have enoughLNG production to meet demand. That flies in the face of what investors have been told over the years.
Is the world really headed for an LNG crunch?
Image source: Getty Images.
Countries around the globe have turned to LNG imports for various reasons -- sometimes to displace dirtier coal-fired power generation, sometimes to replace falling domestic production of natural gas, sometimes to lower geopolitical risk, and sometimes for all those reasons. Cheap and abundant natural gas reserves in Australia and the U.S. have made the global LNG boom possible, as have billions in investments planned years ago.
Royal Dutch Shell is a majority owner in a floating LNG (FLNG) facility hovering over the massive Prelude field in Australia, which is nearly 300 miles offshore. Meanwhile,Cheniere Energy(NYSEMKT: LNG), America's top LNG exporter, employs more traditional land-based liquefaction facilities along the Gulf Coast. The company actually embodies the national and global trends in the industry quite well.
Cheniere made huge bets a decade ago on the potential opportunity in LNG exports. It will see most of its production capacity (nearly half of America's total) come online between 2017 and 2019, and then it plans to kick back and let cash flows accumulate. According to Shell, that last part is the problem facing the global industry.
The awesome growth in global LNG trade, which reached 293 million metric tons in 2017, has been made possible by hundreds of billions of dollars invested in supply expansion. From 2015 to 2019, the world will add roughly 150 million tons per year of production capacity, including over 40 million tons of annual capacity expansion both this year and next. But a strange thing happens after that: Planned capacity expansions fall to virtually zero in 2020 and beyond.
Image source: Getty Images.
What's the reason? Well, it's not because LNG consumption growth stops. To the contrary, Royal Dutch Shell expects global LNG demand to nearly double again by 2035. Instead, the global energy leader points to a stalemate between the needs of producers and buyers.
Buyers are increasingly seeking smaller and more flexible volumes in order to make LNG more competitive for an expanding list of downstream applications, ranging from industrial use to vehicle fuels. From 2011 to 2014, the average LNG supply contract had a length of over 12 years and volume of over 1.3 million tons per year. From 2015 to 2017, those metrics slipped to just seven years and 0.7 million metric tons per year.
The problem is that producers have come to rely on signing massive long-term contracts up front in order to secure the financing needed to construct export terminals. That's because export terminals are incredibly expensive to build, and financiers want revenue certainty before handing over money. Case in point: Cheniere Energy may be barreling its way toward4.5 Bcf/d of export capacity, but it had $25.3 billion (and counting) in long-term debt at the end of 2017.
Luckily, the stalemate doesn't appear to be bad news for investors. In fact, investors stand to win almost no matter what.
Image source: Getty Images.
While investors have become accustomed to seeing Cheniere Energy announce supply agreements lasting 15 years or longer, that will become increasingly rare going forward. The good news: America's largest LNG exporter will be largely unaffected by the shifting market dynamics for the foreseeable future. That's because 85% of the company's capacity -- including most of the expansions coming online between now and the end of the decade -- isentered into long-term contracts.
Things could get interesting as existing contracts begin to expire closer to 2030, but that's a pretty long time away. The supply crunch Royal Dutch Shell is warning against is expected to become a problem in the early 2020s.
In fact, given the mismatch between supply and demand, it may make sense for Cheniere Energy to reserve a certain portion of its production capacity for spot markets, where prices have periodically tripled those in long-term contracts. And the company seems to have left that door open, as the liquefaction trains at its Corpus Christi expansion project are smaller than those at its flagship Sabine Pass facility. That would be a win for investors, perhaps providing lucrative incremental income under the right market conditions.
Royal Dutch Shell's Prelude FLNG project should be able to fly above market turbulence, too, as it's smaller and close to the world's fastest-growing LNG markets in Asia. There's almost no set of market conditions under which it couldn't thrive.
Long story short, the changing dynamics in global LNG trade appear to have caused a dramatic underinvestment in new liquefaction capacity. That could create problems for supply sold on the spot market -- especially if prices skyrocket as product becomes scarce -- and affect planning and investment in new production facilities. But Cheniere Energy and Royal Dutch Shell should avoid the worst of the fallout. In fact, it could even be a boon for business.
More From The Motley Fool
• 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices
• 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018
• 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing
• 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
• The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss
• Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This
Maxx Chatskohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 2 in 5 Parents Feel Guilty They Didn't Save More for College: You'd think the college bubble would've shown signs of bursting by now, but not so much. Last year, tuition costs rose again , making the cost of higher education all the more burdensome. The problem has gotten so bad, in fact, that even higher earners are struggling to keep up with those costs. It's no wonder, then, that such a large number of parents take it upon themselves to save for college on behalf of their kids. But at the end of the day, many of them aren't pleased with their efforts. In fact, roughly 44% of parents feel guilty that they didn't set more money aside for their children's education, according to a new survey by Student Loan Hero . Hand holding pen about to fill out University enrollment form. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. If you're displeased with your college savings efforts thus far, there are steps you can take to do better. And the sooner you do, the less guilty you'll feel. Eking out more money for savings It's hard to set aside money for college when you have bills to pay -- and all of us do. Throw in the fact that there also is retirement to consider, and it's not surprising that countless parents wind up saving less than they'd like to after all is said and done. That said, if you're willing to cut some expenses, even temporarily, you might pad that college account just enough to help your children avoid massive loans. So take a look at your budget, or create one if you've yet to do so, and identify spending categories with wiggle room. While you can't snap your fingers and lower your mortgage payment, you can cut back on clothing purchases, restaurant meals, or the cable package whose premium channels you rarely watch. Scaling back on expenses to the tune of even $100 per month could go a long way in helping you boost your college savings, so don't discount the importance of small changes. Saving for college efficiently Of course, setting money aside for college is just half the battle. To really grow that college fund, you'll want to house your savings somewhere outside the bank. That's because a savings account today will pay 1% interest if you're lucky, and over time, that's not nearly enough to keep pace with college-related inflation. And don't forget that you'll be taxed on bank account interest, too. On the other hand, if you invest your money in a 529 plan or Roth IRA, you'll potentially see seven times that return and reap other tax benefits, to boot. First, let's review 529s, which allow you to contribute money to be used for qualified higher-education expenses. The benefit of a 529 plan is that the cash you put in gets to grow tax-free until you're ready to use it. Keep in mind that the money you put into a 529 isn't tax-free; you'll still pay taxes on your contributions. But as long as you use that money for college, you won't pay a dime in taxes on its growth. Furthermore, most states offer their own tax breaks for funding their 529 plans, which means you might reap some additional savings there. Story continues The one drawback of a 529 is that, if you don't use the money for qualified higher education, you might face a 10% penalty -- but that only applies to your gains, not your initial contributions. Still, if you'd rather have the most flexibility, you can save for college in a Roth IRA instead. Though Roth IRAs are traditionally used for retirement savings, the beauty is that you can access that money for college without penalty. (Technically, you can withdraw your principal contributions for any reason at all without penalty.) As in a 529 plan, the money in your Roth IRA will grow tax-free, so your ending balance is yours to keep without having to worry about taxes. The only hiccup you might face in funding a Roth is if you earn too much to contribute directly. If that's the case, you can always fund a traditional IRA, covert it to a Roth, and reap that same set of tax benefits. If you're saving money for college at all, you should give yourself a pat on the back for effort, since it's not easy. That said, if you're looking to do better, making small budgetary changes and saving efficiently will get you much closer to your goals. And hopefully, that'll be one less thing you'll have to feel guilty about. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || 2 in 5 Parents Feel Guilty They Didn't Save More for College: You'd think the college bubble would've shown signs of bursting by now, but not so much. Last year,tuition costs rose again, making the cost of higher education all the more burdensome. The problem has gotten so bad, in fact, that evenhigher earners are strugglingto keep up with those costs.
It's no wonder, then, that such a large number of parents take it upon themselves to save for college on behalf of their kids. But at the end of the day, many of them aren't pleased with their efforts. In fact, roughly 44% of parents feel guilty that they didn't set more money aside for their children's education, according to anew survey by Student Loan Hero.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
If you're displeased with your college savings efforts thus far, there are steps you can take to do better. And the sooner you do, the less guilty you'll feel.
It's hard to set aside money for college when you have bills to pay -- and all of us do. Throw in the fact that there also is retirement to consider, and it's not surprising that countless parents wind up saving less than they'd like to after all is said and done.
That said, if you're willing to cut some expenses, even temporarily, you might pad that college account just enough to help your children avoid massive loans. So take a look at your budget, orcreate oneif you've yet to do so, and identify spending categories with wiggle room. While you can't snap your fingers and lower your mortgage payment, youcancut back on clothing purchases, restaurant meals, or the cable package whose premium channels you rarely watch. Scaling back on expenses to the tune of even $100 per month could go a long way in helping you boost your college savings, so don't discount the importance of small changes.
Of course, setting money aside for college is just half the battle. To really grow that college fund, you'll want to house your savings somewhere outside the bank. That's because a savings account today will pay 1% interest if you're lucky, and over time, that's not nearly enough to keep pace with college-related inflation. And don't forget that you'll be taxed on bank account interest, too. On the other hand, if you invest your money in a529 planor Roth IRA, you'll potentially see seven times that return and reap other tax benefits, to boot.
First, let's review 529s, which allow you to contribute money to be used for qualified higher-education expenses. The benefit of a 529 plan is that the cash you put in gets to grow tax-free until you're ready to use it. Keep in mind that the money you put into a 529 isn't tax-free; you'll still pay taxes on your contributions. But as long as you use that money for college, you won't pay a dime in taxes on its growth. Furthermore, most states offer their own tax breaks for funding their 529 plans, which means you might reap some additional savings there.
The one drawback of a 529 is that, if you don't use the money for qualified higher education, you might face a 10% penalty -- but that only applies to your gains, not your initial contributions. Still, if you'd rather have the most flexibility, you can save for college in aRoth IRAinstead. Though Roth IRAs are traditionally used for retirement savings, the beauty is that you can access that money for college without penalty. (Technically, you can withdraw your principal contributions for any reason at all without penalty.)
As in a 529 plan, the money in your Roth IRA will grow tax-free, so your ending balance is yours to keep without having to worry about taxes. The only hiccup you might face in funding a Roth is if youearn too muchto contribute directly. If that's the case, you can always fund a traditional IRA, covert it to a Roth, and reap that same set of tax benefits.
If you're saving money for college at all, you should give yourself a pat on the back for effort, since it's not easy. That said, if you're looking to do better, making small budgetary changes and saving efficiently will get you much closer to your goals. And hopefully, that'll be one less thing you'll have to feel guilty about.
More From The Motley Fool
• 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices
• 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018
• 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing
• 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
• The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss
• Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This
The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Dividend Stocks That Should Pay You the Rest of Your Life: The foundation for a lifetime of investing success can be embarrassingly simple: Buy the best-quality dividend-paying stocks you can find, reinvest the dividends, and hold them for decades. This unleashes the power of compounding and can generate enormous wealth over the long term. The first step, finding quality income payers, can be the toughest part. In an effort to lend a hand, we asked three Motley Fool investors to choose dividend paying companies that they believed could stand the test of time. They offered convincing arguments for Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) , TOTAL SA (NYSE: TOT) , and The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) . Stacks of coins and plants in increasing sizes growing in soil, with an arrow tracking their growth. Image source: Getty Images. Danny Vena (Starbucks): With all the things that change in life, one thing is fairly consistent -- that morning cup o' Joe. Fads come and go, but most people just can't imagine starting the day without a steaming hot cup of coffee. No company has tapped into that love of the caffeinated beverage better than Starbucks. The company created a windfall for early investors, having generated an incredible 16,000% return since its debut in 1992, raking up annualized growth of over 26%. The company has a global reach of more than 28,000 locations in 76 countries. While U.S. customers may be accustomed to seeing a Starbucks on every corner, that isn't the case in the rest of the world. Starbucks sees China as its next big growth driver, and in 2018 it plans to add 600 new stores to the 3,000 existing locations. The company believes that number can grow to 5,000 by 2020. Even incorporating those expectations, Starbucks expects more mundane future growth overall, with annual revenue increases in the high single digits, annual earnings per share of 12% or more, and same-store sales growth in a range of 3% to 5%. Three molten chocolate beverages in Starbucks cups. Image source: Starbucks. Starbucks' dividend currently yields about 2%, but the company has consistently increased the payout every year since it began in 2010, from a split-adjusted quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share to its current level of $0.30, a whopping 500% increase. With a healthy payout ratio of 35%, Starbucks has plenty of opportunity to fund increases. Story continues With Starbucks fueling the world's caffeine addiction, I expect that 18 years from now, the company could join the exclusive ranks of Dividend Aristocrats -- that rare breed of companies that have increased their dividend payouts for 25 consecutive years. An oil supermajor with its eye on the future Maxx Chatsko (Total SA): The largest oil companies in the world are a pretty good bet if you're searching for dividend stocks that should pay you the rest of your life. I know, I know. There's a lot of gloom-and-doom discussion about the end of fossil fuels and the impacts of climate change, but like it or not, crude oil and natural gas are likely to retain an important role in global affairs for the next several decades at least. Of course, renewable energy will continue to see incredible growth in the coming decades. That's why French energy giant Total, which has invested heavily in everything from solar panel manufacturing to next-generation renewable fuel production technologies, is an intriguing dividend stock. As with most supermajors, Total oozes with cash flow. In 2017 it pumped out $22.3 billion in operating cash flow. Thanks to a more focused portfolio of operating assets and reduced capital expenditures compared with previous years, the company added a whopping $8.6 billion in cash to the coffers after accounting for all financing and investing activities. That allows it to pay a 5% dividend right now -- and there's not a whole lot that could jeopardize the payout. Total SA Antwerp refinery in Belgium. Image source: Total S.A. Total is currently executing a three-part strategy: First, refocusing on oil projects with low breakeven pricing, which will provide the bulk of cash generation and allow it to invest in long-term growth projects. Second, expanding its presence in the natural gas value chain. That will center on liquefied natural gas (LNG), for which the company is the second largest player on the planet, and which will generate $3 billion in operating cash flow by 2020. Third, taking the long view and growing profitable no- or low-carbon businesses with a large focus on solar energy, as evidenced by its majority ownership of leading solar-panel manufacturer SunPower . Long story short, Total is an oil supermajor playing the long game few other publicly traded companies even dare to play. It's a dividend stock that should pay you the rest of your life. Would you rather walk? Rich Smith (Boeing): The rest of your life could be an awfully long time, but -- and pardon my bluntness here -- I rather suspect that no matter how young may be, you're still going to expire before Boeing does. Founded in 1916, Boeing has been around for more than a century already, and barring the invention of a teleportation machine, I think it's probably going to be around for another century or more. Why? Well for one thing, there aren't a lot of competing aircraft makers out there that could conceivably compete Boeing out of business. There's Airbus, of course. But with an operating profit margin less than one-third of what Boeing makes, Airbus is kind of a shambles. A Boeing 767 in a hanger surrounded by people. Image source: Boeing. Russia's United Aircraft Corporation ? China's COMAC ? The one's making margins half what Boeing pulls down. The other has negative profits (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence ). And both of those firms combined don't do 10% the revenues that Boeing collects in a year. No, folks, Boeing is here, and it's here to stay. And with a payout ratio of only 42%, Boeing's 2% dividend yield, already richer than most stocks on the S&P 500 pay, looks here to stay, too -- for at least as long as you or I will be around to collect it. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Danny Vena owns shares of Starbucks. Maxx Chatsko has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 3 Dividend Stocks That Should Pay You the Rest of Your Life: The foundation for a lifetime of investing success can be embarrassingly simple: Buy the best-quality dividend-paying stocks you can find, reinvest the dividends, and hold them for decades. This unleashes the power of compounding and can generate enormous wealth over the long term.
The first step, finding quality income payers, can be the toughest part. In an effort to lend a hand, we asked three Motley Fool investors to choose dividend paying companies that they believed could stand the test of time. They offered convincing arguments forStarbucks Corporation(NASDAQ: SBUX),TOTAL SA(NYSE: TOT), andThe Boeing Company(NYSE: BA).
Image source: Getty Images.
Danny Vena(Starbucks):With all the things that change in life, one thing is fairly consistent -- that morning cup o' Joe. Fads come and go, but most people just can't imagine starting the day without a steaming hot cup of coffee. No company has tapped into that love of the caffeinated beverage better than Starbucks.
The company created a windfall for early investors, having generated an incredible 16,000% return since its debut in 1992, raking up annualized growth of over 26%.
The company has a global reach of more than 28,000 locations in 76 countries. While U.S. customers may be accustomed to seeing a Starbucks on every corner, that isn't the case in the rest of the world. Starbucks sees China as its next big growth driver, and in 2018 it plans to add 600 new stores to the 3,000 existing locations. The company believes that number can grow to 5,000 by 2020.
Even incorporating those expectations, Starbucks expects more mundane future growth overall, with annual revenue increases in the high single digits, annual earnings per share of 12% or more, and same-store sales growth in a range of 3% to 5%.
Image source: Starbucks.
Starbucks' dividend currently yields about 2%, but the company has consistently increased the payout every year since it began in 2010, from a split-adjusted quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share to its current level of $0.30, a whopping 500% increase. With a healthy payout ratio of 35%, Starbucks has plenty of opportunity to fund increases.
With Starbucks fueling the world's caffeine addiction, I expect that 18 years from now, the company could join the exclusive ranks ofDividend Aristocrats-- that rare breed of companies that have increased their dividend payouts for 25 consecutive years.
Maxx Chatsko(Total SA):The largest oil companies in the world are a pretty good bet if you're searching for dividend stocks that should pay you the rest of your life. I know, I know. There's a lot of gloom-and-doom discussion about the end of fossil fuels and the impacts of climate change, but like it or not, crude oil and natural gas are likely to retain an important role in global affairs for the next several decades at least.
Of course, renewable energy will continue to see incredible growth in the coming decades. That's why French energy giant Total, which has invested heavily in everything from solar panel manufacturing to next-generation renewable fuel production technologies, is an intriguing dividend stock.
As with most supermajors, Total oozes with cash flow. In 2017 it pumped out $22.3 billion in operating cash flow. Thanks to a more focused portfolio of operating assets and reduced capital expenditures compared with previous years, the company added a whopping $8.6 billion in cash to the coffers after accounting for all financing and investing activities. That allows it to pay a 5% dividend right now -- and there's not a whole lot that could jeopardize the payout.
Image source: Total S.A.
Total is currently executing a three-part strategy:
• First, refocusing on oil projects with low breakeven pricing, which will provide the bulk of cash generation and allow it to invest in long-term growth projects.
• Second, expanding its presence in the natural gas value chain. That will center on liquefied natural gas (LNG), for which the company is the second largest player on the planet, and which will generate $3 billion in operating cash flow by 2020.
• Third, taking the long view and growing profitable no- or low-carbon businesses with a large focus on solar energy, as evidenced by its majority ownership of leading solar-panel manufacturerSunPower.
Long story short, Total is an oil supermajor playing the long game few other publicly traded companies even dare to play. It's a dividend stock that should pay you the rest of your life.
Rich Smith(Boeing):The rest of your life could be an awfully long time, but -- and pardon my bluntness here -- I rather suspect that no matter how young may be, you're still going to expire before Boeing does.
Founded in 1916, Boeing has been around for more than a century already, and barring the invention of a teleportation machine, I think it's probably going to be around for another century or more. Why? Well for one thing, there aren't a lot of competing aircraft makers out there that could conceivably compete Boeing out of business.
There's Airbus, of course. But with an operating profit margin less than one-third of what Boeing makes, Airbus is kind of a shambles.
Image source: Boeing.
Russia'sUnited Aircraft Corporation? China'sCOMAC? The one's making margins half what Boeing pulls down. The other hasnegativeprofits (according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence). And both of those firms combined don't do 10% the revenues that Boeing collects in a year.
No, folks, Boeing is here, and it's here to stay. And with a payout ratio of only 42%, Boeing's 2% dividend yield, already richer than most stocks on the S&P 500 pay, looks here to stay, too -- for at least as long as you or I will be around to collect it.
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Danny Venaowns shares of Starbucks.Maxx Chatskohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Elon Musk Blasts Harvard’s Steven Pinker Over Comments Dismissing the Threat of Artificial Intelligence: Elon Musk took to Twitter this week to bemoan comments, made by Harvard professor Steven Pinker, that were dismissive of Musk's many warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
Musk's smackdown came in response to statements Pinker made on aWired podcastreleased a few days prior. At one point Pinker said that "if Elon Musk was really serious about the AI threat he'd stop building those self-driving cars, which are the first kind of advanced AI that we're going to see." He then pointed out that Musk isn't worried about his cars deciding to "make a beeline across sidewalks and parks, mowing people down".
Pinker's statement was off-the-cuff, but deeply silly on the face of it. Musk's frequent warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence have touched on their possible use tocontrol weaponsormanipulate informationto gin up global conflict. The physicist Steven Hawking, in a similar vein, has warned that AI could"supersede" humanswhen they exceed our biological intelligence.
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Those concerns are about what's known as"general" artificial intelligence- systems able to replicate all human decision making. Systems like Tesla's Autopilot, the AlphaGo gaming bot, and Facebook's newsfeed algorithm are something quite different – "narrow" AI systems designed to handle one discrete task.
Developing Autopilot might make some contributions to developing general A.I., and it certainlyraises moral questionsabout how we train machines. But, as Musk points out, even a completely perfect self-driving car would have nothing remotely resembling a fully enabled 'mind' that could decide to either marginalize or hurt humans.
So the fact that a self-driving Tesla is specifically designed not to murder people isn't very relevant to the question of whether a machine intelligence might someday decide to. Further, it does nothing to dispense with the worries of organizations like theElectronic Frontier Foundationthat limited A.I. systems designed for hacking and social manipulation are no more than a few years away.
Pinker, it must be pointed out, is not a technologist, but a psychologist and linguist. His early work developed the idea that language is an innate human ability forged by evolution - a position that itself has recently come underrenewed scrutiny. Pinker's more recent work haspraised science, reason, and the march of technology - but he might want to take a harder look at some of the risks.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• What You Need to Know About SpaceX's Next Rocket Launch || Elon Musk Blasts Harvards Steven Pinker Over Comments Dismissing the Threat of Artificial Intelligence: Elon Musk took to Twitter this week to bemoan comments, made by Harvard professor Steven Pinker, that were dismissive of Musk's many warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Wow, if even Pinker doesn't understand the difference between functional/narrow AI (eg. car) and general AI, when the latter *literally* has a million times more compute power and an open-ended utility function, humanity is in deep trouble Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2018 Musk's smackdown came in response to statements Pinker made on a Wired podcast released a few days prior. At one point Pinker said that "if Elon Musk was really serious about the AI threat he'd stop building those self-driving cars, which are the first kind of advanced AI that we're going to see." He then pointed out that Musk isn't worried about his cars deciding to "make a beeline across sidewalks and parks, mowing people down". Pinker's statement was off-the-cuff, but deeply silly on the face of it. Musk's frequent warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence have touched on their possible use to control weapons or manipulate information to gin up global conflict. The physicist Steven Hawking, in a similar vein, has warned that AI could "supersede" humans when they exceed our biological intelligence. Get Data Sheet , Fortune's technology newsletter. Those concerns are about what's known as "general" artificial intelligence - systems able to replicate all human decision making. Systems like Tesla's Autopilot, the AlphaGo gaming bot, and Facebook's newsfeed algorithm are something quite different "narrow" AI systems designed to handle one discrete task. Developing Autopilot might make some contributions to developing general A.I., and it certainly raises moral questions about how we train machines. But, as Musk points out, even a completely perfect self-driving car would have nothing remotely resembling a fully enabled 'mind' that could decide to either marginalize or hurt humans. Story continues So the fact that a self-driving Tesla is specifically designed not to murder people isn't very relevant to the question of whether a machine intelligence might someday decide to. Further, it does nothing to dispense with the worries of organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation that limited A.I. systems designed for hacking and social manipulation are no more than a few years away. Pinker, it must be pointed out, is not a technologist, but a psychologist and linguist. His early work developed the idea that language is an innate human ability forged by evolution - a position that itself has recently come under renewed scrutiny . Pinker's more recent work has praised science , reason, and the march of technology - but he might want to take a harder look at some of the risks. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com How Elon Musk's Tesla Could Contaminate Mars With Earth Bacteria Viasat CEO Talks New Satellite Internet Service and SpaceX Here's How Much Bitcoin Elon Musk Owns Elon Musk Is Leaving the Board of an AI Safety Group He Co-Founded What You Need to Know About SpaceX's Next Rocket Launch || Delta Air Lines, Inc. Makes Progress on Its Pension Deficit: General Electric 's nearly $30 billion pension deficit, which is the largest of any major U.S. corporation, has earned plenty of headlines in the past year. However, as a percentage of revenue or market cap, Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) has faced an even bigger pension funding gap in recent years. As of the end of 2016, Delta had the second-worst funding ratio in the S&P 500 and a $10.6 billion pension deficit. It also had a $2.6 billion deficit in its other postretirement plans. Delta reduced its pension deficit significantly in 2017, though. Furthermore, rising interest rates could help it make additional progress in addressing its pension underfunding over the next two to three years. Pension assets soar About a year ago, Delta Air Lines decided to take advantage of the low-interest-rate environment by issuing debt to accelerate its pension funding. This allowed it to make a big dent in its pension deficit during 2017. In total, Delta Air Lines contributed about $3.2 billion of cash to its pension plan in early 2017. It also provided $350 million of Delta stock, bringing total funding for the year to $3.56 billion. Meanwhile, the company contributed more than $250 million to its other postretirement plans, which provide things like healthcare and disability coverage. A Delta Air Lines plane parked on the tarmac Delta Air Lines made huge contributions to its pension plan in 2017. Image source: Delta Air Lines. Stellar investment returns gave Delta an extra boost last year. The return on pension-plan assets was nearly $2 billion. That represents a roughly 15% gain based on the weighted average amount of plan assets during 2017. The other postretirement plans also achieved double-digit investment gains. The net result was that total assets across all of the plans increased by more than $4.5 billion, despite benefit payments of $1.4 billion. On the other side of the ledger, Delta's pension and postretirement liability increased by nearly $1 billion in 2017. This was driven by a 0.51 percentage-point reduction in the discount rate used to calculate the liabilities. Even so, the funding deficit improved by more than $3.5 billion. Story continues Reducing costs -- by playing accounting games Coming into 2018, holding non-fuel unit-cost growth to a minimum was the top priority for Delta Air Lines . The huge increase in Delta's pension-plan assets will help in a big way, due to the somewhat bizarre rules of pension accounting. For accounting purposes, the expected return on the plan's assets acts as a credit against pension expense. The higher the level of plan assets -- or the higher the level of expected returns -- the bigger this credit. In some cases, this can more than offset the other components of pension expense, leading to companies reporting pension income . Delta Air Lines has historically assumed extremely strong returns of nearly 9% for its pension assets. While its actual returns surpassed that target last year, it routinely fell short in each of the previous three years, including an outright loss in 2015 . Most experts would agree that Delta's expected return on plan assets is unrealistically high. Nevertheless, Delta's expected return on plan assets stands for now. As a result, the big increase in its pension assets in early 2017 reduced its total pension/postretirement plan costs to $137 million last year from $390 million a year earlier. In 2018, that could conceivably go to zero, even though the company is still underfunded by $9.6 billion. The bottom line is that lower pension expense is helping Delta reduce its unit-cost growth -- but this may reflect Delta taking advantage of the intricacies of pension accounting more than any improvement in its underlying cost structure. Rising rates could help close Delta's funding gap Despite the big improvement in its pension deficit last year, Delta still has plenty of work to do to reach fully funded status. Fortunately, rising interest rates should do some of that work. As noted above, in 2017, Delta Air Lines reduced the discount rate used to calculate its pension obligations, adding about $1 billion to its pension liability. However, interest rates have risen significantly since the beginning of 2018. With inflation starting to accelerate, market watchers are increasingly expecting a sustained increase in interest rates going forward. A 0.5 percentage-point increase in the discount rate would reduce Delta's pension liability by about $1.2 billion, according to the company. If long-term interest rates increase by that amount annually for the next three years, it would knock about $3.5 billion off Delta's pension liability. Delta is contributing about $500 million a year to its pension plan, which could be 90% or more funded by the end of 2020, depending on its actual investment returns. The steep decline in Delta Air Lines' pension/postretirement expense since 2016 overstates the improvement in its funding position. Nevertheless, it's clear that Delta has made significant progress toward putting its once-ailing pension plan on a firm footing. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Delta Air Lines and General Electric. The Motley Fool is short shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Delta Air Lines, Inc. Makes Progress on Its Pension Deficit: General Electric's nearly $30 billion pension deficit, which is the largest of any major U.S. corporation, has earned plenty of headlines in the past year. However, as a percentage of revenue or market cap,Delta Air Lines(NYSE: DAL)has faced an even bigger pension funding gap in recent years. As of the end of 2016, Delta had thesecond-worst funding ratioin theS&P 500and a $10.6 billion pension deficit. It also had a $2.6 billion deficit in its other postretirement plans.
Delta reduced its pension deficit significantly in 2017, though. Furthermore, rising interest rates could help it make additional progress in addressing its pension underfunding over the next two to three years.
About a year ago, Delta Air Lines decided to take advantage of the low-interest-rate environment by issuing debt to accelerate its pension funding. This allowed it to make a big dent in its pension deficit during 2017.
In total, Delta Air Lines contributed about $3.2 billion of cash to its pension plan in early 2017. It also provided $350 million of Delta stock, bringing total funding for the year to $3.56 billion. Meanwhile, the company contributed more than $250 million to its other postretirement plans, which provide things like healthcare and disability coverage.
Delta Air Lines made huge contributions to its pension plan in 2017. Image source: Delta Air Lines.
Stellar investment returns gave Delta an extra boost last year. The return on pension-plan assets was nearly $2 billion. That represents a roughly 15% gain based on the weighted average amount of plan assets during 2017. The other postretirement plans also achieved double-digit investment gains. The net result was that total assets across all of the plans increased by more than $4.5 billion, despite benefit payments of $1.4 billion.
On the other side of the ledger, Delta's pension and postretirement liability increased by nearly $1 billion in 2017. This was driven by a 0.51 percentage-point reduction in the discount rate used to calculate the liabilities. Even so, the funding deficit improved by more than $3.5 billion.
Coming into 2018, holding non-fuel unit-cost growth to a minimum was thetop priority for Delta Air Lines. The huge increase in Delta's pension-plan assets will help in a big way, due to the somewhat bizarre rules of pension accounting.
For accounting purposes, the expected return on the plan's assets acts as a credit against pension expense. The higher the level of plan assets -- or the higher the level of expected returns -- the bigger this credit. In some cases, this can more than offset the other components of pension expense, leading to companies reporting pensionincome.
Delta Air Lines has historically assumed extremely strong returns of nearly 9% for its pension assets. While its actual returns surpassed that target last year, it routinely fell short in each of the previous three years, includingan outright loss in 2015. Most experts would agree that Delta's expected return on plan assets is unrealistically high.
Nevertheless, Delta's expected return on plan assets stands for now. As a result, the big increase in its pension assets in early 2017 reduced its total pension/postretirement plan costs to $137 million last year from $390 million a year earlier. In 2018, that could conceivably go to zero, even though the company is still underfunded by $9.6 billion.
The bottom line is that lower pension expense is helping Delta reduce its unit-cost growth -- but this may reflect Delta taking advantage of the intricacies of pension accounting more than any improvement in its underlying cost structure.
Despite the big improvement in its pension deficit last year, Delta still has plenty of work to do to reach fully funded status. Fortunately, rising interest rates should do some of that work.
As noted above, in 2017, Delta Air Lines reduced the discount rate used to calculate its pension obligations, adding about $1 billion to its pension liability. However, interest rates have risen significantly since the beginning of 2018. With inflation starting to accelerate, market watchers are increasingly expecting a sustained increase in interest rates going forward.
A 0.5 percentage-point increase in the discount rate would reduce Delta's pension liability by about $1.2 billion, according to the company. If long-term interest rates increase by that amount annually for the next three years, it would knock about $3.5 billion off Delta's pension liability. Delta is contributing about $500 million a year to its pension plan, which could be 90% or more funded by the end of 2020, depending on its actual investment returns.
The steep decline in Delta Air Lines' pension/postretirement expense since 2016 overstates the improvement in its funding position. Nevertheless, it's clear that Delta has made significant progress toward putting its once-ailing pension plan on a firm footing.
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Adam Levine-Weinbergowns shares of Delta Air Lines and General Electric. The Motley Fool is short shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || New Name, Same Great Story -- Booking Holdings Keeps Up Its Double Digit Growth: The online travel companyBooking Holdings(NASDAQ: BKNG),formerly known as Priceline Group, reported solid results for full-year 2017. The expectation was that growth would slow at the end of the year, but true to form, the company delivered numbers that beat the guidance it had provided shareholders and laid the foundation for another successful year ahead.
[{"Metric": "Revenue", "2017": "$12.68 billion", "2016": "$10.74 billion", "YOY % Change": "18%"}, {"Metric": "Gross Travel Bookings", "2017": "$81.2 billion", "2016": "$68.1 billion", "YOY % Change": "19%"}, {"Metric": "Earnings per Share", "2017": "$46.86", "2016": "$42.65", "YOY % Change": "10%"}, {"Metric": "Adjusted Earnings per Share", "2017": "$77.03", "2016": "$65.63", "YOY % Change": "17%"}]
Chart by author. Data source: Booking Holdings quarterly earnings. YOY = year over year.
Though management had called for year-over-year gross travel bookings growth of 9.5% to 14.5% in thefinal quarter of the year, the actual result was 19%. That capped another year of double-digit top and bottom line expansion for the online travel sites, an impressive feat considering the company's near $100 billion market cap.
A loss of $11.41 per share was recorded in the fourth quarter due to a one-time tax expense of $1.3 billion. It was primarily attributable to a $1.6 billion charge related to the repatriation of international earnings under the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in December. Excluding the charge, earnings increased 19% in the quarter and increased 17% for the full year.
The outlook for the start of 2018 was positive, too. Gross travel bookings, the total value of travel booked through the company's sites, is expected to increase 14.5% to 18.5% compared with last year. That should translate to 17.5% to 21.5% revenue growth.
Booking Holdings may have recently changed its name, but it's up to the same industry-leading growth strategy it has executed on in the last decade. Its main moneymaker, Booking.com, ended the year with 1.6 million available properties, a near 40% increase over 2016. Included in that number are nearly 1.2 million "alternative accommodations" that include homes, apartments, and other unique properties.
Image source: Getty Images.
Booking.com recently split its property categories into two distinct classifications: traditional accommodations like hotels, motels, and resorts and unique vacation rentals. That change should help travelers narrow their search if they want a unique experience and makes the site more in-line with competitors likeAirbnb-- the fast-growing start-up known for helping small property owners get their vacation rentals listed.
Continuing to add new vacation properties and expanding advertising around that service has been the driving force for Booking Holdings the last few years. Management said it will aggressively expand both this year, especially focusing on making property owners online management and payment collection easier. Added to the mix, though, will be a new type of travel accommodation. CEO Glenn Fogel had this to say:
We're experimenting with providing in-destination experiences and currently have tests running in multiple markets. Whether you want to visit a museum or book a tour, booking.com wants its mobile app to eventually become the center of your entire travel experience. It is extremely early days for us, but we are excited about the long-term potential in this area.
That new area of focus is in keeping with the parent company's name change. Booking wants to become a holistic hub for travel and exploration rather than just a simple travel merchant. That is a wise move, as studies show that younger generations view life experiences as an increasingly more important part of their lives.
Though Booking Holdings is already a large company, it's showing no signs of slowing down. With a pipeline of growth in alternative rental properties still going strong and a new initiative in vacation experiences booking just beginning, the stock looks like it has plenty of room to keep going higher.
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Nicholas Rossolilloowns shares of Booking Holdings. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Booking Holdings Inc. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || New Name, Same Great Story -- Booking Holdings Keeps Up Its Double Digit Growth: The online travel company Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) , formerly known as Priceline Group , reported solid results for full-year 2017. The expectation was that growth would slow at the end of the year, but true to form, the company delivered numbers that beat the guidance it had provided shareholders and laid the foundation for another successful year ahead. 2017 in review Metric 2017 2016 YOY % Change Revenue $12.68 billion $10.74 billion 18% Gross Travel Bookings $81.2 billion $68.1 billion 19% Earnings per Share $46.86 $42.65 10% Adjusted Earnings per Share $77.03 $65.63 17% Chart by author. Data source: Booking Holdings quarterly earnings. YOY = year over year. Though management had called for year-over-year gross travel bookings growth of 9.5% to 14.5% in the final quarter of the year , the actual result was 19%. That capped another year of double-digit top and bottom line expansion for the online travel sites, an impressive feat considering the company's near $100 billion market cap. A loss of $11.41 per share was recorded in the fourth quarter due to a one-time tax expense of $1.3 billion. It was primarily attributable to a $1.6 billion charge related to the repatriation of international earnings under the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in December. Excluding the charge, earnings increased 19% in the quarter and increased 17% for the full year. The outlook for the start of 2018 was positive, too. Gross travel bookings, the total value of travel booked through the company's sites, is expected to increase 14.5% to 18.5% compared with last year. That should translate to 17.5% to 21.5% revenue growth. What's next for Booking Holdings? Booking Holdings may have recently changed its name, but it's up to the same industry-leading growth strategy it has executed on in the last decade. Its main moneymaker, Booking.com, ended the year with 1.6 million available properties, a near 40% increase over 2016. Included in that number are nearly 1.2 million "alternative accommodations" that include homes, apartments, and other unique properties. Story continues A woman sitting in a beach chair on a white sand beach overlooking a tropical ocean. A child is in the background playing in the water. Image source: Getty Images. Booking.com recently split its property categories into two distinct classifications: traditional accommodations like hotels, motels, and resorts and unique vacation rentals. That change should help travelers narrow their search if they want a unique experience and makes the site more in-line with competitors like Airbnb -- the fast-growing start-up known for helping small property owners get their vacation rentals listed. Continuing to add new vacation properties and expanding advertising around that service has been the driving force for Booking Holdings the last few years. Management said it will aggressively expand both this year, especially focusing on making property owners online management and payment collection easier. Added to the mix, though, will be a new type of travel accommodation. CEO Glenn Fogel had this to say: We're experimenting with providing in-destination experiences and currently have tests running in multiple markets. Whether you want to visit a museum or book a tour, booking.com wants its mobile app to eventually become the center of your entire travel experience. It is extremely early days for us, but we are excited about the long-term potential in this area. That new area of focus is in keeping with the parent company's name change. Booking wants to become a holistic hub for travel and exploration rather than just a simple travel merchant. That is a wise move, as studies show that younger generations view life experiences as an increasingly more important part of their lives. Though Booking Holdings is already a large company, it's showing no signs of slowing down. With a pipeline of growth in alternative rental properties still going strong and a new initiative in vacation experiences booking just beginning, the stock looks like it has plenty of room to keep going higher. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Nicholas Rossolillo owns shares of Booking Holdings. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Booking Holdings Inc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Polaris Industries Heads to the Big Screen to Woo Younger Crowd: Polaris Industries (NYSE: PII) is going Hollywood. The powersports vehicle manufacturer signed on as a "Premier Partner" for a new racing and action-adventure film in development called Soul Drift that will showcase several Polaris brands. Because the movie is a "coming of age" film, Polaris is hoping the younger audience demographic will want to buy its vehicles, several of which are scheduled to be featured. Polaris Industries Slingshot 3-wheel motorcycle racing down a tree-lined road Image source: Polaris Industries. Wooing and wowing the kids It's easy to see any number of Polaris' brands making their way onto the big screen. Since the main character is described as having grown up "racing on the rural roads of the Midwest," Polaris' off-road vehicles like its RZR side-by-side would certainly fit. And as the character progresses to "the high octane tracks of drift racing," slipping into a Slingshot three-wheeler would add a different element to the racing scene. And maybe in his down time, the lead just kicks back by ripping around town on an Indian Scout. The right movie could help juice sales a bit, though investors shouldn't count on a big surge following the film's eventual release. I'm not sure Nissan or Mazda enjoyed any real bounce from their cars' appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift . Yet done correctly, it could lend a coolness factor to Polaris vehicles that might pique the interest of some. Change is needed Certainly on the motorcycle side, Polaris and the industry need to begin attracting a younger demographic. As the performance of Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) has made abundantly clear, if more young riders aren't brought into the sport, sales will continue to decline. Last quarter, Harley's U.S. sales plunged 11%, and it's planning on shipping even fewer bikes to dealers this year than it did in 2017, which itself was down from the year before. Harley also wants to bring in new riders, aiming for 2 million over the next 10 years, but right now its big plan seems to be an electric motorcycle. Story continues Polaris, however, fared significantly better than its rival did, seeing retail sales for its Indian Motorcycle brand rising 17% for the quarter while industry sales for heavyweight bikes 900 cubic centimeters and larger fell by high-single-digit rates. Even the Slingshot saw renewed demand, with sales significantly elevated from the year-ago period. It's in the off-road vehicle market where the powersports vehicle maker needs more help. Polaris reported that side-by-side sales fell by low-single-digit percentage rates with ATV sales flat, even as industrywide sales were up by low-single-digit percentages. It's possible this is a lingering effect of the recurring product recalls that Polaris' RZR and off-road vehicles have suffered over the past two years. Museum display of Billy Bike and Captain America from the movie Easy Rider Image source: Harley-Davidson. A star turn In the scheme of trying to help boost sales, appearing in a movie can't hurt, especially if the product is going to receive significant screen time. The terms of Polaris Industries' involvement in this movie were not released, but as a different strategy for the powersports vehicle maker to reach out to a more youthful demographic it could be useful. In announcing the participation of Polaris in the feature film, the press release noted, "This paradigm will be on screen and off, tapping into social media, real world activations, marketing and merchandising opportunities." It sounds like this won't simply be analogous to the lead actor drinking a can of Coke with the label facing the camera. This product placement appears to be much more pervasive. There will apparently be real-time events that have the potential to generate social media traction to reach those younger viewers Polaris hopes will eventually become buyers. There might not be action figures included in Happy Meals like you'd find with the latest Star Wars release, but the promise of merchandising opportunities suggests there will be plenty of swag going around to raise consumer consciousness of the film's appeal. Who knows -- maybe Soul Drift can do for Polaris what Easy Rider did for Harley-Davidson and motorcycles back in 1969. Sales for choppers reportedly soared following the appearance of the Captain America bike in 1969, but then again, Harleys have regularly been featured in movies, from the Terminator franchise to more recent blockbusters like Avengers 2: Age of Ultron , and as we know, it hasn't moved the needle on sales. It's a slightly different tactic that Polaris is pursuing here, as the attempt is a direct appeal to a younger crowd. It's one worth trying, but investors shouldn't expect sales to move appreciably higher as a result. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Polaris Industries. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Polaris Industries Heads to the Big Screen to Woo Younger Crowd: Polaris Industries(NYSE: PII)is going Hollywood. The powersports vehicle manufacturer signed on as a "Premier Partner" for a new racing and action-adventure film in development calledSoul Driftthat will showcase several Polaris brands.
Because the movie is a "coming of age" film, Polaris is hoping the younger audience demographic will want to buy its vehicles, several of which are scheduled to be featured.
Image source: Polaris Industries.
It's easy to see any number of Polaris' brands making their way onto the big screen. Since the main character is described as having grown up "racing on the rural roads of the Midwest," Polaris' off-road vehicles like its RZR side-by-side would certainly fit. And as the character progresses to "the high octane tracks of drift racing," slipping into a Slingshot three-wheeler would add a different element to the racing scene. And maybe in his down time, the lead just kicks back by ripping around town on an Indian Scout.
The right movie could help juice sales a bit, though investors shouldn't count on a big surge following the film's eventual release. I'm not sureNissanor Mazda enjoyed any real bounce from their cars' appearance inThe Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Yet done correctly, it could lend a coolness factor to Polaris vehicles that might pique the interest of some.
Certainly on the motorcycle side, Polaris and the industry need to begin attracting a younger demographic. As the performance ofHarley-Davidson(NYSE: HOG)has made abundantly clear, if more young riders aren't brought into the sport, sales will continue to decline.
Last quarter, Harley'sU.S. sales plunged11%, and it's planning on shipping even fewer bikes to dealers this year than it did in 2017, which itself was down from the year before. Harley also wants to bring in new riders, aiming for 2 million over the next 10 years, but right now its big plan seems to be an electric motorcycle.
Polaris, however, fared significantly better than its rival did, seeing retail sales for its Indian Motorcycle brand rising 17% for the quarter while industry sales for heavyweight bikes 900 cubic centimeters and larger fell by high-single-digit rates. Even the Slingshot saw renewed demand, with sales significantly elevated from the year-ago period.
It's in the off-road vehicle market where the powersports vehicle maker needs more help. Polaris reported that side-by-side sales fell by low-single-digit percentage rates with ATV sales flat, even as industrywide sales were up by low-single-digit percentages. It's possible this is a lingering effect of therecurring product recallsthat Polaris' RZR and off-road vehicles have suffered over the past two years.
Image source: Harley-Davidson.
In the scheme of trying to help boost sales, appearing in a movie can't hurt, especially if the product is going to receive significant screen time. The terms of Polaris Industries' involvement in this movie were not released, but as a different strategy for the powersports vehicle maker to reach out to a more youthful demographic it could be useful.
In announcing the participation of Polaris in the feature film, the press release noted, "This paradigm will be on screen and off, tapping into social media, real world activations, marketing and merchandising opportunities." It sounds like this won't simply be analogous to the lead actor drinking a can of Coke with the label facing the camera.
This product placement appears to be much more pervasive. There will apparently be real-time events that have the potential to generate social media traction to reach those younger viewers Polaris hopes will eventually become buyers. There might not be action figures included in Happy Meals like you'd find with the latestStar Warsrelease, but the promise of merchandising opportunities suggests there will be plenty of swag going around to raise consumer consciousness of the film's appeal.
Who knows -- maybeSoul Driftcan do for Polaris whatEasy Riderdid for Harley-Davidson and motorcycles back in 1969. Sales for choppers reportedly soared following the appearance of the Captain America bike in 1969, but then again, Harleys have regularly been featured in movies, from theTerminatorfranchise to more recent blockbusters likeAvengers 2: Age of Ultron, and as we know, it hasn't moved the needle on sales.
It's a slightly different tactic that Polaris is pursuing here, as the attempt is a direct appeal to a younger crowd. It's one worth trying, but investors shouldn't expect sales to move appreciably higher as a result.
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Rich Dupreyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Polaris Industries. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Better Stock: Square, Inc. (SQ) vs. Mastercard (MA): Square (NYSE: SQ) estimates that by 2025, worldwide credit and debit card payment volume will reach $45 trillion annually . With the world becoming more digital every day -- and with 85% of global transactions still being made in cash -- this colossal market should only continue to grow for decades. Square and Mastercard (NYSE: MA) are two businesses that are poised to profit handsomely from this megatrend. But which is the better buy today? A person holding a dollar bill in one hand and a credit card in another. As the world shifts away from cash and toward digital transactions, Mastercard and Square stand to benefit. Image source: Getty Images. Financial fortitude Let's take a look at some key metrics to see how these payment leaders stack up in regards to financial strength. Revenue $2.21 billion $12.50 billion Operating income ($54.21 million) $6.62 billion Net income ($62.81 million) $3.92 billion Operating cash flow $127.71 million $5.56 billion Free cash flow $101.61 million $5.13 billion Cash and investments $866.05 million $7.78 billion Debt $358.57 million $5.42 billion Data source: Morningstar Company Filings. Mastercard is a financial titan, with profit and cash flow that dwarf those of Square. And while Square is on solid financial footing with more than $500 million in net cash on its balance sheet, Mastercard's net cash currently checks in at more than $2.3 billion. Thus, this matchup is rather one-sided in regards to financial fortitude, with Mastercard the clear leader. Advantage: Mastercard Growth Mastercard may be the more financially sound business at this point in time, but Square is growing much faster. SQ Revenue (TTM) Chart SQ Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts Wall Street expects Square to grow its revenue by more than 33% in 2018 and 28% in 2019, while Mastercard's sales are anticipated to rise by about 16% and 12% during that same time. Moreover, analysts estimate that Square will increase its earnings per share at an incredible 87% annually over the next five years. Mastercard, meanwhile, is expected to grow its EPS by about 20% annually over the next half-decade. Story continues With its recent past -- and, more importantly, expected future -- growth exceeding that of its larger rival, Square has the edge here. Advantage: Square Valuation No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's now check out some key value metrics for Square and MasterCard, including price-to-sales, price-to-earnings (P/E), and price-to-earnings-to-growth ( PEG ) ratios. P/S 7.93 14.79 Trailing P/E N/A 48.17 Forward P/E 60.23 24.94 PEG 1.20 1.44 Data source: Yahoo! Finance. Mastercard's stock is more expensive on a price-to-sales basis, which is to be expected since it's the far more profitable business. On a forward P/E basis, however, Square is the much more expensive stock. But what I find most interesting is that Square's PEG ratio -- which factors in its significantly higher expected EPS growth rate -- is considerably lower than that of Mastercard. And so, rather surprisingly, I'm going to give Square the edge in terms of current valuation. Advantage: Square The better buy is... Mastercard and Square are both great options if you're looking for a way to profit from the surging growth of electronic payments. But with its stronger growth prospects and more attractively valued stock, Square is the better buy today. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Mastercard. The Motley Fool owns shares of Square. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Better Stock: Square, Inc. (SQ) vs. Mastercard (MA): Square(NYSE: SQ)estimates that by 2025, worldwide credit and debit card payment volume will reach$45trillionannually. With the world becoming more digital every day -- and with 85% of global transactions still being made in cash -- this colossal market should only continue to grow for decades.
Square andMastercard(NYSE: MA)are two businesses that are poised to profit handsomely from this megatrend. But which is the better buy today?
As the world shifts away from cash and toward digital transactions, Mastercard and Square stand to benefit. Image source: Getty Images.
Let's take a look at some key metrics to see how these payment leaders stack up in regards to financial strength.
[{"Revenue": "Operating income", "$2.21 billion": "($54.21 million)", "$12.50 billion": "$6.62 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Net income", "$2.21 billion": "($62.81 million)", "$12.50 billion": "$3.92 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Operating cash flow", "$2.21 billion": "$127.71 million", "$12.50 billion": "$5.56 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Free cash flow", "$2.21 billion": "$101.61 million", "$12.50 billion": "$5.13 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Cash and investments", "$2.21 billion": "$866.05 million", "$12.50 billion": "$7.78 billion"}, {"Revenue": "Debt", "$2.21 billion": "$358.57 million", "$12.50 billion": "$5.42 billion"}]
Data source: Morningstar Company Filings.
Mastercard is a financial titan, with profit and cash flow that dwarf those of Square. And while Square is on solid financial footing with more than $500 million in net cash on its balance sheet, Mastercard's net cash currently checks in at more than $2.3 billion. Thus, this matchup is rather one-sided in regards to financial fortitude, with Mastercard the clear leader.
Advantage: Mastercard
Mastercard may be the more financially sound business at this point in time, but Square is growing much faster.
SQ Revenue (TTM)data byYCharts
Wall Street expects Square to grow its revenue by more than 33% in 2018 and 28% in 2019, while Mastercard's sales are anticipated to rise by about 16% and 12% during that same time. Moreover, analysts estimate that Square will increase its earnings per share at an incredible 87% annually over the next five years. Mastercard, meanwhile, is expected to grow its EPS by about 20% annually over the next half-decade.
With its recent past -- and, more importantly, expected future -- growth exceeding that of its larger rival, Square has the edge here.
Advantage: Square
No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's now check out some key value metrics for Square and MasterCard, including price-to-sales, price-to-earnings (P/E), and price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratios.
[{"P/S": "Trailing P/E", "7.93": "N/A", "14.79": "48.17"}, {"P/S": "Forward P/E", "7.93": "60.23", "14.79": "24.94"}, {"P/S": "PEG", "7.93": "1.20", "14.79": "1.44"}]
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Mastercard's stock is more expensive on a price-to-sales basis, which is to be expected since it's the far more profitable business. On a forward P/E basis, however, Square is the much more expensive stock. But what I find most interesting is that Square's PEG ratio -- which factors in its significantly higher expected EPS growth rate -- is considerably lower than that of Mastercard. And so, rather surprisingly, I'm going to give Square the edge in terms of current valuation.
Advantage: Square
Mastercard and Square are both great options if you're looking for a way to profit from the surging growth of electronic payments. But with its stronger growth prospects and more attractively valued stock, Square is the better buy today.
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Joe Tenebrusohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Mastercard. The Motley Fool owns shares of Square. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Shares of Barrick Gold Plunged 20% in February: What happened Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) dropped 20% last month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence . The stock's slide stands in stark contrast to the price of gold's 2.9% rise through the month -- a noteworthy observation, since the price movements of gold stocks often follow movements in the price of gold. Although the company reported fiscal 2017 earnings per share of $1.23 -- a 120% increase over the $0.56 it reported in fiscal 2016 -- it couldn't outshine the pockmarks in the earnings report and fiscal 2018 guidance. Let's dig in deeper to find the sources of investors' disappointment. Gold ore on a stone floor. Image source: Getty Images. So what Whereas the company, in fiscal 2016, exceeded gold production guidance, it failed to achieve the same feat in fiscal 2017. Reporting gold production of 5.32 million ounces in fiscal 2017, Barrick came up short of the forecast, 5.6 million ounces to 5.9 million ounces, which it had forecast in February 2017. Management cited its sale of a 50% stake in the Veladero mine and Tanzania's concentrate export ban as the primary causes of the lackluster performance. Looking ahead, investors found more cause for concern. Initially, management forecast fiscal 2018 gold production between 4.8 million ounces and 5.3 million ounces; however, citing lower production at its operations in Nevada, Pueblo Viejo, and Veladero, management now expects gold production of 4.5 million to 5 million ounces. In addition to digging the yellow stuff out of the ground, the company's challenges in controlling costs disappointed investors. For fiscal 2017, Barrick reported that all-in sustaining costs (AISC) rose approximately 3% year over year to $750 per gold ounce. Although this is well within the guidance of $720 to $770 per gold ounce issued a year ago, the future seems a lot less lustrous. Management estimates that average annual AISC for fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2022 will be $750 to $875 per ounce. Besides lower gold production at the previously mentioned mines, management credits the increased processing of higher-cost inventory and higher costs at Acacia as reasons for the expected rise in AISC. Story continues Now what The stock's drop in February, presumably, would have been more precipitous had it not been for some bright spots in the earnings report. The company, for example, generated $2.07 billion in operating cash flow and lowered its total debt to $6.4 billion -- a 19% reduction from the $7.91 billion on its balance sheet at the end of fiscal 2016. Although the earnings report was mixed, Barrick still remains one of the more compelling opportunities for investors interested in gold-mining stocks. Gold production and AISC are merely two aspects of the company's business. Management's commitment to shoring up its balance sheet, for example, represents a green flag. The Street agrees. Illustrating its confidence in the company's future, Moody's recently upgraded Barrick's senior unsecured ratings from Baa3 to Baa2 with a stable outlook. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Scott Levine has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Moody's. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Shares of Barrick Gold Plunged 20% in February: Barrick Gold(NYSE: ABX)dropped 20% last month, according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence. The stock's slide stands in stark contrast to the price of gold's 2.9% rise through the month -- a noteworthy observation, since the price movements of gold stocks often follow movements in the price of gold.
Although the company reported fiscal 2017 earnings per share of $1.23 -- a 120% increase over the $0.56 it reported in fiscal 2016 -- it couldn't outshine the pockmarks in the earnings report and fiscal 2018 guidance. Let's dig in deeper to find the sources of investors' disappointment.
Image source: Getty Images.
Whereas the company, in fiscal 2016, exceeded gold production guidance, it failed to achieve the same feat in fiscal 2017. Reporting gold production of 5.32 million ounces in fiscal 2017, Barrick came up short of the forecast, 5.6 million ounces to 5.9 million ounces, which it had forecast in February 2017. Management cited its sale of a 50% stake in the Veladero mine and Tanzania's concentrate export ban as the primary causes of the lackluster performance.
Looking ahead, investors found more cause for concern. Initially, management forecast fiscal 2018 gold production between 4.8 million ounces and 5.3 million ounces; however, citing lower production at its operations in Nevada, Pueblo Viejo, and Veladero, management now expects gold production of 4.5 million to 5 million ounces.
In addition to digging the yellow stuff out of the ground, the company's challenges in controlling costs disappointed investors. For fiscal 2017, Barrick reported that all-in sustaining costs (AISC) rose approximately 3% year over year to $750 per gold ounce. Although this is well within the guidance of $720 to $770 per gold ounce issued a year ago, the future seems a lot less lustrous. Management estimates that average annual AISC for fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2022 will be $750 to $875 per ounce. Besides lower gold production at the previously mentioned mines, management credits the increased processing of higher-cost inventory and higher costs at Acacia as reasons for the expected rise in AISC.
The stock's drop in February, presumably, would have been more precipitous had it not been for some bright spots in the earnings report. The company, for example, generated $2.07 billion in operating cash flow and lowered its total debt to $6.4 billion -- a 19% reduction from the $7.91 billion on its balance sheet at the end of fiscal 2016.
Although the earnings report was mixed, Barrick still remains one of the morecompelling opportunitiesfor investors interested in gold-mining stocks. Gold production and AISC are merely two aspects of the company's business. Management's commitment to shoring up its balance sheet, for example, represents a green flag. The Street agrees. Illustrating its confidence in the company's future,Moody'srecently upgraded Barrick's senior unsecured ratings from Baa3 to Baa2 with a stable outlook.
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Scott Levinehas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Moody's. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Will Target Disappoint Investors Next Week?: The holiday selling period is a critical one for Target (NYSE: TGT) , and so investors are keenly interested in what the retailer might say about its operating momentum when it releases fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, March 6. Let's take a closer look at what shareholders can expect from the report, especially in light of the recent disappointing holiday growth figures that rival Walmart (NYSE: WMT) recently posted. Two women shopping for apparel. Image source: Getty Images. Sales gains Target's growth pace has benefited from a mixture of two positive trends lately. Customer traffic, for one, inched higher by about 1% over the first three quarters of 2017. There are good reasons to expect a better result for the holiday season, too, since Walmart booked a 1.6% traffic increase in the period. Target in early January also said that it enjoyed "strong traffic growth" over the peak shopping months, and we'll find out on Tuesday where that boost puts the company in its full-year traffic metric following the 0.8% decrease it booked in 2016. Booming digital sales are the second big driver behind Target's modest recovery. In fact, the e-commerce sales channel contributed 0.9 percentage points toward overall comparable-store sales in the past nine months. That increase more than offset a slight sales drop at its stores to keep comps in modestly positive territory for the year. Walmart's e-commerce growth slowed sharply during the period, posting a 23% increase compared to the prior quarter's 54% jump. Investors aren't expecting a similar situation to impact Target's business, though. Digital sales should rise by over 20% to mark the retailer's fourth consecutive year of 25%-plus growth. Profitability challenges A key challenge is generating sufficient profits from these e-commerce sales while competing with rivals fighting for market share by slashing prices and offering free, quick delivery. Again, Walmart's recent earnings report suggests investors shouldn't expect robust profitability from Target over the holiday season. The retailing titan's gross margin ticked down in the period as a result of cutting prices, as well as the sales mix shifting toward lower-margin e-commerce sales. Story continues Two women share a secret while shopping. Image source: Getty Images. Target faced similar struggles in the third quarter and CEO Brian Cornell blamed "pressure from digital fulfilment costs" for reducing profitability. Executives might cite the same challenge as the reason behind lower gross margin over the holidays. Outlook for 2018 The reduced profitability is paying important dividends, though. Target's comps for the full year are likely to reach just above 1% to mark a modest rebound over the prior year's 1% dip. Yet investors will be even more interested in the retailer's outlook for 2018. Walmart's forecast calls for comps to rise by at least 2% in the core U.S. segment, or growth that's on par with the 2.1% increase it posted over the prior 12 months. Target said in January that it was aiming for a "low single-digit" comps boost for the year, but we'll find out this week whether that projected rate implies another year of accelerating growth -- or a return to the essentially flat sales the retailer achieved in 2016 and 2014. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Demitrios Kalogeropoulos has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Will Target Disappoint Investors Next Week?: The holiday selling period is a critical one forTarget(NYSE: TGT), and so investors are keenly interested in what the retailer might say about its operating momentum when it releases fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, March 6.
Let's take a closer look at what shareholders can expect from the report, especially in light of the recentdisappointing holiday growth figuresthat rivalWalmart(NYSE: WMT)recently posted.
Image source: Getty Images.
Target's growth pace has benefited from a mixture of two positive trends lately. Customer traffic, for one, inched higher by about 1% over the first three quarters of 2017. There are good reasons to expect a better result for the holiday season, too, since Walmart booked a 1.6% traffic increase in the period.
Target in early January alsosaid that it enjoyed"strong traffic growth" over the peak shopping months, and we'll find out on Tuesday where that boost puts the company in its full-year traffic metric following the 0.8% decrease it booked in 2016.
Booming digital sales are the second big driver behind Target's modest recovery. In fact, the e-commerce sales channel contributed 0.9 percentage points toward overall comparable-store sales in the past nine months. That increase more than offset a slight sales drop at its stores to keep comps in modestly positive territory for the year.
Walmart's e-commerce growth slowed sharply during the period, posting a 23% increase compared to the prior quarter's 54% jump. Investors aren't expecting a similar situation to impact Target's business, though. Digital sales should rise by over 20% to mark the retailer's fourth consecutive year of 25%-plus growth.
A key challenge is generating sufficient profits from these e-commerce sales while competing with rivals fighting for market share by slashing prices and offering free, quick delivery. Again, Walmart's recent earnings report suggests investors shouldn't expect robust profitability from Target over the holiday season. The retailing titan's gross margin ticked down in the period as a result of cutting prices, as well as the sales mix shifting toward lower-margin e-commerce sales.
Image source: Getty Images.
Target faced similar struggles in the third quarter and CEO Brian Cornell blamed "pressure from digital fulfilment costs" for reducing profitability. Executives might cite the same challenge as the reason behind lower gross margin over the holidays.
The reduced profitability is paying important dividends, though. Target's comps for the full year are likely to reach just above 1% to mark a modest rebound over the prior year's 1% dip.
Yet investors will be even more interested in the retailer's outlook for 2018. Walmart's forecast calls for comps to rise by at least 2% in the core U.S. segment, or growth that's on par with the 2.1% increase it posted over the prior 12 months.
Target said in January that it was aiming for a "low single-digit" comps boost for the year, but we'll find out this week whether that projected rate implies another year of accelerating growth -- or a return to the essentially flat sales the retailer achieved in 2016 and 2014.
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Demitrios Kalogeropouloshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
[Social Media Buzz]
#Telmi Bitcoin und Euro: 0.00010 BTC = 0.91 EUR 1.00 EUR = 0.00011 BTC Konverter http://dlvr.it/QJf3xv || I guess word leaked out that #Coinbase is adding $XRP on Tuesday. #Ripple price is flying right now. Get in now before $3.00 hits this week (if added). #Crypto #Bitcoin || 1 DOGE Price: 0.00000047 BTC #doge #dogecoin 2018-03-04 00:33 pic.twitter.com/ogivnGiwkX || 03/04 20:00現在(Zaif調べ)
#Bitcoin : 1,185,390円↑0%
#NEM #XEM : 37円↑2.78%
#Monacoin : 577円↑0%
#Ethereum : 90,005円↑0%
#Zaif : 1円↑0% ||...
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11573.30, 10779.90, 9965.57, 9395.01, 9337.55, 8866.00, 9578.63, 9205.12, 9194.85, 8269.81
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 7135.99, 7472.59, 7406.52, 7494.17, 7541.45, 7643.45, 7720.25, 7514.47, 7633.76, 7653.98, 7678.24, 7624.92, 7531.98, 6786.02, 6906.92, 6582.36, 6349.90, 6675.35, 6456.58, 6550.16, 6499.27, 6734.82, 6769.94, 6776.55, 6729.74, 6083.69, 6162.48, 6173.23, 6249.18, 6093.67, 6157.13, 5903.44, 6218.30, 6404.00, 6385.82, 6614.18, 6529.59, 6597.55, 6639.14, 6673.50, 6856.93, 6773.88, 6741.75, 6329.95, 6394.71, 6228.81, 6238.05, 6276.12, 6359.64, 6741.75, 7321.04, 7370.78, 7466.86, 7354.13, 7419.29, 7418.49, 7711.11, 8424.27, 8181.39, 7951.58, 8165.01, 8192.15, 8218.46, 8180.48, 7780.44, 7624.91, 7567.15, 7434.39, 7032.85, 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71, 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76, 6506.07, 6308.53, 6488.76, 6376.71, 6534.88, 6719.96, 6763.19.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-08-25]
Volume: 3312600000, RSI (14-day): 51.83, 50-day EMA: 6843.83, 200-day EMA: 7637.59
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
‘Vicious’ Crypto Fraudster Fined $1.1 Million, Slapped with Lifetime Trading Ban: bitcoin A cryptocurrency trading firm and its principal have been fined as well as banned from any future trading in digital assets in a case filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In the landmark case targeting Cabbage Tech aka Coin Drop Markets and the firm’s principal, Patrick K. McDonnell, the New York Eastern District Court on Wednesday sided with the CFTC, who had accused the defendants of defrauding clients. Initially reported by Law 360, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that Cabbage Tech and McDonnell flouted the Commodity Exchange Act by engaging in “egregious intentional violations” of federal regulations and law. Over $1.1 Million in Penalties and Compensation Besides a permanent injunction being slapped on the defendants, the defendants will also be required to pay a fine of approximately $1,161,716 – $871,287 in penalties and $290,429 in restitution. According to Judge Weinstein, the evidence that was presented before the court proved that Cabbage Tech and McDonnell engaged in a fraudulent scheme last year between January and July. Among the revelations included the fact that while McDonnell gave the impression that Cabbage Tech was a successful firm with several employees and offices, it was, in fact, a one-man operation fully-owned and run by the principal from a home basement in Staten Island, New York . The scheme came to an end last year in June when McDonnell claimed that Coin Drop Markets had been hacked before posting a message on the firm’s website indicating that, as a result of the attack, it would be suspending its services. However, the court found that no hacking took place and it was the defendant who shut down the site as well as other digital properties before cutting off communication with clients. Preying on ‘Bitcoin Fever’ As CCN reported earlier in the year, the CFTC brought the case against Cabbage Tech in January, alleging that the defendants had promised to offer trading advice to customers only to end up stealing from them. Story continues “As alleged, the Defendants here preyed on customers interested in Bitcoin and Litecoin, promising them the opportunity to get the inside scoop on the next new thing and to benefit from the trading acumen of a supposed expert,” the Director of Enforcement at the CFTC, James McDonald, said at the time. “In reality, as alleged, customers only bought into the Defendants’ fraudulent scheme.” During the litigation period, McDonnell appeared pr o se (on his own behalf) since he claimed he couldn’t afford a lawyer. This was despite attempts by the court to impress upon him the need for counsel. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post ‘Vicious’ Crypto Fraudster Fined $1.1 Million, Slapped with Lifetime Trading Ban appeared first on CCN . || ‘Vicious’ Crypto Fraudster Fined $1.1 Million, Slapped with Lifetime Trading Ban: bitcoin A cryptocurrency trading firm and its principal have been fined as well as banned from any future trading in digital assets in a case filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In the landmark case targeting Cabbage Tech aka Coin Drop Markets and the firm’s principal, Patrick K. McDonnell, the New York Eastern District Court on Wednesday sided with the CFTC, who had accused the defendants of defrauding clients. Initially reported by Law 360, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that Cabbage Tech and McDonnell flouted the Commodity Exchange Act by engaging in “egregious intentional violations” of federal regulations and law. Over $1.1 Million in Penalties and Compensation Besides a permanent injunction being slapped on the defendants, the defendants will also be required to pay a fine of approximately $1,161,716 – $871,287 in penalties and $290,429 in restitution. According to Judge Weinstein, the evidence that was presented before the court proved that Cabbage Tech and McDonnell engaged in a fraudulent scheme last year between January and July. Among the revelations included the fact that while McDonnell gave the impression that Cabbage Tech was a successful firm with several employees and offices, it was, in fact, a one-man operation fully-owned and run by the principal from a home basement in Staten Island, New York . The scheme came to an end last year in June when McDonnell claimed that Coin Drop Markets had been hacked before posting a message on the firm’s website indicating that, as a result of the attack, it would be suspending its services. However, the court found that no hacking took place and it was the defendant who shut down the site as well as other digital properties before cutting off communication with clients. Preying on ‘Bitcoin Fever’ As CCN reported earlier in the year, the CFTC brought the case against Cabbage Tech in January, alleging that the defendants had promised to offer trading advice to customers only to end up stealing from them. Story continues “As alleged, the Defendants here preyed on customers interested in Bitcoin and Litecoin, promising them the opportunity to get the inside scoop on the next new thing and to benefit from the trading acumen of a supposed expert,” the Director of Enforcement at the CFTC, James McDonald, said at the time. “In reality, as alleged, customers only bought into the Defendants’ fraudulent scheme.” During the litigation period, McDonnell appeared pr o se (on his own behalf) since he claimed he couldn’t afford a lawyer. This was despite attempts by the court to impress upon him the need for counsel. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post ‘Vicious’ Crypto Fraudster Fined $1.1 Million, Slapped with Lifetime Trading Ban appeared first on CCN . || China's Alibaba, Tencent Bar Cryptocurrency Transactions on WeChat Pay, AliPay: In a move that will likely make it even harder for cryptocurrency aficionados to trade Bitcoin and its ilk in China, the mobile payments titans of the country have barred crypto-related transactions. WeChat Pay and Ant Financials Alipay are monitoring their platforms for transactions related to cryptocurrencies, with WeChat saying Friday that it would prohibit users from sending funds related to such digital assets on its social media platform. Its a notable move, Chinese citizen have rapidly adopted the technology . Over $12 trillion changed hands via mobile in the first 10 months of 2017 alone in the Middle Kingdom. At the same time, Ant Financial, backed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, revealed in a statement that it has been restricting accounts associated with cryptocurrency transactions on its payments platforms for a while now. Alipay is said to have about 520 million users, while WeChat has about 1 billion monthly active users. Alipay has always adhered to the principle of not providing services to virtual currency transactions, an Ant Financial spokesperson said in a statement. We will continue to closely monitor over-the-counter trading activities on a daily basis. Once we find any suspicious crypto-related transactions, we will take appropriate measures immediately, including but not limited to: suspension of fund transfer functionality of any Alipay accounts used by companies for crypto-related transactions. That comes as the Chinese government has continued its crackdown on cryptocurrencies this year . Already, the country has banned domestic exchanges, initial coin offerings, and is now seeking to block foreign exchanges using the countrys Great Firewall, according to state media . But even with those restrictions, investors would still in theory be able to purchase cryptocurrency through over-the-counter methods. Though officials seem wary of that trading loophole. Earlier this week, Chinese authorities including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned citizens against fundraising scams that claimed to be developing a blockchain project. Officials also shuttered a large number of WeChat groups that discussed newer cryptocurrencies. || China's Alibaba, Tencent Bar Cryptocurrency Transactions on WeChat Pay, AliPay: In a move that will likely make it even harder for cryptocurrency aficionados to trade Bitcoin and its ilk in China, the mobile payments titans of the country have barred crypto-related transactions.
WeChat Pay and Ant Financial’s Alipay are monitoring their platforms for transactions related to cryptocurrencies, with WeChatsaying Fridaythat it would prohibit users from sending funds related to such digital assets on its social media platform. Its a notable move, Chinese citizen haverapidly adopted the technology. Over $12 trillion changed hands via mobile in the first 10 months of 2017 alone in the Middle Kingdom.
At the same time, Ant Financial, backed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, revealed in a statement that it has been restricting accounts associated with cryptocurrency transactions on its payments platforms for a while now. Alipay is said to have about 520 million users, while WeChat has about 1 billion monthly active users.
“Alipay has always adhered to the principle of not providing services to virtual currency transactions,” an Ant Financial spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to closely monitor over-the-counter trading activities on a daily basis. Once we find any suspicious crypto-related transactions, we will take appropriate measures immediately, including but not limited to: suspension of fund transfer functionality of any Alipay accounts used by companies for crypto-related transactions.”
That comes as the Chinese government has continued itscrackdown on cryptocurrencies this year. Already, the country has banned domestic exchanges, initial coin offerings, and is now seeking toblock foreign exchangesusing the country’s Great Firewall, according tostate media. But even with those restrictions, investors would still in theory be able to purchase cryptocurrency through over-the-counter methods. Though officials seem wary of that trading loophole.
Earlier this week, Chinese authorities including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned citizens against fundraising scams that claimed to be developing a blockchain project. Officials also shuttered a “large” number of WeChat groups that discussed newer cryptocurrencies. || The Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil War: Another attempt is being made at brokering a compromise before the Bitcoin Cash Civil War culminates in a permanent blockchain split, and it’s coming from what may initially seem like an unlikely source:Cobra, the pseudonymous co-owner of Bitcointalk and Bitcoin.org.
Earlier this year, Cobra — originally a critic ofBitcoin Cash— came out in support of BCH, though he continues to also support BTC while taking some controversial positions such as arguing for a change to the network’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm.
Now, he’s launching what he calls a “safe and reliable” full node Bitcoin Cash implementation in an attempt to prevent acivil warbetween BCH development teams Bitcoin ABC and nChain from causing a network split that permanently damages the cryptocurrency’s reputation.
Dubbed “Cobra Client,” the software adopts neither canonical transaction ordering nor any of opcode activations proposed byBitcoin ABCandnChain, which Cobra argues do not have enough consensus support to justify immediate activation.
What it does include, however, is replay protection, ensuring that users who run this instance of the BCH software will not be at risk ofreplay attacks— which occur when an attacker broadcasts the same transaction on multiple blockchain forks — if the network splits into two or more chains following the scheduled network hard fork in November, which increasingly seems like an inevitability.
According to Cobra, such a blockchain split would be a “disaster” for Bitcoin Cash and even a temporary fork would “cause lasting damage.”
He wrote:
“Such a consensus failure will be a disaster for all investors and users of Bitcoin Cash, but it is almost impossible to avoid at this point as all the developers and miners involved refuse to back down. Such a scenario will wipe out huge amounts of value from Bitcoin Cash, lead to total ridicule of the currency, and widespread loss of trust and faith. Such reputation damage is simply not worth it, all just so some developers and miners can avoid having their egos bruised around some mostly unimportant and non-urgent changes. Even a temporary fork will cause lasting damage.”
Cobra claims that, prior to announcing his client, he worked behind-the-scenes to secure support from a broad coalition of BCH stakeholders. This group, he says, includes at least a quarter of the Bitcoin Cash hashrate (nChain’s proposal also has explicit support from about one-fourth of the hashrate), as well as “a number of major businesses” including one “major cryptocurrency exchange” who has agreed to list the Cobra fork’s coins under the “BCH” ticker symbol. However, he has not yet disclosed the identities of these supporters, nor have they come forward.
This isn’t the first attempt to broker a compromise ahead of the fork. Bitcoin Unlimited, whose software client is used by approximately one-third of BCH node operators, has said that it will make all of the changes proposed by ABC and nChain available in its software and hasencouragedusers to switch to BU to signal their support for a compromise that will afford miners more control over which individual upgrades activate on the network.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postThe Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil Warappeared first onCCN. || The Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil War: Another attempt is being made at brokering a compromise before the Bitcoin Cash Civil War culminates in a permanent blockchain split, and it’s coming from what may initially seem like an unlikely source:Cobra, the pseudonymous co-owner of Bitcointalk and Bitcoin.org.
Earlier this year, Cobra — originally a critic ofBitcoin Cash— came out in support of BCH, though he continues to also support BTC while taking some controversial positions such as arguing for a change to the network’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm.
Now, he’s launching what he calls a “safe and reliable” full node Bitcoin Cash implementation in an attempt to prevent acivil warbetween BCH development teams Bitcoin ABC and nChain from causing a network split that permanently damages the cryptocurrency’s reputation.
Dubbed “Cobra Client,” the software adopts neither canonical transaction ordering nor any of opcode activations proposed byBitcoin ABCandnChain, which Cobra argues do not have enough consensus support to justify immediate activation.
What it does include, however, is replay protection, ensuring that users who run this instance of the BCH software will not be at risk ofreplay attacks— which occur when an attacker broadcasts the same transaction on multiple blockchain forks — if the network splits into two or more chains following the scheduled network hard fork in November, which increasingly seems like an inevitability.
According to Cobra, such a blockchain split would be a “disaster” for Bitcoin Cash and even a temporary fork would “cause lasting damage.”
He wrote:
“Such a consensus failure will be a disaster for all investors and users of Bitcoin Cash, but it is almost impossible to avoid at this point as all the developers and miners involved refuse to back down. Such a scenario will wipe out huge amounts of value from Bitcoin Cash, lead to total ridicule of the currency, and widespread loss of trust and faith. Such reputation damage is simply not worth it, all just so some developers and miners can avoid having their egos bruised around some mostly unimportant and non-urgent changes. Even a temporary fork will cause lasting damage.”
Cobra claims that, prior to announcing his client, he worked behind-the-scenes to secure support from a broad coalition of BCH stakeholders. This group, he says, includes at least a quarter of the Bitcoin Cash hashrate (nChain’s proposal also has explicit support from about one-fourth of the hashrate), as well as “a number of major businesses” including one “major cryptocurrency exchange” who has agreed to list the Cobra fork’s coins under the “BCH” ticker symbol. However, he has not yet disclosed the identities of these supporters, nor have they come forward.
This isn’t the first attempt to broker a compromise ahead of the fork. Bitcoin Unlimited, whose software client is used by approximately one-third of BCH node operators, has said that it will make all of the changes proposed by ABC and nChain available in its software and hasencouragedusers to switch to BU to signal their support for a compromise that will afford miners more control over which individual upgrades activate on the network.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postThe Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil Warappeared first onCCN. || The Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil War: bitcoin cash cobra client Another attempt is being made at brokering a compromise before the Bitcoin Cash Civil War culminates in a permanent blockchain split, and it’s coming from what may initially seem like an unlikely source: Cobra , the pseudonymous co-owner of Bitcointalk and Bitcoin.org. Earlier this year, Cobra — originally a critic of Bitcoin Cash — came out in support of BCH, though he continues to also support BTC while taking some controversial positions such as arguing for a change to the network’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. Now, he’s launching what he calls a “safe and reliable” full node Bitcoin Cash implementation in an attempt to prevent a civil war between BCH development teams Bitcoin ABC and nChain from causing a network split that permanently damages the cryptocurrency’s reputation. Dubbed “ Cobra Client ,” the software adopts neither canonical transaction ordering nor any of opcode activations proposed by Bitcoin ABC and nChain , which Cobra argues do not have enough consensus support to justify immediate activation. What it does include, however, is replay protection, ensuring that users who run this instance of the BCH software will not be at risk of replay attacks — which occur when an attacker broadcasts the same transaction on multiple blockchain forks — if the network splits into two or more chains following the scheduled network hard fork in November, which increasingly seems like an inevitability. bitcoin cash hashrate According to Cobra, such a blockchain split would be a “disaster” for Bitcoin Cash and even a temporary fork would “cause lasting damage.” He wrote: “Such a consensus failure will be a disaster for all investors and users of Bitcoin Cash, but it is almost impossible to avoid at this point as all the developers and miners involved refuse to back down. Such a scenario will wipe out huge amounts of value from Bitcoin Cash, lead to total ridicule of the currency, and widespread loss of trust and faith. Such reputation damage is simply not worth it, all just so some developers and miners can avoid having their egos bruised around some mostly unimportant and non-urgent changes. Even a temporary fork will cause lasting damage.” Cobra claims that, prior to announcing his client, he worked behind-the-scenes to secure support from a broad coalition of BCH stakeholders. This group, he says, includes at least a quarter of the Bitcoin Cash hashrate (nChain’s proposal also has explicit support from about one-fourth of the hashrate), as well as “a number of major businesses” including one “major cryptocurrency exchange” who has agreed to list the Cobra fork’s coins under the “BCH” ticker symbol. However, he has not yet disclosed the identities of these supporters, nor have they come forward. Story continues This isn’t the first attempt to broker a compromise ahead of the fork. Bitcoin Unlimited, whose software client is used by approximately one-third of BCH node operators, has said that it will make all of the changes proposed by ABC and nChain available in its software and has encouraged users to switch to BU to signal their support for a compromise that will afford miners more control over which individual upgrades activate on the network. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post The Owner of Bitcoin.org Has a Plan to Avoid a Bitcoin Cash Civil War appeared first on CCN . View comments || Bitcoin Price Analysis: High Shorts Count Could Signal Price Hike: Once again, bitcoin finds itself precariously perched on the bottom of its macro trading range (TR). After a strong round of selling over the course of two weeks plunged the price back to the $6,000s, bitcoin began consolidating for several weeks at the bottom of the TR:
Figure 1: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Macro TR
As shown in the figure above, the market has interacted several times at the current price range and it has been a source of three major bullish rallies. Currently, there is a lot of bearish pressure trying to submerge the price but very little price movement. If we take a look at the open long and open short positions on Bitfinex, we actually see a record-setting short count for the year as shorts outnumber the longs by almost 30%:
Figure 2: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Longs vs. Shorts
So far, this is the highest the short count has been since bitcoin topped late last year. Also, one thing to note is not only how high the short count is, but how high it is compared to the open long positions.
In situations like this, where the shorts far outnumber the longs, the perfect scenario for what’s known as a “short squeeze” is created. If the shorts continue to stack within a given price range, as we are seeing now, then there is a high possibility for a cascade of short liquidations/short covering to take place.
Basically, what happens is this: As shorts begin to liquidate, they are forced to buy back their position and propel the price higher. This movement, in turn, begins to liquidate the other positions with stops set just above them which then cascade the liquidations (and the price) higher and higher.
If we look at the Bollinger Bands (bbands) on the daily candles, we can see the price is consolidating very tightly as the bbands have begun to “squeeze” around the price action thus indicating price consolidation.
Figure 3: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Bollinger Band Consolidation
Typically, when bbands squeeze, this is a forecast for increased volatility. And, because these are daily candles, it is likely that the next move will be a macro move in either direction.
It’s impossible to know with certainty which way the price will move, but given the number of shorts that keep opening — and the relatively low amount of price movement — the stage is set for a pretty sizeable move upward.
There’s no concrete rule that says “high short count always yields a short squeeze,” but the foundation is definitely laid for one. The last time we had shorts anywhere this level, the price jumped 20% in one day. The short count back then was just under 38k bitcoins. The short count right now is 38.6k bitcoins.
1. Bitcoin is, once again, testing the support of the macro TR.
2. As shorts begin to rise, the price is seeing very little reaction. As a result of the high short count over a relatively narrow price range, there is a possibility of a sizeable short squeeze.
3. To further support just how narrow this price range has been and just how tightly wound the market is right now, the daily bbands show a strong squeeze on a macro level that will likely yield a strong move in either direction.
Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Media related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Media and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin Price Analysis: High Shorts Count Could Signal Price Hike: Bitcoin Price Analysis Once again, bitcoin finds itself precariously perched on the bottom of its macro trading range (TR). After a strong round of selling over the course of two weeks plunged the price back to the $6,000s, bitcoin began consolidating for several weeks at the bottom of the TR: fig1 Figure 1: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Macro TR As shown in the figure above, the market has interacted several times at the current price range and it has been a source of three major bullish rallies. Currently, there is a lot of bearish pressure trying to submerge the price but very little price movement. If we take a look at the open long and open short positions on Bitfinex, we actually see a record-setting short count for the year as shorts outnumber the longs by almost 30%: fig2 Figure 2: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Longs vs. Shorts So far, this is the highest the short count has been since bitcoin topped late last year. Also, one thing to note is not only how high the short count is, but how high it is compared to the open long positions. In situations like this, where the shorts far outnumber the longs, the perfect scenario for whats known as a short squeeze is created. If the shorts continue to stack within a given price range, as we are seeing now, then there is a high possibility for a cascade of short liquidations/short covering to take place. Basically, what happens is this: As shorts begin to liquidate, they are forced to buy back their position and propel the price higher. This movement, in turn, begins to liquidate the other positions with stops set just above them which then cascade the liquidations (and the price) higher and higher. If we look at the Bollinger Bands (bbands) on the daily candles, we can see the price is consolidating very tightly as the bbands have begun to squeeze around the price action thus indicating price consolidation. Bitcoin Price Analysis: High Shorts Count Could Signal Price Hike Figure 3: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Bollinger Band Consolidation Typically, when bbands squeeze, this is a forecast for increased volatility. And, because these are daily candles, it is likely that the next move will be a macro move in either direction. Story continues Its impossible to know with certainty which way the price will move, but given the number of shorts that keep opening and the relatively low amount of price movement the stage is set for a pretty sizeable move upward. Theres no concrete rule that says high short count always yields a short squeeze, but the foundation is definitely laid for one. The last time we had shorts anywhere this level, the price jumped 20% in one day. The short count back then was just under 38k bitcoins. The short count right now is 38.6k bitcoins. Summary: Bitcoin is, once again, testing the support of the macro TR. As shorts begin to rise, the price is seeing very little reaction. As a result of the high short count over a relatively narrow price range, there is a possibility of a sizeable short squeeze. To further support just how narrow this price range has been and just how tightly wound the market is right now, the daily bbands show a strong squeeze on a macro level that will likely yield a strong move in either direction. Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Media related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Media and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Bitcoin Price Analysis: High Shorts Count Could Signal Price Hike: Once again, bitcoin finds itself precariously perched on the bottom of its macro trading range (TR). After a strong round of selling over the course of two weeks plunged the price back to the $6,000s, bitcoin began consolidating for several weeks at the bottom of the TR:
Figure 1: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Macro TR
As shown in the figure above, the market has interacted several times at the current price range and it has been a source of three major bullish rallies. Currently, there is a lot of bearish pressure trying to submerge the price but very little price movement. If we take a look at the open long and open short positions on Bitfinex, we actually see a record-setting short count for the year as shorts outnumber the longs by almost 30%:
Figure 2: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Longs vs. Shorts
So far, this is the highest the short count has been since bitcoin topped late last year. Also, one thing to note is not only how high the short count is, but how high it is compared to the open long positions.
In situations like this, where the shorts far outnumber the longs, the perfect scenario for what’s known as a “short squeeze” is created. If the shorts continue to stack within a given price range, as we are seeing now, then there is a high possibility for a cascade of short liquidations/short covering to take place.
Basically, what happens is this: As shorts begin to liquidate, they are forced to buy back their position and propel the price higher. This movement, in turn, begins to liquidate the other positions with stops set just above them which then cascade the liquidations (and the price) higher and higher.
If we look at the Bollinger Bands (bbands) on the daily candles, we can see the price is consolidating very tightly as the bbands have begun to “squeeze” around the price action thus indicating price consolidation.
Figure 3: BTC-USD, 1-Day Candles, Bollinger Band Consolidation
Typically, when bbands squeeze, this is a forecast for increased volatility. And, because these are daily candles, it is likely that the next move will be a macro move in either direction.
It’s impossible to know with certainty which way the price will move, but given the number of shorts that keep opening — and the relatively low amount of price movement — the stage is set for a pretty sizeable move upward.
There’s no concrete rule that says “high short count always yields a short squeeze,” but the foundation is definitely laid for one. The last time we had shorts anywhere this level, the price jumped 20% in one day. The short count back then was just under 38k bitcoins. The short count right now is 38.6k bitcoins.
1. Bitcoin is, once again, testing the support of the macro TR.
2. As shorts begin to rise, the price is seeing very little reaction. As a result of the high short count over a relatively narrow price range, there is a possibility of a sizeable short squeeze.
3. To further support just how narrow this price range has been and just how tightly wound the market is right now, the daily bbands show a strong squeeze on a macro level that will likely yield a strong move in either direction.
Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Media related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Media and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || World Bank and Australia's Largest Bank Issue First Global Blockchain Bond: The World Bank and Australia's largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, haveissueda public bond exclusively through the blockchain. The $100 million AUD ($73.16 million USD) deal is made up of two-year bonds. It expected to settle by August 28, 2018 and yield a 2.25 percent return.
The prototype bond, dubbed "Bond-i" (Blockchain Operated New Debt Instrument) is seen by participants as a milestone and a step forward toward automation of bond sales.
It is part of a broader strategic focus of the World Bank to “harness the potential of disruptive technologies for development.” Launched in June of 2017, its Blockchain Innovation Lab studies the impact of blockchain and other disruptive technologies on such sectors as land administration, supply-chain management, health, education, cross-border payments and carbon-market trading.
The American fund Northern Trust, three Australian state governments, local pension fund First State Super and CBA were the investors in the deal, which the World Bank sees as a part of its strategic focus to harness "disruptive technologies for development."
Speaking withBitcoin Magazine, Arturs Ivanovs, founder of FIC Network — a platform for issuing and trading bonds on the blockchain — said that the launch of the world’s first global bond is a great "validation of blockchain technology's usefulness" for financial transactions.
"The World Bank is one of the largest bond issuers in the world, and it is great that it recognizes the cost savings, transparency, increased access to capital around the world and other benefits that are related to usage of blockchain technology in the bond market," he remarked.
The World Bankoftenuses its bonds, which are known for their high level of creditworthiness, to develop new bond markets and pioneer new means for trading the securities.
It issues between $50 billion and $60 billion a year in bonds to back economic progress in developing countries.
Australia is seen as a pilot market for testing new developments due to its well-developed financial infrastructure and the popularity of the Australian dollar with the international community.
The country has proven receptive to the integration of the blockchain technology to government services and the private sector. Last month, IBMsigneda $740 million deal with the Australian government to use the blockchain to improve data security and automation across federal departments.
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) also hasplansto integrate the blockchain into the current system for clearing and settling equities on the exchange.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || World Bank and Australia's Largest Bank Issue First Global Blockchain Bond: World Bank and Australia's Largest Bank Issue First Global Blockchain Bond The World Bank and Australia's largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, have issued a public bond exclusively through the blockchain. The $100 million AUD ($73.16 million USD) deal is made up of two-year bonds. It expected to settle by August 28, 2018 and yield a 2.25 percent return. The prototype bond, dubbed "Bond-i" (Blockchain Operated New Debt Instrument) is seen by participants as a milestone and a step forward toward automation of bond sales. It is part of a broader strategic focus of the World Bank to “harness the potential of disruptive technologies for development.” Launched in June of 2017, its Blockchain Innovation Lab studies the impact of blockchain and other disruptive technologies on such sectors as land administration, supply-chain management, health, education, cross-border payments and carbon-market trading. The American fund Northern Trust, three Australian state governments, local pension fund First State Super and CBA were the investors in the deal, which the World Bank sees as a part of its strategic focus to harness "disruptive technologies for development." Speaking with Bitcoin Magazine , Arturs Ivanovs, founder of FIC Network — a platform for issuing and trading bonds on the blockchain — said that the launch of the world’s first global bond is a great "validation of blockchain technology's usefulness" for financial transactions. "The World Bank is one of the largest bond issuers in the world, and it is great that it recognizes the cost savings, transparency, increased access to capital around the world and other benefits that are related to usage of blockchain technology in the bond market," he remarked. The World Bank often uses its bonds, which are known for their high level of creditworthiness, to develop new bond markets and pioneer new means for trading the securities. It issues between $50 billion and $60 billion a year in bonds to back economic progress in developing countries. Story continues Australia is seen as a pilot market for testing new developments due to its well-developed financial infrastructure and the popularity of the Australian dollar with the international community. The country has proven receptive to the integration of the blockchain technology to government services and the private sector. Last month, IBM signed a $740 million deal with the Australian government to use the blockchain to improve data security and automation across federal departments. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) also has plans to integrate the blockchain into the current system for clearing and settling equities on the exchange. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Mt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditors: mt gox bitcoin Creditors of infamous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox may finally get their money back, or at least some of it, anyway. According to a notice dated Aug. 23 and attributed to Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, the company has opened an online claim filing system so that creditors can begin registering claims on the funds that they lost when the exchange, once the dominant bitcoin trading platform, became insolvent in 2014. Creditors can also fill out claim forms offline and submit them through the mail. As CCN reported , Mt. Gox went bankrupt after losing an estimated 850,000 BTC most to hackers, but some to embezzlement although former CEO Mark Karpeles later found about 200,000 BTC. The theft long remained the largest cryptocurrency exchange hack in history, and though it has since been surpassed by the Coincheck hack in Jan. 2018, it remains the most significant theft in terms of its impact on the industry as a whole. Had the exchange remained in bankruptcy, creditors would have been compensated in cash at a rate far below bitcoins current market price. Meanwhile, Karpeles who has been charged in Japan for embezzling funds from the exchange and spent nearly a year in prison while awaiting trial would have likely received the excess funds accrued from the sale of the companys remaining cryptocurrency assets, a payout that would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars. However, a Japanese court ruled in June that Mt. Gox could exit bankruptcy and commence civil rehabilitation proceedings. Moving the company into civil rehabilitation does not guarantee that creditors will be refunded in cryptocurrencies rather than cash, but the structure of this type of civil proceeding is much more flexible, which leaves the door open to a direct bitcoin distribution, depending on what stipulations appear in the court-approved rehabilitation plan. According to the MtGox Cold Wallet Monitor , the companys estate is holding 137,891 BTC, worth more than $910 million at the time of writing, as well as an equivalent amount of bitcoin cash, worth $73 million. Story continues Importantly, all creditors must submit claims on their assets, including those who previously submitted claims as part of the companys bankruptcy proceedings. The deadline for filing is Oct. 22. The trustee will then submit a list of approved and rejected claims to the court by Jan. 24, 2019. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Mt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditors appeared first on CCN . || Mt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditors: Creditors of infamous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox may finally get their money back, or at least some of it, anyway.
According to anoticedated Aug. 23 and attributed to Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, the company has opened anonline claim filing systemso that creditors can begin registering claims on the funds that they lost when the exchange, once the dominant bitcoin trading platform, became insolvent in 2014. Creditors can also fill out claim forms offline and submit them through the mail.
As CCNreported, Mt. Gox went bankrupt after losing an estimated 850,000 BTC — most to hackers, but some to embezzlement — although former CEO Mark Karpeles later found about 200,000 BTC. The theft long remained the largest cryptocurrency exchange hack in history, and though it has since been surpassed by the Coincheck hack in Jan. 2018, it remains the most significant theft in terms of its impact on the industry as a whole.
Had the exchange remained in bankruptcy, creditors would have been compensated in cash at a rate far below bitcoin’s current market price. Meanwhile, Karpeles — who has been charged in Japan for embezzling funds from the exchange and spent nearly a year in prison while awaiting trial — would have likely received the excess funds accrued from the sale of the company’s remaining cryptocurrency assets, a payout that would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, a Japanese courtruledin June that Mt. Gox could exit bankruptcy and commence civil rehabilitation proceedings. Moving the company into civil rehabilitation does not guarantee that creditors will be refunded in cryptocurrencies rather than cash, but the structure of this type of civil proceeding is much more flexible, which leaves the door open to a direct bitcoin distribution, depending on what stipulations appear in the court-approved rehabilitation plan.
According to theMtGox Cold Wallet Monitor, the company’s estate is holding 137,891 BTC, worth more than $910 million at the time of writing, as well as an equivalent amount of bitcoin cash, worth $73 million.
Importantly, all creditors must submit claims on their assets, including those who previously submitted claims as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. The deadline for filing is Oct. 22. The trustee will then submit a list of approved and rejected claims to the court by Jan. 24, 2019.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postMt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditorsappeared first onCCN. || Mt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditors: Creditors of infamous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox may finally get their money back, or at least some of it, anyway.
According to anoticedated Aug. 23 and attributed to Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, the company has opened anonline claim filing systemso that creditors can begin registering claims on the funds that they lost when the exchange, once the dominant bitcoin trading platform, became insolvent in 2014. Creditors can also fill out claim forms offline and submit them through the mail.
As CCNreported, Mt. Gox went bankrupt after losing an estimated 850,000 BTC — most to hackers, but some to embezzlement — although former CEO Mark Karpeles later found about 200,000 BTC. The theft long remained the largest cryptocurrency exchange hack in history, and though it has since been surpassed by the Coincheck hack in Jan. 2018, it remains the most significant theft in terms of its impact on the industry as a whole.
Had the exchange remained in bankruptcy, creditors would have been compensated in cash at a rate far below bitcoin’s current market price. Meanwhile, Karpeles — who has been charged in Japan for embezzling funds from the exchange and spent nearly a year in prison while awaiting trial — would have likely received the excess funds accrued from the sale of the company’s remaining cryptocurrency assets, a payout that would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, a Japanese courtruledin June that Mt. Gox could exit bankruptcy and commence civil rehabilitation proceedings. Moving the company into civil rehabilitation does not guarantee that creditors will be refunded in cryptocurrencies rather than cash, but the structure of this type of civil proceeding is much more flexible, which leaves the door open to a direct bitcoin distribution, depending on what stipulations appear in the court-approved rehabilitation plan.
According to theMtGox Cold Wallet Monitor, the company’s estate is holding 137,891 BTC, worth more than $910 million at the time of writing, as well as an equivalent amount of bitcoin cash, worth $73 million.
Importantly, all creditors must submit claims on their assets, including those who previously submitted claims as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. The deadline for filing is Oct. 22. The trustee will then submit a list of approved and rejected claims to the court by Jan. 24, 2019.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postMt Gox Estate Begins Accepting Claims from Bitcoin Creditorsappeared first onCCN. || ETF Of The Week: Most Bitcoin Held Here: For bitcoin ETF believers, this week served up another big bust. On Wednesday, the SEC rejected nine more proposed bitcoin ETFs from GraniteShares, Direxion and ProShares, bringing this year's total denied applications to 10 (read: "SEC Rejects 9 Bitcoin ETF Proposals").
That comes on the heels of last month's disapproval of a physically backed bitcoin fund from the Winklevoss twins (read: "SEC Again Rejects Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF").
Crypto-enthusiasts are left with few options to obtain bitcoin exposure in a U.S.-based, exchange-traded package. In fact, only one ETF issuer,ARK, allocates to bitcoin in its funds at all.
How To Get Bitcoin Exposure
ARK achieves exposure to bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which functions as a physical trust that owns and stores bitcoins on its investors’ behalf.
TheREX BKCM ETF (BKC)can also invest in GBTC, dedicating up to 15% of its portfolio to the trust. (At the moment, however, the fund does not maintain such a position.)
Three of ARK's ETFs allocate to GBTC: the $1.27 billionARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), the $657 millionARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW)and the $174 millionARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ).
Of these three, ARKW has the highest allocation, with a whopping 0.29%. ARKK holds 0.21%, while ARKQ holds 0.10%. While scant at best, ARKW remains the highest-weighted ETF to bitcoin, and with this week’s events, we deemed it ETF Of The Week.
Stepping Back From Bitcoin
Once, ARK kept a sizable, 6-10% position in bitcoin in both ARKW and ARKK, which had contributed to both funds' meteoric rise throughout 2017. Starting in January, however, ARK had substantially stepped back from that position (read: "Barely Any Bitcoin In ARK ETFs").
When I asked ARK CEO Cathie Wood, a bitcoin true believer, why her firm had dumped GBTC earlier this year, she placed the blame on the IRS (read: "ARK Funds Disrupting ETF Industry").
As it turns out, bitcoin had been a littletooprofitable for her firm's funds, and the position had come close to exceeding the IRS' limit set for gross profits originating from unqualified income. Anything beyond that threshold, the IRS would have confiscated in full. So, to prevent a nasty tax shock to investors, ARK had unwound its bitcoin position.
"The ground could still shift beneath us," Woodtold me in July. "But we feel like we’ve done right by our clients."
Actively Managed Internet Exposure
All that said, ARKW has a lot more to recommend it than just a miniscule position in bitcoin. It's the rare case of an actively managed ETF that consistently manages to outperform.
Over the past year, ARKW has returned an astonishing 52%. In contrast, theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)is only up 20%.
Source:StockCharts.com; data as of Aug. 23, 2018
ARKW's outperformance is largely due to its out-of-the-box investment scope. The fund doesn't just focus on tech or internet stocks, but specifically on those tech companies poised to benefit from the shift to cloud computing and mobile technology. And unlike many tech funds, it digs for stocks worldwide.
As a result, although ARKW holds many of the same FAANG stocks as its competitors, it gives them less portfolio weight. Instead, it emphasizes stocks that might fall outside other ETFs' scope, such as Chinese e-powerhouseTencent Holdings(6%) and semiconductor heavyweightNVIDIA(5%).
ARKW's top holding, however, isTesla (TSLA), which may give pause to someinvestors worried by the dramaover Elon Musk's intent to take the company private. ARKW dedicates 7% to Tesla.
(Check out theETF.com stock finder toolto see which individual stocks are in which ETFs.)
Contact Lara Crigger [email protected]
Research All ETFs Related to This Story
Permalink| © Copyright 2018ETF.com.All rights reserved || ETF Of The Week: Most Bitcoin Held Here: For bitcoin ETF believers, this week served up another big bust. On Wednesday, the SEC rejected nine more proposed bitcoin ETFs from GraniteShares, Direxion and ProShares, bringing this year's total denied applications to 10 (read: "SEC Rejects 9 Bitcoin ETF Proposals").
That comes on the heels of last month's disapproval of a physically backed bitcoin fund from the Winklevoss twins (read: "SEC Again Rejects Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF").
Crypto-enthusiasts are left with few options to obtain bitcoin exposure in a U.S.-based, exchange-traded package. In fact, only one ETF issuer,ARK, allocates to bitcoin in its funds at all.
How To Get Bitcoin Exposure
ARK achieves exposure to bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which functions as a physical trust that owns and stores bitcoins on its investors’ behalf.
TheREX BKCM ETF (BKC)can also invest in GBTC, dedicating up to 15% of its portfolio to the trust. (At the moment, however, the fund does not maintain such a position.)
Three of ARK's ETFs allocate to GBTC: the $1.27 billionARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), the $657 millionARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW)and the $174 millionARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ).
Of these three, ARKW has the highest allocation, with a whopping 0.29%. ARKK holds 0.21%, while ARKQ holds 0.10%. While scant at best, ARKW remains the highest-weighted ETF to bitcoin, and with this week’s events, we deemed it ETF Of The Week.
Stepping Back From Bitcoin
Once, ARK kept a sizable, 6-10% position in bitcoin in both ARKW and ARKK, which had contributed to both funds' meteoric rise throughout 2017. Starting in January, however, ARK had substantially stepped back from that position (read: "Barely Any Bitcoin In ARK ETFs").
When I asked ARK CEO Cathie Wood, a bitcoin true believer, why her firm had dumped GBTC earlier this year, she placed the blame on the IRS (read: "ARK Funds Disrupting ETF Industry").
As it turns out, bitcoin had been a littletooprofitable for her firm's funds, and the position had come close to exceeding the IRS' limit set for gross profits originating from unqualified income. Anything beyond that threshold, the IRS would have confiscated in full. So, to prevent a nasty tax shock to investors, ARK had unwound its bitcoin position.
"The ground could still shift beneath us," Woodtold me in July. "But we feel like we’ve done right by our clients."
Actively Managed Internet Exposure
All that said, ARKW has a lot more to recommend it than just a miniscule position in bitcoin. It's the rare case of an actively managed ETF that consistently manages to outperform.
Over the past year, ARKW has returned an astonishing 52%. In contrast, theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)is only up 20%.
Source:StockCharts.com; data as of Aug. 23, 2018
ARKW's outperformance is largely due to its out-of-the-box investment scope. The fund doesn't just focus on tech or internet stocks, but specifically on those tech companies poised to benefit from the shift to cloud computing and mobile technology. And unlike many tech funds, it digs for stocks worldwide.
As a result, although ARKW holds many of the same FAANG stocks as its competitors, it gives them less portfolio weight. Instead, it emphasizes stocks that might fall outside other ETFs' scope, such as Chinese e-powerhouseTencent Holdings(6%) and semiconductor heavyweightNVIDIA(5%).
ARKW's top holding, however, isTesla (TSLA), which may give pause to someinvestors worried by the dramaover Elon Musk's intent to take the company private. ARKW dedicates 7% to Tesla.
(Check out theETF.com stock finder toolto see which individual stocks are in which ETFs.)
Contact Lara Crigger [email protected]
Research All ETFs Related to This Story
Permalink| © Copyright 2018ETF.com.All rights reserved || ETF Of The Week: Most Bitcoin Held Here: For bitcoin ETF believers, this week served up another big bust. On Wednesday, the SEC rejected nine more proposed bitcoin ETFs from GraniteShares, Direxion and ProShares, bringing this year's total denied applications to 10 (read: " SEC Rejects 9 Bitcoin ETF Proposals "). That comes on the heels of last month's disapproval of a physically backed bitcoin fund from the Winklevoss twins (read: " SEC Again Rejects Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF "). Crypto-enthusiasts are left with few options to obtain bitcoin exposure in a U.S.-based, exchange-traded package. In fact, only one ETF issuer, ARK , allocates to bitcoin in its funds at all. How To Get Bitcoin Exposure ARK achieves exposure to bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which functions as a physical trust that owns and stores bitcoins on its investors behalf. The REX BKCM ETF (BKC) can also invest in GBTC, dedicating up to 15% of its portfolio to the trust. (At the moment, however, the fund does not maintain such a position.) Three of ARK's ETFs allocate to GBTC: the $1.27 billion ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) , the $657 million ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW) and the $174 million ARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ) . Of these three, ARKW has the highest allocation, with a whopping 0.29%. ARKK holds 0.21%, while ARKQ holds 0.10%. While scant at best, ARKW remains the highest-weighted ETF to bitcoin, and with this weeks events, we deemed it ETF Of The Week. Stepping Back From Bitcoin Once, ARK kept a sizable, 6-10% position in bitcoin in both ARKW and ARKK, which had contributed to both funds' meteoric rise throughout 2017. Starting in January, however, ARK had substantially stepped back from that position (read: " Barely Any Bitcoin In ARK ETFs "). When I asked ARK CEO Cathie Wood, a bitcoin true believer, why her firm had dumped GBTC earlier this year, she placed the blame on the IRS (read: " ARK Funds Disrupting ETF Industry "). As it turns out, bitcoin had been a little too profitable for her firm's funds, and the position had come close to exceeding the IRS' limit set for gross profits originating from unqualified income. Anything beyond that threshold, the IRS would have confiscated in full. So, to prevent a nasty tax shock to investors, ARK had unwound its bitcoin position. Story continues "The ground could still shift beneath us," Wood told me in July . "But we feel like weve done right by our clients." Actively Managed Internet Exposure All that said, ARKW has a lot more to recommend it than just a miniscule position in bitcoin. It's the rare case of an actively managed ETF that consistently manages to outperform. Over the past year, ARKW has returned an astonishing 52%. In contrast, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) is only up 20%. Source: StockCharts.com ; data as of Aug. 23, 2018 ARKW's outperformance is largely due to its out-of-the-box investment scope. The fund doesn't just focus on tech or internet stocks, but specifically on those tech companies poised to benefit from the shift to cloud computing and mobile technology. And unlike many tech funds, it digs for stocks worldwide. As a result, although ARKW holds many of the same FAANG stocks as its competitors, it gives them less portfolio weight. Instead, it emphasizes stocks that might fall outside other ETFs' scope, such as Chinese e-powerhouse Tencent Holdings (6%) and semiconductor heavyweight NVIDIA (5%). ARKW's top holding, however, is Tesla (TSLA) , which may give pause to some investors worried by the drama over Elon Musk's intent to take the company private. ARKW dedicates 7% to Tesla. (Check out the ETF.com stock finder tool to see which individual stocks are in which ETFs.) Contact Lara Crigger at [email protected] Research All ETFs Related to This Story Permalink | © Copyright 2018 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis: BTCUSD in Slow and Stable Upside: Bitcoin today underwent a slow and stable upside correction, rising as much as 4.5 percent from the previous day bottom at $6,317.
BTC/USD kicked off towards 6500-fiat during the early trading session and established its intraday high around 6580-fiat. The pair, however, began to settle down near the said high as the European trading session came into play. There were minor some bearish correction as the day matured. But, at the time of this writing, and at the beginning of the US session, the BTC/USD has extended its downside correction and is now forming lower lows towards 6450-fiat.
It seems that despite their irrelevance in a broader context, the ETF events are still impacting the buying and selling sentiment of traders. The price today reportedly rose on SEC’s decision toreview the recently rejected ETF applications. It is starting to lose its upside team as the SEC news dries up.
We are still inside the rising wedge pattern we drew in ourprevious analysis. Therefore, our strategy for medium-term won’t be changing until we attempt a breakout above/below the wedge trendlines. Anyway – we drew a mildly visible trendline to check the support on the latest uptrend, which is still reflecting our potential support level as Bitcoin continues its bullish behavior.
Speaking of bullish, BTC/USD is indeed in buying zone. The pair is slightly above its 100H and 200H moving average trendlines, while the RSI and Stochastic indicators have entered the buying area post the mild downside correction. We are checking on the “mildly visible trendline” to look for any potential reversals. But for now, it all looks bullish for near-term.
After failing to reach our previous upside target, we had to quit our long position after our stop loss got executed. Nevertheless, the BTC/USD uptrend has allowed us to look into nearby levels, which will help us decide the achievable positions for the rest of the US session.
The range we are watching for today is defined by 6500-fiat as our newfound support, and 6621, our intraday high, as interim resistance. Our first impression of the market is a possibility of bearish correction. Should it happen, we are likely to slip below 6500-fiat and test the lower trendline of the Rising Wedge as our potential downside target. Meanwhile, our stop loss three-pips above the entry position will define our risk.
An extended uptrend, on the other hand, will have us play intrarange positions. That is: putting a long position towards 6621-fiat on a bounce from 6500-fiat and putting a short position towards 6500-fiat on a pullback from 6621-fiat. However, if price breaks above the resistance level, we will put a long position towards 6840-fiat while keeping our stops four-pips below the entry position.
Trade safely!
The postBitcoin Price Technical Analysis: BTCUSD in Slow and Stable Upsideappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis: BTCUSD in Slow and Stable Upside: Bitcoin today underwent a slow and stable upside correction, rising as much as 4.5 percent from the previous day bottom at $6,317.
BTC/USD kicked off towards 6500-fiat during the early trading session and established its intraday high around 6580-fiat. The pair, however, began to settle down near the said high as the European trading session came into play. There were minor some bearish correction as the day matured. But, at the time of this writing, and at the beginning of the US session, the BTC/USD has extended its downside correction and is now forming lower lows towards 6450-fiat.
It seems that despite their irrelevance in a broader context, the ETF events are still impacting the buying and selling sentiment of traders. The price today reportedly rose on SEC’s decision toreview the recently rejected ETF applications. It is starting to lose its upside team as the SEC news dries up.
We are still inside the rising wedge pattern we drew in ourprevious analysis. Therefore, our strategy for medium-term won’t be changing until we attempt a breakout above/below the wedge trendlines. Anyway – we drew a mildly visible trendline to check the support on the latest uptrend, which is still reflecting our potential support level as Bitcoin continues its bullish behavior.
Speaking of bullish, BTC/USD is indeed in buying zone. The pair is slightly above its 100H and 200H moving average trendlines, while the RSI and Stochastic indicators have entered the buying area post the mild downside correction. We are checking on the “mildly visible trendline” to look for any potential reversals. But for now, it all looks bullish for near-term.
After failing to reach our previous upside target, we had to quit our long position after our stop loss got executed. Nevertheless, the BTC/USD uptrend has allowed us to look into nearby levels, which will help us decide the achievable positions for the rest of the US session.
The range we are watching for today is defined by 6500-fiat as our newfound support, and 6621, our intraday high, as interim resistance. Our first impression of the market is a possibility of bearish correction. Should it happen, we are likely to slip below 6500-fiat and test the lower trendline of the Rising Wedge as our potential downside target. Meanwhile, our stop loss three-pips above the entry position will define our risk.
An extended uptrend, on the other hand, will have us play intrarange positions. That is: putting a long position towards 6621-fiat on a bounce from 6500-fiat and putting a short position towards 6500-fiat on a pullback from 6621-fiat. However, if price breaks above the resistance level, we will put a long position towards 6840-fiat while keeping our stops four-pips below the entry position.
Trade safely!
The postBitcoin Price Technical Analysis: BTCUSD in Slow and Stable Upsideappeared first onCCN.
[Social Media Buzz]
2018/08/26 03:00
#Binance 格安コイン
1位 #HOT 0.00000010 BTC(0.07円)
2位 #NPXS 0.00000025 BTC(0.19円)
3位 #BCN 0.00000027 BTC(0.2円)
4位 #DENT 0.00000039 BTC(0.29円)
5位 #SC 0.00000082 BTC(0.61円)
#仮想通貨 #アルトコイン #草コイン || 2018-08-26 01:24:46.562071Z #Ripple #XRP:$0.33, Vol:4077625, High:$0.33, Low:$0.32. #BTC:$6740.07 #ETH:$277.00 #LTC:$57.80 || ビットコイン btc_jpy:744794 価格が急落しています。2018/08/26 06:00 時点の情報 #bitcoin #ビットコイン #仮想通貨 https://bitlizard.net/?p=187 || 1 BTC = 27200.00000000 BRL em 25/08/2018 ás 06:00:01. ...
|
6707.26, 6884.64, 7096.28, 7047.16, 6978.23, 7037.58, 7193.25, 7272.72, 7260.06, 7361.66
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 199.26, 210.34, 214.86, 211.32, 226.90, 233.41, 232.88, 247.85, 253.72, 273.47, 263.48, 233.91, 233.51, 226.43, 217.46, 226.97, 238.23, 227.27, 226.85, 217.11, 222.27, 227.75, 223.41, 220.11, 219.84, 219.18, 221.76, 235.43, 257.32, 234.82, 233.84, 243.61, 236.33, 240.28, 243.78, 244.53, 235.98, 238.89, 238.74, 237.47, 236.43, 253.83, 254.26, 260.20, 275.67, 281.70, 273.09, 276.18, 272.72, 276.26, 274.35, 289.61, 291.76, 296.38, 294.35, 285.34, 281.89, 286.39, 290.59, 285.51, 256.30, 260.93, 261.75, 260.02, 267.96, 266.74, 245.60, 246.20, 248.53, 247.03, 252.80, 242.71, 247.53, 244.22, 247.27, 253.01, 254.32, 253.70, 260.60, 255.49, 253.18, 245.02, 243.68, 236.07, 236.55, 236.15, 224.59, 219.16, 223.83, 228.57.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-04-16]
Volume: 24805400, RSI (14-day): 37.82, 50-day EMA: 249.97, 200-day EMA: 272.38
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1198.00, Gold RSI: 50.93
Oil Price: 56.71, Oil RSI: 66.05
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
More Dirty Dealing at the DEA: $113,000 Stolen in Credit Card Scam: It’s been a tough month for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Just yesterday, lawmakers grilled the agency’s commissioner over a report alleging that DEA agents have participated in several “sex parties” with prostitutes funded by drug cartels. A week before that, one DEA officer was charged with stealing Bitcoin from the federal government and laundering money while working at the center of the investigation into the Silk Road last year.
Now, the agency is back under the spotlight once again as a former officialpleaded guiltyto defrauding the government out of more than $113,000.
Related: Feds Busted for Stealing Bitcoins, Extorting Silk Road Founder
Maryland-based DEA employee Keenya Meshell Banks, who was in charge of issuing government credit cards to federal workers, admitted to issuing 32 cards to dozens of fake DEA employees that she created. Federal investigators said Banks then used the cards to withdraw cash from ATMs around the Washington, D.C. metro area.
The DEA isn’t the only agency to be hit with credit card fraud. Last year, federal investigators alleged that employees of Jobs Corps, a Department of Labor training program, were blatantly abusing government-issued charge cards that were intended for travel but instead used on personal items like trips to the hair salon and cellphone bills.
Related: Prostitute Partying by DEA Goes Way Back
At the time, auditors said Jobs Corps workers racked up at least $250,000 in improper purchases at taxpayers’ expense, while flagging another $4 million as “questionable transactions.”
Likewise, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service havealso been flaggedfor improper use of government charge cards. The problem has been so widespread across the federal government that Congress passed legislation back in 2012 requiring agencies to frequently review their purchase card programs.
The Office of Management and Budget also issued newguidelineswarning that workers caught improperly charging their cards could face dismissal, or like DEA employees Banks, criminal charges. Banks is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
• The Government’s $125 Billion Slap in the Face to Taxpayers
• How to Build a $400 Billion F-35 That Doesn’t Fly
• Lawmakers Took 1,912 Trips Last Year on Someone Else’s Dime || More Dirty Dealing at the DEA: $113,000 Stolen in Credit Card Scam: It’s been a tough month for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Just yesterday, lawmakers grilled the agency’s commissioner over a report alleging that DEA agents have participated in several “sex parties” with prostitutes funded by drug cartels. A week before that, one DEA officer was charged with stealing Bitcoin from the federal government and laundering money while working at the center of the investigation into the Silk Road last year. Now, the agency is back under the spotlight once again as a former official pleaded guilty to defrauding the government out of more than $113,000. Related: Feds Busted for Stealing Bitcoins, Extorting Silk Road Founder Maryland-based DEA employee Keenya Meshell Banks, who was in charge of issuing government credit cards to federal workers, admitted to issuing 32 cards to dozens of fake DEA employees that she created. Federal investigators said Banks then used the cards to withdraw cash from ATMs around the Washington, D.C. metro area. The DEA isn’t the only agency to be hit with credit card fraud. Last year, federal investigators alleged that employees of Jobs Corps, a Department of Labor training program, were blatantly abusing government-issued charge cards that were intended for travel but instead used on personal items like trips to the hair salon and cellphone bills. Related: Prostitute Partying by DEA Goes Way Back At the time, auditors said Jobs Corps workers racked up at least $250,000 in improper purchases at taxpayers’ expense, while flagging another $4 million as “questionable transactions.” Likewise, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service have also been flagged for improper use of government charge cards. The problem has been so widespread across the federal government that Congress passed legislation back in 2012 requiring agencies to frequently review their purchase card programs. The Office of Management and Budget also issued new guidelines warning that workers caught improperly charging their cards could face dismissal, or like DEA employees Banks, criminal charges. Banks is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: The Government’s $125 Billion Slap in the Face to Taxpayers How to Build a $400 Billion F-35 That Doesn’t Fly Lawmakers Took 1,912 Trips Last Year on Someone Else’s Dime || Is It Time To Invest In Cuba?: OnTuesday, President Barack Obama told Congress that he was planning to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in an effort to restore diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba after decades of tension.
Congress will have 45 days to review the decision and decide whether or not to block it, but most are expecting that the removal will happen.
The improving relations between Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, mark an important turning point for the Caribbean nation's economy and gives investors a reason to look to the island for new opportunities.
Investment In Cuba
Taking Cuba off the terrorism sponsor list is only the first step in a long process of diplomacy, but some are already gearing up for new investment opportunities.
Thomas Herzfeld, who manages theHerzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund(NASDAQ:CUBA), is now setting up a private equity fund that will invest directly in Cuba. Herzfeld toldCNBCthat the fund will invest in sectors expected to grow with improving U.S. relations like tourism, construction and telecom.
Related Link: A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers
Risks
Although the lack of foreign investment in Cuba makes it an interesting opportunity for aggressive investors, the nation still carries a high degree of risk.
For one, the effects of an improving relationship with the U.S. are unlikely to make any real impact on the Cuban economy for quite some time. Additionally, the country's small population and low wages make it a difficult place to start a business.
See more from Benzinga
• New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment
• A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers
• Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is It Time To Invest In Cuba?: On Tuesday , President Barack Obama told Congress that he was planning to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in an effort to restore diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba after decades of tension. Congress will have 45 days to review the decision and decide whether or not to block it, but most are expecting that the removal will happen. The improving relations between Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, mark an important turning point for the Caribbean nation's economy and gives investors a reason to look to the island for new opportunities. Investment In Cuba Taking Cuba off the terrorism sponsor list is only the first step in a long process of diplomacy, but some are already gearing up for new investment opportunities. Thomas Herzfeld, who manages the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (NASDAQ: CUBA ), is now setting up a private equity fund that will invest directly in Cuba. Herzfeld told CNBC that the fund will invest in sectors expected to grow with improving U.S. relations like tourism, construction and telecom. Related Link: A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers Risks Although the lack of foreign investment in Cuba makes it an interesting opportunity for aggressive investors, the nation still carries a high degree of risk. For one, the effects of an improving relationship with the U.S. are unlikely to make any real impact on the Cuban economy for quite some time. Additionally, the country's small population and low wages make it a difficult place to start a business. See more from Benzinga New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || London stakes its claim as global bitcoin hub: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - London, center of the $5-trillion-a-day global currency market, now wants to be home to a controversial upstart - bitcoin.
British authorities have come out in support of digital currencies in the name of promoting financial innovation, while proposing that regulations should be drawn up to prevent their use in crime.
But it is technophiles who are leading the drive to make London a real-world hub for trade in web-based "cryptocurrencies", of which bitcoin is the original and still most popular.
Every Tuesday evening in a trendy cafe in London's Shoreditch neighborhood, a group of digital currency enthusiasts gathers to discuss ideas, "vape" from e-cigarettes and exchange their pounds for bitcoins in a dedicated "ATM".
With more than 2,200 members, CoinScrum, run by a former derivatives trader who left the world of traditional finance to work on a digital currency start-up, is the biggest bitcoin networking group in the world. Its meetings draw a mostly young, mostly male crowd - some amateurs, others who have come to Britain to start bitcoin businesses.
Already the capital of traditional currency trading, London is competing with San Francisco's web expertise and New York's financial clout as it pushes to be the foremost financial technology - or fintech - center in the world.
Last month the British government announced plans to regulate digital currency exchanges to prevent their use in money-laundering, and to help to develop a set of standards for cryptocurrencies.
Backers of bitcoin praised this for lending legitimacy to the currency - which unlike traditional money has no printed form and remains outside the control of central banks - without stifling innovation.
"London has been the home of financial innovation for hundreds of years," said Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain, which provides bitcoin data and "wallet" software for storing the currency. "It would be a historical mistake not to make this the home of digital currencies. There's an incredible amount of talent and experience here."
Just over 14 million bitcoins are in circulation, worth around $3.1 billion at the current exchange rate of around $220 each.
Bitcoin brought 29-year-old Cary to Britain two years ago from Denver, Colorado. He joined forces with Ben Reeves, then a 22-year-old computer science graduate, to develop the Blockchain wallet, spending the first year working out of a two-bedroom apartment in northern England.
Now Blockchain, named after the technology behind bitcoin, is the world's biggest wallet provider, with over 3 million users. Last year it raised over $30 million in its first round of funding, including from billionaire Richard Branson.
POSITIVE ATTITUDE
While some people argue that London lags New York overall as the center for traditional finance, many say the latter's attitude to digital currencies - including a state plan to impose a "BitLicense" on bitcoin start-ups - makes London more attractive for the growing number of businesses dealing in the budding technology.
"What we see in the UK ... is a different attitude," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, a Washington DC-based non-profit advocacy group for digital currencies.
"It's a very positive attitude, one of: this is an amazing innovation, we're going to have to have some kind of regulation in terms of money laundering, but let's do this in a constructive way, in partnership with the technologists and the industry."
Detractors worry that digital currencies make it easy for users to buy products anonymously from websites like Silk Road, an underground marketplace for drugs and other illegal goods which was shut down in 2013.
But advocates argue that using cash for illicit trades is easier and less traceable, pointing out that most U.S. banknotes are contaminated with cocaine.
Asked about bitcoin, the governing body for the City of London financial district said authorities needed to be "alive to the potential risks and take strong action if they find evidence of abuse or criminal activities". But the employment and growth opportunities offered by the fintech in general were to be welcomed, it said.
Britain made bitcoin trading exempt from value-added tax last year. Other countries have yet to decide how to tax bitcoin, since its independence from any central bank means it does not fall into the traditional definition of money.
However, Australia has made bitcoin transactions subject to goods and services tax. That helped to drive CoinJar, an Australian company that allows users to buy, sell and spend bitcoins, to move its headquarters to London last December.
INVESTMENT
Later this month Swiss banking giant UBS will open a technology lab in London to explore the wider application of the technology in the financial services industry.
Finance minister George Osborne has said he wants Britain to lead the world in developing fintech, highlighting the potential of digital currencies.
Last year investment in fintech firms in Britain and Ireland more than doubled compared with 2013, to $623 million, representing 42 percent of such investment in Europe, according to consultancy Accenture.
Alongside the new regulation and standards, the British government promised an additional 10 million pounds ($15 million) for a research initiative that will look into the blockchain technology behind digital currencies.
It is the blockchain - essentially a ledger of every bitcoin transaction that is virtually impossible to tamper with - that the Bank of England has also said could be revolutionary. Central banks, it has said, could eventually issue digital currencies of their own.
Dozens of others have copied this technology to set up their own digital currencies, though none has so far managed to knock bitcoin off the top spot.
TANTRIC MASSAGE
Londoners can change cash for bitcoins at seven ATMs in the capital, and use them to pay for anything from tantric massage to a designer dress, a pork chop to a pint of beer. One company even allows rent on property to be paid in bitcoin.
Back in the trendy "Vape Lab" e-cigarette cafe, one young bitcoiner was putting 800 pounds' worth of 20 pound notes into a bitcoin ATM in exchange for the digital currency.
"I just sell bitcoin to others, because they don't know how to do it, so I take advantage of that and I make a profit," he said.
($1 = 0.6774 pounds)
(editing by David Stamp) || London stakes its claim as global bitcoin hub: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - London, center of the $5-trillion-a-day global currency market, now wants to be home to a controversial upstart - bitcoin. British authorities have come out in support of digital currencies in the name of promoting financial innovation, while proposing that regulations should be drawn up to prevent their use in crime. But it is technophiles who are leading the drive to make London a real-world hub for trade in web-based "cryptocurrencies", of which bitcoin is the original and still most popular. Every Tuesday evening in a trendy cafe in London's Shoreditch neighborhood, a group of digital currency enthusiasts gathers to discuss ideas, "vape" from e-cigarettes and exchange their pounds for bitcoins in a dedicated "ATM". With more than 2,200 members, CoinScrum, run by a former derivatives trader who left the world of traditional finance to work on a digital currency start-up, is the biggest bitcoin networking group in the world. Its meetings draw a mostly young, mostly male crowd - some amateurs, others who have come to Britain to start bitcoin businesses. Already the capital of traditional currency trading, London is competing with San Francisco's web expertise and New York's financial clout as it pushes to be the foremost financial technology - or fintech - center in the world. Last month the British government announced plans to regulate digital currency exchanges to prevent their use in money-laundering, and to help to develop a set of standards for cryptocurrencies. Backers of bitcoin praised this for lending legitimacy to the currency - which unlike traditional money has no printed form and remains outside the control of central banks - without stifling innovation. "London has been the home of financial innovation for hundreds of years," said Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain, which provides bitcoin data and "wallet" software for storing the currency. "It would be a historical mistake not to make this the home of digital currencies. There's an incredible amount of talent and experience here." Story continues Just over 14 million bitcoins are in circulation, worth around $3.1 billion at the current exchange rate of around $220 each. Bitcoin brought 29-year-old Cary to Britain two years ago from Denver, Colorado. He joined forces with Ben Reeves, then a 22-year-old computer science graduate, to develop the Blockchain wallet, spending the first year working out of a two-bedroom apartment in northern England. Now Blockchain, named after the technology behind bitcoin, is the world's biggest wallet provider, with over 3 million users. Last year it raised over $30 million in its first round of funding, including from billionaire Richard Branson. POSITIVE ATTITUDE While some people argue that London lags New York overall as the center for traditional finance, many say the latter's attitude to digital currencies - including a state plan to impose a "BitLicense" on bitcoin start-ups - makes London more attractive for the growing number of businesses dealing in the budding technology. "What we see in the UK ... is a different attitude," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, a Washington DC-based non-profit advocacy group for digital currencies. "It's a very positive attitude, one of: this is an amazing innovation, we're going to have to have some kind of regulation in terms of money laundering, but let's do this in a constructive way, in partnership with the technologists and the industry." Detractors worry that digital currencies make it easy for users to buy products anonymously from websites like Silk Road, an underground marketplace for drugs and other illegal goods which was shut down in 2013. But advocates argue that using cash for illicit trades is easier and less traceable, pointing out that most U.S. banknotes are contaminated with cocaine. Asked about bitcoin, the governing body for the City of London financial district said authorities needed to be "alive to the potential risks and take strong action if they find evidence of abuse or criminal activities". But the employment and growth opportunities offered by the fintech in general were to be welcomed, it said. Britain made bitcoin trading exempt from value-added tax last year. Other countries have yet to decide how to tax bitcoin, since its independence from any central bank means it does not fall into the traditional definition of money. However, Australia has made bitcoin transactions subject to goods and services tax. That helped to drive CoinJar, an Australian company that allows users to buy, sell and spend bitcoins, to move its headquarters to London last December. INVESTMENT Later this month Swiss banking giant UBS will open a technology lab in London to explore the wider application of the technology in the financial services industry. Finance minister George Osborne has said he wants Britain to lead the world in developing fintech, highlighting the potential of digital currencies. Last year investment in fintech firms in Britain and Ireland more than doubled compared with 2013, to $623 million, representing 42 percent of such investment in Europe, according to consultancy Accenture. Alongside the new regulation and standards, the British government promised an additional 10 million pounds ($15 million) for a research initiative that will look into the blockchain technology behind digital currencies. It is the blockchain - essentially a ledger of every bitcoin transaction that is virtually impossible to tamper with - that the Bank of England has also said could be revolutionary. Central banks, it has said, could eventually issue digital currencies of their own. Dozens of others have copied this technology to set up their own digital currencies, though none has so far managed to knock bitcoin off the top spot. TANTRIC MASSAGE Londoners can change cash for bitcoins at seven ATMs in the capital, and use them to pay for anything from tantric massage to a designer dress, a pork chop to a pint of beer. One company even allows rent on property to be paid in bitcoin. Back in the trendy "Vape Lab" e-cigarette cafe, one young bitcoiner was putting 800 pounds' worth of 20 pound notes into a bitcoin ATM in exchange for the digital currency. "I just sell bitcoin to others, because they don't know how to do it, so I take advantage of that and I make a profit," he said. ($1 = 0.6774 pounds) (editing by David Stamp) || New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment: Pieter Gorsira is hoping to take some of the confusion out of investing in cryptocurrency by giving people a way to invest seemingly trivial parts of their income into bitcoin quickly, easily, and often without even thinking about it.
Gorsira is the man behind a new startup calledLawnmowerwhich is looking to help people save their ‘loose change' by investing in bitcoin.
A Little Off The Top
Lawnmower connects to a user's bank account and rounds each purchase up to a whole number and invests the extra cents in bitcoin.
For example, a purchase of $2.50 would result in Lawnmower taking the additional $0.50 and saving it. Once a user has at least $4.00 in savings, the app purchases a bitcoin.
Adding Up
The idea behind the appis to integrate saving and spending to make it easier for users to accumulate funds.
Not only does it promote saving, but it also allows people to expose themselves to bitcoin without making a huge commitment.
How It WorksThe company requires users to set up a Coinbase account, as the bitcoins are bought using that exchange, and is able to link to multiple bank accounts.
At the moment, Lawnmower is only in beta testing, but the company is hoping to use the feedback from current users to launch a comprehensive product to the general public soon.
Related Link:Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin
While bitcoin has had a difficult year, scaring many users away with its volatility, Lawnmower claims users' small investments over time help mitigate some of that risk.
A New Market
While bitcoin has typically seen the most usage among the tech-savvy crowd, Lawnmower is hoping to find a new audience for the cryptocurrency.
The company believes that much of the general public is interested in bitcoin, but don't have the technological know-how to get involved.
Lawnmower removes some of those barriers and allows people who wouldn't otherwise invest dip their toe into the cryptocurrency pool.
See more from Benzinga
• A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers
• Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin
• The Future Of Robots
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment: Pieter Gorsira is hoping to take some of the confusion out of investing in cryptocurrency by giving people a way to invest seemingly trivial parts of their income into bitcoin quickly, easily, and often without even thinking about it. Gorsira is the man behind a new startup called Lawnmower which is looking to help people save their loose change' by investing in bitcoin. A Little Off The Top Lawnmower connects to a user's bank account and rounds each purchase up to a whole number and invests the extra cents in bitcoin. For example, a purchase of $2.50 would result in Lawnmower taking the additional $0.50 and saving it. Once a user has at least $4.00 in savings, the app purchases a bitcoin. Adding Up The idea behind the app is to integrate saving and spending to make it easier for users to accumulate funds. Not only does it promote saving, but it also allows people to expose themselves to bitcoin without making a huge commitment. How It Works The company requires users to set up a Coinbase account, as the bitcoins are bought using that exchange, and is able to link to multiple bank accounts. At the moment, Lawnmower is only in beta testing, but the company is hoping to use the feedback from current users to launch a comprehensive product to the general public soon. Related Link: Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin While bitcoin has had a difficult year, scaring many users away with its volatility, Lawnmower claims users' small investments over time help mitigate some of that risk. A New Market While bitcoin has typically seen the most usage among the tech-savvy crowd, Lawnmower is hoping to find a new audience for the cryptocurrency. The company believes that much of the general public is interested in bitcoin, but don't have the technological know-how to get involved. Lawnmower removes some of those barriers and allows people who wouldn't otherwise invest dip their toe into the cryptocurrency pool. See more from Benzinga A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin The Future Of Robots © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment: Pieter Gorsira is hoping to take some of the confusion out of investing in cryptocurrency by giving people a way to invest seemingly trivial parts of their income into bitcoin quickly, easily, and often without even thinking about it.
Gorsira is the man behind a new startup calledLawnmowerwhich is looking to help people save their ‘loose change' by investing in bitcoin.
A Little Off The Top
Lawnmower connects to a user's bank account and rounds each purchase up to a whole number and invests the extra cents in bitcoin.
For example, a purchase of $2.50 would result in Lawnmower taking the additional $0.50 and saving it. Once a user has at least $4.00 in savings, the app purchases a bitcoin.
Adding Up
The idea behind the appis to integrate saving and spending to make it easier for users to accumulate funds.
Not only does it promote saving, but it also allows people to expose themselves to bitcoin without making a huge commitment.
How It WorksThe company requires users to set up a Coinbase account, as the bitcoins are bought using that exchange, and is able to link to multiple bank accounts.
At the moment, Lawnmower is only in beta testing, but the company is hoping to use the feedback from current users to launch a comprehensive product to the general public soon.
Related Link:Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin
While bitcoin has had a difficult year, scaring many users away with its volatility, Lawnmower claims users' small investments over time help mitigate some of that risk.
A New Market
While bitcoin has typically seen the most usage among the tech-savvy crowd, Lawnmower is hoping to find a new audience for the cryptocurrency.
The company believes that much of the general public is interested in bitcoin, but don't have the technological know-how to get involved.
Lawnmower removes some of those barriers and allows people who wouldn't otherwise invest dip their toe into the cryptocurrency pool.
See more from Benzinga
• A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers
• Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin
• The Future Of Robots
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Microelectronics Announces Participation at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York: MONARCH BAY, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2015 / Microelectronics Technology Company (OTC Pink: MELY) ( MELY ), is pleased to announce that BTC Pool Party, the Company's Bitcoin mining pool, will be attending and exhibiting at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York City April 27th - 29th. BTC Pool Party has registered as a participant in the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York April 27th - 29th. Additionally, BTC Pool Party will be a Sponsor for the Event and participate with a booth at the Expo during the days of the Conference. The Company's Director of Business Development, Juan Garavaglia, is speaking on a Panel along with several industry experts on the topic of "Industrial Mining: Powered Warehouse Shell vs. Hosted Cloud Offerings". "We believe this to be an exciting opportunity for the debut of the BTC Pool Party mining pool," states company President Mr. Brett Everett. "The Sponsorship and Expo will provide the exposure and visibility necessary to promote the upcoming launch of our Bitcoin mining pool." BTC POOL PARTY MINING POOL The Company is in the process of initiating the restart of the Company's Bitcoin Mining Pool with leased Peta Hash of mining power, mining on behalf of the Company. The company will be concentrating its growth efforts on the development of the BTC Pool Party until the new mining site is finalized and built out. As previously announced, the company has a comprehensive roll out plan, which includes BTC conferences, online marketing and social media forums. The company continues to develop and improve the BTCPOOLPARTY mining pool with the introduction of more detailed stats of the mining operations available as the Company moves forward. https://www.btcpoolparty.com . https://www.facebook.com/btcpoolparty Additional photos and videos can be viewed at the company's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MELYPK Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Story continues Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements. CONTACT: For further Information: Microelectronics Technology Company President: Mr. Brett Everett 888-681-9777 ext. 5 [email protected] www.melypk.com SOURCE: Microelectronics Technology Company || Microelectronics Announces Participation at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York: MONARCH BAY, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2015/ Microelectronics Technology Company (OTC Pink: MELY) (MELY), is pleased to announce that BTC Pool Party, the Company's Bitcoin mining pool, will be attending and exhibiting at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York City April 27th - 29th.
BTC Pool Party has registered as a participant in the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York April 27th - 29th. Additionally, BTC Pool Party will be a Sponsor for the Event and participate with a booth at the Expo during the days of the Conference.
The Company's Director of Business Development, Juan Garavaglia, is speaking on a Panel along with several industry experts on the topic of "Industrial Mining: Powered Warehouse Shell vs. Hosted Cloud Offerings".
"We believe this to be an exciting opportunity for the debut of the BTC Pool Party mining pool," states company President Mr. Brett Everett. "The Sponsorship and Expo will provide the exposure and visibility necessary to promote the upcoming launch of our Bitcoin mining pool."
BTC POOL PARTY MINING POOL
The Company is in the process of initiating the restart of the Company's Bitcoin Mining Pool with leased Peta Hash of mining power, mining on behalf of the Company. The company will be concentrating its growth efforts on the development of the BTC Pool Party until the new mining site is finalized and built out.
As previously announced, the company has a comprehensive roll out plan, which includes BTC conferences, online marketing and social media forums.
The company continues to develop and improve the BTCPOOLPARTY mining pool with the introduction of more detailed stats of the mining operations available as the Company moves forward.https://www.btcpoolparty.com.
https://www.facebook.com/btcpoolparty
Additional photos and videos can be viewed at the company's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/MELYPK
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital.
Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.
CONTACT:
For further Information:Microelectronics Technology CompanyPresident:Mr. Brett Everett888-681-9777 ext. [email protected]
SOURCE:Microelectronics Technology Company || Microelectronics Announces Participation at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York: MONARCH BAY, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2015/ Microelectronics Technology Company (OTC Pink: MELY) (MELY), is pleased to announce that BTC Pool Party, the Company's Bitcoin mining pool, will be attending and exhibiting at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York City April 27th - 29th.
BTC Pool Party has registered as a participant in the Inside Bitcoins Conference in New York April 27th - 29th. Additionally, BTC Pool Party will be a Sponsor for the Event and participate with a booth at the Expo during the days of the Conference.
The Company's Director of Business Development, Juan Garavaglia, is speaking on a Panel along with several industry experts on the topic of "Industrial Mining: Powered Warehouse Shell vs. Hosted Cloud Offerings".
"We believe this to be an exciting opportunity for the debut of the BTC Pool Party mining pool," states company President Mr. Brett Everett. "The Sponsorship and Expo will provide the exposure and visibility necessary to promote the upcoming launch of our Bitcoin mining pool."
BTC POOL PARTY MINING POOL
The Company is in the process of initiating the restart of the Company's Bitcoin Mining Pool with leased Peta Hash of mining power, mining on behalf of the Company. The company will be concentrating its growth efforts on the development of the BTC Pool Party until the new mining site is finalized and built out.
As previously announced, the company has a comprehensive roll out plan, which includes BTC conferences, online marketing and social media forums.
The company continues to develop and improve the BTCPOOLPARTY mining pool with the introduction of more detailed stats of the mining operations available as the Company moves forward.https://www.btcpoolparty.com.
https://www.facebook.com/btcpoolparty
Additional photos and videos can be viewed at the company's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/MELYPK
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; MELY's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital.
Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements.
CONTACT:
For further Information:Microelectronics Technology CompanyPresident:Mr. Brett Everett888-681-9777 ext. [email protected]
SOURCE:Microelectronics Technology Company || Greece's credit rating just got downgraded AGAIN by S&P: garbage pile junk (Wikimedia Commons) With Greece's fiscal situation seemingly deteriorating every day, and little hope of any substantive deal on the horizon, Standard & Poor's just slashed the country's credit rating. That S&P downgrade sends Athens even further into junk territory, down from B- to CCC+. Here's what S&P had to say: The downgrade reflects our view that Greece's solvency hinges increasingly on favorable business, financial, and economic conditions. In our view, these conditions have worsened due to the uncertainty stemming from the prolonged negotiations between the almost three-month-old Greek government and its official creditors. The outlook for full-year economic growth is highly uncertain. We estimate the Greek economy has contracted by close to 1% over the past six months despite a weaker euro and lower oil prices. In our opinion, economic prospects could deteriorate further unless talks between Greece and its creditors conclude soon. Which doesn't sound particularly healthy. The country is struggling to negotiate a bailout deal with its European creditors , and things are not looking good. But even if Greece does meet the conditions its lenders want and get enough to please the far-left government and its supporters, it'll be back in this situation later in the summer the bailout will only last for three or four months. NOW WATCH: 9 animated maps that will change the way you see the world More From Business Insider A senior eurozone figure says it's 'impossible' to work with Greece and it'll miss its deadline for a deal Greece's rock star finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is the star of a new film about Bitcoin Greece made its big IMF debt repayment || Greece's credit rating just got downgraded AGAIN by S&P: (Wikimedia Commons)
With Greece's fiscal situation seemingly deteriorating every day, and little hope of any substantive deal on the horizon, Standard & Poor's just slashed the country's credit rating.
That S&P downgrade sends Athens even further into junk territory, down from B- to CCC+.
Here's what S&P had to say:
The downgrade reflects our view that Greece's solvency hinges increasingly onfavorable business, financial, and economic conditions.In our view, these conditions have worsened due to the uncertainty stemming from the prolonged negotiations between the almost three-month-old Greek government and its official creditors. The outlook for full-year economic growth is highlyuncertain.We estimate the Greek economy has contracted by close to 1% over the past six months despite a weaker euro and lower oil prices. In our opinion, economic prospects could deteriorate further unless talks between Greece and its creditors conclude soon.
Which doesn't sound particularly healthy.
The country isstruggling to negotiate a bailout deal with its European creditors, and things are not looking good.
But even if Greece does meet the conditions its lenders wantandget enough to please the far-left government and its supporters, it'll be back in this situation later in the summer — the bailout will only last for three or four months.
NOW WATCH:9 animated maps that will change the way you see the world
More From Business Insider
• A senior eurozone figure says it's 'impossible' to work with Greece and it'll miss its deadline for a deal
• Greece's rock star finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is the star of a new film about Bitcoin
• Greece made its big IMF debt repayment || Newnote Financial Partners with Rebit to Offer International Remittance Service: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 15, 2015 /Newnote Financial Corp. (the "Company"), (CSE: NEU; OTCQB: NWWTF; 1W4.F) is pleased to announce the Company has signed a strategic partnership with Rebit.ph of the Philippines to enable users a cost effective method of transferring funds to their respective countries.
In 2014, an expected US$436 Billion was remitted by migrants back to their families in the developing world. The cost of sending those remittances is estimated at US$47 billion.
Rebit.phis a service of Satoshi Citadel Industries, a Philippine-based holdings company for Bitcoin-related ventures. The Philippines is the second largest recipient for remittances in Asia, with a total of US$26 billion transferred in 2013, of which $2 billion was from Canada alone.
Newnote and Rebit generate revenue by charging a small transaction fee, which is significantly less than the charges of conventional banks and money transfer agents, which charge hefty fees for international transactions.
Through the integration of Rebit's API and Newnote's Cointrader.net Bitcoin Exchange API, users of Cointrader will have the ability to send funds internationally starting with the Philippines. The process is simple once a client has registered for a Cointrader account and has deposited cash or Bitcoin. Users define how much money they wish to transfer, hit send, Bitcoin is then moved to Rebit's wallet in the Philippines, and the recipient is notified by text-message that the funds have arrived and have either been deposited into a bank account or picked up in person at the Makati office.
CEO & President of Newnote, Paul Dickson, reports: "This strategic partnership with Rebit marks the first of many opportunities Newnote will have in the coming months by fully monetizing our Cointrader.net API possibilities. We're pleased to be working with Rebit and looking forward to announcing service to other countries in the near future."
About Newnote Financial Corp.
Newnote Financial Corp. is pioneering innovative crypto-currency and Bitcoin related software products and services geared at the growing business segment of this bourgeoning market. The Company owns and operates the Cointrader.net Bitcoin Exchange and offers Point-of-Sale services to merchants accepting Bitcoin for merchandise. Newnote has positioned itself to be a leading contender in delivering opportunities to startup businesses world-wide and continues to create new opportunities for its clients and its shareholders. Newnote has a clear vision on the direction in which this new and unique business is headed and is continually adjusting and adopting new business practices in both technology and the policies & procedures required by banks and securities regulators.
Newnote Financial Contact Information
Paul DicksonPresident, CEO & DirectorNewnote Financial Corp.CSE: NEU; OTCQB: NWWTF; 1W4.FSuite 709-700 West Pender StreetVancouver, BC V6C 1G8Phone: 604-229-0480Fax: 604-685-3833web:www.newnote.comBitcoin exchange:www.cointrader.net
Forward-Looking Information:
This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business and trading in the common stock of Newnote Financial Corp. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the company's management. Although the company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because the company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws.
The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release.
To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/newnote04152015.pdf
SOURCE:Newnote Financial Corp. || Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin: Universities and schools offering online education have grown in number over the past decade as students' preferences change and college enrollment fees rise. The low-cost nature of an online education has been one of the largest draws for schools like the University Of Phoenix, which offers everything from a Bachelor's Degree in business administration to a Master's Degree in Education. However for many students, financial constraints and self-esteem issues keep them from even considering a higher education. Gunnar Stefansson is looking to change all of that with an online tutoring project designed to get low-income students involved in their education through the use of digital currencies. Online Tutoring In an effort to increase math proficiency among students across the globe, Stefansson founded Tutor Web , an online tutoring system that helps students by providing courses covering topics like calculus and statistics. Students from around the globe can participate in the classes, designed by Gunnar himself and some of his colleagues at the University of Iceland. Digital Rewards This year, the site added a reward system based on its own cryptocurrency, smileycoin. Smileycoin can be bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges and is intended to give students an incentive to participating in the program. Students can earn the coin in a variety of ways from passing a lecture for a relatively small number of coins to earning the highest mark in the class for a larger sum. The site is also rolling out a peer-tutoring option, which allows students to tutor each other and pay for those services using smileycoin. Related Link: Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin The Bigger Picture While the value of smileycoin is still quite low, Gunnar told Benzinga that he sees the platform as a jumping off point for bigger things. While only a handful of students have cashed in their smileycoins on an exchange to date, Tutor Web is hoping to expand the project to include new uses for the coin that could further entice students to make use of the service. Story continues In the future, he hopes to partner with other companies like coffee shops and airlines to offer discounts or video game providers to offer free time for smileycoin payments. Ideally, Stefansson said smileycoin would mature enough to give low income students a way to earn their way to a higher education. See more from Benzinga The Future Of Robots World Leaders Looking For Ways To Fight Back Against Terrorism Using Social Media Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin: Universities and schools offering online education have grown in number over the past decade as students' preferences change and college enrollment fees rise. The low-cost nature of an online education has been one of the largest draws for schools like the University Of Phoenix, which offers everything from a Bachelor's Degree in business administration to a Master's Degree in Education. However for many students, financial constraints and self-esteem issues keep them from even considering a higher education. Gunnar Stefansson is looking to change all of that with an online tutoring project designed to get low-income students involved in their education through the use of digital currencies. Online Tutoring In an effort to increase math proficiency among students across the globe, Stefansson founded Tutor Web , an online tutoring system that helps students by providing courses covering topics like calculus and statistics. Students from around the globe can participate in the classes, designed by Gunnar himself and some of his colleagues at the University of Iceland. Digital Rewards This year, the site added a reward system based on its own cryptocurrency, smileycoin. Smileycoin can be bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges and is intended to give students an incentive to participating in the program. Students can earn the coin in a variety of ways from passing a lecture for a relatively small number of coins to earning the highest mark in the class for a larger sum. The site is also rolling out a peer-tutoring option, which allows students to tutor each other and pay for those services using smileycoin. Related Link: Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin The Bigger Picture While the value of smileycoin is still quite low, Gunnar told Benzinga that he sees the platform as a jumping off point for bigger things. While only a handful of students have cashed in their smileycoins on an exchange to date, Tutor Web is hoping to expand the project to include new uses for the coin that could further entice students to make use of the service. Story continues In the future, he hopes to partner with other companies like coffee shops and airlines to offer discounts or video game providers to offer free time for smileycoin payments. Ideally, Stefansson said smileycoin would mature enough to give low income students a way to earn their way to a higher education. See more from Benzinga The Future Of Robots World Leaders Looking For Ways To Fight Back Against Terrorism Using Social Media Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Other Reason Tax Prep Should Make You Nervous: Few things make me feel less secure about my money than tax time. Not because the Feds are taking some of it. I dont mind paying my share of the bill for civilization, although the twisted logic of the tax code makes me think Im losing a rigged game . No, its because tax prep reminds me of how weak security can be at many of the financial sites tax-prep services need to talk to. Using your social-security number as a username? Sure! Allowing a password that uses six characters or fewer and hasnt changed since you created it in 1999? OK! But as with a lot of security issues, this situation is more complex than it looks. Bad Security Is the Banks Problem, Not Yours Its true that getting a bank or mutual-fund login armored with security comparable to what you get on Web mail and social media sites is tough. Start with two-step verification to defend your account from a compromised password: Many financial sites will leave you frustrated. A semi-canonical list of sites supporting two-step verification, Two Factor Auth , found this security measure available at only 20 of 45 banking sites and eight of 19 investment sites. In comparison, it reports that all but one of 25 cryptocurrency sites listed offer two-step verification. But while theres no Federal Reserve to protect your Bitcoin, things differ in the U.S. banking industry. Rules like the Feds Regulation E limit your liability to hacking with the happy side effect that banks cant make you do all the hard work of security. In practice, that means they must watch for suspicious behavior on their own as in when a credit-card issuer calls you about an unusual purchase. The big banks, I think, have done a very good job of detecting fraudulent activity, because theyre liable for it, said Kathleen Day, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business and a veteran banking reporter. Its the financial services organization that ends up paying the tab, not the consumer, echoed Mark Nicholson, a principal in Deloittes cyber risk practice. Story continues This alignment of responsibility and risk isnt how things usually work in online security. But maybe it should be. As security researcher Bruce Schneier said: What you want is the entity in a position to mitigate the risk be in charge of security. And for all the examples of weak security Ive come across this tax season, the financial industry is getting better. The financial planning site Personal Capital has seen more sophisticated security at bank and brokerage sites, including more use of optional one-time passwords, chief technical officer Fritz Robbins said in a note forwarded by a publicist. For what its worth, the bank holding our mortgage just made its login system sufficiently complex enough that Intuits Mint site cant seem to check our balance. Tax Refund Fraud Remains a Mess If only other parties that use your financial information had the same straightforward incentives for fixing security problems. Instead, the costs their mistakes run up often get paid for with other peoples money. Think about retailers whose sloppy security allows your credit card to be compromised and used for fraudulent purchases at different stores that have to eat those charges. Now consider the complicated machinery of tax preparation. There, risks and responsibilities tumble across the map. The Internal Revenue Service can accept or reject returns, but it also works under a Congressional microscope: If it wrongly holds up a refund, taxpayers and their representatives will howl. Furthermore, the IRS isnt in the room when people do their taxes online third-party services such as Intuits TurboTax have reserved that job. They have a better chance to verify whoevers doing the return, but they have an even stronger incentive to err on the side of getting returns in so refunds go out. An unsurprising result: In the 2013 tax year, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the IRS paid out $5.8 billion in fraudulent refunds to crooks impersonating real taxpayers. No bank could stay in business with that loss rate. (The IRS also prevented or recovered $24.2 billion in ID theft refunds,) An IRS spokesperson noted, fairly enough, that the agency keeps getting less money to do that job its funding fell from $12.15 billion in fiscal year 2010 to $10.9 billion in the current year. But that GAO report also chided the agency for not making such authentication options as Identity Protection PINs more widely available. Intuit, the leading tax-prep company, doesnt look too good either. Security reporter Brian Krebs reported in February that the company had dialed back some anti-fraud efforts , then called it out again in March for neglecting such basics as validating e-mail addresses used to open accounts . Intuit said in a February post that it has been pushing the IRS to offer guidance to tax preparers about ID theft fraud. It has also been closing many of the holes observed by Krebs, something Ive seen in my own experience with TurboTax this year. (Intuit representatives declined to elaborate beyond those earlier statements.) Like data breaches, tax-return fraud is something we cant do much about on our own although the IRSs warnings and advice are worth a read. Any more durable fix is above our pay grade, but I think it has to involve the people responsible for security paying when it fails. It is not an unsolvable problem, said Schneier, suggesting that the IRS ought to eat those costs. But in the context of the American political system, many things cant be done. Email Rob at [email protected] ; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro . || Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets?: Marijuana legalization is spreading across the U.S. and people everywhere are touting its beneficial effects on a variety of different illnesses. Medical marijuana is becoming an increasingly popular treatment for people, but now those healing properties could help ease animals' pain as well. Medicinal Pot For Animals Pet owners in Nevada could soon administer medical marijuana to their pets to help treat certain illnesses. Senator Tick Segerblom (D- Nevada) has sponsored a bill that gives pet owners the ability to obtain medical marijuana prescribed by a vet for their furry friends. Studies Limited While cannabis hasn't been proven as an effective treatment for animals, some veterinarians say it could be beneficial for pets with chronic pain, especially those near the end of their lives. Some worry that allowing pets to consume marijuana could be dangerous for pets' safety as little research has been done on its affects. However, Segerblom says that it would be up to veterinarians to determine whether the effects were worth the risks on a case by case basis. Related Link: Breakfast Of Champions: Is Pot Good For You? Cannabis Dog Treats One company, Canna Companion , has already begun manufacturing cannabis-based dog treats. The company's products are said to reduce the "high-inducing concentration of TCH" while still providing the healing effects. The company cautioned that high concentrations of TCH can be toxic to cats and dogs, but claims that in limited amounts cannabis supplements can ease everything from joint pain to indigestion. Pot-For-Pets The pot-for-pets proposal is a small part of a larger bill that has been designed to revamp Nevada's marijuana legislation. The bill also requires pot dispensary owners to undergo training before setting up shop and allows drivers to have a limited amount of marijuana in their blood without penalty. See more from Benzinga Europe Mulls U.S. Trade Partnership With Skepticism 2016 Presidential Race To Be A Social Media Hurricane Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets?: Marijuana legalization is spreading across the U.S. and people everywhere are touting its beneficial effects on a variety of different illnesses. Medical marijuana is becoming an increasingly popular treatment for people, but now those healing properties could help ease animals' pain as well. Medicinal Pot For Animals Pet owners in Nevada could soon administer medical marijuana to their pets to help treat certain illnesses. Senator Tick Segerblom (D- Nevada) has sponsored a bill that gives pet owners the ability to obtain medical marijuana prescribed by a vet for their furry friends. Studies Limited While cannabis hasn't been proven as an effective treatment for animals, some veterinarians say it could be beneficial for pets with chronic pain, especially those near the end of their lives. Some worry that allowing pets to consume marijuana could be dangerous for pets' safety as little research has been done on its affects. However, Segerblom says that it would be up to veterinarians to determine whether the effects were worth the risks on a case by case basis. Related Link: Breakfast Of Champions: Is Pot Good For You? Cannabis Dog Treats One company, Canna Companion , has already begun manufacturing cannabis-based dog treats. The company's products are said to reduce the "high-inducing concentration of TCH" while still providing the healing effects. The company cautioned that high concentrations of TCH can be toxic to cats and dogs, but claims that in limited amounts cannabis supplements can ease everything from joint pain to indigestion. Pot-For-Pets The pot-for-pets proposal is a small part of a larger bill that has been designed to revamp Nevada's marijuana legislation. The bill also requires pot dispensary owners to undergo training before setting up shop and allows drivers to have a limited amount of marijuana in their blood without penalty. See more from Benzinga Europe Mulls U.S. Trade Partnership With Skepticism 2016 Presidential Race To Be A Social Media Hurricane Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 17 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,050.89 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $1,053.56 (28.05 %). BUY B16.69 @ $224.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $230.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || LIVE: Profit = $1,041.34 (27.63 %). BUY B16.69 @ $224.73 (#BTCe). SELL @ $230.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding...
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222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63, 235.27, 234.18, 236.46, 231.27, 226.39, 219.43
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48, 63326.99, 67566.83, 66971.83, 64995.23, 64949.96, 64155.94, 64469.53, 65466.84, 63557.87, 60161.25, 60368.01, 56942.14, 58119.58, 59697.20, 58730.48, 56289.29, 57569.07, 56280.43, 57274.68, 53569.77, 54815.08, 57248.46, 57806.57, 57005.43, 57229.83, 56477.82.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-12-02]
Volume: 32379968686, RSI (14-day): 44.17, 50-day EMA: 58147.01, 200-day EMA: 50067.29
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1760.70, Gold RSI: 36.68
Oil Price: 66.50, Oil RSI: 29.72
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
The Sandbox (Sand) and EverGrow, Among The Fastest Rising Cryptocurrencies of 2021: NEWARK, DE / ACCESSWIRE / December 2, 2021 / While Cryptocurrency markets continue to trade sideways and Bitcoin is struggling to stay above $60k, some coins are still experiencing significant growth. The Sandbox, a play-to-earn game that utilizes blockchain, DeFi, and NFTs to allow players to create and build their games and digital assets, and also customize them. The Sandbox (SAND) has witnessed a spike in on-chain activity after the launch of SAND Alpha. Another New cryptocurrency EverGrow which was launched just 8 weeks ago has already broken many previous crypto records and has more than 105K+ Token holders at the time of writing. EverGrow has distributed more than $28 Million in BUSD rewards and had achieved a billion in Marketcap. The Sandbox (SAND) entry barrier has risen significantly and recently a virtual property was sold for $4.3 million. EverGrow Token also plans to launch their play to earn the game in the near future. Apart from the P2E game, EverGrow recently revealed its upcoming NFT marketplace and content subscription platform demo. The content subscription platform "crator.com" will provide users with access to excellent content from their favorite creators. The project roadmap also includes NFT lending platforms and crypto staking pools to ensure token price stability. Furthermore, the team plans to utilize the revenue generated by these service platforms to buy back their circulating tokens to increase the scarcity. Apart from this, every transaction contributes 2% of its value which is then transferred to the EverGrow contract for automated buybacks. The funds reserved in the contract are used to burn EverGrow token to increase its scarcity further. To date, the project has already burned more than 52% of total tokens in circulation, where 50% of supply was burned on its initial launch and the remaining 2.5% of tokens have been burned via strategic buy-backs. EverGrow 's team has done a spectacular job in making its tokenomics not only well versed but also pretty unique. There is no precedent in the Crypto space equivalent to this high-powered tokenomics. Right from launch, the EverGrow token has shown a rising chart. And the token is already listed on a series of Cex exchanges like Bitmart, Bibox, Lbank, Coinsbit. This has opened up new opportunities for millions of investors throughout the world. With so much going on, it's wise to say that EverGrow is on its way to becoming the Top Cryptocurrencies on Binance Smart Chain. Story continues Company: EverGrow Coin Email: [email protected] Website: https://evergrowcoin.com SOURCE: EverGrow Coin View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/675650/The-Sandbox-Sand-and-EverGrow-Among-The-Fastest-Rising-Cryptocurrencies-of-2021 || The Sandbox (Sand) and EverGrow, Among The Fastest Rising Cryptocurrencies of 2021: NEWARK, DE / ACCESSWIRE / December 2, 2021 /While Cryptocurrency markets continue to trade sideways and Bitcoin is struggling to stay above $60k, some coins are still experiencing significant growth. The Sandbox, a play-to-earn game that utilizes blockchain, DeFi, and NFTs to allow players to create and build their games and digital assets, and also customize them. The Sandbox (SAND) has witnessed a spike in on-chain activity after the launch of SAND Alpha.
Another New cryptocurrencyEverGrowwhich was launched just 8 weeks ago has already broken many previous crypto records and has more than 105K+ Token holders at the time of writing. EverGrow has distributed more than $28 Million in BUSD rewards and had achieved a billion in Marketcap.
The Sandbox (SAND) entry barrier has risen significantly and recently a virtual property was sold for $4.3 million. EverGrow Token also plans to launch their play to earn the game in the near future. Apart from the P2E game, EverGrow recently revealed its upcoming NFT marketplace and content subscription platform demo. The content subscription platform "crator.com" will provide users with access to excellent content from their favorite creators. The project roadmap also includes NFT lending platforms and crypto staking pools to ensure token price stability. Furthermore, the team plans to utilize the revenue generated by these service platforms to buy back their circulating tokens to increase the scarcity.
Apart from this, every transaction contributes 2% of its value which is then transferred to the EverGrow contract for automated buybacks. The funds reserved in the contract are used to burn EverGrow token to increase its scarcity further. To date, the project has already burned more than 52% of total tokens in circulation, where 50% of supply was burned on its initial launch and the remaining 2.5% of tokens have been burned via strategic buy-backs.
EverGrow's team has done a spectacular job in making its tokenomics not only well versed but also pretty unique. There is no precedent in the Crypto space equivalent to this high-powered tokenomics. Right from launch, the EverGrow token has shown a rising chart. And the token is already listed on a series of Cex exchanges like Bitmart, Bibox, Lbank, Coinsbit. This has opened up new opportunities for millions of investors throughout the world. With so much going on, it's wise to say that EverGrow is on its way to becoming the Top Cryptocurrencies on Binance Smart Chain.
Company:EverGrow CoinEmail:[email protected]:https://evergrowcoin.com
SOURCE:EverGrow Coin
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/675650/The-Sandbox-Sand-and-EverGrow-Among-The-Fastest-Rising-Cryptocurrencies-of-2021 || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Drops Following First US Omicron Case: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Market moves: Crypto markets opened December with mixed performances as traders remain in a wait-and-see mode. Technician’s take: BTC’s uptrend is intact with improving price momentum. Downside appears to be limited around the $53K-$55K support zone. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Prices Bitcoin ( BTC ): $57,095 -0.2% Ether ( ETH ): $4,593 -1% Markets S&P 500: $4,513 -1.1% Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,022 -1.3% Nasdaq: $15,254 -1.8% Gold: $1,782 +.53% Market moves Bitcoin briefly dropped below $57,000 during U.S. trading hours on Wednesday after news broke that health officials in the country confirmed the first case of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, in California. At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading just above $57,000 but still down for the day. The drop wiped out bitcoin’s earlier gains when it increased above $59,000 from a low at roughly $55,920 a day ago. Stocks also fell , with the S&P 500 dropping by 0.49% on Wednesday. One analyst remains positive about the potential Omicron’s long-term impact on crypto. “While the new coronavirus variant has raised concerns over potentially tumbling down crypto prices, it is also essential to note that crypto markets had observed strong growth throughout [the pandemic],” Danny Chong, co-founder of Tranchess, a Binance Smart Chain-based, yield-enhancing, asset-tracking protocol, said via a representative. Ether also retreated , down to about $4,575 from as high as $4,782.40, according to CoinDesk’s data, ending its four-day winning streak. As an investment asset, ether posted a strong monthly return in November, beating bitcoin and macro assets, including the S&P 500, gold and bonds. (CoinDesk Research) But a few other layer 1 blockchain tokens remained in the green on Wednesday, including polygon (MATIC), terra (LUNA) and solana (SOL). Story continues Technician’s take Bitcoin Rangebound Between $55K Support and $60K Resistance Bitcoin daily price chart (Damanick Dantes/CoinDesk, TradingView) Bitcoin’s (BTC) price momentum is improving, which could limit further downside between the $53,000-$55,000 support range. Buyers will need to make a decisive move above $60,000 resistance to yield an upside target toward the all-time price high of nearly $69,000. For now, BTC is trading in a tight range and has been roughly flat over the past week. The relative strength index ( RSI ) on the daily chart is rising from oversold levels of last week, which typically precedes a price bounce. Support remains intact given the upward-sloping, 100-day moving average. This indicates a positive intermediate-term trend, which could encourage additional buying on pullbacks. Important events 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia imports/exports (Oct. MoM) 1 p.m. HKT/SGT (5 a.m. UTC): Japan consumer confidence index (Nov.) 6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Eurostat producer price index (Oct. YoY/MoM) 9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic speaks on housing prices Art Basel Miami Beach CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV : Venture Capital Investor Tim Draper on Crypto, Investment Strategy and the State of Economy “First Mover” hosts spoke with prominent venture capitalist Tim Draper for his insights on the crypto markets, the booming non-fungible token (NFT) space, the state of the economy and his investment strategy. Plus, NFT Ecosystem Enjin’s Chief Technology Officer Witek Radomski shared details behind the $100 million metaverse fund for Efinity. Latest headlines Hashed Raises $200M for Web 3 Investments: The South Korean venture firm has now raised $320 million in the past 12 months. Payments Giant Square Is Changing Its Name to Block: The move creates room for the company to move further beyond its roots as a business focused on serving sellers. Morgan Stanley Sees Crypto-Banking Regulation Arriving Faster Than Expected: The bank’s analysts say this is positive for crypto banks Silvergate and Signature. Structure Raises $20M to Fund Development of Mobile App: Polychain Capital led the seed round investment. AAG Ventures Raises $12.5M to Launch New Learn-to-Earn Platform: The company will also create a platform for building play-to-earn guilds. Longer reads The World Bitcoin Will Build Who Sets the Rules of Bitcoin as Nation-States and Corps Roll In Today’s crypto explainer: How to Store Your Bitcoin Other voices: Why it is wise to add bitcoin to an investment portfolio (The Economist) || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Drops Following First US Omicron Case: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
Market moves:Crypto markets opened December with mixed performances as traders remain in a wait-and-see mode.
Technician’s take:BTC’s uptrend is intact with improving price momentum. Downside appears to be limited around the $53K-$55K support zone.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $57,095 -0.2%
Ether (ETH): $4,593 -1%
S&P 500: $4,513 -1.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,022 -1.3%
Nasdaq: $15,254 -1.8%
Gold: $1,782 +.53%
Bitcoin briefly dropped below $57,000 during U.S. trading hours on Wednesday after newsbrokethat health officials in the country confirmed the first case of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, in California. At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading just above $57,000 but still down for the day.
The drop wiped out bitcoin’s earlier gains when it increased above $59,000 from a low at roughly $55,920 a day ago. Stocks alsofell, with the S&P 500droppingby 0.49% on Wednesday.
One analyst remains positive about the potential Omicron’s long-term impact on crypto.
“While the new coronavirus variant has raised concerns over potentially tumbling down crypto prices, it is also essential to note that crypto markets had observed strong growth throughout [the pandemic],” Danny Chong, co-founder of Tranchess, a Binance Smart Chain-based, yield-enhancing, asset-tracking protocol, said via a representative.
Ether alsoretreated, down to about $4,575 from as high as $4,782.40, according to CoinDesk’s data, ending its four-day winning streak. As an investment asset, ether posted a strong monthly return in November, beating bitcoin and macro assets, including the S&P 500, gold and bonds.
But a few other layer 1 blockchain tokens remained in the green on Wednesday, including polygon (MATIC), terra (LUNA) and solana (SOL).
Bitcoin Rangebound Between $55K Support and $60K Resistance
Bitcoin’s (BTC) pricemomentumis improving, which could limit further downside between the $53,000-$55,000 support range.
Buyers will need to make a decisive move above $60,000resistanceto yield an upside target toward the all-time price high of nearly $69,000.
For now, BTC is trading in a tight range and has been roughly flat over the past week. The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is rising from oversold levels of last week, which typically precedes a price bounce.
Support remains intact given the upward-sloping, 100-day moving average. This indicates a positive intermediate-term trend, which could encourage additional buying on pullbacks.
8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia imports/exports (Oct. MoM)
1 p.m. HKT/SGT (5 a.m. UTC): Japan consumer confidence index (Nov.)
6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Eurostat producer price index (Oct. YoY/MoM)
9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic speaks on housing prices
Art Basel Miami Beach
In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
Venture Capital Investor Tim Draper on Crypto, Investment Strategy and the State of Economy
“First Mover” hosts spoke with prominent venture capitalist Tim Draper for his insights on the crypto markets, the booming non-fungible token (NFT) space, the state of the economy and his investment strategy. Plus, NFT Ecosystem Enjin’s Chief Technology Officer Witek Radomski shared details behind the $100 million metaverse fund for Efinity.
Hashed Raises $200M for Web 3 Investments:The South Korean venture firm has now raised $320 million in the past 12 months.
Payments Giant Square Is Changing Its Name to Block:The move creates room for the company to move further beyond its roots as a business focused on serving sellers.
Morgan Stanley Sees Crypto-Banking Regulation Arriving Faster Than Expected:The bank’s analysts say this is positive for crypto banks Silvergate and Signature.
Structure Raises $20M to Fund Development of Mobile App:Polychain Capital led the seed round investment.
AAG Ventures Raises $12.5M to Launch New Learn-to-Earn Platform:The company will also create a platform for building play-to-earn guilds.
The World Bitcoin Will Build
Who Sets the Rules of Bitcoin as Nation-States and Corps Roll In
Today’s crypto explainer:How to Store Your Bitcoin
Other voices:Why it is wise to add bitcoin to an investment portfolio(The Economist) || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Drops Following First US Omicron Case: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
Market moves:Crypto markets opened December with mixed performances as traders remain in a wait-and-see mode.
Technician’s take:BTC’s uptrend is intact with improving price momentum. Downside appears to be limited around the $53K-$55K support zone.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $57,095 -0.2%
Ether (ETH): $4,593 -1%
S&P 500: $4,513 -1.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: $34,022 -1.3%
Nasdaq: $15,254 -1.8%
Gold: $1,782 +.53%
Bitcoin briefly dropped below $57,000 during U.S. trading hours on Wednesday after newsbrokethat health officials in the country confirmed the first case of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, in California. At the time of publication, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading just above $57,000 but still down for the day.
The drop wiped out bitcoin’s earlier gains when it increased above $59,000 from a low at roughly $55,920 a day ago. Stocks alsofell, with the S&P 500droppingby 0.49% on Wednesday.
One analyst remains positive about the potential Omicron’s long-term impact on crypto.
“While the new coronavirus variant has raised concerns over potentially tumbling down crypto prices, it is also essential to note that crypto markets had observed strong growth throughout [the pandemic],” Danny Chong, co-founder of Tranchess, a Binance Smart Chain-based, yield-enhancing, asset-tracking protocol, said via a representative.
Ether alsoretreated, down to about $4,575 from as high as $4,782.40, according to CoinDesk’s data, ending its four-day winning streak. As an investment asset, ether posted a strong monthly return in November, beating bitcoin and macro assets, including the S&P 500, gold and bonds.
But a few other layer 1 blockchain tokens remained in the green on Wednesday, including polygon (MATIC), terra (LUNA) and solana (SOL).
Bitcoin Rangebound Between $55K Support and $60K Resistance
Bitcoin’s (BTC) pricemomentumis improving, which could limit further downside between the $53,000-$55,000 support range.
Buyers will need to make a decisive move above $60,000resistanceto yield an upside target toward the all-time price high of nearly $69,000.
For now, BTC is trading in a tight range and has been roughly flat over the past week. The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is rising from oversold levels of last week, which typically precedes a price bounce.
Support remains intact given the upward-sloping, 100-day moving average. This indicates a positive intermediate-term trend, which could encourage additional buying on pullbacks.
8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia imports/exports (Oct. MoM)
1 p.m. HKT/SGT (5 a.m. UTC): Japan consumer confidence index (Nov.)
6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Eurostat producer price index (Oct. YoY/MoM)
9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic speaks on housing prices
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In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
Venture Capital Investor Tim Draper on Crypto, Investment Strategy and the State of Economy
“First Mover” hosts spoke with prominent venture capitalist Tim Draper for his insights on the crypto markets, the booming non-fungible token (NFT) space, the state of the economy and his investment strategy. Plus, NFT Ecosystem Enjin’s Chief Technology Officer Witek Radomski shared details behind the $100 million metaverse fund for Efinity.
Hashed Raises $200M for Web 3 Investments:The South Korean venture firm has now raised $320 million in the past 12 months.
Payments Giant Square Is Changing Its Name to Block:The move creates room for the company to move further beyond its roots as a business focused on serving sellers.
Morgan Stanley Sees Crypto-Banking Regulation Arriving Faster Than Expected:The bank’s analysts say this is positive for crypto banks Silvergate and Signature.
Structure Raises $20M to Fund Development of Mobile App:Polychain Capital led the seed round investment.
AAG Ventures Raises $12.5M to Launch New Learn-to-Earn Platform:The company will also create a platform for building play-to-earn guilds.
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Today’s crypto explainer:How to Store Your Bitcoin
Other voices:Why it is wise to add bitcoin to an investment portfolio(The Economist) || Square Changes Name to Block in Nod to New Businesses: (Bloomberg) -- Square Inc. is changing its corporate name to Block Inc., signaling a push beyond the companys main sales and payments products into businesses like music, cash transfers and the blockchain. Most Read from Bloomberg The Worlds Relentless Demand for Chips Turns Deadly in Malaysia Sand and Soldiers Mix as Troops Move In to Protect Cancun Tourists Even in the Metaverse, Not All Identities Are Created Equal The $300 Billion Plan to Bring Green Power to Chinas Megacities Meet the New Climate Refugee in Town: Coyotes The company, co-founded and run by cryptocurrency enthusiast Jack Dorsey, will continue to call its seller product Square, and the new corporate identity wont lead to any organizational changes. The companys stock ticker -- SQ -- will also stay the same. CEO Dorsey -- who resigned from the same role at Twitter Inc. earlier this week -- has long wanted to build Square from a digital-payments company into a broader organization with a number of standalone business units. In that vein, Square recently acquired Tidal, the music streaming service led by rapper Jay-Z, and started a financial services division focused on Bitcoin called TBD54566975. (That units name was derived from a positive numerology report linked to the number.) The San Francisco-based company also owns Cash App, a consumer payments and investing product, and Square, its original sales and register service used by small businesses. As the company expanded, it became confusing to have a corporate name that overlapped with just one of its businesses. Its the same strategy that social media giant Meta Platforms Inc. adopted last month, when it changed its name from Facebook Inc. to widen the focus from its flagship product. We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs, Dorsey said Wednesday in a statement. Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy. Story continues The name Block has a number of inspirations. Building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome, Squares statement says. Linking the name Block to blockchain -- the decentralized technology underlying cryptocurrencies and other digital assets -- will certainly make sense to people who follow Dorsey. The CEO is a Bitcoin fanatic, and often tweets about the cryptocurrency and blockchain-related technologies. Square Crypto, a project aimed at advancing Bitcoin, will now be called Spiral. Dorseys departure from the helm of Twitter this week led to speculation that he would be focusing more of his attention on Square -- now Block -- and its effort to move into new businesses and popularize digital currencies and use of the blockchain. In recent months, Dorsey has revved up Squares efforts in several cryptocurrency-related areas. In October, he tweeted that Square is considering building a Bitcoin-mining system based on custom silicon that could be used by people and companies worldwide. In November, Square published a white paper describing plans for a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange for trading Bitcoin, fiat money or real-world goods. (Updates to add details on Squares crypto efforts in ninth and 10th paragraphs.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek Return-to-Office Chaos Is the Best Thing to Happen to Consultants Since Y2K The Fall of a Russian Cyberexecutive Who Went Against the Kremlin Paige Bueckers, a College Athlete Whos Cashing In The Meme Stock David Baszucki, Robloxs Builderman ©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Square Changes Name to Block in Nod to New Businesses: (Bloomberg) -- Square Inc. is changing its corporate name to Block Inc., signaling a push beyond the company’s main sales and payments products into businesses like music, cash transfers and the blockchain.
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The company, co-founded and run by cryptocurrency enthusiast Jack Dorsey, will continue to call its seller product Square, and the new corporate identity won’t lead to any organizational changes. The company’s stock ticker -- SQ -- will also stay the same.
CEO Dorsey -- who resigned from the same role at Twitter Inc. earlier this week -- has long wanted to build Square from a digital-payments company into a broader organization with a number of standalone business units. In that vein, Square recently acquired Tidal, the music streaming service led by rapper Jay-Z, and started a financial services division focused on Bitcoin called TBD54566975. (That unit’s name was derived from a positive numerology report linked to the number.)
The San Francisco-based company also owns Cash App, a consumer payments and investing product, and Square, its original sales and register service used by small businesses. As the company expanded, it became confusing to have a corporate name that overlapped with just one of its businesses. It’s the same strategy that social media giant Meta Platforms Inc. adopted last month, when it changed its name from Facebook Inc. to widen the focus from its flagship product.
“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey said Wednesday in a statement. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”
The name Block has a number of inspirations. “Building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome,” Square’s statement says.
Linking the name Block to blockchain -- the decentralized technology underlying cryptocurrencies and other digital assets -- will certainly make sense to people who follow Dorsey. The CEO is a Bitcoin fanatic, and often tweets about the cryptocurrency and blockchain-related technologies. Square Crypto, a project aimed at advancing Bitcoin, will now be called Spiral.
Dorsey’s departure from the helm of Twitter this week led to speculation that he would be focusing more of his attention on Square -- now Block -- and its effort to move into new businesses and popularize digital currencies and use of the blockchain.
In recent months, Dorsey has revved up Square’s efforts in several cryptocurrency-related areas. In October, he tweeted that Square is considering building a Bitcoin-mining system based on custom silicon that could be used by people and companies worldwide.
In November, Square published a white paper describing plans for a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange for trading Bitcoin, fiat money or real-world goods.
(Updates to add details on Square’s crypto efforts in ninth and 10th paragraphs.)
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• David Baszucki, Roblox’s ‘Builderman’
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Square is rebranding itself as 'Block': Payments firm Square plans to change its name to Block as cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies become a bigger part of its business. On Wednesday, the company announced it will move forward with the rebranding on December 10th. The name has many associated meanings for the company building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome, the company said in a blog post . Were changing our company name so we can give the full @Square brand to our Seller business. So now we need a name to tie @Square , @CashApp , @TIDAL , and @TBD54566975 together into one. That name is Block. Why? https://t.co/vVSKNnMUU3 Square (@Square) December 1, 2021 When Jack Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009 shortly after his first stint as CEO of Twitter, the companys only product was its namesake card reader, which allowed merchants to process credit card payments with their phones. Since then, its business has expanded to include stock and crypto trading , money lending and more. This year, Square even bought a majority stake in Tidal . And its that expansion from that the rebranding is designed to encapsulate. We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs, Dorsey said. Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy. The move comes in the same week that Dorsey stepped down as the CEO of Twitter . Since 2015, he had led both Twitter and Square, a position that eventually led to pressure from activist investment firm Elliott Management . In a lot of ways, the rebranding is also reflective of Dorseys well-known enthusiasm for cryptocurrency. After all, this is the man who wanted the world to know he has a Bitcoin clock in his kitchen . He recently announced Square would build a Bitcoin hardware wallet , and consider a mining system . This article contains affilate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. || Square is rebranding itself as 'Block': Payments firm Square plans to change its name to Block as cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies become a bigger part of its business. On Wednesday, the company announced it will move forward with the rebranding on December 10th.
“The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome,” the company said in ablog post.
When Jack Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009 shortly after his first stint as CEO of Twitter, the company’s only product was its namesake card reader, which allowed merchants to process credit card payments with their phones. Since then, its business has expanded to includestock and crypto trading,money lendingand more. This year, Square evenbought a majority stake in Tidal. And it’s that expansion from that the rebranding is designed to encapsulate.
“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey said. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”
The move comes in the same week that Dorsey stepped down as theCEO of Twitter. Since 2015, he had led both Twitter and Square, a position that eventually led to pressure from activist investment firmElliott Management. In a lot of ways, the rebranding is also reflective of Dorsey’s well-known enthusiasm for cryptocurrency. After all, this is the man who wanted the world to know he has aBitcoin clock in his kitchen. He recently announced Square wouldbuild a Bitcoin hardware wallet, and“consider” a mining system. || Use the Weakness in Marathon Digital as a Buying Opportunity: Cryptocurrency mining stocks likeMarathon Digital(NASDAQ:MARA) have had a massive year. In fact, since the beginning of 2021, MARA stock exploded from a low of $10.53 to around $51 today. All as it trackedBitcoin(CCC:BTC-USD), which ran from a 2021 low of nearly $29,000 to around $57,000 today.
Source: Shutterstock
But the best part? Both MARA and BTC are excessively oversold at the moment.
For one, after pulling back from a high of $83.45, Marathon Digital has been consolidating around the $51 mark. From here, I’d like to see MARA challenge its prior high above $83. That’s doable as the stock continues to track the price movements of Bitcoin.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
Secondly, Bitcoin appears to have bottomed out around the high $50,000s and could potentially challenge a prior high of $68,978. If BTC can race higher, Marathon is likely to follow. In short, I’d use the weakness in MARA as a buy opportunity.
While you can always trade Bitcoin, digital currencies aren’t for everyone. But people can also invest in the next best thing — miners like Marathon Digital, which has a history of tracking higher with BTC prices. Basically, the higher Bitcoin moves, the higher MARA stock climbs.
• 7 Tech Stocks That Could Rally In December
Consider this: right now, BTC trades above $57,000. However, according to Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Bitcoincould run to $100,000. If that happens, a mining stock like Marathon Digital could easily double if not triple.
EvenArk InvestCEO Cathie Wood says Bitcoin couldreach $500,000by 2026. In fact, Wood noted that if “‘institutional investors move into bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,’ the value of a bitcoin would rise to around $560,000 by 2026.”
In its most recent quarter, Marathon Digital said revenue grew to $51.7 million. That’s a 76% increase quarter-over-quarter. It’s also a 6,091% increase year-over-year (YOY) from $835,000 in the third quarter of 2020. The company also produced 1,252 BTC in Q3, a 91% sequential jump from Q2 2021.
The numbers should only improve from here, as Bitcoin prices push higher.
As of Nov. 1, the company also purchased 133,000 miners,according to an investor deck. Additionally, the company has mined 2,516 BTC year-to-date (YTD) and currently holds about 7,453 BTC. Marathon Digital has plans to grow its hash rate 393% from 2.7 EH/s in the third quarter of 2021 to 13.3 EH/s by the middle of 2022 as well.
Finally, this miner plans to be 70% carbon neutral by Q1 2022. By the end of fiscal 2022, it expects to be fully carbon neutral.
When it comes down to it, I’d use the recent pullback in MARA stock as a buy opportunity. Analysts also appear to agree.
For example, DA Davidson analyst Christopher Brendler has a “buy” rating with atarget price of $65. According toThe Fly, the analyst added that “Marathon’s new rigs are already coming online and its top line is set to grow by over 100%, but the stock’s enterprise value is at just 4-times expected FY23 EBITDA.” Similarly, B. Riley analyst Lucas Pipes alsoraised his price targetfrom $87 t0 $92 per share, with a “buy” rating.
Not only will MARA stock continue to track higher with Bitcoin prices, but it should also continue to produce exemplary earnings growth. In addition, should BTC explode to a target price of $100,000, shares of Marathon Digital could easily double — if not triple — with patience.
From a current price of around $51, I’d like to see Marathon challenge its prior high of $83.45, near-term. From there, I’d like to see the stock come closer to $100 in the new year.
On the date of publication, Ian Cooper did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
Ian Cooper, a contributor toInvestorPlace.com, has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999.
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The postUse the Weakness in Marathon Digital as a Buying Opportunityappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Use the Weakness in Marathon Digital as a Buying Opportunity: Cryptocurrency mining stocks like Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA ) have had a massive year. In fact, since the beginning of 2021, MARA stock exploded from a low of $10.53 to around $51 today. All as it tracked Bitcoin (CCC: BTC-USD ), which ran from a 2021 low of nearly $29,000 to around $57,000 today. Concept art of crypto mining with little figuring and a Bitcoin (BTC) token. Source: Shutterstock But the best part? Both MARA and BTC are excessively oversold at the moment. For one, after pulling back from a high of $83.45, Marathon Digital has been consolidating around the $51 mark. From here, I’d like to see MARA challenge its prior high above $83. That’s doable as the stock continues to track the price movements of Bitcoin. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Secondly, Bitcoin appears to have bottomed out around the high $50,000s and could potentially challenge a prior high of $68,978. If BTC can race higher, Marathon is likely to follow. In short, I’d use the weakness in MARA as a buy opportunity. MARA Stock: One of the Top Bitcoin Miners While you can always trade Bitcoin, digital currencies aren’t for everyone. But people can also invest in the next best thing — miners like Marathon Digital, which has a history of tracking higher with BTC prices. Basically, the higher Bitcoin moves, the higher MARA stock climbs. 7 Tech Stocks That Could Rally In December Consider this: right now, BTC trades above $57,000. However, according to Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Bitcoin could run to $100,000 . If that happens, a mining stock like Marathon Digital could easily double if not triple. Even Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood says Bitcoin could reach $500,000 by 2026. In fact, Wood noted that if “‘institutional investors move into bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,’ the value of a bitcoin would rise to around $560,000 by 2026.” Earnings Growth Has Been Just as Impressive In its most recent quarter, Marathon Digital said revenue grew to $51.7 million. That’s a 76% increase quarter-over-quarter. It’s also a 6,091% increase year-over-year (YOY) from $835,000 in the third quarter of 2020. The company also produced 1,252 BTC in Q3, a 91% sequential jump from Q2 2021. Story continues The numbers should only improve from here, as Bitcoin prices push higher. As of Nov. 1, the company also purchased 133,000 miners, according to an investor deck . Additionally, the company has mined 2,516 BTC year-to-date (YTD) and currently holds about 7,453 BTC. Marathon Digital has plans to grow its hash rate 393% from 2.7 EH/s in the third quarter of 2021 to 13.3 EH/s by the middle of 2022 as well. Finally, this miner plans to be 70% carbon neutral by Q1 2022. By the end of fiscal 2022, it expects to be fully carbon neutral. The Bottom Line on MARA Stock When it comes down to it, I’d use the recent pullback in MARA stock as a buy opportunity. Analysts also appear to agree. For example, DA Davidson analyst Christopher Brendler has a “buy” rating with a target price of $65 . According to The Fly , the analyst added that “Marathon’s new rigs are already coming online and its top line is set to grow by over 100%, but the stock’s enterprise value is at just 4-times expected FY23 EBITDA.” Similarly, B. Riley analyst Lucas Pipes also raised his price target from $87 t0 $92 per share, with a “buy” rating. Not only will MARA stock continue to track higher with Bitcoin prices, but it should also continue to produce exemplary earnings growth. In addition, should BTC explode to a target price of $100,000, shares of Marathon Digital could easily double — if not triple — with patience. From a current price of around $51, I’d like to see Marathon challenge its prior high of $83.45, near-term. From there, I’d like to see the stock come closer to $100 in the new year. On the date of publication, Ian Cooper did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Ian Cooper, a contributor to InvestorPlace.com , has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999. More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS Now Man Who Called Black Monday: “Prepare Now.” #1 EV Stock Still Flying Under the Radar Interested in Crypto? Read This First... The post Use the Weakness in Marathon Digital as a Buying Opportunity appeared first on InvestorPlace . || QAnoner Ron Watkins Begs For Bitcoin to Finance Flailing Congressional Run: Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos by Getty/Wikimedia Commons A month into a lackluster congressional campaign , former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins sent a warning to his followers on the messaging platform Telegram. “I do NOT send direct messages to anybody asking people to buy crypto coins or gift cards,” Watkins wrote last week. “Please do not engage with accounts who claim to be me and ask you to buy gift cards or crypto on their behalf. It is not me.” At least someone was making money off Watkins’s campaign. Although Watkins, a QAnon-linked figure, does not have to file campaign finance reports until January, early indicators suggest that his bid for Congress has received underwhelming support. Previously, Watkins pledged to raise $1 million and unseat incumbent Rep. Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s Democratic-leaning 1st congressional district. Instead, more than a month after launching his campaign , Watkins is making Telegram videos acknowledging “funding challenges” and attempting a pivot to Bitcoin fundraising. The Big MAGA and QAnon Civil War Keeps Getting Nuttier and Sleazier “The mainstream media has been putting out articles saying ‘hey Ron, your campaign can’t make any money! What are you doing?’” Watkins said in a front-facing cell phone video uploaded to his Telegram channel on Friday. “Well I want to address that now and say that yeah we’ve been having some funding challenges, that’s true. Lots of platforms will not work with us and so we’re having quite a difficult time getting things going.” Watkins announced that he was working on a new Bitcoin donation model with a website that “you might or might not be able to find, but if you do find it, it is real and as things get rolled out we’re going to be building more and more steam and we’re gonna be raising more money and the point of this is to prove to the haters that we can raise money and we can win this.” Tony Teora, Watkins’s campaign manager told The Daily Beast that the campaign had raised a few thousand dollars since amping up its fundraising calls last week, but that the campaign could not offer firm figures since it hadn’t yet opened all its mail. Story continues Teora noted that Watkins hasn’t fully committed to running in the 1st congressional district, and might change districts in order to avoid running against the far-right Rep. Paul Gosar. “Note: We are waiting for the redistricting in Arizona to complete as we may move to a new congressional district,” Teora said. “Ron does not (and will not) run against Paul Gosar, whom he holds in the highest regards.” While Watkins waits, he has asked Telegram followers to send him as much as $2,900 in Bitcoin. That amount is legal for congressional races and Arizona races, although other states have capped individual cryptocurrency donations at $100, based on a 2014 FEC decision that gave the green light for campaigns to accept $100 in individualized Bitcoin donations. HBO’s QAnon Docuseries ‘Q: Into the Storm’ Believes It Has Discovered Q’s Identity Some of those rules stem from concerns about the traceability of cryptocurrency which, like cash, can be more difficult to track than checks or credit card payments. The homepage for Watkins’s campaign is sparse on text and devotes the largest of its three paragraphs to informing supporters that “federal law requires us to use our best efforts” to collect information on donors who give more than $200. Flipping O’Halleran’s seat poses a challenge even for mainstream Republicans. The incumbent Democrat had raised more than $1 million by September , in a district that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 . And Watkins is no mainstream candidate. Until late 2020, Watkins was an administrator on 8kun (formerly 8chan), a troll-ridden forum owned by Watkin’s father, Jim. 8kun was the home of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that falsely accuses Donald Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism. The Watkins’ proximity to QAnon led observers to speculate that they were involved in the theory’s authorship, with a recent HBO documentary appearing to show Ron Watkins describing himself as “Q,” the conspiracy theory’s author. Watkins has denied those allegations. Watkins’s foray into electoral politics represents an attempt to separate himself from those associations—but, as The Daily Beast previously reported , he’s had a hard time saying goodbye to the group, recently earning a keynote speech at a conference organized by people called “QAnon John” and “Q Queen Army.” Watkins has also remained deeply enmeshed with the conspiracy world, and been involved with the publication of leaked voting machine data which, despite Trump fans’ insistence, did not show any 2020 election malfeasance. Just three days before Watkins announced his cryptocurrency pivot, he denounced cryptocurrency scammers on Telegram, warning fans to ignore imposters who posed as him to sell or solicit cryptocurrency and gift cards. Cryptocurrency scams are common on Telegram, with impersonation channels passing themselves off as celebrities (both living and dead) to hype NFTs or plead for Bitcoin donations from gullible fans. One of Watkins’s followers replied that he’d been hit with similar Telegram scams that impersonated conservative activist Scott Pressler and fringe Arizona lawmaker Wendy Rogers. Some Watkins followers claimed to have fallen for the scam. “Shit I bought you a gift card,” one wrote. “I fell for it,” another said. “Got most my money back but I think it’s a scam. Don’t buy.” Hours before warning of scammers, Watkins had, perhaps inadvertently, waded into what would soon become the biggest fight on the QAnon right . “ Lin Wood is a God-fearing Christian and has always been sincere and helpful in all my interactions with him,” Watkins wrote of Wood, a QAnon-hyping lawyer enmeshed in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election “I don't understand why he is being attacked, but the allegations certainly seem out of character and do not reflect the Lin Wood that I know.” Days later, Wood—who has been trying to fend off far-right attacks that he betrayed Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse–leaked unflattering phone recordings of his former allies, including a recording of former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne accusing a colleague of grifting money, and a recording of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn denouncing QAnon as a CIA-led “disinformation campaign.” On Tuesday night, Teora suggested that Watkins’s stance on Wood remains unchanged. “As for Ron's stance on Lin Wood, his previous comments stand for themself,” Teora wrote. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. || QAnoner Ron Watkins Begs For Bitcoin to Finance Flailing Congressional Run: Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos by Getty/Wikimedia Commons A month into a lackluster congressional campaign , former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins sent a warning to his followers on the messaging platform Telegram. “I do NOT send direct messages to anybody asking people to buy crypto coins or gift cards,” Watkins wrote last week. “Please do not engage with accounts who claim to be me and ask you to buy gift cards or crypto on their behalf. It is not me.” At least someone was making money off Watkins’s campaign. Although Watkins, a QAnon-linked figure, does not have to file campaign finance reports until January, early indicators suggest that his bid for Congress has received underwhelming support. Previously, Watkins pledged to raise $1 million and unseat incumbent Rep. Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s Democratic-leaning 1st congressional district. Instead, more than a month after launching his campaign , Watkins is making Telegram videos acknowledging “funding challenges” and attempting a pivot to Bitcoin fundraising. The Big MAGA and QAnon Civil War Keeps Getting Nuttier and Sleazier “The mainstream media has been putting out articles saying ‘hey Ron, your campaign can’t make any money! What are you doing?’” Watkins said in a front-facing cell phone video uploaded to his Telegram channel on Friday. “Well I want to address that now and say that yeah we’ve been having some funding challenges, that’s true. Lots of platforms will not work with us and so we’re having quite a difficult time getting things going.” Watkins announced that he was working on a new Bitcoin donation model with a website that “you might or might not be able to find, but if you do find it, it is real and as things get rolled out we’re going to be building more and more steam and we’re gonna be raising more money and the point of this is to prove to the haters that we can raise money and we can win this.” Tony Teora, Watkins’s campaign manager told The Daily Beast that the campaign had raised a few thousand dollars since amping up its fundraising calls last week, but that the campaign could not offer firm figures since it hadn’t yet opened all its mail. Story continues Teora noted that Watkins hasn’t fully committed to running in the 1st congressional district, and might change districts in order to avoid running against the far-right Rep. Paul Gosar. “Note: We are waiting for the redistricting in Arizona to complete as we may move to a new congressional district,” Teora said. “Ron does not (and will not) run against Paul Gosar, whom he holds in the highest regards.” While Watkins waits, he has asked Telegram followers to send him as much as $2,900 in Bitcoin. That amount is legal for congressional races and Arizona races, although other states have capped individual cryptocurrency donations at $100, based on a 2014 FEC decision that gave the green light for campaigns to accept $100 in individualized Bitcoin donations. HBO’s QAnon Docuseries ‘Q: Into the Storm’ Believes It Has Discovered Q’s Identity Some of those rules stem from concerns about the traceability of cryptocurrency which, like cash, can be more difficult to track than checks or credit card payments. The homepage for Watkins’s campaign is sparse on text and devotes the largest of its three paragraphs to informing supporters that “federal law requires us to use our best efforts” to collect information on donors who give more than $200. Flipping O’Halleran’s seat poses a challenge even for mainstream Republicans. The incumbent Democrat had raised more than $1 million by September , in a district that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 . And Watkins is no mainstream candidate. Until late 2020, Watkins was an administrator on 8kun (formerly 8chan), a troll-ridden forum owned by Watkin’s father, Jim. 8kun was the home of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that falsely accuses Donald Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism. The Watkins’ proximity to QAnon led observers to speculate that they were involved in the theory’s authorship, with a recent HBO documentary appearing to show Ron Watkins describing himself as “Q,” the conspiracy theory’s author. Watkins has denied those allegations. Watkins’s foray into electoral politics represents an attempt to separate himself from those associations—but, as The Daily Beast previously reported , he’s had a hard time saying goodbye to the group, recently earning a keynote speech at a conference organized by people called “QAnon John” and “Q Queen Army.” Watkins has also remained deeply enmeshed with the conspiracy world, and been involved with the publication of leaked voting machine data which, despite Trump fans’ insistence, did not show any 2020 election malfeasance. Just three days before Watkins announced his cryptocurrency pivot, he denounced cryptocurrency scammers on Telegram, warning fans to ignore imposters who posed as him to sell or solicit cryptocurrency and gift cards. Cryptocurrency scams are common on Telegram, with impersonation channels passing themselves off as celebrities (both living and dead) to hype NFTs or plead for Bitcoin donations from gullible fans. One of Watkins’s followers replied that he’d been hit with similar Telegram scams that impersonated conservative activist Scott Pressler and fringe Arizona lawmaker Wendy Rogers. Some Watkins followers claimed to have fallen for the scam. “Shit I bought you a gift card,” one wrote. “I fell for it,” another said. “Got most my money back but I think it’s a scam. Don’t buy.” Hours before warning of scammers, Watkins had, perhaps inadvertently, waded into what would soon become the biggest fight on the QAnon right . “ Lin Wood is a God-fearing Christian and has always been sincere and helpful in all my interactions with him,” Watkins wrote of Wood, a QAnon-hyping lawyer enmeshed in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election “I don't understand why he is being attacked, but the allegations certainly seem out of character and do not reflect the Lin Wood that I know.” Days later, Wood—who has been trying to fend off far-right attacks that he betrayed Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse–leaked unflattering phone recordings of his former allies, including a recording of former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne accusing a colleague of grifting money, and a recording of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn denouncing QAnon as a CIA-led “disinformation campaign.” On Tuesday night, Teora suggested that Watkins’s stance on Wood remains unchanged. “As for Ron's stance on Lin Wood, his previous comments stand for themself,” Teora wrote. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. || QAnoner Ron Watkins Begs For Bitcoin to Finance Flailing Congressional Run: Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos by Getty/Wikimedia Commons A month into a lackluster congressional campaign , former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins sent a warning to his followers on the messaging platform Telegram. “I do NOT send direct messages to anybody asking people to buy crypto coins or gift cards,” Watkins wrote last week. “Please do not engage with accounts who claim to be me and ask you to buy gift cards or crypto on their behalf. It is not me.” At least someone was making money off Watkins’s campaign. Although Watkins, a QAnon-linked figure, does not have to file campaign finance reports until January, early indicators suggest that his bid for Congress has received underwhelming support. Previously, Watkins pledged to raise $1 million and unseat incumbent Rep. Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s Democratic-leaning 1st congressional district. Instead, more than a month after launching his campaign , Watkins is making Telegram videos acknowledging “funding challenges” and attempting a pivot to Bitcoin fundraising. The Big MAGA and QAnon Civil War Keeps Getting Nuttier and Sleazier “The mainstream media has been putting out articles saying ‘hey Ron, your campaign can’t make any money! What are you doing?’” Watkins said in a front-facing cell phone video uploaded to his Telegram channel on Friday. “Well I want to address that now and say that yeah we’ve been having some funding challenges, that’s true. Lots of platforms will not work with us and so we’re having quite a difficult time getting things going.” Watkins announced that he was working on a new Bitcoin donation model with a website that “you might or might not be able to find, but if you do find it, it is real and as things get rolled out we’re going to be building more and more steam and we’re gonna be raising more money and the point of this is to prove to the haters that we can raise money and we can win this.” Tony Teora, Watkins’s campaign manager told The Daily Beast that the campaign had raised a few thousand dollars since amping up its fundraising calls last week, but that the campaign could not offer firm figures since it hadn’t yet opened all its mail. Story continues Teora noted that Watkins hasn’t fully committed to running in the 1st congressional district, and might change districts in order to avoid running against the far-right Rep. Paul Gosar. “Note: We are waiting for the redistricting in Arizona to complete as we may move to a new congressional district,” Teora said. “Ron does not (and will not) run against Paul Gosar, whom he holds in the highest regards.” While Watkins waits, he has asked Telegram followers to send him as much as $2,900 in Bitcoin. That amount is legal for congressional races and Arizona races, although other states have capped individual cryptocurrency donations at $100, based on a 2014 FEC decision that gave the green light for campaigns to accept $100 in individualized Bitcoin donations. HBO’s QAnon Docuseries ‘Q: Into the Storm’ Believes It Has Discovered Q’s Identity Some of those rules stem from concerns about the traceability of cryptocurrency which, like cash, can be more difficult to track than checks or credit card payments. The homepage for Watkins’s campaign is sparse on text and devotes the largest of its three paragraphs to informing supporters that “federal law requires us to use our best efforts” to collect information on donors who give more than $200. Flipping O’Halleran’s seat poses a challenge even for mainstream Republicans. The incumbent Democrat had raised more than $1 million by September , in a district that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 . And Watkins is no mainstream candidate. Until late 2020, Watkins was an administrator on 8kun (formerly 8chan), a troll-ridden forum owned by Watkin’s father, Jim. 8kun was the home of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that falsely accuses Donald Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism. The Watkins’ proximity to QAnon led observers to speculate that they were involved in the theory’s authorship, with a recent HBO documentary appearing to show Ron Watkins describing himself as “Q,” the conspiracy theory’s author. Watkins has denied those allegations. Watkins’s foray into electoral politics represents an attempt to separate himself from those associations—but, as The Daily Beast previously reported , he’s had a hard time saying goodbye to the group, recently earning a keynote speech at a conference organized by people called “QAnon John” and “Q Queen Army.” Watkins has also remained deeply enmeshed with the conspiracy world, and been involved with the publication of leaked voting machine data which, despite Trump fans’ insistence, did not show any 2020 election malfeasance. Just three days before Watkins announced his cryptocurrency pivot, he denounced cryptocurrency scammers on Telegram, warning fans to ignore imposters who posed as him to sell or solicit cryptocurrency and gift cards. Cryptocurrency scams are common on Telegram, with impersonation channels passing themselves off as celebrities (both living and dead) to hype NFTs or plead for Bitcoin donations from gullible fans. One of Watkins’s followers replied that he’d been hit with similar Telegram scams that impersonated conservative activist Scott Pressler and fringe Arizona lawmaker Wendy Rogers. Some Watkins followers claimed to have fallen for the scam. “Shit I bought you a gift card,” one wrote. “I fell for it,” another said. “Got most my money back but I think it’s a scam. Don’t buy.” Hours before warning of scammers, Watkins had, perhaps inadvertently, waded into what would soon become the biggest fight on the QAnon right . “ Lin Wood is a God-fearing Christian and has always been sincere and helpful in all my interactions with him,” Watkins wrote of Wood, a QAnon-hyping lawyer enmeshed in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election “I don't understand why he is being attacked, but the allegations certainly seem out of character and do not reflect the Lin Wood that I know.” Days later, Wood—who has been trying to fend off far-right attacks that he betrayed Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse–leaked unflattering phone recordings of his former allies, including a recording of former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne accusing a colleague of grifting money, and a recording of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn denouncing QAnon as a CIA-led “disinformation campaign.” On Tuesday night, Teora suggested that Watkins’s stance on Wood remains unchanged. “As for Ron's stance on Lin Wood, his previous comments stand for themself,” Teora wrote. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. || Guy the Crypto Guy and 5 More Standout Financial Experts of 2021: The last two years have forced America to throw much of what it knew about personal finance out the window as the pandemic changed the rules of money management over and over again. The whole mess, however, provided a golden opportunity for a new crop of financial experts to make their names in these uncertain times, which seem to grow more uncertain by the day.
Save More:Money’s Most Influential: Where Do Americans Get Their Financial Advice?Get Started:Make a Debt-Free Future Your Reality
2021 saw a wave of emerging talent put its skill and insight on display for legions of new followers looking for guidance in the new financial landscape.
Some of 2021’s hottest financial experts were young unknowns until they hit the big time on social media. Others are well-established pros — including some who appeared in the GOBankingRates list“Where Americans Get Their Money Advice,”— who re-asserted their bona fides and relevance this year.
All, however, have proven their ability to take some of the stings out of your money stress while informing, educating, and inspiring.
From starting S Corporations to avoid paying taxes to shorting the stock market, Tik-Tok is brimming with terrible financial advice that gets a scary amount of views. Shilling financial snake oil, however, is not the only way to go viral — and Mark Tilbury is the proof. With 7 million followers, Tilbury is one of the biggest names in the game, and in 2021, he proved that you don’t have to sacrifice integrity to gain popularity.
Tilbury did his viral January TikTok “How to Beat Evil Credit Cards” in skit form, and it racked up 18 million views, including 3.7 million likes. In it, he makes the fundamentals fun while giving sound advice on things like keeping your credit utilization ratio low and avoiding interest charges by paying your bills every month.
Fans love ecommjess for the glasses-on/glasses-off back-and-forths she has with herself — but they also love her for her sensible, real-world-tested insight. Like Tilbury, she avoids the sensationalist clutter that clogs up the TikTok pipes — and 2021 rewarded her for her authenticity.
In her May 11 TikTok “Holding ftw,” ecommjess managed to make the topic of capital gains taxes fun and relatable — no small feat. In describing the tax benefits you get by holding stocks for more than one year, she provided a refreshing break from the legions TikTok carnival barkers exalting the latest way to make a million bucks by tomorrow at 10 a.m. “Holding ftw” earned her a certified-viral 4 million views.
Tamarius Washington — TamariusTalks, to his rapidly growing TikTok viewer base — spent 2021 establishing himself as one of the most powerful and popular up-and-coming voices in the FinTok space. Although 35,000-ish isn’t a record-breaking number of followers, the young and dynamic Charlottesville, Virginia, native can boast more than 1.7 million views and 1.3 million likes.
A local sensation who has gone national, Washington graduated from high school in 2020 and has generated a frenzy of buzz in the Charlottesville-regional media as his FinTok star continues to rise.
Follow Along:31 Days of Living Richer
Humphrey Yang struck internet gold in 2020, but 2021 was actually his breakout year. Early last year, Yang increased his following by a multiplier of 10 when a TikTok of him roasting an overpriced water bottle went viral and turned his 10,000 followers into 100,000 overnight, according to Money.com.
Unlike so many FinTokers who play influencer-for-a-day with one-and-done viral videos before fizzling into obscurity, Yang displayed real staying power. His done-it-all Wall Street bona fides paid dividends in 2021, as he emerged as one of the most exciting and authentic voices in the personal finance world. He now has 2.7 million followers on TikTok and 314,000 subscribers on YouTube.
The Coin Bureau had a banner year in 2021, and it’s not hard to understand why. The brand’s leader, who goes by the name Guy the Crypto Guy, is known for the deep dives it takes into the world of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all the other cryptocurrencies. When those digital coins finally broke into the mainstream this year, the Coin Bureau was well-positioned to become the go-to source for information on the volatile and risky but exciting world of crypto investing.
Although it has impressive follower lists on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, YouTube is the format that plays best for Coin Bureau’s mission to break down the complicated world of cryptocurrency to laypeople. After its strong showing in 2021 Coin Bureau now has 1.7 million YouTube subscribers.
The Economy and Your Money:All You Need To KnowModern Money Etiquette:Answering Thorny Questions About Tipping, Gifts and More
Known worldwide as the Budgetnista, Tiffany Aliche is far from a newbie looking to get her name out there. In fact, the former Newark preschool teacher was the driving force behind New Jersey Law A1414 — known as “The Budgetnista Law” — which requires financial education to be taught in the Garden State’s middle schools. More than 1 million women have participated in her Dream Catchers movement.
She has more than a half-million followers on Instagram, more than 60,000 on Twitter, and nearly 59,000 YouTube subscribers, but her big success in 2021 came the old-fashioned way — through book sales. In March, Aliche released “Get Good with Money: 10 Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole.” A New York Times bestseller, the book re-established Aliche as one of the most sought-after personal finance pros of both yesterday and today.
More From GOBankingRates
• 11 Social Security Mistakes That Can Cost You a Fortune
• Social Security Schedule: When the First COLA Checks Will Arrive in January 2022
• 6 Legit Ways to Score Free Money Online
• What To Consider When Choosing a Mortgage Lender
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Guy the Crypto Guy and 5 More Standout Financial Experts of 2021 || Guy the Crypto Guy and 5 More Standout Financial Experts of 2021: TikTok The last two years have forced America to throw much of what it knew about personal finance out the window as the pandemic changed the rules of money management over and over again. The whole mess, however, provided a golden opportunity for a new crop of financial experts to make their names in these uncertain times, which seem to grow more uncertain by the day. Save More: Moneys Most Influential: Where Do Americans Get Their Financial Advice? Get Started: Make a Debt-Free Future Your Reality 2021 saw a wave of emerging talent put its skill and insight on display for legions of new followers looking for guidance in the new financial landscape. Some of 2021s hottest financial experts were young unknowns until they hit the big time on social media. Others are well-established pros including some who appeared in the GOBankingRates list Where Americans Get Their Money Advice, who re-asserted their bona fides and relevance this year. All, however, have proven their ability to take some of the stings out of your money stress while informing, educating, and inspiring. Mark Tilbury From starting S Corporations to avoid paying taxes to shorting the stock market, Tik-Tok is brimming with terrible financial advice that gets a scary amount of views. Shilling financial snake oil, however, is not the only way to go viral and Mark Tilbury is the proof. With 7 million followers, Tilbury is one of the biggest names in the game, and in 2021, he proved that you dont have to sacrifice integrity to gain popularity. Tilbury did his viral January TikTok How to Beat Evil Credit Cards in skit form, and it racked up 18 million views, including 3.7 million likes. In it, he makes the fundamentals fun while giving sound advice on things like keeping your credit utilization ratio low and avoiding interest charges by paying your bills every month. ecommjess Fans love ecommjess for the glasses-on/glasses-off back-and-forths she has with herself but they also love her for her sensible, real-world-tested insight. Like Tilbury, she avoids the sensationalist clutter that clogs up the TikTok pipes and 2021 rewarded her for her authenticity. In her May 11 TikTok Holding ftw, ecommjess managed to make the topic of capital gains taxes fun and relatable no small feat. In describing the tax benefits you get by holding stocks for more than one year, she provided a refreshing break from the legions TikTok carnival barkers exalting the latest way to make a million bucks by tomorrow at 10 a.m. Holding ftw earned her a certified-viral 4 million views. Story continues TamariusTalks Tamarius Washington TamariusTalks, to his rapidly growing TikTok viewer base spent 2021 establishing himself as one of the most powerful and popular up-and-coming voices in the FinTok space. Although 35,000-ish isnt a record-breaking number of followers, the young and dynamic Charlottesville, Virginia, native can boast more than 1.7 million views and 1.3 million likes. A local sensation who has gone national, Washington graduated from high school in 2020 and has generated a frenzy of buzz in the Charlottesville-regional media as his FinTok star continues to rise. Follow Along: 31 Days of Living Richer Humphrey Yang Humphrey Yang struck internet gold in 2020, but 2021 was actually his breakout year. Early last year, Yang increased his following by a multiplier of 10 when a TikTok of him roasting an overpriced water bottle went viral and turned his 10,000 followers into 100,000 overnight, according to Money.com. Unlike so many FinTokers who play influencer-for-a-day with one-and-done viral videos before fizzling into obscurity, Yang displayed real staying power. His done-it-all Wall Street bona fides paid dividends in 2021, as he emerged as one of the most exciting and authentic voices in the personal finance world. He now has 2.7 million followers on TikTok and 314,000 subscribers on YouTube. Guy the Crypto Guy (Coin Bureau) The Coin Bureau had a banner year in 2021, and its not hard to understand why. The brands leader, who goes by the name Guy the Crypto Guy, is known for the deep dives it takes into the world of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all the other cryptocurrencies. When those digital coins finally broke into the mainstream this year, the Coin Bureau was well-positioned to become the go-to source for information on the volatile and risky but exciting world of crypto investing. Although it has impressive follower lists on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, YouTube is the format that plays best for Coin Bureaus mission to break down the complicated world of cryptocurrency to laypeople. After its strong showing in 2021 Coin Bureau now has 1.7 million YouTube subscribers. The Economy and Your Money: All You Need To Know Modern Money Etiquette: Answering Thorny Questions About Tipping, Gifts and More Tiffany Aliche Known worldwide as the Budgetnista, Tiffany Aliche is far from a newbie looking to get her name out there. In fact, the former Newark preschool teacher was the driving force behind New Jersey Law A1414 known as The Budgetnista Law which requires financial education to be taught in the Garden States middle schools. More than 1 million women have participated in her Dream Catchers movement. She has more than a half-million followers on Instagram, more than 60,000 on Twitter, and nearly 59,000 YouTube subscribers, but her big success in 2021 came the old-fashioned way through book sales. In March, Aliche released Get Good with Money: 10 Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole. A New York Times bestseller, the book re-established Aliche as one of the most sought-after personal finance pros of both yesterday and today. More From GOBankingRates 11 Social Security Mistakes That Can Cost You a Fortune Social Security Schedule: When the First COLA Checks Will Arrive in January 2022 6 Legit Ways to Score Free Money Online What To Consider When Choosing a Mortgage Lender This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Guy the Crypto Guy and 5 More Standout Financial Experts of 2021 View comments || Payments Giant Square Is Changing Its Name to Block: Fintech and digital payments giant Square Inc. has changed its name to Block in a move that reflects changes to its business,the company said in a statementlate Wednesday afternoon ET.
• ”The Square name has become synonymous with the company’s Seller business ... and this move allows the Seller business to own the Square brand it was built for,” the company wrote.
• The change to Block “acknowledges the company’s growth,” the company wrote, noting that since its founding in 2009 the firm has added mobile payment service Cash App, streaming music service TIDAL and bitcoin-focused, open developer platform TBD54566975. In terms of crypto, Square is also in the process ofbuilding a hardware wallet and is considering creating a bitcoin mining service.
• “The name change creates room for further growth,” the company concluded. “Block is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, and serves many people – individuals, artists, fans, developers and sellers.”
• The company said “Block” has many associated meanings, including building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, and blockchain.
• There will be no organizational changes as a result of the name change, although Square Crypto, a separate project of the company dedicated to advancing bitcoin, of which Square CEO Jack Dorsey is a big fan, will change its name to Spiral.
• A legal change is expected to occur on Dec. 10, and the company’s stock ticker on the NYSE will remain as SQ.
• The announcement comes just two days afterDorsey told investors he would be stepping down as the CEO of Twitter, though he will remain on Twitter’s board of directors until his term expires in the middle of 2022. Dorsey’s move has prompted some speculation that he would be focusing more of his efforts on bitcoin, either at Square or on his own.
• In after-hours trading on Wednesday, Square was rising almost 1% after falling 6.6% during the day’s session.
Read more:Square Releases White Paper Detailing Protocol for a Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange
UPDATE (Dec. 1, 22:27 UTC):Adds details in second and fourth bullet points, and information about Square’s trading on Wednesday. || Payments Giant Square Is Changing Its Name to Block: Fintech and digital payments giant Square Inc. has changed its name to Block in a move that reflects changes to its business, the company said in a statement late Wednesday afternoon ET. ”The Square name has become synonymous with the company’s Seller business ... and this move allows the Seller business to own the Square brand it was built for,” the company wrote. The change to Block “acknowledges the company’s growth,” the company wrote, noting that since its founding in 2009 the firm has added mobile payment service Cash App, streaming music service TIDAL and bitcoin-focused, open developer platform TBD54566975. In terms of crypto, Square is also in the process of building a hardware wallet and is considering creating a bitcoin mining service . “The name change creates room for further growth,” the company concluded. “Block is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, and serves many people – individuals, artists, fans, developers and sellers.” The company said “Block” has many associated meanings, including building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, and blockchain. There will be no organizational changes as a result of the name change, although Square Crypto, a separate project of the company dedicated to advancing bitcoin, of which Square CEO Jack Dorsey is a big fan, will change its name to Spiral. A legal change is expected to occur on Dec. 10, and the company’s stock ticker on the NYSE will remain as SQ. The announcement comes just two days after Dorsey told investors he would be stepping down as the CEO of Twitter , though he will remain on Twitter’s board of directors until his term expires in the middle of 2022. Dorsey’s move has prompted some speculation that he would be focusing more of his efforts on bitcoin, either at Square or on his own. In after-hours trading on Wednesday, Square was rising almost 1% after falling 6.6% during the day’s session. Block is @Square , @CashApp , @spiralbtc , @TIDAL , @TBD54566975 , and our foundational teams who support them. We’re here to build simple tools to increase access to the economy. https://t.co/CkVKxHPkqy pic.twitter.com/RMOnxCLP9Y — Block (@blocks) December 1, 2021 Read more: Square Releases White Paper Detailing Protocol for a Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange UPDATE (Dec. 1, 22:27 UTC): Adds details in second and fourth bullet points, and information about Square’s trading on Wednesday. View comments || UPDATE 2-Dorsey-led Square rebrands to Block in nod to blockchain: (Recasts paragraph 1, adds background on Square) Dec 1 (Reuters) - Square Inc, the payments company led by Twitter Inc co-founder Jack Dorsey, said on Wednesday it was changing its name to Block Inc, as it looks to expand beyond its payment business and into new technologies like blockchain. The San Francisco-based company said the name "Square" had become synonymous with it's seller business. The new name would distinguish the corporate entity from its businesses, Square added, a strategy similar to Meta Platforms Inc's rebrand last month. The company said there would be no organizational changes and its different business units - Square, peer-to-peer payment service Cash App, music streaming service Tidal and its bitcoin-focused financial services segment TBD54566975 - will continue to maintain their respective brands. Shares were up nearly 1% in extended trading. "The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome," Square said in a statement. The move comes days after Dorsey stepped down from his role as chief executive officer at Twitter. The digital payments giant's Square Crypto, a team "dedicated to advancing Bitcoin", will also change its name to Spiral. Under Dorsey, who has frequently expressed his interest in the cryptocurrency, Square bought $50 million worth of bitcoin even before the wave of institutional interest that propelled the digital currency's price to record highs this year. In February, it further raised its wager and invested another $170 million in it. Square has also been weighing the creation of a hardware wallet for bitcoin to make its custody more mainstream. The new name would become effective on or about Dec. 10, Square said, but the "SQ" ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange would not change at this time. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri) View comments || UPDATE 2-Dorsey-led Square rebrands to Block in nod to blockchain: (Recasts paragraph 1, adds background on Square)
Dec 1 (Reuters) - Square Inc, the payments company led by Twitter Inc co-founder Jack Dorsey, said on Wednesday it was changing its name to Block Inc, as it looks to expand beyond its payment business and into new technologies like blockchain.
The San Francisco-based company said the name "Square" had become synonymous with it's seller business. The new name would distinguish the corporate entity from its businesses, Square added, a strategy similar to Meta Platforms Inc's rebrand last month.
The company said there would be no organizational changes and its different business units - Square, peer-to-peer payment service Cash App, music streaming service Tidal and its bitcoin-focused financial services segment TBD54566975 - will continue to maintain their respective brands. Shares were up nearly 1% in extended trading.
"The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome," Square said in a statement.
The move comes days after Dorsey stepped down from his role as chief executive officer at Twitter. The digital payments giant's Square Crypto, a team "dedicated to advancing Bitcoin", will also change its name to Spiral.
Under Dorsey, who has frequently expressed his interest in the cryptocurrency, Square bought $50 million worth of bitcoin even before the wave of institutional interest that propelled the digital currency's price to record highs this year. In February, it further raised its wager and invested another $170 million in it.
Square has also been weighing the creation of a hardware wallet for bitcoin to make its custody more mainstream.
The new name would become effective on or about Dec. 10, Square said, but the "SQ" ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange would not change at this time. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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53598.25, 49200.70, 49368.85, 50582.62, 50700.09, 50504.80, 47672.12, 47243.30, 49362.51, 50098.34
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 673.34, 676.30, 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55, 654.47, 658.08, 663.26, 660.77, 679.46, 673.11, 672.86, 665.68, 665.01, 650.62, 655.56, 661.28, 654.10, 651.78, 654.35, 655.03, 656.99, 655.05, 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56, 585.59, 570.47, 567.24, 577.44, 573.22, 574.32, 575.63, 581.70, 581.31, 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-09-27]
Volume: 49422400, RSI (14-day): 52.92, 50-day EMA: 602.76, 200-day EMA: 553.21
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1325.90, Gold RSI: 49.16
Oil Price: 44.67, Oil RSI: 48.73
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Liberty Global partners with Ericsson to expand DVR services in Latin America: • LibertyGlobal Group (LiLACGroup) simplifies DVR expansion through Ericsson`s Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP) in Latin America
• LiLAC Group`s customers will have access to DVR services, including future updates to support the trend towards time-shifted TV
• Contract strengthens Ericsson`s position as a leading provider of TV and media solutions in Latin America
Ericsson (ERIC) and Liberty Global today confirms a new two-year deal between VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, both part of LiLAC Group (Liberty Latin-America and Caribbean, part of Liberty Global Group).
With Ericsson`s Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP), the TV operators will be able to expand the reach of their Digital Video Recording (DVR) services (known as Catch-up TV and Restart TV) across their countries.
Latin American TV consumers are rapidly changing their habits and expectations, where they now want to decide what they want to watch and pick-and-mix their own services. The new deal addresses this issue, allowing LiLAC Group to build innovative and compelling consumer experiences.
Ericsson`s VSPP simplifies the recording capabilities and provides enriched functionalities for LiLAC`s linear TV services. It also offers a unique, proven infrastructure that allows for seamless augmentation and replacement of legacy television services with new cloud-based services.
Furthermore, Ericsson`s VSPP provides outstanding performance gains and greatly simplifies Cloud DVR and video on demand (VoD) architectures, allowing operators to avoid many of the complexities and costs associated with these new services.
Adrian Gioia, Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, says: "We are looking forward to supporting LiLAC Group in delivering ever-improving content, quality and features that delight TV consumers and meet their unique and ever-changing needs. With our solution we are addressing all customer segments with unique configurations, while providing LiLAC Group with the ability to future-proof and grow as they see necessary."
Derek Yeaomans, Logistic Manager at VTR, says: "We consider DVR a very attractive entertainment service for our customers and we are pleased to now provide them with an enriched user experience that lets them enjoy the service even more. Working with Ericsson makes us confident we will continue to succeed in meeting consumer expectations into the future."
With a recent history of more than 50 transformation programs delivered globally, Ericsson`s consulting and systems integration services represent the perfect combination of competence, scale and presence that help TV and media organizations meet their goals. With a global team of media experts ready to take on complex media transformation projects, Ericsson is the market leader in Cloud DVR deployment and services, having performed multiple deployments and with ongoing trials with major Tier 1 operators around the world.
NOTES TO EDITORS
For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society - a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure - especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries,we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world`s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions - and our customers - stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Ericsson Corporate CommunicationsPhone: +46 10 719 69 92E-mail:[email protected]
Ericsson Investor RelationsPhone: +46 10 719 00 00E-mail:[email protected]
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world`s largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global`s scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over ten million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across six million access points.
Liberty Global`s businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ: LILA and LILAK, OTC Link: LILAB), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a submarine fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, visitwww.libertyglobal.comand follow Liberty Global ontwitter,LinkedIn,FacebookandInstagram.
[["Oskar Nooij", "+1 303 220 4218", "", "Matt Beake", "+44 20 8483 6428"], ["Christian Fangmann", "+49 221 8462 5151", "", "Andrew Mitchell", "+44 79 4628 6586"], ["John Rea", "+1 303 220 4238", "", "", ""]]
Liberty Global partners with Ericsson to expand DVR services
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: Ericsson via GlobeNewswireHUG#2044536 || What companies need to do after a major hack: Yahoo confirmed a huge data breach took place in 2014 affecting up to 500 million users on Thursday. In August, the company said it was investigating a possible breach after a hacker claiming to have stolen the account information posted 200 million Yahoo user accounts for sale on dark web marketplace The Real Deal. The account information — which purportedly included user names and passwords easily cracked with free tools available online — was listed for 3 Bitcoin, or roughly $1800.
Such a low asking price is indicative of an older breach, said Security Scorecard chief research officer Alex Heid. It is likely that the hacker or hackers behind the attack has already tried to use the information to hack into other services — such as bank accounts, PayPal accounts, email services, even Netflix — and erased a lot of the value, said Heid.
Yahoo is already drawing criticism for not acting quickly enough to notify users of the breach, which could have larger implications on the $4.8 billion sale of the core business to Verizon. Cybersecurity experts agree that responding quickly to a breach is key to mitigating the impact. If you think you may be among the possible millions of victims of the breach,here are the five steps you should take.
The big question is whether Yahoo has accurately quantified the liability to Verizon, saidDimitri Sirotachief executive officer of cybersecurity firm BigID which helps companies track data within their systems.
It is not uncommon for companies not to reveal the extent of a breach prior to a thorough forensic investigation, he said. Confirmation that a breach took place is unlikely to derail the Verizon deal, he said. That said, class action lawsuits from customers and security suits from investors are not uncommon in these types of situations.
"A lot of this will depend on the severity of the breach and how current it is," he said. "I suspect there will be some fallout."
Here are the five steps experts say every company should take following a breach.
1) Respond quickly
"It's all about speed," said Wendi Whitmore, IBM director of incident response and intelligence services.
How fast a company can detect and respond to a breach greatly impacts their recovery time, she said. Organizations which complete a post-mortem within 30 days save an average of $1 million, according to theIBM and Ponemon Institutecost of a data breach study.
"Every day it goes undetected, unchecked, that's going to escalate damage," saidExperian vice president of Fraud & Identity product strategyMatt Ehrlich
2) Have a plan in place
Ideally, a company should already have a response plan in place in the event that a breach takes place. The response plan should engage three key teams: An incidence response team, a crisis communications firm, and outside counsel — a legal firm focused on computer security and cyber law, said Whitmore.
"Make sure you have contracts that specify how quickly these organizations will provide support and response time, so you aren't negotiating when you have had a breach," she said. "As the organization, you have a lot more leverage in negotiating if you're doing it proactively —the rates are less and they will agree to time frames."
By getting all the legal and procurement done ahead of time, companies can save days in the event of a breach.
"Days make a huge difference when responding to a breach," she said.
3) Be prepared to access the data for investigators
An investigative response team will need access to a company's network and host and any threat detection and logging tools the company employs. Healthcare and retail companies need to notify consumers as soon as possible.
"The more time it takes them to identify that and get to the bottom of it, the more its costs them," said Whitmore.
4) Be ready to do damage control
Typically, the investigation and remediation go hand in hand, said Whitmore. The remediation process should be tactical and strategic — a company may need to ask users to reset account information — which often has a knock on effect on operations.
5) Have a crisis communications plan for employees, customers and the media
Once a company confirms a breach has taken place, depending on the industry, it may be legally required to inform people — the requirements vary from state to state, country to country, and depend on industry, regulation and compliance laws, and the type of information breached.
"This is one reason why it is so important to hire outside legal counsel and an IR firm well versed in these requirements," said Whitmore.
When communicating about the breach with employees, customers and the media, it is important not to overreact and reveal too much information, too soon, said Ehrlich. All communication should be factual and straight forward — a strategy that is more likely to make your customers empathetic.
"You need to have all the facts and information — acting without those can be as damaging as doing nothing," said Ehrlich
Something that often gets overlooked is an internal communications plan, said Whitmore. Once the news of a breach leaks out, employees often start to field a lot of questions. Having a law firm and crisis communications firm develop a crisis communications plan in advance is a good idea. Employee training is also important, and can be worked out before a breach ever happens.
"Imagine the worst case scenario— an intern tweets screenshot of something happening on you network," said Whitmore. "Make sure employees know wait they can and can't say and are trained and aware of what the corporate communications policies are."
The key takeaway: Take care of your crown jewels
"Personal data is the life-blood of most organizations, and they need to better safeguard it against misuse and theft," said Sirota. || What companies need to do after a major hack: Yahoo confirmed a huge data breach took place in 2014 affecting up to 500 million users on Thursday. In August, the company said it was investigating a possible breach after a hacker claiming to have stolen the account information posted 200 million Yahoo user accounts for sale on dark web marketplace The Real Deal. The account information — which purportedly included user names and passwords easily cracked with free tools available online — was listed for 3 Bitcoin, or roughly $1800. Such a low asking price is indicative of an older breach, said Security Scorecard chief research officer Alex Heid. It is likely that the hacker or hackers behind the attack has already tried to use the information to hack into other services — such as bank accounts, PayPal accounts, email services, even Netflix — and erased a lot of the value, said Heid. Yahoo is already drawing criticism for not acting quickly enough to notify users of the breach, which could have larger implications on the $4.8 billion sale of the core business to Verizon. Cybersecurity experts agree that responding quickly to a breach is key to mitigating the impact. If you think you may be among the possible millions of victims of the breach, here are the five steps you should take . The big question is whether Yahoo has accurately quantified the liability to Verizon, said Dimitri Sirota chief executive officer of cybersecurity firm BigID which helps companies track data within their systems. It is not uncommon for companies not to reveal the extent of a breach prior to a thorough forensic investigation, he said. Confirmation that a breach took place is unlikely to derail the Verizon deal, he said. That said, class action lawsuits from customers and security suits from investors are not uncommon in these types of situations. "A lot of this will depend on the severity of the breach and how current it is," he said. "I suspect there will be some fallout." Here are the five steps experts say every company should take following a breach. Story continues 1) Respond quickly "It's all about speed," said Wendi Whitmore, IBM director of incident response and intelligence services. How fast a company can detect and respond to a breach greatly impacts their recovery time, she said. Organizations which complete a post-mortem within 30 days save an average of $1 million, according to the IBM and Ponemon Institute cost of a data breach study. "Every day it goes undetected, unchecked, that's going to escalate damage," said Experian vice president of Fraud & Identity product strategy Matt Ehrlich 2) Have a plan in place Ideally, a company should already have a response plan in place in the event that a breach takes place. The response plan should engage three key teams: An incidence response team, a crisis communications firm, and outside counsel — a legal firm focused on computer security and cyber law, said Whitmore. "Make sure you have contracts that specify how quickly these organizations will provide support and response time, so you aren't negotiating when you have had a breach," she said. "As the organization, you have a lot more leverage in negotiating if you're doing it proactively —the rates are less and they will agree to time frames." By getting all the legal and procurement done ahead of time, companies can save days in the event of a breach. "Days make a huge difference when responding to a breach," she said. 3) Be prepared to access the data for investigators An investigative response team will need access to a company's network and host and any threat detection and logging tools the company employs. Healthcare and retail companies need to notify consumers as soon as possible. "The more time it takes them to identify that and get to the bottom of it, the more its costs them," said Whitmore. 4) Be ready to do damage control Typically, the investigation and remediation go hand in hand, said Whitmore. The remediation process should be tactical and strategic — a company may need to ask users to reset account information — which often has a knock on effect on operations. 5) Have a crisis communications plan for employees, customers and the media Once a company confirms a breach has taken place, depending on the industry, it may be legally required to inform people — the requirements vary from state to state, country to country, and depend on industry, regulation and compliance laws, and the type of information breached. "This is one reason why it is so important to hire outside legal counsel and an IR firm well versed in these requirements," said Whitmore. When communicating about the breach with employees, customers and the media, it is important not to overreact and reveal too much information, too soon, said Ehrlich. All communication should be factual and straight forward — a strategy that is more likely to make your customers empathetic. "You need to have all the facts and information — acting without those can be as damaging as doing nothing," said Ehrlich Something that often gets overlooked is an internal communications plan, said Whitmore. Once the news of a breach leaks out, employees often start to field a lot of questions. Having a law firm and crisis communications firm develop a crisis communications plan in advance is a good idea. Employee training is also important, and can be worked out before a breach ever happens. "Imagine the worst case scenario — an intern tweets screenshot of something happening on you network," said Whitmore. "Make sure employees know wait they can and can't say and are trained and aware of what the corporate communications policies are." The key takeaway: Take care of your crown jewels "Personal data is the life-blood of most organizations, and they need to better safeguard it against misuse and theft," said Sirota. || Yahoo Says Hacker Stole Data on At Least 500 Million Users: Yahoo on Thursday confirmed a massive data breach, in which it said a “state-sponsored” hacker broke into the internet company’s systems and stole personal information on at least 500 million users — the biggest such theft of user data from a single entity to date. The user-account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and in some cases encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, according to Yahoo. The data was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014, Yahoo said, which did not provide an explanation for why it has taken two years to report the incident. It didn’t identify the country it believes was behind the attack. What the disclosure means for Verizon’s pending $4.8 billion deal to acquire the core web businesses of Yahoo is not immediately clear, but according to Verizon it was not apprised of the severity of the breach until this week. Verizon, in a statement, said it was notified of Yahoo’s security breach in the last two days. “We understand that Yahoo is conducting an active investigation of this matter, but we otherwise have limited information and understanding of the impact,” the telco said. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities. Until then, we are not in position to further comment.” The Yahoo announcement came after Vice’s Motherboard reported in August that a hacker known as “Peace,” who is believed to be a Russian cybercriminal, was advertising the sale of 200 million Yahoo user accounts in a black-market online forum for about $1,860 worth of Bitcoin. At the time, Yahoo said it was investigating the claims. Recode reported early Thursday that Yahoo was expected to confirm the data breach this week. Regardless of how it affects the outcome of Verizon’s planned acquisition, the enormous security breach will stand as a disastrous bookend to the tenure of CEO Marissa Mayer. Story continues Mayer, a former top Google exec hired four years ago to much fanfare, failed to turn around Yahoo’s core search and advertising business . Mayer and Yahoo’s board eventually bowed to investor pressure to sell its operating businesses (excluding its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan), and initiated an auction process earlier this year. Verizon emerged as the winning bidder in July and the telco has outlined plans to merge Yahoo’s web operations with AOL , which it acquired last year for $4.4 billion. In announcing the breach, Yahoo said it was working with law-enforcement officials on investigating the incident. According to the company, based on what it has learned so far, none of the stolen information included unprotected passwords, payment-card data, or bank-account information. “Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts,” the company said. “These steps include invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account and asking potentially affected users to change their passwords. Yahoo is also recommending that users who haven’t changed their passwords since 2014 do so.” Security and legal experts said Yahoo’s costs associated with the attack could run into the tens of millions of dollars. The incident is likely to prompt class-action lawsuits and could even scuttle the Verizon acquisition. Given that the breach occurred in 2014 and Yahoo did not properly communicate or manage it, Verizon may seek to nullify or renegotiate the deal, said Corey Williams, senior director of products and marketing at security vendor Centrify. “This is less of a story about 500 million user accounts being stolen and more about how lax security and poor handling of incidents can impact the very existence of a company,” he said. Yahoo, which reaches some 1 billion users around the world, has posted a frequently asked questions document on its website about the breach. The company also is encouraging users to use Account Key , an authentication tool for its email app that associates a Yahoo account with a specific device to eliminate the need for a password. As part of responding to the incident, Yahoo has enlisted New York-based communications firm Joel Frank, which specializes in crisis PR. Related stories Verizon in Talks to Acquire Video Startup Vessel (Report) Snapchat Adds Verizon-Hearst's Complex to Discover Lineup Yahoo to Disclose Data Breach Affecting 200 Million or More Users (Report) Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || Yahoo Says Hacker Stole Data on At Least 500 Million Users: Yahoo on Thursday confirmed a massive data breach, in which it said a “state-sponsored” hacker broke into the internet company’s systems and stole personal information on at least 500 million users — the biggest such theft of user data from a single entity to date. The user-account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and in some cases encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, according to Yahoo. The data was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014, Yahoo said, which did not provide an explanation for why it has taken two years to report the incident. It didn’t identify the country it believes was behind the attack. What the disclosure means for Verizon’s pending $4.8 billion deal to acquire the core web businesses of Yahoo is not immediately clear, but according to Verizon it was not apprised of the severity of the breach until this week. Verizon, in a statement, said it was notified of Yahoo’s security breach in the last two days. “We understand that Yahoo is conducting an active investigation of this matter, but we otherwise have limited information and understanding of the impact,” the telco said. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities. Until then, we are not in position to further comment.” The Yahoo announcement came after Vice’s Motherboard reported in August that a hacker known as “Peace,” who is believed to be a Russian cybercriminal, was advertising the sale of 200 million Yahoo user accounts in a black-market online forum for about $1,860 worth of Bitcoin. At the time, Yahoo said it was investigating the claims. Recode reported early Thursday that Yahoo was expected to confirm the data breach this week. Regardless of how it affects the outcome of Verizon’s planned acquisition, the enormous security breach will stand as a disastrous bookend to the tenure of CEO Marissa Mayer. Story continues Mayer, a former top Google exec hired four years ago to much fanfare, failed to turn around Yahoo’s core search and advertising business . Mayer and Yahoo’s board eventually bowed to investor pressure to sell its operating businesses (excluding its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan), and initiated an auction process earlier this year. Verizon emerged as the winning bidder in July and the telco has outlined plans to merge Yahoo’s web operations with AOL , which it acquired last year for $4.4 billion. In announcing the breach, Yahoo said it was working with law-enforcement officials on investigating the incident. According to the company, based on what it has learned so far, none of the stolen information included unprotected passwords, payment-card data, or bank-account information. “Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts,” the company said. “These steps include invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account and asking potentially affected users to change their passwords. Yahoo is also recommending that users who haven’t changed their passwords since 2014 do so.” Security and legal experts said Yahoo’s costs associated with the attack could run into the tens of millions of dollars. The incident is likely to prompt class-action lawsuits and could even scuttle the Verizon acquisition. Given that the breach occurred in 2014 and Yahoo did not properly communicate or manage it, Verizon may seek to nullify or renegotiate the deal, said Corey Williams, senior director of products and marketing at security vendor Centrify. “This is less of a story about 500 million user accounts being stolen and more about how lax security and poor handling of incidents can impact the very existence of a company,” he said. Yahoo, which reaches some 1 billion users around the world, has posted a frequently asked questions document on its website about the breach. The company also is encouraging users to use Account Key , an authentication tool for its email app that associates a Yahoo account with a specific device to eliminate the need for a password. As part of responding to the incident, Yahoo has enlisted New York-based communications firm Joel Frank, which specializes in crisis PR. Related stories Verizon in Talks to Acquire Video Startup Vessel (Report) Snapchat Adds Verizon-Hearst's Complex to Discover Lineup Yahoo to Disclose Data Breach Affecting 200 Million or More Users (Report) Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || The dark web marketplace where you can buy 200 million Yahoo accounts is under cyberattack: (Shutterstock)
The popular dark web marketplace where a hacker is selling 200 million user accounts stolen from Yahoo says it is currently under cyberattack.
The site, called The Real Deal, is one of the go-to spots for hackers trying to sell off databases in exchange for Bitcoin. In the case of thereported Yahoo hack, that means upwards of 200 million user credentials are available for sale on the site for 3 Bitcoin, or roughly $1,800.
Yahoo is expected to confirm the breach of its service soon,accordingto a report from Recode published Thursday.
That reporting comes as the site hosting the database is under cyber attack and inaccessible to users. It's unknown who is behind that attack; The Real Deal only says "Market under DDoS" when a user goes to the login screen on its site, which is only accessible throughthe Tor browser.
Keeping up the site isn't affected by a possible influx of dark web users looking for the goods from Yahoo. Instead, as the message indicates, The Real Deal is being hit by a DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, a crude way to take down a website by flooding it with traffic.
Here's what The Real Deal looks like now:
(The Real Deal)
(The Real Deal)
NOW WATCH:NASA just took these incredible images of mysterious rock formations on Mars
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• Notes From Yahoo-Microsoft Conference Call On Search Deal || The dark web marketplace where you can buy 200 million Yahoo accounts is under cyberattack: Dark Web Thumb 4x3 (Shutterstock) The popular dark web marketplace where a hacker is selling 200 million user accounts stolen from Yahoo says it is currently under cyberattack. The site, called The Real Deal, is one of the go-to spots for hackers trying to sell off databases in exchange for Bitcoin. In the case of the reported Yahoo hack , that means upwards of 200 million user credentials are available for sale on the site for 3 Bitcoin, or roughly $1,800. Yahoo is expected to confirm the breach of its service soon, according to a report from Recode published Thursday. That reporting comes as the site hosting the database is under cyber attack and inaccessible to users. It's unknown who is behind that attack; The Real Deal only says "Market under DDoS" when a user goes to the login screen on its site, which is only accessible through the Tor browser. Keeping up the site isn't affected by a possible influx of dark web users looking for the goods from Yahoo. Instead, as the message indicates, The Real Deal is being hit by a DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, a crude way to take down a website by flooding it with traffic. Here's what The Real Deal looks like now: The Real Deal (The Real Deal) The Real Deal (The Real Deal) NOW WATCH: NASA just took these incredible images of mysterious rock formations on Mars More From Business Insider Hackers Steal £3.4 Million From UK Bitcoin Exchange Bitstamp UPDATE 1-Yahoo to provide details on massive data breach - Recode Notes From Yahoo-Microsoft Conference Call On Search Deal || 200 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked? What to Do Now: UPDATE: Sept. 22, 3:45 P.M., EASTERN: Yahoo confirmed the report, but the breach turned out to be greater than previously expected. More details here. Yahoo, the web portal popular among fantasy football players and free webmail users, may have been the victim of a data breach affecting about 200 million users. Rumors of such a breach surfaced last month, and a Recode report posted early today (Sept. 22) indicated that the company would soon confirm the rumors. Two Tom's Guide staffers saw a tacit admission that something may be wrong when they tried to log into their Yahoo Mail accounts this morning. Both received suggestions to change their passwords, even on accounts that had two-factor authentication enabled. Have I Been Pwned? administrator Troy Hunt , who collects credentials exposed in data breaches, reported the same thing. It's still possible that Yahoo was not itself breached, and that the reported 200 million Yahoo accounts were aggregated and sifted from data breaches at other online services, such as those affecting LinkedIn (177 million accounts) and MySpace (360 million accounts). The alleged malicious hacker who first came forward with the details of the Yahoo accounts — said to include usernames, hashed passwords, birth dates and backup email addresses — told VICE Motherboard last month that the Yahoo data is from "2012 most likely." MORE: 10 Worst Data Breaches of All Time Motherboard broke the news Aug. 1 when that hacker, who uses the pseudonym Peace, put the Yahoo data up for sale for 3 Bitcoin (approx. $1,801 US) on The Real Deal online-crime marketplace. Peace earlier this year disclosed the MySpace and LinkedIn data breaches, but it's unlikely that he himself stole that data. The low price he wanted for the Yahoo data indicates that it's probably old, well picked over and no longer worth much to cybercriminals. In August, Yahoo told Motherboard that it was "aware of a claim," but didn't deny a data breach. Peace replied that "they dont [sic] want to confirm well better for me they dont [sic] do password reset." Story continues Peace also claimed to have "been trading the data privately for some time" before deciding to sell it. Users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and take the option to reset their passwords. Motherboard checked two dozen account credentials supplied by Peace, and discovered that the usernames did correspond to Yahoo accounts. Yahoo apparently protected its user passwords with the MD5 hashing algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. No company should have been using the algorithm in 2012. Yahoo is currently trying to sell itself to Verizon, and Recode speculated that news of a massive data breach could sent Yahoo stock tumbling, lowering the cost for Verizon. Yahoo users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and reset their passwords. If Yahoo doesn't prompt you to do so, then visit Yahoo's Set a new password page and change the password manually. Users can also use Yahoo Account Key , which eschews passwords in favor of using the Yahoo mobile app to turn smartphones into authentication devices. As we say every time we report on a massive server breach, never, ever, recycle passwords. If your email address and password have been available on the black market for months, along with a secondary email address, you better not have used those same credentials for online banking or other highly valuable accounts. 12 Computer Security Mistakes You’re Probably Making The Best (and Worst) Identity Theft Protection What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen Copyright 2016 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. || 500 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked? What to Do Now: UPDATE: Sept. 22, 3:45 P.M., EASTERN: Yahoo confirmed the report, but the breach turned out to be greater than previously expected. More details here. Yahoo, the web portal popular among fantasy football players and free webmail users, may have been the victim of a data breach affecting about 200 million users (later confirmed to be 500 million users). Rumors of such a breach surfaced last month, and a Recode report posted early today (Sept. 22) indicated that the company would soon confirm the rumors. Two Tom's Guide staffers saw a tacit admission that something may be wrong when they tried to log into their Yahoo Mail accounts this morning. Both received suggestions to change their passwords, even on accounts that had two-factor authentication enabled. Have I Been Pwned? administrator Troy Hunt , who collects credentials exposed in data breaches, reported the same thing. It's still possible that Yahoo was not itself breached, and that the reported 200 million Yahoo accounts were aggregated and sifted from data breaches at other online services, such as those affecting LinkedIn (177 million accounts) and MySpace (360 million accounts). The alleged malicious hacker who first came forward with the details of the Yahoo accounts said to include usernames, hashed passwords, birth dates and backup email addresses told VICE Motherboard last month that the Yahoo data is from "2012 most likely." MORE: 10 Worst Data Breaches of All Time Motherboard broke the news Aug. 1 when that hacker, who uses the pseudonym Peace, put the Yahoo data up for sale for 3 Bitcoin (approx. $1,801 US) on The Real Deal online-crime marketplace. Peace earlier this year disclosed the MySpace and LinkedIn data breaches, but it's unlikely that he himself stole that data. The low price he wanted for the Yahoo data indicates that it's probably old, well picked over and no longer worth much to cybercriminals. In August, Yahoo told Motherboard that it was "aware of a claim," but didn't deny a data breach. Peace replied that "they dont [sic] want to confirm well better for me they dont [sic] do password reset." Story continues Peace also claimed to have "been trading the data privately for some time" before deciding to sell it. Users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and take the option to reset their passwords. Motherboard checked two dozen account credentials supplied by Peace, and discovered that the usernames did correspond to Yahoo accounts. Yahoo apparently protected its user passwords with the MD5 hashing algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. No company should have been using the algorithm in 2012. Yahoo is currently trying to sell itself to Verizon, and Recode speculated that news of a massive data breach could sent Yahoo stock tumbling, lowering the cost for Verizon. Yahoo users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and reset their passwords. If Yahoo doesn't prompt you to do so, then visit Yahoo's Set a new password page and change the password manually. Users can also use Yahoo Account Key , which eschews passwords in favor of using the Yahoo mobile app to turn smartphones into authentication devices. As we say every time we report on a massive server breach, never, ever, recycle passwords. If your email address and password have been available on the black market for months, along with a secondary email address, you better not have used those same credentials for online banking or other highly valuable accounts. 12 Computer Security Mistakes Youre Probably Making The Best (and Worst) Identity Theft Protection What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen Copyright 2016 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. || 500 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked? What to Do Now: UPDATE: Sept. 22, 3:45 P.M., EASTERN: Yahoo confirmed the report, but the breach turned out to be greater than previously expected. More details here. Yahoo, the web portal popular among fantasy football players and free webmail users, may have been the victim of a data breach affecting about 200 million users (later confirmed to be 500 million users). Rumors of such a breach surfaced last month, and a Recode report posted early today (Sept. 22) indicated that the company would soon confirm the rumors. Two Tom's Guide staffers saw a tacit admission that something may be wrong when they tried to log into their Yahoo Mail accounts this morning. Both received suggestions to change their passwords, even on accounts that had two-factor authentication enabled. Have I Been Pwned? administrator Troy Hunt , who collects credentials exposed in data breaches, reported the same thing. It's still possible that Yahoo was not itself breached, and that the reported 200 million Yahoo accounts were aggregated and sifted from data breaches at other online services, such as those affecting LinkedIn (177 million accounts) and MySpace (360 million accounts). The alleged malicious hacker who first came forward with the details of the Yahoo accounts said to include usernames, hashed passwords, birth dates and backup email addresses told VICE Motherboard last month that the Yahoo data is from "2012 most likely." MORE: 10 Worst Data Breaches of All Time Motherboard broke the news Aug. 1 when that hacker, who uses the pseudonym Peace, put the Yahoo data up for sale for 3 Bitcoin (approx. $1,801 US) on The Real Deal online-crime marketplace. Peace earlier this year disclosed the MySpace and LinkedIn data breaches, but it's unlikely that he himself stole that data. The low price he wanted for the Yahoo data indicates that it's probably old, well picked over and no longer worth much to cybercriminals. In August, Yahoo told Motherboard that it was "aware of a claim," but didn't deny a data breach. Peace replied that "they dont [sic] want to confirm well better for me they dont [sic] do password reset." Story continues Peace also claimed to have "been trading the data privately for some time" before deciding to sell it. Users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and take the option to reset their passwords. Motherboard checked two dozen account credentials supplied by Peace, and discovered that the usernames did correspond to Yahoo accounts. Yahoo apparently protected its user passwords with the MD5 hashing algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. No company should have been using the algorithm in 2012. Yahoo is currently trying to sell itself to Verizon, and Recode speculated that news of a massive data breach could sent Yahoo stock tumbling, lowering the cost for Verizon. Yahoo users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and reset their passwords. If Yahoo doesn't prompt you to do so, then visit Yahoo's Set a new password page and change the password manually. Users can also use Yahoo Account Key , which eschews passwords in favor of using the Yahoo mobile app to turn smartphones into authentication devices. As we say every time we report on a massive server breach, never, ever, recycle passwords. If your email address and password have been available on the black market for months, along with a secondary email address, you better not have used those same credentials for online banking or other highly valuable accounts. 12 Computer Security Mistakes Youre Probably Making The Best (and Worst) Identity Theft Protection What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen Copyright 2016 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. || 200 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked? What to Do Now: UPDATE: Sept. 22, 3:45 P.M., EASTERN: Yahoo confirmed the report, but the breach turned out to be greater than previously expected. More details here. Yahoo, the web portal popular among fantasy football players and free webmail users, may have been the victim of a data breach affecting about 200 million users. Rumors of such a breach surfaced last month, and a Recode report posted early today (Sept. 22) indicated that the company would soon confirm the rumors. Two Tom's Guide staffers saw a tacit admission that something may be wrong when they tried to log into their Yahoo Mail accounts this morning. Both received suggestions to change their passwords, even on accounts that had two-factor authentication enabled. Have I Been Pwned? administrator Troy Hunt , who collects credentials exposed in data breaches, reported the same thing. It's still possible that Yahoo was not itself breached, and that the reported 200 million Yahoo accounts were aggregated and sifted from data breaches at other online services, such as those affecting LinkedIn (177 million accounts) and MySpace (360 million accounts). The alleged malicious hacker who first came forward with the details of the Yahoo accounts — said to include usernames, hashed passwords, birth dates and backup email addresses — told VICE Motherboard last month that the Yahoo data is from "2012 most likely." MORE: 10 Worst Data Breaches of All Time Motherboard broke the news Aug. 1 when that hacker, who uses the pseudonym Peace, put the Yahoo data up for sale for 3 Bitcoin (approx. $1,801 US) on The Real Deal online-crime marketplace. Peace earlier this year disclosed the MySpace and LinkedIn data breaches, but it's unlikely that he himself stole that data. The low price he wanted for the Yahoo data indicates that it's probably old, well picked over and no longer worth much to cybercriminals. In August, Yahoo told Motherboard that it was "aware of a claim," but didn't deny a data breach. Peace replied that "they dont [sic] want to confirm well better for me they dont [sic] do password reset." Story continues Peace also claimed to have "been trading the data privately for some time" before deciding to sell it. Users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and take the option to reset their passwords. Motherboard checked two dozen account credentials supplied by Peace, and discovered that the usernames did correspond to Yahoo accounts. Yahoo apparently protected its user passwords with the MD5 hashing algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. No company should have been using the algorithm in 2012. Yahoo is currently trying to sell itself to Verizon, and Recode speculated that news of a massive data breach could sent Yahoo stock tumbling, lowering the cost for Verizon. Yahoo users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and reset their passwords. If Yahoo doesn't prompt you to do so, then visit Yahoo's Set a new password page and change the password manually. Users can also use Yahoo Account Key , which eschews passwords in favor of using the Yahoo mobile app to turn smartphones into authentication devices. As we say every time we report on a massive server breach, never, ever, recycle passwords. If your email address and password have been available on the black market for months, along with a secondary email address, you better not have used those same credentials for online banking or other highly valuable accounts. 12 Computer Security Mistakes You’re Probably Making The Best (and Worst) Identity Theft Protection What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen Copyright 2016 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. || Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin may become a target in the fight against ransomware: David A. Kris CSIS ransomware bitcoin nationa security (David S. Kris speaking at a CSIS panel event in September 2016.CSIS) Many crimes can be solved by following the money, and that may hold true for the growth of ransomware attacks — though the money itself may be different. Countering the increasing use of ransomware — malware that attacks computers and networks and encrypts files, which criminals then demand payment in order to decrypt — may require action against hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that are often used to pay the criminals behind the attacks, according to David S. Kris, former assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice's national-security division. "I think the way to attack this — and I think the way you’re probably going to see some legal change over the next few years — is on the other end, with respect to the payments," Kris said during the question-and-answer session of a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel event . "And as I understand it — again, without having studied it too extensively — is that, you know, fintech is what is enabling this, cryptocurrency," Kris added. Reports of ransomware use have increased considerably in recent months. "In the last six to 12 months, this has just gone so aggressively to the business environment," Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of cybersecurity company Malwarebytes, told Business Insider in August . "We see companies from 25 people all the way to 250,000 people getting hit with ransomware." Malwarebytes ransomware survey (An Osterman research survey sponsored by Malwarebytes found that 54% of businesses surveyed had come under attack from ransomware in the 12 months through August 2016.Malwarebytes) Tech firm Kaspersky Lab said this summer that the number of victims attacked was growing at an alarming rate — up from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to 718,000 in 2015-2016, according to AFP. Some researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the web infrastructure needed to run ransomware campaigns. According to Kleczynski, some banks have begun stockpiling bitcoin — which currently trades about about $600 to one — in case of a ransomware attack. "I talked to a couple of banks, and they say they have 50-100 bitcoin ready at all times in a wallet to deploy if a ransomware attack hits," he told Business Insider's James Cook . Story continues A report this summer found that hackers employing ransomware could pull in as much as $7,500 a month . And while individual victims are usually only hit with demands for a few hundred dollars , the likelihood that they will pay has made ransomware an appealing venture for hackers. And financial-services firms and individual people aren't the only potential targets. A NASCAR team admitted to paying hackers after its computers where hit with a ransomware attack. In August, security researchers demonstrated a ransomware attack on a smart thermostat , raising the possibility that Internet of Things devices will come into the crosshairs. Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions (Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions© AFP/File Philippe Lopez) The appeal of ransomware has no doubt been burnished by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin coming into the mainstream. " I personally would not be surprised to see over the next few years increasing regulation that maybe makes it more challenging for these kinds of anonymous, substantially untraceable — I don’t want to say it’s completely untraceable — payments to be made," Kris said during the CSIS event. "I think probably where you’re going to see legal change is in the area of the payment scheme. That may be wrong, but that’s sort of what I expect." However authorities choose to counter the use of ransomware, it's unlikely the threat will go away any time soon. "The extortion model is here to stay," a Kaspersky Lab expert said in a statement about rising ransomware attacks on Android users. NOW WATCH: Mac users are being attacked by malware that locks their computer and demands a $400 ransom — here’s how to protect yourself More From Business Insider Spanish police busted 30 people suspected of using a 'crypto-currency' to launder money One of 'El Chapo' Guzmán's chief money launderers is involved in a strange Hollywood kidnapping plot The ECB is getting rid of drug cartels' favorite currency || Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin may become a target in the fight against ransomware: David A. Kris CSIS ransomware bitcoin nationa security (David S. Kris speaking at a CSIS panel event in September 2016.CSIS) Many crimes can be solved by following the money, and that may hold true for the growth of ransomware attacks — though the money itself may be different. Countering the increasing use of ransomware — malware that attacks computers and networks and encrypts files, which criminals then demand payment in order to decrypt — may require action against hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that are often used to pay the criminals behind the attacks, according to David S. Kris, former assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice's national-security division. "I think the way to attack this — and I think the way you’re probably going to see some legal change over the next few years — is on the other end, with respect to the payments," Kris said during the question-and-answer session of a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel event . "And as I understand it — again, without having studied it too extensively — is that, you know, fintech is what is enabling this, cryptocurrency," Kris added. Reports of ransomware use have increased considerably in recent months. "In the last six to 12 months, this has just gone so aggressively to the business environment," Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of cybersecurity company Malwarebytes, told Business Insider in August . "We see companies from 25 people all the way to 250,000 people getting hit with ransomware." Malwarebytes ransomware survey (An Osterman research survey sponsored by Malwarebytes found that 54% of businesses surveyed had come under attack from ransomware in the 12 months through August 2016.Malwarebytes) Tech firm Kaspersky Lab said this summer that the number of victims attacked was growing at an alarming rate — up from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to 718,000 in 2015-2016, according to AFP. Some researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the web infrastructure needed to run ransomware campaigns. According to Kleczynski, some banks have begun stockpiling bitcoin — which currently trades about about $600 to one — in case of a ransomware attack. "I talked to a couple of banks, and they say they have 50-100 bitcoin ready at all times in a wallet to deploy if a ransomware attack hits," he told Business Insider's James Cook . Story continues A report this summer found that hackers employing ransomware could pull in as much as $7,500 a month . And while individual victims are usually only hit with demands for a few hundred dollars , the likelihood that they will pay has made ransomware an appealing venture for hackers. And financial-services firms and individual people aren't the only potential targets. A NASCAR team admitted to paying hackers after its computers where hit with a ransomware attack. In August, security researchers demonstrated a ransomware attack on a smart thermostat , raising the possibility that Internet of Things devices will come into the crosshairs. Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions (Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions© AFP/File Philippe Lopez) The appeal of ransomware has no doubt been burnished by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin coming into the mainstream. " I personally would not be surprised to see over the next few years increasing regulation that maybe makes it more challenging for these kinds of anonymous, substantially untraceable — I don’t want to say it’s completely untraceable — payments to be made," Kris said during the CSIS event. "I think probably where you’re going to see legal change is in the area of the payment scheme. That may be wrong, but that’s sort of what I expect." However authorities choose to counter the use of ransomware, it's unlikely the threat will go away any time soon. "The extortion model is here to stay," a Kaspersky Lab expert said in a statement about rising ransomware attacks on Android users. NOW WATCH: Mac users are being attacked by malware that locks their computer and demands a $400 ransom — here’s how to protect yourself More From Business Insider Spanish police busted 30 people suspected of using a 'crypto-currency' to launder money One of 'El Chapo' Guzmán's chief money launderers is involved in a strange Hollywood kidnapping plot The ECB is getting rid of drug cartels' favorite currency || C&W Networks and TE SubCom Extend Pan-Caribbean Partnership to Provide Capacity Upgrades to Multiple Cable Systems: EATONTOWN, NJ and MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 21, 2016) -C&W Networks, a division ofCable & Wireless Communications, (C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin American region, now part ofLiberty Global(LiLAC Group), is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement withTE SubCom, aTE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to complete an immediate upgrade to the ECLink (Trinidad-Curacao) system. ECLink is the latest regional system within C&W Networks' 48,000 km of subsea fiber to receive an upgrade to its capacity using TE SubCom technology. The agreement upholds TE SubCom's presence in the Caribbean and extends its 15-year-long relationship with C&W Networks.
Highlights / Key Facts
ECLink Upgrade
• Built in 2007 by TE SubCom, ECLink is a 938 km regional undersea cable system connecting Trinidad and Curacao.
• The upgraded system will be designed to accommodate five 100 Gb plug-and-play wavelengths and will have two 100 Gb wavelengths activated.
• The plug-and-play design enables cable station personnel to easily install and provision the transceiver to efficiently provide additional capacity and meet consistently growing customer capacity needs.
Fifteen Years of Successful Partnership
• The ECLink upgrade follows a similar 100 Gb plug-and-play upgrade to C&W Networks' CFX-1, the fastest route between the United States and Colombia.
• CFX-1 is a 2,500 km regional cable system manufactured and installed by TE SubCom and entered into service in 2008 to provide high bandwidth connectivity between Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A., and Cartagena, Colombia and a branch to Morant Point, Jamaica.
• Since first engaging with C&W Networks in 2001, TE SubCom has constructed and upgraded three regional systems, including the ARCOS, Trinidad Curacao and CFX-1 networks. Each originally designed for 10Gbps transmission, TE SubCom has, in recent years, increased capacity by 2Tb/s across the three networks.
"We're excited to once again partner with TE SubCom and pleased to have chosen them as the provider for the ECLink regional upgrade," said Paul Scott, president of C&W Networks. "Our capacity upgrades across the Pan-Caribbean region will help us meet the high performance and network reliability needed so we can offer better and faster services that meet the ever evolving needs of our wholesale carrier customers."
"We value C&W Networks' continued preference for our company's technology portfolio and regional expertise in support of these upgrades," said Michael Rieger, vice president, TE SubCom. "As with all our customers, our goal is to build a partnership based on long-term vision, support and dependability."
About TE SubComTE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services, and a leading global supplier for today's undersea communications requirements. As a vertically integrated supplier, SubCom designs, manufactures, deploys, and maintains the industry's most reliable fiber optic cable systems. Its solutions include long-haul and regional systems, repeaterless networks, capacity upgrades, offshore oil and gas, and scientific research applications. SubCom brings end-to-end network knowledge and global experience to support on-time delivery and the needs of customers worldwide. To date, the company has deployed more than 100 cable systems and enough subsea communication cable to circle the Earth 15 times at the equator. For more information, visitwww.SubCom.com.
About TE ConnectivityTE Connectivity (NYSE:TEL) is a $12 billion global technology leader. Our connectivity and sensor solutions are essential in today's increasingly connected world. We collaborate with engineers to transform their concepts into creations - redefining what's possible using intelligent, efficient and high-performing TE products and solutions proven in harsh environments. Our 72,000 people, including over 7,000 engineers, partner with customers in close to 150 countries across a wide range of industries. We believe EVERY CONNECTION COUNTS -www.TE.com.
About C&W NetworksC&W Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications and a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity and a growing portfolio of managed services and integrated solutions to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fibre-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Connecting over 40 countries, the company's fully protected ringed submarine fibre optic network spans more than 48,000km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber Express (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West, Cayman-Jamaica Fibre system, Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Pan America (PAN-AM), Antillas 1 and Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). For more information, visit:www.cwnetworks.com.
About C&W CommunicationsCWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || C&W Networks and TE SubCom Extend Pan-Caribbean Partnership to Provide Capacity Upgrades to Multiple Cable Systems: EATONTOWN, NJ and MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 21, 2016) - C&W Networks , a division of Cable & Wireless Communications , (C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin American region, now part of Liberty Global (LiLAC Group), is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with TE SubCom , a TE Connectivity Ltd . ( NYSE : TEL ) company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to complete an immediate upgrade to the ECLink (Trinidad-Curacao) system. ECLink is the latest regional system within C&W Networks' 48,000 km of subsea fiber to receive an upgrade to its capacity using TE SubCom technology. The agreement upholds TE SubCom's presence in the Caribbean and extends its 15-year-long relationship with C&W Networks. Highlights / Key Facts ECLink Upgrade Built in 2007 by TE SubCom, ECLink is a 938 km regional undersea cable system connecting Trinidad and Curacao. The upgraded system will be designed to accommodate five 100 Gb plug-and-play wavelengths and will have two 100 Gb wavelengths activated. The plug-and-play design enables cable station personnel to easily install and provision the transceiver to efficiently provide additional capacity and meet consistently growing customer capacity needs. Fifteen Years of Successful Partnership The ECLink upgrade follows a similar 100 Gb plug-and-play upgrade to C&W Networks' CFX-1, the fastest route between the United States and Colombia. CFX-1 is a 2,500 km regional cable system manufactured and installed by TE SubCom and entered into service in 2008 to provide high bandwidth connectivity between Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A., and Cartagena, Colombia and a branch to Morant Point, Jamaica. Since first engaging with C&W Networks in 2001, TE SubCom has constructed and upgraded three regional systems, including the ARCOS, Trinidad Curacao and CFX-1 networks. Each originally designed for 10Gbps transmission, TE SubCom has, in recent years, increased capacity by 2Tb/s across the three networks. Story continues "We're excited to once again partner with TE SubCom and pleased to have chosen them as the provider for the ECLink regional upgrade," said Paul Scott, president of C&W Networks. "Our capacity upgrades across the Pan-Caribbean region will help us meet the high performance and network reliability needed so we can offer better and faster services that meet the ever evolving needs of our wholesale carrier customers." "We value C&W Networks' continued preference for our company's technology portfolio and regional expertise in support of these upgrades," said Michael Rieger, vice president, TE SubCom. "As with all our customers, our goal is to build a partnership based on long-term vision, support and dependability." About TE SubCom TE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services, and a leading global supplier for today's undersea communications requirements. As a vertically integrated supplier, SubCom designs, manufactures, deploys, and maintains the industry's most reliable fiber optic cable systems. Its solutions include long-haul and regional systems, repeaterless networks, capacity upgrades, offshore oil and gas, and scientific research applications. SubCom brings end-to-end network knowledge and global experience to support on-time delivery and the needs of customers worldwide. To date, the company has deployed more than 100 cable systems and enough subsea communication cable to circle the Earth 15 times at the equator. For more information, visit www.SubCom.com . About TE Connectivity TE Connectivity ( NYSE : TEL ) is a $12 billion global technology leader. Our connectivity and sensor solutions are essential in today's increasingly connected world. We collaborate with engineers to transform their concepts into creations - redefining what's possible using intelligent, efficient and high-performing TE products and solutions proven in harsh environments. Our 72,000 people, including over 7,000 engineers, partner with customers in close to 150 countries across a wide range of industries. We believe EVERY CONNECTION COUNTS - www.TE.com . About C&W Networks C&W Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications and a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity and a growing portfolio of managed services and integrated solutions to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fibre-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Connecting over 40 countries, the company's fully protected ringed submarine fibre optic network spans more than 48,000km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber Express (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West, Cayman-Jamaica Fibre system, Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Pan America (PAN-AM), Antillas 1 and Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). For more information, visit: www.cwnetworks.com . About C&W Communications CWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . || Your first trade for Wednesday, September 21: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Pete Najarian is a buyer of 58.com (WUBA). Tim Seymour is a buyer of Time Warner Cable (TWX (NYSE: TWX) ). Brian Kelly is a buyer of Proshares Ultrashort Yen (YCS (NYSE Arca: YCS) ). Dan Nathan is a seller of the Financial Sector (XLF (Mexico Stock Exchange: XLF-MX) ). Trader disclosure: On Tuesday, September 20 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY= Dan Nathan is Long TWTR, long PYPL call calendar, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long XHB jan put spread, long XLK Jan put spread, XLU Dec call spread Tim Seymour is long APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, HD, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short HYG, IWM, UAL Pete Najarian is long AAPL, BAC, BMY, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, PEP, PFE, VIAB CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, APC, BAC, BSX, CNX, COP, CRM, CS, CSCO, DAL, DISH, ETP, GS, GT, INTEL, JBLU, JCP, KGC, LLY, KMI, KO, LOW, M, SBUX, SLW, TMUS, TTS, TWTR, VRX, X, SLV, ATVI, WUBA Puts: CLF, EEM More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Your first trade for Wednesday, September 21: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Pete Najarian is a buyer of 58.com (WUBA).
Tim Seymour is a buyer of Time Warner Cable (TWX(NYSE: TWX)).
Brian Kelly is a buyer of Proshares Ultrashort Yen (YCS(NYSE Arca: YCS)).
Dan Nathan is a seller of the Financial Sector (XLF(Mexico Stock Exchange: XLF-MX)).
Trader disclosure: OnTuesday, September 20the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, CME, DXJ, GDX, KBE, SLV, TLT, VXX, XLF, XOP, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY=
Dan Nathan is Long TWTR, long PYPL call calendar, Long FEZ Nov put spread, long EEM Nov put spread, long XHB jan put spread, long XLK Jan put spread, XLU Dec call spread
Tim Seymour is long APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, HD, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short HYG, IWM, UAL
Pete Najarian is long AAPL, BAC, BMY, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, PEP, PFE, VIAB CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, APC, BAC, BSX, CNX, COP, CRM, CS, CSCO, DAL, DISH, ETP, GS, GT, INTEL, JBLU, JCP, KGC, LLY, KMI, KO, LOW, M, SBUX, SLW, TMUS, TTS, TWTR, VRX, X, SLV, ATVI, WUBA Puts: CLF, EEM
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• Personal Finance || Flow Study Gets More Caribbean Students Closer to Examination Success: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 20, 2016) - As parents and students get fully into the new school term, Flow unveils its e-learning platform, Flow Study , an online portal to help students better prepare for the CAPE and CSEC examinations. One of the most significant features of Flow Study is that it offers access to a comprehensive range of educational materials, including exam strategies, past paper solutions, CyberPedia and virtual labs, that students can access from multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. The portal is also linked to video-based tutorials via Flow TV on Demand. Ricardo D. Allen , head of One On One Educational Services , is the founder and developer of the Flow Study program. For the last several years, his team has been preparing students for the CSEC mathematics exam, maintaining a 100 percent pass rate with an average of 83 percent of these students, attaining a grade one. Flow sees the partnership with One to One as an opportunity to twin the educational expertise and successful track record of One on One with Flow's world class technological platform to significantly expand access to e-learning to thousands more Caribbean students. "Our partnership with One On One Educational Services enables us to deliver the highest-quality educational content via our industry-leading technology, giving Caribbean students a better opportunity to excel," said Michele English, Acting President of Flow. "The platform supplements classroom learning and gives students the ability to study anytime, anywhere. It's the future of studying and we are pleased to offer this opportunity to our customers," she stated. The App offers free access to basic study materials to all Flow's broadband customers. Parents who want more specialized and detailed material for their children, can access additional subjects and content for a small fee that they will be able to pay through their Flow bill or prepaid balance. Story continues Getting started is simple -- visit www.flowstudy.co , 'login' to register for a free FLOW ID. Download the Flow Study app on your mobile device from the Google Play Store to access learning material and you're on your way to better grades. Flow Study is available across all Flow markets except Curacao. About C&W Communications CWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region - in over 30 markets. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058430 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058433 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058436 || Flow Study Gets More Caribbean Students Closer to Examination Success: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 20, 2016) - As parents and students get fully into the new school term,Flowunveils its e-learning platform,Flow Study,an online portal to help students better prepare for the CAPE and CSEC examinations.
One of the most significant features ofFlow Studyis that it offers access to a comprehensive range of educational materials, including exam strategies, past paper solutions, CyberPedia and virtual labs, that students can access from multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. The portal is also linked tovideo-based tutorialsviaFlow TV on Demand.
Ricardo D. Allen, head ofOne On One Educational Services, is the founder and developer of the Flow Study program. For the last several years, his team has been preparing students for the CSEC mathematics exam, maintaining a 100 percent pass rate with an average of 83 percent of these students, attaining a grade one. Flow sees the partnership with One to One as an opportunity to twin the educational expertise and successful track record of One on One with Flow's world class technological platform to significantly expand access to e-learning to thousands more Caribbean students.
"Our partnership with One On One Educational Services enables us to deliver the highest-quality educational content via our industry-leading technology, giving Caribbean students a better opportunity to excel," said Michele English, Acting President of Flow. "The platform supplements classroom learning and gives students the ability to study anytime, anywhere. It's the future of studying and we are pleased to offer this opportunity to our customers," she stated.
The App offers free access to basic study materials to all Flow's broadband customers. Parents who want more specialized and detailed material for their children, can access additional subjects and content for a small fee that they will be able to pay through their Flow bill or prepaid balance.
Getting started is simple --visitwww.flowstudy.co,'login' to register for a freeFLOW ID.Download the Flow Study app on your mobile device from theGoogle Play Storeto access learning material and you're on your way to better grades. Flow Study is available across all Flow markets except Curacao.
About C&W CommunicationsCWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region - in over 30 markets.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058430Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058433Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058436 || You're So Money: NY Judge Rules Bitcoin Qualify As 'Funds': A New York judge ruled bitcoin qualifies as money as part of a judgment related to a case over hacking attacks againstJPMorgan Chase & Co.(NYSE:JPM) and other companies, according to a report onFortune.
The report said U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected Anthony Murgio's bid to dismiss two charges regarding his alleged operation of Coin.mx. Prosecutors have called Coin.mx an "unlicensed bitcoin exchange."
Related Link:What Is Blockchain, And Why Should You Care?
But, Nathan ruled bitcoin satisfies the definition of a virtual currency.
"Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term. Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment," Fortune reported, quoting Nathan.
Brian Klein, a lawyer for Murgio, said he disagreed with the decision.
Last year, prosecutors charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx and in April charged his father, Michael, with participating in bribery to support the exchange.
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[Social Media Buzz]
#TrollCoin #TROLL $0.000024 (-0.25%) 0.00000004 BTC (-0.00%) || 1 #bitcoin = $11833.00 MXN | $605.75 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 19.53MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || It would be auspicious to buy at https://Bittylicious.com/refer/2465 £487.00 per BTC. (BPI +4.71%) #buy #bitcoin #banktrans || $605.79 #GDAX;
$608.41 #btce;
$605.73 #bitstamp;
$605.00 #OKCoin;
$606.70 #bitfinex;
$605.83 #itBit;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000006 (-0.44%) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00%) || 1 #BTC (#...
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604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50, 961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75, 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20, 908.59, 911.20, 902.83, 907.68, 777.76, 804.83, 823.98, 818.41, 821.80, 831.53, 907.94.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-01-17]
Volume: 155095008, RSI (14-day): 53.27, 50-day EMA: 854.21, 200-day EMA: 712.10
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1212.00, Gold RSI: 66.76
Oil Price: 52.48, Oil RSI: 52.42
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Flow Partners with Manchester United To Bring the 'FA Cup Trophy' To The Caribbean: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2017) - 2017 is already gearing up to be a great one for football fans across the region, as Flow and Manchester United -- current FA Cup holders -- team up to give Caribbean fans unprecedented access to the famous trophy. The trophy will arrive in Trinidad on January 16, where it will be on show at the Flow Sports Headquarters and will be showcased at activities for fans over a two-day period. On January 18, the trophy will be taken to Barbados, then on to Jamaica from January 19 - 21 and will end the tour of the Caribbean in the Cayman Islands from January 21 to 24. Dwight Yorke, Manchester United Ambassador, who himself lifted the FA Cup in 1999 with United's glorious treble-winning team, will join Flow as a special guest on the final leg of the tour to make a special announcement about the soon to be launched skills-development initiative for young footballers -- another Flow/Manchester United partnership. "This is all for our customers who are lovers of the beautiful game," said Garfield Sinclair , newly appointed President, Flow Caribbean . "We are the Home of Sports in the Caribbean and our relationship with Manchester United enables us to give our football fans this amazing opportunity to get up close to the FA Cup, which for some, is a once in a lifetime event. This certainly underscores Flow's commitment to give sports fans more of what they want." As the FA Cup makes its way around the Caribbean, fans will have the opportunity to take photos and create personal memories of these exciting events. Fans will also get a chance to participate in activities and win prizes from Flow and Manchester United . About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. Story continues C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at http://www.cwc.com/ , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3099050 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3099052 || Flow Partners with Manchester United To Bring the 'FA Cup Trophy' To The Caribbean: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2017) - 2017 is already gearing up to be a great one for football fans across the region, asFlowandManchester United-- currentFA Cupholders-- team up to give Caribbean fans unprecedented access to thefamous trophy.
The trophy will arrive in Trinidad on January 16, where it will be on show at theFlow SportsHeadquarters and will be showcased at activities for fans over a two-day period. On January 18, the trophy will be taken to Barbados, then on to Jamaica from January 19 - 21 and will end the tour of the Caribbean in the Cayman Islands from January 21 to 24. Dwight Yorke, Manchester United Ambassador, who himself lifted the FA Cup in 1999 with United's glorious treble-winning team, will join Flow as a special guest on the final leg of the tour to make a special announcement about the soon to be launched skills-development initiative for young footballers -- another Flow/Manchester United partnership.
"This is all for our customers who are lovers of the beautiful game," saidGarfield Sinclair, newly appointedPresident, Flow Caribbean. "We arethe Home of Sports in the Caribbeanand our relationship with Manchester United enables us to give our football fans this amazing opportunity to get up close to the FA Cup, which for some, is a once in a lifetime event. This certainly underscores Flow's commitment to give sports fans more of what they want."
As theFA Cupmakes its way around the Caribbean, fans will have the opportunity to take photos and create personal memories of these exciting events. Fans will also get a chance to participate in activities and win prizes from Flow andManchester United.
About C&W Communications
C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more athttp://www.cwc.com/, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3099050Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3099052 || Yuan Eyes on China 4Q GDP, Davos Forum: DailyFX.com - Yuan Eyes on China 4Q GDP, Davos Forum Fundamental Forecast for the Yuan: Neutral Yuan, FX Policy Force Major Bitcoin Volatility USD/CNH: Is a New Trend Setting In? Check out DailyFX analysts' top trading ideas for 2017 This week, the offshore Yuan remained stronger than the onshore Yuan and the PBOC’s guidance. On Friday, the USD/CNY closed at 6.8984, slightly weaker than the Yuan fix set on Friday of 6.8909; the USD/CNH traded at 6.8419 as of 3:30pm EST, 0.8% stronger than the onshore pair. Looking forward, the headline event on China’s economic calendar will be the 2016-4Q Gross Domestic Product (GDP) print that is scheduled to release at 21:00 EST on January 19th. China’s Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told a week ago that he is confident that the economy will maintain a 6.7% growth, as in the previous three quarters, or above this level. A consensus forecast from Bloomberg agreed with a 6.7% increase. The GDP print itself seems less likely to turn into a surprise on Thursday. More importantly, traders will want to take a close look at the breakdown of China’s major sectors, in the effort to find out more clues on the economic outlook in 2017. Also, Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos next Tuesday, which is expected to attract global attention. China’s industrial sector has shown improvements in the third quarter with multiple enhanced indicators: Both the official PMI and Caixin PMI reads in the fourth quarter stayed above 50, in the expansion territory. In specific, the Caixin PMI in December 2016 hit 53.5, the highest level in 45 months. Electricity consumption by the industrial sector, a major component in Keqiang Index , grew from October to November (December read is not available yet). In terms of investment, total investment picked up from a 16-year low of 8.1% reached in July 2016 to 8.3% in both October and November. Also, companies began to increase borrowing according to the December New Yuan Loans report: newly issued corporate medium-term to long-term loans increased to $695.4 trillion, rising +71% month-over-month or +50% year-over-year; this indicates that companies may have started to expand their businesses. In 2017, the Chinese government will maintain proactive fiscal policy with increasing expenditures and tax cuts, which are expected to further support domestic industries. Story continues On the other hand, China has been facing growing challenges in international trade, including the weak global demand as well as rising trade disputes with major partners. In December 2016, China’s exports plunged -6.1% in Dollar terms, not only worse than a -3.8% forecast from Bloomberg but also marking the largest fall since 2009. Based on the breakdown of trading figures provided by China’s Customs, the growth of China’s exports to U.S. slowed down by -2.1% in December in Yuan terms and the growth of imports from U.S. slowed down by -13.5%. Trump’s pick on trade could put China on an even more difficult spot. This is one of the major risks that may impact the country’s growth. According to China Academy of Social Science, a leading Chinese think tank, the economic expansion is expected to drop to 6.5% in 2017 , which means it may provide limited support to the Chinese Yuan. Next week, Chinese President Xi will attend Davos’ Forum as the first Chinese president. When there is a major national event for China, Yuan volatility tends to drop, such as what was seen during the G20 meetings in China last September. Also, at the Davos’ meeting, President Xi may address major Chinese policies as well as comment on China’s global role, both worth keeping an eye on. Currently, the USD/CNH is waiting for justifications for a new trend ; China’s economic outlook and policy in 2017 may provide more clues. original source DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets. Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from IG . || Yuan Eyes on China 4Q GDP, Davos Forum: DailyFX.com -
Fundamental Forecast for the Yuan:Neutral
• Yuan, FX Policy Force Major Bitcoin Volatility
• USD/CNH: Is a New Trend Setting In?
• Check outDailyFX analysts' top trading ideas for 2017
This week, the offshore Yuan remained stronger than the onshore Yuan and the PBOC’s guidance. On Friday, the USD/CNY closed at 6.8984, slightly weaker than the Yuan fix set on Friday of 6.8909; the USD/CNH traded at 6.8419 as of 3:30pm EST, 0.8% stronger than the onshore pair.
Looking forward, the headline event on China’s economic calendar will be the 2016-4Q Gross Domestic Product (GDP) print that is scheduled to release at 21:00 EST on January 19th. China’s Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told a week ago that he is confident that the economy will maintain a 6.7% growth, as in the previous three quarters, or above this level. A consensus forecast from Bloomberg agreed with a 6.7% increase. The GDP print itself seems less likely to turn into a surprise on Thursday. More importantly, traders will want to take a close look at the breakdown of China’s major sectors, in the effort to find out more clues on the economic outlook in 2017. Also, Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos next Tuesday, which is expected to attract global attention.
China’s industrial sector has shown improvements in the third quarter with multiple enhanced indicators: Both the official PMI and Caixin PMI reads in the fourth quarter stayed above 50, in the expansion territory. In specific, the Caixin PMI in December 2016 hit 53.5, the highest level in 45 months. Electricity consumption by the industrial sector,a major component in Keqiang Index, grew from October to November (December read is not available yet). In terms of investment, total investment picked up from a 16-year low of 8.1% reached in July 2016 to 8.3% in both October and November. Also, companies began to increase borrowing according to the December New Yuan Loans report: newly issued corporate medium-term to long-term loans increased to $695.4 trillion, rising +71% month-over-month or +50% year-over-year; this indicates that companies may have started to expand their businesses. In 2017, the Chinese government will maintain proactive fiscal policy with increasing expenditures and tax cuts, which are expected to further support domestic industries.
On the other hand, China has been facing growing challenges in international trade, including the weak global demand as well as rising trade disputes with major partners. In December 2016, China’s exports plunged -6.1% in Dollar terms, not only worse than a -3.8% forecast from Bloomberg but also marking the largest fall since 2009. Based on the breakdown of trading figures provided by China’s Customs, the growth of China’s exports to U.S. slowed down by -2.1% in December in Yuan terms and the growth of imports from U.S. slowed down by -13.5%. Trump’s pick on trade could put China on an even more difficult spot. This is one of the major risks that may impact the country’s growth. According to China Academy of Social Science, a leading Chinese think tank,the economic expansion is expected to drop to 6.5% in 2017, which means it may provide limited support to the Chinese Yuan.
Next week, Chinese President Xi will attend Davos’ Forum as the first Chinese president. When there is a major national event for China, Yuan volatility tends to drop, such as what was seen during the G20 meetings in China last September. Also, at the Davos’ meeting, President Xi may address major Chinese policies as well as comment on China’s global role, both worth keeping an eye on. Currently,the USD/CNH is waiting for justifications for a new trend; China’s economic outlook and policy in 2017 may provide more clues.
original source
DailyFXprovides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts fromIG. || Bitcoin is making a comeback: Overnight selling pushed bitcoin down by more than 6% to a low of $776.95, but buying on Friday has wiped away those losses. The cryptocurrency was up 2.06%, or $16.60, at $817.34 a coin as of 12:36 p.m. ET. The early selling still did not pass Thursday's low of $752.46, a sign that bitcoin could be putting in a near-term bottom. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to the year, climbing by more than 20% in the first four trading days, reaching a 2017 high of $1,161.88 a coin, before tumbling by more than 35% as China began investigating bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decided to raise rates More From Business Insider Bitcoin is charging higher Why you should take advantage of this widely ignored part of Amazon to save money Bitcoin is getting demolished || Bitcoin is making a comeback: Overnight selling pushed bitcoin down by more than 6% to a low of $776.95, but buying on Friday has wiped away those losses. The cryptocurrency was up 2.06%, or $16.60, at $817.34 a coin as of 12:36 p.m. ET.
The early selling still did not pass Thursday's low of $752.46, a sign that bitcoin could be putting in a near-term bottom. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to the year, climbing by more than 20% in the first four trading days, reaching a 2017 high of $1,161.88 a coin, before tumbling by more than 35% as China beganinvestigating bitcoin exchangesin Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues.
(Investing.com)
NOW WATCH:Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decided to raise rates
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• Bitcoin is charging higher
• Why you should take advantage of this widely ignored part of Amazon to save money
• Bitcoin is getting demolished || Bitcoin is making a comeback: Overnight selling pushed bitcoin down by more than 6% to a low of $776.95, but buying on Friday has wiped away those losses. The cryptocurrency was up 2.06%, or $16.60, at $817.34 a coin as of 12:36 p.m. ET.
The early selling still did not pass Thursday's low of $752.46, a sign that bitcoin could be putting in a near-term bottom. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to the year, climbing by more than 20% in the first four trading days, reaching a 2017 high of $1,161.88 a coin, before tumbling by more than 35% as China beganinvestigating bitcoin exchangesin Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues.
(Investing.com)
NOW WATCH:Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decided to raise rates
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• Bitcoin is charging higher
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• Bitcoin is getting demolished || China's media is about to go to 'war' Russia style: (Reuters)
China is consolidating its overseas news network, CCTV, and giving it a makeover,according to the Associated Press.The network will be called CGTN.
At the same time, Xinhua, China's official state news network, will consolidate a bunch of outlets under a new umbrella to focus itsfinancial-reportingefforts. China Securities Journal, Shanghai Securities News, Economic Information Daily and Xinhua Publishing House will all now be housed underChina Fortune Media Corporation Group.
Xinhua says this is an effort to deepen "the central authority's reforms of the cultural system" and "increasing mainstream media's influence in the area of financial information."
This move shows China following the example of Russia's state-backed international network, RT. China wants more control over its story — specifically the story of its economy — being told around the world, in similar fashion to how RT acts to spread Russia's viewpoint across the globe.
Chinese media has always been tightly controlled by the state, but under Xi Jinping that has taken on a whole new meaning. Around this last time last year, Xiwas visiting newsroomsensuring that journalists and executives had sworn their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
"All news media run by the Party must work to speak for the Party's will and its propositions and protect the Party's authority and unity," Xi was quoted as saying. Xi has called for this ideological uniformity when it comes to all kinds of thought from education at all levels to Chinese think tanks.
CCTV has been around since 1958 and has been available globally and available in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian for years, and it has a bureau in DC.
In 2011, I toured their DC facilities as part of a Columbia Journalism project researching global media networks — Iran's Press TV, France's France 24, Qatar's Al Jazeera, Russia's Russia Today (RT), and China's CCTV. The Columbia group found CCTV's content mostly boring but inoffensive: Officials doing ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new infrastructure projects and Chinese cultural content.
Of course until 2008 RT operated in much the same way. It was meant to be a friendly introduction to Russia. After President George W. Bush became vocal about his opposition to Russia's incursion into neighboring former Soviet state Georgia, however, things changed. RT's directive then morphed into challenging the US as a superpower and questioning the legitimacy of its government.
In an interview withGermany's Der Spiegel in 2013,RT'sEditor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, said that during the Georgia conflict Western media "acted as if they were Georgia's ministry of defense."
A year later she referred to what her network does as fighting in"a media war."
With China's focus on the financial world, it appears its aims will not be exactly like Russia's: China could be seeking to spread its economic message, while RT tends more toward the geopolitical. The Chinese economy is under strain thanks to years of exploding debt (now approaching 280% of GDP) and currency leaving the country at an eye-popping rate ($82 billion in December). This move will shore up China's economic messaging not just at home but also abroad.
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• Bitcoin plunged again
• Lincoln is outperforming the luxury auto market
• Bitcoin is still dropping || China's media is about to go to 'war' Russia style: xi jinping screen (Reuters) China is consolidating its overseas news network, CCTV, and giving it a makeover, according to the Associated Press. The network will be called CGTN. At the same time, Xinhua, China's official state news network, will consolidate a bunch of outlets under a new umbrella to focus its financial-reporting efforts. China Securities Journal, Shanghai Securities News, Economic Information Daily and Xinhua Publishing House will all now be housed under China Fortune Media Corporation Group. Xinhua says this is an effort to deepen "the central authority's reforms of the cultural system" and "increasing mainstream media's influence in the area of financial information." This move shows China following the example of Russia's state-backed international network, RT. China wants more control over its story specifically the story of its economy being told around the world, in similar fashion to how RT acts to spread Russia's viewpoint across the globe. Chinese media has always been tightly controlled by the state, but under Xi Jinping that has taken on a whole new meaning. Around this last time last year, Xi was visiting newsrooms ensuring that journalists and executives had sworn their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. "All news media run by the Party must work to speak for the Party's will and its propositions and protect the Party's authority and unity," Xi was quoted as saying. Xi has called for this ideological uniformity when it comes to all kinds of thought from education at all levels to Chinese think tanks. CCTV has been around since 1958 and has been available globally and available in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian for years, and it has a bureau in DC. In 2011, I toured their DC facilities as part of a Columbia Journalism project researching global media networks Iran's Press TV, France's France 24, Qatar's Al Jazeera, Russia's Russia Today (RT), and China's CCTV. T he Columbia group found CCTV's content mostly boring but inoffensive: Officials doing ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new infrastructure projects and Chinese cultural content. Story continues Of course until 2008 RT operated in much the same way. It was meant to be a friendly introduction to Russia. After President George W. Bush became vocal about his opposition to Russia's incursion into neighboring former Soviet state Georgia, however, things changed. RT's directive then morphed into challenging the US as a superpower and questioning the legitimacy of its government. In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel in 2013, RT's Editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, said that during the Georgia conflict Western media " acted as if they were Georgia's ministry of defense." A year later she referred to what her network does as fighting in "a media war." With China's focus on the financial world, it appears its aims will not be exactly like Russia's: China could be seeking to spread its economic message, while RT tends more toward the geopolitical. The Chinese economy is under strain thanks to years of exploding debt (now approaching 280% of GDP) and currency leaving the country at an eye-popping rate ($82 billion in December). This move will shore up China's economic messaging not just at home but also abroad. NOW WATCH: Here's the massive gap in average income between the top 1% and the bottom 99% in every state More From Business Insider Bitcoin plunged again Lincoln is outperforming the luxury auto market Bitcoin is still dropping || COLUMN-Trump border tax to pile on China capital flight pressure: James Saft: (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) By James Saft Jan 12 (Reuters) - The 'border tax' Donald Trump and Republicans are considering will spur capital flight from China, with potentially large repercussions. House Republicans back a plan for a border tax adjustment, discussed at 20 percent, which would impose a levy on imports while granting rebates to exports. While the Republican and Trump plans call for a border tax on all imports as a means to favor domestic production, Trump has also used the term to describe a punitive tax he threatens to levy directly on imports of companies which move production abroad. As ever with Trump, it is highly unclear what he intends or will attempt. Trump has in the past floated the idea of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to the U.S., a higher rate than is being discussed for the border tax adjustment. For China, and for financial markets, this is going to cause trouble, and not just because it would make Chinese and other foreign imports to the U.S. less competitive. A border tax implies a strengthening of the dollar, prompting former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to warn this week of a "spike" in the greenback. All else being equal, which it seldom is, a 20 percent border tax should prompt a similarly large appreciation in the dollar. That won't likely happen, in part because other countries will pile in with their own border taxes or other measures, but the dollar would get a sizable boost. That poses a complex set of problems for China. Global dollar borrowing conditions would become more expensive and, importantly, pressure would intensify on the yuan to weaken in response. "The threat to Chinese stability at a time when it is already having trouble trying to limit capital flight from a new disruption of trade is a legitimate concern," David Levy of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center said in an interview. "This is not a great time from a Chinese point of view or global stability point of view to have anything that is disruptive to the flow of trade." Story continues One fear is that Chinese yuan owners, anticipating a dollar spike, will try to front-run the effects on the yuan, seeking to move money into other currencies or stores of value, either by following Chinese rules or by skirting them. The yuan, which trades in a band set by China, fell by 6.6 percent against the dollar in 2016 in a self-reinforcing downdraft. CAPITAL FLOATS, USUALLY To be sure, China is not the nation most vulnerable to dollar strength. That honor belongs to emerging market countries which run a current account deficit and must attract dollars for financing. Yet two years of strong capital outflows have depleted China's once, and arguably still, massive foreign currency reserves. China's reserves fell by about $320 billion to $3.011 trillion in 2016, less than the $513 billion decline of 2015 but also despite wide-ranging efforts by China to make capital flight more difficult. Seeking to circumvent capital controls, owners of yuan in China have turned to cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which more than doubled in value between September and Jan. 4. "Spot checks" on Bitcoin exchanges in China by state authorities this week sent Bitcoin down by 12 percent. At any rate, money is eager to leave by any route possible. China still has huge FX reserves, but an IMF adequacy framework implies it needs to keep about $2.7 trillion on hand. At last year's depletion rate we will soon be there, and if a border tax accelerates matters the issue could soon become urgent. Asset management behemoth PIMCO said on Thursday China might float its currency in 2017. Yu Yongding, an influential former advisor to the People's Bank of China, said on Thursday the central bank should set a "bottom line" depreciation level for the yuan in 2017 of 25 percent. Floating the yuan would certainly be a taste of his own medicine for Trump, who has threatened to brand the country a currency manipulator. It would also, however, potentially cause a very strong outflow of capital. Foreign exchange reserves would be preserved but capital flight could become a problem, and a limit on other policies. China is notable in that, with a semi-closed economy and great central control, it has been able to stimulate its way out of various upsets during and after the financial crisis. China may find it has less room to maneuver if capital is leaving, or if the yuan depreciates greatly, with or without a float. Remember too, all of this would be happening in and to China while most of the other emerging markets go through a crisis of similar origin. Regardless of its impact on U.S. exports, a border tax could easily cause massive turbulence in global markets. (Editing by James Dalgleish) || COLUMN-Trump border tax to pile on China capital flight pressure: James Saft: (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters)
By James Saft
Jan 12 (Reuters) - The 'border tax' Donald Trump and Republicans are considering will spur capital flight from China, with potentially large repercussions.
House Republicans back a plan for a border tax adjustment, discussed at 20 percent, which would impose a levy on imports while granting rebates to exports.
While the Republican and Trump plans call for a border tax on all imports as a means to favor domestic production, Trump has also used the term to describe a punitive tax he threatens to levy directly on imports of companies which move production abroad. As ever with Trump, it is highly unclear what he intends or will attempt.
Trump has in the past floated the idea of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to the U.S., a higher rate than is being discussed for the border tax adjustment.
For China, and for financial markets, this is going to cause trouble, and not just because it would make Chinese and other foreign imports to the U.S. less competitive.
A border tax implies a strengthening of the dollar, prompting former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to warn this week of a "spike" in the greenback. All else being equal, which it seldom is, a 20 percent border tax should prompt a similarly large appreciation in the dollar. That won't likely happen, in part because other countries will pile in with their own border taxes or other measures, but the dollar would get a sizable boost.
That poses a complex set of problems for China. Global dollar borrowing conditions would become more expensive and, importantly, pressure would intensify on the yuan to weaken in response.
"The threat to Chinese stability at a time when it is already having trouble trying to limit capital flight from a new disruption of trade is a legitimate concern," David Levy of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center said in an interview.
"This is not a great time from a Chinese point of view or global stability point of view to have anything that is disruptive to the flow of trade."
One fear is that Chinese yuan owners, anticipating a dollar spike, will try to front-run the effects on the yuan, seeking to move money into other currencies or stores of value, either by following Chinese rules or by skirting them.
The yuan, which trades in a band set by China, fell by 6.6 percent against the dollar in 2016 in a self-reinforcing downdraft.
CAPITAL FLOATS, USUALLY
To be sure, China is not the nation most vulnerable to dollar strength. That honor belongs to emerging market countries which run a current account deficit and must attract dollars for financing.
Yet two years of strong capital outflows have depleted China's once, and arguably still, massive foreign currency reserves. China's reserves fell by about $320 billion to $3.011 trillion in 2016, less than the $513 billion decline of 2015 but also despite wide-ranging efforts by China to make capital flight more difficult. Seeking to circumvent capital controls, owners of yuan in China have turned to cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which more than doubled in value between September and Jan. 4. "Spot checks" on Bitcoin exchanges in China by state authorities this week sent Bitcoin down by 12 percent. At any rate, money is eager to leave by any route possible.
China still has huge FX reserves, but an IMF adequacy framework implies it needs to keep about $2.7 trillion on hand. At last year's depletion rate we will soon be there, and if a border tax accelerates matters the issue could soon become urgent.
Asset management behemoth PIMCO said on Thursday China might float its currency in 2017. Yu Yongding, an influential former advisor to the People's Bank of China, said on Thursday the central bank should set a "bottom line" depreciation level for the yuan in 2017 of 25 percent.
Floating the yuan would certainly be a taste of his own medicine for Trump, who has threatened to brand the country a currency manipulator. It would also, however, potentially cause a very strong outflow of capital. Foreign exchange reserves would be preserved but capital flight could become a problem, and a limit on other policies.
China is notable in that, with a semi-closed economy and great central control, it has been able to stimulate its way out of various upsets during and after the financial crisis. China may find it has less room to maneuver if capital is leaving, or if the yuan depreciates greatly, with or without a float.
Remember too, all of this would be happening in and to China while most of the other emerging markets go through a crisis of similar origin.
Regardless of its impact on U.S. exports, a border tax could easily cause massive turbulence in global markets.
(Editing by James Dalgleish) || Why China’s central bank fears bitcoin: It was only one week ago that the price of the digital currency bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $1,130. Now the price has fallen precipitously, and was hovering around $800 on Thursday afternoon. The reason is China. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on Wednesday that it plans regular on-site inspections of the leading Chinese bitcoin exchanges, including BTCChina, Huobi, and OKCoin. This came after PBOC officers in Beijing visited the offices of Huobi and OKCoin, and PBOC officers in Shanghai visited the offices of BTCC, for checkups that, “focused on whether the firm was operating out of its business scope, whether it was launching unauthorized financing, payment, forex business or other related businesses, whether it was involved in market manipulation, anti-money laundering or (carried) fund security risks,” as Reuters translated the PBOC statement. The price of bitcoin fell sharply on the news. Bitcoin price so far in 2017. (via Coindesk) Five days earlier, the PBOC issued press releases, in Beijing and Shanghai, that contained a more general warning about bitcoin. The releases recirculated a government statement from back in 2013 stating that the Chinese government does not recognize bitcoin as a currency, and that it carries investment risk. The price of bitcoin fell 12% in the aftermath, but then recovered. It was climbing back when the PBOC announced its inspections on January 11, sending the price down again, as much as 15% at one point. The PBOC did not say bitcoin is illegal, or expressly tell Chinese citizens they cannot buy bitcoin. But clearly, China’s central bank is stepping up its public war on bitcoin. Why? Bitcoin is frequently thought to be an uncorrelated asset to the broader global market—that is, its trading price is not tied to stocks. (In that way it has been compared to gold .) Speculators see bitcoin as a “safe haven” investment for two scenarios: tightened capital controls, and general market uncertainty. At the moment, investors in China see both of those happening: The PBOC cracked down with stricter capital controls in 2016, and the price of the yuan has fallen 5% against the dollar over the past 12 months. Story continues Chinese authorities have taken note of the move toward bitcoin, and they are trying to throw cold water on the coin in order to tamp down capital outflows and help the yuan. Will it work? It clearly affected prices, but bitcoin has regular price hikes and falls, and it has fallen much farther than this before—usually after a reported hack of a major bitcoin exchange, like the bitcoin “flash crash” in 2013 after the fall of Mt. Gox. The price already appeared to be climbing back on Thursday, after hitting a low around $760. And the price is still up 87% in the past 12 months, and 246% in the past two years. The latest two actions by the PBOC aren’t the damaging blow that some news outlets are making them out to be. The first was simply a warning that bitcoin is volatile. That’s true (though it has been less volatile over the past two years), as one of the targeted exchanges, BTCC, acknowledged in a muted public response to the PBOC release: “The press release put forth from the PBOC today outlines that there is significant volatility in bitcoin trading… bitcoin is a virtual good and doesn’t have legal tender status.” The second was just an indication China will watch bitcoin companies more closely. In fact, BTCC CEO Bobby Lee t old Coindesk , “We’re now working closely with the government about what makes a healthy market… We’ve been trying to get their attention for years.” Make no mistake: China is the most important market for bitcoin prices. During the price ride at the end of 2016 and in the first week of 2017, more than 90% of trading volume was coming from China. Positive sentiment toward bitcoin among Chinese investors is crucial to a high bitcoin price. And while China’s central bank succeeded this week in bringing bitcoin back down to earth, it is very unlikely that Chinese bitcoin buyers have been turned off for good. Here’s what to expect next, although it could take a few years: the Chinese government will likely begin regulating the major bitcoin companies there, and making them go through licensing hurdles. That may turn out to be good for the price. That’s what happened in the U.S. in 2013, when the government began to regulate and license bitcoin companies as “money transmitters”: the price rallied thanks to regulatory clarity. “If the end result is there’s actually kind of some legitimacy around regulation of this in China, then I actually think the market rallies,” says Jeremy Allaire, CEO of the peer-to-peer payments company Circle . “It will be very interesting to see if the outcome of the People’s Bank of China examining [bitcoin exchanges] leads to new guidance, new rules. Even if there’s enforcement actions, the result and output might actually be more legitimacy.” — Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: Bitcoin is becoming the new gold Expect more blockchain hype in 2017 Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Why China’s central bank fears bitcoin: It was only one week ago that the price of the digital currency bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $1,130. Now the price has fallen precipitously, and was hovering around $800 on Thursday afternoon. The reason is China. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on Wednesday that it plans regular on-site inspections of the leading Chinese bitcoin exchanges, including BTCChina, Huobi, and OKCoin. This came after PBOC officers in Beijing visited the offices of Huobi and OKCoin, and PBOC officers in Shanghai visited the offices of BTCC, for checkups that, “focused on whether the firm was operating out of its business scope, whether it was launching unauthorized financing, payment, forex business or other related businesses, whether it was involved in market manipulation, anti-money laundering or (carried) fund security risks,” as Reuters translated the PBOC statement. The price of bitcoin fell sharply on the news. Bitcoin price so far in 2017. (via Coindesk) Five days earlier, the PBOC issued press releases, in Beijing and Shanghai, that contained a more general warning about bitcoin. The releases recirculated a government statement from back in 2013 stating that the Chinese government does not recognize bitcoin as a currency, and that it carries investment risk. The price of bitcoin fell 12% in the aftermath, but then recovered. It was climbing back when the PBOC announced its inspections on January 11, sending the price down again, as much as 15% at one point. The PBOC did not say bitcoin is illegal, or expressly tell Chinese citizens they cannot buy bitcoin. But clearly, China’s central bank is stepping up its public war on bitcoin. Why? Bitcoin is frequently thought to be an uncorrelated asset to the broader global market—that is, its trading price is not tied to stocks. (In that way it has been compared to gold .) Speculators see bitcoin as a “safe haven” investment for two scenarios: tightened capital controls, and general market uncertainty. At the moment, investors in China see both of those happening: The PBOC cracked down with stricter capital controls in 2016, and the price of the yuan has fallen 5% against the dollar over the past 12 months. Story continues Chinese authorities have taken note of the move toward bitcoin, and they are trying to throw cold water on the coin in order to tamp down capital outflows and help the yuan. Will it work? It clearly affected prices, but bitcoin has regular price hikes and falls, and it has fallen much farther than this before—usually after a reported hack of a major bitcoin exchange, like the bitcoin “flash crash” in 2013 after the fall of Mt. Gox. The price already appeared to be climbing back on Thursday, after hitting a low around $760. And the price is still up 87% in the past 12 months, and 246% in the past two years. The latest two actions by the PBOC aren’t the damaging blow that some news outlets are making them out to be. The first was simply a warning that bitcoin is volatile. That’s true (though it has been less volatile over the past two years), as one of the targeted exchanges, BTCC, acknowledged in a muted public response to the PBOC release: “The press release put forth from the PBOC today outlines that there is significant volatility in bitcoin trading… bitcoin is a virtual good and doesn’t have legal tender status.” The second was just an indication China will watch bitcoin companies more closely. In fact, BTCC CEO Bobby Lee t old Coindesk , “We’re now working closely with the government about what makes a healthy market… We’ve been trying to get their attention for years.” Make no mistake: China is the most important market for bitcoin prices. During the price ride at the end of 2016 and in the first week of 2017, more than 90% of trading volume was coming from China. Positive sentiment toward bitcoin among Chinese investors is crucial to a high bitcoin price. And while China’s central bank succeeded this week in bringing bitcoin back down to earth, it is very unlikely that Chinese bitcoin buyers have been turned off for good. Here’s what to expect next, although it could take a few years: the Chinese government will likely begin regulating the major bitcoin companies there, and making them go through licensing hurdles. That may turn out to be good for the price. That’s what happened in the U.S. in 2013, when the government began to regulate and license bitcoin companies as “money transmitters”: the price rallied thanks to regulatory clarity. “If the end result is there’s actually kind of some legitimacy around regulation of this in China, then I actually think the market rallies,” says Jeremy Allaire, CEO of the peer-to-peer payments company Circle . “It will be very interesting to see if the outcome of the People’s Bank of China examining [bitcoin exchanges] leads to new guidance, new rules. Even if there’s enforcement actions, the result and output might actually be more legitimacy.” — Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: Bitcoin is becoming the new gold Expect more blockchain hype in 2017 Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || First Bitcoin Capital Adds Innovative Automated Check Cashing ATM Solution for Cannabis Dispensaries’ Clientele: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 12, 2017 / FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF), a leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency developer, specializing in both blockchain and online merchant payment solutions for medical marijuana dispensaries and other high-risk merchant accounts and services, today announced the signing of an Exclusive Master Distributor Agreement to distribute a new type of fully automated check cashing ATM designed for use in medical cannabis dispensaries for the State of California. BITCF will add this check cashing ATM service to complete a full suite of financial services for the medical marijuana industry: merchant processing and POS solutions through its alliance network, a fully compliant, user friendly solution to accept Credit and Debit Cards through traditional Merchant Card Processing networks. The check cashing ATMs marketing efforts will be focused toward larger established medical marijuana dispensaries. Fees for the check cashing services will be competitive. Dispensary customers using the service will be able to cash all types of checks: government issued checks, payroll checks and other types. Cannabis dispensaries service all kinds of customers. Many of those are unbanked and may need to cash checks before purchasing. Offering check cashing services on premises to this group of customers will be a very attractive way to increase revenues, as dispensary owners are looking for new ways to draw more customers because of check cashing convenience. According to FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) recent 2015 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, indicates that more than 7 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2015. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households. An additional 19.9 percent of U.S. households (24.5 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system. By offering check cashing, our ATM Division expects that dispensaries will increase their customer base by 18%. Story continues BITCF uses sophisticated fully automated risk analysis algorithms and underwriting procedures, resulting in 100% guarantee to the dispensary owners. Summary of benefits of our services for the cannabis dispensaries and their customers: Any types of checks can be cashed, including Payroll checks, Insurance checks, Personal checks, business checks, money orders, government issued checks and the funds can be credited to the Dispensaries bank account instead of their client pulling out and paying in cash. Regulatory Compliance: The check cashing ATM will be installed pre-programmed to comply with all state, local federal regulations in California. First Bitcoin is also developing a system that will enable dispensaries to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of legal payment. Stater of California has already enacted legislation that makes Bitcoin and similar digital currencies legal tender. BITCF has developed specific programs to meet the unique needs of the medical cannabis industry. Offering merchant services at competitive rates for businesses operating legally under state law of California and Oregon, the company can now provide financial services not typically available from conventional banks. While legalization of marijuana in many forms – and in many states – garnered over $5 billion dollars in 2016, the sums are expected to grow for 2017. More innovative and unique products are being created, and the stigma that once surrounded cannabis is slowly fading. These changes are helping the medical cannabis industry to prosper now that federal policies allow dispensaries to sell, grow, or possess cannabis while compliant with state laws. BITCF will only provide these services where federal policies allow our business model to proceed for dispensaries that are fully compliant with state and country laws, rules and regulations. Should your dispensary be interested in these services please contact us by email: [email protected] About the company: First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, financial processing services and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital and blockchain technologies. At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets. www.CoinQX.com cryptocurrency exchange, registered with FINCEN. www.iCoiNEWS.com real time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site. www.BITminer.cc providing mining pool management services. www.2016coin.org online daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL, $GARY& $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins. www.bitcannpay.com Financial and merchant services for medical cannabis dispensaries. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com. Contact us via: [email protected] or visit http://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || First Bitcoin Capital Adds Innovative Automated Check Cashing ATM Solution for Cannabis Dispensaries’ Clientele: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 12, 2017 /FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF), a leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency developer, specializing in both blockchain and online merchant payment solutions for medical marijuana dispensaries and other high-risk merchant accounts and services, today announced the signing of an Exclusive Master Distributor Agreement to distribute a new type of fully automated check cashing ATM designed for use in medical cannabis dispensaries for the State of California. BITCF will add this check cashing ATM service to complete a full suite of financial services for the medical marijuana industry: merchant processing and POS solutions through its alliance network, a fully compliant, user friendly solution to accept Credit and Debit Cards through traditional Merchant Card Processing networks. The check cashing ATMs marketing efforts will be focused toward larger established medical marijuana dispensaries.
Fees for the check cashing services will be competitive. Dispensary customers using the service will be able to cash all types of checks: government issued checks, payroll checks and other types. Cannabis dispensaries service all kinds of customers. Many of those are unbanked and may need to cash checks before purchasing. Offering check cashing services on premises to this group of customers will be a very attractive way to increase revenues, as dispensary owners are looking for new ways to draw more customers because of check cashing convenience.
According to FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) recent 2015 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, indicates that more than 7 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2015. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households. An additional 19.9 percent of U.S. households (24.5 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system. By offering check cashing, our ATM Division expects that dispensaries will increase their customer base by 18%.
BITCF uses sophisticated fully automated risk analysis algorithms and underwriting procedures, resulting in 100% guarantee to the dispensary owners.
Summary of benefits of our services for the cannabis dispensaries and their customers:
Any types of checks can be cashed, including Payroll checks, Insurance checks, Personal checks, business checks, money orders, government issued checks and the funds can be credited to the Dispensaries bank account instead of their client pulling out and paying in cash.
Regulatory Compliance: The check cashing ATM will be installed pre-programmed to comply with all state, local federal regulations in California.
First Bitcoin is also developing a system that will enable dispensaries to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of legal payment. Stater of California has already enacted legislation that makes Bitcoin and similar digital currencies legal tender.
BITCF has developed specific programs to meet the unique needs of the medical cannabis industry. Offering merchant services at competitive rates for businesses operating legally under state law of California and Oregon, the company can now provide financial services not typically available from conventional banks.
While legalization of marijuana in many forms – and in many states – garnered over $5 billion dollars in 2016, the sums are expected to grow for 2017. More innovative and unique products are being created, and the stigma that once surrounded cannabis is slowly fading. These changes are helping the medical cannabis industry to prosper now that federal policies allow dispensaries to sell, grow, or possess cannabis while compliant with state laws. BITCF will only provide these services where federal policies allow our business model to proceed for dispensaries that are fully compliant with state and country laws, rules and regulations.
Should your dispensary be interested in these services please contact us by email:[email protected]
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, financial processing services and the digital currency exchange-www.CoinQX.com.We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital and blockchain technologies. At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.CoinQX.comcryptocurrency exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL, $GARY& $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins.
www.bitcannpay.comFinancial and merchant services for medical cannabis dispensaries.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:[email protected] visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || First Bitcoin Capital Adds Innovative Automated Check Cashing ATM Solution for Cannabis Dispensaries’ Clientele: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 12, 2017 /FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF), a leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency developer, specializing in both blockchain and online merchant payment solutions for medical marijuana dispensaries and other high-risk merchant accounts and services, today announced the signing of an Exclusive Master Distributor Agreement to distribute a new type of fully automated check cashing ATM designed for use in medical cannabis dispensaries for the State of California. BITCF will add this check cashing ATM service to complete a full suite of financial services for the medical marijuana industry: merchant processing and POS solutions through its alliance network, a fully compliant, user friendly solution to accept Credit and Debit Cards through traditional Merchant Card Processing networks. The check cashing ATMs marketing efforts will be focused toward larger established medical marijuana dispensaries.
Fees for the check cashing services will be competitive. Dispensary customers using the service will be able to cash all types of checks: government issued checks, payroll checks and other types. Cannabis dispensaries service all kinds of customers. Many of those are unbanked and may need to cash checks before purchasing. Offering check cashing services on premises to this group of customers will be a very attractive way to increase revenues, as dispensary owners are looking for new ways to draw more customers because of check cashing convenience.
According to FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) recent 2015 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, indicates that more than 7 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2015. This proportion represents approximately 9.0 million households. An additional 19.9 percent of U.S. households (24.5 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system. By offering check cashing, our ATM Division expects that dispensaries will increase their customer base by 18%.
BITCF uses sophisticated fully automated risk analysis algorithms and underwriting procedures, resulting in 100% guarantee to the dispensary owners.
Summary of benefits of our services for the cannabis dispensaries and their customers:
Any types of checks can be cashed, including Payroll checks, Insurance checks, Personal checks, business checks, money orders, government issued checks and the funds can be credited to the Dispensaries bank account instead of their client pulling out and paying in cash.
Regulatory Compliance: The check cashing ATM will be installed pre-programmed to comply with all state, local federal regulations in California.
First Bitcoin is also developing a system that will enable dispensaries to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of legal payment. Stater of California has already enacted legislation that makes Bitcoin and similar digital currencies legal tender.
BITCF has developed specific programs to meet the unique needs of the medical cannabis industry. Offering merchant services at competitive rates for businesses operating legally under state law of California and Oregon, the company can now provide financial services not typically available from conventional banks.
While legalization of marijuana in many forms – and in many states – garnered over $5 billion dollars in 2016, the sums are expected to grow for 2017. More innovative and unique products are being created, and the stigma that once surrounded cannabis is slowly fading. These changes are helping the medical cannabis industry to prosper now that federal policies allow dispensaries to sell, grow, or possess cannabis while compliant with state laws. BITCF will only provide these services where federal policies allow our business model to proceed for dispensaries that are fully compliant with state and country laws, rules and regulations.
Should your dispensary be interested in these services please contact us by email:[email protected]
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, financial processing services and the digital currency exchange-www.CoinQX.com.We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital and blockchain technologies. At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.CoinQX.comcryptocurrency exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL, $GARY& $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins.
www.bitcannpay.comFinancial and merchant services for medical cannabis dispensaries.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:[email protected] visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin: In 2015 bitcoin finally made its mark: More than 100,000 businesses , including industry giants like Microsoft, Overstock.com and Dell, accepted it. But, what exactly is this mysterious "cryptocurrency" everyone has been talking about for years? And, is it time your small business accepted it, too? Related: 5 Ways to Participate in the Bitcoin Revolution Here's what you need to know about what bitcoin is, its advantages and potential drawbacks. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or an entirely digital form of money, invented in 2009. While that might not sound interesting, what sets bitcoin apart is that it's purely person-to-person , with virtually no banks, financial institutions or government bodies standing in the way between you and your money. Bitcoin relies on a technology system called blockchain that keeps your bitcoin wallet safe and secure from fraud. The currency's digital format also makes for faster, cheaper, easier exchanges of cash, from which many small businesses may benefit. Overall, Bitcoin's assets stem from its decentralization. Blockchain, the technology bitcoin was built on, allows you to not have to rely on a bank to process your financial transactions. Here are other reasons to consider bitcoin: 1. No fees If your 2 to 3 percent merchant transaction fees are a drain on your cash flow, then bitcoin has you covered. Bitcoin transactions typically cost between 1 percent and zero. That's no typo. You can send or accept bitcoins as payments with no fees attached. Since bitcoin doesn't require a bank to verify each transaction, you don't have to sacrifice your own revenue to the financial institutions that own your business loans or credit cards . However, you'll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing. 2. No wait Maybe those fees aren't bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does. Because there's no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction -- its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you -- there's no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment. Bitcoin transactions are processed quickly, usually in a fraction of the time credit card transactions do. Story continues You can charge a customer, go for a walk around the block and receive your money. Bitcoin is that fast . 3. No borders If you export your goods and services or purchase supplies or materials from abroad, then bitcoin is a great solution for dealing with foreign transaction fees, exchange rates or currencies. Why? Because bitcoin is a global currency, not tied to a single government or company , it ignores border restrictions. As long as your customers or suppliers accept bitcoin, you're good to go. 4. No payment disputes Even though bitcoin is digital, it works more like cash than credit. Bitcoin transactions are final and can't be contested by a customer on the basis that he or she, for example, didn't enjoy the service you provided. If you have trouble with customers disputing their credit card payments, then accepting bitcoin could help. 5. An investment opportunity Like other currencies, bitcoin fluctuates in value. However, it's generally less stable than the payments in cash, gold or other commodities you're used to. Related: The Strange Positive Effect Political Uncertainly Has on Bitcoin While this fluctuation can be a drawback to accepting bitcoin, as we'll discuss below, it can also have a large upside. You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you're taking a chance on their value increasing. Bitcoin makes investing in a currency seem much less absurd or boring. From 2011 to 2013, the value of a single bitcoin rose from $2 to $1,242. Although it has since fallen back to around $800 today, there's still much potential for growth. Challenges of accepting bitcoin It's always important to be aware of the potential dangers, as well. Here are the three largest obstacles to running a business with bitcoin. 1. It's unregulated. Although its decentralization is a plus, bitcoin's lack of government support may scare some away. The U.S. government recognizes bitcoin as a valid commodity and possibly even a positive influence on financial regulation, but some other countries have restricted or banned the use of bitcoin. 2. It's unstable. Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold , it's still fundamentally a currency that isn't overseen by a single financial institution. If the economy requires it, the Federal Reserve can raise or lower interest rates, but no such option exists with bitcoin. Some observers point to this "unstable" quality as a good thing, since the bitcoin market has no interference, but it could also make things difficult for your small business if that market suffers. You'll want to figure out your aversion to risk before investing big in bitcoin. 3. It's tough to plan for. With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices . How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations? This is not an easy task, although it is do-able. You'll definitely need to speak with your bookkeeper and accountant before accepting bitcoin at your small business. Related: Bitcoin Is Money, U.S. Judge Says in Case Tied to JPMorgan Hack Overall, there's a lot that bitcoin can help your small business with, but also plenty of question marks involved in accepting the currency. If you're considering accepting bitcoin, sit down and determine why it can help your business and how you will deal with the challenges it may bring. || Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin: In 2015 bitcoin finally made its mark: More than 100,000 businesses , including industry giants like Microsoft, Overstock.com and Dell, accepted it. But, what exactly is this mysterious "cryptocurrency" everyone has been talking about for years? And, is it time your small business accepted it, too? Related: 5 Ways to Participate in the Bitcoin Revolution Here's what you need to know about what bitcoin is, its advantages and potential drawbacks. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or an entirely digital form of money, invented in 2009. While that might not sound interesting, what sets bitcoin apart is that it's purely person-to-person , with virtually no banks, financial institutions or government bodies standing in the way between you and your money. Bitcoin relies on a technology system called blockchain that keeps your bitcoin wallet safe and secure from fraud. The currency's digital format also makes for faster, cheaper, easier exchanges of cash, from which many small businesses may benefit. Overall, Bitcoin's assets stem from its decentralization. Blockchain, the technology bitcoin was built on, allows you to not have to rely on a bank to process your financial transactions. Here are other reasons to consider bitcoin: 1. No fees If your 2 to 3 percent merchant transaction fees are a drain on your cash flow, then bitcoin has you covered. Bitcoin transactions typically cost between 1 percent and zero. That's no typo. You can send or accept bitcoins as payments with no fees attached. Since bitcoin doesn't require a bank to verify each transaction, you don't have to sacrifice your own revenue to the financial institutions that own your business loans or credit cards . However, you'll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing. 2. No wait Maybe those fees aren't bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does. Because there's no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction -- its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you -- there's no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment. Bitcoin transactions are processed quickly, usually in a fraction of the time credit card transactions do. Story continues You can charge a customer, go for a walk around the block and receive your money. Bitcoin is that fast . 3. No borders If you export your goods and services or purchase supplies or materials from abroad, then bitcoin is a great solution for dealing with foreign transaction fees, exchange rates or currencies. Why? Because bitcoin is a global currency, not tied to a single government or company , it ignores border restrictions. As long as your customers or suppliers accept bitcoin, you're good to go. 4. No payment disputes Even though bitcoin is digital, it works more like cash than credit. Bitcoin transactions are final and can't be contested by a customer on the basis that he or she, for example, didn't enjoy the service you provided. If you have trouble with customers disputing their credit card payments, then accepting bitcoin could help. 5. An investment opportunity Like other currencies, bitcoin fluctuates in value. However, it's generally less stable than the payments in cash, gold or other commodities you're used to. Related: The Strange Positive Effect Political Uncertainly Has on Bitcoin While this fluctuation can be a drawback to accepting bitcoin, as we'll discuss below, it can also have a large upside. You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you're taking a chance on their value increasing. Bitcoin makes investing in a currency seem much less absurd or boring. From 2011 to 2013, the value of a single bitcoin rose from $2 to $1,242. Although it has since fallen back to around $800 today, there's still much potential for growth. Challenges of accepting bitcoin It's always important to be aware of the potential dangers, as well. Here are the three largest obstacles to running a business with bitcoin. 1. It's unregulated. Although its decentralization is a plus, bitcoin's lack of government support may scare some away. The U.S. government recognizes bitcoin as a valid commodity and possibly even a positive influence on financial regulation, but some other countries have restricted or banned the use of bitcoin. 2. It's unstable. Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold , it's still fundamentally a currency that isn't overseen by a single financial institution. If the economy requires it, the Federal Reserve can raise or lower interest rates, but no such option exists with bitcoin. Some observers point to this "unstable" quality as a good thing, since the bitcoin market has no interference, but it could also make things difficult for your small business if that market suffers. You'll want to figure out your aversion to risk before investing big in bitcoin. 3. It's tough to plan for. With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices . How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations? This is not an easy task, although it is do-able. You'll definitely need to speak with your bookkeeper and accountant before accepting bitcoin at your small business. Related: Bitcoin Is Money, U.S. Judge Says in Case Tied to JPMorgan Hack Overall, there's a lot that bitcoin can help your small business with, but also plenty of question marks involved in accepting the currency. If you're considering accepting bitcoin, sit down and determine why it can help your business and how you will deal with the challenges it may bring. || Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin: In 2015 bitcoin finally made its mark: More than 100,000 businesses , including industry giants like Microsoft, Overstock.com and Dell, accepted it. But, what exactly is this mysterious "cryptocurrency" everyone has been talking about for years? And, is it time your small business accepted it, too? Related: 5 Ways to Participate in the Bitcoin Revolution Here's what you need to know about what bitcoin is, its advantages and potential drawbacks. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or an entirely digital form of money, invented in 2009. While that might not sound interesting, what sets bitcoin apart is that it's purely person-to-person , with virtually no banks, financial institutions or government bodies standing in the way between you and your money. Bitcoin relies on a technology system called blockchain that keeps your bitcoin wallet safe and secure from fraud. The currency's digital format also makes for faster, cheaper, easier exchanges of cash, from which many small businesses may benefit. Overall, Bitcoin's assets stem from its decentralization. Blockchain, the technology bitcoin was built on, allows you to not have to rely on a bank to process your financial transactions. Here are other reasons to consider bitcoin: 1. No fees If your 2 to 3 percent merchant transaction fees are a drain on your cash flow, then bitcoin has you covered. Bitcoin transactions typically cost between 1 percent and zero. That's no typo. You can send or accept bitcoins as payments with no fees attached. Since bitcoin doesn't require a bank to verify each transaction, you don't have to sacrifice your own revenue to the financial institutions that own your business loans or credit cards . However, you'll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing. 2. No wait Maybe those fees aren't bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does. Because there's no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction -- its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you -- there's no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment. Bitcoin transactions are processed quickly, usually in a fraction of the time credit card transactions do. Story continues You can charge a customer, go for a walk around the block and receive your money. Bitcoin is that fast . 3. No borders If you export your goods and services or purchase supplies or materials from abroad, then bitcoin is a great solution for dealing with foreign transaction fees, exchange rates or currencies. Why? Because bitcoin is a global currency, not tied to a single government or company , it ignores border restrictions. As long as your customers or suppliers accept bitcoin, you're good to go. 4. No payment disputes Even though bitcoin is digital, it works more like cash than credit. Bitcoin transactions are final and can't be contested by a customer on the basis that he or she, for example, didn't enjoy the service you provided. If you have trouble with customers disputing their credit card payments, then accepting bitcoin could help. 5. An investment opportunity Like other currencies, bitcoin fluctuates in value. However, it's generally less stable than the payments in cash, gold or other commodities you're used to. Related: The Strange Positive Effect Political Uncertainly Has on Bitcoin While this fluctuation can be a drawback to accepting bitcoin, as we'll discuss below, it can also have a large upside. You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you're taking a chance on their value increasing. Bitcoin makes investing in a currency seem much less absurd or boring. From 2011 to 2013, the value of a single bitcoin rose from $2 to $1,242. Although it has since fallen back to around $800 today, there's still much potential for growth. Challenges of accepting bitcoin It's always important to be aware of the potential dangers, as well. Here are the three largest obstacles to running a business with bitcoin. 1. It's unregulated. Although its decentralization is a plus, bitcoin's lack of government support may scare some away. The U.S. government recognizes bitcoin as a valid commodity and possibly even a positive influence on financial regulation, but some other countries have restricted or banned the use of bitcoin. 2. It's unstable. Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold , it's still fundamentally a currency that isn't overseen by a single financial institution. If the economy requires it, the Federal Reserve can raise or lower interest rates, but no such option exists with bitcoin. Some observers point to this "unstable" quality as a good thing, since the bitcoin market has no interference, but it could also make things difficult for your small business if that market suffers. You'll want to figure out your aversion to risk before investing big in bitcoin. 3. It's tough to plan for. With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices . How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations? This is not an easy task, although it is do-able. You'll definitely need to speak with your bookkeeper and accountant before accepting bitcoin at your small business. Related: Bitcoin Is Money, U.S. Judge Says in Case Tied to JPMorgan Hack Overall, there's a lot that bitcoin can help your small business with, but also plenty of question marks involved in accepting the currency. If you're considering accepting bitcoin, sit down and determine why it can help your business and how you will deal with the challenges it may bring. || Bitcoin is getting demolished: (Flickr / Bart Everson)
Bitcoin is getting demolished, trading down 15.1% at $768 a coin, a drop of $136 a coin, as of 1:05 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
The fall comes after China announced it had beguninvestigating bitcoin exchangesin Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues, Reuters reports.
Wednesday's selling comes following three days in which the cryptocurrency appeared to be stabilizing, holding in a range of $880 to $920, as traders digested the news that thePeople's Bank of Chinawarned investorsto exercise caution when investing in virtual currencies.
The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to 2017 after booking a 120% gain in 2016, when it was theworld's best performing currencyfor the second year in a row. Bitcoin rallied by more than 20% in the first three-plus trading days of 2017, crossing the $1,000 mark for the first time since November 2013 and coming within $46 of an all-time high.
But worries surrounding a crackdown on trading in China have punished bitcoin over the past four-plus sessions, erasing more than 30% of its value.
Bitcoin is now down more than 17% in 2017.
(Investing.com)
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[Social Media Buzz]
#BITCOIN ahora:
$883.49 USD
€828.71 EUR
$19,112.60 MXN
@Bitso $20,786.16 MXN
@Volabit $20,329.00 MXN pic.twitter.com/rZJ19tazDu || One Bitcoin now worth $830.00@bitstamp. High $835.00. Low $819.00. Market Cap $13.367 Billion #bitcoin || Buy Bitcoin anywhere in the world - $50.00
#Items4Sale
List ur biz at http://blacktradelines.com pic.twitter.com/0vT9EyuAAm || $905.99 at 00:00 UTC [24h Range: $827.00 - $908.50 Volume: 12264 BTC] || "I BELIEVE"
#cryptocurrency #bitcoin #altcoins #decentralize #...
|
886.62, 899.07, 895.03, 921.79, 924.67, 921.01, 892.69, 901.54, 917.59, 919.75
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 36069.80, 35547.75, 30825.70, 33005.76, 32067.64, 32289.38, 32366.39, 32569.85, 30432.55, 33466.10, 34316.39, 34269.52, 33114.36, 33537.18, 35510.29, 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44, 46196.46, 46481.11, 44918.18, 47909.33, 47504.85, 47105.52, 48717.29, 47945.06, 49199.87, 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92, 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-04-18]
Volume: 97468872758, RSI (14-day): 43.35, 50-day EMA: 55862.01, 200-day EMA: 38401.30
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
REGI BREAKING NEWS: ROSEN, NATIONAL TRIAL COUNSEL, Encourages Renewable Energy Group, Inc. Investors with Losses to Secure Counsel Before Important Deadline – REGI: NEW YORK, April 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --WHY:Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Renewable Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGI) between May 3, 2018 and February 25, 2021, inclusive (the “Class Period”), of the importantMay 3, 2021 lead plaintiff deadline.
SO WHAT:If you purchased Renewable Energy Group securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.
WHAT TO DO NEXT:To join the Renewable Energy Group class action, go tohttp://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2048.htmlor call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or [email protected]@rosenlegal.comfor information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Courtno later than May 3, 2021. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.
WHY ROSEN LAW:We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience or resources. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020 founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs’ Bar. Many of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.
DETAILS OF THE CASE:According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) due to failures in the diesel additive system, petroleum diesel was not periodically added to certain loads by the Company and was instead added by the Company’s customers; (2) as a result, Renewable Energy Group was not the proper claimant for certain biodiesel tax credit (BTC) payments on biodiesel it sold between January 1, 2017 and September 30, 2020; (3) a result, Renewable Energy Group’s revenue and net income were overstated for certain periods; (4) there was a material weakness in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting related to the purchase and use of the petroleum diesel gallons when blending with biodiesel; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, defendants’ positive statements about Renewable Energy Group’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.
To join the Renewable Energy Group class action, go tohttp://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2048.htmlor call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or [email protected]@rosenlegal.comfor information on the class action.
No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.
Follow us for updates on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter:https://twitter.com/rosen_firmor on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Contact Information:
Laurence Rosen, Esq.Phillip Kim, Esq.The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.275 Madison Avenue, 40th FloorNew York, NY 10016Tel: (212) 686-1060Toll Free: (866) 767-3653Fax: (212) [email protected]@[email protected] || REGI BREAKING NEWS: ROSEN, NATIONAL TRIAL COUNSEL, Encourages Renewable Energy Group, Inc. Investors with Losses to Secure Counsel Before Important Deadline – REGI: NEW YORK, April 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Renewable Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGI) between May 3, 2018 and February 25, 2021, inclusive (the “Class Period”), of the important May 3, 2021 lead plaintiff deadline . SO WHAT: If you purchased Renewable Energy Group securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Renewable Energy Group class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2048.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than May 3, 2021 . A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience or resources. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020 founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs’ Bar. Many of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. Story continues DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) due to failures in the diesel additive system, petroleum diesel was not periodically added to certain loads by the Company and was instead added by the Company’s customers; (2) as a result, Renewable Energy Group was not the proper claimant for certain biodiesel tax credit (BTC) payments on biodiesel it sold between January 1, 2017 and September 30, 2020; (3) a result, Renewable Energy Group’s revenue and net income were overstated for certain periods; (4) there was a material weakness in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting related to the purchase and use of the petroleum diesel gallons when blending with biodiesel; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, defendants’ positive statements about Renewable Energy Group’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Renewable Energy Group class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2048.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm , on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/ . Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.rosenlegal.com || The Best Kratom Vendors According To Reddit: 7 Most Upvoted and Most Mentioned Kratom Sites: Los Angeles, CA, April 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kratom is widely used for pain relief, to improve concentration, and to combat opiate withdrawal. Therefore it’s no surprise that many have taken to Reddit to express their concerns and experiences with different online kratom vendors. There’s no better place to look than Reddit for real reviews, verified customer issues, and complaints. As such, this review of the best kratom vendors has taken on board comments and posts left on Reddit forums and threads. Continue reading to discover everything there is to know about the top kratom vendors on the market. View the Single Most Mentioned Kratom Vendor on Reddit Here How the Top Kratom Vendors were Evaluated In addition to posts and feedback left on Reddit, a number of other factors were also taken into consideration. Price - Buying anything online always comes down to price. More often than not, if a product is priced way outside anyone’s budget, it’ll never sell. That’s why this review was careful to select kratom vendors that offered their products at reasonable prices or at least with various discounts and loyalty points available for their customers. Strains - Not everyone is looking to get the same kick out of using kratom. Different strains suit different people. As such, vendors that offered a wide variety of strains and useful guides explaining each strain’s unique benefits were preferred. Customer Support - Support is a must for any online business. But even more so when it comes to products that boast potential medicinal benefits. As such, kratom vendors with excellent customer support for both first-time and experienced users rated higher on this list. Lab Testing - Frequent and thorough lab testing is necessary to ensure the quality of a kratom vendor’s product doesn’t decline. That’s why this review made sure to look for kratom vendors that carried out frequent tests on their kratom strains. The Best Kratom Vendors Reddit Users Loved: 1. TGM (The Golden Monk) - Best Overall Kratom Vendor According to Reddit Golden Monk is one of the most newly established Kratom vendors to be found online. Having said this, they already have a firm foot in the trade and many positive mentions on Reddit. This Canadian company was launched back in 2016, their goal being to provide the best quality kratom capsules and powder while offering good customer service. Story continues The Golden Monk Positives According to Reddit: Great prices for US users Good for longer-term purchases Lots of varieties Fast shipping 10% discount for first-time buyers The Golden Monk Drawbacks: Support could be better Occasional mistakes on orders Its products are sourced from reputable wholesalers across the globe and directly from Indonesian farmers. To guarantee the integrity and purity of the product, the packaging is next-generation and climate-controlled. The company also ensures the quality of their product by carrying out at least six lab tests per 1000KG of Kratom that is imported. New customers can take advantage of a 10% discount on their first order; this discount is reduced to 5% on second orders. Golden Monk offers no freebies, although the company does have a rewards program for your consequent orders. Same-day shipping is provided free of charge for all orders except those placed on Sundays. If you’re unhappy with the product you receive, you can take advantage of their 100% money-back guarantee. 2. Kratom Spot - Best Kratom Vendor for Bulk Orders Based in Irvine, California, Kratom Spot is one of the largest online Kratom vendors globally and frequently upvoted on Reddit. They provide more than 30 different high-quality leaf strains at competitive prices. The company boasts that all its products are free from additives, contaminants, and fillers/chemicals. Kratom Spot Positives According to Reddit: Well-known across the Reddit community Quick and easy shipping Top customer service 100% money-back guarantee Kratom Spot Drawbacks: ● Some of the newer products only rate as being “OK” Unlike some other vendors, bulk purchases are allowed online, ensuring that you can buy an excess of 20 strains in large quantities at rock-bottom prices. Some of the best-known strains sold by the company are White Borneo, Maeng Da, White Sumatra, Green Thai, Red Bali, Super Green, Green Malay, White Indo, and Red Thai. Payments can be made by Discover, American Express, MasterCard, or Visa. Shipping is available worldwide and is free when you spend at least $50. Lastly, the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee. 3. Kraken Kratom - Voted by Redditors as the Best Kratom for Opiate Withdrawal Reddit users across the US regard Kraken Kratom as a reputable seller. Bali Kratom, Red Vein, and Super Indo are some of their most popular strains. All their products have passed stringent quality controls and are GMP-compliant. Kraken Kratom Positives According to Reddit: A wide variety of kratom products Quick shipping Consistent, high-quality products Good customer service Rewards program Kraken Kratom Drawbacks: Website design could be improved Some Redditors reports issues with deliveries Some extracts can be weak The company originated in Portland, Oregan, in 2014, and takes pride in the fact that they were the first to be recognized as a qualified Kratom Vendor in the US by the American Kratom Association GMP. The company also offers a reward program. Customers gain points for posting on social media, rating products, and subscribing to the newsletter, 100 points equaling $1. All products are same-day shipped for free, using USPS. Payments can be made by MasterCard or by Visa. 4. Organic Kratom USA - All-Natural Kratom From Indigenous Sources Organic Kratom USA is another popular vendor on Reddit known for affordable, high-quality strains of kratom powder. Information on their website indicates that they use leaves of only the highest quality from well-known and licensed suppliers who have a clean reputation. Organic Kratom USA Positives According to Reddit: Frequently referred by customers and review sites Kratom sourced directly Various kratom capsules available Reading material available for customers Money-back guarantee Organic Kratom USA Drawbacks: Perhaps too many varieties Quite expensive To ensure that their products meet their high standards, they are subjected to lab testing. Some of the different strains they sell are capsules and powders in red, green, yellow, and white strains. One unique aspect noted by Reddit users is the customers’ ability to create their own blends, mixing different strains as they wish. Bulk orders at wholesale prices are also available. Same-day, free shipping via USPS is available on all orders over $89. A money-back guarantee is offered, and Visa and MasterCard payments are accepted. 5. Kratom Crazy - Best Kratom Vendor Selling Unaltered Strains Despite so much competition, this fairly new Kratom vendor already has a good reputation. What sets this vendor apart from its competitors is that it concentrates on selling only unaltered strains. Kratom Crazy Positives According to Reddit: Professional website 30-day money-back guarantee Kratom products directly from the source Redditors report a positive shipping experience Kratom Crazy Drawbacks: ● Some Reddit users have reported issues with payments Purity and high quality are ensured by lab testing in the US before shipping via USPS. A thirty-day money-back guarantee covers all of their products, and in the case that you are not entirely satisfied with the product you receive, you can also file a complaint. After your initial purchase, you will be automatically added to the Kratom crazy club, a loyalty program that offers discount coupons of up to 20% on your future kratom purchases. If you buy more than 25kg, you can also take advantage of wholesale prices. Some of the most commonly sold products include Red Borneo, Kratom Capsules, White Borneo, Red Bali, Super Green, and Meng Da. Payments can be made with either MasterCard or Visa. 6. Happy Hippo - Best Up-and-Coming Kratom Vendor According to Reddit Reddit users are really impressed by what’s on offer from Happy Hippo. With over thirty different strains and discounts of up to 20% available when you pay by Bitcoin, mobile check, or eCheck, it’s easy to see why. Same-day shipping is offered, with prices ranging from around $14 to $17. 7. Botanical Bunny - Best Customer Support Redditors have noted Botanical Bunny as a company that is genuinely cautious in how they promote kratom. The company also offers soaps, essential oils, and other herbs. What Reddit users love about this vendor are the excellent customer service and the high-quality products. The strains are high quality, and prices range from $5 for one ounce to $90 if you wish to bulk buy 1000g. Best Kratom Vendors According to Reddit FAQ Q: What is Kratom? A: Kratom thrives naturally in Malaysia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea and is a natural extract sourced from the evergreen tree. Kratom leaves have been used for centuries to produce an extract that has stimulating and sedative properties. Q: Is Kratom Safe? A: As kratom has the same effect on the brain as opioids, many people believe that you will get addicted. Over time, you will indeed build up a tolerance in the same way you would to conventional opioids, and addiction is possible. Studies have shown that animals can die from kratom in large doses, the risk increasing when the kratom is mixed with drugs or prescription medications. To date, Kratom is not FDA-approved for this reason. Q: Are There Health Benefits of Kratom? A: Kratom boosts your metabolism, increasing energy levels and ensuring more of your sugar intake is converted to energy. Kratom also promotes better blood circulation, meaning that cells get enough energy to metabolize the food you ingest. Relief From Chronic Pain Kratom targets pain receptors found in the nervous system, binding them together and preventing them from sending signals of pain to your brain. Improved Concentration Kratom triggers the brain to produce a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which increases focus and concentration. Acetylcholine enhances the cortical circuit. Recovery from Drug Addiction Kratom is an opioid agonist, providing the same euphoria experienced with drugs but without the comedown experienced from conventional opioids. High-quality kratom binds to the opiate receptors without being addictive. Balances Emotion Kratom can help lift one’s mood and relieve stress, as the mitragynine compound targets opioid receptors found in the nervous system. When using kratom, you will feel positive, upbeat, and confident, as the receptors work to regulate your emotions. Q: Is Kratom Legal? A: Although it is being watched by the DEA, kratom is currently legal in the USA. The DEA tried to move kratom to a schedule-1 drug in 2016, but the move was then withdrawn. Before ordering, speak to the vendor about the legalities of shipping to your country of residence. In Thailand, surprisingly, kratom is illegal, as it is in the EU and in Australia. The FDA is cracking down increasingly on kratom as more is learned about the powder. Q: Why is Buying from a Reputable Vendor Important? A: Lab testing and quality control is put in place by the best kratom vendors, ensuring their products are GMP-compliant and high quality yet affordable. When you buy capsules or powder from reliable vendors online, you’re ensuring that the product you purchase is both legit as well as safe. Vendors found online that are reliable can also help you choose the best strain for what you need. When you shop with a reliable vendor, you will also be able to take advantage of a money-back guarantee, meaning that if you are not satisfied with the wide variety of strains you can buy at the best prices, you can ask for your money back. The Bottom Line If you’re looking for the best strains of Kratom, Redditors are full of all the info you need. Reddit is a great place to find the best strains, the best vendors, and all there is to know about buying the product for the first time. Contact [email protected] Visit farrinstitute.org for more product comparisons and reviews. Disclaimer: The information does not constitute advice or an offer to buy. Any purchase made from the above press release is made at your own risk. Consult an expert advisor or professional before any such purchase. Any purchase made from this link is subject to the final terms and conditions of the website’s selling mentioned in the source. The content publisher and its downstream distribution partners do not take any responsibility directly or indirectly. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the company this news is about. The links contained in this product review may result in a small commission to the author if you opt to purchase the product recommended at no additional cost to you. CONTACT: [email protected] || The Best Kratom Vendors According To Reddit: 7 Most Upvoted and Most Mentioned Kratom Sites: Los Angeles, CA, April 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kratom is widely used for pain relief, to improve concentration, and to combat opiate withdrawal.
Therefore it’s no surprise that many have taken to Reddit to express their concerns and experiences with different online kratom vendors. There’s no better place to look than Reddit for real reviews, verified customer issues, and complaints.
As such, this review of the best kratom vendors has taken on board comments and posts left on Reddit forums and threads. Continue reading to discover everything there is to know about the top kratom vendors on the market.
View the Single Most Mentioned Kratom Vendor on Reddit Here
How the Top Kratom Vendors were Evaluated
In addition to posts and feedback left on Reddit, a number of other factors were also taken into consideration.
Price- Buying anything online always comes down to price. More often than not, if a product is priced way outside anyone’s budget, it’ll never sell. That’s why this review was careful to select kratom vendors that offered their products at reasonable prices or at least with various discounts and loyalty points available for their customers.
Strains- Not everyone is looking to get the same kick out of using kratom. Different strains suit different people. As such, vendors that offered a wide variety of strains and useful guides explaining each strain’s unique benefits were preferred.
Customer Support- Support is a must for any online business. But even more so when it comes to products that boast potential medicinal benefits. As such, kratom vendors with excellent customer support for both first-time and experienced users rated higher on this list.
Lab Testing- Frequent and thorough lab testing is necessary to ensure the quality of a kratom vendor’s product doesn’t decline. That’s why this review made sure to look for kratom vendors that carried out frequent tests on their kratom strains.
The Best Kratom Vendors Reddit Users Loved:
1.TGM (The Golden Monk)- Best Overall Kratom Vendor According to Reddit
Golden Monk is one of the most newly established Kratom vendors to be found online. Having said this, they already have a firm foot in the trade and many positive mentions on Reddit. This Canadian company was launched back in 2016, their goal being to provide the best quality kratom capsules and powder while offering good customer service.
The Golden Monk Positives According to Reddit:
• Great prices for US users
• Good for longer-term purchases
• Lots of varieties
• Fast shipping
• 10% discount for first-time buyers
The Golden Monk Drawbacks:
• Support could be better
• Occasional mistakes on orders
Its products are sourced from reputable wholesalers across the globe and directly from Indonesian farmers. To guarantee the integrity and purity of the product, the packaging is next-generation and climate-controlled. The company also ensures the quality of their product by carrying out at least six lab tests per 1000KG of Kratom that is imported.
New customers can take advantage of a 10% discount on their first order; this discount is reduced to 5% on second orders. Golden Monk offers no freebies, although the company does have a rewards program for your consequent orders. Same-day shipping is provided free of charge for all orders except those placed on Sundays.
If you’re unhappy with the product you receive, you can take advantage of their 100% money-back guarantee.
2.Kratom Spot- Best Kratom Vendor for Bulk Orders
Based in Irvine, California, Kratom Spot is one of the largest online Kratom vendors globally and frequently upvoted on Reddit. They provide more than 30 different high-quality leaf strains at competitive prices. The company boasts that all its products are free from additives, contaminants, and fillers/chemicals.
Kratom Spot Positives According to Reddit:
• Well-known across the Reddit community
• Quick and easy shipping
• Top customer service
• 100% money-back guarantee
Kratom Spot Drawbacks:
● Some of the newer products only rate as being “OK”
Unlike some other vendors, bulk purchases are allowed online, ensuring that you can buy an excess of 20 strains in large quantities at rock-bottom prices.
Some of the best-known strains sold by the company are White Borneo, Maeng Da, White Sumatra, Green Thai, Red Bali, Super Green, Green Malay, White Indo, and Red Thai. Payments can be made by Discover, American Express, MasterCard, or Visa.
Shipping is available worldwide and is free when you spend at least $50. Lastly, the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee.
3.Kraken Kratom- Voted by Redditors as the Best Kratom for Opiate Withdrawal
Reddit users across the US regard Kraken Kratom as a reputable seller. Bali Kratom, Red Vein, and Super Indo are some of their most popular strains. All their products have passed stringent quality controls and are GMP-compliant.
Kraken Kratom Positives According to Reddit:
• A wide variety of kratom products
• Quick shipping
• Consistent, high-quality products
• Good customer service
• Rewards program
Kraken Kratom Drawbacks:
• Website design could be improved
• Some Redditors reports issues with deliveries
• Some extracts can be weak
The company originated in Portland, Oregan, in 2014, and takes pride in the fact that they were the first to be recognized as a qualified Kratom Vendor in the US by the American Kratom Association GMP.
The company also offers a reward program. Customers gain points for posting on social media, rating products, and subscribing to the newsletter, 100 points equaling $1.
All products are same-day shipped for free, using USPS. Payments can be made by MasterCard or by Visa.
4.Organic Kratom USA- All-Natural Kratom From Indigenous Sources
Organic Kratom USA is another popular vendor on Reddit known for affordable, high-quality strains of kratom powder. Information on their website indicates that they use leaves of only the highest quality from well-known and licensed suppliers who have a clean reputation.
Organic Kratom USA Positives According to Reddit:
• Frequently referred by customers and review sites
• Kratom sourced directly
• Various kratom capsules available
• Reading material available for customers
• Money-back guarantee
Organic Kratom USA Drawbacks:
• Perhaps too many varieties
• Quite expensive
To ensure that their products meet their high standards, they are subjected to lab testing. Some of the different strains they sell are capsules and powders in red, green, yellow, and white strains.
One unique aspect noted by Reddit users is the customers’ ability to create their own blends, mixing different strains as they wish. Bulk orders at wholesale prices are also available.
Same-day, free shipping via USPS is available on all orders over $89. A money-back guarantee is offered, and Visa and MasterCard payments are accepted.
5.Kratom Crazy- Best Kratom Vendor Selling Unaltered Strains
Despite so much competition, this fairly new Kratom vendor already has a good reputation. What sets this vendor apart from its competitors is that it concentrates on selling only unaltered strains.
Kratom Crazy Positives According to Reddit:
• Professional website
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Kratom products directly from the source
• Redditors report a positive shipping experience
Kratom Crazy Drawbacks:
● Some Reddit users have reported issues with payments
Purity and high quality are ensured by lab testing in the US before shipping via USPS. A thirty-day money-back guarantee covers all of their products, and in the case that you are not entirely satisfied with the product you receive, you can also file a complaint.
After your initial purchase, you will be automatically added to the Kratom crazy club, a loyalty program that offers discount coupons of up to 20% on your future kratom purchases.
If you buy more than 25kg, you can also take advantage of wholesale prices. Some of the most commonly sold products include Red Borneo, Kratom Capsules, White Borneo, Red Bali, Super Green, and Meng Da. Payments can be made with either MasterCard or Visa.
6.Happy Hippo- Best Up-and-Coming Kratom Vendor According to Reddit
Reddit users are really impressed by what’s on offer from Happy Hippo. With over thirty different strains and discounts of up to 20% available when you pay by Bitcoin, mobile check, or eCheck, it’s easy to see why. Same-day shipping is offered, with prices ranging from around $14 to $17.
7.Botanical Bunny- Best Customer Support
Redditors have noted Botanical Bunny as a company that is genuinely cautious in how they promote kratom. The company also offers soaps, essential oils, and other herbs.
What Reddit users love about this vendor are the excellent customer service and the high-quality products. The strains are high quality, and prices range from $5 for one ounce to $90 if you wish to bulk buy 1000g.
Best Kratom Vendors According to Reddit FAQ
Q: What is Kratom?
A: Kratom thrives naturally in Malaysia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea and is a natural extract sourced from the evergreen tree. Kratom leaves have been used for centuries to produce an extract that has stimulating and sedative properties.
Q: Is Kratom Safe?
A: As kratom has the same effect on the brain as opioids, many people believe that you will get addicted. Over time, you will indeed build up a tolerance in the same way you would to conventional opioids, and addiction is possible.
Studies have shown that animals can die from kratom in large doses, the risk increasing when the kratom is mixed with drugs or prescription medications. To date, Kratom is not FDA-approved for this reason.
Q: Are There Health Benefits of Kratom?
A: Kratom boosts your metabolism, increasing energy levels and ensuring more of your sugar intake is converted to energy. Kratom also promotes better blood circulation, meaning that cells get enough energy to metabolize the food you ingest.
Relief From Chronic Pain
Kratom targets pain receptors found in the nervous system, binding them together and preventing them from sending signals of pain to your brain.
Improved Concentration
Kratom triggers the brain to produce a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which increases focus and concentration. Acetylcholine enhances the cortical circuit.
Recovery from Drug Addiction
Kratom is an opioid agonist, providing the same euphoria experienced with drugs but without the comedown experienced from conventional opioids. High-quality kratom binds to the opiate receptors without being addictive.
Balances Emotion
Kratom can help lift one’s mood and relieve stress, as the mitragynine compound targets opioid receptors found in the nervous system. When using kratom, you will feel positive, upbeat, and confident, as the receptors work to regulate your emotions.
Q: Is Kratom Legal?
A: Although it is being watched by the DEA, kratom is currently legal in the USA. The DEA tried to move kratom to a schedule-1 drug in 2016, but the move was then withdrawn. Before ordering, speak to the vendor about the legalities of shipping to your country of residence.
In Thailand, surprisingly, kratom is illegal, as it is in the EU and in Australia. The FDA is cracking down increasingly on kratom as more is learned about the powder.
Q: Why is Buying from a Reputable Vendor Important?
A: Lab testing and quality control is put in place by the best kratom vendors, ensuring their products are GMP-compliant and high quality yet affordable.
When you buy capsules or powder from reliable vendors online, you’re ensuring that the product you purchase is both legit as well as safe. Vendors found online that are reliable can also help you choose the best strain for what you need.
When you shop with a reliable vendor, you will also be able to take advantage of a money-back guarantee, meaning that if you are not satisfied with the wide variety of strains you can buy at the best prices, you can ask for your money back.
The Bottom Line
If you’re looking for the best strains of Kratom, Redditors are full of all the info you need. Reddit is a great place to find the best strains, the best vendors, and all there is to know about buying the product for the first time.
[email protected]
Visit farrinstitute.org for more product comparisons and reviews.
Disclaimer:The information does not constitute advice or an offer to buy. Any purchase made from the above press release is made at your own risk. Consult an expert advisor or professional before any such purchase. Any purchase made from this link is subject to the final terms and conditions of the website’s selling mentioned in the source. The content publisher and its downstream distribution partners do not take any responsibility directly or indirectly. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the company this news is about. The links contained in this product review may result in a small commission to the author if you opt to purchase the product recommended at no additional cost to you.
CONTACT: [email protected] || Benzinga's Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Alphabet, Coinbase, GE, Quantumscape, Tesla And More: Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week. The past week's bullish calls included the electric vehicle leader and a prominent IPO. Short sellers were behind some of the bearish calls seen during the week. The Dow Jones industrial average crossed above 34,000 for the first time last week, as strong results from big banks kicked off the first-quarter earnings reporting season. Optimism also was boosted by good economic data, a steady Treasury yield and reassuring words from Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell. All of this muted the impact of bad vaccine news early in the week. Semiconductor shortages continue to plague various industries, and things may get worse . Bitcoin keeps hitting record highs , as does Dogecoin , and the new U.S. Securities and Exchange chair is a blockchain technology expert. The week also saw the largest direct listing in history, Jeff Bezos' final shareholder letter as CEO and news of the much anticipated next big event from the iPhone maker. And as the White House continues its push to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19, signs of pent-up reopening demand are plentiful. See also: How to Buy Coinbase IPO (COIN) Stock Through it all, Benzinga continued to examine the prospects for many of the stocks most popular with investors. Here are a few of this past week's most bullish and bearish posts that are worth another look. Bulls In " Why This Tesla Analyst Is Turning Bullish ," Priya Nigam focuses on how the leading electric vehicle maker's aggressive diversification efforts prompted one key analyst to upgrade Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ), despite the stock's rich valuation, and to more than double its price target. In Chris Katje's " Why Coinbase's Upside Could Be Immense, With A Price Target Of 0 ," discover why the featured analyst considers newly public Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN ) to be the gold standard among digital asset exchanges. Story continues Google parent Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) has multiple bullish catalysts on the horizon. So says Wayne Duggan's " Wedbush Adds Alphabet Stock To Best Ideas List: What You Need To Know ." Updated coverage on tech stocks was also bullish on Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP ). Adam Eckert's " JPMorgan Analyst Rules Out Long-Term Negative Impact Of COVID-19 On The Airline Industry " discusses the long-term prospects for JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ: JBLU ) and its peers due to demand recovery among consumers. " Why This Analyst Thinks Plug Power Stock Deserves Elevated Valuation " by Shanthi Rexaline examines what recent developments may mean for shares of hydrogen and fuel cell manufacturer Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG ). For additional bullish calls of the past week, have a look at the following: Why Bitcoin Fundamentals Depict A Healthy Bull Market: Cathie Wood's ARK Invest Report Is Now The Time To Buy These 4 Under-The-Radar Bank Stocks? 5 Trends Auto Stock Investors Should Watch In 2021 Bears A 160% rally in the past 11 months has resulted in General Electric Company (NYSE: GE ) stock becoming "very overvalued," according to " Gordon Haskett's John Inch On Why General Electric Is 'Very Overvalued' " by Adam Eckert. What about that 8 for 1 reverse stock split? Jon Harris' " Here Are The Stocks With The Highest Short Interest Rate This Week " suggests that the current sentiment on Sunrun Inc (NASDAQ: RUN ), ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC ) and other stocks is bearish. " AMC 'Under Attack' From Short Sellers Again, CEO Says " by Madhukumar Warrier shares why AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AMC ) is seeking shareholder approval to sell 500 million shares but promises not to do so in the calendar year 2021. See why the CEO also praised the meme investors. In Melanie Schaffer's " QuantumScape Stock Falls After Pump-And-Dump Accusations: A Technical Analysis ," find out why the chart for QuantumScape Corporation (NYSE: QS ) stock looked bearish this past week in the wake of a scathing report on the Bill Gates-supported EV battery maker. In " BofA Says GlaxoSmithKline's Decision To Halt Feladilimab Studies Is Disappointing " Priya Nigam looks at how a top analyst reacted to GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK ) announcing it would cease its Phase 2 and 3 trials of a cancer treatment. For additional bearish takes, be sure to check out these posts: Bitcoin Is A Bubble, 74% Of Bank of America's Professional Investors Believe Some SPACs Could Fail Outright, Research Is Paramount: Cathie Wood 8 Stocks With The Highest Short Percent Of Float At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities. Keep up with all the latest breaking news and trading ideas by following Benzinga on Twitter. Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay . See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Barron's Latest Picks And Pans: Affirm, Bitcoin, BorgWarner, Credit Suisse And More The Past Week's Notable Insider Buys Included Biotechs, Public Offerings, A SPAC And More © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga's Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Alphabet, Coinbase, GE, Quantumscape, Tesla And More: • Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investorfavorite stocksover the past week.
• The past week's bullish calls included the electric vehicle leader and a prominent IPO.
• Short sellers were behind some of the bearish calls seen during the week.
TheDow Jones industrial averagecrossed above 34,000 for the first time last week, as strong results from big banks kicked off the first-quarter earnings reporting season. Optimism also was boosted by good economic data, a steady Treasury yield andreassuring words from Federal ReserveChair Jay Powell. All of this muted the impact ofbad vaccine newsearly in the week.
Semiconductor shortagescontinue to plague various industries, andthings may get worse. Bitcoinkeeps hitting record highs, as doesDogecoin, and thenew U.S. Securities and Exchange chairis a blockchain technology expert.
The week also saw thelargest direct listingin history, Jeff Bezos'final shareholder letteras CEO and news of the much anticipatednext big eventfrom the iPhone maker.
And as the White House continues itspush to vaccinate Americansagainst COVID-19, signs ofpent-up reopening demandare plentiful.
See also:How to Buy Coinbase IPO (COIN) Stock
Through it all, Benzinga continued to examine the prospects for many of the stocks most popular with investors. Here are a few of this past week's most bullish and bearish posts that are worth another look.
Bulls
In "Why This Tesla Analyst Is Turning Bullish," Priya Nigam focuses on how the leading electric vehicle maker's aggressive diversification efforts prompted one key analyst to upgradeTesla Inc(NASDAQ:TSLA), despite the stock's rich valuation, and to more than double its price target.
In Chris Katje's "Why Coinbase's Upside Could Be Immense, With A Price Target Of 0," discover why the featured analyst considers newly publicCoinbase Global Inc(NASDAQ:COIN) to be the gold standard among digital asset exchanges.
Google parentAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOGL) has multiple bullish catalysts on the horizon. So says Wayne Duggan's "Wedbush Adds Alphabet Stock To Best Ideas List: What You Need To Know." Updated coverage on tech stocks was also bullish onSnap Inc(NYSE:SNAP).
Adam Eckert's "JPMorgan Analyst Rules Out Long-Term Negative Impact Of COVID-19 On The Airline Industry" discusses the long-term prospects forJetBlue Airways Corporation(NASDAQ:JBLU) and its peers due to demand recovery among consumers.
"Why This Analyst Thinks Plug Power Stock Deserves Elevated Valuation" by Shanthi Rexaline examines what recent developments may mean for shares of hydrogen and fuel cell manufacturerPlug Power Inc.(NASDAQ:PLUG).
For additional bullish calls of the past week, have a look at the following:
• Why Bitcoin Fundamentals Depict A Healthy Bull Market: Cathie Wood's ARK Invest Report
• Is Now The Time To Buy These 4 Under-The-Radar Bank Stocks?
• 5 Trends Auto Stock Investors Should Watch In 2021
Bears
A 160% rally in the past 11 months has resulted inGeneral Electric Company(NYSE:GE) stock becoming "very overvalued," according to "Gordon Haskett's John Inch On Why General Electric Is 'Very Overvalued'" by Adam Eckert. What about that 8 for 1 reverse stock split?
Jon Harris' "Here Are The Stocks With The Highest Short Interest Rate This Week" suggests that the current sentiment onSunrun Inc(NASDAQ:RUN),ViacomCBS Inc.(NASDAQ:VIAC) and other stocks is bearish.
"AMC 'Under Attack' From Short Sellers Again, CEO Says" by Madhukumar Warrier shares whyAMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.(NYSE:AMC) is seeking shareholder approval to sell 500 million shares but promises not to do so in the calendar year 2021. See why the CEO also praised the meme investors.
In Melanie Schaffer's "QuantumScape Stock Falls After Pump-And-Dump Accusations: A Technical Analysis," find out why the chart forQuantumScape Corporation(NYSE:QS) stock looked bearish this past week in the wake of a scathing report on the Bill Gates-supported EV battery maker.
In "BofA Says GlaxoSmithKline's Decision To Halt Feladilimab Studies Is Disappointing" Priya Nigam looks at how a top analyst reacted toGlaxoSmithKline plc(NYSE:GSK) announcing it would cease its Phase 2 and 3 trials of a cancer treatment.
For additional bearish takes, be sure to check out these posts:
• Bitcoin Is A Bubble, 74% Of Bank of America's Professional Investors Believe
• Some SPACs Could Fail Outright, Research Is Paramount: Cathie Wood
• 8 Stocks With The Highest Short Percent Of Float
At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Nano Surges 84% to Break $10 Mark, Climbs Back Into the Top 100: Saturday saw NANO gain over 84% as it climbed back into the top 100. NANO managed to nearly double in price as it surged past the $10 mark. The weekend has remained predominantly green with altcoins enjoying gains across the board. However it was NANO that stole the show on Saturday as the biggest gainer. The cryptocurrency which has remained fairly quiet up until 2021. Source: CoinGecko Nano back from the dead NANO had previously been reviewed by BiC as looking neutral with a potential breakout possible. And it appears the breakout on Saturday has validated the previous technical analysis. The cryptocurrency soared over 114% on Saturday before seeing a slight retrace. Nanos recent breakout sees it reach a new three year high, last seen in March 2018. Source: Tradingview The remarkable price surge can be attributed to the bullish cryptocurrency cycle currently being experienced. Bitcoin continues to see its dominance decline. The BTC dominance chart has seen the cryptocurrency fall by over 30% in 2021 alone. The last time bitcoin dominance was this low was in September 2018. Source: Tradingview NANO has seen a steady climb from its price six months ago. The cryptocurrency was less than a dollar just six months ago . The increase in prices across the board has seen every cryptocurrency gain dramatically during 2021. Older projects such as Dogecoin have seen phenomenal gains in 2021 as retail traders pile into the market. Dogecoin recently hit an all-time high of $0.45. The meme token was sitting at a mere $0.008 just three months ago. Altseason is here The main reason for altcoins seeing big gains daily is quite evident. The bull run has shifted focus from bitcoin, which has also seen incredible gains this year, to altcoins which are now enjoying the bullish market sentiment. Coupled with mass adoption, the cryptocurrency market continues to grow. The total market capitalization has surged over 189% since the beginning of the year. Source: Tradingview || Nano Surges 84% to Break $10 Mark, Climbs Back Into the Top 100: Saturday saw NANO gain over 84% as it climbed back into the top 100. NANO managed to nearly double in price as it surged past the $10 mark.
The weekend has remained predominantly green with altcoins enjoying gains across the board. However it was NANO that stole the show on Saturday as the biggest gainer. The cryptocurrency which has remained fairly quiet up until 2021.
NANO had previously beenreviewedby BiC as looking neutral with a potential breakout possible. And it appears the breakout on Saturday has validated the previous technical analysis.
The cryptocurrency soared over 114% on Saturday before seeing a slight retrace. Nanos recent breakout sees it reach a new three year high, last seen in March 2018.
The remarkable price surge can be attributed to the bullish cryptocurrency cycle currently being experienced. Bitcoin continues to see its dominance decline.
The BTC dominance chart has seen the cryptocurrency fall by over 30% in 2021 alone. The last time bitcoin dominance was this low was in September 2018.
NANO has seen a steady climb from its price six months ago. The cryptocurrency was less than adollar just six months ago. The increase in prices across the board has seen every cryptocurrency gain dramatically during 2021.
Older projects such as Dogecoin have seen phenomenal gains in 2021 as retail traders pile into the market. Dogecoin recently hitan all-time highof $0.45. The meme token was sitting at a mere $0.008 just three months ago.
The main reason for altcoins seeing big gains daily is quite evident. The bull run has shifted focus from bitcoin, which has also seen incredible gains this year, to altcoins which are now enjoying the bullish market sentiment.
Coupled with mass adoption, the cryptocurrency market continues to grow. The total market capitalization has surged over 189% since the beginning of the year. || Climate and Central Banks: Regulators Doing What They Shouldn’t: I felt spoiled for choice when it came to a topic with which to preface this week’s Capital Letter. Dogecoin went quite a long way toward the moon, the U.N.’s secretary-general has pushed for a “solidarity” or wealth tax, and digging further into the details of the administration’s planned new corporate-tax regime produced yet more nasty surprises. That said, I think that it’s worth continuing to watch how the regulatory state continues to push ahead with its climate agenda in a way that bypasses the normal democratic process — and is still not subject to enough scrutiny. The Financial Times : Over the past decade, financial regulators have used stress tests to measure banks’ exposure to anything from losses on derivatives to fat-finger trades and cyber crime. Now, they have a more complex target in sight: assessing banks’ vulnerability to the effects of climate change. This year, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are running first-of-a-kind thematic stress tests of their banks’ exposure to everything from freak weather events to the decline of industries such as heavy manufacturing and traditional energy. In the US, the Fed has said it is in the very early stages of considering climate scenarios to assess the longer-term risk of climate change to the broader financial system. It is worth noting how these stress tests are not only concerned with the effect that climate change may or may not be generating (such as those “freak weather events”) but also with the harm to certain industries caused by policies designed to slow climate change, harm that central banks may make worse with their own contribution to a concerted effort (supported by activists, “socially responsible” investors and all the rest) to increase the cost of capital for climate sinners. The Financial Times (my emphasis added): In late 2019, the BoE said the goal of this year’s climate exercise would be to achieve a better understanding of the financial risks that banks face from climate change, how their business models could be affected and what they are doing to mitigate those risks. “The BES [biennial exploratory scenario test] will focus on sizing risks rather than testing firms’ capital adequacy or setting capital requirements,” the BoE said. According to Patrick Amis, director-general at the ECB with responsibility for supervising large institutions, the tests are to assess banks’ “resilience in certain scenarios and indeed to make them think about this, and make them start taking measures to adapt”. Though preliminary results point to a “major source of systemic risk”, the ECB’s final report, due in July, is unlikely to hit institutions as hard as the ECB’s more familiar stress tests. Those can result in banks having to raise billions of euros in extra capital. “In some cases, I imagine we will end up with qualitative requirements and possibly quantitative requirements if needed , but certainly not across the board,” Amis says. Story continues And what were those preliminary results? From a Financial Times report in March: The European Central Bank has identified “a major source of systemic risk” in the preliminary results of its economic stress test to gauge the impact of climate change on 4m companies and 2,000 banks over 30 years. Luis de Guindos, vice-president of the ECB, summarised the findings in a blog post on Thursday, saying: “In the absence of further climate policies, the costs to companies arising from extreme weather events rise substantially, and greatly increase their probability of default.” Thirty years! One can only be amazed by the powers of prediction that the ECB, which so miserably failed to anticipate the euro-zone crisis, has now developed. And (again, emphasis added): His warning came shortly after another senior executive said the ECB was prepared to raise the amount of capital required at any banks considered to have particularly high levels of climate risks in their balance sheets as early as this year. Read on and we find that: The ECB used data provided by Four Twenty Seven, an affiliate of Moody’s, and research house Urgentem, to model three potential scenarios: an orderly transition to a greener economy, a disorderly transition with limited physical risks from climate change and a “hothouse” world with few green policies leading to extreme physical risks. On its website , Four Twenty Seven explains how it “blends economic modeling with climate science to help you reduce risks, identify new opportunities, and build resilience in the face of climate change.” As for Urgentem (the name is a bit of a giveaway), well: Our mission is to empower the financial sector to play a leadership role in the transition to a sustainable low carbon economy by providing climate risk data, analytical tools, investment services and products that are science aligned, transparent and collaborative. Further to this, it is to act as an advocate for responsible investment and to promote a sustainable model for society. The scientific consensus that we must cut carbon emissions in half by the end of this decade (approximately 7.6% each year) amounts to nothing less than a transformation of the economy, requiring urgent focus and sustained action in every sphere: commerce, politics, and civil society. If financial markets are to play a leadership role in the transition to a low carbon economy, then data and analytical tools that can be trusted are indispensable. That’s where we come in. I have commented before on the flourishing ecosystem that feeds — and feeds off — “socially responsible” investing (SRI) and, by extension, climate campaigning. It is not much of a stretch to think that both Four Twenty Seven and Urgentem are a part of it. So, what’s going on at the Fed? Back to the Financial Times: The Federal Reserve is less developed in its approach than the regulators in Europe or Asia, where climate-related exercises are also being carried out. Despite this, analysts at Fitch , the credit rating agency, say US regulators are “poised to catch up to global peers” now that the Biden administration has identified made climate change a top priority. In January, the Fed created a supervision climate committee to look at the risks of climate change to individual banks. Last month, governor Lael Brainard said her officials would also create a financial stability climate committee to look at how the financial system as a whole could be affected by climate change. There is, however, still an institutional reluctance within the Fed to push this too far. As Fed chairman Powell explained in March, “It’s been a long-held policy of the Fed that we don’t tell banks what legal businesses they can lend to or order them to lend to.” But in order to understand how climate policy-making works, it is important to understand the extent to which it is a coordinated effort: The Financial Times : “We are still some distance from disincentivising actual financial decisions,” says Fitch analyst Mark Narron about the US efforts . . . Christopher Wolfe, a colleague of Narron, says “investors increasingly have been pushing banks” for enhanced disclosure around climate risks. Fitch also includes environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors in its ratings metrics. “Large US banks are already taking this very seriously,” says Wolfe, speaking weeks after Jane Fraser, the new chief executive of Citigroup, added her bank to the list of global lenders that promise that green financing initiatives will fully offset the environmental effect of their lending to companies that add to greenhouse-gas emissions. And, as always, keep an eye on the part that lawfare will have to play. This, for instance: ClientEarth is taking landmark legal action to stop ‘quantitative easing’ from European central banks flowing to fossil fuel companies and polluting firms. We’ve launched a lawsuit against the Belgian National Bank for failing to fulfil environmental protection and human rights requirements when purchasing corporate assets, many of which are from companies that are fuelling the climate crisis. These purchases are made through the Corporate Sector Purchase Programme – a programme developed by the European Central Bank that directs capital to some of Europe’s most polluting sectors. It was established in 2016 to improve financing conditions for Eurozone businesses, and is implemented by the central banks of Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Finland. But fossil fuel companies are in fact among the biggest benefactors, with more than half of the $266 billion of assets held under the programme issued by high emitting firms. We believe this programme to be invalid due to its environmental and human rights costs . . . Meanwhile, John Cochrane, who has already taken an, ahem, critical look at the abuse of the notion of “risk” by central banks in this context, returns to the fray with an open letter on his blog, the Grumpy Economist, to Janet Yellen. The context is some recent remarks the treasury secretary made to the Financial Stability Oversight Council , the highest-level body responsible for overseeing financial regulation in the U.S. Cochrane quotes Yellen as follows: We must also look ahead, at emerging risks. [To the financial system, the FSOC’s purview.] Climate change is obviously the big one. It is an existential threat to our environment, and it poses a tremendous risk to our country’s financial stability. We know that storms will hit us with more frequency, and more intensity. We know warming temperatures might disrupt food and water supplies, leading to unrest around the world. Our financial system must be prepared for the market and credit risks of these climate-related events. But it must also be prepared for the best-possible case scenario: that we begin a rapid transition to a net-zero carbon economy, which also creates potential challenges for financial institutions and markets. On all these fronts, the Council has an important role to play, helping to coordinate regulators’ collective efforts to improve the measurement and management of climate-related risks in the financial system. To Cochrane, who regards climate as an important cause, this is “nonsense” (he is not wrong): “Climate change is obviously the big one.” The biggest risk? To the financial system? More than sovereign debt crisis, another run, another pandemic, war, revolution, pestilence, crop failure, another Great Depression, civil unrest, cyberattack … I could go on. You have a much better imagination than that. So does your staff. Climate change “is an existential threat . . . poses a tremendous risk to our country’s financial stability.” You don’t really believe this oft-repeated trope do you? We do not, in fact “know” that storms will hit more frequently and more intensely. But even if they do, when was the last time a storm had more than a tiny effect on GDP, and threatened financial stability, a contagious run on the nation’s debt-laden financial institutions? Weather has never, in all history, caused a financial panic. We do not, in fact “know” that slowly warming temperatures will “disrupt” food and water supplies. But even if they do, it is utterly absurd to imagine that you or your bank regulators can measure or control a causal chain from bank regulation to carbon emissions to warming temperature to food and water disruption to unrest around the world to financial stability (whew) which, let us remember, is the FSOC’s only task. Do you really think that the most important way to prevent, say, a war in Syria in 2075 is for California to build a high speed train? This is beyond absurd. And even then, what does “unrest” abroad over food have to do with a coordinated US bank failure? Famines have come and gone, and Goldman Sachs remains unscathed . . . You did not have to do it. You could have said, “The FSOC should study implementation of the Administration’s executive orders on climate.” You could even have said “The FSOC will continue to research the possibility of climate related risks to the financial system, ” knowing full well what any honest quantitative research will find. You did not have to assert things that are so blatantly preposterous. Well, we live in preposterous times. The Capital Record We recently launched a new series of podcasts, the Capital Record. Follow the link to see how to subscribe (it’s free!). The Capital Record, which appears weekly, is designed to make use of another medium to deliver Capital Matters’ defense of free markets. Financier and NRI trustee David L. Bahnsen hosts discussions on economics and finance in this National Review Capital Matters podcast, sponsored by National Review Institute. Episodes feature interviews with the nation’s top business leaders, entrepreneurs, investment professionals, and financial commentators. In the 13th episode David Bahnsen talked to Senator Pat Toomey, a deficit hawk and free marketeer still fighting the good fight in the U.S. Senate. The senator and David Bahnsen go round and round about the national debt. And the Capital Matters week that was . . . We began the week with our latest instalment of Supply & Demand . This time, Casey Mulligan warned that removing the profit motive from health care would be . . . unwise: Yet the COVID pandemic has confirmed that “innovation” is not just a fancy bourgeois-apology word. President Trump’s economic team was the first to highlight the role of medical innovation in alleviating fatal diseases of the past. Although a global pandemic was merely a hypothetical at the time (2018 and 2019), we specifically analyzed vaccine innovation during pandemics and how the private sector would be essential in delivering relief to the public. President Trump issued a 2019 executive order emphasizing the private sector’s role in vaccine innovation, which would prove to be “the most effective defense.” Now the United States is exiting a historic pandemic by vaccinating its population with products produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. Each is a for-profit company. Their cumulative profits from the vaccines, while impressive from a company perspective, may never reach the $34 billion value that the U.S. obtains from reaching the end of the pandemic just one day earlier . While the value of ending a pandemic months earlier reaches into the trillions of dollars , throngs of critics of capitalism will complain that companies are getting a dozen or two billion. The European Union lags six weeks behind the U.S. and even more behind the U.K. and Israel, who also administer vaccines from for-profit companies. The E.U.’s slow pace is due to several factors , one of which was the time they wasted in maneuvers to try to prevent the vaccine companies from earning too much profit. Although no European country fully eliminates private organizations from health care and health insurance the way Medicare for All would, many have taken steps in that direction and sparked jealousy among those on the left here at home . . . Meanwhile, Fred Lucas provided another example of government at work: A recently released watchdog report underscores how the Environmental Protection Agency may be ignoring core responsibilities, even as it pursues ever-expanding regulatory schemes that go well beyond its ambit. The inspector-general report determined the EPA has failed to adequately monitor about half of the country’s nonoperational hazardous-waste storage sites, known as Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDFs). Regular monitoring is still required after these sites are closed, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) . . . Jerry Bowyer reported on polling showing that corporations should keep out of politics: According to the poll, 59 percent of Americans think companies taking political positions “adds to divisiveness.” Over half of self-identified Democrats agreed. Another related poll released by Mr. Rasmussen a day earlier found that 66 percent of Americans thought corporations should not be taking political positions. Again, that includes over half of Democrats. In other words, no broad electoral coalition is asking for businesses to be fronts for activism. Not Republicans, not Democrats, not independents. If that conclusion wasn’t obvious enough already, there’s data to support it. Corporations are doing themselves no favors when they take stances on controversial, complicated, political issues. And yet, woke capital forges on . . . On that topic , Vivek Ramaswamy: Democracy is indeed under siege in states such as Georgia and Texas, but these states’ new voting laws aren’t the biggest assailants. Rather, it’s stakeholder capitalism — the new dogma demanding that companies no longer simply make products, but also craft our society’s moral norms. Stakeholder capitalism is now in full bloom in the Peach State and beyond. Over 100 companies spoke out against Georgia’s new voting rules. This past weekend, dozens of CEOs gathered on Zoom to plot what Big Businesses should do next about voting laws under way in Texas and other states. A formal joint statement is expected soon from companies ranging from PayPal to PepsiCo to T. Rowe Price Group. “The legislation is unacceptable. It is a step backwards and does not promote the principles we have stood for in Georgia,” declared James Quincey, CEO of Coca-Cola. “Our focus is now on supporting federal legislation that protects voting access and addresses voter suppression across the country.” Delta CEO Ed Bastian added: “The final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.” But why should Americans care about whether an election statute matches the values of a private airline company or a soft-drink manufacturer? Mr. Bastian didn’t say. Apparently he holds such truths to be self-evident . . . And Dan McLaughlin : As the Washington Post reported : “More than 100 chief executives and corporate leaders gathered online Saturday to discuss taking new action to combat the controversial state voting bills being considered across the country, including the one recently signed into law in Georgia. Executives from major airlines, retailers and manufacturers — plus at least one NFL owner — talked about potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures, according to four people who were on the call. . . . Leaders from dozens of companies such as Delta, American, United, Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, Levi Strauss and Boston Consulting Group, along with Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, were included on the Zoom call.” Undoubtedly, to the extent that some of their businesses compete with each other, the corporate executives on Saturday’s call would argue that they are seeking no advantage for their companies, and it is more likely than not — even in the perennially unpredictable forest of antitrust rules — that this argument would successfully immunize them from legal liability under federal antitrust law (state laws can be another story). But they would be doing so by openly admitting that they are wielding the resources of major corporations for no economic benefit to the shareholders, to whom they owe a fiduciary duty as stewards of corporate assets . . . Infrastructure made its inevitable appearance. Iain Murray : Given the bipartisan agreement that genuine infrastructure needs attention (even recognizing that the nation’s infrastructure isn’t in as bad shape as it is painted), the president probably could move a bill with broad cross-party support. The decision to attach sundry unrelated items — such as federal funding of schools, job-training initiatives, and unionization of home health-care and child-care workers — to what most voters consider a must-pass bill suggests that Biden doesn’t think he can get those passed any other way. Then there’s the cost. President Biden boastfully claimed that the bill would create 19 million jobs “that pay well.” That could possibly represent value for money at $118,000 a job. However, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had to contradict his boss, recognizing that this figure included over 16 million jobs that would be created anyway. As Reason ’s Eric Boehm calculated, that puts the dollar figure per job created at over $800,000. It’s not quite the $2 million per job created by Los Angeles after the Obama stimulus act, but it’s getting there, and on a much bigger scale. Part of the reason is that the bill doesn’t help make the building of real infrastructure projects quicker or more affordable. In fact, it doubles down on policies such as project labor agreements and “ Buy American ” requirements, while failing to do anything about the plague of permits . Perhaps the president’s old boss could remind him how those affected his stimulus bill’s supposedly shovel-ready projects . . . Robert VerBruggen : Earlier this year, when Democrats wanted to spend yet another $2 trillion on “COVID relief,” much of which wasn’t even COVID relief, some moderate Republicans made a roughly $600 billion counteroffer. I called the proposal “halfway sane”: more than we really needed to spend, but far better than what Biden had proposed. As you may recall, the Democrats went ahead and passed their own plan without Republican help, using the “reconciliation” process to avoid a filibuster. Well, now the Democrats want to spend about $2 trillion on “infrastructure,” much of which isn’t even infrastructure. And once again moderate Republicans are prepping a smaller counteroffer , likely in the range of $600–800 billion. It’s “more targeted in scope and funded by unspecified user fees,” as Politico puts it. This too is halfway sane. Our infrastructure is not in as bad of shape as some like to say, and most of our actual problems can be addressed at the local and state rather than federal level. But cutting the size of the package by two-thirds would be a victory, as would funding infrastructure with user fees rather than tax hikes on businesses. The people who actually benefit from these projects should be the ones to pay for them . . . And another i-word, inflation, made its regular appearance too. Ramesh Ponnuru : For the last eleven years or so, I’ve been writing that monetary policy is too tight. During this period, it has sometimes been a little too tight, sometimes a lot. I’ve been skeptical of claims of impending inflationary doom, and my skepticism continues to this day . So I’m on board with the starting point of Bruce Bartlett’s New Republic article : that worries about inflation are exaggerated. I don’t agree, however, with where he takes this idea. He thinks inflation hawks are self-interested capitalists and their conservative lackeys, all of them deathly afraid that wage-earners will see raises. A looser policy would have better served both capital and labor over the last decade, in my view , and it’s been mistaken ideas that have kept it from being adopted. Those ideas are not merely stalking horses for narrow economic interests. Bartlett explains that he has revised his view of Karl Marx’s thoughts on political economy upward. I don’t think the shift has improved the quality of his analysis . . . Steve Hanke was not so sanguine : On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of March. Prices increased by 0.6 percent since February, the largest monthly increase since August 2012. On a year-over-year basis, the CPI increase was 2.6 percent. Given that the CPI for March 2020 was abnormally depressed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most observers anticipated that the year-over-year increase would be elevated, but not as elevated as it actually turned out to be. I, for one, was not surprised. The dramatic growth in the U.S. money supply, when broadly measured, that began in March 2020 will do what increases in the money supply always do. Money growth will lead in the first instance (1–9 months) to asset-price inflation. Then, a second stage will set in. Over a 6–18-month period after a monetary injection occurs, economic activity will pick up. Ultimately, the prices of goods and services will increase. That usually takes between 12 and 24 months after the original monetary injection. Given this sequence, it’s as clear as the nose on your face that we’re going to see more — perhaps much more — inflation entering the system in the coming months . . . And nor was Jerry Bowyer : Inflation data updates (like shark TV programming) come in weekly spurts. Last Friday (April 9), we received the updated data for the Producer Prices Index, which tracks inflation for the cost of inputs for businesses. Then this past Tuesday, April 13, we got the star of the show, the Consumer Price Index data. Monetary policy is looking like a Great White and dollar purchasing power like an unlucky baby seal . . . Travis Nix took aim at the proposed new corporate-tax regime: Joe Biden’s recently proposed “ infrastructure plan ” is a $2-trillion-dollar liberal wish list designed to transform America. The lion’s share of the bill has nothing to do with infrastructure at all, but its most damaging provision is the business-tax increases that will destroy American jobs and slow the economic recovery the U.S. desperately needs following the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of bad changes in the ironically named “American Jobs Plan.” But two stand out as particularly damaging to the U.S. economy. The plan would increase the corporate-tax rate to 28 percent, which would be the highest in the world , and it would increase the global minimum tax on American companies’ foreign earnings. Together, these changes would tank America’s ability to compete with other nations, increase the probability of companies’ shifting jobs overseas, and destroy incentives for businesses to make the job-growing and wage-growing investments that strengthen the economy. Increasing corporate taxes by 7 percentage points would kneecap the United States’ ability to compete with its biggest rivals. Including state taxes, America would have a 32.34 percent statutory corporate-tax rate. This would be the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. corporate-tax rate would be greater even than Communist China’s. Under this plan, companies would undoubtedly choose to invest overseas instead of being burdened with Biden’s sky-high taxes, and American workers would lose. And Robert VerBruggen didn’t like the thought of returning more SALT to the tax menu: “Taxed twice on the same income”: This is an argument sometimes brought out in favor of the state and local tax deduction, or SALT. But it doesn’t really hold water. It’s not problematic for different taxes, funding different services, to use the same denominator. County and municipal governments often tax the same property , for instance, and local and state governments often impose sales taxes on the same transactions. In these cases, requiring one tax to be deducted before the other was calculated would just be silly, because legislators would simply increase the second tax’s rate enough to offset the loss, leaving everything back where it started. With SALT, though, there’s no simple solution like that — federal tax rates apply across the entire nation, while state and local taxes vary from place to place. A federal deduction subsidizes places with high taxes by collecting less federal revenue from those places, while any overall rate increase will hit the whole country. Blue-state lawmakers like Nadler like SALT, and want to get rid of the cap on it, because they want that subsidy, not because it’s fair tax policy . . . Steve Hanke released his 2020 (economic) misery index: The human condition lies on a vast spectrum between “miserable” and “happy.” In the economic sphere, misery tends to flow from high inflation, steep borrowing costs, and unemployment. The surefire way to mitigate that misery is through economic growth. All else being equal, happiness tends to blossom when growth is strong, inflation and interest rates are low, and jobs are plentiful. Many countries measure and report these economic metrics regularly. Comparing them, nation by nation, can tell us a lot about where in the world people are sad or happy. Is the United States, for example, more or less miserable than other countries? Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI) gives us the answers. The first misery index was constructed by economist Arthur Okun in the 1960s to provide President Lyndon Johnson with an easily digestible snapshot of the economy. That original misery index was a simple sum of a nation’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate. The index has been modified several times, first by Robert Barro of Harvard, and then by me . . . The most miserable? Read the whole thing to discover for yourself. (Clue: It begins with a V.) Jon Hartley remembered the economist Robert Mundell, who died earlier this month: Mundell won the Nobel for his brilliant work spanning monetary policy and trade, largely published in the late 1950s and early 1960s, going back to his early days as a student at MIT and an economist at the IMF. He built one of the most influential open-economy models of the 20th century: the Mundell-Fleming model , which showed that economies could not simultaneously have fixed exchange rates, monetary autonomy, and free capital flows, also known as the “Mundell-Fleming trilemma.” He also wrote many excellent related theoretical papers on trade, including on the mobility of factors of production . On the policy side, Mundell also greatly influenced the early supply-side movement. He was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1965 to ’72, overlapping with Art Laffer, who taught at the University of Chicago from 1967 to ’76. Mundell’s influence on the Reagan era and its embrace of supply-side economics cannot be understated. However, his most famous and perhaps lasting influence came in the realm of monetary policy, as an advocate of fixed exchange rates in what he viewed were optimum currency areas . This advocacy of fixed exchange rates drew a sharp contrast with fellow UChicago economist Milton Friedman’s support for floating exchange rates . . . Benjamin Zycher discussed the dangers of Biden’s energy policy: It is not difficult to hypothesize that the OPEC+ producers have concluded that prospective competition from U.S. oil producers will prove less important than was the case during the Trump administration, due far more to political constraints on expanded U.S. production than any inherent reluctance to produce on the part of U.S. oil companies. In other words, the clear animosity of the current governing majority toward fossil energy, which was made very clear early in the campaign (and, of course, has been reflected in deeds as well as words since President Biden took office), is likely to have led OPEC+ to conclude that they can grab market share with less fear of a sharp price decline from increased in U.S. production. After all, the Saudi argument that “the glory days of U.S. shale . . . are never coming back” would make little sense otherwise. There is no reason to believe that U.S. producers systematically have weaker foresight with respect to the evolution of market conditions than anyone else. Moreover, because the production and consumption of fossil fuel reserves are “substitutable” over time (they can take place during the current time period or during a future one), the market price today is the competitive expectation of the future price, on the basis of all available information. Accordingly, U.S. producers can form expectations and make plans just as rationally as any others. They know that prices can be volatile, that they can be depressed by unexpected events (e.g., COVID), that OPEC+ can increase output unexpectedly. Those realities were just as true before the pandemic as after. All producers must make judgments about the long-term “steady state” price and the efficiency of investments at that price. The real question is whether U.S. policies will ratify the strong OPEC+ preference that competition from U.S. producers be suppressed artificially. Any such suppression would reduce U.S. national wealth and increase that of foreign producers. And for what? Were the Biden net-zero policy to be implemented immediately, the effect on global temperatures in 2100 would be 0.104 degrees C (using the Environmental Protection Agency climate model ), an impact that would not be detectable given the natural variation in temperatures. (The entire Paris agreement if implemented immediately, would reduce global temperatures by 0.17 degrees C by 2100.) The reality is that the crusade against fossil fuels — the effort to make the U.S. poorer in favor of others — has nothing to do with environmental quality. It is wholly an ideological imperative, not a very convincing rationale for imposing losses upon Americans. Wayne Winegarden queried the record of ESG funds: This recent outperformance does not provide any information regarding how ESG funds will perform over the long term. In fact, the long-term performance does not match these short-term results. For example, a 2017 study in a top finance journal examined 2,000 funds engaging in social investing. Unlike past studies that bluntly classified funds as either socially responsible or conventional, the authors created a methodology to capture the varying degrees of social responsibility of these funds. Summarizing the results of this study, Kenneth Kim of EQIS Capital Management noted that the results conclusively showed that “when investing in SRI [socially responsible investing] or CSR [corporate social responsibility] funds, one should expect some underperformance.” ESG funds also contain unidentified risks that often go undiscussed. In a study I performed , ESG funds allocated 37 percent of their portfolio toward their top 10 holdings on average, compared with 21 percent for a broad-based S&P 500 index fund. The higher exposure to the top ten holdings means that the returns of ESG funds are more dependent on the performance of relatively fewer stocks. This concentration significantly reduces the benefits that ought to flow from diversification. For instance, broad-based ESG funds that shun fossil-fuel companies but have greater exposure to the FAANG stocks would have performed very well in 2020. In this case, shunning fossil-fuel investments improved financial returns. While excluding certain investments may have enhanced past results, these trends change. The caveat “past performance is not indicative of future results” is apropos . . . And Richard Lindzen and William Happer pondered how much of a climate “emergency” there really is: No scientist familiar with radiation transfer denies that more carbon dioxide is likely to cause some surface warming. But the warming would be small and benign. In fact, history shows that warmings of a few degrees Celsius — which extended growing seasons — have been good for humanity. The golden age of classical Roman civilization occurred during a warm period. Cooling periods, which were accompanied by barbarian invasions, famines, and plagues, have been bad. Barbara Tuchman characterizes such periods as “the calamitous 14th century” in her book, A Distant Mirror . More carbon dioxide will certainly increase the productivity of agriculture and forestry. Over the past century, the earth has already become noticeably greener as a result of the modest increase of CO 2 , from about 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of atmospheric molecules. More CO 2 has made a significant contribution to the increased crop yields of the past 50 years, as well. The benefits to plants of more CO 2 are documented in hundreds of scientific studies. Water vapor, and the clouds that condense from it, warm the earth’s surface at least four times more than does carbon dioxide. Paleoclimate data show little correlation between CO 2 and climate, suggesting that the effects of CO 2 are, in fact, marginal. Doubling CO 2 concentrations alone should increase the earth’s surface temperature by about 1 C. Climate crusaders use computer models that include clouds, convective heat transfer in the atmosphere and oceans, and other factors to claim that “positive feedbacks” increase the predicted warming to 4.5 C or more. Supposedly, the direct consequences of any change are amplified. This would violate Le Chatelier’s principle that says “when a settled system is disturbed, it will adjust to diminish the change that has been made to it.” Crusaders like to claim that the climate violates Le Chatelier’s principle and has “tipping points.” Given the much higher and changing levels of carbon dioxide that prevailed over much of the earth’s history, it is unlikely that life would have survived if such tipping points existed . . . Finally, we produced the Capital Note , our “daily” (well, Tuesday–Friday, anyway). Topics covered included: the history of Nuance’s Dragon brand, J&J vaccine halted, Jack Ma capitulates, W. Brian Arthur on “Economics in Nouns and Verbs , corporatism in action, trusting China on the environment, the rise of retail investors (continued), France moves toward a ban on short-haul flights, coffee and interstates , Coinbase’s crypto correlation, another tech IPO, consumer borrowing stalls, a look back at the Bitcoin white paper , the Chamber of Commerce’s hedge, pruned, Coinbase, crytoptimists, combining the essence of two old crises to make a new one, and inflation . More from National Review Central Bankers – The (Latest) Unacknowledged Legislators of the World Yellen’s (Proposed) Tax Cartel The Fed’s Shabby Green Logic || Climate and Central Banks: Regulators Doing What They Shouldn’t: I felt spoiled for choice when it came to a topic with which to preface this week’s Capital Letter. Dogecoin went quite a long way toward the moon, the U.N.’s secretary-general has pushed for a “solidarity” or wealth tax, and digging further into the details of the administration’s planned new corporate-tax regime produced yet more nasty surprises. That said, I think that it’s worth continuing to watch how the regulatory state continues to push ahead with its climate agenda in a way that bypasses the normal democratic process — and is still not subject to enough scrutiny. The Financial Times : Over the past decade, financial regulators have used stress tests to measure banks’ exposure to anything from losses on derivatives to fat-finger trades and cyber crime. Now, they have a more complex target in sight: assessing banks’ vulnerability to the effects of climate change. This year, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are running first-of-a-kind thematic stress tests of their banks’ exposure to everything from freak weather events to the decline of industries such as heavy manufacturing and traditional energy. In the US, the Fed has said it is in the very early stages of considering climate scenarios to assess the longer-term risk of climate change to the broader financial system. It is worth noting how these stress tests are not only concerned with the effect that climate change may or may not be generating (such as those “freak weather events”) but also with the harm to certain industries caused by policies designed to slow climate change, harm that central banks may make worse with their own contribution to a concerted effort (supported by activists, “socially responsible” investors and all the rest) to increase the cost of capital for climate sinners. The Financial Times (my emphasis added): In late 2019, the BoE said the goal of this year’s climate exercise would be to achieve a better understanding of the financial risks that banks face from climate change, how their business models could be affected and what they are doing to mitigate those risks. “The BES [biennial exploratory scenario test] will focus on sizing risks rather than testing firms’ capital adequacy or setting capital requirements,” the BoE said. According to Patrick Amis, director-general at the ECB with responsibility for supervising large institutions, the tests are to assess banks’ “resilience in certain scenarios and indeed to make them think about this, and make them start taking measures to adapt”. Though preliminary results point to a “major source of systemic risk”, the ECB’s final report, due in July, is unlikely to hit institutions as hard as the ECB’s more familiar stress tests. Those can result in banks having to raise billions of euros in extra capital. “In some cases, I imagine we will end up with qualitative requirements and possibly quantitative requirements if needed , but certainly not across the board,” Amis says. Story continues And what were those preliminary results? From a Financial Times report in March: The European Central Bank has identified “a major source of systemic risk” in the preliminary results of its economic stress test to gauge the impact of climate change on 4m companies and 2,000 banks over 30 years. Luis de Guindos, vice-president of the ECB, summarised the findings in a blog post on Thursday, saying: “In the absence of further climate policies, the costs to companies arising from extreme weather events rise substantially, and greatly increase their probability of default.” Thirty years! One can only be amazed by the powers of prediction that the ECB, which so miserably failed to anticipate the euro-zone crisis, has now developed. And (again, emphasis added): His warning came shortly after another senior executive said the ECB was prepared to raise the amount of capital required at any banks considered to have particularly high levels of climate risks in their balance sheets as early as this year. Read on and we find that: The ECB used data provided by Four Twenty Seven, an affiliate of Moody’s, and research house Urgentem, to model three potential scenarios: an orderly transition to a greener economy, a disorderly transition with limited physical risks from climate change and a “hothouse” world with few green policies leading to extreme physical risks. On its website , Four Twenty Seven explains how it “blends economic modeling with climate science to help you reduce risks, identify new opportunities, and build resilience in the face of climate change.” As for Urgentem (the name is a bit of a giveaway), well: Our mission is to empower the financial sector to play a leadership role in the transition to a sustainable low carbon economy by providing climate risk data, analytical tools, investment services and products that are science aligned, transparent and collaborative. Further to this, it is to act as an advocate for responsible investment and to promote a sustainable model for society. The scientific consensus that we must cut carbon emissions in half by the end of this decade (approximately 7.6% each year) amounts to nothing less than a transformation of the economy, requiring urgent focus and sustained action in every sphere: commerce, politics, and civil society. If financial markets are to play a leadership role in the transition to a low carbon economy, then data and analytical tools that can be trusted are indispensable. That’s where we come in. I have commented before on the flourishing ecosystem that feeds — and feeds off — “socially responsible” investing (SRI) and, by extension, climate campaigning. It is not much of a stretch to think that both Four Twenty Seven and Urgentem are a part of it. So, what’s going on at the Fed? Back to the Financial Times: The Federal Reserve is less developed in its approach than the regulators in Europe or Asia, where climate-related exercises are also being carried out. Despite this, analysts at Fitch , the credit rating agency, say US regulators are “poised to catch up to global peers” now that the Biden administration has identified made climate change a top priority. In January, the Fed created a supervision climate committee to look at the risks of climate change to individual banks. Last month, governor Lael Brainard said her officials would also create a financial stability climate committee to look at how the financial system as a whole could be affected by climate change. There is, however, still an institutional reluctance within the Fed to push this too far. As Fed chairman Powell explained in March, “It’s been a long-held policy of the Fed that we don’t tell banks what legal businesses they can lend to or order them to lend to.” But in order to understand how climate policy-making works, it is important to understand the extent to which it is a coordinated effort: The Financial Times : “We are still some distance from disincentivising actual financial decisions,” says Fitch analyst Mark Narron about the US efforts . . . Christopher Wolfe, a colleague of Narron, says “investors increasingly have been pushing banks” for enhanced disclosure around climate risks. Fitch also includes environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors in its ratings metrics. “Large US banks are already taking this very seriously,” says Wolfe, speaking weeks after Jane Fraser, the new chief executive of Citigroup, added her bank to the list of global lenders that promise that green financing initiatives will fully offset the environmental effect of their lending to companies that add to greenhouse-gas emissions. And, as always, keep an eye on the part that lawfare will have to play. This, for instance: ClientEarth is taking landmark legal action to stop ‘quantitative easing’ from European central banks flowing to fossil fuel companies and polluting firms. We’ve launched a lawsuit against the Belgian National Bank for failing to fulfil environmental protection and human rights requirements when purchasing corporate assets, many of which are from companies that are fuelling the climate crisis. These purchases are made through the Corporate Sector Purchase Programme – a programme developed by the European Central Bank that directs capital to some of Europe’s most polluting sectors. It was established in 2016 to improve financing conditions for Eurozone businesses, and is implemented by the central banks of Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Finland. But fossil fuel companies are in fact among the biggest benefactors, with more than half of the $266 billion of assets held under the programme issued by high emitting firms. We believe this programme to be invalid due to its environmental and human rights costs . . . Meanwhile, John Cochrane, who has already taken an, ahem, critical look at the abuse of the notion of “risk” by central banks in this context, returns to the fray with an open letter on his blog, the Grumpy Economist, to Janet Yellen. The context is some recent remarks the treasury secretary made to the Financial Stability Oversight Council , the highest-level body responsible for overseeing financial regulation in the U.S. Cochrane quotes Yellen as follows: We must also look ahead, at emerging risks. [To the financial system, the FSOC’s purview.] Climate change is obviously the big one. It is an existential threat to our environment, and it poses a tremendous risk to our country’s financial stability. We know that storms will hit us with more frequency, and more intensity. We know warming temperatures might disrupt food and water supplies, leading to unrest around the world. Our financial system must be prepared for the market and credit risks of these climate-related events. But it must also be prepared for the best-possible case scenario: that we begin a rapid transition to a net-zero carbon economy, which also creates potential challenges for financial institutions and markets. On all these fronts, the Council has an important role to play, helping to coordinate regulators’ collective efforts to improve the measurement and management of climate-related risks in the financial system. To Cochrane, who regards climate as an important cause, this is “nonsense” (he is not wrong): “Climate change is obviously the big one.” The biggest risk? To the financial system? More than sovereign debt crisis, another run, another pandemic, war, revolution, pestilence, crop failure, another Great Depression, civil unrest, cyberattack … I could go on. You have a much better imagination than that. So does your staff. Climate change “is an existential threat . . . poses a tremendous risk to our country’s financial stability.” You don’t really believe this oft-repeated trope do you? We do not, in fact “know” that storms will hit more frequently and more intensely. But even if they do, when was the last time a storm had more than a tiny effect on GDP, and threatened financial stability, a contagious run on the nation’s debt-laden financial institutions? Weather has never, in all history, caused a financial panic. We do not, in fact “know” that slowly warming temperatures will “disrupt” food and water supplies. But even if they do, it is utterly absurd to imagine that you or your bank regulators can measure or control a causal chain from bank regulation to carbon emissions to warming temperature to food and water disruption to unrest around the world to financial stability (whew) which, let us remember, is the FSOC’s only task. Do you really think that the most important way to prevent, say, a war in Syria in 2075 is for California to build a high speed train? This is beyond absurd. And even then, what does “unrest” abroad over food have to do with a coordinated US bank failure? Famines have come and gone, and Goldman Sachs remains unscathed . . . You did not have to do it. You could have said, “The FSOC should study implementation of the Administration’s executive orders on climate.” You could even have said “The FSOC will continue to research the possibility of climate related risks to the financial system, ” knowing full well what any honest quantitative research will find. You did not have to assert things that are so blatantly preposterous. Well, we live in preposterous times. The Capital Record We recently launched a new series of podcasts, the Capital Record. Follow the link to see how to subscribe (it’s free!). The Capital Record, which appears weekly, is designed to make use of another medium to deliver Capital Matters’ defense of free markets. Financier and NRI trustee David L. Bahnsen hosts discussions on economics and finance in this National Review Capital Matters podcast, sponsored by National Review Institute. Episodes feature interviews with the nation’s top business leaders, entrepreneurs, investment professionals, and financial commentators. In the 13th episode David Bahnsen talked to Senator Pat Toomey, a deficit hawk and free marketeer still fighting the good fight in the U.S. Senate. The senator and David Bahnsen go round and round about the national debt. And the Capital Matters week that was . . . We began the week with our latest instalment of Supply & Demand . This time, Casey Mulligan warned that removing the profit motive from health care would be . . . unwise: Yet the COVID pandemic has confirmed that “innovation” is not just a fancy bourgeois-apology word. President Trump’s economic team was the first to highlight the role of medical innovation in alleviating fatal diseases of the past. Although a global pandemic was merely a hypothetical at the time (2018 and 2019), we specifically analyzed vaccine innovation during pandemics and how the private sector would be essential in delivering relief to the public. President Trump issued a 2019 executive order emphasizing the private sector’s role in vaccine innovation, which would prove to be “the most effective defense.” Now the United States is exiting a historic pandemic by vaccinating its population with products produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. Each is a for-profit company. Their cumulative profits from the vaccines, while impressive from a company perspective, may never reach the $34 billion value that the U.S. obtains from reaching the end of the pandemic just one day earlier . While the value of ending a pandemic months earlier reaches into the trillions of dollars , throngs of critics of capitalism will complain that companies are getting a dozen or two billion. The European Union lags six weeks behind the U.S. and even more behind the U.K. and Israel, who also administer vaccines from for-profit companies. The E.U.’s slow pace is due to several factors , one of which was the time they wasted in maneuvers to try to prevent the vaccine companies from earning too much profit. Although no European country fully eliminates private organizations from health care and health insurance the way Medicare for All would, many have taken steps in that direction and sparked jealousy among those on the left here at home . . . Meanwhile, Fred Lucas provided another example of government at work: A recently released watchdog report underscores how the Environmental Protection Agency may be ignoring core responsibilities, even as it pursues ever-expanding regulatory schemes that go well beyond its ambit. The inspector-general report determined the EPA has failed to adequately monitor about half of the country’s nonoperational hazardous-waste storage sites, known as Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDFs). Regular monitoring is still required after these sites are closed, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) . . . Jerry Bowyer reported on polling showing that corporations should keep out of politics: According to the poll, 59 percent of Americans think companies taking political positions “adds to divisiveness.” Over half of self-identified Democrats agreed. Another related poll released by Mr. Rasmussen a day earlier found that 66 percent of Americans thought corporations should not be taking political positions. Again, that includes over half of Democrats. In other words, no broad electoral coalition is asking for businesses to be fronts for activism. Not Republicans, not Democrats, not independents. If that conclusion wasn’t obvious enough already, there’s data to support it. Corporations are doing themselves no favors when they take stances on controversial, complicated, political issues. And yet, woke capital forges on . . . On that topic , Vivek Ramaswamy: Democracy is indeed under siege in states such as Georgia and Texas, but these states’ new voting laws aren’t the biggest assailants. Rather, it’s stakeholder capitalism — the new dogma demanding that companies no longer simply make products, but also craft our society’s moral norms. Stakeholder capitalism is now in full bloom in the Peach State and beyond. Over 100 companies spoke out against Georgia’s new voting rules. This past weekend, dozens of CEOs gathered on Zoom to plot what Big Businesses should do next about voting laws under way in Texas and other states. A formal joint statement is expected soon from companies ranging from PayPal to PepsiCo to T. Rowe Price Group. “The legislation is unacceptable. It is a step backwards and does not promote the principles we have stood for in Georgia,” declared James Quincey, CEO of Coca-Cola. “Our focus is now on supporting federal legislation that protects voting access and addresses voter suppression across the country.” Delta CEO Ed Bastian added: “The final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.” But why should Americans care about whether an election statute matches the values of a private airline company or a soft-drink manufacturer? Mr. Bastian didn’t say. Apparently he holds such truths to be self-evident . . . And Dan McLaughlin : As the Washington Post reported : “More than 100 chief executives and corporate leaders gathered online Saturday to discuss taking new action to combat the controversial state voting bills being considered across the country, including the one recently signed into law in Georgia. Executives from major airlines, retailers and manufacturers — plus at least one NFL owner — talked about potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures, according to four people who were on the call. . . . Leaders from dozens of companies such as Delta, American, United, Starbucks, Target, LinkedIn, Levi Strauss and Boston Consulting Group, along with Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, were included on the Zoom call.” Undoubtedly, to the extent that some of their businesses compete with each other, the corporate executives on Saturday’s call would argue that they are seeking no advantage for their companies, and it is more likely than not — even in the perennially unpredictable forest of antitrust rules — that this argument would successfully immunize them from legal liability under federal antitrust law (state laws can be another story). But they would be doing so by openly admitting that they are wielding the resources of major corporations for no economic benefit to the shareholders, to whom they owe a fiduciary duty as stewards of corporate assets . . . Infrastructure made its inevitable appearance. Iain Murray : Given the bipartisan agreement that genuine infrastructure needs attention (even recognizing that the nation’s infrastructure isn’t in as bad shape as it is painted), the president probably could move a bill with broad cross-party support. The decision to attach sundry unrelated items — such as federal funding of schools, job-training initiatives, and unionization of home health-care and child-care workers — to what most voters consider a must-pass bill suggests that Biden doesn’t think he can get those passed any other way. Then there’s the cost. President Biden boastfully claimed that the bill would create 19 million jobs “that pay well.” That could possibly represent value for money at $118,000 a job. However, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had to contradict his boss, recognizing that this figure included over 16 million jobs that would be created anyway. As Reason ’s Eric Boehm calculated, that puts the dollar figure per job created at over $800,000. It’s not quite the $2 million per job created by Los Angeles after the Obama stimulus act, but it’s getting there, and on a much bigger scale. Part of the reason is that the bill doesn’t help make the building of real infrastructure projects quicker or more affordable. In fact, it doubles down on policies such as project labor agreements and “ Buy American ” requirements, while failing to do anything about the plague of permits . Perhaps the president’s old boss could remind him how those affected his stimulus bill’s supposedly shovel-ready projects . . . Robert VerBruggen : Earlier this year, when Democrats wanted to spend yet another $2 trillion on “COVID relief,” much of which wasn’t even COVID relief, some moderate Republicans made a roughly $600 billion counteroffer. I called the proposal “halfway sane”: more than we really needed to spend, but far better than what Biden had proposed. As you may recall, the Democrats went ahead and passed their own plan without Republican help, using the “reconciliation” process to avoid a filibuster. Well, now the Democrats want to spend about $2 trillion on “infrastructure,” much of which isn’t even infrastructure. And once again moderate Republicans are prepping a smaller counteroffer , likely in the range of $600–800 billion. It’s “more targeted in scope and funded by unspecified user fees,” as Politico puts it. This too is halfway sane. Our infrastructure is not in as bad of shape as some like to say, and most of our actual problems can be addressed at the local and state rather than federal level. But cutting the size of the package by two-thirds would be a victory, as would funding infrastructure with user fees rather than tax hikes on businesses. The people who actually benefit from these projects should be the ones to pay for them . . . And another i-word, inflation, made its regular appearance too. Ramesh Ponnuru : For the last eleven years or so, I’ve been writing that monetary policy is too tight. During this period, it has sometimes been a little too tight, sometimes a lot. I’ve been skeptical of claims of impending inflationary doom, and my skepticism continues to this day . So I’m on board with the starting point of Bruce Bartlett’s New Republic article : that worries about inflation are exaggerated. I don’t agree, however, with where he takes this idea. He thinks inflation hawks are self-interested capitalists and their conservative lackeys, all of them deathly afraid that wage-earners will see raises. A looser policy would have better served both capital and labor over the last decade, in my view , and it’s been mistaken ideas that have kept it from being adopted. Those ideas are not merely stalking horses for narrow economic interests. Bartlett explains that he has revised his view of Karl Marx’s thoughts on political economy upward. I don’t think the shift has improved the quality of his analysis . . . Steve Hanke was not so sanguine : On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of March. Prices increased by 0.6 percent since February, the largest monthly increase since August 2012. On a year-over-year basis, the CPI increase was 2.6 percent. Given that the CPI for March 2020 was abnormally depressed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most observers anticipated that the year-over-year increase would be elevated, but not as elevated as it actually turned out to be. I, for one, was not surprised. The dramatic growth in the U.S. money supply, when broadly measured, that began in March 2020 will do what increases in the money supply always do. Money growth will lead in the first instance (1–9 months) to asset-price inflation. Then, a second stage will set in. Over a 6–18-month period after a monetary injection occurs, economic activity will pick up. Ultimately, the prices of goods and services will increase. That usually takes between 12 and 24 months after the original monetary injection. Given this sequence, it’s as clear as the nose on your face that we’re going to see more — perhaps much more — inflation entering the system in the coming months . . . And nor was Jerry Bowyer : Inflation data updates (like shark TV programming) come in weekly spurts. Last Friday (April 9), we received the updated data for the Producer Prices Index, which tracks inflation for the cost of inputs for businesses. Then this past Tuesday, April 13, we got the star of the show, the Consumer Price Index data. Monetary policy is looking like a Great White and dollar purchasing power like an unlucky baby seal . . . Travis Nix took aim at the proposed new corporate-tax regime: Joe Biden’s recently proposed “ infrastructure plan ” is a $2-trillion-dollar liberal wish list designed to transform America. The lion’s share of the bill has nothing to do with infrastructure at all, but its most damaging provision is the business-tax increases that will destroy American jobs and slow the economic recovery the U.S. desperately needs following the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of bad changes in the ironically named “American Jobs Plan.” But two stand out as particularly damaging to the U.S. economy. The plan would increase the corporate-tax rate to 28 percent, which would be the highest in the world , and it would increase the global minimum tax on American companies’ foreign earnings. Together, these changes would tank America’s ability to compete with other nations, increase the probability of companies’ shifting jobs overseas, and destroy incentives for businesses to make the job-growing and wage-growing investments that strengthen the economy. Increasing corporate taxes by 7 percentage points would kneecap the United States’ ability to compete with its biggest rivals. Including state taxes, America would have a 32.34 percent statutory corporate-tax rate. This would be the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. corporate-tax rate would be greater even than Communist China’s. Under this plan, companies would undoubtedly choose to invest overseas instead of being burdened with Biden’s sky-high taxes, and American workers would lose. And Robert VerBruggen didn’t like the thought of returning more SALT to the tax menu: “Taxed twice on the same income”: This is an argument sometimes brought out in favor of the state and local tax deduction, or SALT. But it doesn’t really hold water. It’s not problematic for different taxes, funding different services, to use the same denominator. County and municipal governments often tax the same property , for instance, and local and state governments often impose sales taxes on the same transactions. In these cases, requiring one tax to be deducted before the other was calculated would just be silly, because legislators would simply increase the second tax’s rate enough to offset the loss, leaving everything back where it started. With SALT, though, there’s no simple solution like that — federal tax rates apply across the entire nation, while state and local taxes vary from place to place. A federal deduction subsidizes places with high taxes by collecting less federal revenue from those places, while any overall rate increase will hit the whole country. Blue-state lawmakers like Nadler like SALT, and want to get rid of the cap on it, because they want that subsidy, not because it’s fair tax policy . . . Steve Hanke released his 2020 (economic) misery index: The human condition lies on a vast spectrum between “miserable” and “happy.” In the economic sphere, misery tends to flow from high inflation, steep borrowing costs, and unemployment. The surefire way to mitigate that misery is through economic growth. All else being equal, happiness tends to blossom when growth is strong, inflation and interest rates are low, and jobs are plentiful. Many countries measure and report these economic metrics regularly. Comparing them, nation by nation, can tell us a lot about where in the world people are sad or happy. Is the United States, for example, more or less miserable than other countries? Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI) gives us the answers. The first misery index was constructed by economist Arthur Okun in the 1960s to provide President Lyndon Johnson with an easily digestible snapshot of the economy. That original misery index was a simple sum of a nation’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate. The index has been modified several times, first by Robert Barro of Harvard, and then by me . . . The most miserable? Read the whole thing to discover for yourself. (Clue: It begins with a V.) Jon Hartley remembered the economist Robert Mundell, who died earlier this month: Mundell won the Nobel for his brilliant work spanning monetary policy and trade, largely published in the late 1950s and early 1960s, going back to his early days as a student at MIT and an economist at the IMF. He built one of the most influential open-economy models of the 20th century: the Mundell-Fleming model , which showed that economies could not simultaneously have fixed exchange rates, monetary autonomy, and free capital flows, also known as the “Mundell-Fleming trilemma.” He also wrote many excellent related theoretical papers on trade, including on the mobility of factors of production . On the policy side, Mundell also greatly influenced the early supply-side movement. He was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1965 to ’72, overlapping with Art Laffer, who taught at the University of Chicago from 1967 to ’76. Mundell’s influence on the Reagan era and its embrace of supply-side economics cannot be understated. However, his most famous and perhaps lasting influence came in the realm of monetary policy, as an advocate of fixed exchange rates in what he viewed were optimum currency areas . This advocacy of fixed exchange rates drew a sharp contrast with fellow UChicago economist Milton Friedman’s support for floating exchange rates . . . Benjamin Zycher discussed the dangers of Biden’s energy policy: It is not difficult to hypothesize that the OPEC+ producers have concluded that prospective competition from U.S. oil producers will prove less important than was the case during the Trump administration, due far more to political constraints on expanded U.S. production than any inherent reluctance to produce on the part of U.S. oil companies. In other words, the clear animosity of the current governing majority toward fossil energy, which was made very clear early in the campaign (and, of course, has been reflected in deeds as well as words since President Biden took office), is likely to have led OPEC+ to conclude that they can grab market share with less fear of a sharp price decline from increased in U.S. production. After all, the Saudi argument that “the glory days of U.S. shale . . . are never coming back” would make little sense otherwise. There is no reason to believe that U.S. producers systematically have weaker foresight with respect to the evolution of market conditions than anyone else. Moreover, because the production and consumption of fossil fuel reserves are “substitutable” over time (they can take place during the current time period or during a future one), the market price today is the competitive expectation of the future price, on the basis of all available information. Accordingly, U.S. producers can form expectations and make plans just as rationally as any others. They know that prices can be volatile, that they can be depressed by unexpected events (e.g., COVID), that OPEC+ can increase output unexpectedly. Those realities were just as true before the pandemic as after. All producers must make judgments about the long-term “steady state” price and the efficiency of investments at that price. The real question is whether U.S. policies will ratify the strong OPEC+ preference that competition from U.S. producers be suppressed artificially. Any such suppression would reduce U.S. national wealth and increase that of foreign producers. And for what? Were the Biden net-zero policy to be implemented immediately, the effect on global temperatures in 2100 would be 0.104 degrees C (using the Environmental Protection Agency climate model ), an impact that would not be detectable given the natural variation in temperatures. (The entire Paris agreement if implemented immediately, would reduce global temperatures by 0.17 degrees C by 2100.) The reality is that the crusade against fossil fuels — the effort to make the U.S. poorer in favor of others — has nothing to do with environmental quality. It is wholly an ideological imperative, not a very convincing rationale for imposing losses upon Americans. Wayne Winegarden queried the record of ESG funds: This recent outperformance does not provide any information regarding how ESG funds will perform over the long term. In fact, the long-term performance does not match these short-term results. For example, a 2017 study in a top finance journal examined 2,000 funds engaging in social investing. Unlike past studies that bluntly classified funds as either socially responsible or conventional, the authors created a methodology to capture the varying degrees of social responsibility of these funds. Summarizing the results of this study, Kenneth Kim of EQIS Capital Management noted that the results conclusively showed that “when investing in SRI [socially responsible investing] or CSR [corporate social responsibility] funds, one should expect some underperformance.” ESG funds also contain unidentified risks that often go undiscussed. In a study I performed , ESG funds allocated 37 percent of their portfolio toward their top 10 holdings on average, compared with 21 percent for a broad-based S&P 500 index fund. The higher exposure to the top ten holdings means that the returns of ESG funds are more dependent on the performance of relatively fewer stocks. This concentration significantly reduces the benefits that ought to flow from diversification. For instance, broad-based ESG funds that shun fossil-fuel companies but have greater exposure to the FAANG stocks would have performed very well in 2020. In this case, shunning fossil-fuel investments improved financial returns. While excluding certain investments may have enhanced past results, these trends change. The caveat “past performance is not indicative of future results” is apropos . . . And Richard Lindzen and William Happer pondered how much of a climate “emergency” there really is: No scientist familiar with radiation transfer denies that more carbon dioxide is likely to cause some surface warming. But the warming would be small and benign. In fact, history shows that warmings of a few degrees Celsius — which extended growing seasons — have been good for humanity. The golden age of classical Roman civilization occurred during a warm period. Cooling periods, which were accompanied by barbarian invasions, famines, and plagues, have been bad. Barbara Tuchman characterizes such periods as “the calamitous 14th century” in her book, A Distant Mirror . More carbon dioxide will certainly increase the productivity of agriculture and forestry. Over the past century, the earth has already become noticeably greener as a result of the modest increase of CO 2 , from about 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of atmospheric molecules. More CO 2 has made a significant contribution to the increased crop yields of the past 50 years, as well. The benefits to plants of more CO 2 are documented in hundreds of scientific studies. Water vapor, and the clouds that condense from it, warm the earth’s surface at least four times more than does carbon dioxide. Paleoclimate data show little correlation between CO 2 and climate, suggesting that the effects of CO 2 are, in fact, marginal. Doubling CO 2 concentrations alone should increase the earth’s surface temperature by about 1 C. Climate crusaders use computer models that include clouds, convective heat transfer in the atmosphere and oceans, and other factors to claim that “positive feedbacks” increase the predicted warming to 4.5 C or more. Supposedly, the direct consequences of any change are amplified. This would violate Le Chatelier’s principle that says “when a settled system is disturbed, it will adjust to diminish the change that has been made to it.” Crusaders like to claim that the climate violates Le Chatelier’s principle and has “tipping points.” Given the much higher and changing levels of carbon dioxide that prevailed over much of the earth’s history, it is unlikely that life would have survived if such tipping points existed . . . Finally, we produced the Capital Note , our “daily” (well, Tuesday–Friday, anyway). Topics covered included: the history of Nuance’s Dragon brand, J&J vaccine halted, Jack Ma capitulates, W. Brian Arthur on “Economics in Nouns and Verbs , corporatism in action, trusting China on the environment, the rise of retail investors (continued), France moves toward a ban on short-haul flights, coffee and interstates , Coinbase’s crypto correlation, another tech IPO, consumer borrowing stalls, a look back at the Bitcoin white paper , the Chamber of Commerce’s hedge, pruned, Coinbase, crytoptimists, combining the essence of two old crises to make a new one, and inflation . More from National Review Central Bankers – The (Latest) Unacknowledged Legislators of the World Yellen’s (Proposed) Tax Cartel The Fed’s Shabby Green Logic || Canada Approves First Direct Custody ETH ETF in the World Through Purpose Investments: The Canadian Securities regulators have approved the first ever direct custody Ether ETF in the World through Purpose Investments. The Purpose Ether ETF will offer exposure to physically settled Ether tokens. Investors will be able to invest through Canadian dollar hedged units, Canadian dollar non-currency hedged units, and U.S dollar units. Ethereum ecosystem spurring adoption CEO and founder of Purpose Investments, Som Seif believes that while bitcoin gets a lot of attention, ethereum is the one of most exciting new technology visions in today’s society. “By launching the first ETF in the world that directly owns and provides exposure to Ether, we are enabling every investor to have access to this unique opportunity and ecosystem.” Seif stated . The Purpose of the ether ETF is to offer investors the chance to invest directly into physically settled ether. Mitigating the risk of having investors store the assets in their own wallets. The company will be assisted by Ether Capital Corporation as a consultant to Purpose Investments. Speaking about the partnership related to the new ether ETF, CEO of Ether Capital Brian Mosoff stated that “We focused on addressing key issues relating to Ether custody, transactions and liquidity. Ether is the cryptocurrency we believe has the most potential for the future and is where our expertise really lies. Building this ETF is not only a natural extension to the Purpose Investments digital asset lineup, but a natural fit for us at Ether Capital working alongside Purpose.” Ethereum holdings will be stored in cold storage. Purpose Investments will utilize Gemini Trust Company to assist in the storage process. The same method the company uses for its bitcoin ETF. Bitcoin ETF popularity sees Ether ETF following The move now means Purpose Investments has the world’s first bitcoin and ethereum ETFs. Purpose Investments launched the bitcoin ETF back in February 2021. The bitcoin ETF has already attracted more than $1.4 billion in assets since its launch. The latest ETF will likely spur more adoption among investors looking to gain access to cryptocurrency markets. The news comes several days after Coinbase successfully completed its public listing on the Nasdaq. Following a first quarter that has seen the cryptocurrency market rally to new highs, investors will be looking to get in on the action through less risky exchanges. Big News: #Ether ETFs have just been approved in Canada. @Gemini is the sole custodian and service provider for every #BTC and #ETH ETF in North America. Check out #GeminiFundSolutions . Congrats all! To the moon! pic.twitter.com/1NYfNs6meU — Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) April 16, 2021 View comments || Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows: Bitcoin’s price rally in the days leading up to Coinbase’s hotly anticipated debut on the Nasdaq this week was largely driven by retail traders eager to get in on the action while whales were happy to take their money and swim away, blockchain data shows.
The number of unique addresses holding at least 0.01 coins rose from 8.96 million to over 9 million in the five days to April 14, alongsidebitcoin‘s ascent from $59,000 to a record high of $64,801.79, according to data provided by the blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The count of addresses with non-zero balance and ones holding least 0.1 coins also rose in tandem with the price.
Meanwhile, those with a minimum balance of 1,000 BTC – also known as the “Rich List” – dropped from 2,240 to 2,228. The tally of “whole coiners,” or addresses with a minimum balance of one coin, fell amid the price rise.
Related:Bloomberg's McGlone Warns of ‘Predominant Deflationary Forces’
“The pre-Coinbase IPO rally was driven by retail investors, in mass,” Flex Yang, CEO of Hong Kong-based Babel Finance, said in an email. “We saw that the continuing decline of whales on the network further indicated that the decentralization of the Bitcoin network was really taking place.”
Some readers may argue that the diverging trends in the growth of small and large balance addresses may mearly represent the trend of whales holding coins in several addresses to mitigate hacking risks. A single user can store coins in multiple addresses. Similarly, exchange addresses have coins belonging to more than one individual.
However, Glassnode’s whale entities metric, which clusters crypto wallet addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 bitcoin to provide a more precise estimate of the actual number of holders, also points to continued liquidation by large traders during the cryptocurrency’s move to record highs.
The number of whale entities fell to a 3.5-month low of 2,228 on April 14. The metric decoupled from the rising price in February and dropped by 10% to 2,232 seen in the seven weeks to March 31.
Related:Web 3.0 Is Coming for the Sharing Economy
It shows retail investors’ high level of engagement began in the first quarter and continues to the present.
Some observers, however, say these charts do not provide sufficient information, leaving the doors open for guesswork.
“The whale entities chart could show that smaller retail investors are purchasing bitcoin, and large holders are selling into that rally,” Gavin Smith, CEO of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Panxora, told CoinDesk in LinkedIn chat. “It could also be showing that a smaller number of large investors is buying bitcoin, so the large entities’ concentration is increasing.”
According to Smith, the latter is the case. “We are seeing some very large investors moving into the market, and their assets are concentrated in a small number of fund and custodial accounts. Retail involvement has been lower this cycle than in 2017,” Smith said.
Also read:Week in Review: Turkey’s Crypto Payments Ban, Morgan Stanley, Coinbase, Markets Check and More
Whatever the case, the path of least resistance for bitcoin remains on the higher side, as the “suits [institutions] are here to stay,” as CoinDesk’s research analysts noted in the first quarter review. Options traders continue to accumulate the $80,000 call option in a sign of strengthening bullish conviction on the top cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is trading near $61,000 at press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
• Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows
• Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows || Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows: Bitcoin’s price rally in the days leading up to Coinbase’s hotly anticipated debut on the Nasdaq this week was largely driven by retail traders eager to get in on the action while whales were happy to take their money and swim away, blockchain data shows. The number of unique addresses holding at least 0.01 coins rose from 8.96 million to over 9 million in the five days to April 14, alongside bitcoin ‘s ascent from $59,000 to a record high of $64,801.79, according to data provided by the blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The count of addresses with non-zero balance and ones holding least 0.1 coins also rose in tandem with the price. Meanwhile, those with a minimum balance of 1,000 BTC – also known as the “Rich List” – dropped from 2,240 to 2,228. The tally of “whole coiners,” or addresses with a minimum balance of one coin, fell amid the price rise. Related: Bloomberg's McGlone Warns of ‘Predominant Deflationary Forces’ “The pre-Coinbase IPO rally was driven by retail investors, in mass,” Flex Yang, CEO of Hong Kong-based Babel Finance, said in an email. “We saw that the continuing decline of whales on the network further indicated that the decentralization of the Bitcoin network was really taking place.” Some readers may argue that the diverging trends in the growth of small and large balance addresses may mearly represent the trend of whales holding coins in several addresses to mitigate hacking risks. A single user can store coins in multiple addresses. Similarly, exchange addresses have coins belonging to more than one individual. However, Glassnode’s whale entities metric, which clusters crypto wallet addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 bitcoin to provide a more precise estimate of the actual number of holders, also points to continued liquidation by large traders during the cryptocurrency’s move to record highs. Story continues The number of whale entities fell to a 3.5-month low of 2,228 on April 14. The metric decoupled from the rising price in February and dropped by 10% to 2,232 seen in the seven weeks to March 31. Related: Web 3.0 Is Coming for the Sharing Economy It shows retail investors’ high level of engagement began in the first quarter and continues to the present. Some observers, however, say these charts do not provide sufficient information, leaving the doors open for guesswork. “The whale entities chart could show that smaller retail investors are purchasing bitcoin, and large holders are selling into that rally,” Gavin Smith, CEO of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Panxora, told CoinDesk in LinkedIn chat. “It could also be showing that a smaller number of large investors is buying bitcoin, so the large entities’ concentration is increasing.” According to Smith, the latter is the case. “We are seeing some very large investors moving into the market, and their assets are concentrated in a small number of fund and custodial accounts. Retail involvement has been lower this cycle than in 2017,” Smith said. Also read: Week in Review: Turkey’s Crypto Payments Ban, Morgan Stanley, Coinbase, Markets Check and More Whatever the case, the path of least resistance for bitcoin remains on the higher side, as the “suits [institutions] are here to stay,” as CoinDesk’s research analysts noted in the first quarter review. Options traders continue to accumulate the $80,000 call option in a sign of strengthening bullish conviction on the top cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is trading near $61,000 at press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data. Related Stories Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows || Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows: Bitcoin’s price rally in the days leading up to Coinbase’s hotly anticipated debut on the Nasdaq this week was largely driven by retail traders eager to get in on the action while whales were happy to take their money and swim away, blockchain data shows.
The number of unique addresses holding at least 0.01 coins rose from 8.96 million to over 9 million in the five days to April 14, alongsidebitcoin‘s ascent from $59,000 to a record high of $64,801.79, according to data provided by the blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The count of addresses with non-zero balance and ones holding least 0.1 coins also rose in tandem with the price.
Meanwhile, those with a minimum balance of 1,000 BTC – also known as the “Rich List” – dropped from 2,240 to 2,228. The tally of “whole coiners,” or addresses with a minimum balance of one coin, fell amid the price rise.
Related:Bloomberg's McGlone Warns of ‘Predominant Deflationary Forces’
“The pre-Coinbase IPO rally was driven by retail investors, in mass,” Flex Yang, CEO of Hong Kong-based Babel Finance, said in an email. “We saw that the continuing decline of whales on the network further indicated that the decentralization of the Bitcoin network was really taking place.”
Some readers may argue that the diverging trends in the growth of small and large balance addresses may mearly represent the trend of whales holding coins in several addresses to mitigate hacking risks. A single user can store coins in multiple addresses. Similarly, exchange addresses have coins belonging to more than one individual.
However, Glassnode’s whale entities metric, which clusters crypto wallet addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 bitcoin to provide a more precise estimate of the actual number of holders, also points to continued liquidation by large traders during the cryptocurrency’s move to record highs.
The number of whale entities fell to a 3.5-month low of 2,228 on April 14. The metric decoupled from the rising price in February and dropped by 10% to 2,232 seen in the seven weeks to March 31.
Related:Web 3.0 Is Coming for the Sharing Economy
It shows retail investors’ high level of engagement began in the first quarter and continues to the present.
Some observers, however, say these charts do not provide sufficient information, leaving the doors open for guesswork.
“The whale entities chart could show that smaller retail investors are purchasing bitcoin, and large holders are selling into that rally,” Gavin Smith, CEO of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Panxora, told CoinDesk in LinkedIn chat. “It could also be showing that a smaller number of large investors is buying bitcoin, so the large entities’ concentration is increasing.”
According to Smith, the latter is the case. “We are seeing some very large investors moving into the market, and their assets are concentrated in a small number of fund and custodial accounts. Retail involvement has been lower this cycle than in 2017,” Smith said.
Also read:Week in Review: Turkey’s Crypto Payments Ban, Morgan Stanley, Coinbase, Markets Check and More
Whatever the case, the path of least resistance for bitcoin remains on the higher side, as the “suits [institutions] are here to stay,” as CoinDesk’s research analysts noted in the first quarter review. Options traders continue to accumulate the $80,000 call option in a sign of strengthening bullish conviction on the top cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is trading near $61,000 at press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
• Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows
• Retail Traders Drove Bitcoin Higher Leading Up to Coinbase Listing, Data Shows || If You Invested $1,000 In Cronos Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now: Investors who have owned stocks in the last year have generally experienced some big gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY ) total return over the last 12 months is 47.3%. But there is no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way. Cronos’ Disappointing Road: One company that has been a lackluster investment in the last year has been Canadian cannabis producer Cronos Group Inc (NASDAQ: CRON ). Cronos battled a difficult Canadian cannabis market throughout 2020. In February, the company reported an impressive 133% sales growth. Adjusted EBITDA losses in the company’s international business narrowed, while U.S. losses widened. Cronos also recently announced that it could launch lab-grown cannabis by the end of 2021. Assuming the quality is comparable to the existing product, lab-grown cannabis could potentially significantly reduce production costs for Cronos, helping improve the company’s bottom line. Cronos reported a $73 million net loss in 2020. Cronos has the financial backing of tobacco giant Altria Group Inc (NYSE: MO ), which owns nearly 50% of Cronos. Altria’s support has allowed Cronos to operate with one of the strongest balance sheets in the cannabis space. Learn more: How To Invest In Cannabis Stocks However, Cronos shares are also priced at a steep premium to many of its Canadian peers at more than 63 times sales. At the beginning of 2020, Cronos shares were trading at around $7.90. By the beginning of March, the stock was down to $5.89 after news of COVID-19 spreading in China prompted concerns about a U.S. pandemic. Cronos bottomed at $4 during the pandemic-driven March sell-off. Fortunately for Cronos investors, the sell-off didn’t last long. By June, Cronos shares made it back up to $8/13, but the rally stalled at that point until the November U.S. presidential election. Related Link: If You Invested ,000 In Tilray Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now The victory of Joe Biden, a Democrat, and a surprise blue wave gave the party control of both the Senate and House, sending cannabis stocks soaring on optimism that U.S. cannabis legalization may be just around the corner. Story continues Cronos In 2021, Beyond: The stock ultimately peaked at $15.83 in February 2021 during a retail investor-fueled short squeeze before pulling back to around $8.25. Traders may be taking profits on Cronos’ big post-election run. Or they may simply see a lack of progress on U.S. legalization and more lackluster growth numbers from the Canadian market as reasons to be skeptical of the stock in the near term. Cronos investors who bought one year ago and held on through the volatility have still made a decent return. In fact, $1,000 in Cronos stock bought on April 14, 2020, would be worth about $1,378 today. Looking ahead, analysts are expecting only modest gains for Cronos in the next 12 months. The average price target among the 10 analysts covering the stock is $8.45, suggesting 12.7% upside from current levels. (Photo by Esteban Lopez on Unsplash ) See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga If You Invested ,000 In Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin And Other Cryptos 5 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now 'Four Horsemen' Driving The Retail Trading Euphoria: SPACs, Stonks, Cryptos And NFTs © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || If You Invested $1,000 In Cronos Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now: Investors who have owned stocks in the last year have generally experienced some big gains. In fact, theSPDR S&P 500(NYSE:SPY) total return over the last 12 months is 47.3%. But there is no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way.
Cronos’ Disappointing Road:One company that has been a lackluster investment in the last year has been Canadian cannabis producerCronos Group Inc(NASDAQ:CRON).
Cronos battled a difficult Canadian cannabis market throughout 2020. In February, the company reported an impressive 133% sales growth. Adjusted EBITDA losses in the company’s international business narrowed, while U.S. losses widened.
Cronos also recently announced that it could launch lab-grown cannabis by the end of 2021. Assuming the quality is comparable to the existing product, lab-grown cannabis could potentially significantly reduce production costs for Cronos, helping improve the company’s bottom line. Cronos reported a $73 million net loss in 2020.
Cronos has the financial backing of tobacco giantAltria Group Inc(NYSE:MO), which owns nearly 50% of Cronos. Altria’s support has allowed Cronos to operate with one of the strongest balance sheets in the cannabis space.
Learn more:How To Invest In Cannabis Stocks
However, Cronos shares are also priced at a steep premium to many of its Canadian peers at more than 63 times sales.
At the beginning of 2020, Cronos shares were trading at around $7.90. By the beginning of March, the stock was down to $5.89 after news of COVID-19 spreading in China prompted concerns about a U.S. pandemic.
Cronos bottomed at $4 during the pandemic-driven March sell-off. Fortunately for Cronos investors, the sell-off didn’t last long.
By June, Cronos shares made it back up to $8/13, but the rally stalled at that point until the November U.S. presidential election.
Related Link:If You Invested ,000 In Tilray Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now
The victory of Joe Biden, a Democrat, and a surprise blue wave gave the party control of both the Senate and House, sending cannabis stocks soaring on optimism that U.S. cannabis legalization may be just around the corner.
Cronos In 2021, Beyond:The stock ultimately peaked at $15.83 in February 2021 during a retail investor-fueled short squeeze before pulling back to around $8.25. Traders may be taking profits on Cronos’ big post-election run. Or they may simply see a lack of progress on U.S. legalization and more lackluster growth numbers from the Canadian market as reasons to be skeptical of the stock in the near term.
Cronos investors who bought one year ago and held on through the volatility have still made a decent return. In fact, $1,000 in Cronos stock bought on April 14, 2020, would be worth about $1,378 today.
Looking ahead, analysts are expecting only modest gains for Cronos in the next 12 months. The average price target among the 10 analysts covering the stock is $8.45, suggesting 12.7% upside from current levels.
(Photo byEsteban LopezonUnsplash)
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• If You Invested ,000 In Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin And Other Cryptos 5 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now
• 'Four Horsemen' Driving The Retail Trading Euphoria: SPACs, Stonks, Cryptos And NFTs
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Surpasses Facebook in Market Capitalization at $1.14 Trillion: Bitcoin (BTC) has surpassed leading social media platform Facebook in value by market capitalization.
A Tweetfrom Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) earlier on Saturday morning brought this to his followers’ attention. The Tweetlinks to datathat shows that BTC, already the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, now ranks 6th in the world for all companies. With a market cap of over $1.1 trillion as of April 17th, BTC beats out Facebook’s $869 billion. It now only ranks below Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
CZrevealed in an interviewearlier this month that almost 100% of his net worth, nearly $2 billion, is invested in cryptocurrency.
BTC has been reaching for new all-time highs all week this week. A trend that began as the cryptocurrencyrose above the $60,000 mark. Attempts from the previous weekend and even on Monday were hindered by a resistance area. Not for long, however — it smashed through on Wednesday tohit a new ATHof $64,854.
This may sound all well and good, but in some parts of the world, it is not looking so positive for BTC. For example, in Turkey. It wasreported on Fridaythat the Central Bank of Turkey has enacted a ban on cryptocurrency payments. A ban that some are speculating to be the cause in a price drop in BTC and Ether (ETH). Following the news of the ban, BTC fell by 4.6%.
It’s not all about BTC. It has been an eventful week for altcoins and exchange platforms as well, in terms of gains and market caps.
The meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), for example, soared in value this week in a series of all-time highs. It shattered previous records, rising a total of330% between Apr 9 and 16, with an ATH of $0.48.Helped along by a Tweetfrom Tesla CEO Elon Musk that went out on Thursday. All this has placed DOGE in the Top 10 crypto assets by market cap. Currently in 8th place as of April 17th, DOGE’s market cap is at the $38 billion mark.
Not an inconsiderable way ahead at $63 billion market cap is Coinbase. The cryptocurrency trading platform made its debut on the stock market this week. It closed its first day of trading at $328, over 30% more than the IPO’s reference price, following that with $323 on the second day. || Bitcoin Surpasses Facebook in Market Capitalization at $1.14 Trillion: Bitcoin (BTC) has surpassed leading social media platform Facebook in value by market capitalization. A Tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) earlier on Saturday morning brought this to his followers attention. The Tweet links to data that shows that BTC, already the worlds most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, now ranks 6th in the world for all companies. With a market cap of over $1.1 trillion as of April 17th, BTC beats out Facebooks $869 billion. It now only ranks below Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. CZ revealed in an interview earlier this month that almost 100% of his net worth, nearly $2 billion, is invested in cryptocurrency. Is it all good for BTC? BTC has been reaching for new all-time highs all week this week. A trend that began as the cryptocurrency rose above the $60,000 mark . Attempts from the previous weekend and even on Monday were hindered by a resistance area. Not for long, however it smashed through on Wednesday to hit a new ATH of $64,854. This may sound all well and good, but in some parts of the world, it is not looking so positive for BTC. For example, in Turkey. It was reported on Friday that the Central Bank of Turkey has enacted a ban on cryptocurrency payments. A ban that some are speculating to be the cause in a price drop in BTC and Ether (ETH). Following the news of the ban, BTC fell by 4.6%. Other crypto market cap milestones Its not all about BTC. It has been an eventful week for altcoins and exchange platforms as well, in terms of gains and market caps. The meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), for example, soared in value this week in a series of all-time highs. It shattered previous records, rising a total of 330% between Apr 9 and 16 , with an ATH of $0.48. Helped along by a Tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk that went out on Thursday. All this has placed DOGE in the Top 10 crypto assets by market cap. Currently in 8th place as of April 17th, DOGEs market cap is at the $38 billion mark. Not an inconsiderable way ahead at $63 billion market cap is Coinbase. The cryptocurrency trading platform made its debut on the stock market this week. It closed its first day of trading at $328, over 30% more than the IPOs reference price, following that with $323 on the second day. || Bitcoin Surpasses Facebook in Market Capitalization at $1.14 Trillion: Bitcoin (BTC) has surpassed leading social media platform Facebook in value by market capitalization.
A Tweetfrom Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) earlier on Saturday morning brought this to his followers’ attention. The Tweetlinks to datathat shows that BTC, already the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, now ranks 6th in the world for all companies. With a market cap of over $1.1 trillion as of April 17th, BTC beats out Facebook’s $869 billion. It now only ranks below Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
CZrevealed in an interviewearlier this month that almost 100% of his net worth, nearly $2 billion, is invested in cryptocurrency.
BTC has been reaching for new all-time highs all week this week. A trend that began as the cryptocurrencyrose above the $60,000 mark. Attempts from the previous weekend and even on Monday were hindered by a resistance area. Not for long, however — it smashed through on Wednesday tohit a new ATHof $64,854.
This may sound all well and good, but in some parts of the world, it is not looking so positive for BTC. For example, in Turkey. It wasreported on Fridaythat the Central Bank of Turkey has enacted a ban on cryptocurrency payments. A ban that some are speculating to be the cause in a price drop in BTC and Ether (ETH). Following the news of the ban, BTC fell by 4.6%.
It’s not all about BTC. It has been an eventful week for altcoins and exchange platforms as well, in terms of gains and market caps.
The meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), for example, soared in value this week in a series of all-time highs. It shattered previous records, rising a total of330% between Apr 9 and 16, with an ATH of $0.48.Helped along by a Tweetfrom Tesla CEO Elon Musk that went out on Thursday. All this has placed DOGE in the Top 10 crypto assets by market cap. Currently in 8th place as of April 17th, DOGE’s market cap is at the $38 billion mark.
Not an inconsiderable way ahead at $63 billion market cap is Coinbase. The cryptocurrency trading platform made its debut on the stock market this week. It closed its first day of trading at $328, over 30% more than the IPO’s reference price, following that with $323 on the second day. || Avoid Overvalued Coinbase: Buy These 10 Best Crypto, Bitcoin Stocks Instead: In this article we will take a look at the 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of overvalued Coinbase. You can skip our comprehensive analysis of the crypto industry and go directly to the5 Best Crypto, Bitcoin Stocks to Buy Instead of Overvalued Coinbase.
San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN) went public on April 15 with a market capitalization of $86 billion. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong became one of the richest men in the world after the listing, with some 40 million shares he owns in the firm equating to almost $16 billion in value. The company was founded by Armstrong in 2012 and is one of the largest crypto exchange platforms globally and facilitates the buying, selling, and storage of digital currencies, including giants like bitcoin and ethereum.
The platform has more than 56 million users internationally out of which more than 6 million use the exchange every month. On the back of increasing trade, the firm generated more than $1 billion in annual revenue last year, up more than 135% compared to the preceding year as the pandemic boosted cryptocurrency-linked platforms. It has so far hosted transactions worth more than $335 billion from more than a hundred countries.
News media hasdescribedthe public listing of Coinbase as a watershed moment for the crypto industry that will usher in the crypto gold rush and make the new technology mainstream. However, there is reason to exercise extreme caution as reckless finance advisors bully investors into betting on crypto. There are several reasons for this. Coinbase was valued at over $85 billion when it listed, a capitalization that stock experts believe is overvalued. Peter Cohan, an American businessmen and financial expert, hastermedthe firm not worth the price.
The numbers would seem to back this opinion. Coinbase, on the day it went public, was valued near the market cap of investment bank HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE:HSBC) and larger than other traditional names in the banking industry like UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) and Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE:SAN). These banks have trillions of dollarsworthof assets under their care and have years of experience of how to turn them into profits. The higher valuation of Coinbase seems a little confusing in this context.
David Trainer, the CEO of investment research firm New Constructs, has compared the valuation of Coinbase to the boom in aviation and auto manufacturing industry over the early part of the second half of the twentieth century, saying that many companies were valued highly at the time but precious few have survived. However, even though Coinbase may be overvalued, there is still reason to be bullish on the crypto industry in general. The momentum that seemed to have favored traditional finance in the battle against fintech is definitely shifting.
The entire hedge fund industry is feeling the reverberations of the changing financial landscape. Its reputation has been tarnished in the last decade, during which its hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. On the other hand, Insider Monkey’s research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017. Between March 2017 and February 26th 2021 our monthly newsletter’s stock picks returned 197.2%, vs. 72.4% for the SPY. Our stock picks outperformed the market by more than 124 percentage points (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that significantly underperformed the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 16th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. You can subscribe to our free newsletter on our homepage to receive our stories in your inbox.
With this context in mind, here is our list of 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of the overvalued Coinbase.
Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) is a Colorado-based Bitcoin mining company. The firm supports Bitcoin blockchain through the industrial-scale mining of the cryptocurrency. Riot employs more than 7,000 miners for the purpose and is currently based in the United States only. The company is one of the largest publicly traded crypto mining operations in the world and has plans to expand to countries outside the US in the future. It is placed tenth on our list of 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of the overvalued Coinbase.
It has a market cap of more than $4.2 billion and reported more than $12 million in annual revenue in December 2020, up almost $6 million to the previous year. The 52-week price range of company stock hovers between $5.3-$0.6. Earlier this month, Riot announced that it had acquired Whinstone US, a firm operating colocation data centers for cryptocurrency mining. The share price of Riot stock jumped more than 5.5% earlier in the week after it announced that its March Bitcoin production had risen 80% compared to the previous year.
HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSXV: HIVE.V) is a Vancouver-based company focused on the use of supercomputing assets and cloud software for the mining of popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin. The company says that the operations provide shareholders of the firm an inroad into the margins associated with crypto mining. The share price of the firm is closely linked to Bitcoin and as Bitcoin prices rise, HIVE stock skyrockets as well. It is placed ninth on our list of 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of the overvalued coinbase.
The company has a market cap of more than $1.2 billion and posted more than $29 million in annual revenue in March 2020, down slightly from $31 million the year before. The 52-week price range of HIVE stock lies between $5.75 and $0.16. Last month, the firm announced that it inked a strategic partnership deal with financial services firm DeFi Technologies for a share swap arrangement. Under the deal, HIVE would receive 10 million DeFi shares for 4 million HIVE shares. The transaction is expected to be complete by the end of this week.
Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA) is a Las Vegas-based firm that mines cryptocurrencies. It concentrates on the blockchain ecosystem and digital assets The company has plans to expand current operations of more than 2,600 Bitcoin miners to 103,000 miners in the coming years. The proprietary data center of Marathon, located in Hardin MT, has a maximum power capacity of 105 Megawatts. The company is placed eighth on our list of 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of the overvalued Coinbase.
The firm has a market cap of more than $4.25 billion and posted more than $4 million in annual revenue in December 2020. The 52-week share price of the firm tell a story of every other cryptocurrency firm, a high-risk, high-reward game, as it hovers between $57.7 and $0.3. Last month, the company announced that it had entered into a deal with crypto technology firm DMG Blockchain Solutions to license proprietary Blockseer technology of DMG for crypto miners in North America. Marathon has also launched a North American Bitcoin mining pool.
Argo Blockchain plc (LSE: ARB.L) is a London-based cryptocurrency firm that focuses on large scale mining of digital currencies. The mining operations of the firm are located in locations scattered the United States and Canada. The firm claims that the operations it engages in are more energy-efficient mining - crypto mining consumes a lot of electricity - than those of other firms. These efficiencies translate to better overall margins for the firm in the longer term, something it markets to potential investors across the world.
It has a market cap of more than $1.05 billion and posted close to $6.8 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2020, down slightly from $6.9 reported in the preceding quarter. The 52-week price range of company stock is $4.6-$0.9. In January, the firm reported that it had mined 96 Bitcoin in December 2020, down from 115 Bitcoin mined in the previous month. Peter Wall, the CEO of Argo, said the firm was excited as the crypto market had entered the new year on a roll and more widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies was expected in the year.
Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ: CAN) is a China-based technology firm that makes computer hardware like microprocessors. The company specializes in Blockchain servers and microchip solutions for use in bitcoin mining. It is also involved in the assembly, supply chain, and distribution of system products. The firm has stakes in the artificial intelligence and data center business as well. It was founded in 2013 and is placed eight on our list of 10 best crypto, bitcoin stocks to buy instead of the overvalued Coinbase.
It has a market cap of more than $2.1 billion and posted more than $68.5 million in annual revenue in December 2020, down more than $140 million from the previous year as the pandemic hit the sales of the firm. The shares of the firm have been soaring on the back of rising Bitcoin prices. The 52-week price range of company stock lies between $39.1 and $1.7. On April 15, a law firm announced that a group of investors may initiate class action against the firm for alleged securities fraud.
Click to continue reading and see5 Best Crypto, Bitcoin Stocks to Buy Instead of Overvalued Coinbase.
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Disclosure: None.10 Best Crypto, Bitcoin Stocks to Buy Instead of Overvalued Coinbaseis originally published on Insider Monkey.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92, 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18, 55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40, 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-05-17]
Volume: 74903638450, RSI (14-day): 30.03, 50-day EMA: 53933.63, 200-day EMA: 42199.22
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1867.50, Gold RSI: 72.39
Oil Price: 66.27, Oil RSI: 60.06
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin tumbles after Musk implies Tesla may sell cryptocurrency: Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.
Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire chief executive of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5-billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. Sunday in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of bitcoin in hours Wednesday after sayingTesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted “Saturday Night Live” and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a “hustle,” denting its price. Days later hetweetedhe was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.
Musk’sdisclosurein early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy bitcoin sent the token’s price to a record high and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism.
His latest dust-up with bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him...”
Musk responded, “Indeed.”
Musk spent hours Sunday hitting back at several users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldn’t be selling any bitcoin it holds.
An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with a cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with hismarket-movingtweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks as thefifth-largestby market value.
Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musk’s tweet Sunday.
Musk’s Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die-hards, the renewed slumps in bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could rise many times their current value if they transform the financial system.
“We’re looking at the long term, and so these blips, they don’t faze us,” Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. “You’re looking for the long-term opportunity, and you kind of buckle up and go for it.”
Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the last eight days. Aside from Musk’s antics that sent Doge and bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices.
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, disclosed a reservesbreakdownthat showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a long-standing critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage.
It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5-million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses.
But, “for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed,” said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. “This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever.”
Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which — unlike most traditional assets — trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoin’s average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%.
That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoin is held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets.
Bloomberg writers Vildana Hajric and Brandon Kochkodin contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times. || Bitcoin tumbles after Musk implies Tesla may sell cryptocurrency: Tweets from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk led to more bitcoin volatility. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings. Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire chief executive of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5-billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. Sunday in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday. The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of bitcoin in hours Wednesday after saying Tesla wouldnt take it for cars . A few days earlier, he hosted Saturday Night Live and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a hustle, denting its price. Days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency. Musks disclosure in early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy bitcoin sent the tokens price to a record high and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism. His latest dust-up with bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldnt blame him... Musk responded, Indeed. Musk spent hours Sunday hitting back at several users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldnt be selling any bitcoin it holds. Story continues An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with a cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with his market-moving tweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks as the fifth-largest by market value. Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com. Tesla didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musks tweet Sunday. Musks Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die-hards, the renewed slumps in bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could rise many times their current value if they transform the financial system. Were looking at the long term, and so these blips, they dont faze us, Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. Youre looking for the long-term opportunity, and you kind of buckle up and go for it. Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the last eight days. Aside from Musks antics that sent Doge and bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices. Tether, the worlds largest stablecoin, disclosed a reserves breakdown that showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohens Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a long-standing critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage. It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5-million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses. But, for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed, said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever. Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which unlike most traditional assets trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoins average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%. That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoin is held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets. Bloomberg writers Vildana Hajric and Brandon Kochkodin contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times . || Bitcoin tumbles after Musk implies Tesla may sell cryptocurrency: Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.
Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire chief executive of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5-billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. Sunday in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of bitcoin in hours Wednesday after sayingTesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted “Saturday Night Live” and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a “hustle,” denting its price. Days later hetweetedhe was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.
Musk’sdisclosurein early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy bitcoin sent the token’s price to a record high and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism.
His latest dust-up with bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him...”
Musk responded, “Indeed.”
Musk spent hours Sunday hitting back at several users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldn’t be selling any bitcoin it holds.
An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with a cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with hismarket-movingtweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks as thefifth-largestby market value.
Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musk’s tweet Sunday.
Musk’s Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die-hards, the renewed slumps in bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could rise many times their current value if they transform the financial system.
“We’re looking at the long term, and so these blips, they don’t faze us,” Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. “You’re looking for the long-term opportunity, and you kind of buckle up and go for it.”
Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the last eight days. Aside from Musk’s antics that sent Doge and bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices.
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, disclosed a reservesbreakdownthat showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a long-standing critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage.
It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5-million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses.
But, “for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed,” said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. “This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever.”
Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which — unlike most traditional assets — trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoin’s average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%.
That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoin is held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets.
Bloomberg writers Vildana Hajric and Brandon Kochkodin contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times. || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars.
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars.
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars.
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars.
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin Tumbles After Musk Implies Tesla May Sell Cryptocurrency: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of Bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings. Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire owner of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5 billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday. The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of Bitcoin in hours last Wednesday after saying Tesla wouldnt take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted Saturday Night Live and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a hustle, denting its price. Days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency. Musks disclosure in early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy Bitcoin sent the tokens price to record and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism. His latest dustup with Bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldnt blame him... The Tesla chief executive officer responded, Indeed. The twitter account @CryptoWhale, which calls itself a crypto analyst in its bio, also publishes a Medium blog on market and crypto trends. Musk has spent hours Sunday hitting back at several different users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on Bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process Bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldnt be selling any Bitcoin it holds. Story continues An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with his market-moving tweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks the 5th largest by market value. Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com. Tesla didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musks tweet on Sunday. Read More: Elon Musk Just Reopened an Old Wound in the Bitcoin World Musks Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die hards, the renewed slumps in Bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could many times their current value if they transform the financial system. Were looking at the long-term and so these blips, they dont faze us, Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. Youre looking for the long-term opportunity and you kind of buckle up and go for it. Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the past eight days. Aside from Musks antics that sent Doge and Bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices. Tether, the worlds largest stablecoin, disclosed a reserves breakdown that showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohens Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a longstanding critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage. It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses. But, for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed, said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever. Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which -- unlike most traditional assets -- trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoins average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%. That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoins held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Tumbles After Musk Implies Tesla May Sell Cryptocurrency: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of Bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.
Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire owner of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5 billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of Bitcoin in hours last Wednesday after saying Tesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted “Saturday Night Live” and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a “hustle,” denting its price. Days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.
Musk’s disclosure in early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy Bitcoin sent the token’s price to record and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism.
His latest dustup with Bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him...”
The Tesla chief executive officer responded, “Indeed.”
The twitter account @CryptoWhale, which calls itself a “crypto analyst” in its bio, also publishes a Medium blog on market and crypto trends.
Musk has spent hours Sunday hitting back at several different users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on Bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process Bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldn’t be selling any Bitcoin it holds.
An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with his market-moving tweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks the 5th largest by market value.
Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musk’s tweet on Sunday.
Read More: Elon Musk Just Reopened an Old Wound in the Bitcoin World
Musk’s Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die hards, the renewed slumps in Bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could many times their current value if they transform the financial system.
“We’re looking at the long-term and so these blips, they don’t faze us,” Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. “You’re looking for the long-term opportunity and you kind of buckle up and go for it.”
Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the past eight days. Aside from Musk’s antics that sent Doge and Bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices.
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, disclosed a reserves breakdown that showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a longstanding critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage.
It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses.
But, “for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed,” said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. “This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever.”
Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which -- unlike most traditional assets -- trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoin’s average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%.
That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoin’s held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets.
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com
Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Tumbles After Musk Implies Tesla May Sell Cryptocurrency: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk continued to whipsaw the price of Bitcoin, briefly sending it to the lowest since February after implying in a Twitter exchange Sunday that Tesla Inc. may sell or has sold its cryptocurrency holdings.
Bitcoin slid below $45,000 for the first time in almost three months after the billionaire owner of the electric-car maker seemed to agree with a Twitter post that said Tesla should divest what at one point was a $1.5 billion stake in the largest cryptocurrency. It traded at $45,270 as of 5:51 p.m. in New York, down about $4,000 from where it ended Friday.
The online commentary was the latest from the mercurial billionaire in a week of public statements that have roiled digital tokens. He lopped nearly $10,000 off the price of Bitcoin in hours last Wednesday after saying Tesla wouldn’t take it for cars. A few days earlier, he hosted “Saturday Night Live” and joked that Dogecoin, a token he had previously promoted, was a “hustle,” denting its price. Days later he tweeted he was working with Doge developers to improve its transaction efficiency.
Musk’s disclosure in early February that Tesla used $1.5 billion of its nearly $20 billion in corporate cash to buy Bitcoin sent the token’s price to record and lent legitimacy to electronic currencies, which have become more of a mainstream asset in recent years despite some skepticism.
His latest dustup with Bitcoin started with a tweet from a person using the handle @CryptoWhale, which said, “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him...”
The Tesla chief executive officer responded, “Indeed.”
The twitter account @CryptoWhale, which calls itself a “crypto analyst” in its bio, also publishes a Medium blog on market and crypto trends.
Musk has spent hours Sunday hitting back at several different users on Twitter who criticized his change of stance on Bitcoin last week, a move he said was sparked by environmental concerns over the power demands to process Bitcoin transactions. He said at the time that the company wouldn’t be selling any Bitcoin it holds.
An outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies with cult-like following on social media, Musk holds immense sway with his market-moving tweets. He has been touting Dogecoin and significantly elevated the profile of the coin, which started as a joke and now ranks the 5th largest by market value.
Dogecoin is down 9.6% in the last 24 hours, trading at 47 cents late Sunday afternoon, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Musk’s tweet on Sunday.
Read More: Elon Musk Just Reopened an Old Wound in the Bitcoin World
Musk’s Sunday social-media escapades were the latest chapter in one of the zaniest weeks in a crypto world famous for its wildness. For die hards, the renewed slumps in Bitcoin and other tokens have done nothing to deter crypto enthusiasts who say digital coins could many times their current value if they transform the financial system.
“We’re looking at the long-term and so these blips, they don’t faze us,” Emilie Choi, president and chief operating officer of crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., said last week on Bloomberg TV about the wild swings prevalent in the market. “You’re looking for the long-term opportunity and you kind of buckle up and go for it.”
Seat belts were needed by anyone watching the crypto world in the past eight days. Aside from Musk’s antics that sent Doge and Bitcoin on wild rides, a host of other developments pushed around prices.
Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, disclosed a reserves breakdown that showed a large portion in unspecified commercial paper. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management announced that it would begin trading cryptocurrencies. And a longstanding critique of the space reared its head again: illicit usage.
It was reported that the owners of the Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom in untraceable digital currencies to hackers that attacked its infrastructure, while Bloomberg also reported that Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service in relation to possible money-laundering and tax offenses.
But, “for many crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the long-term story has not changed,” said Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro. “This emerging asset class continues to revolutionize many aspects of financial services, and while nothing goes up in a straight line, the long-term fundamentals for crypto assets remain as solid as ever.”
Bitcoin was already swinging wildly on the weekend before Musk tweeted. The two days tend to be particularly volatile for cryptocurrencies, which -- unlike most traditional assets -- trade around the clock every day of the week. Bitcoin’s average swing on Saturdays and Sundays so far this year comes in at 4.95%.
That type of volatility is owing to a few factors: Bitcoin’s held by relatively few people, meaning that price swings can be magnified during low-volume periods. And, the market remains hugely fragmented with dozens of platforms operating under different standards. That means cryptocurrencies lack a centralized market structure akin to that of traditional assets.
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com
Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: May 16 (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: May 16 (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings. Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him
". Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism. On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency. The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Bitcoin price lower after Musk tweet: May 16 (Reuters) - The price of Bitcoin traded below $45,000 on Sunday after a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, suggested Tesla may be considering or may have sold off its bitcoin holdings.
Musk's tweet was in response to an unverified Twitter account called @CryptoWhale, which said https://bit.ly/2QsUQkw, "Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their #Bitcoin holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn't blame him…".
Musk replied https://bit.ly/33PFrgY "indeed" without specifying whether Tesla had sold off its bitcoin holdings or that he simply agreed with the sentiment that he faced criticism.
On May 12, Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin for car purchases, citing long-brewing environmental concerns for a swift reversal in the company's position on the cryptocurrency.
The Tesla boss' tweets, which had helped drive some of the gains in bitcoin in recent months, last week triggered a 17% slide in the value of the cryptocurrency when he said his company's customers would no longer be able to use bitcoin to buy its cars. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis) || Elon Musk giveth and taketh away: Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review!
Last week, I wrote about Facebook's never-ending Trump problem. This week, I'm looking at Elon Musk's wild week of whipping crypto markets.
If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from thenewsletter page, and follow my tweets@lucasmtny.
This week, Elon Musk may have crashed the crypto markets with a few tweets.
Musk has always been anything but predictable but retail and institutional investors are also anything but dismissive of his ability to pump up markets -- especially if there's a good joke to tell in the meantime. A few days after he crashed Dogecoin because of his appearance on "Saturday Night Live" where he called the currency a "hustle," he drove the price of Bitcoin -- a cryptocurrency with a $1 trillion market cap --down as much as 17% with a tweet basically noting that he now believes Bitcoin is bad for the environment and that Tesla will not be accepting Bitcoin payments for its cars after all.
Elon Musk, Technoking of Tesla, orders a halt to bitcoin car payments
The impact was immediate. Crypto investors flooded into his mentions pleading for mercy and complaining to each other in public and private that he shouldn't have been so rash. Unrelated coins across the cryptosphere dipped as investors worried whether the tweet, shipped at a tenuous moment for this bull run would drag the space down to earth. A later tweet that he was working with Dogecoin developers directly on improving its efficiency sent the joke coin (worth billions of dollars) surging and supplied crypto investors with a worrying insight that perhaps this is all just a joke to Musk.
Days later, Bitcoin has erased months of gains -- though Dogecoin isn't doing too poorly.
Musk has had his own dealings with the SEC in recent years, but his market-moving tweets have seemed dubious at times but have generally seemed to be just another case of him trolling. Tesla's investment in Bitcoin has complicated this somewhat, and while it's not known whether he actually has holdings of Dogecoin, he's certainly put himself in a less flexible legal arena when his company has a billion-dollar stake in the fortunes of Bitcoin that he seems to lord control of over with his Twitter.
Retail investors aren't used to blowing up a billionaire's mentions and eliciting a response and there's a certain irresistible power that comes with that especially for pumping nascent bets like Dogecoin, but I suspect that there's going to be some reticence among a certain class of investor to invite Musk's brand of randomized volatility into their wallets.
Image Credits:Jim Urquhart / Reuters
Here are the TechCrunch news stories that especially caught my eye this week:
Uber and Lyft supplying free rides to vaccine appointmentsIn an effort to get more Americans vaccinated, the Biden White House has partnered with Uber and Lyft allowing riders to get free rides to and from vaccination sites, covering up to $15 each way.
State attorneys tell Facebook to nix Instagram for Kids appAttorneys General representing some 44 U.S. states and territories signed a letter pressuring Facebook to abandon its plans to create a version of Instagram designed specifically for kids.
Burning Man plans for a virtual yearThe COVID-19 pandemic has taken yet another year of Burning Man away from attendees. The festival in the Nevada desert has been a favorite of high-profile tech executives, but this year they'll have to settle for a wholly virtual experience.
Ethereum creator donates $1 billion to India COVID recoveryOne of the wildest stories of the week involves the creator of Ethereum dumping billions of Dogecoin copycats that were unceremoniously gifted to his account, donating them to a host of charities. He donated some $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in total.
Amazon nukes accounts of some major Chinese sellersAlleging fake reviews and behaviors that violated its store policies, Amazon took the nuclear option on a number of massive Chinese sellers on its platform that were responsible for billions in merchandise value. Those account holders aren't too happy and Amazon isn't too repentant.
GasBuddy hits top of App StoreIn the wake of the Colonial Pipeline attack, several states in the eastern United States were left with gas shortages, pushing the gas-finding app GasBuddy to the top of the App Store for the first time ever.
Image Credits:Nigel Sussman
Some of my favorite reads from our Extra Crunch subscription service this week:
The Expensify EC-1"Let's make it clear from the outset that this story is about an expense management SaaS business calledExpensify. As you’d expect, yes, this is about the expense management market and how Expensify has grown, its technology and all of that. Normally, that would make us change the channel. But this is also a story about pirates; peer-to-peer hackers who asked, “Why not work from Thailand and dozens of countries across the globe?” and actually did it using P2P hacker culture as a model for consensus-driven decision-making — all with pre-Uber Travis Kalanick in a guest-starring role."
Is there a creed in venture capital"Entrepreneurs and investors should recognize that contracts are worth very little without the ongoing relationship management that keeps all parties aligned. Enforcement is so unusual in the world of startups that I consider it a mostly dead-end path. In my experience, good communication is the only reliable remedy.Thisis the way."
5 ways to raise your startups PR game"I get emails every week from companies coming out of stealth mode, wanting to make a splash. Or from a Series B company that’s been around for a while and hopes to improve their branding/messaging/positioning so that a new upstart doesn’t eat their lunch. How do you make a splash? How do you stay relevant?"
Again, if you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from thenewsletter page, and follow my tweets@lucasmtny. || Elon Musk giveth and taketh away: Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, I wrote about Facebook's never-ending Trump problem. This week, I'm looking at Elon Musk's wild week of whipping crypto markets. If youre reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page , and follow my tweets @lucasmtny . The big thing This week, Elon Musk may have crashed the crypto markets with a few tweets. Musk has always been anything but predictable but retail and institutional investors are also anything but dismissive of his ability to pump up markets -- especially if there's a good joke to tell in the meantime. A few days after he crashed Dogecoin because of his appearance on "Saturday Night Live" where he called the currency a "hustle," he drove the price of Bitcoin -- a cryptocurrency with a $1 trillion market cap --down as much as 17% with a tweet basically noting that he now believes Bitcoin is bad for the environment and that Tesla will not be accepting Bitcoin payments for its cars after all. Elon Musk, Technoking of Tesla, orders a halt to bitcoin car payments The impact was immediate. Crypto investors flooded into his mentions pleading for mercy and complaining to each other in public and private that he shouldn't have been so rash. Unrelated coins across the cryptosphere dipped as investors worried whether the tweet, shipped at a tenuous moment for this bull run would drag the space down to earth. A later tweet that he was working with Dogecoin developers directly on improving its efficiency sent the joke coin (worth billions of dollars) surging and supplied crypto investors with a worrying insight that perhaps this is all just a joke to Musk. Days later, Bitcoin has erased months of gains -- though Dogecoin isn't doing too poorly. Musk has had his own dealings with the SEC in recent years, but his market-moving tweets have seemed dubious at times but have generally seemed to be just another case of him trolling. Tesla's investment in Bitcoin has complicated this somewhat, and while it's not known whether he actually has holdings of Dogecoin, he's certainly put himself in a less flexible legal arena when his company has a billion-dollar stake in the fortunes of Bitcoin that he seems to lord control of over with his Twitter. Story continues Retail investors aren't used to blowing up a billionaire's mentions and eliciting a response and there's a certain irresistible power that comes with that especially for pumping nascent bets like Dogecoin, but I suspect that there's going to be some reticence among a certain class of investor to invite Musk's brand of randomized volatility into their wallets. pic.twitter.com/4OC3CEKozo Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2021 Other things Image Credits: Jim Urquhart / Reuters Here are the TechCrunch news stories that especially caught my eye this week: Uber and Lyft supplying free rides to vaccine appointments In an effort to get more Americans vaccinated, the Biden White House has partnered with Uber and Lyft allowing riders to get free rides to and from vaccination sites, covering up to $15 each way. State attorneys tell Facebook to nix Instagram for Kids app Attorneys General representing some 44 U.S. states and territories signed a letter pressuring Facebook to abandon its plans to create a version of Instagram designed specifically for kids. Burning Man plans for a virtual year The COVID-19 pandemic has taken yet another year of Burning Man away from attendees. The festival in the Nevada desert has been a favorite of high-profile tech executives, but this year they'll have to settle for a wholly virtual experience. Ethereum creator donates $1 billion to India COVID recovery One of the wildest stories of the week involves the creator of Ethereum dumping billions of Dogecoin copycats that were unceremoniously gifted to his account, donating them to a host of charities. He donated some $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in total. Amazon nukes accounts of some major Chinese sellers Alleging fake reviews and behaviors that violated its store policies, Amazon took the nuclear option on a number of massive Chinese sellers on its platform that were responsible for billions in merchandise value. Those account holders aren't too happy and Amazon isn't too repentant. GasBuddy hits top of App Store In the wake of the Colonial Pipeline attack, several states in the eastern United States were left with gas shortages, pushing the gas-finding app GasBuddy to the top of the App Store for the first time ever. Extra things Illustration Expensify Image Credits: Nigel Sussman Some of my favorite reads from our Extra Crunch subscription service this week: The Expensify EC-1 "Let's make it clear from the outset that this story is about an expense management SaaS business called Expensify . As youd expect, yes, this is about the expense management market and how Expensify has grown, its technology and all of that. Normally, that would make us change the channel. But this is also a story about pirates; peer-to-peer hackers who asked, Why not work from Thailand and dozens of countries across the globe? and actually did it using P2P hacker culture as a model for consensus-driven decision-making all with pre-Uber Travis Kalanick in a guest-starring role." Is there a creed in venture capital "Entrepreneurs and investors should recognize that contracts are worth very little without the ongoing relationship management that keeps all parties aligned. Enforcement is so unusual in the world of startups that I consider it a mostly dead-end path. In my experience, good communication is the only reliable remedy. This is the way. " 5 ways to raise your startups PR game "I get emails every week from companies coming out of stealth mode, wanting to make a splash. Or from a Series B company thats been around for a while and hopes to improve their branding/messaging/positioning so that a new upstart doesnt eat their lunch. How do you make a splash? How do you stay relevant?" Again, if youre reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page , and follow my tweets @lucasmtny .
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09, 3999.82, 3954.12, 4005.53, 4142.53, 3810.43, 3882.70, 3854.36, 3851.05, 3854.79, 3859.58, 3864.42, 3847.18, 3761.56, 3896.38, 3903.94, 3911.48, 3901.13, 3963.31, 3951.60, 3905.23, 3909.16, 3906.72, 3924.37, 3960.91, 4048.73, 4025.23, 4032.51, 4071.19, 4087.48, 4029.33, 4023.97, 4035.83, 4022.17, 3963.07, 3985.08, 4087.07, 4069.11, 4098.37, 4106.66, 4105.40, 4158.18, 4879.88, 4973.02, 4922.80, 5036.68, 5059.82, 5198.90, 5289.77, 5204.96, 5324.55, 5064.49, 5089.54, 5096.59, 5167.72, 5067.11, 5235.56, 5251.94, 5298.39, 5303.81, 5337.89, 5314.53, 5399.37, 5572.36, 5464.87, 5210.52, 5279.35, 5268.29, 5285.14, 5247.35, 5350.73, 5402.70, 5505.28, 5768.29, 5831.17, 5795.71, 5746.81, 5829.50, 5982.46, 6174.53, 6378.85, 7204.77, 6972.37, 7814.92.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-05-13]
Volume: 28677672181, RSI (14-day): 85.27, 50-day EMA: 5424.26, 200-day EMA: 4969.54
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1300.10, Gold RSI: 60.11
Oil Price: 61.04, Oil RSI: 41.91
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoins for Frappuccino: Will Starbucks’ Crypto Endeavours Pave the Way for Mainstream Adoption?: The United Statescoffeehouse chainStarbucksis one of the most mainstream companies to look into crypto, and its intentions have finally been confirmed this week: The company has teamed up withMicrosoftto track its beans with a blockchain.
Moreover, reports say that the coffee giant might start accepting bitcoin (BTC) payments in its U.S. branches later this year. So, is the long-awaited mainstreamadoptionfinally coming to the crypto market?
Starbucks’ relationship with crypto could be traced back to January 2018, when its executive chairman and former CEO Howard Schultzdiscussedthe subject during the company’s Q1 2018 earnings call.
Schultz appeared skeptical about bitcoin at the time, saying that it won’t be “a currency today or in the future.” However, the chairman suggested that some other cryptocurrencies might succeed instead:
“I’m bringing this up because as we think about the future of our company and the future of consumer behavior, I personally believe that there is going to be a one or a few legitimate trusted digital currencies off of the blockchain technology.”
Those cryptocurrencies, Schultz added, would have to be legitimized by a brick-and-mortar environment.
In an interview with Fox Business that aired in March 2018, Schultz continued to discuss cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology. “I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of,” the executive chairmandeclared.
In August 2018, the Seattle-headquartered coffee giant revealed itself as one ofBakkt’s key partners, alongside Microsoft and consultancy Boston Consulting Group. Bakkt is a digital assets platform created by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE),which is expected to launch later this year.
Notably,according to the original press release, Starbucks would not only be working with Bakkt to create its platform, but it would also be using it to accept crypto payments in its coffeehouses.
“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks,” said Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments at Starbucks.
The news provoked bullish headlines akin to CNBC’s “New Starbucks partnership with Microsoft allows customers to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin.” However, the coffee retailer was quick to set the record straight. A Starbucks spokespersontoldVice on the same day the press release was published:
“It is important to clarify that we are not accepting digital assets at Starbucks. Rather the exchange will convert digital assets like Bitcoin into US dollars, which can be used at Starbucks. At the current time, we are announcing the launch of trading and conversion of Bitcoin. However, we will continue to talk with customers and regulators as the space evolves.”
“Customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin,” the spokesperson specifically stressed.
In March, new details about Starbucks’ partnership with Bakktsurfaced, confirming its intention to accept BTC-based payments once an equity deal between the two is struck.
Thus, according to The Block’s report citing anonymous sources, Starbucks will install Bakkt’s payment software in its branches, which will allow customers to pay with digital assets. Such payments will be instantly converted to fiat, however, so that the coffee giant does not have to deal with crypto, supposedly to simplify accounting. The option will be available exclusively for U.S. customers first, the article suggests.
That’s “no different” than other BTC merchant programs out there and hence is not a major case of retail adoption, says Michael Dowling, CEO and founder of FairX, a financial services company involved with banking and digital assets, and former chief technology officer at IBM’s blockchain arm. He told Cointelegraph:
“No one wants to hold BTC because of its USD volatility, but they love how ‘easy’ it is to receive value on BTC as long as it converts immediately to USD.”
Dowling suggested that it could be an attempt for Starbucks and Bakkt to bypassVisaandMasterCard’s interchange fees through the initiative, which can be helpful to merchants, but nonetheless should come with its own shortcomings:
“As a merchant, you're just betting the exchange rate will be neutral or in your favor when it comes time to redeem. Oh yeah, and hopefully the redemption agent will always be able to provide USD liquidity.”
Eyal Shani, a blockchain researcher at Aykesubir, is also too skeptical to consider the initiative as a case of mainstream adoption, but admits that it could pave the way for further cases.
“Accepting bitcoin and immediately transferring it to fiat is simply enjoying the rate and exchange fees on Starbucks’ side,” he told Cointelegraph. “They can accept any currency together with the right fee to process it later. With that being said, any new real use case of bitcoin could serve as another step for larger adoption later down the road, if that happens.”
Charlie Smith, an analyst at asset management firm Blockforce Capital, however, thinks that Starbucks’ expected arrival into the field of BTC payments is a largely positive thing for the crypto market as it is. “While some may try to downplay this news because Starbucks will be instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency, we do not believe it diminishes the significance of this news at all,” he wrote to Cointelegraph in an email, adding:
“We believe that Starbucks’ reported adoption of BTC as an accepted form of retail payment is a clear case of retail adoption. The fact that customers will be able to pay using bitcoin not only helps increase the overall usability of the currency but should also increase awareness and understanding of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, given Starbucks’ market share. Additionally, if a retail corporation on the scale of Starbucks has determined that it is in their best interest to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, it is a clear signal that there is a significant consumer population ready to use cryptocurrency as a form of payment on a day-to-day basis.”
As for the immediate conversion of BTC, Smith said it should be similar to how a U.S. company converts payments made in euros into U.S. dollars: “There is a big difference between retail adoption of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and those same corporations being able or willing to deal with the exchange rate risks inherent in any multinational organization. Starbucks instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency does not impact the retail use case for bitcoin any more so than a US company converting payments made in Euros into USD impacts the retail use case for Euros.”
The analyst summarized:
“Starbucks adoption is a leap forward for cryptocurrencies allowing people to utilize their bitcoin for more than just an investment, which should hopefully lead to further adoption.''
This week, tech news publication GeekWirereportedthat Starbucks will implement tech giant Microsoft’s recently announced Azure Blockchain Service to track coffee production.
First announced in 2018, the initiative is called “bean to cup.” Initially, Starbucksmentionedthat it was considering using a “traceability technology” for its coffee-tracking system, without specifying that it necessarily would be a blockchain.
Now, more details have been unveiled. The Azure-powered blockchain system will purportedly allow customers to track the production of their coffee and allegedly provide coffee farmers from Rwanda,Colombiaand Costa Rica with more financial independence.
Additionally, Starbucks noted that it would make the pilot program open source to disseminate their findings. Other projects announced in collaboration with Microsoft include predictive drive-thru ordering and connecting Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled equipment at different cafe locations.
Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Servicewas announcedearlier in May. It is a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that allows users to build blockchain applications on a preconfigured network. It currently supports Quorum, theEthereum-based platform ofJPMorgan Chase. The new Microsoft BaaS aims to streamline the use of consortium blockchain networks, from creation to modification.
Explaining why Starbucks could pick the Microsoft blockchain solution over other ones, Shani suggested that it could be a move to strengthen the partnership:
“Although no relevant information was published, we can safely assume that the choice of Microsoft’s blockchain services over other options were mainly affected by the current partnerships the firms hold rather than the technical differences of blockchain on Azure vs blockchain managed services on AWS, at this level of maturity of those services.”
Indeed, the two companies seem to have a close relationship. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson is a former Microsoft executive who ran the worldwide sales and the Windows divisionsbefore joining the coffeehousechain in 2015.
Smith, on the other hand, argues that Microsoft's product is simply better for Starbucks than other options on the market. “Azure provides the ability to develop and implement blockchain technology into existing infrastructure in a faster and less resource intensive manner,” comparing to Quorum or other existing blockchain protocols, he told Cointelegraph.
“This allows Starbucks to focus on its own processes while outsourcing the responsibilities that may be best handled by a blockchain-savvy third party.”
Dowling of FairX suggested that Microsoft’s blockchain platform could seem more reputable to Starbucks than Quorum due to its roots:
“In enterprise IT, there's an old saying ‘no one gets fired for buying IBM.’ Basically, Quorum is written and maintained by JPM, which is a bank and not a SW dev shop. So, if I'm an enterprise customer, I'm going to feel much more comfortable with a Microsoft branded version – along with their support structure – over the JPM offering, even though they might be the same piece of software. JPM knows that, and that's why they partnered with Microsoft. That's also the reasonR3andIBMdid the same withCordaand Fabric.”
However, Dowling is not sure why Starbucks would need a blockchain in the first place. He suggested that it could represent a potentially efficient way to track which farmer is sourcing the best beans as "voted" by customers, but could not think of any other real case use that could be achieved with blockchain technology specifically:
“To be honest, I find the entire program, as explained in the press, very confusing and I'm not sure what problem they are trying to solve. [...] Why does it need to be decentralized? Why does this program — of people voting for beans, I think — require the application of public/private keys and a distributed database?”
Indeed, accomplishing this goal could be done without using blockchain, agrees Smith of Blockforce Capital, “but incorporating an enterprise blockchain solution is more efficient than alternatives.” He went on:
“With this initiative, Starbucks is looking to greatly bolster the transparency of its supply chain. [...] The proposed solution can be compared to how other blockchain networks, such as the bitcoin network, validate a large number of transactions without a centralized authority. The underlying technology is similar, its application is just different.”
There are other major cases of corporations successfully incorporating blockchain, the analyst adds, arguing that the technology should be the right fit for the “fair trade” concept that is popular within the coffee industry in particular:
“The IBM Food Trust program works with Walmart and other major food producers to track food production in order to help stem food-borne illnesses. Starbucks is tackling a similar problem but for a different reason. Whereas food safety isn’t the root cause, Starbucks wants to provide customers the opportunity to track where the coffee they consume is being produced. Any person that is even a casual coffee consumer has heard the term ‘fair trade’ used quite frequently. The concept of fair trade has gained significant attention over the past several years in a number of industries, with coffee being one of, if not the largest industry to focus on fair trade. Through the ‘bean-to-cup’ initiative’s use of blockchain, customers will be able to personally verify where their coffee is coming from and pinpoint specific producers that are producing coffee sustainably and fairly, as well as those that are creating exceptional coffee. A customer drinking Starbucks today has little to no idea who is producing the coffee they are consuming, and can only rely on a sticker to ‘verify’ that coffee is fair trade. In essence, Starbucks is looking for a way to provide greater accountability and that can be accomplished with an enterprise blockchain solution.”
Similarly, Shani believes that the “bean-to-cup” initiative is part of the general “food trust” trend empowered by blockchain:
“The use of blockchain in the food supply chain is a very interesting one for several reasons. If you’re a building constructor, you’re very likely to buy your hammers all at one place. Firms like Starbucks source their coffee beans from hundreds of thousands of small farmers to meet demand. Some of those farmers won’t even be registered business in their home countries. It is impossible to maintain trust when dealing with such large scale long-branched supply chain. Instead of making one entity to hold all the data and attest it’s correct, a smarter idea would be to create a collaborative blockchain based database where every party is liable to their part.”
However, the blockchain researcher added that even a centralized database could create new opportunities within the coffee industry, considering “the state in which the legacy systems are today.” Shani also stressed that neither the exact architecture of the solution nor the trust model have been disclosed by Startbucks at this point.
The potential financial opportunities for coffee farmers mentioned in the press release and the GeekTimes report are also somewhat unclear.
“The only thing I can think of here is there's a payment rail component that reduces the cost of cross-border transactions,” Dowling told Cointelegraph. “Though they make no mention of that. Or there's some kind of ‘bean-coin’ the farmers get, and they redeem that for fiat? If that's the case, why blockchain?”
Given that the main benefit of the “bean-to-cup” initiative is that it can provide farmers increased transparency and a large amount of new data, Smith suggested, it could allow them to build their unique brands “outside the overall Starbucks name.” He continued:
“Currently, when you buy coffee from Starbucks the only information available is the type of coffee and the country where it was grown. By utilizing blockchain, Starbucks will be able to provide its customers with endless amounts of new information, such as when the coffee was harvested, when it was shipped, what farm it came from, and potentially even the farming techniques used as that farm.
“This will provide customers with greater power to support certain farmers, whether because of sustainability or simply because that farmer makes the best tasting coffee. This, in turn, should allow the more than 380,000 farms to differentiate themselves and build a unique brand outside of the overall Starbucks name. From the farmers’ standpoint, this new service should provide valuable data on consumer preferences and taste profiles, which will allow farmers to form data-driven conclusions and help them make more profitable decisions.”
Cointelegraph has reached out to Starbucks to clarify why it would need a blockchain and how exactly it could benefit the coffee farmers, among other things, but has not heard back as of press time.
• Starbucks Working With Microsoft for Blockchain-Based Coffee Tracking Platform
• Bakkt to Roll Out First Bitcoin Futures Testing in July 2019
• ICE Pushes for Bakkt Bitcoin Custody License — CFTC Approval Imminent?
• Turkish University Opens Blockchain Center at Boston's Northeastern University || Bitcoins for Frappuccino: Will Starbucks’ Crypto Endeavours Pave the Way for Mainstream Adoption?: The United Statescoffeehouse chainStarbucksis one of the most mainstream companies to look into crypto, and its intentions have finally been confirmed this week: The company has teamed up withMicrosoftto track its beans with a blockchain.
Moreover, reports say that the coffee giant might start accepting bitcoin (BTC) payments in its U.S. branches later this year. So, is the long-awaited mainstreamadoptionfinally coming to the crypto market?
Starbucks’ relationship with crypto could be traced back to January 2018, when its executive chairman and former CEO Howard Schultzdiscussedthe subject during the company’s Q1 2018 earnings call.
Schultz appeared skeptical about bitcoin at the time, saying that it won’t be “a currency today or in the future.” However, the chairman suggested that some other cryptocurrencies might succeed instead:
“I’m bringing this up because as we think about the future of our company and the future of consumer behavior, I personally believe that there is going to be a one or a few legitimate trusted digital currencies off of the blockchain technology.”
Those cryptocurrencies, Schultz added, would have to be legitimized by a brick-and-mortar environment.
In an interview with Fox Business that aired in March 2018, Schultz continued to discuss cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology. “I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of,” the executive chairmandeclared.
In August 2018, the Seattle-headquartered coffee giant revealed itself as one ofBakkt’s key partners, alongside Microsoft and consultancy Boston Consulting Group. Bakkt is a digital assets platform created by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE),which is expected to launch later this year.
Notably,according to the original press release, Starbucks would not only be working with Bakkt to create its platform, but it would also be using it to accept crypto payments in its coffeehouses.
“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks,” said Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments at Starbucks.
The news provoked bullish headlines akin to CNBC’s “New Starbucks partnership with Microsoft allows customers to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin.” However, the coffee retailer was quick to set the record straight. A Starbucks spokespersontoldVice on the same day the press release was published:
“It is important to clarify that we are not accepting digital assets at Starbucks. Rather the exchange will convert digital assets like Bitcoin into US dollars, which can be used at Starbucks. At the current time, we are announcing the launch of trading and conversion of Bitcoin. However, we will continue to talk with customers and regulators as the space evolves.”
“Customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin,” the spokesperson specifically stressed.
In March, new details about Starbucks’ partnership with Bakktsurfaced, confirming its intention to accept BTC-based payments once an equity deal between the two is struck.
Thus, according to The Block’s report citing anonymous sources, Starbucks will install Bakkt’s payment software in its branches, which will allow customers to pay with digital assets. Such payments will be instantly converted to fiat, however, so that the coffee giant does not have to deal with crypto, supposedly to simplify accounting. The option will be available exclusively for U.S. customers first, the article suggests.
That’s “no different” than other BTC merchant programs out there and hence is not a major case of retail adoption, says Michael Dowling, CEO and founder of FairX, a financial services company involved with banking and digital assets, and former chief technology officer at IBM’s blockchain arm. He told Cointelegraph:
“No one wants to hold BTC because of its USD volatility, but they love how ‘easy’ it is to receive value on BTC as long as it converts immediately to USD.”
Dowling suggested that it could be an attempt for Starbucks and Bakkt to bypassVisaandMasterCard’s interchange fees through the initiative, which can be helpful to merchants, but nonetheless should come with its own shortcomings:
“As a merchant, you're just betting the exchange rate will be neutral or in your favor when it comes time to redeem. Oh yeah, and hopefully the redemption agent will always be able to provide USD liquidity.”
Eyal Shani, a blockchain researcher at Aykesubir, is also too skeptical to consider the initiative as a case of mainstream adoption, but admits that it could pave the way for further cases.
“Accepting bitcoin and immediately transferring it to fiat is simply enjoying the rate and exchange fees on Starbucks’ side,” he told Cointelegraph. “They can accept any currency together with the right fee to process it later. With that being said, any new real use case of bitcoin could serve as another step for larger adoption later down the road, if that happens.”
Charlie Smith, an analyst at asset management firm Blockforce Capital, however, thinks that Starbucks’ expected arrival into the field of BTC payments is a largely positive thing for the crypto market as it is. “While some may try to downplay this news because Starbucks will be instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency, we do not believe it diminishes the significance of this news at all,” he wrote to Cointelegraph in an email, adding:
“We believe that Starbucks’ reported adoption of BTC as an accepted form of retail payment is a clear case of retail adoption. The fact that customers will be able to pay using bitcoin not only helps increase the overall usability of the currency but should also increase awareness and understanding of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, given Starbucks’ market share. Additionally, if a retail corporation on the scale of Starbucks has determined that it is in their best interest to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, it is a clear signal that there is a significant consumer population ready to use cryptocurrency as a form of payment on a day-to-day basis.”
As for the immediate conversion of BTC, Smith said it should be similar to how a U.S. company converts payments made in euros into U.S. dollars: “There is a big difference between retail adoption of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and those same corporations being able or willing to deal with the exchange rate risks inherent in any multinational organization. Starbucks instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency does not impact the retail use case for bitcoin any more so than a US company converting payments made in Euros into USD impacts the retail use case for Euros.”
The analyst summarized:
“Starbucks adoption is a leap forward for cryptocurrencies allowing people to utilize their bitcoin for more than just an investment, which should hopefully lead to further adoption.''
This week, tech news publication GeekWirereportedthat Starbucks will implement tech giant Microsoft’s recently announced Azure Blockchain Service to track coffee production.
First announced in 2018, the initiative is called “bean to cup.” Initially, Starbucksmentionedthat it was considering using a “traceability technology” for its coffee-tracking system, without specifying that it necessarily would be a blockchain.
Now, more details have been unveiled. The Azure-powered blockchain system will purportedly allow customers to track the production of their coffee and allegedly provide coffee farmers from Rwanda,Colombiaand Costa Rica with more financial independence.
Additionally, Starbucks noted that it would make the pilot program open source to disseminate their findings. Other projects announced in collaboration with Microsoft include predictive drive-thru ordering and connecting Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled equipment at different cafe locations.
Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Servicewas announcedearlier in May. It is a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that allows users to build blockchain applications on a preconfigured network. It currently supports Quorum, theEthereum-based platform ofJPMorgan Chase. The new Microsoft BaaS aims to streamline the use of consortium blockchain networks, from creation to modification.
Explaining why Starbucks could pick the Microsoft blockchain solution over other ones, Shani suggested that it could be a move to strengthen the partnership:
“Although no relevant information was published, we can safely assume that the choice of Microsoft’s blockchain services over other options were mainly affected by the current partnerships the firms hold rather than the technical differences of blockchain on Azure vs blockchain managed services on AWS, at this level of maturity of those services.”
Indeed, the two companies seem to have a close relationship. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson is a former Microsoft executive who ran the worldwide sales and the Windows divisionsbefore joining the coffeehousechain in 2015.
Smith, on the other hand, argues that Microsoft's product is simply better for Starbucks than other options on the market. “Azure provides the ability to develop and implement blockchain technology into existing infrastructure in a faster and less resource intensive manner,” comparing to Quorum or other existing blockchain protocols, he told Cointelegraph.
“This allows Starbucks to focus on its own processes while outsourcing the responsibilities that may be best handled by a blockchain-savvy third party.”
Dowling of FairX suggested that Microsoft’s blockchain platform could seem more reputable to Starbucks than Quorum due to its roots:
“In enterprise IT, there's an old saying ‘no one gets fired for buying IBM.’ Basically, Quorum is written and maintained by JPM, which is a bank and not a SW dev shop. So, if I'm an enterprise customer, I'm going to feel much more comfortable with a Microsoft branded version – along with their support structure – over the JPM offering, even though they might be the same piece of software. JPM knows that, and that's why they partnered with Microsoft. That's also the reasonR3andIBMdid the same withCordaand Fabric.”
However, Dowling is not sure why Starbucks would need a blockchain in the first place. He suggested that it could represent a potentially efficient way to track which farmer is sourcing the best beans as "voted" by customers, but could not think of any other real case use that could be achieved with blockchain technology specifically:
“To be honest, I find the entire program, as explained in the press, very confusing and I'm not sure what problem they are trying to solve. [...] Why does it need to be decentralized? Why does this program — of people voting for beans, I think — require the application of public/private keys and a distributed database?”
Indeed, accomplishing this goal could be done without using blockchain, agrees Smith of Blockforce Capital, “but incorporating an enterprise blockchain solution is more efficient than alternatives.” He went on:
“With this initiative, Starbucks is looking to greatly bolster the transparency of its supply chain. [...] The proposed solution can be compared to how other blockchain networks, such as the bitcoin network, validate a large number of transactions without a centralized authority. The underlying technology is similar, its application is just different.”
There are other major cases of corporations successfully incorporating blockchain, the analyst adds, arguing that the technology should be the right fit for the “fair trade” concept that is popular within the coffee industry in particular:
“The IBM Food Trust program works with Walmart and other major food producers to track food production in order to help stem food-borne illnesses. Starbucks is tackling a similar problem but for a different reason. Whereas food safety isn’t the root cause, Starbucks wants to provide customers the opportunity to track where the coffee they consume is being produced. Any person that is even a casual coffee consumer has heard the term ‘fair trade’ used quite frequently. The concept of fair trade has gained significant attention over the past several years in a number of industries, with coffee being one of, if not the largest industry to focus on fair trade. Through the ‘bean-to-cup’ initiative’s use of blockchain, customers will be able to personally verify where their coffee is coming from and pinpoint specific producers that are producing coffee sustainably and fairly, as well as those that are creating exceptional coffee. A customer drinking Starbucks today has little to no idea who is producing the coffee they are consuming, and can only rely on a sticker to ‘verify’ that coffee is fair trade. In essence, Starbucks is looking for a way to provide greater accountability and that can be accomplished with an enterprise blockchain solution.”
Similarly, Shani believes that the “bean-to-cup” initiative is part of the general “food trust” trend empowered by blockchain:
“The use of blockchain in the food supply chain is a very interesting one for several reasons. If you’re a building constructor, you’re very likely to buy your hammers all at one place. Firms like Starbucks source their coffee beans from hundreds of thousands of small farmers to meet demand. Some of those farmers won’t even be registered business in their home countries. It is impossible to maintain trust when dealing with such large scale long-branched supply chain. Instead of making one entity to hold all the data and attest it’s correct, a smarter idea would be to create a collaborative blockchain based database where every party is liable to their part.”
However, the blockchain researcher added that even a centralized database could create new opportunities within the coffee industry, considering “the state in which the legacy systems are today.” Shani also stressed that neither the exact architecture of the solution nor the trust model have been disclosed by Startbucks at this point.
The potential financial opportunities for coffee farmers mentioned in the press release and the GeekTimes report are also somewhat unclear.
“The only thing I can think of here is there's a payment rail component that reduces the cost of cross-border transactions,” Dowling told Cointelegraph. “Though they make no mention of that. Or there's some kind of ‘bean-coin’ the farmers get, and they redeem that for fiat? If that's the case, why blockchain?”
Given that the main benefit of the “bean-to-cup” initiative is that it can provide farmers increased transparency and a large amount of new data, Smith suggested, it could allow them to build their unique brands “outside the overall Starbucks name.” He continued:
“Currently, when you buy coffee from Starbucks the only information available is the type of coffee and the country where it was grown. By utilizing blockchain, Starbucks will be able to provide its customers with endless amounts of new information, such as when the coffee was harvested, when it was shipped, what farm it came from, and potentially even the farming techniques used as that farm.
“This will provide customers with greater power to support certain farmers, whether because of sustainability or simply because that farmer makes the best tasting coffee. This, in turn, should allow the more than 380,000 farms to differentiate themselves and build a unique brand outside of the overall Starbucks name. From the farmers’ standpoint, this new service should provide valuable data on consumer preferences and taste profiles, which will allow farmers to form data-driven conclusions and help them make more profitable decisions.”
Cointelegraph has reached out to Starbucks to clarify why it would need a blockchain and how exactly it could benefit the coffee farmers, among other things, but has not heard back as of press time.
• Starbucks Working With Microsoft for Blockchain-Based Coffee Tracking Platform
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• Turkish University Opens Blockchain Center at Boston's Northeastern University || Bitcoins for Frappuccino: Will Starbucks Crypto Endeavours Pave the Way for Mainstream Adoption?: The United States coffeehouse chain Starbucks is one of the most mainstream companies to look into crypto, and its intentions have finally been confirmed this week: The company has teamed up with Microsoft to track its beans with a blockchain. Moreover, reports say that the coffee giant might start accepting bitcoin ( BTC ) payments in its U.S. branches later this year. So, is the long-awaited mainstream adoption finally coming to the crypto market? As many mainstream companies, Starbucks leans toward the blockchain before bitcoin approach Starbucks relationship with crypto could be traced back to January 2018, when its executive chairman and former CEO Howard Schultz discussed the subject during the companys Q1 2018 earnings call. Schultz appeared skeptical about bitcoin at the time, saying that it wont be a currency today or in the future. However, the chairman suggested that some other cryptocurrencies might succeed instead: Im bringing this up because as we think about the future of our company and the future of consumer behavior, I personally believe that there is going to be a one or a few legitimate trusted digital currencies off of the blockchain technology. Those cryptocurrencies, Schultz added, would have to be legitimized by a brick-and-mortar environment. In an interview with Fox Business that aired in March 2018, Schultz continued to discuss cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology. I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of, the executive chairman declared . First crypto steps: Bakkt, BTC payments In August 2018, the Seattle-headquartered coffee giant revealed itself as one of Bakkt s key partners, alongside Microsoft and consultancy Boston Consulting Group. Bakkt is a digital assets platform created by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which is expected to launch later this year . Notably, according to the original press release , Starbucks would not only be working with Bakkt to create its platform, but it would also be using it to accept crypto payments in its coffeehouses. As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks, said Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments at Starbucks. The news provoked bullish headlines akin to CNBCs New Starbucks partnership with Microsoft allows customers to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin . However, the coffee retailer was quick to set the record straight. A Starbucks spokesperson told Vice on the same day the press release was published: Story continues It is important to clarify that we are not accepting digital assets at Starbucks. Rather the exchange will convert digital assets like Bitcoin into US dollars, which can be used at Starbucks. At the current time, we are announcing the launch of trading and conversion of Bitcoin. However, we will continue to talk with customers and regulators as the space evolves. Customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin, the spokesperson specifically stressed. In March, new details about Starbucks partnership with Bakkt surfaced , confirming its intention to accept BTC-based payments once an equity deal between the two is struck. Thus, according to The Blocks report citing anonymous sources, Starbucks will install Bakkts payment software in its branches, which will allow customers to pay with digital assets. Such payments will be instantly converted to fiat, however, so that the coffee giant does not have to deal with crypto, supposedly to simplify accounting. The option will be available exclusively for U.S. customers first, the article suggests. Thats no different than other BTC merchant programs out there and hence is not a major case of retail adoption, says Michael Dowling, CEO and founder of FairX, a financial services company involved with banking and digital assets, and former chief technology officer at IBMs blockchain arm. He told Cointelegraph: No one wants to hold BTC because of its USD volatility, but they love how easy it is to receive value on BTC as long as it converts immediately to USD. Dowling suggested that it could be an attempt for Starbucks and Bakkt to bypass Visa and MasterCard s interchange fees through the initiative, which can be helpful to merchants, but nonetheless should come with its own shortcomings: As a merchant, you're just betting the exchange rate will be neutral or in your favor when it comes time to redeem. Oh yeah, and hopefully the redemption agent will always be able to provide USD liquidity. Eyal Shani, a blockchain researcher at Aykesubir, is also too skeptical to consider the initiative as a case of mainstream adoption, but admits that it could pave the way for further cases. Accepting bitcoin and immediately transferring it to fiat is simply enjoying the rate and exchange fees on Starbucks side, he told Cointelegraph. They can accept any currency together with the right fee to process it later. With that being said, any new real use case of bitcoin could serve as another step for larger adoption later down the road, if that happens. Charlie Smith, an analyst at asset management firm Blockforce Capital, however, thinks that Starbucks expected arrival into the field of BTC payments is a largely positive thing for the crypto market as it is. While some may try to downplay this news because Starbucks will be instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency, we do not believe it diminishes the significance of this news at all, he wrote to Cointelegraph in an email, adding: We believe that Starbucks reported adoption of BTC as an accepted form of retail payment is a clear case of retail adoption. The fact that customers will be able to pay using bitcoin not only helps increase the overall usability of the currency but should also increase awareness and understanding of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, given Starbucks market share. Additionally, if a retail corporation on the scale of Starbucks has determined that it is in their best interest to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, it is a clear signal that there is a significant consumer population ready to use cryptocurrency as a form of payment on a day-to-day basis. As for the immediate conversion of BTC, Smith said it should be similar to how a U.S. company converts payments made in euros into U.S. dollars: There is a big difference between retail adoption of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and those same corporations being able or willing to deal with the exchange rate risks inherent in any multinational organization. Starbucks instantly converting bitcoin payments into fiat currency does not impact the retail use case for bitcoin any more so than a US company converting payments made in Euros into USD impacts the retail use case for Euros. The analyst summarized: Starbucks adoption is a leap forward for cryptocurrencies allowing people to utilize their bitcoin for more than just an investment, which should hopefully lead to further adoption.'' Bean-to-cup initiative: arming farmers with a blockchain This week, tech news publication GeekWire reported that Starbucks will implement tech giant Microsofts recently announced Azure Blockchain Service to track coffee production. First announced in 2018, the initiative is called bean to cup. Initially, Starbucks mentioned that it was considering using a traceability technology for its coffee-tracking system, without specifying that it necessarily would be a blockchain. Now, more details have been unveiled. The Azure-powered blockchain system will purportedly allow customers to track the production of their coffee and allegedly provide coffee farmers from Rwanda, Colombia and Costa Rica with more financial independence. Additionally, Starbucks noted that it would make the pilot program open source to disseminate their findings. Other projects announced in collaboration with Microsoft include predictive drive-thru ordering and connecting Internet-of-Things ( IoT )-enabled equipment at different cafe locations. Microsofts Azure Blockchain Service was announced earlier in May. It is a blockchain-as-a-service ( BaaS ) platform that allows users to build blockchain applications on a preconfigured network. It currently supports Quorum, the Ethereum -based platform of JPMorgan Chase . The new Microsoft BaaS aims to streamline the use of consortium blockchain networks, from creation to modification. Explaining why Starbucks could pick the Microsoft blockchain solution over other ones, Shani suggested that it could be a move to strengthen the partnership: Although no relevant information was published, we can safely assume that the choice of Microsofts blockchain services over other options were mainly affected by the current partnerships the firms hold rather than the technical differences of blockchain on Azure vs blockchain managed services on AWS, at this level of maturity of those services. Indeed, the two companies seem to have a close relationship. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson is a former Microsoft executive who ran the worldwide sales and the Windows divisions before joining the coffeehouse chain in 2015. Smith, on the other hand, argues that Microsoft's product is simply better for Starbucks than other options on the market. Azure provides the ability to develop and implement blockchain technology into existing infrastructure in a faster and less resource intensive manner, comparing to Quorum or other existing blockchain protocols, he told Cointelegraph. This allows Starbucks to focus on its own processes while outsourcing the responsibilities that may be best handled by a blockchain-savvy third party. Dowling of FairX suggested that Microsofts blockchain platform could seem more reputable to Starbucks than Quorum due to its roots: In enterprise IT, there's an old saying no one gets fired for buying IBM. Basically, Quorum is written and maintained by JPM, which is a bank and not a SW dev shop. So, if I'm an enterprise customer, I'm going to feel much more comfortable with a Microsoft branded version along with their support structure over the JPM offering, even though they might be the same piece of software. JPM knows that, and that's why they partnered with Microsoft. That's also the reason R3 and IBM did the same with Corda and Fabric. Why Starbucks would need a blockchain However, Dowling is not sure why Starbucks would need a blockchain in the first place. He suggested that it could represent a potentially efficient way to track which farmer is sourcing the best beans as "voted" by customers, but could not think of any other real case use that could be achieved with blockchain technology specifically: To be honest, I find the entire program, as explained in the press, very confusing and I'm not sure what problem they are trying to solve. [...] Why does it need to be decentralized? Why does this program of people voting for beans, I think require the application of public/private keys and a distributed database? Indeed, accomplishing this goal could be done without using blockchain, agrees Smith of Blockforce Capital, but incorporating an enterprise blockchain solution is more efficient than alternatives. He went on: With this initiative, Starbucks is looking to greatly bolster the transparency of its supply chain. [...] The proposed solution can be compared to how other blockchain networks, such as the bitcoin network, validate a large number of transactions without a centralized authority. The underlying technology is similar, its application is just different. There are other major cases of corporations successfully incorporating blockchain, the analyst adds, arguing that the technology should be the right fit for the fair trade concept that is popular within the coffee industry in particular: The IBM Food Trust program works with Walmart and other major food producers to track food production in order to help stem food-borne illnesses. Starbucks is tackling a similar problem but for a different reason. Whereas food safety isnt the root cause, Starbucks wants to provide customers the opportunity to track where the coffee they consume is being produced. Any person that is even a casual coffee consumer has heard the term fair trade used quite frequently. The concept of fair trade has gained significant attention over the past several years in a number of industries, with coffee being one of, if not the largest industry to focus on fair trade. Through the bean-to-cup initiatives use of blockchain, customers will be able to personally verify where their coffee is coming from and pinpoint specific producers that are producing coffee sustainably and fairly, as well as those that are creating exceptional coffee. A customer drinking Starbucks today has little to no idea who is producing the coffee they are consuming, and can only rely on a sticker to verify that coffee is fair trade. In essence, Starbucks is looking for a way to provide greater accountability and that can be accomplished with an enterprise blockchain solution. Similarly, Shani believes that the bean-to-cup initiative is part of the general food trust trend empowered by blockchain: The use of blockchain in the food supply chain is a very interesting one for several reasons. If youre a building constructor, youre very likely to buy your hammers all at one place. Firms like Starbucks source their coffee beans from hundreds of thousands of small farmers to meet demand. Some of those farmers wont even be registered business in their home countries. It is impossible to maintain trust when dealing with such large scale long-branched supply chain. Instead of making one entity to hold all the data and attest its correct, a smarter idea would be to create a collaborative blockchain based database where every party is liable to their part. However, the blockchain researcher added that even a centralized database could create new opportunities within the coffee industry, considering the state in which the legacy systems are today. Shani also stressed that neither the exact architecture of the solution nor the trust model have been disclosed by Startbucks at this point. The potential financial opportunities for coffee farmers mentioned in the press release and the GeekTimes report are also somewhat unclear. The only thing I can think of here is there's a payment rail component that reduces the cost of cross-border transactions, Dowling told Cointelegraph. Though they make no mention of that. Or there's some kind of bean-coin the farmers get, and they redeem that for fiat? If that's the case, why blockchain? Given that the main benefit of the bean-to-cup initiative is that it can provide farmers increased transparency and a large amount of new data, Smith suggested, it could allow them to build their unique brands outside the overall Starbucks name. He continued: Currently, when you buy coffee from Starbucks the only information available is the type of coffee and the country where it was grown. By utilizing blockchain, Starbucks will be able to provide its customers with endless amounts of new information, such as when the coffee was harvested, when it was shipped, what farm it came from, and potentially even the farming techniques used as that farm. This will provide customers with greater power to support certain farmers, whether because of sustainability or simply because that farmer makes the best tasting coffee. This, in turn, should allow the more than 380,000 farms to differentiate themselves and build a unique brand outside of the overall Starbucks name. From the farmers standpoint, this new service should provide valuable data on consumer preferences and taste profiles, which will allow farmers to form data-driven conclusions and help them make more profitable decisions. Cointelegraph has reached out to Starbucks to clarify why it would need a blockchain and how exactly it could benefit the coffee farmers, among other things, but has not heard back as of press time. Related Articles: Starbucks Working With Microsoft for Blockchain-Based Coffee Tracking Platform Bakkt to Roll Out First Bitcoin Futures Testing in July 2019 ICE Pushes for Bakkt Bitcoin Custody License CFTC Approval Imminent? Turkish University Opens Blockchain Center at Boston's Northeastern University View comments || Coinbase-Backed Stablecoin Startup Reserve to Launch ‘Venmo Style App’ in Venezuela: Stablecoinproject Reserve announced that it will launch a crypto-fiat payments app inVenezuelaand Angola in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 12. In the same announcement, the firm revealed that it is listing its separate utility token, Reserve Rights (RSR), on major exchange Huobi Global’s token sale platform,HoubiPrime.
Per the press release, the project’s stablecoin app — to be launched for Android users viaGoogle Play“in the coming weeks” — will enable people and businesses to switch back and forth from their local fiat currency to the firm’s stablecoin, the Reserve Dollar (RSD). According to the announcement, RSD is a decentralized,United Statesdollar-pegged cryptocurrency.
Nevin Freeman, co-founder and CEO of Reserve, told Cointelegraph that the reason the app is launching in Venezuela in particular is linked to the extreme level of inflation in the country, noting:
“A lot of people, including some of our investors, discouraged us from starting in Venezuela. [..] The hyperinflation there is the exact problem that Reserve is built to fix, and Venezuela is suffering the most inflation of anywhere in the world right now, so we felt that it had to be done.”
The press release claims that there are currently 16 countries with annual inflation greater than 20%, but that the situation in Venezuela is particularly troubling, with the Venezuelan bolivar losing nearly 10% of its value every day.
As Cointelegraphreportedin February, the deepening of the country’s currency crisis has seen increased use of bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies in the region. Near the end of December, dash (DASH)celebratedthe 2,500th merchant in Venezuela to accept the coin as payment. Back in August 2018, it could boast of only1,000merchants that accepted the crypto.
Reserve also reported that it has landed a partnership in Angola with 7MobileAfrica— reportedly the largest mobile importer in the country — to pre-load the app on all its shipped smartphones.
As Cointelegraphreportedin June last year, in addition to Coinbase, the project has received backing frommajor venture capital names, such as Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Digital Currency Group, Arrington XRP Capital, Distributed Global and GSR.IO, among others.
Huobi is currently the world’s9th largestcrypto exchange by adjusted daily trade volumes, seeing over $2 billion in trades on the day to press time.In Februarynews brokethat the Venezuelan government had introduced regulations for crypto remittances within the country. According to the new requirements, the state has set out monthly limits and commissions, payable to the National Superintendency of Crypto Assets and Related Activities, on cryptocurrency remittances.
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• Dutch Central Bank Will Keep Embracing DLT, But To-Date Findings Are Not All Positive || Coinbase-Backed Stablecoin Startup Reserve to Launch ‘Venmo Style App’ in Venezuela: Stablecoin project Reserve announced that it will launch a crypto-fiat payments app in Venezuela and Angola in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 12. In the same announcement, the firm revealed that it is listing its separate utility token, Reserve Rights (RSR), on major exchange Huobi Global’s token sale platform, Houbi Prime. Per the press release, the project’s stablecoin app — to be launched for Android users via Google Play “in the coming weeks” — will enable people and businesses to switch back and forth from their local fiat currency to the firm’s stablecoin, the Reserve Dollar (RSD). According to the announcement, RSD is a decentralized, United States dollar-pegged cryptocurrency. Nevin Freeman, co-founder and CEO of Reserve, told Cointelegraph that the reason the app is launching in Venezuela in particular is linked to the extreme level of inflation in the country, noting: “A lot of people, including some of our investors, discouraged us from starting in Venezuela. [..] The hyperinflation there is the exact problem that Reserve is built to fix, and Venezuela is suffering the most inflation of anywhere in the world right now, so we felt that it had to be done.” The press release claims that there are currently 16 countries with annual inflation greater than 20%, but that the situation in Venezuela is particularly troubling, with the Venezuelan bolivar losing nearly 10% of its value every day. As Cointelegraph reported in February, the deepening of the country’s currency crisis has seen increased use of bitcoin ( BTC ) and other cryptocurrencies in the region. Near the end of December, dash ( DASH ) celebrated the 2,500th merchant in Venezuela to accept the coin as payment. Back in August 2018, it could boast of only 1,000 merchants that accepted the crypto. Reserve also reported that it has landed a partnership in Angola with 7Mobile Africa — reportedly the largest mobile importer in the country — to pre-load the app on all its shipped smartphones. Story continues As Cointelegraph reported in June last year, in addition to Coinbase, the project has received backing from major venture capital names, such as Peter Thiel , Sam Altman, Digital Currency Group, Arrington XRP Capital, Distributed Global and GSR.IO, among others. Huobi is currently the world’s 9th largest crypto exchange by adjusted daily trade volumes, seeing over $2 billion in trades on the day to press time. In February news broke that the Venezuelan government had introduced regulations for crypto remittances within the country. According to the new requirements, the state has set out monthly limits and commissions, payable to the National Superintendency of Crypto Assets and Related Activities, on cryptocurrency remittances. Related Articles: Nordic Banking Giant Nordea Opens Blockchain Trading Platform to More Clients Sprott CEO Predicts Bullish Future for Blockchain-Based Digital Gold Former Worldpay US Executive Joins Crypto Payments Firm BitPay as Its New CFO Dutch Central Bank Will Keep Embracing DLT, But To-Date Findings Are Not All Positive || Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Bulls Want to See Heightened US. Recession Fears: Despite heightened concerns over U.S.-China relations, gold futures traded mostly sideways last week with a slight bias to the upside. The price action revealed that investors showed little interest in the asset as a safe-haven investment. Instead, they preferred to hedge against stock market risk in the more-liquid Japanese Yen and U.S. Treasurys. Last week, June Comex gold settled at $1287.40, up $6.10 or +0.48%. Gold is often called the “go-to” market during times of geopolitical risk, but over the last several years, this has not been the case with most investors preferring higher liquidity hedges like Treasury, Yen and Swiss Franc. There are times when the U.S. Dollar has also been used as a safe-haven asset. Ultimately, it all comes down to the direction of U.S. interest rates. Although Fed policy has been dovish since late January, the dollar has remained relatively strong. And this has had a negative impact on gold prices. U.S. Treasury rates have fallen since earlier in the year, but gold has remained under pressure because the divergence in the monetary policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the other major central banks continues to make the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment. Weekly Forecast Gold futures will pick up a bid this week if the U.S.-China trade dispute escalates to the point where investors become concerned about a recession in the United States. If this concerns develops the investors will start pricing in a Fed rate cut. Treasury yields will fall and gold prices will rise. This is what the gold bulls need to see. If the financial markets remain relatively calm and the two economic powerhouses agree to continue to work out their differences through negotiations then rates will remain steady and gold prices will remained capped. Treasury and gold traders will also remain sensitive to U.S. economic data because weak results could also move the U.S. economy towards a recession. This would also drive Treasury yields lower, which would be supportive for gold prices. Story continues This week’s reports include U.S. Retail Sales and Core Retail Sales. So in effect, it’s not the geopolitical turmoil per se that will drive gold higher, it’s how this turmoil affects the U.S. economy and whether it drives it into a recession that would force the Fed to cut rates. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Week Ahead – Brexit, Economic Data and Trade in Focus E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Needs Close Over 25816 to Produce Closing Price Reversal Bottom Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 12/05/19 Weekly Wrap – Trade War Jitters Gripped the Markets in the Week U.S Mortgages – Down Again as Trade War Jitters Test Risk Sentiment Forex Daily Recap – Poor CPI Data Pushed Down the Greenback Near 97.14 Weekly Low Levels || Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Bulls Want to See Heightened US. Recession Fears: Despite heightened concerns over U.S.-China relations, gold futures traded mostly sideways last week with a slight bias to the upside. The price action revealed that investors showed little interest in the asset as a safe-haven investment. Instead, they preferred to hedge against stock market risk in the more-liquid Japanese Yen and U.S. Treasurys.
Last week,June Comex goldsettled at $1287.40, up $6.10 or +0.48%.
Gold is often called the “go-to” market during times of geopolitical risk, but over the last several years, this has not been the case with most investors preferring higher liquidity hedges like Treasury, Yen and Swiss Franc. There are times when the U.S. Dollar has also been used as a safe-haven asset.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the direction of U.S. interest rates. Although Fed policy has been dovish since late January, the dollar has remained relatively strong. And this has had a negative impact on gold prices.
U.S. Treasury rates have fallen since earlier in the year, but gold has remained under pressure because the divergence in the monetary policies of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the other major central banks continues to make the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment.
Gold futures will pick up a bid this week if the U.S.-China trade dispute escalates to the point where investors become concerned about a recession in the United States. If this concerns develops the investors will start pricing in a Fed rate cut. Treasury yields will fall and gold prices will rise. This is what the gold bulls need to see.
If the financial markets remain relatively calm and the two economic powerhouses agree to continue to work out their differences through negotiations then rates will remain steady and gold prices will remained capped.
Treasury and gold traders will also remain sensitive to U.S. economic data because weak results could also move the U.S. economy towards a recession. This would also drive Treasury yields lower, which would be supportive for gold prices.
This week’s reports include U.S. Retail Sales and Core Retail Sales.
So in effect, it’s not the geopolitical turmoil per se that will drive gold higher, it’s how this turmoil affects the U.S. economy and whether it drives it into a recession that would force the Fed to cut rates.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Weekly Wrap – Trade War Jitters Gripped the Markets in the Week
• U.S Mortgages – Down Again as Trade War Jitters Test Risk Sentiment
• Forex Daily Recap – Poor CPI Data Pushed Down the Greenback Near 97.14 Weekly Low Levels || Dollar’s Brutal 100-Year Tailspin Guarantees a Spellbinding Bitcoin Rally: While the US dollar remains trapped in a brutal 100-year downtrend, the Bitcoin price has surged 8.5 million percent in less than a decade. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN : The mighty US dollar appears to be one of the world’s safest currencies . This sense of security has blinded many from seeing that the greenback has lost tremendous value over the past 100 years, a fact that should send investors piling into a surging Bitcoin . US Dollar Trapped in Irreversible Century-Long Downtrend In the early 1900s, a dollar could get you a nice pair of patent leather shoes . The currency had so much value back then because there was only $7 billion in circulation. A hundred and twelve years later (2012), the U.S. money supply swelled to $13.3 trillion, and a dollar can fetch you one song from iTunes. With an overabundance of dollars in circulation, it is not surprising that its purchasing power has diminished considerably over time. According to Merk Investments , the greenback has shed over 95% of its value since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Dollar lost value over time The dollar’s purchasing power has cratered over the past century. | Source: Merk Investments Applying technical analysis, the currency is not showing signs of a trend reversal. If this is was a chart of a bearish cryptocurrency, you’d likely stay as far away from it as possible for fear that it might go to zero. Bearish Lisk (LSK/BTC) chart Bearish Lisk (LSK/BTC) resembles the dollar’s market structure | Source: TradingView Speaking of cryptocurrency, there’s one that offers superior returns over time. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Dollar’s Brutal 100-Year Tailspin Guarantees a Spellbinding Bitcoin Rally: ByCCN: The mighty US dollar appears to be one of theworld’s safest currencies. This sense of security has blinded many from seeing that the greenback has lost tremendous value over the past 100 years, a fact that should send investors piling into a surgingBitcoin.
In the early 1900s, a dollar could get you a nice pair ofpatent leather shoes. The currency had so much value back then because there was only $7 billion in circulation. A hundred and twelve years later (2012), the U.S. money supply swelled to $13.3 trillion, and a dollar can fetch you one song from iTunes.
With an overabundance of dollars in circulation, it is not surprising that its purchasing power has diminished considerably over time. According toMerk Investments, the greenback has shed over 95% of its value since the establishment of theFederal Reservein 1913.
The dollar’s purchasing power has cratered over the past century. | Source: Merk Investments
Applying technical analysis, the currency is not showing signs of a trend reversal. If this is was a chart of a bearish cryptocurrency, you’d likely stay as far away from it as possible for fear that it might go to zero.
Bearish Lisk (LSK/BTC) resembles the dollar’s market structure | Source: TradingView
Speaking of cryptocurrency, there’s one that offers superior returns over time.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Dollar’s Brutal 100-Year Tailspin Guarantees a Spellbinding Bitcoin Rally: ByCCN: The mighty US dollar appears to be one of theworld’s safest currencies. This sense of security has blinded many from seeing that the greenback has lost tremendous value over the past 100 years, a fact that should send investors piling into a surgingBitcoin.
In the early 1900s, a dollar could get you a nice pair ofpatent leather shoes. The currency had so much value back then because there was only $7 billion in circulation. A hundred and twelve years later (2012), the U.S. money supply swelled to $13.3 trillion, and a dollar can fetch you one song from iTunes.
With an overabundance of dollars in circulation, it is not surprising that its purchasing power has diminished considerably over time. According toMerk Investments, the greenback has shed over 95% of its value since the establishment of theFederal Reservein 1913.
The dollar’s purchasing power has cratered over the past century. | Source: Merk Investments
Applying technical analysis, the currency is not showing signs of a trend reversal. If this is was a chart of a bearish cryptocurrency, you’d likely stay as far away from it as possible for fear that it might go to zero.
Bearish Lisk (LSK/BTC) resembles the dollar’s market structure | Source: TradingView
Speaking of cryptocurrency, there’s one that offers superior returns over time.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || The blockchain/crypto week in quotes: “Breaking through the $6,000 barrier is a moment of truth for Bitcoin. This had been a major support level throughout most of 2018 and holds major psychological significance for the community. I expect to see a small sell-off initially before the price breaks higher. If this happens, we could see prices reach levels last seen at the start of 2018, potentially hitting the $12,000-$14,000 range by the end of the year. Given that global markets are having a bit of a wobble at the minute, Bitcoin’s price growth in recent weeks means it is one of the strongest asset classes so far in 2019.” Simon Peters, analyst at eToro Well ….. I made Yahoo News. So at least someone In our government must have received my messages, if there's anyone left in the government who can still understand straight talk. https://t.co/TS1riS0y87 — John McAfee (@officialmcafee) May 11, 2019 “The situation with Tether and Bitfinex seems like a really big mess that probably won’t get better. Tether is somewhat important to our ecosystem because it’s used by different institutions to effect more fluid trading. There are other price-stable tokens out there – many others – and I think they’re going to gain traction because of this. I think that will be a really good thing.” Joseph Lubin, Co-founder of Ethereum and Founder of ConsenSys Today in Congress Rep. Sherman called for a bill to ban all cryptocurrencies. This is why Coin Center is needed in DC now more than ever. pic.twitter.com/jgikm7z8bI — Coin Center (@coincenter) May 9, 2019 “Cryptocurrencies are not really currencies, they are assets. A euro is a euro, today, tomorrow, in a month, it’s always a euro. And the ECB is behind the euro. Who is behind the cryptocurrencies? So they are very, very risky assets.” European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi CZ is catching a connecting flight. His bags don't make it in time. He saunters up the aisle and grabs the PA from flight attendant. "I could have stopped this plane and shut down the whole airport to get my bag, but I chose not to. I am a generous god." The passengers applaud — nic carter (@nic__carter) May 8, 2019 “The attack on Binance is a yet another case showing how unreliable centralised exchanges are. Obviously, even with the presence of impressive financial resources, enabling the exchange to address the security issue properly, and despite the trust of millions of users around the world (as is well known, Binance is one of the leaders in trading volumes), such exchanges are outdated and are more like a giant game of Russian Roulette than a financial ecosystem that stimulates the favourable development of the crypto market. It is highly likely that a similar situation will soon happen at other “Binance-like” major exchanges that will remain nameless. The consequence of such events is the slowing down of the development of the crypto financial market, since such attacks increasingly weaken the confidence of participants and delay the entry of institutional entities into the market. Market participants have high expectations related to attacks: namely, that the market will begin to develop strongly and become more orderly and professional. In other words, the institutional entities will lead the market to a higher professional standard. There is only one way out, and that is to urgently and drastically change the approach to the storage of client funds. The funds must either be kept in the custody of licensed, highly-reputable third-party custodians or with the client in a personal decentralised account, which, in our opinion, is a more reliable option. At Xena, we are actively working on this solution and will soon present it. Only the client is able to access their funds, and the relationship with the exchange must remain independent and trustless.” Julie Plavnik, CBDO, Xena Exchange Using crypto is easy! You just need: – 2FA on everything – Ledger for cold storage – Key recovery plan – New browser extensions – Wallet for phone – An exchange account – Know terms like "gas" Oh & 95% of coins are scams & hackers are always trying to steal your money Easy! — Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams) May 8, 2019 “Despite the Binance hack, Bitcoin seems to be continuing with its current upward trend. That’s not to say that we’re unlikely to see any more falls. While the market has been overdue a rally, it won’t just be a straight line upwards from here on out. Prices are likely to remain volatile with wild swings. While some attribute the rally to the upcoming New York blockchain week, this seems more coincidence than cause. The main driver is likely to be the anticipated halving of the mining reward for Bitcoin. While still a year away it has been identified that a rally in Bitcoin tends to precede this event. This has happened every time a halving has taken place, as a diminished supply will naturally lead to more demand.” Gavin Smith, CEO, Panxora To advocate for crypto is to advocate for money to be subject to open competition, like any other important good or service in a market economy. The money monopolists (central banks and governments) will oppose this change, softly & curiously at first, and then with a vengeance. — Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) May 12, 2019 “With Facebook Coin, Facebook has lit a fire in the pants of every major FinTech and financial institution in the US.” Blockchain Capital partner Spencer Bogart I am shocked that @cz_binance even went there. Talk of forking or reorganizing the blockchain is close to heresy. When the ethereum community did it the project was like 5 months old. A baby. Bitcoin now has $100bn market cap and is a legitimate store of wealth. https://t.co/pXSqiUcq0i — Michael Novogratz (@novogratz) May 8, 2019 “BitPay is at the cutting-edge of blockchain-payment technology and has proven itself as a valuable partner to numerous companies and consumers globally. I believe that BitPay has the opportunity to be a game-changer in the financial technology and payment space as the use cases for blockchain payments grow around the world. I am very excited to be part of this journey and join the team.” Glen Braganza, BitPay Chief Financial Officer In 2008, US taxpayers were forced to bail out the banks by purchasing their toxic debt. In protest of that crisis, Bitcoin was born. In 2019, Bitfinex wants a bailout of their own. The difference is, they can't compel us to buy their IEO. I'm not here for the Bitfinex Bailout. — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) May 5, 2019 “Blockchain…very interesting development.” Prince Charles “I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it’s just disgusting. It’s like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, ‘I can’t be left out.'” Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger #Bitcoin is up 6% to its yearly high of around $6,000. Don’t be fooled, a 6% uptick is nothing after its huge plunge. Bitcoin in unreliable and susceptible to fraud, it is not a currency, but nothing more than a highly-speculative asset https://t.co/dDCgwtPu4r — Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) May 4, 2019 The post The blockchain/crypto week in quotes appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || The blockchain/crypto week in quotes: “Breaking through the $6,000 barrier is a moment of truth for Bitcoin. This had been a major support level throughout most of 2018 and holds major psychological significance for the community. I expect to see a small sell-off initially before the price breaks higher. If this happens, we could see prices reach levels last seen at the start of 2018, potentially hitting the $12,000-$14,000 range by the end of the year. Given that global markets are having a bit of a wobble at the minute, Bitcoin’s price growth in recent weeks means it is one of the strongest asset classes so far in 2019.” Simon Peters, analyst at eToro Well ….. I made Yahoo News. So at least someone In our government must have received my messages, if there's anyone left in the government who can still understand straight talk. https://t.co/TS1riS0y87 — John McAfee (@officialmcafee) May 11, 2019 “The situation with Tether and Bitfinex seems like a really big mess that probably won’t get better. Tether is somewhat important to our ecosystem because it’s used by different institutions to effect more fluid trading. There are other price-stable tokens out there – many others – and I think they’re going to gain traction because of this. I think that will be a really good thing.” Joseph Lubin, Co-founder of Ethereum and Founder of ConsenSys Today in Congress Rep. Sherman called for a bill to ban all cryptocurrencies. This is why Coin Center is needed in DC now more than ever. pic.twitter.com/jgikm7z8bI — Coin Center (@coincenter) May 9, 2019 “Cryptocurrencies are not really currencies, they are assets. A euro is a euro, today, tomorrow, in a month, it’s always a euro. And the ECB is behind the euro. Who is behind the cryptocurrencies? So they are very, very risky assets.” European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi CZ is catching a connecting flight. His bags don't make it in time. He saunters up the aisle and grabs the PA from flight attendant. "I could have stopped this plane and shut down the whole airport to get my bag, but I chose not to. I am a generous god." The passengers applaud — nic carter (@nic__carter) May 8, 2019 “The attack on Binance is a yet another case showing how unreliable centralised exchanges are. Obviously, even with the presence of impressive financial resources, enabling the exchange to address the security issue properly, and despite the trust of millions of users around the world (as is well known, Binance is one of the leaders in trading volumes), such exchanges are outdated and are more like a giant game of Russian Roulette than a financial ecosystem that stimulates the favourable development of the crypto market. It is highly likely that a similar situation will soon happen at other “Binance-like” major exchanges that will remain nameless. The consequence of such events is the slowing down of the development of the crypto financial market, since such attacks increasingly weaken the confidence of participants and delay the entry of institutional entities into the market. Market participants have high expectations related to attacks: namely, that the market will begin to develop strongly and become more orderly and professional. In other words, the institutional entities will lead the market to a higher professional standard. There is only one way out, and that is to urgently and drastically change the approach to the storage of client funds. The funds must either be kept in the custody of licensed, highly-reputable third-party custodians or with the client in a personal decentralised account, which, in our opinion, is a more reliable option. At Xena, we are actively working on this solution and will soon present it. Only the client is able to access their funds, and the relationship with the exchange must remain independent and trustless.” Julie Plavnik, CBDO, Xena Exchange Using crypto is easy! You just need: – 2FA on everything – Ledger for cold storage – Key recovery plan – New browser extensions – Wallet for phone – An exchange account – Know terms like "gas" Oh & 95% of coins are scams & hackers are always trying to steal your money Easy! — Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams) May 8, 2019 “Despite the Binance hack, Bitcoin seems to be continuing with its current upward trend. That’s not to say that we’re unlikely to see any more falls. While the market has been overdue a rally, it won’t just be a straight line upwards from here on out. Prices are likely to remain volatile with wild swings. While some attribute the rally to the upcoming New York blockchain week, this seems more coincidence than cause. The main driver is likely to be the anticipated halving of the mining reward for Bitcoin. While still a year away it has been identified that a rally in Bitcoin tends to precede this event. This has happened every time a halving has taken place, as a diminished supply will naturally lead to more demand.” Gavin Smith, CEO, Panxora To advocate for crypto is to advocate for money to be subject to open competition, like any other important good or service in a market economy. The money monopolists (central banks and governments) will oppose this change, softly & curiously at first, and then with a vengeance. — Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) May 12, 2019 “With Facebook Coin, Facebook has lit a fire in the pants of every major FinTech and financial institution in the US.” Blockchain Capital partner Spencer Bogart I am shocked that @cz_binance even went there. Talk of forking or reorganizing the blockchain is close to heresy. When the ethereum community did it the project was like 5 months old. A baby. Bitcoin now has $100bn market cap and is a legitimate store of wealth. https://t.co/pXSqiUcq0i — Michael Novogratz (@novogratz) May 8, 2019 “BitPay is at the cutting-edge of blockchain-payment technology and has proven itself as a valuable partner to numerous companies and consumers globally. I believe that BitPay has the opportunity to be a game-changer in the financial technology and payment space as the use cases for blockchain payments grow around the world. I am very excited to be part of this journey and join the team.” Glen Braganza, BitPay Chief Financial Officer In 2008, US taxpayers were forced to bail out the banks by purchasing their toxic debt. In protest of that crisis, Bitcoin was born. In 2019, Bitfinex wants a bailout of their own. The difference is, they can't compel us to buy their IEO. I'm not here for the Bitfinex Bailout. — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) May 5, 2019 “Blockchain…very interesting development.” Prince Charles “I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it’s just disgusting. It’s like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, ‘I can’t be left out.'” Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger #Bitcoin is up 6% to its yearly high of around $6,000. Don’t be fooled, a 6% uptick is nothing after its huge plunge. Bitcoin in unreliable and susceptible to fraud, it is not a currency, but nothing more than a highly-speculative asset https://t.co/dDCgwtPu4r — Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) May 4, 2019 The post The blockchain/crypto week in quotes appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Bitcoin Price Will Hit $500,000 Cause it Beats Gold: Hedge Fund Chief: Bitcoin's limited supply, its ease of use and a number of other factors make it a better asset than gold, according to Mark Yusko. Source: Shutterstock By CCN : The bitcoin bull market is here , as the price of the flagship cryptocurrency has shot through $7,400 and it seems all set to go higher. Chart showing the bitcoin price rally. Bitcoin has broken through the $7,000 mark | Source: CoinMarketCap Bitcoin bulls estimate that the price of each coin could hit $20,000 very soon thanks to rising demand. But there are some who believe that the price of bitcoin could very well go on to hit cool six-figure sums in the future, including Morgan Creek Digital CEO Mark Yusko. Yuskos yummy bitcoin price forecast Morgan Creek Digital is an asset management firm that invests in the blockchain industry, and its co-founder is a well-known bitcoin bull with big price estimates. In a recent interview with BloxLive TV , Yusko said that the price of bitcoin could eventually hit $500,000 thanks to its scarce supply, increasing demand, and advantages over a safe-haven investment such as gold. According to Yusko, theres $7.4 trillion worth of gold in the world. He believes that bitcoin is a much better asset than gold because it can be transferred easily and divided into smaller parts. To arrive at his forecast, Yusko equated the gold markets value to that of the digital asset. He said: Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin Price Will Hit $500,000 Cause it Beats Gold: Hedge Fund Chief: ByCCN: The bitcoinbull market is here, as the price of the flagship cryptocurrency has shot through $7,400 and it seems all set to go higher.
Bitcoin has broken through the $7,000 mark | Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin bulls estimate that the price of each coin couldhit $20,000very soon thanks to rising demand. But there are some who believe that the price of bitcoin could very well go on to hitcool six-figure sumsin the future, including Morgan Creek Digital CEO Mark Yusko.
Morgan Creek Digital is an asset management firm that invests in the blockchain industry, and its co-founder is a well-known bitcoin bull with big price estimates.
In a recent interview withBloxLive TV, Yusko said that the price of bitcoin could eventually hit $500,000 thanks to its scarce supply, increasing demand, and advantages over a safe-haven investment such as gold.
According to Yusko, there’s $7.4 trillion worth of gold in the world. He believes that bitcoin is a much better asset than gold because it can be transferred easily and divided into smaller parts. To arrive at his forecast, Yusko equated the gold market’s value to that of the digital asset. He said:
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Price Will Hit $500,000 Cause it Beats Gold: Hedge Fund Chief: ByCCN: The bitcoinbull market is here, as the price of the flagship cryptocurrency has shot through $7,400 and it seems all set to go higher.
Bitcoin has broken through the $7,000 mark | Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin bulls estimate that the price of each coin couldhit $20,000very soon thanks to rising demand. But there are some who believe that the price of bitcoin could very well go on to hitcool six-figure sumsin the future, including Morgan Creek Digital CEO Mark Yusko.
Morgan Creek Digital is an asset management firm that invests in the blockchain industry, and its co-founder is a well-known bitcoin bull with big price estimates.
In a recent interview withBloxLive TV, Yusko said that the price of bitcoin could eventually hit $500,000 thanks to its scarce supply, increasing demand, and advantages over a safe-haven investment such as gold.
According to Yusko, there’s $7.4 trillion worth of gold in the world. He believes that bitcoin is a much better asset than gold because it can be transferred easily and divided into smaller parts. To arrive at his forecast, Yusko equated the gold market’s value to that of the digital asset. He said:
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Hodlers Digest, May 612: Top Stories, Price Movements, Quotes and FUD of the Week: Top Stories This Week Hackers Withdraw 7,000 Bitcoins in Binance Crypto Exchange Security Breach Binance , one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trade volume, experienced a security breach this week, losing a little over 7,000 bitcoins ( BTC ). CEO Changpeng Zhao stated at the time that the bitcoins were withdrawn from its hot wallets, which contain only 2% of the exchanges total bitcoin holdings. In the interim, proceeds from the hack have been moved to seven addresses. CZ devoted a live AMA on Twitter to address community concerns in the wake of the hack, also discussing the idea of a bitcoin chain reorganization . In response to criticism of using the term reorg, CZ later apologized, but noted that it is my strong view that our constant and transparent communication is what sets us apart from the old way of doing things. Bitfinex Confirms Initial Exchange Offering to Raise Up to $1 Billion in Tether Embattled cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex confirmed it would conduct a $1 billion so-called initial exchange offering (IEO) in a white paper issued on May 8, with a Bitfinex shareholder confirming that $1 billion in both hard and soft commitments have been sealed. The exchange is currently facing ongoing legal scrutiny from authorities who accuse it of losing $850 million. The white paper notes that there will be a sale of up to 1 billion LEO tokens, each worth 1 tether ( USDT ), lasting until May 11, which marks the cut-off point for sales to private investors. Zhao Dong has noted that the $1 billion already committed means there is little chance of a public sale. Facebook May Announce FB Coin Stablecoin in Q3, Say Anonymous Sources Social networking giant Facebook is hiring PayPal staff ahead of its alleged cryptocurrency launch, making up 20% of a 50-person team, according to an unnamed source familiar with the situation. According to the source, the social network company began hiring for a dedicated blockchain team last year, under the auspices of David Marcus, himself a former president of PayPal. The same source notes that the Facebook Coin could be launched as soon as the third quarter of 2019. The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the United States Senate is now seeking information on Facebooks reported cryptocurrency project in response to the rumors over the project. Story continues Bloomberg Report: Fidelity Will Start Institutional Bitcoin Trading Within Weeks United States $7 trillion investment firm Fidelity will reportedly roll out bitcoin ( BTC ) trading for institutional clients in the coming weeks, an unnamed source told Bloomberg. According to this source, Fidelitys cryptocurrency-focused spin-off, Fidelity Digital Assets, would be adding to the existing range of services, with trading to go live in as soon as in a few weeks. The source noted that the service will primarily target large-volume traders like other over-the-counter ( OTC ) offerings. Fidelity has not itself confirmed the time frame of the service offering, but did hint that its future direction would only involve more integration with the bitcoin space. Fidelity Digital Assets launched in October 2018 and has offered cryptocurrency custody from March this year ahead of planned OTC trading. Starbucks Working With Microsoft for Blockchain-Based Coffee Tracking Platform United States-based coffee chain Starbucks will begin using Microsoft s Azure Blockchain Service to track the production of its coffee. The bean to cup initiative, first announced in 2018, involves farmers in Costa Rica, Colombia and Rwanda piloting a blockchain-based coffee-tracking system. The system, whose pilot program will be made open source by Starbucks, will allow customers to track the production of their coffee and will open up potential financial opportunities for coffee bean farmers on the back end. Microsofts Azure Blockchain Service is a blockchain-as-a-service ( BaaS ) platform that currently supports Quorum, the Ethereum -based platform of JPMorgan Chase . It doesnt do anything. It just sits there. Its like a seashell or something, and that is not an investment to me. Warren Buffet , Berkshire Hathaway CEO Cryptocurrencies or bitcoins, or anything like that, are not really currencies they are assets. A euro is a euro today, tomorrow, in a month its always a euro. And the ECB is behind the euro. Who is behind the cryptocurrencies? So they are very, very risky assets. European Central Bank ( ECB ) President Mario Draghi The debate is over, bitcoin won. It is now seen by people all around the world as a legitimate place to [store] their value. Michael Novogratz , CEO of crypto bank Galaxy Digital and former Goldman Sachs partner And I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it is just disgusting. It is like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, 'I can't be left out. Charlie Munger, billionaire investor and vice chairman of American holding conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Winners and Losers At the end of this week, bitcoin is trading up, at around $7,154 as of 7:35 a.m. EST. Ether is at $190, XRP $0.31 and the total market cap is at about $213 billion. The top three altcoin gainers of the week are kurrent, cryptosolartech and everus. The top three altcoin losers of the week are icocalendar.today, lendroid support token and commerce data connection. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraphs market analysis . Winners and Losers Blockchain, Komgo, Forcefield, Vakt, one of these will have to work to change how trade is being done. Its a matter of time. When, I cant tell, but I think it has to go paperless. Ng Chuey Peng , managing director and head of global commodities finance at Singapores Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd. (OCBC), speaking about the trade finance industry I actually think we should shut down the cryptocurrencies. Joseph Stiglitz , American economist and Nobel Prize winner Ultimately we want to be able to tokenize existing securities equities, fixed income, funds. Maybe the token will eventually replace the share one day. Thomas Zeeb , head of securities and exchanges and director at SIX If they came to us with a particular derivative that met our requirements, I think that theres a good chance that it would be [allowed to be] self-certified by us. Unnamed CFTC official speaking about ether futures I eventually want to have a fund where I take in bitcoin and I fund everybody in bitcoin and they pay their employees and suppliers in bitcoin and then I pay my investors in bitcoin. Tim Draper Prediction of the Week Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz: Bitcoin Should Cross $20,000 Within 18 Months Michael Novogratz , Galaxy Digital CEO, predicted this week that, in his opinion, bitcoin will beat its all-time high price within 18 months. During an interview, Novogratz added that $6,000 is a stall point, and the next one will be $10,000. The CEO also noted that altcoins were not likely to follow bitcoins rise, as they still have to prove their use cases. Illustrating his point with an allusion to the table of elements, Novogratz pointed out that, out of the 118 elements present on the periodic table, only gold has store of value just because. FUD of the Week U.S. Court Orders Craig Wright to Provide Bitcoin Ownership Records The United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida issued an order this week that requires Craig Wright , the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto , to provide a list of his public bitcoin ( BTC ) addresses. The courts order is part of a continuing case against Wright that has been filed by the estate of computer scientist David Kleiman over Wrights purported thefts of hundreds of thousands of BTC. The plaintiffs had requested that the court make Wright turn over a list of the public addresses of bitcoin he owned as of Dec. 31, 2013, as well as identify all bitcoin allegedly transferred to a blind trust in 2011. Chinese Social Media Giant WeChat Bans Crypto Transactions in Its Payment Policy Chinese social media giant and payment service provider WeChat banned cryptocurrency transactions in its payments policy this week. According to a tweet with an alleged screenshot of the policy changes, users who engage in cryptocurrency trading will have their accounts terminated. The updated rules coming into force on May 31 state that merchants may not engage in illegal transactions such as virtual currency," the issuance of tokens, selling pornography or online gambling . WeChat is a popular messaging and payments service provider in China with the overall number of users allegedly reaching 1.098 billion by the end of last year. Its like being on the internet; so people can spin out and they can start owning bitcoin, they can start owning ether. Some percentage of the user base is likely to do so, and again I think thats gonna be a dramatic catalyst. Spencer Bogart, partner at Blockchain Capital, speaking about Facebook Coin Blockchain...very interesting development. Charles , Prince of Wales An awful lot of our international power stems from the fact that the dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions [...] it is the announced purpose of the supporters of cryptocurrencies to take that power away from us. United States Congressman Brad Sherman We should not be trying to guide innovation, but we also should recognize that we cannot stop it and embrace the potential for positive change that innovation offers. Our silence is likely to simply push this innovation and any attendant economic growth into other jurisdictions that have done their work and provided clear guidelines for the market participants to follow. United States regulator and so-called crypto mom Hester Peirce We have teams clearly working on blockchain and cryptocurrency as well, and we want to participate in that in whatever form it takes in the future. I just think its a little early on right now. PayPal CFO John Rainey Best Cointelegraph Features Emin Gün Sirer on Rethinking Blockchain, Promoting Good Crypto Use and Leaving Stagnation Behind Cornell Universitys Emin Gün Sirer talks with Cointelegraph about the missions of academics to change the world, and about the new waves of projects to come. Indias Complex Relationship With Crypto In this latest analysis on India and cryptocurrency, Cointelegraph looks at how the Indian government has toyed with the idea of banning cryptocurrency in the past, and how its stance looks now. A Landmark for the Blockchain Island The Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation within the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta gives his thoughts on the new virtual financial assets acts, and how far Malta has gone as the Blockchain Island. Related Articles: Binance-Backed Crypto Bank Appoints Deutsche Bank Executive as New CEO Facebook May Announce FB Coin Stablecoin in Q3, Say Anonymous Sources Facebook Revises Policy on Blockchain Ads, Crypto-Related Materials Blockchain Capital Partner Spencer Bogart: Facebook Could Double or Triple Crypto Users || Hodler’s Digest, May 6–12: Top Stories, Price Movements, Quotes and FUD of the Week: Binance, one of the largestcryptocurrency exchangesby daily trade volume, experienced asecurity breachthis week, losing a little over 7,000 bitcoins (BTC). CEOChangpeng Zhaostated at the time that the bitcoins were withdrawn from its hot wallets, which contain only 2% of the exchange’s total bitcoin holdings. In the interim, proceeds from the hack have beenmovedto seven addresses. CZdevoted a live AMAon Twitter to address community concerns in the wake of the hack, also discussing theidea of a bitcoin chain reorganization. In response to criticism of using the term “reorg,” CZ later apologized, butnotedthat “it is my strong view that our constant and transparent communication is what sets us apart from the “old way of doing things.”
Embattledcryptocurrency exchangeBitfinexconfirmed it would conduct a $1 billion so-called initial exchange offering (IEO) in awhite paperissued on May 8, with a Bitfinex shareholderconfirmingthat $1 billion in both hard and soft commitments have been sealed. The exchange is currently facingongoing legal scrutinyfrom authorities who accuse it of losing $850 million. The white paper notes that there will be a sale of up to 1 billion LEO tokens, each worth 1 tether (USDT), lasting until May 11, which marks the cut-off point for sales to private investors. Zhao Dong has noted that the $1 billion already committed means there is little chance of a public sale.
Social networking giantFacebookis hiringPayPalstaff ahead of its alleged cryptocurrency launch, making up 20% of a 50-person team, according to an unnamed source familiar with the situation. According to the source, the social network company began hiring for a dedicated blockchain team last year, under the auspices of David Marcus, himself a former president of PayPal. The same source notes that theFacebook Coincould be launched as soon as the third quarter of 2019. The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the United States Senate is nowseekinginformation on Facebook’s reported cryptocurrency project in response to the rumors over the project.
United States$7 trillion investment firm Fidelity will reportedly roll out bitcoin (BTC) trading for institutional clients in the coming weeks, an unnamed source told Bloomberg. According to this source, Fidelity’s cryptocurrency-focused spin-off, Fidelity Digital Assets, would be adding to the existing range of services, with trading to go live in as soon as in a few weeks. The source noted that the service will primarily target large-volume traders likeotherover-the-counter (OTC) offerings. Fidelity has not itself confirmed the time frame of the service offering, but did hint that its future direction would only involve more integration with the bitcoin space. Fidelity Digital Assetslaunchedin October 2018 and hasofferedcryptocurrency custody from March this year ahead of planned OTC trading.
United States-based coffee chainStarbuckswill begin usingMicrosoft’s Azure Blockchain Service to track the production of its coffee. The “bean to cup” initiative, first announced in 2018, involves farmers in Costa Rica, Colombia and Rwanda piloting a blockchain-based coffee-tracking system. The system, whose pilot program will be made open source by Starbucks, will allow customers to track the production of their coffee and will open up potential financial opportunities for coffee bean farmers on the back end. Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain Service is a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that currently supports Quorum, theEthereum-based platform ofJPMorgan Chase.
“It doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. It’s like a seashell or something, and that is not an investment to me.”
“Cryptocurrencies or bitcoins, or anything like that, are not really currencies — they are assets. A euro is aeuro— today, tomorrow, in a month — it’s always a euro. And the ECB is behind the euro. Who is behind the cryptocurrencies? So they are very, very risky assets.”
“The debate is over, bitcoin won. It is now seen by people all around the world as a legitimate place to [store] their value.”
“And I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it is just disgusting. It is like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, 'I can't be left out.’”
At the end of this week, bitcoin is trading up, at around $7,154 as of 7:35 a.m. EST. Ether is at $190, XRP $0.31 and the total market cap is at about $213 billion.
The top three altcoin gainers of the week are kurrent, cryptosolartech and everus. The top three altcoin losers of the week are icocalendar.today, lendroid support token and commerce data connection.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’smarket analysis.
“Blockchain, Komgo, Forcefield, Vakt, one of these will have to work to change how trade is being done. It’s a matter of time. When, I can’t tell, but I think it has to go paperless.”
“I actually think we should shut down the cryptocurrencies.”
“Ultimately we want to be able to tokenize existing securities — equities, fixed income, funds. Maybe the token will eventually replace the share one day.”
“If they came to us with a particular derivative that met our requirements, I think that there’s a good chance that it would be [allowed to be] self-certified by us.”
“I eventually want to have a fund where I take in bitcoin and I fund everybody in bitcoin and they pay their employees and suppliers in bitcoin and then I pay my investors in bitcoin.”
Michael Novogratz, Galaxy Digital CEO, predicted this week that, in his opinion, bitcoin will beat its all-time high price within 18 months. During an interview, Novogratz added that $6,000 is a stall point, and the next one will be $10,000. The CEO also noted that altcoins were not likely to follow bitcoin’s rise, as they still have to prove their use cases. Illustrating his point with an allusion to the table of elements, Novogratz pointed out that, out of the 118 elements present on the periodic table, only “goldhas store of value just because.”
The United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida issued an order this week that requiresCraig Wright, the self-proclaimedSatoshi Nakamoto, to provide a list of his public bitcoin (BTC) addresses. The court’s order is part of a continuing case against Wright that has been filed by the estate of computer scientistDavid Kleimanover Wright’s purported thefts of hundreds of thousands of BTC. The plaintiffs had requested that the court make Wright turn over a list of the public addresses of bitcoin he owned as of Dec. 31, 2013, as well as identify all bitcoin allegedly transferred to a blind trust in 2011.
Chinesesocial media giant and payment service providerWeChatbanned cryptocurrency transactions in its payments policy this week. According to a tweet with an alleged screenshot of the policy changes, users who engage in cryptocurrency trading will have their accounts terminated. The updated rules — coming into force on May 31 — state that “merchants may not engage in illegal transactions such as virtual currency," the issuance of tokens, sellingpornographyor onlinegambling. WeChat is a popular messaging and payments service provider in China with the overall number of usersallegedlyreaching 1.098 billion by the end of last year.
“It’s like being on the internet; so people can spin out and they can start owning bitcoin, they can start owning ether. Some percentage of the user base is likely to do so, and again I think that’s gonna be a dramatic catalyst.”
“Blockchain...very interesting development.”
“An awful lot of our international power stems from the fact that the dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions [...] it is the announced purpose of the supporters of cryptocurrencies to take that power away from us.”
“We should not be trying to guide innovation, but we also should recognize that we cannot stop it and embrace the potential for positive change that innovation offers. Our silence is likely to simply push this innovation and any attendant economic growth into other jurisdictions that have done their work and provided clear guidelines for the market participants to follow.”
“We have teams clearly working on blockchain and cryptocurrency as well, and we want to participate in that in whatever form it takes in the future. I just think it’s a little early on right now.”
Cornell University’s Emin Gün Sirer talks with Cointelegraph about the missions of academics to change the world, and about the new waves of projects to come.
In this latest analysis on India and cryptocurrency, Cointelegraph looks at how the Indian government has toyed with the idea of banning cryptocurrency in the past, and how its stance looks now.
The Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation within the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta gives his thoughts on the new virtual financial assets acts, and how far Malta has gone as the Blockchain Island.
• Binance-Backed Crypto Bank Appoints Deutsche Bank Executive as New CEO
• Facebook May Announce FB Coin Stablecoin in Q3, Say Anonymous Sources
• Facebook Revises Policy on Blockchain Ads, Crypto-Related Materials
• Blockchain Capital Partner Spencer Bogart: Facebook Could Double or Triple Crypto Users || Roger Ver talks Ross Ulbricht and war on drugs: Roger Ver has popped up on YouTube to read a letter from Ross Ulbricht, who is best known for creating and running the Silk Road website from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. Ver is a major proponent of Bitcoin Cash, which he claims is more faithful to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision than Bitcoin. Whilst Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years in the US without the possibility of parole. Ver makes a habit of sharing the letters sent to him by Ulbricht. In the latest one, he thanks Ver for organising a benefit concert in Los Angeles. “Can you imagine if the President released me beforehand? Then I could crash the party and tell everyone prison stories and all my thoughts on criminal justice reform. There is a lot to discuss!” “Prison doesn’t get easier, but I am keeping my chin up. With friends like you out there, I feel it is just a matter of time before this nightmare is behind me and I can start living again. Thank you for giving me hope,” Ulbricht adds. Bad guys Also in the YouTube video, Ver gives his thoughts on the war against drugs. “If you’re a police officer watching this video, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, when you put someone in prison or arrest somebody for having a plant that makes them feel happy or buying and selling a white powder that makes people feel happy, are you the good guy for doing that?” he says. “I would argue very strongly, no, you’re the bad guy for doing that. Just like those who were arresting people for drinking alcohol when alcohol was illegal in the USA. They were the bad people for doing such a thing.” “Just because some people get together and write some words down on paper and call it a law, that doesn’t alter morality one bit. And if people have the right to drink alcohol, they have the right to smoke marijuana – they have the right to smoke crack,” he continues. “Because their lives and their bodies belong to them and their lives and their bodies don’t belong to the politicians or the police officers or any of these other people.” A classic libertarian take on the matter, then. So, is Ver on the money, woefully naive or somewhere in between? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. The post Roger Ver talks Ross Ulbricht and war on drugs appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Roger Ver talks Ross Ulbricht and war on drugs: Roger Ver has popped up on YouTube to read a letter from Ross Ulbricht, who is best known for creating and running the Silk Road website from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. Ver is a major proponent of Bitcoin Cash, which he claims is more faithful to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision than Bitcoin. Whilst Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years in the US without the possibility of parole. Ver makes a habit of sharing the letters sent to him by Ulbricht. In the latest one, he thanks Ver for organising a benefit concert in Los Angeles. “Can you imagine if the President released me beforehand? Then I could crash the party and tell everyone prison stories and all my thoughts on criminal justice reform. There is a lot to discuss!” “Prison doesn’t get easier, but I am keeping my chin up. With friends like you out there, I feel it is just a matter of time before this nightmare is behind me and I can start living again. Thank you for giving me hope,” Ulbricht adds. Bad guys Also in the YouTube video, Ver gives his thoughts on the war against drugs. “If you’re a police officer watching this video, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, when you put someone in prison or arrest somebody for having a plant that makes them feel happy or buying and selling a white powder that makes people feel happy, are you the good guy for doing that?” he says. “I would argue very strongly, no, you’re the bad guy for doing that. Just like those who were arresting people for drinking alcohol when alcohol was illegal in the USA. They were the bad people for doing such a thing.” “Just because some people get together and write some words down on paper and call it a law, that doesn’t alter morality one bit. And if people have the right to drink alcohol, they have the right to smoke marijuana – they have the right to smoke crack,” he continues. “Because their lives and their bodies belong to them and their lives and their bodies don’t belong to the politicians or the police officers or any of these other people.” A classic libertarian take on the matter, then. So, is Ver on the money, woefully naive or somewhere in between? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. The post Roger Ver talks Ross Ulbricht and war on drugs appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Supply Tight, but Trade Concerns Capping Prices: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures finished a little lower last week, but most of the price action was sideways as investors tried to sort out the ever-changing U.S.-China trade story.
Continuing to underpin prices were the OPEC-led production cuts and the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran. This news provided steady support throughout the week because these events are helping to keep global supply tight.
Last week,July WTI crude oilfutures settled at $61.80, down $0.24 or -0.39% andJuly Brent crude oilfutures finished at $70.62, down $0.23 or -0.33%.
Giving prices a further boost last week was an unexpected drop in U.S. crude inventories. U.S. crude oil stocks fell by 4 million barrels in the week-ended May 3, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Traders were looking for a 1.1 million barrel build.
The EIA also reported an estimated fall of 600,000 barrels in gasoline inventories after a 900.000-barrel increase two weeks ago. Production in the week to May 3 averaged 10.1 million bpd, versus 9.9 million bpd in the previous week.
The EIA report also showed an inventory draw of 200,000 barrels in distillate fuel, which compared with a decline of 1.3 million barrels a week earlier. Distillate fuel production last week averaged 5.1 million bpd, largely unchanged on the prior week.
Earlier in the week, President Trump said the U.S. will deploy four B-52 bombers to the Middle East in response to what the Trump administration said are threats of a possible attack by Iran on American troops in the region. This helped generate some speculative buying in crude oil
Baker Hughes on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by 2 to 805 this week. That followed an increase of 2 oil rigs the previous week. The total active U.S. rig count, meanwhile, also fell by 2 to 988, according to Baker Hughes.
Tight global supplies are likely to continue to underpin WTI and Brent crude oil prices. The sanctions against Iran and Venezuela aren’t going to go away over the near-term. The OPEC-led supply cuts are likely to remain intact until at least late June when the cartel and its allies will meet to discuss the fate of the program.
The wildcard this week will be U.S.-China relations. I do believe a trade deal will eventually get done but in the meantime, moves will be made that could have an adverse effect on crude oil prices.
On Friday, the U.S. implemented new tariffs on China. The world’s second largest economy is now expected to retaliate. They could place a tariff on U.S. crude oil. This would hurt U.S. exports that could drive up domestic supply, while putting pressure on prices.
The main concern weighing on crude oil is whether an escalating trade dispute will lead to a U.S. recession, which would hurt U.S. demand for crude oil.
The current price action suggests a major move is coming, but it’s not likely to happen until there is major breaking news regarding U.S. –China trade relations. At this point it appears traders aren’t going to make a move until they know definitively if trade deal negotiations are on or off, and how China is going to retaliate against the increased U.S. tariffs.
Finally, technical factors are also controlling the direction of prices, namely the 200-day moving average, which is providing support for both the WTI and Brent futures contract.
For July WTI crude oil, the 200-day moving average support is at $60.79, and July Brent crude oil’s 200-day moving average support is at $68.96.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 11/05/19
• Don’t Panic, Dovish Fed Policy Will Prevent Repeat of Last Year’s Correction
• Forex Daily Recap – Poor CPI Data Pushed Down the Greenback Near 97.14 Weekly Low Levels
• The Week Ahead – Brexit, Economic Data and Trade in Focus
• The Crypto Week – The Bulls Defy Gravity and the Doubters
• Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Supply Tight, but Trade Concerns Capping Prices
[Social Media Buzz]
2019年5月13日 12時11分18秒
【 zaif 】のBTCを 774640.0 円で買って
【 bitflyer 】のBTCを 775283.0 円で売れば
643.0 円の利益！
※投資は自己責任でお願いします※ || @pierre_crypt0 He didnt take in consideration how much alts drop during btc correction , and we could expect one at least to 50 MA at some point ~ 5300$
Alts will literally die. Check some majors ratio. Its close to atl || Long/Short BTC movements with up to 100x Leverage at PrimeXBT! 🤑💰
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7994.42, 8205.17, 7884.91, 7343.90, 7271.21, 8197.69, 7978.31, 7963.33, 7680.07, 7881.85
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12, 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94, 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59, 5605.51, 5590.69, 5708.52, 6011.45, 6031.60, 6008.42, 5930.32, 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38, 7459.69, 7143.58, 6618.14, 6357.60, 5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-11-14]
Volume: 3197110016, RSI (14-day): 54.07, 50-day EMA: 5847.50, 200-day EMA: 3958.44
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1281.50, Gold RSI: 51.13
Oil Price: 55.70, Oil RSI: 61.27
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Stock market outlook, November 13: American small business and one of its biggest material suppliers will be in focus on Tuesday. Earnings out of Home Depot ( HD ) will serve as a corporate highlight with the home-improvement retailer expected to report earnings per share of $1.82 on revenue of $24.5 billion with same-store sales expected to rise 5.7%, according to data from Bloomberg. TJ Maxx parent company TJX ( TJX ) is also set to report earnings on Tuesday. Home Depot earnings will be a major highlight on Tuesday. The main economic highlight will be the NFIBs latest reading on small business optimism, which has been one of the strongest economic readings since President Donald Trumps surprise election win last November. Investors will also keep an eye on shares of Buffalo Wild Wings ( BWLD ) on Tuesday as the stock was trading higher by 28% in after hours action on Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported that private equity firm Roark Capital made a bid to buy the company for over $150 per share, or more than $2.3 billion. Buffalo Wild Wings shares closed at $117.25 on Monday. Blockbuster earnings for FAAMG One of the markets predominant themes this year has been the performance of big-cap tech companies. Since CNBCs Jim Cramer coined the moniker for the FANG stocks Facebook ( FB ), Amazon ( AMZN ), Netflix ( NFLX ), and Alphabet ( GOOGL ) back in 2015, these tech giants have been market leaders and the subject of investor fascination bordering on obsession. In 2017, these stocks have accounted for about a quarter of the S&Ps overall advance (the same percentage as these stocks have accounted for over the last three years). The FANG names have accounted for about a quarter of the S&P 500s gains this year. (Source: Bespoke Investment Group) Earlier this year, we noted that analysts at Goldman Sachs ( GS ) had re-branded the FANG stocks as the FAAMG stocks, swapping in Apple ( AAPL ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ), with these companies having between them over $3 trillion in market cap. With each of these companies having reported third quarter earnings, Goldmans David Kostin and the equity strategy team looked at the actual results these companies have turned in. And the results should, perhaps, calm investors who see the market as being overly invested in just a few big tech names. Kostin and his team note that the S&P 500s information technology sector, which houses all of the FAAMG names but Amazon (which is classified as a consumer discretionary stock), has contributed to almost 90% of the indexs overall earnings beats relative to consensus expectations. And the four-largest tech stocks Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook accounted for 50% of this beat. In other words, good earnings have been all about tech names, and good tech earnings have been powered by these giants. Story continues Add in Amazon, and the FAAMG stocks have seen sales growth of 21% in the third quarter, the best year-on-year growth rate since the first quarter of 2012. And considering where each of these companies is in its life-cycle really only Facebook is anything like its developmental years this kind of sales growth indicates that as a whole, this groups performance is at a collective all-time high. Sales growth among the FAAMG stocks Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google is at a more than six-year high. (Source: Goldman Sachs) Goldman notes that recent conversations with clients have, focused on the sustainability of sales growth, the potential for government regulation, and valuations given the stocks 45% YTD rally. Investors, in short, are worried that something will go wrong in markets if something goes wrong with the FAAMNG stocks. Kostin notes that these stocks current trade at an enterprise value-to-sales ratio that is double that of the S&P at large, which is in-line with the 10-year average. Which means, basically, these names are about as richly valued relative to the rest of the market as theyve been over the last decade. So talking about FANG or FAAMG might seem like a gimmick, and it may seem that investors are getting themselves too worked up about just a few stocks. And this may be true. But that obsession, at least right now, does not appear to be leading to valuations outside of recent historical norms. Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland Read more from Myles here: Foreign investors might be the key to forecasting a U.S. recession Its been 17 years since U.S. consumers felt this good about the economy TOM LEE: Bitcoin is an important asset for investors to own Wall Street cant stop talking about Bitcoin Warren Buffett likes the stock market because of the bond market Americas shortage of workers is about to get much worse View comments || Home Depot and small business — What you need to know on Tuesday: American small business and one of its biggest material suppliers will be in focus on Tuesday.
Earnings out of Home Depot (HD) will serve as a corporate highlight with the home-improvement retailer expected to report earnings per share of $1.82 on revenue of $24.5 billion with same-store sales expected to rise 5.7%, according to data from Bloomberg.
TJ Maxx parent company TJX (TJX) is also set to report earnings on Tuesday.
The main economic highlight will be the NFIB’s latest reading on small business optimism, which has been one of the strongest economic readings since President Donald Trump’s surprise election win last November.
Investors will also keep an eye on shares of Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) on Tuesday as the stock was trading higher by 28% in after hours action on Mondayafter The Wall Street Journal reportedthat private equity firm Roark Capital made a bid to buy the company for over $150 per share, or more than $2.3 billion.
Buffalo Wild Wings shares closed at $117.25 on Monday.
One of the market’s predominant themes this yearhas been the performanceof big-cap tech companies.
Since CNBC’s Jim Cramer coined the moniker for the FANG stocks — Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOGL) — back in 2015, these tech giants have been market leaders and the subject of investor fascination bordering on obsession.
In 2017, these stocks have accounted for about a quarter of the S&P’s overall advance (the same percentage as these stocks have accounted for over the last three years).
Earlier this year,we notedthat analysts at Goldman Sachs (GS) had re-branded the FANG stocks as the FAAMG stocks, swapping in Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT), with these companies having between them over $3 trillion in market cap.
With each of these companies having reported third quarter earnings, Goldman’s David Kostin and the equity strategy team looked at the actual results these companies have turned in. And the results should, perhaps, calm investors who see the market as being overly invested in just a few big tech names.
Kostin and his team note that the S&P 500’s information technology sector, which houses all of the FAAMG names but Amazon (which is classified as a consumer discretionary stock), has contributed to almost 90% of the index’s overall earnings beats relative to consensus expectations. And the four-largest tech stocks — Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook — accounted for 50% of this beat. In other words, good earnings have been all about tech names, and good tech earnings have been powered by these giants.
Add in Amazon, and the FAAMG stocks have seen sales growth of 21% in the third quarter, the best year-on-year growth rate since the first quarter of 2012. And considering where each of these companies is in its life-cycle — really only Facebook is anything like its developmental years — this kind of sales growth indicates that as a whole, this group’s performance is at a collective all-time high.
Goldman notes that recent conversations with clients have, “focused on the sustainability of sales growth, the potential for government regulation, and valuations given the stocks’ 45% YTD rally.” Investors, in short, are worried that something will go wrong in markets if something goes wrong with the FAAMNG stocks.
Kostin notes that these stocks current trade at an enterprise value-to-sales ratio that is double that of the S&P at large, which is in-line with the 10-year average. Which means, basically, these names are about as richly valued relative to the rest of the market as they’ve been over the last decade.
So talking about FANG or FAAMG might seem like a gimmick, and it may seem that investors are getting themselves too worked up about just a few stocks. And this may be true. But that obsession, at least right now, does not appear to be leading to valuations outside of recent historical norms.
—
Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter@MylesUdland
Read more from Myles here:
• Foreign investors might be the key to forecasting a U.S. recession
• It’s been 17 years since U.S. consumers felt this good about the economy
• TOM LEE: Bitcoin is an important asset for investors to own
• Wall Street can’t stop talking about Bitcoin
• Warren Buffett likes the stock market because of the bond market
• America’s shortage of workers is about to get ‘much worse’ || BlackRock's Fink says bitcoin thrives on its anonymity: By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated significantly this month, remains a "speculative" investment that thrives because of the cryptocurrency's anonymous nature, BlackRock Inc <BLK.N> Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Monday. "The reason why it does so well is it is anonymous. It's anonymous, and it's cross-border," Fink, whose firm oversees nearly $6 trillion of assets, said at the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit. "If you legitimize it, you know who your counterparties are...the question is how many people will use it if you have to acknowledge you are a buyer or a seller." Fink called bitcoin a "very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering." The value of bitcoin plunged as much as 29 percent from its Nov. 8 record high of $7,888 following the cancellation of a planned technology upgrade and amid persistent concern of a bubble. Bitcoin recouped some of its losses on Monday. Investors who have held bitcoin for the long term have fared well. Even after the recent drop, its value has increased more than sixfold this year. Investors who held on longer have been rewarded even more: in 2011, bitcoin traded at below $3. Fink, however, said most investors with long-term horizons, and who are keeping "record amounts" on the sidelines, should be focused on traditional assets such as stocks and bonds. He said that for a 30-year-old person, "100 percent equities is the right investment strategy," at a time when the world's economies are enjoying "synchronized growth" for the first time since the financial crisis. Bitcoin "is tiny in the scheme of financial markets," Fink said. Overall, "there's too much focus on bitcoin," Fink said. "I don't know why it has so much fascination for the press." Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits For other news from Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit, click http://www.reuters.com/summit/investment18 (Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andrea Ricci) View comments || BlackRock's Fink says bitcoin thrives on its anonymity: By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated significantly this month, remains a "speculative" investment that thrives because of the cryptocurrency's anonymous nature, BlackRock Inc <BLK.N> Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Monday.
"The reason why it does so well is it is anonymous. It's anonymous, and it's cross-border," Fink, whose firm oversees nearly $6 trillion of assets, said at the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit. "If you legitimize it, you know who your counterparties are...the question is how many people will use it if you have to acknowledge you are a buyer or a seller."
Fink called bitcoin a "very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering."
The value of bitcoin plunged as much as 29 percent from its Nov. 8 record high of $7,888 following the cancellation of a planned technology upgrade and amid persistent concern of a bubble. Bitcoin recouped some of its losses on Monday.
Investors who have held bitcoin for the long term have fared well.
Even after the recent drop, its value has increased more than sixfold this year. Investors who held on longer have been rewarded even more: in 2011, bitcoin traded at below $3.
Fink, however, said most investors with long-term horizons, and who are keeping "record amounts" on the sidelines, should be focused on traditional assets such as stocks and bonds.
He said that for a 30-year-old person, "100 percent equities is the right investment strategy," at a time when the world's economies are enjoying "synchronized growth" for the first time since the financial crisis.
Bitcoin "is tiny in the scheme of financial markets," Fink said. Overall, "there's too much focus on bitcoin," Fink said. "I don't know why it has so much fascination for the press."
Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits
For other news from Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit, click http://www.reuters.com/summit/investment18
(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andrea Ricci) || BlackRock's Fink says bitcoin thrives on its anonymity: By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated significantly this month, remains a "speculative" investment that thrives because of the cryptocurrency's anonymous nature, BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Monday.
"The reason why it does so well is it is anonymous. It's anonymous, and it's cross-border," Fink, whose firm oversees nearly $6 trillion of assets, said at the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit. "If you legitimize it, you know who your counterparties are...the question is how many people will use it if you have to acknowledge you are a buyer or a seller."
Fink called bitcoin a "very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering."
The value of bitcoin plunged as much as 29 percent from its Nov. 8 record high of $7,888 following the cancellation of a planned technology upgrade and amid persistent concern of a bubble. Bitcoin recouped some of its losses on Monday.
Investors who have held bitcoin for the long term have fared well.
Even after the recent drop, its value has increased more than sixfold this year. Investors who held on longer have been rewarded even more: in 2011, bitcoin traded at below $3.
Fink, however, said most investors with long-term horizons, and who are keeping "record amounts" on the sidelines, should be focused on traditional assets such as stocks and bonds.
He said that for a 30-year-old person, "100 percent equities is the right investment strategy," at a time when the world's economies are enjoying "synchronized growth" for the first time since the financial crisis.
Bitcoin "is tiny in the scheme of financial markets," Fink said. Overall, "there's too much focus on bitcoin," Fink said. "I don't know why it has so much fascination for the press."
Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits
For other news from Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit, clickhttp://www.reuters.com/summit/investment18
(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andrea Ricci) || BlackRock's Fink says bitcoin thrives on its anonymity: By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated significantly this month, remains a "speculative" investment that thrives because of the cryptocurrency's anonymous nature, BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Monday. "The reason why it does so well is it is anonymous. It's anonymous, and it's cross-border," Fink, whose firm oversees nearly $6 trillion of assets, said at the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit. "If you legitimize it, you know who your counterparties are...the question is how many people will use it if you have to acknowledge you are a buyer or a seller." Fink called bitcoin a "very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering." The value of bitcoin plunged as much as 29 percent from its Nov. 8 record high of $7,888 following the cancellation of a planned technology upgrade and amid persistent concern of a bubble. Bitcoin recouped some of its losses on Monday. Investors who have held bitcoin for the long term have fared well. Even after the recent drop, its value has increased more than sixfold this year. Investors who held on longer have been rewarded even more: in 2011, bitcoin traded at below $3. Fink, however, said most investors with long-term horizons, and who are keeping "record amounts" on the sidelines, should be focused on traditional assets such as stocks and bonds. He said that for a 30-year-old person, "100 percent equities is the right investment strategy," at a time when the world's economies are enjoying "synchronized growth" for the first time since the financial crisis. Bitcoin "is tiny in the scheme of financial markets," Fink said. Overall, "there's too much focus on bitcoin," Fink said. "I don't know why it has so much fascination for the press." Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits For other news from Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit, click http://www.reuters.com/summit/investment18 (Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andrea Ricci) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal. U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric (GE.N) which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare. Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill. "What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago. While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday. Sterling (GBP=) fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro (EURGBP=) after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest. "That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ] The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It (.DXY) rose 0.1 percent, with the euro (EUR=) up 0.03 percent to $1.1666. Story continues U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield (US2YT=RR) hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday. Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB] A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer. U.S. crude (CLcv1) fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent (LCOcv1) was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent. (For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz ) (For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR ) (For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh ) (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) View comments || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal.
U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric (GE.N) which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare.
Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill.
"What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago.
While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston.
"They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globeshed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday.
Sterling (GBP=) fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro (EURGBP=) after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest.
"That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ]
The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It (.DXY) rose 0.1 percent, with the euro (EUR=) up 0.03 percent to $1.1666.
U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield (US2YT=RR) hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday.
Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB]
A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer.
U.S. crude (CLcv1) fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent (LCOcv1) was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent.
(For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' clickhttp://reut.rs/2zwrYNz)
(For a graphic on 'MSCI World' clickhttp://reut.rs/2zycSXR)
(For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' clickhttp://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh)
(Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal.
U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric <GE.N> which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare.
Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill.
"What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago.
While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston.
"They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday.
Sterling <GBP=> fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro <EURGBP=> after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest.
"That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ]
The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It <.DXY> rose 0.1 percent, with the euro <EUR=> up 0.03 percent to $1.1666.
U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield <US2YT=RR> hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday.
Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB]
A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer.
U.S. crude <CLcv1> fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent <LCOcv1> was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent.
(For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz)
(For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR)
(For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh)
(Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal. U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare. Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill. "What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago. While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive." The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday. Sterling fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest. "That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ] The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It <.DXY> rose 0.1 percent, with the euro up 0.03 percent to $1.1666. U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday. Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB] A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer. U.S. crude fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent. (For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz) (For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR) (For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh) (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal. U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare. Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill. "What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago. While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive." The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday. Sterling fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest. "That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ] The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It <.DXY> rose 0.1 percent, with the euro up 0.03 percent to $1.1666. U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday. Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB] A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer. U.S. crude fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent. (For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz) (For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR) (For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh) (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal. U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric <GE.N> which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare. Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill. "What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago. While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive." The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday. Sterling <GBP=> fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro <EURGBP=> after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest. Story continues "That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ] The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It <.DXY> rose 0.1 percent, with the euro <EUR=> up 0.03 percent to $1.1666. U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield <US2YT=RR> hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday. Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB] A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer. U.S. crude <CLcv1> fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent <LCOcv1> was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent. (For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz) (For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR) (For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh) (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Jurvetson is on leave from Tesla and SpaceX boards after harassment claims: Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of DFJ, is on leave from the boards of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX after being forced to leave his venture firm due to claims of sexual harassment. "Steve Jurvetson is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations," a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement.Jurvetson took to Twitter to confirm that he's leaving DFJ and also to say that he's preparing "legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me."A number of venture investors have been forced out of their firms in recent months because of harassment claims. They include Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups. Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of DFJ, is on leave from the boards of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX after being forced to leave his venture firm due to claims of sexual harassment. "Steve Jurvetson is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations," a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement. Jurvetson took to Twitter to confirm that he's leaving DFJ and also to say that he's preparing "legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me." A number of venture investors have been forced out of their firms in recent months because of harassment claims. They include Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups.More From CNBC
• Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill
• Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI
• Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Jurvetson is on leave from Tesla and SpaceX boards after harassment claims: Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of DFJ, is on leave from the boards of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX after being forced to leave his venture firm due to claims of sexual harassment. "Steve Jurvetson is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations," a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement.Jurvetson took to Twitter to confirm that he's leaving DFJ and also to say that he's preparing "legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me."A number of venture investors have been forced out of their firms in recent months because of harassment claims. They include Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups. Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of DFJ, is on leave from the boards of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX after being forced to leave his venture firm due to claims of sexual harassment. "Steve Jurvetson is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations," a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement. Jurvetson took to Twitter to confirm that he's leaving DFJ and also to say that he's preparing "legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me." A number of venture investors have been forced out of their firms in recent months because of harassment claims. They include Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups. More From CNBC Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Milestone test shows that this reusable spacecraft can safely fly: Spacecraft builder Sierra Nevada Corporation completed a critical flight test of its Dream Chaser orbital vehicle on Saturday, moving a step closer to supplying the International Space Station.Launched unpowered from a Chinook helicopter above the California desert, Dream Chaser flew autonomously on a planned path before landing at Edwards Air Force Base.Dream Chaser proved "its atmospheric flight performance along with its return and landing capability," Mark Sirangelo, a vice president at SNC, said in a statement. "The Dream Chaser flight test demonstrated excellent performance of the spacecraft's aerodynamic design and the data shows that we are firmly on the path for safe, reliable orbital flight."Sirangelo told reporters on a conference call that the free flight test version of the aircraft "is a full-scale version of what we will fly to orbit." When asked about plans for the manned variant of the craft, Sirangelo said the current cargo program's testing "makes those other options more viable."Former NASA astronaut and SNC senior director Steve Lindsey said on the call that the test included not only orbital vehicle designs and processes, but also specific orbital vehicle equipment."We flew a major subpiece of the of the orbital craft's software," Lindsey said. "We wanted to be able to do elements of what will be the orbital flight system."The spacecraft "rolled out 4,200 feet" on the landing, according to Lindsey. While he says the flight data is preliminary, Lindsey was very optimistic about the future landing capabilities of Dream Chaser, which he expects will roll out a little farther than the flight test."In the future we believe Dream Chaser will land anywhere a 737 jet can land," Lindsey said.Tweet: SNC is proud to announce the Dream Chaser® spacecraft had a successful free-flight test today @EdwardsAFB, with support of @NASAArmstrong. The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing!NASA selected Dream Chaser in January 2016 to fulfill six refueling missions to the ISS through 2024, with its first flight expected in three years. Released from 12,400 feet altitude, SNC says Dream Chaser demonstrated "highly important landing attributes" that are critical to NASA's mission."This spacecraft is the future and has the ability to change the way humans interact with space," SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said. The orbital vehicle is designed to make runway landings, much like the retired space shuttles , and has been undergoing testing at the Armstrong Flight Research Center since January. Spacecraft builder Sierra Nevada Corporation completed a critical flight test of its Dream Chaser orbital vehicle on Saturday, moving a step closer to supplying the International Space Station. Launched unpowered from a Chinook helicopter above the California desert, Dream Chaser flew autonomously on a planned path before landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Dream Chaser proved "its atmospheric flight performance along with its return and landing capability," Mark Sirangelo, a vice president at SNC, said in a statement. "The Dream Chaser flight test demonstrated excellent performance of the spacecraft's aerodynamic design and the data shows that we are firmly on the path for safe, reliable orbital flight." Sirangelo told reporters on a conference call that the free flight test version of the aircraft "is a full-scale version of what we will fly to orbit." When asked about plans for the manned variant of the craft, Sirangelo said the current cargo program's testing "makes those other options more viable." Former NASA astronaut and SNC senior director Steve Lindsey said on the call that the test included not only orbital vehicle designs and processes, but also specific orbital vehicle equipment. "We flew a major subpiece of the of the orbital craft's software," Lindsey said. "We wanted to be able to do elements of what will be the orbital flight system." The spacecraft "rolled out 4,200 feet" on the landing, according to Lindsey. While he says the flight data is preliminary, Lindsey was very optimistic about the future landing capabilities of Dream Chaser, which he expects will roll out a little farther than the flight test. "In the future we believe Dream Chaser will land anywhere a 737 jet can land," Lindsey said. Tweet: SNC is proud to announce the Dream Chaser® spacecraft had a successful free-flight test today @EdwardsAFB, with support of @NASAArmstrong. The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing! NASA selected Dream Chaser in January 2016 to fulfill six refueling missions to the ISS through 2024, with its first flight expected in three years. Released from 12,400 feet altitude, SNC says Dream Chaser demonstrated "highly important landing attributes" that are critical to NASA's mission. "This spacecraft is the future and has the ability to change the way humans interact with space," SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said. The orbital vehicle is designed to make runway landings, much like the retired space shuttles , and has been undergoing testing at the Armstrong Flight Research Center since January. More From CNBC Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Milestone test shows that this reusable spacecraft can safely fly: Spacecraft builder Sierra Nevada Corporation completed a critical flight test of its Dream Chaser orbital vehicle on Saturday, moving a step closer to supplying the International Space Station.Launched unpowered from a Chinook helicopter above the California desert, Dream Chaser flew autonomously on a planned path before landing at Edwards Air Force Base.Dream Chaser proved "its atmospheric flight performance along with its return and landing capability," Mark Sirangelo, a vice president at SNC, said in a statement. "The Dream Chaser flight test demonstrated excellent performance of the spacecraft's aerodynamic design and the data shows that we are firmly on the path for safe, reliable orbital flight."Sirangelo told reporters on a conference call that the free flight test version of the aircraft "is a full-scale version of what we will fly to orbit." When asked about plans for the manned variant of the craft, Sirangelo said the current cargo program's testing "makes those other options more viable."Former NASA astronaut and SNC senior director Steve Lindsey said on the call that the test included not only orbital vehicle designs and processes, but also specific orbital vehicle equipment."We flew a major subpiece of the of the orbital craft's software," Lindsey said. "We wanted to be able to do elements of what will be the orbital flight system."The spacecraft "rolled out 4,200 feet" on the landing, according to Lindsey. While he says the flight data is preliminary, Lindsey was very optimistic about the future landing capabilities of Dream Chaser, which he expects will roll out a little farther than the flight test."In the future we believe Dream Chaser will land anywhere a 737 jet can land," Lindsey said.Tweet: SNC is proud to announce the Dream Chaser® spacecraft had a successful free-flight test today @EdwardsAFB, with support of @NASAArmstrong. The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing!NASA selected Dream Chaser in January 2016 to fulfill six refueling missions to the ISS through 2024, with its first flight expected in three years. Released from 12,400 feet altitude, SNC says Dream Chaser demonstrated "highly important landing attributes" that are critical to NASA's mission."This spacecraft is the future and has the ability to change the way humans interact with space," SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said. The orbital vehicle is designed to make runway landings, much like the retired space shuttles , and has been undergoing testing at the Armstrong Flight Research Center since January. Spacecraft builder Sierra Nevada Corporation completed a critical flight test of its Dream Chaser orbital vehicle on Saturday, moving a step closer to supplying the International Space Station. Launched unpowered from a Chinook helicopter above the California desert, Dream Chaser flew autonomously on a planned path before landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Dream Chaser proved "its atmospheric flight performance along with its return and landing capability," Mark Sirangelo, a vice president at SNC, said in a statement. "The Dream Chaser flight test demonstrated excellent performance of the spacecraft's aerodynamic design and the data shows that we are firmly on the path for safe, reliable orbital flight." Sirangelo told reporters on a conference call that the free flight test version of the aircraft "is a full-scale version of what we will fly to orbit." When asked about plans for the manned variant of the craft, Sirangelo said the current cargo program's testing "makes those other options more viable." Former NASA astronaut and SNC senior director Steve Lindsey said on the call that the test included not only orbital vehicle designs and processes, but also specific orbital vehicle equipment. "We flew a major subpiece of the of the orbital craft's software," Lindsey said. "We wanted to be able to do elements of what will be the orbital flight system." The spacecraft "rolled out 4,200 feet" on the landing, according to Lindsey. While he says the flight data is preliminary, Lindsey was very optimistic about the future landing capabilities of Dream Chaser, which he expects will roll out a little farther than the flight test. "In the future we believe Dream Chaser will land anywhere a 737 jet can land," Lindsey said. Tweet: SNC is proud to announce the Dream Chaser® spacecraft had a successful free-flight test today @EdwardsAFB, with support of @NASAArmstrong. The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing! NASA selected Dream Chaser in January 2016 to fulfill six refueling missions to the ISS through 2024, with its first flight expected in three years. Released from 12,400 feet altitude, SNC says Dream Chaser demonstrated "highly important landing attributes" that are critical to NASA's mission. "This spacecraft is the future and has the ability to change the way humans interact with space," SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said. The orbital vehicle is designed to make runway landings, much like the retired space shuttles , and has been undergoing testing at the Armstrong Flight Research Center since January. More From CNBC Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Amazon to regulators: We won't use state licenses to sell prescription drugs: Amazon will not use pharmacy licenses it obtained from Tennessee and Indiana to sell prescriptions, but will use them to sell medical devices and supplies instead, the company has told regulators. Amazon ( AMZN ) has kept mum about its ambitions in health care, despite reports that it's exploring getting into the prescription drug business. But it has been quietly talking to regulators. Analysts from the investment firm Jefferies uncovered correspondence between the company and regulators in Tennessee and Indiana. Excerpts from these documents, which Jefferies obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Amazon intends to sell medical devices and supplies in its Indiana fulfillment center, but would not be storing or distributing prescription drugs. "Applicant (Amazon) will not store or ship drugs," the application clearly states. That said, most industry experts aren't ruling out the possibility of Amazon entering the prescription drug market. Instead, they maintain that it's a matter of if, not when. "There has been a massive overreaction to the Amazon threat," said Adam Fein, president of Pembroke Consulting and a drug supply chain expert, to CNBC. "I would never underestimate Amazon," he continued. "But I remain somewhat skeptical of Amazon's ability and desire to fundamentally alter the drug channel (as) the incumbents will have many opportunities to defend their position, capture value from internet technologies, and streamline distribution." Jefferies analysts stress that Amazon could navigate the complexities of the prescription drug space, but that it will be likely to disrupt some lower-hanging fruit first. And that includes selling medical supplies, such as surgical equipment and devices. That would be a more immediate threat to medical distribution companies, like McKesson ( MCK ) and Cardinal Health ( CAH ), rather than to pharmacies and pharmacy benefits managers. Amazon is expected to make a decision about whether it will get into the prescription drug business in the coming weeks. WATCH: The reason prescription drugs in the U.S. are so expensive may surprise you More From CNBC Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Amazon to regulators: We won't use state licenses to sell prescription drugs: Amazon will not use pharmacy licenses it obtained from Tennessee and Indiana to sell prescriptions, but will use them to sell medical devices and supplies instead, the company has told regulators. Amazon (AMZN) has kept mum about its ambitions in health care, despite reports that it's exploring getting into the prescription drug business. But it has been quietly talking to regulators. Analysts from the investment firm Jefferies uncovered correspondence between the company and regulators in Tennessee and Indiana. Excerpts from these documents, which Jefferies obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Amazon intends to sell medical devices and supplies in its Indiana fulfillment center, but would not be storing or distributing prescription drugs. "Applicant (Amazon) will not store or ship drugs," the application clearly states. That said, most industry experts aren't ruling out the possibility of Amazon entering the prescription drug market. Instead, they maintain that it's a matter of if, not when. "There has been a massive overreaction to the Amazon threat," said Adam Fein, president of Pembroke Consulting and a drug supply chain expert, to CNBC. "I would never underestimate Amazon," he continued. "But I remain somewhat skeptical of Amazon's ability and desire to fundamentally alter the drug channel (as) the incumbents will have many opportunities to defend their position, capture value from internet technologies, and streamline distribution." Jefferies analysts stress that Amazon could navigate the complexities of the prescription drug space, but that it will be likely to disrupt some lower-hanging fruit first. And that includes selling medical supplies, such as surgical equipment and devices. That would be a more immediate threat to medical distribution companies, like McKesson (MCK) and Cardinal Health (CAH), rather than to pharmacies and pharmacy benefits managers. Amazon is expected to make a decision about whether it will get into the prescription drug business in the coming weeks.
WATCH: The reason prescription drugs in the U.S. are so expensive may surprise youMore From CNBC
• Silicon Valley is freaking out about options provision in tax bill
• Apple to launch 3 iPhones next year, including one with 6.5-inch screen: KGI
• Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off || Reason To Be Bullish On Gold Royalty Companies And Bitcoin: Some of you reading this might already be familiar with the “Parable of the Talents,” but it’s worth a brief retelling.
The story, which appears in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, involves a master who entrusts three servants with some of his “talents,” or gold coins, while he’s away on business. Two of the servants take a risk by putting the money to work and end up doubling their master’s wealth. The third servant, however, buries his share to “keep it safe” and so doesn’t generate any returns. (Indeed it likelylosesvalue because of inflation.)
When the master returns, he’s so pleased at how the first two servants grew his wealth that he puts them in charge of “many things” and invites them to share in his own success.
The third servant, though, he calls “wicked and lazy” and says he might as well have deposited the money in a bank while he was away–at least then he would have received a little interest. The servant is punished by having his share of the talents given to the two who faithfully grew their master’s money, leaving him with nothing.
The lesson here should be plainly obvious, and we can express it in a number of different ways: There can be no reward without risk. You must spend money to make money. You reap what you sow. This should resonate with investors, entrepreneurs and any true believer in the power of capitalism.
Jesus’ parable applies not just to individuals but to corporations as well. Companies must grow to keep up with the rising cost of labor and materials and to stay competitive. To do that, they must put their money to work just as the two servants do.
And just as the two servants were invited to share in their master’s success, corporate growth has a multiplier effect–for the company’s employees and their families, shareholders, the local economy, strategic partners, companies up and down the supply chain and much more.
I think the business model that best illustrates the meaning of the “Parable of the Talents” is the one practiced by gold and precious metal royalty companies. As much as Iwrite and talk about royalty companies,I still encounter investors who aren’t aware of how significant a role they play in the mining space.
As a refresher, these firms help finance explorers and producers’ operations by buying royalties or rights to a stream. Becauseminers have had to slash exploration budgetssince the decline in metal prices, the kind of financing royalty companies provide has only grown in demand–as evidenced by the mostly positive earnings reports last week.
Chief among them isFranco-Nevada,which had a very strong third quarter, reporting earnings of $55.3 million, or $0.30 a share, up 3.4 percent from the same three-month period last year. The Toronto-based company, having also recently diversified into the oil royalties space, closed its purchase of an oil royalty for C$92.5 million, bringing the number of its oil and gas assets up to 82. Including precious metals and other minerals, the total number of assets Franco-Nevada had in its diverse portfolio as of the end of the quarter stood at 341.
Here’s the multiplier effect: Not only do the miners benefit from the deals, allowing them to continue exploration and other operations, but shareholders are also rewarded handsomely. Since the company went public nearly 10 years ago, it’s raised its dividend each year and its share price has outperformed both gold and relevant gold equity benchmarks. After its earnings announcement last Monday, Franco-Nevada stock closed up more than 6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), its best one-day performance in nearly a year and a half. Shares hit a fresh all-time high last week.
click to enlarge
Other royalty companies’ reports were just as impressive and show the rewards of putting your “talents” to work. Sandstorm Gold, reporting higher operating cash flow of $11.9 million, has acquired as many as 10 separate royalties since the end of September on properties in Peru, Botswana and South Africa that collectively cover more than 2.4 million acres.
Osisko Gold Royalties bought a $1.1 billion portfolio of 74 precious mineral royalties, including a 9.6 percent diamond stream. The company reported record quarterly gold equivalent ounces (GEOs) of 16,664, up 65 percent from the same quarter last year, and record quarterly revenues from royalties and streams of $26.1 million, up 48 percent.
Royal Gold also had a strong quarter, reporting operating cash flow of $72 million, an increase of 30 percent from last year, and returned as much as $16 million to shareholders in dividends.
Wheaton Precious Metals,the world’s largest precious metal streaming company, showed a sizeable decline in profits in the third quarter, but it continued to generate strong cash flow and looks poised to meet its end-of-year production guidance.
Although some investors might not realize how important these companies are to the industry, many other investors are opting to place their bets on royalty names, seeing them as having ample exposure to precious metals without some of the risks associated with producers. In its review of the third quarter, theWorld Gold Council (WGC)reported that global gold demand fell to an eight-year low as investment in gold ETFs slowed to 18.9 metric tons, down from 144.3 metric tons in last year’s September quarter. This could be a consequence of the media’s continued negative coverage of gold, despite its competitive performance against the S&P 500 Index. Whatever the cause, in this environment, there was no lack of love for royalty names, as you can see in the chart above.
Explore investment opportunities in precious metal royalty companies!
We were one of Wheaton Precious Metals’ seed investors in 2004, when it was then known as Silver Wheaton. Because Franco-Nevada wouldn’t be spun off from Newmont Mining for another three years, Wheaton had first-mover advantage. It was something new, something different. This, coupled with what I recognized as a superior business model, gave me the conviction to allocate capital into the fledgling company, a move that turned out to be highly profitable.
Today I have the same conviction in blockchain technology and digital currencies. As of the end of October, the initial coin offering (ICO) market had raised$3 billion so far this year.That’s more than seven times the amount generated in crowdfunding in all of the previous years before 2017. And Bloomberg just reported that Google searches for “buy bitcoin” recently surpassed searches for “buy gold.”
click to enlarge
With bitcoin’s market cap having grown past that of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, cryptocurrencies can no longer be written off as a curiosity. Major financial institutions have become bullish, having filed approximately 2,700 patents in blockchain technology.
Abigail Johnson, the youthful chairman of Fidelity, was quoted as saying, “Blockchain technology isn’t just a more efficient way to settle securities, it will fundamentally change market structures, and maybe even the architecture of the internet itself.” Johnson allegedly has a crypto-mining computer rig in her office, and Fidelity accountholders are now able to see their bitcoin holdings on the brokerage firm’s online platform. USAA, the massive financial firm used by millions of U.S. military personnel and their families worldwide, provides a similar service.
This all comes as Coinbase, a leading digital currency broker, saw a record number of people opening new accounts on its platform recently, doubling the number of accounts from the beginning of the year. In one 24-hour period,100,000 new accounts were opened.
A lot of this growth in demand is thanks to millennials, the largest U.S. generation. Forget the stereotype of the “entitled” millennial in the workplace and the misconception that they’re all wasting their money on $10 avocado toast. Consulting firm Deloitte estimates that by 2020, millennials will make up 50 percent of the workforce andcontrol between $19 trillion and $24 trillion.Many are savvy investors and were found to be more likely to be aware of their brokerage account fees than older generations, according to Charles Schwab’s Modern Wealth index.
In some ways, millennials are reshaping our living habits. Many of them choose to rent instead of own to stay mobile. They’re more likely to get their news from Twitter than from TV. Online dating apps have helped foster today’s hookup culture, but while young people now might have more sex partners than before, they’re having less sex overall than their parents or grandparents might have had at their age.
It’s little surprise, then, that millennials are among the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of blockchain technology, bitcoin and digital currencies in general–none of which existed even 10 years ago. A poll conducted by Blockchain Capital found that large percentages of millennials would prefer $1,000 in bitcoin to $1,000 in other assets. More than a quarter said they would prefer bitcoin to stocks, while nearly a third preferred it to bonds.
click to enlarge
What I find especially encouraging is that only 4 percent of those who took the poll owned or had owned bitcoins. I say encouraging because this suggests there’s quite a lot of upside potential for bitcoin ownership, which in turn could raise prices further. As I shared with you recently, Metcalfe’s law states that the bigger the network of users, the greater that network’s value becomes. Consider Facebook. The social media giant has more than 2 billion active users. That’s 2 billion pairs of eyes Facebook is able to charge top dollar for advertisers to reach, helping it deliver record profits in the third quarter.
We could see the same thing happen across the blockchain and cryptocurrency network as more and more businesses and people embrace this new form of exchange.
It should be clear by now that something is changing in financial markets, and this is what inspired me to make a strategic investment in a company with first-mover advantage in the cryptocurrency space, just as we did with Silver Wheaton years ago. As the “Parable of the Talents” teaches us, no reward can come to you without some risk-taking. Doing nothing is not an option.
That company is HIVE Blockchain Technologies, a blockchain infrastructure company involved in the mining of virgin digital currencies. The first company of its kind to sell shares to the public, HIVE began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange on September 18.
I’m very excited about this new chapter in our company’s history. If you weren’t on today’s earnings call, you candownload the slide deck hereto learn more about our deal with HIVE and what it means for our investors and shareholders.
All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.
The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index is a modified market capitalization weighted index comprised of publicly traded companies involved primarily in the mining for gold and silver. The index benchmark value was 500.0 at the close of trading on December 20, 2002. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies.
The Modern Wealth Index tracks how well Americans across the wealth spectrum are planning, managing and engaging with their wealth. Developed in partnership with Koski Research and the Schwab Center for Financial Research, the Modern Wealth Index is based on Schwab’s Investing Principles and composed of 60 financial behaviors and attitudes, each assigned a varying amount of points depending on their importance.
There is no guarantee that the issuers of any securities will declare dividends in the future or that, if declared, will remain at current levels or increase over time.
Frank Holmes has been appointed non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of HIVE Blockchain Technologies. Both Mr. Holmes and U.S. Global Investors own shares of HIVE, directly and indirectly.
Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of 09/30/2017: Franco-Nevada Corp., Royal Gold Inc., Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd., Sandstorm Gold Ltd., Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., Newmont Mining Corp.
TheUS Global GO Gold and Precious Metal Miners ETF (GOAU)was trading at $12.27 per share on Monday afternoon, down $0.07 (-0.57%). Year-to-date, GOAU has gained 1.49%, versus a 16.67% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.
GOAUcurrently has anETF Daily News SMART GradeofNR (Not Rated), and is unranked among 35 ETFs in thePrecious Metals ETFscategory.
Frank Holmesis the CEO and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors. Mr. Holmes purchased a controlling interest in U.S. Global Investors in 1989 and became the firm’s chief investment officer in 1999. In 2006, Mr. Holmes was selected mining fund manager of the year by the Mining Journal, and in 2011 he was named a U.S. Metals and Mining “TopGun” by Brendan Wood International. He is also the co-author of The Goldwatcher: Demystifying Gold Investing. More than 30,000 subscribers follow his weekly commentary in the award-winning Investor Alert newsletter which is read in over 180 countries. || Reason To Be Bullish On Gold Royalty Companies And Bitcoin: Some of you reading this might already be familiar with the “Parable of the Talents,” but it’s worth a brief retelling.
The story, which appears in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, involves a master who entrusts three servants with some of his “talents,” or gold coins, while he’s away on business. Two of the servants take a risk by putting the money to work and end up doubling their master’s wealth. The third servant, however, buries his share to “keep it safe” and so doesn’t generate any returns. (Indeed it likelylosesvalue because of inflation.)
When the master returns, he’s so pleased at how the first two servants grew his wealth that he puts them in charge of “many things” and invites them to share in his own success.
The third servant, though, he calls “wicked and lazy” and says he might as well have deposited the money in a bank while he was away–at least then he would have received a little interest. The servant is punished by having his share of the talents given to the two who faithfully grew their master’s money, leaving him with nothing.
The lesson here should be plainly obvious, and we can express it in a number of different ways: There can be no reward without risk. You must spend money to make money. You reap what you sow. This should resonate with investors, entrepreneurs and any true believer in the power of capitalism.
Jesus’ parable applies not just to individuals but to corporations as well. Companies must grow to keep up with the rising cost of labor and materials and to stay competitive. To do that, they must put their money to work just as the two servants do.
And just as the two servants were invited to share in their master’s success, corporate growth has a multiplier effect–for the company’s employees and their families, shareholders, the local economy, strategic partners, companies up and down the supply chain and much more.
I think the business model that best illustrates the meaning of the “Parable of the Talents” is the one practiced by gold and precious metal royalty companies. As much as Iwrite and talk about royalty companies,I still encounter investors who aren’t aware of how significant a role they play in the mining space.
As a refresher, these firms help finance explorers and producers’ operations by buying royalties or rights to a stream. Becauseminers have had to slash exploration budgetssince the decline in metal prices, the kind of financing royalty companies provide has only grown in demand–as evidenced by the mostly positive earnings reports last week.
Chief among them isFranco-Nevada,which had a very strong third quarter, reporting earnings of $55.3 million, or $0.30 a share, up 3.4 percent from the same three-month period last year. The Toronto-based company, having also recently diversified into the oil royalties space, closed its purchase of an oil royalty for C$92.5 million, bringing the number of its oil and gas assets up to 82. Including precious metals and other minerals, the total number of assets Franco-Nevada had in its diverse portfolio as of the end of the quarter stood at 341.
Here’s the multiplier effect: Not only do the miners benefit from the deals, allowing them to continue exploration and other operations, but shareholders are also rewarded handsomely. Since the company went public nearly 10 years ago, it’s raised its dividend each year and its share price has outperformed both gold and relevant gold equity benchmarks. After its earnings announcement last Monday, Franco-Nevada stock closed up more than 6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), its best one-day performance in nearly a year and a half. Shares hit a fresh all-time high last week.
click to enlarge
Other royalty companies’ reports were just as impressive and show the rewards of putting your “talents” to work. Sandstorm Gold, reporting higher operating cash flow of $11.9 million, has acquired as many as 10 separate royalties since the end of September on properties in Peru, Botswana and South Africa that collectively cover more than 2.4 million acres.
Osisko Gold Royalties bought a $1.1 billion portfolio of 74 precious mineral royalties, including a 9.6 percent diamond stream. The company reported record quarterly gold equivalent ounces (GEOs) of 16,664, up 65 percent from the same quarter last year, and record quarterly revenues from royalties and streams of $26.1 million, up 48 percent.
Royal Gold also had a strong quarter, reporting operating cash flow of $72 million, an increase of 30 percent from last year, and returned as much as $16 million to shareholders in dividends.
Wheaton Precious Metals,the world’s largest precious metal streaming company, showed a sizeable decline in profits in the third quarter, but it continued to generate strong cash flow and looks poised to meet its end-of-year production guidance.
Although some investors might not realize how important these companies are to the industry, many other investors are opting to place their bets on royalty names, seeing them as having ample exposure to precious metals without some of the risks associated with producers. In its review of the third quarter, theWorld Gold Council (WGC)reported that global gold demand fell to an eight-year low as investment in gold ETFs slowed to 18.9 metric tons, down from 144.3 metric tons in last year’s September quarter. This could be a consequence of the media’s continued negative coverage of gold, despite its competitive performance against the S&P 500 Index. Whatever the cause, in this environment, there was no lack of love for royalty names, as you can see in the chart above.
Explore investment opportunities in precious metal royalty companies!
We were one of Wheaton Precious Metals’ seed investors in 2004, when it was then known as Silver Wheaton. Because Franco-Nevada wouldn’t be spun off from Newmont Mining for another three years, Wheaton had first-mover advantage. It was something new, something different. This, coupled with what I recognized as a superior business model, gave me the conviction to allocate capital into the fledgling company, a move that turned out to be highly profitable.
Today I have the same conviction in blockchain technology and digital currencies. As of the end of October, the initial coin offering (ICO) market had raised$3 billion so far this year.That’s more than seven times the amount generated in crowdfunding in all of the previous years before 2017. And Bloomberg just reported that Google searches for “buy bitcoin” recently surpassed searches for “buy gold.”
click to enlarge
With bitcoin’s market cap having grown past that of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, cryptocurrencies can no longer be written off as a curiosity. Major financial institutions have become bullish, having filed approximately 2,700 patents in blockchain technology.
Abigail Johnson, the youthful chairman of Fidelity, was quoted as saying, “Blockchain technology isn’t just a more efficient way to settle securities, it will fundamentally change market structures, and maybe even the architecture of the internet itself.” Johnson allegedly has a crypto-mining computer rig in her office, and Fidelity accountholders are now able to see their bitcoin holdings on the brokerage firm’s online platform. USAA, the massive financial firm used by millions of U.S. military personnel and their families worldwide, provides a similar service.
This all comes as Coinbase, a leading digital currency broker, saw a record number of people opening new accounts on its platform recently, doubling the number of accounts from the beginning of the year. In one 24-hour period,100,000 new accounts were opened.
A lot of this growth in demand is thanks to millennials, the largest U.S. generation. Forget the stereotype of the “entitled” millennial in the workplace and the misconception that they’re all wasting their money on $10 avocado toast. Consulting firm Deloitte estimates that by 2020, millennials will make up 50 percent of the workforce andcontrol between $19 trillion and $24 trillion.Many are savvy investors and were found to be more likely to be aware of their brokerage account fees than older generations, according to Charles Schwab’s Modern Wealth index.
In some ways, millennials are reshaping our living habits. Many of them choose to rent instead of own to stay mobile. They’re more likely to get their news from Twitter than from TV. Online dating apps have helped foster today’s hookup culture, but while young people now might have more sex partners than before, they’re having less sex overall than their parents or grandparents might have had at their age.
It’s little surprise, then, that millennials are among the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of blockchain technology, bitcoin and digital currencies in general–none of which existed even 10 years ago. A poll conducted by Blockchain Capital found that large percentages of millennials would prefer $1,000 in bitcoin to $1,000 in other assets. More than a quarter said they would prefer bitcoin to stocks, while nearly a third preferred it to bonds.
click to enlarge
What I find especially encouraging is that only 4 percent of those who took the poll owned or had owned bitcoins. I say encouraging because this suggests there’s quite a lot of upside potential for bitcoin ownership, which in turn could raise prices further. As I shared with you recently, Metcalfe’s law states that the bigger the network of users, the greater that network’s value becomes. Consider Facebook. The social media giant has more than 2 billion active users. That’s 2 billion pairs of eyes Facebook is able to charge top dollar for advertisers to reach, helping it deliver record profits in the third quarter.
We could see the same thing happen across the blockchain and cryptocurrency network as more and more businesses and people embrace this new form of exchange.
It should be clear by now that something is changing in financial markets, and this is what inspired me to make a strategic investment in a company with first-mover advantage in the cryptocurrency space, just as we did with Silver Wheaton years ago. As the “Parable of the Talents” teaches us, no reward can come to you without some risk-taking. Doing nothing is not an option.
That company is HIVE Blockchain Technologies, a blockchain infrastructure company involved in the mining of virgin digital currencies. The first company of its kind to sell shares to the public, HIVE began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange on September 18.
I’m very excited about this new chapter in our company’s history. If you weren’t on today’s earnings call, you candownload the slide deck hereto learn more about our deal with HIVE and what it means for our investors and shareholders.
All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. By clicking the link(s) above, you will be directed to a third-party website(s). U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this/these website(s) and is not responsible for its/their content.
The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index is a modified market capitalization weighted index comprised of publicly traded companies involved primarily in the mining for gold and silver. The index benchmark value was 500.0 at the close of trading on December 20, 2002. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies.
The Modern Wealth Index tracks how well Americans across the wealth spectrum are planning, managing and engaging with their wealth. Developed in partnership with Koski Research and the Schwab Center for Financial Research, the Modern Wealth Index is based on Schwab’s Investing Principles and composed of 60 financial behaviors and attitudes, each assigned a varying amount of points depending on their importance.
There is no guarantee that the issuers of any securities will declare dividends in the future or that, if declared, will remain at current levels or increase over time.
Frank Holmes has been appointed non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of HIVE Blockchain Technologies. Both Mr. Holmes and U.S. Global Investors own shares of HIVE, directly and indirectly.
Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the article were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of 09/30/2017: Franco-Nevada Corp., Royal Gold Inc., Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd., Sandstorm Gold Ltd., Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., Newmont Mining Corp.
TheUS Global GO Gold and Precious Metal Miners ETF (GOAU)was trading at $12.27 per share on Monday afternoon, down $0.07 (-0.57%). Year-to-date, GOAU has gained 1.49%, versus a 16.67% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.
GOAUcurrently has anETF Daily News SMART GradeofNR (Not Rated), and is unranked among 35 ETFs in thePrecious Metals ETFscategory.
Frank Holmesis the CEO and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors. Mr. Holmes purchased a controlling interest in U.S. Global Investors in 1989 and became the firm’s chief investment officer in 1999. In 2006, Mr. Holmes was selected mining fund manager of the year by the Mining Journal, and in 2011 he was named a U.S. Metals and Mining “TopGun” by Brendan Wood International. He is also the co-author of The Goldwatcher: Demystifying Gold Investing. More than 30,000 subscribers follow his weekly commentary in the award-winning Investor Alert newsletter which is read in over 180 countries.
[Social Media Buzz]
Конкурс "Угадай курс BTC/USD на 20.11.2017 00:00" - http://mmgp.ru/showthread.php?t=547655 …pic.twitter.com/AeeoIABfWI || #bitcoin keep over 6,000.00 USD in the next days we spect more calm on this cryptocurrency… https://www.instagram.com/p/BbfEwzsFEcA/ || BTC/USD: US$ 6.600,64 ▲ 1.16%
BTC/BRL: R$ 0,00
USD/BRL: R$ 0,00
14/11/2017 20:59:53 (Brasília)
#bitcoin || BTC Real Time Price: $6573.03 #GDAX;
$6580.00 #bitstamp;
$6579.79 #gemini;
$6550.84 #hitbtc;
$6637.50 #kraken;
$6785.73 #cex; || No...
|
7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49, 8200.64, 8071.26, 8253.55, 8038.77, 8253.69
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 1150.00, 1188.49, 1116.72, 1175.83, 1221.38, 1231.92, 1240.00, 1249.61, 1187.81, 1100.23, 973.82, 1036.74, 1054.23, 1120.54, 1049.14, 1038.59, 937.52, 972.78, 966.72, 1045.77, 1047.15, 1039.97, 1026.43, 1071.79, 1080.50, 1102.17, 1143.81, 1133.25, 1124.78, 1182.68, 1176.90, 1175.95, 1187.87, 1187.13, 1205.01, 1200.37, 1169.28, 1167.54, 1172.52, 1182.94, 1193.91, 1211.67, 1210.29, 1229.08, 1222.05, 1231.71, 1207.21, 1250.15, 1265.49, 1281.08, 1317.73, 1316.48, 1321.79, 1347.89, 1421.60, 1452.82, 1490.09, 1537.67, 1555.45, 1578.80, 1596.71, 1723.35, 1755.36, 1787.13, 1848.57, 1724.24, 1804.91, 1808.91, 1738.43, 1734.45, 1839.09, 1888.65, 1987.71, 2084.73, 2041.20, 2173.40, 2320.42, 2443.64, 2304.98, 2202.42, 2038.87, 2155.80, 2255.61, 2175.47, 2286.41, 2407.88, 2488.55, 2515.35, 2511.81, 2686.81.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-06-05]
Volume: 1369309952, RSI (14-day): 74.50, 50-day EMA: 1893.91, 200-day EMA: 1293.67
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1279.30, Gold RSI: 63.69
Oil Price: 47.40, Oil RSI: 40.40
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Apple still 'major player' in the voice assistant race, says Siri creator, who is now helping Samsung: Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)is still a "major player" in the voice assistant space with Siri, one of the technology's co-creators told CNBC on Friday, despite the U.S. technology giant receiving criticism for falling behind rivals Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN)and Google.Adam Cheyer was one of the people behind Siri which was acquired by Apple in 2010. Since then, Cheyer has created a next generation voice assistant called Viv which wasacquiredby Samsung(Korea Stock Exchange: 593-KR)in 2016. Viv is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung with the South Korean titan looking to integrate the technology into future products.Voice assistants have become the next battleground for technology giants. Amazon's Alexa, which is in products such as itsEcho home speaker, is perceived to be the leader, while Google Assistant is gaining traction.But Apple has beenslatedfor not keeping up with the competition."In our view Apple's Siri has developed little since it was first introduced in 2011. It has brought the concept of voice-led services to the consumer mindset but has fast gone from leader to laggard in the application of this form of technology in our view," Neil Campling, head of technology, media and telecom research at Northern Trust Capital Markets, told CNBC by email on Friday.
Cheyer, however, said Apple is still very much in the game but the ultimate winner will be the company that can turn their voice assistant into a technology across multiple devices."I am very proud of what we accomplished to initially take this new paradigm and bring it out to hundreds of millions of people. I think Apple is doing good work and is still a major player in this race," Cheyer told CNBC in a TV interview on Friday."What's going to matter is which companies can elevate an assistant from where it is today, a utility … to be this ubiquitous paradigm and I think Apple and everyone else is in the game and it will be great for consumers no matter who wins."Of course, Cheyer is making a rival product to Apple's Siri for Samsung. He was tightlipped on the product roadmap, however. Samsung's latest phone, the Galaxy S8 has an artificial intelligence assistant built in called Bixby. It allows user to not only speak to it, but to hold their camera up to landmarks or items in order to call up information about them.Bixby is reportedly built on Samsung's own technology and not Viv's, but the two are likely to integrate."We are working on a next generation assistant and we will deliver it through Samsung's devices, perhaps under the Bixby brand eventually but also to other interfaces," Cheyer said.The plan is to try and get Viv's technology across a number of devices,not just smartphones, but also home appliances and other gadgets."Right now there is a race to the single interface where all of the big companies Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and now Samsung are trying to make the assistant the next paradigm like the browser, like the smartphone, you'll have an assistant to help you in your lives," Cheyer said, explaining the company's ambition.Amazon has made a similar play. Earlier in the year it announced plans to bring Alexa to LG refrigerators and even Huawei's Mate 9 smartphone. It's an attempt to create a new way to interact with devices. And there is big money involved. A recent research note from RBC Capital Markets suggested that Alexa could bring the U.S. e-commerce giant $10 billion of revenues by 2020 and be a "mega-hit".Viv has similar ambitions and plans to open the platform up to developers so they can make apps and find other uses for the voice assistant."You will be able to do everything you do for computing through an assistant interface," Cheyer said.
—Correction - This story was updated to fix a typo and show Viv is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung.
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• Bitcoin may hit $4,000 by the end of the year: Analyst || Apple still 'major player' in the voice assistant race, says Siri creator, who is now helping Samsung: Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is still a "major player" in the voice assistant space with Siri, one of the technology's co-creators told CNBC on Friday, despite the U.S. technology giant receiving criticism for falling behind rivals Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Google. Adam Cheyer was one of the people behind Siri which was acquired by Apple in 2010. Since then, Cheyer has created a next generation voice assistant called Viv which was acquired by Samsung (Korea Stock Exchange: 593-KR) in 2016. Viv is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung with the South Korean titan looking to integrate the technology into future products. Voice assistants have become the next battleground for technology giants. Amazon's Alexa, which is in products such as its Echo home speaker , is perceived to be the leader, while Google Assistant is gaining traction. But Apple has been slated for not keeping up with the competition. "In our view Apple's Siri has developed little since it was first introduced in 2011. It has brought the concept of voice-led services to the consumer mindset but has fast gone from leader to laggard in the application of this form of technology in our view," Neil Campling, head of technology, media and telecom research at Northern Trust Capital Markets, told CNBC by email on Friday. Cheyer, however, said Apple is still very much in the game but the ultimate winner will be the company that can turn their voice assistant into a technology across multiple devices. "I am very proud of what we accomplished to initially take this new paradigm and bring it out to hundreds of millions of people. I think Apple is doing good work and is still a major player in this race," Cheyer told CNBC in a TV interview on Friday. "What's going to matter is which companies can elevate an assistant from where it is today, a utility
to be this ubiquitous paradigm and I think Apple and everyone else is in the game and it will be great for consumers no matter who wins." Of course, Cheyer is making a rival product to Apple's Siri for Samsung. He was tightlipped on the product roadmap, however. Samsung's latest phone, the Galaxy S8 has an artificial intelligence assistant built in called Bixby. It allows user to not only speak to it, but to hold their camera up to landmarks or items in order to call up information about them. Bixby is reportedly built on Samsung's own technology and not Viv's, but the two are likely to integrate. "We are working on a next generation assistant and we will deliver it through Samsung's devices, perhaps under the Bixby brand eventually but also to other interfaces," Cheyer said. The plan is to try and get Viv's technology across a number of devices, not just smartphones , but also home appliances and other gadgets. "Right now there is a race to the single interface where all of the big companies Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and now Samsung are trying to make the assistant the next paradigm like the browser, like the smartphone, you'll have an assistant to help you in your lives," Cheyer said, explaining the company's ambition. Amazon has made a similar play. Earlier in the year it announced plans to bring Alexa to LG refrigerators and even Huawei's Mate 9 smartphone. It's an attempt to create a new way to interact with devices. And there is big money involved. A recent research note from RBC Capital Markets suggested that Alexa could bring the U.S. e-commerce giant $10 billion of revenues by 2020 and be a "mega-hit". Viv has similar ambitions and plans to open the platform up to developers so they can make apps and find other uses for the voice assistant. "You will be able to do everything you do for computing through an assistant interface," Cheyer said. Story continues Correction - This story was updated to fix a typo and show Viv is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung. More From CNBC Next Google-scale start-up will be an A.I. firm from Europe, not the US, top VC says Bill Gates wants to tax robots, but the EU says, 'no way, no way' Bitcoin may hit $4,000 by the end of the year: Analyst || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase seeks new funds at $1 billion valuation: Wall Street Journal: (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc is in talks with potential investors on a new round of funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
It is not clear which investors are committing to the round, which was described as targeting around $100 million or more, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/2rtMkk8)
That would represent the biggest funding round on record for venture-backed bitcoin companies, the report said.
A Coinbase spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Coinbase, the world's largest bitcoin company, has seen heavy traffic and trading on its platform in recent weeks as bitcoin reached all-time highs.
Demand for crypto-assets has soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology.
Coinbase said in January it raised $75 million from several major financial institutions including the New York Stock Exchange, USAA Bank and Spanish banking group BBVA. (http://reut.rs/2qKUcRm)
Earlier this year, Coinbase received a virtual currency and money transmitter license from the New York Department of Financial Services.
(Reporting by Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar) || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase seeks new funds at $1 billion valuation: Wall Street Journal: (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc is in talks with potential investors on a new round of funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
It is not clear which investors are committing to the round, which was described as targeting around $100 million or more, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/2rtMkk8)
That would represent the biggest funding round on record for venture-backed bitcoin companies, the report said.
A Coinbase spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Coinbase, the world's largest bitcoin company, has seen heavy traffic and trading on its platform in recent weeks as bitcoin reached all-time highs.
Demand for crypto-assets has soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology.
Coinbase said in January it raised $75 million from several major financial institutions including the New York Stock Exchange, USAA Bank and Spanish banking group BBVA. (http://reut.rs/2qKUcRm)
Earlier this year, Coinbase received a virtual currency and money transmitter license from the New York Department of Financial Services.
(Reporting by Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar) || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase seeks new funds at $1 billion valuation: Wall Street Journal: (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc is in talks with potential investors on a new round of funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. It is not clear which investors are committing to the round, which was described as targeting around $100 million or more, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (http://on.wsj.com/2rtMkk8) That would represent the biggest funding round on record for venture-backed bitcoin companies, the report said. A Coinbase spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Coinbase, the world's largest bitcoin company, has seen heavy traffic and trading on its platform in recent weeks as bitcoin reached all-time highs. Demand for crypto-assets has soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology. Coinbase said in January it raised $75 million from several major financial institutions including the New York Stock Exchange, USAA Bank and Spanish banking group BBVA. (http://reut.rs/2qKUcRm) Earlier this year, Coinbase received a virtual currency and money transmitter license from the New York Department of Financial Services. (Reporting by Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar) || Best Performing ETFs So Far This Year: They say the best perfumes come in the smallest bottles. Perhaps that holds true in ETFs, too—at least when it comes to short-term performance.
Investors poured more than $200 billion into U.S.-listed ETFs in the first five months of the year, bringing total U.S. ETF assets to almost $3 trillion. The most popular fund this year, theiShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), attracted some $14 billion in net inflows.
But the top 10 best-performing ETFs this year command only about $1.42 billion in total combined assets. Their net creations between January and May 2017 reached only $458.5 million split across 10 different funds.
And yet their year-to-date results stand out among the 2,000-plus ETFs listed in the U.S. today.
Story Lines Behind Performance
Behind these funds’ impressive performances so far this year are a few different story lines: historically low volatility in the U.S. stock market; a mind-boggling rally in bitcoin prices; a forging recovery in emerging markets; and across-the-board strength in the tech sector.
Leading with gains of more than 53% in five months is a complex volatility ETN, theVelocityShares VIX Short Volatility Hedged ETN (XIVH). The strategy—which includes both a large short exposure to near-term VIX futures and a small long and leveraged position—is built to benefit fromcontangoin CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) futures. In other words, it gains most when the VIX is going down.
By the end of May, VIX was trading just below 10—far off its 52-week high of 26.7, according to CBOE data, and it’s been below 10 at close of trading several times in the month of May alone. Volatility has been declining, making it the perfect setting for XIVH to flourish.
Bitcoin Booming
Another big story this year fueling a pair of ETFs has been bitcoin.
The Securities and Exchange Commission decision earlier this yearto deny permission for bitcoin ETFsto come to market only helped further fuel the bitcoin space. In the first five months of the year, bitcoin prices surged nearly 150%.
Those bitcoin gains are largely the reason two very smallARK Invest fundsare among the top-performing ETFs of the year. Bitcoin—owned through allocations to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)—is theARK Innovation ETF (ARKK)and theARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW)’s biggest single holding, at about 8% and 8.2%, respectively.
Both funds also own names like Tesla, Amazon and Athena Health—all companies that have been delivering strong returns this year.
These ETFs are actively managed funds said to benefit from their portfolio managers’ strong “conviction” when it comes to owning specific stocks. They have on occasion bought into stocks that they believe in for the long haul even when they might seem out of favor in the near term—value plays that sometimes work wonders.
Emerging Markets Surging
Six of the 10 best performers are all linked to emerging markets. The region is coming off of four years of underperformance relative to developed-market equities, forging a bottom and gaining some ground. A weaker U.S. dollar, too, has helped in recent months, as have lower, attractive valuations relative to developed-market equities.
Leading the bunch with gains of roughly 41% is theEmerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (EMQQ), which owns internet-related companies in almost 20 countries. The ETF isone of the year’s best tech funds, too, thanks to its sharp focus on the internet of things.
EMQQ’s performance is also linked to China, a country that represents nearly two-thirds of its portfolio.
The performance of China-focused ETFs hasn’t been that good this year, with different types of stocks—H-Shares (Hong Kong listed), N-Shares and A-Shares (mainland listed)—behaving differently. But strong earnings growth in some segments, particularly tech, has boded well for funds such as EMQQ. Companies like Tencent and Alibaba have been soaring.
Chinese & Indian Funds Gain
That scenario has also pushed theKraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB)to the top 10 list. The fund owns exclusively U.S.-listed Chinese software and IT services companies, and it’s up 39% in five months. KWEB is also the most popular fund among the year’s best performers, with inflows of some $186 million.
Technology has been the strongest sector in the S&P 500 so far this year, and it’s also a sector that’s standing out globally. Five of the best-performing ETFs in 2017 are directly linked to tech stocks.
Finally, there’s India.
India-linked ETFs, benefiting from the country’s strong GDP growth (above 7%), its pro-business leadership and positive demographic trends, have also done well. TheVanEck Vectors India Small-Cap ETF (SCIF)and theiShares MSCI India Small Cap ETF (SMIN)are among the year’s best returns.
[{"Ticker": "XIVH", "Fund": "VelocityShares VIX Short Volatility Hedged ETN", "Issuer": "UBS", "YTD 2017Total Return": "53.21", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "0.06", "2017 AUM($,M)": "53.45", "% of AUM": "0.11%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Ticker": "ARKK", "Fund": "ARK Innovation ETF", "Issuer": "ARK", "YTD 2017Total Return": "43.99", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "23.62", "2017 AUM($,M)": "42.11", "% of AUM": "56.09%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "19.07"}, {"Ticker": "ARKW", "Fund": "ARK Web x.0 ETF", "Issuer": "ARK", "YTD 2017Total Return": "42.42", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "15.99", "2017 AUM($,M)": "40.19", "% of AUM": "39.79%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "11.73"}, {"Ticker": "EMQQ", "Fund": "Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF", "Issuer": "Exchange Traded Concepts", "YTD 2017Total Return": "40.98", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "60.49", "2017 AUM($,M)": "100.17", "% of AUM": "60.39%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "47.91"}, {"Ticker": "SCIF", "Fund": "VanEck Vectors India Small-Cap Index ETF", "Issuer": "VanEck", "YTD 2017Total Return": "38.97", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "74.20", "2017 AUM($,M)": "316.31", "% of AUM": "23.46%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "37.61"}, {"Ticker": "KWEB", "Fund": "KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF", "Issuer": "KraneShares", "YTD 2017Total Return": "38.89", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "186.21", "2017 AUM($,M)": "481.47", "% of AUM": "38.68%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "121.99"}, {"Ticker": "GAMR", "Fund": "PureFunds Video Game Tech ETF", "Issuer": "ETF Managers Group", "YTD 2017Total Return": "35.79", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "5.88", "2017 AUM($,M)": "16.18", "% of AUM": "36.34%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "5.88"}, {"Ticker": "PGJ", "Fund": "PowerShares Golden Dragon China Portfolio", "Issuer": "Invesco PowerShares", "YTD 2017Total Return": "35.40", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "3.55", "2017 AUM($,M)": "177.27", "% of AUM": "2.00%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "11.49"}, {"Ticker": "CXSE", "Fund": "WisdomTree China ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund", "Issuer": "WisdomTree", "YTD 2017Total Return": "35.36", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "2017 AUM($,M)": "9.66", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Ticker": "SMIN", "Fund": "iShares MSCI India Small Cap ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "YTD 2017Total Return": "35.10", "YTD 2017Net Flows ($,M)": "88.61", "2017 AUM($,M)": "184.04", "% of AUM": "48.15%", "May 2017 NetFlows ($,M)": "40.27"}]
Contact Cinthia Murphy [email protected]
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Best Performing ETFs So Far This Year: They say the best perfumes come in the smallest bottles. Perhaps that holds true in ETFs, too—at least when it comes to short-term performance. Investors poured more than $200 billion into U.S.-listed ETFs in the first five months of the year, bringing total U.S. ETF assets to almost $3 trillion. The most popular fund this year, the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV ), attracted some $14 billion in net inflows. But the top 10 best-performing ETFs this year command only about $1.42 billion in total combined assets. Their net creations between January and May 2017 reached only $458.5 million split across 10 different funds. And yet their year-to-date results stand out among the 2,000-plus ETFs listed in the U.S. today. Story Lines Behind Performance Behind these funds’ impressive performances so far this year are a few different story lines: historically low volatility in the U.S. stock market; a mind-boggling rally in bitcoin prices; a forging recovery in emerging markets; and across-the-board strength in the tech sector. Leading with gains of more than 53% in five months is a complex volatility ETN, the VelocityShares VIX Short Volatility Hedged ETN (XIVH) . The strategy—which includes both a large short exposure to near-term VIX futures and a small long and leveraged position—is built to benefit from contango in CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) futures. In other words, it gains most when the VIX is going down. By the end of May, VIX was trading just below 10—far off its 52-week high of 26.7, according to CBOE data, and it’s been below 10 at close of trading several times in the month of May alone. Volatility has been declining, making it the perfect setting for XIVH to flourish. Bitcoin Booming Another big story this year fueling a pair of ETFs has been bitcoin. The Securities and Exchange Commission decision earlier this year to deny permission for bitcoin ETFs to come to market only helped further fuel the bitcoin space. In the first five months of the year, bitcoin prices surged nearly 150%. Story continues Those bitcoin gains are largely the reason two very small ARK Invest funds are among the top-performing ETFs of the year. Bitcoin—owned through allocations to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)—is the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and the ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW )’s biggest single holding, at about 8% and 8.2%, respectively. Both funds also own names like Tesla, Amazon and Athena Health—all companies that have been delivering strong returns this year. These ETFs are actively managed funds said to benefit from their portfolio managers’ strong “conviction” when it comes to owning specific stocks. They have on occasion bought into stocks that they believe in for the long haul even when they might seem out of favor in the near term—value plays that sometimes work wonders. Emerging Markets Surging Six of the 10 best performers are all linked to emerging markets. The region is coming off of four years of underperformance relative to developed-market equities, forging a bottom and gaining some ground. A weaker U.S. dollar, too, has helped in recent months, as have lower, attractive valuations relative to developed-market equities. Leading the bunch with gains of roughly 41% is the Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (EMQQ) , which owns internet-related companies in almost 20 countries. The ETF is one of the year’s best tech funds , too, thanks to its sharp focus on the internet of things. EMQQ’s performance is also linked to China, a country that represents nearly two-thirds of its portfolio. The performance of China-focused ETFs hasn’t been that good this year, with different types of stocks—H-Shares (Hong Kong listed), N-Shares and A-Shares (mainland listed)—behaving differently. But strong earnings growth in some segments, particularly tech, has boded well for funds such as EMQQ. Companies like Tencent and Alibaba have been soaring. Chinese & Indian Funds Gain That scenario has also pushed the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB) to the top 10 list. The fund owns exclusively U.S.-listed Chinese software and IT services companies, and it’s up 39% in five months. KWEB is also the most popular fund among the year’s best performers, with inflows of some $186 million. Technology has been the strongest sector in the S&P 500 so far this year, and it’s also a sector that’s standing out globally. Five of the best-performing ETFs in 2017 are directly linked to tech stocks. Finally, there’s India. India-linked ETFs , benefiting from the country’s strong GDP growth (above 7%), its pro-business leadership and positive demographic trends, have also done well. The VanEck Vectors India Small-Cap ETF (SCIF) and the iShares MSCI India Small Cap ETF (SMIN) are among the year’s best returns. Ticker Fund Issuer YTD 2017 Total Return YTD 2017 Net Flows ($,M) 2017 AUM ($,M) % of AUM May 2017 Net Flows ($,M) XIVH VelocityShares VIX Short Volatility Hedged ETN UBS 53.21 0.06 53.45 0.11% 0.00 ARKK ARK Innovation ETF ARK 43.99 23.62 42.11 56.09% 19.07 ARKW ARK Web x.0 ETF ARK 42.42 15.99 40.19 39.79% 11.73 EMQQ Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF Exchange Traded Concepts 40.98 60.49 100.17 60.39% 47.91 SCIF VanEck Vectors India Small-Cap Index ETF VanEck 38.97 74.20 316.31 23.46% 37.61 KWEB KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KraneShares 38.89 186.21 481.47 38.68% 121.99 GAMR PureFunds Video Game Tech ETF ETF Managers Group 35.79 5.88 16.18 36.34% 5.88 PGJ PowerShares Golden Dragon China Portfolio Invesco PowerShares 35.40 3.55 177.27 2.00% 11.49 CXSE WisdomTree China ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund WisdomTree 35.36 0.00 9.66 0.00% 0.00 SMIN iShares MSCI India Small Cap ETF BlackRock 35.10 88.61 184.04 48.15% 40.27 Contact Cinthia Murphy at [email protected] Recommended Stories Gundlach: Interest Rates & VIX Won't Stay Down We Are All Insurers Now Tech ETFs Retreat: Pullback Ahead? Swedroe: Solid Case For Active Mgmt Worst Performing ETFs Of 2017 Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Fretting over savings, Mrs Watanabe turns to bitcoin: By Minami Funakoshi and Joyce Lee TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Long the preserve of geeky enthusiasts, bitcoin is going mainstream in Asia, attracting Mrs Watanabe - the metaphorical Japanese housewife investor - South Korean retirees and thousands of others trying to escape rock-bottom savings rates by investing in the cryptocurrency. Asia's moms and pops, already regular investors in stock and futures markets, have been dazzled by bitcoin's 100 percent surge so far this year. In comparison, the broader Asian stocks benchmark has gained 17 percent over the same period. Even after a tumble from last week's record $2,779.08 high, bitcoin rose more than 60 percent in May alone - driven higher in part by investors in Japan and South Korea stepping in as China cooled after a central bank crackdown earlier this year. (For a graphic on bitcoin economy click http://tmsnrt.rs/2skLZ3c) Over the last two weeks, and encouraged by Japan's recognition of bitcoin as legal tender in April, exchanges say interest has jumped from the two countries. Bitcoin trades at a premium in both, due to tough money-laundering rules that make it hard for people to move bitcoin in and out. "After I first heard about the bitcoin scheme, I was so excited I couldn't sleep. It's like buying a dream," said Mutsuko Higo, a 55-year-old Japanese social insurance and labor consultant who bought around 200,000 yen ($1800) worth of bitcoin in March to supplement her retirement savings. "Everyone says we can't rely on Japanese pensions anymore," she said. "This worries me, so I started bitcoins." Asia has proved fertile ground for bitcoin due to the region's thriving retail investment culture, where swapping investment tips is already common. China, Japan and South Korea are home to several of the world's busiest cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a ranking by CoinMarketCap. "Right now, it's a form of speculation, like stocks," said Park Hyo-jin, a 27-year-old South Korean who owns around 3 million won ($2,700) of bitcoin. "I don't think anybody in South Korea buys bitcoin to use it." The risks, though, are rising too. Bitcoin is largely unregulated across Asia, while rules governing bitcoin exchanges can be patchy. In Hong Kong, bitcoin exchanges operate under money service operator licenses - like money changers - while in South Korea they are regulated similar to online shopping malls, trading physical goods. Often there are no rules on investor protection. BITCOIN WHEN YOU DIE Park and Higo were drawn into bitcoin by friends. Others are attracted through seminars, social media groups and blogs penned by amateur investors. Noboru Hanaki, a 27-year-old Japanese web marketer and bitcoin investor, said his personal finance blog gets around 30,000 page views each month. The most popular post is an explanation of bitcoin, he said, noting that when the bitcoin price surged last month, readership of the article doubled. Rachel Poole, a Hong Kong-based kindergarten teacher, said she read about bitcoin in the press, and bought five bitcoins in March for around HK$40,000 ($5,100) after studying blogs on the topic. She kept four as an investment and has made HK$12,000 tax-free trading the fifth after classes. "I wish I'd done it earlier," she said. Not everyone's making money. The bitcoin frenzy has spawned scams, with police in South Korea last month uncovering a $55 million cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that sucked in thousands of homemakers, workers and self-employed businessmen seduced by slick marketing and promises of wealth. Seminars in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong promote similar multi-level marketing schemes that require investors to pay an upfront membership fee of as much as $9,000. Members are encouraged to promote the cryptocurrency and bring in new members in return for some bitcoins and other benefits. One such Tokyo scheme offered members-only shopping websites that accept bitcoin, 24-hour assistance for car and computer problems, and bitcoin-based gifts when a member gets married, has a baby - or even dies, according to marketing materials seen by Reuters. Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong and a bitcoin investor, warned amateur investors against speculating in the digital currency. "Trading carries huge risk: there is no investor protection and plenty of market manipulation and insider trading. Some of the exchanges cannot be trusted in my opinion." Some larger exchanges have voluntarily adopted security measures and compensation guarantees, according to their websites, although there are dozens of smaller platforms operating more or less unchecked. In South Korea, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has set up a task force to explore regulating cryptocurrencies, but it has not set a timeline for publishing its conclusions, an official there said. In Japan - where memories are still fresh of the spectacular 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, the world's biggest bitcoin exchange at the time - the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it supervises bitcoin exchanges, but not traders or investors. "The government is not guaranteeing the value of cryptocurrencies. We are asking for bitcoin exchanges to fully explain the risk of sharp price moves," an FSA official said. Some professional investors say bitcoin can be a useful hedge to help diversify a portfolio, but investors should be cautious. "This is an extremely volatile and innovative asset class," said Pietro Ventani, managing director of APP Advisers, an asset allocation strategy firm. (Reporting by Minami Funakoshi in Tokyo and Joyce Lee in Seoul, with additional reporting by Michelle Price in Hong Kong and Yoshiyuki Osada, Takahiko Wada and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Writing by Michelle Price; Editing by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Ian Geoghegan) || Fretting over savings, Mrs Watanabe turns to bitcoin: By Minami Funakoshi and Joyce Lee TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Long the preserve of geeky enthusiasts, bitcoin is going mainstream in Asia, attracting Mrs Watanabe - the metaphorical Japanese housewife investor - South Korean retirees and thousands of others trying to escape rock-bottom savings rates by investing in the cryptocurrency. Asia's moms and pops, already regular investors in stock and futures markets, have been dazzled by bitcoin's 100 percent surge so far this year. In comparison, the broader Asian stocks benchmark has gained 17 percent over the same period. Even after a tumble from last week's record $2,779.08 high, bitcoin rose more than 60 percent in May alone - driven higher in part by investors in Japan and South Korea stepping in as China cooled after a central bank crackdown earlier this year. (For a graphic on bitcoin economy click http://tmsnrt.rs/2skLZ3c) Over the last two weeks, and encouraged by Japan's recognition of bitcoin as legal tender in April, exchanges say interest has jumped from the two countries. Bitcoin trades at a premium in both, due to tough money-laundering rules that make it hard for people to move bitcoin in and out. "After I first heard about the bitcoin scheme, I was so excited I couldn't sleep. It's like buying a dream," said Mutsuko Higo, a 55-year-old Japanese social insurance and labor consultant who bought around 200,000 yen ($1800) worth of bitcoin in March to supplement her retirement savings. "Everyone says we can't rely on Japanese pensions anymore," she said. "This worries me, so I started bitcoins." Asia has proved fertile ground for bitcoin due to the region's thriving retail investment culture, where swapping investment tips is already common. China, Japan and South Korea are home to several of the world's busiest cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a ranking by CoinMarketCap. "Right now, it's a form of speculation, like stocks," said Park Hyo-jin, a 27-year-old South Korean who owns around 3 million won ($2,700) of bitcoin. "I don't think anybody in South Korea buys bitcoin to use it." The risks, though, are rising too. Bitcoin is largely unregulated across Asia, while rules governing bitcoin exchanges can be patchy. In Hong Kong, bitcoin exchanges operate under money service operator licenses - like money changers - while in South Korea they are regulated similar to online shopping malls, trading physical goods. Often there are no rules on investor protection. BITCOIN WHEN YOU DIE Park and Higo were drawn into bitcoin by friends. Others are attracted through seminars, social media groups and blogs penned by amateur investors. Noboru Hanaki, a 27-year-old Japanese web marketer and bitcoin investor, said his personal finance blog gets around 30,000 page views each month. The most popular post is an explanation of bitcoin, he said, noting that when the bitcoin price surged last month, readership of the article doubled. Rachel Poole, a Hong Kong-based kindergarten teacher, said she read about bitcoin in the press, and bought five bitcoins in March for around HK$40,000 ($5,100) after studying blogs on the topic. She kept four as an investment and has made HK$12,000 tax-free trading the fifth after classes. "I wish I'd done it earlier," she said. Not everyone's making money. The bitcoin frenzy has spawned scams, with police in South Korea last month uncovering a $55 million cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that sucked in thousands of homemakers, workers and self-employed businessmen seduced by slick marketing and promises of wealth. Seminars in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong promote similar multi-level marketing schemes that require investors to pay an upfront membership fee of as much as $9,000. Members are encouraged to promote the cryptocurrency and bring in new members in return for some bitcoins and other benefits. One such Tokyo scheme offered members-only shopping websites that accept bitcoin, 24-hour assistance for car and computer problems, and bitcoin-based gifts when a member gets married, has a baby - or even dies, according to marketing materials seen by Reuters. Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong and a bitcoin investor, warned amateur investors against speculating in the digital currency. "Trading carries huge risk: there is no investor protection and plenty of market manipulation and insider trading. Some of the exchanges cannot be trusted in my opinion." Some larger exchanges have voluntarily adopted security measures and compensation guarantees, according to their websites, although there are dozens of smaller platforms operating more or less unchecked. In South Korea, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has set up a task force to explore regulating cryptocurrencies, but it has not set a timeline for publishing its conclusions, an official there said. In Japan - where memories are still fresh of the spectacular 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, the world's biggest bitcoin exchange at the time - the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it supervises bitcoin exchanges, but not traders or investors. "The government is not guaranteeing the value of cryptocurrencies. We are asking for bitcoin exchanges to fully explain the risk of sharp price moves," an FSA official said. Some professional investors say bitcoin can be a useful hedge to help diversify a portfolio, but investors should be cautious. "This is an extremely volatile and innovative asset class," said Pietro Ventani, managing director of APP Advisers, an asset allocation strategy firm. (Reporting by Minami Funakoshi in Tokyo and Joyce Lee in Seoul, with additional reporting by Michelle Price in Hong Kong and Yoshiyuki Osada, Takahiko Wada and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Writing by Michelle Price; Editing by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Ian Geoghegan) || SEC Reviews Bitcoin ETF: The Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency Explained: There has been a lot of interest in bitcoin of late, mainly due to its astronomical rise. The cryptocurrency is up more than 135% year to date. Looking at the longer-term performance, $100 invested in bitcoin 7 years ago would be worth about $75 million now, per CNBC. Bitcoin was also in focus because the hackers responsible for the massive WannaCry cyber-attack wanted ransom to be paid in bitcoin and they were able to get some payments. Investors have been hoping that the SEC would approve a bitcoin ETF, which would add legitimacy to the digital currency and also provide investors a convenient way of investing in the digital currency. What is Bitcoin? Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency not issued by a central bank. It is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network. Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network. Why is Bitcoin Surging? Bitcoin is up almost 400% over the past one year.The main reason behind the surge is its limited supply, According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoins, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day. On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier. In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country. It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FTthat is based on the presumption that bitcoin’s core utility value is serving as a currency for the dark economy. The model found the cryptocurrency to be grossly overvalued. What Are the Risks? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated or backed by a central bank. Story continues The cryptocurrency is very volatile and usually goes through boom-bust cycles. Just last Thursday, it dropped by almost 19% from its all time high level. Due to users’ anonymity, it is used by criminals and in dark economy for illegal payment transfers and for purchase of illegal drugs. There have also been many instances of hackers stealing bitcoins Bitcoin ETFs In March, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. This was not the only bitcoin ETF; there were two more going through the regulatory approval process. Another bitcoin ETF, proposed by SolidX Management, was also rejected in March. The third one proposed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) is being reviewed and a decision is due by Sep 22. Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars? Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge. With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research. It's not the one you think. See This Ticker Free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-GOLD TR (IAU): ETF Research Reports SPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || SEC Reviews Bitcoin ETF: The Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency Explained: There has been a lot of interest in bitcoin of late, mainly due to its astronomical rise. The cryptocurrency is up more than 135% year to date. Looking at the longer-term performance, $100 invested in bitcoin 7 years ago would be worth about $75 million now, per CNBC.
Bitcoin was also in focus because the hackers responsible for the massive WannaCry cyber-attack wanted ransom to be paid in bitcoin and they were able to get some payments.
Investors have been hoping that the SEC would approve a bitcoin ETF, which would add legitimacy to the digital currency and also provide investors a convenient way of investing in the digital currency.
What is Bitcoin?
Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency not issued by a central bank. It is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network.
Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network.
Why is Bitcoin Surging?
Bitcoin is up almost 400% over the past one year.The main reason behind the surge is its limited supply, According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoins, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day.
On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier.
In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country.
It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FTthat is based on the presumption that bitcoin’s core utility value is serving as a currency for the dark economy. The model found the cryptocurrency to be grossly overvalued.
What Are the Risks?
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated or backed by a central bank.
The cryptocurrency is very volatile and usually goes through boom-bust cycles. Just last Thursday, it dropped by almost 19% from its all time high level.
Due to users’ anonymity, it is used by criminals and in dark economy for illegal payment transfers and for purchase of illegal drugs. There have also been many instances of hackers stealing bitcoins
Bitcoin ETFs
In March, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. This was not the only bitcoin ETF; there were two more going through the regulatory approval process.
Another bitcoin ETF, proposed by SolidX Management, was also rejected in March. The third one proposed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) is being reviewed and a decision is due by Sep 22.
Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars?
Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge.
With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research.
It's not the one you think.
See This Ticker Free >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportSPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-GOLD TR (IAU): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || SEC Reviews Bitcoin ETF: The Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency Explained: There has been a lot of interest in bitcoin of late, mainly due to its astronomical rise. The cryptocurrency is up more than 135% year to date. Looking at the longer-term performance, $100 invested in bitcoin 7 years ago would be worth about $75 million now, per CNBC.
Bitcoin was also in focus because the hackers responsible for the massive WannaCry cyber-attack wanted ransom to be paid in bitcoin and they were able to get some payments.
Investors have been hoping that the SEC would approve a bitcoin ETF, which would add legitimacy to the digital currency and also provide investors a convenient way of investing in the digital currency.
What is Bitcoin?
Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency not issued by a central bank. It is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network.
Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network.
Why is Bitcoin Surging?
Bitcoin is up almost 400% over the past one year.The main reason behind the surge is its limited supply, According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoins, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day.
On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier.
In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country.
It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FTthat is based on the presumption that bitcoin’s core utility value is serving as a currency for the dark economy. The model found the cryptocurrency to be grossly overvalued.
What Are the Risks?
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated or backed by a central bank.
The cryptocurrency is very volatile and usually goes through boom-bust cycles. Just last Thursday, it dropped by almost 19% from its all time high level.
Due to users’ anonymity, it is used by criminals and in dark economy for illegal payment transfers and for purchase of illegal drugs. There have also been many instances of hackers stealing bitcoins
Bitcoin ETFs
In March, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. This was not the only bitcoin ETF; there were two more going through the regulatory approval process.
Another bitcoin ETF, proposed by SolidX Management, was also rejected in March. The third one proposed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) is being reviewed and a decision is due by Sep 22.
Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars?
Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge.
With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research.
It's not the one you think.
See This Ticker Free >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportSPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-GOLD TR (IAU): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || As Comey Testimony Looms, Here's Every President Who's Used Executive Privilege To Deny Congress Information: President Donald Trump may exercise a rarely used presidential legal authority to prevent former FBI director James Comey from testifying about conversations he had with the president in front of the Senate next week. Comey has said Trump pressured him to end an ongoing FBI investigation into potential ties between Trump’s former security advisor Michael Flynn and Russian officials. If Trump chooses, he could attempt to invoke executive privilege to keep Comey from testifying. Executive privilege is a controversial legal principle that allows the president and high-level members of the executive branch to withhold information from Congress, the judicial branch and the public. The idea of executive privilege is based strictly on precedent, as it does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. Related Link: For This Congress, Tax Cuts Are The Entree, Reform The Side Dish 221 Years Of Executive Privilege While executive privilege was made famous during the Watergate investigation of then-President Richard Nixon, a number of presidents have invoked executive privilege: George Washington (1796) refused to provide the House of Representatives with documents related to Jay Treaty negotiations with Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson (1809) refused to testify in the treason trial of Aaron Burr. Andrew Jackson (1833) refused to provide documents to the Senate related to the removal of deposits from the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War , a political battle over the legitimacy of the Second Bank. Harry Truman (1948) refused to cooperate with the House of Representatives during the Alger Hiss investigation related to potential Russian spying. Dwight Eisenhower (1954) blocked Senate access to “any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people" during the anti-communism Army-McCarthy hearings. Richard Nixon (1974) attempted to invoke executive privilege to prevent Congress from gaining access to audio recordings made in the White House related to the Watergate break-in. In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that the public’s interest in the pursuit of criminal prosecution took precedence over the president’s general need for confidentiality and ordered the release of the tapes. Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) invoked executive privilege three times: to deny access to information related to Canadian oil leases, to withhold documents related to Superfudn enforcement practices and to withhold internal memos related to the nomination of Justice William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court. George H.W. Bush (1991) invoked executive privilege to deny Congress access to documents related to an investigation into the Navy aircraft program. Bill Clinton (1998) invoked executive privilege 14 different times during his impeachment trial for perjury related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A federal judge denied Clinton’s attempt to prevent White House aides from testifying. George W. Bush (2001–2007) invoked executive privilege six times, withholding information related to FBI misuse of organized crime informants, Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings with energy executives, former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and political director Sara Taylor, and the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. Bush also denied a subpoena calling for senior advisor Karl Rove to testify in front of the Senate. Barack Obama (2012) invoked executive privilege to withhold documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious gun-trafficking controversy and to withhold documents related to the implementation of the “net worth sweep” of Federal National Mortgage Association (OTC: FNMA ) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTC: FMCC ). Story continues Trump reportedly may have a tough time invoking executive privilege regarding his conversations with Comey. Trump has repeatedly discussed details of the conversations with Comey in public interviews. Therefore, it may be difficult to make the case that the content of the conversations should be withheld now that Comey is set to give his version of the story in front of Congress. Related Links: White House Says The Paris Climate Accord Hurt American Businesses; Do American Businesses Agree? Trump Confirms US Exit From Paris Accord: He's Right, It Is A Bad Deal _________ Image Credit: By Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) - Director Provides Update on Orlando Shootings Investigation, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons See more from Benzinga Despite Historically High Valuations, Another 50% Upside Possible For Stocks Will Pricey Bitcoin Just Make The Rich Richer? © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || As Comey Testimony Looms, Here's Every President Who's Used Executive Privilege To Deny Congress Information: President Donald Trump may exercise a rarely used presidential legal authority to prevent former FBI director James Comey from testifying about conversations he had with the president in front of the Senate next week. Comey has said Trump pressured him to end an ongoing FBI investigation into potential ties between Trump’s former security advisor Michael Flynn and Russian officials.
If Trump chooses, he could attempt to invoke executive privilege to keep Comey from testifying. Executive privilege is a controversial legal principle that allows the president and high-level members of the executive branch to withhold information from Congress, the judicial branch and the public. The idea of executive privilege is based strictly on precedent, as it does not appear in the U.S. Constitution.
Related Link:For This Congress, Tax Cuts Are The Entree, Reform The Side Dish
221 Years Of Executive Privilege
While executive privilege was made famous during the Watergate investigation of then-President Richard Nixon, a number of presidents have invoked executive privilege:
• George Washington(1796) refused to provide the House of Representativeswith documentsrelated to Jay Treaty negotiations with Great Britain.
• Thomas Jefferson(1809) refused to testify in thetreason trialof Aaron Burr.
• Andrew Jackson(1833) refused to provide documents to the Senate related to the removal of deposits from the Second Bank of the United States during theBank War, a political battle over the legitimacy of the Second Bank.
• Harry Truman(1948) refused to cooperate with the House of Representatives during theAlger Hissinvestigation related to potential Russian spying.
• Dwight Eisenhower(1954) blockedSenate accessto “any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people" during the anti-communism Army-McCarthy hearings.
• Richard Nixon(1974) attempted to invoke executive privilege to prevent Congress from gaining access to audio recordings made in the White House related to the Watergate break-in. In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that the public’s interest in the pursuit of criminal prosecution took precedence over the president’s general need for confidentiality and ordered the release of the tapes.
• Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)invoked executive privilege three times: to deny access to information related to Canadian oil leases, to withhold documents related to Superfudn enforcement practices and to withhold internal memos related to the nomination of Justice William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court.
• George H.W. Bush(1991) invoked executive privilege to deny Congress access to documents related to an investigation into the Navy aircraft program.
• Bill Clinton(1998) invoked executive privilege 14 different times during his impeachment trial for perjury related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A federal judge denied Clinton’s attempt to prevent White House aides from testifying.
• George W. Bush(2001–2007) invoked executive privilege six times, withholding information related to FBI misuse of organized crime informants, Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings with energy executives, former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and political director Sara Taylor, and the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. Bush also denied a subpoena calling for senior advisor Karl Rove to testify in front of the Senate.
• Barack Obama(2012) invoked executive privilege to withhold documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious gun-trafficking controversy and to withhold documents related to the implementation of the “net worth sweep” ofFederal National Mortgage Association(OTC:FNMA) andFederal Home Loan Mortgage Corp(OTC:FMCC).
Trump reportedly may have a tough time invoking executive privilege regarding his conversations with Comey. Trump has repeatedly discussed details of the conversations with Comey in public interviews. Therefore, it may be difficult to make the case that the content of the conversations should be withheld now that Comey is set to give his version of the story in front of Congress.
Related Links:
White House Says The Paris Climate Accord Hurt American Businesses; Do American Businesses Agree?
Trump Confirms US Exit From Paris Accord: He's Right, It Is A Bad Deal_________Image Credit: By Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) - Director Provides Update on Orlando Shootings Investigation, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
See more from Benzinga
• Despite Historically High Valuations, Another 50% Upside Possible For Stocks
• Will Pricey Bitcoin Just Make The Rich Richer?
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Here’s how often IBM’s Watson agrees with doctors on the best way to treat cancer: IBM Watson Office 27 (Hollis Johnson) We're starting to get a better picture of how artificial intelligence could help doctors better treat cancer. And in data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting , IBM Watson Health gave a snapshot of how it's playing out so far. The studies looked at concordance rates, or how often Watson for Oncology reached the same course of treatment as the cancer doctors at different cancer centers around the world. At Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Center in India, for 112 cases of lung cancer, there was 96.4% concordance between Watson and the doctors. For 126 cases of colon cancer it was 81% of the time, and for 124 cases of rectal cancer cases were 92.7%. The concordance was in line with what IBM expected in those cases: If Watson and the docs agreed all the time, there wouldn't be much value for adding AI to the picture. But it was a bit off when it came to Watson evaluating 185 cases of gastric cancer in South Korea. There, the concordance was 49% . Norden said that relates to the guidelines for gastric cancer being different in South Korea than at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the hospital where Watson for Oncology was trained. The data presented at ASCO are among the first that IBM Watson Health has presented at a medical conference. And while it sets the stage for what artificial intelligence can do to help doctors treat patients with cancer, many still have lingering questions. The biggest yet-to-be-answered question: Can using AI to determine cancer treatment actually extend patients' lives compared to oncologists alone determining their treatments? Andrew Norden, the deputy chief health officer at IBM Watson Health told Business Insider that the concordance data isn't " the ultimate endpoint we’re interested in," though it was the first they could get to relatively quickly. To get to studies that evaluate overall survival (that is, finding out whether using AI-powered treatment plans can increase patients' lives compared to traditional treatment plans) will take more time. Story continues NOW WATCH: HENRY BLODGET: Bitcoin could go to $1 million (or fall to $0) More From Business Insider French president excoriates Trump in English over US withdrawal from climate deal Elon Musk bails on Trump's advisory councils after US withdraws from Paris climate deal How leaving the Paris Climate Agreement could affect the US || Here’s how often IBM’s Watson agrees with doctors on the best way to treat cancer: (Hollis Johnson)
We're starting to get a better picture of how artificial intelligence could help doctors better treat cancer.
Andin data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, IBM Watson Health gave a snapshot of how it's playing out so far.
The studies looked at concordance rates, or how often Watson for Oncology reached the same course of treatment as the cancer doctors at different cancer centers around the world. AtManipal Comprehensive Cancer Centerin India, for 112 cases of lung cancer, there was 96.4% concordance between Watson and the doctors. For 126 cases of colon cancer it was 81% of the time, and for 124 cases of rectal cancer cases were 92.7%.
The concordance was in line with what IBM expected in those cases: If Watson and the docs agreed all the time, there wouldn't be much value for adding AI to the picture.
But it was a bit off when it came to Watson evaluating 185 cases of gastric cancer in South Korea. There, the concordancewas 49%. Norden said that relates to the guidelines for gastric cancer being different in South Korea than at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the hospital where Watson for Oncology was trained.
The data presented at ASCO are among the first that IBM Watson Health has presented at a medical conference. And while it sets the stage for what artificial intelligence can do to help doctors treat patients with cancer, many still have lingering questions.
The biggest yet-to-be-answered question: Can using AI to determine cancer treatment actually extend patients' lives compared to oncologists alone determining their treatments?
Andrew Norden, the deputy chief health officer at IBM Watson Health told Business Insider that the concordance data isn't "the ultimate endpoint we’re interested in," though it was the first they could get to relatively quickly.
To get to studies that evaluate overall survival (that is, finding out whether using AI-powered treatment plans can increase patients' lives compared to traditional treatment plans) will take more time.
NOW WATCH:HENRY BLODGET: Bitcoin could go to $1 million (or fall to $0)
More From Business Insider
• French president excoriates Trump in English over US withdrawal from climate deal
• Elon Musk bails on Trump's advisory councils after US withdraws from Paris climate deal
• How leaving the Paris Climate Agreement could affect the US || Blog Coverage British Oil Company Expected to Sign Azerbaijan Contract by June 2017; Existing Deal to Expire in 2024: Upcoming AWS Coverage on Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Post-Earnings Results LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / June 2, 2017 / Active Wall St. blog coverage looks at the headline from British Oil Company BP PLC (NYSE: BP ).The Company is expected to sign a contract at the end of June extending its production sharing deal for Azerbaijan's biggest oilfields until 2050, according to the Company's regional head's statement on May 31, 2017. With the existing deal set to expire in 2024, BP-led consortium and Azeri state oil firm SOCAR signed a letter of intent in December to continue developing the giant Azeri-Chirag-Guneshly (ACG) offshore fields until 2050. Register with us now for your free membership and blog access at: http://www.activewallst.com/register/ . One of BP PLC's competitors within the Major Integrated Oil & Gas space, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. (NYSE: ANW ), announced on May 23, 2017, its financial and operating results for Q1 2017 which ended on March 31, 2017. AWS will be initiating a research report on Aegean Marine Petroleum Network in the coming days. Today, AWS is promoting its blog coverage on BP ; touching on ANW . Get all of our free blog coverage and more by clicking on the link below: http://www.activewallst.com/register/ . The Development Agreement On December 23, 2016, The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) signed a letter of intent for the future development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. The agreement included the development of the field until 2050 and will add significant resource potential to the middle of the century. The ACG Field ACG is a giant field located about 100 km east of Baku. The field covers an area of more than 432 square kilometers and is the biggest producing oil field in the Caspian Sea. The depth of the reservoir is around 2000-3500 meters and lies in the water depth of between 120 to 170 meters. The existing ACG PSA was signed in September 1994 for 30 years. Oil Production from the field began in November 1997, and as of December 23, 2016, the field has produced more than 3 billion barrels of oil with around $33 billion of investment. There are six producing platforms on ACG, linked with a world-class onshore terminal in Sangachai near Baku. From the terminal, oil is exported to world markets primarily by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export pipeline and the Western Export Pipeline to Supsa. British Oil Company currently is the operator acting on the behalf of AIOC and the Contractor Parties to the ACG Production Sharing Agreement. Story continues The BP-ACG Relation BP first arrived in Azerbaijan in June 1992, when it opened its first office in Baku. In the last 25 years, BP has partnered with the Government of Azerbaijan and its co-venturers, BP-operated projects, Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Shah Deniz, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), have contributed to the development of the Caspian Sea as a modern hydrocarbon province. In the Caspian, the Company operated two giant fields, namely, the ACG (Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli) and SD (Shah Deniz) gas fields. These fields are directly linked to the local and international markets via an expansive export system, including a complex subsea pipeline infrastructure and connected with the Sangachai terminal, three export pipelines with a total length of 3,300 km connected with marine export systems on the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Azeri's President, Ilham Aliyev, stated on May 31, 2017, that he expected the contract to be signed soon, speculating the final intent to reach an agreement with investors at the Caspian Oil & Gas Conference in Baku. Stock Performance On Thursday, June 01, 2017, the stock closed the trading session at $36.24, marginally up 0.25% from its previous closing price of $36.15. A total volume of 6.48 million shares have exchanged hands, which was higher than the 3-month average volume of 6.43 million shares. BP PLC's stock price surged 6.21% in the last three months, 8.11% in the past six months, and 15.63% in the previous twelve months. The stock is trading at a PE ratio of 55.16 and has a dividend yield of 6.62%. The stock currently has a market cap of $120.21 billion. Active Wall Street: Active Wall Street (AWS) produces regular sponsored and non-sponsored reports, articles, stock market blogs, and popular investment newsletters covering equities listed on NYSE and NASDAQ and micro-cap stocks. AWS has two distinct and independent departments. One department produces non-sponsored analyst certified content generally in the form of press releases, articles and reports covering equities listed on NYSE and NASDAQ and the other produces sponsored content (in most cases not reviewed by a registered analyst), which typically consists of compensated investment newsletters, articles and reports covering listed stocks and micro-caps. Such sponsored content is outside the scope of procedures detailed below. AWS has not been compensated; directly or indirectly; for producing or publishing this document. PRESS RELEASE PROCEDURES : The non-sponsored content contained herein has been prepared by a writer (the "Author") and is fact checked and reviewed by a third party research service company (the "Reviewer") represented by a credentialed financial analyst [for further information on analyst credentials, please email [email protected] . Rohit Tuli, a CFA® charterholder (the "Sponsor"), provides necessary guidance in preparing the document templates. The Reviewer has reviewed and revised the content, as necessary, based on publicly available information which is believed to be reliable. Content is researched, written and reviewed on a reasonable-effort basis. The Reviewer has not performed any independent investigations or forensic audits to validate the information herein. The Reviewer has only independently reviewed the information provided by the Author according to the procedures outlined by AWS. AWS is not entitled to veto or interfere in the application of such procedures by the third-party research service company to the articles, documents or reports, as the case may be. Unless otherwise noted, any content outside of this document has no association with the Author or the Reviewer in any way. NO WARRANTY AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer are not responsible for any error which may be occasioned at the time of printing of this document or any error, mistake or shortcoming. No liability is accepted whatsoever for any direct, indirect or consequential loss arising from the use of this document. AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer expressly disclaim any fiduciary responsibility or liability for any consequences, financial or otherwise arising from any reliance placed on the information in this document. Additionally, AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer do not (1) guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness or correct sequencing of the information, or (2) warrant any results from use of the information. The included information is subject to change without notice. NOT AN OFFERING This document is not intended as an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed, and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please read all associated disclosures and disclaimers in full before investing. Neither AWS nor any party affiliated with us is a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer with any agency or in any jurisdiction whatsoever. To download our report(s), read our disclosures, or for more information, visit http://www.activewallst.com/disclaimer/ . CONTACT For any questions, inquiries, or comments reach out to us directly. If you're a company we are covering and wish to no longer feature on our coverage list contact us via email and/or phone between 09:30 EDT to 16:00 EDT from Monday to Friday at: Email: [email protected] Phone number: 1-858-257-3144 Office Address: 3rd floor, 207 Regent Street, London, W1B 3HH, United Kingdom CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute. SOURCE: Active Wall Street View comments || Blog Coverage British Oil Company Expected to Sign Azerbaijan Contract by June 2017; Existing Deal to Expire in 2024: Upcoming AWSCoverage onAegean Marine Petroleum Network Post-Earnings Results
LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / June 2, 2017 /Active Wall St. blog coverage looks at the headline from British Oil Company BP PLC (NYSE:BP).The Company is expected to sign a contract at the end of June extending its production sharing deal for Azerbaijan's biggest oilfields until 2050, according to the Company's regional head's statement on May 31, 2017. With the existing deal set to expire in 2024, BP-led consortium and Azeri state oil firm SOCAR signed a letter of intent in December to continue developing the giant Azeri-Chirag-Guneshly (ACG) offshore fields until 2050. Register with us now for your free membership and blog access at:http://www.activewallst.com/register/.
One of BP PLC's competitors within the Major Integrated Oil & Gas space, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. (NYSE:ANW), announced on May 23, 2017, its financial and operating results for Q1 2017 which ended on March 31, 2017. AWS will be initiating a research report on Aegean Marine Petroleum Network in the coming days.
Today, AWS is promoting its blog coverage onBP; touching onANW. Get all of our free blog coverage and more by clicking on the link below:http://www.activewallst.com/register/.
The Development Agreement
On December 23, 2016, The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) signed a letter of intent for the future development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. The agreement included the development of the field until 2050 and will add significant resource potential to the middle of the century.
The ACG Field
ACG is a giant field located about 100 km east of Baku. The field covers an area of more than 432 square kilometers and is the biggest producing oil field in the Caspian Sea. The depth of the reservoir is around 2000-3500 meters and lies in the water depth of between 120 to 170 meters. The existing ACG PSA was signed in September 1994 for 30 years. Oil Production from the field began in November 1997, and as of December 23, 2016, the field has produced more than 3 billion barrels of oil with around $33 billion of investment.
There are six producing platforms on ACG, linked with a world-class onshore terminal in Sangachai near Baku. From the terminal, oil is exported to world markets primarily by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export pipeline and the Western Export Pipeline to Supsa. British Oil Company currently is the operator acting on the behalf of AIOC and the Contractor Parties to the ACG Production Sharing Agreement.
The BP-ACG Relation
BP first arrived in Azerbaijan in June 1992, when it opened its first office in Baku. In the last 25 years, BP has partnered with the Government of Azerbaijan and its co-venturers, BP-operated projects, Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Shah Deniz, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), have contributed to the development of the Caspian Sea as a modern hydrocarbon province.
In the Caspian, the Company operated two giant fields, namely, the ACG (Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli) and SD (Shah Deniz) gas fields. These fields are directly linked to the local and international markets via an expansive export system, including a complex subsea pipeline infrastructure and connected with the Sangachai terminal, three export pipelines with a total length of 3,300 km connected with marine export systems on the Black and Mediterranean Seas.
Azeri's President, Ilham Aliyev, stated on May 31, 2017, that he expected the contract to be signed soon, speculating the final intent to reach an agreement with investors at the Caspian Oil & Gas Conference in Baku.
Stock Performance
On Thursday, June 01, 2017, the stock closed the trading session at $36.24, marginally up 0.25% from its previous closing price of $36.15. A total volume of 6.48 million shares have exchanged hands, which was higher than the 3-month average volume of 6.43 million shares. BP PLC's stock price surged 6.21% in the last three months, 8.11% in the past six months, and 15.63% in the previous twelve months. The stock is trading at a PE ratio of 55.16 and has a dividend yield of 6.62%. The stock currently has a market cap of $120.21 billion.
Active Wall Street:
Active Wall Street (AWS) produces regular sponsored and non-sponsored reports, articles, stock market blogs, and popular investment newsletters covering equities listed on NYSE and NASDAQ and micro-cap stocks. AWS has two distinct and independent departments. One department produces non-sponsored analyst certified content generally in the form of press releases, articles and reports covering equities listed on NYSE and NASDAQ and the other produces sponsored content (in most cases not reviewed by a registered analyst), which typically consists of compensated investment newsletters, articles and reports covering listed stocks and micro-caps. Such sponsored content is outside the scope of procedures detailed below.
AWS has not been compensated; directly or indirectly; for producing or publishing this document.
PRESS RELEASE PROCEDURES:
The non-sponsored content contained herein has been prepared by a writer (the "Author") and is fact checked and reviewed by a third party research service company (the "Reviewer") represented by a credentialed financial analyst [for further information on analyst credentials, please [email protected]. Rohit Tuli, a CFA® charterholder (the "Sponsor"), provides necessary guidance in preparing the document templates. The Reviewer has reviewed and revised the content, as necessary, based on publicly available information which is believed to be reliable. Content is researched, written and reviewed on a reasonable-effort basis. The Reviewer has not performed any independent investigations or forensic audits to validate the information herein. The Reviewer has only independently reviewed the information provided by the Author according to the procedures outlined by AWS. AWS is not entitled to veto or interfere in the application of such procedures by the third-party research service company to the articles, documents or reports, as the case may be. Unless otherwise noted, any content outside of this document has no association with the Author or the Reviewer in any way.
NO WARRANTY
AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer are not responsible for any error which may be occasioned at the time of printing of this document or any error, mistake or shortcoming. No liability is accepted whatsoever for any direct, indirect or consequential loss arising from the use of this document. AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer expressly disclaim any fiduciary responsibility or liability for any consequences, financial or otherwise arising from any reliance placed on the information in this document. Additionally, AWS, the Author, and the Reviewer do not (1) guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness or correct sequencing of the information, or (2) warrant any results from use of the information. The included information is subject to change without notice.
NOT AN OFFERING
This document is not intended as an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed, and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please read all associated disclosures and disclaimers in full before investing. Neither AWS nor any party affiliated with us is a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer with any agency or in any jurisdiction whatsoever. To download our report(s), read our disclosures, or for more information, visithttp://www.activewallst.com/disclaimer/.
CONTACT
For any questions, inquiries, or comments reach out to us directly.If you're a company we are covering and wish to no longer feature on our coverage list contact us via email and/or phone between 09:30 EDT to 16:00 EDT from Monday to Friday at:
Email:[email protected]
Phone number: 1-858-257-3144
Office Address: 3rd floor, 207 Regent Street, London, W1B 3HH, United Kingdom
CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.
SOURCE:Active Wall Street || BlackBerry shares rocket on bullish analyst note: Shares of BlackBerry (Toronto Stock Exchange: BB-CA) spiked 10 percent on Thursday after a note from Citron Research setting a 24-month price target of $20 per share. The noted short seller sees new life in BlackBerry as an internet-of-things provider and a key player in the autonomous car market. Citron is bullish on BlackBerry's QNX operating system, which it says is a "potential game changer in autonomous driving." It names QNX's customers, which include Audi, Bentley, BMW, Buick, Chervolet, Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and more. Citron compared BlackBerry with Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) noting that the two companies are participating in markets with plenty of growth potential. The firm addressed the bear case, in which BlackBerry's QNX technology may be quickly outclassed by tech titans such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) , which are also investing in autonomous car technology. "Citron believes if anything this validates BlackBerry's position and makes it ripe as an acquisition target for countless suitors," it said. "Qualcomm recently purchased NXP for its exposure in Automotive, Internet of Things, security and Networking." Citron said it's also bullish on BlackBerry because of its potential to have a big role in the internet of things, particularly as a company known for its security. Internet of things devices have a long history of being insecure, and BlackBerry is working to change that. More From CNBC Bitcoin may hit $4,000 by the end of the year: Analyst Elon Musk’s idea of merging machines with humans is ‘alarmist’, CEO of top A.I. firm says This start-up is offering $8,000 blood transfusions from teens || BlackBerry shares rocket on bullish analyst note: Shares of BlackBerry(Toronto Stock Exchange: BB-CA)spiked 10 percent on Thursday after a note from Citron Research setting a 24-month price target of $20 per share.
The noted short seller sees new life in BlackBerry as an internet-of-things provider and a key player in the autonomous car market.
Citron is bullish on BlackBerry's QNX operating system, which it says is a "potential game changer in autonomous driving." It names QNX's customers, which include Audi, Bentley, BMW, Buick, Chervolet, Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and more. Citron compared BlackBerry with Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA)noting that the two companies are participating in markets with plenty of growth potential.
The firm addressed the bear case, in which BlackBerry's QNX technology may be quickly outclassed by tech titans such as Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)and Google(NASDAQ: GOOGL), which are also investing in autonomous car technology. "Citron believes if anything this validates BlackBerry's position and makes it ripe as an acquisition target for countless suitors," it said. "Qualcomm recently purchased NXP for its exposure in Automotive, Internet of Things, security and Networking."
Citron said it's also bullish on BlackBerry because of its potential to have a big role in the internet of things, particularly as a company known for its security. Internet of things devices have a long history of being insecure, and BlackBerry is working to change that.
More From CNBC
• Bitcoin may hit $4,000 by the end of the year: Analyst
• Elon Musk’s idea of merging machines with humans is ‘alarmist’, CEO of top A.I. firm says
• This start-up is offering $8,000 blood transfusions from teens
[Social Media Buzz]
#Bitcoin 0.00%
Ultima: R$ 9449.89 Alta: R$ 10666.64 Baixa: R$ 9100.00
Fonte: Foxbit || #BITCOIN ahora:
$2,679.51 USD
€2,382.00 EUR
$49,254.44 MXN
@Bitso $50,000.00 MXN
@Volabit $51,216.30 MXNpic.twitter.com/tue2Iv9YCJ || #bitcoin #miner Used Bitmain Antminer S5 1155 Gh/s Bitcoin BTC ASIC Miner $180.00 http://ift.tt/2qW5JIJ pic.twitter.com/G1iNBrFQOx || El precio del bitcoin es de US$ 2581.00. #bitcoin #btc || #BITCOIN ahora:
$2,558.72 USD
€2,281.11 EUR
$47,644.43 MXN
@Bitso $47,890.00 MXN
@Vo...
|
2863.20, 2732.16, 2805.62, 2823.81, 2947.71, 2958.11, 2659.63, 2717.02, 2506.37, 2464.58
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39, 228.17, 210.49, 221.61, 225.83, 224.77, 231.40, 229.78, 228.76, 230.06, 228.12, 229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76, 239.14, 236.69, 236.06, 237.55, 237.29, 238.73, 238.26, 240.38, 246.06, 242.97, 242.30, 243.93, 244.94, 247.05, 245.31, 249.51, 251.99, 254.32, 262.87, 270.64, 261.64, 263.44, 269.46, 266.27, 274.02, 276.50, 281.65, 283.68, 285.30, 293.79, 304.62, 313.86, 328.02, 314.17, 325.43, 361.19, 403.42, 411.56, 386.35, 374.47, 386.48, 373.37, 380.26, 336.82, 311.08.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-11-11]
Volume: 107070000, RSI (14-day): 46.12, 50-day EMA: 300.30, 200-day EMA: 267.21
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1084.70, Gold RSI: 26.96
Oil Price: 42.93, Oil RSI: 39.69
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
New York exchange itBit says won 5 blocks of U.S. bitcoin auction: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York-based bitcoin exchange itBit said on Monday it won five blocks of the digital currency at last week's auction conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service.
The bid by itBit was organized on behalf of a syndicate of the exchange's and over-the-counter trading clients, said Bobby Cho, director of trading at itBit, in an email to Reuters.
The five blocks of the virtual currency may have added up to at least 10,000 bitcoins. Cho declined to make further comments.
Last week's auction included 21 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins and one block of over 2,341.
The U.S. government on Thursday held its final auction of bitcoins seized during the prosecution of the creator of Silk Road, an online black market where the virtual currency could be used to buy illegal drugs and other goods.
It auctioned 44,341 bitcoins last week.
When contacted for comment, the U.S. Marshals Service said it was not anticipating further announcements on Monday.
itBit also won part of the U.S. government's auction in March, nabbing 3,000 of the 50,000 bitcoins auctioned.
In May, itBit became the first virtual currency company to receive a charter to operate as a trust company in the state of New York.
Meanwhile, Genesis Global Trading, a unit of Digital Currency Group founded by prominent bitcoin investor Barry Silbert, was informed by the U.S. Marshals Service that the company did not win any of the blocks up for auction, the company's chief executive officer, Brendan O'Connor, said in an email to Reuters on Monday.
In late trading on Monday, bitcoin was trading up 1.8 percent on the day at $379.27 on the BitStamp platform. That put the value of the 44,341 bitcoins auctioned at about $16.8 million.
Bitcoins are used as a vehicle for moving money around the world quickly and anonymously via the Web without the need for third-party verification.
Last Thursday's auction drew just 11 registered bidders and 30 bids, a decline from the March sale, which attracted 34 bids from 14 registered bidders.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis) || New York exchange itBit says won 5 blocks of U.S. bitcoin auction: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York-based bitcoin exchange itBit said on Monday it won five blocks of the digital currency at last week's auction conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service. The bid by itBit was organized on behalf of a syndicate of the exchange's and over-the-counter trading clients, said Bobby Cho, director of trading at itBit, in an email to Reuters. The five blocks of the virtual currency may have added up to at least 10,000 bitcoins. Cho declined to make further comments. Last week's auction included 21 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins and one block of over 2,341. The U.S. government on Thursday held its final auction of bitcoins seized during the prosecution of the creator of Silk Road, an online black market where the virtual currency could be used to buy illegal drugs and other goods. It auctioned 44,341 bitcoins last week. When contacted for comment, the U.S. Marshals Service said it was not anticipating further announcements on Monday. itBit also won part of the U.S. government's auction in March, nabbing 3,000 of the 50,000 bitcoins auctioned. In May, itBit became the first virtual currency company to receive a charter to operate as a trust company in the state of New York. Meanwhile, Genesis Global Trading, a unit of Digital Currency Group founded by prominent bitcoin investor Barry Silbert, was informed by the U.S. Marshals Service that the company did not win any of the blocks up for auction, the company's chief executive officer, Brendan O'Connor, said in an email to Reuters on Monday. In late trading on Monday, bitcoin was trading up 1.8 percent on the day at $379.27 on the BitStamp platform. That put the value of the 44,341 bitcoins auctioned at about $16.8 million. Bitcoins are used as a vehicle for moving money around the world quickly and anonymously via the Web without the need for third-party verification. Last Thursday's auction drew just 11 registered bidders and 30 bids, a decline from the March sale, which attracted 34 bids from 14 registered bidders. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis) || New York exchange itBit says won 5 blocks of U.S. bitcoin auction: (Adds details, paragraph on Genesis Trading which did not win this auction, bitcoin price, byline) By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - New York-based bitcoin exchange itBit said on Monday it won five blocks of the digital currency at last week's auction conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service. The bid by itBit was organized on behalf of a syndicate of the exchange's and over-the-counter trading clients, said Bobby Cho, director of trading at itBit, in an email to Reuters. The five blocks of the virtual currency may have added up to at least 10,000 bitcoins. Cho declined to make further comments. Last week's auction included 21 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins and one block of over 2,341. The U.S. government on Thursday held its final auction of bitcoins seized during the prosecution of the creator of Silk Road, an online black market where the virtual currency could be used to buy illegal drugs and other goods. It auctioned 44,341 bitcoins last week. When contacted for comment, the U.S. Marshals Service said it was not anticipating further announcements on Monday. itBit also won part of the U.S. government's auction in March, nabbing 3,000 of the 50,000 bitcoins auctioned. In May, itBit became the first virtual currency company to receive a charter to operate as a trust company in the state of New York. Meanwhile, Genesis Global Trading, a unit of Digital Currency Group founded by prominent bitcoin investor Barry Silbert, was informed by the U.S. Marshals Service that the company did not win any of the blocks up for auction, the company's chief executive officer, Brendan O'Connor, said in an email to Reuters on Monday. In late trading on Monday, bitcoin was trading up 1.8 percent on the day at $379.27 on the BitStamp platform. That put the value of the 44,341 bitcoins auctioned at about $16.8 million. Bitcoins are used as a vehicle for moving money around the world quickly and anonymously via the Web without the need for third-party verification. Last Thursday's auction drew just 11 registered bidders and 30 bids, a decline from the March sale, which attracted 34 bids from 14 registered bidders. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis) || New York exchange itBit says won 5 blocks of U.S. bitcoin auction: (Adds details, paragraph on Genesis Trading which did not win this auction, bitcoin price, byline)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - New York-based bitcoin exchange itBit said on Monday it won five blocks of the digital currency at last week's auction conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service.
The bid by itBit was organized on behalf of a syndicate of the exchange's and over-the-counter trading clients, said Bobby Cho, director of trading at itBit, in an email to Reuters.
The five blocks of the virtual currency may have added up to at least 10,000 bitcoins. Cho declined to make further comments.
Last week's auction included 21 blocks of 2,000 bitcoins and one block of over 2,341.
The U.S. government on Thursday held its final auction of bitcoins seized during the prosecution of the creator of Silk Road, an online black market where the virtual currency could be used to buy illegal drugs and other goods.
It auctioned 44,341 bitcoins last week.
When contacted for comment, the U.S. Marshals Service said it was not anticipating further announcements on Monday.
itBit also won part of the U.S. government's auction in March, nabbing 3,000 of the 50,000 bitcoins auctioned.
In May, itBit became the first virtual currency company to receive a charter to operate as a trust company in the state of New York.
Meanwhile, Genesis Global Trading, a unit of Digital Currency Group founded by prominent bitcoin investor Barry Silbert, was informed by the U.S. Marshals Service that the company did not win any of the blocks up for auction, the company's chief executive officer, Brendan O'Connor, said in an email to Reuters on Monday.
In late trading on Monday, bitcoin was trading up 1.8 percent on the day at $379.27 on the BitStamp platform. That put the value of the 44,341 bitcoins auctioned at about $16.8 million.
Bitcoins are used as a vehicle for moving money around the world quickly and anonymously via the Web without the need for third-party verification.
Last Thursday's auction drew just 11 registered bidders and 30 bids, a decline from the March sale, which attracted 34 bids from 14 registered bidders.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis) || A Nobel Prize winner just ripped into bitcoin, saying it 'is likely to go to zero': Eugene Fama.
Bitcoin has beenripping higher recently, and some market participants saythe digital currency is finally making a rebound with investorsafter a sustained fall.
The advice from one Nobel Prize winner:not so fast.
Professor Eugene Fama, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for economics, thinks the value of bitcoin "is likely to go to zero," at some point,according to an interview posted on CoinTelegraph.
Bitcoin prices are hovering around the $400 mark right now, after making a big runup in late October and early November.
"People won’t use it because basically it’s very difficult to know how much you need to settle. It is quite variable, they won’t want to hold it as just a way of settling payments, they will try to get rid of it quickly, as they do; and that’s not good for the survival of that kind of a unit of account," he said in his interview.
"As if it doesn’t have a stable value it’s probably not going to survive as a unit of account. What that means is that its value is likely to go to zero at some point."
Fama goes on to say bitcoin does not represent a "store of value," as gold does for investors.
"I guess that for a drug dealer that has a lot more value," he said.
There's a SoundCloud embed below; head toCoinTelegraph to read a full version of what Fama had to say.
NOW WATCH:JAMES ALTUCHER: The American Dream is a lie
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• The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today
• I'm Changing My Mind About Bitcoin
• The Rise Of Bitcoin: Is It A Solution Or Menace? || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Welcomes Top Bitcoin Remittance and ATM Expert to Board of Advisors: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has retained Christopher Concepcion to serve on its board of advisors. Mr. Concepcion has an MBA from Stanford University, over 30 years of international corporate expertise at the executive level, wide ranging business relationships in the Philippines and extensive experience in Bitcoin remittance and ATM operations. Mr. Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines where he earned his undergraduate degree in business at The University of The Philippines in Manila. He then completed an MBA at Stanford University in California. While in the Philippines, Mr. Concepcion held executive positions in companies involved in supply chain management, real estate financing, insurance and communications. He has worked with Filipino remittances for the last 12 years. Mr. Concepcion was also a member of the Capital Markets Development Council that provided public / private business policy advice to the Philippine government. Mr. Concepcion and his family relocated to Canada in 2014. In late 2014, Mr. Concepcion formed Bitcoiniacs Holdings Inc., to acquire the world's first Bitcoin ATM operator. Mr. Concepcion then pivoted the business toward remittances, with a focus on using Bitcoins to allow foreign workers to quickly and inexpensively remit funds to the Philippines. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We couldn't be more excited to have Mr. Concepcion join our growing team. His expertise and the business direction of his firm match perfectly with 's plans in the remittance space. Mr. Concepcion's firm owns the world's first Bitcoin ATM and the first standalone Bitcoin remittance storefront, both in Vancouver Canada. With his Bitcoin expertise and top level Philippine contacts, we firmly believe Mr. Concepcion will provide invaluable advice and important introductions as we target the multi-billion dollar Philippine remittance market. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we grow this relationship." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: [email protected] SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Welcomes Top Bitcoin Remittance and ATM Expert to Board of Advisors: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has retained Christopher Concepcion to serve on its board of advisors. Mr. Concepcion has an MBA from Stanford University, over 30 years of international corporate expertise at the executive level, wide ranging business relationships in the Philippines and extensive experience in Bitcoin remittance and ATM operations. Mr. Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines where he earned his undergraduate degree in business at The University of The Philippines in Manila. He then completed an MBA at Stanford University in California. While in the Philippines, Mr. Concepcion held executive positions in companies involved in supply chain management, real estate financing, insurance and communications. He has worked with Filipino remittances for the last 12 years. Mr. Concepcion was also a member of the Capital Markets Development Council that provided public / private business policy advice to the Philippine government. Mr. Concepcion and his family relocated to Canada in 2014. In late 2014, Mr. Concepcion formed Bitcoiniacs Holdings Inc., to acquire the world's first Bitcoin ATM operator. Mr. Concepcion then pivoted the business toward remittances, with a focus on using Bitcoins to allow foreign workers to quickly and inexpensively remit funds to the Philippines. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We couldn't be more excited to have Mr. Concepcion join our growing team. His expertise and the business direction of his firm match perfectly with 's plans in the remittance space. Mr. Concepcion's firm owns the world's first Bitcoin ATM and the first standalone Bitcoin remittance storefront, both in Vancouver Canada. With his Bitcoin expertise and top level Philippine contacts, we firmly believe Mr. Concepcion will provide invaluable advice and important introductions as we target the multi-billion dollar Philippine remittance market. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we grow this relationship." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: [email protected] SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Welcomes Top Bitcoin Remittance and ATM Expert to Board of Advisors: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has retained Christopher Concepcion to serve on its board of advisors. Mr. Concepcion has an MBA from Stanford University, over 30 years of international corporate expertise at the executive level, wide ranging business relationships in the Philippines and extensive experience in Bitcoin remittance and ATM operations. Mr. Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines where he earned his undergraduate degree in business at The University of The Philippines in Manila. He then completed an MBA at Stanford University in California. While in the Philippines, Mr. Concepcion held executive positions in companies involved in supply chain management, real estate financing, insurance and communications. He has worked with Filipino remittances for the last 12 years. Mr. Concepcion was also a member of the Capital Markets Development Council that provided public / private business policy advice to the Philippine government. Mr. Concepcion and his family relocated to Canada in 2014. In late 2014, Mr. Concepcion formed Bitcoiniacs Holdings Inc., to acquire the world's first Bitcoin ATM operator. Mr. Concepcion then pivoted the business toward remittances, with a focus on using Bitcoins to allow foreign workers to quickly and inexpensively remit funds to the Philippines. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We couldn't be more excited to have Mr. Concepcion join our growing team. His expertise and the business direction of his firm match perfectly with 's plans in the remittance space. Mr. Concepcion's firm owns the world's first Bitcoin ATM and the first standalone Bitcoin remittance storefront, both in Vancouver Canada. With his Bitcoin expertise and top level Philippine contacts, we firmly believe Mr. Concepcion will provide invaluable advice and important introductions as we target the multi-billion dollar Philippine remittance market. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we grow this relationship." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: [email protected] SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || Bitcoin is off to the races again: (REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel)Rotariu uses Romania's first bitcoin ATM in downtown Bucharest
The value of bitcoin has rocketed higher since late August, gaining more than 60% as investors around the worldclamor to buy into the cryptocurrency.
It recently hit new highs for the year.
Long-term bitcoin watchers have seen this happen before, and they know that bitcoin rallies can be huge.
The last time bitcoin's value began soaring the cryptocurrency went from below $200 in September 2013 to more than $1100 by early 2014.
Right now – after the recent gains – bitcoin is trading at around $380. That's right, after that peak last year, bitcoin crashed – badly damaging investor interest. It took more than a year for that interest to return.
So what's bringing people back? The digital currency is gaining traction both in the consumer marketplace, as a tradeable security, and with regulators. To illustrate - you can donate to theAmerican Red Crossin bitcoin, buy a new personal computer with it, or even book a holiday.
It isn't just digital-currency enthusiasts that are bullish. Equity research firm Wedbush expects it to rise to $600 because of the growing adoption. That target includes a "high discount rate to account for uncertainty," the firm says in a Nov. 4 research note. In other words, there is a lot of risk here, but even factoring that in, the potential exists for a big gain.
“We’re crossing the chasm from early enthusiasts to mainstream adoption," says Adam White, a vice president of business development with bitcoin exchange Coinbase.
(Wedbush Securities)Payments with bitcoin have been on the rise — as has the value of bitcoin, as an investment.
As more people use bitcoin, retailers have become increasingly welcoming of it.
Companies including Dish, Microsoft, Dell and Expedia are accepting cryptocurrency as payment.
Perhaps most crucial: payments startups and legacy players including Square, Stripe, and PayPal are integrating it into their offerings.
Regulators in the US and internationally are embracing bitcoin now, instead of fearing — or, worse still, thwarting — it.
"What there needs to be is greater regulatory clarity," said Jerry Brito, executive director at Washington-based advocacy group Coin Center. "It's a very different world than it was in 2013."
Bitcoin legislation is being readied in several US states, Brito said.
In October, a consortium of startupsannounced the establishmentof theBlockchain Alliance, a partnership between bitcoin companies and US and foreign agencies including the Department of Justice, FBI and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, among others.
Last month, theEuropean Court of Justice said bitcoin transactions will be exemptedfrom a consumer tax, which could lead to even greater use of the cryptocurrency.
Another big step, yet to come, would be the declaration of bitcoin by US regulators as a security.
Another factor lending greater legitimacy to bitcoin is the investment capital being poured into related startups.
Recently, the total dollar volume backing startups in the sectorcrossed the $1 billion threshold. But the investors behind the money have also increased bitcoin's visibility.
The roster of bitcoin startup backersincludes Wall Street investment banks; the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; andleading credit and debit card companiesincluding Visa, MasterCard and Capital One.
"The global banks and wire-houses have meaningfully gotten involved in the space," said Michael Sonnenshein, director of business development and sales at Grayscale Investments,which manages the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a publicly listed vehicle that tracks bitcoin. "In 2013, they were beginning to dip their toe, but primarily behind closed doors and within internal working groups."
There are still lingering issues surrounding bitcoin's validity.
To be sure, it is volatile and – because its loosely regulated – a draw for frauds and criminals.
Some big names in the crytptocurrency community — perhaps most notably Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings — have been critical of bitcoin and say the underpinning blockchain technology is actually what's most sexy to Wall Street.
But right now, to many investors, bitcoin is hot. And it could stay that way.
NOW WATCH:Everyday phrases that even smart people say incorrectly
More From Business Insider
• The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today
• Bitcoin hit a new high for 2015
• The Winklevoss twins tell us why they believe Bitcoin will come to dominate global finance || Bitcoin is off to the races again: Bitcoin ATM (REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel) Rotariu uses Romania's first bitcoin ATM in downtown Bucharest The value of bitcoin has rocketed higher since late August, gaining more than 60% as investors around the world clamor to buy into the cryptocurrency . It recently hit new highs for the year. Long-term bitcoin watchers have seen this happen before, and they know that bitcoin rallies can be huge. The last time bitcoin's value began soaring the cryptocurrency went from below $200 in September 2013 to more than $1100 by early 2014. Right now after the recent gains bitcoin is trading at around $380. That's right, after that peak last year, bitcoin crashed badly damaging investor interest. It took more than a year for that interest to return. So what's bringing people back? The digital currency is gaining traction both in the consumer marketplace, as a tradeable security, and with regulators. To illustrate - you can donate to the American Red Cross in bitcoin, buy a new personal computer with it, or even book a holiday. It isn't just digital-currency enthusiasts that are bullish. Equity research firm Wedbush expects it to rise to $600 because of the growing adoption. That target includes a "high discount rate to account for uncertainty," the firm says in a Nov. 4 research note. In other words, there is a lot of risk here, but even factoring that in, the potential exists for a big gain. Were crossing the chasm from early enthusiasts to mainstream adoption," says Adam White, a vice president of business development with bitcoin exchange Coinbase. Screen Shot 2015 11 05 at 6.07.28 PM (Wedbush Securities) Payments with bitcoin have been on the rise as has the value of bitcoin, as an investment. As more people use bitcoin, retailers have become increasingly welcoming of it. Companies including Dish, Microsoft, Dell and Expedia are accepting cryptocurrency as payment. Perhaps most crucial: payments startups and legacy players including Square, Stripe, and PayPal are integrating it into their offerings. Story continues Regulation is evolving Regulators in the US and internationally are embracing bitcoin now, instead of fearing or, worse still, thwarting it. "What there needs to be is greater regulatory clarity," said Jerry Brito, executive director at Washington-based advocacy group Coin Center. "It's a very different world than it was in 2013." Bitcoin legislation is being readied in several US states, Brito said. In October, a consortium of startups announced the establishment of the Blockchain Alliance , a partnership between bitcoin companies and US and foreign agencies including the Department of Justice, FBI and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, among others. Last month, the European Court of Justice said bitcoin transactions will be exempted from a consumer tax, which could lead to even greater use of the cryptocurrency. Another big step, yet to come, would be the declaration of bitcoin by US regulators as a security. Big investors are buying in Another factor lending greater legitimacy to bitcoin is the investment capital being poured into related startups. Recently, the total dollar volume backing startups in the sector crossed the $1 billion threshold . But the investors behind the money have also increased bitcoin's visibility. The roster of bitcoin startup backers includes Wall Street investment banks ; the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; and leading credit and debit card companies including Visa, MasterCard and Capital One. " The global banks and wire-houses have meaningfully gotten involved in the space," said Michael Sonnenshein, director of business development and sales at Grayscale Investments, which manages the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a publicly listed vehicle that tracks bitcoin . "In 2013, they were beginning to dip their toe, but primarily behind closed doors and within internal working groups." There are still lingering issues surrounding bitcoin's validity. To be sure, it is volatile and because its loosely regulated a draw for frauds and criminals. Some big names in the crytptocurrency community perhaps most notably Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings have been critical of bitcoin and say the underpinning blockchain technology is actually what's most sexy to Wall Street. But right now, to many investors, bitcoin is hot. And it could stay that way. NOW WATCH: Everyday phrases that even smart people say incorrectly More From Business Insider The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today Bitcoin hit a new high for 2015 The Winklevoss twins tell us why they believe Bitcoin will come to dominate global finance || Bitcoin is off to the races again: (REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel)Rotariu uses Romania's first bitcoin ATM in downtown Bucharest
The value of bitcoin has rocketed higher since late August, gaining more than 60% as investors around the worldclamor to buy into the cryptocurrency.
It recently hit new highs for the year.
Long-term bitcoin watchers have seen this happen before, and they know that bitcoin rallies can be huge.
The last time bitcoin's value began soaring the cryptocurrency went from below $200 in September 2013 to more than $1100 by early 2014.
Right now – after the recent gains – bitcoin is trading at around $380. That's right, after that peak last year, bitcoin crashed – badly damaging investor interest. It took more than a year for that interest to return.
So what's bringing people back? The digital currency is gaining traction both in the consumer marketplace, as a tradeable security, and with regulators. To illustrate - you can donate to theAmerican Red Crossin bitcoin, buy a new personal computer with it, or even book a holiday.
It isn't just digital-currency enthusiasts that are bullish. Equity research firm Wedbush expects it to rise to $600 because of the growing adoption. That target includes a "high discount rate to account for uncertainty," the firm says in a Nov. 4 research note. In other words, there is a lot of risk here, but even factoring that in, the potential exists for a big gain.
“We’re crossing the chasm from early enthusiasts to mainstream adoption," says Adam White, a vice president of business development with bitcoin exchange Coinbase.
(Wedbush Securities)Payments with bitcoin have been on the rise — as has the value of bitcoin, as an investment.
As more people use bitcoin, retailers have become increasingly welcoming of it.
Companies including Dish, Microsoft, Dell and Expedia are accepting cryptocurrency as payment.
Perhaps most crucial: payments startups and legacy players including Square, Stripe, and PayPal are integrating it into their offerings.
Regulators in the US and internationally are embracing bitcoin now, instead of fearing — or, worse still, thwarting — it.
"What there needs to be is greater regulatory clarity," said Jerry Brito, executive director at Washington-based advocacy group Coin Center. "It's a very different world than it was in 2013."
Bitcoin legislation is being readied in several US states, Brito said.
In October, a consortium of startupsannounced the establishmentof theBlockchain Alliance, a partnership between bitcoin companies and US and foreign agencies including the Department of Justice, FBI and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, among others.
Last month, theEuropean Court of Justice said bitcoin transactions will be exemptedfrom a consumer tax, which could lead to even greater use of the cryptocurrency.
Another big step, yet to come, would be the declaration of bitcoin by US regulators as a security.
Another factor lending greater legitimacy to bitcoin is the investment capital being poured into related startups.
Recently, the total dollar volume backing startups in the sectorcrossed the $1 billion threshold. But the investors behind the money have also increased bitcoin's visibility.
The roster of bitcoin startup backersincludes Wall Street investment banks; the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; andleading credit and debit card companiesincluding Visa, MasterCard and Capital One.
"The global banks and wire-houses have meaningfully gotten involved in the space," said Michael Sonnenshein, director of business development and sales at Grayscale Investments,which manages the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a publicly listed vehicle that tracks bitcoin. "In 2013, they were beginning to dip their toe, but primarily behind closed doors and within internal working groups."
There are still lingering issues surrounding bitcoin's validity.
To be sure, it is volatile and – because its loosely regulated – a draw for frauds and criminals.
Some big names in the crytptocurrency community — perhaps most notably Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings — have been critical of bitcoin and say the underpinning blockchain technology is actually what's most sexy to Wall Street.
But right now, to many investors, bitcoin is hot. And it could stay that way.
NOW WATCH:Everyday phrases that even smart people say incorrectly
More From Business Insider
• The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today
• Bitcoin hit a new high for 2015
• The Winklevoss twins tell us why they believe Bitcoin will come to dominate global finance || Liberal Interpretation Of IPO Helps This ETF Enjoy Facebook's Surge: There are a few certainties surroundingFacebook Inc(NASDAQ: FB)'s meteoric rise. It is irrefutable that the stock is up more than 17 percent over the past month. Likewise, it cannot be debated that now home to a market value north of $306 billion (as of Thursday's close), Facebook is worth more than all but a handful of S&P 500 companies.
What can be debated is whether or not Facebook is a “new” stock. Three and a half years removed from its initial public offering, Facebook might be new compared to some public companies, but in this case, it depends on what one's view of “new” actually is. In the eyes of theFirst Trust US IPO Index Fund(NYSE: FPX) and the IPOX®-100 U.S. Index, that ETF's underlying index, Facebook still qualifies as an IPO.
In fact, FPX currently possesses the largest weight to Facebook of any U.S.-listed ETF. With a Facebook allocation of 10.9 percent as of November 4, FPX's weight to Mark Zuckerberg's weight just nudges past the weights to that stock found in theFirst Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund(NYSE: FDN) and theGlobal X Social Media Index ETF(NASDAQ: SOCL).
Approximately 80 ETFs currently hold shares of Facebook.
Related Link: A New Sector ETF Defends Against Rising Rates On The Cheap
Indeed, FPX and its index are somewhat liberal when it comes to viewing how long a new stock is, well, new. For example,AbbVie Inc.(NYSE: ABBV) is coming up on its third anniversary as a public company whilePhillips 66(NYSE: PSX) is more than three and a half years removed from its debut as a public company. Yet those companies combine for 14.5 percent of FPX's weight.
FPX's primary rival, theRenaissance IPO ETF(NYSE: IPO), is more strict. It limits components' stays in the fund to two years, meaning Facebook no longer resides in IPO.
FPX's underlying index “is a rules based value-weighted index measuring the average performance of U.S. IPOs during the first 1000 trading days. Index constituents are selected based on quantitative initial screens,” .
The bit about 1,000 trading days is important because investors looking to use FPX as a proxy on further upside in shares of Facebook do not need to worry about the ETF suddenly dropping the stock. Based on FPX allowing stocks to stay for 1,000 trading days and how many trading days Facebook has currently been around for, it will be sometime in 2017 before FPX has to part ways with the stock.
See more from Benzinga
• Ferrari Races Into Its First ETF Home
• Buy Some Bitcoin With This ETF
• Tech ETFs Depend Heavily On Apple Earnings
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Liberal Interpretation Of IPO Helps This ETF Enjoy Facebook's Surge: There are a few certainties surrounding Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB)'s meteoric rise. It is irrefutable that the stock is up more than 17 percent over the past month. Likewise, it cannot be debated that now home to a market value north of $306 billion (as of Thursday's close), Facebook is worth more than all but a handful of S&P 500 companies. What can be debated is whether or not Facebook is a “new” stock. Three and a half years removed from its initial public offering, Facebook might be new compared to some public companies, but in this case, it depends on what one's view of “new” actually is. In the eyes of the First Trust US IPO Index Fund (NYSE: FPX) and the IPOX®-100 U.S. Index, that ETF's underlying index, Facebook still qualifies as an IPO. In fact, FPX currently possesses the largest weight to Facebook of any U.S.-listed ETF. With a Facebook allocation of 10.9 percent as of November 4, FPX's weight to Mark Zuckerberg's weight just nudges past the weights to that stock found in the First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSE: FDN) and the Global X Social Media Index ETF (NASDAQ: SOCL). Approximately 80 ETFs currently hold shares of Facebook. Related Link: A New Sector ETF Defends Against Rising Rates On The Cheap Indeed, FPX and its index are somewhat liberal when it comes to viewing how long a new stock is, well, new. For example, AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) is coming up on its third anniversary as a public company while Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) is more than three and a half years removed from its debut as a public company. Yet those companies combine for 14.5 percent of FPX's weight. FPX's primary rival, the Renaissance IPO ETF (NYSE: IPO), is more strict. It limits components' stays in the fund to two years, meaning Facebook no longer resides in IPO. FPX's underlying index “is a rules based value-weighted index measuring the average performance of U.S. IPOs during the first 1000 trading days. Index constituents are selected based on quantitative initial screens,” . Story continues The bit about 1,000 trading days is important because investors looking to use FPX as a proxy on further upside in shares of Facebook do not need to worry about the ETF suddenly dropping the stock. Based on FPX allowing stocks to stay for 1,000 trading days and how many trading days Facebook has currently been around for, it will be sometime in 2017 before FPX has to part ways with the stock. See more from Benzinga Ferrari Races Into Its First ETF Home Buy Some Bitcoin With This ETF Tech ETFs Depend Heavily On Apple Earnings © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Trading Bitcoin Binary Options: Bitcoin. This may be something you wish you knew more about. You may have heard about trading Bitcoin and wondered how you could do it. It may seem unreal since it does not involve anything tangible.
A visit to the web page informs the visitor, “Bitcoin is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money.” It further notifies the public, “Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.”
Bitcoin was invented in 2008. In early 2010, each Bitcoin was worth only $0.04. Just last week, on October 29, it was reported that Bitcoin was trading above $314, near the highest since December 2014. This rise in price was thought to be related to the Fed statement that had been released the day before, but also strongly tied to China easing which appears to go straight to Bitcoin.
Today, reported Bitcoin trading at more than $410, a price jump of more than 70 percent in one month. According to an article on , after the price jump, there was a massive sell off causing the digital currency to drop by nearly $50. This article attributes the volatility to the influx of new Chinese buyers who have caused this surge “in order to bypass China’s tightened capital controls.”
As you can see from the news reports above, Bitcoin can be insanely volatile. It can move 40 percent in one day. In checking current charts, Bitcoin has rebounded and is currently trading around $470.
In order to illustrate different ways Bitcoin can be traded, let’s look at how Bitcoin was trading on October 29. Look at the chart below.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
This is a Nadex Bitcoin daily chart, which can be accessed from their trading platform. You can see that Bitcoin has surged up through 314. There was some long-term resistance at 314. The market had tested that level in January, February, June and July before breaking through on October 29. When this happens, you can usually expect that it will meet a little more resistance and then pullback.
There are a couple of different ways you can play this. You could expect it to expire below the high of the day at 319. If so, you could check out available strikes that you could sell. When you check for a contract, sometimes there may not be many contracts left, because of the surge in the market. Nadex offers bitcoin binary options with 21 strike prices for the 3:00 PM ET daily expiration, except on Fridays, which lists 15 strike levels. The interval width between each strike level is 1.5.
The next image shows the different strike prices that were available at the time. When you look for the sell strike, you see that there is a 315.5 available for around $21. Choosing this trade would allow you to make a little bit of premium if you wanted to go short.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
If you believe the market will stay above 314, you can look at buying a contract. Again, checking the strike prices, there is one available at 314 for about 65, with the profit potential of $35.
For October 29, it appears that 314 is the magic number, the resistance level right now. By knowing this information, you can have a better understanding of the expectations of the market. Here is another image taken a short time after the other image, which showed strike prices. You may notice that both the buy and sell prices have increased as has the indicative index.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
However, for this example, with the strike 314 at 70.75, it is $0.76 above the strike. There is a high expectation of the market staying above 314.
Remember, the first chart was a daily chart. For a better analysis on either of these trades, it would be wise to look at a smaller time frame chart in order to see what you could actually do. When you look at a five-minute chart, it shows how the market popped up and then promptly turned around and went down. Here is a five-minute chart:
To view a larger image, click HERE.
Further analysis using the five-minute chart shows that if there was a shark in the waters and they wanted to push the market a little farther, it is possible they could have caused the big green bar that broke through the 314 resistance. The next green bars are other traders coming in thinking there is a big rally. Take note here, all of a sudden at the short red bar, they start getting rid of their trades. Next, they dump off the rest and everybody bails. This is how it usually goes in trading. This is how you learn to follow the sharks without getting eaten by them and staying out of their way. The sharks will go in, pump up the market and then sell it off. You get your one warning shot, the short red bar, and then BAM! It is over.
With any trade, but especially one with high volatility, make sure that you define your risk when you trade. Risk management is essential to being a profitable trader. To further your trading education, visit , a service of Darrell Martin.
See more from Benzinga
• An Evening For A Scheduled News Trade With The USD/CHF
• Reports Of The Aussies Employed And Unemployed Provide After Work Trade Opportunity For US
• Record Highs Reported By Nadex For Three Consecutive Quarters
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Trading Bitcoin Binary Options: Bitcoin. This may be something you wish you knew more about. You may have heard about trading Bitcoin and wondered how you could do it. It may seem unreal since it does not involve anything tangible. A visit to the web page informs the visitor, Bitcoin is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money. It further notifies the public, Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system. Bitcoin was invented in 2008. In early 2010, each Bitcoin was worth only $0.04. Just last week, on October 29, it was reported that Bitcoin was trading above $314, near the highest since December 2014. This rise in price was thought to be related to the Fed statement that had been released the day before, but also strongly tied to China easing which appears to go straight to Bitcoin. Today, reported Bitcoin trading at more than $410, a price jump of more than 70 percent in one month. According to an article on , after the price jump, there was a massive sell off causing the digital currency to drop by nearly $50. This article attributes the volatility to the influx of new Chinese buyers who have caused this surge in order to bypass Chinas tightened capital controls. As you can see from the news reports above, Bitcoin can be insanely volatile. It can move 40 percent in one day. In checking current charts, Bitcoin has rebounded and is currently trading around $470. In order to illustrate different ways Bitcoin can be traded, lets look at how Bitcoin was trading on October 29. Look at the chart below. To view a larger image, click HERE. 283s_image4.png This is a Nadex Bitcoin daily chart, which can be accessed from their trading platform. You can see that Bitcoin has surged up through 314. There was some long-term resistance at 314. The market had tested that level in January, February, June and July before breaking through on October 29. When this happens, you can usually expect that it will meet a little more resistance and then pullback. Story continues There are a couple of different ways you can play this. You could expect it to expire below the high of the day at 319. If so, you could check out available strikes that you could sell. When you check for a contract, sometimes there may not be many contracts left, because of the surge in the market. Nadex offers bitcoin binary options with 21 strike prices for the 3:00 PM ET daily expiration, except on Fridays, which lists 15 strike levels. The interval width between each strike level is 1.5. The next image shows the different strike prices that were available at the time. When you look for the sell strike, you see that there is a 315.5 available for around $21. Choosing this trade would allow you to make a little bit of premium if you wanted to go short. To view a larger image, click HERE. 283s_image3.png If you believe the market will stay above 314, you can look at buying a contract. Again, checking the strike prices, there is one available at 314 for about 65, with the profit potential of $35. For October 29, it appears that 314 is the magic number, the resistance level right now. By knowing this information, you can have a better understanding of the expectations of the market. Here is another image taken a short time after the other image, which showed strike prices. You may notice that both the buy and sell prices have increased as has the indicative index. To view a larger image, click HERE. 283s_image2.png However, for this example, with the strike 314 at 70.75, it is $0.76 above the strike. There is a high expectation of the market staying above 314. Remember, the first chart was a daily chart. For a better analysis on either of these trades, it would be wise to look at a smaller time frame chart in order to see what you could actually do. When you look at a five-minute chart, it shows how the market popped up and then promptly turned around and went down. Here is a five-minute chart: To view a larger image, click HERE. 283s_image5.png Further analysis using the five-minute chart shows that if there was a shark in the waters and they wanted to push the market a little farther, it is possible they could have caused the big green bar that broke through the 314 resistance. The next green bars are other traders coming in thinking there is a big rally. Take note here, all of a sudden at the short red bar, they start getting rid of their trades. Next, they dump off the rest and everybody bails. This is how it usually goes in trading. This is how you learn to follow the sharks without getting eaten by them and staying out of their way. The sharks will go in, pump up the market and then sell it off. You get your one warning shot, the short red bar, and then BAM! It is over. With any trade, but especially one with high volatility, make sure that you define your risk when you trade. Risk management is essential to being a profitable trader. To further your trading education, visit , a service of Darrell Martin. See more from Benzinga An Evening For A Scheduled News Trade With The USD/CHF Reports Of The Aussies Employed And Unemployed Provide After Work Trade Opportunity For US Record Highs Reported By Nadex For Three Consecutive Quarters © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Trading Bitcoin Binary Options: Bitcoin. This may be something you wish you knew more about. You may have heard about trading Bitcoin and wondered how you could do it. It may seem unreal since it does not involve anything tangible.
A visit to the web page informs the visitor, “Bitcoin is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money.” It further notifies the public, “Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.”
Bitcoin was invented in 2008. In early 2010, each Bitcoin was worth only $0.04. Just last week, on October 29, it was reported that Bitcoin was trading above $314, near the highest since December 2014. This rise in price was thought to be related to the Fed statement that had been released the day before, but also strongly tied to China easing which appears to go straight to Bitcoin.
Today, reported Bitcoin trading at more than $410, a price jump of more than 70 percent in one month. According to an article on , after the price jump, there was a massive sell off causing the digital currency to drop by nearly $50. This article attributes the volatility to the influx of new Chinese buyers who have caused this surge “in order to bypass China’s tightened capital controls.”
As you can see from the news reports above, Bitcoin can be insanely volatile. It can move 40 percent in one day. In checking current charts, Bitcoin has rebounded and is currently trading around $470.
In order to illustrate different ways Bitcoin can be traded, let’s look at how Bitcoin was trading on October 29. Look at the chart below.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
This is a Nadex Bitcoin daily chart, which can be accessed from their trading platform. You can see that Bitcoin has surged up through 314. There was some long-term resistance at 314. The market had tested that level in January, February, June and July before breaking through on October 29. When this happens, you can usually expect that it will meet a little more resistance and then pullback.
There are a couple of different ways you can play this. You could expect it to expire below the high of the day at 319. If so, you could check out available strikes that you could sell. When you check for a contract, sometimes there may not be many contracts left, because of the surge in the market. Nadex offers bitcoin binary options with 21 strike prices for the 3:00 PM ET daily expiration, except on Fridays, which lists 15 strike levels. The interval width between each strike level is 1.5.
The next image shows the different strike prices that were available at the time. When you look for the sell strike, you see that there is a 315.5 available for around $21. Choosing this trade would allow you to make a little bit of premium if you wanted to go short.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
If you believe the market will stay above 314, you can look at buying a contract. Again, checking the strike prices, there is one available at 314 for about 65, with the profit potential of $35.
For October 29, it appears that 314 is the magic number, the resistance level right now. By knowing this information, you can have a better understanding of the expectations of the market. Here is another image taken a short time after the other image, which showed strike prices. You may notice that both the buy and sell prices have increased as has the indicative index.
To view a larger image, click HERE.
However, for this example, with the strike 314 at 70.75, it is $0.76 above the strike. There is a high expectation of the market staying above 314.
Remember, the first chart was a daily chart. For a better analysis on either of these trades, it would be wise to look at a smaller time frame chart in order to see what you could actually do. When you look at a five-minute chart, it shows how the market popped up and then promptly turned around and went down. Here is a five-minute chart:
To view a larger image, click HERE.
Further analysis using the five-minute chart shows that if there was a shark in the waters and they wanted to push the market a little farther, it is possible they could have caused the big green bar that broke through the 314 resistance. The next green bars are other traders coming in thinking there is a big rally. Take note here, all of a sudden at the short red bar, they start getting rid of their trades. Next, they dump off the rest and everybody bails. This is how it usually goes in trading. This is how you learn to follow the sharks without getting eaten by them and staying out of their way. The sharks will go in, pump up the market and then sell it off. You get your one warning shot, the short red bar, and then BAM! It is over.
With any trade, but especially one with high volatility, make sure that you define your risk when you trade. Risk management is essential to being a profitable trader. To further your trading education, visit , a service of Darrell Martin.
See more from Benzinga
• An Evening For A Scheduled News Trade With The USD/CHF
• Reports Of The Aussies Employed And Unemployed Provide After Work Trade Opportunity For US
• Record Highs Reported By Nadex For Three Consecutive Quarters
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Jamie Dimon thinks bitcoin is doomed—but here’s what he does like about it: Jamie Dimon doesn't think highly of this whole bitcoin thing. Bitcoin might be the hottest topic in financial technology, but Jamie Dimon isn’t impressed. “It’s just not going to happen…there is no government that is going to put up with it for long,” the CEO of JPMorgan Chase said about virtual currency at the Fortune Global Forum yesterday (Nov. 4), adding: “It’s kind of cute now, a lot of senators and congressmen will say ‘I support Silicon Valley innovation,’ But there will be no currency that gets around government controls.” ExxonMobil faces a New York investigation into whether it hid the risks of climate change The “blockchain” technology that makes bitcoin possible, on the other hand, could be a potential game changer, Dimon admitted. JPMorgan and 22 other major banks have recently partnered with R3, a blockchain startup, to study blockchain technology and possibility of idea of a shared, private ledger. Blockchain is essentially a shared database where people can exchange information—as well as virtual currencies like bitcoin, stock certificates, contract agreements, and even securities. For something like sending money across borders, using blockchain technology can make the process much faster and cheaper. “If it is cheaper, effective, works, and secure, then we are going to use it,” said Dimon. The IRS and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) both consider bitcoin a commodity , instead of a currency—essentially a piece of property you pay taxes on. Yet, more recently, government agencies outside the US have been more receptive of bitcoin as a currency, and not taxable. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a very real possibility Explore the complicated network of allies and enemies in Syria’s civil war || Jamie Dimon thinks bitcoin is doomed—but here’s what he does like about it: Jamie Dimon doesn't think highly of this whole bitcoin thing. Bitcoin might be the hottest topic in financial technology, but Jamie Dimon isn’t impressed. “It’s just not going to happen…there is no government that is going to put up with it for long,” the CEO of JPMorgan Chase said about virtual currency at the Fortune Global Forum yesterday (Nov. 4), adding: “It’s kind of cute now, a lot of senators and congressmen will say ‘I support Silicon Valley innovation,’ But there will be no currency that gets around government controls.” ExxonMobil faces a New York investigation into whether it hid the risks of climate change The “blockchain” technology that makes bitcoin possible, on the other hand, could be a potential game changer, Dimon admitted. JPMorgan and 22 other major banks have recently partnered with R3, a blockchain startup, to study blockchain technology and possibility of idea of a shared, private ledger. Blockchain is essentially a shared database where people can exchange information—as well as virtual currencies like bitcoin, stock certificates, contract agreements, and even securities. For something like sending money across borders, using blockchain technology can make the process much faster and cheaper. “If it is cheaper, effective, works, and secure, then we are going to use it,” said Dimon. The IRS and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) both consider bitcoin a commodity , instead of a currency—essentially a piece of property you pay taxes on. Yet, more recently, government agencies outside the US have been more receptive of bitcoin as a currency, and not taxable. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a very real possibility Explore the complicated network of allies and enemies in Syria’s civil war || Bitcoin is back, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo restrict data: U.S. stocks ( ^GSPC , ^DJI , ^IXIC ) are lower for the second straight day. Is the autumn rally at risk here? Either way the next big catalyst for the market could come as early as 8:30am ET Friday when the October jobs report is released. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App In the meantime, here are some other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today. Big banks vs. personal finance websites JPMorgan ( JPM ) and Wells Fargo ( WFC ) seem to be restricting some customer data from flowing to third party websites and apps like Mint.com . The products are used by many to help track their finances. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon has made his concerns known, pointing out that these products require customers to hand over a lot of personal information. Bitcoin is making a comeback Bitcoin is making a comeback. The price of the digital currency has surged more than 50% this week, partly fueled by the EU's classification of bitcoin as a currency and not a commodity. Can it avoid another big sell-off? Turning point for streaming music Adele's new single "Hello" has already brought in record sales, with over a million downloads. Now the big question is whether she will release her full album on streaming platforms. With the scheduled debut of her album "25" in two weeks, services including Apple Music ( AAPL ) and Spotify are still waiting to find out if they can play the rest of her new songs. || Bitcoin is back, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo restrict data: U.S. stocks (^GSPC,^DJI,^IXIC) are lower for the second straight day. Is the autumn rally at risk here? Either way the next big catalyst for the market could come as early as 8:30am ET Friday when the October jobs report is released.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
In the meantime, here are some other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today.
Big banks vs. personal finance websitesJPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) seem to be restricting some customer data from flowing to third party websites and apps likeMint.com. The products are used by many to help track their finances. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon has made his concerns known, pointing out that these products require customers to hand over a lot of personal information.
Bitcoin is making a comebackBitcoin is making a comeback. The price of the digital currency has surged more than 50% this week, partly fueled by the EU's classification of bitcoin as a currency and not a commodity. Can it avoid another big sell-off?
Turning point for streaming musicAdele's new single "Hello" has already brought in record sales, with over a million downloads. Now the big question is whether she will release her full album on streaming platforms. With the scheduled debut of her album "25" in two weeks, services including Apple Music (AAPL) and Spotify are still waiting to find out if they can play the rest of her new songs.
[Social Media Buzz]
In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 8 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $806.44 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 213.31£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-11 09:00:04 GMT || Current price: 203.97£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-11 17:00:06 GMT || $300.76 at 22:30 UTC [24h Range: $294.00 - $341.41 Volume: 52941 BTC] || $324.91 #coinbase;
$324.00 #bitfinex;
$323.73 #bitstamp;
$321.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc || La mineria y la cryptomoneda.
#Bitcoin se posiciona...
|
338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17, 330.75, 335.09, 334.59, 326.15, 322.02, 326.93
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10169.57, 10280.35, 10369.56, 10131.52, 10242.35, 10363.14, 10400.92, 10442.17, 10323.76, 10680.84, 10796.95, 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72, 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46, 18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41, 18177.48, 19625.84, 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-12-03]
Volume: 31930317405, RSI (14-day): 66.17, 50-day EMA: 15954.38, 200-day EMA: 12291.58
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1836.80, Gold RSI: 46.16
Oil Price: 45.64, Oil RSI: 66.56
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names: - By Margaret Moran
Louis Moore Bacon(Trades,Portfolio)'s Moore Capital Management recently disclosed its portfolio updates for the third quarter of 2020, which ended on Sept. 30.
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 12 Warning Signs with DIS. Click here to check it out.
• DIS 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of DIS
• Peter Lynch Chart of DIS
New York-based Moore Capital Management was founded by Bacon in 1986. The firm uses a global, bold macro-based approach to investing. After 30 years of operation, the hedge fund closed itself to outside investors in late 2019 and consolidated its three flagship funds into one proprietary fund. Regarding the new arrangement, Bacon wrote, "Now I am once again concentrating on my personal investment account while overseeing a large multi-asset alternatives platform."
Based on its investing criteria, the firm's top new common stock buys during the quarter were The Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE:NLY) and McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD). It also established significant holdings in the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Exchange-Traded Fund (EEM) and the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH).
Walt Disney
The firm established a new holding of 555,531 shares in Walt Disney, impacting the equity portfolio by 1.32%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $124.91.
The iconic mass media company is one of the largest producers of entertainment in the U.S. Based in Los Angeles, the multinational diversified media company produces movies and shows, owns and operates theme parks and provides streaming services such as ESPN+, Hulu and Disney+.
On Dec. 2, shares of Disney traded around $153.75 for a market cap of $278.27 billion. The GuruFocus Value chart rates the stock as significantly overvalued.
The company has a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 7 out of 10. The interest coverage ratio of 2.31 indicates the company has little room for error in meeting the interest payments on its debt, but the Altman Z-Score of 2.07 means it is not likely to face bankruptcy in the near future. Beginning mid-2019, the company's return on invested capital dipped below its weighted average cost of capital and has remained low since, indicating struggles with profitability.
Annaly Capital Management
The firm also took a new stake worth 5,843,228 shares in Annaly Capital Management, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.80%. Shares traded for an average price of $7.22 during the quarter.
Annaly is a large-scale New York-based mortgage real estate investment trust. It operates by borrowing money (primarily through short-term repurchase agreements) and investing the funds in asset-backed securities.
On Dec. 2, shares of Annaly traded around $8.11 for a market cap of $11.33 billion. According to the Peter Lynch chart, the stock is trading above its intrinsic value based on recent results.
The company has a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 3 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.17 is higher than the industry median of 0.08, while the Piotroski F-Score of 8 out of 9 suggests a healthy financial situation. The return on equity and return on assets have been in a downtrend over the past couple of decades to their current levels of -15.38% and -1.83%.
McDonald's
The firm invested in 149,271 shares of McDonald's, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.63%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $205.07.
McDonald's is a foodservice retailer and the owner and franchiser of the iconic American fast-food chain of the same name. The company has more than 38,000 operated and franchised restaurants worldwide, 13,000 of which are in the U.S.
On Dec. 2, shares of McDonald's traded around $209.96 for a market cap of $156.31 billion. The GuruFocus Value chart rates the stock as modestly overvalued.
The company has a financial strength rating of 3 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 8 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.07 is lower than 86% of peers, though the Altman Z-Score of 3.99 suggests the company is not in danger of bankruptcy. The company has been steadily growing its operating margin and net margin over the years to their current levels of 42.16% and 28.59%.
BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF
The firm bought 4,620,776 shares of the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, impacting the equity portfolio by 3.91%. Shares traded for an average price of $43.87 during the quarter.
The BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF is an ETF run by Blackrock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) that seeks to track an index of large- and mid-cap equities from emerging markets. As of Dec. 1, it had 1,220 holdings.
On Dec. 2, shares of the ETF traded around $49.83 for a market cap of $26.92 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 16.75. Over the past 12 months, shares of the ETF have gained approximately 20%.
VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF
The firm also invested in 285,000 shares of the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.95%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $167.44.
The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, issued by VanEck, tracks an index of the 25 largest semiconductor companies listed in the U.S., weighted by market cap.
On Dec. 2, shares of the ETF traded around $213.54 for a market cap of $3.69 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 27.9. Over the past 12 months, shares of the ETF have gained approximately 62%.
Portfolio overview
As of the quarter's end, the firm's common stock equity portfolio consisted of 368 holdings valued at $5.22 billion. The top positions were Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) with 6.46% of the equity portfolio, the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF with 3.91% and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) with 2.56%.
In terms of sector weighting, the firm was most invested in consumer cyclical, financial services and technology.
Disclosure: Author owns no shares in any of the stocks mentioned. The mention of stocks in this article does not at any point constitute an investment recommendation. Portfolio updates reflect only common stock positions as per the regulatory filings for the quarter in question and may not include changes made after the quarter ended.
Read more here:
• The Biggest 3rd-Quarter Trades of the Oakmark International Small Cap Fund
• Top 3rd-Quarter Trades of Tudor Investment Corp
• Top 3rd-Quarter Buys of Steven Cohen's Firm
Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here.
This article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names: - By Margaret Moran Louis Moore Bacon ( Trades , Portfolio ) 's Moore Capital Management recently disclosed its portfolio updates for the third quarter of 2020, which ended on Sept. 30. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 12 Warning Signs with DIS. Click here to check it out. DIS 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of DIS Peter Lynch Chart of DIS New York-based Moore Capital Management was founded by Bacon in 1986. The firm uses a global, bold macro-based approach to investing. After 30 years of operation, the hedge fund closed itself to outside investors in late 2019 and consolidated its three flagship funds into one proprietary fund. Regarding the new arrangement, Bacon wrote, "Now I am once again concentrating on my personal investment account while overseeing a large multi-asset alternatives platform." Based on its investing criteria, the firm's top new common stock buys during the quarter were The Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE:NLY) and McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD). It also established significant holdings in the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Exchange-Traded Fund (EEM) and the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH). Walt Disney The firm established a new holding of 555,531 shares in Walt Disney, impacting the equity portfolio by 1.32%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $124.91. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The iconic mass media company is one of the largest producers of entertainment in the U.S. Based in Los Angeles, the multinational diversified media company produces movies and shows, owns and operates theme parks and provides streaming services such as ESPN+, Hulu and Disney+. On Dec. 2, shares of Disney traded around $153.75 for a market cap of $278.27 billion. The GuruFocus Value chart rates the stock as significantly overvalued. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The company has a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 7 out of 10. The interest coverage ratio of 2.31 indicates the company has little room for error in meeting the interest payments on its debt, but the Altman Z-Score of 2.07 means it is not likely to face bankruptcy in the near future. Beginning mid-2019, the company's return on invested capital dipped below its weighted average cost of capital and has remained low since, indicating struggles with profitability. Story continues Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names Annaly Capital Management The firm also took a new stake worth 5,843,228 shares in Annaly Capital Management, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.80%. Shares traded for an average price of $7.22 during the quarter. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names Annaly is a large-scale New York-based mortgage real estate investment trust. It operates by borrowing money (primarily through short-term repurchase agreements) and investing the funds in asset-backed securities. On Dec. 2, shares of Annaly traded around $8.11 for a market cap of $11.33 billion. According to the Peter Lynch chart, the stock is trading above its intrinsic value based on recent results. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The company has a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 3 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.17 is higher than the industry median of 0.08, while the Piotroski F-Score of 8 out of 9 suggests a healthy financial situation. The return on equity and return on assets have been in a downtrend over the past couple of decades to their current levels of -15.38% and -1.83%. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names McDonald's The firm invested in 149,271 shares of McDonald's, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.63%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $205.07. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names McDonald's is a foodservice retailer and the owner and franchiser of the iconic American fast-food chain of the same name. The company has more than 38,000 operated and franchised restaurants worldwide, 13,000 of which are in the U.S. On Dec. 2, shares of McDonald's traded around $209.96 for a market cap of $156.31 billion. The GuruFocus Value chart rates the stock as modestly overvalued. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The company has a financial strength rating of 3 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 8 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.07 is lower than 86% of peers, though the Altman Z-Score of 3.99 suggests the company is not in danger of bankruptcy. The company has been steadily growing its operating margin and net margin over the years to their current levels of 42.16% and 28.59%. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF The firm bought 4,620,776 shares of the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, impacting the equity portfolio by 3.91%. Shares traded for an average price of $43.87 during the quarter. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF is an ETF run by Blackrock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) that seeks to track an index of large- and mid-cap equities from emerging markets. As of Dec. 1, it had 1,220 holdings. On Dec. 2, shares of the ETF traded around $49.83 for a market cap of $26.92 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 16.75. Over the past 12 months, shares of the ETF have gained approximately 20%. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF The firm also invested in 285,000 shares of the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.95%. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of $167.44. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF, issued by VanEck, tracks an index of the 25 largest semiconductor companies listed in the U.S., weighted by market cap. On Dec. 2, shares of the ETF traded around $213.54 for a market cap of $3.69 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 27.9. Over the past 12 months, shares of the ETF have gained approximately 62%. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names Portfolio overview As of the quarter's end, the firm's common stock equity portfolio consisted of 368 holdings valued at $5.22 billion. The top positions were Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) with 6.46% of the equity portfolio, the BTC iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF with 3.91% and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) with 2.56%. In terms of sector weighting, the firm was most invested in consumer cyclical, financial services and technology. Louis Moore Bacon's Firm Buys Fan-Favorite Names Disclosure: Author owns no shares in any of the stocks mentioned. The mention of stocks in this article does not at any point constitute an investment recommendation. Portfolio updates reflect only common stock positions as per the regulatory filings for the quarter in question and may not include changes made after the quarter ended. Read more here: The Biggest 3rd-Quarter Trades of the Oakmark International Small Cap Fund Top 3rd-Quarter Trades of Tudor Investment Corp Top 3rd-Quarter Buys of Steven Cohen's Firm Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here. This article first appeared on GuruFocus . || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021: Low volumes are keeping the bitcoin market in the $19,000 neighborhood; option traders expect a high ether price in December but aren’t so convinced about next year.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $19,110 as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.60% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $18,360-$19,357
• BTC near its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a sideways signal for market technicians.
The bitcoin market is taking a bit of a breather Wednesday, with flat price action producing a tighter price range between $18,360 and $19,357 over the past 24 hours. The world’s oldest cryptocurrency is currently at $19,110 as of press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
The sideways price performance can be partially attributed to lighter volume Wednesday. This was in contrast to earlier in the week, when the exchanges monitored by the CoinDesk 20 experienced two days of over $2 billion in volume. As of press time, daily volume was at $1.1 billion.
Related:First Mover: Ether Eyed as Value Play With Bitcoin Pressing $20K
“Consolidation continues, judging by the signals from the RSI indicators and Bollinger Bands,” noted Constantin Kogan, partner at crypto-focused investment firm Wave Financial.
The relative strength index, or RSI, is a technical market momentum indicator and Bollinger Bands use standard deviations of moving averages to forecast an asset’s performance. Using these, Kogan anticipates another price push upward. “Potentially, another attempt will be made to break above $20,000,” he added.
Read More:Bitcoin Sees Record Number of Active Users as Price Almost Hits $20K
“Bitcoin is holding the $18,200-$19,700 range, making its new all-time high yesterday, bringing more volatility and making bitcoin more trending than ever before this year,” noted Elie Le Rest, partner at quant trading firm ExoAlpha. The all-time high price record, set Tuesday, is now at $19,920.53 according to CoinDesk 20 data.
Related:Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility
“This market environment reminds us of 2017, but this time it’s different as it was not driven only by retail investors rushing into a new gold mine,” added ExoAlpha’s Le Rest.
In the options market, Wednesday is shaping up to be a day heavily favoring puts (66%) versus calls (33%) on bitcoin. This suggests options traders are putting in some protection on possible downsides in price. A put is a bearish bet on the price while a call is a bullish wager.
“Drops happened multiple times during the 2017 rally and we expect them to happen several times again this bull run as part of the natural market cycle,” said Andrew Tu, a representative from quant trading firm Efficient Frontier.
Traders are likely cashing in their winnings Wednesday after a strong November.
“The market did not accelerate when hitting the all-time highs twice, so there is clearly a barrage of profit-taking at this critical and significant level,” said Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital.
Tight range days like Wednesday may just be part of the bitcoin market in December, Bonnefous added. “I suspect consolidation in a range is in order for now until fresh buying comes in.”
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Wednesday, trading around $596 and climbing 0.30% in 24 hours as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET).
Read More:Visa May Support USDC Credit Card After Adding Circle to ‘Fast Track’
Ether options traders see a 91% chance of ether over $400 for December 2020 expiration. However, into 2021 those price probabilities drop quite a bit, with traders seeing a 91% chance of ether only over $280 by March 2021 expiration, according to date from aggregator Skew.
“Out to the end of December, there’s a more fair distribution of topside and downside interest,” noted Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5. “It could be that the downside is protection-seeking. That picture changes beyond end of year, where from January onward there is a clear favor of high strikes but there’s also a lot of open interest in the low strikes.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mixed Wednesday. Notable winners as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET):
• algorand(ALGO) + 7.6%
• 0x(ZRX) + 4.6%
• omg network(OMG) + 3.3%
Notable losers:
• stellar(XLM) – 2%
• litecoin(LTC) – 1.5%
• bitcoin cash(BCH) – 1%
Read More:PayPal CEO Dan Schulman Tells Web Summit the ‘Time Is Now’ for Crypto
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day flat, in the green just 0.05% asprofit-taking superseded optimism a U.S. stimulus package will help a sagging global economy.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 1.3% asBarclays published a 2021 economic outlook that signaled optimism, boosting the index.
• In the United States the S&P gained 0.20%, withenergy and financials boosting the index on hopes of further federal government stimulus.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $45.16.
• Gold was in the green 0.80% and at $1,829 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Wednesday, jumping to 0.941 and in the green 1.4%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021 || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021: Low volumes are keeping the bitcoin market in the $19,000 neighborhood; option traders expect a high ether price in December but aren’t so convinced about next year.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $19,110 as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.60% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $18,360-$19,357
• BTC near its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a sideways signal for market technicians.
The bitcoin market is taking a bit of a breather Wednesday, with flat price action producing a tighter price range between $18,360 and $19,357 over the past 24 hours. The world’s oldest cryptocurrency is currently at $19,110 as of press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
The sideways price performance can be partially attributed to lighter volume Wednesday. This was in contrast to earlier in the week, when the exchanges monitored by the CoinDesk 20 experienced two days of over $2 billion in volume. As of press time, daily volume was at $1.1 billion.
Related:First Mover: Ether Eyed as Value Play With Bitcoin Pressing $20K
“Consolidation continues, judging by the signals from the RSI indicators and Bollinger Bands,” noted Constantin Kogan, partner at crypto-focused investment firm Wave Financial.
The relative strength index, or RSI, is a technical market momentum indicator and Bollinger Bands use standard deviations of moving averages to forecast an asset’s performance. Using these, Kogan anticipates another price push upward. “Potentially, another attempt will be made to break above $20,000,” he added.
Read More:Bitcoin Sees Record Number of Active Users as Price Almost Hits $20K
“Bitcoin is holding the $18,200-$19,700 range, making its new all-time high yesterday, bringing more volatility and making bitcoin more trending than ever before this year,” noted Elie Le Rest, partner at quant trading firm ExoAlpha. The all-time high price record, set Tuesday, is now at $19,920.53 according to CoinDesk 20 data.
Related:Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility
“This market environment reminds us of 2017, but this time it’s different as it was not driven only by retail investors rushing into a new gold mine,” added ExoAlpha’s Le Rest.
In the options market, Wednesday is shaping up to be a day heavily favoring puts (66%) versus calls (33%) on bitcoin. This suggests options traders are putting in some protection on possible downsides in price. A put is a bearish bet on the price while a call is a bullish wager.
“Drops happened multiple times during the 2017 rally and we expect them to happen several times again this bull run as part of the natural market cycle,” said Andrew Tu, a representative from quant trading firm Efficient Frontier.
Traders are likely cashing in their winnings Wednesday after a strong November.
“The market did not accelerate when hitting the all-time highs twice, so there is clearly a barrage of profit-taking at this critical and significant level,” said Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital.
Tight range days like Wednesday may just be part of the bitcoin market in December, Bonnefous added. “I suspect consolidation in a range is in order for now until fresh buying comes in.”
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Wednesday, trading around $596 and climbing 0.30% in 24 hours as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET).
Read More:Visa May Support USDC Credit Card After Adding Circle to ‘Fast Track’
Ether options traders see a 91% chance of ether over $400 for December 2020 expiration. However, into 2021 those price probabilities drop quite a bit, with traders seeing a 91% chance of ether only over $280 by March 2021 expiration, according to date from aggregator Skew.
“Out to the end of December, there’s a more fair distribution of topside and downside interest,” noted Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5. “It could be that the downside is protection-seeking. That picture changes beyond end of year, where from January onward there is a clear favor of high strikes but there’s also a lot of open interest in the low strikes.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mixed Wednesday. Notable winners as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET):
• algorand(ALGO) + 7.6%
• 0x(ZRX) + 4.6%
• omg network(OMG) + 3.3%
Notable losers:
• stellar(XLM) – 2%
• litecoin(LTC) – 1.5%
• bitcoin cash(BCH) – 1%
Read More:PayPal CEO Dan Schulman Tells Web Summit the ‘Time Is Now’ for Crypto
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day flat, in the green just 0.05% asprofit-taking superseded optimism a U.S. stimulus package will help a sagging global economy.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 1.3% asBarclays published a 2021 economic outlook that signaled optimism, boosting the index.
• In the United States the S&P gained 0.20%, withenergy and financials boosting the index on hopes of further federal government stimulus.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $45.16.
• Gold was in the green 0.80% and at $1,829 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Wednesday, jumping to 0.941 and in the green 1.4%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021 || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021: Low volumes are keeping the bitcoin market in the $19,000 neighborhood; option traders expect a high ether price in December but aren’t so convinced about next year. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $19,110 as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.60% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $18,360-$19,357 BTC near its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a sideways signal for market technicians. The bitcoin market is taking a bit of a breather Wednesday, with flat price action producing a tighter price range between $18,360 and $19,357 over the past 24 hours. The world’s oldest cryptocurrency is currently at $19,110 as of press time, according to CoinDesk 20 data. The sideways price performance can be partially attributed to lighter volume Wednesday. This was in contrast to earlier in the week, when the exchanges monitored by the CoinDesk 20 experienced two days of over $2 billion in volume. As of press time, daily volume was at $1.1 billion. Related: First Mover: Ether Eyed as Value Play With Bitcoin Pressing $20K “Consolidation continues, judging by the signals from the RSI indicators and Bollinger Bands,” noted Constantin Kogan, partner at crypto-focused investment firm Wave Financial. The relative strength index, or RSI, is a technical market momentum indicator and Bollinger Bands use standard deviations of moving averages to forecast an asset’s performance. Using these, Kogan anticipates another price push upward. “Potentially, another attempt will be made to break above $20,000,” he added. Read More: Bitcoin Sees Record Number of Active Users as Price Almost Hits $20K “Bitcoin is holding the $18,200-$19,700 range, making its new all-time high yesterday, bringing more volatility and making bitcoin more trending than ever before this year,” noted Elie Le Rest, partner at quant trading firm ExoAlpha. The all-time high price record, set Tuesday, is now at $19,920.53 according to CoinDesk 20 data. Story continues Related: Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility “This market environment reminds us of 2017, but this time it’s different as it was not driven only by retail investors rushing into a new gold mine,” added ExoAlpha’s Le Rest. In the options market, Wednesday is shaping up to be a day heavily favoring puts (66%) versus calls (33%) on bitcoin. This suggests options traders are putting in some protection on possible downsides in price. A put is a bearish bet on the price while a call is a bullish wager. “Drops happened multiple times during the 2017 rally and we expect them to happen several times again this bull run as part of the natural market cycle,” said Andrew Tu, a representative from quant trading firm Efficient Frontier. Traders are likely cashing in their winnings Wednesday after a strong November. “The market did not accelerate when hitting the all-time highs twice, so there is clearly a barrage of profit-taking at this critical and significant level,” said Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital. Tight range days like Wednesday may just be part of the bitcoin market in December, Bonnefous added. “I suspect consolidation in a range is in order for now until fresh buying comes in.” Bear mode for ether’s price in 2021? Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Wednesday, trading around $596 and climbing 0.30% in 24 hours as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET). Read More: Visa May Support USDC Credit Card After Adding Circle to ‘Fast Track’ Ether options traders see a 91% chance of ether over $400 for December 2020 expiration. However, into 2021 those price probabilities drop quite a bit, with traders seeing a 91% chance of ether only over $280 by March 2021 expiration, according to date from aggregator Skew. “Out to the end of December, there’s a more fair distribution of topside and downside interest,” noted Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5. “It could be that the downside is protection-seeking. That picture changes beyond end of year, where from January onward there is a clear favor of high strikes but there’s also a lot of open interest in the low strikes.” Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mixed Wednesday. Notable winners as of 21:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. ET): algorand (ALGO) + 7.6% 0x (ZRX) + 4.6% omg network (OMG) + 3.3% Notable losers: stellar (XLM) – 2% litecoin (LTC) – 1.5% bitcoin cash (BCH) – 1% Read More: PayPal CEO Dan Schulman Tells Web Summit the ‘Time Is Now’ for Crypto Equities: Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day flat, in the green just 0.05% as profit-taking superseded optimism a U.S. stimulus package will help a sagging global economy . The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 1.3% as Barclays published a 2021 economic outlook that signaled optimism, boosting the index . In the United States the S&P gained 0.20%, with energy and financials boosting the index on hopes of further federal government stimulus . Commodities: Oil was up 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $45.16. Gold was in the green 0.80% and at $1,829 as of press time. Treasurys: The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Wednesday, jumping to 0.941 and in the green 1.4%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021 Market Wrap: Bitcoin Flat at $19K While Ether Options Traders Bet Bearish on 2021 || Discovery+ Streaming Platform Could Win Big With Strong Brand, Content Library: Discovery Communications(NASDAQ:DISCA) unveiled a direct-to-consumer streaming offering Wednesday.
What Happened:The streaming platform from Discoverywilllaunchin the U.S. on Jan. 4, with price points of $4.99 per month or $6.99 per month for an ad-free version.
Discovery+ will launch initially in 25 countries, with plans for more to be added later.
“With discovery+, we are seizing the global opportunity to be the world’s definitive product for unscripted storytelling,” Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Zaslavsaida streaming offering from Discovery would be the “SUV of brands” compared to the sports cars of Disney andNetflix Inc(NASDAQ:NFLX).
Verizon Communications(NYSE:VZ) is a launch partner in the United States and will offer customers of its Play More or Get More unlimited plan 12 months of discovery+ free. Sky will partner with Discovery for a similar offering for its customers in Europe.
Related Link:Apple, Verizon Join Hands To Encourage Enterprise Upgrade To 5G, iPhone12
Why It’s Important:The streaming platform is bringing a huge library of content from existing and new shows, including some new exclusives for discovery+.
The company said this is the largest-ever content offering for a new streaming service in the U.S.
Discovery+ will have over 55,000 episodes from over 2,500 shows in the U.S. This includes shows from popular channels like HGTV, TLC, Food Network, ID, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery and Animal Planet.
Exclusive originals will come from notable names like Chip and Joanna Gaines, Sir David Attenborough, David Schwimmer, Kevin Hart and Bobby Flay.
The streaming platform will provide a first look at content from The Magnolia Network, a joint venture between the Gaines and Discovery. Several new shows will launch on this channel and get their start on the streaming platform exclusively until the channel’s 2021 launch.
The “90 Day Fiancee” franchise will move to the streaming platform with new spinoff shows planned.
In Europe, discovery+ will be the streaming home of Olympic Games coverage thanks to Discovery’s rights ownership.
The partnership with Verizon is similar to deals that were done withWalt Disney Co's(NYSE:DIS) streaming platform Disney+ at launch.
Benzinga’s Take:In August, I highlighted the possible launch of a DTC offering from Discovery — it could be a big winner for the company.
In the second quarter, Discovery-owned channels HGTV, TLC, Discovery and Food were four of the top 10 pay channels for women in prime time. Discovery has a 20% market share for this demographic.
TLC ratings hit an all-time high in the second quarter and the other channels continue to outperform competitors thanks to loyal fans.
The price point and huge content offering could make this a winning streaming play and boost Discovery's share price.
DISCA Price Action:Shares of Discovery were up 2.02% at $28.24 ahead of the close Wednesday.
Shares are down over 15% year-to-date.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence
• Why Virgin Galactic's Stock Could Rocket Higher On NASA Deal, Upcoming Flight Launch
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Discovery+ Streaming Platform Could Win Big With Strong Brand, Content Library: Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA ) unveiled a direct-to-consumer streaming offering Wednesday. What Happened: The streaming platform from Discovery will launch in the U.S. on Jan. 4, with price points of $4.99 per month or $6.99 per month for an ad-free version. Discovery+ will launch initially in 25 countries, with plans for more to be added later. With discovery+, we are seizing the global opportunity to be the worlds definitive product for unscripted storytelling, Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement. Earlier this year, Zaslav said a streaming offering from Discovery would be the SUV of brands compared to the sports cars of Disney and Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX ). Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ ) is a launch partner in the United States and will offer customers of its Play More or Get More unlimited plan 12 months of discovery+ free. Sky will partner with Discovery for a similar offering for its customers in Europe. Related Link: Apple, Verizon Join Hands To Encourage Enterprise Upgrade To 5G, iPhone12 Why Its Important: The streaming platform is bringing a huge library of content from existing and new shows, including some new exclusives for discovery+. The company said this is the largest-ever content offering for a new streaming service in the U.S. Discovery+ will have over 55,000 episodes from over 2,500 shows in the U.S. This includes shows from popular channels like HGTV, TLC, Food Network, ID, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery and Animal Planet. Exclusive originals will come from notable names like Chip and Joanna Gaines, Sir David Attenborough, David Schwimmer, Kevin Hart and Bobby Flay. The streaming platform will provide a first look at content from The Magnolia Network, a joint venture between the Gaines and Discovery. Several new shows will launch on this channel and get their start on the streaming platform exclusively until the channels 2021 launch. Story continues The 90 Day Fiancee franchise will move to the streaming platform with new spinoff shows planned. In Europe, discovery+ will be the streaming home of Olympic Games coverage thanks to Discoverys rights ownership. The partnership with Verizon is similar to deals that were done with Walt Disney Co's (NYSE: DIS ) streaming platform Disney+ at launch. Benzingas Take: In August, I highlighted the possible launch of a DTC offering from Discovery it could be a big winner for the company. In the second quarter, Discovery-owned channels HGTV, TLC, Discovery and Food were four of the top 10 pay channels for women in prime time. Discovery has a 20% market share for this demographic. TLC ratings hit an all-time high in the second quarter and the other channels continue to outperform competitors thanks to loyal fans. The price point and huge content offering could make this a winning streaming play and boost Discovery's share price. DISCA Price Action: Shares of Discovery were up 2.02% at $28.24 ahead of the close Wednesday. Shares are down over 15% year-to-date. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence Why Virgin Galactic's Stock Could Rocket Higher On NASA Deal, Upcoming Flight Launch © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments: Those new to crypto, such as the institutional investors recently buying into bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative, might now be looking around for the next big thing.
With the long-anticipated arrival of phase 0 of theEthereum 2.0 upgradelaunching on Dec. 1, that could be the network’s native token,ether (ETH). But analysts say ether should be judged on its own merits and not as a bitcoin replacement.
“I’ve always thought this digital asset space is huge – and it’s not justbitcoin– because there are going to be different applications for different things,” Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of financial media group Real Vision, said in Real Vision’s documentary “Ethereum – An Investigation,” which was released on Nov. 30. “I think of the two [bitcoin and ether] as having a very nice combined asset allocation.”
Related:Protocol Hosting Google reCAPTCHA Competitor Expands to Polkadot
For Pal, an early bitcoin investor, the rationale seems even more plausible these days: As bitcoin’s price hits a new all-time high, the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization is now more expensive and thus potentially a riskier bet for new investors.
It can be expected investors are looking for a new opportunity in crypto at affordable prices. Given that ether is trading roughly 59% below its all-time high of $1,432.88, it is tempting to believe there’s a bargain to be had. What’s more, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade to increase the network’s scalability, security and energy efficiency has generated a lot of hype.
Read more:Investment Giant AllianceBernstein Now Says Bitcoin Has Role in Investors’ Portfolios
However, at least for now, analysts and traders who spoke with CoinDesk don’t think ether will replace theFOMO over bitcoin.
Related:Kraken Exchange to Offer First Grants for Open-Source Ethereum Projects
“For institutional investors, they are buying BTC for the digital gold narrative,” Ryan Watkins, senior research analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk. “ETH just isn’t in that conversation yet.”
Ether “benefits from spillover and likely has more conversation around it from crypto-natives,” Vishal Shah, founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, told CoinDesk. “For the uninitiated, [it is] hard to see how bitcoin is not the sole on-ramp.”
Some analysts say that as more institutions pour money into bitcoin and push up its price, ether and other cryptocurrencies will gradually decouple from bitcoin.
Indeed, while bitcoin this week logged a record high price, ether isn’t even close to its all-time high of $1,448.18. Data from CoinDesk shows the 90-day correlation coefficient between the prices of the top two cryptocurrencies, while still strong, has gradually weakened a bit since the summer from as high as 0.93 to nearly 0.7 at the beginning of December.
“The thing about correlation is it can disappear at any time,” Ashwath Balakrishnan, research analyst at digital asset research firm Delphi Digital, told CoinDesk. “In that case, you want to understand the core fundamentals of what you hold because if you hold ether as a proxy [to your] bitcoin exposure, and [when] prices decouple, you are now exposed to something very different.”
Bitcoin has been used by many investors this year as a hedge against a drop in the purchasing power of U.S. dollars. Ether is considered the currency of “the world computer,” which aims to build an ecosystem of decentralized applications.
The close historical correlation between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be due to how tiny the digital-asset ecosystem is relative to the global economy. The total market capitalization of crypto assets is estimatedat $562 billion, a mere 1.7% of the S&P 500 stock index’s combined market cap of $32.2 trillion. With almost every crypto asset built on different fundamentals, non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies may be trending with bitcoin prices simply because the nascent market is still so small and insular.
Read more:Volume Surge Brings 25% Turnover to ‘CoinDesk 20’
Correlation datadoesn’t tell the whole story. Prices may move in tandem but the degree to which that happens is another matter. When the explosive decentralized finance (DeFi) boom hit the market during the summer, ether’s pricerallied to its highest in more than two yearsbecause most DeFi projects are built on the Ethereum blockchain. At the time, bitcoin was struggling to break a similar two-year record.
The market will have to wait and see what kind of real impact the ongoing Ethereum upgrade could have on its native currency because the final phase of the process is scheduled to be completed in 2023. But a major fundamental upgrade on the network underpinning ether could lead its price to move on its own fundamentals, instead of merely following bitcoin’s price.
“The heart of ETH 2.0, which makes the entire system possible, is ether,” according toa reportby Messari. “ETH will not only be Ethereum’s native store of value asset and fuel for transactions, but will also be Ethereum’s ultimate source of security from its role in the [proof-of-stake] system.”
Thus, while bitcoin can be seen as somewhere between a store of value and a commodity on the “asset superclass triangle,” ether could ultimately become the first asset to be a combination of all three classes of assets: capital assets, commodities and stores of value.
“When ether’s price starts to be driven by its own catalysts, holding it as a proxy to having BTC exposure will not work as expected,” Balakrishnan added.
• Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments
• Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments || Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments: Those new to crypto, such as the institutional investors recently buying into bitcoin’s “ digital gold ” narrative, might now be looking around for the next big thing. With the long-anticipated arrival of phase 0 of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade launching on Dec. 1, that could be the network’s native token, ether (ETH) . But analysts say ether should be judged on its own merits and not as a bitcoin replacement. “I’ve always thought this digital asset space is huge – and it’s not just bitcoin – because there are going to be different applications for different things,” Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of financial media group Real Vision, said in Real Vision’s documentary “ Ethereum – An Investigation ,” which was released on Nov. 30. “I think of the two [bitcoin and ether] as having a very nice combined asset allocation.” Related: Protocol Hosting Google reCAPTCHA Competitor Expands to Polkadot For Pal, an early bitcoin investor, the rationale seems even more plausible these days: As bitcoin’s price hits a new all-time high, the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization is now more expensive and thus potentially a riskier bet for new investors. It can be expected investors are looking for a new opportunity in crypto at affordable prices. Given that ether is trading roughly 59% below its all-time high of $1,432.88, it is tempting to believe there’s a bargain to be had. What’s more, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade to increase the network’s scalability, security and energy efficiency has generated a lot of hype. Read more: Investment Giant AllianceBernstein Now Says Bitcoin Has Role in Investors’ Portfolios However, at least for now, analysts and traders who spoke with CoinDesk don’t think ether will replace the FOMO over bitcoin . Related: Kraken Exchange to Offer First Grants for Open-Source Ethereum Projects Story continues “For institutional investors, they are buying BTC for the digital gold narrative,” Ryan Watkins, senior research analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk. “ETH just isn’t in that conversation yet.” Ether “benefits from spillover and likely has more conversation around it from crypto-natives,” Vishal Shah, founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, told CoinDesk. “For the uninitiated, [it is] hard to see how bitcoin is not the sole on-ramp.” Weakening correlation between bitcoin and ether Some analysts say that as more institutions pour money into bitcoin and push up its price, ether and other cryptocurrencies will gradually decouple from bitcoin. Indeed, while bitcoin this week logged a record high price, ether isn’t even close to its all-time high of $1,448.18. Data from CoinDesk shows the 90-day correlation coefficient between the prices of the top two cryptocurrencies, while still strong, has gradually weakened a bit since the summer from as high as 0.93 to nearly 0.7 at the beginning of December. “The thing about correlation is it can disappear at any time,” Ashwath Balakrishnan, research analyst at digital asset research firm Delphi Digital, told CoinDesk. “In that case, you want to understand the core fundamentals of what you hold because if you hold ether as a proxy [to your] bitcoin exposure, and [when] prices decouple, you are now exposed to something very different.” Bitcoin has been used by many investors this year as a hedge against a drop in the purchasing power of U.S. dollars. Ether is considered the currency of “the world computer,” which aims to build an ecosystem of decentralized applications. The close historical correlation between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be due to how tiny the digital-asset ecosystem is relative to the global economy. The total market capitalization of crypto assets is estimated at $562 billion , a mere 1.7% of the S&P 500 stock index’s combined market cap of $32.2 trillion. With almost every crypto asset built on different fundamentals, non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies may be trending with bitcoin prices simply because the nascent market is still so small and insular. Read more: Volume Surge Brings 25% Turnover to ‘CoinDesk 20’ Correlation data doesn’t tell the whole story. Prices may move in tandem but the degree to which that happens is another matter. When the explosive decentralized finance (DeFi) boom hit the market during the summer, ether’s price rallied to its highest in more than two years because most DeFi projects are built on the Ethereum blockchain. At the time, bitcoin was struggling to break a similar two-year record. What Ethereum 2.0 could mean for investors The market will have to wait and see what kind of real impact the ongoing Ethereum upgrade could have on its native currency because the final phase of the process is scheduled to be completed in 2023. But a major fundamental upgrade on the network underpinning ether could lead its price to move on its own fundamentals, instead of merely following bitcoin’s price. “The heart of ETH 2.0, which makes the entire system possible, is ether,” according to a report by Messari. “ETH will not only be Ethereum’s native store of value asset and fuel for transactions, but will also be Ethereum’s ultimate source of security from its role in the [proof-of-stake] system.” Thus, while bitcoin can be seen as somewhere between a store of value and a commodity on the “asset superclass triangle,” ether could ultimately become the first asset to be a combination of all three classes of assets: capital assets, commodities and stores of value. “When ether’s price starts to be driven by its own catalysts, holding it as a proxy to having BTC exposure will not work as expected,” Balakrishnan added. Related Stories Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments || Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments: Those new to crypto, such as the institutional investors recently buying into bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative, might now be looking around for the next big thing.
With the long-anticipated arrival of phase 0 of theEthereum 2.0 upgradelaunching on Dec. 1, that could be the network’s native token,ether (ETH). But analysts say ether should be judged on its own merits and not as a bitcoin replacement.
“I’ve always thought this digital asset space is huge – and it’s not justbitcoin– because there are going to be different applications for different things,” Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of financial media group Real Vision, said in Real Vision’s documentary “Ethereum – An Investigation,” which was released on Nov. 30. “I think of the two [bitcoin and ether] as having a very nice combined asset allocation.”
Related:Protocol Hosting Google reCAPTCHA Competitor Expands to Polkadot
For Pal, an early bitcoin investor, the rationale seems even more plausible these days: As bitcoin’s price hits a new all-time high, the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization is now more expensive and thus potentially a riskier bet for new investors.
It can be expected investors are looking for a new opportunity in crypto at affordable prices. Given that ether is trading roughly 59% below its all-time high of $1,432.88, it is tempting to believe there’s a bargain to be had. What’s more, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade to increase the network’s scalability, security and energy efficiency has generated a lot of hype.
Read more:Investment Giant AllianceBernstein Now Says Bitcoin Has Role in Investors’ Portfolios
However, at least for now, analysts and traders who spoke with CoinDesk don’t think ether will replace theFOMO over bitcoin.
Related:Kraken Exchange to Offer First Grants for Open-Source Ethereum Projects
“For institutional investors, they are buying BTC for the digital gold narrative,” Ryan Watkins, senior research analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk. “ETH just isn’t in that conversation yet.”
Ether “benefits from spillover and likely has more conversation around it from crypto-natives,” Vishal Shah, founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, told CoinDesk. “For the uninitiated, [it is] hard to see how bitcoin is not the sole on-ramp.”
Some analysts say that as more institutions pour money into bitcoin and push up its price, ether and other cryptocurrencies will gradually decouple from bitcoin.
Indeed, while bitcoin this week logged a record high price, ether isn’t even close to its all-time high of $1,448.18. Data from CoinDesk shows the 90-day correlation coefficient between the prices of the top two cryptocurrencies, while still strong, has gradually weakened a bit since the summer from as high as 0.93 to nearly 0.7 at the beginning of December.
“The thing about correlation is it can disappear at any time,” Ashwath Balakrishnan, research analyst at digital asset research firm Delphi Digital, told CoinDesk. “In that case, you want to understand the core fundamentals of what you hold because if you hold ether as a proxy [to your] bitcoin exposure, and [when] prices decouple, you are now exposed to something very different.”
Bitcoin has been used by many investors this year as a hedge against a drop in the purchasing power of U.S. dollars. Ether is considered the currency of “the world computer,” which aims to build an ecosystem of decentralized applications.
The close historical correlation between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be due to how tiny the digital-asset ecosystem is relative to the global economy. The total market capitalization of crypto assets is estimatedat $562 billion, a mere 1.7% of the S&P 500 stock index’s combined market cap of $32.2 trillion. With almost every crypto asset built on different fundamentals, non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies may be trending with bitcoin prices simply because the nascent market is still so small and insular.
Read more:Volume Surge Brings 25% Turnover to ‘CoinDesk 20’
Correlation datadoesn’t tell the whole story. Prices may move in tandem but the degree to which that happens is another matter. When the explosive decentralized finance (DeFi) boom hit the market during the summer, ether’s pricerallied to its highest in more than two yearsbecause most DeFi projects are built on the Ethereum blockchain. At the time, bitcoin was struggling to break a similar two-year record.
The market will have to wait and see what kind of real impact the ongoing Ethereum upgrade could have on its native currency because the final phase of the process is scheduled to be completed in 2023. But a major fundamental upgrade on the network underpinning ether could lead its price to move on its own fundamentals, instead of merely following bitcoin’s price.
“The heart of ETH 2.0, which makes the entire system possible, is ether,” according toa reportby Messari. “ETH will not only be Ethereum’s native store of value asset and fuel for transactions, but will also be Ethereum’s ultimate source of security from its role in the [proof-of-stake] system.”
Thus, while bitcoin can be seen as somewhere between a store of value and a commodity on the “asset superclass triangle,” ether could ultimately become the first asset to be a combination of all three classes of assets: capital assets, commodities and stores of value.
“When ether’s price starts to be driven by its own catalysts, holding it as a proxy to having BTC exposure will not work as expected,” Balakrishnan added.
• Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments
• Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments || 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset: Bitcoin is a risk-asset rather than a safe haven. Similar to equities, bitcoin experienced a strong rebound this year as central banks unleashed an unprecedented amount of global liquidity. On the other hand, traditional safe haven assets, such as fixed income and cash, have done their job of producing low but stable returns, which is far from the characteristic of bitcoin.
Investors tend to diversify a portfolio of assets to minimize risk. In the risk bucket, they’ll allocate towards growth stocks, cyclicals and commodities. And in the defensive bucket, you’ll find sovereign debt, high-dividend stocks and cash.
Damanick Dantes, CMT, is a macro trader specializing in commodities, equities and crypto. He previously worked on the global asset allocation research team at Fidelity Investments.
Related:Valuing Open Source: Principles for Acquiring DeFi Projects
Where does bitcoin fit in?
Alternative assets, such asbitcoinand gold, provide investors with “non-traditional” (uncorrelated) returns. The typical alternative portfolio bucket holds assets for about 10 years, which includes illiquid investments in private equity, real estate and venture capital. However, bitcoin is tradable, which means that it ismore liquid– making it a good candidate for long/short strategies typically used by hedge funds.
There’s a new wave of institutional investors in digital assets, and they’re not your typical investment advisers. Large funds that invest in alternatives are starting to view bitcoin as an attractive risk bet in their portfolios. We’re talking about an estimated $14 trillion market in alternative assets by 2023, according to aPreqin surveyof institutional investors.
Guggenheim, a global asset management firm, recently announced it may seek indirect exposure to bitcoin. The firm’s Macro Opportunities fund may invest up to 10% of its net asset value in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) – about $497 million. (Grayscale is a sister company to CoinDesk.)
Related:Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility
See also: Damanick Dantes –4 Charts Showing Why Financial Advisers Should Care About Bitcoin
Here are four charts that illustrate bitcoin’s use as an alternative risk asset.
Bitcoin has risen in tandem with the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.After a two-year period of winding down its balance sheet, the Federal Reserve returned in full force this year to resume its asset purchasing program. As a result, the “Fed put” (a belief the Fed is always there to rescue the economy and financial markets) has boosted the appeal of bitcoin as an alternative risk asset.
The number of investor-held bitcoin is rising.Wallets that store bitcoin for the long term are less likely to succumb to profit-taking. This holding trend means that investors are increasingly taking the place of traders as bitcoin matures.
Large owners continue to hold most of bitcoin.Unlike traditional assets, the massive concentration of bitcoin holdings means that a large holder can have an outsized impact on price movement. And this is where alternative portfolio strategies come in.
Bitcoin remains in a long-term uptrend.Systematic portfolios manage volatility by adjusting positions based on price trend. One method is to calculate bitcoin’s market value relative to its realized value (MVRV). The ratio suggests that bitcoin is currently trading above “fair value,” albeit below previous extremes.
These trend systems are commonly used in the managed futures industry which has$303.6 billionin assets under management, a large sum of money that could flow into digital assets.
See also: Hong Fang –The Complete Case for $100K Bitcoin
• 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset
• 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset || 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset: Bitcoin is a risk-asset rather than a safe haven. Similar to equities, bitcoin experienced a strong rebound this year as central banks unleashed an unprecedented amount of global liquidity. On the other hand, traditional safe haven assets, such as fixed income and cash, have done their job of producing low but stable returns, which is far from the characteristic of bitcoin. Investors tend to diversify a portfolio of assets to minimize risk. In the risk bucket, they’ll allocate towards growth stocks, cyclicals and commodities. And in the defensive bucket, you’ll find sovereign debt, high-dividend stocks and cash. Damanick Dantes, CMT, is a macro trader specializing in commodities, equities and crypto. He previously worked on the global asset allocation research team at Fidelity Investments. Related: Valuing Open Source: Principles for Acquiring DeFi Projects Where does bitcoin fit in? Alternative assets , such as bitcoin and gold, provide investors with “non-traditional” (uncorrelated) returns. The typical alternative portfolio bucket holds assets for about 10 years, which includes illiquid investments in private equity, real estate and venture capital. However, bitcoin is tradable, which means that it is more liquid – making it a good candidate for long/short strategies typically used by hedge funds. There’s a new wave of institutional investors in digital assets, and they’re not your typical investment advisers. Large funds that invest in alternatives are starting to view bitcoin as an attractive risk bet in their portfolios. We’re talking about an estimated $14 trillion market in alternative assets by 2023, according to a Preqin survey of institutional investors. Guggenheim , a global asset management firm, recently announced it may seek indirect exposure to bitcoin. The firm’s Macro Opportunities fund may invest up to 10% of its net asset value in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) – about $497 million. (Grayscale is a sister company to CoinDesk.) Story continues Related: Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility See also: Damanick Dantes – 4 Charts Showing Why Financial Advisers Should Care About Bitcoin Here are four charts that illustrate bitcoin’s use as an alternative risk asset. Bitcoin has risen in tandem with the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. After a two-year period of winding down its balance sheet, the Federal Reserve returned in full force this year to resume its asset purchasing program. As a result, the “Fed put” (a belief the Fed is always there to rescue the economy and financial markets) has boosted the appeal of bitcoin as an alternative risk asset. The number of investor-held bitcoin is rising. Wallets that store bitcoin for the long term are less likely to succumb to profit-taking. This holding trend means that investors are increasingly taking the place of traders as bitcoin matures. Large owners continue to hold most of bitcoin. Unlike traditional assets, the massive concentration of bitcoin holdings means that a large holder can have an outsized impact on price movement. And this is where alternative portfolio strategies come in. Bitcoin remains in a long-term uptrend. Systematic portfolios manage volatility by adjusting positions based on price trend. One method is to calculate bitcoin’s market value relative to its realized value ( MVRV ). The ratio suggests that bitcoin is currently trading above “fair value,” albeit below previous extremes. These trend systems are commonly used in the managed futures industry which has $303.6 billion in assets under management, a large sum of money that could flow into digital assets. See also: Hong Fang – The Complete Case for $100K Bitcoin Related Stories 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset || 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset: Bitcoin is a risk-asset rather than a safe haven. Similar to equities, bitcoin experienced a strong rebound this year as central banks unleashed an unprecedented amount of global liquidity. On the other hand, traditional safe haven assets, such as fixed income and cash, have done their job of producing low but stable returns, which is far from the characteristic of bitcoin.
Investors tend to diversify a portfolio of assets to minimize risk. In the risk bucket, they’ll allocate towards growth stocks, cyclicals and commodities. And in the defensive bucket, you’ll find sovereign debt, high-dividend stocks and cash.
Damanick Dantes, CMT, is a macro trader specializing in commodities, equities and crypto. He previously worked on the global asset allocation research team at Fidelity Investments.
Related:Valuing Open Source: Principles for Acquiring DeFi Projects
Where does bitcoin fit in?
Alternative assets, such asbitcoinand gold, provide investors with “non-traditional” (uncorrelated) returns. The typical alternative portfolio bucket holds assets for about 10 years, which includes illiquid investments in private equity, real estate and venture capital. However, bitcoin is tradable, which means that it ismore liquid– making it a good candidate for long/short strategies typically used by hedge funds.
There’s a new wave of institutional investors in digital assets, and they’re not your typical investment advisers. Large funds that invest in alternatives are starting to view bitcoin as an attractive risk bet in their portfolios. We’re talking about an estimated $14 trillion market in alternative assets by 2023, according to aPreqin surveyof institutional investors.
Guggenheim, a global asset management firm, recently announced it may seek indirect exposure to bitcoin. The firm’s Macro Opportunities fund may invest up to 10% of its net asset value in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) – about $497 million. (Grayscale is a sister company to CoinDesk.)
Related:Bitcoin’s Price Is a Poor Proxy for Its Utility
See also: Damanick Dantes –4 Charts Showing Why Financial Advisers Should Care About Bitcoin
Here are four charts that illustrate bitcoin’s use as an alternative risk asset.
Bitcoin has risen in tandem with the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.After a two-year period of winding down its balance sheet, the Federal Reserve returned in full force this year to resume its asset purchasing program. As a result, the “Fed put” (a belief the Fed is always there to rescue the economy and financial markets) has boosted the appeal of bitcoin as an alternative risk asset.
The number of investor-held bitcoin is rising.Wallets that store bitcoin for the long term are less likely to succumb to profit-taking. This holding trend means that investors are increasingly taking the place of traders as bitcoin matures.
Large owners continue to hold most of bitcoin.Unlike traditional assets, the massive concentration of bitcoin holdings means that a large holder can have an outsized impact on price movement. And this is where alternative portfolio strategies come in.
Bitcoin remains in a long-term uptrend.Systematic portfolios manage volatility by adjusting positions based on price trend. One method is to calculate bitcoin’s market value relative to its realized value (MVRV). The ratio suggests that bitcoin is currently trading above “fair value,” albeit below previous extremes.
These trend systems are commonly used in the managed futures industry which has$303.6 billionin assets under management, a large sum of money that could flow into digital assets.
See also: Hong Fang –The Complete Case for $100K Bitcoin
• 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset
• 4 Charts Showing Why Bitcoin Is an Alternative Risk Asset || 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence: The price of Bitcoin is up over 150% in 2020 and the cryptocurrency has seen a resurgence in popularity, discussion and price.
Investors seeking exposure toBitcoinwithout purchasing the cryptocurrency through a wallet could consider these seven stocks that are involved with Bitcoin.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust:There is no ETF for Bitcoin in the United States, but theGrayscale Bitcoin Trust(OTC:GBTC) is thefirstpublicly quoted Bitcoin investment option for investors.
Investors can buy shares of the trust in most eligible tax accounts like IRAs. The fund charges an annual fee of 2%, which is the premium investors pay for this pure-play exposure to Bitcoin.
Related Link:Will Bitcoin Reach 0,000 By 2025?
MicroStrategy:A new way to get exposure to Bitcoin is by investing inMicroStrategy(NASDAQ:MSTR). The business intelligence company shifted to Bitcoin as its primary treasury for cash.
The company bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin in the third quarter. MicroStrategy held 38,250 Bitcoin as of Oct. 26, which is worth more than $725 million. Citron Research recently turned from bear to bull on Bitcoin andcalledMicroStrategy the best way to invest in the cryptocurrency.
Riot Blockchain:One of the pure-play companies in the Bitcoin sector isRiot Blockchain Inc(NASDAQ:RIOT).
In thefirst nine months of 2020, cypto mining revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $6.7 million. The company also improved margins in 2020. A total of 730 Bitcoin were mined in the first nine months of 2020.
By June 2021, Riot says it will have 22,640 miners. From July to November of 2020, Riot received over 3,000 miners.
Hive Blockchain:Another pure-play mining option for investors isHive Blockchain Technologies(OTC:HVBTF). Along with Bitcoin, the company is a major player in the Ethereum mining as the only public company producing Ethereum on an industrial scale.
Hivereportedrecord second-quarter revenue of $13 million. The company mined 32,800 Ethereum, 88,300 Ethereum Classic Coins and 89 Bitcoin in the second quarter.
Hive acquired a new data center in Canada to boost production. The company has also locked in 50% of its calendar 2021 energy cost at a low rate in Sweden.
Marathon Patent Group:A newer Bitcoin pure-play company isMarathon Patent Group(NASDAQ:MARA), which isinvestingin mining equipment to focus on Bitcoin.
Third-quarter revenue increased 160% year-over-year for the company with revenue of $835,000. For the first nine months of the year, Marathon had revenue of $1.7 million.
The company has invested over $72 million in mining equipment and had 2,600 miners as of September. The company plans to have 23,560 miners in operation by the second quarter of 2021.
Paypal:Digital payments companyPaypal Holdings(NASDAQ:PYPL) is increasing its exposure to Bitcoin.
Paypal isallowingusers to buy, sell and hold the cryptocurrency. In 2021, over 18 million merchants will also be able to accept Bitcoin as a payment option and won’t have to worry about the price risk with the transaction converting to currency.
Square:In October,Square Inc(NYSE:SQ) announced it was investing $50 million into Bitcoin. The move by the company helped itsthird-quarter earnings.
Bitcoin revenue for its Cash App rose 1,100% year-over-year in the third quarter with revenue of $1.63 billion. The revenue from the cryptocurrency surpassed all other sources of revenue for the app. Bitcoin revenue made up over half of the company’s $3 billion third-quarter total.
Visa:Payments companyVisa Inc(NYSE:V) is pushing into the Bitcoin market. The companyannouncedplans to offer the Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card.
Instead of offering travel miles or cashback, users of the card will earn 1.5% of purchases back in Bitcoin. The company is offering $250 in Bitcoin as a bonus for customers who spend $3,000 in their first three months.
The card comes with a $200 annual fee and is expected to launch in 2021.
Kroger:RetailerKroger Co(NYSE:KR) is another way for users to get rewarded with Bitcoin for everyday purchases. The retailer isoffering1.5% back in Bitcoin to customers who shop at Kroger, including delivery and pick-up orders.
The reward is done through Lolli, a cryptocurrency company backed by Ashton Kutcher and Peter Thiel.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Bitcoin To 0,000? Fund Manager Cathie Wood Thinks It Could Happen
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence: The price of Bitcoin is up over 150% in 2020 and the cryptocurrency has seen a resurgence in popularity, discussion and price. Investors seeking exposure to Bitcoin without purchasing the cryptocurrency through a wallet could consider these seven stocks that are involved with Bitcoin. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust: There is no ETF for Bitcoin in the United States, but the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC ) is the first publicly quoted Bitcoin investment option for investors. Investors can buy shares of the trust in most eligible tax accounts like IRAs. The fund charges an annual fee of 2%, which is the premium investors pay for this pure-play exposure to Bitcoin. Related Link: Will Bitcoin Reach 0,000 By 2025? MicroStrategy: A new way to get exposure to Bitcoin is by investing in MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR ). The business intelligence company shifted to Bitcoin as its primary treasury for cash. The company bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin in the third quarter. MicroStrategy held 38,250 Bitcoin as of Oct. 26, which is worth more than $725 million. Citron Research recently turned from bear to bull on Bitcoin and called MicroStrategy the best way to invest in the cryptocurrency. Riot Blockchain: One of the pure-play companies in the Bitcoin sector is Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ: RIOT ). In the first nine months of 2020 , cypto mining revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $6.7 million. The company also improved margins in 2020. A total of 730 Bitcoin were mined in the first nine months of 2020. By June 2021, Riot says it will have 22,640 miners. From July to November of 2020, Riot received over 3,000 miners. Hive Blockchain: Another pure-play mining option for investors is Hive Blockchain Technologies (OTC: HVBTF ). Along with Bitcoin, the company is a major player in the Ethereum mining as the only public company producing Ethereum on an industrial scale. Hive reported record second-quarter revenue of $13 million. The company mined 32,800 Ethereum, 88,300 Ethereum Classic Coins and 89 Bitcoin in the second quarter. Story continues Hive acquired a new data center in Canada to boost production. The company has also locked in 50% of its calendar 2021 energy cost at a low rate in Sweden. Marathon Patent Group: A newer Bitcoin pure-play company is Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ: MARA ), which is investing in mining equipment to focus on Bitcoin. Third-quarter revenue increased 160% year-over-year for the company with revenue of $835,000. For the first nine months of the year, Marathon had revenue of $1.7 million. The company has invested over $72 million in mining equipment and had 2,600 miners as of September. The company plans to have 23,560 miners in operation by the second quarter of 2021. Paypal: Digital payments company Paypal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL ) is increasing its exposure to Bitcoin. Paypal is allowing users to buy, sell and hold the cryptocurrency. In 2021, over 18 million merchants will also be able to accept Bitcoin as a payment option and won’t have to worry about the price risk with the transaction converting to currency. Square: In October, Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) announced it was investing $50 million into Bitcoin. The move by the company helped its third-quarter earnings . Bitcoin revenue for its Cash App rose 1,100% year-over-year in the third quarter with revenue of $1.63 billion. The revenue from the cryptocurrency surpassed all other sources of revenue for the app. Bitcoin revenue made up over half of the company’s $3 billion third-quarter total. Visa: Payments company Visa Inc (NYSE: V ) is pushing into the Bitcoin market. The company announced plans to offer the Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card. Instead of offering travel miles or cashback, users of the card will earn 1.5% of purchases back in Bitcoin. The company is offering $250 in Bitcoin as a bonus for customers who spend $3,000 in their first three months. The card comes with a $200 annual fee and is expected to launch in 2021. Kroger: Retailer Kroger Co (NYSE: KR ) is another way for users to get rewarded with Bitcoin for everyday purchases. The retailer is offering 1.5% back in Bitcoin to customers who shop at Kroger, including delivery and pick-up orders. The reward is done through Lolli, a cryptocurrency company backed by Ashton Kutcher and Peter Thiel. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin To 0,000? Fund Manager Cathie Wood Thinks It Could Happen © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence: The price of Bitcoin is up over 150% in 2020 and the cryptocurrency has seen a resurgence in popularity, discussion and price.
Investors seeking exposure toBitcoinwithout purchasing the cryptocurrency through a wallet could consider these seven stocks that are involved with Bitcoin.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust:There is no ETF for Bitcoin in the United States, but theGrayscale Bitcoin Trust(OTC:GBTC) is thefirstpublicly quoted Bitcoin investment option for investors.
Investors can buy shares of the trust in most eligible tax accounts like IRAs. The fund charges an annual fee of 2%, which is the premium investors pay for this pure-play exposure to Bitcoin.
Related Link:Will Bitcoin Reach 0,000 By 2025?
MicroStrategy:A new way to get exposure to Bitcoin is by investing inMicroStrategy(NASDAQ:MSTR). The business intelligence company shifted to Bitcoin as its primary treasury for cash.
The company bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin in the third quarter. MicroStrategy held 38,250 Bitcoin as of Oct. 26, which is worth more than $725 million. Citron Research recently turned from bear to bull on Bitcoin andcalledMicroStrategy the best way to invest in the cryptocurrency.
Riot Blockchain:One of the pure-play companies in the Bitcoin sector isRiot Blockchain Inc(NASDAQ:RIOT).
In thefirst nine months of 2020, cypto mining revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $6.7 million. The company also improved margins in 2020. A total of 730 Bitcoin were mined in the first nine months of 2020.
By June 2021, Riot says it will have 22,640 miners. From July to November of 2020, Riot received over 3,000 miners.
Hive Blockchain:Another pure-play mining option for investors isHive Blockchain Technologies(OTC:HVBTF). Along with Bitcoin, the company is a major player in the Ethereum mining as the only public company producing Ethereum on an industrial scale.
Hivereportedrecord second-quarter revenue of $13 million. The company mined 32,800 Ethereum, 88,300 Ethereum Classic Coins and 89 Bitcoin in the second quarter.
Hive acquired a new data center in Canada to boost production. The company has also locked in 50% of its calendar 2021 energy cost at a low rate in Sweden.
Marathon Patent Group:A newer Bitcoin pure-play company isMarathon Patent Group(NASDAQ:MARA), which isinvestingin mining equipment to focus on Bitcoin.
Third-quarter revenue increased 160% year-over-year for the company with revenue of $835,000. For the first nine months of the year, Marathon had revenue of $1.7 million.
The company has invested over $72 million in mining equipment and had 2,600 miners as of September. The company plans to have 23,560 miners in operation by the second quarter of 2021.
Paypal:Digital payments companyPaypal Holdings(NASDAQ:PYPL) is increasing its exposure to Bitcoin.
Paypal isallowingusers to buy, sell and hold the cryptocurrency. In 2021, over 18 million merchants will also be able to accept Bitcoin as a payment option and won’t have to worry about the price risk with the transaction converting to currency.
Square:In October,Square Inc(NYSE:SQ) announced it was investing $50 million into Bitcoin. The move by the company helped itsthird-quarter earnings.
Bitcoin revenue for its Cash App rose 1,100% year-over-year in the third quarter with revenue of $1.63 billion. The revenue from the cryptocurrency surpassed all other sources of revenue for the app. Bitcoin revenue made up over half of the company’s $3 billion third-quarter total.
Visa:Payments companyVisa Inc(NYSE:V) is pushing into the Bitcoin market. The companyannouncedplans to offer the Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card.
Instead of offering travel miles or cashback, users of the card will earn 1.5% of purchases back in Bitcoin. The company is offering $250 in Bitcoin as a bonus for customers who spend $3,000 in their first three months.
The card comes with a $200 annual fee and is expected to launch in 2021.
Kroger:RetailerKroger Co(NYSE:KR) is another way for users to get rewarded with Bitcoin for everyday purchases. The retailer isoffering1.5% back in Bitcoin to customers who shop at Kroger, including delivery and pick-up orders.
The reward is done through Lolli, a cryptocurrency company backed by Ashton Kutcher and Peter Thiel.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Bitcoin To 0,000? Fund Manager Cathie Wood Thinks It Could Happen
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Crowmining allows the ‘average joe’ to acquire Bitcoin by mining it in the most efficient and easiest way possible: CINCINNATI, Dec. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crowmining is a company based in the United States that offers an intuitive platform for mining cryptocurrencies. With the help of the company, users can purchase an ASIC mining machine, and have it delivered to a facility in Siberia where it will be set up and maintained by a team of highly professional engineers. By doing so, the end-user creates a source of passive income where his sole duty is to manage his profits. Crowmining is operated by the Elevate Group, a community for bankers, fintechs, and other individuals from the financial industry. The group created Crowmining as a mining platform for enthusiasts who wish to build a portfolio of miners but cannot do so as home mining rigs are no longer viable. Therefore, the company enables users to leverage their infrastructure to mine Bitcoin at the lowest costs. The main Crowmining team is composed of CEO and Founder Amir Ness, Co-Founder Gabrial Gutierrez, and partner Jason Appleton. Mining Bitcoin is tiresome and hard, especially for beginners. To overcome that and make the process truly available to every single person no matter his technical expertise, Crowmining decided to open its mining facility to the world. Essentially, users can skip paying bills, finding a space to hold hardware and maintain it. The platform conducts all the details necessary without any input required on your part. In fact, Crowmining only requires you to perform three simple steps after which you have already started mining Bitcoin. First, you must register and sign an equipment management agreement that will be recorded by the company. Secondly, you purchase an ASIC miner developed by Bitmain which will be delivered to the main facility in Siberia. The last and easiest step involves monitoring the mining rig through an online dashboard where you can manage your Bitcoin wallet at all times. By renting out mining equipment to users, Crowmining completely alleviates the main problems that miners today face. This involves finding a suitable space for holding the hardware, paying cheap electricity bills, and managing the hardware every single day. Crowmining significantly increases your profits by hosting its mining farm in Siberia, where electricity costs only 5.5C KwH. This figure is highly lower compared to the national average in the United States of 14c KwH. Story continues The company is a real mining platform that does not offer notorious ‘cloud mining’ services. The average cloud mining companies are known for leaving users without any funds and canceling contracts for no reason. Crowmining helps you avoid any unnecessary risk associated with cloud mining by enabling you to own the hardware yourself. All shipping, customs, delivery, and other costs are handled by the company itself. By using the platform, individuals who are interested in the disruptive world of cryptocurrencies can partake in the Bitcoin network itself by mining. As a miner, the user becomes an active member of the protocol who validates all transactions and is naturally rewarded for doing so. Crowmining offers one of the lowest-cost mining farms in the world, which is made possible by powering them in Siberia. All costs are maintained at a flat fee of 20% per month, with all rewards being distributed on a daily basis. The company offers two popular and highly efficient ASIC models. First, Crowmining features the Bitmain S19 98 T/H Miner which costs $2,399. As the second model, we have the Bitmain S19 Pro 110 T/H which costs $2,999. Both models are shipped directly to the Siberian facility and offer a guaranteed warranty lasting 6 months. To find out more, you can visit the main website at www.crowmining.com or contact the team at the official Facebook and Twitter pages. About Crowmining Crowmining is a Bitcoin mining platform that allows users interested in mining to leverage the company’s infrastructure. By doing so, it is possible to avoid the main problems that miners today face. With a mining facility based in Siberia, Crowmining offers one of the most efficient mining solutions in the entire industry. Founded by Amir Ness, Gabrial Gutierrez, and Jason Appleton, Crowmining seeks to create an affordable platform for mining enthusiasts who found home-based mining rigs to be no longer feasible. Partnered with Bitmain, Innosilicon, and CrowsnestEX, the company works hard on making Bitcoin mining truly available for everyone no matter their position. For more information, visit www.crowmining.com CONTACT: Issued By - Contact: Jason Appleton - Crowmining Phone: 1-270-875-4439 Email: [email protected] || Crowmining allows the ‘average joe’ to acquire Bitcoin by mining it in the most efficient and easiest way possible: CINCINNATI, Dec. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crowmining is a company based in the United States that offers an intuitive platform for mining cryptocurrencies. With the help of the company, users can purchase an ASIC mining machine, and have it delivered to a facility in Siberia where it will be set up and maintained by a team of highly professional engineers. By doing so, the end-user creates a source of passive income where his sole duty is to manage his profits. Crowmining is operated by the Elevate Group, a community for bankers, fintechs, and other individuals from the financial industry. The group created Crowmining as a mining platform for enthusiasts who wish to build a portfolio of miners but cannot do so as home mining rigs are no longer viable. Therefore, the company enables users to leverage their infrastructure to mine Bitcoin at the lowest costs. The main Crowmining team is composed of CEO and Founder Amir Ness, Co-Founder Gabrial Gutierrez, and partner Jason Appleton. Mining Bitcoin is tiresome and hard, especially for beginners. To overcome that and make the process truly available to every single person no matter his technical expertise, Crowmining decided to open its mining facility to the world. Essentially, users can skip paying bills, finding a space to hold hardware and maintain it. The platform conducts all the details necessary without any input required on your part. In fact, Crowmining only requires you to perform three simple steps after which you have already started mining Bitcoin. First, you must register and sign an equipment management agreement that will be recorded by the company. Secondly, you purchase an ASIC miner developed by Bitmain which will be delivered to the main facility in Siberia. The last and easiest step involves monitoring the mining rig through an online dashboard where you can manage your Bitcoin wallet at all times. By renting out mining equipment to users, Crowmining completely alleviates the main problems that miners today face. This involves finding a suitable space for holding the hardware, paying cheap electricity bills, and managing the hardware every single day. Crowmining significantly increases your profits by hosting its mining farm in Siberia, where electricity costs only 5.5C KwH. This figure is highly lower compared to the national average in the United States of 14c KwH. Story continues The company is a real mining platform that does not offer notorious ‘cloud mining’ services. The average cloud mining companies are known for leaving users without any funds and canceling contracts for no reason. Crowmining helps you avoid any unnecessary risk associated with cloud mining by enabling you to own the hardware yourself. All shipping, customs, delivery, and other costs are handled by the company itself. By using the platform, individuals who are interested in the disruptive world of cryptocurrencies can partake in the Bitcoin network itself by mining. As a miner, the user becomes an active member of the protocol who validates all transactions and is naturally rewarded for doing so. Crowmining offers one of the lowest-cost mining farms in the world, which is made possible by powering them in Siberia. All costs are maintained at a flat fee of 20% per month, with all rewards being distributed on a daily basis. The company offers two popular and highly efficient ASIC models. First, Crowmining features the Bitmain S19 98 T/H Miner which costs $2,399. As the second model, we have the Bitmain S19 Pro 110 T/H which costs $2,999. Both models are shipped directly to the Siberian facility and offer a guaranteed warranty lasting 6 months. To find out more, you can visit the main website at www.crowmining.com or contact the team at the official Facebook and Twitter pages. About Crowmining Crowmining is a Bitcoin mining platform that allows users interested in mining to leverage the company’s infrastructure. By doing so, it is possible to avoid the main problems that miners today face. With a mining facility based in Siberia, Crowmining offers one of the most efficient mining solutions in the entire industry. Founded by Amir Ness, Gabrial Gutierrez, and Jason Appleton, Crowmining seeks to create an affordable platform for mining enthusiasts who found home-based mining rigs to be no longer feasible. Partnered with Bitmain, Innosilicon, and CrowsnestEX, the company works hard on making Bitcoin mining truly available for everyone no matter their position. For more information, visit www.crowmining.com CONTACT: Issued By - Contact: Jason Appleton - Crowmining Phone: 1-270-875-4439 Email: [email protected] || Crowmining allows the ‘average joe’ to acquire Bitcoin by mining it in the most efficient and easiest way possible: CINCINNATI, Dec. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crowmining is a company based in the United States that offers an intuitive platform for mining cryptocurrencies. With the help of the company, users can purchase an ASIC mining machine, and have it delivered to a facility in Siberia where it will be set up and maintained by a team of highly professional engineers. By doing so, the end-user creates a source of passive income where his sole duty is to manage his profits. Crowmining is operated by the Elevate Group, a community for bankers, fintechs, and other individuals from the financial industry. The group created Crowmining as a mining platform for enthusiasts who wish to build a portfolio of miners but cannot do so as home mining rigs are no longer viable. Therefore, the company enables users to leverage their infrastructure to mine Bitcoin at the lowest costs. The main Crowmining team is composed of CEO and Founder Amir Ness, Co-Founder Gabrial Gutierrez, and partner Jason Appleton. Mining Bitcoin is tiresome and hard, especially for beginners. To overcome that and make the process truly available to every single person no matter his technical expertise, Crowmining decided to open its mining facility to the world. Essentially, users can skip paying bills, finding a space to hold hardware and maintain it. The platform conducts all the details necessary without any input required on your part. In fact, Crowmining only requires you to perform three simple steps after which you have already started mining Bitcoin. First, you must register and sign an equipment management agreement that will be recorded by the company. Secondly, you purchase an ASIC miner developed by Bitmain which will be delivered to the main facility in Siberia. The last and easiest step involves monitoring the mining rig through an online dashboard where you can manage your Bitcoin wallet at all times. By renting out mining equipment to users, Crowmining completely alleviates the main problems that miners today face. This involves finding a suitable space for holding the hardware, paying cheap electricity bills, and managing the hardware every single day. Crowmining significantly increases your profits by hosting its mining farm in Siberia, where electricity costs only 5.5C KwH. This figure is highly lower compared to the national average in the United States of 14c KwH. Story continues The company is a real mining platform that does not offer notorious ‘cloud mining’ services. The average cloud mining companies are known for leaving users without any funds and canceling contracts for no reason. Crowmining helps you avoid any unnecessary risk associated with cloud mining by enabling you to own the hardware yourself. All shipping, customs, delivery, and other costs are handled by the company itself. By using the platform, individuals who are interested in the disruptive world of cryptocurrencies can partake in the Bitcoin network itself by mining. As a miner, the user becomes an active member of the protocol who validates all transactions and is naturally rewarded for doing so. Crowmining offers one of the lowest-cost mining farms in the world, which is made possible by powering them in Siberia. All costs are maintained at a flat fee of 20% per month, with all rewards being distributed on a daily basis. The company offers two popular and highly efficient ASIC models. First, Crowmining features the Bitmain S19 98 T/H Miner which costs $2,399. As the second model, we have the Bitmain S19 Pro 110 T/H which costs $2,999. Both models are shipped directly to the Siberian facility and offer a guaranteed warranty lasting 6 months. To find out more, you can visit the main website at www.crowmining.com or contact the team at the official Facebook and Twitter pages. About Crowmining Crowmining is a Bitcoin mining platform that allows users interested in mining to leverage the company’s infrastructure. By doing so, it is possible to avoid the main problems that miners today face. With a mining facility based in Siberia, Crowmining offers one of the most efficient mining solutions in the entire industry. Founded by Amir Ness, Gabrial Gutierrez, and Jason Appleton, Crowmining seeks to create an affordable platform for mining enthusiasts who found home-based mining rigs to be no longer feasible. Partnered with Bitmain, Innosilicon, and CrowsnestEX, the company works hard on making Bitcoin mining truly available for everyone no matter their position. For more information, visit www.crowmining.com CONTACT: Issued By - Contact: Jason Appleton - Crowmining Phone: 1-270-875-4439 Email: [email protected] || Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights: MicroStrategy, Square and PayPal: Chicago, IL – December 2, 2020 – Today, Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights Features:MicroStrategyMSTR,SquareSQ andPayPalPYPL.
Bitcoin (BTC) mania is back. The pioneer of blockchain-currencies has surged back to its 2017 highs as American institutions start buying in. This currency of the future is now being legitimized by innovation-driven enterprises, driving the coin's price up to no end.
MicroStrategy has given Bitcoin the corporate seal of approval with its $425B investment in August and September, an investment that has returned the company $313B in just 4 months. This is more income than the business has produced over the last 7 years of operations.
You can see below how BTC has gone parabolic since MicroStrategy began purchasing this avant-garde digital currency in August.
The Fibonacci retracement I drew from BTC's August highs to its September lows (when MSTR started buying) seems to have created reliable support and resistance levels to watch. Current resistance sits at $19,475 with support at around $16,800, and if we can break into the 20,000s, the next target is $21,125.
The massive monetary expansion that the Federal Reserve employed has executives concerned about the value of their liquid capital, with future inflation expected to swell.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor made a savvy business decision when he decided to store his enterprise's liquid capital in Bitcoin. He made this judgment call in the face of ultra-low interest rates that were poised to eat away at MicroStrategy's cash reserve value. Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are printing money like there is no tomorrow and vowing to let inflation run past its 2% target to make up for the past two decades of below-target inflation.
MicroStrategy's management team feels that gold is an antiqued store of value and that Bitcoin's blockchain-driven cryptocurrency is the future of inflation-protected assets. This is a store of value strategy that I expect will be increasingly adapted through the roaring 20s.
Now fintech giants like Square and PayPal are buying up large sums of the pioneering blockchain currency. PayPal has been purchasing nearly 70% of all newly mined 'virgin Bitcoins' since mid-October and is expected to have over $30MM worth of this digital asset by the end of the year. Combined Square and PayPal are purchasing more than 100% of newly issued Bitcoin as they launch their respective cryptocurrency services.
As more institutions pile into this next generation currency, the price should continue to drive higher. Below is a list of bitcoin holdings by company provided by BitcoinTreasuries.org.
Cryptocurrencies are making a comeback in 2020, with Bitcoin up 170% while its 'little brother' Ethereum is up over 360%. Bitcoin is teetering at its 2017 high and looks like it's preparing to materially break into the $20,000s as the digital currency catches a big bid from institutions.
Investing in MicroStrategy is a good, hedged way to get some exposure to Bitcoin's resurging price. Check out my recent Bull of The Day piece on MSTR for more color.
Imagine getting in early on a young industry primed to skyrocket from $17.7 billion in 2019 to an expected $73.6 billion by 2027.
Although marijuana stocks did better as the pandemic took hold than the market as a whole, they’ve been pushed down. This is exactly the right time to get in on selected strong companies at a fraction of their value before COVID struck. Zacks’ Special Report, Marijuana Moneymakers, reveals 10 exciting tickers for urgent consideration.
Download Marijuana Moneymakers FREE >>
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportMicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSquare, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
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18699.77, 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99, 18058.90, 18803.66, 19142.38
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35, 7400.90, 7278.12, 7217.43, 7243.13, 7269.68, 7124.67, 7152.30, 6932.48, 6640.52, 7276.80, 7202.84, 7218.82, 7191.16, 7511.59, 7355.63, 7322.53, 7275.16, 7238.97, 7290.09, 7317.99, 7422.65, 7293.00, 7193.60, 7200.17, 6985.47, 7344.88, 7410.66, 7411.32, 7769.22, 8163.69, 8079.86, 7879.07, 8166.55, 8037.54, 8192.49, 8144.19, 8827.76, 8807.01, 8723.79, 8929.04, 8942.81, 8706.25, 8657.64, 8745.89, 8680.88, 8406.52, 8445.43, 8367.85, 8596.83, 8909.82, 9358.59, 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53, 9392.88, 9344.37, 9293.52, 9180.96, 9613.42, 9729.80, 9795.94, 9865.12, 10116.67, 9856.61, 10208.24, 10326.05, 10214.38, 10312.12, 9889.42, 9934.43, 9690.14, 10142.00, 9633.39, 9608.48, 9686.44, 9663.18, 9924.52, 9650.17, 9341.71, 8820.52, 8784.49, 8672.46, 8599.51, 8562.45, 8869.67, 8787.79.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-03-03]
Volume: 42386715821, RSI (14-day): 40.55, 50-day EMA: 9113.36, 200-day EMA: 8626.63
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1642.10, Gold RSI: 59.72
Oil Price: 47.18, Oil RSI: 34.93
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 3/2/2020: Bitcoin Price Analysis: There could be some trouble ahead Now the price has broken out of the short term trendline, the resistance zone is up next. The red 9K resistance line has been significant in the past and it could be again. Very close to that level is the 38.2% Fibonacci level which also is respected in the crypto world. Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD narrowing price action suggests of potential trouble Ethereum price is trading in the green by 4.95% in the session on Monday. ETH/USD is at risk of another potential fall, given the recent tight trading range. The price has been hit by the market bears for two consecutive weeks. Litecoin Price Analysis: LTC/USD narrowing range block subject to explosive breakout Litecoin price is trading in positive territory by 7.50% in the session on Monday. LTC/USD has been pushing south for two consecutive weeks, with bears in control. The 2020 gains at risk of a reversal, which has been the case since the bearish evening star formation. Image by WorldSpectrum from Pixabay See more from Benzinga Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/26/2020 Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/25/2020 Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/24/2020 © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 3/2/2020: Bitcoin Price Analysis: There could be some trouble ahead
Now the price has broken out of the short term trendline, the resistance zone is up next.
The red 9K resistance line has been significant in the past and it could be again.
Very close to that level is the 38.2% Fibonacci level which also is respected in the crypto world.
Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD narrowing price action suggests of potential trouble
Ethereum price is trading in the green by 4.95% in the session on Monday.
ETH/USD is at risk of another potential fall, given the recent tight trading range.
The price has been hit by the market bears for two consecutive weeks.
Litecoin Price Analysis: LTC/USD narrowing range block subject to explosive breakout
Litecoin price is trading in positive territory by 7.50% in the session on Monday.
LTC/USD has been pushing south for two consecutive weeks, with bears in control.
The 2020 gains at risk of a reversal, which has been the case since the bearish evening star formation.
Image by WorldSpectrum from Pixabay
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/26/2020
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/25/2020
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/24/2020
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 3/2/2020: Bitcoin Price Analysis: There could be some trouble ahead
Now the price has broken out of the short term trendline, the resistance zone is up next.
The red 9K resistance line has been significant in the past and it could be again.
Very close to that level is the 38.2% Fibonacci level which also is respected in the crypto world.
Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD narrowing price action suggests of potential trouble
Ethereum price is trading in the green by 4.95% in the session on Monday.
ETH/USD is at risk of another potential fall, given the recent tight trading range.
The price has been hit by the market bears for two consecutive weeks.
Litecoin Price Analysis: LTC/USD narrowing range block subject to explosive breakout
Litecoin price is trading in positive territory by 7.50% in the session on Monday.
LTC/USD has been pushing south for two consecutive weeks, with bears in control.
The 2020 gains at risk of a reversal, which has been the case since the bearish evening star formation.
Image by WorldSpectrum from Pixabay
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/26/2020
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/25/2020
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 2/24/2020
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || U.S. sanctions Chinese nationals accused of laundering millions in stolen crypto for North Korea-tied hackers: The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Monday that it sanctioned two Chinese nationals for their role in laundering funds tied to a multi-million dollar crypto exchange hack.
According to OFAC's statement, Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong played a role in moving money that was allegedly derived from the actions of the so-called Lazarus Group, which is itself tied to the North Korean government. Hackers supported by North Korea are believed to have hacked billions of dollars in cryptocurrency,as previously reported, in the past couple of years.
As OFAC noted on Monday:
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) trains cyber actors to target and launder stolen funds from financial institutions. Tian and Li received from DPRK-controlled accounts approximately $91 million stolen in an April 2018 hack of a cryptocurrency exchange (referred to hereinafter as 'the exchange'), as well as an additional $9.5 million from a hack of another exchange. Tian and Li transferred the currency among addresses they held, obfuscating the origin of the funds."
The particular hack in question is said to have taken place in April 2018, resulting in the theft of $250 million worth of cryptocurrency and "accounting for nearly half of the DPRK’s estimated virtual currency heists that year."
"Tian ultimately moved the equivalent of more than $34 million of these illicit funds through a newly added bank account linked to his exchange account. Tian also transferred nearly $1.4 million dollars' worth of Bitcoin into prepaid Apple iTunes gift cards, which at certain exchanges can be used for the purchase of additional Bitcoin," OFAC explained.
It's not clear which exchange was targeted, based on a review of publicly-known attacks that took place throughout 2018.
South Korea-based exchange Coinrailreporteda $40 million hack in June of that year. Other exchanges known to have been targeted by Lazarus or hackers tied to North Korea include Bithumb and Youbit, both based in South Korea, though those attacks took place in 2017.
OFAC additionallyadded 20 bitcoin addresses to its sanctions list, all of which are tied to Tian and Li.
"The North Korean regime has continued its widespread campaign of extensive cyber-attacks on financial institutions to steal funds," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "The United States will continue to protect the global financial system by holding accountable those who help North Korea engage in cyber-crime."
Separarely,court ordersindicate that the U.S. government is seeking to take possession of more than one hundred cryptocurrency addresses on the bitcoin and ethereum networks. || U.S. sanctions Chinese nationals accused of laundering millions in stolen crypto for North Korea-tied hackers: The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Monday that it sanctioned two Chinese nationals for their role in laundering funds tied to a multi-million dollar crypto exchange hack. According to OFAC's statement , Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong played a role in moving money that was allegedly derived from the actions of the so-called Lazarus Group, which is itself tied to the North Korean government. Hackers supported by North Korea are believed to have hacked billions of dollars in cryptocurrency, as previously reported , in the past couple of years. As OFAC noted on Monday: "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) trains cyber actors to target and launder stolen funds from financial institutions. Tian and Li received from DPRK-controlled accounts approximately $91 million stolen in an April 2018 hack of a cryptocurrency exchange (referred to hereinafter as 'the exchange'), as well as an additional $9.5 million from a hack of another exchange. Tian and Li transferred the currency among addresses they held, obfuscating the origin of the funds." The particular hack in question is said to have taken place in April 2018, resulting in the theft of $250 million worth of cryptocurrency and "accounting for nearly half of the DPRKs estimated virtual currency heists that year." "Tian ultimately moved the equivalent of more than $34 million of these illicit funds through a newly added bank account linked to his exchange account. Tian also transferred nearly $1.4 million dollars' worth of Bitcoin into prepaid Apple iTunes gift cards, which at certain exchanges can be used for the purchase of additional Bitcoin," OFAC explained. It's not clear which exchange was targeted, based on a review of publicly-known attacks that took place throughout 2018. South Korea-based exchange Coinrail reported a $40 million hack in June of that year. Other exchanges known to have been targeted by Lazarus or hackers tied to North Korea include Bithumb and Youbit, both based in South Korea, though those attacks took place in 2017. OFAC additionally added 20 bitcoin addresses to its sanctions list , all of which are tied to Tian and Li. "The North Korean regime has continued its widespread campaign of extensive cyber-attacks on financial institutions to steal funds," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "The United States will continue to protect the global financial system by holding accountable those who help North Korea engage in cyber-crime." Separarely, court orders indicate that the U.S. government is seeking to take possession of more than one hundred cryptocurrency addresses on the bitcoin and ethereum networks. View comments || US Treasury Department Blacklists 20 Bitcoin Addresses Tied to Alleged North Korean Hackers: The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has added 20 newbitcoin(BTC) addresses associated with two individuals to its list of sanctioned individuals.
According to an updateto OFAC’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list, Jiadong Li and Yinyin Tian are accused of being linked to the Lazarus Group, a cybercrime grouppossibly affiliatedwith the North Korean government.
The group has been accused of stealing more thanhalf a billion dollarsin crypto as far back as 2018, when cybersecurity vendor Group-IB claimed it had targeted 14 different exchange in two years. Monday’s action specifically stems from the hack of an unnamed exchange in April 2018, according toa press releaseby the Treasury Department.
Related:Iranian General Advocates Crypto Use for Skirting Sanctions: Report
According toa grand jury indictmentunsealed Monday and flagged by George Washington University’sSeamus Hughes, the two are charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and operating an unlicensed money transmission business.
A separatein rem forfeituredocument unsealed Monday shows the U.S. government is trying to seize the crypto held in 113 different addresses, alleging that the two defendants (who are explicitly named on page 21) laundered “a bulk of the stolen BTC.”
According to the forfeiture document, a total of $234 million in crypto was actually stolen, including bitcoin,ether(ETH),zcash(ZEC),dogecoin(DOGE),XRP(XRP),litecoin(LTC) andethereum classic(ETC).
Most of the proceeds from the hack were laundered through the use of “peel chains,” a term the U.S. government is using to describe the act of sending crypto from one address to another, with some portion of the funds moving to a different address than the bulk in each transaction.
Related:Iran Concerns May Be Driving Trump Administration’s Talk of New Crypto Rules
The litecoin was not properly laundered, and appears to remainat the addressit was sent to.
The defendants sold some of the crypto to U.S. customers and used a U.S.-based exchange for some transactions, according to the forfeiture document. A South Korean exchange is also implicated in the document.
A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)press releaseadded further information, saying some of the laundered funds allegedly helped North Korean actors continue hacking campaigns against other financial industry participants. The release also alleged that North Korean co-conspirators are connected to “the theft of approximately $48.5 million” in crypto from a South Korean exchange.
While the DOJ does not name the exchange which was hacked, South Korea-based Upbit reportedthe loss of roughly $49 millionin ether on Nov. 27, 2019.
The agency listed 12 addresses associated with Jiadong Li:
• XBT1EfMVkxQQuZfBdocpJu6RUsCJvenQWbQyE
• XBT17UVSMegvrzfobKC82dHXpZLtLcqzW9stF
• XBT39eboeqYNFe2VoLC3mUGx4dh6GNhLB3D2q
• XBT39fhoB2DohisGBbHvvfmkdPdShT75CNHdX
• XBT3E6rY4dSCDW6y2bzJNwrjvTtdmMQjB6yeh
• XBT3EeR8FbcPbkcGj77D6ttneJxmsr3Nu7KGV
• XBT3HQRveQzPifZorZLDXHernc5zjoZax8U9f
• XBT3JXKQ81JzBqVbB8VHdV9Jtd7auWokkdPgY
• XBT3KHfXU24Bt3YD5Ef4J7uNp2buCuhrxfGen
• XBT3LbDu1rUXHNyiz4i8eb3KwkSSBMf7C583D
• XBT3MN8nYo1tt5hLxMwMbxDkXWd7Xu522hb9P
• XBT3N6WeZ6i34taX8Ditser6LKWBcXmt2XXL4
OFAC listed eight addresses affiliated with Yinyin Tian:
• XBT134r8iHv69xdT6p5qVKTsHrcUEuBVZAYak
• XBT15YK647qtoZQDzNrvY6HJL6QwXduLHfT28
• XBT1PfwHNxUnkpfkK9MKjMqzR3Xq3KCtq9u17
• XBT14kqryJUxM3a7aEi117KX9hoLUw592WsMR
• XBT1F2Gdug9ib9NQMhKMGGJczzMk5SuENoqrp
• XBT3F2sZ4jbhvDKQdGbHYPC6ZxFXEau2m5Lqj
• XBT1AXUTu9y3H8w4wYx4BjyFWgRhZKDhmcMrn
• XBT1Hn9ErTCPRP6j5UDBeuXPGuq5RtRjFJxJQ
While thousands of bitcoin appear to have flowed through the listed addresses, the majority appeared to hold no bitcoin as of press time.
Monday’s move is the third time OFAC has listed cryptocurrency addresses on its sanctions list. In 2018, the agencytied bitcoin addresses to a pair of Iranian nationalsit accused of facilitating financial transactions related to ransomware. Last year, the agency also listeda litecoin address and additional bitcoin addressesaffiliated with three Chinese nationals it charged with violating money laundering and drug smuggling laws.
According to the Treasury Department’s press release, “North Korea’s malicious cyber activity is a key revenue generator” for the nation. The country uses peer-to-peer marketplaces and exchanges with “negligible” know-your-customer controls, and crypto stolen by the nation can be used in a variety of ways.
“Given the illicit finance risk that cryptocurrency and other digital assets pose, in June 2019 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) amended its standards to require all countries to regulate and supervise such service providers, including exchangers, and to mitigate against such risks when engaging in cryptocurrency transactions,” the press release said. “The United States is particularly concerned about platforms that provide anonymous payment and storage functionality without transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting, or customer due diligence, among other obligations.”
OFAC also deleted a number of Russian entities linked to the Independent Petroleum Company from its sanctions list in Monday’s action.
UPDATE (Marc 2, 22:45 UTC):This article has been updated with additional information, including the U.S. government’s forfeiture claim against 113 crypto addresses and the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release.
• North Korea Is Expanding Its Monero Mining Operations, Says Report
• USA v. Virgil Griffith: What We Know (and Don’t) in the Bombshell Crypto Sanctions Case || US Treasury Department Blacklists 20 Bitcoin Addresses Tied to Alleged North Korean Hackers: The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has added 20 new bitcoin (BTC) addresses associated with two individuals to its list of sanctioned individuals. According to an update to OFAC’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list, Jiadong Li and Yinyin Tian are accused of being linked to the Lazarus Group, a cybercrime group possibly affiliated with the North Korean government. The group has been accused of stealing more than half a billion dollars in crypto as far back as 2018, when cybersecurity vendor Group-IB claimed it had targeted 14 different exchange in two years. Monday’s action specifically stems from the hack of an unnamed exchange in April 2018, according to a press release by the Treasury Department. Related: Iranian General Advocates Crypto Use for Skirting Sanctions: Report According to a grand jury indictment unsealed Monday and flagged by George Washington University’s Seamus Hughes , the two are charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and operating an unlicensed money transmission business. A separate in rem forfeiture document unsealed Monday shows the U.S. government is trying to seize the crypto held in 113 different addresses, alleging that the two defendants (who are explicitly named on page 21) laundered “a bulk of the stolen BTC.” According to the forfeiture document, a total of $234 million in crypto was actually stolen, including bitcoin, ether (ETH), zcash (ZEC), dogecoin (DOGE), XRP (XRP), litecoin (LTC) and ethereum classic (ETC). Most of the proceeds from the hack were laundered through the use of “peel chains,” a term the U.S. government is using to describe the act of sending crypto from one address to another, with some portion of the funds moving to a different address than the bulk in each transaction. Related: Iran Concerns May Be Driving Trump Administration’s Talk of New Crypto Rules The litecoin was not properly laundered, and appears to remain at the address it was sent to. Story continues The defendants sold some of the crypto to U.S. customers and used a U.S.-based exchange for some transactions, according to the forfeiture document. A South Korean exchange is also implicated in the document. A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release added further information, saying some of the laundered funds allegedly helped North Korean actors continue hacking campaigns against other financial industry participants. The release also alleged that North Korean co-conspirators are connected to “the theft of approximately $48.5 million” in crypto from a South Korean exchange. While the DOJ does not name the exchange which was hacked, South Korea-based Upbit reported the loss of roughly $49 million in ether on Nov. 27, 2019. The agency listed 12 addresses associated with Jiadong Li: XBT 1EfMVkxQQuZfBdocpJu6RUsCJvenQWbQyE XBT 17UVSMegvrzfobKC82dHXpZLtLcqzW9stF XBT 39eboeqYNFe2VoLC3mUGx4dh6GNhLB3D2q XBT 39fhoB2DohisGBbHvvfmkdPdShT75CNHdX XBT 3E6rY4dSCDW6y2bzJNwrjvTtdmMQjB6yeh XBT 3EeR8FbcPbkcGj77D6ttneJxmsr3Nu7KGV XBT 3HQRveQzPifZorZLDXHernc5zjoZax8U9f XBT 3JXKQ81JzBqVbB8VHdV9Jtd7auWokkdPgY XBT 3KHfXU24Bt3YD5Ef4J7uNp2buCuhrxfGen XBT 3LbDu1rUXHNyiz4i8eb3KwkSSBMf7C583D XBT 3MN8nYo1tt5hLxMwMbxDkXWd7Xu522hb9P XBT 3N6WeZ6i34taX8Ditser6LKWBcXmt2XXL4 OFAC listed eight addresses affiliated with Yinyin Tian: XBT 134r8iHv69xdT6p5qVKTsHrcUEuBVZAYak XBT 15YK647qtoZQDzNrvY6HJL6QwXduLHfT28 XBT 1PfwHNxUnkpfkK9MKjMqzR3Xq3KCtq9u17 XBT 14kqryJUxM3a7aEi117KX9hoLUw592WsMR XBT 1F2Gdug9ib9NQMhKMGGJczzMk5SuENoqrp XBT 3F2sZ4jbhvDKQdGbHYPC6ZxFXEau2m5Lqj XBT 1AXUTu9y3H8w4wYx4BjyFWgRhZKDhmcMrn XBT 1Hn9ErTCPRP6j5UDBeuXPGuq5RtRjFJxJQ While thousands of bitcoin appear to have flowed through the listed addresses, the majority appeared to hold no bitcoin as of press time. Monday’s move is the third time OFAC has listed cryptocurrency addresses on its sanctions list. In 2018, the agency tied bitcoin addresses to a pair of Iranian nationals it accused of facilitating financial transactions related to ransomware. Last year, the agency also listed a litecoin address and additional bitcoin addresses affiliated with three Chinese nationals it charged with violating money laundering and drug smuggling laws. According to the Treasury Department’s press release, “North Korea’s malicious cyber activity is a key revenue generator” for the nation. The country uses peer-to-peer marketplaces and exchanges with “negligible” know-your-customer controls, and crypto stolen by the nation can be used in a variety of ways. “Given the illicit finance risk that cryptocurrency and other digital assets pose, in June 2019 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) amended its standards to require all countries to regulate and supervise such service providers, including exchangers, and to mitigate against such risks when engaging in cryptocurrency transactions,” the press release said. “The United States is particularly concerned about platforms that provide anonymous payment and storage functionality without transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting, or customer due diligence, among other obligations.” OFAC also deleted a number of Russian entities linked to the Independent Petroleum Company from its sanctions list in Monday’s action. UPDATE (Marc 2, 22:45 UTC): This article has been updated with additional information, including the U.S. government’s forfeiture claim against 113 crypto addresses and the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release. Related Stories North Korea Is Expanding Its Monero Mining Operations, Says Report USA v. Virgil Griffith: What We Know (and Don’t) in the Bombshell Crypto Sanctions Case || US Treasury Department Blacklists 20 Bitcoin Addresses Tied to Alleged North Korean Hackers: The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has added 20 newbitcoin(BTC) addresses associated with two individuals to its list of sanctioned individuals.
According to an updateto OFAC’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list, Jiadong Li and Yinyin Tian are accused of being linked to the Lazarus Group, a cybercrime grouppossibly affiliatedwith the North Korean government.
The group has been accused of stealing more thanhalf a billion dollarsin crypto as far back as 2018, when cybersecurity vendor Group-IB claimed it had targeted 14 different exchange in two years. Monday’s action specifically stems from the hack of an unnamed exchange in April 2018, according toa press releaseby the Treasury Department.
Related:Iranian General Advocates Crypto Use for Skirting Sanctions: Report
According toa grand jury indictmentunsealed Monday and flagged by George Washington University’sSeamus Hughes, the two are charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and operating an unlicensed money transmission business.
A separatein rem forfeituredocument unsealed Monday shows the U.S. government is trying to seize the crypto held in 113 different addresses, alleging that the two defendants (who are explicitly named on page 21) laundered “a bulk of the stolen BTC.”
According to the forfeiture document, a total of $234 million in crypto was actually stolen, including bitcoin,ether(ETH),zcash(ZEC),dogecoin(DOGE),XRP(XRP),litecoin(LTC) andethereum classic(ETC).
Most of the proceeds from the hack were laundered through the use of “peel chains,” a term the U.S. government is using to describe the act of sending crypto from one address to another, with some portion of the funds moving to a different address than the bulk in each transaction.
Related:Iran Concerns May Be Driving Trump Administration’s Talk of New Crypto Rules
The litecoin was not properly laundered, and appears to remainat the addressit was sent to.
The defendants sold some of the crypto to U.S. customers and used a U.S.-based exchange for some transactions, according to the forfeiture document. A South Korean exchange is also implicated in the document.
A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)press releaseadded further information, saying some of the laundered funds allegedly helped North Korean actors continue hacking campaigns against other financial industry participants. The release also alleged that North Korean co-conspirators are connected to “the theft of approximately $48.5 million” in crypto from a South Korean exchange.
While the DOJ does not name the exchange which was hacked, South Korea-based Upbit reportedthe loss of roughly $49 millionin ether on Nov. 27, 2019.
The agency listed 12 addresses associated with Jiadong Li:
• XBT1EfMVkxQQuZfBdocpJu6RUsCJvenQWbQyE
• XBT17UVSMegvrzfobKC82dHXpZLtLcqzW9stF
• XBT39eboeqYNFe2VoLC3mUGx4dh6GNhLB3D2q
• XBT39fhoB2DohisGBbHvvfmkdPdShT75CNHdX
• XBT3E6rY4dSCDW6y2bzJNwrjvTtdmMQjB6yeh
• XBT3EeR8FbcPbkcGj77D6ttneJxmsr3Nu7KGV
• XBT3HQRveQzPifZorZLDXHernc5zjoZax8U9f
• XBT3JXKQ81JzBqVbB8VHdV9Jtd7auWokkdPgY
• XBT3KHfXU24Bt3YD5Ef4J7uNp2buCuhrxfGen
• XBT3LbDu1rUXHNyiz4i8eb3KwkSSBMf7C583D
• XBT3MN8nYo1tt5hLxMwMbxDkXWd7Xu522hb9P
• XBT3N6WeZ6i34taX8Ditser6LKWBcXmt2XXL4
OFAC listed eight addresses affiliated with Yinyin Tian:
• XBT134r8iHv69xdT6p5qVKTsHrcUEuBVZAYak
• XBT15YK647qtoZQDzNrvY6HJL6QwXduLHfT28
• XBT1PfwHNxUnkpfkK9MKjMqzR3Xq3KCtq9u17
• XBT14kqryJUxM3a7aEi117KX9hoLUw592WsMR
• XBT1F2Gdug9ib9NQMhKMGGJczzMk5SuENoqrp
• XBT3F2sZ4jbhvDKQdGbHYPC6ZxFXEau2m5Lqj
• XBT1AXUTu9y3H8w4wYx4BjyFWgRhZKDhmcMrn
• XBT1Hn9ErTCPRP6j5UDBeuXPGuq5RtRjFJxJQ
While thousands of bitcoin appear to have flowed through the listed addresses, the majority appeared to hold no bitcoin as of press time.
Monday’s move is the third time OFAC has listed cryptocurrency addresses on its sanctions list. In 2018, the agencytied bitcoin addresses to a pair of Iranian nationalsit accused of facilitating financial transactions related to ransomware. Last year, the agency also listeda litecoin address and additional bitcoin addressesaffiliated with three Chinese nationals it charged with violating money laundering and drug smuggling laws.
According to the Treasury Department’s press release, “North Korea’s malicious cyber activity is a key revenue generator” for the nation. The country uses peer-to-peer marketplaces and exchanges with “negligible” know-your-customer controls, and crypto stolen by the nation can be used in a variety of ways.
“Given the illicit finance risk that cryptocurrency and other digital assets pose, in June 2019 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) amended its standards to require all countries to regulate and supervise such service providers, including exchangers, and to mitigate against such risks when engaging in cryptocurrency transactions,” the press release said. “The United States is particularly concerned about platforms that provide anonymous payment and storage functionality without transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting, or customer due diligence, among other obligations.”
OFAC also deleted a number of Russian entities linked to the Independent Petroleum Company from its sanctions list in Monday’s action.
UPDATE (Marc 2, 22:45 UTC):This article has been updated with additional information, including the U.S. government’s forfeiture claim against 113 crypto addresses and the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release.
• North Korea Is Expanding Its Monero Mining Operations, Says Report
• USA v. Virgil Griffith: What We Know (and Don’t) in the Bombshell Crypto Sanctions Case || Bitcoins Option Market Sees Low Chance of Post-Halving Rally: Bitcoin (BTC) is unlikely to get bid up after the May 2020 mining-reward halving , based on the way the cryptocurrencys options are valued. The top cryptocurrency is currently trading around $8,800, representing an 20 percent gain on a year-to-date basis. Meanwhile, the options market is reporting the probability of prices holding above the $8,000 mark by the end of September at coin toss levels, according to crypto derivatives research firm Skew. Related: Bottom In? Bitcoin Makes 4.5% Gain as Sellers Lose Steam To put it another way, option traders are not sure if bitcoin will trade above the $8,000 mark four months after reward halving supposedly a price-bullish event. The probability stood at 65 percent a week ago when bitcoin was trading near $10,000, Skews co-founder and chief operating officer, Emmanuel Goh, told CoinDesk. An option is a derivative that trades contacts between buyers and sellers, giving the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset at a specific price on or before a specific date. A call option gives its owner the right to buy something while a put option gives the right to sell. Bitcoin is set to undergo its third mining-reward halving sometime in May 2020. As the name suggests, the rewards per block mined will be halved from current 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. The process is repeated every four years and is aimed at curbing inflation in the cryptocurrency. Conventional wisdom, at least among bitcoin analysts, holds that the reward halving could create supply deficit and put bitcoin on the path to new lifetime highs above $20,000. Related: Bitcoin Rebounds as Coronavirus-Infected Stocks Get Jolt From Fed, BOJ In approximately 200 days (69 days unil the halving) buying [one] bitcoin will be out of the reach of 99.8 percent of the population of the earth, Jason Williams, co-founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital tweeted on Sunday. Historical data show the cryptocurrency rallied sharply in the years following the previous halvings, which took place in 2012 and 2016. Story continues While halving may repeat history by rallying in 2021, the options market indicates a low probability of a big move higher this year. The market sees a 3 percent chance of bitcoin setting a new high above $20,000 by the end of June. Meanwhile, the probability of a rise to fresh record highs by the end of September currently stands at 6 percent. In fact, the odds of the cryptocurrency refreshing market cycle tops (the high from the preceding bear market low) with a move above the June 2019 high of $13,880 by the end of June stands at merely 11 percent. Meanwhile, the probability for a September expiry above $14,000 is currently seen at 16 percent. The probabilities are calculated with the help of Black-Scholes formula, which is based on key metrics like call options prices, the current price of bitcoin, strike prices of the options, the risk-free interest rate and the time to maturity of the options. Halving is not always bullish Option market probabilities should come as no surprise to litecoin (LTC) investors, who saw the value of their holdings fall sharply following the reward halving, which took place on Aug. 5, 2019. On that day, the cryptocurrency was trading just above $100. However, by December, the price of single litecoin had dropped below $50. Its hash rate, or the computing power needed to validate transactions on the blockchain, also tanked by 70 percent in the five months to December, as reward halving and the subsequent drop in prices whitted away mining profitability. That forced small and inefficient miners to shut down operations or move on to mining other currencies. Pre-halving rally? Historically, bitcoin has set new market cycle tops in the calendar year of halving, but ahead of the event, according to Rekt Capital. For instance, bitcoins bear market from the December 2013 high of $1,150, ran out of steam near $150 in January 2015. The cryptocurrency then rose to a high of $502 in November 2015, confirming a bullish reversal. Prices then fell back to $365 in February 2016 before hitting a new cycle top $778 in June a month ahead of the reward halving, which took place in July 2016. The high of $778 reached in June 2016 was the highest price from the bear market low of $150, but was well short of the record high (at the time) of $1,153, reached in December 2013. Similar price behavior was seen in the months leading up to the 2012 reward halving. If the same thing were to happen again, the cryptocurrency would set a new cycle top above the June 2019 high of $13,880 in the next two months. The options market, however, indicates the history is unlikely to repeat itself. Currently, the options market sees only 3 percent probability of bitcoin rising above $14,000 by the end of March. The probability of a move above $10,000 in March is also quite low at 21 percent. Related Stories Bitcoin, Uncertainty and the Ultimate Narrative Bitcoin Rallies After Biggest Weekly Drop Since November || Bitcoin’s Option Market Sees Low Chance of Post-Halving Rally: Bitcoin(BTC) is unlikely to get bid up after the May 2020 mining-rewardhalving, based on the way the cryptocurrency’s options are valued.
The top cryptocurrency is currently trading around $8,800, representing an 20 percent gain on a year-to-date basis.
Meanwhile, the options market is reporting the probability of prices holding above the $8,000 mark by the end of September at coin toss levels, according to crypto derivatives research firm Skew.
Related:Bottom In? Bitcoin Makes 4.5% Gain as Sellers Lose Steam
To put it another way, option traders are not sure if bitcoin will trade above the $8,000 mark four months after reward halving – supposedly a price-bullish event. The probability stood at 65 percent a week ago when bitcoin was trading near $10,000, Skew’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Emmanuel Goh, told CoinDesk.
An option is a derivative that trades contacts between buyers and sellers, giving the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset at a specific price on or before a specific date. A call option gives its owner the right to buy something while a put option gives the right to sell.
Bitcoin is set to undergo its third mining-reward halving sometime in May 2020. As the name suggests, the rewards per block mined will be halved from current 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. The process is repeated every four years and is aimed at curbing inflation in the cryptocurrency.
Conventional wisdom, at least among bitcoin analysts, holds that the reward halving could create supply deficit and put bitcoin on the path to new lifetime highs above $20,000.
Related:Bitcoin Rebounds as Coronavirus-Infected Stocks Get Jolt From Fed, BOJ
“In approximately 200 days (69 days unil the halving) buying [one] bitcoin will be out of the reach of 99.8 percent of the population of the earth,” Jason Williams, co-founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digitaltweetedon Sunday.
Historical data show the cryptocurrency rallied sharply in the years following the previous halvings, which took place in 2012 and 2016.
While halving may repeat history by rallying in 2021, the options market indicates a low probability of a big move higher this year.
The market sees a 3 percent chance of bitcoin setting a new high above $20,000 by the end of June. Meanwhile, the probability of a rise to fresh record highs by the end of September currently stands at 6 percent.
In fact, the odds of the cryptocurrency refreshing market cycle tops (the high from the preceding bear market low) with a move above the June 2019 high of $13,880 by the end of June stands at merely 11 percent.
Meanwhile, the probability for a September expiry above $14,000 is currently seen at 16 percent.
The probabilities are calculated with the help of Black-Scholes formula, which is based on key metrics like call options’ prices, the current price of bitcoin, strike prices of the options, the risk-free interest rate and the time to maturity of the options.
Option market probabilities should come as no surprise tolitecoin(LTC) investors,who sawthe value of their holdings fall sharply following the reward halving, which took place on Aug. 5, 2019.
On that day, the cryptocurrency was trading just above $100. However, by December, the price of single litecoin had dropped below $50.
Its hash rate, or the computing power needed to validate transactions on the blockchain, also tanked by 70 percent in the five months to December, as reward halving and the subsequent drop in prices whitted away mining profitability. That forced small and inefficient miners to shut down operations or move on to mining other currencies.
Historically, bitcoin has set new market cycle tops in the calendar year of halving, but ahead of the event,according toRekt Capital.
For instance, bitcoin’s bear market from the December 2013 high of $1,150, ran out of steam near $150 in January 2015. The cryptocurrency then rose to a high of $502 in November 2015, confirming a bullish reversal.
Prices then fell back to $365 in February 2016 before hitting a new cycle top $778 in June – a month ahead of the reward halving, which took place in July 2016.
The high of $778 reached in June 2016 was the highest price from the bear market low of $150, but was well short of the record high (at the time) of $1,153, reached in December 2013.
Similar price behavior was seen in the months leading up to the 2012 reward halving.
If the same thing were to happen again, the cryptocurrency would set a new cycle top above the June 2019 high of $13,880 in the next two months. The options market, however, indicates the history is unlikely to repeat itself.
Currently, the options market sees only 3 percent probability of bitcoin rising above $14,000 by the end of March.
The probability of a move above $10,000 in March is also quite low at 21 percent.
• Bitcoin, Uncertainty and the Ultimate Narrative
• Bitcoin Rallies After Biggest Weekly Drop Since November || Bitcoin’s Option Market Sees Low Chance of Post-Halving Rally: Bitcoin(BTC) is unlikely to get bid up after the May 2020 mining-rewardhalving, based on the way the cryptocurrency’s options are valued.
The top cryptocurrency is currently trading around $8,800, representing an 20 percent gain on a year-to-date basis.
Meanwhile, the options market is reporting the probability of prices holding above the $8,000 mark by the end of September at coin toss levels, according to crypto derivatives research firm Skew.
Related:Bottom In? Bitcoin Makes 4.5% Gain as Sellers Lose Steam
To put it another way, option traders are not sure if bitcoin will trade above the $8,000 mark four months after reward halving – supposedly a price-bullish event. The probability stood at 65 percent a week ago when bitcoin was trading near $10,000, Skew’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Emmanuel Goh, told CoinDesk.
An option is a derivative that trades contacts between buyers and sellers, giving the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset at a specific price on or before a specific date. A call option gives its owner the right to buy something while a put option gives the right to sell.
Bitcoin is set to undergo its third mining-reward halving sometime in May 2020. As the name suggests, the rewards per block mined will be halved from current 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. The process is repeated every four years and is aimed at curbing inflation in the cryptocurrency.
Conventional wisdom, at least among bitcoin analysts, holds that the reward halving could create supply deficit and put bitcoin on the path to new lifetime highs above $20,000.
Related:Bitcoin Rebounds as Coronavirus-Infected Stocks Get Jolt From Fed, BOJ
“In approximately 200 days (69 days unil the halving) buying [one] bitcoin will be out of the reach of 99.8 percent of the population of the earth,” Jason Williams, co-founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digitaltweetedon Sunday.
Historical data show the cryptocurrency rallied sharply in the years following the previous halvings, which took place in 2012 and 2016.
While halving may repeat history by rallying in 2021, the options market indicates a low probability of a big move higher this year.
The market sees a 3 percent chance of bitcoin setting a new high above $20,000 by the end of June. Meanwhile, the probability of a rise to fresh record highs by the end of September currently stands at 6 percent.
In fact, the odds of the cryptocurrency refreshing market cycle tops (the high from the preceding bear market low) with a move above the June 2019 high of $13,880 by the end of June stands at merely 11 percent.
Meanwhile, the probability for a September expiry above $14,000 is currently seen at 16 percent.
The probabilities are calculated with the help of Black-Scholes formula, which is based on key metrics like call options’ prices, the current price of bitcoin, strike prices of the options, the risk-free interest rate and the time to maturity of the options.
Option market probabilities should come as no surprise tolitecoin(LTC) investors,who sawthe value of their holdings fall sharply following the reward halving, which took place on Aug. 5, 2019.
On that day, the cryptocurrency was trading just above $100. However, by December, the price of single litecoin had dropped below $50.
Its hash rate, or the computing power needed to validate transactions on the blockchain, also tanked by 70 percent in the five months to December, as reward halving and the subsequent drop in prices whitted away mining profitability. That forced small and inefficient miners to shut down operations or move on to mining other currencies.
Historically, bitcoin has set new market cycle tops in the calendar year of halving, but ahead of the event,according toRekt Capital.
For instance, bitcoin’s bear market from the December 2013 high of $1,150, ran out of steam near $150 in January 2015. The cryptocurrency then rose to a high of $502 in November 2015, confirming a bullish reversal.
Prices then fell back to $365 in February 2016 before hitting a new cycle top $778 in June – a month ahead of the reward halving, which took place in July 2016.
The high of $778 reached in June 2016 was the highest price from the bear market low of $150, but was well short of the record high (at the time) of $1,153, reached in December 2013.
Similar price behavior was seen in the months leading up to the 2012 reward halving.
If the same thing were to happen again, the cryptocurrency would set a new cycle top above the June 2019 high of $13,880 in the next two months. The options market, however, indicates the history is unlikely to repeat itself.
Currently, the options market sees only 3 percent probability of bitcoin rising above $14,000 by the end of March.
The probability of a move above $10,000 in March is also quite low at 21 percent.
• Bitcoin, Uncertainty and the Ultimate Narrative
• Bitcoin Rallies After Biggest Weekly Drop Since November || New Twitter Investor May Remove Bitcoin Advocate Jack Dorsey as CEO: Elliott Management Corp. – an activist investor owned by billionaire Paul Singer – has plans to shake up the management at Twitter. As reported by Bloomberg on Saturday, Elliott has taken a large stake in the social media messaging platform and, according to “people familiar with the matter,” has plans to remove Jack Dorsey as chief executive. The hedge fund has already nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, the sources said. Related: Bitcoin Drove Half of Square’s Cash App Revenue in the 4th Quarter Dorsey is also the chief of payments firm Square and has become a darling of the crypto community for his advocacy of bitcoin (BTC). He recently integrated a feature on Twitter that would display an icon for cryptocurrency if the #bitcoin tag was posted. Dorsey has also set up a dedicated unit within Square to work on helping advance bitcoin’s technology. Square’s Cash App offers bitcoin services, which provided almost half its revenue in Q4 2019. In his time as Twitter’s commander-in-chief, though, he’s seen criticism over his management style, with the platform failing in some people’s eyes to be sufficiently innovative and focusing instead on its core messaging service. Since Dorsey returned to lead Twitter in mid-2015, the firm’s stock have dropped 6.2 percent. Facebook’s, on the other hand, have risen more than 121 percent over the same period, as per the report. Related: Retail Investors Aren’t Interested in Crypto Derivatives, Says eToro Executive Bloomberg’s sources suggested that, with three board places to become available at the firm’s next annual meeting, Elliott wanted to be sure to nominate enough candidates to fill the openings. The investment firm has been in private talks with Twitter about its concerns, Bloomberg said. Related Stories Jack Dorsey Enables Bitcoin Emoji on Twitter Posts Court Documents Reveal More Possible Investors in Telegram’s $1.7B ICO || New Twitter Investor May Remove Bitcoin Advocate Jack Dorsey as CEO: Elliott Management Corp. – an activist investor owned by billionaire Paul Singer – has plans to shake up the management at Twitter.
Asreported by Bloombergon Saturday, Elliott has taken a large stake in the social media messaging platform and, according to “people familiar with the matter,” has plans to remove Jack Dorsey as chief executive.
The hedge fund has already nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, the sources said.
Related:Bitcoin Drove Half of Square’s Cash App Revenue in the 4th Quarter
Dorsey is also the chief of payments firm Square and has become a darling of the crypto community for his advocacy ofbitcoin(BTC). He recentlyintegrated a featureon Twitter that would display an icon for cryptocurrency if the #bitcoin tag was posted.
Dorsey has also set up a dedicated unit within Square to work on helping advance bitcoin’s technology. Square’s Cash App offers bitcoin services, which providedalmost half its revenuein Q4 2019.
In his time as Twitter’s commander-in-chief, though, he’s seen criticism over his management style, with the platform failing in some people’s eyes to be sufficiently innovative and focusing instead on its core messaging service.
Since Dorsey returned to lead Twitter in mid-2015, the firm’s stock have dropped 6.2 percent. Facebook’s, on the other hand, have risen more than 121 percent over the same period, as per the report.
Related:Retail Investors Aren’t Interested in Crypto Derivatives, Says eToro Executive
Bloomberg’s sources suggested that, with three board places to become available at the firm’s next annual meeting, Elliott wanted to be sure to nominate enough candidates to fill the openings.
The investment firm has been in private talks with Twitter about its concerns, Bloomberg said.
• Jack Dorsey Enables Bitcoin Emoji on Twitter Posts
• Court Documents Reveal More Possible Investors in Telegram’s $1.7B ICO || New Twitter Investor May Remove Bitcoin Advocate Jack Dorsey as CEO: Elliott Management Corp. – an activist investor owned by billionaire Paul Singer – has plans to shake up the management at Twitter.
Asreported by Bloombergon Saturday, Elliott has taken a large stake in the social media messaging platform and, according to “people familiar with the matter,” has plans to remove Jack Dorsey as chief executive.
The hedge fund has already nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, the sources said.
Related:Bitcoin Drove Half of Square’s Cash App Revenue in the 4th Quarter
Dorsey is also the chief of payments firm Square and has become a darling of the crypto community for his advocacy ofbitcoin(BTC). He recentlyintegrated a featureon Twitter that would display an icon for cryptocurrency if the #bitcoin tag was posted.
Dorsey has also set up a dedicated unit within Square to work on helping advance bitcoin’s technology. Square’s Cash App offers bitcoin services, which providedalmost half its revenuein Q4 2019.
In his time as Twitter’s commander-in-chief, though, he’s seen criticism over his management style, with the platform failing in some people’s eyes to be sufficiently innovative and focusing instead on its core messaging service.
Since Dorsey returned to lead Twitter in mid-2015, the firm’s stock have dropped 6.2 percent. Facebook’s, on the other hand, have risen more than 121 percent over the same period, as per the report.
Related:Retail Investors Aren’t Interested in Crypto Derivatives, Says eToro Executive
Bloomberg’s sources suggested that, with three board places to become available at the firm’s next annual meeting, Elliott wanted to be sure to nominate enough candidates to fill the openings.
The investment firm has been in private talks with Twitter about its concerns, Bloomberg said.
• Jack Dorsey Enables Bitcoin Emoji on Twitter Posts
• Court Documents Reveal More Possible Investors in Telegram’s $1.7B ICO || Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says XRP sales vital to survival: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claimed that over-the-counter XRP token sales have been key to ensuring the company is operating at a profit. As quoted in a report by the Financial Times , Garlinghouse said: “We would not be profitable or cash flow positive without selling our XRP holdings. “Well XRP is one source. I don’t know how to answer that because if you took away our software revenue, we’ll become less profitable. If you took away all our XRP, that makes us less profitable. So I don’t think about it as one thing.” Ripple has come under intense scrutiny over its token sales during the past two years, with a group of investors filing a lawsuit against the company over the alleged effect it has on the price of XRP. But Garlinghouse has adamantly defended the company on numerous occasions, labelling the accusations as “ questionable sources spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt)”. Last August he took to Twitter to publicly defend the Ripple foundation. I'm always struck by the questionable sources (i'm being generous here) spreading FUD about #XRP and @Ripple . Even more so over the last few weeks (Ripple's XRP sales, litigation etc)…. thus, I feel compelled to comment — Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) August 27, 2019 “I’m always struck by the questionable sources (I’m being generous here) spreading FUD about Ripple, ” he wrote. Compelled “Even more so over the last few weeks (Ripple’s XRP sales, litigation, etc), thus, I feel compelled to comment. “As a defendant in the class action lawsuit, I won’t get into the details (response from Ripple is coming soon). I will say: SEC guidance isn’t issued by the Commission and isn’t law, rule, or regulation. It’s clear XRP is not a security and the UK and others have said as much. “XRP sales are about helping expand XRP’s utility – building RippleNet and supporting other businesses building w/XRP such as Dharma and Forte. Reality is we DECREASED our sales by volume Q/Q and since then the inflation rate of XRP’s circulating supply has been lower than that of BTC and ETH. “Ripple continues to set industry standards in reporting and transparency (one example is our quarterly markets report). We lay it all out, and it’s not our ‘view’ but fact.” The price of Ripple has been incredibly volatile since reaching an all-time high of $3.32 in January 2018, falling to as low as $0.183 before bouncing to where it is trading today at $0.238. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here. View comments || Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says XRP sales vital to survival: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claimed that over-the-counter XRP token sales have been key to ensuring the company is operating at a profit. As quoted in a report by the Financial Times , Garlinghouse said: “We would not be profitable or cash flow positive without selling our XRP holdings. “Well XRP is one source. I don’t know how to answer that because if you took away our software revenue, we’ll become less profitable. If you took away all our XRP, that makes us less profitable. So I don’t think about it as one thing.” Ripple has come under intense scrutiny over its token sales during the past two years, with a group of investors filing a lawsuit against the company over the alleged effect it has on the price of XRP. But Garlinghouse has adamantly defended the company on numerous occasions, labelling the accusations as “ questionable sources spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt)”. Last August he took to Twitter to publicly defend the Ripple foundation. I'm always struck by the questionable sources (i'm being generous here) spreading FUD about #XRP and @Ripple . Even more so over the last few weeks (Ripple's XRP sales, litigation etc)…. thus, I feel compelled to comment — Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) August 27, 2019 “I’m always struck by the questionable sources (I’m being generous here) spreading FUD about Ripple, ” he wrote. Compelled “Even more so over the last few weeks (Ripple’s XRP sales, litigation, etc), thus, I feel compelled to comment. “As a defendant in the class action lawsuit, I won’t get into the details (response from Ripple is coming soon). I will say: SEC guidance isn’t issued by the Commission and isn’t law, rule, or regulation. It’s clear XRP is not a security and the UK and others have said as much. “XRP sales are about helping expand XRP’s utility – building RippleNet and supporting other businesses building w/XRP such as Dharma and Forte. Reality is we DECREASED our sales by volume Q/Q and since then the inflation rate of XRP’s circulating supply has been lower than that of BTC and ETH. “Ripple continues to set industry standards in reporting and transparency (one example is our quarterly markets report). We lay it all out, and it’s not our ‘view’ but fact.” The price of Ripple has been incredibly volatile since reaching an all-time high of $3.32 in January 2018, falling to as low as $0.183 before bouncing to where it is trading today at $0.238. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here. View comments || The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: PayPal, Microsoft, IBM and Facebook: For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – March 2, 2020 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PayPal PYPL, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, IBM Corporation IBM and Facebook Inc. FB.
Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:
Millennials to Drive Bitcoin Higher: 4 Stocks to Watch
U.S. stock markets fell for the sixth straight day on Thursday after the coronavirus epidemic sparked fears of a slowdown in the major economies of the world. Following this, investors rotated out of stocks to safer haven assets such as gold and U.S. Treasury bonds.
Bitcoin prices rose 1.4% to $8,902. The world’s favorite cryptocurrency rose along with other popular cryptocurrencies such as ether. While some might argue, like they have in the past, that Bitcoin is all but a fad, millennials have a different take on it when it comes to investing.
Approximately one-third of all the millennials in the country prefer to hold Bitcoin over shares. Further, a staggering 43% of U.S. millennials stated that they trusted cryptocurrency exchanges more than America’s stock exchanges.
A report by Edelman stated that approximately 25% if the country’s millennials who earn at least $100,000 in individual or joint income or own $50,000 worth of investable assets, admitted to either holding or using cryptocurrencies. Further, the report also stated that another 31% expressed their interest in using them.
Quite unsurprisingly, a shift toward alternative banking options such as PayPal and Square Cash have also popularized Bitcoins. Tech-savvy millennials who find the digital way of doing business efficient and normal choose to take this route.
Bitcoin or ‘Digital Gold’?
It is a norm to save up for the future by investing in gold and bonds, a lesson that has been passed down through generations. However, technology and money have revolutionized the way investing is done in today’s age. Millennials, who vouch for bitcoin democratization, also prefer the world’s numero uno cryptocurrency as a form of investment to save for the future.
A survey revealed that millennials are five times more likely than baby boomers to say that Bitcoin is the best way to save for the future. Such sentiments have only cemented the cryptocurrency’s place as the digital gold of the modern world.
Transfer of Wealth from Baby Boomers to Millennials
Now that it has more or less been established that millennials prefer Bitcoins for long-term savings, an increase in millennials’ wealth should only prove to be a boon for Bitcoin. A generational shift of wealth from the baby boomers, currently the richest generation in America’s history, is set to take place through the 2020s.
After living the American dream and enjoying a long period of economic prosperity, baby boomers are all set to pass on the baton of wealth to the largest generational cohort currently in America, the millennials. It is estimated that millennials would collectively receive approximately $7 trillion from their elders till 2030. This is going to shape up the cryptocurrency space over the next decade, not to mention technology.
4 Stocks to Watch Out For
As with any revolutionary technology, the Lindy effect applies to Bitcoin as well. The Lindy effect is a theory, which states that the future life expectancy of certain non-perishable things such as technology or an idea is proportional to their current age. This means that for every additional period that the technology survives, it ensures a longer life expectancy. This only strengthens the argument that Bitcoins are the future.
In this context, we have selected four stocks that are expected to gain from these factors.
Microsoft Corporationbecame the first major cloud hosting provider to integrate blockchain into its Azure cloud last year. Furthermore, the company’s affinity for Bitcoin is a known fact. The tech giant, has in the past, also launched the decentralized identity system on Bitcoin.
The company carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is based out of Redmond, WA. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 18.72% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 5.4% over the past 60 days.
You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
IBM Corporationhas been one of the early providers of the blockchain technology. Broad-based availability of the IBM Blockchain World Wire — a blockchain driven global payments network has driven the company’s performance in the past.
The company carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and is based out of Armonk, NY. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 4.30% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 1.2% over the past 60 days.
PayPal Holdings, Inc.is another bitcoin-related stock that you must watch. The leader in digital payment process has done well recently to strike a deal with three major bitcoin payment processors, BitPay, GoCoin and Coinbase, to help PayPal merchants accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment.
The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and is based out of San Jose, CA. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 11.35% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 1.4% over the past 60 days.
Social media giantFacebook Inc.is another stock worth taking note of. Facebook currently has a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-quarter earnings has increased 2.7% over the past 60 days. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 44.79% for the current year.
5 Stocks Set to Double
Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.
Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>
Media Contact
Zacks Investment Research
800-767-3771 ext. 9339
[email protected]
https://www.zacks.com
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportInternational Business Machines Corporation (IBM) : Free Stock Analysis ReportFacebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: PayPal, Microsoft, IBM and Facebook: For Immediate Release Chicago, IL – March 2, 2020 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PayPal PYPL, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, IBM Corporation IBM and Facebook Inc. FB. Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog: Millennials to Drive Bitcoin Higher: 4 Stocks to Watch U.S. stock markets fell for the sixth straight day on Thursday after the coronavirus epidemic sparked fears of a slowdown in the major economies of the world. Following this, investors rotated out of stocks to safer haven assets such as gold and U.S. Treasury bonds. Bitcoin prices rose 1.4% to $8,902. The world’s favorite cryptocurrency rose along with other popular cryptocurrencies such as ether. While some might argue, like they have in the past, that Bitcoin is all but a fad, millennials have a different take on it when it comes to investing. Approximately one-third of all the millennials in the country prefer to hold Bitcoin over shares. Further, a staggering 43% of U.S. millennials stated that they trusted cryptocurrency exchanges more than America’s stock exchanges. A report by Edelman stated that approximately 25% if the country’s millennials who earn at least $100,000 in individual or joint income or own $50,000 worth of investable assets, admitted to either holding or using cryptocurrencies. Further, the report also stated that another 31% expressed their interest in using them. Quite unsurprisingly, a shift toward alternative banking options such as PayPal and Square Cash have also popularized Bitcoins. Tech-savvy millennials who find the digital way of doing business efficient and normal choose to take this route. Bitcoin or ‘Digital Gold’? It is a norm to save up for the future by investing in gold and bonds, a lesson that has been passed down through generations. However, technology and money have revolutionized the way investing is done in today’s age. Millennials, who vouch for bitcoin democratization, also prefer the world’s numero uno cryptocurrency as a form of investment to save for the future. Story continues A survey revealed that millennials are five times more likely than baby boomers to say that Bitcoin is the best way to save for the future. Such sentiments have only cemented the cryptocurrency’s place as the digital gold of the modern world. Transfer of Wealth from Baby Boomers to Millennials Now that it has more or less been established that millennials prefer Bitcoins for long-term savings, an increase in millennials’ wealth should only prove to be a boon for Bitcoin. A generational shift of wealth from the baby boomers, currently the richest generation in America’s history, is set to take place through the 2020s. After living the American dream and enjoying a long period of economic prosperity, baby boomers are all set to pass on the baton of wealth to the largest generational cohort currently in America, the millennials. It is estimated that millennials would collectively receive approximately $7 trillion from their elders till 2030. This is going to shape up the cryptocurrency space over the next decade, not to mention technology. 4 Stocks to Watch Out For As with any revolutionary technology, the Lindy effect applies to Bitcoin as well. The Lindy effect is a theory, which states that the future life expectancy of certain non-perishable things such as technology or an idea is proportional to their current age. This means that for every additional period that the technology survives, it ensures a longer life expectancy. This only strengthens the argument that Bitcoins are the future. In this context, we have selected four stocks that are expected to gain from these factors. Microsoft Corporation became the first major cloud hosting provider to integrate blockchain into its Azure cloud last year. Furthermore, the company’s affinity for Bitcoin is a known fact. The tech giant, has in the past, also launched the decentralized identity system on Bitcoin. The company carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is based out of Redmond, WA. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 18.72% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 5.4% over the past 60 days. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . IBM Corporation has been one of the early providers of the blockchain technology. Broad-based availability of the IBM Blockchain World Wire — a blockchain driven global payments network has driven the company’s performance in the past. The company carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and is based out of Armonk, NY. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 4.30% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 1.2% over the past 60 days. PayPal Holdings, Inc. is another bitcoin-related stock that you must watch. The leader in digital payment process has done well recently to strike a deal with three major bitcoin payment processors, BitPay, GoCoin and Coinbase, to help PayPal merchants accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment. The company carries a Zacks Rank #3 and is based out of San Jose, CA. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 11.35% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 1.4% over the past 60 days. Social media giant Facebook Inc. is another stock worth taking note of. Facebook currently has a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-quarter earnings has increased 2.7% over the past 60 days. It has an expected earnings growth rate of 44.79% for the current year. 5 Stocks Set to Double Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth. Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 [email protected] https://www.zacks.com Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss . This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Facebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis Report PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin remains in bearish control despite experiencing a 3.35% move to the upside after slumping down to the $8,435 level of support. It is now re-testing the daily 200 moving average at $8,750 ahead of a potential breakout above the $8,830 level of support-turned-resistance, although the market needs a surge in volume for a major move to come into fruition. The most likely scenario moving into the rest of the week is a period of consolidation following Tuesday’s gruelling descent to the downside. Bitcoin is now trading 16% lower than it was on February 14 when it tested the $10,500 level of resistance. Another rejection from the 200 moving average could signal the start of further downtrend that will likely drive price to a diagonal trendline dating back to February 2019. Interestingly, the trendline that was used as support at the end of 2019 is in confluence with the horizontal level at $7,880, which means that it poses a predictable stopping point for Bitcoin before the end of the month. The upcoming Bitcoin halving will also undoubtedly have an impact on its price, as it has in previous years. As block rewards for miners get slashed from 12.5BTC to 6.25BTC per block, supply subsequently dries up leading to a surge in demand and a hike in price. This is why – if Bitcoin can continue trading above $7,800 – it remains bullish from a macro perspective, despite looking unhealthy in the short term. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. Story continues The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin remains in bearish control despite experiencing a 3.35% move to the upside after slumping down to the $8,435 level of support. It is now re-testing the daily 200 moving average at $8,750 ahead of a potential breakout above the $8,830 level of support-turned-resistance, although the market needs a surge in volume for a major move to come into fruition. The most likely scenario moving into the rest of the week is a period of consolidation following Tuesday’s gruelling descent to the downside. Bitcoin is now trading 16% lower than it was on February 14 when it tested the $10,500 level of resistance. Another rejection from the 200 moving average could signal the start of further downtrend that will likely drive price to a diagonal trendline dating back to February 2019. Interestingly, the trendline that was used as support at the end of 2019 is in confluence with the horizontal level at $7,880, which means that it poses a predictable stopping point for Bitcoin before the end of the month. The upcoming Bitcoin halving will also undoubtedly have an impact on its price, as it has in previous years. As block rewards for miners get slashed from 12.5BTC to 6.25BTC per block, supply subsequently dries up leading to a surge in demand and a hike in price. This is why – if Bitcoin can continue trading above $7,800 – it remains bullish from a macro perspective, despite looking unhealthy in the short term. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. Story continues The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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8755.25, 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12, 7923.64, 7909.73, 7911.43, 4970.79, 5563.71
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48, 63326.99, 67566.83, 66971.83, 64995.23, 64949.96, 64155.94, 64469.53, 65466.84, 63557.87, 60161.25, 60368.01, 56942.14.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-11-18]
Volume: 41388338699, RSI (14-day): 37.96, 50-day EMA: 59063.24, 200-day EMA: 49027.57
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1861.00, Gold RSI: 63.71
Oil Price: 79.01, Oil RSI: 44.52
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
First Mover Asia: Altcoins Surge as Bitcoin, Ether Stall: Good morning, Here’s what’s happening this morning: Market Moves: Crypto.com ’s CRO token moons on deal with Los Angeles’ Staples Center, as bitcoin stalls. Technician’s Take: The long-term uptrend remains intact despite slowing price momentum. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Prices Bitcoin ( BTC ): $58,838 -1% Ether ( ETH ): $4,226 -.49% Market moves Bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, were afterthoughts on Wednesday as a handful of alternative coins turned heads in digital-asset markets. The day’s big story was Crypto.com ’s CRO token , which shot up some 26% to a new all-time high after the crypto exchange and credit-card issuer announced a naming-rights deal with the Staples Center in California, home of the Los Angeles Lakers pro basketball team. The token was a standout performer in mid-2020 but had not attracted much notice since then. Avalanche, a smart-contracts blockchain set up to compete against Ethereum, was another winner as its AVAX token surged to a record high after a new partnership with accounting giant Deloitte was announced. Crypto analysts said the network has benefited from more than $600 million in incentives and development fund awards announced in the past few months. What about dog tokens dogecoin and shiba inu coin? Well, they’re hanging their heads these days, well off the all-time highs reached earlier in the year, with even seemingly positive news these days doing little to perk up the ears. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone wrote Wednesday in a report that the memecoins might be ready for “purging, so as to move on with the adoption process of crypto assets in investment portfolios.” In traditional markets , stocks fell as some traders worried that the fast inflation increase might push the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy sooner than previously expected, even as oil slid to a six-week low around $78 a barrel . Story continues An accelerated response by the Fed to withdraw monetary stimulus might curb bitcoin’s appeal as an inflation hedge while also crimping the momentum for high-risk, high-return assets. “Bitcoin’s long-term outlook remains bullish, but the waters over the next few months will be rough as institutional investors look to see if the Fed will be forced to raise rates sooner and trigger a broad-based selloff of risky assets,” Edward Moya, senior markets analyst for the foreign-exchange broker Oanda, wrote Wednesday. Matt Blom, of the crypto firm Eqonex, says $61,750 represents a key price level for bitcoin. Above that, prices could head back toward $65,000; below that, they could revisit $58,850 or even $56,670. Technician’s take Bitcoin Holding Support at $60K; Could Face Resistance at $63K-$65K Bitcoin daily price chart (Damanick Dantes/CoinDesk, TradingView) Bitcoin (BTC) was stabilizing around the $60,000 support level after declining about 15% from an all-time high near $69,000. The cryptocurrency is roughly flat over the past 24 hours and could see further upside toward the $63,000-$65,000 resistance zone. Both the 50-day and 100-day moving averages are sloping upward, indicating a positive intermediate-term trend. This means buyers could remain active on pullbacks given strong price support above $53,000. For now, the relative strength index ( RSI ) on the daily chart is below a neutral reading of 50, which means a period of consolidation could continue until a decisive breakout or breakdown is confirmed. Important events 12 p.m. HKT/SGT (4 a.m. UTC): Speech by Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia 6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Speech by Fabio Panetta, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board 9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): U.S. Initial Jobless Claims On CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV : Where’s Bitcoin Headed After the Pullback? MyEtherWallet Allows Users to Mint Ethereum Blocks As NFTs “First Mover” hosts spoke with MyEtherWallet COO Brian Norton about the firm’s latest initiative allowing users to mint Ethereum blocks into non-fungible tokens (NFT). Bacon Protocol CEO Karl Jacobs shared insights into the first mortgage NFTs. Plus, “First Mover” covered the state of crypto in Afghanistan and how it can help liberate women there. Women’s Entrepreneurship Day organization CEO and founder Wendy Diamond shared more details. Latest headlines India to Ban Crypto as Payment Method, but Regulate as Asset: Report Staples Center Name Change Tops List of Crypto Sports Sponsorship Deals One-Fourth of Fund Managers Expect Bitcoin Price Over $75K in 12 Months: BofA Survey Solana-Based Sports Betting Protocol BetDEX Closes $21M Seed Funding Round Shiba Inu Coin Faces ‘Reversion’ Worthy of Parabolic Rise Kleiman v. Wright Trial: Craig Wright’s Flinty 4-Day Testimony Comes to an End Longer reads The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk 2021 Most Influential 2021: Vote Now The Future of Wealth Management Is Non-Custodial || First Mover Asia: Altcoins Surge as Bitcoin, Ether Stall: Good morning, Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Market Moves:Crypto.com’s CRO token moons on deal with Los Angeles’ Staples Center, as bitcoin stalls.
Technician’s Take:The long-term uptrend remains intact despite slowing price momentum.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $58,838 -1%
Ether (ETH): $4,226 -.49%
Bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, were afterthoughts on Wednesday as a handful of alternative coins turned heads in digital-asset markets.
The day’s big story wasCrypto.com’sCRO token, which shot up some 26% to a new all-time high after the crypto exchange and credit-card issuer announced anaming-rights dealwith the Staples Center in California, home of the Los Angeles Lakers pro basketball team. The token was astandout performer in mid-2020but had not attracted much notice since then.
Avalanche, a smart-contracts blockchain set up to compete against Ethereum, was another winner as itsAVAX token surged to a recordhigh after a new partnership with accounting giant Deloitte was announced. Crypto analysts said the network has benefited from more than $600 million in incentives and development fund awards announced in the past few months.
What about dog tokens dogecoin and shiba inu coin? Well, they’re hanging their heads these days, well off the all-time highs reached earlier in the year, with even seemingly positive news these days doing little to perk up the ears. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone wrote Wednesday in a report that the memecoins might be ready for “purging, so as to move on with the adoption process of crypto assets in investment portfolios.”
Intraditional markets, stocks fell as some traders worried that the fast inflation increase might push the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy sooner than previously expected, even as oil slid to asix-week low around $78 a barrel.
An accelerated response by the Fed to withdraw monetary stimulus might curb bitcoin’s appeal as an inflation hedge while also crimping the momentum for high-risk, high-return assets.
“Bitcoin’s long-term outlook remains bullish, but the waters over the next few months will be rough as institutional investors look to see if the Fed will be forced to raise rates sooner and trigger a broad-based selloff of risky assets,” Edward Moya, senior markets analyst for the foreign-exchange broker Oanda, wrote Wednesday.
Matt Blom, of the crypto firm Eqonex, says $61,750 represents a key price level for bitcoin. Above that, prices could head back toward $65,000; below that, they could revisit $58,850 or even $56,670.
Bitcoin Holding Support at $60K; Could Face Resistance at $63K-$65K
Bitcoin (BTC) was stabilizing around the $60,000 support level after declining about 15% from an all-time high near $69,000.
The cryptocurrency is roughly flat over the past 24 hours and could see further upside toward the $63,000-$65,000 resistance zone.
Both the 50-day and 100-day moving averages are sloping upward, indicating a positive intermediate-term trend. This means buyers could remain active on pullbacks given strong price support above $53,000.
For now, the relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is below a neutral reading of 50, which means a period of consolidation could continue until a decisive breakout or breakdown is confirmed.
12 p.m. HKT/SGT (4 a.m. UTC): Speech by Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia
6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Speech by Fabio Panetta, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board
9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): U.S. Initial Jobless Claims
In case you missed it,here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
Where’s Bitcoin Headed After the Pullback? MyEtherWallet Allows Users to Mint Ethereum Blocks As NFTs
“First Mover” hosts spoke with MyEtherWallet COO Brian Norton about the firm’s latest initiative allowing users to mint Ethereum blocks into non-fungible tokens (NFT). Bacon Protocol CEO Karl Jacobs shared insights into the first mortgage NFTs. Plus, “First Mover” covered the state of crypto in Afghanistan and how it can help liberate women there. Women’s Entrepreneurship Day organization CEO and founder Wendy Diamond shared more details.
India to Ban Crypto as Payment Method, but Regulate as Asset: Report
Staples Center Name Change Tops List of Crypto Sports Sponsorship Deals
One-Fourth of Fund Managers Expect Bitcoin Price Over $75K in 12 Months: BofA Survey
Solana-Based Sports Betting Protocol BetDEX Closes $21M Seed Funding Round
Shiba Inu Coin Faces ‘Reversion’ Worthy of Parabolic Rise
Kleiman v. Wright Trial: Craig Wright’s Flinty 4-Day Testimony Comes to an End
The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk 2021
Most Influential 2021: Vote Now
The Future of Wealth Management Is Non-Custodial || First Mover Asia: Altcoins Surge as Bitcoin, Ether Stall: Good morning, Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Market Moves:Crypto.com’s CRO token moons on deal with Los Angeles’ Staples Center, as bitcoin stalls.
Technician’s Take:The long-term uptrend remains intact despite slowing price momentum.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $58,838 -1%
Ether (ETH): $4,226 -.49%
Bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, were afterthoughts on Wednesday as a handful of alternative coins turned heads in digital-asset markets.
The day’s big story wasCrypto.com’sCRO token, which shot up some 26% to a new all-time high after the crypto exchange and credit-card issuer announced anaming-rights dealwith the Staples Center in California, home of the Los Angeles Lakers pro basketball team. The token was astandout performer in mid-2020but had not attracted much notice since then.
Avalanche, a smart-contracts blockchain set up to compete against Ethereum, was another winner as itsAVAX token surged to a recordhigh after a new partnership with accounting giant Deloitte was announced. Crypto analysts said the network has benefited from more than $600 million in incentives and development fund awards announced in the past few months.
What about dog tokens dogecoin and shiba inu coin? Well, they’re hanging their heads these days, well off the all-time highs reached earlier in the year, with even seemingly positive news these days doing little to perk up the ears. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone wrote Wednesday in a report that the memecoins might be ready for “purging, so as to move on with the adoption process of crypto assets in investment portfolios.”
Intraditional markets, stocks fell as some traders worried that the fast inflation increase might push the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy sooner than previously expected, even as oil slid to asix-week low around $78 a barrel.
An accelerated response by the Fed to withdraw monetary stimulus might curb bitcoin’s appeal as an inflation hedge while also crimping the momentum for high-risk, high-return assets.
“Bitcoin’s long-term outlook remains bullish, but the waters over the next few months will be rough as institutional investors look to see if the Fed will be forced to raise rates sooner and trigger a broad-based selloff of risky assets,” Edward Moya, senior markets analyst for the foreign-exchange broker Oanda, wrote Wednesday.
Matt Blom, of the crypto firm Eqonex, says $61,750 represents a key price level for bitcoin. Above that, prices could head back toward $65,000; below that, they could revisit $58,850 or even $56,670.
Bitcoin Holding Support at $60K; Could Face Resistance at $63K-$65K
Bitcoin (BTC) was stabilizing around the $60,000 support level after declining about 15% from an all-time high near $69,000.
The cryptocurrency is roughly flat over the past 24 hours and could see further upside toward the $63,000-$65,000 resistance zone.
Both the 50-day and 100-day moving averages are sloping upward, indicating a positive intermediate-term trend. This means buyers could remain active on pullbacks given strong price support above $53,000.
For now, the relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is below a neutral reading of 50, which means a period of consolidation could continue until a decisive breakout or breakdown is confirmed.
12 p.m. HKT/SGT (4 a.m. UTC): Speech by Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia
6 p.m. HKT/SGT (10 a.m. UTC): Speech by Fabio Panetta, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board
9:30 p.m. HKT/SGT (1:30 p.m. UTC): U.S. Initial Jobless Claims
In case you missed it,here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
Where’s Bitcoin Headed After the Pullback? MyEtherWallet Allows Users to Mint Ethereum Blocks As NFTs
“First Mover” hosts spoke with MyEtherWallet COO Brian Norton about the firm’s latest initiative allowing users to mint Ethereum blocks into non-fungible tokens (NFT). Bacon Protocol CEO Karl Jacobs shared insights into the first mortgage NFTs. Plus, “First Mover” covered the state of crypto in Afghanistan and how it can help liberate women there. Women’s Entrepreneurship Day organization CEO and founder Wendy Diamond shared more details.
India to Ban Crypto as Payment Method, but Regulate as Asset: Report
Staples Center Name Change Tops List of Crypto Sports Sponsorship Deals
One-Fourth of Fund Managers Expect Bitcoin Price Over $75K in 12 Months: BofA Survey
Solana-Based Sports Betting Protocol BetDEX Closes $21M Seed Funding Round
Shiba Inu Coin Faces ‘Reversion’ Worthy of Parabolic Rise
Kleiman v. Wright Trial: Craig Wright’s Flinty 4-Day Testimony Comes to an End
The Top Universities for Blockchain by CoinDesk 2021
Most Influential 2021: Vote Now
The Future of Wealth Management Is Non-Custodial || Best Black Friday Retro Gaming Deals of 2021: Play the Classics Over the Holidays: Advertiser Disclosure: At Slickdeals, we work hard to find the best deals. Some products in our articles are from partners who may provide us with compensation, but this doesn’t change our opinions. The pandemic-induced collectibles boom has made the retro gaming hobby a lot more competitive and expensive than it used to be. As a result, game companies and retailers have clearly taken notice. Nintendo recently debuted its own classic games library as part of the new Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Further, we’ve spotted an unprecedented number of Black Friday retro gaming deals this holiday shopping season. Given the widespread availability of ROMs and high-quality emulation software nowadays, paying $49.99 per year for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription with the Expansion Pack add-on (or $79.99 per year for a family plan) feels a little bit redundant. It’s especially frustrating for many when there are currently only nine Nintendo 64 games and 14 Sega Genesis games to choose from. If you aren’t willing to pay a monthly fee for archaic games you probably owned at some point , there are plenty of other wallet-conscious ways to revisit those foundational titles that made you the gamer you are today. Top Retro Gaming Deals from Black Friday 2021 Credit: Amazon Nintendo MarioRetro Controller Bundle for SNES, NES, PC, Raspberry Pi — Sale Price: $21.52 | Reg. Price: $25.99 Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Mini Controller — Sale Price: $34.99 | Reg. Price: $65 SEGA SEGA Genesis Classics (PS4) — Sale Price: $27.99 | Reg. Price: $29.99 SEGA Genesis Mini — Sale Price: $205.78 | Reg. Price: $325.13 SEGA Dreamcast (Renewed) — Sale Price: $209.99 | Reg. Price: $219.89 SEGA Dreamcast Memory Unit, 128K — Sale Price: $13.60 | Reg. Price: $14.99 HDMI Cable for the SEGA Genesis, SEGA CD, SEGA CDX, SEGA Nomad — Sale Price: $29.99 | Reg. Price: $34.99 SEGA Dreamcast to HDMI Converter — Sale Price: $19.99 | Reg. Price: $22.99 Other Platforms NEOGEO Mini International — Sale Price: $88.99 | Reg. Price: $109 Atari Flashback 8 Gold Deluxe — Sale Price: $125.35 | Reg. Price: $188.02 Atari Flashback Classics Collection Volume One (Xbox One) — Sale Price: $26.57 | Reg. Price: $29.99 Bubble Bobble Micro Arcade Machine — Sale Price: $29.99 | Reg. Price: $39.99 CICYSTORE Retro Game Console with 818 Retro Video Games — Sale Price: $40.99 | Reg. Price: $59.99 RetroPie SD Card with 14,000 Preloaded Games for Raspberry Pi 4 & 400 — Sale Price: $49.93 | Reg. Price: $59.93 LED Arcade Controller Parts Kit for Mame PC + Raspberry Pi — Sale Price: $27.99 | Reg. Price: $39.99 Story continues Affordable Retro Gaming Alternatives Credit: SEGA If you’ve been waiting for a good deal before you dive back into the beloved games of yesteryear, Black Friday is a great time to save on legacy consoles and retro game compilations – if they’re available in retail stores. This emergent retro gaming boom may eventually lead to a wider selection of older games and accessories online and in stores, but some old-school titles can only be acquired through these “old-school methods.” Try your luck on the resale market . By definition, most “retro” discs and cartridges are long out of print and only available in used condition. While you might get lucky scouting local yard sales, there’s an even wider selection of vintage games circulating resale markets such as eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It’s easy to get excited the moment you spot a gently used copy of EarthBound, but don’t forget to do your research and use your best judgment. You don’t want to pay more than the game is worth or end up with a useless, expensive bootleg. Before you begin searching for a certain game or console, refer to price-tracking websites like PriceCharting and GameValueNow to find reputable sellers and get an idea of how much you should expect to pay. You can modify existing consoles . With a little bit of solder and know-how, many retro video game consoles can be jailbroken and modified to support extra titles, improve undesirable “old-school” features (who wants to relive trying to play a GameBoy in the dark?) and connect to modern displays. If you aren’t sure where to begin, look no further than the Slickdeals community — on a Deal Thread advertising a $20 PlayStation Classic console, Slickdealer TheBigDogz shared a handy jailbreak guide . Using your PC or another console as an emulator . The legality of emulation has always been a hot topic of debate among fans, developers and video game companies. Luckily, Nintendo’s curious new interest in reviving its old catalog is undoubtedly related to the breadth of easy, accessible emulation options available nowadays. There are still thousands of classic arcade, Nintendo , PlayStation and SEGA games that have yet to receive a rerelease or remaster — as it stands, emulation might be the only way to play these titles. While we don’t advocate breaking the law, know that it is not il legal to emulate copies of ROMs that you’ve already purchased, even if it was a few decades back. If you haven’t seen any good discounts on your legacy console of choice, give it time – and set a Deal Alert , of course. When we see a deal within your price point, we’ll notify you right away. More to consider: 12 Cheaper YETI Cooler Alternatives You May Not Know About BlockFi Promo: New Crypto Customers Earn a $250 Bitcoin Bonus in November How Fabletics Works and How To Make It a Great Deal Our editors strive to ensure that the information in this article is accurate as of the date published, but please keep in mind that offers can change. We encourage you to verify all terms and conditions of any product before you apply. || Best Black Friday Retro Gaming Deals of 2021: Play the Classics Over the Holidays: Advertiser Disclosure: At Slickdeals, we work hard to find the best deals. Some products in our articles are from partners who may provide us with compensation, but this doesn’t change our opinions. The pandemic-induced collectibles boom has made the retro gaming hobby a lot more competitive and expensive than it used to be. As a result, game companies and retailers have clearly taken notice. Nintendo recently debuted its own classic games library as part of the new Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Further, we’ve spotted an unprecedented number of Black Friday retro gaming deals this holiday shopping season. Given the widespread availability of ROMs and high-quality emulation software nowadays, paying $49.99 per year for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription with the Expansion Pack add-on (or $79.99 per year for a family plan) feels a little bit redundant. It’s especially frustrating for many when there are currently only nine Nintendo 64 games and 14 Sega Genesis games to choose from. If you aren’t willing to pay a monthly fee for archaic games you probably owned at some point , there are plenty of other wallet-conscious ways to revisit those foundational titles that made you the gamer you are today. Top Retro Gaming Deals from Black Friday 2021 Credit: Amazon Nintendo MarioRetro Controller Bundle for SNES, NES, PC, Raspberry Pi — Sale Price: $21.52 | Reg. Price: $25.99 Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Mini Controller — Sale Price: $34.99 | Reg. Price: $65 SEGA SEGA Genesis Classics (PS4) — Sale Price: $27.99 | Reg. Price: $29.99 SEGA Genesis Mini — Sale Price: $205.78 | Reg. Price: $325.13 SEGA Dreamcast (Renewed) — Sale Price: $209.99 | Reg. Price: $219.89 SEGA Dreamcast Memory Unit, 128K — Sale Price: $13.60 | Reg. Price: $14.99 HDMI Cable for the SEGA Genesis, SEGA CD, SEGA CDX, SEGA Nomad — Sale Price: $29.99 | Reg. Price: $34.99 SEGA Dreamcast to HDMI Converter — Sale Price: $19.99 | Reg. Price: $22.99 Other Platforms NEOGEO Mini International — Sale Price: $88.99 | Reg. Price: $109 Atari Flashback 8 Gold Deluxe — Sale Price: $125.35 | Reg. Price: $188.02 Atari Flashback Classics Collection Volume One (Xbox One) — Sale Price: $26.57 | Reg. Price: $29.99 Bubble Bobble Micro Arcade Machine — Sale Price: $29.99 | Reg. Price: $39.99 CICYSTORE Retro Game Console with 818 Retro Video Games — Sale Price: $40.99 | Reg. Price: $59.99 RetroPie SD Card with 14,000 Preloaded Games for Raspberry Pi 4 & 400 — Sale Price: $49.93 | Reg. Price: $59.93 LED Arcade Controller Parts Kit for Mame PC + Raspberry Pi — Sale Price: $27.99 | Reg. Price: $39.99 Story continues Affordable Retro Gaming Alternatives Credit: SEGA If you’ve been waiting for a good deal before you dive back into the beloved games of yesteryear, Black Friday is a great time to save on legacy consoles and retro game compilations – if they’re available in retail stores. This emergent retro gaming boom may eventually lead to a wider selection of older games and accessories online and in stores, but some old-school titles can only be acquired through these “old-school methods.” Try your luck on the resale market . By definition, most “retro” discs and cartridges are long out of print and only available in used condition. While you might get lucky scouting local yard sales, there’s an even wider selection of vintage games circulating resale markets such as eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It’s easy to get excited the moment you spot a gently used copy of EarthBound, but don’t forget to do your research and use your best judgment. You don’t want to pay more than the game is worth or end up with a useless, expensive bootleg. Before you begin searching for a certain game or console, refer to price-tracking websites like PriceCharting and GameValueNow to find reputable sellers and get an idea of how much you should expect to pay. You can modify existing consoles . With a little bit of solder and know-how, many retro video game consoles can be jailbroken and modified to support extra titles, improve undesirable “old-school” features (who wants to relive trying to play a GameBoy in the dark?) and connect to modern displays. If you aren’t sure where to begin, look no further than the Slickdeals community — on a Deal Thread advertising a $20 PlayStation Classic console, Slickdealer TheBigDogz shared a handy jailbreak guide . Using your PC or another console as an emulator . The legality of emulation has always been a hot topic of debate among fans, developers and video game companies. Luckily, Nintendo’s curious new interest in reviving its old catalog is undoubtedly related to the breadth of easy, accessible emulation options available nowadays. There are still thousands of classic arcade, Nintendo , PlayStation and SEGA games that have yet to receive a rerelease or remaster — as it stands, emulation might be the only way to play these titles. While we don’t advocate breaking the law, know that it is not il legal to emulate copies of ROMs that you’ve already purchased, even if it was a few decades back. If you haven’t seen any good discounts on your legacy console of choice, give it time – and set a Deal Alert , of course. When we see a deal within your price point, we’ll notify you right away. More to consider: 12 Cheaper YETI Cooler Alternatives You May Not Know About BlockFi Promo: New Crypto Customers Earn a $250 Bitcoin Bonus in November How Fabletics Works and How To Make It a Great Deal Our editors strive to ensure that the information in this article is accurate as of the date published, but please keep in mind that offers can change. We encourage you to verify all terms and conditions of any product before you apply. || A Cleaner Way To Access Crypto: Two investing themes that are popular with younger investors—ESG and cryptocurrency—are seemingly at odds. Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process, and one that only grows more so as the necessary calculations get more complex over time.
Current estimates put bitcoin mining as responsible for 0.5% of all electricity consumption worldwide. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, consider that this means bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than some entire countries, including Finland or Norway.
One ETF, theViridi Cleaner Energy Crypto-Mining & Semiconductor ETF (RIGZ), seeks to marry these two popular themes.
The fund is an actively managed fund that offers exposure to crypto-miners and semiconductor companies that use clean energy sources or have pledged to switch to environmentally friendly energy sources in the future.
The ETF also allows for the use of carbon offsets, meaning companies can pay money to “offset” their emissions rather than rely on clean sources of energy.
Growing FocusBitcoin’s reliance on fossil fuels came under scrutiny in May after Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin, just months after tweeting that the company was accepting the cryptocurrency as payment.
There has also been much speculation about how China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining and transactions could affect bitcoin mining’s reliance on fossil fuels.
According to Cameron Collins, CFA, investment analyst at Viridi funds, China’s reliance on coal was part of the impetus for the fund.“Bitcoin mining is an enormous waste of energy. There are a lot of Chinese operators historically that were deriving their energy from coal and other dirty energies,” he said. “We saw an opportunity in the marketplace to align ESG values with cryptocurrency mining.”
While the fund’s track record is only a few months long, performance since the July 2021 launch has been impressive.
RIGZ has nearly doubled the return of theAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), which is currently the only blockchain-related ETF to have over $1 billion in AUM.
Diversification Vs. Concentration
RIGZ is heavily concentrated, with only 19 holdings within the ETF, the majority of which are also found within BLOK. But BLOK’s broader mandate lends itself to more diversification and less single-stock risk.
Michael Venuto, portfolio manager on the BLOK ETF, notes that “BLOK is focused on all segments of blockchain companies including miners, transactions, venture, private blockchain applications, conglomerates, and exposure to bitcoin through the Canadian spot ETFs. Generally we have up to 25% in each segment, and approximately 5-6% in any single holding.”These differences in portfolio construction are clearly seen by using theETF Comparison Tool.
Courtesy of FactSet
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
RIGZ’s top holding, Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., has gained 86.3% in the trailing three months. And its second largest holding, Hut 8 Mining Corp., is up 124.0% over the same time period.
While concentration within these names has been an advantage for RIGZ over recent months, ETFs that have highsingle-stock riskcould see this work against them if performance of these larger holdings faces a rough patch.
Growing Pressure
China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining has shifted more mining operations onto U.S. soil. This is creating headaches for some utilities companies.
Idaho Power is asking the Idaho Public Utilities Commission to create a new customer class for commercial and industrial cryptocurrency mining operations. The utility company argues that the high energy demands of the activity could lead to the need for new gas plants or solar farms to keep up with the increased demand.
While this is a problem that can’t be solved by changing the source of the energy, the utility company’s proposition of a new customer class does underscore the high energy demands of industrial mining operations.
With climate riska growing concernfor many, RIGZ’s focus on mining fueled by clean energy could be a more palatable way for green-minded investors to get access to these types of investments.
Contact Jessica Ferringer [email protected] follow her onTwitter
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• VanEck Adds Bitcoin Futures ETF
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• 13th Week Of Inflows For Crypto Funds
Permalink| © Copyright 2021ETF.com.All rights reserved || A Cleaner Way To Access Crypto: Two investing themes that are popular with younger investors—ESG and cryptocurrency—are seemingly at odds. Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process, and one that only grows more so as the necessary calculations get more complex over time. Current estimates put bitcoin mining as responsible for 0.5% of all electricity consumption worldwide. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, consider that this means bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than some entire countries, including Finland or Norway. One ETF, the Viridi Cleaner Energy Crypto-Mining & Semiconductor ETF (RIGZ) , seeks to marry these two popular themes. The fund is an actively managed fund that offers exposure to crypto-miners and semiconductor companies that use clean energy sources or have pledged to switch to environmentally friendly energy sources in the future. The ETF also allows for the use of carbon offsets, meaning companies can pay money to “offset” their emissions rather than rely on clean sources of energy. Growing Focus Bitcoin’s reliance on fossil fuels came under scrutiny in May after Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin, just months after tweeting that the company was accepting the cryptocurrency as payment. There has also been much speculation about how China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining and transactions could affect bitcoin mining’s reliance on fossil fuels. According to Cameron Collins, CFA, investment analyst at Viridi funds, China’s reliance on coal was part of the impetus for the fund. “Bitcoin mining is an enormous waste of energy. There are a lot of Chinese operators historically that were deriving their energy from coal and other dirty energies,” he said. “We saw an opportunity in the marketplace to align ESG values with cryptocurrency mining.” While the fund’s track record is only a few months long, performance since the July 2021 launch has been impressive. RIGZ has nearly doubled the return of the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) , which is currently the only blockchain-related ETF to have over $1 billion in AUM. Story continues Diversification Vs. Concentration RIGZ is heavily concentrated, with only 19 holdings within the ETF, the majority of which are also found within BLOK. But BLOK’s broader mandate lends itself to more diversification and less single-stock risk. Michael Venuto, portfolio manager on the BLOK ETF, notes that “BLOK is focused on all segments of blockchain companies including miners, transactions, venture, private blockchain applications, conglomerates, and exposure to bitcoin through the Canadian spot ETFs. Generally we have up to 25% in each segment, and approximately 5-6% in any single holding.” These differences in portfolio construction are clearly seen by using the ETF Comparison Tool . RIGZ Vs BLOK Courtesy of FactSet (For a larger view, click on the image above) RIGZ’s top holding, Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., has gained 86.3% in the trailing three months. And its second largest holding, Hut 8 Mining Corp., is up 124.0% over the same time period. While concentration within these names has been an advantage for RIGZ over recent months, ETFs that have high single-stock risk could see this work against them if performance of these larger holdings faces a rough patch. Growing Pressure China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining has shifted more mining operations onto U.S. soil. This is creating headaches for some utilities companies. Idaho Power is asking the Idaho Public Utilities Commission to create a new customer class for commercial and industrial cryptocurrency mining operations. The utility company argues that the high energy demands of the activity could lead to the need for new gas plants or solar farms to keep up with the increased demand. While this is a problem that can’t be solved by changing the source of the energy, the utility company’s proposition of a new customer class does underscore the high energy demands of industrial mining operations. With climate risk a growing concern for many, RIGZ’s focus on mining fueled by clean energy could be a more palatable way for green-minded investors to get access to these types of investments. Contact Jessica Ferringer at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter Recommended Stories Global X Rolls Out Dual-Asset Bitcoin ETF VanEck Adds Bitcoin Futures ETF Hot Reads: China Cracks Down Again On Crypto 13th Week Of Inflows For Crypto Funds Permalink | © Copyright 2021 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Deal Alert: Starbucks Offering Free Reusable Red Cups on November 18 Only: Starbucks continues its four-year holiday tradition with afestive red reusable to-go cupfor 2021. The limited-edition cup will be available for free only on Thursday, Nov. 18 to customers who order a handcrafted holiday or fall beverage, according to the Starbucks website.
See:Starbucks’ Holiday Hours for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s DayCompare:Here Are the Best and Worst Deals at Starbucks
Best of all, the offer is good for pick-up or delivery orders, whether you order through mobile and pick up your beverage in-store or at the curb, indoor dining where available or even UberEats delivery.
“The reusable red cup has become a tradition for customers each holiday season and is a step towards reducing single-use cup waste as we work towards our planet-positive goals,” Starbucks chief marketing officer Brady Brewer said in a news release on the Starbucks site.
Starbucks, Best Buy and More:Using the Bakkt App To Pay With Bitcoin
This year’s cup, celebrating Starbucks’ 50th anniversary, is manufactured from 50% recycled content. It features a holiday gift theme with “playful swirls of shimmering ribbon dancing against a starry sky.”
The only question remaining is: What will fill your complimentary Starbucks holiday cup?
Options include the new Iced Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte, along with several classic seasonal favorites like:
• Apple Crisp Macchiato
• Caramel Brulee Latte
• Chestnut Praline Latte
• Hot Chocolate
• Irish Cream Cold Brew
• Pumpkin Spice Latte
• Toasted White Hot Chocolate
• Toasted White Chocolate Mocha
The offer is good only while supplies last at Starbucks locations, and brewed coffee selections like Starbucks Christmas Blend and Christmas Starbucks Reserve are not included.
Learn:Starbucks & Costco Announce Wage Raises Amid Continued Labor Market CrisisFind:How Much Would You Have Today If You Invested Your Coffee Money in Starbucks IPO?
When you use your cup on future purchases, you’ll receive 10 cents off your order, so you cankeep the festive spirit going all year long.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Deal Alert: Starbucks Offering Free Reusable Red Cups on November 18 Only || Deal Alert: Starbucks Offering Free Reusable Red Cups on November 18 Only: anilbolukbas / iStock.com Starbucks continues its four-year holiday tradition with a festive red reusable to-go cup for 2021. The limited-edition cup will be available for free only on Thursday, Nov. 18 to customers who order a handcrafted holiday or fall beverage, according to the Starbucks website. See: Starbucks’ Holiday Hours for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Compare: Here Are the Best and Worst Deals at Starbucks Best of all, the offer is good for pick-up or delivery orders, whether you order through mobile and pick up your beverage in-store or at the curb, indoor dining where available or even UberEats delivery. “The reusable red cup has become a tradition for customers each holiday season and is a step towards reducing single-use cup waste as we work towards our planet-positive goals,” Starbucks chief marketing officer Brady Brewer said in a news release on the Starbucks site. Starbucks, Best Buy and More: Using the Bakkt App To Pay With Bitcoin This year’s cup, celebrating Starbucks’ 50th anniversary, is manufactured from 50% recycled content. It features a holiday gift theme with “playful swirls of shimmering ribbon dancing against a starry sky.” The only question remaining is: What will fill your complimentary Starbucks holiday cup? Options include the new Iced Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte, along with several classic seasonal favorites like: Apple Crisp Macchiato Caramel Brulee Latte Chestnut Praline Latte Hot Chocolate Irish Cream Cold Brew Pumpkin Spice Latte Toasted White Hot Chocolate Toasted White Chocolate Mocha The offer is good only while supplies last at Starbucks locations, and brewed coffee selections like Starbucks Christmas Blend and Christmas Starbucks Reserve are not included. Learn: Starbucks & Costco Announce Wage Raises Amid Continued Labor Market Crisis Find: How Much Would You Have Today If You Invested Your Coffee Money in Starbucks IPO? When you use your cup on future purchases, you’ll receive 10 cents off your order, so you can keep the festive spirit going all year long . Story continues More From GOBankingRates Find Out Who Made GOBankingRates’ Best Credit Cards Lists and Get Helpful Tips 10 Reasons You Should Claim Social Security Early 5 Reasons Why You Need a Cash-Back Card in Your Wallet Should You Refinance Now With the Low Mortgage Rates? This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Deal Alert: Starbucks Offering Free Reusable Red Cups on November 18 Only || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Pullback Pauses as Traders Reduce Leverage: Bitcoin’s price continued to stabilize around $60,000 on Wednesday after dropping nearly 15% from an all-time high near $69,000. Some analysts remain bullish on BTC’s price due to improving blockchain data, suggesting the current pullback could be short-lived. “The drop seems to be related to excessive leverage in the system being flushed out,” Jan Wuestenfeld, an analyst at CryptoQuant wrote in a blog post . “As long as on-chain fundamentals do not change on these price corrections, the medium-term outlook remains bullish,” Wuestenfield wrote. Technical indicators show a positive upward trend for BTC, which means buyers could remain active on pullbacks. Still, the $63,000-$65,000 price zone could limit further upside over the short term. Latest Prices Bitcoin (BTC): $60,374, +0.85% Ether (ETH): $4,257, +1.17% S&P 500: $4,688, -0.26% Gold: $1,866, +0.88% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.59% Leveraged liquidations The chart below shows elevated funding rates (the cost of holding long positions in the perpetual futures listed on major exchanges) in bitcoin and ether. The recent rise in funding rates indicated a greater appetite for leverage among traders, some of whom became vulnerable to liquidations as prices dropped. As markets stabilize around current levels, funding rates have reset back near neutral territory, according to Joo Kian , an analyst at Delphi Digital, a crypto research firm. Bitcoin and ether funding rates (Delphi Digital) “Prior to this, open interest was at peak levels for most trading pairs; typically, flushing out excessive leverage is healthy for markets over the longer term,” Kian wrote. Separately, in the bitcoin options market, open interest (contracts that have been traded but not yet liquidated by an offsetting trade) is near all-time highs last seen during March and April, which preceded a significant price drop. It is possible that open interest can remain around current levels for another month before a sustained downturn in BTC’s price. Bitcoin options open interest (Glassnode) Altcoin roundup Avalanche’s AVAX token surges to all-time high: AVAX is up 85% in the past 30 days, pushing its market capitalization to $23 billion. Avalanche founder and Ava Labs CEO Emin Gun Sirer said Tuesday his company will be partnering with “Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte “to build more-efficient disaster relief platforms using the Avalanche blockchain,” which may have propelled the latest leg up in the AVAX coin price, CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma reported . Oasis launches $160M ecosystem fund: The layer 1 project, long in development, is finally preparing for prime time, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurman reported . The fund will be used to seed early-stage projects building on Oasis, including “[decentralized finance], NFTs [non-fungible tokens], metaverse, data tokenization, data DAO, data governance” and other projects. KuCoin Labs launches $100M fund for metaverse projects: The KuCoin Metaverse fund will invest in gaming and NFT projects, CoinDesk’s Tanzeel Akhtar reported . The metaverse is a space generated by the convergence of virtual worlds, augmented reality and internet services. Story continues Relevant news ECB Sounds Alarm Over Linkages Between Stablecoins and Conventional Financial Markets Some Chinese Crypto News Sites Appear to Go Dark as Crackdown Continues SEC Reportedly Looking Into BlockFi’s Crypto Yield Products LA’s Iconic Staples Center to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena Other markets Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): Polygon (MATIC): +6.73% Polkadot (DOT): +3.00% Aave (AAVE): +2.40% Notable losers: Algorand (ALGO): -2.33% Litecoin (LTC): -2.24% Cardano (ADA): -1.59% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Pullback Pauses as Traders Reduce Leverage: Bitcoin’s price continued to stabilize around $60,000 on Wednesday after dropping nearly 15% from an all-time high near $69,000. Some analysts remain bullish on BTC’s price due to improving blockchain data, suggesting the current pullback could be short-lived.
“The drop seems to be related to excessiveleveragein the system being flushed out,” Jan Wuestenfeld, an analyst at CryptoQuant wrote in ablog post. “As long as on-chain fundamentals do not change on these price corrections, the medium-term outlook remains bullish,” Wuestenfield wrote.
Technical indicators show apositive upward trendfor BTC, which means buyers could remain active on pullbacks. Still, the $63,000-$65,000 price zone could limit further upside over the short term.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $60,374, +0.85%
• Ether (ETH): $4,257, +1.17%
• S&P 500: $4,688, -0.26%
• Gold: $1,866, +0.88%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.59%
The chart below shows elevated funding rates (the cost of holding long positions in the perpetual futures listed on major exchanges) in bitcoin and ether. The recent rise in funding rates indicated a greater appetite for leverage among traders, some of whom became vulnerable to liquidations as prices dropped.
As markets stabilize around current levels, funding rates have reset back near neutral territory, according toJoo Kian, an analyst at Delphi Digital, a crypto research firm.
“Prior to this, open interest was at peak levels for most trading pairs; typically, flushing out excessive leverage is healthy for markets over the longer term,” Kian wrote.
Separately, in the bitcoin options market, open interest (contracts that have been traded but not yet liquidated by an offsetting trade) is near all-time highs last seen during March and April, which preceded a significant price drop. It is possible that open interest can remain around current levels for another month before a sustained downturn in BTC’s price.
• Avalanche’s AVAX token surges to all-time high:AVAX is up 85% in the past 30 days, pushing its market capitalization to $23 billion. Avalanche founder and Ava Labs CEO Emin Gun SirersaidTuesday his company will be partnering with “Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte “to build more-efficient disaster relief platforms using the Avalanche blockchain,” which may have propelled the latest leg up in the AVAX coin price, CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesmareported.
• Oasis launches $160M ecosystem fund:The layer 1 project, long in development, is finally preparing for prime time, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurmanreported. The fund will be used to seed early-stage projects building on Oasis, including “[decentralized finance], NFTs [non-fungible tokens], metaverse, data tokenization, data DAO, data governance” and other projects.
• KuCoin Labs launches $100M fund for metaverse projects:The KuCoin Metaverse fund will invest in gaming and NFT projects, CoinDesk’s Tanzeel Akhtarreported. Themetaverseis a space generated by the convergence of virtual worlds, augmented reality and internet services.
• ECB Sounds Alarm Over Linkages Between Stablecoins and Conventional Financial Markets
• Some Chinese Crypto News Sites Appear to Go Dark as Crackdown Continues
• SEC Reportedly Looking Into BlockFi’s Crypto Yield Products
• LA’s Iconic Staples Center to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena
Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Polygon (MATIC): +6.73%
• Polkadot (DOT): +3.00%
• Aave (AAVE): +2.40%
Notable losers:
• Algorand (ALGO): -2.33%
• Litecoin (LTC): -2.24%
• Cardano (ADA): -1.59% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Pullback Pauses as Traders Reduce Leverage: Bitcoin’s price continued to stabilize around $60,000 on Wednesday after dropping nearly 15% from an all-time high near $69,000. Some analysts remain bullish on BTC’s price due to improving blockchain data, suggesting the current pullback could be short-lived.
“The drop seems to be related to excessiveleveragein the system being flushed out,” Jan Wuestenfeld, an analyst at CryptoQuant wrote in ablog post. “As long as on-chain fundamentals do not change on these price corrections, the medium-term outlook remains bullish,” Wuestenfield wrote.
Technical indicators show apositive upward trendfor BTC, which means buyers could remain active on pullbacks. Still, the $63,000-$65,000 price zone could limit further upside over the short term.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $60,374, +0.85%
• Ether (ETH): $4,257, +1.17%
• S&P 500: $4,688, -0.26%
• Gold: $1,866, +0.88%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.59%
The chart below shows elevated funding rates (the cost of holding long positions in the perpetual futures listed on major exchanges) in bitcoin and ether. The recent rise in funding rates indicated a greater appetite for leverage among traders, some of whom became vulnerable to liquidations as prices dropped.
As markets stabilize around current levels, funding rates have reset back near neutral territory, according toJoo Kian, an analyst at Delphi Digital, a crypto research firm.
“Prior to this, open interest was at peak levels for most trading pairs; typically, flushing out excessive leverage is healthy for markets over the longer term,” Kian wrote.
Separately, in the bitcoin options market, open interest (contracts that have been traded but not yet liquidated by an offsetting trade) is near all-time highs last seen during March and April, which preceded a significant price drop. It is possible that open interest can remain around current levels for another month before a sustained downturn in BTC’s price.
• Avalanche’s AVAX token surges to all-time high:AVAX is up 85% in the past 30 days, pushing its market capitalization to $23 billion. Avalanche founder and Ava Labs CEO Emin Gun SirersaidTuesday his company will be partnering with “Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte “to build more-efficient disaster relief platforms using the Avalanche blockchain,” which may have propelled the latest leg up in the AVAX coin price, CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesmareported.
• Oasis launches $160M ecosystem fund:The layer 1 project, long in development, is finally preparing for prime time, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurmanreported. The fund will be used to seed early-stage projects building on Oasis, including “[decentralized finance], NFTs [non-fungible tokens], metaverse, data tokenization, data DAO, data governance” and other projects.
• KuCoin Labs launches $100M fund for metaverse projects:The KuCoin Metaverse fund will invest in gaming and NFT projects, CoinDesk’s Tanzeel Akhtarreported. Themetaverseis a space generated by the convergence of virtual worlds, augmented reality and internet services.
• ECB Sounds Alarm Over Linkages Between Stablecoins and Conventional Financial Markets
• Some Chinese Crypto News Sites Appear to Go Dark as Crackdown Continues
• SEC Reportedly Looking Into BlockFi’s Crypto Yield Products
• LA’s Iconic Staples Center to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena
Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Polygon (MATIC): +6.73%
• Polkadot (DOT): +3.00%
• Aave (AAVE): +2.40%
Notable losers:
• Algorand (ALGO): -2.33%
• Litecoin (LTC): -2.24%
• Cardano (ADA): -1.59% || Stock Market Today: Stocks Slip Despite Slew of Sturdy Retail Earnings: TJMaxx/HomeGoods cart Getty Images A day after the U.S. Commerce Department released better-than-expected retail sales data , corporate America followed up with a number of encouraging retail-industry reports. T.J. Maxx parent TJX Companies' ( TJX , +5.8%) stock popped Wednesday after the off-price retailer delivered plenty of good news: Namely, third-quarter revenue and earnings beat Wall Street estimates, same-store sales jumped 12.7%, and the company signaled that supply-chain issues won't be a concern heading into the holiday season. SEE MORE 13 Consumer Stocks for the Holiday Season "We are in an excellent inventory position, with most of the product needed for the holiday season either on hand or scheduled to arrive at our stores and online in time for the holidays," CEO Ernie Herrman says. CFRA analyst Zachary Warring reiterated his Strong Buy rating on TJX shares, and raised his 12-month price target to $93 per share from $85. "The company increased its store count by 19 in the quarter, returned $1.1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, and raised its outlook for share repurchases for fiscal 2022 by $500 million," he says. "We see TJX well-positioned as consumer confidence drops, inflation continues to hit consumers' pockets, and government stimulus and savings fade." Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Home improvement chain Lowe's ( LOW , +0.4%) saw a more modest stock gain despite the retailer easily clearing top- and bottom-line estimates and raising its full-year revenue estimate to $95 billion from $92 billion previously. Meanwhile, shares in discounter Target ( TGT , -4.7%) took a sizable haircut, although not because of weak Q3 results. Indeed, a robust Halloween helped propel earnings and sales past Wall Street's expectations. Rather, investors were concerned about margins, as Target CEO Brian Cornell said his company is "protecting prices" for consumers by absorbing some of the input-cost inflation it's facing. SEE MORE 65 Best Dividend Stocks You Can Count On Weakness in financials (-1.2%) and energy (-1.5%) weighed on the major indexes, however. The latter sector slumped amid a 3.0% decline in U.S. crude oil, to $78.36 per barrel, after the International Energy Agency and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned that rising oil supplies could cut into prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.6% to 35,931, while the S&P 500 (-0.3% to 4,688) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.3% to 15,921) also took a breather. Story continues stock chart for 111721 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 declined 1.2% to 2,377. Gold futures improved by 0.9% to $1,868.80 per ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 4.2% to 17.06. Bitcoin edged 0.9% higher to $60,374.60. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Roku ( ROKU ) was a notable decliner, sliding 11.3% after MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson downgraded the streaming stock to Sell from Neutral (Hold). In a notee, Nathanson wrote that he believes Wall Street's longer-term earnings and revenue estimates are "just too damn high," especially in the wake of the stock's underperformance of late. Truist Securities analyst Matthew Thornton also chimed in on ROKU today, cutting his price target by $360 to reflect a "near-term supply chain headwind to ad revenue." With today's slide, ROKU is now down roughly 50% from its late-July record high near $490. Rivian Automotive ( RIVN ) suffered its first down day as a publicly traded company, slumping 15.1%. The electric vehicle (EV) maker had its first day of trading last Wednesday, Nov. 10, in what was the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of the year. RIVN stock opened at $106.75 that day before embarking on a five-day rally that saw the shares gain more than 61% through last night's close. Warren Buffett's Latest Buys and Sells Lost in the shuffle of a busy retail-earnings week was the latest regular treasure trove for Buffett-ologists. SEE MORE 10 Stocks Warren Buffett Is Selling (And 4 He's Buying) Following Monday's close, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.B ) filed its latest Form 13F – a quarterly disclosure the SEC requires of all institutional investment managers with $100 million or more in assets. We ask your forgiveness for sounding like a broken record, but the Oracle of Omaha was a big ol' bear once more. Berkshire trimmed or exited more positions than it added to or initiated for the fourth consecutive quarter, with a particularly downbeat focus on healthcare and financial-related stocks. If you want to see what Buffett's full list of holdings looks like after the changes, we've updated our Berkshire Hathaway portfolio tracker . But if you're primarily interested in Buffett's latest stock purchases and sales – including the two new positions he established, and the three stocks he kicked to the curb completely – check out our review of Uncle Warren's third-quarter moves . SEE MORE The Best American Funds for 401(k) Retirement Savers You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions The Case Against Owning All Dividend-Paying Stocks in Retirement Cryptocurrency and the Wash Sale Rule: A Tax Loophole That May Soon Go Away View comments || Stock Market Today: Stocks Slip Despite Slew of Sturdy Retail Earnings: TJMaxx/HomeGoods cart Getty Images A day after the U.S. Commerce Department released better-than-expected retail sales data , corporate America followed up with a number of encouraging retail-industry reports. T.J. Maxx parent TJX Companies' ( TJX , +5.8%) stock popped Wednesday after the off-price retailer delivered plenty of good news: Namely, third-quarter revenue and earnings beat Wall Street estimates, same-store sales jumped 12.7%, and the company signaled that supply-chain issues won't be a concern heading into the holiday season. SEE MORE 13 Consumer Stocks for the Holiday Season "We are in an excellent inventory position, with most of the product needed for the holiday season either on hand or scheduled to arrive at our stores and online in time for the holidays," CEO Ernie Herrman says. CFRA analyst Zachary Warring reiterated his Strong Buy rating on TJX shares, and raised his 12-month price target to $93 per share from $85. "The company increased its store count by 19 in the quarter, returned $1.1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, and raised its outlook for share repurchases for fiscal 2022 by $500 million," he says. "We see TJX well-positioned as consumer confidence drops, inflation continues to hit consumers' pockets, and government stimulus and savings fade." Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Home improvement chain Lowe's ( LOW , +0.4%) saw a more modest stock gain despite the retailer easily clearing top- and bottom-line estimates and raising its full-year revenue estimate to $95 billion from $92 billion previously. Meanwhile, shares in discounter Target ( TGT , -4.7%) took a sizable haircut, although not because of weak Q3 results. Indeed, a robust Halloween helped propel earnings and sales past Wall Street's expectations. Rather, investors were concerned about margins, as Target CEO Brian Cornell said his company is "protecting prices" for consumers by absorbing some of the input-cost inflation it's facing. SEE MORE 65 Best Dividend Stocks You Can Count On Weakness in financials (-1.2%) and energy (-1.5%) weighed on the major indexes, however. The latter sector slumped amid a 3.0% decline in U.S. crude oil, to $78.36 per barrel, after the International Energy Agency and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned that rising oil supplies could cut into prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.6% to 35,931, while the S&P 500 (-0.3% to 4,688) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.3% to 15,921) also took a breather. Story continues stock chart for 111721 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 declined 1.2% to 2,377. Gold futures improved by 0.9% to $1,868.80 per ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 4.2% to 17.06. Bitcoin edged 0.9% higher to $60,374.60. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Roku ( ROKU ) was a notable decliner, sliding 11.3% after MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson downgraded the streaming stock to Sell from Neutral (Hold). In a notee, Nathanson wrote that he believes Wall Street's longer-term earnings and revenue estimates are "just too damn high," especially in the wake of the stock's underperformance of late. Truist Securities analyst Matthew Thornton also chimed in on ROKU today, cutting his price target by $360 to reflect a "near-term supply chain headwind to ad revenue." With today's slide, ROKU is now down roughly 50% from its late-July record high near $490. Rivian Automotive ( RIVN ) suffered its first down day as a publicly traded company, slumping 15.1%. The electric vehicle (EV) maker had its first day of trading last Wednesday, Nov. 10, in what was the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of the year. RIVN stock opened at $106.75 that day before embarking on a five-day rally that saw the shares gain more than 61% through last night's close. Warren Buffett's Latest Buys and Sells Lost in the shuffle of a busy retail-earnings week was the latest regular treasure trove for Buffett-ologists. SEE MORE 10 Stocks Warren Buffett Is Selling (And 4 He's Buying) Following Monday's close, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.B ) filed its latest Form 13F – a quarterly disclosure the SEC requires of all institutional investment managers with $100 million or more in assets. We ask your forgiveness for sounding like a broken record, but the Oracle of Omaha was a big ol' bear once more. Berkshire trimmed or exited more positions than it added to or initiated for the fourth consecutive quarter, with a particularly downbeat focus on healthcare and financial-related stocks. If you want to see what Buffett's full list of holdings looks like after the changes, we've updated our Berkshire Hathaway portfolio tracker . But if you're primarily interested in Buffett's latest stock purchases and sales – including the two new positions he established, and the three stocks he kicked to the curb completely – check out our review of Uncle Warren's third-quarter moves . SEE MORE The Best American Funds for 401(k) Retirement Savers You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions The Case Against Owning All Dividend-Paying Stocks in Retirement Cryptocurrency and the Wash Sale Rule: A Tax Loophole That May Soon Go Away View comments || Crypto.com’s CRO Token Soars on Naming Deal for LA’s Staples Center: Crypto.com’s CRO token soared in digital-asset markets after the cryptocurrency exchange and credit-card issuer inked anaming-rights dealwith the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
The Singapore-based crypto exchange bought the naming rights from AEG for 20 years for $700 million,the LA Timesreported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The CRO price rose 35% in the past 24 hours to 54.5 cents in digital-asset markets, pushing the reported market capitalization to $13.7 billion.
Among the largest cryptocurrencies, the CRO token’s staggering one-day return was almost triple the gains of the next-best performer, Avalanche’sAVAX token, which rose 12%.
Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market value, was up 0.8%, roughly the same as for the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, ether (ETH).
The CRO crypto coin was atop performer among digital-asset markets in 2020but more recently had failed to generate much attention from speculators (or journalists) – until now.
Under the agreement, Crypto.com will also be an official partner of the LA Clippers and pro hockey’s LA Kings. The crypto exchange’s logo already adorns the jerseys of the National Basketball AssociationPhiladelphia 76ersteam.
CRO is similar to Binance’s BNB in that in grants exchange holders discounted trading fees and other perks.
Read more:Staples Center Name Change Tops List of Crypto Sports Sponsorship Deals || Crypto.com’s CRO Token Soars on Naming Deal for LA’s Staples Center: Crypto.com’s CRO token soared in digital-asset markets after the cryptocurrency exchange and credit-card issuer inked a naming-rights deal with the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. The Singapore-based crypto exchange bought the naming rights from AEG for 20 years for $700 million, the LA Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The CRO price rose 35% in the past 24 hours to 54.5 cents in digital-asset markets, pushing the reported market capitalization to $13.7 billion. Among the largest cryptocurrencies, the CRO token’s staggering one-day return was almost triple the gains of the next-best performer, Avalanche’s AVAX token , which rose 12%. Bitcoin ( BTC ), the largest cryptocurrency by market value, was up 0.8%, roughly the same as for the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, ether ( ETH ). The CRO crypto coin was a top performer among digital-asset markets in 2020 but more recently had failed to generate much attention from speculators (or journalists) – until now. Under the agreement, Crypto.com will also be an official partner of the LA Clippers and pro hockey’s LA Kings. The crypto exchange’s logo already adorns the jerseys of the National Basketball Association Philadelphia 76ers team. CRO is similar to Binance’s BNB in that in grants exchange holders discounted trading fees and other perks. Read more: Staples Center Name Change Tops List of Crypto Sports Sponsorship Deals || Fidelity Launches Canada’s First Institutional Bitcoin Custody Service: Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC (FCC) has become Canada’s first regulated entity to offer bitcoin custody and trading services for institutional investors.
“The demand for investing in digital assets is growing considerably and institutional investors have been looking for a regulated dealer platform to access this asset class,” Scott Mackenzie, FCC’s president said in astatement Wednesday.
Institutional investors in Canada such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) previously had to use U.S.-based custodians. With FCC’s launch, more of these investors could potentially invest in bitcoin directly.
In addition, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC filed preliminary prospectuses for Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF and Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF Fund. The Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF will leverage FCCs custodian services.
Fidelity Investments Canada ULC has over CAD$209 billion (US$166 billion) in assets under management.
Fidelity Investments’ first U.S. bitcoin fund, which is only open to accredited investors,raised $102 million from wealthy investorsas of May of this year. Fidelityinitially launchedits U.S.-based cryptocurrency services in 2018.
Read more:Fidelity Prodded SEC to Approve Bitcoin ETF in Private Meeting || Fidelity Launches Canada’s First Institutional Bitcoin Custody Service: Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC (FCC) has become Canada’s first regulated entity to offer bitcoin custody and trading services for institutional investors.
“The demand for investing in digital assets is growing considerably and institutional investors have been looking for a regulated dealer platform to access this asset class,” Scott Mackenzie, FCC’s president said in astatement Wednesday.
Institutional investors in Canada such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) previously had to use U.S.-based custodians. With FCC’s launch, more of these investors could potentially invest in bitcoin directly.
In addition, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC filed preliminary prospectuses for Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF and Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF Fund. The Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF will leverage FCCs custodian services.
Fidelity Investments Canada ULC has over CAD$209 billion (US$166 billion) in assets under management.
Fidelity Investments’ first U.S. bitcoin fund, which is only open to accredited investors,raised $102 million from wealthy investorsas of May of this year. Fidelityinitially launchedits U.S.-based cryptocurrency services in 2018.
Read more:Fidelity Prodded SEC to Approve Bitcoin ETF in Private Meeting || Fidelity Launches Canada’s First Institutional Bitcoin Custody Service: Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC (FCC) has become Canada’s first regulated entity to offer bitcoin custody and trading services for institutional investors. “The demand for investing in digital assets is growing considerably and institutional investors have been looking for a regulated dealer platform to access this asset class,” Scott Mackenzie, FCC’s president said in a statement Wednesday . Institutional investors in Canada such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) previously had to use U.S.-based custodians. With FCC’s launch, more of these investors could potentially invest in bitcoin directly. In addition, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC filed preliminary prospectuses for Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF and Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF Fund. The Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF will leverage FCCs custodian services. Fidelity Investments Canada ULC has over CAD$209 billion (US$166 billion) in assets under management. Fidelity Investments’ first U.S. bitcoin fund, which is only open to accredited investors, raised $102 million from wealthy investors as of May of this year. Fidelity initially launched its U.S.-based cryptocurrency services in 2018. Read more: Fidelity Prodded SEC to Approve Bitcoin ETF in Private Meeting || Bitrefill Enables Salvadorans to Pay Many of Their Bills With Bitcoin: Bitrefill, a startup that provides users with ways to pay for their daily needs with bitcoin, has launched a bill-paying service in El Salvador.
• The company said Wednesday that Salvadorans will now be able to pay for more than 150 services with bitcoin on Bitrefill’s platform through Lightning Network or on-chain transactions.
• Among the services available to pay with bitcoin are bills from the Social Fund for Housing, a government institution that provides loans for home purchases; and AES, a company that provides electricity in the Central American country, the company announced during the Adopting Bitcoin conference held in El Salvador.
• Bitrefill will provide the service in El Salvador through PuntoXpress, a local platform that allows the payment of basic services and cell phone recharges. To carry out the process, users must provide an email address to receive a receipt and, if applicable, claim a voucher code, Bitrefill said.
• El Salvadorestablished bitcoin as legal tenderon Sept. 7 and also launched Chivo, a government wallet that supports U.S. dollar and bitcoin. The Bitcoin Law stipulates that businesses must accept bitcoin as a form of payment, although there issome confusion about its exact requirements.
• “Even with the government’s mandate to make bitcoin legal tender, some businesses and services have yet to accommodate the payment method into their operations,” Bitrefill stated, adding that the company will give businesses a solution to accept bitcoin without the need to fret over custody or liquidation.
Read more:Why El Salvador Is Botching Its Bitcoin Experiment
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58119.58, 59697.20, 58730.48, 56289.29, 57569.07, 56280.43, 57274.68, 53569.77, 54815.08, 57248.46
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72, 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46, 18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41, 18177.48, 19625.84, 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40, 18699.77, 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99, 18058.90, 18803.66, 19142.38, 19246.64.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-12-14]
Volume: 22473997681, RSI (14-day): 59.68, 50-day EMA: 16965.83, 200-day EMA: 12969.27
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1828.70, Gold RSI: 44.86
Oil Price: 46.99, Oil RSI: 68.30
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks: Earlier this week, JPMorganpublished a global markets strategy notethat points out money has flowed out of gold and into bitcoin since October, and predicts this trend will continue over the medium to longer term.
The easy conclusion is that investors are finally understanding thatbitcoinis asuperior future store of valueto gold, and are rotating out of one and into the other.
I’m not convinced that’s what we’re seeing. I agree with the analysts, though, that inflows into bitcoin will continue to increase, but not because investors are changing their minds. There’s something else going on.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Google Goes Down, Nexus CEO and US Treasury Get Hacked
The main gold exchange-traded funds (ETF) are losing funds – that much is true. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) have seen outflows of over $4.4 billion in the past month alone, according to FactSet. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, however, which trades under the symbol GBTC and is managed by Grayscale (owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), has seen inflows of over $1 billion in the same period, according to the latest 8-K filings.
But the two trends are not necessarily correlated.
Gold fund outflows are not that unusual, as the below chart shows.
What’s more, the latest movements come after a phenomenally successful few months – since the beginning of 2020, GLD and IAU saw inflows of over $25 billion, marking the strongest year for inflows over the past decade. Even with the latest outflows, it has been a very good year for gold funds.
Related:First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin
The gold price has responded, delivering 35% performance between Jan. 1 and its peak in August. What we could be seeing is a simple rebalancing as investors lock in profits to reinvest elsewhere.
Add to that a change in risk-off sentiment, as investors see less need for “safe haven” investments given positive vaccine news and the potential for strong growth next year, not to mention confidence the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep the markets happy, and you have an unsurprising shift away from gold. That does not mean that institutions are replacing their positions with bitcoin.
We do know, though, that institutions are getting interested, and a growing number arebecoming activein the crypto market. These institutions are not the only drivers of bitcoin inflows, however.
The GBTC trust mentioned above is only available upon issuance to accredited investors, who can sell on the over-the-counter (OTC) market after a six-month lock-up period. The listed price carries a premium to the underlying value, which represents the strength of retail demand for bitcoin exposure. In what is known in the market as the “premium trade,” accredited investors that sell into the market after the lock-up capture both any bitcoin appreciation and the premium, and often reinvest all or part of the proceeds into new trust shares. Without strong retail demand, the GBTC premium would dwindle.
Retail investors are probably behind some of the outflows in gold ETFs, and some are probably rotating into BTC. But there’s a bigger story unfolding.
It’s the generational shift.
This week, financial advisory firm deVerereleased the resultsof a survey of over 700 of its millennial clients, which showed two-thirds of them prefer bitcoin to gold as an investment. This means any new savings entering the market may be almost 70% more likely to be put in bitcoin than into gold.
This makes intuitive sense: Millennials are more comfortable with technology than their elders, and can probably grasp the potential more easily. And aPew report last yearshowed younger Americans are less likely to trust institutions than older generations. Recent events are likely to have weakened this trust even further, at a time whenthe savings rateof those millennials and Gen Z-ers fortunate enough to have kept their jobs through the pandemic is increasing.
ANew York Times articlefrom earlier this year presented the millennial generation as focused on early retirement, which will concentrate their attention on long-term value that cannot be inflated away.
All this makes young people more likely to invest in inflation-resistant assets, yet less likely to invest in gold.
For one thing, it is difficult for retail investors to actually hold gold. Sure, they can buy shares in a gold ETF, but that implies more centralized control and institutional vulnerability than a self-custodied bitcoin investment. And in an environment of weakened trust in the current system, self-custody of bitcoin is a much easier solution than is self-custody of gold.
So we are likely to have significant new demand for bitcoin as a portfolio investment coming in from younger retail investors, at a time professional investors are also taking notice. It’s not just bitcoin fundamentals at work. Many professional investors will be interested in bitcoin investment precisely because of this potential growth narrative – other people wanting bitcoin is enough to make them want bitcoin.
And, unlike gold, growth in demand for bitcoin does not affect its supply, which feeds the narrative loop even more.
Throw in the dwindling rate of new bitcoins entering the system, and the demand-supply dynamics could entice even traditional investors to take an interest. This week we saw Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. – yes, an insurance company –invest $100 millionin bitcoin.
This does not mean that gold investment is over. Gold’s role as a store of value is well entrenched in investment lore, and even forward-thinking and open-minded investors and advisers recommend that bitcoincomplement the precious metalrather than replace it.
But a new generation of investors is starting to rewrite the rulebook. For now, the impact on gold flows is negligible, and we will see funds rush into industry ETFs when markets get wobbly and the commodity price starts to move up again. But demographics and sentiment are two powerful forces that, working in tandem, can move mountains – even those made of gold.
Software firm MicroStrategy’s enthusiasm for bitcoin is now industry lore. The company was the first to publicly acknowledge putting all of its excess treasury in the crypto asset, and itsCEO Michael Saylorhas become a crypto celebrity with his conviction and insight, even makingCoinDesk’s Most Influential listthis year.
This week he went even further: Not content with the$475 million already investedin the asset, MicroStrategy issued$650 million of convertible bonds(which was initiallygoing to be $400 millionand then gotraised to $550 millionand then got raised to … you get the picture), the proceeds of which will go to buy more bitcoin.
Is he nuts? Or is this the corporate treasury management of the future?
In my opinion, possibly both. Bitcoin is a relatively volatile asset, and corporate treasury is not the place to take risks. Citi seems to agree because itdowngraded its recommendationon MicroStrategy stock to a “sell” this week. At time of writing (Friday afternoon), the share price has fallen almost 15% over the week.
But bitcoin is actually a potentially excellent corporate treasury asset.Ria Bhutoria and Tess McCurdy of Fidelity Digital Assetsas well asJeff Dorman of Arca fundswrote great pieces this week detailing this point.
Ria and Tess list several waysin which bitcoin can mitigate typical corporate treasury risks. For instance, balance sheets are often exposed to liquidity risk, in which a company does not have enough liquid assets to meet debt payments and so has to sell less-liquid assets at unfavorable prices. Holding bitcoin instead of these less-liquid assets frees up cash in order to satisfy obligations, as bitcoin can be used as collateral on many lending platforms.
Foreign exchange risk leaves a company vulnerable to fluctuating conversion rates and fees – bitcoin could serve as a “bridge asset” on the balance sheet, moving in and out of currency pairs at a lower cost.
Jeff points outthat holding cash on the balance sheet for large corporations is onerous, usually requiring several accounts, limited banking hours, wire fees as well as the need to earn a yield on cash holdings. He also hinted, and this could be fun, that activist investors could soon start pressuring companies to diversify treasury holdings with bitcoin.
I’m interested in the potential use of bitcoin as collateral for working capital management. Ria and Tess touched on this, but I think it could go even further, eventually giving rise to a new type of repo market.
Yes, bitcoin fluctuates in fiat terms, and company financing needs are in fiat terms – but bitcoin’s bearer nature combined with its ease of transfer and the work being done on itssmart contract functionality, as well as the growing support for bitcoin custody from financial institutions, point to some interesting developments on this use case in the years to come.
As the specter of no deal on Brexit looms ever closer, and stimulus talks in the U.S. are mired in a political stalemate, markets showed some signs of nerves this week – not nearly as much as the dire outlook warrants, however, which is itself becoming the new normal.
Interestingly, BTC’s weak performance so far this month does not seem to have damped spirits in the industry. The year-to-date performance is still higher than more traditional alternatives, institutions continue to demonstrate interest and infrastructure development continues apace. In spite of this week’s dip, there still seems to linger a feeling of accumulation.
Continuing with the idea I kicked off last week to list the professional investors and institutions talking about bitcoin in a separate section (because the comments are coming thick and fast these days), the following people/companies said some relevant things:
• Aneditorial in the Financial TimesbyMorgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategistpositions bitcoin as a potential substitute for the dollar as a global currency. “There are reasons to think this bitcoin rush has deeper roots.”
• Bridgewater Associates founderRay Dalio, who has spoken out against bitcoin in the past, has softened his stance, andsaid in an AMA on Reddit this weekthat he thought bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had “established themselves” over the last 10 years and were interesting “gold-like asset alternatives.”
• Ina long Twitter thread, investorRaoul Palriffed on the potential value comparisons and growth drivers for BTC andETH: “My hunch is BTC is a perfect collateral layer but ETH might be bigger in market cap terms in 10 years.”
• Mohamed El-Erian,chief economic adviser for €2.3 trillion fund manager Allianz,tweeted last weekhe had sold bitcoin after holding for two years, and that his decision was “not based on any deep analysis.”
• German media giantBertelsmannhas invested in a crypto fundmanaged by venture firm Greenfield One.
In other news:
An insurance company founded in 1851,Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.,has invested $100 million in bitcoin,and $5 million in an equity stake in crypto fund manager NYDIG.TAKEAWAY:You read that right: Aninsurance companyhas invested in bitcoin. This is the first large insurance company to do so, as far as I’m aware, and the scale of the investment – only 0.04% of the general investment account, and is just a “first step,”according to the company– gives an inkling into the size of the potential funds should other insurance companies start to follow suit.
Fidelity Digital Assetsisentering the crypto lending business, albeit indirectly, allowing its institutional customers to pledge bitcoin as collateral against cash loans in a partnership with crypto lending firm BlockFi.TAKEAWAY:The growth of the lending business is worth keeping an eye on, as it represents a maturation of the market as well as a sign that liquidity will continue to improve. More than that, the growing awareness of the advantages of bitcoin as a collateral asset is likely to lead to new types of infrastructure emerging, as well as new use cases for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
According to sources, Spanish bankBBVAwill soonlaunch cryptocurrency services, based out of Switzerland. These services will include trading and custody.TAKEAWAY:If true, this would be a major bank (second-largest in Spain,17th in Europe) validating cryptocurrencies as a tradable asset. The bank has for some time been regarded as one of the most “digital” and forward-looking in Spain (a few years ago I heard then-chairman Francisco González say: “We are not a bank. We are a technology company.”), and has been experimenting with blockchain applications sinceat least 2015, which arguably gives it a head start. If BBVA launches crypto trading and custody for its clients, other banks are sure to follow.
According to Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of crypto fund managerGrayscale Investments(owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), a growing number of accredited investors are investingin the company’s ether fund(ETHE) even before investing in the standard industry “on-ramp” of their bitcoin fund.TAKEAWAY:This does more than hint at a growing sophistication in investors’ understanding of the different value propositions of ether and bitcoin. It also signals that investors increasingly grasp that the ecosystem is about so much more than seizure-resistant hard supply assets, and that native assets are in themselves technologies, each with its own strengths and potential. It will be interesting to see whether these investors remain exclusively focused on ether, or whether it will itself become an on-ramp for investments in Ethereum-based tokens and perhaps other protocols.
Germany’s second-largest stock exchange,Borse Stuttgart,has revealed that its Bison crypto trading appexchanged €1 billion(US$1.21 billion) worth of crypto assets so far this year.TAKEAWAY:This is a significant indication of retail interest, and the growth in the number of active users (180%, to reach 206,000), in an app that is more than two years old, hints at strong momentum.
Bitwise Asset Managementannounced this week thatits 10 Crypto Index Fund is now available to U.S. investorsas a public-traded cryptocurrency index fund under the symbol BITW.TAKEAWAY:It has only been trading for a few days, so it’s too soon to gauge what its liquidity will be. Its main competitor is Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund. Like the Large Cap Fund, BITW is available to accredited investors at issuance and can be sold to the public after a 12-month lockup. Also like the Large Cap Fund, BITW trades at a premium to NAV – this premium has shot up since launch to almost130% at time of writing.
Legacy bank involvement in crypto assets is gathering speed.
• Netherlands-based bankINGspoke publicly this weekfor the first time about the work done so far with Pyctor, a collaborative effort involving ING, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citibank, Invesco, Societe Generale, State Street, UBS and others to develop custody and post-trade infrastructure for crypto assets.
• AndStandard Chartered’sfintech investment unit, SC Ventures, andNorthern Trusthave announced Zodia Custody, a U.K.-based cryptocurrency custodian for institutional clients expected to begin operating next year.
• Standard Chartered has alsogathered a group of crypto exchangesfor a new digital asset trading platform tailored to the institutional market, according to sources.
TAKEAWAY:The entrance of legacy financial institutions into the crypto asset services business is no longer in doubt, and next year we will most likely see at least a handful offer these services to their clients. (Last week we reported that Spain’sBBVAwill soonannounce the imminent launchof crypto services). This will significantly move the needle on mainstream trust in crypto assets – if banks are offering these services, it must be legit, right? – and could lead to some bundling as banks make strategic acquisitions in the crypto industry. For some banks it will be a question of rapidly consolidating position and building ancillary services, for others it will be to try to catch up.
BitGohasadded capital introduction servicesto its suite of white-glove crypto brokerage services.TAKEAWAY:This is another pillar in the emerging prime brokerage structure emerging in crypto markets. Capital introduction in crypto markets will serve more than merely to introduce institutional funds to fund managers; it will also be an opportunity to educate more institutional investors about crypto assets.
The number ofbitcoin “whales,”or holders of over 1,000 BTC,has increased by 17% in 2020, according to blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis.TAKEAWAY:The industry likes to keep a track of this because it represents deep conviction and/or institutional stakes. A higher number of large holders does also introduce some centralization through concentration of wealth, and the risk that any one of these holders could sell, pushing the market down. But, the same analysis shows that the number of wallets that hold five to 10 BTC had increased by a considerable amount.
U.S.-based crypto exchangeBittrex Globalhas launchedtrading in tokenized stockssuch as Apple, Tesla, Facebook and Amazon on its digital asset exchange.TAKEAWAY:You might wonder why investors would want to do that when they could use their traditional broker. But this offers a wider range of investment options for Bittrex users who might not have a traditional brokerage account, or who might not want to transfer funds. And, more importantly, it offers fractionalization of the shares, which could broaden their appeal to retail investors. Since Bittrex is not a large exchange (28th in spot volumes, according toCoinGecko), volumes in these tokenized shares is unlikely to be high – but it’s an intriguing step towards tokenization of assets on a broader scale, and could soon open up access to non-U.S. shares as well as other types of assets.
As further evidence the market for tokenized securities is quietly evolving, the innovation division of fund managerArcahas partnered with several crypto firms (Anchorage, Gemini, Komainu, Ledger, and TokenSoft) forcustody of ArCoin, which represents tokenized shares in a SEC-registered fund that holds T-bills.TAKEAWAY:Choosing a range of custodians rather than just one offers clients a more flexible solution, and could boost interest among investors that are already clients of the selected companies. Even more interesting, though, is that a boring, staid investment (a high-grade bond fund) can be exchanged peer-to-peer on a blockchain platform. This could start to shift traditional investors’ perception that blockchain-based assets are risky and volatile, and open their minds to the versatility that tokenization offers. It’s a start, anyway.
Custody startupCurvis teaming up with Ethereum-based crypto wallet MetaMaskto allow institutions to be able to investin decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols with institutional-grade custody options.TAKEAWAY:The DeFi industry is growing fast but is still tiny by traditional asset standards. The attractive yields and growth potential of some of the assets have started to attract institutional attention, however, and initiatives designed to make it easier for professional investors to explore the space are emerging to support this. We’ll no doubt see more announcements like this in the months to come.
An Ethereum-based fund managed by Canadian investment fund manager3iQhas completedan initial public offeringfor around $76.5 million the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), under the symbol QETH.U.TAKEAWAY:This is not available to U.S. investors, which will limit its liquidity, but the emergence of another listed ETH play signals the deepening maturity of the ETH market infrastructure overall.
• Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks
• Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks || Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks: Earlier this week, JPMorgan published a global markets strategy note that points out money has flowed out of gold and into bitcoin since October, and predicts this trend will continue over the medium to longer term. The easy conclusion is that investors are finally understanding that bitcoin is a superior future store of value to gold, and are rotating out of one and into the other. I’m not convinced that’s what we’re seeing. I agree with the analysts, though, that inflows into bitcoin will continue to increase, but not because investors are changing their minds. There’s something else going on. In and out Related: Blockchain Bites: Google Goes Down, Nexus CEO and US Treasury Get Hacked The main gold exchange-traded funds (ETF) are losing funds – that much is true. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) have seen outflows of over $4.4 billion in the past month alone, according to FactSet. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, however, which trades under the symbol GBTC and is managed by Grayscale (owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), has seen inflows of over $1 billion in the same period, according to the latest 8-K filings. But the two trends are not necessarily correlated. Gold fund outflows are not that unusual, as the below chart shows. What’s more, the latest movements come after a phenomenally successful few months – since the beginning of 2020, GLD and IAU saw inflows of over $25 billion, marking the strongest year for inflows over the past decade. Even with the latest outflows, it has been a very good year for gold funds. Related: First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin The gold price has responded, delivering 35% performance between Jan. 1 and its peak in August. What we could be seeing is a simple rebalancing as investors lock in profits to reinvest elsewhere. Add to that a change in risk-off sentiment, as investors see less need for “safe haven” investments given positive vaccine news and the potential for strong growth next year, not to mention confidence the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep the markets happy, and you have an unsurprising shift away from gold. That does not mean that institutions are replacing their positions with bitcoin. Story continues Growing confidence We do know, though, that institutions are getting interested, and a growing number are becoming active in the crypto market. These institutions are not the only drivers of bitcoin inflows, however. The GBTC trust mentioned above is only available upon issuance to accredited investors, who can sell on the over-the-counter (OTC) market after a six-month lock-up period. The listed price carries a premium to the underlying value, which represents the strength of retail demand for bitcoin exposure. In what is known in the market as the “premium trade,” accredited investors that sell into the market after the lock-up capture both any bitcoin appreciation and the premium, and often reinvest all or part of the proceeds into new trust shares. Without strong retail demand, the GBTC premium would dwindle. Retail investors are probably behind some of the outflows in gold ETFs, and some are probably rotating into BTC. But there’s a bigger story unfolding. It’s the generational shift. The sands of time This week, financial advisory firm deVere released the results of a survey of over 700 of its millennial clients, which showed two-thirds of them prefer bitcoin to gold as an investment. This means any new savings entering the market may be almost 70% more likely to be put in bitcoin than into gold. This makes intuitive sense: Millennials are more comfortable with technology than their elders, and can probably grasp the potential more easily. And a Pew report last year showed younger Americans are less likely to trust institutions than older generations. Recent events are likely to have weakened this trust even further, at a time when the savings rate of those millennials and Gen Z-ers fortunate enough to have kept their jobs through the pandemic is increasing. A New York Times article from earlier this year presented the millennial generation as focused on early retirement, which will concentrate their attention on long-term value that cannot be inflated away. All this makes young people more likely to invest in inflation-resistant assets, yet less likely to invest in gold. For one thing, it is difficult for retail investors to actually hold gold. Sure, they can buy shares in a gold ETF, but that implies more centralized control and institutional vulnerability than a self-custodied bitcoin investment. And in an environment of weakened trust in the current system, self-custody of bitcoin is a much easier solution than is self-custody of gold. Old and new So we are likely to have significant new demand for bitcoin as a portfolio investment coming in from younger retail investors, at a time professional investors are also taking notice. It’s not just bitcoin fundamentals at work. Many professional investors will be interested in bitcoin investment precisely because of this potential growth narrative – other people wanting bitcoin is enough to make them want bitcoin. And, unlike gold, growth in demand for bitcoin does not affect its supply, which feeds the narrative loop even more. Throw in the dwindling rate of new bitcoins entering the system, and the demand-supply dynamics could entice even traditional investors to take an interest. This week we saw Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. – yes, an insurance company – invest $100 million in bitcoin. This does not mean that gold investment is over. Gold’s role as a store of value is well entrenched in investment lore, and even forward-thinking and open-minded investors and advisers recommend that bitcoin complement the precious metal rather than replace it. But a new generation of investors is starting to rewrite the rulebook. For now, the impact on gold flows is negligible, and we will see funds rush into industry ETFs when markets get wobbly and the commodity price starts to move up again. But demographics and sentiment are two powerful forces that, working in tandem, can move mountains – even those made of gold. Balancing act Software firm MicroStrategy’s enthusiasm for bitcoin is now industry lore. The company was the first to publicly acknowledge putting all of its excess treasury in the crypto asset, and its CEO Michael Saylor has become a crypto celebrity with his conviction and insight, even making CoinDesk’s Most Influential list this year. This week he went even further: Not content with the $475 million already invested in the asset, MicroStrategy issued $650 million of convertible bonds (which was initially going to be $400 million and then got raised to $550 million and then got raised to … you get the picture), the proceeds of which will go to buy more bitcoin. Is he nuts? Or is this the corporate treasury management of the future? In my opinion, possibly both. Bitcoin is a relatively volatile asset, and corporate treasury is not the place to take risks. Citi seems to agree because it downgraded its recommendation on MicroStrategy stock to a “sell” this week. At time of writing (Friday afternoon), the share price has fallen almost 15% over the week. But bitcoin is actually a potentially excellent corporate treasury asset. Ria Bhutoria and Tess McCurdy of Fidelity Digital Assets as well as Jeff Dorman of Arca funds wrote great pieces this week detailing this point. Ria and Tess list several ways in which bitcoin can mitigate typical corporate treasury risks. For instance, balance sheets are often exposed to liquidity risk, in which a company does not have enough liquid assets to meet debt payments and so has to sell less-liquid assets at unfavorable prices. Holding bitcoin instead of these less-liquid assets frees up cash in order to satisfy obligations, as bitcoin can be used as collateral on many lending platforms. Foreign exchange risk leaves a company vulnerable to fluctuating conversion rates and fees – bitcoin could serve as a “bridge asset” on the balance sheet, moving in and out of currency pairs at a lower cost. Jeff points out that holding cash on the balance sheet for large corporations is onerous, usually requiring several accounts, limited banking hours, wire fees as well as the need to earn a yield on cash holdings. He also hinted, and this could be fun, that activist investors could soon start pressuring companies to diversify treasury holdings with bitcoin. I’m interested in the potential use of bitcoin as collateral for working capital management. Ria and Tess touched on this, but I think it could go even further, eventually giving rise to a new type of repo market. Yes, bitcoin fluctuates in fiat terms, and company financing needs are in fiat terms – but bitcoin’s bearer nature combined with its ease of transfer and the work being done on its smart contract functionality , as well as the growing support for bitcoin custody from financial institutions, point to some interesting developments on this use case in the years to come. Anyone know what’s going on yet? As the specter of no deal on Brexit looms ever closer, and stimulus talks in the U.S. are mired in a political stalemate, markets showed some signs of nerves this week – not nearly as much as the dire outlook warrants, however, which is itself becoming the new normal. Interestingly, BTC’s weak performance so far this month does not seem to have damped spirits in the industry. The year-to-date performance is still higher than more traditional alternatives, institutions continue to demonstrate interest and infrastructure development continues apace. In spite of this week’s dip, there still seems to linger a feeling of accumulation. Chain links Continuing with the idea I kicked off last week to list the professional investors and institutions talking about bitcoin in a separate section (because the comments are coming thick and fast these days), the following people/companies said some relevant things: An editorial in the Financial Times by Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategist positions bitcoin as a potential substitute for the dollar as a global currency. “There are reasons to think this bitcoin rush has deeper roots.” Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio , who has spoken out against bitcoin in the past, has softened his stance, and said in an AMA on Reddit this week that he thought bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had “established themselves” over the last 10 years and were interesting “gold-like asset alternatives.” In a long Twitter thread , investor Raoul Pal riffed on the potential value comparisons and growth drivers for BTC and ETH : “My hunch is BTC is a perfect collateral layer but ETH might be bigger in market cap terms in 10 years.” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser for €2.3 trillion fund manager Allianz, tweeted last week he had sold bitcoin after holding for two years, and that his decision was “not based on any deep analysis.” German media giant Bertelsmann has invested in a crypto fund managed by venture firm Greenfield One. In other news: An insurance company founded in 1851, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co ., has invested $100 million in bitcoin, and $5 million in an equity stake in crypto fund manager NYDIG. TAKEAWAY: You read that right: An insurance company has invested in bitcoin. This is the first large insurance company to do so, as far as I’m aware, and the scale of the investment – only 0.04% of the general investment account, and is just a “first step,” according to the company – gives an inkling into the size of the potential funds should other insurance companies start to follow suit. Fidelity Digital Assets is entering the crypto lending business , albeit indirectly, allowing its institutional customers to pledge bitcoin as collateral against cash loans in a partnership with crypto lending firm BlockFi. TAKEAWAY: The growth of the lending business is worth keeping an eye on, as it represents a maturation of the market as well as a sign that liquidity will continue to improve. More than that, the growing awareness of the advantages of bitcoin as a collateral asset is likely to lead to new types of infrastructure emerging, as well as new use cases for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. According to sources, Spanish bank BBVA will soon launch cryptocurrency services , based out of Switzerland. These services will include trading and custody. TAKEAWAY: If true, this would be a major bank (second-largest in Spain, 17th in Europe ) validating cryptocurrencies as a tradable asset. The bank has for some time been regarded as one of the most “digital” and forward-looking in Spain (a few years ago I heard then-chairman Francisco González say: “We are not a bank. We are a technology company.”), and has been experimenting with blockchain applications since at least 2015 , which arguably gives it a head start. If BBVA launches crypto trading and custody for its clients, other banks are sure to follow. According to Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of crypto fund manager Grayscale Investments (owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), a growing number of accredited investors are investing in the company’s ether fund (ETHE) even before investing in the standard industry “on-ramp” of their bitcoin fund. TAKEAWAY: This does more than hint at a growing sophistication in investors’ understanding of the different value propositions of ether and bitcoin. It also signals that investors increasingly grasp that the ecosystem is about so much more than seizure-resistant hard supply assets, and that native assets are in themselves technologies, each with its own strengths and potential. It will be interesting to see whether these investors remain exclusively focused on ether, or whether it will itself become an on-ramp for investments in Ethereum-based tokens and perhaps other protocols. Germany’s second-largest stock exchange, Borse Stuttgart, has revealed that its Bison crypto trading app exchanged €1 billion (US$1.21 billion) worth of crypto assets so far this year. TAKEAWAY: This is a significant indication of retail interest, and the growth in the number of active users (180%, to reach 206,000), in an app that is more than two years old, hints at strong momentum. Bitwise Asset Management announced this week that its 10 Crypto Index Fund is now available to U.S. investors as a public-traded cryptocurrency index fund under the symbol BITW. TAKEAWAY: It has only been trading for a few days, so it’s too soon to gauge what its liquidity will be. Its main competitor is Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund. Like the Large Cap Fund, BITW is available to accredited investors at issuance and can be sold to the public after a 12-month lockup. Also like the Large Cap Fund, BITW trades at a premium to NAV – this premium has shot up since launch to almost 130% at time of writing . Legacy bank involvement in crypto assets is gathering speed. Netherlands-based bank ING spoke publicly this week for the first time about the work done so far with Pyctor, a collaborative effort involving ING, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citibank, Invesco, Societe Generale, State Street, UBS and others to develop custody and post-trade infrastructure for crypto assets. And Standard Chartered’s fintech investment unit, SC Ventures, and Northern Trust have announced Zodia Custody , a U.K.-based cryptocurrency custodian for institutional clients expected to begin operating next year. Standard Chartered has also gathered a group of crypto exchanges for a new digital asset trading platform tailored to the institutional market, according to sources. TAKEAWAY: The entrance of legacy financial institutions into the crypto asset services business is no longer in doubt, and next year we will most likely see at least a handful offer these services to their clients. (Last week we reported that Spain’s BBVA will soon announce the imminent launch of crypto services). This will significantly move the needle on mainstream trust in crypto assets – if banks are offering these services, it must be legit, right? – and could lead to some bundling as banks make strategic acquisitions in the crypto industry. For some banks it will be a question of rapidly consolidating position and building ancillary services, for others it will be to try to catch up. BitGo has added capital introduction services to its suite of white-glove crypto brokerage services. TAKEAWAY: This is another pillar in the emerging prime brokerage structure emerging in crypto markets. Capital introduction in crypto markets will serve more than merely to introduce institutional funds to fund managers; it will also be an opportunity to educate more institutional investors about crypto assets. The number of bitcoin “whales,” or holders of over 1,000 BTC, has increased by 17% in 2020 , according to blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis. TAKEAWAY: The industry likes to keep a track of this because it represents deep conviction and/or institutional stakes. A higher number of large holders does also introduce some centralization through concentration of wealth, and the risk that any one of these holders could sell, pushing the market down. But, the same analysis shows that the number of wallets that hold five to 10 BTC had increased by a considerable amount. U.S.-based crypto exchange Bittrex Global has launched trading in tokenized stocks such as Apple, Tesla, Facebook and Amazon on its digital asset exchange. TAKEAWAY: You might wonder why investors would want to do that when they could use their traditional broker. But this offers a wider range of investment options for Bittrex users who might not have a traditional brokerage account, or who might not want to transfer funds. And, more importantly, it offers fractionalization of the shares, which could broaden their appeal to retail investors. Since Bittrex is not a large exchange (28th in spot volumes, according to CoinGecko ), volumes in these tokenized shares is unlikely to be high – but it’s an intriguing step towards tokenization of assets on a broader scale, and could soon open up access to non-U.S. shares as well as other types of assets. As further evidence the market for tokenized securities is quietly evolving, the innovation division of fund manager Arca has partnered with several crypto firms (Anchorage, Gemini, Komainu, Ledger, and TokenSoft) for custody of ArCoin , which represents tokenized shares in a SEC-registered fund that holds T-bills. TAKEAWAY: Choosing a range of custodians rather than just one offers clients a more flexible solution, and could boost interest among investors that are already clients of the selected companies. Even more interesting, though, is that a boring, staid investment (a high-grade bond fund) can be exchanged peer-to-peer on a blockchain platform. This could start to shift traditional investors’ perception that blockchain-based assets are risky and volatile, and open their minds to the versatility that tokenization offers. It’s a start, anyway. Custody startup Curv is teaming up with Ethereum-based crypto wallet MetaMask to allow institutions to be able to invest in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols with institutional-grade custody options. TAKEAWAY: The DeFi industry is growing fast but is still tiny by traditional asset standards. The attractive yields and growth potential of some of the assets have started to attract institutional attention, however, and initiatives designed to make it easier for professional investors to explore the space are emerging to support this. We’ll no doubt see more announcements like this in the months to come. An Ethereum-based fund managed by Canadian investment fund manager 3iQ has completed an initial public offering for around $76.5 million the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), under the symbol QETH.U. TAKEAWAY: This is not available to U.S. investors, which will limit its liquidity, but the emergence of another listed ETH play signals the deepening maturity of the ETH market infrastructure overall. Related Stories Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks || Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks: Earlier this week, JPMorganpublished a global markets strategy notethat points out money has flowed out of gold and into bitcoin since October, and predicts this trend will continue over the medium to longer term.
The easy conclusion is that investors are finally understanding thatbitcoinis asuperior future store of valueto gold, and are rotating out of one and into the other.
I’m not convinced that’s what we’re seeing. I agree with the analysts, though, that inflows into bitcoin will continue to increase, but not because investors are changing their minds. There’s something else going on.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Google Goes Down, Nexus CEO and US Treasury Get Hacked
The main gold exchange-traded funds (ETF) are losing funds – that much is true. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) have seen outflows of over $4.4 billion in the past month alone, according to FactSet. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, however, which trades under the symbol GBTC and is managed by Grayscale (owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), has seen inflows of over $1 billion in the same period, according to the latest 8-K filings.
But the two trends are not necessarily correlated.
Gold fund outflows are not that unusual, as the below chart shows.
What’s more, the latest movements come after a phenomenally successful few months – since the beginning of 2020, GLD and IAU saw inflows of over $25 billion, marking the strongest year for inflows over the past decade. Even with the latest outflows, it has been a very good year for gold funds.
Related:First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin
The gold price has responded, delivering 35% performance between Jan. 1 and its peak in August. What we could be seeing is a simple rebalancing as investors lock in profits to reinvest elsewhere.
Add to that a change in risk-off sentiment, as investors see less need for “safe haven” investments given positive vaccine news and the potential for strong growth next year, not to mention confidence the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep the markets happy, and you have an unsurprising shift away from gold. That does not mean that institutions are replacing their positions with bitcoin.
We do know, though, that institutions are getting interested, and a growing number arebecoming activein the crypto market. These institutions are not the only drivers of bitcoin inflows, however.
The GBTC trust mentioned above is only available upon issuance to accredited investors, who can sell on the over-the-counter (OTC) market after a six-month lock-up period. The listed price carries a premium to the underlying value, which represents the strength of retail demand for bitcoin exposure. In what is known in the market as the “premium trade,” accredited investors that sell into the market after the lock-up capture both any bitcoin appreciation and the premium, and often reinvest all or part of the proceeds into new trust shares. Without strong retail demand, the GBTC premium would dwindle.
Retail investors are probably behind some of the outflows in gold ETFs, and some are probably rotating into BTC. But there’s a bigger story unfolding.
It’s the generational shift.
This week, financial advisory firm deVerereleased the resultsof a survey of over 700 of its millennial clients, which showed two-thirds of them prefer bitcoin to gold as an investment. This means any new savings entering the market may be almost 70% more likely to be put in bitcoin than into gold.
This makes intuitive sense: Millennials are more comfortable with technology than their elders, and can probably grasp the potential more easily. And aPew report last yearshowed younger Americans are less likely to trust institutions than older generations. Recent events are likely to have weakened this trust even further, at a time whenthe savings rateof those millennials and Gen Z-ers fortunate enough to have kept their jobs through the pandemic is increasing.
ANew York Times articlefrom earlier this year presented the millennial generation as focused on early retirement, which will concentrate their attention on long-term value that cannot be inflated away.
All this makes young people more likely to invest in inflation-resistant assets, yet less likely to invest in gold.
For one thing, it is difficult for retail investors to actually hold gold. Sure, they can buy shares in a gold ETF, but that implies more centralized control and institutional vulnerability than a self-custodied bitcoin investment. And in an environment of weakened trust in the current system, self-custody of bitcoin is a much easier solution than is self-custody of gold.
So we are likely to have significant new demand for bitcoin as a portfolio investment coming in from younger retail investors, at a time professional investors are also taking notice. It’s not just bitcoin fundamentals at work. Many professional investors will be interested in bitcoin investment precisely because of this potential growth narrative – other people wanting bitcoin is enough to make them want bitcoin.
And, unlike gold, growth in demand for bitcoin does not affect its supply, which feeds the narrative loop even more.
Throw in the dwindling rate of new bitcoins entering the system, and the demand-supply dynamics could entice even traditional investors to take an interest. This week we saw Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. – yes, an insurance company –invest $100 millionin bitcoin.
This does not mean that gold investment is over. Gold’s role as a store of value is well entrenched in investment lore, and even forward-thinking and open-minded investors and advisers recommend that bitcoincomplement the precious metalrather than replace it.
But a new generation of investors is starting to rewrite the rulebook. For now, the impact on gold flows is negligible, and we will see funds rush into industry ETFs when markets get wobbly and the commodity price starts to move up again. But demographics and sentiment are two powerful forces that, working in tandem, can move mountains – even those made of gold.
Software firm MicroStrategy’s enthusiasm for bitcoin is now industry lore. The company was the first to publicly acknowledge putting all of its excess treasury in the crypto asset, and itsCEO Michael Saylorhas become a crypto celebrity with his conviction and insight, even makingCoinDesk’s Most Influential listthis year.
This week he went even further: Not content with the$475 million already investedin the asset, MicroStrategy issued$650 million of convertible bonds(which was initiallygoing to be $400 millionand then gotraised to $550 millionand then got raised to … you get the picture), the proceeds of which will go to buy more bitcoin.
Is he nuts? Or is this the corporate treasury management of the future?
In my opinion, possibly both. Bitcoin is a relatively volatile asset, and corporate treasury is not the place to take risks. Citi seems to agree because itdowngraded its recommendationon MicroStrategy stock to a “sell” this week. At time of writing (Friday afternoon), the share price has fallen almost 15% over the week.
But bitcoin is actually a potentially excellent corporate treasury asset.Ria Bhutoria and Tess McCurdy of Fidelity Digital Assetsas well asJeff Dorman of Arca fundswrote great pieces this week detailing this point.
Ria and Tess list several waysin which bitcoin can mitigate typical corporate treasury risks. For instance, balance sheets are often exposed to liquidity risk, in which a company does not have enough liquid assets to meet debt payments and so has to sell less-liquid assets at unfavorable prices. Holding bitcoin instead of these less-liquid assets frees up cash in order to satisfy obligations, as bitcoin can be used as collateral on many lending platforms.
Foreign exchange risk leaves a company vulnerable to fluctuating conversion rates and fees – bitcoin could serve as a “bridge asset” on the balance sheet, moving in and out of currency pairs at a lower cost.
Jeff points outthat holding cash on the balance sheet for large corporations is onerous, usually requiring several accounts, limited banking hours, wire fees as well as the need to earn a yield on cash holdings. He also hinted, and this could be fun, that activist investors could soon start pressuring companies to diversify treasury holdings with bitcoin.
I’m interested in the potential use of bitcoin as collateral for working capital management. Ria and Tess touched on this, but I think it could go even further, eventually giving rise to a new type of repo market.
Yes, bitcoin fluctuates in fiat terms, and company financing needs are in fiat terms – but bitcoin’s bearer nature combined with its ease of transfer and the work being done on itssmart contract functionality, as well as the growing support for bitcoin custody from financial institutions, point to some interesting developments on this use case in the years to come.
As the specter of no deal on Brexit looms ever closer, and stimulus talks in the U.S. are mired in a political stalemate, markets showed some signs of nerves this week – not nearly as much as the dire outlook warrants, however, which is itself becoming the new normal.
Interestingly, BTC’s weak performance so far this month does not seem to have damped spirits in the industry. The year-to-date performance is still higher than more traditional alternatives, institutions continue to demonstrate interest and infrastructure development continues apace. In spite of this week’s dip, there still seems to linger a feeling of accumulation.
Continuing with the idea I kicked off last week to list the professional investors and institutions talking about bitcoin in a separate section (because the comments are coming thick and fast these days), the following people/companies said some relevant things:
• Aneditorial in the Financial TimesbyMorgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategistpositions bitcoin as a potential substitute for the dollar as a global currency. “There are reasons to think this bitcoin rush has deeper roots.”
• Bridgewater Associates founderRay Dalio, who has spoken out against bitcoin in the past, has softened his stance, andsaid in an AMA on Reddit this weekthat he thought bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had “established themselves” over the last 10 years and were interesting “gold-like asset alternatives.”
• Ina long Twitter thread, investorRaoul Palriffed on the potential value comparisons and growth drivers for BTC andETH: “My hunch is BTC is a perfect collateral layer but ETH might be bigger in market cap terms in 10 years.”
• Mohamed El-Erian,chief economic adviser for €2.3 trillion fund manager Allianz,tweeted last weekhe had sold bitcoin after holding for two years, and that his decision was “not based on any deep analysis.”
• German media giantBertelsmannhas invested in a crypto fundmanaged by venture firm Greenfield One.
In other news:
An insurance company founded in 1851,Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.,has invested $100 million in bitcoin,and $5 million in an equity stake in crypto fund manager NYDIG.TAKEAWAY:You read that right: Aninsurance companyhas invested in bitcoin. This is the first large insurance company to do so, as far as I’m aware, and the scale of the investment – only 0.04% of the general investment account, and is just a “first step,”according to the company– gives an inkling into the size of the potential funds should other insurance companies start to follow suit.
Fidelity Digital Assetsisentering the crypto lending business, albeit indirectly, allowing its institutional customers to pledge bitcoin as collateral against cash loans in a partnership with crypto lending firm BlockFi.TAKEAWAY:The growth of the lending business is worth keeping an eye on, as it represents a maturation of the market as well as a sign that liquidity will continue to improve. More than that, the growing awareness of the advantages of bitcoin as a collateral asset is likely to lead to new types of infrastructure emerging, as well as new use cases for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
According to sources, Spanish bankBBVAwill soonlaunch cryptocurrency services, based out of Switzerland. These services will include trading and custody.TAKEAWAY:If true, this would be a major bank (second-largest in Spain,17th in Europe) validating cryptocurrencies as a tradable asset. The bank has for some time been regarded as one of the most “digital” and forward-looking in Spain (a few years ago I heard then-chairman Francisco González say: “We are not a bank. We are a technology company.”), and has been experimenting with blockchain applications sinceat least 2015, which arguably gives it a head start. If BBVA launches crypto trading and custody for its clients, other banks are sure to follow.
According to Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of crypto fund managerGrayscale Investments(owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), a growing number of accredited investors are investingin the company’s ether fund(ETHE) even before investing in the standard industry “on-ramp” of their bitcoin fund.TAKEAWAY:This does more than hint at a growing sophistication in investors’ understanding of the different value propositions of ether and bitcoin. It also signals that investors increasingly grasp that the ecosystem is about so much more than seizure-resistant hard supply assets, and that native assets are in themselves technologies, each with its own strengths and potential. It will be interesting to see whether these investors remain exclusively focused on ether, or whether it will itself become an on-ramp for investments in Ethereum-based tokens and perhaps other protocols.
Germany’s second-largest stock exchange,Borse Stuttgart,has revealed that its Bison crypto trading appexchanged €1 billion(US$1.21 billion) worth of crypto assets so far this year.TAKEAWAY:This is a significant indication of retail interest, and the growth in the number of active users (180%, to reach 206,000), in an app that is more than two years old, hints at strong momentum.
Bitwise Asset Managementannounced this week thatits 10 Crypto Index Fund is now available to U.S. investorsas a public-traded cryptocurrency index fund under the symbol BITW.TAKEAWAY:It has only been trading for a few days, so it’s too soon to gauge what its liquidity will be. Its main competitor is Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund. Like the Large Cap Fund, BITW is available to accredited investors at issuance and can be sold to the public after a 12-month lockup. Also like the Large Cap Fund, BITW trades at a premium to NAV – this premium has shot up since launch to almost130% at time of writing.
Legacy bank involvement in crypto assets is gathering speed.
• Netherlands-based bankINGspoke publicly this weekfor the first time about the work done so far with Pyctor, a collaborative effort involving ING, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citibank, Invesco, Societe Generale, State Street, UBS and others to develop custody and post-trade infrastructure for crypto assets.
• AndStandard Chartered’sfintech investment unit, SC Ventures, andNorthern Trusthave announced Zodia Custody, a U.K.-based cryptocurrency custodian for institutional clients expected to begin operating next year.
• Standard Chartered has alsogathered a group of crypto exchangesfor a new digital asset trading platform tailored to the institutional market, according to sources.
TAKEAWAY:The entrance of legacy financial institutions into the crypto asset services business is no longer in doubt, and next year we will most likely see at least a handful offer these services to their clients. (Last week we reported that Spain’sBBVAwill soonannounce the imminent launchof crypto services). This will significantly move the needle on mainstream trust in crypto assets – if banks are offering these services, it must be legit, right? – and could lead to some bundling as banks make strategic acquisitions in the crypto industry. For some banks it will be a question of rapidly consolidating position and building ancillary services, for others it will be to try to catch up.
BitGohasadded capital introduction servicesto its suite of white-glove crypto brokerage services.TAKEAWAY:This is another pillar in the emerging prime brokerage structure emerging in crypto markets. Capital introduction in crypto markets will serve more than merely to introduce institutional funds to fund managers; it will also be an opportunity to educate more institutional investors about crypto assets.
The number ofbitcoin “whales,”or holders of over 1,000 BTC,has increased by 17% in 2020, according to blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis.TAKEAWAY:The industry likes to keep a track of this because it represents deep conviction and/or institutional stakes. A higher number of large holders does also introduce some centralization through concentration of wealth, and the risk that any one of these holders could sell, pushing the market down. But, the same analysis shows that the number of wallets that hold five to 10 BTC had increased by a considerable amount.
U.S.-based crypto exchangeBittrex Globalhas launchedtrading in tokenized stockssuch as Apple, Tesla, Facebook and Amazon on its digital asset exchange.TAKEAWAY:You might wonder why investors would want to do that when they could use their traditional broker. But this offers a wider range of investment options for Bittrex users who might not have a traditional brokerage account, or who might not want to transfer funds. And, more importantly, it offers fractionalization of the shares, which could broaden their appeal to retail investors. Since Bittrex is not a large exchange (28th in spot volumes, according toCoinGecko), volumes in these tokenized shares is unlikely to be high – but it’s an intriguing step towards tokenization of assets on a broader scale, and could soon open up access to non-U.S. shares as well as other types of assets.
As further evidence the market for tokenized securities is quietly evolving, the innovation division of fund managerArcahas partnered with several crypto firms (Anchorage, Gemini, Komainu, Ledger, and TokenSoft) forcustody of ArCoin, which represents tokenized shares in a SEC-registered fund that holds T-bills.TAKEAWAY:Choosing a range of custodians rather than just one offers clients a more flexible solution, and could boost interest among investors that are already clients of the selected companies. Even more interesting, though, is that a boring, staid investment (a high-grade bond fund) can be exchanged peer-to-peer on a blockchain platform. This could start to shift traditional investors’ perception that blockchain-based assets are risky and volatile, and open their minds to the versatility that tokenization offers. It’s a start, anyway.
Custody startupCurvis teaming up with Ethereum-based crypto wallet MetaMaskto allow institutions to be able to investin decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols with institutional-grade custody options.TAKEAWAY:The DeFi industry is growing fast but is still tiny by traditional asset standards. The attractive yields and growth potential of some of the assets have started to attract institutional attention, however, and initiatives designed to make it easier for professional investors to explore the space are emerging to support this. We’ll no doubt see more announcements like this in the months to come.
An Ethereum-based fund managed by Canadian investment fund manager3iQhas completedan initial public offeringfor around $76.5 million the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), under the symbol QETH.U.TAKEAWAY:This is not available to U.S. investors, which will limit its liquidity, but the emergence of another listed ETH play signals the deepening maturity of the ETH market infrastructure overall.
• Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks
• Crypto Long & Short: Bitcoin’s Relationship With Gold Is More Complicated Than It Looks || Facebook Balks At Taking Down Hindu Extremist Content Over Fears Of Worker Safety: WSJ: Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) decided not to take down content related to an extremist group fearing it might lead to attacks on its employees in India. What Happened: In June, after a violent incident on a Pentecostal church outside New Delhi that led to a pastor being beaten by the attackers, a nationalist organization called Bajrang Dal claimed responsibility. The video address of the group was posted on Facebook and was viewed almost 250,000 times. And while it contradicts Facebook's hate speech policy, it has not been taken down, the Wall Street Journal reported . Why It Matters: The company's social media security team has issued a report saying that taking the video down might put India-based staff in danger. “Banning Bajrang Dal might precipitate physical attacks against Facebook personnel or facilities,” WSJ quoted the security team report. The team also warned about risks from removing Sanatan Sanstha and Sri Ram Sena, two other right-wing Hindu nationalist groups, from Facebook. Bajrang Dal is classified as “a militant religious organization” by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It has committed hate crimes and religiously motivated killings, according to the Wall Street Journal report. Price Action: Facebook stock closed at $273.55 on Friday and traded 0.27% lower at $272.80 in the post-market trading. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Affirm Holdings Becomes 2nd Company This Weekend To Delay Initial Public Offering As Bitcoin Again Surpasses K, Analysts Eye K-Level © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Facebook Balks At Taking Down Hindu Extremist Content Over Fears Of Worker Safety: WSJ: Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) decided not to take down content related to an extremist group fearing it might lead to attacks on its employees in India.
What Happened:In June, after a violent incident on a Pentecostal church outside New Delhi that led to a pastor being beaten by the attackers, a nationalist organization called Bajrang Dal claimed responsibility.
The video address of the group was posted on Facebook and was viewed almost 250,000 times.
And while it contradicts Facebook's hate speech policy, it has not been taken down, the Wall Street Journalreported.
Why It Matters:The company's social media security team has issued a report saying that taking the video down might put India-based staff in danger.
“Banning Bajrang Dal might precipitate physical attacks against Facebook personnel or facilities,” WSJ quoted the security team report.
The team also warned about risks from removing Sanatan Sanstha and Sri Ram Sena, two other right-wing Hindu nationalist groups, from Facebook.
Bajrang Dal is classified as “a militant religious organization” by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It has committed hate crimes and religiously motivated killings, according to the Wall Street Journal report.
Price Action:Facebook stock closed at $273.55 on Friday and traded 0.27% lower at $272.80 in the post-market trading.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Affirm Holdings Becomes 2nd Company This Weekend To Delay Initial Public Offering
• As Bitcoin Again Surpasses K, Analysts Eye K-Level
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson: Fidelity Investments CEO Abby Johnson says the mutual fund giant’s custody business around bitcoin has been “incredibly successful” and has a “tremendous pipeline.”
In aninterviewwith Barron’s, Johnson noted that developments in the sector are moving so rapidly it’s hard to keep track of them all, and said things that have long been talked about in the sector are now starting to become reality. The interview with Johnson can be watchedhereand starts at the 22:30 mark.
Johnson also said:
• Fidelity, which began abitcoinmining operation in 2016, has been working on connecting the legacy world with the future of cryptocurrencies. “Building those on- and off-ramps around facilitating the trading between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies is something that’s happening now, and I’m glad it’s moving along,” she said.
• “If you had asked me at the beginning if we or anybody was going to be prioritizing custody of bitcoin I would have said, ‘No way. I mean that’s kind of the opposite of what it’s all about.’ But the reality is that you do need it because if you’re an individual who engages an adviser and you want to make an estate plan you actually need someone to custody your bitcoin.”
Related:First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin
Read also:Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap Is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson || Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson: Fidelity Investments CEO Abby Johnson says the mutual fund giant’s custody business around bitcoin has been “incredibly successful” and has a “tremendous pipeline.” In an interview with Barron’s, Johnson noted that developments in the sector are moving so rapidly it’s hard to keep track of them all, and said things that have long been talked about in the sector are now starting to become reality. The interview with Johnson can be watched here and starts at the 22:30 mark. Johnson also said: Fidelity, which began a bitc oin mining operation in 2016, has been working on connecting the legacy world with the future of cryptocurrencies. “Building those on- and off-ramps around facilitating the trading between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies is something that’s happening now, and I’m glad it’s moving along,” she said. “If you had asked me at the beginning if we or anybody was going to be prioritizing custody of bitcoin I would have said, ‘No way. I mean that’s kind of the opposite of what it’s all about.’ But the reality is that you do need it because if you’re an individual who engages an adviser and you want to make an estate plan you actually need someone to custody your bitcoin.” Related: First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin Read also: Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap Is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential Related Stories Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson || Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson: Fidelity Investments CEO Abby Johnson says the mutual fund giant’s custody business around bitcoin has been “incredibly successful” and has a “tremendous pipeline.”
In aninterviewwith Barron’s, Johnson noted that developments in the sector are moving so rapidly it’s hard to keep track of them all, and said things that have long been talked about in the sector are now starting to become reality. The interview with Johnson can be watchedhereand starts at the 22:30 mark.
Johnson also said:
• Fidelity, which began abitcoinmining operation in 2016, has been working on connecting the legacy world with the future of cryptocurrencies. “Building those on- and off-ramps around facilitating the trading between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies is something that’s happening now, and I’m glad it’s moving along,” she said.
• “If you had asked me at the beginning if we or anybody was going to be prioritizing custody of bitcoin I would have said, ‘No way. I mean that’s kind of the opposite of what it’s all about.’ But the reality is that you do need it because if you’re an individual who engages an adviser and you want to make an estate plan you actually need someone to custody your bitcoin.”
Related:First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin
Read also:Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap Is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson
• Fidelity’s Custody Business Around Bitcoin ‘Incredibly Successful’: Johnson || Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF: No matter how it looks, swims or quacks, if the law says it ain’t a duck, then it ain’t one – “The Michael Saylor Guide to Waterfowl Identification.”
No, to our knowledge, Saylor, CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, has not written any such guide. However, if he did so, one can imagine an entry like this upending the famous“duck test”of observed reality that the poet James Whitcomb Riley is believed to have coined.
It certainly captures the letter-of-the-law reasoning Saylor used on Twitter Friday evening to dismiss widespread speculation that his company’s recent massive purchases ofbitcoinhave turned it into an investment firm or even de facto bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Related:How the Incoming Administration Can Fix Crypto Regulation
While some have argued that investors in Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy (MSTR) are now effectively buying a regulated investment vehicle that gives them exposure to the leading cryptocurrency, Saylor turned to statute citations to argue that his firm nothing of the sort:
Since August, MicroStrategy has bought $475 million in bitcoin and the firm shows no sign of stopping. This past week, MSTRsold$650 million in convertible senior notes to raise funds to acquire even more bitcoin.
During the company’s bitcoin-buying binge, MSTR shares have more than doubled because many investors saw holding shares of the company as a way to gain exposure to bitcoin, much like holding shares in an ETF gives one exposure to whatever asset the ETF is invested in. But with his tweets Friday, Saylor was essentially saying it doesn’t matter what those investors think. The words “in effect” make all the difference.
With his customary chutzpah Saylor is drawing a line in the sand by saying he thinks MSTR’s purchase of 40,824 bitcoins is merely the company choosing to hold its reserves in a currency other than U.S. dollars no matter how investors might view it or why they’re loading up on MSTR shares. No matter that Saylor, who controls 70% of MSTR’s shares, has been the biggest beneficiary of the stock’s bitcoin-fueled rise.
Related:Dispute Resolution Protocols Can Help Enterprise Adopt Blockchain
See also:A De Facto Bitcoin ETF? MicroStrategy Is Raising $400M to Buy More BTC
By publicly referencing applicable law/rulings, Saylor may also be hoping to dissuade the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from revisiting its own work on waterfowl identification, a revisitation, which could lead to a different ruling on bitcoin and thus, changing species slightly, cook his goose.
• Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF
• Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF || Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF: No matter how it looks, swims or quacks, if the law says it ain’t a duck, then it ain’t one – “The Michael Saylor Guide to Waterfowl Identification.”
No, to our knowledge, Saylor, CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, has not written any such guide. However, if he did so, one can imagine an entry like this upending the famous“duck test”of observed reality that the poet James Whitcomb Riley is believed to have coined.
It certainly captures the letter-of-the-law reasoning Saylor used on Twitter Friday evening to dismiss widespread speculation that his company’s recent massive purchases ofbitcoinhave turned it into an investment firm or even de facto bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Related:How the Incoming Administration Can Fix Crypto Regulation
While some have argued that investors in Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy (MSTR) are now effectively buying a regulated investment vehicle that gives them exposure to the leading cryptocurrency, Saylor turned to statute citations to argue that his firm nothing of the sort:
Since August, MicroStrategy has bought $475 million in bitcoin and the firm shows no sign of stopping. This past week, MSTRsold$650 million in convertible senior notes to raise funds to acquire even more bitcoin.
During the company’s bitcoin-buying binge, MSTR shares have more than doubled because many investors saw holding shares of the company as a way to gain exposure to bitcoin, much like holding shares in an ETF gives one exposure to whatever asset the ETF is invested in. But with his tweets Friday, Saylor was essentially saying it doesn’t matter what those investors think. The words “in effect” make all the difference.
With his customary chutzpah Saylor is drawing a line in the sand by saying he thinks MSTR’s purchase of 40,824 bitcoins is merely the company choosing to hold its reserves in a currency other than U.S. dollars no matter how investors might view it or why they’re loading up on MSTR shares. No matter that Saylor, who controls 70% of MSTR’s shares, has been the biggest beneficiary of the stock’s bitcoin-fueled rise.
Related:Dispute Resolution Protocols Can Help Enterprise Adopt Blockchain
See also:A De Facto Bitcoin ETF? MicroStrategy Is Raising $400M to Buy More BTC
By publicly referencing applicable law/rulings, Saylor may also be hoping to dissuade the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from revisiting its own work on waterfowl identification, a revisitation, which could lead to a different ruling on bitcoin and thus, changing species slightly, cook his goose.
• Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF
• Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF || Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF: No matter how it looks, swims or quacks, if the law says it ain’t a duck, then it ain’t one – “The Michael Saylor Guide to Waterfowl Identification.” No, to our knowledge, Saylor, CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, has not written any such guide. However, if he did so, one can imagine an entry like this upending the famous “duck test” of observed reality that the poet James Whitcomb Riley is believed to have coined. It certainly captures the letter-of-the-law reasoning Saylor used on Twitter Friday evening to dismiss widespread speculation that his company’s recent massive purchases of bitcoin have turned it into an investment firm or even de facto bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Related: How the Incoming Administration Can Fix Crypto Regulation While some have argued that investors in Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy (MSTR) are now effectively buying a regulated investment vehicle that gives them exposure to the leading cryptocurrency, Saylor turned to statute citations to argue that his firm nothing of the sort: Since August, MicroStrategy has bought $475 million in bitcoin and the firm shows no sign of stopping. This past week, MSTR sold $650 million in convertible senior notes to raise funds to acquire even more bitcoin. During the company’s bitcoin-buying binge, MSTR shares have more than doubled because many investors saw holding shares of the company as a way to gain exposure to bitcoin, much like holding shares in an ETF gives one exposure to whatever asset the ETF is invested in. But with his tweets Friday, Saylor was essentially saying it doesn’t matter what those investors think. The words “in effect” make all the difference. With his customary chutzpah Saylor is drawing a line in the sand by saying he thinks MSTR’s purchase of 40,824 bitcoins is merely the company choosing to hold its reserves in a currency other than U.S. dollars no matter how investors might view it or why they’re loading up on MSTR shares. No matter that Saylor, who controls 70% of MSTR’s shares, has been the biggest beneficiary of the stock’s bitcoin-fueled rise. Story continues Related: Dispute Resolution Protocols Can Help Enterprise Adopt Blockchain See also: A De Facto Bitcoin ETF? MicroStrategy Is Raising $400M to Buy More BTC By publicly referencing applicable law/rulings, Saylor may also be hoping to dissuade the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from revisiting its own work on waterfowl identification, a revisitation, which could lead to a different ruling on bitcoin and thus, changing species slightly, cook his goose. Related Stories Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF Saylor Hits Back at Claims MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Trove Makes It an ETF || Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining: Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees.
Los Angeles, Dec. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cryptocurrency miners are one of the main figures in the crypto economy. They mint new coins that are more often than not sold on the market so they can keep their operations running. Miners help secure the network and are rewarded for doing so.
Most cryptocurrencies – including bitcoin, ether, and Litecoin – reward miners with a specific amount of coins per block found, plus the amount of collected fees included in the transactions in the block they found.
When blockchains get clogged over large transaction volumes, miners make a profit as users start competing with each other to get their transactions included in the next block. This competition sees them bid on higher fees, that go directly to the miners that find the right blocks.
Earlier this year, when the decentralized finance (DeFi) space started booming, Ethereum miners’ revenues hit a two-year high of $602,000 per day. While the figure is split amongst all of the miners on the network, it’s clear from the chart below how much more miners started earning.
Getting into cryptocurrency mining can, however, be challenging for newcomers to the space. Finding the right hardware to buy to make a profit is a challenge, and setting it up properly with the right cooling system and finding the right energy prices to keep healthy margins may be reserved for larger operations only.
To tackle these challenges cloud mining was created. Cloud mining lets users mine crypto assets using rented cloud computing power without having to buy, install, and run the hardware themselves. The service makes mining accessible to more people, but often cloud mining providers charge hidden maintenance and energy fees that cut away investors’ profits.
Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. With MinerGarden, users can contribute to the security of their favorite cryptocurrency network, while earning passive income through the firm’s affordable cloud mining contracts.
How to Mine Crypto With “Miners Garden”
MinerGarden offers users affordable cloud mining contracts, starting from 200 GH/s. This means users can start mining with a very low initial investment and take their time to decide whether the service is the right one for them.
The firm keeps prices low by using the proper equipment and hiring experts to configure it properly. Mining using favorable energy prices also helps it keep down cryptocurrency cloud mining contract costs. MinerGarden’s data centers host hundreds of miners and the farm charges no maintenance fees.
To start mining cryptocurrency with MinerGarden you just need to follow three simple steps:
· Register for an account – You need an account to both pay for the hashrate and to withdraw your funds later on. Your account will also give you access to the dashboard where you can monitor performance.
· Choose a mining plan – MinerGarden offers various mining plans on the Bitcoin network, Also launched ETHASH to mine Ethereum, and Scrypt to mine LTC.
· Buy the hashrate you want – Finally, you just need to choose how much hashrate you’re looking for and pay using Visa, Mastercard, or Bitcoin. After the payment is confirmed, mining begins immediately.
That’s it – you are now contributing to the security of the cryptocurrency network you chose, and making a passive income doing so.
They have the Russian Farm and By adding the New Farm in Iceland Minersgarden Become the fifth largest BTC and ETH mining pool and is also the largest LTC mining pool in the world. Minersgarden has served more than 200k users from 130+ countries/regions with secure & professional services of cryptocurrency mining. It pioneered the PPS+ revenue distribution model, which is safe and stable with higher revenue. Minersgarden is also the world’s first mining pool that supports the Hourly Auto Conversion between mined coins and USDT.
Website:https://minersgarden.com
Jessica Clarck | [email protected]
This news has been published for the above source. Minersgarden [ID=15790]
Disclaimer: The pr is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied: The content publisher provides the information without warranty of any kind. We also do not accept any responsibility or liability for the legal facts, content accuracy, photos, videos. if you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
Attachment
• Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining || Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining: Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. Los Angeles, Dec. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cryptocurrency miners are one of the main figures in the crypto economy. They mint new coins that are more often than not sold on the market so they can keep their operations running. Miners help secure the network and are rewarded for doing so. Most cryptocurrencies – including bitcoin, ether, and Litecoin – reward miners with a specific amount of coins per block found, plus the amount of collected fees included in the transactions in the block they found. When blockchains get clogged over large transaction volumes, miners make a profit as users start competing with each other to get their transactions included in the next block. This competition sees them bid on higher fees, that go directly to the miners that find the right blocks. Earlier this year, when the decentralized finance (DeFi) space started booming, Ethereum miners’ revenues hit a two-year high of $602,000 per day. While the figure is split amongst all of the miners on the network, it’s clear from the chart below how much more miners started earning. Getting into cryptocurrency mining can, however, be challenging for newcomers to the space. Finding the right hardware to buy to make a profit is a challenge, and setting it up properly with the right cooling system and finding the right energy prices to keep healthy margins may be reserved for larger operations only. To tackle these challenges cloud mining was created. Cloud mining lets users mine crypto assets using rented cloud computing power without having to buy, install, and run the hardware themselves. The service makes mining accessible to more people, but often cloud mining providers charge hidden maintenance and energy fees that cut away investors’ profits. Story continues Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. With MinerGarden, users can contribute to the security of their favorite cryptocurrency network, while earning passive income through the firm’s affordable cloud mining contracts. How to Mine Crypto With “Miners Garden” MinerGarden offers users affordable cloud mining contracts, starting from 200 GH/s. This means users can start mining with a very low initial investment and take their time to decide whether the service is the right one for them. The firm keeps prices low by using the proper equipment and hiring experts to configure it properly. Mining using favorable energy prices also helps it keep down cryptocurrency cloud mining contract costs. MinerGarden’s data centers host hundreds of miners and the farm charges no maintenance fees. To start mining cryptocurrency with MinerGarden you just need to follow three simple steps: · Register for an account – You need an account to both pay for the hashrate and to withdraw your funds later on. Your account will also give you access to the dashboard where you can monitor performance. · Choose a mining plan – MinerGarden offers various mining plans on the Bitcoin network, Also launched ETHASH to mine Ethereum, and Scrypt to mine LTC. · Buy the hashrate you want – Finally, you just need to choose how much hashrate you’re looking for and pay using Visa, Mastercard, or Bitcoin. After the payment is confirmed, mining begins immediately. That’s it – you are now contributing to the security of the cryptocurrency network you chose, and making a passive income doing so. They have the Russian Farm and By adding the New Farm in Iceland Minersgarden Become the fifth largest BTC and ETH mining pool and is also the largest LTC mining pool in the world. Minersgarden has served more than 200k users from 130+ countries/regions with secure & professional services of cryptocurrency mining. It pioneered the PPS+ revenue distribution model, which is safe and stable with higher revenue. Minersgarden is also the world’s first mining pool that supports the Hourly Auto Conversion between mined coins and USDT. Website: https://minersgarden.com Jessica Clarck | [email protected] This news has been published for the above source. Minersgarden [ID=15790] Disclaimer: The pr is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied: The content publisher provides the information without warranty of any kind. We also do not accept any responsibility or liability for the legal facts, content accuracy, photos, videos. if you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above. Attachment Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining || Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining: Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees.
Los Angeles, Dec. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cryptocurrency miners are one of the main figures in the crypto economy. They mint new coins that are more often than not sold on the market so they can keep their operations running. Miners help secure the network and are rewarded for doing so.
Most cryptocurrencies – including bitcoin, ether, and Litecoin – reward miners with a specific amount of coins per block found, plus the amount of collected fees included in the transactions in the block they found.
When blockchains get clogged over large transaction volumes, miners make a profit as users start competing with each other to get their transactions included in the next block. This competition sees them bid on higher fees, that go directly to the miners that find the right blocks.
Earlier this year, when the decentralized finance (DeFi) space started booming, Ethereum miners’ revenues hit a two-year high of $602,000 per day. While the figure is split amongst all of the miners on the network, it’s clear from the chart below how much more miners started earning.
Getting into cryptocurrency mining can, however, be challenging for newcomers to the space. Finding the right hardware to buy to make a profit is a challenge, and setting it up properly with the right cooling system and finding the right energy prices to keep healthy margins may be reserved for larger operations only.
To tackle these challenges cloud mining was created. Cloud mining lets users mine crypto assets using rented cloud computing power without having to buy, install, and run the hardware themselves. The service makes mining accessible to more people, but often cloud mining providers charge hidden maintenance and energy fees that cut away investors’ profits.
Enter MinerGarden, the first cloud cryptocurrency mining farm that puts accessibly and ease-of-use ahead of fees. With MinerGarden, users can contribute to the security of their favorite cryptocurrency network, while earning passive income through the firm’s affordable cloud mining contracts.
How to Mine Crypto With “Miners Garden”
MinerGarden offers users affordable cloud mining contracts, starting from 200 GH/s. This means users can start mining with a very low initial investment and take their time to decide whether the service is the right one for them.
The firm keeps prices low by using the proper equipment and hiring experts to configure it properly. Mining using favorable energy prices also helps it keep down cryptocurrency cloud mining contract costs. MinerGarden’s data centers host hundreds of miners and the farm charges no maintenance fees.
To start mining cryptocurrency with MinerGarden you just need to follow three simple steps:
· Register for an account – You need an account to both pay for the hashrate and to withdraw your funds later on. Your account will also give you access to the dashboard where you can monitor performance.
· Choose a mining plan – MinerGarden offers various mining plans on the Bitcoin network, Also launched ETHASH to mine Ethereum, and Scrypt to mine LTC.
· Buy the hashrate you want – Finally, you just need to choose how much hashrate you’re looking for and pay using Visa, Mastercard, or Bitcoin. After the payment is confirmed, mining begins immediately.
That’s it – you are now contributing to the security of the cryptocurrency network you chose, and making a passive income doing so.
They have the Russian Farm and By adding the New Farm in Iceland Minersgarden Become the fifth largest BTC and ETH mining pool and is also the largest LTC mining pool in the world. Minersgarden has served more than 200k users from 130+ countries/regions with secure & professional services of cryptocurrency mining. It pioneered the PPS+ revenue distribution model, which is safe and stable with higher revenue. Minersgarden is also the world’s first mining pool that supports the Hourly Auto Conversion between mined coins and USDT.
Website:https://minersgarden.com
Jessica Clarck | [email protected]
This news has been published for the above source. Minersgarden [ID=15790]
Disclaimer: The pr is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied: The content publisher provides the information without warranty of any kind. We also do not accept any responsibility or liability for the legal facts, content accuracy, photos, videos. if you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
Attachment
• Minersgarden Launches New Iceland Farm For BTC and ETH Cloud Mining || As Bitcoin Again Surpasses $19K, Analysts Eye $20K-Level: Bitcoin is going again, reaching $19,000 for the first time since Dec. 7. What Happened: Bitcoin has surpassed the $19,000 mark after it went down on Dec. 7 and bottomed at $17,600 on Dec. 11. It was trading at $19,137.25 as of Sunday morning, Eastern Standard Time, according to data platform CoinMarketCap. That was a gain of 4.17% over the previous 24 hours. This is leading some followers to claim it has surpassed a key resistance mark and will go upwards from there. Why It Matters: Analysts have been weighing in about the bottom and the future of the leading cryptocurrency. Edward Morra, a technical analyst quoted by leading crypto publication Cointelegraph, believes $17,600 is the bottom, based on heatmaps and the number of orders. $BTC Pretty thick wall on Finex tapped. Last time we touched it we bounced good pic.twitter.com/9X7zbiyVpD Edward Morra (@edwardmorra_btc) December 11, 2020 As for future prices, crypto enthusiasts have mainly remained optimistic. A widely followed, anonymous crypto follower who goes by the handle Beastlorion thinks a big pump is coming. The price action on $BTC right now is something else. There's like 0 sell pressure. It feels like the price is getting pulled up at this point instead of pushing up. Just look at those volume bars. Big pump coming IMO pic.twitter.com/qNZJzfLVEc Beastlorion (@Beastlyorion) December 13, 2020 A CTO at blockchain market analytics company Glassnode predicts the Bitcoin price might increase 10 times over and reach $240,000. Story continues 2/ MVRV Z-Score ($240,000) Current value: At only 34% of the 2017 top. Price in 2017 increased +1,150% to ATH. A +1,150% increase today: $BTC at $240,000 Chart: https://t.co/q2woRsvuJ1 #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/PRQ4gLaEu3 Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) December 8, 2020 Overall, the crypto market has been in the green, with leading altcoins Ethereum, XRP and Litecoin also gaining 4.92%, 3.43%, and 7.02%, respectively, as of Sunday morning. The current capitalization of the entire crytocurrency market is $561,422,009,094. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Steve Wozniak's Blockchain Venture Lists Cryptocurrency Token, Reaches 0M In 13 Minutes MicroStrategy Buys Million Worth Of Bitcoin, Topping Up Holdings To 6M © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || As Bitcoin Again Surpasses $19K, Analysts Eye $20K-Level: Bitcoinis going again, reaching $19,000 for the first time since Dec. 7.
What Happened:Bitcoin has surpassed the $19,000 mark after it went down on Dec. 7 and bottomed at $17,600 on Dec. 11.
It wastradingat $19,137.25 as of Sunday morning, Eastern Standard Time, according to data platform CoinMarketCap. That was a gain of 4.17% over the previous 24 hours.
This is leading some followers to claim it has surpassed a key resistance mark and will go upwards from there.
Why It Matters:Analysts have been weighing in about the bottom and the future of the leading cryptocurrency.
Edward Morra, a technical analystquotedby leading crypto publication Cointelegraph,believes$17,600 is the bottom, based on heatmaps and the number of orders.
As for future prices, crypto enthusiasts have mainly remained optimistic. A widely followed, anonymous crypto follower who goes by the handle Beastlorionthinksa “big pump” is coming.
A CTO at blockchain market analytics company Glassnodepredictsthe Bitcoin price might increase 10 times over and reach $240,000.
Overall, the crypto market has been in the green, with leading altcoins Ethereum, XRP and Litecoin also gaining4.92%, 3.43%, and 7.02%, respectively, as of Sunday morning.The current capitalization of the entire crytocurrency market is $561,422,009,094.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Steve Wozniak's Blockchain Venture Lists Cryptocurrency Token, Reaches 0M In 13 Minutes
• MicroStrategy Buys Million Worth Of Bitcoin, Topping Up Holdings To 6M
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || As Bitcoin Again Surpasses $19K, Analysts Eye $20K-Level: Bitcoinis going again, reaching $19,000 for the first time since Dec. 7.
What Happened:Bitcoin has surpassed the $19,000 mark after it went down on Dec. 7 and bottomed at $17,600 on Dec. 11.
It wastradingat $19,137.25 as of Sunday morning, Eastern Standard Time, according to data platform CoinMarketCap. That was a gain of 4.17% over the previous 24 hours.
This is leading some followers to claim it has surpassed a key resistance mark and will go upwards from there.
Why It Matters:Analysts have been weighing in about the bottom and the future of the leading cryptocurrency.
Edward Morra, a technical analystquotedby leading crypto publication Cointelegraph,believes$17,600 is the bottom, based on heatmaps and the number of orders.
As for future prices, crypto enthusiasts have mainly remained optimistic. A widely followed, anonymous crypto follower who goes by the handle Beastlorionthinksa “big pump” is coming.
A CTO at blockchain market analytics company Glassnodepredictsthe Bitcoin price might increase 10 times over and reach $240,000.
Overall, the crypto market has been in the green, with leading altcoins Ethereum, XRP and Litecoin also gaining4.92%, 3.43%, and 7.02%, respectively, as of Sunday morning.The current capitalization of the entire crytocurrency market is $561,422,009,094.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Steve Wozniak's Blockchain Venture Lists Cryptocurrency Token, Reaches 0M In 13 Minutes
• MicroStrategy Buys Million Worth Of Bitcoin, Topping Up Holdings To 6M
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How Much Debt Can a Country Handle?: As conventional wisdom grows that central banks can go more deeply into debt than previously thought, one economist asks, how much is too much?
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.com,Nexo.ioand this week’s special product launchLVL.co.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Dec. 14, 2020
Download this episode
This week’s edition of Long Reads Sunday is a reading of “How Much Debt Is Too Much?” by Raghuram Rajan on Project Syndicate.
In it, the author explores the shifting conventional wisdom on national debt and worries that countries may reach their limit far earlier than they think.
See also:Luke Gromen on the History and (Declining) Future of the Global Dollar System
Related:‘COVID-19 Was a Catalyst’: Henri Arslanian on a ‘Game-Changing’ Year for Crypto and 10 Predictions for 2021
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• How Much Debt Can a Country Handle?
• How Much Debt Can a Country Handle? || How Much Debt Can a Country Handle?: As conventional wisdom grows that central banks can go more deeply into debt than previously thought, one economist asks, how much is too much? For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com , Nexo.io and this week’s special product launch LVL.co . Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for Dec. 14, 2020 Download this episode This week’s edition of Long Reads Sunday is a reading of “ How Much Debt Is Too Much? ” by Raghuram Rajan on Project Syndicate. In it, the author explores the shifting conventional wisdom on national debt and worries that countries may reach their limit far earlier than they think. See also: Luke Gromen on the History and (Declining) Future of the Global Dollar System Related: ‘COVID-19 Was a Catalyst’: Henri Arslanian on a ‘Game-Changing’ Year for Crypto and 10 Predictions for 2021 For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . Related Stories How Much Debt Can a Country Handle? How Much Debt Can a Country Handle? || Will Bitcoin Continue to Rise? Crypto Experts Finixio Make Their Predictions: Major Crypto Media Company Makes Market Forecast. Crypto Experts Finixio Make Their Predictions Major Crypto Media Company Makes Market Forecast.... Major Crypto Media Company Makes Market Forecast.... London, UK, Dec. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Monday, November 30th the financial world held their collective breath as Bitcoin reached its highest value yet, topping its December 2017 all time high. The skeptics had been proven wrong. Finixio has been keeping a close eye on this story for years. The media company publishes a wide variety of content and has done for several years. As a result their expertise in the area is second to none, and they are making their forecast on its future.... The History In 2017, Bitcoin rocked the market by reaching an unforeseen peak of $19,783. This made professionals and amateurs alike stand at attention and start to take cryptocurrencies seriously. The dream didnt last long. Bitcoin was still an extremely volatile asset and the currency crashed spectacularly shortly after. It lost 25% of its value in only a day and by late 2018 it was valued under $4,000. There was no shortage of financial skepticism regarding its future. But Bitcoin had been worth only hundreds in 2016 and mere cents in 2008. Despite its colossal fall, it had stabilized at a price that would still make early adopters unbelievable profits. The Present Eighteen days before the third year anniversary of its previous high, Bitcoin reached a value of $19,857.03. It began the year around $7100 and by October, it was already exhibiting an amazingly profitable year. Renewed interest was sparking, and financial experts had started making amazing predictions from late spring. By the summer it was becoming clear that crypto and digital currency would have a huge role to play in the new global economy. BTC started November at $14,000 and ended it with a bang. Mondays peak was followed by an expected devaluation. By Thursday trading had gone down slightly with exchange data showing only $990 million in trades versus Wednesdays $1.3 B and November $1.5 B average. Story continues However, this time around people are not expecting a crash. In fact, both enthusiastic and cautious investors are predicting significant gains for Bitcoin in the next two years. A Volatile Asset Estimates vary wildly as to where the price of Bitcoin will land. Some say that it may reach $60,000 by next year, others believe it might even break $100,000. But Finixios own Adam Grunwerg warns that Bitcoin is still a very volatile asset thats likely to keep experiencing ebbs and flows. In the next year we could see fluctuations as big as 20-30% in BTC value. As a partner who has traded the rise and fall and rise of the currency over many years, he has the experience to back this up. However, crypto trading expert Adam is largely optimistic about the future These fluctuations are not going to be enough to slow it down. Bitcoin will likely break $50,000 in 2021. The market trend is clear. Despite Bitcoins variability, new bull cycles see the highs go higher and the lows get higher as well. This is to say that Bitcoin keeps breaking its previous records and stabilizing at higher prices after its drops. Where is the Trust Coming From? The reason for investors newfound faith in crypto has to do with who is doing the investing. In 2017, Bitcoins price was driven up by individual investors who believed in the future and value of the technology. At the time though, Bitcoin was not a reputable investment. It was not backed by any assets or by a government and lack of mainstream support was adding to its risk. In 2020, the rise of Bitcoin is driven by institutional investment . Large hedge funds and publicly traded companies are driving this bull cycle and they dont present the same reputational drawbacks that retail investors do. Recently, Square and Paypal have added crypto currency to their offering. Mainstream financial media is paying attention and reporting on crypto on the daily. And this time its not dismissive. This time its serious business. The involvement of such large players in the Crypto world gives it the legitimacy it needs. We are likely seeing the beginning of the entry of digital currency in the mainstream and in the following years, this market will harden into its proper mold. Why are institutional investors starting to pay so much attention to Bitcoin? The answer lies in our Covid-19 stricken world. Countries have had to increase debt in order to support the financial burden of closed economies and reduced output. Covid has completely changed the game when it comes to patterns of invested capital. Nations and companies are hedging their assets like never before with crypto, says Adam Grunwerg . This resulted in inflation which led investors to seek to hedge against it as the purchasing power of the dollar and other fiat currencies started rapidly decreasing. The Supply Problem Another important factor that is likely to continue driving up the price of Bitcoin is its supply problem. There is only a limited amount of Bitcoin available. Although Bitcoin can be mined, there are very few who are actually doing that and all other investors depend on the supply. Whats more, Bitcoin miners are going to be incentivised to keep a hold on to their assets as prices soar. Chris Thomas of Swissquote bank explained the supply and demand imbalance is just incredible. Institutional buyers are picking up large amounts fairly quickly and demand doesn't look like its going to dry up. Glassnode reports that miner wallets such as Lubian.com, F2Pool, Binance Pool and Poolin collectively hold more than 33,000 BTC. Thomas added Miners need to cover their operating costs [..] its clear were going to continue going higher in a fairly convincing way for quite some time yet. As this trend continues, BTC prices will continue to rise but the supply problem will have another notable consequence that Finnixio advises inventors to pay attention to. Other Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency in town and its supply problems are likely to drive other competing currencies up as well. In the last few days the ETH/BTC has also been on a bull cycle. Ethereum has seen a 350% increase in its value since the beginning of the year, and investors seem to be willing to buy Ethereum with Bitcoin. Last week ether briefly passed the $600 mark, Mr. Grunwerg tells us. Its creators have also announced exciting updates that are said to fix ether scalability issues, thus making the currency even more competitive. Other than Ethereum, both Cardano and Orchid benefited from the Bitcoin rise last week. The Future As predicted, it seems we are entering the era of cryptocurrency and digital coins. Finixio is here to take you along for the ride and tell you everything you need to know about trends and their impact. Its a transformative time for the fintech industry and this time, its not going to slow down. Media Details Name - Abbas Ali Email - [email protected] Website URL - https://finixio.com/ City, Country - London, United Kingdom Brand Story for Finixio is powered by KISS PR Story PressWire This news has been published for the above source. Finixio [ID=15721] Disclaimer: The pr is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied: The content publisher provides the information without warranty of any kind. We also do not accept any responsibility or liability for the legal facts, content accuracy, photos, videos. if you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above. Attachment Crypto Experts Finixio Make Their Predictions
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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19417.08, 21310.60, 22805.16, 23137.96, 23869.83, 23477.29, 22803.08, 23783.03, 23241.35, 23735.95
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-18]
Volume: 21579470673, RSI (14-day): 38.47, 50-day EMA: 8876.89, 200-day EMA: 8716.24
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1470.90, Gold RSI: 45.35
Oil Price: 57.05, Oil RSI: 55.62
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
PODCAST: ‘Let’s Talk Bitcoin!’ Hosts Discuss Libra, China and Cargo Cults: The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations.
This week marks the debut of the CoinDesk Podcast Network. By next year, you’ll be able to find new episodes on a variety of topics every day of the week. For now, every Sunday, CoinDesk will play host to deep, nuanced discussions about complex issues with the cast of theLet’s Talk Bitcoin!show.
Let’s Talk Bitcoin!is a long-running independent podcast on the ideas, people and projects powering the cryptocurrency narrative. On this show, we basically talk about everything other than the price.
Related:PODCAST: Meltem Demirors on the 3 Things Bitcoin Represents
Since we started this conversation in early 2013, a whole world of blockchains and tokens has sprung up alongside bitcoin, and we talk about those too as real-world events help us see what’s real and what’s just clever marketing.
• Disruptive Technology vs. Disruptive Topology
• Libra’s Challenges, China’s Tightrope and an AOL Moment?
• Permission or Anonymity and the Three-Body Problem
• Cargo Cults and DLT Mockingbirds
• Patriotism on the Blockchain
• Bubbles, Naked Shorts and a Helpful Government
Find past episodeshere.
[email protected] any questions, comments or suggested discussion topics.
Sponsors:Purse.io,Brave.com&eToro.com
Related:PODCAST: Josh Brown on Why Bitcoin Is Like the 1800s Railroad Boom
Hosts:Adam B. Levine,Andreas M. Antonopoulos,Stephanie Murphy,Jonathan Mohan
Producer:Adam B. Levine
Editors:Jonas Huck, Adam B. Levine
Music:Jared Rubens,General Fuzz
Andreas M. Antonopoulosis a best-selling author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. He is known for delivering electric talks that combine economics, psychology, technology, and game theory with current events, personal anecdotes, and historical precedents effortlessly transliterating the complex issues of blockchain technology out of the abstract and into the real world.
In 2014, Antonopoulos authored the groundbreaking book,Mastering Bitcoin(O’Reilly Media), widely considered to be the best technical guide ever written about the technology. His second book,The Internet of Money, unveiled the “why” of bitcoin – and became a bestseller on Amazon – and led to the wildly successful follow-upThe Internet of Money Volume Two. His fourth book,Mastering Ethereum(O’Reilly Media) was published in December of 2018.
He is a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, serves on the Oversight Committee for the Bitcoin Reference Rate at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and has appeared as an expert witness in hearings around the world, including the Australian Senate Banking Committee and the Canadian Senate Commerce, Banking and Finance Committee.
Adam B. Levinejoined CoinDesk in 2019 as editor of our audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-runningLet’s Talk Bitcoin!talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.
Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast’s homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of “Steemit”; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.
With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce withTokenMarkets.comand media with Token.fm.
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.is a scientist, passionate libertarian, prolific voice actor and long-time radio host. Uniquely among theLet’s Talk Bitcoin!crew, she remains an enthusiastic observer of the space but has chosen to keep her professional life separate from her bitcoin fascination.
Jonathan Mohanis an expert in the field of blockchain and distributed ledger technology use case analysis. He has acted in the capacity of strategic planning and development for many projects. Jonathan was a founding contributor of ethereum in January 2014. He was also an original contributing member of ConsenSys, an ethereum development studio as well as the founding contributor to both Factom and EOS. Jonathan formerly led BitcoinNYC, one of the largest blockchain meetups in New York City. Jonathan most recently founded Themys.io
• PODCAST: Kaiko’s Ambre Soubiran on Bitcoin’s ‘Intrinsic Value’
• PODCAST: Ikigai’s Travis Kling on Why Bitcoin Is a ‘Baby X-Man’ || PODCAST: ‘Let’s Talk Bitcoin!’ Hosts Discuss Libra, China and Cargo Cults: The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations.
This week marks the debut of the CoinDesk Podcast Network. By next year, you’ll be able to find new episodes on a variety of topics every day of the week. For now, every Sunday, CoinDesk will play host to deep, nuanced discussions about complex issues with the cast of theLet’s Talk Bitcoin!show.
Let’s Talk Bitcoin!is a long-running independent podcast on the ideas, people and projects powering the cryptocurrency narrative. On this show, we basically talk about everything other than the price.
Related:PODCAST: Meltem Demirors on the 3 Things Bitcoin Represents
Since we started this conversation in early 2013, a whole world of blockchains and tokens has sprung up alongside bitcoin, and we talk about those too as real-world events help us see what’s real and what’s just clever marketing.
• Disruptive Technology vs. Disruptive Topology
• Libra’s Challenges, China’s Tightrope and an AOL Moment?
• Permission or Anonymity and the Three-Body Problem
• Cargo Cults and DLT Mockingbirds
• Patriotism on the Blockchain
• Bubbles, Naked Shorts and a Helpful Government
Find past episodeshere.
[email protected] any questions, comments or suggested discussion topics.
Sponsors:Purse.io,Brave.com&eToro.com
Related:PODCAST: Josh Brown on Why Bitcoin Is Like the 1800s Railroad Boom
Hosts:Adam B. Levine,Andreas M. Antonopoulos,Stephanie Murphy,Jonathan Mohan
Producer:Adam B. Levine
Editors:Jonas Huck, Adam B. Levine
Music:Jared Rubens,General Fuzz
Andreas M. Antonopoulosis a best-selling author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. He is known for delivering electric talks that combine economics, psychology, technology, and game theory with current events, personal anecdotes, and historical precedents effortlessly transliterating the complex issues of blockchain technology out of the abstract and into the real world.
In 2014, Antonopoulos authored the groundbreaking book,Mastering Bitcoin(O’Reilly Media), widely considered to be the best technical guide ever written about the technology. His second book,The Internet of Money, unveiled the “why” of bitcoin – and became a bestseller on Amazon – and led to the wildly successful follow-upThe Internet of Money Volume Two. His fourth book,Mastering Ethereum(O’Reilly Media) was published in December of 2018.
He is a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, serves on the Oversight Committee for the Bitcoin Reference Rate at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and has appeared as an expert witness in hearings around the world, including the Australian Senate Banking Committee and the Canadian Senate Commerce, Banking and Finance Committee.
Adam B. Levinejoined CoinDesk in 2019 as editor of our audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-runningLet’s Talk Bitcoin!talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.
Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast’s homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of “Steemit”; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.
With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce withTokenMarkets.comand media with Token.fm.
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.is a scientist, passionate libertarian, prolific voice actor and long-time radio host. Uniquely among theLet’s Talk Bitcoin!crew, she remains an enthusiastic observer of the space but has chosen to keep her professional life separate from her bitcoin fascination.
Jonathan Mohanis an expert in the field of blockchain and distributed ledger technology use case analysis. He has acted in the capacity of strategic planning and development for many projects. Jonathan was a founding contributor of ethereum in January 2014. He was also an original contributing member of ConsenSys, an ethereum development studio as well as the founding contributor to both Factom and EOS. Jonathan formerly led BitcoinNYC, one of the largest blockchain meetups in New York City. Jonathan most recently founded Themys.io
• PODCAST: Kaiko’s Ambre Soubiran on Bitcoin’s ‘Intrinsic Value’
• PODCAST: Ikigai’s Travis Kling on Why Bitcoin Is a ‘Baby X-Man’ || PODCAST: ‘Let’s Talk Bitcoin!’ Hosts Discuss Libra, China and Cargo Cults: The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations. This week marks the debut of the CoinDesk Podcast Network. By next year, you’ll be able to find new episodes on a variety of topics every day of the week. For now, every Sunday, CoinDesk will play host to deep, nuanced discussions about complex issues with the cast of the Let’s Talk Bitcoin! show. Let’s Talk Bitcoin! is a long-running independent podcast on the ideas, people and projects powering the cryptocurrency narrative. On this show, we basically talk about everything other than the price. Related: PODCAST: Meltem Demirors on the 3 Things Bitcoin Represents Since we started this conversation in early 2013, a whole world of blockchains and tokens has sprung up alongside bitcoin, and we talk about those too as real-world events help us see what’s real and what’s just clever marketing. In this week’s discussion Disruptive Technology vs. Disruptive Topology Libra’s Challenges, China’s Tightrope and an AOL Moment? Permission or Anonymity and the Three-Body Problem Cargo Cults and DLT Mockingbirds Patriotism on the Blockchain Bubbles, Naked Shorts and a Helpful Government Episode 417 credits Find past episodes here . Email [email protected] with any questions, comments or suggested discussion topics. Sponsors: Purse.io , Brave.com & eToro.com Related: PODCAST: Josh Brown on Why Bitcoin Is Like the 1800s Railroad Boom Hosts: Adam B. Levine , Andreas M. Antonopoulos , Stephanie Murphy , Jonathan Mohan Producer: Adam B. Levine Editors: Jonas Huck, Adam B. Levine Music: Jared Rubens , General Fuzz About the hosts Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a best-selling author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. He is known for delivering electric talks that combine economics, psychology, technology, and game theory with current events, personal anecdotes, and historical precedents effortlessly transliterating the complex issues of blockchain technology out of the abstract and into the real world. Story continues In 2014, Antonopoulos authored the groundbreaking book, Mastering Bitcoin (O’Reilly Media), widely considered to be the best technical guide ever written about the technology. His second book, The Internet of Money , unveiled the “why” of bitcoin – and became a bestseller on Amazon – and led to the wildly successful follow-up The Internet of Money Volume Two . His fourth book, Mastering Ethereum (O’Reilly Media) was published in December of 2018. He is a teaching fellow with the University of Nicosia, serves on the Oversight Committee for the Bitcoin Reference Rate at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and has appeared as an expert witness in hearings around the world, including the Australian Senate Banking Committee and the Canadian Senate Commerce, Banking and Finance Committee. Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as editor of our audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let’s Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos. Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast’s homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of “Steemit”; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017. With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D. is a scientist, passionate libertarian, prolific voice actor and long-time radio host. Uniquely among the Let’s Talk Bitcoin! crew, she remains an enthusiastic observer of the space but has chosen to keep her professional life separate from her bitcoin fascination. Jonathan Mohan is an expert in the field of blockchain and distributed ledger technology use case analysis. He has acted in the capacity of strategic planning and development for many projects. Jonathan was a founding contributor of ethereum in January 2014. He was also an original contributing member of ConsenSys, an ethereum development studio as well as the founding contributor to both Factom and EOS. Jonathan formerly led BitcoinNYC, one of the largest blockchain meetups in New York City. Jonathan most recently founded Themys.io Related Stories PODCAST: Kaiko’s Ambre Soubiran on Bitcoin’s ‘Intrinsic Value’ PODCAST: Ikigai’s Travis Kling on Why Bitcoin Is a ‘Baby X-Man’ || Bored of the coins: Something strange is afoot in the world of cryptocurrencies. For the first time since Satoshi dropped Bitcoin on us like a benevolent bomb, this painfully new, highly bizarre field has become ... well ... boring. The true believers will tell you that great strides are being made, and the mainstream breakthrough is just around the corner, but they've been saying that for long enough that it's beginning to seem reasonable to start wondering if these wolves were ever real. I know, I know, it seems especially weird to be saying this at the same time that the President of China and CEO of Facebook have both become blockchain advocates . But China's cryptocurrency, if it happens, will be a panopticoin, a tool to centralize monetary control even more firmly in the hands of the Communist Party, nothing like the decentralized censorship-resistant programmable money that the crypto community is theoretically all about; and Facebook's, while making technical progress , keeps losing partners and gaining enemies. The crypto community is currently all agog about "DeFi," for decentralized finance, a movement which basically expands cryptocurrencies from "censorship-resistant money" to "censorship-resistant financial instruments," such as collateralized loans and interest-bearing investments, along with " staking " (not really DeFi, but often treated as it.) Inside the crypto world, this seems like a revolution which will one day replace Wall Street. Outside the crypto world, it seems ... a little like monks debating how many angels can dance on the end of a pin, one that no one is actually using and nobody outside the monastery cares about. It's easy to get the impression the cryptocurrency world has sacrificed technical engineering in favor of financial engineering. It's easy to see them as having abandoned "banking the unbanked," the alleged initial noble goal of many, to "offering sophisticated financial instruments to the unbanked," long before any of those famous unbanked have actually been, you know, banked. And I'm sorry to report that you wouldn't be entirely wrong. Story continues But there are real technical advances being made. It's just that they're mostly slow and behind the scenes, and in the interim, the community's " MOPs and sociopaths " have seized on DeFi. There is some visible progress. ZCash is making apparent breakthroughs in important, foundational cryptographic research. Tezos continues to upgrade its governance algorithms -- modify its code constitution, basically -- successfully. On the application layer, I'm interested in Vault12 , which uses "friends and family to safeguard crypto assets" -- basically, instead of entrusting the secret keys which control your cryptocurrencies to a third party like an exchange, something not particularly different from traditional banking, you protect them among people you trust, so that some number of them can collaborate with you to recover your keys if they're lost, using a cryptographic protocol known as Shamir's Secret Sharing. Luminaries such as Vitalik Buterin and Christopher Allen have argued for "social key recovery" for some time, and it's interesting to see it offered by a slick new Valley startup. But a lot of what's happening is more fundamental, in search of the ability to support many more transactions than today's blockchains. The entire foundation of today's second-leading cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is being torn apart and replaced wholesale, in search of "Ethereum 2.0." Bitcoin remains much more stable and conservative, but a whole new story is being added to its foundations, the Lightning Network. Both make me uneasy. A fundamental rewrite is always worrying. Lightning may scale, but it is if anything even more user-hostile than Bitcoin, basically the cryptocurrency equivalent of a hard-to-use prepaid credit card. Still, the permissionless equivalent of prepaid credit cards would be good for the unbanked that everyone's clearly so worried about, right? I'm also uneasy because almost all blockchain scaling solutions -- Lightning, sharding, Plasma, optimistic rollup, etc. -- turn fundamental blockchain security from something relatively passive (check the hashes and use the chain with the most computational power) to something active (" watchtowers ," " fraud proofs .") This seems to me to increase the security attack surface a lot . All these issues may yet be solved. Sure. But at the same time, it feels like dissonance between the attitude inside the crypto bubble and that of mundanes may never have been greater. Meanwhile, the dark spectre of Tether hangs over the entire industry . OK, circumstantial evidence is inadmissible for good reason ... but there sure is a lot of it. I've argued before that "ongoing associations with a cloud of crazy scandal and hangers-on snake-oil salespeople all of which would be catastrophic signs for, say, a traditional new startup can actually be indicators of the strength, not weakness" of the cryptocurrency movement ... ...but at some point, your religion -- or "brain virus," as Naval Ravikant once called cryptocurrencies -- has to begin to appeal to people who do not actually live on your compound, or else you are going to remain a cult and wither away. When is that going to happen? Is that going to happen? The answer remains no clearer than it was five years ago. || Bored of the coins: Something strange is afoot in the world of cryptocurrencies. For the first time since Satoshi dropped Bitcoin on us like a benevolent bomb, this painfully new, highly bizarre field has become ... well ... boring. The true believers will tell you that great strides are being made, and the mainstream breakthrough is just around the corner, but they've been saying that for long enough that it's beginning to seemreasonableto startwonderingif these wolves were ever real.
I know, I know, it seems especially weird to be saying this at the same time that the President of China and CEO of Facebook have both becomeblockchain advocates. But China's cryptocurrency, if it happens, will be a panopticoin, a tool to centralize monetary control even more firmly in the hands of the Communist Party, nothing like the decentralized censorship-resistant programmable money that the crypto community is theoretically all about; and Facebook's, while makingtechnical progress, keeps losing partners and gaining enemies.
The crypto community is currently all agog about "DeFi," for decentralized finance, a movement which basically expands cryptocurrencies from "censorship-resistant money" to "censorship-resistant financial instruments," such as collateralized loans and interest-bearing investments, along with "staking" (not really DeFi, but often treated as it.) Inside the crypto world, this seems like a revolution which will one day replace Wall Street. Outside the crypto world, it seems ... a little like monks debating how many angels can dance on the end of a pin, one that no one is actually using and nobody outside the monastery cares about.
It's easy to get the impression the cryptocurrency world has sacrificed technical engineering in favor of financial engineering. It's easy to see them as having abandoned "banking the unbanked," the alleged initial noble goal of many, to "offering sophisticated financial instruments to the unbanked," long before any of those famous unbanked have actually been, you know, banked. And I'm sorry to report that you wouldn't be entirely wrong.
But there are real technical advances being made. It's just that they're mostly slow and behind the scenes, and in the interim, the community's "MOPs and sociopaths" have seized on DeFi.
There is some visible progress. ZCash is makingapparent breakthroughsin important, foundational cryptographic research. Tezos continues toupgrade its governance algorithms-- modify its code constitution, basically -- successfully.
On the application layer, I'm interested inVault12, which uses "friends and family to safeguard crypto assets" -- basically, instead of entrusting the secret keys which control your cryptocurrencies to a third party like an exchange, something not particularly different from traditional banking, you protect them among people you trust, so that some number of them can collaborate with you to recover your keys if they're lost, using a cryptographic protocol known as Shamir's Secret Sharing. Luminaries such asVitalik ButerinandChristopher Allenhave argued for "social key recovery" for some time, and it's interesting to see it offered by a slick new Valley startup.
But a lot of what's happening is more fundamental, in search of the ability to support many more transactions than today's blockchains. The entire foundation of today's second-leading cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is being torn apart and replaced wholesale, in search of "Ethereum 2.0." Bitcoin remains much more stable and conservative, but a whole new story is being added to its foundations, the Lightning Network. Both make me uneasy. A fundamental rewrite is always worrying. Lightning may scale, but it is if anything even more user-hostile than Bitcoin, basically the cryptocurrency equivalent of a hard-to-use prepaid credit card. Still, the permissionless equivalent of prepaid credit cards would be good for the unbanked that everyone's clearly so worried about, right?
I'm also uneasy because almost all blockchain scaling solutions -- Lightning, sharding, Plasma, optimistic rollup, etc. -- turn fundamental blockchain security from something relatively passive (check the hashes and use the chain with the most computational power) to something active ("watchtowers," "fraud proofs.") This seems to me to increase the security attack surface alot.
All these issues may yet be solved. Sure. But at the same time, it feels like dissonance between the attitude inside the crypto bubble and that of mundanes may never have been greater. Meanwhile,the dark spectre of Tether hangs over the entire industry. OK, circumstantial evidence is inadmissible for good reason ... but there sure is a lot of it.
I'veargued beforethat "ongoing associations with a cloud of crazy scandal and hangers-on snake-oil salespeople — all of which would be catastrophic signs for, say, a traditional new startup — can actually be indicators of the strength, not weakness" of the cryptocurrency movement ...
...but at some point, your religion -- or "brain virus," as Naval Ravikant once called cryptocurrencies -- has to begin to appeal to people who do not actually live on your compound, or else you are going to remain a cult and wither away. When is that going to happen? Is that going to happen? The answer remains no clearer than it was five years ago. || An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling: You can think of it as a massive study group with big potential repercussions for bitcoin’s usability.
Almost 200 developers are currently reviewing “Bitcoin Improvement Proposals” (BIPs) around Taproot andSchnorr, upgrades to the premier cryptocurrency that could usher in enhanced privacy and scalability.
Pioneered by Xapo bitcoin core contributor Anthony Towns, the idea is to get as many developers as possible to review the changes, to battle-test the BIPs and make sure the ideas are actually safe.
Related:How to Spot Bitcoin’s Golden or Death Cross Using Simple Moving Averages
“This is a way to make sure more people understand the proposal as early as possible,” Towns said.
Organizers and have been calling the review group an “experiment,” as this style of a review group has never been organized so far, and they’re not quite sure how it will go. Towns pointed to Chaincode developer John Newbery’s weeklybitcoin review groupas a model for roping developers into the review process.
BIPs are always public for anyone to review and there are plenty of avenues for offering feedback, like, worst case, if there’s a security vulnerability with the code. But not everyone knows how this process works.
Theproject descriptionadmits that “not many people are familiar with reviewing BIPs in the first place, and there are a lot of concepts involved in the three BIPs for people to get their heads around.”
Related:Alibaba Denies ‘Partnership’ With Lolli, Highlighting Crypto Industry Pitfalls
But Square Crypto project manager Steve Lee is encouraged this is a way to get more developers involved. “People from all over the world have registered, and many names I have not heard of before,” he said. Square is a sizableinvestor and innovatorin bitcoin tech.
In the midst of a sprawling code change, consensus is hard to achieve. Towns says there is a three-step process: identifying the need for a change, writing the code that implements the change, and “having everyone using bitcoin adopt the new code so that the change actually happens,” Towns said.
This study group is part of stage one, he said, with participants scrutinizing a handful of “BIPs,” or technical proposals for improving bitcoin.
“It’s where we get the details nailed down so that we can work out if things actually make sense or it’s all pie-in-the-sky dream,” Towns told CoinDesk.
Though it’s a long process, several BIPs have made their way into the bitcoin code over the last decade. Perhaps the best-known is Segregated Witness (SegWit), a change that paved the way for lightning network, early-stage technology that might be bitcoin’s best chance at reaching a higher volume of users.
Developers have been discussing adding Schnorr to bitcoin for years. With no major problems found so far, it and Taproot look like a shoe-in.
That said, this effort will bring more eyes to the BIPs. And experts will be closely guiding developers who have never been through the BIP process before.
Participants are spending four-plus hours a week over the next two months sifting proposals and talking them over in small groups.
The BIP group is holding a series of Q&As with experts long-time immersed in bitcoin’s underlying technology.
As Towns described it, the group formed almost by accident, just as a decentralized bitcoin development process often does.
Developers chat about changes to bitcoin over Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The chat group is completely open – any bitcoiner is invited to join these chat groups, whether to read the transcripts to learn about bitcoin, or to contribute new ideas.
One such discussion centered on how to get the change Taproot to the next level.
“A few of us were chatting on IRC about the Taproot proposal and how to move on from the current draft BIPs to the next steps, and how we would even know when people were comfortable enough with the BIPs that it was time to do that,” Towns said. “A couple of hours later we had a shared doc with a rough draft of what that might look like, and it ballooned from there.”
The spontaneity of the two-month program highlights how flexible the bitcoin development process can be. Anyone who understands the current processes well enough can try to take initiative.
• Bitcoin Falls Through Key Average as Traditional Markets Hit Record Highs
• As Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks, Unknown Mining Pool Continues Old Chain || An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling: You can think of it as a massive study group with big potential repercussions for bitcoins usability. Almost 200 developers are currently reviewing Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) around Taproot and Schnorr , upgrades to the premier cryptocurrency that could usher in enhanced privacy and scalability. Pioneered by Xapo bitcoin core contributor Anthony Towns, the idea is to get as many developers as possible to review the changes, to battle-test the BIPs and make sure the ideas are actually safe. Related: How to Spot Bitcoins Golden or Death Cross Using Simple Moving Averages This is a way to make sure more people understand the proposal as early as possible, Towns said. Organizers and have been calling the review group an experiment, as this style of a review group has never been organized so far, and theyre not quite sure how it will go. Towns pointed to Chaincode developer John Newberys weekly bitcoin review group as a model for roping developers into the review process. BIPs are always public for anyone to review and there are plenty of avenues for offering feedback, like, worst case, if theres a security vulnerability with the code. But not everyone knows how this process works. The project description admits that not many people are familiar with reviewing BIPs in the first place, and there are a lot of concepts involved in the three BIPs for people to get their heads around. Related: Alibaba Denies Partnership With Lolli, Highlighting Crypto Industry Pitfalls But Square Crypto project manager Steve Lee is encouraged this is a way to get more developers involved. People from all over the world have registered, and many names I have not heard of before, he said. Square is a sizable investor and innovator in bitcoin tech. How to change bitcoin In the midst of a sprawling code change, consensus is hard to achieve. Towns says there is a three-step process: identifying the need for a change, writing the code that implements the change, and having everyone using bitcoin adopt the new code so that the change actually happens, Towns said. Story continues This study group is part of stage one, he said, with participants scrutinizing a handful of BIPs, or technical proposals for improving bitcoin. Its where we get the details nailed down so that we can work out if things actually make sense or its all pie-in-the-sky dream, Towns told CoinDesk. Though its a long process, several BIPs have made their way into the bitcoin code over the last decade. Perhaps the best-known is Segregated Witness (SegWit), a change that paved the way for lightning network, early-stage technology that might be bitcoins best chance at reaching a higher volume of users. Developers have been discussing adding Schnorr to bitcoin for years. With no major problems found so far, it and Taproot look like a shoe-in. That said, this effort will bring more eyes to the BIPs. And experts will be closely guiding developers who have never been through the BIP process before. Participants are spending four-plus hours a week over the next two months sifting proposals and talking them over in small groups. The BIP group is holding a series of Q&As with experts long-time immersed in bitcoins underlying technology. Spontaneous suggestion As Towns described it, the group formed almost by accident, just as a decentralized bitcoin development process often does. Developers chat about changes to bitcoin over Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The chat group is completely open any bitcoiner is invited to join these chat groups, whether to read the transcripts to learn about bitcoin, or to contribute new ideas. One such discussion centered on how to get the change Taproot to the next level. A few of us were chatting on IRC about the Taproot proposal and how to move on from the current draft BIPs to the next steps, and how we would even know when people were comfortable enough with the BIPs that it was time to do that, Towns said. A couple of hours later we had a shared doc with a rough draft of what that might look like, and it ballooned from there. The spontaneity of the two-month program highlights how flexible the bitcoin development process can be. Anyone who understands the current processes well enough can try to take initiative. Related Stories Bitcoin Falls Through Key Average as Traditional Markets Hit Record Highs As Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks, Unknown Mining Pool Continues Old Chain || An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling: You can think of it as a massive study group with big potential repercussions for bitcoin’s usability.
Almost 200 developers are currently reviewing “Bitcoin Improvement Proposals” (BIPs) around Taproot andSchnorr, upgrades to the premier cryptocurrency that could usher in enhanced privacy and scalability.
Pioneered by Xapo bitcoin core contributor Anthony Towns, the idea is to get as many developers as possible to review the changes, to battle-test the BIPs and make sure the ideas are actually safe.
Related:How to Spot Bitcoin’s Golden or Death Cross Using Simple Moving Averages
“This is a way to make sure more people understand the proposal as early as possible,” Towns said.
Organizers and have been calling the review group an “experiment,” as this style of a review group has never been organized so far, and they’re not quite sure how it will go. Towns pointed to Chaincode developer John Newbery’s weeklybitcoin review groupas a model for roping developers into the review process.
BIPs are always public for anyone to review and there are plenty of avenues for offering feedback, like, worst case, if there’s a security vulnerability with the code. But not everyone knows how this process works.
Theproject descriptionadmits that “not many people are familiar with reviewing BIPs in the first place, and there are a lot of concepts involved in the three BIPs for people to get their heads around.”
Related:Alibaba Denies ‘Partnership’ With Lolli, Highlighting Crypto Industry Pitfalls
But Square Crypto project manager Steve Lee is encouraged this is a way to get more developers involved. “People from all over the world have registered, and many names I have not heard of before,” he said. Square is a sizableinvestor and innovatorin bitcoin tech.
In the midst of a sprawling code change, consensus is hard to achieve. Towns says there is a three-step process: identifying the need for a change, writing the code that implements the change, and “having everyone using bitcoin adopt the new code so that the change actually happens,” Towns said.
This study group is part of stage one, he said, with participants scrutinizing a handful of “BIPs,” or technical proposals for improving bitcoin.
“It’s where we get the details nailed down so that we can work out if things actually make sense or it’s all pie-in-the-sky dream,” Towns told CoinDesk.
Though it’s a long process, several BIPs have made their way into the bitcoin code over the last decade. Perhaps the best-known is Segregated Witness (SegWit), a change that paved the way for lightning network, early-stage technology that might be bitcoin’s best chance at reaching a higher volume of users.
Developers have been discussing adding Schnorr to bitcoin for years. With no major problems found so far, it and Taproot look like a shoe-in.
That said, this effort will bring more eyes to the BIPs. And experts will be closely guiding developers who have never been through the BIP process before.
Participants are spending four-plus hours a week over the next two months sifting proposals and talking them over in small groups.
The BIP group is holding a series of Q&As with experts long-time immersed in bitcoin’s underlying technology.
As Towns described it, the group formed almost by accident, just as a decentralized bitcoin development process often does.
Developers chat about changes to bitcoin over Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The chat group is completely open – any bitcoiner is invited to join these chat groups, whether to read the transcripts to learn about bitcoin, or to contribute new ideas.
One such discussion centered on how to get the change Taproot to the next level.
“A few of us were chatting on IRC about the Taproot proposal and how to move on from the current draft BIPs to the next steps, and how we would even know when people were comfortable enough with the BIPs that it was time to do that,” Towns said. “A couple of hours later we had a shared doc with a rough draft of what that might look like, and it ballooned from there.”
The spontaneity of the two-month program highlights how flexible the bitcoin development process can be. Anyone who understands the current processes well enough can try to take initiative.
• Bitcoin Falls Through Key Average as Traditional Markets Hit Record Highs
• As Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks, Unknown Mining Pool Continues Old Chain || EOS vs Ethereum: A blockchain comparison: Ethereum and EOS are two of the world’s most prominent blockchain projects at the time of writing. While Ethereum wants to decentralise world computing, EOS’s target is to run fast decentralised applications (dApps). To achieve these goals, each protocol uses a different consensus algorithm and a different governance model. Ethereum has a strong focus on decentralisation at its core, while EOS provides speed by removing some of its decentralised features. At the end of the day, depending on the purpose, both projects have their pros and cons. In this article, I will dive deeper into each cryptocurrency protocol individually and compare them both in terms of security, scalability, and decentralisation – the three core aspects of any blockchain. Ethereum (ETH) Ethereum is a decentralised smart contract platform. Like Bitcoin, the Ethereum network has a token (Ether), a blockchain, nodes, and miners. However, unlike Bitcoin, the blockchain maintains consensus for a ‘virtual computer’ dubbed the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Distributed smart contracts can be created and deployed on the EVM. Ether is the native token on the Ethereum network. There are around 100 million Ether on the network today, and the token is used to incentivise miners to run their mining hardware (which helps keep the network decentralised). The current inflation rate of Ether is around 10% a year, but the aim is to bring this down to 1-2% with future network upgrades. To date, no hard cap has been placed on the Ether supply. Ether tokens can be used for payments between users like Bitcoin, but they can also be used to power smart contracts. When running a smart contract, the Ether is turned into ‘gas’ to then power a smart contract on the EVM. Think of this gas in the same way as gasoline you put in your car – you need a different amount of gas depending on how long your journey is or based on what type of road you are driving on. Smart contracts on the EVM work in very much the same way. Story continues EOS.IO (EOS) EOS.IO is a blockchain architecture designed to enable vertical and horizontal scaling of decentralised applications by creating an operating system-like construct upon which applications can be built. The software provides accounts, authentication, databases, asynchronous communication, and the scheduling of applications across many CPU cores or clusters. The resulting technology is a blockchain architecture that eliminates user fees and allows for quick and easy deployment and maintenance of decentralised applications in the context of a governed blockchain. EOS.IO operates as both a base-layer blockchain and as a smart contract platform. The protocol works like a decentralised operating system and allows for the deployment of industrial-scale applications through a decentralised autonomous corporation model. The smart contract platform claims to eliminate transaction fees and also conduct millions of transactions per second. The chosen consensus algorithm is based on DPoS, or Delegated Proof-of-Stake, meaning those who hold tokens on the platform may select block producers through a continuous approval voting system. Anyone may choose to participate in block production and will be given an opportunity to produce blocks, provided they can persuade token holders to vote for them. The EOS.IO consensus algorithm respects Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) by allowing producers to sign all blocks so long as no producer signs two blocks with the same timestamp or the same block height. Once 15 producers have signed a block, the block is deemed irreversible. Ethereum vs EOS Name of token Purpose of token TPS Confirmation time Number of validating nodes Consensus protocol Ethereum To run dApps and smart contracts 9 20 seconds 6,700 PoW EOS To assign and vote for network validators 4,000 1.5 seconds 21 DPoS When a crypto protocol aims at increasing scalability, either decentralisation, security, or both will be negatively impacted. When a crypto protocol targets lower scalability, security and/or decentralisation will increase. This is known as the scalability trilemma. Whenever a cryptocurrency project claims they have “solved” scalability, make sure you look out for the downside: Is the project centralised? Some examples are Bitcoin Cash, EOS, NEO, and TRON. All these cryptocurrencies are able to scale in terms of how fast transactions process. However, all are much more centralised than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Is the blockchain less secure? When looking into security, one must always keep in mind there’s short-term and long-term security. Therefore, the question any investor or enthusiast should ask is the following: “If there’s a successful attack on the network, how can it be reversed?” If the answer is through a roll-back, minting/distributing more coins, or any other solution that involves changes to the supply or coin ownership, the project cannot be secure because the blockchain isn’t immutable. Comparing ETH and EOS, we can immediately see that while Ethereum is far slower and more secure, EOS is much faster and more centralised. By comparing TPS and confirmation time, we quickly understand EOS was built to relay transactions faster. By looking at the number of validating nodes and consensus protocol, we clearly see Ethereum was built for security and decentralisation. The post EOS vs Ethereum: A blockchain comparison appeared first on Coin Rivet . || EOS vs Ethereum: A blockchain comparison: Ethereum and EOS are two of the world’s most prominent blockchain projects at the time of writing. While Ethereum wants to decentralise world computing, EOS’s target is to run fast decentralised applications (dApps). To achieve these goals, each protocol uses a different consensus algorithm and a different governance model. Ethereum has a strong focus on decentralisation at its core, while EOS provides speed by removing some of its decentralised features. At the end of the day, depending on the purpose, both projects have their pros and cons. In this article, I will dive deeper into each cryptocurrency protocol individually and compare them both in terms of security, scalability, and decentralisation – the three core aspects of any blockchain. Ethereum (ETH) Ethereum is a decentralised smart contract platform. Like Bitcoin, the Ethereum network has a token (Ether), a blockchain, nodes, and miners. However, unlike Bitcoin, the blockchain maintains consensus for a ‘virtual computer’ dubbed the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Distributed smart contracts can be created and deployed on the EVM. Ether is the native token on the Ethereum network. There are around 100 million Ether on the network today, and the token is used to incentivise miners to run their mining hardware (which helps keep the network decentralised). The current inflation rate of Ether is around 10% a year, but the aim is to bring this down to 1-2% with future network upgrades. To date, no hard cap has been placed on the Ether supply. Ether tokens can be used for payments between users like Bitcoin, but they can also be used to power smart contracts. When running a smart contract, the Ether is turned into ‘gas’ to then power a smart contract on the EVM. Think of this gas in the same way as gasoline you put in your car – you need a different amount of gas depending on how long your journey is or based on what type of road you are driving on. Smart contracts on the EVM work in very much the same way. Story continues EOS.IO (EOS) EOS.IO is a blockchain architecture designed to enable vertical and horizontal scaling of decentralised applications by creating an operating system-like construct upon which applications can be built. The software provides accounts, authentication, databases, asynchronous communication, and the scheduling of applications across many CPU cores or clusters. The resulting technology is a blockchain architecture that eliminates user fees and allows for quick and easy deployment and maintenance of decentralised applications in the context of a governed blockchain. EOS.IO operates as both a base-layer blockchain and as a smart contract platform. The protocol works like a decentralised operating system and allows for the deployment of industrial-scale applications through a decentralised autonomous corporation model. The smart contract platform claims to eliminate transaction fees and also conduct millions of transactions per second. The chosen consensus algorithm is based on DPoS, or Delegated Proof-of-Stake, meaning those who hold tokens on the platform may select block producers through a continuous approval voting system. Anyone may choose to participate in block production and will be given an opportunity to produce blocks, provided they can persuade token holders to vote for them. The EOS.IO consensus algorithm respects Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) by allowing producers to sign all blocks so long as no producer signs two blocks with the same timestamp or the same block height. Once 15 producers have signed a block, the block is deemed irreversible. Ethereum vs EOS Name of token Purpose of token TPS Confirmation time Number of validating nodes Consensus protocol Ethereum To run dApps and smart contracts 9 20 seconds 6,700 PoW EOS To assign and vote for network validators 4,000 1.5 seconds 21 DPoS When a crypto protocol aims at increasing scalability, either decentralisation, security, or both will be negatively impacted. When a crypto protocol targets lower scalability, security and/or decentralisation will increase. This is known as the scalability trilemma. Whenever a cryptocurrency project claims they have “solved” scalability, make sure you look out for the downside: Is the project centralised? Some examples are Bitcoin Cash, EOS, NEO, and TRON. All these cryptocurrencies are able to scale in terms of how fast transactions process. However, all are much more centralised than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Is the blockchain less secure? When looking into security, one must always keep in mind there’s short-term and long-term security. Therefore, the question any investor or enthusiast should ask is the following: “If there’s a successful attack on the network, how can it be reversed?” If the answer is through a roll-back, minting/distributing more coins, or any other solution that involves changes to the supply or coin ownership, the project cannot be secure because the blockchain isn’t immutable. Comparing ETH and EOS, we can immediately see that while Ethereum is far slower and more secure, EOS is much faster and more centralised. By comparing TPS and confirmation time, we quickly understand EOS was built to relay transactions faster. By looking at the number of validating nodes and consensus protocol, we clearly see Ethereum was built for security and decentralisation. The post EOS vs Ethereum: A blockchain comparison appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Australian Minister and Senator Comment on ACY Securities.: FX Empires Jitan Solanki sat down for an exclusive interview with ACY Securitiess Head of Branding & Communications. Mr. Justin Pooni to discuss ACYs 8th-anniversary gala event, the latest developments at ACY Securities and Mr. Poonis outlook on the CFD industry. First of all, congratulations on your 8th Anniversary Gala Event. Its an amazing milestone. Can you share with our readers what the event was all about and what exactly took place over there? Hi Jitan- Its a pleasure to speak with you today and thank you for the opportunity to discuss a variety of important topics in this interview. Yes, we recently had our 8th-anniversary gala event in Sydney and I have to say it was an incredible evening. We not only celebrated our 8 years in the multi-asset online trading industry, but we also unveiled our global brand ambassador football icon Tim Cahill and officially launched Finlogix our own social trading & charting platform. Your keynote speaker at the event, Senator Andrew Bragg who chairs the Senate Select Inquiry into FinTech, commented that Australian technology companies like ACY know how to win. Can you tell us more about what has helped ACY Securities emerge as one of Australias top brokers? Firstly, thanks to Senator Bragg for his kind words. He understands very well the importance of FinTech and innovation to the Australian economy and we appreciate the senators confidence in ACY Securities as an Australian FinTech company. I think there are a few things that we are doing quite well that have helped position us as one of Australias top multi-asset brokers. Number one we focus on technology as much as we focus on the financial markets, and our operational model backs this. Our head office in Sydney is described as half Wall Street and half Silicon Valley, with a commercial-grade TV studio right in the middle so we can pump out timely market updates for our clients. Story continues Number two Being an innovative tech-focused broker at the forefront of investing in FinTech we believe we can challenge the status quo to deliver better outcomes for traders. Innovation is ingrained in the companys DNA and we are not afraid to build things from the ground up in an effort to improve client experience across the board. Number 3 our proposition to clients is very simple. We deliver an exceptional trading environment through fast execution speed, very low cost of trading, tradeable market analysis, and cut-through education that clients can grow from. Watch Senator Braggs speech here: Another keynote speaker at the event, the Hon. Damien Tudehope, Minister for Finance and Small Business, talked very positively about Finlogix. He said, Finlogix represents a significant opportunity for both entry-level investors as well as veteran analysts looking to make better investment decisions. Could you tell us a bit more about Finlogix? The Hon. Damien Tudehope Minister for Finance & Small Business Parliament of NSW. Yes absolutely can I firstly just say that Mr. Tudehope is doing an absolutely fantastic job as the Minister for Finance and Small Business and we are delighted that he sees Finlogix as a significant opportunity for both traders and analysts alike. Finlogix provides a technologically inspired suite of trading tools designed to equip traders with live market data, real-time HTML 5 charting, an all-encompassing economic calendar and social sharing capabilities. Our Head of Marketing and product specialist, Ashley Jessen officially launched Finlogix at our gala night and I would encourage all traders and analysts to watch the launch video for themselves to understand the edge that Finlogix can potentially provide. Watch the Finlogix launch: Watch Minister Tudhopes speech: Since the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) crackdown on the CFD industry, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) plans to follow suit. As an ASIC regulated broker what is your view on the proposed crackdown on Australian brokers as well? We are of the view that any measures introduced to shield traders from excessive risk is most certainly a good thing. As long as the measures implemented are fair and balanced in terms of safeguarding clients from risk and protecting their ability to profit from market opportunities, such measures can help change the online trading industry for the better. Additionally, tighter regulation will create higher barriers of entry to the Australian financial industry and that would help filter the system so that only the best brokers remain. In 2018, you acquired the leading no-intermediary FX broker Synergy Financial Markets. Has the merger gone successfully and what difference has it made to your operations? Yes absolutely, the acquisition of Synergy FX has been extremely successful and beneficial. Before we acquired Synergy FX, it was a very well-established Australian broker with an impressive seven-year track record in the industry, so weve been able to gain a wealth of insights and draw on plenty of history. Combining many years of experience in servicing both retail and institutional clients in Australia and globally, the acquisition of Synergy FX means we can take our new standard of excellence in online trading to more traders around the world implementing our best practice procedures and state-of-the-art technology at a deeper level and larger scale. The merger has also allowed us to fast-track our global expansion through both extending our product offering across new asset classes and securing seasoned industry professionals to our senior team. You specialize in providing Forex ECN accounts. Can you educate some of our readers on some of the benefits of ECN trading on a currency pair such as the EUR/USD? Our ECN account type, which is called pureECN is one of the most popular accounts and thats because it connects traders directly to our liquidity providers in the most transparent way possible. By aggregating our full suite of liquidity providers, we are able to offer one of the most competitive pricing for those trading the Euro dollar, which is by far the most actively traded FX pair in the world. Currently, ACY Securities provides trading on markets such as Forex, Commodities, Indices and Cryptocurrencies. Do you plan to offer stocks anytime soon? Yes absolutely. We are excited to announce the launch of our new MT5 offering called MT5 X-Change , which will feature stocks from the US, London and Australian exchanges. Our goal is to provide clients with a true multi-asset trading environment, so they can trade the global markets from the one account (MT5 X-Change) while accessing our deep liquidity feeds. About Justin Pooni With over 13 years experience in developing and growing respectable brands in both the Australian and global markets, Justin has specialist expertise in market positioning, brand alignment, brand growth, digital communications and PR within the financial markets. Justin Pooni, Head of Branding & Communications ACY Securities This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 16/11/19 E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis Posts Record High Close; Trend Changes to Down on Trade Through 8216.25 Asia Pacific Shares Mixed: Violence Pressures Hang Seng, Weak Data Drives Shanghai, Nikkei Lower, Aussie Stocks Rise on Rate Cut Hopes USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast Unless US-China Officials are Lying, the Week Begins with Cautiously Bullish Tone AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility
Whether On or Off || Australian Minister and Senator Comment on ACY Securities.: FX Empire’s Jitan Solanki sat down for an exclusive interview with ACY Securities’s Head of Branding & Communications. Mr. Justin Pooni to discuss ACY’s 8th-anniversary gala event, the latest developments at ACY Securities and Mr. Pooni’s outlook on the CFD industry.
First of all, congratulations on your 8th Anniversary Gala Event. It’s an amazing milestone. Can you share with our readers what the event was all about and what exactly took place over there?
Hi Jitan- It’s a pleasure to speak with you today and thank you for the opportunity to discuss a variety of important topics in this interview.
Yes, we recently had our 8th-anniversary gala event in Sydney and I have to say it was an incredible evening. We not onlycelebrated our 8 yearsin the multi-asset online trading industry, but we also unveiled ourglobal brand ambassador – football icon Tim Cahilland officially launchedFinlogix– our own social trading & charting platform.
Your keynote speaker at the event, Senator Andrew Bragg who chairs the Senate Select Inquiry into FinTech, commented that “Australian technology companies like ACY know how to win”. Can you tell us more about what has helped ACY Securities emerge as one of Australia’s top brokers?
Firstly, thanks toSenator Braggfor his kind words. He understands very well the importance of FinTech and innovation to the Australian economy and we appreciate the senator’s confidence in ACY Securities as an Australian FinTech company.
I think there are a few things that we are doing quite well that have helped position us as one of Australia’s top multi-asset brokers.
Number one – we focus on technology as much as we focus on the financial markets, and our operational model backs this. Our head office in Sydney is described as half Wall Street and half Silicon Valley, with a commercial-grade TV studio right in the middle so we can pump out timely market updates for our clients.
Number two – Being an innovative tech-focused broker at the forefront of investing in FinTech we believe we can challenge the status quo to deliver better outcomes for traders. Innovation is ingrained in the company’s DNA and we are not afraid to build things from the ground up in an effort to improve client experience across the board.
Number 3 – our proposition to clients is very simple. We deliver an exceptional trading environment through fast execution speed, very low cost of trading, tradeable market analysis, and cut-through education that clients can grow from.
Watch Senator Braggs speech here:
Another keynote speaker at the event, the Hon. Damien Tudehope, Minister for Finance and Small Business, talked very positively about Finlogix. He said, “Finlogix represents a significant opportunity for both entry-level investors as well as veteran analysts looking to make better investment decisions”. Could you tell us a bit more about Finlogix?
Yes absolutely – can I firstly just say thatMr. Tudehopeis doing an absolutely fantastic job as theMinister for Finance and Small Businessand we are delighted that he sees Finlogix as a significant opportunity for both traders and analysts alike.
Finlogixprovides a technologically inspired suite of trading tools designed to equip traders with live market data, real-time HTML 5 charting, an all-encompassing economic calendar and social sharing capabilities.
Our Head of Marketing and product specialist, Ashley Jessen officially launched Finlogix at our gala night and I would encourage all traders and analysts to watch the launch video for themselves to understand the edge that Finlogix can potentially provide.
Watch the Finlogix launch:
Watch Minister Tudhope’s speech:
Since the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) crackdown on the CFD industry, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) plans to follow suit. As an ASIC regulated broker what is your view on the proposed crackdown on Australian brokers as well?
We are of the view that any measures introduced to shield traders from excessive risk is most certainly a good thing. As long as the measures implemented are fair and balanced in terms of safeguarding clients from risk and protecting their ability to profit from market opportunities, such measures can help change the online trading industry for the better.
Additionally, tighter regulation will create higher barriers of entry to the Australian financial industry and that would help filter the system so that only the best brokers remain.
In 2018, you acquired the leading no-intermediary FX broker Synergy Financial Markets. Has the merger gone successfully and what difference has it made to your operations?
Yes absolutely, the acquisition of Synergy FX has been extremely successful and beneficial. Before we acquired Synergy FX, it was a very well-established Australian broker with an impressive seven-year track record in the industry, so we’ve been able to gain a wealth of insights and draw on plenty of history.
Combining many years of experience in servicing both retail and institutional clients in Australia and globally, the acquisition of Synergy FX means we can take our new standard of excellence in online trading to more traders around the world – implementing our best practice procedures and state-of-the-art technology at a deeper level and larger scale.
The merger has also allowed us to fast-track our global expansion through both extending our product offering across new asset classes and securing seasoned industry professionals to our senior team.
You specialize in providing Forex ECN accounts. Can you educate some of our readers on some of the benefits of ECN trading on a currency pair such as the EUR/USD?
Our ECN account type, which is calledpureECNis one of the most popular accounts and that’s because it connects traders directly to our liquidity providers in the most transparent way possible.
By aggregating our full suite of liquidity providers, we are able to offer one of the most competitive pricing for those trading the Euro dollar, which is by far the most actively traded FX pair in the world.
Currently, ACY Securities provides trading on markets such as Forex, Commodities, Indices and Cryptocurrencies. Do you plan to offer stocks anytime soon?
Yes absolutely. We are excited to announce the launch of our new MT5 offering – called ‘MT5 X-Change’, which will feature stocks from the US, London and Australian exchanges.
Our goal is to provide clients with a true multi-asset trading environment, so they can trade the global markets from the one account (MT5 X-Change) while accessing our deep liquidity feeds.
About Justin Pooni
With over 13 years’ experience in developing and growing respectable brands in both the Australian and global markets, Justin has specialist expertise in market positioning, brand alignment, brand growth, digital communications and PR within the financial markets.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 16/11/19
• E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Posts Record High Close; Trend Changes to Down on Trade Through 8216.25
• Asia Pacific Shares Mixed: Violence Pressures Hang Seng, Weak Data Drives Shanghai, Nikkei Lower, Aussie Stocks Rise on Rate Cut Hopes
• USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Unless US-China Officials are Lying, the Week Begins with ‘Cautiously Bullish’ Tone
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi
• Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility…Whether On or Off || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi: Three-factors contributed to the mixed performances in the Australian and New Zealand Dollars last week – U.S.-China trade relations, an unexpected central bank decision and a surprisingly weak economic report.
Mixed headlines over the progress of the trade talks between the two economic powerhouses led to a choppy, two-sided trade with money leaving the Aussie and Kiwi for the safety of the Japanese Yen. An unforeseen policy decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) triggered a short-covering rally, which spiked the Kiwi higher. Meanwhile, weak employment data drove up the chances of another rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), scorching the Aussie Dollar.
Last week, theAUD/USDsettled at .6821, down 0.0038 or -0.56% and theNZD/USDfinished at .6402, up 0.0075 or +1.19%.
The Australian Dollar closed lower last week with most of the loss occurring on November 14 after the Australian 10-year government bond yield slumped to over a 1-week low after the country’s employment report for the month of October created a surprise disappointment among investors, as the jobless rate rose and the employment change slumped.
The 19,000 drop in employment in October was the largest decline in three years and well-below the Bloomberg median forecast of a rise of 15,000. Annual employment growth eased from 2.5 percent in September to 2.0 percent in October, the report added.
“Further, the unemployment rate bounced back from 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent and the only reason why it didn’t rise even more was that the participation rate fell for the second consecutive month. Our view is that the participation rate is more likely to rise in coming months adding further upward pressure on the unemployment rate,” Capital Economics further noted in the report.
The news has rekindled expectations the RBA will have to cut official rates. This drove the Australian Dollar sharply lower. Traders are expecting a rate cut in February 2020, but some may try to build a case for a December cut.
The New Zealand Dollar finished the week sharply higher after wholesale interest rates spiked after the Reserve Bank left its official cash rate (OCR) unchanged at 1 percent. Market expectations were weighted towards a rate cut at today’s monetary policy statement.
Analysts described the RBNZ’s decision as a surprise with several indicating the central bank’s new growth outlook still appears too rosy. The financial markets are now pricing in a February or May rate cut. To some, the market reaction showed the positioning ahead of the policy announcement was clearly the wrong way.
The RBNZ, in its statement, said further monetary stimulus would be added if needed. It said employment remained around its maximum sustainable level while inflation remained below the 2 percent target midpoint but within its target range.
“Economic developments since the August statement do not warrant a change to the already stimulatory monetary setting at this time,” it said.
The key economic reports this week are the RBA Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes on Tuesday and Friday’s ISM US Flash Manufacturing PMI report.
However, most of the focus this week will be on the progress of the U.S.-China trade talks after last week ended on an optimistic note with high ranking U.S. officials pushing all the positive news buttons.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Thursday that negotiations over the first phase of a trade agreement with China were coming down to the final stages, with the two sides in daily contact.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network Friday that there was a very high probability the United States would reach a final agreement on a phase one trade deal with China.
Furthermore, there was a potentially bullish development over the week-end. According to Chinese state media, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about a phase-one trade deal in a phone call Saturday morning.
The two sides had “constructive discussions” about “each other’s core concerns” and agreed to remain in close contact, Xinhua reported. The call came at the request of Mnuchin and Lighthizer, according to Xinhua.
Nonetheless, there are still skeptics out there. “To be blunt, such rhetoric is more or less the same as Steven Mnuchin (who) said months ago that a deal was ‘99% done’, Commerzbank analysts wrote in a note to clients, though they acknowledged the comments had benefited sentiment.
Aussie and Kiwi traders are going to continue to make adjustments to their positions in reaction to the chances of further rate cuts by the RBA and RBNZ, respectively. However, most eyes will be on the progress of the trade talks that could make bearish traders forget about the problems in the Australian and New Zealand economies, at least over the short-run.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Unless US-China Officials are Lying, the Week Begins with ‘Cautiously Bullish’ Tone || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi: Three-factors contributed to the mixed performances in the Australian and New Zealand Dollars last week U.S.-China trade relations, an unexpected central bank decision and a surprisingly weak economic report. Mixed headlines over the progress of the trade talks between the two economic powerhouses led to a choppy, two-sided trade with money leaving the Aussie and Kiwi for the safety of the Japanese Yen. An unforeseen policy decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) triggered a short-covering rally, which spiked the Kiwi higher. Meanwhile, weak employment data drove up the chances of another rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), scorching the Aussie Dollar. Last week, the AUD/USD settled at .6821, down 0.0038 or -0.56% and the NZD/USD finished at .6402, up 0.0075 or +1.19%. Australian Dollar The Australian Dollar closed lower last week with most of the loss occurring on November 14 after the Australian 10-year government bond yield slumped to over a 1-week low after the countrys employment report for the month of October created a surprise disappointment among investors, as the jobless rate rose and the employment change slumped. The 19,000 drop in employment in October was the largest decline in three years and well-below the Bloomberg median forecast of a rise of 15,000. Annual employment growth eased from 2.5 percent in September to 2.0 percent in October, the report added. Further, the unemployment rate bounced back from 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent and the only reason why it didnt rise even more was that the participation rate fell for the second consecutive month. Our view is that the participation rate is more likely to rise in coming months adding further upward pressure on the unemployment rate, Capital Economics further noted in the report. The news has rekindled expectations the RBA will have to cut official rates. This drove the Australian Dollar sharply lower. Traders are expecting a rate cut in February 2020, but some may try to build a case for a December cut. Story continues New Zealand Dollar The New Zealand Dollar finished the week sharply higher after wholesale interest rates spiked after the Reserve Bank left its official cash rate (OCR) unchanged at 1 percent. Market expectations were weighted towards a rate cut at todays monetary policy statement. Analysts described the RBNZs decision as a surprise with several indicating the central banks new growth outlook still appears too rosy. The financial markets are now pricing in a February or May rate cut. To some, the market reaction showed the positioning ahead of the policy announcement was clearly the wrong way. The RBNZ, in its statement, said further monetary stimulus would be added if needed. It said employment remained around its maximum sustainable level while inflation remained below the 2 percent target midpoint but within its target range. Economic developments since the August statement do not warrant a change to the already stimulatory monetary setting at this time, it said. Weekly Forecast The key economic reports this week are the RBA Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes on Tuesday and Fridays ISM US Flash Manufacturing PMI report. However, most of the focus this week will be on the progress of the U.S.-China trade talks after last week ended on an optimistic note with high ranking U.S. officials pushing all the positive news buttons. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Thursday that negotiations over the first phase of a trade agreement with China were coming down to the final stages, with the two sides in daily contact. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network Friday that there was a very high probability the United States would reach a final agreement on a phase one trade deal with China. Furthermore, there was a potentially bullish development over the week-end. According to Chinese state media, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about a phase-one trade deal in a phone call Saturday morning. The two sides had constructive discussions about each others core concerns and agreed to remain in close contact, Xinhua reported. The call came at the request of Mnuchin and Lighthizer, according to Xinhua. Nonetheless, there are still skeptics out there. To be blunt, such rhetoric is more or less the same as Steven Mnuchin (who) said months ago that a deal was 99% done, Commerzbank analysts wrote in a note to clients, though they acknowledged the comments had benefited sentiment. Aussie and Kiwi traders are going to continue to make adjustments to their positions in reaction to the chances of further rate cuts by the RBA and RBNZ, respectively. However, most eyes will be on the progress of the trade talks that could make bearish traders forget about the problems in the Australian and New Zealand economies, at least over the short-run. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast Cautious Trade Ahead as Week Expected to Start with Mixed Weather Risks Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility
Whether On or Off E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis Uptrending Gann Angle at 27687 Guiding Market Higher Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 16/11/19 Yen Rises on Safe-Haven Buying, Surprises Drive Kiwi Higher, Aussie Lower USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast Unless US-China Officials are Lying, the Week Begins with Cautiously Bullish Tone || Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Price Action Suggests Buyers Betting Big on Trade Deal: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil finished higher after posting a volatile two-sided trade throughout the week. Demand concerns pushed prices lower twice last week, but each time, buyers were waiting, triggering strong rallies that drove U.S. crude to its highest level since September 23 and Brent to levels not seen since September 17.
Last week,January WTI crude oilfutures settled at $57.83, up $0.57 or +1.00% andJanuary Brent crude oilclosed at $63.30, up $0.79 or +1.25.
Prices actually rose after OPEC said it expected demand for its oil to fall in 2020. This is because the forecasts for lower demand raised the chances of deeper production cuts by OPEC and its allies when they meets on December 5-6.
OPEC said demand for its crude would average 29.58 million barrels per day next year, 1.12 million bpd less than in 2019. That points to a 2020 surplus of about 70,000 bpd, which is less than indicated in previous reports.
The IEA said on Friday, OPEC and its friends face stiffening competition in 2020, adding urgency to the oil producer group’s policy, according to Reuters.
“The OPEC+ countries face a major challenge in 2020 as demand for their crude is expected to fall sharply,” the Paris-based agency said in a monthly report.
The IEA estimated non-OPEC supply growth would surge to 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) next year compared to 1.8 million bpd in 2019, citing production from the United States, Brazil, Norway and Guyana.
“The hefty supply cushion that is likely to build up during the first half of next year will offer cold comfort to OPEC+ ministers gathering in Vienna at the start of next month,” it added.
Traders decided not to focus on this report because OPEC and its allies could take care of the surplus by cutting output. Furthermore, positive developments on Friday over a U.S.-China trade deal kept the bearish news from taking ahold of the trade.
U.S. energy firms last week reduced the number of oil rigs operating for a fourth week in a row, cutting 10 oil rigs in the week to November 15, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said on Friday. The total count is now 674, the lowest since April 2017.
At the end of the week, crude oil traders were feeling optimistic enough over a possible trade deal to erase earlier losses and drive prices to their weekly highs.
Helping to fuel the turnaround in the market were comments from a high-ranking U.S. official. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network Friday that there was a very high probability the United States would reach a final agreement on a phase one trade deal with China.
“We’re down to the last details now,” Ross said.
This news is expected to carry over into Monday’s trade so we’re looking for a firm opening. The tone of the market this week is likely to be dictated by headlines regarding the trade deal and any news about the possibility of deeper rate cuts by OPEC+.
Furthermore, there was a potentially bullish development over the week-end. According to Chinese state media, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about a phase-one trade deal in a phone call Saturday morning.
The two sides had “constructive discussions” about “each other’s core concerns” and agreed to remain in close contact, Xinhua reported. The call came at the request of Mnuchin and Lighthizer, according to Xinhua.
Given that traders ignored another build in U.S. inventories and reports predicting lower demand and higher supply, the U.S.-China trade deal is probably all crude oil traders care about at this time.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Yen Rises on Safe-Haven Buying, Surprises Drive Kiwi Higher, Aussie Lower || Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Price Action Suggests Buyers Betting Big on Trade Deal: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil finished higher after posting a volatile two-sided trade throughout the week. Demand concerns pushed prices lower twice last week, but each time, buyers were waiting, triggering strong rallies that drove U.S. crude to its highest level since September 23 and Brent to levels not seen since September 17. Last week, January WTI crude oil futures settled at $57.83, up $0.57 or +1.00% and January Brent crude oil closed at $63.30, up $0.79 or +1.25. Demand Worries and Deeper OPEC+ Cuts Prices actually rose after OPEC said it expected demand for its oil to fall in 2020. This is because the forecasts for lower demand raised the chances of deeper production cuts by OPEC and its allies when they meets on December 5-6. OPEC said demand for its crude would average 29.58 million barrels per day next year, 1.12 million bpd less than in 2019. That points to a 2020 surplus of about 70,000 bpd, which is less than indicated in previous reports. OPEC+ Faces ‘Major Challenge’ from Competitors Surging Output: IEA The IEA said on Friday, OPEC and its friends face stiffening competition in 2020, adding urgency to the oil producer group’s policy, according to Reuters. “The OPEC+ countries face a major challenge in 2020 as demand for their crude is expected to fall sharply,” the Paris-based agency said in a monthly report. The IEA estimated non-OPEC supply growth would surge to 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) next year compared to 1.8 million bpd in 2019, citing production from the United States, Brazil, Norway and Guyana. “The hefty supply cushion that is likely to build up during the first half of next year will offer cold comfort to OPEC+ ministers gathering in Vienna at the start of next month,” it added. Traders decided not to focus on this report because OPEC and its allies could take care of the surplus by cutting output. Furthermore, positive developments on Friday over a U.S.-China trade deal kept the bearish news from taking ahold of the trade. Story continues Other News U.S. energy firms last week reduced the number of oil rigs operating for a fourth week in a row, cutting 10 oil rigs in the week to November 15, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said on Friday. The total count is now 674, the lowest since April 2017. Weekly Forecast At the end of the week, crude oil traders were feeling optimistic enough over a possible trade deal to erase earlier losses and drive prices to their weekly highs. Helping to fuel the turnaround in the market were comments from a high-ranking U.S. official. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network Friday that there was a very high probability the United States would reach a final agreement on a phase one trade deal with China. “We’re down to the last details now,” Ross said. This news is expected to carry over into Monday’s trade so we’re looking for a firm opening. The tone of the market this week is likely to be dictated by headlines regarding the trade deal and any news about the possibility of deeper rate cuts by OPEC+. Furthermore, there was a potentially bullish development over the week-end. According to Chinese state media, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about a phase-one trade deal in a phone call Saturday morning. The two sides had “constructive discussions” about “each other’s core concerns” and agreed to remain in close contact, Xinhua reported. The call came at the request of Mnuchin and Lighthizer, according to Xinhua. Given that traders ignored another build in U.S. inventories and reports predicting lower demand and higher supply, the U.S.-China trade deal is probably all crude oil traders care about at this time. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The UK General Election – Odds and Projections Updates AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility…Whether On or Off U.S Mortgage Rates Rise as Sentiment towards the Economy Improves Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 17/11/19 Yen Rises on Safe-Haven Buying, Surprises Drive Kiwi Higher, Aussie Lower || Three XRP subreddits you should follow: Ripple (XRP) is making a name for itself as one of the most relevant cryptocurrencies in the market today. With a current market cap of almost $12 billion, it is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market value. Rather than simply being used for speculative trading, it has a practical use too, with many big financial firms using XRP for their international payments. Its no surprise then that several subreddits have been created with a focus on all things related to Ripple. What is XRP? XRP is the cryptocurrency used by the Ripple payment network, which was created to speed up the transfer of money between institutions. Ripple connects banks, payment providers, and digital asset exchanges via RippleNet to provide a frictionless experience when sending money globally. XRP is the fastest and most scalable digital asset, enabling real-time payments anywhere in the world. Banks can source liquidity on demand in real time without having to pre-fund nostro accounts. Payment providers use XRP to expand their reach into new markets, lower foreign exchange costs, and provide faster payment settlement services. XRP can be sent to anyone in the world virtually instantly for a low fee, but you can also hold on to it as an investment, sell it, or convert it into Bitcoin. XRP on Reddit Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion website which is fast becoming one of the most useful websites for cryptocurrency supporters to share information with one another. Dubbed the front page of the internet, it is home to an array of cryptocurrency communities, enabling newcomers, experienced traders, and miners to find out the latest market news, get trading tips, and receive guidance from their peers. Its particularly useful if you want to find out information about coins other than Bitcoin, which tends to be the focus of the mainstream media. There are lots of forums dedicated to Ripple (XRP), ensuring you can stay on top of its price movements, adoption, and latest developments. Story continues Subreddits explained Subreddits are like individual forums devoted to a particular topic. All subreddit names begin with a lowercase r followed by a slash, then the name of the subreddit. Each subreddit is hosted by a moderator and has its own rules regarding posts. Members can essentially decide what is newsworthy by posting links and information. Users then vote on these posts, and the ones with the most votes rise to the top. Once youve found a subreddit you like, click on join and posts from that subreddit will appear on your Reddit homepage. Three popular XRP subreddits you might want to consider following are: r/Ripple This is by far the most popular XRP subreddit with an impressive 207,000 members. The forum lets you discuss anything about Ripple and XRP. The rules note that all posts, articles, and videos must be related to Ripple, XRP, or any projects and businesses related to Ripple/XRP. Altcoin discussions and comparisons belong in r/XRP and r/cryptocurrency. The subreddit contains lots of useful links, including a YouTube video explaining what Ripple is, a beginners guide, and how to buy XRP. There are also links to the official Ripple website, cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, and charts. r/XRP With 38,690 members, this subreddit is also dedicated to all things Ripple/XRP, with a heavier focus on price. Trading XRP is not permitted, although a few technical analysis-type posts are allowed as long as theyre of good quality. There is a list of 10 rules members have to follow, such as treating everyone with dignity and respect and not posting fake news. There is also a link to an official Discord channel dedicated to r/XRP, which aims to foster a more relaxed environment. r/RippleTalk With 8,600 members, this subreddit describes itself as the home of the latest free and open Ripple news, discussions, and much more. The majority of posts are to external news sites or Twitter feeds, which talk about the latest banks and corporations that have adopted Ripple, price movements, and predictions. The subreddit is helpful if you have any technical problems you cant solve yourself or need general support from the community. The post Three XRP subreddits you should follow appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Three XRP subreddits you should follow: Ripple (XRP) is making a name for itself as one of the most relevant cryptocurrencies in the market today. With a current market cap of almost $12 billion, it is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market value. Rather than simply being used for speculative trading, it has a practical use too, with many big financial firms using XRP for their international payments. Its no surprise then that several subreddits have been created with a focus on all things related to Ripple. What is XRP? XRP is the cryptocurrency used by the Ripple payment network, which was created to speed up the transfer of money between institutions. Ripple connects banks, payment providers, and digital asset exchanges via RippleNet to provide a frictionless experience when sending money globally. XRP is the fastest and most scalable digital asset, enabling real-time payments anywhere in the world. Banks can source liquidity on demand in real time without having to pre-fund nostro accounts. Payment providers use XRP to expand their reach into new markets, lower foreign exchange costs, and provide faster payment settlement services. XRP can be sent to anyone in the world virtually instantly for a low fee, but you can also hold on to it as an investment, sell it, or convert it into Bitcoin. XRP on Reddit Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion website which is fast becoming one of the most useful websites for cryptocurrency supporters to share information with one another. Dubbed the front page of the internet, it is home to an array of cryptocurrency communities, enabling newcomers, experienced traders, and miners to find out the latest market news, get trading tips, and receive guidance from their peers. Its particularly useful if you want to find out information about coins other than Bitcoin, which tends to be the focus of the mainstream media. There are lots of forums dedicated to Ripple (XRP), ensuring you can stay on top of its price movements, adoption, and latest developments. Story continues Subreddits explained Subreddits are like individual forums devoted to a particular topic. All subreddit names begin with a lowercase r followed by a slash, then the name of the subreddit. Each subreddit is hosted by a moderator and has its own rules regarding posts. Members can essentially decide what is newsworthy by posting links and information. Users then vote on these posts, and the ones with the most votes rise to the top. Once youve found a subreddit you like, click on join and posts from that subreddit will appear on your Reddit homepage. Three popular XRP subreddits you might want to consider following are: r/Ripple This is by far the most popular XRP subreddit with an impressive 207,000 members. The forum lets you discuss anything about Ripple and XRP. The rules note that all posts, articles, and videos must be related to Ripple, XRP, or any projects and businesses related to Ripple/XRP. Altcoin discussions and comparisons belong in r/XRP and r/cryptocurrency. The subreddit contains lots of useful links, including a YouTube video explaining what Ripple is, a beginners guide, and how to buy XRP. There are also links to the official Ripple website, cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, and charts. r/XRP With 38,690 members, this subreddit is also dedicated to all things Ripple/XRP, with a heavier focus on price. Trading XRP is not permitted, although a few technical analysis-type posts are allowed as long as theyre of good quality. There is a list of 10 rules members have to follow, such as treating everyone with dignity and respect and not posting fake news. There is also a link to an official Discord channel dedicated to r/XRP, which aims to foster a more relaxed environment. r/RippleTalk With 8,600 members, this subreddit describes itself as the home of the latest free and open Ripple news, discussions, and much more. The majority of posts are to external news sites or Twitter feeds, which talk about the latest banks and corporations that have adopted Ripple, price movements, and predictions. The subreddit is helpful if you have any technical problems you cant solve yourself or need general support from the community. The post Three XRP subreddits you should follow appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Cautious Trade Ahead as Week Expected to Start with Mixed Weather Risks: Natural gas futures finished sharply lower last week as the extremely cold weather blanketing most of the country passed on and forecasts indicated a return to more seasonal temperatures. Data also shows the recent spike higher in prices was attributed to short-covering rather than aggressive speculative buying. Furthermore, weekly government storage data showed another injection with further delayed the start of demand season. Last week, January natural gas futures settled at $2.750, down 0.123 or -4.28%. The action last week indicated that milder trends drove prices lower at the start of the week, but a “gradual move back colder” from forecasts helped natural gas prices pare losses going into the weekend, according to Bespoke Weather Services. U.S. Energy Information Administration Weekly Storage Report On Thursday, the EIA reported a 3 Bcf injection into U.S. natural gas stocks for the week-ended November 8, extending the refill season. The 3 Bcf build was on the higher side of the consensus, but bullish versus the historical comparisons, as last year the EIA recorded a 42 Bcf injection for the period, and the five-year average is a 30 Bcf build. Total stocks now stand at 3.732 trillion cubic feet, up 491 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 2 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. Short-Term Weather Outlook According to NatGasWeather for November 15 to November 21, “A reinforcing cold shot will sweep across the Great Lakes and Northeast Friday- Sunday with chilly lows of 10s to 30s. A second milder system brings heavy showers to the Southeast with lows of 30s and 40s. The Western and central US will be mild with highs of 50s to 80s, coolest Northwest. A weather system will track across the East/Southeast early next week, just not a very cold one. Mild conditions will cover the rest of the US early next week with much lighter national demand. A stronger cold shot is expected into the northern US late next week. Overall, high national demand through Sunday, then moderate early next week.” Story continues Weekly Forecast The withdrawal season is poised to “get started in a big way” with the next EIA report on November 21, according to analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company (TPH). They pointed to early estimates north of 80 Bcf based on residential/commercial demand tracking 38% above historical norms amid the recent cold weather sweeping through the Lower 48. Residential/commercial demand over the past week averaged 38.5 Bcf/d, “levels not normally witnessed until late December, and given the significant oversupply in the market, it’s possible” the next storage print will be the “largest until Christmas if weather normalizes,” the TPH analysts said. That’s a pretty powerful statement because it may mean the market hit its top of the season, or at least until the end of the year. The Desk’s Early View storage survey Friday showed 20 respondents predicting a median 89 Bcf withdrawal for the week ended November 15, with expectations ranging from a withdrawal of 65 Bcf up to a 102 Bcf pull. We’re likely to see another gap trade on Monday. The direction will depend on how the forecasts come out over the week-end. “We suspect production may return to its highs over the weekend, but the market will be focused mostly on what happens” with weather models, Bespoke said. “There are mixed risks, and confidence in details is lower, so we definitely feel like it is a weekend to be cautious and stay neutral until we see what the modeling looks like on Sunday and Monday. “Our lean is toward some colder risks” for late November, “but projected tropical forcing still suggests some warming into early December, and if that is correct” models “may begin to sniff that out” during the week ahead. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Cautious Trade Ahead as Week Expected to Start with Mixed Weather Risks Yen Rises on Safe-Haven Buying, Surprises Drive Kiwi Higher, Aussie Lower The Weekly Wrap – Politics, Powell, Trump, and Stats Drive the Majors AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility…Whether On or Off Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 17/11/19 || Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Cautious Trade Ahead as Week Expected to Start with Mixed Weather Risks: Natural gas futures finished sharply lower last week as the extremely cold weather blanketing most of the country passed on and forecasts indicated a return to more seasonal temperatures. Data also shows the recent spike higher in prices was attributed to short-covering rather than aggressive speculative buying. Furthermore, weekly government storage data showed another injection with further delayed the start of demand season.
Last week,January natural gasfutures settled at $2.750, down 0.123 or -4.28%.
The action last week indicated that milder trends drove prices lower at the start of the week, but a “gradual move back colder” from forecasts helped natural gas prices pare losses going into the weekend, according to Bespoke Weather Services.
On Thursday, the EIA reported a 3 Bcf injection into U.S. natural gas stocks for the week-ended November 8, extending the refill season. The 3 Bcf build was on the higher side of the consensus, but bullish versus the historical comparisons, as last year the EIA recorded a 42 Bcf injection for the period, and the five-year average is a 30 Bcf build.
Total stocks now stand at 3.732 trillion cubic feet, up 491 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 2 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said.
According to NatGasWeather for November 15 to November 21, “A reinforcing cold shot will sweep across the Great Lakes and Northeast Friday- Sunday with chilly lows of 10s to 30s. A second milder system brings heavy showers to the Southeast with lows of 30s and 40s. The Western and central US will be mild with highs of 50s to 80s, coolest Northwest. A weather system will track across the East/Southeast early next week, just not a very cold one. Mild conditions will cover the rest of the US early next week with much lighter national demand. A stronger cold shot is expected into the northern US late next week. Overall, high national demand through Sunday, then moderate early next week.”
The withdrawal season is poised to “get started in a big way” with the next EIA report on November 21, according to analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company (TPH). They pointed to early estimates north of 80 Bcf based on residential/commercial demand tracking 38% above historical norms amid the recent cold weather sweeping through the Lower 48.
Residential/commercial demand over the past week averaged 38.5 Bcf/d, “levels not normally witnessed until late December, and given the significant oversupply in the market, it’s possible” the next storage print will be the “largest until Christmas if weather normalizes,” the TPH analysts said.
That’s a pretty powerful statement because it may mean the market hit its top of the season, or at least until the end of the year.
The Desk’s Early View storage survey Friday showed 20 respondents predicting a median 89 Bcf withdrawal for the week ended November 15, with expectations ranging from a withdrawal of 65 Bcf up to a 102 Bcf pull.
We’re likely to see another gap trade on Monday. The direction will depend on how the forecasts come out over the week-end.
“We suspect production may return to its highs over the weekend, but the market will be focused mostly on what happens” with weather models, Bespoke said. “There are mixed risks, and confidence in details is lower, so we definitely feel like it is a weekend to be cautious and stay neutral until we see what the modeling looks like on Sunday and Monday.
“Our lean is toward some colder risks” for late November, “but projected tropical forcing still suggests some warming into early December, and if that is correct” models “may begin to sniff that out” during the week ahead.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75, 7296.58, 7397.80, 7047.92, 7146.13, 7218.37, 7531.66, 7463.11
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 6357.60, 5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75, 7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49, 8200.64, 8071.26, 8253.55, 8038.77, 8253.69, 8790.92, 9330.55, 9818.35, 10058.80, 9888.61, 10233.60, 10975.60, 11074.60, 11323.20, 11657.20, 11916.70, 14291.50, 17899.70, 16569.40, 15178.20, 15455.40, 16936.80, 17415.40, 16408.20, 16564.00, 17706.90, 19497.40, 19140.80, 19114.20, 17776.70, 16624.60, 15802.90, 13831.80, 14699.20, 13925.80, 14026.60, 16099.80, 15838.50, 14606.50, 14656.20, 12952.20, 14156.40, 13657.20, 14982.10, 15201.00, 15599.20, 17429.50, 17527.00, 16477.60, 15170.10, 14595.40, 14973.30, 13405.80, 13980.60, 14360.20, 13772.00, 13819.80, 11490.50, 11188.60, 11474.90, 11607.40, 12899.20, 11600.10, 10931.40, 10868.40, 11359.40, 11259.40, 11171.40, 11440.70, 11786.30, 11296.40, 10106.30, 10221.10, 9170.54, 8830.75, 9174.91, 8277.01, 6955.27, 7754.00, 7621.30, 8265.59.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-02-08]
Volume: 9346750464, RSI (14-day): 36.87, 50-day EMA: 11414.66, 200-day EMA: 8891.25
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1316.90, Gold RSI: 46.74
Oil Price: 61.15, Oil RSI: 39.53
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
XPO Logistics Gets a Lift From the Holidays: The holidays are an important time for the companies that are responsible for shipping goods from place to place, and that's become even more important ever since online shopping became such a high-growth part of the business. XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) has embraced the e-commerce revolution, and it's aimed to tap into the strong economic conditions that many of its key markets are experiencing right now. Coming into Wednesday's fourth-quarter financial report, XPO investors were looking for ambitious gains for the logistics company, but even bullish shareholders were somewhat surprised by just how well XPO did. Let's take a closer look at XPO Logistics and what its latest results say about its prospects. White semi tractor-trailer with XPO logo on it, driving down a four-lane highway. Image source: XPO Logistics. XPO Logistics puts a bow on its results XPO Logistics' fourth-quarter results highlighted the company's success in tapping into e-commerce growth. Sales jumped 14% to $4.19 billion, and that was more than double the 6% growth rate that most of those following the stock had expected. Tax reform benefits sent GAAP net income soaring, but even after accounting for those gains, adjusted net income nearly doubled from year-ago levels to $59.2 million. That resulted in adjusted earnings of $0.45 per share, outpacing the $0.43 per share consensus forecast among investors. Tax reform laws gave XPO a big one-time boost. The company said that tax-related benefits added up to almost $170 million, and even after subtracting some offsetting charges in other areas, GAAP earnings would have been almost $1 per share higher than the adjusted number XPO reported. XPO's transportation segment had particularly strong performance. Segment revenue was up by 15% to $2.67 billion, with increases in North American freight brokerage and last-mile services contributing the most to the gains. European brokerage and U.K. truckload business were also positive contributors to performance. Operating income jumped by more than half for the period, with North America, France, and Spain being the primary hubs for improved profitability. Story continues Gains for logistics were only slightly weaker at 14%. Contract logistics were in demand across XPO's coverage area, but managed transportation revenue in North America offset some of the increase. Operating income climbed about 18%. CEO Brad Jacobs celebrated the holiday season. "A strong holiday peak played directly to our strengths in e-commerce," Jacobs said, and the CEO noted better margin figures in helping to improve operating ratios and keep more of its revenue as profit. Can XPO keep delivering in 2018? XPO is optimistic about what's to come in the next year. As Jacobs put it, "We've entered 2018 with a global sales pipeline of $3.2 billion, following a record $2.8 billion of new business signed in 2017." XPO intends to invest some of its ample free cash flow toward growing its business through spending on technology and salesforce improvements. With respect to guidance, XPO made a minor upward adjustment to one of its key numbers. The company still expects to bring in $1.6 billion in adjusted pre-tax operating earnings in 2018, matching its previous guidance. But the company raised its free cash flow target by $100 million to an even $1 billion, showing the extent to which favorable tax moves and some other good conditions could help XPO's liquidity situation. The big question for XPO is whether the company will remain independent. On a couple of occasions recently, XPO shares have spiked higher on rumors that the logistics specialist might become the target of a takeover bid. So far, no bid has come out, but that isn't stopping shareholders from placing their bets that a future move could come. XPO investors didn't have much of a response to the news, and the stock remained close to unchanged in after-hours trading following the announcement. As long as the e-commerce revolution continues to move forward, XPO Logistics is likely to continue making the most of the positive trend and looking for ways to deliver the goods its customers want moved quickly and efficiently. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends XPO Logistics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || XPO Logistics Gets a Lift From the Holidays: The holidays are an important time for the companies that are responsible for shipping goods from place to place, and that's become even more important ever sinceonline shoppingbecame such a high-growth part of the business.XPO Logistics(NYSE: XPO)has embraced the e-commerce revolution, and it's aimed to tap into the strong economic conditions that many of its key markets are experiencing right now.
Coming into Wednesday's fourth-quarter financial report, XPO investors were looking for ambitious gains for the logistics company, but even bullish shareholders were somewhat surprised by just how well XPO did. Let's take a closer look at XPO Logistics and what its latest results say about its prospects.
Image source: XPO Logistics.
XPO Logistics' fourth-quarter results highlighted the company's success in tapping into e-commerce growth. Sales jumped 14% to $4.19 billion, and that was more than double the 6% growth rate that most of those following the stock had expected. Tax reform benefits sent GAAP net income soaring, but even after accounting for those gains, adjusted net income nearly doubled from year-ago levels to $59.2 million. That resulted in adjusted earnings of $0.45 per share, outpacing the $0.43 per share consensus forecast among investors.
Tax reform laws gave XPO a big one-time boost. The company said that tax-related benefits added up to almost $170 million, and even after subtracting some offsetting charges in other areas, GAAP earnings would have been almost $1 per share higher than the adjusted number XPO reported.
XPO's transportation segment had particularly strong performance. Segment revenue was up by 15% to $2.67 billion, with increases in North American freight brokerage and last-mile services contributing the most to the gains. European brokerage and U.K. truckload business were also positive contributors to performance. Operating income jumped by more than half for the period, with North America, France, and Spain being the primary hubs for improved profitability.
Gains for logistics were only slightly weaker at 14%. Contract logistics were in demand across XPO's coverage area, but managed transportation revenue in North America offset some of the increase. Operating income climbed about 18%.
CEO Brad Jacobs celebrated the holiday season. "A strong holiday peak played directly to our strengths in e-commerce," Jacobs said, and the CEO noted better margin figures in helping to improve operating ratios and keep more of its revenue as profit.
XPO is optimistic about what's to come in the next year. As Jacobs put it, "We've entered 2018 with a global sales pipeline of $3.2 billion, following a record $2.8 billion of new business signed in 2017." XPO intends to invest some of its ample free cash flow toward growing its business through spending on technology and salesforce improvements.
With respect to guidance, XPO made a minor upward adjustment to one of its key numbers. The company still expects to bring in $1.6 billion in adjusted pre-tax operating earnings in 2018, matching its previous guidance. But the company raised its free cash flow target by $100 million to an even $1 billion, showing the extent to which favorable tax moves and some other good conditions could help XPO's liquidity situation.
The big question for XPO is whether the company will remain independent. On a couple of occasions recently,XPO shares have spiked higheron rumors that the logistics specialist might become the target of a takeover bid. So far, no bid has come out, but that isn't stoppingshareholders from placing their betsthat a future move could come.
XPO investors didn't have much of a response to the news, and the stock remained close to unchanged in after-hours trading following the announcement. As long as the e-commerce revolution continues to move forward, XPO Logistics is likely to continue making the most of the positive trend and looking for ways to deliver the goods its customers want moved quickly and efficiently.
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Dan Caplingerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends XPO Logistics. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Does the Potential of 5G Wireless Make Verizon a Buy Today?: At a time when the market puts a lot of value in high-growth stocks and disruptive companies, it's easy to overlook a company like Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) . The telecommunications giant is a cash machine, but you can see below that the company's revenue has stagnated, margins are falling, and competitors like T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) are forcing behemoths like Verizon and AT&T (NYSE: T) to lower prices. But looking into Verizon's rearview mirror doesn't show a complete picture of what investors are buying today. And there are great reasons to buy the stock today . VZ Revenue (TTM) Chart VZ Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts The past doesn't tell us everything There's no question the 4G wireless business is getting more competitive, as are cable and broadband, and Verizon's results in the above chart reflect the challenges it faces from rivals. But investors buying Verizon today should be looking to 5G wireless as the real value driver in the future. The company is already a leader, along with AT&T, in deploying 5G networks, and it will roll out service in a handful of cities this year. We don't know much about 5G pricing or margins yet, but we do know that 5G networks will enable new technologies and connect millions more everyday devices -- including smart appliances , wearables -- to the cloud. A recent test showed that 5G wireless routers could reach speeds of up to 4 Gbps, or 73 times faster than the average home internet connection, which could upend technology as we know it. Even a standard improvement in speed of 1 Gbps would be a game-changer for businesses and consumers. Man using wireless phone with graphic of connection to surrounding skyskrapers. Image source: Getty Images. Growth in 5G network could be limitless If Verizon remains a leader in 5G wireless, it'll have a tremendous opportunity to increase revenue. Today, a smartphone is the core of a Verizon customer's service package, with maybe an added iPad or smartwatch for advanced consumers. But with 5G, Verizon could bundle smartphone service with home internet, TV, and connections to cars, virtual reality headsets, and other devices that haven't hit the market yet . Story continues The triple play of phone, TV, and internet used to be the holy grail of telecommunications; now those services and more could be bundled and sent to consumers over the air. The barriers that blocked Verizon from offering some services -- namely, not having cables in most people's homes -- will be broken down. And if 5G wireless is better than what consumers are getting from their broadband and cable providers, it could be compelling to cut the cord of broadband in addition to traditional cable. Beyond the typical wireless consumer products we think of today, two potentially massive growth opportunities exist in self-driving vehicles and virtual reality devices. Both will likely use 5G networks to offload most of the computing power that devices need to the cloud. Instead of having the powerful processing power and memory on board, 5G allows that technology to be housed elsewhere. And it's Verizon that will provide the critical connection to data centers that make these technologies possible. New tech offers long-term potential If you look at Verizon's history as a company, it's easy to see how the stock could be in for a tough future. But if we look at the 5G technology that's coming down the pipeline and the few competitors with the capability and balance sheet to build out large 5G networks, this business looks more attractive. For now, Verizon offers investors a great value with its 4.4% dividend yield, but long-term this could be a growth stock that will surprise investors over the next decade. I'm so confident in the long-term potential of Verizon that I've added an outperform call on my CAPS page, which you can check out here . More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Travis Hoium owns shares of AT&T; and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Does the Potential of 5G Wireless Make Verizon a Buy Today?: At a time when the market puts a lot of value in high-growth stocks and disruptive companies, it's easy to overlook a company likeVerizon Communications(NYSE: VZ). The telecommunications giant is a cash machine, but you can see below that the company's revenue has stagnated, margins are falling, and competitors likeT-Mobile(NASDAQ: TMUS)are forcing behemoths like Verizon andAT&T(NYSE: T)to lower prices.
But looking into Verizon's rearview mirror doesn't show a complete picture of what investors are buying today. And there aregreat reasons to buy the stock today.
VZ Revenue (TTM)data byYCharts
There's no question the 4G wireless business is getting more competitive, as are cable and broadband, and Verizon's results in the above chart reflect the challenges it faces from rivals.
But investors buying Verizon today should be looking to 5G wireless as the real value driver in the future. The company is already a leader, along with AT&T, in deploying 5G networks, and it will roll out service in a handful of cities this year.
We don't know much about 5G pricing or margins yet, but we do know that 5G networks will enable new technologies and connect millions moreeveryday devices-- includingsmart appliances, wearables -- to the cloud. A recent test showed that 5G wireless routers could reach speeds of up to 4 Gbps, or 73 times faster than the average home internet connection, which could upend technology as we know it. Even a standard improvement in speed of 1 Gbps would be a game-changer for businesses and consumers.
Image source: Getty Images.
If Verizon remains a leader in 5G wireless, it'll have a tremendous opportunity to increase revenue. Today, a smartphone is the core of a Verizon customer's service package, with maybe an added iPad or smartwatch for advanced consumers. But with 5G, Verizon could bundle smartphone service with home internet, TV, and connections to cars, virtual reality headsets, andother devices that haven't hit the market yet.
The triple play of phone, TV, and internet used to be the holy grail of telecommunications; now those services and more could be bundled and sent to consumers over the air. The barriers that blocked Verizon from offering some services -- namely, not having cables in most people's homes -- will be broken down. And if 5G wireless is better than what consumers are getting from their broadband and cable providers, it could be compelling to cut the cord of broadband in addition to traditional cable.
Beyond the typical wireless consumer products we think of today, two potentially massive growth opportunities exist in self-driving vehicles and virtual reality devices. Both will likely use 5G networks to offload most of the computing power that devices need to the cloud. Instead of having the powerful processing power and memory on board, 5G allows that technology to be housed elsewhere. And it's Verizon that will provide the critical connection to data centers that make these technologies possible.
If you look at Verizon's history as a company, it's easy to see how the stock could be in for a tough future. But if we look at the 5G technology that's coming down the pipeline and the few competitors with the capability and balance sheet to build out large 5G networks, this business looks more attractive.
For now, Verizon offers investors a great value with its 4.4% dividend yield, but long-term this could be a growth stock that will surprise investors over the next decade. I'm so confident in the long-term potential of Verizon that I've added an outperform call on my CAPS page, which you cancheck out here.
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Travis Hoiumowns shares of AT&T; and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 6 Key Metrics Capture Walt Disney's First Quarter: Walt Disney's(NYSE: DIS)first quarter of fiscal 2018 marked a welcome change in the company's fortunes, with earnings per share returning to growth. After excluding a one-time tax benefit associated with the Tax Act and other items impacting comparability, Disney's earnings per share climbed 22% year over year, from $1.55 in the year-ago quarter to $1.89.
Comparatively, adjusted earnings per share fell 3% year over year in Disney's fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Revenue similarly reversed directions in Q1, with Walt Disney recording 4% year-over-year revenue growth compared to a 1% year-over-year decline in Walt Disney's fourth quarter.
Of course, shareholders don't just want one quarter of growth. They want to know Disney can consistently deliver growth for years to come. Hopefully, a close look at Disney's first-quarter results across six key metrics can provide some clarity on the media giant's long-term potential.
Chris Hemsworth as Thor in "Thor: Ragnarok." Image source: Walt Disney.
Parks and resorts was Disney's biggest winner among its business segments during the quarter. Its newAvatarpark andGuardians of the Galaxyride helped drive higher attendance at Disney World and Disneyland domestically. In addition,momentumat parks and resorts internationally persisted. Management said Disneyland Paris, where Disney saw higher attendance and increased average ticket prices, was a key driver for the segment.
These catalysts helped Disney's parks and resorts revenue rise 13% year over year.
Parks and resorts operating income growth was even more impressive, rising 21% year over year, to $1.35 billion. The segment accounted for 34% of total operating income, up from 28% of operating income in the year-ago quarter.
Operating-income growth in the segment was driven by "increases at our domestic parks and resorts, cruise line and vacation club businesses, as well as at Disneyland Paris," Disney said.
Studio-entertainment revenue fell 1% year over year.Star Wars: The Last JediandThor: Ragnarokwere undoubtedly hits, leading to slight growth in Walt Disney's theatrical-distribution business. But they weren't enough to drive significant growth overRogue One: A Star Wars StoryandDoctor Strangein the year-ago quarter.
Studio-entertainment results during the quarter were negatively impacted slightly by decreases in home entertainment and TV and subscription video on demand.
Highlighting Walt Disney's ongoing ability to turn out bockbusters,Star Wars: The Last Jedi,Thor: Ragarok, andCococollectively earned over $4.4 billion in global box office through Feb. 6.
Media-networks revenue was flat year over year, but media-networks operating income fell 12% year over year. This was primarily driven by a 25% year-over-year decrease in broadcasting operating income, higher losses from Hulu, and lower operating results from A&E Television Networks.
Weakness in broadcasting was driven by lower advertising revenue, higher production cost writedowns, and lower program sales. Hulu suffered from higher programming and labor costs, but it notably saw higher subscription and advertising.
Walt Disney's long-awaited new streaming service for ESPN --one of two new services Disney plans to launch-- finally got a price point, well below most streaming TV subscriptions at $4.99 a month. Disney hopes it can convince ESPN users to pay for another layer of content.
Called ESPN+, the new service will be featured in a new app that will provide "countless scores and highlights," podcasts and other sports-related information, and access to live streams of all of ESPN's networks for users who are already subscribers to current ESPN multi-channel packages -- all alongside exclusive ESPN+ content.
This ESPN service will launch "sometime this spring," management said in the company's first-quarter earnings call.
Though the quarter's results show that Disney is still facing some headwinds -- particularly in media networks -- growth in parks and resorts and execution on its direct-to-consumer ESPN product are encouraging for Disney's long-term prospects.
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Daniel Sparksowns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 6 Key Metrics Capture Walt Disney's First Quarter: Walt Disney 's (NYSE: DIS) first quarter of fiscal 2018 marked a welcome change in the company's fortunes, with earnings per share returning to growth. After excluding a one-time tax benefit associated with the Tax Act and other items impacting comparability, Disney's earnings per share climbed 22% year over year, from $1.55 in the year-ago quarter to $1.89. Comparatively, adjusted earnings per share fell 3% year over year in Disney's fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Revenue similarly reversed directions in Q1, with Walt Disney recording 4% year-over-year revenue growth compared to a 1% year-over-year decline in Walt Disney's fourth quarter. Of course, shareholders don't just want one quarter of growth. They want to know Disney can consistently deliver growth for years to come. Hopefully, a close look at Disney's first-quarter results across six key metrics can provide some clarity on the media giant's long-term potential. Chris Hemsworth as Thor in "Thor: Ragnarok." Chris Hemsworth as Thor in "Thor: Ragnarok." Image source: Walt Disney. 13% Parks and resorts was Disney's biggest winner among its business segments during the quarter. Its new Avatar park and Guardians of the Galaxy ride helped drive higher attendance at Disney World and Disneyland domestically. In addition, momentum at parks and resorts internationally persisted. Management said Disneyland Paris, where Disney saw higher attendance and increased average ticket prices, was a key driver for the segment. These catalysts helped Disney's parks and resorts revenue rise 13% year over year. 21% Parks and resorts operating income growth was even more impressive, rising 21% year over year, to $1.35 billion. The segment accounted for 34% of total operating income, up from 28% of operating income in the year-ago quarter. Operating-income growth in the segment was driven by "increases at our domestic parks and resorts, cruise line and vacation club businesses, as well as at Disneyland Paris," Disney said. Story continues (1%) Studio-entertainment revenue fell 1% year over year. Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Thor: Ragnarok were undoubtedly hits, leading to slight growth in Walt Disney's theatrical-distribution business. But they weren't enough to drive significant growth over Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Doctor Strange in the year-ago quarter. Studio-entertainment results during the quarter were negatively impacted slightly by decreases in home entertainment and TV and subscription video on demand. $4.4 billion Highlighting Walt Disney's ongoing ability to turn out bockbusters, Star Wars: The Last Jedi , Thor: Ragarok , and Coco collectively earned over $4.4 billion in global box office through Feb. 6. (12%) Media-networks revenue was flat year over year, but media-networks operating income fell 12% year over year. This was primarily driven by a 25% year-over-year decrease in broadcasting operating income, higher losses from Hulu, and lower operating results from A&E Television Networks. Weakness in broadcasting was driven by lower advertising revenue, higher production cost writedowns, and lower program sales. Hulu suffered from higher programming and labor costs, but it notably saw higher subscription and advertising. $4.99 Walt Disney's long-awaited new streaming service for ESPN -- one of two new services Disney plans to launch -- finally got a price point, well below most streaming TV subscriptions at $4.99 a month. Disney hopes it can convince ESPN users to pay for another layer of content. Called ESPN+, the new service will be featured in a new app that will provide "countless scores and highlights," podcasts and other sports-related information, and access to live streams of all of ESPN's networks for users who are already subscribers to current ESPN multi-channel packages -- all alongside exclusive ESPN+ content. This ESPN service will launch "sometime this spring," management said in the company's first-quarter earnings call. Though the quarter's results show that Disney is still facing some headwinds -- particularly in media networks -- growth in parks and resorts and execution on its direct-to-consumer ESPN product are encouraging for Disney's long-term prospects. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Daniel Sparks owns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Netgear, Inc. Stock Plunged Today: What happened Shares of Netgear Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR) were down 13.9% as of 3:30 p.m. EST Wednesday after the networking hardware specialist announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2017 results, but followed with light first-quarter 2018 guidance. Netgear also announced the planned separation of its burgeoning Arlo wireless security camera business. Netgear Arlo security cameras and router against a white background. Image source: Netgear. So what More specifically, Netgear's fourth-quarter revenue climbed 7.9% year over year to $397.1 million, which was well above the high end of guidance provided last quarter for a range of $375 million to $390 million. On the bottom line, that translated to adjusted earnings of $0.71 per share, down from $0.88 in the same year-ago period, but comfortably ahead of investors' expectations for $0.64 per share. Netgear Chairman and CEO Patrick Lo noted that demand during the holiday season was stronger than expected, calling their Arlo and Orbi lines "massive hits with consumers." "We could not have asked for a better finish to 2017," Lo added. "Meanwhile, we recently expanded our Nighthawk line into the gaming category, and released several new and exciting products and services for the [small and medium business] segment." Now what That said, Netgear also announced its decision to separate Arlo from the rest of the company through an IPO in the second half of 2018. Netgear says Arlo will issue less than 20% of its common stock in that public offering, with Netgear retaining the remaining 80% interest. Following the IPO, Netgear will implement a tax-free distribution of Arlo shares held by Netgear to its stockholders. "Both businesses are strong enough to operate independently," Lo explained, "and will benefit from the focus, flexibility and financial resources that come with separation." In the meantime -- and keeping in mind the company has made a habit of under-promising and over-delivering -- Netgear expects first-quarter revenue in the range of $330 million to $345 million. The midpoint of that range stands below consensus estimates for $342.4 million. Story continues Combined with the uncertainty of the separation of Arlo -- which is arguably Netgear's best-performing business segment today -- it's no surprise to see shares pulling back Wednesday. But given Netgear's relative outperformance and the justification for the separation, I think long-term investors should have nothing to fear. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Steve Symington has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Netgear. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Netgear, Inc. Stock Plunged Today: What happened Shares of Netgear Inc. (NASDAQ: NTGR) were down 13.9% as of 3:30 p.m. EST Wednesday after the networking hardware specialist announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2017 results, but followed with light first-quarter 2018 guidance. Netgear also announced the planned separation of its burgeoning Arlo wireless security camera business. Netgear Arlo security cameras and router against a white background. Image source: Netgear. So what More specifically, Netgear's fourth-quarter revenue climbed 7.9% year over year to $397.1 million, which was well above the high end of guidance provided last quarter for a range of $375 million to $390 million. On the bottom line, that translated to adjusted earnings of $0.71 per share, down from $0.88 in the same year-ago period, but comfortably ahead of investors' expectations for $0.64 per share. Netgear Chairman and CEO Patrick Lo noted that demand during the holiday season was stronger than expected, calling their Arlo and Orbi lines "massive hits with consumers." "We could not have asked for a better finish to 2017," Lo added. "Meanwhile, we recently expanded our Nighthawk line into the gaming category, and released several new and exciting products and services for the [small and medium business] segment." Now what That said, Netgear also announced its decision to separate Arlo from the rest of the company through an IPO in the second half of 2018. Netgear says Arlo will issue less than 20% of its common stock in that public offering, with Netgear retaining the remaining 80% interest. Following the IPO, Netgear will implement a tax-free distribution of Arlo shares held by Netgear to its stockholders. "Both businesses are strong enough to operate independently," Lo explained, "and will benefit from the focus, flexibility and financial resources that come with separation." In the meantime -- and keeping in mind the company has made a habit of under-promising and over-delivering -- Netgear expects first-quarter revenue in the range of $330 million to $345 million. The midpoint of that range stands below consensus estimates for $342.4 million. Story continues Combined with the uncertainty of the separation of Arlo -- which is arguably Netgear's best-performing business segment today -- it's no surprise to see shares pulling back Wednesday. But given Netgear's relative outperformance and the justification for the separation, I think long-term investors should have nothing to fear. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Steve Symington has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Netgear. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || JPMorgan Umar Farooq on cryptocurrencies: JPMorgan Chase’s ( JPM ) head of blockchain Umar Farooq sees potential with cryptocurrency, but he argues that some important issues need to be addressed before banks get involved. “I think we all believe blockchain [is] ‘good.’ I wouldn’t’ go as far to say cryptocurrencies [are] ‘bad.’ I would say cryptocurrencies have issues. I think we need to figure out how those issues get solved,” Farooq told Yahoo Finance’s Editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at Yahoo Finance’s All Market Summit. Farooq sees a lot of positives with cryptocurrencies but says there are still a lot of issues that need to be addressed. One of the main concerns with cryptocurrencies is money laundering. Farooq said that banking industry professionals and regulators see the potential, but they have to grapple with the issue of money laundering and making sure that they know the customer. He just thinks cryptocurrencies need “some evolution.” JPMorgan’s Umar Farooq speaks to Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at the All Markets Summit in New York. (Getty Images/ Eugene Gologursky) Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance . Follow her on Twitter . CUBAN: Bitcoin is more a collectible than a currency Starbucks Schultz: Blockchain and digital currencies are bringing us into a new age Goldman Sachs warns its richest clients about crypto mania Sen. Warner: Crypto could be as transformational as wireless || JPMorgan Umar Farooq on cryptocurrencies: JPMorgan Chase’s ( JPM ) head of blockchain Umar Farooq sees potential with cryptocurrency, but he argues that some important issues need to be addressed before banks get involved. “I think we all believe blockchain [is] ‘good.’ I wouldn’t’ go as far to say cryptocurrencies [are] ‘bad.’ I would say cryptocurrencies have issues. I think we need to figure out how those issues get solved,” Farooq told Yahoo Finance’s Editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at Yahoo Finance’s All Market Summit. Farooq sees a lot of positives with cryptocurrencies but says there are still a lot of issues that need to be addressed. One of the main concerns with cryptocurrencies is money laundering. Farooq said that banking industry professionals and regulators see the potential, but they have to grapple with the issue of money laundering and making sure that they know the customer. He just thinks cryptocurrencies need “some evolution.” JPMorgan’s Umar Farooq speaks to Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at the All Markets Summit in New York. (Getty Images/ Eugene Gologursky) Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance . Follow her on Twitter . CUBAN: Bitcoin is more a collectible than a currency Starbucks Schultz: Blockchain and digital currencies are bringing us into a new age Goldman Sachs warns its richest clients about crypto mania Sen. Warner: Crypto could be as transformational as wireless || Themes ETF Financial Advisors Should Monitor: This article was originally published onETF Trends.com.
Despite the recent pullback, many investors still maintain a bullish market outlook. Nevertheless, ETF investors and financial advisors should monitor the pulse of the market in case of any sudden shifts.
"I think we're in the late stage of a bull market," Luciano Siracusano, Chief Investment Strategist at WisdomTree Asset Management, said at the Inside ETFs 2018 conference. "I think you need to be careful. I wouldn't be 100% beta all the time, going forward."
Specifically, Siracusano argued that investors should look to large-cap quality if they are sticking around in the U.S. markets.
For instance, ETF investors can look to something like the WisdomTree U.S. Quality Shareholder Yield Fund (QSY) or the WisdomTree U.S. Quality Dividend Growth Fund (DGRW) as a way to hone in on quality names. QSY tracks those with a high total shareholder yield and favorable quality attributes while DGRW screens for large-cap dividend growing companies with a quality and growth factor.
Investors may also find opportunities in overseas markets, especially as international stocks trade at much more attractive valuations relative to the lofty prices in U.S. markets, especially those in the emerging markets.
Siracusano also highlighted the benefits of the WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund (XSOE) as a way to tap into emerging opportunities. XSOE has been outperforming the broader emerging markets and the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index over the past year.
"Right now you're getting an earnings pick up in emerging markets," Siracusano added. "We think the key to emerging markets today is to be able to get the non-state-owned enterprise companies... you got another thousand basis points just by getting pure private sector beta exposure without the government looking over these companies."
WisdomTree Investments, which is more known for its lineup of ETFs, has also rolled out theWisdomTree Advisor Solutions platformto provide financial advisors more tools to grow and scale their businesses.
"Our existence was all about providing those better investment solutions, and now, we're partnering that up with better business solutions for our clients," Alisa Maute, Head of US Distribution for WisdomTree Asset Management, said at the conference.
The new program provides investment research and ETF education; portfolio construction services; ETF Model Portfolios; practice management resources, like access to thought leaders in retirement planning, leadership and behavioral finance; and wealth management technology through AdvisorEngine, a customizable end-to-end platform for advisors that offers access to Kredible by AdvisorEngine, an online credibility optimizer.
For more ETF-related commentary from Tom Lydon and other industry experts, visit ourvideo category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Themes ETF Financial Advisors Should Monitor: This article was originally published on ETF Trends.com. Despite the recent pullback, many investors still maintain a bullish market outlook. Nevertheless, ETF investors and financial advisors should monitor the pulse of the market in case of any sudden shifts. "I think we're in the late stage of a bull market," Luciano Siracusano, Chief Investment Strategist at WisdomTree Asset Management, said at the Inside ETFs 2018 conference. "I think you need to be careful. I wouldn't be 100% beta all the time, going forward." Specifically, Siracusano argued that investors should look to large-cap quality if they are sticking around in the U.S. markets. For instance, ETF investors can look to something like the WisdomTree U.S. Quality Shareholder Yield Fund ( QSY ) or the WisdomTree U.S. Quality Dividend Growth Fund ( DGRW ) as a way to hone in on quality names. QSY tracks those with a high total shareholder yield and favorable quality attributes while DGRW screens for large-cap dividend growing companies with a quality and growth factor. Investors may also find opportunities in overseas markets, especially as international stocks trade at much more attractive valuations relative to the lofty prices in U.S. markets, especially those in the emerging markets. Siracusano also highlighted the benefits of the WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund ( XSOE ) as a way to tap into emerging opportunities. XSOE has been outperforming the broader emerging markets and the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index over the past year. "Right now you're getting an earnings pick up in emerging markets," Siracusano added. "We think the key to emerging markets today is to be able to get the non-state-owned enterprise companies... you got another thousand basis points just by getting pure private sector beta exposure without the government looking over these companies." WisdomTree Investments, which is more known for its lineup of ETFs, has also rolled out the WisdomTree Advisor Solutions platform to provide financial advisors more tools to grow and scale their businesses. Story continues "Our existence was all about providing those better investment solutions, and now, we're partnering that up with better business solutions for our clients," Alisa Maute, Head of US Distribution for WisdomTree Asset Management, said at the conference. The new program provides investment research and ETF education; portfolio construction services; ETF Model Portfolios; practice management resources, like access to thought leaders in retirement planning, leadership and behavioral finance; and wealth management technology through AdvisorEngine, a customizable end-to-end platform for advisors that offers access to Kredible by AdvisorEngine, an online credibility optimizer. For more ETF-related commentary from Tom Lydon and other industry experts, visit our video category . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM Why Commodities ETFs Can Deliver More Upside SEC to Step up Bitcoin Oversight Big Banks Are Bullish on Oil Junk Bond ETFs Could See More Downside Amid Volatility Surge, Credit Suisse Terminates VelocityShares ETN READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks gyrated wildly again on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) experienced a 500-point swing, ultimately closing lower alongside the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) . Today's stock market Index Percentage Change Point Change Dow (0.08%) (19.42) S&P 500 (0.50%) (13.48) Data source: Yahoo! Finance. Defense stocks got a boost on news of a budget agreement that would push military spending higher; the iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSEMKT: ITA) rose 1.4%. Energy stocks took a hit on falling crude prices, with the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSEMKT: XOP) losing 3.3%. As for individual stocks, investors gave Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) a big vote of confidence after it reported Q4 results, and Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) beat profit estimates, but raised concerns about its sales growth. Dice with "buy" and "sell" on them. Image source: Getty Images. Snap adds users, grows ad revenue Social media company Snap announced its best quarter since going public, and shares soared 47.6%. Results for the first quarter beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, with revenue up 72% to $286 million and a non- GAAP net loss of $0.13 per share. Analysts were expecting a loss of $0.16 per share on revenue of $253 million. For the full year, revenue more than doubled to $825 million. User engagement and monetization metrics were much improved over the third quarter. Snap added 8.9 million daily active users during the quarter to bring the total to 187 million. Average revenue per user was $1.53, up 31% from last quarter. Cost of revenue per user was $1.04, which was down 14% sequentially. Snap burned through $255 million in cash in Q4, 49% less than in Q3, leaving a cash balance of $2.04 billion. Investors clearly thought this quarter was an important step in the right direction for Snap. A redesign of the app seems to be working to draw in users, and improvements in programmatic tools for advertisers led to a 38% increase in ad dollars since Q3, despite tough competition from other social media platforms. Some disciplined cost-cutting is also helping trim losses. Story continues Chipotle's earnings beat wasn't enough to allay concerns about 2018 Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill sank 10.6% after the company reported earnings that beat expectations, but stoked concerns about declining traffic in its stores. Revenue increased 7.3% to $1.11 billion, about in line with expectations, and earnings per share grew to $1.55, up from $0.55 in the period a year earlier. Excluding a one-time tax benefit, adjusted EPS of $1.34 beat estimates by $0.02. Comparable-restaurant sales increased 0.9% during the quarter, which included a 0.6% reduction due to some one-time, deferred revenue that was recognized in the period a year ago. The increase in comps was all due to menu price increases that had a 2.4% impact on the metric. Traffic was down 3% in the quarter, continuing a trend that began last July. Restaurant-level operating margin improved to 14.9% from 13.5% last year. Looking forward, Chipotle expects comparable-restaurant sales increases in the low single digits for the full year 2018, and between 130 and 150 new restaurants opening, compared with a net increase of 158 stores in 2017. "Our focus this year will be to continue perfecting the dining experience, enhancing the guest experience through innovations in digital and catering, and reinvesting in our restaurants," said founder and CEO Steve Ells in the press release. Chipotle expects the negative traffic trend to continue until the middle of the year, when results lap the July decline last year. The company also expects that a loyalty program that will be introduced during the year and increased television advertising will improve traffic in the second half. Investors were disappointed, though, expecting a stronger comeback in 2018. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Jim Crumly owns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks gyrated wildly again on Wednesday. TheDow Jones Industrial Average(DJINDICES: ^DJI)experienced a 500-point swing, ultimately closing lower alongside theS&P 500(SNPINDEX: ^GSPC).
[{"Index": "Dow", "Percentage Change": "(0.08%)", "Point Change": "(19.42)"}, {"Index": "S&P 500", "Percentage Change": "(0.50%)", "Point Change": "(13.48)"}]
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Defense stocks got a boost on news of a budget agreement that would push military spending higher; theiShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF(NYSEMKT: ITA)rose 1.4%. Energy stocks took a hit on falling crude prices, with theSPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF(NYSEMKT: XOP)losing 3.3%.
As for individual stocks, investors gaveSnap Inc.(NYSE: SNAP)a big vote of confidence after it reported Q4 results, andChipotle Mexican Grill(NYSE: CMG)beat profit estimates, but raised concerns about its sales growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
Social media company Snap announced its best quarter since going public, and shares soared 47.6%. Results for the first quarter beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, with revenue up 72% to $286 million and a non-GAAPnet loss of $0.13 per share. Analysts were expecting a loss of $0.16 per share on revenue of $253 million. For the full year, revenue more than doubled to $825 million.
User engagement and monetization metrics were much improved over the third quarter. Snap added 8.9 million daily active users during the quarter to bring the total to 187 million. Average revenue per user was $1.53, up 31% from last quarter. Cost of revenue per user was $1.04, which was down 14% sequentially. Snap burned through $255 million in cash in Q4, 49% less than in Q3, leaving a cash balance of $2.04 billion.
Investors clearly thought this quarter was an important step in the right direction for Snap. A redesign of the app seems to be working to draw in users, and improvements in programmatic tools for advertisers led to a 38% increase in ad dollars since Q3, despitetough competitionfrom other social media platforms. Some disciplinedcost-cuttingis also helping trim losses.
Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grillsank 10.6%after the company reported earnings that beat expectations, but stoked concerns about declining traffic in its stores. Revenue increased 7.3% to $1.11 billion, about in line with expectations, and earnings per share grew to $1.55, up from $0.55 in the period a year earlier. Excluding a one-time tax benefit, adjusted EPS of $1.34 beat estimates by $0.02.
Comparable-restaurant sales increased 0.9% during the quarter, which included a 0.6% reduction due to some one-time, deferred revenue that was recognized in the period a year ago. The increase in comps was all due to menu price increases that had a 2.4% impact on the metric. Traffic was down 3% in the quarter, continuing a trend that began last July. Restaurant-level operating margin improved to 14.9% from 13.5% last year.
Looking forward, Chipotle expects comparable-restaurant sales increases in the low single digits for the full year 2018, and between 130 and 150 new restaurants opening, compared with a net increase of 158 stores in 2017. "Our focus this year will be to continue perfecting the dining experience, enhancing the guest experience through innovations in digital and catering, and reinvesting in our restaurants," said founder and CEO Steve Ells in the press release.
Chipotle expects the negative traffic trend to continue until the middle of the year, when results lap the July decline last year. The company also expects that a loyalty program that will be introduced during the year and increased television advertising will improve traffic in the second half. Investors were disappointed, though, expecting astronger comebackin 2018.
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Jim Crumlyowns shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Umar Farooq discusses JPMorgan's blockchain initiative: Banking giant JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) doesn’t view blockchain as existential threat to its business. “I would say blockchain will have a radical impact on some of our businesses because some businesses are fundamentally geared toward putting people together, providing the trust between parties,” said Umar Farooq, JPMorgan’s head of blockchain initiatives, told Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at its All Markets Summit: Crytpo . “And some of those things will obviously radically change as blockchain becomes some of that underlying infrastructure that provides and distributes trust,” he added. That said, Farooq believes there is an important role for more traditional banks in the crypto realm. “People will find there is always a need for a trusted advisor in the mix. And whether that becomes a role of [us providing] the infrastructure or whether we become someone who facilitates the data exchange and the data layer and the standards, there will always be a role. I don’t think it’s an existential threat in the short term.” JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, has been embracing the technology in a major way. According to Farooq, “Every line of business” at the bank now has blockchain experts. It’s become so pervasive that on the bank’s internal messaging system, the blockchain virtual room has more than 1,500 members. Umar Farooq, JPMorgan’s Head of Blockchain, speaks with Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit: Crypto on February 8, 2018. Getty Images/ Eugene Gologursky Farooq, a lawyer and computer scientist by background, joined JPMorgan in 2009. He had most recently been the head of commercial investment banking and the CFO for technology, operations, and control before being asked to head up the firm’s blockchain efforts about two-and-a-half years ago. In its nascent stages, Farooq’s team was small, but not anymore. “A lot of businesses are coming to us saying, ‘I have a problem, and it kind of smells/feels like something blockchain could help with,’ Farooq said. Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance . Follow her on Twitter . CUBAN: Bitcoin is more a collectible than a currency Starbucks Schultz: Blockchain and digital currencies are bringing us into a new age Goldman Sachs warns its richest clients about crypto mania View comments || JPMorgan's Farooq: Blockchain will have a radical impact on some of our businesses: Banking giant JPMorgan Chase (JPM) doesn’t view blockchain as existential threat to its business.
“I would say blockchain will have a radical impact on some of our businesses because some businesses are fundamentally geared toward putting people together, providing the trust between parties,” said Umar Farooq, JPMorgan’s head of blockchain initiatives, told Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at itsAll Markets Summit: Crytpo. “And some of those things will obviously radically change as blockchain becomes some of that underlying infrastructure that provides and distributes trust,” he added.
That said, Farooq believes there is an important role for more traditional banks in the crypto realm.
“People will find there is always a need for a trusted advisor in the mix. And whether that becomes a role of [us providing] the infrastructure or whether we become someone who facilitates the data exchange and the data layer and the standards, there will always be a role. I don’t think it’s an existential threat in the short term.”
JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, has been embracing the technology in a major way. According to Farooq, “Every line of business” at the bank now has blockchain experts. It’s become so pervasive that on the bank’s internal messaging system, the blockchain virtual room has more than 1,500 members.
Farooq, a lawyer and computer scientist by background, joined JPMorgan in 2009. He had most recently been the head of commercial investment banking and the CFO for technology, operations, and control before being asked to head up the firm’s blockchain efforts about two-and-a-half years ago.
In its nascent stages, Farooq’s team was small, but not anymore. “A lot of businesses are coming to us saying, ‘I have a problem, and it kind of smells/feels like something blockchain could help with,’ Farooq said.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance.Follow her onTwitter.
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• Goldman Sachs warns its richest clients about crypto mania || Why Plug Power Popped Nearly 8% Today: What happened Hydrogen fuel cell pioneer Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG) saw its stock pop as much as 11% in early trading Wednesday before settling down to end the day up 7.6%. Earnings are the reason, but here's the thing that's going to surprise you: Plug Power hasn't actually reported its earnings yet. Preliminary results are due out tomorrow. Man riding scooter up an arrow Investors today bet that Plug will keep chugging higher when earnings come out tomorrow. Image source: Getty Images. So what Investors (or should I say "traders") spent Wednesday trying to front-run Plug Power's Q4 earnings report, capitalize on Plug's astounding fall in price earlier this year (the stock's down about 18% from Jan. 1), and buy before the stock gets a chance to go back up. Of course, they're forcing the stock up in the process. But was buying Plug stock before tomorrow's update the right move to make? According to analysts quoted on Yahoo! Finance, Plug's update tomorrow aren't exactly going to be of the "good" variety. Although the company is expected to report a narrower loss than it did in Q4 last year, losses per share are still expected to be about $0.07, diluted. Sales, predicted to come in at $32 million, should be down year over year -- about 2%. Now what Whether Plug Power thinks it can beat those estimates is something we'll know in just a few hours. Meanwhile, if you missed out on Plug's run-up by not buying Wednesday, don't fret. You could easily end up missing out on Plug stock's sell-off tomorrow, which wouldn't be so bad. Worst case, you wait a few hours, and then make an informed decision on whether Plug's update will be good enough to justify your investment. The other guys didn't do that today, and they'll have to live with that decision tomorrow. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Plug Power Popped Nearly 8% Today: What happened Hydrogen fuel cell pioneer Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG) saw its stock pop as much as 11% in early trading Wednesday before settling down to end the day up 7.6%. Earnings are the reason, but here's the thing that's going to surprise you: Plug Power hasn't actually reported its earnings yet. Preliminary results are due out tomorrow. Man riding scooter up an arrow Investors today bet that Plug will keep chugging higher when earnings come out tomorrow. Image source: Getty Images. So what Investors (or should I say "traders") spent Wednesday trying to front-run Plug Power's Q4 earnings report, capitalize on Plug's astounding fall in price earlier this year (the stock's down about 18% from Jan. 1), and buy before the stock gets a chance to go back up. Of course, they're forcing the stock up in the process. But was buying Plug stock before tomorrow's update the right move to make? According to analysts quoted on Yahoo! Finance, Plug's update tomorrow aren't exactly going to be of the "good" variety. Although the company is expected to report a narrower loss than it did in Q4 last year, losses per share are still expected to be about $0.07, diluted. Sales, predicted to come in at $32 million, should be down year over year -- about 2%. Now what Whether Plug Power thinks it can beat those estimates is something we'll know in just a few hours. Meanwhile, if you missed out on Plug's run-up by not buying Wednesday, don't fret. You could easily end up missing out on Plug stock's sell-off tomorrow, which wouldn't be so bad. Worst case, you wait a few hours, and then make an informed decision on whether Plug's update will be good enough to justify your investment. The other guys didn't do that today, and they'll have to live with that decision tomorrow. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Fed's Dudley eyes risks of betting on volatility: (Adds VIX level and benchmark, paragraphs 5 and 11) By Richard Leong and Catherine Ngai NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Financial products that bet on swings in equities and cryptocurrencies should be monitored to understand their risk to market stability, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said on Wednesday. The comments came after BlackRock Inc, the world's biggest asset manager, urged more regulation of the so-called inverse volatility-linked products that were hammered during a stock meltdown that wiped out $4 trillion in market value worldwide on Monday. "The thing we worry about when we look at the financial system and worry about financial stability risk are: where are places where there are feedback loops?" Dudley said when asked about volatility-linked products and bitcoin futures at an event on banking culture co-sponsored by Reuters and the European American Chamber of Commerce. Dudley cited the 1987 stock market crash, in which a product called portfolio insurance was blamed for causing a negative feedback loop that intensified a worldwide equities selloff. Investors using exchange-traded products to bet on the VIX , Wall Street's so-called fear gauge which measures expectations for near-term S&P 500 swings, were pummeled on Monday when the index posted its biggest single-day rise ever. Meanwhile, global regulatory clampdown and moves by banks to ban purchases of bitcoin with credit cards have roiled digital currency prices. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value, on Tuesday fell to a three-month low under $6,000 before rebounding to $8,119 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange . Such financial products offer ways for investors to hedge risk, he said. "But you have to make sure they’re appropriate and well designed." "With the stock market having a bit of a bumpy ride over the last days, there’s a question as volatility goes up, will that cause people to sell stocks," Dudley said. "If that were the case, that could cause the stock market to be bumpy in the future." Story continues With the rebound in financial markets since Monday, Dudley said he has not changed his view about steady U.S. economic growth. "My outlook hasn’t changed because the stock market is a bit lower than where it was a few days ago. It’s still up sharply than a year (ago)," he said. Dudley had been chief economist at Goldman Sachs for a decade before being appointed to head the New York Fed in 2007. He announced in November he would step down from his Fed position in mid-2018. The VIX index ended down over 7 percent at 27.73, almost 50 percent lower than its highest level since August 2015 reached on Tuesday. WELL FARGO'S CULTURE While Dudley gave his thoughts about this week's market volatility, he spoke mainly about banking culture on a panel where he and others said progress has been made since the global credit crisis but more could be done to bolster investor and consumer confidence and bank employee morale. Bad incentive structures for employees and a lack of communication to management contributed to Wells Fargo & Co's sales practices scandal, Dudley said. Dudley said that Wells Fargo employees were given "really bad" incentives. He added that when employees complained, it went up the chain of command but concerns either were not heard or ignored. The bank reached a $190 million settlement with U.S. authorities in 2016 over its employees opening accounts in customers' names without their permission to hit sales targets. On Friday, Wells Fargo detailed new regulatory restrictions imposed by the Fed, including a cap on its assets until it improves its governance and controls. Dudley said he is generally pleased with the "substantial progress" among banks to improve company culture and conduct, but that there is more room to grow. (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; in New York; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho in London; editing by Meredith Mazzilli and David Gregorio) || Fed's Dudley eyes risks of betting on volatility: (Adds VIX level and benchmark, paragraphs 5 and 11)
By Richard Leong and Catherine Ngai
NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Financial products that bet on swings in equities and cryptocurrencies should be monitored to understand their risk to market stability, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said on Wednesday.
The comments came after BlackRock Inc, the world's biggest asset manager, urged more regulation of the so-called inverse volatility-linked products that were hammered during a stock meltdown that wiped out $4 trillion in market value worldwide on Monday.
"The thing we worry about when we look at the financial system and worry about financial stability risk are: where are places where there are feedback loops?" Dudley said when asked about volatility-linked products and bitcoin futures at an event on banking culture co-sponsored by Reuters and the European American Chamber of Commerce.
Dudley cited the 1987 stock market crash, in which a product called portfolio insurance was blamed for causing a negative feedback loop that intensified a worldwide equities selloff.
Investors using exchange-traded products to bet on the VIX , Wall Street's so-called fear gauge which measures expectations for near-term S&P 500 swings, were pummeled on Monday when the index posted its biggest single-day rise ever.
Meanwhile, global regulatory clampdown and moves by banks to ban purchases of bitcoin with credit cards have roiled digital currency prices. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value, on Tuesday fell to a three-month low under $6,000 before rebounding to $8,119 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange .
Such financial products offer ways for investors to hedge risk, he said. "But you have to make sure they’re appropriate and well designed."
"With the stock market having a bit of a bumpy ride over the last days, there’s a question as volatility goes up, will that cause people to sell stocks," Dudley said. "If that were the case, that could cause the stock market to be bumpy in the future."
With the rebound in financial markets since Monday, Dudley said he has not changed his view about steady U.S. economic growth.
"My outlook hasn’t changed because the stock market is a bit lower than where it was a few days ago. It’s still up sharply than a year (ago)," he said.
Dudley had been chief economist at Goldman Sachs for a decade before being appointed to head the New York Fed in 2007. He announced in November he would step down from his Fed position in mid-2018.
The VIX index ended down over 7 percent at 27.73, almost 50 percent lower than its highest level since August 2015 reached on Tuesday.
WELL FARGO'S CULTURE
While Dudley gave his thoughts about this week's market volatility, he spoke mainly about banking culture on a panel where he and others said progress has been made since the global credit crisis but more could be done to bolster investor and consumer confidence and bank employee morale.
Bad incentive structures for employees and a lack of communication to management contributed to Wells Fargo & Co's sales practices scandal, Dudley said.
Dudley said that Wells Fargo employees were given "really bad" incentives. He added that when employees complained, it went up the chain of command but concerns either were not heard or ignored.
The bank reached a $190 million settlement with U.S. authorities in 2016 over its employees opening accounts in customers' names without their permission to hit sales targets.
On Friday, Wells Fargo detailed new regulatory restrictions imposed by the Fed, including a cap on its assets until it improves its governance and controls.
Dudley said he is generally pleased with the "substantial progress" among banks to improve company culture and conduct, but that there is more room to grow.
(Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; in New York; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho in London; editing by Meredith Mazzilli and David Gregorio)
[Social Media Buzz]
02/09 06:00現在(Zaif調べ)
#Bitcoin : 903,915円↓1.31%
#NEM #XEM : 58円↓1.69%
#Monacoin : 400円↓0.74%
#Ethereum : 88,700円↓1.12%
#Zaif : 1円↑0% || BTC Real Time Price: $8590.00 #GDAX;
$8592.42 #bitstamp;
$8598.70 #kraken;
$8595.85 #gemini;
$8633.79 #hitbtc;
$8839.40 #cex; || #Vertcoin - $VTC
Rank: 113
Fiat Price: 3.00 USD | 2.43 EUR | 2.16 GBP
Crypto Price: 0.00036972 BTC | 0.00368595 ETH | 0.02055498 LTC
24h Volume: 3,798,440 USD
Market Cap: 128,562,240 USD
Change: Hourly 2.51% | Daily 2.51% | Week...
|
8736.98, 8621.90, 8129.97, 8926.57, 8598.31, 9494.63, 10166.40, 10233.90, 11112.70, 10551.80
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 424.28, 429.71, 430.57, 427.40, 428.59, 435.51, 441.39, 449.42, 445.74, 450.28, 458.55, 461.43, 466.09, 444.69, 449.01, 455.10, 448.32, 451.88, 444.67, 450.30, 446.72, 447.98, 459.60, 458.54, 458.55, 460.48, 450.89, 452.73, 454.77, 455.67, 455.67, 457.57, 454.16, 453.78, 454.62, 438.71, 442.68, 443.19, 439.32, 444.15, 445.98, 449.60, 453.38, 473.46, 530.04, 526.23, 533.86, 531.39, 536.92, 537.97, 569.19, 572.73, 574.98, 585.54, 576.60, 581.65, 574.63, 577.47, 606.73, 672.78, 704.38, 685.56, 694.47, 766.31, 748.91, 756.23, 763.78, 737.23, 666.65, 596.12, 623.98, 665.30, 665.12, 629.37, 655.28, 647.00, 639.89, 673.34, 676.30, 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-07-12]
Volume: 138172992, RSI (14-day): 52.29, 50-day EMA: 620.99, 200-day EMA: 492.82
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1334.10, Gold RSI: 59.25
Oil Price: 46.80, Oil RSI: 47.91
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Why FinTech Could Be a Casualty of Brexit: Aaron Klein is a fellow and policy director at the Initiative on Business and Public Policy at the Brookings Institution. London's role as Europe's financial services center has been called into question as a result of the UK's decision to leave the European Union - the "City's" future in the world of finance is very much in doubt. Yes, London will remain a financial services hub, as it has been one for a long time. After all, the UK is still the world's 6 th largest economy. But the size and scope of that hub could be very different depending on how things shake out with Brexit. Frankfurt is a logical landing spot for financial services firms given its secondary role behind London. Amsterdam has a long history in banking. And France's Prime Minister has made clear his country's strategic desire to lure financial services firms to expand their operations in Paris , even promising to keep taxes on expats living in France the most favorable in Europe to attract London's finance sector. Meanwhile , major American firms like JPMorgan , , Merrill Lynch , and , as well as Britain’s Standard Chartered made a pledge to British finance minister George Osborne to try to support London’s financial sector in the wake of Brexit, although details on what this means are not clear. In order to understand what may happen and where the future of financial services may go, it is important to understand how and why financial services hubs exist. London was the global financial services hub for a long time; after all, London was the largest city in the world in 1900. As the capital of the British Empire, with a strong rule of law, history of financial services, and the world's reserve currency, London was the natural landing spot for the global financial system. Financial services, particularly for activities like payments and settlements between banks, requires economies of scale, and both legal and physical security. When London was viciously bombed during World War II, large portions of the global payments system were forced to move, choosing New York City as a logical landing place. As the United States emerged as the global economic power with the world's new reserve currency after the war, given the cost of movement, and the reality that its location in New York was working, large portions of the global payment and financial system remained. Recently, New York and London have battled each other for the title of global financial capital (with Singapore and Hong Kong rising over time). Brexit is likely a self-inflicted knock-out punch (or to use a soccer metaphor, an "own goal") that will solidify New York's claim to the title. Story continues London may suffer more as it relates to financial technology (aka FinTech) firms. FinTech is a growth industry with new firms emerging daily to challenge the existing system of how we transmit money (PayPal), use credit cards (Square), get a loan (Lending Club), or even what we think of as money (Bitcoin). Before Brexit, London had many advantages, including a smart regulatory system for FinTech and a strategic desire to attract and grow that part of the industry. Already there are over 60,000 FinTech jobs in the UK — more than in other potential hubs like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia combined. A report by E&Y ranked the UK over states like California, cities like New York and countries like Singapore in terms of attractiveness to FinTech, leading the UK's Economic Secretary Harriet Baldwin to conclude that "We are the global capital for FinTech." In fact, policymakers in the United States were racing to think through what could be done to match the UK's innovative approach for FinTech. The White House and the Comptroller of the Currency recently held FinTech summits in Washington, which I attended where this exact question was raised. However, that was all BB – Before Brexit. Today, in a post-Brexit world, if you were a start-up financial services firm, would you locate in London? Given the uncertainty about access and rules going forward to reach the European Common Market, as well as reaching the United States (recall that the US and UK have no independent free trade agreement), it is hard to justify choosing London over the alternatives. Leaving or locating outside of the UK can be a rational choice even if you are expecting that deals will ultimately be worked out in the UK's favor, just because of the large downside and uncertainty of what would happen in the event that deals cannot be reached to guarantee favorable access. Major European Union members have publicly stated that they are opposed to granting the UK financial services access (passporting) without agreements by the UK on freedom of movement, which was a major driver of the vote for Brexit. The risks are just too high if you are a start-up, assuming that alternative environments can be found. For start-up FinTech firms, however, they may want to change more immediately as they do not have the large, sunk costs of already being London-bound. This is where the biggest impact could be felt longer term, even if established financial firms stop expanding in London and target their growth elsewhere on the continent. London is not going to go the way of Constantinople (the world's largest city in 500 AD). But in a post-Brexit world, growth in financial services, particularly FinTech, where London was poised to thrive, is likely to look elsewhere. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Theresa May Set to Become U.K. Prime Minister As Last Rival Pulls out Britain's Finance Minister Is on Wall Street Asking for Money Here's How the Brexit Referendum Is Affecting the U.K. Economy So Far Oil Funds Hold Down Risk, Eye Volatility After Weak First Half Sterling's Fall Could Batter UK's Fish & Chips || Why FinTech Could Be a Casualty of Brexit: Aaron Klein is a fellow and policy director at the Initiative on Business and Public Policy at the Brookings Institution.
London's role as Europe's financial services center has been called into question as a result of the UK's decision to leave the European Union - the "City's" future in the world of finance is very much in doubt.
Yes, London will remain a financial services hub, as it has been one for a long time. After all, the UK is still the world's 6thlargest economy. But the size and scope of that hub could be very different depending on how things shake out with Brexit. Frankfurt is a logical landing spot for financial services firms given its secondary role behind London. Amsterdam has a long history in banking. And France's Prime Minister has made clear his country's strategic desire to lure financial services firms to expand theiroperations in Paris, even promising to keep taxes on expats living in France the most favorable in Europe to attract London's finance sector.
Meanwhile, major American firms like JPMorgan , , Merrill Lynch , and , as well as Britain’s Standard Chartered made a pledge to British finance minister George Osborne to try to support London’s financial sector in the wake of Brexit, although details on what this means are not clear.
In order to understand what may happen and where the future of financial services may go, it is important to understand how and why financial services hubs exist.
London was the global financial services hub for a long time; after all, London was the largest city in the world in 1900. As the capital of the British Empire, with a strong rule of law, history of financial services, and the world's reserve currency, London was the natural landing spot for the global financial system. Financial services, particularly for activities like payments and settlements between banks, requires economies of scale, and both legal and physical security. When London was viciously bombed during World War II, large portions of the global payments system were forced to move, choosing New York City as a logical landing place. As the United States emerged as the global economic power with the world's new reserve currency after the war, given the cost of movement, and the reality that its location in New York was working, large portions of the global payment and financial system remained. Recently, New York and London have battled each other for the title of global financial capital (with Singapore and Hong Kong rising over time). Brexit is likely a self-inflicted knock-out punch (or to use a soccer metaphor, an "own goal") that will solidify New York's claim to the title.
London may suffer more as it relates to financial technology (aka FinTech) firms. FinTech is a growth industry with new firms emerging daily to challenge the existing system of how we transmit money (PayPal), use credit cards (Square), get a loan (Lending Club), or even what we think of as money (Bitcoin). Before Brexit, London had many advantages, including a smart regulatory system for FinTech and a strategic desire to attract and grow that part of the industry. Already there are over 60,000 FinTech jobs in the UK — more than in other potential hubs like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia combined. A report by E&Y ranked the UK over states like California, cities like New York and countries like Singapore in terms of attractiveness to FinTech, leading the UK's Economic Secretary Harriet Baldwin toconcludethat "We are the global capital for FinTech."
In fact, policymakers in the United States were racing to think through what could be done to match the UK's innovative approach for FinTech. The White House and the Comptroller of the Currency recently held FinTech summits in Washington, which I attended where this exact question was raised. However, that was all BB – Before Brexit.
Today, in a post-Brexit world, if you were a start-up financial services firm, would you locate in London?
Given the uncertainty about access and rules going forward to reach the European Common Market, as well as reaching the United States (recall that the US and UK have no independent free trade agreement), it is hard to justify choosing London over the alternatives. Leaving or locating outside of the UK can be a rational choice even if you are expecting that deals will ultimately be worked out in the UK's favor, just because of the large downside and uncertainty of what would happen in the event that deals cannot be reached to guarantee favorable access. Major European Union members havepublicly statedthat they are opposed to granting the UK financial services access (passporting) without agreements by the UK on freedom of movement, which was a major driver of the vote for Brexit. The risks are just too high if you are a start-up, assuming that alternative environments can be found.
For start-up FinTech firms, however, they may want to change more immediately as they do not have the large, sunk costs of already being London-bound. This is where the biggest impact could be felt longer term, even if established financial firms stop expanding in London and target their growth elsewhere on the continent. London is not going to go the way of Constantinople (the world's largest city in 500 AD). But in a post-Brexit world, growth in financial services, particularly FinTech, where London was poised to thrive, is likely to look elsewhere.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Theresa May Set to Become U.K. Prime Minister As Last Rival Pulls out
• Britain's Finance Minister Is on Wall Street Asking for Money
• Here's How the Brexit Referendum Is Affecting the U.K. Economy So Far
• Oil Funds Hold Down Risk, Eye Volatility After Weak First Half
• Sterling's Fall Could Batter UK's Fish & Chips || Here's your simple guide to the bitcoin halving: On Saturday, July 9, around 1:30pm EST, the bitcoin halving will occur.
What the heck is the bitcoin halving? In simplest terms, for only the second time in the digital currency’s history, the reward that bitcoin miners receive will be cut in half.
To get more in depth: All bitcoin transactions are recorded onthe bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger. The transactions are recorded in bundles, called “blocks,” by “miners” who receive a small reward in bitcoin for mining. This process creates new bitcoins.
Miners currently earn 25 bitcoins per block—at the current bitcoin price, that’s $16,175. But beginning with the mining of the 420,000th block, which is set to happen on Saturday, the reward will go down to 12.5 bitcoins rewarded per block mined.
This will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year. It’s an event that people in the bitcoin world have been anticipating for months with great excitement—but also uncertainty.
So, what does this mean for you, Yahoo Finance reader, and for the bitcoin market?
If you don’t own any bitcoin, perhaps nothing at all. But there are signs that the halving could have a major impact on the price. And if it brings the price on another big ride, this could be the right time to get in. Consequently, some experts predict the opposite: thatthe halving will be an exit eventwhen many speculators get out.
The last time the mining reward was halved, after 210,000 blocks, was on November 28, 2012. The price did nothing significant that day, then saw a slow increase in the weeks that followed, part of a run to the highest price bitcoin has ever seen, above $1,200 one year later. But the post-halving bump was likely due to many different factors, as is typically the case with every bitcoin price hike.
Take the last few months as an example. Justafter the Brexit vote, bitcoin saw a clear bump—but the price had already been on a big ride for months before the EU referendum, and many believe it was because of the approaching halving. Bitcoin is up 49% over the last 3 months, and 115% in the past year. (Then again, based on data from Coinbase,Brits bought a lot of bitcoin just before the Brexithappened.)
Every time bitcoin spikes, people like to point toChina, the de facto global capital of bitcoinand where the majority of miners are based. But bitcoin is an asset untied to any single country’s economy or currency (much like gold), which means the factors that raise or drop its price are varied and difficult to pinpoint.
In a casual Twitter poll on what the price will do in the wake of the halving, nearly 300 respondents were basically split on whether it will go up, down, or do nothing.
One group that could be seriously hurt by the halving is miners using older mining machines, whose margins are smaller. (Most miners nowadays are big operations with expensive machines, mostly in China.) If the price drops precipitously, these small-margin miners could be cut out, because mining might become unprofitable for them. If that happens, bitcoin’s hashrate—the speed at which the blockchain is operating—would drop. And that would be bad for the entire bitcoin network.
The only thing you can bank on from bitcoin in the next few weeks after the halving: volatility. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the everyday investor should stay away.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
British bitcoin market sent extraordinary signals before Brexit
The latest Bitcoin price hike is not all about Brexit
It doesn’t really matter to bitcoin who created bitcoin || Here's your simple guide to the bitcoin halving: Bitcoin price over the past 3 months, via WinkDex. On Saturday, July 9, around 1:30pm EST, the bitcoin halving will occur. What the heck is the bitcoin halving? In simplest terms, for only the second time in the digital currencys history, the reward that bitcoin miners receive will be cut in half. To get more in depth: All bitcoin transactions are recorded on the bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger . The transactions are recorded in bundles, called blocks, by miners who receive a small reward in bitcoin for mining. This process creates new bitcoins. Miners currently earn 25 bitcoins per blockat the current bitcoin price, thats $16,175. But beginning with the mining of the 420,000th block, which is set to happen on Saturday, the reward will go down to 12.5 bitcoins rewarded per block mined. This will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year. Its an event that people in the bitcoin world have been anticipating for months with great excitementbut also uncertainty. So, what does this mean for you, Yahoo Finance reader, and for the bitcoin market? If you dont own any bitcoin, perhaps nothing at all. But there are signs that the halving could have a major impact on the price. And if it brings the price on another big ride, this could be the right time to get in. Consequently, some experts predict the opposite: that the halving will be an exit event when many speculators get out. The last time the mining reward was halved, after 210,000 blocks, was on November 28, 2012. The price did nothing significant that day, then saw a slow increase in the weeks that followed, part of a run to the highest price bitcoin has ever seen, above $1,200 one year later. But the post-halving bump was likely due to many different factors, as is typically the case with every bitcoin price hike. Take the last few months as an example. Just after the Brexit vote, bitcoin saw a clear bump but the price had already been on a big ride for months before the EU referendum, and many believe it was because of the approaching halving. Bitcoin is up 49% over the last 3 months, and 115% in the past year. (Then again, based on data from Coinbase, Brits bought a lot of bitcoin just before the Brexit happened.) Story continues Every time bitcoin spikes, people like to point to China, the de facto global capital of bitcoin and where the majority of miners are based. But bitcoin is an asset untied to any single countrys economy or currency (much like gold), which means the factors that raise or drop its price are varied and difficult to pinpoint. In a casual Twitter poll on what the price will do in the wake of the halving, nearly 300 respondents were basically split on whether it will go up, down, or do nothing. The #bitcoin halving will have what effect on price? $btc Daniel Roberts (@readDanwrite) July 8, 2016 One group that could be seriously hurt by the halving is miners using older mining machines, whose margins are smaller. (Most miners nowadays are big operations with expensive machines, mostly in China.) If the price drops precipitously, these small-margin miners could be cut out, because mining might become unprofitable for them. If that happens, bitcoins hashratethe speed at which the blockchain is operatingwould drop. And that would be bad for the entire bitcoin network. The only thing you can bank on from bitcoin in the next few weeks after the halving: volatility. But that doesnt necessarily mean the everyday investor should stay away. Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: British bitcoin market sent extraordinary signals before Brexit The latest Bitcoin price hike is not all about Brexit It doesnt really matter to bitcoin who created bitcoin || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin "miners" face fight for survival as new supply halves: (Repeats story which first moved July 8, no change to text)
By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland, July 9 (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin "miners" face fight for survival as new supply halves: (Repeats story which first moved July 8, no change to text)
By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland, July 9 (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Too many of us are thinking about money all wrong, and it's keeping us from building wealth: (A cushion isn't the point.Sean Gallup / Staff / Getty Images)
It's nice to have a cushion.
Even when you aren't living paycheck to paycheck, there's comfort in knowing you could cover a surprise $1,000 bill (many Americans can't) or buy a last-minute concert ticket when your favorite act comes to town.
You could — but hopefully you won't have to. Instead, you'll just bask in the warm glow of having that cash at your beck and call. You'll havemoney. You'll be rich.
And there's where too many of us go wrong.
Kristin Wong, of the personal finance blogThe Wild Wong, has an interesting post about the gap in understanding between pursuing money and pursuing a goal. In the first, you're amassing wealth for the sake of wealth. In the second, you're amassing wealth to serve a larger goal: a trip or a house or tuition or a family. You're using money as a tool.
Remembering a time in life when she was struggling to make ends meet and her goal was simply to afford her apartment, Wong writes:
"Most of us treat money itself as the goal. We work to get out of debt or save for retirement because that just seems like the responsible, grown-up thing to do. And it is, but here's what happens when you make money the goal:
• You ditch the goal, because it doesn't support what truly matters to you.
• You give up on money entirely, because you don't see the point. Your finances are a wreck.
• You stick to the goal, but you're cheap. You make life more difficult just to keep your money.
• You start hoarding money instead of using it.
• You stay at a job you hate because it pays well.
"From my own experience, when you make money the goal, you allow it to continue controlling your life."
She traces this realization in part back to financial planner Carl Richards, who asked inThe New York Times in February 2015: "What if we start treating money like a tool? Tools are meant to be used. They're not meant to sit on a shelf and collect dust."
It's a similar perspective toPulitzer Prize-winning author Charles Duhigg, who has said that money is a resource. Having money doesn't simply mean having a collection of dollars — it means having the resources to accomplish something.
In other words, a tool.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Financial planners regularly recommend setting financial goals, complete with price tags, to get the most out of the money we have. But in our daily lives, many of us aren't following this reasoning.
When we drip money behind us down the street, buying sunglasses and coffees and cocktails and paying ATM fees we don't really care about, we're doing it at the expense of the things we want most. If money is a tool, spending indiscriminately certainly isn't using it right.
Bearing this in mind, the most effective question to ask yourself isn't "How much money can I save?" — it's "What am I saving for?"
NOW WATCH:GREEN BERET: This is how we're different from US Navy SEALs
More From Business Insider
• Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined
• Here's how to get free Chick-fil-A today
• A supervolcano lies under Yellowstone — here's what would happen if it erupted || Too many of us are thinking about money all wrong, and it's keeping us from building wealth: relaxing raft floating summer (A cushion isn't the point.Sean Gallup / Staff / Getty Images) It's nice to have a cushion. Even when you aren't living paycheck to paycheck, there's comfort in knowing you could cover a surprise $1,000 bill ( many Americans can't ) or buy a last-minute concert ticket when your favorite act comes to town. You could — but hopefully you won't have to. Instead, you'll just bask in the warm glow of having that cash at your beck and call. You'll have money . You'll be rich. And there's where too many of us go wrong. Kristin Wong, of the personal finance blog The Wild Wong , has an interesting post about the gap in understanding between pursuing money and pursuing a goal. In the first, you're amassing wealth for the sake of wealth. In the second, you're amassing wealth to serve a larger goal: a trip or a house or tuition or a family. You're using money as a tool. Remembering a time in life when she was struggling to make ends meet and her goal was simply to afford her apartment, Wong writes: "Most of us treat money itself as the goal. We work to get out of debt or save for retirement because that just seems like the responsible, grown-up thing to do. And it is, but here's what happens when you make money the goal: You ditch the goal, because it doesn't support what truly matters to you. You give up on money entirely, because you don't see the point. Your finances are a wreck. You stick to the goal, but you're cheap. You make life more difficult just to keep your money. You start hoarding money instead of using it. You stay at a job you hate because it pays well. "From my own experience, when you make money the goal, you allow it to continue controlling your life." She traces this realization in part back to financial planner Carl Richards, who asked in The New York Times in February 2015 : "What if we start treating money like a tool? Tools are meant to be used. They're not meant to sit on a shelf and collect dust." It's a similar perspective to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Charles Duhigg , who has said that money is a resource. Having money doesn't simply mean having a collection of dollars — it means having the resources to accomplish something. Story continues In other words, a tool. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Financial planners regularly recommend setting financial goals, complete with price tags, to get the most out of the money we have. But in our daily lives, many of us aren't following this reasoning. When we drip money behind us down the street, buying sunglasses and coffees and cocktails and paying ATM fees we don't really care about, we're doing it at the expense of the things we want most. If money is a tool, spending indiscriminately certainly isn't using it right. Bearing this in mind, the most effective question to ask yourself isn't "How much money can I save?" — it's "What am I saving for?" NOW WATCH: GREEN BERET: This is how we're different from US Navy SEALs More From Business Insider Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined Here's how to get free Chick-fil-A today A supervolcano lies under Yellowstone — here's what would happen if it erupted || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate (BTC=BTSP), there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralized global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organizations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialized as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialized that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin "miners" face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland, July 8 (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin "miners" face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland, July 8 (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Story continues Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) View comments || Bitcoin "miners" face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly
KEFLAVIK, Iceland, July 8 (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins.
In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.
The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion.
The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground.
But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation.
From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5.
That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit.
"The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
SOLVING PUZZLES
The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network.
Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined.
Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions.
After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going.
Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia.
The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself.
KEEPING COOL
Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands.
As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged.
It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high.
Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top.
On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin.
In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal.
In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust.
Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening.
It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location.
The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware.
He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily."
Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain.
COMPETITION FROM CHINA
Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring.
Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower".
"It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said.
Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity.
Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly.
And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut.
"By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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654.47, 658.08, 663.26, 660.77, 679.46, 673.11, 672.86, 665.68, 665.01, 650.62
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3884.71, 4073.26, 4325.13, 4181.93, 4376.63, 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12, 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94, 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59, 5605.51, 5590.69, 5708.52, 6011.45, 6031.60, 6008.42, 5930.32, 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38, 7459.69, 7143.58.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-11-09]
Volume: 3226249984, RSI (14-day): 65.55, 50-day EMA: 5719.32, 200-day EMA: 3831.99
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1285.60, Gold RSI: 53.35
Oil Price: 57.17, Oil RSI: 75.49
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Where to, Bitcoin? Price Sees $1,000 Spread As '2x' Averted: It turns out it wasn't your average "sell the news" event.
While bitcoin set a newall-time highof $7,879 in the aftermath of affirmation a controversial software proposalhad been scrapped, its price fell just as quickly, erasing gains to hit a low of $7,070. But for analysts, the $1,000 range was a case of bitcoin's traders pricing in complex news: a group of miners and businesses would no longer seek to update bitcoin's software or otherwise form their own cryptocurrency.
In this way, market observers admitted the charts showcased something that hasn't been seen since September when China moved to ban ICOs and shutter its crypto exchanges – an unexpected shock.
As profiled by CoinDesk, the software proposalcalled Segwit2x, had been expected to be introduced to the network in mid-November, and many new buyers were said to have been allocating capital into bitcoin inanticipation of a split, thinking new coins would be created.
Yet, with the prospect of a quick dividend off the table, a look at cryptocurrency pricing serviceCoinMarketCapreveals a sea of assets in the green, as traders moved elsewhere in the market.
"Everyone was selling alts [alternative cryptocurrencies] and buying BTC. Now we are unwinding that," said BTC VIX, the organizer of bitcoin trading group Whale Club.
Others, like Nejc Kodric, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, noted it appears the news resulted in dissatisfaction for those thinking they could win big with a quick purchase before a split.
Kodric told CoinDesk:
"I think 2x was a big cloud of uncertainty which now went away ... some like it, some were just in it for the airdrop."
Others suggest it simply could have been the case that any development in the market was enough to spook new buyers.
Driven to bitcoin by its now nearly 700 percent gains on the year (or the news that major derivatives companies are looking to the market to launch new products), they simply may have lacked the ability to make a strong determination of how they felt about the event.
Such a view was put forward by Tim Enneking, managing director of the hedge fund Crypto Asset Management.
"I don't think most people understood enough about the fork to understand the implications," he said.
Still, with the market rally cooled, there were also attempts to determine how the news could reshape the relationships between available blockchains with publicly traded tokens.
Amos Meiri, CEO of Colu, a startup seeking to encourage the business adoption of local cryptocurrencies, noted the decision is likely to push startups that were inclined toward the Segwit2x proposal, to other options.
Still, even while he was against the measure, Meiri acknowledged that, for many of his bitcoin business peers, the scrapping of further Segwit2x scaling is cause for concern for which those businesses could actively seek other solutions.
For instance, on Twitter, there was talk about what the move could mean for litecoin and bitcoin cash, both blockchain communities that appear to define their protocol as a vehicle for peer-to-peer payments, though neither rose very much on the day. Bitcoin cash, created after an August fork of the bitcoin blockchain was down roughly 5 percent, while litecoin, which launched in 2012 to offer merchants faster payments, was up just 0.21 percent.
However, there are those who believe these cryptocurrencies may soon become more valuable to a new group of users disenfranchised with the state of bitcoin.
Jake Smith, manager of Bitcoin.com, an interactive web portal for cryptocurrency, called today's events "great news for bitcoin cash."
"Businesses will start flipping. High fees hurting a lot of businesses," he continued.
As such, the statements set up for what could be further price discovery in the market ahead.
Ping pong ballimage via Shutterstock.
• You Want Democracy? Try a Hard Fork
• Turning Tide? Bitcoin Tops $7,000 As Price Pushes Up
• Square's Cash App Pilots Bitcoin Buying and Selling
• Bitcoin Bulletproofed: Wuille, Maxwell and More Propose Scalable Privacy Tech || Where to, Bitcoin? Price Sees $1,000 Spread As '2x' Averted: It turns out it wasn't your average "sell the news" event. While bitcoin set a new all-time high of $7,879 in the aftermath of affirmation a controversial software proposal had been scrapped , its price fell just as quickly, erasing gains to hit a low of $7,070. But for analysts, the $1,000 range was a case of bitcoin's traders pricing in complex news: a group of miners and businesses would no longer seek to update bitcoin's software or otherwise form their own cryptocurrency. In this way, market observers admitted the charts showcased something that hasn't been seen since September when China moved to ban ICOs and shutter its crypto exchanges – an unexpected shock. As profiled by CoinDesk, the software proposal called Segwit2x , had been expected to be introduced to the network in mid-November, and many new buyers were said to have been allocating capital into bitcoin in anticipation of a split , thinking new coins would be created. Yet, with the prospect of a quick dividend off the table, a look at cryptocurrency pricing service CoinMarketCap reveals a sea of assets in the green, as traders moved elsewhere in the market. "Everyone was selling alts [alternative cryptocurrencies] and buying BTC. Now we are unwinding that," said BTC VIX, the organizer of bitcoin trading group Whale Club. Others, like Nejc Kodric, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, noted it appears the news resulted in dissatisfaction for those thinking they could win big with a quick purchase before a split. Kodric told CoinDesk: "I think 2x was a big cloud of uncertainty which now went away ... some like it, some were just in it for the airdrop." Others suggest it simply could have been the case that any development in the market was enough to spook new buyers. Driven to bitcoin by its now nearly 700 percent gains on the year (or the news that major derivatives companies are looking to the market to launch new products), they simply may have lacked the ability to make a strong determination of how they felt about the event. Story continues Such a view was put forward by Tim Enneking, managing director of the hedge fund Crypto Asset Management. "I don't think most people understood enough about the fork to understand the implications," he said. The beneficiaries? Still, with the market rally cooled, there were also attempts to determine how the news could reshape the relationships between available blockchains with publicly traded tokens. Amos Meiri, CEO of Colu, a startup seeking to encourage the business adoption of local cryptocurrencies, noted the decision is likely to push startups that were inclined toward the Segwit2x proposal, to other options. Still, even while he was against the measure, Meiri acknowledged that, for many of his bitcoin business peers, the scrapping of further Segwit2x scaling is cause for concern for which those businesses could actively seek other solutions. For instance, on Twitter, there was talk about what the move could mean for litecoin and bitcoin cash, both blockchain communities that appear to define their protocol as a vehicle for peer-to-peer payments, though neither rose very much on the day. Bitcoin cash, created after an August fork of the bitcoin blockchain was down roughly 5 percent, while litecoin, which launched in 2012 to offer merchants faster payments, was up just 0.21 percent. However, there are those who believe these cryptocurrencies may soon become more valuable to a new group of users disenfranchised with the state of bitcoin. Jake Smith, manager of Bitcoin.com, an interactive web portal for cryptocurrency, called today's events "g reat news for bitcoin cash." "Businesses will start flipping. High fees hurting a lot of businesses," he continued. As such, the statements set up for what could be further price discovery in the market ahead. Ping pong ball image vi a Shutterstock . Related Stories You Want Democracy? Try a Hard Fork Turning Tide? Bitcoin Tops $7,000 As Price Pushes Up Square's Cash App Pilots Bitcoin Buying and Selling Bitcoin Bulletproofed: Wuille, Maxwell and More Propose Scalable Privacy Tech || Where to, Bitcoin? Price Sees $1,000 Spread As '2x' Averted: It turns out it wasn't your average "sell the news" event.
While bitcoin set a newall-time highof $7,879 in the aftermath of affirmation a controversial software proposalhad been scrapped, its price fell just as quickly, erasing gains to hit a low of $7,070. But for analysts, the $1,000 range was a case of bitcoin's traders pricing in complex news: a group of miners and businesses would no longer seek to update bitcoin's software or otherwise form their own cryptocurrency.
In this way, market observers admitted the charts showcased something that hasn't been seen since September when China moved to ban ICOs and shutter its crypto exchanges – an unexpected shock.
As profiled by CoinDesk, the software proposalcalled Segwit2x, had been expected to be introduced to the network in mid-November, and many new buyers were said to have been allocating capital into bitcoin inanticipation of a split, thinking new coins would be created.
Yet, with the prospect of a quick dividend off the table, a look at cryptocurrency pricing serviceCoinMarketCapreveals a sea of assets in the green, as traders moved elsewhere in the market.
"Everyone was selling alts [alternative cryptocurrencies] and buying BTC. Now we are unwinding that," said BTC VIX, the organizer of bitcoin trading group Whale Club.
Others, like Nejc Kodric, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, noted it appears the news resulted in dissatisfaction for those thinking they could win big with a quick purchase before a split.
Kodric told CoinDesk:
"I think 2x was a big cloud of uncertainty which now went away ... some like it, some were just in it for the airdrop."
Others suggest it simply could have been the case that any development in the market was enough to spook new buyers.
Driven to bitcoin by its now nearly 700 percent gains on the year (or the news that major derivatives companies are looking to the market to launch new products), they simply may have lacked the ability to make a strong determination of how they felt about the event.
Such a view was put forward by Tim Enneking, managing director of the hedge fund Crypto Asset Management.
"I don't think most people understood enough about the fork to understand the implications," he said.
Still, with the market rally cooled, there were also attempts to determine how the news could reshape the relationships between available blockchains with publicly traded tokens.
Amos Meiri, CEO of Colu, a startup seeking to encourage the business adoption of local cryptocurrencies, noted the decision is likely to push startups that were inclined toward the Segwit2x proposal, to other options.
Still, even while he was against the measure, Meiri acknowledged that, for many of his bitcoin business peers, the scrapping of further Segwit2x scaling is cause for concern for which those businesses could actively seek other solutions.
For instance, on Twitter, there was talk about what the move could mean for litecoin and bitcoin cash, both blockchain communities that appear to define their protocol as a vehicle for peer-to-peer payments, though neither rose very much on the day. Bitcoin cash, created after an August fork of the bitcoin blockchain was down roughly 5 percent, while litecoin, which launched in 2012 to offer merchants faster payments, was up just 0.21 percent.
However, there are those who believe these cryptocurrencies may soon become more valuable to a new group of users disenfranchised with the state of bitcoin.
Jake Smith, manager of Bitcoin.com, an interactive web portal for cryptocurrency, called today's events "great news for bitcoin cash."
"Businesses will start flipping. High fees hurting a lot of businesses," he continued.
As such, the statements set up for what could be further price discovery in the market ahead.
Ping pong ballimage via Shutterstock.
• You Want Democracy? Try a Hard Fork
• Turning Tide? Bitcoin Tops $7,000 As Price Pushes Up
• Square's Cash App Pilots Bitcoin Buying and Selling
• Bitcoin Bulletproofed: Wuille, Maxwell and More Propose Scalable Privacy Tech || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two.
In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world.
SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said.
The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough.
The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency.
Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer.
"Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform.
"The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added.
Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP).
"Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together."
Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two.
In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world.
SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said.
The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough.
The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency.
Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer.
"Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform.
"The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added.
Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP).
"Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together."
Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two. In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world. SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said. The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough. The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency. Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer. "Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform. "The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added. Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP). "Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together." Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two. In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world. SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said. The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough. The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency. Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer. "Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform. "The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added. Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 <BTC=BTSP>. Story continues "Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together." Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two. In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world. SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said. The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough. The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency. Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer. "Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform. "The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added. Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP). "Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together." Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two. In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world. SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said. The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough. The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency. Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer. "Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform. "The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added. Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP). "Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together." Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two.
In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world.
SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said.
The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough.
The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency.
Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer.
"Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform.
"The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added.
Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 <BTC=BTSP>.
"Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together."
Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two.
In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world.
SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said.
The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough.
The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency.
Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer.
"Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform.
"The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added.
Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 <BTC=BTSP>.
"Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together."
Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || Bitcoin hits record high after developers suspend plans to 'fork' currency: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Jemima Kelly NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin hit a record high just shy of $8,000 on Wednesday after a coalition of developers and investors suspended a software upgrade planned for next Thursday that could have split the digital currency in two. In an email on Wednesday, the lead developer of the team planning to carry out the upgrade said "Segwit2x" would be scrapped for now as it could "divide the community." The email by Mike Belshe, chief executive of blockchain security firm BitGo, was also signed by some of the biggest names in the bitcoin world. SegWit2x is an agreement among high-profile figures in the bitcoin world aimed at upgrading the bitcoin network's capacity. It received significant support when it was announced in May but many bitcoin developers had withdrawn support for the upgrade over the last few months, analysts said. The software upgrade would have attempted to address the bitcoin network's limitations in processing millions of daily transactions. The network has not kept pace with growth and is unable to process transactions fast enough. The upgrade would have changed bitcoin's rules leading to a so-called fork, effectively cloning the existing bitcoin to create another crypto-currency. Segwit2x was supposed to be the second step in a broad two-step process to enhance transaction capacity. The first step occurred over the summer. "Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets," said Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a data-driven, crypto-investment platform. "The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase," he added. Bitcoin surged to a record high of $7,888 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange in the 20 minutes that followed the statement. It was last traded up 3 percent on the day at $7,354.10 (BTC=BTSP). "Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for bitcoin," BitGo's Belshe said in his email. "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together." Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin crypto-currency and a leading industry expert, said in a post on Twitter the bitcoin community may need to implement Segwit2x in the future anyway, but it should be done when there is consensus. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Susan Thomas) || 'Dr. Doom' Roubini Joins Wall Street Chorus Calling Bitcoin a Bubble: Another influential financial commentator is disparaging cryptocurrencies amid a run-up in prices.
In aninterviewwith Business Insider Poland, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, expressed bearish views on bitcoin and its brethren, calling the ongoing price gains "a gigantic speculative bubble."
Roubini, who earned the nickname Dr. Doom for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, said that while blockchain technology is promising, bitcoin lacks "serious" payment and capital storage methods and that there is no fundamental reason for current price levels. Rather, bitcoin "feeds on itself," he said.
His comments followed similar remarks in recent months by JPMorgan Chase CEOJamie Dimon, who called bitcoin a fraud, andWarren Buffet, the billionaire investor, who said bitcoin is experiencing "a real bubble."
"What’s more – it is also used by criminals, for their shady business. I think that more and more countries will start to make cryptocurrency exchanges illegal like China did. New regulations will be adopted. So, this will find its end," Roubini added.
Roubini's comments come as bitcoin's price has been setting new records, surging as high as $7,879.06 today on the news that the Segwit2X hard fork had been called off.
Yet Roubini is not new to bashing the world's first cryptocurrency. In 2014, he calledbitcoin a Ponzi schemeand criticized its volatility and the infamous collapse of the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange.
Roubini image from CoinDesk archives. || 'Dr. Doom' Roubini Joins Wall Street Chorus Calling Bitcoin a Bubble: Another influential financial commentator is disparaging cryptocurrencies amid a run-up in prices.
In aninterviewwith Business Insider Poland, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, expressed bearish views on bitcoin and its brethren, calling the ongoing price gains "a gigantic speculative bubble."
Roubini, who earned the nickname Dr. Doom for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, said that while blockchain technology is promising, bitcoin lacks "serious" payment and capital storage methods and that there is no fundamental reason for current price levels. Rather, bitcoin "feeds on itself," he said.
His comments followed similar remarks in recent months by JPMorgan Chase CEOJamie Dimon, who called bitcoin a fraud, andWarren Buffet, the billionaire investor, who said bitcoin is experiencing "a real bubble."
"What’s more – it is also used by criminals, for their shady business. I think that more and more countries will start to make cryptocurrency exchanges illegal like China did. New regulations will be adopted. So, this will find its end," Roubini added.
Roubini's comments come as bitcoin's price has been setting new records, surging as high as $7,879.06 today on the news that the Segwit2X hard fork had been called off.
Yet Roubini is not new to bashing the world's first cryptocurrency. In 2014, he calledbitcoin a Ponzi schemeand criticized its volatility and the infamous collapse of the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange.
Roubini image from CoinDesk archives. || 'Dr. Doom' Roubini Joins Wall Street Chorus Calling Bitcoin a Bubble: Another influential financial commentator is disparaging cryptocurrencies amid a run-up in prices. In an interview with Business Insider Poland, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, expressed bearish views on bitcoin and its brethren, calling the ongoing price gains "a gigantic speculative bubble." Roubini, who earned the nickname Dr. Doom for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, said that while blockchain technology is promising, bitcoin lacks "serious" payment and capital storage methods and that there is no fundamental reason for current price levels. Rather, bitcoin "feeds on itself," he said. His comments followed similar remarks in recent months by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon , who called bitcoin a fraud, and Warren Buffet , the billionaire investor, who said bitcoin is experiencing "a real bubble." "Whats more it is also used by criminals, for their shady business. I think that more and more countries will start to make cryptocurrency exchanges illegal like China did. New regulations will be adopted. So, this will find its end," Roubini added. Roubini's comments come as bitcoin's price has been setting new records, surging as high as $7,879.06 today on the news that the Segwit2X hard fork had been called off. Yet Roubini is not new to bashing the world's first cryptocurrency. In 2014, he called bitcoin a Ponzi scheme and criticized its volatility and the infamous collapse of the Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange. Roubini image from CoinDesk archives. || Bitcoin is soaring because a hard fork has been averted: A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. Picture taken October 26, 2017. Bitcoin hit a high of $7,879 today (Nov. 8), a new record high, minutes after one faction of the community that had been pushing for a hard fork, which would have doubled its transaction capacity, announced that it would abandon its effort. 200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Heres the full list. The chief executives of a number of prominent bitcoin companies, including Xapo, Bitmain, and Blockchain.info, signed off on a letter today saying that the effort to fork bitcoin, called Segwit2x, would be called off because it would divide the community. The letter was posted to the Segwit2x mailing list. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoins growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x, the letter, signed by six CEOs, said. The bitcoin world has been riven by infighting over how to increase its transaction capacity, or how to scale the cryptocurrency. One faction envisions bitcoin acting as a decentralized payments platform, allowing people to pay for their daily coffee, for example, with bitcoin. But because bitcoins transaction capacity is so smallroughly seven transactions per secondthe technology cant be used for that without charging increasingly higher transaction fees. The opposing camp views bitcoin as a type of digital gold, meant for storing in a vault rather than used to pay for coffee. Bitcoin, which was trading as low as $7,078 today, shot up to $7,879 after the letter was published. The Segwit2x proposal would have doubled bitcoins transaction capacity, which most bitcoin users believe is necessary. The proposal was contentious because of the way the changes would be imposed, which would have changed the block size, a cap on bitcoins transaction rate set by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Opponents to Segwit2x argued that this change would alter bitcoins essential character too greatly, and place too much decision-making power in the hands of miners and heads of big companies in the industry, because the protocol would have been altered at their say-so. Story continues Bitcoin has already forked twice this year, creating the bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold cryptocurrencies. Neither has threatened the dominance of the original chain because they have not attracted enough investors. But the Segwit2x fork was seen as a credible threat to the original bitcoin chain because of the amount of industry support behind it. The abandonment of the Segwit2x fork is a major victory for proponents of bitcoin as a kind of digital gold by maintaining the status quo. But it risks limiting the cryptocurrencys usefulness as a payment mechanism, as the number of transactions rise and the network struggles to process them in a timely and inexpensive manner. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: An ancient philosophers advice for living a fulfilled life, even in the darkest times In Beijing, Trump should get acquainted with Xi Jinpings Steve Bannon || Bitcoin is soaring because a hard fork has been averted: A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. Picture taken October 26, 2017. Bitcoin hit a high of $7,879 today (Nov. 8), a new record high, minutes after one faction of the community that had been pushing for a hard fork, which would have doubled its transaction capacity, announced that it would abandon its effort. 200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Heres the full list. The chief executives of a number of prominent bitcoin companies, including Xapo, Bitmain, and Blockchain.info, signed off on a letter today saying that the effort to fork bitcoin, called Segwit2x, would be called off because it would divide the community. The letter was posted to the Segwit2x mailing list. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoins growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x, the letter, signed by six CEOs, said. The bitcoin world has been riven by infighting over how to increase its transaction capacity, or how to scale the cryptocurrency. One faction envisions bitcoin acting as a decentralized payments platform, allowing people to pay for their daily coffee, for example, with bitcoin. But because bitcoins transaction capacity is so smallroughly seven transactions per secondthe technology cant be used for that without charging increasingly higher transaction fees. The opposing camp views bitcoin as a type of digital gold, meant for storing in a vault rather than used to pay for coffee. Bitcoin, which was trading as low as $7,078 today, shot up to $7,879 after the letter was published. The Segwit2x proposal would have doubled bitcoins transaction capacity, which most bitcoin users believe is necessary. The proposal was contentious because of the way the changes would be imposed, which would have changed the block size, a cap on bitcoins transaction rate set by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Opponents to Segwit2x argued that this change would alter bitcoins essential character too greatly, and place too much decision-making power in the hands of miners and heads of big companies in the industry, because the protocol would have been altered at their say-so. Story continues Bitcoin has already forked twice this year, creating the bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold cryptocurrencies. Neither has threatened the dominance of the original chain because they have not attracted enough investors. But the Segwit2x fork was seen as a credible threat to the original bitcoin chain because of the amount of industry support behind it. The abandonment of the Segwit2x fork is a major victory for proponents of bitcoin as a kind of digital gold by maintaining the status quo. But it risks limiting the cryptocurrencys usefulness as a payment mechanism, as the number of transactions rise and the network struggles to process them in a timely and inexpensive manner. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: An ancient philosophers advice for living a fulfilled life, even in the darkest times In Beijing, Trump should get acquainted with Xi Jinpings Steve Bannon || Bitcoin is soaring because a hard fork has been averted: A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. Picture taken October 26, 2017. Bitcoin hit a high of $7,879 today (Nov. 8), a new record high, minutes after one faction of the community that had been pushing for a hard fork, which would have doubled its transaction capacity, announced that it would abandon its effort. 200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Heres the full list. The chief executives of a number of prominent bitcoin companies, including Xapo, Bitmain, and Blockchain.info, signed off on a letter today saying that the effort to fork bitcoin, called Segwit2x, would be called off because it would divide the community. The letter was posted to the Segwit2x mailing list. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoins growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x, the letter, signed by six CEOs, said. The bitcoin world has been riven by infighting over how to increase its transaction capacity, or how to scale the cryptocurrency. One faction envisions bitcoin acting as a decentralized payments platform, allowing people to pay for their daily coffee, for example, with bitcoin. But because bitcoins transaction capacity is so smallroughly seven transactions per secondthe technology cant be used for that without charging increasingly higher transaction fees. The opposing camp views bitcoin as a type of digital gold, meant for storing in a vault rather than used to pay for coffee. Bitcoin, which was trading as low as $7,078 today, shot up to $7,879 after the letter was published. The Segwit2x proposal would have doubled bitcoins transaction capacity, which most bitcoin users believe is necessary. The proposal was contentious because of the way the changes would be imposed, which would have changed the block size, a cap on bitcoins transaction rate set by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Opponents to Segwit2x argued that this change would alter bitcoins essential character too greatly, and place too much decision-making power in the hands of miners and heads of big companies in the industry, because the protocol would have been altered at their say-so. Story continues Bitcoin has already forked twice this year, creating the bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold cryptocurrencies. Neither has threatened the dominance of the original chain because they have not attracted enough investors. But the Segwit2x fork was seen as a credible threat to the original bitcoin chain because of the amount of industry support behind it. The abandonment of the Segwit2x fork is a major victory for proponents of bitcoin as a kind of digital gold by maintaining the status quo. But it risks limiting the cryptocurrencys usefulness as a payment mechanism, as the number of transactions rise and the network struggles to process them in a timely and inexpensive manner. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: An ancient philosophers advice for living a fulfilled life, even in the darkest times In Beijing, Trump should get acquainted with Xi Jinpings Steve Bannon || What you need to know on Wall Street today: CEO of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein in the Manhattan borough of New York September 29, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Thomson Reuters Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox. Goldman Sachs just announced a new class of 509 managing directors — the largest class in the firm's history . In related news, the CFO of Goldman Sachs keeps talking about becoming the Google of Wall Street . The investment bank led a $10 million funding round for a startup that wants to help Wall Street clean its data . And Goldman is among the Wall Street banks that could take home a share of more than $1 billion in fees from a tech deal spree . Bill Ackman's Pershing Square lost its bid Tuesday to appoint three nominees to the board of Automatic Data Processing, the human-resources company. But according to Ackman, he also won. You can read our interview with Ackman here . In trading news, IEX, America's newest stock exchange, is undercutting rivals Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange . A small band of trading specialists are taking calls about $50 million bitcoin deals . We just got a glimpse of how bitcoin futures will work . And there 's a brand new way to bet on the market's hottest stocks . In D.C news, House Republicans suddenly have a massive problem with their tax bill . Larry Summers slammed Steven Mnuchin over his claims the GOP tax plan would pay for itself . And President Trump is getting a historic chance to reshape the world's most powerful central bank , according to Business Insider's Pedro da Costa. In investing news, we talked to the chief investment strategist at $920 billion fund giant Invesco about where you should invest right now . And in tech news, Snap flopped with disastrous Q3 earnings that sent shares diving . Here's what you need to know: Snap trims earnings losses after Tencent announces a 10% stake Snapchat is redesigning its app after CEO Evan Spiegel admitted it's too difficult to use Snap wrote down nearly $40 million because Spectacles are a flop A critical mistake cost traders betting against Snap huge profits RBC: There's 3 things Snap can do to turn itself around Story continues NOW WATCH: TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to $25,000 in 5 years See Also: What you need to know on Wall Street today What you need to know on Wall Street today What you need to know on Wall Street today || What you need to know on Wall Street today: Thomson Reuters
Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.
Goldman Sachsjust announced a new class of 509 managing directors —the largest class in the firm's history.
In related news, the CFO of Goldman Sachskeeps talking about becoming the Google of Wall Street. The investment bank led a $10 million funding round for astartup that wants to helpWall Street clean its data.And Goldman is among the Wall Street banks that couldtake home a share ofmore than $1 billion in fees from a tech deal spree.
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square lost its bid Tuesday to appoint three nominees to the board of Automatic Data Processing, the human-resources company. But according to Ackman, he also won.You can read our interview with Ackman here.
In trading news,IEX, America's newest stock exchange, isundercutting rivals Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. A small band oftrading specialists are taking calls about $50 million bitcoin deals. We justgot a glimpse of how bitcoin futures will work. And there's a brandnew way to bet on the market's hottest stocks.
In D.C news, House Republicans suddenlyhave a massive problem with their tax bill. Larry Summers slammedSteven Mnuchin over his claims the GOP tax plan would pay for itself. And President Trump isgetting a historic chance to reshape the world's most powerful central bank, according to Business Insider's Pedro da Costa.
In investing news, we talked to the chief investment strategist at $920 billion fund giantInvesco about where you should invest right now.
And in tech news, Snap flopped withdisastrous Q3 earnings that sent shares diving. Here's what you need to know:
• Snap trims earnings losses after Tencent announces a 10% stake
• Snapchat is redesigning its app after CEO Evan Spiegel admitted it's too difficult to use
• Snap wrote down nearly $40 million because Spectacles are a flop
• A critical mistake cost traders betting against Snap huge profits
• RBC: There's 3 things Snap can do to turn itself around
NOW WATCH:TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to $25,000 in 5 years
See Also:
• What you need to know on Wall Street today
• What you need to know on Wall Street today
• What you need to know on Wall Street today
[Social Media Buzz]
Current #bitcoin rate on #Coinsecure is INR 4,97,399.00 vs #coindesk rate of INR 4,63,939.1515 #bitcoinIndia #IndiaTracker #buyBitcoin #BTC || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo dedicar u ·-· https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ - # || Nov 09, 2017 09:00:00 UTC | 7,242.00$ | 6,240.30€ | 5,509.90£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/nKsp4StSzj || Current #bitcoin rate on #Coinsecure is INR 4,97,500.00 vs #coindesk rate of INR 4,78,668.0525 #bitcoinIndia #In...
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6618.14, 6357.60, 5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75, 7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48, 63326.99, 67566.83, 66971.83, 64995.23, 64949.96, 64155.94, 64469.53, 65466.84, 63557.87, 60161.25, 60368.01, 56942.14, 58119.58, 59697.20, 58730.48, 56289.29, 57569.07, 56280.43, 57274.68, 53569.77, 54815.08, 57248.46.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-11-28]
Volume: 28116886357, RSI (14-day): 45.76, 50-day EMA: 58326.78, 200-day EMA: 49779.25
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
New to The Street Broadcasting on Bloomberg Television Tonight Nov 27th 6PM EST Featuring BeemUp $YOM, Fetch.ai $FET ,Pink Panda and Globex Data: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 27, 2021 / Airing tonight, Saturday , November 27, 2021 at 6PM EST on Bloomberg Television, New to The Street T.V. Anchor Jane King's in-studio NASDAQ interview with Fetch.ai's (CRYPTO:FET) ($FET) CEO, Mr. Humayun Sheikh . He explains Fetch.ai's open-access, tokenized, decentralized machine learning network, providing an operational business update, enabling smart infrastructure built around a decentralized digital economy. The recent price appreciations of Bitcoin and other altcoins show cryptocurrencies becoming more widely accepted. Humayun explains his vision on bridging blockchain decentralized applications for commonly used consumer services, and he sees Fetch.ai as being a leader in providing unique tools for W3 (Web 3.0), W4 (Web 4.0), and A.I. (artificial intelligence). Giving individuals and businesses the necessary AI-integrated blockchain tools to digitize their lives and enterprises opens tremendous future opportunities. The onset of W3 remains focused on digital financial transactions. Still ahead, the very rapidly approaching W4 looks to incorporate DeFi into a decentralized world where all can participate in the movement of goods and services. Humayun gives his timeline on the rollout of the Company's unique blockchain tools forthcoming in the next 12-18 months, based on a distributed ledger that enables secure sharing, connection, and transactions based on any data globally. https://storage.googleapis.com/accesswire/media/674879/alexYOMNASDAQ.jpg BeemUp $YOM with Co- Founder and Managing Director Alex Van Der Baan. Alex discusses with Jane King about the Metaverse decentralized infrastructure for NFTS and how in the future it will be more reliable, standardized and centralized. The decentralized infrastructure will protect the data and offer incredible experiences, concerts, shopping and more. PinkPanda $PinkPanda with Adam Carlton CEO. Adam introduces Karim Luqam who is bringing value to token holders with his vast financial background including experience developing trading systems. Karim discusses how he was attracted to Pink Panda's transparency, ESG social impact and goal of building a frictionless mobile experience. Story continues Globex Data (SWISF) with CEO Alain Ghiai discusses the RobinHood hack and how the majority of users use free email services. If they used the SEKUR email they would have been protected. Sekur does not data mine and charges a small monthly fee. About GlobeX Data, Ltd. (OTCQB:SWISF)(CSE:SWIS)(FRA:GDT): GlobeX Data Ltd. (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT) is a Cybersecurity and Internet Privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure communications and secure data management. The Company distributes a suite of secure messaging applications, encrypted emails, secure communications, and secure data management tools, using Swiss privacy laws, proprietary technology, and its independent platform, away from big techs hosting platforms. GlobeX Data Ltd. sells its products through its approved wholesalers and distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. GlobeX Data Ltd. serves consumers, businesses, and governments worldwide - https://www.globexdata.com . Sekur® is a Swiss secure communications application offering secure and private messaging, emails, voice messages, self-deleting messages, and file transfers from any mobile device, tablet, or desktop. Sekur users can communicate with Sekur and non-Sekur users through its unique Chat-By-Invites feature and Sekur, send email system. All data traffic stays in GlobeX Data's Swiss-hosted servers, using its proprietary HeliX technology, military-grade encryption, and benefiting from Swiss Privacy Laws - https://sekur.com . Twitter: @globexdata. About fetch.ai (CRYPTO:FET) ($FET) Fetch.ai (CRYPTO: FET) ($FET) , a Cambridge-based AI (artificial intelligence) lab, builds tools and infrastructure to enable a decentralized digital economy. An A.I. decentralized machine learning platform based on a distributed ledger allows secure sharing, connection, and transactions based on any data globally. Fetch.ai's open-source technology network allows any user to connect to the network, access the power of A.I. on a world-scale secure dataset, and carry out complex coordination tasks in the modern economy https://fetch.ai/. About Pink Panda Holdings, Inc. $PINKPANDA is a Delaware C-Corp, based in Chicago, Illinois. PinkPanda is creating a non-custodial, fully on-chain, mobile-first wallet as well as decentralized exchange (DEX) that will support up to 5x margin/leverage trading with a seamless, centralized-exchange feel starting on the Binance Smart Chain. Their utility token for the PinkPanda Exchange, $PINKPANDA was launched on May 29th. The community has grown to over 10,000 holders, with over 5,200 installs of their application on Android and iOS . About BEEMUP $YOM Beemup builds an open metaverse ecosystem by letting artists, brands and companies successfully build metaspaces in Unreal Engine - www.beemup.com . About FMW Media: FMW Media operates one of the longest-running U.S and International sponsored and Syndicated Nielsen Rated programming T.V. brands "New to the Street" and its blockchain show "Exploring The Block." Since 2009, these brands have run biographical interview segment shows across major U.S. Television networks. The T.V. platforms reach over 540 million homes both in the U.S. and international markets. FMW recently added Newsmax to its broadcasting platform, with its first show broadcasted Sunday, December 27. The NEWSMAX New to The Street show airs its syndication on Sundays at 10 AM EST. FMW is also one of the nation's largest buyers of linear Television long and short-form - https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/New-to-the-Street & https://www.newtothestreet.com/. FMW Media Contact: Bryan Johnson +1 (631) 766-7462 [email protected] And "New to The Street" Business Development office [email protected] 1-516-696-5900 SOURCE: FMW Media Works Corp View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/674879/New-to-The-Street-Broadcasting-on-Bloomberg-Television-Tonight-Nov-27th-6PM-EST-Featuring-BeemUp-YOM-Fetchai-FET-Pink-Panda-and-Globex-Data || New to The Street Broadcasting on Bloomberg Television Tonight Nov 27th 6PM EST Featuring BeemUp $YOM, Fetch.ai $FET ,Pink Panda and Globex Data: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 27, 2021 /Airingtonight,Saturday, November 27, 2021 at 6PM EST on Bloomberg Television,New to The Street T.V. Anchor Jane King's in-studio NASDAQ interview withFetch.ai's(CRYPTO:FET) ($FET)CEO,Mr. Humayun Sheikh. He explains Fetch.ai's open-access, tokenized, decentralized machine learning network, providing an operational business update, enabling smart infrastructure built around a decentralized digital economy. The recent price appreciations of Bitcoin and other altcoins show cryptocurrencies becoming more widely accepted. Humayun explains his vision on bridging blockchain decentralized applications for commonly used consumer services, and he sees Fetch.ai as being a leader in providing unique tools forW3 (Web 3.0),W4 (Web 4.0), and A.I. (artificial intelligence). Giving individuals and businesses the necessary AI-integrated blockchain tools to digitize their lives and enterprises opens tremendous future opportunities. The onset of W3 remains focused on digital financial transactions. Still ahead, the very rapidly approaching W4 looks to incorporate DeFi into a decentralized world where all can participate in the movement of goods and services. Humayun gives his timeline on the rollout of the Company's unique blockchain tools forthcoming in the next 12-18 months, based on a distributed ledger that enables secure sharing, connection, and transactions based on any data globally.
BeemUp $YOM with Co- Founder and Managing Director Alex Van Der Baan. Alex discusses with Jane King about the Metaverse decentralized infrastructure for NFTS and how in the future it will be more reliable, standardized and centralized. The decentralized infrastructure will protect the data and offer incredible experiences, concerts, shopping and more.
PinkPanda $PinkPanda with Adam Carlton CEO. Adam introduces Karim Luqam who is bringing value to token holders with his vast financial background including experience developing trading systems. Karim discusses how he was attracted to Pink Panda's transparency, ESG social impact and goal of building a frictionless mobile experience.
Globex Data (SWISF) with CEO Alain Ghiai discusses the RobinHood hack and how the majority of users use free email services. If they used the SEKUR email they would have been protected. Sekur does not data mine and charges a small monthly fee.
About GlobeX Data, Ltd. (OTCQB:SWISF)(CSE:SWIS)(FRA:GDT):
GlobeX Data Ltd.(OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT) is a Cybersecurity and Internet Privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure communications and secure data management. The Company distributes a suite of secure messaging applications, encrypted emails, secure communications, and secure data management tools, using Swiss privacy laws, proprietary technology, and its independent platform, away from big techs hosting platforms. GlobeX Data Ltd. sells its products through its approved wholesalers and distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. GlobeX Data Ltd. serves consumers, businesses, and governments worldwide -https://www.globexdata.com.Sekur®is a Swiss secure communications application offering secure and private messaging, emails, voice messages, self-deleting messages, and file transfers from any mobile device, tablet, or desktop. Sekur users can communicate with Sekur and non-Sekur users through its unique Chat-By-Invites feature and Sekur, send email system. All data traffic stays in GlobeX Data's Swiss-hosted servers, using its proprietary HeliX technology, military-grade encryption, and benefiting from Swiss Privacy Laws -https://sekur.com. Twitter: @globexdata.
About fetch.ai(CRYPTO:FET) ($FET)
Fetch.ai(CRYPTO: FET) ($FET), a Cambridge-based AI (artificial intelligence) lab, builds tools and infrastructure to enable a decentralized digital economy. An A.I. decentralized machine learning platform based on a distributed ledger allows secure sharing, connection, and transactions based on any data globally. Fetch.ai's open-source technology network allows any user to connect to the network, access the power of A.I. on a world-scale secure dataset, and carry out complex coordination tasks in the modern economyhttps://fetch.ai/.
About Pink Panda Holdings, Inc. $PINKPANDA is a Delaware C-Corp, based in Chicago, Illinois. PinkPanda is creating a non-custodial, fully on-chain, mobile-first wallet as well as decentralized exchange (DEX) that will support up to 5x margin/leverage trading with a seamless, centralized-exchange feel starting on the Binance Smart Chain. Their utility token for the PinkPanda Exchange, $PINKPANDA was launched on May 29th. The community has grown to over 10,000 holders, with over 5,200 installs of their application onAndroidandiOS.
About BEEMUP $YOM
Beemup builds an open metaverse ecosystem by letting artists, brands and companies successfully build metaspaces in Unreal Engine -www.beemup.com.
About FMW Media:FMW Media operates one of the longest-running U.S and International sponsored and Syndicated Nielsen Rated programming T.V. brands "New to the Street" and its blockchain show "Exploring The Block." Since 2009, these brands have run biographical interview segment shows across major U.S. Television networks. The T.V. platforms reach over 540 million homes both in the U.S. and international markets. FMW recently added Newsmax to its broadcasting platform, with its first show broadcasted Sunday, December 27. The NEWSMAX New to The Street show airs its syndication on Sundays at 10 AM EST. FMW is also one of the nation's largest buyers of linear Television long and short-form -https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/New-to-the-Street&https://www.newtothestreet.com/.
FMW Media Contact:Bryan Johnson+1 (631) [email protected]
And
"New to The Street" Business Development [email protected]
SOURCE:FMW Media Works Corp
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/674879/New-to-The-Street-Broadcasting-on-Bloomberg-Television-Tonight-Nov-27th-6PM-EST-Featuring-BeemUp-YOM-Fetchai-FET-Pink-Panda-and-Globex-Data || This Week in Apps: Twitter launches livestream shopping, Netflix snags new games, Tile gets acquired: Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters Top Stories Twitter launches livestream shopping Image Credits: Twitter Twitter’s e-commerce initiatives now include livestream shopping, the company announced this week, and Walmart will be the first retailer to test the new platform. The Live Shopping service will take advantage of Twitter's existing capabilities in livestreaming content and its newer e-commerce features, like the Shop Module for business profiles. During the upcoming livestream event, users will be able to watch the show, tweet to join the conversation from the Live Events page, and browse products on the "Shop" and "Latest" tabs just below the video. When ready to purchase, users will click through to the retailer's website where the livestream will continue -- so they don't have to miss any of the show. Story continues Walmart was a sensible first partner for the new effort, as the retailer has been increasingly investing in livestream events across social media. Over the past year, it hosted more than 15 livestream events across five platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and its own website, among others. Its Twitter livestream will focus on Cyber Deals and will kick off on November 28 at 7 PM ET in the U.S. The stream will also be broadcast on Walmart.com/live, and across the retailer’s Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts. Twitter says this is the first-ever e-commerce livestream on its platform, but it plans to bring more experiences like this to its customers in the future. The event will also serve as a means of testing the Twitter user base's appetite for live shopping, which today often takes place on other social apps, like Instagram and Facebook, on dedicated live commerce platforms and on video services like YouTube and TikTok. But Twitter -- a place where users tend to track news, events, pop culture trends, politics and more -- hasn't yet defined itself as a platform. Its overabundance of new features released in the past year feel more like spaghetti being thrown at the wall to see what sticks, instead of a carefully planned roadmap. Twitter today wants to be a home to live audio, creator subscriptions, newsletters, bitcoin tipping, NFTs, private communities and more. But, in reality, only some of these things will actually work. For example, Twitter already had to kill its Stories feature (Fleets) due to lack of traction. And its early days of Super Follow, subscriptions didn't produce much revenue. Whether or not it will be able to offer the sort of live commerce experience that resonates with consumers and delivers retailers' objectives still remains to be seen. Weekly News Platforms: Google Google's Play Store is testing out a new "Offers" section that's different from the existing "Offers & Notifications" page in the app menu. Instead, it's being used to bring up carousels of deals, limited-time specials and paid apps going free, while the "Offers & Notifications" section had only delivered a heavily curated list of offers, or, if none were available, the option to add a promo code. Android 10 is still the most-used version of the Android OS, according to numbers crunched by 9to5Google using data provided through Android Studio. The Android 10 OS has a 26.5% market share, edging out Android 11's 24.2%. Android 12 hasn't yet made an appearance in the numbers. E-commerce and delivery services Uber enters the cannabis delivery market. The ride-hailing app announced that users in Ontario, Canada would be able to place cannabis orders on its Uber Eats app following its listing of cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke on its marketplace. The company had said it would consider expanding cannabis delivery in the U.S. when the legality of doing so is made more clear. Mobile advertising and app monetization company Tapjoy announced the launch of a rewarded shopping product, Tapjoy Shopping. The in-app marketplace lets consumers shop from hundreds of brands and retailers, and earn rewards in their favorite apps -- like virtual currency -- for their purchases. The feature is available in any of the over 10,000 apps that belong to Tapjoy's network. Tapjoy says shopping offers like this have been increasingly important to mobile publishers after Cost Per Engagement app ads were banned on iOS. France has asked search engines and app stores to remove the popular e-commerce platform Wish, which mostly sources products from China-based merchants. The order comes following France's investigations into fraud, product safety and counterfeit goods on Wish, which found that 95% of toys on Wish didn't comply with EU regulation, 45% were dangerous, 95% of electronics didn't comply with regulation and 90% were dangerous. Augmented Reality Image Credits: Snap Snapchat is bringing AR to holiday shopping. On Black Friday (11/26), the company will launch the Snap Holiday Market, which will feature immersive AR experiences from a half-dozen brand partners, including Amazon Prime Video, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon and Walmart. Each brand will have a dedicated storefront where Snapchat users can browse their products and deal in an AR space designed for each brand. The market will be available from the Lens Carousel and the top of the "For You" tab in the Lens Explorer. Snap also plans to offer AR try-on and e-commerce Lenses throughout the holiday shopping season, including those from brands like American Eagle, Fendi, Diork Kaja Beauty, NYX Cosmetics, Shein and Tory Burch. The company announced a new AR stat, as well: Snapchat now sees over 6 billion AR Lens plays every day on average, it said. Fintech The German neobank N26 will shutter its U.S. operations . The company's 500,000 U.S. customers will see their accounts closed on January 11 and will be provided with instructions on how to withdraw their funds. The company said it made the decision to better focus on its core European business and plans to launch to more countries in Eastern Europe, as well as Brazil. The bank had previously shut down its business in the U.K., citing post-Brexit difficulties. Social TikTok hires a new head of diversity and inclusion comms. The company has hired Shavone Charles, previously of VSCO, Instagram and Twitter, to fill the newly created role. The exec will be LA-based and report to TikTok's head of comms, Hilary McQuaide. Kuaishou, the Chinese maker of the largest short-form video platform after TikTok, reported earnings . Revenue rose 33% as the company reported 20.5 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) for the three months ended September, versus the 20.1 billion yuan average forecast. Total MAUs on its main app reached 573 million, though the company had to shut down its U.S. TikTok rival Zynn earlier this year. Twitter made a change to its crowdsourced fact-checking program, Birdwatch, which now allows users to submit their contributions anonymously. Twitter says pilot users "overwhelmingly" requested this feature, particularly women and Black contributors. "Research has shown that aliases have the potential to reduce bias, by putting focus on the content of a note, not the author," Twitter said, adding that aliases may also "reduce polarization by helping people feel comfortable crossing partisan lines." 🐦Introducing Birdwatch aliases!🔍 We want everyone to feel comfortable contributing to Birdwatch, and aliases let you write and rate notes without sharing your Twitter username. pic.twitter.com/ROlbpYvT7u — Birdwatch (@birdwatch) November 22, 2021 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Twitter also updated its iOS app to address the annoying bug (which Twitter must have thought was a feature) where your timeline would refresh automatically, making the tweets you were actively reading disappear from view. After first fixing this issue on the web, Twitter is now rolling it out to iOS users. Reddit said it's shutting down Dubsmash , the short-form video app it acquired late last year, and is integrating video tools into its own app. Reddit said its camera features will now include the ability to change recording speeds and the option to set a timer, similar to other short-form video apps. Users can now also upload videos in landscape, portrait mode and fill, as well as adjust and trim multiple clips. The company is also adding a new editing screen that includes text Stickers, a drawing tool and filters. And users have the option to add voiceovers or adjust the volume directly on the editing screen. Social networking app for women Peanut announced a new feature called "Go Global," which will allow its users to connect with other women around the world, instead of only those nearby. The company said there was demand for the option after it launched its live audio feature Pods. But it could also make Peanut more useful in markets where there just aren't that many local users to connect with. Image Credits: Peanut The TikTok app ecosystem is huge. Correction! In our last newsletter, we pointed to Sensor Tower's analysis of the TikTok app ecosystem and mistakenly referred to its "400 or so mobile apps." The ecosystem saw 400 apps debut in 2020 , but in total, there are some 900 apps tied to TikTok to offer things like downloading videos, viewing analytics, tracking hashtags and more. Meanwhile, those 900 apps reached over 1 billion downloads worldwide, not 3 billion. (But TikTok, including its sister app Douyin, have 3.3 billion installs, for comparison.) Messaging Facebook, err Meta, said it's delaying the launch of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) across its messaging products until 2023 following warnings from child safety campaigns , including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Such a system would prevent law enforcement and tech platforms from being able to detect child abusers, critics warned, and asked Meta to not proceed until it had a plan in place to prevent child abuse from being undetected on its platform. A former Facebook employee also accused Meta of announcing an absurdly accelerated timeline for E2EE to preempt antitrust action and for "good marketing," which would have resulted in systems to identify child grooming, sextortion and CSAM distribution operating at less than 10% of the effectiveness of the systems that did inspect content. WhatsApp introduced a new feature that would allow its web and desktop users to make their own custom stickers for use in the messaging app. The sticker maker is available from any chat from the paperclip icon, then clicking on "Sticker." Streaming & Entertainment Apple Podcasts gets a suspicious boost in its App Store ratings. At first, it looked like angry podcast listeners and creators would finally have their say about the app's decline by downrating Apple's Podcasts app after Apple, for the first time, made its first-party apps reviewable by the public. But soon thereafter, the previously (embarrassingly) 1.8 star-rated app jumped, in a little over a month, to a 4.6 star rating. What gives? Apple critic Kosta Eleftheriou first noticed the change , and theorizes it's because Apple is now intelligently prompting users for reviews -- which, to be fair, is its right. But many of the reviews seem to be people reviewing the podcasts themselves, not the actual app, which is odd and...a bit suspicious. Spotify will drop its shuffle feature on albums, after Adele asked. The streamer would previously default to shuffle mode but Adele had asked Spotify to allow her new album to play in the intended order. The artist tweeted that "our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended," when thanking Spotify for the adjustment. Music streaming app Tidal introduced direct artist payments, which aims to more equitably distribute funds to artists, compared with the models used by Apple and Spotify. With this user-centric payment system, subscription fees are directly distributed to the artists a user streams. TikTok expands its TV footprint. The short-form video app rolled out to more TV devices across the U.S. and Canada with the addition of support for Google TV and Android TV OS, as well as LG and Samsung Smart TVs. Amazon Fire TV was previously supported. Spotify tests a TikTok-like feed. The company is the latest to experiment with short-form video in its app as a means of content discovery. Except in Spotify's case, it's capitalizing on its existing Canvas video format but presenting it in a new place. Spotify also debuted a "Netflix Hub" on its app, which features playlists, soundtracks and podcasts tied to Netlflix shows and movies. The companies had partnered on other initiatives before now, and see the hub as a way to serve their respective audiences with new and, sometimes exclusive, entertainment content. Image Credits: Spotify/Netflix Gaming Netflix's new gaming service added two more titles , including the return of Gameloft's "Asphalt Xtreme." The streamer recently expanded its service worldwide across iOS and Android, with a handful of titles, including a few casual games and two "Stranger Things"-themed games. Now, it's added another arcade title, "Bowling Ballers," and a reboot of Gameloft's action racing game, "Asphalt Xtreme," which had officially shut down just in September. Travel and Transportation Telsa's app experienced an outage that prevented car owners from opening their doors or starting their vehicles. Users reported getting a 500 server error on their iOS app, leading them to tweet at Elon Musk directly for help. Government & Policy The EU passed new rules that may impact major European and U.S. tech companies. The Digital Markets Act' would make messaging apps interoperable, bans behavioral ad targeting to minors and would fine a company as much as 20% of total global annual sales for breaches of the law. The vote was the final step toward finalizing the rules, expected to come into action in 2022. WhatsApp is reorganizing its privacy policy to provide more information on the data it collects and how it's protected, used and shared across borders, after Irish regulators fined the service a record €225 million ($267 million USD) for breaching EU data privacy rules. Instagram head Adam Mosseri is the next big tech rep who will testify before Congress. The exec will appear before lawmakers for the first time , and will answer the senators' questions about Instagram's impact on young people following the whistleblower leaks. China's state media reported Tencent has to submit new apps or updates for regulatory inspection through December 31 after Beijing determine Tencent's apps infringed on users' rights and interests. Tencent said its apps are still functional and available for download. Apple pushed back the feature that would allow U.S. users to store their state's driver's license or state ID on their iPhone. The company said Arizona and Georgia would be the first states to get the feature, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah to follow. The feature was originally set to launch in late 2021, but will now arrive in early 2022. Security & Privacy Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo added to its Android app the ability to block hidden trackers , as part of its new "App Tracking Protection for Android" feature. The new option, now in beta, aims to block data collection from happening inside apps, where third-party trackers are hidden away in the app's code. Apple sued NSO Group, the maker of the nation-state spyware Pegasus. The suit is asking for a permanent injunction that would prevent NSO Group from using any Apple product or service, to "prevent further abuse and harm to its users." Funding and M&A 🤝 Family locator and communication app Life360 announced it would acquire lost-item tracking company Tile for $205 million. The deal will see Tile continue to be led as its own brand under its existing CEO CJ Prober. The company says no further changes to the Tile team are currently planned and Prober will also now join the Life360 board of directors. Tile, an Apple critic, claims that its business suffered from the AirTag's arrival and Apple's anti-competitive practices. It had recently announced a $40 million debt round to keep the business going. 💰 Niantic raised $300 million from Coatue at a $9 billion valuation to build the "real-world metaverse." The Pokémon GO maker is betting on a metaverse that blends the real world with augmented reality, not virtual reality. This month, Niantic unveiled the Lightship AR Developer Kit which offers tools for AR game development. It also recently launched a new AR game, Pikmin Bloom. 🤝 Triller, the one-time TikTok rival turned live events company, has acquired Thuzio , a live events company co-founded by NY Giants' Tiki Barber. The business had suffered during the pandemic when live events were shuttered. TrillerNet (Triller's parent) confirmed the deal to the New York Post but didn't disclose terms. 💰 Creator-driven marketplace LTK raised $300 million from SoftBank's Vision Fund, valuing the business at $2 billion. The company, which was previously branded RewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it, helps social media influencers make their posts shoppable from a centralized marketplace on the web and the LTK app. Brands can also use LTK to connect with creators on marketing campaigns. 💰 Mobile DevOps company Bitrise announced a $60 million round of funding led by Insight Partners to help developers build better mobile apps. Bitrise aims to create an end-to-end platform for mobile development that automates core workflows, shortens release cycles and provides a better understanding of how new pieces of code will affect live apps before their release, and counts over 100,000 developers as users. 💰 Column Tax, a company that makes income tax software designed to be embedded in other fintech apps, raised $5.1 million in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company's Tax Refund Unlock feature also recently became available to 2 million users of the cash advance app Klover. 💰 Berlin-based same-day grocery delivery app Yababa raised $15.5 million in seed funding led by Creandum and Project A, to expand its service within Germany and across Europe. The service, which currently offers items that cater to Turkish and Arabic communities, plans to expand its product mix in the future. 🤝 Coinbase acqui-hired the team behind BRD, a crypto wallet startup that first launched its mobile wallet back in 2014. BRD’s co-founders say nothing will be changing for BRD users for the time being, but users will have the option to migrate to Coinbase's wallet in 2022. 💰 TabTrader raised $5.8 million in Series A funding for its mobile app that aggregates crypto exchange data. The app has more than 400,000 active users, with a particularly strong presence in Europe and Asia. Investors include 100X Ventures, Hashkey Capital, Spartan Capital, SGH Capital, SOSV and Artesian Venture Partners. Downloads Fold AR (Fold) Image Credits: Fold Of course, the metaverse has bitcoin? I mean, for sheer rubbernecking purposes we have to check out Niantic's latest app. The Pokémon GO maker has weirdly teamed up with a bitcoin rewards and payments app, Fold , to launch an AR bitcoin mining experience called Fold AR . Currently in beta, Fold AR lets users earn bitcoin and other in-app benefits by exploring their physical surroundings using augmented reality. Unlike in Pokémon GO, where users seek out rare creatures, Fold users will collect bitcoin and other prizes, including those that increase their bitcoin cashback rewards. The company believes the game will appeal to bitcoin newcomers and existing cryptocurrency fans alike and will drive users to Fold's app -- where the in-app AR experience lives. Before the AR launch, Fold was focused on its bitcoin cashback experience where users connect their credit card, their Fold card or a bitcoin wallet, in order to purchase gift cards and receive cash back in the form of BTC. Fold AR rolls out on November 23 to select users and will add more users over time. || This Week in Apps: Twitter launches livestream shopping, Netflix snags new games, Tile gets acquired: Welcome back to This Week in Apps,the weekly TechCrunch seriesthat recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry continues to grow, witha record218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year alsospent3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average Americanwatches3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had acombined$544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investorspoured$73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.
Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here:techcrunch.com/newsletters
Image Credits:Twitter
Twitter’s e-commerce initiatives now include livestream shopping, the companyannounced this week,and Walmart will be the first retailer to test the new platform. The Live Shopping service will take advantage of Twitter's existing capabilities in livestreaming content and its newer e-commerce features, like theShop Modulefor business profiles. During the upcoming livestream event, users will be able to watch the show, tweet to join the conversation from the Live Events page, and browse products on the "Shop" and "Latest" tabs just below the video. When ready to purchase, users will click through to the retailer's website where the livestream will continue -- so they don't have to miss any of the show.
Walmart was a sensible first partner for the new effort, as the retailer has been increasingly investing in livestream events across social media. Over the past year, it hosted more than 15 livestream events across five platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and its own website, among others.
Its Twitter livestream will focus on Cyber Deals and will kick off on November 28 at 7 PM ET in the U.S. The stream will also be broadcast on Walmart.com/live, and across the retailer’s Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts.
Twitter says this is the first-ever e-commerce livestream on its platform, but it plans to bring more experiences like this to its customers in the future.
The event will also serve as a means of testing the Twitter user base's appetite for live shopping, which today often takes place on other social apps, like Instagram and Facebook, on dedicated live commerce platforms and on video services like YouTube and TikTok. But Twitter -- a place where users tend to track news, events, pop culture trends, politics and more -- hasn't yet defined itself as a platform. Its overabundance of new features released in the past year feel more like spaghetti being thrown at the wall to see what sticks, instead of a carefully planned roadmap. Twitter today wants to be a home to live audio, creator subscriptions, newsletters, bitcoin tipping, NFTs, private communities and more. But, in reality, only some of these things will actually work. For example, Twitter already had to kill its Stories feature (Fleets) due to lack of traction. And itsearly days of Super Follow, subscriptionsdidn't produce much revenue.
Whether or not it will be able to offer the sort of live commerce experience that resonates with consumers and delivers retailers' objectives still remains to be seen.
• Google's Play Store istesting outa new "Offers" section that's different from the existing "Offers & Notifications" page in the app menu.Instead, it's being used to bring up carousels of deals, limited-time specials and paid apps going free, while the "Offers & Notifications" sectionhad only delivereda heavily curated list of offers, or, if none were available, the option to add a promo code.
• Android 10 is still the most-used version of the Android OS, according to numbers crunched by9to5Googleusing data provided through Android Studio.The Android 10 OS has a 26.5% market share, edging out Android 11's 24.2%. Android 12 hasn't yet made an appearance in the numbers.
• Uber enters the cannabis delivery market.The ride-hailing app announced that users in Ontario, Canada would be able toplace cannabis orderson its Uber Eats app following its listing of cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke on its marketplace. The company had said it would consider expanding cannabis delivery in the U.S. when the legality of doing so is made more clear.
• Mobile advertising and app monetization company Tapjoyannouncedthe launch of a rewarded shopping product, Tapjoy Shopping.The in-app marketplace lets consumers shop from hundreds of brands and retailers, and earn rewards in their favorite apps -- like virtual currency -- for their purchases. The feature is available in any of the over 10,000 apps that belong to Tapjoy's network. Tapjoy says shopping offers like this have been increasingly important to mobile publishers after Cost Per Engagement app ads were banned on iOS.
• France has asked search engines and app stores toremove the popular e-commerce platformWish, which mostly sources products from China-based merchants.The order comes following France's investigations into fraud, product safety and counterfeit goods on Wish, which found that 95% of toys on Wish didn't comply with EU regulation, 45% were dangerous, 95% of electronics didn't comply with regulation and 90% were dangerous.
Image Credits:Snap
• Snapchat is bringing AR to holiday shopping.On Black Friday (11/26), the company will launch the Snap Holiday Market, which will feature immersive AR experiences from a half-dozen brand partners, including Amazon Prime Video, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon and Walmart. Each brand will have a dedicated storefront where Snapchat users can browse their products and deal in an AR space designed for each brand. The market will be available from the Lens Carousel and the top of the "For You" tab in the Lens Explorer.
• Snap also plans to offer AR try-on and e-commerce Lenses throughout the holiday shopping season,including those from brands like American Eagle, Fendi, Diork Kaja Beauty, NYX Cosmetics, Shein and Tory Burch.
• The company announced a new AR stat, as well: Snapchat now sees over 6 billion AR Lens playsevery dayon average, it said.
• The German neobank N26will shutter its U.S. operations. The company's 500,000 U.S. customers will see their accounts closed on January 11 and will be provided with instructions on how to withdraw their funds. The company said it made the decision to better focus on its core European business and plans to launch to more countries in Eastern Europe, as well as Brazil. The bank had previously shut down its business in the U.K., citing post-Brexit difficulties.
• TikTok hires a new head of diversity and inclusion comms.The companyhas hiredShavone Charles, previously of VSCO, Instagram and Twitter, to fill the newly created role. The exec will be LA-based and report to TikTok's head of comms, Hilary McQuaide.
• Kuaishou, the Chinese maker of the largest short-form video platform after TikTok,reported earnings.Revenue rose 33% as the company reported 20.5 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) for the three months ended September, versus the 20.1 billion yuan average forecast. Total MAUs on its main app reached 573 million, though the company had to shut down its U.S. TikTok rival Zynn earlier this year.
• Twittermade a changeto its crowdsourced fact-checking program, Birdwatch,which now allows users to submit their contributions anonymously. Twitter says pilot users "overwhelmingly" requested this feature, particularly women and Black contributors. "Research has shown that aliases have the potential to reduce bias, by putting focus on the content of a note, not the author," Twitter said, adding that aliases may also "reduce polarization by helping people feel comfortable crossing partisan lines."
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
• Twitter alsoupdatedits iOS app to address the annoying bug (which Twitter must have thought was a feature) where your timeline would refresh automatically, making the tweets you were actively reading disappearfrom view. After first fixing this issue on the web, Twitter is now rolling it out to iOS users.
• Reddit said it'sshutting down Dubsmash, the short-form video app itacquiredlate last year, and is integrating video tools into its own app.Reddit said its camera features will now include the ability to change recording speeds and the option to set a timer, similar to other short-form video apps. Users can now also upload videos in landscape, portrait mode and fill, as well as adjust and trim multiple clips. The company is also adding a new editing screen that includes text Stickers, a drawing tool and filters. And users have the option to add voiceovers or adjust the volume directly on the editing screen.
• Social networking app for womenPeanutannounced a new feature called "Go Global," which will allow its users to connect with other women around the world, instead of only those nearby.The company said there was demand for the option after it launched its live audio feature Pods. But it could also make Peanut more useful in markets where there just aren't that many local users to connect with.
Image Credits:Peanut
• The TikTok app ecosystem is huge. Correction!In our last newsletter, we pointed toSensor Tower's analysis of the TikTok app ecosystemand mistakenly referred to its "400 or so mobile apps." The ecosystem saw 400 appsdebut in 2020, but in total, there are some 900 apps tied to TikTok to offer things like downloading videos, viewing analytics, tracking hashtags and more. Meanwhile, those 900 apps reached over 1 billion downloads worldwide, not 3 billion. (But TikTok, including its sister app Douyin, have 3.3 billion installs, for comparison.)
• Facebook, err Meta, said it'sdelayingthe launch of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) across its messaging products until 2023 following warnings from child safety campaigns, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Such a system would prevent law enforcement and tech platforms from being able to detect child abusers, critics warned, and asked Meta to not proceed until it had a plan in place to prevent child abuse from being undetected on its platform. A former Facebook employee alsoaccusedMeta of announcing an absurdly accelerated timeline for E2EE to preempt antitrust action and for "good marketing," which would have resulted in systems to identify child grooming, sextortion and CSAM distribution operating at less than 10% of the effectiveness of the systems that did inspect content.
• WhatsApp introduced a new feature that would allow its web and desktop users to make their own custom stickers for use in the messaging app.The sticker maker is available from any chat from the paperclip icon, then clicking on "Sticker."
• Apple Podcastsgets a suspicious boostin its App Store ratings.At first, it looked like angry podcast listeners and creators would finally have their say about the app's decline by downrating Apple's Podcasts app after Apple, for the first time, made its first-party apps reviewable by the public. But soon thereafter, the previously (embarrassingly) 1.8 star-rated app jumped, in a little over a month, to a 4.6 star rating. What gives? Apple critic Kosta Eleftherioufirst noticed the change, and theorizes it's because Apple is now intelligently prompting users for reviews -- which, to be fair, is its right. But many of the reviews seem to be people reviewing the podcasts themselves, not the actual app, which is odd and...a bit suspicious.
• Spotifywill dropits shuffle feature on albums, after Adele asked.The streamer would previously default to shuffle mode but Adele had asked Spotify to allow her new album to play in the intended order. The artisttweetedthat "our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended," when thanking Spotify for the adjustment.
• Music streaming app Tidalintroduceddirect artist payments,which aims to more equitably distribute funds to artists, compared with the models used by Apple and Spotify. With this user-centric payment system, subscription fees are directly distributed to the artists a user streams.
• TikTok expands its TV footprint.The short-form video approlled out to more TV devicesacross the U.S. and Canada with the addition of support for Google TV and Android TV OS, as well as LG and Samsung Smart TVs. Amazon Fire TV was previously supported.
• Spotify tests a TikTok-like feed.The companyis the latest to experiment with short-form videoin its app as a means of content discovery. Except in Spotify's case, it's capitalizing on its existing Canvas video format but presenting it in a new place.
• Spotify alsodebuteda "Netflix Hub" on its app, which features playlists, soundtracks and podcasts tied to Netlflix shows and movies.The companies had partnered on other initiatives before now, and see the hub as a way to serve their respective audiences with new and, sometimes exclusive, entertainment content.
Image Credits:Spotify/Netflix
• Netflix's new gaming serviceadded two more titles, including the return of Gameloft's "Asphalt Xtreme."The streamer recently expanded its service worldwide across iOS and Android, with a handful of titles, including a few casual games and two "Stranger Things"-themed games. Now, it's added another arcade title, "Bowling Ballers," and a reboot of Gameloft's action racing game, "Asphalt Xtreme," which had officially shut down just in September.
• Telsa's appexperiencedan outage that prevented car owners from opening their doors or starting their vehicles.Users reported getting a 500 server error on their iOS app, leading them to tweet at Elon Musk directly for help.
• The EUpassed new rulesthat may impact major European and U.S. tech companies.The Digital Markets Act' would make messaging apps interoperable, bans behavioral ad targeting to minors and would fine a company as much as 20% of total global annual sales for breaches of the law. The vote was the final step toward finalizing the rules, expected to come into action in 2022.
• WhatsApp isreorganizingits privacy policy to provide more information on the data it collects and how it's protected, used and shared across borders,after Irish regulators fined the service a record €225 million ($267 million USD) for breaching EU data privacy rules.
• Instagram head Adam Mosseri is the next big tech rep who will testify before Congress.The execwill appear before lawmakers for the first time, and will answer the senators' questions about Instagram's impact on young people following the whistleblower leaks.
• China's state mediareportedTencent has to submit new apps or updates for regulatory inspection through December 31after Beijing determine Tencent's apps infringed on users' rights and interests. Tencent said its apps are still functional and available for download.
• Applepushed back the featurethat would allow U.S. users to store their state's driver's license or state ID on their iPhone.The company said Arizona and Georgia would be the first states to get the feature, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah to follow. The feature was originally set to launch in late 2021, but will now arrive in early 2022.
• Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGoadded to its Android app the ability to block hidden trackers, as part of its new "App Tracking Protection for Android" feature.The new option, now in beta, aims to block data collection from happening inside apps, where third-party trackers are hidden away in the app's code.
• ApplesuedNSO Group, the maker of the nation-state spyware Pegasus.The suit is asking for a permanent injunction that would prevent NSO Group from using any Apple product or service, to "prevent further abuse and harm to its users."
🤝 Family locator and communication app Life360announcedit would acquire lost-item tracking company Tile for $205 million.The deal will see Tile continue to be led as its own brand under its existing CEO CJ Prober. The company says no further changes to the Tile team are currently planned and Prober will also now join the Life360 board of directors. Tile, an Apple critic, claims that its business suffered from the AirTag's arrival and Apple's anti-competitive practices. It had recentlyannounceda $40 million debt round to keep the business going.
💰 Nianticraised $300 millionfrom Coatue at a $9 billion valuation to build the "real-world metaverse."The Pokémon GO maker is betting on a metaverse that blends the real world with augmented reality, not virtual reality. This month, Niantic unveiled the Lightship AR Developer Kit which offers tools for AR game development. It also recently launched a new AR game, Pikmin Bloom.
🤝 Triller, the one-time TikTok rival turned live events company, has acquired Thuzio, a live events company co-founded by NY Giants' Tiki Barber. The business had suffered during the pandemic when live events were shuttered. TrillerNet (Triller's parent)confirmedthe deal to the New York Post but didn't disclose terms.
💰 Creator-driven marketplace LTKraised $300 millionfrom SoftBank's Vision Fund, valuing the business at $2 billion.The company, which was previously branded RewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it, helps social media influencers make their posts shoppable from a centralized marketplace on the web and the LTK app. Brands can also use LTK to connect with creators on marketing campaigns.
💰 Mobile DevOps company Bitriseannounceda $60 million round of funding led by Insight Partnersto help developers build better mobile apps. Bitrise aims to create an end-to-end platform for mobile development that automates core workflows, shortens release cycles and provides a better understanding of how new pieces of code will affect live apps before their release, and counts over 100,000 developers as users.
💰 Column Tax, a company that makesincome tax softwaredesigned to be embedded in other fintech apps,raised $5.1 millionin seed fundingled by Bain Capital Ventures. The company's Tax Refund Unlock feature also recently became available to 2 million users of the cash advance app Klover.
💰 Berlin-based same-day grocery delivery app Yababaraised $15.5 millionin seed fundingled by Creandum and Project A, to expand its service within Germany and across Europe. The service, which currently offers items that cater to Turkish and Arabic communities, plans to expand its product mix in the future.
🤝Coinbaseacqui-hiredthe team behind BRD, a crypto wallet startup that first launched its mobile wallet back in 2014.BRD’s co-founders say nothing will be changing for BRD users for the time being, but users will have the option to migrate to Coinbase's wallet in 2022.
💰TabTraderraised $5.8 millionin Series A funding for its mobile app that aggregates crypto exchange data.The app has more than 400,000 active users, with a particularly strong presence in Europe and Asia. Investors include 100X Ventures, Hashkey Capital, Spartan Capital, SGH Capital, SOSV and Artesian Venture Partners.
Image Credits:Fold
Of course, the metaverse has bitcoin? I mean, for sheer rubbernecking purposes we have to check out Niantic's latest app. The Pokémon GO maker has weirdly teamed up with a bitcoin rewards and payments app,Fold, to launch an AR bitcoin mining experience calledFold AR. Currently in beta, Fold AR lets users earn bitcoin and other in-app benefits by exploring their physical surroundings using augmented reality. Unlike in Pokémon GO, where users seek out rare creatures, Fold users will collect bitcoin and other prizes, including those that increase their bitcoin cashback rewards. The company believes the game will appeal to bitcoin newcomers and existing cryptocurrency fans alike and will drive users to Fold's app -- where the in-app AR experience lives. Before the AR launch, Fold was focused on its bitcoin cashback experience where users connect their credit card, their Fold card or a bitcoin wallet, in order to purchase gift cards and receive cash back in the form of BTC. Fold AR rolls out on November 23 to select users and will add more users over time. || Bitcoin Latinum launches world's first Bitcoin Enabled NFT platform in partnership with Unico NFT: PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM), the next generation, insured, asset-backed cryptocurrency, in partnership with Unico NFT, is launching an NFT marketplace that features thousands of digital artwork that can be bought and sold exclusively with Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM). This is the world's first platform that enables the option of buying, selling and trading NFTs using cryptocurrencies other than Ethereum type currencies. Using a patent pending technology, Unico provides ways to purchase NFT using Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum.
This will open up new opportunities for people who want to own digital artwork or collectibles and also unlocks the huge liquidity available in the whole crypto space. It will also solve the typical problems of using the Ethereum blockchain such as high fees and low transaction speed.
Monsoon Blockchain, the blockchain development platform behind Bitcoin Latinum, has been trying to disrupt the crypto industry with innovative technological solutions. In an effort to make an advancement in the latest NFT space, the platform has partnered with Unico to launch a decentralized NFT marketplace called UnicoNFT. The marketplace features an extensive array of collections, auctions, live actions, and many popular categories including entertainment, pop culture, gaming, influencers, and celebrities.
NFTs use blockchain to record the ownership and provenance of digital items such as images, videos, collectibles and even land in virtual worlds. According to Decrypt, the NFT market produced 10.67 billion dollars-worth of transaction volume in Q3 2021- eight times as much as the previous quarter, and up from $328 million in 2020. To date, NFTs were tied to the Ethereum blockchain, however UnicoNFT is the first NFT marketplace to utilize Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum for NFT transactions, thereby opening more options and allowing everyone to participate in the NFT world.
"NFTs we believe mark the beginning of widespread adoption of blockchain by end consumers" remarked Dr. Donald Basile (CEO of Monsoon Blockchain Corporation), adding that "we expect 5-10x the number of consumers currently involved in digital assets to adopt them over the next 24 months."
Bitcoin Latinum was built as an open-architecture cryptocurrency technology, capable of handling large transaction volume, cybersecurity, and digital asset management. Based on the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Latinum was developed by Monsoon Blockchain Corporation on behalf of the Bitcoin Latinum Foundation. LTNM is a greener, faster, and more secure version of Bitcoin, and is poised to revolutionize digital transactions.
Unlike other crypto assets, LTNM is insured, and backed by real-world and digital assets. Its asset backing is held in a fund model, so that base asset value increases over time. It accelerates this asset-backed funds growth by depositing 80% of the transaction fee back into the asset fund that backs the currency. Thus, the more Bitcoin Latinum is adopted, the faster its asset funds grow, creating a self-inflating currency.
Bitcoin Latinum currently trades publicly on HitBTC(the fifth largest exchange by volume at $4 billion), FMFW.io (formerly Bitcoin.com Exchange and operating with $3.3 billion in daily trading volume), AAX Exchange ($1.3 billion in daily volume), LBank Exchange($1.35 billion in daily volume), Hotbit and DigiFinex. Monsoon Blockchain, Bitcoin Latinum's lead developer, has announced plans for Bitcoin Latinum to officially list in four more exchanges including Bitmart ($1.6 billion in daily volume), Changelly, XT.com and Changelly Pro by the end of 2021.
Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, an innovative blockchain company based in Palo Alto, California, was selected by Bitcoin Latinum as its foundation partner. Monsoon is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem, leveraging the latest blockchain technology to develop powerful business solutions that allow the successful digitization of and listing of assets across a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and media and entertainment. Dr. Donald Basile, Monsoon's CEO and founder, is the former CEO of Fusion IO, a company known for playing a major role in implementing the cloud systems at Apple and Facebook as well as partnerships with HP, IBM, and Dell.
For more information about Bitcoin Latinum, please visithttps://bitcoinlatinum.com
For more information about Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, please visithttps://monsoonblockchaincorporation.com
Media contact
Brand: Bitcoin Latinum
Contact: Kai Okada, Director of Communications
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:https://bitcoinlatinum.com/
Address: 2100 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303, USA
Telephone: +1 800-528-0985
SOURCE: Bitcoin Latinum Foundation || Bitcoin Latinum launches world's first Bitcoin Enabled NFT platform in partnership with Unico NFT: PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM), the next generation, insured, asset-backed cryptocurrency, in partnership with Unico NFT, is launching an NFT marketplace that features thousands of digital artwork that can be bought and sold exclusively with Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM). This is the world's first platform that enables the option of buying, selling and trading NFTs using cryptocurrencies other than Ethereum type currencies. Using a patent pending technology, Unico provides ways to purchase NFT using Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum. This will open up new opportunities for people who want to own digital artwork or collectibles and also unlocks the huge liquidity available in the whole crypto space. It will also solve the typical problems of using the Ethereum blockchain such as high fees and low transaction speed. Monsoon Blockchain, the blockchain development platform behind Bitcoin Latinum, has been trying to disrupt the crypto industry with innovative technological solutions. In an effort to make an advancement in the latest NFT space, the platform has partnered with Unico to launch a decentralized NFT marketplace called UnicoNFT. The marketplace features an extensive array of collections, auctions, live actions, and many popular categories including entertainment, pop culture, gaming, influencers, and celebrities. NFTs use blockchain to record the ownership and provenance of digital items such as images, videos, collectibles and even land in virtual worlds. According to Decrypt, the NFT market produced 10.67 billion dollars-worth of transaction volume in Q3 2021- eight times as much as the previous quarter, and up from $328 million in 2020. To date, NFTs were tied to the Ethereum blockchain, however UnicoNFT is the first NFT marketplace to utilize Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum for NFT transactions, thereby opening more options and allowing everyone to participate in the NFT world. Story continues "NFTs we believe mark the beginning of widespread adoption of blockchain by end consumers" remarked Dr. Donald Basile (CEO of Monsoon Blockchain Corporation), adding that "we expect 5-10x the number of consumers currently involved in digital assets to adopt them over the next 24 months." Bitcoin Latinum was built as an open-architecture cryptocurrency technology, capable of handling large transaction volume, cybersecurity, and digital asset management. Based on the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Latinum was developed by Monsoon Blockchain Corporation on behalf of the Bitcoin Latinum Foundation. LTNM is a greener, faster, and more secure version of Bitcoin, and is poised to revolutionize digital transactions. Unlike other crypto assets, LTNM is insured, and backed by real-world and digital assets. Its asset backing is held in a fund model, so that base asset value increases over time. It accelerates this asset-backed funds growth by depositing 80% of the transaction fee back into the asset fund that backs the currency. Thus, the more Bitcoin Latinum is adopted, the faster its asset funds grow, creating a self-inflating currency. Bitcoin Latinum currently trades publicly on HitBTC(the fifth largest exchange by volume at $4 billion), FMFW.io (formerly Bitcoin.com Exchange and operating with $3.3 billion in daily trading volume), AAX Exchange ($1.3 billion in daily volume), LBank Exchange($1.35 billion in daily volume), Hotbit and DigiFinex. Monsoon Blockchain, Bitcoin Latinum's lead developer, has announced plans for Bitcoin Latinum to officially list in four more exchanges including Bitmart ($1.6 billion in daily volume), Changelly, XT.com and Changelly Pro by the end of 2021. Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, an innovative blockchain company based in Palo Alto, California, was selected by Bitcoin Latinum as its foundation partner. Monsoon is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem, leveraging the latest blockchain technology to develop powerful business solutions that allow the successful digitization of and listing of assets across a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and media and entertainment. Dr. Donald Basile, Monsoon's CEO and founder, is the former CEO of Fusion IO, a company known for playing a major role in implementing the cloud systems at Apple and Facebook as well as partnerships with HP, IBM, and Dell. For more information about Bitcoin Latinum, please visit https://bitcoinlatinum.com For more information about Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, please visit https://monsoonblockchaincorporation.com Media contact Brand: Bitcoin Latinum Contact: Kai Okada, Director of Communications E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://bitcoinlatinum.com/ Address: 2100 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303, USA Telephone: +1 800-528-0985 SOURCE : Bitcoin Latinum Foundation || Bitcoin Latinum launches world's first Bitcoin Enabled NFT platform in partnership with Unico NFT: PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM), the next generation, insured, asset-backed cryptocurrency, in partnership with Unico NFT, is launching an NFT marketplace that features thousands of digital artwork that can be bought and sold exclusively with Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM). This is the world's first platform that enables the option of buying, selling and trading NFTs using cryptocurrencies other than Ethereum type currencies. Using a patent pending technology, Unico provides ways to purchase NFT using Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum.
This will open up new opportunities for people who want to own digital artwork or collectibles and also unlocks the huge liquidity available in the whole crypto space. It will also solve the typical problems of using the Ethereum blockchain such as high fees and low transaction speed.
Monsoon Blockchain, the blockchain development platform behind Bitcoin Latinum, has been trying to disrupt the crypto industry with innovative technological solutions. In an effort to make an advancement in the latest NFT space, the platform has partnered with Unico to launch a decentralized NFT marketplace called UnicoNFT. The marketplace features an extensive array of collections, auctions, live actions, and many popular categories including entertainment, pop culture, gaming, influencers, and celebrities.
NFTs use blockchain to record the ownership and provenance of digital items such as images, videos, collectibles and even land in virtual worlds. According to Decrypt, the NFT market produced 10.67 billion dollars-worth of transaction volume in Q3 2021- eight times as much as the previous quarter, and up from $328 million in 2020. To date, NFTs were tied to the Ethereum blockchain, however UnicoNFT is the first NFT marketplace to utilize Bitcoin and Bitcoin Latinum for NFT transactions, thereby opening more options and allowing everyone to participate in the NFT world.
"NFTs we believe mark the beginning of widespread adoption of blockchain by end consumers" remarked Dr. Donald Basile (CEO of Monsoon Blockchain Corporation), adding that "we expect 5-10x the number of consumers currently involved in digital assets to adopt them over the next 24 months."
Bitcoin Latinum was built as an open-architecture cryptocurrency technology, capable of handling large transaction volume, cybersecurity, and digital asset management. Based on the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Latinum was developed by Monsoon Blockchain Corporation on behalf of the Bitcoin Latinum Foundation. LTNM is a greener, faster, and more secure version of Bitcoin, and is poised to revolutionize digital transactions.
Unlike other crypto assets, LTNM is insured, and backed by real-world and digital assets. Its asset backing is held in a fund model, so that base asset value increases over time. It accelerates this asset-backed funds growth by depositing 80% of the transaction fee back into the asset fund that backs the currency. Thus, the more Bitcoin Latinum is adopted, the faster its asset funds grow, creating a self-inflating currency.
Bitcoin Latinum currently trades publicly on HitBTC(the fifth largest exchange by volume at $4 billion), FMFW.io (formerly Bitcoin.com Exchange and operating with $3.3 billion in daily trading volume), AAX Exchange ($1.3 billion in daily volume), LBank Exchange($1.35 billion in daily volume), Hotbit and DigiFinex. Monsoon Blockchain, Bitcoin Latinum's lead developer, has announced plans for Bitcoin Latinum to officially list in four more exchanges including Bitmart ($1.6 billion in daily volume), Changelly, XT.com and Changelly Pro by the end of 2021.
Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, an innovative blockchain company based in Palo Alto, California, was selected by Bitcoin Latinum as its foundation partner. Monsoon is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem, leveraging the latest blockchain technology to develop powerful business solutions that allow the successful digitization of and listing of assets across a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and media and entertainment. Dr. Donald Basile, Monsoon's CEO and founder, is the former CEO of Fusion IO, a company known for playing a major role in implementing the cloud systems at Apple and Facebook as well as partnerships with HP, IBM, and Dell.
For more information about Bitcoin Latinum, please visithttps://bitcoinlatinum.com
For more information about Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, please visithttps://monsoonblockchaincorporation.com
Media contact
Brand: Bitcoin Latinum
Contact: Kai Okada, Director of Communications
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:https://bitcoinlatinum.com/
Address: 2100 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303, USA
Telephone: +1 800-528-0985
SOURCE: Bitcoin Latinum Foundation || FS-WHO? Get hyped with the rest of the Gator Nation ahead of the FSU game: As is the tradition, the Florida Gators will meet the Florida State Seminoles on the college football gridiron today as the two schools continue a storied rivalry that has been in decline over the last decade. Still, this is a game that both fanbases have circled on their calendars, and regardless of where either team sits in the standings, is almost always a tough matchup. Last season’s game was canceled by COVID but UF and FSU resume the series this year in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Two years separated from the last meeting, the Gator Nation is champing at the bit for a shot at their in-state rivals from Tallahassee. Here is a look at how the Orange and Blue faithful are revving up on Twitter for Saturday’s noon game against their in-state rivals FSU using the #GoGators hashtag. An oral history of the Florida-Florida State football rivalry A long look at Florida football’s history with interim head coaches Scouting FSU football ahead of Saturday’s rivalry matchup Expert Predictions: Can Florida earn a bowl game bid vs. Seminoles? What do you know? 10 fascinating facts ahead of UF vs. FSU Rivalry renewed in 24 hours! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/Pm7TRhWoY4 — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 Rivalry Game ✅ Senior Day ✅ Sold Out Swamp ✅ #GoGators pic.twitter.com/tDaXE2LJ7p — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 A journey that has inspired us all, and the best is yet to come. Thank you for all you gave to Gator Nation these last four years @randy_knows ! pic.twitter.com/48nOj53uJ1 — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 One last ride for our seniors on offense! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/M4Ph6JAogt — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 GAMEDAY Rencontre capitale pour « sauver » notre saison face à Florida State dans Le Swamp! Les 2 équipes sont à 5-6, 1 match pour déterminer laquelle des 2 équipes sera Bowl eligible! Rendez vous 18h pour le coup d’envoi! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/KpFdU7vKGo — Florida Gators France 🐊 (@FranceGators) November 27, 2021 Senior day for my son and his teammates 🐊🏈 … last ride for them in the Swamp. I need Gator Nation to cheer loud and send them out with a bang @FloridaGators @UF @GatorsFB @ufsports @StadiumAndGale @UFBarstool @GatorsExp #GoGators #WeAreTheBoysFromOldFlorida pic.twitter.com/5IT8MOLhU2 — Austin Tse 🈴 (@TseStrong) November 27, 2021 Show Up. Be loud. Have Fun. It’s Senior Day in The Swamp! We waited so long for this season, let’s cherish today. It’s Game Day. LFG. #GoGators pic.twitter.com/yX9XL4uX32 — Ben Chase (@BenGChase) November 27, 2021 Wakey wakey Gator Nation! It’s time to rise and shine. Put your finest Orange and Blue on and get to chomping! Don’t forget kickoff is at high noon! BE THERE FOR THE SENIORS and the Gators #GoGators #BearFSU pic.twitter.com/ci8mG9EGxV — lori smith moffet (@LoriMoffet) November 27, 2021 It's Great To Be A Florida Gator 🐊 #ChompChomp #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/yRdRm1HOKF — Okefenokee 🇺🇲🐊 (@GatorChompXX) November 27, 2021 Sunrise over The Swamp! ☀️🐊 #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/cWeI6BrChY — UF ABA-Gainesville (@UFABAGNV) November 27, 2021 It’s a good day to wake up and hate FSU #GoGators #IYSGAD #FEE pic.twitter.com/VEGKod5qil — Lee Safer (@coach_safer) November 27, 2021 Great day to beat the guys from this place in a pic I took in 2018. #GoGators #BEATfsu 💙🧡🐊 pic.twitter.com/om1olJd2yc — ATL Gator (@gator_atl) November 27, 2021 It's Gameday! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/ZS9j8hosAI — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 We're all looking for a Gator win today! Image: University of Florida students Mary Ann Hollingsworth and Jimmy Lanier at 1959 FSU vs UF football game, courtesy of @uflib #WhyILoveGNV #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/ik3Wei6IHe — Matheson History Museum (@MathesonMuseum) November 27, 2021 Not In Our House🐊 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/OJZw5S5lHQ — Bitcoin Florida Gator (🐊,🐊) (@gator_bitcoin) November 27, 2021 Game day in #gainesvilleflorida . #FreshFromFlorida #sunshineShowdown #goGators #beatthNoles 🐊🐊👍 #letsGo @FloridaGators @UF @ufalumni @Learfield @LearfieldAudio @freshfromFL 🐊🐊🏈🏈 pic.twitter.com/oiNTy1wZ5x — John Tull (@JPTULL) November 27, 2021 It’s rival weekend for college football. I look at it as I can’t lose today. #WINNER #GoNoles #GoGators pic.twitter.com/JV3X2UmOiY — Rosemarie Lane 🇺🇸🏴☠️🏝🎣🐶 (@KeysMom1031) November 27, 2021 #GoGators #UF #GameDay #GatorNation #Beatfsu pic.twitter.com/8wxgvyvHUs — John Solet, LoVEart by Solet 爱 (@Lovesolet) November 27, 2021 Breakfast selfie! #gogators pic.twitter.com/53LTZX8Sgb — Daniel LaMontagne 🇺🇸🐊 (@DanLaMontagne) November 27, 2021 Game Day. #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/jNCznBOebK — Dallas🎅🎄☃️ (@Dallas_0224) November 27, 2021 Please post, bought message board message! #SwampMoment #swampmoments #GoGators #itsgreatuf pic.twitter.com/foLw0Y7iQr — John D. Farrell (@johndfffff) November 27, 2021 Good morning to everyone except Florida State Seminole fans pic.twitter.com/yvwNmdUiUC — Stank Bastard (@StankBastard) November 27, 2021 Good morning and fuck FSU #GoGators pic.twitter.com/w9jphgSdKC — cooper (@coopcaufield) November 27, 2021 Let’s make this one count #Gators ! Happy Senior day @GatorsFB . #BeatFSU #GoGators pic.twitter.com/seKIe3DE8U — Danielle Miller (@The_Dani_Miller) November 27, 2021 Fun Fact: @GatorsFB and @GatorsMBK both have 5 wins this season. Football season is ending and basketball season just started! #GoGators #BeatFSU #bowleligiblebowl pic.twitter.com/se2cBo5voC — David Sones (@CrispySones) November 27, 2021 Cutest damn gator fan I’ve ever met #gogators pic.twitter.com/wgZD96RpHr — Rich P (@tensionalframe) November 27, 2021 Game day!! #GoGators 🐊🏈🔶🔷 #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/Qkyl0UMhWD — Steve Crowder (@StephenDCrowder) November 27, 2021 Friendly reminder. Happy game day Gators! LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! #itsgreattohatestate #semenholes #fuckfsu #GoGators pic.twitter.com/hUG3kK62b3 — Beverly🐊🧡💙 (@MamaB2485) November 27, 2021 Thank you to our senior captains for all you have done for Gator Nation! @Campaign_Lik @Zachattacks_ @ventrell_miller pic.twitter.com/zEpAXWnjDd — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 Happy Saturday!! You know it’s a great day when you’re on the way to the game and see Gator fans at rest stops. Let’s go Gators beat FSU!!🐊❤️🐊 #GoGators #Gatornation #BeatFSU @GatorsFB pic.twitter.com/hApnPigPz8 — Susan Hines (@shines1205) November 27, 2021 It wasn’t the season I anticipated witnessing but I’m a gator fan for life, in all kinds of weather I will bleed BLUE and ORANGE!!!! #GoGators #NolesSuck #BlueandOrange #Gatornation pic.twitter.com/Mi3GzYXTll — Ryan Gates (@gatorsfan4lyf) November 27, 2021 May the best Florida team win @freshfromFL Sunshine Showdown #NoleFamily #KeepCLIMBing #GoGators #FSUvsUF #collegegameday pic.twitter.com/sSwCaQtubp — Roudy (@roudylovespats) November 27, 2021 IT’S GAMEDAY!!! LFG!!! 🔥 #BeatFSU #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/VZuzH89nO8 — Jenn (@GoGators712) November 27, 2021 Happy Game Day and it’s the Sunshine State Showdown between the @FSUFootball and @GatorsFB , let’s go @GatorsFB and chomp some @FSUFootball !!!! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/Z6xeJSKbXI — Eric Myers 🏁🏆🏆 ( Rowdy Nation #18N21 ) (@18rowdy_nation) November 27, 2021 It's about to go down! #gogators pic.twitter.com/vAIL6wfXuD — justin lawless (@J_law2717) November 27, 2021 Game day!🐊 #gators #gogators #Gatornation #swampmoments pic.twitter.com/3dz7EHis37 — Joivan “Alexander” Jiménez (@jimenez_joivan) November 27, 2021 Final game day! To all the swamp gods please let us just #BeatFSU !! #GatorNation #GoGators 💙🧡🐊🏈 pic.twitter.com/JJezwt4180 — Mike (@delcerebro) November 27, 2021 Let’s #GOGATORS #67 #BEATFSU Me and the BEST DRESSED OLINEMAN ☺️☺️ pic.twitter.com/3hYnzFEHgk — ❤️Prishonda Leonard~Gator Mom❤️ (@Prishonda) November 27, 2021 Hey Major Wright @LilMade21 !! Very nice to meet you!! Thanks for the autograph and the pic!! I’m keeping these rings!!! #GoBulls #HornsUp 🤘🐂💚💛 #GoGators 🐊🧡💙🧡💙🐊 pic.twitter.com/jCdB6o0C5M — ElMattador 🤘🐂💚💛 (@ElMattador1025) November 27, 2021 All smiles around here at the 76 table! Be sure to stop by and spin the wheel 🐊 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/ViAV1nwfb4 — Gators Sports Properties (@FLGatorsSP) November 27, 2021 #UFvsFSU #GameDay @UF @FloridaGators #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/zLM7qawnjM — SansCookie (@SansziePanzie) November 27, 2021 Last one in #TheSwamp !! Let's get this W! #BeatFSU #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/H5IFaOvnaV — Julián Alonso 🇨🇴 (@CoachAlonso_) November 27, 2021 Gameday!! Every week is important but this week always means so much more. Show them boys who run the state #gogators #FSWHO pic.twitter.com/9FfCoVJg0a — Gator Made (@XavierNixon) November 27, 2021 Showing out for @GatorsFB 💙 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/4SqRMDfgMh — Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) November 27, 2021 Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions. || FS-WHO? Get hyped with the rest of the Gator Nation ahead of the FSU game: As is the tradition, the Florida Gators will meet the Florida State Seminoles on the college football gridiron today as the two schools continue a storied rivalry that has been in decline over the last decade. Still, this is a game that both fanbases have circled on their calendars, and regardless of where either team sits in the standings, is almost always a tough matchup. Last season’s game was canceled by COVID but UF and FSU resume the series this year in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Two years separated from the last meeting, the Gator Nation is champing at the bit for a shot at their in-state rivals from Tallahassee. Here is a look at how the Orange and Blue faithful are revving up on Twitter for Saturday’s noon game against their in-state rivals FSU using the #GoGators hashtag. An oral history of the Florida-Florida State football rivalry A long look at Florida football’s history with interim head coaches Scouting FSU football ahead of Saturday’s rivalry matchup Expert Predictions: Can Florida earn a bowl game bid vs. Seminoles? What do you know? 10 fascinating facts ahead of UF vs. FSU Rivalry renewed in 24 hours! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/Pm7TRhWoY4 — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 Rivalry Game ✅ Senior Day ✅ Sold Out Swamp ✅ #GoGators pic.twitter.com/tDaXE2LJ7p — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 A journey that has inspired us all, and the best is yet to come. Thank you for all you gave to Gator Nation these last four years @randy_knows ! pic.twitter.com/48nOj53uJ1 — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 26, 2021 One last ride for our seniors on offense! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/M4Ph6JAogt — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 GAMEDAY Rencontre capitale pour « sauver » notre saison face à Florida State dans Le Swamp! Les 2 équipes sont à 5-6, 1 match pour déterminer laquelle des 2 équipes sera Bowl eligible! Rendez vous 18h pour le coup d’envoi! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/KpFdU7vKGo — Florida Gators France 🐊 (@FranceGators) November 27, 2021 Senior day for my son and his teammates 🐊🏈 … last ride for them in the Swamp. I need Gator Nation to cheer loud and send them out with a bang @FloridaGators @UF @GatorsFB @ufsports @StadiumAndGale @UFBarstool @GatorsExp #GoGators #WeAreTheBoysFromOldFlorida pic.twitter.com/5IT8MOLhU2 — Austin Tse 🈴 (@TseStrong) November 27, 2021 Show Up. Be loud. Have Fun. It’s Senior Day in The Swamp! We waited so long for this season, let’s cherish today. It’s Game Day. LFG. #GoGators pic.twitter.com/yX9XL4uX32 — Ben Chase (@BenGChase) November 27, 2021 Wakey wakey Gator Nation! It’s time to rise and shine. Put your finest Orange and Blue on and get to chomping! Don’t forget kickoff is at high noon! BE THERE FOR THE SENIORS and the Gators #GoGators #BearFSU pic.twitter.com/ci8mG9EGxV — lori smith moffet (@LoriMoffet) November 27, 2021 It's Great To Be A Florida Gator 🐊 #ChompChomp #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/yRdRm1HOKF — Okefenokee 🇺🇲🐊 (@GatorChompXX) November 27, 2021 Sunrise over The Swamp! ☀️🐊 #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/cWeI6BrChY — UF ABA-Gainesville (@UFABAGNV) November 27, 2021 It’s a good day to wake up and hate FSU #GoGators #IYSGAD #FEE pic.twitter.com/VEGKod5qil — Lee Safer (@coach_safer) November 27, 2021 Great day to beat the guys from this place in a pic I took in 2018. #GoGators #BEATfsu 💙🧡🐊 pic.twitter.com/om1olJd2yc — ATL Gator (@gator_atl) November 27, 2021 It's Gameday! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/ZS9j8hosAI — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 We're all looking for a Gator win today! Image: University of Florida students Mary Ann Hollingsworth and Jimmy Lanier at 1959 FSU vs UF football game, courtesy of @uflib #WhyILoveGNV #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/ik3Wei6IHe — Matheson History Museum (@MathesonMuseum) November 27, 2021 Not In Our House🐊 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/OJZw5S5lHQ — Bitcoin Florida Gator (🐊,🐊) (@gator_bitcoin) November 27, 2021 Game day in #gainesvilleflorida . #FreshFromFlorida #sunshineShowdown #goGators #beatthNoles 🐊🐊👍 #letsGo @FloridaGators @UF @ufalumni @Learfield @LearfieldAudio @freshfromFL 🐊🐊🏈🏈 pic.twitter.com/oiNTy1wZ5x — John Tull (@JPTULL) November 27, 2021 It’s rival weekend for college football. I look at it as I can’t lose today. #WINNER #GoNoles #GoGators pic.twitter.com/JV3X2UmOiY — Rosemarie Lane 🇺🇸🏴☠️🏝🎣🐶 (@KeysMom1031) November 27, 2021 #GoGators #UF #GameDay #GatorNation #Beatfsu pic.twitter.com/8wxgvyvHUs — John Solet, LoVEart by Solet 爱 (@Lovesolet) November 27, 2021 Breakfast selfie! #gogators pic.twitter.com/53LTZX8Sgb — Daniel LaMontagne 🇺🇸🐊 (@DanLaMontagne) November 27, 2021 Game Day. #GoGators #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/jNCznBOebK — Dallas🎅🎄☃️ (@Dallas_0224) November 27, 2021 Please post, bought message board message! #SwampMoment #swampmoments #GoGators #itsgreatuf pic.twitter.com/foLw0Y7iQr — John D. Farrell (@johndfffff) November 27, 2021 Good morning to everyone except Florida State Seminole fans pic.twitter.com/yvwNmdUiUC — Stank Bastard (@StankBastard) November 27, 2021 Good morning and fuck FSU #GoGators pic.twitter.com/w9jphgSdKC — cooper (@coopcaufield) November 27, 2021 Let’s make this one count #Gators ! Happy Senior day @GatorsFB . #BeatFSU #GoGators pic.twitter.com/seKIe3DE8U — Danielle Miller (@The_Dani_Miller) November 27, 2021 Fun Fact: @GatorsFB and @GatorsMBK both have 5 wins this season. Football season is ending and basketball season just started! #GoGators #BeatFSU #bowleligiblebowl pic.twitter.com/se2cBo5voC — David Sones (@CrispySones) November 27, 2021 Cutest damn gator fan I’ve ever met #gogators pic.twitter.com/wgZD96RpHr — Rich P (@tensionalframe) November 27, 2021 Game day!! #GoGators 🐊🏈🔶🔷 #BeatFSU pic.twitter.com/Qkyl0UMhWD — Steve Crowder (@StephenDCrowder) November 27, 2021 Friendly reminder. Happy game day Gators! LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! #itsgreattohatestate #semenholes #fuckfsu #GoGators pic.twitter.com/hUG3kK62b3 — Beverly🐊🧡💙 (@MamaB2485) November 27, 2021 Thank you to our senior captains for all you have done for Gator Nation! @Campaign_Lik @Zachattacks_ @ventrell_miller pic.twitter.com/zEpAXWnjDd — Gators Football (@GatorsFB) November 27, 2021 Happy Saturday!! You know it’s a great day when you’re on the way to the game and see Gator fans at rest stops. Let’s go Gators beat FSU!!🐊❤️🐊 #GoGators #Gatornation #BeatFSU @GatorsFB pic.twitter.com/hApnPigPz8 — Susan Hines (@shines1205) November 27, 2021 It wasn’t the season I anticipated witnessing but I’m a gator fan for life, in all kinds of weather I will bleed BLUE and ORANGE!!!! #GoGators #NolesSuck #BlueandOrange #Gatornation pic.twitter.com/Mi3GzYXTll — Ryan Gates (@gatorsfan4lyf) November 27, 2021 May the best Florida team win @freshfromFL Sunshine Showdown #NoleFamily #KeepCLIMBing #GoGators #FSUvsUF #collegegameday pic.twitter.com/sSwCaQtubp — Roudy (@roudylovespats) November 27, 2021 IT’S GAMEDAY!!! LFG!!! 🔥 #BeatFSU #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/VZuzH89nO8 — Jenn (@GoGators712) November 27, 2021 Happy Game Day and it’s the Sunshine State Showdown between the @FSUFootball and @GatorsFB , let’s go @GatorsFB and chomp some @FSUFootball !!!! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/Z6xeJSKbXI — Eric Myers 🏁🏆🏆 ( Rowdy Nation #18N21 ) (@18rowdy_nation) November 27, 2021 It's about to go down! #gogators pic.twitter.com/vAIL6wfXuD — justin lawless (@J_law2717) November 27, 2021 Game day!🐊 #gators #gogators #Gatornation #swampmoments pic.twitter.com/3dz7EHis37 — Joivan “Alexander” Jiménez (@jimenez_joivan) November 27, 2021 Final game day! To all the swamp gods please let us just #BeatFSU !! #GatorNation #GoGators 💙🧡🐊🏈 pic.twitter.com/JJezwt4180 — Mike (@delcerebro) November 27, 2021 Let’s #GOGATORS #67 #BEATFSU Me and the BEST DRESSED OLINEMAN ☺️☺️ pic.twitter.com/3hYnzFEHgk — ❤️Prishonda Leonard~Gator Mom❤️ (@Prishonda) November 27, 2021 Hey Major Wright @LilMade21 !! Very nice to meet you!! Thanks for the autograph and the pic!! I’m keeping these rings!!! #GoBulls #HornsUp 🤘🐂💚💛 #GoGators 🐊🧡💙🧡💙🐊 pic.twitter.com/jCdB6o0C5M — ElMattador 🤘🐂💚💛 (@ElMattador1025) November 27, 2021 All smiles around here at the 76 table! Be sure to stop by and spin the wheel 🐊 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/ViAV1nwfb4 — Gators Sports Properties (@FLGatorsSP) November 27, 2021 #UFvsFSU #GameDay @UF @FloridaGators #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/zLM7qawnjM — SansCookie (@SansziePanzie) November 27, 2021 Last one in #TheSwamp !! Let's get this W! #BeatFSU #GoGators 🐊 pic.twitter.com/H5IFaOvnaV — Julián Alonso 🇨🇴 (@CoachAlonso_) November 27, 2021 Gameday!! Every week is important but this week always means so much more. Show them boys who run the state #gogators #FSWHO pic.twitter.com/9FfCoVJg0a — Gator Made (@XavierNixon) November 27, 2021 Showing out for @GatorsFB 💙 #GoGators pic.twitter.com/4SqRMDfgMh — Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) November 27, 2021 Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions. || Best Reddit cryptocurrency subs to join: Although Reddit was around long before cryptocurrency went mainstream, the platform is almost synonymous with crypto. Reddit is home to hundreds of communities focused on various aspects of cryptocurrency. Notably, most of these communities discuss or perhaps review different subjects relating to decentralised finance (DeFi), initial coin offerings (ICOs), decentralised exchanges (DEXs), NFTs, Metaverse , and many more. Given the multi-dynamic nature of the platform, members can easily search for different topics and learn about things they probably lacked knowledge on. More so, the platform is designed so that a member can browse across a variety of subreddits that are dedicated to specific areas of interest. In this article, we will list some of the best Reddit pages to join and explain why they are a perfect choice for you regardless of your level of expertise. How does Reddit work? Unlike most other community discussion platforms, Reddit is built with unique features that make having an open-ended conversation both fascinating and efficient. Notably, when an individual or a corporate organisation creates a subreddit page, posts can be published and made public for other people to discuss. After a post is published, both followers and non-followers can leave a comment underneath it and interact with one another in the comments section. When someone makes a comment, other individuals who engage with it have their own comment posted as a thread for everyone to read. Similarly, users who choose not to engage with the post or the comments made by others can take advantage of other features. The upvote/downvote button, reward, share, save, hide, and report buttons are all features that can be used based on a reader’s sentiments about a post. Why Reddit? There are many reasons why Reddit stands out among other community-centric social platforms, however, the best part is the outstanding feedback system. In addition, it also offers support for various types of files; video, images, links, texts, and pictures. That said, what are the best cryptocurrency Reddit pages to join Story continues Best cryptocurrency Reddit pages to join r/Binance Binance is the company behind Binance exchange, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is the hosting blockchain to hundreds of crypto projects. The Binance Reddit page, on the other hand, is known for posting news content as well as new updates about the exchange platform as well as the blockchain. Other information that can be found on this page also includes Launchpad information among others. Currently, there are well above 700K participants on the Binance Reddit page. r/Cryptocurrency r/cryptocurrency is at the top of the list because it is known for producing high-quality content created by top-level and highly skilled crypto specialists. Given the nature of the crypto world, which is overburdened with volatility in addition to being flooded with various crypto projects, it is critical to join a group where you can gain access to highly vetted market insight. r/ethereum The bulk of crypto projects that exist to date are hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, so joining this page exposes you to up-to-date correspondence and reviews about several cryptocurrencies. There are four main classification/groups of discussion here; Top Posts, New Posts, Ho Posts and Controversial Posts. The controversial posts, however, interest people the most as they often allow members to debate between different crypto assets. r/Bitcoinbeginners With more than 113K members, this Reddit page is best for those who are just starting out in the crypto words. Among other things, the page is known for posting comprehensive articles about how to get started with crypto, guides on how the technology works as well as future use and the best way to trade or invest in crypto. General Projects This part is added to the list because most crypto projects have their own Reddit page, which implies that interested users can search by their name, and be directed to their sub-reddit channel. Sadly, with a surging number of crypto projects, there is a growing number of mediocre ones, which often attract negative sentiments and reactions to Reddit postings. It’s up to you, as a Reddit user, to decide what kind of information you want to consume on the go. || Best Reddit cryptocurrency subs to join: Although Reddit was around long before cryptocurrency went mainstream, the platform is almost synonymous with crypto. Reddit is home to hundreds of communities focused on various aspects of cryptocurrency. Notably, most of these communities discuss or perhaps review different subjects relating to decentralised finance (DeFi), initial coin offerings (ICOs), decentralised exchanges (DEXs), NFTs, Metaverse , and many more. Given the multi-dynamic nature of the platform, members can easily search for different topics and learn about things they probably lacked knowledge on. More so, the platform is designed so that a member can browse across a variety of subreddits that are dedicated to specific areas of interest. In this article, we will list some of the best Reddit pages to join and explain why they are a perfect choice for you regardless of your level of expertise. How does Reddit work? Unlike most other community discussion platforms, Reddit is built with unique features that make having an open-ended conversation both fascinating and efficient. Notably, when an individual or a corporate organisation creates a subreddit page, posts can be published and made public for other people to discuss. After a post is published, both followers and non-followers can leave a comment underneath it and interact with one another in the comments section. When someone makes a comment, other individuals who engage with it have their own comment posted as a thread for everyone to read. Similarly, users who choose not to engage with the post or the comments made by others can take advantage of other features. The upvote/downvote button, reward, share, save, hide, and report buttons are all features that can be used based on a reader’s sentiments about a post. Why Reddit? There are many reasons why Reddit stands out among other community-centric social platforms, however, the best part is the outstanding feedback system. In addition, it also offers support for various types of files; video, images, links, texts, and pictures. That said, what are the best cryptocurrency Reddit pages to join Story continues Best cryptocurrency Reddit pages to join r/Binance Binance is the company behind Binance exchange, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is the hosting blockchain to hundreds of crypto projects. The Binance Reddit page, on the other hand, is known for posting news content as well as new updates about the exchange platform as well as the blockchain. Other information that can be found on this page also includes Launchpad information among others. Currently, there are well above 700K participants on the Binance Reddit page. r/Cryptocurrency r/cryptocurrency is at the top of the list because it is known for producing high-quality content created by top-level and highly skilled crypto specialists. Given the nature of the crypto world, which is overburdened with volatility in addition to being flooded with various crypto projects, it is critical to join a group where you can gain access to highly vetted market insight. r/ethereum The bulk of crypto projects that exist to date are hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, so joining this page exposes you to up-to-date correspondence and reviews about several cryptocurrencies. There are four main classification/groups of discussion here; Top Posts, New Posts, Ho Posts and Controversial Posts. The controversial posts, however, interest people the most as they often allow members to debate between different crypto assets. r/Bitcoinbeginners With more than 113K members, this Reddit page is best for those who are just starting out in the crypto words. Among other things, the page is known for posting comprehensive articles about how to get started with crypto, guides on how the technology works as well as future use and the best way to trade or invest in crypto. General Projects This part is added to the list because most crypto projects have their own Reddit page, which implies that interested users can search by their name, and be directed to their sub-reddit channel. Sadly, with a surging number of crypto projects, there is a growing number of mediocre ones, which often attract negative sentiments and reactions to Reddit postings. It’s up to you, as a Reddit user, to decide what kind of information you want to consume on the go. || New to cryptocurrency? Know these terms: Talking Tech podcast: Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. More: Daily news, true crime, and more USA TODAY podcasts Hey there listeners. It's Brett Molina, welcome back to Talking Tech. So you've likely heard about Bitcoin. You've likely heard about cryptocurrency. You've likely heard about NFTs. I'm sure though, as you've heard these words, there are some of you out there that still are completely confused by this whole world and what all this means, and how it works, trading in Bitcoin, and exchanging it to real money, and there's a zillion questions about it. Thankfully, my colleague, Kim Komando wrote a column about this. You can read her column on tech.usatoday.com. It's called 10 Cryptocurrency Terms People Use Every Day. We'll share a couple here. It's a very volatile world, obviously, as Kim explains. It also can be really confusing, and especially if you're someone that's looking to invest in cryptocurrency or invest in Bitcoin. It's important to know the most common language and words that are used there, just to get a better sense of what you're getting yourself into, especially as you start to invest in stuff like Bitcoin. So we're going to talk over a couple of the terms here. We won't get too deep into it. You can read the rest of the terms that Kim suggests in her column. Let's start with blockchain. So a blockchain is essentially a virtual ledger. Anytime someone buys or sells using a cryptocurrency like a Bitcoin, an entry is made on this virtual ledger. Kim describes it as like a series of box cars on a train. So anytime there is a transaction made, another box car gets added to the train. Brett Molina: One of the benefits of the blockchain is that it's decentralized. There's no one central group or organization that stores and controls this information. It's spread out on computers all over the world, that are accessible on the internet. Story continues So because of that, a lot of experts I've talked to for previous stories have discussed how it can be a lot more secure because there are so many different... this network is so big and there's so many other different computers involved that it's tougher for someone to go in and make changes, and say, hack into this blockchain, and change things so that Bitcoin is transferred over somewhere where it shouldn't be. The next term that she brings up is Fiat. And as she mentions, no, it's not the car. Fiat money is government-issued currency. So you might hear that a lot when people are talking about cryptocurrency, and they'll talk about Fiat currency. So Fiat currency is basically the money we use every day. So in the US, dollars, coins, all that stuff, that is Fiat currency. Let's do one more term that she talks about, and this is one that you've probably heard quite a bit. It's one we've talked about here. It's NFT, it stands for non-fungible token. It is essentially a digital certificate that basically authenticates a digital item that you've purchased online. It can apply to anything. It can apply to online artwork. You've probably heard this a lot with a lot of artists who are using NFTs to create digital art, and they sell their art using these non-fungible tokens to authenticate their piece as they sell it. But it applies beyond that. It goes for songs, it goes for viral videos. It goes for articles. It goes for even gifts. It's collectible, that's really the biggest appeal with the NFT. Kim points this out. It's like you collect baseball cards, you collect comic books, you collect vintage cars. It's kind of the same thing, but it's all digital. And you use cryptocurrency to buy NFTs, that's the main platform for acquiring them. What makes it interesting, and I think for some people confusing is that there's no tangible piece that you're holding in your hands, and I think that's why a lot of people, rightfully so, are hesitant to invest in NFTs because there is no physical property. With baseball cards, you have a physical card. With a vintage car, you have an actual car maybe sitting in a garage or driveway, or on the street, or wherever. With NFTs, it's all digital. So it's there for you sitting somewhere, but you own it and you have this NFT that proves it. So those are a couple of the terms that Kim lays out. Again, she has 10 of these, so you can read more about cryptocurrency and a lot of the terms that are popular among cryptocurrency on tech.usatoday.com. Listeners, let's hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, or show ideas? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @BrettMolina23. Please. Don't forget to subscribe and rate us, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. = You've been listening to Talking Tech. We'll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New to cryptocurrency? Know these terms: Talking Tech podcast || New to cryptocurrency? Know these terms: Talking Tech podcast: Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. More: Daily news, true crime, and more USA TODAY podcasts Hey there listeners. It's Brett Molina, welcome back to Talking Tech. So you've likely heard about Bitcoin. You've likely heard about cryptocurrency. You've likely heard about NFTs. I'm sure though, as you've heard these words, there are some of you out there that still are completely confused by this whole world and what all this means, and how it works, trading in Bitcoin, and exchanging it to real money, and there's a zillion questions about it. Thankfully, my colleague, Kim Komando wrote a column about this. You can read her column on tech.usatoday.com. It's called 10 Cryptocurrency Terms People Use Every Day. We'll share a couple here. It's a very volatile world, obviously, as Kim explains. It also can be really confusing, and especially if you're someone that's looking to invest in cryptocurrency or invest in Bitcoin. It's important to know the most common language and words that are used there, just to get a better sense of what you're getting yourself into, especially as you start to invest in stuff like Bitcoin. So we're going to talk over a couple of the terms here. We won't get too deep into it. You can read the rest of the terms that Kim suggests in her column. Let's start with blockchain. So a blockchain is essentially a virtual ledger. Anytime someone buys or sells using a cryptocurrency like a Bitcoin, an entry is made on this virtual ledger. Kim describes it as like a series of box cars on a train. So anytime there is a transaction made, another box car gets added to the train. Brett Molina: One of the benefits of the blockchain is that it's decentralized. There's no one central group or organization that stores and controls this information. It's spread out on computers all over the world, that are accessible on the internet. Story continues So because of that, a lot of experts I've talked to for previous stories have discussed how it can be a lot more secure because there are so many different... this network is so big and there's so many other different computers involved that it's tougher for someone to go in and make changes, and say, hack into this blockchain, and change things so that Bitcoin is transferred over somewhere where it shouldn't be. The next term that she brings up is Fiat. And as she mentions, no, it's not the car. Fiat money is government-issued currency. So you might hear that a lot when people are talking about cryptocurrency, and they'll talk about Fiat currency. So Fiat currency is basically the money we use every day. So in the US, dollars, coins, all that stuff, that is Fiat currency. Let's do one more term that she talks about, and this is one that you've probably heard quite a bit. It's one we've talked about here. It's NFT, it stands for non-fungible token. It is essentially a digital certificate that basically authenticates a digital item that you've purchased online. It can apply to anything. It can apply to online artwork. You've probably heard this a lot with a lot of artists who are using NFTs to create digital art, and they sell their art using these non-fungible tokens to authenticate their piece as they sell it. But it applies beyond that. It goes for songs, it goes for viral videos. It goes for articles. It goes for even gifts. It's collectible, that's really the biggest appeal with the NFT. Kim points this out. It's like you collect baseball cards, you collect comic books, you collect vintage cars. It's kind of the same thing, but it's all digital. And you use cryptocurrency to buy NFTs, that's the main platform for acquiring them. What makes it interesting, and I think for some people confusing is that there's no tangible piece that you're holding in your hands, and I think that's why a lot of people, rightfully so, are hesitant to invest in NFTs because there is no physical property. With baseball cards, you have a physical card. With a vintage car, you have an actual car maybe sitting in a garage or driveway, or on the street, or wherever. With NFTs, it's all digital. So it's there for you sitting somewhere, but you own it and you have this NFT that proves it. So those are a couple of the terms that Kim lays out. Again, she has 10 of these, so you can read more about cryptocurrency and a lot of the terms that are popular among cryptocurrency on tech.usatoday.com. Listeners, let's hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, or show ideas? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @BrettMolina23. Please. Don't forget to subscribe and rate us, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. = You've been listening to Talking Tech. We'll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New to cryptocurrency? Know these terms: Talking Tech podcast || El Salvador Bitcoin City: ‘Absurd Political Stunt by a Delusional Dictator’, Says Steve Hanke: BeInCrypto –
Steve Hanke has criticized plans by El Salvador to build a Bitcoin city, calling the initiative an “absurd political stunt by a delusional dictator.”
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || El Salvador Bitcoin City: ‘Absurd Political Stunt by a Delusional Dictator’, Says Steve Hanke: BeInCrypto –
Steve Hanke has criticized plans by El Salvador to build a Bitcoin city, calling the initiative an “absurd political stunt by a delusional dictator.”
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || El Salvador Bitcoin City: Absurd Political Stunt by a Delusional Dictator, Says Steve Hanke: BeInCrypto Steve Hanke has criticized plans by El Salvador to build a Bitcoin city, calling the initiative an absurd political stunt by a delusional dictator. This story was seen first on BeInCrypto Join our Telegram Group and get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories like this on BeInCrypto || On-Chain Analysis: Long-Term Holders Start Selling Bitcoin Ready for Surge: BeInCrypto Todays on-chain analysis from BeInCrypto looks at indicators of the behavior of long- and short-term Bitcoin holders, the amount of supply they hold and the amount of (il)liquid BTC in circulation. The on-chain data shows that the market is at the end of the accumulation phase, which has historically been followed by increases in the Bitcoin price. This story was seen first on BeInCrypto Join our Telegram Group and get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories like this on BeInCrypto || On-Chain Analysis: Long-Term Holders Start Selling – Bitcoin Ready for Surge: BeInCrypto –
Today’s on-chain analysis from BeInCrypto looks at indicators of the behavior of long- and short-term Bitcoin holders, the amount of supply they hold and the amount of (il)liquid BTC in circulation. The on-chain data shows that the market is at the end of the accumulation phase, which has historically been followed by increases in the Bitcoin price.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || On-Chain Analysis: Long-Term Holders Start Selling – Bitcoin Ready for Surge: BeInCrypto –
Today’s on-chain analysis from BeInCrypto looks at indicators of the behavior of long- and short-term Bitcoin holders, the amount of supply they hold and the amount of (il)liquid BTC in circulation. The on-chain data shows that the market is at the end of the accumulation phase, which has historically been followed by increases in the Bitcoin price.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Bitcoin Latinum Takes Over Miami with NFT Events During Art Basel: PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM), the next generation, insured, asset-backed cryptocurrency, will be the title sponsor of the DCentral Miami Conference, the largest in-person combined NFT and DeFi conference in history, taking place on November 30 to December 1, 2021 at the Miami Airport Convention Centre (MACC). DCentral Miami leads off Art Basel, which is one of the biggest art events in the United States.
DCentral Miami will host over 300 international speakers, celebrities, professional athletes, artists, and the world's biggest crypto investors for talks across five stages such as the DeFi Summit stage by Bitcoin Latinum, NFTCON stage by Gala Games, and the 360 degree projection Metaverse Dome by Epik Prime and The Sandbox. The interactive conference and expo will boast over 100 booths with experiences in the Digital Fashion Corner, four NFT Art Galleries, a PFP Alley, Live VR Art, NFT workshops and over 15 blockchain gaming companies in the Play-to-Earn Games Showcase.
Notable speakers such as Ethereum and Consensys Co-Founder Joseph Lubin, Sophia the Robot, Former NBA All-Star Baron Davis, 2020 Olympic Gold Medalist "Fastest Woman Alive" Elaine Thompson-Herah, and YouTuber BitBoy will be joining the conference.
DCentral tickets are on sale nowhere.
Bitcoin Latinum will open Art Basel 2021 with an NFT Minting and Landmark Sports Event, GENESIS, on Wednesday, December 1st at Art Basel Miami. Genesis marks a new partnership between Bitcoin Latinum and TapStats, Inc., that redefines fan engagement and the economics of sports.
The GENESIS NFT platform harnesses the power of creators, athletes, and contributors who combine to make sporting events entertaining and compelling content. Influencers, super fans, celebrities, icons, coaches, and more can now join the best fighter athletes today in a gamified hybrid-reality metaverse where NFT values are actively developed, and the fan base is continuously enriched with live digital and crypto-based content.
The Genesis event is hosted by founders Dr. Don Basile (Bitcoin Latinum) and Sensei Paul Misir (TapStats), and joined by MMA superstar Paige VanZant and over 40 leading Instagram model influencers at Mr. Jones (320 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139) hotspot in Miami.
Genesis information can be located athttps://www.tapstats.live/
Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, an innovative blockchain company based in Palo Alto, California, was selected by Bitcoin Latinum as its foundation partner. Monsoon Blockchain recently began operations in Miami, the crypto capital of the world.
Monsoon is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem, leveraging the latest blockchain technology to develop powerful business solutions that allow the successful digitization of and listing of assets across a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and media and entertainment.
In its mission to expand global adoption, Monsoon Blockchain Corporation (Bitcoin Latinum's lead developer), recently partnered with The h.wood Group, a Los Angeles based luxury hospitality and lifestyle company. The partnership involves cross-promotional marketing initiatives, event sponsorships, NFT's, endorsements, and the acceptance of Bitcoin Latinum for services, products, and amenities across The h.wood Group's diversified portfolio of upscale nightlife and restaurant venues. Bitcoin Latinum recently partnered with Vast Bank, which allows its customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies alongside their traditional checking accounts, through integrations with Coinbase and SAP.
Bitcoin Latinum currently trades publicly on HitBTC, DigiFinex, Hotbit, AAX, LBank, and FMFW (formerly bitcoin.com) exchanges, under the ticker LTNM. Monsoon Blockchain, Bitcoin Latinum's lead developer, has announced plans for Bitcoin Latinum to officially list on 10 major public exchanges. In addition to DigiFinex, HitBTC, Hotbit, AAX, LBanks, and FMFW, the exchanges are: Changelly ($2.71 billion in daily volume), Changelly Pro, Bitmart ($1.6 billion in daily volume), and XT.com by the end of 2021. Bitcoin Latinum (LTNM) can now be researched on CoinBase, Coin Market Cap, and Coin Gecko.
For more information about Bitcoin Latinum, please visithttps://bitcoinlatinum.com
Media contact
Brand: Bitcoin Latinum
Contact: Kai Okada, Director of Communications
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:https://bitcoinlatinum.com/
Address: 2100 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303, USA
Telephone: +1 800-528-0985
SOURCE: Bitcoin Latinum Foundation
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
57806.57, 57005.43, 57229.83, 56477.82, 53598.25, 49200.70, 49368.85, 50582.62, 50700.09, 50504.80
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-12-29]
Volume: 199320000, RSI (14-day): 84.63, 50-day EMA: 796.55, 200-day EMA: 669.44
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1156.40, Gold RSI: 45.27
Oil Price: 53.77, Oil RSI: 64.37
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoin’s gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94.
Tech-savvy investorscan buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares ofBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016.
The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market.
See more from Benzinga
• Should You Be Buying 2016 Market Leaders Or Laggards Heading Into 2017?
• NVIDIA's Pullback Might Not Last Very Long
• 2016: TV Media's Year In Review
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoins gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94. Tech-savvy investors can buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares of Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTC: GBTC ), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016. The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market. See more from Benzinga Should You Be Buying 2016 Market Leaders Or Laggards Heading Into 2017? NVIDIA's Pullback Might Not Last Very Long 2016: TV Media's Year In Review © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoin’s gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94.
Tech-savvy investorscan buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares ofBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016.
The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market.
See more from Benzinga
• Should You Be Buying 2016 Market Leaders Or Laggards Heading Into 2017?
• NVIDIA's Pullback Might Not Last Very Long
• 2016: TV Media's Year In Review
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t: Sometimes how we feel about the market bears absolutely no resemblance to reality. When I look back at 2016, I’m exhausted. And when I talk to many advisors, I hear similar comments: “What a year!” they say. “We had such an awful winter, and then all the craziness around the election!” But the reality is that this was actually one of the most placid years in recent history. Here’s the actual, 30-day realized volatility of the S&P 500 for the last 10 years: What this excellent chart from Bloomberg suggests is that our current market is in one of the lowest volatility periods we’ve seen in ages, and while we’ve had some spikes, particularly in the spring, it’s just about as boring a market as you can get. Of course, you can’t actually trade this chart; instead, what you can trade, sort of, is the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX—a derivative calculation based on the implied volatility of strips of S&P 500 options. Here’s what the VIX chart looks like over the past 10 years: Even the quickest glance suggests these are pretty good proxies for each other, and while they’re not identical, they even “base” around the same number: 10 for low-vol periods, 80 for crazy spikes. And using options is actually sensible, because for a sophisticated investor, making a specific bet on volatility would most easily be done with options. You want to bet the S&P 500 is going to spike in either direction? Options players have a plan for you— a straddle . Think we’re range-bound and want to bet on it? The wonderfully named Iron Condor is for you. Managing volatility is in fact what options are designed to do, so that’s why the CBOE uses the real-world expressions of sentiment from options traders to compute the VIX. The Contango Conundrum Like options themselves, there’s nothing inherently bullish or bearish about the VIX itself. Using either options or futures contracts on the VIX index, investors can bet on either increasing or decreasing volatility. Story continues The problem is that in a low-volatility environment like we’ve been in, most investors are going to guess that future volatility will be higher than today’s volatility, and thus they will bid up the price of the futures contracts themselves. A lot. Here’s what the futures curve looks like right now for the VIX: With VIX at 12, buying the front-month futures contract will cost you 14. To put that in perspective, that means that, if VIX remains at 12, you can expect to lose $2 for every $14 invested in a single month. That $2-a-month decay continues from the first to the second month as well. That means even if you’re right, and VIX is going to rise, you’re facing a 14.2% head wind every month . That’s a 396% head wind every year. Of course, the contango isn’t always this bad, but it’s generally been sharply upward-sloping all year long. If you think that means investing in a long VIX-futures-based ETF for the last year has been tough, you’re right. The top three worst-performing ETFs over the last year all track near-month VIX futures contracts: the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) , the VelocityShares Daily Long VIX Short-Term ETN (VIIX) and the ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY) . ‘Force Of Nature’ For Investors The reason you can’t see three ETF lines on the chart is because these funds are, for all intents and purposes, identical in their returns. The problem is contango: It’s a force of nature, and there’s no getting around it as a futures investor. While this isn’t a pretty chart, it’s worth noting that these funds have done exactly what they said they were going to do day after day. If you went into the month of June with a position in one of these funds, you were up over 25% in a matter of days as you caught the pre-Brexit spike in volatility. But remember, the VIX was never intended as some sort of “long only” asset to invest in—it’s a measurement of the state of the market, just like humidity is a measurement of the state of the atmosphere. Investors can, and do, capitalize on it in other ways, either by shorting funds like this to capture contango, or investing in the suite of inverse products, such as the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV) or the ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SVXY) , that take the opposite bets: Again, two strategies following the same basic strategy—taking the “sell” side of the VIX futures trade. These funds not only profit from contango, they’ve also benefited from relatively calm fluctuations in the VIX itself, which means the daily-rebalance effect common to most leveraged and inverse funds hasn’t cut into returns. Of course, just like June was a great time to be in the long ETFs, it was murderous for these funds: If you got the timing wrong, you could have been down more than 35% in a matter of days when volatility spiked. What’s In An (Inverse) Name? Honestly, at ETF.com, we can end up trapped a bit by our own analytical framework. As a matter of course, we exclude leveraged and inverse funds from things like performance charts, because otherwise, every list would be nothing but the most levered version of whatever theme was hot (or awful) at the time. But in the case of VIX, that leads to some missed opportunities for analysis. A long bet on the VIX is no different than a short bet on the VIX in theoretical terms. VIX is mean-reverting by definition, unlike any other investment I can think of in finance. So to my mind, this bizarre year, or relatively calm markets but high anxiety, has made VIX ETFs both the worst and nearly the-best-performing products in the market. At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Dave Nadig at [email protected] . Recommended Stories Tuesday Hot Reads: 2 Trends That Favor ETFs In 2017 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t Worst Performing ETFs Of The Year Friday Hot Reads: 2016 A Vintage Year For Bitcoin Wednesday Hot Reads: JPMorgan Readies Fixed Income ETF Arsenal Permalink | © Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved || 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t: Sometimes how we feel about the market bears absolutely no resemblance to reality. When I look back at 2016, I’m exhausted. And when I talk to many advisors, I hear similar comments: “What a year!” they say. “We had such an awful winter, and then all the craziness around the election!”
But the reality is that this was actually one of the most placid years in recent history. Here’s the actual, 30-day realized volatility of the S&P 500 for the last 10 years:
What this excellent chart from Bloomberg suggests is that our current market is in one of the lowest volatility periods we’ve seen in ages, and while we’ve had some spikes, particularly in the spring, it’s just about as boring a market as you can get.
Of course, you can’t actually trade this chart; instead, what you can trade, sort of, is the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX—a derivative calculation based on the implied volatility of strips of S&P 500 options. Here’s what the VIX chart looks like over the past 10 years:
Even the quickest glance suggests these are pretty good proxies for each other, and while they’re not identical, they even “base” around the same number: 10 for low-vol periods, 80 for crazy spikes.
And using options is actually sensible, because for a sophisticated investor, making a specific bet on volatility would most easily be done with options. You want to bet the S&P 500 is going to spike in either direction? Options players have a plan for you—a straddle. Think we’re range-bound and want to bet on it? The wonderfully namedIron Condoris for you.
Managing volatility is in fact what options are designed to do, so that’s why the CBOE uses the real-world expressions of sentiment from options traders to compute the VIX.
The Contango Conundrum
Like options themselves, there’s nothing inherently bullish or bearish about the VIX itself. Using either options or futures contracts on the VIX index, investors can bet on either increasing or decreasing volatility.
The problem is that in a low-volatility environment like we’ve been in, most investors are going to guess that future volatility will be higher than today’s volatility, and thus they will bid up the price of the futures contracts themselves. A lot. Here’s what the futures curve looks like right now for the VIX:
With VIX at 12, buying the front-month futures contract will cost you 14. To put that in perspective, that means that, if VIX remains at 12, you can expect to lose $2 for every $14 invested in a single month. That $2-a-month decay continues from the first to the second month as well.
That means even if you’re right, and VIX is going to rise, you’re facing a 14.2% head windevery month. That’s a 396% head wind every year. Of course, thecontangoisn’t always this bad, but it’s generally been sharply upward-sloping all year long.
If you think that means investing in a long VIX-futures-based ETF for the last year has been tough, you’re right. The top three worst-performing ETFs over the last year all track near-month VIX futures contracts: theiPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX), theVelocityShares Daily Long VIX Short-Term ETN (VIIX)and theProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY).
‘Force Of Nature’ For Investors
The reason you can’t see three ETF lines on the chart is because these funds are, for all intents and purposes, identical in their returns. The problem is contango: It’s a force of nature, and there’s no getting around it as a futures investor.
While this isn’t a pretty chart, it’s worth noting that these funds have done exactly what they said they were going to do day after day. If you went into the month of June with a position in one of these funds, you were up over 25% in a matter of days as you caught the pre-Brexit spike in volatility.
But remember, the VIX was never intended as some sort of “long only” asset to invest in—it’s a measurement of the state of the market, just like humidity is a measurement of the state of the atmosphere.
Investors can, and do, capitalize on it in other ways, either by shorting funds like this to capture contango, or investing in the suite of inverse products, such as theVelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV)or theProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SVXY), that take the opposite bets:
Again, two strategies following the same basic strategy—taking the “sell” side of the VIX futures trade. These funds not only profit from contango, they’ve also benefited from relatively calm fluctuations in the VIX itself, which means the daily-rebalance effect common to most leveraged and inverse funds hasn’t cut into returns.
Of course, just like June was a great time to be in the long ETFs, it was murderous for these funds: If you got the timing wrong, you could have been down more than 35% in a matter of days when volatility spiked.
What’s In An (Inverse) Name?
Honestly, at ETF.com, we can end up trapped a bit by our own analytical framework. As a matter of course, we exclude leveraged and inverse funds from things like performance charts, because otherwise, every list would be nothing but the most levered version of whatever theme was hot (or awful) at the time. But in the case of VIX, that leads to some missed opportunities for analysis.
A long bet on the VIX is no different than a short bet on the VIX in theoretical terms. VIX is mean-reverting by definition, unlike any other investment I can think of in finance. So to my mind, this bizarre year, or relatively calm markets but high anxiety, has made VIX ETFs both the worstandnearly the-best-performing products in the market.
At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Dave Nadig [email protected].
Recommended Stories
• Tuesday Hot Reads: 2 Trends That Favor ETFs In 2017
• 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t
• Worst Performing ETFs Of The Year
• Friday Hot Reads: 2016 A Vintage Year For Bitcoin
• Wednesday Hot Reads: JPMorgan Readies Fixed Income ETF Arsenal
Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || Hyperledger Wraps up 2016 By Welcoming Eight New Members: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - December 28, 2016) -Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, announced today that eight new members have joined the project to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications. Last month, Hyperledgerannouncedit reached 100 active members in less than one year, a huge milestone for the open source project, hosted by The Linux Foundation.
"This year has been full of growth for the project," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "Not only did we exceed 100 members, Hyperledger met significant development milestones thanks to the community's hard work. As 2016 was a year of exploration, R&D and prototyping, we're excited for 2017 to be the year we start to see case studies of the technology in production environments."
Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. The latest members include: CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation and Swisscom.
New Member Quotes:
CA Technologies
"To compete today, every company needs to foster innovation that delivers real business value. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the way many of CA's customers do business," said Otto Berkes, chief technology officer, CA Technologies. "We're honored to be a part of Hyperledger and look forward to collaborating with other members to help shape open standards for blockchain. It's an exciting time for this because blockchain is not just about Bitcoin anymore, and the range of potential applications with it is vast for of our customers. This partnership will help us influence what that future looks like for both CA and our customers as they embark on their digital transformation journey."
Factom Foundation
"We are honored to have been selected to join the Hyperledger Project," said Paul Snow, Founder, Factom Foundation. "We are looking forward to helping build the open source framework for securing data and systems with our blockchain solution."
Hashed Health
"Hashed Health is a healthcare technology innovation company focused on accelerating the commercialization of meaningful new blockchain and distributed ledger-based technologies," said John Bass, Hashed Health CEO. "Hashed is proud to be a member of the Hyperledger Project, sharing its commitment to creating the foundation for scalable, reliable blockchain solutions."
Koscom
"We consider blockchain technology as the next generation infrastructure in the Korean capital market. As an industry leader with 40 years' experience in the financial IT field, we are looking to leverage this industry disruptive technology," said Chung Youn Dae, CEO, Koscom. "We will constantly explore the ways to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem, as we collaborate with the Hyperledger community. We also hope to better serve out customers in a more secure and efficient way by integrating blockchain technology and our own Fintech platform."
LedgerDomain
"LedgerDomain delivers next generation supply chain solutions, harnessing permissioned blockchains to assure supply chain integrity and finished product authenticity through to the consumer for the benefit of all. This highly transparent, trustworthy approach is built upon an industrial-strength Hyperledger Fabric backbone," said Dr. Victor Dods, LedgerDomain. "We're proud to be a part of Hyperledger and its growing community."
Lykke
"We're looking forward to being part of the Hyperledger project," said Richard Olsen, Lykke founder and CEO. "Our company is building a digital asset exchange. Right now, we're implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain settlement layer, with Ethereum to come within the next few months, but our involvement with Hyperledger isn't just the next step forward. Providing decentralized settlement on the Hyperledger blockchain with multisignature wallets and atomic swap transactions will benefit both of our user communities."
Swisscom
"We are very proud to be Switzerland's first connection to Hyperledger," said Johannes Höhener, VP, Swisscom's Fintech Cluster. "We look forward to working with a highly professional community on cutting-edge blockchain developments. Our membership and participation will shape our capabilities to develop blockchain solutions -- for our clients and Switzerland."
The success of Hyperledger is due to the support of the developer community and member companies. Learn how your organization can contribute to the project here:https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join
About Hyperledger
The Hyperledger project is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger as a Collaborative Project under the foundation. To learn more, visit:www.hyperledger.org || Hyperledger Wraps up 2016 By Welcoming Eight New Members: SAN FRANCISCO, CA --(Marketwired - December 28, 2016) - Hyperledger Project , a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, announced today that eight new members have joined the project to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications. Last month, Hyperledger announced it reached 100 active members in less than one year, a huge milestone for the open source project, hosted by The Linux Foundation. "This year has been full of growth for the project," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "Not only did we exceed 100 members, Hyperledger met significant development milestones thanks to the community's hard work. As 2016 was a year of exploration, R&D and prototyping, we're excited for 2017 to be the year we start to see case studies of the technology in production environments." Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. The latest members include: CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation and Swisscom. New Member Quotes: CA Technologies "To compete today, every company needs to foster innovation that delivers real business value. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the way many of CA's customers do business," said Otto Berkes, chief technology officer, CA Technologies. "We're honored to be a part of Hyperledger and look forward to collaborating with other members to help shape open standards for blockchain. It's an exciting time for this because blockchain is not just about Bitcoin anymore, and the range of potential applications with it is vast for of our customers. This partnership will help us influence what that future looks like for both CA and our customers as they embark on their digital transformation journey." Story continues Factom Foundation "We are honored to have been selected to join the Hyperledger Project," said Paul Snow, Founder, Factom Foundation. "We are looking forward to helping build the open source framework for securing data and systems with our blockchain solution." Hashed Health "Hashed Health is a healthcare technology innovation company focused on accelerating the commercialization of meaningful new blockchain and distributed ledger-based technologies," said John Bass, Hashed Health CEO. "Hashed is proud to be a member of the Hyperledger Project, sharing its commitment to creating the foundation for scalable, reliable blockchain solutions." Koscom "We consider blockchain technology as the next generation infrastructure in the Korean capital market. As an industry leader with 40 years' experience in the financial IT field, we are looking to leverage this industry disruptive technology," said Chung Youn Dae, CEO, Koscom. "We will constantly explore the ways to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem, as we collaborate with the Hyperledger community. We also hope to better serve out customers in a more secure and efficient way by integrating blockchain technology and our own Fintech platform." LedgerDomain "LedgerDomain delivers next generation supply chain solutions, harnessing permissioned blockchains to assure supply chain integrity and finished product authenticity through to the consumer for the benefit of all. This highly transparent, trustworthy approach is built upon an industrial-strength Hyperledger Fabric backbone," said Dr. Victor Dods, LedgerDomain. "We're proud to be a part of Hyperledger and its growing community." Lykke "We're looking forward to being part of the Hyperledger project," said Richard Olsen, Lykke founder and CEO. "Our company is building a digital asset exchange. Right now, we're implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain settlement layer, with Ethereum to come within the next few months, but our involvement with Hyperledger isn't just the next step forward. Providing decentralized settlement on the Hyperledger blockchain with multisignature wallets and atomic swap transactions will benefit both of our user communities." Swisscom "We are very proud to be Switzerland's first connection to Hyperledger," said Johannes Höhener, VP, Swisscom's Fintech Cluster. "We look forward to working with a highly professional community on cutting-edge blockchain developments. Our membership and participation will shape our capabilities to develop blockchain solutions -- for our clients and Switzerland." The success of Hyperledger is due to the support of the developer community and member companies. Learn how your organization can contribute to the project here: https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join About Hyperledger The Hyperledger project is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger as a Collaborative Project under the foundation. To learn more, visit: www.hyperledger.org || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Soccer fan masks (General view of a fan with Jamie Vardy masks on the seats before the match.Reuters/Reuters Staff) Here is what you need to know. Dow 20,000 is in the crosshairs . The Dow Jones Industrial Average booked a fractional gain on Tuesday, finishing at 19,945.04. The index is set to open higher by 0.1% near 19,971. Bitcoin is up again . The cryptocurrency is up about 3% at $958, and trading at its best level since November 2013. Bitcoin has gained $135, or 16.4%, over the past week. Toshiba crashes after warning of a multi-billion dollar writedown . Shares of the chips-to-construction group tumbled 20% on Wednesday after the company warned it might need to take a larger than expected writedown on its acquisition of Chicago Bridge & Iron. Delta cancels an order from Boeing . Delta Air Lines has canceled an order for 18 Boeing widebody 787 Dreamliner jets, with a list price of $4 billion, that was inherited from its takeover of Northwest Airlines, the Seattle Times says. BP is buying gas stations in Australia . The London-based oil giant has agreed to pay $1.3 billion for Woolworths' 527 retail fuel outlets in Australia, according to Bloomberg. Qualcomm got hit with an $854 million fine by South Korea . The Korea Fair Trade Commission, South Korea's antitrust regulator, has ruled that Qualcomm hindered competition as a result of its business practices of patent licensing and smartphone modem chip sales, Reuters reports. Panasonic is investing in a Tesla production facility . Panasonic will invest $256 million in a Tesla production facility that makes photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules, Reuters reports. CEO pay is rising in the UK, but "economic profit" isn't . A report released by the CFA Institute showed CEO pay in the UK has climbed 82% in the last 13 years, but the average company generated less than a 1% return for investors. Stock markets around the world are up . Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.8%) paced the gains overnight and Britain's FTSE (+0.4%) leads in Europe. Story continues US economic data trickles out. Pending home sales will be released at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is unchanged at 2.56%. More From Business Insider Alt-right movement descends into civil war after leading figure is booted from Trump inauguration event 'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher is dead at 60 Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: (General view of a fan with Jamie Vardy masks on the seats before the match.Reuters/Reuters Staff)
Here is what you need to know.
Dow 20,000 is in the crosshairs.The Dow Jones Industrial Average booked a fractional gain on Tuesday, finishing at 19,945.04. The index is set to open higher by 0.1% near 19,971.
Bitcoin is up again.The cryptocurrency is up about 3% at $958, and trading at its best level since November 2013. Bitcoin has gained $135, or 16.4%, over the past week.
Toshiba crashes after warning of a multi-billion dollar writedown.Shares of thechips-to-construction group tumbled 20% on Wednesday after the company warned it might need to take a larger than expected writedown on its acquisition ofChicago Bridge & Iron.
Delta cancels an order from Boeing.Delta Air Lines has canceled an order for 18Boeing widebody 787 Dreamliner jets, with a list price of $4 billion, that was inherited from its takeover of Northwest Airlines, the Seattle Times says.
BP is buying gas stations in Australia.The London-based oil giant has agreed to pay $1.3 billion for Woolworths' 527 retail fuel outlets in Australia, according to Bloomberg.
Qualcomm got hit with an $854 million fine by South Korea.TheKorea Fair Trade Commission, South Korea's antitrust regulator, has ruled that Qualcomm hindered competition as a result of itsbusiness practices of patent licensing and smartphone modem chip sales, Reuters reports.
Panasonic is investing in a Tesla production facility.Panasonic will invest $256 million in a Tesla production facility that makesphotovoltaic (PV) cells and modules, Reuters reports.
CEO pay is rising in the UK, but "economic profit" isn't.A report released by the CFA Institute showed CEO pay in the UK has climbed 82% in the last 13 years, but the average company generated less than a 1% return for investors.
Stock markets around the world are up.Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.8%) paced the gains overnight and Britain's FTSE (+0.4%) leads in Europe.
US economic data trickles out.Pending home sales will be released at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is unchanged at 2.56%.
More From Business Insider
• Alt-right movement descends into civil war after leading figure is booted from Trump inauguration event
• 'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher is dead at 60
• Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know: traffic jam (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Stocks did virtually nothing as skeleton crews returned after the Christmas holiday. All of the major indices managed to scrape into the green, but still finished little changed. The Nasdaq closed at an all-time high. And now, for the scoreboard: Dow: 19,945.04, +11.23, (0.06%) S&P 500: 2,268.88, +5.09, (0.22%) Nasdaq: 5,487.44, +24.75, (0.45%) US 10-year yield: +2.4 basis points at 2.561% 1. Bitcoin soars . The cryptocurrency rallied 4% to $935, its best level in three years. Bitcoin has gained about 30% since the US election. 2. Consumer confidence jumps to its best level since August 2001 . Monthly data released by the Conference Board showed the Consumer Confidence Index hit 113.7 in December, its highest level since July 2007. Increasing expectations for the future were the sole reason for the move. 3. US home prices hit a post-financial crisis high . Home prices gained 5.6% annually in October, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. The biggest gains were seen in Seattle, Denver, and Portland. ADDITIONALLY: The most important driver of the stock market will change in 2017 Bailing out the world's oldest bank is getting more expensive Vietnam could be 'sowing the seeds of the next crisis 'The market will correctly judge his administration on policy, not 3 a.m. tweets' The Fed has given Trump cover to unwind a key Wall Street rule NOW WATCH: Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates More From Business Insider 'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher is dead at 60 The death of Queen Elizabeth will be the most disruptive event in Britain in the last 70 years STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know || STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know: (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Stocks did virtually nothing as skeleton crews returned after the Christmas holiday.
All of the major indices managed to scrape into the green, but still finished little changed. The Nasdaq closed at an all-time high.
And now, for the scoreboard:
• Dow:19,945.04, +11.23, (0.06%)
• S&P 500:2,268.88, +5.09, (0.22%)
• Nasdaq:5,487.44, +24.75, (0.45%)
• US 10-year yield:+2.4 basis points at 2.561%
1.Bitcoin soars. The cryptocurrency rallied 4% to $935, its best level in three years. Bitcoin has gained about 30% since the US election.
2.Consumer confidence jumps to its best level since August 2001. Monthly data released by the Conference Board showed the Consumer Confidence Index hit 113.7 in December, its highest level since July 2007. Increasing expectations for the future were the sole reason for the move.
3.US home prices hit a post-financial crisis high. Home prices gained 5.6% annually in October, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. The biggest gains were seen in Seattle, Denver, and Portland.
ADDITIONALLY:
The most important driver of the stock market will change in 2017
Bailing out the world's oldest bank is getting more expensive
Vietnam could be 'sowing the seeds of the next crisis
'The market will correctly judge his administration on policy, not 3 a.m. tweets'
The Fed has given Trump cover to unwind a key Wall Street rule
NOW WATCH:Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates
More From Business Insider
• 'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher is dead at 60
• The death of Queen Elizabeth will be the most disruptive event in Britain in the last 70 years
• STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know || 7 ETF Areas to Hog the Limelight in 2017: As 2016 comes to a close, Brexit, Donald Trumps win as the U.S. president and the OPEC output cut deal are clearly the highlights of the year. However, there are plenty of other events that havent been able to leave a mark but could prove to be game-changers next year. In view of this, we intend to highlight a few areas (and their impact on the ETF world) that are likely to draw investors attention in 2017. Oil The global investing world is expected to be busy analyzing the progress of the OPEC output cut deal since the start of 2017. On November 30, OPEC decided to slash production by about 1.2 million barrels a day from January for six months. Plus, on December 10, OPEC also cut their first deal with non-OPEC since 2001 to reduce output next year. The pact will likely result in an aggregate supply cut of 1.7 million barrels a day. Some analysts like Goldman now believe that oil can scale higher to about $60 early next year from the current $50 plus level. However, there are people who expect the deal to be not as effective as it seems now. Even if OPEC manages to be true to the deal, U.S. shale oil production will likely gain traction, bringing back oversupply into the market and weighing on oil prices. All these should keep oil ETFs like United States Oil USO, Brent crude ETF United States Brent Oil BNO and energy ETFs like Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF XLE on investors radar (read: How Effective is the OPEC Deal for an Oil ETF Rally?) Trump vs Fed Trump has raised hopes of fiscal reflation and taken stocks to a new height. If he keeps all his promises after taking presidential office and inflationary expectations continue to surge, the Fed might be able to implement the three forecasted rate hikes in 2017 (read: Sole Fed Hike of 2016 Put These ETFs in Focus). And if the Fed opts for faster rate hikes next year, bond ETFs like iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond TLT and dividend ETFs like SPDR S&P Dividend ETF SDY may face pressure. Meanwhile, ProShares High YieldInterest Rate Hedged ETF HYHG or inverse bond ETFs like Barclays Inverse US Treasury Aggregate ETN TAPR are poised to benefit (read: Hedged & Inverse Bond ETFs to the Rescue if Rates Rise). Story continues Global Inflation Inflationary outlook is finally shoring up in developed economies, albeit slowly. Prolonged easy money policies by global central banks, the OPEC move and the Trump effect made it happen. Expectations of a spurt in global inflation are now at the highest level in over 12 years. Global TIPS ETF PIMCO Global Advantage Inflation-Linked Bond Active ETF ILB w ill thus be on the watch list of investors (read: Will 2017 Be a Year of Global Reflation & TIPS ETFs?). Commodity Now thats tricky! If the greenback retains its strength, commodity investing should take a backseat as these are priced in the U.S. dollar. However, several industrial metals should do well on better demand-supply dynamics. This is especially possible given the recovery in the global manufacturing activities including the all-important China, which consumes a major portion of the global industrial metals. So, ETFs like iPath Pure Beta Aluminum ETN FOIL, iPath Pure Beta Copper ETN CUPM and iPath Bloomberg Tin SubTR ETN JJT will likely grab the spotlight. Cyber Security Cyber security breaches are on the rise of late. This has compelled companies to invest billions of dollars annually to counter such attacks. Most recently, the hack on Yahoo which revealed data from over 1 billion accounts once again stressed on the need for cybersecurity and has put First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF CIBR and PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF HACK in focus. India Indias pro-growth political changes in 2014 had shaped it into a hot investing zone. Most economic episodes also went in favor of Asias third-largest economy, including a drastic fall in inflation arising from the oil price crash and an improvement in current account deficit. Moreover, due to cooling inflation, the Indian central bank (RBI) resorted to rate cuts several times in the last one and a half years. However, most recently, in order to put a check on tax evasion and counterfeit notes, high-denomination bank notes were withdrawn in India. This resulted in cash crunch and growth forecast cuts by some analysts. Fitch rating reduced Indias GDP forecast to 6.9% from the prior estimate of 7.4% for the current financial year. But then, Moody's indicated that Indian companies will likely witness the strongest profit growth over 18 months. Now it would be interesting to see if India ETFs like WisdomTree India Earnings ETF EPI can survive the threats from demonetization in 2017 (read: What Lies Ahead for India ETFs?). Bitcoin Even if we are yet to have a bitcoin ETF, one is expected to hit the market in 2017. Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust has filed for one to make it easy for investors to bet on this soaring digital currency. As per CNBC, bitcoin is a very volatile asset but doesnt have a strong correlation with other classes. Bitcoins value has beaten the $800 mark for the first time since February 2014. India's demonetization also gave a boost to bitcoin trading volumes. Moreover, trading volumes in China have been solid with the government taking proactive measures against illegal money transfer. With this, investors expect to see an approval of the first bitcoin ETF in 2017. Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report ISHARS-20+YTB (TLT): ETF Research Reports US-OIL FUND LP (USO): ETF Research Reports PURFDS-ISE CYBR (HACK): ETF Research Reports US BRENT OIL FD (BNO): ETF Research Reports SPDR-EGY SELS (XLE): ETF Research Reports PIMCO-GA ILBETF (ILB): ETF Research Reports IPATH-PB ALUMNM (FOIL): ETF Research Reports SPDR-SP DIV ETF (SDY): ETF Research Reports IPATH-BB TIN (JJT): ETF Research Reports FT-NDQ CYBERSEC (CIBR): ETF Research Reports BARCLY-INV USTC (TAPR): ETF Research Reports WISDMTR-IN EARN (EPI): ETF Research Reports IPATH-PB COPPER (CUPM): ETF Research Reports PRO-HI YLD IRH (HYHG): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || 7 ETF Areas to Hog the Limelight in 2017: As 2016 comes to a close, Brexit, Donald Trump’s win as the U.S. president and the OPEC output cut deal are clearly the highlights of the year. However, there are plenty of other events that haven’t been able to leave a mark but could prove to be game-changers next year.
In view of this, we intend to highlight a few areas (and their impact on the ETF world) that are likely to draw investors’ attention in 2017.
Oil
The global investing world is expected to be busy analyzing the progress of the OPEC output cut deal since the start of 2017. On November 30, OPEC decided to slash production by about 1.2 million barrels a day from January for six months. Plus, on December 10, OPEC also cut their first deal with non-OPEC since 2001 to reduce output next year.
The pact will likely result in “an aggregate supply cut of 1.7 million barrels a day.” Some analysts like Goldman now believe that oil can scale higher to about $60 early next year from the current $50 plus level.
However, there are people who expect the deal to be not as effective as it seems now. Even if OPEC manages to be true to the deal, U.S. shale oil production will likely gain traction, bringing back oversupply into the market and weighing on oil prices.
All these should keep oil ETFs likeUnited States OilUSO, Brent crude ETFUnited States Brent OilBNO and energy ETFs likeEnergy Select Sector SPDR ETFXLE on investors radar (read: How Effective is the OPEC Deal for an Oil ETF Rally?)
Trump vs Fed
Trump has raised hopes of fiscal reflation and taken stocks to a new height. If he keeps all his promises after taking presidential office and inflationary expectations continue to surge, the Fed might be able to implement the three forecasted rate hikes in 2017 (read: Sole Fed Hike of 2016 Put These ETFs in Focus).
And if the Fed opts for faster rate hikes next year, bond ETFs likeiShares 20+ Year Treasury BondTLT and dividend ETFs likeSPDR S&P Dividend ETFSDY may face pressure. Meanwhile,ProShares High Yield—Interest Rate Hedged ETFHYHG or inverse bond ETFs likeBarclays Inverse US Treasury Aggregate ETNTAPRare poised to benefit (read: Hedged & Inverse Bond ETFs to the Rescue if Rates Rise).
Global Inflation
Inflationary outlook is finally shoring up in developed economies, albeit slowly. Prolonged easy money policies by global central banks, the OPEC move and the Trump effect made it happen. Expectations of a spurt in global inflation are now at the highest level in over 12 years. Global TIPS ETF –PIMCO Global Advantage Inflation-Linked Bond Active ETF ILB– will thus be on the watch list of investors (read: Will 2017 Be a Year of Global Reflation & TIPS ETFs?).
Commodity
Now that’s tricky! If the greenback retains its strength, commodity investing should take a backseat as these are priced in the U.S. dollar. However, several industrial metals should do well on better demand-supply dynamics. This is especially possible given the recovery in the global manufacturing activities including the all-important China, which consumes a major portion of the global industrial metals. So, ETFs likeiPath Pure Beta Aluminum ETNFOIL,iPath Pure Beta Copper ETNCUPM andiPath Bloomberg Tin SubTR ETNJJT will likely grab the spotlight.
Cyber Security
Cyber security breaches are on the rise of late. This has compelled companies to invest billions of dollars annually to counter such attacks. Most recently, the hack on Yahoo which revealed data from over 1 billion accounts once again stressed on the need for cybersecurity and has putFirst Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETFCIBR andPureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETFHACK in focus.
India
India’s pro-growth political changes in 2014 had shaped it into a hot investing zone. Most economic episodes also went in favor of Asia’s third-largest economy, including a drastic fall in inflation arising from the oil price crash and an improvement in current account deficit. Moreover, due to cooling inflation, the Indian central bank (RBI) resorted to rate cuts several times in the last one and a half years.
However, most recently, in order to put a check on tax evasion and counterfeit notes, high-denomination bank notes were withdrawn in India. This resulted in cash crunch and growth forecast cuts by some analysts. Fitch rating reduced India’s GDP forecast to 6.9% from the prior estimate of 7.4% for the current financial year.
But then, Moody's indicated that Indian companies will likely witness “the strongest profit growth over 18 months.” Now it would be interesting to see if India ETFs likeWisdomTree India Earnings ETFEPI can survive the threats from demonetization in 2017 (read: What Lies Ahead for India ETFs?).
Bitcoin
Even if we are yet to have a bitcoin ETF, one is expected to hit the market in 2017. Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust has filed for one to make it easy for investors to bet on this soaring digital currency. As per CNBC, “bitcoin is a very volatile asset” but doesn’t have a strong correlation with other classes. Bitcoin’s value has beaten the $800 mark for the first time since February 2014.
India's demonetization also gave a boost to bitcoin trading volumes. Moreover, trading volumes in China have been solid with the government taking proactive measures against illegal money transfer. With this, investors expect to see an approval of the first bitcoin ETF in 2017.
Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox?
Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportISHARS-20+YTB (TLT): ETF Research ReportsUS-OIL FUND LP (USO): ETF Research ReportsPURFDS-ISE CYBR (HACK): ETF Research ReportsUS BRENT OIL FD (BNO): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-EGY SELS (XLE): ETF Research ReportsPIMCO-GA ILBETF (ILB): ETF Research ReportsIPATH-PB ALUMNM (FOIL): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP DIV ETF (SDY): ETF Research ReportsIPATH-BB TIN (JJT): ETF Research ReportsFT-NDQ CYBERSEC (CIBR): ETF Research ReportsBARCLY-INV USTC (TAPR): ETF Research ReportsWISDMTR-IN EARN (EPI): ETF Research ReportsIPATH-PB COPPER (CUPM): ETF Research ReportsPRO-HI YLD IRH (HYHG): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || 2 big banks are backing a startup doing for global trade what Google did for advertising: Tradeshift Christian Lanng (Tradeshift founder and CEO Christian Lanng.Tradeshift) LONDON — Santander announced a few weeks ago that it is making an undisclosed investment in Tradeshift, a Danish fintech company. The Spanish bank joins HSBC, American Express, and CreditEase, China's biggest online lender, in backing the six-year-old company. What do they all see in it? "What we do is a fairly new thing," founder and CEO Christian Lanng told Business Insider in an interview. "We provide essentially a network to connect companies that do business together." Tradeshift's platform is a little like Salesforce but for managing global trade networks. Lanng explains: "We work with some of the largest companies in the world like DHL and the NHS. We help them connect their global supply chain. "In the case of DHL, it’s hundreds of thousands of suppliers around the world who are connected. Once they’re connected they can then do business with them and that means all of the invoicing, purchasing, risk assessment of suppliers, collaboration." Lanng adds: "Any new business process you want to roll out is essentially just an app sitting on top of the platform. Say I would love to do corporate social responsibility management or track carbon in my supply chain, it’s just an app you activate and deploy. It’s a whole new approach to managing your business and business processes." The cloud-based platform works with over 800,000 companies across 190 countries and counts 75 Fortune 500 businesses as customers. What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you. As well as simply looking like a shrewd investment for the likes of HSBC and Santander, Tradeshift offers banks the opportunity to pitch for business. Lanng says: "In the old days, it made sense for the bank to have a branch next to the marketplace because it’s a physical location. In 2016, it makes sense for the branch to have branches where the trade is, which is now virtual. So on our platform." Story continues He adds: "What Google did was make advertising much more relevant for you. What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you." Google targets ads based on what you are searching for and have searched for in the past, giving it a good idea of the type of things you might like. Tradeshift similarly gets an overview of how businesses are working and interacting, meaning it can offer up financing when it is most needed and the right type of financing. Lanng says: "When the supplier receives that big purchase order from lets say DHL, that’s a really good time to go to them and say would you like some really cheap financing for the next 6 months to finance your fulfillment of that purchase order." Tradershift does not provide any financing itself, however. Lanng says: "Our approach has been to take a marketplace approach. We say, 'look, we will let anybody provide services on top of our platform, we will take a small fee for providing data, and we will obviously help place the funding with firms who have the need.'" Deutsche Bank recently made the bold call that the world has reached "peak globalisation," predicting a decline in global trade as nations become more inward looking. Bad news for Tradeshift? Lanng is skeptical. "It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade," he says. "I think global trade patterns will change but it won’t peak," he said. "I think you will start to see a lot of nations just starting to tap into global trade now. You’re seeing a whole ascendant South East Asia. You’re seeing a whole new phenomenon which I think is extremely interesting and that is Chinese consumers buying more from Western suppliers. We’re working on a huge project right now around connecting Western suppliers into the Chinese market, a reverse of the flow you saw before. "If you’re looking at a 3 to 5-year perspective maybe [it’s declining]," he says. "If you’re looking at 30, 40, 50-year perspective, not at all." Still, Donald Trump has also vowed to bring jobs back to America from China and Brexit may well herald a decline in international trade, which is already wobbling. Surely this will at least mean some short-term pain for Tradeshift? Again, Lanng takes a contrarian view. "Our goal is lowering the friction and if there are more barriers internationally then actually we can provide an even more valuable service because we can help navigate those," he says. It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade. "One theme we’ve been talking about for the last 3 years is: be very careful because your supply chain and your business is set up for a market that predicts stability," Lanng says. "The way you source your goods, the way you run your supply chain, the way you roll out your IT systems are all built on the idea that things are going to remain the same. "The problem that you have is when there’s change in the market like Brexit, Trump, TTP being torn up, these companies now have a very high cost of change. "Now there’s a premium on agility in supply chains and lowering your cost of change and being flexible. This is what we’re selling to customers. If you’re buying SAP you’re buying something that is extremely robust but extremely brittle in some other ways. But if you’re buying Tradeshift you’re buying something that’s extremely flexible because it’s set up as a network, it’s easy to reconfigure, you can update some of our processes on the fly." Investors are siding with Lanng. Tradeshift was valued at over $500 million in its latest funding round earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. NOW WATCH: Why Korean parents are paying for their kids to get plastic surgery More From Business Insider Bitcoin is surging Here's why 2017 will be a turning point for the UK marketplace lending industry The price of bitcoin is at a 2016 high || 2 big banks are backing a startup doing for global trade what Google did for advertising: (Tradeshift founder and CEO Christian Lanng.Tradeshift)
LONDON — Santander announced a few weeks ago that it is making an undisclosed investment in Tradeshift, a Danish fintech company.
The Spanish bank joins HSBC, American Express, and CreditEase, China's biggest online lender, in backing the six-year-old company. What do they all see in it?
"What we do is a fairly new thing," founder and CEO Christian Lanng told Business Insider in an interview. "We provide essentially a network to connect companies that do business together."
Tradeshift's platform is a little like Salesforce but for managing global trade networks. Lanng explains: "We work with some of the largest companies in the world like DHL and the NHS. We help them connect their global supply chain.
"In the case of DHL, it’s hundreds of thousands of suppliers around the world who are connected. Once they’re connected they can then do business with them and that means all of the invoicing, purchasing, risk assessment of suppliers, collaboration."
Lanng adds: "Any new business process you want to roll out is essentially just an app sitting on top of the platform. Say I would love to do corporate social responsibility management or track carbon in my supply chain, it’s just an app you activate and deploy. It’s a whole new approach to managing your business and business processes."
The cloud-based platform works with over 800,000 companies across 190 countries and counts 75 Fortune 500 businesses as customers.
What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you.
As well as simply looking like a shrewd investment for the likes of HSBC and Santander, Tradeshift offers banks the opportunity to pitch for business.
Lanng says: "In the old days, it made sense for the bank to have a branch next to the marketplace because it’s a physical location. In 2016, it makes sense for the branch to have branches where the trade is, which is now virtual. So on our platform."
He adds: "What Google did was make advertising much more relevant for you. What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you."
Google targets ads based on what you are searching for and have searched for in the past, giving it a good idea of the type of things you might like.
Tradeshift similarly gets an overview of how businesses are working and interacting, meaning it can offer up financing when it is most needed and the right type of financing.
Lanng says: "When the supplier receives that big purchase order from lets say DHL, that’s a really good time to go to them and say would you like some really cheap financing for the next 6 months to finance your fulfillment of that purchase order."
Tradershift does not provide any financing itself, however. Lanng says: "Our approach has been to take a marketplace approach. We say, 'look, we will let anybody provide services on top of our platform, we will take a small fee for providing data, and we will obviously help place the funding with firms who have the need.'"
Deutsche Bank recently made the bold call thatthe world has reached "peak globalisation,"predicting a decline in global trade as nations become more inward looking. Bad news for Tradeshift? Lanng is skeptical.
"It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade," he says. "I think global trade patterns will change but it won’t peak," he said.
"I think you will start to see a lot of nations just starting to tap into global trade now. You’re seeing a whole ascendant South East Asia. You’re seeing a whole new phenomenon which I think is extremely interesting and that is Chinese consumers buying more from Western suppliers. We’re working on a huge project right now around connecting Western suppliers into the Chinese market, a reverse of the flow you saw before.
"If you’re looking at a 3 to 5-year perspective maybe [it’s declining]," he says. "If you’re looking at 30, 40, 50-year perspective, not at all."
Still, Donald Trump has also vowed to bring jobs back to America from China and Brexit may well herald a decline in international trade, which is already wobbling. Surely this will at least mean some short-term pain for Tradeshift?
Again, Lanng takes a contrarian view. "Our goal is lowering the friction and if there are more barriers internationally then actually we can provide an even more valuable service because we can help navigate those," he says.
It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade.
"One theme we’ve been talking about for the last 3 years is: be very careful because your supply chain and your business is set up for a market that predicts stability," Lanng says.
"The way you source your goods, the way you run your supply chain, the way you roll out your IT systems are all built on the idea that things are going to remain the same.
"The problem that you have is when there’s change in the market like Brexit, Trump, TTP being torn up, these companies now have a very high cost of change.
"Now there’s a premium on agility in supply chains and lowering your cost of change and being flexible. This is what we’re selling to customers. If you’re buying SAP you’re buying something that is extremely robust but extremely brittle in some other ways. But if you’re buying Tradeshift you’re buying something that’s extremely flexible because it’s set up as a network, it’s easy to reconfigure, you can update some of our processes on the fly."
Investors are siding with Lanng. Tradeshift wasvalued at over $500 million in its latest funding round earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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• Bitcoin is surging
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• The price of bitcoin is at a 2016 high || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Man waving (A fisherman from India at the window of a train at Cantonment railway station in Karachi, Pakistan, after he was released with others from a prison.Reuters/Akhtar Soomro) Here is what you need to know. US Markets are back from Christmas break . Markets are set to open little changed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovering near 19,935. The US 10-year yield is higher by 2 basis points at 2.56%. China is home to the world's hottest housing market . Home prices in Nanjing, China, are up 42.9% year-over-year in the third quarter, making it the world's hottest housing market, according to data from the property consultancy and estate agency Knight Frank. Consumer prices fell in Tokyo . Prices slumped 0.6% year-over-year, making for the biggest drop since February 2013. The Japanese yen is weaker by 0.2% at 117.31 per dollar. A Harvard graduate has been named as a vice governor at the PBoC . Yin Yong, who holds a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University, was named vice governor at the People's Bank of China. Bitcoin is charging higher . The cryptocurrency is higher by 1.6% at $912 and is trading at its best level in three years. Monte Paschi needs cash . The debt-ridden Italian bank needs 8.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion) to strengthen its balance sheet, Reuters reports, citing two sources close to the matter. Toshiba might take a huge write-down on its nuclear acquisition . Toshiba may need to take several billion dollars' worth of losses related to its acquisition of Chicago Bridge & Iron, which Westinghouse says owes it more than $2 billion, Reuters reports. Tepco is considering a bond sale . Tokyo Electric Power Company is considering its first bond offering since its 2011 nuclear disaster, Reuters reports, citing people familiar with the plans. Stock markets around the world are quiet . China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) slipped in overnight trade, and Germany's DAX (+0.2%) leads in Europe. Markets remained closed in Australia, Hong Kong, and the UK. Story continues US economic data flows. Case-Shiller home prices will be released at 9 a.m. ET, and consumer confidence will cross the wire at 10 a.m. ET. More From Business Insider Israel has reportedly suspended ties with 12 UN Security Council nations Republicans have a massive plan to overhaul the tax code — here's how it would work Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: (A fisherman from India at the window of a train at Cantonment railway station in Karachi, Pakistan, after he was released with others from a prison.Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)
Here is what you need to know.
US Markets are back from Christmas break.Markets are set to open little changed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovering near 19,935. The US 10-year yield is higher by 2 basis points at 2.56%.
China is home to the world's hottest housing market.Home prices in Nanjing, China, are up 42.9% year-over-year in the third quarter, making it the world's hottest housing market, according to data from the property consultancy and estate agency Knight Frank.
Consumer prices fell in Tokyo.Prices slumped 0.6% year-over-year, making for the biggest drop since February 2013. The Japanese yen is weaker by 0.2% at 117.31 per dollar.
A Harvard graduate has been named as a vice governor at the PBoC.Yin Yong, who holds a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University, was named vice governor at the People's Bank of China.
Bitcoin is charging higher.The cryptocurrency is higher by 1.6% at $912 and is trading at its best level in three years.
Monte Paschi needs cash.The debt-ridden Italian bank needs 8.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion) to strengthen its balance sheet, Reuters reports, citing two sources close to the matter.
Toshiba might take a huge write-down on its nuclear acquisition.Toshiba may need to take several billion dollars' worth of losses related to its acquisition of Chicago Bridge & Iron, which Westinghouse says owes it more than $2 billion, Reuters reports.
Tepco is considering a bond sale.Tokyo Electric Power Company is considering its first bond offering since its 2011 nuclear disaster, Reuters reports, citing people familiar with the plans.
Stock markets around the world are quiet.China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) slipped in overnight trade, and Germany's DAX (+0.2%) leads in Europe. Markets remained closed in Australia, Hong Kong, and the UK.
US economic data flows.Case-Shiller home prices will be released at 9 a.m. ET, and consumer confidence will cross the wire at 10 a.m. ET.
More From Business Insider
• Israel has reportedly suspended ties with 12 UN Security Council nations
• Republicans have a massive plan to overhaul the tax code — here's how it would work
• Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || Game Development and Blockchain Integration Will Boost Cryptocurrency’s Worldwide Expansion: Game development, led by blockchain solutions like GameCredits, can boost the adoption rate of cryptocurrency worldwide, Forbes.com asserts. GameCredits payment gateway is now successfully tested in the Free MMO FRAGORIA by hundreds of players.
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 23, 2016 /A revolution in game development occurred December 7th when global game developer Datcroft, launched GameCredits’ blockchain payment gateway in their title game Fragoria. GameCredits payment gateway offers the first cryptocurrency payment solution designed for the gaming industry. GameCredits payment gateway is LIVE within popular RPG Fragoria. After barely 2 weeks of release, thousands of players are already trying the system within the 8 million player game. Unlike other blockchain gaming products, this pioneering blockchain solution was founded by gaming industry experts.Gamecredits, as featured in a recent Forbes article, will help to widespread cryptocurrency around the world.Game developers who seek fast payment processing, increased security, higher consumer deposit limits, and decreased fees can now take advantage of the open source platform provided by Datcroft and GameCredits. This payment system allows any user to access the GameCredits blockchain web wallet directly from their game store. Datcroft introduced this system to the 8 million registered users of theRPG Fragoria, where players can now choose to purchase in-game items or currency with GameCredits, “GAME”. Gamers who choose to pay with “GAME” will reap the benefits of increasing currency value, transferability, anonymity, and increased security. By using Gamecredits, video games can establish rich economic ecosystems using a tangible digital asset.Partnering with Gamecredits, Datcroft is paving the way for the future of gaming. A future where video games are based on a digital currency, opening the doors for currency transfer and new marketplaces. Ultimately, this means more revenue in the pockets of developers and more opportunities for gamers.To take advantage of this payment gateway, developers will be able to access GameCredits open source API (Application Program Interface). After access to the program, developers can quickly add gamecredits as a means of payment within their games. This payment system will instantly reduce transaction costs and fees thereby attracting more game development experts over time.Datcroft Games and GameCredits are excited to unveil this platform to the game development community. The payment system is specifically tested to meet the needs of players in successful games such as Fragoria. Sergey Sholom CEO of Datcroft Games explains, “This is the first gaming centered cryptocurrency designed by game developers for game developers. For a blockchain integration such as this to be successful, you must have a team with a background in game development. Only then can you bring a proprietary product like GameCredits to the marketplace and have it succeed”. By joining forces, Datcroft' and GameCredits provide the necessary gaming expertise to significantly impact the gaming world.The two companies have a working plan for the future of GameCredits. First, they will continue to test the payment solution within Fragoria, working out any design issues and minor bugs. Second, they will integrate the gateway into another successful Datcroft game, Get the Gun, allowing them to further test the solution and work out kinks that could occur in a different game format. Third, credit card and Paypal payment options will be added to the gateway so gamers can purchase GameCredits without having to first buy Bitcoin. Finally, the companies will roll out announcements for mobile gaming solutions.With over 13 years of experience in game development, Datcroft Games strives to provide innovative and unique gaming experiences. Their dedication to these goals will further bolster GameCredits capabilities as the companies revolutionize the world of blockchain gaming.For more information, please visithttp://gamecredits.com
Contact:Name: Nebojša MaksimovićEmail: [email protected]: GameCredits Inc
Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK7S59NAo0Q
Source:Game Credits Inc. || Game Development and Blockchain Integration Will Boost Cryptocurrency’s Worldwide Expansion: Game development, led by blockchain solutions like GameCredits, can boost the adoption rate of cryptocurrency worldwide, Forbes.com asserts. GameCredits payment gateway is now successfully tested in the Free MMO FRAGORIA by hundreds of players. LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 23, 2016 / A revolution in game development occurred December 7th when global game developer Datcroft, launched GameCredits’ blockchain payment gateway in their title game Fragoria. GameCredits payment gateway offers the first cryptocurrency payment solution designed for the gaming industry. GameCredits payment gateway is LIVE within popular RPG Fragoria. After barely 2 weeks of release, thousands of players are already trying the system within the 8 million player game. Unlike other blockchain gaming products, this pioneering blockchain solution was founded by gaming industry experts. Gamecredits, as featured in a recent Forbes article , will help to widespread cryptocurrency around the world. Game developers who seek fast payment processing, increased security, higher consumer deposit limits, and decreased fees can now take advantage of the open source platform provided by Datcroft and GameCredits. This payment system allows any user to access the GameCredits blockchain web wallet directly from their game store. Datcroft introduced this system to the 8 million registered users of the RPG Fragoria , where players can now choose to purchase in-game items or currency with GameCredits, “GAME”. Gamers who choose to pay with “GAME” will reap the benefits of increasing currency value, transferability, anonymity, and increased security. By using Gamecredits, video games can establish rich economic ecosystems using a tangible digital asset. Partnering with Gamecredits, Datcroft is paving the way for the future of gaming. A future where video games are based on a digital currency, opening the doors for currency transfer and new marketplaces. Ultimately, this means more revenue in the pockets of developers and more opportunities for gamers. To take advantage of this payment gateway, developers will be able to access GameCredits open source API (Application Program Interface). After access to the program, developers can quickly add gamecredits as a means of payment within their games. This payment system will instantly reduce transaction costs and fees thereby attracting more game development experts over time. Datcroft Games and GameCredits are excited to unveil this platform to the game development community. The payment system is specifically tested to meet the needs of players in successful games such as Fragoria. Sergey Sholom CEO of Datcroft Games explains, “This is the first gaming centered cryptocurrency designed by game developers for game developers. For a blockchain integration such as this to be successful, you must have a team with a background in game development. Only then can you bring a proprietary product like GameCredits to the marketplace and have it succeed”. By joining forces, Datcroft' and GameCredits provide the necessary gaming expertise to significantly impact the gaming world. The two companies have a working plan for the future of GameCredits. First, they will continue to test the payment solution within Fragoria, working out any design issues and minor bugs. Second, they will integrate the gateway into another successful Datcroft game, Get the Gun, allowing them to further test the solution and work out kinks that could occur in a different game format. Third, credit card and Paypal payment options will be added to the gateway so gamers can purchase GameCredits without having to first buy Bitcoin. Finally, the companies will roll out announcements for mobile gaming solutions. With over 13 years of experience in game development, Datcroft Games strives to provide innovative and unique gaming experiences. Their dedication to these goals will further bolster GameCredits capabilities as the companies revolutionize the world of blockchain gaming. For more information, please visit http://gamecredits.com Story continues Contact: Name: Nebojša Maksimović Email: [email protected] Organization: GameCredits Inc Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK7S59NAo0Q Source: Game Credits Inc. || IBM Investing in the Future of Blockchain: - By Cristiano Bellavitis, Ph.D.
Most investors believe that blockchain and Bitcoin (the digital currency) are synonyms. What most people don't know, however, is the fact that the blockchain is an "infrastructure" and Bitcoin is one of many applications.IBM(IBM) is heavily investing in the blockchain to disrupt some large industries.
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with IBM. Click here to check it out.
• IBM 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of IBM
• Peter Lynch Chart of IBM
Blockchain basics
Blockchain is a new technology that enables businesses to work together with trust and transparency. Blockchain is a distributed shared operating system where all parties involved in an exchange have open access to an unchangeable digital record of transactions. Each participant always has an exact copy of the transactions and therefore all parties can confidently rely on this data. In theory, the blockchain guarantees accountability and transparency while streamlining business processes.
The blockchain industry
There aren't definitive numbers on companies using blockchain, but the IBM Institute for Business Value released some figures a few months ago:
• 70% of early adopters are working with blockchain to create new business models and reach new customers.
• 65% of banks expect to have blockchain solutions in production in the next three years.
• 80% of banks identified trade finance, corporate lending and reference data as having the greatest potential to be disrupted by the blockchain technology.
• 15% of banks intend to implement full-scale, commercial blockchain solutions in 2017.
• Companies expect reference data (83%), retail payments (80%) and consumer lending (79%) to be the segments that will be impacted the most by blockchain.
Another recent study from Markets and Markets speculates that the blockchain industry will grow from $210 million in 2016 to $2.3 billion by 2021, for CAGR of 61.5% during the forecast period. Therefore, the blockchain is in the early stages of development but seems to have great potential and medium term economic value.
Numbers about the market and the companies involved are limited, but according to this article IBM andMicrosoft(MSFT) are the market leaders. IBM provided examples of how they are implementing the blockchain. I will get in touch with Microsoft to see whether they would like to contribute.
Blockchain can disrupt large industries
Food safety
Food safety is one of the sectors that is receiving attention. Authenticity has been a challenge in China, andWalmart(WMT) is taking a proactive role in using new technologies to address it. By using blockchain, Walmart is able to build an ecosystem of supply chain partners that is based on trust.
Health care
The need for private, secure and reliable information flow in health care is clear as organizations balance information sharing needs with privacy, security and protecting against ongoing cyber-attacks. The application of blockchain technology can be applied to address a health care workflow and ecosystem from the beginning as it is introduced to this emerging digital industry.
FinTech
Banks and consumers are turning to fintech companies to disrupt the financial industry. FinTechs are moving quickly to create new approaches in payments, lending and new use cases for blockchain. IBM is helping FinTechs envision, build and monetize these new solutions by providing developer tools, technology, training and programs to share financial services expertise. IBM's cloud and blockchain ecosystem is helping FinTechs, start-ups, developers and independent software vendors drive faster design and development.
For example, Eigencat, a Singapore-based startup, is using IBM Bluemix to deliver digital investment solutions for the financial market. The FinTech startup is also using IBM Cloud to develop new cognitive-based investment solutions using Watson APIs and broaden its reach within and outside Singapore. Working with the Singapore BlueMix Garage, start-up FreshTurf is creating an innovative blockchain-based network of storage lockers for shipping and parcel delivery throughout Singapore.
A few examples of IBM applications in the blockchain industry:
• SBI Securities - testing blockchain for a new bond trading platform and for improving securities operations.
• Japan Stock Exchange - testing the potential of blockchain technology for use in trading in low transaction markets.
• Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFG - using blockchain to examine the design, management and execution of contracts among business partners.
• London Stock Exchange Group - exploring blockchain to manage risk and bring additional transparency to global financial markets.
• Kouvola Innovation - using blockchain to transform logistics value chains into a more seamless process that provides a trusted view of every piece of cargo.
• Kenya - The government is utilizing blockchain to develop an immutable and transparent education management system. In order to reduce the issuance of fraudulent academic degrees and limit the market of illicit academic certificates, the Kenyan government is working with IBM to launch an academic certificate issuance platform on a blockchain network.
• BNY Mellon - designing and developing a unique application for securities lending, using a blockchain network to trade and transfer assets.
• Mizuho Financial Group - testing blockchain for settlements using virtual currency.
• Everledger - using blockchain to track diamonds and other valuable assets.
• CLS Group - collaborating with IBM so that its payment netting service using Hyperledger Fabric meets the requirements necessary for delivering a resilient, secure, and scalable service.
IBM investments in the blockchain
IBM recently announced a $200 million investment in the new global headquarters for its Watson Internet of Things business in Munich. IBM is developing a new capability that connects IoT data to Blockchain through the IBM Watson IoT Platform. In addition, IBM opened a Blockchain Innovation Center in Singapore to accelerate blockchain adoption for finance and trade in the first collaboration of its kind with the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
IBM monetization and blockchain performance
IBM is leveraging its Bluemix technology to implement blockchain solutions. IBM offers two price plans: The starter plan is free, but the more secure system costs $10,000 per month. We contacted IBM to ask about some performance and financial data about its blockchain business but they replied that they "can't provide any financial data related to IBM Blockchain at this time." We assume that the main reason for this is that the business is in its early stages and therefore does not materially impact IBM revenues. Considering that the estimates are for a total global industry valued at $210 million in 2016, at the moment this segment is of minor importance to IBM. We estimate that IBM has approximately 50 paying customers, therefore the revenues generated would be in the range of $6 million a year, plus ancillary revenues in the range of $50 million a year.
Disclosure: We are long IBM.
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• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with IBM. Click here to check it out.
• IBM 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of IBM
• Peter Lynch Chart of IBM
[Social Media Buzz]
1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$953.75/$954.00 #Bitstamp
$932.84/$934.45 #BTCe
⇢$-21.16/$-19.30
$948.40/$958.33 #Coinbase
⇢$-5.60/$4.58 || $980.00 at 01:45 UTC [24h Range: $938.90 - $980.00 Volume: 12027 BTC] || Bitcoin ahora:
$965.87 USD
€924.01 EUR
$19,985.94 MXN
BITSO $22,000.00 MXN
VOLABIT $21,308.30 MXN pic.twitter.com/TNyAV2c4NV || RT BitcoinItaliana: RT BitcoinItaliana: RT BitcoinItaliana: RT BitcoinItaliana: Attualmente il valore del #Bitcoin è $982.00 via Chain || #EuroCoin #EUC $0.000387 (2...
|
961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75, 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20, 908.59, 911.20
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18, 55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40, 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97, 35697.61, 34616.07, 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-06-21]
Volume: 52809038594, RSI (14-day): 34.71, 50-day EMA: 41068.46, 200-day EMA: 40678.06
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1781.80, Gold RSI: 32.53
Oil Price: 73.66, Oil RSI: 72.79
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Crypto finance startup Amber Group raises $100M at $1B valuation: More mainstream venture capital firms are jumping on the crypto bandwagon as investors increasingly consider bitcoin an investable asset, despite the recent massive price drops of a few major cryptocurrencies. Amber Group, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency trading startup, said on Monday it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round at a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The latest valuation is 10 times that of the company's Series A closed in 2019, a $28 million round that counted Coinbase Ventures as one of its investors. Also notably, Amber's Series B financing was bankrolled by a list of high-profile financial and VC firms, including China Renaissance, which led the round, and Tiger Brokers, Tiger Global Management, Arena Holdings, Tru Arrow Partners, Sky9 Capital, DCM Ventures and Gobi Partners. "Many of the new investors which came in this round provide great breadth in terms of perspective, having seen many high-growth companies in fast evolving industries go from 0 to 1, and 1 to 100," Amber's co-founder and CEO Michael Wu told TechCrunch. "From an employer branding perspective, we are trying to attract global talents, and many of those are potentially new to crypto. For them, seeing these more traditional and familiar names backing Amber helps make them more interested in joining Amber potentially." The firm's past investors Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Blockchain.com also participated in the new round. In May, Babel Finance, another crypto asset manager based out of Hong Kong, secured $40 million in funding from a number of big-name institutional investors, including Amber's investor Tiger Global. Founded by a group of former investment bankers in their twenties, Amber initially set out to apply machine learning algorithms to quantitative trading but pivoted in 2017 to crypto when the team saw spikes in virtual currency's trading volumes. The startup now serves both institutional and individual investors, offering them algorithmic trading, electronic market-making, high-frequency trading, OTC trading, borrowing and lending, and derivatives, among other products. Story continues The firm launched its mobile app in the third quarter of 2020, widening its scope from institutional clients to retail consumers. More than 700 institutional customers -- mainly large hedge funds, family offices and corporations -- account for over 70% of its revenues, though its consumer-facing app has grown substantially, with over 100,000 registered users as of late. Amber has been profitable since its inception, according to Wu, with annualized revenues of $500 million based on figures from January to April 2021. The startup's business hasn't been dampened by the recent slump in prices. Rather, its revenues from the second quarter were at an all-time record and tripling that of Q1, said Wu. "Whilst the drop in prices means that our AUM [assets under management] measured in dollar terms decline, in terms of the number of coins for BTC, ETH and stablecoins, they are all still growing healthily. Meanwhile, our trading business is also still flourishing with the uptick in volatility." The startup now accounts for 2-3% of total trading volumes in major spot and derivative markets, the founder said. Its cumulative trading volumes have doubled from $250 billion since the beginning of the year to over $500 billion. Altogether, Amble manages around $1.5 billion in trading capital that varies based on BTC and ETH prices. The firm now has more than 330 employees worldwide across Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul and Vancouver. The proceeds from its Series B will go toward aggressive hiring across all fronts, from quantitative research, software development and compliance to business development. It also plans to tap marketers and distribution channels for user acquisition, as well as work on clearing regulatory hurdles in more jurisdictions. Critics have long been wary of the crypto industry's environmental costs. On this issue, Wu countered that "Amber is not engaged in proof-of-work mining, yet." He's also optimistic about where the field is headed. "Based on available data, over 40% of bitcoin mining is already from renewable resources. Based on trends we see with our mining clients and partners, we believe that this number will continue to go up." Updated the article with more quotes from the founder. Katie Haun on saying yes to Coinbase and where a16z’s crypto fund is placing its bets now || Crypto finance startup Amber Group raises $100M at $1B valuation: More mainstream venture capital firms are jumping on the crypto bandwagon as investors increasingly consider bitcoin an investable asset, despite the recent massive price drops of a few major cryptocurrencies. Amber Group, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency trading startup, said on Monday it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round at a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The latest valuation is 10 times that of the company's Series A closed in 2019, a $28 million round that counted Coinbase Ventures as one of its investors. Also notably, Amber's Series B financing was bankrolled by a list of high-profile financial and VC firms, including China Renaissance, which led the round, and Tiger Brokers, Tiger Global Management, Arena Holdings, Tru Arrow Partners, Sky9 Capital, DCM Ventures and Gobi Partners. "Many of the new investors which came in this round provide great breadth in terms of perspective, having seen many high-growth companies in fast evolving industries go from 0 to 1, and 1 to 100," Amber's co-founder and CEO Michael Wu told TechCrunch. "From an employer branding perspective, we are trying to attract global talents, and many of those are potentially new to crypto. For them, seeing these more traditional and familiar names backing Amber helps make them more interested in joining Amber potentially." The firm's past investors Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Blockchain.com also participated in the new round. In May, Babel Finance, another crypto asset manager based out of Hong Kong, secured $40 million in funding from a number of big-name institutional investors, including Amber's investor Tiger Global. Founded by a group of former investment bankers in their twenties, Amber initially set out to apply machine learning algorithms to quantitative trading but pivoted in 2017 to crypto when the team saw spikes in virtual currency's trading volumes. The startup now serves both institutional and individual investors, offering them algorithmic trading, electronic market-making, high-frequency trading, OTC trading, borrowing and lending, and derivatives, among other products. Story continues The firm launched its mobile app in the third quarter of 2020, widening its scope from institutional clients to retail consumers. More than 700 institutional customers -- mainly large hedge funds, family offices and corporations -- account for over 70% of its revenues, though its consumer-facing app has grown substantially, with over 100,000 registered users as of late. Amber has been profitable since its inception, according to Wu, with annualized revenues of $500 million based on figures from January to April 2021. The startup's business hasn't been dampened by the recent slump in prices. Rather, its revenues from the second quarter were at an all-time record and tripling that of Q1, said Wu. "Whilst the drop in prices means that our AUM [assets under management] measured in dollar terms decline, in terms of the number of coins for BTC, ETH and stablecoins, they are all still growing healthily. Meanwhile, our trading business is also still flourishing with the uptick in volatility." The startup now accounts for 2-3% of total trading volumes in major spot and derivative markets, the founder said. Its cumulative trading volumes have doubled from $250 billion since the beginning of the year to over $500 billion. Altogether, Amble manages around $1.5 billion in trading capital that varies based on BTC and ETH prices. The firm now has more than 330 employees worldwide across Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul and Vancouver. The proceeds from its Series B will go toward aggressive hiring across all fronts, from quantitative research, software development and compliance to business development. It also plans to tap marketers and distribution channels for user acquisition, as well as work on clearing regulatory hurdles in more jurisdictions. Critics have long been wary of the crypto industry's environmental costs. On this issue, Wu countered that "Amber is not engaged in proof-of-work mining, yet." He's also optimistic about where the field is headed. "Based on available data, over 40% of bitcoin mining is already from renewable resources. Based on trends we see with our mining clients and partners, we believe that this number will continue to go up." Updated the article with more quotes from the founder. Katie Haun on saying yes to Coinbase and where a16z’s crypto fund is placing its bets now || Crypto Long & Short: Commerce, Dollarization or Speculation?: It’s been a complicated week for bitcoin’s adoption story. In particular, Michael Saylor and Elon Musk gave more momentum to the idea that bitcoin can be used in commerce: Musk signaled potential for Tesla’s return to accepting bitcoin payments, and Saylor called the Bitcoin network a rail system for the global dollar. The best bellwether for bitcoin’s use in commerce is the Lightning Network. Briefly, Lightning is a commerce-friendly service that sits on top of Bitcoin. It allows parties to transact quickly and cheaply, verifying their transactions periodically in batches via the more trust-minimized Bitcoin network. As we noted in last week’s Chain Links, Lightning has been surging this year. As of this Tuesday, the number of bitcoin available for use on its network had increased by 44% since Dec. 31. Related: Facts and Misinformation About ‘Green Bitcoin,’ With Jonathan Koomey This column originally appeared in Crypto Long & Short , CoinDesk Research’s weekly newsletter for professional investors. That’s something for bitcoin’s potential use in commerce. But we’d be remiss not to consider it next to Bitcoin’s use on another network that is more associated with finance than with commerce – Ethereum. Wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) is an Ethereum-compliant (ERC-20) token that is pegged to the value of bitcoin. The peg is maintained by the custodian BitGo. The number of bitcoin wrapped on Ethereum has grown faster (67%) over the same period, and it’s a couple orders of magnitude greater than the number of bitcoin committed to the Lightning Network: As of this Tuesday, the supply of WBTC was 188,961. Lightning Network’s bitcoin capacity was 1,523. Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for June 21, 2021 In theory, it’s possible that WBTC could be used on commercial applications that accept ERC-20 tokens. In reality, it’s used for decentralized finance (DeFi). Story continues The story of these two charts is clear, at least for now: Bitcoin is much more like gold, an investment, than it is like the dollar, a medium of exchange. Michael Saylor went on CoinDesk TV this week and talked about that distinction, describing a world in which citizens of dollarized, bitcoin-adopting countries like El Salvador have digital wallets holding multiple cryptocurrencies: One currency is a stablecoin pegged to the dollar; the other is bitcoin, an investment. That’s where Saylor departed the text. “It’ll move on Bitcoin rails,” he said, talking about that dollar stablecoin, leading to further dollarization across the world. The possibility of dollarization via stablecoins is real, but as for what rails it will move on, the market has spoken: It’s not Bitcoin, it’s Ethereum. The chart above shows the supply of tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by supply, on three networks that support it. The nearly flat line is tether on Omni, an application-supporting layer that runs on Bitcoin, and tether’s original network. The line that goes up and to the right-hand corner of the chart is tether on Ethereum. Tether and other stablecoins certainly have the potential to facilitate commerce, better than more volatile cryptocurrencies, which are more suited to investment. However, in reality their use is in finance, specifically as a quote currency on cryptocurrency exchanges. In sum, it’s finance, not commerce, that is leading adoption of crypto, and while bitcoin enjoys a unique status as the blue-chip investment in this category, the market is showing a clear preference for rails built on Ethereum. That brings to mind another bit of thought leadership that went out over crypto’s digital TV airwaves this week: Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins economist, said El Salvador’s new bitcoin policy will make it a hub for criminals looking to launder bitcoin into dollars. (My bitcoin maximalist friends will quickly point out that Amsterdam and Frankfurt have recently served as quite convenient money-laundering hubs.) As the above chart shows, there is no shortage of demand for dollar-pegged stablecoins. The crypto exchanges offering liquid bitcoin-tether crosses are many, and some of them, I suspect, do not have the most stringent know your customer/anti-money laundering rules. Crypto-to-dollar pairs are fewer, and if a world like Saylor describes truly comes to pass, the regulatory challenges at the ramps between crypto and commerce will extend far beyond the borders of one Central American nation-state. Related Stories MicroStrategy Purchases Another $489M of Bitcoin Ether Drops Below $2K, Bitcoin Wilts as China Tells Banks to Cut Off Crypto Transactions || Crypto Long & Short: Commerce, Dollarization or Speculation?: It’s been a complicated week for bitcoin’s adoption story. In particular, Michael Saylor and Elon Musk gave more momentum to the idea that bitcoin can be used in commerce: Musk signaled potential for Tesla’s return to accepting bitcoin payments, and Saylor called the Bitcoin network a rail system for the global dollar. The best bellwether for bitcoin’s use in commerce is the Lightning Network. Briefly, Lightning is a commerce-friendly service that sits on top of Bitcoin. It allows parties to transact quickly and cheaply, verifying their transactions periodically in batches via the more trust-minimized Bitcoin network. As we noted in last week’s Chain Links, Lightning has been surging this year. As of this Tuesday, the number of bitcoin available for use on its network had increased by 44% since Dec. 31. Related: Facts and Misinformation About ‘Green Bitcoin,’ With Jonathan Koomey This column originally appeared in Crypto Long & Short , CoinDesk Research’s weekly newsletter for professional investors. That’s something for bitcoin’s potential use in commerce. But we’d be remiss not to consider it next to Bitcoin’s use on another network that is more associated with finance than with commerce – Ethereum. Wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) is an Ethereum-compliant (ERC-20) token that is pegged to the value of bitcoin. The peg is maintained by the custodian BitGo. The number of bitcoin wrapped on Ethereum has grown faster (67%) over the same period, and it’s a couple orders of magnitude greater than the number of bitcoin committed to the Lightning Network: As of this Tuesday, the supply of WBTC was 188,961. Lightning Network’s bitcoin capacity was 1,523. Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for June 21, 2021 In theory, it’s possible that WBTC could be used on commercial applications that accept ERC-20 tokens. In reality, it’s used for decentralized finance (DeFi). Story continues The story of these two charts is clear, at least for now: Bitcoin is much more like gold, an investment, than it is like the dollar, a medium of exchange. Michael Saylor went on CoinDesk TV this week and talked about that distinction, describing a world in which citizens of dollarized, bitcoin-adopting countries like El Salvador have digital wallets holding multiple cryptocurrencies: One currency is a stablecoin pegged to the dollar; the other is bitcoin, an investment. That’s where Saylor departed the text. “It’ll move on Bitcoin rails,” he said, talking about that dollar stablecoin, leading to further dollarization across the world. The possibility of dollarization via stablecoins is real, but as for what rails it will move on, the market has spoken: It’s not Bitcoin, it’s Ethereum. The chart above shows the supply of tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by supply, on three networks that support it. The nearly flat line is tether on Omni, an application-supporting layer that runs on Bitcoin, and tether’s original network. The line that goes up and to the right-hand corner of the chart is tether on Ethereum. Tether and other stablecoins certainly have the potential to facilitate commerce, better than more volatile cryptocurrencies, which are more suited to investment. However, in reality their use is in finance, specifically as a quote currency on cryptocurrency exchanges. In sum, it’s finance, not commerce, that is leading adoption of crypto, and while bitcoin enjoys a unique status as the blue-chip investment in this category, the market is showing a clear preference for rails built on Ethereum. That brings to mind another bit of thought leadership that went out over crypto’s digital TV airwaves this week: Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins economist, said El Salvador’s new bitcoin policy will make it a hub for criminals looking to launder bitcoin into dollars. (My bitcoin maximalist friends will quickly point out that Amsterdam and Frankfurt have recently served as quite convenient money-laundering hubs.) As the above chart shows, there is no shortage of demand for dollar-pegged stablecoins. The crypto exchanges offering liquid bitcoin-tether crosses are many, and some of them, I suspect, do not have the most stringent know your customer/anti-money laundering rules. Crypto-to-dollar pairs are fewer, and if a world like Saylor describes truly comes to pass, the regulatory challenges at the ramps between crypto and commerce will extend far beyond the borders of one Central American nation-state. Related Stories MicroStrategy Purchases Another $489M of Bitcoin Ether Drops Below $2K, Bitcoin Wilts as China Tells Banks to Cut Off Crypto Transactions || Mark Cuban Talks Dogecoin: ‘You’ve Got To Know Why You’re Investing’: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com If you’ve been considering dipping your toes in the cryptocurrency game, entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has some advice he’d like to share when it comes to crypto — specifically, Dogecoin (DOGE): “You’ve got to know why you’re investing.” See: 10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021 Find: Dogecoin’s Popularity: Is It Still Worth an Investment? In an interview with The Daily Beast, Cuban said that it’s “easy to get lost in the hype of Dogecoin, GameStop or AMC, and I’m not saying don’t invest in those companies because they can be good investments, but you’ve got to know why you’re investing.” “Are you investing because of some video you saw on TikTok, or a video you saw on YouTube, or a friend told you?” he adds in the interview. “Those aren’t good enough reasons. Part of the fun in investing is doing the homework, finding out companies and seeing if it’s something you agree with — and believe in.” Related: Tesla Will Resume Accepting Bitcoin When There is ‘Reasonable Clean Energy Usage by Miners,’ Musk Says In March, Cuban’s Mavericks said they started to accept Dogecoin as payment for Mavs tickets and merchandise “for one very important, earth shattering reason, because we can! Because we can, we have chosen to do so,” Cuban said in a statement on the Mavs website at the time. In a tweet yesterday, Cuban added that “crypto businesses make more sense than you think and valuing tokens is easier and makes more sense than you think. They are just businesses like any other, with a few HUGE advantages.” Economy Explained: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? He elaborated on the matter in a blog post, saying that while not every crypto blockchain or DeFi project will work, as “these facts are not a secret in the crypto world.” Elaborating, Cuban goes on: “There is an incredible amount of competition. So much in fact, many, if not most will not work. They will not get enough users or generate enough fees to succeed […] Crypto is brutally competitive.” However, Cuban still believes that when it comes to crypto vs. traditional, centralized businesses, “all other things being equal, I’m taking crypto every time.” Story continues See: Is Crypto Too Risky? 12 Experts Weigh In Find: Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice DOGE was up 7.16% in the last 24 hours, standing at $0.33 this morning, according to CoinMarketCap. More From GOBankingRates: Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Retirement in America Monifi Review: Mobile Banking That Can Improve Your Budgeting 20 Home Renovations That Will Hurt Your Home’s Value 27 Things You Should Never Do With Your Money Last updated: June 14, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Mark Cuban Talks Dogecoin: ‘You’ve Got To Know Why You’re Investing’ || Mark Cuban Talks Dogecoin: ‘You’ve Got To Know Why You’re Investing’: If you’ve been considering dipping your toes in the cryptocurrency game, entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks ownerMark Cuban has some advicehe’d like to share when it comes to crypto — specifically, Dogecoin (DOGE): “You’ve got to know why you’re investing.”
See:10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021Find:Dogecoin’s Popularity: Is It Still Worth an Investment?
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Cuban said that it’s “easy to get lost in the hype of Dogecoin, GameStop or AMC, and I’m not saying don’t invest in those companies because they can be good investments, but you’ve got to know why you’re investing.”
“Are you investing because of some video you saw on TikTok, or a video you saw on YouTube, or a friend told you?” he adds in the interview. “Those aren’t good enough reasons. Part of the fun in investing is doing the homework, finding out companies and seeing if it’s something you agree with — and believe in.”
Related:Tesla Will Resume Accepting Bitcoin When There is ‘Reasonable Clean Energy Usage by Miners,’ Musk Says
In March, Cuban’s Mavericks said theystarted to accept Dogecoin as paymentfor Mavs tickets and merchandise “for one very important, earth shattering reason, because we can! Because we can, we have chosen to do so,” Cuban said in a statement on the Mavs website at the time.
In a tweet yesterday, Cuban added that “crypto businesses make more sense than you think and valuing tokens is easier and makes more sense than you think. They are just businesses like any other, with a few HUGE advantages.”
Economy Explained:Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From?
He elaborated on the matter in a blog post, saying that while not every crypto blockchain or DeFi project will work, as “these facts are not a secret in the crypto world.” Elaborating, Cuban goes on: “There is an incredible amount of competition. So much in fact, many, if not most will not work. They will not get enough users or generate enough fees to succeed […] Crypto is brutally competitive.” However, Cuban still believes that when it comes to crypto vs. traditional, centralized businesses, “all other things being equal, I’m taking crypto every time.”
See:Is Crypto Too Risky? 12 Experts Weigh InFind:Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice
DOGE was up 7.16% in the last 24 hours, standing at $0.33 this morning, according to CoinMarketCap.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Mark Cuban Talks Dogecoin: ‘You’ve Got To Know Why You’re Investing’ || Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency?: Cryptocurrency investing has been one of thebig news stories of 2021. Although the first Bitcoin was mined way back in 2009,it wasn’t until Bitcoin millionaires began being minted that crypto started grabbing the public’s attention. Now, new coins have flooded the market, and more millionaires have been created, as some coins have rallied 1,000%, 2,000% or even more. In the midst of all of these incredible gains, the natural question is whether or not it’s too late to invest in cryptocurrency. The truth is that no one can guarantee whether crypto will rise or fall from here, as it’s an entirely new market that is neither well-defined nor well-regulated. But there are clear arguments on both sides of the coin as towhether it’s time to buy or not.
Check Out:10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021Consider:Dogecoin: Is It Still Worth an Investment?
One of the fears of entering the crypto market has always been that governments around the world will shut down acceptance and even production of the coins. That time may already be here. In late May 2021, China began cracking down hard on bitcoin mining and trading, which sent crypto prices cascading downwards.According to Boris Schlossberg, managing director at BK Asset Management, the primary reason for this crackdown was because “Chinese authorities are keen to see their own digital currency in the form of the yuan become the primary unit of account in the Chinese economy.”If other governments follow suit, demand and support for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could falter.
The Economy and Your Money:All You Need To Know
If you’re a believer that the crypto market is another version of the stock market, there might be no better time to buy cryptos like Bitcoin because they are on sale. As of June 4, Bitcoin was more than 40% off its all-time high, and other cryptos had fallen by a similar amount or even more. As the history of Bitcoin has shown, massive drops like this are not at all unusual, and yet the cryptocurrency has managed to consistently climb to new highs. If you were curious about Bitcoin a few weeks ago, the current sell-off might be a chance to dip your toe into the market.
Explore:What Are Altcoins — and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks?
Skeptics believe that cryptocurrency is an asset class with no store of value, no barrier to entry and no value as an exchange currency.As such, skeptics view crypto as simply a speculative asset class with no long-term viability as a true asset class. At a CNBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland in 2019, Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, had this to say about Bitcoin: “I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything.”In 2020, famed investor Dennis Gartman offered the same assessment to Bloomberg, saying that if central banks “refuse to give up their monopoly on monetary policy, ” Bitcoin could one day plunge to zero.
Read:Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From?
Rather than seeing Bitcoin go to zero, believers like Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood suggest quite the opposite. The popular investment strategist and CEO believes that Bitcoin will actually hit $500,000.Part of the reason for Wood’s bullishness is her belief that asset managers will eventually allocate up to 5% of their portfolios to cryptocurrency.Greg Cipolaro and Dr. Ross Stevens, researchers at New York Digital Investment Group, support this belief, adding that “Increasing fundamental demand combined with a fixed supply and automatically declining supply growth make a compelling case for Bitcoin as an alternative investment for institutional investors.”The researchers are referring to the fact that the supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million coins.
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Last updated: June 9, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency? || Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency?: ©Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock.com Cryptocurrency investing has been one of the big news stories of 2021 . Although the first Bitcoin was mined way back in 2009, it wasn’t until Bitcoin millionaires began being minted that crypto started grabbing the public’s attention. Now, new coins have flooded the market, and more millionaires have been created, as some coins have rallied 1,000%, 2,000% or even more. In the midst of all of these incredible gains, the natural question is whether or not it’s too late to invest in cryptocurrency. The truth is that no one can guarantee whether crypto will rise or fall from here, as it’s an entirely new market that is neither well-defined nor well-regulated. But there are clear arguments on both sides of the coin as to whether it’s time to buy or not . Check Out: 10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021 Consider: Dogecoin: Is It Still Worth an Investment? It’s Too Late: Governments Are Cracking Down One of the fears of entering the crypto market has always been that governments around the world will shut down acceptance and even production of the coins. That time may already be here. In late May 2021, China began cracking down hard on bitcoin mining and trading, which sent crypto prices cascading downwards. According to Boris Schlossberg, managing director at BK Asset Management, the primary reason for this crackdown was because “Chinese authorities are keen to see their own digital currency in the form of the yuan become the primary unit of account in the Chinese economy.” If other governments follow suit, demand and support for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could falter. The Economy and Your Money: All You Need To Know It’s Not Too Late: Crypto Is Down Significantly From Its Highs If you’re a believer that the crypto market is another version of the stock market, there might be no better time to buy cryptos like Bitcoin because they are on sale. As of June 4, Bitcoin was more than 40% off its all-time high, and other cryptos had fallen by a similar amount or even more. As the history of Bitcoin has shown, massive drops like this are not at all unusual, and yet the cryptocurrency has managed to consistently climb to new highs. If you were curious about Bitcoin a few weeks ago, the current sell-off might be a chance to dip your toe into the market. Story continues Explore: What Are Altcoins — and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks? It’s Too Late: Crypto Is Going To Zero Skeptics believe that cryptocurrency is an asset class with no store of value, no barrier to entry and no value as an exchange currency. As such, skeptics view crypto as simply a speculative asset class with no long-term viability as a true asset class. At a CNBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland in 2019, Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, had this to say about Bitcoin: “I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything.” In 2020, famed investor Dennis Gartman offered the same assessment to Bloomberg, saying that if central banks “refuse to give up their monopoly on monetary policy, ” Bitcoin could one day plunge to zero. Read: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? It’s Not Too Late: Crypto Is Going To $500,000-plus Rather than seeing Bitcoin go to zero, believers like Ark Investment’s Cathie Wood suggest quite the opposite. The popular investment strategist and CEO believes that Bitcoin will actually hit $500,000. Part of the reason for Wood’s bullishness is her belief that asset managers will eventually allocate up to 5% of their portfolios to cryptocurrency. Greg Cipolaro and Dr. Ross Stevens, researchers at New York Digital Investment Group, support this belief, adding that “Increasing fundamental demand combined with a fixed supply and automatically declining supply growth make a compelling case for Bitcoin as an alternative investment for institutional investors.” The researchers are referring to the fact that the supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million coins. More From GOBankingRates Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Retirement in America How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021 20 Home Renovations That Will Hurt Your Home’s Value 27 Things You Should Never Do With Your Money Last updated: June 9, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency? || Inflation is rising: Here's how that could impact your investments: If you don't see inflation as much of a threat, you're probably under 40 years old. Either that or you suspect the recent trend of rising prices for houses, rent, food, commodities, gasoline, cars and labor will prove to be fleeting. The trend could be temporary or even beneficial. It wasn't long ago that experts were worried about deflation, a more serious threat that slows down economic activity. But too much inflation too quickly isn't good, either. "What's clear about inflation is, once that plane takes off on the runway, it’s pretty hard to turn it around," quipped Sarah Foster, a writer at Bankrate.com. Older Americans know an inflationary surge can be hard to reverse. They remember the gasoline lines of the 1970s, shoppers jostling over groceries and other anecdotes from the nation's worst economic decade since World War II. The current inflationary climate still isn't anywhere near where it was back then, but it doesn't hurt to consider the possibilities, especially the possible impact on investments. Do investments fare poorly amid inflation? Not necessarily, though it largely depends on the investment in question and the circumstances. During the rough 1970s, large stocks such as those in the Standard & Poor's 500 index averaged subpar returns of 5.9% annually, but small stocks did nearly twice as well, up 11.5% on average, according to researcher Morningstar. When inflation ebbed in the 1980s, stock investments surged, averaging double-digit returns (including dividends) across the board. Investing can get expensive: Here are 3 ways to start with $100 or less Is buying cryptocurrency investing or gambling? Here's how to tell the difference Cryptos are now in 401(k)s: Are they the right investment for your nest egg? Gold is widely considered to be an excellent hedge or store of value during inflationary periods, yet prices have weakened lately despite the rise in inflation. So, too, for other commodities such as copper, although oil prices have continued to ascend. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies might prove to be inflation hedges, though the jury is still out. Yields on Treasury bills, bank deposit accounts and the like also tend to climb during inflationary periods if interest rates are rising too, as is frequently the case. Story continues A key reason stocks can flourish in a modest-inflation environment is that companies, especially big ones, often can pass along cost increases. Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, believes that capability is more apparent today because of heavy investments in technology that have given businesses a better edge in managing expenses and knowing how to pass those costs along. Gradual changes are less worrisome Stocks and even bonds, to a lesser degree, can realize decent returns during inflationary periods. Investors tend to tolerate inflation as long as it doesn't come in big waves. In recent decades, overall stock returns have been fairly consistent — ranging from about 11% to 15% annually including dividends — whether inflation was high, low, rising or falling, according to a study by JPMorgan Funds. One caveat, though: The results were compiled from 1988 through 2020 and thus reflect a period when inflation was fairly stable, averaging about 2.5% a year. It didn't gauge the impact on stocks when inflation gyrated more wildly, as in the 1970s and early 1980s. More: Venmo launching crypto feature to buy and sell Bitcoin, other digital currency The study similarly found fairly consistent results for bonds over that 33-year period, with returns (including interest payments) clustered between 5% and 9% annually, regardless of the inflationary backdrop. However, bond prices can drop sharply if interest rates are surging. For example, a jump of one percentage point in the general level of interest rates would lead to roughly a 20% price loss on 30-year Treasuries. Bond yields or interest payments would cushion the blow only so much. Lower-rated bonds could hold up better in a rising-rate environment than those issued by governments. Partly this is because they pay higher yields, and partly it's because their values are tied more closely to credit-risk factors. What about real estate? Like gold and stocks, real estate including housing is widely seen as an inflation hedge. "In the 1970s, when consumer prices rose by an average of more than 7% per year, median new home prices rose by more than 9% annually," wrote David Kelly, chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds. Inflation also ties into mortgage rates and thus home affordability. Expectations for future inflation help drive interest rates including those on 10-year Treasury notes, to which long-term mortgages are pegged. Mortgage rates tend to run about 1.75 percentage points higher than the yield on 10-year Treasuries, observed Lawrence Gillum, fixed-income strategist for LPL Financial, though the gap has been narrower lately. That 1.75 point difference is a "rough estimate of the costs associated with originating a mortgage loan," he said. Gillum expects the 10-year yield to end in 2021 between 1.75% and 2%, which could push up rates on 30-year mortgages to around 3.5% or a bit higher. Earlier this year, 30-year mortgage rates bottomed near 2.8%. They're currently around 3.2%. Putting it into perspective Although inflation is getting more attention this year, it's still nowhere near where it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Inflation averaged 7.4% annually during the 1970s. It hit 13.3% in 1979 and 12.4% in 1980. Since then, Federal Reserve efforts to keep inflation at bay have worked. So have trends such as the graying of America (older people don't buy as many cars, appliances and so on), technological innovations (computer prices have plummeted), the surge in inexpensive foreign imports and more. In recent years, inflation has mostly hovered around 2%, though it hit 5% over the most recent 12 months, through May 2021. Prices for used cars and trucks have been markedly higher lately. So, too, for gasoline and airfares, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But price changes have been more subdued for other goods and services, including health care costs. The future course of inflation is perhaps the most widely debated topic in economic circles right now. Some observers anticipate a new era of higher price levels, but others view the recent rise as temporary, reflecting "reopening flukes" for businesses from the coronavirus pandemic. As the business climate returns to a more normal footing, they expect inflation will fall back into line. Reach the reporter at [email protected] . This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How inflation affects my investment, portfolio || Inflation is rising: Here's how that could impact your investments: If you don't see inflation as much of a threat, you're probably under 40 years old.
Either that or you suspect the recent trend of rising prices for houses, rent, food, commodities, gasoline, cars and labor will prove to be fleeting.
The trend could be temporary or even beneficial. It wasn't long ago that experts were worried about deflation, a more serious threat that slows down economic activity.
But too much inflation too quickly isn't good, either. "What's clear about inflation is, once that plane takes off on the runway, it’s pretty hard to turn it around," quipped Sarah Foster, a writer at Bankrate.com.
Older Americans know an inflationary surge can be hard to reverse. They remember the gasoline lines of the 1970s, shoppers jostling over groceries and other anecdotes from the nation's worst economic decade since World War II.
The current inflationary climate still isn't anywhere near where it was back then, but it doesn't hurt to consider the possibilities, especially the possible impact on investments.
Not necessarily, though it largely depends on the investment in question and the circumstances. During the rough 1970s, large stocks such as those in the Standard & Poor's 500 index averaged subpar returns of 5.9% annually, but small stocks did nearly twice as well, up 11.5% on average, according to researcher Morningstar.
When inflation ebbed in the 1980s, stock investments surged, averaging double-digit returns (including dividends) across the board.
Investing can get expensive:Here are 3 ways to start with $100 or less
Is buying cryptocurrency investing or gambling?Here's how to tell the difference
Cryptos are now in 401(k)s:Are they the right investment for your nest egg?
Gold is widely considered to be an excellent hedge or store of value during inflationary periods, yet prices have weakened lately despite the rise in inflation. So, too, for other commodities such as copper, although oil prices have continued to ascend. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies might prove to be inflation hedges, though the jury is still out. Yields on Treasury bills, bank deposit accounts and the like also tend to climb during inflationary periods if interest rates are rising too, as is frequently the case.
A key reason stocks can flourish in a modest-inflation environment is that companies, especially big ones, often can pass along cost increases. Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, believes that capability is more apparent today because of heavy investments in technology that have given businesses a better edge in managing expenses and knowing how to pass those costs along.
Stocks and even bonds, to a lesser degree, can realize decent returns during inflationary periods. Investors tend to tolerate inflation as long as it doesn't come in big waves.
In recent decades, overall stock returns have been fairly consistent — ranging from about 11% to 15% annually including dividends — whether inflation was high, low, rising or falling, according to a study by JPMorgan Funds. One caveat, though: The results were compiled from 1988 through 2020 and thus reflect a period when inflation was fairly stable, averaging about 2.5% a year. It didn't gauge the impact on stocks when inflation gyrated more wildly, as in the 1970s and early 1980s.
More:Venmo launching crypto feature to buy and sell Bitcoin, other digital currency
The study similarly found fairly consistent results for bonds over that 33-year period, with returns (including interest payments) clustered between 5% and 9% annually, regardless of the inflationary backdrop.
However, bond prices can drop sharply if interest rates are surging. For example, a jump of one percentage point in the general level of interest rates would lead to roughly a 20% price loss on 30-year Treasuries. Bond yields or interest payments would cushion the blow only so much.
Lower-rated bonds could hold up better in a rising-rate environment than those issued by governments. Partly this is because they pay higher yields, and partly it's because their values are tied more closely to credit-risk factors.
Like gold and stocks, real estate including housing is widely seen as an inflation hedge. "In the 1970s, when consumer prices rose by an average of more than 7% per year, median new home prices rose by more than 9% annually," wrote David Kelly, chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds.
Inflation also ties into mortgage rates and thus home affordability. Expectations for future inflation help drive interest rates including those on 10-year Treasury notes, to which long-term mortgages are pegged.
Mortgage rates tend to run about 1.75 percentage points higher than the yield on 10-year Treasuries, observed Lawrence Gillum, fixed-income strategist for LPL Financial, though the gap has been narrower lately. That 1.75 point difference is a "rough estimate of the costs associated with originating a mortgage loan," he said.
Gillum expects the 10-year yield to end in 2021 between 1.75% and 2%, which could push up rates on 30-year mortgages to around 3.5% or a bit higher. Earlier this year, 30-year mortgage rates bottomed near 2.8%. They're currently around 3.2%.
Although inflation is getting more attention this year, it's still nowhere near where it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Inflation averaged 7.4% annually during the 1970s. It hit 13.3% in 1979 and 12.4% in 1980.
Since then, Federal Reserve efforts to keep inflation at bay have worked. So have trends such as the graying of America (older people don't buy as many cars, appliances and so on), technological innovations (computer prices have plummeted), the surge in inexpensive foreign imports and more. In recent years, inflation has mostly hovered around 2%, though it hit 5% over the most recent 12 months, through May 2021.
Prices for used cars and trucks have been markedly higher lately. So, too, for gasoline and airfares, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But price changes have been more subdued for other goods and services, including health care costs.
The future course of inflation is perhaps the most widely debated topic in economic circles right now. Some observers anticipate a new era of higher price levels, but others view the recent rise as temporary, reflecting "reopening flukes" for businesses from the coronavirus pandemic. As the business climate returns to a more normal footing, they expect inflation will fall back into line.
Reach the reporter [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic:How inflation affects my investment, portfolio || Stock to Flow Analysis: Worst Case Scenario Could See $135K BTC by December: Worst case price prediction for bitcoin using the stock to flow analysis could see bitcoin hitting $135,000 by December 2021 according to PlanB
Popular crypto analystPlanBhas outlined the potentially bearish situation for bitcoin over the course of 2021. The analysis makes use of the stock to flow (S2F) model to determine the potential price of bitcoin.
In arecent tweet, PlanB states “Bitcoin is below $34K, triggered by Elon Musk’s energy FUD and China’s mining crack down.” The analyst further reiterates his sentiment using the S2F model, saying “There is also a more fundamental reason that we see weakness in June, and possibly July. My worst case scenario for 2021 (price/on-chain based): Aug>47K, Sep>43K, Oct>63K, Nov>98K, Dec>135K”
While PlanB reiterates that the current price model is the worst case scenario, the analyst still believes that BTC could break its previous all-time high by October. Also stating that BTC could hit $135,000 before the end of the year.
PlanB commented further on histweet, offering a best case scenario price prediction, “my base case and best case scenarios! a hint: best case Dec $450K.”
PlanB expects in the worst case that BTC should hit $135,000 by December, with a potential to hit $450,000 in a best case scenario.
The stock to flow model is based on bitcoins valuation model, which was inspired by Nick Szabo’s concept of unforgeable scarcity. The model measures scarcity, and the price of bitcoin over time.
Other price predictions
RecentlyPerianne Boring told CNBC that bitcoin could reach $288,000 according to the same model, saying ““Stock to flow says bitcoin should be priced at $100,000 to $288,000 this year. We have 12 years of data on Stock to flow on bitcoin. If you measure with the U.S. dollar, stock to flow is 94% correlated.”
Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev recentlyspoke to Bloombergand gave his price predictions, saying that BTC would hit $100,000. Trenchev also stated that he expects other countries to follow El Salvador in making BTC legal tender in the future. || Stock to Flow Analysis: Worst Case Scenario Could See $135K BTC by December: Worst case price prediction for bitcoin using the stock to flow analysis could see bitcoin hitting $135,000 by December 2021 according to PlanB
Popular crypto analystPlanBhas outlined the potentially bearish situation for bitcoin over the course of 2021. The analysis makes use of the stock to flow (S2F) model to determine the potential price of bitcoin.
In arecent tweet, PlanB states “Bitcoin is below $34K, triggered by Elon Musk’s energy FUD and China’s mining crack down.” The analyst further reiterates his sentiment using the S2F model, saying “There is also a more fundamental reason that we see weakness in June, and possibly July. My worst case scenario for 2021 (price/on-chain based): Aug>47K, Sep>43K, Oct>63K, Nov>98K, Dec>135K”
While PlanB reiterates that the current price model is the worst case scenario, the analyst still believes that BTC could break its previous all-time high by October. Also stating that BTC could hit $135,000 before the end of the year.
PlanB commented further on histweet, offering a best case scenario price prediction, “my base case and best case scenarios! a hint: best case Dec $450K.”
PlanB expects in the worst case that BTC should hit $135,000 by December, with a potential to hit $450,000 in a best case scenario.
The stock to flow model is based on bitcoins valuation model, which was inspired by Nick Szabo’s concept of unforgeable scarcity. The model measures scarcity, and the price of bitcoin over time.
Other price predictions
RecentlyPerianne Boring told CNBC that bitcoin could reach $288,000 according to the same model, saying ““Stock to flow says bitcoin should be priced at $100,000 to $288,000 this year. We have 12 years of data on Stock to flow on bitcoin. If you measure with the U.S. dollar, stock to flow is 94% correlated.”
Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev recentlyspoke to Bloombergand gave his price predictions, saying that BTC would hit $100,000. Trenchev also stated that he expects other countries to follow El Salvador in making BTC legal tender in the future. || Stock to Flow Analysis: Worst Case Scenario Could See $135K BTC by December: Worst case price prediction for bitcoin using the stock to flow analysis could see bitcoin hitting $135,000 by December 2021 according to PlanB Popular crypto analyst PlanB has outlined the potentially bearish situation for bitcoin over the course of 2021. The analysis makes use of the stock to flow (S2F) model to determine the potential price of bitcoin. In a recent tweet , PlanB states “Bitcoin is below $34K, triggered by Elon Musk’s energy FUD and China’s mining crack down.” The analyst further reiterates his sentiment using the S2F model, saying “There is also a more fundamental reason that we see weakness in June, and possibly July. My worst case scenario for 2021 (price/on-chain based): Aug>47K, Sep>43K, Oct>63K, Nov>98K, Dec>135K” Best case scenario sees $450K BTC While PlanB reiterates that the current price model is the worst case scenario, the analyst still believes that BTC could break its previous all-time high by October. Also stating that BTC could hit $135,000 before the end of the year. PlanB commented further on his tweet , offering a best case scenario price prediction, “my base case and best case scenarios! a hint: best case Dec $450K.” PlanB expects in the worst case that BTC should hit $135,000 by December, with a potential to hit $450,000 in a best case scenario. The stock to flow model is based on bitcoins valuation model, which was inspired by Nick Szabo’s concept of unforgeable scarcity. The model measures scarcity, and the price of bitcoin over time. Other price predictions Recently Perianne Boring told CNBC that bitcoin could reach $288,000 according to the same model, saying ““Stock to flow says bitcoin should be priced at $100,000 to $288,000 this year. We have 12 years of data on Stock to flow on bitcoin. If you measure with the U.S. dollar, stock to flow is 94% correlated.” Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev recently spoke to Bloomberg and gave his price predictions, saying that BTC would hit $100,000. Trenchev also stated that he expects other countries to follow El Salvador in making BTC legal tender in the future. || Deutsche Bank's grads set to work in office full time despite hybrid policy: The banking industry is notorious for overworking new grads, with regular reports of 100-hour working weeks par for the course. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images/Sipa USA (SIPA USA/PA Images) Deutsche Bank's ( DB ) UK and Ireland CEO has said that she would like to see investment banking grads work five days a week from the office, despite the fact that the company has adopted what it calls a hybrid working model. In an interview with Business Insider Tiina Lee said she thinks grads should want to spend as much time in the office as they possibly can. Although it will not be mandatory, the implication is it would be expected by top brass. Three weeks ago the bank's boss, Christian Sewing, signed off hybrid working arrangements in an internal memo to staff, detailing how Deutsche will return to the office once COVID-19 restrictions ease. “We need to find the right balance which will make all of us together more efficient and effective,” the memo said. “To support new ways of working we will make targeted investments in our real estate and upgrade our digital infrastructure to facilitate increased collaboration.” One reason Lee gave for grads being in the office more was that they would benefit from mentorship in person as well as from the direct oversight of their seniors. Read more: Bitcoin struggles to bounce back as cryptos continue to decline The banking industry is notorious for overworking new grads, with regular reports of 100-hour working weeks par for the course. In March, documents leaked from Goldman Sachs (GS) showed in a "Working Conditions Survey" complaints from analysts of worsening mental and physical health, 100-hour work weeks, "workplace abuse" from management, and poorer relationships with friends and family. The presentation was based on a survey of 13 first-year analysts, one of the most junior official roles in the bank. Analysts who took the survey were averaging just 5 hours sleep a night. Respondents had worked an average of 108-hours in the week the survey was done — equivalent to working 9am to midnight Monday to Sunday. CNBC reported that the presentation was drawn up by junior bankers themselves to highlight their issues. Story continues Goldman Sachs acknowledged the leak at the time and said the conditions were linked to surging business due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch: How to negotiate a pay rise || Deutsche Bank's grads set to work in office full time despite hybrid policy: Deutsche Bank's (DB) UK and Ireland CEO has said that she would like to see investment banking grads work five days a week from the office, despite the fact that the company has adopted what it calls a hybrid working model.
In aninterview with Business InsiderTiina Lee said she thinks grads should want to spend as much time in the office as they possibly can. Although it will not be mandatory, the implication is it would be expected by top brass.
Three weeks ago the bank's boss, Christian Sewing, signed off hybrid working arrangements in an internal memo to staff, detailing how Deutsche will return to the office once COVID-19 restrictions ease.
“We need to find the right balance which will make all of us together more efficient and effective,” the memo said.
“To support new ways of working we will make targeted investments in our real estate and upgrade our digital infrastructure to facilitate increased collaboration.”
One reason Lee gave for grads being in the office more was that they would benefit from mentorship in person as well as from the direct oversight of their seniors.
Read more:Bitcoin struggles to bounce back as cryptos continue to decline
The banking industry is notorious for overworking new grads, with regular reports of 100-hour working weeks par for the course.
In March,documents leaked from Goldman Sachs (GS)showed in a "Working Conditions Survey" complaints from analysts of worsening mental and physical health, 100-hour work weeks, "workplace abuse" from management, and poorer relationships with friends and family.
The presentation was based on a survey of 13 first-year analysts, one of the most junior official roles in the bank. Analysts who took the survey were averaging just 5 hours sleep a night. Respondents had worked an average of 108-hours in the week the survey was done — equivalent to working 9am to midnight Monday to Sunday.
CNBC reported that the presentation was drawn up by junior bankers themselves to highlight their issues.
Goldman Sachs acknowledged the leak at the time and said the conditions were linked to surging business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Watch: How to negotiate a pay rise || The ‘Sunday Effect’ Sends Crypto Crashing on Weekends – Which Means It Might Never Go Mainstream: Ever heard of the “Sunday effect”? Lately, it seems every weekend,crypto values plummet– and it’s a trend with major ramifications for the future of crypto as a serious investing contender.
See:4 Best Places To Buy and Sell CryptocurrencyFind:How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe?
Investors and investment managers have anxiously been awaiting a decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the approval of Bitcoinexchange traded funds or ETFs, which would have to be traded on the “exchange” – in other words, on the stock market (and therefore, only during the hours the stock market is open). Right now, cryptos don’t have any such limitations and can be traded anytime.
“Should the price of Bitcoin abruptly plummet on a Saturday, investors in a Bitcoin ETF would theoretically be trapped in that fund until the market opens on Monday. Should it spike, they’d have to wait to trade for a profit,” Fortune reports. So an ETF could turn Bitcoin into a more mainstream option, but could also spell disaster for those trapped in the weekend holding pattern.
Investors eager to hear about that crypto ETF will likely have to wait for awhile. Several companies have filed with the SEC but the Commission has either rejected or delayed its decisions on many of them. VanEck for example, registered its ETF in March, and the SEC usually takes 45 days to approve or disapprove a filing. In a statement in April, the Commission said it was extending the period — which should have ended May 3– and pushed it to June 17. And WisdomTree, whose Bitcoin ETF was registered in April, saw its decision pushed to July 14 from May 30, according to an SEC notice.
“The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the comments received,” according to the statement at the time.
The Financial Times reports that SEC chair Gary Gensler dampened hopes of a swift approval of bitcoin ETFs this year. In testimony before the House of Representative’s subcommittee on financial services last week, Gensler said “there are many challenges and gaps for investor protection in [crypto] markets,” according to the report.
See:3 Common Crypto Myths DebunkedFind:Crypto Curious but Risk Averse? You Can Invest As Little As $1 – on Venmo
“Bitcoin going mainstream is a game-changer for the world of finance and is revolutionizing the way we view money in the economy of tomorrow,” David Grasso, Bold TV CEO, told GOBankingRates in April. “Still, I don’t think it’s any surprise that the government, specifically regulators, are proceeding with caution.Creating proper oversight is not an easy task and I do not envy those making those calls. Overregulation can distort markets and create serious consequences, while under-regulation can create systemic issues and fuel social problems,” Grasso added.
More From GOBankingRates
• Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Retirement in America
• How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021
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• 27 Things You Should Never Do With Your Money
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:The ‘Sunday Effect’ Sends Crypto Crashing on Weekends – Which Means It Might Never Go Mainstream || The Sunday Effect Sends Crypto Crashing on Weekends Which Means It Might Never Go Mainstream: ©Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock.com Ever heard of the Sunday effect? Lately, it seems every weekend, crypto values plummet and its a trend with major ramifications for the future of crypto as a serious investing contender. See: 4 Best Places To Buy and Sell Cryptocurrency Find: How Does Cryptocurrency Work and Is It Safe? Investors and investment managers have anxiously been awaiting a decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the approval of Bitcoin exchange traded funds or ETFs , which would have to be traded on the exchange in other words, on the stock market (and therefore, only during the hours the stock market is open). Right now, cryptos dont have any such limitations and can be traded anytime. Should the price of Bitcoin abruptly plummet on a Saturday, investors in a Bitcoin ETF would theoretically be trapped in that fund until the market opens on Monday. Should it spike, theyd have to wait to trade for a profit, Fortune reports. So an ETF could turn Bitcoin into a more mainstream option, but could also spell disaster for those trapped in the weekend holding pattern. Investors eager to hear about that crypto ETF will likely have to wait for awhile. Several companies have filed with the SEC but the Commission has either rejected or delayed its decisions on many of them. VanEck for example, registered its ETF in March, and the SEC usually takes 45 days to approve or disapprove a filing. In a statement in April, the Commission said it was extending the period which should have ended May 3 and pushed it to June 17. And WisdomTree, whose Bitcoin ETF was registered in April, saw its decision pushed to July 14 from May 30, according to an SEC notice. The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the comments received, according to the statement at the time. The Financial Times reports that SEC chair Gary Gensler dampened hopes of a swift approval of bitcoin ETFs this year. In testimony before the House of Representatives subcommittee on financial services last week, Gensler said there are many challenges and gaps for investor protection in [crypto] markets, according to the report. See: 3 Common Crypto Myths Debunked Find: Crypto Curious but Risk Averse? You Can Invest As Little As $1 on Venmo Bitcoin going mainstream is a game-changer for the world of finance and is revolutionizing the way we view money in the economy of tomorrow, David Grasso, Bold TV CEO, told GOBankingRates in April. Still, I dont think its any surprise that the government, specifically regulators, are proceeding with caution. Creating proper oversight is not an easy task and I do not envy those making those calls . Overregulation can distort markets and create serious consequences, while under-regulation can create systemic issues and fuel social problems, Grasso added. Story continues More From GOBankingRates Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Retirement in America How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021 20 Home Renovations That Will Hurt Your Homes Value 27 Things You Should Never Do With Your Money This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : The Sunday Effect Sends Crypto Crashing on Weekends Which Means It Might Never Go Mainstream View comments || Bitcoin Drops as Hashrate Declines With China Mining Crackdown: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin dropped over the weekend amid a focus on Chinese mine closures and potential regulatory scrutiny. The largest cryptocurrency fell 5.5% to $34,142 as of 10:50 a.m. Sunday in New York, dropping for a fourth time in the past five sessions. Ether, the second-biggest, declined 5.9% to $2,095. The hashrate in China is dropping significantly as Bitcoin mines are being closed, Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at crypto-derivatives exchange FTX wrote in an email Saturday, citing reports on Twitter from handle @bigmagicdao. Longer term most see hashrate moving out of China as positive but in the near term may have/has already resulted in inventory sales, Cheesman said. Cheesman also mentioned the death cross, which occurs when the 50-day moving average drops below the 200-day, but noted that backtesting isnt statistically significant on the signal for Bitcoin. When the coin experienced a death cross in March 2020, for instance, that was at the start of a yearlong rally. Cryptocurrencies have been enduring a lull recently. Bitcoin is trading at about half its record high of nearly $65,000 reached in mid-April. The market value of all cryptocurrencies is about $1.45 trillion, as measured by CoinGecko, versus a high around $2.6 trillion last month. One of the factors cited has been concern about China clamping down on mining amid concerns about energy usage, and in the wake of deadly coal accidents. The city of Yaan in the southwestern region of Sichuan has promised the provincial authorities to root out all Bitcoin and Ether mining operations within one year, said a person with knowledge of the situation. According to a report in the Communist Party-backed Global Times, the closure of many Bitcoin mines in the province has resulted in more than 90% of Chinas Bitcoin mining capacity being shuttered. About 65% of the worlds Bitcoin mining took place in China as of April 2020, according to an estimate by the University of Cambridge. Story continues In addition, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said Bitcoin was being pressured by the sudden drop by the Titan token to nearly zero -- a stablecoin that had drawn even billionaire Mark Cuban. Regulators had already been expressing concern about stablecoins, and Cuban himself encouraged further regulation of the space after the episode. Bitcoin tumbled as the demise over the Titan token raised the pressure of regulators to deliver more protections for the public, Moya said in an email Friday. Titans crypto crash was a surprise to many as it is a partially collateralized stablecoin. Given the risk-off environment that is hitting Wall Street, cryptocurrencies are under pressure. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Drops as Hashrate Declines With China Mining Crackdown: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin dropped over the weekend amid a focus on Chinese mine closures and potential regulatory scrutiny.
The largest cryptocurrency fell 5.5% to $34,142 as of 10:50 a.m. Sunday in New York, dropping for a fourth time in the past five sessions. Ether, the second-biggest, declined 5.9% to $2,095.
The hashrate in China is dropping significantly as Bitcoin mines are being closed, Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at crypto-derivatives exchange FTX wrote in an email Saturday, citing reports on Twitter from handle @bigmagicdao.
“Longer term most see hashrate moving out of China as positive but in the near term may have/has already resulted in inventory sales,” Cheesman said.
Cheesman also mentioned the death cross, which occurs when the 50-day moving average drops below the 200-day, but noted that “backtesting isn’t statistically significant” on the signal for Bitcoin. When the coin experienced a death cross in March 2020, for instance, that was at the start of a yearlong rally.
Cryptocurrencies have been enduring a lull recently. Bitcoin is trading at about half its record high of nearly $65,000 reached in mid-April. The market value of all cryptocurrencies is about $1.45 trillion, as measured by CoinGecko, versus a high around $2.6 trillion last month.
One of the factors cited has been concern about China clamping down on mining amid concerns about energy usage, and in the wake of deadly coal accidents.
The city of Ya’an in the southwestern region of Sichuan has promised the provincial authorities to root out all Bitcoin and Ether mining operations within one year, said a person with knowledge of the situation. According to a report in the Communist Party-backed Global Times, the closure of many Bitcoin mines in the province has resulted in more than 90% of China’s Bitcoin mining capacity being shuttered.
About 65% of the world’s Bitcoin mining took place in China as of April 2020, according to an estimate by the University of Cambridge.
In addition, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said Bitcoin was being pressured by the sudden drop by the Titan token to nearly zero -- a stablecoin that had drawn even billionaire Mark Cuban. Regulators had already been expressing concern about stablecoins, and Cuban himself encouraged further regulation of the space after the episode.
“Bitcoin tumbled as the demise over the Titan token raised the pressure of regulators to deliver more protections for the public,” Moya said in an email Friday. “Titan’s crypto crash was a surprise to many as it is a partially collateralized stablecoin. Given the risk-off environment that is hitting Wall Street, cryptocurrencies are under pressure.”
More stories like this are available onbloomberg.com
Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Drops as Hashrate Declines With China Mining Crackdown: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin dropped over the weekend amid a focus on Chinese mine closures and potential regulatory scrutiny.
The largest cryptocurrency fell 5.5% to $34,142 as of 10:50 a.m. Sunday in New York, dropping for a fourth time in the past five sessions. Ether, the second-biggest, declined 5.9% to $2,095.
The hashrate in China is dropping significantly as Bitcoin mines are being closed, Jonathan Cheesman, head of over-the-counter and institutional sales at crypto-derivatives exchange FTX wrote in an email Saturday, citing reports on Twitter from handle @bigmagicdao.
“Longer term most see hashrate moving out of China as positive but in the near term may have/has already resulted in inventory sales,” Cheesman said.
Cheesman also mentioned the death cross, which occurs when the 50-day moving average drops below the 200-day, but noted that “backtesting isn’t statistically significant” on the signal for Bitcoin. When the coin experienced a death cross in March 2020, for instance, that was at the start of a yearlong rally.
Cryptocurrencies have been enduring a lull recently. Bitcoin is trading at about half its record high of nearly $65,000 reached in mid-April. The market value of all cryptocurrencies is about $1.45 trillion, as measured by CoinGecko, versus a high around $2.6 trillion last month.
One of the factors cited has been concern about China clamping down on mining amid concerns about energy usage, and in the wake of deadly coal accidents.
The city of Ya’an in the southwestern region of Sichuan has promised the provincial authorities to root out all Bitcoin and Ether mining operations within one year, said a person with knowledge of the situation. According to a report in the Communist Party-backed Global Times, the closure of many Bitcoin mines in the province has resulted in more than 90% of China’s Bitcoin mining capacity being shuttered.
About 65% of the world’s Bitcoin mining took place in China as of April 2020, according to an estimate by the University of Cambridge.
In addition, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said Bitcoin was being pressured by the sudden drop by the Titan token to nearly zero -- a stablecoin that had drawn even billionaire Mark Cuban. Regulators had already been expressing concern about stablecoins, and Cuban himself encouraged further regulation of the space after the episode.
“Bitcoin tumbled as the demise over the Titan token raised the pressure of regulators to deliver more protections for the public,” Moya said in an email Friday. “Titan’s crypto crash was a surprise to many as it is a partially collateralized stablecoin. Given the risk-off environment that is hitting Wall Street, cryptocurrencies are under pressure.”
More stories like this are available onbloomberg.com
Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01, 9234.82, 9325.18, 9043.94, 8441.49, 8504.89, 8723.94, 8716.79, 8510.38, 8368.83, 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78, 7557.82, 7587.34, 7480.14, 7355.88, 7368.22, 7135.99, 7472.59, 7406.52, 7494.17, 7541.45, 7643.45, 7720.25, 7514.47, 7633.76, 7653.98, 7678.24, 7624.92, 7531.98, 6786.02, 6906.92, 6582.36, 6349.90, 6675.35, 6456.58, 6550.16, 6499.27, 6734.82, 6769.94, 6776.55, 6729.74, 6083.69, 6162.48, 6173.23, 6249.18, 6093.67, 6157.13, 5903.44, 6218.30, 6404.00, 6385.82, 6614.18, 6529.59, 6597.55, 6639.14, 6673.50, 6856.93, 6773.88, 6741.75, 6329.95, 6394.71, 6228.81, 6238.05, 6276.12, 6359.64, 6741.75, 7321.04, 7370.78, 7466.86, 7354.13, 7419.29, 7418.49, 7711.11, 8424.27, 8181.39, 7951.58, 8165.01, 8192.15, 8218.46, 8180.48, 7780.44.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-07-31]
Volume: 5287530000, RSI (14-day): 56.90, 50-day EMA: 7298.26, 200-day EMA: 7926.28
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1223.70, Gold RSI: 34.97
Oil Price: 68.76, Oil RSI: 46.79
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Iran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’: iran bitcoin Iran’s national currency has crashed to its record low against the U.S. Dollar as the country prepares to face economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. The Iranian Rial, which was just beginning to gain momentum after years of depreciation, set a new low on Monday, trading on an average at 100,000 Rials on the black market. Many Iranians are now agitated that their economy will collapse. The sentiment has furthered because of Iranian authorities’ decision to impose restrictions on foreign currency transactions. The authorities have also started a crackdown on those attempting to circumvent restrictions by purchasing gold coins in the black market. Stuck between a depreciating national currency and strict law enforcement agencies, some Iranians are reportedly turning to bitcoin and similar decentralized assets to elude sanctions. Since May 2018, when the U.S. announced its sanctions against Tehran, bitcoin trading volume within the country has experienced a marked uptick, though it is still far below the all-time high it set last December. Around the same time, local media had claimed that Iranians had sent over $2.5 billion out of their land to purchase bitcoin and other digital currencies. localbitcoins iran volume One Iranian, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that she has been purchasing some bitcoins every month out of her salary as a protective measure against U.S. sanctions. “I started purchasing Bitcoin, and even Ethereum, thinking Iranian central bank will not be able to resolve the poor economic situation,” she told CCN. “I had read many reports about Chinese and Venezuelan people doing the same at the time of their economic crisis.” She has also confirmed that Rial price dropped heavily against bitcoin in the underground market, stating she was asked the equivalent of as much as $20,000 to purchase 1 BTC by the same dealer who was selling it for $10,000 only the last month. In international markets, the bitcoin price against USD is around $8,130 at press time. Story continues National Cryptocurrency a Solution? Iran, despite banning bitcoin and similar digital currencies in April this year, had announced that it will launch its own national cryptocurrency. Just very recently, the Iranian government confirmed that they have created a national encryption key which would employ blockchain technology. Nevertheless, U.S. believes that efforts to bypass their sanctions will be in vain, for they apply to people and organizations, not assets. The Trump administration has made clear that those who would form business ties with Iran would be enmeshed by sanctions. A similar attempt made by Venezuela by launching an oil- and mineral reserves-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro , has not gone too well. It has dropped from its initial sale price of $60 to the current price of $16.50, with minimal demand from global markets. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Iran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’ appeared first on CCN . || Iran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’: Iran’s national currency has crashed to its record low against the U.S. Dollar as the country prepares to face economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
The Iranian Rial, which was just beginning to gain momentum after years of depreciation, set a new low on Monday, trading on an average at 100,000 Rials on the black market. Many Iranians are now agitated that their economy will collapse. The sentiment has furthered because of Iranian authorities’ decision to impose restrictions on foreign currency transactions. The authorities have also started a crackdown on those attempting to circumvent restrictions by purchasing gold coins in the black market.
Stuck between a depreciating national currency and strict law enforcement agencies, some Iranians are reportedly turning tobitcoinand similar decentralized assets to elude sanctions. Since May 2018, when the U.S. announced its sanctions against Tehran, bitcoin trading volume within the country has experienced a marked uptick, though it is still far below the all-time high it set last December. Around the same time, local media had claimed that Iranians had sent over$2.5 billionout of their land to purchase bitcoin and other digital currencies.
One Iranian, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that she has been purchasing some bitcoins every month out of her salary as a protective measure against U.S. sanctions.
“I started purchasing Bitcoin, and even Ethereum, thinking Iranian central bank will not be able to resolve the poor economic situation,” she told CCN. “I had read many reports about Chinese and Venezuelan people doing the same at the time of their economic crisis.”
She has also confirmed that Rial price dropped heavily against bitcoin in the underground market, stating she was asked the equivalent of as much as $20,000 to purchase 1 BTC by the same dealer who was selling it for $10,000 only the last month.
In international markets, the bitcoin price against USD is around $8,130 at press time.
Iran, despite banning bitcoin and similar digital currencies in April this year, had announced that it will launch its own national cryptocurrency. Just very recently, the Iranian government confirmed that they have created a national encryption key which would employ blockchain technology.
Nevertheless, U.S. believes that efforts to bypass their sanctions will be in vain, for they apply to people and organizations, not assets. The Trump administration has made clear that those who would form business ties with Iran would be enmeshed by sanctions.
A similar attempt made by Venezuela by launching an oil- and mineral reserves-backed cryptocurrency, thePetro, has not gone too well. It has dropped from its initial sale price of $60 to the current price of $16.50, with minimal demand from global markets.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postIran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’appeared first onCCN. || Iran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’: Iran’s national currency has crashed to its record low against the U.S. Dollar as the country prepares to face economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
The Iranian Rial, which was just beginning to gain momentum after years of depreciation, set a new low on Monday, trading on an average at 100,000 Rials on the black market. Many Iranians are now agitated that their economy will collapse. The sentiment has furthered because of Iranian authorities’ decision to impose restrictions on foreign currency transactions. The authorities have also started a crackdown on those attempting to circumvent restrictions by purchasing gold coins in the black market.
Stuck between a depreciating national currency and strict law enforcement agencies, some Iranians are reportedly turning tobitcoinand similar decentralized assets to elude sanctions. Since May 2018, when the U.S. announced its sanctions against Tehran, bitcoin trading volume within the country has experienced a marked uptick, though it is still far below the all-time high it set last December. Around the same time, local media had claimed that Iranians had sent over$2.5 billionout of their land to purchase bitcoin and other digital currencies.
One Iranian, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that she has been purchasing some bitcoins every month out of her salary as a protective measure against U.S. sanctions.
“I started purchasing Bitcoin, and even Ethereum, thinking Iranian central bank will not be able to resolve the poor economic situation,” she told CCN. “I had read many reports about Chinese and Venezuelan people doing the same at the time of their economic crisis.”
She has also confirmed that Rial price dropped heavily against bitcoin in the underground market, stating she was asked the equivalent of as much as $20,000 to purchase 1 BTC by the same dealer who was selling it for $10,000 only the last month.
In international markets, the bitcoin price against USD is around $8,130 at press time.
Iran, despite banning bitcoin and similar digital currencies in April this year, had announced that it will launch its own national cryptocurrency. Just very recently, the Iranian government confirmed that they have created a national encryption key which would employ blockchain technology.
Nevertheless, U.S. believes that efforts to bypass their sanctions will be in vain, for they apply to people and organizations, not assets. The Trump administration has made clear that those who would form business ties with Iran would be enmeshed by sanctions.
A similar attempt made by Venezuela by launching an oil- and mineral reserves-backed cryptocurrency, thePetro, has not gone too well. It has dropped from its initial sale price of $60 to the current price of $16.50, with minimal demand from global markets.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postIran’s Bitcoin Volume Soars as Rial Value Enters ‘Death Spiral’appeared first onCCN. || Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected: Over the past 24 hours, the valuation of the crypto market has dropped slightly from $300 billion to $295 billion, as the bitcoin price declined from $8,300 to $8,150.
Tokens including Aelf (ELF), Holo (HOT), Zilliqa (ZIL), Binance Coin (BNB), and 0x (ZRX), which performed well against bothbitcoinand the U.S. dollar last week, dropped substantially by nearly 10 percent.
The dominance index of bitcoin, which evaluates the dominance of bitcoin over the entire cryptocurrency market, has increased to 47.5 percent, its highest level since early January when the price of BTC hovered at around $19,500.
While the volume of bitcoin remains relatively strong in the $4 billion region, it has dropped by a large margin since its peak at $5.5 billion last week. BTC was able to sustain momentum in the $8,300 region for six straight days excluding a brief period on July 27 that led the price to fall by 6 percent temporarily, but has struggled to initiate movements on the upside. The weekly candle of BTC closed as a buy candle on July 30, demonstrating a positive mid-term investment opportunity.
However, if BTC fails to maintain its volume and falls below the $8,100 mark, it is possible for BTC to test a major support level at $8,000 and eye a drop below the $8,000 mark. If BTC finds stability in the lower end of the $8,000 region, a short-term bottom will likely be found at $8,000, with expected recovery to $8,500.
Despite the stability in the price of BTC throughout the past week, tokens have struggled to find any sort of momentum at the current price level and have continued to fall against both BTC and the US dollar. If BTC falls below the $8,100 mark in the next few hours, tokens are expected to demonstrate a larger decline in value, especially if the volume of the crypto market worsens.
Many tokens like ICON (ICX), ZRX, ELF, BNB, and ZIL, which are highly anticipated cryptocurrencies with fairly active development communities, experienced five- to 15-fold increase in their value subsequent to their token sales in early 2018. Since then, the value of these tokens has fallen by around 70 percent against BTC and over 90 percent against the US dollar.
Earlier this week, Tabb Group reported that the over-the-counter (OTC) market of BTC is two to three times larger than the BTC exchange market, dominated by cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase, UPbit, and Binance.
Eric Wall, a cryptocurrency researcher, said:
“Just read an estimate from the TABB Group (in a $5,000 report) that OTC crypto markets exceed exchange volumes by 2-3x. That would mean 1-1.5MM BTC is traded OTC daily. Strange it’s not visible on the blockchain, which shows a meager 100k/day.”
If the OTC market is significantly bigger than the crypto exchange market, it is possible that large movements like the fall in the value of BTC on July 27 was caused by a big sell order in the OTC market, not necessarily independent events like an ETF rejection.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postCrypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expectedappeared first onCCN. || Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected: bitcoin price Over the past 24 hours, the valuation of the crypto market has dropped slightly from $300 billion to $295 billion, as the bitcoin price declined from $8,300 to $8,150. Tokens including Aelf (ELF), Holo (HOT), Zilliqa (ZIL), Binance Coin (BNB), and 0x (ZRX), which performed well against both bitcoin and the U.S. dollar last week, dropped substantially by nearly 10 percent. The dominance index of bitcoin, which evaluates the dominance of bitcoin over the entire cryptocurrency market, has increased to 47.5 percent, its highest level since early January when the price of BTC hovered at around $19,500. Short-Term Fall Expected While the volume of bitcoin remains relatively strong in the $4 billion region, it has dropped by a large margin since its peak at $5.5 billion last week. BTC was able to sustain momentum in the $8,300 region for six straight days excluding a brief period on July 27 that led the price to fall by 6 percent temporarily, but has struggled to initiate movements on the upside. The weekly candle of BTC closed as a buy candle on July 30, demonstrating a positive mid-term investment opportunity. bitcoin price However, if BTC fails to maintain its volume and falls below the $8,100 mark, it is possible for BTC to test a major support level at $8,000 and eye a drop below the $8,000 mark. If BTC finds stability in the lower end of the $8,000 region, a short-term bottom will likely be found at $8,000, with expected recovery to $8,500. Despite the stability in the price of BTC throughout the past week, tokens have struggled to find any sort of momentum at the current price level and have continued to fall against both BTC and the US dollar. If BTC falls below the $8,100 mark in the next few hours, tokens are expected to demonstrate a larger decline in value, especially if the volume of the crypto market worsens. Many tokens like ICON (ICX), ZRX, ELF, BNB, and ZIL, which are highly anticipated cryptocurrencies with fairly active development communities, experienced five- to 15-fold increase in their value subsequent to their token sales in early 2018. Since then, the value of these tokens has fallen by around 70 percent against BTC and over 90 percent against the US dollar. Story continues ETF Over Exaggerated? Earlier this week, Tabb Group reported that the over-the-counter (OTC) market of BTC is two to three times larger than the BTC exchange market, dominated by cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase, UPbit, and Binance. Eric Wall, a cryptocurrency researcher, said: “Just read an estimate from the TABB Group (in a $5,000 report) that OTC crypto markets exceed exchange volumes by 2-3x. That would mean 1-1.5MM BTC is traded OTC daily. Strange it’s not visible on the blockchain, which shows a meager 100k/day.” If the OTC market is significantly bigger than the crypto exchange market, it is possible that large movements like the fall in the value of BTC on July 27 was caused by a big sell order in the OTC market, not necessarily independent events like an ETF rejection. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected appeared first on CCN . || Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected: Over the past 24 hours, the valuation of the crypto market has dropped slightly from $300 billion to $295 billion, as the bitcoin price declined from $8,300 to $8,150.
Tokens including Aelf (ELF), Holo (HOT), Zilliqa (ZIL), Binance Coin (BNB), and 0x (ZRX), which performed well against bothbitcoinand the U.S. dollar last week, dropped substantially by nearly 10 percent.
The dominance index of bitcoin, which evaluates the dominance of bitcoin over the entire cryptocurrency market, has increased to 47.5 percent, its highest level since early January when the price of BTC hovered at around $19,500.
While the volume of bitcoin remains relatively strong in the $4 billion region, it has dropped by a large margin since its peak at $5.5 billion last week. BTC was able to sustain momentum in the $8,300 region for six straight days excluding a brief period on July 27 that led the price to fall by 6 percent temporarily, but has struggled to initiate movements on the upside. The weekly candle of BTC closed as a buy candle on July 30, demonstrating a positive mid-term investment opportunity.
However, if BTC fails to maintain its volume and falls below the $8,100 mark, it is possible for BTC to test a major support level at $8,000 and eye a drop below the $8,000 mark. If BTC finds stability in the lower end of the $8,000 region, a short-term bottom will likely be found at $8,000, with expected recovery to $8,500.
Despite the stability in the price of BTC throughout the past week, tokens have struggled to find any sort of momentum at the current price level and have continued to fall against both BTC and the US dollar. If BTC falls below the $8,100 mark in the next few hours, tokens are expected to demonstrate a larger decline in value, especially if the volume of the crypto market worsens.
Many tokens like ICON (ICX), ZRX, ELF, BNB, and ZIL, which are highly anticipated cryptocurrencies with fairly active development communities, experienced five- to 15-fold increase in their value subsequent to their token sales in early 2018. Since then, the value of these tokens has fallen by around 70 percent against BTC and over 90 percent against the US dollar.
Earlier this week, Tabb Group reported that the over-the-counter (OTC) market of BTC is two to three times larger than the BTC exchange market, dominated by cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase, UPbit, and Binance.
Eric Wall, a cryptocurrency researcher, said:
“Just read an estimate from the TABB Group (in a $5,000 report) that OTC crypto markets exceed exchange volumes by 2-3x. That would mean 1-1.5MM BTC is traded OTC daily. Strange it’s not visible on the blockchain, which shows a meager 100k/day.”
If the OTC market is significantly bigger than the crypto exchange market, it is possible that large movements like the fall in the value of BTC on July 27 was caused by a big sell order in the OTC market, not necessarily independent events like an ETF rejection.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postCrypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expectedappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets.
The technology index <.SPLRCT> tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Twitter Inc <TWTR.N> and Intel Corp <INTC.O> spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs.
"It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro.
The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix <NFLX.O> Inc, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Google parent Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>.
At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin <BTC=BTSP>, the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange.
"The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets. The technology index <.SPLRCT> tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Twitter Inc <TWTR.N> and Intel Corp <INTC.O> spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs. "It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro. The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix <NFLX.O> Inc, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Google parent Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>. At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin <BTC=BTSP>, the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. "The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said. Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade. (Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets.
The technology index <.SPLRCT> tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Twitter Inc <TWTR.N> and Intel Corp <INTC.O> spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs.
"It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro.
The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix <NFLX.O> Inc, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Google parent Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>.
At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin <BTC=BTSP>, the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange.
"The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets. The technology index (.SPLRCT) tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs. "It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro. The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix (NFLX.O) Inc, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O). At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin (BTC=BTSP), the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. "The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said. Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade. (Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets. The technology index (.SPLRCT) tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs. "It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro. The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix (NFLX.O) Inc, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O). At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin (BTC=BTSP), the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. "The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said. Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade. (Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin slips below $8,000 as investors step away from risk: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin briefly fell below $8,000 on Monday as investors scaled back their exposure to cryptocurrenices, after a sell-off in shares of technology and internet companies spilled over into other risky assets. The technology index (.SPLRCT) tumbled 1.79 percent as disappointing results last week from Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) spurred worries about growth for a sector that has led the equity market to record highs. "It looks like the entire market is in a risk-off mood today. It started with the (FAANG) stocks, but the mood seems to be dragging down crypto markets as well at the moment," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro. The so-called FAANG group includes Facebook, Netflix (NFLX.O) Inc, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O). At 3:17 p.m. (1917 GMT), bitcoin (BTC=BTSP), the world's biggest and best known virtual currency was down 2.48 percent at $8,011.69 on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. "The current level of support is at $7,800, but even if we see a range between $6,000 and $8,000 it would be a good sign of price stability," Greenspan said. Last Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission backed an earlier decision to not allow a bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to trade. (Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Leslie Adler) || Kim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoin: Will social media empress Kim Kardashian help bring more users to bitcoin? Matthew Roszak, co-founder of Bloq and other cryptocurrency initiatives, must have thought so when he presented the social media titan a physical bitcoin during the First Annual If Only Texas HoldEm Charity Poker Tournament, an event he announced on Twitter . Big fun at the First Annual @cityofhope Charity Poker Tournament also gave @KimKardashian her very first #bitcoin KardashianCoin, YeezyCoin? check out #tokenizationofthings : https://t.co/hvWphu6Wxm pic.twitter.com/fOdxDe4jO7 Matthew Roszak (@MatthewRoszak) July 30, 2018 Kardashian was among the celebrities that hosted tables at the event. It didnt take long for Kardashian to post We moved onto bitcoin on Instagram, along with two pictures of a physical bitcoin. Some on Reddit said Kardashian could be a catalyst for cryptocurrency, seeing that she has 114 million followers. A Kardashian Coin? Roszak mentioned the Kardashians during a recent presentation at Tedx San Francisco, a conference that covers technology, entertainment and design. The Kardashians, Roszak said in presenting the image of the KardashianCoin, can tokenize and create their own economy. Every brand, every artist, every tribe, can tokenize their economy, he said. He called it rewards points on steroids. The tokens are used to incentivize early adopters, Roszak said, and they represent participation rights to new protocols, new layers of the Internet. Thats a big change for investors, for participants and developers that want to reimagine certain layers of the Internet, he said. Story continues Bitcoin is one of the greatest inventions of our time, he said, which he noted is a bold statement for a technology that has existed for less than a decade. Using a railroad analogy, he said the blockchain provides the rails and the tokens are the boxcars that run on the rails. The gift Satoshi gave was to allow people not to focus on a personality or an institution, he said, but on mathematics. Roszak Bullish on Tokens Traditional assets will be tokenized, he said. The user interface of cryptocurrency form factors, such as wallets and exchanges, have improved in recent years. This will drive adoption. Roszak said new trillion dollar networks will evolve from the existing market. There will, however, be risks along the way. This all translates into the once in a lifetime opportunity, he said. The tokenization of things is upon us. In 2014, a group called Kim Coindashian Developers tried to get Kardashians attention by offering a business plan as a way to get the Kardashians to support cryptocurrency. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Kim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoin appeared first on CCN . || Kim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoin: Will social media empressKim Kardashianhelp bring more users to bitcoin?
Matthew Roszak, co-founder ofBloqand other cryptocurrency initiatives, must have thought so when he presented the social media titan a physical bitcoin during the First Annual “If Only’ Texas Hold’Em Charity Poker Tournament,” an event he announced onTwitter.
Kardashian was among the celebrities that hosted tables at the event.
It didn’t take long for Kardashian to post “We moved onto bitcoin” on Instagram, along with two pictures of a physical bitcoin.
Some on Reddit said Kardashian could be a catalyst for cryptocurrency, seeing that she has 114 million followers.
Roszak mentioned the Kardashians during a recent presentation at Tedx San Francisco, a conference that covers technology, entertainment and design.
The Kardashians, Roszak said in presenting the image of the KardashianCoin, can tokenize and create their own economy. “Every brand, every artist, every tribe, can tokenize their economy,” he said. He called it rewards points on steroids.
The tokens are used to incentivize early adopters, Roszak said, and they represent participation rights to new protocols, new layers of the Internet. “That’s a big change for investors, for participants and developers that want to reimagine certain layers of the Internet,” he said.
“Bitcoin is one of the greatest inventions of our time,” he said, which he noted is a bold statement for a technology that has existed for less than a decade. Using a railroad analogy, he said the blockchain provides the rails and the tokens are the boxcars that run on the rails.
The gift Satoshi gave was to allow people not to focus on a personality or an institution, he said, but on mathematics.
Traditional assets will be tokenized, he said. The user interface of cryptocurrency form factors, such as wallets and exchanges, have improved in recent years. This will drive adoption.
Roszak said new trillion dollar networks will evolve from the existing market. There will, however, be risks along the way. “This all translates into the once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “The tokenization of things is upon us.”
In 2014, a group calledKim Coindashian Developerstried to get Kardashian’s attention by offering a business plan as a way to get the Kardashian’s to support cryptocurrency.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postKim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoinappeared first onCCN. || Kim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoin: Will social media empressKim Kardashianhelp bring more users to bitcoin?
Matthew Roszak, co-founder ofBloqand other cryptocurrency initiatives, must have thought so when he presented the social media titan a physical bitcoin during the First Annual “If Only’ Texas Hold’Em Charity Poker Tournament,” an event he announced onTwitter.
Kardashian was among the celebrities that hosted tables at the event.
It didn’t take long for Kardashian to post “We moved onto bitcoin” on Instagram, along with two pictures of a physical bitcoin.
Some on Reddit said Kardashian could be a catalyst for cryptocurrency, seeing that she has 114 million followers.
Roszak mentioned the Kardashians during a recent presentation at Tedx San Francisco, a conference that covers technology, entertainment and design.
The Kardashians, Roszak said in presenting the image of the KardashianCoin, can tokenize and create their own economy. “Every brand, every artist, every tribe, can tokenize their economy,” he said. He called it rewards points on steroids.
The tokens are used to incentivize early adopters, Roszak said, and they represent participation rights to new protocols, new layers of the Internet. “That’s a big change for investors, for participants and developers that want to reimagine certain layers of the Internet,” he said.
“Bitcoin is one of the greatest inventions of our time,” he said, which he noted is a bold statement for a technology that has existed for less than a decade. Using a railroad analogy, he said the blockchain provides the rails and the tokens are the boxcars that run on the rails.
The gift Satoshi gave was to allow people not to focus on a personality or an institution, he said, but on mathematics.
Traditional assets will be tokenized, he said. The user interface of cryptocurrency form factors, such as wallets and exchanges, have improved in recent years. This will drive adoption.
Roszak said new trillion dollar networks will evolve from the existing market. There will, however, be risks along the way. “This all translates into the once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “The tokenization of things is upon us.”
In 2014, a group calledKim Coindashian Developerstried to get Kardashian’s attention by offering a business plan as a way to get the Kardashian’s to support cryptocurrency.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postKim Kardashian Publicly Accepts Her First Bitcoinappeared first onCCN. || An Intelligent Idea For International Income: International stocks, both of the developed and emerging markets varieties, are disappointing this year. The MSCI EAFE Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, two of the most widely followed gauges of ex-U.S. equities, are both in the red while the S&P 500 is up about 7 percent.
Some international dividend strategies have been slightly better. TheVanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF(NASDAQ:VIGI) is modestly higher on a year-to-date basis. VIGI holds developed and emerging markets stocks.
What To Know
VIGI, which debuted in the first quarter of 2016, tracks the NASDAQ International Dividend Achievers Select Index. Since coming to market, the Vanguard fund is up 33.4 percent, including dividends paid.
“This low-cost fund prioritizes dividend growth over yield, which emphasizes highly profitable firms that should hold up better than most during market downturns and offer attractive long-term returns,” said Morningstarin a recent research note.
While VIGI isn't a particularly old exchange traded fund, it has proven adept at attracting investors' attention. At the end of the second quarter, the fund had $915.5 million in assets under management, a solid total for an ETF that is just over two years old.
Why It's Important
Over the years, some international dividend ETFs gained traction with investors due in part to international dividend payers often boasting higher yields than their U.S. counterparts. However, there are flaws with yield-based strategies, of which VIGI isn't one. VIGI member firms must have minimum dividend increase streaks of seven years.
VIGI “then applies additional filters to eliminate stocks that may not be able to sustain their dividend growth,” said Morningstar. “The portfolio weights its holdings by market capitalization to help mitigate turnover and trading costs. Individual stocks are limited to 4% of the portfolio at the annual rebalance to improve diversification.”
About 15 countries in VIGI receive weights of 1 percent or more and over three-quarters of the fund's geographic exposure is split among developing economies and Europe.
The strategy of including developed and emerging markets stocks under one umbrella while excluding domestic equities is similar to the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index, but VIGI has outperformed that benchmark while being less volatile since inception.
What's Next
VIGI eschewing a yield focus is a benefit for investors.
“This fund’s focus on dividend growth makes it significantly different from those that emphasize dividend yield,” said Morningstar. “A narrow focus on yield brings about certain risks because high yields can be an indicator of firms that may be in financial distress or have poor forward-looking prospects.”
Morningstar has a Bronze rating on VIGI.
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• First Trust Launches Large-Cap Multifactor ETF
• SEC Rule On Direxion Bitcoin ETFs Expected This Fall
© 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || An Intelligent Idea For International Income: International stocks, both of the developed and emerging markets varieties, are disappointing this year. The MSCI EAFE Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, two of the most widely followed gauges of ex-U.S. equities, are both in the red while the S&P 500 is up about 7 percent. Some international dividend strategies have been slightly better. The Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF (NASDAQ: VIGI ) is modestly higher on a year-to-date basis. VIGI holds developed and emerging markets stocks. What To Know VIGI, which debuted in the first quarter of 2016, tracks the NASDAQ International Dividend Achievers Select Index. Since coming to market, the Vanguard fund is up 33.4 percent, including dividends paid. “This low-cost fund prioritizes dividend growth over yield, which emphasizes highly profitable firms that should hold up better than most during market downturns and offer attractive long-term returns,” said Morningstar in a recent research note . While VIGI isn't a particularly old exchange traded fund, it has proven adept at attracting investors' attention. At the end of the second quarter, the fund had $915.5 million in assets under management, a solid total for an ETF that is just over two years old. Why It's Important Over the years, some international dividend ETFs gained traction with investors due in part to international dividend payers often boasting higher yields than their U.S. counterparts. However, there are flaws with yield-based strategies, of which VIGI isn't one. VIGI member firms must have minimum dividend increase streaks of seven years. VIGI “then applies additional filters to eliminate stocks that may not be able to sustain their dividend growth,” said Morningstar. “The portfolio weights its holdings by market capitalization to help mitigate turnover and trading costs. Individual stocks are limited to 4% of the portfolio at the annual rebalance to improve diversification.” About 15 countries in VIGI receive weights of 1 percent or more and over three-quarters of the fund's geographic exposure is split among developing economies and Europe. Story continues The strategy of including developed and emerging markets stocks under one umbrella while excluding domestic equities is similar to the MSCI ACWI ex USA Index, but VIGI has outperformed that benchmark while being less volatile since inception. What's Next VIGI eschewing a yield focus is a benefit for investors. “This fund’s focus on dividend growth makes it significantly different from those that emphasize dividend yield,” said Morningstar. “A narrow focus on yield brings about certain risks because high yields can be an indicator of firms that may be in financial distress or have poor forward-looking prospects.” Morningstar has a Bronze rating on VIGI. Related Links: A Fab Pharma ETF A Bunch Of New Bond ETFs See more from Benzinga An Exciting Week For An Often Boring Sector First Trust Launches Large-Cap Multifactor ETF SEC Rule On Direxion Bitcoin ETFs Expected This Fall © 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Op Ed: Cryptocurrency Capital Gains Taxes — Breaking Down the Problem: Capital gains on crypto transactions are easy to track, one at a time. What about when there are thousands?
Cryptocurrency capital gains taxes are becoming a point of interest for governments. In 2017, which will likely come to be known as the year crypto went mainstream, the combined market cap for all cryptocurrencies rocketed up from 15 billion to over 600 billion dollars. This kind of growth is hard to ignore — not just for the day traders and blockchain evangelists but for governments as well. This article focuses on how the United States specifically approaches crypto taxation.
Don Fort, the chief of the IRS criminal investigation unit, speaking on a recent tax conference panel, discussed at length how “cryptocurrency is becoming a new area of enforcement for him.” Other events like theIRS Coinbase Summonsand theIRS warningsent to tax filers show the clear intentions of the U.S. government.
Becausecryptocurrency is treated as property(not as currency), it is subject to capital gains taxes — just like stocks, bonds, real estate and other forms of personal property. Boiled down, you incur capital gains whenever you sell property for more than you purchased it for. You then report this gain on your yearly taxes, and that’s the end of it. The same is true for cryptocurrency.
While the intentions of the government are clear — they want you to report your crypto gains — active crypto traders know that the sheer volume that comes with trading crypto brings about a slew of challenges and headaches for tax reporting purposes. Before diving into these challenges, we should break down capital gains.
Fair Market Value - Cost Basis = Capital Gains
Cost basisis the original value of an asset or, essentially, how much money you put in to acquire that asset. For crypto assets, it includes the purchase price plus all other costs associated with purchasing the cryptocurrency. Other costs typically include things like transaction fees and brokerage commissions from the exchanges where you purchased the crypto. So to calculate your cost basis you would carry out the following:
(Purchase Price of Crypto + Other fees) / Quantity of Holding = Cost Basis
The fair market value is the second data point you need to calculate your capital gains. Fair market value is the value of your cryptocurrency at the time you sold/traded it.
An example would look something like the following: You bought 0.05 Bitcoin for $100 dollars in June of 2017. You paid a $1.49 transaction fee to the exchange that you purchased from. Your cost basis is $101.49 for 0.05 Bitcoin. In November of 2017, you sold that same 0.05 Bitcoin for the fair market value which was $500 at the time. Based on this simple example, you have a capital gain of $398.51 (500 - 101.49).
Here’s where things get much more difficult for the day traders. The IRS states thatcoin-to-coin tradesare also taxable events. This means that when you trade BTC for any other altcoin, you incur a capital gain or capital loss that you have to file on your taxes. I want to lay out one more example to show how a coin-to-coin trading scenario would play out.
Let’s say you purchase $100 worth of bitcoin, including transaction and brokerage fees. That $100 currently buys about 0.01 BTC. Now, let’s say two months later you trade all of your 0.1 BTC for 0.16 ETH. How would you calculate your capital gains for this coin-to-coin trade?
It depends on what the fair market value of bitcoin was at the time of the trade. Let’s say at the time of the trade, 0.01 BTC was worth $160. This would put the fair market value of 0.01 BTC at $160. You would then be able to calculate your capital gains based of this information:
$160 – 100 = $60.00 capital gain
For that crypto-to-crypto trade, you would owe the government a percentage of your $60.00 gain.
It’s no secret that some people are trading crypto a lot. Many simply automate their trading strategies by utilizingcrypto botsto trade on their behalf. Some of these folks make thousands and thousands of trades every single month. This sheer volume makes reporting and calculating every single trade for tax purposes virtually impossible. Just think: You need to retroactively look back on every trade you have made and determine what the fair market value in U.S. dollars was at that time of the trade, and then use that to calculate your gain or loss. It’s no wonder that an extremely small number of active traders paid taxes on their crypto activity in 2017.
However, with any problem comes the opportunity to provide a solution, and several companies and services are sprouting up to address this one.
In terms ofhow to report cryptocurrency on taxesin the United States, you need two specific forms. First, you need to fill out the IRSform 8949, which will detail each crypto trade that you made during the calendar year, as well as the date sold, date acquired, cost basis and capital gain. You then need to total up all of these items to arrive at your total gains and report that number on your 1040Schedule D.
As always, when in doubt, consult a tax professional who is familiar and has dealt with cryptocurrency.
I think I am preaching to the choir when I say that crypto isn’t going away anytime soon. This is a technology that is going to change the world in ways that we currently cannot even fathom. On the flipside, the tax implications behind it aren’t going away either. When you come to grips with this reality, it is easy to prepare yourself for the future. Come up with a plan, do your research on all of the solutions currently on the marketplace, and prepare now. This will save you time and anxiety once next April rolls around.
Tax talk aside, I am incredibly excited about the future of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. These are extremely exciting times that we live in; opportunity is right around the corner.
This is a guest post by David Kemmerer; it is for information purposes only and should not be construed as tax or investment advice. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Inc.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Op Ed: Cryptocurrency Capital Gains Taxes — Breaking Down the Problem: Op Ed: Cryptocurrency Capital Gains Taxes — Breaking Down the Problem Capital gains on crypto transactions are easy to track, one at a time. What about when there are thousands? Cryptocurrency capital gains taxes are becoming a point of interest for governments. In 2017, which will likely come to be known as the year crypto went mainstream, the combined market cap for all cryptocurrencies rocketed up from 15 billion to over 600 billion dollars. This kind of growth is hard to ignore — not just for the day traders and blockchain evangelists but for governments as well. This article focuses on how the United States specifically approaches crypto taxation. Don Fort , the chief of the IRS criminal investigation unit, speaking on a recent tax conference panel, discussed at length how “cryptocurrency is becoming a new area of enforcement for him.” Other events like the IRS Coinbase Summons and the IRS warning sent to tax filers show the clear intentions of the U.S. government. Because cryptocurrency is treated as property (not as currency), it is subject to capital gains taxes — just like stocks, bonds, real estate and other forms of personal property. Boiled down, you incur capital gains whenever you sell property for more than you purchased it for. You then report this gain on your yearly taxes, and that’s the end of it. The same is true for cryptocurrency. While the intentions of the government are clear — they want you to report your crypto gains — active crypto traders know that the sheer volume that comes with trading crypto brings about a slew of challenges and headaches for tax reporting purposes. Before diving into these challenges, we should break down capital gains. How Do I Calculate My Cryptocurrency Capital Gains? Fair Market Value - Cost Basis = Capital Gains Step 1 - Determine Your Cost Basis Cost basis is the original value of an asset or, essentially, how much money you put in to acquire that asset. For crypto assets, it includes the purchase price plus all other costs associated with purchasing the cryptocurrency. Other costs typically include things like transaction fees and brokerage commissions from the exchanges where you purchased the crypto. So to calculate your cost basis you would carry out the following: Story continues (Purchase Price of Crypto + Other fees) / Quantity of Holding = Cost Basis Step 2 - Determine the Fair Market Value at the Time of the Trade The fair market value is the second data point you need to calculate your capital gains. Fair market value is the value of your cryptocurrency at the time you sold/traded it. An example would look something like the following: You bought 0.05 Bitcoin for $100 dollars in June of 2017. You paid a $1.49 transaction fee to the exchange that you purchased from. Your cost basis is $101.49 for 0.05 Bitcoin. In November of 2017, you sold that same 0.05 Bitcoin for the fair market value which was $500 at the time. Based on this simple example, you have a capital gain of $398.51 (500 - 101.49). Coin-to-Coin Trades Here’s where things get much more difficult for the day traders. The IRS states that coin-to-coin trades are also taxable events. This means that when you trade BTC for any other altcoin, you incur a capital gain or capital loss that you have to file on your taxes. I want to lay out one more example to show how a coin-to-coin trading scenario would play out. Let’s say you purchase $100 worth of bitcoin, including transaction and brokerage fees. That $100 currently buys about 0.01 BTC. Now, let’s say two months later you trade all of your 0.1 BTC for 0.16 ETH. How would you calculate your capital gains for this coin-to-coin trade? It depends on what the fair market value of bitcoin was at the time of the trade. Let’s say at the time of the trade, 0.01 BTC was worth $160. This would put the fair market value of 0.01 BTC at $160. You would then be able to calculate your capital gains based of this information: $160 – 100 = $60.00 capital gain For that crypto-to-crypto trade, you would owe the government a percentage of your $60.00 gain. The Huge Problem and the Elephant in the Room It’s no secret that some people are trading crypto a lot. Many simply automate their trading strategies by utilizing crypto bots to trade on their behalf. Some of these folks make thousands and thousands of trades every single month. This sheer volume makes reporting and calculating every single trade for tax purposes virtually impossible. Just think: You need to retroactively look back on every trade you have made and determine what the fair market value in U.S. dollars was at that time of the trade, and then use that to calculate your gain or loss. It’s no wonder that an extremely small number of active traders paid taxes on their crypto activity in 2017. However, with any problem comes the opportunity to provide a solution, and several companies and services are sprouting up to address this one. How Do I Actually Report It? In terms of how to report cryptocurrency on taxes in the United States, you need two specific forms. First, you need to fill out the IRS form 8949 , which will detail each crypto trade that you made during the calendar year, as well as the date sold, date acquired, cost basis and capital gain. You then need to total up all of these items to arrive at your total gains and report that number on your 1040 Schedule D . As always, when in doubt, consult a tax professional who is familiar and has dealt with cryptocurrency. What Does the Future Look Like? I think I am preaching to the choir when I say that crypto isn’t going away anytime soon. This is a technology that is going to change the world in ways that we currently cannot even fathom. On the flipside, the tax implications behind it aren’t going away either. When you come to grips with this reality, it is easy to prepare yourself for the future. Come up with a plan, do your research on all of the solutions currently on the marketplace, and prepare now. This will save you time and anxiety once next April rolls around. Tax talk aside, I am incredibly excited about the future of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. These are extremely exciting times that we live in; opportunity is right around the corner. This is a guest post by David Kemmerer; it is for information purposes only and should not be construed as tax or investment advice. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Inc. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Chevron's Earnings Show Why Shale Is So Important to Its Future: While the rest of the oil and gas industry ramps up spending,Chevron(NYSE: CVX)is doing the opposite. Instead of looking to grow production by gaudy numbers over the next few years thanks to higher oil prices and lower services costs, the company is maintaining strict capital discipline to boost free cash flow and return value to shareholders. We saw the benefits of this plan this past quarter, as management announced an ambitious share repurchase program. But we also saw the consequences, as production growth was hampered by asset sales.
Let's dig into the company's most recent earnings results to see how Chevron's strategic plan is shaping up, and what it could mean for investors over the next few years.
Image source: Getty Images.
[{"Metric": "Revenue", "Q2 2018": "$42.2 billion", "Q1 2018": "$37.8 billion", "Q2 2017": "$34.5 billion"}, {"Metric": "Net income", "Q2 2018": "$3.41 billion", "Q1 2018": "$3.64 billion", "Q2 2017": "$1.45 billion"}, {"Metric": "Diluted EPS", "Q2 2018": "$1.78", "Q1 2018": "$1.90", "Q2 2017": "$0.77"}, {"Metric": "Operating cash flow", "Q2 2018": "$6.86 billion", "Q1 2018": "$5.04 billion", "Q2 2017": "$4.97 billion"}]
DATA SOURCE: CHEVRON EARNINGS RELEASE.
Despite the fact that oil prices were much higher this past quarter, the company's upstream results didn't increase as much as investors might have hoped. Some of that has to do with some asset impairments. And a few asset sales offset production growth from its two liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities and its continued growth in the Permian Basin.
Data source: Chevron earnings release. Chart by author.
• Oil and gas production averaged 2.83 million barrels of oil equivalent per day for the entire quarter, which was up a modest 1.8%compared to the prior quarter. Even though Chevron has brought on a lot of new products lately between the ramp-up of the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG export facilities and Permian Basin shale development, it has offset many of those gains with asset sales.
• Management continues to push an asset optimization program that will lead to $5 billion to $10 billion in asset sales between now and 2020. It offloaded a couple of positions in the quarter for $700 million.
• Its shale oil production in the Permian Basin continues to blow past expectations, as production for the quarter was 270,000 barrels per day. Management already increased its Permian guidance in the prior quarter, but this current pace is still well ahead of schedule. Management also went out of its way during its conference call to reassure investors that it had plenty of infrastructure in place to handle the uptick in volumes.
• Because Chevron is still keeping a strict cap on spending, it is generating enough free cash flow that the board of directors initiated a share repurchase program that will start in the third quarter. Management thinks that, at current oil prices, it can target about $3 billion in share repurchases a year.
Aside from a couple of updates on its assets in the Permian Basin and its one other major capital spending project (the Tengiz expansion in Kazakhstan), CEO Michael Wirth highlighted some of the company's asset disposal in the quarter and intentions to sell a couple more to meet its disposal goal by 2020.
"In the second quarter, the company completed the sales of its upstream interests in the Elk Hills Field in California and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Wirth said. "Additionally, in July we announced our intent to market our U.K. Central North Sea assets."
In addition to these assets, management has said previously that it is currently marketing its downstream refinery and petrochemical facilities in South Africa.
CVXdata byYCharts.
Of all the big oil companies, Chevron is the one whose earnings are going to benefit the most from higher oil prices, because its business is so much more concentrated on the upstream production side of the industry. So the year-over-year gains shouldn't come as a huge surprise.
Going forward, Chevron's management is putting alot of faith in its Permian Basin assetsto drive growth over the next couple of years. Between now and 2022, when the Tengiz expansion is supposed to be completed, it has one major capital project expected to come on stream. That means that the company is going to have to offset the natural decline of its existing assets (as well as any future asset sales) with shale for the next four years.
Granted, management's current plan is to grow Permian Basin production by 300,000 barrels per day between now and then, and actual production has consistently outpaced management projections. However, the company's current capital plans and the recent initiation of a significant share repurchase program suggest that it has no intention of increasing spending on other potential projects.
That is going to put a lot of pressure on a single asset to drive Chevron's growth over the next several years, and any disruptions to the Permian Basin could be a big issue.
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Tyler Crowehas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
[Social Media Buzz]
Top 5 #cryptocurrencies
Alert Time: 2018-07-31 14:40:05
#Bitcoin: $8,004.860
#Ethereum: $439.491
#XRP: $0.438
#BitcoinCash: $794.916
#EOS: $7.413
#trx $EUR $BTCEUR $XBT #stockmarkethttp://www.coincaps.ai || What’s Stopping You From Investing In #Bitcoin?
http://ow.ly/Me1j30l6Pds || Podcast: Why Bitcoin Miners Target Critical Infrastructure Networks https://quantus.biz/security/2018/07/31/podcast-why-bitcoin-miners-target-critical-infrastructure-networks/ … || Crypto Farmer:
Crypto Farmer - ...
|
7624.91, 7567.15, 7434.39, 7032.85, 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11512.60, 11573.30, 10779.90, 9965.57, 9395.01, 9337.55, 8866.00, 9578.63, 9205.12, 9194.85, 8269.81, 8300.86, 8338.35, 7916.88, 8223.68, 8630.65, 8913.47, 8929.28, 8728.47, 8879.62, 8668.12, 8495.78, 8209.40, 7833.04, 7954.48, 7165.70, 6890.52, 6973.53, 6844.23, 7083.80, 7456.11, 6853.84, 6811.47, 6636.32, 6911.09, 7023.52, 6770.73, 6834.76, 6968.32, 7889.25, 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05, 9348.48, 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01, 9235.92, 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01, 9234.82, 9325.18, 9043.94, 8441.49, 8504.89, 8723.94, 8716.79, 8510.38, 8368.83, 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78, 7557.82, 7587.34, 7480.14, 7355.88, 7368.22, 7135.99, 7472.59, 7406.52, 7494.17, 7541.45.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-06-01]
Volume: 4921460224, RSI (14-day): 39.91, 50-day EMA: 8277.81, 200-day EMA: 8682.58
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1294.80, Gold RSI: 41.45
Oil Price: 65.81, Oil RSI: 37.02
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Why Safe Bulkers Stock Popped 12% Today: What happened Ocean-going bulk shipper Safe Bulkers (NYSE: SB) reported its fiscal Q1 2018 earnings results on Tuesday -- an "earnings beat" that nudged the company's shares up 2%. But it took until Thursday for the real good news to arrive. Today, all of the sudden, the stock jumped out of its berth and closed 12.2% higher. So what Safe Bulkers says it earned $0.03 per share last quarter -- a penny better than Wall Street had expected. "Net" quarterly sales of $43.5 million likewise edged out estimates. These sales, by the way, sailed (sorry, couldn't resist the nautical pun) 31% higher than in last year's first quarter. As for the company's profit, although it was small, $0.03 per share was still a much better result than last year's $0.07 per-share loss. Dry bulk ship offloading cargo Safe Bulkers stock delivered the goods this earnings season. Image source: Getty Images. Now what Management at Safe Bulkers seemed moderately pleased with the results, observing that "revenues continued to improve supporting gradual increase in our profitability." Going forward, management did not give earnings guidance for the rest of the year, but it did advise that it plans to use its strengthening profits "to further improve our capital structure and deleverage in forthcoming quarters." With long-term debt declining from $541.8 million to $514 million over the course of the quarter (a decrease of 5%), management is already matching actions to words. Seeing that may be the reason investors are expressing more confidence in the stock today. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Safe Bulkers Stock Popped 12% Today: Ocean-going bulk shipperSafe Bulkers(NYSE: SB)reported its fiscal Q1 2018 earnings results on Tuesday -- an "earnings beat" that nudged the company's shares up 2%. But it took until Thursday for the real good news to arrive. Today, all of the sudden, the stock jumped out of its berth and closed 12.2% higher.
Safe Bulkers says it earned $0.03 per share last quarter -- a penny better than Wall Street had expected. "Net" quarterly sales of $43.5 million likewise edged out estimates.
These sales, by the way, sailed (sorry, couldn't resist the nautical pun) 31% higher than in last year's first quarter. As for the company's profit, although it was small, $0.03 per share was still a much better result than last year's $0.07 per-share loss.
Safe Bulkers stock delivered the goods this earnings season. Image source: Getty Images.
Management at Safe Bulkers seemed moderately pleased with the results, observing that "revenues continued to improve supporting gradual increase in our profitability." Going forward, management did not give earnings guidance for the rest of the year, but it did advise that it plans to use its strengthening profits "to further improve our capital structure and deleverage in forthcoming quarters."
With long-term debt declining from $541.8 million to $514 million over the course of the quarter (a decrease of 5%), management is already matching actions to words. Seeing that may be the reason investors are expressing more confidence in the stock today.
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Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Facebook Annual Meeting Serves as Reminder of Zuckerberg's Iron Grip: Social networking giantFacebook(NASDAQ: FB)hosted its annual meeting today, which was also webcast on the company's investor relations site this afternoon. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you're likely familiar with the growing number ofscandals and controversiessurrounding the company.
In response, activist investors have been calling on Facebook to take any of a broad range of actions, such as calling for CEO Mark Zuckerberg's resignation, or splitting the CEO and chairman of the board roles, among others. (Yeah, that didn't happen.) Investors also submitted six shareholder proposals that went up for vote today, some of which would have strengthened Facebook's corporate governance. Facebook recommended against all shareholder proposals, and all failed.
Image source: Facebook.
For starters, Facebook's entire board of directors, which consists of eight members, were all re-elected. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg technically answers to the board,the board answers to His Zucknessdue to his nearly 60% voting power. That gives Zuck absolute control over any matter that requires a majority vote, including the election of directors and shareholder proposals.
The shareholder proposals would have been good for public investors if passed, but there was virtually no way they could without Zuckerberg's blessing. Seeing as how some of these proposals would have undermined his authority, it's no surprise that he was against them. Here's a recap of the three shareholder proposals that were directly related to corporate governance, which are also detailed in the proxy statement sent out last month.
• Change in stockholder voting:This proposal called for Facebook to recapitalize its outstanding stock so that all shares received one vote per share. Class B shareholders get 10 votes per share, so this proposal was essentially asking insiders to voluntarily relinquish their supervoting rights.
• Establishing a risk oversight committee:An investor advocated for Facebook to consider creating a new Risk Oversight Board Committee that could better assess risks, particularly those around data privacy.
• A simple majority vote:This one called for Facebook to eliminate any supermajority voting requirements in favor of a simple majority vote. This proposal was less consequential, since Facebook already uses simple majority voting requirements for pretty much everything. The only time when supermajority voting requirements come into play is if/when Class B shares represent less than a majority of total voting power, which is not currently the case.
Facebook did not yet disclose the final official tally results of each proposal, even as it was able to declare the outcomes. This information should be filed with the SEC shortly. Once it is, the figures will give some indication as to how much of Facebook's public shareholder base may have voted in favor of the proposals intended to strengthen corporate governance.
While Facebook doesn't really need to heed input from its investors due to their limited collective voting power, no company wants unrest within its investor base. The only recourse that Facebook investors have is to vote with their wallets instead, potentially selling shares if the company's corporate governance practices are insufficient.
For now, the annual meeting was just another reminder that Zuckerberg retains an iron grip on the most powerful social media company ever created.
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Evan Niu, CFAowns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Facebook Annual Meeting Serves as Reminder of Zuckerberg's Iron Grip: Social networking giant Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) hosted its annual meeting today, which was also webcast on the company's investor relations site this afternoon. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you're likely familiar with the growing number of scandals and controversies surrounding the company. In response, activist investors have been calling on Facebook to take any of a broad range of actions, such as calling for CEO Mark Zuckerberg's resignation, or splitting the CEO and chairman of the board roles, among others. (Yeah, that didn't happen.) Investors also submitted six shareholder proposals that went up for vote today, some of which would have strengthened Facebook's corporate governance. Facebook recommended against all shareholder proposals, and all failed. Mark Zuckerberg speaking on stage below Facebook's visualization of a connected world Image source: Facebook. What Zuck wants, Zuck gets For starters, Facebook's entire board of directors, which consists of eight members, were all re-elected. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg technically answers to the board, the board answers to His Zuckness due to his nearly 60% voting power. That gives Zuck absolute control over any matter that requires a majority vote, including the election of directors and shareholder proposals. The shareholder proposals would have been good for public investors if passed, but there was virtually no way they could without Zuckerberg's blessing. Seeing as how some of these proposals would have undermined his authority, it's no surprise that he was against them. Here's a recap of the three shareholder proposals that were directly related to corporate governance, which are also detailed in the proxy statement sent out last month. Change in stockholder voting: This proposal called for Facebook to recapitalize its outstanding stock so that all shares received one vote per share. Class B shareholders get 10 votes per share, so this proposal was essentially asking insiders to voluntarily relinquish their supervoting rights. Establishing a risk oversight committee: An investor advocated for Facebook to consider creating a new Risk Oversight Board Committee that could better assess risks, particularly those around data privacy. A simple majority vote: This one called for Facebook to eliminate any supermajority voting requirements in favor of a simple majority vote. This proposal was less consequential, since Facebook already uses simple majority voting requirements for pretty much everything. The only time when supermajority voting requirements come into play is if/when Class B shares represent less than a majority of total voting power, which is not currently the case. Story continues The final tally will matter Facebook did not yet disclose the final official tally results of each proposal, even as it was able to declare the outcomes. This information should be filed with the SEC shortly. Once it is, the figures will give some indication as to how much of Facebook's public shareholder base may have voted in favor of the proposals intended to strengthen corporate governance. While Facebook doesn't really need to heed input from its investors due to their limited collective voting power, no company wants unrest within its investor base. The only recourse that Facebook investors have is to vote with their wallets instead, potentially selling shares if the company's corporate governance practices are insufficient. For now, the annual meeting was just another reminder that Zuckerberg retains an iron grip on the most powerful social media company ever created. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Evan Niu, CFA owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks fell after the Trump administration announced that tariffs will be imposed on U.S. allies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) was hit harder than the broader S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) . Today's stock market Index Percentage Change Point Change Dow (1.02%) (251.94) S&P 500 (0.69%) (18.74) Data source: Yahoo! Finance. Export-dependent industrial stocks were especially affected by trade concerns; the Industrial Select SPDR ETF (NYSEMKT: XLI) dropped 1.5%. Retail stocks also suffered today, with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEMKT: XRT) losing 1.9%. As for individual stocks, General Motors (NYSE: GM) had a big gain after announcing an outside investment in its autonomous vehicle unit, and Box (NYSE: BOX) fell on concerns about future growth. Abstract collage of stock prices. Image source: Getty Images. General Motors attracts an investment from SoftBank Shares of General Motors jumped 12.9% after the company announced that the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion in GM Cruise, the company's self-driving car subsidiary. The fund, one of several venture capital funds run by Japan's SoftBank Group , will invest $900 million in GM Cruise at the closing of the transaction and will invest the remaining $1.35 billion when Cruise autonomous vehicles are ready for commercial deployment. The two tranches of investments will give SoftBank a 19.6% equity stake in GM Cruise, meaning the deal values the business at $11.5 billion. GM will also put up another $1.1 billion of investment in GM Cruise at the close of the transaction. The immediate benefit of the deal to GM shareholders is that it put a hefty, private-equity valuation on the autonomous vehicle business that GM bought in early 2016 for an undisclosed price that was rumored to be around $1 billion. The deal now values GM's 80.4% share of GM Cruise at $9.2 billion, over 15% of the company's market capitalization today. The longer-term benefit may lie in the opportunities the SoftBank investment may open up in the future. SoftBank is now Uber's biggest investor, is partnered with taxi-hailing service Didi Chuxing, and owns stakes in other alternative transportation ventures. SoftBank founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son is well-known for bringing together start-ups to promote cooperation and synergies. Story continues Box fails to excite investors about growth Cloud content management company Box reported fiscal 2019 first-quarter results that were consistent with analyst expectations, but concerns about future growth caused the stock to slump 7.6%. Revenue grew 19.9% to $140.5 million and non- GAAP net loss per share was $0.07, compared with a per-share loss of $0.13 in the period a year earlier. Analysts were expecting the company to lose $0.08 on revenue of $139.6 million. Box reported deferred revenue of $286.9 million, a year-over-year increase of 28%, and a 17% increase in billings. The company added about 3,000 new paying customers in the quarter for a total of 85,000, about 15% more than last year at this time. Looking forward, Box expects full-year revenue of $603 million to $608 million, or growth of 19.2% to 20.2%, compared with 27% top-line growth last fiscal year, and a non-GAAP loss per share of between $0.16 and $0.19 for fiscal 2019. Both results and guidance were consistent with expectations, but investors were evidently hoping for more. Analysts on the call were not impressed with either billings or customer growth. Box said that net retention rate -- the annual change in total account value of existing customers -- is "stabilizing" between 108% and 112%, yet the current customer base is expected to provide the majority of sales growth through the addition of seats. Deceleration of revenue growth this year was anticipated, but the reality of slowing customer additions and growth rates below 20% with no credible story about how that could improve going forward discouraged Box shareholders today. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Jim Crumly has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What Happened in the Stock Market Today: Stocks fell after the Trump administration announced that tariffs will be imposed on U.S. allies. TheDow Jones Industrial Average(DJINDICES: ^DJI)was hit harder than the broaderS&P 500(SNPINDEX: ^GSPC).
[{"Index": "Dow", "Percentage Change": "(1.02%)", "Point Change": "(251.94)"}, {"Index": "S&P 500", "Percentage Change": "(0.69%)", "Point Change": "(18.74)"}]
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Export-dependent industrial stocks were especially affected by trade concerns; theIndustrial Select SPDR ETF(NYSEMKT: XLI)dropped 1.5%. Retail stocks also suffered today, with theSPDR S&P Retail ETF(NYSEMKT: XRT)losing 1.9%.
As for individual stocks,General Motors(NYSE: GM)had a big gain after announcing an outside investment in its autonomous vehicle unit, andBox(NYSE: BOX)fell on concerns about future growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
Shares of General Motors jumped 12.9% afterthe company announcedthat the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion in GM Cruise, the company's self-driving car subsidiary. The fund, one of several venture capital funds run by Japan'sSoftBank Group, will invest $900 million in GM Cruise at the closing of the transaction and will invest the remaining $1.35 billion when Cruise autonomous vehicles are ready for commercial deployment.
The two tranches of investments will give SoftBank a 19.6% equity stake in GM Cruise, meaning the deal values the business at $11.5 billion. GM will also put up another $1.1 billion of investment in GM Cruise at the close of the transaction.
The immediate benefit of the deal to GM shareholders is that it put a hefty, private-equity valuation on the autonomous vehicle business that GMbought in early 2016for an undisclosed price that was rumored to be around $1 billion. The deal now values GM's 80.4% share of GM Cruise at $9.2 billion, over 15% of the company's market capitalization today.
The longer-term benefit may lie in the opportunities the SoftBank investment may open up in the future. SoftBank is now Uber's biggest investor, is partnered with taxi-hailing service Didi Chuxing, and owns stakes in other alternative transportation ventures. SoftBank founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son is well-known for bringing together start-ups to promote cooperation and synergies.
Cloud content management company Box reported fiscal 2019 first-quarter results that were consistent with analyst expectations, but concerns about future growth caused the stock to slump 7.6%. Revenue grew 19.9% to $140.5 million and non-GAAPnet loss per share was $0.07, compared with a per-share loss of $0.13 in the period a year earlier. Analysts were expecting the company to lose $0.08 on revenue of $139.6 million.
Box reported deferred revenue of $286.9 million, a year-over-year increase of 28%, and a 17% increase in billings. The company added about 3,000 new paying customers in the quarter for a total of 85,000, about 15% more than last year at this time.
Looking forward, Box expects full-year revenue of $603 million to $608 million, or growth of 19.2% to 20.2%, compared with 27% top-line growth last fiscal year, and a non-GAAP loss per share of between $0.16 and $0.19 for fiscal 2019.
Both results and guidance were consistent with expectations, but investors were evidently hoping for more. Analysts on the call were not impressed with either billings or customer growth. Box said that net retention rate -- the annual change in total account value of existing customers -- is "stabilizing" between 108% and 112%, yet the current customer base is expected to provide the majority of sales growth through the addition of seats.
Deceleration of revenue growththis year was anticipated, but the reality of slowing customer additions and growth rates below 20% with no credible story about how that could improve going forward discouraged Box shareholders today.
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Jim Crumlyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Dollar Tree, Guess?, and Micron Technology Slumped Today: Wall Street had a down day on Thursday, with the trade-sensitive industrial side of the market seeing the largest declines on news that the U.S. and Canada had imposed a set of matching tariffs on each other. The Dow lost more than 200 points, but declines were somewhat less extensive on a percentage basis for other parts of the market. Crude oil prices also moved lower, and the general sense among investors was one of uncertainty about how these initial disputes would evolve over time. Moreover, some bad news from key sectors of the economy weighed on individual stocks. Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) , Guess? (NYSE: GES) , and Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) were among the worst performers on the day. Below, we'll look more closely at these stocks to tell you why they did so poorly. Dollar Tree cuts its 2018 guidance Shares of Dollar Tree plunged 14% after the dollar-store retailer announced its fiscal first-quarter results. The company said that revenue rose 5%, with Dollar Tree stores reporting a 4% rise in same-store sales. Yet the company's Family Dollar stores underperformed, posting a same-store sales decline of 1.1% compared to the year-ago quarter. Executives blamed the subpar results on a cold spring, an early Easter holiday, and higher freight costs for moving goods to its store locations. Yet although the company said warmer weather has helped the business recover, Dollar Tree still cut its earnings projections for the full year, and investors seemed to ignore the potential long-term positives of strategic moves like refinancing its debt. The news came as a surprise to those who've seen dollar stores as outperforming their upscale rivals . Computer screen showing Dollar Tree's web portal. Image source: Dollar Tree. Guess?'s disappointing quarterly results Guess? stock lost nearly 20% in the wake of the jeans maker's fiscal first-quarter financial report . At first glance, things looked good for the company, which posted a 15% rise in revenue. But net losses narrowed only slightly from year-ago levels, and the key Americas retail segment suffered sales declines. Investors also seemed uninspired by the guidance that Guess? gave, even though it was higher in some respects than what the retailer had predicted just a few months ago. With the stock having posted such big gains leading up to the report, investors seemed disappointed that the jeans maker hadn't made more progress in growing its fundamental business. Story continues Micron looks pricey Finally, shares of Micron Technology fell 8%. The memory chip specialist got an unfavorable review from analysts at Morgan Stanley, with the analyst firm saying that the stock's valuation is excessively high at current levels. The analyst downgraded its rating on Micron from overweight to equal weight, saying that even though the DRAM memory chip market still looks favorable, any further gains appear to be already incorporated into the stock's valuation. After such a huge run higher for the chipmaker's stock, it's logical for investors to fear the next cyclical downturn in the memory market and how it could affect Micron shares going forward. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Dollar Tree, Guess?, and Micron Technology Slumped Today: Wall Street had a down day on Thursday, with the trade-sensitive industrial side of the market seeing the largest declines on news that the U.S. and Canada had imposed a set of matching tariffs on each other. TheDowlost more than 200 points, but declines were somewhat less extensive on a percentage basis for other parts of the market. Crude oil prices also moved lower, and the general sense among investors was one of uncertainty about how these initial disputes would evolve over time. Moreover, some bad news from key sectors of the economy weighed on individual stocks.Dollar Tree(NASDAQ: DLTR),Guess?(NYSE: GES), andMicron Technology(NASDAQ: MU)were among the worst performers on the day. Below, we'll look more closely at these stocks to tell you why they did so poorly.
Shares of Dollar Tree plunged 14% after the dollar-store retailer announced its fiscal first-quarter results. The company said that revenue rose 5%, with Dollar Tree stores reporting a 4% rise in same-store sales. Yet the company's Family Dollar stores underperformed, posting a same-store sales decline of 1.1% compared to the year-ago quarter. Executives blamed the subpar results on a cold spring, an early Easter holiday, and higher freight costs for moving goods to its store locations. Yet although the company said warmer weather has helped the business recover, Dollar Tree still cut its earnings projections for the full year, and investors seemed to ignore the potential long-term positives of strategic moves like refinancing its debt. The news came as a surprise to those who've seendollar stores as outperforming their upscale rivals.
Image source: Dollar Tree.
Guess? stock lost nearly 20% in the wake of thejeans maker's fiscal first-quarter financial report. At first glance, things looked good for the company, which posted a 15% rise in revenue. But net losses narrowed only slightly from year-ago levels, and the key Americas retail segment suffered sales declines. Investors also seemed uninspired by the guidance that Guess? gave, even though it was higher in some respects than what the retailer had predicted just a few months ago. With the stock having posted such big gains leading up to the report, investors seemed disappointed that the jeans maker hadn't made more progress in growing its fundamental business.
Finally, shares of Micron Technology fell 8%. The memory chip specialist got an unfavorable review from analysts at Morgan Stanley, with the analyst firm saying that the stock's valuation is excessively high at current levels. The analyst downgraded its rating on Micron from overweight to equal weight, saying that even though the DRAM memory chip market still looks favorable, any further gains appear to be already incorporated into the stock's valuation.After such a huge run higherfor the chipmaker's stock, it's logical for investors to fear the next cyclical downturn in the memory market and how it could affect Micron shares going forward.
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Dan Caplingerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Chinese Internet Stocks I'd Buy Right Now: Chinese stocks are roaring back into favor with many of the biggest players hitting new all-time highs. You don't need to stick to the dot-com darlings to cash in on the internet revolution taking place in China. There are many stocks percolating under the investing radar of the world's most populous nation. Momo (NASDAQ: MOMO) , Sogou (NYSE: SOGO) , and Baozun (NASDAQ: BZUN) are some of the promising investments that are making waves in China. They're not household names outside of their home country, but these off-the-radar stocks are names that investors may want to consider adding to their portfolios now. Let's take a closer look. Baozun logo made out of the brands it represents in China. Image source: Baozun. Momo The Chinese social video specialist is coming off of a blowout quarter earlier this week. Net revenue soared 64% for the period, well ahead of the 46% to 52% rise that it was eyeballing in March. It's Momo's first quarter of accelerating revenue growth in more than a year. Momo got its start as an online dating app, but the booming popularity of its live video platform is giving it a larger role in China than just a place to meet a match. Momo was welcoming 103.3 million monthly active users in March. Investors would expect to pay up for that kind of growth, but Momo is reasonably priced. The stock is trading for less than 19 times this year's adjusted earnings target and just 15 times next year's analyst forecast. Sogou Everyone knows China's leading search engine, but Sogou -- the country's second largest platform according to iResearch in terms of volume of mobile queries -- also deserves some investor attention. Sogou is growing faster than Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) , with revenue rising 53% in the first quarter. Sogou's adjusted earnings grew at a hearty 56% clip. Baidu deserves a valuation premium as the runaway top dog in China, but Sogou seems cheap now that it's trading well below last year's $13 IPO price. Sogou commands an enterprise value that is 2.6 times its trailing four quarters of revenue -- that's less than half of Baidu's multiple of 5.6. Both speedsters are surprisingly cheap on a forward earnings basis, though Sogou gets the edge at 17 times next year's profit target with Baidu at 19. Story continues Buying Baidu has always made sense. It's one of the market's biggest winners, a 90-bagger since going public 13 years ago. However, if you want to accessorize, why wouldn't you also buy the smaller, cheaper player growing nicely in the same niche? Baozun The third name on this list doesn't offer the same year-ahead earnings multiple in the mid-teens like Momo and Sogou. Baozun fetches 32 times next year's projected profitability. Revenue also isn't growing north of 50% the way we're seeing at Momo and Sogou. Baozun's revenue rose a modest 15% in its first quarter. Baozun still makes the cut because of its business and its understated growth. Baozun has set itself as an industry fave for global brands trying to gain an e-commerce foothold in China. There are now 156 major brands on its platform, and there's model affirmation and validation with every new entry in Baozun's Rolodex. The slow top-line growth is deceptive. Baozun is shifting away from a distribution model to a consignment one, a strategy that will trade revenue growth for margin expansion and bottom-line growth. Its latest quarter was a combination of an 8% decline in product sales revenue more than offset by a 50% pop in services revenue. Put another way, the stock is more attractive than its surface fundamentals. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rick Munarriz owns shares of Sogou Inc. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Baidu. The Motley Fool owns shares of Baozun. The Motley Fool recommends Momo. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 3 Chinese Internet Stocks I'd Buy Right Now: Chinese stocks are roaring back into favor with many of the biggest players hitting new all-time highs. You don't need to stick to the dot-com darlings to cash in on the internet revolution taking place in China. There are many stocks percolating under the investing radar of the world's most populous nation.
Momo(NASDAQ: MOMO),Sogou(NYSE: SOGO), andBaozun(NASDAQ: BZUN)are some of the promising investments that are making waves in China. They're not household names outside of their home country, but these off-the-radar stocks are names that investors may want to consider adding to their portfolios now. Let's take a closer look.
Image source: Baozun.
The Chinese social video specialist is coming off of ablowout quarterearlier this week. Net revenue soared 64% for the period, well ahead of the 46% to 52% rise that it was eyeballing in March. It's Momo's first quarter of accelerating revenue growth in more than a year.
Momo got its start as an online dating app, but the booming popularity of its live video platform is giving it a larger role in China than just a place to meet a match. Momo was welcoming 103.3 million monthly active users in March.
Investors would expect to pay up for that kind of growth, but Momo is reasonably priced. The stock is trading for less than 19 times this year's adjusted earnings target and just 15 times next year's analyst forecast.
Everyone knows China's leading search engine, but Sogou -- the country's second largest platform according to iResearch in terms of volume of mobile queries -- also deserves some investor attention. Sogou is growing faster thanBaidu(NASDAQ: BIDU), with revenue rising 53% in the first quarter. Sogou's adjusted earnings grew at a hearty 56% clip.
Baidu deserves a valuation premium as the runaway top dog in China, but Sogou seems cheap now that it's trading well below last year's $13 IPO price. Sogou commands an enterprise value that is 2.6 times its trailing four quarters of revenue -- that's less than half of Baidu's multiple of 5.6. Both speedsters are surprisingly cheap on a forward earnings basis, though Sogou gets the edge at 17 times next year's profit target with Baidu at 19.
Buying Baidu has always made sense. It's one of the market's biggest winners, a 90-bagger since going public 13 years ago. However, if you want to accessorize, why wouldn't you also buy the smaller, cheaper player growing nicely in the same niche?
The third name on this list doesn't offer the same year-ahead earnings multiple in the mid-teens like Momo and Sogou. Baozun fetches 32 times next year's projected profitability. Revenue also isn't growing north of 50% the way we're seeing at Momo and Sogou. Baozun'srevenue rose a modest 15%in its first quarter.
Baozun still makes the cut because of its business and its understated growth. Baozun has set itself as an industry fave for global brands trying to gain an e-commerce foothold in China. There are now 156 major brands on its platform, and there's model affirmation and validation with every new entry in Baozun's Rolodex. The slow top-line growth is deceptive. Baozun is shifting away from a distribution model to a consignment one, a strategy that will trade revenue growth for margin expansion and bottom-line growth. Its latest quarter was a combination of an 8% decline in product sales revenue more than offset by a 50% pop in services revenue. Put another way, the stock is more attractive than its surface fundamentals.
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Rick Munarrizowns shares of Sogou Inc. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Baidu. The Motley Fool owns shares of Baozun. The Motley Fool recommends Momo. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 11 CEOs and founders on whether crypto will be mainstream in 2019: While bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies , most people still aren't using it day to day, and thousands of other coins remain largely undiscovered, which means crypto still hasn't achieved mass adoption. The hype surrounding crypto tends to be split between extremes: the good (such as reinventing industries, gaining control of our financial assets) and the bad (such as online security and liquidity). And ever since the massive spike in bitcoin prices around summer 2017, much has been said about the magic that is blockchain, but much has also been written about crypto exchanges getting hacked, millions of dollars going to waste and innocent people getting scammed, all thanks to the privacy and anonymity of the technology. Will 2019 finally be the year where crypto goes mainstream and all obstacles are in the past? Here's what 11 executives of known blockchain companies have to say. "Other than a few selected digital coins, most of those available today hold no value at all. In 2019, the regulations will centralize the market into just a handful of leading, real coins. Then, people will be able to trade them using only a few major and controlled exchanges. So when you take down all the worthless coins, and stop using exchanges that aren't safe, it might be easier to mass adopt in 2019." — Brandon "Synth," founder of Skycoin , a blockchain and web decentralization platform "What we're witnessing now is crypto finally gaining long-overdue recognition by businesses, state authorities and the financial world — most importantly, by respected traditional banking and fintech institutions. "2019 will definitely be the start of crypto's mass adoption, though much more still needs to be done for the two worlds — traditional banking and crypto — to coexist frictionlessly. There are important questions that need to be answered. For example, should banks create coins of their own in order to compete with already established cryptocurrencies?" Story continues — Alexander Ivanov, CEO of Waves , a secure blockchain ecosystem for users and businesses "I believe that 2019 will mark the beginning of crypto adoption, as we will see wider institutional expansion in the field and more relevant funding pouring in. An entire mass adoption, however, will take more time as institutional adoption will take more than the next 18 months. The key factor that requires work is the usability of crypto — user experience, wallet management, etc. More and more companies are aiming to solve that." — Anastasia O. Andrianova, CEO Akropolis.io , a blockchain pensions platform "Currently, the internet is far from decentralized. The biggest crypto exchanges are successful and have great user experience, but in no way are using the peer-to-peer aspect that makes blockchain a unique technology. In order to mass adapt in 2019, decentralized applications will need to focus on their user experience and so the ecosystem needs to invite designers, product thinkers and researchers into the field." — Chris Tse, CEO of Cardstack , a decentralized application framework "2019 will mark another year of research and a slightly more mature landscape — and significantly larger communities of early adopters. However, challenging computer science problems — in particular blockchain scalability and security will remain the core focus for many researchers. "In parallel, we will see more developers and designers focusing on creating simpler and more familiar user on-boarding experiences for mainstream use we've come to expect from the applications we use, and an overall lower barrier to entry into the crypto ecosystem." — Carl Bennetts, co-founder of Status.im , a mobile crypto operating system using peer-to-peer technology "In my opinion, we are far from real adoption. There is a lack of use cases for cryptocurrencies apart from speculation. The development of new consumer-oriented products finally started to happen this year, especially in the financial sector. Issues of usability and scalability are the factors that lead the emergence of new use cases and drive long-lasting adoption. But I doubt that this process will be even near completion in 2019." — Evgeny Yurtaev, Founder and CEO of Zerion , an ecosystem that connects crypto investors with blockchain companies "I am optimistic about the adoption of crypto in 2019. Once the interoperability problem is solved, we will see the mainstream finance motivated to digitize the assets which could interact with crypto. This technology could be a major trigger for a mass adoption in 2019." — Dejun Qian, founder of the FUSION Foundation , a cryptofinance platform intended to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies. "We will see major adoption in 2019, as the financial system is huge and banks are hard to deal with. With cryptocurrencies, the end user is in charge of the process and is free to do anything at anytime. I once spoke at an event abroad for a big compensation, they took months to deal with the payment. I suggested they send the amount as a cryptocurrency, and it took a few minutes." — Saulo Medeiros, CEO of KindAds , a blockchain based ad platform "Crypto is going to be massive, but not by 2019. Most people are trading and speculating but are far from realizing the actual technology. In order for a mass scale to take place, the blockchain needs to become easier and faster. It won't handle a big scale by 2019, but give it 5 years and I can see it happening." — Melanie Mohr, CEO of YEAY , a peer-to-peer recommendation platform. "2019 will be the year of adoption, no doubt. Until recently, the main challenge has been the time and cost of processing a crypto transaction. In the case with Bitcoin, the processing time of up to one hour and hefty fees made it unsuitable for daily payments. In 2018, we are seeing multiple cases proving that crypto payments can in fact be fast, cheap and suitable for day-to-day transactions." — Yoav Dror, CEO of PumaPay , a blockchain payment solution. "Big players from different markets — IBM, Starbucks, Telegram — have already expressed interest in blockchain and I believe that the overall the number of crypto users will grow by end 2019. However, a mass adoption will take much more, maybe 5-10 years. It depends on factors such as regulation, trust and acknowledgement." — Max Tsaryk, CEO of askfm.io, a decentralized social media Q&A network Yoav Vilner is a serial blogger, CEO and startup mentor. He has been featured on Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur and more. Follow him at @YoavVilner . Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook ! Don't miss: Co-founder of $100 million crypto hedge fund: 'I'll lose a million dollars in a day and I'm like, OK' More From CNBC These East Asian cities are leading the way for entrepreneurs For this job's bar and restaurant stipend you have to have a date with the boss Melinda Gates: Here's how to make sure you get the credit you deserve || 11 CEOs and founders on whether crypto will be mainstream in 2019: While bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies , most people still aren't using it day to day, and thousands of other coins remain largely undiscovered, which means crypto still hasn't achieved mass adoption.
The hype surrounding crypto tends to be split between extremes: the good (such as reinventing industries, gaining control of our financial assets) and the bad (such as online security and liquidity). And ever since the massive spike in bitcoin prices around summer 2017, much has been said about the magic that is blockchain, but much has also been written about crypto exchanges getting hacked, millions of dollars going to waste and innocent people getting scammed, all thanks to the privacy and anonymity of the technology.
Will 2019 finally be the year where crypto goes mainstream and all obstacles are in the past? Here's what 11 executives of known blockchain companies have to say.
"Other than a few selected digital coins, most of those available today hold no value at all. In 2019, the regulations will centralize the market into just a handful of leading, real coins. Then, people will be able to trade them using only a few major and controlled exchanges. So when you take down all the worthless coins, and stop using exchanges that aren't safe, it might be easier to mass adopt in 2019."
— Brandon "Synth," founder ofSkycoin, a blockchain and web decentralization platform
"What we're witnessing now is crypto finally gaining long-overdue recognition by businesses, state authorities and the financial world — most importantly, by respected traditional banking and fintech institutions.
"2019 will definitely be the start of crypto's mass adoption, though much more still needs to be done for the two worlds — traditional banking and crypto — to coexist frictionlessly. There are important questions that need to be answered. For example, should banks create coins of their own in order to compete with already established cryptocurrencies?"
— Alexander Ivanov, CEO ofWaves, a secure blockchain ecosystem for users and businesses
"I believe that 2019 will mark the beginning of crypto adoption, as we will see wider institutional expansion in the field and more relevant funding pouring in. An entire mass adoption, however, will take more time as institutional adoption will take more than the next 18 months.
The key factor that requires work is the usability of crypto — user experience, wallet management, etc. More and more companies are aiming to solve that."
— Anastasia O. Andrianova, CEOAkropolis.io, a blockchain pensions platform
"Currently, the internet is far from decentralized. The biggest crypto exchanges are successful and have great user experience, but in no way are using the peer-to-peer aspect that makes blockchain a unique technology. In order to mass adapt in 2019, decentralized applications will need to focus on their user experience and so the ecosystem needs to invite designers, product thinkers and researchers into the field."
— Chris Tse, CEO ofCardstack, a decentralized application framework
"2019 will mark another year of research and a slightly more mature landscape — and significantly larger communities of early adopters. However, challenging computer science problems — in particular blockchain scalability and security will remain the core focus for many researchers."In parallel, we will see more developers and designers focusing on creating simpler and more familiar user on-boarding experiences for mainstream use we've come to expect from the applications we use, and an overall lower barrier to entry into the crypto ecosystem."
— Carl Bennetts, co-founder ofStatus.im ,a mobile crypto operating system using peer-to-peer technology
"In my opinion, we are far from real adoption. There is a lack of use cases for cryptocurrencies apart from speculation. The development of new consumer-oriented products finally started to happen this year, especially in the financial sector. Issues of usability and scalability are the factors that lead the emergence of new use cases and drive long-lasting adoption. But I doubt that this process will be even near completion in 2019."
— Evgeny Yurtaev, Founder and CEO ofZerion, an ecosystem that connects crypto investors with blockchain companies
"I am optimistic about the adoption of crypto in 2019. Once the interoperability problem is solved, we will see the mainstream finance motivated to digitize the assets which could interact with crypto. This technology could be a major trigger for a mass adoption in 2019."
— Dejun Qian, founder of theFUSION Foundation, a cryptofinance platform intended to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
"We will see major adoption in 2019, as the financial system is huge and banks are hard to deal with. With cryptocurrencies, the end user is in charge of the process and is free to do anything at anytime. I once spoke at an event abroad for a big compensation, they took months to deal with the payment. I suggested they send the amount as a cryptocurrency, and it took a few minutes."
— Saulo Medeiros, CEO ofKindAds, a blockchain based ad platform
"Crypto is going to be massive, but not by 2019. Most people are trading and speculating but are far from realizing the actual technology. In order for a mass scale to take place, the blockchain needs to become easier and faster. It won't handle a big scale by 2019, but give it 5 years and I can see it happening."
— Melanie Mohr, CEO ofYEAY, a peer-to-peer recommendation platform.
"2019 will be the year of adoption, no doubt. Until recently, the main challenge has been the time and cost of processing a crypto transaction. In the case with Bitcoin, the processing time of up to one hour and hefty fees made it unsuitable for daily payments. In 2018, we are seeing multiple cases proving that crypto payments can in fact be fast, cheap and suitable for day-to-day transactions."
— Yoav Dror, CEO ofPumaPay, a blockchain payment solution.
"Big players from different markets — IBM, Starbucks, Telegram — have already expressed interest in blockchain and I believe that the overall the number of crypto users will grow by end 2019. However, a mass adoption will take much more, maybe 5-10 years. It depends on factors such as regulation, trust and acknowledgement."
— Max Tsaryk, CEO ofaskfm.io, adecentralized social media Q&A network
Yoav Vilner is a serial blogger, CEO and startup mentor. He has been featured on Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur and more. Follow him at @YoavVilner .
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• Melinda Gates: Here's how to make sure you get the credit you deserve || Why Natural Gas ETFs Are Burning Brighter: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Natural gas futures and commodity-related exchange traded funds jumped after hotter weather trends added to increased demand, fueling momentum in the gas markets. On Thursday, the United States Natural Gas Fund ( UNG ) gained 1.9% as natural gas futures added 2.0% to $2.94 per million British thermal units. Traders also capitalized on the turning sentiment with leveraged long ETFs. For instance, three-times leveraged-long VelocityShares 3x Long Natural Gas ETN ( UGAZ ) surged 6.5% Thursday while the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas ( BOIL ) , which takes the two times or 200% daily performance of natural gas, advanced 4.1%. The Energy Information Administration revealed weekly storage injections of a net 96 billion cubic feet into the lower 48 gas stocks for the week ended May 25, compared to the 80 billion cubic feet build recorded for the same period last year and a five-year average 97 billion cubic feet buildup, reports Jermiah Shelor for Natural Gas Intelligence . Bullish Weekly Inventory Numbers “We see this print as slightly bullish, with both noisy production and burn estimates indicating either burns were a bit more impressive or production recovered less than expected,” Bespoke said following the report’s release. “Either way, such a print puts $3 in play today and indicates a marginally tighter market than expected, which adds support as we were already rallying off impressive heat risks in the long-range." “We do note that we are still solidly loose to the five-year average, and this print was a touch looser to even 2018 on balance, so with average weather the market has far to fall, but this print confirms we can run on heat,” Bespoke added. Working gas in storage as of May 25 was 1,725 Bcf, compared to 2,513 Bcf a year ago and the five-year average inventories of 2,225 Bcf, according to EIA data. Compared to the prior week, the year-on-year storage deficit shrank from 804 Bcf to 788 Bcf, and the year-on-five-year deficit increased slightly from 499 Bcf to 500 Bcf. The lower inventory levels either indicate heightened demand or diminished supply, which are both bullish for natural gas prices. Story continues For the mid-term outlook, some traders seem bullish due to concerns over stronger cooling demand to combat the summer heat while the market suffers from a storage deficit. Over the short-term, however, traders are watching next week’s weather forecast, which appears neutral to bearish at this time. “This weekend into early next week will bring areas of showers across the northern U.S. with highs of 70s and 80s, while very warm to hot over Texas, the South, and SW,” according to Natgasweather.com. For more information on the natgas market, visit our natural gas category . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM June Gloom for Semiconductor ETFs? Gold ETFs Wait on Help From Italy Chaos A Decent Grade for Bitcoin MSCI Could Cap Brazil, India Weights in EM Indexes Germany ETFs Try to Endure Italy Chaos READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Why Natural Gas ETFs Are Burning Brighter: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Natural gas futures and commodity-related exchange traded funds jumped after hotter weather trends added to increased demand, fueling momentum in the gas markets. On Thursday, the United States Natural Gas Fund ( UNG ) gained 1.9% as natural gas futures added 2.0% to $2.94 per million British thermal units. Traders also capitalized on the turning sentiment with leveraged long ETFs. For instance, three-times leveraged-long VelocityShares 3x Long Natural Gas ETN ( UGAZ ) surged 6.5% Thursday while the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Natural Gas ( BOIL ) , which takes the two times or 200% daily performance of natural gas, advanced 4.1%. The Energy Information Administration revealed weekly storage injections of a net 96 billion cubic feet into the lower 48 gas stocks for the week ended May 25, compared to the 80 billion cubic feet build recorded for the same period last year and a five-year average 97 billion cubic feet buildup, reports Jermiah Shelor for Natural Gas Intelligence . Bullish Weekly Inventory Numbers “We see this print as slightly bullish, with both noisy production and burn estimates indicating either burns were a bit more impressive or production recovered less than expected,” Bespoke said following the report’s release. “Either way, such a print puts $3 in play today and indicates a marginally tighter market than expected, which adds support as we were already rallying off impressive heat risks in the long-range." “We do note that we are still solidly loose to the five-year average, and this print was a touch looser to even 2018 on balance, so with average weather the market has far to fall, but this print confirms we can run on heat,” Bespoke added. Working gas in storage as of May 25 was 1,725 Bcf, compared to 2,513 Bcf a year ago and the five-year average inventories of 2,225 Bcf, according to EIA data. Compared to the prior week, the year-on-year storage deficit shrank from 804 Bcf to 788 Bcf, and the year-on-five-year deficit increased slightly from 499 Bcf to 500 Bcf. The lower inventory levels either indicate heightened demand or diminished supply, which are both bullish for natural gas prices. Story continues For the mid-term outlook, some traders seem bullish due to concerns over stronger cooling demand to combat the summer heat while the market suffers from a storage deficit. Over the short-term, however, traders are watching next week’s weather forecast, which appears neutral to bearish at this time. “This weekend into early next week will bring areas of showers across the northern U.S. with highs of 70s and 80s, while very warm to hot over Texas, the South, and SW,” according to Natgasweather.com. For more information on the natgas market, visit our natural gas category . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM June Gloom for Semiconductor ETFs? Gold ETFs Wait on Help From Italy Chaos A Decent Grade for Bitcoin MSCI Could Cap Brazil, India Weights in EM Indexes Germany ETFs Try to Endure Italy Chaos READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Why Intelsat Stock Popped Another 16% Again Today: Another day, another 10%-plus move forIntelsat(NYSE: I)stock.
It's Thursday, and Intelsat is moving steadily higher in afternoon trading, tipping the scales up 16.1% as of 12:12 p.m. EDT. The question is "why?"
"Hey, Houston! What's up with Intelsat's stock price today? I can't see a good reason for it, even from orbit." Image source: Getty Images.
Intelsat, it seems, is the stock that can do no wrong -- even when it doesn't do much of anything at all. Intelsat entered the month of May with a big 33% move higher after reportingearnings on May 1-- actually a "loss" for the fiscal first quarter, but one apparently salvaged by a revenue "beat." Since then, the stock hasn't looked back, tacking on an additional 44% worth of gains on top of its May 1 share price -- despite the company havingvery little new to reportto explain the momentum.
As for today's move, there's just one news item on the wires, a notice that Intelsat has hired Juan Pablo Cofino away from ATN International to become its new regional vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, I've no reason to believe Mr. Cofino is anything other than a very capable executive -- but is he such a great catch as to justify adding $323 million to Intelsat's market cap in a single day of trading?
I rather doubt it. And that's why -- much as I hate to break the news -- there's nothing substantial behind today's rise in Intelsat's stock price. Don't be surprised if much of it goes away tomorrow,just as easily as it came today.
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Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Intelsat Stock Popped Another 16% Again Today: What happened Another day, another 10%-plus move for Intelsat (NYSE: I) stock. It's Thursday, and Intelsat is moving steadily higher in afternoon trading, tipping the scales up 16.1% as of 12:12 p.m. EDT. The question is "why?" Satellite communicating with Earth "Hey, Houston! What's up with Intelsat's stock price today? I can't see a good reason for it, even from orbit." Image source: Getty Images. So what Intelsat, it seems, is the stock that can do no wrong -- even when it doesn't do much of anything at all. Intelsat entered the month of May with a big 33% move higher after reporting earnings on May 1 -- actually a "loss" for the fiscal first quarter, but one apparently salvaged by a revenue "beat." Since then, the stock hasn't looked back, tacking on an additional 44% worth of gains on top of its May 1 share price -- despite the company having very little new to report to explain the momentum. As for today's move, there's just one news item on the wires, a notice that Intelsat has hired Juan Pablo Cofino away from ATN International to become its new regional vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, I've no reason to believe Mr. Cofino is anything other than a very capable executive -- but is he such a great catch as to justify adding $323 million to Intelsat's market cap in a single day of trading? Now what I rather doubt it. And that's why -- much as I hate to break the news -- there's nothing substantial behind today's rise in Intelsat's stock price. Don't be surprised if much of it goes away tomorrow, just as easily as it came today . More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Movado Group (MOV) Q1 2019 Earnings Conference Call Transcript: Image source: The Motley Fool.
Movado Group(NYSE: MOV)Q1 2019 Earnings Conference CallMay. 30, 20189:00 a.m. ET
• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants
Operator
[Operator instructions] Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Movado Group Inc.'s fiscal first-quarter 2019 earnings call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the company. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Rachel Schacter of ICR. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Rachel Schacter--ICR Investor Relations
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. With me on the call is Efraim Grinberg, chairman and chief executive officer, and Sallie DeMarsills, chief financial officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language, which I'm sure you're all familiar with.
The statements contained in this conference call which are not historical facts may be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual future results may differ materially from those suggested in such statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties, all of which are described in the company's filings with the SEC, which includes today's press release. If any non-GAAP financial measure is used on this call, a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to this non-GAAP financial measure will be provided as supplemental financial information in our press release. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Efraim Grinberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Movado Group.
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Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Rachel, and good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome all of you to Movado Group's first-quarter conference call. I will first provide some highlights of the quarter and discuss our strategic initiatives, and then Sallie will review our financial results. We will then open the call up to questions.
We're extremely pleased to report a strong start to the year, driven by a double-digit growth in sales and adjusted earnings per share. Sales surpass our plan, growing 28.1% to $127 million and 22.2% in constant currency. The quarter included $2.2 million of additional revenue from a timing shift based on a new accounting standard for revenue recognition. This shift will continue to impact each quarter for the balance of the year.
However, for the year, we expect it will be revenue neutral. Sallie will review this in greater detail. Our adjusted operating profit for the quarter was $8.9 million, versus $2.7 million last year. Our adjusted earnings per share grew to $0.37, versus $0.01 last year.
We also continued to maintain a very strong balance sheet with a cash position of $177 million while repaying all of our bank debt. Our teams did a tremendous job of managing our inventory levels, reducing inventory by $1.3 million from the same period last year despite the strong sales growth. Now I'd like to spend a few minutes on our key strategic priorities for fiscal 2019. Coming off a strong finish to last year, our teams around the world have been energized to build on that momentum for our brands and regions.
We are continuing to make progress on our digital transformation to become a leading omnichannel consumer-driven watch company. In our regions, our domestic wholesale business in Movado continues to perform well in our department and specialty store channels with a leading market share in the $300 to $3,000 price range and high single-digit sell-through growth for the season today. We showed very strong double-digit growth in Europe led by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, driven by the performance of our licensed brand portfolio and the addition of Olivia Burton, which helped fuel our International growth. We also had growth in our Latin America, Middle East and Asia Pacific markets.
We saw continued growth and excellent performance in our Movado company stores with double-digit comps and total sales growth of 24.3%, with continued strong gross margin -- with continued gross margins. In our e-commerce business, we are very pleased with the positive momentum we are seeing from the Movado and Olivia Burton brands. From a brand perspective, our Movado brand experienced modest increases in the U.S. as well as in our international markets.
On the product side, Movado's Bold men's bracelets performed well as well as Esperanza and the -- and classic Museum in the core collection. Movado Connect is also continuing to help drive retail performance. For Father's Day, we will deliver our new men's Museum Sport, which received a very positive reaction from our wholesale customers. We continue to focus on driving performance with our digital marketing efforts, both in paid and social initiatives.
Olivia Burton continues to deliver excellent results since we acquired the company during the summer of last fiscal year. We continue to focus on global expansion with limited distribution and building a powerful e-commerce business. The Olivia Burton design team continues to innovate and excite women in both the watch and jewelry marketplaces. Some of our best sellers in Olivia Burton are in our Marble Florals collection, and we are getting a very good reaction from consumers to our new Bejeweled Florals.
There are also still tremendous growth opportunities for the Olivia Burton brand, and we are looking forward to opening our first Olivia Burton retail store in early fall in Covent Garden in London. Our licensed brand division generated very strong results in the first quarter, particularly in Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, and Lacoste, driven by growth in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. In Tommy Hilfiger, we continue to perform very well, especially with our campaign styles featuring Blue IP in watches for both him and her. In Hugo Boss, our strong performance continues to be driven by our iconic Grand Prix and Companion collections for men.
We are seeing an increasing opportunity in Hugo Boss watches for women, beginning with the strong performance of Allusion and our Classic Sport families. We continue to see an improving trend in the retail performance of Coach, driven by our Grand collection. We are positioning well -- we are positioning ourselves well for some very strong product introductions in Coach for the fall season. We are seeing strengthening momentum in Lacoste, especially in Europe, driven by our Ultra Slim Moon collection and our iconic Lacoste 1212 watches.
We continue to grow our kids business in Ferrari and are excited about new product introductions for the balance of the year. In Rebecca Minkoff, we have learned a lot since our initial introduction and are introducing a more refined product assortment at appealing price points for the fall season. We are very pleased with our first-quarter results. While we are increasing our outlook today, we recognize that our first quarter is our smallest quarter, and we do not expect the benefits from the weaker dollar to continue for the balance this year.
Over the last year, we have fine-tuned our strategic direction and have made great progress in transforming the company into an omnichannel leader in the watch category. I would now like to turn the call over to Sallie.
Sallie DeMarsillis--Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Efraim, and good morning, everyone. For today's call, I will begin with a review of our first-quarter financial results and balance sheet and then discuss our outlook. Before I begin, I would like to point out the special items included in our first-quarter results for fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2018. Our press release also describes these items and includes a table of GAAP and nonGAAP measures.
Movado Group acquired Olivia Burton on July 3, 2017. Included in the results for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 was $767,000 of noncash amortization of acquired intangible assets. After tax, the charge related to the acquisition equates to $621,000 or $0.02 per diluted share. Our GAAP results for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 include a $6.3 million pre-tax charge, which equates to $4.4 million after tax, or $0.19 per diluted share, in connection with our cost-savings initiatives.
The balance of my remarks will exclude the special items just discussed. Now turning to our results. We are very pleased with our broad-based sales growth across each of our categories, owned brands, licensed brands and retail. The company adopted the new revenue recognition accounting standard as of February 1, 2018, which resulted in shifts in timing related to the recognition of returns and markdowns between quarters.
As Efraim mentioned, for the first quarter, our sales were favorable by $2.2 million due to the net decrease in returns and markdowns, which would have historically been recorded in this period. This change impacted operating income by $666,000 and after tax equated to $0.02 per diluted share. We anticipate a corresponding offset later this year. Sales for the first quarter were above our expectations and increased $27.9 million, or 28.1%, to $127.1 million.
Our newest brand contributed to this growth as we did not own it for the first five months of last fiscal year. Yet even without Olivia Burton, we experienced high double-digit growth in the first quarter. In constant dollars, net sales increased 22.2%. By geography, International sales increased 33% in constant dollars.
And in the U.S., sales increased 9%. Wholesale segment sales were $112.1 million, increasing 28.6% from $87.2 million in last year's first quarter. In constant dollars, wholesale segment sales increased 21.9%. U.S.
wholesale sales increased 3.4% to $33.8 million, compared to $32.7 million last year. International wholesale sales increased 43.8% to $78.3 million, compared to $54.5 million in the prior year, an increase of 33% in constant dollars. Sales were strongest in Europe, Brazil, the Middle East, and Asia. The company's retail business continued to be a positive contributor with sales up 24.3% from last year.
At the end of the period, we operated 40 outlet locations. Gross profit was $67.5 million, or 53.1% of sales, compared to $50.5 million, or 50.9%, in the first quarter of last year. The 220-basis-point increase in gross margins was primarily driven by the favorable change in foreign currency exchange rate and the increased leveraging our fixed costs due to higher sales. Operating expenses were $58.6 million, or 46.1% of sales, this year as, compared to $47.9 million, or 48.2% of sales, for the same period of last year.
The decrease in operating expenses as a percent of sales was driven by sales leverage while also demonstrating disciplined cost control as we continued to invest in our growing business. The dollar increase in operating expenses was primarily the result of the following: a $6.1 million increase in marketing expense, a $1.3 million increase resulting from the unfavorable impact of foreign currency exchange rates, and a $3.4 million increase in other operating expenses to support our sales growth. Strong sales growth and the expansion in gross profit more than offset increased operating expenses, leading to better-than-expected operating income for the first quarter. To this end, operating income was $8.9 million, or 7% of sales, compared to $2.7 million, or 2.7% of sales, in the same year-ago period.
Income tax expense of $5,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 compares to an income tax expense of $2.2 million recorded in the first quarter of the prior year. The effective tax rate for both years is impacted by the timing of discrete items, although in opposite directions. The first quarter of fiscal 2019 is lower than our expectation for the full fiscal year due to the favorable timing of approximately $2.1 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, and the aggregate of a few discrete items, including the release of a valuation allowance on certain deferred-tax assets. The effective tax rate for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 was higher than expected for the full fiscal year, primarily due to the unfavorable timing of the impact of stock-based compensation, which increased last year's tax provision by $960,000, or $0.04 per diluted share.
Net income in the first quarter was $8.7 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, versus net income of $258,000, or $0.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Now turning to our balance sheet. Cash at the end of the first quarter was $177 million, as compared to $233.6 million last year. The year-over-year decrease was driven by the repayment of the $25 million outstanding on our revolver and the acquisition of Olivia Burton in the second quarter of fiscal 2018.
Accounts receivable was up $13.5 million as compared to the same period of last year, primarily due to the increase in sales. Despite the sales increase of $27.9 million, or 28.1%, for the quarter and the Olivia Burton acquisition, inventory decreased by $1.3 million as compared to the same period of last year. In the first quarter, we repurchased $1.2 million of stock under our share-repurchase program, primarily to offset the potential dilution from stock award. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $1.7 million, and depreciation and amortization expense was $3.4 million.
This included $767,000 related to the amortization of the acquired intangible assets of Olivia Burton. Now I'd like to discuss our updated outlook for the current fiscal year. Our outlook assumes currency rates consistent with recent levels. Our results may be materially affected by many factors such as changes in global economic risk, customer spending, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and various other causes referenced in our 10-K filing.
For fiscal 2019, we are raising our outlook. Sales are expected to be in the range of approximately $615 million to $625 million. We expect our gross margin percent to be slightly improved from fiscal 2018. Our outlook estimates that gross margin will be in a range of approximately 53% to 53.5% for the full fiscal year.
We have a track record of disciplined control of our operating expenses, but we are also investing behind our International teams to support our growth. And with that, operating income is now projected to be in the range of approximately $71 million to $73 million. Based on the lower U.S. corporate tax rate, coupled with our jurisdictional earnings, the company now anticipates a 22% effective tax rate.
And net income is expected to be in a range of approximately $54.9 million to $56.4 million. We expect diluted earnings per share in fiscal 2019 to be in a range of approximately $2.35 to $2.40. Capital expenditures for fiscal 2019 are estimated to be approximately $12 million. The outlook we have provided assumes no unusual items for fiscal 2019 and excludes the non-cash amortization of the acquired intangible assets related to the Olivia Burton brand.
I would now like to open the call up for questions.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator instructions] We'll first go to Oliver Chen with Cowen and Company.
Oliver Chen--Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Hi. Thank you. Good morning. The comments around International -- building the International team are interesting.
What are your thoughts there in terms of what you're looking to do and what opportunities you see there? And then I was also just curious about the state of the U.S. wholesale department store channel. What are your thoughts on the levels of inventories here? And are you happy with the sell-through versus sell-in rates? Thank you
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
So I'll take those, Oliver. So on the first one, the investment is really behind some people in growing markets and as well as increased marketing expense behind our brands. And we're seeing very strong momentum in those markets, and you can see that by our International sales growth in the first quarter. And on the U.S.
side, we're seeing improving trends in the U.S. department store business. We believe that overall, those businesses are improving both in the watch category and overall and that we're cautiously optimistic about the trends of those businesses in the second half of the year. And with those improving trends, the retailers, I think, are stocking their positions appropriately.
Oliver Chen--Cowen & Company -- Analyst
OK, and that's been encouraging regarding the investments in the digital center of excellence. As you've had more time with this initiative, what are your thoughts on the priorities there and the progress you've made and what you see ahead?
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. It's very early on for us. So we just really launched that at the beginning of this fiscal year, and we're in the process of staffing that area and placing a greater emphasis on digital throughout the company. So I think this year will really predominantly be an investment year in that area, and I would expect to begin really seeing a real impact toward the latter half of this year and the beginning of next year.
Oliver Chen--Cowen & Company -- Analyst
OK. And our other question was regarding M&A, Efraim. What are your general thoughts on M&A as a framework in terms of looking for ROIC-accretive deals or opportunities? What would make sense for you as you think about organic versus M&A-driven growth?
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think we have both opportunities to drive ourselves organically as well as we're still proving out our Olivia Burton model. And that's been a great acquisition for us, and -- but it's very early in that stage. So we have a very strong balance sheet that really does continue to give us a certain amount of flexibility in the marketplace as well.
Oliver Chen--Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Thank you. Best regards. Great quarter.
Rachel Schacter--ICR Investor Relations
Thank you, Oliver.
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Thank you, Oliver.
Operator
[Operator instructions] We'll go next to Edward Yruma with KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Edward Yruma--KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. A couple of quick ones for me. First, lots of innovation at core -- in the core Movado product portfolio. Is the sales growth or sales improvement being driven out of kind of the new product lines, the heritage or the core? And then, I guess, as a follow-up, maybe a little bit of color on Minkoff since I think that underperformed a little bit.
Thanks.
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
So I think I'll answer the first part about -- Movado is really -- we're seeing actually a revitalization in our core business and strong -- continued strong performance in Bold. Heritage is still a very limited collection. And we're also seeing improving trends in our e-commerce business over the same period last year. So we're excited about that.
Rebecca Minkoff is still a very small part of the overall business and really a brand that we're incubating right now. We actually noted it has a very limited and exclusive distribution, and that actually makes it a very interesting opportunity for the company. And it's a millennially based brand, which also makes it an exciting opportunity for us.
Edward Yruma--KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great. Thanks so much, guys
Rachel Schacter--ICR Investor Relations
Thanks.
Operator
And it looks like there are no further questions at this time, so I'd like to turn it back over to management for any additional remarks.
Efraim Grinberg--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Again, thank you for joining us for our first-quarter conference call, and we look forward to seeing you again at the at the end of the of the summer for our second quarter. Thank you
Operator
[Operator signoff]
Duration: 26 minutes
Rachel Schacter --ICR Investor Relations
Efraim Grinberg --Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Sallie DeMarsillis --Chief Financial Officer
Oliver Chen --Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Edward Yruma --KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
More MOV analysis
This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see ourTerms and Conditionsfor additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.
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The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Movado Group (MOV) Q1 2019 Earnings Conference Call Transcript: Logo of jester cap with thought bubble with words 'Fool Transcripts' below it Image source: The Motley Fool. Movado Group (NYSE: MOV) Q1 2019 Earnings Conference Call May. 30, 2018 9:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator [Operator instructions] Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Movado Group Inc.'s fiscal first-quarter 2019 earnings call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the company. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Rachel Schacter of ICR. Please go ahead, ma'am. Rachel Schacter -- ICR Investor Relations Thank you. Good morning, everyone. With me on the call is Efraim Grinberg, chairman and chief executive officer, and Sallie DeMarsills, chief financial officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. The statements contained in this conference call which are not historical facts may be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual future results may differ materially from those suggested in such statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties, all of which are described in the company's filings with the SEC, which includes today's press release. If any non-GAAP financial measure is used on this call, a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to this non-GAAP financial measure will be provided as supplemental financial information in our press release. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Efraim Grinberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Movado Group. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Story continues Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Rachel, and good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome all of you to Movado Group's first-quarter conference call. I will first provide some highlights of the quarter and discuss our strategic initiatives, and then Sallie will review our financial results. We will then open the call up to questions. We're extremely pleased to report a strong start to the year, driven by a double-digit growth in sales and adjusted earnings per share. Sales surpass our plan, growing 28.1% to $127 million and 22.2% in constant currency. The quarter included $2.2 million of additional revenue from a timing shift based on a new accounting standard for revenue recognition. This shift will continue to impact each quarter for the balance of the year. However, for the year, we expect it will be revenue neutral. Sallie will review this in greater detail. Our adjusted operating profit for the quarter was $8.9 million, versus $2.7 million last year. Our adjusted earnings per share grew to $0.37, versus $0.01 last year. We also continued to maintain a very strong balance sheet with a cash position of $177 million while repaying all of our bank debt. Our teams did a tremendous job of managing our inventory levels, reducing inventory by $1.3 million from the same period last year despite the strong sales growth. Now I'd like to spend a few minutes on our key strategic priorities for fiscal 2019. Coming off a strong finish to last year, our teams around the world have been energized to build on that momentum for our brands and regions. We are continuing to make progress on our digital transformation to become a leading omnichannel consumer-driven watch company. In our regions, our domestic wholesale business in Movado continues to perform well in our department and specialty store channels with a leading market share in the $300 to $3,000 price range and high single-digit sell-through growth for the season today. We showed very strong double-digit growth in Europe led by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, driven by the performance of our licensed brand portfolio and the addition of Olivia Burton, which helped fuel our International growth. We also had growth in our Latin America, Middle East and Asia Pacific markets. We saw continued growth and excellent performance in our Movado company stores with double-digit comps and total sales growth of 24.3%, with continued strong gross margin -- with continued gross margins. In our e-commerce business, we are very pleased with the positive momentum we are seeing from the Movado and Olivia Burton brands. From a brand perspective, our Movado brand experienced modest increases in the U.S. as well as in our international markets. On the product side, Movado's Bold men's bracelets performed well as well as Esperanza and the -- and classic Museum in the core collection. Movado Connect is also continuing to help drive retail performance. For Father's Day, we will deliver our new men's Museum Sport, which received a very positive reaction from our wholesale customers. We continue to focus on driving performance with our digital marketing efforts, both in paid and social initiatives. Olivia Burton continues to deliver excellent results since we acquired the company during the summer of last fiscal year. We continue to focus on global expansion with limited distribution and building a powerful e-commerce business. The Olivia Burton design team continues to innovate and excite women in both the watch and jewelry marketplaces. Some of our best sellers in Olivia Burton are in our Marble Florals collection, and we are getting a very good reaction from consumers to our new Bejeweled Florals. There are also still tremendous growth opportunities for the Olivia Burton brand, and we are looking forward to opening our first Olivia Burton retail store in early fall in Covent Garden in London. Our licensed brand division generated very strong results in the first quarter, particularly in Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, and Lacoste, driven by growth in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. In Tommy Hilfiger, we continue to perform very well, especially with our campaign styles featuring Blue IP in watches for both him and her. In Hugo Boss, our strong performance continues to be driven by our iconic Grand Prix and Companion collections for men. We are seeing an increasing opportunity in Hugo Boss watches for women, beginning with the strong performance of Allusion and our Classic Sport families. We continue to see an improving trend in the retail performance of Coach, driven by our Grand collection. We are positioning well -- we are positioning ourselves well for some very strong product introductions in Coach for the fall season. We are seeing strengthening momentum in Lacoste, especially in Europe, driven by our Ultra Slim Moon collection and our iconic Lacoste 1212 watches. We continue to grow our kids business in Ferrari and are excited about new product introductions for the balance of the year. In Rebecca Minkoff, we have learned a lot since our initial introduction and are introducing a more refined product assortment at appealing price points for the fall season. We are very pleased with our first-quarter results. While we are increasing our outlook today, we recognize that our first quarter is our smallest quarter, and we do not expect the benefits from the weaker dollar to continue for the balance this year. Over the last year, we have fine-tuned our strategic direction and have made great progress in transforming the company into an omnichannel leader in the watch category. I would now like to turn the call over to Sallie. Sallie DeMarsillis -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Efraim, and good morning, everyone. For today's call, I will begin with a review of our first-quarter financial results and balance sheet and then discuss our outlook. Before I begin, I would like to point out the special items included in our first-quarter results for fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2018. Our press release also describes these items and includes a table of GAAP and nonGAAP measures. Movado Group acquired Olivia Burton on July 3, 2017. Included in the results for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 was $767,000 of noncash amortization of acquired intangible assets. After tax, the charge related to the acquisition equates to $621,000 or $0.02 per diluted share. Our GAAP results for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 include a $6.3 million pre-tax charge, which equates to $4.4 million after tax, or $0.19 per diluted share, in connection with our cost-savings initiatives. The balance of my remarks will exclude the special items just discussed. Now turning to our results. We are very pleased with our broad-based sales growth across each of our categories, owned brands, licensed brands and retail. The company adopted the new revenue recognition accounting standard as of February 1, 2018, which resulted in shifts in timing related to the recognition of returns and markdowns between quarters. As Efraim mentioned, for the first quarter, our sales were favorable by $2.2 million due to the net decrease in returns and markdowns, which would have historically been recorded in this period. This change impacted operating income by $666,000 and after tax equated to $0.02 per diluted share. We anticipate a corresponding offset later this year. Sales for the first quarter were above our expectations and increased $27.9 million, or 28.1%, to $127.1 million. Our newest brand contributed to this growth as we did not own it for the first five months of last fiscal year. Yet even without Olivia Burton, we experienced high double-digit growth in the first quarter. In constant dollars, net sales increased 22.2%. By geography, International sales increased 33% in constant dollars. And in the U.S., sales increased 9%. Wholesale segment sales were $112.1 million, increasing 28.6% from $87.2 million in last year's first quarter. In constant dollars, wholesale segment sales increased 21.9%. U.S. wholesale sales increased 3.4% to $33.8 million, compared to $32.7 million last year. International wholesale sales increased 43.8% to $78.3 million, compared to $54.5 million in the prior year, an increase of 33% in constant dollars. Sales were strongest in Europe, Brazil, the Middle East, and Asia. The company's retail business continued to be a positive contributor with sales up 24.3% from last year. At the end of the period, we operated 40 outlet locations. Gross profit was $67.5 million, or 53.1% of sales, compared to $50.5 million, or 50.9%, in the first quarter of last year. The 220-basis-point increase in gross margins was primarily driven by the favorable change in foreign currency exchange rate and the increased leveraging our fixed costs due to higher sales. Operating expenses were $58.6 million, or 46.1% of sales, this year as, compared to $47.9 million, or 48.2% of sales, for the same period of last year. The decrease in operating expenses as a percent of sales was driven by sales leverage while also demonstrating disciplined cost control as we continued to invest in our growing business. The dollar increase in operating expenses was primarily the result of the following: a $6.1 million increase in marketing expense, a $1.3 million increase resulting from the unfavorable impact of foreign currency exchange rates, and a $3.4 million increase in other operating expenses to support our sales growth. Strong sales growth and the expansion in gross profit more than offset increased operating expenses, leading to better-than-expected operating income for the first quarter. To this end, operating income was $8.9 million, or 7% of sales, compared to $2.7 million, or 2.7% of sales, in the same year-ago period. Income tax expense of $5,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 compares to an income tax expense of $2.2 million recorded in the first quarter of the prior year. The effective tax rate for both years is impacted by the timing of discrete items, although in opposite directions. The first quarter of fiscal 2019 is lower than our expectation for the full fiscal year due to the favorable timing of approximately $2.1 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, and the aggregate of a few discrete items, including the release of a valuation allowance on certain deferred-tax assets. The effective tax rate for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 was higher than expected for the full fiscal year, primarily due to the unfavorable timing of the impact of stock-based compensation, which increased last year's tax provision by $960,000, or $0.04 per diluted share. Net income in the first quarter was $8.7 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, versus net income of $258,000, or $0.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Now turning to our balance sheet. Cash at the end of the first quarter was $177 million, as compared to $233.6 million last year. The year-over-year decrease was driven by the repayment of the $25 million outstanding on our revolver and the acquisition of Olivia Burton in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Accounts receivable was up $13.5 million as compared to the same period of last year, primarily due to the increase in sales. Despite the sales increase of $27.9 million, or 28.1%, for the quarter and the Olivia Burton acquisition, inventory decreased by $1.3 million as compared to the same period of last year. In the first quarter, we repurchased $1.2 million of stock under our share-repurchase program, primarily to offset the potential dilution from stock award. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $1.7 million, and depreciation and amortization expense was $3.4 million. This included $767,000 related to the amortization of the acquired intangible assets of Olivia Burton. Now I'd like to discuss our updated outlook for the current fiscal year. Our outlook assumes currency rates consistent with recent levels. Our results may be materially affected by many factors such as changes in global economic risk, customer spending, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and various other causes referenced in our 10-K filing. For fiscal 2019, we are raising our outlook. Sales are expected to be in the range of approximately $615 million to $625 million. We expect our gross margin percent to be slightly improved from fiscal 2018. Our outlook estimates that gross margin will be in a range of approximately 53% to 53.5% for the full fiscal year. We have a track record of disciplined control of our operating expenses, but we are also investing behind our International teams to support our growth. And with that, operating income is now projected to be in the range of approximately $71 million to $73 million. Based on the lower U.S. corporate tax rate, coupled with our jurisdictional earnings, the company now anticipates a 22% effective tax rate. And net income is expected to be in a range of approximately $54.9 million to $56.4 million. We expect diluted earnings per share in fiscal 2019 to be in a range of approximately $2.35 to $2.40. Capital expenditures for fiscal 2019 are estimated to be approximately $12 million. The outlook we have provided assumes no unusual items for fiscal 2019 and excludes the non-cash amortization of the acquired intangible assets related to the Olivia Burton brand. I would now like to open the call up for questions. Questions and Answers: Operator Thank you. [Operator instructions] We'll first go to Oliver Chen with Cowen and Company. Oliver Chen -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst Hi. Thank you. Good morning. The comments around International -- building the International team are interesting. What are your thoughts there in terms of what you're looking to do and what opportunities you see there? And then I was also just curious about the state of the U.S. wholesale department store channel. What are your thoughts on the levels of inventories here? And are you happy with the sell-through versus sell-in rates? Thank you Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer So I'll take those, Oliver. So on the first one, the investment is really behind some people in growing markets and as well as increased marketing expense behind our brands. And we're seeing very strong momentum in those markets, and you can see that by our International sales growth in the first quarter. And on the U.S. side, we're seeing improving trends in the U.S. department store business. We believe that overall, those businesses are improving both in the watch category and overall and that we're cautiously optimistic about the trends of those businesses in the second half of the year. And with those improving trends, the retailers, I think, are stocking their positions appropriately. Oliver Chen -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst OK, and that's been encouraging regarding the investments in the digital center of excellence. As you've had more time with this initiative, what are your thoughts on the priorities there and the progress you've made and what you see ahead? Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sure. It's very early on for us. So we just really launched that at the beginning of this fiscal year, and we're in the process of staffing that area and placing a greater emphasis on digital throughout the company. So I think this year will really predominantly be an investment year in that area, and I would expect to begin really seeing a real impact toward the latter half of this year and the beginning of next year. Oliver Chen -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst OK. And our other question was regarding M&A, Efraim. What are your general thoughts on M&A as a framework in terms of looking for ROIC-accretive deals or opportunities? What would make sense for you as you think about organic versus M&A-driven growth? Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Well, I think we have both opportunities to drive ourselves organically as well as we're still proving out our Olivia Burton model. And that's been a great acquisition for us, and -- but it's very early in that stage. So we have a very strong balance sheet that really does continue to give us a certain amount of flexibility in the marketplace as well. Oliver Chen -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst Thank you. Best regards. Great quarter. Rachel Schacter -- ICR Investor Relations Thank you, Oliver. Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Thank you, Oliver. Operator [Operator instructions] We'll go next to Edward Yruma with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Edward Yruma -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst Hey, good morning, guys. A couple of quick ones for me. First, lots of innovation at core -- in the core Movado product portfolio. Is the sales growth or sales improvement being driven out of kind of the new product lines, the heritage or the core? And then, I guess, as a follow-up, maybe a little bit of color on Minkoff since I think that underperformed a little bit. Thanks. Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer So I think I'll answer the first part about -- Movado is really -- we're seeing actually a revitalization in our core business and strong -- continued strong performance in Bold. Heritage is still a very limited collection. And we're also seeing improving trends in our e-commerce business over the same period last year. So we're excited about that. Rebecca Minkoff is still a very small part of the overall business and really a brand that we're incubating right now. We actually noted it has a very limited and exclusive distribution, and that actually makes it a very interesting opportunity for the company. And it's a millennially based brand, which also makes it an exciting opportunity for us. Edward Yruma -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst Great. Thanks so much, guys Rachel Schacter -- ICR Investor Relations Thanks. Operator And it looks like there are no further questions at this time, so I'd like to turn it back over to management for any additional remarks. Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Again, thank you for joining us for our first-quarter conference call, and we look forward to seeing you again at the at the end of the of the summer for our second quarter. Thank you Operator [Operator signoff] Duration: 26 minutes Call Participants: Rachel Schacter -- ICR Investor Relations Efraim Grinberg -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sallie DeMarsillis -- Chief Financial Officer Oliver Chen -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst Edward Yruma -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst More MOV analysis This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Viking Therapeutics Stock Is On Fire Today: What happened Shares of the clinical-stage biotech Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) are soaring this morning following positive mid-stage trial results for Madrigal Pharmaceuticals ' (NASDAQ: MDGL) nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) candidate MGL-3196 . The reason? Viking's experimental NASH drug, VK2809, reportedly has a similar mechanism of action as MGL-3196. Investors are apparently bidding up Viking's shares on the belief that VK2809's mid-stage results will ultimately mirror those of MGL-3196. A rocket taking off. Image source: Getty Images. As of 10:32 a.m. EDT, Viking shares are up 87.2% and Madrigal's are up by a whopping 128% in the wake of these positive NASH results. However, shares in Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT) , which sports the most advanced NASH candidate , Ocaliva, are down 10.3% at the time of writing. While Ocaliva is well ahead of both MGL-3196 and VK2809 in terms of clinical development, the drug does have some serious safety issues that could negatively impact its commercial uptake if approved. So what NASH is widely expected to be the next multibillion-dollar drug market, thanks to the rising rates of obesity worldwide and the fact that there are no approved therapies for this condition. Intercept, Madrigal, and Viking are thus all hoping to beat out far larger competitors, like Allergan , Pfizer , and Gilead Sciences , in this emerging space and gain an all-important first-mover advantage. Now what Viking's mid-stage NASH study is set to wrap up next month, according to ClinicalTrials.gov . A top-line data release should thus occur within the next four to six weeks. So, in light of this upcoming clinical catalyst, Viking's stock appears primed to continue its upward trajectory, even after today's monstrous move higher. The long and short of it is that VK2809 should garner significant interest from multiple big pharmas currently vying for a piece of this enormous NASH market. As proof, Madrigal has already bubbled to the top of the buyout-rumor mill after MGL-3196's breakout success due to the tremendous demand for these drugs. Put simply, it might be a good idea to grab at least a few shares of this promising biotech ahead of this upcoming clinical catalyst. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This George Budwell owns shares of Pfizer. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Viking Therapeutics Stock Is On Fire Today: What happened Shares of the clinical-stage biotech Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) are soaring this morning following positive mid-stage trial results for Madrigal Pharmaceuticals ' (NASDAQ: MDGL) nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) candidate MGL-3196 . The reason? Viking's experimental NASH drug, VK2809, reportedly has a similar mechanism of action as MGL-3196. Investors are apparently bidding up Viking's shares on the belief that VK2809's mid-stage results will ultimately mirror those of MGL-3196. A rocket taking off. Image source: Getty Images. As of 10:32 a.m. EDT, Viking shares are up 87.2% and Madrigal's are up by a whopping 128% in the wake of these positive NASH results. However, shares in Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT) , which sports the most advanced NASH candidate , Ocaliva, are down 10.3% at the time of writing. While Ocaliva is well ahead of both MGL-3196 and VK2809 in terms of clinical development, the drug does have some serious safety issues that could negatively impact its commercial uptake if approved. So what NASH is widely expected to be the next multibillion-dollar drug market, thanks to the rising rates of obesity worldwide and the fact that there are no approved therapies for this condition. Intercept, Madrigal, and Viking are thus all hoping to beat out far larger competitors, like Allergan , Pfizer , and Gilead Sciences , in this emerging space and gain an all-important first-mover advantage. Now what Viking's mid-stage NASH study is set to wrap up next month, according to ClinicalTrials.gov . A top-line data release should thus occur within the next four to six weeks. So, in light of this upcoming clinical catalyst, Viking's stock appears primed to continue its upward trajectory, even after today's monstrous move higher. The long and short of it is that VK2809 should garner significant interest from multiple big pharmas currently vying for a piece of this enormous NASH market. As proof, Madrigal has already bubbled to the top of the buyout-rumor mill after MGL-3196's breakout success due to the tremendous demand for these drugs. Put simply, it might be a good idea to grab at least a few shares of this promising biotech ahead of this upcoming clinical catalyst. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This George Budwell owns shares of Pfizer. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Social Media Buzz]
【8：00】
ビットコイン（Bitcoin）価格・相場・チャート
https://bitflyer.jp/ja-jp/bitcoin-chart …
ビットコイン取引量No1!
【bitFlyer】
https://goo.gl/LwcoRC || BOUGHT [ #STRATBTC | #binance | Price: 0.00058110 | Time: 2018-06-01 12:52:09 ] Uptime: 00:02 | #BTC #STRAT #trading #bitcoin || #LIZA #LAMBO price
06-01 19:00(GMT)
$LIZA
BTC :0.08750
ETH :1.13000
USD :671.0
RUR :40000.0
JPY(btc) :71141.4
JPY(eth) :70319.9
$LAMBO
BTC :3.550
ETH :40.000
USD :22200.0
RUR :1555555.6
JPY(btc) :2886292.0
JPY(eth) :2489200.6 || BTC Price: 74...
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7643.45, 7720.25, 7514.47, 7633.76, 7653.98, 7678.24, 7624.92, 7531.98, 6786.02, 6906.92
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 5575.55, 5554.33, 5623.54, 4871.49, 4451.87, 4602.17, 4365.94, 4347.11, 3880.76, 4009.97, 3779.13, 3820.72, 4257.42, 4278.85, 4017.27, 4214.67, 4139.88, 3894.13, 3956.89, 3753.99, 3521.10, 3419.94, 3476.11, 3614.23, 3502.66, 3424.59, 3486.95, 3313.68, 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18, 3998.98, 4078.60, 3815.49, 3857.30, 3654.83, 3923.92, 3820.41, 3865.95, 3742.70, 3843.52, 3943.41, 3836.74, 3857.72, 3845.19, 4076.63, 4025.25, 4030.85, 4035.30, 3678.92, 3687.37, 3661.30, 3552.95, 3706.05, 3630.68, 3655.01, 3678.56, 3657.84, 3728.57, 3601.01, 3576.03, 3604.58, 3585.12, 3600.87, 3599.77, 3602.46, 3583.97, 3470.45, 3448.12, 3486.18, 3457.79, 3487.95, 3521.06, 3464.01, 3459.15, 3466.36, 3413.77, 3399.47, 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-02-13]
Volume: 6438903823, RSI (14-day): 52.66, 50-day EMA: 3718.67, 200-day EMA: 5075.44
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1310.80, Gold RSI: 61.99
Oil Price: 53.90, Oil RSI: 55.59
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
This Uber Co-Founder’s Bitcoin Brokerage Just Went Public in Canada: uber voyager bitcoin crypto Voyager, a brokerage startup that helps users easily find the best prices for Bitcoin and other crypto assets, has gone public in Canada on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) through a reverse merger reportedly worth $60 million. The privately-held company co-launched by ex-Uber CTO Oscar Salazar acquired publicly-traded company UC Resources Ltd. Voyager entered a share-purchase agreement with the former mineral exploration company, which led to the formation of a newly merged venture, dubbed Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd. Voyager is now trading on the TSX Venture Exchange. For us, going public just made sense to bring transparency to our business and promote it across this emerging and thriving sector. Learn more about why we chose to go public and join us in our journey. https://t.co/FoTnrHhsaY pic.twitter.com/DwAuTLlG6G — Voyager (@investvoyager) February 11, 2019 The new company listed its shares on the TSX Venture Exchange under a new symbol VYGR.V on February 11. Read the full story on CCN.com . || This Uber Co-Founder’s Bitcoin Brokerage Just Went Public in Canada: Voyager, a brokerage startup that helps users easily find the best prices for Bitcoin and other crypto assets, has gone public in Canada on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) through a reverse mergerreportedlyworth $60 million.
The privately-held companyco-launchedby ex-Uber CTO Oscar Salazar acquired publicly-traded company UC Resources Ltd. Voyager entered a share-purchase agreement with the former mineral exploration company, which led to the formation of a newly merged venture, dubbed Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd.
The new company listed its shares on the TSX Venture Exchange under a new symbol VYGR.V on February 11.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || This Uber Co-Founder’s Bitcoin Brokerage Just Went Public in Canada: Voyager, a brokerage startup that helps users easily find the best prices for Bitcoin and other crypto assets, has gone public in Canada on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) through a reverse mergerreportedlyworth $60 million.
The privately-held companyco-launchedby ex-Uber CTO Oscar Salazar acquired publicly-traded company UC Resources Ltd. Voyager entered a share-purchase agreement with the former mineral exploration company, which led to the formation of a newly merged venture, dubbed Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd.
The new company listed its shares on the TSX Venture Exchange under a new symbol VYGR.V on February 11.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Chilean Central Bank: Cryptocurrencies Are Unable to Substitute Fiat Money: The Central Bank ofChile(BCC) believes that cryptocurrencies are unable to substitute traditional money, according to an in-depth report on cryptoissuedFeb. 7.
The document, signed by the central bank’s president Mario Marcel, was prepared upon request of the Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC). The TDLC is an independent anti-monopoly institution established to ensure that free competition rules are not violated in Chile. The organization actively participated ina recent legal battlebetween Latin Americancrypto exchangesand Chilean banks.
As per the BCC, Bitcoin (BTC) and other major cryptocurrencies that were created as alternatives tofiat money, are now at an early stage of development. Therefore, it is difficult to predict whether or not they will continue to evolve. However, the BCC itself remains sceptical about the future of the industry:
“Currently, there is no evidence that would allow the conclusion that Bitcoin, or any other crypto asset, or crypto assets in general, will substitute legal currencies. [...] To achieve that goal, relevant legislative framework and regulation have to be adopted.”
The report also mentions volatility, limited acceptance and slow payments processing as the key obstacles to the mass adoption of crypto. Regarding statistics on businesses that accept crypto as payment in Chile, BCC stated that the crypto market in the country is “negligible” in comparison to the traditional one.
The document also hints at a possible approach to cryptoregulationin Chile. According to the BCC, cryptocurrencies might be treated as intangible assets and a digital representation of value, which converts them into property. In that case, they could be used as a medium of exchange to purchase goods and services without any additional restrictions.
The BCC report comes almost a year after the case involving local crypto exchanges Buda, CryptoMkt and Orionx began. The three firmsstarted a legal battlein April, soon after their banking accounts were closed by several Chilean banks. The antimonopoly courtmanagedto grant protection to the exchanges, despite the Supreme Court’srulingto keep the accounts closed.
Chile has not yet introduced clear legal framework for regulating cryptocurrency. However, the government seeks to control crypto profits. This January, the Chilean Internal Revenue Serviceobligedtaxpayers to mention crypto gains when they calculate annual incometax, given that crypto falls under the definition of intangible assets.
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• Coinbase Wallet Users Can Back Up Encrypted Keys on Google Drive and iCloud || Chilean Central Bank: Cryptocurrencies Are Unable to Substitute Fiat Money: The Central Bank of Chile (BCC) believes that cryptocurrencies are unable to substitute traditional money, according to an in-depth report on crypto issued Feb. 7. The document, signed by the central banks president Mario Marcel, was prepared upon request of the Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC). The TDLC is an independent anti-monopoly institution established to ensure that free competition rules are not violated in Chile. The organization actively participated in a recent legal battle between Latin American crypto exchanges and Chilean banks. As per the BCC, Bitcoin ( BTC ) and other major cryptocurrencies that were created as alternatives to fiat money , are now at an early stage of development. Therefore, it is difficult to predict whether or not they will continue to evolve. However, the BCC itself remains sceptical about the future of the industry: Currently, there is no evidence that would allow the conclusion that Bitcoin, or any other crypto asset, or crypto assets in general, will substitute legal currencies. [...] To achieve that goal, relevant legislative framework and regulation have to be adopted. The report also mentions volatility, limited acceptance and slow payments processing as the key obstacles to the mass adoption of crypto. Regarding statistics on businesses that accept crypto as payment in Chile, BCC stated that the crypto market in the country is negligible in comparison to the traditional one. The document also hints at a possible approach to crypto regulation in Chile. According to the BCC, cryptocurrencies might be treated as intangible assets and a digital representation of value, which converts them into property. In that case, they could be used as a medium of exchange to purchase goods and services without any additional restrictions. The BCC report comes almost a year after the case involving local crypto exchanges Buda, CryptoMkt and Orionx began. The three firms started a legal battle in April, soon after their banking accounts were closed by several Chilean banks. The antimonopoly court managed to grant protection to the exchanges, despite the Supreme Courts ruling to keep the accounts closed. Story continues Chile has not yet introduced clear legal framework for regulating cryptocurrency. However, the government seeks to control crypto profits. This January, the Chilean Internal Revenue Service obliged taxpayers to mention crypto gains when they calculate annual income tax , given that crypto falls under the definition of intangible assets. Related Articles: Wyoming Passes Bill to Recognize Cryptocurrencies as Money British Financial Historian Niall Ferguson Says Bitcoin Is 'an Option on Digital Gold' UC Berkeley Launches Accelerator for Early Stage Blockchain Startups Coinbase Wallet Users Can Back Up Encrypted Keys on Google Drive and iCloud || The Problem With Cryptocurrency Custody: Popular myth holds that pirates of the 17th century would squirrel away bounty beneath the sands of the Caribbean, hiding treasure where no one else might find it. It was a primitive form of security: the less accessible, the better.
A reincarnation of thissemi-apocryphal practicehas risen, strangely, to become the dominant method for securing virtual wealth in the cryptocurrency era. People use “cold storage,” meaning they stash their private keys—the password-like secrets that grant them ownership of Bitcoin and other blockchain-based assets—offline. Investors lock these keys on computers disconnected from the Internet to ward off hackers. They write the codes on strips of paper and stash them in safety deposit boxes to discourage thieves. They even bury theminside granite mountains, a habit that hearkens to dragon-besieged dwarves in fantasy fiction.
Cold storage is imperfect—and not just because bad stewards can lose a person’s money for good, as the recent example of the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX has madepainfully apparent. The approach robs cryptocurrencies of the very thing that may one day make them compelling: usability. For starters, freezing assets hinders traders from taking advantage of the market’s frequent, fleeting fluctuations. And as the technology shifts from a phase of rampant speculation to one of utility, cold storage will restrict people from participating in so-called cryptoeconomic networks, systems of financial incentives designed to support and improve blockchain projects through game-like activities. (See Ethereum’s planned update to “proof of stake” and Stellar’sinflation pools, for instance.)
Investors who fail to take up active roles in these networks will lose out. “Imagine holding traditional equities and not being able to capture dividends,” says Nathan McCauley, CEO and cofounder of Anchor Labs, a cryptocurrency custodial startup that has set out to solve just this problem. “The cold storage providers are effectively going to be dropping dividends on the floor.” (As part of the terms for a demonstration ofthe company’s new productin January,Fortuneagreed not to reveal details about the technology; suffice it to say the service uses a clever combination of biometrics and behavioral data, multiple approvals, and human reviews to secure people’s cryptocurrency without resorting to cold storage.)
The potential wastefulness of the cold storage-status quo could eventually have legal ramifications too. As Sherwin Dowlat, an analyst with Satis Group, a digital asset advisory firm, warned in aSeptember 2018 report, partners in investment funds may come to consider non-participation in cryptoeconomic networks as “a breach of fiduciary duty.” Leaving money on the table in this way, in other words, could be interpreted as an act of negligence.
Chris Dixon, an investor at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the earliest venture capital firms to become bullish on cryptocurrency, sees issues relating to secure storage as a fundamental obstacle to progress in the industry. “Custody is the single biggest piece of infrastructure holding back the growth of the space,” he tellsFortune. (It’s this belief that spurred Dixon toplunk down millions of dollarson Anchor a year ago.)
Given the importance of custody, it’s no surprise that so many businesses are angling fora slice of the pie. With its differentiated approach, Anchor will be taking on the likes of Coinbase, Gemini, BitGo, Xapo, and Kingdom Trust, whose cold storage options dominate the market at present. Meanwhile, warships loom on the horizon in the form of Fidelity and Bakkt, a cryptocurrency-focused subsidiary of the company behind the New York Stock Exchange, both of which plan todebut product offeringsthis year.
For Anchor and the rest of blockchain’s buccaneers, the hunt for buried treasure has just begun.
A version of this column first appeared inFortune’sThe Ledger, a newsletter covering the leading edge of finance and technology.Subscribe here. || The Problem With Cryptocurrency Custody: Popular myth holds that pirates of the 17th century would squirrel away bounty beneath the sands of the Caribbean, hiding treasure where no one else might find it. It was a primitive form of security: the less accessible, the better. A reincarnation of this semi-apocryphal practice has risen, strangely, to become the dominant method for securing virtual wealth in the cryptocurrency era. People use “cold storage,” meaning they stash their private keys—the password-like secrets that grant them ownership of Bitcoin and other blockchain-based assets—offline. Investors lock these keys on computers disconnected from the Internet to ward off hackers. They write the codes on strips of paper and stash them in safety deposit boxes to discourage thieves. They even bury them inside granite mountains , a habit that hearkens to dragon-besieged dwarves in fantasy fiction. Cold storage is imperfect—and not just because bad stewards can lose a person’s money for good, as the recent example of the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX has made painfully apparent . The approach robs cryptocurrencies of the very thing that may one day make them compelling: usability. For starters, freezing assets hinders traders from taking advantage of the market’s frequent, fleeting fluctuations. And as the technology shifts from a phase of rampant speculation to one of utility, cold storage will restrict people from participating in so-called cryptoeconomic networks, systems of financial incentives designed to support and improve blockchain projects through game-like activities. (See Ethereum’s planned update to “ proof of stake ” and Stellar’s inflation pools , for instance.) Investors who fail to take up active roles in these networks will lose out. “Imagine holding traditional equities and not being able to capture dividends,” says Nathan McCauley, CEO and cofounder of Anchor Labs, a cryptocurrency custodial startup that has set out to solve just this problem. “The cold storage providers are effectively going to be dropping dividends on the floor.” (As part of the terms for a demonstration of the company’s new product in January, Fortune agreed not to reveal details about the technology; suffice it to say the service uses a clever combination of biometrics and behavioral data, multiple approvals, and human reviews to secure people’s cryptocurrency without resorting to cold storage.) Story continues The potential wastefulness of the cold storage-status quo could eventually have legal ramifications too. As Sherwin Dowlat, an analyst with Satis Group, a digital asset advisory firm, warned in a September 2018 report , partners in investment funds may come to consider non-participation in cryptoeconomic networks as “a breach of fiduciary duty.” Leaving money on the table in this way, in other words, could be interpreted as an act of negligence. Chris Dixon, an investor at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the earliest venture capital firms to become bullish on cryptocurrency, sees issues relating to secure storage as a fundamental obstacle to progress in the industry. “Custody is the single biggest piece of infrastructure holding back the growth of the space,” he tells Fortune . (It’s this belief that spurred Dixon to plunk down millions of dollars on Anchor a year ago.) Given the importance of custody, it’s no surprise that so many businesses are angling for a slice of the pie . With its differentiated approach, Anchor will be taking on the likes of Coinbase, Gemini, BitGo, Xapo, and Kingdom Trust, whose cold storage options dominate the market at present. Meanwhile, warships loom on the horizon in the form of Fidelity and Bakkt, a cryptocurrency-focused subsidiary of the company behind the New York Stock Exchange, both of which plan to debut product offerings this year. For Anchor and the rest of blockchain’s buccaneers, the hunt for buried treasure has just begun. A version of this column first appeared in Fortune’s The Ledger , a newsletter covering the leading edge of finance and technology. Subscribe here . || Bitcoin Price Clings to $3,600 with Iron Fist While Ethereum Races Past Ripple: The 24-hour period of trading hasn’t seen vast activity in the crypto economy. Since the spike at the end of last week, nothing truly significant has taken place on Bitcoin markets.
With a high degree of irony, the wholecrypto marketseems on pause while theSEC “eventually” plansto approve an exchange-traded fund.
If the holding pattern continues,Bitcoinwill likely once again break one direction or the other in the coming weeks. If it’s for the negative, we can expect lower lows than we’ve had in recent months. The $2,000saren’t behind usyet.
Of the outliers, NEO saw the best gains, charting finally once again above $8. As a side note, Binance Coin has solidified its position as the #10 by market capitalization, pushing now toward a $10-per-token price. With a more than $200 million lead on Bitcoin SV, it will take BSV some serious turnaround work to recapture its former default position as a top-10 crypto.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Bitcoin Price Clings to $3,600 with Iron Fist While Ethereum Races Past Ripple: The 24-hour period of trading hasn’t seen vast activity in the crypto economy. Since the spike at the end of last week, nothing truly significant has taken place on Bitcoin markets.
With a high degree of irony, the wholecrypto marketseems on pause while theSEC “eventually” plansto approve an exchange-traded fund.
If the holding pattern continues,Bitcoinwill likely once again break one direction or the other in the coming weeks. If it’s for the negative, we can expect lower lows than we’ve had in recent months. The $2,000saren’t behind usyet.
Of the outliers, NEO saw the best gains, charting finally once again above $8. As a side note, Binance Coin has solidified its position as the #10 by market capitalization, pushing now toward a $10-per-token price. With a more than $200 million lead on Bitcoin SV, it will take BSV some serious turnaround work to recapture its former default position as a top-10 crypto.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Bitcoin Price Clings to $3,600 with Iron Fist While Ethereum Races Past Ripple: bitcoin price The 24-hour period of trading hasnt seen vast activity in the crypto economy. Since the spike at the end of last week, nothing truly significant has taken place on Bitcoin markets. With a high degree of irony, the whole crypto market seems on pause while the SEC eventually plans to approve an exchange-traded fund. If the holding pattern continues, Bitcoin will likely once again break one direction or the other in the coming weeks. If its for the negative, we can expect lower lows than weve had in recent months. The $2,000s arent behind us yet. Of the outliers, NEO saw the best gains, charting finally once again above $8. As a side note, Binance Coin has solidified its position as the #10 by market capitalization, pushing now toward a $10-per-token price. With a more than $200 million lead on Bitcoin SV, it will take BSV some serious turnaround work to recapture its former default position as a top-10 crypto. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Litecoin’s Halving Is Months Away, But Traders May Already Be Pricing It In: Litecoin has rallied sharply in the first six weeks of 2019, triggering speculation that investors may be pricing in a supply reduction that’s scheduled to occur in August.
The world’s fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $44, having clocked a high of $47 last week. At that price, LTC was up 56 percent on a year-to-date basis, according toCoinMarketCapdata.
LTC picked up a bid near $20 in December, tracking the corrective rally in bitcoin â the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Both moved pretty much in unison in January. Things, however, changed last week, with LTC outshining BTC’s 7 percent gain with a 41 percent rise.
Bitcoin Price Pattern Hints at Short-Term Rally to $4K
LTC’s strong performance comes at least five monthsahead of the mining reward halving, or the time at which the amount of litecoins produced as a network subsidy for each transaction block falls is cut in half. On Aug. 8, the mining reward will be reduced from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC.
Markets are always forward-looking and hence could be pricing in the impending supply drop. Validating that argument is historical data, which shows that the cryptocurrency had rallied in the months leading up to the first mining reward halving, which took place on Aug. 25, 2015.
Litecoin’s performance in 2014-2015 and 2018-2019
As seen above, LTC carved out a long-term low at $1.12 in January 2015 and rose to a high of $8.72 in July before falling back below $4.00 ahead of Aug. 25 â a day when mining rewards fell from 50 LTC to 25 LTC.
So, it could be said that markets bought LTC in seven months prior to reward halving and booked profits a few weeks before the event.
Bitcoin Eyes $3.8K After High-Volume Price Breakout
The chart also shows that the cryptocurrency exited the bear market (long-term falling trendline) well before the reward halving.
Litecoin’s recent surge is reminiscent of the price action witnessed in early 2015. As noted earlier, the cryptocurrency has appreciated by more than 50 percent in the six-weeks and has crossed the 12-month-long falling trendline.
History seems to be repeating itself and so LTC could spend the next couple of months trading in a sideways manner before seeing a possible gear-shift in June and July.
Such a possibility is also pointed to in the price chart analysis.
Weekly chart
LTC closed last week at $46.30 on Bitstamp, confirming a bullish higher high and higher low pattern. The 5- and 10-week moving averages (MAs) are also trending north, having produced a bullish crossover in mid-January.
The move through the long-term trendline hurdle was backed by a jump in trading volumes to the highest level since February 2018. The bearish-to-bullish trend change, therefore, looks legitimate.
Bitcoin’s Halving History
Litecoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency to undergo a reward halving roughly every four years. In fact, so does the world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin.
Since bitcoin’s inception 10 years ago, the cryptocurrency has experienced two reward halvings, the first on Nov. 28, 2012 and second on July 9, 2016, and is estimated to undergo a third in May of 2020.
As seen in the chart above, both halvings were preceded months in advance by significant price growth and full-fledged bull markets after the event.
Upon close inspection, it’s clear the halvings elicit a brief “sell the news” reaction from the market in the weeks leading up to the event. In that time, bitcoin witnessed price drops of 30-50 percent, which is comparable to litecoin markets in the few weeks leading up to its first halving.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Image via Shutterstock;Âcharts created on charts.cointrader.pro andÂTrading View
• Bitcoin Price Still Trading Flat While Litecoin Hits 7-Month High
• Little Relief in Sight as Bitcoin Price Closes at 7.5-Week Low || Litecoin’s Halving Is Months Away, But Traders May Already Be Pricing It In: Litecoin has rallied sharply in the first six weeks of 2019, triggering speculation that investors may be pricing in a supply reduction that’s scheduled to occur in August. The world’s fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $44, having clocked a high of $47 last week. At that price, LTC was up 56 percent on a year-to-date basis, according to CoinMarketCap data. LTC picked up a bid near $20 in December, tracking the corrective rally in bitcoin â the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Both moved pretty much in unison in January. Things, however, changed last week, with LTC outshining BTC’s 7 percent gain with a 41 percent rise. Bitcoin Price Pattern Hints at Short-Term Rally to $4K LTC’s strong performance comes at least five months ahead of the mining reward halving , or the time at which the amount of litecoins produced as a network subsidy for each transaction block falls is cut in half. On Aug. 8, the mining reward will be reduced from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC. Markets are always forward-looking and hence could be pricing in the impending supply drop. Validating that argument is historical data, which shows that the cryptocurrency had rallied in the months leading up to the first mining reward halving, which took place on Aug. 25, 2015. Litecoin’s performance in 2014-2015 and 2018-2019 As seen above, LTC carved out a long-term low at $1.12 in January 2015 and rose to a high of $8.72 in July before falling back below $4.00 ahead of Aug. 25 â a day when mining rewards fell from 50 LTC to 25 LTC. So, it could be said that markets bought LTC in seven months prior to reward halving and booked profits a few weeks before the event. Bitcoin Eyes $3.8K After High-Volume Price Breakout The chart also shows that the cryptocurrency exited the bear market (long-term falling trendline) well before the reward halving. Litecoin’s recent surge is reminiscent of the price action witnessed in early 2015. As noted earlier, the cryptocurrency has appreciated by more than 50 percent in the six-weeks and has crossed the 12-month-long falling trendline. Story continues History seems to be repeating itself and so LTC could spend the next couple of months trading in a sideways manner before seeing a possible gear-shift in June and July. Such a possibility is also pointed to in the price chart analysis. Weekly chart LTC closed last week at $46.30 on Bitstamp, confirming a bullish higher high and higher low pattern. The 5- and 10-week moving averages (MAs) are also trending north, having produced a bullish crossover in mid-January. The move through the long-term trendline hurdle was backed by a jump in trading volumes to the highest level since February 2018. The bearish-to-bullish trend change, therefore, looks legitimate. Bitcoin’s Halving History Litecoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency to undergo a reward halving roughly every four years. In fact, so does the world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Since bitcoin’s inception 10 years ago, the cryptocurrency has experienced two reward halvings, the first on Nov. 28, 2012 and second on July 9, 2016, and is estimated to undergo a third in May of 2020. As seen in the chart above, both halvings were preceded months in advance by significant price growth and full-fledged bull markets after the event. Upon close inspection, it’s clear the halvings elicit a brief “sell the news” reaction from the market in the weeks leading up to the event. In that time, bitcoin witnessed price drops of 30-50 percent, which is comparable to litecoin markets in the few weeks leading up to its first halving. Disclosure:  The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Image via Shutterstock; charts created on charts.cointrader.pro and Trading View Related Stories Bitcoin Price Still Trading Flat While Litecoin Hits 7-Month High Little Relief in Sight as Bitcoin Price Closes at 7.5-Week Low || Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Edge Higher but Fail at Resistance: Natural gas prices rebounded nearly a percent on Tuesday, and is hovering near the bottom end of the recent range. Prices have tumbled on the coming warmer weather that is expected to reduce natural gas inventory draws. Last week the Energy Information Administration reported a 237 Bcf draw which was in line with expectations and kept natural gas inventories at the lower end of the range for this time of year. Expectations are for a decline of 114 Bcf according to Estimize. The high to low range is from 90 Bcf to 178 Bcf. Prices are currently buoyed by a colder than normal weather forecast. According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the weather over the west and mid-west are expected to be much colder than normal while the east coast is expected to see normal temperatures. The only warm stop in the United States is expected to be Florida.
Natural gas prices edged higher but were unable to recapture resistance near the 10-day moving average at 2.68. Support is seen near the February lows at 2.55. A break below this level and the 2.50 level could lead to a test of the 2016 lows at 1.55. Short term momentum has turned positive as the fast stochastic generated a crossover buy signal in oversold territory. The current reading on the fast stochastic is 18, below the oversold trigger level of 20 which could foreshadow a correction. Medium term momentum has turned positive as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) index generated a crossover buy signal. This occur as the MACD line (the 12-day moving average minus the 26-day moving average) crosses above the MACD signal line (the 9-day moving average of the MACD line). The MACD histogram has crossed above the MACD zero index level which is also a crossover buy signal.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Reaction to RBNZ Decision Could Be Classic “Sell Rumor, Buy Fact”
• USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar rolls over against yen
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• Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Consolidative Action Continues For Second Consecutive Session || Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Edge Higher but Fail at Resistance: Natural gas prices rebounded nearly a percent on Tuesday, and is hovering near the bottom end of the recent range. Prices have tumbled on the coming warmer weather that is expected to reduce natural gas inventory draws. Last week the Energy Information Administration reported a 237 Bcf draw which was in line with expectations and kept natural gas inventories at the lower end of the range for this time of year. Expectations are for a decline of 114 Bcf according to Estimize. The high to low range is from 90 Bcf to 178 Bcf. Prices are currently buoyed by a colder than normal weather forecast. According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the weather over the west and mid-west are expected to be much colder than normal while the east coast is expected to see normal temperatures. The only warm stop in the United States is expected to be Florida. Technical Analysis Natural gas prices edged higher but were unable to recapture resistance near the 10-day moving average at 2.68. Support is seen near the February lows at 2.55. A break below this level and the 2.50 level could lead to a test of the 2016 lows at 1.55. Short term momentum has turned positive as the fast stochastic generated a crossover buy signal in oversold territory. The current reading on the fast stochastic is 18, below the oversold trigger level of 20 which could foreshadow a correction. Medium term momentum has turned positive as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) index generated a crossover buy signal. This occur as the MACD line (the 12-day moving average minus the 26-day moving average) crosses above the MACD signal line (the 9-day moving average of the MACD line). The MACD histogram has crossed above the MACD zero index level which is also a crossover buy signal. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil markets show signs of resiliency E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – February 12, 2019 Forecast AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Reaction to RBNZ Decision Could Be Classic “Sell Rumor, Buy Fact” USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar rolls over against yen GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound shows resiliency against yen Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Consolidative Action Continues For Second Consecutive Session || Top 20 Cryptos Make Small Gains While Stocks and Oil Indexes See Green: Feb. 12 —cryptocurrencymarkets are seeing measured growth among the top 20 coins bymarket capitalization, according to data fromCoinMarketCap.
Market visualization fromCoin360
The biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), is slightly up 0.05 percent, trading at $3,658 at press time. Bitcoin has climbed 5.65 percent over the past 7 days amidst all but one top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap seeing solid growth over the week.
Bitcoin 7-da7 price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH), the topaltcointhatregainedits place as the second-largest crypto by market cap on Feb. 11, is up around 1 percent at press time. After dropping to as low as $103 per coin earlier this week, Ethereum is up almost 15 percent over the past 7 days, and is trading at $123.
Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ripple (XRP) is slightly down around 0.1 percent, trading at $0.304. The coin is seeing relatively modest growth over the past 7 days, up around 2 percent.
Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Totalmarket capitalizationis hovering around $121.6 billion, with an intraday low amounting to $119 billion. Daily trade volume is still relatively high with $20 billion traded on the average over the 24-hour period, while for most of the month it hovered between $15-$17 billion.
Total market capitalization monthly chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
EOS (EOS), the fourth top crypto by market cap, is seeing the biggest growth among top 20 cryptocurrencies, up around 6.6 percent over the past 24 hours at press time. In contrast, Binance Coin (BNB) is seeing the biggest losses, down 4.46 percent.
Over the past 7 days, Litecoin (LTC) is up the most, having grown by almost 30 percent at press time.
Earlier today,United States(U.S.) digital asset firm Morgan Creek Digitalraised$40 million in funding from investors that included two major pension funds, in order to launch a new venture capital fund focusing on investing in the digital asset industry. Morgan Creek Digital Assets founder Anthony Pompliano claimed that the new fund intends to educate stakeholders to demystify the nascent crypto industry.
Recently, chair of the Financial Stability Board Randal K. Quarlesclaimedthat cryptocurrencies as an asset class “may challenge any framework” for financial stability.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock marketshave ralliedtoday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising around 1.49 percent, while the S&P 500 has increased by 1.29 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index grew by 1.42 percent at press time. Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities, toldCNBCthat the current situation on stock markets may mean that the U.S. government shutdown was avoided.
Majoroilindexes have also seen a significant growth, with the Canadian Crude Index rising around 1.3 percent, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is up 1.47 percent, Brent Crude growing by 1.61 percent, according tooilprice.com. The oil market is allegedlyseeinga wave of green in ahead of the release of OPEC’s monthly market on the day.
• EOS Sees Second Day of Growth as Crypto Markets, Stocks See Scant Price Action
• Major Currencies Gradually Roll Back After Short Recovery, Bitcoin Stays Over $3,600
• Stock Market Sees Significant Growth, While Bitcoin Keeps Stability Over Past 7 Days
• Bitcoin Holds Near $3,650 While the Stock Market Sees Minor Uptrend || Top 20 Cryptos Make Small Gains While Stocks and Oil Indexes See Green: Feb. 12 — cryptocurrency markets are seeing measured growth among the top 20 coins by market capitalization , according to data from CoinMarketCap . Market visualization from Coin360 Market visualization from Coin360 The biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin ( BTC ), is slightly up 0.05 percent, trading at $3,658 at press time. Bitcoin has climbed 5.65 percent over the past 7 days amidst all but one top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap seeing solid growth over the week. Bitcoin 7-da7 price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Bitcoin 7-da7 price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ethereum ( ETH ), the top altcoin that regained its place as the second-largest crypto by market cap on Feb. 11, is up around 1 percent at press time. After dropping to as low as $103 per coin earlier this week, Ethereum is up almost 15 percent over the past 7 days, and is trading at $123. Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ripple ( XRP ) is slightly down around 0.1 percent, trading at $0.304. The coin is seeing relatively modest growth over the past 7 days, up around 2 percent. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Total market capitalization is hovering around $121.6 billion, with an intraday low amounting to $119 billion. Daily trade volume is still relatively high with $20 billion traded on the average over the 24-hour period, while for most of the month it hovered between $15-$17 billion. Total market capitalization monthly chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Total market capitalization monthly chart. Source: CoinMarketCap EOS ( EOS ), the fourth top crypto by market cap, is seeing the biggest growth among top 20 cryptocurrencies, up around 6.6 percent over the past 24 hours at press time. In contrast, Binance Coin ( BNB ) is seeing the biggest losses, down 4.46 percent. Over the past 7 days, Litecoin ( LTC ) is up the most, having grown by almost 30 percent at press time. Earlier today, United States (U.S.) digital asset firm Morgan Creek Digital raised $40 million in funding from investors that included two major pension funds, in order to launch a new venture capital fund focusing on investing in the digital asset industry. Morgan Creek Digital Assets founder Anthony Pompliano claimed that the new fund intends to educate stakeholders to demystify the nascent crypto industry. Story continues Recently, chair of the Financial Stability Board Randal K. Quarles claimed that cryptocurrencies as an asset class “may challenge any framework” for financial stability. Meanwhile, U.S. stock markets have rallied today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising around 1.49 percent, while the S&P 500 has increased by 1.29 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index grew by 1.42 percent at press time. Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities, told CNBC that the current situation on stock markets may mean that the U.S. government shutdown was avoided. Major oil indexes have also seen a significant growth, with the Canadian Crude Index rising around 1.3 percent, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is up 1.47 percent, Brent Crude growing by 1.61 percent, according to oilprice.com . The oil market is allegedly seeing a wave of green in ahead of the release of OPEC’s monthly market on the day. Related Articles: EOS Sees Second Day of Growth as Crypto Markets, Stocks See Scant Price Action Major Currencies Gradually Roll Back After Short Recovery, Bitcoin Stays Over $3,600 Stock Market Sees Significant Growth, While Bitcoin Keeps Stability Over Past 7 Days Bitcoin Holds Near $3,650 While the Stock Market Sees Minor Uptrend || Japanese IT Giant GMO Confirms Launch of Yen-Backed Stablecoin GYEN in 2019: Japanese IT giant GMO Internet has confirmed that it plans to launch its yen-backed stablecoin GYEN this year, Cointelegraph Japan reported today, Feb. 12. The news was revealed during an earnings presentation to investors held today, after GMO released financial results for the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2018. The firm’s founder and CEO, Masatoshi Kumagai, as well as chief financial officer, Masashi Yasuda, answered questions from attendees. Following a question about the firm’s previously announced stablecoin, one of the executive answered: “Regarding the plan to launch GYEN as announced last year, we plan to issue it in overseas this year.” The company execs also revealed that the firm has set up a subsidiary and appointed a person responsible for GYEN operations to issue the stablecoin in 2019. The company further noted that it will be able to announce where the stablecoin will be issued shortly. During the presentation, the GMO execs also told attendees that the firm had closed down one of its Northern Europe mining sites, and that the relocation of another site is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. While the new location is kept confidential by the company, the execs claimed that the local electricity cost “is less than half of that in Northern Europe, which is 7-8 cents per kWh including running costs.” They concluded: “We believe the relocation will impact our earnings this summer.” As outlined in GMO’s earnings report for last year, in the last quarter of 2018, the firm reported 2.3 billion Japanese yen (about $20.8 million) in revenue for its cryptocurrency-focused segment. GMO’s crypto-related earnings from that quarter are over 12 percent lower than those reported for Q3 2018 and nearly 14 percent lower than the revenue reported for Q2 2018. Still, the amount earned by the company through its cryptocurrency activity — comprised of a cryptocurrency exchange and mining operations — in Q4 2018 is nearly 73 percent higher than the 635 million yen (about $5.7 million) reported in Q1 2018. Story continues However, GMO’s financial results report that its “profit attributable to owners of the parent company” for 2018 was 20.7 billion yen in the negative (about $187 million in losses), compared to a profit of 8 billion yen in 2017. The reason for this performance, according to the document, is attributed to the “extraordinary loss of JPY 35,385 million related to the cryptocurrency mining business restructuring.” This statement is in line with a recent monthly disclosure concerning GMO’s in-house crypto mining operations, which reported a steep hit in overall mining revenue. However, as the company explained at the time, even as overall revenue from mining tanked, the firm’s Bitcoin mining rewards consistently increased over time. As Cointelegraph reported in November, GMO’s third-quarter report for 2018 revealed a “historical performance” of its crypto-related sectors, despite “the harsh external environment.” In a similar initiative to the GMO’s GYEN coin, South Korea -based fintech firm BxB Inc. launched what is reportedly the first stablecoin backed by the Korean won at the end of January. Related Articles: Ethereum Daily Mining Rewards Аre at Lowest Level Ever Reported Ex-Tether Exec Joins Venture Launching Stablecoin Clearinghouse Head of Russia's Second Largest Bank Compares Crypto Mining to Counterfeiting Coincheck Q3 Finance Report Shows Twofold Improvement Since Trading Resumed || Japanese IT Giant GMO Confirms Launch of Yen-Backed Stablecoin GYEN in 2019: JapaneseIT giant GMO Internet has confirmed that it plans to launch its yen-backedstablecoinGYEN this year, Cointelegraph Japanreportedtoday, Feb. 12.
The news wasrevealedduring an earnings presentation to investors held today, after GMO releasedfinancial resultsfor the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2018.
The firm’s founder and CEO, Masatoshi Kumagai, as well as chief financial officer, Masashi Yasuda, answered questions from attendees. Following a question about the firm’s previouslyannouncedstablecoin, one of the executive answered:
“Regarding the plan to launch GYEN as announced last year, we plan to issue it in overseas this year.”
The company execs also revealed that the firm has set up a subsidiary and appointed a person responsible for GYEN operations to issue the stablecoin in 2019. The company further noted that it will be able to announce where the stablecoin will be issued shortly.
During the presentation, the GMO execs also told attendees that the firm had closed down one of its Northern Europeminingsites, and that the relocation of another site is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. While the new location is kept confidential by the company, the execs claimed that the local electricity cost “is less than half of that in Northern Europe, which is 7-8 cents per kWh including running costs.” They concluded:
“We believe the relocation will impact our earnings this summer.”
As outlined in GMO’s earningsreportfor last year, in the last quarter of 2018, the firm reported 2.3 billion Japanese yen (about $20.8 million) in revenue for its cryptocurrency-focused segment.
GMO’s crypto-related earnings from that quarter are over 12 percent lower than those reported for Q3 2018 and nearly 14 percent lower than the revenue reported for Q2 2018.
Still, the amount earned by the company through its cryptocurrency activity — comprised of a cryptocurrency exchange and mining operations — in Q4 2018 is nearly 73 percent higher than the 635 million yen (about $5.7 million) reported in Q1 2018.
However, GMO’s financial resultsreportthat its “profit attributable to owners of the parent company” for 2018 was 20.7 billion yen in the negative (about $187 million in losses), compared to a profit of 8 billion yen in 2017.
The reason for this performance, according to the document, is attributed to the “extraordinary loss of JPY 35,385 million related to the cryptocurrency mining business restructuring.”
This statement is in line with a recent monthly disclosure concerning GMO’s in-house crypto mining operations, whichreporteda steep hit in overall mining revenue. However, as the company explained at the time, even as overall revenue from mining tanked, the firm’s Bitcoin mining rewards consistently increased over time.
As Cointelegraphreportedin November, GMO’s third-quarter report for 2018 revealed a “historical performance” of its crypto-related sectors, despite “the harsh external environment.”
In a similar initiative to the GMO’s GYEN coin,South Korea-basedfintechfirm BxB Inc.launchedwhat is reportedly the firststablecoinbacked by the Korean won at the end of January.
• Ethereum Daily Mining Rewards Аre at Lowest Level Ever Reported
• Ex-Tether Exec Joins Venture Launching Stablecoin Clearinghouse
• Head of Russia's Second Largest Bank Compares Crypto Mining to Counterfeiting
• Coincheck Q3 Finance Report Shows Twofold Improvement Since Trading Resumed || Exclusive: Bitcoin Cash Developer Amaury Sechet Comes Clean on Satoshi Claims: CCN finally caught up with Bitcoin Cash lead developer Amaury Sechet, who recently graced our headlines with a bit of a stunt:claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Obviously, this was our first question for him. Sechet says the move was “a demonstration of what other scammers have done.” To clarify, he says thatCraig Wrightand others have made false claims to the throne of Satoshi Nakamoto. As Gregory Maxwell once explained on StackExchange,it’s sadly easily done:
“So, for example, a couple years ago Craig Wright claimed to ‘prove he was Satoshi’ by simply copying some pre-existing signatures out of the blockchain and posting somewhat obfuscated instructions on verifying them. It was figured out pretty quickly, but still managed to fool a lot of people– they were too caught up in the mumbojumbo to think of the obvious.”
Sechet tells CCN:
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Exclusive: Bitcoin Cash Developer Amaury Sechet Comes Clean on Satoshi Claims: amaury sechet bitcoin cash CCN finally caught up with Bitcoin Cash lead developer Amaury Sechet, who recently graced our headlines with a bit of a stunt: claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto . Amaury Sechet: I Didn’t Create Bitcoin Obviously, this was our first question for him. Sechet says the move was “a demonstration of what other scammers have done.” To clarify, he says that Craig Wright and others have made false claims to the throne of Satoshi Nakamoto. As Gregory Maxwell once explained on StackExchange, it’s sadly easily done : “So, for example, a couple years ago Craig Wright claimed to ‘prove he was Satoshi’ by simply copying some pre-existing signatures out of the blockchain and posting somewhat obfuscated instructions on verifying them. It was figured out pretty quickly, but still managed to fool a lot of people– they were too caught up in the mumbojumbo to think of the obvious.” Sechet tells CCN: Read the full story on CCN.com .
[Social Media Buzz]
#Bitcoin $3,626.80 v #BitcoinCash $258.59 (BTC/BCH 14.0), Avg Transaction fee for #Bitcoin ~$0.46 v #BitcoinCash ~$0.00 - 2019/02/13 17:00JST || Feb 13, 2019 17:01:00 UTC | 3,604.00$ | 3,193.10€ | 2,798.00£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/KPQvUHY5u2 || MetaHash (MHC) is now on KuCoin, you can deposit now. Supported trading pairs include MHC/BTC and MHC/ETH. Buying starts Feb 13, 2019, 17:30 (UTC+8), selling starts Feb 13, 2019, 18:00 (UTC+8), and withdrawal opens Feb 15, 2019, 18:00 (UTC+8).
@t...
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3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09, 3999.82, 3954.12, 4005.53, 4142.53
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 33466.10, 34316.39, 34269.52, 33114.36, 33537.18, 35510.29, 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44, 46196.46, 46481.11, 44918.18, 47909.33, 47504.85, 47105.52, 48717.29, 47945.06, 49199.87, 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92, 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18, 55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-04-27]
Volume: 49448222757, RSI (14-day): 48.02, 50-day EMA: 54972.68, 200-day EMA: 39656.44
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1778.00, Gold RSI: 57.25
Oil Price: 62.94, Oil RSI: 55.83
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Polkadot-Based Project $APN Lists on Huobi Exchange: Polkadot-based project $APN lists on Huobi exchange, ATH price x 130 on the day. LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2021 / Huobi Inno Hub has listed APN (Apron Network) on April 21st. As of 7:15 UTC, APN rose as high as 2.6USDT, up 12900%. It is reported that from April 14 to May 4 (20 days in total), users can Stake HT, DOT, KSM to Earn Rewards in $APN new coin mining. The total reward for New Coin Mining activities is 30 million tokens, and users can Stake HT, Dot and KSM as they deposit and get. Register: https://www.huobi.li/en-us/topic/double-reward/?invite_code=xtg22223 Apron Network is committed to building a decentralized infrastructure service network for DApp developers, DApp users and infrastructure operators based on a decentralized network of blockchain technology. We'll provide Kusama and Polkadot ecosystem with multiple services, including but not limited to node service, on-chain data indexing service, price feed service, etc. Grayscale's parent company, DCG, optimistic about the Middleware Track Since the second half of 2020, many major countries have gradually begun to accept digital currencies in a more pervasive manner. With greater regulatory clearance set around the industry, regulators within the United States and South Korea have allowed their native banks to provide custody and transaction services for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The adoption of crypto-friendly policies has also brought in traditional capital outside the distributed ledger tech circle, getting more investors and speculators involved. We have also seen the volume of digital assets managed by Grayscale Investments, the largest cryptocurrency fund worldwide, increase by over a dozen times in 2020 alone, spurring many traditional firms and investors to follow suit and get involved with Bitcoin and Ethereum. After a brief familiarization phase with the maturing cryptocurrency market, capital once again set its sights on the red hot DeFi market, beginning to set up funds dedicated to investing in DeFi. However, for several months, DeFi has been trendy, and now many DeFi competitors are entering the game. In a constantly evolving market, visionary investors are already calmly searching for the next cryptocurrency-based topic to capitalize on. Story continues Grayscale's parent company, DCG (Digital Currency Group), is one of these visionary backers. In addition to creating Grayscale Investments, it has also invested in many well-known teams and projects within the cryptocurrency field, such as CoinDesk, Kraken, Coinbase, CoinList, and many other household names. Recently, DCG disclosed their thirteen investments in 2020, of which seven, over 50 percent, were all middleware projects. The reason is that the DeFi ecosystem will continue to explode in 2020, with nearly 3,000 DeFi projects already in operation. The vigorous development of DeFi has also allowed middleware projects to achieve rapid growth. Follow Us: Twitter https://twitter.com/apronofficial1 Telegram https://t.me/ApronNetwork Media Contact: Company Name: Apron Co.LTD Contact: Darryl L. Terry Email: [email protected] Website: https://polkadot.network SOURCE: Apron Co.LTD View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/642415/Polkadot-Based-Project-APN-Lists-on-Huobi-Exchange || Polkadot-Based Project $APN Lists on Huobi Exchange: Polkadot-based project $APN lists on Huobi exchange, ATH price x 130 on the day. LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2021 / Huobi Inno Hub has listed APN (Apron Network) on April 21st. As of 7:15 UTC, APN rose as high as 2.6USDT, up 12900%. It is reported that from April 14 to May 4 (20 days in total), users can Stake HT, DOT, KSM to Earn Rewards in $APN new coin mining. The total reward for New Coin Mining activities is 30 million tokens, and users can Stake HT, Dot and KSM as they deposit and get. Register: https://www.huobi.li/en-us/topic/double-reward/?invite_code=xtg22223 Apron Network is committed to building a decentralized infrastructure service network for DApp developers, DApp users and infrastructure operators based on a decentralized network of blockchain technology. We'll provide Kusama and Polkadot ecosystem with multiple services, including but not limited to node service, on-chain data indexing service, price feed service, etc. Grayscale's parent company, DCG, optimistic about the Middleware Track Since the second half of 2020, many major countries have gradually begun to accept digital currencies in a more pervasive manner. With greater regulatory clearance set around the industry, regulators within the United States and South Korea have allowed their native banks to provide custody and transaction services for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The adoption of crypto-friendly policies has also brought in traditional capital outside the distributed ledger tech circle, getting more investors and speculators involved. We have also seen the volume of digital assets managed by Grayscale Investments, the largest cryptocurrency fund worldwide, increase by over a dozen times in 2020 alone, spurring many traditional firms and investors to follow suit and get involved with Bitcoin and Ethereum. After a brief familiarization phase with the maturing cryptocurrency market, capital once again set its sights on the red hot DeFi market, beginning to set up funds dedicated to investing in DeFi. However, for several months, DeFi has been trendy, and now many DeFi competitors are entering the game. In a constantly evolving market, visionary investors are already calmly searching for the next cryptocurrency-based topic to capitalize on. Story continues Grayscale's parent company, DCG (Digital Currency Group), is one of these visionary backers. In addition to creating Grayscale Investments, it has also invested in many well-known teams and projects within the cryptocurrency field, such as CoinDesk, Kraken, Coinbase, CoinList, and many other household names. Recently, DCG disclosed their thirteen investments in 2020, of which seven, over 50 percent, were all middleware projects. The reason is that the DeFi ecosystem will continue to explode in 2020, with nearly 3,000 DeFi projects already in operation. The vigorous development of DeFi has also allowed middleware projects to achieve rapid growth. Follow Us: Twitter https://twitter.com/apronofficial1 Telegram https://t.me/ApronNetwork Media Contact: Company Name: Apron Co.LTD Contact: Darryl L. Terry Email: [email protected] Website: https://polkadot.network SOURCE: Apron Co.LTD View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/642415/Polkadot-Based-Project-APN-Lists-on-Huobi-Exchange || Fintech Focus For April 27, 2021: Fintech Header Quote To Start The Day: A warrior is a guy that goes, ‘I’m here again today. I’ll be here again tomorrow and the next day.’ It’s a person who puts no limit on what’s possible. Source: David Goggins One Big Thing In Fintech: JPMorgan Chase is preparing to offer an actively managed bitcoin fund to certain clients, becoming the latest, largest and – if its CEO’s well-documented distaste for bitcoin is any indication – unlikeliest U.S. mega-bank to embrace crypto as an asset class. Source: Coindesk Other Key Fintech Developments: Ladies Get Paid, Public add speaker. Current, MrBeast launch partnership. Conversation : Adam Hadi of Current. Standard Life Aberdeen is rebranding . BIDS trading to grow beyond equities. Broadridge integrates FundApp tech. Analysis : $100M Clearbanc Series C. Brex raises $425M in Series D round. Chief’s player receives salary in BTC. Securrency announces a $30M round. Atomyze added CFTC commissioner. Watch Out For This: The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors can be as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet in a room where the air is mixed — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world. Source: CNBC Interesting Reads: Unpacked : Americans leaving cities. Biden sets $1M CGT hike threshold. Tesla sold $272M of its bitcoin in Q1. Iranian ships swarmed U.S. vessels. Weav taps $4.3M for commerce API. Airbus taps Lumina over lidar testing. Lyft sold autonomous tech to Woven. Tesla left growth outlook unchanged . Market Moving Headline: “The Fed is going to likely reiterate their patient stance here,” said Emily Roland, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. “I’m anticipating that they acknowledge the recent strength we’ve seen in economic data but they will continue to highlight we are a ways away from achieving their goal of full employment. I think they’ll continue to assure markets that Fed policy is going to remain firmly dovish for some time.” Story continues Source: Bloomberg See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Fintech Focus For April 26, 2021 Fintech Focus Roundup For April 25, 2021 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus For April 27, 2021: Quote To Start The Day:A warrior is a guy that goes, ‘I’m here again today. I’ll be here again tomorrow and the next day.’ It’s a person who puts no limit on what’s possible.Source:David Goggins
One Big Thing In Fintech:JPMorgan Chase is preparing to offer an actively managed bitcoin fund to certain clients, becoming the latest, largest and – if its CEO’s well-documented distaste for bitcoin is any indication – unlikeliest U.S. mega-bank to embrace crypto as an asset class.
Source:Coindesk
Other Key Fintech Developments:
• Ladies Get Paid, Publicaddspeaker.
• Current, MrBeastlaunchpartnership.
• Conversation: Adam Hadi of Current.
• Standard Life Aberdeen isrebranding.
• BIDS trading togrowbeyond equities.
• BroadridgeintegratesFundApp tech.
• Analysis: $100M Clearbanc Series C.
• Brexraises$425M in Series D round.
• Chief’s playerreceivessalary in BTC.
• Securrencyannouncesa $30M round.
• AtomyzeaddedCFTC commissioner.
Watch Out For This:The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors can be as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet in a room where the air is mixed — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world.
Source:CNBC
Interesting Reads:
• Unpacked: Americans leaving cities.
• Bidensets$1M CGT hike threshold.
• Teslasold$272M of its bitcoin in Q1.
• Iranian shipsswarmedU.S. vessels.
• Weavtaps$4.3M for commerce API.
• AirbustapsLumina over lidar testing.
• Lyftsoldautonomous tech to Woven.
• Tesla left growth outlookunchanged.
Market Moving Headline:“The Fed is going to likely reiterate their patient stance here,” said Emily Roland, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. “I’m anticipating that they acknowledge the recent strength we’ve seen in economic data but they will continue to highlight we are a ways away from achieving their goal of full employment. I think they’ll continue to assure markets that Fed policy is going to remain firmly dovish for some time.”
Source:Bloomberg
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Fintech Focus For April 26, 2021
• Fintech Focus Roundup For April 25, 2021
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Rebounds After Hitting Lowest Level Since March: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin rallied back Monday as investors took advantage of the lowest levels in seven weeks to pile back in. The largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 13% to above $54,000, the biggest intraday gain since early February. The move comes as JPMorgan Chase & Co. is preparing to introduce an actively managed Bitcoin fund to some clients as soon as this summer, Coindesk reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The rebound reverses a two-week slump that had pushed Bitcoin below its 100-day moving average amid technical warnings from Wall Street and fears of a growing crypto bubble. Some pinned Mondays move on a tweet Saturday from billionaire Elon Musk, who in the past has affected prices with his comments on the social platform. In a potential reference to cryptocurrencies, the Tesla Inc. founder asked What does the future hodl?, using a term often seen as meaning hold on for dear life that supporters use to refer to buying and holding their digital assets. After markets closed in New York on Monday, Musks Tesla Inc. quarterly results revealed that it spent $1.2 billion on Bitcoin in the first quarter and made $101 million selling it during that period. Musk had disclosed the crypto investment in February and the announcement subsequently helped fuel a red-hot rally for the digital asset. Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks also rose. Monex Group Inc. gained 7.1%, while Remixpoint Inc. increased 7% and Ceres Inc. added 6.1%. In the U.S., Coinbase Global Inc. gained 4.4%, while Riot Blockchain Inc. jumped 6.3%. Bitcoin has retained a gain of about 80% year-to-date as big-name investors endorse it and institutions from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Bank of New York Mellon advance their offerings around cryptocurrencies. JPMorgans John Normand reiterated in a note Friday that Bitcoins ascent has been steeper than any other financial innovation or bubble of the past 50 years. Crypto bulls breathed a sigh of relief as last weeks deep rout across the space failed to extend, Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note. However, it has quite a wall to climb to fully neutralize the recent selloff Story continues (Updates to add Teslas Bitcoin sale in sixth paragraph) For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Rebounds After Hitting Lowest Level Since March: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin rallied back Monday as investors took advantage of the lowest levels in seven weeks to pile back in.
The largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 13% to above $54,000, the biggest intraday gain since early February.
The move comes as JPMorgan Chase & Co. is preparing to introduce an actively managed Bitcoin fund to some clients as soon as this summer, Coindesk reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The rebound reverses a two-week slump that had pushed Bitcoin below its 100-day moving average amid technical warnings from Wall Street and fears of a growing crypto bubble.
Some pinned Monday’s move on a tweet Saturday from billionaire Elon Musk, who in the past has affected prices with his comments on the social platform.
In a potential reference to cryptocurrencies, the Tesla Inc. founder asked “What does the future hodl?”, using a term often seen as meaning “hold on for dear life” that supporters use to refer to buying and holding their digital assets.
After markets closed in New York on Monday, Musk’s Tesla Inc. quarterly results revealed that it spent $1.2 billion on Bitcoin in the first quarter and made $101 million selling it during that period. Musk had disclosed the crypto investment in February and the announcement subsequently helped fuel a red-hot rally for the digital asset.
Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks also rose. Monex Group Inc. gained 7.1%, while Remixpoint Inc. increased 7% and Ceres Inc. added 6.1%. In the U.S., Coinbase Global Inc. gained 4.4%, while Riot Blockchain Inc. jumped 6.3%.
Bitcoin has retained a gain of about 80% year-to-date as big-name investors endorse it and institutions from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Bank of New York Mellon advance their offerings around cryptocurrencies. JPMorgan’s John Normand reiterated in a note Friday that Bitcoin’s ascent has been steeper than any other financial innovation or bubble of the past 50 years.
“Crypto bulls breathed a sigh of relief as last week’s deep rout across the space failed to extend,” Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note. However, “it has quite a wall to climb to fully neutralize the recent selloff
(Updates to add Tesla’s Bitcoin sale in sixth paragraph)
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com
Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Rebounds After Hitting Lowest Level Since March: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin rallied back Monday as investors took advantage of the lowest levels in seven weeks to pile back in.
The largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 13% to above $54,000, the biggest intraday gain since early February.
The move comes as JPMorgan Chase & Co. is preparing to introduce an actively managed Bitcoin fund to some clients as soon as this summer, Coindesk reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The rebound reverses a two-week slump that had pushed Bitcoin below its 100-day moving average amid technical warnings from Wall Street and fears of a growing crypto bubble.
Some pinned Monday’s move on a tweet Saturday from billionaire Elon Musk, who in the past has affected prices with his comments on the social platform.
In a potential reference to cryptocurrencies, the Tesla Inc. founder asked “What does the future hodl?”, using a term often seen as meaning “hold on for dear life” that supporters use to refer to buying and holding their digital assets.
After markets closed in New York on Monday, Musk’s Tesla Inc. quarterly results revealed that it spent $1.2 billion on Bitcoin in the first quarter and made $101 million selling it during that period. Musk had disclosed the crypto investment in February and the announcement subsequently helped fuel a red-hot rally for the digital asset.
Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks also rose. Monex Group Inc. gained 7.1%, while Remixpoint Inc. increased 7% and Ceres Inc. added 6.1%. In the U.S., Coinbase Global Inc. gained 4.4%, while Riot Blockchain Inc. jumped 6.3%.
Bitcoin has retained a gain of about 80% year-to-date as big-name investors endorse it and institutions from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Bank of New York Mellon advance their offerings around cryptocurrencies. JPMorgan’s John Normand reiterated in a note Friday that Bitcoin’s ascent has been steeper than any other financial innovation or bubble of the past 50 years.
“Crypto bulls breathed a sigh of relief as last week’s deep rout across the space failed to extend,” Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note. However, “it has quite a wall to climb to fully neutralize the recent selloff
(Updates to add Tesla’s Bitcoin sale in sixth paragraph)
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©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Is Bitcoin Similar to a Pyramid Scam? That's what the same economist who predicted the pandemic says: Every time the world is more divided between those who trust Bitcoin as a good investment, and those who do not believe even a bit in it. In the second group is the economist Nassim Taleb , who compares the most popular cryptocurrency to a pyramid scam scheme . Of Lebanese origin, Taleb is famous for his 2007 book 'The Black Swan' , where he predicted a possible pandemic, which is already happening. Now, the essayist and researcher also gave his point of view on Bitcoin , and it is not encouraging at all. It may interest you: Ethereum co-founder predicts that the Dogecoin 'bubble' will burst at any moment and blames Elon Musk In less than 2 weeks, Bitcoin lost about 26% of its value , perhaps its worst decline in the last year. On April 14, the cryptocurrency reached a record historical price of $ 64,339 per unit . However, this Sunday, April 25, it plummeted to $ 47,777 , according to data from CoinMarketCap . Image: Behavior of Bitcoin from March 26 to April 26, 2021 according to data from CoinMarketCap . Faced with this dramatic loss in value, Nassim Taleb assured that Bitcoin is too volatile to be an effective currency and is not a safe protection against inflation. Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and Bitcoin going to zero. There is no connection between the two, " said the economist in an interview with CNBC . Also read: UK analyzes creating 'Britcoin', its own cryptocurrency backed by the Central Bank The specialist in predicting possible catastrophes known as 'black swans' , pointed out that Bitcoin has characteristics similar to those of the Ponzi scheme , a type of pyramid fraud by stealing money from investors and disguising the scam by channeling returns. Something that moves 5% per day, 20% in a month, up or down, cannot be a currency. It's something else, Taleb said, calling Bitcoin a trick and a game . Story continues #Bitcoin and the $ USD . pic.twitter.com/cccOqeDnIk - Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) April 26, 2021 Despite his current stance against it, the economist confessed that he was "initially misled" by Bitcoin . Thinking that it could eventually become an effective currency, it acquired a few units long ago, but said last February that it was ditching its cryptocurrencies due to their volatility. I bought it ... I was not willing to have a capital appreciation, but I wanted to have an alternative to the fiat currency issued by central banks: a currency without a government. I realized that it was not a currency without a government. It was pure speculation. It's like a game, (...) I mean, you can create a game and call it currency, he said. If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy a piece of land. Grow, I don't know, olives. You will have olive oil. If the price collapses, you will have something , Taleb added. The best strategy for investors is to own things that will produce returns in the future. In other words, you can use real dollars that come out of the company , recommended the specialist. Also read: 6 reasons why Bitcoin will reach a price of $ 90,000 this 2021 || Is Bitcoin Similar to a Pyramid Scam? That's what the same economist who predicted the pandemic says: Every time the world is more divided between those who trustBitcoinas a good investment, and those who do not believe even a bit in it. In the second group is the economistNassim Taleb, who compares the most popularcryptocurrencyto a pyramid scam scheme.
Of Lebanese origin, Taleb is famous for his2007 book 'The Black Swan', where he predicted a possible pandemic, which is already happening. Now, the essayist and researcher also gave his point of view onBitcoin, and it is not encouraging at all.
• It may interest you:Ethereum co-founder predicts that the Dogecoin 'bubble' will burst at any moment and blames Elon Musk
In less than 2 weeks,Bitcoin lost about 26% of its value, perhaps its worst decline in the last year. On April 14, the cryptocurrency reached a record historical price of$ 64,339 per unit. However, this Sunday, April 25,it plummeted to $ 47,777, according to data fromCoinMarketCap.
Image: Behavior of Bitcoin from March 26 to April 26, 2021 according to data fromCoinMarketCap.
Faced with this dramatic loss in value,Nassim Talebassured thatBitcoinis too volatile to be an effective currency and is not a safe protection against inflation.
“Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and Bitcoin going to zero. There is no connection between the two, "said the economist in an interview withCNBC.
• Also read:UK analyzes creating 'Britcoin', its own cryptocurrency backed by the Central Bank
The specialist in predicting possible catastrophes known as'black swans', pointed out thatBitcoinhas characteristics similar to those ofthe Ponzi scheme, a type ofpyramid fraudby stealing money from investors and disguising the scam by channeling returns.
“Something that moves 5% per day, 20% in a month, up or down, cannot be a currency. It's something else, ”Taleb said, calling Bitcoin a“ trick ”and a“ game ”.
Despite his current stance against it, the economist confessed that he was"initially misled" byBitcoin. Thinking that it could eventually become an effective currency, it acquired a few units long ago, but said last February that it was ditching itscryptocurrenciesdue to their volatility.
“I bought it ... I was not willing to have a capital appreciation, but I wanted to have an alternative to the fiat currency issued by central banks: a currency without a government. I realized that it was not a currency without a government. It was pure speculation. It's like a game, (...) I mean, you can create a game and call it currency, ”hesaid.
“If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy a piece of land. Grow, I don't know, olives. You will have olive oil. If the price collapses, you will have something, ”Taleb added.
“The best strategy for investors is to own things that will produce returns in the future. In other words, you can use real dollars that come out of the company ”, recommended the specialist.
• Also read:6 reasons why Bitcoin will reach a price of $ 90,000 this 2021 || Is Bitcoin Similar to a Pyramid Scam? That's what the same economist who predicted the pandemic says: Every time the world is more divided between those who trustBitcoinas a good investment, and those who do not believe even a bit in it. In the second group is the economistNassim Taleb, who compares the most popularcryptocurrencyto a pyramid scam scheme.
Of Lebanese origin, Taleb is famous for his2007 book 'The Black Swan', where he predicted a possible pandemic, which is already happening. Now, the essayist and researcher also gave his point of view onBitcoin, and it is not encouraging at all.
• It may interest you:Ethereum co-founder predicts that the Dogecoin 'bubble' will burst at any moment and blames Elon Musk
In less than 2 weeks,Bitcoin lost about 26% of its value, perhaps its worst decline in the last year. On April 14, the cryptocurrency reached a record historical price of$ 64,339 per unit. However, this Sunday, April 25,it plummeted to $ 47,777, according to data fromCoinMarketCap.
Image: Behavior of Bitcoin from March 26 to April 26, 2021 according to data fromCoinMarketCap.
Faced with this dramatic loss in value,Nassim Talebassured thatBitcoinis too volatile to be an effective currency and is not a safe protection against inflation.
“Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and Bitcoin going to zero. There is no connection between the two, "said the economist in an interview withCNBC.
• Also read:UK analyzes creating 'Britcoin', its own cryptocurrency backed by the Central Bank
The specialist in predicting possible catastrophes known as'black swans', pointed out thatBitcoinhas characteristics similar to those ofthe Ponzi scheme, a type ofpyramid fraudby stealing money from investors and disguising the scam by channeling returns.
“Something that moves 5% per day, 20% in a month, up or down, cannot be a currency. It's something else, ”Taleb said, calling Bitcoin a“ trick ”and a“ game ”.
Despite his current stance against it, the economist confessed that he was"initially misled" byBitcoin. Thinking that it could eventually become an effective currency, it acquired a few units long ago, but said last February that it was ditching itscryptocurrenciesdue to their volatility.
“I bought it ... I was not willing to have a capital appreciation, but I wanted to have an alternative to the fiat currency issued by central banks: a currency without a government. I realized that it was not a currency without a government. It was pure speculation. It's like a game, (...) I mean, you can create a game and call it currency, ”hesaid.
“If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy a piece of land. Grow, I don't know, olives. You will have olive oil. If the price collapses, you will have something, ”Taleb added.
“The best strategy for investors is to own things that will produce returns in the future. In other words, you can use real dollars that come out of the company ”, recommended the specialist.
• Also read:6 reasons why Bitcoin will reach a price of $ 90,000 this 2021 || Bitcoin Price Drop Sees Record Weekly Outflows of $21M: Bitcoin outflows saw its highest week ever following a 25% decline in price as inflows hit a six month low.
Following a volatile week that saw bitcoin experience one of itsbiggest correctionsof 2021, the effects could be felt across the market as outflows soared to new highs.
Accordingto CoinShares, $21 million in bitcoin outflows occurred. Making it the largest weekly outflow on record. The total weekly inflows hit $1.3 million. Making it the lowest week for BTC inflows in six months.
The new record of weekly outflows totaled 0.05% of the crypto markets assets under management.
The record outflows for BTC could be credited to the steep decline in price over the last week. Bitcoin saw an entire week of bearish sell-offs. Dropping the price to under $50,000. The $10,000 drop over the past week saw bitcoin reach a new seven week low following six weeks of bullish momentum.
Crypto traders alsoexperiencedthe biggest single liquidation event as the market liquidated over $10 billion worth of funds. Including positions on ETH and XRP.
Global Head of Market Research at Forex.com, Matt Weller commented on the BTC outflow, crediting the outflow to “investors shifting funds away from bitcoin amid some idiosyncratic developments last week”. Weller also explained the BTC price drop being linked to a recent power outage in Xinjian, China. Which was likely one of the catalysts for the bitcoin flash crash.
While bitcoin may have seen record outflows over the last week. Ethereum saw the opposite, as traders shifted focus to other projects. Ethereum recorded $34 million in inflows over the same period.
Weller attributed the increase in ethereum inflows to the upcoming July launch of EIP-1559, saying “Cryptoasset investors continued to accumulate ethereum as the highly-anticipated July launch of EIP-1559, which will cut the new supply of ETH dramatically”.
Ethereum also recently experienced a new record high in price. As well as a new record in the amount of active ethereum wallets,totalling771,000.
Bitcoin had since seen an impressive 9% rise in price on Monday, touching $55,000 as ethereum jumped nearly 7% nearly reaching its previous all-time high as it broke $2,500. || Bitcoin Price Drop Sees Record Weekly Outflows of $21M: Bitcoin outflows saw its highest week ever following a 25% decline in price as inflows hit a six month low.
Following a volatile week that saw bitcoin experience one of itsbiggest correctionsof 2021, the effects could be felt across the market as outflows soared to new highs.
Accordingto CoinShares, $21 million in bitcoin outflows occurred. Making it the largest weekly outflow on record. The total weekly inflows hit $1.3 million. Making it the lowest week for BTC inflows in six months.
The new record of weekly outflows totaled 0.05% of the crypto markets assets under management.
The record outflows for BTC could be credited to the steep decline in price over the last week. Bitcoin saw an entire week of bearish sell-offs. Dropping the price to under $50,000. The $10,000 drop over the past week saw bitcoin reach a new seven week low following six weeks of bullish momentum.
Crypto traders alsoexperiencedthe biggest single liquidation event as the market liquidated over $10 billion worth of funds. Including positions on ETH and XRP.
Global Head of Market Research at Forex.com, Matt Weller commented on the BTC outflow, crediting the outflow to “investors shifting funds away from bitcoin amid some idiosyncratic developments last week”. Weller also explained the BTC price drop being linked to a recent power outage in Xinjian, China. Which was likely one of the catalysts for the bitcoin flash crash.
While bitcoin may have seen record outflows over the last week. Ethereum saw the opposite, as traders shifted focus to other projects. Ethereum recorded $34 million in inflows over the same period.
Weller attributed the increase in ethereum inflows to the upcoming July launch of EIP-1559, saying “Cryptoasset investors continued to accumulate ethereum as the highly-anticipated July launch of EIP-1559, which will cut the new supply of ETH dramatically”.
Ethereum also recently experienced a new record high in price. As well as a new record in the amount of active ethereum wallets,totalling771,000.
Bitcoin had since seen an impressive 9% rise in price on Monday, touching $55,000 as ethereum jumped nearly 7% nearly reaching its previous all-time high as it broke $2,500. || Bitcoin Price Drop Sees Record Weekly Outflows of $21M: Bitcoin outflows saw its highest week ever following a 25% decline in price as inflows hit a six month low. Following a volatile week that saw bitcoin experience one of its biggest corrections of 2021, the effects could be felt across the market as outflows soared to new highs. According to CoinShares, $21 million in bitcoin outflows occurred. Making it the largest weekly outflow on record. The total weekly inflows hit $1.3 million. Making it the lowest week for BTC inflows in six months. The new record of weekly outflows totaled 0.05% of the crypto markets assets under management. BTC flash crash credited with outflows The record outflows for BTC could be credited to the steep decline in price over the last week. Bitcoin saw an entire week of bearish sell-offs. Dropping the price to under $50,000. The $10,000 drop over the past week saw bitcoin reach a new seven week low following six weeks of bullish momentum. Crypto traders also experienced the biggest single liquidation event as the market liquidated over $10 billion worth of funds. Including positions on ETH and XRP. Global Head of Market Research at Forex.com, Matt Weller commented on the BTC outflow, crediting the outflow to investors shifting funds away from bitcoin amid some idiosyncratic developments last week. Weller also explained the BTC price drop being linked to a recent power outage in Xinjian, China. Which was likely one of the catalysts for the bitcoin flash crash. Ethereum benefits from BTC dump While bitcoin may have seen record outflows over the last week. Ethereum saw the opposite, as traders shifted focus to other projects. Ethereum recorded $34 million in inflows over the same period. Weller attributed the increase in ethereum inflows to the upcoming July launch of EIP-1559, saying Cryptoasset investors continued to accumulate ethereum as the highly-anticipated July launch of EIP-1559, which will cut the new supply of ETH dramatically. Ethereum also recently experienced a new record high in price. As well as a new record in the amount of active ethereum wallets, totalling 771,000. Bitcoin had since seen an impressive 9% rise in price on Monday, touching $55,000 as ethereum jumped nearly 7% nearly reaching its previous all-time high as it broke $2,500. View comments || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week: The price of bitcoin headed towards bearish territory Sunday before bouncing. Ether’s average fees have dropped over the past seven days, creating a potential trading advantage for some. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $54,076 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 9.2% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $47,272-$54,340 (CoinDesk 20) BTC above the 10-hour but and 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin jumped Monday, reaching as high as $54,340. It was a powerful reversal after prices fell as low as $47,272 around 23:00 GMT (6 PM ET) Sunday. The largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $54,076 as of press time. Related: Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K Bitcoin’s recovery may spark momentum, according to technical analyst Katie Stockton of the Fairlead Strategies consulting firm. “The bounce should persist this week,” Stockton wrote in her “Cryptocurrency Compass” report on Monday. “But the recent loss of intermediate-term momentum suggests bitcoin will meet resistance below $62,000.” Based on CoinDesk 20 data, bitcoin has only been able to close above $60,000 on seven days in the entirety of its 12-year existence. All of those have occurred in the past three months. With the $60,000 price point being a level of “resistance” where some traders might start selling, Stockton sees $40,000 as the price level where investors will start scooping up what they perceive as cheap BTC. Related: Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card “Support is near $42,000 as a gauge of downside risk within the long-term uptrend,” Stockton noted. The news cycle is heavily dictating some of the price action in the crypto market, according to Michael Gord, chief executive officer of quantitative firm Global Digital Assets. “I think we are seeing more regulations around digital assets implemented globally,” Gord said. “This might cause investors to take a more conservative wait-and-see approach and perhaps exit some positions to hedge the risk.” Story continues There are a lot more eyeballs now on crypto. This may make some bitcoin traders more trigger-happy when it comes to the sell button. In the derivatives market, funding rates had turned negative, generally seen as sign that traders aren’t hungry for long leverage. They are still near zero, according to data aggregator Skew. Jason Lau, chief operating office of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin, sees a lasting market recovery and further upside.“With leverage and derivative activity still coming off all-time highs – bitcoin futures open interest has declined over 30% from the peaks – a spot-led recovery might be setting up bitcoin for another leg up,” Lau told CoinDesk. Read More: JPMorgan to Let Clients Invest in Bitcoin Fund for First Time Ether fees drop, but at what cost? Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday, trading around $2,489 and climbing 9.7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Over the past three months, the average fee paid on the Ethereum network to conduct transactions was approximately 0.0097 ETH. However, in the past week that average has dropped to 0.0079 ETH. It works out to an 18% reduction in the average cost of using the network, the primary ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi), consisting of programmable blockchain applications for trading, lending and derivatives. Many might welcome this news, as often Ethereum network fees have been so expensive that DeFi applications are unusable and more expensive than centralized or traditional financial platforms. However, Peter Chan, lead trader at quantitative firm OneBit Quant, says the fee improvement is a result of some traders building “bots,” or automatic systems, working directly with Ethereum miners. They have built a tool called MEV-geth that floods the network with transactions in the amount of 0 ETH in order to spot a preferential transaction sequence. The dynamic appears to be resulting in an advantage for the traders. “Basically, some of the bots decided to work with miners and there are immense amounts of zero-gas transactions mined,” Chan told CoinDesk. “The problem is that only whitelisted miners will be able to see these transactions, unlike where everyone can see in mempool.” The mempool is the list of network transactions waiting to be processed and confirmed by the Ethereum miners. “This black box creates asymmetric information tilted towards the miners,” Chan added. He suggested that people need to be cautious some more-advanced traders are getting information faster than others as a result of this cooperation with Ethereum miners. The bot uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism similar to the Bitcoin blockchain’s. The Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade on the horizon plans to switch from proof-of-work mining, which relies on solving cryptographic puzzles by computers to run, to proof-of-stake, which requires cryptocurrency balances to run. “The best way to deal with this is to set a tighter slippage to protect your trade, especially if you are trading a niche token,” Chan said. Read More: DeFi Reshapes the CoinDesk 20 Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): xrp (XRP) + 24.3% aave (AAVE) + 19.5% tezos (XTZ) + 15.5% Equities: In Asia the Nikkei 225 index ended the day in the green 0.36% as travel stocks rose after airliner All Nippon Airways reported a better-than-expected forecast for 2021 . The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 0.35% as investors anticipate positive corporate earnings reports this week from the first quarter of 2021 . In the United States, the S&P 500 index gained 0.20% as traders were optimistic about corporate earnings despite concerns about inflation and high commodity prices . Read More: Microsoft, Apple, MicroStrategy to Be Listed on Binance as Tokenized Stock s Commodities: Oil was down 0.34%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $61.89. Gold was in the green 0.20% and at $1,780 as of press time. Silver is gaining, up 0.71% and changing hands at $26.17. Treasurys: The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbedMonday to 1.568 and in the green 0.35%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week: The price of bitcoin headed towards bearish territory Sunday before bouncing. Ether’s average fees have dropped over the past seven days, creating a potential trading advantage for some.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $54,076 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 9.2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $47,272-$54,340 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC above the 10-hour but and 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin jumped Monday, reaching as high as $54,340. It was a powerful reversal after prices fell as low as $47,272 around 23:00 GMT (6 PM ET) Sunday.
The largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $54,076 as of press time.
Related:Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K
Bitcoin’s recovery may spark momentum, according to technical analyst Katie Stockton of the Fairlead Strategies consulting firm.
“The bounce should persist this week,” Stockton wrote in her “Cryptocurrency Compass” report on Monday. “But the recent loss of intermediate-term momentum suggests bitcoin will meet resistance below $62,000.”
Based on CoinDesk 20 data, bitcoin has only been able to close above $60,000 on seven days in the entirety of its 12-year existence. All of those have occurred in the past three months.
With the $60,000 price point being a level of “resistance” where some traders might start selling, Stockton sees $40,000 as the price level where investors will start scooping up what they perceive as cheap BTC.
Related:Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card
“Support is near $42,000 as a gauge of downside risk within the long-term uptrend,” Stockton noted.
The news cycle is heavily dictating some of the price action in the crypto market, according to Michael Gord, chief executive officer of quantitative firm Global Digital Assets.
“I think we are seeing more regulations around digital assets implemented globally,” Gord said. “This might cause investors to take a more conservative wait-and-see approach and perhaps exit some positions to hedge the risk.”
There are a lot more eyeballs now on crypto. This may make some bitcoin traders more trigger-happy when it comes to the sell button.
In the derivatives market, funding rates had turned negative, generally seen as sign that traders aren’t hungry for long leverage. They are still near zero, according to data aggregator Skew.
Jason Lau, chief operating office of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin, sees a lasting market recovery and further upside.“With leverage and derivative activity still coming off all-time highs – bitcoin futures open interest has declined over 30% from the peaks – a spot-led recovery might be setting up bitcoin for another leg up,” Lau told CoinDesk.
Read More:JPMorgan to Let Clients Invest in Bitcoin Fund for First Time
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday, trading around $2,489 and climbing 9.7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Over the past three months, the average fee paid on the Ethereum network to conduct transactions was approximately 0.0097 ETH. However, in the past week that average has dropped to 0.0079 ETH. It works out to an 18% reduction in the average cost of using the network, the primary ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi), consisting of programmable blockchain applications for trading, lending and derivatives.
Many might welcome this news, as often Ethereum network fees have been so expensive that DeFi applications are unusable and more expensive than centralized or traditional financial platforms.
However, Peter Chan, lead trader at quantitative firm OneBit Quant, says the fee improvement is a result of some traders building “bots,” or automatic systems, working directly with Ethereum miners. They have built a tool calledMEV-geththat floods the network with transactions in the amount of 0 ETH in order to spot a preferential transaction sequence.
The dynamic appears to be resulting in an advantage for the traders.
“Basically, some of the bots decided to work with miners and there are immense amounts of zero-gas transactions mined,” Chan told CoinDesk. “The problem is that only whitelisted miners will be able to see these transactions, unlike where everyone can see in mempool.”
The mempool is the list of network transactions waiting to be processed and confirmed by the Ethereum miners.
“This black box creates asymmetric information tilted towards the miners,” Chan added. He suggested that people need to be cautious some more-advanced traders are getting information faster than others as a result of this cooperation with Ethereum miners. The bot uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism similar to the Bitcoin blockchain’s.
The Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade on the horizon plans to switch from proof-of-work mining, which relies on solving cryptographic puzzles by computers to run, to proof-of-stake, which requires cryptocurrency balances to run.
“The best way to deal with this is to set a tighter slippage to protect your trade, especially if you are trading a niche token,” Chan said.
Read More:DeFi Reshapes the CoinDesk 20
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• xrp(XRP) + 24.3%
• aave(AAVE) + 19.5%
• tezos(XTZ) + 15.5%
Equities:
• In Asia the Nikkei 225 index ended the day in the green 0.36% astravel stocks rose after airliner All Nippon Airways reported a better-than-expected forecast for 2021.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 0.35% asinvestors anticipate positive corporate earnings reports this week from the first quarter of 2021.
• In the United States, the S&P 500 index gained 0.20% astraders were optimistic about corporate earnings despite concerns about inflation and high commodity prices.
Read More:Microsoft, Apple, MicroStrategy to Be Listed on Binance as Tokenized Stocks
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.34%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $61.89.
• Gold was in the green 0.20% and at $1,780 as of press time.
• Silver is gaining, up 0.71% and changing hands at $26.17.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbedMonday to 1.568 and in the green 0.35%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week: The price of bitcoin headed towards bearish territory Sunday before bouncing. Ether’s average fees have dropped over the past seven days, creating a potential trading advantage for some.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $54,076 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 9.2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $47,272-$54,340 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC above the 10-hour but and 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin jumped Monday, reaching as high as $54,340. It was a powerful reversal after prices fell as low as $47,272 around 23:00 GMT (6 PM ET) Sunday.
The largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $54,076 as of press time.
Related:Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K
Bitcoin’s recovery may spark momentum, according to technical analyst Katie Stockton of the Fairlead Strategies consulting firm.
“The bounce should persist this week,” Stockton wrote in her “Cryptocurrency Compass” report on Monday. “But the recent loss of intermediate-term momentum suggests bitcoin will meet resistance below $62,000.”
Based on CoinDesk 20 data, bitcoin has only been able to close above $60,000 on seven days in the entirety of its 12-year existence. All of those have occurred in the past three months.
With the $60,000 price point being a level of “resistance” where some traders might start selling, Stockton sees $40,000 as the price level where investors will start scooping up what they perceive as cheap BTC.
Related:Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card
“Support is near $42,000 as a gauge of downside risk within the long-term uptrend,” Stockton noted.
The news cycle is heavily dictating some of the price action in the crypto market, according to Michael Gord, chief executive officer of quantitative firm Global Digital Assets.
“I think we are seeing more regulations around digital assets implemented globally,” Gord said. “This might cause investors to take a more conservative wait-and-see approach and perhaps exit some positions to hedge the risk.”
There are a lot more eyeballs now on crypto. This may make some bitcoin traders more trigger-happy when it comes to the sell button.
In the derivatives market, funding rates had turned negative, generally seen as sign that traders aren’t hungry for long leverage. They are still near zero, according to data aggregator Skew.
Jason Lau, chief operating office of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin, sees a lasting market recovery and further upside.“With leverage and derivative activity still coming off all-time highs – bitcoin futures open interest has declined over 30% from the peaks – a spot-led recovery might be setting up bitcoin for another leg up,” Lau told CoinDesk.
Read More:JPMorgan to Let Clients Invest in Bitcoin Fund for First Time
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday, trading around $2,489 and climbing 9.7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Over the past three months, the average fee paid on the Ethereum network to conduct transactions was approximately 0.0097 ETH. However, in the past week that average has dropped to 0.0079 ETH. It works out to an 18% reduction in the average cost of using the network, the primary ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi), consisting of programmable blockchain applications for trading, lending and derivatives.
Many might welcome this news, as often Ethereum network fees have been so expensive that DeFi applications are unusable and more expensive than centralized or traditional financial platforms.
However, Peter Chan, lead trader at quantitative firm OneBit Quant, says the fee improvement is a result of some traders building “bots,” or automatic systems, working directly with Ethereum miners. They have built a tool calledMEV-geththat floods the network with transactions in the amount of 0 ETH in order to spot a preferential transaction sequence.
The dynamic appears to be resulting in an advantage for the traders.
“Basically, some of the bots decided to work with miners and there are immense amounts of zero-gas transactions mined,” Chan told CoinDesk. “The problem is that only whitelisted miners will be able to see these transactions, unlike where everyone can see in mempool.”
The mempool is the list of network transactions waiting to be processed and confirmed by the Ethereum miners.
“This black box creates asymmetric information tilted towards the miners,” Chan added. He suggested that people need to be cautious some more-advanced traders are getting information faster than others as a result of this cooperation with Ethereum miners. The bot uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism similar to the Bitcoin blockchain’s.
The Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade on the horizon plans to switch from proof-of-work mining, which relies on solving cryptographic puzzles by computers to run, to proof-of-stake, which requires cryptocurrency balances to run.
“The best way to deal with this is to set a tighter slippage to protect your trade, especially if you are trading a niche token,” Chan said.
Read More:DeFi Reshapes the CoinDesk 20
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• xrp(XRP) + 24.3%
• aave(AAVE) + 19.5%
• tezos(XTZ) + 15.5%
Equities:
• In Asia the Nikkei 225 index ended the day in the green 0.36% astravel stocks rose after airliner All Nippon Airways reported a better-than-expected forecast for 2021.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed up 0.35% asinvestors anticipate positive corporate earnings reports this week from the first quarter of 2021.
• In the United States, the S&P 500 index gained 0.20% astraders were optimistic about corporate earnings despite concerns about inflation and high commodity prices.
Read More:Microsoft, Apple, MicroStrategy to Be Listed on Binance as Tokenized Stocks
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.34%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $61.89.
• Gold was in the green 0.20% and at $1,780 as of press time.
• Silver is gaining, up 0.71% and changing hands at $26.17.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbedMonday to 1.568 and in the green 0.35%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $54K as Ether Fees Drop Below Average in Past Week || Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M: Tesla sold some of itsbitcoinstash in the first quarter for $272 million in proceeds.
The sale trimmed Tesla’s position by 10%, Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn said on an earnings call Monday.
In the slide deck accompanying the company’s first-quarter earnings results Monday, Tesla mentioned the sale of some bitcoin:
Related:Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company purchased$1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February.
Kirkhorn said on the call that Tesla invested in bitcoin to earn yield on its excess cash in a low-interest-rate environment.
While the company continues to deal with global supply chain crunches like semiconductor shortages or ship port capacity, he said the bitcoin market is a liquid market with an optimistic future.
Related:Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card
“There aren’t many traditional opportunities to do this, or at least that we found … particularly with yields being so low and without taking on additional risk or sacrificing liquidity,” Kirkhorn said, despite bitcoin’s perception as a risk asset among most traditional financial analysts.
Telsa will continue to accumulate bitcoin throughcustomer transactionsand will make bitcoin-related announcements in the future, Kirkhorn added.
UPDATE (April 26, 22:20 UTC):Adds comments from Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn.
• Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M
• Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M || Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M: Tesla sold some of itsbitcoinstash in the first quarter for $272 million in proceeds.
The sale trimmed Tesla’s position by 10%, Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn said on an earnings call Monday.
In the slide deck accompanying the company’s first-quarter earnings results Monday, Tesla mentioned the sale of some bitcoin:
Related:Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company purchased$1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February.
Kirkhorn said on the call that Tesla invested in bitcoin to earn yield on its excess cash in a low-interest-rate environment.
While the company continues to deal with global supply chain crunches like semiconductor shortages or ship port capacity, he said the bitcoin market is a liquid market with an optimistic future.
Related:Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card
“There aren’t many traditional opportunities to do this, or at least that we found … particularly with yields being so low and without taking on additional risk or sacrificing liquidity,” Kirkhorn said, despite bitcoin’s perception as a risk asset among most traditional financial analysts.
Telsa will continue to accumulate bitcoin throughcustomer transactionsand will make bitcoin-related announcements in the future, Kirkhorn added.
UPDATE (April 26, 22:20 UTC):Adds comments from Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn.
• Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M
• Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M || Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M: Tesla sold some of its bitcoin stash in the first quarter for $272 million in proceeds. The sale trimmed Teslas position by 10%, Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn said on an earnings call Monday. In the slide deck accompanying the companys first-quarter earnings results Monday, Tesla mentioned the sale of some bitcoin: Related: Bitcoin Rallies From Oversold Levels; Resistance Around $56K Year over year, positive impacts from volume growth, regulatory credit revenue growth, gross margin improvement driven by further product cost reductions and sale of Bitcoin ($101M positive impact, net of related impairments, in Restructuring & Other line) were mainly offset by a lower ASP, increased SBC, additional supply chain costs, R&D investments and other items. Model S and Model X changeover costs negatively impacted both gross profit as well as R&D expenses. Elon Musks electric vehicle company purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February . Kirkhorn said on the call that Tesla invested in bitcoin to earn yield on its excess cash in a low-interest-rate environment. While the company continues to deal with global supply chain crunches like semiconductor shortages or ship port capacity, he said the bitcoin market is a liquid market with an optimistic future. Related: Mastercard Revealed as Partner on Gemini Crypto Credit Card There arent many traditional opportunities to do this, or at least that we found
particularly with yields being so low and without taking on additional risk or sacrificing liquidity, Kirkhorn said, despite bitcoins perception as a risk asset among most traditional financial analysts. Telsa will continue to accumulate bitcoin through customer transactions and will make bitcoin-related announcements in the future, Kirkhorn added. UPDATE (April 26, 22:20 UTC): Adds comments from Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn. Related Stories Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M || America’s Oldest Wine Shop Now Accepts Crypto, Including DOGE: Legendary wine shop, Acker, makes history again, after announcing their auctions now accepts cryptocurrencies.
Another day and another big name in the alcohol business is dipping toes into the cryptocurrency industry. Acker, the oldest wine shop in the United States, is the latest to announce that auctions will now accept cryptocurrency as payment.
Established in 1820, Acker also houses the largest rare and fine wine auction house in North America. For the Acker auction house, this is another in along line of record-breakingand historic firsts in the fine wine industry.
Now, Acker is moving into digital currency, after$1.3 billion in saleslast year.
Acker chairman, John Kapon,saidthat “cryptocurrencies are no longer a passing fad, and, as one of the oldest licensed businesses in America, Acker is proud to accept this novel form of payment as we continue to evolve in our third century as a company.” Kapon further added:
“Cryptocurrency is here to stay, and we are excited to offer these additional options for payment in this ever-changing and shifting world. We look forward to growing our already robust network of wine lovers and making more exciting announcements in the digital space soon.”
The house created big news in 2008, when it made its first sale in Asia, after the market was freed from prohibitive tariffs on alcohol. The sale netted over $8 million and cemented their position atop the wine market.
Their perch atop the mountain became even more solid, after becoming the first wine auction firm to hit the $100 million mark in revenue. The company also crossed the $1 billion thresholds in auction revenue in 2018.
The move to cryptocurrency will be made possible by utilizing the crypto payment processorBitPay. BitPay will receive payments on behalf of the auction house, then convert them into flat currencies.
Acker stated that they would first accept bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), and dogecoin (DOGE). Stablecoins like BUSD, Gemini Dollar (GUSD), and PAX are also accepted for auctions.
In the meantime, Acker is not the first alcohol brand to move into the market. Last week, Irish Whiskey CompanyKinsale Spiritsannounced a rare wine auction to be held.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3901.13, 3963.31, 3951.60, 3905.23, 3909.16, 3906.72, 3924.37, 3960.91, 4048.73, 4025.23, 4032.51, 4071.19, 4087.48, 4029.33, 4023.97, 4035.83, 4022.17, 3963.07, 3985.08, 4087.07, 4069.11, 4098.37, 4106.66, 4105.40, 4158.18, 4879.88, 4973.02, 4922.80, 5036.68, 5059.82, 5198.90, 5289.77, 5204.96, 5324.55, 5064.49, 5089.54, 5096.59, 5167.72, 5067.11, 5235.56, 5251.94, 5298.39, 5303.81, 5337.89, 5314.53, 5399.37, 5572.36, 5464.87, 5210.52, 5279.35, 5268.29, 5285.14, 5247.35, 5350.73, 5402.70, 5505.28, 5768.29, 5831.17, 5795.71, 5746.81, 5829.50, 5982.46, 6174.53, 6378.85, 7204.77, 6972.37, 7814.92, 7994.42, 8205.17, 7884.91, 7343.90, 7271.21, 8197.69, 7978.31, 7963.33, 7680.07, 7881.85, 7987.37, 8052.54, 8673.22, 8805.78, 8719.96, 8659.49, 8319.47, 8574.50, 8564.02, 8742.96, 8209.00, 7707.77, 7824.23.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-06-05]
Volume: 21760923463, RSI (14-day): 50.53, 50-day EMA: 7085.28, 200-day EMA: 5623.67
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1328.30, Gold RSI: 70.65
Oil Price: 51.68, Oil RSI: 21.15
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
The 8 Biggest Bombshells From the SEC’s Kik ICO Lawsuit: When Kik’s board of directors decided to support the company’s pivot to crypto, one of the board members described it as a “hail Mary pass.”
It was early 2017 and the Canadian mobile messaging startup, having depleted its venture funding, was months away from firing everyone and calling it quits. The seven most promising leads for a potential acquisition had balked at buying the startup. Kik was in dire straits.
That’s all according to acomplaint filed Tuesdayby the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging that Kik conducted an “illegal $100 million securities offering” with a September 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) for its kin token.
The SEC Is Suing Kik for Its 2017 ICO
Details revealed Tuesday by the SEC show the company knew it faced pushback from regulators, but that didn’t stop Kik from moving forward. Other efforts to keep Kik afloat had failed. To prevent its equity holders from getting wiped out, Kik had to make the cryptocurrency path work, at least according to the version of events presented by the SEC.
In a statement released Tuesday evening, Kik CEO Ted Livingston said the SEC complaint “presents a highly selective and grossly misleading picture of the facts and circumstances surrounding our 2017 pre-sale and token distribution event. We look forward to presenting the full story in court.”
The fact that investors were never apprised of the company’s financial situation seems to be a major sticking important point for Stephan Schlegelmilch and David Mendel, the SEC enforcement staffers who authored the complaint.
Here are seven dramatic findings made by the regulators:
SEC’s Crypto Savvy Surprises Blockchain Insiders at DC Forum
And they were shrinking. In a year ending in mid-2016, Kik brought in $2.2 million. In a year ending in mid-2017, it brought in $1.5 million. At the time Kik decided to pursue an ICO, its expenses were running at $3 millionper month.
As the complaint puts it, “Despite Kik Messenger’s initial success … Kik’s costs have always far outpaced its revenues, and the company has never been profitable.” Further, the complaint alleges, its “executives had no realistic plan to increase revenues through its existing operations.”
The Waterloo-based company was founded in 2009, and the regulators argue that Kik’s real peers were other mobile-first messaging companies. The complaint mentions Snapchat and WhatsApp, which both managed to repay their investors handsomely (WhatsApp with an acquisition by Facebook and Snapchat with an IPO).
According to the complaint, Kik hired an investment bank in 2016 to look for a buyer. The bank met with 35 potential buyers and seven showed interest. “By February 1, 2017, however, all seven potential suitors had declined to buy or merge with Kik,” the complaint reveals.
Buyers who joined Kik’ssimple agreement for future tokens (SAFT)got a discount and went through an investor accreditation check. These investors got a private placement memorandum (PPM), with more information about the company. This PPM disclosed that the Kik messenger was losing users quickly.
The complaint gives more detail on that point, saying, “Daily average users dropped from more than 10 million in January 2016 to about 6 million in January 2017.” Neither private investors nor those in the general sale got any information about the company’s financial position.
Kik built a system for kin investors to get special digital stickers in its messenger app. According to the SEC complaint, this was an attempt to make it look like there was an actual use for the kin tokens at distribution. One executive emailed other Kik employees in June 2017 saying that “COMPLIANCE” was the only purpose behind the bare-bones sticker product.
The stickers apparently had a honey badger theme. Animageof one is included in the complaint. Strangely, investors were not told the system was in development until after the sale was over.
In a February 2017 email to some employees, Livingston described how they could create a token and then “Buy today, sell tomorrow, profit.”
At a June 2017 Bitcoin Meetup in San Francisco, Livingston said the token boom would be a time in which “people are going to make a lot of money.”
At an August 2017 conference in Canada, Livingston said that “everybody can not only build this amazing new ecosystem and platform but also make a ton of money.”
In fact, because of that advice, Kik didn’t sell the tokens to the general public in Canada. But it never asked American regulators the same question.
Kik reached out to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) right afterthe SEC’s DAO report. By early September, OSC staff had shared the opinion that Kik’s offering qualified as a security. Canadians were barred from the public sale. Americans, as a class, were not (though some states were blocked).
Of the roughly $100 million raised, Americans put in $55 million. Some $16.8 million of that came in the public sale.
The SEC complaint gives more detail about how they were distributed, reporting that “United States-based investors included (a) two purchasers who paid about $1.6 million and about $970,000 respectively; (b) 20 purchasers who paid about or more than $100,000; (d) 223 who paid about or more than $10,000; and (d) 1,853 purchasers who paid about or more than $1,000.”
In the complaint, the SEC seeks a variety of forms of relief, including a demand to “disgorge all ill-gotten gains” with interest and pay a civil fine.
Kik CEO Ted Livingston in April 2018, photo by Brady Dale for CoinDesk
• SEC’s Hinman Says Some ICOs May Be Eligible for ‘No-Action’ Relief
• What to Expect at the SEC’s Blockchain Forum Friday || The 8 Biggest Bombshells From the SEC’s Kik ICO Lawsuit: When Kik’s board of directors decided to support the company’s pivot to crypto, one of the board members described it as a “hail Mary pass.” It was early 2017 and the Canadian mobile messaging startup, having depleted its venture funding, was months away from firing everyone and calling it quits. The seven most promising leads for a potential acquisition had balked at buying the startup. Kik was in dire straits. That’s all according to a complaint filed Tuesday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging that Kik conducted an “ illegal $100 million securities offering ” with a September 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) for its kin token. The SEC Is Suing Kik for Its 2017 ICO Details revealed Tuesday by the SEC show the company knew it faced pushback from regulators, but that didn’t stop Kik from moving forward. Other efforts to keep Kik afloat had failed. To prevent its equity holders from getting wiped out, Kik had to make the cryptocurrency path work, at least according to the version of events presented by the SEC. In a statement released Tuesday evening, Kik CEO Ted Livingston said the SEC complaint “presents a highly selective and grossly misleading picture of the facts and circumstances surrounding our 2017 pre-sale and token distribution event. We look forward to presenting the full story in court.” The fact that investors were never apprised of the company’s financial situation seems to be a major sticking important point for Stephan Schlegelmilch and David Mendel, the SEC enforcement staffers who authored the complaint. Here are seven dramatic findings made by the regulators: 1. Kik was making losing money SEC’s Crypto Savvy Surprises Blockchain Insiders at DC Forum And they were shrinking. In a year ending in mid-2016, Kik brought in $2.2 million. In a year ending in mid-2017, it brought in $1.5 million. At the time Kik decided to pursue an ICO, its expenses were running at $3 million per month . As the complaint puts it, “Despite Kik Messenger’s initial success … Kik’s costs have always far outpaced its revenues, and the company has never been profitable.” Further, the complaint alleges, its “executives had no realistic plan to increase revenues through its existing operations.” Story continues 2. No one wanted to buy Kik The Waterloo-based company was founded in 2009, and the regulators argue that Kik’s real peers were other mobile-first messaging companies. The complaint mentions Snapchat and WhatsApp, which both managed to repay their investors handsomely (WhatsApp with an acquisition by Facebook and Snapchat with an IPO). According to the complaint, Kik hired an investment bank in 2016 to look for a buyer. The bank met with 35 potential buyers and seven showed interest. “By February 1, 2017, however, all seven potential suitors had declined to buy or merge with Kik,” the complaint reveals. 3. Kik disclosed more information to private-sale buyers than it did to the general public Buyers who joined Kik’s simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) got a discount and went through an investor accreditation check. These investors got a private placement memorandum (PPM), with more information about the company. This PPM disclosed that the Kik messenger was losing users quickly. The complaint gives more detail on that point, saying, “Daily average users dropped from more than 10 million in January 2016 to about 6 million in January 2017.” Neither private investors nor those in the general sale got any information about the company’s financial position. 4. Kik built special e-stickers for its investors Kik built a system for kin investors to get special digital stickers in its messenger app. According to the SEC complaint, this was an attempt to make it look like there was an actual use for the kin tokens at distribution. One executive emailed other Kik employees in June 2017 saying that “COMPLIANCE” was the only purpose behind the bare-bones sticker product. The stickers apparently had a honey badger theme. An image of one is included in the complaint. Strangely, investors were not told the system was in development until after the sale was over. 5. CEO Ted Livingston made multiple public statements that token buyers would profit In a February 2017 email to some employees, Livingston described how they could create a token and then “Buy today, sell tomorrow, profit.” At a June 2017 Bitcoin Meetup in San Francisco, Livingston said the token boom would be a time in which “people are going to make a lot of money.” At an August 2017 conference in Canada, Livingston said that “everybody can not only build this amazing new ecosystem and platform but also make a ton of money.” 6. Canadian regulators told Kik that its cryptocurrency would indeed be a security In fact, because of that advice, Kik didn’t sell the tokens to the general public in Canada. But it never asked American regulators the same question. Kik reached out to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) right after the SEC’s DAO report . By early September, OSC staff had shared the opinion that Kik’s offering qualified as a security. Canadians were barred from the public sale. Americans, as a class, were not (though some states were blocked). 7. A lot of Americans put a lot of money into the public sale Of the roughly $100 million raised, Americans put in $55 million. Some $16.8 million of that came in the public sale. The SEC complaint gives more detail about how they were distributed, reporting that “United States-based investors included (a) two purchasers who paid about $1.6 million and about $970,000 respectively; (b) 20 purchasers who paid about or more than $100,000; (d) 223 who paid about or more than $10,000; and (d) 1,853 purchasers who paid about or more than $1,000.” In the complaint, the SEC seeks a variety of forms of relief, including a demand to “disgorge all ill-gotten gains” with interest and pay a civil fine. Kik CEO Ted Livingston in April 2018, photo by Brady Dale for CoinDesk Related Stories SEC’s Hinman Says Some ICOs May Be Eligible for ‘No-Action’ Relief What to Expect at the SEC’s Blockchain Forum Friday || Report: Polish Exchange Shuts Down and Disappears With Customers Funds: Polishcryptocurrency exchangeCoinroom has reportedly shut down its operations and disappeared with customer funds, local business news outlet money.plreportedon May 31.
Money.pl received an email from one of its readers, who stated that Coinroom — which was registered in 2016 — ceased operations overnight and disappeared with customers’ money in April. Some users say they had up to 60,000 zloty (around $15,790) in their accounts.
Before ceasing its operations, Coinroom reportedly sent emails to its customers, containing information about contract terminations. Coiroom customers had only one day to withdraw their money, which was in accordance with Coinroom regulations signed by users. However, customers reportedly claim that some of them got only part of the money, while most of them did not receive their funds back at all.
One of the exchange’s customers told money.pl that he had lost 2.005 bitcoins (BTC) (nearly $15,000 at press time). Another user stated that “on the second day after sending the e-mail I went to the Coinroom headquarters. The lady at the reception did not want to let me in, she claimed that nobody was in the office. Instead, she called someone from the company. I was asked to leave my details. Nobody contacted me.”
Spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, Łukasz Łapczyński revealed that the office had initiated proceedings against Coinroom in connection with unauthorized activities providing payment services that intermediates in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. The office is also reportedly identifying other possible victims.
CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency exchange indexshowsthat Coinroom has terminated its activities. The firm’sTwitterpage has also seemingly been deleted.
As reported in mid-May, blockchain startups RepuX and JoyToken reportedlypulleda joint initial coin offering (ICO) exit scam. The companies reportedly ran their ICO promotions during March and April of 2018, and got away with $4.7 million and $3.3 million, respectively.
• EU: Malta Needs to Improve Readiness to Respond to Cryptocurrency Crime
• Indian Police Uncover Cryptocurrency Scam Involving BitConnect Promoter
• Chainalysis: 64% of Ransomware Attackers Launder Proceeds via Crypto Exchanges
• Dutch Billionaire John De Mol Files Lawsuit Against Facebook Over Fraudulent Crypto Ads || Report: Polish Exchange Shuts Down and Disappears With Customers Funds: Polish cryptocurrency exchange Coinroom has reportedly shut down its operations and disappeared with customer funds, local business news outlet money.pl reported on May 31. Money.pl received an email from one of its readers, who stated that Coinroom — which was registered in 2016 — ceased operations overnight and disappeared with customers’ money in April. Some users say they had up to 60,000 zloty (around $15,790) in their accounts. Before ceasing its operations, Coinroom reportedly sent emails to its customers, containing information about contract terminations. Coiroom customers had only one day to withdraw their money, which was in accordance with Coinroom regulations signed by users. However, customers reportedly claim that some of them got only part of the money, while most of them did not receive their funds back at all. One of the exchange’s customers told money.pl that he had lost 2.005 bitcoins ( BTC ) (nearly $15,000 at press time). Another user stated that “on the second day after sending the e-mail I went to the Coinroom headquarters. The lady at the reception did not want to let me in, she claimed that nobody was in the office. Instead, she called someone from the company. I was asked to leave my details. Nobody contacted me.” Spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, Łukasz Łapczyński revealed that the office had initiated proceedings against Coinroom in connection with unauthorized activities providing payment services that intermediates in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. The office is also reportedly identifying other possible victims. CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency exchange index shows that Coinroom has terminated its activities. The firm’s Twitter page has also seemingly been deleted. As reported in mid-May, blockchain startups RepuX and JoyToken reportedly pulled a joint initial coin offering ( ICO ) exit scam. The companies reportedly ran their ICO promotions during March and April of 2018, and got away with $4.7 million and $3.3 million, respectively. Related Articles: EU: Malta Needs to Improve Readiness to Respond to Cryptocurrency Crime Indian Police Uncover Cryptocurrency Scam Involving BitConnect Promoter Chainalysis: 64% of Ransomware Attackers Launder Proceeds via Crypto Exchanges Dutch Billionaire John De Mol Files Lawsuit Against Facebook Over Fraudulent Crypto Ads || Steve Case Backs $4.7M Seed Round for Blockchain Database Startup Fluree: Blockchain startup Fluree, a Public Benefit Corporation, received a $4.7 million round of funding from4490 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund, along with Revolution’s Rise of the Rest seed fund, to develop and market their decentralized data storage ecosystem.
Operating on the principles of complete data integration and immutability,Flureehopes to eradicate the over-reliance on data silos and API bloat by building bridges off of blockchain technology.
“Fluree stores all data on a blockchain ledger that can be run internally like a traditional data store, or selectively operated in a data network across parties governed by Fluree SmartFunction rules,” wrote Flip Filipowski, co-CEO and co-founder of Fluree, in a statement.
In First, Tezos Blockchain Activates Upgrade By Token Holder Voting
The main goal is to break down trust-barriers between parties that had relied on traditional stores of critical data and spur collaboration across multiple parties by increasing access to and leveraging of data.
Target users of this innovation are those that have been hindered by the static, centralized models of data storage as they begin to integrate into an increasingly interconnected, information-centric world. The ledger will be accessible to those inside and outside the host enterprise, and can be used for both centralized or decentralized operations.
“Data is at the center of the new economy, yet it is managed by the same database approach we’ve had for 40 years,” said Brian Platz, co-CEO and co-founder of Fluree. “A data-centric approach simultaneously saves money, promotes secure enterprise collaboration and provides additional leverage for information across systems.”
Security is another concern Fluree is attempting to solve and to which blockchain provides an answer. To that end,FlureeSmartFunctions dynamically enforces permissions for external parties to access the data, provides proof of data tampering,and guarantees knowledge of who amended or added data.
Cloud Giant Salesforce Unveils First Blockchain Product for Business
The company acknowledges the tradeoffs involved in decentralization and will offer options to tune a company’s blockchain if speed is preferred over security.
“If you want 100% decentralization, something like Bitcoin, it’s going to be slow. You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Platz toldTechCrunch. “If you need to, you can decrease the amount of centralization. So there’s a spectrum there, and we focus on giving people the knob to adjust that based on what they’re trying to do,”
Currently, a free version of Fluree is available for developers, as well as a scaling-priced option based on usage. Fluree also offers a licensed version for production deployments.
The product is set for a 2019 open source release.
Image via Shutterstock.
• $19 Million: Ethereum Foundation to Fund Work on 2.0 Upgrade, Plasma and More
• Bitcoin and Blockchain: The Tangled History of Two Tech Buzzwords || Steve Case Backs $4.7M Seed Round for Blockchain Database Startup Fluree: Blockchain startup Fluree, a Public Benefit Corporation, received a $4.7 million round of funding from 4490 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund, along with Revolution’s Rise of the Rest seed fund, to develop and market their decentralized data storage ecosystem. Operating on the principles of complete data integration and immutability, Fluree hopes to eradicate the over-reliance on data silos and API bloat by building bridges off of blockchain technology. “Fluree stores all data on a blockchain ledger that can be run internally like a traditional data store, or selectively operated in a data network across parties governed by Fluree SmartFunction rules,” wrote Flip Filipowski, co-CEO and co-founder of Fluree, in a statement. In First, Tezos Blockchain Activates Upgrade By Token Holder Voting The main goal is to break down trust-barriers between parties that had relied on traditional stores of critical data and spur collaboration across multiple parties by increasing access to and leveraging of data. Target users of this innovation are those that have been hindered by the static, centralized models of data storage as they begin to integrate into an increasingly interconnected, information-centric world. The ledger will be accessible to those inside and outside the host enterprise, and can be used for both centralized or decentralized operations. “Data is at the center of the new economy, yet it is managed by the same database approach we’ve had for 40 years,” said Brian Platz, co-CEO and co-founder of Fluree. “A data-centric approach simultaneously saves money, promotes secure enterprise collaboration and provides additional leverage for information across systems.” Security is another concern Fluree is attempting to solve and to which blockchain provides an answer. To that end, FlureeSmartFunctions dynamically enforces permissions for external parties to access the data, provides proof of data tampering, and guarantees knowledge of who amended or added data. Story continues Cloud Giant Salesforce Unveils First Blockchain Product for Business The company acknowledges the tradeoffs involved in decentralization and will offer options to tune a company’s blockchain if speed is preferred over security. “If you want 100% decentralization, something like Bitcoin, it’s going to be slow. You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Platz told TechCrunch . “If you need to, you can decrease the amount of centralization. So there’s a spectrum there, and we focus on giving people the knob to adjust that based on what they’re trying to do,” Currently, a free version of Fluree is available for developers, as well as a scaling-priced option based on usage. Fluree also offers a licensed version for production deployments. The product is set for a 2019 open source release. Image via Shutterstock. Related Stories $19 Million: Ethereum Foundation to Fund Work on 2.0 Upgrade, Plasma and More Bitcoin and Blockchain: The Tangled History of Two Tech Buzzwords || Ethereums Vitalik Buterin Slams Bitcoin SV: Obviously a Complete Scam: Ethereum mastermind Vitalik Buterin slammed Bitcoin SV in a new interview, saying Craig Wright's cryptocurrency is By CCN : Ethereum wunderkind Vitalik Buterin maintained his hardline stance on Bitcoin SV in a recent interview, calling Craig Wrights cryptocurrency a complete scam. Speaking with YouTuber Hardcore Crypto, Buterin left little room for interpretation regarding his thoughts on BSV. The Ethereum co-founder also gave his thoughts on decentralized exchanges and the worryingly centralized accumulation of power by Binance. Ethereum Co-Founder: Bitcoin SV is a Complete Scam vitalik buterin, craig wright, bitcoin sv, cryptocurrency Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin ripped Bitcoin SV a new one. | Source: TechCrunch/Flickr (i), CoinGeek/YouTube (ii). Image Edited by CCN. Just in case there was any doubt remaining about Buterins thoughts on Bitcoin SV, he told Hardcore Crypto : Obviously BSV is a complete scam, but the delisting from Binance that was interesting. Theres arguments in favour of it, but then theres also an argument that this is a centralized exchange thats wielding a lot of power. Those thoughts regarding Binances delisting of Bitcoin SV were echoed in an article of my own from the same time one which wasnt received positively by a majority of commenters. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Slams Bitcoin SV: ‘Obviously a Complete Scam’: ByCCN: Ethereum wunderkind Vitalik Buterin maintained his hardline stance on Bitcoin SV in a recent interview, calling Craig Wright’s cryptocurrency a “complete scam.”
Speaking with YouTuber Hardcore Crypto, Buterin left little room for interpretation regarding his thoughts on BSV. The Ethereum co-founder also gave his thoughts on decentralized exchanges and the worryingly centralized accumulation of power by Binance.
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin ripped Bitcoin SV a new one. | Source: TechCrunch/Flickr (i), CoinGeek/YouTube (ii). Image Edited by CCN.
Just in case there was any doubt remaining about Buterin’s thoughts on Bitcoin SV,he told Hardcore Crypto:
“Obviously BSV is a complete scam, but the delisting from Binance – that was interesting. There’s arguments in favour of it, but then there’s also an argument that this is a centralized exchange that’s wielding a lot of power.”
Those thoughts regarding Binance’s delisting of Bitcoin SV were echoed in anarticleof my own from the same time – one which wasn’t received positively by a majority of commenters.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Slams Bitcoin SV: ‘Obviously a Complete Scam’: ByCCN: Ethereum wunderkind Vitalik Buterin maintained his hardline stance on Bitcoin SV in a recent interview, calling Craig Wright’s cryptocurrency a “complete scam.”
Speaking with YouTuber Hardcore Crypto, Buterin left little room for interpretation regarding his thoughts on BSV. The Ethereum co-founder also gave his thoughts on decentralized exchanges and the worryingly centralized accumulation of power by Binance.
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin ripped Bitcoin SV a new one. | Source: TechCrunch/Flickr (i), CoinGeek/YouTube (ii). Image Edited by CCN.
Just in case there was any doubt remaining about Buterin’s thoughts on Bitcoin SV,he told Hardcore Crypto:
“Obviously BSV is a complete scam, but the delisting from Binance – that was interesting. There’s arguments in favour of it, but then there’s also an argument that this is a centralized exchange that’s wielding a lot of power.”
Those thoughts regarding Binance’s delisting of Bitcoin SV were echoed in anarticleof my own from the same time – one which wasn’t received positively by a majority of commenters.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || ‘Badger Wallet’ for Bitcoin Cash Launches On iOS: Bitcoin.com’s Badger Wallet, a bitcoin cash light client, launched a new app for iOS, marking its entry into mobile devices after success with desktop storage and trading.
Appleusers, like the Chrome and Firefox clients before them, will be able to store, send, and receiveBCHand other Simple Ledger Protocol tokens while using the application in a non-custodial manner.
Badger translated several of the functionalities from the desktop versions directly to mobile, such as keeping everything on-chain as well as maintaining full client control and custody over their bitcoin cash or SLP tokens.
CoinMarketCap Launches Crypto Data Apps With Added Features
Additionally, Badger maintained the option to send small amounts of funds between wallets. Onetest user wrote, “I… sent myself a nickel because it’s not possible to send such a small amount of satoshis on other networks”
Screenshot courtesy of Badger Wallet.
Tokens can be sent worldwide instantly for about $.002 each, according areddit postfollowing the announcement.
OKEx Blasts ‘Defamatory’ Allegations Amid BCH Futures Settlement Furor
Previous users of the service will be able to restore their existing Badger wallets using their 12-word seed phrase. The new app will automatically register their funds from their existing accounts.
The open source beta version is available in theApp Storeas an application available for iPhones, iPads, and the iPod Touch using iOS 9 or later.
Badger via Shutterstock.
• Traders Claim Losses After OKEx Suddenly Settles Bitcoin Cash Contracts
• Buy or Sell? What Traders Think About Today’s Bitcoin Cash Fork || ‘Badger Wallet’ for Bitcoin Cash Launches On iOS: Bitcoin.com’s Badger Wallet , a bitcoin cash light client, launched a new app for iOS, marking its entry into mobile devices after success with desktop storage and trading. Apple users, like the Chrome and Firefox clients before them, will be able to store, send, and receive BCH and other Simple Ledger Protocol tokens while using the application in a non-custodial manner. Badger translated several of the functionalities from the desktop versions directly to mobile, such as keeping everything on-chain as well as maintaining full client control and custody over their bitcoin cash or SLP tokens. CoinMarketCap Launches Crypto Data Apps With Added Features Additionally, Badger maintained the option to send small amounts of funds between wallets. One test user wrote , “I… sent myself a nickel because it’s not possible to send such a small amount of satoshis on other networks” Screenshot courtesy of Badger Wallet. Tokens can be sent worldwide instantly for about $.002 each, according a reddit post following the announcement. OKEx Blasts ‘Defamatory’ Allegations Amid BCH Futures Settlement Furor Previous users of the service will be able to restore their existing Badger wallets using their 12-word seed phrase. The new app will automatically register their funds from their existing accounts. The open source beta version is available in the App Store as an application available for iPhones, iPads, and the iPod Touch using iOS 9 or later. Badger via Shutterstock. Related Stories Traders Claim Losses After OKEx Suddenly Settles Bitcoin Cash Contracts Buy or Sell? What Traders Think About Today’s Bitcoin Cash Fork View comments || ‘Badger Wallet’ for Bitcoin Cash Launches On iOS: Bitcoin.com’s Badger Wallet, a bitcoin cash light client, launched a new app for iOS, marking its entry into mobile devices after success with desktop storage and trading.
Appleusers, like the Chrome and Firefox clients before them, will be able to store, send, and receiveBCHand other Simple Ledger Protocol tokens while using the application in a non-custodial manner.
Badger translated several of the functionalities from the desktop versions directly to mobile, such as keeping everything on-chain as well as maintaining full client control and custody over their bitcoin cash or SLP tokens.
CoinMarketCap Launches Crypto Data Apps With Added Features
Additionally, Badger maintained the option to send small amounts of funds between wallets. Onetest user wrote, “I… sent myself a nickel because it’s not possible to send such a small amount of satoshis on other networks”
Screenshot courtesy of Badger Wallet.
Tokens can be sent worldwide instantly for about $.002 each, according areddit postfollowing the announcement.
OKEx Blasts ‘Defamatory’ Allegations Amid BCH Futures Settlement Furor
Previous users of the service will be able to restore their existing Badger wallets using their 12-word seed phrase. The new app will automatically register their funds from their existing accounts.
The open source beta version is available in theApp Storeas an application available for iPhones, iPads, and the iPod Touch using iOS 9 or later.
Badger via Shutterstock.
• Traders Claim Losses After OKEx Suddenly Settles Bitcoin Cash Contracts
• Buy or Sell? What Traders Think About Today’s Bitcoin Cash Fork || Bitcoins Pain, Craig Wrights Gain: BSV Defies Crypto Bloodbath: While the bitcoin price is getting hammered this week, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), the cryptocurrency promoted by Craig Wright, is at record highs. | Source: YouTube (i), Shutterstock (ii). Image Edited by CCN. By CCN : Is self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright crazy? Or is he crazy like a fox? While the bitcoin price is plunging this week, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision the cryptocurrency championed by Wright has notched record highs. In fact, BSV is one among a tiny handful of digital currencies whose price is climbing while bitcoin the original cryptocurrency is flailing. BSV Climbs While BTC Sinks Its unclear whats driving this rally, but BSV has gradually been rising for the past year. Its value now tops $225. For reference, BSV traded at just $70 in December 2018. Thats a three-fold price spike in six months. Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC) hovers at $7,900 after briefly touching a year-to-date high above $9,000. Thats still well below the lofty prices BTC cleared at the height of the 2017 crypto bull market, when it approached $20,000. bitcoin sv price vs bitcoin Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), the crypto championed by self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright, is enjoying a major upswing. | Source: CoinMarketCap Wright: Bitcoin Price Will Crater to Zero As of this writing, Bitcoin SV is up almost 3% against the dollar and more than 10% against BTC. While this news might come as a surprise to crypto enthusiasts, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright is probably wallowing in schadenfreude. As CCN reported , Wright the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto warned that the bitcoin price would plummet until it eventually craters to zero. Why? Because he claims that BSV is the one, true bitcoin that will supplant all other pretenders, especially BTC. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin’s Pain, Craig Wright’s Gain: BSV Defies Crypto Bloodbath: ByCCN: Is self-proclaimed “bitcoin inventor” Craig Wright crazy? Or is he crazy like a fox? While thebitcoin priceis plunging this week, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision — the cryptocurrency championed by Wright — has notched record highs.
In fact,BSVis one among a tiny handful of digital currencies whose price is climbing whilebitcoin— the original cryptocurrency — is flailing.
It’s unclear what’s driving this rally, but BSV has gradually been rising for the past year. Its value now tops $225. For reference, BSV traded at just $70 in December 2018. That’s a three-fold price spike in six months.
Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC)hovers at $7,900after briefly touching a year-to-date high above $9,000. That’s still well below the lofty prices BTC cleared at the height of the 2017 crypto bull market, when it approached $20,000.
Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), the crypto championed by self-proclaimed “Satoshi Nakamoto” Craig Wright, is enjoying a major upswing. | Source: CoinMarketCap
As of this writing, Bitcoin SV is up almost 3% against the dollar and more than 10% against BTC. While this news might come as a surprise to crypto enthusiasts, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright is probably wallowing in schadenfreude.
AsCCN reported, Wright — the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto — warned that the bitcoin price would plummet until it eventually craters to zero. Why? Because he claims that BSV is the one, true bitcoin that will supplant all other pretenders, especially BTC.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin’s Pain, Craig Wright’s Gain: BSV Defies Crypto Bloodbath: ByCCN: Is self-proclaimed “bitcoin inventor” Craig Wright crazy? Or is he crazy like a fox? While thebitcoin priceis plunging this week, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision — the cryptocurrency championed by Wright — has notched record highs.
In fact,BSVis one among a tiny handful of digital currencies whose price is climbing whilebitcoin— the original cryptocurrency — is flailing.
It’s unclear what’s driving this rally, but BSV has gradually been rising for the past year. Its value now tops $225. For reference, BSV traded at just $70 in December 2018. That’s a three-fold price spike in six months.
Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC)hovers at $7,900after briefly touching a year-to-date high above $9,000. That’s still well below the lofty prices BTC cleared at the height of the 2017 crypto bull market, when it approached $20,000.
Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), the crypto championed by self-proclaimed “Satoshi Nakamoto” Craig Wright, is enjoying a major upswing. | Source: CoinMarketCap
As of this writing, Bitcoin SV is up almost 3% against the dollar and more than 10% against BTC. While this news might come as a surprise to crypto enthusiasts, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright is probably wallowing in schadenfreude.
AsCCN reported, Wright — the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto — warned that the bitcoin price would plummet until it eventually craters to zero. Why? Because he claims that BSV is the one, true bitcoin that will supplant all other pretenders, especially BTC.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Crypto Trading Platform OKCoin Expands Its Services and Opens Office in Malta: Digital asset trading platformOKCoinhas expanded its trading services and opened an office inMalta, according to a blog postpublishedon June 4.
OKCoin has launched its services to non-United Statescustomers, who can now deposit and withdraw euros, as well as participate in euro spot trading forcryptocurrenciessuch as bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and bitcoin cash (BCH). Per the post, the exchange is planning to add more euro digital asset pairs in the future.
Apart from expanding its trading, OKCoin has opened an office in Malta in theblockchainaccelerator and hub dubbed chiliZ Blockchain Campus. The new office will operate in compliance with the Virtual Financial Asset Act, regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority. Jovan Gavrilovic, general manager of Europe at OKCoin, said:
“Europe is essential to the evolution of the cryptocurrency markets. It is home to many progressive ideas for innovating and disrupting the status quo of the global financial system while maintaining a balanced regulatory approach.”
Last November, OKCoinlaunchedfiat-cryptocurrency trading services inArgentina, also revealing plans to extend its services all over Latin America, adding other local fiats to the list “in the coming months.” At the time, the company was also looking to open an office in Buenos Aires and build up a team to support development in the region.
As recently reported, Star Xu — founder of provider OKCoin and cryptocurrency exchangeOKEx—announcedOK Group’s partnership withblockchain-focused trust company Prime Trust, which will purportedly allow the firm to launch its own compliantstablecoin.
• BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, EOS, BNB, BSV, XLM, TRX: Price Analysis 05/06
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, Stellar, Tron: Price Analysis June 3
• Binance Charity Foundation Signs Memorandum of Understanding With Ugandan NGO
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, Stellar, Cardano: Price Analysis May 31 || Crypto Trading Platform OKCoin Expands Its Services and Opens Office in Malta: Digital asset trading platform OKCoin has expanded its trading services and opened an office in Malta , according to a blog post published on June 4. OKCoin has launched its services to non- United States customers, who can now deposit and withdraw euros, as well as participate in euro spot trading for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin ( BTC ), ether ( ETH ), and bitcoin cash ( BCH ). Per the post, the exchange is planning to add more euro digital asset pairs in the future. Apart from expanding its trading, OKCoin has opened an office in Malta in the blockchain accelerator and hub dubbed chiliZ Blockchain Campus. The new office will operate in compliance with the Virtual Financial Asset Act, regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority. Jovan Gavrilovic, general manager of Europe at OKCoin, said: “Europe is essential to the evolution of the cryptocurrency markets. It is home to many progressive ideas for innovating and disrupting the status quo of the global financial system while maintaining a balanced regulatory approach.” Last November, OKCoin launched fiat-cryptocurrency trading services in Argentina , also revealing plans to extend its services all over Latin America, adding other local fiats to the list “in the coming months.” At the time, the company was also looking to open an office in Buenos Aires and build up a team to support development in the region. As recently reported, Star Xu — founder of provider OKCoin and cryptocurrency exchange OKEx — announced OK Group’s partnership with blockchain -focused trust company Prime Trust, which will purportedly allow the firm to launch its own compliant stablecoin . Related Articles: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, EOS, BNB, BSV, XLM, TRX: Price Analysis 05/06 Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, Stellar, Tron: Price Analysis June 3 Binance Charity Foundation Signs Memorandum of Understanding With Ugandan NGO Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Bitcoin SV, Stellar, Cardano: Price Analysis May 31 || California CPAs Push for Crypto Accounting Clarity: The California Society of CPAs is pushing for clarity in accounting and disclosure rules regarding cryptocurrencies, citing a lack of specific guidance within U.S. GAAP, the standard accounting protocols followed in the U.S.
The 54-member committee’s concern is the divergence in reporting methods utilized by companies who itemize cryptocurrencies on their financial statements and whether the varying approaches reflect the nature and risks of holding cryptos.
This accounting confusion is rooted in the varying ways digital assets are viewed, where, depending on the circumstance, cryptocurrencies may be recorded at “lower of cost or market,” at fair value, or as intangible assets. This is because on a balance sheet cryptocurrencies can be reported as anything from a commodity to an investment or even be counted as working capital, according to Andrew Parrish, co-founder of Alternative Tax Policies.
IRS Says It Will ‘Soon’ Issue Crypto Tax Guidance in First Since 2014
Yet, the Financial Accounting Standards Board notes that many institutional interpretations of digital assets instead define cryptocurrencies as indefinitely-lived intangible assets under ASC 350, or,Intangibles-Goodwill and Other.But this is far from the consensus, and will only become more nebulous as digital assets find their way onto more companies’ balance sheets.
“We believe the usage of cryptocurrencies will not diminish over time and will continue to expand in both volume and new fields of application,” said Nancy Rix, Chair of CalCPA’s accounting principles and assurance services committee in a letter to the FASB.
CalCPA believes that the FASB currently pursues a classification model analogous to accounting for foreign currencies. While added rules would address currencies that have an active market and are held by an entity as a medium of exchange or investment.
“We anticipate it will not be long before major public companies start using cryptocurrencies, as illustrated by JP Morgan’s decision to issue JPM Coin in February 2019,” Rix said.
Coinbase Integrates TurboTax to Help US Clients File Crypto Taxes
For now, however, Parrish said that GAAP policies accurately reflect the risks associated with holding cryptocurrencies.
“A balance sheet is a snapshotand every asset carries risk of changing price tomorrow. Even banks can go bankrupt,” Parrish said.
“If Bitcoin is $100,000 today, and $90,000 tomorrow, you just have to write down the loss,” Parrish said.
Where an asset is accounted for on the books determines not only its value relative to other liabilities and equity, but also whether it is subject to impairment cost or depreciation, whether it will affect cash-flow statements, and whether it changes company’s reportable taxable income.
Image via Shutterstock.
• Lawmakers Pitch New Crypto Tax Payments Bill in New Hampshire
• Overstock Will Pay Some of Its 2019 Taxes in Bitcoin || California CPAs Push for Crypto Accounting Clarity: The California Society of CPAs is pushing for clarity in accounting and disclosure rules regarding cryptocurrencies, citing a lack of specific guidance within U.S. GAAP, the standard accounting protocols followed in the U.S. The 54-member committee’s concern is the divergence in reporting methods utilized by companies who itemize cryptocurrencies on their financial statements and whether the varying approaches reflect the nature and risks of holding cryptos. This accounting confusion is rooted in the varying ways digital assets are viewed, where, depending on the circumstance, cryptocurrencies may be recorded at “lower of cost or market,” at fair value, or as intangible assets. This is because on a balance sheet cryptocurrencies can be reported as anything from a commodity to an investment or even be counted as working capital, according to Andrew Parrish, co-founder of Alternative Tax Policies. IRS Says It Will ‘Soon’ Issue Crypto Tax Guidance in First Since 2014 Yet, the Financial Accounting Standards Board notes that many institutional interpretations of digital assets instead define cryptocurrencies as indefinitely-lived intangible assets under ASC 350, or, Intangibles-Goodwill and Other. But this is far from the consensus, and will only become more nebulous as digital assets find their way onto more companies’ balance sheets. “We believe the usage of cryptocurrencies will not diminish over time and will continue to expand in both volume and new fields of application,” said Nancy Rix, Chair of CalCPA’s accounting principles and assurance services committee in a letter to the FASB. CalCPA believes that the FASB currently pursues a classification model analogous to accounting for foreign currencies. While added rules would address currencies that have an active market and are held by an entity as a medium of exchange or investment. “We anticipate it will not be long before major public companies start using cryptocurrencies, as illustrated by JP Morgan’s decision to issue JPM Coin in February 2019,” Rix said. Coinbase Integrates TurboTax to Help US Clients File Crypto Taxes For now, however, Parrish said that GAAP policies accurately reflect the risks associated with holding cryptocurrencies. “A balance sheet is a snapshot and every asset carries risk of changing price tomorrow. Even banks can go bankrupt,” Parrish said. “If Bitcoin is $100,000 today, and $90,000 tomorrow, you just have to write down the loss,” Parrish said. Where an asset is accounted for on the books determines not only its value relative to other liabilities and equity, but also whether it is subject to impairment cost or depreciation, whether it will affect cash-flow statements, and whether it changes company’s reportable taxable income. Story continues Image via Shutterstock. Related Stories Lawmakers Pitch New Crypto Tax Payments Bill in New Hampshire Overstock Will Pay Some of Its 2019 Taxes in Bitcoin View comments || LocalBitcoins confirms removal of in-person cash trades: Peer-to-peer exchange and escrow service LocalBitcoinshas confirmedthe removal of in-person cash trades. The option has been disabled since Saturday, June 1. Before that, LocalBitcoins users could choose “In-person: Cash” as an option when buying or selling bitcoins.
The company explains the move was made due to local regulations—LocalBitcoins is located in Finland and needs to adhere to the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. “This condition demands us to follow certain sanctions and implement effective controls to mitigate related threats,” the official statement reads.
“In order to adapt to the current regulatory environment, we had to reconsider our policy on local cash trades as well as on the geographical areas where our service is available, among other platform features,” the company writes. This may refer to the fact the companystopped offering servicesin Iran for “risk-based reasons” last month.
[Social Media Buzz]
La inestabilidad del Bitcoin en tres puntos.
#Economia #Bitcoin
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7822.02, 8043.95, 7954.13, 7688.08, 8000.33, 7927.71, 8145.86, 8230.92, 8693.83, 8838.38
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-10-17]
Volume: 29032367511, RSI (14-day): 72.93, 50-day EMA: 50009.90, 200-day EMA: 43942.66
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
U.S Mortgage Rates Back at 3% for a 2nd Time in 3-Weeks: Mortgage rates moved back through to 3% levels for just the 3rdtime since 21stApril.
In the week ending 14thOctober, 30-year fixed rates increased by 6 basis points to 3.05%.
Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were up by 24 basis points.
30-year fixed rates were still down by 189 basis points since November 2018’s last peak of 4.94%.
Early in the week, JOLT’s job openings disappointed following the weaker than expect NFP numbers from the week prior.
Inflationary pressures persisted at the end of the 3rdquarter, however, contributing to the upswing in mortgage rates.
In September, the annual rate of core inflation held steady at 4%, with core consumer prices rising by 0.2% in the month. Consumer prices were also on the up, rising by 0.4% in the month of September.
The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 14thOctober were quoted byFreddie Macto be:
• 30-year fixed rates rose by 6 basis points to 3.05% in the week. This time last year, rates had stood at 2.81%. The average fee remained unchanged at 0.7 points.
• 15-year fixed decreased by 7 basis points 2.30% in the week. Rates were down by 5 basis points from 2.35% a year ago. The average fee remained unchanged at 0.7 points.
• 5-year fixed rates rose by 3 basis point to 2.55%. Rates were down by 35 points from 2.90% a year ago. The average fee fell from 0.3 points to 0.2 points.
According to Freddie Mac,
• Mortgage rates rose to their highest level since April, as a result of a buildup in inflationary pressure.
• Driven by inflationary pressure and tightening monetary policy, Freddie Mac expects rates to continue a modest upswing.
• Historically speaking, rates are still low, but many potential buyers are staying on the sidelines due to high home price growth.
• Rising mortgage rates combined with growth home prices make affordability more challenging for potential buyers.
For the week ending 8thOctober, therateswere:
• Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances increased from 3.14% to 3.18%. Points increased from 0.35 to 0.37 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates backed by FHA rose from 3.12% to 3.20%. Points remained unchanged at 0.31 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances increased from 3.20% to 3.22%. Points increased from 0.27 to 0.29 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
Weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the Market Composite Index, which is a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased by 0.2% in the week ending 8thOctober. In the previous week, the Index had fallen by 6.9%.
The Refinance Index fell by 1.0% and was 16% lower than the same week one year ago. The index had tumbled by 10.0% in the week prior.
In the week ending 8thOctober, the refinance share of mortgage activity fell from 64.5% to 63.9% of total applications. The share had declined from 66.4% to 64.5% of total applications in the previous week.
According to the MBA,
• Mortgage rates reached their highest level since June 2021, but application activity changed little this week.
• An increase in home purchase applications offset a slight decline in refinances.
• Over the past month, the 30-year fixed has risen 15 basis points, resulting in an 11% drop in refinance applications.
• The MBA continues to expect weakening refinance activity as rates move higher and borrowers see less of a rate incentive.
It’s a quiet first half of the week on the U.S economic calendar.
Industrial production figures for September will be the only major stat for the markets to consider.
From the housing sector, building permits and housing starts will also draw interest.
Economic data from China will set the mood at the start of the week, however. 3rdquarter GDP numbers and industrial production figures for September will influence market risk sentiment early in the week.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• European Equities: A Week in Review – 15/10/21 || U.S Mortgage Rates Back at 3% for a 2nd Time in 3-Weeks: Mortgage rates moved back through to 3% levels for just the 3 rd time since 21 st April. In the week ending 14 th October, 30-year fixed rates increased by 6 basis points to 3.05%. Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were up by 24 basis points. 30-year fixed rates were still down by 189 basis points since November 2018s last peak of 4.94%. Economic Data from the Week Early in the week, JOLTs job openings disappointed following the weaker than expect NFP numbers from the week prior. Inflationary pressures persisted at the end of the 3 rd quarter, however, contributing to the upswing in mortgage rates. In September, the annual rate of core inflation held steady at 4%, with core consumer prices rising by 0.2% in the month. Consumer prices were also on the up, rising by 0.4% in the month of September. Freddie Mac Rates The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 14 th October were quoted by Freddie Mac to be : 30-year fixed rates rose by 6 basis points to 3.05% in the week. This time last year, rates had stood at 2.81%. The average fee remained unchanged at 0.7 points. 15-year fixed decreased by 7 basis points 2.30% in the week. Rates were down by 5 basis points from 2.35% a year ago. The average fee remained unchanged at 0.7 points. 5-year fixed rates rose by 3 basis point to 2.55%. Rates were down by 35 points from 2.90% a year ago. The average fee fell from 0.3 points to 0.2 points. According to Freddie Mac, Mortgage rates rose to their highest level since April, as a result of a buildup in inflationary pressure. Driven by inflationary pressure and tightening monetary policy, Freddie Mac expects rates to continue a modest upswing. Historically speaking, rates are still low, but many potential buyers are staying on the sidelines due to high home price growth. Rising mortgage rates combined with growth home prices make affordability more challenging for potential buyers. Mortgage Bankers Association Rates For the week ending 8 th October, the rates were : Story continues Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances increased from 3.14% to 3.18%. Points increased from 0.35 to 0.37 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates backed by FHA rose from 3.12% to 3.20%. Points remained unchanged at 0.31 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances increased from 3.20% to 3.22%. Points increased from 0.27 to 0.29 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the Market Composite Index, which is a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased by 0.2% in the week ending 8 th October. In the previous week, the Index had fallen by 6.9%. The Refinance Index fell by 1.0% and was 16% lower than the same week one year ago. The index had tumbled by 10.0% in the week prior. In the week ending 8 th October, the refinance share of mortgage activity fell from 64.5% to 63.9% of total applications. The share had declined from 66.4% to 64.5% of total applications in the previous week. According to the MBA, Mortgage rates reached their highest level since June 2021, but application activity changed little this week. An increase in home purchase applications offset a slight decline in refinances. Over the past month, the 30-year fixed has risen 15 basis points, resulting in an 11% drop in refinance applications. The MBA continues to expect weakening refinance activity as rates move higher and borrowers see less of a rate incentive. For the week ahead Its a quiet first half of the week on the U.S economic calendar. Industrial production figures for September will be the only major stat for the markets to consider. From the housing sector, building permits and housing starts will also draw interest. Economic data from China will set the mood at the start of the week, however. 3 rd quarter GDP numbers and industrial production figures for September will influence market risk sentiment early in the week. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Forecast Crude Oil Markets Continue to Grind Higher Square Sets Its Sights on Bitcoin Mining New York Stock Exchange Lists Crypto Company, Bakkt On Monday Silver Price Prediction Prices Slip as Gold Tumbles Natural Gas Price Prediction Prices Close Down for the Week European Equities: A Week in Review 15/10/21 || Exclusive-China looks to lock in U.S. LNG as energy crunch raises concerns -sources: By Chen Aizhu, Jessica Jaganathan and Scott DiSavino SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major Chinese energy companies are in advanced talks with U.S. exporters to secure long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG)supplies, as soaring gas prices and domestic power shortages heighten concerns about the country’s fuel security, several sources said. At least five Chinese firms, including state major Sinopec Corp and China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) and local government-backed energy distributors like Zhejiang Energy, are in discussions with U.S. exporters, mainly Cheniere Energy and Venture Global, the sources told Reuters. The discussions could lead to deals worth tens of billions of dollars that would mark a surge in China’s LNG imports from the United States in coming years. At the height of a Sino-U.S. trade war in 2019, gas trade briefly came to a standstill. LNG export facilities can take years to build, and there are several projects in North America in the works that are not expected to start exporting until the middle of the decade. Talks with U.S. suppliers began early this year but speeded up in recent months amid one of the biggest power-generating, heating fuel crunch in decades. Natural gas prices in Asia have jumped more than fivefold this year, sparking fears of power shortages in the winter. “Companies faced a supply gap (for winter) and surging prices. Talks really picked up since August when spot prices touched $15/mmbtu”, said a Beijing-based senior industry source briefed on the talks. Another Beijing-based source said: “After experiencing the recent massive market volatility, some buyers were regretting that they didn’t sign enough long-term supplies.” Graphic: China’s natural gas imports since 2018: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/dwpkrrkwjvm/China%20gas%20imports%20since%202018%20and%20Asia%20spot%20prices.jpg Sources expected fresh deals to be announced over the coming few months, after privately controlled ENN Natural Gas Co,, headed by the ex-LNG chief of China’s largest buyer, CNOOC, announced a 13-year deal with Cheniere on Monday. Story continues It was the first major U.S.-China LNG deal since 2018. The new purchases will also cement China’s position as the world’s top LNG buyer, taking over from Japan this year. “As state-owned enterprises, companies are all under pressure to keep security of supply and the recent price trend has deeply changed the image of long-term supplies in the mind of leadership,” said the first Beijing-based trader. “People may have taken the spot (market) as the key in the past, but are now realizing that long-term cargoes are the backbone.” CHEAPER U.S. GAS The sources declined to be identified as the negotiations are private. Sinopec declined comment. CNOOC and Zhejiang Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Venture Global and Cheniere both declined comment. “We expect more deals to be signed before year-end. It’s primarily driven by the global energy crunch and prices we’re seeing now… U.S. supplies now stand out as attractive,” said a third Beijing source briefed on the talks. U.S. cargoes used to be expensive versus oil-linked supplies from Qatar and Australia for example, but are cheaper now. A deal at $2.50 + 115% of Henry Hub futures, similar to ENN’s deal according to traders, would be roughly about $9-$10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on a delivered basis into Northeast Asia. This includes an average shipping cost of $2 per mmBtu for the U.S.-China route. Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence with consultancy Poten & Partners said Chinese companies are heavily exposed to Brent-related pricing for LNG and the U.S. purchases give some diversity to the pricing. Asian spot gas prices are currently trading at above $37 per mmBtu after reaching a record high of over $56 earlier this month. Traders expect prices to go higher in winter when demand typically surges. Chinese buyers are scouting for both near-term shipments to cover demand this winter and long-term imports as demand for gas, seen by Beijing as a key bridge fuel before reaching its 2060 carbon-neutral goal, is set for steady growth through 2035. Graphic: Seasonality chart of China’s LNG imports 2017-2021: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/znpneelxevl/Seasonality%20chart%20of%20China%20LNG%20imports.jpg It’s hard to estimate a total volume of the deals being discussed, sources said, but Sinopec alone could be eyeing 4 million tonnes annually as the company is most exposed to the spot market versus domestic rivals PetroChina and CNOOC, said a third source. Traders said Sinopec is in final talks with 3 to 4 companies to buy 1 million tonnes a year for 10 years, starting from 2023, and is looking for U.S. volumes as part of the requirement. Delays in LNG export projects in Canada, in which PetroChina owns a stake, and Mozambique, where both PetroChina and CNOOC have invested, also made U.S. supplies attractive, sources added. North American LNG exporters have been adding to capacity because of demand in major Asian economies. Cheniere, the largest exporter out of the United States, said in late September it expects to announce “a number of other transactions” that will support their going forward with the Corpus Stage 3 expansion next year. Venture Global is building or developing over 50 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG production capacity in Louisiana, including the 10-MTPA Calcasieu, which is expected to cost around $4.5 billion and start producing LNG in test mode in late 2021. However, some buyers remained cautious. “There is a lot of hype in the market and nobody knows for sure how long this supply crunch would last. For companies that do not have fresh demand in the next year or two, it’s better to wait,” said a separate Chinese importer. (Reporting by Chen Aizhu, Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore and Scott Disavino in New York; additional reporting by Gary McWilliams in Houston; editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Jason Neely, Peter Graff) This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: New York Stock Exchange Lists Crypto Company, Bakkt On Monday USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Rebounds on Solid Import Prices Square Sets Its Sights on Bitcoin Mining The Week Ahead – A Busy Economic Calendar Will Put the Majors in the Spotlight Silver Bearish Again After Rallying Against The Greenback On Thursday Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – October 16th, 2021 || Exclusive-China looks to lock in U.S. LNG as energy crunch raises concerns -sources: By Chen Aizhu, Jessica Jaganathan and Scott DiSavino
SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major Chinese energy companies are in advanced talks with U.S. exporters to secure long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG)supplies, as soaring gas prices and domestic power shortages heighten concerns about the country’s fuel security, several sources said.
At least five Chinese firms, including state major Sinopec Corp and China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) and local government-backed energy distributors like Zhejiang Energy, are in discussions with U.S. exporters, mainly Cheniere Energy and Venture Global, the sources told Reuters.
The discussions could lead to deals worth tens of billions of dollars that would mark a surge in China’s LNG imports from the United States in coming years. At the height of a Sino-U.S. trade war in 2019, gas trade briefly came to a standstill. LNG export facilities can take years to build, and there are several projects in North America in the works that are not expected to start exporting until the middle of the decade.
Talks with U.S. suppliers began early this year but speeded up in recent months amid one of the biggest power-generating, heating fuel crunch in decades. Natural gas prices in Asia have jumped more than fivefold this year, sparking fears of power shortages in the winter.
“Companies faced a supply gap (for winter) and surging prices. Talks really picked up since August when spot prices touched $15/mmbtu”, said a Beijing-based senior industry source briefed on the talks.
Another Beijing-based source said: “After experiencing the recent massive market volatility, some buyers were regretting that they didn’t sign enough long-term supplies.”
Graphic: China’s natural gas imports since 2018: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/dwpkrrkwjvm/China%20gas%20imports%20since%202018%20and%20Asia%20spot%20prices.jpg
Sources expected fresh deals to be announced over the coming few months, after privately controlled ENN Natural Gas Co,, headed by the ex-LNG chief of China’s largest buyer, CNOOC, announced a 13-year deal with Cheniere on Monday.
It was the first major U.S.-China LNG deal since 2018.
The new purchases will also cement China’s position as the world’s top LNG buyer, taking over from Japan this year.
“As state-owned enterprises, companies are all under pressure to keep security of supply and the recent price trend has deeply changed the image of long-term supplies in the mind of leadership,” said the first Beijing-based trader.
“People may have taken the spot (market) as the key in the past, but are now realizing that long-term cargoes are the backbone.”
CHEAPER U.S. GAS
The sources declined to be identified as the negotiations are private.
Sinopec declined comment. CNOOC and Zhejiang Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Venture Global and Cheniere both declined comment.
“We expect more deals to be signed before year-end. It’s primarily driven by the global energy crunch and prices we’re seeing now… U.S. supplies now stand out as attractive,” said a third Beijing source briefed on the talks.
U.S. cargoes used to be expensive versus oil-linked supplies from Qatar and Australia for example, but are cheaper now.
A deal at $2.50 + 115% of Henry Hub futures, similar to ENN’s deal according to traders, would be roughly about $9-$10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on a delivered basis into Northeast Asia. This includes an average shipping cost of $2 per mmBtu for the U.S.-China route.
Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence with consultancy Poten & Partners said Chinese companies are heavily exposed to Brent-related pricing for LNG and the U.S. purchases give some diversity to the pricing.
Asian spot gas prices are currently trading at above $37 per mmBtu after reaching a record high of over $56 earlier this month.
Traders expect prices to go higher in winter when demand typically surges.
Chinese buyers are scouting for both near-term shipments to cover demand this winter and long-term imports as demand for gas, seen by Beijing as a key bridge fuel before reaching its 2060 carbon-neutral goal, is set for steady growth through 2035.
Graphic: Seasonality chart of China’s LNG imports 2017-2021: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/znpneelxevl/Seasonality%20chart%20of%20China%20LNG%20imports.jpg
It’s hard to estimate a total volume of the deals being discussed, sources said, but Sinopec alone could be eyeing 4 million tonnes annually as the company is most exposed to the spot market versus domestic rivals PetroChina and CNOOC, said a third source.
Traders said Sinopec is in final talks with 3 to 4 companies to buy 1 million tonnes a year for 10 years, starting from 2023, and is looking for U.S. volumes as part of the requirement.
Delays in LNG export projects in Canada, in which PetroChina owns a stake, and Mozambique, where both PetroChina and CNOOC have invested, also made U.S. supplies attractive, sources added.
North American LNG exporters have been adding to capacity because of demand in major Asian economies.
Cheniere, the largest exporter out of the United States, said in late September it expects to announce “a number of other transactions” that will support their going forward with the Corpus Stage 3 expansion next year.
Venture Global is building or developing over 50 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG production capacity in Louisiana, including the 10-MTPA Calcasieu, which is expected to cost around $4.5 billion and start producing LNG in test mode in late 2021.
However, some buyers remained cautious.
“There is a lot of hype in the market and nobody knows for sure how long this supply crunch would last. For companies that do not have fresh demand in the next year or two, it’s better to wait,” said a separate Chinese importer.
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu, Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore and Scott Disavino in New York; additional reporting by Gary McWilliams in Houston; editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Jason Neely, Peter Graff)
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – October 16th, 2021 || The Hype Around NFTs: What Are They? And How Pricey Do They Get?: Vertigo3d / iStock.com If you’re still struggling to wrap your head around cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, strap in — it’s about to get worse. There’s a brand new kind of digital money -not-money that’s trending and a brand new acronym to remember: NFT. Read More: What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021? Find Out: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? NFT stands for “non-fungible tokens.” If that did nothing for you except make you think of mushrooms, you are not alone. NFTs are widely misunderstood or, more commonly, not understood at all — and for good reason. They’re new, they’re unfamiliar and they’re barely on the fringes of the mainstream. With celebrities like Mark Cuban making headlines as NFT investors, however, the general public is starting to catch up to the early adopters. Here’s what you need to know. Economy Explained: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? First… Fungible? When it comes to goods and services, “fungible” is a synonym for “interchangeable.” Commodities like gold and oil are fungible, as are currency, stock market shares and bonds. If two people each have a $20 bill — or a barrel of oil, an ounce of gold or a share of Amazon stock — and they trade, neither party gains or loses anything. If the same two people trade cars, diamonds or Fabergé eggs, on the other hand, it will never be an even transaction. That’s because each individual diamond, car and Fabergé egg is unique and has its own individual value based on variables like quality and condition. In short: Fungible items can be directly exchanged without anything being gained or lost Non-fungible items cannot Dogecoin (DOGE): What It Is, What It’s Worth and Should You Be Investing? NFTs Are Snowflakes Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is a medium of exchange, just like regular money. Unlike regular money, cryptocurrency is created, distributed and verified via decentralized blockchain without a middleman like a bank or government — but it’s still fungible. Both in the physical and digital spaces, one Bitcoin is the same as the next, just like a dollar. Story continues NFTs are similar to cryptocurrencies in that they’re generated, distributed and verified via blockchain without a bank or other centralized authority. Unlike Bitcoin, however, non-fungible tokens are — as the name implies — non-fungible. Each individual NFT has its own unique value. Each appreciates in value at a different rate, and no two in the world can be swapped for an even trade. Read: Bitcoin Cash (BCH): How’s It Differ From Bitcoin and What’s It Worth? Money and Cryptocurrency Aren’t Enough? NFTs are digital assets just like Bitcoin, but unlike Bitcoin, each NFT is unique — and that’s the whole point. NFTs were created to be distinctive because they’re digital representations of other things that are unique, like: Artwork GIFs Avatars Memes Music albums Videos Images The purpose of NFTs is to denote the value of things while also protecting their unique, individual authenticity — something that’s not possible with a fungible asset like money or Bitcoin. Before NFTs, these kinds of digital files had essentially no value. Consider: What Are Altcoins — and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks? For example, if an artist draws a picture and posts it online and 10,000 people download it, then 10,001 people have it, but nobody owns it. If that same artist “mints” the drawing on a blockchain and turns it into an NFT, the drawing is now verified as original to that artist. No matter how many times it’s downloaded or duplicated, the picture’s authenticity — and the artist’s ownership — is easily verifiable on a publicly accessible blockchain record and stored safely in the artist’s digital wallet. In the End, NFTs Are All About Security, Protection and Credibility NFTs allow everyone involved to have their cake and eat it, too. With an NFT, the artist from the example still gets to upload and show off the picture. Then, 10,000 people who like the picture can still right-click and download it for free. So, just as before, 10,001 people have the picture, but now, the artist owns it and the 10,000 free downloads are just great publicity. Economy Explained: Binance Coin (BNB): Why It’s So Interesting to the Cryptocurrency World The same holds true for avatars, memes, images and just about anything else. NFTs provide a universal system of verification and valuation, which allows people like Mark Cuban to safely and securely buy, sell, auction, trade and invest in NFTs just like they would physical art, memorabilia, collectibles and other things that hold unique, non-fungible value. In short, NFTs are digital tokens that represent the unique value of all kinds of items, both intangible and tangible, while providing verifiable authenticity of ownership and creation. Bitcoins and dollars, on the other hand, can only buy stuff and sell stuff. A Few Crazy Expensive NFTs Broke Records The following are among the most expensive NFTs of all time. You’ll see that some of these have t heir value measured in ether (ETH), which is a type of cryptocurrency based on the Ethereum, a community blockchain used in NFT transactions. Purchases were made based on a conversion rate of $2,010 per ETH for most of these. Hashmask #9939: On Feb. 3, 2021, Hashmask #9939 sold for 420 ETH worth $844,216. CryptoPunk #6487: On Feb. 21, 2021, CryptoPunk #6487 sold for 550 ETH worth $1,105,500. CryptoPunk #2890: On Jan. 24, 2021, CryptoPunk #2890 sold for 605 ETH worth $1,216,074. CryptoPunk #4156: On Feb. 18, 2021, CryptoPunk #4156 sold for 650 ETH worth $1,306,526. CryptoPunk #6965: On Feb. 21, 2021, CryptoPunk #6965 sold for 800 ETH worth $1,608,032. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet: On March 22, 2021, his first tweet sold for 1,630.58 ether. That was equivalent to about $2.9 million based on ether’s price at the time of sale. Beeple, Everydays–The First 5000 Days: Sold in March 2021 through Christie’s for $69 million. This article is part of GOBankingRates’ ‘Economy Explained’ series to help readers navigate the complexities of our financial system. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security The 8 Best Deals From Costco’s September Coupon Book Social Security Benefits Might Get Cut Early — What Does It Mean for You? Here’s How Much You Need To Earn To Be ‘Rich’ in 23 Major Countries Around the World Last updated: March 25, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : The Hype Around NFTs: What Are They? And How Pricey Do They Get? || The Hype Around NFTs: What Are They? And How Pricey Do They Get?: If you’re still struggling to wrap your head around cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, strap in — it’s about to get worse. There’s a brand new kind ofdigital money-not-money that’s trending and a brand new acronym to remember: NFT.
Read More:What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021?Find Out:Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From?
NFT stands for “non-fungible tokens.” If that did nothing for you except make you think of mushrooms, you are not alone. NFTs are widely misunderstood or, more commonly, not understood at all — and for good reason. They’re new, they’re unfamiliar and they’re barely on the fringes of the mainstream. With celebrities like Mark Cuban making headlines as NFT investors, however, the general public is starting to catch up to the early adopters. Here’s what you need to know.
Economy Explained:How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe?
When it comes to goods and services, “fungible” is a synonym for “interchangeable.”Commodities like gold and oil are fungible, as are currency, stock market shares and bonds. If two people each have a $20 bill — or a barrel of oil, an ounce of gold or a share of Amazon stock — and they trade, neither party gains or loses anything. If the same two people trade cars, diamonds or Fabergé eggs, on the other hand, it will never be an even transaction. That’s because each individual diamond, car and Fabergé egg is unique and has its own individual value based on variables like quality and condition. In short:
• Fungible items can be directly exchanged without anything being gained or lost
• Non-fungible items cannot
Dogecoin (DOGE):What It Is, What It’s Worth and Should You Be Investing?
Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is a medium of exchange, just like regular money. Unlike regular money, cryptocurrency is created, distributed and verified via decentralized blockchain without a middleman like a bank or government — but it’s still fungible. Both in the physical and digital spaces, one Bitcoin is the same as the next, just like a dollar.
NFTs are similar to cryptocurrencies in that they’re generated, distributed and verified via blockchain without a bank or other centralized authority. Unlike Bitcoin, however, non-fungible tokens are — as the name implies — non-fungible. Each individual NFT has its own unique value. Each appreciates in value at a different rate, and no two in the world can be swapped for an even trade.
Read:Bitcoin Cash (BCH): How’s It Differ From Bitcoin and What’s It Worth?
NFTs are digital assets just like Bitcoin, but unlike Bitcoin, each NFT is unique — and that’s the whole point. NFTs were created to be distinctive because they’re digital representations of other things that are unique, like:
• Artwork
• GIFs
• Avatars
• Memes
• Music albums
• Videos
• Images
The purpose of NFTs is to denote the value of things while also protecting their unique, individual authenticity — something that’s not possible with a fungible asset like money or Bitcoin. Before NFTs, these kinds of digital files had essentially no value.
Consider:What Are Altcoins — and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks?
For example, if an artist draws a picture and posts it online and 10,000 people download it, then 10,001 people have it, but nobody owns it. If that same artist “mints” the drawing on a blockchain and turns it into an NFT, the drawing is now verified as original to that artist. No matter how many times it’s downloaded or duplicated, the picture’s authenticity — and the artist’s ownership — is easily verifiable on a publicly accessible blockchain record and stored safely in the artist’s digital wallet.
NFTs allow everyone involved to have their cake and eat it, too. With an NFT, the artist from the example still gets to upload and show off the picture. Then, 10,000 people who like the picture can still right-click and download it for free. So, just as before, 10,001 people have the picture, but now, the artist owns it and the 10,000 free downloads are just great publicity.
Economy Explained:Binance Coin (BNB): Why It’s So Interesting to the Cryptocurrency World
The same holds true for avatars, memes, images and just about anything else. NFTs provide a universal system of verification and valuation, which allows people like Mark Cuban to safely and securely buy, sell, auction, trade and invest in NFTs just like they would physical art, memorabilia, collectibles and other things that hold unique, non-fungible value.
In short, NFTs are digital tokens that represent the unique value of all kinds of items, both intangible and tangible, while providing verifiable authenticity of ownership and creation. Bitcoins and dollars, on the other hand, can only buy stuff and sell stuff.
The following are among the most expensive NFTs of all time. You’ll see that some of these have their value measured in ether (ETH), which is a type of cryptocurrency based on the Ethereum, a community blockchain used in NFT transactions.Purchases were made based on a conversion rate of $2,010 per ETH for most of these.
Hashmask #9939:On Feb. 3, 2021, Hashmask #9939 sold for 420 ETH worth $844,216.
CryptoPunk #6487:On Feb. 21, 2021, CryptoPunk #6487 sold for 550 ETH worth $1,105,500.
CryptoPunk #2890:On Jan. 24, 2021, CryptoPunk #2890 sold for 605 ETH worth $1,216,074.
CryptoPunk #4156:On Feb. 18, 2021, CryptoPunk #4156 sold for 650 ETH worth $1,306,526.
CryptoPunk #6965:On Feb. 21, 2021, CryptoPunk #6965 sold for 800 ETH worth $1,608,032.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet:On March 22, 2021, his first tweet sold for 1,630.58 ether. That was equivalent to about $2.9 million based on ether’s price at the time of sale.
Beeple, Everydays–The First 5000 Days:Sold in March 2021 through Christie’s for $69 million.
This article is part of GOBankingRates’ ‘Economy Explained’ series to help readers navigate the complexities of our financial system.
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Last updated: March 25, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:The Hype Around NFTs: What Are They? And How Pricey Do They Get? || Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com Often controversial and always entertaining, self-made billionaire Mark Cuban is not shy in his opinions, especially when it comes to money — and that’s good news for budding investors . Mark Cuban, after all, is rich and famous. He owns a jet and a basketball team. He’s a reality TV star who millions tune in to watch on “Shark Tank.” If you don’t listen to a guy who created one of the world’s greatest fortunes out of nothing, who do you listen to? Read: ‘Shark Tank’ Stars Share 50 Business Tips Check Out: 11 Ways Warren Buffett Lives Frugally It wasn’t always that way. Cuban famously lived for years on the budget of a broke college student, driving lousy cars, eating lousy food and saving, saving, saving. A serial entrepreneur, forward-thinking investor and notorious taker of calculated risks, Cuban’s seed money is now fueling startups all over the country in all kinds of industries. The following is a selection of the finest Mark Cubanisms — from years past to just this year — that can inspire, educate and entertain investors of all levels . Last updated: July 30, 2021 vitapix / Getty Images Pay Off Debt, Then Invest In a 2018 interview with MarketWatch, Cuban laid down some indisputable arithmetic that explains why paying off debt before you invest might just deliver the biggest returns of all. “The best investment you can make is paying off your credit cards, paying off whatever debt you have. If you have a student loan with a 7% interest rate, if you pay off that loan, you’re making 7%, that’s your immediate return, which is a lot safer than picking a stock, or trying to pick real estate, or whatever it may be,” Cuban said. See: Just How Rich Are Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Other Big Names? simpson33 / Getty Images/iStockphoto Never Invest To Get Out of Trouble Just like you should never gamble if you absolutely have to win, Cuban insists that the same rules apply to investing as a remedy for financial trouble. “If you are buying because you need the price to go up and solve a financial hole you are in, that is the EXACT WRONG time to trade,” Cuban tweeted on Feb. 3. “And we all have to respect people who choose to sell because they need to. Bills don't care what the market does [sic]. Get right and come back later.” Story continues Find Out: These Billionaires Got Richer During The Pandemic katjen / Shutterstock.com Don’t Invest In the Stock Market Cuban had some harsh words for what most investors think of as capitalism’s greatest wealth-generation machine — the stock market. In 2007, he used his blog to offer some advice to young people who aren’t sure what to do with their money. He wrote: “Put it in the bank. The idiots that tell you to put your money in the market because eventually it will go up need to tell you that because they are trying to sell you something. The stock market is probably the worst investment vehicle out there. If you won’t put your money in the bank, NEVER put your money in something where you don’t have an information advantage. Why invest your money in something because a broker told you to? If the broker had a clue, he/she wouldn’t be a broker, they would be on a beach somewhere.” More: 16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By champja / iStock.com But If You Do, Buy an Index Fund Not everyone is going to build a successful software startup from scratch, and they don’t necessarily want to be called “idiots” for investing in the stock market. Fine, but Cuban at least wants them to avoid picking their own stocks or buying into expensive mutual funds. His advice mirrors that which fellow billionaire investor Warren Buffett has long offered, as well — buy an index fund. In an interview with Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass, Cuban said, “for those investors not too knowledgeable about markets, the best bet is a cheap S&P 500 fund,” according to MarketWatch. Read: 21 Life Hacks From Warren Buffett That Anyone Can Use aldomurillo / Getty Images Embrace Poverty (‘Live Like a Student’) Cuban told Time’s Money magazine how much he was influenced by a book called “Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire by the Age of 35.” “The whole premise of the book was if you could save up to $1 million and live like a student, you could retire. But you would have to have the discipline of saving and how you spent your money once you got there. I did things like have five roommates and live off of macaroni and cheese and really was very, very frugal. I had the worst possible car.” See: Stocks That Would Have Made You Rich Today eclipse_images / Getty Images Buy a Stock You Believe In and Hold on for Dear Life When the Reddit and GameStop trading frenzy went down, Cuban was able to offer some insightful advice as most of the investing world was struggling just to understand what was even going on. On a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), Cuban responded to a Redditor’s call for advice with this comparison to Bitcoin.“Many bought at the highs in 2017 and watched it fall by ⅔ or more. But they held on because they believe in the asset ... When I buy a stock, I make sure I know why I['m] buying it. Then I HODL until … I learn that something has changed," using text-slang acronym for “hold on for dear life.” Find Out: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? SARINYAPINNGAM / Getty Images/iStockphoto Take Risks — But Play It Safe 90% of the Time Without risk, there can be no reward, and the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential payout. Cuban wants investors to go for broke and swing for the fences — but only with a sliver of their investments. “If you're a true adventurer and you really want to throw the hail Mary, you might take 10% and put it in Bitcoin or Ethereum, but if you do that, you've got to pretend you've already lost your money. It's like collecting art, it's like collecting baseball cards, it's like collecting shoes. It's a flyer, but I'd limit it to 10%," Cuban told Vanity Fair. More: 13 Toxic Investments You Should Avoid jpgfactory / Getty Images If One of Those Risks Is Crypto, Stick With the Big Boys If you’re considering jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, you’d be wise to place your bets on the biggest names in the game because Cuban sees way too many similarities to 1999 for comfort. On Jan. 11, he tweeted: “Watching the cryptos trade, it’s EXACTLY like the internet stock bubble. EXACTLY. I think btc, eth, a few others will be analogous to those that were built during the dot-com era, survived the bubble bursting and thrived, like AMZN, EBay, and Priceline. Many won’t.” Read: India Proposes Ban on Bitcoin — and the US Could Be Next Daniel Zuchnik / WireImage If You Don’t Understand an Investment, Walk Away Cuban has crossed philosophical paths with Warren Buffett more than once when it comes to investing fundamentals. Like Buffett, Cuban warns against investing in things you don’t understand. In 2010, Cuban wrote on his blog, “If you don’t fully understand the risks of an investment you are contemplating, it’s okay to do nothing.” More recently, he confirmed that position by stating even more emphatically, “No. 1 rule of investing: When you don’t know what to do, do nothing.” See: 21 Billionaires Who Lost Big in 2020 fizkes / Getty Images/iStockphoto Knowledge Is the Best Investment The best way to avoid investing in something you don’t understand is to understand whatever you’re invested in. Cuban wrote on his blog about the power of what he calls the “knowledge advantage” and what he gained from it in his early years as a budding entrepreneur. In 2007, he wrote: “At MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, three bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that led to a customer or solution paid for itself many times over.” [rock-component slug="more-from-gobankingrates-2”] This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice || Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice: Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com Often controversial and always entertaining, self-made billionaire Mark Cuban is not shy in his opinions, especially when it comes to money — and that’s good news for budding investors . Mark Cuban, after all, is rich and famous. He owns a jet and a basketball team. He’s a reality TV star who millions tune in to watch on “Shark Tank.” If you don’t listen to a guy who created one of the world’s greatest fortunes out of nothing, who do you listen to? Read: ‘Shark Tank’ Stars Share 50 Business Tips Check Out: 11 Ways Warren Buffett Lives Frugally It wasn’t always that way. Cuban famously lived for years on the budget of a broke college student, driving lousy cars, eating lousy food and saving, saving, saving. A serial entrepreneur, forward-thinking investor and notorious taker of calculated risks, Cuban’s seed money is now fueling startups all over the country in all kinds of industries. The following is a selection of the finest Mark Cubanisms — from years past to just this year — that can inspire, educate and entertain investors of all levels . Last updated: July 30, 2021 vitapix / Getty Images Pay Off Debt, Then Invest In a 2018 interview with MarketWatch, Cuban laid down some indisputable arithmetic that explains why paying off debt before you invest might just deliver the biggest returns of all. “The best investment you can make is paying off your credit cards, paying off whatever debt you have. If you have a student loan with a 7% interest rate, if you pay off that loan, you’re making 7%, that’s your immediate return, which is a lot safer than picking a stock, or trying to pick real estate, or whatever it may be,” Cuban said. See: Just How Rich Are Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Other Big Names? simpson33 / Getty Images/iStockphoto Never Invest To Get Out of Trouble Just like you should never gamble if you absolutely have to win, Cuban insists that the same rules apply to investing as a remedy for financial trouble. “If you are buying because you need the price to go up and solve a financial hole you are in, that is the EXACT WRONG time to trade,” Cuban tweeted on Feb. 3. “And we all have to respect people who choose to sell because they need to. Bills don't care what the market does [sic]. Get right and come back later.” Story continues Find Out: These Billionaires Got Richer During The Pandemic katjen / Shutterstock.com Don’t Invest In the Stock Market Cuban had some harsh words for what most investors think of as capitalism’s greatest wealth-generation machine — the stock market. In 2007, he used his blog to offer some advice to young people who aren’t sure what to do with their money. He wrote: “Put it in the bank. The idiots that tell you to put your money in the market because eventually it will go up need to tell you that because they are trying to sell you something. The stock market is probably the worst investment vehicle out there. If you won’t put your money in the bank, NEVER put your money in something where you don’t have an information advantage. Why invest your money in something because a broker told you to? If the broker had a clue, he/she wouldn’t be a broker, they would be on a beach somewhere.” More: 16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By champja / iStock.com But If You Do, Buy an Index Fund Not everyone is going to build a successful software startup from scratch, and they don’t necessarily want to be called “idiots” for investing in the stock market. Fine, but Cuban at least wants them to avoid picking their own stocks or buying into expensive mutual funds. His advice mirrors that which fellow billionaire investor Warren Buffett has long offered, as well — buy an index fund. In an interview with Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass, Cuban said, “for those investors not too knowledgeable about markets, the best bet is a cheap S&P 500 fund,” according to MarketWatch. Read: 21 Life Hacks From Warren Buffett That Anyone Can Use aldomurillo / Getty Images Embrace Poverty (‘Live Like a Student’) Cuban told Time’s Money magazine how much he was influenced by a book called “Cashing in on the American Dream: How to Retire by the Age of 35.” “The whole premise of the book was if you could save up to $1 million and live like a student, you could retire. But you would have to have the discipline of saving and how you spent your money once you got there. I did things like have five roommates and live off of macaroni and cheese and really was very, very frugal. I had the worst possible car.” See: Stocks That Would Have Made You Rich Today eclipse_images / Getty Images Buy a Stock You Believe In and Hold on for Dear Life When the Reddit and GameStop trading frenzy went down, Cuban was able to offer some insightful advice as most of the investing world was struggling just to understand what was even going on. On a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), Cuban responded to a Redditor’s call for advice with this comparison to Bitcoin.“Many bought at the highs in 2017 and watched it fall by ⅔ or more. But they held on because they believe in the asset ... When I buy a stock, I make sure I know why I['m] buying it. Then I HODL until … I learn that something has changed," using text-slang acronym for “hold on for dear life.” Find Out: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? SARINYAPINNGAM / Getty Images/iStockphoto Take Risks — But Play It Safe 90% of the Time Without risk, there can be no reward, and the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential payout. Cuban wants investors to go for broke and swing for the fences — but only with a sliver of their investments. “If you're a true adventurer and you really want to throw the hail Mary, you might take 10% and put it in Bitcoin or Ethereum, but if you do that, you've got to pretend you've already lost your money. It's like collecting art, it's like collecting baseball cards, it's like collecting shoes. It's a flyer, but I'd limit it to 10%," Cuban told Vanity Fair. More: 13 Toxic Investments You Should Avoid jpgfactory / Getty Images If One of Those Risks Is Crypto, Stick With the Big Boys If you’re considering jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, you’d be wise to place your bets on the biggest names in the game because Cuban sees way too many similarities to 1999 for comfort. On Jan. 11, he tweeted: “Watching the cryptos trade, it’s EXACTLY like the internet stock bubble. EXACTLY. I think btc, eth, a few others will be analogous to those that were built during the dot-com era, survived the bubble bursting and thrived, like AMZN, EBay, and Priceline. Many won’t.” Read: India Proposes Ban on Bitcoin — and the US Could Be Next Daniel Zuchnik / WireImage If You Don’t Understand an Investment, Walk Away Cuban has crossed philosophical paths with Warren Buffett more than once when it comes to investing fundamentals. Like Buffett, Cuban warns against investing in things you don’t understand. In 2010, Cuban wrote on his blog, “If you don’t fully understand the risks of an investment you are contemplating, it’s okay to do nothing.” More recently, he confirmed that position by stating even more emphatically, “No. 1 rule of investing: When you don’t know what to do, do nothing.” See: 21 Billionaires Who Lost Big in 2020 fizkes / Getty Images/iStockphoto Knowledge Is the Best Investment The best way to avoid investing in something you don’t understand is to understand whatever you’re invested in. Cuban wrote on his blog about the power of what he calls the “knowledge advantage” and what he gained from it in his early years as a budding entrepreneur. In 2007, he wrote: “At MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, three bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that led to a customer or solution paid for itself many times over.” [rock-component slug="more-from-gobankingrates-2”] This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Mark Cuban’s Top Investing Advice || What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In?: Mark Cuban is best known as the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but it turns out he has a number of diverse interests — and he's willing to support them financially. A look at the website of Mark Cuban Companies shows the variety of companies he either owns outright or has invested in, and the list is impressive in both its volume and breadth.
Read:‘Shark Tank’ Stars Share 50 Business TipsCheck Out:Mark Cuban's Top Investing Advice
His investments include businesses owned by minorities or women and those started by entrepreneurs with ties to the military. His portfolio is growing in the block chain sector. Cuban's interests in companies include those that focus on health, fitness and eating well, as well as the environment.
The investments Cuban has made through the television show "Shark Tank," where he and other business experts hear pitches from entrepreneurs who need an infusion of cash for their startups, mirror the depth of the billionaire's interests.Read on to learn more about 10 of the companies Mark Cuban has bought into through "Shark Tank" — and some of the impressive financial gains so far.
Last updated: Oct. 13, 2021
In 2014, Marl Cuban invested $500,000 for a 30% stake of Gameday Couture, which started out making officially licensed college apparel for women. Co-owners Kurt and Shawnna Feddersen began the Oklahoma-based company to help women look stylish while cheering for their favorite team. By 2018, Gameday Couture had annual sales of $12 million. At the time of Cuban’s investment, Gameday Couture held licenses with more than 30 universities. Today, it holds more than 200 NCAA licenses and is sold in more than 2,500 stores nationwide.
Find Out:These Billionaires Got Richer During The Pandemic
A meeting between three forty-something friends in 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, led to the creation of Nuts ‘N More, which started out selling high-protein nut butter spread with fitness enthusiasts in mind. An appearance on “Shark Tank” in 2013 garnered the young company an investment of $75,000 from Cuban and fellow shark Robert Herjavec in exchange for 35% of the company. Today, the company has more than 20 flavors and sells high-protein peanut and almond butter spreads, snack packs and more. Before the appearance on “Shark Tank,” the company made sales of about $100,000 a year. By 2018, sales reached about $6 million annually.
More:16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By
Konel Banner long had recognized the need for fire-starting technology, and when he met outdoor enthusiast Frank Weston, who also had a background in firefighting, they partnered to develop InstaFire. They met mornings for nine months in an abandoned, owl-infested warehouse to develop a product that was safe, easy to use and reliable – something that could be counted on in an emergency. Cuban teamed with fellow investor Lori Greiner to put $300,000 into the company in exchange for 30% ownership in 2016. The company has expanded its product offerings, especially those that boost environmental friendliness. On her website, Greiner said the InstaFire had $7.5 million in retail sales in the first three years since its “Shark Tank” appearance.
See:Stocks That Would Have Made You Rich Today
Jenny Goldfarb grew up in a family that ran a Jewish deli business in New York. Once she went vegan, she decided that the deli staple of a corned beef sandwich could co-exist with her lifestyle and created Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli in 2018, producing plant-made deli meats. Her products are kosher, animal-free, cholesterol-free, nitrate-free, low in fat, low carb and full of protein. In a 2019 “Shark Tank” episode, Cuban gave Goldfarb $250,000 for a 20% stake in the company, and it’s one of just several investments he’s made in plant-based businesses. Cuban is a vegetarian.
Look:13 Toxic Investments You Should Avoid
Lani Lazzari was a young teen looking to find relief from her eczema. Despite numerous visits to the dermatologist, she had no solution for her sensitive skin until she started experimenting with her own concoctions in the family kitchen. By 2005, for the first time ever, she had relief and was eczema-free, thanks to her own recipes. She appeared on “Shark Tank” in 2013, and Cuban walked away with 33% of the company for his $100,000 investment. Sales for the Pittsburgh-based company rose from $44,000 to $6 million after the “Shark Tank” appearance.
Learn More:Want to Invest in Bitcoin but Don’t Know How? We’ve Got You Covered
In 2018, first-generation AmericanKrystal Persaud decided to use her experience designing consumer electronics at a New York company to start Grouphug and emphasize sustainability. Her creation: window solar panels that connect to charges for cell phones and other devices. “While the sun hits your solar panel during the day, all of that energy gets stored in an internal battery, meaning you can charge your favorite devices day or night,” she said on a 2020 episode of “Shark Tank.” Sold on the promise of the concept, Cuban gave her $150,000 for a 25% stake in the company.
There currently is a waiting list for the $149 solar charger.
Check Out:Just How Rich Are Oprah, Bill Gates and Other Big Names?
Spurred by his belief in healthy eating (and maybe a sweet treat, too), Cuban bought a 20% stake of Coconut Girl in 2020 for $180,000. The company was founded byFrancheska "Frankie" Yamsuan, who developed the dairy-free, gluten-free line of ice cream sandwiches in 2018. Coconut Girl’s products are sold in flavors that include Hang Loose Vanilla and Aloha Chocolate. Coconut Girl doesn’t use cane sugar and products are sweetened with dates, honey and maple syrup. The company’s website boasts the treats are "grain free, paleo and pretty much guilt free."
Advice:20 Things Mark Cuban Says To Do With Your Money
An outdoor enthusiast, Georgia mom Kressa Peterson knew what it’s like to get grimy and muddy with no way to remove her dirty clothes to wash off – without creating a public spectacle. So she created Shower Toga – which users put over their clothes before pulling them off from underneath – with campers, bikers, endurance athletes and more in mind. It’s washable and reusable. While at least one of the investors on “Shark Tank” likened it to a plastic trash bag, Cuban and guest SharkAlli Webbsaw the value and plunked down $80,000 for a 40% ownership of the company.
See:6 Small Investment Ideas When You Have Less Than $500
Founded in 2017, the company – Ready. Set. Eat! – introduces children as young as 4 months old to peanut, egg and milk allergens with the goal of reducing kids’ risk of developing allergies to them by as much as 80%. That is achieved by supplementing a baby’s bottle or food with a packet of the allergens. Cuban made an initial investment of $350,000 through “Shark Tank” and then took part in a $3 million financing round.
“As a parent of a child with a severe peanut allergy, I know firsthand the impact it has on families across the country. ... We will work on making sure every parent knows about early allergen introduction,” Cuban said in a news release. He is a father of three.
Take a Look:Ways Investing Will Change in 25 Years
As a teenager in Southern California, Scott Martin used to deliver Christmas trees to customers. “Because I worked in a nursery I thought, 'Why do people cut down trees to bring in the house when there are perfectly good living trees that can be brought in the house and afterwards they keep on living,'" he told Spectrum News in 2019. So as an adult, he founded The Living Christmas Co., which delivers live, potted trees that families care for during the holidays, and he’ll return to pick them up. Then, he will rent the same tree to another family next year, saving the life of a tree. Needing money for capital and infrastructure, he went on “Shark Tank” and found some disbelievers. But Cuban, calling himself a “believer in convenience with a conscience,” invested $150,000 for 40% of the company. The company is still in business, but not much is known about its growth and revenues.
[rock-component slug="more-from-gobankingrates"]
Photo Disclaimer: Please note some photos are for representational purposes only and may not reflect the exact product listed.
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In? || What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In?: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com Mark Cuban is best known as the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but it turns out he has a number of diverse interests — and he's willing to support them financially. A look at the website of Mark Cuban Companies shows the variety of companies he either owns outright or has invested in, and the list is impressive in both its volume and breadth. Read: ‘Shark Tank’ Stars Share 50 Business Tips Check Out: Mark Cuban's Top Investing Advice His investments include businesses owned by minorities or women and those started by entrepreneurs with ties to the military. His portfolio is growing in the block chain sector. Cuban's interests in companies include those that focus on health, fitness and eating well, as well as the environment. The investments Cuban has made through the television show "Shark Tank," where he and other business experts hear pitches from entrepreneurs who need an infusion of cash for their startups, mirror the depth of the billionaire's interests. Read on to learn more about 10 of the companies Mark Cuban has bought into through "Shark Tank" — and some of the impressive financial gains so far. Last update d: Oct. 13, 2021 Amazon.com Gameday Couture In 2014, Marl Cuban invested $500,000 for a 30% stake of Gameday Couture, which started out making officially licensed college apparel for women. Co-owners Kurt and Shawnna Feddersen began the Oklahoma-based company to help women look stylish while cheering for their favorite team. By 2018, Gameday Couture had annual sales of $12 million. At the time of Cuban’s investment, Gameday Couture held licenses with more than 30 universities. Today, it holds more than 200 NCAA licenses and is sold in more than 2,500 stores nationwide. Find Out: These Billionaires Got Richer During The Pandemic Amazon.com Nuts ‘N More A meeting between three forty-something friends in 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, led to the creation of Nuts ‘N More, which started out selling high-protein nut butter spread with fitness enthusiasts in mind. An appearance on “Shark Tank” in 2013 garnered the young company an investment of $75,000 from Cuban and fellow shark Robert Herjavec in exchange for 35% of the company. Today, the company has more than 20 flavors and sells high-protein peanut and almond butter spreads, snack packs and more. Before the appearance on “Shark Tank,” the company made sales of about $100,000 a year. By 2018, sales reached about $6 million annually. Story continues More: 16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By Amazon.com InstaFire Konel Banner long had recognized the need for fire-starting technology, and when he met outdoor enthusiast Frank Weston, who also had a background in firefighting, they partnered to develop InstaFire. They met mornings for nine months in an abandoned, owl-infested warehouse to develop a product that was safe, easy to use and reliable – something that could be counted on in an emergency. Cuban teamed with fellow investor Lori Greiner to put $300,000 into the company in exchange for 30% ownership in 2016. The company has expanded its product offerings, especially those that boost environmental friendliness. On her website, Greiner said the InstaFire had $7.5 million in retail sales in the first three years since its “Shark Tank” appearance. See: Stocks That Would Have Made You Rich Today burwellphotography / Getty Images Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli Jenny Goldfarb grew up in a family that ran a Jewish deli business in New York. Once she went vegan, she decided that the deli staple of a corned beef sandwich could co-exist with her lifestyle and created Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli in 2018, producing plant-made deli meats. Her products are kosher, animal-free, cholesterol-free, nitrate-free, low in fat, low carb and full of protein. In a 2019 “Shark Tank” episode, Cuban gave Goldfarb $250,000 for a 20% stake in the company, and it’s one of just several investments he’s made in plant-based businesses. Cuban is a vegetarian. Look: 13 Toxic Investments You Should Avoid Amazon.com Simple Sugars Lani Lazzari was a young teen looking to find relief from her eczema. Despite numerous visits to the dermatologist, she had no solution for her sensitive skin until she started experimenting with her own concoctions in the family kitchen. By 2005, for the first time ever, she had relief and was eczema-free, thanks to her own recipes. She appeared on “Shark Tank” in 2013, and Cuban walked away with 33% of the company for his $100,000 investment. Sales for the Pittsburgh-based company rose from $44,000 to $6 million after the “Shark Tank” appearance. Learn More: Want to Invest in Bitcoin but Don’t Know How? We’ve Got You Covered irina88w / Getty Images/iStockphoto Grouphug In 2018, first-generation American Krystal Persaud decided to use her experience designing consumer electronics at a New York company to start Grouphug and emphasize sustainability. Her creation: window solar panels that connect to charges for cell phones and other devices. “While the sun hits your solar panel during the day, all of that energy gets stored in an internal battery, meaning you can charge your favorite devices day or night,” she said on a 2020 episode of “Shark Tank.” Sold on the promise of the concept, Cuban gave her $150,000 for a 25% stake in the company. There currently is a waiting list for the $149 solar charger. Check Out: Just How Rich Are Oprah, Bill Gates and Other Big Names? Amazon.com Coconut Girl Spurred by his belief in healthy eating (and maybe a sweet treat, too), Cuban bought a 20% stake of Coconut Girl in 2020 for $180,000. The company was founded by Francheska "Frankie" Yamsuan, who developed the dairy-free, gluten-free line of ice cream sandwiches in 2018. Coconut Girl’s products are sold in flavors that include Hang Loose Vanilla and Aloha Chocolate. Coconut Girl doesn’t use cane sugar and products are sweetened with dates, honey and maple syrup. The company’s website boasts the treats are "grain free, paleo and pretty much guilt free." Advice: 20 Things Mark Cuban Says To Do With Your Money apomares / Getty Images Shower Toga An outdoor enthusiast, Georgia mom Kressa Peterson knew what it’s like to get grimy and muddy with no way to remove her dirty clothes to wash off – without creating a public spectacle. So she created Shower Toga – which users put over their clothes before pulling them off from underneath – with campers, bikers, endurance athletes and more in mind. It’s washable and reusable. While at least one of the investors on “Shark Tank” likened it to a plastic trash bag, Cuban and guest Shark Alli Webb saw the value and plunked down $80,000 for a 40% ownership of the company. See: 6 Small Investment Ideas When You Have Less Than $500 monkeybusinessimages / iStock.com Ready. Set. Eat! Founded in 2017, the company – Ready. Set. Eat! – introduces children as young as 4 months old to peanut, egg and milk allergens with the goal of reducing kids’ risk of developing allergies to them by as much as 80%. That is achieved by supplementing a baby’s bottle or food with a packet of the allergens. Cuban made an initial investment of $350,000 through “Shark Tank” and then took part in a $3 million financing round. “As a parent of a child with a severe peanut allergy, I know firsthand the impact it has on families across the country. ... We will work on making sure every parent knows about early allergen introduction,” Cuban said in a news release. He is a father of three. Take a Look: Ways Investing Will Change in 25 Years Kerkez / Getty Images/iStockphoto The Living Christmas Co. As a teenager in Southern California, Scott Martin used to deliver Christmas trees to customers. “Because I worked in a nursery I thought, 'Why do people cut down trees to bring in the house when there are perfectly good living trees that can be brought in the house and afterwards they keep on living,'" he told Spectrum News in 2019. So as an adult, he founded The Living Christmas Co., which delivers live, potted trees that families care for during the holidays, and he’ll return to pick them up. Then, he will rent the same tree to another family next year, saving the life of a tree. Needing money for capital and infrastructure, he went on “Shark Tank” and found some disbelievers. But Cuban, calling himself a “believer in convenience with a conscience,” invested $150,000 for 40% of the company. The company is still in business, but not much is known about its growth and revenues. [rock-component slug="more-from-gobankingrates"] Photo Disclaimer: Please note some photos are for representational purposes only and may not reflect the exact product listed. This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In? || Does the NFT craze actually matter?: Hello friends, and welcome back toWeek in Review!
Last week, we talked about Apple's subscription addiction. This week, I'm diving deep into whether there's actually any meaning to pull out of the NFT mania of 2021.
If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from thenewsletter page, and follow my tweets@lucasmtny
Image via OpenSea
The NFT market is still defying reason, but then again that's kind of its thing. But one thing I'm especially unsure about lately as I see JPGs continue to sell for millions of dollars is... does any of this actually matter?
I've spent a lot of time over the last year grappling with the NFT market, at times I've lost sleep over it. As a reporter frequently covering this market, I don't own or trade the little images myself, but that hasn't stopped me from obsessing over the fluctuations in their prices and scouring Discords trying to follow the trends. I've tuned into countless Twitter Spaces and lurked subreddits trying to understand it all. I've also done my best to keep most of that out of this newsletter -- it's a weird niche interest that's especially niche at the moment -- but as Bitcoin flirts with a new all-time-high and the NFT mania persists, just consider this a timely update.
So, in the past month, investors have continued dropping billions upon billions of dollars on NFTs. OpenSeahas seen more than $3 billion in transaction volumein the past 30 days, and that number is actually way down quite a bit from August, showcasing just how much off-peak money continues to flow into NFTs.
All of that money has gone to some colorful places. One of the bigger success stories of the past month has been the platform CrypToadz which investors dumped $100 million into. They look likethis. In the past couple weeks, a brand new project called MekaVerse saw $130 million in transaction volume. They'rea bit prettier, but would you spend more than $8,000 on one? The platformCryptoslam(where I pulled most of the data I reference here) is tracking 163 platforms which did more than $1 million in volume in the past 30 days, a number which doesn't even account for individual artists selling their work on platforms like OpenSea.
NBA Top Shot creator on the NFT craze and why Ethereum still isn’t consumer friendly
Now, there are two incredibly different segments of NFT communities out there, larger-scale NFT projects likeAxie Infinityand NBA Top Shot with tens and hundreds of thousands of users and smaller-scale NFT projects like CryptoPunks and Art Blocks with just a few hundred or thousand owners. Larger-scale projects can represent more traditional gaming titles with more complex in-game economies while smaller-scale projects simply look more like fine art markets teamed with exclusive social clubs. Some smaller-scale projects have the ambition to eventually become larger-scale ones, but many have capped the number of NFTs in their projects and are designed to be exclusive.
In the past 30 days, Axie Infinity did more than $500 million in sales spread across nearly 2 million transactions and over 350,000 buyers. On the flip side, CryptoPunks did $200 million in sales during that same time frame across 484 transactions and 309 buyers.
Generally, when I'm talking about some of these big sales from smaller-scale projects with friends of mine, the first thing they mention is how this is probably all just money laundering. While I'd certainly imaginesome of that is happening, that's ultimately a much more boring explanation than my best guess of what's really going on, which is that a group of several thousand investors have separately rationalized irrational investing. They just happen to have chosen to do so through buying pixel art and drawings of animals.
While some investors might suggest that a handful of the earliest NFTs hold intrinsic value as historic objects, there are plenty of brand new NFT projects earning ten-million dollar valuations on day one with low amounts of effort and imagination.
The Cult of CryptoPunks
It's seemingly the result of momentum from awe-struck retail investors entering a market filled with massive amounts of wealth being generated and re-invested by Ethereum millionaires who can massively overpay for deals while pushing the implied value of the objects, the projects, the entire NFT market and the price of Ethereum up concurrently. Most of these investors are also people who have held onto Ethereum through its waves and have grown fundamentally averse to cashing out, meaning they're less likely to sell the NFTs they buy unless they're just trying to buy another more expensive NFT or have been made an offer too good to refuse. As a result, many high-value smaller-scale projects stay liquid on the low-end while fewer sales of the rarer items underpin the massive valuations of the projects and those occasional big buys keep pushing prices higher.
All of this babbling of mine is to say, what's happening here is strange. It's also an incredibly large amount of noise mostly coming from a few thousand buyers.
But when most investors talk about mainstream adoption and future use cases, they're looking at the creation of more larger-scale projects like Axie and Top Shot which embody many of the technical bells and whistles of crypto economics in more user-friendly packages that can reach the mainstream. NFTs as a concept for driving more complex virtual economies is, indeed, really fascinating, but I don't think there are as many takeaways to draw from billions of dollars flowing into digital art and these smaller-scale projects like CrypToadz as many crypto investors and venture capitalists are trying to convince themselves.
Only three NFT platforms out there had more than 10,000 active unique buyers in their community in the past 30 days, and while the successes of platforms like Axie Infinity are definitely worth dissecting, it also seems clear we're in the midst of a speculative frenzy and it's not a very easy time to draw sober conclusions about what all this madness means for the future of the web.
Coinbase is launching its own NFT platform to take on OpenSea
Ali Balikci / Anadolu Agency
Here are a few stories this week that I think you should take a closer look at:
Apple probably won't be supporting alternate App Store payments anytime soonApple did their best to convince the press and public that the court's decision in its legal fight with Epic Games was an outright win for Apple, but over the weekend they quietly announced that weeks later they're appealing the decision and asking the courts to put the ordered changes to allow alternative payments inside iOS apps on hold.
Apple put on a cool demeanor after this ruling, but it's apparent that there are billions on the line for Apple if this order stands. Therefore delaying its rollout means billions of dollars that aren't going to other payment providers or staying in developer coffers. Epic had already appealed the decision as well, hoping to try for a more favorable ruling, but it's clear that anyone hoping for a speedy resolution will be disappointed -- as is often the case in corporate law.
Nintendo reshapes its SaaS ambitionsNintendo has been and probably always will be a bit of an odd big company. They've been resistant to new trends in gaming and when they embrace them, they don't necessarily do a great job capitalizing on them, and yet their mountain of beloved IP allows them chance after chance to get things right. This week, they announced more details on their new annual membership called Nintendo Switch Online+ which, for $50 per year will give gamers a deeper array of content. That's a good deal more than the standard $20 per year for the regular Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but beyond expanded virtual console support for an unannounced array of N64 games, it's not clear what exactly the sell is for consumers.
Interestingly, they're launching the service with free access to a major update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's a play that only works when you're Nintendo and the penetration of your first-party titles is so incredibly high among device-owners (and especially likely subscribers). Nintendo has sold more than 3.4 million copies of the new Animal Crossing title globally.
Microsoft pulls LinkedIn from ChinaIt's been a particularly turbulent time for tech companies across China as government regulators crack down and the outlook clouds for big platforms there. This week, Microsoft announced that it's pulling LinkedIn out of China, detailing that LinkedIn was now “facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.” LinkedIn didn't have a huge presence in China so this won't make major waves, but as other American tech giants are forced to make major adjustments to their China strategy, this marks yet another datapoint in the cooling of relations between China and the West.
The LinkedIn's of the world don't hold much sway in China, the most curious bit of this is how this regulatory upswing eventually affects Apple which does hold plenty of influence. While officials probably aren't keen to jam them up, the past year has shown that China's regulators have plenty of surprises up their sleeves.
Image Credits:Manuta / Getty Images
Some of my favorite reads from our newly-renamedTechCrunch+subscription service this week:
Inside Plaid"...Visa and Plaid might have chosen to go their own ways in the end, but the year wasn’t a total loss for the data connectivity startup: Plaid claims its customer count grew 60% in 2020, and company execs say it has had similar growth so far this year...."
Founders should use predictive modeling to fundraise smarter"More capital is flooding into growth equity at earlier stages, and it’s happening faster than ever before. But even with the rampant enthusiasm for pouring bigger equity checks into startups, founders are now in a unique place in time where they can think differently about how to capitalize their companies...."
How one startup boosted productivity with 'get s*** done' day"...To improve our productivity, we introduced a Getting Shit Done Day (GSDD): Our employees define clear-cut goals and receive specific, usually non-trivial, tasks with little to no communication involved (we encourage our employees to avoid social media on this day, but we are not looking over their shoulder). The goal of GSDD is to increase the amount of time we spend in deep work by minimizing distractions for one day every other week..."
Thanks for reading, and again, if you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from thenewsletter page, and follow my tweets@lucasmtny
Lucas Matney || Does the NFT craze actually matter?: Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review ! Last week, we talked about Apple's subscription addiction. This week, I'm diving deep into whether there's actually any meaning to pull out of the NFT mania of 2021. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page , and follow my tweets @lucasmtny Image via OpenSea the big thing The NFT market is still defying reason, but then again that's kind of its thing. But one thing I'm especially unsure about lately as I see JPGs continue to sell for millions of dollars is... does any of this actually matter? I've spent a lot of time over the last year grappling with the NFT market, at times I've lost sleep over it. As a reporter frequently covering this market, I don't own or trade the little images myself, but that hasn't stopped me from obsessing over the fluctuations in their prices and scouring Discords trying to follow the trends. I've tuned into countless Twitter Spaces and lurked subreddits trying to understand it all. I've also done my best to keep most of that out of this newsletter -- it's a weird niche interest that's especially niche at the moment -- but as Bitcoin flirts with a new all-time-high and the NFT mania persists, just consider this a timely update. So, in the past month, investors have continued dropping billions upon billions of dollars on NFTs. OpenSea has seen more than $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 30 days, and that number is actually way down quite a bit from August, showcasing just how much off-peak money continues to flow into NFTs. All of that money has gone to some colorful places. One of the bigger success stories of the past month has been the platform CrypToadz which investors dumped $100 million into. They look like this . In the past couple weeks, a brand new project called MekaVerse saw $130 million in transaction volume. They're a bit prettier , but would you spend more than $8,000 on one? The platform Cryptoslam (where I pulled most of the data I reference here) is tracking 163 platforms which did more than $1 million in volume in the past 30 days, a number which doesn't even account for individual artists selling their work on platforms like OpenSea. Story continues NBA Top Shot creator on the NFT craze and why Ethereum still isn’t consumer friendly Now, there are two incredibly different segments of NFT communities out there, larger-scale NFT projects like Axie Infinity and NBA Top Shot with tens and hundreds of thousands of users and smaller-scale NFT projects like CryptoPunks and Art Blocks with just a few hundred or thousand owners. Larger-scale projects can represent more traditional gaming titles with more complex in-game economies while smaller-scale projects simply look more like fine art markets teamed with exclusive social clubs. Some smaller-scale projects have the ambition to eventually become larger-scale ones, but many have capped the number of NFTs in their projects and are designed to be exclusive. In the past 30 days, Axie Infinity did more than $500 million in sales spread across nearly 2 million transactions and over 350,000 buyers. On the flip side, CryptoPunks did $200 million in sales during that same time frame across 484 transactions and 309 buyers. Generally, when I'm talking about some of these big sales from smaller-scale projects with friends of mine, the first thing they mention is how this is probably all just money laundering. While I'd certainly imagine some of that is happening , that's ultimately a much more boring explanation than my best guess of what's really going on, which is that a group of several thousand investors have separately rationalized irrational investing. They just happen to have chosen to do so through buying pixel art and drawings of animals. While some investors might suggest that a handful of the earliest NFTs hold intrinsic value as historic objects, there are plenty of brand new NFT projects earning ten-million dollar valuations on day one with low amounts of effort and imagination. The Cult of CryptoPunks It's seemingly the result of momentum from awe-struck retail investors entering a market filled with massive amounts of wealth being generated and re-invested by Ethereum millionaires who can massively overpay for deals while pushing the implied value of the objects, the projects, the entire NFT market and the price of Ethereum up concurrently. Most of these investors are also people who have held onto Ethereum through its waves and have grown fundamentally averse to cashing out, meaning they're less likely to sell the NFTs they buy unless they're just trying to buy another more expensive NFT or have been made an offer too good to refuse. As a result, many high-value smaller-scale projects stay liquid on the low-end while fewer sales of the rarer items underpin the massive valuations of the projects and those occasional big buys keep pushing prices higher. All of this babbling of mine is to say, what's happening here is strange. It's also an incredibly large amount of noise mostly coming from a few thousand buyers. But when most investors talk about mainstream adoption and future use cases, they're looking at the creation of more larger-scale projects like Axie and Top Shot which embody many of the technical bells and whistles of crypto economics in more user-friendly packages that can reach the mainstream. NFTs as a concept for driving more complex virtual economies is, indeed, really fascinating, but I don't think there are as many takeaways to draw from billions of dollars flowing into digital art and these smaller-scale projects like CrypToadz as many crypto investors and venture capitalists are trying to convince themselves. Only three NFT platforms out there had more than 10,000 active unique buyers in their community in the past 30 days, and while the successes of platforms like Axie Infinity are definitely worth dissecting, it also seems clear we're in the midst of a speculative frenzy and it's not a very easy time to draw sober conclusions about what all this madness means for the future of the web. Coinbase is launching its own NFT platform to take on OpenSea Ali Balikci / Anadolu Agency other things Here are a few stories this week that I think you should take a closer look at: Apple probably won't be supporting alternate App Store payments anytime soon Apple did their best to convince the press and public that the court's decision in its legal fight with Epic Games was an outright win for Apple, but over the weekend they quietly announced that weeks later they're appealing the decision and asking the courts to put the ordered changes to allow alternative payments inside iOS apps on hold. Apple put on a cool demeanor after this ruling, but it's apparent that there are billions on the line for Apple if this order stands. Therefore delaying its rollout means billions of dollars that aren't going to other payment providers or staying in developer coffers. Epic had already appealed the decision as well, hoping to try for a more favorable ruling, but it's clear that anyone hoping for a speedy resolution will be disappointed -- as is often the case in corporate law. Nintendo reshapes its SaaS ambitions Nintendo has been and probably always will be a bit of an odd big company. They've been resistant to new trends in gaming and when they embrace them, they don't necessarily do a great job capitalizing on them, and yet their mountain of beloved IP allows them chance after chance to get things right. This week, they announced more details on their new annual membership called Nintendo Switch Online+ which, for $50 per year will give gamers a deeper array of content. That's a good deal more than the standard $20 per year for the regular Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but beyond expanded virtual console support for an unannounced array of N64 games, it's not clear what exactly the sell is for consumers. Interestingly, they're launching the service with free access to a major update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's a play that only works when you're Nintendo and the penetration of your first-party titles is so incredibly high among device-owners (and especially likely subscribers). Nintendo has sold more than 3.4 million copies of the new Animal Crossing title globally. Microsoft pulls LinkedIn from China It's been a particularly turbulent time for tech companies across China as government regulators crack down and the outlook clouds for big platforms there. This week, Microsoft announced that it's pulling LinkedIn out of China, detailing that LinkedIn was now “facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China.” LinkedIn didn't have a huge presence in China so this won't make major waves, but as other American tech giants are forced to make major adjustments to their China strategy, this marks yet another datapoint in the cooling of relations between China and the West. The LinkedIn's of the world don't hold much sway in China, the most curious bit of this is how this regulatory upswing eventually affects Apple which does hold plenty of influence. While officials probably aren't keen to jam them up, the past year has shown that China's regulators have plenty of surprises up their sleeves. Stack of woolen checked blankets Image Credits: Manuta / Getty Images added things Some of my favorite reads from our newly-renamed TechCrunch+ subscription service this week: Inside Plaid "...Visa and Plaid might have chosen to go their own ways in the end, but the year wasn’t a total loss for the data connectivity startup: Plaid claims its customer count grew 60% in 2020, and company execs say it has had similar growth so far this year...." Founders should use predictive modeling to fundraise smarter "More capital is flooding into growth equity at earlier stages, and it’s happening faster than ever before. But even with the rampant enthusiasm for pouring bigger equity checks into startups, founders are now in a unique place in time where they can think differently about how to capitalize their companies.... " How one startup boosted productivity with 'get s*** done' day "...To improve our productivity, we introduced a Getting Shit Done Day (GSDD): Our employees define clear-cut goals and receive specific, usually non-trivial, tasks with little to no communication involved (we encourage our employees to avoid social media on this day, but we are not looking over their shoulder). The goal of GSDD is to increase the amount of time we spend in deep work by minimizing distractions for one day every other week..." Thanks for reading, and again, if you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page , and follow my tweets @lucasmtny Lucas Matney || This Week in Apps: Apple appeals Epic Games suit, Google files a counterclaim and Twitter adds more ads: Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters Top Stories Google responds to the Epic Games antitrust suit, Apple appeals Image Credits: Epic Games As the Apple v. Epic Games lawsuit goes under appeal, Google this week filed an answer and counterclaim in the Epic Games’ antitrust litigation against the company. The tech giant and Android maker denies Epic’s allegations of antitrust behavior and instead says that it’s owed relief, as Epic Games breached the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement (DDA) by allowing Fortnite players who download the app through Google Play to use Epic’s own payment processing technology. This situation is similar to what took place on the App Store, where Epic Games updated its app to workaround App Store policies, and then facilitated payments through its own payments system, in violation of its legal contract with Apple. The court’s decision in Apple’s case was that Epic owed financial relief to Apple, to the tune of $6 million . Story continues Epic Games did much of the same thing on Google Play, the counterclaim alleges. Last year, Epic submitted a build of Fortnite to Google Play which used Epic’s own direct payments system and not Google Play Billing. This submission was immediately rejected for failing to comply with Google’s policies. Epic then submitted a compliant version in April 2020, which Google now describes as “an act of deception designed to provoke litigation.” The new version had concealed Epic’s payment system in an update that was sent to both Apple and Google’s app stores. This would allow Epic to switch over to its own payment system by applying a server-side configuration change, or “hotfix,” without Google’s knowledge. That switch was flipped on August 13, 2020. It allowed Fortnite users to choose between Google Play Billing and Epic’s own direct payments system. Now Google wants to recoup the money lost to this version, as those who downloaded the app from the Play Store could continue to use Epic's billing, even after the app was pulled down. Epic’s position has been that Apple and Google’s requirement to use their own in-app payment systems exclusively is a monopolistic practice that disadvantages developers. In Apple’s case, the court agreed that Apple should not block developers from sharing a link to other payment methods inside their own app or communicating to customers. It did not declare Apple a monopoly. Despite the largely favorable ruling, Apple decided to appeal its case this week, after Epic filed its own appeal . The key factor to Apple's appeal is that it's also asking the court to put a hold on it having to implement changes to the App Store's anti-steering guidelines. That means, instead of permitting developers to add links to their website and other methods of payments, things would continue as is until the appeals case was decided. That could be months or even years from now. In terms of the antitrust complaint, Google’s situation is a bit different from Apple's, however. Android already allows for sideloading apps — that means there’s another method of reaching Android users outside Google Play, making an antitrust claim more difficult. Twitter adds more ads (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) Twitter says it’s going to test a new ad format and placement on its platform. On Wednesday, Twitter Revenue Product Lead Bruce Falck said Twitter would begin showing ads on mobile devices inside conversation threads after the first, third and eighth replies. While the company stopped short of confirming the change would be permanent, it did say it would experiment with the formula to best determine the insertion points and layouts that made the most sense. Twitter also said it would consider making the display of the ads something creators would opt into, rather than forcing them to accept ads in their threads. In that case, creators would also see a share of ad revenue, Twitter said. The company historically has struggled to grow its user base by significant numbers, meaning it’s had to get more creative with maximizing the revenue it’s able to extract from its existing users. Despite a flurry of new product development -- which has included creator tools, subscriptions, audio chat rooms, tipping and more -- Twitter has not yet had a runaway hit. For example, third-party data indicated recently Twitter’s new creator platform called Super Follow had only generated around $6,000 in its first two weeks live in the U.S. and Canada, or perhaps a bit more ($12,400 during 17 days in September, according to a second firm’s analysis). Meanwhile, Twitter made a promise to investors that it will be able to double its revenue from $3.7 billion in 2020 to $7.5 billion or more in 2023. If the new products don't turn a sizable profit, increasing Twitter's ad load could help. Unfortunately, monetizing conversations like this could encourage users to post more content they hope to make viral. That could impact Twitter’s content and culture. Twitter is already a place that tends to reward a sort of performative type of user — like those posting snark, jokes, angry tweets and other emotive content; tying tweets’ “virality” to creator revenue could push Twitter even further away from the genuine, thoughtful conversations the company claims it wants to host. Weekly News Platforms: Apple Apple announced it's hosting yet another fall event, taking place on Monday, October 18 at 10 AM PT. It's expected this event will focus on new Macs and MacBook Pros, but there could be news for cross-platform app developers that will make it worth tuning in. Apple released the fourth developer betas for iOS 15.1 , iPadOS 15.1, tvOS 15.1 and watchOS 8.1 and the betas for public testers. iOS 15.1 lets you turn off Apple TV and Apple Watch keyboard notifications on iPhone. Compose for Wear OS enters Developer Preview after several alpha releases. Compose for Wear OS aims to simplify and accelerate UI development, with built-in support for Material You to help developers create apps with less code. Platforms: Google Image Credits: Google Google announced the final unit in its self-paced programming course, Android Basics in Kotlin, has been released, and the full course is now available. The course is organized into units, where each unit is made up of a series of pathways. At the end of each pathway, there is a quiz to assess what developers learned so far. If you complete the quiz, you earn a badge that can be saved to your Google Developer Profile. Google's iOS design chief, Jeff Verkoeyen, announced on Twitter that his team would begin to phase out the open source Material components libraries for iOS in favor of Apple's own UIKit. "It's now been almost ten years now since we set out on this journey, and many of the gaps MDC had filled have since been filled by UIKit — often in ways that result in much tighter integrations with the OS than what we can reasonably achieve via custom solutions," he said. An app teardown revealed Google may add a Digital Car Key feature in an upcoming Play Service update. At Google I/O, Google had announced it would add Digital Car Key support in Android 12. Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer, in a tweet , asked Apple, err "folks," to support RCS (an upgrade to SMS) on the iPhone. E-commerce/Food delivery DoorDash introduced a self-serve ad platform that allows marketers to reach customers on the app and grow their business. The company already allowed ads that offered things like free delivery or discounts, plus banner ads. But is the first time it's offered ads above the search results. Augmented Reality/VR HTC released its new Vive Flow VR headset , designed to simplify the VR experience for older adults or anyone else who wants an easier experience. The headset connects wirelessly to an Android smartphone and uses the phone as a combination remote and touchpad. Social Image Credits: Facebook Facebook launched an "Audio" hub in the U.S. for podcasts, live audio and short-form clips, called "Soundbites." The company is also making its Clubhouse rival, Live Audio Rooms, more broadly available to global users, and is now rolling out the new product Soundbites, a sort of TikTok for audio offering short audio clips. Twitter launched support for Ticketed Spaces on Android users in the U.S. The feature allows creators to charge entry fees for their voice chat rooms -- a rival to Clubhouse and others. The initial Ticketed Spaces rollout for iOS users was in late August. To use the feature, users must be over 18, have hosted three Spaces in the last 30 days and have at least 1,000 followers. After Facebook saw one of its longest outages in recent years, the company announced it would test a new Instagram feature that will notify users when an outage or other technical issue is taking place. The company said it wouldn't send a notification every time, but if it sees users are confused and looking for answers, it may. Reddit launched a new posting format called "Predictions" which allow users to guess the answers to timely questions like “who will win the game tomorrow?” or “how much will the price of Bitcoin move by Monday?,” among others. Participants get 1,000 tokens to get started, but can't earn any more during the tournament -- only by having their predictions prove correct in the end. TikTok, in a transparency report, says it removed 81,518,334 videos for violating its community guidelines or terms of service from April 1-June 30, 2020, which represents less than 1% of the total videos posted. This also means that during that quarter, 8.1 billion+ videos were posted on TikTok, averaging out to about 90 million videos posted each day. TikTok also added new mute options for livestream comments, which enable them to mute comments from individual viewers within streams for various time periods. Instagram added new scheduling and "practice mode" features to allow people to promote their Instagram Live in advance and be able to connect with guests to test equipment and prep before the Live begins. Snapchat's app experienced an outage that prevented users from posting messages for hours on Wednesday. The source of the outage wasn't detailed, but followed a significant Facebook outage which took down Facebook's suite of apps for a good part of a day. Messaging Image Credits: WhatsApp WhatsApp now allows users to encrypt their chat backups in the cloud , plugging a major hole that had allowed governments to snoop on private conversations between users. The system supports both Apple's iCloud and Google Drive for Android users. Mark Zuckerberg noted that WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups. Gaming Image Credits: Roblox Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki, at the company's annual developer conference, outlined plans to modernize player avatars, introduce new in-game monetization streams and streamline the experience for developers. Instead of Roblox's classic, block-like avatars, the new avatars will look more life-like (and more like metaverse rival Fortnite). Also new is support for layered clothing, "dynamic heads" (facial animations for avatars rolling out for developer access), expanded access to voice chat, limited edition items, and a new development system called Open Cloud. The latter supports creating content in third-party tools, then exporting it to Roblox. Google's Stadia game streaming service brings its "direct touch" controls to iOS. The feature, which launched on Android devices earlier this year, allows for mobile-like touchscreen presses that control the games, instead of hardware controllers. Dating Image Credits: Tinder Tinder released a new "Plus One" feature that helps users find a wedding date. The feature is accessible within Tinder’s Explore section, which launched last month and offers ways to discover matches by interests and more. The dating app is also partnering with WeddingWire, a wedding planning resource company, to help single guests cover the costs of wedding season through a new Wedding Grant giveaway. Utilities/Other Disney's newest digital service, Disney Genie, is launching on October 19 at Walt Disney World Resort. The service, first unveiled in August, is an update to the company’s earlier line-reservation tools for Disney’s parks, allowing guests to plan and update their itineraries, book time slots for the most popular attractions and optionally purchase paid access to the fast lanes’ “ Lightning Lane ” entrances, either à la carte on top attractions or through the “Genie+” add-on. At the core of the Disney Genie experience is a smart trip-planning capability that maps out a personalized itinerary based on which rides, attractions or food and entertainment experiences guests want to make sure to do while at the parks. This is rolling out to the My Disney Experience app, and will accommodate real-time scheduling changes -- like if you decide to take a detour on your route or head back to the hotel for a break, for instance. The feature could potentially put some third-party itinerary apps out of business, given Disney will have the advantage of leveraging its own park data and real-time updates, like ride closures and the like. Image Credits: Disney Google said it's changing the way search works on mobile devices in the U.S. across both the mobile web and its Google app for iOS and Android. Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won’t have to tap to go to the next page. Instead, the next set of results will automatically load so you can continuously scroll down to see more information. The rollout started on Thursday on English-language search results. Apple updated its Apple Support app, adding support for in-app access to the AppleCare+ Express Replacement service along with other improvements. The service allows users to request a replacement iPhone without first needing to ship in their damaged device. Alongside Tile's new product lineup of lost-item trackers, the company also introduced an updated Tile app that will include a new "Lost and Found" feature that allows anyone who finds a lost Tile to scan a QR code to get access to the owner's contact information to coordinate a return. A coming update will also allow non-Tile device owners to use the app to scan for nearby Tiles, if they fear being stalked. Government & Policy Apple removed from the Chinese App Store a popular ad-blocker app called 1Blocker, claiming the app is a VPN and the developer doesn't have the proper license. The developer, on Twitter, replied that the app does not have VPN servers and plans to appeal the decision. Microsoft is pulling LinkedIn from the Chinese market later this year, following an increase in the regulatory changes in the country and tension between Microsoft and China, specifically. Two weeks ago, Microsoft decided to block the profiles of certain U.S. journalists in China, for example. Security & Privacy Apple's iOS 15.0.2 update addressed a memory corruption vulnerability that was actively exploited in at least one case. The update also addresses a number of other glitches in iOS 15 (and iPadOS 15), including one problem that caused the iPhone Leather Wallet and with MagSafe not to connect to Find My, a bug that could cause AirTags not to appear in the Find My Items tab, and another that caused CarPlay to fail to open audio apps or to disconnect during playback. Google pulled ads for "stalkerware" apps that would encourage prospective users to spy on their spouses' phones. The apps were designed to be installed surreptitiously and without the device owner’s consent and have been used by abusers to spy on the phones of their spouses . Funding and M&A 💰 Nigerian neobank Sparkle closed on $3.1 million in seed funding to continue to scale the company, which now includes support for SMBs, in addition to consumers. 💰 Berlin-based health tech app Mayd raised €13 million ($15 million) in seed funding from 468 Capital, Earlybird and Target Global for its app that delivers medications to Europeans’ doors in as fast as 30 minutes. 💰 Digital lending startup Tala raised $145 million for its Android app used by more than 6 million customers across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico and India. Upstart, a company founded by ex-Googlers Dave Girouard, Anna Counselman and Paul Gu, led the round. 💰 Intro, an app that connects experts with those in need of advice through personalized video calls, raised a $10 million seed round, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors include Seven Seven Six, CAA founder Michael Ovitz, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, 23 & Me CEO Anne Wojcicki, Kevin Durant and Tiffany Haddish. 🤝 Mobile app monetization provider InMobi acquired London-based performance insights platform Appsumer. According to InMobi, Appsumer’s self-serve tech platform, intellectual property and team will support InMobi’s end-to-end content, monetization and marketing stack following the deal's closure. Financial terms weren't disclosed. 💰 Mental healthcare app ThoughtFull raised $1.1 million in seed funding in one of the largest seed rounds raised for a digital mental health startup in Southeast Asia. Investors include The Hive SEA, Boston-based Flybridge and Vulpes Investment Management, as well as family offices and angels in the Asia Pacific region. 💰 French startup Swile raised $200 million in Series D funding, led by SoftBank Group International. The round values the business at $1 billion or more. Swile allows users to add the meal vouchers provided by their company to its app alongside their personal bank card. This has allowed it to capture a 13% market share on meal vouchers in the country. 💰 Indian fintech app CRED is in talks to raise additional funds at a $5.5 billion valuation , just weeks after it was finalizing a round of over $200 million at a pre-money valuation of ~$3.75 billion from Tiger Global, Falcon Edge Capital and others. 🤝 Corporate travel booking and expenses app Lola was acquired by Capital One , in a deal that included both the team and tech. All of Lola's contracts were terminated, refunds issued and the app shut down. 💰 Mental health app MentalHappy launched its app for low-cost peer support groups, backed by $1.1 million in seed funding from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and YC. 💰 Mobile gaming startup Homa Games raised $50 million in Series A funding led by Northzone. The company specializes in hypercasual, casual, and board games, and has developed an all-in-one SDK that helps developers optimize their mobile games through analytics and A/B testing. Downloads Clash Image Credits: Clash When Trump’s ban on TikTok failed, the short-form video app Byte exited to rival Clash — an admission of sorts that TikTok’s momentum couldn’t be beaten if it was allowed to remain in the U.S. This week, Byte's new owner Clash relaunched its app with the “best of Byte” under the hood alongside a suite of creator tools for monetizing a fan base. And this time, the focus isn’t on beating TikTok, but working in parallel alongside it. The newly rebuilt Clash app introduces a set of tools for creators and their fans, including a virtual tipping mechanism called Drops (not to be confused with product drops, popular in e-commerce) and a paid messaging system called Fanmail. The idea is that Clash would be used with a creator's most loyal fans who would like to have more exclusive access, a closer connection or behind-the-scenes content, among other things. Creators can cash out when they've earned at least $25 in Drops. The app relaunched in Byte's place on the App Store and is arriving on Android soon. (Read the full review here .) Monument Valley 2 (update) Image Credits: ustwo games The popular, but now older, puzzle game Monument Valley 2 from ustwo games just added a new chapter four years after its launch. The special chapter is called "The Lost Forest," and is an eco-friendly update designed to promote forest conservation. Players will be encouraged to sign the Play4Forests petition for forest conservation. Said the company, the new addition is its "contribution to the Playing For The Planet Green Game Jam." Wisdom Image Credits: Wisdom U.K.-based social audio startup Wisdom launched its new app that's a cross between Clubhouse and MasterClass. The app offers a way for users to join audio conversations, where they can either listen or ask questions, both live and on-demand. The advice could be focused on any broad range of topics, including parenting, dating, career, finance, mental health, well-being, fitness, etc. A recommendation algorithm intends to match users to interests. At launch, 10,000 experts are signed up to offer their advice. || This Week in Apps: Apple appeals Epic Games suit, Google files a counterclaim and Twitter adds more ads: Welcome back to This Week in Apps,the weekly TechCrunch seriesthat recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry continues to grow, witha record218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year alsospent3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average Americanwatches3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had acombined$544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investorspoured$73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.
Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here:techcrunch.com/newsletters
Image Credits:Epic Games
As the Apple v. Epic Gameslawsuitgoes under appeal,Google this week filed an answer and counterclaim in the Epic Games’ antitrust litigation against the company. The tech giant and Android maker denies Epic’s allegations of antitrust behavior and instead says that it’s owed relief, as Epic Games breached the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement (DDA) by allowing Fortnite players who download the app through Google Play to use Epic’s own payment processing technology.
This situation is similar to what took place on the App Store, where Epic Games updated its app to workaround App Store policies, and then facilitated payments through its own payments system, in violation of its legal contract with Apple. The court’s decision in Apple’s case was that Epic owed financial relief to Apple, to the tuneof $6 million.
Epic Games did much of the same thing on Google Play, the counterclaim alleges. Last year, Epic submitted a build of Fortnite to Google Play which used Epic’s own direct payments system and not Google Play Billing. This submission was immediately rejected for failing to comply with Google’s policies. Epic then submitted a compliant version in April 2020, which Google now describes as “an act of deception designed to provoke litigation.” The new version had concealed Epic’s payment system in an update that was sent to both Apple and Google’s app stores. This would allow Epic to switch over to its own payment system by applying a server-side configuration change, or “hotfix,” without Google’s knowledge.
That switch was flipped on August 13, 2020. It allowed Fortnite users to choose between Google Play Billing and Epic’s own direct payments system. Now Google wants to recoup the money lost to this version, as those who downloaded the app from the Play Store could continue to use Epic's billing, even after the app was pulled down.
Epic’s position has been that Apple and Google’s requirement to use their own in-app payment systems exclusively is a monopolistic practice that disadvantages developers. In Apple’s case,the court agreedthat Apple should not block developers from sharing a link to other payment methods inside their own app or communicating to customers. It did not declare Apple a monopoly. Despite the largely favorable ruling,Apple decided to appeal its case this week,afterEpic filed its own appeal.
The key factor to Apple's appeal is that it's also asking the court to put a hold on it having to implement changes to the App Store's anti-steering guidelines. That means, instead of permitting developers to add links to their website and other methods of payments, things would continue as is until the appeals case was decided. That could be months or even years from now.
In terms of the antitrust complaint, Google’s situation is a bit different from Apple's, however. Android already allows for sideloading apps — that means there’s another method of reaching Android users outside Google Play, making an antitrust claim more difficult.
(Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Twitter says it’s going to test a new ad format and placement on its platform. On Wednesday, Twitter Revenue Product LeadBruce Falcksaid Twitter wouldbegin showing ads on mobile devicesinside conversation threads after the first, third and eighth replies. While the company stopped short of confirming the change would be permanent, it did say it would experiment with the formula to best determine the insertion points and layouts that made the most sense. Twitter also said it would consider making the display of the ads something creators would opt into, rather than forcing them to accept ads in their threads. In that case, creators would also see a share of ad revenue, Twitter said.
The company historicallyhas struggledtogrowits user base by significant numbers, meaning it’s had to get more creative with maximizing the revenue it’s able to extract from its existing users. Despite a flurry of new product development -- which has included creator tools, subscriptions, audio chat rooms, tipping and more -- Twitter has not yet had a runaway hit. For example, third-party data indicated recently Twitter’s new creator platform called Super Follow had onlygeneratedaround $6,000 in its first two weeks live in the U.S. and Canada, or perhaps a bit more ($12,400 during 17 days in September,accordingto a second firm’s analysis).
Meanwhile, Twitter made apromise to investorsthat it will be able to double its revenue from $3.7 billion in 2020 to $7.5 billion or more in 2023. If the new products don't turn a sizable profit, increasing Twitter's ad load could help. Unfortunately, monetizing conversations like this could encourage users to post more content they hope to make viral. That could impact Twitter’s content and culture. Twitter is already a place that tends to reward a sort of performative type of user — like those posting snark, jokes, angry tweets and other emotive content; tying tweets’ “virality” to creator revenue could push Twitter even further away from the genuine, thoughtful conversations the company claims it wants to host.
• Apple announced it's hosting yet anotherfall event,taking place on Monday, October 18 at 10 AM PT.It'sexpectedthis event will focus on new Macs and MacBook Pros, but there could be news for cross-platform app developers that will make it worth tuning in.
• Applereleasedthe fourth developer betas for iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, tvOS 15.1 and watchOS 8.1 and the betas for public testers. iOS 15.1lets you turn offApple TV and Apple Watch keyboard notifications on iPhone.
• Compose for Wear OSentersDeveloper Preview after several alpha releases.Compose for Wear OS aims to simplify and accelerate UI development, with built-in support for Material You to help developers create apps with less code.
Image Credits:Google
• Googleannouncedthe final unit in its self-paced programming course, Android Basics in Kotlin, has been released, and the full course is now available.The course is organized into units, where each unit is made up of a series of pathways. At the end of each pathway, there is a quiz to assess what developers learned so far. If you complete the quiz, you earn a badge that can be saved to your Google Developer Profile.
• Google's iOS design chief, Jeff Verkoeyen,announcedon Twitter that his team would begin to phase out the open source Material components libraries for iOS in favor of Apple's own UIKit."It's now been almost ten years now since we set out on this journey, and many of the gaps MDC had filled have since been filled by UIKit — often in ways that result in much tighter integrations with the OS than what we can reasonably achieve via custom solutions," he said.
• An app teardownrevealedGoogle may add a Digital Car Key feature in an upcoming Play Service update.At Google I/O, Google had announced it would add Digital Car Key support in Android 12.
• Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer, in atweet, asked Apple, err "folks," to support RCS(an upgrade to SMS) on the iPhone.
• DoorDashintroduceda self-serve ad platformthat allows marketers to reach customers on the app and grow their business. The company already allowed ads that offered things like free delivery or discounts, plus banner ads. But is the first time it's offered ads above the search results.
• HTC releasedits new Vive Flow VR headset, designed to simplify the VR experience for older adults or anyone else who wants an easier experience.The headset connects wirelessly to an Android smartphone and uses the phone as a combination remote and touchpad.
Image Credits:Facebook
• Facebooklaunchedan "Audio" hub in the U.S. for podcasts, live audio and short-form clips, called "Soundbites."The company is also making its Clubhouse rival, Live Audio Rooms, more broadly available to global users, and is now rolling out the new product Soundbites, a sort of TikTok for audio offering short audio clips.
• Twitterlaunched support for Ticketed Spaceson Android users in the U.S.The feature allows creators to charge entry fees for their voice chat rooms -- a rival to Clubhouse and others. The initial Ticketed Spaces rollout for iOS users was in late August. To use the feature, users must be over 18, have hosted three Spaces in the last 30 days and have at least 1,000 followers.
• After Facebook saw one of its longest outages in recent years, the companyannouncedit would test a new Instagram feature that will notify users when an outage or other technical issue is taking place.The company said it wouldn't send a notification every time, but if it sees users are confused and looking for answers, it may.
• Redditlauncheda new posting format called "Predictions" which allow users to guess the answers to timely questionslike “who will win the game tomorrow?” or “how much will the price of Bitcoin move by Monday?,” among others. Participants get 1,000 tokens to get started, but can't earn any more during the tournament -- only by having their predictions prove correct in the end.
• TikTok, in a transparency report,saysit removed 81,518,334 videos for violating its community guidelinesor terms of service from April 1-June 30, 2020, which represents less than 1% of the total videos posted. This also means that during that quarter, 8.1 billion+ videos were posted on TikTok, averaging out to about 90 million videos posted each day.
• TikTok alsoaddednew mute options for livestream comments,which enable them to mute comments from individual viewers within streams for various time periods.
• Instagramaddednew scheduling and "practice mode" features to allow people to promote their Instagram Live in advanceand be able to connect with guests to test equipment and prep before the Live begins.
• Snapchat's appexperiencedan outage that prevented users from posting messages for hours on Wednesday.The source of the outage wasn't detailed, but followed a significant Facebook outage which took down Facebook's suite of apps for a good part of a day.
Image Credits:WhatsApp
• WhatsApp now allows users toencrypt their chat backups in the cloud, plugging a major hole that had allowed governments to snoop on private conversations between users.The system supports both Apple's iCloud and Google Drive for Android users. Mark Zuckerberg noted that WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups.
Image Credits:Roblox
• Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki, at the company's annual developer conference,outlined plansto modernize player avatars, introduce new in-game monetization streams and streamline the experience for developers.Instead of Roblox's classic, block-like avatars, the new avatars will look more life-like (and more like metaverse rival Fortnite). Also new is support for layered clothing, "dynamic heads" (facial animations for avatars rolling out for developer access), expanded access to voice chat, limited edition items, and a new development system called Open Cloud. The latter supports creating content in third-party tools, then exporting it to Roblox.
• Google's Stadia game streaming servicebringsits "direct touch" controls to iOS.The feature, which launched on Android devices earlier this year, allows for mobile-like touchscreen presses that control the games, instead of hardware controllers.
Image Credits:Tinder
• Tinderreleased a new "Plus One" featurethat helps users find a wedding date.The feature is accessible within Tinder’s Explore section, which launched last month and offers ways to discover matches by interests and more. The dating app is also partnering with WeddingWire, a wedding planning resource company, to help single guests cover the costs of wedding season through a new Wedding Grant giveaway.
• Disney's newest digital service, Disney Genie, islaunching on October 19at Walt Disney World Resort.The service, firstunveiledin August, is an update to the company’s earlier line-reservation tools for Disney’s parks, allowing guests to plan and update their itineraries, book time slots for the most popular attractions and optionally purchase paid access to the fast lanes’ “Lightning Lane” entrances, either à la carte on top attractions or through the “Genie+” add-on. At the core of the Disney Genie experience is a smart trip-planning capability that maps out a personalized itinerary based on which rides, attractions or food and entertainment experiences guests want to make sure to do while at the parks. This is rolling out to the My Disney Experience app, and will accommodate real-time scheduling changes -- like if you decide to take a detour on your route or head back to the hotel for a break, for instance. The feature could potentially put some third-party itinerary apps out of business, given Disney will have the advantage of leveraging its own park data and real-time updates, like ride closures and the like.
Image Credits:Disney
• Google said it'schanging the way search works on mobiledevices in the U.S. across both the mobile web and its Google app for iOS and Android.Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won’t have to tap to go to the next page. Instead, the next set of results will automatically load so you can continuously scroll down to see more information. The rollout started on Thursday on English-language search results.
• Apple updated its Apple Support app, adding support for in-app access to the AppleCare+ Express Replacement service along with other improvements.The service allows users to request a replacement iPhone without first needing to ship in their damaged device.
• Alongside Tile's new product lineup of lost-item trackers, the companyalso introduced an updated Tileapp thatwill include a new "Lost and Found" feature that allows anyone who finds a lost Tile to scan a QR code to get access to the owner's contact information to coordinate a return. A coming update will also allow non-Tile device owners to use the app to scan for nearby Tiles, if they fear being stalked.
• Appleremovedfrom the Chinese App Store a popular ad-blocker app called 1Blocker, claiming the app is a VPN and the developer doesn't have the proper license.The developer, on Twitter,repliedthat the app does not have VPN servers and plans to appeal the decision.
• Microsoft ispulling LinkedInfrom the Chinese market later this year,following an increase in the regulatory changes in the country and tension between Microsoft and China, specifically. Two weeks ago, Microsoft decided toblock the profilesof certain U.S. journalists in China, for example.
• Apple's iOS 15.0.2 updateaddresseda memory corruption vulnerability that was actively exploited in at least one case.The update also addresses a number of other glitches in iOS 15 (and iPadOS 15), including one problem that caused the iPhone Leather Wallet and with MagSafe not to connect to Find My, a bug that could cause AirTags not to appear in the Find My Items tab, and another that caused CarPlay to fail to open audio apps or to disconnect during playback.
• Google pulled ads for "stalkerware" apps that would encourage prospective users to spy on their spouses' phones.The apps were designed to be installed surreptitiously and without the device owner’s consent and have been used by abusers tospy on the phones of their spouses.
💰 Nigerian neobank Sparkle closed on$3.1 millionin seed fundingto continue to scale the company, which now includes support for SMBs, in addition to consumers.
💰 Berlin-based health tech app Mayd raised€13 million ($15 million)in seed fundingfrom 468 Capital, Earlybird and Target Global for its app that delivers medications to Europeans’ doors in as fast as 30 minutes.
💰 Digital lending startup Talaraised $145 millionfor its Android app used by more than 6 million customers across Kenya,the Philippines, Mexico and India. Upstart, a company founded by ex-Googlers Dave Girouard, Anna Counselman and Paul Gu, led the round.
💰 Intro, an app that connects experts with those in need of advice through personalized video calls, raised a$10 millionseed round, led by Andreessen Horowitz.Other investors include Seven Seven Six, CAA founder Michael Ovitz, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, 23 & Me CEO Anne Wojcicki, Kevin Durant and Tiffany Haddish.
🤝 Mobile app monetization provider InMobi acquired London-based performance insights platform Appsumer.According to InMobi, Appsumer’s self-serve tech platform, intellectual property and team will support InMobi’s end-to-end content, monetization and marketing stack following the deal's closure. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
💰 Mental healthcare app ThoughtFullraised $1.1 millionin seed funding in one of the largest seed rounds raised for a digital mental health startup in Southeast Asia.Investors include The Hive SEA, Boston-based Flybridge and Vulpes Investment Management, as well as family offices and angels in the Asia Pacific region.
💰 French startup Swileraised $200 millionin Series D funding, led by SoftBank Group International.The round values the business at $1 billion or more. Swile allows users to add the meal vouchers provided by their company to its app alongside their personal bank card. This has allowed it to capture a 13% market share on meal vouchers in the country.
💰 Indian fintech app CRED is in talks to raiseadditional funds at a $5.5 billion valuation, just weeks after it was finalizing a round of over $200 million at a pre-money valuation of ~$3.75 billion from Tiger Global, Falcon Edge Capital and others.
🤝 Corporate travel booking and expenses app Lola wasacquired byCapital One, in a deal that included both the team and tech. All of Lola's contracts were terminated, refunds issued and the app shut down.
💰 Mental health app MentalHappy launched its app for low-cost peer support groups, backedby $1.1 million in seed fundingfrom Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and YC.
💰 Mobile gaming startup Homa Gamesraised $50 millionin Series A fundingled by Northzone. The company specializes in hypercasual, casual, and board games, and has developed an all-in-one SDK that helps developers optimize their mobile games through analytics and A/B testing.
Image Credits:Clash
When Trump’s ban on TikTok failed, the short-form video app Byte exited to rivalClash— an admission of sorts that TikTok’s momentum couldn’t be beaten if it was allowed to remain in the U.S. This week, Byte's new owner Clash relaunched its app with the “best of Byte” under the hood alongside a suite of creator tools for monetizing a fan base. And this time, the focus isn’t on beating TikTok, but working in parallel alongside it. The newly rebuilt Clash app introduces a set of tools for creators and their fans, including a virtual tipping mechanism called Drops (not to be confused with product drops, popular in e-commerce) and a paid messaging system called Fanmail. The idea is that Clash would be used with a creator's most loyal fans who would like to have more exclusive access, a closer connection or behind-the-scenes content, among other things. Creators can cash out when they've earned at least $25 in Drops. The app relaunched in Byte's place on the App Store and is arriving on Android soon. (Readthe full review here.)
Image Credits:ustwo games
The popular, but now older, puzzle game Monument Valley 2 from ustwo gamesjust addeda new chapter four years after its launch. The special chapter is called "The Lost Forest," and is an eco-friendly update designed to promote forest conservation. Players will be encouraged to sign thePlay4Forestspetition for forest conservation. Said the company, the new addition is its "contribution to the Playing For The Planet Green Game Jam."
Image Credits:Wisdom
U.K.-based social audio startupWisdomlaunched its new app that's a cross between Clubhouse and MasterClass. The app offers a way for users to join audio conversations, where they can either listen or ask questions, both live and on-demand. The advice could be focused on any broad range of topics, including parenting, dating, career, finance, mental health, well-being, fitness, etc. A recommendation algorithm intends to matchusers to interests. At launch, 10,000 experts are signed up to offer their advice. || Crypto CEO: A viable central bank digital currency would have to be 'the law': The year after Satoshi Nakamoto put out a white paper on a concept for a new peer-to-peer currency called bitcoin ( BTC-USD ), Jonathan Dharmapalan realized that digital currencies are the future. The entrepreneur, a trained electrical engineer, spotted companies involved in electronic money flourishing all over, as people learned to transact electronically using apps and mobile phones. It occurred to him that governments around the world would eventually want to get in the game and create their own digital currencies. Dharmapalan is chief executive of eCurrency a firm at the forefront of creating technology to execute a central bank digital currency (CBDB) , part of cryptocurrency's next frontier. His company has been advising the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve for nearly a decade on how to create a CBDC. With investors ranging from Ray Dalio to Vikrim Pandit, Dharmapalan advises central banks around the world like the Banks of England and Jamaica, the latter having just launched its own central bank digital currency. As the Federal Reserve weighs whether to launch a CBDC with a forthcoming paper on the pros and cons of a digital dollar, Dharmapalan says designing a central bank digital currency depends on the existing legal framework. Our perspective is that currency is the law, Dharmapalan said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. Every nation or monetary union has a foundational law that defines what their currency is. So if youre thinking about a digital form of currency then the law must accommodate its existence, the executive added. Under his interpretation, if the U.S. were to pursue a digital dollar, then Congress would have to authorize the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to issue and distribute it first. 'Cook up a different set of rules' Photo taken on July 15, 2021 shows the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., the United States. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Thursday that he was "legitimately undecided" on the benefits and costs of issuing a U.S. central bank digital currency CBDC. (Photo by Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images) (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images) According to Dharmapalan, Treasury and the Fed have said a central bank digital currency would probably work in the same way paper money is created and issued, the thinking goes though theres no consensus within the U.S. government yet about how to go about doing it. Story continues Dharmapalan thinks the odds are the current law will be extended to apply to a digital form of the dollar and that the existing infrastructure should be used. Could we cook up a different set of rules for digital currency? Maybe, he suggested. But the odds are well rely on how currency has been defined in the past, he added. Under the current currency system, the Treasury prints the money and hands it over to the Fed, which circulates the currency in the economy, leaning on banks from Bank of America to local banks to get cash into the hands of people. Likewise, with a digital dollar using the current system, Treasury would need to securely mint it, then hand it off to the Fed to circulate, mostly likely through commercial banks and other financial players. It would then float to people through digital ATMs or cards or smartphones. If we want it to be ubiquitous, digital currency must be available through ATMs, cards, smartphones and anything new we can think of. Creating access to anyone is key. Jonathan Dharmapalan, CEO of eCurrency A CBDC likely wouldnt use blockchain or even a ledger: Dharmapalan says it would function like a physical dollar, which has no ledger. The Treasury would create a secured digital instrument thats so cryptographically secured that it could float around digitally, where the value is contained in itself. Dharmapalan says the best way to think of it is as a photograph that cant be counterfeited or changed. If Im holding a photo and I send it to you, once its sent then I dont hold the photo anymore, he says. Maintaining Americans privacy with a CBDC is key. The currency is secured through something called a cryptogram, thats secured with multiple layers of cryptography i.e. lots of public and private keys that enable high levels of security. While not impossible to duplicate, it would be very difficult, similar to paper bills. Physical currency has signatures from the Treasury Secretary and the Comptroller of the Currency, various colored threads, a reflective portion and a digital watermark make it difficult to counterfeit. If we want it to be ubiquitous, digital currency must be available through ATMs, cards, smartphones and anything new we can think of. Creating access to anyone is key, he explained. One way, Dharmapalan suggested, is creating accessibility via inexpensive smart cards that arent any more sophisticated than a transit card so that everyone from school children to someone without a bank account can use them. The card could have a magnetic strip or smart chip and the person could just stick it into a machine to put money on it. Another option is putting Bluetooth on the cards so that people can bump cards, and send money directly to each other between cards. It also has to perform the same thing in all hands and have the ubiquity and the fungibility to settle debts between two parties instantaneously, by executing that value and moving it in the blink of an eye. A $5 bill in my hand needs to buy the same thing that your $5 would buy, he says. He added, If you give me bananas and theyre $3.85, I should be able to give you $3.85 and then be able to walk away it must exchange on a person to person basis. Right now, the only thing that works that way is paper bills and coins. Unlike private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, a U.S. central bank digital currency would be issued by and backed by the Fed, just as U.S. paper dollar bills and coins. Dharmapalan explained that Jamaica is a good model for the U.S. to follow. The government is in the process of creating new laws to authorize its central bank to issue a digital currency. The Bank of Jamaica minted its first batch of digital currency in August, which it is testing. Next, it will issue that batch to commercial banks, which will test with consumers before establishing new criteria by December. Officials are looking to the first quarter of 2022 for the national roll out. Initially, Jamaicas virtual currency will be offered through an app on the phone, and citizens will access through a digital wallet. So how long it could take the U.S. to adopt a CBDC? Dharmapalan stated the technology is ready now, its just a matter of Congress and government agencies coalescing around a concept. Yet Fed officials are divided on whether to adopt a central bank digital currency. Advocates, including Fed Governor Lael Brainard, say a CBDC will help get relief payments to Americans and states hit with natural disasters faster, while also helping the unbanked. The Fed plans to launch the review by releasing a paper analyzing the issue and seeking public comment, but it is unlikely to include a firm policy recommendation. READ MORE: Read the latest cryptocurrency and bitcoin news from Yahoo Finance For more information about cryptocurrency, check out: Dogecoin, what is it? How to buy it Ethereum: What is it and how do you invest in it? The top 21 crypto leaders to watch in the back half of 2021 Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit || Crypto CEO: A viable central bank digital currency would have to be 'the law': The year after Satoshi Nakamoto put out a white paper on a concept for a new peer-to-peer currency called bitcoin (BTC-USD), Jonathan Dharmapalan realized that digital currencies are the future.
The entrepreneur, a trained electrical engineer, spotted companies involved in electronic money flourishing all over, as people learned to transact electronically using apps and mobile phones. It occurred to him that governments around the world would eventually want to get in the game and create their own digital currencies.
Dharmapalan is chief executive of eCurrency – a firm at the forefront of creating technology to execute acentral bank digital currency (CBDB), part of cryptocurrency's next frontier. His company has been advising the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve for nearly a decade on how to create a CBDC.
With investors ranging from Ray Dalio to Vikrim Pandit, Dharmapalan advises central banks around the world like the Banks of England and Jamaica, the latter having just launched its own central bank digital currency.
As the Federal Reserve weighs whether to launch a CBDC with a forthcoming paper on the pros and cons of a digital dollar, Dharmapalan says designing a central bank digital currency depends on the existing legal framework.
“Our perspective is that currency is the law,” Dharmapalan said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
“Every nation or monetary union has a foundational law that defines what their currency is. So if you’re thinking about a digital form of currency then the law must accommodate its existence,” the executive added.
Under his interpretation, if the U.S. were to pursue a digital dollar, then Congress would have to authorize the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to issue and distribute it first.
According to Dharmapalan, Treasury and the Fed have said a central bank digital currency would probably work in the same way paper money is created and issued, the thinking goes — though there’s no consensus within the U.S. government yet about how to go about doing it.
Dharmapalan thinks the odds are the current law will be extended to apply to a digital form of the dollar and that the existing infrastructure should be used.
“Could we cook up a different set of rules for digital currency? Maybe,” he suggested. “But the odds are we’ll rely on how currency has been defined in the past,” he added.
Under the current currency system, the Treasury prints the money and hands it over to the Fed, which circulates the currency in the economy, leaning on banks – from Bank of America to local banks – to get cash into the hands of people.
Likewise, with a digital dollar using the current system, Treasury would need to securely mint it, then hand it off to the Fed to circulate, mostly likely through commercial banks and other financial players. It would then float to people through digital ATMs or cards or smartphones.
If we want it to be ubiquitous, digital currency must be available through ATMs, cards, smartphones and anything new we can think of. Creating access to anyone is key.Jonathan Dharmapalan, CEO of eCurrency
A CBDC likely wouldn’t use blockchain or even a ledger: Dharmapalan says it would function like a physical dollar, which has no ledger. The Treasury would create a secured digital instrument that’s so cryptographically secured that it could float around digitally, where the value is contained in itself.
Dharmapalan says the best way to think of it is as a photograph that can’t be counterfeited or changed. “If I’m holding a photo and I send it to you, once it’s sent then I don’t hold the photo anymore,” he says.
Maintaining Americans’ privacy with a CBDC is key. The currency is secured through something called a cryptogram, that’s secured with multiple layers of cryptography — i.e. lots of public and private keys that enable high levels of security.
While not impossible to duplicate, it would be very difficult, similar to paper bills. Physical currency has signatures from the Treasury Secretary and the Comptroller of the Currency, various colored threads, a reflective portion and a digital watermark make it difficult to counterfeit.
“If we want it to be ubiquitous, digital currency must be available through ATMs, cards, smartphones and anything new we can think of. Creating access to anyone is key,” he explained.
One way, Dharmapalan suggested, is creating accessibility via inexpensive smart cards that aren’t any more sophisticated than a transit card — so that everyone from school children to someone without a bank account can use them.
The card could have a magnetic strip or smart chip and the person could just stick it into a machine to put money on it. Another option is putting Bluetooth on the cards so that people can bump cards, and send money directly to each other between cards.
It also has to perform the same thing in all hands and have the ubiquity and the fungibility to settle debts between two parties instantaneously, by executing that value and moving it in the blink of an eye.
“A $5 bill in my hand needs to buy the same thing that your $5 would buy,” he says. He added, “If you give me bananas and they’re $3.85, I should be able to give you $3.85 and then be able to walk away – it must exchange on a person to person basis. Right now, the only thing that works that way is paper bills and coins.”
Unlike private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, a U.S. central bank digital currency would be issued by and backed by the Fed, just as U.S. paper dollar bills and coins.
Dharmapalan explained that Jamaica is a good model for the U.S. to follow. The government is in the process of creating new laws to authorize its central bank to issue a digital currency.
The Bank of Jamaica minted its first batch of digital currency in August, which it is testing. Next, it will issue that batch to commercial banks, which will test with consumers before establishing new criteria by December. Officials are looking to the first quarter of 2022 for the national roll out.
Initially, Jamaica’s virtual currency will be offered through an app on the phone, and citizens will access through a digital wallet.
So how long it could take the U.S. to adopt a CBDC?
Dharmapalan stated the technology is ready now, it’s just a matter of Congress and government agencies coalescing around a concept. Yet Fed officials are divided on whether to adopt a central bank digital currency.
Advocates, including Fed Governor Lael Brainard, say a CBDC will help get relief payments to Americans and states hit with natural disasters faster, while also helping the unbanked. The Fed plans to launch the review by releasing a paper analyzing the issue and seeking public comment, but it is unlikely to include a firm policy recommendation.
READ MORE:
• Read the latest cryptocurrency and bitcoin news from Yahoo Finance
For more information about cryptocurrency, check out:
Dogecoin, what is it? How to buy it
Ethereum: What is it and how do you invest in it?
The top 21 crypto leaders to watch in the back half of 2021
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit || Bitcoin-mining power plant raises ire of environmentalists: An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists. It uses its own power plant. Greenidge Generation runs a once-mothballed plant near the shore of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region to produce about 44 megawatts to run 15,300 computer servers, plus additional electricity it sends into the state's power grid. The megawatts dedicated to Bitcoin might be enough electricity to power more than 35,000 homes. Proponents call it a competitive way to mine increasingly popular cryptocurrencies, without putting a drain on the existing power grid. Environmentalists see the plant as a climate threat. They fear a wave of resurrected fossil-fuel plants pumping out greenhouse gasses more for private profit than public good. Seeing Greenidge as a test case, they are asking the state to deny renewal of the plant's air quality permit and put the brakes on similar projects. The current state of our climate demands action on cryptocurrency mining, said Liz Moran of Earthjustice. We are jeopardizing the states abilities to meet our climate goals, and we set the stage for the rest of the country as a result. The former coal plant, in a touristy region known for its glacial lakes and riesling wines, was converted to natural gas by Greenidge and began producing electricity in 2017. Bitcoin mining at the plant, which has a 106-megawatt capacity, started in earnest last year. The company said it was bringing a piece of the worlds digital future to upstate New York. For decades, this region has been told it would see new industries and opportunities, Greenidge said in a prepared statement. We are actually making it happen, and doing it fully within the states nation-leading high environmental standards. Bitcoin miners unlock bitcoins by solving complex, unique puzzles. As the value of Bitcoin goes up, the puzzles become increasingly more difficult, and it requires more computer power to solve them. Estimates on how much energy Bitcoin uses vary. Story continues Greenidge said it mined 729 bitcoins over three months ending Sept. 30. The value of cryptocurrency fluctuates, and on Friday, one bitcoin was worth over $59,000. Opponents are frustrated that Greenidge applied to run a power plant but are now operating a mine that is taking up more of the plants power. Greenidge says mining was not part of the plan when the plant came back online and note they continue to provide power to the grid. From January through June, Greenidge said it used 58% of its power for mining. Supporters see it as an economic boon in a part of upstate New York that could use the help. Douglas Paddock, chairman of the Yates County Legislature, testified at a public hearing this week that the plant has brought 45 high-paying jobs and made a significant contribution to the area through tax payments and capital investments. Some opposition to the plant centers on the potential effects of its water withdrawals from Seneca Lake. But air quality issues have taken center stage as the state Department of Environmental Conservation reviews the plants air emission permits. Greenidge has said it's in compliance with its permits and that the plant is 100% carbon neutral, thanks to the purchase of carbon offsets, such as forestry programs and projects that capture methane from landfills. Opponents claim the plant undercuts the states efforts to dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades under its 2019 climate law. A large coalition of environmental groups and other organizations this week asked Gov. Kathy Hochul to deny the air permit for Greenidge and to take a similar action to keep an existing plant near Buffalo from becoming a mining site. The coalition wants Hochul to set a national precedent and enact a statewide moratorium on the energy intensive proof-of-work cryptocurrency used by bitcoin miners. Environmentalists estimate that there are 30 plants in New York that could be converted into mining operations. I really think more than anything, this plant is a significant test for whether the states climate law is really worth anything, said Judith Enck, who served as the EPAs regional northeastern U.S. administrator under President Barack Obama. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have separately asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to exercise oversight. Around the country, there are other power plants being used for cryptocurrency mining under different types of arrangements. In Venango County, Pennsylvania, a generation plant that converts coal waste into power is being used to mine bitcoins and can provide electricity to the grid when needed. Stronghold Digital Mining has plans to replicate that kind operation at two other sites in Pennsylvania. And in Montana, a coal-fired generating station is now providing 100% of its energy to Marathon Digital Holdings for bitcoin mining under a power purchase agreement. We had previously done what many miners do, which is you find an industrial building, set it up for mining and then you contract for power from the grid, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said. And we wanted to flip that model upside down because we knew that there are lots of underutilized energy generation sources in the U.S. Thiel said that harmful emissions are low because of the quality of the coal and pollution controls, and that the plant would be carbon offset by the end of next year. He said his company is focused on moving toward renewable energy, saying cryptocurrency miners can provide crucial financial incentives to build more clean energy projects. New York state has yet to make a determination on Greenidge's permits. Greenidge said that even if the plant ran at full capacity, its potential emissions equate to 0.23% of the states greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2030. However, state Environmental Commissioner Basil Seggos tweeted last month that Greenidge has not shown compliance with NYs climate law based on goals in that law. New York state is leading on climate change, Seggos said in a prepared statement, and we have some major concerns about the role cryptocurrency mining may play in generating additional greenhouse gas emissions. || Bitcoin-mining power plant raises ire of environmentalists: An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists. It uses its own power plant. Greenidge Generation runs a once-mothballed plant near the shore of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region to produce about 44 megawatts to run 15,300 computer servers, plus additional electricity it sends into the state's power grid. The megawatts dedicated to Bitcoin might be enough electricity to power more than 35,000 homes. Proponents call it a competitive way to mine increasingly popular cryptocurrencies, without putting a drain on the existing power grid. Environmentalists see the plant as a climate threat. They fear a wave of resurrected fossil-fuel plants pumping out greenhouse gasses more for private profit than public good. Seeing Greenidge as a test case, they are asking the state to deny renewal of the plant's air quality permit and put the brakes on similar projects. The current state of our climate demands action on cryptocurrency mining, said Liz Moran of Earthjustice. We are jeopardizing the states abilities to meet our climate goals, and we set the stage for the rest of the country as a result. The former coal plant, in a touristy region known for its glacial lakes and riesling wines, was converted to natural gas by Greenidge and began producing electricity in 2017. Bitcoin mining at the plant, which has a 106-megawatt capacity, started in earnest last year. The company said it was bringing a piece of the worlds digital future to upstate New York. For decades, this region has been told it would see new industries and opportunities, Greenidge said in a prepared statement. We are actually making it happen, and doing it fully within the states nation-leading high environmental standards. Bitcoin miners unlock bitcoins by solving complex, unique puzzles. As the value of Bitcoin goes up, the puzzles become increasingly more difficult, and it requires more computer power to solve them. Estimates on how much energy Bitcoin uses vary. Story continues Greenidge said it mined 729 bitcoins over three months ending Sept. 30. The value of cryptocurrency fluctuates, and on Friday, one bitcoin was worth over $59,000. Opponents are frustrated that Greenidge applied to run a power plant but are now operating a mine that is taking up more of the plants power. Greenidge says mining was not part of the plan when the plant came back online and note they continue to provide power to the grid. From January through June, Greenidge said it used 58% of its power for mining. Supporters see it as an economic boon in a part of upstate New York that could use the help. Douglas Paddock, chairman of the Yates County Legislature, testified at a public hearing this week that the plant has brought 45 high-paying jobs and made a significant contribution to the area through tax payments and capital investments. Some opposition to the plant centers on the potential effects of its water withdrawals from Seneca Lake. But air quality issues have taken center stage as the state Department of Environmental Conservation reviews the plants air emission permits. Greenidge has said it's in compliance with its permits and that the plant is 100% carbon neutral, thanks to the purchase of carbon offsets, such as forestry programs and projects that capture methane from landfills. Opponents claim the plant undercuts the states efforts to dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades under its 2019 climate law. A large coalition of environmental groups and other organizations this week asked Gov. Kathy Hochul to deny the air permit for Greenidge and to take a similar action to keep an existing plant near Buffalo from becoming a mining site. The coalition wants Hochul to set a national precedent and enact a statewide moratorium on the energy intensive proof-of-work cryptocurrency used by bitcoin miners. Environmentalists estimate that there are 30 plants in New York that could be converted into mining operations. I really think more than anything, this plant is a significant test for whether the states climate law is really worth anything, said Judith Enck, who served as the EPAs regional northeastern U.S. administrator under President Barack Obama. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have separately asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to exercise oversight. Around the country, there are other power plants being used for cryptocurrency mining under different types of arrangements. In Venango County, Pennsylvania, a generation plant that converts coal waste into power is being used to mine bitcoins and can provide electricity to the grid when needed. Stronghold Digital Mining has plans to replicate that kind operation at two other sites in Pennsylvania. And in Montana, a coal-fired generating station is now providing 100% of its energy to Marathon Digital Holdings for bitcoin mining under a power purchase agreement. We had previously done what many miners do, which is you find an industrial building, set it up for mining and then you contract for power from the grid, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said. And we wanted to flip that model upside down because we knew that there are lots of underutilized energy generation sources in the U.S. Thiel said that harmful emissions are low because of the quality of the coal and pollution controls, and that the plant would be carbon offset by the end of next year. He said his company is focused on moving toward renewable energy, saying cryptocurrency miners can provide crucial financial incentives to build more clean energy projects. New York state has yet to make a determination on Greenidge's permits. Greenidge said that even if the plant ran at full capacity, its potential emissions equate to 0.23% of the states greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2030. However, state Environmental Commissioner Basil Seggos tweeted last month that Greenidge has not shown compliance with NYs climate law based on goals in that law. New York state is leading on climate change, Seggos said in a prepared statement, and we have some major concerns about the role cryptocurrency mining may play in generating additional greenhouse gas emissions. || Bitcoin-mining power plant raises ire of environmentalists: An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists. It uses its own power plant. Greenidge Generation runs a once-mothballed plant near the shore of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region to produce about 44 megawatts to run 15,300 computer servers, plus additional electricity it sends into the state's power grid. The megawatts dedicated to Bitcoin might be enough electricity to power more than 35,000 homes. Proponents call it a competitive way to mine increasingly popular cryptocurrencies, without putting a drain on the existing power grid. Environmentalists see the plant as a climate threat. They fear a wave of resurrected fossil-fuel plants pumping out greenhouse gasses more for private profit than public good. Seeing Greenidge as a test case, they are asking the state to deny renewal of the plant's air quality permit and put the brakes on similar projects. The current state of our climate demands action on cryptocurrency mining, said Liz Moran of Earthjustice. We are jeopardizing the states abilities to meet our climate goals, and we set the stage for the rest of the country as a result. The former coal plant, in a touristy region known for its glacial lakes and riesling wines, was converted to natural gas by Greenidge and began producing electricity in 2017. Bitcoin mining at the plant, which has a 106-megawatt capacity, started in earnest last year. The company said it was bringing a piece of the worlds digital future to upstate New York. For decades, this region has been told it would see new industries and opportunities, Greenidge said in a prepared statement. We are actually making it happen, and doing it fully within the states nation-leading high environmental standards. Bitcoin miners unlock bitcoins by solving complex, unique puzzles. As the value of Bitcoin goes up, the puzzles become increasingly more difficult, and it requires more computer power to solve them. Estimates on how much energy Bitcoin uses vary. Story continues Greenidge said it mined 729 bitcoins over three months ending Sept. 30. The value of cryptocurrency fluctuates, and on Friday, one bitcoin was worth over $59,000. Opponents are frustrated that Greenidge applied to run a power plant but are now operating a mine that is taking up more of the plants power. Greenidge says mining was not part of the plan when the plant came back online and note they continue to provide power to the grid. From January through June, Greenidge said it used 58% of its power for mining. Supporters see it as an economic boon in a part of upstate New York that could use the help. Douglas Paddock, chairman of the Yates County Legislature, testified at a public hearing this week that the plant has brought 45 high-paying jobs and made a significant contribution to the area through tax payments and capital investments. Some opposition to the plant centers on the potential effects of its water withdrawals from Seneca Lake. But air quality issues have taken center stage as the state Department of Environmental Conservation reviews the plants air emission permits. Greenidge has said it's in compliance with its permits and that the plant is 100% carbon neutral, thanks to the purchase of carbon offsets, such as forestry programs and projects that capture methane from landfills. Opponents claim the plant undercuts the states efforts to dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades under its 2019 climate law. A large coalition of environmental groups and other organizations this week asked Gov. Kathy Hochul to deny the air permit for Greenidge and to take a similar action to keep an existing plant near Buffalo from becoming a mining site. The coalition wants Hochul to set a national precedent and enact a statewide moratorium on the energy intensive proof-of-work cryptocurrency used by bitcoin miners. Environmentalists estimate that there are 30 plants in New York that could be converted into mining operations. I really think more than anything, this plant is a significant test for whether the states climate law is really worth anything, said Judith Enck, who served as the EPAs regional northeastern U.S. administrator under President Barack Obama. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have separately asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to exercise oversight. Around the country, there are other power plants being used for cryptocurrency mining under different types of arrangements. In Venango County, Pennsylvania, a generation plant that converts coal waste into power is being used to mine bitcoins and can provide electricity to the grid when needed. Stronghold Digital Mining has plans to replicate that kind operation at two other sites in Pennsylvania. And in Montana, a coal-fired generating station is now providing 100% of its energy to Marathon Digital Holdings for bitcoin mining under a power purchase agreement. We had previously done what many miners do, which is you find an industrial building, set it up for mining and then you contract for power from the grid, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said. And we wanted to flip that model upside down because we knew that there are lots of underutilized energy generation sources in the U.S. Thiel said that harmful emissions are low because of the quality of the coal and pollution controls, and that the plant would be carbon offset by the end of next year. He said his company is focused on moving toward renewable energy, saying cryptocurrency miners can provide crucial financial incentives to build more clean energy projects. New York state has yet to make a determination on Greenidge's permits. Greenidge said that even if the plant ran at full capacity, its potential emissions equate to 0.23% of the states greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2030. However, state Environmental Commissioner Basil Seggos tweeted last month that Greenidge has not shown compliance with NYs climate law based on goals in that law. New York state is leading on climate change, Seggos said in a prepared statement, and we have some major concerns about the role cryptocurrency mining may play in generating additional greenhouse gas emissions. || Jamie Dimon keeps blasting Bitcoin as 'worthless' — try these 3 safe havens instead: Investors hold Bitcoin for a variety of reasons. And hedging against inflation is one of the bigger ones.
But JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon hasn't been shy about his dislike for the cryptocurrency, blasting it as “worthless” during a virtual summit earlier this week.
So what are a few more conventional ways to protect your portfolio against the ravages of inflation, which is already here with a vengeance?
Simple. Make rising consumer prices — along with rising interest rates — work in your favor by investing in sectors that have historically done well in inflationary environments.
Let’s take a quick look at three of those areas. One (or all) of them might be worth sprinkling some of your“spare change”over.
Central banks use monetary policy to tame inflation. According to the latest forecast, half of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee expect a rate hike in 2022.
In fact, rising interest rates have become a major concern for stock market investors.
But here’s something to consider: While the majority of sectors fear rising interest rates, banks adore them.
Banks make money by lending capital out at higher rates than they borrow it at. And when interest rates increase, the “spread” through which they earn widens.
Investors have already been warming up to major financial stocks.
Banking giants like JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs have all returned at least 30% year to date.
Of course, that means these stocks aren’t cheap.
The good news? If you’re on the fence about jumping into bank stocks at these elevated levels,some investing appswill give you a free share of JPMorgan or Bank of America just for signing up.
Consumer staples are essential products such as food and drinks, household goods, and hygiene products.
We need these things regardless of how the economy is doing.
So even when inflation drives up input costs, consumer staple companies — particularly those with scale and distribution advantages — are able to pass those higher costs onto consumers.
Even if the biggest crash“in world history”hits, we’ll probably still see Quaker Oats and Tropicana orange juice — made by Pepsico — on families’ breakfast tables. Meanwhile, Tide and Bounty — well-known brands from Procter & Gamble — will likely remain on shopping lists across the nation.
And then there’s retail gorilla Costco, which sells thousands of consumer staples across roughly 800 warehouses worldwide. With inflation forcing consumers to hunt for lower prices, Costco’s value proposition is tough to turn down.
To be sure, these consumer staple leaders all command triple-digit stock prices.
But you can get a piece of them by using a stock trading app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you are willing to spend.
Precious metals — particularly gold and silver — have helped investors preserve their purchasing power for centuries.
They can’t be printed out of thin air like fiat money.
Investors often rush toward gold in times of crisis, making it the go-to safe haven asset.
Silver is also a store of value and a hedge against inflation. At the same time, it is widely used as an industrial metal so it could also outperform in a high growth, high inflation environment.
The most direct way to play precious metals is to own bullion. But that can be difficult and expensive. An easier method is to invest in large mining companies.
Gold miners like Barrick Gold and Freeport-McMoRan typically do well during tough times for other sectors.
Meanwhile Wheaton Precious Metals and Pan American Silver can provide easy access if you’re interested in dabbling in the grey metal.
With the number of bitcoins capped at 21 million and its increasing adoption, the cryptocurrency could very well be a great hedge against inflation.
But of course, neither inflation-proof stocks nor Bitcoin are immune to market volatility.
If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market — or the crypto market — you might want to consider an overlooked asset:fine art.
Investing in fine art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich like Dimon.
But with anew investing platform, you can invest in iconic artworks too, just like Jeff Bezos and Peggy Guggenheim.
According to the Citi Global Art Market chart, contemporary artwork has offered a return of 14% per year over the past 25 years, easily topping the 9.5% annual return from the S&P 500.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 8424.27, 8181.39, 7951.58, 8165.01, 8192.15, 8218.46, 8180.48, 7780.44, 7624.91, 7567.15, 7434.39, 7032.85, 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71, 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76, 6506.07, 6308.53, 6488.76, 6376.71, 6534.88, 6719.96, 6763.19, 6707.26, 6884.64, 7096.28, 7047.16, 6978.23, 7037.58, 7193.25, 7272.72, 7260.06, 7361.66, 6792.83, 6529.17, 6467.07, 6225.98, 6300.86, 6329.70, 6321.20, 6351.80, 6517.31, 6512.71, 6543.20, 6517.18, 6281.20, 6371.30, 6398.54, 6519.67, 6734.95, 6721.98, 6710.63, 6595.41, 6446.47, 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48, 6588.31, 6602.95, 6652.23, 6642.64, 6585.53, 6256.24, 6274.58, 6285.99, 6290.93, 6596.54, 6596.11, 6544.43, 6476.71, 6465.41, 6489.19, 6482.35.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-10-21]
Volume: 3253610000, RSI (14-day): 48.02, 50-day EMA: 6573.35, 200-day EMA: 7182.07
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Checkbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auction: The US Marshals Service hasannouncedan upcoming auction for over $4 million worth of bitcoin seized during various legal proceedings. The sealed bid auction, which is scheduled to take place in November, will offer approximately 660 BTC seized during about 31 federal criminal, civil and administrative cases under the asset forfeitureframeworkof the Department of Justice.
Interested parties are expected to register with the USMS to be evaluated and cleared for the bid process. The required items for the registration are a manually signed copy of the bidder registration form, a copy of a government-issued photo ID for the bidder, a deposit in USD sent from a bank located within the United States, and a copy of the EFT transmittal receipt.
Following submission, eligible bid candidates will be announced on November 1, ahead of the auction, which is scheduled to take place on November 5. According to the USMS website, bid registration will take place between October 22 and October 31.
Following this, the online auction period featuring vetted and accredited bidders will begin on November 5.
An excerpt from the announcement reads:
“The prevailing bids will be determined by the following criteria: The eligible bidder who offers the highest price will be the prevailing bidder; If there are multiple bids at the highest price, the first bid received will prevail; and If a winning bidder defaults, the next highest bidder will be declared the winning bidder.”
The asset forfeiture program has traditionally been used to go after assets acquired through proceeds of illegal or criminal activity, which are usually in the form of real estate, artworks, vehicles, jewelry, and cash.
Over the past few years, however, regulators and governments around the world have increasingly recognised bitcoin as an asset to beconfiscatedduring civil and criminal proceedings that necessitate asset seizure.
In July, CCNreportedthat Canadian police seized $1.6 million in bitcoin from an unnamed man accused of selling drugs on dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym “MarijuanaIsMyMuse.”
Last month, CCN alsoreportedthat the secretary of Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), Witthaya Neetitham announced that the government agency is planning to create its own cryptocurrency wallet for the purposes of tackling crime relating to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as it seeks to close a legal loophole that has allowed cybercriminals keep the proceeds of their activities despite prosecution.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postCheckbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auctionappeared first onCCN. || Checkbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auction: bitcoin auction The US Marshals Service has announced an upcoming auction for over $4 million worth of bitcoin seized during various legal proceedings. The sealed bid auction, which is scheduled to take place in November, will offer approximately 660 BTC seized during about 31 federal criminal, civil and administrative cases under the asset forfeiture framework of the Department of Justice. Particulars for the Auction Interested parties are expected to register with the USMS to be evaluated and cleared for the bid process. The required items for the registration are a manually signed copy of the bidder registration form, a copy of a government-issued photo ID for the bidder, a deposit in USD sent from a bank located within the United States, and a copy of the EFT transmittal receipt. Following submission, eligible bid candidates will be announced on November 1, ahead of the auction, which is scheduled to take place on November 5. According to the USMS website, bid registration will take place between October 22 and October 31. Following this, the online auction period featuring vetted and accredited bidders will begin on November 5. An excerpt from the announcement reads: The prevailing bids will be determined by the following criteria: The eligible bidder who offers the highest price will be the prevailing bidder; If there are multiple bids at the highest price, the first bid received will prevail; and If a winning bidder defaults, the next highest bidder will be declared the winning bidder. Changing Global Law Enforcement Strategy The asset forfeiture program has traditionally been used to go after assets acquired through proceeds of illegal or criminal activity, which are usually in the form of real estate, artworks, vehicles, jewelry, and cash. Over the past few years, however, regulators and governments around the world have increasingly recognised bitcoin as an asset to be confiscated during civil and criminal proceedings that necessitate asset seizure. Story continues In July, CCN reported that Canadian police seized $1.6 million in bitcoin from an unnamed man accused of selling drugs on dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym MarijuanaIsMyMuse. Last month, CCN also reported that the secretary of Thailands Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), Witthaya Neetitham announced that the government agency is planning to create its own cryptocurrency wallet for the purposes of tackling crime relating to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as it seeks to close a legal loophole that has allowed cybercriminals keep the proceeds of their activities despite prosecution. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Checkbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auction appeared first on CCN . || Checkbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auction: The US Marshals Service hasannouncedan upcoming auction for over $4 million worth of bitcoin seized during various legal proceedings. The sealed bid auction, which is scheduled to take place in November, will offer approximately 660 BTC seized during about 31 federal criminal, civil and administrative cases under the asset forfeitureframeworkof the Department of Justice.
Interested parties are expected to register with the USMS to be evaluated and cleared for the bid process. The required items for the registration are a manually signed copy of the bidder registration form, a copy of a government-issued photo ID for the bidder, a deposit in USD sent from a bank located within the United States, and a copy of the EFT transmittal receipt.
Following submission, eligible bid candidates will be announced on November 1, ahead of the auction, which is scheduled to take place on November 5. According to the USMS website, bid registration will take place between October 22 and October 31.
Following this, the online auction period featuring vetted and accredited bidders will begin on November 5.
An excerpt from the announcement reads:
“The prevailing bids will be determined by the following criteria: The eligible bidder who offers the highest price will be the prevailing bidder; If there are multiple bids at the highest price, the first bid received will prevail; and If a winning bidder defaults, the next highest bidder will be declared the winning bidder.”
The asset forfeiture program has traditionally been used to go after assets acquired through proceeds of illegal or criminal activity, which are usually in the form of real estate, artworks, vehicles, jewelry, and cash.
Over the past few years, however, regulators and governments around the world have increasingly recognised bitcoin as an asset to beconfiscatedduring civil and criminal proceedings that necessitate asset seizure.
In July, CCNreportedthat Canadian police seized $1.6 million in bitcoin from an unnamed man accused of selling drugs on dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym “MarijuanaIsMyMuse.”
Last month, CCN alsoreportedthat the secretary of Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), Witthaya Neetitham announced that the government agency is planning to create its own cryptocurrency wallet for the purposes of tackling crime relating to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as it seeks to close a legal loophole that has allowed cybercriminals keep the proceeds of their activities despite prosecution.
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The postCheckbooks Ready! US Marshals to Hold $4 Million Bitcoin Auctionappeared first onCCN. || Better High-Yield Dividend Stock: PPL Corp. vs. the Southern Company: Giant diversified U.S. utility The Southern Company (NYSE: SO) offers investors a yield of 5.5%. Globally diversified electric company PPL Corp. (NYSE: PPL) has a yield of 5.4%. Those figures are both at the high end of the utility sector, which might entice investors seeking to enhance their current income via large dividends. But is one of these utility stocks better than the other? Some construction issues Southern is one of the largest U.S. utilities, providing consumers with electricity and natural gas. It also has a substantial merchant renewable-power business and interests in long-haul energy assets, like natural gas pipelines. It has increased its dividend each year for 18 years, with an average increase over the past decade of just under 4%. That's slightly higher than the historical rate of inflation growth , ensuring that investors' buying power grows over time. A man's torso holding a helmet with power lines in the background Image source: Getty Images. The company plans to spend $35 billion on capital projects between 2018 and 2022, with $33 billion of that going toward regulated assets. As a utility, Southern is granted a monopoly, but must get rate increases approved by regulators. Spending to upgrade its systems is how it goes about getting those price hikes approved. The company expects this spending to lead to earnings growth of 4% to 6% a year, with dividends likely to trail along at the lower end of that range. One of the reasons Southern's dividend yield is so high today is that a portion of that spending is going toward two new nuclear power plants, Vogtle 3 and 4, in Georgia. The process has faced delays and ongoing cost overruns (the price tag has nearly doubled at this point to $27 billion). The most recent headache on this massive project showed up in September, when another increase in the project's cost (which led to a $1.1 billion charge in the second quarter ) caused strife between Southern and its partners. To keep the project alive, Southern, which is now managing the construction, agreed to shoulder more of the cost should further price increases occur. Story continues SO Financial Debt to Equity (Quarterly) Chart SO financial debt to equity data (quarterly) by YCharts. TTM = trailing 12 months. It appears that Southern has the financial strength to complete the project, with financial-debt-to-equity and times-interest-earned metrics roughly in line with some of its largest peers. But the company's nuclear ambitions add a notable level of uncertainty. For more aggressive investors, this could be an opportunity to pick up a high yield from a utility that is generally considered to be very well run. And, it's worth noting, the company believes it can achieve its 4% to 6% growth targets with or without the nuclear build. But for more conservative types, the nuclear overhang might not be worth the uncertainty. A dirty utility looking to clean up PPL is about half the size, in terms of market cap, of Southern. It stands out from most peers because it provides electricity in both the United States (about 60% of its rate base) and the United Kingdom (about 40%). It has increased its dividend for 17 years, with the average increase over the past decade roughly in line with the historical rate of inflation growth. That protects investors' buying power over time, even if it doesn't grow it. The utility's growth plans call for spending around $15 billion between 2018 and 2022. Management expects that spending to boost growth by 5% to 6% a year over the next two years. Dividends are likely to continue to track along with inflation to maintain investors' buying power over time. Not a bad trade-off for investors seeking to maximize current income. SO Dividend Per Share (Quarterly) Chart SO Dividend Per Share (Quarterly) data by YCharts The big issues for investors looking at PPL are the foreign exposure and coal. With operations in the U.K., PPL has earnings that can look pretty erratic because of exchange-rate volatility. But over time, the impact of exchange rates tends to even out. It also has to handle two sets of regulations, which is an issue, but not dramatically different from dealing with regulations between different states (its U.S. operations are in Kentucky and Pennsylvania). A larger concern is that 85% of the company's power in 2017 was generated using coal. That sounds awful in a world that's increasingly moving away from the dirty fuel. But one key factor underpinning PPL's capital spending is a long-term shift toward clean power. It wants to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2050. That's going to require a lot of capital spending and should help the utility to win rate hikes, since emission reductions are seen in a positive light today. So instead of seeing the company's dirty coal as a negative, it could actually be considered a long-term growth driver. PPL, then, is a basically a boring utility that's a little late to the clean-energy bandwagon. The high yield makes up for that risk. Investors who want to avoid the uncertainty of Southern's nuclear-plant plans should take some time to look into PPL's business . Both have a place Southern and PPL are basically boring, high-yield utilities at their core. But both suffer from bad press today. Of the two, Southern has the more uncertain future because of its large nuclear plans -- which haven't been going as well as hoped. More aggressive investors, however, should consider picking up this generally well-run utility because it offers a more compelling combination of yield and dividend growth than PPL. PPL provides global exposure, and its dependence on coal can be viewed as a positive rather than a negative, since it suggests many years of capital spending ahead. That spending is highly likely to be approved by regulators and lead to ongoing growth over time. Investors who are looking to generate income that can keep up with inflation, but are unwilling to shoulder Southern's nuclear risks, should take a close look. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Reuben Gregg Brewer owns shares of Southern Company. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Better High-Yield Dividend Stock: PPL Corp. vs. the Southern Company: Giant diversified U.S. utilityThe Southern Company(NYSE: SO)offers investors a yield of 5.5%. Globally diversified electric companyPPL Corp.(NYSE: PPL)has a yield of 5.4%. Those figures are both at the high end of the utility sector, which might entice investors seeking to enhance their current income via large dividends. But is one of these utility stocks better than the other?
Southern is one of the largest U.S. utilities, providing consumers with electricity and natural gas. It also has a substantial merchant renewable-power business and interests in long-haul energy assets, like natural gas pipelines. It has increased its dividend each year for 18 years, with an average increase over the past decade of just under 4%. That's slightly higher thanthe historical rate of inflation growth, ensuring that investors' buying power grows over time.
Image source: Getty Images.
The company plans to spend $35 billion on capital projects between 2018 and 2022, with $33 billion of that going toward regulated assets. As a utility, Southern is granted a monopoly, but must get rate increases approved by regulators. Spending to upgrade its systems is how it goes about getting those price hikes approved. The company expects this spending to lead to earnings growth of 4% to 6% a year, with dividends likely to trail along at the lower end of that range.
One of the reasons Southern's dividend yield is so high today is that a portion of that spending is going toward two new nuclear power plants, Vogtle 3 and 4, in Georgia. The process has faced delays and ongoing cost overruns (the price tag has nearly doubled at this point to $27 billion). The most recent headache on this massive project showed up in September, when another increase in the project's cost (which led toa $1.1 billion charge in the second quarter) caused strife between Southern and its partners. To keep the project alive, Southern, which is now managing the construction, agreed to shoulder more of the cost should further price increases occur.
SO financial debt to equity data (quarterly)byYCharts. TTM = trailing 12 months.
It appears that Southern has the financial strength to complete the project, with financial-debt-to-equity and times-interest-earned metrics roughly in line with some of its largest peers. But the company's nuclear ambitions add a notable level of uncertainty. For more aggressive investors, this could be an opportunity to pick up a high yield from a utility that is generally considered to be very well run. And, it's worth noting, the company believes it can achieve its 4% to 6% growth targets with or without the nuclear build. But for more conservative types, the nuclear overhang might not be worth the uncertainty.
PPL is about half the size, in terms of market cap, of Southern. It stands out from most peers because it provides electricity in both the United States (about 60% of its rate base) and the United Kingdom (about 40%). It has increased its dividend for 17 years, with the average increase over the past decade roughly in line with the historical rate of inflation growth. That protects investors' buying power over time, even if it doesn't grow it.
The utility's growth plans call for spending around $15 billion between 2018 and 2022. Management expects that spending to boost growth by 5% to 6% a year over the next two years. Dividends are likely to continue to track along with inflation to maintain investors' buying power over time. Not a bad trade-off for investors seeking to maximize current income.
SO Dividend Per Share (Quarterly)data byYCharts
The big issues for investors looking at PPL are the foreign exposure and coal. With operations in the U.K., PPL has earnings that can look pretty erratic because of exchange-rate volatility. But over time, the impact of exchange rates tends to even out. It also has to handle two sets of regulations, which is an issue, but not dramatically different from dealing with regulations between different states (its U.S. operations are in Kentucky and Pennsylvania). A larger concern is that 85% of the company's power in 2017 was generated using coal.
That sounds awful in a world that's increasingly moving away from the dirty fuel. But one key factor underpinning PPL's capital spending is a long-term shift toward clean power. It wants to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2050. That's going to require a lot of capital spending and should help the utility to win rate hikes, since emission reductions are seen in a positive light today. So instead of seeing the company's dirty coal as a negative, it could actually be considered a long-term growth driver.
PPL, then, is a basically a boring utility that's a little late to the clean-energy bandwagon. The high yield makes up for that risk. Investors who want to avoid the uncertainty of Southern's nuclear-plant plans should take some time tolook into PPL's business.
Southern and PPL are basically boring, high-yield utilities at their core. But both suffer from bad press today. Of the two, Southern has the more uncertain future because of its large nuclear plans -- which haven't been going as well as hoped. More aggressive investors, however, should consider picking up this generally well-run utility because it offers a more compelling combination of yield and dividend growth than PPL.
PPL provides global exposure, and its dependence on coal can be viewed as a positive rather than a negative, since it suggests many years of capital spending ahead. That spending is highly likely to be approved by regulators and lead to ongoing growth over time. Investors who are looking to generate income that can keep up with inflation, but are unwilling to shoulder Southern's nuclear risks, should take a close look.
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Reuben Gregg Brewerowns shares of Southern Company. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || As a Copycat Competitor Emerges, Can Vail Resorts Still Catch Big Air?: Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) has been a hidden winner on the market in recent years . Shares of the ski-resort operator have more than tripled over the last five years, and jumped nearly 800% over the last decade. Skiing and snowboarding haven't suddenly come into vogue, however. Instead, those gains can be attributed to two key pillars of Vail's strategy: First, the company has aggressively pursued acquisitions, including its $1 billion takeover of Whistler/Blackcomb in 2016, the most visited ski resort in North America. The second key to Vail's success has been its Epic Pass. Introduced in 2008, the all-encompassing pass gives skiers and riders access to all of the company's resorts for an entire season for one reasonable base rate. Combined, those strategies have proven to create shareholder value. Vail has leveraged its new properties to offer more varieties of passes, and raise the price of the Epic Pass. The pass has also created a reliable revenue stream for the company, and offered Vail's most devoted customers a good value for their money. In addition, having skiers and snowboarders visit Vail's resorts more often has boosted rental, lodging, and dining income, creating a virtuous cycle. Last year, Vail sold more than 740,000 passes. However, success in business attracts competition, and a new rival has emerged to challenge the Epic Pass. The newly formed, privately held Alterra Mountain Company has essentially copied Vail's strategy, rolling up several high-profile mountains including Mammoth and Squaw Valley in California, Deer Valley in Utah, and Washington's Crystal Mountain, and has partnered with independent ski resorts like Aspen and Jackson Hole to offer its own all-encompassing season pass called the Ikon Pass for the first time this season. Both passes start at $899, and like Vail, Alterra is strategically raising prices as opening day approaches. With winter just around the corner, now is peak season for pass sales. Story continues A group of skiers on a mountain at Vail. Image source: Vail. A chill in the air On the surface, Alterra's move certainly looks like a threat to Vail. For the last decade, Vail has essentially been the only ski resort operator to offer an all-encompassing pass like the Epic as no other company had the properties to match it. Now that skiers and snowboarders have a choice between the Epic and Ikon, it's very likely that some who would have bought the Epic will try the Ikon instead, especially due to the caliber of the Ikon's resorts, as it seems to grant access to nearly all of the top non-Vail-owned mountains in North America. However, Vail CEO Rob Katz has deflected concerns about Alterra and the Ikon Pass. At a conference in January, Katz said, "I've been very open that I think unlimited, unrestricted (skiing and snowboarding) at a low price is important. I think that's what the guest wants and to the extent that other resorts offer passes that deliver that simple value, I think that helps the industry because that gets more people into the industry. I think that's good for everybody." The numbers also back up Katz's claim. In the company's recent earnings report, Katz said that season pass sales had increased 25% from the year before, and dollar sales were up 15%. The lower growth in dollar sales is due to the addition of the Military Epic Pass, which offers a substantial discount for military members. Excluding its impact, the average price for a pass was up 4.5% from a year ago. Beyond the Ikon Pass, however, Alterra could present other challenges to Vail's supremacy. For instance, it may make future acquisitions more difficult or expensive, as it could also be a potential buyer of whatever resorts come up for sale. For now, it seems that Vail's model continues to grow unimpeded, and the strong economy and record consumer confidence are no doubt helping. However, with a viable competitor in the Ikon Pass and the Epic Pass now ten years old, it may be harder for Vail shares to gain altitude from here. The blockbuster gains the company put up in recent years likely won't be repeated. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Jeremy Bowman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Vail Resorts. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || As a Copycat Competitor Emerges, Can Vail Resorts Still Catch Big Air?: Vail Resorts(NYSE: MTN)has been a hidden winner on the market inrecent years. Shares of the ski-resort operator have more than tripled over the last five years, and jumped nearly 800% over the last decade.
Skiing and snowboarding haven't suddenly come into vogue, however. Instead, those gains can be attributed to two key pillars of Vail's strategy: First, the company has aggressively pursued acquisitions, including its$1 billion takeoverof Whistler/Blackcomb in 2016, the most visited ski resort in North America. The second key to Vail's success has been its Epic Pass. Introduced in 2008, the all-encompassing pass gives skiers and riders access to all of the company's resorts for an entire season for one reasonable base rate.
Combined, those strategies have proven to create shareholder value. Vail has leveraged its new properties to offer more varieties of passes, and raise the price of the Epic Pass. The pass has also created a reliable revenue stream for the company, and offered Vail's most devoted customers a good value for their money. In addition, having skiers and snowboarders visit Vail's resorts more often has boosted rental, lodging, and dining income, creating a virtuous cycle. Last year, Vail sold more than 740,000 passes.
However, success in business attracts competition, and a new rival has emerged to challenge the Epic Pass. The newly formed, privately held Alterra Mountain Company has essentially copied Vail's strategy, rolling up several high-profile mountains including Mammoth and Squaw Valley in California, Deer Valley in Utah, and Washington's Crystal Mountain, and has partnered with independent ski resorts like Aspen and Jackson Hole to offer its own all-encompassing season pass called the Ikon Pass for the first time this season.
Both passes start at $899, and like Vail, Alterra is strategically raising prices as opening day approaches. With winter just around the corner, now is peak season for pass sales.
Image source: Vail.
On the surface, Alterra's move certainly looks like a threat to Vail. For the last decade, Vail has essentially been the only ski resort operator to offer an all-encompassing pass like the Epic as no other company had the properties to match it. Now that skiers and snowboarders have a choice between the Epic and Ikon, it's very likely that some who would have bought the Epic will try the Ikon instead, especially due to the caliber of the Ikon's resorts, as it seems to grant access to nearly all of the top non-Vail-owned mountains in North America.
However, Vail CEO Rob Katz has deflected concerns about Alterra and the Ikon Pass. At a conference in January, Katz said, "I've been very open that I think unlimited, unrestricted (skiing and snowboarding) at a low price is important. I think that's what the guest wants and to the extent that other resorts offer passes that deliver that simple value, I think that helps the industry because that gets more people into the industry. I think that's good for everybody."
The numbers also back up Katz's claim. In the company's recent earnings report, Katz said that season pass sales had increased 25% from the year before, and dollar sales were up 15%. The lower growth in dollar sales is due to the addition of the Military Epic Pass, which offers a substantial discount for military members. Excluding its impact, the average price for a pass was up 4.5% from a year ago.
Beyond the Ikon Pass, however, Alterra could present other challenges to Vail's supremacy. For instance, it may make future acquisitions more difficult or expensive, as it could also be a potential buyer of whatever resorts come up for sale.
For now, it seems that Vail's model continues to grow unimpeded, and the strong economy and record consumer confidence are no doubt helping. However, with a viable competitor in the Ikon Pass and the Epic Pass now ten years old, it may be harder for Vail shares to gain altitude from here. The blockbuster gains the company put up in recent years likely won't be repeated.
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Jeremy Bowmanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Vail Resorts. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || When It Comes to Savings, 30- and 40-Somethings Need a Wake-Up Call: We're told time and time again how important it is to have money on hand foremergencies, yet an alarming number of not-quite-old-but-certainly-far-from-young Americans seem to have missed the memo. A frightening 37% of adults aged 35 to 44 have absolutely no money in a savings account, according tonew data from GOBankingRates. And if they don't get their act together soon, they risk damaging their finances beyond repair.
You'd think adults in their mid- to late-30s through mid-40s would have a relatively easy time socking away some money in the bank. After all, these folks are well past the stage of entry-level salaries at work, and many have conceivably had enough time to pay off theirstudent loans. Yet a large number of Americans in their 30s and 40s continue to live paycheck to paycheck, maxing out their earnings on living expenses and having nothing left over at the end of each month to show for it.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
The problem, of course, is that in failing to save even a modest amount of money, these same people put themselves at risk of racking up serious debt the next time an unplanned expense comes their way. Those without savings often have no choice but to resort to credit card debt when unanticipated bills arise, thereby kick-starting a vicious cycle of accumulating interest and credit score damage. It's a terrible situation to be in, and one that a healthy savings account can help you avoid.
It's pretty much unacceptable foranyadult to have $0 in savings, but when you're a decade or two into your career, it's even more troubling. So if you're without a dime in the bank, take a look at your budget, orcreate oneif you're not using one yet, and see where all of your money is going. Chances are, you'll find at least one or two expenses you can cut back on without completely altering your lifestyle, such as lowering your cable plan or dining out less frequently.
That said, while small changes can make a difference in building savings over time, if you really have no money to your name, you'll need to do better, and that probably means cutting at least one major expense -- by, say, moving to a less expensive home or driving aless expensive vehiclewith fewer frills.
Will those changes impact your quality of life? No doubt. But guess what? Getting slapped with a major unplanned expense and landing in credit card debt will have the same effect. So rather than sit around waiting for that to happen, take control of your finances by proactively making at least one major sacrifice. You don't have to do so for the rest of your life -- just long enough to build a healthy savings cushion.
How much should you aim to sock away? Ideally, you should have an emergency fund with at least three months' worth of living expenses, but if you can get closer to the six-month mark, even better.
Want to accelerate your savings? Get aside hustle. Working a second gig for even a few hours each week could put several hundred extra dollars in your pocket every month. And since that cash won't already be earmarked for other things, you should have no problem sticking it directly into the bank.
We all need savings, no matter our age. If you're starting with nothing, take steps to ramp up immediately -- before a financial emergency strikes and you're left scrambling to pick up the pieces.
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The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Will JD.com’s Google Shopping Store Attract U.S. Shoppers?: JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) , the second largest e-commerce company in China, plans to launch a flagship online store in the US on Alphabet 's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Shopping platform later this year. This marks JD's first major expansion into the US market, and could potentially diversify its business away from China while widening its moat against chief rival Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) . This move wasn't surprising: Google invested $550 million in JD back in June, and earlier reports indicated that JD was eyeing an expansion into the US and European markets. However, JD's stateside move could still face some tough headwinds, even with the backing of a tech giant like Google. A JD delivery robot in China. Image source: JD. Why JD thinks it has a shot The US e-commerce market is dominated by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) , but Alibaba squeezed into the market with its AliExpress platform, which lets Chinese merchants sell products directly to customers in Russia, Brazil, Spain, the United States, and other countries. AliExpress was the sixth most-visited e-commerce marketplace in the US during the first quarter of 2018, with a slim 1.3% share of the overall market. Amazon and eBay controlled 54.1% and 23.7% of the market, respectively, based on visits. AliExpress' presence in the US seems unremarkable, but nonetheless it represents a toehold in the saturated market. JD likely thinks that it can challenge AliExpress in the US with the same strategies it adopted against Alibaba in China -- emphasizing the authenticity of its products, and claiming that Alibaba turns a blind eye to low-quality and counterfeit products. JD also plans to fulfill orders with its own fulfillment centers and logistics network in the US, as it does in China. Alibaba fulfills most of its orders with third-party couriers. With Google's support, JD could have a shot at gaining more customers than AliExpress, which merely relies on its own website and mobile app. That would also be a major win for Google, which has repeatedly failed to challenge Amazon in the e-commerce market. Story continues A shopper checks an online purchase at a store. Image source: Getty Images. If JD carves out a niche in the US market, it would complement its partnership with Walmart , which mainly focuses on the Chinese market, and JD Worldwide, which lets Chinese customers purchase products from overseas markets. It would also complement its planned expansions into Russia, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Why JD's plans could be derailed JD's plans are ambitious, but Google could be a weak partner in an e-commerce push. Google Shopping isn't a traditional e-commerce platform. It merely sells product listings to merchants, and customers use the search engine to compare prices. Google expanded that ecosystem with payment processing and delivery options, but it remains largely overshadowed by Amazon. Most US consumers start their product searches on Amazon instead of Google. 47% of US shoppers start their product searches on Amazon, according to a recent Adeptmind survey, versus 35% who searched on Google first. A large number of online shoppers are also likely go to eBay or retailers' first-party websites or apps. Most US shoppers also aren't familiar with JD. If they search for any information about the company, stories regarding the rape allegations against CEO Richard Liu will likely pop up first, which could repel potential customers. Lastly, tariffs on JD's Chinese products would make them more expensive. As a result, it might simply be cheaper for consumers to buy similar products through Amazon or Walmart, which can import products from other countries. Back in June, Liu told CNBC that a prolonged trade war between the US and China would be "horrible". The bottom line: It's too early to tell JD has been struggling with high operating expenses related to the expansion of its logistics network over the past few quarters, and an aggressive expansion into the US could exacerbate that pressure. However, JD also likely needs to make a big move to assure Google that its big investment -- which already lost about 40% of its value -- is worthwhile. It's still too early to tell if this partnership can help JD win over US shoppers, or if it will help Google gain some ground against Amazon. For now, investors should follow this story to see if it can eventually move the needle for either company. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun owns shares of Amazon and JD.com. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and JD.com. The Motley Fool recommends eBay. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Will JD.com’s Google Shopping Store Attract U.S. Shoppers?: JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) , the second largest e-commerce company in China, plans to launch a flagship online store in the US on Alphabet 's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Shopping platform later this year. This marks JD's first major expansion into the US market, and could potentially diversify its business away from China while widening its moat against chief rival Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) . This move wasn't surprising: Google invested $550 million in JD back in June, and earlier reports indicated that JD was eyeing an expansion into the US and European markets. However, JD's stateside move could still face some tough headwinds, even with the backing of a tech giant like Google. A JD delivery robot in China. Image source: JD. Why JD thinks it has a shot The US e-commerce market is dominated by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) , but Alibaba squeezed into the market with its AliExpress platform, which lets Chinese merchants sell products directly to customers in Russia, Brazil, Spain, the United States, and other countries. AliExpress was the sixth most-visited e-commerce marketplace in the US during the first quarter of 2018, with a slim 1.3% share of the overall market. Amazon and eBay controlled 54.1% and 23.7% of the market, respectively, based on visits. AliExpress' presence in the US seems unremarkable, but nonetheless it represents a toehold in the saturated market. JD likely thinks that it can challenge AliExpress in the US with the same strategies it adopted against Alibaba in China -- emphasizing the authenticity of its products, and claiming that Alibaba turns a blind eye to low-quality and counterfeit products. JD also plans to fulfill orders with its own fulfillment centers and logistics network in the US, as it does in China. Alibaba fulfills most of its orders with third-party couriers. With Google's support, JD could have a shot at gaining more customers than AliExpress, which merely relies on its own website and mobile app. That would also be a major win for Google, which has repeatedly failed to challenge Amazon in the e-commerce market. Story continues A shopper checks an online purchase at a store. Image source: Getty Images. If JD carves out a niche in the US market, it would complement its partnership with Walmart , which mainly focuses on the Chinese market, and JD Worldwide, which lets Chinese customers purchase products from overseas markets. It would also complement its planned expansions into Russia, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Why JD's plans could be derailed JD's plans are ambitious, but Google could be a weak partner in an e-commerce push. Google Shopping isn't a traditional e-commerce platform. It merely sells product listings to merchants, and customers use the search engine to compare prices. Google expanded that ecosystem with payment processing and delivery options, but it remains largely overshadowed by Amazon. Most US consumers start their product searches on Amazon instead of Google. 47% of US shoppers start their product searches on Amazon, according to a recent Adeptmind survey, versus 35% who searched on Google first. A large number of online shoppers are also likely go to eBay or retailers' first-party websites or apps. Most US shoppers also aren't familiar with JD. If they search for any information about the company, stories regarding the rape allegations against CEO Richard Liu will likely pop up first, which could repel potential customers. Lastly, tariffs on JD's Chinese products would make them more expensive. As a result, it might simply be cheaper for consumers to buy similar products through Amazon or Walmart, which can import products from other countries. Back in June, Liu told CNBC that a prolonged trade war between the US and China would be "horrible". The bottom line: It's too early to tell JD has been struggling with high operating expenses related to the expansion of its logistics network over the past few quarters, and an aggressive expansion into the US could exacerbate that pressure. However, JD also likely needs to make a big move to assure Google that its big investment -- which already lost about 40% of its value -- is worthwhile. It's still too early to tell if this partnership can help JD win over US shoppers, or if it will help Google gain some ground against Amazon. For now, investors should follow this story to see if it can eventually move the needle for either company. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun owns shares of Amazon and JD.com. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and JD.com. The Motley Fool recommends eBay. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || When It Comes to Savings, 30- and 40-Somethings Need a Wake-Up Call: We're told time and time again how important it is to have money on hand for emergencies , yet an alarming number of not-quite-old-but-certainly-far-from-young Americans seem to have missed the memo. A frightening 37% of adults aged 35 to 44 have absolutely no money in a savings account, according to new data from GOBankingRates . And if they don't get their act together soon, they risk damaging their finances beyond repair. Why are 30- and 40-somethings struggling to save? You'd think adults in their mid- to late-30s through mid-40s would have a relatively easy time socking away some money in the bank. After all, these folks are well past the stage of entry-level salaries at work, and many have conceivably had enough time to pay off their student loans . Yet a large number of Americans in their 30s and 40s continue to live paycheck to paycheck, maxing out their earnings on living expenses and having nothing left over at the end of each month to show for it. Man holding an empty wallet open. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. The problem, of course, is that in failing to save even a modest amount of money, these same people put themselves at risk of racking up serious debt the next time an unplanned expense comes their way. Those without savings often have no choice but to resort to credit card debt when unanticipated bills arise, thereby kick-starting a vicious cycle of accumulating interest and credit score damage. It's a terrible situation to be in, and one that a healthy savings account can help you avoid. Building savings It's pretty much unacceptable for any adult to have $0 in savings, but when you're a decade or two into your career, it's even more troubling. So if you're without a dime in the bank, take a look at your budget, or create one if you're not using one yet, and see where all of your money is going. Chances are, you'll find at least one or two expenses you can cut back on without completely altering your lifestyle, such as lowering your cable plan or dining out less frequently. Story continues That said, while small changes can make a difference in building savings over time, if you really have no money to your name, you'll need to do better, and that probably means cutting at least one major expense -- by, say, moving to a less expensive home or driving a less expensive vehicle with fewer frills. Will those changes impact your quality of life? No doubt. But guess what? Getting slapped with a major unplanned expense and landing in credit card debt will have the same effect. So rather than sit around waiting for that to happen, take control of your finances by proactively making at least one major sacrifice. You don't have to do so for the rest of your life -- just long enough to build a healthy savings cushion. How much should you aim to sock away? Ideally, you should have an emergency fund with at least three months' worth of living expenses, but if you can get closer to the six-month mark, even better. Want to accelerate your savings? Get a side hustle . Working a second gig for even a few hours each week could put several hundred extra dollars in your pocket every month. And since that cash won't already be earmarked for other things, you should have no problem sticking it directly into the bank. We all need savings, no matter our age. If you're starting with nothing, take steps to ramp up immediately -- before a financial emergency strikes and you're left scrambling to pick up the pieces. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin – Bears Eye $6,400 Levels as Negative Bias Lingers: Bitcoin slipped by 1.38% on Friday, following on from Thursday’s 1.81% fall, to end the day at $6,519, 3 consecutive days of losses leaving Bitcoin with just a 2.88% gain for the current week.
Thursday’s late reversal continued into the early hours of Friday, with Bitcoin sliding from a start of a day intraday high $6,649.5 to $6,536.1 by the middle of the day, with the day’s major support and resistance levels left untested through the morning.
A lack of support through the afternoon led to more red for Bitcoin, with Bitcoin falling through the day’s first major support level at $6,526.7 to an intraday low $6,518.2 before steadying.
Having failed to breakout from the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757 earlier in the week, sentiment towards Bitcoin has deteriorated, with Bitcoin’s dominance easing to 53.7%, while the cryptomarket total market cap rises to $208.64bn, as some of the crypto majors make solid gains through the week.
Bitcoin’s reversal on Friday came in spite of a lack of material news on the wires to weigh on sentiment, though a report released on the size of hacks dating back to early 2017 would not have helped, the sheer size of some of the thefts, which included this year’s $534m NEM hack, a reminder of what controls governments and regulators are likely to demand as part of the G20’s cryptocurrency market overhaul.
The G20’s plan to vigilantly monitor the cryptomarket will undoubtedly impact exchanges and ultimately investors, with governments and regulators having frequently voiced concerns over number of hacks and the use of the funds thereafter, with North Korea considered to be active in hacking the cryptomarkets in a bid to bypass sanctions.
There’s not much for the Bitcoin bulls to be positive about for now, with the lack of news on when rules and regulations will be released leaving Bitcoin in limbo, the question now being whether the SEC will move first on its Bitcoin ETF decisions next month or extend the deadline further, in the event that the G20 doesn’t deliver.
Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 0.16% to $6,535.7, with Bitcoin recovering from a start of a day morning low $6,511 to a morning high $6,548.4 before easing back, moves through the early morning leaving the day’s major support and resistance levels untested.
For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high $6,548.4 to $6,560 levels would support a run at $6,600 levels and the day’s first major resistance level at $6,606.27, while we would expect Bitcoin to continue to struggle to hold on to $6,600 levels that will likely pin Bitcoin back from a run at the second major resistance level at $6,693.53.
Failure to move through to $6,560 could see Bitcoin fall back through the morning low $6,511 to $6,400 levels to bring the day’s first major support level at $6,474.97 into play, with Bitcoin unlikely to see more material losses barring materially negative news hitting.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Stocks Mostly Mixed, but Dow Finishes Week Higher
• Natural Gas Price Forecast – natural gas markets slam into resistance on Friday
• EUR/USD Weekly Price Forecast – Euro looking for a bottom
• GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British pound neutral against yen
• Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold markets rally for the week
• Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver holds steady for the week || Bitcoin Bears Eye $6,400 Levels as Negative Bias Lingers: Bitcoin slipped by 1.38% on Friday, following on from Thursdays 1.81% fall, to end the day at $6,519, 3 consecutive days of losses leaving Bitcoin with just a 2.88% gain for the current week. Thursdays late reversal continued into the early hours of Friday, with Bitcoin sliding from a start of a day intraday high $6,649.5 to $6,536.1 by the middle of the day, with the days major support and resistance levels left untested through the morning. A lack of support through the afternoon led to more red for Bitcoin, with Bitcoin falling through the days first major support level at $6,526.7 to an intraday low $6,518.2 before steadying. Having failed to breakout from the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757 earlier in the week, sentiment towards Bitcoin has deteriorated, with Bitcoins dominance easing to 53.7%, while the cryptomarket total market cap rises to $208.64bn, as some of the crypto majors make solid gains through the week. Bitcoins reversal on Friday came in spite of a lack of material news on the wires to weigh on sentiment, though a report released on the size of hacks dating back to early 2017 would not have helped, the sheer size of some of the thefts, which included this years $534m NEM hack, a reminder of what controls governments and regulators are likely to demand as part of the G20s cryptocurrency market overhaul. The G20s plan to vigilantly monitor the cryptomarket will undoubtedly impact exchanges and ultimately investors, with governments and regulators having frequently voiced concerns over number of hacks and the use of the funds thereafter, with North Korea considered to be active in hacking the cryptomarkets in a bid to bypass sanctions. Theres not much for the Bitcoin bulls to be positive about for now, with the lack of news on when rules and regulations will be released leaving Bitcoin in limbo, the question now being whether the SEC will move first on its Bitcoin ETF decisions next month or extend the deadline further, in the event that the G20 doesnt deliver. Story continues Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 0.16% to $6,535.7, with Bitcoin recovering from a start of a day morning low $6,511 to a morning high $6,548.4 before easing back, moves through the early morning leaving the days major support and resistance levels untested. For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high $6,548.4 to $6,560 levels would support a run at $6,600 levels and the days first major resistance level at $6,606.27, while we would expect Bitcoin to continue to struggle to hold on to $6,600 levels that will likely pin Bitcoin back from a run at the second major resistance level at $6,693.53. Failure to move through to $6,560 could see Bitcoin fall back through the morning low $6,511 to $6,400 levels to bring the days first major support level at $6,474.97 into play, with Bitcoin unlikely to see more material losses barring materially negative news hitting. {alt} This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Stocks Mostly Mixed, but Dow Finishes Week Higher Natural Gas Price Forecast natural gas markets slam into resistance on Friday EUR/USD Weekly Price Forecast Euro looking for a bottom GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast British pound neutral against yen Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold markets rally for the week Silver Weekly Price Forecast Silver holds steady for the week || Bitcoin – Bears Eye $6,400 Levels as Negative Bias Lingers: Bitcoin slipped by 1.38% on Friday, following on from Thursday’s 1.81% fall, to end the day at $6,519, 3 consecutive days of losses leaving Bitcoin with just a 2.88% gain for the current week.
Thursday’s late reversal continued into the early hours of Friday, with Bitcoin sliding from a start of a day intraday high $6,649.5 to $6,536.1 by the middle of the day, with the day’s major support and resistance levels left untested through the morning.
A lack of support through the afternoon led to more red for Bitcoin, with Bitcoin falling through the day’s first major support level at $6,526.7 to an intraday low $6,518.2 before steadying.
Having failed to breakout from the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757 earlier in the week, sentiment towards Bitcoin has deteriorated, with Bitcoin’s dominance easing to 53.7%, while the cryptomarket total market cap rises to $208.64bn, as some of the crypto majors make solid gains through the week.
Bitcoin’s reversal on Friday came in spite of a lack of material news on the wires to weigh on sentiment, though a report released on the size of hacks dating back to early 2017 would not have helped, the sheer size of some of the thefts, which included this year’s $534m NEM hack, a reminder of what controls governments and regulators are likely to demand as part of the G20’s cryptocurrency market overhaul.
The G20’s plan to vigilantly monitor the cryptomarket will undoubtedly impact exchanges and ultimately investors, with governments and regulators having frequently voiced concerns over number of hacks and the use of the funds thereafter, with North Korea considered to be active in hacking the cryptomarkets in a bid to bypass sanctions.
There’s not much for the Bitcoin bulls to be positive about for now, with the lack of news on when rules and regulations will be released leaving Bitcoin in limbo, the question now being whether the SEC will move first on its Bitcoin ETF decisions next month or extend the deadline further, in the event that the G20 doesn’t deliver.
Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 0.16% to $6,535.7, with Bitcoin recovering from a start of a day morning low $6,511 to a morning high $6,548.4 before easing back, moves through the early morning leaving the day’s major support and resistance levels untested.
For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high $6,548.4 to $6,560 levels would support a run at $6,600 levels and the day’s first major resistance level at $6,606.27, while we would expect Bitcoin to continue to struggle to hold on to $6,600 levels that will likely pin Bitcoin back from a run at the second major resistance level at $6,693.53.
Failure to move through to $6,560 could see Bitcoin fall back through the morning low $6,511 to $6,400 levels to bring the day’s first major support level at $6,474.97 into play, with Bitcoin unlikely to see more material losses barring materially negative news hitting.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Stocks Mostly Mixed, but Dow Finishes Week Higher
• Natural Gas Price Forecast – natural gas markets slam into resistance on Friday
• EUR/USD Weekly Price Forecast – Euro looking for a bottom
• GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British pound neutral against yen
• Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold markets rally for the week
• Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver holds steady for the week || Fake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoin: Yesterday, various news websites includingThe Next Webreported that Elon Musk’s Boring Company was accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its famous flamethrowers. However, it has now been revealed — also by TNW — that it is a fake website created by a scammer and that the real Boring Company is not accepting cryptocurrency.
The fake website is still live and displays a range of payment methods including cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin. It also claims that all proceeds will be used to support Hyperloop technology. However, Musk hasn’t responded to the recent scam yet.
Elon Muskis no stranger to the crypto industry. Despite staying away from the crypto buzz, some crypto enthusiasts are convinced that he created bitcoin. It all started in 2014 when Musk said that bitcoin was a “good thing” and called it a “legal to illegal bridge.” He also clarified that he didn’t own BTC at that time.
In 2017, Sahil Gupta, a former SpaceX employee, published a Medium post speculating that Musk was Bitcoin creatorSatoshi Nakamoto. This launched a debate in the crypto industry with some supporting the argument, and others lambasting it as outrageous. Later, Muskrejectedthe theory and added that he had no idea where his bitcoins, sent to him by his friend, were. Earlier this year, he revealed that only 0.25 BTC were given to him by his friend.
Even so, Musk is often in the cryptocurrency headlines, primarily because he is the frequent target of crypto scambots found on Twitter.
Musk, like other celebrities, suffered from hackers hijacking various verified profiles to promote crypto scams. He evenrepliedto a follower, “At this point I want ETH even if it is a scam.” These accounts use the targeted professional’s picture as well as their Twitter handle and comment below their tweets. Due to the prevalence of these scams, Vitalik Buterin changed his name to “Vitalik Non-giver of ether.”
Last month, Musk reached out to Jackson Palmer, creator of Dogecoin and product lead at Adobe, to solve this problem, saying, “[I]f you can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers, that would be much appreciated.” Palmer was able tocreate a scriptto block ETH giveaway scammers and help Musk in implementing it on his Twitter.
Featured Image from Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube
The postFake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoinappeared first onCCN. || Fake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoin: Elon Musk Smoking Pot Yesterday, various news websites including The Next Web reported that Elon Musk’s Boring Company was accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its famous flamethrowers. However, it has now been revealed — also by TNW — that it is a fake website created by a scammer and that the real Boring Company is not accepting cryptocurrency. The fake website is still live and displays a range of payment methods including cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin. It also claims that all proceeds will be used to support Hyperloop technology. However, Musk hasn’t responded to the recent scam yet. Elon Musk is no stranger to the crypto industry. Despite staying away from the crypto buzz, some crypto enthusiasts are convinced that he created bitcoin. It all started in 2014 when Musk said that bitcoin was a “good thing” and called it a “ legal to illegal bridge .” He also clarified that he didn’t own BTC at that time. In 2017, Sahil Gupta, a former SpaceX employee, published a Medium post speculating that Musk was Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto . This launched a debate in the crypto industry with some supporting the argument, and others lambasting it as outrageous. Later, Musk rejected the theory and added that he had no idea where his bitcoins, sent to him by his friend, were. Earlier this year, he revealed that only 0.25 BTC were given to him by his friend. Even so, Musk is often in the cryptocurrency headlines, primarily because he is the frequent target of crypto scambots found on Twitter. Musk, like other celebrities, suffered from hackers hijacking various verified profiles to promote crypto scams. He even replied to a follower, “At this point I want ETH even if it is a scam.” These accounts use the targeted professional’s picture as well as their Twitter handle and comment below their tweets. Due to the prevalence of these scams, Vitalik Buterin changed his name to “Vitalik Non-giver of ether.” Story continues Last month, Musk reached out to Jackson Palmer, creator of Dogecoin and product lead at Adobe, to solve this problem, saying, “[I]f you can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers, that would be much appreciated.” Palmer was able to create a script to block ETH giveaway scammers and help Musk in implementing it on his Twitter. Featured Image from Joe Rogan Experience/ YouTube The post Fake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoin appeared first on CCN . || Fake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoin: Yesterday, various news websites includingThe Next Webreported that Elon Musk’s Boring Company was accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its famous flamethrowers. However, it has now been revealed — also by TNW — that it is a fake website created by a scammer and that the real Boring Company is not accepting cryptocurrency.
The fake website is still live and displays a range of payment methods including cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin. It also claims that all proceeds will be used to support Hyperloop technology. However, Musk hasn’t responded to the recent scam yet.
Elon Muskis no stranger to the crypto industry. Despite staying away from the crypto buzz, some crypto enthusiasts are convinced that he created bitcoin. It all started in 2014 when Musk said that bitcoin was a “good thing” and called it a “legal to illegal bridge.” He also clarified that he didn’t own BTC at that time.
In 2017, Sahil Gupta, a former SpaceX employee, published a Medium post speculating that Musk was Bitcoin creatorSatoshi Nakamoto. This launched a debate in the crypto industry with some supporting the argument, and others lambasting it as outrageous. Later, Muskrejectedthe theory and added that he had no idea where his bitcoins, sent to him by his friend, were. Earlier this year, he revealed that only 0.25 BTC were given to him by his friend.
Even so, Musk is often in the cryptocurrency headlines, primarily because he is the frequent target of crypto scambots found on Twitter.
Musk, like other celebrities, suffered from hackers hijacking various verified profiles to promote crypto scams. He evenrepliedto a follower, “At this point I want ETH even if it is a scam.” These accounts use the targeted professional’s picture as well as their Twitter handle and comment below their tweets. Due to the prevalence of these scams, Vitalik Buterin changed his name to “Vitalik Non-giver of ether.”
Last month, Musk reached out to Jackson Palmer, creator of Dogecoin and product lead at Adobe, to solve this problem, saying, “[I]f you can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers, that would be much appreciated.” Palmer was able tocreate a scriptto block ETH giveaway scammers and help Musk in implementing it on his Twitter.
Featured Image from Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube
The postFake News: Elon Musk’s Flamethrower Company isn’t Accepting Bitcoinappeared first onCCN. || Such Borrow, Many Loan: Crypto Lender SALT Now Takes Dogecoin as Collateral: dogecoin Cryptocurrency investors have another way to access capital without having to liquidate their portfolios. SALT Lending , which has issued more than $50 million in blockchain-backed loans, is capitalizing on the liquidity in dogecoin and has begun offering loans in USD collateralized by longtime crypto darling DOGE. Dogecoins profile has been on the rise in recent months as investors have flocked to the altcoin while leaving others out in the cold. SALT promoted the coin addition subtly on social media by adding Doge, a Japanese dog breed Shiba Inu who is the dogecoin mascot, to its Twitter profile. In addition to dogecoin, SALT also supports loans backed by litecoin (LTC), bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH). The majority of loans are collateralized by bitcoin, though some loans are collateralized by ethereum, litecoin or a combination of the three. We are excited to have Doge as our newest collateral type, Jennifer Nealson, SALTs chief marketing officer, told CCN. dogecoin SALT Lending DOGE boasts a market cap of $500 million and trades on many popular cryptocurrency exchanges with one notable exception, Coinbase . While rumors have been circulating that Dogecoin community leaders are pursuing a Coinbase listing, the DOGE team rebuffed those claims. So since some "journalists" seem to like to misquote us about the Coinbase filing that we are not actually preparing we'll just do it here cause that's as far as it gets: Hey @coinbase list us pls kthxbye. Dogecoin (@dogecoin) October 15, 2018 In the announcement, SALT described dogecoin as an internet sensation, one whose value has recovered in 2018 while other altcoins have suffered. DOGE, whose value is up approximately 80 percent since mid-August, has made its way to the top 21 cryptocurrencies, having recently surrendered the no. 20 spot to privacy coin zcash (ZEC). Story continues According to GitHub ,Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, although it does not use SHA256 as its proof of work (POW). Taking development cues from Tenebrix and litecoin, dogecoin currently employs a simplified variant of scrypt. SALT Lending SALTs Nealson explained to CCN that, depending on their jurisdiction, borrowers can use the funds either for personal or business reasons. SALT transfers the loan amount to the borrowers bank account to be used by the borrower, she said. Incidentally, earlier this month, SALT began issuing USD loans backed by litecoin, at which time it revised its interest rate model to include rates as low as 5.99 percent for loans less than $75,000 and 11.99 percent for loans up to $25 million. With the addition of dogecoin, SALT integrated a voting system for new coins that borrowers want to see on the platform. Were listening to members of our community and are continuing to learn whats most valuable to them. Currently, people can vote on ETH Classic, Monero, XRP, Cardano, Dash, Bitcoin Cash, or they can fill in their own recommendation, as were always working to expand our collateral offerings, said Nealson. Competitive Landscape Perhaps the next area of focus will be stablecoins , which are the latest trend in the cryptocurrency community. BlockFi, which is a competitor to SALT Lending that similarly offers loans backed by cryptocurrency, in recent days announced its support for Gemini Dollar (GUSD) as collateral for USD loans. GUSD is the stablecoin that was issued by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss crypto exchange, Gemini. In addition to GUSD, BlockFi also added support for litecoin -backed loans, though its not a stablecoin. Meanwhile, SALT has experienced rising demand for its crypto-backed loans from the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam, and the firm recently expanded its reach in the U.S. to 35 U.S. states . Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Such Borrow, Many Loan: Crypto Lender SALT Now Takes Dogecoin as Collateral appeared first on CCN . || Such Borrow, Many Loan: Crypto Lender SALT Now Takes Dogecoin as Collateral: dogecoin Cryptocurrency investors have another way to access capital without having to liquidate their portfolios. SALT Lending , which has issued more than $50 million in blockchain-backed loans, is capitalizing on the liquidity in dogecoin and has begun offering loans in USD collateralized by longtime crypto darling DOGE. Dogecoins profile has been on the rise in recent months as investors have flocked to the altcoin while leaving others out in the cold. SALT promoted the coin addition subtly on social media by adding Doge, a Japanese dog breed Shiba Inu who is the dogecoin mascot, to its Twitter profile. In addition to dogecoin, SALT also supports loans backed by litecoin (LTC), bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH). The majority of loans are collateralized by bitcoin, though some loans are collateralized by ethereum, litecoin or a combination of the three. We are excited to have Doge as our newest collateral type, Jennifer Nealson, SALTs chief marketing officer, told CCN. dogecoin SALT Lending DOGE boasts a market cap of $500 million and trades on many popular cryptocurrency exchanges with one notable exception, Coinbase . While rumors have been circulating that Dogecoin community leaders are pursuing a Coinbase listing, the DOGE team rebuffed those claims. So since some "journalists" seem to like to misquote us about the Coinbase filing that we are not actually preparing we'll just do it here cause that's as far as it gets: Hey @coinbase list us pls kthxbye. Dogecoin (@dogecoin) October 15, 2018 In the announcement, SALT described dogecoin as an internet sensation, one whose value has recovered in 2018 while other altcoins have suffered. DOGE, whose value is up approximately 80 percent since mid-August, has made its way to the top 21 cryptocurrencies, having recently surrendered the no. 20 spot to privacy coin zcash (ZEC). Story continues According to GitHub ,Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, although it does not use SHA256 as its proof of work (POW). Taking development cues from Tenebrix and litecoin, dogecoin currently employs a simplified variant of scrypt. SALT Lending SALTs Nealson explained to CCN that, depending on their jurisdiction, borrowers can use the funds either for personal or business reasons. SALT transfers the loan amount to the borrowers bank account to be used by the borrower, she said. Incidentally, earlier this month, SALT began issuing USD loans backed by litecoin, at which time it revised its interest rate model to include rates as low as 5.99 percent for loans less than $75,000 and 11.99 percent for loans up to $25 million. With the addition of dogecoin, SALT integrated a voting system for new coins that borrowers want to see on the platform. Were listening to members of our community and are continuing to learn whats most valuable to them. Currently, people can vote on ETH Classic, Monero, XRP, Cardano, Dash, Bitcoin Cash, or they can fill in their own recommendation, as were always working to expand our collateral offerings, said Nealson. Competitive Landscape Perhaps the next area of focus will be stablecoins , which are the latest trend in the cryptocurrency community. BlockFi, which is a competitor to SALT Lending that similarly offers loans backed by cryptocurrency, in recent days announced its support for Gemini Dollar (GUSD) as collateral for USD loans. GUSD is the stablecoin that was issued by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss crypto exchange, Gemini. In addition to GUSD, BlockFi also added support for litecoin -backed loans, though its not a stablecoin. Meanwhile, SALT has experienced rising demand for its crypto-backed loans from the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam, and the firm recently expanded its reach in the U.S. to 35 U.S. states . Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Such Borrow, Many Loan: Crypto Lender SALT Now Takes Dogecoin as Collateral appeared first on CCN . || Armenian PM Attends Launch of Mining Farm Claiming to Be One of ‘World's Largest': The opening ceremony of a newminingfarm touting itself as one of the “world’s largest” was held in the Armenian capital Oct. 18, according to areportby local platform News Armenia. The Armenian Prime Minister and other top officials were reportedly in attendance.
The new mining farm is reportedly a joint venture by major Armenian conglomerate Multi Group, founded by oligarch and politician Gagik Tsarukyan, and controversial international mining firm Omnia Tech.
Tsarukyan is thefounderof Tsarukyan Alliance, which represents the second biggest parliamentary bloc in the Armenian Parliament, having sealed over 27 percent of the vote in the country’s 2017 elections; he is also reportedly a “key” business partner of former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan.
Multi Group employs over 25,000 people through its various subsidiaries, according to News Armenia.
Aside from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Tsarukyan, the event is reported to have been attended by numerous international businessmen, with Tsarukyan representing the event as drawing guests “from almost forty countries,” and further quoted by News Armenia as saying that:
“This is an important step towards the development of the information technology sector, especially since representatives of foreign business circles are planning to meet with government members to find out the possibilities of new and more ambitious investments in the Armenian economy and expanding the base of cooperation."
News Armenia reports that around $50 million has been invested in the creation of the new mining farm, which is said to currently have 3,000 Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) mining machines, and a planned capacity of 120,000 in future.
The report further states that “Omnia is the owner of equipment used in farms” belonging to prominent cloud mining firmGenesis Mining. It continues to allege that “Omnia provides Genesis with mining equipment and finances its servicing.”
This latter point is highly controversial given that in 2017, Omnia was accused of misappropriating the Genesis brand name and falsely claiming to have an association with the high-profile firm; Genesis has repeatedlyrefutedthis representation, clarifying that Omnia had simply purchased hashpower from the firm and was a customer, but without any official partnership or substantive business ties.
In May of this year, Omnia was furtheraccusedof operating a pyramid scheme by security researcher Chris Kubecka, who similarly underscored the company’s false claims to have a legitimate association with Genesis.
As previously reported, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev hasproposedthat all countries in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), including Armenia, should be part of a unified crypto-regulatory approach, given the “strong” and “close” economic ties between the bloc’s members.
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• Redditors Accuse Amex of Sponsoring Anti-Crypto Tweets, But Proof Inconclusive
[Social Media Buzz]
Cotización del Bitcoin Cash: 387 70.€ | -0.31% | Kraken | 21/10/18 17:00 #BitcoinCash #Kraken #BCHEUR || #LIZA #LAMBO price
10-21 13:00(GMT)
$LIZA
BTC :0.00000
ETH :0.00000
USD :0.0
RUR :0.0
JPY(btc) :0.0
JPY(eth) :0.0
$LAMBO
BTC :0.018
ETH :0.342
USD :127.0
RUR :8001.0
JPY(btc) :12764.3
JPY(eth) :7822.1 || 2018/10/22 07:00
BTC 723977円
ETH 22788.8円
ETC 1073.5円
BCH 50492.8円
XRP 51.1円
XEM 11.2円
LSK 317.4円
MONA 132円
#仮想通貨 #ビットコイン #Bitcoin #bitFlyer #Coincheck || 10-22 01:00(GMT)
#SPINDLE price...
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6487.16, 6475.74, 6495.84, 6476.29, 6474.75, 6480.38, 6486.39, 6332.63, 6334.27, 6317.61
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-09-02]
Volume: 39508070319, RSI (14-day): 60.38, 50-day EMA: 44001.16, 200-day EMA: 40745.81
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1808.70, Gold RSI: 54.97
Oil Price: 69.99, Oil RSI: 55.03
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Former US President Donald Trump: Crypto Is A Disaster Waiting To Happen: Donald Trump, the 45th president of the U.S., hasn’t changed his outlook towards cryptocurrencies as an asset class. What Happened: In an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, Trump said he had not dabbled in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and other cryptocurrencies because he prefers the U.S. dollar. “I like the currency of the United States. I think the others [cryptocurrencies] are potentially a disaster waiting to happen,” he said. The former president went on to state that the existence of cryptocurrencies could potentially even hurt the value of the dollar. “They may be fake. Who knows what they are? They certainly are currencies that people don’t know very much about. I’m not a big fan,” he added. Why It Matters: Trump’s most recent statements essentially reiterated his comments from last month . In June, he called Bitcoin “a scam” and called for U.S. regulators to step in and act. "The currency of this world should be the dollar. And I don't think we should have all of the Bitcoins of the world out there. I think they should regulate them very, very high," Trump said at the time, adding, "It takes the edge off of the dollar and the importance of the dollar." Read Also: Cathie Wood: Institutions Used The Correction This Year To Move Into Bitcoin At the time of Trump’s comments last month, Bitcoin was trading at $36,000. Since then, the price of the leading digital asset has appreciated by 42% to cross the $50,000 mark for the first time since May. However, Bitcoin hasn’t managed to sustain support at this price level and has consolidated between $47,000 and $49,000 for the past few weeks. Price Action: At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $48,552, gaining 3% over the past 24-hours. The cryptocurrency saw a 14% uptick in daily trading volume, which stood at $35 billion at the time of writing. Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Technical Analyst Expects Bitcoin Bull Market Will Peak In October, Predicts Altcoins Will Triple If BTC Hits 0K Institutions Load Up On M Of ETH, ADA, SOL As BTC Records 8 Consecutive Weeks Of Outflows © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Former US President Donald Trump: Crypto Is A Disaster Waiting To Happen: Donald Trump, the 45th president of the U.S., hasn’t changed his outlook towards cryptocurrencies as an asset class.
What Happened:In an interview withFox Businesson Tuesday, Trump said he had not dabbled inBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) and other cryptocurrencies because he prefers the U.S. dollar.
“I like the currency of the United States. I think the others [cryptocurrencies] are potentially a disaster waiting to happen,” he said.
The former president went on to state that the existence of cryptocurrencies could potentially even hurt the value of the dollar.
“They may be fake. Who knows what they are? They certainly are currencies that people don’t know very much about. I’m not a big fan,” he added.
Why It Matters:Trump’s most recent statements essentially reiterated hiscomments from last month. In June, he called Bitcoin “a scam” and called for U.S. regulators to step in and act.
"The currency of this world should be the dollar. And I don't think we should have all of the Bitcoins of the world out there. I think they should regulate them very, very high," Trump said at the time, adding, "It takes the edge off of the dollar and the importance of the dollar."
Read Also:Cathie Wood: Institutions Used The Correction This Year To Move Into Bitcoin
At the time of Trump’s comments last month, Bitcoin was trading at $36,000. Since then, the price of the leading digital asset has appreciated by 42% to cross the $50,000 mark for the first time since May.
However, Bitcoin hasn’t managed to sustain support at this price level and has consolidated between $47,000 and $49,000 for the past few weeks.
Price Action:At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $48,552, gaining 3% over the past 24-hours.
The cryptocurrency saw a 14% uptick in daily trading volume, which stood at $35 billion at the time of writing.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Technical Analyst Expects Bitcoin Bull Market Will Peak In October, Predicts Altcoins Will Triple If BTC Hits 0K
• Institutions Load Up On M Of ETH, ADA, SOL As BTC Records 8 Consecutive Weeks Of Outflows
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Twitter Is Reportedly Testing Tipping In Bitcoin Feature: Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR ) is now testing Lightning Network-powered Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) tipping service. What Happened: According to a MacRumors report , Twitter's latest beta update allows to send Bitcoin tips to content creators through a Lightning Network integration in the "Tip Jar" feature added in May. While the option is not yet available to beta users, unused code suggests that the rollout will happen soon. When the Twitter Tip Jar was first created, it supported Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL ), and Venmo as payment methods linked to their profile — soon, a Bitcoin option is expected to roll out as well. Why It's Important: The report follows the firm's CEO Jack Dorsey statement to investors in late July that Bitcoin is important to the company and that it was indeed going to be integrated into the Tip Jar. The code included in the latest Twitter beta update reveals that a dedicated tutorial will guide users interested in using the Bitcoin Lightning Network integration and non-custodial Bitcoin wallets. Twitter cites Strike, Blue Wallet, and Wallet of Satoshi as examples of custodial wallets and Muun, Breez, Phoenix, and Zap as non-custodial options. Read Also: Here Is How Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Plans To Expand Bitcoin Trading The social media giant will use Strike to generate its Lightning payment invoices. The report follows Dorsey recently announcing that Square’s new division TBD plans to build a decentralized Bitcoin exchange that will supposedly allow exchanging between the coin and fiat currency with no intermediaries. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Dogecoin Headed For Over , Crypto Market Analyst Believes Storage Data Coin Arweave Rises 80% In A Day, Hits All-Time High © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Twitter Is Reportedly Testing Tipping In Bitcoin Feature: Twitter Inc.(NYSE:TWTR) is now testing Lightning Network-poweredBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) tipping service.
What Happened:According to a MacRumorsreport, Twitter's latest beta update allows to send Bitcoin tips to content creators through a Lightning Network integration in the "Tip Jar" feature added in May. While the option is not yet available to beta users, unused code suggests that the rollout will happen soon.
When the Twitter Tip Jar was first created, it supported Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon,PayPal Holdings Inc.(NASDAQ:PYPL), and Venmo as payment methods linked to their profile — soon, a Bitcoin option is expected to roll out as well.
Why It's Important:The report follows the firm's CEO Jack Dorseystatementto investors in late July that Bitcoin is important to the company and that it was indeed going to be integrated into the Tip Jar.
The code included in the latest Twitter beta update reveals that a dedicated tutorial will guide users interested in using the Bitcoin Lightning Network integration and non-custodial Bitcoin wallets.
Twitter cites Strike, Blue Wallet, and Wallet of Satoshi as examples of custodial wallets and Muun, Breez, Phoenix, and Zap as non-custodial options.
Read Also:Here Is How Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Plans To Expand Bitcoin Trading
The social media giant will use Strike to generate its Lightning payment invoices.
The report follows Dorsey recentlyannouncingthat Square’s new division TBD plans to build a decentralized Bitcoin exchange that will supposedly allow exchanging between the coin and fiat currency with no intermediaries.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Dogecoin Headed For Over , Crypto Market Analyst Believes
• Storage Data Coin Arweave Rises 80% In A Day, Hits All-Time High
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Twitter Is Reportedly Testing Tipping In Bitcoin Feature: Twitter Inc.(NYSE:TWTR) is now testing Lightning Network-poweredBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) tipping service.
What Happened:According to a MacRumorsreport, Twitter's latest beta update allows to send Bitcoin tips to content creators through a Lightning Network integration in the "Tip Jar" feature added in May. While the option is not yet available to beta users, unused code suggests that the rollout will happen soon.
When the Twitter Tip Jar was first created, it supported Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon,PayPal Holdings Inc.(NASDAQ:PYPL), and Venmo as payment methods linked to their profile — soon, a Bitcoin option is expected to roll out as well.
Why It's Important:The report follows the firm's CEO Jack Dorseystatementto investors in late July that Bitcoin is important to the company and that it was indeed going to be integrated into the Tip Jar.
The code included in the latest Twitter beta update reveals that a dedicated tutorial will guide users interested in using the Bitcoin Lightning Network integration and non-custodial Bitcoin wallets.
Twitter cites Strike, Blue Wallet, and Wallet of Satoshi as examples of custodial wallets and Muun, Breez, Phoenix, and Zap as non-custodial options.
Read Also:Here Is How Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Plans To Expand Bitcoin Trading
The social media giant will use Strike to generate its Lightning payment invoices.
The report follows Dorsey recentlyannouncingthat Square’s new division TBD plans to build a decentralized Bitcoin exchange that will supposedly allow exchanging between the coin and fiat currency with no intermediaries.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Dogecoin Headed For Over , Crypto Market Analyst Believes
• Storage Data Coin Arweave Rises 80% In A Day, Hits All-Time High
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin hash rate almost back at April levels: Bitcoins hash rate has undertaken an outstanding recovery from the Chinese governments crypto mining ban which saw a mass exodus of more than 65% of active Bitcoin mining rigs three months ago. The hash rate is, effectively, a measure of how many miners are actively searching for a hash on the SHA256 Bitcoin (BTC) network. A glimpse at the chart shows the plummeting hash rate in June as Chinese miners disconnected from the SHA256 network and scrambled to move overseas to re-establish data centres. Bitcoin hash rate September 1 2021 Source The Chinese mining exodus saw the SHA256 hash rate drop below 100 TH/s for the first time since May 2020. While the migrating miners were offline for the best part of June and July, western miners still operating seized upon the opportunity to rake in bigger profits due to the lower difficulty. This led to a suspicion in some corners of the crypto community that the recent break in resistance at $50k could be attributed to the supply of freshly-minted BTC decreasing amid increased competition. Operations appear to have now largely resumed, with an intrepid 30% rise in the Hash Rate on the network which, at the time of writing, sat at 126 TH/s (Terra Hashes per second). This comes as the BTC mining difficulty rate has pulled a near full recovery to its previous level ahead of the next halving event. The hash rate recovery has been interpreted by some investors as a bullish signal, with the amount of miners on the network at similar levels to November 2020 before the impressive Spring bull run. This has fuelled speculation about the potential for a super cycle. However, empirical evidence paints a different picture with a Russian study of BTC price and hash rates revealing that price impacts on hash rate more than vice versa. More crypto news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. || Bitcoin hash rate almost back at April levels: Bitcoins hash rate has undertaken an outstanding recovery from the Chinese governments crypto mining ban which saw a mass exodus of more than 65% of active Bitcoin mining rigs three months ago. The hash rate is, effectively, a measure of how many miners are actively searching for a hash on the SHA256 Bitcoin (BTC) network. A glimpse at the chart shows the plummeting hash rate in June as Chinese miners disconnected from the SHA256 network and scrambled to move overseas to re-establish data centres. Bitcoin hash rate September 1 2021 Source The Chinese mining exodus saw the SHA256 hash rate drop below 100 TH/s for the first time since May 2020. While the migrating miners were offline for the best part of June and July, western miners still operating seized upon the opportunity to rake in bigger profits due to the lower difficulty. This led to a suspicion in some corners of the crypto community that the recent break in resistance at $50k could be attributed to the supply of freshly-minted BTC decreasing amid increased competition. Operations appear to have now largely resumed, with an intrepid 30% rise in the Hash Rate on the network which, at the time of writing, sat at 126 TH/s (Terra Hashes per second). This comes as the BTC mining difficulty rate has pulled a near full recovery to its previous level ahead of the next halving event. The hash rate recovery has been interpreted by some investors as a bullish signal, with the amount of miners on the network at similar levels to November 2020 before the impressive Spring bull run. This has fuelled speculation about the potential for a super cycle. However, empirical evidence paints a different picture with a Russian study of BTC price and hash rates revealing that price impacts on hash rate more than vice versa. More crypto news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. || Bitcoin hash rate almost back at April levels: Bitcoins hash rate has undertaken an outstanding recovery from the Chinese governments crypto mining ban which saw a mass exodus of more than 65% of active Bitcoin mining rigs three months ago. The hash rate is, effectively, a measure of how many miners are actively searching for a hash on the SHA256 Bitcoin (BTC) network. A glimpse at the chart shows the plummeting hash rate in June as Chinese miners disconnected from the SHA256 network and scrambled to move overseas to re-establish data centres. Bitcoin hash rate September 1 2021 Source The Chinese mining exodus saw the SHA256 hash rate drop below 100 TH/s for the first time since May 2020. While the migrating miners were offline for the best part of June and July, western miners still operating seized upon the opportunity to rake in bigger profits due to the lower difficulty. This led to a suspicion in some corners of the crypto community that the recent break in resistance at $50k could be attributed to the supply of freshly-minted BTC decreasing amid increased competition. Operations appear to have now largely resumed, with an intrepid 30% rise in the Hash Rate on the network which, at the time of writing, sat at 126 TH/s (Terra Hashes per second). This comes as the BTC mining difficulty rate has pulled a near full recovery to its previous level ahead of the next halving event. The hash rate recovery has been interpreted by some investors as a bullish signal, with the amount of miners on the network at similar levels to November 2020 before the impressive Spring bull run. This has fuelled speculation about the potential for a super cycle. However, empirical evidence paints a different picture with a Russian study of BTC price and hash rates revealing that price impacts on hash rate more than vice versa. More crypto news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. || SEC sues BitConnect founder for alleged $2 billion crypto fraud: Bitcoin Nurphoto The SEC sued the founder of BitConnect on Wednesday alleging a $2 billion crypto fraud. Satish Kumbhani is accused of improperly selling securities in January 2017. BitConnect falsely told investors it could generate monthly returns as high as 40%, according to the SEC. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . The SEC sued the founder of BitConnect on Wednesday for an alleged $2 billion crypto fraud, according to court filings first reported on by Bloomberg Law. Satish Kumbhani is accused by the SEC of improperly selling securities, raising $2 billion from investors in an offering that wasn't properly registered with regulators. The security raise occurred in January of 2017. According to the SEC, Kumbhani and Glenn Arcaro, a promoter, improperly sold securities tied to BitConnect's purported "lending program" throughout 2017. The defendants falsely told investors that it could generate monthly returns as high as 40% with its "volatility software trading bot," according to the complaint. The SEC alleges no such trading strategy existed. In May, the SEC sued five promoters tied to BitConnect that pushed the scheme by creating testimonials on YouTube. The promoters were awarded commissions based on their success in attracting new investors. According to the SEC, Arcaro received more than $24 million in referral commissions. The promoters paid 190 bitcoin and $3.5 million to the SEC to settle the charges. BitConnects folded in 2018 after it received cease and desist letters for the unauthorized sale of securities and being the victim of DOS cyber attacks. Read the original article on Business Insider || SEC sues BitConnect founder for alleged $2 billion crypto fraud: Bitcoin Nurphoto The SEC sued the founder of BitConnect on Wednesday alleging a $2 billion crypto fraud. Satish Kumbhani is accused of improperly selling securities in January 2017. BitConnect falsely told investors it could generate monthly returns as high as 40%, according to the SEC. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . The SEC sued the founder of BitConnect on Wednesday for an alleged $2 billion crypto fraud, according to court filings first reported on by Bloomberg Law. Satish Kumbhani is accused by the SEC of improperly selling securities, raising $2 billion from investors in an offering that wasn't properly registered with regulators. The security raise occurred in January of 2017. According to the SEC, Kumbhani and Glenn Arcaro, a promoter, improperly sold securities tied to BitConnect's purported "lending program" throughout 2017. The defendants falsely told investors that it could generate monthly returns as high as 40% with its "volatility software trading bot," according to the complaint. The SEC alleges no such trading strategy existed. In May, the SEC sued five promoters tied to BitConnect that pushed the scheme by creating testimonials on YouTube. The promoters were awarded commissions based on their success in attracting new investors. According to the SEC, Arcaro received more than $24 million in referral commissions. The promoters paid 190 bitcoin and $3.5 million to the SEC to settle the charges. BitConnects folded in 2018 after it received cease and desist letters for the unauthorized sale of securities and being the victim of DOS cyber attacks. Read the original article on Business Insider || Stock Market Today: Comms, Defensive Stocks Rise After Weak Payrolls Report: concept art of stock movement Getty Images The Nasdaq Composite managed to set new all-time highs on Wednesday, but that belied a much more mixed session for stocks as investors digested a few fresh economic reports. Today's headliner was an extremely weak August employment reading – a precursor to Friday's government-sourced jobs report. ADP data showed private payrolls rose 374,000 last month – well short of estimates for 600,000. SEE MORE The 25 Best Low-Fee Mutual Funds You Can Buy "Given the Delta impact and weak economic data seen throughout August, it was not shocking to see a miss," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. "The magnitude of the miss was quite large, but as we pointed out yesterday, the survey has not been a great indicator for the official BLS employment report over the last year and change." The ISM manufacturing composite, however, did show strength, improving to 59.9 in August from 59.5 in July (anything above 50 indicates expansion). "With production gaining momentum in August, we see encouraging signs that factories continue to make progress in realigning production with demand, despite ongoing challenges from supply bottlenecks," Barclays economist Jonathan Millar says. Meanwhile, construction spending rose 0.3% month-over-month in July to top expectations. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Nonetheless, most of the market's reaction seemed focused on the lackluster jobs report. The defensive real estate (+1.7%) and utilities sectors (+1.4%) were Wednesday's best performers, and relative strength in communication services (+0.5%) pushed the Nasdaq 0.3% higher to a record 15,309, and also helped the S&P 500 achieve a marginal gain to 4,524. Struggles in energy (-1.5%) and financials (-0.6%), however, dragged on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1% to 35,312). Story continues SEE MORE 10 Best REITs for the Rest of 2021 Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 managed another day of outperformance, gaining 0.6% to 2,287. Vera Bradley ( VRA , -9.4%) stock took a big hit after the women's accessories maker reported second-quarter results that fell short of analysts' consensus estimates. VRA reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 28 cents on $147.1 million in revenues – below the 33 cents per share and $153.6 million Wall Street was calling for. Nevertheless, Small Cap Consumer Research analyst Eric Beder reiterated his Buy rating on the stock. "We believe the company's management continues to do the right things in the near and longer term to create a more diversified and resilient business model that, as the world normalizes, will register strong consistent operating results and justify a higher multiple," he says. Ambarella ( AMBA ), on the other hand, surged 27.4% in the wake of its earnings report. In its second quarter, the fabless semiconductor company brought in adjusted earnings of 35 cents per share on $79.3 million in revenues. Analysts, meanwhile, were expecting EPS of 25 cents on $75.7 million in revenue. Stifel analysts chimed in after the results. "Overall, we believe AMBA is approaching a key inflection in its business, with the security camera inventory digestion now largely behind it, and computer vision (CV) hitting its stride ahead of a long secular growth runway," they say. "Coupled with a pristine balance sheet, we maintain our Buy on AMBA as a key, long-term beneficiary of CV/Edge Processing." U.S. crude oil futures eked out a 0.1% gain to settle at $68.59 per barrel. Earlier today, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, collectively referred to as OPEC+, confirmed its plan to gradually increase oil production each month. Gold futures slipped 0.1% to $1,816 an ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined 3.1% to 15.97. Bitcoin rebounded 2.0% to $48,229.60. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) stock chart for 090121 YCharts What Happened to the Year of the Value Stock? Have we seen the end of value's day in the sun? SEE MORE 11 Top Healthcare ETFs to Buy Now The more value-focused Dow was the leading major index through the end of May. But the script has since flipped, with the Nasdaq up 11.4%, the S&P 500 gaining 7.6% and the DJIA up just 2.3%. "After several strong quarters for value stocks, the last few months have seen a sharp reversal in favor of growth," says Ben Inker, head of asset allocation at asset management firm GMO. "Understandably, this has led some investors to question whether value's run is over and whether value investing makes sense as anything more than a tactical play. "The valuation disconnect between value and growth has reached extreme levels today. We've heard many reasons why 'it's different this time' and growth is destined and deserving to outperform. At these relative valuation levels, our long-term bet is the opposite." In the shorter-term, many value choices are likely to overlap with the "recovery trade" as America tries to put COVID in the rearview mirror. But if you're just looking for value wherever it can be found, you have options just about everywhere on the market spectrum. For instance, while many investors think of small caps as mostly growth plays, smaller companies can indeed be attractive from a price standpoint . But if you prefer the safety of larger firms, these 16 value stocks represent more traditional ways of approaching the investing style. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 10 Best Marijuana Stocks to Buy Now 7 REIT ETFs for Every Type of Investor || Stock Market Today: Comms, Defensive Stocks Rise After Weak Payrolls Report: concept art of stock movement Getty Images The Nasdaq Composite managed to set new all-time highs on Wednesday, but that belied a much more mixed session for stocks as investors digested a few fresh economic reports. Today's headliner was an extremely weak August employment reading – a precursor to Friday's government-sourced jobs report. ADP data showed private payrolls rose 374,000 last month – well short of estimates for 600,000. SEE MORE The 25 Best Low-Fee Mutual Funds You Can Buy "Given the Delta impact and weak economic data seen throughout August, it was not shocking to see a miss," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. "The magnitude of the miss was quite large, but as we pointed out yesterday, the survey has not been a great indicator for the official BLS employment report over the last year and change." The ISM manufacturing composite, however, did show strength, improving to 59.9 in August from 59.5 in July (anything above 50 indicates expansion). "With production gaining momentum in August, we see encouraging signs that factories continue to make progress in realigning production with demand, despite ongoing challenges from supply bottlenecks," Barclays economist Jonathan Millar says. Meanwhile, construction spending rose 0.3% month-over-month in July to top expectations. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Nonetheless, most of the market's reaction seemed focused on the lackluster jobs report. The defensive real estate (+1.7%) and utilities sectors (+1.4%) were Wednesday's best performers, and relative strength in communication services (+0.5%) pushed the Nasdaq 0.3% higher to a record 15,309, and also helped the S&P 500 achieve a marginal gain to 4,524. Struggles in energy (-1.5%) and financials (-0.6%), however, dragged on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.1% to 35,312). Story continues SEE MORE 10 Best REITs for the Rest of 2021 Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 managed another day of outperformance, gaining 0.6% to 2,287. Vera Bradley ( VRA , -9.4%) stock took a big hit after the women's accessories maker reported second-quarter results that fell short of analysts' consensus estimates. VRA reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 28 cents on $147.1 million in revenues – below the 33 cents per share and $153.6 million Wall Street was calling for. Nevertheless, Small Cap Consumer Research analyst Eric Beder reiterated his Buy rating on the stock. "We believe the company's management continues to do the right things in the near and longer term to create a more diversified and resilient business model that, as the world normalizes, will register strong consistent operating results and justify a higher multiple," he says. Ambarella ( AMBA ), on the other hand, surged 27.4% in the wake of its earnings report. In its second quarter, the fabless semiconductor company brought in adjusted earnings of 35 cents per share on $79.3 million in revenues. Analysts, meanwhile, were expecting EPS of 25 cents on $75.7 million in revenue. Stifel analysts chimed in after the results. "Overall, we believe AMBA is approaching a key inflection in its business, with the security camera inventory digestion now largely behind it, and computer vision (CV) hitting its stride ahead of a long secular growth runway," they say. "Coupled with a pristine balance sheet, we maintain our Buy on AMBA as a key, long-term beneficiary of CV/Edge Processing." U.S. crude oil futures eked out a 0.1% gain to settle at $68.59 per barrel. Earlier today, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, collectively referred to as OPEC+, confirmed its plan to gradually increase oil production each month. Gold futures slipped 0.1% to $1,816 an ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined 3.1% to 15.97. Bitcoin rebounded 2.0% to $48,229.60. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) stock chart for 090121 YCharts What Happened to the Year of the Value Stock? Have we seen the end of value's day in the sun? SEE MORE 11 Top Healthcare ETFs to Buy Now The more value-focused Dow was the leading major index through the end of May. But the script has since flipped, with the Nasdaq up 11.4%, the S&P 500 gaining 7.6% and the DJIA up just 2.3%. "After several strong quarters for value stocks, the last few months have seen a sharp reversal in favor of growth," says Ben Inker, head of asset allocation at asset management firm GMO. "Understandably, this has led some investors to question whether value's run is over and whether value investing makes sense as anything more than a tactical play. "The valuation disconnect between value and growth has reached extreme levels today. We've heard many reasons why 'it's different this time' and growth is destined and deserving to outperform. At these relative valuation levels, our long-term bet is the opposite." In the shorter-term, many value choices are likely to overlap with the "recovery trade" as America tries to put COVID in the rearview mirror. But if you're just looking for value wherever it can be found, you have options just about everywhere on the market spectrum. For instance, while many investors think of small caps as mostly growth plays, smaller companies can indeed be attractive from a price standpoint . But if you prefer the safety of larger firms, these 16 value stocks represent more traditional ways of approaching the investing style. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 10 Best Marijuana Stocks to Buy Now 7 REIT ETFs for Every Type of Investor || Marathon Collaborates with NYDIG To Launch Unique Products and Services for Members of Marathon’s Mining Pool: LAS VEGAS, Sept. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc.(NASDAQ:MARA) ("Marathon" or "Company"), one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin mining companies in North America, today announced an expanded collaboration withNYDIG, a leading technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin, to provide members of Marathon’s Bitcoin mining pool,MaraPool, with seamless access to NYDIG’s comprehensive and institutional-grade services for Bitcoin miners.
MaraPool is a bitcoin mining pool based in the United States focused on carbon neutral mining and reducing the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. The pool provides its members with industry-leading transparency and is fully audited by a third-party firm based in the U.S. Through the new collaboration with NYDIG, members of MaraPool will now also benefit from access to NYDIG’s products and services for Bitcoin miners, including equipment procurement, financing, investment vehicles, advisory services, and more.
“NYDIG has been an important collaborator of ours, providing a variety of treasury management and trading services, including facilitation of the purchase of 4,812.66 bitcoins in January,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO. “NYDIG’s team shares our passion for professionalizing and institutionalizing the Bitcoin mining industry in the U.S., and by collaborating with NYDIG on our mining pool, we have enabled all members of our pool to have access to the same world class solutions and expertise from which Marathon has benefitted.”
Robert Gutmann, co-founder and CEO of NYDIG, commented, “Marathon has proven to be one of the most innovative companies in the Bitcoin mining space and a great partner to NYDIG. We are very pleased to be expanding our work with Marathon to provide all members of MaraPool with access to NYDIG’s robust suite of products and services tailored specifically for the complex needs of bitcoin miners.”
MaraPool will begin accepting applications from other U.S.-based Bitcoin mining companies later this month. To learn more about MaraPool, visitwww.marapool.com.
Investor NoticeInvesting in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hash rate may also materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production of Bitcoin. Additionally, all discussions of financial metrics assume mining difficulty rates as of September 2021. See "Safe Harbor" below.
Forward-Looking StatementsStatements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.
About NYDIGNYDIG provides Bitcoin technology and investment solutions to insurers, banks, corporations, institutions, and HNW individuals. The firm and its products meet the industry’s highest regulatory, audit, and governance standards. Learn more atnydig.com, or follow NYDIG onLinkedInandTwitter(@NYDIG_BTC).
About Marathon Digital HoldingsMarathon is a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets.
Marathon Digital Holdings Company Contact:Charlie SchumacherTelephone: 800-804-1690Email:[email protected] || Marathon Collaborates with NYDIG To Launch Unique Products and Services for Members of Marathon’s Mining Pool: LAS VEGAS, Sept. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA ) ("Marathon" or "Company") , one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin mining companies in North America, today announced an expanded collaboration with NYDIG , a leading technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin, to provide members of Marathon’s Bitcoin mining pool, MaraPool , with seamless access to NYDIG’s comprehensive and institutional-grade services for Bitcoin miners. MaraPool is a bitcoin mining pool based in the United States focused on carbon neutral mining and reducing the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. The pool provides its members with industry-leading transparency and is fully audited by a third-party firm based in the U.S. Through the new collaboration with NYDIG, members of MaraPool will now also benefit from access to NYDIG’s products and services for Bitcoin miners, including equipment procurement, financing, investment vehicles, advisory services, and more. “NYDIG has been an important collaborator of ours, providing a variety of treasury management and trading services, including facilitation of the purchase of 4,812.66 bitcoins in January,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO. “NYDIG’s team shares our passion for professionalizing and institutionalizing the Bitcoin mining industry in the U.S., and by collaborating with NYDIG on our mining pool, we have enabled all members of our pool to have access to the same world class solutions and expertise from which Marathon has benefitted.” Robert Gutmann, co-founder and CEO of NYDIG, commented, “Marathon has proven to be one of the most innovative companies in the Bitcoin mining space and a great partner to NYDIG. We are very pleased to be expanding our work with Marathon to provide all members of MaraPool with access to NYDIG’s robust suite of products and services tailored specifically for the complex needs of bitcoin miners.” MaraPool will begin accepting applications from other U.S.-based Bitcoin mining companies later this month. To learn more about MaraPool, visit www.marapool.com . Investor Notice Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hash rate may also materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production of Bitcoin. Additionally, all discussions of financial metrics assume mining difficulty rates as of September 2021. See "Safe Harbor" below. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements Statements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise. About NYDIG NYDIG provides Bitcoin technology and investment solutions to insurers, banks, corporations, institutions, and HNW individuals. The firm and its products meet the industry’s highest regulatory, audit, and governance standards. Learn more at nydig.com , or follow NYDIG on LinkedIn and Twitter (@NYDIG_BTC). About Marathon Digital Holdings Marathon is a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets. Marathon Digital Holdings Company Contact: Charlie Schumacher Telephone: 800-804-1690 Email: [email protected] View comments || SEC boss says cryptocurrency can't last long outside of regulation: 'Finance is about trust': G ary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, implored cryptocurrency trading platforms to work with regulators and cautioned that their failure to do so could end up hurting them. The SEC chief, who previously taught classes in cryptocurrency finance and blockchain technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that regulation insulates investors from threats and maintains financial stability. “At about $2 trillion of value worldwide, it’s at the level and the nature that if it’s going to have any relevance five and 10 years from now, it’s going to be within a public policy framework,” he told the Financial Times. “History just tells you, it doesn’t last long outside. Finance is about trust, ultimately.” Gensler told the platforms to come to the table and said they would do better by engaging with the SEC and other federal regulators than by avoiding them. He said that on the part of these cryptocurrency platforms, there has been a bit of “begging for forgiveness rather than asking for permission.” SEC CHIEF TELLS WARREN AGENCY SHOULD HAVE MORE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE CRYPTO This isn’t the first time Gensler, who was appointed by Biden, has raised concerns about the regulatory environment surrounding cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. During an August appearance at the Aspen Security Forum, Gensler implored Congress to help rein in the “Wild West” of cryptocurrencies. Gensler said that while his agency has taken and will continue to take its regulatory authorities over digital assets “as far as they go,” there still remain regulatory gaps. “We need additional congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks,” he said. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin respond poorly to talk of regulation. Bitcoin hit all-time highs earlier this year, but it then took a nosedive after China began cracking down on mining operations and increased cryptocurrency regulations. Since then, the value of cryptocurrency has been steadily increasing , with Bitcoin recently hitting $50,000 for the first time in months. Story continues Washington Examiner Videos Tags: News , Cryptocurrency , Bitcoin , SEC , Regulation , Business , Currency Original Author: Zachary Halaschak Original Location: SEC boss says cryptocurrency can't last long outside of regulation: 'Finance is about trust' || SEC boss says cryptocurrency can't last long outside of regulation: 'Finance is about trust': G ary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, implored cryptocurrency trading platforms to work with regulators and cautioned that their failure to do so could end up hurting them. The SEC chief, who previously taught classes in cryptocurrency finance and blockchain technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that regulation insulates investors from threats and maintains financial stability. “At about $2 trillion of value worldwide, it’s at the level and the nature that if it’s going to have any relevance five and 10 years from now, it’s going to be within a public policy framework,” he told the Financial Times. “History just tells you, it doesn’t last long outside. Finance is about trust, ultimately.” Gensler told the platforms to come to the table and said they would do better by engaging with the SEC and other federal regulators than by avoiding them. He said that on the part of these cryptocurrency platforms, there has been a bit of “begging for forgiveness rather than asking for permission.” SEC CHIEF TELLS WARREN AGENCY SHOULD HAVE MORE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE CRYPTO This isn’t the first time Gensler, who was appointed by Biden, has raised concerns about the regulatory environment surrounding cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. During an August appearance at the Aspen Security Forum, Gensler implored Congress to help rein in the “Wild West” of cryptocurrencies. Gensler said that while his agency has taken and will continue to take its regulatory authorities over digital assets “as far as they go,” there still remain regulatory gaps. “We need additional congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks,” he said. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin respond poorly to talk of regulation. Bitcoin hit all-time highs earlier this year, but it then took a nosedive after China began cracking down on mining operations and increased cryptocurrency regulations. Since then, the value of cryptocurrency has been steadily increasing , with Bitcoin recently hitting $50,000 for the first time in months. Story continues Washington Examiner Videos Tags: News , Cryptocurrency , Bitcoin , SEC , Regulation , Business , Currency Original Author: Zachary Halaschak Original Location: SEC boss says cryptocurrency can't last long outside of regulation: 'Finance is about trust' || FOREX-Dollar softens after ADP; euro hits one-month high: (New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments, adds bitcoin, ethereum) * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The dollar fell against a basket of major currencies on Wednesday after a report on the U.S. labor market missed expectations by a wide margin, while the euro climbed to a one-month high on inflation worries. The greenback fell after the ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls rose by 374,000 in August, up from 326,000 in July but well short of the 613,000 forecast. A report on weekly initial jobless claims arrives on Thursday and on Friday the government releases the payrolls report for August, which could provide clues about the Federal Reserve's policy path. "Certainly the recovery has been uneven but if nonfarm payrolls should also disappoint, that would seemingly close the door to an imminent taper and keep the dollar in a bit of a funk," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington DC. The dollar has been under pressure since Friday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at the Jackson Hole conference that while tapering could begin this year, the central bank was in no hurry to raise interest rates. Concerns about rising COVID-19 cases denting the economic rebound could also serve to keep the central bank from scaling back stimulus. Other data showed U.S. manufacturing activity increased more than anticipated in August, but a measure of employment in factories fell to a nine-month low, likely due to a shortage of workers. The dollar index fell 0.203% and hit a new one-month low of 92.376. The euro rose against the greenback to a one-month high as inflation worries persisted following data on Tuesday which showed euro zone inflation increased to 3% year-on-year in August, the highest in a decade and above the European Central Bank's 2% target, as well as the 2.7% Reuters forecast. The euro was up 0.3% to $1.1843, after rising to as much as 1.1857, its highest level since Aug. 5. "We have seen numbers that argue against keeping policy so low for so long and that has been helping the euro... it is certainly going to heighten the focus on the QE debates next week when we hear from the ECB," said Manimbo. German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said euro zone inflation risks overshooting ECB projections and the central bank should prepare for the end of its 1.85 trillion euro Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP). The ECB is scheduled to hold a policy meeting on Sept. 9. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.04% versus the greenback at 109.97 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.3773, up 0.14% on the day. In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin last rose 2.9% to $48,521.68 while Ethereum last rose 8.18% to $3,713.24. Ether rose as high as $3,791.28 on the day, its highest level since May 16. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:18PM (1918 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Dollar index 92.4620 92.6620 -0.20% 2.757% +92.7900 +92.3760 Euro/Dollar $1.1844 $1.1809 +0.30% -3.06% +$1.1857 +$1.1794 Dollar/Yen 109.9850 109.9950 +0.00% +6.45% +110.4150 +109.8800 Euro/Yen 130.25 129.88 +0.28% +2.62% +130.4400 +129.8900 Dollar/Swiss 0.9149 0.9153 -0.02% +3.44% +0.9189 +0.9140 Sterling/Dollar $1.3773 $1.3756 +0.13% +0.82% +$1.3797 +$1.3732 Dollar/Canadian 1.2616 1.2614 +0.02% -0.93% +1.2637 +1.2581 Aussie/Dollar $0.7369 $0.7314 +0.75% -4.21% +$0.7384 +$0.7308 Euro/Swiss 1.0837 1.0806 +0.29% +0.28% +1.0850 +1.0807 Euro/Sterling 0.8599 0.8582 +0.20% -3.78% +0.8602 +0.8574 NZ $0.7067 $0.7050 +0.23% -1.61% +$0.7077 +$0.7034 Dollar/Dollar Dollar/Norway 8.6905 8.6915 -0.01% +1.21% +8.7100 +8.6690 Euro/Norway 10.2940 10.2636 +0.30% -1.65% +10.2996 +10.2460 Dollar/Sweden 8.6089 8.6237 +0.09% +5.03% +8.6465 +8.5927 Euro/Sweden 10.1959 10.1870 +0.09% +1.19% +10.2070 +10.1825 (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak Editing by Mark Heinrich and David Gregorio) || FOREX-Dollar softens after ADP; euro hits one-month high: (New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments, adds bitcoin, ethereum) * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The dollar fell against a basket of major currencies on Wednesday after a report on the U.S. labor market missed expectations by a wide margin, while the euro climbed to a one-month high on inflation worries. The greenback fell after the ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls rose by 374,000 in August, up from 326,000 in July but well short of the 613,000 forecast. A report on weekly initial jobless claims arrives on Thursday and on Friday the government releases the payrolls report for August, which could provide clues about the Federal Reserve's policy path. "Certainly the recovery has been uneven but if nonfarm payrolls should also disappoint, that would seemingly close the door to an imminent taper and keep the dollar in a bit of a funk," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington DC. The dollar has been under pressure since Friday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at the Jackson Hole conference that while tapering could begin this year, the central bank was in no hurry to raise interest rates. Concerns about rising COVID-19 cases denting the economic rebound could also serve to keep the central bank from scaling back stimulus. Other data showed U.S. manufacturing activity increased more than anticipated in August, but a measure of employment in factories fell to a nine-month low, likely due to a shortage of workers. The dollar index fell 0.203% and hit a new one-month low of 92.376. The euro rose against the greenback to a one-month high as inflation worries persisted following data on Tuesday which showed euro zone inflation increased to 3% year-on-year in August, the highest in a decade and above the European Central Bank's 2% target, as well as the 2.7% Reuters forecast. The euro was up 0.3% to $1.1843, after rising to as much as 1.1857, its highest level since Aug. 5. "We have seen numbers that argue against keeping policy so low for so long and that has been helping the euro... it is certainly going to heighten the focus on the QE debates next week when we hear from the ECB," said Manimbo. German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said euro zone inflation risks overshooting ECB projections and the central bank should prepare for the end of its 1.85 trillion euro Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP). The ECB is scheduled to hold a policy meeting on Sept. 9. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.04% versus the greenback at 109.97 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.3773, up 0.14% on the day. In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin last rose 2.9% to $48,521.68 while Ethereum last rose 8.18% to $3,713.24. Ether rose as high as $3,791.28 on the day, its highest level since May 16. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:18PM (1918 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Dollar index 92.4620 92.6620 -0.20% 2.757% +92.7900 +92.3760 Euro/Dollar $1.1844 $1.1809 +0.30% -3.06% +$1.1857 +$1.1794 Dollar/Yen 109.9850 109.9950 +0.00% +6.45% +110.4150 +109.8800 Euro/Yen 130.25 129.88 +0.28% +2.62% +130.4400 +129.8900 Dollar/Swiss 0.9149 0.9153 -0.02% +3.44% +0.9189 +0.9140 Sterling/Dollar $1.3773 $1.3756 +0.13% +0.82% +$1.3797 +$1.3732 Dollar/Canadian 1.2616 1.2614 +0.02% -0.93% +1.2637 +1.2581 Aussie/Dollar $0.7369 $0.7314 +0.75% -4.21% +$0.7384 +$0.7308 Euro/Swiss 1.0837 1.0806 +0.29% +0.28% +1.0850 +1.0807 Euro/Sterling 0.8599 0.8582 +0.20% -3.78% +0.8602 +0.8574 NZ $0.7067 $0.7050 +0.23% -1.61% +$0.7077 +$0.7034 Dollar/Dollar Dollar/Norway 8.6905 8.6915 -0.01% +1.21% +8.7100 +8.6690 Euro/Norway 10.2940 10.2636 +0.30% -1.65% +10.2996 +10.2460 Dollar/Sweden 8.6089 8.6237 +0.09% +5.03% +8.6465 +8.5927 Euro/Sweden 10.1959 10.1870 +0.09% +1.19% +10.2070 +10.1825 (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak Editing by Mark Heinrich and David Gregorio) || Twitter iOS Beta Update Hints at Future Bitcoin Integration: BeInCrypto – A new beta function on Twitter iOS allows tips for content creators, lays the groundwork for future bitcoin tips. In the most recent beta update on Twitter iOS, the app introduces support for bitcoin content creator tips. The “Tip Jar” feature, introduced earlier this year, has coding which hints Twitter will roll out a BTC option. Initially, the Tip Jar allowed users the opportunity for Bandcamp, CashApp, Patreon, Paypal, and Venom extensions on their profiles. In the near future, Bitcoin tips will be a possibility. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, told investors that Bitcoin is important to the company back in July. This story was seen first on BeInCrypto Join our Telegram Group and get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories like this on BeInCrypto || Twitter iOS Beta Update Hints at Future Bitcoin Integration: BeInCrypto –
A newbeta functionon Twitter iOS allows tips for content creators, lays the groundwork for future bitcoin tips.
In the most recent beta update on Twitter iOS, the app introduces support for bitcoin content creator tips. The “Tip Jar” feature, introduced earlier this year, has coding which hints Twitter will roll out a BTC option.
Initially, the Tip Jar allowed users the opportunity for Bandcamp, CashApp, Patreon, Paypal, and Venom extensions on their profiles. In the near future, Bitcoin tips will be a possibility. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, told investors that Bitcoin is important to the company back in July.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 7881.85, 7987.37, 8052.54, 8673.22, 8805.78, 8719.96, 8659.49, 8319.47, 8574.50, 8564.02, 8742.96, 8209.00, 7707.77, 7824.23, 7822.02, 8043.95, 7954.13, 7688.08, 8000.33, 7927.71, 8145.86, 8230.92, 8693.83, 8838.38, 8994.49, 9320.35, 9081.76, 9273.52, 9527.16, 10144.56, 10701.69, 10855.37, 11011.10, 11790.92, 13016.23, 11182.81, 12407.33, 11959.37, 10817.16, 10583.13, 10801.68, 11961.27, 11215.44, 10978.46, 11208.55, 11450.85, 12285.96, 12573.81, 12156.51, 11358.66, 11815.99, 11392.38, 10256.06, 10895.09, 9477.64, 9693.80, 10666.48, 10530.73, 10767.14, 10599.11, 10343.11, 9900.77, 9811.93, 9911.84, 9870.30, 9477.68, 9552.86, 9519.15, 9607.42, 10085.63, 10399.67, 10518.17, 10821.73, 10970.18, 11805.65, 11478.17, 11941.97, 11966.41, 11862.94, 11354.02, 11523.58, 11382.62, 10895.83, 10051.70, 10311.55, 10374.34, 10231.74, 10345.81, 10916.05, 10763.23.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-08-20]
Volume: 15053082175, RSI (14-day): 50.31, 50-day EMA: 10524.34, 200-day EMA: 8233.45
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1504.60, Gold RSI: 68.06
Oil Price: 56.34, Oil RSI: 52.11
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
As Argentinas markets continue to panic, Bitcoin trades at a premium: Argentinas economy continued its descent on Wednesday following a shocking loss at the polls for President Mauricio Macri, which triggered the worst financial panic in the country since 1950and the most significant increase in the price of Bitcoin in Argentina's history. As of midweek, Bitcoin continues to be traded a premium on local exchanges against the Argentine peso (ARS), with prices remaining close to 600,000 pesos per 1 BTC, following a massive devaluation of Argentinas currency. That price is still 100,000 pesos more per bitcoin than at any time before Sundays election. While Argentinas stock market has ceased its free fall, it remains at yearly lows, and traders on local Bitcoin exchanges continue to pay upwards of a $1,000 premium for BTC on LocalBitcoins and other informal peer-to-peer trading groups. BTC has reached yearly highs against the Argentinian peso on local exchange Bitinka. But as strongly as the local financial markets have reacted, Argentinas politicians have perhaps topped it: After essentially blaming the Argentine people for driving the panic, President Macri apologized and announced a package of economic measures to shore up public support. Macri froze prices, increased wages, lowered taxes and asked for a meeting with the opposition party. The move appears to have backfired, however, as public criticism continues to mount while also seemingly galvanizing local crypto traders and hodlers. Even though the crypto market in Argentina does not have strong liquidity, citizens appear to be searching for ways to preserve their wealth. And Bitcoin continues to flourish as one of the more practical alternatives. Bitcoin price sees largest spike ever in Argentina following market crash Although BTC remains bearish across global markets, hovering around $10,200 at todays prices, Argentines are trading Bitcoin at between $11,500 and $11,700 on LocalBitcoins. Its Argentinas version of the kimchi premium though caused by entirely different reasons. Argentinas economy currently shows no signs of rapid improvement, but as the stock market begins to stablize, it appears that Argentines are adapting to this new normal. View comments || As Argentina’s markets continue to panic, Bitcoin trades at a premium: Argentina’s economy continued its descent on Wednesday following ashocking lossat the polls for President Mauricio Macri, which triggered theworst financial panicin the country since 1950—and themost significant increase in the priceofBitcoinin Argentina's history.
As of midweek, Bitcoin continues to be traded a premium on local exchanges against the Argentine peso (ARS), with prices remaining close to 600,000 pesos per 1 BTC, following a massive devaluation of Argentina’s currency. That price is still 100,000 pesos more per bitcoin than at any time before Sunday’s election.
While Argentina’sstock market has ceasedits free fall, it remains at yearly lows, and traders on local Bitcoin exchanges continue to pay upwards of a $1,000 premium for BTC on LocalBitcoins and other informal peer-to-peer trading groups.
But as strongly as the local financial markets have reacted, Argentina’s politicians have perhaps topped it: After essentially blaming the Argentine people for driving the panic, President Macriapologized and announceda “package” of economic measures to shore up public support. Macri froze prices, increased wages, lowered taxes and asked for a meeting with the opposition party.
The move appears to have backfired, however, aspublic criticismcontinues to mount—while also seemingly galvanizing local crypto traders and hodlers. Even though the crypto market in Argentina does not have strong liquidity, citizens appear to be searching for ways to preserve their wealth. And Bitcoin continues to flourish as one of the more practical alternatives.
Although BTC remains bearish across global markets, hovering around $10,200 at today’s prices, Argentines are trading Bitcoin at between $11,500 and $11,700 on LocalBitcoins. It’s Argentina’s version of the “kimchi premium”— though caused by entirely different reasons.
Argentina’s economy currently shows no signs of rapid improvement, but as the stock market begins to stablize, it appears that Argentines are adapting to this new normal. || As Argentina’s markets continue to panic, Bitcoin trades at a premium: Argentina’s economy continued its descent on Wednesday following ashocking lossat the polls for President Mauricio Macri, which triggered theworst financial panicin the country since 1950—and themost significant increase in the priceofBitcoinin Argentina's history.
As of midweek, Bitcoin continues to be traded a premium on local exchanges against the Argentine peso (ARS), with prices remaining close to 600,000 pesos per 1 BTC, following a massive devaluation of Argentina’s currency. That price is still 100,000 pesos more per bitcoin than at any time before Sunday’s election.
While Argentina’sstock market has ceasedits free fall, it remains at yearly lows, and traders on local Bitcoin exchanges continue to pay upwards of a $1,000 premium for BTC on LocalBitcoins and other informal peer-to-peer trading groups.
But as strongly as the local financial markets have reacted, Argentina’s politicians have perhaps topped it: After essentially blaming the Argentine people for driving the panic, President Macriapologized and announceda “package” of economic measures to shore up public support. Macri froze prices, increased wages, lowered taxes and asked for a meeting with the opposition party.
The move appears to have backfired, however, aspublic criticismcontinues to mount—while also seemingly galvanizing local crypto traders and hodlers. Even though the crypto market in Argentina does not have strong liquidity, citizens appear to be searching for ways to preserve their wealth. And Bitcoin continues to flourish as one of the more practical alternatives.
Although BTC remains bearish across global markets, hovering around $10,200 at today’s prices, Argentines are trading Bitcoin at between $11,500 and $11,700 on LocalBitcoins. It’s Argentina’s version of the “kimchi premium”— though caused by entirely different reasons.
Argentina’s economy currently shows no signs of rapid improvement, but as the stock market begins to stablize, it appears that Argentines are adapting to this new normal. || Major Headlines Mean Opportunities for Smart Investors: Well, here we are halfway through National Sandwich Month. It is also Get Ready for Kindergarten Month and National Peach Month, in case you were wondering. Crazy week Source: Shutterstock And don’t get me started on days. I’m sure you’re beyond disappointed to know that we missed National Sneak Some Zucchini Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day on August 8. Or National I LOVE My Feet Day! on August 17. I mean, who comes up with these? Clearly people with too much time on their hands. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips I have one addition — National Crazy Market Week. Let’s talk about that before moving on to a real national day that actually does have value for us as investors. National Crazy Market Week Last week was full of major headlines ranging from big earnings releases to the trade issues with China to the flashing of a recession indicator. The media really ran with the latter headline as the bears came out of hibernation. The indicator that caused the recession fears was an inverted yield curve. This occurs when the 2-Year U.S. Treasury bond yield is higher than the yield on the 10-Year bond. That means the government is paying more to people who lend to the country for two years than those who lend for ten years. That’s the reverse of what it should be. In a normal yield curve, the longer the maturity of a bond, the higher the yield. This makes sense because bond owners should be paid more for locking their money up for longer periods of time. When the 2/10 yield curve inverts, it historically has been a precursor for a recession. However, it really isn’t that black and white if you do the research. Since 1978, when an inversion occurs a recession typically doesn’t happen for 21.3 months – nearly two years. Even more surprising to most is that one year after the inversion, the stock market is almost always higher… and by a big margin! Over the last four decades, the stock market was up 20%+ on average one year after the 2/10 yield curve inverts. Story continues And when you add in the fact that the Fed will likely lower interest rates a couple more times before the end of this year, the odds become even greater that stocks are poised for a major rally in 2020. Yet again, this is a case of the media telling you only half the story. And it makes it a buying opportunity for smart investors. If you’re interested in learning more about my thoughts on the current market environment — and get a few bonus stock picks at the same time – check out my recent appearance on Yahoo Finance by clicking here . National CBD Day! August 8, was National CBD Day. This celebration makes sense to me because of the rapid growth in CBD availability after hemp became legal last December. The CBD industry is set to explode nearly 40X in just four years. Those opportunities just don’t come along very often. One company I’ve followed for years celebrated that day in style. GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH ), the manufacturer of the first FDA-approved, CBD-based drug, hit a monthly high. The company announced unbelievable revenue growth of 2,081% in its second-quarter report. Most of that came from Epidiolex , the drug I mentioned above. It brought in sales of $68.4 million in the quarter and $101.9 million through the first six months of 2019. Those figures blew estimates out of the water. The Hemp Business Journal had expected full-year sales of Epidiolex to come in around $65 million. Approximately 12,000 patients have received Epidiolex prescriptions since its launch, and that number is only estimated to continue growing. If the drug’s approval is expanded to treat tuberous sclerosis complex — Phase 3 trials are underway and have been promising so far — its potential client base could increase by another 50,000. This is only the beginning of CBD. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … if CBD were a drug, we would call it a wonder drug. So it’s no wonder that the CBD industry is set to experience a huge boom over the next decade. I am not aware of any other industry that has this kind of potential . Third Time’s the Charm? Snap (NYSE: SNAP ) is giving smart glasses another shot. Earlier this week the company unveiled its third iteration of Spectacles , which have the ability to record video and take pictures in 3D. This latest version will also provide the ability to apply augmented reality effects to the images and videos — similar to what Snapchat does on our phones. Spectacles 3 will be released this fall, so there’s your holiday gift for the person who has everything. They come in two colors, are made of stainless steel (an upgrade from previous plastic models), and cost $380. Augmented reality — and its close cousin virtual reality — isn’t just about adding cool special effects to pictures. The technology can be used in everything from retail to industrial training to professional and amateur sports. That means there will be a whole lot of winners in this space, and you can be sure I’m keeping a close eye on all of them. Bye-Bye Hybrid Vehicles The shift toward the future of transportation just took another step forward. General Motors (NYSE: GM ) and Volkswagen (OTCMKTS: VWAGY ) have announced that they will no longer manufacture hybrid vehicles that run on both gas and electricity. They are going to focus their investments on fully electric cars. In the next four years, General Motors plans to launch 20 electric vehicle (EV) models. And Volkswagen is looking to debut a small plug-in SUV next year in the U.S. and an electric version of its minibus by 2022. I think General Motors President Mark Reuss summed the decision up the best: “If I had a dollar to invest, would I spend it on a hybrid? Or would I spend it on the answer that we all know is going to happen, and get there faster and better than anybody else?” The exact same thinking applies to investing. Invest in what’s going to happen, and get there faster and better than anyone else. That’s how you make the big money. While other auto manufacturers still plan to maintain their investments in hybrid vehicles along the road toward battery-powered cars , we are now seeing the beginning of what I expect will be a new world of transportation. In fact, Continental AG, one of the largest car-parts makers in the world, announced last week that it would cut its investments in conventional engine parts. Transportation 2.0 is coming, from EVs to AVs (autonomous vehicles). This revolution wouldn’t be possible without the next generation of batteries. So naturally, the auto manufacturers want a piece of that pie. Last week, Musashi Seimitsu Industry, a Japanese auto maker, announced a partnership with KeraCel, a battery developer that claims to have created a solid state battery with twice as much energy as lithium-ion batteries that will only cost half as much. Plus, these batteries will be 3D printed, which means they can be manufactured in any shape and in any size — so they can be used for anything! These potential new batteries are amazing and fit squarely in a couple of big investment themes. And for early investors, they present the kind of moneymaking opportunity that could turn a tiny initial stake into an absolute fortune . Matthew McCall is the founder and president of Penn Financial Group, an investment advisory firm, as well as the editor of Investment Opportunities and Early Stage Investor. He has dedicated his career to getting investors into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. The power of being “first” gave Matt’s readers the chance to bank +2,438% in Stamps.com (STMP), +1,523% in Ulta Beauty (ULTA), +1,044% in Tesla (TSLA), +611% in Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (LNGLY), +324% in Bitcoin Services (BTSC), just to name a few. If you’re interested in making triple-digit gains from the world’s biggest investment trends BEFORE anyone else, click here to learn more about Matt McCall and his investments strategy today . More From InvestorPlace 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading The post Major Headlines Mean Opportunities for Smart Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Major Headlines Mean Opportunities for Smart Investors: Well, here we are halfway through National Sandwich Month. It is also Get Ready for Kindergarten Month and National Peach Month, in case you were wondering.
Source: Shutterstock
And don’t get me started on days. I’m sure you’re beyond disappointed to know that we missed National Sneak Some Zucchini Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day on August 8. Or National I LOVE My Feet Day! on August 17.
I mean, who comes up with these? Clearly people with too much time on their hands.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
I have one addition — National Crazy Market Week. Let’s talk about that before moving on to a real national day that actually does have value for us as investors.
Last week was full of major headlines ranging from big earnings releases to the trade issues with China to the flashing of a recession indicator. The media really ran with the latter headline as the bears came out of hibernation.
The indicator that caused the recession fears was an inverted yield curve. This occurs when the 2-Year U.S. Treasury bond yield is higher than the yield on the 10-Year bond. That means the government is paying more to people who lend to the country for two years than those who lend for ten years. That’s the reverse of what it should be. In a normal yield curve, the longer the maturity of a bond, the higher the yield. This makes sense because bond owners should be paid more for locking their money up for longer periods of time.
When the 2/10 yield curve inverts, it historically has been a precursor for a recession. However, it really isn’t that black and white if you do the research.
Since 1978, when an inversion occurs a recession typically doesn’t happen for 21.3 months – nearly two years. Even more surprising to most is that one year after the inversion, the stock market is almost always higher… and by a big margin! Over the last four decades, the stock market was up 20%+ on average one year after the 2/10 yield curve inverts.
And when you add in the fact that the Fed will likely lower interest rates a couple more times before the end of this year, the odds become even greater that stocks are poised for a major rally in 2020.
Yet again, this is a case of the media telling you onlyhalfthe story. And it makes it a buying opportunity for smart investors.
If you’re interested in learning more about my thoughts on the current market environment — and get a few bonus stock picks at the same time – check out my recent appearance on Yahoo Finance byclicking here.
August 8, was National CBD Day. This celebration makes sense to me because of the rapid growth in CBD availability after hemp became legal last December. The CBD industry is set to explode nearly 40X in just four years. Those opportunities just don’t come along very often.
One company I’ve followed for years celebrated that day in style.GW Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:GWPH), the manufacturer of the first FDA-approved, CBD-based drug, hit a monthly high.
The company announced unbelievable revenue growth of 2,081% in its second-quarter report.Most of that came from Epidiolex, the drug I mentioned above. It brought in sales of $68.4 million in the quarter and $101.9 million through the first six months of 2019. Those figures blew estimates out of the water. TheHemp Business Journalhad expectedfull-yearsales of Epidiolex to come in around $65 million.
Approximately 12,000 patients have received Epidiolex prescriptions since its launch, and that number is only estimated to continue growing. If the drug’s approval is expanded to treat tuberous sclerosis complex — Phase 3 trials are underway and have been promising so far — its potential client base could increase by another 50,000.
This is only the beginning of CBD. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … if CBD were a drug, we would call it a wonder drug. So it’s no wonder that the CBD industry is set to experience a huge boom over the next decade.I am not aware of any other industry that has this kind of potential.
Snap(NYSE:SNAP) is giving smart glasses another shot. Earlier this week the companyunveiled its third iteration of Spectacles, which have the ability to record video and take pictures in 3D. This latest version will also provide the ability to apply augmented reality effects to the images and videos — similar to what Snapchat does on our phones.
Spectacles 3 will be released this fall, so there’s your holiday gift for the person who has everything. They come in two colors, are made of stainless steel (an upgrade from previous plastic models), and cost $380.
Augmented reality — and its close cousin virtual reality — isn’t just about adding cool special effects to pictures. The technology can be used in everything from retail to industrial training to professional and amateur sports. That means there will be a whole lot of winners in this space, and you can be sure I’m keeping a close eye on all of them.
The shift toward the future of transportation just took another step forward.General Motors(NYSE:GM) andVolkswagen(OTCMKTS:VWAGY) have announced that they will no longer manufacture hybrid vehicles that run on both gas and electricity. They are going to focus their investments onfully electriccars.
In the next four years, General Motors plans to launch 20 electric vehicle (EV) models. And Volkswagen is looking to debut a small plug-in SUV next year in the U.S. and an electric version of its minibus by 2022.
I think General Motors President Mark Reuss summed the decision up the best: “If I had a dollar to invest, would I spend it on a hybrid? Or would I spend it on the answer that we all know is going to happen, and get there faster and better than anybody else?”
The exact same thinking applies to investing. Invest in what’sgoingto happen, and get there faster and better than anyone else. That’s how you make the big money.
While other auto manufacturers still plan to maintain their investments in hybrid vehicles alongthe road toward battery-powered cars, we are now seeing the beginning of what I expect will be a new world of transportation. In fact, Continental AG, one of the largest car-parts makers in the world, announced last week that it would cut its investments in conventional engine parts.
Transportation 2.0 is coming, from EVs to AVs (autonomous vehicles). This revolution wouldn’t be possible without the next generation of batteries. So naturally, the auto manufacturers want a piece of that pie.
Last week, Musashi Seimitsu Industry, a Japanese auto maker,announced a partnershipwith KeraCel, a battery developer that claims to have created a solid state battery with twice as much energy as lithium-ion batteries that will only cost half as much. Plus, these batteries will be 3D printed, which means they can be manufactured in any shape and in any size — so they can be used for anything!
These potential new batteries are amazing and fit squarely in a couple of big investment themes. And for early investors, they present the kind of moneymaking opportunity that couldturn a tiny initial stake into an absolute fortune.
Matthew McCall is the founder and president of Penn Financial Group, an investment advisory firm, as well as the editor of Investment Opportunities and Early Stage Investor. He has dedicated his career to getting investors into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. The power of being “first” gave Matt’s readers the chance to bank +2,438% in Stamps.com (STMP), +1,523% in Ulta Beauty (ULTA), +1,044% in Tesla (TSLA), +611% in Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (LNGLY), +324% in Bitcoin Services (BTSC), just to name a few. If you’re interested in making triple-digit gains from the world’s biggest investment trends BEFORE anyone else,click here to learn more about Matt McCall and his investments strategy today.
• 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid
• 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip
• 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019
• 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading
The postMajor Headlines Mean Opportunities for Smart Investorsappeared first onInvestorPlace. || US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rally on Chinese Easing, All Sectors Rise: Equity markets rebounded on Monday following news that the Chinese central bank was making changes to its policy. White House staff along with the President were on the tape this past weekend, saying that the economy was in good shape. At the same time, President Trump is saying that he wants to Fed to reduce interest rates, saying his choice to lead the Fed Jerome Powell was clueless. The Fed chair will speak at Jackson Whole Wyoming this week, providing the markets with some insight into future rate cuts. All sectors were higher led by robust gains in Energy and Cyclicals, Utilities were the worst performers in a good tape. The PBOC Modifies Lending Rates The PBOC, The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it will improve the mechanism used to establish the loan prime rate in a move to further lower real interest rates for companies. The move underscores the government’s attempts to use reforms to support a slowing economy. The central bank will improve the efficiency of interest rate transmission, and lower financing costs which should help buoy economic growth. Chinese banks’ new LPR quotations will be based on rates of open market operations, and the national interbank funding center will be authorized to publish the rate. The central bank said five-year and longer tenors will be added to the existing one-year LPR, which will help banks set rates on long-term loans such as mortgages. The move followed pledges from China’s State Council on Friday that the country will rely on market-based reform measures to help lower real interest rates for companies. Trump Continues to Hammer Powell Ahead of Jackson Hole The president continue to rip Fed Chair Jerome Powell saying the the Fed Chair was “clueless” after markets dropped last week. This was the latest in a string of disparaging remarks from Mr. Trump since appointing Mr. Powell to lead the Fed. Mr. Trump has lauded economic systems, such as in China, where central banks are under tight control, a view that has raised worries among current and former Fed officials. If the President had it his way the Fed would cut rates to zero boosting the economy and providing Trump with the leverage he needs to outlast President Xi of China in their trade battle. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound rolls over to kick off week European Equities: Another Quiet Day on the Stats Could Test the Majors US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rally on Chinese Easing, All Sectors Rise Gold Price Forecast for The Next Decade Recession Fears: Who Do Believe: Trump Advisers, Economists or Politically Motivated Websites? Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 20/08/19 || US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rally on Chinese Easing, All Sectors Rise: Equity markets rebounded on Monday following news that the Chinese central bank was making changes to its policy. White House staff along with the President were on the tape this past weekend, saying that the economy was in good shape. At the same time, President Trump is saying that he wants to Fed to reduce interest rates, saying his choice to lead the Fed Jerome Powell was clueless. The Fed chair will speak at Jackson Whole Wyoming this week, providing the markets with some insight into future rate cuts. All sectors were higher led by robust gains in Energy and Cyclicals, Utilities were the worst performers in a good tape.
The PBOC, The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it will improve the mechanism used to establish the loan prime rate in a move to further lower real interest rates for companies. The move underscores the government’s attempts to use reforms to support a slowing economy. The central bank will improve the efficiency of interest rate transmission, and lower financing costs which should help buoy economic growth. Chinese banks’ new LPR quotations will be based on rates of open market operations, and the national interbank funding center will be authorized to publish the rate. The central bank said five-year and longer tenors will be added to the existing one-year LPR, which will help banks set rates on long-term loans such as mortgages. The move followed pledges from China’s State Council on Friday that the country will rely on market-based reform measures to help lower real interest rates for companies.
The president continue to rip Fed Chair Jerome Powell saying the the Fed Chair was “clueless” after markets dropped last week. This was the latest in a string of disparaging remarks from Mr. Trump since appointing Mr. Powell to lead the Fed. Mr. Trump has lauded economic systems, such as in China, where central banks are under tight control, a view that has raised worries among current and former Fed officials. If the President had it his way the Fed would cut rates to zero boosting the economy and providing Trump with the leverage he needs to outlast President Xi of China in their trade battle.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound rolls over to kick off week
• European Equities: Another Quiet Day on the Stats Could Test the Majors
• US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rally on Chinese Easing, All Sectors Rise
• Gold Price Forecast for The Next Decade
• Recession Fears: Who Do Believe: Trump Advisers, Economists or Politically Motivated Websites?
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 20/08/19 || Israeli bitcoin holders demand local banks reveal policies regarding cryptocurrency accounts: Bitcoin holders in Israel have taken legal action against local banks for their refusal to open accounts for customers seeking to deposit money from cryptocurrency sales, according to a report by Globes. The holders are now demanding that the Bank of Israel, Israel's central bank, and commercial banks make their policies regarding cryptocurrency public. According to the Globes' sources, the Israel Bitcoin Association has also filed a freedom of information petition in Jerusalem District Court to require local banks to disclose "policy documents from each of the banks in Israel concerning money from digital currency." According to Jonathan Klinger, legal adviser to the Israel Bitcoin Association, "Under the Banking (Licensing) Law, it is the duty of a bank to state to the Bank of Israel the policy under which it refuses to conduct transactions. We therefore contacted the Bank of Israel and asked for this information, but the Bank of Israel did not agree to disclose this policy to us. We therefore decided to petition the court to force the Bank of Israel to provide us with a copy of the policy submitted to it by the banks." In addition to preventing individual users from opening bank accounts, local Israeli banks have also refused to provide services to firms like the Israel Bitcoin Association, despite the association's status as a non-profit organization. || Israeli bitcoin holders demand local banks reveal policies regarding cryptocurrency accounts: Bitcoin holders in Israel have taken legal action against local banks for their refusal to open accounts for customers seeking to deposit money from cryptocurrency sales, according to areportby Globes. The holders are now demanding that the Bank of Israel, Israel's central bank, and commercial banks make their policies regarding cryptocurrency public.
According to the Globes' sources, the Israel Bitcoin Association has also filed a freedom of information petition in Jerusalem District Court to require local banks to disclose "policy documents from each of the banks in Israel concerning money from digital currency." According to Jonathan Klinger, legal adviser to the Israel Bitcoin Association, "Under the Banking (Licensing) Law, it is the duty of a bank to state to the Bank of Israel the policy under which it refuses to conduct transactions. We therefore contacted the Bank of Israel and asked for this information, but the Bank of Israel did not agree to disclose this policy to us. We therefore decided to petition the court to force the Bank of Israel to provide us with a copy of the policy submitted to it by the banks."
In addition to preventing individual users from opening bank accounts, local Israeli banks have also refused to provide services to firms like the Israel Bitcoin Association, despite the association's status as a non-profit organization. || BitPay Says Crypto Spending on Real Estate to Double in 2019: A luxury condominium complex in Orlando, Florida, is the latest firm to partner with BitPay to provide bitcoin payment processing for real estate transactions. Announced August 6, the Grove Resort & Water Park will accept bitcoin for purchases of their 878 resort-style condo residences. Yet, the relatively small update hides a larger story BitPay is becoming somewhat of an established name in the real estate market. In 2017, the company processed nearly $20 million in real estate development and real estate sales. Following the bottoming out of the cryptocurrency market in 2018, this figured dropped to around $6 million, according to BitPays chief commercial officer, Sonny Singh. Related: Tech Retailer Newegg Expands Bitcoin Payments to Another 73 Nations In the first two quarters of this year, however, the company says it has already processed over $5 million in real estate transactions. Singh said BitPay is in line to double its real estate business year over year, as in 2018 the company processed $2.7 million in direct real estate transactions with around twice as much via escrow companies and law firms acting as escrows. BitPay, the worlds largest processor of bitcoin with about $1 billion in yearly business, acts as a payment processor for home buyers. The firm exchanges bitcoin into U.S. dollars and transfers the funds to an escrow agent on behalf of the buyer. Singh said the company performed its first real-estate transaction through California-based real estate agent Piper Moretti about four years ago. Since then, the company has processed millions in real estate transactions for corporations and individuals, with 2019 looking like its top year to date. According to Singh, the average price of a home purchased through the exchange is around $1 million. These are not $30,000 houses, he said. Related: Malta to Register All Rent Contracts on Blockchain The company has standing relationships with a number of developers and real-estate agents including Magnum Real Estate and JetRE, which deal in Manhattan properties. It also processes real estate transactions in some of the worlds most expensive housing markets, including Dubai. Story continues About 79 percent of BitPays real estate transactions happened abroad, though 34 percent of the dollar value came from domestic U.S. buyers. Latest partner For their part, Grove Resort condos sell from $330,000 to $595,000, for a property five minutes outside Disney World. In recent months, David DAmbrosio, a director at the resort, said theres been an uptick in potential clients from China, Turkey and Brazil inquiring about cryptocurrency purchases. It was easy to determine the potential market available, said DAmbrosio, suggesting that bitcoin hodlers were looking for a way to diversify their portfolios. DAmbrosio said his company contacted BitPay because the firm has done a couple of billion in transactions, and at least a few million in real estate just in Florida and Southeast U.S. BitPay charges a 1 percent processing fee and settles within seconds, whereas a bank wire charges around 5 percent and could take several days to come in, according to Singh. DAmbrosio said, depending on the circumstances, Grove Resort as developers could help contribute towards that [processing fee], we could help pay for the title fee. The resort currently only accepts bitcoin, but may add other currencies down the line. Image via Chamber of Digital Commerce YouTube Related Stories TechCrunch Founder Sells $1.6 Million House on Crypto Real Estate Platform Central Europeans Are Beginning to Wake Up to Cryptocurrency Payments || BitPay Says Crypto Spending on Real Estate to Double in 2019: A luxury condominium complex in Orlando, Florida, is the latest firm to partner with BitPay to provide bitcoin payment processing for real estate transactions.
Announced August 6, the Grove Resort & Water Park will accept bitcoin for purchases of their 878 resort-style condo residences. Yet, the relatively small update hides a larger story –BitPayis becoming somewhat of an established name in the real estate market.
In 2017, the company processed nearly $20 million in real estate development and real estate sales. Following the bottoming out of the cryptocurrency market in 2018, this figured dropped to around $6 million, according to BitPay’s chief commercial officer, Sonny Singh.
Related:Tech Retailer Newegg Expands Bitcoin Payments to Another 73 Nations
In the first two quarters of this year, however, the company says it has already processed over $5 million in real estate transactions. Singh said BitPay is in line to double its real estate business year over year, as in 2018 the company processed $2.7 million in direct real estate transactions with “around twice as much via escrow companies and law firms acting as escrows.”
BitPay, the world’s largest processor of bitcoin with about $1 billion in yearly business, acts as a payment processor for home buyers. The firm exchanges bitcoin into U.S. dollars and transfers the funds to an escrow agent on behalf of the buyer.
Singh said the company performed its first real-estate transaction through California-based real estate agent Piper Moretti about four years ago. Since then, the company has processed “millions” in real estate transactions for corporations and individuals, with 2019 looking like its top year to date.
According to Singh, the average price of a home purchased through the exchange is around $1 million. “These are not $30,000 houses,” he said.
Related:Malta to Register All Rent Contracts on Blockchain
The company has standing relationships with a number of developers and real-estate agents including Magnum Real Estate and JetRE, which deal in Manhattan properties. It also processes real estate transactions in some of the world’s most expensive housing markets, including Dubai.
About 79 percent of BitPay’s real estate transactions happened abroad, though 34 percent of the dollar value came from domestic U.S. buyers.
For their part, Grove Resort condos sell from $330,000 to $595,000, for a property five minutes outside Disney World.
In recent months, David D’Ambrosio, a director at the resort, said there’s been an uptick in potential clients from China, Turkey and Brazil inquiring about cryptocurrency purchases.
“It was easy to determine the potential market available,” said D’Ambrosio, suggesting that “bitcoin hodlers” were looking for a way to diversify their portfolios.
D’Ambrosio said his company contacted BitPay because the firm “has done a couple of billion in transactions, and at least a few million in real estate just in Florida and Southeast U.S.”
BitPay charges a 1 percent processing fee and settles within seconds, whereas a bank wire charges around 5 percent and could take several days to come in, according to Singh. D’Ambrosio said, depending on the circumstances, Grove Resort “as developers could help contribute towards that [processing fee], we could help pay for the title fee.”
The resort currently only accepts bitcoin, but may add other currencies down the line.
Image viaChamber of Digital Commerce YouTube
• TechCrunch Founder Sells $1.6 Million House on Crypto Real Estate Platform
• Central Europeans Are Beginning to Wake Up to Cryptocurrency Payments || Five reasons why the bitcoin wealth distribution is skewed: Shock horror: Bitcoin’s wealth distribution is outrageously uneven. The top 2.8 percent of wallet addresses control 95 percent of the supply of bitcoin, according to statistics. At first glance, it looks like bitcoin’s community has a more uneven distribution of wealth than the US–where the top 10 percent of citizens hold more than 75 percent of all wealth–and South Africa, the current champion of inequality . Not so fast. The statistic in question comes from BitInfoCharts , a website that tracks the distribution of bitcoin across all known Bitcoin addresses. The website calculates the data from publicly available Bitcoin information but the data is a) not really reliable b) doesn’t really tell the whole story, and c) shouldn’t be used to draw such extreme conclusions. Here’s why. Satoshi Nakamoto’s hoard of bitcoin When Bitcoin was first created in 2009, its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, mined a huge number of bitcoins to get the ball rolling (otherwise no blocks would have been produced). BitMEX estimates that he, she or they mined 700,000 bitcoin, worth $7.4 billion in today’s prices. Only 15% of Bitcoin's total supply is left to mine But once a bunch of other miners joined the network and it was working as expected, Nakamoto dropped off the network. Since then, not a single bitcoin has been moved from the addresses Nakamoto used, and most believe it’ll probably stay that way. But, these coins—working out to 3.9 percent of the current supply of bitcoins—still exist, and continue to tip the scales of the bitcoin wealth distribution in the wrong direction. Lost, missing and forgotten coins Nakamoto’s treasure trove is not the only bitcoin that won’t be moving any time soon. One of the features of the currency is that you can’t delete coins–burning bitcoin simply moves them to an address that nobody can access. But there are just as many, if not more coins stuck in addresses wallet owners have lost access to, be it via losing a password or throwing away a hard drive with $86 million worth of bitcoin stored on it as this guy did . Story continues In fact, Chainalysis estimates that potentially up to 3.8 million bitcoins (including Nakamoto’s) may be gone for good. This accounts for 20 percent of the current supply, and since many of the coins assumed lost were mined in large amounts in the early days, removing them from calculations on wealth inequality starts to make everything look more distributed. Exchanges hold a lot of coins The majority of addresses holding bitcoins that aren’t assumed to be lost, are owned by crypto exchanges. These look after coins on behalf of their users—but it doesn’t mean they own the coins. Putting security concerns aside (exchanges are goldmines for hackers), users can withdraw their coins any time they wish. Trader Sasha Fleyshman points out that seven of the top ten most populated bitcoin wallets are owned by crypto exchanges, and that they contain around 727,000 bitcoins. On its own, this accounts for 4 percent of the supply of bitcoins, put together with the hundreds of other crypto exchanges and numbers shift again. It’s easy to make Bitcoin addresses One problem specific to this data is that it focuses on the percentages of addresses, i.e. how many addresses are there and how much is held in each. But, it doesn’t factor in if those addresses are active. It’s really easy to make a Bitcoin address, exchanges often create a different address every time they send and receive money. This results in millions of empty addresses, or ones with barely a satoshi in them. The data assumes there are millions of bitcoin paupers floating around the internet, but in reality, it’s more like the addresses have simply been discarded. Bitcoin address doesn’t mean Bitcoin user Another reason why bitcoin wealth distribution can’t be measured this way is because it’s measuring addresses, not people. The statistics provided by BitInfoCharts is simply a tool for seeing which addresses own how much bitcoin. But, any one person can own a multitude of addresses, with varying supplies of bitcoin. This actually skews the data the other way, making it look more fairly distributed than it actually is. It’s easy to understand why this data is used; it would be far more complicated to find out who owns which addresses, in order to total them up. But regardless, it proves that this data—while useful for various reasons—is utterly misleading as a metric for measuring the real wealth distribution of bitcoin. || Five reasons why the bitcoin wealth distribution is skewed: Shock horror: Bitcoin’s wealth distribution is outrageously uneven. The top 2.8 percent of wallet addresses control 95 percent of the supply of bitcoin, according to statistics. At first glance, it looks like bitcoin’s community has a more uneven distribution of wealth than the US–where the top 10 percent of citizens hold more than 75 percent of all wealth–and South Africa, the current champion ofinequality. Not so fast.
The statistic in question comes fromBitInfoCharts, a website that tracks the distribution of bitcoin across all known Bitcoin addresses. The website calculates the data from publicly available Bitcoin information but the data is a) not really reliable b) doesn’t really tell the whole story, and c) shouldn’t be used to draw such extreme conclusions. Here’s why.
When Bitcoin was first created in 2009, its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, mined a huge number of bitcoins to get the ball rolling (otherwise no blocks would have been produced). BitMEXestimatesthat he, she or they mined 700,000 bitcoin, worth $7.4 billion in today’s prices.
Only 15% of Bitcoin's total supply is left to mine
But once a bunch of other miners joined the network and it was working as expected, Nakamoto dropped off the network. Since then, not a single bitcoin has been moved from the addresses Nakamoto used, and most believe it’ll probably stay that way. But, these coins—working out to 3.9 percent of the current supply of bitcoins—still exist, and continue to tip the scales of the bitcoin wealth distribution in the wrong direction.
Nakamoto’s treasure trove is not the only bitcoin that won’t be moving any time soon. One of the features of the currency is that you can’t delete coins–burning bitcoin simply moves them to an address that nobody can access. But there are just as many, if not more coins stuck in addresses wallet owners have lost access to, be it via losing a password or throwing away a hard drive with $86 million worth of bitcoin stored on it asthis guy did.
In fact, Chainalysisestimatesthat potentially up to 3.8 million bitcoins (including Nakamoto’s) may be gone for good. This accounts for 20 percent of the current supply, and since many of the coins assumed lost were mined in large amounts in the early days, removing them from calculations on wealth inequality starts to make everything look more distributed.
The majority of addresses holding bitcoins that aren’t assumed to be lost, are owned by crypto exchanges. These look after coins on behalf of their users—but it doesn’t mean they own the coins. Putting security concerns aside (exchanges aregoldminesfor hackers), users can withdraw their coins any time they wish.
Trader Sasha Fleyshmanpoints outthat seven of the top ten most populated bitcoin wallets are owned by crypto exchanges, and that they contain around 727,000 bitcoins. On its own, this accounts for 4 percent of the supply of bitcoins, put together with the hundreds of other crypto exchanges and numbers shift again.
One problem specific to this data is that it focuses on the percentages of addresses, i.e. how many addresses are there and how much is held in each. But, it doesn’t factor in if those addresses are active. It’s really easy to make a Bitcoin address, exchanges often create a different address every time they send and receive money. This results in millions of empty addresses, or ones with barely a satoshi in them.
The data assumes there are millions of bitcoin paupers floating around the internet, but in reality, it’s more like the addresses have simply been discarded.
Another reason why bitcoin wealth distribution can’t be measured this way is because it’s measuring addresses, not people. The statistics provided by BitInfoCharts is simply a tool for seeing which addresses own how much bitcoin. But, any one person can own a multitude of addresses, with varying supplies of bitcoin.
This actually skews the data the other way, making it look more fairly distributed than it actually is. It’s easy to understand why this data is used; it would be far more complicated to find out who owns which addresses, in order to total them up. But regardless, it proves that this data—while useful for various reasons—is utterly misleading as a metric for measuring the real wealth distribution of bitcoin. || Nvidia Stock Will Survive the Chip Recession: Recessions in the semiconductor industry hearken back to the days before computing. Theyre inventory recessions. Supply exceeds demand, so production slows while supply is worked off. Once inventory comes back into balance, prices rise and supply resumes. Nvidia Stock Will Survive Beyond the Chip Recession Source: Hairem / Shutterstock.com The latest results from Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ) indicate the latest chip recession, which began a year ago, is already easing. Net income of $552 million, 90 cents per share was down by half from what it was then. But revenue of $2.58 billion was up 16% from the previous quarter. This put some wind back beneath the wings of the stock . It shot up $10 per share almost immediately. With the stock market roaring back, Nvidia opened Aug. 19 up another $5, at $164. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Smart Money Buying But the smart money was already in. So was I. I picked up 100 shares for my retirement account in May, so after a bumpy ride (it has since been as low as $132) Im in the money. 7 Safe Dividend Stocks for Investors to Buy Right Now I have also recommended the shares twice since the start of July. First I recommended it for those who look good in leather jackets, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. More recently I have counseled patience, calling it an essential long-term holding . Over the next 5-10 years the future for Nvidia looks so bright you need to wear shades. Nvidia is the leader in computer graphics as even Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) acknowledged in using it for its video game Minecraft . NVDAs only cloud rival in data center graphics is Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ), so cloud companies that want to keep up almost have to buy its silicon. The same technology that makes computer games pretty and brings in the Bitcoin is essential to delivering artificial intelligence from clouds . Even if Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD ) increases its share of an Nvidia market, Nvidia will prosper. Story continues The data center business will be further fortified by the pending acquisition of Mellanox (NASDAQ: MLNX ), whose internal communications fabric gives Nvidia a more complete solution for cloud builders. Nvidia has already announced a cloud in a box to bring new applications to the network edge, to factories and office buildings. What AI Means for Nvidia With Nvidia, artificial intelligence means computers can respond easily to natural language requests , making more applications self-service. In his conference call after the earnings announcement Huang said over 4,000 AI startups are now working with his company. Graphics chips are getting better at recognizing objects, bringing self-driving cars, trucks and buses closer. The point is that AI isnt just a cloud thing. Its also an edge thing. Building intelligence into factories and cities, not just for maintenance but for regular operations, will be the next leg in demand. Chips for those applications are about to be released . As a demonstration of what is possible, Nvidia is delivering Jetson Nano , a small-scale development kit with both hardware and software. These kits are available online for as little as $100 and by 2025, machine learning will be a $40 billion market. The Bottom Line on NVDA Stock Even if theres a general recession ahead, technology is the first industry out of it. Office jobs that disappeared in the 2001 recession did not come back. Neither did the sales jobs that disappeared in the 2008 recession. Its hard to tell which jobs will disappear this time, but at minimum there will be fewer operators standing by. When automation becomes a survival strategy, Nvidia will be a good stock to be in. Since the bottom of the last recession NVDA stock is up 1,200% . More good times are ahead. Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the environmental story, Bridget OFlynn and the Bear , available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn . As of this writing he owned shares in NVDA and MSFT. More From InvestorPlace 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid 10 Cheap Dividend Stocks to Load Up On The 10 Biggest Losers from Q2 Earnings 5 Dependable Dividend Stocks to Buy The post Nvidia Stock Will Survive the Chip Recession appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Nvidia Stock Will Survive the Chip Recession: Recessions in the semiconductor industry hearken back to the days before computing. They’re inventory recessions. Supply exceeds demand, so production slows while supply is worked off. Once inventory comes back into balance, prices rise and supply resumes.
Source: Hairem / Shutterstock.com
The latest results fromNvidia(NASDAQ:NVDA) indicate the latest chip recession, which began a year ago, is already easing. Net income of $552 million, 90 cents per share was down by half from what it was then. Butrevenue of $2.58 billion was up 16%from the previous quarter.
This put somewind back beneath the wings of the stock. It shot up $10 per share almost immediately. With the stock market roaring back, Nvidia opened Aug. 19 up another $5, at $164.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
But the smart money was already in. So was I. I picked up 100 shares for my retirement account in May, so after a bumpy ride (it has since been as low as $132) I’m in the money.
• 7 Safe Dividend Stocks for Investors to Buy Right Now
I have also recommended the shares twice since the start of July. FirstI recommended itfor those who look good in leather jackets, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. More recently I have counseled patience, calling itan essential long-term holding.
Over the next 5-10 years the future for Nvidia looks so bright you need to wear shades.
Nvidia is the leader in computer graphics as evenMicrosoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) acknowledged in using it for its video gameMinecraft. NVDA’s onlycloud rivalin data center graphics isAlphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL), so cloud companies that want to keep up almost have to buy its silicon.
The same technology that makes computer games pretty and brings in the Bitcoin is essential todelivering artificial intelligence from clouds. Even ifAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ:AMD) increases its share of an Nvidia market, Nvidia will prosper.
The data center business will be further fortified by thepending acquisitionofMellanox(NASDAQ:MLNX), whose internal communications fabric gives Nvidia a more complete solution for cloud builders. Nvidia has already announceda “cloud in a box”to bring new applications to the network edge, to factories and office buildings.
With Nvidia, artificial intelligence means computers canrespond easily to natural language requests, making more applications self-service. In his conference call after the earnings announcement Huang saidover 4,000 AI startupsare now working with his company. Graphics chips are getting better at recognizing objects, bringing self-driving cars, trucks and buses closer.
The point is that AI isn’t just a cloud thing. It’s also an edge thing. Building intelligence into factories and cities, not just for maintenance but for regular operations, will be the next leg in demand. Chips for those applications areabout to be released.
As a demonstration of what is possible, Nvidia isdelivering Jetson Nano, a small-scale development kit with both hardware and software. These kits are available online foras little as $100and by 2025, machine learning will be a $40 billion market.
Even if there’s a general recession ahead, technology is the first industry out of it. Office jobs that disappeared in the 2001 recession did not come back. Neither did the sales jobs that disappeared in the 2008 recession. It’s hard to tell which jobs will disappear this time, but at minimum there will be fewer operators standing by.
When automation becomes a survival strategy, Nvidia will be a good stock to be in. Since the bottom of the last recession NVDA stock isup 1,200%. More good times are ahead.
Dana Blankenhornis a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the environmental story,Bridget O’Flynn and the Bear, available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him [email protected] follow him on Twitter at@danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in NVDA and MSFT.
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The postNvidia Stock Will Survive the Chip Recessionappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Samsung Galaxy’s blockchain wallet gets ready to support Bitcoin: Samsung is set to introduce native support for Bitcoin in the hardware wallet that comes with its flagship blockchain-friendly phones. Crucially, the electronics giant has added it to its software developers kit—which is being handed out in beta mode—to help developers get their apps ready to support it. The Blockchain Keystore , as it’s called, enables users to create crypto addresses and store their funds directly on the phone itself. The users’ private keys are kept within a secure enclave, similar to how fingerprint data is stored. Apps can then integrate with the keystore to allow people to spend coins stored on their phone. When the wallet was initially launched in March 2019, it only worked for Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. The new upgrade adds support for bitcoin and the lesser-known currency Klay. Klay is a native token on the Klatyn blockchain, a recently released platform by South Korean messaging giant, Kakao. Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore can currently only be accessed on the latest Samsung flagship phones. It’s available on the Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+, S10 5G, Note10 and Note10+, and in Germany, North America, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. Samsung’s continuing forays into crypto keep it one-step-ahead of other smartphone manufacturers. Apple’s CryptoKit was only released in June, and LG’s ThinQ wallet was trademarked last month but neither are as closely focused on cryptocurrencies as Samsung’s offering. In a keynote speech in May , Samsung SDS (its technology subsidiary) CEO Hong Yuan Zen listed blockchain as one of the key technologies for its “Digital Transformation Network”, an initiative in support of digital innovation in the industry. || Samsung Galaxy’s blockchain wallet gets ready to support Bitcoin: Samsung is set to introduce native support for Bitcoin in the hardware wallet that comes with its flagship blockchain-friendly phones. Crucially, the electronics giant has added it to its software developers kit—which is being handed out in beta mode—to help developers get their apps ready to support it.
TheBlockchain Keystore, as it’s called, enables users to create crypto addresses and store their funds directly on the phone itself. The users’ private keys are kept within a secure enclave, similar to how fingerprint data is stored. Apps can then integrate with the keystore to allow people to spend coins stored on their phone.
When the wallet was initially launched in March 2019, it only worked for Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. The new upgrade adds support for bitcoin and the lesser-known currency Klay. Klay is a native token on the Klatyn blockchain, a recently released platform by South Korean messaging giant, Kakao.
Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore can currently only be accessed on the latest Samsung flagship phones. It’s available on the Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+, S10 5G, Note10 and Note10+, and in Germany, North America, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.
Samsung’s continuing forays into crypto keep it one-step-ahead of other smartphone manufacturers. Apple’sCryptoKitwas only released in June, and LG’s ThinQ wallet was trademarked last month but neither are as closely focused on cryptocurrencies as Samsung’s offering.
In a keynote speech inMay, Samsung SDS (its technology subsidiary) CEO Hong Yuan Zen listed blockchain as one of the key technologies for its “Digital Transformation Network”, an initiative in support of digital innovation in the industry. || Samsung Galaxy’s blockchain wallet gets ready to support Bitcoin: Samsung is set to introduce native support for Bitcoin in the hardware wallet that comes with its flagship blockchain-friendly phones. Crucially, the electronics giant has added it to its software developers kit—which is being handed out in beta mode—to help developers get their apps ready to support it.
TheBlockchain Keystore, as it’s called, enables users to create crypto addresses and store their funds directly on the phone itself. The users’ private keys are kept within a secure enclave, similar to how fingerprint data is stored. Apps can then integrate with the keystore to allow people to spend coins stored on their phone.
When the wallet was initially launched in March 2019, it only worked for Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. The new upgrade adds support for bitcoin and the lesser-known currency Klay. Klay is a native token on the Klatyn blockchain, a recently released platform by South Korean messaging giant, Kakao.
Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore can currently only be accessed on the latest Samsung flagship phones. It’s available on the Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+, S10 5G, Note10 and Note10+, and in Germany, North America, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.
Samsung’s continuing forays into crypto keep it one-step-ahead of other smartphone manufacturers. Apple’sCryptoKitwas only released in June, and LG’s ThinQ wallet was trademarked last month but neither are as closely focused on cryptocurrencies as Samsung’s offering.
In a keynote speech inMay, Samsung SDS (its technology subsidiary) CEO Hong Yuan Zen listed blockchain as one of the key technologies for its “Digital Transformation Network”, an initiative in support of digital innovation in the industry. || Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets dip to find buyers: Gold marketshave fallen a bit during the trading session on Monday to kick off the week but has found enough buying pressure near the $1500 level to continue to attract attention. At this point, the market looks very likely to grind to the upside, and I believe that the $1500 level will be massive support going forward. However, if they were to push this market below there, then I think the next major support level is closer to the $1450 level. Ultimately, I think that gold is a market that cannot be sold, because not only is the $1450 level support based upon the previous top of an ascending triangle, but now we are starting to see the 50 day EMA reach towards that level.
To the upside, I think that the $1550 level will be the initial target, and if we can break above there it’s likely that we could go to the $1600 level next. At this point in time I think that you should look at the gold market from a value perspective, as central banks will continue to do everything they can to drive their currencies lower. This of course is most purely reflected in the precious metals markets, and of course the Gold markets are probably one of the most pure plays when it comes to that. Bitcoin of course has been serving the same function as of late as well, so keep that in mind. In a sense, you can trade one or the other, using the other chart as a secondary indicator.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Gold Price Forecast for The Next Decade
• Forex Daily Recap – Mexican Peso Down on US-Mexico Tomato Trade War
• Gold Price Prediction – Prices Turn Lower as PBOC Eases Rates
• GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound rolls over to kick off week
• Grains Head Down Amid Improved Weather Conditions
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – August 19, 2019 Forecast || Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets dip to find buyers: Gold markets have fallen a bit during the trading session on Monday to kick off the week but has found enough buying pressure near the $1500 level to continue to attract attention. At this point, the market looks very likely to grind to the upside, and I believe that the $1500 level will be massive support going forward. However, if they were to push this market below there, then I think the next major support level is closer to the $1450 level. Ultimately, I think that gold is a market that cannot be sold, because not only is the $1450 level support based upon the previous top of an ascending triangle, but now we are starting to see the 50 day EMA reach towards that level. Gold Prices Video 20.08.19 To the upside, I think that the $1550 level will be the initial target, and if we can break above there it’s likely that we could go to the $1600 level next. At this point in time I think that you should look at the gold market from a value perspective, as central banks will continue to do everything they can to drive their currencies lower. This of course is most purely reflected in the precious metals markets, and of course the Gold markets are probably one of the most pure plays when it comes to that. Bitcoin of course has been serving the same function as of late as well, so keep that in mind. In a sense, you can trade one or the other, using the other chart as a secondary indicator. Please let us know what you think in the comments below This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Forecast for The Next Decade Forex Daily Recap – Mexican Peso Down on US-Mexico Tomato Trade War Gold Price Prediction – Prices Turn Lower as PBOC Eases Rates GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound rolls over to kick off week Grains Head Down Amid Improved Weather Conditions E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – August 19, 2019 Forecast
[Social Media Buzz]
@takeshigoda0615 BTCに対する大衆心理が凝縮されてますぅぅ…うぅ。狂気のスキャムコイン。 || Baakt Futures Announces Launch Date...Again https://t.co/cpZ4j6V5Eu #btc || 【衝撃】なんとTポイントでビットコインが購入できるようになったぞwwwwwww #仮想通貨 $BTC https://t.co/MDw44QP8Ta https://t.co/P5EzKVQ9Ee || Why not call it Square Bitcoin? || Edited Transcript of PFGC earnings conference call or presentation 14-Aug-19 1:00pm GMT https://t.co/ZzqdHvl81K $spy $baba $amd $nvda $msft $k $payc $qcom $intc $fb $jd $aapl $goog $ba $lmt $r $ea $mo $btc $xrp Check out this...
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10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 228.80, 229.71, 229.98, 232.40, 233.54, 236.82, 250.90, 249.28, 249.01, 244.61, 245.21, 243.94, 246.99, 244.30, 240.51, 242.80, 243.59, 250.99, 249.01, 257.06, 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22, 276.05, 288.28, 288.70, 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88, 278.58, 279.58, 261.00, 265.08, 264.47, 270.39, 266.38, 264.08, 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39, 228.17, 210.49, 221.61, 225.83, 224.77, 231.40, 229.78, 228.76, 230.06, 228.12, 229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-09-07]
Volume: 21192200, RSI (14-day): 50.84, 50-day EMA: 246.77, 200-day EMA: 255.86
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
May the force be with you: 2 Star Wars trades: Disney's(NYSE: DIS)stock may have had a rough time recently, but "Fast Money" traders see an opportunity.
Trader Guy Adami said that with the stock down more than 20 percent in the last couple of weeks, the valuation is reasonable. He also has faith the CEOBob Igerwill "figure it out."
"I understand the problems they are having on the cable sides of things, but I also think he's one of the best managers out there. You've got to give him the benefit of the doubt. If the market stabilizes in any way, it goes to $110," he said on Friday.
Trader Steve Grasso is long Disney. "I do believe it's going to work its way up and I do believe they [Disney] are the king of content."
He also said that Netflix(NASDAQ: NFLX)too could benefit from its deal with Disney. "The Netflix deal with Disney kicks in 2016, so they're going to get Star Wars, Marvel and superheroes. There's a lot of content that is going to save both stocks," he said.
Read MoreWhy it might not be time to dump Disney shares
Trader Brian Kelley said that Disney is a place to buy when the market gets stronger. "You have a great risk-to-reward ratio. You could get it up to $115. Disney is where you look when the market starts to rip," he said.
Disclosures:
STEVE GRASSO
Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long MAT, MCD His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY.
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries.
GUY ADAMI
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || May the force be with you: 2 Star Wars trades: Disney's (NYSE: DIS) stock may have had a rough time recently, but " Fast Money " traders see an opportunity. Trader Guy Adami said that with the stock down more than 20 percent in the last couple of weeks, the valuation is reasonable. He also has faith the CEO Bob Iger will "figure it out." "I understand the problems they are having on the cable sides of things, but I also think he's one of the best managers out there. You've got to give him the benefit of the doubt. If the market stabilizes in any way, it goes to $110," he said on Friday. Trader Steve Grasso is long Disney. "I do believe it's going to work its way up and I do believe they [Disney] are the king of content." He also said that Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) too could benefit from its deal with Disney. "The Netflix deal with Disney kicks in 2016, so they're going to get Star Wars, Marvel and superheroes. There's a lot of content that is going to save both stocks," he said. Read More Why it might not be time to dump Disney shares Trader Brian Kelley said that Disney is a place to buy when the market gets stronger. "You have a great risk-to-reward ratio. You could get it up to $115. Disney is where you look when the market starts to rip," he said. Disclosures: STEVE GRASSO Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long MAT, MCD His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. BRIAN KELLY Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries. GUY ADAMI Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance View comments || Buying the dip? Consider these 5 stocks: Amid increased market volatility, investors looking for value should keep their eyes on five stocks trading at a discount, CNBC's "Fast Money" pros said.
Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)has traded between $40 and $50 a share over the last year. "I think you probably buy it at $40 and sell it at $50," Dan Nathan said.
"There's been a premium built in to Microsoft over the last year since Nadella took over," he said. Nathan noted that there's a lot to be optimistic about, but urged investors to be mindful that it is tied to the turbulent PC market.
Tim Seymour said he sees upside potential in the aerospace products manufacture United Technologies(NYSE: UTX). "Granted China could get worse... but I think these guys are turning the ship after what was a selloff that was even kind of pre-China," he said.
But if you really want to know when the China-driven selloff is over, keep an eye on Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL).
Once investors start pilling in on Apple, it means they "fundamentally believe that maybe iPhones are going to surprise," to the upside because everyone has factored in that China, where the iPhone gets most of its profit from, is really hitting a wall, Steve Grasso said.
"Maybe they will surprise us. Maybe it's not the watch, maybe it's Apple T.V. as people are suspecting. ... But if the story has fundamentally changed than you just gotta sell Apple and I don't think we're there yet," he added.
Brian Kelly is betting on Goldman Sachs(NYSE: GS)to weather the current market storm because "they are gonna be the ones to benefit from this market volatility. "On this list, Goldman Sachs is the way to do it, at least, for the next couple of months," he said.
Cisco(NASDAQ: CSCO)is a Dow stock that you buy at a discount, while it's near 52-week lows, Brian Kelly said.
"Here is a Dow stock that trades at 10.5 times next year's expected earnings [with a] 3.25 percent dividend yield [and] half that market cap is in cash here," Kelly said, citing the company's recent management changes as additional tailwinds.
Disclosures:
Tim Seymour
Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, TWTR, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO.
Dan Nathan
Dan is long QQQ Oct put spread, XBI sept put spread, TWTR, PG.
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasurys.
Steve Grasso
Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long BP, COP, CVX, FCX, OXY, RIG, AMZN, MAT His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
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• Personal Finance || Buying the dip? Consider these 5 stocks: Amid increased market volatility, investors looking for value should keep their eyes on five stocks trading at a discount, CNBC's "Fast Money" pros said. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has traded between $40 and $50 a share over the last year. "I think you probably buy it at $40 and sell it at $50," Dan Nathan said. "There's been a premium built in to Microsoft over the last year since Nadella took over," he said. Nathan noted that there's a lot to be optimistic about, but urged investors to be mindful that it is tied to the turbulent PC market. Tim Seymour said he sees upside potential in the aerospace products manufacture United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) . "Granted China could get worse... but I think these guys are turning the ship after what was a selloff that was even kind of pre-China," he said. But if you really want to know when the China-driven selloff is over, keep an eye on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) . Once investors start pilling in on Apple, it means they "fundamentally believe that maybe iPhones are going to surprise," to the upside because everyone has factored in that China, where the iPhone gets most of its profit from, is really hitting a wall, Steve Grasso said. "Maybe they will surprise us. Maybe it's not the watch, maybe it's Apple T.V. as people are suspecting. ... But if the story has fundamentally changed than you just gotta sell Apple and I don't think we're there yet," he added. Brian Kelly is betting on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to weather the current market storm because "they are gonna be the ones to benefit from this market volatility. "On this list, Goldman Sachs is the way to do it, at least, for the next couple of months," he said. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is a Dow stock that you buy at a discount, while it's near 52-week lows, Brian Kelly said. "Here is a Dow stock that trades at 10.5 times next year's expected earnings [with a] 3.25 percent dividend yield [and] half that market cap is in cash here," Kelly said, citing the company's recent management changes as additional tailwinds. Story continues Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, TWTR, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Dan Nathan Dan is long QQQ Oct put spread, XBI sept put spread, TWTR, PG. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasurys. Steve Grasso Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long BP, COP, CVX, FCX, OXY, RIG, AMZN, MAT His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || itBit hires former NY financial regulator's general counsel: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange itBit has hired Daniel Alter as the company's new general counsel and chief compliance officer, the firm announced on Wednesday. Alter, who spent three years as general counsel to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), said there was no impropriety in his employment at itBit. "The New York State Public Officers law requires that I have a two-year recusal before I can appear before the New York Department of Financial Services on behalf of the company," said Alter, who left the DFS in mid-February and joined itBit last week. "And it will certainly apply to itBit. I will not step near or have any communications with the New York Department of Financial Services. Those will be handled by outside counsel or qualified compliance people within the company," added Alter, who is also an adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law. In June, Benjamin Lawsky, former superintendent of the New York DFS also left the agency to form his own consulting firm that will advise companies on regulation and other matters. Lawsky was widely criticized by the bitcoin community that he may have generated consulting work for himself by issuing controversial regulations for virtual currency firms before he left his post. itBit also announced the appointment of Kim Petry as the company's chief financial officer. Petry joins itBit from her post as CFO of global operations and technology at Broadridge Financial. Prior to Broadridge, Petry served as the CFO and vice president of global commercial/corporate card payment at American Express Co. itBit's new appointments are the latest in a series of high-profile additions to the company's leadership team. Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, Senator Bill Bradley, and Robert Herz, former chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, joined itBit's Board of Directors in May this year. The New York-based exchange was recently granted a trust charter by the DFS. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Diane Craft) || itBit hires former NY financial regulator's general counsel: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange itBit has hired Daniel Alter as the company's new general counsel and chief compliance officer, the firm announced on Wednesday. Alter, who spent three years as general counsel to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), said there was no impropriety in his employment at itBit. "The New York State Public Officers law requires that I have a two-year recusal before I can appear before the New York Department of Financial Services on behalf of the company," said Alter, who left the DFS in mid-February and joined itBit last week. "And it will certainly apply to itBit. I will not step near or have any communications with the New York Department of Financial Services. Those will be handled by outside counsel or qualified compliance people within the company," added Alter, who is also an adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law. In June, Benjamin Lawsky, former superintendent of the New York DFS also left the agency to form his own consulting firm that will advise companies on regulation and other matters. Lawsky was widely criticized by the bitcoin community that he may have generated consulting work for himself by issuing controversial regulations for virtual currency firms before he left his post. itBit also announced the appointment of Kim Petry as the company's chief financial officer. Petry joins itBit from her post as CFO of global operations and technology at Broadridge Financial. Prior to Broadridge, Petry served as the CFO and vice president of global commercial/corporate card payment at American Express Co. itBit's new appointments are the latest in a series of high-profile additions to the company's leadership team. Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, Senator Bill Bradley, and Robert Herz, former chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, joined itBit's Board of Directors in May this year. The New York-based exchange was recently granted a trust charter by the DFS. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Diane Craft) || Bitcoin Driven HashingSpace Launches HashScanner to Maximize Bitcoin Payouts: HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS) Announced Today That It Has Launched a New Service, HashScanner, to Maximize Bitcoin Mining Capabilities. HashingSpace's Mission Is to Build out Key Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin and Blockchain Services with Hosted ASIC Mining
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE /September 1, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (OTCQB: HSHS), a Bitcoin ASIC mining and hosting company, announced today that the company has made available HashScanner, a proprietary service to maximize Bitcoin payouts for HashingSpace miners.
The new service allows miners to scan P2Pools to see which has the lowest latency. It also shows pools score, efficiencies, uptime, location, fees, hash rate and version number. This free service shows how HASHPOOL ranks with HashingSpace's 13 nodes located across the world. Our HashPool.com mining pools are GEO-IP load balanced through DNS to allow mining pools one address, which load balances and fails over for all of our the nodes. We also allow for individual node access.
"We are excited to bring to the Bitcoin marketplace this free HashScanner service. We feel it is well designed and user friendly. It is a definitive source for the highest paying p2pool mining pools. This allows our customers to maximize their mining capabilities and increase their profits and shows how HashPool ranks among the P2Pools," stated Timothy Roberts, CEO of HashingSpace Corporation. "This completes another goal of ours to provide intuitive, convenient, robust and secure bitcoin solutions to the Bitcoin community."
HashScanner can be accessed atwww.hashscanner.comand also through the HashingSpace mining portal atwww.hashpool.com.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
FORTRESS ONE HOSTING:Tier 3+ Enterprise Class, Green High Intensity Hosting for Blockchain
CRYPTOHASH HOSTING:Tier 1 Green High Intensity Hosting for Crypto Currency ASIC Mining
CLOUDHASH:Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power
HASHMINING:Our own Mining Farm
HASHATM:Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines
HASHWALLET:Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions
HASHPOOL:Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)
HASHTICKER:Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)
HASHVAR:A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the ticker symbol, HSHS.
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855-HASHING (427-4464)Investor Relations:[email protected]
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation || Bitcoin Driven HashingSpace Launches HashScanner to Maximize Bitcoin Payouts: HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS) Announced Today That It Has Launched a New Service, HashScanner, to Maximize Bitcoin Mining Capabilities. HashingSpace's Mission Is to Build out Key Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin and Blockchain Services with Hosted ASIC Mining
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE /September 1, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (OTCQB: HSHS), a Bitcoin ASIC mining and hosting company, announced today that the company has made available HashScanner, a proprietary service to maximize Bitcoin payouts for HashingSpace miners.
The new service allows miners to scan P2Pools to see which has the lowest latency. It also shows pools score, efficiencies, uptime, location, fees, hash rate and version number. This free service shows how HASHPOOL ranks with HashingSpace's 13 nodes located across the world. Our HashPool.com mining pools are GEO-IP load balanced through DNS to allow mining pools one address, which load balances and fails over for all of our the nodes. We also allow for individual node access.
"We are excited to bring to the Bitcoin marketplace this free HashScanner service. We feel it is well designed and user friendly. It is a definitive source for the highest paying p2pool mining pools. This allows our customers to maximize their mining capabilities and increase their profits and shows how HashPool ranks among the P2Pools," stated Timothy Roberts, CEO of HashingSpace Corporation. "This completes another goal of ours to provide intuitive, convenient, robust and secure bitcoin solutions to the Bitcoin community."
HashScanner can be accessed atwww.hashscanner.comand also through the HashingSpace mining portal atwww.hashpool.com.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
FORTRESS ONE HOSTING:Tier 3+ Enterprise Class, Green High Intensity Hosting for Blockchain
CRYPTOHASH HOSTING:Tier 1 Green High Intensity Hosting for Crypto Currency ASIC Mining
CLOUDHASH:Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power
HASHMINING:Our own Mining Farm
HASHATM:Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines
HASHWALLET:Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions
HASHPOOL:Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)
HASHTICKER:Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)
HASHVAR:A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the ticker symbol, HSHS.
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855-HASHING (427-4464)Investor Relations:[email protected]
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation || Bitcoin Driven HashingSpace Launches HashScanner to Maximize Bitcoin Payouts: HashingSpace Corporation ( HSHS ) Announced Today That It Has Launched a New Service, HashScanner, to Maximize Bitcoin Mining Capabilities. HashingSpace's Mission Is to Build out Key Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin and Blockchain Services with Hosted ASIC Mining WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / September 1, 2015 / HashingSpace Corporation ( OTCQB: HSHS ), a Bitcoin ASIC mining and hosting company, announced today that the company has made available HashScanner, a proprietary service to maximize Bitcoin payouts for HashingSpace miners. The new service allows miners to scan P2Pools to see which has the lowest latency. It also shows pools score, efficiencies, uptime, location, fees, hash rate and version number. This free service shows how HASHPOOL ranks with HashingSpace's 13 nodes located across the world. Our HashPool.com mining pools are GEO-IP load balanced through DNS to allow mining pools one address, which load balances and fails over for all of our the nodes. We also allow for individual node access. "We are excited to bring to the Bitcoin marketplace this free HashScanner service. We feel it is well designed and user friendly. It is a definitive source for the highest paying p2pool mining pools. This allows our customers to maximize their mining capabilities and increase their profits and shows how HashPool ranks among the P2Pools," stated Timothy Roberts, CEO of HashingSpace Corporation. "This completes another goal of ours to provide intuitive, convenient, robust and secure bitcoin solutions to the Bitcoin community." HashScanner can be accessed at www.hashscanner.com and also through the HashingSpace mining portal at www.hashpool.com . HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include: FORTRESS ONE HOSTING: Tier 3+ Enterprise Class, Green High Intensity Hosting for Blockchain CRYPTOHASH HOSTING: Tier 1 Green High Intensity Hosting for Crypto Currency ASIC Mining CLOUDHASH: Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power Story continues HASHMINING: Our own Mining Farm HASHATM: Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines HASHWALLET: Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions HASHPOOL: Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid) HASHTICKER: Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid) HASHVAR: A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the ticker symbol, HSHS. About HashingSpace Corporation HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically. HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information. HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visit www.hashingspace.com . Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visit http://www.hashingspace.com or call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464). Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Company Contact: HashingSpace Corporation 5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900 Los Angeles, CA, 90036 855-HASHING (427-4464) Investor Relations: [email protected] SOURCE: HashingSpace Corporation || Organic Food Goes Mainstream: Consumer preferences have shifted significantly over the past few years as more and more people opt for all-natural, healthy food options. Healthy food used to make up just a small isle of little known brands in the supermarket, but the niche has made its way into popular culture and now even big brands are hopping on the organic food bandwagon. Supermarkets Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM ) is a heavy-hitter when it comes to the natural foods space. The company has grown into a well known brand where health nuts pay a premium for the best ingredients and most natural foods. However, as interest in health foods grew, so did the number of competitors. Other specialty grocers like Sprouts (NASDAQ: SFM ) and Natural Grocers (NYSE: NGVC ) are expanding quickly and looking to increase their slice of the organic pie. New Entrants While new entrants in the organic foods business used to be mom and pop businesses that were working their way up, today's natural foods isle is filled with products backed by big name companies who are shifting their approach in order to attract health-conscious consumers. Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) promised to stop using chicken that had been treated with antibiotics and Kraft Foods (NASDAQ: KRFT ) has removed artificial dyes from its well-known Mac & Cheese in an effort to appeal to the organic-obsessed public. Bigger Not Always Better However, the big brands aren't always able to appeal to health nuts the way smaller brands are. After Kellogg Company (NYSE: K ) acquired the Kashi brand in 2000, the healthy cereal maker went steadily downhill. Customers discovered that Kellogg was using genetically modified ingredients and a social media campaign against the brand ensued. Now, Kellogg is working to restore Kashi's image with innovative new cereals and a new marketing approach, but it is likely to be a rocky road back into consumers' good graces. See more from Benzinga Is NASDAQ Going Green? Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Organic Food Goes Mainstream: Consumer preferences have shifted significantly over the past few years as more and more people opt for all-natural, healthy food options.
Healthy food used to make up just a small isle of little known brands in the supermarket, but the niche has made its way into popular culture and now even big brands are hopping on the organic food bandwagon.
Supermarkets
Whole Foods Market(NASDAQ:WFM) is a heavy-hitter when it comes to the natural foods space. The company has grown into a well known brand where health nuts pay a premium for the best ingredients and most natural foods. However, as interest in health foods grew, so did the number of competitors.
Other specialty grocers likeSprouts(NASDAQ:SFM) andNatural Grocers(NYSE:NGVC) are expanding quickly and looking to increase their slice of the organic pie.
New Entrants
While new entrants in the organic foods business used to be mom and pop businesses that were working their way up, today's natural foods isle is filled with products backed by big name companies who are shifting their approach in order to attract health-conscious consumers.
Tyson Foods(NYSE:TSN) promised to stop using chicken that had been treated with antibiotics andKraft Foods(NASDAQ:KRFT) has removed artificial dyes from its well-known Mac & Cheese in an effort to appeal to the organic-obsessed public.
Bigger Not Always Better
However, the big brands aren't always able to appeal to health nuts the way smaller brands are. AfterKellogg Company(NYSE:K) acquired the Kashi brand in 2000, the healthy cereal maker went steadily downhill.
Customers discovered that Kellogg was using genetically modified ingredients and a social media campaign against the brand ensued. Now, Kellogg isworking to restoreKashi's image with innovative new cereals and a new marketing approach, but it is likely to be a rocky road back into consumers' good graces.
See more from Benzinga
• Is NASDAQ Going Green?
• Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms
• New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is NASDAQ Going Green?: On Monday, the marijuana-themed networking company MassRoots Inc (OTC: MSRT ) announced its plans to become the first cannabis-based company to be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The company has been listed OTC since April 2015, but if it is accepted by Nasdaq, it will mark a major milestone for the company's growth. Marijuana Network MassRoots is a social networking app that connects marijuana users to industry participants like dispensaries and pot-themed companies. As the app itself doesn't handle any marijuana or facilitate sales directly, it can be used throughout the U.S., even in states where marijuana use is still illegal. Big Opportunity MassRoots Chief Executive Officer Isaac Dietrich said that the company's move onto a major market like the NASDAQ will likely help attract new investors and mark a huge step forward for both the company and the marijuana industry as a whole. In order to comply with NASDAQ's requirements MassRoots is planning to strengthen its corporate governance and take other steps in order to ensure it meets all of the criteria. However, even if the company is able to fulfill the requirements, there is no guarantee that the its application will be accepted. Investors Interested In Pot? It remains unknown how well MassRoots would be received by investors. On one hand, MassRoots would be the first company whose operations are directly linked to recreational marijuana use. While companies like GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH ) are already listed on the exchange, their research explores using elements from cannabis to create new medical treatments. MassRoots, appeals to recreational users and gives investors a chance to invest in technology which may grow alongside the industry. However, some could be wary of marijuana-linked investments as the industry's future is still uncertain as conflicting federal and state laws allow for the marijuana market to be shut down at any time. See more from Benzinga Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream Where Is The Market Headed? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is NASDAQ Going Green?: On Monday, the marijuana-themed networking companyMassRoots Inc(OTC:MSRT) announced its plans to become thefirst cannabis-based companyto be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market.
The company has been listed OTC since April 2015, but if it is accepted by Nasdaq, it will mark a major milestone for the company's growth.
Marijuana Network
MassRoots is a social networking app that connects marijuana users to industry participants like dispensaries and pot-themed companies. As the app itself doesn't handle any marijuana or facilitate sales directly, it can be used throughout the U.S., even in states where marijuana use is still illegal.
Big Opportunity
MassRoots Chief Executive Officer Isaac Dietrich said that the company's move onto a major market like the NASDAQ will likely help attract new investors and mark a huge step forward for both the company and the marijuana industry as a whole.
In order to comply with NASDAQ's requirements MassRoots is planning to strengthen its corporate governance and take other steps in order to ensure it meets all of the criteria.
However, even if the company is able to fulfill the requirements, there is no guarantee that the its application will be accepted.
Investors Interested In Pot?
It remains unknown how well MassRoots would be received by investors. On one hand, MassRoots would be the first company whose operations are directly linked to recreational marijuana use.
While companies likeGW Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:GWPH) are already listed on the exchange, their research explores using elements from cannabis to create new medical treatments. MassRoots, appeals to recreational users and gives investors a chance to invest in technology which may grow alongside the industry.
However, some could be wary of marijuana-linked investments as the industry's future is still uncertain as conflicting federal and state laws allow for the marijuana market to be shut down at any time.
See more from Benzinga
• Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms
• New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream
• Where Is The Market Headed?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || SunGard And HSBC's Massive IT Glitches: Why Customers Freaked Out Last Friday: Last Friday, two major banks were reported to be experienced big IT problems, affecting thousands of customers. HSBC Leaves Thousands Without Salaries According to a recent Finextra article , a big tech issue surfaced on Friday morning when HSBC customers checking their account balances noticed their latest monthly salaries were not accounted for. Apparently, the glitch affected roughly 275,000 Bacs payments Bacs is the system used for fund transfers in the UK. Bacs released a statement assuring that it is "aware of an isolated issue that has affected one of its member organizations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we [Bacs] are currently working with our partners to help them resolve this as quickly as possible." Related Link: Barclays Becomes First Big UK Bank To Accept Bitcoin The HSBC bank is owned by HSBC Holdings plc (ADR) (NYSE: HSBC ), which fell 0.65 percent on Friday trading and continues to tumble on Monday. BNY Mellon, Mispriced Funds Cause Panic Another third-party service provider that had trouble on Friday is SunGard. It seems like its InvestOne system, used by custody bank Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE: BK ) to price funds, failed on Friday, causing panic among the banks U.S. fund management clients. The main fear was that the system failure had led to a mispricing of hundreds of funds during a week of especially high market volatility, another Finextra article explained. In a public statement, SunGard assured that, while they are confident that no data was lost as a result of the incident, calculation and processing of net asset values (NAVs) of certain mutual funds and ETFs was disrupted." They added that, despite the speculation, no external or unauthorized systems access had caused the glitch, which wasnt a result of "recent turmoil in the equity markets either. Instead, the issued derived from an unforeseen complication resulting from an operating system change carried out by SunGard last Saturday. SunGard pledges this was an isolated incident, and that it is now working with Bank of New York Mellon to resolve the problems caused. Research firm Morningstar calculated that approximately 796 funds were missing NAVs as of Wednesday. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Social Media Pulse: Volatility, The Fed Meeting, Oil -- And A Look At 3 Related ETFs This Analyst Loves Depomed And Its Nucynta Prescription Seabridge Gold's Stock Could Hit , Another Deposit Site Extended © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || SunGard And HSBC's Massive IT Glitches: Why Customers Freaked Out Last Friday: Last Friday, two major banks were reported to be experienced big IT problems, affecting thousands of customers.
HSBC Leaves Thousands Without Salaries
According to a recent Finextraarticle, a big tech issue surfaced on Friday morning when HSBC customers checking their account balances noticed their latest monthly salaries were not accounted for. Apparently, the glitch affected roughly 275,000 Bacs payments – Bacs is the system used for fund transfers in the UK.
Bacs released a statement assuring that it is "aware of an isolated issue that has affected one of its member organizations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we [Bacs] are currently working with our partners to help them resolve this as quickly as possible."
Related Link:Barclays Becomes First Big UK Bank To Accept Bitcoin
The HSBC bank is owned byHSBC Holdings plc (ADR)(NYSE:HSBC), which fell 0.65 percent on Friday trading and continues to tumble on Monday.
BNY Mellon, Mispriced Funds Cause Panic
Another third-party service provider that had trouble on Friday is SunGard. It seems like its InvestOne system, used by custody bankBank of New York Mellon Corp(NYSE:BK) to price funds, failed on Friday, causing panic among the bank’s U.S. fund management clients.
The main fear was that the system failure had led to a mispricing of hundreds of funds “during a week of especially high market volatility,” another Finextraarticleexplained.
In a public statement, SunGard assured that, while they “are confident that no data was lost as a result of the incident, calculation and processing of net asset values (NAVs) of certain mutual funds and ETFs was disrupted."
They added that, despite the speculation, no “external or unauthorized systems access” had caused the glitch, which wasn’t a result of "recent turmoil in the equity markets” either. Instead, the issued derived from “an unforeseen complication resulting from an operating system change carried out by SunGard last Saturday.” SunGard pledges this was an isolated incident, and that it is now working with Bank of New York Mellon to resolve the problems caused.
Research firm Morningstar calculated that approximately 796 funds were missing NAVs as of Wednesday.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Social Media Pulse: Volatility, The Fed Meeting, Oil -- And A Look At 3 Related ETFs
• This Analyst Loves Depomed And Its Nucynta Prescription
• Seabridge Gold's Stock Could Hit , Another Deposit Site Extended
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Flow to Establish State-of-the-Art Customer Call Centre of Excellence Bringing More Than 300 New Jobs to Jamaica: KINGSTON, JAMAICA--(Marketwired - Aug 31, 2015) - Flow, the new Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) consumer retail brand, today announced plans to establish a new, state-of-the-art Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Kingston, Jamaica and create more than 300 full-time jobs over the next two years. The innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence is part of the Company's bid to become the leader in service excellence and revolutionise customer experience across the Caribbean. The Customer Call Centre of Excellence, to be established in the coming months, follows the recent merger with Columbus International Inc and is part of Flow's new compelling plan to provide an enhanced customer experience. This initiative is also consistent with plans laid out by CEO Phil Bentley last year that will see C&W invest US$1.5bn over 3 years to upgrade infrastructure and overhaul service delivery throughout the Caribbean and Latin American region. "Through investments like these, we are putting the customer at the heart of the business," said Bentley. "We are committed to anticipating their needs at every contact point and to delivering a customer care experience that is unparalleled across the region. Together, with our other existing Call Centre in Trinidad, we will revolutionise customer service in the Caribbean, and be the leader in recruiting the best talent in the region. We want Flow to be a business that everyone in the Caribbean is proud of," said Bentley. Branded as an innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence, the facility is being designed to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems . Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience. Managing Director, Flow Jamaica, Garry Sinclair is extremely pleased that the new Centre will be located on the island. "It is a testament to the growing confidence of Jamaica as a central hub for investment, the large pool of skilled labour that exists here, and the rapid growth of the ICT sector led by Flow, that we are making this investment here in Kingston." He added, "In addition to the investment in the new Customer Call Centre of Excellence, Flow is also investing in the best mobile and fibre networks across the island to deliver more technologically advanced quad play products, better value, and superior broadband connectivity to exceed our customers' expectations." Sinclair also stated that, "We are excited to recruit the best team on the island for this Centre and we will implement an extensive training programme to deliver an incomparable customer experience." Story continues Responding to the announcement, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining commended Flow's decision to establish the Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica. "The establishment of Flow's Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica attests to the tremendous growth potential of the nation's ICT sector and affirms Flow's commitment to development of the local and regional economies. With the commitment to create new jobs, the investment also supports the country's goals to reduce unemployment, builds new skill sets and advances the country's vision to make Jamaica a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business." Since 2012, the Jamaican Government has had an ongoing drive to engage the private sector in the 'Jamaica Employ' programme, which seeks to increase prospects for job seekers and to bring critical new jobs to the island. "We love doing business in Jamaica and we are happy to partner with the Government in their various initiatives, including the 'Jamaica Employ' programme," Phil Bentley concluded. About Cable & Wireless Communications: Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information please visit: www.cwc.com || Flow to Establish State-of-the-Art Customer Call Centre of Excellence Bringing More Than 300 New Jobs to Jamaica: KINGSTON, JAMAICA--(Marketwired - Aug 31, 2015) - Flow, the newCable & Wireless CommunicationsPlc (CWC) consumer retail brand, today announced plans to establish a new, state-of-the-art Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Kingston, Jamaica and create more than 300 full-time jobs over the next two years. The innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence is part of the Company's bid to become the leader in service excellence and revolutionise customer experience across the Caribbean.
The Customer Call Centre of Excellence, to be established in the coming months, follows the recent merger with Columbus International Inc and is part of Flow's new compelling plan to provide an enhanced customer experience. This initiative is also consistent with plans laid out by CEO Phil Bentley last year that will see C&W invest US$1.5bn over 3 years to upgrade infrastructure and overhaul service delivery throughout the Caribbean and Latin American region.
"Through investments like these, we are putting the customer at the heart of the business," said Bentley. "We are committed to anticipating their needs at every contact point and to delivering a customer care experience that is unparalleled across the region. Together, with our other existing Call Centre in Trinidad, we will revolutionise customer service in the Caribbean, and be the leader in recruiting the best talent in the region. We want Flow to be a business that everyone in the Caribbean is proud of," said Bentley.
Branded as an innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence, the facility is being designed to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems.Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience.
Managing Director, Flow Jamaica, Garry Sinclair is extremely pleased that the new Centre will be located on the island. "It is a testament to the growing confidence of Jamaica as a central hub for investment, the large pool of skilled labour that exists here, and the rapid growth of the ICT sector led by Flow, that we are making this investment here in Kingston." He added, "In addition to the investment in the new Customer Call Centre of Excellence, Flow is also investing in the best mobile and fibre networks across the island to deliver more technologically advanced quad play products, better value, and superior broadband connectivity to exceed our customers' expectations." Sinclair also stated that, "We are excited to recruit the best team on the island for this Centre and we will implement an extensive training programme to deliver an incomparable customer experience."
Responding to the announcement, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining commended Flow's decision to establish the Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica. "The establishment of Flow's Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica attests to the tremendous growth potential of the nation's ICT sector and affirms Flow's commitment to development of the local and regional economies. With the commitment to create new jobs, the investment also supports the country's goals to reduce unemployment, builds new skill sets and advances the country's vision to make Jamaica a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business."
Since 2012, the Jamaican Government has had an ongoing drive to engage the private sector in the 'Jamaica Employ' programme, which seeks to increase prospects for job seekers and to bring critical new jobs to the island. "We love doing business in Jamaica and we are happy to partner with the Government in their various initiatives, including the 'Jamaica Employ' programme," Phil Bentley concluded.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America.
For more information please visit:www.cwc.com || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Barclays Becomes First Big U.K. Bank To Accept Bitcoin: Over the weekend, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS ) announced that it was planning to take steps toward embracing the use of bitcoin by allowing charitable donations using the cryptocurrency. The London-based bank said it was entering into a partnership with an unnamed "bitcoin exchange" in order to help charities accept bitcoin donations. Barclays And Bitcoin This is not the first time the bank has expressed interest in bitcoin. Related Link: Bitcoin Goes Ivy League Barclays has been working to understand the benefits and risks of the cryptocurrency this year by working with bitcoin startups and researchers to determine if and how digital currencies can fit within the traditional finance sector. The bank has praised blockchain, the ledger-like technology that powers bitcoin, as an innovative system that may significantly benefit traditional banking. Bitcoin Donations Barclays' decision to help charities accept bitcoin donations marks another step forward for the UK, which has been working to make London a hub for bitcoin development. The region already has a prominent place in the financial world, but lawmakers and banking officials are hoping to create an environment that promotes the expansion of bitcoin. Charities Benefit From Bitcoin Charities have been a good starting point for bitcoin adoption, as there are several benefits to accepting digital currency donations. For one, transaction costs are lower, and often nonexistent for non-profits, meaning that more of the donated money makes its way to the intended charity. By accepting bitcoin, charities also appeal to a larger audience and could draw in funding from people who otherwise may not have donated. See more from Benzinga Emerging Market Shares Battered: Is It Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
#RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $1.0E-5 per #reddcoin
04:00:02 || 1 #bitcoin 734.94 TL, 238.017 $, 209.241 €, GBP, 16240.00 RUR, 28277 ¥, CNH, 321.79 CAD #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $194.42 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 158.47£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-07 13:00:02 BST || 1 #bitcoin 724.6 TL, 234.16 $, 210.680 €, GBP, 16000.00 RUR, 28277 ¥, CNH, 32...
|
243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29, 8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75, 7296.58, 7397.80, 7047.92, 7146.13, 7218.37, 7531.66, 7463.11, 7761.24.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-29]
Volume: 19709695456, RSI (14-day): 43.73, 50-day EMA: 8388.45, 200-day EMA: 8591.33
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1465.60, Gold RSI: 46.06
Oil Price: 55.17, Oil RSI: 43.77
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020: German banks seem to be spearheading the charge for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies by offering custody services for Bitcoin, according to local news outlet Handelsblatt . Customers will reportedly be able to invest, hold, and track investments in cryptocurrencies starting from 2020. The move aims to combat the rising issue of money laundering within Germany. This was highlighted earlier this year as financial giant Deutsche Bank faced action over a $20 billion Russian money laundering scheme . However, Germany’s approach has been criticised by numerous financial analysts and experts. Niels Nauhauser stated that banks are too aggressive in targeting new customers and that cryptocurrency offerings may result in a significant loss. “Basically, banks sell a variety of financial products if the commission is right. If they are allowed to sell cryptocurrencies and keep them for a fee, they run the risk of returning a total loss to their clients, without them knowing what they are getting into,” he said. Earlier this week, an official at the European Central Bank stated that the ECB was investigating the potential launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) . Benoît Cœuré, executive board member of the ECB, claimed that a CBDC could “ensure that citizens remain able to use central bank money even if electronic payments become even more popular”. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020: German banks seem to be spearheading the charge for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies by offering custody services for Bitcoin, according to local news outlet Handelsblatt . Customers will reportedly be able to invest, hold, and track investments in cryptocurrencies starting from 2020. The move aims to combat the rising issue of money laundering within Germany. This was highlighted earlier this year as financial giant Deutsche Bank faced action over a $20 billion Russian money laundering scheme . However, Germany’s approach has been criticised by numerous financial analysts and experts. Niels Nauhauser stated that banks are too aggressive in targeting new customers and that cryptocurrency offerings may result in a significant loss. “Basically, banks sell a variety of financial products if the commission is right. If they are allowed to sell cryptocurrencies and keep them for a fee, they run the risk of returning a total loss to their clients, without them knowing what they are getting into,” he said. Earlier this week, an official at the European Central Bank stated that the ECB was investigating the potential launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) . Benoît Cœuré, executive board member of the ECB, claimed that a CBDC could “ensure that citizens remain able to use central bank money even if electronic payments become even more popular”. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020: German banks seem to be spearheading the charge for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies by offering custody services for Bitcoin, according to local news outlet Handelsblatt . Customers will reportedly be able to invest, hold, and track investments in cryptocurrencies starting from 2020. The move aims to combat the rising issue of money laundering within Germany. This was highlighted earlier this year as financial giant Deutsche Bank faced action over a $20 billion Russian money laundering scheme . However, Germany’s approach has been criticised by numerous financial analysts and experts. Niels Nauhauser stated that banks are too aggressive in targeting new customers and that cryptocurrency offerings may result in a significant loss. “Basically, banks sell a variety of financial products if the commission is right. If they are allowed to sell cryptocurrencies and keep them for a fee, they run the risk of returning a total loss to their clients, without them knowing what they are getting into,” he said. Earlier this week, an official at the European Central Bank stated that the ECB was investigating the potential launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) . Benoît Cœuré, executive board member of the ECB, claimed that a CBDC could “ensure that citizens remain able to use central bank money even if electronic payments become even more popular”. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post German banks to offer Bitcoin custody by 2020 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bakkt’s monthly bitcoin futures hit all-time-high of $37M: Bitcoin futures market Bakkt just logged the largest single-day volumes for its physically-settled monthly bitcoin future contract. Volumes hit ~$37.45 million on Wednesday, passing its previous high of ~$19.96 million on November 22. The total volume of Bakkt’s monthly bitcoin futures now stands at $269.64 million (33,036BTC) since the market launched on Sept. 23. The average volume has been ~$5.62 million (688.25 BTC) a day over the last 48 trading days. The break-neck growth of the market was predicted by CoinRoutes CEO Dave Weisberger, who noted some markets experience "hockey stick growth." "There's an old expression: liquidity begets liquidity," he told The Block on November 25 . In October, Bakkt rolled out a liquidity incentive program , which is awaiting approval from the CFTC. It could further fuel the growth of the new market. The Intercontinental Exchange-backed venture is also looking to roll-out an options market tied to bitcoin in December . || Bakkt’s monthly bitcoin futures hit all-time-high of $37M: Bitcoin futures market Bakkt just logged the largest single-day volumes for its physically-settled monthly bitcoin future contract. Volumes hit ~$37.45 million on Wednesday, passing its previous high of ~$19.96 million on November 22. The total volume of Bakkt’s monthly bitcoin futures now stands at $269.64 million (33,036BTC) since the market launched on Sept. 23. The average volume has been ~$5.62 million (688.25 BTC) a day over the last 48 trading days. The break-neck growth of the market was predicted by CoinRoutes CEO Dave Weisberger, who noted some markets experience "hockey stick growth." "There's an old expression: liquidity begets liquidity," he told The Block on November 25 . In October, Bakkt rolled out a liquidity incentive program , which is awaiting approval from the CFTC. It could further fuel the growth of the new market. The Intercontinental Exchange-backed venture is also looking to roll-out an options market tied to bitcoin in December . || Seven exchange hacks in 2019 – and counting?: Recent data shows that as of Q3 2019, the total amount of money lost as a result of cryptocurrency crime this year has hit a whopping $4.4bn. Of course, not all this was down to exchange hacks. Inside jobs, Ponzi schemes, exit scams, and malware all play a massive part as well. That said, if the Binance hack taught us anything, it’s that exchanges are pretty fair game. Check out the seven exchange hacks of 2019 so far. Can we expect any more before the year ends? 1) Cryptopia The year started off badly for New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia. On January 15, the lights went out and the exchange went quiet after discovering a “security breach”. Cryptopia users were locked out of the exchange during a police investigation that failed to confirm the exact amount lost until the following month. Kicking off the series of exchange hacks in 2019, Cryptopia lost around $16 million due to poor security practices. The exchange had been channelling all users’ funds into a pooled wallet. While Cryptopia attempted to reopen in March , eventually it filed for bankruptcy in May. As of October 25 2019 , Cryptopia users are still waiting for their funds to be returned to them. The latest update for #Cryptopia stakeholders is now available. The next statutory report is due in early December and we will provide a formal update on the liquidation progress via this report. https://t.co/t6VDnjcKDx — Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) October 25, 2019 2) DragonEx Singapore-based DragonEx was the next of 2019’s exchange hacks on March 24, when it emerged that it had lost an “undisclosed” amount of funds. The company later announced via its Telegram channel that the losses amounted to $7 million. The exchange did not promise to return users’ funds. However, it did work on a compensation plan to return lost funds in Tether or the Dragon Token equivalent. 3) Bithumb Later that month, South Korean exchange Bithumb became the next cryptocurrency exchange to suffer a security breach. This was the second major hack to hit Bithumb since its inception. The second time around, the damage was not as severe (the South Korean exchange lost a massive $31 million in 2018 ). However, hackers still made away with $13 million worth of EOS and some $6.2 million worth of XRP. No user funds were lost in the hack, and the exchange maintained that it appeared to be an inside job. Story continues [Notice🔔] We deeply apologize to our members for delaying the cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal service, we would like to inform you of the circumstances of the grounds and confirm that your assets are safe. For more details >> https://t.co/dOvT78P0sK — Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) March 30, 2019 4) Binance Easily the most shocking of all the exchange hacks in 2019, the Binance breach in May really brought it home to cryptocurrency users that funds on any exchange are not safe. After all, if even the mighty Binance can be hacked, what does that imply for smaller exchanges with less robust technologies and budgets? Hackers were able to steal a whopping $40.7 million (7,000 BTC) from the exchange’s hot wallet. Binance claimed that this was just 2% of its total funds and that the rest was in cold storage. The exchange immediately halted all withdrawals and deposits for one week while it investigated and refunded all users from its SAFU emergency fund. CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) admitted that it was “not the best of days”, but thanked the community for its support. Not the best of days, but we will stay transparent. Thank you for your support! https://t.co/Y1CQOatEpi — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) May 7, 2019 5) BiTrue Another Singapore-based exchange, BiTrue suffered a hack of around $4.2 million of users’ funds in June. This time around, the hackers were after 9.3 million XRP tokens and 2.5 million ADA. The exchange immediately reassured users via its Twitter account that all funds would be returned: Dear Bitrue Users, First of all, please let us assure you that this situation is under control, 100% of lost funds will be returned to users, and we are reviewing our security measures and policies to ensure this does not happen again. — Bitrue (@BitrueOfficial) June 27, 2019 6) Bitpoint July was a horrible month for Japanese exchange Bitpoint as it lost a massive $28 million in different cryptocurrencies targeting more than 50,000 users. The breach was so severe that it stopped the exchange from operating for a month. Luckily for its users though, Bitpoint’s parent company, Remixpoint, immediately promised to reimburse them and the exchange reopened for business in August. 7) UPbit The most recent of cryptocurrency exchange hacks took place this Wednesday at South Korean exchange UPbit . So far, it’s turned out to be the biggest hack of the year in terms of monetary value. Hackers were able to get away with some $50 million worth of Ether. All trading and functionality are still currently suspended for the next two weeks as the exchange continues to investigate. However, UPbit maintains that the loss did not come from its users’ funds. Exchange hacks – what can we learn? With seven major exchange hacks in 2019 alone, including the mighty Binance and twice-hit Bithumb, what can cryptocurrency users learn? Keeping your crypto funds on an exchange makes them vulnerable. Many exchanges have recovered or repaid cryptocurrency users, but others went into liquidation. Not your keys, not your coins. If you’re holding any significant amount of virtual assets on an exchange, you may be next in line… the year’s not over yet. The post Seven exchange hacks in 2019 – and counting? appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Seven exchange hacks in 2019 – and counting?: Recent data shows that as of Q3 2019, the total amount of money lost as a result of cryptocurrency crime this year has hit a whopping $4.4bn. Of course, not all this was down to exchange hacks. Inside jobs, Ponzi schemes, exit scams, and malware all play a massive part as well. That said, if the Binance hack taught us anything, it’s that exchanges are pretty fair game. Check out the seven exchange hacks of 2019 so far. Can we expect any more before the year ends? 1) Cryptopia The year started off badly for New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia. On January 15, the lights went out and the exchange went quiet after discovering a “security breach”. Cryptopia users were locked out of the exchange during a police investigation that failed to confirm the exact amount lost until the following month. Kicking off the series of exchange hacks in 2019, Cryptopia lost around $16 million due to poor security practices. The exchange had been channelling all users’ funds into a pooled wallet. While Cryptopia attempted to reopen in March , eventually it filed for bankruptcy in May. As of October 25 2019 , Cryptopia users are still waiting for their funds to be returned to them. The latest update for #Cryptopia stakeholders is now available. The next statutory report is due in early December and we will provide a formal update on the liquidation progress via this report. https://t.co/t6VDnjcKDx — Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) October 25, 2019 2) DragonEx Singapore-based DragonEx was the next of 2019’s exchange hacks on March 24, when it emerged that it had lost an “undisclosed” amount of funds. The company later announced via its Telegram channel that the losses amounted to $7 million. The exchange did not promise to return users’ funds. However, it did work on a compensation plan to return lost funds in Tether or the Dragon Token equivalent. 3) Bithumb Later that month, South Korean exchange Bithumb became the next cryptocurrency exchange to suffer a security breach. This was the second major hack to hit Bithumb since its inception. The second time around, the damage was not as severe (the South Korean exchange lost a massive $31 million in 2018 ). However, hackers still made away with $13 million worth of EOS and some $6.2 million worth of XRP. No user funds were lost in the hack, and the exchange maintained that it appeared to be an inside job. Story continues [Notice🔔] We deeply apologize to our members for delaying the cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal service, we would like to inform you of the circumstances of the grounds and confirm that your assets are safe. For more details >> https://t.co/dOvT78P0sK — Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) March 30, 2019 4) Binance Easily the most shocking of all the exchange hacks in 2019, the Binance breach in May really brought it home to cryptocurrency users that funds on any exchange are not safe. After all, if even the mighty Binance can be hacked, what does that imply for smaller exchanges with less robust technologies and budgets? Hackers were able to steal a whopping $40.7 million (7,000 BTC) from the exchange’s hot wallet. Binance claimed that this was just 2% of its total funds and that the rest was in cold storage. The exchange immediately halted all withdrawals and deposits for one week while it investigated and refunded all users from its SAFU emergency fund. CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) admitted that it was “not the best of days”, but thanked the community for its support. Not the best of days, but we will stay transparent. Thank you for your support! https://t.co/Y1CQOatEpi — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) May 7, 2019 5) BiTrue Another Singapore-based exchange, BiTrue suffered a hack of around $4.2 million of users’ funds in June. This time around, the hackers were after 9.3 million XRP tokens and 2.5 million ADA. The exchange immediately reassured users via its Twitter account that all funds would be returned: Dear Bitrue Users, First of all, please let us assure you that this situation is under control, 100% of lost funds will be returned to users, and we are reviewing our security measures and policies to ensure this does not happen again. — Bitrue (@BitrueOfficial) June 27, 2019 6) Bitpoint July was a horrible month for Japanese exchange Bitpoint as it lost a massive $28 million in different cryptocurrencies targeting more than 50,000 users. The breach was so severe that it stopped the exchange from operating for a month. Luckily for its users though, Bitpoint’s parent company, Remixpoint, immediately promised to reimburse them and the exchange reopened for business in August. 7) UPbit The most recent of cryptocurrency exchange hacks took place this Wednesday at South Korean exchange UPbit . So far, it’s turned out to be the biggest hack of the year in terms of monetary value. Hackers were able to get away with some $50 million worth of Ether. All trading and functionality are still currently suspended for the next two weeks as the exchange continues to investigate. However, UPbit maintains that the loss did not come from its users’ funds. Exchange hacks – what can we learn? With seven major exchange hacks in 2019 alone, including the mighty Binance and twice-hit Bithumb, what can cryptocurrency users learn? Keeping your crypto funds on an exchange makes them vulnerable. Many exchanges have recovered or repaid cryptocurrency users, but others went into liquidation. Not your keys, not your coins. If you’re holding any significant amount of virtual assets on an exchange, you may be next in line… the year’s not over yet. The post Seven exchange hacks in 2019 – and counting? appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Canadian Fund Manager 3iQ Files Prospectus for Bitcoin Fund IPO: Canadian investment fund manager 3iQ has listed the preliminary prospectus for its bitcoin fund as the next step toward an initial public offering (IPO), the company said Thursday.
As reported on Oct. 30, the firmreceived initial approvalfrom the Ontario Securities Commission to launch the fund on either the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSX Venture Exchange later this year.
A representative told CoinDesk today that the firm expects to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange and begin trading in late December or early January.
Related:Canada’s Einstein Exchange No Longer Has Bulk of Users’ Claimed CA$16M: Receiver
3iQ has been in talks with the regulator over the offering for three years, the representative said.
The IPO, being led by Canaccord Genuity Corp., is aimed to provide unit (bundles of stock and warrants) holders with exposure to bitcoin and the daily price movements of the cryptocurrency against the U.S. dollar.
The bitcoin fund is a closed-end investment fund set up as a trust in the province of Ontario. 3iQ will act as the investment and portfolio manager of the fund, while bitcoin in the fund will be custodied by New York-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Company LLC.
The firm claims the IPO would be the “world’s first regulated closed-end bitcoin exchange-traded product,” however, there have been similar product launches before. Swiss Amun AGhas launchedseveral ETPs for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – including XRP, ether and BNB – in the last year on the SIX stock exchange.
• Fintech Arm of Chinese Insurance Giant Files for US IPO After Blockchain Push
• ASX-Listed DigitalX Seeds New Fund With Half Its Bitcoin Holdings
• Bitmain Seeking US IPO With Confidential SEC Filing: Report || Canadian Fund Manager 3iQ Files Prospectus for Bitcoin Fund IPO: Canadian investment fund manager 3iQ has listed the preliminary prospectus for its bitcoin fund as the next step toward an initial public offering (IPO), the company said Thursday.
As reported on Oct. 30, the firmreceived initial approvalfrom the Ontario Securities Commission to launch the fund on either the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSX Venture Exchange later this year.
A representative told CoinDesk today that the firm expects to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange and begin trading in late December or early January.
Related:Canada’s Einstein Exchange No Longer Has Bulk of Users’ Claimed CA$16M: Receiver
3iQ has been in talks with the regulator over the offering for three years, the representative said.
The IPO, being led by Canaccord Genuity Corp., is aimed to provide unit (bundles of stock and warrants) holders with exposure to bitcoin and the daily price movements of the cryptocurrency against the U.S. dollar.
The bitcoin fund is a closed-end investment fund set up as a trust in the province of Ontario. 3iQ will act as the investment and portfolio manager of the fund, while bitcoin in the fund will be custodied by New York-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Company LLC.
The firm claims the IPO would be the “world’s first regulated closed-end bitcoin exchange-traded product,” however, there have been similar product launches before. Swiss Amun AGhas launchedseveral ETPs for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – including XRP, ether and BNB – in the last year on the SIX stock exchange.
• Fintech Arm of Chinese Insurance Giant Files for US IPO After Blockchain Push
• ASX-Listed DigitalX Seeds New Fund With Half Its Bitcoin Holdings
• Bitmain Seeking US IPO With Confidential SEC Filing: Report || Canadian Fund Manager 3iQ Files Prospectus for Bitcoin Fund IPO: Canadian investment fund manager 3iQ has listed the preliminary prospectus for its bitcoin fund as the next step toward an initial public offering (IPO), the company said Thursday. As reported on Oct. 30, the firm received initial approval from the Ontario Securities Commission to launch the fund on either the Toronto Stock Exchange or the TSX Venture Exchange later this year. A representative told CoinDesk today that the firm expects to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange and begin trading in late December or early January. Related: Canada’s Einstein Exchange No Longer Has Bulk of Users’ Claimed CA$16M: Receiver 3iQ has been in talks with the regulator over the offering for three years, the representative said. The IPO, being led by Canaccord Genuity Corp., is aimed to provide unit (bundles of stock and warrants) holders with exposure to bitcoin and the daily price movements of the cryptocurrency against the U.S. dollar. The bitcoin fund is a closed-end investment fund set up as a trust in the province of Ontario. 3iQ will act as the investment and portfolio manager of the fund, while bitcoin in the fund will be custodied by New York-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Company LLC. The firm claims the IPO would be the “world’s first regulated closed-end bitcoin exchange-traded product,” however, there have been similar product launches before. Swiss Amun AG has launched several ETPs for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – including XRP, ether and BNB – in the last year on the SIX stock exchange. Related Stories Fintech Arm of Chinese Insurance Giant Files for US IPO After Blockchain Push ASX-Listed DigitalX Seeds New Fund With Half Its Bitcoin Holdings Bitmain Seeking US IPO With Confidential SEC Filing: Report View comments || WATCH: Chainalysis Chief Economist Wants Crypto to Move Past ‘Buying Drugs on the Silk Road’: CoinDesk sat down with Chainalysis’ chief economist Philip Gladwell to get a macro-view of the crypto market.
Speaking at Invest: NYC 2019, Gladwell said the crypto-sleuthing firm has found that only 30 percent of bitcoin is actually liquid. Of this value exchanged, more and more of it is going towards legitimate merchant services, a departure from crypto’s first use case: “buying drugs on theSilk Road.”
“In recent months there has been a lot of disruption to [dark] markets, law enforcement has taken down a number of those sites. That’s actually reduced their size in the overall crypto economy,” Gladwell said.
Related:Blockchain Sleuthing Firm Chainalysis Slashes 20% of Workforce
One notable example was the investigation and closure ofWelcome to Video, the world’s largest child exploitation site, according to Gladwell.Chainalysisparticipated in the global cooperative effort to shutter the site and arrest the alleged perpetrators, by analyzing crypto transactions used to pay for child pornography.
“We were able to help the [IRS and Homeland Security] understand were the bitcoin came from or where it got cashed out to,” Gladwell said. “You shouldn’t underestimate the amount of non-blockchain investigations,” that contributed to the effort, he added.
Gladwell also addressed how law enforcement might respond to the distribution of privacy-protecting coins, such as Zcash, as well as the open industry debate as to how much personally identifiable information exchanges should keep under Financial Action Task Force’s “Travel Rule.”
“The industry needs to work out what the right solution is,” Gladwell said.
• Wyoming’s New Crypto Banking Law Could Defang New York’s BitLicense
• Bakkt in Discussions to Offer Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures in Singapore
• Chainalysis’ ‘Kryptos’ Tool Is an Inside Look for Outside Investors || WATCH: Chainalysis Chief Economist Wants Crypto to Move Past ‘Buying Drugs on the Silk Road’: CoinDesk sat down with Chainalysis’ chief economist Philip Gladwell to get a macro-view of the crypto market. Speaking at Invest: NYC 2019, Gladwell said the crypto-sleuthing firm has found that only 30 percent of bitcoin is actually liquid. Of this value exchanged, more and more of it is going towards legitimate merchant services, a departure from crypto’s first use case: “buying drugs on the Silk Road .” “In recent months there has been a lot of disruption to [dark] markets, law enforcement has taken down a number of those sites. That’s actually reduced their size in the overall crypto economy,” Gladwell said. Related: Blockchain Sleuthing Firm Chainalysis Slashes 20% of Workforce One notable example was the investigation and closure of Welcome to Video , the world’s largest child exploitation site, according to Gladwell. Chainalysis participated in the global cooperative effort to shutter the site and arrest the alleged perpetrators, by analyzing crypto transactions used to pay for child pornography. “We were able to help the [IRS and Homeland Security] understand were the bitcoin came from or where it got cashed out to,” Gladwell said. “You shouldn’t underestimate the amount of non-blockchain investigations,” that contributed to the effort, he added. Gladwell also addressed how law enforcement might respond to the distribution of privacy-protecting coins, such as Zcash, as well as the open industry debate as to how much personally identifiable information exchanges should keep under Financial Action Task Force’s “Travel Rule.” “The industry needs to work out what the right solution is,” Gladwell said. Related Stories Wyoming’s New Crypto Banking Law Could Defang New York’s BitLicense Bakkt in Discussions to Offer Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures in Singapore Chainalysis’ ‘Kryptos’ Tool Is an Inside Look for Outside Investors || What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin: The U.S. Federal Reserve is again expanding its balance sheet and prominent experts believe that could bode well for bitcoin in the long run.
The U.S. central bank’s balance sheet includes a large number of distinct assets and liabilities. When interest rates begin to rise, the Fed pumps more money into the system by buying treasuries. The banks, therefore, have more cash available to lend and lower interest rates.
In October, the Fed’s assetsgrew byover $162 billion to register the biggest monthly rise since 2008.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month
Popular analyst@Rhythmtraderhinted this was a sign of impending turmoil, the kind bitcoin is supposed to be a haven from, in a Nov. 7 tweet.
Further, $270 billion has beenreportedly addedto the balance sheet since Sept. 11, which implies an average daily growth rate of $5.8 billion. As of Nov. 15, the Fed’s total assets were $4.04 trillion,according tothe Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The central bank again started buying treasuries after the money markets went haywire in September, pushing short-term rates as high as 10 percent, threatening to disrupt the overall lending system.
Related:What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
It’s worth noting that the Fed does not have the authority to enforce a particular federal funds rate and instead influences the money supply to keep rates in the target range, currently 1.5 to 1.75 percent.
When interest ratesbegin to rise, it pumps more money into the economy. The banks, therefore, havemore cash available to lend and lower interest rates.
Back in September, the target range was 1.75 to 2 percent. So, with rates spiking as high as 10 percent, the Fed was compelled to spring to action.
Fed Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has repeatedly said that treasury purchases are not quantitative easing (QE), whereby the central bank snaps up government bonds to boost the money supply and buttress economic growth.
Experts, however, believe the central bank is in effect implementing round four of the QE program, following three rounds between 2009 and 2015.
“The burst in the repo market is telling us that risk and debt accumulation are much higher than estimated and it has taken a disguised QE program to mildly contain it,” Daniel Lacalle, author of “Escape from the Central Bank Trap” wrote in an article formises.org.
Meanwhile, Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Advisory Group, editor of The Boock Report and CNBC contributor, is of theopinionthat the markets view any increase in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet as QE.
The recent rally in the US stock market also indicates the investors are not buying the Fed’s rhetoric and are viewing the ongoing balance sheet expansion as QE, aspointed outby Sven Henrich, popularly known as NorthmanTrader.
The S&P 500 rallied for six straight weeks, starting from the second week of October to the second week of November. The index fell by 0.33 percent last week only to clock a fresh record high of 3,154 on Wednesday.
The popular narrative in the crypto markets is that bitcoin is effectively digital gold and a hedge against monetary and fiscal indiscipline.
Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets told CoinDesk:
“Bitcoin is headed towards a unique situation – lower interest rates, more QE, and the [miners’ reward] halving in 2020. These three events occurring near the same time should serve as rocket fuel for Bitcoin over the next 2–3 years.”
Indeed, the top cryptocurrency’s monetary policy is fixed – the mining rewards are reduced by 50 percent every four years. Essentially, the pace of supply expansion is reduced by half every four years as opposed to major central banks, which have been expanding money supply since 2009.
Looking ahead, the Fed is likely to continue expanding its balance sheet in the near future, as the money market is unlikely to return to normalcy any time soon,according toJPMorgan Chase. With bitcoin set tocut miner rewardsnext May, the bitcoin-Fed monetary policy divergence is set to widen further.
It’s therefore not surprising that the likes of Cameron Winklevoss, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management, are extremely bullish on BTC:
The Cantillon Effect refers to the change in relative prices resulting from a shift in the money supply. It argues that money injection (QE and other inflation-boosting policies) may not change an economy’s output over the long-term. However, as newly created money travels through the economy, it affects different sectors of the economy differently.
For instance, the expected increase in the money supply due to QE or rate cuts is first priced in by financial markets. Put simply, people who are most invested in the stock market, real estate are the first to benefit from the inflationary policies.
By the time new investors enter the market, the assets are already overpriced. Further, saving becomes difficult with low-interest rates and the falling purchasing power of the currency.
A prolonged period of QE, therefore, may force investors to diversify their investments into bitcoin, which is deflationary in nature, as noted by analystPierre Rochardin August.
Backing Rochard’s view isGabor Gurbacs, digital asset strategist/director at VanEck/MVIS, who told CoinDesk that both bitcoin and gold could benefit from QE-led dollar devaluation and asset inflation.
Gurbacs said:
“Central banks expanding their balance sheets is quantitative easing in disguise. In effect, central banks buy government bonds and expand the repo market program with the intent to keep money markets in check. Bitcoin and gold may provide an alternative to and potentially a hedge against catastrophic failures in such heavily controlled central banking systems.”
Some may argue that BTC isnot a haven assetand tends to track equities more closely.
“Prior bitcoin bull runs were characterized by a gradual decline in equity market volatility. For example, we’ve noted its, albeit imperfect, inverse relationship with the VIX Index over longer time horizons (i.e. 2017 run-up),” according to analysts atDelphi Digital.
Even if we consider BTC a risky asset, the Fed’s QE still appears to be a price-bullish development.
The central bank conducted three rounds of QE between 2009 and 2015, during which time the S&P 500, a benchmark for risk assets across the globe, rallied by more than 200 percent. Gold, a classic safe-haven asset, rose from $800 to $1,921 in the three years to 2011 only to fall back to $1,050 by December 2015.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
• Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving
• Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400 || What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin: The U.S. Federal Reserve is again expanding its balance sheet and prominent experts believe that could bode well for bitcoin in the long run. The U.S. central bank’s balance sheet includes a large number of distinct assets and liabilities. When interest rates begin to rise, the Fed pumps more money into the system by buying treasuries. The banks, therefore, have more cash available to lend and lower interest rates. In October, the Fed’s assets grew by over $162 billion to register the biggest monthly rise since 2008. Related: Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month Popular analyst @Rhythmtrader hinted this was a sign of impending turmoil, the kind bitcoin is supposed to be a haven from, in a Nov. 7 tweet. Further, $270 billion has been reportedly added to the balance sheet since Sept. 11, which implies an average daily growth rate of $5.8 billion. As of Nov. 15, the Fed’s total assets were $4.04 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fed intervenes in money markets The central bank again started buying treasuries after the money markets went haywire in September, pushing short-term rates as high as 10 percent, threatening to disrupt the overall lending system. Related: What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin It’s worth noting that the Fed does not have the authority to enforce a particular federal funds rate and instead influences the money supply to keep rates in the target range, currently 1.5 to 1.75 percent. When interest ratesbegin to rise, it pumps more money into the economy. The banks, therefore, havemore cash available to lend and lower interest rates. Back in September, the target range was 1.75 to 2 percent. So, with rates spiking as high as 10 percent, the Fed was compelled to spring to action. Markets don’t believe the Fed Fed Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has repeatedly said that treasury purchases are not quantitative easing (QE), whereby the central bank snaps up government bonds to boost the money supply and buttress economic growth. Story continues Experts, however, believe the central bank is in effect implementing round four of the QE program, following three rounds between 2009 and 2015. “The burst in the repo market is telling us that risk and debt accumulation are much higher than estimated and it has taken a disguised QE program to mildly contain it,” Daniel Lacalle, author of “Escape from the Central Bank Trap” wrote in an article for mises.org . Meanwhile, Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Advisory Group, editor of The Boock Report and CNBC contributor, is of the opinion that the markets view any increase in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet as QE. The recent rally in the US stock market also indicates the investors are not buying the Fed’s rhetoric and are viewing the ongoing balance sheet expansion as QE, as pointed out by Sven Henrich, popularly known as NorthmanTrader. The S&P 500 rallied for six straight weeks, starting from the second week of October to the second week of November. The index fell by 0.33 percent last week only to clock a fresh record high of 3,154 on Wednesday. BTC a hedge against monetary indiscipline? The popular narrative in the crypto markets is that bitcoin is effectively digital gold and a hedge against monetary and fiscal indiscipline. Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets told CoinDesk: “Bitcoin is headed towards a unique situation – lower interest rates, more QE, and the [miners’ reward] halving in 2020. These three events occurring near the same time should serve as rocket fuel for Bitcoin over the next 2–3 years.” Indeed, the top cryptocurrency’s monetary policy is fixed – the mining rewards are reduced by 50 percent every four years. Essentially, the pace of supply expansion is reduced by half every four years as opposed to major central banks, which have been expanding money supply since 2009. Looking ahead, the Fed is likely to continue expanding its balance sheet in the near future, as the money market is unlikely to return to normalcy any time soon, according to JPMorgan Chase. With bitcoin set to cut miner rewards next May, the bitcoin-Fed monetary policy divergence is set to widen further. It’s therefore not surprising that the likes of Cameron Winklevoss, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management, are extremely bullish on BTC: Bitcoin may benefit from QE’s Cantillon Effect The Cantillon Effect refers to the change in relative prices resulting from a shift in the money supply. It argues that money injection (QE and other inflation-boosting policies) may not change an economy’s output over the long-term. However, as newly created money travels through the economy, it affects different sectors of the economy differently. For instance, the expected increase in the money supply due to QE or rate cuts is first priced in by financial markets. Put simply, people who are most invested in the stock market, real estate are the first to benefit from the inflationary policies. By the time new investors enter the market, the assets are already overpriced. Further, saving becomes difficult with low-interest rates and the falling purchasing power of the currency. A prolonged period of QE, therefore, may force investors to diversify their investments into bitcoin, which is deflationary in nature, as noted by analyst Pierre Rochard in August. Backing Rochard’s view is Gabor Gurbacs , digital asset strategist/director at VanEck/MVIS, who told CoinDesk that both bitcoin and gold could benefit from QE-led dollar devaluation and asset inflation. Gurbacs said: “Central banks expanding their balance sheets is quantitative easing in disguise. In effect, central banks buy government bonds and expand the repo market program with the intent to keep money markets in check. Bitcoin and gold may provide an alternative to and potentially a hedge against catastrophic failures in such heavily controlled central banking systems.” Some may argue that BTC is not a haven asset and tends to track equities more closely. “Prior bitcoin bull runs were characterized by a gradual decline in equity market volatility. For example, we’ve noted its, albeit imperfect, inverse relationship with the VIX Index over longer time horizons (i.e. 2017 run-up),” according to analysts at Delphi Digital . Even if we consider BTC a risky asset, the Fed’s QE still appears to be a price-bullish development. The central bank conducted three rounds of QE between 2009 and 2015, during which time the S&P 500, a benchmark for risk assets across the globe, rallied by more than 200 percent. Gold, a classic safe-haven asset, rose from $800 to $1,921 in the three years to 2011 only to fall back to $1,050 by December 2015. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing. Related Stories Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400 || What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin: The U.S. Federal Reserve is again expanding its balance sheet and prominent experts believe that could bode well for bitcoin in the long run.
The U.S. central bank’s balance sheet includes a large number of distinct assets and liabilities. When interest rates begin to rise, the Fed pumps more money into the system by buying treasuries. The banks, therefore, have more cash available to lend and lower interest rates.
In October, the Fed’s assetsgrew byover $162 billion to register the biggest monthly rise since 2008.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month
Popular analyst@Rhythmtraderhinted this was a sign of impending turmoil, the kind bitcoin is supposed to be a haven from, in a Nov. 7 tweet.
Further, $270 billion has beenreportedly addedto the balance sheet since Sept. 11, which implies an average daily growth rate of $5.8 billion. As of Nov. 15, the Fed’s total assets were $4.04 trillion,according tothe Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The central bank again started buying treasuries after the money markets went haywire in September, pushing short-term rates as high as 10 percent, threatening to disrupt the overall lending system.
Related:What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
It’s worth noting that the Fed does not have the authority to enforce a particular federal funds rate and instead influences the money supply to keep rates in the target range, currently 1.5 to 1.75 percent.
When interest ratesbegin to rise, it pumps more money into the economy. The banks, therefore, havemore cash available to lend and lower interest rates.
Back in September, the target range was 1.75 to 2 percent. So, with rates spiking as high as 10 percent, the Fed was compelled to spring to action.
Fed Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has repeatedly said that treasury purchases are not quantitative easing (QE), whereby the central bank snaps up government bonds to boost the money supply and buttress economic growth.
Experts, however, believe the central bank is in effect implementing round four of the QE program, following three rounds between 2009 and 2015.
“The burst in the repo market is telling us that risk and debt accumulation are much higher than estimated and it has taken a disguised QE program to mildly contain it,” Daniel Lacalle, author of “Escape from the Central Bank Trap” wrote in an article formises.org.
Meanwhile, Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Advisory Group, editor of The Boock Report and CNBC contributor, is of theopinionthat the markets view any increase in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet as QE.
The recent rally in the US stock market also indicates the investors are not buying the Fed’s rhetoric and are viewing the ongoing balance sheet expansion as QE, aspointed outby Sven Henrich, popularly known as NorthmanTrader.
The S&P 500 rallied for six straight weeks, starting from the second week of October to the second week of November. The index fell by 0.33 percent last week only to clock a fresh record high of 3,154 on Wednesday.
The popular narrative in the crypto markets is that bitcoin is effectively digital gold and a hedge against monetary and fiscal indiscipline.
Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets told CoinDesk:
“Bitcoin is headed towards a unique situation – lower interest rates, more QE, and the [miners’ reward] halving in 2020. These three events occurring near the same time should serve as rocket fuel for Bitcoin over the next 2–3 years.”
Indeed, the top cryptocurrency’s monetary policy is fixed – the mining rewards are reduced by 50 percent every four years. Essentially, the pace of supply expansion is reduced by half every four years as opposed to major central banks, which have been expanding money supply since 2009.
Looking ahead, the Fed is likely to continue expanding its balance sheet in the near future, as the money market is unlikely to return to normalcy any time soon,according toJPMorgan Chase. With bitcoin set tocut miner rewardsnext May, the bitcoin-Fed monetary policy divergence is set to widen further.
It’s therefore not surprising that the likes of Cameron Winklevoss, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management, are extremely bullish on BTC:
The Cantillon Effect refers to the change in relative prices resulting from a shift in the money supply. It argues that money injection (QE and other inflation-boosting policies) may not change an economy’s output over the long-term. However, as newly created money travels through the economy, it affects different sectors of the economy differently.
For instance, the expected increase in the money supply due to QE or rate cuts is first priced in by financial markets. Put simply, people who are most invested in the stock market, real estate are the first to benefit from the inflationary policies.
By the time new investors enter the market, the assets are already overpriced. Further, saving becomes difficult with low-interest rates and the falling purchasing power of the currency.
A prolonged period of QE, therefore, may force investors to diversify their investments into bitcoin, which is deflationary in nature, as noted by analystPierre Rochardin August.
Backing Rochard’s view isGabor Gurbacs, digital asset strategist/director at VanEck/MVIS, who told CoinDesk that both bitcoin and gold could benefit from QE-led dollar devaluation and asset inflation.
Gurbacs said:
“Central banks expanding their balance sheets is quantitative easing in disguise. In effect, central banks buy government bonds and expand the repo market program with the intent to keep money markets in check. Bitcoin and gold may provide an alternative to and potentially a hedge against catastrophic failures in such heavily controlled central banking systems.”
Some may argue that BTC isnot a haven assetand tends to track equities more closely.
“Prior bitcoin bull runs were characterized by a gradual decline in equity market volatility. For example, we’ve noted its, albeit imperfect, inverse relationship with the VIX Index over longer time horizons (i.e. 2017 run-up),” according to analysts atDelphi Digital.
Even if we consider BTC a risky asset, the Fed’s QE still appears to be a price-bullish development.
The central bank conducted three rounds of QE between 2009 and 2015, during which time the S&P 500, a benchmark for risk assets across the globe, rallied by more than 200 percent. Gold, a classic safe-haven asset, rose from $800 to $1,921 in the three years to 2011 only to fall back to $1,050 by December 2015.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
• Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving
• Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400 || Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market: Bitcoin is in the midst of another gruelling bear market following four clear lower highs and an exponential moving average death cross on the daily chart. However, this hasnt prevented Bitcoin bulls from trying to avoid the inevitable descent, with the worlds largest cryptocurrency rallying by an impressive 14% over the past three days. Bitcoin is now hovering above the $7,450 level of support, which provided a platform for last months rally to $10,350. If it can hold above this level, it could provide a platform for a surge back up to the $8,200 region, although the bulls need a rally above $8,800 to reverse the recent death cross. The daily death cross has happened just three times since 2014, with both previous crosses in 2014 and 2018 resulting in 60% corrections to the downside. A correction of that magnitude from here would see Bitcoin plummet to last Decembers lows of $3,150, with some analysts like Tone Vays calling for $1,150 price targets. If pressure from the sell side continues over the coming days, Bitcoin can be expected to retest $6,500 before dwindling down towards the historic level of support at $5,900. In more positive news, the volume of Bitcoin futures contracts traded on ICEs Bakkt reached an all-time high yesterday. If this can continue, it could well be the trigger for a reversal in price out of the ongoing bear market. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market: Bitcoin is in the midst of another gruelling bear market following four clear lower highs and an exponential moving average death cross on the daily chart. However, this hasnt prevented Bitcoin bulls from trying to avoid the inevitable descent, with the worlds largest cryptocurrency rallying by an impressive 14% over the past three days. Bitcoin is now hovering above the $7,450 level of support, which provided a platform for last months rally to $10,350. If it can hold above this level, it could provide a platform for a surge back up to the $8,200 region, although the bulls need a rally above $8,800 to reverse the recent death cross. The daily death cross has happened just three times since 2014, with both previous crosses in 2014 and 2018 resulting in 60% corrections to the downside. A correction of that magnitude from here would see Bitcoin plummet to last Decembers lows of $3,150, with some analysts like Tone Vays calling for $1,150 price targets. If pressure from the sell side continues over the coming days, Bitcoin can be expected to retest $6,500 before dwindling down towards the historic level of support at $5,900. In more positive news, the volume of Bitcoin futures contracts traded on ICEs Bakkt reached an all-time high yesterday. If this can continue, it could well be the trigger for a reversal in price out of the ongoing bear market. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market: Bitcoin is in the midst of another gruelling bear market following four clear lower highs and an exponential moving average death cross on the daily chart. However, this hasnt prevented Bitcoin bulls from trying to avoid the inevitable descent, with the worlds largest cryptocurrency rallying by an impressive 14% over the past three days. Bitcoin is now hovering above the $7,450 level of support, which provided a platform for last months rally to $10,350. If it can hold above this level, it could provide a platform for a surge back up to the $8,200 region, although the bulls need a rally above $8,800 to reverse the recent death cross. The daily death cross has happened just three times since 2014, with both previous crosses in 2014 and 2018 resulting in 60% corrections to the downside. A correction of that magnitude from here would see Bitcoin plummet to last Decembers lows of $3,150, with some analysts like Tone Vays calling for $1,150 price targets. If pressure from the sell side continues over the coming days, Bitcoin can be expected to retest $6,500 before dwindling down towards the historic level of support at $5,900. In more positive news, the volume of Bitcoin futures contracts traded on ICEs Bakkt reached an all-time high yesterday. If this can continue, it could well be the trigger for a reversal in price out of the ongoing bear market. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Bitcoin attempts crucial breakout to nullify bear market appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Latest Litecoin price and analysis (LTC to USD): Litecoin (LTC) is currently trading at around $47 after a 10% drop in price since last week. However, despite the overall downtrend, LTC has gained almost 5% over the last 24 hours. Litecoin experienced exponential growth earlier this year. Prior to mid-June, the altcoin was the best performing digital asset of 2019, growing more than 170% in fewer than 90 days and peaking at around $145. A serious summer downtrend then saw LTC tumble to around $49 before a market-wide pump last month following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s bullish comments on blockchain. At the moment, LTC seems to be in bad shape after a massive drop from $60. Will the altcoin continue to push above $50? Let’s take a look at the LTC chart, courtesy of TradingView . Looking at the EMAs, we can see the 50-day EMA has crossed the 200-day EMA to the downside and the 20-day EMA is still on a downtrend. This is a clear sign of weakness, especially as LTC is now trading below a key support level around $55-$57 (according to the volume profile on the left). Last week , I mentioned I could not foresee the price of LTC growing without a reversal of the EMAs. In addition, volume really needs to pump to the upside. At the moment, volume is sitting close to $3 billion, much like the previous week. Finally, if the altcoin defies the odds and recovers, Litecoin will likely face some resistance around $72-$75 and then again near $90. I’ve shifted my position over the long term and I now believe it may take longer for a pump towards $100 to take place. It’s much more likely that the next significant pump will only happen after the BTC halving, which is taking place sometime in May 2020. Litecoin updates Watch the new Magical Crypto Friends Episode 24: Romantic Relationships! In this Litecoin episode: LTC Halving, Development, FUD and is it a SoV? + Roger Ver's crazy claims! Note: this episode was recorded pre-ERC20 drama. (next episode will have less LTC) https://t.co/NlfNk9WRrg — Magical Crypto Friends (@magicalcrypto) August 28, 2019 Recently, the “Magical Crypto Friends” show – which is available on YouTube and features Litecoin founder Charlie Lee – focused an entire program on Litecoin. Story continues The show covered the most important discussions in the community. From Litecoin acting as a store of value to new development updates. Lee confirmed that the project is working on privacy improvements as well. The Litecoin development team is working with the Mimblewimble protocol, specifically the developers behind Grim, with a view to potentially adding the privacy protocol as an extension block. According to Lee, it would work as follows: “All the miners are mining both the extension block and the main chain at the same time, after the soft-fork that is. So the Mimblewimble chain would go alongside the main chain and then you would have peg-in, peg-out, so you could move Litecoin into the other chain and back.” The goal would be to give Litecoin users improved privacy features when transacting. About Litecoin Litecoin was released in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. It was a fork of Bitcoin with the main difference being a smaller block generation time. It also increased maximum number of coins, and a different script-based algorithm. Litecoin is one of the leading cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Litecoin news and information If you want to find out more information about Litecoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started: Litecoin becomes ‘official cryptocurrency’ of the Miami Dolphins By Oliver Knight – November 28, 2019 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. You may be interested in our range of cryptocurrency guides along with the latest cryptocurrency news . The post Latest Litecoin price and analysis (LTC to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Latest Litecoin price and analysis (LTC to USD): Litecoin (LTC) is currently trading at around $47 after a 10% drop in price since last week. However, despite the overall downtrend, LTC has gained almost 5% over the last 24 hours. Litecoin experienced exponential growth earlier this year. Prior to mid-June, the altcoin was the best performing digital asset of 2019, growing more than 170% in fewer than 90 days and peaking at around $145. A serious summer downtrend then saw LTC tumble to around $49 before a market-wide pump last month following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s bullish comments on blockchain. At the moment, LTC seems to be in bad shape after a massive drop from $60. Will the altcoin continue to push above $50? Let’s take a look at the LTC chart, courtesy of TradingView . Looking at the EMAs, we can see the 50-day EMA has crossed the 200-day EMA to the downside and the 20-day EMA is still on a downtrend. This is a clear sign of weakness, especially as LTC is now trading below a key support level around $55-$57 (according to the volume profile on the left). Last week , I mentioned I could not foresee the price of LTC growing without a reversal of the EMAs. In addition, volume really needs to pump to the upside. At the moment, volume is sitting close to $3 billion, much like the previous week. Finally, if the altcoin defies the odds and recovers, Litecoin will likely face some resistance around $72-$75 and then again near $90. I’ve shifted my position over the long term and I now believe it may take longer for a pump towards $100 to take place. It’s much more likely that the next significant pump will only happen after the BTC halving, which is taking place sometime in May 2020. Litecoin updates Watch the new Magical Crypto Friends Episode 24: Romantic Relationships! In this Litecoin episode: LTC Halving, Development, FUD and is it a SoV? + Roger Ver's crazy claims! Note: this episode was recorded pre-ERC20 drama. (next episode will have less LTC) https://t.co/NlfNk9WRrg — Magical Crypto Friends (@magicalcrypto) August 28, 2019 Recently, the “Magical Crypto Friends” show – which is available on YouTube and features Litecoin founder Charlie Lee – focused an entire program on Litecoin. Story continues The show covered the most important discussions in the community. From Litecoin acting as a store of value to new development updates. Lee confirmed that the project is working on privacy improvements as well. The Litecoin development team is working with the Mimblewimble protocol, specifically the developers behind Grim, with a view to potentially adding the privacy protocol as an extension block. According to Lee, it would work as follows: “All the miners are mining both the extension block and the main chain at the same time, after the soft-fork that is. So the Mimblewimble chain would go alongside the main chain and then you would have peg-in, peg-out, so you could move Litecoin into the other chain and back.” The goal would be to give Litecoin users improved privacy features when transacting. About Litecoin Litecoin was released in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. It was a fork of Bitcoin with the main difference being a smaller block generation time. It also increased maximum number of coins, and a different script-based algorithm. Litecoin is one of the leading cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Litecoin news and information If you want to find out more information about Litecoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started: Litecoin becomes ‘official cryptocurrency’ of the Miami Dolphins By Oliver Knight – November 28, 2019 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. You may be interested in our range of cryptocurrency guides along with the latest cryptocurrency news . The post Latest Litecoin price and analysis (LTC to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet .
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
7569.63, 7424.29, 7321.99, 7320.15, 7252.03, 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35, 7400.90
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 4325.13, 4181.93, 4376.63, 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12, 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94, 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02, 4781.99, 4826.48, 5446.91, 5647.21, 5831.79, 5678.19, 5725.59, 5605.51, 5590.69, 5708.52, 6011.45, 6031.60, 6008.42, 5930.32, 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38, 7459.69, 7143.58, 6618.14, 6357.60.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-11-11]
Volume: 4908680192, RSI (14-day): 49.88, 50-day EMA: 5778.21, 200-day EMA: 3884.57
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index, too, fell 0.06 percent. The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/] Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/] Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time. "It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favours buying recent winners and selling losers. "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets. TAX OVERHAUL U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N] Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU] "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R] U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day. Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash. Graphic - Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD: http://reut.rs/2zqsj4B (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) View comments || Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum.
MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index, too, fell 0.06 percent.
The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due.
"The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp.
Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/]
Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27.
Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/]
Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time.
"It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favours buying recent winners and selling losers.
"We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.”
Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets.
TAX OVERHAUL
U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s.
The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear.
"I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
"But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment."
Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU]
"There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R]
U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day.
Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash.
Graphic - Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD: http://reut.rs/2zqsj4B
(Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index , which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index (.DXY), too, fell 0.06 percent. The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/] Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold (XAU=) dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/] Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time. "It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers. "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets. TAX OVERHAUL Story continues U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N] The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX) index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU] "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R] U.S. crude (CLcv1) fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent (LCOcv1) was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day. Bitcoin (BTC=) dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash. (For a graphic on 'Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD' click http://reut.rs/2zqsj4B ) (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum.
MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index (.DXY), too, fell 0.06 percent.
The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due.
"The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp.
Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notesfell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bondfell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/]
Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bondhit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27.
Spot gold (XAU=) dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/]
Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time.
"It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers.
"We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.”
Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets.
TAX OVERHAUL
U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s.
The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear.
"I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
"But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment."
Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX) index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU]
"There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R]
U.S. crude (CLcv1) fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent (LCOcv1) was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day.
Bitcoin (BTC=) dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash.
(For a graphic on 'Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD' clickhttp://reut.rs/2zqsj4B)
(Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index, too, fell 0.06 percent. The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/] Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/] Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time. "It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favours buying recent winners and selling losers. "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets. TAX OVERHAUL U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N] Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU] "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R] U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day. Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash. Graphic - Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD: http://reut.rs/2zqsj4B (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) View comments || Global stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index, too, fell 0.06 percent. The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. [US/] Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. [GOL/] Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time. "It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favours buying recent winners and selling losers. "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets. TAX OVERHAUL U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. [.N] Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. [.EU] "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. [O/R] U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day. Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash. Graphic - Major MSCI Indexes Price Performance YTD: http://reut.rs/2zqsj4B (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) View comments || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: * U.S. Senate Republicans propose delay in corporate tax cut
* Global shares dip further below all-time high
* European stocks see worst week in 3 months
* U.S. longer-dated yields hit 1-1/2-week highs
* Bitcoin trades down more than $1,000 from all-time high (Updates to U.S. stock market close)
By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum.
MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index , too, fell 0.06 percent.
The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due.
"The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp.
Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent.
Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27.
Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields.
Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time.
"It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers.
"We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.”
Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets.
TAX OVERHAUL
U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s.
The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear.
"I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
"But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment."
Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row.
"There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow.
U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day.
Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash.
(Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks dip on U.S. tax reform doubt; no respite in havens: * U.S. Senate Republicans propose delay in corporate tax cut * Global shares dip further below all-time high * European stocks see worst week in 3 months * U.S. longer-dated yields hit 1-1/2-week highs * Bitcoin trades down more than $1,000 from all-time high (Updates to U.S. stock market close) By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global stock indexes and the U.S. dollar cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.15 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The dollar index , too, fell 0.06 percent. The MSCI world index surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as softness in high-yield "junk" bonds this week did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 21/32 in price to yield 2.4037 percent. The 30-year bond fell 50/32 in price to yield 2.8845 percent. Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's benchmark 10-year government bond hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.61 an ounce. Gold pays no interest, so demand for it wanes when bonds offer higher yields. Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann said it is rare for government bonds and equities to be hit at the same time. "It's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," he said, referring to a investment strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers. Story continues "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week, on Friday, capping a bout of volatility in credit markets. TAX OVERHAUL U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated a bit on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, which would hike profits, though a rise in some media and industrial stocks limited the slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.17 percent, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 lost 2.32 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.3 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.89 point, or 0.01 percent, to 6,750.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," said Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. U.S. crude fell 0.56 percent to $56.85 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.61, down 0.5 percent on the day. Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash. (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || Netflix dropped 5 percent this week, after rallying all year: The fastest growing FANG stock slowed this week. Netflix (NFLX) — up 64 percent in the last 12 months, outpacing Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) — shed more than 5 percent this week, as big media players started eyeing the streaming space.
At Friday close, the stock had fallen to $192.02. "I think Netflix is in trouble when the big guys start coming after them," Needham analyst Laura Martin said. "Netflix should be scared to death." The stock wavered Monday on reports of a possible Disney-21st Century Fox deal that could challenge the streaming service's iron grip on the market , falling just more than a percent. Disney CEO Bob Iger took a shot at the streaming service this week, telling investors that over-the-top, direct-to-consumer distribution had become vital to its business and that its own streaming service would be priced "substantially below" Netflix . All of this comes while Netflix ups its content budget by $1 billion to fund more original programming, even as two stars of Netflix original shows are accused of sexual misconduct. Netflix announced in October it would suspend filming of its breakout series "House of Cards" following reports that lead Kevin Spacey made a sexual advance at a 14-year-old in the '80s. Friday, the company tweeted it would not follow through on production of a stand-up special with comedian Louis C.K. following harassment reports by five women. To be sure, this week's stock movement was far from earth-shattering. It's still hovering just below all-time highs.
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Stocks were little changed on Friday, while a scrapped proposal to speed up the Bitcoin network sent the cryptocurrency lower.
• Dow:23,422.21, -39.73, (-0.17%)
• S&P 500:2,582.30, -2.32, (-0.09%)
• Nasdaq:6,750.94, +0.89, (+0.01%)
1.The giant Senate tax bill barely squeaked by a critical test.The Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan Congressional research service, said theSenate's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)wouldadd $1.4957trillion to the national debt between 2018 and 2027. Under the Senate rules, the TCJA can onlyadd $1.5 trillion over that time period. This means that the massive plan scrapes by the limit by just about $300 million.
2.The stunning allegations against Roy Moore could throw the GOP's tax cut push into even more chaos. First and foremost, the allegations are serious in nature on their own and have raised questions about Moore's fitness for office. In addition to the seriousness of the allegations, experts and analysts say that it could cause some serious problems forthe GOP's recent tax reform push.
3.Netflix slid after Disney outlined its plan to overthrow the streaming video king.Netflix'sstock was down 2.07% at $189.89 a share on Friday before reversing some of its losses later in the afternoon. Its shares have a tendency to slide every time Disney talks publicly about its new service, which is expected to start in 2019 when Netflix's contract for Disney content runs out.
4.UBS says it can't find compelling reasons why gold would surge anytime soon.Reasons to be bullish have now changed, UBS strategist Joni Teves said in a note on Thursday. The dollar is likely to rally against key currencies including the Japanese yen, which, like gold, traders buy as a safe-haven asset. But against others like the euro, Teves expects the dollar to continue to weaken.
5.The number of men behind bars in the US is mind-blogging. "The growing number of incarcerations has left more people with criminal records, making it difficult for them to reenter the workplace," Bank of America's Michelle Meyer and Anna Zhou said. "Digging into the details by demographic cohort, we find that men make up nearly 93% of all prisoners, of which one third are between the ages of 25 and 34."
6.Nike is trying a massive transformation in order to stay relevant. Nike is hoping that a new focus on innovation will help it fight back against this competition and regain its crown as king of the sneaker and sportswear markets.
7.Bitcoin dives below $7,000. The crypto-currency has been on a wild ride since a plan to help the red-hot coin scale was scraped.
ADDITIONALLY:
UBS: The 2 biggest stock market fears are overblown.
Isaac Newton was a genius, but even he lost millions in the stock market.
21 everyday phrases that come straight from Shakespeare's plays.
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SEE ALSO:An Ivy League professor explains chaos theory, the prisoner's dilemma, and why math isn't really boring || BITCOIN DIVES: Here's what you need to know: slide water slide Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images Stocks were little changed on Friday, while a scrapped proposal to speed up the Bitcoin network sent the cryptocurrency lower. Dow: 23,422.21, -39.73, (-0.17%) S&P 500: 2,582.30, -2.32, (-0.09%) Nasdaq: 6,750.94, +0.89, (+0.01%) 1. The giant Senate tax bill barely squeaked by a critical test . The Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan Congressional research service, said the Senate's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would add $1.4957 trillion to the national debt between 2018 and 2027. Under the Senate rules, the TCJA can only add $1.5 trillion over that time period . This means that the massive plan scrapes by the limit by just about $300 million. 2. The stunning allegations against Roy Moore could throw the GOP's tax cut push into even more chaos . First and foremost, the allegations are serious in nature on their own and have raised questions about Moore's fitness for office. In addition to the seriousness of the allegations, experts and analysts say that it could cause some serious problems for the GOP's recent tax reform push . 3. Netflix slid after Disney outlined its plan to overthrow the streaming video king . Netflix's stock was down 2.07% at $189.89 a share on Friday before reversing some of its losses later in the afternoon. Its shares have a tendency to slide every time Disney talks publicly about its new service, which is expected to start in 2019 when Netflix's contract for Disney content runs out. 4. UBS says it can't find compelling reasons why gold would surge anytime soon . Reasons to be bullish have now changed, UBS strategist Joni Teves said in a note on Thursday. The dollar is likely to rally against key currencies including the Japanese yen, which, like gold, traders buy as a safe-haven asset. But against others like the euro, Teves expects the dollar to continue to weaken. Story continues 5. The number of men behind bars in the US is mind-blogging . "The growing number of incarcerations has left more people with criminal records, making it difficult for them to reenter the workplace," Bank of America's Michelle Meyer and Anna Zhou said. "Digging into the details by demographic cohort, we find that men make up nearly 93% of all prisoners, of which one third are between the ages of 25 and 34." 6. Nike is trying a massive transformation in order to stay relevant . Nike is hoping that a new focus on innovation will help it fight back against this competition and regain its crown as king of the sneaker and sportswear markets. 7. Bitcoin dives below $7,000 . The crypto-currency has been on a wild ride since a plan to help the red-hot coin scale was scraped. ADDITIONALLY: UBS: The 2 biggest stock market fears are overblown . Isaac Newton was a genius, but even he lost millions in the stock market . 21 everyday phrases that come straight from Shakespeare's plays . NOW WATCH: Why Nintendo is dominating like the old days See Also: SNAP GETS SLAMMED: Here's what you need to know STOCKS DIP: Here's what you need to know STOCKS TICK UP: Here's what you need to know SEE ALSO: An Ivy League professor explains chaos theory, the prisoner's dilemma, and why math isn't really boring || GE ‘absolutely’ has to cut its dividend, could fall to 50 cents: Analyst: General Electric "absolutely" has to cut its dividend, analyst Jeff Sprague told CNBC on Friday.The founder of Vertical Research Partners expects a "meaningful cut," perhaps down to about 50 cents from the current 96 cents. "If you look back over the last few years, it was fine that the industrial cash flow wasn't covering the entire dividend because you had GE Capital covering its fair share. But the company has shrunk, GE Capital is gone and it's just not sustainable for the industrial company to carry that dividend any longer," Sprague said in an interview with " Power Lunch. " GE (NYSE: GE) 's new CEO, John Flannery , is expected to lay out strategic changes and new financial targets at its investor day presentation on Monday . The plans may also include the slashing of that dividend. If that occurred, it would be only the third GE dividend cut since the Great Depression. However, Sprague doubts eliminating the dividend is on the table.What he does expect is a plan that leads to GE becoming smaller and more focused.In a note to investors on Friday, Sprague said, "It is also conceivable that looking out a few years, GE ceases to exist as we know it."However, he told CNBC he doesn't expect the company to break up."Mr. Flannery has a tough conundrum here. He does need to simplify and shrink the company a bit. I think that's a prerequisite here. But to do a full-scale breakup I think is very implausible and could destroy value," he said.— Reuters contributed to this report.Disclaimer General Electric "absolutely" has to cut its dividend, analyst Jeff Sprague told CNBC on Friday. The founder of Vertical Research Partners expects a "meaningful cut," perhaps down to about 50 cents from the current 96 cents. "If you look back over the last few years, it was fine that the industrial cash flow wasn't covering the entire dividend because you had GE Capital covering its fair share. But the company has shrunk, GE Capital is gone and it's just not sustainable for the industrial company to carry that dividend any longer," Sprague said in an interview with " Power Lunch. " GE (NYSE: GE) 's new CEO, John Flannery , is expected to lay out strategic changes and new financial targets at its investor day presentation on Monday . The plans may also include the slashing of that dividend. If that occurred, it would be only the third GE dividend cut since the Great Depression. However, Sprague doubts eliminating the dividend is on the table. What he does expect is a plan that leads to GE becoming smaller and more focused. In a note to investors on Friday, Sprague said, "It is also conceivable that looking out a few years, GE ceases to exist as we know it." However, he told CNBC he doesn't expect the company to break up. "Mr. Flannery has a tough conundrum here. He does need to simplify and shrink the company a bit. I think that's a prerequisite here. But to do a full-scale breakup I think is very implausible and could destroy value," he said. — Reuters contributed to this report. Disclaimer More From CNBC Top health care analyst on how to play Amazon’s encroachment on the industry PRO Talks: Top health care analyst Lisa Gill on drug pricing, her favorite stock ideas Bitcoin is giving this stock a huge boost || GE ‘absolutely’ has to cut its dividend, could fall to 50 cents: Analyst: General Electric "absolutely" has to cut its dividend, analyst Jeff Sprague told CNBC on Friday.The founder of Vertical Research Partners expects a "meaningful cut," perhaps down to about 50 cents from the current 96 cents. "If you look back over the last few years, it was fine that the industrial cash flow wasn't covering the entire dividend because you had GE Capital covering its fair share. But the company has shrunk, GE Capital is gone and it's just not sustainable for the industrial company to carry that dividend any longer," Sprague said in an interview with " Power Lunch. " GE (NYSE: GE) 's new CEO, John Flannery , is expected to lay out strategic changes and new financial targets at its investor day presentation on Monday . The plans may also include the slashing of that dividend. If that occurred, it would be only the third GE dividend cut since the Great Depression. However, Sprague doubts eliminating the dividend is on the table.What he does expect is a plan that leads to GE becoming smaller and more focused.In a note to investors on Friday, Sprague said, "It is also conceivable that looking out a few years, GE ceases to exist as we know it."However, he told CNBC he doesn't expect the company to break up."Mr. Flannery has a tough conundrum here. He does need to simplify and shrink the company a bit. I think that's a prerequisite here. But to do a full-scale breakup I think is very implausible and could destroy value," he said.— Reuters contributed to this report.Disclaimer General Electric "absolutely" has to cut its dividend, analyst Jeff Sprague told CNBC on Friday. The founder of Vertical Research Partners expects a "meaningful cut," perhaps down to about 50 cents from the current 96 cents. "If you look back over the last few years, it was fine that the industrial cash flow wasn't covering the entire dividend because you had GE Capital covering its fair share. But the company has shrunk, GE Capital is gone and it's just not sustainable for the industrial company to carry that dividend any longer," Sprague said in an interview with " Power Lunch. " GE (NYSE: GE) 's new CEO, John Flannery , is expected to lay out strategic changes and new financial targets at its investor day presentation on Monday . The plans may also include the slashing of that dividend. If that occurred, it would be only the third GE dividend cut since the Great Depression. However, Sprague doubts eliminating the dividend is on the table. What he does expect is a plan that leads to GE becoming smaller and more focused. In a note to investors on Friday, Sprague said, "It is also conceivable that looking out a few years, GE ceases to exist as we know it." However, he told CNBC he doesn't expect the company to break up. "Mr. Flannery has a tough conundrum here. He does need to simplify and shrink the company a bit. I think that's a prerequisite here. But to do a full-scale breakup I think is very implausible and could destroy value," he said. — Reuters contributed to this report. DisclaimerMore From CNBC
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• Bitcoin is giving this stock a huge boost || Money is pouring into bitcoin cash after bitcoin crashed more than $1,000 in 48 hours: MI
• The price of bitcoin, the red-hot digital cryptocurrency, was trading down 7.2% on Friday afternoon, at $6,618 a coin.
• That's down more than $1,000 from its all-time high of nearly $7,900 a coin, which it hit on Wednesday after news broke that a planned upgrade to the network had been called off.
• But now money is pouring out of bitcoin and into bitcoin cash, the cryptocurrency that split from bitcoin in August.
• Bitcoin cash soared to an all-time high of $1,009 a coin on Friday afternoon.
Bitcoinhas shed more than $1,000 over the past 48 hours.
On the other hand, bitcoin cash, the cryptocurrency that split from bitcoin in August, reached an all-time high of $1,009 a coin on Friday afternoon, according to data from Markets Insider. It was trading up more than 50%.
Experts think bitcoin's crash and bitcoin cash's rise are related to the same thing: a planned upgrade to bitcoin's network being called off.
Developers behind the upgrade, known as Segwit2X,revoked their support on Wednesday, meaning bitcoin's network will remain intact — at least for now.
The news initially sent bitcoin to an all-time high of nearly $7,900 a coin. But at 2:40 p.m. ET on Friday, it was trading down 7.2%, at $6,812.
Segwit2X was designed to increase the size of the blocks underpinning the bitcoin blockchain network to enable it to process more transactions more quickly. Backers thought the plan would help the digital currency scale faster.
A fork in the network resulting from the upgrade would have doubled the number of coins some investors owned — just as it did when bitcoin cash split from the original bitcoin network.
Tor Bair, the head of growth forEnigma, a crypto-investment platform, told Business Insider that investors might have increased their bitcoin holdings in hopes of getting more clone coins.
"Some traders may have been attempting a 'dividend play' on the Segwit2X fork and purchasing bitcoin in anticipation," Blair said. "With the fork called off, these speculators are now reducing their positions."
Another expert told Business Insider that backers of Segwit2X might be switching over from bitcoin to bitcoin cash.
"When you look at the trends, it does look like many Segwit2X supporters have switched to bitcoin cash," Abhishek Pitti, the CEO ofNucleus Vision, a blockchain-technology company, said in a statement. "The forked currency has seen a 35% increase in a matter of days."
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• Bitcoin's 'bubble' is unlike anything we've seen recently
• Bitcoin hits all-time high ahead of another potential fork
SEE ALSO:We just got a glimpse of how bitcoin futures will work || Money is pouring into bitcoin cash after bitcoin crashed more than $1,000 in 48 hours: Screen Shot 2017 11 10 at 2.40.45 PM MI The price of bitcoin, the red-hot digital cryptocurrency, was trading down 7.2% on Friday afternoon, at $6,618 a coin. That's down more than $1,000 from its all-time high of nearly $7,900 a coin, which it hit on Wednesday after news broke that a planned upgrade to the network had been called off. But now money is pouring out of bitcoin and into bitcoin cash, the cryptocurrency that split from bitcoin in August. Bitcoin cash soared to an all-time high of $1,009 a coin on Friday afternoon. Bitcoin has shed more than $1,000 over the past 48 hours. On the other hand, bitcoin cash, the cryptocurrency that split from bitcoin in August, reached an all-time high of $1,009 a coin on Friday afternoon, according to data from Markets Insider. It was trading up more than 50%. Experts think bitcoin's crash and bitcoin cash's rise are related to the same thing: a planned upgrade to bitcoin's network being called off. Developers behind the upgrade, known as Segwit2X, revoked their support on Wednesday , meaning bitcoin's network will remain intact — at least for now. The news initially sent bitcoin to an all-time high of nearly $7,900 a coin. But at 2:40 p.m. ET on Friday, it was trading down 7.2%, at $6,812. Segwit2X was designed to increase the size of the blocks underpinning the bitcoin blockchain network to enable it to process more transactions more quickly. Backers thought the plan would help the digital currency scale faster. A fork in the network resulting from the upgrade would have doubled the number of coins some investors owned — just as it did when bitcoin cash split from the original bitcoin network. Tor Bair, the head of growth for Enigma , a crypto-investment platform, told Business Insider that investors might have increased their bitcoin holdings in hopes of getting more clone coins. "Some traders may have been attempting a 'dividend play' on the Segwit2X fork and purchasing bitcoin in anticipation," Blair said. "With the fork called off, these speculators are now reducing their positions." Story continues Another expert told Business Insider that backers of Segwit2X might be switching over from bitcoin to bitcoin cash. "When you look at the trends, it does look like many Segwit2X supporters have switched to bitcoin cash," Abhishek Pitti, the CEO of Nucleus Vision , a blockchain-technology company, said in a statement. "The forked currency has seen a 35% increase in a matter of days." NOW WATCH: Tesla's value is surging 'because the vision is so intoxicating' See Also: GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin could get close to $8,000 Bitcoin's 'bubble' is unlike anything we've seen recently Bitcoin hits all-time high ahead of another potential fork SEE ALSO: We just got a glimpse of how bitcoin futures will work || Air Force general says China is advancing in space five times as fast as the US: Air Force Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast believes a "Kitty Hawk" moment will begin a new era in space. But while the U.S. still leads every other country in space, Kwast cautions that the edge is whittling away. "In my best military judgment, China is on a 10-year journey to operationalize space. We're on a 50-year journey," Kwast told CNBC. Kwast, who is also the commander and president of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, said the United States must "bring together the right talent to accelerate the journey." He said this would push the space industry to a Wright Brothers-like moment. "We could be on a five-year journey because it's all about how aggressively we are going about this journey," Kwast said. Regulations in the way A half century of regulating satellites has made it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to succeed, he said. The current regulatory environment is like needing to submit an itinerary for every item you plan to bring on a flight from D.C. to Los Angeles — one year before the flight, he said. "You have to detail everything in your suitcase — each item's material, manufacturer, weight and more — the government takes a year to go through it and then tells you what you can and can't take," Kwast said. "And, if you have to update your request, then you have to start all over." He continued, "When you finally get approval you have to spend your entire life savings for the airplane, which, when you land, you have to burn to the ground." Officials want to evolve regulatory methods but must placate taxpayers that discarded rockets will not begin falling on their homes. "You need technological innovations to reassure Congress that this is safe and effective, as the FAA cannot do this unilaterally," Kwast said. "Low-cost access to space is the first domino to making this possible." The Federal Aviation Administration told CNBC in September that it is working to make access to space more efficient. SpaceX has also criticized the regulatory process , with President Gwynne Shotwell noting the process takes six months "and then you reapply at 90 days, 30 days, and then 15 days to file a flight plan." "If we want to achieve rapid progress in space, the U.S. government must remove bureaucratic practices that run counter to innovation and speed," Shotwell said. National security and global prosperity at stake Militaries will soon work more extensively in the space between the Earth and moon, according to Kwast. That realm is the next high ground, where nations are straining to gain a strategic advantage. "China is working on building a 'navy in space'" that would work even beyond Earth's gravity, Kwast said. Yet China is the not the most pressing threat. North Korea, with its continued missile testing , is "a real problem," Kwast said. "Right now, if North Korea were to launch a missile into space and detonate an electromagnetic pulse, it would take out our eyes in space," Kwast said. The Cold War-era "Star Wars" concept was "very strategic," Kwast said, but the technology was not feasible. The more the U.S. innovates in space, the lower the potential threat from a missile. Even though the space industry is poised to become eight times as valuable over the next 30 years , Kwast believes it's too early to think about a new military force in space. "We could have an operational space force in three to five years," Kwast said. "However, that would be jumping to answering what the form looks like, before you know the function." In a January study called "Fast Space," Kwast wrote a list of recommendations to the Air Force's U.S. Space Command. He details that public-private partnerships must be the nation's focus, not an "an Air Force in space." "It took from the Wright Brothers in 1903 to 1945 — two World Wars — to get flying to where we needed an Air Force." Finding balance in public-private partnerships Kwast is a staunch supporter of corporations partnering with government. But he warns against the military completely depending on the private sector, giving the example of how the Air Force contracts launches to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. "I think the balance between public and private is reasonable right now, but we're still not doing enough, and we're not aggressive enough," Kwast said. At the New Worlds conference in Austin, Texas on Friday, Bill Gerstenmaier, the NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, said his agency shares a similar vision. He does not expect "to get another huge budget like the Apollo missions," and says NASA will focus on "orchestrating human spaceflight," instead of conceptualizing, funding, building and operating all on its own. Gerstenmaier told CNBC that he sees NASA now operating more akin to a venture capital firm, picking investments and helping to build them up. He cited Morgan Stanley's recent report on the industry as a look into the direction space is heading. Kwast applauds the high-risk, high-reward entrepreneurial spirit of modern space companies. He calls himself "a very strong advocate" for partnerships "based on economic realities" that create competition. "Corporations have a vicious, clear-eyed view of the bottom line, which is a very healthy thing," Kwast said, before adding: "Companies that fail should fail." WATCH: National Space Council meets for first time in 25 years More From CNBC Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off Qualcomm draws up plans to rebuff Broadcom's $103 billion offer Musk promises to 'blow your mind' with official semi-truck reveal || Air Force general says China is advancing in space five times as fast as the US: Air Force Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast believes a "Kitty Hawk" moment will begin a new era in space. But while the U.S. still leads every other country in space, Kwast cautions that the edge is whittling away. "In my best military judgment, China is on a 10-year journey to operationalize space. We're on a 50-year journey," Kwast told CNBC. Kwast, who is also the commander and president of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, said the United States must "bring together the right talent to accelerate the journey." He said this would push the space industry to a Wright Brothers-like moment. "We could be on a five-year journey because it's all about how aggressively we are going about this journey," Kwast said.
Regulations in the way A half century of regulating satellites has made it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to succeed, he said. The current regulatory environment is like needing to submit an itinerary for every item you plan to bring on a flight from D.C. to Los Angeles — one year before the flight, he said. "You have to detail everything in your suitcase — each item's material, manufacturer, weight and more — the government takes a year to go through it and then tells you what you can and can't take," Kwast said. "And, if you have to update your request, then you have to start all over." He continued, "When you finally get approval you have to spend your entire life savings for the airplane, which, when you land, you have to burn to the ground." Officials want to evolve regulatory methods but must placate taxpayers that discarded rockets will not begin falling on their homes. "You need technological innovations to reassure Congress that this is safe and effective, as the FAA cannot do this unilaterally," Kwast said. "Low-cost access to space is the first domino to making this possible." The Federal Aviation Administration told CNBC in September that it is working to make access to space more efficient.
SpaceX has also criticized the regulatory process , with President Gwynne Shotwell noting the process takes six months "and then you reapply at 90 days, 30 days, and then 15 days to file a flight plan." "If we want to achieve rapid progress in space, the U.S. government must remove bureaucratic practices that run counter to innovation and speed," Shotwell said. National security and global prosperity at stake Militaries will soon work more extensively in the space between the Earth and moon, according to Kwast. That realm is the next high ground, where nations are straining to gain a strategic advantage. "China is working on building a 'navy in space'" that would work even beyond Earth's gravity, Kwast said. Yet China is the not the most pressing threat. North Korea, with its continued missile testing , is "a real problem," Kwast said. "Right now, if North Korea were to launch a missile into space and detonate an electromagnetic pulse, it would take out our eyes in space," Kwast said. The Cold War-era "Star Wars" concept was "very strategic," Kwast said, but the technology was not feasible. The more the U.S. innovates in space, the lower the potential threat from a missile. Even though the space industry is poised to become eight times as valuable over the next 30 years , Kwast believes it's too early to think about a new military force in space. "We could have an operational space force in three to five years," Kwast said. "However, that would be jumping to answering what the form looks like, before you know the function." In a January study called "Fast Space," Kwast wrote a list of recommendations to the Air Force's U.S. Space Command. He details that public-private partnerships must be the nation's focus, not an "an Air Force in space." "It took from the Wright Brothers in 1903 to 1945 — two World Wars — to get flying to where we needed an Air Force." Finding balance in public-private partnerships Kwast is a staunch supporter of corporations partnering with government. But he warns against the military completely depending on the private sector, giving the example of how the Air Force contracts launches to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. "I think the balance between public and private is reasonable right now, but we're still not doing enough, and we're not aggressive enough," Kwast said. At the New Worlds conference in Austin, Texas on Friday, Bill Gerstenmaier, the NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, said his agency shares a similar vision. He does not expect "to get another huge budget like the Apollo missions," and says NASA will focus on "orchestrating human spaceflight," instead of conceptualizing, funding, building and operating all on its own. Gerstenmaier told CNBC that he sees NASA now operating more akin to a venture capital firm, picking investments and helping to build them up. He cited Morgan Stanley's recent report on the industry as a look into the direction space is heading. Kwast applauds the high-risk, high-reward entrepreneurial spirit of modern space companies. He calls himself "a very strong advocate" for partnerships "based on economic realities" that create competition. "Corporations have a vicious, clear-eyed view of the bottom line, which is a very healthy thing," Kwast said, before adding: "Companies that fail should fail." WATCH: National Space Council meets for first time in 25 yearsMore From CNBC
• Bitcoin's value rose $10 billion in just 12 hours after a dramatic sell-off
• Qualcomm draws up plans to rebuff Broadcom's $103 billion offer
• Musk promises to 'blow your mind' with official semi-truck reveal || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stock indexes dip on U.S. tax reform doubts; Bitcoin below $7000: * Senate Republicans propose delay in corporate tax cut
* Global shares dip further below all-time high
* European stocks set for worst week in 3 months
* U.S. longer-dated yields hit 1-1/2 week highs (Updates with European market close, slide in safe havens)
By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global stock indexes cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum.
MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.2 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains.
The MSCI world index has surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due.
"The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp.
Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as the softness in high-yield "junk" bonds did little to support traditional safe havens.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes last fell 20/32 in price to yield 2.4002 percent. The 30-year bond last fell 48/32 in price to yield 2.8813 percent.
Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the bloc, hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27.
Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.69 an ounce.
"It's not often that we get rates down and equities down: it's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," said Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann, referring to a trading strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers.
"We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.”
Friday, coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week amid a bout of volatility in credit markets.
TAX OVERHAUL
U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s.
The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear.
"I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
"But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment."
Wall Street retreated on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, though a rise in media and semiconductor stocks limited the slide.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 35.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 23,425.99, the S&P 500 lost 2.35 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.27 and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.38 points, or 0.04 percent, to 6,752.43.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row.
"There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JP Morgan, said.
Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow.
U.S. crude fell 0.37 percent to $56.96 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.77, down 0.25 percent.
Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash, sending its value up around a third.
(Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stock indexes dip on U.S. tax reform doubts; Bitcoin below $7000: * Senate Republicans propose delay in corporate tax cut * Global shares dip further below all-time high * European stocks set for worst week in 3 months * U.S. longer-dated yields hit 1-1/2 week highs (Updates with European market close, slide in safe havens) By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global stock indexes cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum. MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.2 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains. The MSCI world index has surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due. "The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp. Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as the softness in high-yield "junk" bonds did little to support traditional safe havens. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes last fell 20/32 in price to yield 2.4002 percent. The 30-year bond last fell 48/32 in price to yield 2.8813 percent. Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the bloc, hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27. Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.69 an ounce. "It's not often that we get rates down and equities down: it's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," said Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann, referring to a trading strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers. "We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.” Friday, coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week amid a bout of volatility in credit markets. Story continues TAX OVERHAUL U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s. The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear. "I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities. "But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment." Wall Street retreated on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, though a rise in media and semiconductor stocks limited the slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 35.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 23,425.99, the S&P 500 lost 2.35 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.27 and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.38 points, or 0.04 percent, to 6,752.43. The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row. "There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JP Morgan, said. Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow. U.S. crude fell 0.37 percent to $56.96 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.77, down 0.25 percent. Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash, sending its value up around a third. (Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish) || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stock indexes dip on U.S. tax reform doubts; Bitcoin below $7000: * Senate Republicans propose delay in corporate tax cut
* Global shares dip further below all-time high
* European stocks set for worst week in 3 months
* U.S. longer-dated yields hit 1-1/2 week highs (Updates with European market close, slide in safe havens)
By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global stock indexes cooled off Friday as signs that U.S. tax reform could be delayed impeded the market's momentum.
MSCI's global stock index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, declined 0.2 percent, slipping further from a record level. On Thursday, the global index fell 0.4 percent following 10 straight days of gains.
The MSCI world index has surged more than 20 percent so far this year, and some investors believe a pullback is due.
"The pause that the market is currently in is directly related to what's going on from a tax standpoint," said Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist for Northern Trust Corp.
Adding insult to injury, the pullback in stocks as well as the softness in high-yield "junk" bonds did little to support traditional safe havens.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes last fell 20/32 in price to yield 2.4002 percent. The 30-year bond last fell 48/32 in price to yield 2.8813 percent.
Meanwhile, German government bond yields climbed to their highest in over a week as euro zone bonds were sold across the board for a second consecutive day. The yield on Germany's 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the bloc, hit 0.40 percent for the first time since Oct. 27.
Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.69 an ounce.
"It's not often that we get rates down and equities down: it's a classic hallmark of momentum strategies unwinding," said Citigroup Inc equity trading strategist Alex Altmann, referring to a trading strategy that favors buying recent winners and selling losers.
"We may not get that calm ride into the end of the year.”
Friday, coal producer Canyon Consolidated Resources became the second junk-rated company to pull a bond sale this week amid a bout of volatility in credit markets.
TAX OVERHAUL
U.S. Republican senators said they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate in 2019, later than the House's proposed schedule of 2018, complicating a push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s.
The House was set to vote on its measure next week. But the Senate's timetable was less clear.
"I would say a compromise will be reached," said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.
"But if they indeed decide to delay the tax cut by a year, there is likely to be some disappointment."
Wall Street retreated on concern over delays in corporate tax cuts, though a rise in media and semiconductor stocks limited the slide.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 35.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 23,425.99, the S&P 500 lost 2.35 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,582.27 and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.38 points, or 0.04 percent, to 6,752.43.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index suffered its worst week in three months, down 0.4 percent on Friday and falling for a fourth day in row.
"There's a feeling out there that there's a long-awaited correction, and no one wants to be caught by surprise," Emmanuel Cau, global equity strategist at JP Morgan, said.
Crude was down as expectations the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow.
U.S. crude fell 0.37 percent to $56.96 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.77, down 0.25 percent.
Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than $1,000 down from an all-time high hit on Wednesday, as some traders dumped it for a clone called Bitcoin Cash, sending its value up around a third.
(Additional reporting by Kit Rees and Helen Reid in London and Hideuyki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and James Dalgleish)
[Social Media Buzz]
One Bitcoin now worth $6470.01@bitstamp. High $6945.70. Low $6300.00. Market Cap $107.884 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/gnVBhc1TcD || 1 XBC Price: Poloniex 0.00680000 BTC Cryptopia 0.00780000 BTC #xbc #bitcoinplus #poloniex @btc38com @changelly_team 2017-11-11 14:00 pic.twitter.com/5OkJQAbLjl || BTC/USD: US$ 6.430,00 ▼ -2.40%
BTC/BRL: R$ 0,00
USD/BRL: R$ 0,00
11/11/2017 14:59:46 (Brasília)
#bitcoin || 11/12 05:00現在
#Bitcoin : 720,660円↑
#NEM #XEM : 21.6円↑
#Monacoin : 299.7円↑
#Ethereum : 36...
|
5950.07, 6559.49, 6635.75, 7315.54, 7871.69, 7708.99, 7790.15, 8036.49, 8200.64, 8071.26
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-10-12]
Volume: 41083758949, RSI (14-day): 66.40, 50-day EMA: 47831.65, 200-day EMA: 43130.85
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1758.30, Gold RSI: 46.81
Oil Price: 80.64, Oil RSI: 73.39
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Nearly 40% of America’s Wealthiest Billionaires Give Relatively Nothing to Charity: Action Press / Shutterstock.com While many Americans struggled because of the pandemic, the cumulative wealth of The Forbes 400 richest Americans on the 2021 list grew 40% to an unprecedented $4.5 trillion. What didn’t grow alongside their dollars, however, is their generosity. Forbes reported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who account for the top two spots on Forbes’ list, with net worth of $201 billion and $190.5 billion, respectively — each gave away less than 1% of their wealth. Explore: These 15 Billionaires Got Richer During the Pandemic Billionaires vs. the Middle Class Across America: Who Pays More in Taxes? To see just how philanthropic each of America’s 400 richest people are, Forbes assigned a philanthropy score from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most generous givers, it explained. Unfortunately, Forbes stated that the scores are lower than ever. The number of those who scored the highest (5 – indicating they’d donated 20% or more of their fortune in out-the-door giving) dropped to eight this year from just ten last year. The majority of the list either received a score of 1, meaning they have given away less than 1% of their net worth, or N/A. The number of people receiving a 1 rose from 127 to 156, while the number of recipients of every score from 2 to 5 declined compared to a year ago. At the top of the list, those who gave away 20% or more of wealth, are Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, billionaire investor George Soros, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, former hedge fund tycoon Julian Robertson Jr., co-founder of Continental Cablevision Amos Hostetter Jr., founder of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies Lynn Schusterman, founder of Arnold Ventures John Arnold and founder of First Premier Bank T. Denny Sanford. Related: Jeff Bezos Once Claimed Child Tax Credit Even Though His Net Worth Was $18 Billion It’s not surprising to find the Oracle of Omaha on the list, as in 2006, he pledged to distribute all of his Berkshire Hathaway shares — more than 99% of his net worth — to philanthropy. In June, Buffett said in a statement that “ with today’s $4.1 billion distribution, I’m halfway there .” Story continues Those with a score of 4 — who gave away 10% to 19.99% of their wealth — include MacKenzie Scott , former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and nine others. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, hedge fund manager Jim Simons and 42 others had a score of 3, having given away 5% to 9.99% of their wealth. The score of 2 – people who gave 1% to 4.99% of their wealth–was given to 116 people on the list, including: Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Nike co-founder Phil Knight. See: Bitcoin’s Very Good Week Ends With George Soros Saying He Owns the Crypto Learn: For Gates, Musk, Bezos, Spending $1 Million Is Like Spending $1 Finally, Musk and Bezos got a score of 1 , and were joined on the penny pincher list by 154 others. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Don't Know About Social Security 8 Ways Homeowners Can Save $1000s Every Year Senior Stimulus: How an Additional $1,400 Check Could Help Social Security Recipients Afford Rising Grocery Costs Here's How Much You Need To Earn To Be 'Rich' in 23 Major Countries Around the World Last updated: October 11, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Nearly 40% of America’s Wealthiest Billionaires Give Relatively Nothing to Charity || Nearly 40% of America’s Wealthiest Billionaires Give Relatively Nothing to Charity: While many Americans struggled because of the pandemic, the cumulative wealth of The Forbes 400richest Americans on the 2021 list grew 40%to an unprecedented $4.5 trillion. What didn’t grow alongside their dollars, however, is their generosity. Forbes reported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who account for the top two spots on Forbes’ list, with net worth of $201 billion and $190.5 billion, respectively — each gave away less than 1% of their wealth.
Explore:These 15 Billionaires Got Richer During the PandemicBillionaires vs. the Middle Class Across America:Who Pays More in Taxes?
To see just how philanthropic each of America’s 400 richest people are, Forbes assigned a philanthropy score from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most generous givers, it explained.
Unfortunately, Forbes stated that the scores are lower than ever. The number of those who scored the highest (5 – indicating they’d donated 20% or more of their fortune in out-the-door giving) dropped to eight this year from just ten last year. The majority of the list either received a score of 1, meaning they have given away less than 1% of their net worth, or N/A. The number of people receiving a 1 rose from 127 to 156, while the number of recipients of every score from 2 to 5 declined compared to a year ago.
At the top of the list, those who gave away 20% or more of wealth, are Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, billionaire investor George Soros, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, former hedge fund tycoon Julian Robertson Jr., co-founder of Continental Cablevision Amos Hostetter Jr., founder of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies Lynn Schusterman, founder of Arnold Ventures John Arnold and founder of First Premier Bank T. Denny Sanford.
Related:Jeff Bezos Once Claimed Child Tax Credit Even Though His Net Worth Was $18 Billion
It’s not surprising to find the Oracle of Omaha on the list, as in 2006, he pledged to distribute all of his Berkshire Hathaway shares — more than 99% of his net worth — to philanthropy. In June, Buffett said in a statement that “with today’s $4.1 billion distribution, I’m halfway there.”
Those with a score of 4 — who gave away 10% to 19.99% of their wealth — includeMacKenzie Scott, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and nine others.
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, hedge fund manager Jim Simons and 42 others had a score of 3, having given away 5% to 9.99% of their wealth.
The score of 2 – people who gave 1% to 4.99% of their wealth–was given to 116 people on the list, including: Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Nike co-founder Phil Knight.
See:Bitcoin’s Very Good Week Ends With George Soros Saying He Owns the CryptoLearn:For Gates, Musk, Bezos, Spending $1 Million Is Like Spending $1
Finally,Musk and Bezos got a score of 1, and were joined on the penny pincher list by 154 others.
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Last updated: October 11, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Nearly 40% of America’s Wealthiest Billionaires Give Relatively Nothing to Charity || 'Exceptional Unit Level Economics': Analysts Initiate Coverage Of Dutch Bros Following Quiet Period: Dutch Bros Inc (NYSE: BROS ) shares gained 15.7% on Monday, continuing the stock’s strong run following its September IPO. Dutch Bros is off to a hot start to life on the public market and has now more than doubled its $23 IPO price. In the second quarter of 2021, Dutch Bros reported $114 million in revenue, up 51% from a year ago. The company also turned a profit, a rarity for high-growth IPOs. In the second quarter, Dutch Bros reported $2.92 million in net income, up 10.6% year-over-year. As of June, the coffee company had 264 franchised locations and 2017 company-owned locations in 11 different states. Impressively, same-store sales were even up 2% in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of Dutch Bros’ IPO underwriters finally weighed in on the stock on Monday following a mandatory quiet period. $BROS vs $SBUX @STORYInvestors out here running @DutchBros research pic.twitter.com/v97M0fUJ4u — Benzinga (@Benzinga) October 11, 2021 Voices From The Street: Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore said Dutch Bros has “exceptional unit level economics” and secular growth tailwinds. “Dutch Bros’ beverage only product mix – including the proprietary Blue Rebel energy drink – translates into high gross margins while its level loaded day part mix maximizes labor efficiency; the net effect is Restaurant Level Margins (RLMs) of ~30%,” Senatore wrote in a note. Barclays analyst Jeffrey Bernstein said Dutch Bros has impressive growth numbers and is operating in an attractive market, but its valuation is full after its post- IPO run. Story continues “Our value bias keeps us cautious today, though fundamentals are intriguing with a trio of comp, unit & margin, which makes a comparable peer group difficult to define,” Bernstein wrote. Cowen analyst Andrew Charles said Dutch Bros is a rare compound growth story among small and mid-cap restaurant stocks. “We believe long term comp upside can be achieved by the first inning of a digitally-native loyalty program that we expect to ultimately facilitate 1:1 marketing & mobile ordering,” Charles wrote. Ratings And Price Targets: Bank of America has a Buy rating and $55 target. Barclays has an Equal Weight rating and $40 target. Cowen has an Outperform rating and $50 target. Latest Ratings for BROS Oct 2021 JP Morgan Initiates Coverage On Overweight Oct 2021 Barclays Initiates Coverage On Equal-Weight Oct 2021 Piper Sandler Initiates Coverage On Overweight View More Analyst Ratings for BROS View the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Has Bitcoin Improved As A Flight To Safety Investment? MGM, Caesars Gaining US Online Sports Betting Market Share © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 'Exceptional Unit Level Economics': Analysts Initiate Coverage Of Dutch Bros Following Quiet Period: Dutch Bros Inc(NYSE:BROS) shares gained 15.7% on Monday, continuing the stock’s strong run following its September IPO.
Dutch Bros is off to a hot start to life on the public market and has now more than doubled its $23 IPO price.
In the second quarter of 2021, Dutch Bros reported $114 million in revenue, up 51% from a year ago. The company also turned a profit, a rarity for high-growth IPOs. In the second quarter, Dutch Bros reported $2.92 million in net income, up 10.6% year-over-year.
As of June, the coffee company had 264 franchised locations and 2017 company-owned locations in 11 different states. Impressively, same-store sales were even up 2% in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several of Dutch Bros’ IPO underwriters finally weighed in on the stock on Monday following a mandatory quiet period.
Voices From The Street:Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore said Dutch Bros has “exceptional unit level economics” and secular growth tailwinds.
“Dutch Bros’ beverage only product mix – including the proprietary Blue Rebel energy drink – translates into high gross margins while its level loaded day part mix maximizes labor efficiency; the net effect is Restaurant Level Margins (RLMs) of ~30%,” Senatore wrote in a note.
Barclays analyst Jeffrey Bernstein said Dutch Bros has impressive growth numbers and is operating in an attractive market, but its valuation is full after its post-IPOrun.
“Our value bias keeps us cautious today, though fundamentals are intriguing with a trio of comp, unit & margin, which makes a comparable peer group difficult to define,” Bernstein wrote.
Cowen analyst Andrew Charles said Dutch Bros is a rare compound growth story among small and mid-cap restaurant stocks.
“We believe long term comp upside can be achieved by the first inning of a digitally-native loyalty program that we expect to ultimately facilitate 1:1 marketing & mobile ordering,” Charles wrote.
Ratings And Price Targets:
• Bank of America has a Buy rating and $55 target.
• Barclays has an Equal Weight rating and $40 target.
• Cowen has an Outperform rating and $50 target.
Latest Ratings for BROS
[{"Oct 2021": "Oct 2021", "JP Morgan": "Barclays", "Initiates Coverage On": "Initiates Coverage On", "": "", "Overweight": "Equal-Weight"}, {"Oct 2021": "Oct 2021", "JP Morgan": "Piper Sandler", "Initiates Coverage On": "Initiates Coverage On", "": "", "Overweight": "Overweight"}]
View More Analyst Ratings for BROSView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Has Bitcoin Improved As A Flight To Safety Investment?
• MGM, Caesars Gaining US Online Sports Betting Market Share
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Gene Simmons’ $300K Cardano Investment Has More Than Doubled Since February: Lick it up.
Kiss bassist Gene Simmonstweeted in Februarythat he had bought $300,000 of the Cardano blockchain’s ADA currency, writing it was “one I believe in.”
The conviction has paid off for the rocker, with ADA’s price more than doubling since then. Based on back-of-the-envelope math, the token hoard would be worth more than $700,000 now.
ADA is one of 14 cryptocurrencies Simmons owns, he said Sunday in an interview on theAltcoin Daily YouTube channel.
“I like [c]ardano, although it’s an idiot name,” Simmons said. “Get rid of that thing. Just call it ADA. Call it by the trading name.”
Through a spokeswoman, Simmons, 72, declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.
In the YouTube interview, Simmons said he also owns bitcoin, ether (the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain) and litecoin, among others.
He said he bought bitcoin when the price was around $10,000. Lately it’s trading just above $57,000.
“All my cryptos have done very well,” Simmons said.
The musician once known by his stage persona “The Demon” said he bought 0.2% of two cryptocurrencies that he thinks will go up tenfold. He declined to name them because if he did the prices would probably pump and “you’re going to haveshort-sellers.”
“I want the rise to be natural,” Simmons said.
He said he’s a “medium fan” of Charles Hoskinson, the lead developer of the Cardano blockchain.
“You live and die by the people who steer the company,” Simmons said.
Read more:Kiss’ Gene Simmons Buys $300,000 Worth of Cardano
He said BTC and ETH are the two biggest cryptocurrencies in his portfolio on a percentage basis.
And while he sold dogecoin (DOGE) earlier this year after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about it, he said he plans to hold his remaining cryptocurrencies for at least a decade.
“Do your own research,” Simmons said. “In the interest of full disclosure, nothing I’m saying means anything. Please ignore me. I’m not giving anybody advice.” || Gene Simmons’ $300K Cardano Investment Has More Than Doubled Since February: Lick it up. Kiss bassist Gene Simmons tweeted in February that he had bought $300,000 of the Cardano blockchain’s ADA currency, writing it was “one I believe in.” The conviction has paid off for the rocker, with ADA’s price more than doubling since then. Based on back-of-the-envelope math, the token hoard would be worth more than $700,000 now. ADA is one of 14 cryptocurrencies Simmons owns, he said Sunday in an interview on the Altcoin Daily YouTube channel . “I like [c]ardano, although it’s an idiot name,” Simmons said. “Get rid of that thing. Just call it ADA. Call it by the trading name.” Through a spokeswoman, Simmons, 72, declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk. In the YouTube interview, Simmons said he also owns bitcoin, ether (the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain) and litecoin, among others. He said he bought bitcoin when the price was around $10,000. Lately it’s trading just above $57,000. “All my cryptos have done very well,” Simmons said. Simmons goes crypto The musician once known by his stage persona “The Demon” said he bought 0.2% of two cryptocurrencies that he thinks will go up tenfold. He declined to name them because if he did the prices would probably pump and “you’re going to have short-sellers .” “I want the rise to be natural,” Simmons said. He said he’s a “medium fan” of Charles Hoskinson, the lead developer of the Cardano blockchain. “You live and die by the people who steer the company,” Simmons said. Read more: Kiss’ Gene Simmons Buys $300,000 Worth of Cardano He said BTC and ETH are the two biggest cryptocurrencies in his portfolio on a percentage basis. And while he sold dogecoin (DOGE) earlier this year after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about it, he said he plans to hold his remaining cryptocurrencies for at least a decade. “Do your own research,” Simmons said. “In the interest of full disclosure, nothing I’m saying means anything. Please ignore me. I’m not giving anybody advice.” || Supply chain issues 'will not be an issue next year at all,' JPMorgan CEO predicts: Jamie Dimon i s optimistic that global supply chain snarls will soon go away. During a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance, the billionaire CEO of JPMorgan Chase said that although frayed supply chains from the COVID-19 pandemic are still creating problems for consumers, he thinks those issues will resolve sooner rather than later. I should never do this, but Ill make a forecast, Dimon said on Monday. This will not be an issue next year at all. This is the worst part of it. I think great market systems will adjust for it like companies have. JPMORGAN CEO JAMIE DIMON SAYS BITCOIN REGULATION IS INEVITABLE During his appearance at the conference, Dimon expressed enthusiasm about the future of the U.S. economy. He said his prediction for increased economic growth is buoyed by U.S. consumers and their appetite for spending money, noting that people are spending 20% more now than before the pandemic. Keep in mind, the consumers buying other stuff, the JPMorgan boss said. They cant buy cars, theyre buying home improvement. They cant travel internationally, they travel domestically. The spend level is very high. Dimon, a longtime critic of cryptocurrencies , also drew headlines for once again deriding Bitcoin, which is soaring to near-record highs. I personally think that Bitcoin is worthless, Dimon said. Despite his reservations, the CEO said JPMorgan clients are still interested in cryptocurrency, and his firm offers them exposure to it. Our clients are adults. They disagree. Thats what makes markets, Dimon said. So, if they want to have access to buy yourself bitcoin, we cant custody it, but we could give them legitimate, as clean as possible, access." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Bitcoin has been on a bull run this month after a mercurial summer . The flagship cryptocurrency hit an all-time record in April, eclipsing $63,000 before falling to a trough of less than $30,000 in July. Since then, it has surged in value and is now over $57,000 for the first time since May. Story continues Washington Examiner Videos Tags: News , Jamie Dimon , Supply chain , Business , JPMorgan , Cryptocurrency , Bitcoin Original Author: Zachary Halaschak Original Location: Supply chain issues 'will not be an issue next year at all,' JPMorgan CEO predicts || Supply chain issues 'will not be an issue next year at all,' JPMorgan CEO predicts: Jamie Dimon i s optimistic that global supply chain snarls will soon go away. During a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance, the billionaire CEO of JPMorgan Chase said that although frayed supply chains from the COVID-19 pandemic are still creating problems for consumers, he thinks those issues will resolve sooner rather than later. I should never do this, but Ill make a forecast, Dimon said on Monday. This will not be an issue next year at all. This is the worst part of it. I think great market systems will adjust for it like companies have. JPMORGAN CEO JAMIE DIMON SAYS BITCOIN REGULATION IS INEVITABLE During his appearance at the conference, Dimon expressed enthusiasm about the future of the U.S. economy. He said his prediction for increased economic growth is buoyed by U.S. consumers and their appetite for spending money, noting that people are spending 20% more now than before the pandemic. Keep in mind, the consumers buying other stuff, the JPMorgan boss said. They cant buy cars, theyre buying home improvement. They cant travel internationally, they travel domestically. The spend level is very high. Dimon, a longtime critic of cryptocurrencies , also drew headlines for once again deriding Bitcoin, which is soaring to near-record highs. I personally think that Bitcoin is worthless, Dimon said. Despite his reservations, the CEO said JPMorgan clients are still interested in cryptocurrency, and his firm offers them exposure to it. Our clients are adults. They disagree. Thats what makes markets, Dimon said. So, if they want to have access to buy yourself bitcoin, we cant custody it, but we could give them legitimate, as clean as possible, access." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Bitcoin has been on a bull run this month after a mercurial summer . The flagship cryptocurrency hit an all-time record in April, eclipsing $63,000 before falling to a trough of less than $30,000 in July. Since then, it has surged in value and is now over $57,000 for the first time since May. Story continues Washington Examiner Videos Tags: News , Jamie Dimon , Supply chain , Business , JPMorgan , Cryptocurrency , Bitcoin Original Author: Zachary Halaschak Original Location: Supply chain issues 'will not be an issue next year at all,' JPMorgan CEO predicts || Bitcoin & Blockchain ETFs: What Investors Should Know: Bitcoin rose above $57,000 today and is now up more than 95% year-to-date. Earlier in April, it had surged above $63,000 and then plunged to less than $30,000 in July. Its market capitalization now exceeds $1 trillion.
Some public companies like Tesla (TSLA) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. El Salvador recently became the first country to accept it as legal tender.
Europe and Canada have approved many cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs). In fact, eight of the 10 best performing ETPs in the world this year are European cryptocurrency funds, per WSJ. These include ETPs tracking Binance, Ether and Ripple.
In the US, it has been eight years since Winklevoss twins applied for a Bitcoin ETF. Since then, many providers have applied for such ETFs, but the SEC continues to reject them.
While the digital currency can be easily bought on platforms like PayPal (PYPL), Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), many investors prefer an ETF that would help them hold Bitcoin safely and conveniently in their brokerage accounts.
In the absence of an ETF, investor use products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) that can trade at a significant discount or premium to their NAV. But now there are increasing hopes that a Bitcoin futures ETF could be approved soon. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has signaled his preference for futures tracking ETFs, created under the existing 1940 Investment Company Act, which provides significant investor protections.
Futures based products are however not as efficient as physically based products in general since derivatives add another layer of complexity, with the need to rollover. They also are not very good at tracking spot prices.
BLOK and the Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN) hold companies that are involved in developing or using blockchain technologies. Their top holdings include NVIDIA (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Please watch the short video above to learn more.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research ReportsSiren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research ReportsCoinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRobinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin & Blockchain ETFs: What Investors Should Know: Bitcoin rose above $57,000 today and is now up more than 95% year-to-date. Earlier in April, it had surged above $63,000 and then plunged to less than $30,000 in July. Its market capitalization now exceeds $1 trillion. Some public companies like Tesla (TSLA) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. El Salvador recently became the first country to accept it as legal tender. Europe and Canada have approved many cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs). In fact, eight of the 10 best performing ETPs in the world this year are European cryptocurrency funds, per WSJ. These include ETPs tracking Binance, Ether and Ripple. In the US, it has been eight years since Winklevoss twins applied for a Bitcoin ETF. Since then, many providers have applied for such ETFs, but the SEC continues to reject them. While the digital currency can be easily bought on platforms like PayPal (PYPL), Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), many investors prefer an ETF that would help them hold Bitcoin safely and conveniently in their brokerage accounts. In the absence of an ETF, investor use products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) that can trade at a significant discount or premium to their NAV. But now there are increasing hopes that a Bitcoin futures ETF could be approved soon. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has signaled his preference for futures tracking ETFs, created under the existing 1940 Investment Company Act, which provides significant investor protections. Futures based products are however not as efficient as physically based products in general since derivatives add another layer of complexity, with the need to rollover. They also are not very good at tracking spot prices. BLOK and the Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN) hold companies that are involved in developing or using blockchain technologies. Their top holdings include NVIDIA (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT). Please watch the short video above to learn more. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report MicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research Reports Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research Reports Coinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Robinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin & Blockchain ETFs: What Investors Should Know: Bitcoin rose above $57,000 today and is now up more than 95% year-to-date. Earlier in April, it had surged above $63,000 and then plunged to less than $30,000 in July. Its market capitalization now exceeds $1 trillion.
Some public companies like Tesla (TSLA) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. El Salvador recently became the first country to accept it as legal tender.
Europe and Canada have approved many cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs). In fact, eight of the 10 best performing ETPs in the world this year are European cryptocurrency funds, per WSJ. These include ETPs tracking Binance, Ether and Ripple.
In the US, it has been eight years since Winklevoss twins applied for a Bitcoin ETF. Since then, many providers have applied for such ETFs, but the SEC continues to reject them.
While the digital currency can be easily bought on platforms like PayPal (PYPL), Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), many investors prefer an ETF that would help them hold Bitcoin safely and conveniently in their brokerage accounts.
In the absence of an ETF, investor use products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) that can trade at a significant discount or premium to their NAV. But now there are increasing hopes that a Bitcoin futures ETF could be approved soon. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has signaled his preference for futures tracking ETFs, created under the existing 1940 Investment Company Act, which provides significant investor protections.
Futures based products are however not as efficient as physically based products in general since derivatives add another layer of complexity, with the need to rollover. They also are not very good at tracking spot prices.
BLOK and the Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN) hold companies that are involved in developing or using blockchain technologies. Their top holdings include NVIDIA (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Please watch the short video above to learn more.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research ReportsSiren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research ReportsCoinbase Global, Inc. (COIN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRobinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Market Wrap: Bitcoin All-Time High Expected, but Not Before a Pullback: Bullish sentiment continues to grow after bitcoin’s price broke above $57,000 on Monday. BTC is up about 3% over the past 24 hours, extending its outperformance compared to alternative cryptocurrencies.
Analysts see continued upside, with some calling for a return to the all-time high near $63,000 this quarter.
“The crypto rally is impressive since it occurred in the face of a broader risk-off environment in both equities and bonds, with crypto markets seemingly decoupling from the equities markets,”Coinbasewrote in a newsletter last week to institutional clients. “We are seeing BTC clearly lead this market up as evidenced by bitcoin dominance (BTC market cap relative to the total crypto market cap) reaching multi-month highs.”
The initial BTC spike last week could be the result of traders takinglarge positionsahead ofa rumored approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionof a futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to CoinDesk’s Lawrence Lewitinn.
For now, technicals suggest the current rally is due for a pullback. The recent uptrend appears to be exhausted, according to Katie Stockton, managing director ofFairlead Strategies. Stockton expects about two weeks of price consolidation toward $47,000-$48,000, which is where the September sell-off stabilized.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $57,542, +3.9%
• Ether (ETH): $3,527, +0.0%
• S&P 500: -0.6%
• Gold: $1,755, -0.1%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.612%
The options market is placing a 20% probability on bitcoin ending the month at a new all-time high above $65,000, according to data provided by Skew. BTC is currently about 10% below the all-time high of $64,863 reached on April 14.
Analysts expect further upside due to the resurgence of buying activity and seasonal strength in the fourth quarter.
“Today’s leg higher, after a dull weekend session, keeps the bullish technical pattern of higher lows and higher highs in place, pushing BTC toward thedouble toparound $59,580 made in May,”Nick Cawley, strategist at DailyFX, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.
A break above $59,000 could place bitcoin closer to the all-time high, so long as the downside remains limited around $53,000, according to Cawley.
Crypto-focused funds took in more than double the amount of new money last week than they did the prior week as bullish sentiment returned to the bitcoin market, reported CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma.
The jump was largely driven by bitcoin-focused funds, where inflows rose to $225 million, the highest in five months, according to a report Monday from digital asset manager CoinShares.
However, Ethereum-focused funds, which had gained in recent months as bitcoin funds were mostly flat to down, saw minor outflows last week, totaling $14 million. Funds focused on alternative blockchains Litecoin, Ripple and Polkadot also saw outflows last week.
• FTX.USlaunches collectibles arm in boost to Solana-based NFTs:The U.S. wing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire said its new marketplace, FTX NFTs, will allow users to trade, mint, auction and authenticate Solana-based non-fungible tokens (NFT),reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. The exchange’s prioritization of Solana highlights two realities: Bankman-Fried is heavily invested in the Solana ecosystem; and that ecosystem, while host to a handful of so-called “blue-chip” projects, doesn’t yet have a juggernaut marketplace for NFT trading.FTX.USsays its new platform will charge 2%.
• Celo appoints former Facebook, Bank of America execs to board:Blockchain payments startup Celo appointed former Facebook executive Morgan Beller to its board alongside Jai Ramaswamy, who has previously worked at Bank of America,reported CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley. Beller is the former head of strategy at Calibra, the Facebook subsidiary set up to develop the wallet for the social media giant’s cryptocurrency project Libra (later Diem). Ramaswamy is the chief risk and compliance officer of cLabs, the company behind the building of the Celo blockchain.
• DeFi perpetuals exchange Futureswap launches new version:Futureswap raised $12 million in venture funding from Framework Ventures, Ribbit Capital andPlaceholder.vcto launch an updated version of its Ethereum-based exchange,reported CoinDesk’s Helene Braun. The protocol, which taps into version 3 (v3) of leading automated market maker (AMM) Uniswap, enables leverage of up to 30 times on any liquidity pool. “We’re super-excited to add this layer as a new primitive,” CEO and co-founder Derek Alia told CoinDesk in an interview. “The amount of possibilities now are very, very cool.”
• Coinbase Co-Founder’s Venture Firm Raising $1.5B Fund, Document Shows
• Private Office of UAE Sheikh Launches $100M Blockchain Investment Fund
• Airdrop Ethics: VC Firm Draws Ire Following $2.5M Ribbon Finance Exploit
• Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’
Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Bitcoin (BTC), +3.9%
• Filecoin (FIL), +0.3%
Notable losers:
• Algorand (ALGO), -6.4%
• Polkadot (DOT), -5.6% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin All-Time High Expected, but Not Before a Pullback: Bullish sentiment continues to grow after bitcoin’s price broke above $57,000 on Monday. BTC is up about 3% over the past 24 hours, extending its outperformance compared to alternative cryptocurrencies.
Analysts see continued upside, with some calling for a return to the all-time high near $63,000 this quarter.
“The crypto rally is impressive since it occurred in the face of a broader risk-off environment in both equities and bonds, with crypto markets seemingly decoupling from the equities markets,”Coinbasewrote in a newsletter last week to institutional clients. “We are seeing BTC clearly lead this market up as evidenced by bitcoin dominance (BTC market cap relative to the total crypto market cap) reaching multi-month highs.”
The initial BTC spike last week could be the result of traders takinglarge positionsahead ofa rumored approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionof a futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to CoinDesk’s Lawrence Lewitinn.
For now, technicals suggest the current rally is due for a pullback. The recent uptrend appears to be exhausted, according to Katie Stockton, managing director ofFairlead Strategies. Stockton expects about two weeks of price consolidation toward $47,000-$48,000, which is where the September sell-off stabilized.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $57,542, +3.9%
• Ether (ETH): $3,527, +0.0%
• S&P 500: -0.6%
• Gold: $1,755, -0.1%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.612%
The options market is placing a 20% probability on bitcoin ending the month at a new all-time high above $65,000, according to data provided by Skew. BTC is currently about 10% below the all-time high of $64,863 reached on April 14.
Analysts expect further upside due to the resurgence of buying activity and seasonal strength in the fourth quarter.
“Today’s leg higher, after a dull weekend session, keeps the bullish technical pattern of higher lows and higher highs in place, pushing BTC toward thedouble toparound $59,580 made in May,”Nick Cawley, strategist at DailyFX, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.
A break above $59,000 could place bitcoin closer to the all-time high, so long as the downside remains limited around $53,000, according to Cawley.
Crypto-focused funds took in more than double the amount of new money last week than they did the prior week as bullish sentiment returned to the bitcoin market, reported CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma.
The jump was largely driven by bitcoin-focused funds, where inflows rose to $225 million, the highest in five months, according to a report Monday from digital asset manager CoinShares.
However, Ethereum-focused funds, which had gained in recent months as bitcoin funds were mostly flat to down, saw minor outflows last week, totaling $14 million. Funds focused on alternative blockchains Litecoin, Ripple and Polkadot also saw outflows last week.
• FTX.USlaunches collectibles arm in boost to Solana-based NFTs:The U.S. wing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire said its new marketplace, FTX NFTs, will allow users to trade, mint, auction and authenticate Solana-based non-fungible tokens (NFT),reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. The exchange’s prioritization of Solana highlights two realities: Bankman-Fried is heavily invested in the Solana ecosystem; and that ecosystem, while host to a handful of so-called “blue-chip” projects, doesn’t yet have a juggernaut marketplace for NFT trading.FTX.USsays its new platform will charge 2%.
• Celo appoints former Facebook, Bank of America execs to board:Blockchain payments startup Celo appointed former Facebook executive Morgan Beller to its board alongside Jai Ramaswamy, who has previously worked at Bank of America,reported CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley. Beller is the former head of strategy at Calibra, the Facebook subsidiary set up to develop the wallet for the social media giant’s cryptocurrency project Libra (later Diem). Ramaswamy is the chief risk and compliance officer of cLabs, the company behind the building of the Celo blockchain.
• DeFi perpetuals exchange Futureswap launches new version:Futureswap raised $12 million in venture funding from Framework Ventures, Ribbit Capital andPlaceholder.vcto launch an updated version of its Ethereum-based exchange,reported CoinDesk’s Helene Braun. The protocol, which taps into version 3 (v3) of leading automated market maker (AMM) Uniswap, enables leverage of up to 30 times on any liquidity pool. “We’re super-excited to add this layer as a new primitive,” CEO and co-founder Derek Alia told CoinDesk in an interview. “The amount of possibilities now are very, very cool.”
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Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Bitcoin (BTC), +3.9%
• Filecoin (FIL), +0.3%
Notable losers:
• Algorand (ALGO), -6.4%
• Polkadot (DOT), -5.6% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin All-Time High Expected, but Not Before a Pullback: Bullish sentiment continues to grow after bitcoin’s price broke above $57,000 on Monday. BTC is up about 3% over the past 24 hours, extending its outperformance compared to alternative cryptocurrencies. Analysts see continued upside, with some calling for a return to the all-time high near $63,000 this quarter. “The crypto rally is impressive since it occurred in the face of a broader risk-off environment in both equities and bonds, with crypto markets seemingly decoupling from the equities markets,” Coinbase wrote in a newsletter last week to institutional clients. “We are seeing BTC clearly lead this market up as evidenced by bitcoin dominance (BTC market cap relative to the total crypto market cap) reaching multi-month highs.” The initial BTC spike last week could be the result of traders taking large positions ahead of a rumored approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of a futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to CoinDesk’s Lawrence Lewitinn. For now, technicals suggest the current rally is due for a pullback. The recent uptrend appears to be exhausted, according to Katie Stockton, managing director of Fairlead Strategies . Stockton expects about two weeks of price consolidation toward $47,000-$48,000, which is where the September sell-off stabilized. Latest prices Bitcoin (BTC): $57,542, +3.9% Ether (ETH): $3,527, +0.0% S&P 500: -0.6% Gold: $1,755, -0.1% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.612% Bitcoin all-time high within reach The options market is placing a 20% probability on bitcoin ending the month at a new all-time high above $65,000, according to data provided by Skew. BTC is currently about 10% below the all-time high of $64,863 reached on April 14. Analysts expect further upside due to the resurgence of buying activity and seasonal strength in the fourth quarter. “Today’s leg higher, after a dull weekend session, keeps the bullish technical pattern of higher lows and higher highs in place, pushing BTC toward the double top around $59,580 made in May,” Nick Cawley , strategist at DailyFX, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. A break above $59,000 could place bitcoin closer to the all-time high, so long as the downside remains limited around $53,000, according to Cawley. Crypto funds see inflows Crypto-focused funds took in more than double the amount of new money last week than they did the prior week as bullish sentiment returned to the bitcoin market, reported CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma. The jump was largely driven by bitcoin-focused funds, where inflows rose to $225 million, the highest in five months, according to a report Monday from digital asset manager CoinShares. Story continues However, Ethereum-focused funds, which had gained in recent months as bitcoin funds were mostly flat to down, saw minor outflows last week, totaling $14 million. Funds focused on alternative blockchains Litecoin, Ripple and Polkadot also saw outflows last week. Altcoin roundup FTX.US launches collectibles arm in boost to Solana-based NFTs: The U.S. wing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire said its new marketplace, FTX NFTs, will allow users to trade, mint, auction and authenticate Solana-based non-fungible tokens (NFT), reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson . The exchange’s prioritization of Solana highlights two realities: Bankman-Fried is heavily invested in the Solana ecosystem; and that ecosystem, while host to a handful of so-called “blue-chip” projects, doesn’t yet have a juggernaut marketplace for NFT trading. FTX.US says its new platform will charge 2%. Celo appoints former Facebook, Bank of America execs to board: Blockchain payments startup Celo appointed former Facebook executive Morgan Beller to its board alongside Jai Ramaswamy, who has previously worked at Bank of America, reported CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley . Beller is the former head of strategy at Calibra, the Facebook subsidiary set up to develop the wallet for the social media giant’s cryptocurrency project Libra (later Diem). Ramaswamy is the chief risk and compliance officer of cLabs, the company behind the building of the Celo blockchain. DeFi perpetuals exchange Futureswap launches new version: Futureswap raised $12 million in venture funding from Framework Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Placeholder.vc to launch an updated version of its Ethereum-based exchange, reported CoinDesk’s Helene Braun . The protocol, which taps into version 3 (v3) of leading automated market maker (AMM) Uniswap, enables leverage of up to 30 times on any liquidity pool. “We’re super-excited to add this layer as a new primitive,” CEO and co-founder Derek Alia told CoinDesk in an interview. “The amount of possibilities now are very, very cool.” Relevant mews Coinbase Co-Founder’s Venture Firm Raising $1.5B Fund, Document Shows Private Office of UAE Sheikh Launches $100M Blockchain Investment Fund Airdrop Ethics: VC Firm Draws Ire Following $2.5M Ribbon Finance Exploit Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’ Other markets Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): Bitcoin (BTC), +3.9% Filecoin (FIL), +0.3% Notable losers: Algorand (ALGO), -6.4% Polkadot (DOT), -5.6% View comments || Stock Market Today: Stocks Start the Week Sluggishly, But Earnings Await: A businessman sleeps at his desk. Getty Images The stock market was indeed open for Columbus Day , but it sure didn't do much. Equities were mixed for most of Monday amid a slow news day with no significant economic data. U.S. crude oil prices tagged $84.60 per barrel at one point -- their highest price since late 2014 -- before settling at $83.78, up 2.0%. Although the bump in crude prices helped oil stocks such as Halliburton ( HAL , +3.1%) and Schlumberger ( SLB , +2.5%), the energy sector actually finished 0.4% in the red. SEE MORE 13 Dividend Aristocrats You Can Buy at a Discount An afternoon swoon sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.7% lower to 34,496. The S&P 500 declined 0.7% to 4,361, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.6% to 14,486. Potentially spicing things up later this week: The start of the third-quarter earnings season , including reports by JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) and UnitedHealth Group ( UNH ). FactSet Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters says the S&P 500 is expected to report year-over-year profit growth of 27.6%. "We think earnings growth will be strong again this quarter," adds LPL Financial Equity Strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder. "But those looking for massive upside surprises and big increases in estimates will probably be disappointed. The COVID-related supply chain disruptions and labor and materials shortages have held corporate America back some in recent months." Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. "Beyond those widely-reported supply chain challenges facing corporate America, there are other reasons to expect results this quarter to be closer to expectations," he continues. "The latest batch of company pre-announcements has been less positive than in recent quarters, and estimates have stopped rising." Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 was off 0.6% to 2,220. Southwest Airlines ( LUV , -4.2%) shares slipped Monday as the carrier has been forced to cancel more than 2,000 flights since Saturday amid a slew of issues. Southwest cited air traffic control issues and inclement weather. However, its pilot union said in a statement that "(Southwest Airlines) has claimed that the immediate causes of this weekend's meltdown were staffing at Jacksonville Center and weather in the southeast U.S., but what was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure." Now, LUV is considering making additional cuts from a fall flight schedule it has already trimmed. Gold futures settled with a modest 0.1% decline to $1,755.70. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) climbed 6.8% to 20.05. Bitcoin prices bucked equities' trend, climbing 5.2% to $57,494.47. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Story continues stock chart for 101121 YCharts Don't Turn Your Gaze Away From Washington One thing we'll likely hear less about in the days ahead: The debt ceiling. SEE MORE The Best Vanguard Funds for 401(k) Retirement Savers Last week, the Senate agreed upon a stopgap bill that will effectively push the issue off into December, with the House expected to vote on the measure Tuesday. As a result, Democrats should be able to concentrate on one of their top priorities. "Democrats have yet to unify behind their multitrillion-dollar spending plans on infrastructure, social policy and climate change, [but] the temporary debt ceiling increase will likely allow the Democratic Party to focus on rallying its members in Congress around the spending plans – key legislative priorities ahead of the 2022 midterm elections," write analysts at BlackRock Investment Institute. While BII notes that "the $3.5 trillion price tag of the bill on social policy and climate change is being scaled down to help ensure the support of party moderates," any progress on that is likely to add more fuel to green energy and electric-vehicle plays . Investors no doubt are also looking for a positive conclusion to infrastructure-bill negotiations, which have gone through various fits and starts for months. But if Congressional momentum picks up once more, expect the market to return yet again to the infrastructure trade -- which investors can hop on via a few exchange-traded funds (ETFs) , as well as these 14 appropriately positioned stocks . SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 5 Beaten-Down Stocks to Buy on the Dip HSA Contribution Limits and Other Requirements || Stock Market Today: Stocks Start the Week Sluggishly, But Earnings Await: A businessman sleeps at his desk. Getty Images The stock market was indeed open for Columbus Day , but it sure didn't do much. Equities were mixed for most of Monday amid a slow news day with no significant economic data. U.S. crude oil prices tagged $84.60 per barrel at one point -- their highest price since late 2014 -- before settling at $83.78, up 2.0%. Although the bump in crude prices helped oil stocks such as Halliburton ( HAL , +3.1%) and Schlumberger ( SLB , +2.5%), the energy sector actually finished 0.4% in the red. SEE MORE 13 Dividend Aristocrats You Can Buy at a Discount An afternoon swoon sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.7% lower to 34,496. The S&P 500 declined 0.7% to 4,361, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.6% to 14,486. Potentially spicing things up later this week: The start of the third-quarter earnings season , including reports by JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) and UnitedHealth Group ( UNH ). FactSet Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters says the S&P 500 is expected to report year-over-year profit growth of 27.6%. "We think earnings growth will be strong again this quarter," adds LPL Financial Equity Strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder. "But those looking for massive upside surprises and big increases in estimates will probably be disappointed. The COVID-related supply chain disruptions and labor and materials shortages have held corporate America back some in recent months." Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. "Beyond those widely-reported supply chain challenges facing corporate America, there are other reasons to expect results this quarter to be closer to expectations," he continues. "The latest batch of company pre-announcements has been less positive than in recent quarters, and estimates have stopped rising." Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 was off 0.6% to 2,220. Southwest Airlines ( LUV , -4.2%) shares slipped Monday as the carrier has been forced to cancel more than 2,000 flights since Saturday amid a slew of issues. Southwest cited air traffic control issues and inclement weather. However, its pilot union said in a statement that "(Southwest Airlines) has claimed that the immediate causes of this weekend's meltdown were staffing at Jacksonville Center and weather in the southeast U.S., but what was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure." Now, LUV is considering making additional cuts from a fall flight schedule it has already trimmed. Gold futures settled with a modest 0.1% decline to $1,755.70. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) climbed 6.8% to 20.05. Bitcoin prices bucked equities' trend, climbing 5.2% to $57,494.47. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Story continues stock chart for 101121 YCharts Don't Turn Your Gaze Away From Washington One thing we'll likely hear less about in the days ahead: The debt ceiling. SEE MORE The Best Vanguard Funds for 401(k) Retirement Savers Last week, the Senate agreed upon a stopgap bill that will effectively push the issue off into December, with the House expected to vote on the measure Tuesday. As a result, Democrats should be able to concentrate on one of their top priorities. "Democrats have yet to unify behind their multitrillion-dollar spending plans on infrastructure, social policy and climate change, [but] the temporary debt ceiling increase will likely allow the Democratic Party to focus on rallying its members in Congress around the spending plans – key legislative priorities ahead of the 2022 midterm elections," write analysts at BlackRock Investment Institute. While BII notes that "the $3.5 trillion price tag of the bill on social policy and climate change is being scaled down to help ensure the support of party moderates," any progress on that is likely to add more fuel to green energy and electric-vehicle plays . Investors no doubt are also looking for a positive conclusion to infrastructure-bill negotiations, which have gone through various fits and starts for months. But if Congressional momentum picks up once more, expect the market to return yet again to the infrastructure trade -- which investors can hop on via a few exchange-traded funds (ETFs) , as well as these 14 appropriately positioned stocks . SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 5 Beaten-Down Stocks to Buy on the Dip HSA Contribution Limits and Other Requirements || Moscow and Latin America: Growing Together: The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.
Photo byCHUTTERSNAPonUnsplash
The International Monetary Fundis predictingthat Latin America and the Caribbean will see gross domestic product (GDP) rise 5.8% by the end of 2021 and another 3.1% next year. The region’s more than 500 million residents generate a total GDP of USD 4.166 billion per year, or approximately 4.9% of global GDP,estimatedby the World Bank at USD 84.705 trillion. The region is a sizable sales market and a serious economic partner.
As Russia’s financial and economic capital, Moscow is interested in opportunities to strengthen ties and increase trade turnover with Latin America and the Caribbean. The Mosprom Export Support Center hosted a series ofonline roundtablesin mid-September on economic cooperation between Moscow and Latin America in 2021 called Moving Forward: Exporting Goods to Latin America. In this article, we look at the future prospects for trade between Moscow and Latin America and consider how both regions might help boost each other’s economies.
Breakdown of Moscow’s Exports to Latin America
Before we turn to the future, let’s gain a clear picture of how trade stands today. According to Alexander Prokhorov, head of Moscow’s department for investment and industrial policy, Moscow accounts for 22.5% of Russia’s total trade turnover with Latin America of USD 13 billion. The capital city exported USD 212 million in non-resource and non-energy exports to Latin America in the first half of 2021 alone, four times more than the year before. In the same period, trade turnover with the region increased 45%.
Moscow’s exporters sold goods to 19 countries in Latin America, with most of the volume bound for Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Peru. Industrial products, at USD 200 million, accounted for the majority of the exports. These numbers show that Latin America’s markets have significant growth potential for Moscow-based companies.
Value Chains Deliver Growth
The bulk of Latin America’s imports consist of goods for its agricultural and livestock industries, while most of Moscow’s exports to the region are industrial goods, from plastic items and prepackaged pharmaceuticals to diagnostic reagents and food products. Notably, 2021 saw Moscow-based companies restart exports to Latin America of a number of products they had stopped exporting several years before, namely dairy products, meat, and ready-made meat and fish products.
Sergio Contreras, executive vice president of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Science, and Technology, believes that Moscow and Mexico would do well to cooperate in creating global value chains. The auto industry, oil refining, and automobile and truck parts are areas where he sees the most potential.
Dmitry Razumovsky, Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, points out that the current trend in Latin American countries is to focus on technological independence and self-sufficiency. The modern economy demands that countries become increasingly competitive and productive, and that requires technological upgrades.
According to Razumovsky, those upgrades do not have to happen across the board. Jumping up a single level in the value chain can be enough to deliver noticeable results, and local efforts are often sufficient to make it happen. For example, Latin America is the birthplace of cacao, but the region produces relatively little chocolate because of the difficulty of competing with higher quality European chocolate. The region’s growers export inexpensive cocoa beans instead. However, cocoa liquor, an intermediate product in demand in Europe and the United States, would be a more profitable export for Latin American growers. Moscow-based Kadzama manufactures and sells equipment for turning cocoa beans into liquor. The equipment is affordable for a wide range of enterprises and can help Latin American growers boost the added value of their products. Kadzama exports significant shipments of its cocoa processing equipment to countries in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, as well as to Japan.
Technology Drives Trade
One of the most promising areas for mutual growth is the creation of joint ventures based in Latin America using Russian technologies. As an example, Bolivia is working with Russian scientists to build a high-elevation nuclear research reactor complex with a radiopharmaceuticals laboratory.
Argentine ambassador to Russia Eduardo Antonio Zuain believes in the potential of joint ventures based on technology transfer in the fields of shipbuilding, railways, power-generation infrastructure, and renewable energy sources.
Anna Kuzmenko, deputy director of Moscow’s department for investment and industrial policy, agrees with Zuain that the city could be exporting a wider range of goods, including through participation in infrastructure projects in Latin America. Mexico alone is currently pursuing 39 such projects at a total cost of close to USD 14 billion. Potential areas of interest to Moscow’s industrial exporters include the construction of roads, ports, and railways, energy projects, and water, sewer, and waste management projects.
Digitalization
Russia boasts sophisticated FinTech and e-commerce infrastructure, which uniquely positions Moscow-based companies to help Latin America get up to speed with digital services for business and daily life. The quality of the region’s digital solutions lags behind even as experts estimate that the FinTech market in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico is growing a whopping 70-80% each year, making this the perfect time for Moscow’s developers to offer more advanced solutions.
Digital services from Moscow can also increase the margins for Latin America’s traditional industries. During Mosprom’s online roundtable, an AgroDroneGroup leader explained how unmanned systems can help increase yields, optimize government subsidies, develop new agricultural chemicals, and solve a wide range of other tasks. In its 11 years in the market, the company has amassed impressive experience and trained its drones to analyze field data and report issues for a range of crops.
Technologies for the spot application of herbicides in soybean fields present a strong business case for precision agriculture. After analyzing weed distribution in a test field, AgroDroneGroup created a map with zones showing where herbicides should or should not be applied. The grower was able to cut its herbicide use 90% while harvesting the expected yield. This delivered savings of over USD 1,000 per hectare.
Focus on Quality
Moscow-based manufacturers have a significant advantage over competitors from countries like China, namely their optimal price/quality ratio. Chinese loans are not as cheap as they were five or ten years ago, and Chinese manufacturers no longer offer the best prices in every case. The weak ruble gives an additional boost to Moscow-based manufacturers in new markets.
The director of Incotex, which sells its Leader Light brand of lighting solutions in Latin America and positions itself as a quality supplier, told other round table participants about its sale of 5,000 LED luminary lights to Argentina four years ago through a joint project with Avangard Energy SRL. Since the time of the sale, no lights have been returned and the buyer has received nothing but positive comments. These results are especially heartening given that the customer installed the lights in a coastal region of the tropics (Quilmes, Bahía Blanca, and Buenos Aires).
Latin American growers may demonstrate an interest in sensors, parts, microchips, and even entire high-quality precision agriculture solutions from Moscow-based companies. One capital exporter manufactures grass cutters that could be used to prepare fodder for large livestock operations in Argentina and the rest of Latin America.
Potential Barriers
There are five key barriers that Moscow’s exporters need to consider when eyeing opportunities in Latin America:
• Import duties.MERCOSUR maintains protectionist import duties as high as 35%, and local customers may not be aware of additional taxes that a Russian business will encounter upon sale.
• Certification requirements that essentially protect existing monopolies.As an example, Diagnostica-M, which makes security equipment, encountered certification requirements that were written to exclude all but Latin American manufacturers.
• Distance and time difference.Ensol, an exporter of lithium-ion batteries to 17 countries around the world, including Costa Rica, has found time and distance to be a factor. It can be difficult to find meeting times that work for everyone. And while traveling to the customer’s location is expensive and time-consuming, it can be difficult to explain all the nuances of a complex product by remote meeting – the manufacturer is left wondering if the customers got all the details they needed.
• Language barrier.The language barrier comes into play when translating specialized engineering terms between Russian and Spanish or Portuguese. Moscow-based companies hire interpreters to travel with them, since it is not always possible to find qualified Russian interpreters on-site in Latin America.
• Shipping. Evropeyskaya Elektrotechnica experienced first-hand some of the difficulties of delivering equipment to the region. In late 2018 the company signed a memorandum with Ecuador’s national power company to supply oil-saving equipment. The equipment was delivered, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented the Moscow-based company from sending its installation and service teams to get it up and running. In current conditions, travel to Ecuador from Russia takes three to four days and a layover in Panama. The company is waiting for direct flights to resume so that it can complete the project.
These barriers are all surmountable. The Mosprom Export Support Center is already helping local companies start exporting to Latin America. This spring, Mosprom organized a business mission that took industrial manufacturers to the region to find foreign buyers and meet end-consumers with an interest in products from Moscow. Mosprom took care of all pre-market issues and adapted the exporters’ marketing materials for the Latin American market with the help of an expert professional translator.
The Center’s experts also gave exporters advanced details about all import duties and hidden taxes, certification requirements by industry, and the size of various sectors of the economy. Delivery problems will get ironed out as coronavirus restrictions are lifted and regular flights resume, and the lack of specialized translators should ease as the regions continue to cooperate, with supply growing to meet demand. By and large, Moscow’s future in Latin America depends more on businesses and their ability to see opportunities and negotiate deals than on external factors.
Right now, Moscow-based manufacturers of food products are preparing for the ANUGA-2021 food and beverage fair in Germany. Five exporters will present their products at a Mosprom-sponsored stand. Exporters at the stand include a manufacturer of confectionery and organics, two ice cream makers, and companies manufacturing meat and pasta products.
ANUGA is the world’s leading food industry trade show, with over 150,000 food and beverage experts in attendance each year. The fact that 90% of the exhibitors come from outside Germany underscores the event’s status and importance for exporters around the world.
The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Moscow and Latin America: Growing Together: The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash The International Monetary Fund is predicting that Latin America and the Caribbean will see gross domestic product (GDP) rise 5.8% by the end of 2021 and another 3.1% next year. The region’s more than 500 million residents generate a total GDP of USD 4.166 billion per year, or approximately 4.9% of global GDP, estimated by the World Bank at USD 84.705 trillion. The region is a sizable sales market and a serious economic partner. As Russia’s financial and economic capital, Moscow is interested in opportunities to strengthen ties and increase trade turnover with Latin America and the Caribbean. The Mosprom Export Support Center hosted a series of online roundtables in mid-September on economic cooperation between Moscow and Latin America in 2021 called Moving Forward: Exporting Goods to Latin America. In this article, we look at the future prospects for trade between Moscow and Latin America and consider how both regions might help boost each other’s economies. Breakdown of Moscow’s Exports to Latin America Before we turn to the future, let’s gain a clear picture of how trade stands today. According to Alexander Prokhorov, head of Moscow’s department for investment and industrial policy, Moscow accounts for 22.5% of Russia’s total trade turnover with Latin America of USD 13 billion. The capital city exported USD 212 million in non-resource and non-energy exports to Latin America in the first half of 2021 alone, four times more than the year before. In the same period, trade turnover with the region increased 45%. Moscow’s exporters sold goods to 19 countries in Latin America, with most of the volume bound for Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Peru. Industrial products, at USD 200 million, accounted for the majority of the exports. These numbers show that Latin America’s markets have significant growth potential for Moscow-based companies. Story continues Value Chains Deliver Growth The bulk of Latin America’s imports consist of goods for its agricultural and livestock industries, while most of Moscow’s exports to the region are industrial goods, from plastic items and prepackaged pharmaceuticals to diagnostic reagents and food products. Notably, 2021 saw Moscow-based companies restart exports to Latin America of a number of products they had stopped exporting several years before, namely dairy products, meat, and ready-made meat and fish products. Sergio Contreras, executive vice president of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Science, and Technology, believes that Moscow and Mexico would do well to cooperate in creating global value chains. The auto industry, oil refining, and automobile and truck parts are areas where he sees the most potential. Dmitry Razumovsky, Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, points out that the current trend in Latin American countries is to focus on technological independence and self-sufficiency. The modern economy demands that countries become increasingly competitive and productive, and that requires technological upgrades. According to Razumovsky, those upgrades do not have to happen across the board. Jumping up a single level in the value chain can be enough to deliver noticeable results, and local efforts are often sufficient to make it happen. For example, Latin America is the birthplace of cacao, but the region produces relatively little chocolate because of the difficulty of competing with higher quality European chocolate. The region’s growers export inexpensive cocoa beans instead. However, cocoa liquor, an intermediate product in demand in Europe and the United States, would be a more profitable export for Latin American growers. Moscow-based Kadzama manufactures and sells equipment for turning cocoa beans into liquor. The equipment is affordable for a wide range of enterprises and can help Latin American growers boost the added value of their products. Kadzama exports significant shipments of its cocoa processing equipment to countries in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, as well as to Japan. Technology Drives Trade One of the most promising areas for mutual growth is the creation of joint ventures based in Latin America using Russian technologies. As an example, Bolivia is working with Russian scientists to build a high-elevation nuclear research reactor complex with a radiopharmaceuticals laboratory. Argentine ambassador to Russia Eduardo Antonio Zuain believes in the potential of joint ventures based on technology transfer in the fields of shipbuilding, railways, power-generation infrastructure, and renewable energy sources. Anna Kuzmenko, deputy director of Moscow’s department for investment and industrial policy, agrees with Zuain that the city could be exporting a wider range of goods, including through participation in infrastructure projects in Latin America. Mexico alone is currently pursuing 39 such projects at a total cost of close to USD 14 billion. Potential areas of interest to Moscow’s industrial exporters include the construction of roads, ports, and railways, energy projects, and water, sewer, and waste management projects. Digitalization Russia boasts sophisticated FinTech and e-commerce infrastructure, which uniquely positions Moscow-based companies to help Latin America get up to speed with digital services for business and daily life. The quality of the region’s digital solutions lags behind even as experts estimate that the FinTech market in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico is growing a whopping 70-80% each year, making this the perfect time for Moscow’s developers to offer more advanced solutions. Digital services from Moscow can also increase the margins for Latin America’s traditional industries. During Mosprom’s online roundtable, an AgroDroneGroup leader explained how unmanned systems can help increase yields, optimize government subsidies, develop new agricultural chemicals, and solve a wide range of other tasks. In its 11 years in the market, the company has amassed impressive experience and trained its drones to analyze field data and report issues for a range of crops. Technologies for the spot application of herbicides in soybean fields present a strong business case for precision agriculture. After analyzing weed distribution in a test field, AgroDroneGroup created a map with zones showing where herbicides should or should not be applied. The grower was able to cut its herbicide use 90% while harvesting the expected yield. This delivered savings of over USD 1,000 per hectare. Focus on Quality Moscow-based manufacturers have a significant advantage over competitors from countries like China, namely their optimal price/quality ratio. Chinese loans are not as cheap as they were five or ten years ago, and Chinese manufacturers no longer offer the best prices in every case. The weak ruble gives an additional boost to Moscow-based manufacturers in new markets. The director of Incotex, which sells its Leader Light brand of lighting solutions in Latin America and positions itself as a quality supplier, told other round table participants about its sale of 5,000 LED luminary lights to Argentina four years ago through a joint project with Avangard Energy SRL. Since the time of the sale, no lights have been returned and the buyer has received nothing but positive comments. These results are especially heartening given that the customer installed the lights in a coastal region of the tropics (Quilmes, Bahía Blanca, and Buenos Aires). Latin American growers may demonstrate an interest in sensors, parts, microchips, and even entire high-quality precision agriculture solutions from Moscow-based companies. One capital exporter manufactures grass cutters that could be used to prepare fodder for large livestock operations in Argentina and the rest of Latin America. Potential Barriers There are five key barriers that Moscow’s exporters need to consider when eyeing opportunities in Latin America: Import duties. MERCOSUR maintains protectionist import duties as high as 35%, and local customers may not be aware of additional taxes that a Russian business will encounter upon sale. Certification requirements that essentially protect existing monopolies. As an example, Diagnostica-M, which makes security equipment, encountered certification requirements that were written to exclude all but Latin American manufacturers. Distance and time difference. Ensol, an exporter of lithium-ion batteries to 17 countries around the world, including Costa Rica, has found time and distance to be a factor. It can be difficult to find meeting times that work for everyone. And while traveling to the customer’s location is expensive and time-consuming, it can be difficult to explain all the nuances of a complex product by remote meeting – the manufacturer is left wondering if the customers got all the details they needed. Language barrier. The language barrier comes into play when translating specialized engineering terms between Russian and Spanish or Portuguese. Moscow-based companies hire interpreters to travel with them, since it is not always possible to find qualified Russian interpreters on-site in Latin America. Shipping . Evropeyskaya Elektrotechnica experienced first-hand some of the difficulties of delivering equipment to the region. In late 2018 the company signed a memorandum with Ecuador’s national power company to supply oil-saving equipment. The equipment was delivered, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented the Moscow-based company from sending its installation and service teams to get it up and running. In current conditions, travel to Ecuador from Russia takes three to four days and a layover in Panama. The company is waiting for direct flights to resume so that it can complete the project. These barriers are all surmountable. The Mosprom Export Support Center is already helping local companies start exporting to Latin America. This spring, Mosprom organized a business mission that took industrial manufacturers to the region to find foreign buyers and meet end-consumers with an interest in products from Moscow. Mosprom took care of all pre-market issues and adapted the exporters’ marketing materials for the Latin American market with the help of an expert professional translator. The Center’s experts also gave exporters advanced details about all import duties and hidden taxes, certification requirements by industry, and the size of various sectors of the economy. Delivery problems will get ironed out as coronavirus restrictions are lifted and regular flights resume, and the lack of specialized translators should ease as the regions continue to cooperate, with supply growing to meet demand. By and large, Moscow’s future in Latin America depends more on businesses and their ability to see opportunities and negotiate deals than on external factors. Right now, Moscow-based manufacturers of food products are preparing for the ANUGA-2021 food and beverage fair in Germany. Five exporters will present their products at a Mosprom-sponsored stand. Exporters at the stand include a manufacturer of confectionery and organics, two ice cream makers, and companies manufacturing meat and pasta products. ANUGA is the world’s leading food industry trade show, with over 150,000 food and beverage experts in attendance each year. The fact that 90% of the exhibitors come from outside Germany underscores the event’s status and importance for exporters around the world. The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga It's a Done Deal: 365 Cannabis Sold to Akerna Bitcoin Gold, Huobi Token Among Top Crypto Movers In 24H © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon questions 21 million bitcoin cap: Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest U.S. bank, took another jab at bitcoin bulls on Monday, alleging that the cryptocurrency may not be limited in quantity. “I'll just challenge the group to one other thing: how do you know it ends at 21 million? You all read the algorithms? You guys all believe that? I don't know, I've always been a skeptic of stuff like that,” said the JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) CEO at an Institute for International Finance event on Oct. 11. The price of bitcoin was hovering around $57,000 as of Monday morning. Dimon was questioning the key basis of bitcoin: a 21 million coin cap that gives the asset the appeal of a controlled supply. But the bitcoin code clearly notes that the maximum number of coins is 21 million. In theory, the open source nature of the bitcoin code would allow for changes to that cap, but it would require sign off from a large share of Bitcoin “nodes” that host and run the software. The 21 million coin cap serves as a major pillar of the cryptocurrency’s value proposition, making it unlikely that the community would ever move to change that. 'I'm not going to stop our people from banking it' Dimon said that he still feels bitcoin is “worthless,” but elaborated that his opinions on cryptocurrency do not determine JPMorgan Chase’s approach to offering crypto products. The CEO said that the bank can offer clients some "legitimate" access to the crypto space if they want (although the bank isn't offering custody services). The CEO’s remarks echo his commentary from May, when he compared the rising asset class to the business of banking weed. "My own personal advice to people is: stay away from it. That does not mean the clients don't want it,” Dimon told Congress on May 27. “This goes back to how you have to run a business. I don't smoke marijuana but if you make it nationally legal, I'm not going to stop our people from banking it." Although JPMorgan Chase is not offering crypto custody at the moment, the bank is toying around with blockchain technologies through its “Onyx” business. The bank is building up a network that it has started using to trade smart contracts with other banks . Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz . Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit View comments || JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon questions 21 million bitcoin cap: Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest U.S. bank, took another jab at bitcoin bulls on Monday, alleging that the cryptocurrency may not be limited in quantity.
“I'll just challenge the group to one other thing: how do you know it ends at 21 million? You all read the algorithms? You guys all believe that? I don't know, I've always been a skeptic of stuff like that,” said the JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO at an Institute for International Finance event on Oct. 11.
The price ofbitcoinwas hovering around $57,000 as of Monday morning.
Dimon was questioning the key basis of bitcoin: a 21 million coin cap that gives the asset the appeal of a controlled supply.
But the bitcoin codeclearly notesthat the maximum number of coins is 21 million. In theory, the open source nature of the bitcoin code would allow for changes to that cap, but it would require sign off from a large share of Bitcoin “nodes” that host and run the software.
The 21 million coin cap serves as a major pillar of the cryptocurrency’s value proposition, making it unlikely that the community would ever move to change that.
Dimon said that he still feels bitcoin is “worthless,” but elaborated that his opinions on cryptocurrency do not determine JPMorgan Chase’s approach to offering crypto products. The CEO said that the bank can offer clients some "legitimate" access to the crypto space if they want (although the bank isn't offering custody services).
The CEO’s remarks echo his commentary from May, when he compared the rising asset class to the business of banking weed.
"My own personal advice to people is: stay away from it. That does not mean the clients don't want it,” Dimontold Congresson May 27. “This goes back to how you have to run a business. I don't smoke marijuana but if you make it nationally legal, I'm not going to stop our people from banking it."
Although JPMorgan Chase is not offering crypto custody at the moment, the bank is toying around with blockchain technologies through its “Onyx” business. The bank is building up a network that it has started using totrade smart contracts with other banks.
Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter@bcheungz.
• Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit
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57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 2038.87, 2155.80, 2255.61, 2175.47, 2286.41, 2407.88, 2488.55, 2515.35, 2511.81, 2686.81, 2863.20, 2732.16, 2805.62, 2823.81, 2947.71, 2958.11, 2659.63, 2717.02, 2506.37, 2464.58, 2518.56, 2655.88, 2548.29, 2589.60, 2721.79, 2689.10, 2705.41, 2744.91, 2608.72, 2589.41, 2478.45, 2552.45, 2574.79, 2539.32, 2480.84, 2434.55, 2506.47, 2564.06, 2601.64, 2601.99, 2608.56, 2518.66, 2571.34, 2518.44, 2372.56, 2337.79, 2398.84, 2357.90, 2233.34, 1998.86, 1929.82, 2228.41, 2318.88, 2273.43, 2817.60, 2667.76, 2810.12, 2730.40, 2754.86, 2576.48, 2529.45, 2671.78, 2809.01, 2726.45, 2757.18, 2875.34, 2718.26, 2710.67, 2804.73, 2895.89, 3252.91, 3213.94, 3378.94, 3419.94, 3342.47, 3381.28, 3650.62, 3884.71, 4073.26, 4325.13, 4181.93, 4376.63, 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-08-24]
Volume: 2037750016, RSI (14-day): 69.56, 50-day EMA: 3325.75, 200-day EMA: 2248.15
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1286.50, Gold RSI: 61.17
Oil Price: 47.43, Oil RSI: 47.76
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon: There's a bewildering rally taking place within the commodities markets, and few on Wall Street are buying it. Base metals, a group that includes everything from copper to zinc to aluminum, have shot higher in 2017 despite a relatively dismal year for the broader commodity market.
ThePowerShares DB Base Metals Fund (DBB), which holds an equal-weighted basket of all three metals, has jumped 20.8% year-to-date, handily outperforming the 6.9% loss for the broadPowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (DBC), the 13.3% swoon for thePowerShares DB Energy Fund (DBE)and the 7.4% decline for thePowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA).
YTD Returns For DBB, DBC, DBE, DBA
Factors Driving Rally
Analysts attribute the base metals rally to a few factors, including rebounding growth in China and a weaker U.S. dollar.
GDP in China expanded by 6.9% during the first half of 2017, outpacing the government's target of 6.5% and even last year’s 6.7% growth rate. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index has slid 8.7% so far this year.
But those bullish factors aren't unique to base metals. Other commodities would seemingly benefit from a stronger Chinese economy and sliding greenback, but they haven't. That means it may be the supply side that's really powering metals higher.
"Our view is that there are several separate factors at play accelerating the metals' price boom. Demand conditions within China are supportive and the dollar has weakened,” said Dane Davis, commodities research analyst for Barclays. “That helps, but it’s not enough. What’s turbo-charging some metals are supply disruptions and tightness. Copper, for example, has seen disruptions ranging from weather to strikes, cutting 612 kt [612,000 metric tons] of production so far in 2017."
‘Tightening Environmental Controls’
Robin Bhar, head of metals research for Societe Generale, also sees the industry as getting a supply-side lift from environmental reforms in China.
"Supply-side reforms in China are a key factor" driving the rally, he noted, adding: "Tightening environmental controls/monitoring of mines and smelters (mainly aluminum and zinc) are constraining output. In aluminum, smelting capacity is being forced to close if it doesn’t have the necessary licenses from the central government."
While analysts largely agree on what's driving metals higher, they're split over whether the rally will continue. Most agree with Barclays’ Davis, who noted that "something seems off about this recent rally" and that he remains "skeptical of its strength and duration."
Keep An Eye On Iron Ore
Davis is especially wary of iron ore, a key ingredient in making steel. The steel market is running very hot at the moment in China, but that will likely change relatively soon, he says.
"While demand conditions are supportive in the short term, they’re running up against long-term head winds, including a China that is facing demographic pressures of a slowdown," Davis predicted.
Meanwhile, Bernard Dahdah and Alomgir Miah, analysts at Natixis, also believe the rally will run out of steam soon.
"Although in the long run we are bullish on copper and aluminium, we believe in the short to medium term they have overshot where they should be fundamentally due to the excitement of better- than-expected demand indicators in China," they said. "We expect prices for both metals to fall in Q4'17 after the end of leadership elections in China."
On the other hand, Societe Generale's Bhar believes there is ample support for a continued rally in base metals.
Though nickel in particular looks overvalued, "base metals overall from a supply/demand perspective are in better balance and inventories are falling," he said.
In Bhar's view, the base metals uptrend is sustainable through the end of the year, but the situation gets murkier in 2018 when he anticipates China's economy will slow.
Contact Sumit Roy [email protected].
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• Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon
Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon: There's a bewildering rally taking place within the commodities markets, and few on Wall Street are buying it. Base metals, a group that includes everything from copper to zinc to aluminum, have shot higher in 2017 despite a relatively dismal year for the broader commodity market. The PowerShares DB Base Metals Fund (DBB) , which holds an equal-weighted basket of all three metals, has jumped 20.8% year-to-date, handily outperforming the 6.9% loss for the broad PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (DBC) , the 13.3% swoon for the PowerShares DB Energy Fund (DBE) and the 7.4% decline for the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA) . YTD Returns For DBB, DBC, DBE, DBA Factors Driving Rally Analysts attribute the base metals rally to a few factors, including rebounding growth in China and a weaker U.S. dollar. GDP in China expanded by 6.9% during the first half of 2017, outpacing the government's target of 6.5% and even last year’s 6.7% growth rate. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index has slid 8.7% so far this year. But those bullish factors aren't unique to base metals. Other commodities would seemingly benefit from a stronger Chinese economy and sliding greenback, but they haven't. That means it may be the supply side that's really powering metals higher. "Our view is that there are several separate factors at play accelerating the metals' price boom. Demand conditions within China are supportive and the dollar has weakened,” said Dane Davis, commodities research analyst for Barclays. “That helps, but it’s not enough. What’s turbo-charging some metals are supply disruptions and tightness. Copper, for example, has seen disruptions ranging from weather to strikes, cutting 612 kt [612,000 metric tons] of production so far in 2017." ‘Tightening Environmental Controls’ Robin Bhar, head of metals research for Societe Generale, also sees the industry as getting a supply-side lift from environmental reforms in China. "Supply-side reforms in China are a key factor" driving the rally, he noted, adding: "Tightening environmental controls/monitoring of mines and smelters (mainly aluminum and zinc) are constraining output. In aluminum, smelting capacity is being forced to close if it doesn’t have the necessary licenses from the central government." While analysts largely agree on what's driving metals higher, they're split over whether the rally will continue. Most agree with Barclays’ Davis, who noted that "something seems off about this recent rally" and that he remains "skeptical of its strength and duration." Story continues Keep An Eye On Iron Ore Davis is especially wary of iron ore, a key ingredient in making steel. The steel market is running very hot at the moment in China, but that will likely change relatively soon, he says. "While demand conditions are supportive in the short term, they’re running up against long-term head winds, including a China that is facing demographic pressures of a slowdown," Davis predicted. Meanwhile, Bernard Dahdah and Alomgir Miah, analysts at Natixis, also believe the rally will run out of steam soon. "Although in the long run we are bullish on copper and aluminium, we believe in the short to medium term they have overshot where they should be fundamentally due to the excitement of better- than-expected demand indicators in China," they said. "We expect prices for both metals to fall in Q4'17 after the end of leadership elections in China." On the other hand, Societe Generale's Bhar believes there is ample support for a continued rally in base metals. Though nickel in particular looks overvalued, "base metals overall from a supply/demand perspective are in better balance and inventories are falling," he said. In Bhar's view, the base metals uptrend is sustainable through the end of the year, but the situation gets murkier in 2018 when he anticipates China's economy will slow. Contact Sumit Roy at [email protected] . Recommended Stories Why The Lithium ETF Is Up 58% This Year Bitcoin Vs Gold Debate Barclays' Cohen On Oil Topping $60 Hurricane Fuels Refinery ETFs More Than Oil Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved View comments || Bitcoin price rises again above $4,000 - but will it hit a new all-time high?: Bitcoin price: Will it hit a new all-time high? - Bloomberg News Bitcoin s value has once again risen above $4,000 per coin - but will we see the bubble burst any time soon? The price of the virtual currency, which hit a record high of $4,500 (£3,492) last week , has jumped up to $4,276 to recover from yesterdays seven-day low . Bitcoins value has soared over the past 12 months, with its record-breaking rally coming after its recent split into two separate cryptocurrencies . But what next for the volatile cryptocurrency? Analysts remain divided about what we can expect over the next few months. FAQ | Bitcoin Wall Street strategist Tom Lee believes the price of Bitcoin, which surpassed gold for the first time in March , could eventually rise by another 40 per cent. He believes the price will continue to rise should the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund receive US regulatory approval. Lee said in a recent note to clients that it implies significant rise [in] institutional holdings of Bitcoin in next 6-8 months given recent approvals. No doubt, this will lead to an increase in overall transaction volumes for bitcoin. He added: We see bitcoin as gaining from institutional sponsorship, improving transaction platforms and ultimately, greater public adoption. Could bitcoin replace gold? Credit: Getty Lee predicts cryptocurrencies could eventually replace gold, although warned investors about a highly volatile market in the short-term. We believe one of the drivers [of bitcoin] is cryptocurrencies are cannibalizing demand for gold, he said. Based on this premise, we take a stab at establishing valuation framework for bitcoin. Based on our model, we estimate that bitcoins value per unit could be $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022. Bitcoins price has increased so much that £2,000 invested five years ago would make you a millionaire today. November will be a crucial month for bitcoin, when a new technology called Segwit2x moves some of bitcoins transaction data outside of the block and on to a parallel track to allow more transactions to take place . || Bitcoin price rises again above $4,000 - but will it hit a new all-time high?: Bitcoin price: Will it hit a new all-time high? - Bloomberg News Bitcoin s value has once again risen above $4,000 per coin - but will we see the bubble burst any time soon? The price of the virtual currency, which hit a record high of $4,500 (£3,492) last week , has jumped up to $4,276 to recover from yesterdays seven-day low . Bitcoins value has soared over the past 12 months, with its record-breaking rally coming after its recent split into two separate cryptocurrencies . But what next for the volatile cryptocurrency? Analysts remain divided about what we can expect over the next few months. FAQ | Bitcoin Wall Street strategist Tom Lee believes the price of Bitcoin, which surpassed gold for the first time in March , could eventually rise by another 40 per cent. He believes the price will continue to rise should the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund receive US regulatory approval. Lee said in a recent note to clients that it implies significant rise [in] institutional holdings of Bitcoin in next 6-8 months given recent approvals. No doubt, this will lead to an increase in overall transaction volumes for bitcoin. He added: We see bitcoin as gaining from institutional sponsorship, improving transaction platforms and ultimately, greater public adoption. Could bitcoin replace gold? Credit: Getty Lee predicts cryptocurrencies could eventually replace gold, although warned investors about a highly volatile market in the short-term. We believe one of the drivers [of bitcoin] is cryptocurrencies are cannibalizing demand for gold, he said. Based on this premise, we take a stab at establishing valuation framework for bitcoin. Based on our model, we estimate that bitcoins value per unit could be $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022. Bitcoins price has increased so much that £2,000 invested five years ago would make you a millionaire today. November will be a crucial month for bitcoin, when a new technology called Segwit2x moves some of bitcoins transaction data outside of the block and on to a parallel track to allow more transactions to take place . || Bitcoin price rises again above $4,000 - but will it hit a new all-time high?: Bitcoin price: Will it hit a new all-time high? - Bloomberg News Bitcoin s value has once again risen above $4,000 per coin - but will we see the bubble burst any time soon? The price of the virtual currency, which hit a record high of $4,500 (£3,492) last week , has jumped up to $4,276 to recover from yesterdays seven-day low . Bitcoins value has soared over the past 12 months, with its record-breaking rally coming after its recent split into two separate cryptocurrencies . But what next for the volatile cryptocurrency? Analysts remain divided about what we can expect over the next few months. FAQ | Bitcoin Wall Street strategist Tom Lee believes the price of Bitcoin, which surpassed gold for the first time in March , could eventually rise by another 40 per cent. He believes the price will continue to rise should the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund receive US regulatory approval. Lee said in a recent note to clients that it implies significant rise [in] institutional holdings of Bitcoin in next 6-8 months given recent approvals. No doubt, this will lead to an increase in overall transaction volumes for bitcoin. He added: We see bitcoin as gaining from institutional sponsorship, improving transaction platforms and ultimately, greater public adoption. Could bitcoin replace gold? Credit: Getty Lee predicts cryptocurrencies could eventually replace gold, although warned investors about a highly volatile market in the short-term. We believe one of the drivers [of bitcoin] is cryptocurrencies are cannibalizing demand for gold, he said. Based on this premise, we take a stab at establishing valuation framework for bitcoin. Based on our model, we estimate that bitcoins value per unit could be $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022. Bitcoins price has increased so much that £2,000 invested five years ago would make you a millionaire today. November will be a crucial month for bitcoin, when a new technology called Segwit2x moves some of bitcoins transaction data outside of the block and on to a parallel track to allow more transactions to take place . || Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble: Billionaire investor and Bitcoin doubter Mark Cuban is coming around on cryptocurrency . Despite saying Bitcoin was a bubble in early June, Cuban has backed venture capital firm 1confirmation, according to Bloomberg . The firm not only has plans to invest some $20 million in companies developing blockchain technologies , but it also wants to invest in early stage companies before they head into an initial coin offering (ICO)—a fundraising effort in which the offering company issues tokens rather than ownership stakes. Founded by Runa Capital principal Nick Tomaino, 1confirmation hopes an early stage investment in a promising albeit unproven company could lead to a discounted token price once young company holds an ICO, according to Bloomberg. 1confirmation also hinted that it hopes to add value to the companies it invests in to bump up its ICO pricing. There's founders in the blockchain ecosystem that aren't spending time marketing & doing an ICO pre-product; they're heads down building — 1confirmation (@1confirmation) August 22, 2017 That approach may not get a lot of attention in the short-term, but it's likely the best way to build for the long-term — 1confirmation (@1confirmation) August 22, 2017 It’s not the first time Cuban has gotten involved in an ICO. Cuban also plans on participating in a fundraising round of sports-betting blockchain platform Unikrn , meaning his latest investment could result in him indirectly owning more than one kind of cryptocurrency. Read: 5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains ICOs have caught fire recently , at least among investors like Cuban. One major selling point is that while traditional methods of investing in a young company usually means holding onto the stake for a long period of time, tokens are far more liquid. If an investor wants out of a company, they can usually trade the company’s coins for Bitcoin of Ether, which can in turn be traded for fiat currency, according to the Harvard Business Review . Story continues Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies have surged in recent months , with Wall Street consistently raising Bitcoin’s value higher and higher. This is part of Fortune’s new initiative, The Ledger , a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. || Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble: Billionaire investor and Bitcoin doubter Mark Cuban is coming around oncryptocurrency.
Despite saying Bitcoin was a bubble in early June, Cuban has backed venture capital firm 1confirmation, according toBloomberg. The firm not only has plans to invest some$20 millionin companies developingblockchain technologies, but it also wants to invest in early stage companies before they head into aninitial coin offering(ICO)—a fundraising effort in which the offering company issues tokens rather than ownership stakes.
Founded by Runa Capital principal Nick Tomaino, 1confirmation hopes an early stage investment in a promising albeit unproven company could lead to a discounted token price once young company holds an ICO, according to Bloomberg.
1confirmation also hinted that it hopes to add value to the companies it invests in to bump up its ICO pricing.
It’s not the first time Cuban has gotten involved in an ICO. Cuban also plans on participating in a fundraising round of sports-betting blockchain platformUnikrn, meaning his latest investment could result in him indirectly owning more than one kind of cryptocurrency.
Read:5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains
ICOs havecaught fire recently, at least among investors like Cuban. One major selling point is that while traditional methods of investing in a young company usually means holding onto the stake for a long period of time, tokens are far more liquid. If an investor wants out of a company, they can usually trade the company’s coins for Bitcoin of Ether, which can in turn be traded for fiat currency, according to theHarvard Business Review.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencieshave surged in recent months, with Wall Street consistently raisingBitcoin’s valuehigher and higher.
This is part of Fortune’s new initiative,The Ledger, a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. || Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble: Billionaire investor and Bitcoin doubter Mark Cuban is coming around oncryptocurrency.
Despite saying Bitcoin was a bubble in early June, Cuban has backed venture capital firm 1confirmation, according toBloomberg. The firm not only has plans to invest some$20 millionin companies developingblockchain technologies, but it also wants to invest in early stage companies before they head into aninitial coin offering(ICO)—a fundraising effort in which the offering company issues tokens rather than ownership stakes.
Founded by Runa Capital principal Nick Tomaino, 1confirmation hopes an early stage investment in a promising albeit unproven company could lead to a discounted token price once young company holds an ICO, according to Bloomberg.
1confirmation also hinted that it hopes to add value to the companies it invests in to bump up its ICO pricing.
It’s not the first time Cuban has gotten involved in an ICO. Cuban also plans on participating in a fundraising round of sports-betting blockchain platformUnikrn, meaning his latest investment could result in him indirectly owning more than one kind of cryptocurrency.
Read:5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains
ICOs havecaught fire recently, at least among investors like Cuban. One major selling point is that while traditional methods of investing in a young company usually means holding onto the stake for a long period of time, tokens are far more liquid. If an investor wants out of a company, they can usually trade the company’s coins for Bitcoin of Ether, which can in turn be traded for fiat currency, according to theHarvard Business Review.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencieshave surged in recent months, with Wall Street consistently raisingBitcoin’s valuehigher and higher.
This is part of Fortune’s new initiative,The Ledger, a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. || Chevron CEO John Watson Expected to Step Down: John Watson, who has led Corp. since 2010, is planning to step down as the oil major seeks a new chief executive officer, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
While the San Ramon, California-based producer has not made a final decision on a successor, Michael Wirth, a 56-year-old Chevron lifer whose elevation was telegraphed in January when the company announced his promotion to vice chairman, has been seen as a leading candidate. An announcement will likely be made next month, the Journal said.
Kent Robertson, a Chevron spokesman, declined to comment on the report.
Watson, 60, was named CEO after he oversaw the integration of Texaco Inc. and Unocal Corp. into Chevron. They were purchased by his acquisitive predecessor and mentor, David O'Reilly. Since the global oil rout began in earnest in 2014, though, Watson has struggled to protect dividend payouts from the ravages of tumbling crude prices and shrinking cash flow.
Watson has resorted to job cuts, project cancellations and billions of dollars in asset sales to cope with an industry downturn that erased $50 billion from Chevron's market value. In 2016, Chevron posted its first annual loss in at least 37 years.
One of Wirth's crowning achievements was the restructuring of Chevron's sprawling refining business by selling off billions of dollars in assets from Africa to Europe.
Under his leadership, the company quit processing crude in Western Europe as that market matured and growth slowed, and sharpened its focus on expanding demand centers in East Asia and Latin America.
Watson later expanded Wirth's portfolio-trimming template to Chevron's worldwide oil and natural gas unit.
Watson was an unlikely oil executive, having majored in agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis, before obtaining his MBA from the University of Chicago. Chevron's mandatory retirement age for employee directors like Watson is 65.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Blue Apron Fires Recruiting Staff and Implements Hiring Freeze || Chevron CEO John Watson Expected to Step Down: John Watson, who has led Corp. since 2010, is planning to step down as the oil major seeks a new chief executive officer, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. While the San Ramon, California-based producer has not made a final decision on a successor, Michael Wirth, a 56-year-old Chevron lifer whose elevation was telegraphed in January when the company announced his promotion to vice chairman, has been seen as a leading candidate. An announcement will likely be made next month, the Journal said. Kent Robertson, a Chevron spokesman, declined to comment on the report. Watson, 60, was named CEO after he oversaw the integration of Texaco Inc. and Unocal Corp. into Chevron. They were purchased by his acquisitive predecessor and mentor, David O'Reilly. Since the global oil rout began in earnest in 2014, though, Watson has struggled to protect dividend payouts from the ravages of tumbling crude prices and shrinking cash flow. Watson has resorted to job cuts, project cancellations and billions of dollars in asset sales to cope with an industry downturn that erased $50 billion from Chevron's market value. In 2016, Chevron posted its first annual loss in at least 37 years. One of Wirth's crowning achievements was the restructuring of Chevron's sprawling refining business by selling off billions of dollars in assets from Africa to Europe. Under his leadership, the company quit processing crude in Western Europe as that market matured and growth slowed, and sharpened its focus on expanding demand centers in East Asia and Latin America. Watson later expanded Wirth's portfolio-trimming template to Chevron's worldwide oil and natural gas unit. Watson was an unlikely oil executive, having majored in agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis, before obtaining his MBA from the University of Chicago. Chevron's mandatory retirement age for employee directors like Watson is 65. Story continues See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Ray Dalio Warns Markets: 'Death Probably More Likely Than Reconciliation' Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble Elon Musk and Bill Gates Share This Daily Routine Habit HSBC Currency Scheme May Have Involved 11 Other Bank Employees Blue Apron Fires Recruiting Staff and Implements Hiring Freeze || The solar eclipse caused a 10% drop in Netflix viewing: (People in Brooklyn, New York watch a partial solar eclipse.Spencer Platt/Getty)
While the solar eclipse drew massive crowds and abare-eyedPresident Trump outside to witness the rare event Monday afternoon, Netflix viewership took a significant hit.
According to the streaming service's U.S. Twitter account, Netflix plays dropped 10 percent during the eclipse.
"Hey, just wondering why 10% of you chose to watch a giant rock cover a giant ball of gas when I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR YOU," Netflixtweeted.The accountadded, "but really, there was a 10% drop in plays during the eclipse today. Well played, Moon."
In addition to losing viewers to the momentary eclipse, Netflix may also have lost some viewers in the long term to eclipse-induced eye damage.
Google searches for"eyes hurt"reportedly spiked following the eclipse, and numerous notable people — including Trump, Tesla CEOElon Musk, and New York Giants wide receiverOdell Beckham Jr.— publicly demonstrated the incorrect, retina-burning technique of viewing the eclipse without special glasses.
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• This teenage Bitcoin millionaire high school dropout is sending a signed Taylor Swift CD into space || Dollar index holds onto gains in subdued trade: Investing.com - The dollar held onto gains against the other major currencies in subdued trade on Tuesday, as investors awaited the Jackson Hole Summit due to begin on Thursday.
Traders were looking ahead to this week's annual meeting of top central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the heads of the U.S. and European central banks will be making keynote speeches.
Their comments will be closely watched for fresh policy signals from the world’s two most powerful central banks.
Ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness.
The yen and Swiss franc were lower, with USD/JPY up 0.36% at 109.35 and with USD/CHF advancing 0.38% to trade at 0.9655.
However, geopolitical tensions persisted after North Korea unveiled a propaganda video of its threat to fire missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam.
Pyongyang threatened the U.S. with “merciless revenge” for ignoring its warnings overannual military drills with South Korea.
Elsewhere, EUR/USD slid 0.47% to 1.1760, while GBP/USD dropped 0.61% to 1.2823.
Data on Tuesday showed that confidence among German investorsdeteriorated for a third consecutive month in August.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars remained weaker, with AUD/USD down 0.18% at 0.7924 and with NZD/USD retreating 0.42% to 0.7297.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD edged down 0.16% to trade at a three-week low of 1.2538 after data showed that Canada's retail salesrose less than expected in June, but the core reading was stronger than forecast.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.41% at 93.38 by 10:50 a.m. ET (02:50 p.m. GMT), off the previous session's one-week low of 92.92.
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Forex - Dollar remains broadly higher in quiet trade || Dollar index holds onto gains in subdued trade: Dollar remains on the upside, Jackson Hole in focus Investing.com - The dollar held onto gains against the other major currencies in subdued trade on Tuesday, as investors awaited the Jackson Hole Summit due to begin on Thursday. Traders were looking ahead to this week's annual meeting of top central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the heads of the U.S. and European central banks will be making keynote speeches. Their comments will be closely watched for fresh policy signals from the world’s two most powerful central banks. Ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness. The yen and Swiss franc were lower, with USD/JPY up 0.36% at 109.35 and with USD/CHF advancing 0.38% to trade at 0.9655. However, geopolitical tensions persisted after North Korea unveiled a propaganda video of its threat to fire missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam. Pyongyang threatened the U.S. with “merciless revenge” for ignoring its warnings over annual military drills with South Korea . Elsewhere, EUR/USD slid 0.47% to 1.1760, while GBP/USD dropped 0.61% to 1.2823. Data on Tuesday showed that confidence among German investors deteriorated for a third consecutive month in August . The Australian and New Zealand dollars remained weaker, with AUD/USD down 0.18% at 0.7924 and with NZD/USD retreating 0.42% to 0.7297. Meanwhile, USD/CAD edged down 0.16% to trade at a three-week low of 1.2538 after data showed that Canada's retail sales rose less than expected in June , but the core reading was stronger than forecast. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.41% at 93.38 by 10:50 a.m. ET (02:50 p.m. GMT), off the previous session's one-week low of 92.92. Related Articles Forex - USD/CAD erases gains, hits 3-week lows Bitcoin falls below $4,000 to hit 7-day low Forex - Dollar remains broadly higher in quiet trade View comments || 5 Strong Buy Stocks a Better Bet Than Bitcoin: Feels like a new day after the eclipse here. Gone are the worries of North Korea and tensions following Charlottesville. We got a big bounce in stocks with virtually no pullbacks today and volatility left the building. All this while the Jackson Hole Summit has central bankers listening to Prince and watching Lonesome Dove.
Check out Dave’s Daily Dive video above where I break down the market action today!!!
Each day I, Dave Bartosiak of Zacks.com (Twitter @bartosiastics) dive into the charts, pointing out key price action and levels for you to watch.
But it doesn’t stop there because the highlight of today’s video, which you can see for free by clicking above, is where I uncover five Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks that are breaking out to new 52-week highs today. These stocks have a ton of momentum behind them and are charging higher. The list of stocks I cover today include:
Alibaba BABA
Alibaba Group Holding Limited Price and Consensus | Alibaba Group Holding Limited Quote
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as an online and mobile commerce company in the People's Republic of China and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Core Commerce, Cloud Computing, Digital Media and Entertainment, and Innovation Initiatives and Others. It operates Taobao Marketplace, a mobile commerce destination; Tmall, a third-party platform for brands and retailers; Rural Taobao program that enables rural residents and businesses to sell agricultural products to urban consumers; Juhuasuan, a sales and marketing platform for flash sales; Alibaba.com, an online wholesale marketplace; Alitrip, an online travel booking platform; 1688.com, an online wholesale marketplace; and AliExpress, a consumer marketplace.
Getty Realty GTY
Getty Realty Corporation Price and Consensus | Getty Realty Corporation Quote
Getty Realty Corp. operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) in the United States. The company engages in the ownership and leasing of retail motor fuel and convenience store properties, and petroleum distribution terminals. The company’s properties are leased or sublet to distributors and retailers engaged in the sale of gasoline and various motor fuel products, convenience store products, and automotive repair services.
China Lodging HTHT
China Lodging Group, Limited Price and Consensus | China Lodging Group, Limited Quote
China Lodging Group, Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops leased and owned, manachised, and franchised hotels primarily in the People’s Republic of China. It operates hotels under the Joya Hotel, Manxin Hotels & Resorts, JI Hotel, Starway Hotel, Elan Hotel, HanTing Hotel, Hi Inn, Grand Mercure Hotel, Novotel Hotel, Mercure Hotel, Ibis Styles Hotel, and Ibis Hotel brand names for business and leisure traveler customers.
Telecom Argentina TEO
Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Price and Consensus | Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Quote
Telecom Argentina S.A. provides fixed-line telecommunications and other telephone-related services to residential customers, businesses, and governmental agencies in Argentina and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Fixed Telecommunications Services, Personal Mobile Telecommunications Services, and Núcleo Mobile Telecommunications Services.
Xplore Technologies XPLR
Xplore Technologies Corp Price and Consensus | Xplore Technologies Corp Quote
Xplore Technologies Corp. develops, integrates, and markets rugged mobile personal computer systems in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company’s products enable the extension of traditional computing systems to a range of field personnel, including energy pipeline inspectors, public safety personnel, warehouse workers, and pharmaceutical scientists.
Now See All Our Private Trades
While today's Zacks Rank #1 new additions are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for all Zacks trades >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportAlibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportXplore Technologies Corp (XPLR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportChina Lodging Group, Limited (HTHT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTelecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. (TEO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportGetty Realty Corporation (GTY) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || 5 Strong Buy Stocks a Better Bet Than Bitcoin: Feels like a new day after the eclipse here. Gone are the worries of North Korea and tensions following Charlottesville. We got a big bounce in stocks with virtually no pullbacks today and volatility left the building. All this while the Jackson Hole Summit has central bankers listening to Prince and watching Lonesome Dove.
Check out Dave’s Daily Dive video above where I break down the market action today!!!
Each day I, Dave Bartosiak of Zacks.com (Twitter @bartosiastics) dive into the charts, pointing out key price action and levels for you to watch.
But it doesn’t stop there because the highlight of today’s video, which you can see for free by clicking above, is where I uncover five Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks that are breaking out to new 52-week highs today. These stocks have a ton of momentum behind them and are charging higher. The list of stocks I cover today include:
Alibaba BABA
Alibaba Group Holding Limited Price and Consensus | Alibaba Group Holding Limited Quote
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as an online and mobile commerce company in the People's Republic of China and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Core Commerce, Cloud Computing, Digital Media and Entertainment, and Innovation Initiatives and Others. It operates Taobao Marketplace, a mobile commerce destination; Tmall, a third-party platform for brands and retailers; Rural Taobao program that enables rural residents and businesses to sell agricultural products to urban consumers; Juhuasuan, a sales and marketing platform for flash sales; Alibaba.com, an online wholesale marketplace; Alitrip, an online travel booking platform; 1688.com, an online wholesale marketplace; and AliExpress, a consumer marketplace.
Getty Realty GTY
Getty Realty Corporation Price and Consensus | Getty Realty Corporation Quote
Getty Realty Corp. operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) in the United States. The company engages in the ownership and leasing of retail motor fuel and convenience store properties, and petroleum distribution terminals. The company’s properties are leased or sublet to distributors and retailers engaged in the sale of gasoline and various motor fuel products, convenience store products, and automotive repair services.
China Lodging HTHT
China Lodging Group, Limited Price and Consensus | China Lodging Group, Limited Quote
China Lodging Group, Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops leased and owned, manachised, and franchised hotels primarily in the People’s Republic of China. It operates hotels under the Joya Hotel, Manxin Hotels & Resorts, JI Hotel, Starway Hotel, Elan Hotel, HanTing Hotel, Hi Inn, Grand Mercure Hotel, Novotel Hotel, Mercure Hotel, Ibis Styles Hotel, and Ibis Hotel brand names for business and leisure traveler customers.
Telecom Argentina TEO
Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Price and Consensus | Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Quote
Telecom Argentina S.A. provides fixed-line telecommunications and other telephone-related services to residential customers, businesses, and governmental agencies in Argentina and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Fixed Telecommunications Services, Personal Mobile Telecommunications Services, and Núcleo Mobile Telecommunications Services.
Xplore Technologies XPLR
Xplore Technologies Corp Price and Consensus | Xplore Technologies Corp Quote
Xplore Technologies Corp. develops, integrates, and markets rugged mobile personal computer systems in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company’s products enable the extension of traditional computing systems to a range of field personnel, including energy pipeline inspectors, public safety personnel, warehouse workers, and pharmaceutical scientists.
Now See All Our Private Trades
While today's Zacks Rank #1 new additions are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for all Zacks trades >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportAlibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportXplore Technologies Corp (XPLR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportChina Lodging Group, Limited (HTHT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTelecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. (TEO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportGetty Realty Corporation (GTY) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || 5 Strong Buy Stocks a Better Bet Than Bitcoin: Feels like a new day after the eclipse here. Gone are the worries of North Korea and tensions following Charlottesville. We got a big bounce in stocks with virtually no pullbacks today and volatility left the building. All this while the Jackson Hole Summit has central bankers listening to Prince and watching Lonesome Dove. Check out Daves Daily Dive video above where I break down the market action today!!! Each day I, Dave Bartosiak of Zacks.com (Twitter @bartosiastics) dive into the charts, pointing out key price action and levels for you to watch. But it doesnt stop there because the highlight of todays video, which you can see for free by clicking above, is where I uncover five Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks that are breaking out to new 52-week highs today. These stocks have a ton of momentum behind them and are charging higher. The list of stocks I cover today include: Alibaba BABA Alibaba Group Holding Limited Price and Consensus Alibaba Group Holding Limited Price and Consensus | Alibaba Group Holding Limited Quote Alibaba Group Holding Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as an online and mobile commerce company in the People's Republic of China and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Core Commerce, Cloud Computing, Digital Media and Entertainment, and Innovation Initiatives and Others. It operates Taobao Marketplace, a mobile commerce destination; Tmall, a third-party platform for brands and retailers; Rural Taobao program that enables rural residents and businesses to sell agricultural products to urban consumers; Juhuasuan, a sales and marketing platform for flash sales; Alibaba.com, an online wholesale marketplace; Alitrip, an online travel booking platform; 1688.com, an online wholesale marketplace; and AliExpress, a consumer marketplace. Getty Realty GTY Getty Realty Corporation Price and Consensus Getty Realty Corporation Price and Consensus | Getty Realty Corporation Quote Story continues Getty Realty Corp. operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) in the United States. The company engages in the ownership and leasing of retail motor fuel and convenience store properties, and petroleum distribution terminals. The companys properties are leased or sublet to distributors and retailers engaged in the sale of gasoline and various motor fuel products, convenience store products, and automotive repair services. China Lodging HTHT China Lodging Group, Limited Price and Consensus China Lodging Group, Limited Price and Consensus | China Lodging Group, Limited Quote China Lodging Group, Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops leased and owned, manachised, and franchised hotels primarily in the Peoples Republic of China. It operates hotels under the Joya Hotel, Manxin Hotels & Resorts, JI Hotel, Starway Hotel, Elan Hotel, HanTing Hotel, Hi Inn, Grand Mercure Hotel, Novotel Hotel, Mercure Hotel, Ibis Styles Hotel, and Ibis Hotel brand names for business and leisure traveler customers. Telecom Argentina TEO Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Price and Consensus Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Price and Consensus | Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. Quote Telecom Argentina S.A. provides fixed-line telecommunications and other telephone-related services to residential customers, businesses, and governmental agencies in Argentina and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Fixed Telecommunications Services, Personal Mobile Telecommunications Services, and Núcleo Mobile Telecommunications Services. Xplore Technologies XPLR Xplore Technologies Corp Price and Consensus Xplore Technologies Corp Price and Consensus | Xplore Technologies Corp Quote Xplore Technologies Corp. develops, integrates, and markets rugged mobile personal computer systems in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The companys products enable the extension of traditional computing systems to a range of field personnel, including energy pipeline inspectors, public safety personnel, warehouse workers, and pharmaceutical scientists. Now See All Our Private Trades While today's Zacks Rank #1 new additions are being shared with the public, other trades are hidden from everyone but selected members. Would you like to peek behind the curtain and view them? Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from insider trades to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises (we've called them with 80%+ accuracy). You can even look inside portfolios so exclusive that they are normally closed to new investors. Click here for all Zacks trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Xplore Technologies Corp (XPLR) : Free Stock Analysis Report China Lodging Group, Limited (HTHT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Telecom Argentina Stet - France Telecom S.A. (TEO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Getty Realty Corporation (GTY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Mark Cuban is backing a new cryptocurrency fund months after calling bitcoin a 'bubble': (Mark Cuban speaking at the 2015 Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.Mike Blake/Reuters)
Mark Cuban is singing a different tune when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
The tech billionaire and "Shark Tank" star is an early backer of a new cryptocurrency fund,according to CoinDesk, which reports on blockchain and cryptocurrency news.
The fund, 1confirmation, launched Tuesday, plans to invest exclusively in cryptocurrency assets, according to a filing withthe Securities and Exchange Commission. Its founder, Nick Tomaino, a principal at the $270 million Palo Alto-based investor Runa Capital, is looking to raise $20 million.
"I think Nick is one of the sharpest minds in the space, and I'm a big believer that there will be transformational apps built on blockchain," Cuban told CoinDesk.
Cuban said in a tweet last week that he was looking to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon:
Cuban's financial interest in the digital-currency world is an about-face for the billionaire, who two months ago called it a "bubble." In early June, soon after bitcoin hit what was then a near record high of $2,900 a coin, Cuban warned of a coming correction:
Cuban then turned his focus to cryptocurrencies as a whole:
Cuban's change of heart represents a pivot across Wall Street. Financial firms and institutional investors are waking up to the profit potential in cryptocurrencies as bitcoin and ether, its rival powered by the Ethereum blockchain, reach new heights — they're up more than 350% and 2,000%, respectively, since the beginning of the year.
For instance, VanEck, the New York-based money manager with $24.7 billion in assets, is seeking to launch a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, according to an August 11 SECpreliminary filing. Additionally, Goldman Sachs is telling clients that cryptocurrencies are worth their attention.
In a recent note to portfolio managers, the Goldman analystRobert Boroujerdi and his teamwrote:
"With the total value nearly $120 billion, it's getting harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies. Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are) real dollars are at work here and warrant watching especially in light of the growing world of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and fundraising that now exceeds Internet Angel and Seed investing."
ICOs, a fundraising method powered by blockchain, have raised over $1.8 billion since the beginning of the year, according to Autonomous Next, a fintech-analytics firm.
According to CoinDesk, 1confirmation "will make initial investments in the $100,000 to $500,000 range" in "legal vehicles designed to help investors pre-purchase tokens or equity prior to an ICO."
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• Bitcoin's rally is pausing — but Bitcoin Cash is popping
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• Bitcoin is back above $4,000 || Mark Cuban is backing a new cryptocurrency fund months after calling bitcoin a 'bubble': mark cuban (Mark Cuban speaking at the 2015 Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.Mike Blake/Reuters) Mark Cuban is singing a different tune when it comes to cryptocurrencies. The tech billionaire and "Shark Tank" star is an early backer of a new cryptocurrency fund, according to CoinDesk , which reports on blockchain and cryptocurrency news. The fund, 1confirmation, launched Tuesday, plans to invest exclusively in cryptocurrency assets, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission . Its founder, Nick Tomaino, a principal at the $270 million Palo Alto-based investor Runa Capital, is looking to raise $20 million. "I think Nick is one of the sharpest minds in the space, and I'm a big believer that there will be transformational apps built on blockchain," Cuban told CoinDesk. Cuban said in a tweet last week that he was looking to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon: I might have to rewrite all these replacing stocks with $btc . Might have to finally buy some https://t.co/ADiPQWUNF6 — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) August 14, 2017 Cuban's financial interest in the digital-currency world is an about-face for the billionaire, who two months ago called it a "bubble." In early June, soon after bitcoin hit what was then a near record high of $2,900 a coin, Cuban warned of a coming correction: I think it's in a bubble. I just don't know when or how much it corrects. When everyone is bragging about how easy they are making $=bubble https://t.co/hTrV5DeWNd — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 6, 2017 Cuban then turned his focus to cryptocurrencies as a whole: Anyone anywhere can buy a stock. #crypto is like gold. More religion than asset. Except of course gold makes nice jewelry. #crypto notsomuch https://t.co/xp334BCRa2 — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 6, 2017 Cuban's change of heart represents a pivot across Wall Street. Financial firms and institutional investors are waking up to the profit potential in cryptocurrencies as bitcoin and ether, its rival powered by the Ethereum blockchain, reach new heights — they're up more than 350% and 2,000%, respectively, since the beginning of the year. Story continues For instance, VanEck, the New York-based money manager with $24.7 billion in assets, is seeking to launch a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, according to an August 11 SEC preliminary filing . Additionally, Goldman Sachs is telling clients that cryptocurrencies are worth their attention. In a recent note to portfolio managers, the Goldman analyst Robert Boroujerdi and his team wrote: "With the total value nearly $120 billion, it's getting harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies. Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are) real dollars are at work here and warrant watching especially in light of the growing world of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and fundraising that now exceeds Internet Angel and Seed investing." ICOs, a fundraising method powered by blockchain, have raised over $1.8 billion since the beginning of the year, according to Autonomous Next, a fintech-analytics firm. According to CoinDesk, 1confirmation "will make initial investments in the $100,000 to $500,000 range" in "legal vehicles designed to help investors pre-purchase tokens or equity prior to an ICO." NOW WATCH: How working at Goldman Sachs is different from a hedge fund job More From Business Insider Bitcoin's rally is pausing — but Bitcoin Cash is popping Bitcoin is posting new record highs Bitcoin is back above $4,000 || Mark Cuban backs new $20 million cryptocurrency venture fund: Onetime bitcoin skeptic Mark Cuban is warming to the digital currency world. The billionaire is backing a new venture capital fund for cryptocurrency-related investments called 1confirmation. Founded by Nick Tomaino, former business development manager at Coinbase, the fund plans to raise $20 million, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "It's an interesting space that I [want] to get involved with and learn more" about, Cuban said in an email to CNBC Tuesday. He did not specify the size of his investment. Cuban's opinion on digital currencies has changed fairly recently. In an Aug. 14 tweet, the Dallas Mavericks owner admitted he "might have to finally buy some" bitcoin (Exchange:BTC=-USS) , contrasting with a June tweet that said he thought bitcoin was in a "bubble." "Bias should be up because of finite supply. Until crypto or US politics intrude, and they will," he added in another tweet on Aug. 14. Tweet1 Tweet2 In late June, Cuban said he planned to participate in an initial coin offering by Unikrn, an online esports betting site in which he holds a stake. Earlier that month, Cuban tweeted that he didn't know when or by how much the price of bitcoin, which has soared in value this year, would correct. He did acknowledge then that the blockchain technology backing bitcoin had value and that it "will be at the core of most transactions in the future. Healthcare, finance etc all will use it." IBM ( IBM ) announced Tuesday that it will work with major food companies such as Wal-Mart ( WMT ) , Unilever, Tyson Foods ( TSN ) , Dole and Kroger ( KR ) to "identify new areas where the global supply chain can benefit from blockchain." However, bitcoin's surge and a rush of funds into initial coin offerings have attracted more investment attention. Bitcoin has quadrupled in value this year and hit a record last Thursday of $4,522.13 with a market capitalization of about $74 billion, according to CoinDesk. Initial coin offerings, which are fundraising events used by cryptocurrency-related start-ups, have raised $1.37 billion so far this year, CoinDesk data showed. Story continues Source: CoinDesk The launch of the 1confirmation fund comes amid increased fundraising for cryptocurrency-related businesses. On Aug. 10, digital currency storage and exchange company Coinbase announced it raised $100 million in private equity funding led by Dropbox investor IVP. That marks the largest single traditional funding round for a public blockchain or cryptocurrency start-up, according to CoinDesk. Other participants in 1confirmation include Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript computer programming language; Balaji Srinivasan, board partner at technology venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and David Vorick, who is building a blockchain-based cloud storage system called Sia. The fund's founder, Tomaino, is also a principal at venture fund Runa Capital. Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank," which features Mark Cuban as a panelist. More From CNBC Tech investor: Under Trump, business leaders have become the moral compass Inside the crumbling relationship between Uber and Benchmark These questions will shape Uber’s financial fate || Mark Cuban backs new $20 million cryptocurrency venture fund: Onetime bitcoin skeptic Mark Cuban is warming to the digital currency world.
The billionaire is backing a new venture capital fund for cryptocurrency-related investments called 1confirmation. Founded by Nick Tomaino, former business development manager at Coinbase, the fund plans to raise $20 million, according to a Mondayfiling with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"It's an interesting space that I [want] to get involved with and learn more" about,Cubansaid in an email to CNBC Tuesday. He did not specify the size of his investment.
Cuban's opinion on digital currencies has changed fairly recently. In an Aug. 14 tweet, the Dallas Mavericks owner admitted he "might have to finally buy some" bitcoin(Exchange:BTC=-USS), contrasting with a June tweet that said he thoughtbitcoin was in a "bubble."
"Bias should be up because of finite supply. Until crypto or US politics intrude, and they will," he added in another tweet on Aug. 14.
In late June, Cuban said heplanned to participate in an initial coin offeringby Unikrn, an online esports betting site in which he holds a stake.
Earlier that month, Cuban tweeted that he didn't know when or by how much the price of bitcoin, which has soared in value this year, would correct. He did acknowledge then that the blockchain technology backing bitcoin had value and that it "will be at the core of most transactions in the future. Healthcare, finance etc all will use it."
IBM(IBM)announced Tuesday that it will work with major food companies such as Wal-Mart(WMT), Unilever, Tyson Foods(TSN), Dole and Kroger(KR)to "identify new areas where the global supply chain can benefit from blockchain."
However, bitcoin's surge and a rush of funds into initial coin offerings have attracted more investment attention.
Bitcoin has quadrupled in value this year and hit a record last Thursday of $4,522.13 with a market capitalization of about $74 billion, according to CoinDesk. Initial coin offerings, which are fundraising events used by cryptocurrency-related start-ups, have raised $1.37 billion so far this year, CoinDesk data showed.
Source: CoinDesk
The launch of the 1confirmation fund comes amid increased fundraising for cryptocurrency-related businesses.
On Aug. 10, digital currency storage and exchange company Coinbase announced it raised $100 million in private equity funding led by Dropbox investor IVP. That marks the largest single traditional funding round for a public blockchain or cryptocurrency start-up, according to CoinDesk.
Other participants in 1confirmation include Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript computer programming language; Balaji Srinivasan, board partner at technology venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and David Vorick, who is building a blockchain-based cloud storage system called Sia. The fund's founder, Tomaino, is also a principal at venture fund Runa Capital.
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank," which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.
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[Social Media Buzz]
Aug 24, 2017 05:00:00 UTC | 4,182.70$ | 3,543.90€ | 3,270.70£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/bPvq399GaY || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$4090.50/$4104.60 #Bitstamp
$4159.77/$4172.00 #Kraken
⇢$55.17/$81.50
$4122.55/$4164.00 #Coinbase
⇢$17.95/$73.50 || #Monacoin 45.8円↑[Zaif] 27.54円↑[もなとれ]
#NEM #XEM 28.3円↓[Zaif]
#Bitcoin 461,405円↑[Zaif]
08/24 18:00
口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO || One Bitcoin now worth $4319.14@bitstamp. High $4350.00. Low $4082.57. Market Cap $71.364 Billion #bitcoin || WWWOOOOO...
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4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13, 7271.78, 7176.41, 7334.10, 7302.09, 6865.49, 6859.08, 6971.09, 6845.04, 6842.43, 6642.11, 7116.80, 7096.18, 7257.67, 7189.42, 6881.96, 6880.32, 7117.21, 7429.72, 7550.90, 7569.94, 7679.87, 7795.60, 7807.06, 8801.04, 8658.55, 8864.77, 8988.60, 8897.47, 8912.65, 9003.07, 9268.76, 9951.52, 9842.67, 9593.90, 8756.43, 8601.80, 8804.48, 9269.99, 9733.72, 9328.20, 9377.01, 9670.74, 9726.58, 9729.04, 9522.98, 9081.76, 9182.58, 9209.29, 8790.37, 8906.93, 8835.05, 9181.02, 9525.75, 9439.12, 9700.41, 9461.06, 10167.27, 9529.80, 9656.72, 9800.64, 9665.53, 9653.68, 9758.85, 9771.49, 9795.70, 9870.09, 9321.78, 9480.84, 9475.28, 9386.79, 9450.70, 9538.02, 9480.25, 9411.84, 9288.02, 9332.34, 9303.63, 9648.72, 9629.66, 9313.61, 9264.81, 9162.92, 9045.39, 9143.58, 9190.85, 9137.99, 9228.33.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-07-01]
Volume: 15971550355, RSI (14-day): 46.85, 50-day EMA: 9212.30, 200-day EMA: 8588.74
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1773.20, Gold RSI: 59.08
Oil Price: 39.82, Oil RSI: 60.42
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life: Frenchman Alex Masmej, 23 years old, recently raised $20,000 on Ethereum by tokenizing himself. Now he wants his investors to vote on his life choices. His “control my life” experiment challenges token holders to tell him whether to take a run or eat only veggies. That may sound a little self-indulgent, but there is a bigger agenda here. It may even be a startup, according to Masmej. He’s not sure. Based in Paris during the coronavirus pandemic, Masmej is excited about his plan to move to San Francisco next year to work on several projects, including NFT-DeFi startup Rocket . Our conversation – about self-tokenization and more – has been edited and condensed for clarity. Related: Top Australian Soccer Club Acquired By Token-Powered Fan Marketplace What motivates you to sell yourself? I want to change the world by building a growing, profitable company that has a significant impact. I can provide a great service to the world if I can provide people with the ability to make money. I think the best way to do that is to build a tech startup. The reason why I chose crypto is that it has a very low barrier to entry, unlike AI or 3D printing startups. I tokenized myself and asked people to vote for my habits to get some attention as I wanted to do something in a light, funny, and innovative way to raise funds. It’s a great way to know your audience, engage them and trigger the discussion. I know this can’t become a $1 billion company, but it was a fun experience, and my token went up. How do you build an image for selling personal tokens? Related: Token, an Open Banking Platform, Raises $16.5M in Funding The investors of $ALEX token are founders in the crypto industry who already have companies and want to help me out. I have thousands of followers on Twitter , and they like my energy and say I am young and funny. There are almost 30 people who want to invest and think about how I might grow up. My market cap is around $150,000 now. Yes, trust is not in cryptocurrency, but in the personalized token, people have to believe me. Story continues But there is no legal framework here, no guidelines from the Securities and Exchange Commission? Yes, but I have always made it clear that it’s not a security, it’s risky and I might not succeed. I don’t think personalized tokens should be related to the SEC as [they are] more like crowdfunding. The amount is small of (sic) $20,000, so I don’t think there is a requirement [to involve] the SEC. See also: ‘Social Money’ Startup Inks Deal With Rapper Ja Rule, Releases Song With Lil B However, if I make a company around [the token], I would be curious to know about the litigation. Maybe in the future I could think of a platform where there is some enforceability of the token mechanics. Some people say, ‘Oh, this involves a lot of trust, and this is like a scam.’ But I would say that my reputation is at stake. Some say I control too much, and some say I can’t control at all. It’s not good either way, so I think I need to find a middle ground. I don’t think I would ever ask investors – should I marry my girlfriend or not. However, they can introduce me to the girls. Haha. Most people in crypto want more privacy, but you’re opening your personal life to the world. Are you going to ask, “Should I marry my girlfriend?” the way Mike Merrill did? I am single right now, and even in the future I don’t think I would ever ask investors whether should I marry my girlfriend or not. However, they can introduce me to the girls. Haha. See Also: The Queens Politician Who Wants to Give New Yorkers Their Own Crypto I am in touch with Mike and he is an interesting character, and even when he asked about his girlfriend, everybody said yes. Let’s assume that if I ask personal questions like this and people disagree, still, I would marry my girlfriend as that’s my decision. Do we see social media influencers selling themselves in the coming years? I think personalized tokens will be vast in the coming years, and it will be common for video streams, music artists and social media influencers to raise funds. Mike Merrill was the first one who publicly traded personalized tokens in 2008, and two years later, in 2010, another token was personalized. There was a token Whale , a collateral of collectibles. These tokens are either for networking or for income sharing agreement (sic). I am going to build a platform that would give exposure to the fundraiser. The investors would think that since this entrepreneur is on this platform, I can trust him. Coinbase does the same as it selects the tokens, and the investors trust it. I believe there should be safety and rules involved and a way to reimburse the investors. See Also: Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013 How did COVID-19 influence your innovative fundraising method? COVID-19 is the reason I am raising money like this. I like to explore things and want to do something innovative. On June 15, I decided to personalize tokens again and ask people to vote for my lifestyle, which included questions like, should I jog, should I eat only vegetables, etc. I am saving money so that I can invest it for my new project in San Francisco. The recent ban on some work visas is counterproductive for the U.S. as new talents arriving made the success of this country. Since you will be moving to the U.S., what are your thoughts on the presidential election and on the current protests? I think the recent ban on some work visas is counterproductive for the U.S. as new talents arriving made the country successful and contributes to creating net new jobs, including for locals. I hope the next president will welcome talented immigrants again to contribute to the economy. It does not affect my business, as resourceful entrepreneurs always find a way, but it will undoubtedly harm the country on a global scale if these restrictions were to stay long term. I am proud to see the protests after George Floyd’s death becoming mainstream, which shows progress has been made. I did not participate in any protest in Paris. I donated cryptocurrencies to organizations, including Black Lives Matter . I weighed in on my social media as much as I could to make people realize the enduring racism that has been holding the world back for way too long on all fronts. People say that you dream of being a Silicon Valley demi-god. Will you be using Oracle, or are you the oracle? I always say that I want to build the most significant company ever, but I won’t say I want to become a demi-god. Yes, I will set the price, not Oracle or any third party will check it. People will have to trust me as I will be sharing about my investment and expenses. It will be between my investors and me. Related Stories The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life || The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life: Frenchman Alex Masmej, 23 years old, recentlyraised $20,000on Ethereum by tokenizing himself. Now he wants his investors to vote on his life choices.
His “control my life”experimentchallenges token holders to tell him whether to take a run or eat only veggies. That may sound a little self-indulgent, but there is a bigger agenda here. It may even be a startup, according to Masmej. He’s not sure.
Based in Paris during the coronavirus pandemic, Masmej is excited about his plan to move to San Francisco next year to work on several projects, including NFT-DeFi startupRocket. Our conversation – about self-tokenization and more – has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Related:Top Australian Soccer Club Acquired By Token-Powered Fan Marketplace
What motivates you to sell yourself?
I want to change the world by building a growing, profitable company that has a significant impact. I can provide a great service to the world if I can provide people with the ability to make money. I think the best way to do that is to build a tech startup.
The reason why I chose crypto is that it has a very low barrier to entry, unlike AI or 3D printing startups. I tokenized myself and asked people to vote for my habits to get some attention as I wanted to do something in a light, funny, and innovative way to raise funds. It’s a great way to know your audience, engage them and trigger the discussion. I know this can’t become a $1 billion company, but it was a fun experience, and my token went up.
How do you build an image for selling personal tokens?
Related:Token, an Open Banking Platform, Raises $16.5M in Funding
The investors of $ALEX token are founders in the crypto industry who already have companies and want to help me out. I have thousands of followers onTwitter, and they like my energy and say I am young and funny. There are almost 30 people who want to invest and think about how I might grow up. My market cap is around $150,000 now. Yes, trust is not in cryptocurrency, but in the personalized token, people have to believe me.
But there is no legal framework here, no guidelines from the Securities and Exchange Commission?
Yes, but I have always made it clear that it’s not a security, it’s risky and I might not succeed. I don’t think personalized tokens should be related to the SEC as [they are] more like crowdfunding. The amount is small of (sic) $20,000, so I don’t think there is a requirement [to involve] the SEC.
See also:‘Social Money’ Startup Inks Deal With Rapper Ja Rule, Releases Song With Lil B
However, if I make a company around [the token], I would be curious to know about the litigation. Maybe in the future I could think of a platform where there is some enforceability of the token mechanics.
Some people say, ‘Oh, this involves a lot of trust, and this is like a scam.’ But I would say that my reputation is at stake. Some say I control too much, and some say I can’t control at all. It’s not good either way, so I think I need to find a middle ground.
I don’t think I would ever ask investors – should I marry my girlfriend or not. However, they can introduce me to the girls. Haha.
Most people in crypto want more privacy, but you’re opening your personal life to the world. Are you going to ask, “Should I marry my girlfriend?” the wayMike Merrilldid?
I am single right now, and even in the future I don’t think I would ever ask investors whether should I marry my girlfriend or not. However, they can introduce me to the girls. Haha.
See Also:The Queens Politician Who Wants to Give New Yorkers Their Own Crypto
I am in touch with Mike and he is an interesting character, and even when he asked about his girlfriend, everybody said yes. Let’s assume that if I ask personal questions like this and people disagree, still, I would marry my girlfriend as that’s my decision.
Do we see social media influencers selling themselves in the coming years?
I think personalized tokens will be vast in the coming years, and it will be common for video streams, music artists and social media influencers to raise funds. Mike Merrill was the first one who publicly traded personalized tokens in 2008, and two years later, in 2010, another token was personalized. There was a tokenWhale, a collateral of collectibles.
These tokens are either for networking or for income sharing agreement (sic). I am going to build a platform that would give exposure to the fundraiser. The investors would think that since this entrepreneur is on this platform, I can trust him. Coinbase does the same as it selects the tokens, and the investors trust it. I believe there should be safety and rules involved and a way to reimburse the investors.
See Also:Meet the US Senate Candidate Who’s Invested in Bitcoin Since 2013
How did COVID-19 influence your innovative fundraising method?
COVID-19 is the reason I am raising money like this. I like to explore things and want to do something innovative. On June 15, I decided to personalizetokensagain and ask people to vote for my lifestyle, which included questions like, should I jog, should I eat only vegetables, etc. I am saving money so that I can invest it for my new project in San Francisco.
The recent ban on some work visas is counterproductive for the U.S. as new talents arriving made the success of this country.
Since you will be moving to the U.S., what are your thoughts on the presidential election and on the current protests?
I think therecent banon some work visas is counterproductive for the U.S. as new talents arriving made the country successful and contributes to creating net new jobs, including for locals. I hope the next president will welcome talented immigrants again to contribute to the economy. It does not affect my business, as resourceful entrepreneurs always find a way, but it will undoubtedly harm the country on a global scale if these restrictions were to stay long term.
I am proud to see the protests afterGeorge Floyd’s deathbecoming mainstream, which shows progress has been made. I did not participate in any protest in Paris. I donated cryptocurrencies to organizations, includingBlack Lives Matter. I weighed in on mysocial mediaas much as I could to make people realize the enduring racism that has been holding the world back for way too long on all fronts.
People say that you dream of being a Silicon Valleydemi-god.Will you be using Oracle, or are you the oracle?
I always say that I want to build the most significant company ever, but I won’t say I want to become a demi-god. Yes, I will set the price, not Oracle or any third party will check it. People will have to trust me as I will be sharing about my investment and expenses. It will be between my investors and me.
• The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life
• The Man Who Tokenized Himself Gives Holders Power Over His Life || Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K: Quiet is the best word to describe thebitcoinmarket. Tuesday’s trading stayed within the same price range maintained over the past several weeks, with bitcoin remaining inside a tight $200 range for much of the day.
• Bitcoin stays in a tight range above $9,000
• Ether up less than 1%
• Bitcoin volatility continues to drop
• Market in “wait and see” phase
The leading cryptocurrency only briefly dipped below $9,050 Tuesday afternoon and did not break above $9,250, according to Bitstamp. Bitcoin was trading hands around $9,140 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET).
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped 1.2% from its Tuesday open, trading around $225 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), according to Bitstamp.
Related:UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
Some traders are growing tired of this range as expectations for a breakout in either direction are crushed. “Every breakout in the last six weeks has revealed to be a false one, taking many traders to the woodshed in just a few hours,” said David Lifchitz, partner at quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha.
See also:Bitcoin Still Up 27% This Year Despite Dismal June Performance
Even liquidated contracts on BitMEX, the largest bitcoin derivatives exchange by open interest, show how stagnant bitcoin’s price action has become. Total daily liquidations on the exchange have not passed even $4 million for three consecutive days, according toSkew.
Traders are getting “mixed messages” from the bitcoin markets, Denis Vinokourov, head of research at prime broker Bequant, told CoinDesk. “On the one hand, the futures curve is in contango (upward sloping), which is indicative of leverage interest. But, yet at the same time, the options market continues to point to downside price protection demand, with front-end (shorter-dated one-month [expirations]) skew much higher relative to the rest of the curve and also when compared to Ethereum,” said Vinokourov.
Related:Coin Metrics Offers More Rigorous Measure of Crypto Market Supply
As its price stands still, bitcoin’s volatility plummets. Its 30-day volatility, for example, is reaching its lowest level since late February, according toCoin Metrics.
When bitcoin will finally pick a direction – up or down – for a new trend is anyone’s guess. “We’re still in a ‘wait-and-see’ phase,” Lifchitz told CoinDesk. The market, he added is “definitely in need of a catalyst to break above $10,000 on heavy volume or below $8,000.”
If the price drops, however, some traders expect bulls to capitalize on the opportunity and buy more. “Dip buyers,” a name for investors who increase their position sizes when an asset price declines, will “aggressively” buy any substantial drops in the bitcoin price, said Alistair Milne, chief investment officer at Altana Digital Currency Fund.
See also:Crypto Long & Short: What Trends in Volatility Could Mean for Bitcoin
Taking toTwitter, Milne said traders are “still underestimating” the amount of bitcoin that has been accumulated and removed from the market by long-term, often ideological investors. The exact amount of bitcoins held off the market is roughly 73%, according toGlassnode. Also taking to Twitter, CTO Rafael Schultze-Kraftnotedthat approximately 13.5 million bitcoins have not moved since the start of 2020, signally bitcoin investors’ commitment to hold through an uncertain market.
Tuesday cryptocurrency gains included a variety of decentralized finance assets, according toMessari. Nexo (NEXO) gained 4.2%. Also up was kyber network (KNC) by 2.8%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
In commodities, Tuesday was a good day for gold bulls as the yellow metal gained 1.25% from its daily low at $1,764. Silver gained more than 2% from its daily open Tuesday.
Meanwhile, gains from the S&P 500 pushed most other major stock indices down on Tuesday.
See also:A Key Thesis for Bitcoin’s Long-Term Bull Market Just Got a Knock
The S&P 500 gained 1.5% Tuesday, trading at 3038 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET).
The FTSE 100 index in Europe dropped roughly 1.5% from its daily open. Nikkei 225 also dipped Tuesday, down 0.25% from its daily open.
• Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K
• Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K || Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K: Quiet is the best word to describe the bitcoin market. Tuesday’s trading stayed within the same price range maintained over the past several weeks, with bitcoin remaining inside a tight $200 range for much of the day. Bitcoin stays in a tight range above $9,000 Ether up less than 1% Bitcoin volatility continues to drop Market in “wait and see” phase The leading cryptocurrency only briefly dipped below $9,050 Tuesday afternoon and did not break above $9,250, according to Bitstamp. Bitcoin was trading hands around $9,140 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Ether , the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped 1.2% from its Tuesday open, trading around $225 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), according to Bitstamp. Related: UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack Some traders are growing tired of this range as expectations for a breakout in either direction are crushed. “Every breakout in the last six weeks has revealed to be a false one, taking many traders to the woodshed in just a few hours,” said David Lifchitz, partner at quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha. See also: Bitcoin Still Up 27% This Year Despite Dismal June Performance Even liquidated contracts on BitMEX, the largest bitcoin derivatives exchange by open interest, show how stagnant bitcoin’s price action has become. Total daily liquidations on the exchange have not passed even $4 million for three consecutive days, according to Skew . Traders are getting “mixed messages” from the bitcoin markets, Denis Vinokourov, head of research at prime broker Bequant, told CoinDesk. “On the one hand, the futures curve is in contango (upward sloping), which is indicative of leverage interest. But, yet at the same time, the options market continues to point to downside price protection demand, with front-end (shorter-dated one-month [expirations]) skew much higher relative to the rest of the curve and also when compared to Ethereum,” said Vinokourov. Story continues Related: Coin Metrics Offers More Rigorous Measure of Crypto Market Supply As its price stands still, bitcoin’s volatility plummets. Its 30-day volatility, for example, is reaching its lowest level since late February, according to Coin Metrics . When bitcoin will finally pick a direction – up or down – for a new trend is anyone’s guess. “We’re still in a ‘wait-and-see’ phase,” Lifchitz told CoinDesk. The market, he added is “definitely in need of a catalyst to break above $10,000 on heavy volume or below $8,000.” If the price drops, however, some traders expect bulls to capitalize on the opportunity and buy more. “Dip buyers,” a name for investors who increase their position sizes when an asset price declines, will “aggressively” buy any substantial drops in the bitcoin price, said Alistair Milne, chief investment officer at Altana Digital Currency Fund. See also: Crypto Long & Short: What Trends in Volatility Could Mean for Bitcoin Taking to Twitter , Milne said traders are “still underestimating” the amount of bitcoin that has been accumulated and removed from the market by long-term, often ideological investors. The exact amount of bitcoins held off the market is roughly 73%, according to Glassnode . Also taking to Twitter, CTO Rafael Schultze-Kraft noted that approximately 13.5 million bitcoins have not moved since the start of 2020, signally bitcoin investors’ commitment to hold through an uncertain market. Other markets Tuesday cryptocurrency gains included a variety of decentralized finance assets, according to Messari . Nexo ( NEXO ) gained 4.2%. Also up was kyber network ( KNC ) by 2.8%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). In commodities, Tuesday was a good day for gold bulls as the yellow metal gained 1.25% from its daily low at $1,764. Silver gained more than 2% from its daily open Tuesday. Meanwhile, gains from the S&P 500 pushed most other major stock indices down on Tuesday. See also: A Key Thesis for Bitcoin’s Long-Term Bull Market Just Got a Knock The S&P 500 gained 1.5% Tuesday, trading at 3038 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). The FTSE 100 index in Europe dropped roughly 1.5% from its daily open. Nikkei 225 also dipped Tuesday, down 0.25% from its daily open. Related Stories Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K || Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K: Quiet is the best word to describe thebitcoinmarket. Tuesday’s trading stayed within the same price range maintained over the past several weeks, with bitcoin remaining inside a tight $200 range for much of the day.
• Bitcoin stays in a tight range above $9,000
• Ether up less than 1%
• Bitcoin volatility continues to drop
• Market in “wait and see” phase
The leading cryptocurrency only briefly dipped below $9,050 Tuesday afternoon and did not break above $9,250, according to Bitstamp. Bitcoin was trading hands around $9,140 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET).
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped 1.2% from its Tuesday open, trading around $225 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), according to Bitstamp.
Related:UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
Some traders are growing tired of this range as expectations for a breakout in either direction are crushed. “Every breakout in the last six weeks has revealed to be a false one, taking many traders to the woodshed in just a few hours,” said David Lifchitz, partner at quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha.
See also:Bitcoin Still Up 27% This Year Despite Dismal June Performance
Even liquidated contracts on BitMEX, the largest bitcoin derivatives exchange by open interest, show how stagnant bitcoin’s price action has become. Total daily liquidations on the exchange have not passed even $4 million for three consecutive days, according toSkew.
Traders are getting “mixed messages” from the bitcoin markets, Denis Vinokourov, head of research at prime broker Bequant, told CoinDesk. “On the one hand, the futures curve is in contango (upward sloping), which is indicative of leverage interest. But, yet at the same time, the options market continues to point to downside price protection demand, with front-end (shorter-dated one-month [expirations]) skew much higher relative to the rest of the curve and also when compared to Ethereum,” said Vinokourov.
Related:Coin Metrics Offers More Rigorous Measure of Crypto Market Supply
As its price stands still, bitcoin’s volatility plummets. Its 30-day volatility, for example, is reaching its lowest level since late February, according toCoin Metrics.
When bitcoin will finally pick a direction – up or down – for a new trend is anyone’s guess. “We’re still in a ‘wait-and-see’ phase,” Lifchitz told CoinDesk. The market, he added is “definitely in need of a catalyst to break above $10,000 on heavy volume or below $8,000.”
If the price drops, however, some traders expect bulls to capitalize on the opportunity and buy more. “Dip buyers,” a name for investors who increase their position sizes when an asset price declines, will “aggressively” buy any substantial drops in the bitcoin price, said Alistair Milne, chief investment officer at Altana Digital Currency Fund.
See also:Crypto Long & Short: What Trends in Volatility Could Mean for Bitcoin
Taking toTwitter, Milne said traders are “still underestimating” the amount of bitcoin that has been accumulated and removed from the market by long-term, often ideological investors. The exact amount of bitcoins held off the market is roughly 73%, according toGlassnode. Also taking to Twitter, CTO Rafael Schultze-Kraftnotedthat approximately 13.5 million bitcoins have not moved since the start of 2020, signally bitcoin investors’ commitment to hold through an uncertain market.
Tuesday cryptocurrency gains included a variety of decentralized finance assets, according toMessari. Nexo (NEXO) gained 4.2%. Also up was kyber network (KNC) by 2.8%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
In commodities, Tuesday was a good day for gold bulls as the yellow metal gained 1.25% from its daily low at $1,764. Silver gained more than 2% from its daily open Tuesday.
Meanwhile, gains from the S&P 500 pushed most other major stock indices down on Tuesday.
See also:A Key Thesis for Bitcoin’s Long-Term Bull Market Just Got a Knock
The S&P 500 gained 1.5% Tuesday, trading at 3038 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET).
The FTSE 100 index in Europe dropped roughly 1.5% from its daily open. Nikkei 225 also dipped Tuesday, down 0.25% from its daily open.
• Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K
• Market Wrap: Crypto Market Eerily Quiet as Bitcoin Stuck Near $9K || UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack: According to a recent report by BBC News , University of California San Francisco paid hackers $1.14 million in bitcoin after a ransomware attack earlier this month. The Netwalker ransomware group is believed to be behind the attack which encrypted data on the School of Medicine’s servers, making it temporarily inaccessible. While the hackers first demanded $3 million, after negotiations on the dark web with UCSF they agreed to a ransom of $1.14 million. After the university transferred 116.4 bitcoins to Netwalker’s electronic wallets, it was given a decryption tool to unlock the data blocked by the attack. While the university did not specify what data was affected, a statement released on its website said it does not currently believe that patient medical records were exposed. The incident also did not affect patient care delivery operations or COVID-19 related work, according to the university. UCSF told BBC News that it was now assisting the FBI in its investigation, while also working to restore the data that was taken down. The Netwalker group has also been linked to ransomware attacks on two other universities over the last couple of months. Related Stories UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack || UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack: According to arecent report by BBC News, University of California San Francisco paid hackers $1.14 million in bitcoin after a ransomware attack earlier this month.
• The Netwalker ransomware group is believed to be behind the attack which encrypted data on the School of Medicine’s servers, making it temporarily inaccessible. While the hackers first demanded $3 million, after negotiations on the dark web with UCSF they agreed to a ransom of $1.14 million.
• After the university transferred 116.4 bitcoins to Netwalker’s electronic wallets, it was given a decryption tool to unlock the data blocked by the attack.
• While the university did not specify what data was affected, astatementreleased on its website said it does not currently believe that patient medical records were exposed. The incident also did not affect patient care delivery operations or COVID-19 related work, according to the university.
• UCSF told BBC News that it was now assisting the FBI in its investigation, while also working to restore the data that was taken down. The Netwalker group has also been linked to ransomware attacks on two other universities over the last couple of months.
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack || UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack: According to arecent report by BBC News, University of California San Francisco paid hackers $1.14 million in bitcoin after a ransomware attack earlier this month.
• The Netwalker ransomware group is believed to be behind the attack which encrypted data on the School of Medicine’s servers, making it temporarily inaccessible. While the hackers first demanded $3 million, after negotiations on the dark web with UCSF they agreed to a ransom of $1.14 million.
• After the university transferred 116.4 bitcoins to Netwalker’s electronic wallets, it was given a decryption tool to unlock the data blocked by the attack.
• While the university did not specify what data was affected, astatementreleased on its website said it does not currently believe that patient medical records were exposed. The incident also did not affect patient care delivery operations or COVID-19 related work, according to the university.
• UCSF told BBC News that it was now assisting the FBI in its investigation, while also working to restore the data that was taken down. The Netwalker group has also been linked to ransomware attacks on two other universities over the last couple of months.
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack
• UCSF Hospital Paid $1.14M in Bitcoin After Ransomware Attack || The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed Micro-Mobility Startup to Court: Salvatore Palella is often credited as the man who brought electric scooters to Italy. Less known is his attempt to bring ride-sharing to the blockchain. In June 2019, Italian Minister of Transportation Danilo Toninelli granted a decree to allow micro-mobility businesses to operate in cities that decided to participate in an e-scooter trial, at Palellas urging. Thats the story the serial entrepreneur tells of his startup Helbiz, the first sharing electric scooter company in the country. Or at least, the first one partially funded by cryptocurrency. With a fleet of 8,000 scooters in Italy alone, and offices reportedly in New York, Milan, Madrid, Belgrade and Singapore, Helbiz is well-positioned in a buoyant industry. Related: To His Own Surprise, Crypto Volume Pumper's Business Is Still Thriving In June 2019, the company announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO) through a dual listing on Nasdaq and AIM Italia, an exchange dedicated to small, high-growth firms. It would be a notable exit in an industry that exploded in popularity in 2017 but has yet to find long-term profitability . Instead of cheering, however, Helbizs early investors have filed a lawsuit. In a complaint seeking class action status, filed June 18 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 20,000 investors claim Palella, Helbiz and several co-conspirators are liable for breach of contract regarding the startups fundraising model. ICO boom On the urban and suburban sidewalks, e-scooters have been a highly contested battleground for venture capitalists . Market leaders Lime and Bird rode the everything-is-tech-if-its-an-app wave to unicorn status . But Helbiz, founded in 2015, took a different route: an initial coin offering (ICO). In 2017, in the midst of the ICO boom, Palella began promoting HelbizCoin (HBZ) and its associated blockchain platform as a peer-to-peer solution to reinvent the ride-sharing economy. Capitalizing on the mania over crowd-sharing businesses and crypto, Palella raised nearly $40 million from small investors , he said at the time . Story continues Related: French Renewable Energy Provider Wins Regulator's Approval for 10M Token Sale Unlike other ICO projects that have been brought to court usually over securities law violations plaintiffs behind the class action are accusing Palella, Helbiz, et al. of breaking their promise to use this utility token as advertised. When they sold this token, they made promises about how it would be used on the platform. They took the money and broke the promises. That kind of misconduct is at least a breach of contract and could very well amount to fraud, said Michael Kanovitz, a civil rights attorney of the litigating firm Loevy & Loevy. Kanovitzs argument focuses on promises Palella allegedly made to investors before, during and after the token sale regarding the use of HelbizCoin on its software platform. According to the complaint, Helbiz planned to use the capital raised from its ICO to build a smartphone-based vehicle rental platform at that time envisioned to expand from scooters to cars to seaplanes, which would function entirely on HBZ. At no point did the white paper disclose any intent to allow rentals on the Helbiz platform in any currency other than HelbizCoin, the complaint claims. Though the projects original white paper did say the choice to create a native token for Helbiz transactions is not casual
[T]he conclusion of our careful analysis was that only a native token allows Helbiz to optimize for the [companys] objectives, the plaintiffs note. Helbiz responded with a written statement saying the lawsuit filed last week against Helbiz Inc., Salvatore Palella and others is baseless and the claims, including the breach of contract claim, are without merit. Legal gambit The case is highly unusual, said Jason Gottlieb, a partner at Morrison Cohen. Gottlieb maintains a database of cryptocurrency lawsuits and found the vast majority of token projects are brought to court under securities violations. Its a pattern of litigation other skilled observers have noticed. Typically, they just get sued for securities fraud or regular old fraud, said Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures and frequent contributor to CoinDesk . Even though the substance of the complaint hints at fraud, the plaintiffs notably decided not to include any fraud claims, under the securities laws or otherwise, Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at DeFi startup Compound, said. Offering an explanation for the novel legal strategy, he said that securities claims might be time-barred, or past the statute of limitations, which in this case is one year. According to Chervinsky, many ICOs were conducted under SAFT, or simple agreement for future tokens , guidance, an investment contract that complies with securities regulations. It usually provides disclaimers of liability and mandatory arbitration clauses, essentially nullifying a potential breach of contract claim. Helbiz wasnt issued under SAFT guidance, so common law claims like breach of contract may be viable, Chervinsky said. In fact, this gambit may make it easier to bring a case to court, which otherwise would have to meet relatively strict securities fraud pleading standards, Gottlieb said. Kanovitz, acting for the plaintiffs, said the legal team could add claims of securities violations after discovery, a period where evidence is gathered from the defendants. While the SAFT is indeterminate, meaning it can only be applied on a case-by-case basis, the plaintiffs could instead apply the Howey Test , a fact-intensive interpretation of financial assets outlined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to ascertain whether digital assets are securities. Helbiz seemed to suggest that its token sale would not fall under securities law: The HBZ coin is a utility token and should not be viewed as a share of stock in any company, reads the company statement, provided by Marcy Simon from the firm Agent of Change. They are claiming it is a utility token and not a security, Kanovitz said. Our focus for now is on the defendants broken promises and the misrepresentations they made along the way. They owe coin holders money for breaking their promises, regardless of whether they should also have registered as a security. Helbiz denies these claims, and said, HBZ coin fulfilled all of its obligations and integrated directly into the Helbiz application, according to its statement. Token dispute Heres the crux of Kanovitzs argument. At launch, the platform accepted only fiat payments, breaking the promise that investors were sold on. Further, a parallel crypto payments integration at a later date received little use, thereby strongly undercutting the value proposition on which the coins had been marketed, the court document reads. Helbiz agrees the token was unpopular, claiming less than 2,100 rides were ever taken over [two] years with the HBZ coin, but that it fulfilled its obligation to seamlessly integrate it into the application. The claimants allege Palella successfully built the Helbiz platform using funds raised in a January pre-sale and crowd sale extending between February and March 2018. Helbiz issued 520 million tokens to investors paying an average approximately $0.15 per coin, court filings said. Helbiz refutes these claims and said the vast majority of funding for the development of the platform and the acquisition of the fleet came from this and other private investments by shareholders in Helbiz Inc. The application has been downloaded 100,000 times, and Helbiz has a presence in cities across Italy, Spain, Portugal, among other European countries, as well as a foothold in several U.S. cities . Tokenomics One anonymous claimant, who said he purchased upwards of $10,000 worth of HBZ, said he believed in the soundness of the project and the fundamental rules of tokenomics it represented. Meaning that if the platform grew in popularity, the demand and, therefore, price for HelbizCoin would increase. It was these economic fundamentals on which Palella allegedly based his prediction that HBZ would eventually soar to $10 each a 6,566% return from its ICO price according to the court document. At that time, CoinMarketCap was a sea of green, with thousands of tokens gaining marketshare. This market exuberance, coupled with images of Palella and his supermodel partner jet-setting around the world, made it easy to ignore rational, economic thinking and buy into Helbizs token and the vision it represented, the trader said. That was by design, the plaintiffs argue. The 62-page document outlines several supposed instances of false advertising, deceptive statements as well as the expropriation of investor money to fund Palellas lavish lifestyle. These includes a non-existent deal with Alibaba as well as plans for a flying Helbiz drone taxi that would revolutionize urban travel. Plaintiffs argue these wild claims were a way to pacify investors growing antsy over the slow development of the project. At the time the token project was announced, Helbiz pitched itself as a seamless car sharing solution, according to a preserved version of its website found on the Wayback Machine . Like many startups, the vision shifted, at one point involving crowdsourced yachts and private jets, to what would become solely a last mile transportation tech startup with a fleet of scooters and bikes. Throughout this transition, Palella is said to have encouraged investors to hold onto the token or buy more as its price plummeted while he and his co-conspirators allegedly sold their stakes, according to the complaint. This practice is often referred to as a pump and dump. At 4:25 a.m. on May 7, 2018, for instance, Palella allegedly tweeted, If you sell even a single $HBZ for under $1 before the platform has launched in July, you have really not understood the scale of the project from day 1. It is always a choice to sell, but you should REMOVE crypto investor from your bio then. The message has since been deleted. Palella denies he sold large quantities of the token for himself or that the ICO brought in anything more than $1.5 1.6 million. This last point is contradicted by several statements he made to the media including in Bitcoin Magazine , Ansa Magazine and Nasdaq posts on professional and personal social media accounts, as well as information provided by Etherscan , a tool that tracks immutable blockchain records. Just when we were close to the launch [of Helbiz], the cryptocurrencies exploded
[W]e decided to create our cryptocurrency with an initial coin offering raising 38 million dollars, [Google Translate], Palella told Ansa in an article published June 6, 2018. Helbiz has not clarified the discrepancy between statements but will be addressing that matter with the court, Simon said, relaying the message. Second charge In addition to the primary claim of breach of contract, plaintiffs also accuse the defendants of a second charge of trespass and conversion of chattels for threatening to destroy the projects governing smart contract, found at 0xe34e1944e776f39b9252790a0527ebda647ae668 . In May, the firm announced it would destroy all the tokens by the end of July, citing a lack of use. The original blog post has since been deleted, Kanovitz said, but can be found using the Internet Archive . Plaintiffs argue this move is an attempt to extinguish the token holders rights over the company. Helbiz said the token doesnt confer ownership over the company, an argument that has precedence. One of the worst aspects of ICO tokens was that they didnt give holders any right or title to the underlying business, Chervinsky said, adding, Its interesting to see the plaintiffs ask for [ legal remedy ] giving them ownership of Helbiz in its entirety. The same blog post, mentioned above, said participants in the ICO who have not sold their tokens on the secondary market will receive an equivalent amount of ETH paid during the ICO. Those who bought their coins on the secondary market have been offered approximately $.0002, the last exchange price, worth of ETH, per token. Essentially nothing, the complaint reads. Helbiz said the repurchase price is set at a 200% premium to the current price of the HBZ coin. The token lost 99% of its value in its first few months of trading. The offer is a sham, however, because no one, or almost no one, who bought in the ICO continued to hold their coins while the price was dropping almost 100-fold. They sold for what they could, never expecting that there would be a refund offer a year later, an offer made only after it was apparent that everyone had already bailed out on the coin, the complaint continues. The announcement to destroy the smart contract follows an initiative allegedly directed by the firm to get the tokens delisted from multiple exchanges. IDEX came forward and stated, $HBZ has been de-listed due to team request. This is part of a picture plaintiffs paint of a company trying to distance itself from a failed token project ahead of an IPO. They cite numerous examples where HelbizCoin was marketed as an internal project, not a partner to the company, including on the companys official website. They allege that HBZCoin.com and Helbiz.com, the official sites for HelbizCoin and Helbiz the company, share a common IP address, domain name registrar and service to conceal the name of the person registering the site. The websites are also allegedly housed in the same server farm in Kansas, according to the complaint. In its statement, Helbiz noted the tokens were sold by HBZ Systems, a company that is not a party to the lawsuit, insinuating that HBZ is the work of a third party, that was integrated with, but not of, Helbiz. When asked if Palella indeed signed the original version of the white paper, his press agent declined to address the question directly, sending a statement reading: Mr. Palella has always been transparent about his relationship with Helbiz Inc. and the HBZ coin. Kanovitz said the destruction of the smart contract and offer to return a fraction of invested funds is an attempt to hold holders under duress. He said that token holders paid for the construction of a business and ought to maintain some ownership in it. As the complaint reads: The coin and company were synonymous. Its a novel argument, Jason Gottlieb, the crypto lawyer, said. It will be interesting to see if this unusual approach gains any traction. Related Stories The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed Micro-Mobility Startup to Court The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed Micro-Mobility Startup to Court || The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed ‘Micro-Mobility’ Startup to Court: Salvatore Palella is often credited as the man who brought electric scooters to Italy. Less known is his attempt to bring ride-sharing to the blockchain.
In June 2019, Italian Minister of Transportation Danilo Toninelligranted a decreeto allow micro-mobility businesses to operate in cities thatdecided to participatein an e-scooter trial, at Palella’s urging. That’sthe storytheserial entrepreneurtells of his startup Helbiz, the “first sharing electric scooter company” in the country. Or at least, the first one partially funded by cryptocurrency.
With a fleet of8,000 scootersin Italy alone, and offices reportedly in New York, Milan, Madrid, Belgrade and Singapore, Helbiz is well-positioned in a buoyant industry.
Related:To His Own Surprise, Crypto Volume Pumper's Business Is Still Thriving
In June 2019, the company announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO) through adual listingon Nasdaq and AIM Italia, an exchange dedicated to small,high-growthfirms. It would be a notable exit in an industry thatexplodedin popularity in 2017 but has yet to findlong-term profitability.
Instead of cheering, however, Helbiz’s early investors have filed a lawsuit. In a complaint seekingclass actionstatus, filed June 18 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 20,000 investors claim Palella, Helbiz and several co-conspirators are liable for breach of contract regarding the startup’s fundraising model.
On the urban and suburban sidewalks, e-scooters have been a highly contested battleground forventure capitalists. Market leaders Lime and Bird rode the everything-is-tech-if-it’s-an-app wave tounicorn status. But Helbiz, founded in 2015, took a different route: an initial coin offering (ICO).
In 2017, in the midst of the ICO boom, Palella began promoting HelbizCoin (HBZ) and its associated blockchain platform as apeer-to-peer solutionto reinvent the ride-sharing economy. Capitalizing on the mania over crowd-sharing businesses and crypto, Palella raised nearly$40 millionfromsmall investors, he saidat the time.
Related:French Renewable Energy Provider Wins Regulator's Approval for €10M Token Sale
Unlike other ICO projects that have been brought to court – usually over securities law violations – plaintiffs behind the class action are accusing Palella, Helbiz, et al. of breaking their promise to use this utility token as advertised.
“When they sold this token, they made promises about how it would be used on the platform. They took the money and broke the promises. That kind of misconduct is at least a breach of contract and could very well amount to fraud,” said Michael Kanovitz, a civil rights attorney of the litigating firm Loevy & Loevy.
Kanovitz’s argument focuses on promises Palella allegedly made to investors before, during and after the token sale regarding the use of HelbizCoin on its software platform. According to the complaint, Helbiz planned to use the capital raised from its ICO to build a “smartphone-based vehicle rental platform” – at that time envisioned to expand from scooters to cars to seaplanes, which would function entirely on HBZ.
“At no point did the white paper disclose any intent to allow rentals on the Helbiz platform in any currency other than HelbizCoin,” the complaint claims. Though the project’s original white paper did say the “choice to create a native token for Helbiz transactions is not casual… [T]he conclusion of our careful analysis was that only a native token allows Helbiz to optimize for the [company’s] objectives,” the plaintiffs note.
Helbiz responded with a written statement saying the “lawsuit filed last week against Helbiz Inc., Salvatore Palella and others is baseless and the claims, including the breach of contract claim, are without merit.”
The case “is highly unusual,” said Jason Gottlieb, a partner at Morrison Cohen. Gottlieb maintains adatabaseof cryptocurrency lawsuits and found the vast majority of token projects are brought to court under securities violations. It’s a pattern of litigation other skilled observers have noticed.
“Typically, they just get sued for securities fraud or regular old fraud,” said Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures and frequent contributor toCoinDesk.
“Even though the substance of the complaint hints at fraud, the plaintiffs notably decided not to include any fraud claims, under the securities laws or otherwise,” Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at DeFi startup Compound, said. Offering an explanation for the novel legal strategy, he said that securities claims might be “time-barred,” or past the statute of limitations, which in this case is one year.
According to Chervinsky, many ICOs were conducted under SAFT, or “simple agreement for future tokens,” guidance, an investment contract that complies with securities regulations. It usually provides disclaimers of liability and mandatory arbitration clauses, essentially nullifying a potential “breach of contract claim.”
Helbiz wasn’t issued under SAFT guidance, “so common law claims like breach of contract may be viable,” Chervinsky said. In fact, this “gambit” may make it easier to bring a case to court, which otherwise would have to meet relatively strict securities fraud pleading standards, Gottlieb said.
Kanovitz, acting for the plaintiffs, said the legal team could add claims of securities violations after discovery, a period where evidence is gathered from the defendants. While the SAFT is “indeterminate,” meaning it can only be applied on a case-by-case basis, the plaintiffs could instead apply theHowey Test, a fact-intensive interpretation of financial assets outlined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to ascertain whether digital assets are securities.
Helbiz seemed to suggest that its token sale would not fall under securities law: “The HBZ coin is a utility token and should not be viewed as a share of stock in any company,” reads the company statement, provided by Marcy Simon from the firm Agent of Change.
“They are claiming it is a utility token and not a security,” Kanovitz said. “Our focus for now is on the defendants’ broken promises and the misrepresentations they made along the way. They owe coin holders money for breaking their promises, regardless of whether they should also have registered as a security.”
Helbiz denies these claims, and said, “HBZ coin fulfilled all of its obligations and integrated directly into the Helbiz application,” according to its statement.
Here’s the crux of Kanovitz’s argument. At launch, the platform accepted only fiat payments, breaking the promise that investors were sold on. Further, a parallel crypto payments integration at a later date received little use, “thereby strongly undercutting the value proposition on which the coins had been marketed,” the court document reads.
Helbiz agrees the token was unpopular, claiming “less than 2,100 rides were ever taken over [two] years with the HBZ coin,” but that it fulfilled its obligation to “seamlessly integrate” it into the application.
The claimants allege Palella successfully built the Helbiz platform using funds raised in a January pre-sale and crowd sale extending between February and March 2018. Helbiz issued520 million tokensto investors paying an average approximately $0.15 per coin, court filings said.
Helbiz refutes these claims and said the “vast majority of funding for the development of the platform and the acquisition of the fleet came from this and other private investments by shareholders in Helbiz Inc.”
The application has been downloaded 100,000 times, and Helbiz has a presence in cities across Italy, Spain, Portugal, among other European countries, as well as a foothold in severalU.S. cities.
One anonymous claimant, who said he purchased upwards of $10,000 worth of HBZ, said he believed in the soundness of the project and the fundamental rules oftokenomicsit represented. Meaning that if the platform grew in popularity, the demand and, therefore, price for HelbizCoin would increase.
It was these economic fundamentals on which Palella allegedly based his prediction that HBZ would eventually soar to $10 each – a 6,566% return from its ICO price – according to the court document. At that time, CoinMarketCap was a sea of green, with thousands of tokens gaining marketshare. This market exuberance, coupled with images of Palella and hissupermodelpartner jet-setting around the world, made it easy to ignore rational, economic thinking and buy into Helbiz’s token and the vision it represented, the trader said.
That was by design, the plaintiffs argue. The 62-page document outlines several supposed instances of false advertising, deceptive statements as well as the expropriation of investor money to fund Palella’s lavish lifestyle. These includes a non-existent deal with Alibaba as well as plans for “a flying Helbiz drone taxi that would revolutionize urban travel.” Plaintiffs argue these wild claims were a way to “pacify” investorsgrowing antsyover theslow developmentof the project.
At the time the token project was announced, Helbiz pitched itself as “a seamless car sharing solution,” according to a preserved version of its website found on theWayback Machine. Like many startups, the vision shifted, at one point involving crowdsourced yachts and private jets, to what would become solely a “last mile” transportation tech startup with a fleet of scooters and bikes.
Throughout this transition, Palella is said to have encouraged investors to hold onto the token or buy more as its price plummeted – while he and his co-conspirators allegedly sold their stakes, according to the complaint. This practice is often referred to as a “pump and dump.”
At 4:25 a.m. on May 7, 2018, for instance, Palella allegedly tweeted, “If you sell even a single $HBZ for under $1 before the platform has launched in July, you have really not understood the scale of the project from day 1. It is always a choice to sell, but you should REMOVE crypto investor from your bio then.” The message has since been deleted.
Palella denies he sold large quantities of the token for himself or that the ICO brought in anything more than $1.5 – 1.6 million. This last point is contradicted by several statements he made to the media – including inBitcoin Magazine, Ansa Magazine and Nasdaq – posts on professional and personalsocial mediaaccounts, as well as information provided byEtherscan, a tool that tracks immutable blockchain records.
“Just when we were close to the launch [of Helbiz], the cryptocurrencies exploded… [W]e decided to create our cryptocurrency with an initial coin offering raising 38 million dollars,” [Google Translate], Palella toldAnsain an article published June 6, 2018.
Helbiz has not clarified the discrepancy between statements but “will be addressing that matter with the court,” Simon said, relaying the message.
In addition to the primary claim of breach of contract, plaintiffs also accuse the defendants of a second charge of “trespass and conversion of chattels” for threatening to destroy the project’s governing smart contract, found at0xe34e1944e776f39b9252790a0527ebda647ae668.
In May, the firm announced it would destroy all the tokens by the end of July, citing a lack of use. The original blog post has since been deleted, Kanovitz said, but can be found using theInternet Archive. Plaintiffs argue this move is an attempt to “extinguish” the token holder’s rights over the company.
Helbiz said the token doesn’t confer ownership over the company, an argument that has precedence. “One of the worst aspects of ICO tokens was that they didn’t give holders any right or title to the underlying business,” Chervinsky said, adding, “It’s interesting to see the plaintiffs ask for [legal remedy] giving them ownership of Helbiz in its entirety.”
The same blog post, mentioned above, said participants in the ICO who have not sold their tokens on the secondary market will receive an equivalent amount ofETHpaid during the ICO. Those who bought their coins on the secondary market have been offered approximately $.0002, the last exchange price, worth of ETH, per token.
“Essentially nothing,” the complaint reads. Helbiz said the repurchase price is set at a “200% premium to the current price of the HBZ coin.” The token lost 99% of its value in its first few months of trading.
“The offer is a sham, however, because no one, or almost no one, who bought in the ICO continued to hold their coins while the price was dropping almost 100-fold. They sold for what they could, never expecting that there would be a refund offer a year later, an offer made only after it was apparent that everyone had already bailed out on the coin,” the complaint continues.
The announcement to destroy the smart contract follows an initiative allegedly directed by the firm to get the tokens delisted from multiple exchanges. IDEX came forward and stated, “$HBZ has been de-listed due to team request.”
This is part of a picture plaintiffs paint of a company trying to distance itself from a failed token project ahead of an IPO. They cite numerous examples where HelbizCoin was marketed as an internal project, not a partner to the company, including on the company’s official website.
They allege that HBZCoin.com and Helbiz.com, the official sites for HelbizCoin and Helbiz the company, share a common IP address, domain name registrar and service to conceal the name of the person registering the site. The websites are also allegedly “housed in the same server farm in Kansas,” according to the complaint.
In its statement, Helbiz noted the tokens were “sold by HBZ Systems, a company that is not a party to the lawsuit,” insinuating that HBZ is the work of a third party, that was integrated with, but not of, Helbiz.
When asked if Palella indeed signed theoriginal versionof the white paper, his press agent declined to address the question directly, sending a statement reading: “Mr. Palella has always been transparent about his relationship with Helbiz Inc. and the HBZ coin.”
Kanovitz said the destruction of the smart contract and offer to return a fraction of invested funds is an attempt to hold “holders under duress.” He said that token holders paid for the construction of a business and ought to maintain some ownership in it.
As the complaint reads: “The coin and company were synonymous.”
It’s a novel argument, Jason Gottlieb, the crypto lawyer, said. “It will be interesting to see if this unusual approach gains any traction.”
• The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed ‘Micro-Mobility’ Startup to Court
• The Novel Legal Strategy Bringing This ICO-Backed ‘Micro-Mobility’ Startup to Court || Blockchain Startup Kirobo Solves Crypto's Irreversible Transaction Problem: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL / ACCESSWIRE / June 30, 2020 / Kirobo has discovered a way to retrieve cryptocurrency that has been sent to the wrong address. The solution developed by the Israeli startup could prevent the loss of funds caused by human error when sending digital assets. This mistake is common, since wallet addresses are represented by a string of random alphanumeric characters. One survey found 55% of respondents to have experienced stressful human errors when sending cryptocurrency and 18%(!) reported loss of funds due to such errors. This serves to deter broader crypto adoption by non-technical users. Kirobo's solution forms part of a logic layer that gives users and crypto-service providers new capabilities. This includes the ability to cancel a transaction sent to the wrong address. Kirobo provides a unique code to every transaction that must be entered by the recipient in order to receive the transfer. Until the right code has been provided by the recipient, the sender can retrieve the funds at any time. The functionality to retrieve transactions made by mistake might sound trivial to people using the traditional banking system, but crypto transactions have lacked this ability until now Kirobo's Retrievable Transfer feature is now available on Ledger for Bitcoin transactions, and integrations with additional wallets are set to roll out over the coming months. The startup is actively seeking to cooperate with wallet providers and exchanges who wish to provide this built-in function to their customers. "Our aim is to make blockchain transactions as simple and as secure as online banking," said Asaf Naim, CEO of Kirobo. "By removing the fear from crypto transactions, Kirobo will facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency as a whole," added Adam Levi Ph.D, CTO at DAOstack and an advisor to Kirobo. Kirobo does not hold the user's private key and has no access whatsoever to the funds or their destination: the password simply governs whether the transfer is finalized or not. Senders can retrieve funds even if Kirobo's servers are down. The platform has been successfully audited by elite cyber intelligence company Scorpiones Group and is supported by the Israel Innovation Authority. Story continues Retrievable Transfer is free for all transactions for a limited time, whereafter it will remain free for amounts up to $1,000 USD. With millions of cryptocurrency transactions conducted per day, the potential for loss of funds is huge. Kirobo can eliminate this risk and help participating wallets and exchanges gain a significant competitive advantage. Interested parties can email [email protected] for more information. To try out Kirobo's web wallet for safe digital asset transfer visit https://safer.kirobo.me/welcome About Kirobo Kirobo is a two-year-old Israeli startup supported by the Israel Innovation Authority and funded by several prominent Israeli blockchain figures. Retrievable Transfer is the first product released by Kirobo and is a part of a larger mission: to add a logic layer into blockchains that protects users from human error. Media Contact: Kim Bazak [email protected] SOURCE: Kirobo View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/595773/Blockchain-Startup-Kirobo-Solves-Cryptos-Irreversible-Transaction-Problem || Blockchain Startup Kirobo Solves Crypto's Irreversible Transaction Problem: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL / ACCESSWIRE / June 30, 2020 /Kirobo has discovered a way to retrieve cryptocurrency that has been sent to the wrong address. The solution developed by the Israeli startup could prevent the loss of funds caused by human error when sending digital assets. This mistake is common, since wallet addresses are represented by a string of random alphanumeric characters. Onesurveyfound 55% of respondents to have experienced stressful human errors when sending cryptocurrency and 18%(!) reported loss of funds due to such errors. This serves to deter broader crypto adoption by non-technical users.
Kirobo's solution forms part of a logic layer that gives users and crypto-service providers new capabilities. This includes the ability to cancel a transaction sent to the wrong address.
Kirobo provides a unique code to every transaction that must be entered by the recipient in order to receive the transfer. Until the right code has been provided by the recipient, the sender can retrieve the funds at any time. The functionality to retrieve transactions made by mistake might sound trivial to people using the traditional banking system, but crypto transactions have lacked this ability until now
Kirobo's Retrievable Transfer feature is now available on Ledger for Bitcoin transactions, and integrations with additional wallets are set to roll out over the coming months. The startup is actively seeking to cooperate with wallet providers and exchanges who wish to provide this built-in function to their customers.
"Our aim is to make blockchain transactions as simple and as secure as online banking," said Asaf Naim, CEO of Kirobo. "By removing the fear from crypto transactions, Kirobo will facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency as a whole," added Adam Levi Ph.D, CTO atDAOstackand an advisor to Kirobo.
Kirobo does not hold the user's private key and has no access whatsoever to the funds or their destination: the password simply governs whether the transfer is finalized or not. Senders can retrieve funds even if Kirobo's servers are down. The platform has been successfully audited by elite cyber intelligence company Scorpiones Group and is supported by the Israel Innovation Authority.
Retrievable Transfer is free for all transactions for a limited time, whereafter it will remain free for amounts up to $1,000 USD.
With millions of cryptocurrency transactions conducted per day, the potential for loss of funds is huge. Kirobo can eliminate this risk and help participating wallets and exchanges gain a significant competitive advantage. Interested parties can [email protected] more information. To try out Kirobo's web wallet for safe digital asset transfer visithttps://safer.kirobo.me/welcomeAbout Kirobo
Kirobo is a two-year-old Israeli startup supported by the Israel Innovation Authority and funded by several prominent Israeli blockchain figures. Retrievable Transfer is the first product released by Kirobo and is a part of a larger mission: to add a logic layer into blockchains that protects users from human error.
Media Contact:
Kim [email protected]
SOURCE:Kirobo
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/595773/Blockchain-Startup-Kirobo-Solves-Cryptos-Irreversible-Transaction-Problem || Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference: Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead and 10T Holdings cofounder Dan Tapiero traded conflicting views of the economic recovery at the Real Vision virtual crypto summit Tuesday. The crypto space investment chiefs, both “die-hard macro guys,” disagreed on where COVID-19 is leading the economy, with Morehead projecting a “lingering” recession and Tapiero saying he hasn’t been this bullish since 2012. They both agreed, however, that this environment will be good for bitcoin . Central bankers’ unrelenting money printing may well boost fixed quantity assets, said Morehead. “It just seems inevitable that the global macro tsunami of paper money is gonna float a lot of boats,” he said. Both said Paul Tudor Jones’ recent bitcoin advocacy signaled a strong investment opportunity to the markets. Even so, Tapiero said the legendary macro trader still has a ways to go before he grasps bitcoin’s systemic value. “We’ve just got to wait until more people adopt [bitcoin] and the network effect increases, and we’re at a good spot to take advantage,” said Tapiero. Related Stories Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference || Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference: Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead and 10T Holdings cofounder Dan Tapiero traded conflicting views of the economic recovery at the Real Vision virtual crypto summit Tuesday.
• The crypto space investment chiefs, both “die-hard macro guys,” disagreed on where COVID-19 is leading the economy, with Morehead projecting a “lingering” recession and Tapiero saying he hasn’t been this bullish since 2012.
• They both agreed, however, that this environment will be good forbitcoin.
• Central bankers’ unrelenting money printing may well boost fixed quantity assets, said Morehead. “It just seems inevitable that the global macro tsunami of paper money is gonna float a lot of boats,” he said.
• Both said Paul Tudor Jones’ recent bitcoin advocacy signaled a strong investment opportunity to the markets. Even so, Tapiero said the legendary macro trader still has a ways to go before he grasps bitcoin’s systemic value.
• “We’ve just got to wait until more people adopt [bitcoin] and the network effect increases, and we’re at a good spot to take advantage,” said Tapiero.
• Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference || Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference: Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead and 10T Holdings cofounder Dan Tapiero traded conflicting views of the economic recovery at the Real Vision virtual crypto summit Tuesday.
• The crypto space investment chiefs, both “die-hard macro guys,” disagreed on where COVID-19 is leading the economy, with Morehead projecting a “lingering” recession and Tapiero saying he hasn’t been this bullish since 2012.
• They both agreed, however, that this environment will be good forbitcoin.
• Central bankers’ unrelenting money printing may well boost fixed quantity assets, said Morehead. “It just seems inevitable that the global macro tsunami of paper money is gonna float a lot of boats,” he said.
• Both said Paul Tudor Jones’ recent bitcoin advocacy signaled a strong investment opportunity to the markets. Even so, Tapiero said the legendary macro trader still has a ways to go before he grasps bitcoin’s systemic value.
• “We’ve just got to wait until more people adopt [bitcoin] and the network effect increases, and we’re at a good spot to take advantage,” said Tapiero.
• Crypto VC Chiefs Talk COVID-19 Recovery, Bitcoin Upside at Real Vision Conference || Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’: Australia’s stock exchange may delay its blockchain overhaul, thought leaders are meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss the digitization of money and Ethereum devs have a proposal to pump the brakes on high gas fees. Here’s the story: You’re reading Blockchain Bites , the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here . Top shelf Digital Dollars The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will hold a hearing on “ The Digitization of Money and Payments.” The witnesses include former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo and Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla, suggesting a focus around central bank digital currencies and stablecoins. Elsewhere, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will establish four additional “ Innovation Hub ” branches – in Toronto, Stockholm, London and a joint location for Paris and Frankfurt – to further study the adoption of digital monies and distributed ledger technologies. Finally, the Bank of Canada has published a note saying blockchain privacy solutions, like zero-knowledge proofs, aren’t ready yet for use in a CBDC. ( The Block ) Related: Blockchain Bites: EY's Auditing Slip and Bitcoin's Long Line of Pseudonymous Developers Tech Solutions? The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has come under pressure to postpone the launch of a blockchain replacement for its decades-old settlement and clearing system. One of the main share registry companies in Australia, Computershare, told the Financial Times on June 25 it was seeking a two-year delay to the implementation of the ASX’s new blockchain-based system because the new project “lacked clarity.” Meanwhile, a new technical proposal is addressing Ethereum’s growing gas fees by implementing a dynamic pricing system. Called EIP 1559, Ethereum users would now pay a set “base fee” to the network plus a tip to miners. Story continues Crime and Punishments? Alexey Andryunin fakes volumes to get coins listed on exchanges. He didn’t think his services were needed after the collapse of the ICO market, but has found business growing again during the COVID-19 pandemic as token promoters pay him to pump their projects so they’ll be accepted on crypto exchanges. Meanwhile, Sergey Medvedev, a Russian national who operated a digital currency escrow service for the $568 million payment card fraud forum he founded in 2010, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in what the U.S. government called its largest-ever cyber fraud case. Elsewhere, a hacker has attempted to disrupt a blockchain voting system currently being used in the Russian Federation while hackers have extorted $1.14 million in bitcoin from the University of California. ( The Block ) New Metrics Coin Metrics announced a free float supply methodology for digital assets Tuesday to improve and standardize the industry’s liquidity and market capitalization data. The metric excludes issued cryptos that don’t provide liquidity to get a better sense of a token’s supply. Independently, blockchain analysis company Elliptic has added two privacy coins – zcash (ZEC) and horizen (ZEN) – to its monitoring platform, which provides exchanges and institutional investors insight into when a transaction trail ends so they can take additional due diligence measures. Fresh Capital Blockchain data startup The Graph has raised $5 million in a token sale with Framework Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent) and others. The funding round follows a $2.5 million VC round early last year and used the “simple agreement for future tokens” (SAFT) format for accredited investors. That is as miner Hut 8 raised a total of $8.3 million from selling a 6% equity stake , it said, approximately $800,000 more than the original $7.5 million target. Finally, The Block’s Michael McSweeney reports crypto exchange giant Binance will acquire a majority stake in Swipe.io , a crypto card startup. “The move paves the way for the crypto exchange giant to move ahead with its plan for a branded payments card,” McSweeney reports. Quick bites Wuhan Kingold Jewelry collateralized 83 tons of counterfeit gold to secure approximately $2.8 billion in loans to institutions. ( Decrypt ) Balancer will compensate victims of the $450,000 flash loan attack ( The Block ) The largest known non-exchange bitcoin wallet address recently moved 101,857 BTC (~$933 million) to two separate addresses. The transaction cost $0.48 in fees. ( Decrypt ) Crypto.com’s and TenX’s Visa debit cards are back online. ( The Block ) Market intel Related: First Mover: The Return of the Bitcoin Retail Investor (and Why That’s a Good Thing) Leading the Pack Bitcoin is still outperforming the top traditional financial assets so far in 2020 – even after a dour performance this month. Bitcoin is trading around $9,170, representing a 27.8% gain on a year-to-date basis, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. Meanwhile, gold and the U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the greenback against major currencies, are reporting 16% and 5.4% gains for 2020, respectively. COMP Returns? Compound’s governance COMP token has dropped 40%, after surging to $400 per token last week. ( Decrypt ) Valuing Bitcoin Nearly half of investors in a recent survey said a lack of fundamentals keeps them from participating. In a 30-minute webinar July 7, CoinDesk Research will explore one of the first and oldest unique data points to be developed by crypto asset analysts: Bitcoin Days Destroyed. We’ll be joined by Lucas Nuzzi, a veteran analyst and a network data expert at Coin Metrics. Lucas and CoinDesk Research will walk you through the structure of this unique financial metric and demonstrate some of its many applications. Sign up for the July 7 webinar “How to Value Bitcoin: Bitcoin Days Destroyed.” Opinion Humility Before a Fall: Your Crypto Startup Hasn’t Done Anything Yet Dave Balter, CEO of Flipside Crypto, has a message for crypto startups: “Dig a hole, throw your ego into it and pour concrete on top. Find humility instead.” Failure precedes success, he said, a notion often absent from the crypto conversation. “Many leaders think just being in the blockchain space makes them untouchable. They count an easy ICO raise as validation of success. They’re proud of developing something so technically complex their team barely understands it.” Why Bitcoin Will Take a Long Time to Dethrone the Dollar Byrne Hobart, a CoinDesk columnist and New York-based investor, consultant and writer, takes a look at the concept of hyperbitcoinization, the theory that bitcoin will become a global reserve currency, and thinks it’s a ways off. The same forces that one might assume lead to a crypto future are those that are keeping the U.S. dollar in its throne. “Ironically, the same factors bitcoin advocates point to as evidence the fiat system is broken – high leverage and a financialized economy – make it durable, too. With so many forces arrayed in favor of the status quo, even the inevitable can take a long time,” he writes. Who won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’ Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’ || Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’: Australia’s stock exchange may delay its blockchain overhaul, thought leaders are meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss the digitization of money and Ethereum devs have a proposal to pump the brakes on high gas fees. Here’s the story:
You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here.
Digital DollarsThe U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will hold a hearing on “The Digitization of Moneyand Payments.” The witnesses include former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo and Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla, suggesting a focus around central bank digital currencies and stablecoins. Elsewhere, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will establish four additional “Innovation Hub” branches – in Toronto, Stockholm, London and a joint location for Paris and Frankfurt – to further study the adoption of digital monies and distributed ledger technologies. Finally, the Bank of Canada has published a note saying blockchain privacy solutions, like zero-knowledge proofs, aren’t ready yet for use in a CBDC. (The Block)
Related:Blockchain Bites: EY's Auditing Slip and Bitcoin's Long Line of Pseudonymous Developers
Tech Solutions?The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has come under pressure topostpone the launchof a blockchain replacement for its decades-old settlement and clearing system. One of the main share registry companies in Australia, Computershare, told the Financial Times on June 25 it was seeking a two-year delay to the implementation of the ASX’s new blockchain-based system because the new project “lacked clarity.” Meanwhile, a new technical proposal is addressing Ethereum’sgrowing gas feesby implementing a dynamic pricing system. Called EIP 1559, Ethereum users would now pay a set “base fee” to the network plus a tip to miners.
Crime and Punishments?Alexey Andryunin fakes volumes to get coins listed on exchanges. He didn’t think his services were needed after the collapse of the ICO market, but has found business growing again during the COVID-19 pandemic as tokenpromoters pay him to pumptheir projects so they’ll be accepted on crypto exchanges. Meanwhile, Sergey Medvedev, a Russian national who operated a digital currency escrow service for the$568 million payment card fraudforum he founded in 2010, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in what the U.S. government called its largest-ever cyber fraud case. Elsewhere, a hacker has attempted todisrupt a blockchain votingsystem currently being used in the Russian Federation while hackers have extorted $1.14 million inbitcoinfrom the University of California. (The Block)
New MetricsCoin Metrics announced afree float supply methodologyfor digital assets Tuesday to improve and standardize the industry’s liquidity and market capitalization data. The metric excludes issued cryptos that don’t provide liquidity to get a better sense of a token’s supply. Independently, blockchain analysis company Elliptic has added two privacy coins –zcash (ZEC) and horizen (ZEN)– to its monitoring platform, which provides exchanges and institutional investors insight into when a transaction trail ends so they can take additional due diligence measures.
Fresh CapitalBlockchain data startup The Graph hasraised $5 millionin a token sale with Framework Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent) and others. The funding round follows a $2.5 million VC round early last year and used the “simple agreement for future tokens” (SAFT) format for accredited investors. That is as miner Hut 8 raised a total of$8.3 million from selling a 6% equity stake, it said, approximately $800,000 more than the original $7.5 million target. Finally, The Block’s Michael McSweeney reports crypto exchange giantBinance will acquire a majority stake in Swipe.io, a crypto card startup. “The move paves the way for the crypto exchange giant to move ahead with its plan for a branded payments card,” McSweeney reports.
• Wuhan Kingold Jewelry collateralized 83 tons of counterfeit gold to secure approximately $2.8 billion in loans to institutions. (Decrypt)
• Balancer will compensate victims of the $450,000 flash loan attack (The Block)
• The largest known non-exchange bitcoin wallet address recently moved 101,857 BTC (~$933 million) to two separate addresses. The transaction cost $0.48 in fees. (Decrypt)
• Crypto.com’s and TenX’s Visa debit cards are back online. (The Block)
Related:First Mover: The Return of the Bitcoin Retail Investor (and Why That’s a Good Thing)
Leading the PackBitcoin isstill outperformingthe top traditional financial assets so far in 2020 – even after a dour performance this month. Bitcoin is trading around $9,170, representing a 27.8% gain on a year-to-date basis, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. Meanwhile, gold and the U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the greenback against major currencies, are reporting 16% and 5.4% gains for 2020, respectively.
COMP Returns?Compound’s governance COMP token has dropped 40%, after surging to $400 per token last week. (Decrypt)
Valuing BitcoinNearly half of investors in a recent survey said a lack of fundamentals keeps them from participating. In a 30-minute webinar July 7, CoinDesk Research will explore one of the first and oldest unique data points to be developed by crypto asset analysts: Bitcoin Days Destroyed.
We’ll be joined by Lucas Nuzzi, a veteran analyst and a network data expert at Coin Metrics. Lucas and CoinDesk Research will walk you through the structure of this unique financial metric and demonstrate some of its many applications.Sign up for the July 7 webinar“How to Value Bitcoin: Bitcoin Days Destroyed.”
Humility Before a Fall: Your Crypto Startup Hasn’t Done Anything YetDave Balter, CEO of Flipside Crypto, has a message for crypto startups: “Dig a hole, throw your ego into it and pour concrete on top. Find humility instead.”Failure precedes success,he said, a notion often absent from the crypto conversation. “Many leaders think just being in the blockchain space makes them untouchable. They count an easy ICO raise as validation of success. They’re proud of developing something so technically complex their team barely understands it.”
Why Bitcoin Will Take a Long Time to Dethrone the DollarByrne Hobart, a CoinDesk columnist and New York-based investor, consultant and writer, takes a look at the concept ofhyperbitcoinization,the theory that bitcoin will become a global reserve currency, and thinks it’s a ways off. The same forces that one might assume lead to a crypto future are those that are keeping the U.S. dollar in its throne. “Ironically, the same factors bitcoin advocates point to as evidence the fiat system is broken – high leverage and a financialized economy – make it durable, too. With so many forces arrayed in favor of the status quo, even the inevitable can take a long time,” he writes.
• Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’
• Blockchain Bites: Digital Dollars, Ethereum’s Gas and ASX’s Blockchain ‘Lacks Clarity’ || Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error: Blockchain startup Kirobo says its technology can prevent the loss of cryptocurrency caused by human error when sending what are normally irreversible transactions between wallets. The firms Retrievable Transfer feature works by building a new layer onto existing blockchain protocols. Users then have the ability to cancel a transaction sent to an incorrect cryptocurrency wallet address, the Israeli company said in a press release Tuesday. Our aim is to make blockchain transactions as simple and as secure as online banking, said Kirobo CEO Asaf Naim. Related: Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms For Good Reason See also: Maker of Coldcard Bitcoin Wallet Rolls Out an Extra-Strength USB Condom The companys logic layer functions by providing a unique transaction code that must be entered by the recipient in order to receive funds from the sender. Until the recipient has entered the correct code, the sender may retrieve the funds at any time. Loss of funds can and does occur when a sender includes an error in the long string of alphanumeric characters that make up cryptocurrency addresses. Kirobo cited a survey that found that 18% of respondents said they had lost funds through such sending errors. A way to make transactions less risky could help encourage new users of cryptocurrency.. Related: US Homeland Security's Tech Scouts Reissue Call for Blockchain Startups By removing the fear from crypto transactions, Kirobo will facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency as a whole, said Adam Levi, DAOstack CTO and adviser to Kirobo. The startup said it does not hold or store a users private keys, with the unique code simply governing whether or not the transaction would be finalized. The feature can also operate offline should Kirobos servers go down. See also: Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms For Good Reason Story continues Kirobos platform has received support from Israels Innovation Authority, the arm of the government charged with fostering industrial research and development. The firm has also been audited by cybersecurity firm Scorpiones Group, according to the press release. Kirobos Retrievable Transfer feature is now available for bitcoin transfers on wallets from France-headquartered firm Ledger, while support in other wallets is expected to roll out over coming months. Related Stories Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error || Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error: Blockchain startup Kirobo says its technology can prevent the loss of cryptocurrency caused by human error when sending what are normally irreversible transactions between wallets.
The firm’s Retrievable Transfer feature works by building a new layer onto existing blockchain protocols. Users then have the ability to “cancel” a transaction sent to an incorrect cryptocurrency wallet address, the Israeli company said in a press release Tuesday.
“Our aim is to make blockchain transactions as simple and as secure as online banking,” said Kirobo CEO Asaf Naim.
Related:Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms – For Good Reason
See also:Maker of Coldcard Bitcoin Wallet Rolls Out an Extra-Strength ‘USB Condom’
The company’s logic layer functions by providing a unique transaction code that must be entered by the recipient in order to receive funds from the sender. Until the recipient has entered the correct code, the sender may retrieve the funds at any time.
Loss of funds can and does occur when a sender includes an error in the long string of alphanumeric characters that make up cryptocurrency addresses.
Kirobocited a survey that found that 18% of respondents said they had lost funds through such sending errors. A way to make transactions less risky could help encourage new users of cryptocurrency..
Related:US Homeland Security's Tech Scouts Reissue Call for Blockchain Startups
“By removing the fear from crypto transactions, Kirobo will facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency as a whole,” said Adam Levi, DAOstack CTO and adviser to Kirobo.
The startup said it does not hold or store a user’s private keys, with the unique code simply governing whether or not the transaction would be finalized. The feature can also operate offline should Kirobo’s servers go down.
See also:Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms – For Good Reason
Kirobo’s platform has received support from Israel’s Innovation Authority, the arm of the government charged with fostering industrial research and development. The firm has also been audited by cybersecurity firm Scorpiones Group, according to the press release.
Kirobo’s Retrievable Transfer feature is now available forbitcointransfers on wallets from France-headquartered firm Ledger, while support in other wallets is expected to roll out over coming months.
• Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error
• Israeli Firm Develops Tech Allowing Crypto Users to Retrieve Funds Sent in Error || Why the Stock-to-Flow Bitcoin Valuation Model Is Wrong: Nico Cordeiro is the chief investment officer and fund manager at Strix Leviathan. He oversees quantitative research, strategy development, risk management and portfolio allocation. A longer version of this post can be found here . The stock-to-flow model (SF), popularized by a pseudonymous Dutch institutional investor who operates under the Twitter account “ PlanB ,” has been widely praised and is the leading valuation model for bitcoin proponents. SF has achieved viral popularity and inspired rags-to-riches dreams for those gambling it all on the future of bitcoin. However, we believe the model’s accuracy will likely be about as successful at forecasting bitcoin’s future price as the astrological models of the past were at predicting financial outcomes. Stanford Professor Paul Pleifderer coined the term “chameleons” to describe models that are built upon dubious assumptions and are given more credence than they deserve. An initial evaluation of any model should begin with a critical look at the model’s theoretical assumptions, he says. As an example, Pleifderer provides the following scenario: Related: Humility Before a Fall: Your Crypto Startup Hasn't Done Anything Yet Imagine an asset pricing model based on the assumption that there is no uncertainty about any asset’s returns. … No serious person would suggest that the predictions of the model should be subjected to rigorous empirical testing before rejecting it. The model can be rejected simply on the basis that a critical assumption is contradicted by what we already know to be true. Chameleons are particularly difficult to spot and dispute because they appear to be meaningful. It’s only under further scrutiny that you realize they are built upon assumptions that do not map to what we know about the real world. Introducing stock-to-flow PlanB’s paper “ Modeling Bitcoin Value with Scarcity ” states that certain precious metals have maintained a monetary role throughout history because of their unforgeable costliness and low rate of supply. For example, gold is valuable both because new supply (mined gold) is insignificant to the current supply and because it is impossible to replicate the vast stores of gold around the globe. PlanB then argues this same logic applies to bitcoin, which becomes more valuable as new supply is reduced every four years, ultimately culminating in a supply of 21 million bitcoin. Story continues Low rate of supply, which PlanB defines as “scarcity,” can be quantified using a metric called Stock-to-Flow (SF), which is the ratio between current supply and new supply. Related: Why Bitcoin Will Take a Long Time to Dethrone the Dollar This premise is then translated into the hypothesis, “…that scarcity, as measured by SF, directly drives value.” PlanB then plots bitcoin’s SF against USD market capitalization as well as two arbitrarily chosen SF data points for gold and silver. PlanB then runs a linear regression using the natural logarithm of bitcoin’s SF metric as the independent variable and the USD market capitalization as the dependent variable. The paper ends with the conclusion that there is a statistically significant relationship between USD market capitalization and SF values, as evidenced by the linear regression resulting in an R2 (a statistical measure of how close the data fits to a regression line) of ~0.95. The two randomly chosen data points for gold and silver are in line with bitcoin’s trajectory and presented as further evidence of the hypothesis. PlanB suggests that investors can forecast the future USD market capitalization of bitcoin using the above formula. This has helped give credence to those $100,000 bitcoin projections. Problems abound There are several deficiencies within the paper, both in its theoretical proposition and its empirical foundation. From a theoretical point of view, the model is based on the rather strong assertion that the USD market capitalization of a monetary good (e.g. gold and silver) is derived directly from their rate of new supply. No evidence or research is provided to support this idea, other than the singular data points selected to chart gold and silver’s market capitalization against bitcoin’s trajectory. This becomes quite obvious when one extends the model into the near future. By 2045, the model estimates each Bitcoin will be worth $235,000,000,000. The second is the naïve application of a linear regression that results in a high probability of a researcher finding spurious results. “Good” statistical results, such as a high R-square, do not constitute a meaningful finding. It is common for researchers to underestimate how often such techniques lead to false results. And particularly in this situation, where there is a large degree of freedom for random data to fit a specific outcome. Gold and the dollar From a theoretical perspective, what PlanB defines as “scarcity” is not scarcity by definition. PlanB uses “scarcity” to describe an asset’s supply growth rate or new production as measured by the SF metric. This assumes that increasing new supply depresses price through increased selling pressure from producers and vice versa. This seems reasonable at first glance until one considers that a high SF represents a dynamic where new supply is insignificant to the current supply. PlanB quotes “Bitcoin Standard” author Saifedean Ammous saying as much: “For gold, a price spike that causes a doubling of annual production will be insignificant, increasing stockpiles by 3% rather than 1.5%.” Perhaps unsurprisingly then, SF has no direct relationship with gold’s value over the last 115 years, as can be seen in the scatter plot below. Gold’s market capitalization held valuations between ~$60 billion to ~$9 trillion, all at the same SF value of 60. A range of $8 trillion is not very indicative of explanatory power and lends itself to the obvious conclusion that other factors drive gold’s USD valuation. Recall that the value of gold/USD is the ratio of purchasing power between gold and the USD. When the purchasing power of the dollar decreases, the value of gold/USD increases and vice versa. With relative stability in the purchasing power of gold, we find that roughly 88% of the variability in gold’s value over the last 115 years can be explained by the substantial decrease in the purchasing power of the USD, with $1 in 1915 now worth just $0.04. Most market participants understand this dynamic intuitively, buying and selling gold based on USD inflationary expectations. While a higher SF value may be a necessary feature for a commodity to serve as “hard money,” the metric itself says nothing about how market participants value said commodity. Many cryptocurrencies which utilize Bitcoin’s code have the exact same supply schedule as Bitcoin and everyone understands their SF values have nothing to do with their future (or current) valuation. We are left with a hypothesis that applies to no economic assets except bitcoin and whose only evidence is a linear regression with questionable application and clear selection bias. $235 billion bitcoin to infinity An entire overview of linear regression and its mathematical basis is beyond the scope of this analysis. However, there are several implementation errors well-established in the research community that demonstrate why the SF model is likely to be spurious. Obscure math has allowed SF proponents to dismiss all criticism so it may be more intuitive to understand conceptually why the SF model is irrelevant for future price predictions. The model supplied in the SF paper is the same slope-intercept equation everyone learns in 7 th grade: y = mx + b . An ordinary-least-squares (OLS) regression is not a predictive model but rather an estimation of the m and b values that minimize the difference between the actual y values and the estimated y values given by the equation mx+b . In other words, every change in x equates to a corresponding change in y . Recall that OLS is estimating how much y (Market Cap) changes for a given change in x (SF). On a month-to-month basis in which the model is derived, the change in x is effectively 0. As a result, the OLS model is doing nothing more than estimating Bitcoin’s historical growth rate. This becomes quite obvious when one extends the model into the near future. By 2045, the model estimates each Bitcoin will be worth $235,000,000,000 before eventually converging to infinity as bitcoin’s flow approaches 0. Using the estimated slope-intercept formula is making the most naive prediction possible, because bitcoin grew by X in the past, it will grow by X in the future. One should remember that past results are not representative of future returns. Marketing piece Darrell Huff wrote in “ How to Lie with Statistics “: “Many a statistic is false on its face. It gets by only because the magic of numbers brings about a suspension of common sense.” Upon reflection, few would take seriously the idea that gold’s USD price is a function of its own supply rate and therefore so is bitcoin’s. Yet, the supposed mathematical precision presented in the paper has resulted in the SF model continuing to be heavily promoted in both retail and professional investment channels. Investors should be highly skeptical of this model even if they believe bitcoin is digital gold. The SF paper is not proper empirical analysis, but more akin to a marketing piece in which the author is trying to convince readers that bitcoin is going to be worth a lot more tomorrow. This may or may not turn out true, but it has little to do with bitcoin’s supply schedule. Related Stories Why the Stock-to-Flow Bitcoin Valuation Model Is Wrong Why the Stock-to-Flow Bitcoin Valuation Model Is Wrong
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9123.41, 9087.30, 9132.49, 9073.94, 9375.47, 9252.28, 9428.33, 9277.97, 9278.81, 9240.35
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 8672.46, 8599.51, 8562.45, 8869.67, 8787.79, 8755.25, 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12, 7923.64, 7909.73, 7911.43, 4970.79, 5563.71, 5200.37, 5392.31, 5014.48, 5225.63, 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80, 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84, 6438.64, 6606.78, 6793.62, 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13, 7271.78, 7176.41, 7334.10, 7302.09, 6865.49, 6859.08, 6971.09, 6845.04, 6842.43, 6642.11, 7116.80, 7096.18, 7257.67, 7189.42, 6881.96, 6880.32, 7117.21, 7429.72, 7550.90, 7569.94, 7679.87, 7795.60, 7807.06, 8801.04, 8658.55, 8864.77, 8988.60, 8897.47, 8912.65, 9003.07, 9268.76, 9951.52, 9842.67, 9593.90, 8756.43, 8601.80, 8804.48, 9269.99, 9733.72, 9328.20, 9377.01, 9670.74, 9726.58, 9729.04, 9522.98, 9081.76, 9182.58, 9209.29, 8790.37, 8906.93, 8835.05, 9181.02.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-05-27]
Volume: 32740536902, RSI (14-day): 53.64, 50-day EMA: 8588.75, 200-day EMA: 8219.76
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1710.30, Gold RSI: 50.04
Oil Price: 32.81, Oil RSI: 59.44
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Replay Available: Off the Chain Capital Hosts “Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now”: IPO Edge,in partnership withOff the Chain Capital, LLC,a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager andThe Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association, a Florida trade association for financial professionals, hosted a Webinar and audience Q&A on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST –Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now.
To watch a replay of the Webinar, pleaseCLICK HERE
The Webinar featured Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis.
Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants.
Mr. Estes discussed:
• Why does bitcoin have value?
• What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important?
• Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin
• Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio
• Models used to determine bitcoin’s value
• The best ways to add bitcoin to a portfolio
• How to keep bitcoin investments secure
Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal.
Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment.
IPO Edge Contact:
John Jannarone, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
www.IPO-Edge.com
[email protected]
Twitter:@IPOEdge
Instagram:@IPOEdge || Replay Available: Off the Chain Capital Hosts “Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now”: IPO Edge , in partnership with Off the Chain Capital, LLC , a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager and The Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association , a Florida trade association for financial professionals, hosted a Webinar and audience Q&A on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST – Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now . To watch a replay of the Webinar, please CLICK HERE The Webinar featured Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis. Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants. Mr. Estes discussed: Why does bitcoin have value? What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important? Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio Models used to determine bitcoin’s value The best ways to add bitcoin to a portfolio How to keep bitcoin investments secure Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal. Story continues Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment. IPO Edge Contact: John Jannarone, Editor-in-Chief [email protected] www.IPO-Edge.com [email protected] Twitter: @IPOEdge Instagram: @IPOEdge || Replay Available: Off the Chain Capital Hosts “Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now”: IPO Edge,in partnership withOff the Chain Capital, LLC,a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager andThe Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association, a Florida trade association for financial professionals, hosted a Webinar and audience Q&A on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST –Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now.
To watch a replay of the Webinar, pleaseCLICK HERE
The Webinar featured Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis.
Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants.
Mr. Estes discussed:
• Why does bitcoin have value?
• What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important?
• Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin
• Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio
• Models used to determine bitcoin’s value
• The best ways to add bitcoin to a portfolio
• How to keep bitcoin investments secure
Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal.
Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment.
IPO Edge Contact:
John Jannarone, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
www.IPO-Edge.com
[email protected]
Twitter:@IPOEdge
Instagram:@IPOEdge || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Can’t Stick to $9,000 While Stocks Rally: The equities markets far outpaced cryptocurrencies Tuesday on optimism that economic restrictions put in place to help slow the spread of the coronavirus are easing. Bitcoin (BTC) poked its head above the $9,000 level briefly during morning trading in New York but fell to below $8,700 on selling. As of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET), bitcoin was trading at $8,846, a loss of 1% over 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading below its 10-day and 50-day technical indicator moving averages, a signal of bearish sentiment. “Bitcoin failed to break higher and has been bouncing off support in the $8,700 region,” said Max Boonen, CEO of cryptocurrency liquidity provider B2C2. Related: Market Wrap: Bullish Traders Push Bitcoin Over $9,100, Returning to Halving Levels While bitcoin has been trending lower, Tuesday’s big winners are stocks. The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed trading up 2.2%, with the index hitting a three-month high as Japan ended its pandemic-induced state of emergency measures . The FTSE Eurotop 100 index of Europe’s largest public companies by market cap was also in the green, although up less than a percent. The gain was also attributed to the easing of lockdowns in Europe. Read More: Paul Tudor Jones: Bitcoin Is Now the Macro Big Bet In the U.S. the S&P 500 climbed 1.2% on the day, up 4% for the past month. Related: Goldman Sachs: Cryptocurrencies ‘Are Not an Asset Class’ “It’s probably the case that stocks are moving upward in response to increased reopening of the economy, which Wall Street may be taking as a positive sign,” said Danny Kim, head of revenue for exchange aggregator SFOX. “Bitcoin’s minor downward movement, on the other hand, probably has more to do with a loss of momentum than anything else.” Since starting the first week of May in tandem, bitcoin and the S&P 500 have been going in opposite directions. “Bitcoin is not demonstrating correlation to the equity markets at present, given a lot of the smart money is still sitting in stablecoins, particularly tether ,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. Indeed, stablecoins are on the rise and tether is leading the way with a $9 billion market capitalization, according to its transparency page . The blockchain-based assets, pegged to the U.S. dollar, are helpful for traders to move balances quickly across different exchange platforms. Story continues There is some looming concern bitcoin’s price will keep sliding downward due to changes in mining economics since the May 11 bitcoin halving. The once-in-four-year event for the Bitcoin network dropped daily new bitcoin generated to reward miners from roughly 1,800 to 900 BTC. At Tuesday’s bitcoin prices, that 900 BTC translates to around $8 million per day. Read More: Iranian President Calls for National Crypto Mining Strategy Miners will have to sell a lot of that bitcoin for cash, according to Swissquote’s Thomas. “Chinese miners who are still running are barely profitable running old technology. They are surviving due to extremely cheap hydro electricity through the Chinese wet season, but will need to continue selling most of their monthly bitcoin gains to pay their operations expenses,” he said. “This will also start weighing on the market.” Chinese miners make up about 65% of the total bitcoin mining power, according to data provided by pools and collected by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance . Despite a lower crypto outlook, B2C2’s Boonen says his firm has seen professional traders pick up bitcoin at these prices, possibly because they see a value play. “Against the trend, we have seen light buying of BTC and selling of ETH across our franchise since the weekend,” he told CoinDesk. Other markets Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mostly in the red Tuesday. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, lost 2.2% in 24 hours as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET). The biggest losers in 24-hour trading were ethereum classic (ETC) down 2%, stellar (XLM) slipping 1.4% and iota (IOTA) in the red 1.3%. The few winners on the day include lisk (LSK) gaining 4%, qtum (QTUM) in the green 1% and nem (XEM) climbing less than a percent. All price changes were as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET) Tuesday. In the commodities sector, oil is up 1%, with the price for a barrel of crude at $34.21 as of press time. Gold experienced heavy selling early in the session, with the yellow metal slipping less than a percent on the day to $1,710 at the close of New York trading. Read More: Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 30-year, climbing 4.6%. Related Stories Bitcoin Transaction Fees Decline as Network Congestion Eases Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020 || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Can’t Stick to $9,000 While Stocks Rally: The equities markets far outpaced cryptocurrencies Tuesday on optimism that economic restrictions put in place to help slow the spread of the coronavirus are easing.
Bitcoin(BTC) poked its head above the $9,000 level briefly during morning trading in New York but fell to below $8,700 on selling. As of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET), bitcoin was trading at $8,846, a loss of 1% over 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading below its 10-day and 50-day technical indicator moving averages, a signal of bearish sentiment.
“Bitcoin failed to break higher and has been bouncing off support in the $8,700 region,” said Max Boonen, CEO of cryptocurrency liquidity provider B2C2.
Related:Market Wrap: Bullish Traders Push Bitcoin Over $9,100, Returning to Halving Levels
While bitcoin has been trending lower, Tuesday’s big winners are stocks.
The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed trading up 2.2%, with the index hitting a three-month high as Japan ended itspandemic-induced state of emergency measures. The FTSE Eurotop 100 index of Europe’s largest public companies by market cap was also in the green, although up less than a percent. The gain wasalso attributed to the easing of lockdownsin Europe.
Read More:Paul Tudor Jones: Bitcoin Is Now the Macro Big Bet
In the U.S. the S&P 500 climbed 1.2% on the day, up 4% for the past month.
Related:Goldman Sachs: Cryptocurrencies ‘Are Not an Asset Class’
“It’s probably the case that stocks are moving upward in response to increased reopening of the economy, which Wall Street may be taking as a positive sign,” said Danny Kim, head of revenue for exchange aggregator SFOX. “Bitcoin’s minor downward movement, on the other hand, probably has more to do with a loss of momentum than anything else.”
Since starting the first week of May in tandem, bitcoin and the S&P 500 have been going in opposite directions.
“Bitcoin is not demonstrating correlation to the equity markets at present, given a lot of the smart money is still sitting in stablecoins,particularly tether,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. Indeed, stablecoins are on the rise and tether is leading the way with a $9 billion market capitalization,according to its transparency page. The blockchain-based assets, pegged to the U.S. dollar, are helpful for traders to move balances quickly across different exchange platforms.
There is some looming concern bitcoin’s price will keep sliding downward due to changes in mining economics since the May 11 bitcoin halving. Theonce-in-four-year event for the Bitcoin networkdropped daily new bitcoin generated to reward miners from roughly 1,800 to 900 BTC. At Tuesday’s bitcoin prices, that 900 BTC translates to around $8 million per day.
Read More:Iranian President Calls for National Crypto Mining Strategy
Miners will have to sell a lot of that bitcoin for cash, according to Swissquote’s Thomas. “Chinese miners who are still running are barely profitable running old technology. They are surviving due to extremely cheap hydro electricity through the Chinese wet season, but will need to continue selling most of their monthly bitcoin gains to pay their operations expenses,” he said. “This will also start weighing on the market.”
Chinese miners make up about 65% of the total bitcoin mining power, according to dataprovided by pools and collected by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
Despite a lower crypto outlook, B2C2’s Boonen says his firm has seen professional traders pick up bitcoin at these prices, possibly because they see a value play. “Against the trend, we have seen light buying of BTC and selling of ETH across our franchise since the weekend,” he told CoinDesk.
Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mostly in the red Tuesday.Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, lost 2.2% in 24 hours as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET).
The biggest losers in 24-hour trading wereethereum classic(ETC) down 2%,stellar(XLM) slipping 1.4% andiota(IOTA) in the red 1.3%. The few winners on the day includelisk(LSK) gaining 4%,qtum(QTUM) in the green 1% andnem(XEM) climbing less than a percent. All price changes were as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET) Tuesday.
In the commodities sector, oil is up 1%, with the price for a barrel of crude at $34.21 as of press time. Gold experienced heavy selling early in the session, with the yellow metal slipping less than a percent on the day to $1,710 at the close of New York trading.
Read More:Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies
U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 30-year, climbing 4.6%.
• Bitcoin Transaction Fees Decline as Network Congestion Eases
• Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020 || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Can’t Stick to $9,000 While Stocks Rally: The equities markets far outpaced cryptocurrencies Tuesday on optimism that economic restrictions put in place to help slow the spread of the coronavirus are easing.
Bitcoin(BTC) poked its head above the $9,000 level briefly during morning trading in New York but fell to below $8,700 on selling. As of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET), bitcoin was trading at $8,846, a loss of 1% over 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading below its 10-day and 50-day technical indicator moving averages, a signal of bearish sentiment.
“Bitcoin failed to break higher and has been bouncing off support in the $8,700 region,” said Max Boonen, CEO of cryptocurrency liquidity provider B2C2.
Related:Market Wrap: Bullish Traders Push Bitcoin Over $9,100, Returning to Halving Levels
While bitcoin has been trending lower, Tuesday’s big winners are stocks.
The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed trading up 2.2%, with the index hitting a three-month high as Japan ended itspandemic-induced state of emergency measures. The FTSE Eurotop 100 index of Europe’s largest public companies by market cap was also in the green, although up less than a percent. The gain wasalso attributed to the easing of lockdownsin Europe.
Read More:Paul Tudor Jones: Bitcoin Is Now the Macro Big Bet
In the U.S. the S&P 500 climbed 1.2% on the day, up 4% for the past month.
Related:Goldman Sachs: Cryptocurrencies ‘Are Not an Asset Class’
“It’s probably the case that stocks are moving upward in response to increased reopening of the economy, which Wall Street may be taking as a positive sign,” said Danny Kim, head of revenue for exchange aggregator SFOX. “Bitcoin’s minor downward movement, on the other hand, probably has more to do with a loss of momentum than anything else.”
Since starting the first week of May in tandem, bitcoin and the S&P 500 have been going in opposite directions.
“Bitcoin is not demonstrating correlation to the equity markets at present, given a lot of the smart money is still sitting in stablecoins,particularly tether,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. Indeed, stablecoins are on the rise and tether is leading the way with a $9 billion market capitalization,according to its transparency page. The blockchain-based assets, pegged to the U.S. dollar, are helpful for traders to move balances quickly across different exchange platforms.
There is some looming concern bitcoin’s price will keep sliding downward due to changes in mining economics since the May 11 bitcoin halving. Theonce-in-four-year event for the Bitcoin networkdropped daily new bitcoin generated to reward miners from roughly 1,800 to 900 BTC. At Tuesday’s bitcoin prices, that 900 BTC translates to around $8 million per day.
Read More:Iranian President Calls for National Crypto Mining Strategy
Miners will have to sell a lot of that bitcoin for cash, according to Swissquote’s Thomas. “Chinese miners who are still running are barely profitable running old technology. They are surviving due to extremely cheap hydro electricity through the Chinese wet season, but will need to continue selling most of their monthly bitcoin gains to pay their operations expenses,” he said. “This will also start weighing on the market.”
Chinese miners make up about 65% of the total bitcoin mining power, according to dataprovided by pools and collected by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
Despite a lower crypto outlook, B2C2’s Boonen says his firm has seen professional traders pick up bitcoin at these prices, possibly because they see a value play. “Against the trend, we have seen light buying of BTC and selling of ETH across our franchise since the weekend,” he told CoinDesk.
Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mostly in the red Tuesday.Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, lost 2.2% in 24 hours as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET).
The biggest losers in 24-hour trading wereethereum classic(ETC) down 2%,stellar(XLM) slipping 1.4% andiota(IOTA) in the red 1.3%. The few winners on the day includelisk(LSK) gaining 4%,qtum(QTUM) in the green 1% andnem(XEM) climbing less than a percent. All price changes were as of 20:35 UTC (4:35 p.m. ET) Tuesday.
In the commodities sector, oil is up 1%, with the price for a barrel of crude at $34.21 as of press time. Gold experienced heavy selling early in the session, with the yellow metal slipping less than a percent on the day to $1,710 at the close of New York trading.
Read More:Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies
U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 30-year, climbing 4.6%.
• Bitcoin Transaction Fees Decline as Network Congestion Eases
• Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020 || The Best AI Stocks to Buy for 2021 and Beyond: Getty Images You're not imagining things. Computers are getting smarter every day. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a not-so-new technology that involves "smart" computers capable of demonstrating intelligence, usually through solving problems or learning. As the horsepower behind AI improves, the technology is able to perform increasingly complex tasks, from identifying new sales opportunities to steering vehicles. And that technology is driving the best AI stocks to strong outperformance this year, with many equities that either use or help power artificial intelligence boasting double-digit gains against a down market. In fact, you probably use AI every day, whether you realize it or not. Artificial intelligence powers personal assistants such as Alexa, Cortana and Siri. It also guides the search results you plug into your computer or smartphone, and it often helps determine the advertisements you see. It's an incredible investing opportunity, too. AI stocks are gunning after a market poised to grow from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2025, according to estimates by emerging-technology research and consulting firm Omdia | Tractica. Here, we look at 10 of the best AI stocks to buy for investors in it for the long haul. Each stock has already outperformed considerably year-to-date, and the coronavirus outbreak still might rattle them in the short-term. But each also shows plenty of promise looking out to 2021, 2022 and beyond. SEE ALSO: 20 Best Stocks to Buy Now for the Next Bull Market Nvidia Getty Images Market value: $222.1 billion Year-to-date performance: +53.4% Chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA , $361.05) has long been one of the best AI stocks to buy. While the company has built its reputation on high-powered graphics cards for gaming PCs, Nvidia's chips are increasingly being used for artificial intelligence and deep learning applications. In the first quarter, Nvidia reported that its data center division, which includes chips for intensive tasks such as AI, grew revenues by 80% year-over-year, topping the $1 billion mark for the first time ever. And the company's latest development, the Nvidia A100, is already seeing strong demand and meaningfully contributed to Q1 revenues. Story continues "The A100 offers the largest leap in performance to date over our eight generations of GPUs boosting performance by up to 20 times over its predecessor," CEO Jensen Huang said during the company's Q1 conference call. "It is exceptionally versatile, serving as a universal accelerator for the most important high-performance workloads, including AI training and inference as well as data analytics, scientific computing and cloud graphics." Nvidia also has partnered with numerous automakers to work on autonomous vehicles. More than 70 companies worldwide are working aggressively on developing a mass-produced self-driving car; market intelligence firm Guidehouse Insights ranks Nvidia as No. 1 among them. The average analyst price target on shares right now is $380, implying just 5% upside. But it's an overwhelmingly bullish consensus - 25 Buys versus three Holds and one Sell over the past three months - and some analysts are starting to upgrade their price targets to reflect even more upside. Cowen's Matthew Ramsay (Outperform, equivalent of Buy), for instance, recently hiked his price target from $325 to $410, citing the company's strong results and A100 launch. SEE ALSO: The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio: Latest Buffett Stock Rankings Salesforce Getty Images Market value: $159.8 billion Year-to-date performance: +9.4% Salesforce.com ( CRM , $177.85) is a customer relationship management software company that allows businesses to manage their customer information. Salesforce's platform creates a shared view of individual customers for a company's marketing, sales and service departments to help it best connect with customers. Salesforce says its systems can help companies increase revenue, boost sales productivity and improve forecasting accuracy. Salesforce earns a spot among the best AI stocks to buy thanks to its Einstein AI-powered software. Einstein helps companies find future sales opportunities, create personalized marketing plans and build smarter apps for customers and employees. CRM announced record fourth-quarter results in February, and while analysts are cautious about the company's upcoming Q1 announcement, due May 28, they're bullish on CRM's longer-term prospects. Jefferies' Brent Thill (Buy) recently raised his price target from $180 per share to $205, arguing that Salesforce should benefit from accelerated cloud adoption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst Terry Tillman, like Thill, thinks nearer-term results will be hampered by the coronavirus, but sees this crisis as "a catalyst for digital transformation initiatives" and thinks "Salesforce will emerge from this downturn even stronger." SEE ALSO: 50 Top Stock Picks That Billionaires Love Netflix Getty Images Market value: $188.8 billion Year-to-date performance: +32.7% Netflix ( NFLX , $429.32) has previously been highlighted as one of the best tech stocks for the "new coronavirus norm." Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have given the streaming content provider a big shot in the arm. In the first quarter, NFLX reported 15.77 million new subscribers, a 23% increase from the year-ago quarter. That demolished Netflix's own estimate of 7 million new customers, and set a quarterly record for the streaming company. Average revenue per user also grew by 8%. How does Netflix keep these all these customers happy? Well, one of its tricks is using AI to personalize its content for subscribers. Netflix's computers learn from what customers watch to suggest new content to keep them engaged. Netflix also is using data science to help its producers decide when and where to shoot a movie - an increasingly important consideration considering the quantity of original programming Netflix produces each year. It also uses AI in post-production , as its computers predict the best places in the process that editors should do quality-control checks. BofA Securities' Nat Schindler, who has a Buy rating on NFLX stock and a $525 price target, cited low churn among reasons to be optimistic about the streaming content provider. "We think global subscriber strength could last longer than seen as we expect some social distancing (impacting large events, cinemas, sports games) may remain into (the second half of 2020)," he writes. SEE ALSO: Pros' Picks: The 15 Best Nasdaq Stocks You Can Buy Amazon.com Getty Images Market value: $1.21 trillion Year-to-date performance: +31.9% While many stocks have delivered substantial losses in 2020 and others have barely treaded water, Amazon.com ( AMZN , $2,436.88) has doled out 30%-plus gains year-to-date and just recently tagged new all-time highs. AMZN, one of the top e-commerce stocks on the market , also deserves a spot among Wall Street's best AI stocks, given its deft use of the technology. Amazon.com, which benefitted from a rash of online buying during the first quarter, uses artificial intelligence to recommend products to people on its website, customizing retail offerings based on browsing history. And the company's high-margin Amazon Web Services has an AI Services offering that gives businesses access to abilities such as image and video analysis, virtual assistants and forecasting. Late last year, AWS announced that Amazon Kendra - a powerful enterprise search service powered by machine learning - was "generally available" to all Amazon Web Services customers. Amazon says Kendra will make internet search more accurate and faster, and can be used with chat apps, chat bots or on search pages. Amazon is even using artificial intelligence in its warehouses to plan routes for hundreds of warehouse robots to make sure they don't crash into each other. SEE ALSO: 32 Ways to Earn Up to 9% on Your Money Now Dropbox Getty Images Market value: $9.0 billion Year-to-date performance: +21.0% Dropbox ( DBX , $21.67) isn't the most scintillating name among these best AI stocks. But it's enjoying stellar returns in 2020 thanks to increased traffic and usage during the pandemic, and it uses artificial intelligence in a variety of ways. For instance, Dropbox uses artificial intelligence to recognize text in documents that customers scan using the camera on their smartphone or tablets. It also relies on AI to help its users organize their content , make suggestions about folders and handle cloud-based third-party content. Over the past year, Dropbox also rolled out Dropbox Spaces, which are collaboration hubs for work teams that integrate with popular tools such as Slack and Zoom. Dropbox Spaces uses AI to suggest files that users might need to access next. Earlier in May, Dropbox reported its first quarterly profit (17 cents per share) since coming public in 2018. Finance chief Ajay Vashee says the company expects to produce a full-year profit for 2020. Citi analyst Walter Pritchard initiated Dropbox and a few other "work from home" plays with Buy ratings in mid-May, writing that "Shelter in place (and) work from home is likely to change how organizations prioritize workplace technology. While a focused set of technologies have likely seen greater adoption as a result of immediate Covid-19-related business priorities (remote access and certain security items), we expect teams that have been dispersed will look to augment their collaborative capabilities." As for DBX itself, he says the stock is a "relatively scare asset" and "an underappreciated play on the wide content collaboration opportunity." SEE ALSO: 11 Small-Cap Stocks Analysts Love the Most The Trade Desk Getty Images Market value: $14.2 billion Year-to-date performance: +18.4% The Trade Desk ( TTD , $307.60) might sound like an investing-centric company, but it's actually a software platform used by advertisers who want to buy digital ad campaigns across a variety of platforms and devices. This is particularly important as more customers make the transition from watching entertainment on cable to on-demand streaming services, social media platforms and the internet. Trade Desk's AI allows advertisers to reach viewers on all platforms. The Trade Desk's artificial intelligence engine, named Koa, is designed to analyze internet data and generate real-time recommendations to help advertisers reach targeted audiences. It can automatically optimize ad campaigns, too. Users buy their ads in an auction-like format with real-time bidding on mobile, video, audio, display and on social media channels. TTD's first-quarter revenues of $160.7 million were 33% better than the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, adjusted earnings of 90 cents per share were 41 cents better than in the prior year's first quarter. However, the company withdrew guidance for the second quarter, citing coronavirus-related uncertainty - a common theme on the corporate earnings calendar . While Wall Street's analysts are starting to cool on the stock short-term, several still recommend buying TTD. Among them is Needham's Laura Martin (Buy, $370 price target), who says the company compares favorably to Roku ( ROKU ): "TTD is not a Walled Garden, it independently represents its big brand clients across the Internet when placing ads ... we would add that TTD makes a lot of money, reporting a 32% EBITDA margin in 2019 vs 3% at ROKU." SEE ALSO: Bitcoin Halving: What Does It Mean for Investors? Microsoft Getty Images Market value: $1.39 trillion Year-to-date performance: 16.4% Microsoft ( MSFT , $183.51) has been a household name since Microsoft Windows was released in the 1980s. And it's among the best AI stocks if you're looking not just for exposure to artificial intelligence technology, but also a sturdy balance sheet and a little income to boot. Microsoft's AI powerhouse is its Microsoft Azure platform, which has been a primary focus of the company's growth since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014. Microsoft's cloud platform allows customers to add AI capabilities to their apps even if they don't have machine learning expertise, scale without limits and interpret behavior within AI systems. Microsoft also uses AI in a host of its other products, including its Microsoft 365 productivity suite, Bing search and its voice assistant, Cortana. It also invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the company founded by Elon Musk to create artificial general intelligence, which can theoretically do anything that human intelligence can do. More recently, Microsoft announced in May that it, in collaboration with OpenAI, created one of the top five publicly disclosed supercomputers in the world. The Street is overwhelmingly bullish on MSFT shares, which also deliver a modest 1.1% dividend yield at current prices. Twenty-one of 22 analysts covering the stock who are tracked by TipRanks have issued Buy notes over the past quarter, versus just one Hold. Among them is RBC Capital's Alex Zukin (Outperform), who says while the company won't be immune to macro demand trends, its revenue and gross profit growth should accelerate as Azure and Microsoft 365 expand. SEE ALSO: 13 Dividend Stocks That Have Paid Investors for 100+ Years Advanced Micro Devices Getty Images Market value: $64.6 billion Year-to-date performance: 20.3% Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD , $55.17) often works in the shadow of Nvidia and Intel ( INTC ). It trails Nvidia in graphics processing units (GPUs), and it's the No. 2 maker of central processing units (CPUs) behind Intel. AMD also trails Intel and Nvidia as far as its presence in AI is concerned, but the company is working to address that. Late last year, CEO Lisa Su said that despite AMD lacking a dedicated AI chip, "We'll absolutely see AMD be a large player in AI." And it does have a presence in deep learning; its products are used in offerings from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Exxact and Inventec, among others. AMD also is the exclusive builder of two of the U.S. government's three fastest supercomputing systems that have been announced. Advanced Micro Devices also is trying to close the gap in other categories. It has gained ground on Intel's lead in the CPU market for 30 consecutive quarters, and it owns the highest share (50%-plus) of high-end CPU sales. Wall Street's analysts aren't as overwhelmingly bullish on AMD shares as they are on other AI stocks, but a majority (14 of 25) are in the Buy camp. Among them is Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann, who has a Buy rating and $70 price target on AMD stock. "At the end of the day, the AMD story is more than just x86 CPU share gains, it's about accelerating computing dynamics that are secular in nature, in which the company is executing near-flawlessly," Mosesmann writes. "We continue to favor AMD shares on powerful and secular trends; plus, the gravy coming from the Street's reluctance or allergy to the possibility of AMD's continued success to traditionally more powerful competitors." SEE ALSO: 14 Bankruptcy Filings Chalked Up to COVID-19 Alphabet Getty Images Market value: $964.7 billion Year-to-date performance: +5.5% Alphabet ( GOOGL , $1,413.24) hasn't performed as well as some of the other AI stocks on this list; the coronavirus deserves the lion's share of the blame. Alphabet cited "a significant slowdown in ad revenues" in explaining its first-quarter earnings miss on April 28. While ad revenues still grew more than 10% year-over-year, that number was much smaller than Alphabet and analysts had expected. Advertising research firm says that a survey of media buyers, planners and brands revealed that "73% of buyers are indicating that the coronavirus will have an impact on the Upfront 2020/2021 spend commitments and expect a 20% decrease in Upfront spend vs their original plan." Nonetheless, Google is the biggest name in the game, and many analysts expect adoption of online ads will regain momentum as a longer-term effect of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Alphabet has been investing heavily in AI since the mid-2000s, back when it was known simply as Google. In fact, the 2015 renaming to "Alphabet" was in part meant to emphasize that artificial intelligence is part of its core. Alphabet uses AI in speech recognition, its personal assistant platform and the technology behind its Waymo self-driving car unit. Not to mention, artificial intelligence has been helping inform the legacy Google Search platform for years. SEE ALSO: 25 Dividend Stocks the Analysts Love the Most DocuSign Getty Images Market value: $24.4 billion Year-to-date performance: +79.5% DocuSign ( DOCU , $133.00) allows users to sign official documents with an electronic signature and validates the signature by having users scan in their driver's license or other official photo ID. Interestingly, DocuSign has praised other AI stocks on this list, including Salesforce and Alphabet, for helping to power DocuSign's services. But it's also been making some AI acquisitions of its own to further bolster its offerings. For instance, in 2017, DocuSign acquired machine learning and customer analytics platform Appuri. And in May, DOCU announced it had closed on its $188 million buyout of Seal Software, which provides agreement discovery, extraction and analytics solutions. The two companies have been working together since 2018, with DocuSign marketing Seal's flagship product as DocuSign Intelligent Insights to allow users to search and compare legal documents. The software can also make recommendations about risk and opportunity and offer actionable insights. "The opportunity to reduce time spent on manual workflows through the addition of Seal to the portfolio can help bolster the value proposition and drive ROI for customers," RBC Capital's Alex Zukin writes. SEE ALSO: 25 Blue Chips With Brawny Balance Sheets EDITOR'S PICKS 20 Best Stocks to Buy Now for the Next Bull Market 11 Best Tech Stocks for the New Coronavirus Norm 11 Best E-Commerce Stocks for Electrifying Returns Copyright 2020 The Kiplinger Washington Editors || The Best AI Stocks to Buy for 2021 and Beyond: Getty Images You're not imagining things. Computers are getting smarter every day. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a not-so-new technology that involves "smart" computers capable of demonstrating intelligence, usually through solving problems or learning. As the horsepower behind AI improves, the technology is able to perform increasingly complex tasks, from identifying new sales opportunities to steering vehicles. And that technology is driving the best AI stocks to strong outperformance this year, with many equities that either use or help power artificial intelligence boasting double-digit gains against a down market. In fact, you probably use AI every day, whether you realize it or not. Artificial intelligence powers personal assistants such as Alexa, Cortana and Siri. It also guides the search results you plug into your computer or smartphone, and it often helps determine the advertisements you see. It's an incredible investing opportunity, too. AI stocks are gunning after a market poised to grow from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2025, according to estimates by emerging-technology research and consulting firm Omdia | Tractica. Here, we look at 10 of the best AI stocks to buy for investors in it for the long haul. Each stock has already outperformed considerably year-to-date, and the coronavirus outbreak still might rattle them in the short-term. But each also shows plenty of promise looking out to 2021, 2022 and beyond. SEE ALSO: 20 Best Stocks to Buy Now for the Next Bull Market Nvidia Getty Images Market value: $222.1 billion Year-to-date performance: +53.4% Chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA , $361.05) has long been one of the best AI stocks to buy. While the company has built its reputation on high-powered graphics cards for gaming PCs, Nvidia's chips are increasingly being used for artificial intelligence and deep learning applications. In the first quarter, Nvidia reported that its data center division, which includes chips for intensive tasks such as AI, grew revenues by 80% year-over-year, topping the $1 billion mark for the first time ever. And the company's latest development, the Nvidia A100, is already seeing strong demand and meaningfully contributed to Q1 revenues. Story continues "The A100 offers the largest leap in performance to date over our eight generations of GPUs boosting performance by up to 20 times over its predecessor," CEO Jensen Huang said during the company's Q1 conference call. "It is exceptionally versatile, serving as a universal accelerator for the most important high-performance workloads, including AI training and inference as well as data analytics, scientific computing and cloud graphics." Nvidia also has partnered with numerous automakers to work on autonomous vehicles. More than 70 companies worldwide are working aggressively on developing a mass-produced self-driving car; market intelligence firm Guidehouse Insights ranks Nvidia as No. 1 among them. The average analyst price target on shares right now is $380, implying just 5% upside. But it's an overwhelmingly bullish consensus - 25 Buys versus three Holds and one Sell over the past three months - and some analysts are starting to upgrade their price targets to reflect even more upside. Cowen's Matthew Ramsay (Outperform, equivalent of Buy), for instance, recently hiked his price target from $325 to $410, citing the company's strong results and A100 launch. SEE ALSO: The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio: Latest Buffett Stock Rankings Salesforce Getty Images Market value: $159.8 billion Year-to-date performance: +9.4% Salesforce.com ( CRM , $177.85) is a customer relationship management software company that allows businesses to manage their customer information. Salesforce's platform creates a shared view of individual customers for a company's marketing, sales and service departments to help it best connect with customers. Salesforce says its systems can help companies increase revenue, boost sales productivity and improve forecasting accuracy. Salesforce earns a spot among the best AI stocks to buy thanks to its Einstein AI-powered software. Einstein helps companies find future sales opportunities, create personalized marketing plans and build smarter apps for customers and employees. CRM announced record fourth-quarter results in February, and while analysts are cautious about the company's upcoming Q1 announcement, due May 28, they're bullish on CRM's longer-term prospects. Jefferies' Brent Thill (Buy) recently raised his price target from $180 per share to $205, arguing that Salesforce should benefit from accelerated cloud adoption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst Terry Tillman, like Thill, thinks nearer-term results will be hampered by the coronavirus, but sees this crisis as "a catalyst for digital transformation initiatives" and thinks "Salesforce will emerge from this downturn even stronger." SEE ALSO: 50 Top Stock Picks That Billionaires Love Netflix Getty Images Market value: $188.8 billion Year-to-date performance: +32.7% Netflix ( NFLX , $429.32) has previously been highlighted as one of the best tech stocks for the "new coronavirus norm." Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have given the streaming content provider a big shot in the arm. In the first quarter, NFLX reported 15.77 million new subscribers, a 23% increase from the year-ago quarter. That demolished Netflix's own estimate of 7 million new customers, and set a quarterly record for the streaming company. Average revenue per user also grew by 8%. How does Netflix keep these all these customers happy? Well, one of its tricks is using AI to personalize its content for subscribers. Netflix's computers learn from what customers watch to suggest new content to keep them engaged. Netflix also is using data science to help its producers decide when and where to shoot a movie - an increasingly important consideration considering the quantity of original programming Netflix produces each year. It also uses AI in post-production , as its computers predict the best places in the process that editors should do quality-control checks. BofA Securities' Nat Schindler, who has a Buy rating on NFLX stock and a $525 price target, cited low churn among reasons to be optimistic about the streaming content provider. "We think global subscriber strength could last longer than seen as we expect some social distancing (impacting large events, cinemas, sports games) may remain into (the second half of 2020)," he writes. SEE ALSO: Pros' Picks: The 15 Best Nasdaq Stocks You Can Buy Amazon.com Getty Images Market value: $1.21 trillion Year-to-date performance: +31.9% While many stocks have delivered substantial losses in 2020 and others have barely treaded water, Amazon.com ( AMZN , $2,436.88) has doled out 30%-plus gains year-to-date and just recently tagged new all-time highs. AMZN, one of the top e-commerce stocks on the market , also deserves a spot among Wall Street's best AI stocks, given its deft use of the technology. Amazon.com, which benefitted from a rash of online buying during the first quarter, uses artificial intelligence to recommend products to people on its website, customizing retail offerings based on browsing history. And the company's high-margin Amazon Web Services has an AI Services offering that gives businesses access to abilities such as image and video analysis, virtual assistants and forecasting. Late last year, AWS announced that Amazon Kendra - a powerful enterprise search service powered by machine learning - was "generally available" to all Amazon Web Services customers. Amazon says Kendra will make internet search more accurate and faster, and can be used with chat apps, chat bots or on search pages. Amazon is even using artificial intelligence in its warehouses to plan routes for hundreds of warehouse robots to make sure they don't crash into each other. SEE ALSO: 32 Ways to Earn Up to 9% on Your Money Now Dropbox Getty Images Market value: $9.0 billion Year-to-date performance: +21.0% Dropbox ( DBX , $21.67) isn't the most scintillating name among these best AI stocks. But it's enjoying stellar returns in 2020 thanks to increased traffic and usage during the pandemic, and it uses artificial intelligence in a variety of ways. For instance, Dropbox uses artificial intelligence to recognize text in documents that customers scan using the camera on their smartphone or tablets. It also relies on AI to help its users organize their content , make suggestions about folders and handle cloud-based third-party content. Over the past year, Dropbox also rolled out Dropbox Spaces, which are collaboration hubs for work teams that integrate with popular tools such as Slack and Zoom. Dropbox Spaces uses AI to suggest files that users might need to access next. Earlier in May, Dropbox reported its first quarterly profit (17 cents per share) since coming public in 2018. Finance chief Ajay Vashee says the company expects to produce a full-year profit for 2020. Citi analyst Walter Pritchard initiated Dropbox and a few other "work from home" plays with Buy ratings in mid-May, writing that "Shelter in place (and) work from home is likely to change how organizations prioritize workplace technology. While a focused set of technologies have likely seen greater adoption as a result of immediate Covid-19-related business priorities (remote access and certain security items), we expect teams that have been dispersed will look to augment their collaborative capabilities." As for DBX itself, he says the stock is a "relatively scare asset" and "an underappreciated play on the wide content collaboration opportunity." SEE ALSO: 11 Small-Cap Stocks Analysts Love the Most The Trade Desk Getty Images Market value: $14.2 billion Year-to-date performance: +18.4% The Trade Desk ( TTD , $307.60) might sound like an investing-centric company, but it's actually a software platform used by advertisers who want to buy digital ad campaigns across a variety of platforms and devices. This is particularly important as more customers make the transition from watching entertainment on cable to on-demand streaming services, social media platforms and the internet. Trade Desk's AI allows advertisers to reach viewers on all platforms. The Trade Desk's artificial intelligence engine, named Koa, is designed to analyze internet data and generate real-time recommendations to help advertisers reach targeted audiences. It can automatically optimize ad campaigns, too. Users buy their ads in an auction-like format with real-time bidding on mobile, video, audio, display and on social media channels. TTD's first-quarter revenues of $160.7 million were 33% better than the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, adjusted earnings of 90 cents per share were 41 cents better than in the prior year's first quarter. However, the company withdrew guidance for the second quarter, citing coronavirus-related uncertainty - a common theme on the corporate earnings calendar . While Wall Street's analysts are starting to cool on the stock short-term, several still recommend buying TTD. Among them is Needham's Laura Martin (Buy, $370 price target), who says the company compares favorably to Roku ( ROKU ): "TTD is not a Walled Garden, it independently represents its big brand clients across the Internet when placing ads ... we would add that TTD makes a lot of money, reporting a 32% EBITDA margin in 2019 vs 3% at ROKU." SEE ALSO: Bitcoin Halving: What Does It Mean for Investors? Microsoft Getty Images Market value: $1.39 trillion Year-to-date performance: 16.4% Microsoft ( MSFT , $183.51) has been a household name since Microsoft Windows was released in the 1980s. And it's among the best AI stocks if you're looking not just for exposure to artificial intelligence technology, but also a sturdy balance sheet and a little income to boot. Microsoft's AI powerhouse is its Microsoft Azure platform, which has been a primary focus of the company's growth since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014. Microsoft's cloud platform allows customers to add AI capabilities to their apps even if they don't have machine learning expertise, scale without limits and interpret behavior within AI systems. Microsoft also uses AI in a host of its other products, including its Microsoft 365 productivity suite, Bing search and its voice assistant, Cortana. It also invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the company founded by Elon Musk to create artificial general intelligence, which can theoretically do anything that human intelligence can do. More recently, Microsoft announced in May that it, in collaboration with OpenAI, created one of the top five publicly disclosed supercomputers in the world. The Street is overwhelmingly bullish on MSFT shares, which also deliver a modest 1.1% dividend yield at current prices. Twenty-one of 22 analysts covering the stock who are tracked by TipRanks have issued Buy notes over the past quarter, versus just one Hold. Among them is RBC Capital's Alex Zukin (Outperform), who says while the company won't be immune to macro demand trends, its revenue and gross profit growth should accelerate as Azure and Microsoft 365 expand. SEE ALSO: 13 Dividend Stocks That Have Paid Investors for 100+ Years Advanced Micro Devices Getty Images Market value: $64.6 billion Year-to-date performance: 20.3% Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD , $55.17) often works in the shadow of Nvidia and Intel ( INTC ). It trails Nvidia in graphics processing units (GPUs), and it's the No. 2 maker of central processing units (CPUs) behind Intel. AMD also trails Intel and Nvidia as far as its presence in AI is concerned, but the company is working to address that. Late last year, CEO Lisa Su said that despite AMD lacking a dedicated AI chip, "We'll absolutely see AMD be a large player in AI." And it does have a presence in deep learning; its products are used in offerings from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Exxact and Inventec, among others. AMD also is the exclusive builder of two of the U.S. government's three fastest supercomputing systems that have been announced. Advanced Micro Devices also is trying to close the gap in other categories. It has gained ground on Intel's lead in the CPU market for 30 consecutive quarters, and it owns the highest share (50%-plus) of high-end CPU sales. Wall Street's analysts aren't as overwhelmingly bullish on AMD shares as they are on other AI stocks, but a majority (14 of 25) are in the Buy camp. Among them is Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann, who has a Buy rating and $70 price target on AMD stock. "At the end of the day, the AMD story is more than just x86 CPU share gains, it's about accelerating computing dynamics that are secular in nature, in which the company is executing near-flawlessly," Mosesmann writes. "We continue to favor AMD shares on powerful and secular trends; plus, the gravy coming from the Street's reluctance or allergy to the possibility of AMD's continued success to traditionally more powerful competitors." SEE ALSO: 14 Bankruptcy Filings Chalked Up to COVID-19 Alphabet Getty Images Market value: $964.7 billion Year-to-date performance: +5.5% Alphabet ( GOOGL , $1,413.24) hasn't performed as well as some of the other AI stocks on this list; the coronavirus deserves the lion's share of the blame. Alphabet cited "a significant slowdown in ad revenues" in explaining its first-quarter earnings miss on April 28. While ad revenues still grew more than 10% year-over-year, that number was much smaller than Alphabet and analysts had expected. Advertising research firm says that a survey of media buyers, planners and brands revealed that "73% of buyers are indicating that the coronavirus will have an impact on the Upfront 2020/2021 spend commitments and expect a 20% decrease in Upfront spend vs their original plan." Nonetheless, Google is the biggest name in the game, and many analysts expect adoption of online ads will regain momentum as a longer-term effect of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Alphabet has been investing heavily in AI since the mid-2000s, back when it was known simply as Google. In fact, the 2015 renaming to "Alphabet" was in part meant to emphasize that artificial intelligence is part of its core. Alphabet uses AI in speech recognition, its personal assistant platform and the technology behind its Waymo self-driving car unit. Not to mention, artificial intelligence has been helping inform the legacy Google Search platform for years. SEE ALSO: 25 Dividend Stocks the Analysts Love the Most DocuSign Getty Images Market value: $24.4 billion Year-to-date performance: +79.5% DocuSign ( DOCU , $133.00) allows users to sign official documents with an electronic signature and validates the signature by having users scan in their driver's license or other official photo ID. Interestingly, DocuSign has praised other AI stocks on this list, including Salesforce and Alphabet, for helping to power DocuSign's services. But it's also been making some AI acquisitions of its own to further bolster its offerings. For instance, in 2017, DocuSign acquired machine learning and customer analytics platform Appuri. And in May, DOCU announced it had closed on its $188 million buyout of Seal Software, which provides agreement discovery, extraction and analytics solutions. The two companies have been working together since 2018, with DocuSign marketing Seal's flagship product as DocuSign Intelligent Insights to allow users to search and compare legal documents. The software can also make recommendations about risk and opportunity and offer actionable insights. "The opportunity to reduce time spent on manual workflows through the addition of Seal to the portfolio can help bolster the value proposition and drive ROI for customers," RBC Capital's Alex Zukin writes. SEE ALSO: 25 Blue Chips With Brawny Balance Sheets EDITOR'S PICKS 20 Best Stocks to Buy Now for the Next Bull Market 11 Best Tech Stocks for the New Coronavirus Norm 11 Best E-Commerce Stocks for Electrifying Returns Copyright 2020 The Kiplinger Washington Editors || Look to Design, Not Laws, to Protect Privacy in the Surveillance Age: Raullen Chai is the co-founder of IoTeX, a Silicon Valley company building the Internet of Trusted Things with blockchain-powered smart devices that protect privacy. Cameras, thermostats, virtual assistants and other smart devices are being installed in our homes at a blistering rate – in 2020, a new smart bulb will be installed in the world every second. Even traditionally “dumb” devices such as beds, mirrors and toilets are now being equipped with WiFi and powerful sensors to make them “smart.” Today, the average American owns eight of these smart devices, which communicate back and forth with their owner. But if our devices can talk to us about the status of our homes, who else are they talking to? Tech giants such as Amazon and Google have a history of abusing our digital data and are now penetrating our physical homes and neighborhoods, making it more important than ever to safeguard our data and identities. These tech giants are on a spending spree, acquiring companies like Ring, Nest and Fitbit giving them an inside look at our homes and bodies. With millions of Ring cameras and Echo speakers watching and listening to us 24/7 in our homes, our data and privacy are in jeopardy. Related: The $10B Stablecoin Industry Has a Fraud Problem It’s Not Addressing The COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened the need to ensure people can choose how their data is used. In their zeal to slow the virus’ spread, governments and corporations have too often jumped to centralized solutions without considering the impact on our privacy. They’re doing so through apps that hope to track the spread of the virus using everything from Bluetooth signals to location tracking. We may be willing to temporarily sacrifice our privacy to battle the virus, but how do we return to a pre-pandemic state? Reactive regulations simply cannot guarantee our privacy. It’s difficult to rein in relaxed policy and laws once they become normalized, much less consumer technology. Facebook is still a part of billions of people’s lives despite its privacy and data violations, for example. Tech giants are the gatekeepers of our data and the more of it we give up, the more powerful their control over not just what ads we see but the “connections” we are shown, the content we’re suggested and the ways they can shift user behavior. Story continues Data privacy regulations have begun emerging in recent years, but these reactive measures simply cannot guarantee our privacy. We must proactively build and adopt new technologies with “privacy by design” to reach a human-centered future. Related: To See Libra’s Potential, Look at the Philippines, Not the US “Privacy by design” is the principle that privacy is a “must have” from the initial design stage of every smart device. By building these devices to protect our data, even if a bad actor oversteps the law, we can shift away from heavily relying on regulation as one of the few means of protecting our privacy. In the future, our privacy will be guaranteed at the technological level, which may sound like science fiction but it’s not. New technologies rooted in trust, such as blockchain and secure hardware, are reaching critical milestones that make them ready for broad-based adoption. Even now, while we have to accept certain restrictions and give up certain civil liberties to save lives during this pandemic, we can fight the health crisis without sacrificing our privacy. The solution lies in technology’s ability to offer data sovereignty that facilitates individuals choosing what data they are willing to share with whom and for how long. Personal and physical Digital hacks such as identity theft are bad enough. But when the theft or re-selling of data affects the behavior of physical devices, the results can be irrevocable for the victim. Unlike our virtual selves, our physical selves have no “reset” button when a hacker takes control of an autonomous vehicle zooming down the highway. A data leak is not just your Spotify playlists, it’s security camera footage revealing when you leave your house every morning. A password breach is not just exposing the keys to your email, it’s handing over the keys to your smart home. When it comes to the devices we place in our homes, we must be extremely vigilant. When hacking gets physical and knocks us down, there is no safety net to catch our fall. See also: Citizen App’s New Contact Tracing Feature Raises Privacy Red Flags The steady growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) also represents an expansion of attack vectors for hackers. Research from SAM Seamless Network found that home security cameras account for 47% of IoT devices compromised by hackers. Smart hubs and network-attached storage (NAS), which commonly connect to other IoT devices, are the second and third most vulnerable devices, accounting for 15% and 12% of global device hacks, respectively. Rounding out the list of vulnerable devices are household staples like printers and TVs. The sensitivity of data generated by our smart homes compels us to treat our physical devices differently than our digital apps. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a recorded video or conversation is worth a thousand keystrokes to hackers. Powering our smart homes with trusted, decentralized technologies can not only allow us to keep our data away from centralized tech giants but makes us captains of our own data destinies. Not your data, not your privacy The creep of surveillance capitalism into our homes and neighborhoods is threatening the fundamental right to freedom and privacy for individuals, as well as for society as a whole. Just look at what Google knows about us today: what we browse (Chrome), whom we email (Gmail), where we travel (Maps), what we watch (YouTube), what we read (News), what we buy (Pay) – and this is just a subset of Google’s vast suite of products. Tech giants have already spied or purchased their way into almost every data type imaginable. Now they are coming for the last two pieces of the puzzle, our home and health data. Based on tech giants’ past actions in the digital world, we cannot expect them to kindly ask us to opt-in and share our data. After all, privacy is the single largest existential threat to surveillance capitalists. New consumer data privacy regulations – most notably the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S. –have sparked much needed discussion around “who has my data and what are they doing with it?” However, in practice GDPR and CCPA function more as lengthy operational frameworks that allow us to inquire, complain and seek financial damages from corporations that abuse our data. This does not prevent the abuse in the first place. We need to flip the whole paradigm. After all, shouldn’t we own our own data by default? Data ownership provides us the freedom to choose whether to keep our data fully private, share it with others or authorize its use by corporations. This is antithetical to today’s centralized models, which operate as data dictatorships, where citizens must ask corporations to delete, transfer, or do anything else with their data. Flipping the model does not mean the services corporations offer today or even the monetization of our data cannot continue. It just means we, the people, will have the ultimate say regarding how our data is used. Over the past decade we have gradually been coaxed into being complacent with Big Tech holding, manipulating and selling our private data. The only way to reverse this trend is to build and adopt trusted products that protect our data, identity and privacy by default, especially those we put in our homes. The next 10 years will define whether the digital era is owned and controlled by institutions or by the people. Which side are you on? Related Stories Spiritual Reflections on the Bitcoin Halving Central Bank Digital Currencies Need Decentralization || Look to Design, Not Laws, to Protect Privacy in the Surveillance Age: Raullen Chai is the co-founder of IoTeX, a Silicon Valley company building the Internet ofTrustedThings with blockchain-powered smart devices that protect privacy.
Cameras, thermostats, virtual assistants and other smart devices are being installed in our homes at a blistering rate – in 2020, a new smart bulb will be installed in the world every second. Even traditionally “dumb” devices such as beds, mirrors and toilets are now being equipped with WiFi and powerful sensors to make them “smart.” Today, the average American owns eight of these smart devices, which communicate back and forth with their owner. But if our devices can talk to us about the status of our homes, who else are they talking to?
Tech giants such as Amazon and Google have a history of abusing our digital data and are now penetrating our physical homes and neighborhoods, making it more important than ever to safeguard our data and identities. These tech giants are on a spending spree, acquiring companies like Ring, Nest and Fitbit giving them an inside look at our homes and bodies. With millions of Ring cameras and Echo speakers watching and listening to us 24/7 in our homes, our data and privacy are in jeopardy.
Related:The $10B Stablecoin Industry Has a Fraud Problem It’s Not Addressing
The COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened the need to ensure people can choose how their data is used. In their zeal to slow the virus’ spread, governments and corporations have too often jumped to centralized solutions without considering the impact on our privacy. They’re doing so through apps that hope to track the spread of the virus using everything from Bluetooth signals to location tracking. We may be willing to temporarily sacrifice our privacy to battle the virus, but how do we return to a pre-pandemic state?
Reactive regulations simply cannot guarantee our privacy.
It’s difficult to rein in relaxed policy and laws once they become normalized, much less consumer technology. Facebook is still a part of billions of people’s lives despite its privacy and data violations, for example. Tech giants are the gatekeepers of our data and the more of it we give up, the more powerful their control over not just what ads we see but the “connections” we are shown, the content we’re suggested and the ways they can shift user behavior.
Data privacy regulations have begun emerging in recent years, but these reactive measures simply cannot guarantee our privacy. We must proactively build and adopt new technologies with “privacy by design” to reach a human-centered future.
Related:To See Libra’s Potential, Look at the Philippines, Not the US
“Privacy by design” is the principle that privacy is a “must have” from the initial design stage of every smart device. By building these devices to protect our data, even if a bad actor oversteps the law, we can shift away from heavily relying on regulation as one of the few means of protecting our privacy. In the future, our privacy will be guaranteed at the technological level, which may sound like science fiction but it’s not. New technologies rooted in trust, such as blockchain and secure hardware, are reaching critical milestones that make them ready for broad-based adoption.
Even now, while we have to accept certain restrictions and give up certain civil liberties to save lives during this pandemic, we can fight the health crisis without sacrificing our privacy. The solution lies in technology’s ability to offer data sovereignty that facilitates individuals choosing what data they are willing to share with whom and for how long.
Digital hacks such as identity theft are bad enough. But when the theft or re-selling of data affects the behavior of physical devices, the results can be irrevocable for the victim. Unlike our virtual selves, our physical selves have no “reset” button when a hacker takes control of an autonomous vehicle zooming down the highway. A data leak is not just your Spotify playlists, it’s security camera footage revealing when you leave your house every morning. A password breach is not just exposing the keys to your email, it’s handing over the keys to your smart home. When it comes to the devices we place in our homes, we must be extremely vigilant. When hacking gets physical and knocks us down, there is no safety net to catch our fall.
See also:Citizen App’s New Contact Tracing Feature Raises Privacy Red Flags
The steady growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) also represents an expansion of attack vectors for hackers. Research from SAM Seamless Network found that home security cameras account for 47% of IoT devices compromised by hackers. Smart hubs and network-attached storage (NAS), which commonly connect to other IoT devices, are the second and third most vulnerable devices, accounting for 15% and 12% of global device hacks, respectively. Rounding out the list of vulnerable devices are household staples like printers and TVs.
The sensitivity of data generated by our smart homes compels us to treat our physical devices differently than our digital apps. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a recorded video or conversation is worth a thousand keystrokes to hackers. Powering our smart homes with trusted, decentralized technologies can not only allow us to keep our data away from centralized tech giants but makes us captains of our own data destinies.
The creep ofsurveillance capitalisminto our homes and neighborhoods is threatening the fundamental right to freedom and privacy for individuals, as well as for society as a whole.
Just look at what Google knows about us today: what we browse (Chrome), whom we email (Gmail), where we travel (Maps), what we watch (YouTube), what we read (News), what we buy (Pay) – and this is just a subset of Google’s vast suite of products. Tech giants have already spied or purchased their way into almost every data type imaginable. Now they are coming for the last two pieces of the puzzle, our home and health data. Based on tech giants’ past actions in the digital world, we cannot expect them to kindly ask us to opt-in and share our data. After all, privacy is the single largest existential threat to surveillance capitalists.
New consumer data privacy regulations – most notably the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S. –have sparked much needed discussion around “who has my data and what are they doing with it?” However, in practice GDPR and CCPA function more as lengthy operational frameworks that allow us to inquire, complain and seek financial damages from corporations that abuse our data. This does not prevent the abuse in the first place. We need to flip the whole paradigm. After all, shouldn’t we own our own data by default?
Data ownership provides us the freedom to choose whether to keep our data fully private, share it with others or authorize its use by corporations. This is antithetical to today’s centralized models, which operate as data dictatorships, where citizens must ask corporations to delete, transfer, or do anything else with their data. Flipping the model does not mean the services corporations offer today or even the monetization of our data cannot continue. It just means we, the people, will have the ultimate say regarding how our data is used.
Over the past decade we have gradually been coaxed into being complacent with Big Tech holding, manipulating and selling our private data. The only way to reverse this trend is to build and adopt trusted products that protect our data, identity and privacy by default, especially those we put in our homes. The next 10 years will define whether the digital era is owned and controlled by institutions or by the people.
Which side are you on?
• Spiritual Reflections on the Bitcoin Halving
• Central Bank Digital Currencies Need Decentralization || Blockchain Bites: Facebook’s Calibra Facelift and Tencent’s ‘New Infrastructure’ Investments: We’re happy to be back after a recharging long weekend. Let’s get to the news.
India’s central bank has clarified its crypto stance, Tencent is looking to invest in “emerging technologies” including blockchain and Facebook’s digital wallet subsidiary announced a rebranding and new details.
You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Google Validates Theta, Coinbase and BitGo Eye Crypto Prime Brokerage
Libra’s New FaceA statement announcing the rebranding of Facebook subsidiary Calibra to Novi alsoreveals details of the anticipated wallet product.The Novi wallet will operate as a standalone app, as well as provide interoperability with Facebook’s social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp, to make transactions as “easy as sending a message.” Novi customers will need to be verified using a government-issued ID. The wallet will initially be rolled out to a limited number of countries, though the release date still remains unclear.
‘No Such Prohibitions’India’s central bank has clarified the nation’s new crypto policy, months after the Indian Supreme Courtlifted restrictions on banking cryptoclients. Commercial banks can indeed provide banking services to traders and firms dealing in cryptocurrencies. “As on date, no such prohibition exists,” the Reserve Bank of India said on May 22. The statement came in response to a query filed by BV Harish, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin.
Signed TransactionsMore than 100 addresses Craig Wright – the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin currently being sued for half of his supposed multi-billion dollar stash of the cryptocurrency – claimed to be his wereused to sign a message calling Wright a “fraud”and making it plain that he does not in fact own or control them. The Bitcoin addresses were inadvertently entered into the public record in the ongoing case against Wright.
Challenging AmazonIn a bid to attract users beyond the cryptoverse, Halsey Minor’sVideoCoin platform will launch Wednesdaywith fiat payment options. VideoCoin decentralizes the hosting and streaming of video, paying out a native token to participants in the network. “A company like Fox is never going to go to an exchange and buy volatile tokens. You kind of have to be in the crypto world to use crypto projects – and we are trying to break that barrier down,” Minor said.
Related:First Mover: EOS Has Still to Prove Itself After Spiraling Down This Past Year
Tencent’s InvestmentsTencent isinvesting 500 billion yuan ($70 billion) into “new infrastructure”based on emerging technologies including AI, cloud computing and blockchain over the next five years. The investments are aimed at recovering losses accrued during the coronavirus crisis and “further cement virus containment success,” Tencent’s senior executive vice president Dowson Tong told Guangming Daily.
Bitcoin 401(k)Bitwage has unveiled a trial of abitcoin 401(k) plan. The pension plan is supported by crypto exchange Gemini, the custodian service Kingdom Trust, as well as the established pension provider, Leading Retirement Solutions, who keep records for the 401(k) plan with the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Trading CurrentsThailand is teaming up with ablockchain firm Power Ledger to encourage peer-to-peer tradingof renewable energy. “Blockchain-enabled transactive energy solutions including peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading, virtual power plants as well as renewable energy certificates and carbon credits trading will be the key to establishing economically viable renewable energy markets,” said the startup’s co-founder, Jemma Green, and help the nation hit its 25% renewable energy target by 2037.
Strategic InvestmentIndia’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, CoinDCX, has secured a$2.5 million strategic investmentled by Polychain Capital with support from Coinbase Ventures. The investment will reinforce the exchange’s efforts to drive cryptocurrency adoption in the country after a major legal victory in March.
Telegram Throws in the TowelTelegram is no longer challenging the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ban on its blockchain token project in the courtroom. On Friday, the companyfiled an agreement for dismissal without prejudiceof a previous appeal challenging the SEC’s prohibition of distributing gram tokens to U.S. investors.
Supporting Steem?Binance isforced to “technically” supportlast week’s hard fork of the Steem blockchain, according to the crypto exchange’s CEO. In a statement on Binance’s official blog Sunday, CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said the exchange is “very much against zeroing other people’s assets on the blockchain,” but to not support it would mean that Binance users would not be able to withdraw their steem tokens.
Louisiana LicensingThe Louisiana State Senate is about to consider a bill to regulate and license virtual currency businesses. If passed, the legislation wouldestablish Louisiana’s first crypto licensingregime. Crypto businesses would have to apply with the state’s Office of Financial Institutions (OFI), fork over executives’ fingerprints, subject their “experience, character and general fitness” to investigation – and perhaps the business premises as well – and pay a nonrefundable registration fee, among other requirements.
Digitization BoostMessari analysts wrote a report arguing the“coming digitization of money,” including the launch of CBDCs, could provide a “secular tailwind” for bitcoin. The resilience of cryptocurrencies has catalyzed government investigation into CBDCs, which in turn expose the wider population to the mechanics of cryptocurrencies. CBDCs, “will increase people’s comfort with and understanding of cryptocurrencies, get more people creating and using cryptocurrency wallets, and provide on-ramps into decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,” the analysts said. This insight comes fromFirst Mover.Get it in your inboxhere.
Inflation and PriceRewards per block mined on the zcash blockchain – launched and supported by the Electric Coin Company – are scheduled to becut by 50% sometime in November. The privacy-centered crypto is often criticized for its high levels of inflation, though some industry experts are saying its programmatic halving could solve this problem. This case study could reveal insight about the impact inflation has on a cryptocurrency’s price.
Fees and TransactionsBitcoin’s average transaction fee has dropped 53% from $6.64 to $3.06 in the past five days, as the backlog of unconfirmed transactions sitting in the blockchain’s mempool has dropped 71% over the same time period. (Decrypt)
VC InflowsAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) stirred up discussion last week by claiming the crypto economy is teetering on the edge of its next cycle of development, just days after it unveiled a second $515 million crypto-focused fund. CoinDesk’s Noelle Acheson looks at venture capital inflows into crypto andwhat a16z’s plans means for the direction of this industry. “[V]enture funding implies building, steady progress, support for the never-ending search for product-market fit and a relatively attractive profile for institutions looking for return with reasonable risk,” she said. You can sign up forCrypto Long & Shorthere.
Spiritual Reflections on the Bitcoin HalvingAllen Farrington, a freelance writer, reflects onbitcoin’s third programmatic halvingand what the shared event means for the future of the network and the internet. “The bitcoin halving happened at the same time for everybody because the Bitcoin protocol is the same thing for everybody. It knows no borders and no nationalities. It knows no time zones,” he said.
What I Learned the First Time I Lost a Million DollarsJeff Dorman retells the tale of hisgains and losses on Wall Streetand what this experience means for risk management in the age of digital assets. “The ability to stay disciplined with risk management changed my career. I always knew I had the tools required to be a successful investor, and I’ve always been convinced I can make smart investments, but it took years to realize the difference between good asset managers and bad ones comes down to more than just picking good investments,” he writes.
• To See Libra’s Potential, Look at the Philippines, Not the US
• First Mover: Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies || Blockchain Bites: Facebook’s Calibra Facelift and Tencent’s ‘New Infrastructure’ Investments: We’re happy to be back after a recharging long weekend. Let’s get to the news. India’s central bank has clarified its crypto stance, Tencent is looking to invest in “emerging technologies” including blockchain and Facebook’s digital wallet subsidiary announced a rebranding and new details. You’re reading Blockchain Bites , the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here . Top Shelf Related: Blockchain Bites: Google Validates Theta, Coinbase and BitGo Eye Crypto Prime Brokerage Libra’s New Face A statement announcing the rebranding of Facebook subsidiary Calibra to Novi also reveals details of the anticipated wallet product. The Novi wallet will operate as a standalone app, as well as provide interoperability with Facebook’s social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp, to make transactions as “easy as sending a message.” Novi customers will need to be verified using a government-issued ID. The wallet will initially be rolled out to a limited number of countries, though the release date still remains unclear. ‘No Such Prohibitions’ India’s central bank has clarified the nation’s new crypto policy, months after the Indian Supreme Court lifted restrictions on banking crypto clients. Commercial banks can indeed provide banking services to traders and firms dealing in cryptocurrencies. “As on date, no such prohibition exists,” the Reserve Bank of India said on May 22. The statement came in response to a query filed by BV Harish, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin. Signed Transactions More than 100 addresses Craig Wright – the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin currently being sued for half of his supposed multi-billion dollar stash of the cryptocurrency – claimed to be his were used to sign a message calling Wright a “fraud” and making it plain that he does not in fact own or control them. The Bitcoin addresses were inadvertently entered into the public record in the ongoing case against Wright. Story continues Challenging Amazon In a bid to attract users beyond the cryptoverse, Halsey Minor’s VideoCoin platform will launch Wednesday with fiat payment options. VideoCoin decentralizes the hosting and streaming of video, paying out a native token to participants in the network. “A company like Fox is never going to go to an exchange and buy volatile tokens. You kind of have to be in the crypto world to use crypto projects – and we are trying to break that barrier down,” Minor said. Related: First Mover: EOS Has Still to Prove Itself After Spiraling Down This Past Year Tencent’s Investments Tencent is investing 500 billion yuan ($70 billion) into “new infrastructure” based on emerging technologies including AI, cloud computing and blockchain over the next five years. The investments are aimed at recovering losses accrued during the coronavirus crisis and “further cement virus containment success,” Tencent’s senior executive vice president Dowson Tong told Guangming Daily. Bitcoin 401(k) Bitwage has unveiled a trial of a bitcoin 401(k) plan . The pension plan is supported by crypto exchange Gemini, the custodian service Kingdom Trust, as well as the established pension provider, Leading Retirement Solutions, who keep records for the 401(k) plan with the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Trading Currents Thailand is teaming up with a blockchain firm Power Ledger to encourage peer-to-peer trading of renewable energy. “Blockchain-enabled transactive energy solutions including peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading, virtual power plants as well as renewable energy certificates and carbon credits trading will be the key to establishing economically viable renewable energy markets,” said the startup’s co-founder, Jemma Green, and help the nation hit its 25% renewable energy target by 2037. Strategic Investment India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, CoinDCX, has secured a $2.5 million strategic investment led by Polychain Capital with support from Coinbase Ventures. The investment will reinforce the exchange’s efforts to drive cryptocurrency adoption in the country after a major legal victory in March. Telegram Throws in the Towel Telegram is no longer challenging the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ban on its blockchain token project in the courtroom. On Friday, the company filed an agreement for dismissal without prejudice of a previous appeal challenging the SEC’s prohibition of distributing gram tokens to U.S. investors. Supporting Steem? Binance is forced to “technically” support last week’s hard fork of the Steem blockchain, according to the crypto exchange’s CEO. In a statement on Binance’s official blog Sunday, CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said the exchange is “very much against zeroing other people’s assets on the blockchain,” but to not support it would mean that Binance users would not be able to withdraw their steem tokens. Louisiana Licensing The Louisiana State Senate is about to consider a bill to regulate and license virtual currency businesses. If passed, the legislation would establish Louisiana’s first crypto licensing regime. Crypto businesses would have to apply with the state’s Office of Financial Institutions (OFI), fork over executives’ fingerprints, subject their “experience, character and general fitness” to investigation – and perhaps the business premises as well – and pay a nonrefundable registration fee, among other requirements. Market Intel Digitization Boost Messari analysts wrote a report arguing the “coming digitization of money,” including the launch of CBDCs, could provide a “secular tailwind” for bitcoin . The resilience of cryptocurrencies has catalyzed government investigation into CBDCs, which in turn expose the wider population to the mechanics of cryptocurrencies. CBDCs, “will increase people’s comfort with and understanding of cryptocurrencies, get more people creating and using cryptocurrency wallets, and provide on-ramps into decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,” the analysts said. This insight comes from First Mover. Get it in your inbox here . Inflation and Price Rewards per block mined on the zcash blockchain – launched and supported by the Electric Coin Company – are scheduled to be cut by 50% sometime in November . The privacy-centered crypto is often criticized for its high levels of inflation, though some industry experts are saying its programmatic halving could solve this problem. This case study could reveal insight about the impact inflation has on a cryptocurrency’s price. Fees and Transactions Bitcoin’s average transaction fee has dropped 53% from $6.64 to $3.06 in the past five days, as the backlog of unconfirmed transactions sitting in the blockchain’s mempool has dropped 71% over the same time period. ( Decrypt ) Crypto Long & Short VC Inflows Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) stirred up discussion last week by claiming the crypto economy is teetering on the edge of its next cycle of development, just days after it unveiled a second $515 million crypto-focused fund. CoinDesk’s Noelle Acheson looks at venture capital inflows into crypto and what a16z’s plans means for the direction of this industry . “[V]enture funding implies building, steady progress, support for the never-ending search for product-market fit and a relatively attractive profile for institutions looking for return with reasonable risk,” she said. You can sign up for Crypto Long & Short here . Opposite Editorial Spiritual Reflections on the Bitcoin Halving Allen Farrington, a freelance writer, reflects on bitcoin’s third programmatic halving and what the shared event means for the future of the network and the internet. “The bitcoin halving happened at the same time for everybody because the Bitcoin protocol is the same thing for everybody. It knows no borders and no nationalities. It knows no time zones,” he said. What I Learned the First Time I Lost a Million Dollars Jeff Dorman retells the tale of his gains and losses on Wall Street and what this experience means for risk management in the age of digital assets. “The ability to stay disciplined with risk management changed my career. I always knew I had the tools required to be a successful investor, and I’ve always been convinced I can make smart investments, but it took years to realize the difference between good asset managers and bad ones comes down to more than just picking good investments,” he writes. Who Won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories To See Libra’s Potential, Look at the Philippines, Not the US First Mover: Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies || Bitcoin News Roundup for May 26, 2020: Remember that time you claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto? It’s the inevitable return of CoinDesk’s Markets Daily podcast!
For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublicaorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byErisX,The Stellar Development FoundationandGrayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020
Today’s stories:
As Bitcoin Falls to 2-Week Lows, Small Investors Look to Be Buying
Craig Wright Called ‘Fraud’ in Message Signed With Bitcoin Addresses He Claims to Own
Canaan Reports $5.6M Loss in Q1 Despite Bitcoin Miner Price Cut
Related:Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations, Feat. Geoff Lewis
Thailand Turns to Blockchain to Boost Renewable Energy Push
For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublicaorRSS.
• The Shadow of Satoshi’s Ghost: Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters
• ‘Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe’ Feat. Tuomas Malinen || Bitcoin News Roundup for May 26, 2020: Remember that time you claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto? It’s the inevitable return of CoinDesk’s Markets Daily podcast!
For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublicaorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byErisX,The Stellar Development FoundationandGrayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020
Today’s stories:
As Bitcoin Falls to 2-Week Lows, Small Investors Look to Be Buying
Craig Wright Called ‘Fraud’ in Message Signed With Bitcoin Addresses He Claims to Own
Canaan Reports $5.6M Loss in Q1 Despite Bitcoin Miner Price Cut
Related:Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations, Feat. Geoff Lewis
Thailand Turns to Blockchain to Boost Renewable Energy Push
For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublicaorRSS.
• The Shadow of Satoshi’s Ghost: Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters
• ‘Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe’ Feat. Tuomas Malinen || Bitcoin News Roundup for May 26, 2020: Remember that time you claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto? Its the inevitable return of CoinDesks Markets Daily podcast! For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica or RSS . This episode is sponsored by ErisX , The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund . Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for May 27, 2020 Todays stories: As Bitcoin Falls to 2-Week Lows, Small Investors Look to Be Buying Craig Wright Called Fraud in Message Signed With Bitcoin Addresses He Claims to Own Canaan Reports $5.6M Loss in Q1 Despite Bitcoin Miner Price Cut Related: Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations, Feat. Geoff Lewis Thailand Turns to Blockchain to Boost Renewable Energy Push For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica or RSS . Related Stories The Shadow of Satoshis Ghost: Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe Feat. Tuomas Malinen || More Fundamental Investors Are Looking at Bitcoin – Join Today’s Webinar at 4pm EST to Understand Why: SentieoData Show Google and Twitter Interest in Bitcoin Doubling So Far This Year
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have played a divisive role in the last few years, but recently, the interest has drawn a far wider investor base.
Indeed, Paul Tudor Jones surprised Wall Street earlier this month when he revealed a significant stake in bitcoin, prompting a swirl of media activity. And there are indications of more broad interest on social media.
Since the start of the year, daily Twitter mentions of Bitcoin have roughly doubled to 165,000, according toSentieo, an AI-enable research platform. The same is true on Worldwide Google Trends, Sentieo’s data show.
IPO Edge, in partnership withOff the Chain Capital, LLC, a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager andThe Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association, a Florida trade association for financial professionals, will host a Webinar on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST –Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
The Webinar will feature Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis.
Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants.
Mr. Estes will discuss:
• Why does bitcoin have value?
• What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important?
• Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin
• Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio
• Models used to determine bitcoin’s value
Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal.
Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment. || More Fundamental Investors Are Looking at Bitcoin – Join Today’s Webinar at 4pm EST to Understand Why: SentieoData Show Google and Twitter Interest in Bitcoin Doubling So Far This Year
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have played a divisive role in the last few years, but recently, the interest has drawn a far wider investor base.
Indeed, Paul Tudor Jones surprised Wall Street earlier this month when he revealed a significant stake in bitcoin, prompting a swirl of media activity. And there are indications of more broad interest on social media.
Since the start of the year, daily Twitter mentions of Bitcoin have roughly doubled to 165,000, according toSentieo, an AI-enable research platform. The same is true on Worldwide Google Trends, Sentieo’s data show.
IPO Edge, in partnership withOff the Chain Capital, LLC, a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager andThe Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association, a Florida trade association for financial professionals, will host a Webinar on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST –Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
The Webinar will feature Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis.
Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants.
Mr. Estes will discuss:
• Why does bitcoin have value?
• What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important?
• Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin
• Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio
• Models used to determine bitcoin’s value
Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal.
Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment. || More Fundamental Investors Are Looking at Bitcoin – Join Today’s Webinar at 4pm EST to Understand Why: Sentieo Data Show Google and Twitter Interest in Bitcoin Doubling So Far This Year Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have played a divisive role in the last few years, but recently, the interest has drawn a far wider investor base. Indeed, Paul Tudor Jones surprised Wall Street earlier this month when he revealed a significant stake in bitcoin, prompting a swirl of media activity. And there are indications of more broad interest on social media. Since the start of the year, daily Twitter mentions of Bitcoin have roughly doubled to 165,000, according to Sentieo , an AI-enable research platform. The same is true on Worldwide Google Trends, Sentieo’s data show. IPO Edge , in partnership with Off the Chain Capital, LLC , a digital currency & blockchain asset investment manager and The Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association , a Florida trade association for financial professionals, will host a Webinar on Tuesday, May 26 at 4pm EST – Turbulent Times: Why Add Bitcoin to Your Portfolio Now . CLICK HERE TO REGISTER The Webinar will feature Brian Estes, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital, LLC, which employs a value-based approach to cryptocurrency inspired by the works of Graham and Dodd. Bitcoin has come into the spotlight recently as central banks around the world adopt zero interest rate policies and investors including Paul Tudor Jones have taken significant positions in the cryptocurrency. Whether as a substitute for fiat currencies such as the U.S dollar or a hedge against inflation, bitcoin has drawn Wall Street’s attention as investors navigate the latest financial crisis. Cryptocurrencies may also disrupt legacy technology companies like Amazon.com, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Paypal Holdings, Inc., and Apple Inc. Decentralized platforms built on blockchain technology using cryptocurrency for native tokens on the internet pose a challenge such tech giants. Mr. Estes will discuss: Why does bitcoin have value? What is the bitcoin halving and why is it important? Today’s global debt crisis and how it will benefit bitcoin Why add bitcoin to a diversified investment portfolio Models used to determine bitcoin’s value Brian Estes is the CIO and Managing Partner at Off the Chain Capital; he is also invested in the General Partner at Polychain. Brian helped finance, build, and mentor 4 blockchain companies whose combined value is over $10B today. Prior to his involvement in blockchain in 2014, Brian was a leading endowment and foundation asset manager who was ranked in the top 1/10th of 1% of Morningstar asset managers between 2004 -2014. Brian has his BA from the University of Illinois and MBA with high honors from Washington University. Brian also studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. For fun, Brian has been an instrument-rated private pilot for 30 years and has over 2100 flight hours in his single-engine Cessna Cardinal. Note: This Webinar is intended for informational purposes only and not to solicit any specific investment. || Facebook’s Calibra Rebrands to Novi, Details Wallet Tie-Up With WhatsApp: In the approach to the launch of theFacebook-spawnedLibra payments ecosystem, a key subsidiary has been given a new name and a new look.
According to an announcement on Tuesday, Facebook subsidiary and Libra wallet provider Calibra has now been rebranded to Novi – a portmanteau of the Latin root words, “novus” meaning new and “via” meaning way. The first wallet product from the firm is intended to hold Libra’s various digital currencies, once the Facebook-led initiative goes live.
Novi also comes with a design revamp that is said to represent “the fluid movement of digital currencies,” but maintains an element of the Libra icon in its logo.
Related:Facebook’s Toothless Oversight Board Has Lessons for Blockchain
“While we’ve changed our name from Calibra,” Novi said in a statement, “we haven’t changed our long-term commitment to helping people around the world access affordable financial services.” Just in case you were worried about that.
See also:Libra’s Long Road From a Facebook Lab to the Global Stage: A Timeline
Novi also provided a little insight into how the product will work. The digital wallet will operate as a standalone app, as well as providing interoperability with Facebook’s social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp.
Aimed to make sending funds to friends or family as “easy as sending a message,” transactions with Novi will arrive instantly, according to the announcement, and will contain no “hidden charges.” Novi didn’t offer any detail on what any standard transaction fees might be.
Related:The ‘Great Lockdown’ Is Boosting Demand for Bitcoin Custody Solutions
All Novi customers will need to be verified using government-issued ID, while “fraud protections” will come baked in. The wallet will initially be rolled out to a limited number of countries.
The release date still remains unclear, but the project hopes to introduce “an early version of Novi when the Libra network is available.”
The wallet and future financial services for the project will now be operated by a new entity, Novi Financial – a Facebook subsidiary that, it said, will operate independently from the social media giant at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters.
The Libra project has suffered a series of setbacks as regulators and governments set off alarm bells over the perceived risks of the project in terms of financial crimes, some even calling it a threat tomonetary sovereignty. In 2019, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said his company, which is part of the Libra Association,would quit if the project were released prematurely.
In the face of all the pushback, the Libra Association’s original model for its digital currency – a stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government bonds – wasrestructured in mid-April. The project will now issue a number of stablecoins based on individual national currencies in different markets.
Libra still has plans for a multi-currency stablecoin but it will be backed by the new stablecoins and not directly by fiat currencies.
There have been other issues too. In June 2019, major firms including Uber, PayPal, Visa, Stripe, MercadoLibre, Bookings.com and Mastercard were all reported to be backing Facebook’s new crypto project.
See also:Facebook Affirms Libra Commitment With 50 New Job Openings in Ireland
However, pressure from U.S. regulators and lawmakers in October prompted Visa, Mastercard and Stripe towithdraw their affiliationswith Libra. It’s been adding more new members since then, though, including itsfirst state-owned entity, Temasek. Checkout.com alsojoined the projectlast month.
Libra has notably been on a hiring spree of ex-U.S. government officials – presumably to help smooth its regulatory path to launch – having signed uptwo former staffers at FinCENin recent weeks
• Cross-Border Payment Portal Checkout.com Is Latest to Join Libra Association
• Libra’s Long Road From a Facebook Lab to the Global Stage: A Timeline || Facebook’s Calibra Rebrands to Novi, Details Wallet Tie-Up With WhatsApp: In the approach to the launch of the Facebook-spawned Libra payments ecosystem, a key subsidiary has been given a new name and a new look. According to an announcement on Tuesday, Facebook subsidiary and Libra wallet provider Calibra has now been rebranded to Novi – a portmanteau of the Latin root words, “novus” meaning new and “via” meaning way. The first wallet product from the firm is intended to hold Libra’s various digital currencies, once the Facebook-led initiative goes live. Novi also comes with a design revamp that is said to represent “the fluid movement of digital currencies,” but maintains an element of the Libra icon in its logo. Related: Facebook’s Toothless Oversight Board Has Lessons for Blockchain “While we’ve changed our name from Calibra,” Novi said in a statement, “we haven’t changed our long-term commitment to helping people around the world access affordable financial services.” Just in case you were worried about that. See also: Libra’s Long Road From a Facebook Lab to the Global Stage: A Timeline Novi also provided a little insight into how the product will work. The digital wallet will operate as a standalone app, as well as providing interoperability with Facebook’s social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp. Aimed to make sending funds to friends or family as “easy as sending a message,” transactions with Novi will arrive instantly, according to the announcement, and will contain no “hidden charges.” Novi didn’t offer any detail on what any standard transaction fees might be. Related: The ‘Great Lockdown’ Is Boosting Demand for Bitcoin Custody Solutions All Novi customers will need to be verified using government-issued ID, while “fraud protections” will come baked in. The wallet will initially be rolled out to a limited number of countries. The release date still remains unclear, but the project hopes to introduce “an early version of Novi when the Libra network is available.” The wallet and future financial services for the project will now be operated by a new entity, Novi Financial – a Facebook subsidiary that, it said, will operate independently from the social media giant at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. Story continues The Libra project has suffered a series of setbacks as regulators and governments set off alarm bells over the perceived risks of the project in terms of financial crimes, some even calling it a threat to monetary sovereignty . In 2019, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said his company, which is part of the Libra Association, would quit if the project were released prematurely . In the face of all the pushback, the Libra Association’s original model for its digital currency – a stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government bonds – was restructured in mid-April . The project will now issue a number of stablecoins based on individual national currencies in different markets. Libra still has plans for a multi-currency stablecoin but it will be backed by the new stablecoins and not directly by fiat currencies. There have been other issues too. In June 2019, major firms including Uber, PayPal, Visa, Stripe, MercadoLibre, Bookings.com and Mastercard were all reported to be backing Facebook’s new crypto project. See also: Facebook Affirms Libra Commitment With 50 New Job Openings in Ireland However, pressure from U.S. regulators and lawmakers in October prompted Visa, Mastercard and Stripe to withdraw their affiliations with Libra. It’s been adding more new members since then, though, including its first state-owned entity , Temasek. Checkout.com also joined the project last month. Libra has notably been on a hiring spree of ex-U.S. government officials – presumably to help smooth its regulatory path to launch – having signed up two former staffers at FinCEN in recent weeks Related Stories Cross-Border Payment Portal Checkout.com Is Latest to Join Libra Association Libra’s Long Road From a Facebook Lab to the Global Stage: A Timeline
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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9525.75, 9439.12, 9700.41, 9461.06, 10167.27, 9529.80, 9656.72, 9800.64, 9665.53, 9653.68
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 40254.55, 38356.44, 35566.66, 33922.96, 37316.36, 39187.33, 36825.37, 36178.14, 35791.28, 36630.07, 36069.80, 35547.75, 30825.70, 33005.76, 32067.64, 32289.38, 32366.39, 32569.85, 30432.55, 33466.10, 34316.39, 34269.52, 33114.36, 33537.18, 35510.29, 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44, 46196.46, 46481.11, 44918.18, 47909.33, 47504.85, 47105.52, 48717.29, 47945.06, 49199.87, 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92, 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-04-08]
Volume: 53053855641, RSI (14-day): 55.41, 50-day EMA: 53505.95, 200-day EMA: 36060.80
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1756.80, Gold RSI: 56.07
Oil Price: 59.60, Oil RSI: 47.22
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
10 Best Online Casinos in Australia: List of Real Money Pokies Sites Rated By Users and Popularity: Sydney, Australia, April 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AltCasino has posted an in-depth review on the most popular online pokies and casinos. There are currently over 27 online casinos and pokies available in Australia, and we have reviewed them to find the most popular sites with the best user experience. In this guide you’ll learn about the top Australian online pokies in a variety of categories. Here are the best online pokies in 2021 overall: Joe Fortune : Most visited site by total users (586,000 users in March 2021) PlayAMO : Most popular new site (created in 2020 and 218,000 visitors in March 2021) Aussie Play : Largest number of pokies available Ignition : Popular for live casino games NicPokies : Fastest payout options WooCasino : Voted best customer service RedDog : Popular for BTC payments Benchmarks for Online Casinos in Australia For this review we consider many factors when researching online casinos and sorting our top picks. The higher a site scores in the below benchmarks the more it has a chance of being crowned the title of #1 online casino in Australia: Visitors - We used tools like Alexa.com, SimilarWeb, and BuzzSumo to see how many users the online casinos had. Provably fair - Sites must be transparent about how their odds work and be tested by independent gaming labs Reputation and user reviews - Site must be well received on forums like reddit and review aggregators like Trustpilot Safety and security - The online casino must use SSL encryption and protect users information to score well in this benchmark Fast and easy payouts - To score well a casino must have low minimum withdrawals, low wagering requirements for bonuses, and same-day payouts UX and Web Design - Does the site look like it hasn’t been updated since 1996? If so it is getting a low score in this category. Mobile and tablet accessibility - The site must work well on mobile devices to score well here Bonuses - The bigger the better, with fair and transparent wagering requirements Number of games and software providers - We’ll take an online casino with 7000 games over one with 30 games any day Customer service quality - The live chat must be real and not leave us in a 1 hour queue to score well here In the end we chose the top Australian casino sites that scored highest in all of these features. Below we review the top 10 online pokies in detail. The Top Online Pokies and Casinos in Australia: 1. Joe Fortune - 2021’s Most Visited Online Casino in Australia Joe Fortune ranked #1 for its admirable balance of games, friendly user policies, customer service, and of course the competitive perks. Story continues With four different suppliers of games, you have hundreds of slot game options to choose from, including popular titles like Cleopatra’s Gold, Game of Thrones 15-Line, Gangster’s Slot, and Bewitched. You can search for a game or choose your favorite in the lobby. The VIP program gives you some extra perks, such as the ability to redeem loyalty points as cash, and the amount of cashback you can get on losses. On the other hand, the $5,000 welcome bonus (over your first nine deposits) is competitive. Players also get a 200 percent bonus on the first deposit, up to $1,000 in bonus money, and a 100 percent bonus on the next eight deposits, up to $500. The $5000-7,500 welcome bonus is also hard to ignore, and at a higher level than most of the competition. A total of 50x your deposit and bonus amount is the required rollover before you are allowed to withdraw the bonus amount or any winnings. It is important to remember that not all games contribute fully to the wagering requirement. Customer service also extends to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as the more traditional phone number, email, and live chat option. For its excellent customer service, variety of games, and decent bonuses Joe Fortune gets our number one spot. Overview: High welcome bonus 200 percent bonus on first deposit Transparent customer service Only available in Australia 2. PlayAMO - Best New Online Casino Australia PlayAMO is determined to give you the safe casino experience, with no worries, and full assurance of guarded fortunes and encryption technology. The site also maintains deposits in a different bank account for its users, for extra security - even in the event of total financial disaster. Of course, with a $7,500 free bonus and 100 zero wager spins, it’s hard to imagine PlayAMO urging conservative gameplay. They pour on the enticements, with bonus calendar perks to check daily, a VIP Circle of the Elite club for earning points and getting faster payouts, higher withdrawal limits, and unlocking no-maximum bets. Though a new company, with 2,000 games, will make you feel like you’re in good hands. Overview: Highest Bonus More secure online protection 2000 games Not as well connected as competitors for banking options 3. Aussie Play - Best Game Variety Aussie Play offers a fun layout which is the site’s best feature, along with a Zazu and Cat character that welcomes you to the experience. You can expect hundreds of games and a 250 percent pokies bonus on your first five deposits, as well as 75 free spins. Customer support ranks high with telephone, live chat, and email options, as well as ease of use when it comes to making deposits and making withdrawals. Overview: Easy three step sign up Generous 250 percent pokies bonus on deposits Well connected, working with multiple financial options Average mobile site Not as many games as competitors 4. Ignition - Best for Poker and Live Table Games Ignition announces confidently that one million dollars is a typical payout, and while that might be unlikely, a $3,000 welcome bonus is definitely something to get excited about. With trendy casino games like Mystic Wolf, A Night with Cleo and Golden Gorilla, to even progressive jackpot games like CyberPunk City and Let ‘Em Ride, Ignition is all about fun. Even better, the site offers Bitcoin-only promotions like a $1,000 match on every deposit, random deposit bonuses in their inbox, no-strings-attached gifts, and of course, the big Welcome Bonus which is better than average, even among pokies sites. Overview: Faster bitcoin payouts 150 percent higher bonus with Bitcoin Gifts just for playing 5. NicPokies - Fastest and Easiest Pokie Pay Options Casinonic is the online pokies site for winners, in their own words. With over 1,500 slot games and more added frequently, the site has a nice selection for newcomers. No download is required and all games work on mobile or desktop, including titles like Elvis Frog, 20 Super Stars, VIP Filthy Riches, Journey Flirt, and Captain Candy. The site also offers newcomers special deals like a $1,200 deposit bonus on the first five consecutive deposits. Casinonic also offers a VIP bonus for over a $1000 deposit. One of the site’s best features is its “instantaneous transactions”, therefore eliminating the wait time for deposits. Overview: Long list of games Generous bonuses $5000 welcome bonus No telephone customer support 6. WooCasino - Most Pokie Slot Games WooCasino dates back to 2016 and it offers instant play pokies on almost any browser. The welcome offer ($1000) and VIP club also offer perks to returning users, such as 40 percent cashback, regular player bonuses and deals of the day, and a personal account manager, which is a nice customer service perk. Besides the account manager feature, you can also expect email support, live chat, and telephone customer service, making WooCasino stand out as one of the most responsive and helpful pokies sites around. The wagering requirement for bonuses is 60 times the bonus amount, which Overview: Lots of minor bonuses Personal account manager and high-rated customer support Reputable company 7. Red Dog Casino - Best Free Pokies and Practice Play Red Dog Casino starts off with a howling offer - 225 percent bonus and 20 percent extra for BTC or Neosurf deposits. You can enter the code and redeem the offer in the Cashier and Bonuses section. As soon as you make a deposit you can grab the offer with a maximum cash out of 30 times the deposit. The site also offers no-deposit bonuses in return for registration and free spins for new games. With popular slot games like Mermaid’s Pearls, Bigshot, Jackpot Pinatas, and 777, the site keeps slot gaming fun and easy to learn. Customers can expect 24/7 accessibility, via email, or live chat, or phone. The site also scores well for delivering fast payments. Best of all, you can play for free until you’re ready to bet money. Overview: Play for free option One of the best mobile sites Low fees for cash payouts Fairly new casino site 8. Cobra Casino - Best VIP Program of Any Australian Online Casino Cobra Casino welcomes in new players with generous offers, like 100 percent deposit bonuses plus 250 free spins. But one of the best reasons to sign up is the $500 bonus. There’s also a VIP program that lets you earn points for loyalty by advancing to four levels, and getting more perks - such as cashback, free spins, and bonus credits. The site accepts BTCs and offers a huge selection of money slots, such as Book of Cobra, St. Patrick’s Treasures, Rich Wilde and the Book of the Dead, Deep Sea, and Rome The Golden Age. The Overview: High count of slot games Easy to sign up and use bonuses Attractive VIP program Not an impressive mobile app 9. Intertops Intertops has got some serious street credibility, dating back to 1996 and yet still staying competitive. They’re certainly not coasting with deals like monthly free spins, a 100 percent new player bonus for first deposits, daily doubt bonus and free spin in one, and other daily specials like free-roll tournaments. Top games like 20,000 Leagues and Cash Caboose are reliable, but the site also adds new games all the time, like Hurdy Gurdy and Jonah Hammer. You can also earn rewards and turn them into credits later. 10. Pokies Parlour Pokies Parlour has over 2,000 slot games as well as jackpot games, and frequently added games, even beyond the competitive. Players can always expect something new from Pokies Parlour, including the likes of Farm Ville, Kawaii Kitty, Greedy Goblins, Good Girl Bad Girl, and Max Quest: Wrath of Ra. The perks of Pokies Parlour are formidable - weekly promotions with free spins on top slot games, $500 is bonuses on certain days, and a VIP program that lets you advance in tiers, and earn points for wagering as little as $10. Convert loyalty points into real money at a fair rate of $1 for 100 points. Overview: High number of slot games VIP program with levels and low wagering costs The most crypto options available No telephone customer service Best Online Pokies Australia FAQ Do you have questions about how pokies work? Here are some of the most frequently asked and answered questions. Can You Play Online Pokies in Australia? We are located in Australia and verified each of the above websites was accessible for real money play. The Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 (with amendments in 2016 and 2017) did pass stricter laws when it comes to gambling and poker in Australia. However, these new laws mainly affected online casino providers, not the individual who enjoyed online gambling. You can still play online pokies in Australia and you don’t even have to pay tax on any winnings, since this remains the responsibility of the provider. Be sure to check your local laws as it varies by region and these laws may change over time. What Are the Types of Pokies Online There might be upwards of 7,000 pokies online, depending on who you ask. However, slot games or “pokies” are not the same thing as table games or live card games, which are also commonly offered by casinos. Slot machines are easier to play and usually entice new players with free bonus gifts. How to Play Online Pokies in Australia? All that’s required to start playing pokies online is a computer or mobile phone, since most modern devices can easily connect you to the provider of your choice. Do You Have to Play Pokies for Real Money? Initially, many of these pokies are free. If you can load the site and play without downloading anything or even signing up, you don’t have to worry about spending real money. You can play free pokies for practice to your heart’s content. However, once you decide that your gaming is good, you might want to start betting real money to win real money. From there, you can choose how much you bet and how many paylines toy play. Is There a Welcome Bonus on Online Pokies? Most sites offer a welcome bonus that is given along with a deposit of your own money. Some sites like Jackpot Jill and Joe Fortune offer higher welcome bonuses for their new players. What Is a Random Numbers Generator and How Is It Used? RNGs are computer applications that select random numbers. These programs can generate game numbers with just an algorithm and seed number, with no need for extra customized data. These programs are necessary in the absence of a human dealer, or for automated slot machines. While in theory RNGs could be manipulated, trustworthy online casinos know playing fair makes more money and leads to more business. No wonder then many casinos arrange for third-party testing of their software, to put their players’ minds at ease. Can You Actually Win Money on Online Pokies? After reading our casino reviews and actually playing the online pokie games for yourself, you will finally see what all the hubbub is about. Contrary to what you’ve heard Australian online pokies are still completely legal to the player and some of the progressive jackpot pokies we saw were paying thousands. According to one of our reviewed sites, millions are paid in jackpot pokies every month. If you have change to spare and want to garner some Bitcoin currency for that matter, why not go try your luck with a free casino bonus spin? Pokie sites have low deposits to get started and feature some of the most addictive games. Give it a spin and let’s see if you can match and win tonight! Please remember underage gambling is an offence, all pokies sites are 18+ ONLY . Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly and only bet what you can afford. Casinos listed on our site may not be available in your region. Check your local laws to ensure online casinos are available and legal where you live. https://www.responsiblegambling.nsw.gov.au/home/gambling-help https://www.begambleaware.org/ CONTACT: [email protected] View comments || 10 Best Online Casinos in Australia: List of Real Money Pokies Sites Rated By Users and Popularity: Sydney, Australia, April 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AltCasino has posted an in-depth review on the most popular online pokies and casinos.
There are currently over 27 online casinos and pokies available in Australia, and we have reviewed them to find the most popular sites with the best user experience. In this guide you’ll learn about the top Australian online pokies in a variety of categories.
Here are the best online pokies in 2021 overall:
1. Joe Fortune: Most visited site by total users (586,000 users in March 2021)
2. PlayAMO: Most popular new site (created in 2020 and 218,000 visitors in March 2021)
3. Aussie Play: Largest number of pokies available
4. Ignition: Popular for live casino games
5. NicPokies: Fastest payout options
6. WooCasino: Voted best customer service
7. RedDog: Popular for BTC payments
Benchmarks for Online Casinos in Australia
For this review we consider many factors when researching online casinos and sorting our top picks. The higher a site scores in the below benchmarks the more it has a chance of being crowned the title of #1 online casino in Australia:
• Visitors- We used tools like Alexa.com, SimilarWeb, and BuzzSumo to see how many users the online casinos had.
• Provably fair- Sites must be transparent about how their odds work and be tested by independent gaming labs
• Reputation and user reviews -Site must be well received on forums like reddit and review aggregators like Trustpilot
• Safety and security -The online casino must use SSL encryption and protect users information to score well in this benchmark
• Fast and easy payouts -To score well a casino must have low minimum withdrawals, low wagering requirements for bonuses, and same-day payouts
• UX and Web Design -Does the site look like it hasn’t been updated since 1996? If so it is getting a low score in this category.
• Mobile and tablet accessibility -The site must work well on mobile devices to score well here
• Bonuses -The bigger the better, with fair and transparent wagering requirements
• Number of games and software providers -We’ll take an online casino with 7000 games over one with 30 games any day
• Customer service quality -The live chat must be real and not leave us in a 1 hour queue to score well here
In the end we chose the top Australian casino sites that scored highest in all of these features. Below we review the top 10 online pokies in detail.
The Top Online Pokies and Casinos in Australia:
1.Joe Fortune- 2021’s Most Visited Online Casino in Australia
Joe Fortune ranked #1 for its admirable balance of games, friendly user policies, customer service, and of course the competitive perks.
With four different suppliers of games, you have hundreds of slot game options to choose from, including popular titles like Cleopatra’s Gold, Game of Thrones 15-Line, Gangster’s Slot, and Bewitched. You can search for a game or choose your favorite in the lobby.
The VIP program gives you some extra perks, such as the ability to redeem loyalty points as cash, and the amount of cashback you can get on losses. On the other hand, the $5,000 welcome bonus (over your first nine deposits) is competitive.
Players also get a 200 percent bonus on the first deposit, up to $1,000 in bonus money, and a 100 percent bonus on the next eight deposits, up to $500. The $5000-7,500 welcome bonus is also hard to ignore, and at a higher level than most of the competition. A total of 50x your deposit and bonus amount is the required rollover before you are allowed to withdraw the bonus amount or any winnings. It is important to remember that not all games contribute fully to the wagering requirement.
Customer service also extends to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as the more traditional phone number, email, and live chat option. For its excellent customer service, variety of games, and decent bonuses Joe Fortune gets our number one spot.
Overview:
• High welcome bonus
• 200 percent bonus on first deposit
• Transparent customer service
• Only available in Australia
2.PlayAMO- Best New Online Casino Australia
PlayAMO is determined to give you the safe casino experience, with no worries, and full assurance of guarded fortunes and encryption technology. The site also maintains deposits in a different bank account for its users, for extra security - even in the event of total financial disaster.
Of course, with a $7,500 free bonus and 100 zero wager spins, it’s hard to imagine PlayAMO urging conservative gameplay. They pour on the enticements, with bonus calendar perks to check daily, a VIP Circle of the Elite club for earning points and getting faster payouts, higher withdrawal limits, and unlocking no-maximum bets.
Though a new company, with 2,000 games, will make you feel like you’re in good hands.
Overview:
• Highest Bonus
• More secure online protection
• 2000 games
• Not as well connected as competitors for banking options
3.Aussie Play- Best Game Variety
Aussie Play offers a fun layout which is the site’s best feature, along with a Zazu and Cat character that welcomes you to the experience. You can expect hundreds of games and a 250 percent pokies bonus on your first five deposits, as well as 75 free spins.
Customer support ranks high with telephone, live chat, and email options, as well as ease of use when it comes to making deposits and making withdrawals.
Overview:
• Easy three step sign up
• Generous 250 percent pokies bonus on deposits
• Well connected, working with multiple financial options
• Average mobile site
• Not as many games as competitors
4.Ignition- Best for Poker and Live Table Games
Ignition announces confidently that one million dollars is a typical payout, and while that might be unlikely, a $3,000 welcome bonus is definitely something to get excited about. With trendy casino games like Mystic Wolf, A Night with Cleo and Golden Gorilla, to even progressive jackpot games like CyberPunk City and Let ‘Em Ride, Ignition is all about fun.
Even better, the site offers Bitcoin-only promotions like a $1,000 match on every deposit, random deposit bonuses in their inbox, no-strings-attached gifts, and of course, the big Welcome Bonus which is better than average, even among pokies sites.
Overview:
• Faster bitcoin payouts
• 150 percent higher bonus with Bitcoin
• Gifts just for playing
5.NicPokies- Fastest and Easiest Pokie Pay Options
Casinonic is the online pokies site for winners, in their own words. With over 1,500 slot games and more added frequently, the site has a nice selection for newcomers. No download is required and all games work on mobile or desktop, including titles like Elvis Frog, 20 Super Stars, VIP Filthy Riches, Journey Flirt, and Captain Candy.
The site also offers newcomers special deals like a $1,200 deposit bonus on the first five consecutive deposits. Casinonic also offers a VIP bonus for over a $1000 deposit. One of the site’s best features is its “instantaneous transactions”, therefore eliminating the wait time for deposits.
Overview:
• Long list of games
• Generous bonuses
• $5000 welcome bonus
• No telephone customer support
6.WooCasino- Most Pokie Slot Games
WooCasino dates back to 2016 and it offers instant play pokies on almost any browser. The welcome offer ($1000) and VIP club also offer perks to returning users, such as 40 percent cashback, regular player bonuses and deals of the day, and a personal account manager, which is a nice customer service perk.
Besides the account manager feature, you can also expect email support, live chat, and telephone customer service, making WooCasino stand out as one of the most responsive and helpful pokies sites around.
The wagering requirement for bonuses is 60 times the bonus amount, which
Overview:
• Lots of minor bonuses
• Personal account manager and high-rated customer support
• Reputable company
7.Red Dog Casino- Best Free Pokies and Practice Play
Red Dog Casino starts off with a howling offer - 225 percent bonus and 20 percent extra for BTC or Neosurf deposits. You can enter the code and redeem the offer in the Cashier and Bonuses section. As soon as you make a deposit you can grab the offer with a maximum cash out of 30 times the deposit.
The site also offers no-deposit bonuses in return for registration and free spins for new games. With popular slot games like Mermaid’s Pearls, Bigshot, Jackpot Pinatas, and 777, the site keeps slot gaming fun and easy to learn. Customers can expect 24/7 accessibility, via email, or live chat, or phone. The site also scores well for delivering fast payments.
Best of all, you can play for free until you’re ready to bet money.
Overview:
• Play for free option
• One of the best mobile sites
• Low fees for cash payouts
• Fairly new casino site
8.Cobra Casino- Best VIP Program of Any Australian Online Casino
Cobra Casino welcomes in new players with generous offers, like 100 percent deposit bonuses plus 250 free spins. But one of the best reasons to sign up is the $500 bonus.
There’s also a VIP program that lets you earn points for loyalty by advancing to four levels, and getting more perks - such as cashback, free spins, and bonus credits. The site accepts BTCs and offers a huge selection of money slots, such as Book of Cobra, St. Patrick’s Treasures, Rich Wilde and the Book of the Dead, Deep Sea, and Rome The Golden Age. The
Overview:
• High count of slot games
• Easy to sign up and use bonuses
• Attractive VIP program
• Not an impressive mobile app
9. Intertops
Intertops has got some serious street credibility, dating back to 1996 and yet still staying competitive. They’re certainly not coasting with deals like monthly free spins, a 100 percent new player bonus for first deposits, daily doubt bonus and free spin in one, and other daily specials like free-roll tournaments.
Top games like 20,000 Leagues and Cash Caboose are reliable, but the site also adds new games all the time, like Hurdy Gurdy and Jonah Hammer. You can also earn rewards and turn them into credits later.
10. Pokies Parlour
Pokies Parlour has over 2,000 slot games as well as jackpot games, and frequently added games, even beyond the competitive. Players can always expect something new from Pokies Parlour, including the likes of Farm Ville, Kawaii Kitty, Greedy Goblins, Good Girl Bad Girl, andMax Quest: Wrath of Ra.
The perks of Pokies Parlour are formidable - weekly promotions with free spins on top slot games, $500 is bonuses on certain days, and a VIP program that lets you advance in tiers, and earn points for wagering as little as $10. Convert loyalty points into real money at a fair rate of $1 for 100 points.
Overview:
• High number of slot games
• VIP program with levels and low wagering costs
• The most crypto options available
• No telephone customer service
Best Online Pokies Australia FAQ
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• https://www.responsiblegambling.nsw.gov.au/home/gambling-help
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CONTACT: [email protected] || Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscales Name to Pump Obscure Coins: Someone appears to have gone to odd lengths to impersonate digital asset manager Grayscale Investments, possibly in an effort to drive up the prices of two lesser-known cryptocurrencies. To be clear: Grayscale said it has no intention of creating a financial instrument around nahmii, an Ethereum scaling project, or theta, a video platform. Nevertheless, there is a pair of registered trusts, one for each obscure coin, in the state of Delaware (the trust for nahmii misspells the coins name with one i). Each of these trusts bears Grayscales name, and the registration gives the same agents address that the firm uses for its real crypto investment vehicles. Grayscale maintains a list of assets that we may potentially include in our family of products, and any further additions will be announced, an external spokesperson said by email. Anyone seeking to confirm an asset Grayscale is considering should refer to this list. Neither nahmii nor theta is on it. Related: Meet the 'Meme Manager' Bringing the Legacy Web Into NFTs When asked point-blank if Grayscale had filed the nahmi or theta trusts, the spokesperson, Austin Downey, said: No. CoinDesk mistakenly reported on Tuesday that Grayscale, a subsidiary of CoinDesk parent firm Digital Currency Group, had filed to register the trust for the nahmii token, based on public records from the Delaware Division of Corporations. This would have been a significant development had it been true because these registrations are usually a prelude to creating an investment vehicle for a coin. Grayscales trusts attract significant capital from mainstream investors who cant or dont want to go through the hassle of setting up a crypto wallet. All told, the firm manages $27.7 billion in assets through nine active trusts . So a Grayscale registration would be a bullish signal for a coin. But Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein promptly tweeted that the nahmii story was inaccurate, and CoinDesk corrected the story. Related: Wyoming Now Allows Crypto Wagers for Online Sports Betting Still, even though Grayscale said it did not file the registration with the Division of Corporations for nahmii, or a similar one for theta, someone did; the public records can easily be found online in the state agencys databases . The Nahmii team tweeted that it was not in discussions with Greyscale about filing a trust. An email to the address listed on Nahmiis website received a bounceback message. After the publication of this article, representatives from the Theta project told CoinDesk they were not involved in filing the trust registration. Story continues We are very upset to see now that someone else may have done this, Theta Head of Strategy Wes Levitt said. We are talking to our counsel
to see if there is a way to learn who exactly filed this, and what other legal actions are available to us against this person filing what we now consider a fraud. A customer service representative with the Delaware Division of Corporations said the Division would not be able to share any identifying information about who filed the trusts. So for now, the filings origins remain a mystery (no phone number or persons name is in the documents). Dead ringers If the two trusts in question were set up by impostors, it wouldnt be the first such ruse in crypto, though this one would be subtler than usual. Scammers often impersonate influential community figures on Twitter and have pretended to be CoinDesk staff members and spoofed our email newsletters , all in order to trick people into sending them money. The dubious Grayscale Nahmi Trust (here on out, GNT) and Grayscale Theta Trust (GTT) filings were very similar to those of the genuine Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Litecoin Trust (GLTC). For example, they are all registered at 251 Little Falls Drive in Wilmington, Del. (ZIP code 19808). The key difference was in the type of entity set up. While GBTC and GLTC were registered as Statutory Trusts, GNT and GTT were registered as Limited Liability Companies, a detail which raises questions, said Sarah Brennan, a corporate and securities attorney at Harter, Secrest and Emery. Indeed, of the 34 Grayscale trusts registered with the Delaware Division of Corporations, only two were registered as LLCs. These are the entities that Grayscale said it did not set up. Eight of the registered statutory trusts match existing Grayscale products: BTC , BCH , ETH , ETC , ZEN, LTC , XLM and ZCH. A ninth, its XRP Trust, was dissolved earlier this year as a result of a Securities and Exchange Commission suit against Ripple alleging its sales of the cryptocurrency violate federal securities law. Another 23 of the registered statutory trusts are on a list of assets that Grayscale is currently considering, according to a February post on Medium . The remaining two: Theta, filed in February, and Nahmi (again, sans the coins second i), filed in April. Classic crypto Its conceivable these apparently fake entities were set up in hopes the news media would discover and report their existence, with the ultimate goal of pumping the prices of these tokens. This sort of move was almost inevitable, said Brennan, who called it classic crypto marketing. She pointed to a January CoinDesk article about possible future trusts (the article precedes Grayscales Medium post), saying these trust filings easily lead to speculation around whether certain assets might become part of a new investment vehicle. If pumping nahmii was the motive, the plan worked: According to CoinGecko , NIIs price more than doubled on Tuesday after the erroneous CoinDesk article was published, hitting a peak of $0.0148. As of press time, it traded at half that price, around $0.0075. Its still up dramatically over the past month, however. Theta has also risen in price over the past few months, though there doesnt appear to be any correlation between the filing of the fake Grayscale trust and the tokens price. It is difficult to determine the ownership of an entity formed in Delaware, Brennan said. While there are a few limits on what entities can be formed for example, Delaware might not allow a new entity to be created that has a confusingly similar name to an existing company or product pretty much anyone can set up an entity in the state, said Brennan, who also leads the digital asset practice at Harter. You can form basically any entity that isnt taken, she said. In Delaware and the other states, their concern is does this entity exist in my state? only. If not, yes you can pay me to set this entity up. Companies can try to prevent this by reserving names for a period of time or registering an entity without having it immediately up and running, she said. CoinDesk has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the certificates of formation for these Nahmi and Theta LLCs, and had not received a response as of press time. According to the Delaware state website, the government has 15 days to respond. UPDATE (April 8, 2021, 13:45 UTC): Updated with comments from the Theta team. Related Stories Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscales Name to Pump Obscure Coins Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscales Name to Pump Obscure Coins View comments || Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscale’s Name to Pump Obscure Coins: Someone appears to have gone to odd lengths to impersonate digital asset manager Grayscale Investments, possibly in an effort to drive up the prices of two lesser-known cryptocurrencies.
To be clear: Grayscale said it has no intention of creating a financial instrument around nahmii, an Ethereum scaling project, or theta, a video platform. Nevertheless, there is a pair of registered trusts, one for each obscure coin, in the state of Delaware (the trust for nahmii misspells the coin’s name with one “i”). Each of these trusts bears Grayscale’s name, and the registration gives the same agent’s address that the firm uses for its real crypto investment vehicles.
“Grayscale maintains a list of assets that we may potentially include in our family of products, and any further additions will be announced,” an external spokesperson said by email. “Anyone seeking to confirm an asset Grayscale is considering should refer to this list.” Neither nahmii nor theta is on it.
Related:Meet the 'Meme Manager' Bringing the Legacy Web Into NFTs
When asked point-blank if Grayscale had filed the “nahmi” or theta trusts, the spokesperson, Austin Downey, said: “No.”
CoinDesk mistakenlyreported on Tuesdaythat Grayscale, a subsidiary of CoinDesk parent firm Digital Currency Group, had filed to register the trust for the nahmii token, based on public records from the Delaware Division of Corporations. Thiswouldhave been a significant development had it been true because these registrations are usually a prelude to creating an investment vehicle for a coin.
Grayscale’s trusts attract significant capital from mainstream investors who can’t or don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a crypto wallet. All told, the firm manages$27.7 billion in assets through nine active trusts. So a Grayscale registration would be a bullish signal for a coin.
But Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein promptlytweetedthat the nahmii story was “inaccurate,” and CoinDesk corrected the story.
Related:Wyoming Now Allows Crypto Wagers for Online Sports Betting
Still, even though Grayscale said it did not file the registration with the Division of Corporations for nahmii, or a similar one for theta,someonedid; the public records can easily befound online in the state agency’s databases.
The Nahmii team tweeted that it was “not in discussions with Greyscale about filing a trust.”
An email to the address listed on Nahmii’s website received a bounceback message. After the publication of this article, representatives from the Theta project told CoinDesk they were not involved in filing the trust registration.
“We are very upset to see now that someone else may have done this,” Theta Head of Strategy Wes Levitt said. “We are talking to our counsel … to see if there is a way to learn who exactly filed this, and what other legal actions are available to us against this person filing what we now consider a fraud.”
A customer service representative with the Delaware Division of Corporations said the Division would not be able to share any identifying information about who filed the trusts. So for now, the filings’ origins remain a mystery (no phone number or person’s name is in the documents).
If the two trusts in question were set up by impostors, it wouldn’t be the first such ruse in crypto, though this one would be subtler than usual.
Scammers oftenimpersonate influential community figures on Twitterand havepretended to be CoinDesk staff membersandspoofed our email newsletters, all in order to trick people into sending them money.
The dubiousGrayscale Nahmi Trust(here on out, GNT) andGrayscale Theta Trust(GTT) filings were very similar to those of the genuineGrayscale Bitcoin Trust(GBTC) andGrayscale Litecoin Trust(GLTC). For example, they are all registered at 251 Little Falls Drive in Wilmington, Del. (ZIP code 19808).
The key difference was in the type of entity set up. While GBTC and GLTC were registered as Statutory Trusts, GNT and GTT were registered as Limited Liability Companies, a detail which “raises questions,” said Sarah Brennan, a corporate and securities attorney at Harter, Secrest and Emery.
Indeed, of the 34 “Grayscale” trusts registered with the Delaware Division of Corporations, only two were registered as LLCs. These are the entities that Grayscale said it did not set up.
Eight of the registered statutory trusts match existing Grayscale products:BTC,BCH,ETH,ETC, ZEN,LTC,XLMand ZCH. A ninth, itsXRPTrust,was dissolved earlier this yearas a result of a Securities and Exchange Commission suitagainst Ripplealleging its sales of the cryptocurrency violate federal securities law.
Another 23 of the registered statutory trusts are on a list of assets that Grayscale is “currently considering,” according to a Februarypost on Medium.
The remaining two: Theta, filed in February, and Nahmi (again, sans the coin’s second “i”), filed in April.
It’s conceivable these apparently fake entities were set up in hopes the news media would discover and report their existence, with the ultimate goal of pumping the prices of these tokens.
This sort of move was almost inevitable, said Brennan, who called it “classic crypto marketing.”
She pointed toa January CoinDesk articleabout possible future trusts (the article precedes Grayscale’s Medium post), saying these trust filings easily lead to speculation around whether certain assets might become part of a new investment vehicle.
If pumping nahmii was the motive, the plan worked: According toCoinGecko, NII’s price more than doubled on Tuesday after the erroneous CoinDesk article was published, hitting a peak of $0.0148. As of press time, it traded at half that price, around $0.0075. It’s still up dramatically over the past month, however.
Theta hasalso risen in priceover the past few months, though there doesn’t appear to be any correlation between the filing of the fake Grayscale trust and the token’s price.
It is difficult to determine the ownership of an entity formed in Delaware, Brennan said.
While there are a few limits on what entities can be formed – for example, Delaware might not allow a new entity to be created that has a “confusingly similar” name to an existing company or product – pretty much anyone can set up an entity in the state, said Brennan, who also leads the digital asset practice at Harter.
“You can form basically any entity that isn’t taken,” she said. In “Delaware and the other states, their concern is ‘does this entity exist in my state?’ only. If not, ‘yes you can pay me to set this entity up.’”
Companies can try to prevent this by reserving names for a period of time or registering an entity without having it immediately up and running, she said.
CoinDesk has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the certificates of formation for these Nahmi and Theta LLCs, and had not received a response as of press time. According to the Delaware state website, the government has 15 days to respond.
UPDATE (April 8, 2021, 13:45 UTC):Updated with comments from the Theta team.
• Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscale’s Name to Pump Obscure Coins
• Mysterious Filings Suggest Impostor Is Using Grayscale’s Name to Pump Obscure Coins || Tesla refunded customers who were charged twice for their cars: The strange saga of several Tesla buyers who paid for their cars using a direct bank transfer only to find out later that they'd been charged twice , seems to be over. "Everyday Chris" posted on the Tesla forum that he eventually did get in contact with someone at Tesla, and received a refund for the $56,579 charge about five business days after the problem started. CNBC has been in contact with several other new Tesla owners who had similar issues, and reports that they have received refunds as well. Tesla has not publicly commented on the issue, but sent those affected an email apologizing for the issue and gave them a coupon for $200 usable at its online shop for merchandise or accessories. That's not a huge amount in return for a $50k - $70k loan over the course of a week, plus the associated hassles that buyers told CNBC included not being able to buy a new house, or withdrawing money from a brokerage account to cover expenses. It's still unclear exactly what went wrong with the charges, but as Everyday Chris pointed out in his most recent video about the issue, people paying up front for their new Tesla might be better off using a cashier's check (instead of ACH transfer or Bitcoin ) to avoid the chance this could happen. This article contains affilate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. || Tesla refunded customers who were charged twice for their cars: The strange saga of several Tesla buyers who paid for their cars using a direct bank transferonly to find out later that they'd been charged twice, seems to be over. "Everyday Chris"posted on the Tesla forumthat he eventually did get in contact with someone at Tesla, and received a refund for the $56,579 charge about five business days after the problem started.
CNBChas been in contact with several other new Tesla owners who had similar issues, and reports that they have received refunds as well. Tesla has not publicly commented on the issue, but sent those affected an email apologizing for the issue and gave them a coupon for $200 usable at its online shop for merchandise or accessories. That's not a huge amount in return for a $50k - $70k loan over the course of a week, plus the associated hassles that buyers toldCNBCincluded not being able to buy a new house, or withdrawing money from a brokerage account to cover expenses.
It's still unclear exactly what went wrong with the charges, but as Everyday Chris pointed out in his most recent video about the issue, people paying up front for their new Tesla might be better off using a cashier's check (instead of ACH transfer orBitcoin) to avoid the chance this could happen. || Nexus’s Amanda Marquis: Solving the Blockchain Trilemma: Blockchain has been hounded by the Decentralization Trilemma. This is the idea that a blockchain can only have two of the three qualities: security, scalability, and decentralization. Nexus is creating a blockchain with all three.
BeInCrypto had the pleasure to talk to Amanda Marquis, the web developer at Nexus.
She has been a fan of Nexus for a few years and reached out to the ambassador team to see if they were looking for any new members. She was helping with the community Twitter account, but soon starting working on use-case dApps, the Nexus website. She is now learning the API. She was offered a developer contract at the start of 2021.
The beginnings of the still developing project date back to 2014. The native NXS token istrading at around $1.50, at the time of writing, but has increased almost 800% since the start of the year.
Marquis answered many of our questions aboutNexus essentials, the problems it is trying to solve, the roadmap, innovative technology, interface development, the community, and even the NFT. Let’s dive in!
BeInCrypto: What is Nexus? When was the genesis?
Amanda Marquis:Nexus is a community-driven project with the mission of connecting a decentralized world. We are working on technology that is designed to simplify lives, empower communities, and streamline business while embodying the founding principles of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin (BTC).
Our first NXS block was mined on Sept. 23, 2014, without an ICO or pre-mine. The original Nexus code began as a bitcoin/peercoin fork, however, the entire codebase was rewritten and released with the Tritium Protocol on Nov 5 2019.
Nexus has now evolved into a revolutionary, register-based contract engine. The Tritium Protocol release was the first of three major upgrades for our TAO (Tritium, Amine, Obsidian) Framework.
BeInCrypto:Nexus is working on a 3-Dimensional Chain (3DC). What is it?
Amanda Marquis:The 3DC is designed to solve the Blockchain Trilemma — security, scalability, and decentralization. The Trilemma is the idea that a blockchain can only have two of the three listed qualities. And we do not think that should be the case!
The Nexus 3DC will transform the ledger into a multi-layered processing system, in order to scale securely and with a high degree of decentralization. The 3DC chains together cryptographic primitives into a three-dimensional immutable object (a 3D block), and has three core dimensions: reputation channels (X), immutability or authenticity (Y), and time (Z).
BeinCrypto: What is the Nexus Protocol (NP)?
Amanda Marquis:The Nexus Protocol is our vision of a new internet, driven by a blockchain-based operating system (Nexus’ LX-OS) and routing protocol (Nexus Protocol), connected by a distributed satellite-based mesh network.This protocol would take the internet a step furtherby decentralizing and democratizing the network infrastructure through decentralized hardware and software.
BeInCrypto:What is the LX-OS?
Amanda Marquis:Nexus’ LX-OS is a blockchain-based operating system that is designed to resist attacks and improve user security and ease of use. The first phase will focus on embedded systems (IoT and cube satellites), with the consumer release providing decentralized cloud services, along with an intuitive user experience.
The LX-OS aims to resolve many of the vulnerability issues of today’s operating systems that allows hackers to piggyback malware onto PCs using elevated privileges, by authenticating all changes to the virtual user space across the entire runtime environment.
BeInCrypto:When will the LX-OS and the NP be available, and the satellites for the mesh network launched?
Amanda Marquis:These are long-term goals for Nexus, so we do not have an estimated time of completion and launch for them at this time! Code in production now (LLL-TAO) will be used for the LX-OS and the NP, so work is already in progress for both elements.
They will also be tirelessly tested and evaluated to ensure the best product is released, as this is revolutionary technology in the making! We will be adding these features to our roadmap on the Nexus website in the coming months.
BeInCrypto:What are some short-term goals of Nexus?
Amanda Marquis:We currently have our mobile wallet in open Beta for iOS and Android. The team has been ironing out the back-end code and the full release is on the horizon.
Some key features that will be released in an upcoming release of Tritium ++ include updates to our desktop wallet, release of pooled staking, and various API enhancements including new code for our upcoming P2P Marketplace and DAO.
BeInCrypto:What are some of the features of the mobile wallet?
Amanda Marquis:The Nexus mobile wallet is a lite node built with a focus on reliability and security, using the same modular framework behind the desktop wallet. Themobile wallet eliminates reliance on centralized serversand provides unprecedented access to the Nexus network.
As a lite node, it will not download the entire blockchain history to the device, only storing and processing block headers and the user’s signature chain, starting with the hash of the very first Tritium block hard-coded into the wallet. It holds the same security and privacy as a full node wallet, with a minimal storage, memory, and processor footprint.
BeInCrypto:What is the progress of the P2P Marketplace, and will it be an AMM?
Amanda Marquis:Progress on it is going well! Our P2P marketplace is being built on an entirely new P2P marketplace API. Once completed, anyone will have the ability to use that code to build their own web interface for it.
It will not be an AMM. It willoperate on the traditional exchange approachof buyers and sellers posting their market or limit orders and could be partially or fully filled by anyone. It will also rely on consensus rules and contract logic, meaning the seller can retract their order at any point until it has been fulfilled.
BIC: What is Nexus doing with Quantum Resistance technology?
Amanda Marquis:Our previously mentioned Signature Chains enhance the security of existing DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm), by hashing the public key until it is used while changing the key pair with every transaction.
We have also integrated the following cryptographic functions: FALCON (a second-round contender for the NIST Post-Quantum cryptography competition), Argon2 (winner of the password hashing competition, and a superior alternative to S-Crypt or B-Crypt), and Keccak (winner of the SHA3 competition).
BeInCrypto:Nexus is both proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS). Why?
Amanda Marquis:To keep our project decentralized. Both PoW and PoS have their advantages, and we wanted to make sure that none of our three channels (Two PoW, Hash and Prime, and one PoS) got too centralized. With consensus balanced between all three channels, it makes the network more resistant to 51% attacks.
BeInCrypto:Does Nexus have a maximum supply?
Amanda Marquis:It does not! The initial distribution will create a supply of 78 million NXS, which will end on Sept. 23, 2024. After, it will follow an inflation rate based on the annual inflation rate of gold.
Each PoW channel will increase the NXS supply by 1% per year, and the PoS channel will allow for a maximum of 3% increase, but that would only happen if all NXS in circulation were being staked. It is expected to fall more closely in line with the PoW channels, around 1%.
BeInCrypto:How can people get involved?
Amanda Marquis:There are many ways to get involved with Nexus! We have multiple social media channels, as well as Discord, Telegram, and Slack servers. Sharing Nexus information across a variety of platforms helps spread the word. If someone wants to get involved in a more specific way, we have dedicated workgroups available on Telegram and Slack that focus on different tasks (content, social media, outreach, etc.).
We encourage anyone who is interested in helping in any way to join these workgroups, and we will work together to continue the Nexus vision!
BeInCrypto:How is mass adoption progressing for Nexus?
Amanda Marquis:In recent months, the community has stepped up around the world to increase the adoption of Nexus and usage of NXS for payment. With the mobile wallet in open beta, users are now able to access their Signature Chains on the go, and able to send or receive NXS instantaneously!
It has been awesome to see restaurants and shops starting to accept NXS (most recently in Thailand), and we hope to see many more places in the future do the same!
BeInCrypto:Can you build NFTs on Nexus?
Amanda Marquis:Yes you can! Right now, users are able to create them directly inside our desktop wallet, or by directly interacting with our API through other coded websites or platforms like Bubble.
However, due to our unique TAO framework, we are not supported on NFT Marketplaces at the moment. Once our P2P marketplace is available, there will be alocation to buy and sell NFTs!
BeInCrypto:Thank you for the interview and good luck with further work on this interesting project.
Amanda Marquis:Thank you too! Greetings to BeInCrypto readers! || PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’: PayPal co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel warned that bitcoin could be a “Chinese financial weapon” used to dethrone the U.S. dollar’s monetary status. Speaking with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a virtual roundtable hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation Wednesday, Thiel opined that, assuming China is long bitcoin, the cryptocurrency could pose a threat to the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status. The comments come at a time when fears over China’s assumed control over bitcoin are resurfacing. “Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether if at this point bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. … it threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the dollar,” Thiel said during the stream. Related: Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending More than being “pro-bitcoin” and owning the asset himself, Peter Thiel’s foundation was key to the creation of Ethereum when Vitalik Buterin drew a $100,000 grant to begin working on the blockchain. Thiel, best known now for his investment firm Thiel Ventures, has been an outspoken critic of Silicon Valley since he left the tech industry in 2018, claiming companies like Google and Facebook pose threats to the U.S. given their ties to China, topics he touched on in his talk Wednesday as well. He also co-founded the technology firm Palantir in 2004, whose clients include the United States’ CIA and FBI intelligence agencies, according to TechCrunch . Related Stories PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’ PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’ PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’ || PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’: PayPal co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel warned thatbitcoincould be a “Chinese financial weapon” used to dethrone the U.S. dollar’s monetary status.
Speaking with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a virtual roundtable hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation Wednesday, Thiel opined that, assuming China is long bitcoin, the cryptocurrency could pose a threat to the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status. The comments come at a timewhen fears over China’s assumed control over bitcoinare resurfacing.
“Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether if at this point bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. … it threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the dollar,” Thiel said during the stream.
Related:Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending
More than being “pro-bitcoin” and owning the asset himself, Peter Thiel’s foundation was key to the creation of Ethereum whenVitalik Buterin drew a $100,000 grantto begin working on the blockchain.
Thiel, best known now for his investment firm Thiel Ventures, has been an outspoken critic of Silicon Valley since he left the tech industry in 2018, claiming companies like Google and Facebook pose threats to the U.S. given their ties to China,topics he touched on inhis talk Wednesday as well. He also co-founded the technology firm Palantir in 2004, whose clients include the United States’ CIA and FBI intelligence agencies, according toTechCrunch.
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’ || PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’: PayPal co-founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel warned thatbitcoincould be a “Chinese financial weapon” used to dethrone the U.S. dollar’s monetary status.
Speaking with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a virtual roundtable hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation Wednesday, Thiel opined that, assuming China is long bitcoin, the cryptocurrency could pose a threat to the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status. The comments come at a timewhen fears over China’s assumed control over bitcoinare resurfacing.
“Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether if at this point bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. … it threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the dollar,” Thiel said during the stream.
Related:Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending
More than being “pro-bitcoin” and owning the asset himself, Peter Thiel’s foundation was key to the creation of Ethereum whenVitalik Buterin drew a $100,000 grantto begin working on the blockchain.
Thiel, best known now for his investment firm Thiel Ventures, has been an outspoken critic of Silicon Valley since he left the tech industry in 2018, claiming companies like Google and Facebook pose threats to the U.S. given their ties to China,topics he touched on inhis talk Wednesday as well. He also co-founded the technology firm Palantir in 2004, whose clients include the United States’ CIA and FBI intelligence agencies, according toTechCrunch.
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’
• PayPal Co-Founder, Bitcoin Investor Thiel Says Bitcoin Could Be Chinese ‘Weapon’ || Peter Thiel suggests Bitcoin may be 'Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.': Venture capitalist and conservative political donor Peter Thiel is a self-described "pro-Bitcoin maximalist," but he admitted Tuesday night that he's worried about the cryptocurrency and its digital brethren while hinting that tighter government regulations should be in play, Bloomberg reports . Appearing alongside former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel warned that Bitcoin may be a threat to the United States, indicating that his hawkish attitude toward China outweighs his crypto enthusiasm (Thiel is a major investor in virtual currency ventures and in cryptocurrencies themselves, Bloomberg notes ). Thiel explained that China isn't fond of the fact that the U.S. dollar is the world's major reserve currency because it gives the U.S. global economic "leverage," and he thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar's might. "I do wonder whether at this point, [if] Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," he said , video from the event obtained by Bloomberg reveals. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar ... perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works." Read more at Bloomberg . THIEL: Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist…I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. pic.twitter.com/E1DNOsrr5X — Daniel Tenreiro (@TenreiroDaniel) April 7, 2021 More stories from theweek.com America's bipolar summer Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's latest legal filing cites Buzz Lightyear Fox News host suggests connection between Prince Philip's death and Harry and Meghan interview || Peter Thiel suggests Bitcoin may be 'Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.': Venture capitalist and conservative political donor Peter Thiel is a self-described "pro-Bitcoin maximalist," but he admitted Tuesday night that he's worried about the cryptocurrency and its digital brethren while hinting that tighter government regulations should be in play, Bloomberg reports . Appearing alongside former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel warned that Bitcoin may be a threat to the United States, indicating that his hawkish attitude toward China outweighs his crypto enthusiasm (Thiel is a major investor in virtual currency ventures and in cryptocurrencies themselves, Bloomberg notes ). Thiel explained that China isn't fond of the fact that the U.S. dollar is the world's major reserve currency because it gives the U.S. global economic "leverage," and he thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar's might. "I do wonder whether at this point, [if] Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," he said , video from the event obtained by Bloomberg reveals. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar ... perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works." Read more at Bloomberg . THIEL: Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist…I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. pic.twitter.com/E1DNOsrr5X — Daniel Tenreiro (@TenreiroDaniel) April 7, 2021 More stories from theweek.com America's bipolar summer Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's latest legal filing cites Buzz Lightyear Fox News host suggests connection between Prince Philip's death and Harry and Meghan interview || Peter Thiel suggests Bitcoin may be 'Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.': Venture capitalist and conservative political donor Peter Thiel is a self-described "pro-Bitcoin maximalist," but he admitted Tuesday night that he's worried about the cryptocurrency and its digital brethren while hinting that tighter government regulations should be in play, Bloomberg reports . Appearing alongside former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel warned that Bitcoin may be a threat to the United States, indicating that his hawkish attitude toward China outweighs his crypto enthusiasm (Thiel is a major investor in virtual currency ventures and in cryptocurrencies themselves, Bloomberg notes ). Thiel explained that China isn't fond of the fact that the U.S. dollar is the world's major reserve currency because it gives the U.S. global economic "leverage," and he thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar's might. "I do wonder whether at this point, [if] Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," he said , video from the event obtained by Bloomberg reveals. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar ... perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works." Read more at Bloomberg . THIEL: Even though I’m a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist…I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought of in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. pic.twitter.com/E1DNOsrr5X — Daniel Tenreiro (@TenreiroDaniel) April 7, 2021 More stories from theweek.com America's bipolar summer Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's latest legal filing cites Buzz Lightyear Fox News host suggests connection between Prince Philip's death and Harry and Meghan interview || Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC: The chief technology officer (CTO) of Ripple, David Schwartz, said on CoinDesk TV that “all the evidence” suggestsbitcoinandXRPare similar despite allegations XRP is being sold illegally as a security.
Speaking during “First Mover” onWednesday, Schwartz said: “The market considers them similar. We consider them similar.”
Ripple is in the midst of defending itself against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) action alleging the company and two of its executives violated U.S. securities laws in selling XRP to retail consumers. The SEC action “came out of nowhere,” said Schwartz, who said XRP and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are “completely different.”
Related:Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending
Read more:Ripple Granted Access to SEC Documents on Bitcoin, Ether in Ongoing XRP Fight
The Ripple CTO also used his television appearance to allay fears XRP holders may have about whether certain outcomes of thelawsuitcould result in Ripple ceasing operations.
“The market caps of these systems are in the billions of dollars. People acting in their own self-interest are not going to allow the ecosystem to die if there’s a way to save it,” he said. “That’s all that’s holding these systems together. The governing bodies don’t have any legal authority to control these systems. You have to think that people will be able to come together enough to fix it.”
XRP has enjoyed a price rally in recent days,surgingabove the $1.00 mark for the first time in three years Tuesday.
Related:China, the Convenient Foil
See also:Ripple Touts Role for XRP in Central Bank Digital Currency White Paper
Schwartz was hesitant to offer firm reasons for this increase but suggested that rumors of a relisting of XRP by Coinbase “might have triggered some upward movement.”
Another factor, he said: “The hearing in the case where Ripple wasgrantedaccess to SEC documents … might have impacted the price.” But he admitted that “there’s really no way to know.”
• Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC
• Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC || Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC: The chief technology officer (CTO) of Ripple, David Schwartz, said on CoinDesk TV that “all the evidence” suggests bitcoin and XRP are similar despite allegations XRP is being sold illegally as a security. Speaking during “ First Mover ” on Wednesday , Schwartz said: “The market considers them similar. We consider them similar.” Ripple is in the midst of defending itself against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) action alleging the company and two of its executives violated U.S. securities laws in selling XRP to retail consumers. The SEC action “came out of nowhere,” said Schwartz, who said XRP and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are “completely different.” Related: Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending Read more: Ripple Granted Access to SEC Documents on Bitcoin, Ether in Ongoing XRP Fight The Ripple CTO also used his television appearance to allay fears XRP holders may have about whether certain outcomes of the lawsuit could result in Ripple ceasing operations. “The market caps of these systems are in the billions of dollars. People acting in their own self-interest are not going to allow the ecosystem to die if there’s a way to save it,” he said. “That’s all that’s holding these systems together. The governing bodies don’t have any legal authority to control these systems. You have to think that people will be able to come together enough to fix it.” XRP has enjoyed a price rally in recent days, surging above the $1.00 mark for the first time in three years Tuesday. Related: China, the Convenient Foil See also: Ripple Touts Role for XRP in Central Bank Digital Currency White Paper Schwartz was hesitant to offer firm reasons for this increase but suggested that rumors of a relisting of XRP by Coinbase “might have triggered some upward movement.” Another factor, he said: “The hearing in the case where Ripple was granted access to SEC documents … might have impacted the price.” But he admitted that “there’s really no way to know.” Related Stories Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC View comments || Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC: The chief technology officer (CTO) of Ripple, David Schwartz, said on CoinDesk TV that “all the evidence” suggestsbitcoinandXRPare similar despite allegations XRP is being sold illegally as a security.
Speaking during “First Mover” onWednesday, Schwartz said: “The market considers them similar. We consider them similar.”
Ripple is in the midst of defending itself against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) action alleging the company and two of its executives violated U.S. securities laws in selling XRP to retail consumers. The SEC action “came out of nowhere,” said Schwartz, who said XRP and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are “completely different.”
Related:Kava Labs Launches Protocol Upgrade With Eye on Institutional DeFi Lending
Read more:Ripple Granted Access to SEC Documents on Bitcoin, Ether in Ongoing XRP Fight
The Ripple CTO also used his television appearance to allay fears XRP holders may have about whether certain outcomes of thelawsuitcould result in Ripple ceasing operations.
“The market caps of these systems are in the billions of dollars. People acting in their own self-interest are not going to allow the ecosystem to die if there’s a way to save it,” he said. “That’s all that’s holding these systems together. The governing bodies don’t have any legal authority to control these systems. You have to think that people will be able to come together enough to fix it.”
XRP has enjoyed a price rally in recent days,surgingabove the $1.00 mark for the first time in three years Tuesday.
Related:China, the Convenient Foil
See also:Ripple Touts Role for XRP in Central Bank Digital Currency White Paper
Schwartz was hesitant to offer firm reasons for this increase but suggested that rumors of a relisting of XRP by Coinbase “might have triggered some upward movement.”
Another factor, he said: “The hearing in the case where Ripple wasgrantedaccess to SEC documents … might have impacted the price.” But he admitted that “there’s really no way to know.”
• Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC
• Ripple CTO: ‘All the Evidence’ Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar, Contrary to SEC || Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset: California real estate stalwart Caruso properties will now accept bitcoin for rent on all its properties. In a partnership with Gemini Exchange, Caruso will now let tenants of its retail and commercial properties pay their rent in bitcoin. This makes Caruso the largest real estate manager in the United States to accept the digital asset as a form of payment. Additionally, Caruso has allocated roughly 1% of its treasury into bitcoin, according to the LA Times. Related: China, the Convenient Foil Caruso’s crypto ambitions may not end at bitcoin, though. A press release shared with CoinDesk signals interest in other aspects of the crypto economy as well, like the hottest segment of the market right now – NFTs. “This partnership marks the beginning of a holistic, long-term relationship intended to bring cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain applications to Caruso properties as a way to engage the millions of visitors throughout their ecosystem,” the release reads. Bitcoin continues to make its way onto the balance sheets of prominent firms in the U.S., a trend that MicroStrategy kicked off last year when it converted most of its cash holdings into bitcoin.Since then, Square, Tesla and other publicly traded companies have added bitcoin to their balance sheets, as well. Related Stories Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset || Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset: California real estate stalwart Caruso properties will now acceptbitcoinfor rent on all its properties.
In a partnership with Gemini Exchange, Caruso will now let tenants of its retail and commercial properties pay their rent in bitcoin. This makes Caruso the largest real estate manager in the United States to accept the digital asset as a form of payment.
Additionally, Caruso has allocated roughly 1% of its treasury into bitcoin, according to theLA Times.
Related:China, the Convenient Foil
Caruso’s crypto ambitions may not end at bitcoin, though. A press release shared with CoinDesk signals interest in other aspects of the crypto economy as well, like the hottest segment of the market right now – NFTs.
“This partnership marks the beginning of a holistic, long-term relationship intended to bring cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain applications to Caruso properties as a way to engage the millions of visitors throughout their ecosystem,” the release reads.
Bitcoin continues to make its way onto the balance sheets of prominent firms in the U.S., a trend that MicroStrategy kicked off last year when itconverted most of its cash holdingsinto bitcoin.Since then, Square,Teslaandother publicly traded companieshave added bitcoin to their balance sheets, as well.
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset || Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset: California real estate stalwart Caruso properties will now acceptbitcoinfor rent on all its properties.
In a partnership with Gemini Exchange, Caruso will now let tenants of its retail and commercial properties pay their rent in bitcoin. This makes Caruso the largest real estate manager in the United States to accept the digital asset as a form of payment.
Additionally, Caruso has allocated roughly 1% of its treasury into bitcoin, according to theLA Times.
Related:China, the Convenient Foil
Caruso’s crypto ambitions may not end at bitcoin, though. A press release shared with CoinDesk signals interest in other aspects of the crypto economy as well, like the hottest segment of the market right now – NFTs.
“This partnership marks the beginning of a holistic, long-term relationship intended to bring cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain applications to Caruso properties as a way to engage the millions of visitors throughout their ecosystem,” the release reads.
Bitcoin continues to make its way onto the balance sheets of prominent firms in the U.S., a trend that MicroStrategy kicked off last year when itconverted most of its cash holdingsinto bitcoin.Since then, Square,Teslaandother publicly traded companieshave added bitcoin to their balance sheets, as well.
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset
• Caruso Properties to Accept Bitcoin for Rent, Allocates 1% of Treasury to Asset || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Drops to Near $56K as Spot Trading Volume Remains Low: • Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $56,140.49 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 3.72% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $55,541.91-$58,645.77 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC trades below its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bearish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin slid for a second day as the No. 1 cryptocurrency saw flat trading volume, typical of a rangebound market.
Bitcoin’s spot trading volume on eight U.S.-focused crypto exchanges tracked by CoinDesk was largely unchanged on Wednesday. The trading volume has been around or below $3 billion for seven days now.
The oldest cryptocurrency is looking at a price support level around $54,000, as CoinDeskreportedearlier, with resistance around $60,000.
Related:Kraken's First Brink Grant Goes to Bitcoin Rust Developer
On the buyers’ side, bitcoin’s “kimchi premium,” the difference between prices on South Korean exchanges and other global avenues,dropped significantlyon Wednesday, an indication of weakened bitcoin demand from traders and investors in the East Asian country.
Read More:Bitcoin Drops 6% in Korea, Shrinking the ‘Kimchi Premium’
Bitcoin fell by over 6% against the Korean won (KRW) after South Korean exchange Upbit suspended KRW withdrawals and deposits before markets opened in the U.S. on Wednesday morning.
Some analysts remain positive on the long-term price trend. Katie Stockton, a technical analyst at Fairlead Strategies,told CoinDeskthat the intraday declines of between 3% and 6% are less impactful on the price charts. Instead, the losses suggest ongoing support from trend and momentum indicators.
Related:Audius Brings NFT Galleries to EDM-Heavy Streaming Service
Read More:Bitcoin Still Has Support From Long-Term Uptrend, Says Technical Analyst Katie Stockton
• Ether(ETH) trading around $1,981.56 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 6.29% over the previous 24 hours.
• Ether’s 24-hour range: $1,933.91-$2,129.39 (CoinDesk 20)
• Ether trades below its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bearish signal for market technicians.
After having logged three days of gains, ether saw a price pullback Wednesday, slipping below $2,000 for the first time since April 3.
Other alternative cryptocurrencies (“altcoins”) also suffered losses, according to CoinDesk 20.
Analysts at the cryptocurrency data firm Messari have highlighted the so-called “Coinbase effect” where new digital tokens such ascardanotend to receive a quick price pump after they become available on the U.S. crypto exchange giant Coinbase.
The average return after tokens being listed on Coinbase stands at around 91%, according to Messari. It is much higher than the exchange pump effect on other major exchanges such as Binance, FTX, OKEx and Gemini.
Read More:‘Coinbase Effect’ Means Average 91% Token Price Gain in 5 Days, Messari Says
Other digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly in the red Wednesday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• omg network(OMG) + 7.04%
• ethereum classic(ETC) + 5.16%
Notable losers:
• xrp(XRP) – 14.23%
• kyber network(KNC) – 12.48%
• orchid(OXT) – 11.58%
• tezos(XTZ) – 11.56%
• stellar(XLM) – 11.42%
• eos(EOS) – 10.82%
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed up 0.12%.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe was higher by 0.91%.
• The S&P 500 in the United States closed in the green 0.15%.
Commodities:
• Crude oil (WTI): +0.44% to $59.59/barrel.
• Gold: -0.39% to $1,738.38/ounce.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Wednesday, in the green 1.666%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Drops to Near $56K as Spot Trading Volume Remains Low
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Drops to Near $56K as Spot Trading Volume Remains Low
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 243.68, 236.07, 236.55, 236.15, 224.59, 219.16, 223.83, 228.57, 222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63, 235.27, 234.18, 236.46, 231.27, 226.39, 219.43, 229.29, 225.85, 225.81, 236.15, 232.08, 234.93, 240.36, 239.02, 236.12, 229.78, 237.33, 243.86, 241.83, 240.30, 242.16, 241.11, 236.38, 236.93, 237.60, 236.15, 236.80, 233.13, 231.95, 234.02, 235.34, 240.35, 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10, 233.35, 230.19, 222.93, 225.80, 225.87, 224.32, 224.95, 225.62, 222.88, 228.49, 229.05, 228.80, 229.71, 229.98, 232.40, 233.54, 236.82, 250.90, 249.28, 249.01, 244.61, 245.21, 243.94, 246.99, 244.30, 240.51, 242.80, 243.59, 250.99, 249.01, 257.06, 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-07-07]
Volume: 28857600, RSI (14-day): 65.23, 50-day EMA: 245.93, 200-day EMA: 254.20
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1152.40, Gold RSI: 36.81
Oil Price: 52.33, Oil RSI: 29.36
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
How To Invest When El Niño Comes Around: This year, El Niño is forecast to upend weather patterns across the world and wreak havoc farmers, especially in regions where access to irrigation is limited. The weather phenomenon is expected to cut down on rainfall in Australian and Southern Asia and create unusually wet weather in parts of South America. The extreme weather conditions have pushed investors to take a closer look into agriculture investments as the difficult growing conditions could lead to price spikes. Wheat Prices of wheat have seen a bump over the past two weeks after worries that El Niño would dry out wheat-producing regions. In Australia, where 14 percent of the world's wheat exports are grown, dryer than expected weather is forecast to significantly cut down on crop yields. The Teucrium Wheat Fund (NYSE: WEAT ) has seen a 10.58 percent rise over the past month in the wake of the commodity's El Niño concerns. Coffee Many investors are turning to coffee to give their portfolio a jolt, especially since both Vietnam and Indonesia are experiencing unusually dry weather. Both nations produce Robusta coffee, which is used in instant coffee and is very sensitive to reduced rainfall. For that reason, ETFs like iPath Bloomberg Coffee Subindex Total Return SM Index ETN (NYSE: JO ) have become popular plays for El Niño investors. Outside Agriculture While agriculture is the most obvious place El Niño will have an impact, other areas of the market could also feel the pressure of unseasonable weather. When El Niño hits, demand for commodities like crude oil and coal typically increases as thermo and hydroelectric power are more difficult to generate. The metals can also be impacted; in Chile wetter than normal weather could cut down on copper mining. See more from Benzinga Fast Food Gets Even Faster In Asia In Oregon, The Holiday Weekend Was Red, White, Blue And Green Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How To Invest When El Niño Comes Around: This year, El Niño isforecastto upend weather patterns across the world and wreak havoc farmers, especially in regions where access to irrigation is limited.
The weather phenomenon is expected to cut down on rainfall in Australian and Southern Asia and create unusually wet weather in parts of South America.
The extreme weather conditions have pushed investors to take a closer look into agriculture investments as the difficult growing conditions could lead to price spikes.
Wheat
Prices of wheat have seen a bump over the past two weeks after worries that El Niño would dry out wheat-producing regions. In Australia, where 14 percent of the world's wheat exports are grown, dryer than expected weather is forecast to significantly cut down on crop yields. TheTeucrium Wheat Fund(NYSE:WEAT) has seen a 10.58 percent rise over the past month in the wake of the commodity's El Niño concerns.
Coffee
Many investors are turning to coffee to give their portfolio a jolt, especially since both Vietnam and Indonesia are experiencing unusually dry weather. Both nations produce Robusta coffee, which is used in instant coffee and is very sensitive to reduced rainfall. For that reason, ETFs likeiPath Bloomberg Coffee Subindex Total Return SM Index ETN(NYSE:JO) have become popular plays for El Niño investors.
Outside Agriculture
While agriculture is the most obvious place El Niño will have an impact, other areas of the market could also feel the pressure of unseasonable weather.
When El Niño hits, demand for commodities like crude oil and coal typically increases as thermo and hydroelectric power are more difficult to generate. The metals can also be impacted; in Chile wetter than normal weather could cut down on copper mining.
See more from Benzinga
• Fast Food Gets Even Faster In Asia
• In Oregon, The Holiday Weekend Was Red, White, Blue And Green
• Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fast Food Gets Even Faster In Asia: McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD ) has had a difficult year as consumer tastes shifted and the restaurant battled criticism over its ingredients and lack of healthy offerings. However, the burger chain has been working to restore its bottom line, especially in China, where the massive population represents a major growth opportunity. Appealing To Their Preferences In an effort to reach Chinese consumers, who are becoming increasingly focused on digital innovation, McDonald's is piloting a new program that will allow customers to pay for their orders on their mobile device, making the process of collecting their meal in-store faster and easier. Custom Burgers The decision to include a mobile payment option in China came after McDonald's unveiled digital kiosks that allow customers to build their own burger using a touch screen machine at two Shanghai locations. By adding state-of-the-art technology to its appeal, McDonald's is hoping to lure in first-time customers who are eager to try something new. Related Link: Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands Mobile Payments Take Off While mobile payments are nothing new, in China they are becoming increasingly popular. Online retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA ) recently launched a mobile payment system which has been adopted by several big names including Wal-Mart Corp (NYSE: WMT ) and Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM )'s KFC food chain. Since Chinese customers have historically shied away from using credit cards, mobile payments has become a major draw. Customers have been looking for a fast, convenient way to pay and mobile options are providing that experience. See more from Benzinga FIFA Sponsors Weigh Up The Cost Of Scandal McDonald's Back In The Firing Line Over Happy Meal Ad © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fast Food Gets Even Faster In Asia: McDonald's Corporation(NYSE:MCD) has had a difficult year as consumer tastes shifted and the restaurant battled criticism over its ingredients and lack of healthy offerings.
However, the burger chain has been working to restore its bottom line, especially in China, where the massive population represents a major growth opportunity.
Appealing To Their Preferences
In an effort to reach Chinese consumers, who are becoming increasingly focused on digital innovation, McDonald's ispilotinga new program that will allow customers to pay for their orders on their mobile device, making the process of collecting their meal in-store faster and easier.
Custom Burgers
The decision to include a mobile payment option in China came after McDonald's unveiled digital kiosks that allow customers to build their own burger using a touch screen machine at two Shanghai locations. By adding state-of-the-art technology to its appeal, McDonald's is hoping to lure in first-time customers who are eager to try something new.
Related Link:Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands
Mobile Payments Take Off
While mobile payments are nothing new, in China they are becoming increasingly popular.
Online retailerAlibaba Group Holding Ltd(NYSE:BABA) recently launched a mobile payment system which has been adopted by several big names includingWal-Mart Corp(NYSE:WMT) andYum Brands Inc.(NYSE:YUM)'s KFC food chain.
Since Chinese customers have historically shied away from using credit cards, mobile payments has become a major draw. Customers have been looking for a fast, convenient way to pay and mobile options are providing that experience.
See more from Benzinga
• FIFA Sponsors Weigh Up The Cost Of Scandal
• McDonald's Back In The Firing Line Over Happy Meal Ad
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || In Oregon, The Holiday Weekend Was Red, White, Blue And Green: On Friday, people in Oregon celebrated the state's legalization of recreational marijuana use. The state's more relaxed drug policy went into effect on Wednesday, though retail sales of the stuff isn't set to be allowed until next year. To get around rules barring the sale of recreational marijuana, cannabis enthusiasts organized and event called " Weed the People " on July 3 at which growers, artists, producers and anyone involved in the field could show off and offer samples of their latest offerings. Big Draw The event drew around 1,400 participants who were willing to pay a $40 entrance fee in order to sample the various cannabis-themed products inside. As the state won't accept applications for recreational sales permits until January, pot companies are using events like this one to get their products into the hands of consumers. Growers at the event offered free samples of their strains and artists sold hand-made glass pipes with which to smoke it. Related Link: Get Your Greens: Farm-To-Table Marijuana Shifting Tides The event signaled a shifting tide in the U.S. as more and more consumers call for legalized marijuana. While recreational marijuana is still outlawed in most U.S. states, places like Colorado and Oregon have proven that there is a demand for a recreational marijuana market. Not only has it become a part of mainstream culture, but the marijuana industry is poised to bring in thousands of tax dollars for local governments as it grows. See more from Benzinga Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands What Does Greece Do Now? What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || In Oregon, The Holiday Weekend Was Red, White, Blue And Green: On Friday, people in Oregon celebrated the state's legalization of recreational marijuana use.
The state's more relaxed drug policy went into effect on Wednesday, though retail sales of the stuff isn't set to be allowed until next year.
To get around rules barring the sale of recreational marijuana, cannabis enthusiasts organized and event called "Weed the People" on July 3 at which growers, artists, producers and anyone involved in the field could show off and offer samples of their latest offerings.
Big Draw
The event drew around 1,400 participants who were willing to pay a $40 entrance fee in order to sample the various cannabis-themed products inside.
As the state won't accept applications for recreational sales permits until January, pot companies are using events like this one to get their products into the hands of consumers. Growers at the event offered free samples of their strains and artists sold hand-made glass pipes with which to smoke it.
Related Link:Get Your Greens: Farm-To-Table Marijuana
Shifting Tides
The event signaled a shifting tide in the U.S. as more and more consumers call for legalized marijuana. While recreational marijuana is still outlawed in most U.S. states, places like Colorado and Oregon have proven that there is a demand for a recreational marijuana market.
Not only has it become a part of mainstream culture, but the marijuana industry is poised to bring in thousands of tax dollars for local governments as it grows.
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands
• What Does Greece Do Now?
• What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands: This weekend, bitcoin miners suffered a setback after it was revealed that those running some software clients which were out of date were creating invalid blocks, or transaction records. The glitch gave miners the impression that they had earned bitcoins for adding to blockchain, when in actuality, the invalid blocks weren't accepted. Warning Bitcoin.org issued a warning regarding the invalid blocks over the weekend. The notice said that an initial invalid block has been built upon by other miners, who don't fully validate their blocks. The practice, called Simple Payment Verification (SPV) mining, has caused several large mining operations to loose more than $50,000 dollars in mining income so far due to the glitch. Related Link: Minecraft Teaches Kids To Use Bitcoin To combat the problem, Bitcoin.org recommended that all miners update to the latest software to ensure that the invalid blocks are detected. The site also encouraged those using Web-based wallets to make sure they are using the most up-to-date version as well. How Did It Happen SPV mining means that the verification of new blocks relies on a connection to a trusted node. However, since the software was unable to detect invalid blocks, it allowed miners to continue building strings of blocks on top of an invalid one, rendering all of them worthless. Effects? While the effects of this glitch appear to be concentrated on mining firms, some worry that it could refuel worries about bitcoin's safety and security. The cryptocurrency already has a reputation for being unreliable and many fear that this incident will contribute to that stigma. See more from Benzinga What Does Greece Do Now? What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit? Sealed Air Just Took Away A Guilty Pleasure For Millions © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands: This weekend, bitcoin miners suffered a setback after it wasrevealedthat those running some software clients which were out of date were creating invalid blocks, or transaction records.
The glitch gave miners the impression that they had earned bitcoins for adding to blockchain, when in actuality, the invalid blocks weren't accepted.
Warning
Bitcoin.org issued awarningregarding the invalid blocks over the weekend. The notice said that an initial invalid block has been built upon by other miners, who don't fully validate their blocks. The practice, called Simple Payment Verification (SPV) mining, has caused several large mining operations to loose more than $50,000 dollars in mining income so far due to the glitch.
Related Link: Minecraft Teaches Kids To Use Bitcoin
To combat the problem, Bitcoin.org recommended that all miners update to the latest software to ensure that the invalid blocks are detected. The site also encouraged those using Web-based wallets to make sure they are using the most up-to-date version as well.
How Did It Happen
SPV mining means that the verification of new blocks relies on a connection to a trusted node. However, since the software was unable to detect invalid blocks, it allowed miners to continue building strings of blocks on top of an invalid one, rendering all of them worthless.
Effects?
While the effects of this glitch appear to be concentrated on mining firms, some worry that it could refuel worries about bitcoin's safety and security. The cryptocurrency already has a reputation for being unreliable and many fear that this incident will contribute to that stigma.
See more from Benzinga
• What Does Greece Do Now?
• What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit?
• Sealed Air Just Took Away A Guilty Pleasure For Millions
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands: This weekend, bitcoin miners suffered a setback after it wasrevealedthat those running some software clients which were out of date were creating invalid blocks, or transaction records.
The glitch gave miners the impression that they had earned bitcoins for adding to blockchain, when in actuality, the invalid blocks weren't accepted.
Warning
Bitcoin.org issued awarningregarding the invalid blocks over the weekend. The notice said that an initial invalid block has been built upon by other miners, who don't fully validate their blocks. The practice, called Simple Payment Verification (SPV) mining, has caused several large mining operations to loose more than $50,000 dollars in mining income so far due to the glitch.
Related Link: Minecraft Teaches Kids To Use Bitcoin
To combat the problem, Bitcoin.org recommended that all miners update to the latest software to ensure that the invalid blocks are detected. The site also encouraged those using Web-based wallets to make sure they are using the most up-to-date version as well.
How Did It Happen
SPV mining means that the verification of new blocks relies on a connection to a trusted node. However, since the software was unable to detect invalid blocks, it allowed miners to continue building strings of blocks on top of an invalid one, rendering all of them worthless.
Effects?
While the effects of this glitch appear to be concentrated on mining firms, some worry that it could refuel worries about bitcoin's safety and security. The cryptocurrency already has a reputation for being unreliable and many fear that this incident will contribute to that stigma.
See more from Benzinga
• What Does Greece Do Now?
• What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit?
• Sealed Air Just Took Away A Guilty Pleasure For Millions
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Costas Inc. Is Pleased to Present Its Position on the Financial Technology Space: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jul 6, 2015) - Costas Inc. ( OTC PINK : CSSI ) Costas Inc. (CSSI) or "Costas" has focused over the last year and invested heavily in Distributed Asset Technology; "DAT" is the systemic foundation to what is now known as Digital Currency "DC". DC has taken the world by storm and created a new class of asset. Quite simply, the world economy has evolved from gold and silver as the only accepted form of payment to paper currency and now DC has started to weave itself into the fabric of our global economy. The public generally associates DC with the market's preferred digital coin, Bitcoin. Bitcoin and its peers, have fascinating properties that Costas strongly believes will accelerate the speed at which a store of value can move regionally and/or globally. Decentralized currency without borders is now a viable option for consumers. DC and the institutions that bridge the gap between merchants, consumers and investors stand to capitalize exponentially as investment floods into the space. There are very few opportunities in the realm of DC available to investors through public markets. Investment in the space, to most, is out of reach apart from purchasing DC coins. Costas intends to create a portfolio of diverse DC businesses under its umbrella. Costas will offer a unique opportunity to invest in a cross-section of companies in what The Company believes is the most exciting investment vehicle made available in decades. Costas will acquire companies in full, or a take a significant position in a variety of companies, then facilitate their growth. Costas is also open to creating businesses by putting capable people together, giving them an equity stake and capitalizing them. In the event that there is no pre-existing company with whom to partner, Costas would create its own company to fill that investment vacuum. We are actively searching for strong innovative leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit to either join our board of directors or to offer their services to targets we are looking to acquire and thereby incentivizing them to partner with Costas. Story continues Costas, through its relationships, has the ability to raise capital for the companies it chooses to acquire or create. The management at Costas has built relationships with investment groups that focus on funding, incubating and growing potential business ventures. This network spans the globe and truly has very few limits. We feel confident we can pair any opportunity with the appropriate funds and management, preparing them for their entry into any competitive market. Safe Harbor Act Notice: Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. About Costas Inc. Costas Inc. is a publicly traded company focused on investing in and incubating promising digital currency-based businesses and entrepreneurs by providing access to a global infrastructure of financial and legal professionals and investment groups. Costas identifies "Fintech" emerging companies that, with some incubation and professional experience, will become the next standard in banking, commercial trading and lending. || Costas Inc. Is Pleased to Present Its Position on the Financial Technology Space: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jul 6, 2015) - Costas Inc. (OTC PINK:CSSI) Costas Inc. (CSSI) or "Costas" has focused over the last year and invested heavily in Distributed Asset Technology; "DAT" is the systemic foundation to what is now known as Digital Currency "DC". DC has taken the world by storm and created a new class of asset. Quite simply, the world economy has evolved from gold and silver as the only accepted form of payment to paper currency and now DC has started to weave itself into the fabric of our global economy.
The public generally associates DC with the market's preferred digital coin, Bitcoin. Bitcoin and its peers, have fascinating properties that Costas strongly believes will accelerate the speed at which a store of value can move regionally and/or globally. Decentralized currency without borders is now a viable option for consumers. DC and the institutions that bridge the gap between merchants, consumers and investors stand to capitalize exponentially as investment floods into the space.
There are very few opportunities in the realm of DC available to investors through public markets. Investment in the space, to most, is out of reach apart from purchasing DC coins. Costas intends to create a portfolio of diverse DC businesses under its umbrella. Costas will offer a unique opportunity to invest in a cross-section of companies in what The Company believes is the most exciting investment vehicle made available in decades.
Costas will acquire companies in full, or a take a significant position in a variety of companies, then facilitate their growth. Costas is also open to creating businesses by putting capable people together, giving them an equity stake and capitalizing them. In the event that there is no pre-existing company with whom to partner, Costas would create its own company to fill that investment vacuum. We are actively searching for strong innovative leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit to either join our board of directors or to offer their services to targets we are looking to acquire and thereby incentivizing them to partner with Costas.
Costas, through its relationships, has the ability to raise capital for the companies it chooses to acquire or create. The management at Costas has built relationships with investment groups that focus on funding, incubating and growing potential business ventures. This network spans the globe and truly has very few limits. We feel confident we can pair any opportunity with the appropriate funds and management, preparing them for their entry into any competitive market.
Safe Harbor Act Notice:
Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.
About Costas Inc.
Costas Inc. is a publicly traded company focused on investing in and incubating promising digital currency-based businesses and entrepreneurs by providing access to a global infrastructure of financial and legal professionals and investment groups. Costas identifies "Fintech" emerging companies that, with some incubation and professional experience, will become the next standard in banking, commercial trading and lending. || Switching to the drachma will be a nightmare for Greece: drachma (Pictoscribe - Home again on flickr) Switching back to the drachma would be chaotic if Greece has to ditch euros. The country will hold a crucial referendum on Sunday. Millions of citizens will vote "Yes" or "No" on whether their government should accept a set of conditions that would unlock a fresh bailout program from euro-area creditors, and inject cash into the economy. A "No" vote would leave Greece without emergency funding, the inability to continue to pay pensions, and could lead to further defaults down the road. It could also mean ditching the euro as a currency and going back to the drachma. A Bloomberg report on Saturday notes that recent instances where countries adopted new currencies (like the launch of physical euros in 2002) took several years of planning, and the support of the majority of citizens. These two things aren't guaranteed for Greece. The government has said it would retain the euro in the event of a "No" vote. But as Bloomberg notes, Greece's banking system relies on support from the European Central Bank that could be removed if the country votes "No." And so, if Greece votes to reject creditors' proposals, it may be forced to revert to its old currency. In an interview on Australian public radio Thursday, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the country "smashed the printing presses" when it joined the euro. This was to demonstrate that the newly formed monetary union was permanent and not an experiment. Bloomberg reports that the government still has a press in Athens that prints euros. But switching to a new currency could take anywhere between six months and two years. Apart from the logistical challenges, the drachma would likely start out very weak against the euro and other major currencies. A report by Greece's Kathimerini newspaper on Saturday indicates that interest in Bitcoin has surged to hedge against a weak drachma in the event of a switch. And so, while the government is advocating a "No" vote with Greece remaining in the euro, the economic realities of that decision may mean the drachma makes a painful comeback. Head over to Bloomberg for the full story » NOW WATCH: 13 'all-American' foods that foreigners find completely gross More From Business Insider Greek banks are down to their final 500 million euros Here are the markets most exposed to the crisis in Greece And now the euro is surging View comments || Switching to the drachma will be a nightmare for Greece: (Pictoscribe - Home again on flickr)
Switching back to the drachma would be chaotic if Greece has to ditch euros.
The country will hold a crucial referendum on Sunday.Millions of citizens will vote "Yes" or "No" on whether their government should accept a set of conditions that would unlock a fresh bailout program from euro-area creditors, and inject cash into the economy.
A "No" vote would leave Greece without emergency funding, the inability to continue to pay pensions, andcould lead to further defaults down the road.
It could also mean ditching the euro as a currency and going back to the drachma.
ABloomberg report on Saturdaynotes that recent instances where countries adopted new currencies (like the launch of physical euros in 2002) took several years of planning, and the support of the majority of citizens.
These two things aren't guaranteed for Greece.
The government has said it would retain the euro in the event of a "No" vote. But as Bloomberg notes, Greece's banking system relies on support from the European Central Bank that could be removed if the country votes "No."
And so, if Greece votes to reject creditors' proposals, it may be forced to revert to its old currency.
In aninterview on Australian public radioThursday, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the country "smashed the printing presses" when it joined the euro.
This was to demonstrate that the newly formed monetary union was permanent and not an experiment.
Bloomberg reports that the government still has a press in Athens that prints euros. But switching to a new currency could take anywhere between six months and two years.
Apart from the logistical challenges, the drachma would likely start out very weak against the euro and other major currencies.
A report by Greece'sKathimerininewspaper on Saturday indicates that interest in Bitcoin has surged to hedge against a weak drachma in the event of a switch.
And so, while the government is advocating a "No" vote with Greece remaining in the euro, the economic realities of that decision may mean the drachma makes a painful comeback.
Head over to Bloomberg for the full story »
NOW WATCH:13 'all-American' foods that foreigners find completely gross
More From Business Insider
• Greek banks are down to their final 500 million euros
• Here are the markets most exposed to the crisis in Greece
• And now the euro is surging || The thrilling life of a Kleiner Perkins fellow, where you go to sailboat parties and hear presentations by Silicon Valleys power players: 994866_586226841415626_1124324708_n (Kleiner Perkins) The KPCB fellows on a boat in San Francisco Bay. Roneil Rumburg, 22, is one of the youngest partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), the iconic Silicon Valley VC firm founded in 1972. He joined the firm in April 2015, and now runs the Edge Fund, a seed-stage fund focused on emerging technologies like drones and virtual reality. But for Rumburg, a Stanford computer science grad, being a full-time VC was never part of his career plan, until just recently. If you had asked me 6 months ago if I would be here right now, I would have never guessed, Rumburg told Business Insider. So how did he get there? Rumburg took a rather uncommon, roundabout path which involved founding a not-so-successful bitcoin startup along the way. But he says a big reason for it is KPCB's summer fellowship program he took two years ago, where he was able to get his feet wet in the tech startup world and build strong relationships with KPCBs management team. My pre-existing relationship with Kleiner made it a lot easier for me to fit into this role, Rumburg said. The KPCB fellowship program gives college students a chance to intern at one of its portfolio companies, while providing a string of exclusive events and unfettered access to the firms leadership team. Its also one of the countrys most competitive fellowship/internship programs to get into: Only 84 fellows out of roughly 2,500 applicants were accepted this year. KPCB's fellowship isn't intended to nurture the next VCs of the world Rumburgs case is a rare one, as the program is designed for students pursuing careers in engineering, design, or product management. But in any case, the value of the program is clear: a unique opportunity to experience Silicon Valley's thriving tech culture and learn from some of the most powerful tech leaders in the world. Not just an internship Being a KPCB fellow doesnt mean you get to work at the firm. Instead, you become an intern at one of Kleiners portfolio companies, such as Uber, Flipboard, or Square (Slack will also be available from next year). Story continues The best part about it is all the exclusive events you get invited to. KPCB puts together a long-list of events only offered to the fellows throughout the three month program, such as a special dinner with its general partner John Doerr or a presentation by Nest cofounder Matt Rogers. There are also weekend excursions to a nearby island or kayak trips. "We probably had 2-3 events a week, and a weekend event which tended to be the fun, sailing trips. During the week, we'd visit Kleiner portfolio companies or go to dinners with partners like Mike Abbott," Rumburg said. The fellowship also helps KPCB's own portfolio companies. By putting the KPCB brand behind it, the fellowship program can help recruit some of the country's most talented students for startups that may not necessarily have the brand recognition of its bigger competitors. "If you're a student deciding between Google versus one of our portfolio companies, it's not that comparison anymore. It's Google versus KPCB's fellowship program," KPCB's partner Andy Chen, who leads the fellowship program told us. How to get in RRumburgHighRes (Kleiner Perkins) Roneil Rumburg was a 2013 fellow, and now runs the Edge Fund at KPCB. The fellowship offers three different tracks: engineering, design, or product management. Depending on which program you apply for, you get asked a different set of questions. Rumburg, who was an engineering fellow, said the application process was pretty standard with some questions about an engineering problem. Chen said product management fellows have to upload a video explaining a product that they like. Once you get past the first round, you do a more technical interview with a team leader of a KPCB portfolio company. Those who make it past this second round are the finalists, which usually amount to about 100 people, Chen told us. The finalists are then given a choice to pick from five Kleiner portfolio companies they'd like to work for. They go through a round of interview with each of those companies, and only the ones given an offer from them get into the fellowship program. The fellows don't get paid by KPCB, but the companies they end up interning at. That means the terms of compensation differ for each fellow depending on who they work for. In most cases, KPCB says they're individually negotiated. John Doerr (Michael Seto/Business Insider) Kleiner Perkins General Partner John Doerr Meeting John Doerr and Mary Meeker John Doerr and Mary Meeker, two of the most powerful KPCB partners, also make sure they get connected to the fellows. Doerr, for example, does an intimate Q&A session over dinner with the fellows, where he answers all kinds of questions, from investment and stock tips to even some personal ones. "He puts all the questions on the board and answers them one-by-one, all 84 fellows," Chen says. Meeker also gives a special presentation of her famous "Internet Trends" report, and spends hours afterwards to answer questions individually. "She stayed past 10PM just chatting with us. Getting her kind of off the record and hearing the unfiltered stuff, that was really cool," Rumburg said. Other presenters include Uber's Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden, Facebook's VP of Product Chris Cox, and Flipboard's VP of Design Marcos Weskamp. Star CEOs like Slack's Stewart Butterfield and Sportify's Daniel Ek were also available during this year's welcome reception. "One of the big things I took away from the fellowship was it kind of humanized all of these people you read and hear about," Rumburg says. "It was kind of surreal to be there, chatting with Mary Meeker, but she's actually just a super normal person." Stephanie He, a Princeton computer science grad, who interned at Square as part of the fellowship program last year, echoed the same sentiment. "People like John Doerr can seem intimidating at first, because theyre legendary in Silicon Valley, but theyre all very accessible, engaging with the fellows," she tells us. Life after the fellowship AChenHighRes (Kleiner Perkins) KPCB partner Andy Chen runs the fellowship program Rumburg, the KPCB partner, was an engineering intern at a cloud infrastructure startup called Nebula during his fellowship in 2013. Although Nebula went out of business earlier this year, Rumburg says the whole fellowship experience was so inspiring that it convinced him to finish college a year early and start his own Bitcoin startup called Backslash. Backslash didn't pan out the way he'd expected, but Rumberg's experience as an engineer and founder led KPCB to reach out to him with a VC position. "Roneil [Rumburg] was part of the program, and he kept in close touch with the team here, and that relationship enabled him to bounce into Edge," Chen says. "The Edge Fund team immediately thought of Roneil because they had that long-standing relationship." For Stephanie He, the 2014 fellow who interned at Square, it was about getting that startup experience and gaining the confidence to join a young company. She will start working at an early stage startup called Flux Factory this year. "I never had a chance to work at a startup before KPCB. If youre interested in exploring startups, then I highly recommend the fellowship program." Chen says 90% of the fellows end up receiving job offers from the companies they interned at. In some cases, like Rumberg, the fellows go on to become VCs or even launch their own startup. If you want to have the best bang for the buck, where you can meet the best people, work at the best company, and have the best experience, I think the fellowship program offers all of that, Chen said. NOW WATCH: Forget the Apple Watch here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants More From Business Insider Microsoft has a strange new mission statement 11 impossible tech interview questions you don't want to be asked How Mark Zuckerberg helps his friend, the CEO of $10 billion Dropbox || The thrilling life of a Kleiner Perkins fellow, where you go to sailboat parties and hear presentations by Silicon Valley’s power players: (Kleiner Perkins)The KPCB fellows on a boat in San Francisco Bay.Roneil Rumburg, 22, is one of the youngest partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), the iconic Silicon Valley VC firm founded in 1972.
He joined the firm in April 2015, and now runs the Edge Fund, a seed-stage fund focused on emerging technologies like drones and virtual reality.
But for Rumburg, a Stanford computer science grad, being a full-time VC was never part of his career plan, until just recently.
“If you had asked me 6 months ago if I would be here right now, I would have never guessed,” Rumburg told Business Insider.
So how did he get there? Rumburg took a rather uncommon, roundabout path — which involved founding a not-so-successful bitcoin startup along the way. But he says a big reason for it is KPCB's summer fellowship program he took two years ago, where he was able to get his feet wet in the tech startup world and build strong relationships with KPCB’s management team.
“My pre-existing relationship with Kleiner made it a lot easier for me to fit into this role,” Rumburg said.
The KPCB fellowship program gives college students a chance to intern at one of its portfolio companies, while providing a string of exclusive events and unfettered access to the firm’s leadership team. It’s also one of the country’s most competitive fellowship/internship programs to get into: Only 84 fellows out of roughly 2,500 applicants were accepted this year.
KPCB's fellowship isn't intended to nurture the next VCs of the world — Rumburg’s case is a rare one, as the program is designed for students pursuing careers in engineering, design, or product management. But in any case, the value of the program is clear: a unique opportunity to experience Silicon Valley's thriving tech cultureand learn from some of the most powerful tech leaders in the world.
Being a KPCB fellow doesn’t mean you get to work at the firm.
Instead, you become an intern at one of Kleiner’s portfolio companies, such as Uber, Flipboard, or Square (Slack will also be available from next year).
The best part about it is all the exclusive events you get invited to. KPCB puts together a long-list of events — only offered to the fellows — throughout the three month program, such as a special dinner with its general partner John Doerr or a presentation by Nest cofounder Matt Rogers. There are also weekend excursions to a nearby island or kayak trips.
"We probably had 2-3 events a week, and a weekend event which tended to be the fun, sailing trips. During the week, we'd visit Kleiner portfolio companies or go to dinners with partners like Mike Abbott," Rumburg said.
The fellowship also helps KPCB's own portfolio companies. By putting the KPCB brand behind it, the fellowship program can help recruit some of the country's most talented students for startups that may not necessarily have the brand recognition of its bigger competitors.
"If you're a student deciding between Google versus one of our portfolio companies, it's not that comparison anymore. It's Google versus KPCB's fellowship program," KPCB's partner Andy Chen, who leads the fellowship program told us.
(Kleiner Perkins)Roneil Rumburg was a 2013 fellow, and now runs the Edge Fund at KPCB.
The fellowship offers three different tracks: engineering, design, or product management. Depending on which program you apply for, you get asked a different set of questions.
Rumburg, who was an engineering fellow, said the application process was pretty standard with some questions about an engineering problem. Chen said product management fellows have to upload a video explaining a product that they like.
Once you get past the first round, you do a more technical interview with a team leader of a KPCB portfolio company. Those who make it past this second round are the finalists, which usually amount to about 100 people, Chen told us.
The finalists are then given a choice to pick from five Kleiner portfolio companies they'd like to work for. They go through a round of interview with each of those companies, and only the ones given an offer from them get into the fellowship program.
The fellows don't get paid by KPCB, but the companies they end up interning at.That means the terms of compensation differ for each fellow depending on who they work for. In most cases, KPCB says they're individually negotiated.
(Michael Seto/Business Insider)Kleiner Perkins General Partner John Doerr
John Doerr and Mary Meeker, two of the most powerful KPCB partners, also make sure they get connected to the fellows.
Doerr, for example, does an intimate Q&A session over dinner with the fellows, where he answers all kinds of questions,from investment and stock tips to even some personal ones. "He puts all the questions on the board and answers them one-by-one, all 84 fellows," Chen says.
Meeker also gives a special presentation of her famous "Internet Trends" report, and spends hours afterwards to answer questions individually. "She stayed past 10PM just chatting with us. Getting her kind of off the record and hearing the unfiltered stuff, that was really cool," Rumburg said.
Other presenters include Uber's Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden, Facebook's VP of Product Chris Cox, and Flipboard's VP of Design Marcos Weskamp. Star CEOs like Slack's Stewart Butterfield and Sportify's Daniel Ek were also available during this year's welcome reception.
"One of the big things I took away from the fellowship was it kind of humanized all of these people you read and hear about," Rumburg says. "It was kind of surreal to be there, chatting with Mary Meeker, but she's actually just a super normal person."
Stephanie He, a Princeton computer science grad, who interned at Square as part of the fellowship program last year, echoed the same sentiment. "People like John Doerr can seem intimidating at first, because they’re legendary in Silicon Valley, but they’re all very accessible, engaging with the fellows," she tells us.
(Kleiner Perkins)KPCB partner Andy Chen runs the fellowship program
Rumburg, the KPCB partner, was an engineering intern at a cloud infrastructure startup called Nebula during his fellowship in 2013.
Although Nebulawent out of businessearlier this year, Rumburg says the whole fellowship experience was so inspiring that it convinced him to finish college a year early and start his own Bitcoin startup called Backslash.
Backslash didn't pan out the way he'd expected, but Rumberg's experience as an engineer and founder led KPCB to reach out to him with a VC position.
"Roneil [Rumburg] was part of the program, and he kept in close touch with the team here, and that relationship enabled him to bounce into Edge," Chen says. "The Edge Fund team immediately thought of Roneil because they had that long-standing relationship."
For Stephanie He, the 2014 fellow who interned at Square, it was about getting that startup experience and gaining the confidence to join a young company. She will start working at an early stage startup called Flux Factory this year.
"I never had a chance to work at a startup before KPCB. If you’re interested in exploring startups, then I highly recommend the fellowship program."
Chen says 90% of the fellows end up receiving job offers from the companies they interned at. In some cases, like Rumberg, the fellows go on to become VCs or even launch their own startup.
“If you want to have the best bang for the buck, where you can meet the best people, work at the best company, and have the best experience, I think the fellowship program offers all of that,” Chen said.
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• How Mark Zuckerberg helps his friend, the CEO of $10 billion Dropbox || Fearing return to drachma, some Greeks use bitcoin to dodge capital controls: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin. Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen. New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at "a few thousand". The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros. Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country. "When people are trying to move money out of the country and the state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association. "There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's very difficult to move." But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency. If voters reject the demands of international creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely. "A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them," Marinos said. "In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they're safe." VOLATILE CURRENCY That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a government or central bank, has been highly volatile. It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70 percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014. Story continues This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp exchange - up more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of daily transactions reached a record 150,917. Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent. Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal. It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared with June's average. On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens. There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones. But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday. "Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila, an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell broke loose, there has literally been zero interest." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey) || Fearing return to drachma, some Greeks use bitcoin to dodge capital controls: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin. Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen. New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at "a few thousand". The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros. Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country. "When people are trying to move money out of the country and the state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association. "There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's very difficult to move." But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency. If voters reject the demands of international creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely. "A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them," Marinos said. "In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they're safe." VOLATILE CURRENCY That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a government or central bank, has been highly volatile. It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70 percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014. Story continues This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp exchange - up more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of daily transactions reached a record 150,917. Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent. Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal. It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared with June's average. On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens. There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones. But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday. "Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila, an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell broke loose, there has literally been zero interest." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey) || Fearing return to drachma, some Greeks use bitcoin to dodge capital controls: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin. Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen. New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at "a few thousand". The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros. Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country. "When people are trying to move money out of the country and the state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association. "There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's very difficult to move." But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency. If voters reject the demands of international creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely. "A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them," Marinos said. "In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they're safe." VOLATILE CURRENCY That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a government or central bank, has been highly volatile. It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70 percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014. Story continues This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp exchange - up more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of daily transactions reached a record 150,917. Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent. Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal. It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared with June's average. On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens. There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones. But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday. "Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila, an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell broke loose, there has literally been zero interest." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey) || Fearing return to drachma, some Greeks use bitcoin to dodge capital controls: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin.
Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen.
New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at "a few thousand". The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros.
Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country.
"When people are trying to move money out of the country and the state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association.
"There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's very difficult to move."
But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency. If voters reject the demands of international creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely.
"A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them," Marinos said. "In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they're safe."
VOLATILE CURRENCY
That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a government or central bank, has been highly volatile.
It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70 percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014.
This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp exchange - up more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of daily transactions reached a record 150,917.
Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent.
Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal.
It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared with June's average.
On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens.
There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones.
But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday.
"Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila, an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell broke loose, there has literally been zero interest."
(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey) || Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Independence Day Celebration: The holiday shortened week came to a close on light volume and unenthusiastic price action. Sellers managed to push theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NYSE:SPY) over 1 percent lower this week, as Greek default worries led to marked declines in broad-based exchange-traded funds. Nevertheless, hope remains that this embattled nation will come to a truce with its creditors to restore fiscal order in the European continent.
The end of the quarter and mid-point of 2015 served as a reminder that very little progress has been made so far this year. TheSPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF(NYSE:DIA) is trading near the flat line, while theiShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF)(NYSE:IWM) notched the strongest gain of all the major indices with a total year-to-date return of 4.68 percent through June 30.
Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries?
The following ETFs represent a sample of the best- and worst-performing funds over the last five trading sessions.
BEST: Volatility Futures
On Monday, SPY experienced its largest single day decline of 2015 with a drop of more than 2 percent. This sent volatility futures flying higher as traders scrambled to hedge their positions with options. TheiPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures TM ETN(NYSE:VXX) gained 15 percent this week after recent falling near its lows of the year.
This exchange-traded note is the largest dedicated VIX futures fund, with over $1 billion in total assets. VXX is designed to capitalize on swings in investor fear. Heightened selling and uncertainty in the market generally leads to a spike in the CBOE VIX Volatility Index.
WORST: Greek Stocks
The catalyst for a jump in VXX was spurred by headlines that Greece would be unable to meet an IMF debt repayment deadline and hadclosed the Athens Stock Exchange. This news led to a steep weekly decline of 10 percent in the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (Global X Funds(NYSE:GREK)).
GREK tracks the 20 largest stocks on the Athens Stock Exchange, and prior to this announcement, had been taking in atremendous waveof new assets, as global investors bet on a turn around. While GREK did manage to claw back some of its hefty losses this week, the fund remains a question mark for investors until the Greek stock market reopens and prices can adjust accordingly.
Image Credit:Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Home Construction, Treasury And Automobile ETFs To Watch This Week
• Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Agriculture Rally
• 3 Core ETFs For Growth Investors
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: 266.98$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-07 13:00:05 EDT || LIVE: Profit = $1,053.00 (0.93 %). BUY B421.60 @ $267.92 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $268.83 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,174.72 #bitcoin #btc || Grecia adoptará el #Bitcoin si Europa no le ofrece un trato http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2015/07/07/559bb4c946163f20728b458b.html … +info en #H...
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270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87, 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-10-18]
Volume: 38055562075, RSI (14-day): 73.59, 50-day EMA: 50481.12, 200-day EMA: 44122.59
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1764.80, Gold RSI: 48.46
Oil Price: 82.44, Oil RSI: 76.45
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
UK emerges as Europe's top crypto hub with $170bn of deals: Global cryptocurrency adoption rose around the world, growing by over 2300% since the third quarter of 2019 and over 881% in the last year. Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images (NurPhoto via Getty Images) The UK has become the leading country in Europe for cryptocurrency transactions, with $170bn (£123bn) worth of deals. According to a report from blockchain data platform Chainalysis, central, northern, and western Europe (CNWE) had the biggest cryptocurrency economy in the world, receiving more than $1tn worth of the digital coins over the last year. CNWE transaction volume grew significantly across virtually all cryptocurrencies and service types, but especially on decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols, the data found. The region also became the biggest crypto trading partner for every other area, sending at least 25% of all value received by other regions, including 34% of value received by North America. This was largely driven by a significant increase in institutional transactions which grew from $1.4bn in July last year, to $46.3bn in June 2021. The research, which is made up of three metrics, includes data on North America, Europe, Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, focusing on geographic trends in crypto adoption, usage, and regulation. The three metrics are on-chain cryptocurrency value received, on-chain retail value received, and peer-to-peer exchange trade volume. Read more: Crypto regulation should be pursued as 'matter of urgency' says BoE official “Our research suggests that the reasons for this increased adoption differ around the world,” Chainalysis said. “In emerging markets, many turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, send and receive remittances, and carry out business transactions; in North America, Western Europe, and Eastern Asia, by contrast, adoption over the last year has been driven largely by institutional investment.” Chainalysis highlighted that the UK beat the likes of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, which made up the rest of the top five in the region. The United Kingdom ranked first in Europe's cryptocurrency value received by country. Chart: Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ), the world’s largest cryptocurrency, made up 27% of the UK’s transaction value, while ethereum ( ETH-USD ) and wrapped ethereum (wETH) made up 40%. WETH is an ERC-20 token of equivalent value to Ethereum commonly used in DeFi protocols. Story continues The second-largest cryptocurrency economy in the world was North America, receiving more than $750bn in the period. This accounted for 18.4% of global activity, with the United States accounting for the majority. However, North America was the biggest target for ransomware attackers, with users sending $131m worth of cryptocurrency in the 12 months to June, more than double that of Western Europe. When analysed country by country overall, Vietnam made out on top, followed by India, Pakistan, and the Ukraine. It came as global cryptocurrency adoption rose around the world, growing by over 2300% since the third quarter of 2019 and over 881% in the last year. Read more: Elon Musk dogecoin tweet lifts bitcoin Last week, bitcoin ended the week on a high note, inching closer to its all-time high, as investors become confident that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve the launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the crypto’s futures contracts. There has been much speculation on the SEC approving bitcoin ETFs. It has not made any comment, but investors were given hope by a tweet posted by the SEC's investor education office on Thursday that said “before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits". Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || UK emerges as Europe's top crypto hub with $170bn of deals: The UK has become the leading country in Europe for cryptocurrency transactions, with $170bn (£123bn) worth of deals.
According to a report from blockchain data platform Chainalysis, central, northern, and western Europe (CNWE) had the biggest cryptocurrency economy in the world, receiving more than $1tn worth of the digital coins over the last year.
CNWE transaction volume grew significantly across virtually all cryptocurrencies and service types, but especially on decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols, the data found.
The region also became the biggest crypto trading partner for every other area, sending at least 25% of all value received by other regions, including 34% of value received by North America.
This was largely driven by a significant increase in institutional transactions which grew from $1.4bn in July last year, to $46.3bn in June 2021.
The research, which is made up of three metrics, includes data on North America, Europe, Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, focusing on geographic trends in crypto adoption, usage, and regulation.
The three metrics are on-chain cryptocurrency value received, on-chain retail value received, and peer-to-peer exchange trade volume.
Read more:Crypto regulation should be pursued as 'matter of urgency' says BoE official
“Our research suggests that the reasons for this increased adoption differ around the world,” Chainalysis said.
“In emerging markets, many turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, send and receive remittances, and carry out business transactions; in North America, Western Europe, and Eastern Asia, by contrast, adoption over the last year has been driven largely by institutional investment.”
Chainalysis highlighted that the UK beat the likes of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, which made up the rest of the top five in the region.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the world’s largest cryptocurrency, made up 27% of the UK’s transaction value, while ethereum (ETH-USD) and wrapped ethereum (wETH) made up 40%. WETH is an ERC-20 token of equivalent value to Ethereum commonly used in DeFi protocols.
The second-largest cryptocurrency economy in the world was North America, receiving more than $750bn in the period. This accounted for 18.4% of global activity, with the United States accounting for the majority.
However, North America was the biggest target for ransomware attackers, with users sending $131m worth of cryptocurrency in the 12 months to June, more than double that of Western Europe.
When analysed country by country overall, Vietnam made out on top, followed by India, Pakistan, and the Ukraine.
It came as global cryptocurrency adoption rose around the world, growing by over 2300% since the third quarter of 2019 and over 881% in the last year.
Read more:Elon Musk dogecoin tweet lifts bitcoin
Last week, bitcoin ended the week on a high note, inching closer to its all-time high, as investors become confident that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve the launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the crypto’s futures contracts.
There has been much speculation on the SEC approving bitcoin ETFs.
It has not made any comment, but investors were given hope by a tweet posted by the SEC's investor education office on Thursday that said “before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits".
Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || Economic Data from China and the U.S in Focus Following Inflation Figures from New Zealand: Earlier in the Day: It was a relatively quiet start to the day on the economic calendar this morning. The Kiwi Dollar was in action this morning. Later this morning, economic data from China will be key. Stats include 3 rd quarter GDP, industrial production, fixed asset investment, and retail sales figures for September. Expect the industrial production and 3 rd quarter GDP numbers to have the greatest impact on riskier assets. For the Kiwi Dollar In the 3 rd quarter, consumer prices rose by 2.2%, quarter-on-quarter, versus a forecasted 1.4%. Consumer prices had risen by 1.3% in the previous quarter. The annual rate of inflation accelerated from 3.3% to 4.9%. Economists had forecast an annual rate of inflation of 4.1% for the 3 rd quarter. According to NZ Stats , Excluding quarters impacted by increases in GST rates, the quarterly rise was the highest since the June 1987 quarter. Prices rose across 10 of the 11 main groups in the CPI basket in the quarter. The main drivers were housing-related costs, such as construction of new houses and local authority rates. Prices for construction of new houses were up 4.5% for the quarter and 12% for the year. Both supply-chain challenges and high demand pushed up the cost of building houses. Local authority rates and payments rose 7.1% in the quarter. Vegetable prices jumped by 19%, with transport prices up 4.2%. Petrol prices rose by 6.5% in the quarter and by 22% for the year. Bucking the trend was a 2.7% fall in prices for new cars. The Kiwi Dollar moved from $0.70721 to $0.70830 upon release of the figures. At the time of writing, the Kiwi Dollar was up by 0.22% to $0.70870. Elsewhere At the time of writing, the Japanese Yen was down by 0.02% to ¥114.240 against the U.S Dollar. The Aussie Dollar was flat at $0.7421. The Day Ahead For the EUR It’s a particularly quiet day ahead on the economic calendar. There are no material stats to provide the EUR with direction. The lack of stats will leave the EUR in the hands of market risk sentiment on the day. Story continues At the time of writing, the EUR was flat at $1.1601. For the Pound It’s also a particularly quiet day ahead on the economic calendar , with no major stats due out of the UK to provide the Pound with direction. The lack of stats will leave the Pound in the hands of market sentiment towards BoE monetary policy and market risk sentiment. At the time of writing, the Pound was up by 0.03% to $1.3755. Across the Pond It’s a relatively quiet day ahead. Industrial production figures for September are due out later in the day. With little else for the markets to consider, we can expect the numbers to draw interest. Any FOMC member chatter will likely have a greater impact on the day, however. On Friday, the U.S Dollar Spot Index fell by 0.02% to 93.937. For the Loonie It’s a relatively quiet day ahead for the Loonie. Foreign securities purchases for August and housing starts for September are due out later in the day. We don’t expect the numbers to influence, however. From the Bank of Canada, the Business Outlook Survey, due out later in the day, will provide the Loonie with direction. Away from the economic calendar, crude oil prices and market risk sentiment will also provide direction. At the time of writing, the Loonie was up by 0.02% to C$1.2366 against the U.S Dollar. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week Ireland: Stronger Headline GDP Growth in 2021, Global Tax Deal May Impact Future Growth European Equities: Economic Data from China and Corporate Earnings in Focus Square Sets Its Sights on Bitcoin Mining The Week Ahead – A Busy Economic Calendar Will Put the Majors in the Spotlight Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 18th, 2021 || Economic Data from China and the U.S in Focus Following Inflation Figures from New Zealand: It was a relatively quiet start to the day on theeconomic calendarthis morning. The Kiwi Dollar was in action this morning.
Later this morning, economic data from China will be key. Stats include 3rdquarter GDP, industrial production, fixed asset investment, and retail sales figures for September.
Expect the industrial production and 3rdquarter GDP numbers to have the greatest impact on riskier assets.
In the 3rdquarter, consumer prices rose by 2.2%, quarter-on-quarter, versus a forecasted 1.4%. Consumer prices had risen by 1.3% in the previous quarter.
The annual rate of inflation accelerated from 3.3% to 4.9%. Economists had forecast an annual rate of inflation of 4.1% for the 3rdquarter.
According toNZ Stats,
• Excluding quarters impacted by increases in GST rates, the quarterly rise was the highest since the June 1987 quarter.
• Prices rose across 10 of the 11 main groups in the CPI basket in the quarter.
• The main drivers were housing-related costs, such as construction of new houses and local authority rates.
• Prices for construction of new houses were up 4.5% for the quarter and 12% for the year.
• Both supply-chain challenges and high demand pushed up the cost of building houses.
• Local authority rates and payments rose 7.1% in the quarter.
• Vegetable prices jumped by 19%, with transport prices up 4.2%.
• Petrol prices rose by 6.5% in the quarter and by 22% for the year.
• Bucking the trend was a 2.7% fall in prices for new cars.
The Kiwi Dollar moved from $0.70721 to $0.70830 upon release of the figures. At the time of writing, theKiwi Dollarwas up by 0.22% to $0.70870.
At the time of writing, theJapanese Yenwas down by 0.02% to ¥114.240 against the U.S Dollar. TheAussie Dollarwas flat at $0.7421.
It’s a particularly quiet day ahead on the economic calendar. There are no material stats to provide the EUR with direction.
The lack of stats will leave the EUR in the hands of market risk sentiment on the day.
At the time of writing, theEURwas flat at $1.1601.
It’s also a particularly quiet day ahead on theeconomic calendar, with no major stats due out of the UK to provide the Pound with direction.
The lack of stats will leave the Pound in the hands of market sentiment towards BoE monetary policy and market risk sentiment.
At the time of writing, thePoundwas up by 0.03% to $1.3755.
It’s a relatively quiet day ahead. Industrial production figures for September are due out later in the day.
With little else for the markets to consider, we can expect the numbers to draw interest.
Any FOMC member chatter will likely have a greater impact on the day, however.
On Friday, the U.S Dollar Spot Index fell by 0.02% to 93.937.
It’s a relatively quiet day ahead for the Loonie. Foreign securities purchases for August and housing starts for September are due out later in the day.
We don’t expect the numbers to influence, however.
From the Bank of Canada, the Business Outlook Survey, due out later in the day, will provide the Loonie with direction.
Away from the economic calendar, crude oil prices and market risk sentiment will also provide direction.
At the time of writing, theLooniewas up by 0.02% to C$1.2366 against the U.S Dollar.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week
• Ireland: Stronger Headline GDP Growth in 2021, Global Tax Deal May Impact Future Growth
• European Equities: Economic Data from China and Corporate Earnings in Focus
• Square Sets Its Sights on Bitcoin Mining
• The Week Ahead – A Busy Economic Calendar Will Put the Majors in the Spotlight
• Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 18th, 2021 || Bitcoin Futures ETFs May Boost Cash and Carry Yields: Several bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded funds (ETF) may debut in the U.S. in the coming weeks. These products may revive interest in the famed “cash and carry” arbitrage strategy, which in turn would bring more buying pressure to the spot market.
The ETFs would buy bitcoin futures contracts, primarily front-month trading on a regulated venue like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), in a bid to mimic the cryptocurrency’s price performance instead of purchasing actual coins.
Assuming Wall Street embraces these ETFs, the futures premium, or the spread between futures prices and spot prices, would rise significantly, boosting yields from cash and carry strategy, which involves buying the asset in the spot market and simultaneously selling futures contracts. Carry trades are direction-neutral and profit from an eventual convergence of the two prices. (Futures price converges with the spot price on expiry).
“If the futures ETF comes out, there will be more inflows into buying futures. That would drive the futures curve further into contango [a situation where the futures contracts trade at a premium to the spot price], offering a strong incentive to carry traders,” said Ilan Solot, global market strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “They would start the trade by buying BTC in the spot market, creating an initial push up in spot prices.”
Cash and carry arbitragewas a big hitamong institutions early this year as futures premium spiked to 20% or more on the CME and other exchanges alongside bitcoin’s price rise. So, several firms could lock in annualized returns of over 20% by selling front month or three-month futures contracts and buying the cryptocurrency in the spot market. Premiums, however, fell to single digits following bitcoin’s 35% sell-off in May and as major exchanges like Binance and FTXcut backon leverage.
Premiums have risen sharply this month with the return of the bull to the crypto market. On the CME, the front-month contract is currently trading at an annualized premium of 16% versus a discount of -0.4% at the end of September, according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew. With futures-based ETFs likely coming soon in the U.S., double-digit futures premiums appear sustainable.
“One key effect of a futures-based ETF is the possible increase in yield in the space,” QCP Capital said in its Telegram channel on Friday. “With the ETF funds forced to buy futures instead of spot, the futures premium would be driven higher. A ‘risk-free’ rate [cash and carry yield] of 10-20% could be the new norm.”
On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)opened the doorsfor the masses to invest in bitcoin with its tacit approval of a futures-based bitcoin ETF. ProShares may be the first to launch next week, although it may not begin trading immediately.
In the week gone by, crypto lender BlockFi and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed bitcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, Valkyrie Investments updated its futures-backed ETF prospectus with the ticker BTF, hinting at a possible launch. Per Bloomberg Intelligence, the regulators were considering nine bitcoin futures ETF applications at the beginning of the month.
The consensus is that the futures-based ETFs would bring more mainstream investors to the crypto market. However, these products are vulnerable to contango bleed and usually underperform the underlying asset.
Also read:Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’ || Bitcoin Futures ETFs May Boost Cash and Carry Yields: Several bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded funds (ETF) may debut in the U.S. in the coming weeks. These products may revive interest in the famed “cash and carry” arbitrage strategy, which in turn would bring more buying pressure to the spot market.
The ETFs would buy bitcoin futures contracts, primarily front-month trading on a regulated venue like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), in a bid to mimic the cryptocurrency’s price performance instead of purchasing actual coins.
Assuming Wall Street embraces these ETFs, the futures premium, or the spread between futures prices and spot prices, would rise significantly, boosting yields from cash and carry strategy, which involves buying the asset in the spot market and simultaneously selling futures contracts. Carry trades are direction-neutral and profit from an eventual convergence of the two prices. (Futures price converges with the spot price on expiry).
“If the futures ETF comes out, there will be more inflows into buying futures. That would drive the futures curve further into contango [a situation where the futures contracts trade at a premium to the spot price], offering a strong incentive to carry traders,” said Ilan Solot, global market strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “They would start the trade by buying BTC in the spot market, creating an initial push up in spot prices.”
Cash and carry arbitragewas a big hitamong institutions early this year as futures premium spiked to 20% or more on the CME and other exchanges alongside bitcoin’s price rise. So, several firms could lock in annualized returns of over 20% by selling front month or three-month futures contracts and buying the cryptocurrency in the spot market. Premiums, however, fell to single digits following bitcoin’s 35% sell-off in May and as major exchanges like Binance and FTXcut backon leverage.
Premiums have risen sharply this month with the return of the bull to the crypto market. On the CME, the front-month contract is currently trading at an annualized premium of 16% versus a discount of -0.4% at the end of September, according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew. With futures-based ETFs likely coming soon in the U.S., double-digit futures premiums appear sustainable.
“One key effect of a futures-based ETF is the possible increase in yield in the space,” QCP Capital said in its Telegram channel on Friday. “With the ETF funds forced to buy futures instead of spot, the futures premium would be driven higher. A ‘risk-free’ rate [cash and carry yield] of 10-20% could be the new norm.”
On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)opened the doorsfor the masses to invest in bitcoin with its tacit approval of a futures-based bitcoin ETF. ProShares may be the first to launch next week, although it may not begin trading immediately.
In the week gone by, crypto lender BlockFi and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed bitcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, Valkyrie Investments updated its futures-backed ETF prospectus with the ticker BTF, hinting at a possible launch. Per Bloomberg Intelligence, the regulators were considering nine bitcoin futures ETF applications at the beginning of the month.
The consensus is that the futures-based ETFs would bring more mainstream investors to the crypto market. However, these products are vulnerable to contango bleed and usually underperform the underlying asset.
Also read:Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’ || Bitcoin Futures ETFs May Boost Cash and Carry Yields: Several bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded funds (ETF) may debut in the U.S. in the coming weeks. These products may revive interest in the famed “cash and carry” arbitrage strategy, which in turn would bring more buying pressure to the spot market. The ETFs would buy bitcoin futures contracts, primarily front-month trading on a regulated venue like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), in a bid to mimic the cryptocurrency’s price performance instead of purchasing actual coins. Assuming Wall Street embraces these ETFs, the futures premium, or the spread between futures prices and spot prices, would rise significantly, boosting yields from cash and carry strategy, which involves buying the asset in the spot market and simultaneously selling futures contracts. Carry trades are direction-neutral and profit from an eventual convergence of the two prices. (Futures price converges with the spot price on expiry). “If the futures ETF comes out, there will be more inflows into buying futures. That would drive the futures curve further into contango [a situation where the futures contracts trade at a premium to the spot price], offering a strong incentive to carry traders,” said Ilan Solot, global market strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “They would start the trade by buying BTC in the spot market, creating an initial push up in spot prices.” Cash and carry arbitrage was a big hit among institutions early this year as futures premium spiked to 20% or more on the CME and other exchanges alongside bitcoin’s price rise. So, several firms could lock in annualized returns of over 20% by selling front month or three-month futures contracts and buying the cryptocurrency in the spot market. Premiums, however, fell to single digits following bitcoin’s 35% sell-off in May and as major exchanges like Binance and FTX cut back on leverage. Premiums have risen sharply this month with the return of the bull to the crypto market. On the CME, the front-month contract is currently trading at an annualized premium of 16% versus a discount of -0.4% at the end of September, according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew. With futures-based ETFs likely coming soon in the U.S., double-digit futures premiums appear sustainable. Story continues “One key effect of a futures-based ETF is the possible increase in yield in the space,” QCP Capital said in its Telegram channel on Friday. “With the ETF funds forced to buy futures instead of spot, the futures premium would be driven higher. A ‘risk-free’ rate [cash and carry yield] of 10-20% could be the new norm.” On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened the doors for the masses to invest in bitcoin with its tacit approval of a futures-based bitcoin ETF. ProShares may be the first to launch next week, although it may not begin trading immediately. In the week gone by, crypto lender BlockFi and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed bitcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, Valkyrie Investments updated its futures-backed ETF prospectus with the ticker BTF, hinting at a possible launch. Per Bloomberg Intelligence, the regulators were considering nine bitcoin futures ETF applications at the beginning of the month. The consensus is that the futures-based ETFs would bring more mainstream investors to the crypto market. However, these products are vulnerable to contango bleed and usually underperform the underlying asset. Also read: Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’ || Bitcoin Mining Is Decentralizing – Here’s Proof: There’s at least one industry where the United States now has China beat: bitcoin mining.
After Beijing’s crackdown on crypto in September, the U.S. took the reins as the leading location for bitcoin mining, according todata compiled by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Financeand released last week. Just two years ago, China accounted for three-quarters of all of bitcoin’s total hashrate (the computational power used to mine bitcoin), while the U.S. contributed a scant 4%. As of August, China’s bitcoin miners were gone, while the Americans were responsible for 35%.
You’re readingCrypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor.Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Sunday.
A recurring criticism of bitcoin mining in the past was that so much of it came from
China. So long as that was the case, the more extreme arguments said, the Chinese government could somehow pressure miners to do its bidding. Whether that was the case is now moot because that government rescinded any opportunity to do so by kicking its miners out of the country.
Adding Kazakhstan’s 18% with the U.S.’s 35% means that more than half of all bitcoin mining is happening in just two countries. That may seem like bitcoin is pretty much as concentrated as it was when China was the dominant player, but one index is showing that concentration has declined significantly with China’s exit.
TheHerfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)is often used by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to determine the concentration of an industry. The higher the index, the more control of that industry is in the hands of a few players. It’s calculated by adding up the squares of an individual company’s market share (after multiplying each by 100). Doing so amplifies the weight of those firms with larger market shares.
The DOJ puts markets into three buckets based on their HHI score:
• Unconcentrated Markets: HHI below 1,500
• Moderately Concentrated Markets: HHI between 1,500 and 2,500
• Highly Concentrated Markets: HHI above 2,500
The regulators use this as a tool to determine whether to greenlight a merger or acquisition. If combining the two companies would raise the HHI by more than 100 points in a moderately concentrated market, that could raise red flags. Doing so in a highly concentrated market significantly decreases the chances such an M&A deal will go through.
HHI is generally used to look at companies in an industry. Applying it to country market share isn’t quite the same thing. After all, within each country many firms could be vigorously competing for their tiny slivers of the overall market share. And one firm could have facilities in multiple countries, making this even more an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Nonetheless, coming up with an HHI figure for how concentrated bitcoin mining is by country does give some insight into whether bitcoin mining is as diversified as it should be if it’s to survive the whims of any one government’s capriciousness.
As it turns out, the market as it pertains to hashrate after China’s crackdown is now down to “moderately concentrated,” down from “highly concentrated,” if one were to use the DOJ’s measures.
Back in September 2019, the HHI using just the top nine countries was an astounding 5,774 because China’s share was 76%. A year later, it was down to 4,637, with China’s share falling to 67%. While lower, that is still a number that would make a trustbuster apoplectic.
Interestingly, a major falloff happened in Q3 of 2020. That’s when China made itharder for miners to use over-the-counter trading desksto sell their product. In November of that year, China’s share of hashrate fell to 56% and the HHI of the top nine countries hit 3,306. Again, that’s still highly concentrated.
Yet, now with China out of the picture – at least on paper (”While there are certainly ongoing covert mining operations in China, those would have to be small-scale to avoid scrutiny,”tweeted CCAF’s Michel Rauch) – the HHI has fallen to “moderately concentrated” territory. The top nine countries produced an HHI of 1,871 in August, based on the most recent data available.
For those who wonder about the rest of the world besides the top nine, their hashrate in total never amounted to more than 9.4% (and that was in August), contributing just 89 points at the most if one were to lump them all together.
Regardless of one’s political uneasiness about any one country potentially controlling bitcoin mining, bitcoin proponents should at the very least cheer any reduction in concentration. After all, if bitcoin’s promise was to make finance decentralized, that should include mining, too. || Bitcoin Mining Is Decentralizing – Here’s Proof: There’s at least one industry where the United States now has China beat: bitcoin mining.
After Beijing’s crackdown on crypto in September, the U.S. took the reins as the leading location for bitcoin mining, according todata compiled by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Financeand released last week. Just two years ago, China accounted for three-quarters of all of bitcoin’s total hashrate (the computational power used to mine bitcoin), while the U.S. contributed a scant 4%. As of August, China’s bitcoin miners were gone, while the Americans were responsible for 35%.
You’re readingCrypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor.Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Sunday.
A recurring criticism of bitcoin mining in the past was that so much of it came from
China. So long as that was the case, the more extreme arguments said, the Chinese government could somehow pressure miners to do its bidding. Whether that was the case is now moot because that government rescinded any opportunity to do so by kicking its miners out of the country.
Adding Kazakhstan’s 18% with the U.S.’s 35% means that more than half of all bitcoin mining is happening in just two countries. That may seem like bitcoin is pretty much as concentrated as it was when China was the dominant player, but one index is showing that concentration has declined significantly with China’s exit.
TheHerfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)is often used by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to determine the concentration of an industry. The higher the index, the more control of that industry is in the hands of a few players. It’s calculated by adding up the squares of an individual company’s market share (after multiplying each by 100). Doing so amplifies the weight of those firms with larger market shares.
The DOJ puts markets into three buckets based on their HHI score:
• Unconcentrated Markets: HHI below 1,500
• Moderately Concentrated Markets: HHI between 1,500 and 2,500
• Highly Concentrated Markets: HHI above 2,500
The regulators use this as a tool to determine whether to greenlight a merger or acquisition. If combining the two companies would raise the HHI by more than 100 points in a moderately concentrated market, that could raise red flags. Doing so in a highly concentrated market significantly decreases the chances such an M&A deal will go through.
HHI is generally used to look at companies in an industry. Applying it to country market share isn’t quite the same thing. After all, within each country many firms could be vigorously competing for their tiny slivers of the overall market share. And one firm could have facilities in multiple countries, making this even more an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Nonetheless, coming up with an HHI figure for how concentrated bitcoin mining is by country does give some insight into whether bitcoin mining is as diversified as it should be if it’s to survive the whims of any one government’s capriciousness.
As it turns out, the market as it pertains to hashrate after China’s crackdown is now down to “moderately concentrated,” down from “highly concentrated,” if one were to use the DOJ’s measures.
Back in September 2019, the HHI using just the top nine countries was an astounding 5,774 because China’s share was 76%. A year later, it was down to 4,637, with China’s share falling to 67%. While lower, that is still a number that would make a trustbuster apoplectic.
Interestingly, a major falloff happened in Q3 of 2020. That’s when China made itharder for miners to use over-the-counter trading desksto sell their product. In November of that year, China’s share of hashrate fell to 56% and the HHI of the top nine countries hit 3,306. Again, that’s still highly concentrated.
Yet, now with China out of the picture – at least on paper (”While there are certainly ongoing covert mining operations in China, those would have to be small-scale to avoid scrutiny,”tweeted CCAF’s Michel Rauch) – the HHI has fallen to “moderately concentrated” territory. The top nine countries produced an HHI of 1,871 in August, based on the most recent data available.
For those who wonder about the rest of the world besides the top nine, their hashrate in total never amounted to more than 9.4% (and that was in August), contributing just 89 points at the most if one were to lump them all together.
Regardless of one’s political uneasiness about any one country potentially controlling bitcoin mining, bitcoin proponents should at the very least cheer any reduction in concentration. After all, if bitcoin’s promise was to make finance decentralized, that should include mining, too. || Bitcoin Mining Is Decentralizing Heres Proof: Theres at least one industry where the United States now has China beat: bitcoin mining. After Beijings crackdown on crypto in September, the U.S. took the reins as the leading location for bitcoin mining, according to data compiled by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and released last week. Just two years ago, China accounted for three-quarters of all of bitcoins total hashrate (the computational power used to mine bitcoin), while the U.S. contributed a scant 4%. As of August, Chinas bitcoin miners were gone, while the Americans were responsible for 35%. Youre reading Crypto Long & Short , our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Sunday. A recurring criticism of bitcoin mining in the past was that so much of it came from China. So long as that was the case, the more extreme arguments said, the Chinese government could somehow pressure miners to do its bidding. Whether that was the case is now moot because that government rescinded any opportunity to do so by kicking its miners out of the country. Adding Kazakhstans 18% with the U.S.s 35% means that more than half of all bitcoin mining is happening in just two countries. That may seem like bitcoin is pretty much as concentrated as it was when China was the dominant player, but one index is showing that concentration has declined significantly with Chinas exit. Lets get HHI The HerfindahlHirschman Index (HHI) is often used by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to determine the concentration of an industry. The higher the index, the more control of that industry is in the hands of a few players. Its calculated by adding up the squares of an individual companys market share (after multiplying each by 100). Doing so amplifies the weight of those firms with larger market shares. The DOJ puts markets into three buckets based on their HHI score: Story continues Unconcentrated Markets: HHI below 1,500 Moderately Concentrated Markets: HHI between 1,500 and 2,500 Highly Concentrated Markets: HHI above 2,500 The regulators use this as a tool to determine whether to greenlight a merger or acquisition. If combining the two companies would raise the HHI by more than 100 points in a moderately concentrated market, that could raise red flags. Doing so in a highly concentrated market significantly decreases the chances such an M&A deal will go through. Using it for countries? Are you HHI? HHI is generally used to look at companies in an industry. Applying it to country market share isnt quite the same thing. After all, within each country many firms could be vigorously competing for their tiny slivers of the overall market share. And one firm could have facilities in multiple countries, making this even more an apples-to-oranges comparison. Nonetheless, coming up with an HHI figure for how concentrated bitcoin mining is by country does give some insight into whether bitcoin mining is as diversified as it should be if its to survive the whims of any one governments capriciousness. As it turns out, the market as it pertains to hashrate after Chinas crackdown is now down to moderately concentrated, down from highly concentrated, if one were to use the DOJs measures. Back in September 2019, the HHI using just the top nine countries was an astounding 5,774 because Chinas share was 76%. A year later, it was down to 4,637, with Chinas share falling to 67%. While lower, that is still a number that would make a trustbuster apoplectic. Interestingly, a major falloff happened in Q3 of 2020. Thats when China made it harder for miners to use over-the-counter trading desks to sell their product. In November of that year, Chinas share of hashrate fell to 56% and the HHI of the top nine countries hit 3,306. Again, thats still highly concentrated. Yet, now with China out of the picture at least on paper (While there are certainly ongoing covert mining operations in China, those would have to be small-scale to avoid scrutiny, tweeted CCAFs Michel Rauch ) the HHI has fallen to moderately concentrated territory. The top nine countries produced an HHI of 1,871 in August, based on the most recent data available. For those who wonder about the rest of the world besides the top nine, their hashrate in total never amounted to more than 9.4% (and that was in August), contributing just 89 points at the most if one were to lump them all together. Regardless of ones political uneasiness about any one country potentially controlling bitcoin mining, bitcoin proponents should at the very least cheer any reduction in concentration. After all, if bitcoins promise was to make finance decentralized, that should include mining, too. || A bitcoin futures ETF is coming next week. It could soon send the token soaring to $85,000, one analyst says.: • A bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund is set to launch next week and is exciting investors.
• It could help power the price of bitcoin to a record high of $85,000, one analyst said.
• A bitcoin-linked ETF would make it easier for investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency.
Abitcoinfutures exchange-traded fund is set to launch next week and is making the crypto industry very excited.
It's not quite the pure bitcoin ETF that many crypto enthusiasts were hoping for, but analysts say it should still drive institutions towards the digital-asset market like never before.
If investors buy into the fund heavily, bitcoin could hit a record high of $85,000 in the coming months, according to Edward Moya, senior market analyst at trading platform Oanda.
Bitcoincrossed $60,000last week for the first time since April as excitement built. It was roughly flat on Sunday at $61,050, according to Bloomberg prices, putting it within reach of April's all-time high of just under $65,000.
"A successful bitcoin ETF launch next week could easily support bitcoin's run to record territory," Moya said. "Bitcoin mania has been brewing on social media platforms over the past couple weeks."
"[If] initial trading volumes are strong, bitcoin could have enough momentum to target the $74,500 region," Moya said. He added that bitcoin "could have a path towards $85,000" in the coming months.
Simon Peters, cryptoasset analyst at eToro, said: "The market is clearly reacting positively as we edge ever closer to the 'holy grail' of a bitcoin ETF of the underlying asset."
ProShares, a US specialist in exchange-traded products, is due to launch a bitcoin futures ETF next week, according toa filingwith the Securities and Exchange Commission.CNBC reportedthat a person familiar with the SEC's thinking said the ETF should start trading in the coming days.
It is set to be called the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and trade with the ticker "BITO."
Anexchange-traded fundis a type of security that trades on an exchange - meaning investors can buy and sell shares - and tracks the performance of an asset or group of assets.
The ProShares ETF will track bitcoin futures rather than bitcoin itself. Futures are contracts to buy and sell an asset at a predetermined price and time. They track movements in the price of bitcoin pretty closely but mean investors do not have to physically own the token.
Read more:2 ETF veterans-turned crypto investors break down why they think the SEC should approve a bitcoin ETF that invests in the digital currency itself instead of futures contracts
SEC chief Gary Gensler has been reluctant to approve a pure bitcoin ETF, due in part to concerns about the wild price swings in the market.
But the SEC reckons a futures ETF is safer. Bitcoin futures are offered by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a huge financial institution. Investors also have to put down collateral to trade futures.
The ETF would allow retail and institutional investors to much more easily gain exposure to bitcoin, analysts said. "An SEC bitcoin ETF approval is a watershed moment for the crypto industry as this could be the key driver for getting the next wave of crypto investors," Moya said.
However, Matt Blom, global head of sales trading at crypto company Eqonex, said he thinks the SEC won't approve an ETF based on bitcoin itself.
"As great as it is to finally have this asset class recognized, the supply squeeze we all really want to see is still, just out of reach," he said.
Other companies - namely Invesco, Valkyrie and VanEck - have also applied to launch bitcoin futures ETFs and could see their products begin trading soon. ProShares did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || A bitcoin futures ETF is coming next week. It could soon send the token soaring to $85,000, one analyst says.: Bitcoin soared to around $61,000 on Sunday. Chris McGrath/Getty Images A bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund is set to launch next week and is exciting investors. It could help power the price of bitcoin to a record high of $85,000, one analyst said. A bitcoin-linked ETF would make it easier for investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency. A bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund is set to launch next week and is making the crypto industry very excited. It's not quite the pure bitcoin ETF that many crypto enthusiasts were hoping for, but analysts say it should still drive institutions towards the digital-asset market like never before. If investors buy into the fund heavily, bitcoin could hit a record high of $85,000 in the coming months, according to Edward Moya, senior market analyst at trading platform Oanda. Bitcoin crossed $60,000 last week for the first time since April as excitement built. It was roughly flat on Sunday at $61,050, according to Bloomberg prices, putting it within reach of April's all-time high of just under $65,000. "A successful bitcoin ETF launch next week could easily support bitcoin's run to record territory," Moya said. "Bitcoin mania has been brewing on social media platforms over the past couple weeks." "[If] initial trading volumes are strong, bitcoin could have enough momentum to target the $74,500 region," Moya said. He added that bitcoin "could have a path towards $85,000" in the coming months. Simon Peters, cryptoasset analyst at eToro, said: "The market is clearly reacting positively as we edge ever closer to the 'holy grail' of a bitcoin ETF of the underlying asset." ProShares, a US specialist in exchange-traded products, is due to launch a bitcoin futures ETF next week, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CNBC reported that a person familiar with the SEC's thinking said the ETF should start trading in the coming days. It is set to be called the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and trade with the ticker "BITO." Story continues An exchange-traded fund is a type of security that trades on an exchange - meaning investors can buy and sell shares - and tracks the performance of an asset or group of assets. The ProShares ETF will track bitcoin futures rather than bitcoin itself. Futures are contracts to buy and sell an asset at a predetermined price and time. They track movements in the price of bitcoin pretty closely but mean investors do not have to physically own the token. Read more: 2 ETF veterans-turned crypto investors break down why they think the SEC should approve a bitcoin ETF that invests in the digital currency itself instead of futures contracts SEC chief Gary Gensler has been reluctant to approve a pure bitcoin ETF, due in part to concerns about the wild price swings in the market. But the SEC reckons a futures ETF is safer. Bitcoin futures are offered by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a huge financial institution. Investors also have to put down collateral to trade futures. The ETF would allow retail and institutional investors to much more easily gain exposure to bitcoin, analysts said. "An SEC bitcoin ETF approval is a watershed moment for the crypto industry as this could be the key driver for getting the next wave of crypto investors," Moya said. However, Matt Blom, global head of sales trading at crypto company Eqonex, said he thinks the SEC won't approve an ETF based on bitcoin itself. "As great as it is to finally have this asset class recognized, the supply squeeze we all really want to see is still, just out of reach," he said. Other companies - namely Invesco, Valkyrie and VanEck - have also applied to launch bitcoin futures ETFs and could see their products begin trading soon. ProShares did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider || Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is cleared for launch: Jacobi Asset Management has been given approval from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) to launch a centrally-cleared Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). It is the world’s first tier one Bitcoin ETF. According to the official announcement, the fund – Jacobi Bitcoin ETF – will be listed on CBOE Europe, subject to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) listing approval. Jacobi said it signed a deal with Fidelity Digital Assets for custodial needs. Jamie Khurshid, CEO at Jacobi Asset Management , said the company was happy to launch a new product that will track Bitcoin’s performance. “We are de-risking investments in crypto by removing the technology risk associated with the physical asset and the counterparty risk associated with traditional funds or tracker products, that are unregulated leveraged debt instruments,” he said. Direct participation in physically settled BTC through Jacobi According to Roy McGregor, Chairman of Jacobi Asset Management and former CEO of Credit Suisse Channel Islands, the intention of Jacobi ETF was to “finally bring digital assets wholly into the mainstream investment infrastructure with the support of the leading firms we are working with”. “It will provide investors with the opportunity to participate directly in physically settled Bitcoin,” he said. Chris Tyrer, Head of Fidelity Digital Assets in Europe, commented that a “greater diversity of investor interest has created significant demand for additional vehicles for exposure to help provide broader access to digital asset markets”. Cryptocurency markets have been buzzing with anticipation at the prospect of a possible US announcement of a crypto ETF. Last week, crypto lender BlockFi Inc and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs. Before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits. Check out our Investor Bulletin to learn more: https://t.co/AZbrkpfn8F — SEC Investor Ed (@SEC_Investor_Ed) October 14, 2021 || Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is cleared for launch: Jacobi Asset Management has been given approval from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) to launch a centrally-cleared Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). It is the world’s first tier one Bitcoin ETF. According to the official announcement, the fund – Jacobi Bitcoin ETF – will be listed on CBOE Europe, subject to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) listing approval. Jacobi said it signed a deal with Fidelity Digital Assets for custodial needs. Jamie Khurshid, CEO at Jacobi Asset Management , said the company was happy to launch a new product that will track Bitcoin’s performance. “We are de-risking investments in crypto by removing the technology risk associated with the physical asset and the counterparty risk associated with traditional funds or tracker products, that are unregulated leveraged debt instruments,” he said. Direct participation in physically settled BTC through Jacobi According to Roy McGregor, Chairman of Jacobi Asset Management and former CEO of Credit Suisse Channel Islands, the intention of Jacobi ETF was to “finally bring digital assets wholly into the mainstream investment infrastructure with the support of the leading firms we are working with”. “It will provide investors with the opportunity to participate directly in physically settled Bitcoin,” he said. Chris Tyrer, Head of Fidelity Digital Assets in Europe, commented that a “greater diversity of investor interest has created significant demand for additional vehicles for exposure to help provide broader access to digital asset markets”. Cryptocurency markets have been buzzing with anticipation at the prospect of a possible US announcement of a crypto ETF. Last week, crypto lender BlockFi Inc and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs. Before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits. Check out our Investor Bulletin to learn more: https://t.co/AZbrkpfn8F — SEC Investor Ed (@SEC_Investor_Ed) October 14, 2021 || Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is cleared for launch: Jacobi Asset Management has been given approval from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) to launch a centrally-cleared Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). It is the world’s first tier one Bitcoin ETF. According to the official announcement, the fund – Jacobi Bitcoin ETF – will be listed on CBOE Europe, subject to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) listing approval. Jacobi said it signed a deal with Fidelity Digital Assets for custodial needs. Jamie Khurshid, CEO at Jacobi Asset Management , said the company was happy to launch a new product that will track Bitcoin’s performance. “We are de-risking investments in crypto by removing the technology risk associated with the physical asset and the counterparty risk associated with traditional funds or tracker products, that are unregulated leveraged debt instruments,” he said. Direct participation in physically settled BTC through Jacobi According to Roy McGregor, Chairman of Jacobi Asset Management and former CEO of Credit Suisse Channel Islands, the intention of Jacobi ETF was to “finally bring digital assets wholly into the mainstream investment infrastructure with the support of the leading firms we are working with”. “It will provide investors with the opportunity to participate directly in physically settled Bitcoin,” he said. Chris Tyrer, Head of Fidelity Digital Assets in Europe, commented that a “greater diversity of investor interest has created significant demand for additional vehicles for exposure to help provide broader access to digital asset markets”. Cryptocurency markets have been buzzing with anticipation at the prospect of a possible US announcement of a crypto ETF. Last week, crypto lender BlockFi Inc and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management put their names on applications for futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs. Before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits. Check out our Investor Bulletin to learn more: https://t.co/AZbrkpfn8F — SEC Investor Ed (@SEC_Investor_Ed) October 14, 2021 || Grayscale Reiterates Plans to Convert Bitcoin Trust to Spot ETF: Grayscale Investments reiterated in a tweet on Monday that it plans on applying to convert the world’s biggest bitcoin fund into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).
The communications director for Grayscale said the company would file to do so “once there’s official and verifiable evidence of the SEC’s comfort with the underlying #Bitcoin market.”
She said that evidence for that comfort would “likely come in the form of a Bitcoin Futures ETF being deemed effective.” The Securities and Exchange Commissiongreenlightedthe investment vehicle on Friday, and ProSharesconfirmedin an SEC filing that it will launch its bitcoin futures ETF on Tuesday.
While the exact timing of Grayscale’s intended filing may be new, the world’s largest digital asset manager hasmade no secretof its intent to seek approval for a spot bitcoin-based ETF once a futures-based one cleared the commission.
Grayscale’s ETF would be backed by actual units of the cryptocurrency, not simply linked it via derivatives contracts such as futures. Should the proposal gain approval, it would be a further expansion of the leading cryptocurrency as a recognized investible asset.
Some analysts predict the $38.7 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), whose shares already trade in public stock markets, has no chance of winning approval anytime soon for its current plan to convert into an ETF backed by the cryptocurrency.
Once the filing is made, the SEC will have 75 days to review it.
Separately on Monday, Grayscaleannouncedthat three of its trusts focused on altcoins – Grayscale Zcash Trust, Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust and Grayscale Horizen Trust – are now available on the OTC Markets under the symbols ZCSH, GXLM and HZEN, respectively.
The move is part of Grayscale’s announced intention to eventually turn all of its private placement vehicles into ETFs, with the next step being to turn them into SEC reporting companies. It now has 9 publicly-quoted products, with its bitcoin and ethereum trusts also being SEC reporting firms.
Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk.
UPDATE (Oct. 18, 13:47 UTC):Updated headline and story with information on Grayscale’s tweet.
UPDATE (Oct. 18, 16:57 UTC):Updated with information on Grayscale’s altcoin trusts trading on the OTC Markets at end of story.. || Grayscale Reiterates Plans to Convert Bitcoin Trust to Spot ETF: Grayscale Investments reiterated in a tweet on Monday that it plans on applying to convert the world’s biggest bitcoin fund into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).
The communications director for Grayscale said the company would file to do so “once there’s official and verifiable evidence of the SEC’s comfort with the underlying #Bitcoin market.”
She said that evidence for that comfort would “likely come in the form of a Bitcoin Futures ETF being deemed effective.” The Securities and Exchange Commissiongreenlightedthe investment vehicle on Friday, and ProSharesconfirmedin an SEC filing that it will launch its bitcoin futures ETF on Tuesday.
While the exact timing of Grayscale’s intended filing may be new, the world’s largest digital asset manager hasmade no secretof its intent to seek approval for a spot bitcoin-based ETF once a futures-based one cleared the commission.
Grayscale’s ETF would be backed by actual units of the cryptocurrency, not simply linked it via derivatives contracts such as futures. Should the proposal gain approval, it would be a further expansion of the leading cryptocurrency as a recognized investible asset.
Some analysts predict the $38.7 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), whose shares already trade in public stock markets, has no chance of winning approval anytime soon for its current plan to convert into an ETF backed by the cryptocurrency.
Once the filing is made, the SEC will have 75 days to review it.
Separately on Monday, Grayscaleannouncedthat three of its trusts focused on altcoins – Grayscale Zcash Trust, Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust and Grayscale Horizen Trust – are now available on the OTC Markets under the symbols ZCSH, GXLM and HZEN, respectively.
The move is part of Grayscale’s announced intention to eventually turn all of its private placement vehicles into ETFs, with the next step being to turn them into SEC reporting companies. It now has 9 publicly-quoted products, with its bitcoin and ethereum trusts also being SEC reporting firms.
Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk.
UPDATE (Oct. 18, 13:47 UTC):Updated headline and story with information on Grayscale’s tweet.
UPDATE (Oct. 18, 16:57 UTC):Updated with information on Grayscale’s altcoin trusts trading on the OTC Markets at end of story.. || Grayscale Reiterates Plans to Convert Bitcoin Trust to Spot ETF: Grayscale Investments reiterated in a tweet on Monday that it plans on applying to convert the worlds biggest bitcoin fund into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). The communications director for Grayscale said the company would file to do so once theres official and verifiable evidence of the SECs comfort with the underlying #Bitcoin market. She said that evidence for that comfort would likely come in the form of a Bitcoin Futures ETF being deemed effective. The Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted the investment vehicle on Friday, and ProShares confirmed in an SEC filing that it will launch its bitcoin futures ETF on Tuesday. What does that mean? Once theres official and verifiable evidence of the SECs comfort with the underlying #Bitcoin market - likely in the form of a Bitcoin Futures ETF being deemed effective - the #NYSE Arca will file a document called the 19b-4 to convert $GBTC into an ETF. Jennifer Rosenthal (@jenn_rosenthal) October 18, 2021 While the exact timing of Grayscales intended filing may be new, the worlds largest digital asset manager has made no secret of its intent to seek approval for a spot bitcoin-based ETF once a futures-based one cleared the commission. Grayscales ETF would be backed by actual units of the cryptocurrency, not simply linked it via derivatives contracts such as futures. Should the proposal gain approval, it would be a further expansion of the leading cryptocurrency as a recognized investible asset. Some analysts predict the $38.7 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), whose shares already trade in public stock markets, has no chance of winning approval anytime soon for its current plan to convert into an ETF backed by the cryptocurrency. Story continues Once the filing is made, the SEC will have 75 days to review it. Separately on Monday, Grayscale announced that three of its trusts focused on altcoins Grayscale Zcash Trust, Grayscale Stellar Lumens Trust and Grayscale Horizen Trust are now available on the OTC Markets under the symbols ZCSH, GXLM and HZEN, respectively. The move is part of Grayscales announced intention to eventually turn all of its private placement vehicles into ETFs, with the next step being to turn them into SEC reporting companies. It now has 9 publicly-quoted products, with its bitcoin and ethereum trusts also being SEC reporting firms. Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk. UPDATE (Oct. 18, 13:47 UTC): Updated headline and story with information on Grayscales tweet. UPDATE (Oct. 18, 16:57 UTC): Updated with information on Grayscales altcoin trusts trading on the OTC Markets at end of story.. || Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week: Netflix Inc. (NFLX)is making headlines these days for Squid Games and a controversial Dave Chappelle special and the stock is flying, breaking out above tough resistance between 550 and 600. However, there’s considerable risk for shareholders when it steps to the earnings plate on Tuesday because subscriber growth has slowed in recent quarters, especially in the US market. Traders could punish the stock after the report if Q3 metrics continue to lag optimistic projections.
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)has underperformed other tech stocks longer than most Millennials have been trading the financial markets, topping out all the way back in 2013. However, a fourth quarter spin-off of legacy operations is attracting widespread investor interest, lifting the laggard back to an 8-year trendline in the 140s. The old school behemoth’s report on Wednesday could be the catalyst that finally breaks the downtrend, opening the door to much higher prices.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA)has made steady progress since bouncing at the 50-week moving average in May and is now trading just 51 points under January’s all-time high at 900.40. It will have an opportunity to close the distance when it reports earnings after Wednesday’s close but cautious comments about China or supply constraints could prompt investors to have second thoughts. Wall Street analysts aren’t helping the bulls, with a consensus ‘Hold’ rating and median price target more than 70 points below Friday’s close.
Ethereumlifted into resistance at the .786 Fibonacci retracement level of the second quarter selloff last week, setting up a test at the 4,000 level. Bitcoin just sliced through its .786 retracement like butter, lifting above 60,000. However, Ethereum failed a breakout at this harmonic level in September, adding another layer of resistance. In turn, this suggests a two-sided strategy that buys a rally above 4,025 or sells short a decline through 3,800, whichever comes first.
US Natural Gas ETF (UNG)remains in a long-term downtrend, even though its nearly tripled in price since January 2021’s all-time low at 8.22. Three reverse splits since 2011 have sapped the life out of the long-term pattern, reducing the technical power of large percentage price moves. More importantly, the rally has just reached major resistance at the 200-week moving average at 23, significantly raising odds for profitable short sales in the fourth quarter.
For a look at this week’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Silver Bearish Again After Rallying Against The Greenback On Thursday
• Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week
• Silver Price Prediction – Prices Slip as Gold Tumbles
• Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 17th, 2021
• The Weekly Wrap – Market Risk Appetite Returned, Weighing on the Greenback
• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – October 16th, 2021 || Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week: Netflix Inc. (NFLX) is making headlines these days for Squid Games and a controversial Dave Chappelle special and the stock is flying, breaking out above tough resistance between 550 and 600. However, there’s considerable risk for shareholders when it steps to the earnings plate on Tuesday because subscriber growth has slowed in recent quarters, especially in the US market. Traders could punish the stock after the report if Q3 metrics continue to lag optimistic projections. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM ) has underperformed other tech stocks longer than most Millennials have been trading the financial markets, topping out all the way back in 2013. However, a fourth quarter spin-off of legacy operations is attracting widespread investor interest, lifting the laggard back to an 8-year trendline in the 140s. The old school behemoth’s report on Wednesday could be the catalyst that finally breaks the downtrend, opening the door to much higher prices. Tesla Inc. (TSLA ) has made steady progress since bouncing at the 50-week moving average in May and is now trading just 51 points under January’s all-time high at 900.40. It will have an opportunity to close the distance when it reports earnings after Wednesday’s close but cautious comments about China or supply constraints could prompt investors to have second thoughts. Wall Street analysts aren’t helping the bulls, with a consensus ‘Hold’ rating and median price target more than 70 points below Friday’s close. Ethereum lifted into resistance at the .786 Fibonacci retracement level of the second quarter selloff last week, setting up a test at the 4,000 level. Bitcoin just sliced through its .786 retracement like butter, lifting above 60,000. However, Ethereum failed a breakout at this harmonic level in September, adding another layer of resistance. In turn, this suggests a two-sided strategy that buys a rally above 4,025 or sells short a decline through 3,800, whichever comes first. Story continues US Natural Gas ETF (UNG) remains in a long-term downtrend, even though its nearly tripled in price since January 2021’s all-time low at 8.22. Three reverse splits since 2011 have sapped the life out of the long-term pattern, reducing the technical power of large percentage price moves. More importantly, the rally has just reached major resistance at the 200-week moving average at 23, significantly raising odds for profitable short sales in the fourth quarter. For a look at this week’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Silver Bearish Again After Rallying Against The Greenback On Thursday Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch This Week Silver Price Prediction – Prices Slip as Gold Tumbles Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – October 17th, 2021 The Weekly Wrap – Market Risk Appetite Returned, Weighing on the Greenback The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – October 16th, 2021
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84, 63039.82, 60363.79, 58482.39, 60622.14
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 240.11, 235.23, 230.51, 230.64, 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76, 239.14, 236.69, 236.06, 237.55, 237.29, 238.73, 238.26, 240.38, 246.06, 242.97, 242.30, 243.93, 244.94, 247.05, 245.31, 249.51, 251.99, 254.32, 262.87, 270.64, 261.64, 263.44, 269.46, 266.27, 274.02, 276.50, 281.65, 283.68, 285.30, 293.79, 304.62, 313.86, 328.02, 314.17, 325.43, 361.19, 403.42, 411.56, 386.35, 374.47, 386.48, 373.37, 380.26, 336.82, 311.08, 338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17, 330.75, 335.09, 334.59, 326.15, 322.02, 326.93, 324.54, 323.05, 320.05, 328.21, 352.68, 358.04, 357.38, 371.29, 377.32, 362.49, 359.19, 361.05, 363.18, 388.95, 388.78, 395.54, 415.56, 417.56.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-12-09]
Volume: 90917200, RSI (14-day): 73.85, 50-day EMA: 340.94, 200-day EMA: 288.51
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1077.60, Gold RSI: 45.63
Oil Price: 37.16, Oil RSI: 30.92
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
REPORTS: The secret creator of bitcoin has been unmasked — again: (Thomson Reuters)
The creator of bitcoin may be an Australian finance geek named Craig Steven Wright, according to anew report by Wired's Andy Greenberg.
Or it could be Wright and his close friend Dave Kleiman, who died two years ago, according toGizmodo.
Or Wright could be a man who really wants to take credit for it.
Or thehunt to identify bitcoin's creator is wrong again.
In 2009, someone — or some people — using the name Satoshi Nakamoto invented bitcoin, a type of digital currency that uses cryptography to move money and records it in a ledger without the need of a bank. The cryptocurrency was once an obsession among finance geeks, but emerged into more of a mainstream economic obsession. A bitcoin startup even sponsored the Bitcoin Bowl, a college-football bowl game, last year.
Finding the creator of it has been an obsession among bitcoin enthusiasts and journalists alike. In March 2014,Newsweek published a cover story allegingthat Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a man living in Southern California who denies having heard of the cryptocurrency, was its mysterious creator.
ButGreenbergmay have the most compelling evidence so far that points to the Australian genius:
• Posts from Wright's blog hint at writing papers about a cryptocurrency, although Wired admits these could have been planted by Wright to make himself seem like the creator.
• Wright owns two supercomputers, including the most powerful privately owned supercomputer. These aren't on corporate campuses, but wired to his home in Australia.
• According to leaked documents, Kleiman had a trust containing the same number of bitcoins that Nakamoto is rumored to own. When he died, that trust was passed to Wright. Those bitcoins, at bitcoin's price peak, were worth more than a billion.
Gizmodo hasposted many of the emails in its own report, and you can readWired's full story on the unknown Australian here.
NOW WATCH:Google's self-driving car has a huge problem
More From Business Insider
• TransferWise's CEO thinks bitcoin has been driven by 'greed'
• US investigators are accusing a bitcoin entrepeneur of running a $20 million Ponzi scheme
• A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world || REPORTS: The secret creator of bitcoin has been unmasked — again: Bitcoin (virtual currency) coins are seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, France, May 27, 2015. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier (Thomson Reuters) The creator of bitcoin may be an Australian finance geek named Craig Steven Wright, according to a new report by Wired's Andy Greenberg . Or it could be Wright and his close friend Dave Kleiman, who died two years ago, according to Gizmodo . Or Wright could be a man who really wants to take credit for it. Or the hunt to identify bitcoin's creator is wrong again . In 2009, someone — or some people — using the name Satoshi Nakamoto invented bitcoin, a type of digital currency that uses cryptography to move money and records it in a ledger without the need of a bank. The cryptocurrency was once an obsession among finance geeks, but emerged into more of a mainstream economic obsession. A bitcoin startup even sponsored the Bitcoin Bowl, a college-football bowl game, last year. Finding the creator of it has been an obsession among bitcoin enthusiasts and journalists alike. In March 2014, Newsweek published a cover story alleging that Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a man living in Southern California who denies having heard of the cryptocurrency, was its mysterious creator. But Greenberg may have the most compelling evidence so far that points to the Australian genius: Posts from Wright's blog hint at writing papers about a cryptocurrency, although Wired admits these could have been planted by Wright to make himself seem like the creator. Wright owns two supercomputers, including the most powerful privately owned supercomputer. These aren't on corporate campuses, but wired to his home in Australia. According to leaked documents, Kleiman had a trust containing the same number of bitcoins that Nakamoto is rumored to own. When he died, that trust was passed to Wright. Those bitcoins, at bitcoin's price peak, were worth more than a billion. Gizmodo has posted many of the emails in its own report , and you can read Wired's full story on the unknown Australian here . NOW WATCH: Google's self-driving car has a huge problem More From Business Insider TransferWise's CEO thinks bitcoin has been driven by 'greed' US investigators are accusing a bitcoin entrepeneur of running a $20 million Ponzi scheme A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world || Why GAHC Is Like a Biotech Stock: HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / December 8, 2015 / Biotechnology stocks have had another huge year in the OTC markets. Generally, biotechnology stocks make some of the largest moves on the OTC. The reason being most of the biggest rags to riches stories on the OTC are biotech companies. Why is that? Most biotechs have long expensive trial phases to get through before they'll ever make a dime of revenue, and going public helps these companies raise the capital necessary to make it to solvency. But, if they do make it through the trial phases the payoff can be huge. Why do speculative investors love biotechs? Biotechnology companies generally have a novel technology or concept to solve a multi billion dollar problem, and earn patents throughout the trial phases. This is why we have been looking at Global Arena Holding, Inc. ( GAHC ). GAHC is not a biotechnology stock, but it shares many of the same properties that make it a company you should look at immediately. Global Arena has invested in Blockchain Technologies Corporation. ("BTC"), and is working toward a full acquisition. BTC leverages the groundbreaking blockchain, which some - like Marc Andreessen - are calling the most significant technology since the internet, and creates patents for novel uses of the blockchain that will solve multi billion dollar inefficiencies across a number of industries. These include financial markets, banking, electronic payment systems, private & public contracts and election services through various applications such as: exchanges, smart contracts and voting. Much like a biotech: - Novel Technology - Solving Multi Billion Dollar Problems - Creating Patents Unlike biotechs, GAHC , is already generating revenues through its election services subsidiary, Global Election Services. To bring it all full circle, GAHC 's BTC will potentially be using its Blockchain Apparatus to make filing patents easier and more efficient, which as mentioned earlier, is a big part of the biotechnology business. Story continues Blockchain technology, which many know as the backbone of the digital currency Bitcoin, is essentially a uncompromisable public ledger of transactions. All transactions are broadcast to a network of subscribing nodes, and each node updates its own copy of the ledger with the new transactions. Once a new group of transactions is verified, a block is created and added to the blockchain. All transactions for the ledger are publicly visible and verifiable based on previous blocks. Essentially, blockchain is a ledger that anyone can add things to but no one can remove anything from. This creates a certain and verifiable record on an electronic system that cannot be hacked. GAHC looks to be one of the first companies to fully leverage and benefit from this technology. This could create movements similar, to several biotechnology companies we've been paying attention to: KaleBios Pharmaceuticals ( KBIO ) has had a huge past few weeks since being taken over by CEO Martin Shkreli, who has spearheaded a 9,830% move. That's no misprint, it shows the kind of movement these high potential stocks can make. Endonovo Therapeutics, Inc. (OTC: ENDV ) has made an 890% move just this week! ENDV is developing two bioelectronic-based platforms for regenerative medicine. Immunotronic(TM), a non-invasive and non-implantable immuno-regulatory device designed to treat inflammatory conditions in vital organs, including acute organ failure; and Cytotronics(TM), a proprietary bioelectronic-based method of creating stem cells with enhanced biological and therapeutic properties. In a Schedule 13G filing, Steve Cohen 's Point72 Asset Management reported owning 1.41 million shares of Cara Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: CARA ) , which accounted for 5.2% of the company's outstanding shares. Cohen's family office owned a mere 24,800 shares of the company as of September 30. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focuses on the development of new chemical products that target the body's peripheral nervous system in order to relieve pain and pruritus. Shares of Cara Therapeutics Inc. ( CARA ) had advanced by more than 100% through the end of September, when the sell-off in biotechnology stocks kicked off. Nevertheless, the stock is still 38% in the green year-to-date, and will most likely continue to be guided by investors' expectations for the success of its product candidates in the upcoming quarters. Biotechnology stocks can make massive moves, Global Arena Holding, Inc. (GAHC) shares several properties which give it the same kind of explosive potential these speculative biotechs have and is already generating revenues with significant increases expected to continue. Make sure to take a close look at GAHC . For more information about the blockchain, click here: http://globalarenaholding.com/blockchain-news/the-beginners-guide-to-blockchain/ Legal Disclaimer/Disclosure: This is a sponsored article. This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. No information in this Report should be construed as individualized investment advice. For The Full Disclaimer, click here http://capitalgainsreport.com/disclaimer/ . SOURCE: Capital Gains Report || Why GAHC Is Like a Biotech Stock: HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / December 8, 2015 /Biotechnology stocks have had another huge year in the OTC markets.
Generally, biotechnology stocks make some of the largest moves on the OTC. The reason being most of the biggest rags to riches stories on the OTC are biotech companies.
Why is that? Most biotechs have long expensive trial phases to get through before they'll ever make a dime of revenue, and going public helps these companies raise the capital necessary to make it to solvency. But, if they do make it through the trial phases the payoff can be huge.
Why do speculative investors love biotechs? Biotechnology companies generally have a novel technology or concept to solve a multi billion dollar problem, and earn patents throughout the trial phases.
This is why we have been looking atGlobal Arena Holding, Inc. (GAHC).
GAHCis not a biotechnology stock, but it shares many of the same properties that make it a company you should look at immediately.
Global Arenahas invested inBlockchain Technologies Corporation. ("BTC"),and is working toward a full acquisition.BTCleverages the groundbreaking blockchain, which some - like Marc Andreessen - are calling the most significant technology since the internet, and creates patents for novel uses of the blockchain that will solve multi billion dollar inefficiencies across a number of industries. These include financial markets, banking, electronic payment systems, private & public contracts and election services through various applications such as: exchanges, smart contracts and voting.
Much like a biotech:
- Novel Technology- Solving Multi Billion Dollar Problems- Creating Patents
Unlike biotechs,GAHC, is already generating revenues through its election services subsidiary, Global Election Services.
To bring it all full circle,GAHC'sBTCwill potentially be using its Blockchain Apparatus to make filing patents easier and more efficient, which as mentioned earlier, is a big part of the biotechnology business.
Blockchain technology, which many know as the backbone of the digital currency Bitcoin, is essentially a uncompromisable public ledger of transactions. All transactions are broadcast to a network of subscribing nodes, and each node updates its own copy of the ledger with the new transactions. Once a new group of transactions is verified, a block is created and added to the blockchain. All transactions for the ledger are publicly visible and verifiable based on previous blocks.Essentially, blockchain is a ledger that anyone can add things to but no one can remove anything from. This creates a certain and verifiable record on an electronic system that cannot be hacked.
GAHClooks to be one of the first companies to fully leverage and benefit from this technology.
This could create movements similar, to several biotechnology companies we've been paying attention to:
KaleBios Pharmaceuticals (KBIO)has had a huge past few weeks since being taken over by CEO Martin Shkreli, who has spearheaded a 9,830% move. That's no misprint, it shows the kind of movement these high potential stocks can make.
Endonovo Therapeutics, Inc. (OTC:ENDV)has made an 890% move just this week! ENDV is developing two bioelectronic-based platforms for regenerative medicine. Immunotronic(TM), a non-invasive and non-implantable immuno-regulatory device designed to treat inflammatory conditions in vital organs, including acute organ failure; and Cytotronics(TM), a proprietary bioelectronic-based method of creating stem cells with enhanced biological and therapeutic properties.
In a Schedule 13G filing,Steve Cohen'sPoint72 Asset Managementreported owning 1.41 million shares ofCara Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:CARA), which accounted for 5.2% of the company's outstanding shares. Cohen's family office owned a mere 24,800 shares of the company as of September 30. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focuses on the development of new chemical products that target the body's peripheral nervous system in order to relieve pain and pruritus. Shares of Cara Therapeutics Inc. (CARA) had advanced by more than 100% through the end of September, when the sell-off in biotechnology stocks kicked off. Nevertheless, the stock is still 38% in the green year-to-date, and will most likely continue to be guided by investors' expectations for the success of its product candidates in the upcoming quarters.
Biotechnology stocks can make massive moves,Global Arena Holding, Inc. (GAHC)shares several properties which give it the same kind of explosive potential these speculative biotechs have and is already generating revenues with significant increases expected to continue. Make sure to take a close look atGAHC.
For more information about the blockchain, click here:http://globalarenaholding.com/blockchain-news/the-beginners-guide-to-blockchain/Legal Disclaimer/Disclosure:This is a sponsored article. This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. No information in this Report should be construed as individualized investment advice. For The Full Disclaimer, click herehttp://capitalgainsreport.com/disclaimer/.
SOURCE:Capital Gains Report || One statistic perfectly encapsulates the impact of technology on Wall Street jobs: ( MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty)
In 2000, Goldman Sachs had 600 traders in New York City making markets in US stocks. Today, that number is down to fewer than 10.
The statistic is one of several nuggets from a Credit Suisse report on how the bank uses technology, following a conversation withchief information officer Marty Chavez.
The analysts estimate that Goldman spends $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion on technology each year, or about 7% to 9% of revenue.
This has big implications for the bank's staff. In some ways, technology can make their lives easier. Last month, the bankannounced an initiativedesigned to make the lives of junior investment bankers easier — by letting technology do more of the grunt work for them.
But technologymight also soon replacemore workers.
The note said (emphasis added):
Embrace Disruption—management of Goldman is very much of the belief—and we can't argue with this—that there will be far more value ascribed to those who embrace new, albeit disruptive, technologies.This disruption can be people "destructive" at times, but it can be far more destructive to be left behind in a business poised for profound change. Importantly, these changes may be disruptive, but also both relationship and profit margin enhancing, through delivery of a better product to Goldman's clients.
There are ways for Goldman to be more efficient with its tech spending. About 30% of the annual expense goes to maintenance, which covers things like communications, market-data expenses, and software licensing. The bank wants to get that down to 10%, which is more comparable with software companies.
That would free up $600 million to $800 million, which could either go back to the bottom line, or be reinvested strategically, Credit Suisse estimates.
These strategic investments could include things like investing in blockchain technology that underpins the use of bitcoin, with the Credit Suisse analysts noting that Goldman Sachs is "very interested in the use of Blockchain/distributed ledger technology."
Other investments include Symphony, the instant-communications platform out to displace Bloomberg's terminal, and Goldman's Marquee app, which delivers data and analytics to staff and is being rolled out to clients.
NOW WATCH:'The Art Of War' holds the keys to success on Wall Street
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• There are 2 clear winners on Wall Street — and they're pulling away from the competition
• Morgan Stanley has some answering to do || One statistic perfectly encapsulates the impact of technology on Wall Street jobs: empty trading floor ( MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty) In 2000, Goldman Sachs had 600 traders in New York City making markets in US stocks. Today, that number is down to fewer than 10. The statistic is one of several nuggets from a Credit Suisse report on how the bank uses technology, following a conversation with chief information officer Marty Chavez . The analysts estimate that Goldman spends $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion on technology each year, or about 7% to 9% of revenue. This has big implications for the bank's staff. In some ways, technology can make their lives easier. Last month, the bank announced an initiative designed to make the lives of junior investment bankers easier — by letting technology do more of the grunt work for them. But technology might also soon replace more workers. The note said (emphasis added): Embrace Disruption—management of Goldman is very much of the belief—and we can't argue with this—that there will be far more value ascribed to those who embrace new, albeit disruptive, technologies. This disruption can be people "destructive" at times, but it can be far more destructive to be left behind in a business poised for profound change . Importantly, these changes may be disruptive, but also both relationship and profit margin enhancing, through delivery of a better product to Goldman's clients. There are ways for Goldman to be more efficient with its tech spending. About 30% of the annual expense goes to maintenance, which covers things like communications, market-data expenses, and software licensing. The bank wants to get that down to 10%, which is more comparable with software companies. That would free up $600 million to $800 million, which could either go back to the bottom line, or be reinvested strategically, Credit Suisse estimates. These strategic investments could include things like investing in blockchain technology that underpins the use of bitcoin, with the Credit Suisse analysts noting that Goldman Sachs is "very interested in the use of Blockchain/distributed ledger technology." Story continues Other investments include Symphony, the instant-communications platform out to displace Bloomberg's terminal, and Goldman's Marquee app, which delivers data and analytics to staff and is being rolled out to clients. NOW WATCH: 'The Art Of War' holds the keys to success on Wall Street More From Business Insider GOLDMAN: 'Bitcoin was just the opening act, with the Blockchain ready to take centre stage' There are 2 clear winners on Wall Street — and they're pulling away from the competition Morgan Stanley has some answering to do || Global Arena Holding Subsidiary Attends Final Demo of Blockchain High Speed Scanning and Voting Tabulation Software: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Dec 7, 2015) - Global Arena Holding, Inc. (OTC PINK:GAHC), (the "Company") announced today that its subsidiary, Global Elections Services ("GES"), successfully completed its final testing of the blockchain voting tabulation system developed by Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC").
In early November, GES executives conducted their first round of tests on a blockchain tabulation system designed by BTC as a technology upgrade for one of the current methods the elections company uses. While those initial tests did give Ms. Maralin Falik (CEO of GES) confidence in the system's user interface, as expected from a 35 year industry veteran, she sent BTC back with additional specs to be met. After several more iterations by BTC's software engineers, GES conducted their final test of BTC's blockchain scanning and voting tabulation system with great success.
"GES strives to provide the highest standards in the election process. All of our municipal public elections must conform with the regulations of the United States Department of Labor, which has very stringent requirements," stated Maralin Falik. "Conforming to these standards is crucial. Working with BTC, we will now be on the cutting edge as an early adapter of a world changing technology, which will transform the election process in an efficient and credible way while maintaining the level of integrity the Department of Labor requires and expects."
Ms. Falik continued, "We are very pleased with the results of this demonstration for Scanning and Tabulating Mail-in Ballots. We will look to move forward with BTC's technology at our elections, and quickly begin expanding our reach, securing many different types of elections, on a global scale."
BTC CEO Nick Spanos stated, "At Blockchain Technologies Corporation, we pride ourselves on achieving real world blockchain integration. Through a partnership with GES, we will revolutionize election processes with the unveiling of the world's first blockchain voting tabulation system. In this case, we have modified our patented platform to coincide with the Department of Labor specifications. This will allow for greater transparency, accessibility and security for Union elections."
Mr. Spanos continued, "This is just the beginning. Keep in mind, this blockchain voting tabulation system is only utilizing a small segment of our elections platform. I have over three decades of experience engineering electoral management software. So Maralin will have many options to grow GES with our technologies and applications, and we will support her every step of the way."
John Matthews, CEO of Global Arena Holding, Inc., said, "When we began investing in Blockchain Technologies Corporation, we envisioned great synergies between GES and BTC. Today, it looks as though our ambitions are materializing. This relationship will pave the way to a new standard in 21st century voting, with the integrity of every election now being secured by the blockchain."
Mr. Matthews continued, "This new process will also mean continued growth and potentially increased revenues to GES, while concurrently providing an income stream for BTC. So instead of paying third party providers for tabulation services, GES will pay a technologically advanced company [BTC], which Global Area Holding has a vested interest in." Mr. Matthews additionally stated, "This demonstration of the High Speed Scanning and Tabulation Software is phase one of GES' growth strategy. The Company expects further software upgrades using the blockchain to enhance our other current services which include; Internet Voting, In Person voting, and Hybrid Elections."
At this point, the next step is for GES to sign an agreement with BTC and begin conducting elections using BTC's blockchain voting system. The Company's management is excitedly looking forward to this collaboration being consummated.
About Global Arena Holding
The Company trades on the OTC Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GAHC. The Company has been publicly traded since 2011 and holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, Inc., GAHI Acquisition Corp and Blockchain Technologies Corporation Inc. The Company focuses on acquiring technologies, patents and companies having the ability to leverage the blockchain crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://globalarenaholding.com
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Safe Harbor Statement
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements related to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned or required capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth, and potential contracts. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to development and expansion activities, dependence on existing management, financing activities, domestic and global economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. || 5 Tech Trends To Watch In 2016: Tech is an ever-changing landscape that has provided investors and venture capitalists with an unending supply of "next big things." Over the past decade, Internet use has completely upended the way most companies do business and built an entirely new industry based on connecting people with each other. Now, with the tech space overflowing with new startups and great ideas, many investors are wondering where to place their bets in the year to come. Here's a look at five tech trends to watch in 2016. 1. The Internet Of Things Connected devices are expected to become a huge part of the future in the coming year as more companies work to give appliances, automobiles and even lightbulbs an Internet connection. The idea of connecting several aspects of life and being able to control them with the click of a button has grown in popularity, leading many to look into services like Hive, a system that remotely controls a home's heating system. On a larger scale, some cities are beginning to plan major overhauls that will allow residents to track things like real-time traffic and pollution levels and give planners the ability to regulate energy usage by installing remotely controlled lightbulbs and monitoring building conditions. Related Link: More Connections Means More Security Where To Look There are a wide variety of companies participating in the shift toward a more connected world. One firm that has been at the forefront of connected technology is International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ). The firm recently an IoT "starter pack" that allows users to take readings from the environment using sensors attached to the device. The kit can be used on a small scale, for homeowners, or in a much larger capacity by a city planner. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO ) is another interesting play, as the company has also begun working on smart city planning involvement. The company has already to provide automated solutions that connect important city functions in major places like Barcelona and Hamburg. Story continues 2. Wearables Wearable technology took off in 2015 when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) entered the space with the highly anticipated Apple Watch. Competing products like Jawbone's UP and FitBit's activity trackers also saw a rise in popularity as more consumers began to focus on living a healthier, active life. However, just because this year was a big one for the wearables market doesn't mean the opportunity to jump on board is over. Many believe that wearable technology is still in its infancy and that new and improved devices will help the trend expand even further. At the moment, the idea that a smartwatch can do things like direct a wearer to the correct grocery aisle is novel, but many believe that the technology will expand to do even more impressive things in the future. Related Link: Research And Markets: Wearables Generating The Next Wave Of Personal Finance Experiences Where To Look The obvious pick for wearable devices is Apple, as the company has established itself as a leader in new consumer technology. The Apple Watch arguably put wearable devices on the map this year, and many believe that new versions due out in the coming months will attract even more fanfare. However, for investors looking even further into the future, companies like SAMSUNG ELECT LTD(F) (OTC: SSNLF ) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC ) may be good bets. Samsung has a new line of circuit boards that are about the size of postage stamps, making them ideal for use in things like fitness trackers. The company is expected to use the boards in its own line of products, as well as selling them on to other firms interested in using them in wearables or connected appliances. Intel similarly a bite-size computer chip that the company believes will make an impact on the wearables market. The firm says that watches are only the beginning of the trend and that its computer chips could be used in clothing designed to track the wearer's biometrics. 3. Big Data It should come as no surprise that big data will remain a huge part of corporate strategy in the coming year. The advent of cloud computing has given companies the ability to pull together and analyze huge data sets in order to run their business more effectively. Everything from comparing best practices to analyzing medical conditions has benefitted from improvements in data analysis, and that practice is only expected to become more commonplace in the coming year. A conducted by the analyst firm Gartner showed that over 75 percent of companies are planning to invest in big data over the next two years. Gartner researchers said the research's findings illustrated big data research itself is becoming the norm among most companies as they work to improve things like customer experiences and cut down on costs. Related Link: Harte Hanks Launches Data Refiner Platform Where To Look When it comes to big data, companies like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) have a massive advantage, because the volume of customers using their service to shop, watch movies and listen to music has created a valuable store of data allowing for more accurate targeted marketing. However other companies like International Business Machines and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ) also offer interesting investment opportunities, as those firms offer services that allow companies to make better use of their data collection by mining and analyzing customer data. So far, IBM appears to be a leader in this industry, as the firm offers developers and businesses a popular suite of products to help them manage big data. 4. 3D Printing 3D printing is a controversial tech trend that some say has been over-hyped during the past few years. While that may be true, 3D printing technology has come a long way recently, and many believe that 2016 could be its breakout year. The technology has proven most useful in specific capabilities, such as providing replacement parts for machinery or helping engineers create scalable models. However, new use-cases for 3D printing have started to crop up, leading many to believe that the industry will continue growing in the New Year. NASA has said that 3D printing technology could prove useful on missions into space; the devices have already been used to print tools for astronauts aboard the international space station. 3D printing technology has also changed to allow for printing , something that could revolutionize medical testing. Related Link: Add 3D Printing To Your Portfolio With These Stocks Where To Look Investors who are interested in tapping into the 3D printing space often look to firms like Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS ) or 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE: DDD ). Stratasys has been a market leader in the 3D printing space, as the company has already sold and installed thousands of devices that generate a steady revenue from replacement sales. 3D Systems has a much smaller reach, but the firm offers a wider variety of printers that are able to cater to several different industries something that could give the firm a leg up as more and more businesses see a need for 3D printing technologies. 5. Cybersecurity With the pace of technological innovation rapidly increasing, the need for security has risen dramatically. A spate of high-profile hacking attacks and data leaks over the past year has raised awareness among both consumers and CEOs of the importance of a comprehensive security program. Consumers are using the Internet for everything from banking transactions to controlling their heating system, and the growing number of connections means threats to companies' databases is rising as well. Related Link: Adding Some Volatility To The Cybersecurity ETF Trade Where To Look When it comes to investing in cybersecurity, there is a plethora of options. For investors looking to benefit from increasing interest in cybersecurity on the whole, an ETF like PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (NYSE: HACK ) could be a good play. The fund tracks a range of different companies and gives investors exposure to the industry as a whole. For a more targeted route, some investors are looking into companies like NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ: NXPI ). NXP is the company responsible for the security behind Apple Pay, making it a valuable investment for those who see interest mobile payment ballooning over the next year. Image Credit: See more from Benzinga 7 Of The World's Most Famous Corporate Rivalries 5 Things To Consider When Preparing For A Santa Claus Rally Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 5 Tech Trends To Watch In 2016: Tech is an ever-changing landscape that has provided investors and venture capitalists with an unending supply of "next big things."
Over the past decade, Internet use has completely upended the way most companies do business and built an entirely new industry based on connecting people with each other. Now, with the tech space overflowing with new startups and great ideas, many investors are wondering where to place their bets in the year to come.
Here's a look at five tech trends to watch in 2016.
1. The Internet Of Things
Connected devices are expected to become a huge part of the future in the coming year as more companies work to give appliances, automobiles and even lightbulbs an Internet connection.
The idea of connecting several aspects of life and being able to control them with the click of a button has grown in popularity, leading many to look into services like Hive, a system that remotely controls a home's heating system. On a larger scale, some cities are beginning to plan major overhauls that will allow residents to track things like real-time traffic and pollution levels and give planners the ability to regulate energy usage by installing remotely controlled lightbulbs and monitoring building conditions.
Related Link:More Connections Means More Security
Where To Look
There are a wide variety of companies participating in the shift toward a more connected world. One firm that has been at the forefront of connected technology isInternational Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM). The firm recently an IoT "starter pack" that allows users to take readings from the environment using sensors attached to the device. The kit can be used on a small scale, for homeowners, or in a much larger capacity by a city planner.
Cisco Systems, Inc.(NASDAQ:CSCO) is another interesting play, as the company has also begun working on smart city planning involvement. The company has already to provide automated solutions that connect important city functions in major places like Barcelona and Hamburg.
2. Wearables
Wearable technology took off in 2015 whenApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) entered the space with the highly anticipated Apple Watch.
Competing products like Jawbone's UP and FitBit's activity trackers also saw a rise in popularity as more consumers began to focus on living a healthier, active life.
However, just because this year was a big one for the wearables market doesn't mean the opportunity to jump on board is over. Many believe that wearable technology is still in its infancy and that new and improved devices will help the trend expand even further.
At the moment, the idea that a smartwatch can do things like direct a wearer to the correct grocery aisle is novel, but many believe that the technology will expand to do even more impressive things in the future.
Related Link:Research And Markets: Wearables Generating The Next Wave Of Personal Finance Experiences
Where To Look
The obvious pick for wearable devices is Apple, as the company has established itself as a leader in new consumer technology. The Apple Watch arguably put wearable devices on the map this year, and many believe that new versions due out in the coming months will attract even more fanfare.
However, for investors looking even further into the future, companies likeSAMSUNG ELECT LTD(F)(OTC:SSNLF) andIntel Corporation(NASDAQ:INTC) may be good bets.
Samsung has a new line of circuit boards that are about the size of postage stamps, making them ideal for use in things like fitness trackers. The company is expected to use the boards in its own line of products, as well as selling them on to other firms interested in using them in wearables or connected appliances.
Intel similarly a bite-size computer chip that the company believes will make an impact on the wearables market. The firm says that watches are only the beginning of the trend and that its computer chips could be used in clothing designed to track the wearer's biometrics.
3. Big Data
It should come as no surprise that big data will remain a huge part of corporate strategy in the coming year. The advent of cloud computing has given companies the ability to pull together and analyze huge data sets in order to run their business more effectively. Everything from comparing best practices to analyzing medical conditions has benefitted from improvements in data analysis, and that practice is only expected to become more commonplace in the coming year.
A conducted by the analyst firm Gartner showed that over 75 percent of companies are planning to invest in big data over the next two years. Gartner researchers said the research's findings illustrated big data research itself is becoming the norm among most companies as they work to improve things like customer experiences and cut down on costs.
Related Link:Harte Hanks Launches Data Refiner Platform
Where To Look
When it comes to big data, companies likeAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) have a massive advantage, because the volume of customers using their service to shop, watch movies and listen to music has created a valuable store of data allowing for more accurate targeted marketing.
However other companies like International Business Machines andMicrosoft Corporation(NASDAQ:MSFT) also offer interesting investment opportunities, as those firms offer services that allow companies to make better use of their data collection by mining and analyzing customer data. So far, IBM appears to be a leader in this industry, as the firm offers developers and businesses a popular suite of products to help them manage big data.
4. 3D Printing
3D printing is a controversial tech trend that some say has been over-hyped during the past few years. While that may be true, 3D printing technology has come a long way recently, and many believe that 2016 could be its breakout year.
The technology has proven most useful in specific capabilities, such as providing replacement parts for machinery or helping engineers create scalable models. However, new use-cases for 3D printing have started to crop up, leading many to believe that the industry will continue growing in the New Year.
NASA has said that 3D printing technology could prove useful on missions into space; the devices have already been used to print tools for astronauts aboard the international space station. 3D printing technology has also changed to allow for printing , something that could revolutionize medical testing.
Related Link:Add 3D Printing To Your Portfolio With These Stocks
Where To Look
Investors who are interested in tapping into the 3D printing space often look to firms likeStratasys, Ltd.(NASDAQ:SSYS) or3D Systems Corporation(NYSE:DDD).
Stratasys has been a market leader in the 3D printing space, as the company has already sold and installed thousands of devices that generate a steady revenue from replacement sales. 3D Systems has a much smaller reach, but the firm offers a wider variety of printers that are able to cater to several different industries – something that could give the firm a leg up as more and more businesses see a need for 3D printing technologies.
5. Cybersecurity
With the pace of technological innovation rapidly increasing, the need for security has risen dramatically. A spate of high-profile hacking attacks and data leaks over the past year has raised awareness among both consumers and CEOs of the importance of a comprehensive security program.
Consumers are using the Internet for everything from banking transactions to controlling their heating system, and the growing number of connections means threats to companies' databases is rising as well.
Related Link:Adding Some Volatility To The Cybersecurity ETF Trade
Where To Look
When it comes to investing in cybersecurity, there is a plethora of options. For investors looking to benefit from increasing interest in cybersecurity on the whole, an ETF likePureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF(NYSE:HACK) could be a good play. The fund tracks a range of different companies and gives investors exposure to the industry as a whole.
For a more targeted route, some investors are looking into companies likeNXP Semiconductors NV(NASDAQ:NXPI). NXP is the company responsible for the security behind Apple Pay, making it a valuable investment for those who see interest mobile payment ballooning over the next year.
Image Credit:
See more from Benzinga
• 7 Of The World's Most Famous Corporate Rivalries
• 5 Things To Consider When Preparing For A Santa Claus Rally
• Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 7 Of The World's Most Famous Corporate Rivalries: Cats and dogs, the Red Sox and the Yankees, Batman and the Joker— everyone loves a good rivalry, especially in America. Competition is a mainstay in the corporate world, and long-lasting competitive relationships have given rise to some of the fiercest rivalries on Wall Street.
Most big name firms are battling some other business that is doing something similar, and part of that battle is openly criticizing their competitor before the public eye. Corporate rivalries are sometimes part of a marketing gimmick designed to keep a firm's name in the public eye, but others are the result of long-standing tension between CEOs or differing corporate cultures.
From Coke versus Pepsi to Apple versus Microsoft, here's a look at some of Wall Street's most famous rivalries.
Related Link:Report: Alibaba Is Not Interested In Yahoo's Core Internet Business
Microsoft And Apple
Perhaps the most famous tech rivalry belongs toMicrosoft Corporation(NASDAQ:MSFT) andApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL).
The two firms have been battling it out for the title of Better Brand Maker for more than three decades, accumulating thousands of loyal followers eager to stand up for their favorite products. Apple has long praised the benefits of design and simplicity, while Microsoft has painted Apple followers as hipsters who are overpaying to be part of a "cool" crowd.
Whether you are loyal to the fruit or the PC, the rivalry has captured the attention of the public and created a buzz around both companies' latest products. Years of contention have been a driving force behind the marketing for the two companies, but this holiday season it seems they are in order to grab the attention of the masses.
As part of Microsoft's holiday commercial, New York City-based Microsoft employees marched up Fifth Avenue alongside a choir singing "Let There Be Peace on Earth" to Apple's NYC location, where the employees from both firms openly embraced. It remains to be seen whether the truce between the two will last longer than this season's Christmas trees, but for now it appears that the two will ring in the New Year side by side.
Coca-Cola And Pepsi
The Coca-Cola Co(NYSE:KO) andPepsiCo, Inc.(NYSE:PEP) have been at odds since 1975, when Pepsi first unveiled the "Pepsi Challenge."
Pepsi invited consumers to take part in blind taste tests in which they identified whether they preferred the taste of Pepsi or Coke. The battle has escalated over the years, with each firm taking a stab at the other in TV commercials, social media campaigns and through sponsorship deals.
Coca-Cola's FIFA World Cup sponsorship has been under threat from Pepsi for years, with the rival firm taking over some of the hype Coke enjoys by launching its own marketing campaigns alongside the tournament. The rivalry even made its way to space; both firms sent special cans designed for zero gravity into orbit on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985.
The two have also shared some tender moments as well. In 2009, the two firms agreed to follow one another on Twitter at the of creative agency Amnesia Razorfish.
Related Link:"Share A Coke" Returns For The Holidays
Ford And General Motors
American automakersFord Motor Company(NYSE:F) andGeneral Motors Company(NYSE:GM) have been on opposing sides of the industry for more than 100 years. While the two put their long-standing feud on pause during the Financial Crisis when the auto industry was approaching rock bottom, they have since picked up where they left off trying to gain marketshare from each other.
Ford famously took stabs at GM's government bailout in its advertisements once the automaker got back on its feet following bankruptcy. Ford CEO Mike Farley was also as saying "F— GM. I hate them and their company and what they stand for."
GM Chief Executive Dan Aversion also spoke out about Ford's Lincoln brand in 2011 saying, "They are trying like hell to resurrect Lincoln. Well, I might as well tell you, you might as well sprinkle holy water. It's over."
More recently, GM released a series of depicting Ford's latest pickup trucks as being weaker than GM's offerings because they are made from aluminum rather than steel.
Nike Inc. And Reebok
Athletic apparel makersNike Inc(NYSE:NKE) and have been battling for the title of Best Shoe Maker for decades.
Both company's original products were vastly different, with Nike selling imported running shoes and Reebok marketing white leather women's running shoes designed for joggers. However, the two eventually began to battle for marketshare with celebrity campaigns designed to make athletic apparel more appealing as a fashion statement.
Nike signed basketball superstar Michael Jordan, to which Reebok responded by using Shaquille O'Neal as a spokesman. The two firms continued to fuel their rivalry by supporting competing athletes, with Nike even $25,000 to figure skater Tonya Harding's defense fund when she was accused of attacking her Reebok sponsored competitor, Nancy Kerrigan.
McDonald's And Burger King
Fast food chainsMcDonald's Corporation(NYSE:MCD) andRestaurant Brands International Inc(NYSE:QSR)'s Burger King have become natural enemies, as both restaurants promise similar experiences to their customers.
The two have been at each other's throats for years, with competing advertising campaigns and similar product offerings. In 2014, Burger King revived its "Burger Wars" campaign by introducing its own versions of McDonald's Big Mac and McRib sandwiches.
Related Link:Sozzi Reviews Saucy McDonald's Under Eastbrook's Management
More recently, Burger King called on McDonald's for a truce, asking the golden arches to collaborate on a McWhopper, which would include elements from both the Big Mac and the Whopper. Burger King opted to pitch this idea to McDonald's via an open letter, saying that the McWhopper would be a good way to call attention to Peace One Day, an organization working to recognize September 21 as an International Day Of Peace. However, McDonald's by saying that their rivalry is "certainly not the unequaled circumstances of the real pain and suffering of war" and slammed the King for what McDonald's believed was a publicity stunt.
Budweiser And Miller
The world's largest beer makerAnheuser Busch Inbev SA (ADR)(NYSE:BUD) and its largest competitor,SABMiller plc (ADR)(OTC:SBMRY), have been locked in a booze rivalry for years. Both firms have launched comprehensive marketing campaigns taking aim at the quality and taste of each other's products, with the bitter back-and-forth even prompting the two to battle it out in court.
However, that rivalry could soon become a major beer superpower as SABMiller recently Anheuser Busch's $105 billion takeover offer. While the deal still faces a barrage of regulatory concerns, its completion would put an end to the longstanding feud between Miller and Bud, instead uniting the two to create the world's largest beer maker.
Anheuser Busch has said that the deal will provide the firm with exposure around the world and will give consumers more choice. However, some say that the merger could be dangerous for the industry, as it creates a force with which will be difficult to compete.
Netflix And Blockbuster
Video rental chain Blockbuster appeared to have the market cornered just 10 years ago, but when video-rental-by-mail serviceNetflix, Inc(NASDAQ:NFLX) appeared on the scene, the two squared off for battle.
When Netflix's service began to threaten Blockbuster's customer base, the company launched Blockbuster Online, to little success. In 2005, Blockbuster tried to undercut Netflix's prices, to which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings responded by saying the company was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the startup.
Related Link:Netflix Rips To New All-Time High Of 1.35
In a show of defiance, Blockbuster's then CEO John Antioco Hastings an actual kitchen sink the following day. However, despite Antioco's best efforts, Netflix upended the traditional video-rental business and Blockbuster eventually filed for bankruptcy protection and was acquired byDISH Network Corp(NASDAQ:DISH).
Image Credit:
See more from Benzinga
• 5 Things To Consider When Preparing For A Santa Claus Rally
• Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs
• 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 7 Of The World's Most Famous Corporate Rivalries: Cats and dogs, the Red Sox and the Yankees, Batman and the Joker everyone loves a good rivalry, especially in America. Competition is a mainstay in the corporate world, and long-lasting competitive relationships have given rise to some of the fiercest rivalries on Wall Street. Most big name firms are battling some other business that is doing something similar, and part of that battle is openly criticizing their competitor before the public eye. Corporate rivalries are sometimes part of a marketing gimmick designed to keep a firm's name in the public eye, but others are the result of long-standing tension between CEOs or differing corporate cultures. From Coke versus Pepsi to Apple versus Microsoft, here's a look at some of Wall Street's most famous rivalries. Related Link: Report: Alibaba Is Not Interested In Yahoo's Core Internet Business Microsoft And Apple Perhaps the most famous tech rivalry belongs to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ). The two firms have been battling it out for the title of Better Brand Maker for more than three decades, accumulating thousands of loyal followers eager to stand up for their favorite products. Apple has long praised the benefits of design and simplicity, while Microsoft has painted Apple followers as hipsters who are overpaying to be part of a "cool" crowd. Whether you are loyal to the fruit or the PC, the rivalry has captured the attention of the public and created a buzz around both companies' latest products. Years of contention have been a driving force behind the marketing for the two companies, but this holiday season it seems they are in order to grab the attention of the masses. As part of Microsoft's holiday commercial, New York City-based Microsoft employees marched up Fifth Avenue alongside a choir singing "Let There Be Peace on Earth" to Apple's NYC location, where the employees from both firms openly embraced. It remains to be seen whether the truce between the two will last longer than this season's Christmas trees, but for now it appears that the two will ring in the New Year side by side. Story continues Coca-Cola And Pepsi The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO ) and PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP ) have been at odds since 1975, when Pepsi first unveiled the "Pepsi Challenge." Pepsi invited consumers to take part in blind taste tests in which they identified whether they preferred the taste of Pepsi or Coke. The battle has escalated over the years, with each firm taking a stab at the other in TV commercials, social media campaigns and through sponsorship deals. Coca-Cola's FIFA World Cup sponsorship has been under threat from Pepsi for years, with the rival firm taking over some of the hype Coke enjoys by launching its own marketing campaigns alongside the tournament. The rivalry even made its way to space; both firms sent special cans designed for zero gravity into orbit on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985. The two have also shared some tender moments as well. In 2009, the two firms agreed to follow one another on Twitter at the of creative agency Amnesia Razorfish. Related Link: "Share A Coke" Returns For The Holidays Ford And General Motors American automakers Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F ) and General Motors Company (NYSE: GM ) have been on opposing sides of the industry for more than 100 years. While the two put their long-standing feud on pause during the Financial Crisis when the auto industry was approaching rock bottom, they have since picked up where they left off trying to gain marketshare from each other. Ford famously took stabs at GM's government bailout in its advertisements once the automaker got back on its feet following bankruptcy. Ford CEO Mike Farley was also as saying "F GM. I hate them and their company and what they stand for." GM Chief Executive Dan Aversion also spoke out about Ford's Lincoln brand in 2011 saying, "They are trying like hell to resurrect Lincoln. Well, I might as well tell you, you might as well sprinkle holy water. It's over." More recently, GM released a series of depicting Ford's latest pickup trucks as being weaker than GM's offerings because they are made from aluminum rather than steel. Nike Inc. And Reebok Athletic apparel makers Nike Inc (NYSE: NKE ) and have been battling for the title of Best Shoe Maker for decades. Both company's original products were vastly different, with Nike selling imported running shoes and Reebok marketing white leather women's running shoes designed for joggers. However, the two eventually began to battle for marketshare with celebrity campaigns designed to make athletic apparel more appealing as a fashion statement. Nike signed basketball superstar Michael Jordan, to which Reebok responded by using Shaquille O'Neal as a spokesman. The two firms continued to fuel their rivalry by supporting competing athletes, with Nike even $25,000 to figure skater Tonya Harding's defense fund when she was accused of attacking her Reebok sponsored competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. McDonald's And Burger King Fast food chains McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD ) and Restaurant Brands International Inc (NYSE: QSR )'s Burger King have become natural enemies, as both restaurants promise similar experiences to their customers. The two have been at each other's throats for years, with competing advertising campaigns and similar product offerings. In 2014, Burger King revived its "Burger Wars" campaign by introducing its own versions of McDonald's Big Mac and McRib sandwiches. Related Link: Sozzi Reviews Saucy McDonald's Under Eastbrook's Management More recently, Burger King called on McDonald's for a truce, asking the golden arches to collaborate on a McWhopper, which would include elements from both the Big Mac and the Whopper. Burger King opted to pitch this idea to McDonald's via an open letter, saying that the McWhopper would be a good way to call attention to Peace One Day, an organization working to recognize September 21 as an International Day Of Peace. However, McDonald's by saying that their rivalry is "certainly not the unequaled circumstances of the real pain and suffering of war" and slammed the King for what McDonald's believed was a publicity stunt. Budweiser And Miller The world's largest beer maker Anheuser Busch Inbev SA (ADR) (NYSE: BUD ) and its largest competitor, SABMiller plc (ADR) (OTC: SBMRY ), have been locked in a booze rivalry for years. Both firms have launched comprehensive marketing campaigns taking aim at the quality and taste of each other's products, with the bitter back-and-forth even prompting the two to battle it out in court. However, that rivalry could soon become a major beer superpower as SABMiller recently Anheuser Busch's $105 billion takeover offer. While the deal still faces a barrage of regulatory concerns, its completion would put an end to the longstanding feud between Miller and Bud, instead uniting the two to create the world's largest beer maker. Anheuser Busch has said that the deal will provide the firm with exposure around the world and will give consumers more choice. However, some say that the merger could be dangerous for the industry, as it creates a force with which will be difficult to compete. Netflix And Blockbuster Video rental chain Blockbuster appeared to have the market cornered just 10 years ago, but when video-rental-by-mail service Netflix, Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX ) appeared on the scene, the two squared off for battle. When Netflix's service began to threaten Blockbuster's customer base, the company launched Blockbuster Online, to little success. In 2005, Blockbuster tried to undercut Netflix's prices, to which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings responded by saying the company was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the startup. Related Link: Netflix Rips To New All-Time High Of 1.35 In a show of defiance, Blockbuster's then CEO John Antioco Hastings an actual kitchen sink the following day. However, despite Antioco's best efforts, Netflix upended the traditional video-rental business and Blockbuster eventually filed for bankruptcy protection and was acquired by DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ: DISH ). Image Credit: See more from Benzinga 5 Things To Consider When Preparing For A Santa Claus Rally Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Goldman to Launch its own Cryptocurrency; Files Patent: Wall Street firms’ increasing focus on digital currency technology has been reiterated yet again with the latest development fromThe Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.GS. The New York- based brokerage giant has filed a patent application with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) – Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement – for a new cryptocurrency called SETLcoin.According to the patent application that was published recently, executives Paul Walker and Phil J. Venables have been named as inventors of the system.As a digital medium of exchange, a cryptographic currency allows distributed, fast, secure, confirmed transactions for goods and services. While Bitcoin was one of the first cryptographic currencies that caught attention in 2009, several other cryptographic currencies are currently available including Novacoin, Namecoin, Feathercoin, and Dogecoin.The patent application revealed that Goldman’s technology offers a virtual multi-asset wallet representing traditional securities and cash account for an individual, investor, or trader. The wallet has technology to generate, control, and store SETLcoins, for the purpose of exchanging assets such as stocks, bonds and cash or cash equivalents through peer-to-peer network.Usually a trader trades securities by meeting at an exchange with cash for security and then the related settlement between parties occurs after much delay, sometimes after several days since the transaction. Further, the trader bears all the associated credit risk within that period.However, Goldman’s technology facilitates settlement at a much faster pace and minimizes risk. The application filing mentioned “settlements are nearly instantaneous because cryptographic currency transactions are independently and extemporaneously generated, verified, and executed within the network, without the risks associated with traditional clearing houses that can delay settlements for several days.”Cryptocurrency BuzzGoldman’s latest venture further adds to its initiatives related to cryptocurrencies. Notably, in April Goldman Sachs along with China-based IDG Capital Partners led a $50 million strategic investment in Bitcoin startup – Circle Internet Financial Ltd.Further, a group of top investment banks including Goldman, JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, Credit Suisse Group AG and Barclays PLC BCS is working with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to develop a framework for using blockchain technology in the global finance markets.
Blockchain, the “digital ledger” or the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, has gained attraction for its significant potential to revamp the extensive and complex network of bank payments as well as settlements.Notably, in September, Bank of America Corporation BAC filed a patent with the USPTO for a system of wire transfers by using cryptocurrency.Bottom LineAs banks are embracing technology, they are continuously looking out for ways and working with FinTech to restructure many daily operations, update back-office functions and making huge investments for auto execution of transactions. Further, in this competitive environment, the financial institutions are striving hard to attract and retain clients by offering better digital experience as traditional methods are gradually taking a backseat.Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportJPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis ReportBARCLAY PLC-ADR (BCS): Free Stock Analysis ReportGOLDMAN SACHS (GS): Free Stock Analysis ReportBANK OF AMER CP (BAC): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Goldman to Launch its own Cryptocurrency; Files Patent: Wall Street firms’ increasing focus on digital currency technology has been reiterated yet again with the latest development from The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS. The New York- based brokerage giant has filed a patent application with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) – Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement – for a new cryptocurrency called SETLcoin. According to the patent application that was published recently, executives Paul Walker and Phil J. Venables have been named as inventors of the system. As a digital medium of exchange, a cryptographic currency allows distributed, fast, secure, confirmed transactions for goods and services. While Bitcoin was one of the first cryptographic currencies that caught attention in 2009, several other cryptographic currencies are currently available including Novacoin, Namecoin, Feathercoin, and Dogecoin. The patent application revealed that Goldman’s technology offers a virtual multi-asset wallet representing traditional securities and cash account for an individual, investor, or trader. The wallet has technology to generate, control, and store SETLcoins, for the purpose of exchanging assets such as stocks, bonds and cash or cash equivalents through peer-to-peer network. Usually a trader trades securities by meeting at an exchange with cash for security and then the related settlement between parties occurs after much delay, sometimes after several days since the transaction. Further, the trader bears all the associated credit risk within that period. However, Goldman’s technology facilitates settlement at a much faster pace and minimizes risk. The application filing mentioned “settlements are nearly instantaneous because cryptographic currency transactions are independently and extemporaneously generated, verified, and executed within the network, without the risks associated with traditional clearing houses that can delay settlements for several days.” Cryptocurrency Buzz Goldman’s latest venture further adds to its initiatives related to cryptocurrencies. Notably, in April Goldman Sachs along with China-based IDG Capital Partners led a $50 million strategic investment in Bitcoin startup – Circle Internet Financial Ltd. Further, a group of top investment banks including Goldman, JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, Credit Suisse Group AG and Barclays PLC BCS is working with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to develop a framework for using blockchain technology in the global finance markets. Blockchain, the “digital ledger” or the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, has gained attraction for its significant potential to revamp the extensive and complex network of bank payments as well as settlements. Notably, in September, Bank of America Corporation BAC filed a patent with the USPTO for a system of wire transfers by using cryptocurrency. Bottom Line As banks are embracing technology, they are continuously looking out for ways and working with FinTech to restructure many daily operations, update back-office functions and making huge investments for auto execution of transactions. Further, in this competitive environment, the financial institutions are striving hard to attract and retain clients by offering better digital experience as traditional methods are gradually taking a backseat. Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report JPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis Report BARCLAY PLC-ADR (BCS): Free Stock Analysis Report GOLDMAN SACHS (GS): Free Stock Analysis Report BANK OF AMER CP (BAC): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Global Arena Holding Demonstrates Continued Growth: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Dec 2, 2015) - Global Arena Holding, Inc. (OTC PINK:GAHC), (the "Company") announced today that it has released its quarterly report for the period ending September 30, 2015. During this quarter the Company's subsidiary, Global Election Services, Inc. ("GES"), continued to show strong revenue growth while the Company has taken first steps toward acquiring Blockchain Technologies Corporation.
Read the full 10Q:http://biz.yahoo.com/e/151123/gahc10-q.html
For the nine months ended September 30, 2014, the Company recognized sales revenue of approximately $619,633, contributing to total sales of $887,016. The increase in recognized revenue -- $565,646 compared to revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2014 -- is principally due to the new business services of GES, which provides comprehensive technology-enabled election services primarily for organized labor associations. Overall however, the Company recorded a loss.
The Company CEO, John Matthews, said; "The losses in the third quarter are mainly due to the development of the Company through its subsidiaries. GES is currently the only operating company and it alone, at this time at least, cannot possibly support the current infrastructure. Higher than normal cost however, are attributed to professional fees concerning the due diligence and acquisition review of Blockchain Technologies Corporation."
Mr. Matthews continued; "Going forward, the elections company, GES, is on a pace to grow by over 50% and with the acquisition of Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC"), it is our belief we will generate income from BTC's elections blockchain software, and that will give us the opportunity to increase profits further. The Company also will benefit from revenue generated from BTC when it provides technology to GES, which GES currently pays to 3rd party providers."
The Company is still in the process of completing its acquisition of Blockchain Technologies Corporation, which will bring with it several revenue producing companies and high potential patents. The losses this quarter are viewed as a temporary setback.
About Global Arena HoldingThe Company trades on the OTC Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GAHC. The Company has been publicly traded since 2011 and holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, Inc., GAHI Acquisition Corp and Blockchain Technologies Corporation Inc. The Company focuses on acquiring technologies, patents and companies having the ability to leverage the blockchain crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://globalarenaholding.com
Twitter:www.twitter.com/GlobalArenaGAHCFacebook:www.facebook.com/GlobalArenaHoldingGAHCLinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/global-arena-holding/107/86a/a7Google+:http://tinyurl.com/GlobalArenaHolding
Safe Harbor StatementThe Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements related to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned or required capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth, and potential contracts. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to development and expansion activities, dependence on existing management, financing activities, domestic and global economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: 276.99£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-12-10 00:20:02 GMT || #Bitcoin last trade
bitstamp $416.00
bitfinex $420.10
coinbase $415.71
Set #crypto #price #alerts at …pic.twitter.com/psJyZ8xY0v || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000005 Bittrex: 0.00000004 Average $1.7E-5 per #reddcoin 20:00:01 via #p…pic.twitter.com/XkOxqTsFNJ || SSL Certificates Offers • SSL Certificates for Organisation Validation start from $35.00/yr http://dlvr.it/CyWq3l #webhosting #bitcoin || In the la...
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415.48, 451.94, 435.00, 433.76, 444.18, 465.32, 454.93, 456.08, 463.62, 462.32
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 219.16, 223.83, 228.57, 222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63, 235.27, 234.18, 236.46, 231.27, 226.39, 219.43, 229.29, 225.85, 225.81, 236.15, 232.08, 234.93, 240.36, 239.02, 236.12, 229.78, 237.33, 243.86, 241.83, 240.30, 242.16, 241.11, 236.38, 236.93, 237.60, 236.15, 236.80, 233.13, 231.95, 234.02, 235.34, 240.35, 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10, 233.35, 230.19, 222.93, 225.80, 225.87, 224.32, 224.95, 225.62, 222.88, 228.49, 229.05, 228.80, 229.71, 229.98, 232.40, 233.54, 236.82, 250.90, 249.28, 249.01, 244.61, 245.21, 243.94, 246.99, 244.30, 240.51, 242.80, 243.59, 250.99, 249.01, 257.06, 263.07, 258.62, 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11, 310.87.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2015-07-12]
Volume: 56405000, RSI (14-day): 82.65, 50-day EMA: 253.31, 200-day EMA: 255.75
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Nuclear Bunker Data Center To Partner With BitShares: Debert, NS Canada / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2015 / Data Security Node Inc. (DSN) is a 64,000 sq/ft nuclear bunker data center located in Nova Scotia, Canada. DSN provides hosted services and unique value added offerings, and is announcing a partnership with Bitshares, a one of a kind decentralized smart contract platform. Together, they are introducing a number of crypto-asset driven solutions to help usher in a new age of financial freedom and transparency. Jonathan Baha’i, President of Data Security Node , explains, "We have come to a place, technologically, where a revolution is about to happen at all levels of society - thanks to a new breed of blockchain driven technologies. BitShares 2.0 is at the crest of this movement, and we are absolutely thrilled to be joining forces with them." The new partnership comes by way of a service offering from DSN called BunkerDEX which enables the exchange of crypto assets between multiple blockchains. Through the BitShares network, customers will be able to exchange virtual assets of all kinds, from popular crypto currencies like Bitcoin, to SmartCoins that hold the value of Dollars and Euro , to alternative banking solutions like bill and payment services that provide lower fees and less risk than most brick-and-mortar banks. "BunkerDEX will be the foundation for several offerings that connect to services from our bunker," Jonathan continues, "such as BunkerMining, The Canadian Rewards Debit, and S.A.F.E. (Synchronized Asset Futures Engine). We have some pretty amazing tools to work with now, thanks to the BitShares 2.0 platform." "Our nuclear bunker data center is the perfect place to host critical data, like financial transactions, that need a high level of protection," says Jonathan. "Most of us don’t expect nukes to fall from the sky any time soon, but the increasing appearance of natural disasters is actually a huge threat to data centers all around the world. Even data centers with sophisticated contingency planning have shown that they are helpless in the face of large scale natural disasters. For example, an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), either manmade or by solar flares, would instantly destroy the electronics in most data centers. Due to the sophisticated construction of our bunker, we are the only solution in Canada that provides protection from these types of threats." Story continues BunkerMining BunkerMining is a crypto mining pool that will soon pay miners in SmartCoins such as bitUSD and bitEuro, or by having real gold or silver drop-shipped to their door. BunkerMining will operate as a zero fee network thanks to the efficiencies it gains by operating through the BunkerDEX. Paying miners in stable cryptocurrencies or real world assets such as gold and silver will be an in-demand feature according to Jonathan. "Crypto miners have invested heavily in their operations, and have often been burned by the volatility (daily fluctuations in value) that crypto coins like Bitcoin experience. In fact lately, we have even seen volatility in the markets for many national fiat currencies. With BunkerMining however, miners will have the freedom to choose which currency (SmartCoin) to cash in their earnings, or even to bypass currencies altogether and opt instead for real gold and silver." Via the BunkerDEX, the BunkerMining operation will create a whole new index class that will be minable with the most popular hashing algorithms available. "This will be a game changer for miners," explained Jonathan. "The markets for various coins are constantly changing. Those that invest in mining hardware take on a risk that the value of the coins they mine today might not profit tomorrow. By using the BunkerMining pool, miners that use Scrypt mining rigs for example will also be able to benefit from increased value in Bitcoin, which is not a scrypt mined coin, as part of the index." "What’s even more exciting is the level of transparency we will be able to bring to our mining pool, and potentially our index could become another metric for measuring the current state of crypto," muses Jonathan. "Thanks to the support of the BitShares delegate system, during our initial growth phase we should be able to offer miners a higher ROI than anywhere else, and bonuses on payouts will constantly keep us among the most profitable mining pools." The Canadian Rewards Debit Thanks to the BitShares’ high capacity network, the BunkerDEX will enable anyone with a SmartPhone to cash their cheques, pay bills online, and send money to their friends and family in any SmartCoin they choose. "Historically, Canadians have been the earliest adopters of new electronic payment technologies," Jonathan recalls, "and we will appeal to them with a system that is convenient, easy to use, and secure - thanks to the decentralization of the BitShares network. Also, we have much lower overhead costs than a brick-and-mortar bank, so we will have much lower fees." DSN will provide secure gateway transactions that will enable Canadians to easily transact their everyday banking and purchases in Canada and around the world. BitShares is decentralized , so every account holder has sole access to their funds. Because of this, account holders can enjoy the convenience of everyday banking transactions without the risk of bank failure. Add this to the first of its kind referral program that will be built into BitShares 2.0, and marketing to Canadians will be a no brainer. Synchronized Assets Futures Engine (SAFE) Saving the best for last, Jonathan beams, "I have to say, I am most excited about the SAFE system we have created in tandem with Bunkershares, because it seems that technically we may have created an entirely new class of financial instrument. With the BitShares 2.0 network, we will be presenting a never before seen mechanism for online businesses to utilize. We think that SAFE has the potential to spur a whole new industry." To raise money for expanding operations, Data Security node will soon begin selling an asset called BunkerShares , which will be issued onto the BitShares Decentralized Exchange as User Issued Assets. SAFE will be a platform that provides businesses in high demand industries a way to raise money from investors without issuing securities. Instead, investors get to act as the middleman on every sale, and their investment is always protected against the potential for a liquidity crunch. Return on investment for SAFE "shareholders" in a company have the potential to be much higher than traditional securities instruments, and could be comparable to what an equity investment return would have in the short term. Through the BitShares network, all transactions are decentralized and made public, so the entire system can be audited at any time by any shareholder. They do this simply by using a SAFE company’s online shopping cart to make a purchase. SAFE aligns the incentives of investors and companies more harmoniously than traditional stocks, so investors in small businesses don’t have to wait years or longer for the chance to liquidate their holdings. "Because this is a brand new concept, we made a video ( SAFE Investment ) to help explain it in detail. In the video, we compare Wal-Mart gift cards to how SAFE can work for online businesses," Jonathan continues, "I am confident from the feedback from prospective investors thus far that this new financial instrument, backed by our technology, is going to gain traction in the coming year as companies seek to diversify their capital sources." "With our nuclear bunker data center utilizing the BitShares 2.0 platform, I see a bright future ahead for us." The BunkerShares 50 day sale will commence this fall, with the BunkerDEX following shortly afterwards. ### BunkerShares - www.bunkershares.ca Data Security Node - www.datasecuritynode.com BitShares - www.bitshares.org Cyptonomex - www.cryptonomex.com About Data Security Node Inc. From the nuclear bunker data center located in Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada, Data Security Node provides hosted solutions to companies and government organizations worldwide. Since cloud infrastructure often requires high levels of security, DSN provides the high end infrastructure necessary to compete in today’s marketplace. About BitShares The BitShares Decentralized Exchange is a peer-to-peer blockchain based asset exchange platform. It has done away with destabilizing practices like fractional reserve lending and order front running, and provided opportunity for people living in volatile regions of the world to hold their savings in a stable instrument of value. Similar to Bitcoin, the BitShares network cannot be breached or forced to shut down, and anyone running the free and open source software can participate. For more information or to start trading today, please visit Bitshares.org. About Cryptonomex, Inc. (BitShares core development) Cryptonomex provides software development services to meet the growing demand for custom, high-performance, blockchains and related technology. Our engineers have designed and built one of the most advanced blockchain architectures on the market, capable of processing over 100,000 transactions per second with an average confirmation time of less than 1 second. ### Contact Data Security Node Inc.: Jonathan Baha'i 800-784-0849 [email protected] Debert, Nova Scotia Source: Data Security Node Inc. || Nuclear Bunker Data Center To Partner With BitShares: Debert, NS Canada / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2015 / Data Security Node Inc. (DSN) is a 64,000 sq/ft nuclear bunker data center located in Nova Scotia, Canada. DSN provides hosted services and unique value added offerings, and is announcing a partnership with Bitshares, a one of a kind decentralized smart contract platform. Together, they are introducing a number of crypto-asset driven solutions to help usher in a new age of financial freedom and transparency. Jonathan Baha’i, President of Data Security Node , explains, "We have come to a place, technologically, where a revolution is about to happen at all levels of society - thanks to a new breed of blockchain driven technologies. BitShares 2.0 is at the crest of this movement, and we are absolutely thrilled to be joining forces with them." The new partnership comes by way of a service offering from DSN called BunkerDEX which enables the exchange of crypto assets between multiple blockchains. Through the BitShares network, customers will be able to exchange virtual assets of all kinds, from popular crypto currencies like Bitcoin, to SmartCoins that hold the value of Dollars and Euro , to alternative banking solutions like bill and payment services that provide lower fees and less risk than most brick-and-mortar banks. "BunkerDEX will be the foundation for several offerings that connect to services from our bunker," Jonathan continues, "such as BunkerMining, The Canadian Rewards Debit, and S.A.F.E. (Synchronized Asset Futures Engine). We have some pretty amazing tools to work with now, thanks to the BitShares 2.0 platform." "Our nuclear bunker data center is the perfect place to host critical data, like financial transactions, that need a high level of protection," says Jonathan. "Most of us don’t expect nukes to fall from the sky any time soon, but the increasing appearance of natural disasters is actually a huge threat to data centers all around the world. Even data centers with sophisticated contingency planning have shown that they are helpless in the face of large scale natural disasters. For example, an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), either manmade or by solar flares, would instantly destroy the electronics in most data centers. Due to the sophisticated construction of our bunker, we are the only solution in Canada that provides protection from these types of threats." Story continues BunkerMining BunkerMining is a crypto mining pool that will soon pay miners in SmartCoins such as bitUSD and bitEuro, or by having real gold or silver drop-shipped to their door. BunkerMining will operate as a zero fee network thanks to the efficiencies it gains by operating through the BunkerDEX. Paying miners in stable cryptocurrencies or real world assets such as gold and silver will be an in-demand feature according to Jonathan. "Crypto miners have invested heavily in their operations, and have often been burned by the volatility (daily fluctuations in value) that crypto coins like Bitcoin experience. In fact lately, we have even seen volatility in the markets for many national fiat currencies. With BunkerMining however, miners will have the freedom to choose which currency (SmartCoin) to cash in their earnings, or even to bypass currencies altogether and opt instead for real gold and silver." Via the BunkerDEX, the BunkerMining operation will create a whole new index class that will be minable with the most popular hashing algorithms available. "This will be a game changer for miners," explained Jonathan. "The markets for various coins are constantly changing. Those that invest in mining hardware take on a risk that the value of the coins they mine today might not profit tomorrow. By using the BunkerMining pool, miners that use Scrypt mining rigs for example will also be able to benefit from increased value in Bitcoin, which is not a scrypt mined coin, as part of the index." "What’s even more exciting is the level of transparency we will be able to bring to our mining pool, and potentially our index could become another metric for measuring the current state of crypto," muses Jonathan. "Thanks to the support of the BitShares delegate system, during our initial growth phase we should be able to offer miners a higher ROI than anywhere else, and bonuses on payouts will constantly keep us among the most profitable mining pools." The Canadian Rewards Debit Thanks to the BitShares’ high capacity network, the BunkerDEX will enable anyone with a SmartPhone to cash their cheques, pay bills online, and send money to their friends and family in any SmartCoin they choose. "Historically, Canadians have been the earliest adopters of new electronic payment technologies," Jonathan recalls, "and we will appeal to them with a system that is convenient, easy to use, and secure - thanks to the decentralization of the BitShares network. Also, we have much lower overhead costs than a brick-and-mortar bank, so we will have much lower fees." DSN will provide secure gateway transactions that will enable Canadians to easily transact their everyday banking and purchases in Canada and around the world. BitShares is decentralized , so every account holder has sole access to their funds. Because of this, account holders can enjoy the convenience of everyday banking transactions without the risk of bank failure. Add this to the first of its kind referral program that will be built into BitShares 2.0, and marketing to Canadians will be a no brainer. Synchronized Assets Futures Engine (SAFE) Saving the best for last, Jonathan beams, "I have to say, I am most excited about the SAFE system we have created in tandem with Bunkershares, because it seems that technically we may have created an entirely new class of financial instrument. With the BitShares 2.0 network, we will be presenting a never before seen mechanism for online businesses to utilize. We think that SAFE has the potential to spur a whole new industry." To raise money for expanding operations, Data Security node will soon begin selling an asset called BunkerShares , which will be issued onto the BitShares Decentralized Exchange as User Issued Assets. SAFE will be a platform that provides businesses in high demand industries a way to raise money from investors without issuing securities. Instead, investors get to act as the middleman on every sale, and their investment is always protected against the potential for a liquidity crunch. Return on investment for SAFE "shareholders" in a company have the potential to be much higher than traditional securities instruments, and could be comparable to what an equity investment return would have in the short term. Through the BitShares network, all transactions are decentralized and made public, so the entire system can be audited at any time by any shareholder. They do this simply by using a SAFE company’s online shopping cart to make a purchase. SAFE aligns the incentives of investors and companies more harmoniously than traditional stocks, so investors in small businesses don’t have to wait years or longer for the chance to liquidate their holdings. "Because this is a brand new concept, we made a video ( SAFE Investment ) to help explain it in detail. In the video, we compare Wal-Mart gift cards to how SAFE can work for online businesses," Jonathan continues, "I am confident from the feedback from prospective investors thus far that this new financial instrument, backed by our technology, is going to gain traction in the coming year as companies seek to diversify their capital sources." "With our nuclear bunker data center utilizing the BitShares 2.0 platform, I see a bright future ahead for us." The BunkerShares 50 day sale will commence this fall, with the BunkerDEX following shortly afterwards. ### BunkerShares - www.bunkershares.ca Data Security Node - www.datasecuritynode.com BitShares - www.bitshares.org Cyptonomex - www.cryptonomex.com About Data Security Node Inc. From the nuclear bunker data center located in Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada, Data Security Node provides hosted solutions to companies and government organizations worldwide. Since cloud infrastructure often requires high levels of security, DSN provides the high end infrastructure necessary to compete in today’s marketplace. About BitShares The BitShares Decentralized Exchange is a peer-to-peer blockchain based asset exchange platform. It has done away with destabilizing practices like fractional reserve lending and order front running, and provided opportunity for people living in volatile regions of the world to hold their savings in a stable instrument of value. Similar to Bitcoin, the BitShares network cannot be breached or forced to shut down, and anyone running the free and open source software can participate. For more information or to start trading today, please visit Bitshares.org. About Cryptonomex, Inc. (BitShares core development) Cryptonomex provides software development services to meet the growing demand for custom, high-performance, blockchains and related technology. Our engineers have designed and built one of the most advanced blockchain architectures on the market, capable of processing over 100,000 transactions per second with an average confirmation time of less than 1 second. ### Contact Data Security Node Inc.: Jonathan Baha'i 800-784-0849 [email protected] Debert, Nova Scotia Source: Data Security Node Inc. || Your first trade for Monday, July 13: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Dan Nathan was a seller of PG(NYSE: PG).
Josh Brown was a buyer of CME(NASDAQ: CME).
Brian Kelly was a buyer of TSL(NYSE: TSL).
Guy Adami was a buyer of JBLU(NASDAQ: JBLU).
Trader disclosure: On July 10, 2015, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Dan Nathan is longJPM July put spread, TJX Aug Put, TWTR, TWTR SEPT call spread, SO, INTC July put, LVS July Aug Put Spread, PG Aug Put, COST Aug put spread, WDAY July call fly, BA Sept put; he is short SO Aug call. Today he bought BA Sept put. Josh Brown is long AAPL, DE, DNKN, EBAY, FSLR, JMBA, SAM, SHAK, SPWR, TNET, TWTR, XLE, XON. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TAN, TLT, TSL, Canadian Dollar, Euro; Yuan, and Yen. Today he bought TSL.Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Your first trade for Monday, July 13: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Dan Nathan was a seller of PG (NYSE: PG) . Josh Brown was a buyer of CME (NASDAQ: CME) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of TSL (NYSE: TSL) . Guy Adami was a buyer of JBLU (NASDAQ: JBLU) . Trader disclosure: On July 10, 2015, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Dan Nathan is long JPM July put spread, TJX Aug Put, TWTR, TWTR SEPT call spread, SO, INTC July put, LVS July Aug Put Spread, PG Aug Put, COST Aug put spread, WDAY July call fly, BA Sept put; he is short SO Aug call. Today he bought BA Sept put. Josh Brown is long AAPL, DE, DNKN, EBAY, FSLR, JMBA, SAM, SHAK, SPWR, TNET, TWTR, XLE, XON. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TAN, TLT, TSL, Canadian Dollar, Euro; Yuan, and Yen. Today he bought TSL.Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Cable & Wireless Obtains TV Licence in Anguilla: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jul 10, 2015) - Cable and Wireless Communications (C&W) which now operates Flow, the Caribbean's leading communications service provider, today announced that it has secured the broadcast licence to operate TV service in Anguilla.
John Reid, President, C&W's Consumer Group said, "This is welcome news for our customers in Anguilla. Our successful merger with Columbus International Inc has facilitated the acceleration of our expanded portfolio from triple play to market leading quad play services."
Reid also said, "We are delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the most advanced digital TV technology available today to the people of Anguilla. Our Advanced Video Service (AVS) provides state-of-the-art High Definition TV, Personal Cloud Video Recorder, parental control and allows viewers to watch TV on the go with the Flow To-Go app."
According to the Consumer Group President, "The planned launch of this advanced video service in Anguilla will provide our viewers with the region's best TV experience and is set to transform the way people watch TV. It will be TV on demand, whenever, wherever and how the viewer wishes. Our ambition is to be number one with customers, and delivering world-class customer experiences is what we are all about."
Dubbed, "TV you can control," Advanced Video Services is an extraordinary High Definition visual experience with over 60 HD channels available at no extra cost.
AVS allows customers to:
• Restart TV programmes from the beginning
• Record all their favourite shows using the new Cloud Video recorder feature
• Watch new blockbuster movies from the comfort of their homes with our Video OnDemand service
• Monitor content via Advanced Parental controls
• Access TV on the go through our Flow ToGo smartphone application
Commenting on the approval of the TV licence and soon to be announced launch of TV services, Anguilla Country Manager, Matthieu Dion said, "Anguillans will benefit from the best content, service features and the most flexible options -- all accessible at home or on the go. All this is just a taste of the many innovations to come. We will deliver Anguilla's best TV service across the most advanced network, ensuring our customers experience the great services they so richly deserve."
C&W will commence delivery of TV service in Anguilla by the end of the year.
In 2014, C&W embarked on a US$7.4M network upgrade investment programme for Anguilla, as part of a wider regional investment strategy, called Project Marlin.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m ; TV 430k and Broadband 650k ) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit:http://www.cwc.com || Cable & Wireless Obtains TV Licence in Anguilla: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jul 10, 2015) - Cable and Wireless Communications (C&W) which now operates Flow, the Caribbean's leading communications service provider, today announced that it has secured the broadcast licence to operate TV service in Anguilla. John Reid, President, C&W's Consumer Group said, "This is welcome news for our customers in Anguilla. Our successful merger with Columbus International Inc has facilitated the acceleration of our expanded portfolio from triple play to market leading quad play services." Reid also said, "We are delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the most advanced digital TV technology available today to the people of Anguilla. Our Advanced Video Service (AVS) provides state-of-the-art High Definition TV, Personal Cloud Video Recorder, parental control and allows viewers to watch TV on the go with the Flow To-Go app." According to the Consumer Group President, "The planned launch of this advanced video service in Anguilla will provide our viewers with the region's best TV experience and is set to transform the way people watch TV. It will be TV on demand, whenever, wherever and how the viewer wishes. Our ambition is to be number one with customers, and delivering world-class customer experiences is what we are all about." Dubbed, "TV you can control," Advanced Video Services is an extraordinary High Definition visual experience with over 60 HD channels available at no extra cost. AVS allows customers to: Restart TV programmes from the beginning Record all their favourite shows using the new Cloud Video recorder feature Watch new blockbuster movies from the comfort of their homes with our Video OnDemand service Monitor content via Advanced Parental controls Access TV on the go through our Flow ToGo smartphone application Commenting on the approval of the TV licence and soon to be announced launch of TV services, Anguilla Country Manager, Matthieu Dion said, "Anguillans will benefit from the best content, service features and the most flexible options -- all accessible at home or on the go. All this is just a taste of the many innovations to come. We will deliver Anguilla's best TV service across the most advanced network, ensuring our customers experience the great services they so richly deserve." Story continues C&W will commence delivery of TV service in Anguilla by the end of the year. In 2014, C&W embarked on a US$7.4M network upgrade investment programme for Anguilla, as part of a wider regional investment strategy, called Project Marlin. About Cable & Wireless Communications: Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m ; TV 430k and Broadband 650k ) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit: http://www.cwc.com || What to Watch in the Week Ahead and on Monday, July 13: (The Day Ahead is an email and PDF publication that includes the day's major stories and events, analyses and other features. To receive The Day Ahead, Eikon users can register at . Thomson One users can register at RT/DAY/US. All times in ET/GMT)
WEEK AHEAD
The stock market this quarter doesn't get its usual one-week on-ramp to earnings season, instead getting hit with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Intel, Netflix, Google, General Electric Co and Honeywell, all in one week. Add in the political yelling that has become the semi-annual Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony and the ongoing craziness that is Greece's potential exit from the euro zone - to say nothing of China's turmoil - and it should be a lively week for markets, and one that will likely see a lot of volatility. Euro zone finance ministers may make a "major decision" when they hold a special meeting on Saturday to weigh a new Greek proposal for emergency funding. The ministers' conclusions will be reviewed by euro zone leaders at a summit called for on Sunday.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen delivers semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday. The July hearing has more drama heading into it than the February testimonies. For one, Yellen starts this time with the House, where she ended last time, after trading some testy exchanges with Republican congressmen. This week's congressional appearance also comes as the Fed appears closer to raising interest rates for the first time since 2006. Yellen's appearance comes just a few weeks after the Fed's last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and two weeks before its next one - so Yellen will be unlikely to drop too many policy hints and changes in this round or testimony, unless she wants to point the market harder to September lift-off.
Dow components Johnson & Johnson, General Electric Co, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Intel Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc are scheduled to report quarterly results in the coming week. Johnson & Johnson is expected to report on Tuesday lower second-quarter sales and earnings as weak revenue from medical devices and consumer products and a stronger dollar more than offset the benefit of surging sales of its newer prescription medicines. The same day, JPMorgan Chase & Co releases second-quarter results. Separately, Goldman Sachs is expected to report lower second-quarter profit on Thursday. Intel Corp is expected to report second-quarter revenue and profit below analysts' expectations on Wednesday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. General Electric reports second-quarter earnings on Friday, with Wall Street eyeing updates on the U.S. conglomerate's desired portfolio moves as it seeks to become a more focused industrial company. UnitedHealth Group Inc will report second-quarter earnings on Thursday. The quarter is expected to be a strong one for UnitedHealth, whose technology and pharmacy management business has helped it report regular growth in quarterly operating profit.
Google Inc, the operator of the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Thursday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data, hurt by the impact of a stronger dollar. Google, which generates about half of its revenue outside the United States, has also faced challenges in mobile advertising and it is investing heavily in new businesses.
Citigroup Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The most international of banks based in the United States is expected to see quarterly profits rebound sharply from a year earlier, when net income was all but obliterated by high legal and restructuring costs. Separately, Wells Fargo & Co will also report second-quarter results on Tuesday. The bank's mortgage banking business is expected to do well during the quarter as more people buy new homes in an improving economy. On Wednesday, Bank of America Corp is expected to report an increase in its second-quarter profit. The bank's results from fixed-income trading are expected to lag those of competitors because it is more heavily weighted toward trading credit instruments such as corporate bonds and it handles relatively fewer interest rate-sensitive government securities, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson warned investors in June.
The U.S. Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index for June on Friday. The index is expected to have risen at a slower pace than in the previous month. Separately, the department will issue on Wednesday its June producer price index for final demand. On the same day, the Federal Reserve releases data for June industrial output, which is expected to have risen 0.2 percent after falling 0.2 percent in May. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department issues June retail sales data on Tuesday. Economists expect retail sales, which surged 1.2 percent in May, to have risen just 0.3 percent in June. On Friday, the University of Michigan's preliminary reading on its overall index on consumer sentiment for July is expected to come at 96.0 compared with a final reading of 96.1 for the previous month. Also, the Federal Reserve issues its so-called Beige Book on Wednesday.
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George speaks on economic conditions and monetary policy before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 2015 Agricultural Symposium in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester speaks on the economic outlook and participates in live interview before the Columbus Metropolitan Club Forum in Columbus, Ohio. The same day, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams will speak on the economic outlook before the Mesa Chamber of Commerce in Mesa, Arizona and in another event, he will also give a brief summary on the economy before a Greater Phoenix Economic Council panel on economic trends in Phoenix, Arizona.
On Thursday, e-commerce company eBay Inc is expected to report second-quarter revenue below expectations, according to some analysts. Revenue from the company's marketplace business, which includes its e-commerce platform ebay.com, fell last quarter, hurt by increasing competition from rivals such as Amazon.com and changes in Google's search algorithms. Investors will be looking for signs of a turnaround at eBay's marketplace business. They will also look for any commentary from the company regarding post-spinoff valuation of the marketplace business.
Schlumberger Ltd, the world's No.1 oilfield services provider, is expected to report a fall in second-quarter profit on Thursday as lower oil prices weigh on global drilling activity. Schlumberger, which has cut 20,000 jobs this year, has swiftly controlled costs to maintain margins in a weak commodity market. With oil prices staying around $50 per barrel, a handful of optimistic shale producers are looking to deploy more rigs. Investors will also look for comments on pricing and expectations for industry spending in the second half of the year. Another topic of interest this quarter is the company's pending deal with Russia's Eurasia Drilling.
BlackRock Inc, the world's largest asset manager, will report second-quarter results on Wednesday. Investors will await Chief Executive Larry Fink's comments on the results, the markets, Greece and China, among other issues.
Charles Schwab Corp will report its second-quarter results on Thursday. Analysts expect the company's profit to rise to 24 cents per share from 23 cents a year earlier, helped by higher fees for advisory accounts and slightly higher trading commissions. But the big revenue bonus that Schwab expects from investing cash it will get in its clients account once rates rise remains evasive, amid signs that the Federal Reserve may again delay rate hikes.
Delta Air Lines Inc is expected to post second-quarter results in line with analysts' expectations on Wednesday. However, investors will want to know how the airline plans to respond to falling demand abroad due to a stronger dollar, a regulatory investigation into U.S. airlines' capacity plans and pilots' decision to reject management's proposal for a new contract.
Yum Brands reports second-quarter results on Tuesday. Yum's China business remains in the spotlight as it fights to recover from a food scandal in its biggest market for profit. Analysts say that the company is suffering from "brand fatigue" in China, where competition is mounting and its image has been hurt by food scares that have raised doubts over its supply chain. The KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chain owner said it expected another tough quarter before a recovery in China, but this recovery could be pushed further as consumers cut back on discretionary spending amid an economic slowdown and fears stemming from the sharp decline in the Chinese stock market over the past few weeks. Investors will be looking for outlook and commentary on the impact from recent developments in China. Profit and sales are expected to beat a generally low bar for second-quarter estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
Netflix Inc, a TV and movie streaming service provider, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Wednesday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue above estimates, according to analysts, as it is expected to sign up more video streaming subscribers than previously expected. The cost of driving subscriber growth has been high as Netflix continues to invest heavily in international markets, but it is yet to see any profits from outside the United States.
Kinder Morgan Inc, the leading U.S. pipeline company, is expected to report a lower second-quarter profit on Wednesday, but the focus this quarter will be on the company's reorganization. Kinder Morgan shed its tax-advantaged master limited partnership structure last August by folding its units into one publicly traded corporation in a $70-billion deal. Investors will see if the new structure will help allay concerns about the company's growth prospects and complicated financial structure. The company has said the reorganization would help it grow its dividend by about 10 percent a year and clock bigger income tax savings.
Domino's Pizza Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The second-largest U.S. pizza chain is expected to report revenue below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Chief Executive Patrick Doyle has said the company would need to raise minimum wage to stay competitive following McDonald's announcement of wage hikes in April. Investors will look out for any related announcement and updates on commodity costs, which the company said are likely to come down after cheese prices soared last year.
On Thursday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc is expected to report second-quarter earnings below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data. The company lowered its revenue estimate for the second quarter on Monday, citing weaker-than-expected demand for personal computers. All eyes will be on weak PC sales and whether the company can mitigate some of the impact with cost cuts.
Barbie doll and Fisher-Price toys maker Mattel Inc is expected to report on Thursday second-quarter revenue above the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. The company will report its first quarter under new Chief Executive Christopher Sinclair, who took the top post in April. Sinclair has said Mattel needs to move urgently to create toys that connect with young customers in the face of flagging Barbie sales. Investors will look for announcements from Sinclair, a former Pepsi executive, on how he plans to turn around Mattel and make it more competitive, and any updates on the company's preparations for the holiday season.
Honeywell International Inc, a major manufacturer of aircraft electronics and climate control systems, is expected to report second-quarter results below analysts' expectations on Friday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Honeywell said in April that it expected a stronger dollar to hurt revenue by 4-6 percent in the quarter ended June. Investors will be looking for updated comments on how Honeywell expects the dollar to affect business in the full year.
The initial public offering of the U.S. deep discount retailer Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc is scheduled for Thursday. Ollie's Bargain operates 181 stores across the United States, selling excess inventory and salvage merchandise such as houseware, sporting goods and toys from manufacturers who make too much of an item or change their packaging. Ollie's net income rose 38 percent to $27 million in fiscal 2014, while revenue increased 18 percent to $638 million.
Bank of Canada announces its rate decision on Wednesday and Governor Stephen Poloz holds a news conference upon the release of the Monetary Policy Report. A series of weak economic data suggesting Canada may already be in recession has prompted a growing minority of economists to predict the central bank may cut rates again, possibly as soon as next week, a Reuters poll has found.
Chile's central bank meets on Tuesday to set the interest rate. The central bank is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate on hold at its current 3.0 percent through the following 11 months, scaling back expectations, according to the median response of 61 analysts and economists surveyed by the bank in a poll. Also, Argentina is due to release June consumer inflation data on Wednesday.
ON MONDAY, JULY 13
Treasury Department issues a monthly budget report for June. The department is expected to post a budget surplus of $51.0 billion in June compared with a $82.4 billion deficit reported in May. (1400/1800)
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union and General Motors Co hold the ceremonial handshake between union president Dennis Williams and company CEO Mary Barra to mark the start of labor negotiations for a new four-year contract for about 51,000 workers. The union has lost power but it can still upset GM's quest to keep labor costs low enough to compete with Japanese, Korean and German automakers with U.S. plants. UAW leaders will bargain with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co later in the week.
LIVECHAT - BITCOIN BITES with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner, Exante With Greek worries contributing to Bitcoin's best run in 18 months and the crypto currency even touted as a possible parallel currency in the Hellenic Republic, has the controversial payment system's time come? We chat with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner at Malta-based brokerage Exante, which previously debuted the world's first Bitcoin-only fund. (0500/0900) To join the Global Markets Forum, click herehttp://bit.ly/1kTxdKD(Compiled by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) || What to Watch in the Week Ahead and on Monday, July 13: (The Day Ahead is an email and PDF publication that includes the day's major stories and events, analyses and other features. To receive The Day Ahead, Eikon users can register at . Thomson One users can register at RT/DAY/US. All times in ET/GMT) WEEK AHEAD The stock market this quarter doesn't get its usual one-week on-ramp to earnings season, instead getting hit with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Intel, Netflix, Google, General Electric Co and Honeywell, all in one week. Add in the political yelling that has become the semi-annual Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony and the ongoing craziness that is Greece's potential exit from the euro zone - to say nothing of China's turmoil - and it should be a lively week for markets, and one that will likely see a lot of volatility. Euro zone finance ministers may make a "major decision" when they hold a special meeting on Saturday to weigh a new Greek proposal for emergency funding. The ministers' conclusions will be reviewed by euro zone leaders at a summit called for on Sunday. Fed Chair Janet Yellen delivers semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday. The July hearing has more drama heading into it than the February testimonies. For one, Yellen starts this time with the House, where she ended last time, after trading some testy exchanges with Republican congressmen. This week's congressional appearance also comes as the Fed appears closer to raising interest rates for the first time since 2006. Yellen's appearance comes just a few weeks after the Fed's last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and two weeks before its next one - so Yellen will be unlikely to drop too many policy hints and changes in this round or testimony, unless she wants to point the market harder to September lift-off. Dow components Johnson & Johnson, General Electric Co, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Intel Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc are scheduled to report quarterly results in the coming week. Johnson & Johnson is expected to report on Tuesday lower second-quarter sales and earnings as weak revenue from medical devices and consumer products and a stronger dollar more than offset the benefit of surging sales of its newer prescription medicines. The same day, JPMorgan Chase & Co releases second-quarter results. Separately, Goldman Sachs is expected to report lower second-quarter profit on Thursday. Intel Corp is expected to report second-quarter revenue and profit below analysts' expectations on Wednesday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. General Electric reports second-quarter earnings on Friday, with Wall Street eyeing updates on the U.S. conglomerate's desired portfolio moves as it seeks to become a more focused industrial company. UnitedHealth Group Inc will report second-quarter earnings on Thursday. The quarter is expected to be a strong one for UnitedHealth, whose technology and pharmacy management business has helped it report regular growth in quarterly operating profit. Story continues Google Inc, the operator of the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Thursday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data, hurt by the impact of a stronger dollar. Google, which generates about half of its revenue outside the United States, has also faced challenges in mobile advertising and it is investing heavily in new businesses. Citigroup Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The most international of banks based in the United States is expected to see quarterly profits rebound sharply from a year earlier, when net income was all but obliterated by high legal and restructuring costs. Separately, Wells Fargo & Co will also report second-quarter results on Tuesday. The bank's mortgage banking business is expected to do well during the quarter as more people buy new homes in an improving economy. On Wednesday, Bank of America Corp is expected to report an increase in its second-quarter profit. The bank's results from fixed-income trading are expected to lag those of competitors because it is more heavily weighted toward trading credit instruments such as corporate bonds and it handles relatively fewer interest rate-sensitive government securities, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson warned investors in June. The U.S. Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index for June on Friday. The index is expected to have risen at a slower pace than in the previous month. Separately, the department will issue on Wednesday its June producer price index for final demand. On the same day, the Federal Reserve releases data for June industrial output, which is expected to have risen 0.2 percent after falling 0.2 percent in May. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department issues June retail sales data on Tuesday. Economists expect retail sales, which surged 1.2 percent in May, to have risen just 0.3 percent in June. On Friday, the University of Michigan's preliminary reading on its overall index on consumer sentiment for July is expected to come at 96.0 compared with a final reading of 96.1 for the previous month. Also, the Federal Reserve issues its so-called Beige Book on Wednesday. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George speaks on economic conditions and monetary policy before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 2015 Agricultural Symposium in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester speaks on the economic outlook and participates in live interview before the Columbus Metropolitan Club Forum in Columbus, Ohio. The same day, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams will speak on the economic outlook before the Mesa Chamber of Commerce in Mesa, Arizona and in another event, he will also give a brief summary on the economy before a Greater Phoenix Economic Council panel on economic trends in Phoenix, Arizona. On Thursday, e-commerce company eBay Inc is expected to report second-quarter revenue below expectations, according to some analysts. Revenue from the company's marketplace business, which includes its e-commerce platform ebay.com, fell last quarter, hurt by increasing competition from rivals such as Amazon.com and changes in Google's search algorithms. Investors will be looking for signs of a turnaround at eBay's marketplace business. They will also look for any commentary from the company regarding post-spinoff valuation of the marketplace business. Schlumberger Ltd, the world's No.1 oilfield services provider, is expected to report a fall in second-quarter profit on Thursday as lower oil prices weigh on global drilling activity. Schlumberger, which has cut 20,000 jobs this year, has swiftly controlled costs to maintain margins in a weak commodity market. With oil prices staying around $50 per barrel, a handful of optimistic shale producers are looking to deploy more rigs. Investors will also look for comments on pricing and expectations for industry spending in the second half of the year. Another topic of interest this quarter is the company's pending deal with Russia's Eurasia Drilling. BlackRock Inc, the world's largest asset manager, will report second-quarter results on Wednesday. Investors will await Chief Executive Larry Fink's comments on the results, the markets, Greece and China, among other issues. Charles Schwab Corp will report its second-quarter results on Thursday. Analysts expect the company's profit to rise to 24 cents per share from 23 cents a year earlier, helped by higher fees for advisory accounts and slightly higher trading commissions. But the big revenue bonus that Schwab expects from investing cash it will get in its clients account once rates rise remains evasive, amid signs that the Federal Reserve may again delay rate hikes. Delta Air Lines Inc is expected to post second-quarter results in line with analysts' expectations on Wednesday. However, investors will want to know how the airline plans to respond to falling demand abroad due to a stronger dollar, a regulatory investigation into U.S. airlines' capacity plans and pilots' decision to reject management's proposal for a new contract. Yum Brands reports second-quarter results on Tuesday. Yum's China business remains in the spotlight as it fights to recover from a food scandal in its biggest market for profit. Analysts say that the company is suffering from "brand fatigue" in China, where competition is mounting and its image has been hurt by food scares that have raised doubts over its supply chain. The KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chain owner said it expected another tough quarter before a recovery in China, but this recovery could be pushed further as consumers cut back on discretionary spending amid an economic slowdown and fears stemming from the sharp decline in the Chinese stock market over the past few weeks. Investors will be looking for outlook and commentary on the impact from recent developments in China. Profit and sales are expected to beat a generally low bar for second-quarter estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Netflix Inc, a TV and movie streaming service provider, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Wednesday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue above estimates, according to analysts, as it is expected to sign up more video streaming subscribers than previously expected. The cost of driving subscriber growth has been high as Netflix continues to invest heavily in international markets, but it is yet to see any profits from outside the United States. Kinder Morgan Inc, the leading U.S. pipeline company, is expected to report a lower second-quarter profit on Wednesday, but the focus this quarter will be on the company's reorganization. Kinder Morgan shed its tax-advantaged master limited partnership structure last August by folding its units into one publicly traded corporation in a $70-billion deal. Investors will see if the new structure will help allay concerns about the company's growth prospects and complicated financial structure. The company has said the reorganization would help it grow its dividend by about 10 percent a year and clock bigger income tax savings. Domino's Pizza Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The second-largest U.S. pizza chain is expected to report revenue below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Chief Executive Patrick Doyle has said the company would need to raise minimum wage to stay competitive following McDonald's announcement of wage hikes in April. Investors will look out for any related announcement and updates on commodity costs, which the company said are likely to come down after cheese prices soared last year. On Thursday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc is expected to report second-quarter earnings below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data. The company lowered its revenue estimate for the second quarter on Monday, citing weaker-than-expected demand for personal computers. All eyes will be on weak PC sales and whether the company can mitigate some of the impact with cost cuts. Barbie doll and Fisher-Price toys maker Mattel Inc is expected to report on Thursday second-quarter revenue above the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. The company will report its first quarter under new Chief Executive Christopher Sinclair, who took the top post in April. Sinclair has said Mattel needs to move urgently to create toys that connect with young customers in the face of flagging Barbie sales. Investors will look for announcements from Sinclair, a former Pepsi executive, on how he plans to turn around Mattel and make it more competitive, and any updates on the company's preparations for the holiday season. Honeywell International Inc, a major manufacturer of aircraft electronics and climate control systems, is expected to report second-quarter results below analysts' expectations on Friday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Honeywell said in April that it expected a stronger dollar to hurt revenue by 4-6 percent in the quarter ended June. Investors will be looking for updated comments on how Honeywell expects the dollar to affect business in the full year. The initial public offering of the U.S. deep discount retailer Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc is scheduled for Thursday. Ollie's Bargain operates 181 stores across the United States, selling excess inventory and salvage merchandise such as houseware, sporting goods and toys from manufacturers who make too much of an item or change their packaging. Ollie's net income rose 38 percent to $27 million in fiscal 2014, while revenue increased 18 percent to $638 million. Bank of Canada announces its rate decision on Wednesday and Governor Stephen Poloz holds a news conference upon the release of the Monetary Policy Report. A series of weak economic data suggesting Canada may already be in recession has prompted a growing minority of economists to predict the central bank may cut rates again, possibly as soon as next week, a Reuters poll has found. Chile's central bank meets on Tuesday to set the interest rate. The central bank is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate on hold at its current 3.0 percent through the following 11 months, scaling back expectations, according to the median response of 61 analysts and economists surveyed by the bank in a poll. Also, Argentina is due to release June consumer inflation data on Wednesday. ON MONDAY, JULY 13 Treasury Department issues a monthly budget report for June. The department is expected to post a budget surplus of $51.0 billion in June compared with a $82.4 billion deficit reported in May. (1400/1800) The United Auto Workers (UAW) union and General Motors Co hold the ceremonial handshake between union president Dennis Williams and company CEO Mary Barra to mark the start of labor negotiations for a new four-year contract for about 51,000 workers. The union has lost power but it can still upset GM's quest to keep labor costs low enough to compete with Japanese, Korean and German automakers with U.S. plants. UAW leaders will bargain with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co later in the week. LIVECHAT - BITCOIN BITES with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner, Exante With Greek worries contributing to Bitcoin's best run in 18 months and the crypto currency even touted as a possible parallel currency in the Hellenic Republic, has the controversial payment system's time come? We chat with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner at Malta-based brokerage Exante, which previously debuted the world's first Bitcoin-only fund. (0500/0900) To join the Global Markets Forum, click here http://bit.ly/1kTxdKD (Compiled by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) || Bitcoin Under Attack?: The recent turmoil in Greece, which has included the government institution of withdrawal limits at major banks, should have presented a major opportunity for bitcoin to gain positive media attention. With Greek citizens flocking to buy bitcoin during bank closures, the virtual currency should be enjoying media exposure as a stable, safe alternative currency for the Greek people. Rough Weekend Instead, this week has been disastrous for bitcoin. This past weekend, untimely software updates at bitcoin delayed payment confirmations by up to five hours . However, at least those issues were not malicious. Related Link: Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin Under Attack For the past couple of days, bitcoin has been under attack by... someone. According to The Merkle , the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack this week on the cryptocurrency has been bogging down the bitcoin blockchain, the public record of bitcoin transactions. How It Works The responsible party is performing dozens of transactions per minute involving minuscule amounts of bitcoin (0.00001 BTC). Because of the tiny amount of the currency that is involved in each transaction, the spamming efforts are costing the perpetrator only about $0.08 per pop, but the constant barrage of orders has single-handedly filled up each 1 MB block that enters the blockchain. Who Is Responsible? When the largest bitcoin transaction ever made was processed on Tuesday, onlookers initially suspected the Chinese bitcoin mining group F2Pool of orchestrating the attack. However, according to Motherboard, F2Pool was simply trying to clear out the spam by mining the huge, 999KB block. What Now? Unfortunately, in the digital world of cryptography, it can be nearly impossible to determine the identity of the attackers in a scenario such as this one. For now bitcoin must simply try to figure out the best way to stop the attack and/or roll with the punches. See more from Benzinga Gartman: We're Headed Toward 'Fruits Of Fracking,' Net Exports In U.S. Oil Exclusive: 2015 Sentiment Analysis Symposium Preview Greece Is Bad, But China Is Much Worse © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Under Attack?: The recent turmoil in Greece, which has included the government institution of withdrawal limits at major banks, should have presented a major opportunity for bitcoin to gain positive media attention. With Greek citizens flocking to buy bitcoin during bank closures, the virtual currency should be enjoying media exposure as a stable, safe alternative currency for the Greek people.
Rough Weekend
Instead, this week has been disastrous for bitcoin. This past weekend, untimely software updates at bitcoin delayed payment confirmations by up tofive hours. However, at least those issues were not malicious.
Related Link:Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin
Under Attack
For the past couple of days, bitcoin has been under attack by... someone. According toThe Merkle, the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack this week on the cryptocurrency has been bogging down the bitcoin blockchain, the public record of bitcoin transactions.
How It Works
The responsible party is performing dozens of transactions per minute involving minuscule amounts of bitcoin (0.00001 BTC). Because of the tiny amount of the currency that is involved in each transaction, the spamming efforts are costing the perpetrator only about $0.08 per pop, but the constant barrage of orders has single-handedly filled up each 1 MB block that enters the blockchain.
Who Is Responsible?
When the largest bitcoin transaction ever made was processed on Tuesday, onlookers initially suspected the Chinese bitcoin mining group F2Pool of orchestrating the attack. However, according to Motherboard, F2Pool was simply trying to clear out the spam by mining the huge, 999KB block.
What Now?
Unfortunately, in the digital world of cryptography, it can be nearly impossible to determine the identity of the attackers in a scenario such as this one. For now bitcoin must simply try to figure out the best way to stop the attack and/or roll with the punches.
See more from Benzinga
• Gartman: We're Headed Toward 'Fruits Of Fracking,' Net Exports In U.S. Oil
• Exclusive: 2015 Sentiment Analysis Symposium Preview
• Greece Is Bad, But China Is Much Worse
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Under Attack?: The recent turmoil in Greece, which has included the government institution of withdrawal limits at major banks, should have presented a major opportunity for bitcoin to gain positive media attention. With Greek citizens flocking to buy bitcoin during bank closures, the virtual currency should be enjoying media exposure as a stable, safe alternative currency for the Greek people.
Rough Weekend
Instead, this week has been disastrous for bitcoin. This past weekend, untimely software updates at bitcoin delayed payment confirmations by up tofive hours. However, at least those issues were not malicious.
Related Link:Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin
Under Attack
For the past couple of days, bitcoin has been under attack by... someone. According toThe Merkle, the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack this week on the cryptocurrency has been bogging down the bitcoin blockchain, the public record of bitcoin transactions.
How It Works
The responsible party is performing dozens of transactions per minute involving minuscule amounts of bitcoin (0.00001 BTC). Because of the tiny amount of the currency that is involved in each transaction, the spamming efforts are costing the perpetrator only about $0.08 per pop, but the constant barrage of orders has single-handedly filled up each 1 MB block that enters the blockchain.
Who Is Responsible?
When the largest bitcoin transaction ever made was processed on Tuesday, onlookers initially suspected the Chinese bitcoin mining group F2Pool of orchestrating the attack. However, according to Motherboard, F2Pool was simply trying to clear out the spam by mining the huge, 999KB block.
What Now?
Unfortunately, in the digital world of cryptography, it can be nearly impossible to determine the identity of the attackers in a scenario such as this one. For now bitcoin must simply try to figure out the best way to stop the attack and/or roll with the punches.
See more from Benzinga
• Gartman: We're Headed Toward 'Fruits Of Fracking,' Net Exports In U.S. Oil
• Exclusive: 2015 Sentiment Analysis Symposium Preview
• Greece Is Bad, But China Is Much Worse
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin: In a report authored by Gil Luria and Aaron Turner, Wedbush Securities predicted a bright future for the Bitcoin Investment Trust as well as for the cryptocurrency itself. Though the firm acknowledged the volatility risks associated with bitcoin, it said it ultimately sees the currency continuing to penetrate new markets and expand across the globe. Publicly Traded Bitcoin The Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTC: GBTC ) became the first ever publicly traded bitcoin fund back in March and has since garnered a lot of attention. Wedbush analysts said they see bitcoin's growing popularity pushing GBTC from its current valuation of $30.60 to $40 by next year. Related Link: Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries? Bitcoin Transactions On The Rise The firm also said that it saw bitcoin increasing in value to as much as $400 in the coming year as more and more people adopt the currency to facilitate online transactions. Wedbush said that the relatively low-cost transaction fees associated with using bitcoin will give the currency a leg up against other e-commerce payment methods like credit cards or Pay Pal . Banking For The Unbanked Wedbush analysts also said they saw potential for bitcoin in developing and struggling economies where the financial system isn't very secure or accessible. The firm cited the situation in Greece and the rise in bitcoin's popularity as capital controls took hold of the nation's financial institutions as a good indicator of bitcoin's potential in that arena. Risks Still Evident While the Wedbush report was mostly positive, the firm did acknowledge the potential for uncertainty when it comes to bitcoin trading. The company underscored that the currency does have a history of volatile price swings and that there is a possibility that bitcoin will lose the majority of its value. Latest Ratings for GBTC Jul 2015 Wedbush Initiates Coverage on Outperform View More Analyst Ratings for GBTC View the Latest Analyst Ratings Story continues See more from Benzinga Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China? Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos? When Luxury Goes Digital © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin: In areportauthored by Gil Luria and Aaron Turner, Wedbush Securities predicted a bright future for the Bitcoin Investment Trust as well as for the cryptocurrency itself. Though the firm acknowledged the volatility risks associated with bitcoin, it said it ultimately sees the currency continuing to penetrate new markets and expand across the globe.
Publicly Traded Bitcoin
TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) became the first ever publicly traded bitcoin fund back in March and has since garnered a lot of attention. Wedbush analysts said they see bitcoin's growing popularity pushing GBTC from its current valuation of $30.60 to $40 by next year.
Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries?
Bitcoin Transactions On The Rise
The firm also said that it saw bitcoin increasing in value to as much as $400 in the coming year as more and more people adopt the currency to facilitate online transactions. Wedbush said that the relatively low-cost transaction fees associated with using bitcoin will give the currency a leg up against other e-commerce payment methods like credit cards orPay Pal.
Banking For The Unbanked
Wedbush analysts also said they saw potential for bitcoin in developing and struggling economies where the financial system isn't very secure or accessible. The firm cited the situation in Greece and the rise in bitcoin's popularity as capital controls took hold of the nation's financial institutions as a good indicator of bitcoin's potential in that arena.
Risks Still Evident
While the Wedbush report was mostly positive, the firm did acknowledge the potential for uncertainty when it comes to bitcoin trading. The company underscored that the currency does have a history of volatile price swings and that there is a possibility that bitcoin will lose the majority of its value.
Latest Ratings for GBTC
[]
View More Analyst Ratings for GBTCView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China?
• Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos?
• When Luxury Goes Digital
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin: In areportauthored by Gil Luria and Aaron Turner, Wedbush Securities predicted a bright future for the Bitcoin Investment Trust as well as for the cryptocurrency itself. Though the firm acknowledged the volatility risks associated with bitcoin, it said it ultimately sees the currency continuing to penetrate new markets and expand across the globe.
Publicly Traded Bitcoin
TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) became the first ever publicly traded bitcoin fund back in March and has since garnered a lot of attention. Wedbush analysts said they see bitcoin's growing popularity pushing GBTC from its current valuation of $30.60 to $40 by next year.
Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries?
Bitcoin Transactions On The Rise
The firm also said that it saw bitcoin increasing in value to as much as $400 in the coming year as more and more people adopt the currency to facilitate online transactions. Wedbush said that the relatively low-cost transaction fees associated with using bitcoin will give the currency a leg up against other e-commerce payment methods like credit cards orPay Pal.
Banking For The Unbanked
Wedbush analysts also said they saw potential for bitcoin in developing and struggling economies where the financial system isn't very secure or accessible. The firm cited the situation in Greece and the rise in bitcoin's popularity as capital controls took hold of the nation's financial institutions as a good indicator of bitcoin's potential in that arena.
Risks Still Evident
While the Wedbush report was mostly positive, the firm did acknowledge the potential for uncertainty when it comes to bitcoin trading. The company underscored that the currency does have a history of volatile price swings and that there is a possibility that bitcoin will lose the majority of its value.
Latest Ratings for GBTC
[]
View More Analyst Ratings for GBTCView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China?
• Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos?
• When Luxury Goes Digital
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Block26 Leads Seed Round in Bitcoin Wallet Platform Airbitz With $450,000 Investment: LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - July 10, 2015) -Block26, the blockchain venture firm, today announced that it has invested $450,000 in Airbitz Inc., a digital wallet platform. Block26 joins Airbitz Board of Directors while leading a $1,250,000 seed round expected to close later this summer. The $450,000 infusion marks the first investment from Block26, led by Co-Founders Ni'coel Stark and Pedram Hasid, in the hot Bitcoin technology space. Airbitz was awarded first place at the 2015 Inside Bitcoin NYC startup competition and was named one of AlwaysOn OnFinance's 50 Companies to Watch in 2015.
Airbitz's decentralized and open source platform solves many of the current usability, security and privacy issues inherent in the current generation of bitcoin wallets. Airbitz is a remarkably easy-to-use and intelligently designed wallet that allows users to receive, store, or send funds with confidence. The digital wallet software is protected by ironclad and effortless security that prevents any third party from accessing user funds or data, including Airbitz itself, and features the world's first one-touch 2-factor authentication.
Available for iOS and Android, Airbitz automatically encrypts, secures and backs up user data without requiring complicated user prompts, and the decentralized server architecture ensures that Airbitz wallets are functional even if company servers are disabled. Altogether, Airbitz provides the familiar feel and functionality of mobile banking while implementing blockchain operations under the hood, reducing friction and making Bitcoin universally approachable and usable. Block26 understands that this same technology has the potential to disrupt arenas beyond digital currency.
Block26 Co-Founder and Managing Principal Ni'coel Stark said, "Block26 is making its first investment in Airbitz because not only is it the best digital wallet for consumers, it is far more than a wallet. Airbitz technology enables a multifaceted financial tool, an extraordinary implementation on edge security, and a whole new contribution to the Internet of Things. Block26 is excited to empower Airbitz solutions in revolutionizing transaction, authentication and security processes."
Airbitz is led by CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey, a former Nvidia senior engineer and a prominent leader of Bitcoin advocacy in Southern California. The Airbitz leadership team includes CTO and Co-Founder Tim Horton, the former CTO of startup Breadcrumbs Inc.,; VP Design and Co-Founder Damian Cutillo, formerly Co-Founder at Breadcrumbs Inc.; Chief Architect and Co-Founder William Swanson, the core developer of Libbitcoin; and COO Rick "Henri" Chan, Co-Founder of AlphaPoint with 15 years experience at finance and technology firms including Robertson Stephens, Deutsche Bank and UBS Financial Services.
Airbitz CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey said, "Airbitz is tremendously honored to have Block26 as our partner and lead investor. Their core focus on bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralized technologies is perfectly inline with the DNA of Airbitz founders. Block26 brings incredible experience in building highly tuned team dynamics and they see the value in people, companies, and industries that aren't afraid to disrupt the status quo. We look forward to building a decentralized world with their passion and support at our side."
Airbitz COO Rick "Henri" Chan added, "Block26 is more than an investor to Airbitz; they are an integral partner in our rapid development. We look forward to closely working with Block26 as partners in building a company that thrives as it grows. Block26's unique financial model allows for a flexible investment strategy that could provide Airbitz and other portfolio companies with early stage capital, with the capacity to provide bridge funding as well. For these reasons and many more, we greatly look forward to Block26 joining our Board."
For more information, visit Airbitz atwww.airbitz.coor Block26 atwww.block26.com. || Block26 Leads Seed Round in Bitcoin Wallet Platform Airbitz With $450,000 Investment: LOS ANGELES, CA --(Marketwired - July 10, 2015) - Block26, the blockchain venture firm, today announced that it has invested $450,000 in Airbitz Inc., a digital wallet platform. Block26 joins Airbitz Board of Directors while leading a $1,250,000 seed round expected to close later this summer. The $450,000 infusion marks the first investment from Block26, led by Co-Founders Ni'coel Stark and Pedram Hasid, in the hot Bitcoin technology space. Airbitz was awarded first place at the 2015 Inside Bitcoin NYC startup competition and was named one of AlwaysOn OnFinance's 50 Companies to Watch in 2015. Airbitz's decentralized and open source platform solves many of the current usability, security and privacy issues inherent in the current generation of bitcoin wallets. Airbitz is a remarkably easy-to-use and intelligently designed wallet that allows users to receive, store, or send funds with confidence. The digital wallet software is protected by ironclad and effortless security that prevents any third party from accessing user funds or data, including Airbitz itself, and features the world's first one-touch 2-factor authentication. Available for iOS and Android, Airbitz automatically encrypts, secures and backs up user data without requiring complicated user prompts, and the decentralized server architecture ensures that Airbitz wallets are functional even if company servers are disabled. Altogether, Airbitz provides the familiar feel and functionality of mobile banking while implementing blockchain operations under the hood, reducing friction and making Bitcoin universally approachable and usable. Block26 understands that this same technology has the potential to disrupt arenas beyond digital currency. Block26 Co-Founder and Managing Principal Ni'coel Stark said, "Block26 is making its first investment in Airbitz because not only is it the best digital wallet for consumers, it is far more than a wallet. Airbitz technology enables a multifaceted financial tool, an extraordinary implementation on edge security, and a whole new contribution to the Internet of Things. Block26 is excited to empower Airbitz solutions in revolutionizing transaction, authentication and security processes." Airbitz is led by CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey, a former Nvidia senior engineer and a prominent leader of Bitcoin advocacy in Southern California. The Airbitz leadership team includes CTO and Co-Founder Tim Horton, the former CTO of startup Breadcrumbs Inc.,; VP Design and Co-Founder Damian Cutillo, formerly Co-Founder at Breadcrumbs Inc.; Chief Architect and Co-Founder William Swanson, the core developer of Libbitcoin; and COO Rick "Henri" Chan, Co-Founder of AlphaPoint with 15 years experience at finance and technology firms including Robertson Stephens, Deutsche Bank and UBS Financial Services. Story continues Airbitz CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey said, "Airbitz is tremendously honored to have Block26 as our partner and lead investor. Their core focus on bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralized technologies is perfectly inline with the DNA of Airbitz founders. Block26 brings incredible experience in building highly tuned team dynamics and they see the value in people, companies, and industries that aren't afraid to disrupt the status quo. We look forward to building a decentralized world with their passion and support at our side." Airbitz COO Rick "Henri" Chan added, "Block26 is more than an investor to Airbitz; they are an integral partner in our rapid development. We look forward to closely working with Block26 as partners in building a company that thrives as it grows. Block26's unique financial model allows for a flexible investment strategy that could provide Airbitz and other portfolio companies with early stage capital, with the capacity to provide bridge funding as well. For these reasons and many more, we greatly look forward to Block26 joining our Board." For more information, visit Airbitz at www.airbitz.co or Block26 at www.block26.com . View comments || Block26 Leads Seed Round in Bitcoin Wallet Platform Airbitz With $450,000 Investment: LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - July 10, 2015) -Block26, the blockchain venture firm, today announced that it has invested $450,000 in Airbitz Inc., a digital wallet platform. Block26 joins Airbitz Board of Directors while leading a $1,250,000 seed round expected to close later this summer. The $450,000 infusion marks the first investment from Block26, led by Co-Founders Ni'coel Stark and Pedram Hasid, in the hot Bitcoin technology space. Airbitz was awarded first place at the 2015 Inside Bitcoin NYC startup competition and was named one of AlwaysOn OnFinance's 50 Companies to Watch in 2015.
Airbitz's decentralized and open source platform solves many of the current usability, security and privacy issues inherent in the current generation of bitcoin wallets. Airbitz is a remarkably easy-to-use and intelligently designed wallet that allows users to receive, store, or send funds with confidence. The digital wallet software is protected by ironclad and effortless security that prevents any third party from accessing user funds or data, including Airbitz itself, and features the world's first one-touch 2-factor authentication.
Available for iOS and Android, Airbitz automatically encrypts, secures and backs up user data without requiring complicated user prompts, and the decentralized server architecture ensures that Airbitz wallets are functional even if company servers are disabled. Altogether, Airbitz provides the familiar feel and functionality of mobile banking while implementing blockchain operations under the hood, reducing friction and making Bitcoin universally approachable and usable. Block26 understands that this same technology has the potential to disrupt arenas beyond digital currency.
Block26 Co-Founder and Managing Principal Ni'coel Stark said, "Block26 is making its first investment in Airbitz because not only is it the best digital wallet for consumers, it is far more than a wallet. Airbitz technology enables a multifaceted financial tool, an extraordinary implementation on edge security, and a whole new contribution to the Internet of Things. Block26 is excited to empower Airbitz solutions in revolutionizing transaction, authentication and security processes."
Airbitz is led by CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey, a former Nvidia senior engineer and a prominent leader of Bitcoin advocacy in Southern California. The Airbitz leadership team includes CTO and Co-Founder Tim Horton, the former CTO of startup Breadcrumbs Inc.,; VP Design and Co-Founder Damian Cutillo, formerly Co-Founder at Breadcrumbs Inc.; Chief Architect and Co-Founder William Swanson, the core developer of Libbitcoin; and COO Rick "Henri" Chan, Co-Founder of AlphaPoint with 15 years experience at finance and technology firms including Robertson Stephens, Deutsche Bank and UBS Financial Services.
Airbitz CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey said, "Airbitz is tremendously honored to have Block26 as our partner and lead investor. Their core focus on bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralized technologies is perfectly inline with the DNA of Airbitz founders. Block26 brings incredible experience in building highly tuned team dynamics and they see the value in people, companies, and industries that aren't afraid to disrupt the status quo. We look forward to building a decentralized world with their passion and support at our side."
Airbitz COO Rick "Henri" Chan added, "Block26 is more than an investor to Airbitz; they are an integral partner in our rapid development. We look forward to closely working with Block26 as partners in building a company that thrives as it grows. Block26's unique financial model allows for a flexible investment strategy that could provide Airbitz and other portfolio companies with early stage capital, with the capacity to provide bridge funding as well. For these reasons and many more, we greatly look forward to Block26 joining our Board."
For more information, visit Airbitz atwww.airbitz.coor Block26 atwww.block26.com. || Your first trade for Friday, July 10: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Jon Najarian was a buyer of KATE (NYSE: KATE) . Brian Kelly was a seller of IYT (NYSE Arca: IYT) . Karen Finerman was a buyer of JPM (NYSE: JPM) . Guy Adami was a buyer of Z (NASDAQ: Z) . Trader disclosure: On July 9, 2015, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Karen Finerman is long BABA, BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, M, URI, BABA puts, she is short SPY, Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, DIS, FBT, FINL, FL, GILD, GOOG, GOOGL, GPS, IBB, JPM, KORS, M, SUNE, URI, XBI, KORS call spreads, URI calls, KORS puts, SPY put spreads, her firm is short IWM, SPY, MDY, Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Jon Najarian is long AEP, GE, HOG, PG, XLE he is long calls ARG, BAX, CAH, CMCSA, CTXS, CVC, DD, EXPR, GE, GLD, HZNP, JPM, KATE, NUAN, ORCL, PG, PRU, SO, T, TXT, WMT, he is long puts SODA, VALE. Today he bought JPM calls, KATE calls, PRU calls, T calls, and TXT calls. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TAN, TLT, TSL, Euro; Yuan, and Yen. Today he sold U.S. 30-year bonds. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Your first trade for Friday, July 10: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Jon Najarian was a buyer of KATE(NYSE: KATE).
Brian Kelly was a seller of IYT(NYSE Arca: IYT).
Karen Finerman was a buyer of JPM(NYSE: JPM).
Guy Adami was a buyer of Z(NASDAQ: Z).
Trader disclosure: On July 9, 2015, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Karen Finerman is long BABA, BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, M, URI, BABA puts, she is short SPY, Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, DIS, FBT, FINL, FL, GILD, GOOG, GOOGL, GPS, IBB, JPM, KORS, M, SUNE, URI, XBI, KORS call spreads, URI calls, KORS puts, SPY put spreads, her firm is short IWM, SPY, MDY, Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Jon Najarian is long AEP, GE, HOG, PG, XLE he is long calls ARG, BAX, CAH, CMCSA, CTXS, CVC, DD, EXPR, GE, GLD, HZNP, JPM, KATE, NUAN, ORCL, PG, PRU, SO, T, TXT, WMT, he is long puts SODA, VALE. Today he bought JPM calls, KATE calls, PRU calls, T calls, and TXT calls. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TAN, TLT, TSL, Euro; Yuan, and Yen. Today he sold U.S. 30-year bonds.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China?: It is an uncertain time for markets as turmoil in two of the world's largest markets, China and Europe, has rocked investors' confidence. Both regions share markets are suffering, although for two very different reasons.
Greek Bailout In Tatters
In Greece, bailout negotiations all but fell apart over the weekend after Greeks voted down the EU's latest funding proposal, giving Syriza-backed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras more bargaining power.
This week, EU leaders have been urging Tsipras to submit a new proposal that will meet their standards in hopes of striking an eleventh hour deal before the nation defaults on an upcoming European Central Bank loan repayment.
The nation's financial system is teetering on collapse with capital controls restricting the movement of money keeping Greek banks together by a thread.
Bailout Request
On Wednesday, Greek officialsrequesteda three year bailout from the region's emergency rescue fund in exchange for some of the structural reforms that Greece's creditors have been demanding.
The offer has yet to be accepted by Greece's EU creditors, who have been demanding that the nation show a real commitment to reform. So far, Tsipras has been unwilling to budge on things like pension cuts and tax increases, which EU leaders say are necessary.
China's Market Decline
Chinese share markets have been on the decline since mid-June and the government's attempts to keep the market afloat have proven futile so far. On Wednesday, the Shanghai Composite Index finished 5.9 percent lower despite new emergency measures designed to stem the fall.
Chinese regulatorshave made it illegal for those holding more than 5 percent of a company's shares to sell after buying up large numbers of small-cap stocks in an effort to slow the market's fall.
A Crisis Of Confidence
In both China and Greece, a question of confidence has been at the root of investors' concerns. However, many believe that the situation in China is much more dire.
Traders are beginning to lose faith in the government's ability to stop the market's decline and some are beginning to talk of a bubble burst. Chinese markets have been rife with investor loans and many saw shares as overvalued, so some believe that the rapid decline has been a consequence of an overinflated market.
See more from Benzinga
• Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos?
• When Luxury Goes Digital
• MovieTickets Sees Benefit In Adding Bitcoin
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
Bitcoin traded at $297.64 USD on BTC-e at 03:00 AM Pacific Time || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 15 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,870.90 #bitcoin #btc || bitcoin rate-2015-07-11 PDT start_rate:$290.87 last_rate:$300.00(3.14%) #coinbase http://www.moneysedge.com/bitcoin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 19 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,086.30 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 308.71$ $BTCUSD ...
|
292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18, 3998.98, 4078.60, 3815.49, 3857.30, 3654.83, 3923.92, 3820.41, 3865.95, 3742.70, 3843.52, 3943.41, 3836.74, 3857.72, 3845.19, 4076.63, 4025.25, 4030.85, 4035.30, 3678.92, 3687.37, 3661.30, 3552.95, 3706.05, 3630.68, 3655.01, 3678.56, 3657.84, 3728.57, 3601.01, 3576.03, 3604.58, 3585.12, 3600.87, 3599.77, 3602.46, 3583.97, 3470.45, 3448.12, 3486.18, 3457.79, 3487.95, 3521.06, 3464.01, 3459.15, 3466.36, 3413.77, 3399.47, 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09, 3999.82, 3954.12, 4005.53, 4142.53, 3810.43, 3882.70, 3854.36, 3851.05, 3854.79, 3859.58, 3864.42, 3847.18, 3761.56, 3896.38, 3903.94, 3911.48, 3901.13, 3963.31, 3951.60, 3905.23, 3909.16, 3906.72, 3924.37, 3960.91.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-03-15]
Volume: 9394210605, RSI (14-day): 59.03, 50-day EMA: 3837.69, 200-day EMA: 4765.15
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1301.80, Gold RSI: 50.16
Oil Price: 58.52, Oil RSI: 64.88
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
MIT Bitcoin: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Tech: On March 9–10, 2019, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a two-day event, the MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019. Put together by the student-organized MIT Bitcoin Club, the conference welcomed more than just Bitcoin voices from every corner of the industry. One of those voices was that of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Peirce sat down with Gary Gensler, ex-chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and senior advisor to the director of the MIT Media Lab, to discuss the progress of the SEC’s efforts to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Gensler and Peirce launched into a discussion on what regulators can do better to protect investors from fraud and malicious actors.
Before the debate began, both Gensler and Peirce expressed their appreciation for the emerging technology. “It’s a new way to have tamper resistant data amongst the consensus of multiple parties,” Gensler said. “My research is mostly around the business of blockchain technology and … trying to find where are the real use cases where traditional data structures don’t work as well.”
Peirce expressed her own support for the space in relation to the SEC’s ongoing efforts to properly regulate it. “We have rules on the books that we have to enforce, but on the other hand, we don’t want to stop people from doing things that are going to make society a better place to live, that are going to make people’s lives easier, and enable people to interact in ways that they have not been able to in the past.”
Later in the presentation, the two veteran regulators went on to discuss what the government can do to protect investors by possibly regulatinged cryptocurrency exchanges.
Gensler believes that “exchanges are the gateway to get good public policy, particularly around AML laws, but also around investor protection.” He continued, “In essence, that there’s not a manipulated market with frontrunning and manipulation with the order books and the like.”
The discourse was ongoing, and the most significant takeaway was that regulators like Peirce and the SEC acknowledge that, again, perhaps the current system of rules don’t apply perfectly. How could securities-based regulations be placed on all cryptocurrencies, even those that are officially defined asnotsecurities?
The SEC, according to Peirce, is working on what may be an alternative set of rules for exchanges that do not violate the rules of listing unregistered securities. Bitcoin, which is not a security, falls neatly into this alternative rule set. And, though it is currently unclear what theexactprecedents will be, Peirce’s thoughts around the subject at MIT’s latest Bitcoin Expo were nothing short of encouraging for Bitcoin’s regulatory future.
“People regulate each other in their interactions with one another, and that’s sort of the whole purpose of the Bitcoin idea … that it would be this community that would be able to regulate itself. So as problems arise, people in the community are thinking about how to deal with those problems.
“I think these markets could regulate themselves if we lived in a world that allowed that,” Peirce added.
Peirce has madesimilar remarksabout the SEC’s awareness of the Bitcoin community’s tendency to self-regulate in the past.
Gensler and Peirce also discussed the topic of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and what is being done to provide clarity to people participating in the once-booming phase. Peirce went on to explain that the SEC has already provided some clarity for investors who want to create a company, raise funds from investors and then distribute returns based on the company’s performance. For these individuals, the existing securities rules will apply to their tokens.
There are, however, the countless number of tokens that claim to be used as a utility on the network they belong to, but originate through an ICO in which they accept funds from investors in exchange for these tokens. There are still a plethora of unanswered questions around these.
“That’s where we need to do a better job,” Peirce said, “in providing guidance in how does it change from one thing to another.” Eventually, she said, the SEC wants to remove the big gray cloud hanging over these project’s heads.
Overall, the uplifting theme of the entire discussion could be summarized by an exchange between Peirce and a member of the audience, addressing the current system that discourages equal opportunity in retail participation.
The audience member asked, “It may be hubristic, but many of us are not independently wealthy and we still believe we can make good investment decisions, and right now we’re excluded from participating. How can we move the accredited investor laws away from wealth thresholds and toward something that’s far more reasonable and accessible to mainstream investors?”
“Our accredited investors rules … I personally think those rules are not consistent with what this country is about,” Peirce admitted, “which is about people taking opportunities, taking their talents and intelligence and applying it to make their lives better. We’ve put this artificial barrier in place so that people can’t do that.”
As far as whether or not these opinions will translate into legislature, time will tell. The entire MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019 livestream recording can be viewedhere.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || MIT Bitcoin: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Tech: On March 9–10, 2019, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a two-day event, the MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019. Put together by the student-organized MIT Bitcoin Club, the conference welcomed more than just Bitcoin voices from every corner of the industry. One of those voices was that of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Peirce sat down with Gary Gensler, ex-chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and senior advisor to the director of the MIT Media Lab, to discuss the progress of the SEC’s efforts to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Gensler and Peirce launched into a discussion on what regulators can do better to protect investors from fraud and malicious actors.
Before the debate began, both Gensler and Peirce expressed their appreciation for the emerging technology. “It’s a new way to have tamper resistant data amongst the consensus of multiple parties,” Gensler said. “My research is mostly around the business of blockchain technology and … trying to find where are the real use cases where traditional data structures don’t work as well.”
Peirce expressed her own support for the space in relation to the SEC’s ongoing efforts to properly regulate it. “We have rules on the books that we have to enforce, but on the other hand, we don’t want to stop people from doing things that are going to make society a better place to live, that are going to make people’s lives easier, and enable people to interact in ways that they have not been able to in the past.”
Later in the presentation, the two veteran regulators went on to discuss what the government can do to protect investors by possibly regulatinged cryptocurrency exchanges.
Gensler believes that “exchanges are the gateway to get good public policy, particularly around AML laws, but also around investor protection.” He continued, “In essence, that there’s not a manipulated market with frontrunning and manipulation with the order books and the like.”
The discourse was ongoing, and the most significant takeaway was that regulators like Peirce and the SEC acknowledge that, again, perhaps the current system of rules don’t apply perfectly. How could securities-based regulations be placed on all cryptocurrencies, even those that are officially defined asnotsecurities?
The SEC, according to Peirce, is working on what may be an alternative set of rules for exchanges that do not violate the rules of listing unregistered securities. Bitcoin, which is not a security, falls neatly into this alternative rule set. And, though it is currently unclear what theexactprecedents will be, Peirce’s thoughts around the subject at MIT’s latest Bitcoin Expo were nothing short of encouraging for Bitcoin’s regulatory future.
“People regulate each other in their interactions with one another, and that’s sort of the whole purpose of the Bitcoin idea … that it would be this community that would be able to regulate itself. So as problems arise, people in the community are thinking about how to deal with those problems.
“I think these markets could regulate themselves if we lived in a world that allowed that,” Peirce added.
Peirce has madesimilar remarksabout the SEC’s awareness of the Bitcoin community’s tendency to self-regulate in the past.
Gensler and Peirce also discussed the topic of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and what is being done to provide clarity to people participating in the once-booming phase. Peirce went on to explain that the SEC has already provided some clarity for investors who want to create a company, raise funds from investors and then distribute returns based on the company’s performance. For these individuals, the existing securities rules will apply to their tokens.
There are, however, the countless number of tokens that claim to be used as a utility on the network they belong to, but originate through an ICO in which they accept funds from investors in exchange for these tokens. There are still a plethora of unanswered questions around these.
“That’s where we need to do a better job,” Peirce said, “in providing guidance in how does it change from one thing to another.” Eventually, she said, the SEC wants to remove the big gray cloud hanging over these project’s heads.
Overall, the uplifting theme of the entire discussion could be summarized by an exchange between Peirce and a member of the audience, addressing the current system that discourages equal opportunity in retail participation.
The audience member asked, “It may be hubristic, but many of us are not independently wealthy and we still believe we can make good investment decisions, and right now we’re excluded from participating. How can we move the accredited investor laws away from wealth thresholds and toward something that’s far more reasonable and accessible to mainstream investors?”
“Our accredited investors rules … I personally think those rules are not consistent with what this country is about,” Peirce admitted, “which is about people taking opportunities, taking their talents and intelligence and applying it to make their lives better. We’ve put this artificial barrier in place so that people can’t do that.”
As far as whether or not these opinions will translate into legislature, time will tell. The entire MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019 livestream recording can be viewedhere.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || MIT Bitcoin: Legislators Discuss Regulation, Potential of Blockchain Tech: MIT SEC.jpg On March 9–10, 2019, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a two-day event, the MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019. Put together by the student-organized MIT Bitcoin Club, the conference welcomed more than just Bitcoin voices from every corner of the industry. One of those voices was that of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce. Peirce sat down with Gary Gensler, ex-chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and senior advisor to the director of the MIT Media Lab, to discuss the progress of the SEC’s efforts to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Gensler and Peirce launched into a discussion on what regulators can do better to protect investors from fraud and malicious actors. Before the debate began, both Gensler and Peirce expressed their appreciation for the emerging technology. “It’s a new way to have tamper resistant data amongst the consensus of multiple parties,” Gensler said. “My research is mostly around the business of blockchain technology and … trying to find where are the real use cases where traditional data structures don’t work as well.” Peirce expressed her own support for the space in relation to the SEC’s ongoing efforts to properly regulate it. “We have rules on the books that we have to enforce, but on the other hand, we don’t want to stop people from doing things that are going to make society a better place to live, that are going to make people’s lives easier, and enable people to interact in ways that they have not been able to in the past.” Later in the presentation, the two veteran regulators went on to discuss what the government can do to protect investors by possibly regulatinged cryptocurrency exchanges. Gensler believes that “exchanges are the gateway to get good public policy, particularly around AML laws, but also around investor protection.” He continued, “In essence, that there’s not a manipulated market with frontrunning and manipulation with the order books and the like.” Story continues The discourse was ongoing, and the most significant takeaway was that regulators like Peirce and the SEC acknowledge that, again, perhaps the current system of rules don’t apply perfectly. How could securities-based regulations be placed on all cryptocurrencies, even those that are officially defined as not securities? The SEC, according to Peirce, is working on what may be an alternative set of rules for exchanges that do not violate the rules of listing unregistered securities. Bitcoin, which is not a security, falls neatly into this alternative rule set. And, though it is currently unclear what the exact precedents will be, Peirce’s thoughts around the subject at MIT’s latest Bitcoin Expo were nothing short of encouraging for Bitcoin’s regulatory future. “People regulate each other in their interactions with one another, and that’s sort of the whole purpose of the Bitcoin idea … that it would be this community that would be able to regulate itself. So as problems arise, people in the community are thinking about how to deal with those problems. “I think these markets could regulate themselves if we lived in a world that allowed that,” Peirce added. Peirce has made similar remarks about the SEC’s awareness of the Bitcoin community’s tendency to self-regulate in the past. Gensler and Peirce also discussed the topic of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and what is being done to provide clarity to people participating in the once-booming phase. Peirce went on to explain that the SEC has already provided some clarity for investors who want to create a company, raise funds from investors and then distribute returns based on the company’s performance. For these individuals, the existing securities rules will apply to their tokens. There are, however, the countless number of tokens that claim to be used as a utility on the network they belong to, but originate through an ICO in which they accept funds from investors in exchange for these tokens. There are still a plethora of unanswered questions around these. “That’s where we need to do a better job,” Peirce said, “in providing guidance in how does it change from one thing to another.” Eventually, she said, the SEC wants to remove the big gray cloud hanging over these project’s heads. Overall, the uplifting theme of the entire discussion could be summarized by an exchange between Peirce and a member of the audience, addressing the current system that discourages equal opportunity in retail participation. The audience member asked, “It may be hubristic, but many of us are not independently wealthy and we still believe we can make good investment decisions, and right now we’re excluded from participating. How can we move the accredited investor laws away from wealth thresholds and toward something that’s far more reasonable and accessible to mainstream investors?” “Our accredited investors rules … I personally think those rules are not consistent with what this country is about,” Peirce admitted, “which is about people taking opportunities, taking their talents and intelligence and applying it to make their lives better. We’ve put this artificial barrier in place so that people can’t do that.” As far as whether or not these opinions will translate into legislature, time will tell. The entire MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019 livestream recording can be viewed here . This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Wedbush Incrementally Bullish On MasterCard, Visa: Wedbush is bullish on Visa Inc (NYSE: V ) and Mastercard Inc (NYSE: MA ) after the credit card networks' quarterly reports. The Analyst Wedbush's Moshe Katri maintained an Outperform on Visa with a price target lifted from $150 to $162. The analyst maintained an Outperform on Mastercard with a price target lifted from $220 to $235. Visa: Plenty Of Catalysts Ahead Visa reported a top-and-bottom-line beat in its fiscal first quarter, along with 11-percent growth in processed transactions and 7-percent growth in cross-border transactions, Katri said in a Thursday note. Looking forward to full fiscal 2019, Visa guided to the following, the analyst said: Low double-digit net revenue growth. Client incentives as a percentage of revenue of 22-23 percent. Mid-to-high single-digit operating expense growth. A tax rate of 20-20.5 percent. 100 basis points in foreign exchange drag on the second quarter and a 250-basis point swing for the full year Visa has multiple growth and scale catalysts as it exits its first-quarter report, including the rise of electronic payments at the expense of cash and checks; favorable European regulations; volume growth from mobile payments; and ACH-based revenue growth opportunities, according to Wedbush. View more earnings on MA Related Link: Morgan Stanley: Paypal Is Dominating Bitcoin, Other Digital Wallets Mastercard: Attractive Business Mastercard similarly reported a top-and-bottom-line beat in a fourth-quarter print highlighted by 15-percent year-over-year revenue growth, 15-percent incentive growth, 15-percent growth in domestic assessments and 13-percent growth in cross-border volume fees, Katri said in a Thursday note. The credit card network favorably guided its 2019 outlook to include low-teens net revenue growth and cross-border volume growth in the mid-teens, the analyst said. The first-quarter guidance is shy of the full-year outlook due to a difficult comp in 2018 and foreign exchange headwinds, he said. Story continues The company continues to offer investors an "attractive business model" with strong shareholder returns, Katri said. Similar to rival Visa, Mastercard should be able to post a 10-15-percent revenue growth rate and a 20-percent EPS growth rate in the coming years, in Wedbush's view. Price Action Visa shares were set to close Thursday's session up 1.16 percent, while Mastercard was traing 0.51-percent higher. Latest Ratings for MA Mar 2019 Wedbush Maintains Outperform Outperform Jan 2019 Jefferies Initiates Coverage On Buy Jan 2019 UBS Upgrades Neutral Buy View More Analyst Ratings for MA View the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga The iCredit Card? WSJ Reports Apple And Goldman Sachs Are Working On A Joint Card What's Next For Square's Stock? © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Wedbush Incrementally Bullish On MasterCard, Visa: Wedbush is bullish onVisa Inc(NYSE:V) andMastercard Inc(NYSE:MA) after the credit card networks'quarterly reports.
The Analyst
Wedbush's Moshe Katri maintained an Outperform onVisawith a price target lifted from $150 to $162.
The analyst maintained an Outperform onMastercardwith a price target lifted from $220 to $235.
Visa: Plenty Of Catalysts Ahead
Visa reported a top-and-bottom-line beat in its fiscal first quarter, along with 11-percent growth in processed transactions and 7-percent growth in cross-border transactions, Katri said in a Thursday note.
Looking forward to full fiscal 2019, Visa guided to the following, the analyst said:
• Low double-digit net revenue growth.
• Client incentives as a percentage of revenue of 22-23 percent.
• Mid-to-high single-digit operating expense growth.
• A tax rate of 20-20.5 percent.
• 100 basis points in foreign exchange drag on the second quarter and a 250-basis point swing for the full year
Visa has multiple growth and scale catalysts as it exits its first-quarter report, including the rise of electronic payments at the expense of cash and checks; favorable European regulations; volume growth from mobile payments; and ACH-based revenue growth opportunities, according to Wedbush.
View more earnings on MA
Related Link:Morgan Stanley: Paypal Is Dominating Bitcoin, Other Digital Wallets
Mastercard: Attractive Business
Mastercard similarly reported a top-and-bottom-line beat in a fourth-quarter print highlighted by 15-percent year-over-year revenue growth, 15-percent incentive growth, 15-percent growth in domestic assessments and 13-percent growth in cross-border volume fees, Katri said in a Thursday note.
The credit card network favorably guided its 2019 outlook to include low-teens net revenue growth and cross-border volume growth in the mid-teens, the analyst said. The first-quarter guidance is shy of the full-year outlook due to a difficult comp in 2018 and foreign exchange headwinds, he said.
The company continues to offer investors an "attractive business model" with strong shareholder returns, Katri said.
Similar to rival Visa, Mastercard should be able to post a 10-15-percent revenue growth rate and a 20-percent EPS growth rate in the coming years, in Wedbush's view.
Price Action
Visa shares were set to close Thursday's session up 1.16 percent, while Mastercard was traing 0.51-percent higher.
Latest Ratings for MA
[{"Mar 2019": "Jan 2019", "Wedbush": "Jefferies", "Maintains": "Initiates Coverage On", "Outperform": "Buy"}, {"Mar 2019": "Jan 2019", "Wedbush": "UBS", "Maintains": "Upgrades", "Outperform": "Buy"}]
View More Analyst Ratings for MAView the Latest Analyst Ratings
See more from Benzinga
• The iCredit Card? WSJ Reports Apple And Goldman Sachs Are Working On A Joint Card
• What's Next For Square's Stock?
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs: Mining cryptocurrencies can be a contentious subject. Whether it be the profitability of mining or the environmental impact, there are always different views. With Bitcoins recent price troubles, there were many suggestions that it would enter a mining death spiral whereby there would be little profit in mining so many companies would simply shut their mining rigs off. This never came to pass however. More positive notes soon came out that profitability in mining was on the rise. With that being said, here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs and their history. Bitmain and Jihan Wu As an individual, it has become extremely difficult to mine Bitcoin and turn a profit. This is due to the rise in large companies dedicated to mining Bitcoin. Long gone are the days when you could mine Bitcoin on your CPU. Instead, companies such as Bitmain or even CoinGeek have attempted to create large mining structures. Bitmain is known for the cryptocurrency mining rig called the Antminer. Bitmain is perhaps the largest of such mining companies, although it has been going through a rough time recently. Its main advantage was in creating ASICs specific chips solely for mining cryptocurrencies. Being one of the first cryptocurrency mining companies, Bitmain came to dominate a large portion of the market. Fears soon arose over how much of Bitcoins hash rate was controlled by Bitmain. These fears were eased with the hard fork of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in 2017. Even despite depressing prices in 2018, Bitmain was still able to make $742 million in the first half of the year. This is in spite of the company holding 30% of its assets in cryptocurrencies and betting big on Bitcoin Cash. Since then however, rumours have spread of Bitmain being in turmoil, with Jihan Wu allegedly being given the boot and the companys IPO looking on unsteady ground. Though the 2018 profits were impressive in the first half of the year, Q3 reports showed a $500 million loss. Story continues Resistance from cryptocurrency communities Some cryptocurrencies have since made their blockchains ASIC-resistant. Their fear was that without this, Bitmain or other big mining companies could control too much of the hash rate of their cryptocurrencies, giving them undue influence. Monero and Siacoin are two such cryptocurrencies that have hard forked to stop the possibility of ASIC mining. Siacoin is a particularly interesting case in that the developers in charge chose to invest in creating their own mining rigs for public sale. According to the Obelisk website, they created three different versions two for mining their native currency Siacoin and one for mining Decred though none of these are for sale anymore. However, there is another miner in the pipeline that is expected to ship in October 2019 specifically for mining Grin. Some cryptocurrencies avoid mining altogether. Instead, they premine the cryptocurrency before its release. Whilst this can stop the centralisation of mining, it can also lead to a centralisation of holders of the cryptocurrency. XRP is one such premined cryptocurrency whereby Ripple (the parent company) owns a large holding of the XRP token. Some believe this is evidence of centralisation, an accusation the #XRParmy is always keen to refute. Nations and citizens With the competitive nature of the mining industry, it would appear difficult for individuals to become miners themselves. All hope is not lost, but it is still difficult. Many individual miners now choose to mine low market cap coins. Because of their size, they usually have a small hash rate and algorithmic difficulty, meaning that mining is still possible for anyone. Whilst profit may be minimal in the early days, the hope is that you can mine a hidden gem that may pump in price in the future. The costs of mining depend on your location and the cost of your electricity. Initially, China became one of the central hubs for mining Bitcoin, although research showed that it wasnt the cheapest nation. As it turns out, Venezuela was the cheapest nation if you wanted to mine Bitcoin. At the other end of the spectrum, South Korea, a country known for its cryptocurrency enthusiasts, was one of the most expensive. Conclusion If you are interested in the possibility of mining, then pursuing the idea initially as a hobby whilst you learn the ropes is a wise idea. Much like trading cryptocurrencies, there isnt a guarantee of profit. With the mining landscape having become much more competitive as the popularity of cryptocurrencies has risen, the task of entering the mining market is much more difficult and expensive. Competing with the big boys is never going to be likely as an individual, but if you can mine hidden gems, there is a chance for a healthy profit. As with anything related to cryptocurrencies, doing your own research and never gambling more than you can afford to lose is essential. The post Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs: Mining cryptocurrencies can be a contentious subject. Whether it be the profitability of mining or the environmental impact, there are always different views. With Bitcoins recent price troubles, there were many suggestions that it would enter a mining death spiral whereby there would be little profit in mining so many companies would simply shut their mining rigs off. This never came to pass however. More positive notes soon came out that profitability in mining was on the rise. With that being said, here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs and their history. Bitmain and Jihan Wu As an individual, it has become extremely difficult to mine Bitcoin and turn a profit. This is due to the rise in large companies dedicated to mining Bitcoin. Long gone are the days when you could mine Bitcoin on your CPU. Instead, companies such as Bitmain or even CoinGeek have attempted to create large mining structures. Bitmain is known for the cryptocurrency mining rig called the Antminer. Bitmain is perhaps the largest of such mining companies, although it has been going through a rough time recently. Its main advantage was in creating ASICs specific chips solely for mining cryptocurrencies. Being one of the first cryptocurrency mining companies, Bitmain came to dominate a large portion of the market. Fears soon arose over how much of Bitcoins hash rate was controlled by Bitmain. These fears were eased with the hard fork of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in 2017. Even despite depressing prices in 2018, Bitmain was still able to make $742 million in the first half of the year. This is in spite of the company holding 30% of its assets in cryptocurrencies and betting big on Bitcoin Cash. Since then however, rumours have spread of Bitmain being in turmoil, with Jihan Wu allegedly being given the boot and the companys IPO looking on unsteady ground. Though the 2018 profits were impressive in the first half of the year, Q3 reports showed a $500 million loss. Story continues Resistance from cryptocurrency communities Some cryptocurrencies have since made their blockchains ASIC-resistant. Their fear was that without this, Bitmain or other big mining companies could control too much of the hash rate of their cryptocurrencies, giving them undue influence. Monero and Siacoin are two such cryptocurrencies that have hard forked to stop the possibility of ASIC mining. Siacoin is a particularly interesting case in that the developers in charge chose to invest in creating their own mining rigs for public sale. According to the Obelisk website, they created three different versions two for mining their native currency Siacoin and one for mining Decred though none of these are for sale anymore. However, there is another miner in the pipeline that is expected to ship in October 2019 specifically for mining Grin. Some cryptocurrencies avoid mining altogether. Instead, they premine the cryptocurrency before its release. Whilst this can stop the centralisation of mining, it can also lead to a centralisation of holders of the cryptocurrency. XRP is one such premined cryptocurrency whereby Ripple (the parent company) owns a large holding of the XRP token. Some believe this is evidence of centralisation, an accusation the #XRParmy is always keen to refute. Nations and citizens With the competitive nature of the mining industry, it would appear difficult for individuals to become miners themselves. All hope is not lost, but it is still difficult. Many individual miners now choose to mine low market cap coins. Because of their size, they usually have a small hash rate and algorithmic difficulty, meaning that mining is still possible for anyone. Whilst profit may be minimal in the early days, the hope is that you can mine a hidden gem that may pump in price in the future. The costs of mining depend on your location and the cost of your electricity. Initially, China became one of the central hubs for mining Bitcoin, although research showed that it wasnt the cheapest nation. As it turns out, Venezuela was the cheapest nation if you wanted to mine Bitcoin. At the other end of the spectrum, South Korea, a country known for its cryptocurrency enthusiasts, was one of the most expensive. Conclusion If you are interested in the possibility of mining, then pursuing the idea initially as a hobby whilst you learn the ropes is a wise idea. Much like trading cryptocurrencies, there isnt a guarantee of profit. With the mining landscape having become much more competitive as the popularity of cryptocurrencies has risen, the task of entering the mining market is much more difficult and expensive. Competing with the big boys is never going to be likely as an individual, but if you can mine hidden gems, there is a chance for a healthy profit. As with anything related to cryptocurrencies, doing your own research and never gambling more than you can afford to lose is essential. The post Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs: Mining cryptocurrencies can be a contentious subject. Whether it be the profitability of mining or the environmental impact, there are always different views. With Bitcoins recent price troubles, there were many suggestions that it would enter a mining death spiral whereby there would be little profit in mining so many companies would simply shut their mining rigs off. This never came to pass however. More positive notes soon came out that profitability in mining was on the rise. With that being said, here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs and their history. Bitmain and Jihan Wu As an individual, it has become extremely difficult to mine Bitcoin and turn a profit. This is due to the rise in large companies dedicated to mining Bitcoin. Long gone are the days when you could mine Bitcoin on your CPU. Instead, companies such as Bitmain or even CoinGeek have attempted to create large mining structures. Bitmain is known for the cryptocurrency mining rig called the Antminer. Bitmain is perhaps the largest of such mining companies, although it has been going through a rough time recently. Its main advantage was in creating ASICs specific chips solely for mining cryptocurrencies. Being one of the first cryptocurrency mining companies, Bitmain came to dominate a large portion of the market. Fears soon arose over how much of Bitcoins hash rate was controlled by Bitmain. These fears were eased with the hard fork of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in 2017. Even despite depressing prices in 2018, Bitmain was still able to make $742 million in the first half of the year. This is in spite of the company holding 30% of its assets in cryptocurrencies and betting big on Bitcoin Cash. Since then however, rumours have spread of Bitmain being in turmoil, with Jihan Wu allegedly being given the boot and the companys IPO looking on unsteady ground. Though the 2018 profits were impressive in the first half of the year, Q3 reports showed a $500 million loss. Story continues Resistance from cryptocurrency communities Some cryptocurrencies have since made their blockchains ASIC-resistant. Their fear was that without this, Bitmain or other big mining companies could control too much of the hash rate of their cryptocurrencies, giving them undue influence. Monero and Siacoin are two such cryptocurrencies that have hard forked to stop the possibility of ASIC mining. Siacoin is a particularly interesting case in that the developers in charge chose to invest in creating their own mining rigs for public sale. According to the Obelisk website, they created three different versions two for mining their native currency Siacoin and one for mining Decred though none of these are for sale anymore. However, there is another miner in the pipeline that is expected to ship in October 2019 specifically for mining Grin. Some cryptocurrencies avoid mining altogether. Instead, they premine the cryptocurrency before its release. Whilst this can stop the centralisation of mining, it can also lead to a centralisation of holders of the cryptocurrency. XRP is one such premined cryptocurrency whereby Ripple (the parent company) owns a large holding of the XRP token. Some believe this is evidence of centralisation, an accusation the #XRParmy is always keen to refute. Nations and citizens With the competitive nature of the mining industry, it would appear difficult for individuals to become miners themselves. All hope is not lost, but it is still difficult. Many individual miners now choose to mine low market cap coins. Because of their size, they usually have a small hash rate and algorithmic difficulty, meaning that mining is still possible for anyone. Whilst profit may be minimal in the early days, the hope is that you can mine a hidden gem that may pump in price in the future. The costs of mining depend on your location and the cost of your electricity. Initially, China became one of the central hubs for mining Bitcoin, although research showed that it wasnt the cheapest nation. As it turns out, Venezuela was the cheapest nation if you wanted to mine Bitcoin. At the other end of the spectrum, South Korea, a country known for its cryptocurrency enthusiasts, was one of the most expensive. Conclusion If you are interested in the possibility of mining, then pursuing the idea initially as a hobby whilst you learn the ropes is a wise idea. Much like trading cryptocurrencies, there isnt a guarantee of profit. With the mining landscape having become much more competitive as the popularity of cryptocurrencies has risen, the task of entering the mining market is much more difficult and expensive. Competing with the big boys is never going to be likely as an individual, but if you can mine hidden gems, there is a chance for a healthy profit. As with anything related to cryptocurrencies, doing your own research and never gambling more than you can afford to lose is essential. The post Bitcoin mining could be making a comeback! Here is what you need to know about cryptocurrency mining rigs appeared first on Coin Rivet . || SEC Chairman Highlights Investor Protection in Regard to Bitcoin ETF: United StatesSecurities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton is still concerned about investor protection when it comes to the commission approving a Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF). The SEC chairman spoke about crypto in an interview withFOX Businesson March 14.
In the interview, Clayton claimed to be neutral toward digital currencies, saying that he is not a spokesperson against the asset. The SEC chairman explained that he is concerned with the potential for manipulation associated with the space, and wants to guarantee investor protection:
“What I’m concerned about at the moment is if it can be reasonably demonstrated that the underlying trading is generally not manipulated, it’s happening on reliable venues with good rules and that custody is something we can feel comfortable about.”
While Clayton declined to comment on any specific Bitcoin ETF application, he still noted that there “may be a case where a Bitcoin ETF could satisfy our rules.” The chairman elaborated:
“I think this technology has and is already demonstrating pretty significant promise, but it’s demonstrating significant promise in the places where it’s consistent with our approach to capital raising in the past.”
Recently, the SECannouncedit will soon start the countdown period to approve or disapprove the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF. Afterwithdrawingthe ETF application due to the U.S. government shutdown in late January, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE)re-submittedthe application a week later.
Earlier this week, Jay Claytonconfirmedhis previous statement that Ethereum (ETH) and similar cryptocurrencies are not securities under U.S. law. However, Clayton stipulated that he meant that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time.
• CFTC Requires Trading Platform to Pay $990K for Illegal Bitcoin-Related Transactions
• Riot Blockchain Plans Launch of Regulated Cryptocurrency Exchange in the US
• SEC’s Finhub to Host Public Forum on Blockchain, Digital Assets in May
• New Blockchain ETF Co-Operator Elwood Plans Fresh Crypto Investment Options || SEC Chairman Highlights Investor Protection in Regard to Bitcoin ETF: United States Securities and Exchanges Commission ( SEC ) Chairman Jay Clayton is still concerned about investor protection when it comes to the commission approving a Bitcoin ( BTC ) Exchange-Traded Fund ( ETF ). The SEC chairman spoke about crypto in an interview with FOX Business on March 14. In the interview, Clayton claimed to be neutral toward digital currencies, saying that he is not a spokesperson against the asset. The SEC chairman explained that he is concerned with the potential for manipulation associated with the space, and wants to guarantee investor protection: “What I’m concerned about at the moment is if it can be reasonably demonstrated that the underlying trading is generally not manipulated, it’s happening on reliable venues with good rules and that custody is something we can feel comfortable about.” While Clayton declined to comment on any specific Bitcoin ETF application, he still noted that there “may be a case where a Bitcoin ETF could satisfy our rules.” The chairman elaborated: “I think this technology has and is already demonstrating pretty significant promise, but it’s demonstrating significant promise in the places where it’s consistent with our approach to capital raising in the past.” Recently, the SEC announced it will soon start the countdown period to approve or disapprove the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF. After withdrawing the ETF application due to the U.S. government shutdown in late January, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) re-submitted the application a week later. Earlier this week, Jay Clayton confirmed his previous statement that Ethereum ( ETH ) and similar cryptocurrencies are not securities under U.S. law. However, Clayton stipulated that he meant that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time. Related Articles: CFTC Requires Trading Platform to Pay $990K for Illegal Bitcoin-Related Transactions Riot Blockchain Plans Launch of Regulated Cryptocurrency Exchange in the US SEC’s Finhub to Host Public Forum on Blockchain, Digital Assets in May New Blockchain ETF Co-Operator Elwood Plans Fresh Crypto Investment Options || SEC Chairman Highlights Investor Protection in Regard to Bitcoin ETF: United StatesSecurities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton is still concerned about investor protection when it comes to the commission approving a Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF). The SEC chairman spoke about crypto in an interview withFOX Businesson March 14.
In the interview, Clayton claimed to be neutral toward digital currencies, saying that he is not a spokesperson against the asset. The SEC chairman explained that he is concerned with the potential for manipulation associated with the space, and wants to guarantee investor protection:
“What I’m concerned about at the moment is if it can be reasonably demonstrated that the underlying trading is generally not manipulated, it’s happening on reliable venues with good rules and that custody is something we can feel comfortable about.”
While Clayton declined to comment on any specific Bitcoin ETF application, he still noted that there “may be a case where a Bitcoin ETF could satisfy our rules.” The chairman elaborated:
“I think this technology has and is already demonstrating pretty significant promise, but it’s demonstrating significant promise in the places where it’s consistent with our approach to capital raising in the past.”
Recently, the SECannouncedit will soon start the countdown period to approve or disapprove the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF. Afterwithdrawingthe ETF application due to the U.S. government shutdown in late January, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE)re-submittedthe application a week later.
Earlier this week, Jay Claytonconfirmedhis previous statement that Ethereum (ETH) and similar cryptocurrencies are not securities under U.S. law. However, Clayton stipulated that he meant that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time.
• CFTC Requires Trading Platform to Pay $990K for Illegal Bitcoin-Related Transactions
• Riot Blockchain Plans Launch of Regulated Cryptocurrency Exchange in the US
• SEC’s Finhub to Host Public Forum on Blockchain, Digital Assets in May
• New Blockchain ETF Co-Operator Elwood Plans Fresh Crypto Investment Options || EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro rolls over: The Euro rallied at the very beginning of the session on Thursday but then rolled over to show signs of exhaustion yet again. It looks as if the 1.13 level has been a bit resistive as well, but at the end of the day the 1.15 level underneath is massive support, and therefore I believe that the buyers will continue to show up in that area. Because of this, I suspect that this pullback will end up being a buying opportunity given enough time. EURUSD analysis Video 15.03.19 To the upside I see a lot of resistance built in near the 1.14 level, and possibly extending to the 1.15 handle. It will take a certain amount of wherewithal to break above that level, and I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. That being the case, it’s very likely that we continue to bounce around overall. Looking at the 50 day EMA on the chart, it’s obvious that there has been some technical selling there, but I think it has more to do with the 50 day EMA coinciding with the 1.13 level and therefore certain systems will have triggered a position. Underneath at the 1.12 level there are a lot of buyers based upon the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, and of course the structural support that we have seen at that level recently. With that being the case, it’s very likely that we will continue to see buyers support that area, so a break down below the level would be rather impressive and could trigger more selling. However, I give that roughly a 10% chance at this moment. Please let us know what you think in the comments below This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Crypto Coins Continue Rangebound Activity. Gold Price Prediction – Gold Tumbles as Trend Points to Lower Prices Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets plumbing Pound Waiting for Brexit Date Shift GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound continues to grind higher GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound approaching major level || EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro rolls over: The Eurorallied at the very beginning of the session on Thursday but then rolled over to show signs of exhaustion yet again. It looks as if the 1.13 level has been a bit resistive as well, but at the end of the day the 1.15 level underneath is massive support, and therefore I believe that the buyers will continue to show up in that area. Because of this, I suspect that this pullback will end up being a buying opportunity given enough time.
To the upside I see a lot of resistance built in near the 1.14 level, and possibly extending to the 1.15 handle. It will take a certain amount of wherewithal to break above that level, and I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. That being the case, it’s very likely that we continue to bounce around overall. Looking at the 50 day EMA on the chart, it’s obvious that there has been some technical selling there, but I think it has more to do with the 50 day EMA coinciding with the 1.13 level and therefore certain systems will have triggered a position.
Underneath at the 1.12 level there are a lot of buyers based upon the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, and of course the structural support that we have seen at that level recently. With that being the case, it’s very likely that we will continue to see buyers support that area, so a break down below the level would be rather impressive and could trigger more selling. However, I give that roughly a 10% chance at this moment.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Crypto Coins Continue Rangebound Activity.
• Gold Price Prediction – Gold Tumbles as Trend Points to Lower Prices
• Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets plumbing
• Pound Waiting for Brexit Date Shift
• GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound continues to grind higher
• GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound approaching major level || Altcoins moving upwards – Are the bulls back?: Although Bitcoin has been trading sideways for the past week, the same cannot be said for some of the major altcoins. Stellar, Cardano, Dash, and others have been making some serious gains over the past seven days. I cannot state with certainty that the altcoin bull season has started. However, some analysts suggest there’s a strong likelihood we may experience an early altcoin bull season as investors and hodlers aim to increase their ROI to later convert into BTC. On the other hand, a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin to previous support levels around $3,500 could ruin any hope of a serious run before spring. Altcoins pumping Crypto Twitter right now: pic.twitter.com/8myzpRempV — Murad Mahmudov 🚀 (@MustStopMurad) March 3, 2019 The price of Stellar Lumens (XLM) has been storming higher over the past week. XLM has gained a whopping 35%, pushing to the highest levels seen since late January 2019. The price was contained within a descending wedge pattern formation for around 13 weeks going back to early December 2018. Given the amount of time that XLM was forced to trade within that range, the explosive breakout wasn’t too much of a surprise. XLM/USD has been rallying for the past six weeks after price hit a low of $0.07355000. This current run is the best seen since June-July 2018. The run has been very aggressive within a short space of time. As such, some caution must be taken into consideration. In cases such as this, the price tends to be vulnerable to downside risks. A correction or a small pullback could come into play before further stronger moves north. Stellar’s price increase could be linked to the fact Coinbase Pro has recently announced its support for Stellar Lumens . Cardano and Dash have also made some interesting gains in the past seven days. While Cardano’s rise may be linked to the fact Shelley, the new milestone and update for Cardano, is supposed to be released this month, Dash’s move upwards is surely connected to the recent news of increased adoption in countries like Venezuela. Story continues What markets will altcoins dominate? At the time of writing, it seems there’s three or four markets cryptocurrencies can potentially disrupt. My personal bet is gambling and gaming, followed by DeFi and AI. There are some interesting projects being developed in each area that I would like to mention, as I believe they have the necessary competences to drive adoption. Betprotocol , a decentralised betting protocol, has been making some very interesting waves on the gambling front. The company is building an ecosystem for developers and other gambling dApps to build upon, which will cut costs and make the deployment of transparent, auditable, and reliable dApps way more efficient. Plus, just by looking at the image above, you can see why there is a need for a decentralised gambling protocol. On the gaming front, there’s DreamTeam . With the rapid growth of the eSports industry, these guys figured out players need a hub for teams, teammates, coaches, managers, and advertisers. The ultimate goal of the DreamTeam dApp is to give players a way to easily find teammates, improve their skills with learning tools, and manage teams and sponsors, while at the same time giving users a token for ease of use. Of course, I hope the guys behind the project find a way to incentivise users by incorporating rewards and reputation systems within the working mechanics of their platform. That way, users could extract value in multiple ways. Finally, the strongest DeFi-related project seems to be MakerDAO, although Binance’s DEX may create a bigger hype when released. In the AI field, I would seriously bet on SingularityNET and its token AGI, simply because the team behind the project is the same one behind one of the most advanced human-like protocol droids ever created – Sophia the robot. The post Altcoins moving upwards – Are the bulls back? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Altcoins moving upwards – Are the bulls back?: Although Bitcoin has been trading sideways for the past week, the same cannot be said for some of the major altcoins. Stellar, Cardano, Dash, and others have been making some serious gains over the past seven days. I cannot state with certainty that the altcoin bull season has started. However, some analysts suggest there’s a strong likelihood we may experience an early altcoin bull season as investors and hodlers aim to increase their ROI to later convert into BTC. On the other hand, a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin to previous support levels around $3,500 could ruin any hope of a serious run before spring. Altcoins pumping Crypto Twitter right now: pic.twitter.com/8myzpRempV — Murad Mahmudov 🚀 (@MustStopMurad) March 3, 2019 The price of Stellar Lumens (XLM) has been storming higher over the past week. XLM has gained a whopping 35%, pushing to the highest levels seen since late January 2019. The price was contained within a descending wedge pattern formation for around 13 weeks going back to early December 2018. Given the amount of time that XLM was forced to trade within that range, the explosive breakout wasn’t too much of a surprise. XLM/USD has been rallying for the past six weeks after price hit a low of $0.07355000. This current run is the best seen since June-July 2018. The run has been very aggressive within a short space of time. As such, some caution must be taken into consideration. In cases such as this, the price tends to be vulnerable to downside risks. A correction or a small pullback could come into play before further stronger moves north. Stellar’s price increase could be linked to the fact Coinbase Pro has recently announced its support for Stellar Lumens . Cardano and Dash have also made some interesting gains in the past seven days. While Cardano’s rise may be linked to the fact Shelley, the new milestone and update for Cardano, is supposed to be released this month, Dash’s move upwards is surely connected to the recent news of increased adoption in countries like Venezuela. Story continues What markets will altcoins dominate? At the time of writing, it seems there’s three or four markets cryptocurrencies can potentially disrupt. My personal bet is gambling and gaming, followed by DeFi and AI. There are some interesting projects being developed in each area that I would like to mention, as I believe they have the necessary competences to drive adoption. Betprotocol , a decentralised betting protocol, has been making some very interesting waves on the gambling front. The company is building an ecosystem for developers and other gambling dApps to build upon, which will cut costs and make the deployment of transparent, auditable, and reliable dApps way more efficient. Plus, just by looking at the image above, you can see why there is a need for a decentralised gambling protocol. On the gaming front, there’s DreamTeam . With the rapid growth of the eSports industry, these guys figured out players need a hub for teams, teammates, coaches, managers, and advertisers. The ultimate goal of the DreamTeam dApp is to give players a way to easily find teammates, improve their skills with learning tools, and manage teams and sponsors, while at the same time giving users a token for ease of use. Of course, I hope the guys behind the project find a way to incentivise users by incorporating rewards and reputation systems within the working mechanics of their platform. That way, users could extract value in multiple ways. Finally, the strongest DeFi-related project seems to be MakerDAO, although Binance’s DEX may create a bigger hype when released. In the AI field, I would seriously bet on SingularityNET and its token AGI, simply because the team behind the project is the same one behind one of the most advanced human-like protocol droids ever created – Sophia the robot. The post Altcoins moving upwards – Are the bulls back? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Circle’s managing director in Asia leaves firm to focus on Bitcoin’s survival: Jack Liu, a senior director at Circle, is leaving the $3 billion crypto finance company, he confirmed to The Block.
The former investment banker said he's always been motivated in his career to help Satoshi's vision come to fruition.
"I've been a long-time veteran of this industry, and I didn't come to it by accident...Circle was a great learning ground. But I'm all about innovation...I want to step into the open and take a more direct approach and increase the number of transactions on the blockchain. I feel a sense of urgency right now," he said. "I don't want to be 50 when it starts working."
He even skipped a bonus he'd have claimed in a few months. "I just couldn't wait any longer."
While at Circle, Liu helped the firm develop a 24-hour trading service operating out of Asia. He also helped build the support-product for trading of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision(SV) at Poloniex, which Circle had reportedly acquired for $400 million before he joined.
His next move remains obscure but will involve helping build theBitcoin SV blockchain- a fork extension of the original Bitcoin. He's a big believer in the coin and its scaling potential - something he's deeply concerned about. || Circle’s managing director in Asia leaves firm to focus on Bitcoin’s survival: Jack Liu, a senior director at Circle, is leaving the $3 billion crypto finance company, he confirmed to The Block.
The former investment banker said he's always been motivated in his career to help Satoshi's vision come to fruition.
"I've been a long-time veteran of this industry, and I didn't come to it by accident...Circle was a great learning ground. But I'm all about innovation...I want to step into the open and take a more direct approach and increase the number of transactions on the blockchain. I feel a sense of urgency right now," he said. "I don't want to be 50 when it starts working."
He even skipped a bonus he'd have claimed in a few months. "I just couldn't wait any longer."
While at Circle, Liu helped the firm develop a 24-hour trading service operating out of Asia. He also helped build the support-product for trading of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision(SV) at Poloniex, which Circle had reportedly acquired for $400 million before he joined.
His next move remains obscure but will involve helping build theBitcoin SV blockchain- a fork extension of the original Bitcoin. He's a big believer in the coin and its scaling potential - something he's deeply concerned about. || Circles managing director in Asia leaves firm to focus on Bitcoins survival: Jack Liu, a senior director at Circle, is leaving the $3 billion crypto finance company, he confirmed to The Block. The former investment banker said he's always been motivated in his career to help Satoshi's vision come to fruition. "I've been a long-time veteran of this industry, and I didn't come to it by accident...Circle was a great learning ground. But I'm all about innovation...I want to step into the open and take a more direct approach and increase the number of transactions on the blockchain. I feel a sense of urgency right now," he said. "I don't want to be 50 when it starts working." He even skipped a bonus he'd have claimed in a few months. "I just couldn't wait any longer." While at Circle, Liu helped the firm develop a 24-hour trading service operating out of Asia. He also helped build the support-product for trading of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision ( SV) at Poloniex, which Circle had reportedly acquired for $400 million before he joined. His next move remains obscure but will involve helping build the Bitcoin SV blockchain - a fork extension of the original Bitcoin. He's a big believer in the coin and its scaling potential - something he's deeply concerned about. || Bitcoin Trades Flat While Altcoins Tease Bull Breakout: • Bitcoin is lacking clear directional bias for a ninth straight day, neutralizing the bullish view put forward by a long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. As a result, a return to levels below $3,700 cannot be ruled out.
• A UTC close above the March 9 high of $3,950 would revive the short-term bullish outlook and possibly yield a rally toward the recent high of $4,190.
• While a few alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) have recently witnessed a longer-term bull reversal, the altcoin market as a whole is yet to exit the bear market. That could be about to change, though, as there are growing signs of seller exhaustion.
• A bull breakout in the altcoin market would be confirmed if and when the overall altcoin market capitalization beats the long-term falling trendline resistance, currently at $64.28 billion.
Bitcoin’s struggle for direction continues amid growing signs of a bull reversal in alternative cryptocurrencies.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value is trapped in the range of $3,800 to $3,900 for a ninth straight day, contradicting the quick move toward the recent high of $4,190 suggested by the long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. The immediate outlook, therefore, is neutral.
As of writing, the cryptocurrency is flatlined at $3,847 on Bitstamp, representing a 0.10 percent gain on a 24-hour basis.
Further, BTC is reporting a meager 4 percent gain on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, as opposed to stellar gains in few altcoins. For instance, litecoin, the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is currently up 83.9 percent on a YTD basis.
Binance coin (BNB) and holochain (HOT) are up at least 140 percent each, while EOS (EOS) and ontology (ONT) have gained 40 percent and 69 percent, respectively, according toOnChainFX.
Meanwhile, both the BTC and USD pairs of LTC, BNB, Tron (TRX) and Maker (MKR)have foundacceptance above their respective 200-day moving average (MA) – a widely followed barometer of bull/bear markets.
As a result, speculation that the altcoin market has entered the bull market is gathering steam. However, while few alternative cryptocurrencies seem to have witnessed a bull reversal, the altcoin market as a whole is yet to violate the bearish trend, as seen in the chart below.
On the weekly chart, the altcoin market capitalization (market cap) printed a higher low near $45 billion in early February, signaling bearish exhaustion. However, the trendline connecting January 2018 and April 2018 highs is still intact.
A weekly close (Sunday, UTC) above $64.28 billion (trendline resistance) could be considered an early sign of longer-term bullish reversal.
A bearish-to-bullish trend change, however, would be confirmed, if and when, the market cap jumps above $68.61 billion – a bearish lower high created on Dec. 24.
The week-long price consolidation in the range of $3,800-$3,900 seen in the above chart has weakened the bullish case put forward by the long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. As a result, the 100-day MA support at $3,670 could again come into play.
On the higher side, a UTC close above $3,950 is needed to revive the short-term bullish outlook.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoin imagevia Shutterstock;charts byTrading View || Bitcoin Trades Flat While Altcoins Tease Bull Breakout: • Bitcoin is lacking clear directional bias for a ninth straight day, neutralizing the bullish view put forward by a long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. As a result, a return to levels below $3,700 cannot be ruled out.
• A UTC close above the March 9 high of $3,950 would revive the short-term bullish outlook and possibly yield a rally toward the recent high of $4,190.
• While a few alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) have recently witnessed a longer-term bull reversal, the altcoin market as a whole is yet to exit the bear market. That could be about to change, though, as there are growing signs of seller exhaustion.
• A bull breakout in the altcoin market would be confirmed if and when the overall altcoin market capitalization beats the long-term falling trendline resistance, currently at $64.28 billion.
Bitcoin’s struggle for direction continues amid growing signs of a bull reversal in alternative cryptocurrencies.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value is trapped in the range of $3,800 to $3,900 for a ninth straight day, contradicting the quick move toward the recent high of $4,190 suggested by the long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. The immediate outlook, therefore, is neutral.
As of writing, the cryptocurrency is flatlined at $3,847 on Bitstamp, representing a 0.10 percent gain on a 24-hour basis.
Further, BTC is reporting a meager 4 percent gain on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, as opposed to stellar gains in few altcoins. For instance, litecoin, the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is currently up 83.9 percent on a YTD basis.
Binance coin (BNB) and holochain (HOT) are up at least 140 percent each, while EOS (EOS) and ontology (ONT) have gained 40 percent and 69 percent, respectively, according toOnChainFX.
Meanwhile, both the BTC and USD pairs of LTC, BNB, Tron (TRX) and Maker (MKR)have foundacceptance above their respective 200-day moving average (MA) – a widely followed barometer of bull/bear markets.
As a result, speculation that the altcoin market has entered the bull market is gathering steam. However, while few alternative cryptocurrencies seem to have witnessed a bull reversal, the altcoin market as a whole is yet to violate the bearish trend, as seen in the chart below.
On the weekly chart, the altcoin market capitalization (market cap) printed a higher low near $45 billion in early February, signaling bearish exhaustion. However, the trendline connecting January 2018 and April 2018 highs is still intact.
A weekly close (Sunday, UTC) above $64.28 billion (trendline resistance) could be considered an early sign of longer-term bullish reversal.
A bearish-to-bullish trend change, however, would be confirmed, if and when, the market cap jumps above $68.61 billion – a bearish lower high created on Dec. 24.
The week-long price consolidation in the range of $3,800-$3,900 seen in the above chart has weakened the bullish case put forward by the long-tailed doji candle created on Feb. 27. As a result, the 100-day MA support at $3,670 could again come into play.
On the higher side, a UTC close above $3,950 is needed to revive the short-term bullish outlook.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoin imagevia Shutterstock;charts byTrading View
[Social Media Buzz]
#Bitcoin $3,936.44 v #BitcoinCash $280.67 (BTC/BCH 14.0), Avg Transaction fee for #Bitcoin ~$0.48 v #BitcoinCash ~$0.00 - 2019/03/16 04:00JST || An itibariyle bazı kripto paraların değerleri şöyle;
Bitcoin 3.949.09 dolar
Ethereum 136.54 dolar
Bitcoin Cash 138.36 dolar
Litecoin 58.36 dolar
Maker 670.59 dolar
Mixin 145.81 dolar
DCR 19.25 dolar
Dash 91.00 dolar
Monero 52.54 dolar
DigixDAO 17.47 dolar
Zcash 53.79 dolar || Mar 15, 2019 10:01:00 UTC | 3,899.90$ | 3,444.00€ | 2,944.30£ | #Bitcoin #btc ...
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4048.73, 4025.23, 4032.51, 4071.19, 4087.48, 4029.33, 4023.97, 4035.83, 4022.17, 3963.07
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18, 3998.98, 4078.60, 3815.49, 3857.30, 3654.83, 3923.92, 3820.41, 3865.95, 3742.70, 3843.52, 3943.41, 3836.74, 3857.72, 3845.19, 4076.63, 4025.25, 4030.85, 4035.30, 3678.92, 3687.37, 3661.30, 3552.95, 3706.05, 3630.68, 3655.01, 3678.56, 3657.84, 3728.57, 3601.01, 3576.03, 3604.58, 3585.12, 3600.87, 3599.77, 3602.46, 3583.97, 3470.45, 3448.12, 3486.18, 3457.79, 3487.95, 3521.06, 3464.01, 3459.15, 3466.36, 3413.77, 3399.47, 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09, 3999.82, 3954.12, 4005.53, 4142.53, 3810.43, 3882.70, 3854.36, 3851.05, 3854.79, 3859.58, 3864.42, 3847.18, 3761.56, 3896.38, 3903.94, 3911.48, 3901.13, 3963.31, 3951.60, 3905.23, 3909.16, 3906.72.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-03-13]
Volume: 9469184841, RSI (14-day): 54.80, 50-day EMA: 3828.92, 200-day EMA: 4781.76
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1307.50, Gold RSI: 52.97
Oil Price: 58.26, Oil RSI: 64.23
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin ATM Double-Spenders: Police Need Help Identifying Four Criminals: CBCreportsthat four Canadian men are wanted in connection with conducting double-spend attacks against Bitcoin ATMs in four cities. A total of 112 transactions are alleged to have taken place in September last year, with half of them taking place in Calgary. The other attacks took place in Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Sherwood Park, Ottawa and Hamilton. The men’s identities are unknown, and Calgary police are asking for help identifying them.
Apparently, the Bitcoin ATMs accepted zero-confirmation transactions, and the men exploited this fact to double-spend Bitcoin in exchange for cash. Over 112 transactions in 10 days netted the scammers a total of around $200,000. The average transaction was around $1800.
Arguably, Canadian Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd’sreplace-by-fee toolswould make these transactions possible. While not specifically intended or endorsed for criminal activity, the tool enables “stuck” transactions to become unstuck by paying an extra fee. There is a “double spend” tool in the kit, however, which is described by Todd as such:
Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Clickhere to sign up.
Creates two transactions in succession. The first pays the specified amount to the specified address. The second double-spends that transaction with a transaction with higher fees, paying only the change address. In addition you can optionally specify that the first transaction additional OP-RETURN, multisig, and “blacklisted” address outputs. Some miners won’t accept transactions with these output types; those miners will accept the second double-spend transaction, helping you achieve a succesful double-spend.
From a philosophical standpoint, thetools are controversial,but intended to encourage services and users to wait for at least one confirmation before considering a transaction completed. Double-spending of unconfirmed transactions has always been possible on Bitcoin and the RBF toolkit did not change that fact. As Peter Todd wrote in after the initial publication of this article:
The simple truth of the matter is that the ATM operator in question is negligent if they are accepting unconfirmed transactions without other mitigating security measures such as obtaining positive legal identification; the fact that they’re asking for help in identifying the thieves is a strong sign of such negligence. This is no different than, say, a store selling high value items choosing not to hire cashiers and instead relying on an “honesty box” for payment.
However, in reality, it’s inconvenient to have customers standing around for 10-30 minutes (or longer) for a transaction to go through. Convenience at the expense of security is a decision the yet-unidentified ATM operators seem to have to made.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin ATM Double-Spenders: Police Need Help Identifying Four Criminals: Source: Calgary Police Service CBC reports that four Canadian men are wanted in connection with conducting double-spend attacks against Bitcoin ATMs in four cities. A total of 112 transactions are alleged to have taken place in September last year, with half of them taking place in Calgary. The other attacks took place in Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Sherwood Park, Ottawa and Hamilton. The mens identities are unknown, and Calgary police are asking for help identifying them. Double-Spending on a Bitcoin ATM: A Lucrative Criminal Enterprise Apparently, the Bitcoin ATMs accepted zero-confirmation transactions, and the men exploited this fact to double-spend Bitcoin in exchange for cash. Over 112 transactions in 10 days netted the scammers a total of around $200,000. The average transaction was around $1800. Arguably, Canadian Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todds replace-by-fee tools would make these transactions possible. While not specifically intended or endorsed for criminal activity, the tool enables stuck transactions to become unstuck by paying an extra fee. There is a double spend tool in the kit, however, which is described by Todd as such: Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Click here to sign up . Creates two transactions in succession. The first pays the specified amount to the specified address. The second double-spends that transaction with a transaction with higher fees, paying only the change address. In addition you can optionally specify that the first transaction additional OP-RETURN, multisig, and blacklisted address outputs. Some miners wont accept transactions with these output types; those miners will accept the second double-spend transaction, helping you achieve a succesful double-spend. Scammers Net $20,000 CAD Per Day From a philosophical standpoint, the tools are controversial , but intended to encourage services and users to wait for at least one confirmation before considering a transaction completed . Double-spending of unconfirmed transactions has always been possible on Bitcoin and the RBF toolkit did not change that fact. As Peter Todd wrote in after the initial publication of this article: The simple truth of the matter is that the ATM operator in question is negligent if they are accepting unconfirmed transactions without other mitigating security measures such as obtaining positive legal identification; the fact that theyre asking for help in identifying the thieves is a strong sign of such negligence. This is no different than, say, a store selling high value items choosing not to hire cashiers and instead relying on an honesty box for payment. Story continues However, in reality, its inconvenient to have customers standing around for 10-30 minutes (or longer) for a transaction to go through. Convenience at the expense of security is a decision the yet-unidentified ATM operators seem to have to made. Read the full story on CCN.com . View comments || Bitcoin ATM Double-Spenders: Police Need Help Identifying Four Criminals: CBCreportsthat four Canadian men are wanted in connection with conducting double-spend attacks against Bitcoin ATMs in four cities. A total of 112 transactions are alleged to have taken place in September last year, with half of them taking place in Calgary. The other attacks took place in Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Sherwood Park, Ottawa and Hamilton. The men’s identities are unknown, and Calgary police are asking for help identifying them.
Apparently, the Bitcoin ATMs accepted zero-confirmation transactions, and the men exploited this fact to double-spend Bitcoin in exchange for cash. Over 112 transactions in 10 days netted the scammers a total of around $200,000. The average transaction was around $1800.
Arguably, Canadian Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd’sreplace-by-fee toolswould make these transactions possible. While not specifically intended or endorsed for criminal activity, the tool enables “stuck” transactions to become unstuck by paying an extra fee. There is a “double spend” tool in the kit, however, which is described by Todd as such:
Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Clickhere to sign up.
Creates two transactions in succession. The first pays the specified amount to the specified address. The second double-spends that transaction with a transaction with higher fees, paying only the change address. In addition you can optionally specify that the first transaction additional OP-RETURN, multisig, and “blacklisted” address outputs. Some miners won’t accept transactions with these output types; those miners will accept the second double-spend transaction, helping you achieve a succesful double-spend.
From a philosophical standpoint, thetools are controversial,but intended to encourage services and users to wait for at least one confirmation before considering a transaction completed. Double-spending of unconfirmed transactions has always been possible on Bitcoin and the RBF toolkit did not change that fact. As Peter Todd wrote in after the initial publication of this article:
The simple truth of the matter is that the ATM operator in question is negligent if they are accepting unconfirmed transactions without other mitigating security measures such as obtaining positive legal identification; the fact that they’re asking for help in identifying the thieves is a strong sign of such negligence. This is no different than, say, a store selling high value items choosing not to hire cashiers and instead relying on an “honesty box” for payment.
However, in reality, it’s inconvenient to have customers standing around for 10-30 minutes (or longer) for a transaction to go through. Convenience at the expense of security is a decision the yet-unidentified ATM operators seem to have to made.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Diversification or glorified gambling? An analysis of the top 50 crypto assets: Considering the highly precarious state of the crypto asset class, does it make sense to diversify your portfolio?
In this report, we look at a number of different factors, including the liquidity of assets, how often each are used daily, and how correlated they all are. With this guidance, we may have a better idea whether exposure to smaller caps is preferable for a balanced portfolio, or if it’s little more than glorified gambling.
Liquidity
One of the most important factors to consider is the liquidity of these assets. When it comes to this benchmark, Bitcoin is by far the leader.
Join Genesis nowand continue reading,Diversification or glorified gambling? An analysis of the top 50 crypto assets! || Diversification or glorified gambling? An analysis of the top 50 crypto assets: Considering the highly precarious state of the crypto asset class, does it make sense to diversify your portfolio? In this report, we look at a number of different factors, including the liquidity of assets, how often each are used daily, and how correlated they all are. With this guidance, we may have a better idea whether exposure to smaller caps is preferable for a balanced portfolio, or if its little more than glorified gambling. Liquidity One of the most important factors to consider is the liquidity of these assets. When it comes to this benchmark, Bitcoin is by far the leader. Join Genesis now and continue reading, Diversification or glorified gambling? An analysis of the top 50 crypto assets ! || Bitcoin Price Rally Could be on Last Legs, Bloomberg Analyst Warns: Bloomberg technical analysts are warning that the Bitcoin price's latest recovery may be on its last legs. | Source: Shutterstock A key market indicator shows that the Bitcoin price rally may be losing steam. According to Bloomberg , Bitcoins Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator has been steadily falling since mid-February. MACD is a commonly used metric for technical analysis. When it diverges from the symbol, it means that a trend may be over with. Watch out Bitcoin Bears MACD Isnt Everything bitcoin price, bloomberg analysis Bitcoins MACD has been steadily falling since last month, which could signal that the crypto markets recent recovery is already coming to an end. | Source: Bloomberg Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Click here to sign up . Lets keep in mind, however, that this is crypto. Old world tools like MACD and EMA only go so far here. Long-term charting suggests that Bitcoin may be overbought, but sellers may nevertheless back away from the market if demand depresses the price. People holding at this point in the game dont have a lot to lose by waiting a while longer. One key group that will always sell are certain parts of the mining industry, but they are increasingly developing strategies to deal with lengthy bear markets. Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone thinks differently. He believes the market is preparing for yet another significant downturn, similar to the one that saw Bitcoin drop by 50% from October to December. Conditions are akin to November, just prior to the collapse. Prices are consolidating within narrowing ranges, with a few sharp bear-market rallies that appear fleeting. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin Price Rally Could be on Last Legs, Bloomberg Analyst Warns: A key market indicator shows that the Bitcoin price rally may be losing steam.
According to Bloomberg, “Bitcoin’s Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator has been steadily falling since mid-February.” MACD is a commonly used metric for technical analysis. When it diverges from the symbol, it means that a trend may be over with.
Bitcoin’s MACD has been steadily falling since last month, which could signal that the crypto market’s recent recovery is already coming to an end. | Source: Bloomberg
Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Clickhere to sign up.
Let’s keep in mind, however, that this is crypto. Old world tools like MACD and EMA only go so far here.
Long-term charting suggests thatBitcoinmay be overbought, but sellers may nevertheless back away from the market if demand depresses the price. People holding at this point in the game don’t have a lot to lose by waiting a while longer. One key group that will always sell are certain parts of the mining industry, but they are increasingly developing strategies to deal with lengthy bear markets.
Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone thinks differently. He believes the market is preparing for yet another significant downturn, similar to the one that saw Bitcoin drop by 50% from October to December.
“Conditions are akin to November, just prior to the collapse. Prices are consolidating within narrowing ranges, with a few sharp bear-market rallies that appear fleeting.” || Bitcoin Price Rally Could be on Last Legs, Bloomberg Analyst Warns: A key market indicator shows that the Bitcoin price rally may be losing steam.
According to Bloomberg, “Bitcoin’s Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator has been steadily falling since mid-February.” MACD is a commonly used metric for technical analysis. When it diverges from the symbol, it means that a trend may be over with.
Bitcoin’s MACD has been steadily falling since last month, which could signal that the crypto market’s recent recovery is already coming to an end. | Source: Bloomberg
Join CCN for $19.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts on future events and services. Support our journalists today. Clickhere to sign up.
Let’s keep in mind, however, that this is crypto. Old world tools like MACD and EMA only go so far here.
Long-term charting suggests thatBitcoinmay be overbought, but sellers may nevertheless back away from the market if demand depresses the price. People holding at this point in the game don’t have a lot to lose by waiting a while longer. One key group that will always sell are certain parts of the mining industry, but they are increasingly developing strategies to deal with lengthy bear markets.
Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone thinks differently. He believes the market is preparing for yet another significant downturn, similar to the one that saw Bitcoin drop by 50% from October to December.
“Conditions are akin to November, just prior to the collapse. Prices are consolidating within narrowing ranges, with a few sharp bear-market rallies that appear fleeting.” || Crypto Markets Are Trading Sideways, Bitcoin Holds $3,900 Support: Tuesday, March 12 — crypto markets are trading sideways, with total market cap hovering between $133–$134 billion, and Bitcoin (BTC) holding $3,900 for the most part of the day.
The top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap are seeing mixed signals, with losses not exceeding 1.1 percent, while some coins have seen a growth of over 3 percent over 24 hours at press time.
Market visualization fromCoin360
Bitcoin is trading at $3,912 at press time, up around 0.3 percent over the past 24 hours. The biggest cryptocurrency surged to as high as $3,925 earlier on the day, while the intraday low amounted to $3,863. At press time, Bitcoin is up around 0.7 percent over the past 7 days.
Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is trading at $134.27, up 0.4 percent over the past 24 hours at press time. The topaltcoinis down about 1.86 percent over the past 7 days.
Today,United StatesSecurities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Claytonconfirmedthat Ethereum and similarcryptocurrenciesare notsecuritiesunder U.S. law. However, according to recent reports, Clayton meant that he agreed that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time.
Recently, Ethereum mining pool Sparkpoolconfirmedthat it had come to an arrangement with a user who accidentally sent it over $300,000 in mining fees on March 11.
Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ripple (XRP), the third top cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 0.03 percent, trading at about $0.3107 at press time. The major altcoin is down around 1.34 percent over the past 7 days.
Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Dash (DASH), the 15th top coin by market cap, is seeing the biggest growth among top 20 coins by market cap at press time. Up 10 percent, the token is trading at $91.65 at press time.
On the other hand, Cardano (ADA), is down around 0.7 percent today, which is the biggest loss among top 20 cryptos by market cap.
Totalmarket capitalizationhas been hovering between $133–$134 billion for the most part of the day. Daily trade volume is $32 billion at press time.
Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Earlier today, the official wallet by the world’slargestcrypto exchangeBinanceaddedsupport forcredit cardpurchases and Ripple’s XRP token. Binance’s Trust Wallet now allows users to purchase XRP, BTC, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and ETH with credit or debit card, which followed a partnership with payment operator Simplex.
United Statesstockmarkets have seen mixed signals today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) seeing a decline of 0.25 percent at press time, while S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (NASDAQ) Composite are up 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. According toCNBC, DJIA’s fall took place amidst the drop of Boeing shares that fell more than 6 percent.
Meanwhile,oilprices have grown today, which is allegedly supported by Saudi Arabia’s plan for further voluntary supply curbs in April and by a reduction of oil exports from Venezuela due to a power outage, asCNBCreports. The global benchmark Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil are up 0.2 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively, while OPEC has jumped 1.9 percent at press time, according toOilprice.com.
Goldprices have also seen some growth on Tuesday, reportedly supported by a retreat in the U.S. dollar amidst Brexit negotiations between theEuropean UnionandUnited Kingdom, according to CNBC.Spot goldis up around 0.6 percent, while U.S.gold futuresare up almost 0.9 percent at press time.
• Crypto Markets See Mixed Action While Bitcoin Holds $3,900, US Stocks Rise
• Crypto Markets Recover $5 Billion Lost on Monday, Bitcoin Tests $3,900 Support
• Crypto Markets See Major Losses, While Stocks Rise as US-China Talks Expected to End
• After a Brief Decline, Crypto Market Cap Is Stable Around $130 Billion, Stocks Are Down || Crypto Markets Are Trading Sideways, Bitcoin Holds $3,900 Support: Tuesday, March 12 — crypto markets are trading sideways, with total market cap hovering between $133–$134 billion, and Bitcoin (BTC) holding $3,900 for the most part of the day.
The top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap are seeing mixed signals, with losses not exceeding 1.1 percent, while some coins have seen a growth of over 3 percent over 24 hours at press time.
Market visualization fromCoin360
Bitcoin is trading at $3,912 at press time, up around 0.3 percent over the past 24 hours. The biggest cryptocurrency surged to as high as $3,925 earlier on the day, while the intraday low amounted to $3,863. At press time, Bitcoin is up around 0.7 percent over the past 7 days.
Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is trading at $134.27, up 0.4 percent over the past 24 hours at press time. The topaltcoinis down about 1.86 percent over the past 7 days.
Today,United StatesSecurities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Claytonconfirmedthat Ethereum and similarcryptocurrenciesare notsecuritiesunder U.S. law. However, according to recent reports, Clayton meant that he agreed that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time.
Recently, Ethereum mining pool Sparkpoolconfirmedthat it had come to an arrangement with a user who accidentally sent it over $300,000 in mining fees on March 11.
Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ripple (XRP), the third top cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 0.03 percent, trading at about $0.3107 at press time. The major altcoin is down around 1.34 percent over the past 7 days.
Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Dash (DASH), the 15th top coin by market cap, is seeing the biggest growth among top 20 coins by market cap at press time. Up 10 percent, the token is trading at $91.65 at press time.
On the other hand, Cardano (ADA), is down around 0.7 percent today, which is the biggest loss among top 20 cryptos by market cap.
Totalmarket capitalizationhas been hovering between $133–$134 billion for the most part of the day. Daily trade volume is $32 billion at press time.
Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Earlier today, the official wallet by the world’slargestcrypto exchangeBinanceaddedsupport forcredit cardpurchases and Ripple’s XRP token. Binance’s Trust Wallet now allows users to purchase XRP, BTC, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and ETH with credit or debit card, which followed a partnership with payment operator Simplex.
United Statesstockmarkets have seen mixed signals today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) seeing a decline of 0.25 percent at press time, while S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (NASDAQ) Composite are up 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. According toCNBC, DJIA’s fall took place amidst the drop of Boeing shares that fell more than 6 percent.
Meanwhile,oilprices have grown today, which is allegedly supported by Saudi Arabia’s plan for further voluntary supply curbs in April and by a reduction of oil exports from Venezuela due to a power outage, asCNBCreports. The global benchmark Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil are up 0.2 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively, while OPEC has jumped 1.9 percent at press time, according toOilprice.com.
Goldprices have also seen some growth on Tuesday, reportedly supported by a retreat in the U.S. dollar amidst Brexit negotiations between theEuropean UnionandUnited Kingdom, according to CNBC.Spot goldis up around 0.6 percent, while U.S.gold futuresare up almost 0.9 percent at press time.
• Crypto Markets See Mixed Action While Bitcoin Holds $3,900, US Stocks Rise
• Crypto Markets Recover $5 Billion Lost on Monday, Bitcoin Tests $3,900 Support
• Crypto Markets See Major Losses, While Stocks Rise as US-China Talks Expected to End
• After a Brief Decline, Crypto Market Cap Is Stable Around $130 Billion, Stocks Are Down || Crypto Markets Are Trading Sideways, Bitcoin Holds $3,900 Support: Tuesday, March 12 — crypto markets are trading sideways, with total market cap hovering between $133–$134 billion, and Bitcoin ( BTC ) holding $3,900 for the most part of the day. The top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap are seeing mixed signals, with losses not exceeding 1.1 percent, while some coins have seen a growth of over 3 percent over 24 hours at press time. Market visualization from Coin360 Market visualization from Coin360 Bitcoin is trading at $3,912 at press time, up around 0.3 percent over the past 24 hours. The biggest cryptocurrency surged to as high as $3,925 earlier on the day, while the intraday low amounted to $3,863. At press time, Bitcoin is up around 0.7 percent over the past 7 days. Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Bitcoin 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ethereum ( ETH ), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is trading at $134.27, up 0.4 percent over the past 24 hours at press time. The top altcoin is down about 1.86 percent over the past 7 days. Today, United States Securities and Exchanges Commission ( SEC ) Chairman Jay Clayton confirmed that Ethereum and similar cryptocurrencies are not securities under U.S. law. However, according to recent reports, Clayton meant that he agreed that a digital asset’s definition as a security can change over time. Recently, Ethereum mining pool Sparkpool confirmed that it had come to an arrangement with a user who accidentally sent it over $300,000 in mining fees on March 11. Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ripple ( XRP ), the third top cryptocurrency by market cap, is down 0.03 percent, trading at about $0.3107 at press time. The major altcoin is down around 1.34 percent over the past 7 days. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Dash ( DASH ), the 15th top coin by market cap, is seeing the biggest growth among top 20 coins by market cap at press time. Up 10 percent, the token is trading at $91.65 at press time. On the other hand, Cardano ( ADA ), is down around 0.7 percent today, which is the biggest loss among top 20 cryptos by market cap. Story continues Total market capitalization has been hovering between $133–$134 billion for the most part of the day. Daily trade volume is $32 billion at press time. Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Earlier today, the official wallet by the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance added support for credit card purchases and Ripple’s XRP token. Binance’s Trust Wallet now allows users to purchase XRP, BTC, Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ), Litecoin ( LTC ), and ETH with credit or debit card, which followed a partnership with payment operator Simplex. United States stock markets have seen mixed signals today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( DJIA ) seeing a decline of 0.25 percent at press time, while S&P 500 ( SPX ) and Nasdaq ( NASDAQ ) Composite are up 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. According to CNBC , DJIA’s fall took place amidst the drop of Boeing shares that fell more than 6 percent. Meanwhile, oil prices have grown today, which is allegedly supported by Saudi Arabia’s plan for further voluntary supply curbs in April and by a reduction of oil exports from Venezuela due to a power outage, as CNBC reports. The global benchmark Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil are up 0.2 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively, while OPEC has jumped 1.9 percent at press time, according to Oilprice.com . Gold prices have also seen some growth on Tuesday, reportedly supported by a retreat in the U.S. dollar amidst Brexit negotiations between the European Union and United Kingdom , according to CNBC. Spot gold is up around 0.6 percent, while U.S. gold futures are up almost 0.9 percent at press time. Related Articles: Crypto Markets See Mixed Action While Bitcoin Holds $3,900, US Stocks Rise Crypto Markets Recover $5 Billion Lost on Monday, Bitcoin Tests $3,900 Support Crypto Markets See Major Losses, While Stocks Rise as US-China Talks Expected to End After a Brief Decline, Crypto Market Cap Is Stable Around $130 Billion, Stocks Are Down || Trezor Defends Crypto Wallet Security after Ledger’s MIT Bitcoin Bombshell: Ledger Chief Security Officer Charles Guillemet gave a shocking presentation at the MIT Bitcoin Expo this week in which he presented alleged vulnerabilities with the hardware cryptocurrency wallet produced by Trezor – perhaps its top competitor. Trezor arguesin a new blog postthat all of the attack vectors mentioned are not exploitable remotely.
Trezorparticularly took umbrage to the disclosure of an existing chip vulnerability, saying:
“[W]e were surprised by Ledger’s announcement of this issue, especially after being explicitly asked by Ledger not to publicize the issue, due to possible implications for the whole microchip industry, beyond hardware wallets, such as the medical and automotive industries. Since Ledger is in talks with the chip manufacturer (ST) at the moment, we will also refrain from divulging any critical information, save for the fact that this attack vector is also resource-intensive, requiring laboratory-level equipment for manipulations of the microchip as well as deep expertise in the subject.”
Neither they norLedgerhave disclosed much more about the vulnerability outside of the presentation in the video above. All we know is that it’s related to a chip produced by ST Microelectronics, a French hardware component producer. As SatoshiLabs (the makers of Trezor) point out, the vulnerability goes beyond just crypto wallets. They say that regular security measures mitigate against it, but don’t detract from the seriousness of the problem.
After all, even majorcryptocurrency exchangesare known to use hardware wallets for cold storage. Even if it requires “laboratory level” equipment and extreme knowledge, the jackpot is big enough that attacks could take place if people learn how to do them.
Bitcoin hardware wallets are vulnerable to supply chain attacks. | Source: Shutterstock
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Trezor Defends Crypto Wallet Security after Ledger’s MIT Bitcoin Bombshell: Ledger Chief Security Officer Charles Guillemet gave a shocking presentation at the MIT Bitcoin Expo this week in which he presented alleged vulnerabilities with the hardware cryptocurrency wallet produced by Trezor – perhaps its top competitor. Trezor arguesin a new blog postthat all of the attack vectors mentioned are not exploitable remotely.
Trezorparticularly took umbrage to the disclosure of an existing chip vulnerability, saying:
“[W]e were surprised by Ledger’s announcement of this issue, especially after being explicitly asked by Ledger not to publicize the issue, due to possible implications for the whole microchip industry, beyond hardware wallets, such as the medical and automotive industries. Since Ledger is in talks with the chip manufacturer (ST) at the moment, we will also refrain from divulging any critical information, save for the fact that this attack vector is also resource-intensive, requiring laboratory-level equipment for manipulations of the microchip as well as deep expertise in the subject.”
Neither they norLedgerhave disclosed much more about the vulnerability outside of the presentation in the video above. All we know is that it’s related to a chip produced by ST Microelectronics, a French hardware component producer. As SatoshiLabs (the makers of Trezor) point out, the vulnerability goes beyond just crypto wallets. They say that regular security measures mitigate against it, but don’t detract from the seriousness of the problem.
After all, even majorcryptocurrency exchangesare known to use hardware wallets for cold storage. Even if it requires “laboratory level” equipment and extreme knowledge, the jackpot is big enough that attacks could take place if people learn how to do them.
Bitcoin hardware wallets are vulnerable to supply chain attacks. | Source: Shutterstock
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Trezor Defends Crypto Wallet Security after Ledgers MIT Bitcoin Bombshell: Trezor is biting back at claims that its bitcoin and cryptocurrency wallets are insecure. | Source: Shutterstock Ledger Chief Security Officer Charles Guillemet gave a shocking presentation at the MIT Bitcoin Expo this week in which he presented alleged vulnerabilities with the hardware cryptocurrency wallet produced by Trezor perhaps its top competitor. Trezor argues in a new blog post that all of the attack vectors mentioned are not exploitable remotely. Ledger Spills the Beans on Alleged Chip Vulnerability Trezor particularly took umbrage to the disclosure of an existing chip vulnerability, saying: [W]e were surprised by Ledgers announcement of this issue, especially after being explicitly asked by Ledger not to publicize the issue, due to possible implications for the whole microchip industry, beyond hardware wallets, such as the medical and automotive industries. Since Ledger is in talks with the chip manufacturer (ST) at the moment, we will also refrain from divulging any critical information, save for the fact that this attack vector is also resource-intensive, requiring laboratory-level equipment for manipulations of the microchip as well as deep expertise in the subject. Neither they nor Ledger have disclosed much more about the vulnerability outside of the presentation in the video above. All we know is that its related to a chip produced by ST Microelectronics, a French hardware component producer. As SatoshiLabs (the makers of Trezor) point out, the vulnerability goes beyond just crypto wallets. They say that regular security measures mitigate against it, but dont detract from the seriousness of the problem. After all, even major cryptocurrency exchanges are known to use hardware wallets for cold storage. Even if it requires laboratory level equipment and extreme knowledge, the jackpot is big enough that attacks could take place if people learn how to do them. Bitcoin Hardware Wallets Vulnerable to Supply Chain Attacks bitcoin supply chain Bitcoin hardware wallets are vulnerable to supply chain attacks. | Source: Shutterstock Read the full story on CCN.com . || What is the Bancor Network?: The name Bancor was inspired by economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes had an idea in the 1940s of a unit of account that could be used to track the flows of assets and liabilities. The Bancor Network expands on this idea, allowing for the exchange of cryptocurrencies without the need for an exchange. You can convert your coins without the need for a buyer or a seller. Bancor can act as a reserve token for the rest of the tokens in the industry. In doing so, the Bancor Network hopes to ease the interoperability of cryptocurrencies as well as increase their liquidity. How does the Bancor Network work? Bancor envisions a world quite dissimilar to that of Bitcoin maximalists. Even the name Bancor would irk some BTC maximalists as it is derived from Keynes, who himself has never been a pin-up boy for the largely Austrian School of economics that many Bitcoiners follow. The Bancor Network anticipates a world of thousands of different cryptocurrencies. Through its network, it hopes to add much needed liquidity to many of these coins. With the use of smart contracts, one can exchange an ERC-20 token such as BAT for a smart token through the Bancor protocol. This means that there is no need for an exchange to help with the process or even another person to be involved. If in the future there were numerous such tokens but not many buyers or sellers, the Bancor Network could fill in the gap and do the trade for you using its platform. The Bancor Network has recently released a new mobile wallet that will allow for the conversion of EOS tokens as well. It hopes the new wallet will allow for increased interoperability between different blockchains and their relevant tokens. The Bancor ICO The Bancor Network ran an ICO that finished in June 2017. The token price at the time was $3.92, and the ICO raised $153 million. Bancor’s token, BNT, is available on some of the biggest exchanges including Binance, Bittrex, and Poloniex. BNT is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that it is not possible to mine the token, but as it is an ERC-20 token, it means that it can easily be exchanged with other ERC-20 tokens, which is ideal for the aim of the Bancor Network. Story continues Bancor had some big hitters involved in the company from the get-go. Tim Draper, the venture capitalist and cryptocurrency evangelical, was one of the early investors in the network. Recent price action At the end of the 2017 bull run, BNT reached an all-time high of over $10 – much more than the initial ICO price. However, like every other cryptocurrency since, it has been in a downward spiral. The price currently sits at $0.59, with a total market cap of $37 million. The coin has reached prices as low as $0.48. Should another bull run occur, it would take a lot for Bancor to reach the highs of January 2018, although stranger things have happened. Criticisms Bancor has received its fair share of criticism. Firstly, critics argued that Bancor doesn’t necessarily need to use a blockchain to achieve its goals. Criticism also arises from the belief that Bancor works like a decentralised exchange. These issues were brought into the spotlight when a hack took place in June 2018. According to the team, “a wallet used to upgrade some smart contracts was compromised”. In the hack, Bancor lost around $20 million – some of this was Ethereum and some of it was Bancor’s own token BNT. Projects on Ethereum are not immune to hacks. The complexity of the Ethereum network has shown this many times in the past. The hack highlighted other key issues though. As it turned out, Bancor was/is able to freeze customer funds as well as lose them. The idea of Bancor being decentralised was therefore questioned more than ever. Bancor argues that in a state of emergency, these abilities are “necessary to protect the network and token holders”. The issues have been highlighted by prominent members of the industry including Litecoin creator Charlie Lee. In essence, if Bancor was truly decentralised, then it would not be able to have the ability to freeze customer funds. A Bancor wallet got hacked and that wallet has the ability to steal coins out of their own smart contracts. 🤦♂️ An exchange is not decentralized if it can lose customer funds OR if it can freeze customer funds. Bancor can do BOTH. It's a false sense of decentralization. https://t.co/22UYygIhEF — Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) July 10, 2018 Conclusion Whether you like or dislike Bancor will depend on how you see the industry evolving in the years to come, as well as your view on the attack it received from hackers. For many Bitcoin maximalists, the future is of very few cryptocurrencies – ideally just Bitcoin. However, if the future turns out to be one of many varieties of cryptocurrencies, then Bancor could be a useful tool in providing liquidity. The fact that Bancor has the ability to freeze customer funds though goes against the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies. If you choose to buy some BNT, then you have to be willing to accept this compromise. Like any cryptocurrency investment, risk management and doing your own research is key. The post What is the Bancor Network? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What is the Bancor Network?: The name Bancor was inspired by economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes had an idea in the 1940s of a unit of account that could be used to track the flows of assets and liabilities. The Bancor Network expands on this idea, allowing for the exchange of cryptocurrencies without the need for an exchange. You can convert your coins without the need for a buyer or a seller. Bancor can act as a reserve token for the rest of the tokens in the industry. In doing so, the Bancor Network hopes to ease the interoperability of cryptocurrencies as well as increase their liquidity. How does the Bancor Network work? Bancor envisions a world quite dissimilar to that of Bitcoin maximalists. Even the name Bancor would irk some BTC maximalists as it is derived from Keynes, who himself has never been a pin-up boy for the largely Austrian School of economics that many Bitcoiners follow. The Bancor Network anticipates a world of thousands of different cryptocurrencies. Through its network, it hopes to add much needed liquidity to many of these coins. With the use of smart contracts, one can exchange an ERC-20 token such as BAT for a smart token through the Bancor protocol. This means that there is no need for an exchange to help with the process or even another person to be involved. If in the future there were numerous such tokens but not many buyers or sellers, the Bancor Network could fill in the gap and do the trade for you using its platform. The Bancor Network has recently released a new mobile wallet that will allow for the conversion of EOS tokens as well. It hopes the new wallet will allow for increased interoperability between different blockchains and their relevant tokens. The Bancor ICO The Bancor Network ran an ICO that finished in June 2017. The token price at the time was $3.92, and the ICO raised $153 million. Bancor’s token, BNT, is available on some of the biggest exchanges including Binance, Bittrex, and Poloniex. BNT is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that it is not possible to mine the token, but as it is an ERC-20 token, it means that it can easily be exchanged with other ERC-20 tokens, which is ideal for the aim of the Bancor Network. Story continues Bancor had some big hitters involved in the company from the get-go. Tim Draper, the venture capitalist and cryptocurrency evangelical, was one of the early investors in the network. Recent price action At the end of the 2017 bull run, BNT reached an all-time high of over $10 – much more than the initial ICO price. However, like every other cryptocurrency since, it has been in a downward spiral. The price currently sits at $0.59, with a total market cap of $37 million. The coin has reached prices as low as $0.48. Should another bull run occur, it would take a lot for Bancor to reach the highs of January 2018, although stranger things have happened. Criticisms Bancor has received its fair share of criticism. Firstly, critics argued that Bancor doesn’t necessarily need to use a blockchain to achieve its goals. Criticism also arises from the belief that Bancor works like a decentralised exchange. These issues were brought into the spotlight when a hack took place in June 2018. According to the team, “a wallet used to upgrade some smart contracts was compromised”. In the hack, Bancor lost around $20 million – some of this was Ethereum and some of it was Bancor’s own token BNT. Projects on Ethereum are not immune to hacks. The complexity of the Ethereum network has shown this many times in the past. The hack highlighted other key issues though. As it turned out, Bancor was/is able to freeze customer funds as well as lose them. The idea of Bancor being decentralised was therefore questioned more than ever. Bancor argues that in a state of emergency, these abilities are “necessary to protect the network and token holders”. The issues have been highlighted by prominent members of the industry including Litecoin creator Charlie Lee. In essence, if Bancor was truly decentralised, then it would not be able to have the ability to freeze customer funds. A Bancor wallet got hacked and that wallet has the ability to steal coins out of their own smart contracts. 🤦♂️ An exchange is not decentralized if it can lose customer funds OR if it can freeze customer funds. Bancor can do BOTH. It's a false sense of decentralization. https://t.co/22UYygIhEF — Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) July 10, 2018 Conclusion Whether you like or dislike Bancor will depend on how you see the industry evolving in the years to come, as well as your view on the attack it received from hackers. For many Bitcoin maximalists, the future is of very few cryptocurrencies – ideally just Bitcoin. However, if the future turns out to be one of many varieties of cryptocurrencies, then Bancor could be a useful tool in providing liquidity. The fact that Bancor has the ability to freeze customer funds though goes against the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies. If you choose to buy some BNT, then you have to be willing to accept this compromise. Like any cryptocurrency investment, risk management and doing your own research is key. The post What is the Bancor Network? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Samsung Galaxy S10 Wallet Supports Ether, CryptoKitties — But Not Bitcoin: When leaked pictures of Samsung’s latest smartphone went viral, the crypto sphere lost its mind over a singular feature: a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.
Samsung would quickly deny rumors that the S10 contained a baked-in hardware wallet. Well, the wallet definitely exists. It’s just missing a few features you might expect of a crypto wallet. Specifically, it doesn’t support bitcoin — only ether and ERC20 tokens — which would be akin to your broker at Charles Schwab or Fidelity telling you that your 401(k) lets you invest in silver, copper and other metals but not gold.
I bought my S10 yesterday and downloaded the wallet first thing this morning from Samsung’s Galaxy Store (interestingly, it’s not available on the Google Play Store). Upon setting up the wallet, the app asks for permissions, like access to your phone’s calling function, storage, camera and body sensors, and it asks you to sign in with either a Samsung or Google account.
I tried to take screenshots of the process, but when you try this, an error message reads: “Can’t take screenshots due to security policy.” So there’s a plus-one for mindful security practice even if the app’s asking for access to your phone leaves you wary.
Setting up the wallet is pretty standard procedure. You can either import an existing wallet using your seed phrase or create a new one. If creating a new one, you’ll be asked to enter a 6-digit PIN, and after you confirm this PIN, you’ll be given a 12-word seed phrase (aka recovery phrase or mnemonic phrase).
The device will warn you to store the phrase on another device (or, if you’re being really security minded, offline entirely), adding that if you lose it, then your wallet will be lost to the blockchain abyss if you need to recover it for whatver reason (instances where you might need to recover your wallet: your phone gets broken, your phone gets stolen or Thanos secures all the Infinity Stones). The app also assures you that Samsung has no access to your wallet, but that anyone with your seed phrase does.
After you promise that you’ve written down the seed phrase safely like an obedient little enthusiast, like any responsible wallet, it will randomly select three of these words (numbered 1–12) for you to regurgitate to the app to prove that you didn’t ignore the most important step in setting up a wallet.
Once you’ve done this, your wallet is set up and you can start sending and receiving ether and ERC20 tokens.
Yep, just Ethereum stuff: no bitcoin. The wallet comes with innate support for ether, TrueUSD, Basic Attention Token, Augur’s REP, Chainlink, the Paxos Standard, Maker, USD Coin, BNB and ZRX, among others. You can also add a “custom token” like you can for other Ethereum wallet services such as MyCrypto and MyEtherWallet: this means that you can tell the wallet to recognize any ERC20 token by entering its token contract address, its name, its symbol (ticker) and its decimals.
It also comes with intrinsic support for two dApps: the Enjin Coin wallet, the eponymous cryptocurrency for Korean gaming company Enjin; and the notorious CryptoKitties. Enjin has been touted as a token platform that will revolutionize in-game purchases and ownership (what amounts to tokenizing cosmetics, items and other content). CryptoKitties, depending on who you ask, is either a really cute crypto trend or the virtual reincarnation of Beanie Babies with even more irrational buyer’s mania. It made headlines in 2017 when the dApp clogged up the Ethereum network.
According toBREAKERMAG’scoverageof the wallet, COSMEE, a cosmetic token that rewards users for things like reviews of beauty products, is also supported. The app reportedly features the CoinDuck payment portal for point-of-sale and merchant payments, as well.
Samsung has given no indication as to why it chose to support only Ethereum out of the gate, and it has also given no promise or timeline for integrating bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in the future.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Samsung Galaxy S10 Wallet Supports Ether, CryptoKitties — But Not Bitcoin: samsung wallet.jpg When leaked pictures of Samsung’s latest smartphone went viral, the crypto sphere lost its mind over a singular feature: a built-in cryptocurrency wallet. Samsung would quickly deny rumors that the S10 contained a baked-in hardware wallet. Well, the wallet definitely exists. It’s just missing a few features you might expect of a crypto wallet. Specifically, it doesn’t support bitcoin — only ether and ERC20 tokens — which would be akin to your broker at Charles Schwab or Fidelity telling you that your 401(k) lets you invest in silver, copper and other metals but not gold. The Wallet I bought my S10 yesterday and downloaded the wallet first thing this morning from Samsung’s Galaxy Store (interestingly, it’s not available on the Google Play Store). Upon setting up the wallet, the app asks for permissions, like access to your phone’s calling function, storage, camera and body sensors, and it asks you to sign in with either a Samsung or Google account. I tried to take screenshots of the process, but when you try this, an error message reads: “Can’t take screenshots due to security policy.” So there’s a plus-one for mindful security practice even if the app’s asking for access to your phone leaves you wary. Setting up the wallet is pretty standard procedure. You can either import an existing wallet using your seed phrase or create a new one. If creating a new one, you’ll be asked to enter a 6-digit PIN, and after you confirm this PIN, you’ll be given a 12-word seed phrase (aka recovery phrase or mnemonic phrase). The device will warn you to store the phrase on another device (or, if you’re being really security minded, offline entirely), adding that if you lose it, then your wallet will be lost to the blockchain abyss if you need to recover it for whatver reason (instances where you might need to recover your wallet: your phone gets broken, your phone gets stolen or Thanos secures all the Infinity Stones). The app also assures you that Samsung has no access to your wallet, but that anyone with your seed phrase does. Story continues After you promise that you’ve written down the seed phrase safely like an obedient little enthusiast, like any responsible wallet, it will randomly select three of these words (numbered 1–12) for you to regurgitate to the app to prove that you didn’t ignore the most important step in setting up a wallet. Bitcoin When? Once you’ve done this, your wallet is set up and you can start sending and receiving ether and ERC20 tokens. Yep, just Ethereum stuff: no bitcoin. The wallet comes with innate support for ether, TrueUSD, Basic Attention Token, Augur’s REP, Chainlink, the Paxos Standard, Maker, USD Coin, BNB and ZRX, among others. You can also add a “custom token” like you can for other Ethereum wallet services such as MyCrypto and MyEtherWallet: this means that you can tell the wallet to recognize any ERC20 token by entering its token contract address, its name, its symbol (ticker) and its decimals. It also comes with intrinsic support for two dApps: the Enjin Coin wallet, the eponymous cryptocurrency for Korean gaming company Enjin; and the notorious CryptoKitties. Enjin has been touted as a token platform that will revolutionize in-game purchases and ownership (what amounts to tokenizing cosmetics, items and other content). CryptoKitties, depending on who you ask, is either a really cute crypto trend or the virtual reincarnation of Beanie Babies with even more irrational buyer’s mania. It made headlines in 2017 when the dApp clogged up the Ethereum network. According to BREAKERMAG ’s coverage of the wallet, COSMEE, a cosmetic token that rewards users for things like reviews of beauty products, is also supported. The app reportedly features the CoinDuck payment portal for point-of-sale and merchant payments, as well. Samsung has given no indication as to why it chose to support only Ethereum out of the gate, and it has also given no promise or timeline for integrating bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in the future. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Samsung Galaxy S10 Wallet Supports Ether, CryptoKitties — But Not Bitcoin: When leaked pictures of Samsung’s latest smartphone went viral, the crypto sphere lost its mind over a singular feature: a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.
Samsung would quickly deny rumors that the S10 contained a baked-in hardware wallet. Well, the wallet definitely exists. It’s just missing a few features you might expect of a crypto wallet. Specifically, it doesn’t support bitcoin — only ether and ERC20 tokens — which would be akin to your broker at Charles Schwab or Fidelity telling you that your 401(k) lets you invest in silver, copper and other metals but not gold.
I bought my S10 yesterday and downloaded the wallet first thing this morning from Samsung’s Galaxy Store (interestingly, it’s not available on the Google Play Store). Upon setting up the wallet, the app asks for permissions, like access to your phone’s calling function, storage, camera and body sensors, and it asks you to sign in with either a Samsung or Google account.
I tried to take screenshots of the process, but when you try this, an error message reads: “Can’t take screenshots due to security policy.” So there’s a plus-one for mindful security practice even if the app’s asking for access to your phone leaves you wary.
Setting up the wallet is pretty standard procedure. You can either import an existing wallet using your seed phrase or create a new one. If creating a new one, you’ll be asked to enter a 6-digit PIN, and after you confirm this PIN, you’ll be given a 12-word seed phrase (aka recovery phrase or mnemonic phrase).
The device will warn you to store the phrase on another device (or, if you’re being really security minded, offline entirely), adding that if you lose it, then your wallet will be lost to the blockchain abyss if you need to recover it for whatver reason (instances where you might need to recover your wallet: your phone gets broken, your phone gets stolen or Thanos secures all the Infinity Stones). The app also assures you that Samsung has no access to your wallet, but that anyone with your seed phrase does.
After you promise that you’ve written down the seed phrase safely like an obedient little enthusiast, like any responsible wallet, it will randomly select three of these words (numbered 1–12) for you to regurgitate to the app to prove that you didn’t ignore the most important step in setting up a wallet.
Once you’ve done this, your wallet is set up and you can start sending and receiving ether and ERC20 tokens.
Yep, just Ethereum stuff: no bitcoin. The wallet comes with innate support for ether, TrueUSD, Basic Attention Token, Augur’s REP, Chainlink, the Paxos Standard, Maker, USD Coin, BNB and ZRX, among others. You can also add a “custom token” like you can for other Ethereum wallet services such as MyCrypto and MyEtherWallet: this means that you can tell the wallet to recognize any ERC20 token by entering its token contract address, its name, its symbol (ticker) and its decimals.
It also comes with intrinsic support for two dApps: the Enjin Coin wallet, the eponymous cryptocurrency for Korean gaming company Enjin; and the notorious CryptoKitties. Enjin has been touted as a token platform that will revolutionize in-game purchases and ownership (what amounts to tokenizing cosmetics, items and other content). CryptoKitties, depending on who you ask, is either a really cute crypto trend or the virtual reincarnation of Beanie Babies with even more irrational buyer’s mania. It made headlines in 2017 when the dApp clogged up the Ethereum network.
According toBREAKERMAG’scoverageof the wallet, COSMEE, a cosmetic token that rewards users for things like reviews of beauty products, is also supported. The app reportedly features the CoinDuck payment portal for point-of-sale and merchant payments, as well.
Samsung has given no indication as to why it chose to support only Ethereum out of the gate, and it has also given no promise or timeline for integrating bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in the future.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin Price Analysis: Low Time Frames Show Signs of Life Amid Weekly Tests: Bitcoin Price Analysis Bitcoin continues to coil tightly within its range-bound market as the bulls and bears fight it out to see which is most dominant. On the lower time frames (TF), bitcoin is managing to find support: Figure_1 (7).png Figure 1: BTC-USD, 2-Hour Candles, Low TF Support The zone outlined by the green line in Figure 1 represents local support that has kept the market afloat for the last week and a half. Late last night, we saw another test of this support level has failed to break it thus far. On a macro level, we are in a kind of no-mans-land, following the bounce off macro support in the mid $3,000s: Figure_2 (15).png Figure 2: BTC-USD, Daily Candles, Macro Support Respected The blue zone outlined above shows the market respecting the support zone following the high volume rejection from the high established in the low $4,000s. Since we managed to establish support on the low TF and high TF market structures, it seems logical that the next move will be a test of supply in the red-dotted zone shown above. If we zoom out even further to the weekly candles, we can see clearly that this low TF range-bound market is nothing more than a weekly resistance test in an attempt to reclaim macro support: Figure_3 (2).png Figure 3: BTC-USD, Weekly Candles, Weekly Resistance Test Figure 3 shows a test of the weekly resistance level. So far, we have seen a few tests of the area but nothing that has managed to close above the level. If we can manage to get a weekly close above the level shown above, that would be a very strong, bullish statement to make in the current market structure. So far, we have been rejected twice, but if we manage to close a weekly candle above the resistance level, this could be a great sign of bearish exhaustion considering that level has been heavily shorted for the last few months. If we can close above the current high thats been established in the $3,900s, that would be bullish on all TFs down to the hourly candles. However, if this level gets rejected, it would most likely mean a revisit to the lows in the low $3,000 zone. For now, things are fairly bullish as we maintain support on lower and macro TFs. Look out for a close above the weekly resistance level, as this would indicate a change of character in the market structure. Story continues Summary Bitcoin managed to establish support with its lower TF range-bound market. This support coincided with a macro support level on the daily candles as well. We are currently in between major support and resistance levels, so the market is drifting up and down as the bulls and bears battle it out. Macro resistance is being tested for a third time. If we manage to close a weekly candle above this level, that would likely mean bearish exhaustion is failing to suppress the market demand. Look for a close above this level, as this would represent a change in market structure. Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Inc related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Inc and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine .
[Social Media Buzz]
#Doviz
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#USD : 5.4577
#EUR : 6.1536
#GBP : 7.1433
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#BTC
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#Gobaba : 23217.55
#BtcTurk : 21169.00
#Koinim : 21319.72
#Paribu : 21296.00
#Koineks : 21200.00 || #Blockchain could democratise banking, music – but at what cost? #bitcoin #fintech #cryptocurrency #crypto https://t.co/BeqXvQPeIr || #Doviz
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#USD : 5.4577
#EUR : 6.1536
#GBP : 7.1433
--------------------------------------
#BTC
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|
3924.37, 3960.91, 4048.73, 4025.23, 4032.51, 4071.19, 4087.48, 4029.33, 4023.97, 4035.83
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11450.85, 12285.96, 12573.81, 12156.51, 11358.66, 11815.99, 11392.38, 10256.06, 10895.09, 9477.64, 9693.80, 10666.48, 10530.73, 10767.14, 10599.11, 10343.11, 9900.77, 9811.93, 9911.84, 9870.30, 9477.68, 9552.86, 9519.15, 9607.42, 10085.63, 10399.67, 10518.17, 10821.73, 10970.18, 11805.65, 11478.17, 11941.97, 11966.41, 11862.94, 11354.02, 11523.58, 11382.62, 10895.83, 10051.70, 10311.55, 10374.34, 10231.74, 10345.81, 10916.05, 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-10-04]
Volume: 13139456229, RSI (14-day): 27.72, 50-day EMA: 9571.44, 200-day EMA: 8745.27
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1506.20, Gold RSI: 51.80
Oil Price: 52.81, Oil RSI: 39.22
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Japan ETFs May Be an Overlooked Area of Global Market: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
Japanese companies are turning a profit and the economy is strengthening, but Japan's markets and country-specific ETF remain undervalued and largely overlooked.
TheiShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ) , one of the largest Japan ETFs listed in the U.S., increased 11.1% year-to-date and trades at a 13.1 price-to-earnings and 1.1 price-to-book. In comparison, the S&P 500 trades at a 18.3 P/E and a 3.0 P/B.
James Mackintosh for theWall Street Journalargued that global investors have passed over Japan's markets largely because of perceived risks associated with a global slowdown.
Japanese equities are populated by economically and currency-sensitive cyclical companies whose profits have surged but could swiftly pullback in face of a global downturn. Moreover, cyclical stocks are already out of favor, so investors won't be putting any value on Japan's cyclical profits anyways.
Nevertheless, monetary and fiscal policies have helped stimulate this Asian economy. For instance, while inflation remains below a 2% target, the country has dug itself out of two decades of deflation. The overall government budget is on pace for the smallest deficit next year since the post-bubble recession of 1993.
Market reforms have helped encourage better allocation of capital by companies and supported trends for more women joining the workforce.
Earnings per share have increased
The actions have translated to improving markets. According to MSCI data, earnings per share have increased faster than in the U.S. recently. The Ministry of Finance also showed operating profit margins for big nonfinancial companies were not far off the peak of 8.6% in the second quarter of last year, or far above the 2007 high of 5.7%.
Nevertheless, global trade remains a real overhang for the Japanese economy. Japan’s huge manufacturers are heavily exposed to global winds and to the foreign exchange market, and profit margins have declined as both weighed on exporters.
The country's markets reveals it is home to the cheapest financials, the cheapest industrials, and the cheapest consumer discretionary companies, which combined account for half the market, or more than the U.S., U.K., Eurozone or emerging markets.
So, if you believe the world economy could turn around, Japan should do well as we return to normal.
For more information on the Japanese markets, visit ourJapan category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Japan ETFs May Be an Overlooked Area of Global Market: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Japanese companies are turning a profit and the economy is strengthening, but Japan's markets and country-specific ETF remain undervalued and largely overlooked. The iShares MSCI Japan ETF ( EWJ ) , one of the largest Japan ETFs listed in the U.S., increased 11.1% year-to-date and trades at a 13.1 price-to-earnings and 1.1 price-to-book. In comparison, the S&P 500 trades at a 18.3 P/E and a 3.0 P/B. James Mackintosh for the Wall Street Journal argued that global investors have passed over Japan's markets largely because of perceived risks associated with a global slowdown. Japanese equities are populated by economically and currency-sensitive cyclical companies whose profits have surged but could swiftly pullback in face of a global downturn. Moreover, cyclical stocks are already out of favor, so investors won't be putting any value on Japan's cyclical profits anyways. Nevertheless, monetary and fiscal policies have helped stimulate this Asian economy. For instance, while inflation remains below a 2% target, the country has dug itself out of two decades of deflation. The overall government budget is on pace for the smallest deficit next year since the post-bubble recession of 1993. Market reforms have helped encourage better allocation of capital by companies and supported trends for more women joining the workforce. Earnings per share have increased The actions have translated to improving markets. According to MSCI data, earnings per share have increased faster than in the U.S. recently. The Ministry of Finance also showed operating profit margins for big nonfinancial companies were not far off the peak of 8.6% in the second quarter of last year, or far above the 2007 high of 5.7%. Nevertheless, global trade remains a real overhang for the Japanese economy. Japan’s huge manufacturers are heavily exposed to global winds and to the foreign exchange market, and profit margins have declined as both weighed on exporters. Story continues The country's markets reveals it is home to the cheapest financials, the cheapest industrials, and the cheapest consumer discretionary companies, which combined account for half the market, or more than the U.S., U.K., Eurozone or emerging markets. So, if you believe the world economy could turn around, Japan should do well as we return to normal. For more information on the Japanese markets, visit our Japan category . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs ETF of the Week: iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (IWD) Liquid Strategies Presents Overlay Shares’ New Equity ETF Suite Schwab Eliminates ETF, Stock and Options Commissions European Stock ETF Could Offer Investors A Chance To Invest And Hedge Currencies Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies Tumble Over Past Week READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Verisart raises $2.5M to expand blockchain-certified art service: Verisart, an art and collectibles provenance startup, has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Galaxy Digital EOS Fund, with participation from Sinai Ventures and Rhodium.
According to Verisart, the firmleveragesthe Bitcoin blockchain to record and timestamp digital certificates representing real-life artwork and collectibles, which can be used to verify and track the provenance of an art piece. Verisart will use the new funds to expand its commercial authentication and provenance product.
Since launching 2015, Verisart has partnered with eBay and has worked to certify works by artists includingAi Wei Wei and Shepard Fairey.
“With this new round of funding, we’re able to scale our business and ramp up our partnership integrations. The art world is quickly realizing that blockchain provides a new standard in provenance and record keeping and we’re looking forward to extending these services to the industry," says Verisart co-founder and CEO Robert Norton. || Verisart raises $2.5M to expand blockchain-certified art service: Verisart, an art and collectibles provenance startup, has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Galaxy Digital EOS Fund, with participation from Sinai Ventures and Rhodium. According to Verisart, the firm leverages the Bitcoin blockchain to record and timestamp digital certificates representing real-life artwork and collectibles, which can be used to verify and track the provenance of an art piece. Verisart will use the new funds to expand its commercial authentication and provenance product. Since launching 2015, Verisart has partnered with eBay and has worked to certify works by artists including Ai Wei Wei and Shepard Fairey. With this new round of funding, were able to scale our business and ramp up our partnership integrations. The art world is quickly realizing that blockchain provides a new standard in provenance and record keeping and were looking forward to extending these services to the industry," says Verisart co-founder and CEO Robert Norton. View comments || Bitcoin to hit $90,000 after halvening, says State-backed German bank: A state-backed German bank has predicted that Bitcoin will hit a price of $90,000 by May 2020, in anticipation of the “halvening” of new supply. In a research paper that cites Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous, German lender Bayern LB says the halvening, which will reduce the number of new bitcoins mined at a time from 12.5 to 6.25, will digitally expedite the process of inducing scarcity—the quality that made gold valuable over the course of many millennia. You can calculate the value of said scarcity by taking the current number of bitcoins in circulation (“stock”) and dividing it by the rate at which new bitcoins are produced (“flow”). The theory goes that the higher this “stock-flow” heuristic is, the “harder” and more suitable for a currency the money is. That’s because assets with low production relative to their supply run less risk of wanton inflation. Bitcoin’s case is unique, in that the asset is programmatically inhibited from increasing its supply—the bank speculates that a further bump to the stock-flow ratio from the halvening will increase the price. “Given that there are no other uses at all for bitcoins, no other demand-side developments (e.g. demand for gold in the spread of smartphones) can distort price formation,” Manuel Andersch, Senior FX Analyst at Bayern LB writes. This all leads to the bank’s conclusion: by the time of the halvening, Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow will spike from 25.8 to around 53. Whereafter, “a vertiginous price of around $90,000 emerges.” But bitcoin is on a downward trend, and this week has dwindled to $8,300. How could we be in the run-up to any “vertiginous” price swing? The bank suggests that Bitcoin doesn’t cleave to the “efficient market theory” of crypto markets, which holds that known future events are already factored into existing price (“priced in”). Instead, the events will generate gains as they happen. However, as the bank itself acknowledges, “even the best statistical model can fail miserably when attempting to predict the future.” Others have already failed in the attempt: excitement over Bitcoin fork Litecoin ’s halvening earlier this year was dampened after the price slumped thereafter. The price had only increased in the lead-up to the halvening, before crashing. Nevertheless, Bayern’s conclusions suggest that Bitcoin’s in a unique position for a seismic spike. “In 2024 (when the following halvening is due to take place), its degree of hardness will inexorably increase even further, to a level unprecedented in human history (a stock-to-flow ratio of more than 100!),” wrote Andersch. “Nobody really knows what repercussions such a monetary standard would have,” he added. “Only one thing is clear: if Bitcoin is indeed to become the money of the 21st century, it will be because its properties (above all its high degree of hardness) have been preferred to those of alternative types of money—after all Bitcoin is a completely open monetary system operating on a purely voluntary basis.” View comments || Bitcoin to hit $90,000 after halvening, says State-backed German bank: A state-backed German bank has predicted that Bitcoin will hit a price of $90,000 by May 2020, in anticipation of the “halvening” of new supply.
In aresearch paperthat cites Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous, German lenderBayern LBsays the halvening, which will reduce the number of new bitcoins mined at a time from 12.5 to 6.25, will digitally expedite the process of inducing scarcity—the quality that made gold valuable over the course of many millennia.
You can calculate the value of said scarcity by taking the current number of bitcoins in circulation (“stock”) and dividing it by the rate at which new bitcoins are produced (“flow”). The theory goes that the higher this “stock-flow” heuristic is, the “harder” and more suitable for a currency the money is.
That’s because assets with low production relative to their supply run less risk of wanton inflation. Bitcoin’s case is unique, in that the asset is programmatically inhibited from increasing its supply—the bank speculates that a further bump to the stock-flow ratio from the halvening will increase the price. “Given that there are no other uses at all for bitcoins, no other demand-side developments (e.g. demand for gold in the spread of smartphones) can distort price formation,” Manuel Andersch, Senior FX Analyst at Bayern LB writes.
This all leads to the bank’s conclusion: by the time of the halvening, Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow will spike from 25.8 to around 53. Whereafter, “a vertiginous price of around $90,000 emerges.”
But bitcoin is on a downward trend, and this week has dwindled to $8,300. How could we be in the run-up to any “vertiginous” price swing? The bank suggests that Bitcoin doesn’t cleave to the “efficient market theory” of crypto markets, which holds that known future events are already factored into existing price (“priced in”). Instead, the events will generate gains as they happen.
However, as the bank itself acknowledges, “even the best statistical model can fail miserably when attempting to predict the future.” Others have already failed in the attempt: excitement over Bitcoin forkLitecoin’s halvening earlier this year wasdampenedafter the price slumped thereafter. The price had only increased in the lead-up to the halvening, before crashing.
Nevertheless, Bayern’s conclusions suggest that Bitcoin’s in a unique position for a seismic spike. “In 2024 (when the following halvening is due to take place), its degree of hardness will inexorably increase even further, to a level unprecedented in human history (a stock-to-flow ratio of more than 100!),” wrote Andersch.
“Nobody really knows what repercussions such a monetary standard would have,” he added. “Only one thing is clear: if Bitcoin is indeed to become the money of the 21st century, it will be because its properties (above all its high degree of hardness) have been preferred to those of alternative types of money—after all Bitcoin is a completely open monetary system operating on a purely voluntary basis.” || Bitcoin to hit $90,000 after halvening, says State-backed German bank: A state-backed German bank has predicted that Bitcoin will hit a price of $90,000 by May 2020, in anticipation of the “halvening” of new supply.
In aresearch paperthat cites Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous, German lenderBayern LBsays the halvening, which will reduce the number of new bitcoins mined at a time from 12.5 to 6.25, will digitally expedite the process of inducing scarcity—the quality that made gold valuable over the course of many millennia.
You can calculate the value of said scarcity by taking the current number of bitcoins in circulation (“stock”) and dividing it by the rate at which new bitcoins are produced (“flow”). The theory goes that the higher this “stock-flow” heuristic is, the “harder” and more suitable for a currency the money is.
That’s because assets with low production relative to their supply run less risk of wanton inflation. Bitcoin’s case is unique, in that the asset is programmatically inhibited from increasing its supply—the bank speculates that a further bump to the stock-flow ratio from the halvening will increase the price. “Given that there are no other uses at all for bitcoins, no other demand-side developments (e.g. demand for gold in the spread of smartphones) can distort price formation,” Manuel Andersch, Senior FX Analyst at Bayern LB writes.
This all leads to the bank’s conclusion: by the time of the halvening, Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow will spike from 25.8 to around 53. Whereafter, “a vertiginous price of around $90,000 emerges.”
But bitcoin is on a downward trend, and this week has dwindled to $8,300. How could we be in the run-up to any “vertiginous” price swing? The bank suggests that Bitcoin doesn’t cleave to the “efficient market theory” of crypto markets, which holds that known future events are already factored into existing price (“priced in”). Instead, the events will generate gains as they happen.
However, as the bank itself acknowledges, “even the best statistical model can fail miserably when attempting to predict the future.” Others have already failed in the attempt: excitement over Bitcoin forkLitecoin’s halvening earlier this year wasdampenedafter the price slumped thereafter. The price had only increased in the lead-up to the halvening, before crashing.
Nevertheless, Bayern’s conclusions suggest that Bitcoin’s in a unique position for a seismic spike. “In 2024 (when the following halvening is due to take place), its degree of hardness will inexorably increase even further, to a level unprecedented in human history (a stock-to-flow ratio of more than 100!),” wrote Andersch.
“Nobody really knows what repercussions such a monetary standard would have,” he added. “Only one thing is clear: if Bitcoin is indeed to become the money of the 21st century, it will be because its properties (above all its high degree of hardness) have been preferred to those of alternative types of money—after all Bitcoin is a completely open monetary system operating on a purely voluntary basis.” || Euro ETFs Are Vulnerable to Further Weakness: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. The euro and currency-related ETFs have slipped to multi-year lows and face many headwinds that threaten to push this market lower. The Invesco C urrencyShares Euro Currency Trust ( FXE ) declined 4.9% year-to-date to its lowest level since early 2017, with the euro now trading at $1.0967. Weighing on the euro currency, the Eurozone's deeply negative rates, expectations of further easing out of the European Central Bank, ongoing global trade war and relatively high-yield U.S. assets have all taken their toll, the Wall Street Journal reports. Salman Ahmed, chief investment strategist at Lombard Odier IM, warned of the possibility of the exchange rate reaching $1 to the euro, or parity, especially if Eurozone governments fail to raise spending to counteract the slowdown since the ECB has less room to ease. “The fact that the ECB can’t lower rates from here means they can’t support the economy,” Emiel van den Heiligenberg, head of asset allocation at Legal & General Investment Management, told the WSJ. “If fiscal policy doesn’t come to the fore [in Europe] then parity is a credible forecast: A recession would put much more pressure on monetary policy to be more aggressive,” Ahmed told the WSJ. While a weak euro could help the Eurozone's export industry stay competitive on the global arena, the emergence of new trade barriers and anti-trade sentiment continue to weigh on these segments. “If you’re an exporting nation and your currency drops that is helpful but exports are also linked to the global trade backdrop,” Caroline Simmons, deputy head of UBS Wealth Management’s U.K. investment office, told the WSJ. Trump on U.S. dollar against a weak euro Furthermore, President Donald Trump who has already shown displeasure at the relative strength of the U.S. dollar against a weak euro could enact aggressive measures to limit Eurozone trade if the Federal Reserve doesn't step up to depreciate the greenback. Story continues “Further weakness in the euro, for whatever reason, may annoy and aggravate the POTUS who already thinks the Europeans are nearly as bad as the Chinese with their FX policies,” Neil Dwane, global strategist at Allianz Global Investors, told the WSJ. ETF traders who are wary of the euro currency’s outlook could also capitalize on further woes through inverse or bearish euro-related ETFs. For instance, the ProShares Short Euro ( EUFX ) is designed to provide 100% of the inverse, or opposite, return of the U.S. dollar price of the euro, on a daily basis and the ProShares UltraShort Euro ( EUO ) provides 200% of the inverse return of the U.S. dollar price of the euro on a daily basis. The VanEck Vectors Double Short Euro ETN ( DRR ) tracks the Double Short Euro Index, which also provides a -200% exposure to the euro. The VelocityShares Daily 4X Long USD vs. EUR ( DEUR ) takes 4x or 400% exposure to the moves of the U.S. dollar against the euro currency. For more information on the foreign exchange markets, visit our currency ETFs category . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Liquid Strategies Presents Overlay Shares’ New Equity ETF Suite Schwab Eliminates ETF, Stock and Options Commissions European Stock ETF Could Offer Investors A Chance To Invest And Hedge Currencies Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies Tumble Over Past Week 3 ETFs to Look Into for the 5G Revolution READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Euro ETFs Are Vulnerable to Further Weakness: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
The euro and currency-related ETFs have slipped to multi-year lows and face many headwinds that threaten to push this market lower.
TheInvesco CurrencyShares Euro Currency Trust (FXE) declined 4.9% year-to-date to its lowest level since early 2017, with the euro now trading at $1.0967.
Weighing on the euro currency, the Eurozone's deeply negative rates, expectations of further easing out of the European Central Bank, ongoing global trade war and relatively high-yield U.S. assets have all taken their toll, theWall Street Journalreports.
Salman Ahmed, chief investment strategist at Lombard Odier IM, warned of the possibility of the exchange rate reaching $1 to the euro, or parity, especially if Eurozone governments fail to raise spending to counteract the slowdown since the ECB has less room to ease.
“The fact that the ECB can’t lower rates from here means they can’t support the economy,” Emiel van den Heiligenberg, head of asset allocation at Legal & General Investment Management, told the WSJ.
“If fiscal policy doesn’t come to the fore [in Europe] then parity is a credible forecast: A recession would put much more pressure on monetary policy to be more aggressive,” Ahmed told the WSJ.
While a weak euro could help the Eurozone's export industry stay competitive on the global arena, the emergence of new trade barriers and anti-trade sentiment continue to weigh on these segments.
“If you’re an exporting nation and your currency drops that is helpful but exports are also linked to the global trade backdrop,” Caroline Simmons, deputy head of UBS Wealth Management’s U.K. investment office, told the WSJ.
Trump on U.S. dollar against a weak euro
Furthermore, President Donald Trump who has already shown displeasure at the relative strength of the U.S. dollar against a weak euro could enact aggressive measures to limit Eurozone trade if the Federal Reserve doesn't step up to depreciate the greenback.
“Further weakness in the euro, for whatever reason, may annoy and aggravate the POTUS who already thinks the Europeans are nearly as bad as the Chinese with their FX policies,” Neil Dwane, global strategist at Allianz Global Investors, told the WSJ.
ETF traders who are wary of the euro currency’s outlook could also capitalize on further woes through inverse or bearish euro-related ETFs. For instance, theProShares Short Euro (EUFX) is designed to provide 100% of the inverse, or opposite, return of the U.S. dollar price of the euro, on a daily basis and theProShares UltraShort Euro (EUO) provides 200% of the inverse return of the U.S. dollar price of the euro on a daily basis. TheVanEck Vectors Double Short Euro ETN (DRR) tracks the Double Short Euro Index, which also provides a -200% exposure to the euro. TheVelocityShares Daily 4X Long USD vs. EUR (DEUR) takes 4x or 400% exposure to the moves of the U.S. dollar against the euro currency.
For more information on the foreign exchange markets, visit ourcurrency ETFs category.
POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM
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• VOO ETF Quote
• QQQ ETF Quote
• VTI ETF Quote
• JNUG ETF Quote
• Top 34 Gold ETFs
• Top 34 Oil ETFs
• Top 57 Financials ETFs
• Liquid Strategies Presents Overlay Shares’ New Equity ETF Suite
• Schwab Eliminates ETF, Stock and Options Commissions
• European Stock ETF Could Offer Investors A Chance To Invest And Hedge Currencies
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• 3 ETFs to Look Into for the 5G Revolution
READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Ohio Treasurer Suspends Predecessor’s Bitcoin Tax Payment Service: A website launched last year by the U.S. state of Ohio allowing businesses to pay a range of taxes with bitcoin has been taken offline. Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague announced the decision to immediately suspend OhioCrypto.com on Wednesday at a meeting of the State Board of Deposit, according to an official announcement . The reason for pulling the service – perhaps temporarily – comes down to how Ohio’s third party crypto payments provider, BitPay, is defined under state law, Sprague said. Related: Japan’s Financial Regulator Issues Draft Guidelines for Funds Investing in Crypto Sprague took on the mantle of state treasurer in January, since then his office has been “reviewing the creation and operation” of OhioCrypto.com. He now believes the payment method provided by BitPay constitutes a “financial transaction device” under Ohio law and has asked the state’s Attorney General for a formal opinion on the matter. The definition, if confirmed to apply to BitPay, means that the firm’s services should have been chosen via a “competitive selection process” and approved by the State Board of Deposit. Sprague said: “It is vital that Ohio explores innovative, new technologies and processes that continue to drive Ohio into the future. However, we must make sure any new processes that are implemented, such as OhioCrypto.com, are established in accordance with Ohio law.” Related: Missouri Watchdog Hits Unregistered Crypto Brokerage With Cease and Desist The bitcoin tax service was launched last November by the state treasurer at the time, Josh Mandel, who’d previously expressed an interest in cryptocurrency. It enabled companies in the state to pay a variety of taxes, including tobacco sales tax, employee withholding tax and public utilities tax, with the cryptocurrency. “Until a formal opinion is issued by the Attorney General, I feel it is prudent to suspend the website,” said Sprague, adding that fewer than 10 companies were paying taxes via the site. Story continues Atlanta-based BitPay offers a service allowing merchants and other organizations to accept payments in cryptocurrencies and automatically converts these to fiat currency. Ohio seal image via Shutterstock Related Stories Ripple’s Xpring Launches Crypto, Fiat Payments That Integrate Into Any App This Crypto-Savvy Bank Is Building Bandwidth for Bitcoin Retail Payments || Ohio Treasurer Suspends Predecessor’s Bitcoin Tax Payment Service: A website launched last year by the U.S. state of Ohio allowing businesses to pay a range of taxes with bitcoin has been taken offline.
Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague announced the decision to immediately suspend OhioCrypto.com on Wednesday at a meeting of the State Board of Deposit, according to an officialannouncement.
The reason for pulling the service – perhaps temporarily – comes down to how Ohio’s third party crypto payments provider, BitPay, is defined under state law, Sprague said.
Related:Japan’s Financial Regulator Issues Draft Guidelines for Funds Investing in Crypto
Sprague took on the mantle of state treasurer in January, since then his office has been “reviewing the creation and operation” of OhioCrypto.com. He now believes the payment method provided by BitPay constitutes a “financial transaction device” under Ohio law and has asked the state’s Attorney General for a formal opinion on the matter.
The definition, if confirmed to apply to BitPay, means that the firm’s services should have been chosen via a “competitive selection process” and approved by the State Board of Deposit.
Sprague said:
“It is vital that Ohio explores innovative, new technologies and processes that continue to drive Ohio into the future. However, we must make sure any new processes that are implemented, such as OhioCrypto.com, are established in accordance with Ohio law.”
Related:Missouri Watchdog Hits Unregistered Crypto Brokerage With Cease and Desist
The bitcoin tax service waslaunched last Novemberby the state treasurer at the time, Josh Mandel, who’d previously expressed an interest in cryptocurrency. It enabled companies in the state to pay a variety of taxes, including tobacco sales tax, employee withholding tax and public utilities tax, with the cryptocurrency.
“Until a formal opinion is issued by the Attorney General, I feel it is prudent to suspend the website,” said Sprague, adding that fewer than 10 companies were paying taxes via the site.
Atlanta-based BitPay offers a service allowing merchants and other organizations to accept payments in cryptocurrencies and automatically converts these to fiat currency.
Ohio sealimage via Shutterstock
• Ripple’s Xpring Launches Crypto, Fiat Payments That Integrate Into Any App
• This Crypto-Savvy Bank Is Building Bandwidth for Bitcoin Retail Payments || Ohio Treasurer Suspends Predecessor’s Bitcoin Tax Payment Service: A website launched last year by the U.S. state of Ohio allowing businesses to pay a range of taxes with bitcoin has been taken offline.
Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague announced the decision to immediately suspend OhioCrypto.com on Wednesday at a meeting of the State Board of Deposit, according to an officialannouncement.
The reason for pulling the service – perhaps temporarily – comes down to how Ohio’s third party crypto payments provider, BitPay, is defined under state law, Sprague said.
Related:Japan’s Financial Regulator Issues Draft Guidelines for Funds Investing in Crypto
Sprague took on the mantle of state treasurer in January, since then his office has been “reviewing the creation and operation” of OhioCrypto.com. He now believes the payment method provided by BitPay constitutes a “financial transaction device” under Ohio law and has asked the state’s Attorney General for a formal opinion on the matter.
The definition, if confirmed to apply to BitPay, means that the firm’s services should have been chosen via a “competitive selection process” and approved by the State Board of Deposit.
Sprague said:
“It is vital that Ohio explores innovative, new technologies and processes that continue to drive Ohio into the future. However, we must make sure any new processes that are implemented, such as OhioCrypto.com, are established in accordance with Ohio law.”
Related:Missouri Watchdog Hits Unregistered Crypto Brokerage With Cease and Desist
The bitcoin tax service waslaunched last Novemberby the state treasurer at the time, Josh Mandel, who’d previously expressed an interest in cryptocurrency. It enabled companies in the state to pay a variety of taxes, including tobacco sales tax, employee withholding tax and public utilities tax, with the cryptocurrency.
“Until a formal opinion is issued by the Attorney General, I feel it is prudent to suspend the website,” said Sprague, adding that fewer than 10 companies were paying taxes via the site.
Atlanta-based BitPay offers a service allowing merchants and other organizations to accept payments in cryptocurrencies and automatically converts these to fiat currency.
Ohio sealimage via Shutterstock
• Ripple’s Xpring Launches Crypto, Fiat Payments That Integrate Into Any App
• This Crypto-Savvy Bank Is Building Bandwidth for Bitcoin Retail Payments || Terrifying tale of OneCoins Cryptoqueen is subject of BBC podcast: A gripping new BBC podcast series, The Missing Cryptoqueen , tells the story of Bulgarian tech entrepreneur, Dr. Ruja Ignatova, who vanished in 2017, just as her shady cryptocurrency OneCoin was raking in billions of dollars from investors all over the world. Up to $5 billion is alleged to have been lost. There are ongoing criminal proceedings in the U.S., OneCoins operations were shut down in Italy, and people associated with it have been arrested and charged in China and India . But despite the disappearance of its founderwhose whereabouts is still unknownOneCoin is disputing allegations that its a scam. And people are still buying its pricey investment packages, according to reports last month. Meanwhile, since the series aired last month, at least one interviewee, who invested in the scheme, has complained of anonymous death threats and taunts over her criticism of OneCoin. A spokesperson for the BBC hinted that its been threatened too, adding that the significant response from OneCoin and its supporters is part of what is revealed in this podcast. The OneCoin scheme started at some point in 2014 amid the altcoin boom, which also saw the launch of Dogecoin , Litecoin , Ethereum and more. Ignatova sold her vision of a new kind of money, superior to Bitcoin, at show stopping conferences during a world tour in 2016. She looked like a queen, one attendee recalled in the first episode of the podcast, which opens with one such event. The investigation by the documentary team unearthed internal documents revealing the full extent of the scheme. People in 175 countries invested and as much as $500 million came from China. Meanwhile, OneCoin attracted skepticism from many in the crypto community, who pointed out that: There was no blockchain; the technical claims were wildly inflated; faked videos, false claims and it appeared to use a structure most commonly associated with Ponzi schemes. Earlier this year, in the U.S, Ignatova was charged in absentia with money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud. Crypto lawyer, Preston Byrne has said that, OneCoin is among one of the more outrageous, flagrant, and long-running alleged scams in the cryptocurrency business. And its still afloat. || Terrifying tale of OneCoin’s “Cryptoqueen” is subject of BBC podcast: A gripping new BBC podcast series,The Missing Cryptoqueen,tells the story of Bulgarian tech entrepreneur, Dr. Ruja Ignatova, who vanished in 2017, just as her shady cryptocurrency OneCoin was raking in billions of dollars from investors all over the world.
Up to $5 billion is alleged to have been lost. There areongoing criminal proceedingsin the U.S., OneCoin’s operations wereshut downin Italy, and people associated with it have been arrested and charged inChinaandIndia.
But despite the disappearance of its founder–whose whereabouts is still unknown–OneCoin is disputing allegations that it’s a scam. And people are still buying its pricey investment “packages,” according toreportslast month.
Meanwhile, since the series aired last month, at least one interviewee, who invested in the scheme, hascomplained of anonymous death threatsand taunts over her criticism of OneCoin. A spokesperson for the BBC hinted that it’s been threatened too, adding that the “significant response from OneCoin and its supporters is part of what is revealed in this podcast.”
The OneCoin scheme started at some point in 2014 amid the altcoin boom, which also saw the launch ofDogecoin,Litecoin,Ethereumand more.
Ignatova sold her vision of a new kind of money, superior to Bitcoin, at show stopping conferences during a world tour in 2016.
“She looked like a queen,” one attendee recalled in the first episode of the podcast, which opens with one such event.
The investigation by the documentary team unearthed internal documents revealing the full extent of the scheme. People in 175 countries invested and as much as $500 million came from China.
Meanwhile, OneCoin attracted skepticism from many in the crypto community, who pointed out that: There was no blockchain; the technical claims were wildly inflated; faked videos, false claims and it appeared to use a structure most commonly associated with Ponzi schemes.
Earlier this year, in the U.S, Ignatova was charged in absentia with money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud.
Crypto lawyer, Preston Byrne hassaidthat, “OneCoin is among one of the more outrageous, flagrant, and long-running alleged scams in the cryptocurrency business.”
And it’s still afloat. || Bitcoin Superstar als #1 Kryptohandelsplattform gewählt: LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / October 3, 2019 /Genauigkeit ist ein wichtiger Faktor in der Welt des Kryptowährungshandels. Wie viel man verliert oder Gewinn hängt davon ab, wie genau eine Person Trends erkennen und rechtzeitig Trades machen kann. Das ist in der Regel nicht einfach. Als Menschen gibt es Faktoren wie Emotionen und Panik beim Kauf. Das sind Schwächen, die in keiner Weise für den dramatischen Kryptowährungsmarkt von heute geeignet sind. Der Bitcoin-Markt zum Beispiel kann einen dramatischen Preisverfall innerhalb weniger Stunden erleben. In einem dynamischen Markt wie diesem ist etwas Anspruchsvolles erforderlich, um Trades zu analysieren, Transaktionen zu tätigen und riesige Bitcoin-Gewinne als Handelsrenditen zu liefern.Hier ist, wo Trading Bots kommen in.
Handel mit Bots und Handel
Handelsbots sind Programme, die entwickelt wurden, um Trends in den Kryptowährungsmärkten zu erkennen. Diese Programme wurden in vielen Märkten wie Forex verwendet und werden jetzt auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt verwendet. Sie verwenden Algorithmen, um Marktbewegungen zu analysieren und Transaktionen basierend auf den Parametern der Händler oder dem Parameter des Entwicklers durchzuführen. Obwohl alle gleichermaßen einen Vorteil über den menschlichen Emotionen im Handel haben, haben sie nicht gleichermaßen die gleiche Raffinesse, die es Händlern ermöglicht, die Marktbewegungen zu überwachen, um ihnen zu helfen, der Kurve voraus zu bleiben. Einen effizienten Handelsbot zu finden, um den Handel auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt zu unterstützen, kann sich irgendwann als schwierig erweisen, vor allem für Bitcoin. Wie es aussiehtBitcoin Superstarist die effizienteste automatisierte Trading-Software gibt es für alle Kryptowährung Händler daran interessiert, riesige Gewinne auf ihre Trades zu erfassen.
Bitcoin Gewinn
Bitcoin Superstarist eine Handelsgemeinschaft, die speziell für Kryptowährungshändler entwickelt wurde. Sie handeln Ethereum, Bitcoin und eine Vielzahl anderer Kryptowährungen. Diese Community verwendet eine gewinngenerierende Software, um Händlern zu helfen, von Kryptowährungen unabhängig von ihrem Qualifikationsniveau zu profitieren. Bitcoin-Gewinn arbeitet 0,01s schneller als der Marktdurchschnitt für Handelssignale.
Das Hauptmerkmal des Bitcoin-Gewinns
Das Herzstück von Bitcoin Superstar ist eine leistungsstarke Handelssignal-Engine. Diese Signal-Engine identifiziert lukrative Handelsmöglichkeiten durch ständiges Scannen der Kryptowährung Markt. Die Entscheidung, welche Vermögenswerte gehandelt werden, wird durch die generierten Signale aus dem Signalmotor herbeigeführt. Zu diesen Vermögenswerten gehörenBitcoin, Ethereum und Ripple. Abgesehen davon, die Signale Motor erzeugt auch Signale, die spezifisch für das Wann zu öffnen oder zu schließen Markt, um Gewinne zu maximieren. Für Händler mit wenig Wissen darüber, wie Kryptowährung funktioniert, ist dies eine hilfreiche Funktion.
Warum Bitcoin Superstar wählen?
Bitcoin Superstar ist sowohl benutzerfreundlich als auch intuitiv: Diese Funktion macht Bitcoin Superstar aus der Masse heraus. Obwohl es mit einem sehr komplexen Algorithmus funktioniert, ist die Benutzererfahrung einfach eine der besten aus jedem Bitcoin-Handelsbot. Die Einrichtung dieser Software ist einfach und Händler können ihren Handel leicht in Gang bringen. Es ist so einfach, wie es geht.
Hohe Erfolgs-Trades-Rate: Bitcoin Superstar hat eine hohe Erfolgsrate von 90%. Dies bietet Benutzern tägliche Gewinne. Möglich wird dies durch die parallelen Trades, die mit kürzeren Anlagen platziert werden. Für jede Einzahlung von '450 können viele gleichzeitige Trades von '45 platziert werden.
Tutorials und Demo-Konten: Nicht so viele Plattformen bieten Demo-Konten an. Einige, wenn angeboten, bieten keine voll funktionsfähigen Tutorials.Bitcoin Superstarermöglicht es Händlern, ein Demo-Konto zu erstellen, um sich mit der Plattform und ihren Funktionalitäten vertraut zu machen. Das Spiegel-Konto, das zusammen mit dem Broker erstellt wird, wenn Händler sich auf Bitcoin Superstar registrieren, ermöglicht es Benutzern, auf viele Tutorials zuzugreifen. Tipps gibt es auch zu Berufen im Bildungsbereich.
Engagierter und reaktionsschneller Kundensupport: Kunden erfahrungsgemäß e.H. Mitarbeiter können entweder über die Homepage oder auf dem Dashboard-Bildschirm des Händlers engagiert werden.
---
Sie könnenBitcoin Superstarfür weitere Informationen besuchenhttps://thebitcoinrobots.comoder besuchen Sie trustedbrokerz.com für weitere nützliche Informationen.
SOURCE:Algo Signals
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/561813/Bitcoin-Superstar-als-1-Kryptohandelsplattform-gewhlt || Bitcoin Superstar als #1 Kryptohandelsplattform gewählt: LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / October 3, 2019 / Genauigkeit ist ein wichtiger Faktor in der Welt des Kryptowährungshandels. Wie viel man verliert oder Gewinn hängt davon ab, wie genau eine Person Trends erkennen und rechtzeitig Trades machen kann. Das ist in der Regel nicht einfach. Als Menschen gibt es Faktoren wie Emotionen und Panik beim Kauf. Das sind Schwächen, die in keiner Weise für den dramatischen Kryptowährungsmarkt von heute geeignet sind. Der Bitcoin-Markt zum Beispiel kann einen dramatischen Preisverfall innerhalb weniger Stunden erleben. In einem dynamischen Markt wie diesem ist etwas Anspruchsvolles erforderlich, um Trades zu analysieren, Transaktionen zu tätigen und riesige Bitcoin-Gewinne als Handelsrenditen zu liefern. Hier ist, wo Trading Bots kommen in. Handel mit Bots und Handel Handelsbots sind Programme, die entwickelt wurden, um Trends in den Kryptowährungsmärkten zu erkennen. Diese Programme wurden in vielen Märkten wie Forex verwendet und werden jetzt auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt verwendet. Sie verwenden Algorithmen, um Marktbewegungen zu analysieren und Transaktionen basierend auf den Parametern der Händler oder dem Parameter des Entwicklers durchzuführen. Obwohl alle gleichermaßen einen Vorteil über den menschlichen Emotionen im Handel haben, haben sie nicht gleichermaßen die gleiche Raffinesse, die es Händlern ermöglicht, die Marktbewegungen zu überwachen, um ihnen zu helfen, der Kurve voraus zu bleiben. Einen effizienten Handelsbot zu finden, um den Handel auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt zu unterstützen, kann sich irgendwann als schwierig erweisen, vor allem für Bitcoin. Wie es aussieht Bitcoin Superstar ist die effizienteste automatisierte Trading-Software gibt es für alle Kryptowährung Händler daran interessiert, riesige Gewinne auf ihre Trades zu erfassen. Bitcoin Gewinn Bitcoin Superstar ist eine Handelsgemeinschaft, die speziell für Kryptowährungshändler entwickelt wurde. Sie handeln Ethereum, Bitcoin und eine Vielzahl anderer Kryptowährungen. Diese Community verwendet eine gewinngenerierende Software, um Händlern zu helfen, von Kryptowährungen unabhängig von ihrem Qualifikationsniveau zu profitieren. Bitcoin-Gewinn arbeitet 0,01s schneller als der Marktdurchschnitt für Handelssignale. Das Hauptmerkmal des Bitcoin-Gewinns Das Herzstück von Bitcoin Superstar ist eine leistungsstarke Handelssignal-Engine. Diese Signal-Engine identifiziert lukrative Handelsmöglichkeiten durch ständiges Scannen der Kryptowährung Markt. Die Entscheidung, welche Vermögenswerte gehandelt werden, wird durch die generierten Signale aus dem Signalmotor herbeigeführt. Zu diesen Vermögenswerten gehören Bitcoin, Ethereum und Ripple . Abgesehen davon, die Signale Motor erzeugt auch Signale, die spezifisch für das Wann zu öffnen oder zu schließen Markt, um Gewinne zu maximieren. Für Händler mit wenig Wissen darüber, wie Kryptowährung funktioniert, ist dies eine hilfreiche Funktion. Warum Bitcoin Superstar wählen? Bitcoin Superstar ist sowohl benutzerfreundlich als auch intuitiv: Diese Funktion macht Bitcoin Superstar aus der Masse heraus. Obwohl es mit einem sehr komplexen Algorithmus funktioniert, ist die Benutzererfahrung einfach eine der besten aus jedem Bitcoin-Handelsbot. Die Einrichtung dieser Software ist einfach und Händler können ihren Handel leicht in Gang bringen. Es ist so einfach, wie es geht. Hohe Erfolgs-Trades-Rate: Bitcoin Superstar hat eine hohe Erfolgsrate von 90%. Dies bietet Benutzern tägliche Gewinne. Möglich wird dies durch die parallelen Trades, die mit kürzeren Anlagen platziert werden. Für jede Einzahlung von '450 können viele gleichzeitige Trades von '45 platziert werden. Tutorials und Demo-Konten: Nicht so viele Plattformen bieten Demo-Konten an. Einige, wenn angeboten, bieten keine voll funktionsfähigen Tutorials. Bitcoin Superstar ermöglicht es Händlern, ein Demo-Konto zu erstellen, um sich mit der Plattform und ihren Funktionalitäten vertraut zu machen. Das Spiegel-Konto, das zusammen mit dem Broker erstellt wird, wenn Händler sich auf Bitcoin Superstar registrieren, ermöglicht es Benutzern, auf viele Tutorials zuzugreifen. Tipps gibt es auch zu Berufen im Bildungsbereich. Engagierter und reaktionsschneller Kundensupport: Kunden erfahrungsgemäß e.H. Mitarbeiter können entweder über die Homepage oder auf dem Dashboard-Bildschirm des Händlers engagiert werden. --- Sie können Bitcoin Superstar für weitere Informationen besuchen https://thebitcoinrobots.com oder besuchen Sie trustedbrokerz.com für weitere nützliche Informationen. SOURCE: Algo Signals View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/561813/Bitcoin-Superstar-als-1-Kryptohandelsplattform-gewhlt View comments || Bitcoin Superstar als #1 Kryptohandelsplattform gewählt: LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / October 3, 2019 /Genauigkeit ist ein wichtiger Faktor in der Welt des Kryptowährungshandels. Wie viel man verliert oder Gewinn hängt davon ab, wie genau eine Person Trends erkennen und rechtzeitig Trades machen kann. Das ist in der Regel nicht einfach. Als Menschen gibt es Faktoren wie Emotionen und Panik beim Kauf. Das sind Schwächen, die in keiner Weise für den dramatischen Kryptowährungsmarkt von heute geeignet sind. Der Bitcoin-Markt zum Beispiel kann einen dramatischen Preisverfall innerhalb weniger Stunden erleben. In einem dynamischen Markt wie diesem ist etwas Anspruchsvolles erforderlich, um Trades zu analysieren, Transaktionen zu tätigen und riesige Bitcoin-Gewinne als Handelsrenditen zu liefern.Hier ist, wo Trading Bots kommen in.
Handel mit Bots und Handel
Handelsbots sind Programme, die entwickelt wurden, um Trends in den Kryptowährungsmärkten zu erkennen. Diese Programme wurden in vielen Märkten wie Forex verwendet und werden jetzt auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt verwendet. Sie verwenden Algorithmen, um Marktbewegungen zu analysieren und Transaktionen basierend auf den Parametern der Händler oder dem Parameter des Entwicklers durchzuführen. Obwohl alle gleichermaßen einen Vorteil über den menschlichen Emotionen im Handel haben, haben sie nicht gleichermaßen die gleiche Raffinesse, die es Händlern ermöglicht, die Marktbewegungen zu überwachen, um ihnen zu helfen, der Kurve voraus zu bleiben. Einen effizienten Handelsbot zu finden, um den Handel auf dem Kryptowährungsmarkt zu unterstützen, kann sich irgendwann als schwierig erweisen, vor allem für Bitcoin. Wie es aussiehtBitcoin Superstarist die effizienteste automatisierte Trading-Software gibt es für alle Kryptowährung Händler daran interessiert, riesige Gewinne auf ihre Trades zu erfassen.
Bitcoin Gewinn
Bitcoin Superstarist eine Handelsgemeinschaft, die speziell für Kryptowährungshändler entwickelt wurde. Sie handeln Ethereum, Bitcoin und eine Vielzahl anderer Kryptowährungen. Diese Community verwendet eine gewinngenerierende Software, um Händlern zu helfen, von Kryptowährungen unabhängig von ihrem Qualifikationsniveau zu profitieren. Bitcoin-Gewinn arbeitet 0,01s schneller als der Marktdurchschnitt für Handelssignale.
Das Hauptmerkmal des Bitcoin-Gewinns
Das Herzstück von Bitcoin Superstar ist eine leistungsstarke Handelssignal-Engine. Diese Signal-Engine identifiziert lukrative Handelsmöglichkeiten durch ständiges Scannen der Kryptowährung Markt. Die Entscheidung, welche Vermögenswerte gehandelt werden, wird durch die generierten Signale aus dem Signalmotor herbeigeführt. Zu diesen Vermögenswerten gehörenBitcoin, Ethereum und Ripple. Abgesehen davon, die Signale Motor erzeugt auch Signale, die spezifisch für das Wann zu öffnen oder zu schließen Markt, um Gewinne zu maximieren. Für Händler mit wenig Wissen darüber, wie Kryptowährung funktioniert, ist dies eine hilfreiche Funktion.
Warum Bitcoin Superstar wählen?
Bitcoin Superstar ist sowohl benutzerfreundlich als auch intuitiv: Diese Funktion macht Bitcoin Superstar aus der Masse heraus. Obwohl es mit einem sehr komplexen Algorithmus funktioniert, ist die Benutzererfahrung einfach eine der besten aus jedem Bitcoin-Handelsbot. Die Einrichtung dieser Software ist einfach und Händler können ihren Handel leicht in Gang bringen. Es ist so einfach, wie es geht.
Hohe Erfolgs-Trades-Rate: Bitcoin Superstar hat eine hohe Erfolgsrate von 90%. Dies bietet Benutzern tägliche Gewinne. Möglich wird dies durch die parallelen Trades, die mit kürzeren Anlagen platziert werden. Für jede Einzahlung von '450 können viele gleichzeitige Trades von '45 platziert werden.
Tutorials und Demo-Konten: Nicht so viele Plattformen bieten Demo-Konten an. Einige, wenn angeboten, bieten keine voll funktionsfähigen Tutorials.Bitcoin Superstarermöglicht es Händlern, ein Demo-Konto zu erstellen, um sich mit der Plattform und ihren Funktionalitäten vertraut zu machen. Das Spiegel-Konto, das zusammen mit dem Broker erstellt wird, wenn Händler sich auf Bitcoin Superstar registrieren, ermöglicht es Benutzern, auf viele Tutorials zuzugreifen. Tipps gibt es auch zu Berufen im Bildungsbereich.
Engagierter und reaktionsschneller Kundensupport: Kunden erfahrungsgemäß e.H. Mitarbeiter können entweder über die Homepage oder auf dem Dashboard-Bildschirm des Händlers engagiert werden.
---
Sie könnenBitcoin Superstarfür weitere Informationen besuchenhttps://thebitcoinrobots.comoder besuchen Sie trustedbrokerz.com für weitere nützliche Informationen.
SOURCE:Algo Signals
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/561813/Bitcoin-Superstar-als-1-Kryptohandelsplattform-gewhlt || When Will Bitcoin Hit Its Next Big Peak? How High Will It Go?: This relatively simple-but-logical model provides clues
How do you estimate the “true” value of Bitcoin? Or better yet, how do you predict what it will be worth at its next major peak?
Unlike stock valuation models, there’s no company, no profit-and-loss statement and no price-to-earnings ratio. There’s also no balance sheet. Ergo, no asset-valuation model.
Still, some folks have come up with valuation formulas. All are hotly debated.
Chris Burniske, for example, bases his evaluation on an “equation-of-exchange” model.
Kyle Samaniseeks to do it based on a “market-share-capture” model.
Valiant attempts! Trouble is, both rely on some slippery assumptions, like the velocity of money.
In the midst of this controversy-laden polemic, I’m particularly intrigued by the “Stock-to-Flow (S2F)” valuation model proposed by “PlanB,” a quant crypto analyst.
It’s one of the most specific — and accurate — crypto valuation models I’ve seen so far. All based on actual measurable factors that reflect scarcity.
What exactly is Stock-to-Flow?
Very simply, it’s the current circulating supply divided by the annual amount produced. And it can work for virtually any commodity.
Take gold, for instance. In the chart above, gold has a Stock-to-Flow (S2F) value of 62.
Meaning at today’s rate of production, it would take 62 years to reproduce the current supply of mined gold in the world.
That’s relatively scarce. In fact, based on this metric, gold is nearly three times scarcer than silver, which has a current S2F of just 22.
Now, care to guess what Bitcoin’s Stock-to-Flow ratio is right now?
Answer: Nearly 27.
That’s right. Based strictly on this measure and holding constant all other factors, it would take 27 years to reproduce the current Bitcoin supply.
Is that scarcity metric similar to silver’s? Yes ... for now. But ...
Approximately every four years, the Bitcoin protocol mandates a major change called “halving” — a 50% reduction in the block reward that miners receive for creating new Bitcoin. And the next halving event is expected in or around May 2020.
At present, BTC is produced at a rate of 12.5 BTC (i.e., the block reward) every 10 minutes. Come May 2020, this block reward will be halved to 6.25 BTC.
And I repeat:That halving is mandated by the Bitcoin protocol. It must happen approximately every four years.
How does the Bitcoin halving fit into the Stock-to-Flow model?
The chart above provides some answers. It tracks and predicts the price of Bitcoin based on the Stock-to-Flow model and the periodic halving of Bitcoin.
In essence, here’s how it works ...
First, the blue line shows the price of Bitcoin as predicted by the Stock-to-Flow model.
Second, the red dotted line shows the actual Bitcoin prices to date.
Third, we ask the critical question: How well does it work? The answer ...
Model Matches Real-World Prices to the Tune of 95%
Naturally, in the real world, there are periodic spikes followed by sharp pullbacks. But overall, Bitcoin prices follow the staircase-shaped Stock-to-Flow prediction remarkably well.
One way of evaluating its accuracy is with a statistical metric called R2, which measures how closely the data fits the model. And in this case, the R2 stat is at 95%. A very good fit.
Another clue to the model’s accuracy: The staircase forecast of the model (blue line) can be converted into a smooth curve (the gray line). Over time, that curve has proven to be a support line for the price of Bitcoin.
In other words, when the Bitcoin market falls, it tends to bottom near or at that line!
A third argument for the validity of the model is the actual impact of past halvings on the price of Bitcoin, as shown in the table below ...
After its halving in 2012, Bitcoin moved sharply higher and made a new all-time high 11 months later.
After the halving of 2016, it again moved sharply higher, this time making new all-time highs 18 months later.
All of which begs the next two questions: Assuming past patterns continue ...
When Will Bitcoin Reach Its Next High?And How Much Will It Be Worth?
Unfortunately, Bitcoin is too young to answer either question with certainty. We barely have a decade of trading history. And data from the early part of that decade, when Bitcoin trading was illiquid, is not very reliable.
With that caveat, however, it’s not unreasonable to set some expectations, as follows:
First, we know that the next halving will occur around May of next year. So, based on the 2012 and 2016 halvings, the timing of next Bitcoin high should be about one to two years later — as early as May 2021 or as late as May 2022.
Then, we’ll come to the most important number of all: Bitcoin’s most likely price at that next high.
No one can foretell what surprises the future may deliver. But after the 2020 halving, the model predicts a Bitcoin value between $50,000 to $100,000.
Moreover, we know that in all past all-time highs, the actual peak has surpassed the model’s predicted high for a brief time.
What happens if Bitcoin hits those predicted prices? The corresponding market capitalizations for Bitcoin at $50,000 and $100,000 would be approximately $920 billion and $1.8 trillion, respectively.
Sound like a pipe dream? Well, then consider that $1.8 trillion is actually small compared to the totalmarket cap of gold at $7 trillion.
Just bear one thing in mind: The next halving won’t happen until May 2020. So, there is still some time to accumulate Bitcoin and other high-rated cryptos before the powerful forces behind this model begin to kick in.
Image Sourced from Pixabay
See more from Benzinga
• Chainlink: Putting The "Smart" Into Smart Contracts
• The Financial World Of The Future, Part 2
• Our Startling Prediction, Revisited: New Banking Revolution Based On DLT
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || When Will Bitcoin Hit Its Next Big Peak? How High Will It Go?: This relatively simple-but-logical model provides clues
How do you estimate the “true” value of Bitcoin? Or better yet, how do you predict what it will be worth at its next major peak?
Unlike stock valuation models, there’s no company, no profit-and-loss statement and no price-to-earnings ratio. There’s also no balance sheet. Ergo, no asset-valuation model.
Still, some folks have come up with valuation formulas. All are hotly debated.
Chris Burniske, for example, bases his evaluation on an “equation-of-exchange” model.
Kyle Samaniseeks to do it based on a “market-share-capture” model.
Valiant attempts! Trouble is, both rely on some slippery assumptions, like the velocity of money.
In the midst of this controversy-laden polemic, I’m particularly intrigued by the “Stock-to-Flow (S2F)” valuation model proposed by “PlanB,” a quant crypto analyst.
It’s one of the most specific — and accurate — crypto valuation models I’ve seen so far. All based on actual measurable factors that reflect scarcity.
What exactly is Stock-to-Flow?
Very simply, it’s the current circulating supply divided by the annual amount produced. And it can work for virtually any commodity.
Take gold, for instance. In the chart above, gold has a Stock-to-Flow (S2F) value of 62.
Meaning at today’s rate of production, it would take 62 years to reproduce the current supply of mined gold in the world.
That’s relatively scarce. In fact, based on this metric, gold is nearly three times scarcer than silver, which has a current S2F of just 22.
Now, care to guess what Bitcoin’s Stock-to-Flow ratio is right now?
Answer: Nearly 27.
That’s right. Based strictly on this measure and holding constant all other factors, it would take 27 years to reproduce the current Bitcoin supply.
Is that scarcity metric similar to silver’s? Yes ... for now. But ...
Approximately every four years, the Bitcoin protocol mandates a major change called “halving” — a 50% reduction in the block reward that miners receive for creating new Bitcoin. And the next halving event is expected in or around May 2020.
At present, BTC is produced at a rate of 12.5 BTC (i.e., the block reward) every 10 minutes. Come May 2020, this block reward will be halved to 6.25 BTC.
And I repeat:That halving is mandated by the Bitcoin protocol. It must happen approximately every four years.
How does the Bitcoin halving fit into the Stock-to-Flow model?
The chart above provides some answers. It tracks and predicts the price of Bitcoin based on the Stock-to-Flow model and the periodic halving of Bitcoin.
In essence, here’s how it works ...
First, the blue line shows the price of Bitcoin as predicted by the Stock-to-Flow model.
Second, the red dotted line shows the actual Bitcoin prices to date.
Third, we ask the critical question: How well does it work? The answer ...
Model Matches Real-World Prices to the Tune of 95%
Naturally, in the real world, there are periodic spikes followed by sharp pullbacks. But overall, Bitcoin prices follow the staircase-shaped Stock-to-Flow prediction remarkably well.
One way of evaluating its accuracy is with a statistical metric called R2, which measures how closely the data fits the model. And in this case, the R2 stat is at 95%. A very good fit.
Another clue to the model’s accuracy: The staircase forecast of the model (blue line) can be converted into a smooth curve (the gray line). Over time, that curve has proven to be a support line for the price of Bitcoin.
In other words, when the Bitcoin market falls, it tends to bottom near or at that line!
A third argument for the validity of the model is the actual impact of past halvings on the price of Bitcoin, as shown in the table below ...
After its halving in 2012, Bitcoin moved sharply higher and made a new all-time high 11 months later.
After the halving of 2016, it again moved sharply higher, this time making new all-time highs 18 months later.
All of which begs the next two questions: Assuming past patterns continue ...
When Will Bitcoin Reach Its Next High?And How Much Will It Be Worth?
Unfortunately, Bitcoin is too young to answer either question with certainty. We barely have a decade of trading history. And data from the early part of that decade, when Bitcoin trading was illiquid, is not very reliable.
With that caveat, however, it’s not unreasonable to set some expectations, as follows:
First, we know that the next halving will occur around May of next year. So, based on the 2012 and 2016 halvings, the timing of next Bitcoin high should be about one to two years later — as early as May 2021 or as late as May 2022.
Then, we’ll come to the most important number of all: Bitcoin’s most likely price at that next high.
No one can foretell what surprises the future may deliver. But after the 2020 halving, the model predicts a Bitcoin value between $50,000 to $100,000.
Moreover, we know that in all past all-time highs, the actual peak has surpassed the model’s predicted high for a brief time.
What happens if Bitcoin hits those predicted prices? The corresponding market capitalizations for Bitcoin at $50,000 and $100,000 would be approximately $920 billion and $1.8 trillion, respectively.
Sound like a pipe dream? Well, then consider that $1.8 trillion is actually small compared to the totalmarket cap of gold at $7 trillion.
Just bear one thing in mind: The next halving won’t happen until May 2020. So, there is still some time to accumulate Bitcoin and other high-rated cryptos before the powerful forces behind this model begin to kick in.
Image Sourced from Pixabay
See more from Benzinga
• Chainlink: Putting The "Smart" Into Smart Contracts
• The Financial World Of The Future, Part 2
• Our Startling Prediction, Revisited: New Banking Revolution Based On DLT
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || When Will Bitcoin Hit Its Next Big Peak? How High Will It Go?: This relatively simple-but-logical model provides clues How do you estimate the true value of Bitcoin? Or better yet, how do you predict what it will be worth at its next major peak? Unlike stock valuation models, theres no company, no profit-and-loss statement and no price-to-earnings ratio. Theres also no balance sheet. Ergo, no asset-valuation model. Still, some folks have come up with valuation formulas. All are hotly debated. Chris Burniske , for example, bases his evaluation on an equation-of-exchange model. Kyle Samani seeks to do it based on a market-share-capture model. Valiant attempts! Trouble is, both rely on some slippery assumptions, like the velocity of money. In the midst of this controversy-laden polemic, Im particularly intrigued by the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) valuation model proposed by PlanB , a quant crypto analyst. Its one of the most specific and accurate crypto valuation models Ive seen so far. All based on actual measurable factors that reflect scarcity. What exactly is Stock-to-Flow? Very simply, its the current circulating supply divided by the annual amount produced. And it can work for virtually any commodity. A screenshot of a cell phoneDescription automatically generated Take gold, for instance. In the chart above, gold has a Stock-to-Flow (S2F) value of 62. Meaning at todays rate of production, it would take 62 years to reproduce the current supply of mined gold in the world. Thats relatively scarce. In fact, based on this metric, gold is nearly three times scarcer than silver, which has a current S2F of just 22. Now, care to guess what Bitcoins Stock-to-Flow ratio is right now? Answer: Nearly 27. Thats right. Based strictly on this measure and holding constant all other factors, it would take 27 years to reproduce the current Bitcoin supply. Is that scarcity metric similar to silvers? Yes ... for now. But ... Approximately every four years, the Bitcoin protocol mandates a major change called halving a 50% reduction in the block reward that miners receive for creating new Bitcoin. And the next halving event is expected in or around May 2020. At present, BTC is produced at a rate of 12.5 BTC (i.e., the block reward) every 10 minutes. Come May 2020, this block reward will be halved to 6.25 BTC. Story continues And I repeat: That halving is mandated by the Bitcoin protocol. It must happen approximately every four years . How does the Bitcoin halving fit into the Stock-to-Flow model? A close up of a map/p / pDescription automatically generated The chart above provides some answers. It tracks and predicts the price of Bitcoin based on the Stock-to-Flow model and the periodic halving of Bitcoin. In essence, heres how it works ... First , the blue line shows the price of Bitcoin as predicted by the Stock-to-Flow model. Second , the red dotted line shows the actual Bitcoin prices to date. Third , we ask the critical question: How well does it work? The answer ... Model Matches Real-World Prices to the Tune of 95% Naturally, in the real world, there are periodic spikes followed by sharp pullbacks. But overall, Bitcoin prices follow the staircase-shaped Stock-to-Flow prediction remarkably well. One way of evaluating its accuracy is with a statistical metric called R2, which measures how closely the data fits the model. And in this case, the R2 stat is at 95%. A very good fit. Another clue to the models accuracy: The staircase forecast of the model (blue line) can be converted into a smooth curve (the gray line). Over time, that curve has proven to be a support line for the price of Bitcoin. In other words, when the Bitcoin market falls, it tends to bottom near or at that line! A third argument for the validity of the model is the actual impact of past halvings on the price of Bitcoin, as shown in the table below ... After its halving in 2012, Bitcoin moved sharply higher and made a new all-time high 11 months later. After the halving of 2016, it again moved sharply higher, this time making new all-time highs 18 months later. All of which begs the next two questions: Assuming past patterns continue ... When Will Bitcoin Reach Its Next High? And How Much Will It Be Worth? Unfortunately, Bitcoin is too young to answer either question with certainty. We barely have a decade of trading history. And data from the early part of that decade, when Bitcoin trading was illiquid, is not very reliable. With that caveat, however, its not unreasonable to set some expectations, as follows: First, we know that the next halving will occur around May of next year. So, based on the 2012 and 2016 halvings, the timing of next Bitcoin high should be about one to two years later as early as May 2021 or as late as May 2022. Then, well come to the most important number of all: Bitcoins most likely price at that next high. No one can foretell what surprises the future may deliver. But after the 2020 halving, the model predicts a Bitcoin value between $50,000 to $100,000. Moreover, we know that in all past all-time highs, the actual peak has surpassed the models predicted high for a brief time. What happens if Bitcoin hits those predicted prices? The corresponding market capitalizations for Bitcoin at $50,000 and $100,000 would be approximately $920 billion and $1.8 trillion, respectively. Sound like a pipe dream? Well, then consider that $1.8 trillion is actually small compared to the total market cap of gold at $7 trillion . Just bear one thing in mind: The next halving wont happen until May 2020. So, there is still some time to accumulate Bitcoin and other high-rated cryptos before the powerful forces behind this model begin to kick in. Image Sourced from Pixabay See more from Benzinga Chainlink: Putting The "Smart" Into Smart Contracts The Financial World Of The Future, Part 2 Our Startling Prediction, Revisited: New Banking Revolution Based On DLT © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
https://t.co/nHEMNHiXcM || 🚀 $XTZ may go up
✅ BINANCE
📈 TRADINGVIEW: https://t.co/s6JYzQ0inN
⛔ BITTREX
📈 COINMARKETCAP: https://t.co/LjPE0qq3hr
💱 Price: 0.00011344 BTC
📊 1H: 0.61%
📊 24H: 0.56%
📊 7D: 9.67%
💰 24H Vol: $11,161,130
ℹ This is not an investment advice. #DYOR #YTD #Robostopia || 🔥 .@jack‘s favorite coin is struggling to remain relevant on #Twitter #Bitcoin $BTC https://t.co/HIOSIuxEnT || Ransomware attack hits Spanish city demanding undisclosed amount of Bitcoin...Read more...
|
8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56, 585.59, 570.47, 567.24, 577.44, 573.22, 574.32, 575.63, 581.70, 581.31, 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47, 572.30, 575.54, 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24, 609.24, 610.68, 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-11-06]
Volume: 59902200, RSI (14-day): 62.57, 50-day EMA: 654.53, 200-day EMA: 586.88
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) - Cable & Wireless Communications Limited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region. Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWC On May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA. Operating and financial highlights*: Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17 Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean Successful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels 85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July average Exclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in September Providing HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality 300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis 10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis $9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16 BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016 Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 million Total infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 million We expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses Story continues Synergies from combination with LiLAC LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 2020 50% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions 50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurring Anticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC * The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS. 28 CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP 10 . There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements. Subscriber Statistics We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama. On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year. Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition. During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016. Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint. At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers. From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows: In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds. In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes. Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment. In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network. Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition. About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . || Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) -Cable & Wireless CommunicationsLimited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region.
Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWCOn May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA.
Operating and financial highlights*:
• Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17
• Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas
• Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the CaribbeanSuccessful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July averageExclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter
• Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in SeptemberProviding HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes
• YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue
• Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively
• YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis$9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points
• Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16
• BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 millionTotal infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 millionWe expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses
Synergies from combination with LiLAC
• LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 202050% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurringAnticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC
* The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS.28CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP10. There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Subscriber Statistics
We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama.
On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year.
Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition.
During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016.
Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint.
At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers.
From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows:
• In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds.
• In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes.
• Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment.
• In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network.
• Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || Bitcoin price soars, but it isn't about Trump and Clinton: Bitcoin price in the last month, via Winkdex. The price of bitcoin has soared 23% in the last month and is now approaching its 2016 peak of around $765 in June. The coin is up 66% since January. At its current price of $728 at the time of writing, bitcoins market cap is nearly $12 billion. So, whats stoking the ride? You might think the US presidential election, just five days away now, has something to do with it. And indeed, a Juniper Research study from back in May ( Will Bitcoins Bite Back? ) predicted the bitcoin price would spike right before the election, due to market uncertainty. Specifically, the study determined that a win by Donald Trump would boost the bitcoin price: If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets, said Dr. Winslow Holden in a J uniper press release about the report . Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear. Meanwhile, Hillary Clintons campaign considered accepting donations in the form of bitcoin, a leaked email thread revealed . But John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing: I dont send all the crazy ideas I hear about at fundraisers your way, but this seems interesting and legit. Essentially digital currency with a green angle as opposed to bitcoins libertarian Ayn Rand schtick
see if its worth a real conversation? Ultimately Clintons campaign decided not to accept bitcoin. Trumps campaign did accept bitcoin. Despite the timing so close to the election, the bitcoin community consensus is that the October price spike isnt from Clinton or Trump: its China driving the surge. Chinese investors are buying up bitcoin The Chinese yuan has fallen 4.3% against the US dollar in the last six months, and the Peoples Bank of China has cracked down with stricter capital controls. China and a falling yuan is almost always cited as the biggest factor when the price of bitcoin rises. The thinking is that Chinese investors seek a safe haven in bitcoin, which is an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. (This also happened to an extent in Greece during its bank shutdown last year and is happening right now in Venezuela .) Often, its actually something else . This time around, the data supports the idea that the interest is coming from China. Nearly 99% of all global bitcoin trading activity happening right now is happening in Chinese yuan. (Its worth noting that some bitcoin people doubt Chinese exchange data because it could be inflated or meaningless due to very low fees that prompt empty trading activity.) Story continues Volume of bitcoin activity by currency, via bitcoincharts. Bitcoin trading volume in the Chinese yuan is up more than 20% in the past 30 days, based on charts from bitcoincharts.com , bitcoinity.org and coinmarketcap.com . If you check out the site fiatleak.com , which maps bitcoin purchases in real-time, the overwhelming majority of activity right now is in yuan ( CNY ). It does seem like a cop-out sometimes when everyone says its China, but in this case, the data supports it, says Alex Sunnarborg, CFO of Lawnmower, a digital currency trading and data app . Bitcoin trading volume on Lawnmower is up 40% in the past two weeks from the typical two-week average. Sunnarborg adds that whenever the bitcoin price spikes significantly, regardless of the reason, it feeds on itself and drives it higher. People see that demand and feel that FOMO [fear of missing out], which drives a lot of new people in. The market is so thin and new, people are hunting for news, so anything you hear has an immediate effect. It goes the opposite way as wellif you read bad news about bitcoin prices, the market has a tendency to panic. Thats what Ethereum is doing right now. Volume on Chinas biggest bitcoin exchange in the last 30 days, via bitcoinity. Other digital currencies are falling Indeed, the price of ether (ETH), a rival coin that trades on the separate Ethereum blockchain , is down 17% in the past month . In July, Ethereum completed a hard fork that essentially reset its network after a major hack in June. Keep in mind that ether only launched just over one year ago, and is up nearly 300% since then, to $11 per coin. But its recent fall has been a boon to bitcoin, Sunnarborg reasons. If you look at ethereum communities right now, people are a little scared, and the bitcoin vs ethereum chasm does go back and forth, says Sunnarborg. Whenever you see strength in the bitcoin network, volume goes back into bitcoin. Ripple, another popular digital currency (XRP) that came along after bitcoin (in 2012), is also down 4% in the last week. Bitcoin investors are excited about Segregated Witness Theres one other bitcoin factor driving the price up: this month, a sort of voting period will begin for whether to implement segregated witness, a proposed solution to bitcoins ongoing block-size debate. Huh? Lets step back: bitcoin is traded on the bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, peer-to-peer ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. On the bitcoin blockchain, bundles of transactions are added to the chain by miners who receive a small reward in bitcoin for doing the mining; think of them as librarians recording the date and borrower of a book, or as court stenographers recording the history of bitcoin trades. (For more, watch the below video.) The speed of the blockchain has slowed in the last year under the weight of activity, and the bitcoin community has argued amongst itself over whether to raise the size limit of each block. The speed at which the bitcoin blockchain operates is of crucial importance, since it is often compared to the payment rails of big mainstream processors like Visa. Segregated witness was one popular proposal: an update to the bitcoin software that would allow miners to raise the size capacity on individual blocks without raising the capacity of the entire blockchain for good, and without doing a hard fork (which would split the blockchain into two) like Ethereum just did. Think of it like a Brinks armored car, which hauls bags of cash. Rather than having all the cars start using bigger bags, Segregated Witness (bitcoin people are calling it SegWit for short) is like allowing each driver to start using a few bigger bags just in cases where a bigger bag is needed. Beginning on Nov. 15, bitcoin miners can signal, with each block they mine, whether or not they support Segregated Witness. It should help more transactions go through faster. After one year, if 95% of the blocks have signaled that they like it, Segregated Witness will go into full effect for the Bitcoin Core software. Why does all this matter for the price of bitcoin? It might not matter for the casual outside speculator, but for wonky bitcoin insiders, the implementation of SegWit is an exciting milestone, and may contribute a little bit to the price hike. I think SegWit was a big market move, says Sunnarborg. SegWit has been talked about for so long that if there had been a huge delay or problem announced, we would have seen the market swing the other way. But now its bringing demand from the community to go back into bitcoin. While the Chinese yuan has been the biggest factor in boosting the bitcoin price, the beginning of SegWit and general US market uncertainty are not unrelated. And the election almost certainly will play a larger role right after it ends. If Trump somehow wins, expect bitcoin to soar. Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: The latest bitcoin price surge isnt just about Brexit Heres where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever View comments || Bitcoin price soars, but it isn't about Trump and Clinton: The price of bitcoin has soared 23% in the last month and is now approaching its 2016 peak of around $765 in June. The coin is up 66% since January. At its current price of $728 at the time of writing, bitcoin’s market cap is nearly $12 billion.
So, what’s stoking the ride?
You might think the US presidential election, just five days away now, has something to do with it. And indeed, aJuniper Research studyfrom back in May (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted the bitcoin price would spike right before the election, due to market uncertainty. Specifically, the study determined that a win by Donald Trump would boost the bitcoin price: “If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets,” said Dr. Winslow Holden in a Juniper press release about the report. “Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear.”
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in the form of bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed. But John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing: “I don’t send all the crazy ideas I hear about at fundraisers your way, but this seems interesting and legit. Essentially digital currency with a green angle as opposed to bitcoin’s libertarian Ayn Rand schtick… see if it’s worth a real conversation?” UltimatelyClinton’s campaign decided not to accept bitcoin.Trump’s campaign did accept bitcoin.
Despite the timing so close to the election, the bitcoin community consensus is that the October price spike isn’t from Clinton or Trump: it’s China driving the surge.
The Chinese yuanhas fallen 4.3% against the US dollarin the last six months, and thePeople’s Bank of China has cracked downwith stricter capital controls.
China and a falling yuan is almost always cited as the biggest factor when the price of bitcoin rises. The thinking is that Chinese investors seek a safe haven in bitcoin, which is an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. (This alsohappened to an extent in Greece during its bank shutdownlast year and ishappening right now in Venezuela.) Often,it’s actually something else. This time around, the data supports the idea that the interest is coming from China.
Nearly 99% of all global bitcoin trading activity happening right now is happening in Chinese yuan. (It’s worth noting that some bitcoin people doubt Chinese exchange data because it could be inflated or meaningless due to very low fees that prompt empty trading activity.)
Bitcoin trading volume in the Chinese yuan is up more than 20% in the past 30 days, based on charts frombitcoincharts.com,bitcoinity.organdcoinmarketcap.com. If you check out the sitefiatleak.com, which maps bitcoin purchases in real-time, the overwhelming majority of activity right now is in yuan (CNY).
“It does seem like a cop-out sometimes when everyone says it’s China, but in this case, the data supports it,” says Alex Sunnarborg, CFO ofLawnmower, a digital currency trading and data app. Bitcoin trading volume on Lawnmower is up 40% in the past two weeks from the typical two-week average.
Sunnarborg adds that whenever the bitcoin price spikes significantly, regardless of the reason, it feeds on itself and drives it higher. “People see that demand and feel that FOMO [fear of missing out], which drives a lot of new people in. The market is so thin and new, people are hunting for news, so anything you hear has an immediate effect. It goes the opposite way as well—if you read bad news about bitcoin prices, the market has a tendency to panic. That’s what Ethereum is doing right now.”
Indeed, the price of ether (ETH), arival coin that trades on the separate Ethereum blockchain, isdown 17% in the past month. In July, Ethereum completed a “hard fork” that essentially reset its network after a major hack in June. Keep in mind that ether only launched just over one year ago, and is up nearly 300% since then, to $11 per coin. But its recent fall has been a boon to bitcoin, Sunnarborg reasons.
“If you look at ethereum communities right now, people are a little scared, and the bitcoin vs ethereum chasm does go back and forth,” says Sunnarborg. “Whenever you see strength in the bitcoin network, volume goes back into bitcoin.”
Ripple, another popular digital currency (XRP) that came along after bitcoin (in 2012), is also down 4% in the last week.
There’s one other bitcoin factor driving the price up: this month, a sort of voting period will begin for whether to implement “segregated witness,” a proposed solution to bitcoin’s ongoing block-size debate.
Huh? Let’s step back: bitcoin is traded on the bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, peer-to-peer ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. On the bitcoin blockchain, bundles of transactions are added to the chain by “miners” who receive a small reward in bitcoin for doing the mining; think of them as librarians recording the date and borrower of a book, or as court stenographers recording the history of bitcoin trades. (For more, watch the below video.)
The speed of the blockchain has slowed in the last year under the weight of activity, and the bitcoin community has argued amongst itself over whether to raise the size limit of each block. The speed at which the bitcoin blockchain operates is of crucial importance, since it is often compared to the payment rails of big mainstream processors like Visa.
“Segregated witness” was one popular proposal: an update to the bitcoin software that would allow miners to raise the size capacity on individual blocks without raising the capacity of the entire blockchain for good, and without doing a “hard fork” (which would split the blockchain into two) like Ethereum just did. Think of it like a Brinks armored car, which hauls bags of cash. Rather than having all the cars start using bigger bags, Segregated Witness (bitcoin people are calling it SegWit for short) is like allowing each driver to start using a few bigger bags just in cases where a bigger bag is needed.
Beginning on Nov. 15, bitcoin miners can signal, with each block they mine, whether or not they support Segregated Witness. It should help more transactions go through faster. After one year, if 95% of the blocks have signaled that they like it, Segregated Witness will go into full effect for the Bitcoin Core software.
Why does all this matter for the price of bitcoin? It might not matter for the casual outside speculator, but for wonky bitcoin insiders, the implementation of SegWit is an exciting milestone, and may contribute a little bit to the price hike. “I think SegWit was a big market move,” says Sunnarborg. “SegWit has been talked about for so long that if there had been a huge delay or problem announced, we would have seen the market swing the other way. But now it’s bringing demand from the community to go back into bitcoin.”
While the Chinese yuan has been the biggest factor in boosting the bitcoin price, the beginning of SegWit and general US market uncertainty are not unrelated. And the election almost certainly will play a larger role right after it ends. If Trump somehow wins, expect bitcoin to soar.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
The latest bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit
Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Bitcoin price soars, but it isn't about Trump and Clinton: The price of bitcoin has soared 23% in the last month and is now approaching its 2016 peak of around $765 in June. The coin is up 66% since January. At its current price of $728 at the time of writing, bitcoin’s market cap is nearly $12 billion.
So, what’s stoking the ride?
You might think the US presidential election, just five days away now, has something to do with it. And indeed, aJuniper Research studyfrom back in May (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted the bitcoin price would spike right before the election, due to market uncertainty. Specifically, the study determined that a win by Donald Trump would boost the bitcoin price: “If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets,” said Dr. Winslow Holden in a Juniper press release about the report. “Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear.”
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in the form of bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed. But John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing: “I don’t send all the crazy ideas I hear about at fundraisers your way, but this seems interesting and legit. Essentially digital currency with a green angle as opposed to bitcoin’s libertarian Ayn Rand schtick… see if it’s worth a real conversation?” UltimatelyClinton’s campaign decided not to accept bitcoin.Trump’s campaign did accept bitcoin.
Despite the timing so close to the election, the bitcoin community consensus is that the October price spike isn’t from Clinton or Trump: it’s China driving the surge.
The Chinese yuanhas fallen 4.3% against the US dollarin the last six months, and thePeople’s Bank of China has cracked downwith stricter capital controls.
China and a falling yuan is almost always cited as the biggest factor when the price of bitcoin rises. The thinking is that Chinese investors seek a safe haven in bitcoin, which is an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. (This alsohappened to an extent in Greece during its bank shutdownlast year and ishappening right now in Venezuela.) Often,it’s actually something else. This time around, the data supports the idea that the interest is coming from China.
Nearly 99% of all global bitcoin trading activity happening right now is happening in Chinese yuan. (It’s worth noting that some bitcoin people doubt Chinese exchange data because it could be inflated or meaningless due to very low fees that prompt empty trading activity.)
Bitcoin trading volume in the Chinese yuan is up more than 20% in the past 30 days, based on charts frombitcoincharts.com,bitcoinity.organdcoinmarketcap.com. If you check out the sitefiatleak.com, which maps bitcoin purchases in real-time, the overwhelming majority of activity right now is in yuan (CNY).
“It does seem like a cop-out sometimes when everyone says it’s China, but in this case, the data supports it,” says Alex Sunnarborg, CFO ofLawnmower, a digital currency trading and data app. Bitcoin trading volume on Lawnmower is up 40% in the past two weeks from the typical two-week average.
Sunnarborg adds that whenever the bitcoin price spikes significantly, regardless of the reason, it feeds on itself and drives it higher. “People see that demand and feel that FOMO [fear of missing out], which drives a lot of new people in. The market is so thin and new, people are hunting for news, so anything you hear has an immediate effect. It goes the opposite way as well—if you read bad news about bitcoin prices, the market has a tendency to panic. That’s what Ethereum is doing right now.”
Indeed, the price of ether (ETH), arival coin that trades on the separate Ethereum blockchain, isdown 17% in the past month. In July, Ethereum completed a “hard fork” that essentially reset its network after a major hack in June. Keep in mind that ether only launched just over one year ago, and is up nearly 300% since then, to $11 per coin. But its recent fall has been a boon to bitcoin, Sunnarborg reasons.
“If you look at ethereum communities right now, people are a little scared, and the bitcoin vs ethereum chasm does go back and forth,” says Sunnarborg. “Whenever you see strength in the bitcoin network, volume goes back into bitcoin.”
Ripple, another popular digital currency (XRP) that came along after bitcoin (in 2012), is also down 4% in the last week.
There’s one other bitcoin factor driving the price up: this month, a sort of voting period will begin for whether to implement “segregated witness,” a proposed solution to bitcoin’s ongoing block-size debate.
Huh? Let’s step back: bitcoin is traded on the bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, peer-to-peer ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. On the bitcoin blockchain, bundles of transactions are added to the chain by “miners” who receive a small reward in bitcoin for doing the mining; think of them as librarians recording the date and borrower of a book, or as court stenographers recording the history of bitcoin trades. (For more, watch the below video.)
The speed of the blockchain has slowed in the last year under the weight of activity, and the bitcoin community has argued amongst itself over whether to raise the size limit of each block. The speed at which the bitcoin blockchain operates is of crucial importance, since it is often compared to the payment rails of big mainstream processors like Visa.
“Segregated witness” was one popular proposal: an update to the bitcoin software that would allow miners to raise the size capacity on individual blocks without raising the capacity of the entire blockchain for good, and without doing a “hard fork” (which would split the blockchain into two) like Ethereum just did. Think of it like a Brinks armored car, which hauls bags of cash. Rather than having all the cars start using bigger bags, Segregated Witness (bitcoin people are calling it SegWit for short) is like allowing each driver to start using a few bigger bags just in cases where a bigger bag is needed.
Beginning on Nov. 15, bitcoin miners can signal, with each block they mine, whether or not they support Segregated Witness. It should help more transactions go through faster. After one year, if 95% of the blocks have signaled that they like it, Segregated Witness will go into full effect for the Bitcoin Core software.
Why does all this matter for the price of bitcoin? It might not matter for the casual outside speculator, but for wonky bitcoin insiders, the implementation of SegWit is an exciting milestone, and may contribute a little bit to the price hike. “I think SegWit was a big market move,” says Sunnarborg. “SegWit has been talked about for so long that if there had been a huge delay or problem announced, we would have seen the market swing the other way. But now it’s bringing demand from the community to go back into bitcoin.”
While the Chinese yuan has been the biggest factor in boosting the bitcoin price, the beginning of SegWit and general US market uncertainty are not unrelated. And the election almost certainly will play a larger role right after it ends. If Trump somehow wins, expect bitcoin to soar.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
The latest bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit
Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || The Dark Web: Brought to You by U.S. Taxpayers: Beneath the internet you use every day lies a hidden network of thousands of encrypted sites known as the Dark Web.
Unlike the so-calledclearnet– where everything is open, indexed and searchable – thedarknetoffers anonymous access to information, products and services of all kinds, legal and illegal. Illicit drugs, creative chemists, child pornography and hacked personal information are all readily available, if you know where to look.
The software primarily used for encrypting, hosting and browsingDark Web sites is known as TororThe Onion Router, named for its sites’ .onion suffix. But here’s the thing. The tools were originally developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and DARPA, the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense (DOD). And to this day,Tor is largely funded by the U.S. Government.
I’ll pause for a second to let that sink in.
If you’ve had lingering doubts about the good guys and the bad guys being two sides of the same coin, you can finally put them to rest. Inonionland, crime and punishment don’t just go hand-in-hand. They operate side-by-side. They’re next-door neighbors. Frenemies.
I guess the spooks wanted a way to gather intelligence, track evil doers, and communicate with each other, confidential sources, whistleblowers and dissidents, without leaving an online trail of IP addresses. So in the mid-to-late 90s, they came up with what later became known as Tor, akathe anonymity network.
Wait, the story gets better.
Aside from the scientists, developers, researchers and project managers who handle the technical side of Tor’s suite of software tools, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit is essentially run by Shari Steele, a civil rights attorney and long-time head and legal director of theElectronic Frontier Foundation or EFF.
The EFF is an online civil liberties advocate – essentially a digital version of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization, also a 501(c)(3) NPO, has been involved in a long list of lawsuitsagainstfederal law enforcement agencies. Steele and the EFF have been responsible for spearheading and funding Tor since the NRL set the code free in 2004.
ICYMI, the EFF was recently involved in a scuffle withT-Mobile’s free-wheeling CEO, John Legere, claiming the carrier’s unlimited data plan violates net neutrality rules because it offers unlimited streaming of standard quality video and charges $25 more for high-def. Sounds like nitpicking to me, but I guess that’s what activists do.
Steele, incidentally, is married to Bill Vass, engineering veep of Amazon Web Services. Before joining Amazon and running a robotics company, Vass spent much of his career as a senior IT executive with the U.S. Army, the DOD and Sun Microsystems, where he was CIO and oversaw the company’s federal government operation. Strange bedfellows, if you ask me.
Tor bills itself as the best thing since the First and Fourth Amendments, protecting anyone and everyone’s right to online privacy and freedom from prying eyes, web crawlers, IP trackers, search engines, site indexers, trolls and the like. That goes for evil-doers and do-gooders alike.
Whether you’re in the market for protected animals, selling hacked bank account data, peddling the latest designer drug, trying to build a bomb without blowing yourself up, searching for a hitman, a journalist trying to dig up dirt for a hit piece, or men in black, blue or camo, Tor’s Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android-compatiblehidden servicescan help you do your dirty deeds on the sly.
Keep in mind, .onion marketplaces probably don’t take Visa, MasterCardorAmerican Express. Bitcoin is the currency of choice on the dark side of cyberspace.
The Dark Web is not all dark intentions run amuck, mind you. A new report byventure-backed security firm Terbium Labsfound that just over half the content on a random sampling of 400 of the more than 7,000 Tor sites was legitimate.
There are blogs, chat rooms and political forums free of censorship, political correctness and prying eyes. Facebook maintains a presence there for users living under repressive regimes that limit web access. And some people just don’t like the idea of their online activity being tracked.Google definitely gives me the creeps, that’s for sure.
The FBI has cleaned up a few sites, shutting down at least the first two versions of the infamous Silk Road black market. And while Tor may be the easiest way to get around the Dark Web, it’s certainly not the only way (not that I know anything about that sort of thing). As Tor becomes more mainstream, dark forces will inevitably migrate to shadier networks.
Of all the bizarre and unlikely interactions in the Tor saga, the one that surprises me the least is that you and I paid for it.
Shari Steele or representatives from the Tor Project could not immediately be reached for comment.
Related Articles
• How Stoners Are Getting High (Tech)
• Taco Bell Seeks to Add 100,000 U.S. Jobs by 2022
• Yum unit Taco Bell to have 9,000 U.S. outlets by end-2022 || The Dark Web: Brought to You by U.S. Taxpayers: Beneath the internet you use every day lies a hidden network of thousands of encrypted sites known as the Dark Web. Unlike the so-called clearnet – where everything is open, indexed and searchable – the darknet offers anonymous access to information, products and services of all kinds, legal and illegal. Illicit drugs, creative chemists, child pornography and hacked personal information are all readily available, if you know where to look. The software primarily used for encrypting, hosting and browsing Dark Web sites is known as Tor or The Onion Router , named for its sites’ .onion suffix. But here’s the thing. The tools were originally developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and DARPA, the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense (DOD). And to this day, Tor is largely funded by the U.S. Government . I’ll pause for a second to let that sink in. If you’ve had lingering doubts about the good guys and the bad guys being two sides of the same coin, you can finally put them to rest. In onionland , crime and punishment don’t just go hand-in-hand. They operate side-by-side. They’re next-door neighbors. Frenemies. I guess the spooks wanted a way to gather intelligence, track evil doers, and communicate with each other, confidential sources, whistleblowers and dissidents, without leaving an online trail of IP addresses. So in the mid-to-late 90s, they came up with what later became known as Tor, aka the anonymity network . Wait, the story gets better. Aside from the scientists, developers, researchers and project managers who handle the technical side of Tor’s suite of software tools, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit is essentially run by Shari Steele, a civil rights attorney and long-time head and legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF. The EFF is an online civil liberties advocate – essentially a digital version of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization, also a 501(c)(3) NPO, has been involved in a long list of lawsuits against federal law enforcement agencies. Steele and the EFF have been responsible for spearheading and funding Tor since the NRL set the code free in 2004. Story continues ICYMI, the EFF was recently involved in a scuffle with T-Mobile’s free-wheeling CEO, John Legere , claiming the carrier’s unlimited data plan violates net neutrality rules because it offers unlimited streaming of standard quality video and charges $25 more for high-def. Sounds like nitpicking to me, but I guess that’s what activists do. Steele, incidentally, is married to Bill Vass, engineering veep of Amazon Web Services. Before joining Amazon and running a robotics company, Vass spent much of his career as a senior IT executive with the U.S. Army, the DOD and Sun Microsystems, where he was CIO and oversaw the company’s federal government operation. Strange bedfellows, if you ask me. Tor bills itself as the best thing since the First and Fourth Amendments, protecting anyone and everyone’s right to online privacy and freedom from prying eyes, web crawlers, IP trackers, search engines, site indexers, trolls and the like. That goes for evil-doers and do-gooders alike. Whether you’re in the market for protected animals, selling hacked bank account data, peddling the latest designer drug, trying to build a bomb without blowing yourself up, searching for a hitman, a journalist trying to dig up dirt for a hit piece, or men in black, blue or camo, Tor’s Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android-compatible hidden services can help you do your dirty deeds on the sly. Keep in mind, .onion marketplaces probably don’t take Visa, MasterCard or American Express. Bitcoin is the currency of choice on the dark side of cyberspace. The Dark Web is not all dark intentions run amuck, mind you. A new report by venture-backed security firm Terbium Labs found that just over half the content on a random sampling of 400 of the more than 7,000 Tor sites was legitimate. There are blogs, chat rooms and political forums free of censorship, political correctness and prying eyes. Facebook maintains a presence there for users living under repressive regimes that limit web access. And some people just don’t like the idea of their online activity being tracked. Google definitely gives me the creeps , that’s for sure. The FBI has cleaned up a few sites, shutting down at least the first two versions of the infamous Silk Road black market. And while Tor may be the easiest way to get around the Dark Web, it’s certainly not the only way (not that I know anything about that sort of thing). As Tor becomes more mainstream, dark forces will inevitably migrate to shadier networks. Of all the bizarre and unlikely interactions in the Tor saga, the one that surprises me the least is that you and I paid for it. Shari Steele or representatives from the Tor Project could not immediately be reached for comment. Related Articles How Stoners Are Getting High (Tech) Taco Bell Seeks to Add 100,000 U.S. Jobs by 2022 Yum unit Taco Bell to have 9,000 U.S. outlets by end-2022 || What to Expect from Overstock.com (OSTK) in Q3 Earnings?: Overstock.com Inc.OSTK is slated to report third-quarter 2016 results on Nov 3. It is an online retailer that sells brand-name merchandise at deep discounts. Its offerings include bed-and-bath goods, kitchenware, watches, jewelry, electronics, sporting goods and designer accessories.
Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.
Factors to Consider
The company’s second-quarter revenues were up 8% year over year. It has intensified its efforts on expanding its product reach, building its customer base and strengthening its international foothold.
The company has partnered with Tmall in China, 11Street in Korea, Mercado LibreIguama in Latin America, Trade Me in New Zealand and Australia and Rakuten in the UK. Management has also indicated more partnerships in the near future. It has launched a trusted partner marketplace as part of its global expansion efforts.
However, the company’s business has been hit by changes in Google search algorithms and rising competition in the e-commerce sector. It has also been engaged in legal battles with several brokerage firms over stock price manipulation issues. Overstocks’ continuous efforts to reduce illegal stock manipulation and reform capital markets could boost its results in the to-be-reported quarter.
Also, management confirmed Overstock’s continued focus on improvement of customer experience as well as customer attraction and retention efforts. For this, the company is trying to bring in absolute customization and personalization of its marketing message and develop customer-friendly mobile platforms and applications.
Overstock has been a Bitcoin supporter for more than two years and has successfully leveraged the blockchain technology. The company is trying to establish relationships with major financial and capital market institutions to achieve the expected level of synergy between blockchain and cryptocurrency.
We expect customer-friendly initiatives, product and geographical expansion efforts, and reform capital markets to act as major positives for Overstock in the to-be-reported quarter.
OVERSTOCK.COM Price and EPS Surprise
OVERSTOCK.COM Price and EPS Surprise | OVERSTOCK.COM Quote
Stocks That Warrant a Look
Ashford Hospitality Prime, Inc. AHP is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 2. The company has an Earnings ESP of +9.76% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Avon Products Inc. AVP with an Earnings ESP of +33.33% and a Zacks Rank #1. The company is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 3.
Glaukos Corporation GKOS with an Earnings ESP of +100.0% and a Zacks Rank #1. The company is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 10.
Confidential from Zacks
Beyond this Analyst Blog, would you like to see Zacks' best recommendations that are not available to the public? Our Executive VP, Steve Reitmeister, knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand.Click to see them now>>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportAVON PRODS INC (AVP): Free Stock Analysis ReportASHFORD HOSP PR (AHP): Free Stock Analysis ReportGLAUKOS CORP (GKOS): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || What to Expect from Overstock.com (OSTK) in Q3 Earnings?: Overstock.com Inc. OSTK is slated to report third-quarter 2016 results on Nov 3. It is an online retailer that sells brand-name merchandise at deep discounts. Its offerings include bed-and-bath goods, kitchenware, watches, jewelry, electronics, sporting goods and designer accessories. Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement. Factors to Consider The company’s second-quarter revenues were up 8% year over year. It has intensified its efforts on expanding its product reach, building its customer base and strengthening its international foothold. The company has partnered with Tmall in China, 11Street in Korea, Mercado LibreIguama in Latin America, Trade Me in New Zealand and Australia and Rakuten in the UK. Management has also indicated more partnerships in the near future. It has launched a trusted partner marketplace as part of its global expansion efforts. However, the company’s business has been hit by changes in Google search algorithms and rising competition in the e-commerce sector. It has also been engaged in legal battles with several brokerage firms over stock price manipulation issues. Overstocks’ continuous efforts to reduce illegal stock manipulation and reform capital markets could boost its results in the to-be-reported quarter. Also, management confirmed Overstock’s continued focus on improvement of customer experience as well as customer attraction and retention efforts. For this, the company is trying to bring in absolute customization and personalization of its marketing message and develop customer-friendly mobile platforms and applications. Overstock has been a Bitcoin supporter for more than two years and has successfully leveraged the blockchain technology. The company is trying to establish relationships with major financial and capital market institutions to achieve the expected level of synergy between blockchain and cryptocurrency. We expect customer-friendly initiatives, product and geographical expansion efforts, and reform capital markets to act as major positives for Overstock in the to-be-reported quarter. Story continues OVERSTOCK.COM Price and EPS Surprise OVERSTOCK.COM Price and EPS Surprise | OVERSTOCK.COM Quote Stocks That Warrant a Look Ashford Hospitality Prime, Inc. AHP is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 2. The company has an Earnings ESP of +9.76% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . Avon Products Inc. AVP with an Earnings ESP of +33.33% and a Zacks Rank #1. The company is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 3. Glaukos Corporation GKOS with an Earnings ESP of +100.0% and a Zacks Rank #1. The company is slated to report third-quarter earnings results on Nov 10. Confidential from Zacks Beyond this Analyst Blog, would you like to see Zacks' best recommendations that are not available to the public? Our Executive VP, Steve Reitmeister, knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand. Click to see them now>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AVON PRODS INC (AVP): Free Stock Analysis Report ASHFORD HOSP PR (AHP): Free Stock Analysis Report GLAUKOS CORP (GKOS): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || The Linux Foundation Appoints Three Tech Industry Leaders to Its Board of Directors: SAN FRANCISCO, CA --(Marketwired - November 02, 2016) - The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the appointment of Erica Brescia, co-founder and COO of Bitnami; Jeff Garzik, co-founder of Bloq; and Nithya A. Ruff, director of Western Digital's Open Source Strategy Office, to its Board of Directors. Ms. Ruff and Ms. Brescia join as At-Large Directors, and Mr. Garzik comes on board as the representative of Linux Foundation Silver members. Ms. Brescia and Ms. Ruff will take the place of Larry Augustin and Bdale Garbee as At-Large Directors. Mr. Garzik replaces Matt Jones of Jaguar Land Rover. "The Board of Directors and the entire Linux Foundation organization are delighted to welcome Nithya, Erica and Jeff," said Jim Zemlin, executive director. "They will help guide the strategy of The Linux Foundation, the home to some of the most successful open source projects and largest shared technology investment in history. The open source community at large and our nearly 800 members will benefit from the insight and expertise each of these individuals brings. We thank Larry, Bdale and Matt for their long and faithful service on the Board and look forward to their continued participation in the community." New Directors Bring Diversity of Perspectives Erica Brescia Ms. Brescia is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Bitnami. With more than one million deployments per month, Bitnami provides the largest source of applications and development environments to the world's leading cloud service providers, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Platform and Oracle Cloud Platform. Prior to co-founding Bitnami, Ms. Brescia held various sales and management positions at T-Mobile, as well as working as a consultant with Chekiang First Bank in Hong Kong. She holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Southern California. Ms. Brescia has been a dedicated builder of diverse, globally distributed technology and business teams, and has been featured as a keynote speaker at OpenStack Summit and OSCON. To further those goals, Bitnami founded the Bitnami Bootcamp, which provides free education and training on cloud, open source and containers, for recent college graduates and self-taught technologists living in southern Spain. As a YC Founder, Ms. Brescia is also an active mentor of aspiring entrepreneurs in the technology and related industries, as well as being an angel investor in a number of early stage startups. "Open source technologies make possible the incredibly rapid innovation that we see in tech-driven sectors today," Ms. Brescia commented. "Shared R&D in the form of open source helps companies like Bitnami thrive, while creating value for others. I'm proud to be a part of the organization that's propelling that collaboration." Story continues Jeff Garzik Mr. Garzik has long been at the center of developing and commercializing open source software surrounding bitcoin and blockchain. Before co-founding Bloq to develop enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer, and 10 years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today. Mr. Garzik serves on the board of Coin Center and the advisory boards of BitPay, Chain, Netki and WayPaver Labs. He was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum Expert Network as an expert in Information Technology. "I'm excited to bring Bloq's expertise in developing blockchain software to The Linux Foundation," Mr. Garzik said. "Projects like Hyperledger are emblematic of the future of open source: bringing together the efforts of developers to fundamentally alter global finance, digital identity and beyond." Nithya Ruff Ms. Ruff first glimpsed the power of open source while at SGI in the 1990s and has been building bridges between hardware developers and the open source community ever since. She's also held leadership positions at Wind River (an Intel Company), Synopsys, Avaya, Tripwire and Eastman Kodak. Ms. Ruff has been a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new people in open source for many years. She has also been a promoter of valuing diverse ways of contributing to open source, such as in marketing, legal and community. She is co-leader of the Women of OpenStack group and a liaison into the OpenStack Foundation, as well as a sponsor of the Women in Open Source (WIOS) Lunch at Linux Foundation events and an active leader of WIOS advocating for reducing barriers for women and underrepresented minorities. In 2015, Ms. Ruff was invited by Red Hat to be on a diversity leaders' panel at the "All Things Open" conference. In recognition of her work in open source both on the business and community side, Ms. Ruff was named to CIO magazine's most influential women in open source list. Ms. Ruff was also the founding president of the Women's Innovation Network at Western Digital, which is dedicated to the development of women's highest potential in the workplace. Ms. Ruff said: "I've been fortunate to work in an environment at Western Digital that values the contributions of every individual and that encourages diversity in open source communities. Through its training, events and now projects, The Linux Foundation is working to create an inclusive open source culture that stretches across organizations. I anticipate being able to help deepen that work as more industry professionals of all backgrounds get involved in open source." About The Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org . The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. View comments || The Linux Foundation Appoints Three Tech Industry Leaders to Its Board of Directors: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - November 02, 2016) -The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the appointment of Erica Brescia, co-founder and COO of Bitnami; Jeff Garzik, co-founder of Bloq; and Nithya A. Ruff, director of Western Digital's Open Source Strategy Office, to its Board of Directors. Ms. Ruff and Ms. Brescia join as At-Large Directors, and Mr. Garzik comes on board as the representative of Linux Foundation Silver members.
Ms. Brescia and Ms. Ruff will take the place of Larry Augustin and Bdale Garbee as At-Large Directors. Mr. Garzik replaces Matt Jones of Jaguar Land Rover.
"The Board of Directors and the entire Linux Foundation organization are delighted to welcome Nithya, Erica and Jeff," said Jim Zemlin, executive director. "They will help guide the strategy of The Linux Foundation, the home to some of the most successful open source projects and largest shared technology investment in history. The open source community at large and our nearly 800 members will benefit from the insight and expertise each of these individuals brings. We thank Larry, Bdale and Matt for their long and faithful service on the Board and look forward to their continued participation in the community."
New Directors Bring Diversity of Perspectives
Erica Brescia
Ms. Brescia is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Bitnami. With more than one million deployments per month, Bitnami provides the largest source of applications and development environments to the world's leading cloud service providers, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Platform and Oracle Cloud Platform. Prior to co-founding Bitnami, Ms. Brescia held various sales and management positions at T-Mobile, as well as working as a consultant with Chekiang First Bank in Hong Kong. She holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Southern California.
Ms. Brescia has been a dedicated builder of diverse, globally distributed technology and business teams, and has been featured as a keynote speaker at OpenStack Summit and OSCON.
To further those goals, Bitnami founded the Bitnami Bootcamp, which provides free education and training on cloud, open source and containers, for recent college graduates and self-taught technologists living in southern Spain.
As a YC Founder, Ms. Brescia is also an active mentor of aspiring entrepreneurs in the technology and related industries, as well as being an angel investor in a number of early stage startups.
"Open source technologies make possible the incredibly rapid innovation that we see in tech-driven sectors today," Ms. Brescia commented. "Shared R&D in the form of open source helps companies like Bitnami thrive, while creating value for others. I'm proud to be a part of the organization that's propelling that collaboration."
Jeff Garzik
Mr. Garzik has long been at the center of developing and commercializing open source software surrounding bitcoin and blockchain. Before co-founding Bloq to develop enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer, and 10 years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today.
Mr. Garzik serves on the board of Coin Center and the advisory boards of BitPay, Chain, Netki and WayPaver Labs. He was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum Expert Network as an expert in Information Technology.
"I'm excited to bring Bloq's expertise in developing blockchain software to The Linux Foundation," Mr. Garzik said. "Projects like Hyperledger are emblematic of the future of open source: bringing together the efforts of developers to fundamentally alter global finance, digital identity and beyond."
Nithya Ruff
Ms. Ruff first glimpsed the power of open source while at SGI in the 1990s and has been building bridges between hardware developers and the open source community ever since. She's also held leadership positions at Wind River (an Intel Company), Synopsys, Avaya, Tripwire and Eastman Kodak.
Ms. Ruff has been a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new people in open source for many years. She has also been a promoter of valuing diverse ways of contributing to open source, such as in marketing, legal and community. She is co-leader of the Women of OpenStack group and a liaison into the OpenStack Foundation, as well as a sponsor of the Women in Open Source (WIOS) Lunch at Linux Foundation events and an active leader of WIOS advocating for reducing barriers for women and underrepresented minorities. In 2015, Ms. Ruff was invited by Red Hat to be on a diversity leaders' panel at the "All Things Open" conference.
In recognition of her work in open source both on the business and community side, Ms. Ruff was named toCIOmagazine's most influential women in open source list. Ms. Ruff was also the founding president of the Women's Innovation Network at Western Digital, which is dedicated to the development of women's highest potential in the workplace.
Ms. Ruff said: "I've been fortunate to work in an environment at Western Digital that values the contributions of every individual and that encourages diversity in open source communities. Through its training, events and now projects, The Linux Foundation is working to create an inclusive open source culture that stretches across organizations. I anticipate being able to help deepen that work as more industry professionals of all backgrounds get involved in open source."
About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found atwww.linuxfoundation.org.
The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page:https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. || Venezuelans are turning to bitcoin as the bolívar crumbles: Venezuelan bolivar banknotes and a U.S. dollar banknote folded as boats are seen at a fruit and vegetable store in Caracas Venezuelas currency has lost so much of its value that people have given up on counting the notesthey just weigh piles of cash . So far this year, the bolívar has lost nearly half its value compared to the dollar, while inflation has shot up as much as 15 times. Thats according to best estimates, since official data isnt available. Its brutal: Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to welcome its new competitor, Microsoft When a national currency is tanking as badly as the bolívar, a stateless cryptocurrency thats gaining in value suddenly sounds pretty appealing. It looks like at least some Venezuelans are turning their bolívar into bitcoins to not only escape the spiral of devaluation in the state-issued, or fiat, currency, but to reap the profits of a bitcoin price thats been buoyant all year. Trading out of terminally weak or volatile fiat currencies for bitcoin isnt unique to Venezuela; Argentinians have been doing it for years , as the New York Times (paywall) has reported. Thinking of moving to Canada if Trump wins? Think again Trading volumes on LocalBitcoins essentially an online classifieds page for bitcoin buyers and sellers to find one anotherhave spiked in Venezuela. Trading volume has spiked recently to as high as 370 bitcoins a week, worth about $224,000 at the time. In the grand scheme of things, the bolívar-bitcoin trade is minuscule; trillions of dollars change hands on the worlds currency markets daily. Its also not an easy trade to execute, as a Venezuelan must know her way around bitcoin marketplaces and currency exchangesVenezuela has one major exchange, called Surbitcoin to cash out their bolívar. Once a Venezuelan user has bitcoin, however, she could hang onto the cryptocurrency, which might break past its highest point for the year, or hold it in US dollars or other currencies at a wallet service or on an exchange. One service, Xapo, founded by Argentinian entrepreneur Wences Casares, says its seeing a number of users in Venezuela heavily utilizing its app. Story continues Of course, caveats apply: Bitcoin exchanges and wallets are regularly hacked for billions . Xapo, incidentally, offers a vault option that involves air-gapped servers stored in secret underground locations not the worst way to wait out the bolívars downward spiral. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Steve Jobss worst decision was promoting Tim Cook Design has nothing to do with art: Design legend Milton Glaser dispels a universal misunderstanding || Venezuelans are turning to bitcoin as the bolívar crumbles: Venezuelan bolivar banknotes and a U.S. dollar banknote folded as boats are seen at a fruit and vegetable store in Caracas Venezuelas currency has lost so much of its value that people have given up on counting the notesthey just weigh piles of cash . So far this year, the bolívar has lost nearly half its value compared to the dollar, while inflation has shot up as much as 15 times. Thats according to best estimates, since official data isnt available. Its brutal: Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to welcome its new competitor, Microsoft When a national currency is tanking as badly as the bolívar, a stateless cryptocurrency thats gaining in value suddenly sounds pretty appealing. It looks like at least some Venezuelans are turning their bolívar into bitcoins to not only escape the spiral of devaluation in the state-issued, or fiat, currency, but to reap the profits of a bitcoin price thats been buoyant all year. Trading out of terminally weak or volatile fiat currencies for bitcoin isnt unique to Venezuela; Argentinians have been doing it for years , as the New York Times (paywall) has reported. Thinking of moving to Canada if Trump wins? Think again Trading volumes on LocalBitcoins essentially an online classifieds page for bitcoin buyers and sellers to find one anotherhave spiked in Venezuela. Trading volume has spiked recently to as high as 370 bitcoins a week, worth about $224,000 at the time. In the grand scheme of things, the bolívar-bitcoin trade is minuscule; trillions of dollars change hands on the worlds currency markets daily. Its also not an easy trade to execute, as a Venezuelan must know her way around bitcoin marketplaces and currency exchangesVenezuela has one major exchange, called Surbitcoin to cash out their bolívar. Once a Venezuelan user has bitcoin, however, she could hang onto the cryptocurrency, which might break past its highest point for the year, or hold it in US dollars or other currencies at a wallet service or on an exchange. One service, Xapo, founded by Argentinian entrepreneur Wences Casares, says its seeing a number of users in Venezuela heavily utilizing its app. Story continues Of course, caveats apply: Bitcoin exchanges and wallets are regularly hacked for billions . Xapo, incidentally, offers a vault option that involves air-gapped servers stored in secret underground locations not the worst way to wait out the bolívars downward spiral. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Steve Jobss worst decision was promoting Tim Cook Design has nothing to do with art: Design legend Milton Glaser dispels a universal misunderstanding
[Social Media Buzz]
In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 3 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $18.62 #bitcoin #btc || 1 KOBO = 0.00000154 BTC
= 0.0011 USD
= 0.3344 NGN
= 0.0150 ZAR
= 0.1118 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-11-06 06:00 pic.twitter.com/116XCOAg7M || Re: Insane Giveaway! 12.00 INSANE for Supporters | Bitcoin Garden Special Giveaway! http://ift.tt/2eMhxI8 <<>> #Altcoins #Crypto #Bitcoin || #Triangles #TRI $0.211939 (0.59%) 0.00030000 BTC (0.00%) || #TrollCoin #TROLL ...
|
703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-12-17]
Volume: 78989800, RSI (14-day): 68.54, 50-day EMA: 738.45, 200-day EMA: 642.00
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Garfield Sinclair Appointed Head of Caribbean for C&W: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Dec 16, 2016) - Garfield (Garry) Sinclair was today announced as President, Caribbean for Cable & Wireless Communications ("C&W" or "The Company"). The position has responsibility for operations in 15 territories across the region, including C&W's Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados markets. John Reid, CEO of C&W, who was recently confirmed as top executive of the region-leading full service operator, said: "Our business is entering a new phase of its development and evolution, and I am excited about the expertise, experience and passion for customers that Garry brings to what is a critical role." As head of the Caribbean, Sinclair will be responsible for the strategic execution, financial performance and reputation of the Caribbean business, developing the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, as well as capturing the growing demand for business-to-business services. Sinclair, a Jamaica national, is uniquely qualified to lead the Caribbean business given his twenty years' experience in developing growth opportunities and transformation in organizations across the region. In his role as President and COO of investment bank Dehring Bunting & Golding, Garry grew a start-up business to be key player in the Caribbean financial services industry. More recently, for the past seven years as CEO of Cable & Wireless Jamaica he has successfully led the operation's transformation, growing the mobile subscriber base from two hundred thousand to almost one million customers, as well as leading the Company's 800+ employees through the integration of the Columbus and C&W businesses to become the country's leading converged telecoms operator. In addition, his range of Board appointments including financial institutions, youth empowerment and the Jamaica Football Federation demonstrates Sinclair's leadership experience and passion for Caribbean development, qualities key to C&W's development and growth across the Caribbean. Story continues "I am honored to lead our Caribbean business into the next chapter of its development. I look forward to working with our 3,300 employees across the region as we look to seize the opportunity to develop our products and services, continue the transformation of our operations, and lead the region in innovation and quality of customer experience," said Sinclair. Sinclair's appointment will take effect on January 1, 2017; in addition he will continue to oversee C&W's Jamaica business directly until the appointment of new leadership for that operation later in the New Year. About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) and ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3092379 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3092382 || Garfield Sinclair Appointed Head of Caribbean for C&W: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Dec 16, 2016) - Garfield (Garry) Sinclair was today announced as President, Caribbean for Cable & Wireless Communications ("C&W" or "The Company"). The position has responsibility for operations in 15 territories across the region, including C&W's Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados markets. John Reid, CEO of C&W, who was recently confirmed as top executive of the region-leading full service operator, said: "Our business is entering a new phase of its development and evolution, and I am excited about the expertise, experience and passion for customers that Garry brings to what is a critical role." As head of the Caribbean, Sinclair will be responsible for the strategic execution, financial performance and reputation of the Caribbean business, developing the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, as well as capturing the growing demand for business-to-business services. Sinclair, a Jamaica national, is uniquely qualified to lead the Caribbean business given his twenty years' experience in developing growth opportunities and transformation in organizations across the region. In his role as President and COO of investment bank Dehring Bunting & Golding, Garry grew a start-up business to be key player in the Caribbean financial services industry. More recently, for the past seven years as CEO of Cable & Wireless Jamaica he has successfully led the operation's transformation, growing the mobile subscriber base from two hundred thousand to almost one million customers, as well as leading the Company's 800+ employees through the integration of the Columbus and C&W businesses to become the country's leading converged telecoms operator. In addition, his range of Board appointments including financial institutions, youth empowerment and the Jamaica Football Federation demonstrates Sinclair's leadership experience and passion for Caribbean development, qualities key to C&W's development and growth across the Caribbean. Story continues "I am honored to lead our Caribbean business into the next chapter of its development. I look forward to working with our 3,300 employees across the region as we look to seize the opportunity to develop our products and services, continue the transformation of our operations, and lead the region in innovation and quality of customer experience," said Sinclair. Sinclair's appointment will take effect on January 1, 2017; in addition he will continue to oversee C&W's Jamaica business directly until the appointment of new leadership for that operation later in the New Year. About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) and ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3092379 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3092382 || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: 1000 Rupee Note Early in November, India abolished the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called " black money ". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system. Who Uses Bitcoin in India? So who uses Bitcoin in India? According to Sunny Ray , who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchange Unocoin , there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country. In an interview with Bitcoin Uncensored co-host Chris DeRose just before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get." Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country. During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data. Trading Volume Has More Than Doubled Since the Ban So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray told CoinJournal that Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days. An increase in trading volume can also be seen on LocalBitcoins , where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th. Story continues It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust. Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market. In a blog post on their website, BitGo has noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September. Larger Effects May Be Seen Over the Long Term While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term. "Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Sports car drivers make for lousy hedge fund managers, according to new research: Fade the fund manager with the brand-new Maserati, put your faith in the one who just bought a Honda Odyssey.
At least, that's what a recent research paper from a trio of finance professors, entitled "Sensation Seeking, Sports Cars, and Hedge Funds," suggests.
"We find that hedge fund managers who own powerful sports cars take on more investment risk," wrote Yan Lu of the University of Central Florida, Sugata Ray of the University of Florida and Melvyn Teo of the Singapore Management University. "The incremental risk taking by performance car buyers does not translate to higher returns."
Lu, Ray and Tao are not out to obsess over the makes and models of various fund managers' rides. Rather, their principal point is about how the emotional makeup of those making investment decisions could impact outcomes.
"We argue that the purchase of a powerful sports car, more often than not, conveys the intent to drive in a spirited fashion and therefore signals an inclination for sensation seeking," they wrote, going on to show that these "sensation seekers" deliver strikingly more volatile returns, that are not more favorable in a risk-adjusted framework.
Interestingly, the converse is also true: Drivers of minivans tend to deliver less volatile returns, the authors found.
Bolstering their point, the authors further found that drivers of sports cars are more likely to terminate their funds and to report regulatory and criminal violations than the average fund manager — while drivers of "practical but unexciting cars" are less likely to do so.
The authors say that other factors such as fund age or the wealth level of the managers are not likely to explain the disparate results.
"The cars that people drive just provide another data point into who they are," Ray said in a Monday interview on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "In this case, [sports car buyers] reveal something about themselves, … and that is reflected in their funds taking more risk."
To generate their findings, the culled multiple sources of fund performance data, and "hand-collect[ed]" vehicle purchase information from the websiteVIN.place, which utilizes data from dealerships and auto insurance companies.
More From CNBC
• Bitcoin is surging – but that might not mean what you think
• It’s time to ditch one of the past year’s hottest trades
• This stock is up 100% in one year, but may still be cheap || Hackers Refining Tools For Attacking Banks: A letter from the Swift network to member banks warns hackers are refining their cyberattack tools and the global bank transfer system remains vulnerable. Reuters reported Monday the letter, dated Nov. 2, warned the threat is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated and it is here to stay. Reuters said the letter is evidence the Belgium-based cooperative Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication remains vulnerable a year after $81 million was stolen from Bangladeshs central bank. Among the tactics now being used by hackers is software allowing technicians access to computers for technical support. "We unfortunately continue to see cases in which some of our customers environments are being compromised," the letter said, noting a meaningful number of attacks have been made on both central and commercial banks, and 20 percent of them have resulted in stolen funds. Bangladeshi officials told Reuters several central bank officials enabled the theft, which was the result of malware inserted into the banks system. Bitcoin News Service reported the central bank has managed to recoup a portion of the stolen funds from a casino in the Philippines. Investigators determined the money was sold on the black market to a foreign exchange broker who transferred the funds to three casinos. A Philippines court ordered the Solaire Resort and casino to surrender the money to Bangladesh. Some $10 million was handed over. A commercial bank in Ecuador said it was held up for $12 million last year. In Vietnam thieves tried and failed to make off with $1.1 million in what investigators said may have been a practice run for the attack on Bangladesh. Russia security services warned earlier this month that foreign spy agencies were preparing attacks on Russian banks in dozens of cities to destabilize the financial system of the Russian Federation. The Federal Security Bureau didnt specify who was preparing the attack. Related Articles After Hacks, Banks Push Swift To Boost Security New York Governor Issues Cybersecurity Proposal || Hackers Refining Tools For Attacking Banks: A letter from the Swift network to member banks warns hackers are refining their cyberattack tools and the global bank transfer system remains vulnerable. Reuters reported Monday the letter, dated Nov. 2, warned the threat is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated and it is here to stay. Reuters said the letter is evidence the Belgium-based cooperative Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication remains vulnerable a year after $81 million was stolen from Bangladeshs central bank. Among the tactics now being used by hackers is software allowing technicians access to computers for technical support. "We unfortunately continue to see cases in which some of our customers environments are being compromised," the letter said, noting a meaningful number of attacks have been made on both central and commercial banks, and 20 percent of them have resulted in stolen funds. Bangladeshi officials told Reuters several central bank officials enabled the theft, which was the result of malware inserted into the banks system. Bitcoin News Service reported the central bank has managed to recoup a portion of the stolen funds from a casino in the Philippines. Investigators determined the money was sold on the black market to a foreign exchange broker who transferred the funds to three casinos. A Philippines court ordered the Solaire Resort and casino to surrender the money to Bangladesh. Some $10 million was handed over. A commercial bank in Ecuador said it was held up for $12 million last year. In Vietnam thieves tried and failed to make off with $1.1 million in what investigators said may have been a practice run for the attack on Bangladesh. Russia security services warned earlier this month that foreign spy agencies were preparing attacks on Russian banks in dozens of cities to destabilize the financial system of the Russian Federation. The Federal Security Bureau didnt specify who was preparing the attack. Related Articles After Hacks, Banks Push Swift To Boost Security New York Governor Issues Cybersecurity Proposal
[Social Media Buzz]
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790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98, 8309.29, 8206.15, 8027.27, 7642.75.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-21]
Volume: 22514243371, RSI (14-day): 28.30, 50-day EMA: 8772.20, 200-day EMA: 8693.79
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1463.10, Gold RSI: 42.07
Oil Price: 58.58, Oil RSI: 60.20
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
European Equities: Trade Tension and two HK Bills Could Sink the Majors: Economic Calendar : Thursday, 21 st November 2019 ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes Friday, 22 nd November 2019 German GDP (YoY) (Q3) 2nd Estimate German GDP (QoQ) (Q3) 2nd Estimate French Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim French Services PMI (Nov) Prelim German Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim German Services PMI (Nov) Prelim Eurozone Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim Eurozone Markit Composite PMI (Nov) Prelim Eurozone Services PMI (Nov) Prelim The Majors European equities hit reverse on Wednesday, with the DAX30 falling by 0.48% to lead the way down. The CAC40 and EuroStoxx600 weren’t far behind, with losses of 0.25% and 0.41% respectively. With economic data limited to wholesale inflation figures out of Germany, rising tensions between the U.S and China weighed on risk appetite. News of the U.S Senate voting unanimously to support Hong Kong protesters led to China threatening retaliation. The U.S President added to the tension by raising the threat of more tariffs should China fail to reach a phase 1 agreement with the U.S. On the day, China held back from responding to Trump’s latest tariff threat. For Beijing, the latest U.S Senate vote makes things particularly tricky. Reports of Chinese firms being particularly sensitive to pro-HK sentiment will pressure Beijing to respond. A phase 1 agreement that leaves tariffs in place is unlikely to be the response businesses will be looking for… The Stats It was another quiet day on the Eurozone economic calendar on Wednesday. Economic data was limited to October wholesale inflation figures out of Germany. According to Destatis , The Producer Price Index fell by 0.2% in October, reversing a 0.1% rise in September. Economists had forecast a 0.1% decline. Year-on-year, the Producer Price Index fell by 0.6%. Energy prices fell by 3.1%, year-on-year, to leave the Index in the red in October. Month-on-month, energy prices fell by 0.1%. Excluding energy, the Index rose by 0.3%, year-on-year, while down by 0.2% month-on-month. Prices of intermediate goods fell by 1.7%, year-on-year, which was the largest annual decline since July 2016. Month-on-month, prices of intermediate goods fell by 0.7%. Prices for durable consumer goods rose by 1.4%, with prices for capital goods up by 1.5%. Also on the rise were prices of non-durable consumer goods, which rose by 2.3%. Story continues From the U.S, there were no material stats from the U.S to provide direction late in the day. The Market Movers For the DAX: It was a bearish day for the auto sector on Wednesday, as the markets responded to rising tensions between the U.S and China. Continental led the way, sliding by 1.80%. Daimler and Volkswagen fell by 0.28% and by 0.87% respectively. BMW ended the day with a more modest 0.11% loss. It was also bearish for the banks. Deutsche Bank fell by 0.49%, with Commerzbank down by 0.97%. From the CAC , it was a mixed session for the banks. BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole rose by 0.69% and by 0.24% respectively, while Soc Gen fell by 0.21%. It was bearish for French Autos, however. Peugeot fell by 0.88%, with Renault falling by 0.41% on the day. On the VIX Index It was back into the red on Wednesday, after 2 nd consecutive day in the green. The VIX fell by 0.62%, partially reversing a 3.21% gain from Tuesday, to end the day at 12.8. The pullback came in spite of negative sentiment towards trade leaving the U.S equity markets in the red on the day. On the day, the VIX had hit a current month high 14.2 before sliding back. The Day Ahead It’s a quiet day ahead on the Eurozone economic calendar . Economic data is limited to prelim consumer confidence figures due out of the Eurozone. We have seen market sensitivity to the numbers build, with the Eurozone economy dependent on consumer spending. Expect today’s numbers to provide direction late in the session. A lack of stats in the earlier part of the day leaves the majors in the hands of geopolitics going into the open. In the early afternoon, the ECB monetary policy meeting minutes will also provide direction, along with economic data out of the U.S. On the U.S data front, we would expect the Philly FED Manufacturing Index figures for November to have the greatest influence. The numbers are due out at the same time as the ECB minutes. Geopolitics may ultimately overshadow the economic calendar on the day, however. News of the House of Representatives passing two bills to support HK protestors on Wednesday will test the majors early on. It now sits with the U.S President to decide. With trade tensions rising this week, expect a strong response from China and the global financial markets should Trump sign. In the futures market, at the time of writing, the Dow was down by 58 points. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Finds Buyers Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 21/11/19 USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Bounces Crude Oil Price Update – Bullish EIA Report Triggers Short-Covering Rally Ethereum and Stellar’s Lumen Daily Tech Analysis – 21/11/19 Heliogen Makes Major Breakthrough In Solar Technology || European Equities: Trade Tension and two HK Bills Could Sink the Majors: • ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes
• German GDP (YoY) (Q3) 2nd Estimate
• German GDP (QoQ) (Q3) 2nd Estimate
• French Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim
• French Services PMI (Nov) Prelim
• German Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim
• German Services PMI (Nov) Prelim
• Eurozone Manufacturing PMI (Nov) Prelim
• Eurozone Markit Composite PMI (Nov) Prelim
• Eurozone Services PMI (Nov) Prelim
European equities hit reverse on Wednesday, with the DAX30 falling by 0.48% to lead the way down. The CAC40 and EuroStoxx600 weren’t far behind, with losses of 0.25% and 0.41% respectively.
With economic data limited to wholesale inflation figures out of Germany, rising tensions between the U.S and China weighed on risk appetite.
News of the U.S Senate voting unanimously to support Hong Kong protesters led to China threatening retaliation.
The U.S President added to the tension by raising the threat of more tariffs should China fail to reach a phase 1 agreement with the U.S.
On the day, China held back from responding to Trump’s latest tariff threat.
For Beijing, the latest U.S Senate vote makes things particularly tricky. Reports of Chinese firms being particularly sensitive to pro-HK sentiment will pressure Beijing to respond. A phase 1 agreement that leaves tariffs in place is unlikely to be the response businesses will be looking for…
It was another quiet day on theEurozone economic calendaron Wednesday. Economic data was limited to October wholesale inflation figures out of Germany.
According toDestatis,
• The Producer Price Index fell by 0.2% in October, reversing a 0.1% rise in September. Economists had forecast a 0.1% decline.
• Year-on-year, the Producer Price Index fell by 0.6%.
• Energy prices fell by 3.1%, year-on-year, to leave the Index in the red in October. Month-on-month, energy prices fell by 0.1%.
• Excluding energy, the Index rose by 0.3%, year-on-year, while down by 0.2% month-on-month.
• Prices of intermediate goods fell by 1.7%, year-on-year, which was the largest annual decline since July 2016. Month-on-month, prices of intermediate goods fell by 0.7%.
• Prices for durable consumer goods rose by 1.4%, with prices for capital goods up by 1.5%.
• Also on the rise were prices of non-durable consumer goods, which rose by 2.3%.
From the U.S, there were no material stats from the U.S to provide direction late in the day.
For the DAX:It was a bearish day for the auto sector on Wednesday, as the markets responded to rising tensions between the U.S and China.Continentalled the way, sliding by 1.80%.DaimlerandVolkswagenfell by 0.28% and by 0.87% respectively.BMWended the day with a more modest 0.11% loss.
It was also bearish for the banks.Deutsche Bankfell by 0.49%, withCommerzbankdown by 0.97%.
From the CAC, it was a mixed session for the banks.BNP ParibasandCredit Agricolerose by 0.69% and by 0.24% respectively, whileSoc Genfell by 0.21%.
It was bearish for French Autos, however.Peugeotfell by 0.88%, withRenaultfalling by 0.41% on the day.
It was back into the red on Wednesday, after 2ndconsecutive day in the green. The VIX fell by 0.62%, partially reversing a 3.21% gain from Tuesday, to end the day at 12.8.
The pullback came in spite of negative sentiment towards trade leaving the U.S equity markets in the red on the day.
On the day, the VIX had hit a current month high 14.2 before sliding back.
It’s a quiet day ahead on theEurozone economic calendar. Economic data is limited to prelim consumer confidence figures due out of the Eurozone.
We have seen market sensitivity to the numbers build, with the Eurozone economy dependent on consumer spending. Expect today’s numbers to provide direction late in the session.
A lack of stats in the earlier part of the day leaves the majors in the hands of geopolitics going into the open.
In the early afternoon, the ECB monetary policy meeting minutes will also provide direction, along with economic data out of the U.S.
On the U.S data front, we would expect the Philly FED Manufacturing Index figures for November to have the greatest influence. The numbers are due out at the same time as the ECB minutes.
Geopolitics may ultimately overshadow the economic calendar on the day, however. News of the House of Representatives passing two bills to support HK protestors on Wednesday will test the majors early on. It now sits with the U.S President to decide. With trade tensions rising this week, expect a strong response from China and the global financial markets should Trump sign.
In the futures market, at the time of writing, the Dow was down by 58 points.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Heliogen Makes Major Breakthrough In Solar Technology || Singapore opens doors to crypto derivatives trading: Singapores financial regulator has proposed that cryptocurrency derivatives trading should be approved on domestic exchanges, according to BNN Bloomberg . The proposal states that trading of derivatives on Bitcoin and Ethereum will need to comply with the Securities and Futures Act. The decision from Singapore seems to be following the lead of the USA, which currently has Bitcoin futures markets on Bakkt, CME, and CBOE. Bakkt offers physically-settled Bitcoin futures while the CME and CBOE markets remain cash-settled. ICE Futures, which is the driving force behind Bakkt, aims to launch a cash-settled futures market in Singapore on December 9. Derivatives markets like BitMEX are currently the most popular cryptocurrency trading venues, with volume regularly surpassing $5 billion per day and beating spot volume substantially. However, concerns remain in regards to cryptocurrencys staggering volatility. The Monetary Authority Of Singapore recommends that traders of crypto derivatives use 50% of the available margin and that it is not suitable for most retail investors. Retail investors are strongly advised not to trade in payment token derivatives, and even if they choose to do so, should exercise utmost caution, the statement reads. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Singapore opens doors to crypto derivatives trading appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Singapore opens doors to crypto derivatives trading: Singapores financial regulator has proposed that cryptocurrency derivatives trading should be approved on domestic exchanges, according to BNN Bloomberg . The proposal states that trading of derivatives on Bitcoin and Ethereum will need to comply with the Securities and Futures Act. The decision from Singapore seems to be following the lead of the USA, which currently has Bitcoin futures markets on Bakkt, CME, and CBOE. Bakkt offers physically-settled Bitcoin futures while the CME and CBOE markets remain cash-settled. ICE Futures, which is the driving force behind Bakkt, aims to launch a cash-settled futures market in Singapore on December 9. Derivatives markets like BitMEX are currently the most popular cryptocurrency trading venues, with volume regularly surpassing $5 billion per day and beating spot volume substantially. However, concerns remain in regards to cryptocurrencys staggering volatility. The Monetary Authority Of Singapore recommends that traders of crypto derivatives use 50% of the available margin and that it is not suitable for most retail investors. Retail investors are strongly advised not to trade in payment token derivatives, and even if they choose to do so, should exercise utmost caution, the statement reads. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Singapore opens doors to crypto derivatives trading appeared first on Coin Rivet . || PayPal CEO speaks out over Libra split: In an article published by Fortune earlier today, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman shared his reasons for leaving Facebook’s Libra project, and also revealed which cryptocurrency he’s invested in. In June, PayPal originally indicated that it would become part of the Libra Association – the consortium of large companies that would work alongside Facebook on the Libra project. However, PayPal left the association in October to focus on its own projects, followed quickly by Mastercard and Visa. Since its announcement, Libra has faced growing regulatory pressures and widespread criticism from lawmakers, especially in the EU, who have described the project as “ dangerous to the monetary system “. PayPal CEO speaks out Polina Marinova, interviewing PayPal CEO Dan Schulman for Fortune, pressed for more information concerning the split, which at the time came with little warning. Instead, the payment provider simply announced in October that: “PayPal has made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities.” Some have speculated that PayPal, which is known to adhere carefully to local and national regulation, left the consortium following regulatory fears. When asked about this, Schulman replied: “Regulatory and compliance, for us, is foundational. But we have an extremely robust relationship with every regulator out there. We are extremely trusted on that. That wasn’t really what spooked us on it.” Instead, Schulman described the parting of ways as a friendly move, with the companies both exploring other options, saying: “It wasn’t an acrimonious divorce or anything like that. It’s just that they will start going down a road that we’re very interested in looking at and monitoring, and maybe later, there are ways we can work together.” He added that he wishes Facebook’s Libra team the best of luck in deploying the digital currency. Despite this, Facebook was particularly scathing of PayPal’s move at the time, stating in an official response: Story continues “We’re better off knowing about this lack of commitment now.” Facebook was referring to its personal commitment to a financial system geared towards the people and not institutions, which the company clearly felt was a goal PayPal no longer shared. Schulman only holds Bitcoin Towards the end of the interview, Schulman also revealed that the only cryptocurrency he holds is Bitcoin. Popular cryptocurrency personality and co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Anthony Pompliano shared this news, supposedly seeing it as highly bullish for Bitcoin. PayPal CEO owns Bitcoin. That’s it. No other crypto. Only Bitcoin. 🔥 https://t.co/HHXhaHjcMO — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) November 20, 2019 Schulman didn’t disclose the value of his investments in Bitcoin, nor did he share how long he had been a Bitcoin holder . The post PayPal CEO speaks out over Libra split appeared first on Coin Rivet . || PayPal CEO speaks out over Libra split: In an article published by Fortune earlier today, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman shared his reasons for leaving Facebook’s Libra project, and also revealed which cryptocurrency he’s invested in. In June, PayPal originally indicated that it would become part of the Libra Association – the consortium of large companies that would work alongside Facebook on the Libra project. However, PayPal left the association in October to focus on its own projects, followed quickly by Mastercard and Visa. Since its announcement, Libra has faced growing regulatory pressures and widespread criticism from lawmakers, especially in the EU, who have described the project as “ dangerous to the monetary system “. PayPal CEO speaks out Polina Marinova, interviewing PayPal CEO Dan Schulman for Fortune, pressed for more information concerning the split, which at the time came with little warning. Instead, the payment provider simply announced in October that: “PayPal has made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities.” Some have speculated that PayPal, which is known to adhere carefully to local and national regulation, left the consortium following regulatory fears. When asked about this, Schulman replied: “Regulatory and compliance, for us, is foundational. But we have an extremely robust relationship with every regulator out there. We are extremely trusted on that. That wasn’t really what spooked us on it.” Instead, Schulman described the parting of ways as a friendly move, with the companies both exploring other options, saying: “It wasn’t an acrimonious divorce or anything like that. It’s just that they will start going down a road that we’re very interested in looking at and monitoring, and maybe later, there are ways we can work together.” He added that he wishes Facebook’s Libra team the best of luck in deploying the digital currency. Despite this, Facebook was particularly scathing of PayPal’s move at the time, stating in an official response: Story continues “We’re better off knowing about this lack of commitment now.” Facebook was referring to its personal commitment to a financial system geared towards the people and not institutions, which the company clearly felt was a goal PayPal no longer shared. Schulman only holds Bitcoin Towards the end of the interview, Schulman also revealed that the only cryptocurrency he holds is Bitcoin. Popular cryptocurrency personality and co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Anthony Pompliano shared this news, supposedly seeing it as highly bullish for Bitcoin. PayPal CEO owns Bitcoin. That’s it. No other crypto. Only Bitcoin. 🔥 https://t.co/HHXhaHjcMO — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) November 20, 2019 Schulman didn’t disclose the value of his investments in Bitcoin, nor did he share how long he had been a Bitcoin holder . The post PayPal CEO speaks out over Libra split appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020?: With the new year just around the corner, cryptocurrency investors and traders are getting ready for what the markets might have in store in 2020. Hopefully, with a brand new year comes brand new blood to fuel the next big crypto bull run. According to key cryptocurrency analysts such as Mati Greenspan, Alessio Rastani, Trace Mayers, and PlanB, there’s a high probability of a Bitcoin bull run sometime within the next 12 to 18 months. Funnily enough, some economists are predicting an economic recession during the same period. Will that be the final catalyst for a massive cryptocurrency bull market? If so, will altcoins such as Litecoin enjoy some huge gains? Let’s take a look. Bitcoin price prediction Imagem The above price prediction is based on PlanB’s BTC stock-to-flow model, discussed in this guide. Stock-to-flow models have been used in the traditional investment field for decades. A stock-to-flow model will show the amount of a commodity held in inventories divided by the amount produced annually. This tool can be used and the process replicated among other Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies , as they follow similar stock-to-flow models. The only requirements for the stock-to-flow model (or ratio) to make sense are: A known (visible and accountable) supply A known maximum supply (preferable) If this model continues to satisfy its future predictions, this is what could happen to Bitcoin in the next couple of years: Bitcoin could reach $100,000 sometime in 2021 Bitcoin could reach $1,000,000 sometime in 2026 What is the recipe for an alt-season? There are a few factors that tend to help altcoins during bull markets. Even though we could argue technical advancements are the most important detail for price, fundamentals tend to apply in the long term rather than the short term. Looking at the overall altcoin prices above (courtesy of Messari.io ), we see the majority have fallen between 80% to 90% since their all-time highs. The cycle has been repeating since 2013, when altcoins became a thing. Story continues So what drives short-term price action then? In essence, pure speculation. The most profitable altcoins include Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Since the all-time highs for all these coins were in early 2018, and since then most of their value has been lost, can we argue marketing and network effects are the key drivers for short-time price? It seems likely. Therefore, when looking at which altcoins might pump next, I argue the key questions we should ask ourselves are: How much money has the company raised? What are the media network effects? By combining metrics, through Google Trends, blockchain explorers, wallet adoption, or social media trend waves, we can get a picture of which altcoins may experience strong positive price action. Not to my surprise, Litecoin is a strong contender. What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020? We are proud to support #Litecoin payments. @LTCFoundation and @SatoshiLite did you know CoinPayments was the FIRST to support #LTC payment processing back in 2013? https://t.co/U0lITyyges — CoinPayments (@CoinPaymentsNET) April 27, 2018 I argue there’s an extra few ingredients the Litecoin Foundation or large LTC holders can add to the mix to promote future gains. The first thing is to spread the message that Litecoin has a hard supply, which puts extra pressure on long-term price since fewer coins are minted every four years. Additionally, Litecoin has a plethora of partners and merchants using LTC as a payment gateway. As discussed in this post, the number of LTC merchants is growing at a huge pace, and key players such as the Miami Dolphins are helping to spread the Litecoin brand to new markets. In essence, I believe for Litecoin to experience a bull run in 2020, there needs to be a Bitcoin bull run fueled by the entrance of new retail and institutional investors. When Bitcoin breaks new all-time highs, we should expect some of the new money to spill into prominent altcoins such as LTC. The post What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020?: With the new year just around the corner, cryptocurrency investors and traders are getting ready for what the markets might have in store in 2020. Hopefully, with a brand new year comes brand new blood to fuel the next big crypto bull run. According to key cryptocurrency analysts such as Mati Greenspan, Alessio Rastani, Trace Mayers, and PlanB, there’s a high probability of a Bitcoin bull run sometime within the next 12 to 18 months. Funnily enough, some economists are predicting an economic recession during the same period. Will that be the final catalyst for a massive cryptocurrency bull market? If so, will altcoins such as Litecoin enjoy some huge gains? Let’s take a look. Bitcoin price prediction Imagem The above price prediction is based on PlanB’s BTC stock-to-flow model, discussed in this guide. Stock-to-flow models have been used in the traditional investment field for decades. A stock-to-flow model will show the amount of a commodity held in inventories divided by the amount produced annually. This tool can be used and the process replicated among other Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies , as they follow similar stock-to-flow models. The only requirements for the stock-to-flow model (or ratio) to make sense are: A known (visible and accountable) supply A known maximum supply (preferable) If this model continues to satisfy its future predictions, this is what could happen to Bitcoin in the next couple of years: Bitcoin could reach $100,000 sometime in 2021 Bitcoin could reach $1,000,000 sometime in 2026 What is the recipe for an alt-season? There are a few factors that tend to help altcoins during bull markets. Even though we could argue technical advancements are the most important detail for price, fundamentals tend to apply in the long term rather than the short term. Looking at the overall altcoin prices above (courtesy of Messari.io ), we see the majority have fallen between 80% to 90% since their all-time highs. The cycle has been repeating since 2013, when altcoins became a thing. Story continues So what drives short-term price action then? In essence, pure speculation. The most profitable altcoins include Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Since the all-time highs for all these coins were in early 2018, and since then most of their value has been lost, can we argue marketing and network effects are the key drivers for short-time price? It seems likely. Therefore, when looking at which altcoins might pump next, I argue the key questions we should ask ourselves are: How much money has the company raised? What are the media network effects? By combining metrics, through Google Trends, blockchain explorers, wallet adoption, or social media trend waves, we can get a picture of which altcoins may experience strong positive price action. Not to my surprise, Litecoin is a strong contender. What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020? We are proud to support #Litecoin payments. @LTCFoundation and @SatoshiLite did you know CoinPayments was the FIRST to support #LTC payment processing back in 2013? https://t.co/U0lITyyges — CoinPayments (@CoinPaymentsNET) April 27, 2018 I argue there’s an extra few ingredients the Litecoin Foundation or large LTC holders can add to the mix to promote future gains. The first thing is to spread the message that Litecoin has a hard supply, which puts extra pressure on long-term price since fewer coins are minted every four years. Additionally, Litecoin has a plethora of partners and merchants using LTC as a payment gateway. As discussed in this post, the number of LTC merchants is growing at a huge pace, and key players such as the Miami Dolphins are helping to spread the Litecoin brand to new markets. In essence, I believe for Litecoin to experience a bull run in 2020, there needs to be a Bitcoin bull run fueled by the entrance of new retail and institutional investors. When Bitcoin breaks new all-time highs, we should expect some of the new money to spill into prominent altcoins such as LTC. The post What will it take for a Litecoin bull run in 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Crypto Millions Lotto partners with Wolverhampton Wanderers FC: Premier League high-flyers Wolverhampton Wanderers have announced a new partnership with Crypto Millions Lotto. Crypto Millions Lotto labels itself as the “world’s biggest Bitcoin lottery” provider with an estimated weekly jackpot of $30 million (3,713 BTC). Wolves, who are the “most crypto-friendly club in England” according to Crypto Million Lotto CEO Sulim Malook, will become the first Premier League club to work with an online lottery business. Mr Malook said: “Wolves’ success last year has put the club’s name on the world stage in a sport that is by far the most watched on the planet.” He added: “They were an obvious choice.” This is not the first cryptocurrency-related partnership Wolves have seized upon this year. The club’s current shirt sponsor is CoinDeal, a cryptocurrency exchange and trading venue. Steve Morton, head of commercial at Wolves, said: “We’re delighted to partner with Crypto Millions Lotto, an ambitious company that is keen to increase its exposure with the help of Wolves’ global reach across various platforms. “We’re also excited to develop our relationship, which will also see the Wolves brand reach new audiences in Eastern Europe and South America.” Earlier this year, fellow Premier League club Watford sparked interest by using the Bitcoin logo on the sleeves of their matchday shirts. West Ham United and Arsenal also show advertising for the eToro trading platform, which currently offers Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading. The growing trend demonstrates a key crossover between the cryptocurrency industry and the sports betting industry, which is somewhat of a surprise considering retail adoption of digital assets in 2019 has dramatically reduced. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Crypto Millions Lotto partners with Wolverhampton Wanderers FC appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Crypto Millions Lotto partners with Wolverhampton Wanderers FC: Premier League high-flyers Wolverhampton Wanderers have announced a new partnership with Crypto Millions Lotto. Crypto Millions Lotto labels itself as the “world’s biggest Bitcoin lottery” provider with an estimated weekly jackpot of $30 million (3,713 BTC). Wolves, who are the “most crypto-friendly club in England” according to Crypto Million Lotto CEO Sulim Malook, will become the first Premier League club to work with an online lottery business. Mr Malook said: “Wolves’ success last year has put the club’s name on the world stage in a sport that is by far the most watched on the planet.” He added: “They were an obvious choice.” This is not the first cryptocurrency-related partnership Wolves have seized upon this year. The club’s current shirt sponsor is CoinDeal, a cryptocurrency exchange and trading venue. Steve Morton, head of commercial at Wolves, said: “We’re delighted to partner with Crypto Millions Lotto, an ambitious company that is keen to increase its exposure with the help of Wolves’ global reach across various platforms. “We’re also excited to develop our relationship, which will also see the Wolves brand reach new audiences in Eastern Europe and South America.” Earlier this year, fellow Premier League club Watford sparked interest by using the Bitcoin logo on the sleeves of their matchday shirts. West Ham United and Arsenal also show advertising for the eToro trading platform, which currently offers Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading. The growing trend demonstrates a key crossover between the cryptocurrency industry and the sports betting industry, which is somewhat of a surprise considering retail adoption of digital assets in 2019 has dramatically reduced. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Crypto Millions Lotto partners with Wolverhampton Wanderers FC appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Sharding, scalability, decentralization - You name it, we've got it on the EC stage in Berlin: Sharding and scalability. Transactions per second. Crypto-ecosystems. The decentralized web. These are the voyages of the Starship Blockchain, on it’s five-year mission to seek out… OK, you get the drift! But as you can tell, there remain many, many issues to tease out of this burgeoning new tech world, one we will be unpacking at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin this December.
There are still a lot of issues to deal with. The current version of Ethereum can only handle a dozen transactions per second. “Sharding” or spreading the load via partitioning, should lead to a drastic increase in performance, but the question is how to do it? Ethereum 2.0 still remains a moving target. There is even a growing “Ethereum killer” community. And while all this goes on, high-minded organizations like the Web3 Foundation are trying to foster the development of a user-friendly crypto-ecosystem and decentralized web.
Who on earth would take all this on?TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, of course, and, in particular, our Extra Crunch stage.
Since we launched Extra Crunch, our premium content service for those readers who like to hold TechCrunch close and cuddle it at night, we’ve been running a premium EC stage at our TechCrunch Disrupt conferences, and this will be no less true in Berlin.
Given Berlin is a hotbed of blockchain startups and development, it would be utterly remiss of us not to cover this subject, but the Extra Crunch stage gives us some extra (oh yeah!) bandwidth to do deep-dives for attendees to get under the skin of this rapidly expanding aspect of the tech industry.
We’re excited to be joined by three amazing speakers to pore over the latest development in the blockchain world.
Justin Drake (Ethereum)Justin studied mathematics at Cambridge University. He was a Bitcoin entrepreneur from 2014 to 2017 and is now an Ethereum 2.0 researcher.
Justin is going to cover where Ethereum 2.0 is right now as someone who has been working on sharding and scalability and supporting the Ethereum ecosystem to enable these new use cases.
With the current version of Ethereum only able to handle a dozen transactions per second, sharding will be crucial, but Ethereum 2.0 is a moving target and remains a large-scale experiment of distributed development.
If the community gets it right, Ethereum 2.0 could transform the Ethereum blockchain into a sort of “world computer” that can execute instructions across a network of servers all around the world. On the EC stage, Justin will also be talking with other blockchain experts about building a blockchain startup. If anyone knows, he knows how important it is to build a community of developers and researchers around your blockchain project.
Ash Egan (Accomplice VC)A World Economic Forum Global Shaper and advisor at ConsenSys’ Tachyon Accelerator, Ash Egan has backed a number of headline companies in the space, including Bison Trails, Coda, CoinList, Dapper Labs, Near, Simplex and Torus. Before Accomplice, he co-launched ConsenSys’ venture arm and started his career at Converge VC in Boston.
Egan has previously highlighted the ongoing innovations within the “Ethereum killer” community and how it “expands the sandbox,” but he also believes that for mass adoption of crypto on social networks to take off, users will need to be monetized via advertisements and referrals.
Ashley Tyson (Web3 Foundation)Ashley Tyson is the director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at Web3 Foundation. She spends her time aligning diverse teams working on decentralized systems and supporting blockchain ecosystem initiatives like Ethereum Community Fund and ETHPrize.
Prior to Web3 Foundation, Ashley co-founded DEFCAD, a censorship-resistant search engine for 3D printable files. She deeply understands the need for a decentralized web, beginning her career in NYC at one of the first social media-focused agencies, where she helped multinational corporations build Web 2.0 strategies around consumer data acquisition for use in marketing initiatives.
Disrupt Berlin runs December 11 and December 12.Tickets are available here!
https://tcprotectedembed.com/protected-iframe/c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527( function() { var func = function() { var iframe = document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527') if ( iframe ) { iframe.onload = function() { iframe.contentWindow.postMessage( { 'msg_type': 'poll_size', 'frame_id': 'wpcom-iframe-c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527' }, "https:\/\/tcprotectedembed.com" ); } } // Autosize iframe var funcSizeResponse = function( e ) { var origin = document.createElement( 'a' ); origin.href = e.origin; // Verify message origin if ( 'tcprotectedembed.com' !== origin.host ) return; // Verify message is in a format we expect if ( 'object' !== typeof e.data || undefined === e.data.msg_type ) return; switch ( e.data.msg_type ) { case 'poll_size:response': var iframe = document.getElementById( e.data._request.frame_id ); if ( iframe && '' === iframe.width ) iframe.width = '100%'; if ( iframe && '' === iframe.height ) iframe.height = parseInt( e.data.height ); return; default: return; } } if ( 'function' === typeof window.addEventListener ) { window.addEventListener( 'message', funcSizeResponse, false ); } else if ( 'function' === typeof window.attachEvent ) { window.attachEvent( 'onmessage', funcSizeResponse ); } } if (document.readyState === 'complete') { func.apply(); /* compat for infinite scroll */ } else if ( document.addEventListener ) { document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', func, false ); } else if ( document.attachEvent ) { document.attachEvent( 'onreadystatechange', func ); } } )(); || Sharding, scalability, decentralization - You name it, we've got it on the EC stage in Berlin: Sharding and scalability. Transactions per second. Crypto-ecosystems. The decentralized web. These are the voyages of the Starship Blockchain, on its five-year mission to seek out
OK, you get the drift! But as you can tell, there remain many, many issues to tease out of this burgeoning new tech world, one we will be unpacking at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin this December. There are still a lot of issues to deal with. The current version of Ethereum can only handle a dozen transactions per second. Sharding or spreading the load via partitioning, should lead to a drastic increase in performance, but the question is how to do it? Ethereum 2.0 still remains a moving target. There is even a growing Ethereum killer community. And while all this goes on, high-minded organizations like the Web3 Foundation are trying to foster the development of a user-friendly crypto-ecosystem and decentralized web. Who on earth would take all this on? TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin , of course, and, in particular, our Extra Crunch stage. Since we launched Extra Crunch, our premium content service for those readers who like to hold TechCrunch close and cuddle it at night, weve been running a premium EC stage at our TechCrunch Disrupt conferences, and this will be no less true in Berlin. Given Berlin is a hotbed of blockchain startups and development, it would be utterly remiss of us not to cover this subject, but the Extra Crunch stage gives us some extra (oh yeah!) bandwidth to do deep-dives for attendees to get under the skin of this rapidly expanding aspect of the tech industry. Were excited to be joined by three amazing speakers to pore over the latest development in the blockchain world. Justin Drake (Ethereum) Justin studied mathematics at Cambridge University. He was a Bitcoin entrepreneur from 2014 to 2017 and is now an Ethereum 2.0 researcher. Justin is going to cover where Ethereum 2.0 is right now as someone who has been working on sharding and scalability and supporting the Ethereum ecosystem to enable these new use cases. Story continues With the current version of Ethereum only able to handle a dozen transactions per second, sharding will be crucial, but Ethereum 2.0 is a moving target and remains a large-scale experiment of distributed development. If the community gets it right, Ethereum 2.0 could transform the Ethereum blockchain into a sort of world computer that can execute instructions across a network of servers all around the world. On the EC stage, Justin will also be talking with other blockchain experts about building a blockchain startup. If anyone knows, he knows how important it is to build a community of developers and researchers around your blockchain project. Ash Egan (Accomplice VC) A World Economic Forum Global Shaper and advisor at ConsenSys Tachyon Accelerator, Ash Egan has backed a number of headline companies in the space, including Bison Trails, Coda, CoinList, Dapper Labs, Near, Simplex and Torus. Before Accomplice, he co-launched ConsenSys venture arm and started his career at Converge VC in Boston. Egan has previously highlighted the ongoing innovations within the Ethereum killer community and how it expands the sandbox, but he also believes that for mass adoption of crypto on social networks to take off, users will need to be monetized via advertisements and referrals. Ashley Tyson (Web3 Foundation) Ashley Tyson is the director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at Web3 Foundation. She spends her time aligning diverse teams working on decentralized systems and supporting blockchain ecosystem initiatives like Ethereum Community Fund and ETHPrize. Prior to Web3 Foundation, Ashley co-founded DEFCAD, a censorship-resistant search engine for 3D printable files. She deeply understands the need for a decentralized web, beginning her career in NYC at one of the first social media-focused agencies, where she helped multinational corporations build Web 2.0 strategies around consumer data acquisition for use in marketing initiatives. Disrupt Berlin runs December 11 and December 12. Tickets are available here! https://tcprotectedembed.com/protected-iframe/c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527 ( function() { var func = function() { var iframe = document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527') if ( iframe ) { iframe.onload = function() { iframe.contentWindow.postMessage( { 'msg_type': 'poll_size', 'frame_id': 'wpcom-iframe-c98bc66ab504d3407da982a3cb4a6527' }, "https:\/\/tcprotectedembed.com" ); } } // Autosize iframe var funcSizeResponse = function( e ) { var origin = document.createElement( 'a' ); origin.href = e.origin; // Verify message origin if ( 'tcprotectedembed.com' !== origin.host ) return; // Verify message is in a format we expect if ( 'object' !== typeof e.data || undefined === e.data.msg_type ) return; switch ( e.data.msg_type ) { case 'poll_size:response': var iframe = document.getElementById( e.data._request.frame_id ); if ( iframe && '' === iframe.width ) iframe.width = '100%'; if ( iframe && '' === iframe.height ) iframe.height = parseInt( e.data.height ); return; default: return; } } if ( 'function' === typeof window.addEventListener ) { window.addEventListener( 'message', funcSizeResponse, false ); } else if ( 'function' === typeof window.attachEvent ) { window.attachEvent( 'onmessage', funcSizeResponse ); } } if (document.readyState === 'complete') { func.apply(); /* compat for infinite scroll */ } else if ( document.addEventListener ) { document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', func, false ); } else if ( document.attachEvent ) { document.attachEvent( 'onreadystatechange', func ); } } )(); || XRP Is Used in Crime, But Far Less Often Than Bitcoin, Elliptic Says: Criminals have used XRP to carry out their illicit activities, though hardly to the same degree as bitcoin, according to a new report from blockchain sleuthing firm Elliptic. Some $400 million worth of XRP can be traced back to a variety of Ponzi schemes and darknet activities, Elliptic said in a report released Wednesday. While that may sound like a lot, it represents just 0.2 percent of XRP transactions. By comparison, $829 million of bitcoin, or 0.5 percent of that networks transactions , have been spent on the dark web, the analytics vendor said. Regardless of the amount, it just demonstrates that there is illicit activity going on in this coin, said Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of Elliptic. Therefore, if you are a business handling some of these transactions then you need to be checking for it because you dont want to be the organization thats being used to launder those proceeds. Related: Investor Lawsuit Argues Ripple Still Has to Answer Over Ongoing XRP Sales Such concerns are especially acute for XRPs target market, regulated financial institutions. Ripple, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) startup that owns an estimated 60 percent of the XRP supply and periodically sells the tokens to fund operations, has been pitching banks software that utilizes XRP for the last few years. A Ripple spokesperson said: Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP is open source and decentralized its available to anyone to use. Ripple enabled XRP transactions are secure and through regulated institutions. Blockchain forensic firms like Elliptic tackle crypto involvement in things like drugs, weapons, child sexual abuse material and ransomware-as-a-service. In the case of XRP, much of the transactions related to scams and Ponzi schemes, said Robinson. For instance, a large chunk was accounted for by the Plus Token investment scheme. Earlier this year, Chinese authorities arrested six Chinese nationals on the Pacific island of Vanuatu suspected of orchestrating the scam, which collected billions in crypto from people in China and South Korea. Story continues Related: Whats Next in the Securities Case Against Ripple Over XRP There has been an increase in the use of crypto to purchase things like stolen credit card numbers on the dark web and Elliptic had detected a number of those sites accepting XRP alongside other cryptos. But Robinson said the relatively small amount of illicit use of XRP might be down its association with traditional finance, compared to other cryptocurrencies. The fact that the Ripple network itself has been targeted at large traditional banks maybe doesnt resonate with criminals trying to use it, he said. Ripple set out to provide a cheap and efficient cryptocurrency bridge to connect correspondent banks and so provide near-instant cross-border payments. Back in 2015, it was among the first crypto companies to receive a fine from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for AML failings. But this was viewed as a positive among a fledgling crypto industry because it meant Ripple was closer to being regulated than other crypto firms at that time. The same could be said for XRP in the context of having its tires kicked by Elliptic, said Robinson, since highlighting illicit XRP activity will only improve the networks credibility. Wherever you have any kind of value transfer mechanism there is going to be potentially some illicit use, said Robinson. I think having clarity of that and being able to know where its happening should give banks comfort rather than a cause for concern. To be clear, Elliptic was dealing with XRP, the crypto asset only. We havent had any interaction with the Ripple company, said Robinson. Another large investor in XRP is Japans SBI Holdings (previously known as Softbank Investment), which also led a $23 million investment round in Elliptic earlier this year. Tomoyuki Nii, executive officer for overseas investment at SBI Investment, said in an interview at the time that the bank was attracted to Elliptic because it was the best blockchain sleuthing firm when it comes to XRP. Related Stories XRP Price Exits Downtrend to Hit Three-Week High Ripple Invests $750,000 to Bring XRP to Crypto Wallet BRD || XRP Is Used in Crime, But Far Less Often Than Bitcoin, Elliptic Says: Criminals have used XRP to carry out their illicit activities, though hardly to the same degree as bitcoin, according to a new report from blockchain sleuthing firm Elliptic.
Some $400 million worth of XRP can be traced back to a variety of Ponzi schemes and darknet activities, Elliptic said in a report released Wednesday. While that may sound like a lot, it represents just 0.2 percent of XRP transactions. By comparison, $829 million of bitcoin, or0.5 percent of that network’s transactions, have been spent on the dark web, the analytics vendor said.
“Regardless of the amount, it just demonstrates that there is illicit activity going on in this coin,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of Elliptic. “Therefore, if you are a business handling some of these transactions then you need to be checking for it because you don’t want to be the organization that’s being used to launder those proceeds.”
Related:Investor Lawsuit Argues Ripple Still Has to Answer Over Ongoing XRP Sales
Such concerns are especially acute for XRP’s target market, regulated financial institutions. Ripple, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) startup that owns an estimated60 percentof the XRP supply and periodically sells the tokens to fund operations, has beenpitching banks softwarethat utilizes XRP for the last few years.
A Ripple spokesperson said: “Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP is open source and decentralized – it’s available to anyone to use. Ripple enabled XRP transactions are secure and through regulated institutions.”
Blockchain forensic firms like Elliptic tackle crypto involvement in things like drugs, weapons, child sexual abuse material and ransomware-as-a-service. In the case of XRP, much of the transactions related to scams and Ponzi schemes, said Robinson.
For instance, a large chunk was accounted for by the Plus Token “investment” scheme. Earlier this year, Chinese authoritiesarrested six Chinese nationalson the Pacific island of Vanuatu suspected of orchestrating the scam, which collected billions in crypto from people in China and South Korea.
Related:What’s Next in the Securities Case Against Ripple Over XRP
There has been an increase in the use of crypto to purchase things like stolen credit card numbers on the dark web and Elliptic had detected a number of those sites accepting XRP alongside other cryptos.
But Robinson said the relatively small amount of illicit use of XRP might be down its association with traditional finance, compared to other cryptocurrencies.
“The fact that the Ripple network itself has been targeted at large traditional banks maybe doesn’t resonate with criminals trying to use it,” he said.
Ripple set out to provide a cheap and efficient cryptocurrency bridge to connect correspondent banks and so provide near-instant cross-border payments. Back in 2015, it was among the first crypto companies toreceive a finefrom the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for AML failings. But this was viewed as a positive among a fledgling crypto industry because it meant Ripple was closer to being regulated than other crypto firms at that time.
The same could be said for XRP in the context of having its tires kicked by Elliptic, said Robinson, since highlighting illicit XRP activity will only improve the network’s credibility.
“Wherever you have any kind of value transfer mechanism there is going to be potentially some illicit use,” said Robinson. “I think having clarity of that and being able to know where it’s happening should give banks comfort rather than a cause for concern.”
To be clear, Elliptic was dealing with XRP, the crypto asset only. “We haven’t had any interaction with the Ripple company,” said Robinson.
Another large investor in XRP is Japan’s SBI Holdings (previously known as Softbank Investment), which also led a $23 million investment round in Elliptic earlier this year.
Tomoyuki Nii, executive officer for overseas investment at SBI Investment,said in an interview at the timethat the bank was attracted to Elliptic because it was the best blockchain sleuthing firm when it comes to XRP.
• XRP Price Exits Downtrend to Hit Three-Week High
• Ripple Invests $750,000 to Bring XRP to Crypto Wallet BRD || XRP Is Used in Crime, But Far Less Often Than Bitcoin, Elliptic Says: Criminals have used XRP to carry out their illicit activities, though hardly to the same degree as bitcoin, according to a new report from blockchain sleuthing firm Elliptic.
Some $400 million worth of XRP can be traced back to a variety of Ponzi schemes and darknet activities, Elliptic said in a report released Wednesday. While that may sound like a lot, it represents just 0.2 percent of XRP transactions. By comparison, $829 million of bitcoin, or0.5 percent of that network’s transactions, have been spent on the dark web, the analytics vendor said.
“Regardless of the amount, it just demonstrates that there is illicit activity going on in this coin,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of Elliptic. “Therefore, if you are a business handling some of these transactions then you need to be checking for it because you don’t want to be the organization that’s being used to launder those proceeds.”
Related:Investor Lawsuit Argues Ripple Still Has to Answer Over Ongoing XRP Sales
Such concerns are especially acute for XRP’s target market, regulated financial institutions. Ripple, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) startup that owns an estimated60 percentof the XRP supply and periodically sells the tokens to fund operations, has beenpitching banks softwarethat utilizes XRP for the last few years.
A Ripple spokesperson said: “Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP is open source and decentralized – it’s available to anyone to use. Ripple enabled XRP transactions are secure and through regulated institutions.”
Blockchain forensic firms like Elliptic tackle crypto involvement in things like drugs, weapons, child sexual abuse material and ransomware-as-a-service. In the case of XRP, much of the transactions related to scams and Ponzi schemes, said Robinson.
For instance, a large chunk was accounted for by the Plus Token “investment” scheme. Earlier this year, Chinese authoritiesarrested six Chinese nationalson the Pacific island of Vanuatu suspected of orchestrating the scam, which collected billions in crypto from people in China and South Korea.
Related:What’s Next in the Securities Case Against Ripple Over XRP
There has been an increase in the use of crypto to purchase things like stolen credit card numbers on the dark web and Elliptic had detected a number of those sites accepting XRP alongside other cryptos.
But Robinson said the relatively small amount of illicit use of XRP might be down its association with traditional finance, compared to other cryptocurrencies.
“The fact that the Ripple network itself has been targeted at large traditional banks maybe doesn’t resonate with criminals trying to use it,” he said.
Ripple set out to provide a cheap and efficient cryptocurrency bridge to connect correspondent banks and so provide near-instant cross-border payments. Back in 2015, it was among the first crypto companies toreceive a finefrom the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for AML failings. But this was viewed as a positive among a fledgling crypto industry because it meant Ripple was closer to being regulated than other crypto firms at that time.
The same could be said for XRP in the context of having its tires kicked by Elliptic, said Robinson, since highlighting illicit XRP activity will only improve the network’s credibility.
“Wherever you have any kind of value transfer mechanism there is going to be potentially some illicit use,” said Robinson. “I think having clarity of that and being able to know where it’s happening should give banks comfort rather than a cause for concern.”
To be clear, Elliptic was dealing with XRP, the crypto asset only. “We haven’t had any interaction with the Ripple company,” said Robinson.
Another large investor in XRP is Japan’s SBI Holdings (previously known as Softbank Investment), which also led a $23 million investment round in Elliptic earlier this year.
Tomoyuki Nii, executive officer for overseas investment at SBI Investment,said in an interview at the timethat the bank was attracted to Elliptic because it was the best blockchain sleuthing firm when it comes to XRP.
• XRP Price Exits Downtrend to Hit Three-Week High
• Ripple Invests $750,000 to Bring XRP to Crypto Wallet BRD || Bitcoin Erases 75% of October Price Rally as S&P 500 Hits Record Highs: Bitcoin is looking south after erasing three-quarters of the price rally seen in October. The bearish mood comes as the U.S. equities market is soaring in the opposite direction. The top cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading at $8,070 on Bitstamp, down 22 percent from the October high of $10,350. With the pullback, BTC has erased nearly 75 percent of the sudden surge from $7,293 to $10,350 witnessed in the two days to Oct. 26. Bitcoins inability to capitalize on the breakout into five figures and the subsequent drop to $8,000 has been associated with the lack of positive catalysts. Moreover, prices had jumped above $10,000 reportedly on hopes that BTC, being a leading cryptocurrency, would benefit from Chinas push toward wide blockchain adoption. Related: Promoting a New Token? Satoshis Treasure Wants You to Gamify It While bitcoin has dropped by more than $2,000 in the last 3.5-weeks, the U.S. stock market has put on a sterling show, as seen in the chart below. The S&P 500 index rose to a record high of 3127.6 on Tuesday, having found acceptance above the psychological resistance of $3,000 last week. Notably, the index has rallied for six straight weeks, possibly in response to the Federal Reserves expansion of its balance sheet, as suggested by popular analyst Sven Henrich/Northman Trader . Related: Bitcoin Price Faces Deeper Dive as Bear Cross Confirmed The Fed has added more than $270 billion to its balance sheet since Sept. 11 and currently has around $4.04 trillion worth of assets, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fed Reserve Chairman Jeremy Powell has repeatedly said that the ongoing bond purchases are aimed at normalizing the money markets, which went ballistic in September and pushed the overnight rate as high as 10 percent. Analysts and investors, however, are of the opinion that the Fed has embarked on round four of the quantitative easing (QE) program, as discussed last month. Under a QE program, the central bank buys government bonds to infuse liquidity into the economy and lower interest rates to boost growth. Story continues Looking forward, the S&P 500 may trim recent gains in the short term, courtesy of renewed China-U.S. political tensions. Chinas foreign ministry on Wednesday threatened retaliation to the U.S. Senates decision to pass legislation aimed at safeguarding human rights in Hong Kong amid a crackdown on the pro-democracy protest movement. The crypto market community believes BTC is a risk-off asset. The cryptocurrency, however, does not have a credible story as a haven asset, as recently pointed out by CoinDesks Galen Moore, and may find little love amid the U.S.-China political tiff. That said, If China retaliates by devaluing the yuan (CNY) significantly, BTC may pick up a bid on hopes of increased demand from the worlds second-largest economy. Such rallies, however, seldom last. For instance, BTC jumped 7 percent on Aug. 5 as CNY slipped beyond 7 per USD. The cryptocurrency, however, topped out above $12,300 on the following day and fell back to $9,400 by the end of August, even though CNY continued to slide and hit a multi-year low of 7.1842 on Sept. 3. Further, the technical charts indicate BTC could extend the recent decline to key support near $7,700. Daily and 3-day charts The series of lower highs and lower lows seen on the dailychart indicate the path of least resistance is to the downside. The MACD histogram is printing deeper bars below the zero line, signaling a strengthening of bearish momentum. The 14-day relative strength index (RSI) is also reporting bearish conditions with a below-50 reading. The RSI on the three-day chart is also hovering below 50 andthe MACD histogram is teasing a bearish crossover below zero. BTC, therefore, looks set to test $7,850 the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the rally from $3,122 to $13,880. Monthly chart BTC has dropped to $8,000, as expected , having failed to hold on to gains above the descending (bearish) 10-month moving average (MA) earlier this month. Major support is now seen near $7,700 (ascending 10-day MA). The RSI on the 4-hour chart (not shown) is reporting oversold conditions. Hence, a minor bounce to $8,400 may be seen before a slide to $7,700. The short-term outlook would turn bullish if prices print a high-volume UTC close above the descending trendline hurdle on the daily chart , currently at $8,460. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Related Stories An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling Crypto Derivatives: A Corner of the Market or the Market Itself? || Bitcoin Erases 75% of October Price Rally as S&P 500 Hits Record Highs: Bitcoin is looking south after erasing three-quarters of the price rally seen in October. The bearish mood comes as the U.S. equities market is soaring in the opposite direction.
The top cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading at $8,070 on Bitstamp, down 22 percent from the October high of $10,350. With the pullback, BTC has erased nearly 75 percent of the sudden surge from $7,293 to $10,350 witnessed in the two days to Oct. 26.
Bitcoin’s inability to capitalize on the breakout into five figures and the subsequent drop to $8,000 has beenassociated withthe lack of positive catalysts. Moreover, prices had jumped above $10,000 reportedly on hopes that BTC, being a leading cryptocurrency, would benefit from China’s push toward wide blockchain adoption.
Related:Promoting a New Token? Satoshi’s Treasure Wants You to Gamify It
While bitcoin has dropped by more than $2,000 in the last 3.5-weeks, the U.S. stock market has put on a sterling show, as seen in the chart below.
The S&P 500 index rose to a record high of 3127.6 on Tuesday, having found acceptance above the psychological resistance of $3,000 last week. Notably, the index has rallied for six straight weeks, possibly in response to the Federal Reserve’s expansion of its balance sheet, as suggested by popular analystSven Henrich/Northman Trader.
Related:Bitcoin Price Faces Deeper Dive as Bear Cross Confirmed
The Fed has added more than $270 billion to its balance sheet since Sept. 11 and currently has around $4.04 trillion worth of assets,according toFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fed Reserve Chairman Jeremy Powell has repeatedly said that the ongoing bond purchases are aimed at normalizing the money markets, which went ballistic in September and pushed the overnight rate as high as 10 percent.
Analysts and investors, however, are of the opinion that the Fed has embarked on round four of the quantitative easing (QE) program,as discussedlast month. Under a QE program, the central bank buys government bonds to infuse liquidity into the economy and lower interest rates to boost growth.
Looking forward, the S&P 500 may trim recent gains in the short term, courtesy of renewed China-U.S. political tensions. China’s foreign ministry on Wednesdaythreatened retaliationto the U.S. Senate’sdecisionto pass legislation aimed at safeguarding human rights in Hong Kong amid a crackdown on the pro-democracy protest movement.
The crypto market community believes BTC is a risk-off asset. The cryptocurrency, however, does not have a credible story as a haven asset, as recentlypointed outby CoinDesk’s Galen Moore, and may find little love amid the U.S.-China political tiff.
That said, If China retaliates by devaluing the yuan (CNY) significantly, BTC may pick up a bid on hopes of increased demand from the world’s second-largest economy.
Such rallies, however, seldom last. For instance, BTC jumped 7 percent on Aug. 5 as CNY slipped beyond 7 per USD. The cryptocurrency, however, topped out above $12,300 on the following day and fell back to $9,400 by the end of August, even though CNY continued to slide and hit a multi-year low of 7.1842 on Sept. 3.
Further, the technical charts indicate BTC could extend the recent decline to key support near $7,700.
The series of lower highs and lower lows seen on the dailychart indicate the path of least resistance is to the downside.
The MACD histogram is printing deeper bars below the zero line, signaling a strengthening of bearish momentum. The 14-day relative strength index (RSI) is also reporting bearish conditions with a below-50 reading.
The RSI on the three-day chart is also hovering below 50 andthe MACD histogram is teasing a bearish crossover below zero.
BTC, therefore, looks set to test $7,850 – the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the rally from $3,122 to $13,880.
BTC has dropped to $8,000,as expected, having failed to hold on to gains above the descending (bearish) 10-month moving average (MA) earlier this month. Major support is now seen near $7,700 (ascending 10-day MA).
The RSI on the 4-hour chart (not shown) is reporting oversold conditions. Hence, a minor bounce to $8,400 may be seen before a slide to $7,700.
The short-term outlook would turn bullish if prices print a high-volume UTC close above the descending trendline hurdle on the daily chart , currently at $8,460.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling
• Crypto Derivatives: A Corner of the Market or the Market Itself? || Bitcoin Erases 75% of October Price Rally as S&P 500 Hits Record Highs: Bitcoin is looking south after erasing three-quarters of the price rally seen in October. The bearish mood comes as the U.S. equities market is soaring in the opposite direction.
The top cryptocurrency by market cap is currently trading at $8,070 on Bitstamp, down 22 percent from the October high of $10,350. With the pullback, BTC has erased nearly 75 percent of the sudden surge from $7,293 to $10,350 witnessed in the two days to Oct. 26.
Bitcoin’s inability to capitalize on the breakout into five figures and the subsequent drop to $8,000 has beenassociated withthe lack of positive catalysts. Moreover, prices had jumped above $10,000 reportedly on hopes that BTC, being a leading cryptocurrency, would benefit from China’s push toward wide blockchain adoption.
Related:Promoting a New Token? Satoshi’s Treasure Wants You to Gamify It
While bitcoin has dropped by more than $2,000 in the last 3.5-weeks, the U.S. stock market has put on a sterling show, as seen in the chart below.
The S&P 500 index rose to a record high of 3127.6 on Tuesday, having found acceptance above the psychological resistance of $3,000 last week. Notably, the index has rallied for six straight weeks, possibly in response to the Federal Reserve’s expansion of its balance sheet, as suggested by popular analystSven Henrich/Northman Trader.
Related:Bitcoin Price Faces Deeper Dive as Bear Cross Confirmed
The Fed has added more than $270 billion to its balance sheet since Sept. 11 and currently has around $4.04 trillion worth of assets,according toFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fed Reserve Chairman Jeremy Powell has repeatedly said that the ongoing bond purchases are aimed at normalizing the money markets, which went ballistic in September and pushed the overnight rate as high as 10 percent.
Analysts and investors, however, are of the opinion that the Fed has embarked on round four of the quantitative easing (QE) program,as discussedlast month. Under a QE program, the central bank buys government bonds to infuse liquidity into the economy and lower interest rates to boost growth.
Looking forward, the S&P 500 may trim recent gains in the short term, courtesy of renewed China-U.S. political tensions. China’s foreign ministry on Wednesdaythreatened retaliationto the U.S. Senate’sdecisionto pass legislation aimed at safeguarding human rights in Hong Kong amid a crackdown on the pro-democracy protest movement.
The crypto market community believes BTC is a risk-off asset. The cryptocurrency, however, does not have a credible story as a haven asset, as recentlypointed outby CoinDesk’s Galen Moore, and may find little love amid the U.S.-China political tiff.
That said, If China retaliates by devaluing the yuan (CNY) significantly, BTC may pick up a bid on hopes of increased demand from the world’s second-largest economy.
Such rallies, however, seldom last. For instance, BTC jumped 7 percent on Aug. 5 as CNY slipped beyond 7 per USD. The cryptocurrency, however, topped out above $12,300 on the following day and fell back to $9,400 by the end of August, even though CNY continued to slide and hit a multi-year low of 7.1842 on Sept. 3.
Further, the technical charts indicate BTC could extend the recent decline to key support near $7,700.
The series of lower highs and lower lows seen on the dailychart indicate the path of least resistance is to the downside.
The MACD histogram is printing deeper bars below the zero line, signaling a strengthening of bearish momentum. The 14-day relative strength index (RSI) is also reporting bearish conditions with a below-50 reading.
The RSI on the three-day chart is also hovering below 50 andthe MACD histogram is teasing a bearish crossover below zero.
BTC, therefore, looks set to test $7,850 – the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the rally from $3,122 to $13,880.
BTC has dropped to $8,000,as expected, having failed to hold on to gains above the descending (bearish) 10-month moving average (MA) earlier this month. Major support is now seen near $7,700 (ascending 10-day MA).
The RSI on the 4-hour chart (not shown) is reporting oversold conditions. Hence, a minor bounce to $8,400 may be seen before a slide to $7,700.
The short-term outlook would turn bullish if prices print a high-volume UTC close above the descending trendline hurdle on the daily chart , currently at $8,460.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling
• Crypto Derivatives: A Corner of the Market or the Market Itself? || Cryptocurrency market continues negative slide: Most cryptocurrency markets are continuing to slide into the red following yesterday's dramatic sell-off . The market has now witnessed back to back losses since November 06, 2019, with more than $30 billion wiped off the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies in the past two weeks. Currently, Bitcoin (BTC) is down a further 1% since yesterday, whereas EOS and Binance Coin (BNB) are down around 1% apiece. Bitcoin SV (BSV) is currently performing the worst among the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies—losing nearly 3% since yesterday to fall under $110 for the first time since late October. As it stands, most major cryptocurrencies are experiencing slight losses of between 1-3%, whereas cryptocurrencies with a lower market cap appear to be recovering considerably. For example, Chainlink (LINK), NEO and Tezos (XTZ) are all up more than 3%. Overall, the total market capitalization of altcoins has slightly increased in the last day, jumping from $75.8 to $75.9 billion. Overall, this mostly bearish market momentum appears to be the result of negative press coverage surrounding cryptocurrencies in China. Just yesterday , the state-run television channel CCTV-1 described cryptocurrencies as an "illegal Ponzi scheme", before highlighting some examples of how they have been used to defraud investors. It appears the still-nascent cryptocurrency markets are particularly prone to wild price fluctuations on the back of changes in investor sentiment. || Cryptocurrency market continues negative slide: Most cryptocurrency markets are continuing to slide into the red following yesterday'sdramatic sell-off. The market has now witnessed back to back losses since November 06, 2019, with more than $30 billion wiped off the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies in the past two weeks.
Currently, Bitcoin (BTC) is down a further 1% since yesterday, whereas EOS and Binance Coin (BNB) are down around 1% apiece. Bitcoin SV (BSV) is currently performing the worst among the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies—losing nearly 3% since yesterday to fall under $110 for the first time since late October.
As it stands, most major cryptocurrencies are experiencing slight losses of between 1-3%, whereas cryptocurrencies with a lower market cap appear to be recovering considerably. For example, Chainlink (LINK), NEO and Tezos (XTZ) are all up more than 3%. Overall, the total market capitalization of altcoins has slightly increased in the last day, jumping from $75.8 to $75.9 billion.
Overall, this mostly bearish market momentum appears to be the result of negative press coverage surrounding cryptocurrencies in China.Just yesterday, the state-run television channel CCTV-1 described cryptocurrencies as an "illegal Ponzi scheme", before highlighting some examples of how they have been used to defraud investors. It appears the still-nascent cryptocurrency markets are particularly prone to wild price fluctuations on the back of changes in investor sentiment.
[Social Media Buzz]
The latest ADgitator! https://t.co/VZrCooRQrk #bitcoin #smm || Can photonic chips save Bitcoin? https://t.co/VFTiEqHUNW #mrahmedserougi https://t.co/1B2c6UECHU || We are itching to point out “we told you so” although in the greater scheme of things we hedged our base case scenario with a “worse case” and “worst case” scenario. Let’s just say it how it is right.... #bitcoin #btcusd #btcusdt || Are you 60 and up and have a 401k get a free gold ira guide invest in gold stocks gold bullion bitcoin s...
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7296.58, 7397.80, 7047.92, 7146.13, 7218.37, 7531.66, 7463.11, 7761.24, 7569.63, 7424.29
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46, 18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41, 18177.48, 19625.84, 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40, 18699.77, 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99, 18058.90, 18803.66, 19142.38, 19246.64, 19417.08, 21310.60, 22805.16, 23137.96, 23869.83, 23477.29, 22803.08, 23783.03, 23241.35, 23735.95, 24664.79, 26437.04, 26272.29, 27084.81, 27362.44, 28840.95.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-12-30]
Volume: 51287442704, RSI (14-day): 82.46, 50-day EMA: 20607.05, 200-day EMA: 14654.34
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1891.00, Gold RSI: 58.48
Oil Price: 48.40, Oil RSI: 63.60
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bubble, Bubble, but No Trouble (Yet): W elcome to the Capital Note, a newsletter about business, finance, and economics. On the menu today: Bubbles, California’s self-destruction (continued), inflation, weed, and Beethoven. This will be our last Capital Note of the year, and the conservative temperament being what it is, a spot of gloom seems appropriate. The stock markets may be struggling a bit today (at least at the time of writing), but after the run seen since the March lows, my thoughts inevitably have turned yet again to the bubbles that are being fueled by the collapse in interest rates. The Financial Times (my emphasis added) : Sell everything that is not nailed down? In 2020, there was a better option when it came to raising cash: keep the assets while leveraging them as much as you can. Airlines and cruise companies had little trouble tapping capital markets even as their businesses were largely put on ice. Collateral included ships, planes, spare parts, rights-to-routes and even frequent-flyer miles. Investors were so happy to send cash that government aid was often barely required. The infusions of liquidity helped the likes of Carnival and United Airlines to avoid bankruptcy. In 2021, as consumers start to travel again, these companies can either pay down debt or refinance more cheaply and push out maturities. But if the recovery is slower than hoped, debts will resemble a Gordian knot that cannot be defeated with a simple sword swipe. Complex negotiations will be needed. Issuers sold junk bonds worth more than $400bn in the US this year. In December, AssuredPartners, sold CCC-rated unsecured bonds at a yield of 5.6 per cent, the tightest pricing ever for eight-year notes of such a low rating, according to S&P LCD. High-yield debt is typically unsecured. But the proportion with a collateral claim was 14 per cent, ahead of the 9 per cent on average in the previous five years according to analysis from Moody’s. American Airlines, for example, sold to Goldman Sachs notes secured against the “aa.com” URL and “American Airlines” trademark. Just what an investment bank would hope to do with such assets if seized is unclear. Goldman must hope it never needs to find out. There is collateral and there is collateral. And: Status as a senior lender with a collateral claim is not all that it is cracked up to be. The boom in leveraged loan issuance means companies have less “cushion” — unsecured junior debt — to absorb losses. Moody’s data show that such cushions in 2019 halved from levels in the late 2000s. Loose loan documents also allow for “priming” transactions where one group of lenders can push down the collateral of another. Several lawsuits over priming deals were filed in 2020, including one involving mattress maker Serta Simmons. The next set of court fights will involve companies forced to file for bankruptcies where creditors scratch and claw for assets they think they are owed but whose real ownership is far from clear. Story continues There are omens and there are omens. Meanwhile: The Wall Street Journal : Home-price growth accelerated in October, as strong demand pushed home sales to a 14-year high. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 8.4% in the year that ended in October, up from a 7% annual rate the prior month. October marked the highest annual rate of price growth since March 2014. Sales of previously owned homes, which make up the bulk of the housing market, rose in October to the highest level since 2006 , according to the National Association of Realtors. Record-low mortgage rates have increased demand, while the supply of homes for sale has remained low, especially at affordable price points. The Case-Shiller 10-city index gained 7.5% over the year ended in October, compared with a 6.2% increase in September. The 20-city index rose 7.9%, after an annual gain of 6.6% in September. “The data from the last several months are consistent with the view that Covid has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement. . . . A separate measure of home-price growth by the Federal Housing Finance Agency released last week found a 10.2% increase in home prices in October from a year earlier. While I am sure that an exodus to the suburbs is one part of the story (and tight supply another) the demand for housing is also a function of ultra-low interest rates, both because of what becomes affordable (at least in good times) and because of the idea that housing is seen both as a store of value at a time when underlying faith in the dollar may be faltering (we’ll get to Bitcoin shortly) and because the opportunity cost of ploughing extra cash into it at a time when savings yield so little (we’ll get to the stock market shortly, too) is so low. So how about Bitcoin? USA Today : In May 2019, NFL offensive lineman Russell Okung wrote on Twitter that he wanted his salary to be paid in bitcoin, a type of digital currency. On Tuesday, he indicated that his wish had been granted. “Paid in Bitcoin,” he wrote on Twitter . Okung is receiving half of his $13 million base salary for the 2020 season in bitcoin, according to a news release from Strike, a company that helps users convert traditional money to the cryptocurrency. The company claims that Okung, who is now with the Carolina Panthers, is the first player in league history to receive part of his annual paycheck in the form of a digital currency. That brought to mind this story from November 2007: Marie Claire : Linda Evangelista said she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day – now, Gisele Bundchen has taken things one step further by demanding to be paid in euros not dollars. The savvy supermodel, who is the face of more than 20 brands worldwide and has a personal fortune of $150 million (£72 million), has stipulated she wants to be paid in euros for fear the US currency will continue to weaken. Bundchen’s twin sister and manager, Patricia, revealed that when the model signed her latest deal to represent Pantene hair products, she demanded that the brand owner, Procter and Gamble, pay her in euros. Patricia told the Bloomberg news agency: ‘Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros because we don’t know what will happen to the dollar.’ In the short term, Bundchen was right. The euro continued to strengthen from around $1.45 in November 2007 to $1.57 or so the following May. Then everything went wrong. In November 2008, it hit $1.27. That sell-off was the product not of the structural problems in the EU’s single currency, which were only beginning to attract attention at that time, but because of one of the paradoxes surrounding the trading of the greenback: It is often regarded a safe-haven currency even in the event of a crisis in or surrounding the U.S. The euro today trades at around $1.23. Bitcoin, of course, is enjoying quite a year (although I cannot help noting that this allegedly safe-haven currency fell sharply against the dollar in March, as did gold, although in the latter case for a shorter time). A part of the explanation for that reflects the lack of return from cash or near-cash dollar assets, as well, at some level (probably) inflation fears, but the recent surge has been something else. Here’s what Tyler Cowen is thinking : The recent run-up in crypto values seems to be driven by the possibility that major corporations will start adding them to their balance sheets. If you imagine crypto being treated like gold, and constituting say half of a percent of many balance sheets, that would imply a high price for the major crypto assets. But: These corporations will want institutionalized, mainstream crypto assets, and they will not mind the notion of more heavily regulated crypto assets and crypto-linked financial institutions. And note this too: Cryptocurrency serves some useful purposes. But there are some pretty wild speculations going around. One of the more fundamental problems is that crypto assets can be either useful hedges, or useful forms of payment — but not easily both. Do read the whole thing. And then there is the stock market. The Wall Street Journal : A strong indicator of stock-market euphoria flashed red last month. Investors borrowed a record $722.1 billion against their investment portfolios through November, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, topping the previous high of $668.9 billion from May 2018. The milestone is an ominous one for the stock market — margin debt records tend to precede bouts of volatility, as seen in 2000 and 2008. The month-by-month FINRA data can be seen here . The amounts borrowed had been rising fairly steadily after the March trough ($480 billion, down from $561 billion in January) with signs of slowing in October followed by a November spike echoed also in the market’s performance. Vaccines work. That said, I suspect that, while investors had been prepared to look through the pandemic prior to November (at least to a degree), the underlying drivers of the increase in stock prices between March and the Pfizer announcement were a combination of (1) specific plays, whether, say, pandemic-related, tech-driven (the latter often overlapping with the former) or (allegedly) green, and (2) the way that ultra-low interest rates have forced investors to look somewhere, anywhere for return, and made a nonsense of conventional valuation measures in the process. Interest rates at these levels are both an invitation to malinvestment and (because of the discouraging signals they send) a disincentive for higher quality corporate investment. That is a combination that is unlikely to end well for investors or anyone else. However, these rates may last quite some time and, while they do so, put a floor under markets (although in the short term keep an eye on the Georgia vote and what it may mean for taxes). This is because however dangerous ultra-low rates may be, they are essential — and will be essential for some time — if the U.S. budget is not to become wholly unmanageable. But, essential or not, interest rates at these levels will not prevail forever. Something will change: Just pick your black swan. Happy New Year! Around the Web Mike Solana on California’s increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the tech sector: As the catastrophic state of California’s finances finally begins to set in among politicians, anti-tech media personalities, and far left cultural influencers, the narrative on California’s techxodus — that is, the migration of California’s technology industry out of the state — has shifted from mockery, and “we’ll be better off without you,” to a far more sober, and increasingly-desperate “leaving California is immoral.” As it is simply too embarrassing for politicians to admit the state needs the technology industry after more than a decade of antagonizing the men and women who built it, and as it is political suicide for incumbent politicians in a one-party state to admit that every one of the problems we’re facing has been created by our elected leaders, a moral argument for tech’s responsibility to California, and specifically the Bay Area, has recently been produced. It goes something like this: young ambitious people moved to the state, and struck gold. But rather than “give back” to the land, they’re leaving with resources they “took” from the region . . . . It’s hard to blame them: The San Francisco ruling class did secure a few wins this decade. They managed to ban vapes, scooters (effectively), electric bikes (kind of), and those little plastic swords that free men in free countries are still allowed to stick in cocktail fruit. They failed to ban busses and cafeterias, though somehow succeeded in turning both into symbols of billionaire greed. They also instituted the “San Francisco Office of Emerging Technology,” which in theory prohibits almost every future company and technology from existing in the city without prior approval from the local government. Laws aren’t enforced in San Francisco, so the OET hasn’t really come up. But a company in this city can now be attacked by the Board at any moment, for almost any reason. This is the nature of ambiguous laws in one-party states. In a country where nothing is technically legal, punishment can be meted out for almost any whim or unjust personal reason that can be imagined by small-minded people with political power. And then there is the little matter of taxes. Inflation. Bloomberg : For the first time in two years, bond investors are betting that U.S. inflation will average close to 2% per year over the coming decade. The market’s key measure of price expectations reached 1.981% on Tuesday after touching 1.992% Monday, the highest since December 2018, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The gauge, known as the breakeven rate, is gaining momentum as traders prepare for an economic recovery in 2021 now that a Brexit deal has been reached and as U.S. legislators have approved additional virus-relief aid. The roll-out of vaccinations against the coronavirus is also fueling the move higher. Weed. Politico : Almost all the states that legalized pot either require the approval of local officials — as in Massachusetts — or impose a statewide limit on the number of licenses, chosen by a politically appointed oversight board, or both. These practices effectively put million-dollar decisions in the hands of relatively small-time political figures — the mayors and councilors of small towns and cities, along with the friends and supporters of politicians who appoint them to boards . . . . I think you can guess what happened next. Random Walk Beethoven the businessman. Luis Dias, writing in Scroll.in : Once Beethoven had poured his creative energy to the fullest into a composition, he regarded it as commercial property, deserving the best possible price on the most favourable terms. Of the hundreds of his letters that have survived, a major chunk deals with the mundane business of getting published: pitching a work, complaining about poor terms, bargaining, and correcting proofs. This is hardly surprising; he is perhaps the first composer whose income depended so much on being published, even more so after his crippling deafness gradually put an end to his career as a performer and to some extent as a teacher as well . . . . Royalties were unheard of then; the publisher bought a work for a flat fee and would then hope to sell as many copies as possible. It was important to sell as quickly as possible because piracy was a very real threat. As there was no copyright, any successful composer’s hit work was highly susceptible to piracy. The pirate could even be the copyist, who could clandestinely make another copy, spirit it out to another publisher, sometimes even before the legitimate one. The threat was so serious that Mozart had his copyists work only in his apartments, under his watchful eye. Beethoven railed and ranted when he encountered pirated versions of his music. Since he didn’t have the finance for lawsuits, which could end up nowhere – piracy, plagiarism and forgery were regarded as reprehensible, but not against the law – he resorted to sending spluttering, threatening letters to errant publishers and getting public notices published in newspapers. To be pirated was almost a back-handed index of one’s popularity and success. As payments for compositions were small (for instance, Beethoven settled for 100 florins for his First Symphony, a shockingly low price), a composer had to churn out a lot of music. This gives us a new perspective on the prodigious output of composers of that era: it was driven not just by creative juices but by the need to put food on the table. Ironically, short piano works would fetch a better price than, say, a symphony, concerto or bigger works, for purely commercial reasons . . . . [One] ploy Beethoven resorted to was to offer a piece to the person who commissioned it and pocketing the fee. He would then defer publication but give that patron exclusive rights to the work in manuscript for a given time (usually six months, as he did with Prince Lobkowitz for his Third Symphony). Once that period was over, he could plug and sell it afresh. Beethoven’s decision to appoint his brother Karl as his go-between with publishers was ill-advised, as Karl was arrogant and tactless. His letters to publishers (about which many complained) have to be read to be believed – it is a testament to their regard for Beethoven that they didn’t sever their contracts. One notable example of Karl’s unprofessionalism was when he sold his brother’s three piano sonatas (Opus 31) to a Leipzig publisher, despite Beethoven having promised them to another publisher, Nägeli. The brothers apparently “came to blows” in the street over the incident. Beethoven eventually forgave him (“After all, he’s my brother”) but gradually relieved Karl of that duty . . . . — A.S. To sign up for the Capital Note, follow this link . More from National Review The Capital Note: Dollars & Lumber Dollar Weakness Is a Policy Success Capital Note: Stock-Market Selloff & the Fate of the Euro Zone View comments || Bubble, Bubble, but No Trouble (Yet): W elcome to the Capital Note, a newsletter about business, finance, and economics. On the menu today: Bubbles, California’s self-destruction (continued), inflation, weed, and Beethoven. This will be our last Capital Note of the year, and the conservative temperament being what it is, a spot of gloom seems appropriate. The stock markets may be struggling a bit today (at least at the time of writing), but after the run seen since the March lows, my thoughts inevitably have turned yet again to the bubbles that are being fueled by the collapse in interest rates. The Financial Times (my emphasis added) : Sell everything that is not nailed down? In 2020, there was a better option when it came to raising cash: keep the assets while leveraging them as much as you can. Airlines and cruise companies had little trouble tapping capital markets even as their businesses were largely put on ice. Collateral included ships, planes, spare parts, rights-to-routes and even frequent-flyer miles. Investors were so happy to send cash that government aid was often barely required. The infusions of liquidity helped the likes of Carnival and United Airlines to avoid bankruptcy. In 2021, as consumers start to travel again, these companies can either pay down debt or refinance more cheaply and push out maturities. But if the recovery is slower than hoped, debts will resemble a Gordian knot that cannot be defeated with a simple sword swipe. Complex negotiations will be needed. Issuers sold junk bonds worth more than $400bn in the US this year. In December, AssuredPartners, sold CCC-rated unsecured bonds at a yield of 5.6 per cent, the tightest pricing ever for eight-year notes of such a low rating, according to S&P LCD. High-yield debt is typically unsecured. But the proportion with a collateral claim was 14 per cent, ahead of the 9 per cent on average in the previous five years according to analysis from Moody’s. American Airlines, for example, sold to Goldman Sachs notes secured against the “aa.com” URL and “American Airlines” trademark. Just what an investment bank would hope to do with such assets if seized is unclear. Goldman must hope it never needs to find out. There is collateral and there is collateral. And: Status as a senior lender with a collateral claim is not all that it is cracked up to be. The boom in leveraged loan issuance means companies have less “cushion” — unsecured junior debt — to absorb losses. Moody’s data show that such cushions in 2019 halved from levels in the late 2000s. Loose loan documents also allow for “priming” transactions where one group of lenders can push down the collateral of another. Several lawsuits over priming deals were filed in 2020, including one involving mattress maker Serta Simmons. The next set of court fights will involve companies forced to file for bankruptcies where creditors scratch and claw for assets they think they are owed but whose real ownership is far from clear. Story continues There are omens and there are omens. Meanwhile: The Wall Street Journal : Home-price growth accelerated in October, as strong demand pushed home sales to a 14-year high. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 8.4% in the year that ended in October, up from a 7% annual rate the prior month. October marked the highest annual rate of price growth since March 2014. Sales of previously owned homes, which make up the bulk of the housing market, rose in October to the highest level since 2006 , according to the National Association of Realtors. Record-low mortgage rates have increased demand, while the supply of homes for sale has remained low, especially at affordable price points. The Case-Shiller 10-city index gained 7.5% over the year ended in October, compared with a 6.2% increase in September. The 20-city index rose 7.9%, after an annual gain of 6.6% in September. “The data from the last several months are consistent with the view that Covid has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement. . . . A separate measure of home-price growth by the Federal Housing Finance Agency released last week found a 10.2% increase in home prices in October from a year earlier. While I am sure that an exodus to the suburbs is one part of the story (and tight supply another) the demand for housing is also a function of ultra-low interest rates, both because of what becomes affordable (at least in good times) and because of the idea that housing is seen both as a store of value at a time when underlying faith in the dollar may be faltering (we’ll get to Bitcoin shortly) and because the opportunity cost of ploughing extra cash into it at a time when savings yield so little (we’ll get to the stock market shortly, too) is so low. So how about Bitcoin? USA Today : In May 2019, NFL offensive lineman Russell Okung wrote on Twitter that he wanted his salary to be paid in bitcoin, a type of digital currency. On Tuesday, he indicated that his wish had been granted. “Paid in Bitcoin,” he wrote on Twitter . Okung is receiving half of his $13 million base salary for the 2020 season in bitcoin, according to a news release from Strike, a company that helps users convert traditional money to the cryptocurrency. The company claims that Okung, who is now with the Carolina Panthers, is the first player in league history to receive part of his annual paycheck in the form of a digital currency. That brought to mind this story from November 2007: Marie Claire : Linda Evangelista said she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day – now, Gisele Bundchen has taken things one step further by demanding to be paid in euros not dollars. The savvy supermodel, who is the face of more than 20 brands worldwide and has a personal fortune of $150 million (£72 million), has stipulated she wants to be paid in euros for fear the US currency will continue to weaken. Bundchen’s twin sister and manager, Patricia, revealed that when the model signed her latest deal to represent Pantene hair products, she demanded that the brand owner, Procter and Gamble, pay her in euros. Patricia told the Bloomberg news agency: ‘Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros because we don’t know what will happen to the dollar.’ In the short term, Bundchen was right. The euro continued to strengthen from around $1.45 in November 2007 to $1.57 or so the following May. Then everything went wrong. In November 2008, it hit $1.27. That sell-off was the product not of the structural problems in the EU’s single currency, which were only beginning to attract attention at that time, but because of one of the paradoxes surrounding the trading of the greenback: It is often regarded a safe-haven currency even in the event of a crisis in or surrounding the U.S. The euro today trades at around $1.23. Bitcoin, of course, is enjoying quite a year (although I cannot help noting that this allegedly safe-haven currency fell sharply against the dollar in March, as did gold, although in the latter case for a shorter time). A part of the explanation for that reflects the lack of return from cash or near-cash dollar assets, as well, at some level (probably) inflation fears, but the recent surge has been something else. Here’s what Tyler Cowen is thinking : The recent run-up in crypto values seems to be driven by the possibility that major corporations will start adding them to their balance sheets. If you imagine crypto being treated like gold, and constituting say half of a percent of many balance sheets, that would imply a high price for the major crypto assets. But: These corporations will want institutionalized, mainstream crypto assets, and they will not mind the notion of more heavily regulated crypto assets and crypto-linked financial institutions. And note this too: Cryptocurrency serves some useful purposes. But there are some pretty wild speculations going around. One of the more fundamental problems is that crypto assets can be either useful hedges, or useful forms of payment — but not easily both. Do read the whole thing. And then there is the stock market. The Wall Street Journal : A strong indicator of stock-market euphoria flashed red last month. Investors borrowed a record $722.1 billion against their investment portfolios through November, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, topping the previous high of $668.9 billion from May 2018. The milestone is an ominous one for the stock market — margin debt records tend to precede bouts of volatility, as seen in 2000 and 2008. The month-by-month FINRA data can be seen here . The amounts borrowed had been rising fairly steadily after the March trough ($480 billion, down from $561 billion in January) with signs of slowing in October followed by a November spike echoed also in the market’s performance. Vaccines work. That said, I suspect that, while investors had been prepared to look through the pandemic prior to November (at least to a degree), the underlying drivers of the increase in stock prices between March and the Pfizer announcement were a combination of (1) specific plays, whether, say, pandemic-related, tech-driven (the latter often overlapping with the former) or (allegedly) green, and (2) the way that ultra-low interest rates have forced investors to look somewhere, anywhere for return, and made a nonsense of conventional valuation measures in the process. Interest rates at these levels are both an invitation to malinvestment and (because of the discouraging signals they send) a disincentive for higher quality corporate investment. That is a combination that is unlikely to end well for investors or anyone else. However, these rates may last quite some time and, while they do so, put a floor under markets (although in the short term keep an eye on the Georgia vote and what it may mean for taxes). This is because however dangerous ultra-low rates may be, they are essential — and will be essential for some time — if the U.S. budget is not to become wholly unmanageable. But, essential or not, interest rates at these levels will not prevail forever. Something will change: Just pick your black swan. Happy New Year! Around the Web Mike Solana on California’s increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the tech sector: As the catastrophic state of California’s finances finally begins to set in among politicians, anti-tech media personalities, and far left cultural influencers, the narrative on California’s techxodus — that is, the migration of California’s technology industry out of the state — has shifted from mockery, and “we’ll be better off without you,” to a far more sober, and increasingly-desperate “leaving California is immoral.” As it is simply too embarrassing for politicians to admit the state needs the technology industry after more than a decade of antagonizing the men and women who built it, and as it is political suicide for incumbent politicians in a one-party state to admit that every one of the problems we’re facing has been created by our elected leaders, a moral argument for tech’s responsibility to California, and specifically the Bay Area, has recently been produced. It goes something like this: young ambitious people moved to the state, and struck gold. But rather than “give back” to the land, they’re leaving with resources they “took” from the region . . . . It’s hard to blame them: The San Francisco ruling class did secure a few wins this decade. They managed to ban vapes, scooters (effectively), electric bikes (kind of), and those little plastic swords that free men in free countries are still allowed to stick in cocktail fruit. They failed to ban busses and cafeterias, though somehow succeeded in turning both into symbols of billionaire greed. They also instituted the “San Francisco Office of Emerging Technology,” which in theory prohibits almost every future company and technology from existing in the city without prior approval from the local government. Laws aren’t enforced in San Francisco, so the OET hasn’t really come up. But a company in this city can now be attacked by the Board at any moment, for almost any reason. This is the nature of ambiguous laws in one-party states. In a country where nothing is technically legal, punishment can be meted out for almost any whim or unjust personal reason that can be imagined by small-minded people with political power. And then there is the little matter of taxes. Inflation. Bloomberg : For the first time in two years, bond investors are betting that U.S. inflation will average close to 2% per year over the coming decade. The market’s key measure of price expectations reached 1.981% on Tuesday after touching 1.992% Monday, the highest since December 2018, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The gauge, known as the breakeven rate, is gaining momentum as traders prepare for an economic recovery in 2021 now that a Brexit deal has been reached and as U.S. legislators have approved additional virus-relief aid. The roll-out of vaccinations against the coronavirus is also fueling the move higher. Weed. Politico : Almost all the states that legalized pot either require the approval of local officials — as in Massachusetts — or impose a statewide limit on the number of licenses, chosen by a politically appointed oversight board, or both. These practices effectively put million-dollar decisions in the hands of relatively small-time political figures — the mayors and councilors of small towns and cities, along with the friends and supporters of politicians who appoint them to boards . . . . I think you can guess what happened next. Random Walk Beethoven the businessman. Luis Dias, writing in Scroll.in : Once Beethoven had poured his creative energy to the fullest into a composition, he regarded it as commercial property, deserving the best possible price on the most favourable terms. Of the hundreds of his letters that have survived, a major chunk deals with the mundane business of getting published: pitching a work, complaining about poor terms, bargaining, and correcting proofs. This is hardly surprising; he is perhaps the first composer whose income depended so much on being published, even more so after his crippling deafness gradually put an end to his career as a performer and to some extent as a teacher as well . . . . Royalties were unheard of then; the publisher bought a work for a flat fee and would then hope to sell as many copies as possible. It was important to sell as quickly as possible because piracy was a very real threat. As there was no copyright, any successful composer’s hit work was highly susceptible to piracy. The pirate could even be the copyist, who could clandestinely make another copy, spirit it out to another publisher, sometimes even before the legitimate one. The threat was so serious that Mozart had his copyists work only in his apartments, under his watchful eye. Beethoven railed and ranted when he encountered pirated versions of his music. Since he didn’t have the finance for lawsuits, which could end up nowhere – piracy, plagiarism and forgery were regarded as reprehensible, but not against the law – he resorted to sending spluttering, threatening letters to errant publishers and getting public notices published in newspapers. To be pirated was almost a back-handed index of one’s popularity and success. As payments for compositions were small (for instance, Beethoven settled for 100 florins for his First Symphony, a shockingly low price), a composer had to churn out a lot of music. This gives us a new perspective on the prodigious output of composers of that era: it was driven not just by creative juices but by the need to put food on the table. Ironically, short piano works would fetch a better price than, say, a symphony, concerto or bigger works, for purely commercial reasons . . . . [One] ploy Beethoven resorted to was to offer a piece to the person who commissioned it and pocketing the fee. He would then defer publication but give that patron exclusive rights to the work in manuscript for a given time (usually six months, as he did with Prince Lobkowitz for his Third Symphony). Once that period was over, he could plug and sell it afresh. Beethoven’s decision to appoint his brother Karl as his go-between with publishers was ill-advised, as Karl was arrogant and tactless. His letters to publishers (about which many complained) have to be read to be believed – it is a testament to their regard for Beethoven that they didn’t sever their contracts. One notable example of Karl’s unprofessionalism was when he sold his brother’s three piano sonatas (Opus 31) to a Leipzig publisher, despite Beethoven having promised them to another publisher, Nägeli. The brothers apparently “came to blows” in the street over the incident. Beethoven eventually forgave him (“After all, he’s my brother”) but gradually relieved Karl of that duty . . . . — A.S. To sign up for the Capital Note, follow this link . More from National Review The Capital Note: Dollars & Lumber Dollar Weakness Is a Policy Success Capital Note: Stock-Market Selloff & the Fate of the Euro Zone View comments || Fintech Focus For December 30, 2020: Quote To Start The Day:“Crisis can be... a catalyst or can speed up changes that are on the way — it almost can serve as an accelerant.”
Source:Arun Sundararajan
One Big Thing In Fintech:Anthony Scaramucci's Skybridge Capital has already invested as much as $182 million to bitcoin on behalf of its investment funds, according to an investor deck obtained by The Block.
Source:Block
Other Key Fintech Developments:
• OKExaddedreal-time settlements.
• Simplex hasjoinedVisa in Europe.
• More on OCC fintech charterbattle.
• TrueTrade.IOaddednew software.
• Greenproplansa $100M BTC fund.
• ChartIQ eyes trade floorinnovation.
• Grayscalehitmajor $19B milestone.
• TransferWise: UK fintechgrowsup.
• Thechallengesto institutional DeFi.
Watch Out For This:Tesla, the pioneer in updating cars as frequently as a smartphone, has released a firmware update for select models that brings a much-needed update: fart sounds. The new "Boombox" feature enables Tesla vehicles with external speakers to play custom horn sounds ranging from farts to animal sounds and music.
Source:Input
Interesting Reads:
• Armyfacesunstoppable air threats.
• COVID-19 variantarrivedin the US.
• Boeing 737 MAX makes firstflights.
• Big tech antitrustgainsmomentum.
• Strong earthquakekilledin Croatia.
• Enterprise software sectors arehot.
• Brexit transition mayimpactfinance.
Market Moving Headline:“This is an economy that is recovering, policy is going to be accommodative for years to come, it suggest a good backdrop for risk assets – it doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be some challenges as we progress over the next couple of years,” Brian Levitt, Invesco global market strategist, said on Bloomberg TV. “The reality is the markets are going to be focused on a recovery.”
Source:Bloomberg
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• Fintech Focus For December 29, 2020
• Stock Market Update For The Week Ahead: Santa Claus Rally?
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus For December 30, 2020: Fintech Header Quote To Start The Day: “Crisis can be... a catalyst or can speed up changes that are on the way — it almost can serve as an accelerant.” Source: Arun Sundararajan One Big Thing In Fintech: Anthony Scaramucci's Skybridge Capital has already invested as much as $182 million to bitcoin on behalf of its investment funds, according to an investor deck obtained by The Block. Source: Block Other Key Fintech Developments: OKEx added real-time settlements. Simplex has joined Visa in Europe. More on OCC fintech charter battle . TrueTrade.IO added new software. Greenpro plans a $100M BTC fund. ChartIQ eyes trade floor innovation . Grayscale hit major $19B milestone. TransferWise: UK fintech grows up. The challenges to institutional DeFi. Watch Out For This: Tesla, the pioneer in updating cars as frequently as a smartphone, has released a firmware update for select models that brings a much-needed update: fart sounds. The new "Boombox" feature enables Tesla vehicles with external speakers to play custom horn sounds ranging from farts to animal sounds and music. Source: Input Interesting Reads: Army faces unstoppable air threats. COVID-19 variant arrived in the US. Boeing 737 MAX makes first flights . Big tech antitrust gains momentum. Strong earthquake killed in Croatia. Enterprise software sectors are hot . Brexit transition may impact finance. Market Moving Headline: “This is an economy that is recovering, policy is going to be accommodative for years to come, it suggest a good backdrop for risk assets – it doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be some challenges as we progress over the next couple of years,” Brian Levitt, Invesco global market strategist, said on Bloomberg TV. “The reality is the markets are going to be focused on a recovery.” Source: Bloomberg See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Fintech Focus For December 29, 2020 Stock Market Update For The Week Ahead: Santa Claus Rally? © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest: New research from the cryptocurrency wallet ZenGo has shed additional light on front-running attacks happening on the Ethereum blockchain. First outlined in “ Ethereum Is a Dark Forest ,” DeFi investors Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantopoulos called attention to a variety of attacks by bots that were roving the Ethereum blockchain in search of prey. The new report from ZenGo outlines how the researchers identified and isolated generalized front-running bots while evaluating their efficiency and how likely a transaction is to get hunted down, while also testing how to evade them. Read more: Ethereum, Dark Forests and the Limits of Transparency Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Nears $29K While Ether Options Trader Makes Long-Shot Bet “Front-running in general is not something new on Ethereum,” said Alex Manuskin, a blockchain researcher at ZenGo, who conducted the research. “The novelty here is that we looked at bots that seek any profit, even in contracts they have never seen before, and even if these contracts are quite complex and perform several internal calls to other contracts.” Front-running The ZenGo report described front-running as the “act of getting a transaction first in line in the execution queue, right before a known future transaction occurs.” An exchange bid is an example of front-running. If someone is about to buy a large amount of ETH on Uniswap, to such an extent that it would drive the price higher, one way to cash in would be to buy ETH right before the large purchase goes through then sell immediately after. Read more: DeFi Has a Front-Running Problem. Sparkpool’s Potential Fix Is Launching This Month Ethereum front-running happens because bots are able to bid “a slightly higher gas price on a transaction, incentivizing miners to place earlier in the order when constructing the block. The higher-paying transactions are executed first. Thus, if two transactions making a profit from the same contract call are placed in the same block, only the first takes the profit,” the researchers wrote. Story continues Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish “Under the surface of every transaction that finds its way to the blockchain, there are fierce wars over every bit of profit,” said Manuskin. “If you happened to come across an arbitrage opportunity, or even notice an error in some contract, it is very likely that it will be hard to extract this value without either operating a bot yourself to fend off the front-runners, connecting to and paying a miner to conceal your golden goose transaction, or making the transaction complex enough for the front-runners to not notice.” Luring a bot The researchers set out to attract a generalized front-running bot. In order to achieve this, they had to put enough funds into their honeypot transaction to make it attractive to such a bot. “This time, we had a hit,” the researchers wrote. “The transaction was pending for ~3 minutes before it was mined, without getting value from the honeypot contract. Looking at the contract’s internal transaction, we could see the funds went to someone else. The front-runner’s transaction had used slightly more gwei, the smallest unit of ether, (0.000001111 gwei more, to be precise) and was mined in the same block as their attempted abstraction. Crypto markets are lit markets, by definition. So predators can see the prey coming. The prey can see them, too – but the prey cannot escape. When you submit an Ethereum transaction, it must wait in that mempool until a miner picks it up. It has nowhere else to go. So it is, to coin a phrase, a “sitting duck.” Every predator in the pool can see it. It inevitably gets replicated, front-run or otherwise stolen. The wonder is that any legitimate transactions ever get verified at all. Frances Coppola Once they’d identified the bot, they were able to track how much it had pulled in since the start of its operations. Using Dune Analytics, they estimated the bot started operating in May of 2018, and surmised it had raked in about $10,000 in ETH in total. While that may not seem initially like a high amount, remember, one individual can create any number of bots to act on their behalf. Another bot, which the researchers attracted with a slightly larger honeypot transaction, was more sophisticated. When the researchers tried to extract the funds from their bait transaction, they obscured their call by means of a proxy contract. This type of contract function involves a totally separate contract and does not publish to the public blockchain They “deployed the ProxyTaker contract and called the appropriate function in an attempt to extract our funds.” The transaction was quickly front-run by another bot. “This time it was far more impressive,” they wrote. “Not only was the bot able to detect our extraction transaction, but it identified it from within an internal call, from a completely different contract! Accomplishing this in a record-breaking time. Our extraction transaction was mined in a few seconds (and so was the bot’s).” This bot was much more sophisticated and focused not just on ETH transactions; rather, it performed a variety of arbitrage transactions involving multiple currencies. Viewing the account collecting the funds, the researchers found it was much more successful than the previous bot and was holding 300 ETH, or $180,000 at the time of publication. Results from tracking the bot The research shed light on the methods of some fairly sophisticated bots combing the blockchain for profitable transactions, though other bots may have varying behavior parameters. “Factors such as potential upside, communication patterns, and minimum complexity (e.g., gas limit), among others, likely impact the way they operate,” they wrote. Manuskin said that there is still a lot of research that needed to be done, but he did have some high-level takeaways. “Generalized front-runners are more prominent than one might think,” he said. “Any contract call that can bring profit to anyone who calls it is very likely to be front-run by these generalized front-runners.” Additionally, he found that avoiding detection by the front-runners is possible, but is not easy. “Each operates differently and might be triggered by different factors of the transaction,” he said. “The bots themselves are in competition with each other over who gets the reward. This is only the tip of the iceberg in the full picture of the bots out there, which makes it even more interesting.” Related Stories New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest || New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest: New research from the cryptocurrency wallet ZenGo has shed additional light on front-running attacks happening on the Ethereum blockchain. First outlined in “ Ethereum Is a Dark Forest ,” DeFi investors Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantopoulos called attention to a variety of attacks by bots that were roving the Ethereum blockchain in search of prey. The new report from ZenGo outlines how the researchers identified and isolated generalized front-running bots while evaluating their efficiency and how likely a transaction is to get hunted down, while also testing how to evade them. Read more: Ethereum, Dark Forests and the Limits of Transparency Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Nears $29K While Ether Options Trader Makes Long-Shot Bet “Front-running in general is not something new on Ethereum,” said Alex Manuskin, a blockchain researcher at ZenGo, who conducted the research. “The novelty here is that we looked at bots that seek any profit, even in contracts they have never seen before, and even if these contracts are quite complex and perform several internal calls to other contracts.” Front-running The ZenGo report described front-running as the “act of getting a transaction first in line in the execution queue, right before a known future transaction occurs.” An exchange bid is an example of front-running. If someone is about to buy a large amount of ETH on Uniswap, to such an extent that it would drive the price higher, one way to cash in would be to buy ETH right before the large purchase goes through then sell immediately after. Read more: DeFi Has a Front-Running Problem. Sparkpool’s Potential Fix Is Launching This Month Ethereum front-running happens because bots are able to bid “a slightly higher gas price on a transaction, incentivizing miners to place earlier in the order when constructing the block. The higher-paying transactions are executed first. Thus, if two transactions making a profit from the same contract call are placed in the same block, only the first takes the profit,” the researchers wrote. Story continues Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish “Under the surface of every transaction that finds its way to the blockchain, there are fierce wars over every bit of profit,” said Manuskin. “If you happened to come across an arbitrage opportunity, or even notice an error in some contract, it is very likely that it will be hard to extract this value without either operating a bot yourself to fend off the front-runners, connecting to and paying a miner to conceal your golden goose transaction, or making the transaction complex enough for the front-runners to not notice.” Luring a bot The researchers set out to attract a generalized front-running bot. In order to achieve this, they had to put enough funds into their honeypot transaction to make it attractive to such a bot. “This time, we had a hit,” the researchers wrote. “The transaction was pending for ~3 minutes before it was mined, without getting value from the honeypot contract. Looking at the contract’s internal transaction, we could see the funds went to someone else. The front-runner’s transaction had used slightly more gwei, the smallest unit of ether, (0.000001111 gwei more, to be precise) and was mined in the same block as their attempted abstraction. Crypto markets are lit markets, by definition. So predators can see the prey coming. The prey can see them, too – but the prey cannot escape. When you submit an Ethereum transaction, it must wait in that mempool until a miner picks it up. It has nowhere else to go. So it is, to coin a phrase, a “sitting duck.” Every predator in the pool can see it. It inevitably gets replicated, front-run or otherwise stolen. The wonder is that any legitimate transactions ever get verified at all. Frances Coppola Once they’d identified the bot, they were able to track how much it had pulled in since the start of its operations. Using Dune Analytics, they estimated the bot started operating in May of 2018, and surmised it had raked in about $10,000 in ETH in total. While that may not seem initially like a high amount, remember, one individual can create any number of bots to act on their behalf. Another bot, which the researchers attracted with a slightly larger honeypot transaction, was more sophisticated. When the researchers tried to extract the funds from their bait transaction, they obscured their call by means of a proxy contract. This type of contract function involves a totally separate contract and does not publish to the public blockchain They “deployed the ProxyTaker contract and called the appropriate function in an attempt to extract our funds.” The transaction was quickly front-run by another bot. “This time it was far more impressive,” they wrote. “Not only was the bot able to detect our extraction transaction, but it identified it from within an internal call, from a completely different contract! Accomplishing this in a record-breaking time. Our extraction transaction was mined in a few seconds (and so was the bot’s).” This bot was much more sophisticated and focused not just on ETH transactions; rather, it performed a variety of arbitrage transactions involving multiple currencies. Viewing the account collecting the funds, the researchers found it was much more successful than the previous bot and was holding 300 ETH, or $180,000 at the time of publication. Results from tracking the bot The research shed light on the methods of some fairly sophisticated bots combing the blockchain for profitable transactions, though other bots may have varying behavior parameters. “Factors such as potential upside, communication patterns, and minimum complexity (e.g., gas limit), among others, likely impact the way they operate,” they wrote. Manuskin said that there is still a lot of research that needed to be done, but he did have some high-level takeaways. “Generalized front-runners are more prominent than one might think,” he said. “Any contract call that can bring profit to anyone who calls it is very likely to be front-run by these generalized front-runners.” Additionally, he found that avoiding detection by the front-runners is possible, but is not easy. “Each operates differently and might be triggered by different factors of the transaction,” he said. “The bots themselves are in competition with each other over who gets the reward. This is only the tip of the iceberg in the full picture of the bots out there, which makes it even more interesting.” Related Stories New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest New Research Sheds Light on the Front-Running Bots in Ethereum’s Dark Forest || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish: Few seem to be bothered by bitcoin’s volatility on Tuesday, as the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization declined to the $26,000 level after its first-ever trades above $28,000 on Sunday. Many market participants are convinced retail and institutional investors will push bitcoin’s price higher after the holiday lull.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $26,937.67 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.37% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $25,875.05-$27,117.95 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC between its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.
With limited institutional trading activity during the final days of 2020, traders and analysts told CoinDesk the recent price movement has been largely driven by retail investors.
“It’s quite unusual for the past whole week being like this, given it’s a holiday season. Usually during the holiday season there’s a liquidity crunch,” Mable Jiang, principal at crypto hedge fund Multicoin Capital, told CoinDesk. “The heat was partially driven by the recent run-up of bitcoin, and the resurfacing retail interest in the market, at least in China.”
Related:Binance US Says It Will Delist XRP on Jan. 13
Jiang noticed a few patterns in recent trading activity among retail investors. Some are rolling alt-coins into bitcoin and ether. Others are looking for coins that may potentially outperform bitcoin on returns in the coming months.
In TradeBlock’s weekly market commentary on Dec. 28, the cryptocurrency analysis firm wrote that recent highs for bitcoin and ether were driven by outflows from XRP.
“The only two digital currencies the [Securities and Exchange Commission] has definitely stated are not securities are bitcoin” and ether, TradeBlock said. “As regulatory uncertainty increased in the alt-coin market after the SEC’s action [against Ripple Labs, claiming it was trading an illegal security, XRP], traders took the opportunity to pile into more regulatory-certain assets, bitcoin and ether, while maintaining exposure to crypto amidst its one of the strongest bull runs on record.”
Read More:Coinbase to Suspend XRP Trading Following SEC Suit Against Ripple
Related:Coinbase Sued for Allowing the Sale of XRP
Yet, even though bitcoin’s price fell below $26,000 in the past 24 hours many market participants appear to be optimistic about the coming weeks and months, especially after investment activity returns after the holidays.
“Should the expected wave of retail flows materialize, I would expect to see bitcoin charge past $30,000 as we enter the new year,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime Brokerage Bequant.
Read More:CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest
Last month’s price move towards the previous $20,000 resistance level makes a convincing case to support such optimism, according to Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. While small sell-offs occurred three times during that rally (on Nov. 25, Dec. 1 and Dec. 5), prices quickly recovered as a strong demand for bitcoin outweighed the amount of bitcoin sold.
Read More:Whale Sightings Become Scarce, Removing Downward Pressure on Bitcoin: Analyst
“Since then, the bears have been reluctant to sell too much more as the probability is that they’ll be able to sell at higher levels in a few weeks or months,” Thomas said. “I suspect we’ll see a $26,500-$27,500 range into the first few days of the New Year. Jan. 4 onwards we should see institutional positions coming back into the market.”
Read More:Grayscale Has $19B in Crypto Assets Under Management, Up From $16.4B Last Week
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH) was down Tuesday, trading around $728.59 and down 0.47% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Similar to bitcoin, market sentiment for ether’s performance has also remained positive despite the price volatility.
Read More:Ether Trades Above $700 for the First Time Since 2018
“Currently, [ether’s] trading volume is more than 15% higher than average, further proof that ether is on the rise,” Guy Hirsch, eToro’s U.S. managing director, said. “We expect the second-biggest crypto asset to continue rallying into the new year, and possibly surpassing $800 sometime during the first half of the year.”
If they aren’t doing so already, institutional players could also soon start looking into ether, particularly after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) saidit will launch a futures contract on ether in February 2021.That could bode well for ether’s performance relative to bitcoin, according to some analysts.
Read More:Institutions Will Start Buying Ether in 2021, Messari Analyst Says
“The imminent introduction of ETH futures from the CME Group should spur additional adoption, especially among financial institutions looking to diversify digital asset holdings with another regulated product they are comfortable with,” Vinokourov said. “This, combined with [decentralized finance’s] continued surge, should help ETH to outperform BTC for the foreseeable future.”
Retail traders also appear more interested in ether, as the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, as provided by analytics websiteDeFi Pulse, reached to $14.47 billion, as of Tuesday.
“From the market-making side [on DeFi], we see flows pretty evenly, with slightly more [stablecoins] to ether than the opposite, which I believe indicates that there are still plenty of retail investors trying to jump on the wagon,” said Peter Chan, a trader for Hong Kong-based crypto firm OneBit Quant who is focusing on DeFi trading.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly in red on Tuesday. Notable winner as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• cardano(ADA) +7.89%
• cosmos(ATOM) +3.77%
Notable losers:
• xrp(XRP) -22.39%
• tron(TRX) -8.07%
• chainlink(LINK) -7.87%
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed with a record high by 2.66% – a level not seen since August 1990, afterU.S. President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed higher by 1.6% on Tuesday, asa Brexit trade deal could end years of uncertainty over the U.K.’s economy.
• The S&P 500 in the United States was in red on Tuesday by 0.26%, afterinvestors became concerned about the reopening of the economy and whether the Senate would approve a second, higher-dollar stimulus package.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 0.76%%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $47.98.
• Gold was in the green 0.31% and at $1879.03 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield dropped Tuesday, dipping to 0.931.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish: Few seem to be bothered by bitcoin’s volatility on Tuesday, as the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization declined to the $26,000 level after its first-ever trades above $28,000 on Sunday. Many market participants are convinced retail and institutional investors will push bitcoin’s price higher after the holiday lull. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $26,937.67 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.37% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $25,875.05-$27,117.95 (CoinDesk 20) BTC between its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians. With limited institutional trading activity during the final days of 2020, traders and analysts told CoinDesk the recent price movement has been largely driven by retail investors. “It’s quite unusual for the past whole week being like this, given it’s a holiday season. Usually during the holiday season there’s a liquidity crunch,” Mable Jiang, principal at crypto hedge fund Multicoin Capital, told CoinDesk. “The heat was partially driven by the recent run-up of bitcoin, and the resurfacing retail interest in the market, at least in China.” Related: Binance US Says It Will Delist XRP on Jan. 13 Jiang noticed a few patterns in recent trading activity among retail investors. Some are rolling alt-coins into bitcoin and ether. Others are looking for coins that may potentially outperform bitcoin on returns in the coming months. In TradeBlock’s weekly market commentary on Dec. 28, the cryptocurrency analysis firm wrote that recent highs for bitcoin and ether were driven by outflows from XRP. “The only two digital currencies the [Securities and Exchange Commission] has definitely stated are not securities are bitcoin” and ether, TradeBlock said. “As regulatory uncertainty increased in the alt-coin market after the SEC’s action [against Ripple Labs, claiming it was trading an illegal security, XRP], traders took the opportunity to pile into more regulatory-certain assets, bitcoin and ether, while maintaining exposure to crypto amidst its one of the strongest bull runs on record.” Story continues Read More: Coinbase to Suspend XRP Trading Following SEC Suit Against Ripple Related: Coinbase Sued for Allowing the Sale of XRP Yet, even though bitcoin’s price fell below $26,000 in the past 24 hours many market participants appear to be optimistic about the coming weeks and months, especially after investment activity returns after the holidays. “Should the expected wave of retail flows materialize, I would expect to see bitcoin charge past $30,000 as we enter the new year,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime Brokerage Bequant. Read More: CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest Last month’s price move towards the previous $20,000 resistance level makes a convincing case to support such optimism, according to Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. While small sell-offs occurred three times during that rally (on Nov. 25, Dec. 1 and Dec. 5), prices quickly recovered as a strong demand for bitcoin outweighed the amount of bitcoin sold. Read More: Whale Sightings Become Scarce, Removing Downward Pressure on Bitcoin: Analyst “Since then, the bears have been reluctant to sell too much more as the probability is that they’ll be able to sell at higher levels in a few weeks or months,” Thomas said. “I suspect we’ll see a $26,500-$27,500 range into the first few days of the New Year. Jan. 4 onwards we should see institutional positions coming back into the market.” Read More: Grayscale Has $19B in Crypto Assets Under Management, Up From $16.4B Last Week Ether lower on active retail trading activities The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH) was down Tuesday, trading around $728.59 and down 0.47% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Similar to bitcoin, market sentiment for ether’s performance has also remained positive despite the price volatility. Read More: Ether Trades Above $700 for the First Time Since 2018 “Currently, [ether’s] trading volume is more than 15% higher than average, further proof that ether is on the rise,” Guy Hirsch, eToro’s U.S. managing director, said. “We expect the second-biggest crypto asset to continue rallying into the new year, and possibly surpassing $800 sometime during the first half of the year.” If they aren’t doing so already, institutional players could also soon start looking into ether, particularly after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) said it will launch a futures contract on ether in February 2021. That could bode well for ether’s performance relative to bitcoin, according to some analysts. Read More: Institutions Will Start Buying Ether in 2021, Messari Analyst Says “The imminent introduction of ETH futures from the CME Group should spur additional adoption, especially among financial institutions looking to diversify digital asset holdings with another regulated product they are comfortable with,” Vinokourov said. “This, combined with [decentralized finance’s] continued surge, should help ETH to outperform BTC for the foreseeable future.” Retail traders also appear more interested in ether, as the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, as provided by analytics website DeFi Pulse , reached to $14.47 billion, as of Tuesday. “From the market-making side [on DeFi], we see flows pretty evenly, with slightly more [stablecoins] to ether than the opposite, which I believe indicates that there are still plenty of retail investors trying to jump on the wagon,” said Peter Chan, a trader for Hong Kong-based crypto firm OneBit Quant who is focusing on DeFi trading. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly in red on Tuesday. Notable winner as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): cardano (ADA) +7.89% cosmos (ATOM) +3.77% Notable losers: xrp (XRP) -22.39% tron (TRX) -8.07% chainlink (LINK) -7.87% Equities: Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed with a record high by 2.66% – a level not seen since August 1990, after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package. The FTSE 100 in Europe closed higher by 1.6% on Tuesday, as a Brexit trade deal could end years of uncertainty over the U.K.’s economy. The S&P 500 in the United States was in red on Tuesday by 0.26%, after investors became concerned about the reopening of the economy and whether the Senate would approve a second, higher-dollar stimulus package. Commodities: Oil was up 0.76%%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $47.98. Gold was in the green 0.31% and at $1879.03 as of press time. Treasurys: The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield dropped Tuesday, dipping to 0.931. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish: Few seem to be bothered by bitcoin’s volatility on Tuesday, as the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization declined to the $26,000 level after its first-ever trades above $28,000 on Sunday. Many market participants are convinced retail and institutional investors will push bitcoin’s price higher after the holiday lull.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $26,937.67 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.37% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $25,875.05-$27,117.95 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC between its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.
With limited institutional trading activity during the final days of 2020, traders and analysts told CoinDesk the recent price movement has been largely driven by retail investors.
“It’s quite unusual for the past whole week being like this, given it’s a holiday season. Usually during the holiday season there’s a liquidity crunch,” Mable Jiang, principal at crypto hedge fund Multicoin Capital, told CoinDesk. “The heat was partially driven by the recent run-up of bitcoin, and the resurfacing retail interest in the market, at least in China.”
Related:Binance US Says It Will Delist XRP on Jan. 13
Jiang noticed a few patterns in recent trading activity among retail investors. Some are rolling alt-coins into bitcoin and ether. Others are looking for coins that may potentially outperform bitcoin on returns in the coming months.
In TradeBlock’s weekly market commentary on Dec. 28, the cryptocurrency analysis firm wrote that recent highs for bitcoin and ether were driven by outflows from XRP.
“The only two digital currencies the [Securities and Exchange Commission] has definitely stated are not securities are bitcoin” and ether, TradeBlock said. “As regulatory uncertainty increased in the alt-coin market after the SEC’s action [against Ripple Labs, claiming it was trading an illegal security, XRP], traders took the opportunity to pile into more regulatory-certain assets, bitcoin and ether, while maintaining exposure to crypto amidst its one of the strongest bull runs on record.”
Read More:Coinbase to Suspend XRP Trading Following SEC Suit Against Ripple
Related:Coinbase Sued for Allowing the Sale of XRP
Yet, even though bitcoin’s price fell below $26,000 in the past 24 hours many market participants appear to be optimistic about the coming weeks and months, especially after investment activity returns after the holidays.
“Should the expected wave of retail flows materialize, I would expect to see bitcoin charge past $30,000 as we enter the new year,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime Brokerage Bequant.
Read More:CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest
Last month’s price move towards the previous $20,000 resistance level makes a convincing case to support such optimism, according to Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank. While small sell-offs occurred three times during that rally (on Nov. 25, Dec. 1 and Dec. 5), prices quickly recovered as a strong demand for bitcoin outweighed the amount of bitcoin sold.
Read More:Whale Sightings Become Scarce, Removing Downward Pressure on Bitcoin: Analyst
“Since then, the bears have been reluctant to sell too much more as the probability is that they’ll be able to sell at higher levels in a few weeks or months,” Thomas said. “I suspect we’ll see a $26,500-$27,500 range into the first few days of the New Year. Jan. 4 onwards we should see institutional positions coming back into the market.”
Read More:Grayscale Has $19B in Crypto Assets Under Management, Up From $16.4B Last Week
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH) was down Tuesday, trading around $728.59 and down 0.47% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Similar to bitcoin, market sentiment for ether’s performance has also remained positive despite the price volatility.
Read More:Ether Trades Above $700 for the First Time Since 2018
“Currently, [ether’s] trading volume is more than 15% higher than average, further proof that ether is on the rise,” Guy Hirsch, eToro’s U.S. managing director, said. “We expect the second-biggest crypto asset to continue rallying into the new year, and possibly surpassing $800 sometime during the first half of the year.”
If they aren’t doing so already, institutional players could also soon start looking into ether, particularly after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) saidit will launch a futures contract on ether in February 2021.That could bode well for ether’s performance relative to bitcoin, according to some analysts.
Read More:Institutions Will Start Buying Ether in 2021, Messari Analyst Says
“The imminent introduction of ETH futures from the CME Group should spur additional adoption, especially among financial institutions looking to diversify digital asset holdings with another regulated product they are comfortable with,” Vinokourov said. “This, combined with [decentralized finance’s] continued surge, should help ETH to outperform BTC for the foreseeable future.”
Retail traders also appear more interested in ether, as the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, as provided by analytics websiteDeFi Pulse, reached to $14.47 billion, as of Tuesday.
“From the market-making side [on DeFi], we see flows pretty evenly, with slightly more [stablecoins] to ether than the opposite, which I believe indicates that there are still plenty of retail investors trying to jump on the wagon,” said Peter Chan, a trader for Hong Kong-based crypto firm OneBit Quant who is focusing on DeFi trading.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly in red on Tuesday. Notable winner as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• cardano(ADA) +7.89%
• cosmos(ATOM) +3.77%
Notable losers:
• xrp(XRP) -22.39%
• tron(TRX) -8.07%
• chainlink(LINK) -7.87%
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed with a record high by 2.66% – a level not seen since August 1990, afterU.S. President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed higher by 1.6% on Tuesday, asa Brexit trade deal could end years of uncertainty over the U.K.’s economy.
• The S&P 500 in the United States was in red on Tuesday by 0.26%, afterinvestors became concerned about the reopening of the economy and whether the Senate would approve a second, higher-dollar stimulus package.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 0.76%%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $47.98.
• Gold was in the green 0.31% and at $1879.03 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield dropped Tuesday, dipping to 0.931.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish || What Are Stablecoins?: A “stablecoin” is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to an outside asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold, to stabilize the price. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum offer a number of benefits, and one of the most fundamental is not requiring trust in an intermediary institution to send payments, which opens up their use to anyone around the globe. But one key drawback is that cryptocurrencies’ prices are unpredictable and have a tendency to fluctuate, sometimes wildly. This makes them hard for everyday people to use. Generally, people expect to be able to know how much their money will be worth a week from now, both for their security and their livelihood. Related: Japanese Internet Giant Licensed to Issue First JPY-Pegged Stablecoin in New York Cryptocurrency’s unpredictability comes in contrast to the generally stable prices of fiat money, such as U.S. dollars, or other assets, such as gold. Values of currencies like the dollar do change gradually over time, but the day-to-day changes are often more drastic for cryptocurrencies, where the value jumps up and down regularly. The following graph shows the price of bitcoin vs. the U.S. dollar (USD) compared to another fiat currency, the Canadian dollar (CAD), to see how much each currency fluctuates in relation. Stablecoins were worth more than $10 billion as of May 2020. In countries like Brazil , many people are turning to stablecoins as an alternative to their national currencies in uncertain economic conditions. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong , some people are using stablecoins to avoid new internet censorship in a tumultuous political climate. Stablecoins in a nutshell Stablecoins try to tackle price fluctuations by tying the value of cryptocurrencies to other more stable assets – usually fiat. Fiat is the government-issued currency we’re all used to using on a day-to-day basis, such dollars and euros, and it tends to stay stable over time. Story continues Related: Presidential Advisory Group Weighs In on Regulatory Approach to Stablecoins Usually the entity behind the stablecoin will set up a “reserve” where it securely stores the asset backing the stablecoin – for example, $1 million in an old-fashioned bank (the kind with branches and tellers and ATMs in the lobby) to back up one million units of the stablecoin. This is how a digital stablecoin and a real-world asset are tied together. The money in the reserve serves as “collateral” for the stablecoin. A user can theoretically redeem one unit of a stablecoin for one unit of the asset that backs it. There is a more complex type of stablecoin that is collateralized by other cryptocurrencies rather than fiat yet still is engineered to track a mainstream asset like the dollar. Maker , perhaps the most famous stablecoin issuer that uses this mechanism, accomplishes this with the help of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), which lock up a user’s cryptocurrency collateral. Then, once the smart contract knows the collateral is secured, a user can use it to borrow freshly minted dai , the stablecoin. A third variety of stablecoin, known as an algorithmic stablecoin, isn’t collateralized at all; instead, coins are either burned or created to keep the coin’s value in line with the target price. Say the coin drops from the target price of $1 to $0.75. The algorithm will automatically destroy a swathe of the coins to introduce more scarcity, pushing up the price of the stablecoin. This type of stablecoin is much less popular so far. One of the most popular stablecoins following this model, basis, shut down in 2018 due to regulatory concerns. Types of stablecoin collateral Using this framework, stablecoins come in a range of flavors, and the collateralized stablecoins use a variety of types of assets as backing: Fiat : Fiat is the most common collateral for stablecoins. The U.S. dollar is the most popular among fiat currencies, but companies are exploring stablecoins pegged to other fiat currencies as well, such as bilira , which is pegged to the Turkish lira. Precious metals : Some cryptocurrencies are tied to the value of precious metals such as gold or silver. Cryptocurrencies : Some stablecoins even use other cryptocurrencies, such as ether , the native token of the Ethereum network, as collateral. What are the most popular stablecoins? To give you a taste of the experimentation happening in stablecoin land, let’s run through some of the most popular stablecoins . Diem Diem (formerly known as Libra ) is a stablecoin in the works, originally conceived by the powerful, worldwide social media platform Facebook. While libra hasn’t launched, it’s had more psychological impact than any other stablecoin. Governments, notably China’s, are now exploring their own crypto-inspired digital currencies, in part because they’re worried Diem would be a competitive threat since Facebook is a multinational company with billions of users from across the globe. Initially, the Diem Association, the consortium set up by Facebook, said Diem would be backed by a “basket” of currencies, including the U.S. dollar and the euro. But due to global regulatory concerns, the association has since backed off from its ambitious original vision. Instead, it is now planning to focus on developing multiple stablecoins, each backed by a separate national currency. Its first stablecoin, the Diem dollar, is expected to launch as early as January 2021 . Tether Tether, or USDT , is one of the oldest stablecoins, launched in 2014, and is the most popular to this day. It’s currently one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies overall by market capitalization. The primary use case for USDT is moving money between exchanges quickly to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities when the price of cryptocurrencies differs on two exchanges; traders can make money on this discrepancy. But it has found other applications: Chinese importers stationed in Russia have also used USDT to send millions of dollars worth of value across the border, bypassing strict capital controls in China. Tether Ltd., the company that issues USDT, is embroiled in a legal battle with the New York Attorney General concerning providing financial documents that would illuminate its financial relationship with the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. USD Coin Launched in 2018, USD Coin is a stablecoin managed jointly by the cryptocurrency firms Circle and Coinbase through the Centre consortium. Like tether, USD Coin is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Dai Running on the MakerDAO protocol, dai is a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. Created in 2015, dai is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by ether , the token behind Ethereum. Unlike other stablecoins, MakerDAO intends for dai to be decentralized, meaning there’s no central authority trusted with control of the system. Rather, Ethereum smart contracts – which encode rules that can’t be changed – have this job instead. There are still problems with this innovative model, however; for example, if the smart contracts underpinning MakerDAO don’t work exactly as anticipated. Indeed, they were gamed earlier this year, leading to losses of $8 million. Do stablecoins have any drawbacks? There are a few drawbacks to stablecoins to keep in mind. Because of the way stablecoins are typically set up, they have different pain points than other cryptocurrencies. Crypto publication The Capital , for instance, argues that while stablecoins are called “stable,” they are only as stable as the asset that the stablecoin is tied to. Traditionally, the price of the dollar is very stable, but if that were to change, any fluctuations in the value of the dollar would be reflected in the stablecoin. If the reserves are stored with a bank or some other third party, another vulnerability is counterparty risk . This boils down to the question: Does the entity really have the collateral it claims to have? This has been a question frequently posed to Tether, for instance, without clear answers. Tether has yet to provide a full open audit of its reserves. Many stablecoin issuers don’t provide transparency about where their reserves are held, which can help a user determine how risky the stablecoin is to invest in. Knowing where their money is held, users can see if a stablecoin is operating without a license in the region where the reserves are held. If the stablecoin operators don’t have a license, a regulator could potentially freeze the stablecoin’s underlying funds, for instance. Further, it’s possible the reserves backing a stablecoin could turn out to be insufficient to redeem every unit, potentially shaking confidence in the coin. Cryptocurrencies were created to replace intermediary companies that are typically trusted with a user’s money. By their nature, intermediaries have control over that money; for example, they are typically able to stop a transaction from occurring. Some stablecoins add the ability to stop transactions back into the mix. USD Coin openly has a back door to stop payments if coins are used in an illicit manner. Circle , one of the firms behind USD Coin, confirmed in July 2020 that it froze $100,000 of USD Coin at the behest of law enforcement. Related Stories What Are Stablecoins? What Are Stablecoins? || What Are Stablecoins?: A “stablecoin” is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to an outside asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold, to stabilize the price.
Cryptocurrencies such asBitcoinandEthereumoffer a number of benefits, and one of the most fundamental is not requiring trust in an intermediary institution to send payments, which opens up their use to anyone around the globe. But one key drawback is that cryptocurrencies’ prices are unpredictable and have a tendency to fluctuate, sometimes wildly.
This makes them hard for everyday people to use. Generally, people expect to be able to know how much their money will be worth a week from now, both for their security and their livelihood.
Related:Japanese Internet Giant Licensed to Issue First JPY-Pegged Stablecoin in New York
Cryptocurrency’s unpredictability comes in contrast to the generally stable prices of fiat money, such as U.S. dollars, or other assets, such as gold. Values of currencies like the dollar do change gradually over time, but the day-to-day changes are often more drastic for cryptocurrencies, where the value jumps up and down regularly.
The following graph shows the price ofbitcoinvs. the U.S. dollar (USD) compared to another fiat currency, the Canadian dollar (CAD), to see how much each currency fluctuates in relation.
Stablecoins were worthmore than $10 billionas of May 2020. In countries likeBrazil, many people are turning to stablecoins as an alternative to their national currencies in uncertain economic conditions. Meanwhile, inHong Kong, some people are using stablecoins to avoid new internet censorship in a tumultuous political climate.
Stablecoins try to tackle price fluctuations by tying the value of cryptocurrencies to other more stable assets – usually fiat. Fiat is the government-issued currency we’re all used to using on a day-to-day basis, such dollars and euros, and it tends to stay stable over time.
Related:Presidential Advisory Group Weighs In on Regulatory Approach to Stablecoins
Usually the entity behind the stablecoin will set up a “reserve” where it securely stores the asset backing the stablecoin – for example, $1 million in an old-fashioned bank (the kind with branches and tellers and ATMs in the lobby) to back up one million units of the stablecoin.
This is how a digital stablecoin and a real-world asset are tied together. The money in the reserve serves as “collateral” for the stablecoin. A user can theoretically redeem one unit of a stablecoin for one unit of the asset that backs it.
There is a more complex type of stablecoin that is collateralized by other cryptocurrencies rather than fiat yet still is engineered to track a mainstream asset like the dollar.
Maker, perhaps the most famous stablecoin issuer that uses this mechanism, accomplishes this with the help of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), which lock up a user’s cryptocurrency collateral. Then, once the smart contract knows the collateral is secured, a user can use it to borrow freshly minteddai, the stablecoin.
A third variety of stablecoin, known as an algorithmic stablecoin, isn’t collateralized at all; instead, coins are either burned or created to keep the coin’s value in line with the target price. Say the coin drops from the target price of $1 to $0.75. The algorithm will automatically destroy a swathe of the coins to introduce more scarcity, pushing up the price of the stablecoin.
This type of stablecoin is much less popular so far. One of the most popular stablecoins following this model, basis,shut downin 2018 due to regulatory concerns.
Using this framework, stablecoins come in a range of flavors, and the collateralized stablecoins use a variety of types of assets as backing:
• Fiat: Fiat is the most common collateral for stablecoins. The U.S. dollar is the most popular among fiat currencies, but companies are exploring stablecoins pegged to other fiat currencies as well, such asbilira, which is pegged to the Turkish lira.
• Precious metals: Some cryptocurrencies are tied to the value of precious metals such as gold or silver.
• Cryptocurrencies: Some stablecoins even use other cryptocurrencies, such asether, the native token of the Ethereum network, as collateral.
To give you a taste of the experimentation happening in stablecoin land, let’s run through some of themost popular stablecoins.
Diem(formerlyknown as Libra) is a stablecoin in the works, originally conceived by the powerful, worldwide social media platform Facebook. While libra hasn’t launched, it’s had more psychological impact than any other stablecoin.
Governments, notably China’s, are now exploring their own crypto-inspired digital currencies, in part because they’re worried Diem would be a competitive threat since Facebook is a multinational company with billions of users from across the globe.
Initially, the Diem Association, the consortium set up by Facebook, said Diem would be backed by a “basket” of currencies, including the U.S. dollar and the euro. But due to global regulatory concerns, the association has sincebacked offfrom its ambitious original vision. Instead, it is now planning to focus on developing multiple stablecoins, each backed by a separate national currency.
Its first stablecoin, the Diem dollar, is expected to launch as early asJanuary 2021.
Tether, orUSDT, is one of the oldest stablecoins, launched in 2014, and is the most popular to this day. It’s currently one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies overall by market capitalization.
The primary use case for USDT is moving money between exchanges quickly to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities when the price of cryptocurrencies differs on two exchanges; traders can make money on this discrepancy. But it has found other applications: Chinese importers stationed in Russia have alsoused USDTto send millions of dollars worth of value across the border, bypassing strict capital controls in China.
Tether Ltd., the company that issues USDT, isembroiled ina legal battle with the New York Attorney General concerning providing financial documents that would illuminate its financial relationship with the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.
Launched in 2018,USD Coinis a stablecoin managed jointly by the cryptocurrency firms Circle and Coinbase through the Centre consortium.
Like tether, USD Coin is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.
Running on the MakerDAO protocol,daiis a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. Created in 2015,daiis pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed byether, the token behind Ethereum.
Unlike other stablecoins, MakerDAO intends for dai to be decentralized, meaning there’s no central authority trusted with control of the system. Rather, Ethereumsmart contracts– which encode rules that can’t be changed – have this job instead.
There are still problems with this innovative model, however; for example, if the smart contracts underpinning MakerDAO don’t work exactly as anticipated. Indeed, they weregamedearlier this year, leading to losses of $8 million.
There are a few drawbacks to stablecoins to keep in mind. Because of the way stablecoins are typically set up, they have different pain points than other cryptocurrencies.
Crypto publicationThe Capital, for instance, argues that while stablecoins are called “stable,” they are only as stable as the asset that the stablecoin is tied to. Traditionally, the price of the dollar is very stable, but if that were to change, any fluctuations in the value of the dollar would be reflected in the stablecoin.
If the reserves are stored with a bank or some other third party, another vulnerability iscounterparty risk. This boils down to the question: Does the entity really have the collateral it claims to have? This has been aquestion frequentlyposed to Tether, for instance, without clear answers. Tether has yet to provide a full open audit of its reserves.
Many stablecoin issuers don’tprovide transparencyabout where their reserves are held, which can help a user determine how risky the stablecoin is to invest in. Knowing where their money is held, users can see if a stablecoin is operating without a license in the region where the reserves are held. If the stablecoin operators don’t have a license, a regulator could potentially freeze the stablecoin’s underlying funds, for instance.
Further, it’s possible the reserves backing a stablecoin could turn out to be insufficient to redeem every unit, potentially shaking confidence in the coin.
Cryptocurrencies were created to replace intermediary companies that are typically trusted with a user’s money. By their nature, intermediaries have control over that money; for example, they are typically able to stop a transaction from occurring. Some stablecoins add the ability to stop transactions back into the mix.
USD Coin openly has a back door to stop payments if coins are used in an illicit manner.Circle, one of the firms behind USD Coin,confirmed in July 2020that it froze $100,000 of USD Coin at the behest of law enforcement.
• What Are Stablecoins?
• What Are Stablecoins? || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 29, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.com
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH:
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$26,976.61", "$0.00", "$0.15", "$46,255 M", "$501,351 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$728.75", "-$0.02", "$0.16", "$17,461 M", "$83,104 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.22", "-$0.24", "-$0.54", "$13,089 M", "$9,834 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$126.01", "-$0.04", "$0.14", "$9,296 M", "$8,341 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$348.53", "-$0.05", "$0.10", "$5,475 M", "$6,483 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$161.89", "-$0.04", "-$0.05", "$584 M", "$3,013 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.14", "-$0.08", "-$0.18", "$807 M", "$3,010 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$160.63", "-$0.02", "$0.04", "$1,163 M", "$2,859 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.61", "-$0.08", "-$0.10", "$2,889 M", "$2,451 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$102.98", "-$0.04", "-$0.01", "$711 M", "$1,019 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/622563/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 29, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.com
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH:
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$26,976.61", "$0.00", "$0.15", "$46,255 M", "$501,351 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$728.75", "-$0.02", "$0.16", "$17,461 M", "$83,104 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.22", "-$0.24", "-$0.54", "$13,089 M", "$9,834 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$126.01", "-$0.04", "$0.14", "$9,296 M", "$8,341 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$348.53", "-$0.05", "$0.10", "$5,475 M", "$6,483 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$161.89", "-$0.04", "-$0.05", "$584 M", "$3,013 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.14", "-$0.08", "-$0.18", "$807 M", "$3,010 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$160.63", "-$0.02", "$0.04", "$1,163 M", "$2,859 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.61", "-$0.08", "-$0.10", "$2,889 M", "$2,451 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$102.98", "-$0.04", "-$0.01", "$711 M", "$1,019 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/622563/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 29, 2020 / ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD). Real-Time Market Data is available at www.alt5pro.com and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available at www.alt5sigma.com ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: Market Summary 2020-12-29 4:03:00 PM ET Digital Asset Pair Price 24hr Chg 7d Chg 24/hr Volume MarketCap Bitcoin BTC/USD $26,976.61 $0.00 $0.15 $46,255 M $501,351 M Ethereum ETH/USD $728.75 -$0.02 $0.16 $17,461 M $83,104 M XRP XRP/USD $0.22 -$0.24 -$0.54 $13,089 M $9,834 M Litecoin LTC/USD $126.01 -$0.04 $0.14 $9,296 M $8,341 M Bitcoin Cash BCH/USD $348.53 -$0.05 $0.10 $5,475 M $6,483 M Bitcoin SV BSV/USD $161.89 -$0.04 -$0.05 $584 M $3,013 M Stellar XLM/USD $0.14 -$0.08 -$0.18 $807 M $3,010 M Monero XMR/USD $160.63 -$0.02 $0.04 $1,163 M $2,859 M EOS EOS/USD $2.61 -$0.08 -$0.10 $2,889 M $2,451 M Dash DASH/USD $102.98 -$0.04 -$0.01 $711 M $1,019 M About ALT 5 Sigma Inc. ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance. ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers. ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services. For more information, visit www.alt5sigma.com . Story continues Contact: Andre Beauchesne Tel. 1-800-204-6203 [email protected] For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visit www.alt5pay.com For more information on ALT 5 Pro, visit www.alt5pro.com SOURCE: ALT 5 Sigma Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/622563/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin: Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital investment firm has invested $182 million in bitcoin, according to an investor brochure shared with CoinDesk about its forthcoming bitcoin fund.
The firm, which has $9.3 billion under management, is launching the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP in January, according toSecurities and Exchange Commissiondocuments filed on Dec. 21, as CoinDeskreported.
Thebitcoinfund hasalready invested$25 million in bitcoin, it announced in the brochure. The new fund will be open as of Jan. 4 to outside investors putting up at least $50,000.
Read more:Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Invested $25M in New Bitcoin Fund
Related:Bitcoin Prices in 2020: Here's What Happened
Scaramucci’s fund investment is yet another traditional investment firm jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, a trend that has driven the crypto’s price well north of $20,000 in recent weeks.
In its brochure touting the bitcoin fund, the firm laid out the appeal of bitcoin to investors.
“Bitcoin is digital gold,” it reads. “It is better at being gold than gold.”
The brochure describes bitcoin as an emerging asset class that has become less risky in recent years, with attractive supply-and-demand dynamics. Bitcoin has had increasing retail and institutional adoption, the brochure notes, calling current low interest rates and “unprecedented money printing” contributors to the premium being placed on “scarce assets like gold, real estate, art and bitcoin.”
Read more:Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Launching a Bitcoin Fund
Related:All Major Mining Pools Now Support Taproot, Bitcoin's Biggest Upgrade in Years
One page of the brochure highlights “Bitcoin respectability: Wall Street embraces bitcoin” featuring quotes from executives at firms such as BlackRock and banks such as Citibank and JPMorgan.
According to the brochure, SkyBridge believes hedge funds, public company treasurers, insurance companies, pension funds, banks and brokerage firms will also be investing in the space.
“You have to accept whether bitcoin is a store of value or not,” said Scaramucci, one of the founders of SkyBridge, in a recentinterview on CNBC. “There are still skeptics out there and that’s why I think we’re in the first inning. But after the research we’ve done … and given the monetary supply and the global central banking coordination right now, this will be a very strong asset class over the next decade.”
• SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin
• SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin || SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin: Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital investment firm has invested $182 million in bitcoin, according to an investor brochure shared with CoinDesk about its forthcoming bitcoin fund.
The firm, which has $9.3 billion under management, is launching the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP in January, according toSecurities and Exchange Commissiondocuments filed on Dec. 21, as CoinDeskreported.
Thebitcoinfund hasalready invested$25 million in bitcoin, it announced in the brochure. The new fund will be open as of Jan. 4 to outside investors putting up at least $50,000.
Read more:Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Invested $25M in New Bitcoin Fund
Related:Bitcoin Prices in 2020: Here's What Happened
Scaramucci’s fund investment is yet another traditional investment firm jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, a trend that has driven the crypto’s price well north of $20,000 in recent weeks.
In its brochure touting the bitcoin fund, the firm laid out the appeal of bitcoin to investors.
“Bitcoin is digital gold,” it reads. “It is better at being gold than gold.”
The brochure describes bitcoin as an emerging asset class that has become less risky in recent years, with attractive supply-and-demand dynamics. Bitcoin has had increasing retail and institutional adoption, the brochure notes, calling current low interest rates and “unprecedented money printing” contributors to the premium being placed on “scarce assets like gold, real estate, art and bitcoin.”
Read more:Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Launching a Bitcoin Fund
Related:All Major Mining Pools Now Support Taproot, Bitcoin's Biggest Upgrade in Years
One page of the brochure highlights “Bitcoin respectability: Wall Street embraces bitcoin” featuring quotes from executives at firms such as BlackRock and banks such as Citibank and JPMorgan.
According to the brochure, SkyBridge believes hedge funds, public company treasurers, insurance companies, pension funds, banks and brokerage firms will also be investing in the space.
“You have to accept whether bitcoin is a store of value or not,” said Scaramucci, one of the founders of SkyBridge, in a recentinterview on CNBC. “There are still skeptics out there and that’s why I think we’re in the first inning. But after the research we’ve done … and given the monetary supply and the global central banking coordination right now, this will be a very strong asset class over the next decade.”
• SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin
• SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin || SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin: Anthony Scaramuccis SkyBridge Capital investment firm has invested $182 million in bitcoin, according to an investor brochure shared with CoinDesk about its forthcoming bitcoin fund. The firm, which has $9.3 billion under management, is launching the SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP in January, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed on Dec. 21, as CoinDesk reported . The bitcoin fund has already invested $25 million in bitcoin, it announced in the brochure. The new fund will be open as of Jan. 4 to outside investors putting up at least $50,000. Read more: Scaramuccis SkyBridge Invested $25M in New Bitcoin Fund Related: Bitcoin Prices in 2020: Here's What Happened Scaramuccis fund investment is yet another traditional investment firm jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, a trend that has driven the cryptos price well north of $20,000 in recent weeks. SkyBridge: Bitcoin is digital gold In its brochure touting the bitcoin fund, the firm laid out the appeal of bitcoin to investors. Bitcoin is digital gold, it reads. It is better at being gold than gold. The brochure describes bitcoin as an emerging asset class that has become less risky in recent years, with attractive supply-and-demand dynamics. Bitcoin has had increasing retail and institutional adoption, the brochure notes, calling current low interest rates and unprecedented money printing contributors to the premium being placed on scarce assets like gold, real estate, art and bitcoin. Read more: Scaramuccis SkyBridge Launching a Bitcoin Fund Related: All Major Mining Pools Now Support Taproot, Bitcoin's Biggest Upgrade in Years One page of the brochure highlights Bitcoin respectability: Wall Street embraces bitcoin featuring quotes from executives at firms such as BlackRock and banks such as Citibank and JPMorgan. According to the brochure, SkyBridge believes hedge funds, public company treasurers, insurance companies, pension funds, banks and brokerage firms will also be investing in the space. You have to accept whether bitcoin is a store of value or not, said Scaramucci, one of the founders of SkyBridge, in a recent interview on CNBC . There are still skeptics out there and thats why I think were in the first inning. But after the research weve done
and given the monetary supply and the global central banking coordination right now, this will be a very strong asset class over the next decade. Story continues Related Stories SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin SkyBridge Capital Has Already Invested $182M in Bitcoin View comments || Tuesday’s 10 Notable Market Movers in the Limelight: U.S. stocks continued their rally on Tuesday morning after the U.S. government approved the new Covid-19 relief package. At 12:17 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 Index rose 2.69 points, or 0.07 percent, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 37.62 points, or 0.29 percent, and Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 7.66 points or 0.03 percent.
The surge in the S&P 500 on Tuesday morning was mainly driven by optimism that the new federal aid will help the economy to recover. On the other hand, the decline in Nasdaq is mainly attributed to the flat trading prices of big tech companies on the exchange. Tech giants including Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOGL) are either trading flat or down today. As of this morning, the S&P 500 had 21 new 52-week highs and zero new 52-week low, while Nasdaq had 161 new highs and 22 new lows.
Meanwhile, European stock markets also reached a record high in more than 10 months. The Stoxx Europe 600 index advanced nearly 0.76 percent, the German DAX jumped 1.4 percent, and the French CAC surged 1 percent. Moreover, the FTSE MIB Italy index advanced 0.6 percent.
In major news stories, Boeing’s previously grounded 737 Max plane returned to American Airlines. The 737 Max is set to take off after a gap of two years. Separately. Qualtrics International has filed for an initial public offering (IPO), a couple of years after being acquired by German business software giant SAP. The expected price range of $20 to $24 would translate to a market value of 12 billion to $14.4 billion.
Markus Mainka/shutterstock.com
The initial rise in all three major indexes this morning was mainly fueled by President Donald Trump's consent for a $2.3 trillion fiscal bill, which will restore unemployment benefits for millions of U.S. residents. The bill also averted government shutdowns. The Trump administration has approved the proposal to lift the Covid-19 payment checks amount from $600 to $2,000. However, the proposal may face opposition from the Republicans in the Senate later today.
In the meantime, nearly 189,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the U.S. on Monday, while about 1,900 people lost their lives due to the virus. On the bright side, more than 2 million people across the U.S. have received the Covid-19 vaccine so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the numbers are still well below the original target of 20 million set by the government. Health experts believe that U.S. officials may not be able to achieve the goal, as there are just a few days left in the year.
The resurgence of the virus has compelled states to put more restrictions in place. For instance, Southern California is looking forward to extending a regional lockdown order due to the increasing infection rate and new virus strains.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has been under the spotlight, especially over the last two months. The biggest digital currency has skyrocketed more than 270 percent so far this year. BTC is currently trading around a record price of $27,000.
Coming back to the U.S. stocks, lets have a look at the some of the notable movers of Tuesday morning.
JD.com Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) shares rose more than 3 percent today following the news that the Chinese e-commerce company is buying a 5.37 percent stake in Hong Kong-listed China Dili Group in a transaction valued at $103 million. The latest purchase will make JD the second-biggest shareholder of China Dili, which operates several agricultural produce wholesale markets across China. JD shares have performed well in 2020. Its stock value has increased nearly 140 percent on a year-to-date basis, including today’s gain.
Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ) has declined for the fourth straight day. SQ shares are down more than 5 percent in the mid-day trading Tuesday. Multiple reports surfaced last week claimed that the digital-payment company is in discussions with music mogul Jay-Z for acquiring his music-streaming service Tidal. Jay-Z bought Tidal back in 2015 for $56 million. However, the reports also mentioned that the negotiations may not end up in a successful deal.
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) shares are trading higher on heavy volume in the mid-day trading Tuesday following multiple reports that activist hedge fund Third Point LLC is compelling the chipmaker giant to look for strategic alternatives. Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb wrote in a letter to INTC that the company should immediately do something to further strengthen its position in the PC and data centers chip market. Third Point reportedly holds a stake of nearly $1 billion in Intel.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) shares are recovering from a sharp decline it suffered last week. The drop came after Chinese regulators started investigating the e-commerce giant over alleged monopolistic practices. However, the stock is up more than 7 percent today. Meanwhile, BABA recently announced that it is increasing its stock repurchase program to $10 billion. Overall, BABA stock value has increased about 12.5 percent on a year-to-date basis.
Beyondspring Inc. (NASDAQ:BYSI) shares advanced over 9 percent this morning after Evercore ISI Group started coverage on the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The research firm issued a “Buy” rating for BYSI stock with a price target of $30 per share, significantly higher than the stock’s current trading price of around $11.5 per share.
Click to continue reading and see the day'sTop 5 Biggest Gainers and Losers.
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Disclosure: None.Tuesday’s Notable Market Movers in the Limelightis originally published at Insider Monkey. || Tuesday’s 10 Notable Market Movers in the Limelight: U.S. stocks continued their rally on Tuesday morning after the U.S. government approved the new Covid-19 relief package. At 12:17 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 Index rose 2.69 points, or 0.07 percent, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 37.62 points, or 0.29 percent, and Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 7.66 points or 0.03 percent. The surge in the S&P 500 on Tuesday morning was mainly driven by optimism that the new federal aid will help the economy to recover. On the other hand, the decline in Nasdaq is mainly attributed to the flat trading prices of big tech companies on the exchange. Tech giants including Apple ( AAPL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), Amazon ( AMZN ), and Alphabet ( GOOGL ) are either trading flat or down today. As of this morning, the S&P 500 had 21 new 52-week highs and zero new 52-week low, while Nasdaq had 161 new highs and 22 new lows. Meanwhile, European stock markets also reached a record high in more than 10 months. The Stoxx Europe 600 index advanced nearly 0.76 percent, the German DAX jumped 1.4 percent, and the French CAC surged 1 percent. Moreover, the FTSE MIB Italy index advanced 0.6 percent. In major news stories, Boeing’s previously grounded 737 Max plane returned to American Airlines. The 737 Max is set to take off after a gap of two years. Separately. Qualtrics International has filed for an initial public offering (IPO), a couple of years after being acquired by German business software giant SAP. The expected price range of $20 to $24 would translate to a market value of 12 billion to $14.4 billion. aerplane, flight, flying, traveling, holiday, plane, airport, usa, take off, jet Markus Mainka/shutterstock.com The initial rise in all three major indexes this morning was mainly fueled by President Donald Trump's consent for a $2.3 trillion fiscal bill, which will restore unemployment benefits for millions of U.S. residents. The bill also averted government shutdowns. The Trump administration has approved the proposal to lift the Covid-19 payment checks amount from $600 to $2,000. However, the proposal may face opposition from the Republicans in the Senate later today. Story continues In the meantime, nearly 189,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the U.S. on Monday, while about 1,900 people lost their lives due to the virus. On the bright side, more than 2 million people across the U.S. have received the Covid-19 vaccine so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the numbers are still well below the original target of 20 million set by the government. Health experts believe that U.S. officials may not be able to achieve the goal, as there are just a few days left in the year. The resurgence of the virus has compelled states to put more restrictions in place. For instance, Southern California is looking forward to extending a regional lockdown order due to the increasing infection rate and new virus strains. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has been under the spotlight, especially over the last two months. The biggest digital currency has skyrocketed more than 270 percent so far this year. BTC is currently trading around a record price of $27,000. Coming back to the U.S. stocks, lets have a look at the some of the notable movers of Tuesday morning. 10. JD.com Inc. (NASDAQ: JD ) JD.com Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) shares rose more than 3 percent today following the news that the Chinese e-commerce company is buying a 5.37 percent stake in Hong Kong-listed China Dili Group in a transaction valued at $103 million. The latest purchase will make JD the second-biggest shareholder of China Dili, which operates several agricultural produce wholesale markets across China. JD shares have performed well in 2020. Its stock value has increased nearly 140 percent on a year-to-date basis, including today’s gain. 9. Square Inc. (NYSE: SQ ) Square Inc. (NYSE:SQ) has declined for the fourth straight day. SQ shares are down more than 5 percent in the mid-day trading Tuesday. Multiple reports surfaced last week claimed that the digital-payment company is in discussions with music mogul Jay-Z for acquiring his music-streaming service Tidal. Jay-Z bought Tidal back in 2015 for $56 million. However, the reports also mentioned that the negotiations may not end up in a successful deal. 8. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC ) Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) shares are trading higher on heavy volume in the mid-day trading Tuesday following multiple reports that activist hedge fund Third Point LLC is compelling the chipmaker giant to look for strategic alternatives. Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb wrote in a letter to INTC that the company should immediately do something to further strengthen its position in the PC and data centers chip market. Third Point reportedly holds a stake of nearly $1 billion in Intel. 7. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA ) Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) shares are recovering from a sharp decline it suffered last week. The drop came after Chinese regulators started investigating the e-commerce giant over alleged monopolistic practices. However, the stock is up more than 7 percent today. Meanwhile, BABA recently announced that it is increasing its stock repurchase program to $10 billion. Overall, BABA stock value has increased about 12.5 percent on a year-to-date basis. 6. Beyondspring Inc. (NASDAQ: BYSI ) Beyondspring Inc. (NASDAQ:BYSI) shares advanced over 9 percent this morning after Evercore ISI Group started coverage on the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The research firm issued a “Buy” rating for BYSI stock with a price target of $30 per share, significantly higher than the stock’s current trading price of around $11.5 per share. Click to continue reading and see the day's Top 5 Biggest Gainers and Losers . Suggested Articles: 10 Best Dow Stocks To Buy Now Billionaire Lee Cooperman's Top 10 Stock Picks Top 10 ESG Stocks To Buy Now Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/insidermonkey Disclosure: None. Tuesday’s Notable Market Movers in the Limelight is originally published at Insider Monkey. || Square soared in 2020, even as the pandemic hit its core customers: Square’s bread-and-butter customers are small businesses, the same businesseshit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s unsurprising that Square swung to a net loss in Q1 ($10 million) and Q2 ($11 million).
Then, Square (SQ) bounced back dramatically, boosted by use of its Cash App and by a slew of analyst upgrades to the stock,based on the reasoning that Square will help those same small businesses recover from the pandemicby digitizing and beefing up their e-commerce operations.
Shares are up an eye-popping 250% in 2020. (Interestingly, Squareunderperformed the market in 2019, rising just 17%, aftersoaring 62% in 2018.)
TheQ3 earnings numbers from Novemberpaint a picture of a company doing a lot right. Square returned to a profit of $37 million, with revenue up 140% year-over-year to $3.03 billion. Cash App revenue rose 174% year-over-year, and profit rose 212%. Cash App is also the home of Square’s bitcoin buying and trading feature, which itadded to the app in 2018. Square’s bitcoin revenue was $1.63 billion in Q3, its first quarter with more than $1 billion in bitcoin revenue, and its bitcoin profit was $32 million, up 1,500% from Q3 2019. Thirty-two million dollars is small for a company with a $95 billion market cap, but as BTIG analyst Mark Palmer said this week on Yahoo Finance Live, Square’s bitcoin play is “a means of customer acquisition, and a very inexpensive means of customer acquisition.” Square alsobought $50 million worth of bitcoin as an asset on its balance sheetin November, another inexpensive move (amounting to 1% of Square’s assets) that further aligned Square with the 2020 bitcoin price surge.
While the bitcoin moves have garnered a lot of headlines, Cash App has been the more compelling story in 2020, illustrated by the first round of government stimulus checks. Cash App allowed unbanked and underbanked customers to cash their government stimulus checks more quickly, making Square in 2020 an economic inclusion story.
“The Cash App story has been extraordinary,” Palmer says. “We think Cash App user growth is going to continue to be 30% in 2021, 30% again in 2022. And one thing that should be kept in mind is that while PayPal is operating in over 200 countries, the Cash App is only available in the U.S. and the U.K. So the potential to bring the Cash App international is enormous.”
Square also further expanded its ecosystem this year by acquiring Credit Karma Tax for $50 million. As Palmer puts it, “They have now gotten to the point where they are throughout a consumer's financial life. So they are involved in spending, they're involved in saving. The next leg of that, as far as the Cash App is concerned, is tax. It's another element that's in everybody's life. And so we view this as just another means through which Square can attract more users to the Cash App.”
In some ways, the Square story mirrors the Airbnb (ABNB) story in 2020: The pandemic hammered their businesses at first, then facilitated their rebound. (Square is a much stronger business financially, yet their market caps are about the same thanks to the enormous demand for Airbnb shares, whichwent public this month.) Airbnb bounced back by cutting 25% of its staff andembracing a customer shift toward drivable bookings and longer stays; Square bounced back by helping businesses climb out of the pandemic with new features like Online Checkout, launched in May, which allows merchants not already using Square to rapidly set up e-commerce operations.
Beyond the pandemic, Oppenheimer analysts wrote in September, Square is positioned “for outsized share gains as economic activity normalizes.” That sounds like the company could have an even bigger 2021—though much will depend on the course of the pandemic, something beyond the company’s control.
—
Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers bitcoin and blockchain. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
Bitcoin shatters $20,000 mark as late 2020 surge continues
Square's bitcoin bet is paying off
Visa has quietly warmed to crypto, along with PayPal and Square
Square is positioned to be a winner by helping small businesses digitize post-pandemic: Oppenheimer
Why bitcoin and altcoins are hot again this summer
Square is Yahoo Finance’s 2018 Company of the Year
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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29001.72, 29374.15, 32127.27, 32782.02, 31971.91, 33992.43, 36824.36, 39371.04, 40797.61, 40254.55
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 40797.61, 40254.55, 38356.44, 35566.66, 33922.96, 37316.36, 39187.33, 36825.37, 36178.14, 35791.28, 36630.07, 36069.80, 35547.75, 30825.70, 33005.76, 32067.64, 32289.38, 32366.39, 32569.85, 30432.55, 33466.10, 34316.39, 34269.52, 33114.36, 33537.18, 35510.29, 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44, 46196.46, 46481.11, 44918.18, 47909.33, 47504.85, 47105.52, 48717.29, 47945.06, 49199.87, 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92, 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-04-07]
Volume: 75645303584, RSI (14-day): 49.06, 50-day EMA: 53309.30, 200-day EMA: 35837.05
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1740.10, Gold RSI: 51.33
Oil Price: 59.77, Oil RSI: 47.63
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
This Sleek, Solar-Powered Pop-Up Camper Adds a Shower, Kitchen and Office to Your Tesla Cybertruck: Stream It thinks it can make the Tesla Cybertruck even more cutting-edge by turning it into a transforming camper The Las Vegas-based tech outfit has just unveiled the Cyberlandr , an after-market camper shell for Tesla’s eagerly anticipated all-electric pickup. Even though it’s small enough to fit in the EV’s truck bed when fully broken down, the collapsible structure will allow you to take your whole home with you on the road. More from Robb Report The Best Propane Camping Grills for Cooking in the Great Outdoors This Land Rover Defender Camper Conversion Will Bring Rugged and Retro Style to the Campground You Can Now Buy a Tesla With Bitcoin, According to a 3am Tweet From Elon Musk The company debuted the high-tech camper add-on in a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday. The 70-second clip shows off an appropriately minimalist pop-up camper shell that is small enough to stow away completely but still has enough room for a bathroom and a multi-use living area when fully opened up. So how did Stream It manage to pack so much into such a compact structure? By being creative, of course. The living area can be used for any of three things: meal prep, work and sleep, according to a press release . The area features a counter area with a large sink, two integrated induction burners to cook on and a refrigerator. When you’re not cooking, two free-standing chairs can be used as your work area, thanks to two pivoting desks. When you’re done for the day, or just need a good nap, the chairs can be unfolded and raised and turned into a sleeping area. The bathroom, meanwhile, looks like a simple stall but is also equipped with a showerhead. It looks a bit spartan but that’s to be expected when you’re talking about a camper shell so small that you can’t tell it’s even equipped when the Cybertruck’s tonneau cover is down and its tailgate is closed. The Cyberlandr isn’t completely devoid of frills, though. The entire camper has heated floors and there’s also a voice-activated faucet, four-stage water filtration system and a 32-inch flat-screen TV that can be used for work or play. If you’re wondering where the juice to fuel all these features comes from, look no further than the structure’s slide-out solar roof panels. Story continues Though the Cybertruck is still a year or two away from the market, you can reserve your Cyberlandr now through the company’s website . The camper shell will cost $49,995, but there are several discounts available for early adopters. It’s a testament to the Cybertruck’s popularity online that this isn’t the first camper add-on we’ve seen for the pickup. Last year, the “Cyber Camper” concept started making the rounds on enthusiast websites and forums. Tesla has also said they’re working on a camper and trailer add-ons of their very own, too. Best of Robb Report The Chevy C8 Corvette: Everything We Know About the Powerful Mid-Engine Beast The World’s Best Superyacht Shipyards The ABCs of Chartering a Yacht Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . || This Sleek, Solar-Powered Pop-Up Camper Adds a Shower, Kitchen and Office to Your Tesla Cybertruck: Stream It thinks it can make the Tesla Cybertruck even more cutting-edge by turning it into a transforming camper The Las Vegas-based tech outfit has just unveiled the Cyberlandr , an after-market camper shell for Tesla’s eagerly anticipated all-electric pickup. Even though it’s small enough to fit in the EV’s truck bed when fully broken down, the collapsible structure will allow you to take your whole home with you on the road. More from Robb Report The Best Propane Camping Grills for Cooking in the Great Outdoors This Land Rover Defender Camper Conversion Will Bring Rugged and Retro Style to the Campground You Can Now Buy a Tesla With Bitcoin, According to a 3am Tweet From Elon Musk The company debuted the high-tech camper add-on in a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday. The 70-second clip shows off an appropriately minimalist pop-up camper shell that is small enough to stow away completely but still has enough room for a bathroom and a multi-use living area when fully opened up. So how did Stream It manage to pack so much into such a compact structure? By being creative, of course. The living area can be used for any of three things: meal prep, work and sleep, according to a press release . The area features a counter area with a large sink, two integrated induction burners to cook on and a refrigerator. When you’re not cooking, two free-standing chairs can be used as your work area, thanks to two pivoting desks. When you’re done for the day, or just need a good nap, the chairs can be unfolded and raised and turned into a sleeping area. The bathroom, meanwhile, looks like a simple stall but is also equipped with a showerhead. It looks a bit spartan but that’s to be expected when you’re talking about a camper shell so small that you can’t tell it’s even equipped when the Cybertruck’s tonneau cover is down and its tailgate is closed. The Cyberlandr isn’t completely devoid of frills, though. The entire camper has heated floors and there’s also a voice-activated faucet, four-stage water filtration system and a 32-inch flat-screen TV that can be used for work or play. If you’re wondering where the juice to fuel all these features comes from, look no further than the structure’s slide-out solar roof panels. Story continues Though the Cybertruck is still a year or two away from the market, you can reserve your Cyberlandr now through the company’s website . The camper shell will cost $49,995, but there are several discounts available for early adopters. It’s a testament to the Cybertruck’s popularity online that this isn’t the first camper add-on we’ve seen for the pickup. Last year, the “Cyber Camper” concept started making the rounds on enthusiast websites and forums. Tesla has also said they’re working on a camper and trailer add-ons of their very own, too. Best of Robb Report The Chevy C8 Corvette: Everything We Know About the Powerful Mid-Engine Beast The World’s Best Superyacht Shipyards The ABCs of Chartering a Yacht Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . || Renewable Energy Deadline Alert: Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses Exceeding $50,000 In Renewable Energy To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - April 6, 2021) - Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against Renewable Energy Group, Inc. ("Renewable Energy" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: REGI) and reminds investors of the May 3, 2021 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. If you suffered losses exceeding $50,000 investing in Renewable Energy stock or options between May 3, 2018 and February 25, 2021 and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310) . You may also click here for additional information: www.faruqilaw.com/REGI . There is no cost or obligation to you. Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading minority and Woman-owned national securities law firm with offices in New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia. As detailed below, the lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose: (1) that due to failures in the diesel additive system, petroleum diesel was not periodically added to certain loads by the Company and was instead added by the Company's customers; (2) that, as a result, Renewable Energy was not the proper claimant for certain BTC payments on biodiesel it sold between January 1, 2017 and September 30, 2020; (3) that, as a result, Renewable Energy's revenue and net income were overstated for certain periods; (4) that there was a material weakness in the Company's internal control over financial reporting related to the purchase and use of the petroleum diesel gallons when blending with biodiesel; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. Story continues On this news, the Company's share price fell $8.17, or 9.5%, to close at $77.77 per share on February 26, 2021, on unusually heavy trading volume. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Renewable Energy to conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP ( www.faruqilaw.com ). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/79626 || Renewable Energy Deadline Alert: Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses Exceeding $50,000 In Renewable Energy To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - April 6, 2021) - Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against Renewable Energy Group, Inc. ("Renewable Energy" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: REGI) and reminds investors of the May 3, 2021 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company.
If you suffered losses exceeding $50,000 investing in Renewable Energy stock or options between May 3, 2018 and February 25, 2021and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partnerJosh Wilson directlyat877-247-4292or212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). You may also click here for additional information:www.faruqilaw.com/REGI.
There is no cost or obligation to you.
Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading minority and Woman-owned national securities law firm with offices in New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia.
As detailed below, the lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose: (1) that due to failures in the diesel additive system, petroleum diesel was not periodically added to certain loads by the Company and was instead added by the Company's customers; (2) that, as a result, Renewable Energy was not the proper claimant for certain BTC payments on biodiesel it sold between January 1, 2017 and September 30, 2020; (3) that, as a result, Renewable Energy's revenue and net income were overstated for certain periods; (4) that there was a material weakness in the Company's internal control over financial reporting related to the purchase and use of the petroleum diesel gallons when blending with biodiesel; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
On this news, the Company's share price fell $8.17, or 9.5%, to close at $77.77 per share on February 26, 2021, on unusually heavy trading volume.
The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not.
Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Renewable Energy to conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.
Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner.
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/79626 || Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up: The “Quarterly Review 2021” by CoinDesk Research looks at driving trends in crypto markets, focusing on Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, NFTs, DeFi and more. While the industry growth of Q4 2020 was driven largely by institutional participation in the asset markets and infrastructure, Q1 2021 told a more nuanced story. Activity from institutional investors seems to be slowing down but they are still key, and several of the quarter’s milestones point to that continuing for the next few months at least. However, certain metrics show that interest from retail investors and traders is picking up, bringing in new flows and investment patterns. Let’s look at some of the details: Market milestones Related: Square Crypto’s New Grant Funds Popular Bitcoin Blockchain Explorer First, bitcoin’s market cap crossed $1 trillion in Q1. This is significant in that many institutional investors will not even consider an asset group until it is of sufficient size to merit the attention, and $1 trillion is a strong psychological level. So, institutional investors are more likely to dedicate resources to investigating and learning about bitcoin than they were in 2020. Exchange volumes tell a story They’re not doing so en masse just yet, though. The surge in trading volume from exchanges the institutions would typically use (LMAX Digital, Coinbase and others) trailed off in Q1, with declines across most. Open interest growth points to increasing leverage BTC futures trading volumes was more or less flat in Q1, with occasional spikes. Open interest, however, continued to grow, pointing to increasing leverage which can be taken as a sign of increasing trading (rather than investing) activity. CME overtaken It can also be seen in the shifting ranking of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in terms of open interest (OI). In January, it reached position #1, with the highest OI in the market. Its OI has continued to grow, but more retail-focused exchanges with higher leverage such as Binance and Bybit have since accelerated and overtaken it. Story continues Spot vs. futures volumes Related: NFT Frenzy Shows Signs of Cooling, But Don't Call It a Market Crash Another metric backing this up is the ratio of spot to futures volumes. Institutional and long-term investors tend to favor spot exchanges, so when this ratio starts to decline, it can be taken as another point of evidence that traders are starting to account for more market activity. Transaction growth trails off Moving to on-chain data, the Q4 surge in transaction count and total value transferred on the Bitcoin blockchain trailed off in Q1, hinting at greater holding behavior. The growth in average transaction size in USD leveled off, even in the face of continued price increases, indicating more small-holder participation. Small investors pick up activity The increased participation of small investors can also be seen in the growth in bitcoin addresses. The number of non-zero addresses continued to soar in Q1, while those holding over 1,000 BTC fell, showing that the bulk of the growth was from small holdings. The number of active addresses (those sending and/or receiving in any given day) held relatively constant over the quarter, hinting that most of the new entrants are buying to hold. Velocity continues to slow The tendency to hold bitcoin rather than trade or transact is also seen in the resumed decline of bitcoin’s velocity, defined as the trailing 12-month transaction volume divided by the current supply. Related Stories Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up || Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up: The “Quarterly Review 2021”by CoinDesk Research looks at driving trends in crypto markets, focusing on Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, NFTs, DeFi and more.
While the industry growth of Q4 2020 was driven largely by institutional participation in the asset markets and infrastructure, Q1 2021 told a more nuanced story. Activity from institutional investors seems to be slowing down but they are still key, and several of the quarter’s milestones point to that continuing for the next few months at least. However, certain metrics show that interest from retail investors and traders is picking up, bringing in new flows and investment patterns.
Let’s look at some of the details:
Related:Square Crypto’s New Grant Funds Popular Bitcoin Blockchain Explorer
First, bitcoin’s market cap crossed $1 trillion in Q1. This is significant in that many institutional investors will not even consider an asset group until it is of sufficient size to merit the attention, and $1 trillion is a strong psychological level. So, institutional investors are more likely to dedicate resources to investigating and learning aboutbitcointhan they were in 2020.
They’re not doing so en masse just yet, though. The surge in trading volume from exchanges the institutions would typically use (LMAX Digital, Coinbase and others) trailed off in Q1, with declines across most.
BTC futures trading volumes was more or less flat in Q1, with occasional spikes. Open interest, however, continued to grow, pointing to increasing leverage which can be taken as a sign of increasing trading (rather than investing) activity.
It can also be seen in the shifting ranking of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in terms of open interest (OI). In January, it reached position #1, with the highest OI in the market. Its OI has continued to grow, but more retail-focused exchanges with higher leverage such as Binance and Bybit have since accelerated and overtaken it.
Related:NFT Frenzy Shows Signs of Cooling, But Don't Call It a Market Crash
Another metric backing this up is the ratio of spot to futures volumes. Institutional and long-term investors tend to favor spot exchanges, so when this ratio starts to decline, it can be taken as another point of evidence that traders are starting to account for more market activity.
Moving to on-chain data, the Q4 surge in transaction count and total value transferred on the Bitcoin blockchain trailed off in Q1, hinting at greater holding behavior. The growth in average transaction size in USD leveled off, even in the face of continued price increases, indicating more small-holder participation.
The increased participation of small investors can also be seen in the growth in bitcoin addresses. The number of non-zero addresses continued to soar in Q1, while those holding over 1,000 BTC fell, showing that the bulk of the growth was from small holdings. The number of active addresses (those sending and/or receiving in any given day) held relatively constant over the quarter, hinting that most of the new entrants are buying to hold.
The tendency to hold bitcoin rather than trade or transact is also seen in the resumed decline of bitcoin’s velocity, defined as the trailing 12-month transaction volume divided by the current supply.
• Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up
• Q1 2021: Institutional Growth Slows Down, Retail Ramps Up || Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again: Tokyo-headquartered global cryptocurrency firm bitFlyer has a new president – for the third time in two years. According to an announcement , the new president, Goldman Sachs alum Kuniyoshi Hayashi, replaced outgoing President Kimihiro Mine on March 30. bitFlyer is the leading digital assets exchange in Japan, with over 2.5 million users worldwide. IT is licensed in Japan, the U.S. and the European Union. Related: The “Mural Building” in Chicago Is Up for Sale; Owner Will Accept Bitcoin The firm first replaced its co-founder and president, Yuzo Kano, with Yoshio Hirako in January 2019. Five months later, Hirako was replaced by Mine. In addition to Hayashi’s appointment, bitFlyer also introduced two new members to the board of directors: Masaaki Seki was named director while Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer at bitFlyer USA, became the first non-Japanese director of the global firm. This latest change in management signaled instability within the firm, prompting Asian business publication Nikkei to observe that bitFlyer was wandering off course. But Edgerton told CoinDesk the latest company reshuffle was part of bitFlyer’s larger strategy to go global, and that the timing for the changes was not random. Related: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Regulatory Status of Cryptocurrencies Needs to Be ‘Dealt With’ “In Japan, the fiscal year ends at the end of March. Whenever we make changes, it tends to be at this time. … So the timing’s actually normal for us and discussions have been going on for quite a while internally,” Edgerton said. According to Edgerton, bitFlyer founder Kano stepped away in 2019 so the firm could quickly respond to the regulatory changes taking place in Japan’s crypto space. The country’s financial authority FSA doubled down on regulations for crypto exchanges in 2018 after Japanese digital assets exchange Coincheck suffered the largest cryptocurrency hack in history, confirming that around $533 million was stolen from the exchange. Soon after the incident, the FSA temporarily suspended two crypto exchanges (including Coincheck) and expanded the team that handled exchange licensing. Story continues “The Japanese government started going to different cryptocurrency companies, basically telling them, ‘OK, you guys need to be more like traditional finance companies, and you need to have this type of structure and regulations and controls in place.’ So we had to make a change to do that,” Edgerton said referring to the management shuffle in 2019. But now that the firm is licensed and fully compliant with local regulations, bitFlyer is looking to focus on expanding its global influence, Edgerton says. He added that bitFlyer’s hyperfocus on the Japanese market has created a strong crypto payments system in the country that can be used as a model elsewhere. “You can go into a bookstore in Japan and get loyalty points linked to your bitFlyer account and crypto. You can also go into electronic stores and buy electronics using crypto in Japan. So these types of real-world use cases that are not really tied to trading, per se, are things we also want to roll out to the rest of the world,” Edgerton said. The new president, Hayashi, a University of Tokyo graduate who worked at Goldman Sachs Japan, has “international experience,” according to Edgerton, which he says is a key point. He said his own addition to the board of directors (as the first non-Japanese executive) signals how serious bitFlyer is about establishing itself as a global entity. Although Kano – also a University of Tokyo and Goldman Sachs alum – is no longer president of the firm, he remains chief executive officer of bitFlyer USA and chairman of the European branch of the company. Related Stories Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again || Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again: Tokyo-headquartered global cryptocurrency firmbitFlyerhas a new president – for the third time in two years.
According to anannouncement, the new president, Goldman Sachs alum Kuniyoshi Hayashi, replaced outgoing President Kimihiro Mine on March 30.
bitFlyer is the leading digital assets exchange in Japan, with over 2.5 million users worldwide. IT islicensedin Japan, the U.S. and the European Union.
Related:The “Mural Building” in Chicago Is Up for Sale; Owner Will Accept Bitcoin
The firm firstreplacedits co-founder and president, Yuzo Kano, with Yoshio Hirako in January 2019. Five months later, Hirako wasreplacedby Mine.
In addition to Hayashi’s appointment, bitFlyer also introduced two new members to the board of directors: Masaaki Seki was named director while Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer at bitFlyer USA, became the first non-Japanese director of the global firm.
This latest change in management signaled instability within the firm, prompting Asian business publication Nikkei toobservethat bitFlyer was wandering off course.
But Edgerton told CoinDesk the latest company reshuffle was part of bitFlyer’s larger strategy to go global, and that the timing for the changes was not random.
Related:JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Regulatory Status of Cryptocurrencies Needs to Be ‘Dealt With’
“In Japan, the fiscal year ends at the end of March. Whenever we make changes, it tends to be at this time. … So the timing’s actually normal for us and discussions have been going on for quite a while internally,” Edgerton said.
According to Edgerton, bitFlyer founder Kano stepped away in 2019 so the firm could quickly respond to the regulatory changes taking place in Japan’s crypto space.
The country’s financial authority FSA doubled down on regulations for crypto exchanges in 2018 after Japanese digital assets exchange Coincheck suffered the largest cryptocurrency hack in history,confirmingthat around $533 million was stolen from the exchange. Soon after the incident, the FSA temporarilysuspendedtwo crypto exchanges (including Coincheck) andexpandedthe team that handled exchange licensing.
“The Japanese government started going to different cryptocurrency companies, basically telling them, ‘OK, you guys need to be more like traditional finance companies, and you need to have this type of structure and regulations and controls in place.’ So we had to make a change to do that,” Edgerton said referring to the management shuffle in 2019.
But now that the firm is licensed and fully compliant with local regulations, bitFlyer is looking to focus on expanding its global influence, Edgerton says. He added that bitFlyer’s hyperfocus on the Japanese market has created a strong crypto payments system in the country that can be used as a model elsewhere.
“You can go into a bookstore in Japan and get loyalty points linked to your bitFlyer account and crypto. You can also go into electronic stores and buy electronics using crypto in Japan. So these types of real-world use cases that are not really tied to trading, per se, are things we also want to roll out to the rest of the world,” Edgerton said.
The new president, Hayashi, a University of Tokyo graduate who worked at Goldman Sachs Japan, has “international experience,” according to Edgerton, which he says is a key point. He said his own addition to the board of directors (as the first non-Japanese executive) signals how serious bitFlyer is about establishing itself as a global entity.
Although Kano – also a University of Tokyo and Goldman Sachs alum – is no longer president of the firm, heremainschief executive officer of bitFlyer USA and chairman of the European branch of the company.
• Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again
• Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again || Missouri man heartbroken over breakup tried to buy chemical weapon on dark web, feds say: A Missouri man accused of trying to buy a chemical weapon capable of killing hundreds is going to prison, authorities say. Jason Siesser, a 46-year-old Columbia man, pleaded guilty last year to attempting to acquire a chemical weapon and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison. In July 2018, undercover officers watched as Siesser paid Bitcoin to a seller on the dark web for a chemical weapon, according to court documents. Though the exact chemical weapon is not disclosed by authorities, it’s described as a “highly toxic liquid” that “may produce life-threatening systemic effects with only a single drop.” Siesser ordered an amount that could’ve killed hundreds of people using a child’s name, authorities say. “I plan to use it soon after I receive it,” Siesser told the seller, according to court documents. “I don’t really have any concerns. If you have any tips or care to offer advice feel free.” When the package arrived at his Columbia home, authorities watched Siesser sign for the delivery and open his front door to ventilate the residence, according to court documents. Then they executed a search warrant. Inside, they found the package that “contained an inert substance” next to packages with cadmium arsenide, which is a toxic compound, cadmium metal and hydrochloric acid, authorities say. They also found rhyming poems about a breakup and a “desire for the person who caused the heartache to die,” authorities say. In an interview, Siesser said he divorced his wife the year before and a woman with whom he went on three dates had broken up with him, which left him depressed, authorities say. “Siesser wrote fictional stories about men exacting vengeance on ex-girlfriends,” court documents say. “In one story, a man used a fertilizer spreader to lace a woman’s yard with asbestos, which ultimately killed her decades later. In another story, a man locked a woman in scuba gear in a submerged box so she would die when her oxygen tank was depleted.” Siesser said he ordered the chemical for experiments related to “bio-hacking,” which is a “form of gene editing through protein manipulation.” However, his home contained no other lab equipment and Siesser was not trained or educated in chemistry, authorities say. He was employed by a group home for children under contract with the state of Missouri at the time of the investigation, authorities say. Deadly butt injection at Missouri hotel leads to prison for Texas woman, officials say View comments || Missouri man heartbroken over breakup tried to buy chemical weapon on dark web, feds say: A Missouri man accused of trying to buy a chemical weapon capable of killing hundreds is going to prison, authorities say. Jason Siesser, a 46-year-old Columbia man, pleaded guilty last year to attempting to acquire a chemical weapon and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison. In July 2018, undercover officers watched as Siesser paid Bitcoin to a seller on the dark web for a chemical weapon, according to court documents. Though the exact chemical weapon is not disclosed by authorities, it’s described as a “highly toxic liquid” that “may produce life-threatening systemic effects with only a single drop.” Siesser ordered an amount that could’ve killed hundreds of people using a child’s name, authorities say. “I plan to use it soon after I receive it,” Siesser told the seller, according to court documents. “I don’t really have any concerns. If you have any tips or care to offer advice feel free.” When the package arrived at his Columbia home, authorities watched Siesser sign for the delivery and open his front door to ventilate the residence, according to court documents. Then they executed a search warrant. Inside, they found the package that “contained an inert substance” next to packages with cadmium arsenide, which is a toxic compound, cadmium metal and hydrochloric acid, authorities say. They also found rhyming poems about a breakup and a “desire for the person who caused the heartache to die,” authorities say. In an interview, Siesser said he divorced his wife the year before and a woman with whom he went on three dates had broken up with him, which left him depressed, authorities say. “Siesser wrote fictional stories about men exacting vengeance on ex-girlfriends,” court documents say. “In one story, a man used a fertilizer spreader to lace a woman’s yard with asbestos, which ultimately killed her decades later. In another story, a man locked a woman in scuba gear in a submerged box so she would die when her oxygen tank was depleted.” Story continues Siesser said he ordered the chemical for experiments related to “bio-hacking,” which is a “form of gene editing through protein manipulation.” However, his home contained no other lab equipment and Siesser was not trained or educated in chemistry, authorities say. He was employed by a group home for children under contract with the state of Missouri at the time of the investigation, authorities say. Deadly butt injection at Missouri hotel leads to prison for Texas woman, officials say || Missouri man heartbroken over breakup tried to buy chemical weapon on dark web, feds say: A Missouri man accused of trying to buy a chemical weapon capable of killing hundreds is going to prison, authorities say. Jason Siesser, a 46-year-old Columbia man, pleaded guilty last year to attempting to acquire a chemical weapon and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison. In July 2018, undercover officers watched as Siesser paid Bitcoin to a seller on the dark web for a chemical weapon, according to court documents. Though the exact chemical weapon is not disclosed by authorities, it’s described as a “highly toxic liquid” that “may produce life-threatening systemic effects with only a single drop.” Siesser ordered an amount that could’ve killed hundreds of people using a child’s name, authorities say. “I plan to use it soon after I receive it,” Siesser told the seller, according to court documents. “I don’t really have any concerns. If you have any tips or care to offer advice feel free.” When the package arrived at his Columbia home, authorities watched Siesser sign for the delivery and open his front door to ventilate the residence, according to court documents. Then they executed a search warrant. Inside, they found the package that “contained an inert substance” next to packages with cadmium arsenide, which is a toxic compound, cadmium metal and hydrochloric acid, authorities say. They also found rhyming poems about a breakup and a “desire for the person who caused the heartache to die,” authorities say. In an interview, Siesser said he divorced his wife the year before and a woman with whom he went on three dates had broken up with him, which left him depressed, authorities say. “Siesser wrote fictional stories about men exacting vengeance on ex-girlfriends,” court documents say. “In one story, a man used a fertilizer spreader to lace a woman’s yard with asbestos, which ultimately killed her decades later. In another story, a man locked a woman in scuba gear in a submerged box so she would die when her oxygen tank was depleted.” Siesser said he ordered the chemical for experiments related to “bio-hacking,” which is a “form of gene editing through protein manipulation.” However, his home contained no other lab equipment and Siesser was not trained or educated in chemistry, authorities say. He was employed by a group home for children under contract with the state of Missouri at the time of the investigation, authorities say. Deadly butt injection at Missouri hotel leads to prison for Texas woman, officials say View comments || Missouri man heartbroken over breakup tried to buy chemical weapon on dark web, feds say: A Missouri man accused of trying to buy a chemical weapon capable of killing hundreds is going to prison, authorities say. Jason Siesser, a 46-year-old Columbia man, pleaded guilty last year to attempting to acquire a chemical weapon and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison. In July 2018, undercover officers watched as Siesser paid Bitcoin to a seller on the dark web for a chemical weapon, according to court documents. Though the exact chemical weapon is not disclosed by authorities, it’s described as a “highly toxic liquid” that “may produce life-threatening systemic effects with only a single drop.” Siesser ordered an amount that could’ve killed hundreds of people using a child’s name, authorities say. “I plan to use it soon after I receive it,” Siesser told the seller, according to court documents. “I don’t really have any concerns. If you have any tips or care to offer advice feel free.” When the package arrived at his Columbia home, authorities watched Siesser sign for the delivery and open his front door to ventilate the residence, according to court documents. Then they executed a search warrant. Inside, they found the package that “contained an inert substance” next to packages with cadmium arsenide, which is a toxic compound, cadmium metal and hydrochloric acid, authorities say. They also found rhyming poems about a breakup and a “desire for the person who caused the heartache to die,” authorities say. In an interview, Siesser said he divorced his wife the year before and a woman with whom he went on three dates had broken up with him, which left him depressed, authorities say. “Siesser wrote fictional stories about men exacting vengeance on ex-girlfriends,” court documents say. “In one story, a man used a fertilizer spreader to lace a woman’s yard with asbestos, which ultimately killed her decades later. In another story, a man locked a woman in scuba gear in a submerged box so she would die when her oxygen tank was depleted.” Story continues Siesser said he ordered the chemical for experiments related to “bio-hacking,” which is a “form of gene editing through protein manipulation.” However, his home contained no other lab equipment and Siesser was not trained or educated in chemistry, authorities say. He was employed by a group home for children under contract with the state of Missouri at the time of the investigation, authorities say. Deadly butt injection at Missouri hotel leads to prison for Texas woman, officials say || Tim Cook Hints at Apple’s Electric Car, Sings Tesla’s Praises: The media, Apple fans and the general public have been speculating about an Apple autonomous electric vehicle project since 2014. A Reuters report last December made it seem as if it was nearly a done deal, with the announcement that Apple was targeting a self-driving passenger vehicle launch by 2024. Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to confirm nor deny developments of a self-driving EV to Kara Swisher, from Sway, although certain statements seemed to hint that the project is still in the works.
See:The True Cost of Going ElectricFind:5 Questions To Ask Before Buying an Electric Vehicle
Pointing out the fact that an autonomous vehicle is, essentially, a robot, Cook told Sway, “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view…. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does. We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.”
In June 2019, Apple bought autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai. Swisher asked if Apple had plans to develop a car or simply “the technology within the car.” Although Cook refused to answer the question directly, he said, “We love to integrate hardware, software and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs. And so that’s what we love to do. And we love to own the primary technology that’s around that.”
Swisher took that to mean an autonomous electric vehicle was on the horizon for the leading technology developer.
See:Tesla Will Soon Accept Bitcoin as PaymentFind:Apple Now World’s Most Profitable Business
Swisher also asked Cook about Tesla’s offer to buy Apple in the company’s earlier days. “I’ve never spoken to Elon,” Cook said, “although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead, for such a long period of time in the EV space,” Cook told Swisher.
In spite of tech stocks dipping in recent weeks, both Apple and Tesla were up at market close on Monday.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Tim Cook Hints at Apple’s Electric Car, Sings Tesla’s Praises || Tim Cook Hints at Apple’s Electric Car, Sings Tesla’s Praises: Laura Hutton / Shutterstock.com The media, Apple fans and the general public have been speculating about an Apple autonomous electric vehicle project since 2014. A Reuters report last December made it seem as if it was nearly a done deal, with the announcement that Apple was targeting a self-driving passenger vehicle launch by 2024. Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to confirm nor deny developments of a self-driving EV to Kara Swisher, from Sway, although certain statements seemed to hint that the project is still in the works. See: The True Cost of Going Electric Find: 5 Questions To Ask Before Buying an Electric Vehicle Pointing out the fact that an autonomous vehicle is, essentially, a robot, Cook told Sway, “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view…. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does. We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.” In June 2019, Apple bought autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai. Swisher asked if Apple had plans to develop a car or simply “the technology within the car.” Although Cook refused to answer the question directly, he said, “We love to integrate hardware, software and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs. And so that’s what we love to do. And we love to own the primary technology that’s around that.” Swisher took that to mean an autonomous electric vehicle was on the horizon for the leading technology developer. See: Tesla Will Soon Accept Bitcoin as Payment Find: Apple Now World’s Most Profitable Business Swisher also asked Cook about Tesla’s offer to buy Apple in the company’s earlier days. “I’ve never spoken to Elon,” Cook said, “although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead, for such a long period of time in the EV space,” Cook told Swisher. Story continues In spite of tech stocks dipping in recent weeks, both Apple and Tesla were up at market close on Monday. More From GOBankingRates Nominate Your Favorite Small Business and Share With Your Community Should the COVID-19 Vaccine Be Required? Take Our Poll What Income Level Is Considered Middle Class in Your State? 20 Ways To Pay Less at Costco This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Tim Cook Hints at Apple’s Electric Car, Sings Tesla’s Praises || Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says: Just because bitcoin has quintupled in value over the past few months, that doesn’t mean the U.S. dollar is about to get knocked off its perch as the world’s leading currency, according to a top foreign exchange analyst. For one thing, central banks around the globe own roughly $3.1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt that is denominated in greenbacks, and so have little incentive to let the dollar lose power to a cryptocurrency, said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. “What stands behind [the U.S. dollar] is something that the crypto space has not yet innovated and that is that central banks hold their dollars in Treasury bonds – not just in dollars but they have these Treasury bonds behind them,” Chandler said on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” show Tuesday . Related: The “Mural Building” in Chicago Is Up for Sale; Owner Will Accept Bitcoin Chandler, whose storied career included stints as the top FX strategist at such leading financial institutions as Mellon Bank, HSBC and Brown Brothers Harriman, said his view is in line with those of regulators. He noted that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently remarked that he sees cryptocurrencies as a potential substitute for gold. But as a replacement for the dollar? Not so much. “It doesn’t look like it’s really money,” said Chandler, “meaning, a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account.” However, he said there’s one way he could change his mind. Related: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Regulatory Status of Cryptocurrencies Needs to Be ‘Dealt With’ “For me, the smell test of all this will be when tax officials, when the [U.S. Internal Revenue Service] says, ‘Yes, you can pay your taxes in crypto.’ Taxes seem to be the origin of money in many ways,” said Chandler. “When the IRS or some other major tax authorities say you can pay your taxes in crypto, then I’ll believe it’s money.” Story continues Cyclical, not secular While Chandler doesn’t classify himself as a dollar bull, he doesn’t see it losing its top spot, notwithstanding a recent weakening in exchange rates against foreign currencies. “We’re having a correction,” he said. “The third big dollar rally since the Bretton Woods [Agreement of 1944] is over, but I think you can have a cyclical decline of the dollar without it changing its fundamental position in the world economy.” Although central banks in countries such as China may be looking at digitizing their currencies, not much would threaten the greenback’s position, according to Chandler. On the one hand, “a digital central bank currency increases what we call ‘the C3’: command, control and communication,” he said. “It allows the Chinese government to better monitor the flows of money. … It will help curb tax evasion, for example. It will help curb the underground economy, which in some countries is very substantial. At the same time, it will help bank people who are not banked yet.” However, “I’m still not convinced that because you can have a digital chip on your cell phone that really only works in the Chinese system, that can take your digital RMB and buy something, like in the United States, or buy or settle or even trade with” a digital yuan, he said. “It’s possible at some point in the future, but it doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.” Thus, Chandler said he’s “not sure how much of a race this is or how urgent it is. It doesn’t look like Fed officials, while they are studying it, I don’t see them wanting to necessarily be the first mover.” Nonetheless, “I think also there’ll be a two-pronged system, at least the way the U.S. and Western Europe are conceiving it, where you’d have the digital currency not really disintermediating banks. They’ll strengthen banks.” Related Stories Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says || Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says: Just becausebitcoinhas quintupled in value over the past few months, that doesn’t mean the U.S. dollar is about to get knocked off its perch as the world’s leading currency, according to a top foreign exchange analyst.
For one thing, central banks around the globe own roughly $3.1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt that is denominated in greenbacks, and so have little incentive to let the dollar lose power to a cryptocurrency, said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex.
“What stands behind [the U.S. dollar] is something that the crypto space has not yet innovated and that is that central banks hold their dollars in Treasury bonds – not just in dollars but they have these Treasury bonds behind them,” Chandler said onCoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” show Tuesday.
Related:The “Mural Building” in Chicago Is Up for Sale; Owner Will Accept Bitcoin
Chandler, whose storied career included stints as the top FX strategist at such leading financial institutions as Mellon Bank, HSBC and Brown Brothers Harriman, said his view is in line with those of regulators. He noted thatFederal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently remarkedthat he sees cryptocurrencies as a potential substitute for gold.
But as a replacement for the dollar? Not so much.
“It doesn’t look like it’s really money,” said Chandler, “meaning, a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account.”
However, he said there’s one way he could change his mind.
Related:JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Regulatory Status of Cryptocurrencies Needs to Be ‘Dealt With’
“For me, the smell test of all this will be when tax officials, when the [U.S. Internal Revenue Service] says, ‘Yes, you can pay your taxes in crypto.’ Taxes seem to be the origin of money in many ways,” said Chandler. “When the IRS or some other major tax authorities say you can pay your taxes in crypto, then I’ll believe it’s money.”
While Chandler doesn’t classify himself as a dollar bull, he doesn’t see it losing its top spot, notwithstanding a recent weakening in exchange rates against foreign currencies.
“We’re having a correction,” he said. “The third big dollar rally since the Bretton Woods [Agreement of 1944] is over, but I think you can have a cyclical decline of the dollar without it changing its fundamental position in the world economy.”
Although central banks in countries such as China may be looking at digitizing their currencies, not much would threaten the greenback’s position, according to Chandler.
On the one hand, “a digital central bank currency increases what we call ‘the C3’: command, control and communication,” he said. “It allows the Chinese government to better monitor the flows of money. … It will help curb tax evasion, for example. It will help curb the underground economy, which in some countries is very substantial. At the same time, it will help bank people who are not banked yet.”
However, “I’m still not convinced that because you can have a digital chip on your cell phone that really only works in the Chinese system, that can take your digital RMB and buy something, like in the United States, or buy or settle or even trade with” a digital yuan, he said. “It’s possible at some point in the future, but it doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.”
Thus, Chandler said he’s “not sure how much of a race this is or how urgent it is. It doesn’t look like Fed officials, while they are studying it, I don’t see them wanting to necessarily be the first mover.”
Nonetheless, “I think also there’ll be a two-pronged system, at least the way the U.S. and Western Europe are conceiving it, where you’d have the digital currency not really disintermediating banks. They’ll strengthen banks.”
• Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says
• Crypto Won’t Be Money Until IRS Accepts It for Taxes, Top Forex Strategist Says || Coinbase's monster Q1 in context: In the firstquarter of 2021, American consumer cryptocurrency trading giantCoinbasegrew sharply, generating strong profits at the same time.
For Coinbase, thedisclosureof its preliminary Q1 2021 resultscomes a week aheadof its direct listing, an event that will see the company begin to trade publicly. As it is both cash rich and well known, Coinbase is foregoing a traditional IPO in favor of the more exotic method of going public.
In its release, Coinbase disclosed the following metrics, which TechCrunch has compared to metrics fromits S-1 filing:
• Monthly transacting users (MTUs)of 6.1 million, up from 2.8 million at the end of 2020.
• Platform assetsof $223 billion, up from $90.3 billion at the end of 2020.
• Trading volumeof $335 billion, up from $193.1 billion at the end of 2020.
• Revenueof $1.8 billion, up from $585.1 million in Q4 2020.
• Net incomeof "approximately $730 million to $800 million," up from $178.8 million in Q4 2020.
• Adjusted EBITDAof "approximately $1.1 billion," up from $287.7 million in Q4 2020.
The growth of Coinbase from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021 is so extreme that the company's year-over-year comparisons are farcical. For example, in Q1 2020 Coinbase's revenues were $190.6 million, or just under 11% of its Q1 2021 top line. The company's adjusted profits alone in Q1 2021 were more than five times its year-ago revenues.
The new numbers may help solidify some valuation marks that the company has been discussed as approaching, like the $100 billion threshold, or even boost them.
The company did present some warnings in its public release, noting that cryptocurrency price "cycles can be highly volatile, and as a result, [Coinbase] measure[s] [its] performance over price cycles in lieu of quarterly results." The company also stated that future declines in crypto trading activity will not slow its investment:
MTUs, Trading Volume, and therefore transaction revenue currently fluctuate, potentially materially, with Bitcoin price and crypto asset volatility. This revenue unpredictability, in turn, impacts our profitability on a quarter-to-quarter basis.In terms of expenses, we intend to prioritize investment, including in periods where we may see a decrease in Bitcoin price.This is because we believe that scale is central to achieving our mission and it is still early in the development of this industry.[Emphasis: TechCrunch]
Or more simply, it is willing to sacrifice future profitability if its revenues decline, as it is building for the future instead of hewing to more near-term investor expectations. At least Coinbase is being clear in its messaging to investors: Don't buy Coinbase stock expecting the company to tune its results to quarterly expectations.
Five takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1
Looking ahead, Coinbase did provide some guidance for its full-year results. For 2021, the company provided three scenarios. The first "assumes an increase in crypto market capitalization and moderate-to-high crypto asset price volatility," leading to 7 million MTUs. The second "assumes flat crypto market capitalization and low-to-moderate crypto asset price volatility" and 5.5 million MTUs. The third "assumes a significant decrease in crypto market capitalization, similar to the decrease observed in 2018, and low levels of crypto asset price volatility thereafter" and 4 million MTUs for the year.
But don't think that Coinbase is anticipation stagnant growth, simply because its best scenario anticipates mere growth from 6.1 million MTUs to 7 million MTUs. The company wrote in its release under the headline "institutional revenue" that it expects "meaningful growth in 2021 driven by transaction and custody revenue given the increased institutional interest in the crypto asset class."
Coinbase's quarter was bonkers good. But so was the performance of cryptocurrencies themselves. A bet on the company's shares, then, could easily be seen as a bet on the value of bitcoin and its ilk. April 14 is going to be a fun day to watch. || Coinbase's monster Q1 in context: In the first quarter of 2021, American consumer cryptocurrency trading giant Coinbase grew sharply, generating strong profits at the same time. For Coinbase, the disclosure of its preliminary Q1 2021 results comes a week ahead of its direct listing, an event that will see the company begin to trade publicly. As it is both cash rich and well known, Coinbase is foregoing a traditional IPO in favor of the more exotic method of going public. In its release, Coinbase disclosed the following metrics, which TechCrunch has compared to metrics from its S-1 filing : Monthly transacting users (MTUs) of 6.1 million, up from 2.8 million at the end of 2020. Platform assets of $223 billion, up from $90.3 billion at the end of 2020. Trading volume of $335 billion, up from $193.1 billion at the end of 2020. Revenue of $1.8 billion, up from $585.1 million in Q4 2020. Net income of "approximately $730 million to $800 million," up from $178.8 million in Q4 2020. Adjusted EBITDA of "approximately $1.1 billion," up from $287.7 million in Q4 2020. The growth of Coinbase from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021 is so extreme that the company's year-over-year comparisons are farcical. For example, in Q1 2020 Coinbase's revenues were $190.6 million, or just under 11% of its Q1 2021 top line. The company's adjusted profits alone in Q1 2021 were more than five times its year-ago revenues. The new numbers may help solidify some valuation marks that the company has been discussed as approaching, like the $100 billion threshold, or even boost them. The company did present some warnings in its public release, noting that cryptocurrency price "cycles can be highly volatile, and as a result, [Coinbase] measure[s] [its] performance over price cycles in lieu of quarterly results." The company also stated that future declines in crypto trading activity will not slow its investment: MTUs, Trading Volume, and therefore transaction revenue currently fluctuate, potentially materially, with Bitcoin price and crypto asset volatility. This revenue unpredictability, in turn, impacts our profitability on a quarter-to-quarter basis. In terms of expenses, we intend to prioritize investment, including in periods where we may see a decrease in Bitcoin price. This is because we believe that scale is central to achieving our mission and it is still early in the development of this industry. [Emphasis: TechCrunch] Story continues Or more simply, it is willing to sacrifice future profitability if its revenues decline, as it is building for the future instead of hewing to more near-term investor expectations. At least Coinbase is being clear in its messaging to investors: Don't buy Coinbase stock expecting the company to tune its results to quarterly expectations. Five takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1 Looking ahead, Coinbase did provide some guidance for its full-year results. For 2021, the company provided three scenarios. The first "assumes an increase in crypto market capitalization and moderate-to-high crypto asset price volatility," leading to 7 million MTUs. The second "assumes flat crypto market capitalization and low-to-moderate crypto asset price volatility" and 5.5 million MTUs. The third "assumes a significant decrease in crypto market capitalization, similar to the decrease observed in 2018, and low levels of crypto asset price volatility thereafter" and 4 million MTUs for the year. But don't think that Coinbase is anticipation stagnant growth, simply because its best scenario anticipates mere growth from 6.1 million MTUs to 7 million MTUs. The company wrote in its release under the headline "institutional revenue" that it expects "meaningful growth in 2021 driven by transaction and custody revenue given the increased institutional interest in the crypto asset class." Coinbase's quarter was bonkers good. But so was the performance of cryptocurrencies themselves. A bet on the company's shares, then, could easily be seen as a bet on the value of bitcoin and its ilk. April 14 is going to be a fun day to watch. || Cryptocurrency inflows hit all-time high of $4.5 billion in first-quarter: Coinshares: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Inflows into cryptocurrency funds and products hit a record $4.5 billion in the first quarter, suggesting increased institutional participation in the once-maligned sector, data from digital currency manager Coinshares showed on Tuesday. The first quarter inflows represented an 11% increase from the last three months of 2020, which hit $3.9 billion. Investments into crypto, however, slowed in the first quarter compared with the fourth, where growth was 240%, data showed. Coinshares said in the report, however, that this was not "indicative of a broader slowing trend, as quarterly growth rates tend to be highly varied." On Monday, the cryptocurrency sector hit an all-time peak of $2 trillion in market capitalization. Bitcoin's market cap was more than $1 trillion, holding that milestone level for one whole week. "There's so much momentum that's building and people are scrambling to see where the other coins, aside from bitcoin, are going," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at online FX trading platform OANDA. Bitcoin had the most inflows in the first quarter with $3.5 billion, according to the Coinshares data, followed by ethereum, which posted $765 million in investments. The largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap hit a record high of $61,781.83 in mid-March, but has since traded in a narrow range as investors consolidated gains. Crypto assets under management have also surged to a peak of $59 billion, CoinShares data showed. Last year, assets under management for the sector hit $37.6 billion. Grayscale is still the largest digital currency manager, with $46.1 billion in assets, while CoinShares, the second biggest and the largest European digital asset manager, oversees about $5.1 billion in assets. Of the $59 billion in assets under management, active investment managers represented just 1.5% of total assets under management, down from 3.6% at the start of the fourth quarter last year. Total market volumes remained high during the quarter, averaging $11.6 billion per day, compared with $3.5 billion in the last three months of 2020. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; editing by Jonathan Oatis) || Cryptocurrency inflows hit all-time high of $4.5 billion in first-quarter: Coinshares: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Inflows into cryptocurrency funds and products hit a record $4.5 billion in the first quarter, suggesting increased institutional participation in the once-maligned sector, data from digital currency manager Coinshares showed on Tuesday. The first quarter inflows represented an 11% increase from the last three months of 2020, which hit $3.9 billion. Investments into crypto, however, slowed in the first quarter compared with the fourth, where growth was 240%, data showed. Coinshares said in the report, however, that this was not "indicative of a broader slowing trend, as quarterly growth rates tend to be highly varied." On Monday, the cryptocurrency sector hit an all-time peak of $2 trillion in market capitalization. Bitcoin's market cap was more than $1 trillion, holding that milestone level for one whole week. "There's so much momentum that's building and people are scrambling to see where the other coins, aside from bitcoin, are going," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at online FX trading platform OANDA. Bitcoin had the most inflows in the first quarter with $3.5 billion, according to the Coinshares data, followed by ethereum, which posted $765 million in investments. The largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap hit a record high of $61,781.83 in mid-March, but has since traded in a narrow range as investors consolidated gains. Crypto assets under management have also surged to a peak of $59 billion, CoinShares data showed. Last year, assets under management for the sector hit $37.6 billion. Grayscale is still the largest digital currency manager, with $46.1 billion in assets, while CoinShares, the second biggest and the largest European digital asset manager, oversees about $5.1 billion in assets. Of the $59 billion in assets under management, active investment managers represented just 1.5% of total assets under management, down from 3.6% at the start of the fourth quarter last year. Total market volumes remained high during the quarter, averaging $11.6 billion per day, compared with $3.5 billion in the last three months of 2020. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 373.45, 376.03, 381.65, 379.65, 384.26, 391.86, 407.23, 400.18, 407.49, 416.32, 422.37, 420.79, 437.16, 438.80, 437.75, 420.74, 424.95, 424.54, 432.15, 432.52, 433.50, 437.70, 435.12, 423.99, 421.65, 410.94, 400.57, 407.71, 414.32, 413.97, 414.86, 417.13, 421.69, 411.62, 414.07, 416.44, 416.83, 417.01, 420.62, 409.55, 410.44, 413.76, 413.31, 418.09, 418.04, 416.39, 417.18, 417.95, 426.77, 424.23, 416.52, 414.82, 416.73, 417.96, 420.87, 420.90, 421.44, 424.03, 423.41, 422.74, 420.35, 419.41, 421.56, 422.48, 425.19, 423.73, 424.28, 429.71, 430.57, 427.40, 428.59, 435.51, 441.39, 449.42, 445.74, 450.28, 458.55, 461.43, 466.09, 444.69, 449.01, 455.10, 448.32, 451.88, 444.67, 450.30, 446.72, 447.98, 459.60, 458.54.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-05-07]
Volume: 38364500, RSI (14-day): 60.76, 50-day EMA: 436.38, 200-day EMA: 394.16
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this.
The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.
Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.
Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter".
"Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator."
While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail.
CIVIL WAR
In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle.
One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.
Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.
Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence".
Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter.
The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war".
Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people".
Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it.
"For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem."
BENEVOLENT DICTATORS
But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.
"Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said.
Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change.
One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power.
"Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade."
Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power.
"(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center.
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this.
The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.
Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.
Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter".
"Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator."
While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail.
CIVIL WAR
In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle.
One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.
Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.
Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence".
Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter.
The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war".
Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people".
Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it.
"For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem."
BENEVOLENT DICTATORS
But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.
"Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said.
Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change.
One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power.
"Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade."
Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power.
"(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center.
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. . This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. . This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologized for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While gray-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralized system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. . This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, skeptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgment right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: * Bitcoin founder claims provoke fresh bitcoin bickering
* System needs to evolve to handle rise in transactions
* But lead developers squabble, freeze out one of their peers
* System needs "adults" to make decisions - U.S. professor
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this.
The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.
Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.
Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter".
"Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator."
While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail.
CIVIL WAR
In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle.
One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.
Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.
Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence".
Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter.
The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war".
Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people".
Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it.
"For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem."
BENEVOLENT DICTATORS
But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.
"Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said.
Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change.
One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power.
"Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade."
Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power.
"(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center.
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: * Bitcoin founder claims provoke fresh bitcoin bickering
* System needs to evolve to handle rise in transactions
* But lead developers squabble, freeze out one of their peers
* System needs "adults" to make decisions - U.S. professor
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this.
The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.
Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.
Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter".
"Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator."
While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail.
CIVIL WAR
In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle.
One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.
Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.
Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence".
Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter.
The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war".
Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people".
Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it.
"For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem."
BENEVOLENT DICTATORS
But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.
"Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said.
Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change.
One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power.
"Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade."
Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power.
"(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center.
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: * Bitcoin founder claims provoke fresh bitcoin bickering * System needs to evolve to handle rise in transactions * But lead developers squabble, freeze out one of their peers * System needs "adults" to make decisions - U.S. professor By Jemima Kelly LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Story continues Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources.
An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in.
Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense."
Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco.
"We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment.
The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions.
Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges.
Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange.
(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources. An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense." Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco. "We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment. The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions. Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges. Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources. An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense." Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco. "We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment. The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions. Story continues Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges. Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources. An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense." Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco. "We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment. The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions. Story continues Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges. Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources. An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense." Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco. "We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment. The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions. Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges. Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis)
[Social Media Buzz]
LIVE: Profit = $917.28 (11.45 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $460.80 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || LIVE: Profit = $936.60 (11.69 %). BUY B19.39 @ $460.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $461.92 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || LIVE: Profit = $911.90 (11.39 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $460.52 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yie...
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458.55, 460.48, 450.89, 452.73, 454.77, 455.67, 455.67, 457.57, 454.16, 453.78
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 10397.90, 10951.00, 11086.40, 11489.70, 11512.60, 11573.30, 10779.90, 9965.57, 9395.01, 9337.55, 8866.00, 9578.63, 9205.12, 9194.85, 8269.81, 8300.86, 8338.35, 7916.88, 8223.68, 8630.65, 8913.47, 8929.28, 8728.47, 8879.62, 8668.12, 8495.78, 8209.40, 7833.04, 7954.48, 7165.70, 6890.52, 6973.53, 6844.23, 7083.80, 7456.11, 6853.84, 6811.47, 6636.32, 6911.09, 7023.52, 6770.73, 6834.76, 6968.32, 7889.25, 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05, 9348.48, 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01, 9235.92, 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01, 9234.82, 9325.18, 9043.94, 8441.49, 8504.89, 8723.94, 8716.79, 8510.38, 8368.83, 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78, 7557.82, 7587.34, 7480.14, 7355.88, 7368.22, 7135.99.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-05-28]
Volume: 5040600064, RSI (14-day): 29.28, 50-day EMA: 8416.23, 200-day EMA: 8731.69
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Intel Could Pay Dearly for Its 10nm Chip Production Delay: On a day whenIntel(NASDAQ: INTC)crushed Wall Street's expectationswith a stellar first-quarter report, investors were worried about something else. Chipzilla revealed that its move to the 10-nanometer (nm) chip production processwill be delayedonce again due to yield issues, this time to an unspecified date in 2019.
When CEO Brian Krzanich said that the chipmaker might have gone overboard with its 10nm chip development targets, investors were unsettled, as the company has nowofficially lost its manufacturing leadin the chip industry. An advanced chip manufacturing process would have allowed Intel to reduce production costs, increase processing power, and make its chips more power efficient. And all of this is crucial in warding off the ever-growing competition.
But Intel investors will now have to wait until 2020 (assuming there are no further delays) for the volume production to begin, and this could spell trouble.
Image Source: Intel
Intel is the dominant supplier of central processing units (CPUs) used in PCs, holding an estimated 88% of this market at the end of 2017, according to Mercury Research. But rivalAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ: AMD)has done well to make its mark in the CPU space with its Ryzen CPUs, which are based on the 14nm chip manufacturing process.
AMD increased its CPU market share to 12% at the end of last year from 9.9% the year before. However, AMD can inflict more damage on Intel this year as its latest second-generation Ryzen CPUs are based on an improved 12nm process (a refined version of last year's 14nm process).
AMD claims that the new Ryzen CPUs are 16% faster and 11% more power efficient than last year's first-gen offerings. But the bigger play for AMD lies elsewhere, as the second-gen Ryzen chips are just a steppingstone to something more important.
AMD plans to leapfrog Intel's chip manufacturing technology by next year with its Zen 2 architecture, which is based on a 7nm manufacturing process and is slated for a commercial launch next year. The fact that AMD's foundry partnerTSMChas already started volume production of 7nm chips lends credibility to AMD's ambitions to attack Intel's manufacturing lead. This doesn't bode well for Intel's client computing group (CCG), which accounted for almost 51% of revenue last quarter.
Intel has been relying on higher average selling prices (ASPs) of its processors to drive growth in CCG and beat the flat PC shipment volumes. For instance, the segment's revenue increased 3% year over year in the latest quarter on the back of a 7% increase in desktop ASPs and a 1% increase in notebook ASPs. But the company could be forced to reduce prices of its CPUs to overcome AMD's threat and defend market share, and Intel is no stranger to such a strategy.
This spells trouble for its CCG segment profitability. The segment's operating margin was down 4% last quarter to 34%, with Intel blaming the drop on 10nm transition costs. With the transition to 10nm still some time away and competitive threats rising, Intel's CCG business looks set for a rough ride.
The fallout from Intel's 10nm delay won't be restricted to the CPU business. The data center group (DCG), which is the company's second-largest source of revenue with a third of the total top line, will also feel the heat.
Intel has relied big time on DCG to drive growth. The segment reported 24% year-over-year growth in the latest quarter and could exceed $20 billion in revenue this year if it keeps growing at its current pace. Intel credits its Xeon processors for this impressive growth. They are witnessing strong demand thanks to their application in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing.
The segment's terrific growth clearly indicates that Intel's latest Xeon processors (which are also based on a 14nm platform) have helped it maintain a near monopoly in server chips. But AMD has managed to make a mark here, thanks to its EPYC server chips that were launched at aggressive prices last year.
Server original equipment manufacturers have beenwarming up to EPYC, giving AMD hope that it could get a mid-single-digit share of the server chip market by the end of 2018. But AMD can do much more, as its "Rome" server chips -- based on Zen 2 architecture -- are expected to succeed EPYC next year.
AMD's data-center roadmap clearly indicates that it will start manufacturing chips on the 7nm process between now and 2020. Now that AMD has completed its Zen 2 design, its next-gen server chips are expected to come out in late 2018, and deployment is expected to begin in 2019.
The EPYC Rome is expected to pack stronger technical specifications thanks to the improved manufacturing process. And it will probably help AMD grab a bigger piece of the server chip market in the long run.
Meanwhile, Intel's progress in the programmable solutions group (PSG) could also hit a speed bump thanks to market leaderXilinx's technology lead.
PSG has been gaining impressive traction recently as the likes ofMicrosoftandBaiduhave selected Intel's programmable chips to accelerate AI workloads in data centers. In fact, Intel saw a 150% increase in sales of programmable data center chips last quarter, boosting the segment's revenue by 17% to $498 million.
But Xilinx has a new weapon in the form ofProject Everest, which is based on a 7nm architecture and is expected to start shipping next year. Xilinx is claiming that its Everest chips will be 20 times faster at running AI workloads, compared to the existing products on the market. Intel, meanwhile, will be stuck on its Stratix 10 programmable chips built on the 14nm Tri-Gate process that's three years old already.
Turn the clock back two years, and you would see Intel dominating rivals suchas AMD. But times have changed, and Intel's customers have been choosing rivals' products. For instance, AMD now has over 40 EPYC-based server systems on the market thanks to the likes ofHewlett-Packard Enterprise, Dell EMC, and Cray, among others.Amazon, Huawei, andAlibaba,meanwhile, choseXilinx's programmable chipslast year as the company enjoys a significant technology lead over Intel that could expand further.
There will be no immediate impact on Intel because of its 10nm delay. Rivals are still working on advanced manufacturing processes, and even they could run into trouble. But if Intel is unable to keep up as its rivals take the next step, the chip giant could be in choppy waters.
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.Harsh Chauhanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Baidu. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Intel Could Pay Dearly for Its 10nm Chip Production Delay: On a day when Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) crushed Wall Street's expectations with a stellar first-quarter report, investors were worried about something else. Chipzilla revealed that its move to the 10-nanometer (nm) chip production process will be delayed once again due to yield issues, this time to an unspecified date in 2019. When CEO Brian Krzanich said that the chipmaker might have gone overboard with its 10nm chip development targets, investors were unsettled, as the company has now officially lost its manufacturing lead in the chip industry. An advanced chip manufacturing process would have allowed Intel to reduce production costs, increase processing power, and make its chips more power efficient. And all of this is crucial in warding off the ever-growing competition. But Intel investors will now have to wait until 2020 (assuming there are no further delays) for the volume production to begin, and this could spell trouble. Drones forming Intel insignia in the sky. Image Source: Intel CPU dominance is in danger Intel is the dominant supplier of central processing units (CPUs) used in PCs, holding an estimated 88% of this market at the end of 2017, according to Mercury Research. But rival Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) has done well to make its mark in the CPU space with its Ryzen CPUs, which are based on the 14nm chip manufacturing process. AMD increased its CPU market share to 12% at the end of last year from 9.9% the year before. However, AMD can inflict more damage on Intel this year as its latest second-generation Ryzen CPUs are based on an improved 12nm process (a refined version of last year's 14nm process). AMD claims that the new Ryzen CPUs are 16% faster and 11% more power efficient than last year's first-gen offerings. But the bigger play for AMD lies elsewhere, as the second-gen Ryzen chips are just a steppingstone to something more important. AMD plans to leapfrog Intel's chip manufacturing technology by next year with its Zen 2 architecture, which is based on a 7nm manufacturing process and is slated for a commercial launch next year. The fact that AMD's foundry partner TSMC has already started volume production of 7nm chips lends credibility to AMD's ambitions to attack Intel's manufacturing lead. This doesn't bode well for Intel's client computing group (CCG), which accounted for almost 51% of revenue last quarter. Story continues Intel has been relying on higher average selling prices (ASPs) of its processors to drive growth in CCG and beat the flat PC shipment volumes. For instance, the segment's revenue increased 3% year over year in the latest quarter on the back of a 7% increase in desktop ASPs and a 1% increase in notebook ASPs. But the company could be forced to reduce prices of its CPUs to overcome AMD's threat and defend market share, and Intel is no stranger to such a strategy. This spells trouble for its CCG segment profitability. The segment's operating margin was down 4% last quarter to 34%, with Intel blaming the drop on 10nm transition costs. With the transition to 10nm still some time away and competitive threats rising, Intel's CCG business looks set for a rough ride. More bad news The fallout from Intel's 10nm delay won't be restricted to the CPU business. The data center group (DCG), which is the company's second-largest source of revenue with a third of the total top line, will also feel the heat. Intel has relied big time on DCG to drive growth. The segment reported 24% year-over-year growth in the latest quarter and could exceed $20 billion in revenue this year if it keeps growing at its current pace. Intel credits its Xeon processors for this impressive growth. They are witnessing strong demand thanks to their application in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing. The segment's terrific growth clearly indicates that Intel's latest Xeon processors (which are also based on a 14nm platform) have helped it maintain a near monopoly in server chips. But AMD has managed to make a mark here, thanks to its EPYC server chips that were launched at aggressive prices last year. Server original equipment manufacturers have been warming up to EPYC , giving AMD hope that it could get a mid-single-digit share of the server chip market by the end of 2018. But AMD can do much more, as its "Rome" server chips -- based on Zen 2 architecture -- are expected to succeed EPYC next year. AMD's data-center roadmap clearly indicates that it will start manufacturing chips on the 7nm process between now and 2020. Now that AMD has completed its Zen 2 design, its next-gen server chips are expected to come out in late 2018, and deployment is expected to begin in 2019. The EPYC Rome is expected to pack stronger technical specifications thanks to the improved manufacturing process. And it will probably help AMD grab a bigger piece of the server chip market in the long run. Meanwhile, Intel's progress in the programmable solutions group (PSG) could also hit a speed bump thanks to market leader Xilinx 's technology lead. PSG has been gaining impressive traction recently as the likes of Microsoft and Baidu have selected Intel's programmable chips to accelerate AI workloads in data centers. In fact, Intel saw a 150% increase in sales of programmable data center chips last quarter, boosting the segment's revenue by 17% to $498 million. But Xilinx has a new weapon in the form of Project Everest , which is based on a 7nm architecture and is expected to start shipping next year. Xilinx is claiming that its Everest chips will be 20 times faster at running AI workloads, compared to the existing products on the market. Intel, meanwhile, will be stuck on its Stratix 10 programmable chips built on the 14nm Tri-Gate process that's three years old already. Brace for impact Turn the clock back two years, and you would see Intel dominating rivals such as AMD . But times have changed, and Intel's customers have been choosing rivals' products. For instance, AMD now has over 40 EPYC-based server systems on the market thanks to the likes of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise , Dell EMC, and Cray, among others. Amazon , Huawei, and Alibaba, meanwhile, chose Xilinx's programmable chips last year as the company enjoys a significant technology lead over Intel that could expand further. There will be no immediate impact on Intel because of its 10nm delay. Rivals are still working on advanced manufacturing processes, and even they could run into trouble. But if Intel is unable to keep up as its rivals take the next step, the chip giant could be in choppy waters. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Baidu. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Could Altria Be a Millionaire-Maker Stock?: Shares of Altria (NYSE: MO) , the leading tobacco company in the U.S. and strategic partner of cigarette company Philip Morris International , have fallen over 25% in the last year. That comes in spite of the company showing big earnings gains -- but those numbers can be deceiving. Rather than having big money-making potential, Altria has a good chance of burning investors in the years ahead. MO Chart Data by YCharts . Tobacco sales in decline The war against tobacco companies has taken a turn in the last few years. Emerging markets like China provided a growth outlet for years even while smoking in developed countries like the U.S. started to fall out of favor. Increased regulation, more consumer education, and higher prices have caused global cigarette volumes to decline since 2012, though, according to data from research group Euromonitor. Tobacco companies have responded by raising prices and merging into fewer companies. While that has boosted the bottom line, recent results from Altria show the drop in smoking might be taking a toll. Altria's total smokable product volumes fell 5% in 2017 and another 4.1% in the first quarter of 2018. That has caused the flat revenue performance, although higher profit margins from cost-cutting and a lower tax rate after U.S. tax reform passed late in 2017 have helped earnings spike higher. To return to sales growth, Altria has been doing joint work with Philip Morris on new reduced-risk heated tobacco products. Philip Morris has been selling its iQOS heated tobacco system overseas and an application for sales approval in the U.S. is pending with the FDA. There are no guarantees that will fly, so Altria has also submitted applications to approve chewing tobacco and other smokeless products as a reduced-risk products as well. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the situation has contributed to the stock's recent declines. A chalkboard drawing of a scale with reward on one side and risk on the other. Image source: Getty Images. Smoking alternatives are just that: an alternative There has been much hype around reduced-risk heated tobacco in particular, as investors hope it can eventually offset lost cigarette sales, possibly even putting nicotine-containing products back into growth mode. Philip Morris may be showing that is overoptimistic thinking, though. The iQOS system started out red-hot, but sales have been cooling off dramatically with each passing quarter. Story continues The ultimate problem is that heated tobacco products are more likely to replace cigarette smoking than they are to bring a new segment of consumers into the fold. Altria has no doubt thought of that and has made beer and wine investments as well -- through holdings in Anheuser-Busch InBev and wine subsidiaries like Chateau Ste. Michelle -- but those are small considerations compared to tobacco and have turned in stagnant performances. Cigarettes made up 88% of revenue last quarter, and Altria's brands held just over half of all U.S. market share. The company thus has a lot more to lose than it does to gain. That isn't to say investing in big tobacco is a worthless endeavor. Altria continues to return value to shareholders with a 5.1% dividend yield, and there is another $505 million left of its share repurchase plan through the end of the year. Those should keep the stock buoyed for some time. However, with its primary business in secular decline, Altria is not a millionaire-maker stock. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Nicholas Rossolillo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends BUD. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Could Altria Be a Millionaire-Maker Stock?: Shares ofAltria(NYSE: MO), the leading tobacco company in the U.S. and strategic partner of cigarette companyPhilip Morris International, have fallen over 25% in the last year. That comes in spite of the company showing big earnings gains -- but those numbers can be deceiving. Rather than having big money-making potential, Altria has a good chance of burning investors in the years ahead.
Data byYCharts.
The war against tobacco companies has taken a turn in the last few years. Emerging markets like China provided a growth outlet for years even while smoking in developed countries like the U.S. started to fall out of favor. Increased regulation, more consumer education, and higher prices have caused global cigarette volumes to decline since 2012, though, according to data from research group Euromonitor.
Tobacco companies have responded by raising prices and merging into fewer companies. While that has boosted the bottom line, recent results from Altria show the drop in smoking might be taking a toll. Altria's total smokable product volumes fell 5% in 2017 and another 4.1% in the first quarter of 2018. That has caused the flat revenue performance, althoughhigher profit marginsfrom cost-cutting and a lower tax rate after U.S. tax reform passed late in 2017 have helped earnings spike higher.
To return to sales growth, Altria has been doing joint work with Philip Morris on new reduced-risk heated tobacco products. Philip Morris has been selling its iQOS heated tobacco system overseas and an application for sales approval in the U.S. is pending with the FDA. There are no guarantees that will fly, so Altria has also submitted applications to approvechewing tobaccoand other smokeless products as a reduced-risk products as well. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the situation has contributed to the stock's recent declines.
Image source: Getty Images.
There has been much hype around reduced-risk heated tobacco in particular, as investors hope it can eventually offset lost cigarette sales, possibly even putting nicotine-containing products back into growth mode. Philip Morris may be showing that is overoptimistic thinking, though. The iQOS system started out red-hot, butsales have been cooling offdramatically with each passing quarter.
The ultimate problem is that heated tobacco products are more likely to replace cigarette smoking than they are to bring a new segment of consumers into the fold. Altria has no doubt thought of that and has made beer and wine investments as well -- through holdings inAnheuser-Busch InBevand wine subsidiaries like Chateau Ste. Michelle -- but those are small considerations compared to tobacco and have turned in stagnant performances. Cigarettes made up 88% of revenue last quarter, and Altria's brands held just over half of all U.S. market share. The company thus has a lot more to lose than it does to gain.
That isn't to say investing in big tobacco is a worthless endeavor. Altria continues to return value to shareholders with a 5.1% dividend yield, and there is another $505 million left of its share repurchase plan through the end of the year. Those should keep the stock buoyed for some time. However, with its primary business in secular decline, Altria is not a millionaire-maker stock.
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Nicholas Rossolillohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends BUD. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || How a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Back: lost bitcoin James Howells, a 32-year-old IT specialist who recently switched to a full-time cryptocurrency investor, told New York Post that he had lost more than $60 million in bitcoin in 2009 and was never able to retrieve it. 7,500 BTC In 2009, the debut year of BTC during which the price of BTC was below $1 and when the hash power of bitcoin was extremely low due to the lack of individuals mining the cryptocurrency, Howells mined more than 7,500 bitcoin in a week using basic GPU mining equipment. In 2013, when the price of BTC surpassed the $100 mark, Howells started to search for the thumb drive which he used back in 2009 to store private keys to the 7,500 BTC he had mined. He then recalled that instead of throwing the empty thumb drive, he mistakenly threw away the thumb drive with his private keys. “I mined more than 7,500 coins over one week’s time in 2009; there were just six of us doing it at the time, and it was like the early days of a gold rush. Four years later, I had two hard drives in a desk drawer. One was empty, and the other contained my bitcoin private keys. I meant to throw away the empty drive — and I accidentally threw away the one with the bitcoin information,” said Howells. bitcoin mining Bitcoin is a unique digital asset because it forces its users to take responsibility over their funds and eliminates the possibility of central institutions or third party service providers gaining access to user funds. One downside of this aspect of BTC is that if and when a user loses private keys to a wallet, it is impossible to recover the funds, however large the amount may be. After realising that he had thrown away millions of dollars, Howells admitted that he had felt physically sick. Howells stated: “I looked up the price, did the calculation . . . and thought, ‘S – – t. [My investment is] worth around $2 [million] or $3 million.’ A few months later it was worth $9.9 million. I was annoyed, pissed off, sick. I spoke to the people at the landfill and told them that I threw away a hard drive worth $10 million. They looked at me stupidly.” Story continues Bitcoin is Undervalued Millions of bitcoin are permanently lost from its immutable blockchain network because of cases like the loss of funds of Howells. A study done by Chainalysis , a blockchain-focused digital forensics company, found that 3.79 million BTC are potentially lost permanently and can no longer be re-obtained. 3.79 million is more than 18 percent of the maximum supply of BTC, 21 million. Given that the price of bitcoin is calculated by dividing the market valuation of the digital asset by its circulating supply, when the supply of bitcoin maxes out at 21 million, the price of bitcoin should be 18 percent higher than its actual price. “On the one hand, direct calculations about market cap do not take lost coins into consideration. Considering how highly speculative this field is, those market cap calculations may make it into economic models of the market that impact spending activity. Yet the market has adapted to the actual demand and supply available – just look at exchange behavior,” Chainalysis enior economist Kim Gauer said. Images from Shutterstock The post How a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Back appeared first on CCN . || How a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Back: James Howells, a 32-year-old IT specialist who recently switched to a full-time cryptocurrency investor, told New York Post that he had lost more than $60 million in bitcoin in 2009 and was never able to retrieve it.
In 2009, the debut year of BTC during which the price of BTC was below $1 and when the hash power of bitcoin was extremely low due to the lack of individuals mining the cryptocurrency, Howells mined more than 7,500 bitcoin in a week using basicGPU miningequipment.
In 2013, when theprice of BTCsurpassed the $100 mark, Howells started to search for the thumb drive which he used back in 2009 to store private keys to the 7,500 BTC he had mined. He then recalled that instead of throwing the empty thumb drive, he mistakenly threw away the thumb drive with his private keys.
“I mined more than 7,500 coins over one week’s time in 2009; there were just six of us doing it at the time, and it was like the early days of a gold rush. Four years later, I had two hard drives in a desk drawer. One was empty, and the other contained my bitcoin private keys. I meant to throw away the empty drive — and I accidentally threw away the one with the bitcoin information,”said Howells.
Bitcoin is a unique digital asset because it forces its users to take responsibility over their funds and eliminates the possibility of central institutions or third party service providers gaining access to user funds. One downside of this aspect of BTC is that if and when a user loses private keys to a wallet, it is impossible to recover the funds, however large the amount may be.
After realising that he had thrown away millions of dollars, Howells admitted that he had felt physically sick. Howells stated:
“I looked up the price, did the calculation . . . and thought, ‘S – – t. [My investment is] worth around $2 [million] or $3 million.’ A few months later it was worth $9.9 million. I was annoyed, pissed off, sick. I spoke to the people at the landfill and told them that I threw away a hard drive worth $10 million. They looked at me stupidly.”
Millions of bitcoin are permanently lost from its immutable blockchain network because of cases like the loss of funds of Howells. A study done byChainalysis, a blockchain-focused digital forensics company, found that 3.79 million BTC are potentially lost permanently and can no longer be re-obtained.
3.79 million is more than 18 percent of the maximum supply of BTC, 21 million. Given that the price of bitcoin is calculated by dividing the market valuation of the digital asset by its circulating supply, when the supply of bitcoin maxes out at 21 million, the price of bitcoin should be 18 percent higher than its actual price.
“On the one hand, direct calculations about market cap do not take lost coins into consideration. Considering how highly speculative this field is, those market cap calculations may make it into economic models of the market that impact spending activity. Yet the market has adapted to the actual demand and supply available – just look at exchange behavior,” Chainalysis enior economist Kim Gauer said.
Images from Shutterstock
The postHow a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Backappeared first onCCN. || How a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Back: James Howells, a 32-year-old IT specialist who recently switched to a full-time cryptocurrency investor, told New York Post that he had lost more than $60 million in bitcoin in 2009 and was never able to retrieve it.
In 2009, the debut year of BTC during which the price of BTC was below $1 and when the hash power of bitcoin was extremely low due to the lack of individuals mining the cryptocurrency, Howells mined more than 7,500 bitcoin in a week using basicGPU miningequipment.
In 2013, when theprice of BTCsurpassed the $100 mark, Howells started to search for the thumb drive which he used back in 2009 to store private keys to the 7,500 BTC he had mined. He then recalled that instead of throwing the empty thumb drive, he mistakenly threw away the thumb drive with his private keys.
“I mined more than 7,500 coins over one week’s time in 2009; there were just six of us doing it at the time, and it was like the early days of a gold rush. Four years later, I had two hard drives in a desk drawer. One was empty, and the other contained my bitcoin private keys. I meant to throw away the empty drive — and I accidentally threw away the one with the bitcoin information,”said Howells.
Bitcoin is a unique digital asset because it forces its users to take responsibility over their funds and eliminates the possibility of central institutions or third party service providers gaining access to user funds. One downside of this aspect of BTC is that if and when a user loses private keys to a wallet, it is impossible to recover the funds, however large the amount may be.
After realising that he had thrown away millions of dollars, Howells admitted that he had felt physically sick. Howells stated:
“I looked up the price, did the calculation . . . and thought, ‘S – – t. [My investment is] worth around $2 [million] or $3 million.’ A few months later it was worth $9.9 million. I was annoyed, pissed off, sick. I spoke to the people at the landfill and told them that I threw away a hard drive worth $10 million. They looked at me stupidly.”
Millions of bitcoin are permanently lost from its immutable blockchain network because of cases like the loss of funds of Howells. A study done byChainalysis, a blockchain-focused digital forensics company, found that 3.79 million BTC are potentially lost permanently and can no longer be re-obtained.
3.79 million is more than 18 percent of the maximum supply of BTC, 21 million. Given that the price of bitcoin is calculated by dividing the market valuation of the digital asset by its circulating supply, when the supply of bitcoin maxes out at 21 million, the price of bitcoin should be 18 percent higher than its actual price.
“On the one hand, direct calculations about market cap do not take lost coins into consideration. Considering how highly speculative this field is, those market cap calculations may make it into economic models of the market that impact spending activity. Yet the market has adapted to the actual demand and supply available – just look at exchange behavior,” Chainalysis enior economist Kim Gauer said.
Images from Shutterstock
The postHow a Cryptocurrency Investor Lost $60 Million in Bitcoin and Never Got it Backappeared first onCCN. || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Main Trend is Up, but Momentum is Trending Lower: Dow futures closed lower on Friday after giving up earlier gains. After the initial thrust to the upside, the market fell victim to low pre-holiday volume and the buying dried up.
The fundamentals were mixed going into the session with the Fed minutes providing support because it signaled the central bank wouldn’t be as aggressive as expected with interest rate hikes, however, gains were likely limited by renewed geopolitical concerns over North Korea.
On Friday,June E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Averagefutures settled at 24730, down 73 or -0.30%.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart, however, momentum is trending lower.
A trade through 25080 will signal a resumption of the uptrend.
The minor trend is down. It turned down last week when sellers took out the previous minor bottom at 24603. This move also shifted momentum to the downside.
The major upside target and resistance zone is 24926 to 25351. This zone is controlling the longer-term direction of the market. It stopped the rally last week at 25080.
The main range is 23467 to 25080. The selling pressure will strengthen on a trade through 24584. This could lead to a break into its retracement zone at 24274 to 24083. Since the main trend is up, buyers could show up on a test of this zone.
Since the main trend is up, the key level to watch is 24584.
Bullish traders are likely to try to defend 24584. If successful, they could create the upside momentum needed to challenge the major 50% level at 24926. Overtaking this level will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could lead to a retest of 25080.
Taking out 25080 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. This could lead to a possible test of the main Fibonacci level at 25351.
Taking out 24584 will indicate the selling is getting stronger. This could drive the Dow into the short-term 50% level at 24274. This is followed by the Fib level at 24083.
Watch the price action and read the order flow on a test of 24584. Trader reaction to this level will tell us if the buyers or sellers are in control.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• FxPro and McLaren F1™ Team Announce Partnership Agreement || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Main Trend is Up, but Momentum is Trending Lower: Dow futures closed lower on Friday after giving up earlier gains. After the initial thrust to the upside, the market fell victim to low pre-holiday volume and the buying dried up. The fundamentals were mixed going into the session with the Fed minutes providing support because it signaled the central bank wouldn’t be as aggressive as expected with interest rate hikes, however, gains were likely limited by renewed geopolitical concerns over North Korea. On Friday, June E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures settled at 24730, down 73 or -0.30%. Daily June E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart, however, momentum is trending lower. A trade through 25080 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. The minor trend is down. It turned down last week when sellers took out the previous minor bottom at 24603. This move also shifted momentum to the downside. The major upside target and resistance zone is 24926 to 25351. This zone is controlling the longer-term direction of the market. It stopped the rally last week at 25080. The main range is 23467 to 25080. The selling pressure will strengthen on a trade through 24584. This could lead to a break into its retracement zone at 24274 to 24083. Since the main trend is up, buyers could show up on a test of this zone. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast Since the main trend is up, the key level to watch is 24584. Bullish traders are likely to try to defend 24584. If successful, they could create the upside momentum needed to challenge the major 50% level at 24926. Overtaking this level will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could lead to a retest of 25080. Taking out 25080 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. This could lead to a possible test of the main Fibonacci level at 25351. Taking out 24584 will indicate the selling is getting stronger. This could drive the Dow into the short-term 50% level at 24274. This is followed by the Fib level at 24083. Story continues Watch the price action and read the order flow on a test of 24584. Trader reaction to this level will tell us if the buyers or sellers are in control. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Week Ahead – Geo-politics and a Busy Economic Calendar in Focus Bitcoin In The Red Again, Sub-$7,000 Levels Now On The Cards Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Traders Focusing On Next Week’s Neutral Forecast E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Longer-Term Bullish Over 2749.25, Bearish Under 2707.75 AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Key Support is Layered at .7527 to .7486 FxPro and McLaren F1™ Team Announce Partnership Agreement || J.C. Penney's CEO Jumps to Lowe's: Is the Turnaround Doomed?: On Tuesday, struggling department store chain J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) made a shocking announcement. CEO Marvin Ellison is resigning from the company as of June 1 in order to take the top job at home improvement giant Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) . Ellison's unexpected resignation leaves a gaping hole at the top of J.C. Penney's relatively thin leadership bench. That's not good news for a company that is still struggling to recover from a failed strategy shift under former CEO Ron Johnson. On the other hand, Ellison's move to Lowe's doesn't mean that he lost confidence in J.C. Penney's turnaround plan. A sign of failure? In the past few days, several pundits have argued that Marvin Ellison wouldn't have left J.C. Penney if he thought the company was still on the road to recovery. As a result, they see his decision to jump ship as a clear warning that J.C. Penney can't be saved . However, this is an overly simplistic view. While J.C. Penney is an iconic company that has been around for more than a century, its annual revenue has receded to a little more than $12 billion and its market cap has plunged to less than $1 billion. The exterior of a J.C. Penney store. J.C. Penney has become a shadow of its former self. Image source: J.C. Penney. By contrast, annual revenue is about to surpass $70 billion at Lowe's. Furthermore, Lowe's market cap has surged to roughly $80 billion. If he is successful at Lowe's, Ellison stands to make a lot more money than J.C. Penney could have ever paid him. Furthermore, Ellison had more than a decade of experience in the home improvement industry before moving to J.C. Penney, so Lowe's is a natural fit for him. Thus, there were plenty of good reasons for Marvin Ellison to make the move to Lowe's. Indeed, he described it to J.C. Penney employees as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" that he didn't seek out. Investors shouldn't read too much into his decision to leave. J.C. Penney is losing a good leader Ellison's reputation has lost some of its luster over the past couple of years, as the turnaround initiatives he put in place at J.C. Penney weren't enough to drive steady sales and earnings growth. Comp sales were flat in each of the past two fiscal years, following a 4.5% increase in fiscal 2015. J.C. Penney's recently reported first quarter 2018 results were disappointing , too. Furthermore, profitability is starting to erode again. Story continues Nevertheless, Ellison is a smart, seasoned retail executive who will be tough to replace. (Lowe's certainly didn't hire him out of desperation.) His mixed record at J.C. Penney mainly speaks to the headwinds the company has faced in recent years. Most other department store chains have posted inferior sales results and more margin erosion than J.C. Penney over the past three years. J.C. Penney has been slimming down its executive ranks lately, including eliminating the EVP of Omnichannel role earlier this year. There's no clear internal candidate to replace Ellison. Furthermore, J.C. Penney's precarious financial position makes it a less attractive destination for potential external candidates than it was five years ago (let alone a decade ago). This makes Ellison's departure particularly painful. The silver lining While it's disappointing that J.C. Penney is losing its CEO, the good news is that Ellison has already implemented a promising strategy that could drive a recovery in sales and earnings over the next few years. By adding new merchandise categories (such as appliances and toys) and expanding others (including furniture and mattresses), J.C. Penney is now in position to profit from the demise of Toys 'R' Us and the rapid collapse of Sears Holdings . J.C. Penney has offered retention bonuses to five of its top remaining executives, four of whom will constitute a temporary "Office of the CEO." This should enable the company to stay on track over the next few quarters despite not having a permanent CEO. Thus, Ellison's departure doesn't mean J.C. Penney investors should give up hope. That said, it adds even more risk to what was already a risky turnaround bet. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of J.C. Penney. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || J.C. Penney's CEO Jumps to Lowe's: Is the Turnaround Doomed?: On Tuesday, struggling department store chainJ.C. Penney(NYSE: JCP)made a shocking announcement. CEO Marvin Ellison is resigning from the company as of June 1 in order totake the top jobat home improvement giantLowe's(NYSE: LOW).
Ellison's unexpected resignation leaves a gaping hole at the top of J.C. Penney's relatively thin leadership bench. That's not good news for a company that is still struggling to recover from a failed strategy shift under former CEO Ron Johnson. On the other hand, Ellison's move to Lowe's doesn't mean that he lost confidence in J.C. Penney's turnaround plan.
In the past few days, several pundits have argued that Marvin Ellisonwouldn't have leftJ.C. Penney if he thought the company was still on the road to recovery. As a result, they see his decision to jump ship as a clear warning thatJ.C. Penney can't be saved.
However, this is an overly simplistic view. While J.C. Penney is an iconic company that has been around for more than a century, its annual revenue has receded to a little more than $12 billion and its market cap has plunged to less than $1 billion.
J.C. Penney has become a shadow of its former self. Image source: J.C. Penney.
By contrast, annual revenue is about to surpass $70 billion at Lowe's. Furthermore, Lowe's market cap has surged to roughly $80 billion. If he is successful at Lowe's, Ellison stands to make a lot more money than J.C. Penney could have ever paid him. Furthermore, Ellison had more than a decade of experience in the home improvement industry before moving to J.C. Penney, so Lowe's is a natural fit for him.
Thus, there were plenty of good reasons for Marvin Ellison to make the move to Lowe's. Indeed, he described it to J.C. Penney employees as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" that he didn't seek out. Investors shouldn't read too much into his decision to leave.
Ellison's reputation has lost some of its luster over the past couple of years, as the turnaround initiatives he put in place at J.C. Penney weren't enough to drive steady sales and earnings growth. Comp sales were flat in each of the past two fiscal years, following a 4.5% increase in fiscal 2015. J.C. Penney's recently reportedfirst quarter 2018 results were disappointing, too. Furthermore, profitability is starting to erode again.
Nevertheless, Ellison is a smart, seasoned retail executive who will be tough to replace. (Lowe's certainly didn't hire him out of desperation.) His mixed record at J.C. Penney mainly speaks to the headwinds the company has faced in recent years. Most other department store chains have posted inferior sales results and more margin erosion than J.C. Penney over the past three years.
J.C. Penney has been slimming down its executive ranks lately, including eliminating the EVP of Omnichannel role earlier this year. There's no clear internal candidate to replace Ellison. Furthermore, J.C. Penney's precarious financial position makes it a less attractive destination for potential external candidates than it was five years ago (let alone a decade ago). This makes Ellison's departure particularly painful.
While it's disappointing that J.C. Penney is losing its CEO, the good news is that Ellison has already implemented apromising strategythat could drive a recovery in sales and earnings over the next few years. By adding new merchandise categories (such as appliances and toys) and expanding others (including furniture and mattresses), J.C. Penney is now in position to profit from the demise of Toys 'R' Us and the rapid collapse ofSears Holdings.
J.C. Penney has offered retention bonuses to five of its top remaining executives, four of whom will constitute a temporary "Office of the CEO." This should enable the company to stay on track over the next few quarters despite not having a permanent CEO.
Thus, Ellison's departure doesn't mean J.C. Penney investors should give up hope. That said, it adds even more risk to what was already a risky turnaround bet.
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Adam Levine-Weinbergowns shares of J.C. Penney. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Stocks Cashing in on Fortnite Fever: For the uninitiated, the battle royale genre, originally popularized byPlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds(PUBG), are video games in which up to 100 players do battle in an effort to be the last person standing, similar to the plot of the 2012 hit movieHunger Games. When Epic Games releasedFortnitelast year, the title had mostly positive reviews, but it wasn't until the free-to-play battle royale was introduced several months later that the game really took off.
The surge in popularity of the battle royale genre has created an opportunity for investors to benefit from the craze. Here's why I believeNVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ: NVDA),Tencent Holdings(NASDAQOTH: TCEHY), andActivision Blizzard(NASDAQ: ATVI)are best positioned to profit from this growing trend.
Image source: Fortnite.
NVIDIA may not immediately come to mind as a beneficiary of theFortnitephenomenon, but the company gains from any increased adoption of gaming, particularly those that call for its industry-leading graphics processing unit (GPU).
In itsmost recent quarter, NVIDIA's gaming segment grew 66% year over year, making up 54% of the company's $3.2 billion in revenue. Responding to questions about what drove the surprisingly strong performance, NVIDIA's founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang credited thegrowing adoptionof the battle royale genre:
As you probably know,FortniteandPUBGare global phenomena. The success ofFortniteandPUBGare just beyond comprehension, really. Those two games are a combination ofHunger GamesandSurvivorhas just captured imaginations of gamers all over the world. And we saw the uptick and we saw the demand on our GPUs from all over the world.
Huang expects the combination of pent-up demand and new players joining the ranks will continue to invigorate sales.
China's Tencent may very well be thebiggest social media and gaming company you've never heard of, sporting a market cap of nearly $500 billion. Its social messaging service, WeChat, has more than a billion users and mobile gaming is an integral part of the experience. In itsmost recent quarter, Tencent grew revenue 48% year over year to about $11.7 billion, while profits jumped 61% to about $3.7 billion.
So how does Tencent stand to gain from the fervor overFortnite? Simple -- the company owns a 40% stake inFortnitecreator Epic Games, and has developed and recently debuted two similar games in China based on licensed IP fromPUBG. Tencent is also seeking government approval to releaseFortniteto Chinese gamers.
Since there's no cost for the free-to-play version, Epic Games makes money from the sale of virtual items, such as character costumes and emotes -- emoticons that are used by gamers to express a thought or feeling. Add in the merchandising, and some analysts suggest that Fortnite could generate as much as $2 billion in revenue this year.
Image source: Activision Blizzard.
Video game publisherActivision Blizzard(NASDAQ: ATVI)is known primarily for its megahitWorld of Warcraft, but the company actually boasts eight $1 billion franchises in its stable of popular games, including such hits asOverwatch,Call of Duty, andCandy Crush. In itsmost recent quarter, the company reported record first-quarter revenue, net bookings, and earnings per share of $1.96 billion, $1.38 billion, and $0.65, respectively.
The company just announced plans to capitalize on the Fortnite frenzy by adding a battle royale mode -- called Blackout -- toCall of Duty: Black Ops 4, which is scheduled to debut in October. In a press release, Activision said: "Blackout, where theBlack Opsuniverse comes to life in a massive battle royale experience featuring iconic characters and locations from all fourBlack Opsgames in a one-of-a-kind offering that is uniquelyBlack Ops."
Activision is one of the first major game publishers to announce a battle royale mode for an existing franchise. While there is no way to know for sure how this strategy will play out, the company could be enticing new players toCall of Duty, while providing incentives for current gamers to stay.
It's important to note that investors shouldn't buy any stock based on its exposure to the battle royale genre. While there is strong demand now, it may turn out to be a fad -- doesPokemon Goring any bells? On the other hand, it could be the nextMinecraft. While each of these companies will benefit from the popularity ofFortniteand other last-person-standing games, they also have existing businesses with strong growth, and any benefit derived from this emerging trend, however long- or short-lived, is just a bonus.
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Danny Venaowns shares of Activision Blizzard and Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Nvidia, and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Stocks Cashing in on Fortnite Fever: For the uninitiated, the battle royale genre, originally popularized by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), are video games in which up to 100 players do battle in an effort to be the last person standing, similar to the plot of the 2012 hit movie Hunger Games . When Epic Games released Fortnite last year, the title had mostly positive reviews, but it wasn't until the free-to-play battle royale was introduced several months later that the game really took off. The surge in popularity of the battle royale genre has created an opportunity for investors to benefit from the craze. Here's why I believe NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) , Tencent Holdings (NASDAQOTH: TCEHY) , and Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) are best positioned to profit from this growing trend. A screenshot of the video game Fortnite, with an avatar alone in a field. Image source: Fortnite. The processor that makes it all possible NVIDIA may not immediately come to mind as a beneficiary of the Fortnite phenomenon, but the company gains from any increased adoption of gaming, particularly those that call for its industry-leading graphics processing unit (GPU). In its most recent quarter , NVIDIA's gaming segment grew 66% year over year, making up 54% of the company's $3.2 billion in revenue. Responding to questions about what drove the surprisingly strong performance, NVIDIA's founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang credited the growing adoption of the battle royale genre: As you probably know, Fortnite and PUBG are global phenomena. The success of Fortnite and PUBG are just beyond comprehension, really. Those two games are a combination of Hunger Games and Survivor has just captured imaginations of gamers all over the world. And we saw the uptick and we saw the demand on our GPUs from all over the world. Huang expects the combination of pent-up demand and new players joining the ranks will continue to invigorate sales. Brother, can you spare a dime? China's Tencent may very well be the biggest social media and gaming company you've never heard of , sporting a market cap of nearly $500 billion. Its social messaging service, WeChat, has more than a billion users and mobile gaming is an integral part of the experience. In its most recent quarter , Tencent grew revenue 48% year over year to about $11.7 billion, while profits jumped 61% to about $3.7 billion. Story continues So how does Tencent stand to gain from the fervor over Fortnite ? Simple -- the company owns a 40% stake in Fortnite creator Epic Games, and has developed and recently debuted two similar games in China based on licensed IP from PUBG . Tencent is also seeking government approval to release Fortnite to Chinese gamers. Since there's no cost for the free-to-play version, Epic Games makes money from the sale of virtual items, such as character costumes and emotes -- emoticons that are used by gamers to express a thought or feeling. Add in the merchandising, and some analysts suggest that Fortnite could generate as much as $2 billion in revenue this year. A scene from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 featuring Ajax avatar. Image source: Activision Blizzard. They nearly had a Blackout Video game publisher Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) is known primarily for its megahit World of Warcraft , but the company actually boasts eight $1 billion franchises in its stable of popular games, including such hits as Overwatch , Call of Duty , and Candy Crush . In its most recent quarter , the company reported record first-quarter revenue, net bookings, and earnings per share of $1.96 billion, $1.38 billion, and $0.65, respectively. The company just announced plans to capitalize on the Fortnite frenzy by adding a battle royale mode -- called Blackout -- to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 , which is scheduled to debut in October. In a press release, Activision said: "Blackout, where the Black Ops universe comes to life in a massive battle royale experience featuring iconic characters and locations from all four Black Ops games in a one-of-a-kind offering that is uniquely Black Ops ." Activision is one of the first major game publishers to announce a battle royale mode for an existing franchise. While there is no way to know for sure how this strategy will play out, the company could be enticing new players to Call of Duty , while providing incentives for current gamers to stay. The small print It's important to note that investors shouldn't buy any stock based on its exposure to the battle royale genre. While there is strong demand now, it may turn out to be a fad -- does Pokemon Go ring any bells? On the other hand, it could be the next Minecraft . While each of these companies will benefit from the popularity of Fortnite and other last-person-standing games, they also have existing businesses with strong growth, and any benefit derived from this emerging trend, however long- or short-lived, is just a bonus. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Danny Vena owns shares of Activision Blizzard and Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Nvidia, and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 5 Key Takeaways From The New York Times' Earnings Call: The New York Times Co.(NYSE: NYT)has been under additional scrutiny since the 2016 election as President Donald Trump continues to call out the flagship publication for what he deems "fake news." But the company is holding up under the spotlight, reporting quarterly revenue of $413.9 million, up from $398 million in the year-ago quarter.
The New York Timeshad tough comparisons this quarter considering it got aboost in subscribersat this time last year when the election had just ended and people were eager to keep up with the news through reputable sources. That explains why theTimesadded fewer digital subscribers in the latest quarter -- 139,000, compared with 348,000 a year earlier.
But due tonew revenue streamsand a rollback on discounts, the company's digital subscription revenue still rose 25.8% to $95.4 million. To get a better picture of how The New York Times Company is doing one year post-election, here are five key takeaways from its latest earnings call.
The New York Times' chairman, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, are focusing on building additional revenue streams for the company. Image source: The New York Times.
The NYT was pleasantly surprised by the success of its daily news podcastThe Daily, which debuted in February 2017 and now boasts 4.5 million unique listeners each month. The podcast has helped drive more traffic to its site, and the company believes it can use this same strategy with new film and TV projects.
The New York Times' first feature film will center on how an all-female team at theTimesbroke the Harvey Weinstein story that made waves around the world when it was published in the fall of 2017. This follows the 2017 film centered onThe Washington Post's investigative team, aptly namedThe Post, which made $175 million at the box office and was a nominee for a Best Picture Academy Award.
The company is also working on an extended TV program calledThe Weeklythat will take viewers behind the scenes of its newsroom. FX landed the first-run North American rights to the program, while Hulu will have exclusive streaming rights to the program the day after episodes air.
The journalism world has had a bumpy relationship withFacebookthis year after the social media platform made tweaks to its News Feed that caused adrop in trafficfor a number of publishers.
However, The New York Times' management claims that recent conversations with Facebook indicate that while the latter wants less overall emphasis on news in the News Feed, it also wants to help promote trusted news sources over less reliable sources. Facebook specifically told them that it sees theTimesas a trusted news source, NYT CEO Mark Thompson claimed on the earnings call. To that point, Thompson said he actually believes the News Feed tweak could end up helping the paper's traffic.
In the past quarter, the New York Times reorganized its headquarters to free up more space for rental income. The company has already signed leases for 4.5 floors and expects the rental income from these agreements to show in the second quarter under "Other" revenue. By the end of the year, the New York Times expects to be reporting rental income from the additional 3.5 free floors.
The 2016 election gaveThe New York Timesa meaningful boost in subscribers, and the company is hoping to capitalize on the same thirst for trusted news sources during this year's midterm elections. The NYT COOMeredith Leviensaid she's expecting a vigorous new cycle of subscription signups at the end of 2018 and into the start of 2019.
TheTimesadded 99,000 subscribers to its basic digital news product, as well as 40,000 subscribers to its Crosswords and Cooking offerings. That made for a grand total of more than 3.7 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, across the print and digital businesses.
The NYT Cooking subscription was announced about a year ago, in June 2017. For $5 every four weeks, subscribers have unlimited access to more than 18,000 recipes from past and presentNew York Timesfood writers. The NYT Crossword subscription costs about $20 annually for access to its daily puzzle, as well as all of the puzzles in its archive.
These subscriptions are separate from the basic digital and print subscriptions, meaning they help the publication gain new subscribers who just want to subscribe to its Crossword or Cooking products. And they're also a way to increase the average revenue per user as some of its print and digital subscribers opt to pay for access to these add-on subscriptions.
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Natalie Waltershas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool recommends The New York Times. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 5 Key Takeaways From The New York Times' Earnings Call: The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has been under additional scrutiny since the 2016 election as President Donald Trump continues to call out the flagship publication for what he deems "fake news." But the company is holding up under the spotlight, reporting quarterly revenue of $413.9 million, up from $398 million in the year-ago quarter. The New York Times had tough comparisons this quarter considering it got a boost in subscribers at this time last year when the election had just ended and people were eager to keep up with the news through reputable sources. That explains why the Times added fewer digital subscribers in the latest quarter -- 139,000, compared with 348,000 a year earlier. But due to new revenue streams and a rollback on discounts, the company's digital subscription revenue still rose 25.8% to $95.4 million. To get a better picture of how The New York Times Company is doing one year post-election, here are five key takeaways from its latest earnings call. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and A.G. Sulzberger of The New York Times pose in front of a black backdrop in a professional photo The New York Times' chairman, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, are focusing on building additional revenue streams for the company. Image source: The New York Times. 1. The NYT is turning its attention to TV and film The NYT was pleasantly surprised by the success of its daily news podcast The Daily , which debuted in February 2017 and now boasts 4.5 million unique listeners each month. The podcast has helped drive more traffic to its site, and the company believes it can use this same strategy with new film and TV projects. The New York Times ' first feature film will center on how an all-female team at the Times broke the Harvey Weinstein story that made waves around the world when it was published in the fall of 2017. This follows the 2017 film centered on The Washington Post 's investigative team, aptly named The Post , which made $175 million at the box office and was a nominee for a Best Picture Academy Award. Story continues The company is also working on an extended TV program called The Weekly that will take viewers behind the scenes of its newsroom. FX landed the first-run North American rights to the program, while Hulu will have exclusive streaming rights to the program the day after episodes air. 2. The NYT claims it has a good relationship with Facebook The journalism world has had a bumpy relationship with Facebook this year after the social media platform made tweaks to its News Feed that caused a drop in traffic for a number of publishers. However, The New York Times' management claims that recent conversations with Facebook indicate that while the latter wants less overall emphasis on news in the News Feed, it also wants to help promote trusted news sources over less reliable sources. Facebook specifically told them that it sees the Times as a trusted news source, NYT CEO Mark Thompson claimed on the earnings call. To that point, Thompson said he actually believes the News Feed tweak could end up helping the paper's traffic. 3. The NYT is renting out floors for additional revenue In the past quarter, the New York Times reorganized its headquarters to free up more space for rental income. The company has already signed leases for 4.5 floors and expects the rental income from these agreements to show in the second quarter under "Other" revenue. By the end of the year, the New York Times expects to be reporting rental income from the additional 3.5 free floors. 4. The NYT expects a boost from upcoming midterms The 2016 election gave The New York Times a meaningful boost in subscribers, and the company is hoping to capitalize on the same thirst for trusted news sources during this year's midterm elections. The NYT COO Meredith Levien said she's expecting a vigorous new cycle of subscription signups at the end of 2018 and into the start of 2019. 5. The NYT's cooking, crossword offerings are doing well The Times added 99,000 subscribers to its basic digital news product, as well as 40,000 subscribers to its Crosswords and Cooking offerings. That made for a grand total of more than 3.7 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, across the print and digital businesses. The NYT Cooking subscription was announced about a year ago, in June 2017. For $5 every four weeks, subscribers have unlimited access to more than 18,000 recipes from past and present New York Times food writers. The NYT Crossword subscription costs about $20 annually for access to its daily puzzle, as well as all of the puzzles in its archive. These subscriptions are separate from the basic digital and print subscriptions, meaning they help the publication gain new subscribers who just want to subscribe to its Crossword or Cooking products. And they're also a way to increase the average revenue per user as some of its print and digital subscribers opt to pay for access to these add-on subscriptions. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Natalie Walters has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool recommends The New York Times. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analyst: Willy Woo, a respected cryptocurrency, and digital asset analyst, recently stated that the bitcoin price might likely fall below the $6,000 mark in the short-term.
Since mid-May, ever since thebitcoin pricefailed to test a major support level at $10,000, the cryptocurrency market has been on a continuous decline. The vast majority of tokens and small cryptocurrencies have followed the price trend of bitcoin and Ethereum. On both the upside and downside, the price movement of tokens intensified, recording larger drops than bitcoin during minor corrections.
On May 25, Woo noted that the bitcoin price would likely dip below the $6,000 level and test $5,500 to $5,700 as a long-term support level. In previous reports, CCN noted that the $6,500 mark is an important resistance level which bitcoin has been able to bounce off of since early January.
In the short-term, it is likely that bitcoin falls below $7,000 and test the $6,500 resistance level and the failure to remain above that level will likely send bitcoin to the lower end of $6,000 and potentially to the higher end of $5,000.
Woo named four major reasons to support his call:
1. High NVT signal
2. High volatility
3. Standard NVT overly high
4. Volume Profile cliff below $6,800
“NVT Signal is still too high. We need more blockchain transactional activity to justify the current price, or the price to drop to reconcile the difference. To drive up transactional activity in a bear slide is very unlikely. Volatility is still too high. I’m looking for a sustained low band of volatility which tends to be a signal for the end of the detox and the next accumulation phase. It’s still got some time to ride down,”said Woo.
NVT Signal is a trading indicator developed by Woo, which is essentially a Standard NVT Ratio–Network Valuation divided by Transaction Value on the blockchain smoothed using moving average–except that instead of applying the moving average to both Network Valuation and Transaction Value, NVT Signal applies moving average to only the Transaction Value, creating a more responsive chart.
While it is unlikely that the bitcoin price drops to the lower end of $5,000, Woo stated that bitcoin would most likely not be able to hold up in the $7,000 region and inevitably drop down to the $6,000 region.
But, because of the intensity of the decline since late 2017, Woo emphasized that 2018 will not see a similar correction period as 2014 and prevent a 2-phase drop.
“So, in summary, my best guess… slowish bleed down to $6800… then a steeper slide to $5700, then a leveling out of the drop… then a flat zone. This is an educated guess based on volume profile and fundamental data framing the rate of movement,” added Woo.
In October 2017, after nearly doubling in price within a 3-month period, the bitcoin price achieved $5,700. Falling to the $5,700 region would essentially send the price of bitcoin back by nine months.
However, the cryptocurrency market is significantly different from where it was in October. Its volumes are in orders of magnitude larger and the standard of infrastructure provided by companies likeCoinbaseandGeminiare unprecedented compared to the platforms that were available in early 2017.
Given the difference in the volume and structure of the market in comparison to 2017 and previous years, both Woo and other analysts in the cryptocurrency sector agree that the next bull rally or up cycle for bitcoin will take less time to initiate, possibly in the third quarter of 2018.
Images from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analystappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analyst: Willy Woo, a respected cryptocurrency, and digital asset analyst, recently stated that the bitcoin price might likely fall below the $6,000 mark in the short-term.
Since mid-May, ever since thebitcoin pricefailed to test a major support level at $10,000, the cryptocurrency market has been on a continuous decline. The vast majority of tokens and small cryptocurrencies have followed the price trend of bitcoin and Ethereum. On both the upside and downside, the price movement of tokens intensified, recording larger drops than bitcoin during minor corrections.
On May 25, Woo noted that the bitcoin price would likely dip below the $6,000 level and test $5,500 to $5,700 as a long-term support level. In previous reports, CCN noted that the $6,500 mark is an important resistance level which bitcoin has been able to bounce off of since early January.
In the short-term, it is likely that bitcoin falls below $7,000 and test the $6,500 resistance level and the failure to remain above that level will likely send bitcoin to the lower end of $6,000 and potentially to the higher end of $5,000.
Woo named four major reasons to support his call:
1. High NVT signal
2. High volatility
3. Standard NVT overly high
4. Volume Profile cliff below $6,800
“NVT Signal is still too high. We need more blockchain transactional activity to justify the current price, or the price to drop to reconcile the difference. To drive up transactional activity in a bear slide is very unlikely. Volatility is still too high. I’m looking for a sustained low band of volatility which tends to be a signal for the end of the detox and the next accumulation phase. It’s still got some time to ride down,”said Woo.
NVT Signal is a trading indicator developed by Woo, which is essentially a Standard NVT Ratio–Network Valuation divided by Transaction Value on the blockchain smoothed using moving average–except that instead of applying the moving average to both Network Valuation and Transaction Value, NVT Signal applies moving average to only the Transaction Value, creating a more responsive chart.
While it is unlikely that the bitcoin price drops to the lower end of $5,000, Woo stated that bitcoin would most likely not be able to hold up in the $7,000 region and inevitably drop down to the $6,000 region.
But, because of the intensity of the decline since late 2017, Woo emphasized that 2018 will not see a similar correction period as 2014 and prevent a 2-phase drop.
“So, in summary, my best guess… slowish bleed down to $6800… then a steeper slide to $5700, then a leveling out of the drop… then a flat zone. This is an educated guess based on volume profile and fundamental data framing the rate of movement,” added Woo.
In October 2017, after nearly doubling in price within a 3-month period, the bitcoin price achieved $5,700. Falling to the $5,700 region would essentially send the price of bitcoin back by nine months.
However, the cryptocurrency market is significantly different from where it was in October. Its volumes are in orders of magnitude larger and the standard of infrastructure provided by companies likeCoinbaseandGeminiare unprecedented compared to the platforms that were available in early 2017.
Given the difference in the volume and structure of the market in comparison to 2017 and previous years, both Woo and other analysts in the cryptocurrency sector agree that the next bull rally or up cycle for bitcoin will take less time to initiate, possibly in the third quarter of 2018.
Images from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analystappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analyst: Willy Woo, a respected cryptocurrency, and digital asset analyst, recently stated that the bitcoin price might likely fall below the $6,000 mark in the short-term. Recent Market Struggles Since mid-May, ever since the bitcoin price failed to test a major support level at $10,000, the cryptocurrency market has been on a continuous decline. The vast majority of tokens and small cryptocurrencies have followed the price trend of bitcoin and Ethereum. On both the upside and downside, the price movement of tokens intensified, recording larger drops than bitcoin during minor corrections. On May 25, Woo noted that the bitcoin price would likely dip below the $6,000 level and test $5,500 to $5,700 as a long-term support level. In previous reports, CCN noted that the $6,500 mark is an important resistance level which bitcoin has been able to bounce off of since early January. In the short-term, it is likely that bitcoin falls below $7,000 and test the $6,500 resistance level and the failure to remain above that level will likely send bitcoin to the lower end of $6,000 and potentially to the higher end of $5,000. Woo named four major reasons to support his call: High NVT signal High volatility Standard NVT overly high Volume Profile cliff below $6,800 NVT Signal is still too high. We need more blockchain transactional activity to justify the current price, or the price to drop to reconcile the difference. To drive up transactional activity in a bear slide is very unlikely. Volatility is still too high. Im looking for a sustained low band of volatility which tends to be a signal for the end of the detox and the next accumulation phase. Its still got some time to ride down, said Woo. bitcoin price NVT Signal is a trading indicator developed by Woo, which is essentially a Standard NVT RatioNetwork Valuation divided by Transaction Value on the blockchain smoothed using moving averageexcept that instead of applying the moving average to both Network Valuation and Transaction Value, NVT Signal applies moving average to only the Transaction Value, creating a more responsive chart. While it is unlikely that the bitcoin price drops to the lower end of $5,000, Woo stated that bitcoin would most likely not be able to hold up in the $7,000 region and inevitably drop down to the $6,000 region. But, because of the intensity of the decline since late 2017, Woo emphasized that 2018 will not see a similar correction period as 2014 and prevent a 2-phase drop. So, in summary, my best guess
slowish bleed down to $6800
then a steeper slide to $5700, then a leveling out of the drop
then a flat zone. This is an educated guess based on volume profile and fundamental data framing the rate of movement, added Woo. Story continues Bitcoin Price to Rebound from $5,700 In October 2017, after nearly doubling in price within a 3-month period, the bitcoin price achieved $5,700. Falling to the $5,700 region would essentially send the price of bitcoin back by nine months. However, the cryptocurrency market is significantly different from where it was in October. Its volumes are in orders of magnitude larger and the standard of infrastructure provided by companies like Coinbase and Gemini are unprecedented compared to the platforms that were available in early 2017. Given the difference in the volume and structure of the market in comparison to 2017 and previous years, both Woo and other analysts in the cryptocurrency sector agree that the next bull rally or up cycle for bitcoin will take less time to initiate, possibly in the third quarter of 2018. Images from Shutterstock The post Bitcoin Price to Bottom at $5,700 in Short-Term Before Recovery: Analyst appeared first on CCN . View comments || Supersonic Flights Just Moved 1 Step Closer to a Comeback: The dream of traveling from coast to coast or across the ocean in a matter of hours is a real possibility, with the Federal Aviation Administration beginning work on updated regulations to accommodate a new generation of supersonic aircraft. The changes would be great news for passengers, while creating both challenges and new opportunities for aerospace giants likeLockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT)andBoeing(NYSE: BA).
The FAA intends to issue a formal proposal on new noise guidelines by December, according to a post on the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website. The new rules would allow for testing of new supersonic technologies that are designed to not generate a disruptive sonic boom, and pave the way for eventual approval of the new technologies if they work as planned.
Artist rendering of Lockheed Martin's supersonic commercial concept. Image source: Lockheed Martin.
Commercial aviation hit supersonic speeds in 1976 when the Concorde took to the skies, but that aircraft, because of its loud boom, was limited to operating only over water due to concerns that the boom would break windows, scare livestock, and generally disrupt daily lives. Those guidelines restricting the Concorde to trans-ocean flying limited the airplane's usefulness and helped lead to its retirement in 2003.
Advances in design and material technology now allow for aircraft designs that minimize that sonic boom, and NASA has been working with the industry on conceptssince 2010. But even if the noise challenges can be overcome, FAA regulations currently restrict supersonic flight based on speed and not based on noise generated, so the government would have to update regulations before commercial flights or even tests could be permitted.
The FAA's planned action is good news for Lockheed Martin, which earlier this yearwas awarded a $247.5 million contract from NASAto design and build a modern supersonic commercial aircraft. Delivery of the aircraft is expected in late 2021, and NASA is likely to use the data the test flights produce to build its case for allowing a return of faster-than-sound flying.
Lockheed has extensive experience in supersonic flying thanks to its F-35 and F-22 military programs, andit's collaborating with privately held Aerionto develop a supersonic business jet prototype. Success could open new lines of business for Lockheed, which exited the commercial aviation business more than 30 years ago.
The ramifications for Boeing are more complicated. The company's massive commercial division accounts for more than 60% of its $93.4 billion in annual revenue. The company needs to be at least cognizant that its long-range, widebody order book, which currently stands at about 1,000 airplanes, could eventually come under pressure should airlines have a supersonic alternative.
Of course, that threat is still a way off, and Boeing is working on its own hypersonic offerings. The company earlier this year unveiled a new hypersonic design that at least initially will be targeting the defense market, but last summer at the Paris Air Show, CEO Dennis Muilenburgsaidof commercial hypersonic flights, "I think in the next decade or two you're going to see it become a reality."
Through its venture capital arm, Boeing alsohas a stake in Reaction Engines, a British firm working to develop a hybrid engine able to travel five times the speed of sound in atmosphere. It's far to early to project demand for supersonic aircraft or to predict list prices, but Boeing appears to be hedging its bets and committing R&D resources to make sure it is not left behind if these initial efforts prove to be a success.
Other companies are pursuing the technology as well. Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based start-up backed by Japan Airlines and several venture firms and partnered with Richard Branson, is developing a plane capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound that it hopes to introduce by 2023.
The talk of an early 2020s return of supersonic flying is exciting, but for the foreseeable future, Boeing's order book feels secure. Even if these new concepts work as planned and regulators sign off on noise rules that will allow the planes to fly over land, airlines are likely to tread slowly before committing to new technologies.
These supersonic jets, like the Concorde before it, will likely be significantly more expensive than the Boeing 777s and 787s they could potentially replace; it also remains to be seen what percentage of airline passengers will be willing to pay premium ticket prices to shave a few hours off of a flight from New York to Tokyo. Until commercial operators have a better understanding of the cost of and demand for the faster flying, they're likely to stick with what they know.
What is clear is that supersonic flying is poised for a comeback. There might be turbulence along the way, but over the long haul expect both Lockheed and Boeing to be among the winners as the technology matures.
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Lou Whitemanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Supersonic Flights Just Moved 1 Step Closer to a Comeback: The dream of traveling from coast to coast or across the ocean in a matter of hours is a real possibility, with the Federal Aviation Administration beginning work on updated regulations to accommodate a new generation of supersonic aircraft. The changes would be great news for passengers, while creating both challenges and new opportunities for aerospace giants like Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Boeing (NYSE: BA) . The FAA intends to issue a formal proposal on new noise guidelines by December, according to a post on the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website. The new rules would allow for testing of new supersonic technologies that are designed to not generate a disruptive sonic boom, and pave the way for eventual approval of the new technologies if they work as planned. Lockheed Martin supersonic rendering Artist rendering of Lockheed Martin's supersonic commercial concept. Image source: Lockheed Martin. Commercial aviation hit supersonic speeds in 1976 when the Concorde took to the skies, but that aircraft, because of its loud boom, was limited to operating only over water due to concerns that the boom would break windows, scare livestock, and generally disrupt daily lives. Those guidelines restricting the Concorde to trans-ocean flying limited the airplane's usefulness and helped lead to its retirement in 2003. Advances in design and material technology now allow for aircraft designs that minimize that sonic boom, and NASA has been working with the industry on concepts since 2010 . But even if the noise challenges can be overcome, FAA regulations currently restrict supersonic flight based on speed and not based on noise generated, so the government would have to update regulations before commercial flights or even tests could be permitted. New opportunities and risks The FAA's planned action is good news for Lockheed Martin, which earlier this year was awarded a $247.5 million contract from NASA to design and build a modern supersonic commercial aircraft. Delivery of the aircraft is expected in late 2021, and NASA is likely to use the data the test flights produce to build its case for allowing a return of faster-than-sound flying. Story continues Lockheed has extensive experience in supersonic flying thanks to its F-35 and F-22 military programs, and it's collaborating with privately held Aerion to develop a supersonic business jet prototype. Success could open new lines of business for Lockheed, which exited the commercial aviation business more than 30 years ago. The ramifications for Boeing are more complicated. The company's massive commercial division accounts for more than 60% of its $93.4 billion in annual revenue. The company needs to be at least cognizant that its long-range, widebody order book, which currently stands at about 1,000 airplanes, could eventually come under pressure should airlines have a supersonic alternative. Of course, that threat is still a way off, and Boeing is working on its own hypersonic offerings. The company earlier this year unveiled a new hypersonic design that at least initially will be targeting the defense market, but last summer at the Paris Air Show, CEO Dennis Muilenburg said of commercial hypersonic flights, "I think in the next decade or two you're going to see it become a reality." Through its venture capital arm, Boeing also has a stake in Reaction Engines , a British firm working to develop a hybrid engine able to travel five times the speed of sound in atmosphere. It's far to early to project demand for supersonic aircraft or to predict list prices, but Boeing appears to be hedging its bets and committing R&D resources to make sure it is not left behind if these initial efforts prove to be a success. Other companies are pursuing the technology as well. Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based start-up backed by Japan Airlines and several venture firms and partnered with Richard Branson, is developing a plane capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound that it hopes to introduce by 2023. Disruption will take time The talk of an early 2020s return of supersonic flying is exciting, but for the foreseeable future, Boeing's order book feels secure. Even if these new concepts work as planned and regulators sign off on noise rules that will allow the planes to fly over land, airlines are likely to tread slowly before committing to new technologies. These supersonic jets, like the Concorde before it, will likely be significantly more expensive than the Boeing 777s and 787s they could potentially replace; it also remains to be seen what percentage of airline passengers will be willing to pay premium ticket prices to shave a few hours off of a flight from New York to Tokyo. Until commercial operators have a better understanding of the cost of and demand for the faster flying, they're likely to stick with what they know. What is clear is that supersonic flying is poised for a comeback. There might be turbulence along the way, but over the long haul expect both Lockheed and Boeing to be among the winners as the technology matures. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Social Media Buzz]
$BTC #BTC #Bitcoin: $7,239
#tradealert
Fib S3 broken, price 7239.00 below support point 3 (7268.18)
#fibonacci #breakdown || BTC Price: 7267.50$,
BTC Today High : 7450.00$,
BTC All Time High : 19903.44$
ETH Price: 533.51$ #bitcoin #BTC $BTC #ETH $ETH #cryptopic.twitter.com/I66C6ZDaSS || 只今のレート
#BTC = ￥800,325↓
#日経225 = ￥22,481.09→
#USDJPY = ￥109.38↑
#EURJPY = ￥127.13↑
#GBPJPY = ￥145.49↑
#金相場 = ￥4564↑(NY金より試算)
#株 #オフパコ
2018-05-29 00:01:02 || May 28, 2018 04:00:00 UTC | 7,383.20$ | 6,306.60...
|
7472.59, 7406.52, 7494.17, 7541.45, 7643.45, 7720.25, 7514.47, 7633.76, 7653.98, 7678.24
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11354.02, 11523.58, 11382.62, 10895.83, 10051.70, 10311.55, 10374.34, 10231.74, 10345.81, 10916.05, 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76, 10623.54, 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05, 10347.71, 10276.79, 10241.27, 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94, 8151.50, 7988.16, 8245.62, 8228.78, 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21, 7988.56, 8222.08, 8243.72, 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2019-11-07]
Volume: 22700383839, RSI (14-day): 57.34, 50-day EMA: 8986.39, 200-day EMA: 8718.78
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1464.20, Gold RSI: 39.22
Oil Price: 57.15, Oil RSI: 58.36
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Square Cash App Q3 bitcoin sales topped a record $148 million, up over 245% since last year: Another quarter, another bitcoin sales record for Square Cash App.
Square posted a record $148 million in quarterly bitcoin sales for the third quarter of 2019, up ~20% on volumes from last quarter, and up more than 245% since Q3 2018.
In terms of BTC, The Block estimates that the total volume of BTC sales through the Cash App was ~14,300 BTC, using the average price of bitcoin in Q3 ($10.3K).
In the company's third quarter investor letter, the firm credits Cash App's redesigned customer interface in September for increased product adoption of both Bitcoin and Cash Card. Square also noted that first-time bitcoin buyers have "approximately doubled" since the redesign.
The company also is partly crediting bitcoin outperformance in the third quarter as justification for increasing full year revenue guidance to the "upper-end."
"We are increasing the upper end of our full year 2019 total net revenue guidance by $110 million due to underlying trends in our Seller and Cash App businesses, as well as bitcoin outperformance in the third quarter," Square said in its Q3 Investor Letter.
Recently, Square rolled out a new Cash App feature that will allow users to make free stock trades, per aBloomberg report.
*This is a developing story, and will be updated after the earnings call || Square Cash App Q3 bitcoin sales topped a record $148 million, up over 245% since last year: Another quarter, another bitcoin sales record for Square Cash App. Square posted a record $148 million in quarterly bitcoin sales for the third quarter of 2019, up ~20% on volumes from last quarter, and up more than 245% since Q3 2018. In terms of BTC, The Block estimates that the total volume of BTC sales through the Cash App was ~14,300 BTC, using the average price of bitcoin in Q3 ($10.3K). In the company's third quarter investor letter, the firm credits Cash App's redesigned customer interface in September for increased product adoption of both Bitcoin and Cash Card. Square also noted that first-time bitcoin buyers have "approximately doubled" since the redesign. The company also is partly crediting bitcoin outperformance in the third quarter as justification for increasing full year revenue guidance to the "upper-end." "We are increasing the upper end of our full year 2019 total net revenue guidance by $110 million due to underlying trends in our Seller and Cash App businesses, as well as bitcoin outperformance in the third quarter," Square said in its Q3 Investor Letter. Recently, Square rolled out a new Cash App feature that will allow users to make free stock trades, per a Bloomberg report . *This is a developing story, and will be updated after the earnings call || Stellar (XLM) falls more than 6 percent following yesterday’s massive spike: Following a controversial token burn that saw the price of Stellar (XLM) explode by roughly 25 percent yesterday, the market has corrected today with a 6 percent fall. The Stellar Development Foundation yesterday revealed that it sent roughly half of all XLM tokens up in flames. The news caused a massive spike in the price of Stellar. But since then, XLM has cooled, according to data from Messari . Stellar’s price has seen a steady climb since late October, when the price of XLM hit $0.065 per token. Last week, the price rose again to around $0.07 per coin following news that Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck had added Stellar to its list of offerings. The cryptocurrency then pushed past $0.08—a surge of roughly 25 percent—on November 5 following news of the burn. In all, about 55 billion XLM tokens vanished from the Stellar network. Today’s drop, however, suggests that the effects of the burn on the token’s price may be short-lived. In general, it’s a down day for the crypto market, with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping by nearly 1.5 percent since yesterday, currently trading for just under $9,300 per coin. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH), EOS (EOS) and Litecoin (LTC) have all dropped in price as well, ranging between 0.3 and one percent. The outlier today is Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which today finally crossed over the $300 per coin mark after weeks of bouncing between the $280 and $290 range. || Stellar (XLM) falls more than 6 percent following yesterday’s massive spike: Following a controversialtokenburn that saw the price of Stellar (XLM) explode by roughly 25 percent yesterday, the market has corrected today with a 6 percent fall.
The Stellar Development Foundation yesterday revealed that it sent roughly half of all XLM tokens up in flames. The newscaused a massive spikein the price of Stellar. But since then, XLM has cooled, according to data fromMessari.
Stellar’s price has seen a steady climb since late October, when the price of XLM hit $0.065 per token. Last week, the price rose again to around $0.07 per coin following news thatJapanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheckhad added Stellar to its list of offerings.
The cryptocurrency then pushed past $0.08—a surge of roughly 25 percent—on November 5 following news of the burn. In all, about 55 billion XLM tokens vanished from the Stellar network. Today’s drop, however, suggests that the effects of the burn on the token’s price may be short-lived.
In general, it’s a down day for thecryptomarket, with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping by nearly 1.5 percent since yesterday, currently trading for just under $9,300 per coin. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH), EOS (EOS) and Litecoin (LTC) have all dropped in price as well, ranging between 0.3 and one percent.
The outlier today is Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which today finally crossed over the $300 per coin mark after weeks of bouncingbetween the $280 and $290range. || Former CEO of Nasdaq says cryptocurrency’s betting element should end: Bob Greifeld, former CEO of Nasdaq, doesn't own any Bitcoin. He toldThe Scoopthat he neither believes nor doubts its value as a speculative investment, but said to reach its potential, the betting element must go. Listen onSpotify,iTunes,Google Play, orStitcher.
However, he said he believes digital currencies provide value to society reducing friction costs.
"If I could buy and sell in bitcoin, but not have to worry about whether it's at $9,000 or $6.000 today, then that would be a great thing," he said. "So when I think about digital currencies, I like the stablecoin concept."
In the vein of a stablecoins, Greifeld said he sees value in digital currencies tied to sovereign wealth. In the U.S., he said many don't see the importance of transacting in multiple currencies because the country is a one currency environment.
"For a lot of the world, we deal across multiple currencies and there's friction associated with that," he said. "And to the extent you have a digital currency that's more and more global, then I certainly think you can take a bit of friction out of the system and it'd be a great thing." || Former CEO of Nasdaq says cryptocurrency’s betting element should end: Bob Greifeld, former CEO of Nasdaq, doesn't own any Bitcoin. He told The Scoop that he neither believes nor doubts its value as a speculative investment, but said to reach its potential, the betting element must go. Listen on Spotify , iTunes , Google Play , or Stitcher . However, he said he believes digital currencies provide value to society reducing friction costs. "If I could buy and sell in bitcoin, but not have to worry about whether it's at $9,000 or $6.000 today, then that would be a great thing," he said. "So when I think about digital currencies, I like the stablecoin concept." In the vein of a stablecoins, Greifeld said he sees value in digital currencies tied to sovereign wealth. In the U.S., he said many don't see the importance of transacting in multiple currencies because the country is a one currency environment. "For a lot of the world, we deal across multiple currencies and there's friction associated with that," he said. "And to the extent you have a digital currency that's more and more global, then I certainly think you can take a bit of friction out of the system and it'd be a great thing." || REFILE-UPDATE 2-Square profit tops estimates on growth in subscription and services business: (Refiles to drop reference to Cash App in paragraph 6)
Nov 6 (Reuters) - Payments processor Square Inc beat analysts' estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday, as it earned more from its subscription and services business, especially from its Bitcoin-friendly Cash App.
The San Francisco-based company, best known for its signature small white credit card readers that are plugged into smartphones, has been aggressively expanding into a wider range of financial services, ranging from lending to accounting software.
Subscription and services-based revenue, which includes Square's earnings from selling software, jumped 68% to $279.8 million in the third quarter ended Sept 30, with Cash App revenue more than doubling to $159 million.
Square's Cash App, which directly competes with PayPal Holdings Inc's Venmo app, allows users to send money to each other for free. The app charges fees to businesses when users choose to instantly deposit money from the app into their bank accounts, rather than wait several days.
Gross payment volume, the total dollar amount of all card payments processed by sellers, rose 25% to $28.23 billion in the quarter. GPV from larger sellers accounted for 55% of total, while GPV from mid-market sellers - their biggest client base - accounted for only 27% of the total. Transaction-based revenue rose nearly 25%.
Square has been attracting larger merchants through its newer products such as its lending services unit, Square Capital.
The company, founded and led by Twitter Inc Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, said net income rose to $29.4 million, or 6 cents per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $19.6 million, or 4 cents per share, a year earlier. (https://bit.ly/2Nq3jAx)
On an adjusted basis, the company earned 25 cents per share, while analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 20 cents per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Total net revenue rose to $1.26 billion from $882.1 million.
Shares of the company were up 4.35% at $64.01 in after-hours trading. (Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber) || REFILE-UPDATE 2-Square profit tops estimates on growth in subscription and services business: (Refiles to drop reference to Cash App in paragraph 6) Nov 6 (Reuters) - Payments processor Square Inc beat analysts' estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday, as it earned more from its subscription and services business, especially from its Bitcoin-friendly Cash App. The San Francisco-based company, best known for its signature small white credit card readers that are plugged into smartphones, has been aggressively expanding into a wider range of financial services, ranging from lending to accounting software. Subscription and services-based revenue, which includes Square's earnings from selling software, jumped 68% to $279.8 million in the third quarter ended Sept 30, with Cash App revenue more than doubling to $159 million. Square's Cash App, which directly competes with PayPal Holdings Inc's Venmo app, allows users to send money to each other for free. The app charges fees to businesses when users choose to instantly deposit money from the app into their bank accounts, rather than wait several days. Gross payment volume, the total dollar amount of all card payments processed by sellers, rose 25% to $28.23 billion in the quarter. GPV from larger sellers accounted for 55% of total, while GPV from mid-market sellers - their biggest client base - accounted for only 27% of the total. Transaction-based revenue rose nearly 25%. Square has been attracting larger merchants through its newer products such as its lending services unit, Square Capital. The company, founded and led by Twitter Inc Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, said net income rose to $29.4 million, or 6 cents per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $19.6 million, or 4 cents per share, a year earlier. (https://bit.ly/2Nq3jAx) On an adjusted basis, the company earned 25 cents per share, while analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 20 cents per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Total net revenue rose to $1.26 billion from $882.1 million. Shares of the company were up 4.35% at $64.01 in after-hours trading. (Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber) View comments || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/6/19: Bitcoin price prediction: A new old history leads the forecastThe BTC/USD is in a period of technical agony, trapped between multiple technical hurdles.
Since late June, when the BTC/USD pair set the relative maximum at $13,000, the Bitcoin has been sliding down a medium-term bearish channel.
The current scenario is a small-sized replica of the situation seen by the BTC/USD pair from the late 2017 highs to the December 2018 lows. On this occasion, the break was on the rising side.
Ethereum technical analysis: ETH/USD $200 barrier is proving to be a problemEthereum price is trading in the green, up 0.25% the session on Wednesday.
ETH/USD continues to move within a narrowing range, subject to further committed direction.
A strong barrier of resistance is in the way of greater upside at the psychological $200 mark.
Ripple's XRP technical analysis: XRP/USD at make or break $0.3000Ripple's XRP price is trading with the green by some 0.65% in the session on Tuesday.
XRP/USD is moving within consolidation mode, subject to the next committed move.
The bulls continue to flirt with the big $0.3000 mark, yet to conquer.
Image Sourced fromPixabay
0
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap
• NEO, Ripple & Litecoin - European Wrap
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/6/19: Bitcoin price prediction: A new old history leads the forecast The BTC/USD is in a period of technical agony, trapped between multiple technical hurdles. Since late June, when the BTC/USD pair set the relative maximum at $13,000, the Bitcoin has been sliding down a medium-term bearish channel. The current scenario is a small-sized replica of the situation seen by the BTC/USD pair from the late 2017 highs to the December 2018 lows. On this occasion, the break was on the rising side. Ethereum technical analysis: ETH/USD $200 barrier is proving to be a problem Ethereum price is trading in the green, up 0.25% the session on Wednesday. ETH/USD continues to move within a narrowing range, subject to further committed direction. A strong barrier of resistance is in the way of greater upside at the psychological $200 mark. Ripple's XRP technical analysis: XRP/USD at make or break $0.3000 Ripple's XRP price is trading with the green by some 0.65% in the session on Tuesday. XRP/USD is moving within consolidation mode, subject to the next committed move. The bulls continue to flirt with the big $0.3000 mark, yet to conquer. Image Sourced from Pixabay 0 See more from Benzinga Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap NEO, Ripple & Litecoin - European Wrap © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/6/19: Bitcoin price prediction: A new old history leads the forecastThe BTC/USD is in a period of technical agony, trapped between multiple technical hurdles.
Since late June, when the BTC/USD pair set the relative maximum at $13,000, the Bitcoin has been sliding down a medium-term bearish channel.
The current scenario is a small-sized replica of the situation seen by the BTC/USD pair from the late 2017 highs to the December 2018 lows. On this occasion, the break was on the rising side.
Ethereum technical analysis: ETH/USD $200 barrier is proving to be a problemEthereum price is trading in the green, up 0.25% the session on Wednesday.
ETH/USD continues to move within a narrowing range, subject to further committed direction.
A strong barrier of resistance is in the way of greater upside at the psychological $200 mark.
Ripple's XRP technical analysis: XRP/USD at make or break $0.3000Ripple's XRP price is trading with the green by some 0.65% in the session on Tuesday.
XRP/USD is moving within consolidation mode, subject to the next committed move.
The bulls continue to flirt with the big $0.3000 mark, yet to conquer.
Image Sourced fromPixabay
0
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap
• NEO, Ripple & Litecoin - European Wrap
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Squares Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases: Related: Ether on Lightning Is the Latest Bridge Crossing Cryptos Great Divide You are not charged a conversion fee, or any other fees, to buy or sell Bitcoin through the Cash App. Related Stories Bitcoin Keeps Failing at This Key Price Hurdle The Bitcoin Rich List Has Grown 30% in the Last Year, But Why? || Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases: Related:Ether on Lightning Is the Latest Bridge Crossing Crypto’s Great Divide
• Bitcoin Keeps Failing at This Key Price Hurdle
• The ‘Bitcoin Rich List’ Has Grown 30% in the Last Year, But Why? || Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases: Related:Ether on Lightning Is the Latest Bridge Crossing Crypto’s Great Divide
• Bitcoin Keeps Failing at This Key Price Hurdle
• The ‘Bitcoin Rich List’ Has Grown 30% in the Last Year, But Why? || The Quantum Threat, Libra, Exchange Offerings, And Bitcoin ETFs: Here Are This Year's Biggest Trends In Cryptocurrency: If there’s one thing that’s certain about the cryptocurrency markets, it’s that the news cycle moves at a breakneck speed. Perhaps it’s because, unlike traditional markets which trade according to hours or business, digital assets are on the go 24-7.
However, in 2019, it’s fair to say that a handful of key trends has occupied most of the cryptocurrency space. Furthermore, the fact that some of them have even dominated the mainstream news is a testament to how far cryptocurrency has evolved from its cypherpunk roots.
Libra
It’s hard to imagine that at the start of 2019, the idea of aFacebook, Inc.(NASDAQ:FB) cryptocurrency was mere speculation. In June, when the company announced its intentions in June, the price ofBitcoinrocketed to its 2019 high of over $13,000.
However, the regulators quickly swooped in. US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee,immediately requestedthat Facebook pause its development of Libra so lawmakers could scrutinize the plans. Around the globe, governments have expressed their discomfort with allowing a tech firm to embed itself into the world of finance. Particularly given that the tech firm in question has already proven influential in national elections.
Facebook's Libra in the pool of speculation, will it flop? What will it do to the cryptocurrency market? Time will tell if Libra will be used as just another payment method or will it actually drive more adoption to the space.Image Sourced fromPixabay
The possibility of developing sour relations with regulators is the most likely reason that companies, includingVisa Inc(NYSE:V),PayPal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL), and Stripe, started abandoning the Libra project in early October. It could prove to be a prescient move, given that Mark Zuckerberg met withoverwhelming negativitytowards his Libra plans at the recent Congressional hearing.
The question is, if lawmakers decide to legislate against Libra, what does this mean for the wider cryptocurrency space? It’s fair to say that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others are decentralized, and Libra isn’t, but how would Congress draw the line?
Google Steps Up The Quantum Threat
Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) recentannouncementthat it had achieved quantum supremacy whipped up a storm among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Quantum computing represents an existential threat to blockchain security as we know it because the cryptography used by blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum could eventually break under a brute-force attack from a quantum machine.
However, the actual threat may yet be some way off. Johann Polecsak is the CTO of a blockchain company called QAN. In astatementto crypto news outlet Bitcoin.com, he said:
"The notion of Google achieving a quantum breakthrough sounds very dramatic, but in reality, it’s hard to gauge the significance at this time. How can we be sure that Google’s quantum computer is more powerful than D-wave’s, for example, which surpassed 1,000 qubits four years ago?"
Polecsak has a particular interest in the quantum threat, given that his company is developing a quantum-resistant blockchain. It uses a post-quantum variant of cryptography that’s designed to ensure that even a quantum machine couldn’t brute-force the private keys of user accounts. Furthermore, it’s also built with scalability in mind, achieving far faster transaction speeds than its predecessors.
It will be intriguing to see if the quantum threat allows newer blockchains likeQANto outpace established blockchains such as Ethereum.
QAN is a quantum resistant blockchain that has recently gained a lot of momentum in light of Google's Quantum supremacy claim, QAN is also the first IEO to launch on BitBay's new Launch pad.
The Rise Of The IEO
QAN is following in the footsteps of many other blockchain projects in 2019, in using the initial exchange offering (IEO) as a means of releasing its token. The company just announced it will be the first to list on the BitBay exchange when it launches its IEO platform on November 18.
BitBay is the latest in a line of exchanges to open up an IEO launchpad, signifying another major trend in the blockchain space. During 2019, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain startups. The interesting thing is that nobody saw coming.
After the ICO bubble burst in the first quarter of 2018, many talking heads in the space predicted that the next big trend in crowdfunding would be the security token offering (STO.) However, at this point in 2019, it’s reasonable to say that the STO hasn’t really taken off. Instead, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain entrepreneurs.
IEO vs. STO Funding. Source: PwC
The IEO involves a blockchain startup partnering with a cryptocurrency exchange so that the exchange lists the startup token. Typically, there will be a time-limited event during which the exchange customers can buy the startup token, after which it becomes listed on the exchange.
Some of the biggest names launched as an IEO this year have been Bittorrent and Fetch.AI. In terms of volume, crypto exchange Bitfinex eclipses all of them, having raised $1 billion.
Institutional Investors Prefer Bitcoin
Bitcoin has seen a surge in dominance this year, rising to over 70 percent of the total market cap in September. Furthermore, its notorious volatility is also showing some signs of slowing down in 2019.
Both of these are likely attributable to an influx of institutional investment during 2019. Although cryptocurrency futures are a relatively new product, they’re proving to be a hit. Pioneered by CME and Cboe at the end of 2017, May was a record trading month for Bitcoin futures on the CME. Unregulated crypto exchange BitMEX also had a record trading day in June, recording over $1bn in open interest.
So if 2019 is the year of Bitcoin futures, then 2020 seems set to see further growth in the crypto-derivatives markets. Newly launched crypto futures platform Bakkt has recently announced it will launch an options product in December, beating rival CME, which will launch its own version early next year.
However, one vehicle that’s unlikely to be the next big crypto-finance product of 2020 is the ETF. The SEC recently rejected another application for a Bitcoin ETF, which was submitted by investment company Bitwise. It’s the latest in a long line of such rejections, with the SEC citing ongoing concerns about market manipulation within the cryptocurrency markets.
Of course, the cryptocurrency space will inevitably continue to evolve. However, given the pace at which the regulatory wheels move, it’s also likely we’ll continue to see more than one of these topics dominate the headlines for some time to come.
Image Sourced from Pixabay
0
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• After Trump's Tax Reforms – How Your Taxes Have Changed
• Roger Ver Wants To Pay You To Trade On His New Bitcoin.com Exchange
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Quantum Threat, Libra, Exchange Offerings, And Bitcoin ETFs: Here Are This Year's Biggest Trends In Cryptocurrency: If there’s one thing that’s certain about the cryptocurrency markets, it’s that the news cycle moves at a breakneck speed. Perhaps it’s because, unlike traditional markets which trade according to hours or business, digital assets are on the go 24-7.
However, in 2019, it’s fair to say that a handful of key trends has occupied most of the cryptocurrency space. Furthermore, the fact that some of them have even dominated the mainstream news is a testament to how far cryptocurrency has evolved from its cypherpunk roots.
Libra
It’s hard to imagine that at the start of 2019, the idea of aFacebook, Inc.(NASDAQ:FB) cryptocurrency was mere speculation. In June, when the company announced its intentions in June, the price ofBitcoinrocketed to its 2019 high of over $13,000.
However, the regulators quickly swooped in. US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee,immediately requestedthat Facebook pause its development of Libra so lawmakers could scrutinize the plans. Around the globe, governments have expressed their discomfort with allowing a tech firm to embed itself into the world of finance. Particularly given that the tech firm in question has already proven influential in national elections.
Facebook's Libra in the pool of speculation, will it flop? What will it do to the cryptocurrency market? Time will tell if Libra will be used as just another payment method or will it actually drive more adoption to the space.Image Sourced fromPixabay
The possibility of developing sour relations with regulators is the most likely reason that companies, includingVisa Inc(NYSE:V),PayPal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL), and Stripe, started abandoning the Libra project in early October. It could prove to be a prescient move, given that Mark Zuckerberg met withoverwhelming negativitytowards his Libra plans at the recent Congressional hearing.
The question is, if lawmakers decide to legislate against Libra, what does this mean for the wider cryptocurrency space? It’s fair to say that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others are decentralized, and Libra isn’t, but how would Congress draw the line?
Google Steps Up The Quantum Threat
Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) recentannouncementthat it had achieved quantum supremacy whipped up a storm among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Quantum computing represents an existential threat to blockchain security as we know it because the cryptography used by blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum could eventually break under a brute-force attack from a quantum machine.
However, the actual threat may yet be some way off. Johann Polecsak is the CTO of a blockchain company called QAN. In astatementto crypto news outlet Bitcoin.com, he said:
"The notion of Google achieving a quantum breakthrough sounds very dramatic, but in reality, it’s hard to gauge the significance at this time. How can we be sure that Google’s quantum computer is more powerful than D-wave’s, for example, which surpassed 1,000 qubits four years ago?"
Polecsak has a particular interest in the quantum threat, given that his company is developing a quantum-resistant blockchain. It uses a post-quantum variant of cryptography that’s designed to ensure that even a quantum machine couldn’t brute-force the private keys of user accounts. Furthermore, it’s also built with scalability in mind, achieving far faster transaction speeds than its predecessors.
It will be intriguing to see if the quantum threat allows newer blockchains likeQANto outpace established blockchains such as Ethereum.
QAN is a quantum resistant blockchain that has recently gained a lot of momentum in light of Google's Quantum supremacy claim, QAN is also the first IEO to launch on BitBay's new Launch pad.
The Rise Of The IEO
QAN is following in the footsteps of many other blockchain projects in 2019, in using the initial exchange offering (IEO) as a means of releasing its token. The company just announced it will be the first to list on the BitBay exchange when it launches its IEO platform on November 18.
BitBay is the latest in a line of exchanges to open up an IEO launchpad, signifying another major trend in the blockchain space. During 2019, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain startups. The interesting thing is that nobody saw coming.
After the ICO bubble burst in the first quarter of 2018, many talking heads in the space predicted that the next big trend in crowdfunding would be the security token offering (STO.) However, at this point in 2019, it’s reasonable to say that the STO hasn’t really taken off. Instead, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain entrepreneurs.
IEO vs. STO Funding. Source: PwC
The IEO involves a blockchain startup partnering with a cryptocurrency exchange so that the exchange lists the startup token. Typically, there will be a time-limited event during which the exchange customers can buy the startup token, after which it becomes listed on the exchange.
Some of the biggest names launched as an IEO this year have been Bittorrent and Fetch.AI. In terms of volume, crypto exchange Bitfinex eclipses all of them, having raised $1 billion.
Institutional Investors Prefer Bitcoin
Bitcoin has seen a surge in dominance this year, rising to over 70 percent of the total market cap in September. Furthermore, its notorious volatility is also showing some signs of slowing down in 2019.
Both of these are likely attributable to an influx of institutional investment during 2019. Although cryptocurrency futures are a relatively new product, they’re proving to be a hit. Pioneered by CME and Cboe at the end of 2017, May was a record trading month for Bitcoin futures on the CME. Unregulated crypto exchange BitMEX also had a record trading day in June, recording over $1bn in open interest.
So if 2019 is the year of Bitcoin futures, then 2020 seems set to see further growth in the crypto-derivatives markets. Newly launched crypto futures platform Bakkt has recently announced it will launch an options product in December, beating rival CME, which will launch its own version early next year.
However, one vehicle that’s unlikely to be the next big crypto-finance product of 2020 is the ETF. The SEC recently rejected another application for a Bitcoin ETF, which was submitted by investment company Bitwise. It’s the latest in a long line of such rejections, with the SEC citing ongoing concerns about market manipulation within the cryptocurrency markets.
Of course, the cryptocurrency space will inevitably continue to evolve. However, given the pace at which the regulatory wheels move, it’s also likely we’ll continue to see more than one of these topics dominate the headlines for some time to come.
Image Sourced from Pixabay
0
See more from Benzinga
• After Trump's Tax Reforms – How Your Taxes Have Changed
• Roger Ver Wants To Pay You To Trade On His New Bitcoin.com Exchange
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Quantum Threat, Libra, Exchange Offerings, And Bitcoin ETFs: Here Are This Year's Biggest Trends In Cryptocurrency: If there’s one thing that’s certain about the cryptocurrency markets, it’s that the news cycle moves at a breakneck speed. Perhaps it’s because, unlike traditional markets which trade according to hours or business, digital assets are on the go 24-7. However, in 2019, it’s fair to say that a handful of key trends has occupied most of the cryptocurrency space. Furthermore, the fact that some of them have even dominated the mainstream news is a testament to how far cryptocurrency has evolved from its cypherpunk roots. Libra It’s hard to imagine that at the start of 2019, the idea of a Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB ) cryptocurrency was mere speculation. In June, when the company announced its intentions in June, the price of Bitcoin rocketed to its 2019 high of over $13,000. However, the regulators quickly swooped in. US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, immediately requested that Facebook pause its development of Libra so lawmakers could scrutinize the plans. Around the globe, governments have expressed their discomfort with allowing a tech firm to embed itself into the world of finance. Particularly given that the tech firm in question has already proven influential in national elections. Libra, Crypto-Currency, Facebook, Money, Currency Facebook's Libra in the pool of speculation, will it flop? What will it do to the cryptocurrency market? Time will tell if Libra will be used as just another payment method or will it actually drive more adoption to the space. Image Sourced from Pixabay The possibility of developing sour relations with regulators is the most likely reason that companies, including Visa Inc (NYSE: V ), PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL ), and Stripe, started abandoning the Libra project in early October. It could prove to be a prescient move, given that Mark Zuckerberg met with overwhelming negativity towards his Libra plans at the recent Congressional hearing. The question is, if lawmakers decide to legislate against Libra, what does this mean for the wider cryptocurrency space? It’s fair to say that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others are decentralized, and Libra isn’t, but how would Congress draw the line? Story continues Google Steps Up The Quantum Threat Alphabet Inc 's (NASDAQ: GOOG ) recent announcement that it had achieved quantum supremacy whipped up a storm among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Quantum computing represents an existential threat to blockchain security as we know it because the cryptography used by blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum could eventually break under a brute-force attack from a quantum machine. However, the actual threat may yet be some way off. Johann Polecsak is the CTO of a blockchain company called QAN. In a statement to crypto news outlet Bitcoin.com, he said: "The notion of Google achieving a quantum breakthrough sounds very dramatic, but in reality, it’s hard to gauge the significance at this time. How can we be sure that Google’s quantum computer is more powerful than D-wave’s, for example, which surpassed 1,000 qubits four years ago?" Polecsak has a particular interest in the quantum threat, given that his company is developing a quantum-resistant blockchain. It uses a post-quantum variant of cryptography that’s designed to ensure that even a quantum machine couldn’t brute-force the private keys of user accounts. Furthermore, it’s also built with scalability in mind, achieving far faster transaction speeds than its predecessors. It will be intriguing to see if the quantum threat allows newer blockchains like QAN to outpace established blockchains such as Ethereum. QAN is a quantum resistant blockchain that has recently gained a lot of momentum in light of Google's Quantum supremacy claim, QAN is also the first IEO to launch on BitBay's new Launch pad. The Rise Of The IEO QAN is following in the footsteps of many other blockchain projects in 2019, in using the initial exchange offering (IEO) as a means of releasing its token. The company just announced it will be the first to list on the BitBay exchange when it launches its IEO platform on November 18. BitBay is the latest in a line of exchanges to open up an IEO launchpad, signifying another major trend in the blockchain space. During 2019, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain startups. The interesting thing is that nobody saw coming. After the ICO bubble burst in the first quarter of 2018, many talking heads in the space predicted that the next big trend in crowdfunding would be the security token offering (STO.) However, at this point in 2019, it’s reasonable to say that the STO hasn’t really taken off. Instead, the IEO has emerged as the crowdfunding mechanism of choice for blockchain entrepreneurs. IEO vs. STO Funding. Source: PwC The IEO involves a blockchain startup partnering with a cryptocurrency exchange so that the exchange lists the startup token. Typically, there will be a time-limited event during which the exchange customers can buy the startup token, after which it becomes listed on the exchange. Some of the biggest names launched as an IEO this year have been Bittorrent and Fetch.AI. In terms of volume, crypto exchange Bitfinex eclipses all of them, having raised $1 billion. Institutional Investors Prefer Bitcoin Bitcoin has seen a surge in dominance this year, rising to over 70 percent of the total market cap in September. Furthermore, its notorious volatility is also showing some signs of slowing down in 2019. Both of these are likely attributable to an influx of institutional investment during 2019. Although cryptocurrency futures are a relatively new product, they’re proving to be a hit. Pioneered by CME and Cboe at the end of 2017, May was a record trading month for Bitcoin futures on the CME. Unregulated crypto exchange BitMEX also had a record trading day in June, recording over $1bn in open interest. So if 2019 is the year of Bitcoin futures, then 2020 seems set to see further growth in the crypto-derivatives markets. Newly launched crypto futures platform Bakkt has recently announced it will launch an options product in December, beating rival CME, which will launch its own version early next year. However, one vehicle that’s unlikely to be the next big crypto-finance product of 2020 is the ETF. The SEC recently rejected another application for a Bitcoin ETF, which was submitted by investment company Bitwise. It’s the latest in a long line of such rejections, with the SEC citing ongoing concerns about market manipulation within the cryptocurrency markets. Of course, the cryptocurrency space will inevitably continue to evolve. However, given the pace at which the regulatory wheels move, it’s also likely we’ll continue to see more than one of these topics dominate the headlines for some time to come. Image Sourced from Pixabay 0 See more from Benzinga After Trump's Tax Reforms – How Your Taxes Have Changed Roger Ver Wants To Pay You To Trade On His New Bitcoin.com Exchange © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || US lawyer accused of money laundering for OneCoin ‘scam’ goes on trial: A US lawyer accused of laundering proceeds from the OneCoin cryptocurrency – alleged to be a ‘Ponzi scheme’ scam – has gone on trial in New York. Mark Scott is accused of laundering approximately $400 million through hedge funds before transferring the funds back to his colleagues. Some of the cash is alleged to have ended up in Bank of Ireland accounts. Prosecutors claim he also spent some of the proceeds on a yacht, three houses, and a Ferrari sports car. Mr Scott faces one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and another to commit bank fraud. He has pleaded not guilty. According to a recent court filing, his lawyers indicate that they expect the government will prove that money from OneCoin was invested in funds controlled by the defendant . But they point to the fact that Mr Scott previously told the FBI that he had asked a colleague to look into rumours that OneCoin might be a “pyramid scheme” before getting involved, and had been reassured “there was nothing illegal going on”, reports the BBC. “The central issue at trial will be whether or not Mr Scott knew OneCoin was operating a criminal scheme,” they added. US prosecutors are currently investigating OneCoin, which they suspect is nothing more than an elaborate pyramid scheme. It raised an estimated $5bn throughout the world. The investigation took a fresh turn when founder Dr Ruja Ignatova disappeared before being charged with money laundering. Speaking in court today, Assistant US Attorney Julieta Lozano said it was a fraud from the beginning. “OneCoin compared itself to real cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But OneCoin was a total sham,” she added. “OneCoin claimed it would have a meteoric rise. Victims all over the world wired in money. But when they tried to withdraw their money, they couldn’t. “This fraud brought in billions, and this is where the defendant came in. “The profits couldn’t be sent directly to Ruja. That would be too obvious. Story continues “And banks stopped doing business with OneCoin. So Ruja sought the assistance of money launderers like Mark Scott.” Oxford-educated Ignatova – the self-proclaimed ‘Cryptoqueen’ – fled in 2017 before being slapped with money laundering charges in her absence by the US Department of Justice. Others involved in OneCoin are also facing prosecution. The man alleged to be one of the scheme’s leaders, Konstantin Ignatov, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in March. And co-founder Sebastian Greenwood was extradited from Thailand to the US following an FBI operation in November 2018. Bulgaria-based OneCoin continues to trade, and has vehemently denied it is a scam. “OneCoin verifiably fulfils all criteria of the definition of a cryptocurrency,” it said in a recent statement given to The Missing Cryptoqueen, a BBC podcast. “Our partners, our customers, and our lawyers are fighting successfully proceedings against OneCoin. We are sure that the vision of a new system on the basis of a financial revolution will be established.” The post US lawyer accused of money laundering for OneCoin ‘scam’ goes on trial appeared first on Coin Rivet . || US lawyer accused of money laundering for OneCoin ‘scam’ goes on trial: A US lawyer accused of laundering proceeds from the OneCoin cryptocurrency – alleged to be a ‘Ponzi scheme’ scam – has gone on trial in New York. Mark Scott is accused of laundering approximately $400 million through hedge funds before transferring the funds back to his colleagues. Some of the cash is alleged to have ended up in Bank of Ireland accounts. Prosecutors claim he also spent some of the proceeds on a yacht, three houses, and a Ferrari sports car. Mr Scott faces one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and another to commit bank fraud. He has pleaded not guilty. According to a recent court filing, his lawyers indicate that they expect the government will prove that money from OneCoin was invested in funds controlled by the defendant . But they point to the fact that Mr Scott previously told the FBI that he had asked a colleague to look into rumours that OneCoin might be a “pyramid scheme” before getting involved, and had been reassured “there was nothing illegal going on”, reports the BBC. “The central issue at trial will be whether or not Mr Scott knew OneCoin was operating a criminal scheme,” they added. US prosecutors are currently investigating OneCoin, which they suspect is nothing more than an elaborate pyramid scheme. It raised an estimated $5bn throughout the world. The investigation took a fresh turn when founder Dr Ruja Ignatova disappeared before being charged with money laundering. Speaking in court today, Assistant US Attorney Julieta Lozano said it was a fraud from the beginning. “OneCoin compared itself to real cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But OneCoin was a total sham,” she added. “OneCoin claimed it would have a meteoric rise. Victims all over the world wired in money. But when they tried to withdraw their money, they couldn’t. “This fraud brought in billions, and this is where the defendant came in. “The profits couldn’t be sent directly to Ruja. That would be too obvious. Story continues “And banks stopped doing business with OneCoin. So Ruja sought the assistance of money launderers like Mark Scott.” Oxford-educated Ignatova – the self-proclaimed ‘Cryptoqueen’ – fled in 2017 before being slapped with money laundering charges in her absence by the US Department of Justice. Others involved in OneCoin are also facing prosecution. The man alleged to be one of the scheme’s leaders, Konstantin Ignatov, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in March. And co-founder Sebastian Greenwood was extradited from Thailand to the US following an FBI operation in November 2018. Bulgaria-based OneCoin continues to trade, and has vehemently denied it is a scam. “OneCoin verifiably fulfils all criteria of the definition of a cryptocurrency,” it said in a recent statement given to The Missing Cryptoqueen, a BBC podcast. “Our partners, our customers, and our lawyers are fighting successfully proceedings against OneCoin. We are sure that the vision of a new system on the basis of a financial revolution will be established.” The post US lawyer accused of money laundering for OneCoin ‘scam’ goes on trial appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Explainer: Central bank digital currencies: edging towards reality?: By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - Central banks are looking at creating their own digital currencies - a stark contrast to the ethos of cryptocurrencies that seek to subvert mainstream authority over money. While there is little consensus on how such currencies might take off, some countries such as the United States and European nations are looking at the concept, while China is the global frontrunner in a drive to make its own digitised money. The European Union, worried that Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency could erode state control over money, has urged the European Central Bank to look at issuing its own digital currency, a draft document seen by Reuters shows. Here are some key questions on the rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and their progress in entering the mainstream. ARE CBDCs DIFFERENT TO CRYPTOCURRENCIES? Yes - and fundamentally so. CBDCs are traditional money, but in digital form; issued and governed by a country's central bank. By contrast, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are produced by solving complex maths puzzles, and governed by disparate online communities instead of a centralised body. The common denominator is that both cryptocurrencies and CBDCs, to a varying degree, are based on blockchain technology, a digital ledger that allows transactions to be recorded and accessed in real time by multiple parties. While some retailers accept bitcoin as a form of payment, cryptocurrencies are not recognised as legal tender - which CBDCs, by definition, would be. And unlike central bank money, both traditional and digital, the value of cryptocurrencies is determined entirely by the market, and not influenced by factors such as monetary policy or trade surpluses. AND WHAT ABOUT ELECTRONIC CASH? The rise of technology like contactless debit cards has made it easier for consumers and businesses to use electronic cash, or e-money, to pay for goods and services. But this also differs to CBDCs. Electronic cash, defined by the Bank for International Settlements as a store of value for making payments to retailers or between devices, is usually held at banks or on pre-paid cards or digital wallets such as PayPal. Story continues CBDCs would not merely be a representation of physical money, as is the case with electronic cash, but a complete replacement for notes and coins. SO WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF CBDCs? Central banks think CBDCs could make payments systems, which are often time-consuming and costly, more efficient, reducing transfer and settlement times and thus stoking economic growth. Some central banks think CBDCs could also counter the rise of cryptocurrencies issued by the private sector such as Libra, planned for launch in June 2020. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, hampered by wild volatility, have presented few realistic threats to central bank control over money. But central bankers fret that Libra could reach billions and quickly erode sovereignty over monetary policy. CBDCs, they think, could address problems like inefficient payments that cryptocurrencies seek to solve, while maintaining state control over money. In the era of negative interest rates, CBDCs are also seen as offering a tool to control over how businesses and people use money. CBDCs, the argument goes, could be used to charge households and businesses to hold cash, forcing them to spend and invest and stimulating growth. ARE CBDCs CLOSE TO BECOMING REALITY? Increasingly so - though most CBDCs are still in very early or conceptual stages. While central banks across the world have in recent years researched the concept, China is closest to becoming the first major country to introduce a CBDC. While details of its project to build a digital renminbi are scarce, it will be powered in part by blockchain technology and will initially be issued to commercial banks and other financial institutions. China's move may push other central banks to take action. Last month, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said last month it was "inevitable" that central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, would start issuing their own digital currencies. ARE MOST MAJOR CENTRAL BANKS SUPPORTIVE? Not quite. Caution and scepticism exists in many quarters. The Bank of Japan, for example, has warned that uncertainties over the impact of CBDCs on commercial banking must be addressed. The BOJ has also scotched the idea that CBDCs could boost the effectiveness of negative interest rate policies. Some households and companies, it thinks, would hoard traditional cash to avoid being charged for holding digital currencies if central banks were to issue and apply negative rates on them. (Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Pravin Char)
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8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66, 8808.26, 8708.09, 8491.99, 8550.76, 8577.98
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11991.23, 11758.28, 11878.37, 11592.49, 11681.83, 11664.85, 11774.60, 11366.13, 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82, 11970.48, 11414.03, 10245.30, 10511.81, 10169.57, 10280.35, 10369.56, 10131.52, 10242.35, 10363.14, 10400.92, 10442.17, 10323.76, 10680.84, 10796.95, 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72, 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-11-15]
Volume: 23653867583, RSI (14-day): 70.66, 50-day EMA: 13405.17, 200-day EMA: 11105.96
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?: In an otherwise extremely bullish week, famed investor Ray Dalio reiterated his skepticism of bitcoin and digital assets.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.comandNexo.io.
Related:Dollar Decline and the Paralysis of Conventional Monetary Policy
On this edition of the weekly recap, NLW looks at bitcoin’s surge past $16,000. Additionally, he explores some recent FUD from Ray Dalio, which NLW argues seems strangely locked in years-old narratives.
• Monday |The Biggest Macro Event Since March
• Tuesday |Legendary Investor Stan Druckenmiller Turns Bitcoin Bull
• Wednesday |Discovering Bitcoin Through the #EndSARS Movement, Feat. Yele Bademosi & Akin Sawyerr
• Thursday |Meet the $10B Asset Manager With a 10,000 BTC Treasury, feat. NYDIG’s Robby Gutmann
• Friday |PayPal Rolls Out Crypto for All US Customers
See also:First Mover: Bitcoin Breaches $16K as (Committed) Holders Diss Dalio’s Diss
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right? || Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?: In an otherwise extremely bullish week, famed investor Ray Dalio reiterated his skepticism of bitcoin and digital assets. For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com and Nexo.io . Ray Dalio FUD: Related: Dollar Decline and the Paralysis of Conventional Monetary Policy On this edition of the weekly recap, NLW looks at bitcoin’s surge past $16,000. Additionally, he explores some recent FUD from Ray Dalio, which NLW argues seems strangely locked in years-old narratives. This week on The Breakdown: Monday | The Biggest Macro Event Since March Tuesday | Legendary Investor Stan Druckenmiller Turns Bitcoin Bull Wednesday | Discovering Bitcoin Through the #EndSARS Movement, Feat. Yele Bademosi & Akin Sawyerr Thursday | Meet the $10B Asset Manager With a 10,000 BTC Treasury, feat. NYDIG’s Robby Gutmann Friday | PayPal Rolls Out Crypto for All US Customers See also: First Mover: Bitcoin Breaches $16K as (Committed) Holders Diss Dalio’s Diss For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . Related Stories Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right? Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right? Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right? || Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?: In an otherwise extremely bullish week, famed investor Ray Dalio reiterated his skepticism of bitcoin and digital assets.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.comandNexo.io.
Related:Dollar Decline and the Paralysis of Conventional Monetary Policy
On this edition of the weekly recap, NLW looks at bitcoin’s surge past $16,000. Additionally, he explores some recent FUD from Ray Dalio, which NLW argues seems strangely locked in years-old narratives.
• Monday |The Biggest Macro Event Since March
• Tuesday |Legendary Investor Stan Druckenmiller Turns Bitcoin Bull
• Wednesday |Discovering Bitcoin Through the #EndSARS Movement, Feat. Yele Bademosi & Akin Sawyerr
• Thursday |Meet the $10B Asset Manager With a 10,000 BTC Treasury, feat. NYDIG’s Robby Gutmann
• Friday |PayPal Rolls Out Crypto for All US Customers
See also:First Mover: Bitcoin Breaches $16K as (Committed) Holders Diss Dalio’s Diss
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right?
• Dalio Says Governments Will Kill Bitcoin. Is He Right? || Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support: There are still a lot of uncertainties around the scheduled Bitcoin Cash fork event on Nov. 15, but one thing is for sure: The cryptocurrency’s biggest advocate, Roger Ver, executive chairman of Bitcoin.com, is not a fan of the scheduled upgrades on the network, which take place every six months. “If PayPal knew that this sort of contentious hard fork was likely to happen, maybe they wouldn’t have added bitcoin cash at all to their roadmap,” Ver told CoinDesk in an interview, referring to PayPal’s recent announcement to add cryptocurrencies – bitcoin cash included – to its system. “So it is really a big problem to have these contentious hard forks. I’d like to see that come to an end.” As of press time, PayPal hasn’t responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the upcoming fork event. Paxos, the company that provides crypto service for PayPal, rejected CoinDesk’s request to comment on the topic. Related: Bitcoin Cash Has Split Into Two New Blockchains, Again A Bitcoin fork known for forks Unlike a “soft fork” that allows non-upgraded and upgraded nodes to still transact with each other, a hard fork is a software upgrade that implements a new rule to the blockchain that is not compatible with the older software. Thus, developers tend to be extremely conservative about introducing hard forks and usually try to ensure there will be community consensus around these sorts of changes to the code. However, some hard forks have been contentious. In these instances, if some nodes on a network adopt a hard fork and others don’t, then the blockchain will split into two different versions: one with the old software and one with the new software. Bitcoin Cash itself is a result of a hard fork from Bitcoin, after a group from the Bitcoin community, advocating the literal interpretation of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper, insisted on increasing block sizes. They pushed for a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain, as they view low-cost, peer-to-peer transactions as the blockchain’s core value. Read more: OKEx, Still Paralyzed by Founder’s Arrest, Details Plans for Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion Today, as the most well-known fork of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Cash network undergoes an upgrade every six months, and a chain split can occur when the community is unable to meet consensus requirements. An example is when Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) forked away from Bitcoin Cash on Nov. 15, 2018. Story continues The Bitcoin Cash hard fork expected this coming Nov. 15 is the result of a blockchain update proposal from a group known as Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH ABC), led by developer Amaury Sechet. The update has included a controversial new “Coinbase Rule,” which requires 8% of mined bitcoin cash to be redistributed to Bitcoin ABC as a means of financing protocol development. Developers with ‘too much money’ This funding approach has triggered a debate within the BCH community regarding the governance and the development of the software that runs the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The group led by developers from BCH ABC holds there should be an organized and consistent effort in order for bitcoin cash to become a universal digital payment. Therefore, developers should be funded by the Bitcoin Cash network, according to Chris Troutner, a developer who formerly worked at Ver’s bitcoin.com and is close to Sechet’s BCH ABC group. However, an opposing group against this funding mechanism, Ver included, said that because the software is an open-source protocol, developers should help improve the protocol on a voluntary basis and look for financial resources elsewhere. Ver went a step further by saying the Bitcoin Cash network’s problem is developers have “too much money.” “I think the way [Bitcoin] went off the rails from Bitcoin Cash is developers had too much money and then they started developing and tinkering with too many different things, which caused a problem in the network.” Troutner, who told CoinDesk that he will support both chains after the fork, said the real issue behind the dispute is a collective hatred toward Sechet. Sechet’s BCH ABC has been leading the scheduled Bitcoin Cash updates for the past few years, Troutner said. And Sechet’s team has always wanted to implement this funding mechanism. “[BCH ABC’s opponents] want Amaury Sechet to leave the ecosystem,” he said. Read more: Ethereum’s ‘Unannounced Hard Fork’ Was Trying to Prevent the Very Disruption It Caused Ver said he didn’t think the fork will take place as planned, saying only about 0.2% of the blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash have signaled support for Bitcoin ABC. As of press time, of the last 1,000 blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash, about 80% have signaled support for the Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) and only 0.3% for Bitcoin ABC, according to data from Coin Dance. What the data may indicate is that a fork will take place because the software upgrade by BCH ABC is not supported by the majority of the miners, as more blocks are signaling support to BCHN. That will force BCH ABC to fork away from the old chain, said Aidan Mott, analyst at Messari. On the other hand, Troutner posits that the data may have hindered the actual support of BCH ABC. “If you think about it in terms of a game theory, some miners are probably legitimately signaling for BCH but other miners who are planning to mine on ABC probably are also signaling for BCHN because they want their competitors to mine on that chain,” Troutner explained. “That makes it easier for them to mine blocks on the ABC chain.” Exchanges and ‘fork fatigue’ Ver’s early argument is service providers like PayPal can be frustrated by a cryptocurrency blockchain that’s constantly going through forking events. This sort of frustration is already happening at crypto exchanges. Even though it is unclear which chain will become the dominant chain after the fork, a few major crypto exchanges have already announced their support for BCHN, which will inherit the Bitcoin Cash name, assuming the BCH ABC would get the minority of nodes. In a Nov. 6 post by Kraken, the exchange said it will support BCHN, “regardless of the outcome of the fork.” “Bitcoin Cash Node tokens will be called ‘Bitcoin Cash’ on our platform and represented by the ticker symbol ‘BCH,’” Kraken said in the post . “We will support Bitcoin Cash ABC ONLY IF the hash power on the ABC network is at least 10% of the hash power on the Bitcoin Cash Node network.” “Exchanges have to put themselves in a position where they can know what their customers want, which means they understand the kind of the consensus of the miners but also they understand the positions of the development teams,” said Mott. “In this sense, it would be a pretty easy decision to just keep their support and only run Bitcoin Cash Node network software.” Since prices of the two newly split cryptocurrencies will be decided by market supply and demand, exchanges play a significant role because they are the ones that allocate the new tokens to their customers. Another important implication from Kraken’s post is that exchanges also get to decide which new chain will take the Bitcoin Cash name. Read more: Roger Ver’s Mining Pool Pulls Support for Bitcoin Cash Dev Fund Over Chain Split Threat Ver claimed the reason Bitcoin Cash is less popular than Bitcoin is because the latter took the “Bitcoin” name after the hard fork. Ever since then, marketing has been one of the biggest obstacles for the mass adoption of Bitcoin Cash, according to Ver. The market capitalization of bitcoin cash is approximately $4.88 billion at the time of writing, yet bitcoin has a market capitalization of $283.28 billion, according to data on CoinDesk 20 . “When the split happened, the Bitcoin Cash version had all the characteristics that made Bitcoin popular to begin with, but the other version that didn’t have those characteristics got the Bitcoin name and the infrastructure to go with it,” Ver said. “Bitcoin Cash has been rebuilding all of that infrastructure and its brand recognition basically from scratch.” If that’s the case, BCHN will find itself ahead of BCH ABC, as evidenced by exchanges’ support, if it takes the name of Bitcoin Cash. Related Stories Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support View comments || Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support: There are still a lot of uncertainties around the scheduled Bitcoin Cash fork event on Nov. 15, but one thing is for sure: The cryptocurrency’s biggest advocate, Roger Ver, executive chairman of Bitcoin.com, is not a fan of the scheduled upgrades on the network, which take place every six months. “If PayPal knew that this sort of contentious hard fork was likely to happen, maybe they wouldn’t have added bitcoin cash at all to their roadmap,” Ver told CoinDesk in an interview, referring to PayPal’s recent announcement to add cryptocurrencies – bitcoin cash included – to its system. “So it is really a big problem to have these contentious hard forks. I’d like to see that come to an end.” As of press time, PayPal hasn’t responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the upcoming fork event. Paxos, the company that provides crypto service for PayPal, rejected CoinDesk’s request to comment on the topic. Related: Bitcoin Cash Has Split Into Two New Blockchains, Again A Bitcoin fork known for forks Unlike a “soft fork” that allows non-upgraded and upgraded nodes to still transact with each other, a hard fork is a software upgrade that implements a new rule to the blockchain that is not compatible with the older software. Thus, developers tend to be extremely conservative about introducing hard forks and usually try to ensure there will be community consensus around these sorts of changes to the code. However, some hard forks have been contentious. In these instances, if some nodes on a network adopt a hard fork and others don’t, then the blockchain will split into two different versions: one with the old software and one with the new software. Bitcoin Cash itself is a result of a hard fork from Bitcoin, after a group from the Bitcoin community, advocating the literal interpretation of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper, insisted on increasing block sizes. They pushed for a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain, as they view low-cost, peer-to-peer transactions as the blockchain’s core value. Read more: OKEx, Still Paralyzed by Founder’s Arrest, Details Plans for Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion Today, as the most well-known fork of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Cash network undergoes an upgrade every six months, and a chain split can occur when the community is unable to meet consensus requirements. An example is when Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) forked away from Bitcoin Cash on Nov. 15, 2018. Story continues The Bitcoin Cash hard fork expected this coming Nov. 15 is the result of a blockchain update proposal from a group known as Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH ABC), led by developer Amaury Sechet. The update has included a controversial new “Coinbase Rule,” which requires 8% of mined bitcoin cash to be redistributed to Bitcoin ABC as a means of financing protocol development. Developers with ‘too much money’ This funding approach has triggered a debate within the BCH community regarding the governance and the development of the software that runs the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The group led by developers from BCH ABC holds there should be an organized and consistent effort in order for bitcoin cash to become a universal digital payment. Therefore, developers should be funded by the Bitcoin Cash network, according to Chris Troutner, a developer who formerly worked at Ver’s bitcoin.com and is close to Sechet’s BCH ABC group. However, an opposing group against this funding mechanism, Ver included, said that because the software is an open-source protocol, developers should help improve the protocol on a voluntary basis and look for financial resources elsewhere. Ver went a step further by saying the Bitcoin Cash network’s problem is developers have “too much money.” “I think the way [Bitcoin] went off the rails from Bitcoin Cash is developers had too much money and then they started developing and tinkering with too many different things, which caused a problem in the network.” Troutner, who told CoinDesk that he will support both chains after the fork, said the real issue behind the dispute is a collective hatred toward Sechet. Sechet’s BCH ABC has been leading the scheduled Bitcoin Cash updates for the past few years, Troutner said. And Sechet’s team has always wanted to implement this funding mechanism. “[BCH ABC’s opponents] want Amaury Sechet to leave the ecosystem,” he said. Read more: Ethereum’s ‘Unannounced Hard Fork’ Was Trying to Prevent the Very Disruption It Caused Ver said he didn’t think the fork will take place as planned, saying only about 0.2% of the blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash have signaled support for Bitcoin ABC. As of press time, of the last 1,000 blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash, about 80% have signaled support for the Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) and only 0.3% for Bitcoin ABC, according to data from Coin Dance. What the data may indicate is that a fork will take place because the software upgrade by BCH ABC is not supported by the majority of the miners, as more blocks are signaling support to BCHN. That will force BCH ABC to fork away from the old chain, said Aidan Mott, analyst at Messari. On the other hand, Troutner posits that the data may have hindered the actual support of BCH ABC. “If you think about it in terms of a game theory, some miners are probably legitimately signaling for BCH but other miners who are planning to mine on ABC probably are also signaling for BCHN because they want their competitors to mine on that chain,” Troutner explained. “That makes it easier for them to mine blocks on the ABC chain.” Exchanges and ‘fork fatigue’ Ver’s early argument is service providers like PayPal can be frustrated by a cryptocurrency blockchain that’s constantly going through forking events. This sort of frustration is already happening at crypto exchanges. Even though it is unclear which chain will become the dominant chain after the fork, a few major crypto exchanges have already announced their support for BCHN, which will inherit the Bitcoin Cash name, assuming the BCH ABC would get the minority of nodes. In a Nov. 6 post by Kraken, the exchange said it will support BCHN, “regardless of the outcome of the fork.” “Bitcoin Cash Node tokens will be called ‘Bitcoin Cash’ on our platform and represented by the ticker symbol ‘BCH,’” Kraken said in the post . “We will support Bitcoin Cash ABC ONLY IF the hash power on the ABC network is at least 10% of the hash power on the Bitcoin Cash Node network.” “Exchanges have to put themselves in a position where they can know what their customers want, which means they understand the kind of the consensus of the miners but also they understand the positions of the development teams,” said Mott. “In this sense, it would be a pretty easy decision to just keep their support and only run Bitcoin Cash Node network software.” Since prices of the two newly split cryptocurrencies will be decided by market supply and demand, exchanges play a significant role because they are the ones that allocate the new tokens to their customers. Another important implication from Kraken’s post is that exchanges also get to decide which new chain will take the Bitcoin Cash name. Read more: Roger Ver’s Mining Pool Pulls Support for Bitcoin Cash Dev Fund Over Chain Split Threat Ver claimed the reason Bitcoin Cash is less popular than Bitcoin is because the latter took the “Bitcoin” name after the hard fork. Ever since then, marketing has been one of the biggest obstacles for the mass adoption of Bitcoin Cash, according to Ver. The market capitalization of bitcoin cash is approximately $4.88 billion at the time of writing, yet bitcoin has a market capitalization of $283.28 billion, according to data on CoinDesk 20 . “When the split happened, the Bitcoin Cash version had all the characteristics that made Bitcoin popular to begin with, but the other version that didn’t have those characteristics got the Bitcoin name and the infrastructure to go with it,” Ver said. “Bitcoin Cash has been rebuilding all of that infrastructure and its brand recognition basically from scratch.” If that’s the case, BCHN will find itself ahead of BCH ABC, as evidenced by exchanges’ support, if it takes the name of Bitcoin Cash. Related Stories Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support View comments || Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support: There are still a lot of uncertainties around the scheduled Bitcoin Cash fork event on Nov. 15, but one thing is for sure: The cryptocurrency’s biggest advocate, Roger Ver, executive chairman of Bitcoin.com, is not a fan of the scheduled upgrades on the network, which take place every six months. “If PayPal knew that this sort of contentious hard fork was likely to happen, maybe they wouldn’t have added bitcoin cash at all to their roadmap,” Ver told CoinDesk in an interview, referring to PayPal’s recent announcement to add cryptocurrencies – bitcoin cash included – to its system. “So it is really a big problem to have these contentious hard forks. I’d like to see that come to an end.” As of press time, PayPal hasn’t responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the upcoming fork event. Paxos, the company that provides crypto service for PayPal, rejected CoinDesk’s request to comment on the topic. Related: Bitcoin Cash Has Split Into Two New Blockchains, Again A Bitcoin fork known for forks Unlike a “soft fork” that allows non-upgraded and upgraded nodes to still transact with each other, a hard fork is a software upgrade that implements a new rule to the blockchain that is not compatible with the older software. Thus, developers tend to be extremely conservative about introducing hard forks and usually try to ensure there will be community consensus around these sorts of changes to the code. However, some hard forks have been contentious. In these instances, if some nodes on a network adopt a hard fork and others don’t, then the blockchain will split into two different versions: one with the old software and one with the new software. Bitcoin Cash itself is a result of a hard fork from Bitcoin, after a group from the Bitcoin community, advocating the literal interpretation of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper, insisted on increasing block sizes. They pushed for a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain, as they view low-cost, peer-to-peer transactions as the blockchain’s core value. Read more: OKEx, Still Paralyzed by Founder’s Arrest, Details Plans for Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion Today, as the most well-known fork of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Cash network undergoes an upgrade every six months, and a chain split can occur when the community is unable to meet consensus requirements. An example is when Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) forked away from Bitcoin Cash on Nov. 15, 2018. Story continues The Bitcoin Cash hard fork expected this coming Nov. 15 is the result of a blockchain update proposal from a group known as Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH ABC), led by developer Amaury Sechet. The update has included a controversial new “Coinbase Rule,” which requires 8% of mined bitcoin cash to be redistributed to Bitcoin ABC as a means of financing protocol development. Developers with ‘too much money’ This funding approach has triggered a debate within the BCH community regarding the governance and the development of the software that runs the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The group led by developers from BCH ABC holds there should be an organized and consistent effort in order for bitcoin cash to become a universal digital payment. Therefore, developers should be funded by the Bitcoin Cash network, according to Chris Troutner, a developer who formerly worked at Ver’s bitcoin.com and is close to Sechet’s BCH ABC group. However, an opposing group against this funding mechanism, Ver included, said that because the software is an open-source protocol, developers should help improve the protocol on a voluntary basis and look for financial resources elsewhere. Ver went a step further by saying the Bitcoin Cash network’s problem is developers have “too much money.” “I think the way [Bitcoin] went off the rails from Bitcoin Cash is developers had too much money and then they started developing and tinkering with too many different things, which caused a problem in the network.” Troutner, who told CoinDesk that he will support both chains after the fork, said the real issue behind the dispute is a collective hatred toward Sechet. Sechet’s BCH ABC has been leading the scheduled Bitcoin Cash updates for the past few years, Troutner said. And Sechet’s team has always wanted to implement this funding mechanism. “[BCH ABC’s opponents] want Amaury Sechet to leave the ecosystem,” he said. Read more: Ethereum’s ‘Unannounced Hard Fork’ Was Trying to Prevent the Very Disruption It Caused Ver said he didn’t think the fork will take place as planned, saying only about 0.2% of the blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash have signaled support for Bitcoin ABC. As of press time, of the last 1,000 blocks mined on Bitcoin Cash, about 80% have signaled support for the Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) and only 0.3% for Bitcoin ABC, according to data from Coin Dance. What the data may indicate is that a fork will take place because the software upgrade by BCH ABC is not supported by the majority of the miners, as more blocks are signaling support to BCHN. That will force BCH ABC to fork away from the old chain, said Aidan Mott, analyst at Messari. On the other hand, Troutner posits that the data may have hindered the actual support of BCH ABC. “If you think about it in terms of a game theory, some miners are probably legitimately signaling for BCH but other miners who are planning to mine on ABC probably are also signaling for BCHN because they want their competitors to mine on that chain,” Troutner explained. “That makes it easier for them to mine blocks on the ABC chain.” Exchanges and ‘fork fatigue’ Ver’s early argument is service providers like PayPal can be frustrated by a cryptocurrency blockchain that’s constantly going through forking events. This sort of frustration is already happening at crypto exchanges. Even though it is unclear which chain will become the dominant chain after the fork, a few major crypto exchanges have already announced their support for BCHN, which will inherit the Bitcoin Cash name, assuming the BCH ABC would get the minority of nodes. In a Nov. 6 post by Kraken, the exchange said it will support BCHN, “regardless of the outcome of the fork.” “Bitcoin Cash Node tokens will be called ‘Bitcoin Cash’ on our platform and represented by the ticker symbol ‘BCH,’” Kraken said in the post . “We will support Bitcoin Cash ABC ONLY IF the hash power on the ABC network is at least 10% of the hash power on the Bitcoin Cash Node network.” “Exchanges have to put themselves in a position where they can know what their customers want, which means they understand the kind of the consensus of the miners but also they understand the positions of the development teams,” said Mott. “In this sense, it would be a pretty easy decision to just keep their support and only run Bitcoin Cash Node network software.” Since prices of the two newly split cryptocurrencies will be decided by market supply and demand, exchanges play a significant role because they are the ones that allocate the new tokens to their customers. Another important implication from Kraken’s post is that exchanges also get to decide which new chain will take the Bitcoin Cash name. Read more: Roger Ver’s Mining Pool Pulls Support for Bitcoin Cash Dev Fund Over Chain Split Threat Ver claimed the reason Bitcoin Cash is less popular than Bitcoin is because the latter took the “Bitcoin” name after the hard fork. Ever since then, marketing has been one of the biggest obstacles for the mass adoption of Bitcoin Cash, according to Ver. The market capitalization of bitcoin cash is approximately $4.88 billion at the time of writing, yet bitcoin has a market capitalization of $283.28 billion, according to data on CoinDesk 20 . “When the split happened, the Bitcoin Cash version had all the characteristics that made Bitcoin popular to begin with, but the other version that didn’t have those characteristics got the Bitcoin name and the infrastructure to go with it,” Ver said. “Bitcoin Cash has been rebuilding all of that infrastructure and its brand recognition basically from scratch.” If that’s the case, BCHN will find itself ahead of BCH ABC, as evidenced by exchanges’ support, if it takes the name of Bitcoin Cash. Related Stories Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support Roger Ver: Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks Could Have Thwarted PayPal Support View comments || Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K: Bitcoin’s price quickly dropped below $16,000 Saturday morning, putting the rapid rally seen in recent weeks on pause.
• Around 10:00 UTC, the cryptocurrency dropped as low as $15,750, having hit highs over $16,300 in the Asian trading hours.
• As reported earlier this week,analysts had been expectingbitcointo move into consolidation for a time, and possible to see a pullback.
• That’s because the rally from $9,800 to over $16,000 over the past two months looked overstretched on the technical charts.
• They anticipated, however, that the run toward bitcoin’s record high of around $20,000 would pick up the pace again, likely in December.
• The bitcoin options market is also extremely bullish longer term, as datashowed Thursdaythat net demand for call options (bullish bets) was outstripping net demand for puts (bearish bets) by the highest level on record.
• At press time, bitcoin prices had risen slightly to $15,860, down 2.87% over 24 hours.
Also read:$300M in Bitcoin Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Gets Tougher on Exchanges
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K || Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K: Bitcoin’s price quickly dropped below $16,000 Saturday morning, putting the rapid rally seen in recent weeks on pause.
• Around 10:00 UTC, the cryptocurrency dropped as low as $15,750, having hit highs over $16,300 in the Asian trading hours.
• As reported earlier this week,analysts had been expectingbitcointo move into consolidation for a time, and possible to see a pullback.
• That’s because the rally from $9,800 to over $16,000 over the past two months looked overstretched on the technical charts.
• They anticipated, however, that the run toward bitcoin’s record high of around $20,000 would pick up the pace again, likely in December.
• The bitcoin options market is also extremely bullish longer term, as datashowed Thursdaythat net demand for call options (bullish bets) was outstripping net demand for puts (bearish bets) by the highest level on record.
• At press time, bitcoin prices had risen slightly to $15,860, down 2.87% over 24 hours.
Also read:$300M in Bitcoin Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Gets Tougher on Exchanges
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K
• Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K || Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K: Bitcoins price quickly dropped below $16,000 Saturday morning, putting the rapid rally seen in recent weeks on pause. Around 10:00 UTC, the cryptocurrency dropped as low as $15,750, having hit highs over $16,300 in the Asian trading hours. As reported earlier this week, analysts had been expecting bitcoin to move into consolidation for a time, and possible to see a pullback. Thats because the rally from $9,800 to over $16,000 over the past two months looked overstretched on the technical charts. They anticipated, however, that the run toward bitcoins record high of around $20,000 would pick up the pace again, likely in December. The bitcoin options market is also extremely bullish longer term, as data showed Thursday that net demand for call options (bullish bets) was outstripping net demand for puts (bearish bets) by the highest level on record. At press time, bitcoin prices had risen slightly to $15,860, down 2.87% over 24 hours. Also read: $300M in Bitcoin Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Gets Tougher on Exchanges Related Stories Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K Bitcoin Rally Falters as Price Drops Below $16K View comments || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 14th, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 0.08% on Friday. Following on from a 3.74% rally on Thursday, Bitcoin ended the day at $16,308.6. It was a bullish start to the day. Bitcoin rose to an early morning intraday high and new swing hi $16,481.0 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $16,596, Bitcoin slid to a late afternoon intraday low $15,974.0. Steering clear of the first major support level at $15,725, Bitcoin bounced back to $16,300 levels to end the day in the green. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest move through to $16,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $8,768 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Friday. Bitcoin Cash ABC and Crypto.com Coin fell by 0.05% and by 2.65% respectively to buck the trend on the day. It was a bullish day for the rest, however, with Litecoin surging by 8.68% to lead the way. Chainlink (+3.79%), Ethereum (+3.07%), Polkadot (+2.91%), and Ripple’s XRP (+4.31%) also found strong support. Binance Coin (+1.88%), Bitcoin Cash SV (+1.67%), and Cardano’s ADA (+1.78%) trailed the front runners. For the current week, the crypto total market cap fell to a Monday low $421.37bn before rising to a Friday high $471.06bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $465.73bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Tuesday low 64.22% before rising to a Friday high 66.00%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 64.6%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.29% to $16,261.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning high $16,315.0 before falling to a low $16,207.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin Cash SV (+0.22%), Cardano’s ADA (+0.45%), Polkadot (+0.04%), and Ripple’s XRP (+2.09%) found early support. Story continues It was a bearish start for the rest of the majors, however. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 1.82% to lead the way down. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall back through the pivot level at $16,255 to bring the first major resistance level at $16,535 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $16,481.0. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside. In the event of another crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $16,762 and resistance at $17,000. Failure to avoid a fall back through the $16,255 pivot would bring the first major support level at $16,028 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$16,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $15,748. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rise as the Dollar Falls Following US PPI Report U.S. Dollar Index (DX) Futures Technical Analysis – 93.225 to 93.490 Too Much for Counter-Trend Buyers USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Resistance At The 50 EMA In Sight S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Run Out of Steam S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stocks Markets Continue to Press Top of Range Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Continue Grind || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 14th, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 0.08% on Friday. Following on from a 3.74% rally on Thursday, Bitcoin ended the day at $16,308.6. It was a bullish start to the day. Bitcoin rose to an early morning intraday high and new swing hi $16,481.0 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $16,596, Bitcoin slid to a late afternoon intraday low $15,974.0. Steering clear of the first major support level at $15,725, Bitcoin bounced back to $16,300 levels to end the day in the green. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest move through to $16,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $8,768 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Friday. Bitcoin Cash ABC and Crypto.com Coin fell by 0.05% and by 2.65% respectively to buck the trend on the day. It was a bullish day for the rest, however, with Litecoin surging by 8.68% to lead the way. Chainlink (+3.79%), Ethereum (+3.07%), Polkadot (+2.91%), and Ripple’s XRP (+4.31%) also found strong support. Binance Coin (+1.88%), Bitcoin Cash SV (+1.67%), and Cardano’s ADA (+1.78%) trailed the front runners. For the current week, the crypto total market cap fell to a Monday low $421.37bn before rising to a Friday high $471.06bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $465.73bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Tuesday low 64.22% before rising to a Friday high 66.00%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 64.6%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.29% to $16,261.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning high $16,315.0 before falling to a low $16,207.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin Cash SV (+0.22%), Cardano’s ADA (+0.45%), Polkadot (+0.04%), and Ripple’s XRP (+2.09%) found early support. Story continues It was a bearish start for the rest of the majors, however. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 1.82% to lead the way down. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall back through the pivot level at $16,255 to bring the first major resistance level at $16,535 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $16,481.0. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside. In the event of another crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $16,762 and resistance at $17,000. Failure to avoid a fall back through the $16,255 pivot would bring the first major support level at $16,028 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$16,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $15,748. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rise as the Dollar Falls Following US PPI Report U.S. Dollar Index (DX) Futures Technical Analysis – 93.225 to 93.490 Too Much for Counter-Trend Buyers USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Resistance At The 50 EMA In Sight S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Run Out of Steam S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stocks Markets Continue to Press Top of Range Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Continue Grind || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2020 / ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD). Real-Time Market Data is available at www.alt5pro.com and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available at www.alt5sigma.com ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH Market Summary Friday, November 13 2020 at 4:01:35 PM Digital Asset Pair Price 24hr Chg 7d Chg 24/hr Volume MarketCap Bitcoin BTC/USD $16,182.33 $0.01 $0.05 $32,130 M $299,994 M Ethereum ETH/USD $468.30 $0.03 $0.06 $12,856 M $53,111 M XRP XRP/USD $0.26 $0.04 $0.02 $2,964 M $11,940 M Bitcoin Cash BCH/USD $257.97 -$0.01 $0.01 $1,917 M $4,791 M Litecoin LTC/USD $64.97 $0.10 $0.07 $4,261 M $4,280 M Bitcoin SV BSV/USD $160.58 $0.03 -$0.03 $733 M $2,982 M EOS EOS/USD $2.59 $0.06 $0.03 $2,153 M $2,427 M Monero XMR/USD $113.24 $0.02 -$0.05 $855 M $2,011 M Stellar XLM/USD $0.08 $0.03 -$0.01 $139 M $1,715 M Dash DASH/USD $76.76 -$0.03 $0.11 $375 M $753 M About ALT 5 Sigma Inc. ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance. ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers. ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services. For more information, visit www.alt5sigma.com . Story continues Contact: Andre Beauchesne Tel. 1-800-204-6203 [email protected] For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visit www.alt5pay.com For more information on ALT 5 Pro, visit www.alt5pro.com SOURCE: ALT 5 Sigma Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/616649/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.comALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$16,182.33", "$0.01", "$0.05", "$32,130 M", "$299,994 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$468.30", "$0.03", "$0.06", "$12,856 M", "$53,111 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.26", "$0.04", "$0.02", "$2,964 M", "$11,940 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$257.97", "-$0.01", "$0.01", "$1,917 M", "$4,791 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$64.97", "$0.10", "$0.07", "$4,261 M", "$4,280 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$160.58", "$0.03", "-$0.03", "$733 M", "$2,982 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.59", "$0.06", "$0.03", "$2,153 M", "$2,427 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$113.24", "$0.02", "-$0.05", "$855 M", "$2,011 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.08", "$0.03", "-$0.01", "$139 M", "$1,715 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$76.76", "-$0.03", "$0.11", "$375 M", "$753 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:
Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/616649/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.comALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$16,182.33", "$0.01", "$0.05", "$32,130 M", "$299,994 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$468.30", "$0.03", "$0.06", "$12,856 M", "$53,111 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.26", "$0.04", "$0.02", "$2,964 M", "$11,940 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$257.97", "-$0.01", "$0.01", "$1,917 M", "$4,791 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$64.97", "$0.10", "$0.07", "$4,261 M", "$4,280 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$160.58", "$0.03", "-$0.03", "$733 M", "$2,982 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.59", "$0.06", "$0.03", "$2,153 M", "$2,427 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$113.24", "$0.02", "-$0.05", "$855 M", "$2,011 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.08", "$0.03", "-$0.01", "$139 M", "$1,715 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$76.76", "-$0.03", "$0.11", "$375 M", "$753 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
Contact:
Andre BeauchesneTel. [email protected]
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/616649/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion: Analysts are bullish on bitcoin’s price but the options market is decidedly bearish on the remaining weeks of 2020. Ethereum’s wrapped bitcoin token crosses $2 billion locked. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $16,240 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.30% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,971-$16,487 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price trended up for the third straight day, hitting as high as $16,487, according to data from CoinDesk 20. It dipped somewhat since hitting that level and traded at $16,240 as of press time. “Bitcoin rose significantly above the $16,100 mark. Buyers pushed the price due to the large volume,” noted Constantin Kogan, managing partner at investment firm Wave Financial. Related: Record Levels of Negative-Yielding Debt Strengthen Case for Bitcoin: Analysts Major exchange daily spot volumes on Friday were at $668 million as of press time, but not close to Thursday’s $1.1 billion in volume. George McDonaugh, managing director at investment firm KR1, highlighted a key difference between the price run-up in 2020 versus the mooning that occurred back in 2017. “Bitcoin has spent 0.32% of its life at $16,000 and above, which means there were relatively very few buyers at that level back in 2017,” he told CoinDesk. “This correlates to there being very few sellers at this level now, meaning there isn’t a strong resistance band for the bulls to push the price higher.” “I’m seeing an increasing demand from more traditional family offices making their first investments into bitcoin as a long-term hedge or as insurance for their existing portfolio of investments,” Michael Gord, chief executive officer of Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk. “I expect this trend to continue as bitcoin keeps maintaining its value and being uncorrelated to most other asset classes.” Story continues Read More: $300M BTC Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Toughens on Exchanges Related: Fidelity's Crypto Arm Responds to 6 Common Bitcoin Criticisms Bitcoin isn’t entirely uncorrelated from other asset classes like equities, but lately the correlation between the world’s oldest cryptocurrency and the S&P 500 has dropped a little bit. KR1’s McDonaugh is expecting bitcoin’s price to reach $20,000, but it might take some time to get there as some profit-taking is likely to ensue. “ $20,000 is a far more psychological barrier, so it is likely to be ‘HODLers’ – people holding bitcoin forever – that may de-risk at that level and produce some selling pressure,” he said. Bitcoin options traders aren’t fully convinced that it will trade at $20,000 in 2020. The probabilities calculated using December expiration have pegged only a 16% chance of $20,000 bitcoin, a 29% for $18,000 and a 39% of $17,000 according to data aggregator Skew. Nevertheless, analysts project that bitcoin can soon surpass at least $16,500 consistently. “Given market sentiment and current trends, I am still bullish on BTC,” said Andrew Tu, an executive at trading firm Efficient Frontier. “Though we may range between $16,000 and $16,500 for a bit before breaking resistance.” Wrapped bitcoin hits $2 billion locked Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday, trading around $470 and climbing 2.6% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Payments Provider BitPay Rolls Out Cryptocurrency Payroll Service The amount of bitcoin “locked” in the Ethereum-based wrapped bitcoin contract passed $2 billion Thursday, and is staying at that level Friday. In order to use bitcoin on Ethereum, it must be “wrapped” and used as a token on the network using a standard called ERC-20. Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, says the parking of bitcoin on Ethereum is giving the network a huge leg up over its up-and-coming smart contract competitors, including Polkadot, Cardano and Cosmos, among others. “It’s proving that Ethereum is the thing everyone is plugging into and (networks like) Polkadot may not have its day in the sun,” Mosoff told CoinDesk. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): litecoin (LTC) + 10.4% kyber network (KNC) + 7.3% eos (EOS) + 5.6% Notable loser: bitcoin cash (BCH) – 0.27% Read More: Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Nets $44.3M in Q3 Equities: The Nikkei 225 ended the day in the red 0.53%, led lower by investor concern about rising coronavirus cases and a sell-off in Trend Micro, which fell 7% . Europe’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.36% as a stronger British pound, which negatively affects multinational corporations’ overseas revenue, dragged the index lower . In the United States the S&P climbed 1.5% as traders placed strategic bets on the possibility a coronavirus vaccine will eventually lift the economy . Commodities: Oil was down 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.21. Gold was in the green 0.60% and at $1,888 as of press time. Treasurys: The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday jumping to 0.896 and in the green 2%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion: Analysts are bullish on bitcoin’s price but the options market is decidedly bearish on the remaining weeks of 2020. Ethereum’s wrapped bitcoin token crosses $2 billion locked.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $16,240 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.30% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,971-$16,487
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price trended up for the third straight day, hitting as high as $16,487, according to data from CoinDesk 20. It dipped somewhat since hitting that level and traded at $16,240 as of press time.
“Bitcoin rose significantly above the $16,100 mark. Buyers pushed the price due to the large volume,” noted Constantin Kogan, managing partner at investment firm Wave Financial.
Related:Record Levels of Negative-Yielding Debt Strengthen Case for Bitcoin: Analysts
Major exchange daily spot volumes on Friday were at $668 million as of press time, but not close to Thursday’s $1.1 billion in volume.
George McDonaugh, managing director at investment firm KR1, highlighted a key difference between the price run-up in 2020 versus the mooning that occurred back in 2017. “Bitcoin has spent 0.32% of its life at $16,000 and above, which means there were relatively very few buyers at that level back in 2017,” he told CoinDesk. “This correlates to there being very few sellers at this level now, meaning there isn’t a strong resistance band for the bulls to push the price higher.”
“I’m seeing an increasing demand from more traditional family offices making their first investments into bitcoin as a long-term hedge or as insurance for their existing portfolio of investments,” Michael Gord, chief executive officer of Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk. “I expect this trend to continue as bitcoin keeps maintaining its value and being uncorrelated to most other asset classes.”
Read More:$300M BTC Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Toughens on Exchanges
Related:Fidelity's Crypto Arm Responds to 6 Common Bitcoin Criticisms
Bitcoin isn’t entirely uncorrelated from other asset classes like equities, but lately the correlation between the world’s oldest cryptocurrency and the S&P 500 has dropped a little bit.
KR1’s McDonaugh is expecting bitcoin’s price to reach $20,000, but it might take some time to get there as some profit-taking is likely to ensue.“$20,000 is a far more psychological barrier, so it is likely to be ‘HODLers’ – people holding bitcoin forever – that may de-risk at that level and produce some selling pressure,” he said.
Bitcoin options traders aren’t fully convinced that it will trade at $20,000 in 2020. The probabilities calculated using December expiration have pegged only a 16% chance of $20,000 bitcoin, a 29% for $18,000 and a 39% of $17,000 according to data aggregator Skew.
Nevertheless, analysts project that bitcoin can soon surpass at least $16,500 consistently. “Given market sentiment and current trends, I am still bullish on BTC,” said Andrew Tu, an executive at trading firm Efficient Frontier. “Though we may range between $16,000 and $16,500 for a bit before breaking resistance.”
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday, trading around $470 and climbing 2.6% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More:Payments Provider BitPay Rolls Out Cryptocurrency Payroll Service
The amount of bitcoin “locked” in the Ethereum-based wrapped bitcoin contract passed $2 billion Thursday, and is staying at that level Friday. In order to use bitcoin on Ethereum, it must be “wrapped” and used as a token on the network using a standard called ERC-20.
Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, says the parking of bitcoin on Ethereum is giving the network a huge leg up over its up-and-coming smart contract competitors, including Polkadot, Cardano and Cosmos, among others.
“It’s proving that Ethereum is the thing everyone is plugging into and (networks like) Polkadot may not have its day in the sun,” Mosoff told CoinDesk.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• litecoin(LTC) + 10.4%
• kyber network(KNC) + 7.3%
• eos(EOS) + 5.6%
Notable loser:
• bitcoin cash(BCH) – 0.27%
Read More:Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Nets $44.3M in Q3
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 ended the day in the red 0.53%,led lower by investor concern about rising coronavirus cases and a sell-off in Trend Micro, which fell 7%.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.36% asa stronger British pound, which negatively affects multinational corporations’ overseas revenue, dragged the index lower.
• In the United States the S&P climbed 1.5% astraders placed strategic bets on the possibility a coronavirus vaccine will eventually lift the economy.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.21.
• Gold was in the green 0.60% and at $1,888 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday jumping to 0.896 and in the green 2%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion: Analysts are bullish on bitcoin’s price but the options market is decidedly bearish on the remaining weeks of 2020. Ethereum’s wrapped bitcoin token crosses $2 billion locked.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $16,240 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.30% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,971-$16,487
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price trended up for the third straight day, hitting as high as $16,487, according to data from CoinDesk 20. It dipped somewhat since hitting that level and traded at $16,240 as of press time.
“Bitcoin rose significantly above the $16,100 mark. Buyers pushed the price due to the large volume,” noted Constantin Kogan, managing partner at investment firm Wave Financial.
Related:Record Levels of Negative-Yielding Debt Strengthen Case for Bitcoin: Analysts
Major exchange daily spot volumes on Friday were at $668 million as of press time, but not close to Thursday’s $1.1 billion in volume.
George McDonaugh, managing director at investment firm KR1, highlighted a key difference between the price run-up in 2020 versus the mooning that occurred back in 2017. “Bitcoin has spent 0.32% of its life at $16,000 and above, which means there were relatively very few buyers at that level back in 2017,” he told CoinDesk. “This correlates to there being very few sellers at this level now, meaning there isn’t a strong resistance band for the bulls to push the price higher.”
“I’m seeing an increasing demand from more traditional family offices making their first investments into bitcoin as a long-term hedge or as insurance for their existing portfolio of investments,” Michael Gord, chief executive officer of Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk. “I expect this trend to continue as bitcoin keeps maintaining its value and being uncorrelated to most other asset classes.”
Read More:$300M BTC Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Toughens on Exchanges
Related:Fidelity's Crypto Arm Responds to 6 Common Bitcoin Criticisms
Bitcoin isn’t entirely uncorrelated from other asset classes like equities, but lately the correlation between the world’s oldest cryptocurrency and the S&P 500 has dropped a little bit.
KR1’s McDonaugh is expecting bitcoin’s price to reach $20,000, but it might take some time to get there as some profit-taking is likely to ensue.“$20,000 is a far more psychological barrier, so it is likely to be ‘HODLers’ – people holding bitcoin forever – that may de-risk at that level and produce some selling pressure,” he said.
Bitcoin options traders aren’t fully convinced that it will trade at $20,000 in 2020. The probabilities calculated using December expiration have pegged only a 16% chance of $20,000 bitcoin, a 29% for $18,000 and a 39% of $17,000 according to data aggregator Skew.
Nevertheless, analysts project that bitcoin can soon surpass at least $16,500 consistently. “Given market sentiment and current trends, I am still bullish on BTC,” said Andrew Tu, an executive at trading firm Efficient Frontier. “Though we may range between $16,000 and $16,500 for a bit before breaking resistance.”
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday, trading around $470 and climbing 2.6% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More:Payments Provider BitPay Rolls Out Cryptocurrency Payroll Service
The amount of bitcoin “locked” in the Ethereum-based wrapped bitcoin contract passed $2 billion Thursday, and is staying at that level Friday. In order to use bitcoin on Ethereum, it must be “wrapped” and used as a token on the network using a standard called ERC-20.
Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, says the parking of bitcoin on Ethereum is giving the network a huge leg up over its up-and-coming smart contract competitors, including Polkadot, Cardano and Cosmos, among others.
“It’s proving that Ethereum is the thing everyone is plugging into and (networks like) Polkadot may not have its day in the sun,” Mosoff told CoinDesk.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• litecoin(LTC) + 10.4%
• kyber network(KNC) + 7.3%
• eos(EOS) + 5.6%
Notable loser:
• bitcoin cash(BCH) – 0.27%
Read More:Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Nets $44.3M in Q3
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 ended the day in the red 0.53%,led lower by investor concern about rising coronavirus cases and a sell-off in Trend Micro, which fell 7%.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.36% asa stronger British pound, which negatively affects multinational corporations’ overseas revenue, dragged the index lower.
• In the United States the S&P climbed 1.5% astraders placed strategic bets on the possibility a coronavirus vaccine will eventually lift the economy.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.21.
• Gold was in the green 0.60% and at $1,888 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday jumping to 0.896 and in the green 2%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion || Top Analyst Reports for AbbVie, Square & Honda Motor: Friday, November 13, 2020 The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), Square, Inc. (SQ) and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC). These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today. You can see all of today’s research reports here >>> AbbVie shares have outperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry in the year to date period (+10.2% vs. -0.1%). The Zacks analyst believes that AbbVie’s key drug, Humira is seeing strong demand trends in the United States. AbbVie has been successful in expanding labels of its cancer drugs, Imbruvica and Venclexta. It gained approvals for two new drugs with significant potential, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, in 2019. Both are off to a strong start. Allergan’s acquisition has diversified AbbVie’s revenue base into new therapeutic areas, enhancing its long-term growth potential. However, sales erosion due to direct biosimilar competition to Humira in international markets is a big headwind. Also, the decline in hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug Mavyret’s sales is a concern. (You can read the full research report on AbbVie here >>> ) Shares of Square have gained +183.4% over the past one-year period against the Zacks Internet - Software industry’s rise of +85.7%. The Zacks analyst believes that Square’s comprehensive commerce ecosystem, accelerated business growth and entry into bitcoin space remain major positives. Notably, strong momentum in online channels and growing card-not-present GPV are expected to be tailwinds. Moreover, robust online products, such as Square Online Store, Invoices, Virtual Terminal and eCommerce API are expected to accelerate the GPV growth in the near term. However, uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic remain concerns. Higher investments and increasing product development expenses might hurt margins. Intensifying competition and foreign exchange fluctuations remain headwinds. Story continues (You can read the full research report on Square here >>> ) Honda Motor shares have underperformed the Zacks Automotive - Foreign industry in the year to date period (-1.6% vs. +12.8%). The Zacks analyst believes that in anticipation of a slowdown in India and North America, the company expects sales to decline year over year in fiscal 2021. With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on the auto industry, sales and earnings of Honda is likely to suffer a major blow, going forward. Further, high capex to develop advanced technologies may also limit its cash flows. However, the firm’s frequent collaborations with companies like General Motors and Hitachi, among others, are expected to expand business and bolster prospects. Its healthy balance sheet, improving cash flows and investor-friendly moves are other positives. (You can read the full research report on Honda Motor here >>> ) Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP), Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP) and Wayfair Inc. (W). Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $17.7 billion in 2019 to a staggering $73.6 billion by 2027. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot stocks we're targeting >> Mark Vickery Senior Editor Note: Sheraz Mian heads the Zacks Equity Research department and is a well-regarded expert of aggregate earnings. He is frequently quoted in the print and electronic media and publishes the weekly Earnings Trends and Earnings Preview reports. If you want an email notification each time Sheraz publishes a new article, please click here>>> Today's Must Read AbbVie (ABBV) U.S. Humira Demand Solid, Skyrizi, Rinvoq Shine Square (SQ) Banks on Solid Cash App Adoption, Bitcoin Growth Honda (HMC) to Bank on Strategic Alliances Amid High Capex Featured Reports Steady Investment Aids Ameren Corp. (AEE), Regulations Hurts Per the Zacks Analyst, it plans to invest $16 billion over 2020-2024 period in regulated operations to boost earnings. Cheniere Energy's (LNG) Gas Export Dominance Bodes Well The Zacks analyst likes Cheniere's competitive advantage of being the first and dominant natural gas exporter in the U.S. market but is concerned over the huge debt load of $31 billion. Automotive revenue aid Canadian Pacific (CP), Debts ail The Zacks analyst is optimistic about strong grain movement and rising automotive revenue. However, high debt is a concern. Loan Growth Supports M&T Bank (MTB), Rising Costs a Woe Per the Zacks analyst, M&T Bank's top line gets support from increasing loans and deposits balances. Robust Adoption of Fox News & FBN Aids Fox (FOXA) Prospects Per the Zacks analyst, Fox is benefiting from robust adoption of Fox News and Fox Business Network (FBN). Higher pricing and stronger ratings at FOX News Media drove Cable advertising revenues. International Strength Drives Wayfair (W); Expense A Concern The Zacks analyst believes that Wayfair's strong retail business along with its efforts to expand in international markets are positives. Network Software Unit to Aid Roper (ROP), Demand Stays Weak Per the Zacks analyst, robust network software & systems unit on the back of business resiliency will drive Roper's near-term results. New Upgrades Sturdy Comps Run to Fuel Grocery Outlet's (GO) Top Line Per the Zacks analyst, rise in average transaction size has been supporting Grocery Outlet's comparable-store sales growth. In third-quarter 2020, comps increased 9.1% year over year. Brand Reputation & Rising Parts Revenue to Aid PACCAR (PCAR) PACCAR's leading brands and consistent product quality along with its persistent growth in the less-cyclical aftermarket parts are likely to aid the firm's top line in future, per the Zacks analyst. Rebound in Procedure Volumes Aids STERIS (STE) Amid Pandemic The Zacks analyst is upbeat about higher demand for STERIS' medical device offerings following a rebound in procedure volumes. Robust sales of COVID-19-related products and services also buoy optimism New Downgrades Lower Enrollment at Strayer Hurts Strategic Education (STRA) Per the Zacks analyst, Strategic Education's Strayer segment is facing lower demand due to higher unemployment levels caused by COVID-19-led restrictions. Escalating Costs, Higher Cat Losses Hurt RLI Corp. (RLI) Per the Zacks Analyst, the company's exposure to catastrophe losses induce volatility in its underwriting results. High costs can put margins under pressure. Juniper (JNPR) Plagued by COVID-19 Induced Supply-Chain Woes Per the Zacks analyst, supply-chain headwinds, triggered by uncertain macro environment & weak investment patterns among carriers due to virus outbreak, are likely to affect Juniper's growth momentum. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Wayfair Inc. (W) : Free Stock Analysis Report Square, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP) : Free Stock Analysis Report Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP) : Free Stock Analysis Report AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Top Analyst Reports for AbbVie, Square & Honda Motor: Friday, November 13, 2020
The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), Square, Inc. (SQ) and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC). These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today.
You can seeall of today’s research reports here >>>
AbbVieshares have outperformed the Zacks Large Cap Pharmaceuticals industry in the year to date period (+10.2% vs. -0.1%). The Zacks analyst believes that AbbVie’s key drug, Humira is seeing strong demand trends in the United States.
AbbVie has been successful in expanding labels of its cancer drugs, Imbruvica and Venclexta. It gained approvals for two new drugs with significant potential, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, in 2019. Both are off to a strong start. Allergan’s acquisition has diversified AbbVie’s revenue base into new therapeutic areas, enhancing its long-term growth potential.
However, sales erosion due to direct biosimilar competition to Humira in international markets is a big headwind. Also, the decline in hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug Mavyret’s sales is a concern.
(You canread the full research report on AbbVie here >>>)
Shares ofSquarehave gained +183.4% over the past one-year period against the Zacks Internet - Software industry’s rise of +85.7%. The Zacks analyst believes that Square’s comprehensive commerce ecosystem, accelerated business growth and entry into bitcoin space remain major positives.
Notably, strong momentum in online channels and growing card-not-present GPV are expected to be tailwinds. Moreover, robust online products, such as Square Online Store, Invoices, Virtual Terminal and eCommerce API are expected to accelerate the GPV growth in the near term.
However, uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic remain concerns. Higher investments and increasing product development expenses might hurt margins. Intensifying competition and foreign exchange fluctuations remain headwinds.
(You canread the full research report on Square here >>>)
Honda Motorshares have underperformed the Zacks Automotive - Foreign industry in the year to date period (-1.6% vs. +12.8%). The Zacks analyst believes that in anticipation of a slowdown in India and North America, the company expects sales to decline year over year in fiscal 2021.
With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on the auto industry, sales and earnings of Honda is likely to suffer a major blow, going forward. Further, high capex to develop advanced technologies may also limit its cash flows.
However, the firm’s frequent collaborations with companies like General Motors and Hitachi, among others, are expected to expand business and bolster prospects. Its healthy balance sheet, improving cash flows and investor-friendly moves are other positives.
(You canread the full research report on Honda Motor here >>>)
Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP), Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP) and Wayfair Inc. (W).
Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?
Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.
Ignited by referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $17.7 billion in 2019 to a staggering $73.6 billion by 2027. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.
See the pot stocks we're targeting >>
Mark VickerySenior Editor
Note: Sheraz Mian heads the Zacks Equity Research department and is a well-regarded expert of aggregate earnings. He is frequently quoted in the print and electronic media and publishes the weeklyEarnings TrendsandEarnings Previewreports. If you want an email notification each time Sheraz publishes a new article, pleaseclick here>>>
AbbVie (ABBV) U.S. Humira Demand Solid, Skyrizi, Rinvoq Shine
Square (SQ) Banks on Solid Cash App Adoption, Bitcoin Growth
Honda (HMC) to Bank on Strategic Alliances Amid High Capex
Steady Investment Aids Ameren Corp. (AEE), Regulations Hurts
Per the Zacks Analyst, it plans to invest $16 billion over 2020-2024 period in regulated operations to boost earnings.
Cheniere Energy's (LNG) Gas Export Dominance Bodes Well
The Zacks analyst likes Cheniere's competitive advantage of being the first and dominant natural gas exporter in the U.S. market but is concerned over the huge debt load of $31 billion.
Automotive revenue aid Canadian Pacific (CP), Debts ail
The Zacks analyst is optimistic about strong grain movement and rising automotive revenue. However, high debt is a concern.
Loan Growth Supports M&T Bank (MTB), Rising Costs a Woe
Per the Zacks analyst, M&T Bank's top line gets support from increasing loans and deposits balances.
Robust Adoption of Fox News & FBN Aids Fox (FOXA) Prospects
Per the Zacks analyst, Fox is benefiting from robust adoption of Fox News and Fox Business Network (FBN). Higher pricing and stronger ratings at FOX News Media drove Cable advertising revenues.
International Strength Drives Wayfair (W); Expense A Concern
The Zacks analyst believes that Wayfair's strong retail business along with its efforts to expand in international markets are positives.
Network Software Unit to Aid Roper (ROP), Demand Stays Weak
Per the Zacks analyst, robust network software & systems unit on the back of business resiliency will drive Roper's near-term results.
Sturdy Comps Run to Fuel Grocery Outlet's (GO) Top Line
Per the Zacks analyst, rise in average transaction size has been supporting Grocery Outlet's comparable-store sales growth. In third-quarter 2020, comps increased 9.1% year over year.
Brand Reputation & Rising Parts Revenue to Aid PACCAR (PCAR)
PACCAR's leading brands and consistent product quality along with its persistent growth in the less-cyclical aftermarket parts are likely to aid the firm's top line in future, per the Zacks analyst.
Rebound in Procedure Volumes Aids STERIS (STE) Amid Pandemic
The Zacks analyst is upbeat about higher demand for STERIS' medical device offerings following a rebound in procedure volumes. Robust sales of COVID-19-related products and services also buoy optimism
Lower Enrollment at Strayer Hurts Strategic Education (STRA)
Per the Zacks analyst, Strategic Education's Strayer segment is facing lower demand due to higher unemployment levels caused by COVID-19-led restrictions.
Escalating Costs, Higher Cat Losses Hurt RLI Corp. (RLI)
Per the Zacks Analyst, the company's exposure to catastrophe losses induce volatility in its underwriting results. High costs can put margins under pressure.
Juniper (JNPR) Plagued by COVID-19 Induced Supply-Chain Woes
Per the Zacks analyst, supply-chain headwinds, triggered by uncertain macro environment & weak investment patterns among carriers due to virus outbreak, are likely to affect Juniper's growth momentum.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportWayfair Inc. (W) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSquare, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRoper Technologies, Inc. (ROP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportHonda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportCanadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAbbVie Inc. (ABBV) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || DoorDash IPO: 5 Key Takeaways Investors Need To Know: DoorDash filed its IPO prospectus Friday morning. Here is an early look at the figures and information from the company, which is expected to IPO before the end of the year with the symbol DASH. DoorDash was valued at $16 billion in an early funding round in 2020. The company raised $400 million in June. Friday’s prospectus says the company will raise $100 million, which is likely a placeholder. Largest Player in Market: DoorDash has the no. 1 market share position in the food delivery market, with over 18 million customers and partners with more than 390,000 merchants. DoorDash competes with Uber Eats, owned by Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER ), Grubhub Inc (NYSE: GRUB ) and Postmates. Grubhub is merging with Just Eat, a European company and Postmates is merging with Uber Eats. In January 2018 DoorDash had 17% market share versus 27% from Uber Eats and 39% for Grubhub. In October 2020, DoorDash had 50% market share versus 26% for Uber, 16% for Grubhub and 7% for Postmates. Going forward, it looks like DoorDash and Uber Eats will be the two large players with 50% and 33% market share, respectively. Lyft Inc (NASDAQ: LYFT ) recently announced its intentions to enter the retail delivery market. Related Link: Should Investors Get Ready For DoorDash, Instacart IPOs? Huge Addressable Market: The restaurant delivery business is a growing market. In 2019, $1.5 trillion was spent on food and beverages in the United States. Of that total $600.5 billion was spent at restaurants. DoorDash is targeting the off-premise market of restaurants which was worth $302.6 billion in 2019. In 2019, DoorDash had total transaction volume of $8 billion, which represented less than 3% of the market. Order Volume Growth: In fiscal 2019, DoorDash had 263 million orders placed, which was year-over-year growth of 217%. In fiscal 2020, the company has had 543 million orders placed in the first nine months. The company saw 103 million, 204 million and 236 million orders placed for the first three months, respectively. The increase was primarily driven by a 217% increase in Total Orders to 263 million, which led to a 186% increase in Marketplace GOV to $8.0 billion Story continues Financials: In fiscal 2019, DoorDash had revenue of $885 million, which grew from $291 million in fiscal 2018. In the first nine months of 2020, DoorDash revenue was $1.9 billion, which was up from $587 million in the prior year’s comparable period. DoorDash reported a net loss of $149 million for the first nine months of 2020. The company reported a net loss of $667 million in fiscal 2019. Growth Plans: One of the ways DoorDash could grow is with its subscription program. The company offers Dash Pass at $9.99 a month offers unlimited deliveries for users. The company counts 5 million Dash Pass members now, which it expects to grow from the value it offers to consumers. DoorDash said growth will come by adding more merchants, more consumers and having more consumer engagement. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Enbridge Stock Could See Pressure As Whitmer Orders Shutdown Of Michigan Pipeline Get Paid Bitcoin To Shop At Kroger © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46, 18732.12
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97, 35697.61, 34616.07, 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78, 35040.84, 33572.12, 33897.05, 34668.55, 35287.78, 33746.00, 34235.20, 33855.33, 32877.37, 33798.01, 33520.52, 34240.19, 33155.85, 32702.03, 32822.35, 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-08-16]
Volume: 32776876610, RSI (14-day): 63.56, 50-day EMA: 39988.42, 200-day EMA: 39394.55
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1786.90, Gold RSI: 49.69
Oil Price: 67.29, Oil RSI: 40.66
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
TNS Releases Report 'Did Tesla Push Crypto Currency toward a Transition in Energy Efficient Blockchain Protocol?': NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recently, Traders News Source (TNS) has released a report on 'Did Tesla Push Crypto Currency toward a Transition in Energy Efficient Blockchain Protocol?'. Traders News Source is a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on finding and reporting on the next hot market sectors and growth stocks is reporting on Tesla's Elon Musk and Bitcoin (BTC). If people follow crypto currency at all they likely remember back in February 2021 when Tesla announced a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and a plan to accept digital currency as payment for electric cars. By mid-April Bitcoin was trading at a level over $64K. Then in mid-May, Tesla, through its CEO Elon Musk, announced it would stop accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles citing the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining. It didn't take long for Bitcoin to retreat to the $40K range it had previously been trading at. Read their full report on Elon Musk, Tesla and the crypto currency protocol transition here: Full Report Copy and paste to browser may be required: https://tradersnewssource.com/did-telsa-push-crypto-currency-toward-a-transition-in-energy-efficient-blockchain-protocol/ That statement by Tesla was a wakeup call for many investors and users of Bitcoin. While just about everyone knows about Bitcoin, the blockchain and Bitcoin mining aren't fully understood by many. Mr. Musk is right, it takes massive amounts of energy to facilitate the computers that mine cryptocurrencies on the blockchain. Like most industries, innovation is hitting the crypto currency sector with new blockchain mining protocols that use only a fraction of the energy of the protocol used in Bitcoin and Ethereum, two of the original crypto currencies. See which crypto currencies are using the newer protocol in their full report. Disclosure Traders News Source LLC (TNS) produces regular sponsored and non-sponsored reports, articles, stock market blogs, and popular investment newsletters covering small and micro-cap equity markets. TNS has two distinct and independent departments. One department produces non-sponsored analyst certified content generally in the form of press releases, articles and reports covering equities listed on NYSE, NASDAQ and OTC exchanges. The other produces sponsored content (in most cases not reviewed by a registered analyst), which typically consists of compensated investment newsletters, articles and reports covering listed stocks and micro-caps. Such sponsored content is outside the scope of procedures detailed below. Story continues TNS LLC has not been compensated; directly or indirectly; for producing or publishing this document. NO WARRANTY TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer are not responsible for any error which may be occasioned at the time of printing of this document or any error, mistake, or shortcoming. No liability is accepted whatsoever for any direct, indirect, or consequential loss arising from the use of this document. TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer expressly disclaim any fiduciary responsibility or liability for any consequences, financial or otherwise arising from any reliance placed on the information in this document. Additionally, TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer do not (1) guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, or correct sequencing of the information, or (2) warrant any results from use of the information. The included information is subject to change without notice. NOT AN OFFERING This document is not intended as an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please read all associated disclosures and disclaimers in full before investing. Neither TNS nor any party affiliated with us is a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer with any agency or in any jurisdiction whatsoever. To download their report(s), read their disclosures, or for more information, visit http://www.tradersnewssource.com . For any questions, inquiries, or comments reach out to us directly. If people're a company we are covering and wish to no longer be featured on their coverage list, contact us via email at: [email protected] . CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute. Media Contact Company: Traders News Source Contact: Mark Roberts E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://tradersnewssource.com/ SOURCE: Traders News Source || TNS Releases Report 'Did Tesla Push Crypto Currency toward a Transition in Energy Efficient Blockchain Protocol?': NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recently, Traders News Source (TNS) has released a report on 'Did Tesla Push Crypto Currency toward a Transition in Energy Efficient Blockchain Protocol?'. Traders News Source is a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on finding and reporting on the next hot market sectors and growth stocks is reporting on Tesla's Elon Musk and Bitcoin (BTC).
If people follow crypto currency at all they likely remember back in February 2021 when Tesla announced a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin and a plan to accept digital currency as payment for electric cars. By mid-April Bitcoin was trading at a level over $64K.
Then in mid-May, Tesla, through its CEO Elon Musk, announced it would stop accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles citing the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining. It didn't take long for Bitcoin to retreat to the $40K range it had previously been trading at.
Read their full report on Elon Musk, Tesla and the crypto currency protocol transition here:Full Report
Copy and paste to browser may be required:https://tradersnewssource.com/did-telsa-push-crypto-currency-toward-a-transition-in-energy-efficient-blockchain-protocol/
That statement by Tesla was a wakeup call for many investors and users of Bitcoin. While just about everyone knows about Bitcoin, the blockchain and Bitcoin mining aren't fully understood by many. Mr. Musk is right, it takes massive amounts of energy to facilitate the computers that mine cryptocurrencies on the blockchain.
Like most industries, innovation is hitting the crypto currency sector with new blockchain mining protocols that use only a fraction of the energy of the protocol used in Bitcoin and Ethereum, two of the original crypto currencies. See which crypto currencies are using the newer protocol in their full report.
Disclosure
Traders News Source LLC (TNS) produces regular sponsored and non-sponsored reports, articles, stock market blogs, and popular investment newsletters covering small and micro-cap equity markets. TNS has two distinct and independent departments. One department produces non-sponsored analyst certified content generally in the form of press releases, articles and reports covering equities listed on NYSE, NASDAQ and OTC exchanges. The other produces sponsored content (in most cases not reviewed by a registered analyst), which typically consists of compensated investment newsletters, articles and reports covering listed stocks and micro-caps. Such sponsored content is outside the scope of procedures detailed below.
TNS LLC has not been compensated; directly or indirectly; for producing or publishing this document.
NO WARRANTY
TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer are not responsible for any error which may be occasioned at the time of printing of this document or any error, mistake, or shortcoming. No liability is accepted whatsoever for any direct, indirect, or consequential loss arising from the use of this document. TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer expressly disclaim any fiduciary responsibility or liability for any consequences, financial or otherwise arising from any reliance placed on the information in this document. Additionally, TNS, the Author, and the Reviewer do not (1) guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, or correct sequencing of the information, or (2) warrant any results from use of the information. The included information is subject to change without notice.
NOT AN OFFERING
This document is not intended as an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please read all associated disclosures and disclaimers in full before investing. Neither TNS nor any party affiliated with us is a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer with any agency or in any jurisdiction whatsoever. To download their report(s), read their disclosures, or for more information, visithttp://www.tradersnewssource.com.
For any questions, inquiries, or comments reach out to us directly. If people're a company we are covering and wish to no longer be featured on their coverage list, contact us via email at:[email protected].
CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.
Media Contact
Company: Traders News Source
Contact: Mark Roberts
E-mail:[email protected]
Website:https://tradersnewssource.com/
SOURCE:Traders News Source || T-Mobile investigates claims of giant customer data breach: T-Mobile is grappling with yet anotherreported data breach. The carrier toldMotherboardin astatementthat it's investigating an "underground forum" member's claims that they're selling data for over 100 million customers, including social security numbers and device IMEI numbers. While the scale of the breach hasn't yet been verified,Motherboardhas confirmed the authenticity of at least some of the data.
The intruder is selling data for about 30 million customers for the equivalent of $270,000 in Bitcoin. The rest of the data is reportedly being sold through private channels.
It's not certain how the perpetrator obtained the info. T-Mobile supposedly booted the attacker out of the servers, but not before they downloaded and purportedly backed up the content.
The network has a less-than-stellar history of breaches in recent years. Hackers compromised sensitive customer infoin late 2019, while a late 2020 attackscraped limited datafor about 200,000 users. If the forum claims are accurate, though, this is much more serious. T-Mobile had over 104.7 million customersas of the second quarterof 2021 — this breach might affect virtually every user. While it's not certain just how much real damage has been done, you might want to watch out for suspicious activity if you're a magenta subscriber. || T-Mobile investigates claims of giant customer data breach: T-Mobile is grappling with yet another reported data breach . The carrier told Motherboard in a statement that it's investigating an "underground forum" member's claims that they're selling data for over 100 million customers, including social security numbers and device IMEI numbers. While the scale of the breach hasn't yet been verified, Motherboard has confirmed the authenticity of at least some of the data. The intruder is selling data for about 30 million customers for the equivalent of $270,000 in Bitcoin. The rest of the data is reportedly being sold through private channels. It's not certain how the perpetrator obtained the info. T-Mobile supposedly booted the attacker out of the servers, but not before they downloaded and purportedly backed up the content. The network has a less-than-stellar history of breaches in recent years. Hackers compromised sensitive customer info in late 2019 , while a late 2020 attack scraped limited data for about 200,000 users. If the forum claims are accurate, though, this is much more serious. T-Mobile had over 104.7 million customers as of the second quarter of 2021 this breach might affect virtually every user. While it's not certain just how much real damage has been done, you might want to watch out for suspicious activity if you're a magenta subscriber. || T-Mobile Investigates Massive Data Breach Affecting Up To 100M Customers: T-Mobile US Inc.(NASDAQ:TMUS) is investigating an online forum post that claims the personal data of over 100 million users have been compromised,Vicereports.
• A hacker claims to have gained access to the T-Mobile servers obtaining data, including social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver licenses information.
• The hacker is asking for 6 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), around $270,000, for a subset of the data containing 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses.
• The latest T-Mobile hack is the fifth known breach in less than three years. The breaches happened in 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well as January of this year.
• "We are aware of claims made in an underground forum and have been actively investigating their validity," T-Mobile tells Vice. "We do not have any additional information to share at this time."
• "T-Mobile USA. Full customer info," the seller told Vice. Additionally, the seller said they compromised multiple servers related to T-Mobile.
Price Action
T-Mobile shares closed at 144.94 in the after-hours session on Friday.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will 'Probably' Be Ready To Land Humans On Moon Before 2024
• Premier League Team Watford FC To Wear Dogecoin Shirts for 2021/22 Season
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || T-Mobile Investigates Massive Data Breach Affecting Up To 100M Customers: T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS ) is investigating an online forum post that claims the personal data of over 100 million users have been compromised, Vice reports. A hacker claims to have gained access to the T-Mobile servers obtaining data, including social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver licenses information. The hacker is asking for 6 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), around $270,000, for a subset of the data containing 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses. The latest T-Mobile hack is the fifth known breach in less than three years. The breaches happened in 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well as January of this year. "We are aware of claims made in an underground forum and have been actively investigating their validity," T-Mobile tells Vice. "We do not have any additional information to share at this time." "T-Mobile USA. Full customer info," the seller told Vice. Additionally, the seller said they compromised multiple servers related to T-Mobile. Price Action T-Mobile shares closed at 144.94 in the after-hours session on Friday. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will 'Probably' Be Ready To Land Humans On Moon Before 2024 Premier League Team Watford FC To Wear Dogecoin Shirts for 2021/22 Season © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept: AMC announced yesterday it will have the information technology systems in place toaccept Bitcoin as paymentfor movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of its U.S. theaters by the end of the year. However, while several companies are starting to accept cryptos as a form of payment, not everyone is sold on the phenomenon.
Read:Robinhood Surges as a ‘Meme Stock’ – But Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets Says ‘Not to Buy’Learn:Washington Closes in on Crypto, Adds New Reporting Provision to Infrastructure Bill
In an earnings call yesterday, AMC CEO Adam Aron said that he had to learn more in the past 6 months about Blockchain and cryptocurrency than he learned about it in the entire decade before that — an increased knowledge which has given him the confidence to accept Bitcoin, according to a transcript of the call.
“We also are in the preliminary stage of now exploring how else AMC can participate in this new burgeoning cryptocurrency universe and we’re quite intrigued by the potentially lucrative business opportunity for AMC if we intelligently pursue further serious involvement with cryptocurrency, more detail will be shared publicly with you,” he added.
Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz tells GOBankingRates that AMC’s decision to accept bitcoin makes sense when you view it through the angle of meme stocks.
“I’d assume less than fifty people will spend bitcoin at AMC in the next year, but that their market cap will rise due to bitcoin-enthused Reddit traders leaning into the AMC stock,” he said.
More:What Effect Could Rookie Investors, ‘Meme Stocks,’ Robinhood and More Have On The Market?
Other companies — big and small — are also starting to accept cryptos as a form payment. Tesla, for example, was one of the first big companies to do so. Itreversed its decision, however, a few months agodue to concerns “about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” CEO Elon Musk said at the time.
GetYourGuide, a travel booking platform, also announced its acceptance of Dogecoin as payment earlier this summer. Emil Martinsek, CMO, tells GOBankingRates that the rationale is to “unlock unforgettable experiences, and using Dogecoin as our first foray into crypto is a place to start.”
“We’re hearing from our customers that physical experiences, which build lifelong memories, are in demand. And it’s time to trade in some of what we’ve been HODLing to discover some non-volatile value. Doge has some benefits like transaction speed and costs, but we don’t plan to stop here as we continue to help customers move from over a year of virtual — videoconferencing, streaming, currencies, short positions — to physical, unforgettable things to do,” Martinsek said.
Check Out:How To Make (or Lose) Money With Bitcoin, Explained in One Chart
Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide’s co-founder and CEO, tells GOBankingRates that the challenges many faced over the past year sent people into a virtual spiral — Netflix binging, increased social app use and a renewed interest in stock and cryptocurrency trading, such as Dogecoin.
“Why waste time worrying about hourly fluctuations in Doge when we can invest in making memories by experiencing the best of the real world?” he added.
Beyond using cryptos for services and goods, experts are saying that their use will be expanded for other financial transactions.
Discover:Best Bitcoin or Crypto Wallets 2021: How To Choose
“Crypto in its most efficient form is one of the safest day-to-day transactions due to the blockchain technology. Healthcare and political donations are next up to utilize crypto payments at scale,” Eric Schiffer, CEO of The Patriarch Organization, told GOBankingRates.
However, not everyone is sold on the benefits of using cryptos for daily purchasesdue to their volatility and fluctuating prices.
“I am amazed that anyone would want to use Bitcoin for movie tickets or sandwiches,” Peter Cohan, a lecturer at Babson College and author of “Goliath Strikes Back,” told GOBankingRates.
See:Banks in Nebraska to Accept Crypto – Despite Warren Buffett’s MisgivingsFind:US Government is Seizing so Many Cryptos, It’s Enrolling Private Contractors
“After all, why would you want to use a Bitcoin worth $46,000 to pay $8 for a tuna sub? I know that people are working on this problem,” he says. “For instance, digital asset marketplace Bakkt and sandwich chain Quiznos are rolling out a physical location, allowing Quiznos customers in Denver to pay with cryptocurrency. Beyond giving people the bragging rights to using Bitcoin to buy things, I do not seethe advantage compared to using cash, credit or debit card, or any of the payment apps. After all, how would you feel about giving up Bitcoin to buy a movie ticket if it soars to $150,000 in 2022?”
More From GOBankingRates
• What Money Topics Do You Want Covered: Ask the Financially Savvy Female
• 15 Smart Savings Tips You Can Start Today
• Nominate Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured on GOBankingRates
• Monifi Review: Jumpstart Your Financial Progress With This Goal-Based Banking App’s $250 Bonus
Last updated: August 10, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept || AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept: AMC announced yesterday it will have the information technology systems in place toaccept Bitcoin as paymentfor movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of its U.S. theaters by the end of the year. However, while several companies are starting to accept cryptos as a form of payment, not everyone is sold on the phenomenon.
Read:Robinhood Surges as a ‘Meme Stock’ – But Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets Says ‘Not to Buy’Learn:Washington Closes in on Crypto, Adds New Reporting Provision to Infrastructure Bill
In an earnings call yesterday, AMC CEO Adam Aron said that he had to learn more in the past 6 months about Blockchain and cryptocurrency than he learned about it in the entire decade before that — an increased knowledge which has given him the confidence to accept Bitcoin, according to a transcript of the call.
“We also are in the preliminary stage of now exploring how else AMC can participate in this new burgeoning cryptocurrency universe and we’re quite intrigued by the potentially lucrative business opportunity for AMC if we intelligently pursue further serious involvement with cryptocurrency, more detail will be shared publicly with you,” he added.
Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz tells GOBankingRates that AMC’s decision to accept bitcoin makes sense when you view it through the angle of meme stocks.
“I’d assume less than fifty people will spend bitcoin at AMC in the next year, but that their market cap will rise due to bitcoin-enthused Reddit traders leaning into the AMC stock,” he said.
More:What Effect Could Rookie Investors, ‘Meme Stocks,’ Robinhood and More Have On The Market?
Other companies — big and small — are also starting to accept cryptos as a form payment. Tesla, for example, was one of the first big companies to do so. Itreversed its decision, however, a few months agodue to concerns “about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” CEO Elon Musk said at the time.
GetYourGuide, a travel booking platform, also announced its acceptance of Dogecoin as payment earlier this summer. Emil Martinsek, CMO, tells GOBankingRates that the rationale is to “unlock unforgettable experiences, and using Dogecoin as our first foray into crypto is a place to start.”
“We’re hearing from our customers that physical experiences, which build lifelong memories, are in demand. And it’s time to trade in some of what we’ve been HODLing to discover some non-volatile value. Doge has some benefits like transaction speed and costs, but we don’t plan to stop here as we continue to help customers move from over a year of virtual — videoconferencing, streaming, currencies, short positions — to physical, unforgettable things to do,” Martinsek said.
Check Out:How To Make (or Lose) Money With Bitcoin, Explained in One Chart
Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide’s co-founder and CEO, tells GOBankingRates that the challenges many faced over the past year sent people into a virtual spiral — Netflix binging, increased social app use and a renewed interest in stock and cryptocurrency trading, such as Dogecoin.
“Why waste time worrying about hourly fluctuations in Doge when we can invest in making memories by experiencing the best of the real world?” he added.
Beyond using cryptos for services and goods, experts are saying that their use will be expanded for other financial transactions.
Discover:Best Bitcoin or Crypto Wallets 2021: How To Choose
“Crypto in its most efficient form is one of the safest day-to-day transactions due to the blockchain technology. Healthcare and political donations are next up to utilize crypto payments at scale,” Eric Schiffer, CEO of The Patriarch Organization, told GOBankingRates.
However, not everyone is sold on the benefits of using cryptos for daily purchasesdue to their volatility and fluctuating prices.
“I am amazed that anyone would want to use Bitcoin for movie tickets or sandwiches,” Peter Cohan, a lecturer at Babson College and author of “Goliath Strikes Back,” told GOBankingRates.
See:Banks in Nebraska to Accept Crypto – Despite Warren Buffett’s MisgivingsFind:US Government is Seizing so Many Cryptos, It’s Enrolling Private Contractors
“After all, why would you want to use a Bitcoin worth $46,000 to pay $8 for a tuna sub? I know that people are working on this problem,” he says. “For instance, digital asset marketplace Bakkt and sandwich chain Quiznos are rolling out a physical location, allowing Quiznos customers in Denver to pay with cryptocurrency. Beyond giving people the bragging rights to using Bitcoin to buy things, I do not seethe advantage compared to using cash, credit or debit card, or any of the payment apps. After all, how would you feel about giving up Bitcoin to buy a movie ticket if it soars to $150,000 in 2022?”
More From GOBankingRates
• What Money Topics Do You Want Covered: Ask the Financially Savvy Female
• 15 Smart Savings Tips You Can Start Today
• Nominate Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured on GOBankingRates
• Monifi Review: Jumpstart Your Financial Progress With This Goal-Based Banking App’s $250 Bonus
Last updated: August 10, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept || AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept: Andrew H Walker / Shutterstock.com AMC announced yesterday it will have the information technology systems in place to accept Bitcoin as payment for movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of its U.S. theaters by the end of the year. However, while several companies are starting to accept cryptos as a form of payment, not everyone is sold on the phenomenon. Read: Robinhood Surges as a ‘Meme Stock’ – But Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets Says ‘Not to Buy’ Learn: Washington Closes in on Crypto, Adds New Reporting Provision to Infrastructure Bill In an earnings call yesterday, AMC CEO Adam Aron said that he had to learn more in the past 6 months about Blockchain and cryptocurrency than he learned about it in the entire decade before that — an increased knowledge which has given him the confidence to accept Bitcoin, according to a transcript of the call. “We also are in the preliminary stage of now exploring how else AMC can participate in this new burgeoning cryptocurrency universe and we’re quite intrigued by the potentially lucrative business opportunity for AMC if we intelligently pursue further serious involvement with cryptocurrency, more detail will be shared publicly with you,” he added. Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz tells GOBankingRates that AMC’s decision to accept bitcoin makes sense when you view it through the angle of meme stocks. “I’d assume less than fifty people will spend bitcoin at AMC in the next year, but that their market cap will rise due to bitcoin-enthused Reddit traders leaning into the AMC stock,” he said. More: What Effect Could Rookie Investors, ‘Meme Stocks,’ Robinhood and More Have On The Market? Other companies — big and small — are also starting to accept cryptos as a form payment. Tesla, for example, was one of the first big companies to do so. It reversed its decision, however, a few months ago due to concerns “about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” CEO Elon Musk said at the time. GetYourGuide, a travel booking platform, also announced its acceptance of Dogecoin as payment earlier this summer. Emil Martinsek, CMO, tells GOBankingRates that the rationale is to “unlock unforgettable experiences, and using Dogecoin as our first foray into crypto is a place to start.” “We’re hearing from our customers that physical experiences, which build lifelong memories, are in demand. And it’s time to trade in some of what we’ve been HODLing to discover some non-volatile value. Doge has some benefits like transaction speed and costs, but we don’t plan to stop here as we continue to help customers move from over a year of virtual — videoconferencing, streaming, currencies, short positions — to physical, unforgettable things to do,” Martinsek said. Story continues Check Out: How To Make (or Lose) Money With Bitcoin, Explained in One Chart Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide’s co-founder and CEO, tells GOBankingRates that the challenges many faced over the past year sent people into a virtual spiral — Netflix binging, increased social app use and a renewed interest in stock and cryptocurrency trading, such as Dogecoin. “Why waste time worrying about hourly fluctuations in Doge when we can invest in making memories by experiencing the best of the real world?” he added. Beyond using cryptos for services and goods, experts are saying that their use will be expanded for other financial transactions. Discover: Best Bitcoin or Crypto Wallets 2021: How To Choose “Crypto in its most efficient form is one of the safest day-to-day transactions due to the blockchain technology. Healthcare and political donations are next up to utilize crypto payments at scale,” Eric Schiffer, CEO of The Patriarch Organization, told GOBankingRates. However, not everyone is sold on the benefits of using cryptos for daily purchases due to their volatility and fluctuating prices . “I am amazed that anyone would want to use Bitcoin for movie tickets or sandwiches,” Peter Cohan, a lecturer at Babson College and author of “Goliath Strikes Back,” told GOBankingRates. See: Banks in Nebraska to Accept Crypto – Despite Warren Buffett’s Misgivings Find: US Government is Seizing so Many Cryptos, It’s Enrolling Private Contractors “After all, why would you want to use a Bitcoin worth $46,000 to pay $8 for a tuna sub? I know that people are working on this problem,” he says. “For instance, digital asset marketplace Bakkt and sandwich chain Quiznos are rolling out a physical location, allowing Quiznos customers in Denver to pay with cryptocurrency. Beyond giving people the bragging rights to using Bitcoin to buy things, I do not see the advantage compared to using cash , credit or debit card, or any of the payment apps. After all, how would you feel about giving up Bitcoin to buy a movie ticket if it soars to $150,000 in 2022?” More From GOBankingRates What Money Topics Do You Want Covered: Ask the Financially Savvy Female 15 Smart Savings Tips You Can Start Today Nominate Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured on GOBankingRates Monifi Review: Jumpstart Your Financial Progress With This Goal-Based Banking App’s $250 Bonus Last updated: August 10, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : AMC To Accept Bitcoin by Year’s End, but Some Experts Aren’t Sold on the Concept View comments || Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see crypto investments like bitcoin as 'a new path' to wealth and equity: When Hector Martinez learned about cryptocurrencies, the son of Salvadoran immigrants quickly saw their appeal: Marginalized communities could finally build wealth outside institutions that often excluded or exploited them.
Martinez, 28, who works in sales, has invested at least half of his portfolio in bitcoin and other digital currencies.
“There's an incentive to find a new path and explore things to see if there’s a potential benefit for people like us,'' he says. “From my perspective, it’s a long-term investment. I feel a belief in where this industry is going, so it's something I want to make sure I'm a part of.''
Cryptocurrencies have become an investment craze,the stuff of memes, tweets and subreddits as celebrities, athletes and billionaires tout their favorites and pour money into the digital currencies. They are created and traded over a decentralized computer network and have a particular appeal to younger investors.
But the digital assets are more popular with some groups of investors than others, according to data from Harris Poll given exclusively to USA TODAY. While only 11% of white Americans report owning cryptos, 23% of Black Americans and 17% of Hispanic Americans own such assets, according to two surveys of 2,010, and 2,003 U.S. adults in June and July.
Awareness of crypto is also much higher among people of color. Half of Black Americans, half of Asian Americans and 49% of Hispanic Americans say they are familiar with it, versus 37% of white Americans.
And people of color aren’t the only marginalized groups with a strong interest in decentralized currencies. One-quarter of LGTBQ Americans own crypto compared with only 13% of the general public.
Marginalized communities tend to worry they will lose money because they've experienced bias and unfair treatment, says Yosef Bonaparte, associate professor of finance and the director of external affairs in finance at the University of Colorado Denver.
But for groups that have experienced discrimination, currencies that are freely exchanged and not backed by a single government appear more equitable, experts say.
“There has been a long history of discrimination in investments,'' says John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. "And that could be why we have seen a wide demography of interest and inclusivity in crypto – because it’s new, open and seemingly has fewer barriers to entry.”
Bitcoin, the first and most well-known which launched in 2009, was envisioned as an alternative to government money.
“Crypto is very big with Black millennials and LGBTQ Americans because it represents freedom,” says Tyrone Ross, chief executive of Onramp Invest, which provides crypto asset management technology for financial advisers. “This is very much a social movement.”
With their prices based on supply and demand, cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile, which puts their value at constant risk. But some investors from marginalized communities see crypto as a chance to finally get in on a financial boom at the front end.
Crypto for your nest egg?Cryptos are now in 401(k)s. Are they the right investment for your nest egg?
Is Crypto a gamble?:Is buying cryptocurrency investing or gambling? Here's how to tell the difference
“If I put in a little money … maybe this could take me to the next level,’’ says Christian Posada, a 49-year-old attorney in Lake Worth, Florida, who primarily invests in stocks but puts $300 into crypto each month. “I could see minorities thinking: ‘Hey, I don’t see how else I’m ever going to become a millionaire. I’m willing to (take a) risk on this.’’’
Among Black Americans, 43% say the banking and loans industry has treated them unfairly, and 39% of the LGBTQ community feel the same, according to the Harris Poll. That was in contrast to 28% of the general public.
Large numbers of marginalized groups also say they don't feel welcomed by traditional financial institutions. Fifty-eight percent of Black Americans, 66% of Hispanic Americans and 59% of LGTBQ Americans say that those systems "are not meant for people like me" and that cryptocurrency allows them to invest their money outside those channels.
Among Black Americans, 34% say the ability of cryptocurrency to be owned independently of traditional banks is very important.
"Representation and equality are what crypto promotes, evokes and distributes," Ross says.
Martinez, who lives in south San Francisco, has sobering memories of how the 2008 economic downturn affected his family.
"Loss of wages, loss of jobs, all of that was part of my family's experience ... and a lot of it stemmed from traditional financial systems,'' he says, noting the bailouts of large investment banks at the time. "The government decided to support these large institutions rather than the everyday person. (It) signaled that potentially that system wasn't created for me.''
Meanwhile, "cryptocurrency ... provides accessibility to a new system,'' he says, one that feels "more decentralized and could potentially benefit me, and people like me, in the long run."
Numerous racial and societal barriers have prevented marginalized communities from flourishing financially, including a lack of capital, networks or knowledge to invest in the financial markets, experts say.
Financial redlining, the discriminatory practice of denying services like mortgages to people based on their race or ethnicity, prevented Black Americans and other people of color from buying a home in certain neighborhoods for decades.
'Unbelievable chain of oppression':America's history of racism was a preexistingcondition
A glaring gap:Black homeowners are twice as likely to have to return to renting than whites
Additionally, people of color, who tend to make lower wages and have less inherited wealth, often were hindered from working with financial advisers or even opening brokerage accounts because they needed thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so, experts say.
"When we look back at how wealth is built in this country, so many of those opportunities were not even available or were taken away through regulation and or redlining,'' says Ramona Ortega, founder and CEO of the financial tech company My Money My Future. "But redlining more broadly is about exclusion ... and that continues to happen.''
Many people of color may also have more urgent needs for their money. "We have many more obligations in our families and in our communities than other people have,'' Ortega says.
Consequently, marginalized Americans have participated less in the stock market and have typically allocated a lower proportion of their money to risky assets, which has served as a longstanding barrier to building wealth, financial experts say.
Those who believe they're experiencing discrimination are 4% to 40% less likely to participate in the stock market than white men and, conditional on investing, allocate 2% to 9% less of their wealth to stocks, according to Bonaparte.
"We're generally more risk-averse because we have more to lose,'' Ortega says. "Women of color make 50 cents to 60 cents on a dollar, so we’re working twice as hard for that one dollar of investment we’re going to put in the market.''
Hesitation to make those investments is most consistent among women, Black Americans and the LGBTQ community, Bonaparte says.
“The LGBTQ community has historically been less likely to participate in investing in the stock market because they think that they could be exposed to income and credit risks if they are fired for their sexuality,” Bonaparte says. “Social discrimination can have lasting adverse effects on the economic welfare of these individuals.”
Steve Cerqua, a 55-year-old member of the LGBTQ community, has used large brokerages to invest throughout his long career in technology and finance, but he constantly ran into challenges because of his sexuality.
“Whenever I’d try to speak to an adviser, they’d speak down to me in a condescending tone of voice even though I’ve worked in technology and dealt with finances for many years,” says Cerqua, a New York native who recently moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
But once he learned more about cryptocurrency technology and began trading it four years ago, he felt it gave him a fairer chance of succeeding with investing.
“As a member of the LGBTQ community, anything that equalizes the playing field is very attractive to me,” says Cerqua, who enjoyed investing in crypto so much that he became a senior manager of software engineering at Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange. “Investing in cryptos made me feel like I wasn’t just a little fish in a big pond. I felt like I was an equal player in the game.”
Despite their relative newness and volatility, cryptocurrencies may seem more accessible and understandable than traditional stocks for the people who invest in them.
"It almost feels like I can know it just as much someone else," says Ortega, while with stocks "there’s this mentality (that) only the Goldman Sachs analyst knows what’s happening.’’
Though there are several cryptocurrencies, including the best-known bitcoin and ether, investors don't have to sift through as many options as they do when evaluating company stocks, Ortega says. And crypto's prevalence on social media also makes it seem more knowable.
"The younger generations ... trust social media,'' Ortega says. "They trust the transparency in communications. They can go on Reddit or on Clubhouse, all these things where they feel they get access to ‘insider info,’ and they're able to make their own decisions.''
Crypto investor Jullian Harrison, 30, who co-owns a ball-bearings company in Richmond, Virginia, is heavily invested in stocks and says crypto makes up only about 1% of his overall portfolio. But as a Black man, he understands how some people of color might feel excluded from traditional investment vehicles.
"(Despite) knowing about stocks and going to school where that was discussed, I felt I was kind of locked out because I didn't have $50,000 starting out to invest,'' he says.
After learning about stocks from a teacher and the father of a friend, Harrison says, he has continued to gain knowledge from the successful Black businessmen who are members of his investment club.
But Harrison also sees the financial potential of crypto, and he hopes to increase his crypto holdings to 5% to 7% of his portfolio with the goal that it will not only help fund his retirement but also create a financial foundation for his young daughter.
“In my ideal world, I’m one of those crypto millionaires,'’ he says. “I’m looking at it as if you could purchase Standard Oil’s stocks and ... instead of buying and selling as soon as you were a millionaire, you held it until it paid dividends. (Look at) the kind of generational wealth you could provide.’’
Beyond the stock market, Black and Latino households have more commonly remained “unbanked,” or living without a bank account to avoid the overdraft fees that often come with them, Ross says.
More than 6% of U.S. households, or about 14 million Americans, don't have a checking or savings account, according to the National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
That means many may have to rely on non-bank money orders, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements or pawn shops, Ross says.
But blockchain technology and crypto assets can mitigate some of the barriers to accessing banking services, crypto enthusiasts say. For instance, fees for cryptocurrency transactions are frequently lower than the cost of intermediary money transfers.
Still, systemic problems that prevent people from connecting to banking services can’t be addressed through access to cryptocurrencies alone, according to Katten's Financial Markets and Funds practice, which provides comprehensive legal services to asset managers.
“Many people who are unbanked indicate that they simply do not have enough money to open an account or do not believe that they have a need for a bank account,” partners at Katten said in a research note.
And cryptocurrency can be a risky investment, many say.
Despite being early adopters, 50% of Black crypto owners reportthey are “very” concerned, about crypto losing its value, compared with only 30% of white crypto owners.
LGBTQ Americans are just slightly more optimistic, with 20% saying they are “very” concerned about the value of their crypto disappearing versus 33% of the general public.
Jullian Harrison worries that the lure of big, fast returns, coupled with the ability to buy crypto in the time it takes to make a story on Snapchat, could lead some would-be investors to make reckless decisions.
“I went in, created an account, and within 10, 20 or 30 minutes I was able to buy crypto,’’ Harrison says. "That’s beautiful, but I also think it can be extremely dangerous. ... It's almost like playing a video game.”
But like Harrison, many crypto owners of color say they're in it for the long haul: 76% of Black crypto investors are more likely to hold those assets long-term, compared with 63% of white crypto investors.
To spread out risk, Ortega says having a portfolio with diverse assets like a Roth IRA, and individual stocks, is critical. And "if you don’t have $30,000 in your retirement account,'' she says, "don’t spend $30,000 on bitcoin.''
But crypto can be a part of the mix.
“I think we’re in the middle of a really big shift,'' Ortega says. "People are getting empowered to take action. ... I'm excited about it.''
“Young Investors: Risk and Reward” is a series that examines the aspirations and anxieties of young Americans as they invest money in the current market boom, which is lifting traditional stock prices to record highs and elevating a new, risky marketplace for virtual goods, from digital art to Dogecoin.
GRAPHICSGeorge Petras/USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Bitcoin and crypto: Way to wealth for Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors? || Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see crypto investments like bitcoin as 'a new path' to wealth and equity: Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see cryptocurrencies as ‘a new path’ to wealth and equity. When Hector Martinez learned about cryptocurrencies, the son of Salvadoran immigrants quickly saw their appeal: Marginalized communities could finally build wealth outside institutions that often excluded or exploited them. Martinez, 28, who works in sales, has invested at least half of his portfolio in bitcoin and other digital currencies. “There's an incentive to find a new path and explore things to see if there’s a potential benefit for people like us,'' he says. “From my perspective, it’s a long-term investment. I feel a belief in where this industry is going, so it's something I want to make sure I'm a part of.'' Cryptocurrencies have become an investment craze, the stuff of memes, tweets and subreddits as celebrities, athletes and billionaires tout their favorites and pour money into the digital currencies. They are created and traded over a decentralized computer network and have a particular appeal to younger investors. But the digital assets are more popular with some groups of investors than others, according to data from Harris Poll given exclusively to USA TODAY. While only 11% of white Americans report owning cryptos, 23% of Black Americans and 17% of Hispanic Americans own such assets, according to two surveys of 2,010, and 2,003 U.S. adults in June and July. Awareness of crypto is also much higher among people of color. Half of Black Americans, half of Asian Americans and 49% of Hispanic Americans say they are familiar with it, versus 37% of white Americans. And people of color aren’t the only marginalized groups with a strong interest in decentralized currencies. One-quarter of LGTBQ Americans own crypto compared with only 13% of the general public. Marginalized communities tend to worry they will lose money because they've experienced bias and unfair treatment, says Yosef Bonaparte, associate professor of finance and the director of external affairs in finance at the University of Colorado Denver. But for groups that have experienced discrimination, currencies that are freely exchanged and not backed by a single government appear more equitable, experts say. “There has been a long history of discrimination in investments,'' says John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. "And that could be why we have seen a wide demography of interest and inclusivity in crypto – because it’s new, open and seemingly has fewer barriers to entry.” Bitcoin, the first and most well-known which launched in 2009, was envisioned as an alternative to government money. Tyrone Ross, chief executive of Onramp Invest “Crypto is very big with Black millennials and LGBTQ Americans because it represents freedom,” says Tyrone Ross, chief executive of Onramp Invest, which provides crypto asset management technology for financial advisers. “This is very much a social movement.” Story continues With their prices based on supply and demand, cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile, which puts their value at constant risk. But some investors from marginalized communities see crypto as a chance to finally get in on a financial boom at the front end. Crypto for your nest egg? Cryptos are now in 401(k)s. Are they the right investment for your nest egg? Is Crypto a gamble?: Is buying cryptocurrency investing or gambling? Here's how to tell the difference “If I put in a little money … maybe this could take me to the next level,’’ says Christian Posada, a 49-year-old attorney in Lake Worth, Florida, who primarily invests in stocks but puts $300 into crypto each month. “I could see minorities thinking: ‘Hey, I don’t see how else I’m ever going to become a millionaire. I’m willing to (take a) risk on this.’’’ Banks 'not meant for people like me' Among Black Americans, 43% say the banking and loans industry has treated them unfairly, and 39% of the LGBTQ community feel the same, according to the Harris Poll. That was in contrast to 28% of the general public. Large numbers of marginalized groups also say they don't feel welcomed by traditional financial institutions. Fifty-eight percent of Black Americans, 66% of Hispanic Americans and 59% of LGTBQ Americans say that those systems "are not meant for people like me" and that cryptocurrency allows them to invest their money outside those channels. Among Black Americans, 34% say the ability of cryptocurrency to be owned independently of traditional banks is very important. "Representation and equality are what crypto promotes, evokes and distributes," Ross says. Martinez, who lives in south San Francisco, has sobering memories of how the 2008 economic downturn affected his family. "Loss of wages, loss of jobs, all of that was part of my family's experience ... and a lot of it stemmed from traditional financial systems,'' he says, noting the bailouts of large investment banks at the time. "The government decided to support these large institutions rather than the everyday person. (It) signaled that potentially that system wasn't created for me.'' Meanwhile, "cryptocurrency ... provides accessibility to a new system,'' he says, one that feels "more decentralized and could potentially benefit me, and people like me, in the long run." 'Working twice as hard for that one dollar of investment' Numerous racial and societal barriers have prevented marginalized communities from flourishing financially, including a lack of capital, networks or knowledge to invest in the financial markets, experts say. Financial redlining , the discriminatory practice of denying services like mortgages to people based on their race or ethnicity, prevented Black Americans and other people of color from buying a home in certain neighborhoods for decades. 'Unbelievable chain of oppression': America's history of racism was a preexisting condition A glaring gap: Black homeowners are twice as likely to have to return to renting than whites Additionally, people of color, who tend to make lower wages and have less inherited wealth, often were hindered from working with financial advisers or even opening brokerage accounts because they needed thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so, experts say. "When we look back at how wealth is built in this country, so many of those opportunities were not even available or were taken away through regulation and or redlining,'' says Ramona Ortega, founder and CEO of the financial tech company My Money My Future. "But redlining more broadly is about exclusion ... and that continues to happen.'' Many people of color may also have more urgent needs for their money. "We have many more obligations in our families and in our communities than other people have,'' Ortega says. Consequently, marginalized Americans have participated less in the stock market and have typically allocated a lower proportion of their money to risky assets, which has served as a longstanding barrier to building wealth, financial experts say. Those who believe they're experiencing discrimination are 4% to 40% less likely to participate in the stock market than white men and, conditional on investing, allocate 2% to 9% less of their wealth to stocks, according to Bonaparte. "We're generally more risk-averse because we have more to lose,'' Ortega says. "Women of color make 50 cents to 60 cents on a dollar, so we’re working twice as hard for that one dollar of investment we’re going to put in the market.'' Hesitation to make those investments is most consistent among women, Black Americans and the LGBTQ community, Bonaparte says. “The LGBTQ community has historically been less likely to participate in investing in the stock market because they think that they could be exposed to income and credit risks if they are fired for their sexuality,” Bonaparte says. “Social discrimination can have lasting adverse effects on the economic welfare of these individuals.” Steve Cerqua, a member of the LGBTQ community, believes cryptocurrency has given him a fairer opportunity to succeed in investing Steve Cerqua, a 55-year-old member of the LGBTQ community, has used large brokerages to invest throughout his long career in technology and finance, but he constantly ran into challenges because of his sexuality. “Whenever I’d try to speak to an adviser, they’d speak down to me in a condescending tone of voice even though I’ve worked in technology and dealt with finances for many years,” says Cerqua, a New York native who recently moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. But once he learned more about cryptocurrency technology and began trading it four years ago, he felt it gave him a fairer chance of succeeding with investing. “As a member of the LGBTQ community, anything that equalizes the playing field is very attractive to me,” says Cerqua, who enjoyed investing in crypto so much that he became a senior manager of software engineering at Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange. “Investing in cryptos made me feel like I wasn’t just a little fish in a big pond. I felt like I was an equal player in the game.” A firmer understanding Despite their relative newness and volatility, cryptocurrencies may seem more accessible and understandable than traditional stocks for the people who invest in them. "It almost feels like I can know it just as much someone else," says Ortega, while with stocks "there’s this mentality (that) only the Goldman Sachs analyst knows what’s happening.’’ Though there are several cryptocurrencies, including the best-known bitcoin and ether, investors don't have to sift through as many options as they do when evaluating company stocks, Ortega says. And crypto's prevalence on social media also makes it seem more knowable. "The younger generations ... trust social media,'' Ortega says. "They trust the transparency in communications. They can go on Reddit or on Clubhouse, all these things where they feel they get access to ‘insider info,’ and they're able to make their own decisions.'' Crypto investor Jullian Harrison, 30, who co-owns a ball-bearings company in Richmond, Virginia, is heavily invested in stocks and says crypto makes up only about 1% of his overall portfolio. But as a Black man, he understands how some people of color might feel excluded from traditional investment vehicles. "(Despite) knowing about stocks and going to school where that was discussed, I felt I was kind of locked out because I didn't have $50,000 starting out to invest,'' he says. After learning about stocks from a teacher and the father of a friend, Harrison says, he has continued to gain knowledge from the successful Black businessmen who are members of his investment club. But Harrison also sees the financial potential of crypto, and he hopes to increase his crypto holdings to 5% to 7% of his portfolio with the goal that it will not only help fund his retirement but also create a financial foundation for his young daughter. “In my ideal world, I’m one of those crypto millionaires,'’ he says. “I’m looking at it as if you could purchase Standard Oil’s stocks and ... instead of buying and selling as soon as you were a millionaire, you held it until it paid dividends. (Look at) the kind of generational wealth you could provide.’’ Help for the 'unbanked' Beyond the stock market, Black and Latino households have more commonly remained “unbanked,” or living without a bank account to avoid the overdraft fees that often come with them, Ross says. More than 6% of U.S. households, or about 14 million Americans, don't have a checking or savings account, according to the National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That means many may have to rely on non-bank money orders, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements or pawn shops, Ross says. But blockchain technology and crypto assets can mitigate some of the barriers to accessing banking services, crypto enthusiasts say. For instance, fees for cryptocurrency transactions are frequently lower than the cost of intermediary money transfers. Buyer beware Still, systemic problems that prevent people from connecting to banking services can’t be addressed through access to cryptocurrencies alone, according to Katten's Financial Markets and Funds practice, which provides comprehensive legal services to asset managers. “Many people who are unbanked indicate that they simply do not have enough money to open an account or do not believe that they have a need for a bank account,” partners at Katten said in a research note. And cryptocurrency can be a risky investment, many say. Despite being early adopters, 50% of Black crypto owners reportthey are “very” concerned, about crypto losing its value, compared with only 30% of white crypto owners. LGBTQ Americans are just slightly more optimistic, with 20% saying they are “very” concerned about the value of their crypto disappearing versus 33% of the general public. Jullian Harrison is an investor in cryptocurrency and looking to grow it as a share of his portfolio. Jullian Harrison worries that the lure of big, fast returns, coupled with the ability to buy crypto in the time it takes to make a story on Snapchat, could lead some would-be investors to make reckless decisions. “I went in, created an account, and within 10, 20 or 30 minutes I was able to buy crypto,’’ Harrison says. "That’s beautiful, but I also think it can be extremely dangerous. ... It's almost like playing a video game.” But like Harrison, many crypto owners of color say they're in it for the long haul: 76% of Black crypto investors are more likely to hold those assets long-term, compared with 63% of white crypto investors. To spread out risk, Ortega says having a portfolio with diverse assets like a Roth IRA, and individual stocks, is critical. And "if you don’t have $30,000 in your retirement account,'' she says, "don’t spend $30,000 on bitcoin.'' But crypto can be a part of the mix. “I think we’re in the middle of a really big shift,'' Ortega says. "People are getting empowered to take action. ... I'm excited about it.'' “Young Investors: Risk and Reward” is a series that examines the aspirations and anxieties of young Americans as they invest money in the current market boom, which is lifting traditional stock prices to record highs and elevating a new, risky marketplace for virtual goods, from digital art to Dogecoin. GRAPHICS George Petras/USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bitcoin and crypto: Way to wealth for Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors? View comments || SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Pomerantz Law Firm Reminds Shareholders with Losses on their Investment in Coinbase Global, Inc., of Class Action Lawsuit and Upcoming Deadline – COIN: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 15, 2021 /Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Coinbase Global, Inc. ("Coinbase" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:COIN) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and docketed under 21-cv-06049, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Offering Materials") for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the "Offering"). Plaintiff pursues claims against the Defendants under the Securities Act of 1933.
If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's registration statement and prospectus, you have until September 20, 2021 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained atwww.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby [email protected] 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.
[Click here for information about joining the class action]
Coinbase "powers the cryptoeconomy," offering a "trusted platform" for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries.
On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on Form 424B4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which forms part of the Registration Statement. The Company registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. According to the Registration Statement, the resale of the Company's stock was not underwritten by any investment bank and the registered stockholders would purportedly elect whether or not to sell their shares. Such sales, if any, would be brokerage transactions on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, and Coinbase would purportedly not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the registered stockholders. Thus, Coinbase's operations, including its liquidity and capital resources, would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. As of December 31, 2020, Coinbase had cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion, exclusive of restricted cash and customer custodial funds.
The complaint alleges that, the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) the Company required a sizeable cash injection; (2) the Company's platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as the Company scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
Only a month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users' ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including "delays . . . due to network congestion" effecting those who want to get their money out.
On this news, the Company's share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10% over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021, thereby injuring investors.
By the commencement of this action, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a significant decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share.
Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. Seewww.pomlaw.com.
SOURCE:Pomerantz LLP
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/659829/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-Pomerantz-Law-Firm-Reminds-Shareholders-with-Losses-on-their-Investment-in-Coinbase-Global-Inc-of-Class-Action-Lawsuit-and-Upcoming-Deadline-COIN || SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Pomerantz Law Firm Reminds Shareholders with Losses on their Investment in Coinbase Global, Inc., of Class Action Lawsuit and Upcoming Deadline COIN: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 15, 2021 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Coinbase Global, Inc. ("Coinbase" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:COIN) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and docketed under 21-cv-06049, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Offering Materials") for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the "Offering"). Plaintiff pursues claims against the Defendants under the Securities Act of 1933. If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's registration statement and prospectus, you have until September 20, 2021 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com . To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. [Click here for information about joining the class action] Coinbase "powers the cryptoeconomy," offering a "trusted platform" for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries. On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on Form 424B4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which forms part of the Registration Statement. The Company registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. According to the Registration Statement, the resale of the Company's stock was not underwritten by any investment bank and the registered stockholders would purportedly elect whether or not to sell their shares. Such sales, if any, would be brokerage transactions on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, and Coinbase would purportedly not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the registered stockholders. Thus, Coinbase's operations, including its liquidity and capital resources, would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. As of December 31, 2020, Coinbase had cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion, exclusive of restricted cash and customer custodial funds. Story continues The complaint alleges that, the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) the Company required a sizeable cash injection; (2) the Company's platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as the Company scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. Only a month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users' ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including "delays . . . due to network congestion" effecting those who want to get their money out. On this news, the Company's share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10% over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021, thereby injuring investors. By the commencement of this action, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a significant decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com . SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/659829/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-Pomerantz-Law-Firm-Reminds-Shareholders-with-Losses-on-their-Investment-in-Coinbase-Global-Inc-of-Class-Action-Lawsuit-and-Upcoming-Deadline-COIN || Premier League Team Watford FC To Wear Dogecoin Shirts for 2021/22 Season: Watford FC players will wear aDogecoin(CRYPTO: DOGE) logo on their jerseys for the 2021/22 season,The Athleticreports.
• A crypto sports betting site Stake.com is a sponsor of the team, and the deal is worth $1 million.
• Stake.com has also announced to give away 10 million DOGE (worth $2 million).
• Earlier In the 2019-2020 soccer season, Sportsbet.io was the sponsor for Watford that put Bitcoin on the players’ shirts.
• Coinmarketcapreports that cryptocurrency sector has a market value of around $1.95 trillion at present.
• Dogecoin has risen 8,185% over the last year.
• The coin, which started as a joke in 2013, uses the image of the meme Shiba Inu dog known as Doge.
• Attention on the meme coin intensified after Tesla owner Elon Musk started pushing development in the cryptocurrency.
• According toUEFA, the Premier League is a hot target for sponsors.
• The Aston Martin Formula 1 team is sponsored by exchange Crypto.com.
See also:Today’s Dogecoin Price
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• George Soros Abandons Shares Bought During Implosion Of Archegos Bill Hwang
• Here Is What Richard Branson Did To Raise Money For His Pandemic-Battered Global Business
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Premier League Team Watford FC To Wear Dogecoin Shirts for 2021/22 Season: Watford FC players will wear a Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) logo on their jerseys for the 2021/22 season, The Athletic reports. A crypto sports betting site Stake.com is a sponsor of the team, and the deal is worth $1 million. Stake.com has also announced to give away 10 million DOGE (worth $2 million). Earlier In the 2019-2020 soccer season, Sportsbet.io was the sponsor for Watford that put Bitcoin on the players’ shirts. Coinmarketcap reports that cryptocurrency sector has a market value of around $1.95 trillion at present. Dogecoin has risen 8,185% over the last year. The coin, which started as a joke in 2013, uses the image of the meme Shiba Inu dog known as Doge. Attention on the meme coin intensified after Tesla owner Elon Musk started pushing development in the cryptocurrency. According to UEFA , the Premier League is a hot target for sponsors. The Aston Martin Formula 1 team is sponsored by exchange Crypto.com. See also: Today’s Dogecoin Price See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga George Soros Abandons Shares Bought During Implosion Of Archegos Bill Hwang Here Is What Richard Branson Did To Raise Money For His Pandemic-Battered Global Business © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cryptocurrencies' market cap has risen above $2 trillion for the first time since May as bitcoin rebounds: Cryptocurrencies have been on a wild ride in 2021. Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images The crypto market's total value has climbed above $2 trillion for the first time since May. It touched $2.02 trillion on Saturday before slipping slightly to $1.96 trillion on Sunday. Bitcoin, ether, and other tokens have rebounded in recent weeks as investors have been lured back. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency universe has broken the $2 trillion barrier for the first time since May after a strong rebound in bitcoin and other tokens. The total value of all cryptocurrencies reached $2.02 trillion on Saturday, according to Coinmarketcap . It hovered around that level until dipping slightly to $1.96 trillion on Sunday. Bitcoin's market cap stood at $863 billion, while ether's was $370 billion. It's been a wild year for cryptocurrencies. They boomed in the first few months of 2021 as governments pumped stimulus into economies, but tumbled in May and June when Tesla boss Elon Musk criticized bitcoin's energy use and China cracked down on the tokens. However, the market has gained a new lease of life in the last few weeks, with bitcoin rising from below $30,000 in July to trade at around $46,000 on Sunday. Analysts have struggled to put a finger on exactly why the asset class has rebounded. Some have suggested that Elon Musk's comments have once again been a catalyst. He told a bitcoin conference in July that Tesla is likely to accept bitcoin as payment again once it is more eco-friendly. Read more: The chief market analyst at charting-software firm TrendSpider shares the technical indicators that tell him bitcoin and ether are set to rise to all-time highs in the next 5 months Institutions also appear to have remained interested, despite the price drops of the spring. Insider revealed in July that JPMorgan has given its financial advisors the green light to give all its wealth-management clients access to cryptocurrency funds. Story continues So-called altcoins such as ether and cardano's native token ada have also rallied sharply in recent weeks. A major network upgrade has helped ether - the second-biggest cryptocurrency - climb from below $1,800 in July to $3,156 on Sunday. Ada has surged in recent days, also due partly to excitement around upcoming network changes . The token traded at under $1.10 in July but stood at $2.10 on Sunday. Cryptocurrencies have rebounded despite growing regulatory threats. Watchdogs around the world are increasingly concerned about crypto derivative exchanges such as Binance , and the US Securities and Exchange Commission has signaled that it wants increased oversight of the crypto landscape. Read the original article on Business Insider || Cryptocurrencies' market cap has risen above $2 trillion for the first time since May as bitcoin rebounds: • The crypto market's total value has climbed above $2 trillion for the first time since May.
• It touched $2.02 trillion on Saturday before slipping slightly to $1.96 trillion on Sunday.
• Bitcoin, ether, and other tokens have rebounded in recent weeks as investors have been lured back.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency universe has broken the $2 trillion barrier for the first time since May after a strong rebound inbitcoinand other tokens.
The total value of all cryptocurrencies reached $2.02 trillion on Saturday, according toCoinmarketcap. It hovered around that level until dipping slightly to $1.96 trillion on Sunday. Bitcoin's market cap stood at $863 billion, whileether'swas $370 billion.
It's been a wild year for cryptocurrencies. They boomed in the first few months of 2021 as governments pumped stimulus into economies, but tumbled in May and June when Tesla boss Elon Muskcriticized bitcoin's energy useand Chinacracked downon the tokens.
However, the market has gained a new lease of life in the last few weeks, with bitcoin rising from below $30,000 in July to trade at around $46,000 on Sunday.
Analysts have struggled to put a finger on exactly why the asset class has rebounded. Some have suggested that Elon Musk's comments have once again been a catalyst. He told a bitcoin conference in July that Tesla is likely toaccept bitcoin as paymentagain once it is more eco-friendly.
Read more:The chief market analyst at charting-software firm TrendSpider shares the technical indicators that tell him bitcoin and ether are set to rise to all-time highs in the next 5 months
Institutions also appear to have remained interested, despite the price drops of the spring. Insider revealed in July that JPMorgan has given its financial advisorsthe green lightto give all its wealth-management clients access to cryptocurrency funds.
So-called altcoins such as ether and cardano's native token ada have also rallied sharply in recent weeks. A major network upgrade has helped ether - the second-biggest cryptocurrency - climb from below $1,800 in July to $3,156 on Sunday.
Ada has surged in recent days, also due partly to excitement aroundupcoming network changes. The token traded at under $1.10 in July but stood at $2.10 on Sunday.
Cryptocurrencies have rebounded despite growing regulatory threats. Watchdogs around the world are increasingly concerned about crypto derivative exchangessuch as Binance, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission has signaled that it wantsincreased oversightof the crypto landscape.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Dogecoin to Feature on Watford F.C. Sleeves This Season: BeInCrypto –
Dogecoin (DOGE) will serve as the shirt sleeve sponsor for Premier League football team Watford F.C. during the 2021/22 season.
Reports indicatethat the deal will be worth around £700,000. It came about as a result of a collaboration with Watford’s main shirt sponsor, Stake.com.
DOGE has taken over the role that bitcoin (BTC) previously occupied. Watford F.C. players sported BTC logos on their shirt sleeves during the Premier League 2019/20 season, as part of a sponsorship deal with Sportsbet.io. According to reports, this deal was worth £1 million. Watford was relegated during this season, but were promoted back to the Premier League in 2021.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Dogecoin to Feature on Watford F.C. Sleeves This Season: BeInCrypto – Dogecoin (DOGE) will serve as the shirt sleeve sponsor for Premier League football team Watford F.C. during the 2021/22 season. Reports indicate that the deal will be worth around £700,000. It came about as a result of a collaboration with Watford’s main shirt sponsor, Stake.com. DOGE has taken over the role that bitcoin (BTC) previously occupied. Watford F.C. players sported BTC logos on their shirt sleeves during the Premier League 2019/20 season, as part of a sponsorship deal with Sportsbet.io. According to reports, this deal was worth £1 million. Watford was relegated during this season, but were promoted back to the Premier League in 2021. This story was seen first on BeInCrypto Join our Telegram Group and get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories like this on BeInCrypto View comments || Ranking the Currencies That Could Unseat the Dollar: This is the second installment in a series on global currencies. The first part details the forceseroding the U.S. dollar’s reserve status.
Half a century ago today, on Aug. 15, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon took a momentous step.
After World War II, the U.S. had used its leverage as the last advanced economy standing to make the dollar the foundation of a global system of exchange rates. The postwar dollar was backed by huge gold reserves built up in part through American sales of munitions to Europe during the war. The system, known as Bretton Woods for the New Hampshire site of its enactment, played a key role in the reconstruction of devastated economies in Europe and Japan.
Related:50 Years After Bretton Woods, the US Dollar’s Throne Is in Play
But by 1971, those recovering economies had become a threat to the gold-backed dollar. Rising exports from Europe and Japan eroded the U.S. share of global trade, reducing demand for American currency. Combined with excess U.S. spending, this convinced financial markets that the dollar was overvalued against its $35 per ounce gold peg. Starting in the 1960s, dollars were redeemed for gold at a faster and faster clip, a “gold run” motivated by the belief that the dollar’s peg might break, leaving dollar holders short.
Finally, 50 years ago, Richard Nixonsuspended dollar redemptions for gold. Though the process took a few more years to play out, this effectively ended the gold standard and the fixed Bretton Woods exchange system that relied on it.
The significance of this moment is arguably exaggerated in the sweep of financial history – the “gold standard” that Nixon ended had lasted less than three decades, under extremely unusual circumstances. In its place eventually came the relatively free-floating exchange rates we know today, in which the relative value of currencies changes based broadly on the economic clout and political stability of the issuing nation.
As it happened, despite the rise of Europe and Japan, this new currency regime still favored the (now unbacked) U.S. dollar. For the half-century since, it has remained the dominant currency for global trade and the overwhelming choice of foreign central banks looking for a stable store of value. As we discussed in the first installment of this series, this has given the U.S. a variety of economic and political advantages, often referred to as the dollar’s“exorbitant privilege.”
Related:Honor Releases First Snapdragon Smartphone With Digital Yuan Wallet
But now, the status quo of dollar dominance is eroding.Post-pandemic inflationhas reignited worries about the dollar’s declining reserve status, but it’s a much longer-term trend: In May, the dollar’s share of central bank reserves fell to a25-year low of 59%.
The dollar’s lost share has been taken up in large part by growth in reserves held as euros, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. There’s also another competitor, though it’s still just a glimmer on the horizon: Crypto advocates have long argued thatbitcoinor another digital asset could serve as a global reserve currency, and recently much more mainstream figures, including theformer head of the Bank of England, have supported the idea of a supranational digital reserve instrument.
Reserve status is not a winner-take-all competition. The circumstances that led to nearly a century of dollar dominance were an anomaly, and experts generally don’t expect any single currency or instrument to become similarly dominant in the 21st century.
But which of the candidates has the best chance of stealing significant reserve market share from the dollar – along with a share of the power and privilege that come with it?
The euro has many huge advantages as a potential global reserve currency. Despite a legacy of economic mismanagement by a few member states like Greece and Spain, the eurozone is by and large made up of healthy, well-regulated economies, with a total GDPslightly higher than China’s. And while the European Central Bank is certainly not without its flaws, it is generally governed in a steady and fairly predictable manner. It has also weathered one truly terrifying crisis in 2010, managing to pull together a bailout package and ward off the euro’s dissolution, considered a real possibility at the time.
So it’s no surprise the euro is already the world’s second-biggest reserve currency, with roughly €2.5 trillion (US$2.94 trillion) in central banks globally.
But there are barriers to further growth in euro reserves. The biggest of these is not economic, but political. Power over interest rates and other aspects of euro monetary policy is in the hands of theGoverning Councilof the European Central Bank, which is made up of a six-member Executive Board and the governors of all 19 eurozone central banks. That means major conflicts between member states on monetary policy could lead to governance gridlock or breakdown, which creates risk relative to the more unitary U.S. Federal Reserve.
Another problem for the euro’s reserve currency potential, according to Stanford economist Darrell Duffie, is that the European Central Bank for many years did not issue Europe-wide bonds. The central banks of member states issues euro-denominated bonds, but they don’t mirror the strengths and weaknesses of the eurozone as a whole. Each country’s bonds havetheir own independent yields, for instance. That adds to the complexity and risk of using them as reserves. Bonds, rather than currency, make up the bulk of international central bank reserves, so the lack of true “euro bonds” has constrained the euro’s reserve role.
This situation changed during the coronavirus pandemic, however. The European Union announced last October that it would begin the first large-scale issuance ofEurope-wide debtto fund pandemic relief. The bonds have been generally well-received by markets, and the European Commission plans to borrow 900 billion euros ($1.06 trillion) over the next five years. Though the bonds will go to a variety of buyers, that’s enough to significantly displace dollar-denominated bonds in central banks, which currently total close to $7 trillion.
More importantly, the issuance sets a precedent. “Whether there will be a lot more of them or not is hard to foresee,” says Duffie. “But because this kind of breaks the ice, it may mean there’s more in the future.” That wouldn’t simply add assets to the market for reserves – Duffie argues that shared debt issuance would increase European political cohesion, reinforcing the utility of the bonds as stores of value.
(A note: Despite its past glories, the British pound is not generally part of the discussion of reserve shifts, in part because of the U.K.’s relatively small economy – one-fifth the size of China’s and half the size of Japan’s.)
The situation of the yen is maybe the most counterintuitive when it comes to reserve status, and it casts crucial light on the challenges facing China’s yuan. Broadly, despite its economic strength, Japan’s financial system still has certain isolationist tendencies rooted in its export-driven postwar rebuilding strategy. Above all, most Japanese debt is held domestically, limiting the available supply of yen-denominated reserves.
“It’s never been Japan’s ambition” to have a global reserve currency, says Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at investment bank Natixis. “If you have a current accounts surplus, like Germany and Japan, you don’t need an international reserve currency, because you don’t have anything to finance. You buy assets.”
In other words, if a nation is a net exporter, it may simply not have enough international debts for its bonds to serve as global reserves. Japan’s high domestic savings rate, which has averaged astunning 30%over the last 40 years, also means there’s huge demand for government bonds at home.
It’s a strange insight when turned back on the dollar: One reason USD is a dominant reserve currency is because Americans can’t seem to live within their means.
The yuan is something of a boogeyman of the dollar these days – a threat looming just offstage, more rumor than light.
China has been trying to make its currency appealing as a global reserve and trading instrument for at least a decade, and as the world’s second-largest economy it’s got the muscle. The push for reserve status has included creating offshore bond markets in Hong Kong, a troubled attempt to balance global yuan flows with the Chinese Communist Party’s desire for domestic capital controls. More recently, some observers argue China’s “digital yuan” project is an attempt to gain a technological edge that would increase the yuan’s share of trade transactions and, in turn, its viability as a reserve.
But these efforts face an array of challenges so great that most experts don’t foresee the yuan succeeding as a reserve currency anytime soon.
One major obstacle is a global lack of faith in Chinese political stability and rule of law, which was highlighted recently by a sudden, broad crackdown on financial technology by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Bitcoin miners were caught in that net, but the crackdown also crashed big portions ofthe Chinese stock market, as well as Chinese stocks listed abroad. That included some companies, such as Luckin Coffee, that were found to be engaging inlarge-scale accounting fraud.
This led Joseph Sullivan, an economist on Donald Trump’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, to call the CCP anunwitting allyto the dollar’s reserve status. Such interventions and collapses cast doubt on China’s commitment to free markets, its regulatory rigor and, in turn, the fundamental strength of the Chinese economy. The potential consequences are fresh in the memory of the finance industry: a similar stock market crash in June of 2015 was quickly followed by China’s central bankdevaluing the yuanto boost export competitiveness.
This all stems from a likely irresolvable conundrum at the heart of China’s reserve-currency ambitions: Tight control over its currency has been a major pillar of its long rise as an economic power, but is incompatible with global reserve status.
This is where Japan is an illustrative comparison. Since the reforms of thelate 1970s, China has modeled its development largely on Japan’s postwar rebuilding, above all its emphasis on domestic investment to build an export-based economy. There are very tight controls on the flow of capital out of China because the Communist Party wants domestic capital to be invested within China, whether to build factories for Apple contractors or fund AI development.
But to become a functional reserve currency, the yuan would have to be freely tradeable. Nations need their reserves to be quite liquid, partly so they’re ready for sudden, big shifts in market conditions – like, say, the coronavirus pandemic, which set off a flurry of U.S. bond sales. To get there, China would have to do what’s known as “open its capital accounts,” or allow free flows of capital in and out of its borders.
But “they don’t plan on opening their capital accounts anytime soon,” according to Emily Jin, a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security. “Their nightmare situation is they open an account and they immediately, the next morning, have massive capital outflows.” This could be exacerbated by recent stock market woes, since major outflows would be driven by Chinese investors looking for bigger or more reliable returns overseas.
China’s first attempt to square this circle was to create a two-tier system starting around 2010, involvingoffshore marketsfor yuan bonds. “China tried to create a tradeable yuan overseas, and then their own yuan at home,” says Garcia-Herrero. “It didn’t work. And the reason it collapsed in 2015 was a giant stock market correction.”
Now, Garcia-Herrero believes China’s central bank is trying to do something similar by creating the digital yuan, an electronic currency completely and directly controlled by the state bank.
“I have to say they are creative,” she says. “They’ve come up with another way to avoid compulsory convertibility. [With a central bank digital currency], they know all the transactions. So if they thought someone was withdrawing too much, they can just take it back.” Garcia-Herrero doesn’t expect the plan to work, however, because of widespread awareness of this potential abuse, and continued distrust in Chinese leadership.
Some have argued that the digital yuan would also increase the yuan’s international appeal through technological innovation – a digital currency may offer speed or other utilitarian advantages over an old-fashioned dollar. But Emily Jin at CNAS doubts that a merely technical upgrade would have a long-term impact: “It might have lower frictional costs, but that’s not the only reason people park their money in USD.”
This tangle of conflicting forces has badly hampered China’s quest for reserve status. The yuan currently makes up a 2.3% share of global reserves, followed closely by the Canadian dollar, which makes up 2% of reserves. Canada’s economy is just 1/8th as large as China’s, and Canada has made no concerted effort to improve its reserve status.
Finally, what’s the potential for bitcoin to become a worldwide reserve instrument?
The primary argument for bitcoin as a reserve instrument parallels the case for personal adoption of bitcoin as a store of value. Just as a domestic central bank can debase currency held by citizens by rampantly printing money, a foreign central bank can do the same to bonds held by foreign governments. Many bitcoin advocates point to unsustainable globaldebt levelsand argue that defaults on sovereign bonds will become widespread this century. In this scenario, bitcoin reserves would become a kind of backstop, a “hard” asset that would still be standing in the case of a wave of bond defaults.
The idea suddenly seemed tantalizingly real whenEl Salvadorrecently became the first country to say it would hold bitcoin (though not as part of a formal central bank reserve). More profoundly, that a small, poor, and politically unstable nation without its own currency led the way seems to align with the case for countries holding bitcoin. Because it already relies on the U.S. dollar as its primary currency, El Salvador is particularly subject to the whims of foreign central banks, and doesn’t manage its own money supply. Other small and unstable nations could similarly benefit from using aneutral currency.
There are other scenarios that could lead to nation-state adoption of bitcoin reserves. Greg Foss, CFO of Validus Power and a longtime credit trader, recently posited that oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia could transition to acceptingbitcoin as payment. Because these countries have at best ambivalent relationships with the U.S., they’re motivated to reduce the power and influence America derives from the dollar – including, in the case of Russia, the power to imposeinternational financial sanctionson individuals. Because oil is so heavily traded, bitcoin’s adoption for oil payments would make holding it more necessary for both nations and a huge number of other players.
The example of oil illustrates the deeper geopolitical appeal of bitcoin. Oil-producing nations trade with a variety of more or less adversarial states, making accepting the customers’ own currency less appealing. Currently, that leaves the U.S. as essentially a trusted third party to the transaction via dollars. But a neutral medium of international exchange like bitcoin makes such exchanges possible without enhancing America’s geopolitical leverage by relying on it to move value.
That said, there’s only a weak relationship between a currency’s use for trade and its usefulness as a reserve instrument, and experts say bitcoin has significant flaws as a reserve. The most obvious at the moment is its price instability, with daily percentage swings still regularly in the double digits.
A steady exchange rate isn’t the most important feature of a reserve instrument: economist Barry Eichengreen has argued that even significant amounts of inflation wouldn’t in itself be enough to unseat the dollar, for instance. Advocates also argue that broader adoption will stabilize bitcoin’s price over time. But for now, that volatility is simply untenable for a serious reserve instrument.
The grassroots ecosystem around bitcoin may also be a problem. “We know [bitcoin] is a great trustless system,” says Yaya Funasie, a former CIA analyst who studies bitcoin and geopolitics for the Center for a New American Security. “But trust isn’t just in the protocol, but in the world around it. You’re also now elevating the importance of the miners, the developers … The protocol says X, but if we get into an issue and developers want to fork, what’s the legal recourse?”
Conversely, bitcoin would be unappealing for official use in nations that already have their own nominally healthy currency, because it would limit their power to control their money supply. For better or worse, frequent, active intervention in monetary policy is a constant theme of monetary history, and giving that up is a nonstarter for the likes of the U.S. or Japan.
“The death of the nation-state has been greatly exaggerated,” Fanusie quips.
Far more likely, Fanusie believes, is the international adoption of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, which aside from being digital are entirely distinct from cryptocurrencies. They can be even more tightly controlled by central banks than paper currency, which is worrying to critics but appealing to current incumbents like China and the U.S. One of the more appealing possibilities of CBDCs would be their utility for creating a digital synthetic currency consisting of a basket of other currencies. This has potential stabilizing effects for global trade and currencies, and is the gist of a proposal made by Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of England, for a“synthetic hegemonic currency.”The implications of such a system would be significant, but again, quite distinct from any application of bitcoin.
So, in the last analysis, what’s the dollar’s biggest rival?
Short answer: the euro. It’s already a strong second place to the dollar, and built on a legacy of relatively responsible banking. European political integration, though slow, is ongoing, and the ECB could easily issue more eurozone bonds.
But that’s just based on current conditions. It’s possible, however unlikely, that China could choose to abandon its current impracticable balancing act and let the yuan float, abandoning its domestic economic priorities. A resurgent U.K. economy could make the pound a player again. The arrival of CBDCs would change international trade and accounts in ways that are hard to predict.
But cryptocurrency is the greatest unknown of all. If you’d told me two years ago that even a single country would be holding bitcoin in 2021, I might not have believed you – yet here we are. El Salvador’s move, however tentative, has highlighted the idea of bitcoin adoption for a lot of othersimilarly situated states, and it seems very likely at least some will make similar moves in coming years.
More broadly, development and adoption are happening so fast in crypto that it’s simply impossible to predict where we go from here. Fundamental geopolitical forces suggest there is a role for a neutral non-state currency. The biggest question may be whether incumbents like China and the U.S. will allow it to grow – or strangle it to strengthen their own positions.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slides as US Lawmakers Wrangle Over Crypto Tax Proposal
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rallies Despite Cooler Inflation Data
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
|
44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 424.23, 416.52, 414.82, 416.73, 417.96, 420.87, 420.90, 421.44, 424.03, 423.41, 422.74, 420.35, 419.41, 421.56, 422.48, 425.19, 423.73, 424.28, 429.71, 430.57, 427.40, 428.59, 435.51, 441.39, 449.42, 445.74, 450.28, 458.55, 461.43, 466.09, 444.69, 449.01, 455.10, 448.32, 451.88, 444.67, 450.30, 446.72, 447.98, 459.60, 458.54, 458.55, 460.48, 450.89, 452.73, 454.77, 455.67, 455.67, 457.57, 454.16, 453.78, 454.62, 438.71, 442.68, 443.19, 439.32, 444.15, 445.98, 449.60, 453.38, 473.46, 530.04, 526.23, 533.86, 531.39, 536.92, 537.97, 569.19, 572.73, 574.98, 585.54, 576.60, 581.65, 574.63, 577.47, 606.73, 672.78, 704.38, 685.56, 694.47, 766.31, 748.91, 756.23, 763.78, 737.23, 666.65, 596.12, 623.98, 665.30, 665.12.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-06-25]
Volume: 126656000, RSI (14-day): 55.13, 50-day EMA: 582.04, 200-day EMA: 461.67
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Looking For Safe Havens? Buy Gold! Buy Treasuries! Buy...Bitcoin?: The usual safe-haven trades are the only silver linings in an ugly Friday trading session. The iShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond (ETF) (NASDAQ: TLT ) is up 2.7 percent and the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD ) is up 4.6 percent. However, another investment alternative may be emerging as the safe haven of the future. The cryptocurrency bitcoin has also surged above $650 on Friday as investors pour money in. It’s strange to think of a currency known for such extreme volatility as a safe haven, but with the pound and other European currencies taking a Brexit pounding, bitcoin buyers are probably more concerned with long-term value preservation than short-term price swings. “I don’t think it is a traditional safe-haven trade but a strategy to avoid official manipulation,” Swissquote Bank analyst Peter Rosenstreich explained. Bitcoin offers investors a unique new alternative to all traditional investment classes. Therefore, bad news for global financial markets may start to consistently be good news for bitcoin. Related Link: Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank Bitcoin investors endured some volatile trading earlier this week when rival cryptocurrency Ethereum suffered a major hack that resulted in $50 million in stolen currency. While bitcoin likely has a way to go before its price action is stable enough for the cryptocurrency to be considered “digital gold,” bitcoin already seems to be establishing a reputation among traders as a viable option during times of market uncertainty. Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned. See more from Benzinga What Analysts Think Central Banks Will Do Following Brexit What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit This Treasury Bond ETF Is On Verge Of Bearish Chart Formation © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Looking For Safe Havens? Buy Gold! Buy Treasuries! Buy...Bitcoin?: The usual safe-haven trades are the only silver linings in an ugly Friday trading session. TheiShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond(ETF)(NASDAQ:TLT) is up 2.7 percent and theSPDR Gold Trust (ETF)(NYSE:GLD) is up 4.6 percent.
However, another investment alternative may be emerging as the safe haven of the future. The cryptocurrency bitcoin has also surged above $650 on Friday as investors pour money in. It’s strange to think of a currency known for such extreme volatility as a safe haven, but with the pound and other European currencies taking a Brexit pounding, bitcoin buyers are probably more concerned with long-term value preservation than short-term price swings.
“I don’t think it is a traditional safe-haven trade but a strategy to avoid official manipulation,”Swissquote Bankanalyst Peter Rosenstreich explained.
Bitcoin offers investors a unique new alternative to all traditional investment classes. Therefore, bad news for global financial markets may start to consistently be good news for bitcoin.
Related Link:Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank
Bitcoin investors endured some volatile trading earlier this week when rival cryptocurrency Ethereum suffered a major hack that resulted in $50 million in stolen currency.
While bitcoin likely has a way to go before its price action is stable enough for the cryptocurrency to be considered “digital gold,” bitcoin already seems to be establishing a reputation among traders as a viable option during times of market uncertainty.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
See more from Benzinga
• What Analysts Think Central Banks Will Do Following Brexit
• What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit
• This Treasury Bond ETF Is On Verge Of Bearish Chart Formation
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Looking For Safe Havens? Buy Gold! Buy Treasuries! Buy...Bitcoin?: The usual safe-haven trades are the only silver linings in an ugly Friday trading session. TheiShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond(ETF)(NASDAQ:TLT) is up 2.7 percent and theSPDR Gold Trust (ETF)(NYSE:GLD) is up 4.6 percent.
However, another investment alternative may be emerging as the safe haven of the future. The cryptocurrency bitcoin has also surged above $650 on Friday as investors pour money in. It’s strange to think of a currency known for such extreme volatility as a safe haven, but with the pound and other European currencies taking a Brexit pounding, bitcoin buyers are probably more concerned with long-term value preservation than short-term price swings.
“I don’t think it is a traditional safe-haven trade but a strategy to avoid official manipulation,”Swissquote Bankanalyst Peter Rosenstreich explained.
Bitcoin offers investors a unique new alternative to all traditional investment classes. Therefore, bad news for global financial markets may start to consistently be good news for bitcoin.
Related Link:Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank
Bitcoin investors endured some volatile trading earlier this week when rival cryptocurrency Ethereum suffered a major hack that resulted in $50 million in stolen currency.
While bitcoin likely has a way to go before its price action is stable enough for the cryptocurrency to be considered “digital gold,” bitcoin already seems to be establishing a reputation among traders as a viable option during times of market uncertainty.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
See more from Benzinga
• What Analysts Think Central Banks Will Do Following Brexit
• What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit
• This Treasury Bond ETF Is On Verge Of Bearish Chart Formation
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Clinton, Trump Weigh In On The Brexit: With one major source of market uncertainty ending up a worst-case scenario for global investors on Friday, the markets are now looking to the U.S. presidential election as the next major unknown. Now that the Brexit vote is official, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have weighed in on the decision.
“This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans’ pocketbooks and livelihoods, to support our friends and allies, to stand up to our adversaries, and to defend our interest,” Clinton said ina statement.
Clinton had spoken out in opposition to a Brexit vote in recent weeks.
Related Link:Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank
Trump, on the other hand, had been in favor of a Brexit and praised the decision to leave the EU.
“They’re angry over borders. They’re angry over people coming into the country and taking over. Nobody even knows who they are,” Trump said in a news conference on Friday. “They’re angry about many, many things. They took back control of their country. It’s a great thing.”
The populist spirit underlying the Brexit campaign in the U.K. is the same type of enthusiasm that Trump is trying to drum up in American voters in November.
See more from Benzinga
• What Analysts Think Central Banks Will Do Following Brexit
• The Fed Is 'Carefully Monitoring' Global Markets
• What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Clinton, Trump Weigh In On The Brexit: With one major source of market uncertainty ending up a worst-case scenario for global investors on Friday, the markets are now looking to the U.S. presidential election as the next major unknown. Now that the Brexit vote is official, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have weighed in on the decision. “This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans’ pocketbooks and livelihoods, to support our friends and allies, to stand up to our adversaries, and to defend our interest,” Clinton said in a statement . Clinton had spoken out in opposition to a Brexit vote in recent weeks. Related Link: Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank Trump, on the other hand, had been in favor of a Brexit and praised the decision to leave the EU. “They’re angry over borders. They’re angry over people coming into the country and taking over. Nobody even knows who they are,” Trump said in a news conference on Friday. “They’re angry about many, many things. They took back control of their country. It’s a great thing.” The populist spirit underlying the Brexit campaign in the U.K. is the same type of enthusiasm that Trump is trying to drum up in American voters in November. See more from Benzinga What Analysts Think Central Banks Will Do Following Brexit The Fed Is 'Carefully Monitoring' Global Markets What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The newest Bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit: The price of the digital currency bitcoin is up 15% in the past 24 hours, and you might reasonably think it has something to do with the massive global economic event that took place on Thursday. And you’d be right.
But that isn’t the whole story.
Headlines are shouting that bitcoin is up because ofBritain’s vote to leave the European Union, which has sent its own currency,the pound, plummeting to a 31-year low. Yes, Brexit may be helping bitcoin, but as with every bitcoin spike, there are many other factors at play.
“I’d say Brexit is just one sub-item of one of those factors,” says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst who has a pretty good track record on the bitcoin price. In July 2015, when the price was around $250, heprojected it would reach $400in one year. In October, herevised the projection to $600. The coin is currently trading at $650.
So, what are the factors that cause occasional bitcoin spikes?
The first, and typically biggest, is China. It’s the biggest country for bitcoin trading activity and speculation (if not for bitcoin startup headquarters) and bitcoin is increasingly the vehicle of choice for capital exits from the yuan. The yuan is sinking as well at the moment, approaching a six-year low at the time of writing, and it is possible some tech-savvy Chinese investors are turning to bitcoin.
Second, The Great Bitcoin Halving approaches. Huh? Here’s a quick-and-dirty summary: All bitcoin transactions are recorded onthe bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger. The transactions are recorded in bundles, called “blocks,” by “miners” who receive a small award in bitcoin for mining. Beginning in July, the reward that miners receive per block is being cut in half, for the second time in bitcoin’s history. The result of the halving will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year, and while the effect of this on the price is up for debate, many believe the anticipation of the change is bringing up the price."People are excited" about the halving, Luria says.
Third, general uncertainty and fear help bitcoin. Brexit is just the latest example of this. Bitcoin rose when the Greek debt crisis came to a head. It typically rises whenever a major country’s economy roils. That’s because bitcoin is an “uncorrelated asset” much like gold. “Bonds, stocks, home prices always go in the same direction,” Luria says. “But bitcoin is a place to hide in times of uncertainty. I’d rather have the volatility of bitcoin with the knowledge that my currency is going to get depreciated by 30% in the next few months. Bitcoin has its own drivers, its own value, and it’s not going to go up and down because of the actions of central banks.”
It's important to note that bitcoin has already been on an absolute tear this summer.
One month ago, the price was in the $400 range. Last week, it nearly hit $800. It’s up 57% in the past three months and 170% in the past year. It has been on a ride that briefly reversed earlier this week, when the price began falling again. Now it's been buoyed back up on the Brexit news. But it is possible, perhaps likely, that the price would have risen again this week, or next, even without the news from England.
Nonetheless, bitcoin people are excited.
"The pound has crashed; the Euro is in trouble, the dollar turbulent. Maybe it’s time the world looks at a more global solution," said Mihir Magudia of digital currency LEOcoin, in an e-mailed comment. Barry Silbert, whoseDigital Currency Group has invested in a lion’s share of the hottest bitcoin startups, tweeted a bit of a grand statement on Thursday night about the price hike.
Before anyone goes ditching all their fiat currency for bitcoin, it’s worth keeping some perspective: the market cap of all the bitcoin in the world is only around $10 billion. That’s half an Under Armour.
The best piece of wisdom to remember whenever anyone analyzes the price of bitcoin is that no one really knows anything. It’s a volatile commodity, with fluctuations influenced by a whole host of factors and elusive sentiment.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
Here's where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || The newest Bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit: The price of the digital currency bitcoin is up 15% in the past 24 hours, and you might reasonably think it has something to do with the massive global economic event that took place on Thursday. And you’d be right.
But that isn’t the whole story.
Headlines are shouting that bitcoin is up because ofBritain’s vote to leave the European Union, which has sent its own currency,the pound, plummeting to a 31-year low. Yes, Brexit may be helping bitcoin, but as with every bitcoin spike, there are many other factors at play.
“I’d say Brexit is just one sub-item of one of those factors,” says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst who has a pretty good track record on the bitcoin price. In July 2015, when the price was around $250, heprojected it would reach $400in one year. In October, herevised the projection to $600. The coin is currently trading at $650.
So, what are the factors that cause occasional bitcoin spikes?
The first, and typically biggest, is China. It’s the biggest country for bitcoin trading activity and speculation (if not for bitcoin startup headquarters) and bitcoin is increasingly the vehicle of choice for capital exits from the yuan. The yuan is sinking as well at the moment, approaching a six-year low at the time of writing, and it is possible some tech-savvy Chinese investors are turning to bitcoin.
Second, The Great Bitcoin Halving approaches. Huh? Here’s a quick-and-dirty summary: All bitcoin transactions are recorded onthe bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger. The transactions are recorded in bundles, called “blocks,” by “miners” who receive a small award in bitcoin for mining. Beginning in July, the reward that miners receive per block is being cut in half, for the second time in bitcoin’s history. The result of the halving will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year, and while the effect of this on the price is up for debate, many believe the anticipation of the change is bringing up the price."People are excited" about the halving, Luria says.
Third, general uncertainty and fear help bitcoin. Brexit is just the latest example of this. Bitcoin rose when the Greek debt crisis came to a head. It typically rises whenever a major country’s economy roils. That’s because bitcoin is an “uncorrelated asset” much like gold. “Bonds, stocks, home prices always go in the same direction,” Luria says. “But bitcoin is a place to hide in times of uncertainty. I’d rather have the volatility of bitcoin with the knowledge that my currency is going to get depreciated by 30% in the next few months. Bitcoin has its own drivers, its own value, and it’s not going to go up and down because of the actions of central banks.”
It's important to note that bitcoin has already been on an absolute tear this summer.
One month ago, the price was in the $400 range. Last week, it nearly hit $800. It’s up 57% in the past three months and 170% in the past year. It has been on a ride that briefly reversed earlier this week, when the price began falling again. Now it's been buoyed back up on the Brexit news. But it is possible, perhaps likely, that the price would have risen again this week, or next, even without the news from England.
Nonetheless, bitcoin people are excited.
"The pound has crashed; the Euro is in trouble, the dollar turbulent. Maybe it’s time the world looks at a more global solution," said Mihir Magudia of digital currency LEOcoin, in an e-mailed comment. Barry Silbert, whoseDigital Currency Group has invested in a lion’s share of the hottest bitcoin startups, tweeted a bit of a grand statement on Thursday night about the price hike.
Before anyone goes ditching all their fiat currency for bitcoin, it’s worth keeping some perspective: the market cap of all the bitcoin in the world is only around $10 billion. That’s half an Under Armour.
The best piece of wisdom to remember whenever anyone analyzes the price of bitcoin is that no one really knows anything. It’s a volatile commodity, with fluctuations influenced by a whole host of factors and elusive sentiment.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
Here's where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || The newest Bitcoin price surge isnt just about Brexit: Bitcoin price over the past 24 hours, via WinkDex. The price of the digital currency bitcoin is up 15% in the past 24 hours, and you might reasonably think it has something to do with the massive global economic event that took place on Thursday. And youd be right. But that isnt the whole story. Headlines are shouting that bitcoin is up because of Britains vote to leave the European Union , which has sent its own currency, the pound, plummeting to a 31-year low . Yes, Brexit may be helping bitcoin, but as with every bitcoin spike, there are many other factors at play. Id say Brexit is just one sub-item of one of those factors, says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst who has a pretty good track record on the bitcoin price. In July 2015, when the price was around $250, he projected it would reach $400 in one year. In October, he revised the projection to $600 . The coin is currently trading at $650. So, what are the factors that cause occasional bitcoin spikes? The first, and typically biggest, is China. Its the biggest country for bitcoin trading activity and speculation (if not for bitcoin startup headquarters) and bitcoin is increasingly the vehicle of choice for capital exits from the yuan. The yuan is sinking as well at the moment, approaching a six-year low at the time of writing, and it is possible some tech-savvy Chinese investors are turning to bitcoin. Second, The Great Bitcoin Halving approaches. Huh? Heres a quick-and-dirty summary: All bitcoin transactions are recorded on the bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger . The transactions are recorded in bundles, called blocks, by miners who receive a small award in bitcoin for mining. Beginning in July, the reward that miners receive per block is being cut in half, for the second time in bitcoins history. The result of the halving will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year, and while the effect of this on the price is up for debate, many believe the anticipation of the change is bringing up the price. "People are excited" about the halving, Luria says. Story continues Third, general uncertainty and fear help bitcoin. Brexit is just the latest example of this. Bitcoin rose when the Greek debt crisis came to a head. It typically rises whenever a major countrys economy roils. Thats because bitcoin is an uncorrelated asset much like gold. Bonds, stocks, home prices always go in the same direction, Luria says. But bitcoin is a place to hide in times of uncertainty. Id rather have the volatility of bitcoin with the knowledge that my currency is going to get depreciated by 30% in the next few months. Bitcoin has its own drivers, its own value, and its not going to go up and down because of the actions of central banks. It's important to note that bitcoin has already been on an absolute tear this summer. Bitcoin over the past 3 months, via WinkDex, which shows a blended price from the leading price indices. One month ago, the price was in the $400 range. Last week, it nearly hit $800. Its up 57% in the past three months and 170% in the past year. It has been on a ride that briefly reversed earlier this week, when the price began falling again. Now it's been buoyed back up on the Brexit news. But it is possible, perhaps likely, that the price would have risen again this week, or next, even without the news from England. Nonetheless, bitcoin people are excited. "The pound has crashed; the Euro is in trouble, the dollar turbulent. Maybe its time the world looks at a more global solution," said Mihir Magudia of digital currency LEOcoin, in an e-mailed comment. Barry Silbert, whose Digital Currency Group has invested in a lions share of the hottest bitcoin startups , tweeted a bit of a grand statement on Thursday night about the price hike. This is bitcoin's coming out party as a global safe haven investment. Amazing Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) June 24, 2016 Before anyone goes ditching all their fiat currency for bitcoin, its worth keeping some perspective: the market cap of all the bitcoin in the world is only around $10 billion. Thats half an Under Armour. The best piece of wisdom to remember whenever anyone analyzes the price of bitcoin is that no one really knows anything. Its a volatile commodity, with fluctuations influenced by a whole host of factors and elusive sentiment. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: Here's where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || The Fed Is 'Carefully Monitoring' Global Markets: The surprise British vote to leave the Eurozone sent European markets into chaos on Friday. While European central banks scramble to maintain order, they at least know that they can count on help from across the Atlantic. The U.S. Federal Reserve released a concise statement on Friday assuring the European Union that it is willing provide liquidity if needed: “The Federal Reserve is carefully monitoring developments in global financial markets, in cooperation with other central banks, following the results of the U.K. referendum on membership in the European Union. The Federal Reserve is prepared to provide dollar liquidity through its existing swap lines with central banks, as necessary, to address pressured in global funding markets, which could have adverse implications for the U.S. economy.” Related Link: Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank President Obama also released a statement on the Brexit. "The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring, and the United Kingdom’s membership in NATO remains a vital cornerstone of U.S. foreign, security, and economic policy. The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security, and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world," the statement reads. Obama had spoken out in opposition to a Brexit in the weeks leading up to the referendum. Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already released an official statement on the Brexit. “The UK and the EU are important strategic partners for Canada with whom we enjoy deep historical ties and common values,” the statement reads. “We will continue to build relations with both parties as they forge a new relationship.” So far in Friday trading, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY )’s 2.1 percent loss is relatively modest compared to the 8.8 percent drop in the iShares Trust (NYSE: EWU ). Story continues Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned. See more from Benzinga What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit Social Data Provides Real-Time Brexit Sentiment Everything You Need To Know About The Brexit © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Fed Is 'Carefully Monitoring' Global Markets: The surprise British vote to leave the Eurozone sent European markets into chaos on Friday. While European central banks scramble to maintain order, they at least know that they can count on help from across the Atlantic.
The U.S. Federal Reserve released aconcise statementon Friday assuring the European Union that it is willing provide liquidity if needed:
“The Federal Reserve is carefully monitoring developments in global financial markets, in cooperation with other central banks, following the results of the U.K. referendum on membership in the European Union. The Federal Reserve is prepared to provide dollar liquidity through its existing swap lines with central banks, as necessary, to address pressured in global funding markets, which could have adverse implications for the U.S. economy.”
Related Link:Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank
President Obama also releaseda statementon the Brexit.
"The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring, and the United Kingdom’s membership in NATO remains a vital cornerstone of U.S. foreign, security, and economic policy. The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security, and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world," the statement reads.
Obama had spoken out in opposition to a Brexit in the weeks leading up to the referendum.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already released an official statement on the Brexit.
“The UK and the EU are important strategic partners for Canada with whom we enjoy deep historical ties and common values,” the statement reads. “We will continue to build relations with both parties as they forge a new relationship.”
So far in Friday trading, theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NYSE:SPY)’s 2.1 percent loss is relatively modest compared to the 8.8 percent drop in theiShares Trust(NYSE:EWU).
Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
See more from Benzinga
• What Goldman Sachs Thinks Of The Brexit
• Social Data Provides Real-Time Brexit Sentiment
• Everything You Need To Know About The Brexit
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin spikes as yuan hits five-and-a-half year low on Brexit: The price of global cryptocurrencybitcoin (: BTC=) spiked on Friday as the yuan dipped after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Bitcoin moves are often counter-linked to the yuan because the majority of trade in the cryptocurrency comes from China. The yuan hit a five-and-a-half-year low on Friday, while the price of bitcoin jumped around 8.7 percent from the day's opening price, hitting highs of around $680.19, according to Coindesk which tracks the price of the cryptocurrency. "We are seeing trading volumes almost $100 million traded in the past 24 hours, it's two or three times compared to a slow day," Bobbly Lee, chief executive of BTCC, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world based in China, told CNBC by phone on Friday. The value of bitcoin continues to be volatile. On Thursday, it plunged 25 percent since hitting a two-and-a-half year high on June 17 of $774.94. It is still not back at that level. But it's important to note that Brexit is just one among several factors that have affected the bitcoin price in recent times. Sentiment was dampened when earlier this week, Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was closed for a few hours because of "networking issues" in the company's data center, it said on Twitter. The issues were fixed on the same day. "The correction from a day or two ago had more to do with a technical correction that it did with Brexit," Lee said. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Bitcoin spikes as yuan hits five-and-a-half year low on Brexit: The price of global cryptocurrencybitcoin(: BTC=)spiked on Friday as the yuan dipped after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
Bitcoin moves are often counter-linked to the yuan because the majority of trade in the cryptocurrency comes from China. The yuan hit a five-and-a-half-year low on Friday, while the price of bitcoin jumped around 8.7 percent from the day's opening price, hitting highs of around $680.19, according to Coindesk which tracks the price of the cryptocurrency.
"We are seeing trading volumes almost $100 million traded in the past 24 hours, it's two or three times compared to a slow day," Bobbly Lee, chief executive of BTCC, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world based in China, told CNBC by phone on Friday.
The value of bitcoin continues to be volatile. On Thursday, itplunged 25 percentsince hitting a two-and-a-half year high on June 17 of $774.94. It is still not back at that level.
But it's important to note that Brexit is just oneamong several factorsthat have affected the bitcoin price in recent times. Sentiment was dampened when earlier this week, Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was closed for a few hours because of "networking issues" in the company's data center, it said on Twitter. The issues were fixed on the same day.
"The correction from a day or two ago had more to do with a technical correction that it did with Brexit," Lee said.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Bitcoin spikes as yuan hits five-and-a-half year low on Brexit: The price of global cryptocurrencybitcoin(: BTC=)spiked on Friday as the yuan dipped after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
Bitcoin moves are often counter-linked to the yuan because the majority of trade in the cryptocurrency comes from China. The yuan hit a five-and-a-half-year low on Friday, while the price of bitcoin jumped around 8.7 percent from the day's opening price, hitting highs of around $680.19, according to Coindesk which tracks the price of the cryptocurrency.
"We are seeing trading volumes almost $100 million traded in the past 24 hours, it's two or three times compared to a slow day," Bobbly Lee, chief executive of BTCC, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world based in China, told CNBC by phone on Friday.
The value of bitcoin continues to be volatile. On Thursday, itplunged 25 percentsince hitting a two-and-a-half year high on June 17 of $774.94. It is still not back at that level.
But it's important to note that Brexit is just oneamong several factorsthat have affected the bitcoin price in recent times. Sentiment was dampened when earlier this week, Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was closed for a few hours because of "networking issues" in the company's data center, it said on Twitter. The issues were fixed on the same day.
"The correction from a day or two ago had more to do with a technical correction that it did with Brexit," Lee said.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank: Bitcoin’s whiplash-inducing volatility continued this week when the cryptocurrency surged to new two-year highs on Monday before plunging 10 percent the following day. One of the major drivers of Bitcoin’s recent rise has been demand from China.
A group of Chinese companies, including Internet search giantBaidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU), has raised $60 million in funding for Circle Inc, a U.S. startup based on Bitcoin’s underlying technology.
Circle is a blockchain-based digital payment app. Blockchain technology is the public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions and is often viewed as the major underlying innovation of Bitcoin.
Related Link:Self-Proclaimed Inventor Of Bitcoin Reportedly Seeks Hundreds Of Patents On Blockchain Technology
“If you look at the trends, China very well could be the driver of the adoption of blockchain consumer services,” Circle CEOJeremy Allairesaid.
One potential hurdle Circle and other blockchain-based startups may soon have to clear is potential patent disputes. Australian Craig Wright, who claims to be Bitcoin founder “Satoshi Nakamoto” has now filed at least 50 patent applications via Britain’s EITC Holdings Ltd.
The London Review of Books claims that Wright is in the process of filing hundreds of patents that will eventually be sold for more than $1 billion.
In the meantime, Circle and its investors will continue to try to apply blockchain technology toward Allaire's goal of building a global bank that makes sending payments “as easy as sending an email.”
Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
See more from Benzinga
• Buy The FedEx Earnings Selloff, Deutsche Bank Says
• Marijuana Ruling: Is The DEA Re-Scheduling Bullish For Weed Stocks?
• Social Data Provides Real-Time Brexit Sentiment
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Baidu Among Companies Working Together To Use Bitcoin Technology To Create Global Bank: Bitcoin’s whiplash-inducing volatility continued this week when the cryptocurrency surged to new two-year highs on Monday before plunging 10 percent the following day. One of the major drivers of Bitcoin’s recent rise has been demand from China.
A group of Chinese companies, including Internet search giantBaidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ:BIDU), has raised $60 million in funding for Circle Inc, a U.S. startup based on Bitcoin’s underlying technology.
Circle is a blockchain-based digital payment app. Blockchain technology is the public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions and is often viewed as the major underlying innovation of Bitcoin.
Related Link:Self-Proclaimed Inventor Of Bitcoin Reportedly Seeks Hundreds Of Patents On Blockchain Technology
“If you look at the trends, China very well could be the driver of the adoption of blockchain consumer services,” Circle CEOJeremy Allairesaid.
One potential hurdle Circle and other blockchain-based startups may soon have to clear is potential patent disputes. Australian Craig Wright, who claims to be Bitcoin founder “Satoshi Nakamoto” has now filed at least 50 patent applications via Britain’s EITC Holdings Ltd.
The London Review of Books claims that Wright is in the process of filing hundreds of patents that will eventually be sold for more than $1 billion.
In the meantime, Circle and its investors will continue to try to apply blockchain technology toward Allaire's goal of building a global bank that makes sending payments “as easy as sending an email.”
Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
See more from Benzinga
• Buy The FedEx Earnings Selloff, Deutsche Bank Says
• Marijuana Ruling: Is The DEA Re-Scheduling Bullish For Weed Stocks?
• Social Data Provides Real-Time Brexit Sentiment
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The tide of money is turning in one of the hottest areas of tech: (Flickr/Kolitha de Silva)
New York has traditionally been the hub of finance while Silicon Valley has the tech industry covered, but the tide of money is turning, and in fintech — the intersection of those two fields — New York is coming out on top.
Fintech, short for financial technology, is an industry based on using technology to make financial services more efficient.
According to a report published Thursday by Accenture Strategy and the Partnership Fund for New York City, New York tops Silicon Valley in fintech venture financing for the first time.
In Q1 2016, $690 million in fintech venture capital funding flowed into New York, while $511 million went to Silicon Valley.
Fintech investmentin New York during 2015 nearly tripled from 2014, to $2.3 billion, accounting for nearly 10% of all fintech investment globally.
(Accenture, Partnership Fund)
The top fintech accelerators in the US are based in New York, including Barclays Rise and the Fintech Innovation Lab, the latter of which held its demo day on Thursday. The Fintech Innovation Lab introduces selected startups in its program to 29 financial institutions that mentor the companies for 12 weeks. During this time, startups often adapt their models to solve common problems facing all financial institutions.
Technologies like blockchain, cloud computing, and alternative data analytics have the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, but regulation and challenges to scale make it tough for startups to go at it alone. This has caused investment in the sector to shift from companies that compete with deep-pocketed traditional financial institutions to those that partner with them.
The chart below shows that in New York in 2010, 37% of fintech funding went to ventures that collaborated with financial institutions; that has increased to 83% in 2015.
(Accenture, Partnership Fund Analysis of CB Insights Data)
According to the report, banks are learning to work more closely with startups and transforming into companies that can seamlessly adopt new fintech and innovation solutions.
Robert Gach, managing director of capital markets at Accenture Strategy and a coauthor of the report, said he believes the shift from competition to collaboration will continue, and it has the potential to fundamentally change the banking ecosystem.
"It's when these technologies are no longer solving one problem at a time, but being put together and building upon each other that fintech will go the final mile," said Gach.
NOW WATCH:THE BOTTOM LINE: Jamie Dimon and trillion dollar Apple
More From Business Insider
• Bitcoin may be headed for a bubble
• Startup bank Tandem cuts headcount after funding setback
• LendInvest to test investors || The tide of money is turning in one of the hottest areas of tech: new york (Flickr/Kolitha de Silva) New York has traditionally been the hub of finance while Silicon Valley has the tech industry covered, but the tide of money is turning, and in fintech — the intersection of those two fields — New York is coming out on top. Fintech, short for financial technology, is an industry based on using technology to make financial services more efficient. According to a report published Thursday by Accenture Strategy and the Partnership Fund for New York City, New York tops Silicon Valley in fintech venture financing for the first time. In Q1 2016, $690 million in fintech venture capital funding flowed into New York, while $511 million went to Silicon Valley. Fintech investment in New York during 2015 nearly tripled from 2014, to $2.3 billion, accounting for nearly 10% of all fintech investment globally. NY Fintech Financing Activity (Accenture, Partnership Fund) The top fintech accelerators in the US are based in New York, including Barclays Rise and the Fintech Innovation Lab, the latter of which held its demo day on Thursday. The Fintech Innovation Lab introduces selected startups in its program to 29 financial institutions that mentor the companies for 12 weeks. During this time, startups often adapt their models to solve common problems facing all financial institutions. Technologies like blockchain, cloud computing, and alternative data analytics have the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, but regulation and challenges to scale make it tough for startups to go at it alone. This has caused investment in the sector to shift from companies that compete with deep-pocketed traditional financial institutions to those that partner with them. The chart below shows that in New York in 2010, 37% of fintech funding went to ventures that collaborated with financial institutions; that has increased to 83% in 2015. Collaborative versus Competitive Fintech Investments (Accenture, Partnership Fund Analysis of CB Insights Data) According to the report, banks are learning to work more closely with startups and transforming into companies that can seamlessly adopt new fintech and innovation solutions. Story continues Robert Gach, managing director of capital markets at Accenture Strategy and a coauthor of the report, said he believes the shift from competition to collaboration will continue, and it has the potential to fundamentally change the banking ecosystem. "It's when these technologies are no longer solving one problem at a time, but being put together and building upon each other that fintech will go the final mile," said Gach. NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: Jamie Dimon and trillion dollar Apple More From Business Insider Bitcoin may be headed for a bubble Startup bank Tandem cuts headcount after funding setback LendInvest to test investors || Bitcoin Services Inc. To Develop Blockchain Software with Emphasis on Online Marketplace, File Storage and Identity Management: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 /Bitcoin Services Inc., (OTC Pink: BTSC) announced today that it plans to develop blockchain software with emphasis on online marketplace, file storage and identity management. In online marketplace Blockchain software will be applied to establish ownership over anything on the internet. This opens up the potential for ownership of tickets, merchandise, products, and subscriptions. On file storage blockchain software would allow a Peer to Peer file sharing network. It would remove the need for centralized databases and heavy storage areas. On Identity management blockchain software would allow users to create tamper-proof digital identities for themselves by being a blockchain-based identity service. These digital identities could be used to replace usernames and passwords online.
About Bitcoin Services Inc.:The issuer's business operations are each Internet based to the consumer and consist of three separate streams, as follows: (1) bitcoin escrow services, (2) bitcoin mining, and (3) blockchain software development. The principal products and services are the mining of bitcoins, proving escrow services for buyers and sellers of bitcoins, and the development and sale of blockchain software. The market for these services and products is Worldwide, and sold and marketed on the Internet.
Safe Harbor StatementThis release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and section 21e of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management team. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accomplishing the strategy described herein is significantly dependent upon numerous factors, many that are not in management's control. Some of these factors include the ability of the company to raise sufficient capital, attract qualified management, attract new customers and effectively compete against similar companies.
CONTACT:
[email protected]
SOURCE:Bitcoin Services Inc. || Bitcoin Services Inc. To Develop Blockchain Software with Emphasis on Online Marketplace, File Storage and Identity Management: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 / Bitcoin Services Inc., (OTC Pink: BTSC) announced today that it plans to develop blockchain software with emphasis on online marketplace, file storage and identity management. In online marketplace Blockchain software will be applied to establish ownership over anything on the internet. This opens up the potential for ownership of tickets, merchandise, products, and subscriptions. On file storage blockchain software would allow a Peer to Peer file sharing network. It would remove the need for centralized databases and heavy storage areas. On Identity management blockchain software would allow users to create tamper-proof digital identities for themselves by being a blockchain-based identity service. These digital identities could be used to replace usernames and passwords online. About Bitcoin Services Inc.: The issuer's business operations are each Internet based to the consumer and consist of three separate streams, as follows: (1) bitcoin escrow services, (2) bitcoin mining, and (3) blockchain software development. The principal products and services are the mining of bitcoins, proving escrow services for buyers and sellers of bitcoins, and the development and sale of blockchain software. The market for these services and products is Worldwide, and sold and marketed on the Internet. Safe Harbor Statement This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and section 21e of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management team. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accomplishing the strategy described herein is significantly dependent upon numerous factors, many that are not in management's control. Some of these factors include the ability of the company to raise sufficient capital, attract qualified management, attract new customers and effectively compete against similar companies. Story continues CONTACT: [email protected] SOURCE: Bitcoin Services Inc. || Bitcoin Services Inc. To Develop Blockchain Software with Emphasis on Online Marketplace, File Storage and Identity Management: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / June 23, 2016 /Bitcoin Services Inc., (OTC Pink: BTSC) announced today that it plans to develop blockchain software with emphasis on online marketplace, file storage and identity management. In online marketplace Blockchain software will be applied to establish ownership over anything on the internet. This opens up the potential for ownership of tickets, merchandise, products, and subscriptions. On file storage blockchain software would allow a Peer to Peer file sharing network. It would remove the need for centralized databases and heavy storage areas. On Identity management blockchain software would allow users to create tamper-proof digital identities for themselves by being a blockchain-based identity service. These digital identities could be used to replace usernames and passwords online.
About Bitcoin Services Inc.:The issuer's business operations are each Internet based to the consumer and consist of three separate streams, as follows: (1) bitcoin escrow services, (2) bitcoin mining, and (3) blockchain software development. The principal products and services are the mining of bitcoins, proving escrow services for buyers and sellers of bitcoins, and the development and sale of blockchain software. The market for these services and products is Worldwide, and sold and marketed on the Internet.
Safe Harbor StatementThis release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and section 21e of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management team. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accomplishing the strategy described herein is significantly dependent upon numerous factors, many that are not in management's control. Some of these factors include the ability of the company to raise sufficient capital, attract qualified management, attract new customers and effectively compete against similar companies.
CONTACT:
[email protected]
SOURCE:Bitcoin Services Inc.
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|
629.37, 655.28, 647.00, 639.89, 673.34, 676.30, 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 6308.53, 6488.76, 6376.71, 6534.88, 6719.96, 6763.19, 6707.26, 6884.64, 7096.28, 7047.16, 6978.23, 7037.58, 7193.25, 7272.72, 7260.06, 7361.66, 6792.83, 6529.17, 6467.07, 6225.98, 6300.86, 6329.70, 6321.20, 6351.80, 6517.31, 6512.71, 6543.20, 6517.18, 6281.20, 6371.30, 6398.54, 6519.67, 6734.95, 6721.98, 6710.63, 6595.41, 6446.47, 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48, 6588.31, 6602.95, 6652.23, 6642.64, 6585.53, 6256.24, 6274.58, 6285.99, 6290.93, 6596.54, 6596.11, 6544.43, 6476.71, 6465.41, 6489.19, 6482.35, 6487.16, 6475.74, 6495.84, 6476.29, 6474.75, 6480.38, 6486.39, 6332.63, 6334.27, 6317.61, 6377.78, 6388.44, 6361.26, 6376.13, 6419.66, 6461.01, 6530.14, 6453.72, 6385.62, 6409.22, 6411.27, 6371.27, 6359.49, 5738.35, 5648.03, 5575.55, 5554.33.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2018-11-17]
Volume: 4303150000, RSI (14-day): 16.55, 50-day EMA: 6352.01, 200-day EMA: 6970.47
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Progress Report: Lightning Network Surpasses $1M BTC Capacity, 4,000 Nodes: The Lightning Network continues to post steady growth.
According todata from 1ML, the network is now supported by roughly 4,070 nodes, which house just over 12,500 payment channels, an average of 10.91 channels per node (at time of publication). Most of this growth has come in the later half of 2018, as the average age of each node is just 137 days old.
With infrastructural growth, the network is also seeing an uptick in liquidity. At the time of writing, the network’s collective capacity now stands at 223.65 BTC, which, at bitcoin’s current price, means the Lightning Network holds over $1.2 million worth of bitcoin for the first time in its less-than-one-year history. The average capacity for each node and payment channel comes in at 0.114 BTC ($633) and 0.019 BTC ($107) respectively, and with transaction fees at 1 sat (roughly $0.000056), the network’s promise to deliver low-cost microtransactions is holding up.
A long-awaited development in the cryptocurrency space, the progress of theLightning Networkhas been watched with great interest by the community. Heralded as a potential solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem, the Lightning Network operates as a secondary layer on top of Bitcoin’s base network. After itslaunchin early 2018, the Lightning Network saw immediate interest from developers, who began building variousLightning applicationson the network.
Alongside its use as a secondary layer for micropayments, manydevelopershave taken notice of the Lightning Network’s potential impact on the world of smart contracts as well.
Disclaimer: The data presented here may not constitute a holistic picture of the Lightning Network's current makeup, as 1ML points out on its website, "[These] statistics are aggregated and calculated from multiple nodes within the Lightning Network. Due to the decentralized nature of the Lightning Network, the numbers observed are approximations and nodes that don't broadcast their state are not included."
This article was updated to include a more accurate figure of the network's bitcoin capacity at the time of publication.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Progress Report: Lightning Network Surpasses $1M BTC Capacity, 4,000 Nodes: Lightning Network 4,000 Nodes The Lightning Network continues to post steady growth. According to data from 1ML , the network is now supported by roughly 4,070 nodes, which house just over 12,500 payment channels, an average of 10.91 channels per node (at time of publication). Most of this growth has come in the later half of 2018, as the average age of each node is just 137 days old. With infrastructural growth, the network is also seeing an uptick in liquidity. At the time of writing, the network’s collective capacity now stands at 223.65 BTC, which, at bitcoin’s current price, means the Lightning Network holds over $1.2 million worth of bitcoin for the first time in its less-than-one-year history. The average capacity for each node and payment channel comes in at 0.114 BTC ($633) and 0.019 BTC ($107) respectively, and with transaction fees at 1 sat (roughly $0.000056), the network’s promise to deliver low-cost microtransactions is holding up. A long-awaited development in the cryptocurrency space, the progress of the Lightning Network has been watched with great interest by the community. Heralded as a potential solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem, the Lightning Network operates as a secondary layer on top of Bitcoin’s base network. After its launch in early 2018, the Lightning Network saw immediate interest from developers, who began building various Lightning applications on the network. Alongside its use as a secondary layer for micropayments, many developers have taken notice of the Lightning Network’s potential impact on the world of smart contracts as well. Disclaimer: The data presented here may not constitute a holistic picture of the Lightning Network's current makeup, as 1ML points out on its website, "[ These] statistics are aggregated and calculated from multiple nodes within the Lightning Network. Due to the decentralized nature of the Lightning Network, the numbers observed are approximations and nodes that don't broadcast their state are not included." This article was updated to include a more accurate figure of the network's bitcoin capacity at the time of publication. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . View comments || Progress Report: Lightning Network Surpasses $1M BTC Capacity, 4,000 Nodes: The Lightning Network continues to post steady growth.
According todata from 1ML, the network is now supported by roughly 4,070 nodes, which house just over 12,500 payment channels, an average of 10.91 channels per node (at time of publication). Most of this growth has come in the later half of 2018, as the average age of each node is just 137 days old.
With infrastructural growth, the network is also seeing an uptick in liquidity. At the time of writing, the network’s collective capacity now stands at 223.65 BTC, which, at bitcoin’s current price, means the Lightning Network holds over $1.2 million worth of bitcoin for the first time in its less-than-one-year history. The average capacity for each node and payment channel comes in at 0.114 BTC ($633) and 0.019 BTC ($107) respectively, and with transaction fees at 1 sat (roughly $0.000056), the network’s promise to deliver low-cost microtransactions is holding up.
A long-awaited development in the cryptocurrency space, the progress of theLightning Networkhas been watched with great interest by the community. Heralded as a potential solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem, the Lightning Network operates as a secondary layer on top of Bitcoin’s base network. After itslaunchin early 2018, the Lightning Network saw immediate interest from developers, who began building variousLightning applicationson the network.
Alongside its use as a secondary layer for micropayments, manydevelopershave taken notice of the Lightning Network’s potential impact on the world of smart contracts as well.
Disclaimer: The data presented here may not constitute a holistic picture of the Lightning Network's current makeup, as 1ML points out on its website, "[These] statistics are aggregated and calculated from multiple nodes within the Lightning Network. Due to the decentralized nature of the Lightning Network, the numbers observed are approximations and nodes that don't broadcast their state are not included."
This article was updated to include a more accurate figure of the network's bitcoin capacity at the time of publication.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Fork: bitcoin cash fork Yesterday, the Bitcoin Cash network activated its second scheduled semi-annual hard fork since the cryptocurrency split away from the original Bitcoin blockchain. Unlike the previous protocol upgrade, however, this fork was contentious, with development teams launching two competing, incompatible BCH implementations. Background: Another Fork in the Bitcoin Cash Road The group adhering to the official Bitcoin Cash roadmap was Bitcoin ABC , which had support from most node operators, as well as prominent individuals and companies such as Roger Ver (Bitcoin.com) and Jihan Wu (Bitmain). Several months before the fork, blockchain startup nChain , which is associated with self-described Bitcoin creator Craig S. Wright , announced that it would launch a competing client, Bitcoin SV , which introduced an alternative set of consensus changes. Billionaire Calvin Ayre , the owner of CoinGeek the largest bitcoin cash mining pool was SVs other major backer. Fellow BCH development group Bitcoin Unlimited released a BCH client that followed the ABC consensus changes by default but allowed miners to manually configure support for individual features in the ABC and SV clients in an unsuccessful bid to broker a compromise and avoid a chain split. Strictly speaking, there could have been three competing versions if any miners decided to continue mining according to the pre-fork consensus rules, but all of the hashrate migrated to one or the other of the two new rulesets, killing off the original chain. For more on the events that led up to the fork, consult this article from CCN. Nov. 15: The Hash War Begins Note: Once the dust finally settles, Bitcoin ABC is expected to retain the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) label. In the interim, the community has not yet reached consensus on how to refer to the competing blockchains. In the remainder of this article, to avoid confusion, we will refer to Bitcoin ABCs chain as BCHABC (other common names include BAB and ABC) and Bitcoin SVs chain as BSV (also known as BCHSV and SV). Story continues Leading up to the Nov. 15 fork, the Bitcoin Cash civil war was largely framed as a contest between users (BCHABC) and miners (BSV), with the latter boasting as much as three-quarters of the hash rate in the days preceding the split and threatening to use this superior hash power to not only acquire the most accumulated Proof-of-Work (PoW) but also to attack the BCHABC chain until users capitulated and moved to BSV. BCHABC Builds the Longer Chain bitcoin cash hard fork That quickly changed following the fork, however, as BCHABC mined the first two blocks under the new consensus rules and for the most part maintained a blockchain that was consistently longer than BSVs. As of the time of writing, roughly 185 blocks had been mined under the new consensus rules, and the BCHABC chain was 30 blocks ahead of BSV, according to Coin Dance . At one point, BCHABCs hashrate was more than double the size of BSVs, a reversal of how the hash rate was signaling ahead of the fork, though the gap narrowed on Friday to 6.7EH/s for BCHABC, 5.0EH/s for BSV, and curiously 17PH/s for the original BCH chain, whose hashrate flatlined following the fork and remained at 0PH/s for 10 consecutive hours. bitcoin cash hashrate fork This sequence of events, ironically, is reminiscent of the fork that created Bitcoin Cash in the first place, which was activated with broad miner support even though users largely backed BTC. Despite brief uncertainty, profit-driven miners eventually gravitated back to Bitcoin, whose hashrate is now around seven to 10 times larger than BCH. Did BSV Mount an Unsuccessful Attack? Presumably, some miners had signaled for BSV ahead of the fork but shifted their hash power to other networks, such as BTC, following the fork to avoid mining at a loss. However, a significant percentage of the missing hashrate belonged to CoinGeek and BMG (which is operated by nChain). Recognizing this, Bitcoin ABC head developer Amaury Séchet warned that CoinGeek and nChain were likely following through on their promises to launch a malicious mining attack against BCHABC. What we are seeing right now, though or rather, what we are not seeing right now, is CoinGeek and BMGs hashrate. Right? Its completely gone. Its not winning, mining anywhere that we can see. What that tells me is, you know, they have not thrown like 2 exahash at this, right? So they are preparing some kind of attack, he said several hours after the fork. That attack had not yet materialized as of the time of writing, however, and by Friday it appeared that BMG had shifted its hash power to BSV, as Séchet (who tweets under @deadalnix) later noted. Looks like BMG is now mining BSVision. It would have been smarter to do that since day one rather than try to 51% attack BCH, wouldn't it ? Deadal Nix (@deadalnix) November 16, 2018 Post-Fork Mining Heavily Centralized Notably, both BCHABC and BSV are characterized by alarming hash power centralization, with each network featuring a single mining pool accounting for a majority of blocks mined since the fork. On BSV, this is CoinGeek, who currently has 50 percent of the networks mining power, while Bitcoin.com accounts for a full 63 percent on BCHABC (though the Bitcoin.com pool website indicates that its hash rate, which ballooned to 4EH/s at various points following the fork, is now back down to around normal levels at 122PH/s as of the time of writing). bitcoin cash mining centralization Both Sides are Mining at a Loss According to BitMEX Research , BSV miners are losing at least $280,000 per day relative to the value of the coins and likely more which will put pressure on profit-motivated miners to cut their losses and switch to BCHABC or BTC. Even if the SV mining collation do catch up with ABC or if they manage to do hostile chain re-orgs, its highly unlikely BCash ABC users & investors will ever switch to follow SV. ABC users just need to be patient & wait it out. @CalvinAyre & the SV miners will eventually give up, the firm wrote on Twitter, doubling down on BitMEX Researchs Jonathan Biers pre-fork prediction that miners would ultimately abandon the BSV fork. That said, BCHABC is currently even more expensive to mine since it has almost twice the difficulty of BSV. Although the ABC SV split is entertaining, we estimate that SV miners are burning US$280,000 per day mining the SV chain. Assumptions: * S9 miners * Able to sell SV coins at the current spot price ($100) * 5 cent per kWh https://t.co/U9hbK4peip pic.twitter.com/ULjwWSI0GA BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) November 16, 2018 According to our ABC and SV nodes, ABC has almost twice the difficulty of SV. Therefore ABC coins are more expensive to mine pic.twitter.com/nrNRD4AHcg BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) November 16, 2018 Crucially, though, neither mining group has the ability to sell their coins until exchanges begin taking BCH deposits. Thus, all BCH miners are currently mining at a loss, with the expectation that their support for one chain or the other will consolidate support behind that network and allow its coins to return to the pre-fork value of bitcoin cash. Consequently, the question is not currently which chain is more profitable to mine in the short-term so much as it is, in the mid-term, which chain is more likely to survive the other, win the BCH ticker symbol, and attract buy support on exchanges. By these metrics, BSV currently seems like the riskier gamble. Market Has Consistently Favored BCHABC Virtually every cryptocurrency exchange froze bitcoin cash trading ahead of the fork, and no major platform has reopened unified BCH markets, nor will they do so until there is apparent consensus behind one chain or the other. However, several exchanges have allowed traders who are already holding BCH on their platforms to split their coins into BCHABC and BSV futures that are tradeable but not currently withdrawable. Aside from a temporary reversal a day before the fork, BCHABC consistently traded at a significant premium to BSV in the days preceding the fork and the hours since. As of the time of writing, BCHABC was trading at around $285, down from a 24-hour high of $341. BSV, meanwhile, had stabilized around $104 after briefly dipping as low as $69. Importantly, though, the majority of BCH investors have not yet claimed their post-fork coins. A certain percentage will decline to split their coins in the short-term altogether, either because they plan to hold funds on both chains, do not think it is worth their time to sell the coins on the other chain, or are not comfortable with the technical process that splitting coins involves. However, there is also likely a significant number of BCH holders who want to sell the coins on the losing chain before they become valueless but wanted to wait until after the fork to see which network had the upper hand. Of these cautious would-be sellers, most would be holding funds in user-controlled wallets or on exchanges that have not opened BCHABC/BSV trading. Once major exchanges begin to reenable BCH deposits and open post-fork markets, one would expect to see a mad rush to sell funds on the chain viewed as less viable. Once again, at the current state of play, this would not bode well for BSV, which is not to say that conditions could not shift in the interim. What BCH Partisans are Saying craig wright roger ver bitcoin cash Taking the above factors into consideration, proponents of Bitcoin ABC have largely declared victory, increasingly believing that an SV-led attack on BCHABC is unlikely to succeed. The Bitcoin BCH chain have now reached 100 blocks after the hard fork. Time to start thinking about all the amazing things we can build with these new features. Emil Oldenburg (@emilolden) November 16, 2018 Moreover, they claim that since hash rate was the metric by which SV proponents argued that the outcome of the fork should be judged, BCHABC has beaten BSV at its own game. Bitcoin SV, however, has refused to concede that it has lost the hash war. Backers allege that ABC has used rented hash power to give its blockchain an early lead and that this will not be sustainable over the long-term. Craig Wright, for example, has taken to referring to the battle as a marathon in which ABC sprinters will quickly find themselves winded. In our hash competition, we have seen the ABC team bring on their strongest sprinters. We are just at the trials and not yet on the finals to Marathon and they have made a remarkable burst to do a 9.9 second 100m (unfortunately in the wrong direction), he tweeted Friday morning. In our hash competition, we have seen the ABC team bring on their strongest sprinters. We are just at the trials and not yet on the finals to Marathon and they have made a remarkable burst to do a 9.9 second 100m (unfortunately in the wrong direction) Meanwhile
pic.twitter.com/ezbppbrY3W Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) November 16, 2018 Calvin Ayre, meanwhile, said in a statement provided to CCN that the outcome of the fork will be decided over the course of many weeks not one or two days and made the dubious prediction that Bitmain will bankrupt itself trying to defeat BSV. CoinGeek and nChain are in this battle for the long haul. We will mine BCH and fight as long as it takes to protect the original Bitcoin from Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and their Bitcoin ABC development group who all want to change BCH into some alt-coin Wormhole token technology. Roger Vers company Bitcoin.com is subsidizing hash for only 24 hours, taken from his own customers. As for Bitmain, to keep up with us in this hash war, Bitmain will have to spend millions of dollars a day from its investors money and shareholder assets, while also trying to raise more investor money for its shaky IPO. This will bleed Bitmains cash and cryptocurrency reserves, because we are prepared to fight for months and months. If I were a shareholder or investor in Bitmain, Id be asking why Jihan Wu is spending all your money to control BCH when Bitmains business supports multiple cryptocurrencies. Ayre also accused Bitcoin.com of cheating by using transient hash to manipulate the market and Roger Ver of launching a DDoS attack against the CoinGeek website. How Does the BCH Hard Fork Affect Bitcoin? Many cryptocurrency investors have wondered how the Bitcoin Cash hard fork will affect other projects, particularly its older sibling, Bitcoin (BTC). The good news is that, practically speaking, the fork has no effect on BTC, other than perhaps making it even less likely that Bitcoin Cash already the minority fork and now itself splintering into competing versions will overtake BTC and claim the Bitcoin mantle. That said, the cryptocurrency market endured a steep decline in the days immediately preceding the BCH hard fork, leading many analysts to connect the sell-off with investor uncertainty surrounding the fork. bitcoin price Some, such as hedge fund manager and CNBC commentator Brian Kelly, speculated that the bitcoin price had declined ahead of the fork since traders were nervous that bitcoin mining giant Bitmain would shift so much hash power from BTC to BCH that it would disrupt the ability of the BTC network to continue producing blocks at regular intervals. He predicted that the move would be short-lived. Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst at eToro , provided similar commentary, stating that concern over the BTC hash rate coupled with bearish technical factors had driven the bitcoin price decline. Noting that the fork was something of a soap opera, he said that it could cause some investors to become disillusioned with BCH altogether. Amid this saga, the hard fork may also drive a number of investors away from Bitcoin Cash altogether, into the arms of its parent asset, Bitcoin, Greenspan said in remarks shared with CCN. We can only hope for a swift resolution to the drama. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Bitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Fork appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Fork: Yesterday, the Bitcoin Cash network activated its second scheduled semi-annual hard fork since the cryptocurrency split away from the original Bitcoin blockchain. Unlike the previous protocol upgrade, however, this fork was contentious, with development teams launching two competing, incompatible BCH implementations.
The group adhering to the “official” Bitcoin Cash roadmap wasBitcoin ABC, which had support from most node operators, as well as prominent individuals and companies such asRoger Ver(Bitcoin.com) andJihan Wu(Bitmain).
Several months before the fork, blockchain startupnChain, which is associated with self-described Bitcoin creatorCraig S. Wright, announced that it would launch a competing client,Bitcoin SV, which introduced an alternative set of consensus changes. BillionaireCalvin Ayre, the owner ofCoinGeek— the largest bitcoin cash mining pool — was SV’s other major backer.
Fellow BCH development groupBitcoin Unlimitedreleased a BCH client that followed the ABC consensus changes by default but allowed miners to manually configure support for individual features in the ABC and SV clients in an unsuccessful bid to broker a compromise and avoid a chain split.
Strictly speaking, there could have been three competing versions if any miners decided to continue mining according to the pre-fork consensus rules, but all of the hashrate migrated to one or the other of the two new rulesets, killing off the original chain.
For more on the events that led up to the fork, consultthis articlefrom CCN.
Note: Once the dust finally settles, Bitcoin ABC is expected to retain the “Bitcoin Cash (BCH)” label. In the interim, the community has not yet reached consensus on how to refer to the competing blockchains. In the remainder of this article, to avoid confusion, we will refer to Bitcoin ABC’s chain as BCHABC (other common names include BAB and ABC) and Bitcoin SV’s chain as BSV (also known as BCHSV and SV).
Leading up to the Nov. 15 fork, theBitcoin Cashcivil war was largely framed as a contest between users (BCHABC) and miners (BSV), with the latter boasting as much as three-quarters of the hash rate in the days preceding the split and threatening to use this superior hash power to not only acquire the most accumulated Proof-of-Work (PoW) but also toattackthe BCHABC chain until users capitulated and moved to BSV.
That quickly changed following the fork, however, as BCHABCmined the first two blocksunder the new consensus rules and for the most part maintained a blockchain that was consistently longer than BSV’s. As of the time of writing, roughly 185 blocks had been mined under the new consensus rules, and the BCHABC chain was 30 blocks ahead of BSV, according toCoin Dance.
At one point, BCHABC’s hashrate was more than double the size of BSV’s, a reversal of how the hash rate was signaling ahead of the fork, though the gap narrowed on Friday to 6.7EH/s for BCHABC, 5.0EH/s for BSV, and — curiously — 17PH/s for the original BCH chain, whose hashrate flatlined following the fork and remained at 0PH/s for 10 consecutive hours.
This sequence of events, ironically, is reminiscent of the fork that created Bitcoin Cash in the first place, which was activated with broad miner support even though users largely backed BTC. Despite brief uncertainty, profit-driven miners eventually gravitated back to Bitcoin, whose hashrate is now around seven to 10 times larger than BCH.
Presumably, some miners had signaled for BSV ahead of the fork but shifted their hash power to other networks, such as BTC, following the fork to avoid mining at a loss.
However, a significant percentage of the missing hashrate belonged to CoinGeek and BMG (which is operated by nChain). Recognizing this, Bitcoin ABC head developer Amaury Séchetwarnedthat CoinGeek and nChain were likely following through on their promises to launch a malicious mining attack against BCHABC.
“What we are seeing right now, though – or rather, what we are not seeing right now, is CoinGeek and BMG’s hashrate. Right? It’s completely gone. It’s not winning, mining anywhere that we can see. What that tells me is, you know, they have not thrown like 2 exahash at this, right? So they are preparing some kind of attack,” he said several hours after the fork.
That attack had not yet materialized as of the time of writing, however, and by Friday it appeared that BMG had shifted its hash power to BSV, as Séchet (who tweets under @deadalnix) later noted.
Notably, both BCHABC and BSV are characterized by alarming hash power centralization, with each network featuring a single mining pool accounting for a majority of blocks mined since the fork. On BSV, this is CoinGeek, who currently has 50 percent of the network’s mining power, while Bitcoin.com accounts for a full 63 percent on BCHABC (though the Bitcoin.com pool website indicates that its hash rate, which ballooned to 4EH/s at various points following the fork, is now back down to around normal levels at 122PH/s as of the time of writing).
According toBitMEX Research, BSV miners are losing at least $280,000 per day relative to the value of the coins — and likely more — which will put pressure on profit-motivated miners to cut their losses and switch to BCHABC or BTC.
“Even if the SV mining collation do catch up with ABC or if they manage to do hostile chain re-orgs, its highly unlikely BCash ABC users & investors will ever switch to follow SV. ABC users just need to be patient & wait it out. @CalvinAyre & the SV miners will eventually give up,” the firm wrote on Twitter, doubling down on BitMEX Research’s Jonathan Bier’s pre-forkpredictionthat miners would ultimately abandon the BSV fork.
That said, BCHABC is currently even more expensive to mine since it has almost twice the difficulty of BSV.
Crucially, though, neither mining group has the ability to sell their coins until exchanges begin taking BCH deposits. Thus, all BCH miners are currently mining at a loss, with the expectation that their support for one chain or the other will consolidate support behind that network and allow its coins to return to the pre-fork value of bitcoin cash.
Consequently, the question is not currently which chain is more profitable to mine in the short-term so much as it is, in the mid-term, which chain is more likely to survive the other, win the BCH ticker symbol, and attract buy support on exchanges. By these metrics, BSV currently seems like the riskier gamble.
Virtually everycryptocurrency exchangefroze bitcoin cash trading ahead of the fork, and no major platform has reopened unified BCH markets, nor will they do so until there is apparent consensus behind one chain or the other.
However, several exchanges have allowed traders who are already holding BCH on their platforms to “split” their coins into BCHABC and BSV “futures” that aretradeablebut not currently withdrawable.
Aside from a temporary reversal a day before the fork, BCHABC consistently traded at asignificant premiumto BSV in the days preceding the fork and the hours since. As of the time of writing, BCHABC was trading at around $285, down from a 24-hour high of $341. BSV, meanwhile, had stabilized around $104 after briefly dipping as low as $69.
Importantly, though, the majority of BCH investors have not yet claimed their post-fork coins. A certain percentage will decline tosplit their coinsin the short-term altogether, either because they plan to hold funds on both chains, do not think it is worth their time to sell the coins on the other chain, or are not comfortable with the technical process that splitting coins involves.
However, there is also likely a significant number of BCH holders who want to sell the coins on the losing chain before they become valueless but wanted to wait until after the fork to see which network had the upper hand. Of these cautious would-be sellers, most would be holding funds in user-controlled wallets or on exchanges that have not opened BCHABC/BSV trading.
Once major exchanges begin to reenable BCH deposits and open post-fork markets, one would expect to see a mad rush to sell funds on the chain viewed as less viable. Once again, at the current state of play, this would not bode well for BSV, which is not to say that conditions could not shift in the interim.
Taking the above factors into consideration, proponents of Bitcoin ABC have largely declared victory, increasingly believing that an SV-led attack on BCHABC is unlikely to succeed.
Moreover, they claim that since hash rate was the metric by which SV proponents argued that the outcome of the fork should be judged, BCHABC has beaten BSV at its own game.
Bitcoin SV, however, has refused to concede that it has lost the hash war. Backers allege that ABC has used rented hash power to give its blockchain an early lead and that this will not be sustainable over the long-term.
Craig Wright, for example, has taken to referring to the battle as a “marathon” in which ABC sprinters will quickly find themselves winded.
“In our hash competition, we have seen the ABC team bring on their strongest sprinters. We are just at the trials and not yet on the finals to Marathon and they have made a remarkable burst to do a 9.9 second 100m (unfortunately in the wrong direction),” he tweeted Friday morning.
Calvin Ayre, meanwhile, said in a statement provided to CCN that the outcome of the fork will be decided over the course of many weeks — not one or two days — and made thedubious predictionthat Bitmain will bankrupt itself trying to defeat BSV.
“CoinGeek and nChain are in this battle for the long haul. We will mine BCH and fight as long as it takes to protect the original Bitcoin from Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and their Bitcoin ABC development group who all want to change BCH into some alt-coin Wormhole token technology. Roger Ver’s company Bitcoin.com is subsidizing hash for only 24 hours, taken from his own customers. As for Bitmain, to keep up with us in this hash war, Bitmain will have to spend millions of dollars a day from its investors’ money and shareholder assets, while also trying to raise more investor money for its shaky IPO. This will bleed Bitmain’s cash and cryptocurrency reserves, because we are prepared to fight for months and months. If I were a shareholder or investor in Bitmain, I’d be asking why Jihan Wu is spending all your money to control BCH when Bitmain’s business supports multiple cryptocurrencies.”
Ayre also accused Bitcoin.com of “cheating” by using “transient hash” to manipulate the market and Roger Ver of launching a DDoS attack against the CoinGeek website.
Many cryptocurrency investors have wondered how the Bitcoin Cash hard fork will affect other projects, particularly its older sibling,Bitcoin(BTC). The good news is that, practically speaking, the fork has no effect on BTC, other than perhaps making it even less likely that Bitcoin Cash — already the minority fork and now itself splintering into competing versions — willovertake BTCand claim the “Bitcoin” mantle.
That said, the cryptocurrency market endured asteep declinein the days immediately preceding the BCH hard fork, leading many analysts toconnectthe sell-off with investor uncertainty surrounding the fork.
Some, such as hedge fund manager and CNBC commentator Brian Kelly,speculatedthat the bitcoin price had declined ahead of the fork since traders were nervous that bitcoin mining giant Bitmain would shift so much hash power from BTC to BCH that it would disrupt the ability of the BTC network to continue producing blocks at regular intervals. He predicted that the move would be short-lived.
Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst ateToro, provided similar commentary, stating that concern over the BTC hash rate coupled with bearish technical factors had driven thebitcoin pricedecline. Noting that the fork was “something of a soap opera,” he said that it could cause some investors to become disillusioned with BCH altogether.
“Amid this saga, the hard fork may also drive a number of investors away from Bitcoin Cash altogether, into the arms of its parent asset, Bitcoin,” Greenspan said in remarks shared with CCN. “We can only hope for a swift resolution to the drama.”
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Forkappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Fork: Yesterday, the Bitcoin Cash network activated its second scheduled semi-annual hard fork since the cryptocurrency split away from the original Bitcoin blockchain. Unlike the previous protocol upgrade, however, this fork was contentious, with development teams launching two competing, incompatible BCH implementations.
The group adhering to the “official” Bitcoin Cash roadmap wasBitcoin ABC, which had support from most node operators, as well as prominent individuals and companies such asRoger Ver(Bitcoin.com) andJihan Wu(Bitmain).
Several months before the fork, blockchain startupnChain, which is associated with self-described Bitcoin creatorCraig S. Wright, announced that it would launch a competing client,Bitcoin SV, which introduced an alternative set of consensus changes. BillionaireCalvin Ayre, the owner ofCoinGeek— the largest bitcoin cash mining pool — was SV’s other major backer.
Fellow BCH development groupBitcoin Unlimitedreleased a BCH client that followed the ABC consensus changes by default but allowed miners to manually configure support for individual features in the ABC and SV clients in an unsuccessful bid to broker a compromise and avoid a chain split.
Strictly speaking, there could have been three competing versions if any miners decided to continue mining according to the pre-fork consensus rules, but all of the hashrate migrated to one or the other of the two new rulesets, killing off the original chain.
For more on the events that led up to the fork, consultthis articlefrom CCN.
Note: Once the dust finally settles, Bitcoin ABC is expected to retain the “Bitcoin Cash (BCH)” label. In the interim, the community has not yet reached consensus on how to refer to the competing blockchains. In the remainder of this article, to avoid confusion, we will refer to Bitcoin ABC’s chain as BCHABC (other common names include BAB and ABC) and Bitcoin SV’s chain as BSV (also known as BCHSV and SV).
Leading up to the Nov. 15 fork, theBitcoin Cashcivil war was largely framed as a contest between users (BCHABC) and miners (BSV), with the latter boasting as much as three-quarters of the hash rate in the days preceding the split and threatening to use this superior hash power to not only acquire the most accumulated Proof-of-Work (PoW) but also toattackthe BCHABC chain until users capitulated and moved to BSV.
That quickly changed following the fork, however, as BCHABCmined the first two blocksunder the new consensus rules and for the most part maintained a blockchain that was consistently longer than BSV’s. As of the time of writing, roughly 185 blocks had been mined under the new consensus rules, and the BCHABC chain was 30 blocks ahead of BSV, according toCoin Dance.
At one point, BCHABC’s hashrate was more than double the size of BSV’s, a reversal of how the hash rate was signaling ahead of the fork, though the gap narrowed on Friday to 6.7EH/s for BCHABC, 5.0EH/s for BSV, and — curiously — 17PH/s for the original BCH chain, whose hashrate flatlined following the fork and remained at 0PH/s for 10 consecutive hours.
This sequence of events, ironically, is reminiscent of the fork that created Bitcoin Cash in the first place, which was activated with broad miner support even though users largely backed BTC. Despite brief uncertainty, profit-driven miners eventually gravitated back to Bitcoin, whose hashrate is now around seven to 10 times larger than BCH.
Presumably, some miners had signaled for BSV ahead of the fork but shifted their hash power to other networks, such as BTC, following the fork to avoid mining at a loss.
However, a significant percentage of the missing hashrate belonged to CoinGeek and BMG (which is operated by nChain). Recognizing this, Bitcoin ABC head developer Amaury Séchetwarnedthat CoinGeek and nChain were likely following through on their promises to launch a malicious mining attack against BCHABC.
“What we are seeing right now, though – or rather, what we are not seeing right now, is CoinGeek and BMG’s hashrate. Right? It’s completely gone. It’s not winning, mining anywhere that we can see. What that tells me is, you know, they have not thrown like 2 exahash at this, right? So they are preparing some kind of attack,” he said several hours after the fork.
That attack had not yet materialized as of the time of writing, however, and by Friday it appeared that BMG had shifted its hash power to BSV, as Séchet (who tweets under @deadalnix) later noted.
Notably, both BCHABC and BSV are characterized by alarming hash power centralization, with each network featuring a single mining pool accounting for a majority of blocks mined since the fork. On BSV, this is CoinGeek, who currently has 50 percent of the network’s mining power, while Bitcoin.com accounts for a full 63 percent on BCHABC (though the Bitcoin.com pool website indicates that its hash rate, which ballooned to 4EH/s at various points following the fork, is now back down to around normal levels at 122PH/s as of the time of writing).
According toBitMEX Research, BSV miners are losing at least $280,000 per day relative to the value of the coins — and likely more — which will put pressure on profit-motivated miners to cut their losses and switch to BCHABC or BTC.
“Even if the SV mining collation do catch up with ABC or if they manage to do hostile chain re-orgs, its highly unlikely BCash ABC users & investors will ever switch to follow SV. ABC users just need to be patient & wait it out. @CalvinAyre & the SV miners will eventually give up,” the firm wrote on Twitter, doubling down on BitMEX Research’s Jonathan Bier’s pre-forkpredictionthat miners would ultimately abandon the BSV fork.
That said, BCHABC is currently even more expensive to mine since it has almost twice the difficulty of BSV.
Crucially, though, neither mining group has the ability to sell their coins until exchanges begin taking BCH deposits. Thus, all BCH miners are currently mining at a loss, with the expectation that their support for one chain or the other will consolidate support behind that network and allow its coins to return to the pre-fork value of bitcoin cash.
Consequently, the question is not currently which chain is more profitable to mine in the short-term so much as it is, in the mid-term, which chain is more likely to survive the other, win the BCH ticker symbol, and attract buy support on exchanges. By these metrics, BSV currently seems like the riskier gamble.
Virtually everycryptocurrency exchangefroze bitcoin cash trading ahead of the fork, and no major platform has reopened unified BCH markets, nor will they do so until there is apparent consensus behind one chain or the other.
However, several exchanges have allowed traders who are already holding BCH on their platforms to “split” their coins into BCHABC and BSV “futures” that aretradeablebut not currently withdrawable.
Aside from a temporary reversal a day before the fork, BCHABC consistently traded at asignificant premiumto BSV in the days preceding the fork and the hours since. As of the time of writing, BCHABC was trading at around $285, down from a 24-hour high of $341. BSV, meanwhile, had stabilized around $104 after briefly dipping as low as $69.
Importantly, though, the majority of BCH investors have not yet claimed their post-fork coins. A certain percentage will decline tosplit their coinsin the short-term altogether, either because they plan to hold funds on both chains, do not think it is worth their time to sell the coins on the other chain, or are not comfortable with the technical process that splitting coins involves.
However, there is also likely a significant number of BCH holders who want to sell the coins on the losing chain before they become valueless but wanted to wait until after the fork to see which network had the upper hand. Of these cautious would-be sellers, most would be holding funds in user-controlled wallets or on exchanges that have not opened BCHABC/BSV trading.
Once major exchanges begin to reenable BCH deposits and open post-fork markets, one would expect to see a mad rush to sell funds on the chain viewed as less viable. Once again, at the current state of play, this would not bode well for BSV, which is not to say that conditions could not shift in the interim.
Taking the above factors into consideration, proponents of Bitcoin ABC have largely declared victory, increasingly believing that an SV-led attack on BCHABC is unlikely to succeed.
Moreover, they claim that since hash rate was the metric by which SV proponents argued that the outcome of the fork should be judged, BCHABC has beaten BSV at its own game.
Bitcoin SV, however, has refused to concede that it has lost the hash war. Backers allege that ABC has used rented hash power to give its blockchain an early lead and that this will not be sustainable over the long-term.
Craig Wright, for example, has taken to referring to the battle as a “marathon” in which ABC sprinters will quickly find themselves winded.
“In our hash competition, we have seen the ABC team bring on their strongest sprinters. We are just at the trials and not yet on the finals to Marathon and they have made a remarkable burst to do a 9.9 second 100m (unfortunately in the wrong direction),” he tweeted Friday morning.
Calvin Ayre, meanwhile, said in a statement provided to CCN that the outcome of the fork will be decided over the course of many weeks — not one or two days — and made thedubious predictionthat Bitmain will bankrupt itself trying to defeat BSV.
“CoinGeek and nChain are in this battle for the long haul. We will mine BCH and fight as long as it takes to protect the original Bitcoin from Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and their Bitcoin ABC development group who all want to change BCH into some alt-coin Wormhole token technology. Roger Ver’s company Bitcoin.com is subsidizing hash for only 24 hours, taken from his own customers. As for Bitmain, to keep up with us in this hash war, Bitmain will have to spend millions of dollars a day from its investors’ money and shareholder assets, while also trying to raise more investor money for its shaky IPO. This will bleed Bitmain’s cash and cryptocurrency reserves, because we are prepared to fight for months and months. If I were a shareholder or investor in Bitmain, I’d be asking why Jihan Wu is spending all your money to control BCH when Bitmain’s business supports multiple cryptocurrencies.”
Ayre also accused Bitcoin.com of “cheating” by using “transient hash” to manipulate the market and Roger Ver of launching a DDoS attack against the CoinGeek website.
Many cryptocurrency investors have wondered how the Bitcoin Cash hard fork will affect other projects, particularly its older sibling,Bitcoin(BTC). The good news is that, practically speaking, the fork has no effect on BTC, other than perhaps making it even less likely that Bitcoin Cash — already the minority fork and now itself splintering into competing versions — willovertake BTCand claim the “Bitcoin” mantle.
That said, the cryptocurrency market endured asteep declinein the days immediately preceding the BCH hard fork, leading many analysts toconnectthe sell-off with investor uncertainty surrounding the fork.
Some, such as hedge fund manager and CNBC commentator Brian Kelly,speculatedthat the bitcoin price had declined ahead of the fork since traders were nervous that bitcoin mining giant Bitmain would shift so much hash power from BTC to BCH that it would disrupt the ability of the BTC network to continue producing blocks at regular intervals. He predicted that the move would be short-lived.
Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst ateToro, provided similar commentary, stating that concern over the BTC hash rate coupled with bearish technical factors had driven thebitcoin pricedecline. Noting that the fork was “something of a soap opera,” he said that it could cause some investors to become disillusioned with BCH altogether.
“Amid this saga, the hard fork may also drive a number of investors away from Bitcoin Cash altogether, into the arms of its parent asset, Bitcoin,” Greenspan said in remarks shared with CCN. “We can only hope for a swift resolution to the drama.”
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Cash: Where the 4th-Largest Cryptocurrency Stands the Day after the Forkappeared first onCCN. || After the Fork: Here’s How Exchanges Are Dealing With Bitcoin Cash: The smoke is still clearing fromBitcoin Cash’s hard fork, but exchanges have already moved in to add support for the products of the skirmish.
On November 16, 2018, what was intended to be a routine hard fork upgrade of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain became a struggle for hashing power and chain dominance as Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (SV), led by Craig S. Wright, attempted to wrestle control over the Bitcoin Cash blockchain from its original client, Bitcoin ABC.
Bitcoin ABC (thus far) has strong-armed Bitcoin SV with its mining power and held onto its position as the dominant chain, but yesterday's showdown still culminated in a coin split that left the network with two rival coins, which, for the purpose of this article, we’ll refer to as BCHABC and BCHSV.
And this split has left a mess of potential markets for exchanges to manage. In the aftermath, they’re stuck with either choosing to support both coins, default to the ABC chain as the real BCH or sit tight until they feel comfortable making a decision either way. Not every exchange is on the same page for what each coin’s ticker should be either, and some seem content to ignore the forks’ janus-faced by-products and carry on with their usual bitcoin cash trading.
A handful of exchanges have announced that they will be supporting both coins for the time being.
Some, like Poloniex, HitBTC and Bittrex got ahead of the game by offering futures trading between the two coins before the hard fork even took place.Announcedon November 7, Poloniex first featured futures in the run up to the fork and, since the coin split, it has integrated support for coins under the tickers BCHABC and BCHSV in the form of BTC and USDC trading pairs.
HitBTC revealed in ablog poston November 9 that it would open pre-fork trading for both BCHABC and BCHSV. On November 13, top-5 exchange Bitfinex also followed the trend, noting that it would roll out pre-fork trading for ABC and SV in the form of chain-split tokens (CST). These before-the-fact trading vehicles could be created by or redeemed for bitcoin cash at any point and, since the fork, they have been replaced with the actual forked coins under the tickers BAB (for ABC) and BSV (for SV) on Bitfinex and BCHABC and BCHSV on HitBTC.
Other top exchanges, like Binance and Bittrex, played the fork patiently, waiting to see if the Bitcoin Cash network would split before restructuring its bitcoin cash trading. Binance, for instance, waited for the conflict to die down beforebloggingthat it would open markets for BCHABC and BCHSV against BTC and USDT.
Unlike its peers, Bittrex is waiting a bit longer before it treats SV with the same gravity as its BCH predecessor. On November 7, the exchange publisheda blog postthat said it would default to ABC’s implementation as the main chain leading up to the fork, while also assuring customers that their accounts would be credited with the split BCHSV coins following the fork. So far, BCH remains as the only coin with trading support on the exchange, as it is waiting for further clarity before it decides to restructure its markets.
“The ‘BCH’ ticker will remain the Bitcoin ABC chain before the hard fork block. Bittrex will observe the Bitcoin Cash network for a period of 24 to 48 hours to determine if a chain split has occurred and the outcome,” the post reads.
Kraken took Bittrex’s (tentative) support of ABC as the main chain a bit further. Announcing in a November 10blog postthat, “[initially, it] will only supportBitcoin ABC.” Kraken went on to reveal that it would not automatically accommodate chain-split coins. Instead, users would have to claim these manually by moving their coins off the exchange.
“We will not support any alternative chains for funding or trading on the day of the fork. We will then monitor the situation in the weeks and months after the fork and evaluate whether or not any changes to our stance are warranted, including the possibility of supporting an alternative chain. However, we make no promise or guarantee that any alternative chain will be supported … If you want the option to preserve/claim tokens on alternative chains, you must withdraw your BCH from Kraken prior to funding being disabled on November 15th. By leaving your coins on Kraken through the upgrade, you are potentially forfeiting any coins on alternative chains that might otherwise be available to you,” the post reads.
In the same post, Kraken signaled that, above all else, it would err on the side of caution, writing, “After the fork we will not enable BCH funding until we think it is safe to do so, and we do not know in advance how long this may take.”
As Binance, Bitfinex and Poloniex’s actions suggest, in the comedown of the forking euphoria, some exchanges have surrendered to the reality of Bitcoin Cash’s network now housing two competing coins. Others, like Bittrex and Kraken, are biding their time to see how this continues to unfold — after all, the fork isn’t even 24-hours old yet.
Still other exchanges have also opted to wait to see how they should proceed, many of which have suspended deposits, withdrawals and trading for BCH until the dust settles. Coinbaseannouncedthat it will “ensure that customers have access to their funds on each chain” if they’ve left their BCH on Coinbase platforms.
This article will be updatedperiodicallyto include other exchange support news as the story develops.
Update, November 16:According to a tweet by Jack C. Liu, a handful of Chinese exchanges are referring to BCHABC as "Wu Bitcoin" and BCHSV as "Astralia Bitcoin."
Update, November 16:An unconfirmedposton the r/btc subreddit has begun compiling a list of exchanges that, thus far, have defaulted to assigning the BCH ticker to the ABC fork's rule set. Among those allegedly acting in league with Bittrex and Kraken are Coinbase, Coinone, Bitstamp, Bithumb and Upbit.
Update, November 18:Huobi Global has announced in an official release that the team behind the ABC version of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has set up a checkpoint that will ensure that two-way replay protection is in place. Huobi Global also acknowledged that it will retain BCH ABC, the longer chain, for the designation of BCH, while it will designate the SV version of BCH as BSV.
Update, November 19:Indian exchange CoinDX tellsBitcoin Magazinethat it has exchanged all the BCH on its platform for the new coins. Users have since received an equal number of BCH ABC and BCH SV tokens for the BCH they held in their individual wallets.
Update, November 19: Kraken has announced that it will support BCHSV trading "under the designation Bitcoin SV (BSV)," while reaffirming that BACHABC will continue trading under the ticker BCH on the exchange. With the announcement, the exchange issued the following caveat:"Bitcoin SV does NOT meet Kraken’s usual listing requirements. It should be seen as an extremely high risk investment. There are many red flags that traders should be aware of."
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || After the Fork: Here’s How Exchanges Are Dealing With Bitcoin Cash: The smoke is still clearing fromBitcoin Cash’s hard fork, but exchanges have already moved in to add support for the products of the skirmish.
On November 16, 2018, what was intended to be a routine hard fork upgrade of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain became a struggle for hashing power and chain dominance as Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (SV), led by Craig S. Wright, attempted to wrestle control over the Bitcoin Cash blockchain from its original client, Bitcoin ABC.
Bitcoin ABC (thus far) has strong-armed Bitcoin SV with its mining power and held onto its position as the dominant chain, but yesterday's showdown still culminated in a coin split that left the network with two rival coins, which, for the purpose of this article, we’ll refer to as BCHABC and BCHSV.
And this split has left a mess of potential markets for exchanges to manage. In the aftermath, they’re stuck with either choosing to support both coins, default to the ABC chain as the real BCH or sit tight until they feel comfortable making a decision either way. Not every exchange is on the same page for what each coin’s ticker should be either, and some seem content to ignore the forks’ janus-faced by-products and carry on with their usual bitcoin cash trading.
A handful of exchanges have announced that they will be supporting both coins for the time being.
Some, like Poloniex, HitBTC and Bittrex got ahead of the game by offering futures trading between the two coins before the hard fork even took place.Announcedon November 7, Poloniex first featured futures in the run up to the fork and, since the coin split, it has integrated support for coins under the tickers BCHABC and BCHSV in the form of BTC and USDC trading pairs.
HitBTC revealed in ablog poston November 9 that it would open pre-fork trading for both BCHABC and BCHSV. On November 13, top-5 exchange Bitfinex also followed the trend, noting that it would roll out pre-fork trading for ABC and SV in the form of chain-split tokens (CST). These before-the-fact trading vehicles could be created by or redeemed for bitcoin cash at any point and, since the fork, they have been replaced with the actual forked coins under the tickers BAB (for ABC) and BSV (for SV) on Bitfinex and BCHABC and BCHSV on HitBTC.
Other top exchanges, like Binance and Bittrex, played the fork patiently, waiting to see if the Bitcoin Cash network would split before restructuring its bitcoin cash trading. Binance, for instance, waited for the conflict to die down beforebloggingthat it would open markets for BCHABC and BCHSV against BTC and USDT.
Unlike its peers, Bittrex is waiting a bit longer before it treats SV with the same gravity as its BCH predecessor. On November 7, the exchange publisheda blog postthat said it would default to ABC’s implementation as the main chain leading up to the fork, while also assuring customers that their accounts would be credited with the split BCHSV coins following the fork. So far, BCH remains as the only coin with trading support on the exchange, as it is waiting for further clarity before it decides to restructure its markets.
“The ‘BCH’ ticker will remain the Bitcoin ABC chain before the hard fork block. Bittrex will observe the Bitcoin Cash network for a period of 24 to 48 hours to determine if a chain split has occurred and the outcome,” the post reads.
Kraken took Bittrex’s (tentative) support of ABC as the main chain a bit further. Announcing in a November 10blog postthat, “[initially, it] will only supportBitcoin ABC.” Kraken went on to reveal that it would not automatically accommodate chain-split coins. Instead, users would have to claim these manually by moving their coins off the exchange.
“We will not support any alternative chains for funding or trading on the day of the fork. We will then monitor the situation in the weeks and months after the fork and evaluate whether or not any changes to our stance are warranted, including the possibility of supporting an alternative chain. However, we make no promise or guarantee that any alternative chain will be supported … If you want the option to preserve/claim tokens on alternative chains, you must withdraw your BCH from Kraken prior to funding being disabled on November 15th. By leaving your coins on Kraken through the upgrade, you are potentially forfeiting any coins on alternative chains that might otherwise be available to you,” the post reads.
In the same post, Kraken signaled that, above all else, it would err on the side of caution, writing, “After the fork we will not enable BCH funding until we think it is safe to do so, and we do not know in advance how long this may take.”
As Binance, Bitfinex and Poloniex’s actions suggest, in the comedown of the forking euphoria, some exchanges have surrendered to the reality of Bitcoin Cash’s network now housing two competing coins. Others, like Bittrex and Kraken, are biding their time to see how this continues to unfold — after all, the fork isn’t even 24-hours old yet.
Still other exchanges have also opted to wait to see how they should proceed, many of which have suspended deposits, withdrawals and trading for BCH until the dust settles. Coinbaseannouncedthat it will “ensure that customers have access to their funds on each chain” if they’ve left their BCH on Coinbase platforms.
This article will be updatedperiodicallyto include other exchange support news as the story develops.
Update, November 16:According to a tweet by Jack C. Liu, a handful of Chinese exchanges are referring to BCHABC as "Wu Bitcoin" and BCHSV as "Astralia Bitcoin."
Update, November 16:An unconfirmedposton the r/btc subreddit has begun compiling a list of exchanges that, thus far, have defaulted to assigning the BCH ticker to the ABC fork's rule set. Among those allegedly acting in league with Bittrex and Kraken are Coinbase, Coinone, Bitstamp, Bithumb and Upbit.
Update, November 18:Huobi Global has announced in an official release that the team behind the ABC version of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has set up a checkpoint that will ensure that two-way replay protection is in place. Huobi Global also acknowledged that it will retain BCH ABC, the longer chain, for the designation of BCH, while it will designate the SV version of BCH as BSV.
Update, November 19:Indian exchange CoinDX tellsBitcoin Magazinethat it has exchanged all the BCH on its platform for the new coins. Users have since received an equal number of BCH ABC and BCH SV tokens for the BCH they held in their individual wallets.
Update, November 19: Kraken has announced that it will support BCHSV trading "under the designation Bitcoin SV (BSV)," while reaffirming that BACHABC will continue trading under the ticker BCH on the exchange. With the announcement, the exchange issued the following caveat:"Bitcoin SV does NOT meet Kraken’s usual listing requirements. It should be seen as an extremely high risk investment. There are many red flags that traders should be aware of."
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || After the Fork: Here’s How Exchanges Are Dealing With Bitcoin Cash: After the Fork: Here’s How Exchanges Are Dealing With Bitcoin Cash The smoke is still clearing from Bitcoin Cash’s hard fork , but exchanges have already moved in to add support for the products of the skirmish. On November 16, 2018, what was intended to be a routine hard fork upgrade of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain became a struggle for hashing power and chain dominance as Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (SV), led by Craig S. Wright, attempted to wrestle control over the Bitcoin Cash blockchain from its original client, Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin ABC (thus far) has strong-armed Bitcoin SV with its mining power and held onto its position as the dominant chain, but yesterday's showdown still culminated in a coin split that left the network with two rival coins, which, for the purpose of this article, we’ll refer to as BCHABC and BCHSV. And this split has left a mess of potential markets for exchanges to manage. In the aftermath, they’re stuck with either choosing to support both coins, default to the ABC chain as the real BCH or sit tight until they feel comfortable making a decision either way. Not every exchange is on the same page for what each coin’s ticker should be either, and some seem content to ignore the forks’ janus-faced by-products and carry on with their usual bitcoin cash trading. Varying Levels of Support A handful of exchanges have announced that they will be supporting both coins for the time being. Some, like Poloniex, HitBTC and Bittrex got ahead of the game by offering futures trading between the two coins before the hard fork even took place. Announced on November 7, Poloniex first featured futures in the run up to the fork and, since the coin split, it has integrated support for coins under the tickers BCHABC and BCHSV in the form of BTC and USDC trading pairs. We’ve finished converting all BCH balances to BCHABC and BCHSV. The BCH market is now disabled. BCHABC/BTC, BCHSV/BTC, BCHABC/USDC, and BCHSV/USDC markets are open. Deposits and withdrawals of BCHABC and BCHSV are still paused, and will remain paused until the networks stabilize. — Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) November 15, 2018 HitBTC revealed in a blog post on November 9 that it would open pre-fork trading for both BCHABC and BCHSV. On November 13, top-5 exchange Bitfinex also followed the trend, noting that it would roll out pre-fork trading for ABC and SV in the form of chain-split tokens (CST). These before-the-fact trading vehicles could be created by or redeemed for bitcoin cash at any point and, since the fork, they have been replaced with the actual forked coins under the tickers BAB (for ABC) and BSV (for SV) on Bitfinex and BCHABC and BCHSV on HitBTC. Story continues Other top exchanges, like Binance and Bittrex, played the fork patiently, waiting to see if the Bitcoin Cash network would split before restructuring its bitcoin cash trading. Binance, for instance, waited for the conflict to die down before blogging that it would open markets for BCHABC and BCHSV against BTC and USDT. Unlike its peers, Bittrex is waiting a bit longer before it treats SV with the same gravity as its BCH predecessor. On November 7, the exchange published a blog post that said it would default to ABC’s implementation as the main chain leading up to the fork, while also assuring customers that their accounts would be credited with the split BCHSV coins following the fork. So far, BCH remains as the only coin with trading support on the exchange, as it is waiting for further clarity before it decides to restructure its markets. “The ‘BCH’ ticker will remain the Bitcoin ABC chain before the hard fork block. Bittrex will observe the Bitcoin Cash network for a period of 24 to 48 hours to determine if a chain split has occurred and the outcome,” the post reads. Kraken took Bittrex’s (tentative) support of ABC as the main chain a bit further. Announcing in a November 10 blog post that, “[initially, it] will only support Bitcoin ABC .” Kraken went on to reveal that it would not automatically accommodate chain-split coins. Instead, users would have to claim these manually by moving their coins off the exchange. “We will not support any alternative chains for funding or trading on the day of the fork. We will then monitor the situation in the weeks and months after the fork and evaluate whether or not any changes to our stance are warranted, including the possibility of supporting an alternative chain. However, we make no promise or guarantee that any alternative chain will be supported … If you want the option to preserve/claim tokens on alternative chains, you must withdraw your BCH from Kraken prior to funding being disabled on November 15th. By leaving your coins on Kraken through the upgrade, you are potentially forfeiting any coins on alternative chains that might otherwise be available to you,” the post reads. In the same post, Kraken signaled that, above all else, it would err on the side of caution, writing, “After the fork we will not enable BCH funding until we think it is safe to do so, and we do not know in advance how long this may take.” As Binance, Bitfinex and Poloniex’s actions suggest, in the comedown of the forking euphoria, some exchanges have surrendered to the reality of Bitcoin Cash’s network now housing two competing coins. Others, like Bittrex and Kraken, are biding their time to see how this continues to unfold — after all, the fork isn’t even 24-hours old yet. Still other exchanges have also opted to wait to see how they should proceed, many of which have suspended deposits, withdrawals and trading for BCH until the dust settles. Coinbase announced that it will “ensure that customers have access to their funds on each chain” if they’ve left their BCH on Coinbase platforms. This article will be updated periodically to include other exchange support news as the story develops. Update, November 16: According to a tweet by Jack C. Liu, a handful of Chinese exchanges are referring to BCHABC as "Wu Bitcoin" and BCHSV as "Astralia Bitcoin." Some Chinese exchanges listing ABC as 吴比特 - Wu Bitcoin and SV as 澳比特 - Australia Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/mi1fXyhTcn — Jack C. Liu [Bitcoin SV] (@liujackc) November 16, 2018 Update, November 16: An unconfirmed post on the r/btc subreddit has begun compiling a list of exchanges that, thus far, have defaulted to assigning the BCH ticker to the ABC fork's rule set. Among those allegedly acting in league with Bittrex and Kraken are Coinbase, Coinone, Bitstamp, Bithumb and Upbit. Update, November 18: Huobi Global has announced in an official release that the team behind the ABC version of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has set up a checkpoint that will ensure that two-way replay protection is in place. Huobi Global also acknowledged that it will retain BCH ABC, the longer chain, for the designation of BCH, while it will designate the SV version of BCH as BSV. Update, November 19: Indian exchange CoinDX tells Bitcoin Magazine that it has exchanged all the BCH on its platform for the new coins. Users have since received an equal number of BCH ABC and BCH SV tokens for the BCH they held in their individual wallets. Update, November 19 : Kraken has announced that it will support BCHSV trading "under the designation Bitcoin SV (BSV)," while reaffirming that BACHABC will continue trading under the ticker BCH on the exchange. With the announcement, the exchange issued the following caveat: "Bitcoin SV does NOT meet Kraken’s usual listing requirements. It should be seen as an extremely high risk investment. There are many red flags that traders should be aware of." This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || NVIDIA Corp. Earnings: A Harsh Cryptocurrency Hangover: Graphics processor designerNVIDIA(NASDAQ: NVDA)reported earnings Thursday night, covering the third quarter of fiscal year 2019. The company beat its ownearnings guidancedespite falling short of management's revenue projections. Here's a closer look at NVIDIA's third-quarter results.
[{"Metric": "Revenue", "Q3 2019": "$3.18 billion", "Q3 2018": "$2.64 billion", "Year-Over-Year Change": "21%"}, {"Metric": "Net income", "Q3 2019": "$1.12 billion", "Q3 2018": "$838 million", "Year-Over-Year Change": "47%"}, {"Metric": "GAAP earnings per share (diluted)", "Q3 2019": "$1.97", "Q3 2018": "$1.33", "Year-Over-Year Change": "48%"}]
Data source: NVIDIA.
• Management's guidance for this quarter pointed to earnings near $1.73 per share on sales in the neighborhood of $3.25 billion. NVIDIA landed at the bottom end of the revenue guidance range while exceeding every expectation on the bottom line.
• Data center orders rose 58% year over year to $792 million. Customers in this space have been quick to adopt NVIDIA's latest Turing T4 Cloud GPU and Tesla V100 products.
• Automotive computing sales increased 19% to $172 million. The company recently started production and shipped out development kits in support of a new chip called Xavier, billed as the first single-chip solution for autopilot platforms.
• In the gaming segment, revenues rose 13% to $1.76 billion. The distribution channels in this sector are clogged by unsold mid-range GPUs, shipped out to support a cryptocurrency mining craze that ran out of steam in a hurry. Due to the cluttered warehouses further down the shipping pipeline, NVIDIA's own product inventories rose 30% over the last three months to an uncomfortable $1.42 billion. By comparison, inventory totals increased by less than 1% between the second and third quarters of last year.
• NVIDIA also boosted its share buyback authorization from $1 billion to $8 billion and lifted its dividend payouts 7% higher.
Image source: NVIDIA.
On theearnings call, CEO Jensen Huang explained how severe the hangover from the earlier cryptocurrency boom turned out to be.
We were surprised, obviously. We're surprised by it as anybody else. The crypto hangover lasted longer than we expected. Prices started to drift down and we expected to come down much more quickly than it did. When it went down, we expected demand to come up much more quickly than it did. And so I think the channel wanted to protect its price. People were uncertain about crypto.
And the new Turing graphics platform is pulling its weight just fine in traditional markets such as gaming cards and data center functions, Huang said.
"Turing is the highest performance GPU at every single price point. It played no role in this transition. It's all about crypto hangover."
NVIDIA hopes to have worked through the industry's excess inventories by the end of the fourth quarter, setting the stage for renewed growth in calendar year 2019 and beyond. Next-generation games such asElectronic Arts'Battlefield 5support the Turing chips' new ray tracing functions out of the box, perhaps paving the way toward another wave of system upgrades in the gaming enthusiast market.
But the slowdown over the holidays is very real. Fourth-quarter revenues are expected to stop near $2.7 billion, roughly 7% below the year-ago period's result. Working through the provided set of expected operating costs and tax rates, the target for GAAP earnings lands at approximately $1.16 per share. That would be 35% below the $1.78 per share that wasreported in thefourth quarter of fiscal year 2018.
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Anders Bylundhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Electronic Arts. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || NVIDIA Corp. Earnings: A Harsh Cryptocurrency Hangover: Graphics processor designer NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) reported earnings Thursday night, covering the third quarter of fiscal year 2019. The company beat its own earnings guidance despite falling short of management's revenue projections. Here's a closer look at NVIDIA's third-quarter results. NVIDIA's third-quarter results: The raw numbers Metric Q3 2019 Q3 2018 Year-Over-Year Change Revenue $3.18 billion $2.64 billion 21% Net income $1.12 billion $838 million 47% GAAP earnings per share (diluted) $1.97 $1.33 48% Data source: NVIDIA. What happened with NVIDIA this quarter? Management's guidance for this quarter pointed to earnings near $1.73 per share on sales in the neighborhood of $3.25 billion. NVIDIA landed at the bottom end of the revenue guidance range while exceeding every expectation on the bottom line. Data center orders rose 58% year over year to $792 million. Customers in this space have been quick to adopt NVIDIA's latest Turing T4 Cloud GPU and Tesla V100 products. Automotive computing sales increased 19% to $172 million. The company recently started production and shipped out development kits in support of a new chip called Xavier, billed as the first single-chip solution for autopilot platforms. In the gaming segment, revenues rose 13% to $1.76 billion. The distribution channels in this sector are clogged by unsold mid-range GPUs, shipped out to support a cryptocurrency mining craze that ran out of steam in a hurry. Due to the cluttered warehouses further down the shipping pipeline, NVIDIA's own product inventories rose 30% over the last three months to an uncomfortable $1.42 billion. By comparison, inventory totals increased by less than 1% between the second and third quarters of last year. NVIDIA also boosted its share buyback authorization from $1 billion to $8 billion and lifted its dividend payouts 7% higher. A 3-D NVIDIA logo found in the lobby of the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. Image source: NVIDIA. What management had to say On the earnings call , CEO Jensen Huang explained how severe the hangover from the earlier cryptocurrency boom turned out to be. Story continues We were surprised, obviously. We're surprised by it as anybody else. The crypto hangover lasted longer than we expected. Prices started to drift down and we expected to come down much more quickly than it did. When it went down, we expected demand to come up much more quickly than it did. And so I think the channel wanted to protect its price. People were uncertain about crypto. And demand was uncertain about when the price would be stabilized. And so all of that uncertainty I think froze the market a little longer than we expected. And the new Turing graphics platform is pulling its weight just fine in traditional markets such as gaming cards and data center functions, Huang said. "Turing is the highest performance GPU at every single price point. It played no role in this transition. It's all about crypto hangover." Looking ahead NVIDIA hopes to have worked through the industry's excess inventories by the end of the fourth quarter, setting the stage for renewed growth in calendar year 2019 and beyond. Next-generation games such as Electronic Arts ' Battlefield 5 support the Turing chips' new ray tracing functions out of the box, perhaps paving the way toward another wave of system upgrades in the gaming enthusiast market. But the slowdown over the holidays is very real. Fourth-quarter revenues are expected to stop near $2.7 billion, roughly 7% below the year-ago period's result. Working through the provided set of expected operating costs and tax rates, the target for GAAP earnings lands at approximately $1.16 per share. That would be 35% below the $1.78 per share that was reported in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018 . More From The Motley Fool 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know Experts Warned The Crypto Bloodbath Is Here How to Buy Bitcoin Anders Bylund has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Electronic Arts. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Forget Tesla, Inc.: Albemarle Corporation Is a Better Electric-Vehicle Stock: Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has had a tumultuous 2018, with CEO Elon Musk's penchant for creating media buzz seemingly causing more trouble than benefit . The electric-vehicle (EV) market, meanwhile, has simply kept moving right along, with most major automakers pushing the pedal to the metal in the EV space . That's why investors interested in the EV market might want to forget about Tesla and, instead, take a close look at Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) , a key supplier to the entire EV sector. Here's why Albemarle is a better electric-vehicle stock than Tesla. A big quarter The third quarter was a big one for Tesla, with the company reporting a quarterly profit of $312 million. Fool contributor Adam Levine-Weinberg recently noted that key achievements included improved gross margins in the Model 3, its first "mass-market car," as well as declining operating expenses and better cash flow. Investors were justifiably impressed with the quarterly results and the company's strong guidance for the rest of the year . A car that has been in an accident with a man sitting on the ground in front of it Image source: Getty Images However, there are some other factors to consider here. For starters, Tesla is carrying a very heavy debt load. Long-term debt increased from roughly $600 million in 2013 to $9.4 billion in 2017 as it spent heavily to expand in the capital-intensive auto business. Long-term debt rose a little bit more through the third quarter, hitting nearly $9.7 billion and making up around 70% of the capital structure. The company covered its interest expense in the quarter, but has yet to do so on an annual basis. And Tesla's big spending plans aren't over, though Musk is saying that the company's future is now on a sustainable and profitable path. For example, it intends to build a truck and a new manufacturing plant in China (neither will be cheap). One quarter doesn't make a trend, and Tesla still has a lot to prove. In the meantime, competitors with more established businesses have jumped into the EV market to compete with the upstart automaker and supply the growing auto niche. Simply put, building an automobile company from the ground up is a huge and costly undertaking. That's not to suggest that Tesla can't do it, but with increasing competition and a heavy debt load the task is that much harder. Story continues Buy the supplier If you are enticed by the idea of electric vehicles and the growth potential that Tesla offers, you might want to step back and think about what happens if things don't work out as planned. If the company can't handle the debt load it's taken on, it could easily go the way of the DeLorean. But the EV market won't follow it into the dustbin of history -- it will keep growing, supported by the major automakers that are increasingly focusing on their EV lineups. TSLA Total Long Term Debt (Quarterly) Chart TSLA Total Long-Term Debt (Quarterly) data by YCharts . That's what will drive results at specialty chemicals company Albemarle, which has three divisions: Bromine, which is used in heat shielding in electrical products; Catalysts, used in the refining sector; and Lithium, which is used in automobile batteries. The first two are helping the company to fund its expansion in lithium, though the company notes that it may, at some point, end up focusing solely on lithium. The growth potential for its lithium business is huge. It currently plans to increase lithium production by as much as 60% by 2021. The difference between Tesla and Albemarle is threefold. First, the company is sustainably profitable, with positive earnings in each of the last 10 years. Second, long-term debt only makes up about 30% of its capital structure. Essentially, it is in much better shape to support its growth plans than Tesla. ALB Normalized Diluted EPS (Annual) Chart ALB Normalized Diluted EPS (Annual) data by YCharts . The third key difference is that Albemarle doesn't have to succeed in building a new car brand. Demand for lithium will keep expanding as long as the EV market keeps expanding. Right now, Albemarle is projecting 35% compound annual growth in lithium demand between 2017 and 2025. Tesla is a piece of that demand, but the lithium maker has a lot of other customers looking for its product. So no matter what happens with Tesla, Albemarle looks set to benefit from the broader move toward electric vehicles. That said, it's important to note that lithium is a commodity, so Albemarle's top and bottom lines can be volatile at times. However, if demand even comes close to the company's current projections, it should be able to keep growing its top and bottom lines with volume gains even if lithium prices move lower. Not cheap, but neither is Tesla To be fair, Albemarle is an expensive stock today. Its P/E is pretty high at nearly 36 times and its price-to-sales ratio is an elevated 3.7 times. Both, however, are below their five-year averages following a price pullback this year. Tesla's P/S ratio is a little lower at 3.3 times (also below its five-year average following a stock-price decline), but it doesn't have a trailing P/E because it wasn't profitable over the trailing-12-month period. Clearly, Tesla still has a lot to prove, notably that it can truly build a sustainable business in the increasingly competitive EV market. Albemarle has already proven that it has a sustainable business and it will benefit as long as the EV market expands -- it doesn't matter what happens to any single car maker. If you are looking at the EV space and want a pure play on the auto niche's growth potential, Albemarle is a better option than Tesla today. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Forget Tesla, Inc.: Albemarle Corporation Is a Better Electric-Vehicle Stock: Tesla, Inc.(NASDAQ: TSLA)has had a tumultuous 2018, with CEO Elon Musk's penchant for creating media buzz seeminglycausing more trouble than benefit. The electric-vehicle (EV) market, meanwhile, has simply kept moving right along, with most major automakerspushing the pedal to the metal in the EV space. That's why investors interested in the EV market might want to forget about Tesla and, instead, take a close look atAlbemarle Corporation(NYSE: ALB), a key supplier to the entire EV sector. Here's why Albemarle is a better electric-vehicle stock than Tesla.
The third quarter was a big one for Tesla, with the company reporting a quarterly profit of $312 million. Fool contributor Adam Levine-Weinbergrecently notedthat key achievements included improved gross margins in the Model 3, its first "mass-market car," as well as declining operating expenses and better cash flow. Investors were justifiably impressed with the quarterly results and the company'sstrong guidance for the rest of the year.
Image source: Getty Images
However, there are some other factors to consider here. For starters, Tesla is carrying a very heavy debt load. Long-term debt increased from roughly $600 million in 2013 to $9.4 billion in 2017 as it spent heavily to expand in the capital-intensive auto business. Long-term debt rose a little bit more through the third quarter, hitting nearly $9.7 billion and making up around 70% of the capital structure. The company covered its interest expense in the quarter, but has yet to do so on an annual basis.
And Tesla's big spending plans aren't over, though Musk is saying that the company's future is now on a sustainable and profitable path. For example, it intends to build a truck and a new manufacturing plant in China (neither will be cheap). One quarter doesn't make a trend, and Tesla still has a lot to prove. In the meantime, competitors with more established businesses have jumped into the EV market to compete with the upstart automaker and supply the growing auto niche. Simply put, building an automobile company from the ground up is a huge and costly undertaking. That's not to suggest that Tesla can't do it, but with increasing competition and a heavy debt load the task is that much harder.
If you are enticed by the idea of electric vehicles and the growth potential that Tesla offers, you might want to step back and think about what happens if things don't work out as planned. If the company can't handle the debt load it's taken on, it could easily go the way of the DeLorean. But the EV market won't follow it into the dustbin of history -- it will keep growing, supported by the major automakers that are increasingly focusing on their EV lineups.
TSLA Total Long-Term Debt (Quarterly)data byYCharts.
That's what will drive results at specialty chemicals company Albemarle, which has three divisions: Bromine, which is used in heat shielding in electrical products; Catalysts, used in the refining sector; and Lithium, which is used in automobile batteries. The first two are helping the company to fund its expansion in lithium, though the company notes that it may, at some point, end up focusing solely on lithium.
The growth potential for its lithium business is huge. It currently plans to increase lithium production by as much as 60% by 2021. The difference between Tesla and Albemarle is threefold. First, the company is sustainably profitable, with positive earnings in each of the last 10 years. Second, long-term debt only makes up about 30% of its capital structure. Essentially, it is in much better shape to support its growth plans than Tesla.
ALB Normalized Diluted EPS (Annual)data byYCharts.
The third key difference is that Albemarle doesn't have to succeed in building a new car brand. Demand for lithium will keep expanding as long as the EV market keeps expanding. Right now, Albemarle is projecting 35% compound annual growth in lithium demand between 2017 and 2025. Tesla is a piece of that demand, but the lithium maker has a lot of other customers looking for its product. So no matter what happens with Tesla, Albemarle looks set to benefit from the broader move toward electric vehicles.
That said, it's important to note that lithium is a commodity, so Albemarle's top and bottom lines can be volatile at times. However, if demand even comes close to the company's current projections, it should be able to keep growing its top and bottom lines with volume gains even if lithium prices move lower.
To be fair, Albemarle is an expensive stock today. Its P/E is pretty high at nearly 36 times and its price-to-sales ratio is an elevated 3.7 times. Both, however, arebelow their five-year averagesfollowing a price pullback this year. Tesla's P/S ratio is a little lower at 3.3 times (also below its five-year average following a stock-price decline), but it doesn't have a trailing P/E because it wasn't profitable over the trailing-12-month period.
Clearly, Tesla still has a lot to prove, notably that it can truly build a sustainable business in the increasingly competitive EV market. Albemarle has already proven that it has a sustainable business and it will benefit as long as the EV market expands -- it doesn't matter what happens to any single car maker. If you are looking at the EV space and want a pure play on the auto niche's growth potential, Albemarle is a better option than Tesla today.
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Reuben Gregg Brewerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Take Five: Black Friday shoppers to Brexit wreckage, world markets themes for the week ahead: (Reuters) - Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them. 1/A (BREXIT) RECKONING Prime Minister Theresa May's long-awaited Brexit deal triggered a wave of ministerial resignations that has rocked her government and financial markets and raised chances of a snap election. The pound took the hardest beating. Traders who had hung back from big sterling bets for much of 2018 rushed to sell it, fuelling its biggest daily drop against the euro since 2016. Gilt yields tumbled too and the FTSE index, which usually rises when sterling falls, lost that inverse correlation and closed flat after Thursday's mayhem. One-month implied volatility on sterling -- basically a gauge of how much traders expect it to swing in a given period -- has climbed to over 15 percent. Not only is that double the volatility of the euro and almost triple yen and Swiss franc levels, it has now entered territory reserved for emerging currencies such as the Brazilian real and Turkish lira. May might now need to survive a no-confidence vote, possibly on Tuesday. Even if she does, she has her work cut out to get the unpopular deal through parliament next month. - Pound dives as UK PM May fights for survival - Hedge funds caught short when Brexit talks surprise (Graphics of 'Sterling positions and valuations' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PrxbPH ) 2/S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G The biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, is almost upon us and, according to Refinitiv, retailers are going to have to discount like crazy because the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday lands on the early side. This year's Christmas shopping period kicks off on Nov. 23 but it gets stretched over five weekends, meaning retailers will be forced to plan additional promotions, Refinitiv said. So the festival which supposedly "turns red ink into black on the ledgers" may make or break fourth quarter results for some firms, Refinitiv warns. Story continues A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates 38 percent of American consumers plan to shop that day and of those, 37 percent will shop mainly online. Online spending over the 2018 holiday season will grow 14.8 percent from a year ago, outpacing the 2.7 percent growth predicted for brick-and-mortar locations, Adobe Analytics estimates. Black Friday will also focus attention on U.S. retailers' earnings. These have so far been a mixed bag; Walmart has posted robust sales and raised its full-year outlook, while Nordstrom and J.C. Penney were less fortunate. Next week will bring third quarter results from the likes of Target, Gap, Best Buy and Dollar Tree. Refinitiv data may offer clues as to where shoppers are heading with their dollars; discount and speciality sectors may be the strongest performers, with department stores the weakest, its analysis shows - Ready, set, shop: More than a third of Americans to buy on Black Friday - U.S. online spending set to rise 14.8 percent in 2018 holiday season (Graphics of 'Black Friday' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QMmqEh ) 3/CRUDE AWAKENING? It's been a tumultuous six weeks for oil, sliding into a bear market and chalking up its longest losing streak on record, including a 7 percent one-day plunge on Nov. 13. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but for how long? What's certain is that any talk of $100-per-barrel oil has ceased. The savage selloff has taken oil nearly 30 percent lower since early October. All else being equal, this should put downward pressure on inflation in the second half of next year, just as the economic cycle is expected to be in the process of rolling over. Throw in a potential equity downturn following the longest bull run in history, and the scope for higher interest rates across the developed world looks limited. Central banks may even be contemplating rate cuts by then. For now, oil markets have steadied, in part thanks to speculation of an OPEC production cut. But once in a bear market, it's sometimes very difficult to get out. - Oil firms on supply cut talk; still set for sixth weekly loss - COLUMN-Oil prices tumble as traders look beyond Iran: Kemp (Graphics of 'U.S. crude oil' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QNE5ew ) 4/PAROLE FOR PATEL? India's financial markets are on edge as the government and the central bank prepare for what could be an acrimonious RBI board meeting on November 19. Tensions have been simmering between the government and the RBI for months, contributing to heavy bond market outflows and making the rupee the worst performing major Asian currency this year. RBI Governor Urjit Patel called the meeting amid tensions with the Modi administration on several issues, from lending curbs on banks to sharing central bank reserves. The government threatened to invoke a section of the RBI Act that would allow it to dictate policy; Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned against undermining RBI independence, citing Argentina as an example of how things could go wrong. Very nervous markets are now hoping for a truce. Sources say the sides are trying to iron out a deal that lets Patel keep his job while the RBI eases lending restrictions. Heading into 2019 general elections, the government is looking to provide some economic stimulus. Yet efforts to bulldoze the RBI, whose inflation credentials and independence are highly regarded, could backfire in unforeseen ways. EXPLAINER-Why India's Modi wants to increase control over the central bank-[ nL3N1XB3IL] UPDATE 3-India says central bank independence "essential" as row unnerves markets – Modi government, Indian central bank set for uneasy truce -sources – (Graphics of 'Indian rupee, yields' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PfUqvT ) 5/BITCOIN BITTEN After weeks of relative calm, the crypto world has witnessed a shake-up. Bitcoin, the big daddy of digital currencies, is set for its worst week since August. Other, lesser, coins such as ethereum and XRP have also been mauled. The sudden return of volatility has disappointed many who had hoped that violent price swings - a feature of bitcoin in its first decade - were a thing of the past. Some attribute the upheaval to breaches of key technical support levels, while others blame fears that the "hard fork" in bitcoin cash, where the smaller coin that emerged out of bitcoin split into two separate currencies, could destabilise others. Having traded at almost $20,000 last December, bitcoin fell this week below $5,500, or 70 percent from those peaks. It's particularly galling for those who hope bitcoin is moving into the mainstream - after all, price stability is a necessary feature if it is to ever evolve into a usable currency. - France hopes to lure crypto-issuers with Gallic stamp of approval - Bitcoin drops to 1-year low as slump persists; ethereum down sharply - GRAPHIC-Bitcoin volatility sinks to lowest in nearly two years (Graphics of 'Bitcoin's bad week' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QHZ0zG ) (Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore, Tom Finn, Jamie McGeever and Tom Wilson in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; Editing by Gareth Jones) || Take Five: Black Friday shoppers to Brexit wreckage, world markets themes for the week ahead: (Reuters) - Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them. 1/A (BREXIT) RECKONING Prime Minister Theresa May's long-awaited Brexit deal triggered a wave of ministerial resignations that has rocked her government and financial markets and raised chances of a snap election. The pound took the hardest beating. Traders who had hung back from big sterling bets for much of 2018 rushed to sell it, fuelling its biggest daily drop against the euro since 2016. Gilt yields tumbled too and the FTSE index, which usually rises when sterling falls, lost that inverse correlation and closed flat after Thursday's mayhem. One-month implied volatility on sterling -- basically a gauge of how much traders expect it to swing in a given period -- has climbed to over 15 percent. Not only is that double the volatility of the euro and almost triple yen and Swiss franc levels, it has now entered territory reserved for emerging currencies such as the Brazilian real and Turkish lira. May might now need to survive a no-confidence vote, possibly on Tuesday. Even if she does, she has her work cut out to get the unpopular deal through parliament next month. - Pound dives as UK PM May fights for survival - Hedge funds caught short when Brexit talks surprise (Graphics of 'Sterling positions and valuations' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PrxbPH ) 2/S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G The biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, is almost upon us and, according to Refinitiv, retailers are going to have to discount like crazy because the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday lands on the early side. This year's Christmas shopping period kicks off on Nov. 23 but it gets stretched over five weekends, meaning retailers will be forced to plan additional promotions, Refinitiv said. So the festival which supposedly "turns red ink into black on the ledgers" may make or break fourth quarter results for some firms, Refinitiv warns. Story continues A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates 38 percent of American consumers plan to shop that day and of those, 37 percent will shop mainly online. Online spending over the 2018 holiday season will grow 14.8 percent from a year ago, outpacing the 2.7 percent growth predicted for brick-and-mortar locations, Adobe Analytics estimates. Black Friday will also focus attention on U.S. retailers' earnings. These have so far been a mixed bag; Walmart has posted robust sales and raised its full-year outlook, while Nordstrom and J.C. Penney were less fortunate. Next week will bring third quarter results from the likes of Target, Gap, Best Buy and Dollar Tree. Refinitiv data may offer clues as to where shoppers are heading with their dollars; discount and speciality sectors may be the strongest performers, with department stores the weakest, its analysis shows - Ready, set, shop: More than a third of Americans to buy on Black Friday - U.S. online spending set to rise 14.8 percent in 2018 holiday season (Graphics of 'Black Friday' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QMmqEh ) 3/CRUDE AWAKENING? It's been a tumultuous six weeks for oil, sliding into a bear market and chalking up its longest losing streak on record, including a 7 percent one-day plunge on Nov. 13. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but for how long? What's certain is that any talk of $100-per-barrel oil has ceased. The savage selloff has taken oil nearly 30 percent lower since early October. All else being equal, this should put downward pressure on inflation in the second half of next year, just as the economic cycle is expected to be in the process of rolling over. Throw in a potential equity downturn following the longest bull run in history, and the scope for higher interest rates across the developed world looks limited. Central banks may even be contemplating rate cuts by then. For now, oil markets have steadied, in part thanks to speculation of an OPEC production cut. But once in a bear market, it's sometimes very difficult to get out. - Oil firms on supply cut talk; still set for sixth weekly loss - COLUMN-Oil prices tumble as traders look beyond Iran: Kemp (Graphics of 'U.S. crude oil' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QNE5ew ) 4/PAROLE FOR PATEL? India's financial markets are on edge as the government and the central bank prepare for what could be an acrimonious RBI board meeting on November 19. Tensions have been simmering between the government and the RBI for months, contributing to heavy bond market outflows and making the rupee the worst performing major Asian currency this year. RBI Governor Urjit Patel called the meeting amid tensions with the Modi administration on several issues, from lending curbs on banks to sharing central bank reserves. The government threatened to invoke a section of the RBI Act that would allow it to dictate policy; Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned against undermining RBI independence, citing Argentina as an example of how things could go wrong. Very nervous markets are now hoping for a truce. Sources say the sides are trying to iron out a deal that lets Patel keep his job while the RBI eases lending restrictions. Heading into 2019 general elections, the government is looking to provide some economic stimulus. Yet efforts to bulldoze the RBI, whose inflation credentials and independence are highly regarded, could backfire in unforeseen ways. EXPLAINER-Why India's Modi wants to increase control over the central bank-[ nL3N1XB3IL] UPDATE 3-India says central bank independence "essential" as row unnerves markets – Modi government, Indian central bank set for uneasy truce -sources – (Graphics of 'Indian rupee, yields' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PfUqvT ) 5/BITCOIN BITTEN After weeks of relative calm, the crypto world has witnessed a shake-up. Bitcoin, the big daddy of digital currencies, is set for its worst week since August. Other, lesser, coins such as ethereum and XRP have also been mauled. The sudden return of volatility has disappointed many who had hoped that violent price swings - a feature of bitcoin in its first decade - were a thing of the past. Some attribute the upheaval to breaches of key technical support levels, while others blame fears that the "hard fork" in bitcoin cash, where the smaller coin that emerged out of bitcoin split into two separate currencies, could destabilise others. Having traded at almost $20,000 last December, bitcoin fell this week below $5,500, or 70 percent from those peaks. It's particularly galling for those who hope bitcoin is moving into the mainstream - after all, price stability is a necessary feature if it is to ever evolve into a usable currency. - France hopes to lure crypto-issuers with Gallic stamp of approval - Bitcoin drops to 1-year low as slump persists; ethereum down sharply - GRAPHIC-Bitcoin volatility sinks to lowest in nearly two years (Graphics of 'Bitcoin's bad week' - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QHZ0zG ) (Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore, Tom Finn, Jamie McGeever and Tom Wilson in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; Editing by Gareth Jones) || Tesla Is Prepared for a Big Fourth Quarter: After running into logistics challenges in its third quarter as it ramped up production and deliveries of its Model 3,Tesla(NASDAQ: TSLA)is trying to avoid making the same mistake in Q4. CEO Elon Musk said onTwitterthis week that the electric-car company is taking steps to reduce shipping times, which will ultimately beef up deliveries before the quarter ends.
Tesla's efforts to get more Model 3 units in the hands of customers before the end of the year comes as management aims for another record quarter. Will Tesla be able to deliver even more cars than it did in Q3?
Tesla's Model 3. Image source: Tesla.
"Tesla just acquired trucking capacity to ensure Model 3 can be delivered in US by Dec 31 if ordered by Nov 30," said Musk in a tweet on Thursday. In a follow-up tweet, Musk clarified that Tesla both purchased some trucking companies and "secured contracts with major haulers to avoid trucking shortage mistake of last quarter."
This is a significant acceleration in the Model 3's delivery time. Previously, Tesla had said the shortest time frame it could ship deliveries to the East Coast from its factory in California was eight weeks. For central U.S. and the West Coast, Tesla had previously promised ship times of four and six weeks, respectively.
Considering Tesla's problems last quarter, it makes sense that the automaker is buying trucking companies. Tesla facedlogistics challenges in its third quarteras it ran into "an extreme shortage of car carrier trailers." In addition, a large volume of Model 3 deliveries toward the end of the quarter even prompted Musk to invite current Tesla owners to help educate new owners at delivery centers.
Notably, by shortening the time Tesla needs to deliver Model 3 vehicles in the U.S. before the end of the year, the electric-car company is maximizing the number of vehicles it can ship before buyers miss out on the full $7,500 federal tax credit. The $7,500 credit is set to be halved in 2019 for Tesla customers.
But Tesla's effort to improve shipping logistics in the second half of Q4 is likely about more than helping its customers get the full tax credit. It is also likely a by-product of management's goal to deliver even more vehicles in Q4 than it did in its record third quarter.
In Tesla's third quarter, vehicle sales more than doubled sequentially as Model 3 deliveries surged 204%. But management said it expected deliveries to rise even higher in Q4; Tesla guided for a slight sequential uptick in Model S and X deliveries and said, "Model 3 quarterly production and deliveries should continue to increase in Q4 compared to Q3."
Of course, Q4 is about more than vehicle deliveries for Tesla. After swinging to a profit in Q3, the automaker wants topull off yet another quarter in the black. To achieve this, Tesla's going to need another quarter of high-volume Model 3 deliveries.
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Daniel Sparksowns shares of Tesla. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla and Twitter. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Tesla Is Prepared for a Big Fourth Quarter: After running into logistics challenges in its third quarter as it ramped up production and deliveries of its Model 3, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is trying to avoid making the same mistake in Q4. CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter this week that the electric-car company is taking steps to reduce shipping times, which will ultimately beef up deliveries before the quarter ends. Tesla's efforts to get more Model 3 units in the hands of customers before the end of the year comes as management aims for another record quarter. Will Tesla be able to deliver even more cars than it did in Q3? A red Tesla Model 3. Tesla's Model 3. Image source: Tesla. Acquiring trucking companies "Tesla just acquired trucking capacity to ensure Model 3 can be delivered in US by Dec 31 if ordered by Nov 30," said Musk in a tweet on Thursday. In a follow-up tweet, Musk clarified that Tesla both purchased some trucking companies and "secured contracts with major haulers to avoid trucking shortage mistake of last quarter." This is a significant acceleration in the Model 3's delivery time. Previously, Tesla had said the shortest time frame it could ship deliveries to the East Coast from its factory in California was eight weeks. For central U.S. and the West Coast, Tesla had previously promised ship times of four and six weeks, respectively. Considering Tesla's problems last quarter, it makes sense that the automaker is buying trucking companies. Tesla faced logistics challenges in its third quarter as it ran into "an extreme shortage of car carrier trailers." In addition, a large volume of Model 3 deliveries toward the end of the quarter even prompted Musk to invite current Tesla owners to help educate new owners at delivery centers. Notably, by shortening the time Tesla needs to deliver Model 3 vehicles in the U.S. before the end of the year, the electric-car company is maximizing the number of vehicles it can ship before buyers miss out on the full $7,500 federal tax credit. The $7,500 credit is set to be halved in 2019 for Tesla customers. Story continues Aiming for another record quarter But Tesla's effort to improve shipping logistics in the second half of Q4 is likely about more than helping its customers get the full tax credit. It is also likely a by-product of management's goal to deliver even more vehicles in Q4 than it did in its record third quarter. In Tesla's third quarter, vehicle sales more than doubled sequentially as Model 3 deliveries surged 204%. But management said it expected deliveries to rise even higher in Q4; Tesla guided for a slight sequential uptick in Model S and X deliveries and said, "Model 3 quarterly production and deliveries should continue to increase in Q4 compared to Q3." Of course, Q4 is about more than vehicle deliveries for Tesla. After swinging to a profit in Q3, the automaker wants to pull off yet another quarter in the black . To achieve this, Tesla's going to need another quarter of high-volume Model 3 deliveries. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Daniel Sparks owns shares of Tesla. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla and Twitter. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || NVIDIA's Earnings Were Solid, but Stock Plunges 17% on Weak Outlook Due to "Crypto Hangover": NVIDIA Corp.(NASDAQ: NVDA)reported fiscal third-quarter 2019 earnings after the market close on Thursday. The graphics processing unit (GPU) specialist's revenue increased 21% to $3.18 billion,GAAPearnings per share jumped 48% to $1.97, and EPS adjusted for one-time factors rose 38% to $1.84.
Wall Street was expecting GAAP EPS of $1.71 and adjusted EPS of $1.93 on revenue of $3.24 billion, so NVIDIA beat the GAAP earnings consensus but missed on the adjusted EPS and top-line expectations. Revenue also fell short of the company's guidance of $3.25 billion plus or minus 2%.
NVIDIA stock plummeted 16.8% in after-hours trading on Thursday, which doesn't bode well for its performance on Friday. We can attribute the market's fury to the third-quarter misses just noted and -- more importantly -- to fourth-quarter revenue guidance coming in significantly lower than Wall Street was expecting.
Indeed, I was disappointed, but not surprised. While writers for some other outlets had opined prior to the release that weak results and guidance were already priced into NVIDIA's stock (which had sank about 30% from its all-time closing high in early October), I wrote in my Wednesdayearnings previewthat it was "probably safe to predict, however, that the market won't be tempered in its reaction if NVIDIA provides more tepid fourth-quarter guidance than the Street is expecting."
Image source: Getty Images.
[{"Metric": "Revenue", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$3.18 billion", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$2.64 billion", "Change (YOY)": "21%"}, {"Metric": "GAAP operating income", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.06 billion", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$895 million", "Change (YOY)": "18%"}, {"Metric": "Adjusted operating income", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.21 billion", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$1.01 billion", "Change (YOY)": "20%"}, {"Metric": "GAAP net income", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.23 billion", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$838 million", "Change (YOY)": "47%"}, {"Metric": "Adjusted net income", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.15 billion", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$833 million", "Change (YOY)": "38%"}, {"Metric": "GAAP earnings per share (EPS)", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.97", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$1.33", "Change (YOY)": "48%"}, {"Metric": "Adjusted EPS", "Fiscal Q3 2019": "$1.84", "Fiscal Q3 2018": "$1.33", "Change (YOY)": "38%"}]
Data source: NVIDIA.GAAP= generally accepted accounting principles. YOY = year over year.
GAAP gross margin came in at 60.4%, up from 59.5% in the year-ago quarter, but down from 63.3%last quarter. Adjusted gross margin was 61.1%, up from 59.7% in the year-ago period, but down from 63.5% in the second quarter.
[{"Platform": "Gaming", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$1.76 billion", "Change (YOY)": "13%", "Change (QOQ)": "(2%)"}, {"Platform": "Data center", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$792 million", "Change (YOY)": "58%", "Change (QOQ)": "4%"}, {"Platform": "Professional visualization", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$305 million", "Change (YOY)": "28%", "Change (QOQ)": "9%"}, {"Platform": "Automotive", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$172 million", "Change (YOY)": "19%", "Change (QOQ)": "7%"}, {"Platform": "OEM and IP*", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$148 million", "Change (YOY)": "(23%)", "Change (QOQ)": "28%"}, {"Platform": "Total", "Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue": "$3.18 billion", "Change (YOY)": "21%", "Change (QOQ)": "2%"}]
Data source: NVIDIA. *OEM and IP = original equipment manufacturer and intellectual property. YOY = year over year. QOQ = quarter over quarter.
Gaming's relatively anemic results were due to excess inventory of midrange Pascal-GPU-based graphics cards in the sales channel, management said on the earnings call. This situation is due to the cryptocurrency market bust, as some crypto "miners" had been buying the company's gaming cards to use for mining digital currencies, rather than buying its application-specific GPUs. In addition to sales of these cards to crypto miners falling off sharply, sales to gamers considerably slowed. Management attributes the latter largely to retail prices remaining at elevated levels for some time after the crypto boom ended.
As with last quarter, OEM and IP revenue declined from the year-ago period due to the falloff in demand for application-specific GPUs for mining cryptocurrencies. This drop in demand is the result of crypto prices plunging earlier this year.
Data center continues to post strong growth thanks to continued robust sales of products based on the Volta GPU architecture, along with contributions from the T4 Cloud GPU based on the new Turing architecture. Data center growth is being powered by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the fast growth of high-performance computing (HPC). Professional visualization's good results were driven by sales of products for both desktop and mobile workstations. Auto results were propelled by sales of infotainment modules, production DRIVE PX platforms, and self-driving-vehicle-system development agreements with auto companies.
• It launched the Turing GPU architecture, which is the world's first GPU that enables real-time ray tracing, a technique that promises to bring cinematic-quality images to video games and other applications.
• In gaming, it began rolling out the GeForce RTX series, the first gaming GPUs based on the Turing architecture.
• In data center, it launched the T4 Cloud GPU and NVIDIA TensorRT Hyperscale Inference Platform "to deliver advanced acceleration for voice, video, image and recommendation services in hyperscale datacenters," the company said in the earnings release.
• In data center, it launched the RTX Server, opening a new market for film rendering.
• In data center, it introduced RAPIDS, "an open-source GPU-acceleration platform for data science and machine learning."
• In pro visualization, it unveiled the Quadro RTX series, based on Turing.
• In auto, it announced its "first Level-2 autopilot design wins with Toyota, Volvo, and Isuzu Motors." (On the Society of Automotive Engineers' 0-5 scale for levels of automation, Level 2 is an automated system that "takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering)," though "the driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to intervene immediately," according to Wikipedia's definition).
• In auto, it announced that "Continental and Veoneer, leading tier-1 suppliers, have each selected DRIVE AGX Xavier to power self-driving solutions to be offered early in the 2020s."
Here's part of what CEO Jensen Huang had to say in the earnings release:
AI [artificial intelligence] is advancing at an incredible pace across the world, driving record revenues for our data center platforms. Our introduction of Turing GPUs is a giant leap for computer graphics and AI, bringing the magic of real-time ray tracing to games and the biggest generational performance improvements we have ever delivered.
Amid the market's wrath, investors shouldn't lose sight of that fact NVIDIA turned in solid Q3 results, with revenue and adjusted EPS growing 21% and 38%, respectively. These results speak to data center's power and the company's overall bench strength.
In the fourth quarter, NVIDIA guided for revenue of $2.70 billion, plus or minus 2%, representing a decline of about 7% year over year. Wall Street was expecting $3.4 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter -- hence the stock's whipping. The culprit for the soft outlook is an expected continuation of gaming's "crypto hangover," as Huang termed it on the earnings call. CFO Colette Kress said in the CFO commentary that management believes this is an "issue that will be corrected in one to two quarters." Indeed, there appears to be no reason for long-term investors to fear that NVIDIA's hangover from its relatively brief visit to "Cryptocurrencyville" will last much longer.
Nothing has changed with respect to the gaming market's rosy long-term growth projections or NVIDIA's position as the dominant supplier of graphics cards to gamers. Moreover, the company's growth opportunities from AI and driverless vehicles remain powerful.
More From The Motley Fool
• 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know
• Experts Warned – The Crypto ‘Bloodbath’ Is Here
• How to Buy Bitcoin
Beth McKennaowns shares of Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || NVIDIA's Earnings Were Solid, but Stock Plunges 17% on Weak Outlook Due to "Crypto Hangover": NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) reported fiscal third-quarter 2019 earnings after the market close on Thursday. The graphics processing unit (GPU) specialist's revenue increased 21% to $3.18 billion, GAAP earnings per share jumped 48% to $1.97, and EPS adjusted for one-time factors rose 38% to $1.84. Wall Street was expecting GAAP EPS of $1.71 and adjusted EPS of $1.93 on revenue of $3.24 billion, so NVIDIA beat the GAAP earnings consensus but missed on the adjusted EPS and top-line expectations. Revenue also fell short of the company's guidance of $3.25 billion plus or minus 2%. NVIDIA stock plummeted 16.8% in after-hours trading on Thursday, which doesn't bode well for its performance on Friday. We can attribute the market's fury to the third-quarter misses just noted and -- more importantly -- to fourth-quarter revenue guidance coming in significantly lower than Wall Street was expecting. Indeed, I was disappointed, but not surprised. While writers for some other outlets had opined prior to the release that weak results and guidance were already priced into NVIDIA's stock (which had sank about 30% from its all-time closing high in early October), I wrote in my Wednesday earnings preview that it was "probably safe to predict, however, that the market won't be tempered in its reaction if NVIDIA provides more tepid fourth-quarter guidance than the Street is expecting." Profile of a person overlaid on a semiconductor and digital background -- concept for AI. Image source: Getty Images. The key numbers Metric Fiscal Q3 2019 Fiscal Q3 2018 Change (YOY) Revenue $3.18 billion $2.64 billion 21% GAAP operating income $1.06 billion $895 million 18% Adjusted operating income $1.21 billion $1.01 billion 20% GAAP net income $1.23 billion $838 million 47% Adjusted net income $1.15 billion $833 million 38% GAAP earnings per share (EPS) $1.97 $1.33 48% Adjusted EPS $1.84 $1.33 38% Data source: NVIDIA. GAAP = generally accepted accounting principles. YOY = year over year. Story continues GAAP gross margin came in at 60.4%, up from 59.5% in the year-ago quarter, but down from 63.3% last quarter . Adjusted gross margin was 61.1%, up from 59.7% in the year-ago period, but down from 63.5% in the second quarter. Data center continues to lead platform growth, with gaming faltering Platform Fiscal Q3 2019 Revenue Change (YOY) Change (QOQ) Gaming $1.76 billion 13% (2%) Data center $792 million 58% 4% Professional visualization $305 million 28% 9% Automotive $172 million 19% 7% OEM and IP* $148 million (23%) 28% Total $3.18 billion 21% 2% Data source: NVIDIA. *OEM and IP = original equipment manufacturer and intellectual property. YOY = year over year. QOQ = quarter over quarter. Gaming's relatively anemic results were due to excess inventory of midrange Pascal-GPU-based graphics cards in the sales channel, management said on the earnings call. This situation is due to the cryptocurrency market bust, as some crypto "miners" had been buying the company's gaming cards to use for mining digital currencies, rather than buying its application-specific GPUs. In addition to sales of these cards to crypto miners falling off sharply, sales to gamers considerably slowed. Management attributes the latter largely to retail prices remaining at elevated levels for some time after the crypto boom ended. As with last quarter, OEM and IP revenue declined from the year-ago period due to the falloff in demand for application-specific GPUs for mining cryptocurrencies. This drop in demand is the result of crypto prices plunging earlier this year. Data center continues to post strong growth thanks to continued robust sales of products based on the Volta GPU architecture, along with contributions from the T4 Cloud GPU based on the new Turing architecture. Data center growth is being powered by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the fast growth of high-performance computing (HPC). Professional visualization's good results were driven by sales of products for both desktop and mobile workstations. Auto results were propelled by sales of infotainment modules, production DRIVE PX platforms, and self-driving-vehicle-system development agreements with auto companies. What happened with NVIDIA since the last earnings release? It launched the Turing GPU architecture, which is the world's first GPU that enables real-time ray tracing, a technique that promises to bring cinematic-quality images to video games and other applications. In gaming, it began rolling out the GeForce RTX series, the first gaming GPUs based on the Turing architecture. In data center, it launched the T4 Cloud GPU and NVIDIA TensorRT Hyperscale Inference Platform "to deliver advanced acceleration for voice, video, image and recommendation services in hyperscale datacenters," the company said in the earnings release. In data center, it launched the RTX Server, opening a new market for film rendering. In data center, it introduced RAPIDS, "an open-source GPU-acceleration platform for data science and machine learning." In pro visualization, it unveiled the Quadro RTX series, based on Turing. In auto, it announced its "first Level-2 autopilot design wins with Toyota, Volvo, and Isuzu Motors." (On the Society of Automotive Engineers' 0-5 scale for levels of automation, Level 2 is an automated system that "takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering)," though "the driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to intervene immediately," according to Wikipedia's definition). In auto, it announced that "Continental and Veoneer, leading tier-1 suppliers, have each selected DRIVE AGX Xavier to power self-driving solutions to be offered early in the 2020s." What management had to say Here's part of what CEO Jensen Huang had to say in the earnings release: AI [artificial intelligence] is advancing at an incredible pace across the world, driving record revenues for our data center platforms. Our introduction of Turing GPUs is a giant leap for computer graphics and AI, bringing the magic of real-time ray tracing to games and the biggest generational performance improvements we have ever delivered. Our near-term results reflect excess channel inventory post the cryptocurrency boom, which will be corrected. Our market position and growth opportunities are stronger than ever. A solid quarter, but a weak outlook due to "crypto hangover" Amid the market's wrath, investors shouldn't lose sight of that fact NVIDIA turned in solid Q3 results, with revenue and adjusted EPS growing 21% and 38%, respectively. These results speak to data center's power and the company's overall bench strength. In the fourth quarter, NVIDIA guided for revenue of $2.70 billion, plus or minus 2%, representing a decline of about 7% year over year. Wall Street was expecting $3.4 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter -- hence the stock's whipping. The culprit for the soft outlook is an expected continuation of gaming's "crypto hangover," as Huang termed it on the earnings call. CFO Colette Kress said in the CFO commentary that management believes this is an "issue that will be corrected in one to two quarters." Indeed, there appears to be no reason for long-term investors to fear that NVIDIA's hangover from its relatively brief visit to "Cryptocurrencyville" will last much longer. Nothing has changed with respect to the gaming market's rosy long-term growth projections or NVIDIA's position as the dominant supplier of graphics cards to gamers. Moreover, the company's growth opportunities from AI and driverless vehicles remain powerful. More From The Motley Fool 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know Experts Warned The Crypto Bloodbath Is Here How to Buy Bitcoin Beth McKenna owns shares of Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Take Five: Black Friday shoppers to Brexit wreckage, world markets themes for the week ahead: (Reuters) - Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them. 1/A (BREXIT) RECKONING Prime Minister Theresa May's long-awaited Brexit deal triggered a wave of ministerial resignations that has rocked her government and financial markets and raised chances of a snap election. The pound took the hardest beating. Traders who had hung back from big sterling bets for much of 2018 rushed to sell it, fuelling its biggest daily drop against the euro since 2016. Gilt yields tumbled too and the FTSE index, which usually rises when sterling falls, lost that inverse correlation and closed flat after Thursday's mayhem. One-month implied volatility on sterling -- basically a gauge of how much traders expect it to swing in a given period -- has climbed to over 15 percent. Not only is that double the volatility of the euro and almost triple yen and Swiss franc levels, it has now entered territory reserved for emerging currencies such as the Brazilian real and Turkish lira. May might now need to survive a no-confidence vote, possibly on Tuesday. Even if she does, she has her work cut out to get the unpopular deal through parliament next month. GRAPHIC: Sterling positions and valuations - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PrxbPH 2/S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G The biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, is almost upon us and, according to Refinitiv, retailers are going to have to discount like crazy because the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday lands on the early side. This year's Christmas shopping period kicks off on Nov. 23 but it gets stretched over five weekends, meaning retailers will be forced to plan additional promotions, Refinitiv said. So the festival which supposedly "turns red ink into black on the ledgers" may make or break fourth quarter results for some firms, Refinitiv warns. A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates 38 percent of American consumers plan to shop that day and of those, 37 percent will shop mainly online. Online spending over the 2018 holiday season will grow 14.8 percent from a year ago, outpacing the 2.7 percent growth predicted for brick-and-mortar locations, Adobe Analytics estimates. Black Friday will also focus attention on U.S. retailers' earnings. These have so far been a mixed bag; Walmart has posted robust sales and raised its full-year outlook, while Nordstrom and J.C. Penney were less fortunate. Next week will bring third quarter results from the likes of Target, Gap, Best Buy and Dollar Tree. Refinitiv data may offer clues as to where shoppers are heading with their dollars; discount and specialty sectors may be the strongest performers, with department stores the weakest, its analysis shows 3/CRUDE AWAKENING? It's been a tumultuous six weeks for oil, sliding into a bear market and chalking up its longest losing streak on record, including a 7 percent one-day plunge on Nov. 13. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but for how long? What's certain is that any talk of $100-per-barrel oil has ceased. The savage selloff has taken oil nearly 30 percent lower since early October. All else being equal, this should put downward pressure on inflation in the second half of next year, just as the economic cycle is expected to be in the process of rolling over. Throw in a potential equity downturn following the longest bull run in history, and the scope for higher interest rates across the developed world looks limited. Central banks may even be contemplating rate cuts by then. For now, oil markets have steadied, in part thanks to speculation of an OPEC production cut. But once in a bear market, it's sometimes very difficult to get out. GRAPHIC: U.S. crude oil - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QNE5ew 4/PAROLE FOR PATEL? India's financial markets are on edge as the government and the central bank prepare for what could be an acrimonious RBI board meeting on November 19. Tensions have been simmering between the government and the RBI for months, contributing to heavy bond market outflows and making the rupee the worst performing major Asian currency this year. RBI Governor Urjit Patel called the meeting amid tensions with the Modi administration on several issues, from lending curbs on banks to sharing central bank reserves. The government threatened to invoke a section of the RBI Act that would allow it to dictate policy; Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned against undermining RBI independence, citing Argentina as an example of how things could go wrong. Very nervous markets are now hoping for a truce. Sources say the sides are trying to iron out a deal that lets Patel keep his job while the RBI eases lending restrictions. Heading into 2019 general elections, the government is looking to provide some economic stimulus. Yet efforts to bulldoze the RBI, whose inflation credentials and independence are highly regarded, could backfire in unforeseen ways. GRAPHIC: Indian rupee, yields - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PfUqvT 5/BITCOIN BITTEN After weeks of relative calm, the crypto world has witnessed a shake-up. Bitcoin, the big daddy of digital currencies, is set for its worst week since August. Other, lesser, coins such as ethereum and XRP have also been mauled. The sudden return of volatility has disappointed many who had hoped that violent price swings - a feature of bitcoin in its first decade - were a thing of the past. Some attribute the upheaval to breaches of key technical support levels, while others blame fears that the "hard fork" in bitcoin cash, where the smaller coin that emerged out of bitcoin split into two separate currencies, could destabilize others. Having traded at almost $20,000 last December, bitcoin fell this week below $5,500, or 70 percent from those peaks. It's particularly galling for those who hope bitcoin is moving into the mainstream - after all, price stability is a necessary feature if it is to ever evolve into a usable currency. GRAPHIC: Bitcoin's bad week - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QHZ0zG GRAPHIC: Black Friday - https://tmsnrt.rs/2QMmqEh (Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore, Tom Finn, Jamie McGeever and Tom Wilson in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[Social Media Buzz]
Current price: $0.018784
Node count: 1616
Total accounts: 618161
Coins burned: 4,130,040.00 TRX
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1. http://Coins.ph (DL mo sa Playstore)
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2. Coinbase (DL mo sa Playstore)
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Mas easy process. || 現在の1ビットコインあたりの値段は621,339.1956円です。値段の取得日時はNov 17, 2018 05:01:00 UTCです #bitcoin #ビットコイン || 1 BTC = 20940.000...
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5623.54, 4871.49, 4451.87, 4602.17, 4365.94, 4347.11, 3880.76, 4009.97, 3779.13, 3820.72
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 11410.53, 11584.93, 11784.14, 11768.87, 11865.70, 11892.80, 12254.40, 11991.23, 11758.28, 11878.37, 11592.49, 11681.83, 11664.85, 11774.60, 11366.13, 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82, 11970.48, 11414.03, 10245.30, 10511.81, 10169.57, 10280.35, 10369.56, 10131.52, 10242.35, 10363.14, 10400.92, 10442.17, 10323.76, 10680.84, 10796.95, 10974.91, 10948.99, 10944.59, 11094.35, 10938.27, 10462.26, 10538.46, 10246.19, 10760.07, 10692.72, 10750.72, 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41, 10668.97, 10915.69, 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25, 13654.22, 13271.29, 13437.88, 13546.52, 13781.00, 13737.11, 13550.49, 13950.30, 14133.71, 15579.85, 15565.88, 14833.75, 15479.57.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2020-11-08]
Volume: 26632075029, RSI (14-day): 74.14, 50-day EMA: 12608.12, 200-day EMA: 10761.64
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President: Joe Biden’s picks to head key regulatory agencies could redefine cryptocurrency policy in the coming years, although it’s unclear exactly how. The Associated Press declared on Saturday that Biden, the Democratic nominee, beat President Donald Trump, a first-term Republican, in an election that was marked by division and the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the former vice president didn’t highlight crypto issues in his campaign, some of Biden’s supporters hope he will advocate for reform on tech policies, while major companies are hoping to escape antitrust investigations. To be sure, at press time Trump had not conceded and protracted court challenges remain a possibility given the closeness of the race and the polarized environment (though Trump’s campaign has already lost several legal battles and concession is a tradition, not a requirement ). Related: First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster The price of bitcoin fell as the prospect of a stable transition of power disappointed holders expecting an inconclusive election – with multiple recounts – and an economy hamstrung by a lack of stimulus would hurt the U.S. dollar, according to Noelle Acheson, director of research at CoinDesk. “With a victory declared, the ‘chaos factor’ diminishes, but the currency debasement theory still holds. Delayed but intact,” Acheson said, adding that a Biden administration together with a Republican Senate will mean easier monetary policy, which would push up the value of assets with finite supply. At press time, the price of bitcoin (BTC) was down more than 4.5% to $14,866.11, after earlier dropping to as low as $14,612,52. As to how a Biden administration will actually treat cryptocurrencies, little is known from Biden’s record as all but one of his 40+ years as a senator from Delaware occurred prior to the publication of Satoshi Nakamoto’s now-famous white paper that laid out the principles and workings of bitcoin. The nearest hint we have from his record is that close to three decades ago, Biden introduced a pair of bills that would have outlawed encryption, inadvertently spurring the development of PGP keys. Story continues Related: US Seized More Than $1B in Silk Road–Linked Bitcoins, Seeks Forfeiture His main impact is likely to come from who he nominates to head up the U.S.’s federal financial regulators. The president-elect has so far kept a tight lid on who his campaign will nominate to key positions, but his top pick to run the U.S. Treasury Department is reportedly Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard , who is overseeing the Boston Fed’s research into a digital dollar . On the other hand, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler may also be tapped to help Biden’s team plan out oversight of Wall Street, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Gensler called blockchain technology a “change catalyst” in a 2019 CoinDesk op-ed . “We’re not hearing many names floating around for the other positions,” Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, told CoinDesk last month. There could be “a lot of change” in how the U.S. approaches cryptocurrencies under a Biden presidency, though it’s up in the air whether that is good or bad for the industry, Smith said. “If we’re looking at the administration, I think our ideal scenario is to have someone with a strong familiarity with those positions,” she said. Read more: Election 2020: What’s at Stake for the Crypto Industry John Collins, a partner at advisory firm FS Vector, told CoinDesk last month that while crypto is likely to be a low priority for the incoming administration given the economy and other pressing issues, the space should still have room to grow. “Things like the crypto custody guidance for banks , I don’t see that going anywhere. I wouldn’t expect a Biden [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] to withdraw that but I also think it’ll be difficult to get some blanket acceptance of all token sales,” he said. “There’s an understanding, though, that financial services is changing and the regulatory structure needs to be dynamic and change with it, and crypto and digital currencies and open payment networks are a big part of that.” Collins also said Biden’s term is likely to see political appointees who come from the crypto sector, which have been rare so far. Indeed, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s team already includes Ryan Montoya, the former chief technology officer at the Sacramento Kings, who oversaw the NBA team’s use of various blockchain-related tools and platforms , according to Decrypt Media . UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2020, 17:35 UTC): This article has been updated to note that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s team includes former Kings CTO Ryan Montoya and adds additional comment. UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2020, 23:38 UTC): This article has been updated to add comments by Noelle Acheson, director of research at CoinDesk, on bitcoin’s price activity. UPDATE (Nov. 8, 00:10 UTC): Added background on Gary Gensler’s views on blockchain tech. Related Stories Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President || Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President: Joe Biden’s picks to head key regulatory agencies could redefine cryptocurrency policy in the coming years, although it’s unclear exactly how. The Associated Press declared on Saturday that Biden, the Democratic nominee, beat President Donald Trump, a first-term Republican, in an election that was marked by division and the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the former vice president didn’t highlight crypto issues in his campaign, some of Biden’s supporters hope he will advocate for reform on tech policies, while major companies are hoping to escape antitrust investigations. To be sure, at press time Trump had not conceded and protracted court challenges remain a possibility given the closeness of the race and the polarized environment (though Trump’s campaign has already lost several legal battles and concession is a tradition, not a requirement ). Related: First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster The price of bitcoin fell as the prospect of a stable transition of power disappointed holders expecting an inconclusive election – with multiple recounts – and an economy hamstrung by a lack of stimulus would hurt the U.S. dollar, according to Noelle Acheson, director of research at CoinDesk. “With a victory declared, the ‘chaos factor’ diminishes, but the currency debasement theory still holds. Delayed but intact,” Acheson said, adding that a Biden administration together with a Republican Senate will mean easier monetary policy, which would push up the value of assets with finite supply. At press time, the price of bitcoin (BTC) was down more than 4.5% to $14,866.11, after earlier dropping to as low as $14,612,52. As to how a Biden administration will actually treat cryptocurrencies, little is known from Biden’s record as all but one of his 40+ years as a senator from Delaware occurred prior to the publication of Satoshi Nakamoto’s now-famous white paper that laid out the principles and workings of bitcoin. The nearest hint we have from his record is that close to three decades ago, Biden introduced a pair of bills that would have outlawed encryption, inadvertently spurring the development of PGP keys. Story continues Related: US Seized More Than $1B in Silk Road–Linked Bitcoins, Seeks Forfeiture His main impact is likely to come from who he nominates to head up the U.S.’s federal financial regulators. The president-elect has so far kept a tight lid on who his campaign will nominate to key positions, but his top pick to run the U.S. Treasury Department is reportedly Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard , who is overseeing the Boston Fed’s research into a digital dollar . On the other hand, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler may also be tapped to help Biden’s team plan out oversight of Wall Street, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Gensler called blockchain technology a “change catalyst” in a 2019 CoinDesk op-ed . “We’re not hearing many names floating around for the other positions,” Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, told CoinDesk last month. There could be “a lot of change” in how the U.S. approaches cryptocurrencies under a Biden presidency, though it’s up in the air whether that is good or bad for the industry, Smith said. “If we’re looking at the administration, I think our ideal scenario is to have someone with a strong familiarity with those positions,” she said. Read more: Election 2020: What’s at Stake for the Crypto Industry John Collins, a partner at advisory firm FS Vector, told CoinDesk last month that while crypto is likely to be a low priority for the incoming administration given the economy and other pressing issues, the space should still have room to grow. “Things like the crypto custody guidance for banks , I don’t see that going anywhere. I wouldn’t expect a Biden [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] to withdraw that but I also think it’ll be difficult to get some blanket acceptance of all token sales,” he said. “There’s an understanding, though, that financial services is changing and the regulatory structure needs to be dynamic and change with it, and crypto and digital currencies and open payment networks are a big part of that.” Collins also said Biden’s term is likely to see political appointees who come from the crypto sector, which have been rare so far. Indeed, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s team already includes Ryan Montoya, the former chief technology officer at the Sacramento Kings, who oversaw the NBA team’s use of various blockchain-related tools and platforms , according to Decrypt Media . UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2020, 17:35 UTC): This article has been updated to note that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s team includes former Kings CTO Ryan Montoya and adds additional comment. UPDATE (Nov. 7, 2020, 23:38 UTC): This article has been updated to add comments by Noelle Acheson, director of research at CoinDesk, on bitcoin’s price activity. UPDATE (Nov. 8, 00:10 UTC): Added background on Gary Gensler’s views on blockchain tech. Related Stories Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President || Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It: Mutual fund legendBill Miller told CNBC Friday the risks of bitcoin going to zero are “lower than they’ve ever been before” and predicted more institutional investment in the cryptocurrency.
“Thebitcoinstory is very easy. It’s supply and demand,” Miller said. “Bitcoin’s supply is growing around 2.5% a year and the demand is growing faster than that.”
When he was managing the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust Fund, Millerbeat the S&P 500 for 15 years. He’s now the chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners. In December 2017, Miller revealed that his MVP1 hedge fund hadhalf of its investments in bitcoin.
Related:First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster
On Friday, Miller warned of inflation “coming back” with the Federal Reserve “gunning the money supply” and future fiscal relief coming from Congress.
Following MicroStrategy’spurchase of $425 million in bitcoin, Square’s$50 million bitcoin investmentand PayPal’ssupport of crypto buying and selling on its platform, Miller said every major investment bank and high-net-worth firm will eventually have exposure to bitcoin or commodities like gold. He added that bitcoin has performed well over the past three-, five- and 10-year periods.
Miller, who serves on the investment committee for the endowment of Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, said the endowment’s chief investment officer told him that “everybody is going to want to own at least some bitcoin” because of its “asymmetric properties.”
“[The endowment] may never own bitcoin,” Miller said. Yet, “for a college endowment that’s a bold statement,” he added.
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It || Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It: Mutual fund legendBill Miller told CNBC Friday the risks of bitcoin going to zero are “lower than they’ve ever been before” and predicted more institutional investment in the cryptocurrency.
“Thebitcoinstory is very easy. It’s supply and demand,” Miller said. “Bitcoin’s supply is growing around 2.5% a year and the demand is growing faster than that.”
When he was managing the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust Fund, Millerbeat the S&P 500 for 15 years. He’s now the chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners. In December 2017, Miller revealed that his MVP1 hedge fund hadhalf of its investments in bitcoin.
Related:First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster
On Friday, Miller warned of inflation “coming back” with the Federal Reserve “gunning the money supply” and future fiscal relief coming from Congress.
Following MicroStrategy’spurchase of $425 million in bitcoin, Square’s$50 million bitcoin investmentand PayPal’ssupport of crypto buying and selling on its platform, Miller said every major investment bank and high-net-worth firm will eventually have exposure to bitcoin or commodities like gold. He added that bitcoin has performed well over the past three-, five- and 10-year periods.
Miller, who serves on the investment committee for the endowment of Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, said the endowment’s chief investment officer told him that “everybody is going to want to own at least some bitcoin” because of its “asymmetric properties.”
“[The endowment] may never own bitcoin,” Miller said. Yet, “for a college endowment that’s a bold statement,” he added.
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It
• Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It || Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It: Mutual fund legend Bill Miller told CNBC Friday the risks of bitcoin going to zero are lower than theyve ever been before and predicted more institutional investment in the cryptocurrency. The bitcoin story is very easy. Its supply and demand, Miller said. Bitcoins supply is growing around 2.5% a year and the demand is growing faster than that. When he was managing the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust Fund, Miller beat the S&P 500 for 15 years . Hes now the chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners. In December 2017, Miller revealed that his MVP1 hedge fund had half of its investments in bitcoin . Related: First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster On Friday, Miller warned of inflation coming back with the Federal Reserve gunning the money supply and future fiscal relief coming from Congress. Following MicroStrategys purchase of $425 million in bitcoin , Squares $50 million bitcoin investment and PayPals support of crypto buying and selling on its platform , Miller said every major investment bank and high-net-worth firm will eventually have exposure to bitcoin or commodities like gold. He added that bitcoin has performed well over the past three-, five- and 10-year periods. Miller, who serves on the investment committee for the endowment of Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University, said the endowments chief investment officer told him that everybody is going to want to own at least some bitcoin because of its asymmetric properties. [The endowment] may never own bitcoin, Miller said. Yet, for a college endowment thats a bold statement, he added. Related Stories Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It Veteran Investor Bill Miller Says Every Major Investment Bank Will Own Bitcoin or Something Like It || How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP: Hany Rashwan, CEO of Amun/21Shares, explains how the proverbial bitcoin lightbulb went off when his native Egypt’s currency devalued in 2016.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.comandNexo.io.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Nov. 9, 2020
Hany Rashwan is the CEO of Amun/21Shares, the creator of a variety of publicly traded crypto products with over $100 million assets under management.
In this conversation, he and NLW discuss:
• How he was introduced tobitcoinby Tim Draper in 2012
• How the Egyptian revolution and challenges that followed influenced his thinking
• How a 48% overnight devaluation of the Egyptian pound created the “aha” moment aroundbitcoin
• How bitcoin could become the global reserve currency
Find Hany Rashwan online:Twitter:twitter.com/hanyWebsite:21shares.com
See also:Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East
Related:'Where Banks Go, Regulation Follows.' Why Institutional Acceptance Is a Double-Edged Sword for Crypto, Feat. Ajit Tripathi
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP
• How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP || How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP: Hany Rashwan, CEO of Amun/21Shares, explains how the proverbial bitcoin lightbulb went off when his native Egypt’s currency devalued in 2016. For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com and Nexo.io . Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for Nov. 9, 2020 Hany Rashwan is the CEO of Amun/21Shares, the creator of a variety of publicly traded crypto products with over $100 million assets under management. In this conversation, he and NLW discuss: How he was introduced to bitcoin by Tim Draper in 2012 How the Egyptian revolution and challenges that followed influenced his thinking How a 48% overnight devaluation of the Egyptian pound created the “aha” moment around bitcoin How bitcoin could become the global reserve currency Find Hany Rashwan online: Twitter: twitter.com/hany Website: 21shares.com See also: Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East Related: 'Where Banks Go, Regulation Follows.' Why Institutional Acceptance Is a Double-Edged Sword for Crypto, Feat. Ajit Tripathi For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . Related Stories How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP || How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP: Hany Rashwan, CEO of Amun/21Shares, explains how the proverbial bitcoin lightbulb went off when his native Egypt’s currency devalued in 2016.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.comandNexo.io.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Nov. 9, 2020
Hany Rashwan is the CEO of Amun/21Shares, the creator of a variety of publicly traded crypto products with over $100 million assets under management.
In this conversation, he and NLW discuss:
• How he was introduced tobitcoinby Tim Draper in 2012
• How the Egyptian revolution and challenges that followed influenced his thinking
• How a 48% overnight devaluation of the Egyptian pound created the “aha” moment aroundbitcoin
• How bitcoin could become the global reserve currency
Find Hany Rashwan online:Twitter:twitter.com/hanyWebsite:21shares.com
See also:Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East
Related:'Where Banks Go, Regulation Follows.' Why Institutional Acceptance Is a Double-Edged Sword for Crypto, Feat. Ajit Tripathi
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP
• How a Massive Devaluation of the Egyptian Pound Inspired a $100M Bitcoin ETP || Fintech Focus Roundup For November 7, 2020: Fintech Header Quantopian Joins Robinhood To Unlock Finance The Nitty-Gritty: Founded in 2011 to inspire and unlock access to algorithmic investing, Quantopian’s co-founder and CTO John Fawcett released a blog post on his team’s intent to integrate with commission-free broker Robinhood. “The Quantopian team is joining Robinhood to continue to pursue our passion for opening access to markets and democratizing the financial system,” he said. “Quantopian has always stood for greater access and deeper education, so we are fundamentally aligned with Robinhood’s mission to democratize finance for all.” The development comes after the firm raised nearly $50 million in funds with participation from some well-known investors including Point72 Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Anthemis Group, among others. The company used the funds to spur the development of algorithmically-driven strategies that minimize risk through a combination of long and short positions. After mixed success evaluating new opportunities to derive alpha as well as provide value to participating creators and investors, the firm decided it will retire its community and related services on Nov. 14, 2020. Fintech Awards Finalist: Wilshire Phoenix About Wilshire Phoenix: Founded in 2018, Wilshire Phoenix is a fintech specializing in investor experiences. The company is at the forefront of financial innovation, tracking and analyzing shifting financial landscapes to develop products for the various challenges investors face. Core Product: Wilshire Phoenix allows investors exposure to emerging market trends not traditionally covered by existing products. The company’s core product portfolio consists of the following funds which are currently in registration with the SEC: wShares Enhanced Gold Trust wShares Bitcoin Commodity Trust Innovation Outlook: Going forward, Wilshire Phoenix looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the ETF and index fund space. It will accomplish this by expanding its wShares product offering through proprietary methodologies. Story continues “Launching wShares is a testament to all the hard work that our team has devoted over the past few years,” said managing partner William Herrmann. “We’re now one step closer to bringing our products to market. We thrive on pushing boundaries and will continue to do so. Investors deserve better access to differentiated strategies.” Fintech Awards Finalist: Accern About Accern: Founded in 2014, Accern specializes in AI workflows for enterprises. The company is a pioneer in the no-code industry, allowing leading organizations, such as Allianz SE, IBM Corporation, and Jefferies Financial Group, the ability to build and deploy AI solutions with ease. Core Product: Accern comes as a holistic solution for scaling AI adoption in tech-focused organizations. The company’s core product portfolio consists of solutions catered to the following industries: Asset Managers: Uncover ideas, accelerate portfolio intelligence, and manage risk. Asset Owners: Perform due diligence, monitor external investments, and manage risk. Wealth Managers: Provide client-specific advice and product recommendations. Quantitative Managers: Create alternative data sets, and construct investment signals. Private Markets: Screening, enhanced due diligence, and monitor portfolio companies. Insurance: Detect fraud, improve underwriting and distribution, and automate claims. Banking: Improve lending decisions, increase coverage, and manage risk. Innovation Outlook: Going forward, Accern looks to be on the front lines of innovation in AI-driven workflows for enterprises. It will accomplish this through a focus on scale and know-how. “Our plan is to continue to innovate our product and to provide the best no-code AI platform to asset management, insurance, and banking sectors. We will also be expanding into other sectors like healthcare and technology later,” said co-founder and CEO Kumesh Aroomoogan. Fintech Awards Sponsor: Envestnet | Yodlee About Envestnet | Yodlee: Envestnet | Yodlee is the leading data aggregation and analytics platform enabling innovation and insights for financial service providers. Envestnet | Yodlee has proudly fueled digital financial innovation for more than 20 years and partners with more than 1,400 financial institutions and FinTechs to help consumers achieve better financial lives. Core Product: Envestnet | Yodlee comes as a provider of personal financial management, payments, and customer acquisition solutions, allowing organizations to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The company’s core product portfolio consists of data, apps, and API solutions for the following industries: FinTech Wealth Management Financial Wellness Retail and Open Banking Payments Innovation Outlook: Going forward, Envestnet | Yodlee looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the fintech space. It will accomplish this by exploiting disruptive technologies to deliver on feedback-driven initiatives. "The innovations we continue to develop at Envestnet, which are driven by feedback from our advisor partners, each play a role in streamlining the user experience—and improving outcomes for clients—across our ecosystem," said Stuart DePina, President of Envestnet. "These product enhancements further simplify workflows for advisors to make it easier for them to deliver financial wellness to more people." Fintech Awards Finalist: ViewTrade About ViewTrade: Founded more than 20 years ago, ViewTrade Holding Corporation, through its subsidiaries, ViewTrade Securities and Orbis Systems, is helping financial firms accelerate innovation. Global fintech firms, startups, banks, broker-dealers, and advisors look to ViewTrade to achieve their business vision of enabling investors a convenient and streamlined way to trade in U.S. equity markets. Core Product: ViewTrade has developed technology that reduces implementation time and lowers costs to help financial firms focus on their clients' experience. Firms can choose which cloud-based APIs and services to integrate selecting from a growing number of offerings: Account onboarding Digital KYC and AML checks Electronic capture of ID cards Electronic agreements Electronic W-8 BEN form processing Real-time bank account linking Cross-border funding APIs Fractional share trading Robo allocations Market insight, news, research, and data Innovation Outlook: Going forward, ViewTrade looks to be on the front lines of financial services innovation. It will accomplish this through a focus on technology. “Over the last 20 years, ViewTrade has provided solutions to help banks, broker-dealers, advisors, and fintech firms spanning 4 continents achieve success offering their customers access to the U.S. markets,” said Jody Giraldo, Director of Institutional Sales at ViewTrade Securities. “Through our ever-expanding suite of APIs, regulatory technology (regtech), trading technology and service options, we can assist your firm in exploring new revenue generating opportunities, and we can help your firm stay compliant with IRS, FINRA and SEC regulations so you can focus on your business growth.” Fintech Awards Finalist: Dama Financial About ViewTrade: Founded in 2016, Dama Financial is a fintech specializing in secure banking for cash-intensive businesses. More specifically, the company is a financial services provider in the FDIC-insured banking space, allowing cannabis businesses access to flexible merchant processing, payments, and cash management solutions. Core Product: Dama Financial comes as a holistic solution for compliant cannabis banking, allowing customers holistic access to electronic cannabis and hemp trading, invoicing and payments tech, and premier business banking. The company’s core product portfolio consists of the following products: Premier: Full-suite of banking products for cannabis-related companies. CashToTax: A secure and convenient way to make electronic tax payments. Paytender: Scan-and-go payments with one-day settlements. Invoices: Send and track invoices and accept payments from partners. Trading: Make cash or ACH payments for cannabis orders on online markets. Innovation Outlook: Going forward, Dama Financial looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the cannabis banking space. It will accomplish this through tech innovation and partnerships. “We are creating the comprehensive critical financial architecture to empower the cannabis industry to operate as if it were a non-cannabis related industry. We’re providing access to solutions which CRBs desperately need. And, we continue to evolve by creating new products and services by listening to our customers and the industry at large and build solutions for their financial needs, which is both exciting and invigorating,” said CRO Eric Kaufman. Disrupting The $60B Bottled Water Industry What Happened: Boxed Water Is Better, a sustainable packaged water alternative available nationwide and online, released a life cycle study conducted by Anthesis Group on Oct. 27 that compares the environmental impacts of plastic, aluminum and Boxed Water containers. What Is Boxed Water: Boxed Water, a Michigan-based firm co-founded in 2009 by Benjamin Gott, provides a better alternative, CMO Robert Koenen told Benzinga. The company is best known for its purified water in 92% plant-based sustainable packaging. “10 years ago, this company was founded by a couple of millennials who saw plastic everywhere, and they thought there must be a better way,” the CMO said. “So, we’re taking on big soda because they’re the ones producing up to 69 billion bottles every year right now, 90% of which go to landfills or oceans.” Raising Awareness For Criminal Justice Reform What Happened: A growing genre in podcasting is true crime, which brings to life the motivations and back stories of gruesome crimes. Benzinga chatted with Talia Goetting, co-host of "Crimes & Consequences," to discuss the genre of true crime — and how she’s helping make an impact on the criminal justice system, while keeping listeners entertained. Platform To Make An Impact: Many times, the podcast examines cases of wrongful conviction, helping bring to light systemic issues in criminal justice and the struggles ex-prisoners face reintegrating into society. For example, in one episode, "Crimes & Consequences" detailed the brutal rape and attempted murder of a Michigan woman. One of the men involved in the case was found innocent, but failed to regain the confidence and trust of his peers. The man listened to the podcast and contacted Goetting. “I got an email from him saying that he listened to our podcast episode on his story and he loved it. He never had somebody that supported him [and] that most people thought he got out on a technicality, even though he was found to be completely innocent,” she said. Since the encounter, "Crimes & Consequences" increased its focus on cases involving wrongful convictions, suggesting the podcast does a good job of getting listeners engaged in justice reform. “It’s a huge problem in the United States and we’re starting to focus a little bit more on exoneration cases because there are wrongful convictions happening every day in America,” Goetting said. It's a systemic issue, she said, with bias among police and prosecutors. Though Goetting said modern innovations like DNA technology reduce the number of wrongful convictions, it’s education that matters most to create systemic justice reform. “If you can get the public to be aware of the problems, that puts pressure on the rest of the system to make changes, so we’re trying to bring awareness to that.” See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Quantopian Joins Robinhood To 'Democratize Finance For All' Fintech Focus For November 6, 2020 © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus Roundup For November 7, 2020: Quantopian Joins Robinhood To Unlock Finance
The Nitty-Gritty:Founded in 2011 to inspire and unlock access to algorithmic investing, Quantopian’s co-founder and CTO John Fawcett released a blog post on his team’s intent to integrate with commission-free broker Robinhood.
“The Quantopian team is joining Robinhood to continue to pursue our passion for opening access to markets and democratizing the financial system,” he said. “Quantopian has always stood for greater access and deeper education, so we are fundamentally aligned with Robinhood’s mission to democratize finance for all.”
The development comes after the firm raised nearly $50 million in funds with participation from some well-known investors including Point72 Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Anthemis Group, among others. The company used the funds to spur the development of algorithmically-driven strategies that minimize risk through a combination of long and short positions.
After mixed success evaluating new opportunities to derive alpha as well as provide value to participating creators and investors, the firm decided it will retire its community and related services on Nov. 14, 2020.
Fintech Awards Finalist: Wilshire Phoenix
About Wilshire Phoenix:Founded in 2018, Wilshire Phoenix is a fintech specializing in investor experiences. The company is at the forefront of financial innovation, tracking and analyzing shifting financial landscapes to develop products for the various challenges investors face.
Core Product:Wilshire Phoenix allows investors exposure to emerging market trends not traditionally covered by existing products.
The company’s core product portfolio consists of the following funds which are currently in registration with the SEC:
• wShares Enhanced Gold Trust
• wShares Bitcoin Commodity Trust
Innovation Outlook:Going forward, Wilshire Phoenix looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the ETF and index fund space. It will accomplish this by expanding its wShares product offering through proprietary methodologies.
“Launching wShares is a testament to all the hard work that our team has devoted over the past few years,” said managing partner William Herrmann. “We’re now one step closer to bringing our products to market. We thrive on pushing boundaries and will continue to do so. Investors deserve better access to differentiated strategies.”
Fintech Awards Finalist: Accern
About Accern:Founded in 2014, Accern specializes in AI workflows for enterprises. The company is a pioneer in the no-code industry, allowing leading organizations, such as Allianz SE, IBM Corporation, and Jefferies Financial Group, the ability to build and deploy AI solutions with ease.
Core Product:Accern comes as a holistic solution for scaling AI adoption in tech-focused organizations.
The company’s core product portfolio consists of solutions catered to the following industries:
• Asset Managers:Uncover ideas, accelerate portfolio intelligence, and manage risk.
• Asset Owners:Perform due diligence, monitor external investments, and manage risk.
• Wealth Managers:Provide client-specific advice and product recommendations.
• Quantitative Managers:Create alternative data sets, and construct investment signals.
• Private Markets:Screening, enhanced due diligence, and monitor portfolio companies.
• Insurance:Detect fraud, improve underwriting and distribution, and automate claims.
• Banking:Improve lending decisions, increase coverage, and manage risk.
Innovation Outlook:Going forward, Accern looks to be on the front lines of innovation in AI-driven workflows for enterprises. It will accomplish this through a focus on scale and know-how.
“Our plan is to continue to innovate our product and to provide the best no-code AI platform to asset management, insurance, and banking sectors. We will also be expanding into other sectors like healthcare and technology later,” said co-founder and CEO Kumesh Aroomoogan.
Fintech Awards Sponsor: Envestnet | Yodlee
About Envestnet | Yodlee:Envestnet | Yodlee is the leading data aggregation and analytics platform enabling innovation and insights for financial service providers. Envestnet | Yodlee has proudly fueled digital financial innovation for more than 20 years and partners with more than 1,400 financial institutions and FinTechs to help consumers achieve better financial lives.
Core Product:Envestnet | Yodlee comes as a provider of personal financial management, payments, and customer acquisition solutions, allowing organizations to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
The company’s core product portfolio consists of data, apps, and API solutions for the following industries:
• FinTech
• Wealth Management
• Financial Wellness
• Retail and Open Banking
• Payments
Innovation Outlook:Going forward, Envestnet | Yodlee looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the fintech space. It will accomplish this by exploiting disruptive technologies to deliver on feedback-driven initiatives.
"The innovations we continue to develop at Envestnet, which are driven by feedback from our advisor partners, each play a role in streamlining the user experience—and improving outcomes for clients—across our ecosystem," said Stuart DePina, President of Envestnet. "These product enhancements further simplify workflows for advisors to make it easier for them to deliver financial wellness to more people."
Fintech Awards Finalist: ViewTrade
About ViewTrade:Founded more than 20 years ago, ViewTrade Holding Corporation, through its subsidiaries, ViewTrade Securities and Orbis Systems, is helping financial firms accelerate innovation. Global fintech firms, startups, banks, broker-dealers, and advisors look to ViewTrade to achieve their business vision of enabling investors a convenient and streamlined way to trade in U.S. equity markets.
Core Product:ViewTrade has developed technology that reduces implementation time and lowers costs to help financial firms focus on their clients' experience.
Firms can choose which cloud-based APIs and services to integrate selecting from a growing number of offerings:
• Account onboarding
• Digital KYC and AML checks
• Electronic capture of ID cards
• Electronic agreements
• Electronic W-8 BEN form processing
• Real-time bank account linking
• Cross-border funding APIs
• Fractional share trading
• Robo allocations
• Market insight, news, research, and data
Innovation Outlook:Going forward, ViewTrade looks to be on the front lines of financial services innovation. It will accomplish this through a focus on technology.
“Over the last 20 years, ViewTrade has provided solutions to help banks, broker-dealers, advisors, and fintech firms spanning 4 continents achieve success offering their customers access to the U.S. markets,” said Jody Giraldo, Director of Institutional Sales at ViewTrade Securities.
“Through our ever-expanding suite of APIs, regulatory technology (regtech), trading technology and service options, we can assist your firm in exploring new revenue generating opportunities, and we can help your firm stay compliant with IRS, FINRA and SEC regulations so you can focus on your business growth.”
Fintech Awards Finalist: Dama Financial
About ViewTrade:Founded in 2016, Dama Financial is a fintech specializing in secure banking for cash-intensive businesses. More specifically, the company is a financial services provider in the FDIC-insured banking space, allowing cannabis businesses access to flexible merchant processing, payments, and cash management solutions.
Core Product:Dama Financial comes as a holistic solution for compliant cannabis banking, allowing customers holistic access to electronic cannabis and hemp trading, invoicing and payments tech, and premier business banking.
The company’s core product portfolio consists of the following products:
• Premier:Full-suite of banking products for cannabis-related companies.
• CashToTax:A secure and convenient way to make electronic tax payments.
• Paytender:Scan-and-go payments with one-day settlements.
• Invoices:Send and track invoices and accept payments from partners.
• Trading:Make cash or ACH payments for cannabis orders on online markets.
Innovation Outlook:Going forward, Dama Financial looks to be on the front lines of innovation in the cannabis banking space. It will accomplish this through tech innovation and partnerships.
“We are creating the comprehensive critical financial architecture to empower the cannabis industry to operate as if it were a non-cannabis related industry. We’re providing access to solutions which CRBs desperately need. And, we continue to evolve by creating new products and services by listening to our customers and the industry at large and build solutions for their financial needs, which is both exciting and invigorating,” said CRO Eric Kaufman.
Disrupting The $60B Bottled Water Industry
What Happened:Boxed Water Is Better, a sustainable packaged water alternative available nationwide and online, released a life cycle study conducted by Anthesis Group on Oct. 27 that compares the environmental impacts of plastic, aluminum and Boxed Water containers.
What Is Boxed Water:Boxed Water, a Michigan-based firm co-founded in 2009 by Benjamin Gott, provides a better alternative, CMO Robert Koenen told Benzinga. The company is best known for its purified water in 92% plant-based sustainable packaging.
“10 years ago, this company was founded by a couple of millennials who saw plastic everywhere, and they thought there must be a better way,” the CMO said.
“So, we’re taking on big soda because they’re the ones producing up to 69 billion bottles every year right now, 90% of which go to landfills or oceans.”
Raising Awareness For Criminal Justice Reform
What Happened:A growing genre in podcasting is true crime, which brings to life the motivations and back stories of gruesome crimes.
Benzinga chatted with Talia Goetting, co-host of "Crimes & Consequences," to discuss the genre of true crime — and how she’s helping make an impact on the criminal justice system, while keeping listeners entertained.
Platform To Make An Impact:Many times, the podcast examines cases of wrongful conviction, helping bring to light systemic issues in criminal justice and the struggles ex-prisoners face reintegrating into society.
For example, in one episode, "Crimes & Consequences" detailed the brutal rape and attempted murder of a Michigan woman.
One of the men involved in the case was found innocent, but failed to regain the confidence and trust of his peers.
The man listened to the podcast and contacted Goetting.
“I got an email from him saying that he listened to our podcast episode on his story and he loved it. He never had somebody that supported him [and] that most people thought he got out on a technicality, even though he was found to be completely innocent,” she said.
Since the encounter, "Crimes & Consequences" increased its focus on cases involving wrongful convictions, suggesting the podcast does a good job of getting listeners engaged in justice reform.
“It’s a huge problem in the United States and we’re starting to focus a little bit more on exoneration cases because there are wrongful convictions happening every day in America,” Goetting said.
It's a systemic issue, she said, with bias among police and prosecutors.
Though Goetting said modern innovations like DNA technology reduce the number of wrongful convictions, it’s education that matters most to create systemic justice reform.
“If you can get the public to be aware of the problems, that puts pressure on the rest of the system to make changes, so we’re trying to bring awareness to that.”
See more from Benzinga
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© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 7th, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 0.03% on Friday. Consolidating Thursday’s 10.01% breakout, Bitcoin ended the day at $15,572.9.
It was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin rallied to an early morning intraday high $15,888.0 before hitting reverse.
Falling sort of the first major resistance level at $16,160, Bitcoin slid to a late intraday low $15,179.0.
Steering well clear of the first major support level at $14,540, Bitcoin bounced back to $15,600 levels before easing back to sub-$16,000 levels. A final hour move reversed the losses from earlier in the day.
The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest move through to $15,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $6,400 to form a near-term bearish trend.
Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Friday.
Crypto.com Coin fell by 1.27% to buck the trend on the day.
It was a particularly bullish day for the rest of the majors, however.
Cardano’s ADA and Chainlink surged by 12.11% and by 10.78% respectively to lead the way
Ethereum (+9.43%), Litecoin (+7.23%), Polkadot (+8.53%), and Ripple’s XRP (5.12%) also found strong support.
Binance Coin (+4.97%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+2.38%), and Bitcoin Cash SV (+3.25%), trailed the front runners.
For the current week, the crypto total market cap fell to a Tuesday low $379.41bn before hitting a Friday high $456.16bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $447.23bn.
Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Monday low 63.16% before rising to a Friday high 66.51%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 64.87%.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.24% to $15,610.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $15,534.0 before rising to a high $15,655.0.
Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Elsewhere, it was a bullish start to the day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC (+1.66%), Chainlink (1.93%), and Ethereum (+1.46%) led the way.
Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall through the pivot level at $15,547 to bring the first major resistance level at $15,914 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $15,888.0.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $16,000 would likely cap any upside.
In the event of another crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $16,256 and resistance at $16,500.
Failure to avoid a fall through the $15,547 pivot would bring the first major support level at $15,205 into play.
Barring an extended crypto sell-off, Bitcoin should continue to steer clear of sub-$15,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $14,838.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Attempt to Recovery
• European Equities: A Week in Review – 06/11/20
• Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Drop Through Trendline Support on Warm Weather Forecast
• Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Fills The Gap
• Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Have Strong Week || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 7th, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 0.03% on Friday. Consolidating Thursday’s 10.01% breakout, Bitcoin ended the day at $15,572.9. It was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin rallied to an early morning intraday high $15,888.0 before hitting reverse. Falling sort of the first major resistance level at $16,160, Bitcoin slid to a late intraday low $15,179.0. Steering well clear of the first major support level at $14,540, Bitcoin bounced back to $15,600 levels before easing back to sub-$16,000 levels. A final hour move reversed the losses from earlier in the day. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest move through to $15,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $6,400 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Friday. Crypto.com Coin fell by 1.27% to buck the trend on the day. It was a particularly bullish day for the rest of the majors, however. Cardano’s ADA and Chainlink surged by 12.11% and by 10.78% respectively to lead the way Ethereum (+9.43%), Litecoin (+7.23%), Polkadot (+8.53%), and Ripple’s XRP (5.12%) also found strong support. Binance Coin (+4.97%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+2.38%), and Bitcoin Cash SV (+3.25%), trailed the front runners. For the current week, the crypto total market cap fell to a Tuesday low $379.41bn before hitting a Friday high $456.16bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $447.23bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Monday low 63.16% before rising to a Friday high 66.51%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 64.87%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.24% to $15,610.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $15,534.0 before rising to a high $15,655.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a bullish start to the day. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC (+1.66%), Chainlink (1.93%), and Ethereum (+1.46%) led the way. Story continues For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall through the pivot level at $15,547 to bring the first major resistance level at $15,914 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $15,888.0. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $16,000 would likely cap any upside. In the event of another crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $16,256 and resistance at $16,500. Failure to avoid a fall through the $15,547 pivot would bring the first major support level at $15,205 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, Bitcoin should continue to steer clear of sub-$15,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $14,838. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue to Grind Higher Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Attempt to Recovery European Equities: A Week in Review – 06/11/20 Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Drop Through Trendline Support on Warm Weather Forecast Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Fills The Gap Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Have Strong Week || The 3 Big Market Events From This Week: The U.S. presidential election remains undecided going into the weekend, as state officials continue to tally votes in battleground states including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada.
Source: Shutterstock
More than 159 million Americans voted in the presidential election, but it looks likes recounts could happen in at least Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
Hopefully a winner is called soon, but in the meantime, Wall Street doesn’t seem worried.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
In fact, it’s been celebrating the prospect of gridlock in Washington D.C. as the Senate appears it will remain in Republican control. The Dow rose 6.2% this week through Thursday and is taking a breather today.
While the elections consumed most of the media’s bandwidth this week, China’s online and mobile commerce leader,Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.(NYSE:BABA) made headlines Tuesday when its potential subsidiary, the financial services company Ant Group, had its IPO on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges suspended two days before the planned public debut.
The IPO was set to become the biggest of all time, topping Saudi Amarco’s 2019 public offering that raised $29.4 billion.
Ant Group is widely known for operating China’s most used digital wallet, Alipay, which has over 900 million users in China alone. Alipay launched in 2004, and is also known for running one of the largest money market funds in the world. It’s more recently expanded into wealth management, micro loans and other financial technology services.
In 2011, Alibaba sold Alipay to a group owned by Alibaba co-founder, Jack Ma. In 2018, Alibaba then bought a 33% stake in Ant Financial, Ant Group’s earlier incarnation.
Ant Group’s impending IPO was scuttled shortly after Ma apparently made public statements criticizing China’s financial regulators and banks, which he claimed were holding back growth and are in need of reform.
China’s regulators didn’t take kindly to Ma’s public criticisms and suspended the IPO indefinitely. As a result, the stock dropped like a rock – falling over 8% the same day.
On Thursday, BABA released results for its second quarter in fiscal year 2021. Annual active consumers on Alibaba’s sites climbed to 757 million and mobile monthly users rose to 881 million, as the company’s “domestic core commerce business continues to grow steadily” in the wake of the pandemic in China.
The stock bounced back a bit today but is still down for the week.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap,bitcoin(BTC), soared to its highest level since January 2018 on Thursday, piercing through $15,000. So far this year, bitcoin is up nearly 109%.
According toCoindesk, the number of accounts holding the cryptocurrency keeps rising with the price, which likely means more and more retail investors are dipping into the crypto market.
Indeed, digital payments and financial services companySquare(NYSE:SQ), which announced it beat analyst estimates for revenue and earnings in the third quarter Thursday, reported its popular Cash App generated $1.63 billion in bitcoin revenue and $32 million in bitcoin gross profit, up about 11X and 15X, year-over-year. That was almost 80% of the company’s total Cash App revenue for the third quarter.
The company is leading a trend of facilitating bitcoin purchases for everyday customers.
Square competitor,PayPal Holdings(NASDAQ:PYPL), has also begun selling bitcoin. The company recently announced it will allow customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrencies held in PayPal accounts can be used to pay for purchases at 28 million stores around the world.
Interestingly, companies have even begun storing some of their own cash reserves in bitcoin.
In October, Square joined firms likeMicroStrategy Inc.(NASDAQ:MSTR) and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust by adding $50 million worth of bitcoin to its own treasury. Grayscale currently owns about $6.7 billion worth of bitcoin and has plans to keep ramping up its supply.
While that all appears to be great news for the sector, personally, I’m not a fan of bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
Instead, I preferfundamentally superior stocksthat have outstanding earnings and revenue growth.
And with an absolutely stunning third-quarter earnings announcement season underway, myGrowth Investorportfolio is teaming with opportunities in cutting edge technology sectors.
Take 5G wireless connectivity …
From artificial intelligence and virtual reality to smart factories and robotics, remote surgery, self-driving cars and connected cities, 5G is the keystone technology that supports and enhances the buildout of the others.
And the 5G rollout has already arrived. Currently, 100 mobile operators in 44 countries or territories have launched 5G services to some degree, according to the Global mobile Suppliers Association. And there are now 138 million 5G connections worldwide, representing a 116% increase from the first quarter of 2020.
This is big business. Nokia believes 5G-enabled industries are poised to generate$8 trillionworth of economic activity by 2030.
The bottom line: 5G is what’s helping keep us all connected in the modern economy. If you live somewhere without reliable broadband access, you might have trouble keeping up with shopping or even finances in the “new normal.” That is, until ultrafast 5G wireless changes all that for you.
Now that we’re all upgrading to 5G from coast to coast, and around the world, it’s mind boggling to consider all the technology involved. And, particularly, all the new hardware that will be required. This is wherethe best opportunity for investorscomes in.
For my money, I’m not going to bet on any one application of 5G. Or even one provider of 5G. I want the companies who makeallof it possible.
Mobile providers likeAT&T(NYSE:T) andVerizonCommunications(NYSE:VZ) need 5G to maintain their edge — and get people into new smartphone contracts. But the big profits will come from the companies that help create 5G.
One such company I like now is much lesser known than the Big Telecom companies but has excellent growth prospects.
This company is already one of the biggest semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the world. These days, its products for machine learning, optics, sensors and analytics are getting deployed for all sorts of next-generation technologies: the self-driving cars, robotics, cloud computing and the larger Internet of Things (IoT).
This is the kind of stock that can help you profit fromallthe 5G infrastructure that’s popping up everywhere.
And the time to invest is now.
The company released its third-quarter report last week and beat Wall Street’s expectations for the top- and bottom-line. It’s climbed 11.9% over the past month, and blew past its 52-week high this morning.
I recommended the stock toGrowth Investorsubscribers back in December 2019, and it’s sitting pretty on myBuy Listwith a 44.7% gain.
But there’s plenty more upside remaining.
Analysts are anticipating 9% sales growth and 19.5% earnings growth in the upcoming quarter.
So,if you’re looking to invest in this growing 5G company, your window to get in while the stock price is still low is closing quickly.
For all the details, simply watch my free briefing on 5G and join us atGrowth Investortoday. As soon as you do, I’ll send you a copy of my special report,The King of 5G “Turbo Button” Technology, that will tell you everything you need to know about this company and 5G.
Note: The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owned the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:
Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. (BABA), PayPal Holdings (PYPL)
Louis Navellier had an unconventional start, as a grad student who accidentally built a market-beating stock system — with returns rivaling even Warren Buffett. In his latest feat, Louis discovered the “Master Key” to profiting fromthe biggest tech revolution of this (or any) generation.
The postThe 3 Big Market Events From This Weekappeared first onInvestorPlace. || The 3 Big Market Events From This Week: Presidential Election Drama The U.S. presidential election remains undecided going into the weekend, as state officials continue to tally votes in battleground states including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada. the White House in Washington, D.C. Source: Shutterstock More than 159 million Americans voted in the presidential election, but it looks likes recounts could happen in at least Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin. Hopefully a winner is called soon, but in the meantime, Wall Street doesn’t seem worried. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips In fact, it’s been celebrating the prospect of gridlock in Washington D.C. as the Senate appears it will remain in Republican control. The Dow rose 6.2% this week through Thursday and is taking a breather today. BABA IPO Falters While the elections consumed most of the media’s bandwidth this week, China’s online and mobile commerce leader, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: BABA ) made headlines Tuesday when its potential subsidiary, the financial services company Ant Group, had its IPO on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges suspended two days before the planned public debut. The IPO was set to become the biggest of all time, topping Saudi Amarco’s 2019 public offering that raised $29.4 billion. Ant Group is widely known for operating China’s most used digital wallet, Alipay, which has over 900 million users in China alone. Alipay launched in 2004, and is also known for running one of the largest money market funds in the world. It’s more recently expanded into wealth management, micro loans and other financial technology services. In 2011, Alibaba sold Alipay to a group owned by Alibaba co-founder, Jack Ma. In 2018, Alibaba then bought a 33% stake in Ant Financial, Ant Group’s earlier incarnation. Ant Group’s impending IPO was scuttled shortly after Ma apparently made public statements criticizing China’s financial regulators and banks, which he claimed were holding back growth and are in need of reform. Story continues China’s regulators didn’t take kindly to Ma’s public criticisms and suspended the IPO indefinitely. As a result, the stock dropped like a rock – falling over 8% the same day. On Thursday, BABA released results for its second quarter in fiscal year 2021. Annual active consumers on Alibaba’s sites climbed to 757 million and mobile monthly users rose to 881 million, as the company’s “domestic core commerce business continues to grow steadily” in the wake of the pandemic in China. The stock bounced back a bit today but is still down for the week. Bitcoin Hits Multi-Year High The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, bitcoin (BTC), soared to its highest level since January 2018 on Thursday, piercing through $15,000. So far this year, bitcoin is up nearly 109%. According to Coindesk , the number of accounts holding the cryptocurrency keeps rising with the price, which likely means more and more retail investors are dipping into the crypto market. Indeed, digital payments and financial services company Square (NYSE: SQ ), which announced it beat analyst estimates for revenue and earnings in the third quarter Thursday, reported its popular Cash App generated $1.63 billion in bitcoin revenue and $32 million in bitcoin gross profit, up about 11X and 15X, year-over-year. That was almost 80% of the company’s total Cash App revenue for the third quarter. The company is leading a trend of facilitating bitcoin purchases for everyday customers. Square competitor, PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL ), has also begun selling bitcoin. The company recently announced it will allow customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrencies held in PayPal accounts can be used to pay for purchases at 28 million stores around the world. Interestingly, companies have even begun storing some of their own cash reserves in bitcoin. In October, Square joined firms like MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR ) and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust by adding $50 million worth of bitcoin to its own treasury. Grayscale currently owns about $6.7 billion worth of bitcoin and has plans to keep ramping up its supply. While that all appears to be great news for the sector, personally, I’m not a fan of bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. Instead, I prefer fundamentally superior stocks that have outstanding earnings and revenue growth. And with an absolutely stunning third-quarter earnings announcement season underway, my Growth Investor portfolio is teaming with opportunities in cutting edge technology sectors. Take 5G wireless connectivity … The Bigger 5G Picture From artificial intelligence and virtual reality to smart factories and robotics, remote surgery, self-driving cars and connected cities, 5G is the keystone technology that supports and enhances the buildout of the others. And the 5G rollout has already arrived. Currently, 100 mobile operators in 44 countries or territories have launched 5G services to some degree, according to the Global mobile Suppliers Association. And there are now 138 million 5G connections worldwide, representing a 116% increase from the first quarter of 2020. This is big business. Nokia believes 5G-enabled industries are poised to generate $8 trillion worth of economic activity by 2030. The bottom line: 5G is what’s helping keep us all connected in the modern economy. If you live somewhere without reliable broadband access, you might have trouble keeping up with shopping or even finances in the “new normal.” That is, until ultrafast 5G wireless changes all that for you. Now that we’re all upgrading to 5G from coast to coast, and around the world, it’s mind boggling to consider all the technology involved. And, particularly, all the new hardware that will be required. This is where the best opportunity for investors comes in. For my money, I’m not going to bet on any one application of 5G. Or even one provider of 5G. I want the companies who make all of it possible. The King of 5G “Turbo Button” Technology Mobile providers like AT&T (NYSE: T ) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ ) need 5G to maintain their edge — and get people into new smartphone contracts. But the big profits will come from the companies that help create 5G. One such company I like now is much lesser known than the Big Telecom companies but has excellent growth prospects. This company is already one of the biggest semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the world. These days, its products for machine learning, optics, sensors and analytics are getting deployed for all sorts of next-generation technologies: the self-driving cars, robotics, cloud computing and the larger Internet of Things (IoT). This is the kind of stock that can help you profit from all the 5G infrastructure that’s popping up everywhere. And the time to invest is now . The company released its third-quarter report last week and beat Wall Street’s expectations for the top- and bottom-line. It’s climbed 11.9% over the past month, and blew past its 52-week high this morning. I recommended the stock to Growth Investor subscribers back in December 2019, and it’s sitting pretty on my Buy List with a 44.7% gain. But there’s plenty more upside remaining. Analysts are anticipating 9% sales growth and 19.5% earnings growth in the upcoming quarter. So, if you’re looking to invest in this growing 5G company , your window to get in while the stock price is still low is closing quickly. For all the details, simply watch my free briefing on 5G and join us at Growth Investor today . As soon as you do, I’ll send you a copy of my special report, The King of 5G “Turbo Button” Technology , that will tell you everything you need to know about this company and 5G. Note: The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owned the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below: Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. (BABA), PayPal Holdings (PYPL) Louis Navellier had an unconventional start, as a grad student who accidentally built a market-beating stock system — with returns rivaling even Warren Buffett. In his latest feat, Louis discovered the “Master Key” to profiting from the biggest tech revolution of this (or any) generation . The post The 3 Big Market Events From This Week appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi: A bitcoin rally to new 2020 highs has been slowed by lower spot volume. Meanwhile, some ether investors are moving capital out of DeFi.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $15,502 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.6% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,190-$15,934
• BTC near its 10-day moving average but above the 50-day, a sideways signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price rise stalled Friday after making gains over the past 24 hours, most notably going as high as $15,934, according to CoinDesk 20 data. It was trading at $15,502 as of press time.
“BTC has been bullish for the last four weeks, incredibly rallying from $10,000 to $15,000,” noted Ian Balina, chief executive officer of analysis firm Token Metrics. “This month’s rally is similar to its previous big rally back in 2017 when BTC rallied from $6,000 to almost $20,000 over November and December.”
Related:First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster
The last time bitcoin’s price was at these levels was back on Jan. 7, 2018, when its 24-hour low was $15,632, a descent from that day’s $16,861 high during an overall market sell-off, according to the CoinDesk 20.
“The next resistance level is between $16,000 and $17,000,” Balina added. “If it flies by that, it can retest its all-time high and possibly move above $20,000.”
Read More:As Bitcoin Surges, Google Searches Suggest Little FOMO Among Retail
A bitcoin price push higher will likely require the return of higher-than-average spot volumes. Volumes for Friday were much lower than Thursday, which at $1,569,081,137 was the highest daily average volume day since July 27. On that summer day it hit $1,579,784,44 on major USD/BTC spot exchanges. As of press time, Friday’s spot exchange volume was at $1,064,734,786.
Related:Bitcoin's Weekly Close Above 2019 High Leaves Runway Clear to $20K
Futures open interest for bitcoin Thursday matched a record high from Aug. 17. “Longer-term trends remain very bullish. Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest is at an all-time high at $5.7 billion and perpetual swaps funding rates are trending up,” noted Jason Lau, chief operating officer of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin.
“The minor pullback today is normal and healthy,” Lau told CoinDesk. “In the past, bitcoin has experienced strong, quick moves and retracted much more. I’d look to see if BTC can settle in and establish a base before making another move upwards.”
Bitcoin’s dominance, a measure of the world’s oldest cryptocurrency’s market cap as a percentage of total crypto assets, is starting to dip. After a steady October and early November rise to 65.5%, it dropped on Friday.
Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital, said bitcoin might be losing some momentum after its stratospheric price rise, adding that some investors make take profits and plow them into alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins.
“BTC has already done quite a bit of work to the upside and will need to take a breather,” Bonnefous said. “At some point the rotation will occur again from BTC to these heavily sold alt tokens.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), was up Friday, trading around $442 and climbing 7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More:Vitalik Buterin Sends $1.4M of Ether in Preparation for Ethereum 2.0 Staking
Since Oct. 20, when the amount of ether locked in decentralized finance, or DeFI, was at 9,211,000 ETH, investors have been pulling the cryptocurrency out. Over 642,000 ETH was moved out of DeFi as of press time, down to 8,569,000 ETH, according to data aggregator DeFi Pulse.
The trend follows a rocky past 30 days for ether locked in DeFi, as about one month ago the amount of ether into DeFi was at 8,423,000 ETH. Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives venue Alpha5, says ether’s gyrations locked has to do with the ethereal nature of Ethereum’s DeFi products.
“Most of the ETH locked in DeFi is to accumulate or accrue tokens that don’t have a tenable value,” Shah noted. “And as those values started to fall dramatically, the ‘APY’ [annual percentage yield] that served as the bait for participation in various pools naturally started dwindling.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are all green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• orchid(OXT) + 12.8%
• tezos(XTZ) + 7.1%
• 0x(ZRX) + 7%
One notable loser:
• monero(XMR) – 0.65%
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 ended the day climbing 0.91% asmaterials stocks boosted the index, including Kobe Steel, up 11%, and Nippon Sheet Glass Co., gaining 10%.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed flat, in the green 0.07% asinvestor sentiment was mixed between fresh lockdowns and the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election.
• In the United States the S&P 500 gained 0.20% asinvestors await definitive election results amid better-than-expected unemployment numbers.
Read More:Square Reports Over $1B in Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue for First Time
Commodities:
• Oil was down 2.8%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $37.39.
• Gold was in the green 0.14% and at $1,952 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields all climbed Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, jumping to 0.159 and in the green 9.6%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi: A bitcoin rally to new 2020 highs has been slowed by lower spot volume. Meanwhile, some ether investors are moving capital out of DeFi.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $15,502 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.6% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,190-$15,934
• BTC near its 10-day moving average but above the 50-day, a sideways signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price rise stalled Friday after making gains over the past 24 hours, most notably going as high as $15,934, according to CoinDesk 20 data. It was trading at $15,502 as of press time.
“BTC has been bullish for the last four weeks, incredibly rallying from $10,000 to $15,000,” noted Ian Balina, chief executive officer of analysis firm Token Metrics. “This month’s rally is similar to its previous big rally back in 2017 when BTC rallied from $6,000 to almost $20,000 over November and December.”
Related:First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster
The last time bitcoin’s price was at these levels was back on Jan. 7, 2018, when its 24-hour low was $15,632, a descent from that day’s $16,861 high during an overall market sell-off, according to the CoinDesk 20.
“The next resistance level is between $16,000 and $17,000,” Balina added. “If it flies by that, it can retest its all-time high and possibly move above $20,000.”
Read More:As Bitcoin Surges, Google Searches Suggest Little FOMO Among Retail
A bitcoin price push higher will likely require the return of higher-than-average spot volumes. Volumes for Friday were much lower than Thursday, which at $1,569,081,137 was the highest daily average volume day since July 27. On that summer day it hit $1,579,784,44 on major USD/BTC spot exchanges. As of press time, Friday’s spot exchange volume was at $1,064,734,786.
Related:Bitcoin's Weekly Close Above 2019 High Leaves Runway Clear to $20K
Futures open interest for bitcoin Thursday matched a record high from Aug. 17. “Longer-term trends remain very bullish. Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest is at an all-time high at $5.7 billion and perpetual swaps funding rates are trending up,” noted Jason Lau, chief operating officer of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin.
“The minor pullback today is normal and healthy,” Lau told CoinDesk. “In the past, bitcoin has experienced strong, quick moves and retracted much more. I’d look to see if BTC can settle in and establish a base before making another move upwards.”
Bitcoin’s dominance, a measure of the world’s oldest cryptocurrency’s market cap as a percentage of total crypto assets, is starting to dip. After a steady October and early November rise to 65.5%, it dropped on Friday.
Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital, said bitcoin might be losing some momentum after its stratospheric price rise, adding that some investors make take profits and plow them into alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins.
“BTC has already done quite a bit of work to the upside and will need to take a breather,” Bonnefous said. “At some point the rotation will occur again from BTC to these heavily sold alt tokens.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), was up Friday, trading around $442 and climbing 7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More:Vitalik Buterin Sends $1.4M of Ether in Preparation for Ethereum 2.0 Staking
Since Oct. 20, when the amount of ether locked in decentralized finance, or DeFI, was at 9,211,000 ETH, investors have been pulling the cryptocurrency out. Over 642,000 ETH was moved out of DeFi as of press time, down to 8,569,000 ETH, according to data aggregator DeFi Pulse.
The trend follows a rocky past 30 days for ether locked in DeFi, as about one month ago the amount of ether into DeFi was at 8,423,000 ETH. Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives venue Alpha5, says ether’s gyrations locked has to do with the ethereal nature of Ethereum’s DeFi products.
“Most of the ETH locked in DeFi is to accumulate or accrue tokens that don’t have a tenable value,” Shah noted. “And as those values started to fall dramatically, the ‘APY’ [annual percentage yield] that served as the bait for participation in various pools naturally started dwindling.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are all green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• orchid(OXT) + 12.8%
• tezos(XTZ) + 7.1%
• 0x(ZRX) + 7%
One notable loser:
• monero(XMR) – 0.65%
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 ended the day climbing 0.91% asmaterials stocks boosted the index, including Kobe Steel, up 11%, and Nippon Sheet Glass Co., gaining 10%.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed flat, in the green 0.07% asinvestor sentiment was mixed between fresh lockdowns and the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election.
• In the United States the S&P 500 gained 0.20% asinvestors await definitive election results amid better-than-expected unemployment numbers.
Read More:Square Reports Over $1B in Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue for First Time
Commodities:
• Oil was down 2.8%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $37.39.
• Gold was in the green 0.14% and at $1,952 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields all climbed Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, jumping to 0.159 and in the green 9.6%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi: A bitcoin rally to new 2020 highs has been slowed by lower spot volume. Meanwhile, some ether investors are moving capital out of DeFi. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $15,502 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.6% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,190-$15,934 BTC near its 10-day moving average but above the 50-day, a sideways signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price rise stalled Friday after making gains over the past 24 hours, most notably going as high as $15,934, according to CoinDesk 20 data. It was trading at $15,502 as of press time. “BTC has been bullish for the last four weeks, incredibly rallying from $10,000 to $15,000,” noted Ian Balina, chief executive officer of analysis firm Token Metrics. “This month’s rally is similar to its previous big rally back in 2017 when BTC rallied from $6,000 to almost $20,000 over November and December.” Related: First Mover: What's Next for Bitcoin as Wall Street Gets Vaccine Booster The last time bitcoin’s price was at these levels was back on Jan. 7, 2018, when its 24-hour low was $15,632, a descent from that day’s $16,861 high during an overall market sell-off, according to the CoinDesk 20. “The next resistance level is between $16,000 and $17,000,” Balina added. “If it flies by that, it can retest its all-time high and possibly move above $20,000.” Read More: As Bitcoin Surges, Google Searches Suggest Little FOMO Among Retail A bitcoin price push higher will likely require the return of higher-than-average spot volumes. Volumes for Friday were much lower than Thursday, which at $1,569,081,137 was the highest daily average volume day since July 27. On that summer day it hit $1,579,784,44 on major USD/BTC spot exchanges. As of press time, Friday’s spot exchange volume was at $1,064,734,786. Related: Bitcoin's Weekly Close Above 2019 High Leaves Runway Clear to $20K Story continues Futures open interest for bitcoin Thursday matched a record high from Aug. 17. “Longer-term trends remain very bullish. Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest is at an all-time high at $5.7 billion and perpetual swaps funding rates are trending up,” noted Jason Lau, chief operating officer of San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin. “The minor pullback today is normal and healthy,” Lau told CoinDesk. “In the past, bitcoin has experienced strong, quick moves and retracted much more. I’d look to see if BTC can settle in and establish a base before making another move upwards.” Bitcoin’s dominance, a measure of the world’s oldest cryptocurrency’s market cap as a percentage of total crypto assets, is starting to dip. After a steady October and early November rise to 65.5%, it dropped on Friday. Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment firm Tellurian Capital, said bitcoin might be losing some momentum after its stratospheric price rise, adding that some investors make take profits and plow them into alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins. “BTC has already done quite a bit of work to the upside and will need to take a breather,” Bonnefous said. “At some point the rotation will occur again from BTC to these heavily sold alt tokens.” Ether locked in DeFi drops The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Friday, trading around $442 and climbing 7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Vitalik Buterin Sends $1.4M of Ether in Preparation for Ethereum 2.0 Staking Since Oct. 20, when the amount of ether locked in decentralized finance, or DeFI, was at 9,211,000 ETH, investors have been pulling the cryptocurrency out. Over 642,000 ETH was moved out of DeFi as of press time, down to 8,569,000 ETH, according to data aggregator DeFi Pulse. The trend follows a rocky past 30 days for ether locked in DeFi, as about one month ago the amount of ether into DeFi was at 8,423,000 ETH. Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives venue Alpha5, says ether’s gyrations locked has to do with the ethereal nature of Ethereum’s DeFi products. “Most of the ETH locked in DeFi is to accumulate or accrue tokens that don’t have a tenable value,” Shah noted. “And as those values started to fall dramatically, the ‘APY’ [annual percentage yield] that served as the bait for participation in various pools naturally started dwindling.” Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): orchid (OXT) + 12.8% tezos (XTZ) + 7.1% 0x (ZRX) + 7% One notable loser: monero (XMR) – 0.65% Equities: The Nikkei 225 ended the day climbing 0.91% as materials stocks boosted the index, including Kobe Steel, up 11%, and Nippon Sheet Glass Co., gaining 10% . Europe’s FTSE 100 closed flat, in the green 0.07% as investor sentiment was mixed between fresh lockdowns and the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election . In the United States the S&P 500 gained 0.20% as investors await definitive election results amid better-than-expected unemployment numbers . Read More: Square Reports Over $1B in Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue for First Time Commodities: Oil was down 2.8%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $37.39. Gold was in the green 0.14% and at $1,952 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields all climbed Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, jumping to 0.159 and in the green 9.6%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi Market Wrap: Bitcoin Loses Steam at $15.9K; Over 600K ETH Yanked From DeFi || Investing During Coronavirus: Stocks Close Lower Ahead of Further Vote Counting: The postInvesting During Coronavirus: Stocks Close Lower Ahead of Further Vote Countingappeared first onInvestorPlace.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
seven hotel stocks he’s recommending now:
• Marriott International(NASDAQ:MAR)
• Hilton Worldwide(NYSE:HLT)
• Wynn Resources(NASDAQ:WYNN)
• MGM Resorts International(NYSE:MGM)
• Hyatt Hotels(NYSE:H)
• Royal Caribbean Cruises(NYSE:RCL)
• InterContinental Hotels(NYSE:IHG)
[Wednesday, June 3, 11:57 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Gaming has been an escape — and a means of killing newfound time — since the novel coronavirus first began disrupting daily life. Console sales spiked, game sales spiked and the number of people playing online games at any one point hit record highs. Even mobile games found success, and companies likeZynga(NASDAQ:ZNGA) racked up buy recommendations.
Now,Axios’Dan Primack has some exciting news in the IPO world. Remember, this week marked a major return to initial public offerings — and the biggest debut year to date. According to Primack,two companies are prepping for IPOs, and their businesses center on mobile and casual gaming.
South Korea’sDoubleDown Interactivefiled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission to raise on Tuesday toraise up to $100 million. DoubleDown develops and publishes mobile and web-based games, includingDoubleDown Casino,DoubleDown Fort KnoxandEllen’s Road to Riches. According to Renaissance Capital, thecompany averages 3 million playersper month and brought in $281 million in revenue in the last year.
One key thing to note here is how popular the digital world of gambling has become amid the pandemic. Just today,InvestorPlace’sMark Hake shared his bullish take onPenn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN) — and one ofhis key areas of interest was its online offerings.
The other key IPO to watch isPlaytika. The company is based in Israel, but is owned currently by a Chinese investment group. Like DoubleDown, it produces casino-themed mobile games, and runs apps for poker and solitaire. According toReuters, theIPO could raise as much as $1 billion.
[Wednesday, June 3, 10:39 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The novel coronavirus is accelerating adoption of e-commerce. Brick-and-mortar retailers are the biggest losers, and those with strong digital presence are winners. Americans took time in lockdown to embrace home-improvement projects, and a number of stocks standout as a result.Wayfair(NYSE:W), which we’ve recommended in this blog before, is up 100% in 2020 and 700% since March.
No, that isn’t a typo, and the massive rally doesn’t mean that it’s time to sell Wayfair stock. In fact, Piper Sandler analyst Peter Keith is confident shares will keep climbing. According toBarron’sEric Savitz, the analyst is so confident thathe just raised his price target from $220 to $225. Shares currently trade for just under $190.
A big part of Keith’s argument is simply that more consumers are now comfortable with online shopping for various products, including furniture and other home goods. They’ve realized how convenient Wayfair is, so they’ll keep using the site as they tackle home-improvement projects. One key point of evidence for this is that in May, even as states began reopening, Wayfair’s sales did not decelerate.
InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto agrees, acknowledging that to many his “buy” recommendation on Wayfair sounds contrarian. He wrote late last week thatWayfair is likely to benefit from three big catalysts, including growth in the real estate market, an improving unemployment landscape and the strength of big cities. In other words, the panic filling the headlines isn’t the full story.
According to Savitz, there’s one more timely catalyst. As protests across the U.S. continue to result indamage to brick-and-mortar retailers, companies with an online focus such as Wayfair will benefit.
[Wednesday, June 3, 10:17 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We often report in this blog about the power of gold stocks, writing just yesterday about extraordinary gains that are soon to come. ButInvestorPlace’sTezcan Gecgil is encouraging investors not to forget about the power of silver stocks, too.
Yesterday, Gecgil wrote that just like gold, silver can be a powerful portfolio hedge. Some hold the physical metal, others clutch onto silver stocks as fears of inflation rise. Right now, silver is underperforming, and it’s particularly cheap relative to gold. But Gecgil — and many others on Wall Street — believe a rally in silver stocks is just around the corner.
If you agree with Gecgil, or are perhaps just a fan of that scout song, here are thefour silver stocks she’s recommending now:
• Hecla Mining(NYSE:HL)
• Mag Silver(NYSEMKT:MAG)
• Silvercorp Metals(NYSEMKT:SVM)
• Global X Silver Miners ETF(NYSEARCA:SIL)
[Wednesday, June 3, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Nope, nothing has changed. Stocks continued their rally Wednesday morning, and so did protests across the United States.Helicopters and additional military unitsare now present in Washington, D.C. Investors still don’t seem to care as they chase the reopening rebound.
Those bulls were rewarded this morning with an estimate-beating private payroll report from ADP. Economists predicted that U.S. employers would cut 9 million private payrolls in May, but thenumber instead came in just below 2.8 million. That’s strikingly better than the almost 20 million private payrolls cut in April.
It looks like nothing can shake the rally today — or perhaps for the rest of the week. TheS&P 500, theDow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeonce again opened in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.69%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.84%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.59%
[Tuesday, June 2, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Stocks once again closed higher, on what only can be called curious optimism.Yahoo Finance’sBrian Sozzi, in talking with different market strategists, concluded thatinvestors must not be worried about ongoing protestsacross the U.S. and the potential for a second wave of the novel coronavirus. Why? As Heritage Capital CIO Paul Schatz said, investors simply believe it all won’t hurt the stock market.
For now, it’s too early to tell if those confident investors are right.
At the same time, some economic indicators are continuing to trend higher. Four companies are prepping for initial public offerings this week, including one IPO that will be the largest year to date. As we reported this morning, a key manufacturing index is trending higher. Plus, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits each week has been dropping.
It’s an uneasy balancing act, but the bulls are winning. On Tuesday, theS&P 500, theDow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.82%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.05%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.59%
[Tuesday, June 2, 3:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There’s something about spending endless hours at home that provokes the do-it-yourself mentality. Perhaps it’s the frustration that grows from staring at unsavory parts of a home or garden, or maybe an urge to introduce creativity to time in quarantine. Regardless, DIY spirit is growing, andHome Depot(NYSE:HD) andLowe’s(NYSE:LOW) stock are benefiting.
Commenting on this trend,InvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn took alook at both home-improvement stocks. His conclusion was that Home Depot is more popular with contractors, making its business slightly riskier. On the other hand, he sees Lowe’s as better suited for the curious homeowner. First-quarter sales at both companies were up despite the novel coronavirus.
At the time, Blankenhorn cautioned that although each offers a dividend and relatively stable business, a prolonged recession would be damaging to the duo. Now, summer is here and all U.S. states are taking steps to reopen.
That bodes well for the home-improvement stocks here. Consumers that began projects in quarantine will face inspiration from warm weather on weekends, and many white-collar workers will remain at home for weeks and months to come. Plus, as non-essential businesses get the green light to reopen, contractors and other home-improvement businesses will resume work.
Reporting fromRetail Dive’sTatiana Walk-Morris also should bring investors some excitement. In mid-May, Apptopia data showed thatdownloads of Home Depot and Lowe’s appswere through the roof.Digital sales, in turn, spiked for both companies. This shows that the home-improvement retailers are quickly pivoting to consumer preference.
Today, Walk-Morris shared even more exciting news. Lowe’s is rolling out anaugmented reality tool for home-improvement professionals. That way, if consumers don’t feel comfortable opening their homes just yet, important business can continue through virtual design appointments. This keeps professionals and homeowners safe, and speaks highlight of Lowe’s innovative abilities.
It’s clear that Home Depot and Lowe’s are far from boring investments, and they both offer big potential here. Download the apps, start planning and stay safe.
[Tuesday, June 2, 3:16 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Over the last several weeks, much of the conversation around casinos has been focused on the hypothetical. Some investors have developed theories about big rebounds when casinos and race tracks reopen. Others have flocked to online betting plays andLeague of Legendstournaments. Now though, there’s no longer a need to be hypothetical. The Las Vegas Strip reopens Thursday, June 4.
According toCNN’sMatt Villano, Las Vegas will likely still be an escape for tourists, but it will look different. Nightclubs and spas will broadly remain closed, and some large events aren’t returning anytime soon. However,hotels and casinos are reopening— with a few adjustments.
Now that there’s a plan in place, investors have a chance to buy gambling stocks for a more concrete reopening rebound. That’s whyInvestorPlace’sDavid Moadel is recommending gambling stocks now. In hisfirst set of recommendations, he acknowledges that these are speculative plays — just like the games themselves. But they’re beaten-down and ready to shoot higher.
Yesterday, he added one more stock to his “buy” list. According to Moadel,MGM Resorts(NYSE:MGM) is“mangled” but worthy of investor attention right now. That’s because with Las Vegas reopening, it’s only a matter of time before Wall Street hops on the gambling bandwagon. When it does, these names will be big winners.
Here are the six stocks he’s recommending now:
• Las Vegas Sands(NYSE:LVS)
• Caesars Entertainment(NASDAQ:CZR)
• Esports Entertainment(NASDAQ:GMBL)
• Boyd Gaming(NYSE:BYD)
• Penn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN)
• MGM Resorts(NYSE:MGM)
[Tuesday, June 2, 2:45 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There are many reasons to likeCVS Health(NYSE:CVS) amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Some locations offer testing, and all carry critical over-the-counter medications and essential goods. AsInvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn often highlights, itspharmacy business is top notch. Recent news makes that case even clearer, as CVS moves into robotic prescription delivery.
In a May 28 press release, robotics companyNuroannounced it had entered into a partnership with CVS topilot autonomous prescription delivery. Granted, this is small scale to start. Three zip codes near Houston will participate in the program.
CVS already offershome delivery of prescriptions, but moving into the realm of autonomous delivery is exciting and holds great potential. To start, customers can request their prescriptions for autonomous delivery, and Nuro’s fleet of self-driving Prius vehicles will do the job. Eventually,Nuro will swap the Prius fleet out for its unique R2 robot.
Both Nuro and CVS note the importance of increasing prescription accessibility and convenience — and the novel coronavirus certainly plays into that. In ablog post about the partnership, the Nuro team wrote that such a move can help protect vulnerable people, such as the elderly, as well as simply ensure more Americans can remain safe at home.
That doesn’t mean this partnership will lose its luster as the coronavirus fades, however. If CVS manages to expand its autonomous delivery offerings to more cities, expect it to gain popularity. Americans love convenience, and it doesn’t get more convenient than this. The company is already known for its continued innovation, and it’s also a solid investment.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto recently wrote that CVS is atop “boring stock” to buy. But nothing about robotic delivery is boring.
Whether you agree with Enomoto and appreciate CVS for its reliable pharmacy and health offerings, or you’re bullish on its autonomous delivery moves, it’s safe to say CVS stock is a buy here.
[Tuesday, June 2, 2:00 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Airplanes and cruise ships are two different forms of transportation that involve a lot of passengers in close-knit quarters. For operators, that means finding ways to reassure customers that traveling is safe, and that the novel coronavirus is not an increased threat on the seas or in the sky.
Inpixon(NASDAQ:INPX) CEO Nadir Ali excited investors today with the proposition that his company could play a big role in restoring travel demand. Inpixon is a so-calledindoor intelligence company. Before the pandemic, it’s customers were shopping malls, big government offices and hospitals. Inpixon creates indoor maps, helps detect the locations of indoor gusts and provides analysis on indoor data.
Now, it’s looking to become relevant in pandemic-focused contact tracing. On May 12, Inpixon announced itsWorkplace Readiness Dashboards— a solution designed to help companies reopen. One of the key features of this announcement is that it will help business track the density of certain “zones.” Once a company knows one zone is hotter than another, it can take steps to spread out patrons and keep things safe.
That’s big news in itself, but Ali toldUSA Todaythat Inpixon is specificallylooking to work with hotels, airlines and cruise shipsas they welcome travelers back. That’s even bigger news. From Ali:
“If a certain deck is turning yellow to red, maybe [someone] needs to go make sure [it isn’t too crowded]. … If, God forbid, a patient starts developing symptoms or has come down with COVID-19 or some other virus or flu or something, [the cruise line] could also [ask if] that person can identify themselves,” he explained.”
This announcement is sure to be met with privacy concerns, as Inpixon would rely oninformation from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cell signals. But for investors, it’s another boost of confidence that battered names likeCarnival(NYSE:CCL) andAmerican Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL) are potentially profitable investments now. In turn, that makes Inpixon a worthy investment.
Investors agree. Shares are up more than 10% in intraday trading today.
[Tuesday, June 2, 1:24 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Fitness has been a hotly debated topic amid the novel coronavirus. Some consumers want gyms open now. Others accept that at-home workouts are different, but just as effective. Major operatorGold’s Gymfiled forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In all this chaos, running is gaining popularity.
According toYahoo Financereporter Myles Udland,Americans feel more comfortable with solitary fitness options now— marking a shift from group fitness classes and crowded gyms. Private companies that focus on helping athletes train and track their runs are booming. Downloads of theStravaapp are up 222% year-over-year.
What does this mean for investors? Udland suggests buying companies that are benefiting — and others that are likely to start benefiting — from an increase in running. A top contender isNike(NYSE:NKE). The company’s clothing and shoes have an intense following, and the Nike Training Club app saw a year-over-year download spike of 510%.
Dick’s Sporting Goods(NYSE:DKS) andDeckers Outdoor(NYSE:DECK) are other potential fitness winners for investors to watch.
There’s another company not on Udland’s list that is still worth a buy here. According toBarron’sTeresa Rivas,Lululemon(NASDAQ:LULU) could see itsmarket capitalization hit $50 billion. Rivas cites research from analyst John Kernan who has a “buy” rating and $311 price target on the stock.
Similar to Nike, Lululemon has a strong following. Its athleisure is popular at home and at the gym, and the company’s e-commerce options are boosting digital sales. Plus, it doesn’t rely on other retailers for its sales, which helps as brick-and-mortar retail continues to suffer.
So, next time you suit up for a run, consider the brands and apps you rep. Your favorite shoes — and whatever your favorite fitness influencer is recommending — are likely to be great investing opportunities.
[Tuesday, June 2, 11:57 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Barron’sSteven Sears shared gripping words with readers today.“As America burns, gold shines.”His commentary was literal, as protests in the U.S. periodically erupt into flames. Stocks have largely brushed off the unrest, even as President Donald Trump suggestsfurther militarizing the country’s response. That doesn’t mean investors aren’t worried, though, as gold begins to rise.
Gold’s attraction now is not surprising, as it’s often known as a “crisis” or “safe-haven” investment. The metal similarly drew attention after theU.S. military killed Iran’s Qasem Soleimaniand during the peak of the novel coronavirus crisis.
Some see gold as the perfect way to hedge a portfolio for times of chaos. If markets begin to crumble, those who hold physical gold have their wealth in their hands. Others simply view it as ahedge against inflation. As the Federal Reserve continues with an unprecedented bond-buying program, many investors have expressed fear over post-pandemic inflation rates.
Regardless of the reasoning,InvestorPlaceanalyst Eric Fry is bullish on gold and isencouraging investors to act now. He wrote this morning that Warren Buffett sees the metal as “lifeless” and “uncivilized,” but that’s not stopping him — or any of the rich people buying and hoarding gold now. In fact, Fry warns that those who take Buffett’s advice willmiss out on extraordinary gains as gold shoots higher.
To conclude, Sears has one smart strategy to profit now. He recommends buying the September $165 call for theSPDR Gold Shares ETF(NYSEARCA:GLD) now. If GLD moves above $171, he says the call purchase will begin to generate profits.
[Tuesday, June 2, 10:45 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Remember whenTesla’s(NASDAQ:TSLA) high-techCybertruck was enough to create a media frenzy? The novel coronavirus has disrupted so much of daily life, and these innovations weren’t exceptions. 5G. Artificial intelligence. Electric vehicles. They’ve fallen by the wayside, but they’ll be back soon.
According toInvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto, we actually need this next-generation technology to move forward from the pandemic. And this pivot back to tech is already happening, as evidenced by growing work-from-home solutions and even creative new forms of entertainment. For investors, this means battery stocks are hot names to buy now.
Enomoto wrote today that these battery stocks will quite literally power the future. He mostly looks at the coveted lithium-ion battery, but he’s not ruling out potential found in alkaline batteries and even a tech retailer. Clearly, you don’t want to miss out.
Here’s are theeight battery stocks Enomoto is recommending now:
• Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile(NYSE:SQM)
• Albemarle(NYSE:ALB)
• Energizer(NYSE:ENR)
• Best Buy(NYSE:BBY)
• Enphase Energy(NASDAQ:ENPH)
• Panasonic(OTCMKTS:PCRFY)
• Murata Manufacturing(OTCMKTS:MRAAF)
• American Battery Metals Corp(OTCMKTS:ABML)
[Tuesday, June 2, 9:39 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Protests over George Floyd, who Minneapolis police killed last week, continue around the U.S. and the world. President Donald Trump has continued to up the stakes. At the same time, many fear that these mass gatherings will result in asecond wave of the novel coronavirus hitting Americasooner than expected. In short, there’s no clear reason for stocks to be rallying.
Alas, stocks opened higher Tuesday as the rally continues. Perhaps investors are inspired by the Institute of Supply Management’s update to its manufacturing index. It hit43.1 in May, and anything above 42.8 marks that the economy isnotin a recession. The report seems to be an unlikely catalyst, but these days, it’s hard to tell for sure.
What will today bring? For now, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.33%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.57%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.11%
[Monday, June 1, 4:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Viral accounts ofMemorial Day weekend travelprove that consumers are much more confident about reopening than previously expected. Packed beaches and pools show the power of pent-up demand. In fact, evenair travel and cruise demand are reboundingafter Americans spent months at home.
With this in mind,InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier is giving the all-clear signal tolook for growth opportunities right now. He’s looking at travel stocks in particular, but not just at any name in the space. For instance, he’s focusing on domestic travel, because manyinternational destinations remain on lockdownand are not accessible to American tourists right now.
Another part of his argument ties in social distancing. He wrote today that consumers are more likely to pick travel destinations that have adult-friendly entertainment, like casinos and race tracks. Plus, bigger casinos are better, because they allow gamblers to space out more to feel safe.
Here are thetop out-of-the-box travel stocks Navellier is recommending now:
• Penn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN)
• Newgioco Group(NASDAQ:NWGI)
• Churchill Downs(NASDAQ:CHDN)
• Golden Entertainment(NASDAQ:GDEN)
• Caesars Entertainment(NASDAQ:CZR)
• Eldorado Resorts (NASDAQ:ERI)
• Scientific Games(NASDAQ:SGMS)
[Monday, June 1, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
As trading wraps up on Monday, it’s unclear what caused stocks to reverse course and head higher. Protests continue across the U.S. and President Donald Trump is still stoking tensions with acall to governors to “dominate” the situationin their individual states.
Perhaps, asAxios’Dion Rabouin wrote this morning, thisstock market rally is just too tough to beat. It sure looks like it, as theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.38%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.36%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.66%
[Monday, June 1, 3:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Eli Lilly(NYSE:LLY) shares are up slightly Monday on news the company has begun human trials of its antibody drug for the novel coronavirus. Unlike other drugs in trial — includingGilead Sciences’(NASDAQ:GILD) remdesivir — Eli Lilly’s drug was developed specifically for this virus.
In many ways, these human trials are a“milestone” in the race against the pandemic, according toStat News’Matthew Herper.AbCelleradeveloped the drug, and now Eli Lilly will work to test and manufacture it. Chief Science Officer Daniel Skavronsky said that the company could potentially have hundreds of thousands or millions of doses ready by the end of 2020.
For now, this early trial is just to test the safety of LY-CoV555. According to Herper, 32 individuals will receive different doses of the drug.
According to the company’s press release,results from this trial should come at the end of June. From there, Eli Lilly will begin testing the drug in non-hospitalized coronavirus patients. But what’s perhaps a bigger catalyst is the preventive angle of LY-CoV555.
What does this mean? Well, vaccines are often not ideal for certain vulnerable populations, making vaccine candidates potentially unhelpful to a very at-risk group. Eli Lilly hopes that its drug — which targets a broad antibody found in patients — could be preventive and protect these populations. Not only does this give it an edge against drug-making peers, it also represents a big catalyst for the stock if the drug is successful in clinical trials.
Keep a close eye on LLY stock. Big things could be headed its way.
[Monday, June 1, 2:50 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
When searching for stocks to profit off of the novel coronavirus, it’s likely big-name companies are some of the top recommendations.Clorox(NYSE:CLX) andCostco(NASDAQ:COST) have a lot of brand power, and shares didn’t disappoint in the earliest weeks of stay-at-home orders and panic buying. Now, though,InvestorPlace’sThomas Niel is looking to micro-cap stocks for pandemic gains.
There’s a lot of volatility in the market, and it’s not unheard of these days to see a stock gain 300%-plus in a single day of trading. That’s why micro-cap names that are high risk and high reward hold so much potential.
Niel makes one thing very clear. When pursuing these micro-cap opportunities, investors shouldn’t be betting the ranch.Here’s where he’s looking now:
• Century Casinos(NASDAQ:CNTY)
• Funko(NASDAQ:FNKO)
• Hexo(NYSE:HEXO)
• iBio(NYSEMKT:IBIO)
• Mesa Air Group(NASDAQ:MESA)
[Monday, June 1, 1:50 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Gilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) seems to have fallen completely out of favor with investors, but the company is still pushing ahead. On Monday, it announced new results about remdesivir, its novel coronavirus treatment that has received emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For some reason, GILD stock is down 3% in intraday trading.
The study showed that patients with “moderate” cases of Covid-19 that received a five-day course of remdesivir were65% more likely to have their condition improvethan those patients receiving standard treatment. Gilead focused on “moderate” cases, using a scale of severity ranging from not hospitalized to requiring extensive care.
According toBioPharma Dive’sJacob Bell, this is important because it shows whichpatients are likely to benefit from such a treatment. Bell also cited Piper Sandler analyst Tyler Van Buren, who believes the five-day remdesivir treatment should be used in all hospitalized patients.
So why is remdesivir not sending GILD shares higher today? Perhaps investors are tired of the back-and-forth results. Or, perhaps it’s because, asInvestorPlace’sLarry Ramer wrote today, many are worried about whether or not Gilead will be able to meaningful profit from remdesivir sales.
Ramer isn’t giving up on GILD stock, and he doesn’t think other investors should either. He wrote this morning that many nations continue to expand approval of the drug, and results are still promising. Plus, unlike the naysayers, Ramer believesremdesivir will “move the needle” for Gilead, making it a stock to buy now.
[Monday, June 1, 1:17 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In perhaps the most striking sign that the economy and the stock market are at odds, this week is set to be the biggest IPO week since early February. Unemployment numbers are still climbing and tensions are rising in the U.S. At the same time though, four companies are pushing forward with IPOs as the stock market continues to trend higher.
This morning,Axios’Dion Rabouin wrote that a“pandemic and protests can’t stop the stock market.”In a separate morning release,Axios’Dan Primack commented that this week’s planned initial public offerings are a symbol of the market’s“decoupling” from the economy. However, Primack also pointed out that economists are quick to say real-time economic realities are not good market indicators.
So, while many are doubting the legitimacy of this rally, it’s clear that market sentiment has shifted in a big way. A few weeks ago, IPOs were far from almost everyone’s mind. Now, we’ll have four noteworthy public debuts in one week.
What’s on the docket for this week? According to Renaissance Capital,Warner MusicGroup, which will trade on the Nasdaq Exchange under ticker WMG, will be thelargest IPO thus far in 2020. The record label plans to raise $1.7 billion. Shares will bepriced between $23 and $26.
This week will also see software-as-a-service providerZoomInfodebut as ZI, immuno-oncology companyLegend Biotechdebut as LEGN and biotechPliant Therapeuticsdebut as PLRX.
[Monday, June 1, 12:28 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Although many Americans are regaining confidence and returning to pre-pandemic routines, testing hasn’t lost importance. For the last several weeks, many have speculated that antibody tests — those that specifically test for antibodies that indicate past infection — could allow big offices and schools to reopen. Why? Scientists believe the presence of these antibodies could mean immunity from the virus.
Clearly, that’s created a lot of demand for these novel coronavirus tests. Riding out the catalyst today isAytu BioScience(NASDAQ:AYTU). Shares are up over 6% in intraday trading.
According to the company’s early morning press release, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grantedAytu’s antibody test emergency-use authorization. The company has already ramped up production of its COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette, and has 1.4 million test kits now available at its San Diego warehouse.
One warning: Shares trade for less than $2, even after the morning’s rally. With that in mind, be cautious, but keep an open mind. H.C. Wainwright analyst Vernon Bernadino set aprice target of $3 today along with a “buy” rating. That’s more than 100% upside from the current price.
[Monday, June 1, 10:50 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Under stay-at-home orders, Americans purchased comfortable athletic wear and at-home workout equipment. Some were evenpanic-buying luxury gearwhile their beloved gyms and fitness studios were closed to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. But now, states are reopening, and that means these gyms and studios are reopening too.
In some states, gyms were among the first businesses to reopen among growing demand. In others, they will be some of the last. Regardless, the world of fitness will perhaps be permanently changed by the pandemic. After one gym in Atlanta reopened in early May, patrons reported they didn’t feel safe without everyone wearing masks. According toThe Wall Street Journal, the compromise was afour-hour period where masks were mandatory.
The Atlantic’sMichael Owen speculated on what thispost-pandemic world of fitnesswill look like. Reduced capacity for group fitness classes. Latex gloves for weightlifting. Pre-booked workout windows. In other words, things will be different.
That’s whyInvestorPlace’sIan Bezek is bullish on a specific group of fitness stocks for the new normal. Instead of rushing to invest in gyms that have yet to fully reopen, he’s looking at athletic wear and at-home fitness companies that are likely to retain many new consumers. Plus, he’s looking at diet-focused brands that will gain popularity as Americans leave quarantine.
Here are theseven stocks he thinks you should buy now:
• Nike(NYSE:NKE)
• Peloton(NASDAQ:PTON)
• Lululemon(NASDAQ:LULU)
• Under Armour(NYSE:UA, NYSE:UAA)
• BellRingBrands(NYSE:BRBR)
• Hormel Foods(NYSE:HRL)
• Fitbit(NYSE:FIT)
[Monday, June 1, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Stock futures held up until just before the opening bell, when they dropped further into the red. Protests over the death of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police last week, dominated much of the news this weekend.Target(NYSE:TGT) hastemporarily closed or adjusted hoursat more than 200 stores.Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) ischanging some delivery routes. Elsewhere in the corporate world, companies arepublishing statements of supportfor Floyd’s family and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Although U.S.-China trade tensions have taken a backseat, matters are still escalating. This morning,Bloombergreported that the nation has asked its top state-run agricultural companies tohalt purchases of U.S. agriculture productsincluding soybeans. Many take this as a sign that the phase-one trade deal remains in jeopardy.
The stock market demonstrated resiliency last week, but it’s unclear what today will bring. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened in the red Monday.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.26%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.33%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.24%
[Friday, May 29, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Bulls didn’t achieve a monumental victory in the stock market today, but they at least pulled off a turnaround. President Donald Trump’s scheduled comments on U.S.-China relations weren’t as bad as expected. He did say the U.S. would move toend special trade treatment toward Hong Kong. However, investors are cheering because he didn’t abandon the existing phase-one trade deal.
Elsewhere in the market,Twitter(NYSE:TWTR) continued its fall, and social media peerFacebook(NASDAQ:FB) joined it in the red. Who knows what Trump’s latest attack on the platforms will bring next week.
TheDow Jones Industrial Averagefailed to turn things around, but theS&P 500and theNasdaq Compositeare headed into the weekend in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.48%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.07%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.29%
[Friday, May 29, 2:02 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Many investors have likely heard about the CRISPR gene-editing technique, especially in association with next-generation healthcare or red-hot biotech stocks. AsOneZerowriter Emily Mullin put it on Wednesday, the novel coronavirus is giving thisscience a much more realistic end goal— test kits.
Inspired by at-home pregnancy tests — relatively simple to use for the average consumer — a handful of companies, public and private, are working to make a CRISPR-based coronavirus test. Such a test would beat the costs and inconvenience associated with lab testing, and could deliver results in less than hour.
Notable cons include the potential for test misinterpretation.
For investors, one exciting entrant into this space is pharmaceutical giantGlaxoSmithKline(NYSE:GSK). The company is already working on a vaccine candidate for the coronavirus, but through a partnership withMammoth Biosciences, it’s also working on a 20-minute test kit.
According toFierceBiotech’sConor Hale, thetest would require an at-home nasal swaband would be sold over the counter. The duo’s offering would greatly improve the accessibility of these diagnostic tools, and using the CRISPR gene-editing technique would ensure more reliable results. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already grantedSherlock Biosciencesemergency-use authorization for a similar test. However, Sherlock’s is not designed for at-home use and requires lab equipment.
So-called “designer babies” and next-gen cancer cures may seem far away, but CRISPR’s use in combating the coronavirus is quite tangible. Getting into a partnership like GSK’s and Mammoth’s sounds like a win-win opportunity for investors.
[Friday, May 29, 1:32 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There has always been something magical about cheap stocks, and the novel coronavirus makes their appeal even brighter. Why? Even stalwart companies have struggled, which means that solid stocks are now available at discount prices. Plus, some riskier names now come with bigger rebound potential.
That’s whyInvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto recommended nine cheap stocks today. He argues that his list would benefit from both a V-shaped and a prolonged recovery, because regardless of the timeline, his picks are headed up.
So what exactly are his picks? Enomoto is looking to the world of vice, as he thinks pent-up demand will drive a rebound in beer sales and strip club visits. Plus, he’s betting on psychedelic drugs (for medicinal use) and a handful of more recognizable and respectable companies.
Here are thenine cheap stocks he thinks you should buy now:
• AT&T(NYSE:T)
• Altria Group(NYSE:MO)
• RCI Hospitality(NASDAQ:RICK)
• Molson Coors Beverage(NYSE:TAP)
• Anheuser-Busch InBev(NYSE:BUD)
• Yamana Gold(NYSE:AUY)
• Simon Property Group(NYSE:SPG)
• ViacomCBS(NASDAQ:VIAC)
• Champignon Brands(OTCMKTS:SHRMF)
[Friday, May 29, 12:09 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Has anyone found any Clorox (NYSE:CLX) disinfectant products yet? It seems like whenever I look, shelves are still empty. In other words, virus-fighting disinfectants are still in high demand, and that bodes well for California-basedSonoma Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:SNOA).
Shares are up more than 150% in intraday trading on news that Sonoma’s Nanocyn disinfectant and sanitizer product received approval from Australia’s Register of Therapeutic Goods. This approval means that Sonoma can nowmarket its disinfectant as a virucidal agentspecifically against the novel coronavirus. Hello, Clorox-esque rally!
Sonoma works withMicroSafe Group, a Dubai-based biomedical company, to produce its Nanocyn product. This means that in Australia, the product will be sold under the Nanocyn brand. In Europe and the Middle East, it will be sold as a MicroSafe product.
MicroSafe CEO Safa Qadumi said that this disinfectant is important for more than one reason. It has a 30-second kill time for viruses, and it’s not toxic. That combination is“landmark”according to Qadumi.
It’s also landmark for Sonoma Pharmaceuticals stock, which could continue to benefit from a spike in sales. Now that it’s able to market its product specifically with Covid-19 in mind, look for consumers to stock up on Nanocyn soon.
[Friday, May 29, 11:18 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Some, likeInvestorPlace’sJoel Baglole, thinkShopify(NYSE:SHOP) isrunning out of growth potential. To be fair, shares are up almost 90% year-to-date and trade at an astronomical forward price-earnings ratio. But investors shouldn’t knock SHOP stock here. In fact, its new e-commerce solutions shows Shopify knows exactly what to do moving forward.
To start, Shopify is a partner inFacebook’s(NASDAQ:FB) much-hypedFacebook Shops rollout. As Baglole writes, it’s not the only e-commerce partner that Facebook has tapped. But Shopify will still get access to Facebook’s 2.6 billion monthly active users as businesses begin selling products directly through social media platforms.
Shopify is also recognizing the needs of small and medium-sized business owners, especially as the novel coronavirus continues to decimate and shift the retail landscape. Its new Shopify Balance will helpshop owners track their expenses and make payments. Cards associated with the plan will earn rewards on business expenses. Plus, a new local delivery program will allow merchants to define “local” areas and set special delivery rates within those areas. This will certainly help small businesses get creative.
But perhaps the most exciting new offering is Shopify Pay Installments. Similar to offerings fromKlarnaandAfterpay(OTCMKTS:AFTPY) — a company we previously praised in this blog — Shopify Pay Installments embraces “buy now, pay later.” This service was gaining serious popularity with retailers and shoppers before the pandemic, but asRetail Dive’sTatiana Walk-Morris wrote, it’seven more of a logical move now.
Buy now, pay later solutions make even high-priced purchases seem a bit more reasonable. Plus, as consumers continue to struggle financially, every dollar saved in the short term really does matter. Shopify has tapped into a key market, and giving its customers Pay Installments should seriously pay off. With that in mind, make sure to give SHOP stock a chance as it gains further e-commerce dominance.
[Friday, May 29, 10:49 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The 1950s and 1960s had the Space Race. In 2020, investors now have the “coronavirus vaccine race” as companies big and small work to develop, manufacture and market a potential cure for the novel coronavirus. To date, there are over 100 candidates in various stages of development and clinical trial.
Each company in the running has big potential. A vaccine will bring a safer reopening, a return to the “normal” so many Americans miss. Plus, it would represent just how far technology has come as researchers work to develop the vaccine in record time. President Donald Trump is even calling a U.S. initiativeOperation Warp Speed, demonstrating his intentions to quickly vaccinate the U.S. population.
In a field with more than 100 candidates, how do you start betting on the winner?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango is rallying behind what he sees as the top seven vaccine stocks. These companies will benefit from their ability to scale production quickly.
Here’s a look at theseven stocks he’s recommending now:
• Moderna(NASDAQ:MRNA)
• Inovio(NASDAQ:INO)
• Dynavax(NASDAQ:DVAX)
• Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX)
• Sorrento(NASDAQ:SRNE)
• Arcturus(NASDAQ:ARCT)
• iBio(NYSEMKT:IBIO)
[Friday, May 29, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s almost the weekend, but investors are getting a rough start in the stock market today. Tech stocks are still struggling, and things aren’t necessarily looking up.
President Donald Trump plans onholding a press conference later in the dayto discuss how his administration wants to move forward with China. His administration is pushing back on Beijing’s relationship with Hong Kong, but threats of sanctions, tariffs and limited visas could spell disaster for Silicon Valley.
Plus, Trump is once again taking aim at social media companies afterTwitter(NYSE:TWTR) applied newfact-checking and censorship protocolsto a handful of the president’s tweets. TWTR shares opened down after tumbling 4.5% on Thursday.
Will weekend enthusiasts be able to pull of a rally by the end of the day? It seems unlikely now, but you never know what is possible. In the meantime, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.21%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.52%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.46%
[Thursday, May 28, 4:34 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It should be abundantly clear that the novel coronavirus has changed “normal” life, and that some of these changes will be permanent in nature. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we are moving to a future devoid of human contact and in-person work. Instead, I’m recognizing that the pandemic is accelerating certain megatrends, and making many consumers familiar with new trends like e-commerce.
That’s whyInvestorPlace’sChris Markoch today recommended six companies that stand to be winners for the next decade. He wrote that these companies have stood out since the market-wide selloff in March, and their underlying trends will continue to accelerate in the future.
His list covers big trends. E-commerce. Telemedicine. Contactless payments. Fintech. We’ve seen howrestaurants quickly abandoned cashfor in-app payment experiences. Doctors closed non-essential offices in favor of telehealth offerings. Brick-and-mortar retailers have lost out to e-commerce sites. Those trends won’t reverse, they’ll simply accelerate.
To invest for the next decade, here areMarkoch’s six recommendations:
• PayPal(NASDAQ:PYPL)
• Square(NYSE:SQ)
• Shopify(NYSE:SHOP)
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Verizon(NYSE:VZ)
• Teladoc Health(NYSE:TDOC)
[Thursday, May 28, 4:12 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In an effort to bail out more tourism-dependent countries, theEuropean Union just unveiled a $2 trillion stimulus proposal. The plan combines over $800 billion in recovery funds with a $1.2 trillion budget for the next seven years. European stocks rose on the news, but some EU member nations are already pushing against it.
Germany and France, among the EU’s wealthiest nations, have been better able to inject cash into struggling companies. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, Greece, which gets much of its revenue from tourism, faces major economic pain and lacks necessary resources to address it.
As with any big-ticket bill, the proposed stimulus is controversial. To start, it would include the issuance of common eurozone debt. Repayments would begin in 2028, and according toThe Wall Street Journal, would be funded through bloc-wide taxes and member-state contributions.
The potential “bad guys” in this news have been dubbed the Frugal Four — Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria. According to the team atMorning Brew, thesenorthern states are “spooked” at the thought of taking on so much debton behalf of struggling economies. Investors should prepare for weeks of debate and changes to the proposal, as all 27 nations must agree.
All the debate isn’t preventing a rally in European stocks. Just like how the CARES Act brought hope for the hardest-hit industries,companies in Europe are feeling relief this week. Car makerRenault(OTCMKTS:RNSLY) is up 30% in the last five trading days. AirlinesRyanair(OTCMKTS:RYAAY) andLufthansa(OTCMKTS:DLAKY) are up 11% and 19%, respectively.
Just like in the United States,banks have been some of the losers. That means on a bailout-driven rally, they’re likely to be some of the winners.Banco Santander(NYSE:SAN) is up 9% in the last five trading days.Societe Generale(OTCMKTS:SCGLY) andBNP Paribas(OTCMKTS:BNPQY) are up 13% and 20%, respectively.
These six stocks are just a start, but they represent investment opportunities on the lessons learned in the U.S. Keep an eye on players in other hard-hit industries, and make sure to tune into the inevitable EU drama over the next few weeks.
[Thursday, May 28, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Today’s rally was just too good to be true. Stocks reversed course, heading into the red, although theS&P 500remains above the key 3,000 level. So, what happened in the stock market today?
Investors cheered on good news fromNovartis(NYSE:NVS) andArca Biopharma(NASDAQ:ABIO) about novel coronavirus treatments. However, an update that thedeath toll in the United States has now surpassed 100,000is disheartening. Plus, investors learned this morning that 2.1 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Every step forward is met with two steps back these days.
Unfortunately, the S&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositejust couldn’t hold onto their early morning gains. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.21%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.58%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.46%
[Thursday, May 28, 3:13 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) is, without a doubt, one of the biggest winners amid the novel coronavirus. The company continues to benefit from its e-commerce dominance, its Whole Foods grocery chain and its streaming entertainment library.New moves into the video game worldare also drawing praise from investors. And, asThe Wall Street Journalreported this week, Amazon is also making another move into the world of self-driving vehicles.
Cara Lombardo and Tim Higgins wrote on Tuesday that Amazon was allegedly in talks to acquireZoox, acompany working on the hardware and software for robot taxis. The duo wrote that after struggling to attract necessary financing, the startup has been struggling. A sale to Amazon could prolong its ideas, and potentially give Amazon an edge in the next-generation car world.
Although the deal has not been confirmed, many predict Amazon would pay no more than $3.2 billion for Zoox.Barron’sEric Savitz likes the rumors, noting thatAmazon could become a leader in the ride-hailing market, knocking outUber(NYSE:UBER) andLyft(NASDAQ:LYFT). Sure, those two companies have had a bit of a duopoly, but they aren’t holding up well in the face of a pandemic.
This isn’tAmazon’s first foray into the vehicle realm. It has previously invested in electric truck makerRivianandAurora Innovations, a company behind other self-driving tech. With this in mind, some see Amazon’s interest in Zoox as an even more cunning move.
Axios’Joann Muller wrote yesterday that if anything,Amazon is seeking to improve its logistics offeringsas e-commerce demand skyrockets. It is already working with Rivian and Aurora to produce 100,000 electric delivery trucks, and as Muller wrote, it could tap Zoox’s hardware and software to add self-driving or other high-tech features to this plan.
Competition in e-commerce is heating up and Amazon clearly wants to maintain its dominance. It’s not at risk yet, but continuing innovation is key. A purchase of Zoox could one day translate to even more profits for Amazon shareholders.
[Thursday, May 28, 3:00 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Pictures of Brooklyn’s Domino Park— where sunbathers relax in chalk circles spaced six feet apart — may seem like a city art experiment. Instead, it’s a sign of the times, as Americans yearn for time in the summer sun while still maintaining expert-recommended social distancing protocols. It’s also a sign of how states are struggling to strike a balance between reopening their economies and protecting concerned consumers.
This push for balance is what inspiredInvestorPlace’sLaura Hoy to make four stock recommendations today. Drawing on advice fromUniversity of Texas at Austin’s Brad Gold, she argues that the best stocks to buy are ones that will benefit both from reopening and social distancing.
It sounds like a tough ask, but her recommendations deliver just that. The stocks on her list combine work-from-home trends, reopening restaurants and staple American businesses.
Without further ado, here areHoy’s four recommendations:
• Dropbox(NASDAQ:DBX)
• 3M(NYSE:MMM)
• Starbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX)
• Raytheon Technologies(NYSE:RTX)
[Thursday, May 28, 2:41 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There’s no sense burying the big news.Arca Biopharma(NASDAQ:ABIO) stock is up 340% in intraday trading. Yep, you read that right. Shares opened yesterday below $4 and now trade above $15. This is truly spectacular price action — but there’s good reason for the leap.
Many biotech and pharmaceutical companies have chosen to fight the novel coronavirus through test kits, vaccines and antiviral drugs. We haveGilead’s(NASDAQ:GILD) remdesivir andAbbott Laboratories’(NYSE:ABT) test kits and over 100 vaccines in the race. But Arca Biopharma is offering something new to the market with its symptom-focused treatment.
To start, Covid-19 typically presents as an infection in the upper portion of the respiratory tract. But, as investors have surely seen in the news, the outbreak comes with a whole host of symptoms. Children are gettingblisters on their feet, pregnant women arereporting unique side effectsand other patients are seeing far-reaching impacts on various organs. One complaint is a coagulopathy — an inability to form blood clots — specific to Covid-19. It’snot entirely clear what the association is, or why it’s happening in so many patients. But, researchers do know that the presence of this coagulopathy islinked to increase risk of death in Covid-19 patients.
That’s where Arca Biopharma comes in. The company announced that it isdeveloping its AB201 as a treatment for this coagulopathy. One good thing is that the treatment has already been studied for safety and efficacy for other conditions, including Ebola, so it may be able to go through a more rapid process. In its Thursday press release, the company says it hopes to move to Phase 2b and Phase 3 trials by the second half of the year.
Keep a close eye on ABIO stock. One of the most attention-grabbing details of this virus is the various ways in which it impacts human life. As companies like Arca Biopharma work to treat unpredictable symptoms, there’s certainly profits to be made.
[Thursday, May 28, 2:13 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Novartis(NYSE:NVS) may have divested its vaccine business toGlaxoSmithKline(NYSE:GSK) in 2015, but that doesn’t mean the pharmaceutical giant is prepared to sit this fight out. In fact, it dove into the race to develop a novel coronavirus vaccine on Thursday through apartnership with Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
So how exactly does this partnership work? Novartis is contributing through its AveXis gene therapy unit. This unit is already familiar with a specific type of gene therapy delivery tool, known as adeno-associated virus (ADV). The Massachusetts hospital group has already begun developing and researching a vaccine that used this same tool. Its AAVCOVID is in preclinical trials, and could move to Phase 1 human trials by the second half of 2020.
Apparently investors still have an appetite for new vaccine stocks. Despite the fact that there are more than 100 other candidates,30 of which use this same type of vaccine technology, NVS shares are up almost 3% Thursday in intraday trading.
Why?BioPharma Dive’sJonathan Gardner wrote today that one particular area of interest is the hospital’searly move to partner with Novartis’ AveXis. The gene therapy unit will be particularly helpful in commercial manufacturing and distribution, which shows that there’s a high level of confidence about the vaccine. In a time where a vaccine is in sky-high demand, such a bold move is likely exactly what investors are looking for.
As we’ve previously reported in this blog, big rewards will come to the vaccine winner. Novartis has a big reputation and a lot of power behind its name. As the race heats up, it’s certainly a contender to watch.
[Thursday, May 28, 1:30 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
CNBC’sJim Cramer has been working since late April on his“Cramer Covid-19 Index.”Just as the name suggests, the TV analyst has been perfecting a portfolio of stocks that are set to outperform the broader market. There are 100 stocks in this index, and Cramer picked each one for an economy he describes as “reeling” amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Now that March’s selloff is mostly in the rear-view mirror and economic reports are trending higher, some are calling for a V-shaped — or quick — recovery. But Cramer thinks it’s too soon to give up on what he’s calling “recession stocks.” That’s why, asMarketWatch’sShawn Langlois wrote yesterday, the analyst is making some changes to the portfolio.
He sold stocks likeDigital Realty(NYSE:DLR),Freshpet(NASDAQ:FRPT) andInovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO). These stocks have been hot, but Cramer is looking for even more defensive names.
If you want to invest like Cramer, here are10 stocks he just added to his Covid-19 index:
• DataDog(NASDAQ:DDOG)
• Splunk(NASDAQ:SPLK)
• Twilio(NYSE:TWLO)
• Etsy(NASDAQ:ETSY)
• Wix.com(NASDAQ:WIX)
• Chegg(NYSE:CHGG)
• Target(NYSE:TGT)
• S&P Global(NYSE:SPGI)
• Palo Alto Networks(NYSE:PANW)
• Emergent(NYSE:EBS)
[Thursday, May 28, 11:07 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
AsInvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto wrote this morning, the novel coronavirus is creating a wave of fear and scapegoating. In turn, this has caused firearm sales to go through the roof. Sure, Enomoto acknowledges that he’s a bit of a cynic, but he’s likely not wrong. More consumers buying guns means more revenue for the gun manufacturers and retailers. That’s some easy math.
No, this isn’t like gun-toting southernersthreatening to shoot into hurricanesto drive them off. In fact, as Enomoto writes, nothing about this investing opportunity is particularly warm and fuzzy in nature. Many Asian Americans have become victims ofpandemic-related racial violence, as some falsely believe individuals are to blame for the outbreak.
In response, many Asian Americans are buying firearms. To Enomoto, that represents a growing customer base and a growing investing thesis. If you want to follow his lead, here areseven gun stocks he’s recommending investors buy now:
• American Outdoor Brands(NASDAQ:AOBC)
• Sturm Ruger(NYSE:RGR)
• Vista Outdoor(NYSE:VSTO)
• Olin Corporation(NYSE:OLN)
• Sportsman’s Warehouse(NASDAQ:SPWH)
• Axon Enterprise(NASDAQ:AAXN)
• Big 5 Sporting Goods(NASDAQ:BGFV)
[Thursday, May 28, 10:35 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
As consumers have abandoned healthy eating in favor of comfort foods, pizza has become a serious winner. I mean, who doesn’t love pizza? That thinking is why Longbow analyst Alton Stump set new “buy” ratings onDomino’s Pizza(NYSE:DPZ) andPapa John’s(NASDAQ:PZZA) today.
Domino’s reported first-quarter figures on April 23, but since then, it’s seen a“material” spikein business. AsBarron’sTeresa Rivas wrote yesterday, comparable-store sales were up 20.9% in May compared to a 7.1% increase in April. No wonder Stump is so bullish on pizza stocks. Based on Domino’s recent report, Stump is confident thatDPZ stock will continue to benefitfrom the novel coronavirus.
DPZ stock trades hands near $370, and Stump raised his 12-month price target to $441.
Papa John’s is a smaller operator, and Rivas says many investors are worried about its longer-term potential. Whereas Domino’s is likely to push through even as states reopen and dine-in restaurant options return, Papa John’s might lose its spark. That’s not stopping Stump, though. PZZA stock currently trades at $77, and theLongbow analyst things it could hit $95 in a year.
Pizza is warm, cheesy goodness nicely packed up in a cardboard box. Woes related to the coronavirus will persist for a long time, and pizza will be there to comfort consumers. If I were you, I wouldn’t bet against pizza stocks.
[Thursday, May 28, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
This week’s rally is looking pretty tough. Investors learned that2.1 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total to over 40 million. But the mass selling hasn’t started yet. Sure, 2.1 million is a lot better than 6.9 million. Is this “victory” cause for more stock market gains on Thursday?
TheS&P 500andDow Jones Industrial Averageopened higher on Thursday, but the tech-heavyNasdaq Compositewasn’t so lucky. Earnings fromHP(NYSE:HPQ) missed estimates, and investors are wary as U.S.-China trade tensions rise once again.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.35%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.74%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.15%
[Wednesday, May 27, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Nothing could stop Wednesday’s rally, not even renewed trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Hong Kong was“no longer autonomous”from China, raising concerns about its special trade status and broader U.S.-China relations. A handful of tech companies stumbled on the news.
However, Pompeo’s comments didn’t turn stocks negative. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed well in the green Wednesday. Now it’s just time to wait and see if theSpaceXlaunch goes as planned.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.48%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.21%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.77%
[Wednesday, May 27, 3:49 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Since early March, investors have largely been interested in so-called coronavirus stocks. Grocery stores, makers of comfort foods and take-out focused restaurants were among the winners. Now, as states move forward with reopening plans, Goldman Sachs is highlighting that not all of these winners will remain relevant. So, what stocks are worth holding onto — or buying — now?
In a new note to clients, the firm examined the household penetration of several key consumer products. Based on this research, analysts concluded that most of these demand spikes will be temporary. However,two winners will be hard seltzer and sanitizer(subscription required). What a combo.
Why seltzer and sanitizer? Goldman thinks these products have a certain stickiness to them. Consumers who started buying them will likely continue, as they’ve become part of everyday life. With that in mind,Boston Beer Company(NYSE:SAM) andProcter & Gamble(NYSE:PG) are likely long-term winners according to the analysts.
That makes sense.InvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall is a fan of SAM stock, writing in mid-May thateven a pandemic can’t bring it down. Boston Beer’s Truly seltzer has become a consumer favorite, and the company is also embracing innovation. It’s turningexpired beer into hand sanitizer.
AndInvestorPlaceanalyst Neil George is a big fan of PG stock. He wrote that it’sone of the best long-term stocks for investors to buy and hold. After shares stalled out, he’s pleased to see the company focusing more on shareholders. Plus, a dividend yield of 2.8% is juicy compared to theS&P 500.
[Wednesday, May 27, 3:22 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Retailers are struggling, but many experts believe the online resale market is booming.Robb Report’sJemima Sissons wrote last week thatconsumers are “detoxing” luxury wardrobes, posting them on online resale platforms. Others are looking for the right luxury accessories (think designer silk scarves) for pandemic living.
For individual consumers, this trend represents a great way to make a little bit of money back, or to swap out one luxury item for another.Vestiaire Collectivereported a44% increase of new listingsin the last month as work-from-home lounge items and sub-$500 goods drew interest. But there’s also a way for investors to benefit from the online resale market — which some say is worth $32 billion.
The first entry point isThe RealReal(NASDAQ:REAL). A recent IPO stock, The RealReal is the first publicly traded online resale platform. Its luxury focus has similarly brought it success amid the viral outbreak. In mid-May, it hosted adesigner mask saleto support frontline workers.
The RealReal hasn’t beenimmune from the novel coronavirus, but it’s up almost 40% in the last month. Wealthy customers will soon regain confidence, and that will translate to big rewards for the company.
New reporting fromBusiness Insider’sHayley Peterson highlights a second investment opportunity in this resale market.Walmart(NYSE:WMT) just announced a partnership withThredUp. Today, Walmart beganselling used clothing, footwear and handbags on the resale platform. Walmart customers get free shipping on $35-plus orders and free returns — two perks not previously available on ThredUp.
Whether you opt for familiar Walmart or newcomer The Real Real, the investing opportunity is solid, and the pandemic is only accelerating things.
[Wednesday, May 27, 2:42 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
No matter how smart Fido and Mr. Mittens are, they can’t fully grasp the consequences of the novel coronavirus. For many pets, the pandemic simply means beloved owners are now stuck at home. These pets also represent one constant as Americans face a series of changes: Dogs and cats still need to eat.
Humans grasp that grocery stores aren’t exactly the safest places right now. Pets don’t care aboutInstacartand strategic shopping trips. They’re simply hungry for food and treats. As consumers balance their care-giving duties with personal health,Freshpet(NASDAQ:FRPT) andChewy(NYSE:CHWY) have become hot stocks.
In fact,Supermarket Newsreported that83% of consumers surveyed now will buy pet products online, although they previously would have opted for the in-store experience. That bodes really well for Freshpet and Chewy stock.
Freshpet bills itself as thefuture of pet food. Ingredients include locally sourced chicken, cranberries and spinach. Shoppers can get it delivered throughAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN), Instacart andTarget’s(NYSE:TGT) Shipt. According toCNBC,Freshpet even caught Jim Cramer’s attentionas a great way way to beat theS&P 500in 2020.
The story with Chewy is similar. Instead of trekking to the grocery store or pet store, shoppers can get food, treats, toys and clothing for the pets delivered right to their door in a signature blue box. Talk about brand recognition.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto is bullish on Chewy, especially for younger investors. He wrote earlier in May that while Chewy’s operations aren’t always ideal (it struggled initially to meet the spike in demand),investors who get in now will certainly reap rewards.
As Freshpet and Chewy continue torack up analyst praise(subscription required), there’s no denying that they represent the future of pet food. Trust me, your furry friends will appreciate these investments.
[Wednesday, May 27, 1:49 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Today marked the long-awaited launch ofAT&T’s(NYSE:T) HBO Max streaming service. For a $14.99 a month customers get access to 10,000 hours of existing TV shows and movies. Top titles includeFriends,Rick and Mortyand the DC films likeWonder Woman. Is this the catalyst AT&T stock has been waiting for?
To be fair, thelaunch has its critics. HBO Max’s price tag comes slightly higher than other offerings fromDisney(NYSE:DIS) andNetflix(NASDAQ:NFLX). But AT&T has certainly stocked the service with an impressive content library. AsTechCrunch’sAnthony Ha writes, another downside is thelack of original content on the platform. A reboot ofFriendsshould debut later on, but there’s nothing like theThe Mandalorianto immediately excite fans.
But HBO Max should also benefit from all the new eyeballs the streaming world has attracted. Many states are rushing to reopen, but plenty of consumers will opt to stay at home. Plus, many businesses won’t get the green light to reopen for weeks or months to come.
InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango doesn’t think it’s a tough question. He’s confident that HBO Max will be a“mega growth catalyst” for AT&T. He wrote last week that its “treasure chest” of content will rival that of Disney+ and help AT&T weather the economic crisis.
Disney+ certainly found success amid the pandemic, as has music streaming platformSpotify(NYSE:SPOT). It’s too early to tell if HBO Max will attract the necessary customers, but the future looks bright. Buy AT&T stock now to ride out this mega growth catalyst, and binge-watchFriendswhile you wait for the big gains to come.
[Wednesday, May 27, 1:19 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The novel coronavirus created the perfect geopolitical storm. President Donald Trump, and several other world leaders, haveblamed China for allowing the outbreakto infect the rest of the world. Tensions between the U.S. and China are back on the rise after aphase-one trade deal fell by the wayside. International travel has broadly come to a standstill, andmany borders are closed.
Experts don’t think this trend will entirely reverse. In a new note to clients, Bank of America’s Kathryn McDonald and Joseph Quinlan wrote that the pandemic won’tcreatenew trends, butacceleratetrends that were already in motion, like what they term “de-globalization.”
In the note, the duo writes that this “de-globalization” trend means the U.S. will move its key manufacturing back within its borders. Next-generation technology will come from domestic factories, not from China. McDonald and Quinlan emphasize that a combination of re-shoring and localization was already gaining traction. The pandemic is just making it more attractive.
So how can investors profit in this return back to America?InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto predicted that pockets of geopolitical instability, some fueled by U.S.-China tensions, would rattle the lithium market. With that in mind, he recommendedSociedad Quimica y Minera(NYSE:SQM),Orocobre(OTCMKTS:OROCF),Power Metals(OTCMKTS:PWRMF) andGalaxy Resources(OTCMKTS:GALXF). According to Enomoto, these companies don’t source their lithium from China, which makes themmuch safer investments for 2020 and beyond.
Axios’Miriam Kramer and Alison Snyder wrote that thespace industry is another critical one to watch. For the last decade, U.S. astronauts have relied on Russia to get to space. Today’sSpaceXlaunch changes that. They question — will this bring about a new era of cooperation, or “Great Power” competition? Without the U.S. as a customer, Russia could turn to China for business.
Although SpaceX is a private company,Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) is a unique beneficiary of this de-globalization. According toBarron’sAl Root, eachSpaceX success turns into a branding opportunity for Tesla, and potential gains for TSLA stock.
There are countless other opportunities for this de-globalization trend. Look for industries most likely to return to the U.S. (Bank of America names robotics, critical pharmaceutical goods and automation).
[Wednesday, May 27, 12:46 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There are many reasons to like fintech stocks right now. For many investors, these newer, tech-focused players are free from traditional financial stocks’ bad reputation. Plus, these companies represent the future of payment, often providing cashless solutions perfect for novel coronavirus concerns.
But most conversations about cashless payments — or about fintech in general — stop after mentions ofSquare(NYSE:SQ) andPayPal(PYPL). Today, Brazil-basedStoneCo(NASDAQ:STNE) is looking to spend some quality time in the spotlight. Shares are up more than 27% in intraday trading.
To be fair, StoneCo already made waves in 2018 whenBerkshire Hathaway’s(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) Warren Buffett purchased a sizable stake. But what attracted Buffett back then, and why does it matter now?
StoneCo’s founders sought to take advantage of the growing trend toward cashless payments in Brazil. Its solutions help merchants with in-store, mobile and online payments. And emerging markets like Brazil are both hard-hit by the pandemic and alsoracing to adopt electronic payments.
Buffett saw the potential back then, and many investors have since followed in his footsteps. STNE stock struggled amid the outbreak, but has since climbed off its lows. Shares are now down just 15% for the year after touching a 55% loss in April.
On Tuesday afternoon, the company reported earnings that unfortunately missed estimates. Total revenue of $134 million was up 33% year-over-year, but EPS of 11 cents fell 1 cent from 2019. Behind Wednesday’s rally is a year-over-yeartotal payment volume increase of 42.1%.
Investors, likeInvestorPlace’sChris Lau, have long beenpounding the table on STNE stock. The pandemic shook the market’s confidence in StoneCo’s potential, but this increase in total payment volume seems to indicate that there’s a rebound in payments coming in Brazil.
As more consumers start spending money, more of those consumers will end up using one of StoneCo’s solutions. You don’t want to miss out.
[Wednesday, May 27, 11:27 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
With a market capitalization of $57 billion,Target(NYSE:TGT) is just a fraction of the size ofWalmart(NYSE:WMT). But the smaller retailer has developed an intensely brand-loyal following. And thanks to the novel coronavirus, it looks like it’s about to hit the “target” with shareholders.
Target is doing a lot of things right. It combines fashionable apparel with convenient snack items, affordable-but-trendy home goods with healthcare products.Online sales grew by 141% in the first quarteras consumers flocked to its website for a mix of essential and non-essential purchases.
In the grocery world, Target’s Shipt business is also paying off. Since March, the same-day grocery delivery service has seen its customers double. But according toSupply Chain Dive’sJeff Wells, there’s another exciting grocery catalyst rolling out. Before the pandemic, Target was testing adding fresh groceries and alcohol to itscurbside Drive Up program. After temporarily halting the pilot to focus on keeping employees safe, the program is back.
Sure, COO John Mulligan isn’t sure when the pilot will expand, but he’s optimistic that sooner, rather than later, customers will be ordering milk along with their school supplies and bathing suits for curbside pickup. As the pandemic continues to accelerate curbside offerings, look for Target to become even more of a one-stop shop for consumers.
Target is also heating things up elsewhere in the retail world. On May 21 it announced shoppers would be able topurchase products directly through its Instagram page. After initially entering your shipping and payment information, it will be a two-click process. AsRetail Dive’sTatiana Walk-Morris wrote, this is a great move for Target as in-app purchases gain traction. From the comfort of your couch or bed you can“shop” an imageand order what you see.
No wonderInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Langoloves TGT stock so much. With a 2.2% dividend yield and seemingly never-ending retail innovations, it’s the perfect buy to “beat” the pandemic.
[Wednesday, May 27, 10:39 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We’ve fallen into quite the rhythm with the market. We get bad news — say, we find out there’s been a spike in novel coronavirus cases. As a result, stocks broadly drop. Then, we get good news — say, a vaccine company has entered a new trial or produced desirable results. Stocks shoot up en masse.
Sure, there are exceptions to this madness. Some companies completely avoided the market-wide selloff in March. Video conferencing plays and providers of personal protective equipment have made a fortune. But what are investors to do with the rest of the madness?
According toInvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier, this conundrum is why cheap stocks are appealing. Small-cap companies, often without a ton of guaranteed revenue, move more on their own potential than with the broader market. In other words, their operations matter just as much — if not more — than their quarterly reports.
Boy, doesn’t that sound nice? Navellier’s recommendation is part of a big market promise. Buy a few shares for $3 or $4 each and then rake in massive returns, months or years down the line.
If you’re intrigued, here are hisseven recommendations now:
• Kadmon Holdings(NYSE:KDMN)
• ImmunoGen(NASDAQ:IMGN)
• Silvercorp Metals(NYSEMKT:SVM)
• Plug Power(NASDAQ:PLUG)
• Iamgold(NYSE:IAG)
• United Microelectronics(NYSE:UMC)
• Infinera(NASDAQ:INFN)
[Wednesday, May 27, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It seems like nothing can shake the rally this week. Stocks opened higher again on Wednesday despite President Donald Trump’sstirring of U.S.-China trade tensions. Perhaps helping keep the markets nice and green is aEuropean bailout packageand yesterday’s victory in travel stocks.
What will the rest of Wednesday bring? As Trump circles in on China, will we see a repeat of recent market panic? Or, will it be smooth sailing once again?
For now, the bulls are winning. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all snug in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.93%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.41%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.17%
[Tuesday, May 26, 4:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One thing we’ve covered in this blog is the power of reopening. Many consumers are itching to return to hair salons, retailers and restaurants after months of staying inside.InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango has long been bullish on this “pent-up demand” catalyst.
A quick glance at social media this weekend should have confirmed this catalyst is real.Americans flocked to the beaches, many without face masks, and visited friends and family. Public health experts arequick to warn against this behavior, but it means money is flowing a little bit more freely.
Lango is confident that this pent-up demand is strong, and that it’s going to make another group of stocks victorious in 2020. He calls this the shift from “staying at home” to “getting out of the house.” With this in mind, he recommended25 stocks to buyfor this trend today.
Here’s a look at the first 10 names on his list:
• McDonald’s(NYSE:MCD)
• Starbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX)
• Dine Brands(NYSE:DIN)
• Darden(NYSE:DRI)
• Dave & Buster’s(NASDAQ:PLAY)
• Six Flags(NYSE:SIX)
• SeaWorld(NYSE:SEAS)
• Cedar Fair(NYSE:FUN)
• Disney(NYSE:DIS)
• Planet Fitness(NYSE:PLNT)
[Tuesday, May 26, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Dare I ask, is this the return to normal investors have been waiting for? TheS&P 500played the flirt, crossing the 3,000 level for the first time since March 5.Traders returned to the floor of the New York Stock Exchangeafter weeks of working from home. Plus, vaccine news kept stocks steady and offered hope to even the most beaten-down of sectors.
It was a good day in the stock market, to say the least.Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) andMerck(NYSE:MRK) made waves with their vaccine news, and travel stocks got a bit of a boost.Delta Air Lines(NYSE:DAL),American Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL) andUnited Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL) all closed higher by more than 10%.
As investors cling to this optimism, the S&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed in the green Tuesday.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.23%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.17%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.17%
[Tuesday, May 26, 3:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Disney(NYSE:DIS) is a company with perhaps unrivaled brand loyalty. Consumers drop serious money to attend its theme parks, and spend weeks obsessing over new releases from its Star Wars and Marvel franchises. Unfortunately, even Disney hasn’t been immune from the novel coronavirus.
That less-than-magical reality is whyInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall has been siding with the skeptics on DIS stock. Until theme parks, movie theaters and resort properties reopen at full capacity, it will be missing out on much-needed revenue. However,McCall sees a bull case for shares near $90.
Sure, that implies a steep drop from its current share price. But hear me out. McCall’s argument makes a lot of sense, especially as he recognizes the value in different catalysts for Disney. For example, he sees “problem child” ESPN becoming a winner in the new normal. Why? Who knows when live audiences will return to sporting events. With that in mind, expect ESPN to log record audiences.
A quick trip to ESPN’s website shows another reason to like it. According to writer Ramona Shelburne, Disney is consideringhosting the NBA as it wraps up its season in late July. Its Orlando property would allow a return to game play while still limiting dangerous exposure to the virus.
This news makes McCall’s recommendation sound even more logical. He wrote that a recent NASCAR race drew 6.3 million virtual fans. Can you imagine what a virtual NBA season, hosted on Disney property, would look like?
Whether you support DIS stock at $90, or near its current price of $122, there’s a lot to like. The road to recovery won’t be perfect, but Mickey Mouse is set to steer the company through the tough times ahead.
[Tuesday, May 26, 2:16 p.m.Contributed bySarah Smith
To some investors, the novel coronavirus has likely made the split between growth stocks and value stocks feel silly. A lot of solid companies now have “value” prices, and pending rebounds make a lot of beaten-down companies look like “growth” stories.
But asBarron’sNicholas Jasinski wrote today, there’s more for investors to consider. That’s whyBarron’spulled together 15 stocks that have value prices— with forward price-earnings ratios below 15. Stocks on this list also are expected to grow their earnings per share by 10% each year for the next half decade.
That’s a tall order, but it’s not impossible. Just like the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” it’s important to find the exact fit.
Here are 15 stocks to consider for investments that fit “just right”:
• AbbVie(NYSE:ABBV)
• Albemarle(NYSE:ALB)
• Alexion Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:ALXN)
• Applied Materials(NASDAQ:AMAT)
• Ameriprise Financial(NYSE:AMP)
• Anthem(NYSE:ANTM)
• Broadcom(NASDAQ:AVGO)
• Bristol-Myers Squibb(NYSE:BMY)
• CBRE Group(NYSE:CBRE)
• Cigna(NYSE:CI)
• Centene(NYSE:CNC)
• Cabot Oil & Gas(NYSE:COG)
• Fifth Third Bancorp(NASDAQ:FITB)
• Lam Research(NASDAQ:LRCX)
• Universal Health Services(NYSE:UHS)
[Tuesday, May 26, 2:09 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The current angle on retail is grim. Brick-and-mortar shops were closed, and more than 38 million consumers now find themselves unemployed. Americans face mounting economic pressure, and anxiety is limiting their spending, particularly on non-essential items. One thing this narrative doesn’t include is a simple-but-important fact. Rich people are still shopping like rich people.
That’s why Telsey Advisory analyst Cristina Fernandez upgradedWilliams-Sonoma(NYSE:WSM) stock to “outperform” from “market perform.” She also slapped an $80 price target on shares, which currently trade hands near $70.
In a note to clients, she wrote that there werethree reasons Williams-Sonoma would benefit from the novel coronavirus(subscription required). According to the analyst, the company is already succeeding in increasing its online sales. Plus, its target demographic is affluent customers with over $100,000 in household income. This makes Williams-Sonoma’s home and kitchen products even more attractive to consumers now.
Sure, Williams-Sonoma sounds like an unlikely winner, but the numbers are there. Just as wealthier consumers are stocking up on at-home workout gear likePeloton(NASDAQ:PTON) bikes, it’s clear nice kitchen gear is at the top of many shopping lists.
Shares are up 4.1% in intraday trading on the upgrade. Keep a close eye on WSM and its luxury peers.
[Tuesday, May 26, 12:53 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Depending on where in the U.S. you live, beaches, lakes andpublic parks looked almost “normal” over the long weekend. Americans flocked to sunbathe as public health experts continue to warn of the dangers the novel coronavirus presents. For investors, consumers’ willingness to return the world of leisure bodes well for travel stocks.
There’s also data to back this up.Axios’Dion Rabouin reported this morning that air travel demand is “significantly” rebounding. Transportation Security Administration data shows that as lockdowns continue to ease, more passengers are boarding flights.
Before the pandemic, roughly 2 million people were screened at airports each day. At the lows,less than 90,000 people were going through those checkpoints. But things are changing. As Rabouin writes, theTSA screened approximately 350,000 people on Friday, May 22.
There’s another catalyst helping travel stocks. On Monday,Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) announced it was ready to begin early trials of its coronavirus vaccine. That has NVAX shares up in intraday trading, but it’s also boosting airline and cruise stocks. Why? In theory, consumers will feel a whole lot safer about travel if they’ve received a vaccine.
Travel demand is surging, with or without a vaccine. With that in mind, travel stocks picked byInvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth are worth another look. He made these recommendations in late April, but he argued they were the top picks as consumers returned to the seas and sky.
Here are his seven recommendations:
• Royal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL)
• Southwest Air Lines(NYSE:LUV)
• LVMH(OTCMKTS:LVMUY)
• Estee Lauder(NYSE:EL)
• Hilton Hotels(NYSE:HLT)
• MGM Resorts International(NYSE:MGM)
• Booking Holdings(NASDAQ:BKNG)
[Tuesday, May 26, 11:29 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Once again, investors are rejoicing on news that an effective vaccine may be just around the corner.Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) announced yesterday that it was beginningearly trials of its NVX‑CoV2373 vaccine for the novel coronavirus in Australia. Shares are up almost 14% in intraday trading.
There’s a lot to like here. Very early animal trials found that low doses of the vaccine worked. The human trials, which began today, should yield results by July. As Novavax ramps up production of the vaccine through funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the company could have 100 million doses ready in 2020 and 1.5 billion doses ready in 2021.
And, as aMarketWatchreport noted,Novavax’s vaccine candidate is slightly differentthan others under investigation. It is a recombinant vaccine, which means that it targets a very specific part of the virus. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, these vaccinestypically trigger a stronger immune response.
Based on Tuesday’s rally, investors like what they see. A vaccine means that even the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, like travel, become more viable. That’s why analysts on Wall Street have astrong buy consensus rating on shares. Today, B. Riley analyst Mayank Mamtani set the highest price target yet, putting shares at $53.
[Tuesday, May 26, 11:02 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Merck(NYSE:MRK) came ready for its moment in the spotlight with a three-prong plan to fight the novel coronavirus. AsBarron’sJosh Nathan-Kazis wrote,Merck was late to the race, as its big pharmaceutical peers rolled out vaccine and treatment collaborations. However, CEO Ken Frazier said Merck has just been waiting for the right moment, and a proven platform to build a vaccine on.
In a Tuesday press release, the company announced it isworking on two vaccines and one antiviral treatment. One vaccine comes through its acquisition ofThemis Bioscience, another through a partnership withIAVI. Lastly, Merck is partnering withRidgeback Bioon an oral antiviral treatment.
According to Frazier, Merck has a lot going for it in this fight. The company has experience developing vaccines and other treatments for HIV and Ebola. Is Wall Street buying it?
MRK shares are up 1.9% in intraday trading, slightly less than theS&P 500. But Mizuho Securities analyst Mara Goldsteinupped her price target on shares to $100this morning. Shares currently trade hands for less than $78.
Merck is a solid company working on three solid solutions. As this race heats up, look for the company to become a true leader.
[Tuesday, May 26, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Boy, it looks like all investors needed was a long weekend to turn things around. The major indices are ready to start the week on the right foot, as theDow Jones Industrial Averageadds 600 points.
To be fair, there’s also a lot of vaccine optimism in the market.Merck(NYSE:MRK) andNovavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) both are making onprogress on solutions for the novel coronavirus. Combined, that news is more than enough to counter the World Health Organization’s move tostop trials of hydroxychloroquine.
There’s a lot to like. TheS&P 500and theNasdaq Compositeare also starting Tuesday deep in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 2.22%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 2.51%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.86%
[Friday, May 22, 3:31 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Hopefully we’ve established in this blog that in times of uncertainty, it helps to follow the experts. If nothing else, their pandemic stock picks are a source of inspiration. That’s why value investor Bill Nygren’s top 10 holdings are worth a close look.
Nygren is the manager of theOakmark Fund(NASDAQ:OAKMX), and he hasn’t exactly had a great year so far. However, after sellingAmerican Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL) and picking up some stay-at-home stocks, his fund’s top holdings are a good playbook for the current market.
According to Nygren, it’s important not to get too caught up in the short term. That’s why he’s focusing on companies with strong balance sheets, lots of cash and pandemic-proof businesses. Apparently, that’s not too tall of an order.
Here’s alook at his top holdings now(subscription required):
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
• Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX)
• Bank of America(NYSE:BAC)
• Comcast(NASDAQ:CMCSA)
• Citigroup(NYSE:C)
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Charles Schwab(NYSE:SCHW)
• State Street(NYSE:STT)
• Capital One Financial(NYSE:COF)
• TE Connectivity(NYSE:TEL)
[Friday, May 22, 2:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Early on in this pandemic, we saw how easily the novel coronavirus could destroy a company’s reputation. Cruise operators likeCarnival(NYSE:CCL) andRoyal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL) instantly became associated with the evils of the virus. Instead of luxurious pools and fruity cocktails, picture panicked passengers trapped in the middle of the ocean. It’s a public relations nightmare.
Granted, these companies are also facing no-cruise orders and major cash crunches. But the public relations elementdoesmatter. When ships start sailing again, Carnival and Royal Caribbean must convince consumers it’s safe to board.
That’s why, asAxios’Felix Felix Salmon wrote, somehard-hit companies are turning to marketing to change their image. It’s a simple formula. Pick a disinfectant company, form a partnership with a research hospital and create a “safe” brand. If a business wants to survive in this new normal, it must convince consumers it’s safe to engage with its products and services.
So, what companies are doing this well? According to Salmon,United Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL) andHilton(NYSE:HLT) are leading the pack. In this name-dropping exercise, United Airlines hasUnited CleanPlus. It’s distributingClorox(NYSE:CLX) products at its airports and working with the Cleveland Clinic to keep passengers safe. Hilton is following the exact same formula. The hotel chain is partnering withReckitt Benckiser(OTCMKTS:RBGLY), the maker of Lysol. It’s alsoconsulting with the Mayo Clinicto keep hotel travelers as safe as can be.
It’s a marketing scheme that likely makes your skin crawl, but it could be a winning strategy. We already knew that Clorox and Reckitt Benckiser were top buys, and their products are in high demand. The next logical move may just be to invest in companies that make reopening feel safer.
That’s exactly why Morgan Stanley’s Brian Pfeifler is bullish on traditional travel names now.Airbnbproperties and other short-term rentals won’t feel as “safe” asregularly cleaned hotels with brand power and luxury status. I’ll take my complimentary Clorox wipes now, and recommend you do the same.
[Friday, May 22, 1:34 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Boeing(NYSE:BA) has been suffering for a long time. Last year, its 737 Max plane was behind two fatal accidents, and investigators keep digging up more flaws. Then, the novel coronavirus effectively wiped out air travel, and in turn wiped out Boeing’s business. Is it time to sell BA stock and move on?
Not so fast. RBC Capital analyst Michael Eisen made waves Thursday when he gave shares an“outperform” rating and a $164 price target. According to Eisen, the rewards with this investment outweigh the risks.
Boy did his client note make waves in the market. It’s been a long time since Wall Street showed Boeing any love, so shares were up 4% on the day. And Eisen really did show BA stock some love. He thinks the Federal Aviation Administration will give the 737 Max the green light in the third quarter, and predicted that passenger demand will see double-digit growth for several years, propelling shares higher.
It’s 57% year-to-date loss makes these optimism a little hard to believe, butInvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth agrees. He wrote last week that Boeing is one of thetop stocks to buy if you’re betting on America. Why? Institutions — not to mention the U.S. federal government — are stepping up to support Boeing. At this point, it’s simply too big to fail.
[Friday, May 22, 11:40 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Pardon the pun, butBest Buy(NYSE:BBY) stock may truly be one of the best equities to buy right now. Before the pandemic, the consumer electronics supplier was an icon of brick-and-mortar retail, and all of the struggles associated with it. A quick pivot to curbside sales changed everything. Now, analysts are calling Best Buy stock a “winner” and an “e-commerce play.”
Behind the noise is its May 21 earnings report, which unsurprisingly showed a drop in overall domestic revenue. But way more important is its domestic online revenue, which increased more than 155%. Why? In the middle of the fiscal first quarter, CEO Corie Barrypivoted the company to exclusively curbside operations. As Barry said, even without a single customer in its stores, the move helped preserve sales.
That’s whyRetail Dive’sBen Unglesbee wrote Thursday thatBest Buy is set to emerge as a “winner.”The quick pivot, combined with consumers’ positive reaction to curbside sales, shows that it’s innovative. It doesn’t hurt that e-commerce giantAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) saw its delivery times increase. For many shoppers, curbside pick-up is just more convenient.
Plus, consumer electronics suddenly became hot-button items. Video game consoles were flying off the shelves in the first quarter as Americans found themselves bored at home.Work-from-home accessories like webcamsare also in high demand.
Some will surely say that this is only a short-term, unsustainable rally. However, Wall Street doesn’t agree with that argument. Oppenheimer analystBrian Nagel gave BBY stock a $105 price target, implying more than 30% upside.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto also recently jumped on the Best Buy bandwagon, pointing out itsmarket dominance in the consumer electronicsand appliance segments.
If nothing else, Best Best stock is a feel-good buy. Start betting on this old-school retailer’s comeback story, because you don’t want to miss out.
[Friday, May 22, 10:46 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Restaurants are in a tricky position, but according to President Donald Trump, things could be changing. At a May 18 meeting with top industry executives, he saidModerna’s(NASDAQ:MRNA) early success, among other novel coronavirus breakthroughs, could getdiners back in their seats soon.
With that in mind,InvestorPlace’sTezcan Gecgil rounded upthree top restaurant stocks. She’s confident, but she’s looking at at least a two-year timeframe for returns. In other words, these stocks present great opportunities, but you likely won’t see share prices double overnight.
Although the names on her list have struggled, she’s confident their size and brand power will help them persevere. Here’s what she’s recommending now:
• Denny’s(NASDAQ:DENN)
• McDonald’s(NYSE:MCD)
• Starbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX)
[Friday, May 22, 9:49 a.m.]Contributed byJessica Loder
What a way to start the day before a long weekend.
TheNasdaq,S&P 500andDow Joneswere all in the red during the overnight hours, and the opening bell hasn’t changed that trend. It seems like a big part of the nerves comes from fear that the U.S. and China could start butting heads again. According to Yahoo Finance, Thursday saw “senators introducing a bipartisan bill that would sanction Chinese officials and organizations who enforce newlyintroduced security measures in Hong Kong. This came a day after theSenate passed a billthat would make it more difficult for Chinese companies to list on U.S. stock exchanges.”
That may explain why big-name Chinese companies likeAlibaba(NYSE:BABA) andJD.com(NASDAQ:JD) both opening deep in the red on Friday.
Will we see a turnaround? Only the bulls can know that.
• The S&P 500 is currently down by 0.39%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently down by 0.47%
• The Nasdaq Composite is currently down by 0.32%
[Thursday, May 21, 4:41 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It may not be time to board cruise ships yet, but according to Wedbush analyst James Hardiman, it’s time to start buyingRoyal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL) stock.
AsInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Hardiman saidRoyal Caribbean was the strongest of its peers. From his note to clients:
“We would argue thatRCL had the best momentum headed into the pandemicand see no reason this will not be the case coming out of the pandemic.”
The analyst gave RCL shares an “outperform” rating and a $63 price target. So what should investors make of all that? To start, the rest of Wall Street agrees. Shares are considered a “moderate buy” and have an average 12-month price target just over $60. That implies almost 40% upside.
EvenInvestorPlace’sMark Hake agrees. After writing that Royal Caribbean was approaching “failure,” Hake changed his mind. Now he writes investors should see thecurrent price as a discounted opportunityto get in on a rebound story. Chances are, pent-up demand will get customers back on board sooner than we may think.
[Thursday, May 21, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It looks like the bulls just couldn’t shake this morning’s doom and gloom. News that 2.4 million more Americans had filed for unemployment benefits temporarily shook the optimism from the market.
What else moved the market today?AstraZeneca(NYSE:AZN) received more than $1 billion of funding for its novel coronavirus vaccine. Plus, every state in the U.S. is moving forward with some part of a three-phase reopening plan. Will tomorrow bring a rally as we head into the long weekend?
For now, one thing is clear. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed the day in the red.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.78%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.41%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.97%
[Thursday, May 21, 3:31 p.m.]Contributed byAndrew Taylor
Last night, investing legend Louis Navellier revealed hisAccelerated Income Projectfor the very first time…
And it was incredible.
He showed folks how he uses his advanced, high-speed computer system to target the safest, most-lucrative income opportunities on the market.
One of the past investments it found produced a payout yield of 209% in seven months…
Another generated 88% in four months…
And a third produced 169% in just over a year.
Those are just three of dozens of examples.
And the curious thing is these gainsdidn’tcome from options, bonds, dividends or any of the other traditional investments folks think of when it comes to earning income.
They came from a special type of investment Louis calls “accelerated income generators…”
Which can hand you an incredible amount of hold-in-your-hand cash in no time.
And as Louis was doing research for his new income project, he found a way to target them left and right…
In fact, he just targeted two more not too long ago…
And in a few hours he’ll officially add them to hisAccelerated Income Project“buy list.”
You can learn how to access Louis’ two brand-new recommendations — and all of his new income research —by going here.
[Thursday, May 21, 1:40 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s true that many e-commerce companies are winning in the face of the novel coronavirus, but perhaps none is as strong asJD.com(NASDAQ:JD). The Chinese company quickly adapted as the outbreak hit its home country, and has now emerged victorious.
According toSupply Chain Dive’sEmma Cosgrove, JD.com’soperating costs hit an all-time low this quarter. In other words, high demand and cost-cutting measures combined to fight added operating costs from the pandemic. American rivalAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) faces a different reality as it anticipates dedicating its entire Q2 operating profit to cover new delivery expenses.
So what is working for JD? According to the company, in-house logistics andinnovations like delivery droneshelped it in its early fight against the coronavirus. Plus, the e-commerce giant’s new grocery offering sourced local produce, countering supply-chain disruptions at larger food suppliers.
Shares are up almost 50% year-to-date, and analysts keep sending JD stock love in the form ofbuy ratings.InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango even said it was one thetop 15 stocks to buy in 2020. Why? He thinks the company is well-equipped to navigate any logistics challenges and will benefit from the growing popularity of e-commerce in China.
JD.com is doing something right, and it’s paying off. Look for operating costs to keep falling, especially as pandemic-driven expenses disappear. JD stock is an excellent investment for an e-commerce future.
[Thursday, May 21, 1:05 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s a nerve-wracking time to be an investor. On one hand,billionaires like Warren Buffett and David Tepper aren’t buying up stocks. The unemployment figures keeps climbing — now it’s above 38 million. Plus, even big companies are facing a cash crunch as the novel coronavirus weighs on their operations.
On the other hand, vaccine developers likeModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) have the potential to send theDow Jones Industrial Averagehigher by 3% in a day. Some solid companies now have more reasonable share prices and make great buy-the-dip candidates. How is an investor supposed to balance all of the chaos and make decisions?
InvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth has a great solution. Don’t run from the markets and cash out, but also focus your money on companies with strong balance sheets. These companies have the cash to weather even a prolonged downturn, but you’ll still benefit from rebound action.
Here areseven stocks he’s recommending now:
• Visa(NYSE:V)
• Nike(NYSE:NKE)
• Johnson & Johnson(NYSE:JNJ)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)
• McDonald’s(NYSE:MCD)
• Coca-Cola(NYSE:KO)
[Thursday, May 21, 11:39 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Another day, another vaccine developer making big moves in the market. AfterModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) andInovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) got some time in the spotlight this week, it’sAstraZeneca’s(NYSE:AZN) turn. Shares are are up a modest 2.9% in intraday trading.
In an early morning press release AstraZeneca shared it had received$1 billion from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. This funding comes as part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed designed to ramp up production and distribution of vaccines for the novel coronavirus.
According to the Trump administration, the private-public partnership will combine AZN’s vaccine success with the U.S. government’s ability to scale manufacturing. This deal should ultimatelymake 30 million doses of the vaccine available by September.
Additionally, AstraZeneca said today that in partnership with the University of Oxford, it will still have 400 million doses ready at some point in the fall. Through its work with university researchers, it also nabbed $79 million from the United Kingdom’s government.
Will this private-public partnership be the model for vaccine development moving forward? It sounds like a win for investors, as it brings confidence that Americans will be first in line to receive vaccines. Now all we need is for a vaccine to work.
[Thursday, May 21, 11:17 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One of the big themes of 2020 so far is that restaurant stocks are out, and grocery store stocks are in. However, that trend may be about to reverse as grocery prices rise. According toCNBC’sThomas Franck,meat and eggs led prices higher by 2.6% in April. That’s the biggest one-month jump since 1974.
More Americans are cooking meals at home, and panic over the novel coronavirus hasn’t subsided. That means plenty of shoppers are still focused on “stocking up” and demand for key groceries is high. At the same time, we’ve previously reported in this blog on a host of supply-chain issues. Together, these catalysts are combing to raise prices at a very inopportune time.
For Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan, this inflation is a good sign things are turning around for restaurants. The analyst believes that while delivery and pick-up options have somewhat helped restaurants, they aren’t making up for dine-in demand. If groceries become less accessible, that will change.
That’s why, asBarron’sTeresa Rivas writes,Setyan is bullish on two particular restaurant stocks. He likesJack in the Box(NASDAQ:JACK) andTexas Roadhouse(NASDAQ:TXRH). According to Setyan, JACK stock will benefit from the chain’s popularity among burger lovers. And because Texas Roadhouse is seen as a “value’ restaurant, TXRH stock should also get a nice boost.
Setyan gave each stock an “outperform” rating. He has a 12-month price target of $80 on JACK and $73 on TXRH. If anything, it’s a great way for investors to profit from an otherwise gloomy reality.
[Thursday, May 21, 10:28 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Are you hungry for a hot dog? I sure am, especially as the weather heats up. It turns out, hedge funds are also hungry for hot dogs, but not the BBQ treat.
In the hedge fund world, hot dogs are top-owned stocks outperforming theS&P 500. Right now, these standout names matter even more, becausehedge funds are known for riding out volatilitybetter than most individual investors.
So why should individual investors care? It’s true thathedge funds aren’t particularly accessible. Individuals must be “accredited” — in other words, they must be worth a lot of money — to participate. Well, a recent survey of 342 hedge funds just shed some light on their favorite stocks. As the novel coronavirus disrupts the market, following in the footsteps of these volatility pros isn’t a bad idea.
Here is a list of the10 top-owned stocks now(subscription required):
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Allergan(NYSE:AGN)
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
• Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX)
• Fidelity National Information Services(NYSE:FIS)
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)
• Visa(NYSE:V)
• Charter Communications(NASDAQ:CHTR)
[Thursday, May 21, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We’ve seen this before, but it still hurts. Investors learned this morning that another2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. That means over 38 million people lost their jobs as a result of the novel coronavirus. It’s jarring to say the least.
Let’s digest this a bit more. Stock futures headed into the red on the news, despite the fact jobless claims are declining. That’s likely because as states reopen, investors were hoping for an even smaller figure today.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened lower this morning.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.07%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.12%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.02%
[Wednesday, May 20, 4:34 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Penn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN) made some investors happy on Wednesday. Shares of the popular stock closed higher by almost 13% on news it wasreopening casinos in Mississippi. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, PENN and its gambling peers have been high-flying equities as investors bet on a big recovery for the industry.
InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell included Penn National as one of thetop movers in the stock market today. As Kenwell wrote, it got approval to reopen 10 casinos. Five locations in Louisiana reopened on Monday, and 5 in Mississippi will reopen tomorrow. It’s not a lot, but any return to normal is worthy of praise.
With that in mind, manyInvestorPlacecontributors are bullish on the name. Nicolas Chahine wrote that therally can take shares 35% higher. Laura Hoy wrote that while there’s risk in the space,Penn National is the best play.
There’s one more thing to note. JPMorgan analyst Joseph Greff justreiterated his “buy” rating on PENN stock today. Although his 12-month price target of $28 doesn’t imply much upside, it’s still nice to know Wall Street is rooting for the company too.
[Wednesday, May 20, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wow, bulls are clearly the winners on Wednesday. It seems like afterModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) betrayed investors’ trust on Tuesday, confidence and optimism are back in the market.
So, what happened on Wednesday?Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) released its own vaccine news, the Federal Reserve warned of long-lasting impacts to the economy andAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) andFacebook(NASDAQ:FB) hit new highs.
There’s a lot to rally behind, but there are still lurking threats from the novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization reported thatnew cases jumped a record amountacross the world in the last 24 hours.
The major indices are ignoring that for now at least, as theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.67%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.52%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 2.08%
[Wednesday, May 20, 3:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Spotify(NYSE:SPOT) is another unlikely winner in our new world. At the start of state-wide lockdowns, many experts predicted shares would tumble. That’s because many streamers use commute and gym to listen to music and podcasts. Instead, Spotify actually saw user growth. More consumers started plugging in while lounging around the house, and especially while cooking.
Some, likeInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango, doubt Spotify stock’s potential. Lango wrote last week thatany reason for a rally has come and gone. News today may change that.
Joe Rogan is famous in the podcast world. HisJoe Rogan Experienceis popular onApple(NASDAQ:AAPL) andAlphabet’s(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) streaming platforms. Now, Spotify gets the exclusive rights.
Each month, there are approximately 190 million downloads of theJoe Rogan Experience. And according to theWall Street Journal, thisdeal values it at $100 million.
This is a big win for Spotify, and it now has even more solid footing in the fight against Apple and YouTube. But according to the team atMorning Brew,there’s even more to like between the lines. Part of the rights deal includes video — something new to the Spotify podcast world. Apparently, consumers areshifting to video streaming over audio streaming in lockdown, and Spotify wants to embrace that.
When theJoe RoganExperiencedebuts on Spotify in September, the full video podcasts will be available. As Spotify strengthens its lead in this popular media niche, especially as it lines up with pandemic behavior shifts, expect it to be a long-term winner.
[Wednesday, May 20, 2:38 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Stocks tumbled hard, and then some names seriously rebounded. Investors who missed out on those early quarantine rallies in companies likeAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) andActivision Blizzard(NASDAQ:ATVI) are probably kicking themselves.
But, Barclays analysts think there’s reason to be optimistic. Investors piled into e-commerce and video game companies, but some hard-hit sectors still haven’t felt any love. Getting in now will create ample room to profit.
As reopening plans progress, Barclays believes ride-hailing names, travel companies anddigital advertising plays are likely to rebound the most(subscription required).
With that in mind, they’re recommending eight stocks now for bold investors. Here’s the list:
• Uber(NYSE:UBER)
• Lyft(NASDAQ:LYFT)
• Booking Holdings(NASDAQ:BKNG)
• Expedia(NASDAQ:EXPE)
• TripAdvisor(NASDAQ:TRIP)
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
• Snap(NYSE:SNAP)
[Wednesday, May 20, 2:09 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
I’ll start with the basics here.Phunware(NASDAQ:PHUN) is a tiny company that specializes in fully integrated software. Right now, its mobile-first solutions for healthcare businesses are driving a lot of investor attention. After announcing a partnership withHewlett Packard Enterprise(NYSE:HPE) today, shares are up 195%.
Granted, shares are up 195% and still trade at $1.97. HPE has a healthcare unit, and now thatunit will have access to Phunware’s full suiteof pandemic offerings. As a“full-stack” company, Phunware’s software helps with customer engagement, management and monetization.
So what exactly are these pandemic offerings? It can send mobile messages en masse, alerting patients of novel coronavirus test sites, appointment options and nearby confirmed cases.Phunware also promises to facilitate virtual visits, provide a patient portal and manage prescription refills. It truly manages the whole mobile medical experience.
For investors, it looks like the small company’s top-notch portfolio and the weight of its new partner are driving the excitement. Phunware’s penny-stock status is definitely reason for concern, but if it continues to expand its reach with relevant products, it could be a big winner.
[Wednesday, May 20, 1:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Let’s take stock of the food situation real quick. You can brave a grocery store, or if you’re lucky, get in an order with a delivery service likeInstacart. You can order delivery and pick-up from several restaurants, and companies likeGrubhub(NYSE:GRUB) facilitate that process.
As a consumer, thinking outside of the box opens your lockdown-approved food options. As an investor, these options represent major potential. No, I’m not talking about eating withmannequins at reopened restaurants. I’m talking about meal delivery companies likeBlue Apron(NYSE:APRN).
Blue Apron has received a lot of criticism since its IPO. Sure, the idea sounded promising, but the demand just wasn’t there. Consumers signed up for meal kits and then canceled subscriptions. But now that grocery shopping is considered dangerous and eating out is limited, Blue Apron is a winner.
According toThe New York Times’David Gelles, Blue Apron is seeing meaningful improvements. CEO Linda Kozlowski said the company saw a27% increase in demand in early April. New customers came rushing for meal kits, and old customers returned or increased their plans.
Kozlowski’s comments highlighted two other key details. At the start of the lockdowns, Blue Apron actually cut advertising spending, and still saw a flock of new customers. To me, that’s proof it’s a household name, even if households weren’t all ordering before. Additionally, as it sources ingredients from smaller companies, Kozlowski maintains that supply-chain impacts have been minimal.
Is it time to buy a stock that once was a joke on Wall Street?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote in early May that while Blue Apron will certainly see some churn,many of its new customers will stick around. The long-term impacts of the pandemic are so unknown that a meal kit may be the comfort households need.
One more thing to note. Privately heldThrive Marketis another winner in this meal-kit revolution. The company specializes inhealthy foods and eco-friendly cleaning products. Although the timeline is unclear, CEO Nick Green is prepping the company for an IPO.
[Wednesday, May 20, 12:57 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In February, many Americans likely had never heard of social distancing. Now, that phrase, and the guidelines associated with it, dominates our collective vocabulary. Is “contact tracing” set to do the same? If so, investors ought to get in now to profit.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contact tracing is akey part of the path toward recovery from the novel coronavirus. If an individual tests positive, healthcare workers will identify all other individuals they were in contact with. From there, those individuals are informed of the situation and given preventive steps. Some — if not all — would be called in for testing.
In theory, all contact tracing requires is a little bit of old-fashioned sleuthing. Patients must be honest, and then healthcare workers can dig through the rest. But many that have Big Tech leanings are proposing a different solution.
Countries like South Korea and Singapore used tech todigitally track and map all confirmed cases. Some in the U.S. want to do the same, andBig Tech is stepping up with the offerings. Right now, concerns around privacy are dominating the conversation. Regardless, you don’t want to miss out.
InvestorPlace’sChris Markoch pushed through the controversy and rounded up thetop seven stocks involved in contact tracing. These make solid buys in an area of public health innovation. Here’s his list:
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
• Alibaba(NYSE:BABA)
• Tencent Holdings(OTCMKTS:TCEHY)
• SAP SE(NYSE:SAP)
• Deutsche Telekom(OTCMKTS:DTEGY)
• Conduent(NASDAQ:CNDT)
[Wednesday, May 20, 12:27 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Just two days afterModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) moved the market with a novel coronavirus vaccine update,Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) is looking to do the same. An early morning press release has shares up about 9% in intraday trading. It’s not as big as some of the recent swings we’ve seen, but perhaps investors are wary after scientists questioned the veracity of Moderna’s report yesterday.
According to the release, Inovio has published its preclinical findings in a peer-reviewed journal,Nature Communications. This data shows that its INO-4800 vaccinesuccessfully generated antibodies for the coronavirusin mice and guinea pigs, its animal test group.
So, what are the next steps?Reuters’Deena Beasley wrote this morning that Inovio began Phase 1 human trials in April. This early round of study is designed to show whether a vaccine is safe, and whether it can trigger an immune response. Inovio anticipatesreleasing data from that study in June.
From there, Inovio is targeting Phase 2 and 3 trial start dates in July or August. The company has been a leader in the fight against the coronavirus, but asInvestorPlace’ sMark Hake wrote this morning, itlacks the manufacturing power of its larger rivals. Plus, it is choosing to pursue an innovative-but-challenging approach to vaccine design.
Regardless of the challenges,InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier is bullish on INO stock. He wrote yesterday thatinvestors should add it to their high-growth biotech holdings, and that its potential goes way beyond the coronavirus.
Keep a close eye on the stock. Its June report is likely to move the market, in one direction or another, and good vaccine news would mean great things for shareholders.
[Wednesday, May 20, 11:35 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There aremanyreasons that the adoption of telemedicine has so quickly accelerated. It’s simply convenient, taking out the time and hassle associated with doctor’s appointments. And as the novel coronavirus has made clear, it’s a whole lot safer.
Many non-essential practices closed offices, rushing to adopt new telemedicine solutions. Plus, Americans were encouraged to consider virtual appointments even when offices were open to be considerate to fellow patients and doctors.
InvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall has long been bullish on telemedicine and othersimilar tech “megatrends.”He’s been recommending industry leaderTeladoc(NYSE:DOC) for more than two years. Now, he’s also highlightingApple(NASDAQ:AAPL) andAlibaba(NYSE:BABA), as the twotech giants move into telemedicineand other healthcare offerings.
It’s fair to ask if this trend will slow down once more offices reopen and pandemic fears subside. But, McCall doesn’t think so. As he wrote this week, the pandemic kicked telemedicine into “overdrive.”
Before the coronavirus massively disrupted healthcare, many consumers likely associated telemedicine with simple appointments. Perhaps they thought it was an option for the common cold or a quick prescription refill — not a real substitute for in-person appointments.
Now,The New York Timesdescribes howpatients are receiving virtual physical therapyand routine care for chronic health conditions. Others are turning to telemedicine platforms forabortionandcancer care. In just a few short weeks, telemedicine has stepped up as a pretty good mirror for in-person offerings.
Sure, doctors still need physical appointments for many conditions, and we’re definitely not headed to a telemedicine-only world. But the convenience and capability of telemedicine is now burned in consumers’ minds, and doctors are embracing the tech like never before. That certainly sounds like “overdrive” to me.
InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper hastwo more standout telemedicine plays. He recently recommendedCVS Health(NYSE:CVS) andAnthem(NYSE:ANTM), as the two traditional companies embrace virtual offerings — and bring brand recognition to the online space.
Buy Verizon Stock for its Attractive BlueJeans Acquisition
[Wednesday, May 20, 11:00 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Verizon(NYSE:VZ) just fast-tracked its acquisition of BlueJeans, and its future is looking bright. No, it didn’t just get a well-fitting pair of jeans. For less than $500 million it snapped up the smaller video conferencing company, hoping to add to its own offerings.
VZannounced the deal in mid-April, as video conferencing picked up a loyal following. BlueJeans is a business-to-business video conferencing provider, and it’s certainly smaller than rivalZoom Video(NASDAQ:ZM). One plus is that’s enterprise-focused, as opposed to Zoom that has welcomed schools, companies and bored individuals alike. That should translate to more paying customers.
In a quick turnaround, Verizon announced that the deal closed Monday, and investors should be paying attention. Not only is video conferencing hot right now, the BlueJeans deal makes VZ attractive for the long term. Its clients are often in thetelemedicine or online learning worlds.
Plus, Verizon is a leader in the growing 5G trend. The novel coronavirus is certainly going to disrupt work, healthcare and education for the foreseeable future, and it could have a permanent impact. With that in mind, Verizon’s tech offerings just got a lot more attractive.
Need more convincing?InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto wrote that Verizon stock is one of thetop so-called coronavirus stocks to buy now. Wireless services, and the rest of Verizon’s tech, are becoming even more important in our new world.
[Wednesday, May 20, 10:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s hard to think about the upcoming presidential election when so much of day-to-day life is still driven by the novel coronavirus. But, as we remain at home, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are going head to head. For two digital advertising stars, this could been a big revenue boost.
As we’ve previously reported in this blog, it’s a tough time to be in the digital ad business. Big clients — like those in the travel and leisure world — are pulling way back on spending. ForFacebook(NASDAQ:FB) andAlphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL), avirtual campaign trail could help fill that revenue gap.
Initial projects called for campaign spending to hit $6 billion, but according toAxios’Sara Fischer, that figure will be closer to $6.7 billion. At least $2 billion will go exclusively to online video campaigns. Without the usual in-person events that mark a ramping up of campaigning, these online ads will become increasingly important in determining November’s outcome.
Facebook and Alphabet are the biggest names in the digital advertising space, and Fischer writes that they will see most of the inflow. On Monday,InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote thatFB stock is a buy on the next dip. Although advertising is under pressure, it’s not “falling apart.”
We’re living in a world of mail-in ballots and social media advertising. Don’t miss out on big companies leading that world.
[Wednesday, May 20, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors haven’t forgivenModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) on Wednesday, but stocks are still opening in the green. With a report still clouding its early results, the vaccine maker opened down after dropping 10% in Tuesday trading.
However, another vaccine maker is bringing hope to Wall Street today.Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) reported that its vaccine candidateproduced antibodies for the novel coronavirus in guinea pigs and mice. Sure, it’s not humans, but it’s still an exciting step. Shares of INO were up almost 15% in pre-market trading.
Will Inovio’s victory be enough to sustain a rally in the stock market today? Let’s wait and see. Until then, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theS&P 500are all ready for success.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.27%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.25%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.35%
[Tuesday, May 19, 4:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Oh, the retail apocalypse. Brick-and-mortar retailers continue to dig their own graves, especially as the novel coronavirus weighs on shopping. On Tuesday, it looks likePier 1(OTCMKTS:PIRRQ) will become the next big name filing for bankruptcy — and potentially, liquidation.
But asInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Big Tech is upping the stakes in retail.Facebook(NASDAQ:FB) announced a new Shops feature that will allowbusinesses to set up “storefronts”on Facebook and Instagram. Kenwell said eventually,Facebook will allow product sales through Messenger, Instagram Direct and WhatsApp.
Elsewhere in the tech world rumors are swirling thatAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) is looking to acquireJ.C. Penney(NYSE:JCP). The latter just filed for bankruptcy, and Amazon sees the deal as a way to beef up its e-commerce apparel offerings. Oh, the irony. Amazon killed the department stores, and now is seeking to acquire them.
InvestorPlaceanalyst Eric Fry wrote today that it’simportant to get on the right side of the technochasm, the tech-fueled split between the “haves” and the “have nots.” It’s clear companies like Amazon and Facebook have what it takes to profit. Dying retailers like Pier 1 and J.C. Penney do not.
Investors agree. FB shares were up 1.7% in the stock market today, while AMZN shares added about 1%.
[Tuesday, May 19, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Yesterday,Moderna(NASDAQ:MRNA) took the entire stock market higher when it announced its early trials showed promising results. On Tuesday, doubts over the company’s report took stocks down.
According to reporting fromStat News’Helen Branswell,several scientists are questioning Moderna’s report, claiming it didn’t provide enough context. Other experts that Branswell spoke with said it was odd the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases did not comment on the findings. Plus, Moderna does not have a history of publishing its findings in peer-reviewed journals.
Even tech stocks couldn’t hold up as that report shoved away yesterday’s optimism. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed Tuesday in the red.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 1.05%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.59%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.54%
[Tuesday, May 19, 3:31 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Yesterday, online car marketplaceVroomfiledfor a listing on the Nasdaq Exchangeunder the ticker VRM. It’s surprising to see a company push forward with initial public offering plans, especially as many have opted for delays amid the novel coronavirus.
Critics, or perhaps simply realists, have pointed out that Vroom is not profitable. It also hasn’t been immune to the pandemic, as car sales dropped and the company furloughed one-third of its employees. AsAxios’Kia Kokalitcheva writes,demand has returned to pre-crisis levels, but sales now come with lower profits for Vroom.
Perhaps what’s most interesting is the coronavirus-driven market potential. As we reported yesterday, there’s reason to believe that consumers will opt to purchase cars instead of taking public transportation. With that in mind, traditional automakers likeGeneral Motors(NYSE:GM) andFord(NYSE:F) saw a rally on Monday.
There’s another angle to Vroom that could be a big post-IPO catalyst. Car buyers simplyfind the car they want on Vroom’s website, supply necessary paperwork and complete financing through partner banks. Then, Vroom delivers the car to the buyer — no face-to-face contact necessary — and gives a seven-day test drive window. Will this contactless shopping truly be the future for car sales?
If you’re not ready to rally behind an IPO stock,InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier has a better option for you. Just this morning he recommendedCarvana(NYSE:CVNA), for very similar reasons. He wrote that in a post-pandemic world, he expects shoppers touse Carvana for its contactless buying experience. Whether it be Vroom or Carvana, you don’t want to miss out.
[Tuesday, May 19, 3:03 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In many ways, the novel coronavirus is making Americans more socially responsible. Consumers are choosing to prepare more of their own meals, using allotted time outdoors to exercise and washing their hands — a lot. ButInvestorPlace’sThomas Niel is convinced that once lockdowns ease, many will take the opportunity to party.
As Niel writes, it’s been surprisingly hard to “sin” in quarantine. Alcohol stocks are hurt by the decline in on-premise sales, although it’s now easier than ever to getbeer, wine and liquor delivered straight to your door. Some fear drops in cannabis demand are on the way as consumers move away from non-essential purchases. Oh, and it’s hard to spend money at a casino when all of the casinos are closed.
What’s beautiful to investors in this world of vice is that while consumers are on lockdown, they’re building up demand. When things reopen, that pent-up demand will turn into big spending. That’s why Niel is betting on a big rebound — and a bigger party for shareholders.
Here are thefive sin stocks he’s recommending now:
• Altria Group(NYSE:MO)
• Constellation Brands(NYSE:STZ)
• Diageo(NYSE:DEO)
• MGM Resorts(NYSE:MGM)
• Molson Coors(NYSE:TAP)
[Tuesday, May 19, 2:32 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Dynavax Technologies(NASDAQ:DVAX), a small biopharmaceutical company, is soaring Tuesday. Shares shot up over 40% at one point in after-hours trading, and are hovering at 20% gains right now. So what exactly is driving this rally?
The company specializes in vaccines, and has entered the race to develop a candidate for the novel coronavirus. But, Dynavax isn’t working alone. Since early March, it has announced partnerships with theUniversity of Queensland, theCoalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations,Valneva,Sinovac BiotechandClover Biopharmaceuticals.
These companies bring their own skills and technology, and Dynavax offers itsadjuvant, which it uses in a hepatitis B vaccine. Such an adjuvant should increase the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Through CEPI, Dynavax has even offered its adjuvant to any other companies that could improve their candidates. DVAX stock is up almost 80% in the last month.
Yesterday, the company really got investors excited. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions, it said it plans to provide an update on these partnerships today. Dynavax said in this filing it anticipates at least one of its partners will move into aPhase 1 vaccine trial by July.
Keep a close eye on the news, and thecompany’s investor relations page. Any update on its partnerships could mean big gains both today and in the long term.
[Tuesday, May 19, 1:44 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Restaurants around the country are struggling as dine-in options remain very limited, if not completely prohibited. Demand for take-out and delivery services is there, but consumers are eating more at home and spending less on non-essential items. As a result, at least8 million restaurant workersin the United States have been laid off or furloughed.
But what happens when restaurants reopen? Do the employees all come rushing back? Those questions have largely been left out of the conversation. That is, until today.ShiftPixy(NASDAQ:PIXY), a gig employment platform, is climbing 90% in intraday trading because its solutions aim to answer those questions.
The small-cap company just entered a new partnership with an operator ofDel Taco(NASDAQ:TACO) restaurants in New Mexico. Those locations will now use ShiftPixy’s solutions to“combat” the novel coronavirus’ impact on the restaurant industry.
One solution allowsnative delivery. Although services likeGrubhub(NYSE:GRUB) andDoorDashhelp keep the lights on, their steep commissions seriously hurt restaurants. With ShiftPixy, restaurants can more easily manage their own in-house delivery, to save money on commissions and create better relationships with consumers.
Another solution helps restaurants get their workers back once they reopen, and alsohelps part-time restaurant workers find shifts. Known as a human capital management tool, ShiftPixy is working to better organize gig employees as restaurants around the country fight through the chaos.
It’s clear investors like the potential here, especially as the solutions address a very real problem. Keep a close eye on PIXY stock. If the company keeps picking up customers, good things are surely in store.
[Tuesday, May 19, 1:20 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
When the market is thrown into chaos, it’s nice to know how the biggest players in the investing world are handling things. Stanley Druckenmiller, like many ordinary, individual investors, is loading up on stay-at-home stocks.
HisDuquesne Family Officeopened new positions in high-flying tech companies, and closed positions in big bank stocks,Snap(NYSE:SNAP),Marathon Oil(NYSE:MRO) andFedEx(NYSE:FDX).
Remember, Druckenmiller is most known for his work with George Soros, and his previous firm, Duquesne Capital. He’s had a rough couple of years as his fund underperformed theS&P 500. But, he’s known for quick trades and is worth almost $5 billion.
As the famous investor eyes stocks that benefit from the novel coronavirus, he’s also quick to criticize the market. He recently toldCNBCthat he doesn’t like how the market looks here, citing a “bad” risk-reward balance. In that context, his pandemic plays make a lot more sense.
So, if you want to invest like Druckenmiller, this is your chance. Here are histop 10 holdings right now(subscription required):
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX)
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Workday(NASDAQ:WDAY)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOGL)
• PayPal(NASDAQ:PYPL)
• Barrick Gold(NYSE:GOLD)
• Activision Blizzard(NASDAQ:ATVI)
• Alibaba(NYSE:BABA)
[Tuesday, May 19, 12:24 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
For many Americans, the novel coronavirus is ushering in a new understanding of public health. Consumers are wearing face masks, washing their hands and following new social distancing protocols. At the same time, the pandemic is highlighting just how much the medical world has changed — and will continue to change in the months and years to come.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) developed its vaccine candidate in just three hours. Now, President Donald Trump is ramping up Operation Warp Speed to “deploy” a vaccine across the U.S. by January 2021. And months before most investors caught on to the outbreak, Canada’sBlueDotused an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm tospot a “flu-like outbreak”in China.
According toAxios’Bryan Walsh, thisscientific innovation is just the beginning. As consumers continue to demand next-generation healthcare before thenextpandemic, Walsh predicts that gene-editing tech will proliferate, healthcare will merge more with AI and a whole host of other biotech innovations will capture investor and consumer attention.
So, how can you profit from this trend?InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper rounded up hisfavorite gene-editing stocksin March, commenting on the excitement this revolution holds. Doctors are touting the potential to reverse blindness and cure HIV, all by “hacking” a patient’s genes. With this in mind, Cooper recommendsCRISPR Therapeutics(NASDAQ:CRSP),Editas Medicine(NASDAQ:EDIT) andIntellia Therapeutics(NASDAQ:NTLA).
Plus,InvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall has long beenbullish on this futuristic healthcare. Back in September he highlightedIllumina(NASDAQ:ILMN) andGuardant Health(NASDAQ:GH). The former offers genome sequencing products, while the latter specializes in liquid biopsies.
If you’re not sure about all this gene-editing hype, there’s an even easier way to get in on the trend. Ever sinceApple(NASDAQ:AAPL) signed a deal withOrangetheory Fitness,McCall has been excited about the Apple Watch’s potential. As consumers opt for health-tracking devices, look for those device makers to seriously profit from all the data.
The future of healthcare will be a whole lot more connected, and hopefully a whole lot more profitable, for the sector’s earliest investors.
[Tuesday, May 19, 11:00 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Innovation drives the market, even in times of chaos. Companies that are embracing remote-work and telemedicine solutions are thriving, while companies stuck in the days of brick-and-mortar retail are just inches away from bankruptcy filings. But there’s a more speculative, and potentially more rewarding, sector of innovation out there right now.
Lithium is a key commodity used in electronics, and it’s really gaining attention thanks to electric vehicles. This year hasn’t been kind to lithium stocks, especially as supply-demand imbalances and theU.S.-China trade war tanked the lithium market.
That might all be about to change.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto is keeping a close eye on geopolitics, and he’s tracking a storm brewing between the United States and China. With an election approaching, Enomoto predicts President Donald Trump will do just about anything to get back in the White House, including pulling away from that country’s lithium supply.
That’s bad news for some companies, but not for the 10 lithium stocks Enomoto is recommending. He’s looking at countries that rely on lithium supplies in Canada, Australia, Argentina and Chile. According to Enomoto, lithium-based tech is the future. As mining strategies improve and prices stabilize, these stocks could seriously shoot for the stars.
Here are his10 buy recommendations now:
• Albemarle(NYSE:ALB)
• Sociedad Quimica y Minera(NYSE:SQM)
• Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA)
• Orocobre(OTCMKTS:OROCF)
• Livent(NYSE:LTHM)
• Power Metals(OTCMKTS:PWRMF)
• Lithium Americas(NYSE:LAC)
• Galaxy Resources(OTCMKTS:GALXF)
• American Battery Metals(OTCMKTS:ABML)
• Pilbara(OTCMKTS:PILBF)
[Tuesday, May 19, 10:37 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Nancy Lazar consistently ranks as one of the top economists on Wall Street. She’s racked up accolades from institutional investors, and she’s considered one of themost influential women in U.S. finance. Clearly, she knows what she’s talking about.
And in a new interview withBarron’sLeslie Norton, Lazar talked about how the novel coronavirus is bringing a“regime change”that favors stockpickers. Although she initially downplayed the threat of the pandemic, she quickly adjusted her models and is ready to pick post-crisis winners.
Lazar has identified several key themes for stockpickers. The first is that as a result of the virus, the era of China dominating economic growth is over. In other words, it’s no longer the “top” emerging market. Instead, Lazar thinks Middle America — literally, the center of the United States — is the next key region. With that in mind, she’s looking for companies headquartered in that region.
No, Middle America isn’t the sexiest region. Investors tend to gravitate toward Silicon Valley’s tech offerings, or New York’s bustling finance and startup names. But Lazar has beenbullish on Middle America for almost a decade. She’s been confident that one day, manufacturers will return en masse. Plus, as investment dollars flow to the region, smaller companies will be delightful acquisition targets.
One more takeaway. Lazar, like many others, believes consumer trends are likely to change permanently. She’s primarily betting on companies in technology, healthcare and consumer staples categories, as spending shifts to new trends.
So, pull out a map, start doing some research and get betting on Middle America.
[Tuesday, May 19, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Phew. It looks like bulls are taking a bit of a rest Tuesday morning, after a simply amazing rally in the market on Monday. This break comes asWalmart(NYSE:WMT) andHome Depot(NYSE:HD) report earnings. Plus, investors learned that construction — specifically of single-family homes —dropped 25.4% in April.
There should still be some optimism today, but there’s nothing likeModerna’s(NASDAQ:MRNA) victory so far to lift shares. Are we in store for another rally, or a calm day of trading? Looks like we’ll have to wait and see.
TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened slightly lower Tuesday.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.22%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.32%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.09
[Monday, May 18, 4:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It seems as if the entire stock market forgot aboutGilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) in the blink of an eye. Instead, headlines aboutModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) andSorrento Therapeutics(NASDAQ:SRNE) capture investor attention for a day or two at a time.
However,InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell highlightedanother major victory for Gilead in his daily column. The European Union is racing tofast track sales of remdesivir, its proposed treatment for the novel coronavirus. The European Medicines Agency has already issued compassionate-use authorization, similar to emergency-use designations granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
However, despite a lack of more conclusive data, demand for remdesivir is rising. To appease that demand, the EMA is looking to issue a “conditional marketing authorisation” — which would allow sales of the drug for one year within the EU, even without all the data.
GILD stock didn’t feel the effects of this victory, instead falling by 2% on the day. However,InvestorPlace’sLarry Ramer thinks it’s theperfect time to buy. He wrote on Thursday that good news, including pending action in the EU, is a clear upside catalyst. With this in mind, investors should buy shares before the masses catch on to their potential.
[Monday, May 18, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The sun may not be shining outside my apartment window, but a quick look at the stock market makes the day seem bright. That’s thanks to comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, vaccine updates fromModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) and a nice spike in crude oil prices.
Moderna was certainly a big winner, closing higher by 20%. Peer vaccine makersNovavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) andVir Biotechnology(NASDAQ:VIR) also soared on the day. Plus, Moderna’s big update even sent consumers stocks likeTripAdvisor(NASDAQ:TRIP) higher as investors anticipate what a safe and effective vaccine could mean.
It’s safe to say it was a good day in the markets. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeeach saw gains of more than 2.4%.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 3.15%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 3.85%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 2.44%
[Monday, May 18, 3:16 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Bank stocks are struggling in 2020, but investors likely are missing the bigger picture. On one hand, cruise operators and movie theater companies are down hard, but that’s because lockdowns and social distancing measures directly impact their business. On the other hand, many experts argue that bank stocks are only suffering because of 2008 flashbacks.
Granted, there’s more to the picture than that.Barron’sCarleton English wrote today thatbank profits will continue to be weak, and some dividends are at risk. The big banks already moved away from buyback programs to preserve cash.
Those words of warning aren’t stopping investors on Monday. Comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell have given renewed confidence to the market, and bank stocks are winning big. Powell clarified thathe doesn’t see another Great Depression on the horizon, although the downturn in the market will still be “sharp.”
So, what should investors do?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango maintains that it’s most important to remember 2020 isn’t a repeat of 2008. The financial system is in a better place this time around, and banks face much more regulation than they did in the previous crisis.
Lango has been bullish on the big banks throughout the novel coronavirus-induced downturn. Just last week he recommended buying shares now to benefit from a post-pandemic rebound.
Here are thefive names he thinks you should buy:
• Bank of America(NYSE:BAC)
• JPMorgan(NYSE:JPM)
• Wells Fargo(NYSE:WFC)
• Goldman Sachs(NYSE:GS)
• Citigroup(NYSE:C)
[Monday, May 18, 2:49 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) has, without a doubt, been one of the biggest winners in the locked-down world. Consumers are turning to it’s e-commerce site for essentials and impulse purchases, and the company is also benefiting from grocery store, video game and streaming trends.
However, rivalFedEx(NYSE:FDX) is no longer playing around. One of thebiggest consumer complaints about Amazonis that its one-day and two-day shipping guarantees have fallen by the wayside as it struggles to keep up with demand. Seeing an opening, FedEx just announced a partnership withMicrosoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) that has shares up 10% in intraday trading.
According toBloomberg’sThomas Black and Dina Bass, the deal willcombine Microsoft’s cloud services with FedEx’s shipping expertise. FedEx will get better data on potential delays, and be able to reroute packages as needed to keep shoppers happy. At the same time, Microsoft’s Azure nabs a win, taking a potential customer from Amazon’s AWS.
Plus, FedEx Surround won’t cost consumers any extra. The pilot program is set to launch in summer 2020, and could mean big things for a company struggling to keep up with the pocketbook of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
It’s hard to say if this is a winning proposition in the long term, but it sure sounds good. Keep a close eye on this partnership, and consider picking up FedEx shares here.
[Monday, May 18, 2:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Budget airlines, or low-cost carriers, had a bad rap before the novel coronavirus decimated air travel. Consumers criticized added baggage fees, delayed flights and destinations that weren’t exactly close to hub cities. ButBarron’sDarren Fonda writes that these carriers are“leading the pack”in recovery.
In fact, everything that drew criticism before the pandemic could become a catalyst in the new world. For one, consumers may be more willing to spend extra on anything associated with “safety,” like social distancing seats. Business travel is typically associated withDelta Air Lines(NYSE:DAL) andUnited Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL), but leisure travel is likely to rebound first. Just think about all the companies already promoting “WFH forever” models.
Plus, these budget airlines have leaner operations, as Fonda writes. That could mean it’s easier for them to sustain the added costs of social distancing, like removing middle seats.
With this reality in mind,Spirit Airlines(NYSE:SAVE) is set to be a major post-crisis winner. Shares are up 25% in intraday trading, as new figures from the Transportation Security Administration show travel was down91% year-over-year for the week ending May 15. That sounds horrible, but it’s an improvement from earlier 96% year-over-year drops.
It’s always nice to know that Wall Street agrees with investors. Evercore ISI analyst Duane Pfennigwerth raised his12-month price target on shares to $12, and set a “buy” rating today. With a share price just below $10, don’t miss out on some rebound-driven upside in SAVE stock.
[Monday, May 18, 1:54 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Some future-minded individuals are predicting a complete end to cash payments. Sure, that sounds pretty radical, but it’s unfolding as I write this. Paper money has beentargeted as a risky medium— businesses have moved away from accepting cash to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Heck, I even paid online for an individualMcDonald’s(NYSE:MCD) milkshake this weekend.
It is likely that cash will return, but the pandemic is certainly accelerating the adoption of electronic payment options. That’s why some likeInvestorPlace’sChris Lau see stocks in this space as some of the hottest buys right now.
Lau wrote today that it’s clear consumers are getting more comfortable with electronic payments. Plus, businesses are increasingly embracing these platforms as they struggle to keep their doors open. In all, this is a big win for the payments companies.
Plus, in a post-pandemic world, we won’t all stop whipping out our phones to make payments. With that in mind, here areseven stocks Lau is recommending now:
• PayPal Holdings(NASDAQ:PYPL)
• Square(NYSE:SQ)
• Visa(NYSE:V)
• Mastercard(NYSE:MA)
• American Express(NYSE:AXP)
• Coupa Software(NASDAQ:COUP)
• Global Payments(NYSE:GPN)
[Monday, May 18, 1:21 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s been a rough year so far for carmakers. Consumer spending dropped, demand dropped and state lockdowns forced production to come to a halt. Year-to-date performances forGeneral Motors(NYSE:GM),Ford(NYSE:F) andFiat Chrysler(NYSE:FCAU) are ugly.
That’s all changing, and it’s evident in the share prices. GM stock is up more than 10% in intraday trading, and Ford and FCAU shares are up around 8%. Why? Plants are reopening.
According to reporting fromMorning Brew, Monday markedmassive reopenings at plantsacross the U.S. Yes, they will be operating at reduced capacity for the near future, and workers will take new safety precautions. A total of 133,000 employees will be back to work by the end of the week.
Granted, renewed production doesn’t mean renewed demand. But, it’s a big step in the right direction. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, the future of transportation could be headed back toward vehicles. Subways, bus systems and ride-hailing services have become symbols of outbreak.
Plus,InvestorPlace’sJoel Baglole wrote last week that investors would bewrong to ignore the upside potential in Ford stock. Ford and its peers have some cash, and reopenings are underway. If it can get through 2020 and tackle projects like electric vehicles, it’s set for massive gains.
Investors should get ready for a rebound, and keep an eye out for new sales figures. As more consumers return to work, it will be important to know how many opt for new cars instead of getting on the train.
[Monday, May 18, 12:58 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Vaccine stocks are heating up the stock market today, especially afterModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) shared its first results from human trials. But there’s an even bigger catalyst lurking behind some of the top names in the race to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
On Friday, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launchedOperation Warp Speed, something the president has likened to the Manhattan Project. As the name suggests, this is a mission to produce and distribute an effective vaccine across the U.S. with “warp speed” — or by January 2021.
As part of the operation, Trump is even calling for the deployment of military trucks and planes, as well as individual soldiers to administer vaccines when the time comes. There are14 vaccines in the study, and eventually researchers will narrow it to eight, and then even lower. It’s not clear exactly which vaccines are on the short list, but investors could make some informed guesses.
InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper isobviously hot on Moderna, but he also recently recommendedInovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) andBioNTech(NASDAQ:BNTX), thanks to its vaccine partnership withPfizer(NYSE:PFE).
Beyond that,The Wall Street Journal’sPeter Loftus addedJohnson & Johnson(NYSE:JNJ),Sanofi(NYSE:SNY) andAstraZeneca(NYSE:AZN) to thelist of companies farther along in the race.GlaxoSmithKline(NYSE:GSK), another big-name pharmaceutical, is collaborating with Sanofi to scale up production.
Remember, there are over 100 candidates out there. This list of vaccine stocks combines big pharmaceutical power with manufacturing capability and a little bit of clinical-stage innovation. May the best vaccine — and the most diligent investors — win.
[Monday, May 18, 12:15 p.m.]Contributed byNicholas Stern
It’s no exaggeration to say the breakthroughs made possible by 5G will dwarf the economic impact of the internet.
The next generation of mobility will increase download speeds by 100x. If you’ve experienced any janky or lost connections recently, you’ll appreciate the upgrade.
But 5G means a lot more than faster smart phones.
It makes possible breakthroughs that were previously the stuff of sci-fi fantasy. I’m talking about self-driving cars, remote robotic surgeries, virtual and augmented reality, billions of connected devices known as the internet of things (IOT), telehealth, smart cities and factories, and more.
Add it all up and you’re looking at technological innovations worth more than$56 trillion.
And if anything, Covid-19 has only accelerated 5G’s importance for the future. When your health or your job are literally on the line, faster connections at home become not just a nice feature to have, they turn into a necessity.
The same goes for the factory floor. Indeed, the manufacturing sector has been at the forefront of 5G’s rollout.
According toTechRepublic, wireless connections in factories will grow even faster than fixed-line connections from 2019 to 2030, reaching over 5 million 5G connections by 2025.
Nearly three-quarters of managers and plant directors surveyed by ABI Research said they planned on upgrading their communications networks in the next two years, with more than half saying 4G and 5G are necessary to meeting that goal.
Getting ahead of the trend,Federated Wirelesshas joined withAmazon’s(NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services andMicrosoft’s(NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure to offer connectivity-as-a-service for businesses setting up 4G and 5G networks for IOT tools.
Again, a post-pandemic world will demand faster, more efficient supply chains and production lines informed with data fed by countless connected sensors. 5G connectivity will enable this shift.
Years from now, we’ll look back at the creation of 5G the way we look back at the buildout of America’s railroads. More importantly, it’s setting up the best chance many people will ever get to make small investments and turn them into life-changing wealth.
But most people are going about it the wrong way. It’s whyInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCallrecently let people knowabout a 5G wealth-building opportunity that could be 20 to 30 times larger than the buildout.
Click here to learn more.
[Monday, May 18, 11:40 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Last week, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell issued awarning about the economy, and stocks tumbled. This week, it looks like he’s trying to soften that blow. A quick look at the major indices shows that it’s working.
On Sunday, a60 Minutesinterview with Powell brought a little more clarity to his warning. He maintains that we certainly aren’t looking at a V-shaped economy recovery — and that the downturn will be very “sharp.”
But he also made clear that theUnited States isn’t going to see another Great Depression. Why? Before the market downturn, Powell argues that the financial system and the economy were in good shape. Downward pressures are coming from the novel coronavirus, an external factor.
Although he’s still not rushing toward negative interest rates, he says the Federal Reserve has massive potential through its lending programs to keep the economy from depression. Powell is also pushing for legislators to up stimulus spending.
From the interview:
“In the long run, and even in the medium run, you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy. This economy will recover. It may take a while. It may take a period of time. It could stretch through the end of next year.”
[Monday, May 18, 11:11 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Live sporting events are mostly on hiatus, and casinos around the world remain closed. That should mean instant death for gambling stocks. Instead, these names are sparkling in the spotlight because of their major rebound potential.
Sure, they face serious headwinds right now, and it’s not clear when those issues will truly fade. But consumers’ urge to gamble hasn’t disappeared. Recent reporting fromThe Guardianindicates thatfrequent gamblers are actually bettingmoreas they’re stuck at home.
As these individuals turn to higher-stakes online casino games and slot machines, it’s clear gambling won’t disappear in a post-pandemic world. When casinos and sports events return, casual gamblers will similarly return to the pastime. Frequent gamblers will make the switch back to in-person bets.
This reality is exactly what hasInvestorPlace’sDavid Moadel hot on top gambling stocks now. He wrote this morning that in preparation for a rebound, investors should seek out stocks in the sector with big turnaround potential.
Here arefive stocks he’s recommending right now:
• Las Vegas Sands(NYSE:LVS)
• Caesars Entertainment(NASDAQ:CZR)
• Esports Entertainment(NASDAQ:GMBL)
• Boyd Gaming(NYSE:BYD)
• Penn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN)
[Monday, May 18, 10:44 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors were in a rough spot after last week. It seemed like the novel coronavirus was destined to weigh on the economy for months to come, and state reopening plans lost their luster. That all changed Monday morning whenModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) reported itsmRNA-1273 vaccine candidateshowed promising early results.
Moderna has been testing its vaccine ineight healthy volunteers. Key takeaways from early results are that the vaccine is safe and successfully triggers an immune response. Now, the company is preparing to ramp human trials to deliver a final vaccine as quickly as possible.
Further rounds of study will include two doses of the vaccine, and examine their effects on different age groups. According to its Monday press release, Phase 3 trials could begin as early as July.
As we’ve reported in this blog, a vaccine winner will see serious share-price victory. That’s because many see a vaccine as the key to safely and wholly reopening the United States. With that in mind, MRNA stock is up more than 20% in intraday trading.
Although shares have gained more than 320% in 2020,InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper still thinks it’s a buy. He wrote Thursday that it’s one of thetop biotech stocks to buy right now. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, even called Moderna’s vaccine technology “quite impressive.”
[Monday, May 18, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Friday’s rally was unexpected, but it’s carrying over to quite a robust open in the stock market on Monday. News thatModerna’s(NASDAQ:MRNA) vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirusshowed promise in early trialsis seriously shaking things up.
And that shake up is needed after a gloomy week of trading. After several experts, including Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, called for longer-lasting misery, vaccine optimism looks like the perfect cure.
With that in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened well in the green on Monday.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 2.47%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 2.92%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.71%
[Friday, May 15, 4:30 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the novel coronavirus is changing everything. We went from rushing to work each morning in crowded offices or kitchens or brick-and-mortar retailers to record layoffs and a lot of working from home. In that noise, work-from-home solutions likeMicrosoft’s(NASDAQ:MSFT) Teams andZoom Video(NASDAQ:ZM) became winners.
Now, states are reopening, and many Americans are pushing to reopen businesses. Microsoft is ready to make that pivot, aligning itself as a return-to-work stock. Today, along withUnitedHealth(NYSE:UNH), it announced ProtectWell. According toInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell, this was some of thebiggest news in the stock market today.
ProtectWell is both anapp and a set of workplace protocolsto help companies transition back to the office. Unlike proposals from competitors, this app doesn’t involve any contract tracing technology. What it does feature is screening for the novel coronavirus and privacy-focused testing options.
Microsoft and UnitedHealth are big players in their respective industries, and together they should have a lot of power. MSFT shares outperformed the market today, closing higher by 1.5%.
[Friday, May 15, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The stock market looked pretty grim this morning. Retail sales fell 16.4% in April — a record move for that figure. Earlier this week investors heard cautionary tales from famed David Tepper and Federal Reserve Board Chair James Powell. Oh, and yesterday we learned 2.98 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits.
But it’s almost the weekend. That means investors did their best to turn things around, getting theS&P 500into positive territory on the day. The move higher comes asSorrento Therapeutics(NASDAQ:SRNE) closed higher by 160%. No, that’s not a typo.
Fortunately, things were similarly rosy for theDow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Composite. Everyone’s ready for Saturday and nobody wants to get the party started on a bad note.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.39%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.25%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.79%
[Friday, May 15, 3:42 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We’ve all seen the emails. “Company XYZ is here for you in these trying times.” Cute graphics, comforting messages and all sorts of discounted products are making the rounds on branded social media pages. Businesses are working to findthemes that resonate with consumers, and ways to capture spending even as it falls at record pace.
According toInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango, that’s exactly whySprout Social(NASDAQ:SPT) stock is abuy right now, and for the next 10 years. No, it’s not a platform for vegans or tree-hugging millennials. It’s a social media management company, and it’s the best of its kind.
Plus, as Lango writes, brands and consumers are grasping onto the digital world as the physical world continues to face pandemic disruptions. SPT stock is up 44% year-to-date, and it just saw its revenue grow 31% year-over-year. Those aren’t numbers to roll your eyes at.
So what’s the deal? Brands essentially have to hop on the social media bandwagon to reach potential customers. Now, theyreallyneed to be social media savvy. Some brands are evenupping their spending on social media campaignsat a time when the digital advertising world seems bleak.
As more companies opt for social media management, Sprout will win. In the next decade, Lango anticipates 450% upside.
[Friday, May 15, 2:22 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
PG&E(NYSE:PCG) filed for bankruptcy protections in early 2019. It faced enormous costs after its equipment caused devastating wildfires in California. Shares have dropped over 70% in the last two years, although they are in the green for 2020.
The company’s fortunes could be changing, andBarclays analysts like its trajectory. If PG&E can exit bankruptcy by June 30, it could participate in a California-based fund to compensate victims of the wildfires. It has been at odds with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, andUtility Divereported in November 2019 thatCalifornia mayors wanted to turn the company into a public utility.
Analyst Eric Beaumont thinks this June 30 deadline is reasonable. That’s why he upped his rating to “overweight” from “equal weight” and set a $15 price target. Shares currently trade near $11.
One big question moving forward is how PG&E will raise the cash it needs. But the firm thinks it won’t have to sell more than $9 billion in new shares to reorganize. From there, as Beaumont and his peers expect utilities to improve later in 2020, the future looks brighter.
[Friday, May 15, 1:56 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
On one hand, there’s surely no one out there eager to start thinking about the next major viral outbreak. On the other hand, investors would be smart to get ahead. Virologists predict animals currently carry750,000 diseases with the power to infect humans. Planning for the next pandemic will help you profit.
Attention-grabbing articles fromAxios,The AtlanticandThe New York Timeshave speculated our next pandemic will be made better by virtual and augmented reality. Kaitlyn Tiffany writes thataugmented-reality filters on Instagramare allowing for a certain digital communal experience made impossible in the physical world by social distancing. Ina Fried writes thatvirtual-reality headsets will make remote work and learning easier, and more engaging, the next time around.
Why aren’t these technologies more relevant now, as the novel coronavirus continues to change life? Kevin Roose writes that in many ways,the tech just isn’t ready. What is ready is expensive, or cumbersome or it has been out of stock for weeks.
That’s why companies, and investors, should prepare for the next pandemic. On Thursday,Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) announced its purchase ofNextVR, a strong indicationfuture products will lean more toward this futuristic technology. In fact,InvestorPlace’sBrad Moon wrote in February that Apple was one of the top five stocks to buy to cash in on this trend.
At the time, he wrote that combined revenue from AR and VR products is set to hit$571.2 billion by 2025. Although Apple is known for existing tech like iPhones and Air Pods, Moon argues that these industry leaders have the power to win in the future. Why? They’ll buy up NextVR and other small firms, and use their market dominance to keep winning.
Here arefour other stocks Moon thinks could be AR and VR winners:
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Sony(NYSE:SNE)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
[Friday, May 15, 1:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
March was a bad month in the markets, and then April saw stocks rocket higher. Against their better judgement, many experts were likely hoping for a V-shaped recovery. Unfortunately, that seems like “wishful thinking” now, writesInvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier.
We’re just two weeks into May, and things are looking a little rough. Retail sales are still dropping, and Americans are still filing for unemployment benefits. Plus, states’ reopening plans aren’t smooth sailing.
With this in mind, Navellier is recommending gold stocks now. He likes that gold has historically been a top portfolio hedge, and that the current gold supply is lower than usual. While demand continues to rise, you certainly wouldn’t be a fool to follow suit and buy some gold shares now.
Here areNavellier’s seven recommendations:
• Eldorado Gold(NYSE:EGO)
• Iamgold(NYSE:IAG)
• Harmony Gold(NYSE:HMY)
• Yamana Gold(NYSE:AUY)
• B2Gold(NYSEMKT:BTG)
• Drdgold(NYSE:DRD)
• Kinross Gold(NYSE:KGC)
[Friday, May 15, 1:00 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s just as easy to hateTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk as it is to love him. He has fearlessly led his electric vehicle company to rousing success, but he also uses social media much like a diary. One day, he’s worried about theTSLA stock price being too high, the next he’s fighting with legislators from Alameda County — home to his Tesla plant.
In what should have been a stock-driving win, Musk got his way. After threatening to reopen the plant without approval, and challenging police to arrest him first, he got that approval. Now, he just has toensure certain safety protocol are in place.
TSLA stock is up almost 91% year-to-date, but Musk’s recent victory hasn’t triggered a rally. In fact, shares are down in intraday trading on Friday. Is this a sign it’s time to cash out and run?
InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell doesn’t think so. He wrote that of all automotive stocks,Tesla may be the only one to buy now. Yes, its margins are thin, it’s in a capital-intensive business and it’s cyclical. But even in a pandemic Tesla’s shareholders love the company and its leader.
Perhaps that loyalty is all it needs for success.
[Friday, May 15, 12:13 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Some pandemic investing opportunities feel like victory — like vaccine or treatment stocks. Purchasing shares of a company that could soon have a life-saving drug on its hands is the ultimate win-win scenario. Another pandemic-driven investing opportunity, based on new reporting fromAxios’Miriam Kramer, doesn’t have that same effect.
Yesterday Kramer discussed how the coronavirus was triggering a“crisis” in American mental health. At the end of April, 28% of Americansreported worsening mental health. All this time at home, for some, translates to heightened incidents of sexual and domestic abuse. For others, social distancing policies and stay-at-home orders have amplified conditions like depression and anxiety.
These are sobering thoughts, and Kramer questions how the healthcare system will respond after the pandemic. Will we see a rush toward therapy and prescription drugs? And how long will that rush last?
InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto recently made stock recommendations with that question in mind, especially as he anticipates more Americans seeking traditional and non-traditional treatment. Enomoto opted for a “quirky” focus, encouraging investors to buyChampignon Brands(OTCMKTS:SHRMF) andMindMed(OTCMKTS:MMEDF).
These companies represent the cutting-edge research happening in the mental health world. Champignon specializes inpsychedelic drugs with a therapeutic focus, researching ketamine and medicinal mushrooms. Similarly, MindMed focuses on the mental health benefits from psychedelics.
But it’s even more likely Americans will seek out traditional mental healthcare. That’s whyTeladoc(NYSE:TDOC) looks like a good play, especially as it has been quick to add a variety of medical professionals to its platform. And as Kramer predicts we’ll see an increase in depression and anxiety diagnoses, traditional drugmakers are also a good bet. ConsiderPfizer(NYSE:PFE) andEli Lilly(NYSE:LLY) — the makers of Prozac, Zoloft and Xanax.
Together, these five stocks represent a solid bet on growing demand, and a combination of current and future treatment options.
[Friday, May 15, 11:18 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Yesterday, it appeared another novel coronavirus superstar was emerging.Applied DNA Sciences(NASDAQ:APDN) shot from a May 13 closing price of $8.89 to close yesterday at $15.21. Why? It receivedemergency-use authorizationfrom the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its test kit.
But Thursday’s share-price victory didn’t last long. APDN stock is now down 20% in intraday trading, perhaps as news fromSorrento Therapeutics(NASDAQ:SRNE) takes center stage. What’s more likely is that investors panicked over the company’s earnings call Thursday evening.
As not all aspects of Applied DNA’s business qualify as essential in New York, it has seen significant year-over-year drops in revenue, and its net loss also widened by 10%.
Investors shouldn’t be so quick to discount this opportunity. As we previously reported in this blog, there are three types of test kits. This new offerings from Applied DNA is a true diagnostic test — the type of test many consider to be the most expensive and least accessible.
And according to CEO Jim Hayward, APDN’s test hasseveral advantages over other tests with emergency-use authorization. From Hayward:
“Regarding the economics of our COVID-19 diagnostic test, we expect the test to be profitable starting at day 1. We have been careful in choosing our kit components, and have worked closely with our domestic supply chain partners to develop safeguards for continued supply of necessary reagents. We’ve made sure that the manufacturing process for our test kit is as simple as possible, allowing the company to scale with demand.”
Yesterday’s price action reflects a common narrative in our new normal. Looking to the future, remember that testing will continue to ramp. With that in mind, APDN and its test-kit peers could very well be lucrative stocks to buy.
[Friday, May 15, 10:41 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wow. Shares ofSorrento Therapeutics(NASDAQ:SRNE) are almost 90% higher in intraday trading. It’s not even noon yet!
This impressive climb, unsurprisingly, comes on the back of novel coronavirus news. On Friday, the California-based biotech company said that an antibody it’s been developing was successful in blocking the virus, at least in a lab setting. After four days of incubation, it blocked the virus 100% of the time.
AsTechCrunch’sDarrell Etherington writes, this news is so inspiring because the antibody could form the basis for adrug cocktail used to treat Covid-19. Sorrento, like many others in the race to develop a treatment, is worried that the virus could mutate, making it hard to pin down an effective drug.
If later-stage trials find the same results, this antibody will be the first in Sorrento’s planned cocktail. It will then use itsCOVI-SHIELD technology to incorporate several more antibodies, aiming to address fears of mutation. According to a May 8 press release, Sorrento is hoping to develop three antibodies.
Keep a close eye on SRNE stock. While Sorrento isn’t exactly a household name, any company able to deliver a safe and effective treatment will win big. And for today, it’s a reason to be a bullish, especially after a gloomy start to trading.
[Friday, May 15, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It would be easy to imagine that Americans are filling their hours at home with online shopping — and certainly, there issomeof that going on. But 36.5 million people have filed for unemployment benefits, and fears of a long-lasting recession are curtailing consumer spending.
Investors got a shocking look at consumer spending levels Friday morning.Retail sales in April fell by 16.4%, worse than the drop in March. Economists werepredicting a drop of 12.3%— so it’s safe to say Friday’s surprise really is hurting the market.
Stock futures promptly flipped, after a positive close Thursday. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall are opening deep in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.94%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.87%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 1.15%
[Thursday, May 14, 4:37 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Cisco Systems(NASDAQ:CSCO) reported fiscal third-quarter earnings on Wednesday and analysts loved the results. AsInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote in his daily column on the stock market,analysts hopped on board the company’s bandwagonwith buy ratings and higher price targets.
Revenue of $12 billion represented an 8% year-over-year decrease, whileearnings per share of 79 cents increased 1% year-over-year. In a normal quarter these results may not be so rousing, but in this new normal, slight revenue and earnings beats had Wall Street cheering.
Here’s theshort list of analysts hopping on board(note that shares closed May 14 at $43.85):
• Barclays analyst Tim Long set a $50 price target.
• Citigroup analyst Jim Suva set a $48 price target.
• Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold set a $49 price target.
• JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee set a $50 price target.
• UBS analyst John Roy set a $51 price target.
So, are you ready to follow this list of analysts and buy CSCO stock?InvestorPlace’sBrad Moon is. He wrote at the end of April thataccelerated work-from-home trends make Cisco a hot stock, particularly as it’s home to Webex and Duo Security, two solutions made increasingly popular by the novel coronavirus.
[Thursday, May 14, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Are investors getting ready for the weekend, or what? News that 2.98 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits, combined with Wednesday’s comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, had stocks down hard this morning. In early afternoon trading, that all changed.
As we wrote this morning, with so much uncertainty, such a rally is hard to rule out.Crude oil pricesare also up on the day, which could be helping drive the market turnaround. Perhaps investors are just looking to end the week on a better note.
Regardless of the reason, it’s a nice relief after several rough days of trading. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed Thursday in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.15%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.62%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.91%
[Thursday, May 14, 3:13 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We previously reported in this blog thatBeyond Meat(NASDAQ:BYND) was getting a serious boost from the novel coronavirus. Consumers were embracing a doomsday prepper mindset andstocking up on plant-based alternativesas grocery stores run out of chicken and beef.
This growth story looks even juicier now. Just take a look at all the catalysts the company has working in its favor, as shares are up almost 80% year-to-date.
On top of the prepper angle, Beyond Meat moved into China through a partnership withStarbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX) at the tail end of April. Now, consumers there canorder plant-based beef spicy and sour wrap. It’s long been true that China is the hottest growth market, so this move could bring big things to the leading plant-based meat company.
But what is perhaps the biggest catalyst for BYND stock is also the gloomiest. AsThe Wall Street Journal’sKimberly Chin reported earlier in May,sales more than doubled in the past quarteras consumers stocked up in panic. Where’s this interest coming from? It seems like each day we learn more about devastating meat shortages and virus outbreaks at U.S. meat processors.
Beyond Meat isn’t free from criticism, as some investors feel that it has climbed too high, too fast. And others point out that while it is doubling sales, the plant-based meatdoesn’t truly rival the traditional meat market.
However, it’s undeniable that Beyond Meat represents something big. As it moves into China’s reopening economy and helps patch the hole in the food supply chain caused by meat shortages, investors should certainly consider BYND stock now.
[Thursday, May 14, 2:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors have focused onCVS Health(NYSE:CVS) this year, particularly as it sells critical health supplies and over-the-counter medicines. In other words, it’s a convenient stop in pandemic shopping.InvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn has long been hot on the name, writing in late March about its makeover plans and itsdecision to offer tests for the novel coronavirus.
But Blankenhorn wasn’t convinced CVS was simply a coronavirus play. He wrote at the time it was a “winner beyond the coronavirus pandemic,” particularly as it moved into managed care with its Aetna acquisition. Today, Wall Street is backing up that argument.
Credit Suisse analyst Erin Wright boosted CVS stock to a “buy” rating, maintaining a $75 price target. Shares currently trade near $62. According to Wright, CVS is a defensive business. But most attractive is itsentry — through Aetna — into the world of Medicare Advantage(subscription required).
As the analyst wrote, Medicare Advantage is a fast-growing business. What is MA? It’s where a private health insurer provides Medicare benefits. Blankenhorn writes thatCVS’ entry into this spaceis what differentiates it fromWalgreens(NASDAQ:WBA) and makes it a competitor withUnitedHealth(NYSE:UNH).InvestorPlace’sMark Hake writes that this deal has also made CVS more of a go-to pharmacy, and CVS has recorded somenotable changes in its prescription filling.
While the pandemic has thrust CVS to the forefront of consumer thought, the stock is likely to be a winner in a whole new era of healthcare.
[Thursday, May 14, 2:10 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Goldman Sachs derivatives strategist John Marshall has a wake-up call for investors. In a post-pandemic world, historical earnings won’t be accurate predictors of future earnings. But when will Wall Street catch up with this reality?
According toBarron’sSteven Sears, Marshall’s message isn’t cause for panic. Instead, see it as an opportunity to profit. If Wall Street continues to underappreciate newly powerful companies, investors who see through low estimates can score big.
Still don’t get it? Just think about all of the trends that the novel coronavirus is accelerating. Just a few weeks ago, Wall Street wasn’t nearly as hot on work-from-home plays or consumer staples. How then will analysts be able to accurately predict earnings when things settle?
The Goldman strategist takes it a bit further, listing12 stocks he thinks are buys now. He argues that these names are all set to beat estimates in a big way. Here’s what he’s watching:
• Allstate(NYSE:ALL)
• Morgan Stanley(NYSE:MS)
• Baxter International(NYSE:BAX)
• Iqvia Holdings(NYSE:IQV)
• Boeing(NYSE:BA)
• Parker-Hannifin(NYSE:PH)
• United Rentals(NYSE:URI)
• Whirlpool(NYSE:WHR)
• Peloton Interactive(NASDAQ:PTON)
• T-Mobile(NASDAQ:TMUS)
• Twitter(NYSE:TWTR)
• Western Digital(NASDAQ:WDC)
[Thursday, May 14, 1:46 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors always love cheap stocks — and can you blame them? Imagine buying shares for $2, $3 or even $5 and watching them skyrocket to $10, $20 or even $50. That would be a huge win, and it’s why we look forcheap stocks under $10 each week.
During a pandemic, it’s not surprising that cheap stocks are even more popular. A market-wide selloff earlier in March created a lot of discount buys. However, the selloff also proved that some stocks simply aren’t resilient enough for a turbulent market.
So how do you know which cheap stocks actually have any potential?
That’s whereInvestorPlace’sDavid Moadel comes in. Today, he rounded upfive high-quality companies with cheap share prices. Here’s what he’s watching now:
• Nokia(NYSE:NOK)
• Nio(NYSE:NIO)
• Esports Entertainment Group(NASDAQ:GMBL)
• U.S. Energy(NASDAQ:USEG)
• U.S. Auto Parts Network(NASDAQ:PRTS)
[Thursday, May 14, 12:57 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s often a good sign when a company’s insiders start buying up shares. Fidelity’s Peter Lynch has made that idea famous. He said that insiders could sell shares for any reason. But there’s only one reason he said insiders would buy shares —they think the price will go up.
With that time-tested advice in mind, let’s turn toHarley-Davidson(NYSE:HOG) stock. AsInvestorPlace’sIan Bezek wrote in late April, HOG shares could certainlybenefit from additional stimulus money. It’s an iconic company that almost all consumers are familiar with. It also has a particular level of brand loyalty.
Unfortunately, though, most consumers probably aren’t buying motorcycles during the novel coronavirus pandemic. “Fun” purchases like Harley-Davidson’s bikes have been put on the back burner in favor of essentials like health supplies and food. And that honestly makes sense.
For HOG stock, that logic has made 2020 an ugly year. Shares are down about 50% year-to-date. Clearly the motorcycle company faces quite a few hurdles.
But those hurdles aren’t stopping CEO Jochen Zeitz from giving investors a bullish angle. He officially became CEO on May 7, and on May 8 hespent $2.1 million for almost 98,000 shares. That’s the first insider purchase Harley-Davidson has seen since 2017.
There’s always more than a simple purchase to consider when evaluating insider buying, but Argus Research analyst David Coleman likes what he sees. He upped his rating on HOG stock to “buy” and gave it a $30 price target. Shares currently trade just below $19.
AsBarron’sBill Alpert writes, Coleman likes Harley-Davidson becausehe’s confident its strategic plan will help it survive the crisis. Once it does, he says the company’s fortunes will rebound next year to hit $4.1 billion in sales and earnings per share of $3.35.
There’s nothing like riding off into the sunset with a nice purchase of Harley-Davidson stock.
[Thursday, May 14, 11:21 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
According to the team fromMorning Brew, theEuropean summer vacationcould be a reality this summer, depending on your country of origin and your desired destination.
That’s right, in an effort to salvage tourism-dependent economies, the European Union rolled out its plan to allow summer travel on Wednesday. Health and safety measures are a priority, and it’s not clear whether all EU countries will hop on board the plan. For now, it looks like Austria and Germany plan topartially reopen their shared border tomorrow. Other countries are slated to follow suit over the coming weeks.
Greece, another country devastated economically, supportsallowing travel between EU countries starting June 15, as long as there is a plan to test travelers for the novel coronavirus in place.
AsMorning Brewhighlights, the plan will likely only allow European travel for EU countries. Travelers from places like the United States may not be allowed, at least for a few more weeks. But this bold move could be exactly what investors are looking for.
InvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth wrote at the end of April that travel stocks had been some of the worst performers in 2020. That makes a ton of sense. Cruise ships became a symbol of mass outbreak, and air travel fell to rock-bottom levels. It’s hard to backpack through Europe when you’re under a stay-at-home order that bans non-essential movement.
But Ashworth was surprisingly bullish on travel stocks, even then. He wrote that over the next decade, top names in the sector should see massive gains. Investors who get in at cheap prices will see handsome rewards. In other words, buying a battered travel stock now could help you pay for your European vacation when lockdowns fully lift.
Here’s a look atseven travel stocks Ashworth is recommending now:
• Royal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL)
• Southwest Air Lines(NYSE:LUV)
• LVMH(OTCMKTS:LVMUY)
• Estee Lauder(NYSE:EL)
• Hilton Hotels(NYSE:HLT)
• MGM Resorts International(NYSE:MGM)
• Booking Holdings(NASDAQ:BKNG)
[Thursday, May 14, 10:22 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlaceanalyst Neil George has been surviving — and thriving — in market crises since 1987. Through his work, he’s navigated the dot-com crash, the SARS outbreak in China and the Great Recession. Now, he’s using his skills to help investors survive the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus.
He often looks at individual stocks and bonds, but today he took a deep dive into Vanguard ETFs. According to George, the Vanguard fund family is one of the best. And the sectors he chose ETFs from are perfect to help investors actually profit despite the chaos. That’s one of the fundamental things he looks for in hisProfitable Investingmodel portfolios.
So if you’re looking to invest in solid ETFs through a qualified retirement account, or you just like the opportunities that these funds present, Neil George has your back. He’s looking at sectors like utilities, and even real estate investment trusts, to find opportunity.
Here aresix Vanguard ETFs that he’s recommending now:
• High Dividend Yield ETF(NYSEARCA:VYM)
• Real Estate ETF(NYSEARCA:VNQ)
• Utilities ETF(NYSEARCA:VPU)
• Information Technology ETF(NYSEARCA:VGT)
• Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF(NASDAQ:VCIT)
• Tax-Exempt Bond ETF(NYSEARCA:VTEB)
[Thursday, May 14, 10:01 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Don’t let fears about the state of the economy keep you from profiting now. Instead, look toareas with big growth potentialthat are supported by massive, accelerating trends.InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier is doing just that — and he’s recommending cloud computing stocks right now.
He wrote yesterday that cloud computing stocks are perfect recession-proof plays “hiding in plain sight.” How often do you think about the technology behind the TikTok videos you watch, the video calls you schedule or the photos you share to keep in touch with your friends? Well, it’s time you start thinking.
As the novel coronavirus has thrust so much of our world online, cloud computing technology is increasingly important. Plus, Navellier writes that this trend is only accelerating. Just look at how successful companies likeAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) andMicrosoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) are.
So where should you look? Navellier has been recommendingServiceNow(NYSE:NOW) in hisGrowth Investorportfolio since July 2018, and it’s since gained 100%. Clearly you don’t want to miss out on this cloud computing trend.
Read more of Navellier’s thoughts on this technology, and what’s coming next,here.
[Thursday, May 14, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Is it really Thursday again already? Looks like it. And it also looks like it has been a couple of rough days for the market. This morning, investors learned that another2.98 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits, bringing the novel coronavirus total above 36 million.
This number hasn’t always had a market-moving impact, but stocks are slipping lower Thursday. Perhaps that’s because investors weren’t done digesting comments yesterday from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell and legendary investors likeStanley Druckenmiller and David Tepper.
With as much uncertainty in the world as there is, Thursday could still see a rally. But for now, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 1%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.99%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.84%
[Wednesday, May 13, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wednesday’s trading was yet another example of just how divided the nation is over the novel coronavirus — and how unpredictable the stock market is.
States continue to reopen, and headlines cheered Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’welcoming of professionals sports. This gives fans, networks and hard-hit teams something to look forward to. At the same time, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell targeted “premature” reopenings with warnings of suffering and long-term pain.
One day the market focuses on the positives, like the return of professionals sports. The next day, fears over the novel coronavirus dominate. Wednesday saw the latter. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed deep in the red.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 1.75%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 2.17%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 1.55%
[Wednesday, May 13, 3:46 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Paris-basedSanofi(NYSE:SNY) isn’t rocketing higher in the market Wednesday, but it is outperforming the major indices. Shares are down just 0.2% in intraday trading, while theS&P 500is down 2.2%.
It turns out investors are always willing to play a game of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” What do I mean? Well, the United States was the first country to fund Sanofi’s vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus. Now partnered withGlaxoSmithKline(NYSE:GSK), it hopes to produce at least 600 million doses each year.
According to aBloombergreport, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson isdisappointed with the lack of support from European nations, driving his Wednesday announcement. Perhaps to spark some funding competition, he shared that the U.S. is currently entitled to the largest pre-order of doses. Granted, the U.S. may only beat out other countries by a few days or a few weeks.
Keep a close eye on Sanofi shares. It’s likely broader market influences, like early comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, are keeping the announcement from having a better effect. Tomorrow could bring more gains as Sanofi ups its bullish appeal amid the pandemic.
[Wednesday, May 13, 2:32 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One theme that we have reported on frequently in this column is the power of snack foods amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. Consumers are stocking up on Oreo cookies with as much aggression as they’re hoarding meat or face masks. That’s meant good things for food stocks with a strong grocery store hook. For investors, it has been a chance to profit on easy, family friendly business models.
Now,PepsiCo(NASDAQ:PEP) is looking to get in on the snack surge. According to reporting fromRetail Brew, the company isrolling out two direct-to-consumer channelsto embrace “blanket fort life.” Through Snacks.com and PantryShop.com, shoppers can buy both snack and drink bundles and individual Frito Lay chip products.
This makes a lot of sense, and it shows PepsiCo’s ability to innovate quickly. While grocery store snacks are hot, the company missed out on e-commerce opportunities. If consumers plan on social distancing for several more weeks, it’s likely they’ll be more comfortable buying comfort food online.
Plus, as we reported earlier today, PepsiCo is taking big moves in the digital advertising space, even as itbacks away from long-standing network campaigns. The company was the first to get in on a new partnership betweenThe Trade Desk(NASDAQ:TTD) and TikTok,reaching consumers in the Asia-Pacific region with a chip-focused campaign.
It’s important for companies like PepsiCo to have direct reach to consumers, both through e-commerce and innovative advertising.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto wrote yesterday thatPEP is one of the top stocks benefitting from virus tailwinds. Why? Cheap, comforting snacks like soda and chips are often recession-resistant and should continue to benefit in 2020 and beyond.
[Wednesday, May 13, 2:11 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
At the beginning of the pandemic, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezcalled for a temporary ban on big corporate mergers. Their logic? Mergers serve to boost the economic power of large corporations while smaller players suffer the effects of the outbreak.
Undeterred by the proposal, rumors of a tie-up betweenUber(NYSE:UBER) andGrubhub(NYSE:GRUB) began swirling yesterday. Many investors think a deal would make sense — it would help consolidate the food delivery industry, and help Uber as its ride-hailing business suffers.
But this deal represents a lot. For one, it stands in stark contrast toseveral deals that failed as a result of the novel coronavirus. The Uber-Grubhub opportunity also is a reminder to investors that takeover bids can be great buying opportunities.
With that in mind,Barron’scompiled a list of12 other stocks to watch for potential takeovers. Here’s what you should be watching now:
• Steel Dynamics(NASDAQ:STLD)
• L Brands(NYSE:LB)
• Moog(NYSE:MOG.A)
• Yelp(NYSE:YELP)
• Etsy(NASDAQ:ETSY)
• Splunk(NASDAQ:SPLK)
• Pure Storage(NYSE:PTSG)
• II-VI(NASDAQ:IIVI)
• Corteva(NYSE:CTVA)
• Reliance Steel(NYSE:RS)
• Flowserve(NYSE:FLS)
• Woodward(NASDAQ:WWD)
[Wednesday, May 13, 1:54 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One thing that is undeniably true is that the novel coronavirus made the online world much more appealing. Heck, I even convinced my grandmother to try out aZoom Video(NASDAQ:ZM) call a few weekends ago, and she loved it. Now she’s a videoconferencing pro.
Consumers are turning to online shopping for essentials, groceries and even hair products while salons remain closed in many states. ButInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango is bullish on another sector that’s headed to the web.
Data suggests that insurance companies — long driven by in-person policy sales — are embracing an online model. According toCanadian Underwriter, this trend started before the pandemic. Insurance markets thinkGeneration Z shoppers will prefer online policy salesbecause online shopping is associated with brand loyalty, refunds and accessible product information.
Lango thinksEverQuote(NASDAQ:EVER) stock is set to seriously benefit from this trend, especially as the pandemic forces consumers to turn online for all sorts of purchases. His new modeling estimates ashare price over $100 within just a few years, and earnings per share of $3 by 2025.
So what exactly is EverQuote? LikeAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) brought shopping online andExpedia(NASDAQ:EXPE) brought the travel industry online, Lango sees EverQuote leading the way for insurance. That’s because it’s a top online marketplace for insurance policies.
Need another reason to be bullish on EverQuote stock? Its first-quarter earnings showed revenue up 56% year-over-year and thecompanyraisedits full-year guidance. That’s impressive.
[Wednesday, May 13, 1:20 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Have investors soured onGileadSciences(NASDAQ:GILD) stock? Over the last few weeks it has been a market leader. Good news for its novel coronavirus candidate remdesivir drove whole indices up. Bad news took them down, hard. But now Gilead can’t seem to win back favor.
On Wednesday, Gilead announced that it now has five licensing agreements with generic drug manufacturers. When I heard the news, I assumed this would have GILD shares higher in intraday trading. Thesemanufacturing agreements will allow remdesivir to reach 127 countries, including many low-income and middle-income nations. Plus, plans to scale up manufacturing to that degree seem like a bullish indication of remdesivir’s potential.
Instead, Gilead is down with the market, to the tune of 0.4%.
According toBioPharma Dive’sJacob Bell, some of theconcern comes from advocacy groupslikePublic Citizen, which question how many low-income individuals these agreements will help. These groups say half the world’s population lives outside of the included countries.
This is an extremely valid point, but is it the sole reason investors aren’t cheering the news? While advocacy groups help shape the philanthropic reach of remdesivir, don’t ignore the bullish messaging here. Investors also shouldn’t ignore the potential coming to generic drug makers.
If remdesivir gets the green light,Mylan(NASDAQ:MYL),Hetero Labs,Jubilant Life SciencesandFerozsons Laboratoriesstand to benefit from associations with the life-saving drug.
InvestorPlace’sLarry Ramer agrees. He wrote today thatGILD stock is set to prove the bears wrong, and that it’s time to see the blockbuster potential in remdesivir. Despite Gilead’s choice to donate thousands of doses, he still sees a chance for $3.4 billion in sales in 2020. A coronavirus cure and $3.4 billion? That’s not something to scoff at.
[Wednesday, May 13, 12:36 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One of my favorite quarantine habits involves getting comfy, grabbing my tablet and watching hours of short videos on TikTok. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a social media platform from China’sByteDance. It features short-form video content, often with dance challenges, short comedy bits or cute pets.
TikTok is taking the world by storm.The Verge’sAshley Carman reported in April that theplatform surpassed 2 billion downloads, and much of its growth came in the first quarter as people were stuck at home. It is simply an inspiring growth story.
Some experts warn that ByteDance is threatening the dominance of rivalTencent(OTCMKTS:TCEHY) which similarly invests in social media, online gaming and entertainment. And while ByteDance remains private, there is speculation an IPO is just around the corner.
If you still don’t get TikTok’s potential, take this reporting fromAxios’Shane Shavitsky. Tweens and teens on the app have a lot of sway in“vaulting” songs to the top of the Billboard charts. Just this week, Doja Cat’s “Say So” earned a No. 1 ranking, after a 17-year-old user created a viral dance. This business model is so solid thatPitchfork’sAlphonse Pierre says Drake’s “Toosie Slide” was acalculated move to succeed on TikTok.
Now, hopefully you see what I mean. For individual investors, there’s a great way to buy into this massive opportunity.The Trade Desk(NASDAQ:TTD) — which is a success story in its own right —recently launched a partnership with TikTokto get ad clients easy access to the platform. The new offering launched in Thailand, led by a campaign fromPepsiCo(NASDAQ:PEP). Just like connected TV boosts the success of TTD stock, TikTok should be a major catalyst.
TikTok users have a lot of consumer power, and The Trade Desk is a great play on the future of digital advertising. That’s whyInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango says TTD stock is one of the top stocks to invest in for a“post-coronavirus whipsaw.”With a new partnership under its belt, it’s too good to ignore here.
[Wednesday, May 13, 11:41 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Just a few weeks ago, finding a stock that was in the green year-to-date was like winning the lottery. Now, though, theS&P 500is far off its 2020 lows, and many stocks are flaunting eye-grabbing gains. Does that mean there are no more bargain opportunities for bottom-fishing investors?
No.InvestorPlace’sIan Bezek wrote today that if investors don’t see bargains right now, they’re not looking in the right place. Almost 100 companies in the S&P 500 are still down more than 40%. Talk about opportunity.
With that in mind, here areseven stocks he’s recommending now:
• Anheuser-Busch InBev(NYSE:BUD)
• Tyson Foods(NYSE:TSN)
• General Electric(NYSE:GE)
• Altria(NYSE:MO)
• Nordstrom(NYSE:JWN)
• Boston Properties(NYSE:BXP)
• Sysco(NYSE:SYY)
[Wednesday, May 13, 11:10 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Airline stocks have had a rough year, and investors like Warren Buffett are kissing the sector goodbye. Many predict that demand will suffer in the long term, especially as consumers adopt new attitudes toward hygiene and remote work.
But Bill Miller, the legendary investor behindMiller Value Partners, has a strong counter to that argument. He sees a bet against airlines as abet against the development of a novel coronavirus vaccine(subscription required):
“If you don’t own the airlines, then you’re making a bet against the vaccine. People love flying and don’t worry about catching polio or smallpox, if there is a vaccine. … If there is a vaccine, that will eliminate all the issues people have about flying and these [stocks] will come back very, very quickly.”
Plus, Miller thinks all the bad news about air travel is already priced into airline stocks. That’s why he is maintaining stakes inDelta Air Lines(NYSE:DAL),United Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL) andAmerican Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL). To be fair, he doesn’t snub Buffett for making a decision to sell. He just sees a great opportunity for value investors in the sky.
Just this morning,InvestorPlace’sChris Lau wrote in agreement. He says that although airline stocks are a bit of a gamble, American Airlines has a huge margin of safety. Lau thinksAAL stock has 80% of upside ahead. That’s a great reason to pick up shares now.
[Wednesday, May 13, 10:49 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Let’s get a few things straight. Live sports are on a hiatus, at least for the most part, and ESPN is left to broadcast game reruns and marble races. AsAxios’Kendall Baker writes, even when live sports do return, America will see a“no-fans era”in stadiums.
The data backs that up. A recent poll found that only 24% of respondents are“very likely” or “somewhat likely” to attend a live gameas soon as restrictions are lifted. Why? Americans want a vaccine for the novel coronavirus first.
Those combined points paint a pretty awful picture for the sports world. But at the same time, sportsbook companies — companies that accept bets in retail locations or online — are forging ahead.DraftKings(NASDAQ:DKNG) stock has been incredibly hot in recent weeks, and it’s up 4% in intraday trading. Turns out famous investorGeorge Soros is also bullish on the company.
DraftKings,FanDuelandPenn National Gaming(NASDAQ:PENN) are racing to attract bettors despite the lack of live sports. And to an extent, it’s working. The companies saw a record number of wagers for the NFL virtual draft in April, andMarketWatch’sWeston Blasi writes thatvirtual NASCAR races andLeague of Legendsgames are upping the stakes.
This odd reality makes DKNG and PENN surprising pandemic options for investors to consider. DKNG shares are up 156% year-to-date, while PENN shares are down 30%. Is either stock a good buy now?
InvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall thinks the long-term picture is extremely bullish for DraftKings, so if you’ve already bought shares then you’re in luck. If you’re still on the sidelines,he recommends waiting for a pullback— it’s clear DKNG has already climbed pretty far in 2020. McCall feels similarly about Penn National Gaming, which has a stake in Barstool Sports. It’s along-term winner, but the road ahead could be toughas casinos reopen.
In short, sportsbook operators are surprisingly resilient amid a pandemic. DKNG and PENN represent entry to a huge market opportunity, and they’ll be stocks to buy on a near-term pullback, if not now.
[Wednesday, May 13, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Stock futures were trending higher Wednesday, at least until Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave some prepared remarks on the state of the economy. Unsurprisingly, Powell doesn’t see everything as rosy, and in fact cited several key points that could make full economic recovery take even longer.
As for his buddies on Capitol Hill, Powell is urging for more fiscal support. He calls out those with“the power to tax and spend”to help boost the economy, even if such measures would be costly. His remarks also come as Republicans and Democrats continue to debate another round of stimulus funding.
His message wasn’t apocalyptic, but no one likes thinking about a long recovery. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall dramatically flipped into the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 2.05%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.41%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 2.06%
[Tuesday, May 12, 4:37 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell touched on news that had the stock market in an uproar Tuesday in his daily column. According toThe Wall Street Journal’sCara Lombardo,Uber(NYSE:UBER) is looking totake over food delivery competitorGrubhub(NYSE:GRUB) in an all-stock deal.
Grubhub has not confirmed or denied the rumors, but shares closed higher by 29% today. This comes as consumers turn en masse to restaurant delivery, as dine-in options remain closed in almost all states. Plus, Uber has seen a massive decline in its main ride-hailing business, leading it to focus more heavily on its Uber Eats.
Boy, that’s some news. Kenwell wrote thatsuch a deal wouldn’t be surprising. Grubhub executives also hinted that consolidation in the food delivery industry “makes sense.”
InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango loves the sound of this deal. He wrote that Grubhub stock is now a“scorching-hot buy”on the rumors. If the deal goes through — which Lango thinks it will — both Uber and Grubhub are stocks to buy.
[Tuesday, May 12, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
This morning, we reported that investors were seemingly ignoring warnings from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. But perhaps that changed, as stocks reversed course and headed lower. EvenVice President Mike Pence will now isolate himself, as his spokeswoman tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Across the U.S. businesses continue to reopen. A big problem is the lack of agreement. President Donald Trump, state governors, CEOs and public health experts can’t seem to form a unified plan.
IfFauci’s warnings hold true, states rushing to reopen could be in for “suffering” in the near future. With that in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall headed into the red to close the day.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 2.05%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.89%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 2.06%
[Tuesday, May 12, 3:32 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Canada’s cannabis darlingTilray(NASDAQ:TLRY) has had a rough year, just like many other cannabis stocks. Shares are down more than 55% year-to-date, and 85% over the last 12 months. Many investors were hoping a Monday night earnings report would turn things around. Unfortunately, shares are down 7.5% in intraday trading.
But not all investing experts are selling Tilray stock.MarketWatch’sMax Cherney wrote Tuesday that the novel coronavirus has not actually hurt the company’s operations. And, digging through the results, there may even be room for optimism.
For the first time ever, Tilray sawhigher sales of medical cannabis abroad than at home in Canada. Overall, the pot producer did see sales increases in March and April over January and February. Many experts predict consumers will turn to marijuana while they are stuck at home.
Despite these results, or perhaps because of them,InvestorPlace’sNicolas Chahine remains bullish on Tilray stock. He wrote today thatshares will once again surpass $11, although the road ahead isn’t easy. What’s driving his argument? He sees higher international sales as a sign Tilray is expanding. The pandemic is keeping this success under the radar, but it’s not something to ignore.
As Chahine writes, look for new legislation in the U.S. and abroad. Anything that can help Tilray move forward is a good sign for cannabis bulls, and for Tilray stock.
[Tuesday, May 12, 3:08 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
One great way to get stock ideas is through looking at what top fund managers are buying. That’s exactly whatMorningstar’sSusan Dziubinski did, working with managers fromDiamond HillandDodge & Coxto discover which consumer stocks are trending right now.
Like some of Dziubinski’s other picks, herfour-stock list focuses on consumer plays. Two names on her list focus on the increasing popularity of snack foods while consumers are stuck at home. Another is a bet on a rebound in the travel industry.
What they all have in common is that fund managers are buying up shares. Here are the four names Dziubinski is watching now:
• Cognizant Technology Solutions(NASDAQ:CTSH)
• Kellogg(NYSE:K)
• Mondelez(NASDAQ:MDLZ)
• Booking Holdings(NASDAQ:BKNG)
[Tuesday, May 12, 2:46 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Tech stocks have been making waves recently, but asInvestorPlace’sChris Lau writes, investors have mostly focused on stocks benefiting from remote work trends. Overlooking other tech megatrends, though, could mean forgoing serious profits.
Lau is bullish on big trends like artificial intelligence and 5G — and for good reason. Although the novel coronavirus has dampened international hype around those trends, they aren’t going anywhere. In fact, the pandemic is likely accelerating these trends. Ignoring them is a great way to lose money.
InvestorPlacealso spoke with Dirk Hackbarth, a professor of finance at Boston University. One thing Hackbarth highlighted is that while American companies have historically led these megatrends, it’s time for investors to take Chinese companies seriously.
That’s especially true as China’s economy appears to be rebounding faster.From Hackbarth:
“To the extent that China’s economy may rebound before the U.S. reaches its trough this year, it will provide another advantage for Chinese firms, such as Alibaba and Baidu, to better compete with the likes of Microsoft and Alphabet.”
So, while you’re looking for the latest opportunity in videoconferencing, make sure to keep an open mind. Other tech trends, especially led by Chinese companies, represent major potential.
Here areseven tech stocks Lau is watching now:
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Alibaba(NYSE:BABA)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Intel(NASDAQ:INTC)
• Logitech(NASDAQ:LOGI)
• Qualcomm(NASDAQ:QCOM)
[Tuesday, May 12, 2:13 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Fastenal(NASDAQ:FAST) is likely not a stock that investors think about everyday. The company distributes safety equipment, fasteners and other industrial products as part of the wholesale supply chain. Its clients include construction businesses, food processors and local governments.
Thanks to the novel coronavirus,Fastenal is getting its time in the spotlight. Sales of its safety equipment were up 120% year-over-year in April, and FAST stock is up about 7% for the year. CFO Holden Lewis said that “surges” in safety equipment sales were certainly responsible for its performance.
According toIndustrial Distribution, thesesafety equipment sales are changing the game, especially as sales of its fastener products continue to hurt. Fastenal saw 11,000 accounts make safety purchases in April that had not made similar purchases since October 2019.
But beyond the headlines, there’s a bigger opportunity. Fastenal is an otherwise boring company that doesn’t usually hold conference calls for its sales numbers. Lewis’ insight into the sales is important. He says one customer bought “back-to-work” kits for employees, filled with masks, temperature gauges and hand sanitizer. This is the new normal, and Fastenal is set to win.
More companies will ramp orders of safety equipment as they bring employees back to work, and similar kits will be making the rounds at all sorts of factories. Plus, once those factories reopen, sales of Fastenal’s other products should gradually return to normal.
[Tuesday, May 12, 1:26 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Americans are entering a new normal, and they have an intense fear of germs.
That fact, along with a series of recent reports, bodes well for streaming stocks. Consumers ramped up their TV watching early on, but as they continue to stay at home, their new streaming accounts and favorite shows won’t disappear.
Plus, cord-cutting trends are only accelerating. Research firm MoffettNathanson reported that aspay TV subscriptions fell by 1.8 millionin the first quarter, the state of cable TV returned to levels not seen since 1995. Clearly, as consumers up their TV time, they’re not choosing new cable packages.
Granted, MoffettNathanson’s report also includes businesses and restaurants that have canceled cable subscriptions. But other reporting fromAxios’Sara Fischer backs up the case for streaming stocks. She writes that traditional TV companies are alsostruggling to move forward with the fall season. It’s hard for networks to sell marketers if they don’t know what shows they can realistically produce.
On the other hand, streaming platforms benefit from deep archives of fan-favorite shows. With this in mind, consider streaming stocks a great way to play a phased economy reopening. That’s one of the reasonsInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango is so bullish on the space. He recently wrote that the novel coronavirus is accelerating the shift from traditional TV to streaming TV at record pace.
Here arefive names he recommended at the end of April:
• Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX)
• Disney(NYSE:DIS)
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• AT&T(NYSE:T)
• Roku(NASDAQ:ROKU)
[Tuesday, May 12, 12:45 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) got up on the right side of the bed this morning. In an early press release, the vaccine specialist announced it hadreceived an additional $384 millionfrom the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). This money will help the company in its fight to develop a novel coronavirus vaccine. Earlier in 2020, it received $4 million from the same group.
Boy, investors like what they see. NVAX stock is up 68% in intraday trading, surpassing $40 per share. Although the funding itself is exciting, it’s likely the market is cheering the company’s plan to ramp toward “100 million doses” by the end of 2020.
According to the press release, the funding will allow early stage clinical trials to begin in Australia. Top-line results from Phase I studies should be ready in July. As previously mentioned, another portion of the money will go toward scaling up manufacturing capacity in 2020 and 2021.
Barron’sJosh Nathan-Kazis adds in some important context. He writes that Novavax is relatively far along in its studies for a coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, itfaces fierce competition from more well-established companies. Novavax has no approved products on the market, although it is currently developing a vaccine for the common flu.
Shares are up over 800% so far for 2020, and analysts have a12-month price target just over $42. After today’s move, that doesn’t imply very much upside.
However, it’s obvious investors will reward any company that brings a successful vaccine to market. With that in mind, don’t discount the bullish opportunity in NVAX stock. Plus, a vaccine will open the doors to a truly safe reopening, and perhaps a return to the pre-pandemic way of life.
[Tuesday, May 12, 12:08 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Sure, “fears for aNightmare on Elm Street” quarter influencedApple’s(NASDAQ:AAPL) March results. But at the same time, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives sees the company’s service business as “Teflon-like.” That’s a pretty nice comparison.
In a new note to clients, Ives turned up the heat on Apple. He gave shares an “outperform” rating and bumped his price target from $335 to $350. With a current share price near $318, that implies 10% of upside.
So what happened to turn Apple from a nightmare to a stock to buy? According to Ives, the thesis revolves around the iPhone 12. The analyst writes that approximately 350 million iPhones are in the company’s upgrade window, and supply chain experts in Asia are confident about iPhone momentum in 2020 and 2021.
But this forecast doesn’t even take into consideration a fall 2020 launch of the new phones. Ives writes that his firm sees a 10%-15% chance Apple releases the phones on schedule. A $350 price target is pretty comforting, especially given that outlook.
InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango agrees. He wrote Friday thatApple is one of the best ways to invest in 5G, as consumers will need 5G devices to benefit from the trend. With or without new models in 2020, it’s nice to know analysts are still bullish on AAPL shares. Whenever the iPhone 12 debuts, be ready for a rally.
[Tuesday, May 12, 10:55 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Rumors swirled faster yesterday in the investing world than in lines for a Marvel movie premier. That’s because the United Kingdom’sDaily Mailreported on apotential acquisitionofAMC Entertainment(NYSE:AMC) byAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN).
The former company is a shell of its former self. Movie theaters remain closed in many states even as phase-one reopening plans go into motion. Plus, movie studios have had to delay production work, and therefore big release dates. These last few weeks have been an absolute nightmare for the industry.
But the latter company is a true winner, even amid the novel coronavirus. It seems like nothing can stop Amazon, and it allegedly wants to up its stake in the entertainment world.InvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth questions just how comfortable consumers will be if Bezos successfully extends his reach.
Sure, the rumors raise a handful of ethical questions. But yesterday investors seemed to like the news asAMC stock shot up 30%. It’s back on the move today, up almost 7% in intraday trading.
So, is a huge opportunity for investors, or is it too good to be true? Ashworth isn’t confidentAmazon will come to AMC’s rescue. He also isn’t confident that AMC insiders would even approve such a deal.
Similarly,InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango thinks it’s not worth chasing AMC stock here. But, he does see opportunity. He writes that Amazon should“absolutely” buy AMC. If it does, expect the deal to add long-term growth tailwinds to an already impressive company.
In the meantime, keep your eyes on the headlines. Any official acknowledgement of the deal could change things.
[Tuesday, May 12, 10:23 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
This year has no doubt been a rough one for dividend investors. We’ve reported in this blog on the trials many companies face, choosing to slash or suspend dividends in order to better survive the pandemic.
In short, income investing looks bleak. EvenDisney(NYSE:DIS) made the move tohalt its dividend for the first half of 2020. If Mickey Mouse can’t deliver, then what company can? Well,InvestorPlace’sIan Bezek has the answer.
Bezek doesn’t disagree that dividend stocks look rough now. But he does have some advice — look for simply the best blue-chip stocks that have solid histories of dividend payouts. These companies are most likely to maintain their dividends even in the midst of chaos.
Phew, that’s reassuring. Here are theseven dividend stocks he’s recommending now:
• Johnson & Johnson(NYSE:JNJ)
• Public Storage(NYSE:PSA)
• General Dynamics(NYSE:GD)
• PepsiCo(NASDAQ:PEP)
• Qualcomm(NASDAQ:QCOM)
• Colgate-Palmolive(NYSE:CL)
• Duke Energy(NYSE:DUK)
[Tuesday, May 12, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease expert, will testify today as states continue reopening. He warns that a premature move could cause“needless suffering and death.”
But Fauci is at odds with President Donald Trump and the broader market sentiment. As states reopen, businesses reopen. Furloughed employees return to work. It sounds so simple, right?
On Tuesday morning, it appears so. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.37%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.46%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.78%
[Monday, May 11, 4:40 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Over the last few weeks, this blog has provided investors several reasons to be bullish onCarnival(NYSE:CCL) stock. We’ve looked at insider buying and the company’s plan to return to cruising this summer. Now,InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell has aneven better reason to buy shares.
It turns out that consumers really are ready to start cruising again. In the three-day period after Carnival announced its summer plans,bookings rose 600% compared to the previous three-day period. How’s that for pent-up demand?
Granted, Carnival isn’t reopening all ports at once. It currently is eyeing summer departures from Florida and Texas, but that’s better than nothing.
As Kenwell writes, cruises won’t look the same. Carnival and its peers need approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If they acquire that, they’ll also be looking at some new health guidelines. He says travelers should anticipate health screenings, no self-serve buffets and restricted occupancy in some areas. Passengers may have to provide medical notes proving they’re not at increased risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.
Still need some convincing?InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper wrote thatnow is the perfect time to buy CCL shares. He’s confident that 2021 will see renewed momentum. Plus, he likes votes of confidence from Wall Street. UBS analyst Robin Farley says Carnival is the strongest in its sector.
[Monday, May 11, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Boris Johnson is pushing for businesses to reopen in the United Kingdom. The United States continues to see a wave of phased reopenings. But South Korea just saw a spike in new novel coronavirus cases, as didChina’s Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak.
Many in the U.S. are still waiting for their $1,200 stimulus checks. Democrats and Republicans are bickering over a fourth wave of stimulus payments — and representatives of the former party arehoping to aid hard-hit states.
Elsewhere in the pandemic-driven investing world, attention is on companies likeQuidel(NASDAQ:QDEL), set to ramp production of new test kits.Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is threatening to move the company unless his California plant is allowed to reopen.
With all this in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare in rocky territory at the start of the week.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.01%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.45%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.78%
[Monday, May 11, 3:45 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
New reporting fromThe New York Timesshows the light at the end of the tunnel may be getting closer. According to a Monday report fromAutoNation(NYSE:AN), car sales began to rebound in April. CEO Mike Jackson said that the“automotive recovery is underway”as consumers remain eager to purchase new vehicles amid easing lockdowns.
No, that’s not exactly what many experts predicted. It seemed likely that car sales would keep falling. Unemployment figures are still on the rise, and consumer spending is hurting as a result. But there are other things working in favor of car sales.
For one, public transit is likely to lose even some loyal riders as employees return to their daily commutes. In early April,Axios’Kim Hart wrote that public transit was on a“death spiral”as consumers worried about heightened infection risk. After 9/11 rocked New York City, it took six years for subway ridership to return to pre-crisis levels.
Jackson agrees that this growing fear of public transit is partially responsible for the rebound in car sales. At the end of April, sales were off by only 20%. At the start of that same month, they were off by 50%.
Shares of AN stock are up almost 4% in intraday trading, in what has otherwise been a rough day for stocks. On a similar note,Ford(NYSE:F),General Motors(NYSE:GM),Toyota(NYSE:TM) andFiat Chrysler(NYSE:FCAU) are planning for near-term returns to production. California-basedTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) is finding somehigh-ranking support in its push to reopen early.
Bullish investors should keep a close on eye on AutoNation and this group of automakers. As states reopen, we should get more data on public transit use. If consumers delay their return to subways and bus systems, car sales could spike.
[Monday, May 11, 2:57 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Today is a big day in the cryptocurrency world. After lots of waiting, it’s finally the day ofbitcoin’s(CCC:BTC) halvening, or halving. This event has hadInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall pounding the table for weeks. Why? If demand for bitcoin is high at the time of the halving, prices could soar.
But there’s another reason for crypto bulls to celebrate today. According to an early morning press release, investors can nowtrade physically delivered futures contractsforether(CCC:ETH). This news makes Chicago’s ErisX the first U.S.-based exchange to allow such trades.
So what does this all mean? Ether refers to the tokens behind ethereum, a specific use of blockchain technology. Ether tokens enable operations on the ethereum blockchain platform.
Bitcoin is certainly the most well-known crypto, but many factors, including the novel coronavirus, have sparked a growing interest in other cryptocurrencies. That’s why ErisX has been pushing for a license to offer more regulated investment products. Previously, the exchange operated a live spot market for ether and other digital currencies.
Now, individual and institutional investors can participate viaphysically delivered futures contracts. When these contracts expire, investors will actually receive ether tokens, and can use these contracts to build a position in the currency. ErisX has a similar offering for bitcoin futures.
The biggest takeaway is that now investors have direct access to ether through traditional commodities markets. Another popular investment option has been theGrayscale Ethereum Trust(OTCMKTS:ETHE) whichtracks the price movement of ether, but does not lead to ownership of tokens.
[Monday, May 11, 2:09 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
When Warren Buffett ofBerkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) announced he wasselling his stake in several major airlines, investors panicked. The Oracle of Omaha is a legend. He can practically see the future, and he sees value even in hard-hit sectors.
What does it mean when he doesn’t see rebound value in the airlines? According toInvestorPlace’sDavid Moadel, it’s not exactly the red flag many investors fear.
In fact, Moadel thinks that individual investors shouldn’t follow in Buffett’s footsteps. He thinks three of the major airlines are actually ready to fly high once the novel coronavirus eases.
Here are thestocks he’s recommending now:
• Delta Air Lines(NYSE:DAL)
• American Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL)
• United Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL)
[Monday, May 11, 1:19 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Today California-basedQuidel(NASDAQ:QDEL) is looking to go from zero to hero. Yep, you guessed it. The daily victory comes on news related to the novel coronavirus.
Over the weekend, the company received emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new type of test. Thisantigen test detects proteins associated with the virus, requires just a nasal swab and generates results within minutes.
Shares of QDEL stock are up 30% in intraday trading as a result.
There’s a lot to like here. One positive is the quick turnaround. Other tests have longer wait times, although offerings fromAbbott Laboratories(NYSE:ABT) feature 5-minute and 15-minute results. The faster people get their results, the sooner they can self-isolate or get the treatment they need.
Quidel’s test is also the first antigen test to receive such approval. Other tests look for either antibodies or genetic material associated with the virus. Although antibody testing has become a hot topic, critics point to its flaws. Many of the marketed tests generate a significant amount offalse-positive results.
According toNPR’sJason Slotkin these antigen tests will also becheaper and more accessible. One flaw is that they are not as sensitive (meaning theycan trigger false-negative results) as the harder-to-come-by PCR tests that look for the virus’ genetic material.
Shoving aside scientific details, investors are happy. Quidel’s high-flying shares are likely to stay hot as states ramp up testing in efforts to safely reopen.
[Monday, May 11, 12:12 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Warren Buffett made waves at his annual meeting forBerkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B). As we reported last week in this blog, some investors took his commentary to be a sign of distress. Remember, it’s not that easy for someone with more than $100 billion in cash to find meaningful value in the stock market.
However, individual investors can now find value in Berkshire Hathaway stock. According toBarron’sAndrew Bary,UBS analyst Brian Meredith has a “buy” rating on BRK.B stock. His 12-month price target of $233 is equivalent to $349,500 on BRK.A shares. That’s over $100,000 of upside.
So, why buy now? Berkshire’s book value is falling, representing a chance to purchase shares at a discount. It now trades at about 1.1 times book — down from a recent average of 1.4 times.
Yes, it’s important to note that Buffett doesn’t like focusing on the company’s book value. He’s long said that it doesn’t accurately reflect the underlying values of his businesses — he thinks Berkshire’s intrinsic value is much higher. Despite Buffett’s preferences, the book value is hard to ignore now.
InvestorPlace’sWayne Duggan agrees, citing Whitney Tilson in his argument. Tilson sees Berkshire Hathaway as the “best retirement stock in the market.” With a lower-than-average price-book ratio andTilson’s glowing endorsement, Berkshire shares look too good to pass up.
[Monday, May 11, 11:02 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Bill Ackman, the famed investor behindPershing Square, is turning up the heat onRestaurant Brands International(NYSE:QSR). His firm has held a 5% stake since 2012, but a recent move hasPershing Square upping its stake to 7%— and filing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission form 13D signaling activist intent.
According toCNBC’sKenneth Squire, Restaurant Brands International is a typical investment for Ackman. It offers predictable growth and solid cash flows. Plus, since its Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes brands operate with franchise models, it has very low capital expenditures.
This means that while other restaurants face a long road to recovery, QSR stock should bounce back with greater ease. AsInvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn wrote in early April, itsfranchisees are dealing with the brunt of the novel coronavirus. Yes, shareholders face a year-to-date loss of 20%. But Blankenhorn believes this is an opportunity to pick up more shares.
TipRank’sMaya Sasson agrees. She wrote in late April that with extremely well-known brands, QSR stock is ready fordouble-digit growth by the end of 2020.
[Monday, May 11, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wait, what? Last week, it seemed like all Wall Street wanted was for more states and businesses to reopen. Now, though, headlines proclaim that investor“jitters”are behind Monday morning’s gloomy stock market open.
Public health officials continue to warn of the risks associated with premature reopening, and South Korea just reported aspike in novel coronavirus cases. As is the new normal, there’s just too much going on to put everything nicely in balance.
As states continue to push forward with phase-one reopenings, there will be a lot to watch. For now, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.79%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.87%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.65%
[Friday, May 7, 4:37 p.m.]Contributed byJessica Loder
In Bret Kenwell’sstock market wrap-up today, he put the spotlight onDisney(NYSE:DIS). The headlines have been pretty rough for DIS stock lately, but things seem to be taking a turn for the better.
Investors and fans alike had been worried that even once things began to reopen,theme parksandmajor sporting events– places known for massive crowds —mightnot pick up where they left off. Would the visitors be too worried about Covid-19 to want to brave the crowds, even with precautions?
But then Shanghai Disney started selling tickets to their reopening on May 11, and those tickets sold out“in minutes.”Sure it’s opening at 30% capacity, but still – it sold outin minutes. Apparently, there is plenty of demand, and that bodes well for when the rest of Disney’s theme parks reopen.
Not only that, but while the big-name locations are closed until further notice, on May 20 some of the stores are opening inDisney Springs, a shopping area at Walt Disney World.
Rosenblatt sees these moves as positives, as earlier openings mean more revenue. Analyst Bernie McTernan wrote “If the timeline for reopening Downtown Disney in Shanghai and the Shanghai Disneyland is similar for Disney Springs and Disney World it suggestsDisney World would reopen July 22nd, 41 days ahead of our current forecast.”
[Friday, May 8, 4:16 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investing in a newspaper, in this economy? That seems a bit outrageous. But according to new reporting fromThe Wall Street Journal,New York Times(NYSE:NYT) didn’t have that bad of a first quarter.
In fact, the company reported itsbiggest quarterly increase in digital subscriptions ever, which also helped to push up revenue.The New York Timesgained587,000 new digital subscribers, likely as consumers race to find accurate information about the novel coronavirus.
What is gloomy is the company’s outlook for the current quarter — with predictions for advertising revenue to fall as much as 55%. This problem by no means is unique toThe New York Times. Ad-dependent companies all through the investing ecosystem are hurting.
So what does this mean? Well, the paper is attracting new subscribers when it matters most, even though consumer spending is dropping. Plus, it’s likely many investors will price in falling ad revenue in advance. When ad spending rebounds, NYT stock should benefit along with its peers.
But there’s an even more bullish case to be made here. After the report, CFRA analyst Tuna Amobiupgraded shares to a “buy” ratingwith a $38 price target. It’s not drastic, but it is a good sign.
InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto has been bullish on NYT stock since January 2020 — and his catalyst goes beyond the pandemic. As many investing experts predict thatPresident Donald Trump will retake the White House in November, Enomoto thinksThe New York Timeswill seeheightened readership as the election approaches. It’s no secret that Trump and the press don’t always get along, which should mean more drama, more subscribers and more share price returns for investors.
[Friday, May 8, 3:36 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Until Wednesday, the only good news in the automotive world seemed to be the birth ofTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s son. That all changed whenGeneral Motors(NYSE:GM) reported first-quarter results that had the analyst community cheering.
Granted, it’s a rough world for traditional carmakers. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, General Motors and its competitors —Ford(NYSE:F) andToyota(NYSE:TM) — have seen sales slump in a big way as the novel coronavirus impacts consumer spending.
Regardless, Wednesday’s earnings report had GM stock up 3%. That’s becauseadjusted earnings per share of 62 centsseriously beat expectations for 33 cents. General Motors also beat on revenue expectations.
This surprise had Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner“re-upgrade” GM stock to a “buy” rating, just a month after downgrading it to a “hold.” Although shares are still down almost 40% for the year, Rosner thinks they’ve priced in any more bad news. He also interprets the first-quarter results as a sign that cost-cutting measures are working in General Motor’s favor.
From Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Rosner:
“GM’s strong [first-quarter] performance and forward-looking outlook … demonstrate the benefit from its proactive actions to transform the business, right size its costs and boost profitability.”
Here’s one more fun note. According to TipRanks,80% of analysts covering GM stock think it’s a buy now. The average 12-month price target is $31.11, implying almost 40% of upside.
[Friday, May 8, 1:22 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Not too long ago, Bank of America analyst Michael Widmer set an18-month price target of $3,000 on gold. With that hike he had one catchy message: “The Fed can’t print gold.”
Widmer’s words likely resonate with a lot of investors. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented actions to fight the economic effects of the novel coronavirus have some worried about inflation after the pandemic.
And on Thursday, famed investor Paul Tudor Jones made headlines when he admitted to purchasing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. Clearly, inflation risk is top of mind.
But gold is the original hedge. One chief executive in the space is calling it a“self-funded insurance policy”as demand for the shiny metal climbs. That’s whyInvestorPlace’sChris Markoch rounded up four gold stocks for investors to consider now. Just as with other hot trends, Markoch cautions against buying into the hype. His recommendations are not speculative — they’re quality plays.
Here are thefour stocks he’s recommending now:
• Barrick Gold(NYSE:GOLD)
• Newmont Corporation(NYSE:NEM)
• Wheaton Precious Metals(NYSE:WPM)
• Vectors Gold Miners ETF(NYSEARCA:GDX)
[Friday, May 8, 12:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The novel coronavirus has shed light on several different stock buying strategies. Many experts are recommending that investors buying solid large-cap stocks at discount prices. For example, before the market rebound, leading names likeFacebook(NASDAQ:FB) were at crazy low prices. Unfortunately, other investors are staying out of the stock market entirely and focusing on cash.
According to the American Association of Individual Investors, regardless of your strategy, it’s importantnot to forget small-cap stocks when making pandemic purchases. Why? These smaller names tend to outperform their larger peers after extreme market action.
This phenomenon is known asreversion to the mean. AsAAII Journaleditor Charles Rotblut writes, reversion to the mean is like a rubber band. When stretched, it snaps back, and sometimes it snaps back fiercely. Small-cap stocks have been stretched to record-cheap prices. If they snap “fiercely” higher, you don’t want to miss out.
So, where should you start?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango has10 recommendations:
• Cardlytics(NASDAQ:CDLX)
• Inseego(NASDAQ:INSG)
• Nio(NYSE:NIO)
• Plug Power(NASDAQ:PLUG)
• Stitch Fix(NASDAQ:SFIX)
• Tabula Rasa Healthcare(NASDAQ:TRHC)
• Health Catalyst(NASDAQ:HCAT)
• InMode(NASDAQ:INMD)
• LivePerson(NASDAQ:LPSN)
• Maxar Technologies(NYSE:MAXR)
[Friday, May 8, 11:27 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In just a few weeks, the novel coronavirus decimated air travel. International borders were closed, airlines stopped serving major hubs and passengers simply stopped flying. But asCNBC’sLeslie Josephs writes, much of the conversation has focused on passenger airlines.
Now, big names likeDelta Air Lines(NYSE:DAL),American Airlines(NASDAQ:AAL) andUnited Airlines(NASDAQ:UAL) are once in again in the news as theyramp up cargo-only flights. Some investors like what they see, and think this pivot shows their comeback potential.
Josephs points out two other airline stocks that aren’t getting as much love — but they really deserve it. Cargo operatorAtlas Air Worldwide Holdings(NASDAQ:AAWW) is up 40% for the year. That’swaybetter than the passenger carriers. Shares ofAir Transport Services Group(NASDAQ:ATSG) are down for the year, but its revenue is way up.
It’s certainly not a bad idea for the traditional passenger carriers to break into the cargo space, but Atlas and ATSG have just been doing it longer. Plus, AAWW and ATSG benefit from partnerships withAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) — they’re bothcontracted to fly for the e-commerce giant.
With that in mind, these unconventional airline stocks deserve a second look. If anything, the pandemic is accelerating e-commerce, and that trend isn’t likely to reverse.
[Friday, May 8, 10:50 a.m.]Contributed by Sarah Smith
Investors have seriously profited from stocks the novel coronavirus is making more relevant.Clorox(NYSE:CLX),Alpha Pro Tech(NYSEMKT:APT) andCostco(NASDAQ:COST) are all great buys while consumers focus on bulk grocery orders, face masks and disinfecting products.
But in an interview with Investor’s Business Daily, Andrew Horowitz of “The Disciplined Investor” highlighted three stocks investors should be looking to buy now. These move beyond the first phase of the pandemic — focusing instead on the crisis’ long-term impacts.
For example, one stock he recommends is a play on funeral and cremation services. Another company he likes produces high-tech temperature scanners. As states move to reopen, all sorts of venues are likely to implement some sort of temperature check. Earlier in May, investors learned thatSimon Property Group(NYSE:SPG) would begin reopening its mall properties with optional temperature checks for shoppers, and mandatory checks for employees.
So, without further ado, here are Horowitz’s long-term coronavirus winners:
• Flir Systems(NASDAQ:FLIR)
• Service Corporation International(NYSE:SCI)
• Veeva Systems(NYSE:VEEV)
[Friday, May 8, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed by Jessica Loder
TheNasdaqmoved backinto the greenon the year yesterday, and last night the U.S. federal government signaled that a new trade war with Chinamay be off the table. Traders seem to be taking that optimism into Friday.
The one big sour note is the April unemployment report, released at 8:30 this morning. The report included a loss of20.5 million jobsin April, and an unemployment rate of 14.7%. But the plummeting employment rate isn’t exactly new, and the troubling numbers may have already been priced in.
Whatever the reason, stocks are in the green Friday morning. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand the NasdaqCompositeall opened up for the day.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.06%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.32%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.7%
[Thursday, May 7, 4:55 p.m.]Contributed byAndrew Taylor
During times of great volatility, investors often cling to what they’re familiar with … including the stocks of companies they know best.
Fear and conventional wisdom push people to the biggest brands.
But what if I told you that America’s top stock picker — a man with 40 recommendations that have gained at least 1,000% in his career — believes that America’s most popular brand is a “must sell” right now?
That’s exactly what Eric Fry is saying…
This giant of the past was doomed with or without the fear of a pandemic. Eric believes it’s one of 25 big-name stocks that are going to experience hard times, even if a coronavirus cure is found tomorrow.
And, remember, Eric is the legendary trader that accurately predicted the collapse of more than 70 stocks. That includesCisco(fell 75% in a year after his prediction),Tyco(fell 74% in the year after his prediction) andCountrywide Financial(fell 87% in the two years after his prediction).
Instead, Eric believes anyone with money in the market should focus on four companies that are in position right now to help people capture huge market gains.
You probably haven’t heard of a single one of these firms…
But you will.
Get the facts for yourself and be one of the first to learn more about the four stocks you should buy right now … as well as the 25 companies you should sell immediately, on our website,here.
Tune in tothis video presentationnow, while it is still available, and Eric will reveal what he believes will be his next 1,000% winner. The name, the ticker symbol and why it’s such a screaming buy — it’s all in Eric’s presentation and FREE to view. Just keep in mind, this valuable information won’t be up on our website forever.
[Thursday, May 7, 4:42 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell highlightedtwo serious winners in his daily columntoday.Twilio(NYSE:TWLO), a cloud communications platform, saw its shares close higher by 40%. That’s largely thanks to its stellar second-quarter guidance.
Analysts were calling for estimates of $323.4 million, but Twilio’s management is changing the game. They expect revenue between $365 million and $370 million — remember, most companies are reducing or withdrawing guidance completely.
Thursday’s second winner was cloud computing services providerFastly(NYSE:FSLY). Shares similarly skyrocketed, closing higher by 46%. After the company hiked its full-year outlook, Kenwell writes it’s refreshing to see that the novel coronavirus isn’t hurting all companies.
A word of caution about chasing the rally here:InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango sees a2024 price target of $140 for Twilio shares. After today, they’re at $170. With this in mind, followInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall’s advice andpick up TWLO on the next dip.
[Thursday, May 7, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
As we near the end of the week, it’s time for a little déjà vu. What does that mean? Well, it’s yet another Thursday marked by a grim economic report. This morning, we learned that another 3.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, and the major indices don’t seem to care.
Also, investors once again find themselves in a predicament ahead of the U.S. Department of Labor’s monthly non-farm payrolls report. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard saidthis report could be one of the worst ever. That’s comforting!
At the same time, this weekend will mark the beginning of several states’ reopening plans. On Friday, 85% ofStarbucks’(NASDAQ:SBUX) stores should be open, and it will be a little easier for consumers to get their daily coffee fix.
In other words, there’s a cognitive dissonance in the market. At market close Thursday, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositewere well in the green. Will that hold tomorrow morning?
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.15%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.89%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.41%
[Thursday, May 7, 3:34 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Today, famed investor Paul Tudor Jones made headlines when he announced he was buying bitcoin. According toBloomberg’sErik Schatzker, this makes him one of the first big names to do so. And Schatzker’s argument is pretty convincing — he seescryptos as similar to gold in the 1970s, a great hedge against inflation.
As the Federal Reserve has stepped up its role to fight the economic effects of the novel coronavirus, many experts are worried what unprecedented central bank actions could mean for inflation. That’s why bitcoin — and smaller cryptocurrencies known as altcoins — have been gaining a lot of traction.
Cornell University’s William Cong toldInvestorPlacethat one of the biggest attractions of cryptocurrencies is that they are decentralized — they’re not linked to the Fed. From Cong:
“Existing currency valuation models do not quite take into consideration decentralization — a potentially distinguishing feature of cryptocurrencies.”
But this decentralization is not the only reason cryptos are hot right now. Bitcoin’s next halvening is just around the corner, and prices have been known to skyrocket after these events. That’s whyInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall isgearing up to share a new crypto recommendationin less than 24 hours.
It’s also whyInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango is bullish on cryptocurrencies. Ahead of the halvening,he’s recommending that investors buy these seven coins:
• Bitcoin(CCC:BTC)
• Zcash(CCC:ZEC)
• Ripple(CCC:XEC)
• Basic Attention Token(CCC:BAT)
• Chainlink(CCC:LINK)
• Synthetix Network Token(CCC:SNX)
• DxChain Token(CCC:DX)
[Thursday, May 7, 3:06 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Each week, some pretty staggering economic figures have hit the market. Just this morning investors learned that another 3.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. A few days prior, a new report from ADP shows that20.2 million private jobs were lost in the month of April.
With that in mind, those calling for a long-lasting bear market, likeInvestorPlace’sLaura Hoy, don’t seem irrational. An important note is that Hoy isn’t cashing out — she’s recommending stocks best fit to weather tough times.
InvestorPlacealso spoke with Scott Baier, Clemson University’s economics department chair, about what economic recovery will look like. He sees a lot riding on the second quarter.
“The keys to the market in Q2 will depend on the progress that is made in our ability to respond to the health threats posed by COVID-19. If [we] are successful at flattening the curve and if state and federal governments have succeeded in making progress the market should begin to bounce back. Similarly, if the fiscal and monetary policies are able to provide support for business to remain open and retain their employees, the market is likely to bounce back in Q2.”
Taking Baier’s words to heart, Hoy says that investors should be looking now for stocks that would benefit from economic recovery, butthat also could sustain a longer bear market.
Here are the names on her list:
• CVS Health(NYSE:CVS)
• Dominion Energy(NYSE:D)
• 3M(NYSE:MMM)
[Thursday, May 7, 2:42 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Bernstein analysts aren’t strangers to the fact thatZoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM) has been a popular pandemic play. But they also know that many investors missed out on the first wave of work-from-home stocks.
Today, a new note to clients brings some good news. As companies likeCapital One(NYSE:COF) andFacebook(NASDAQ:FB)plan to keep most employees at homefor several more months, the remote work trend isn’t going anywhere.
So where should investors look? Analysts Zane Chrane and Mark Moerdler are recommending “secondary beneficiaries” to Zoom’s surge. For instance, companies that provide support to its video conferencing service.
Here arefour work-from-home stocksthey’re recommending now (subscription required):
• Equinix(NASDAQ:EQIX)
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Oracle(NYSE:ORCL)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
[Thursday, May 7, 2:30 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We’ve written often in this blog about video game stocks, but for good reason.Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) andSony(NYSE:SNE) both plan to launch new consoles in 2020, and beyond that, the novel coronavirus is rapidly increasing the popularity of video games.
A perfect piece of evidence isNintendo(OTCMKTS:NTDOY). Its Switch console is flying off shelves — almost impossible to find. Much of that demand is thanks to the newAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, released just in time for stay-at-home orders.
But, yesterday’s earnings report fromZynga(NASDAQ:ZNGA) is proof that demand for mobile gaming is just as high. RememberWords With FriendsandFarmville? Apparently many consumers still do. Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau toldAxiosthat thepandemic is driving consumers back to familiar games.
On that note, Zynga had a stellar earnings report, beating its own estimates. According toBarron’sEric Savitz,Zynga predicted revenue of $385 million. Instead, it reported $404 million — up a whopping 42% year-over-year. No wonder manyInvestorPlacewriters, including analyst Matt McCall, have beenpounding the table on ZNGA stock.
But there’s a second winner elsewhere in the mobile gaming world.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto recently recommendedGlu Mobile(NASDAQ:GLUU), the maker of branded games like one forKeeping Up With the Kardashians.Enomoto says thebiggest appeal of Glu’s game is that they’re cheaper than consoles, and the games associated with consoles.
While it seems like the entire industry is hot, don’t count out mobile gaming stocks now.
[Thursday, May 7, 2:10 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Another day, another pharmaceutical darling. Today it’s shares ofModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) that are shooting higher in the market — to the tune of 10.5%.
That’s because the company is testing a vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus, and once again it’s upping the ante. According to reporting fromBioPharma Dive’sNed Pagliarulo, Moderna already had an“exceptionally ambitious clinical development plan”for its candidate.
On Thursday, though, Moderna released even more ambitious news. As the vaccine candidate works through Phase 1 trials, Moderna is prepping to launch late-stage trials by this summer. As Pagliarulo highlights, just 10 days ago Moderna said it would start those same trials in the fall.
Investors love the ambition. Even without conclusive data, Moderna is ramping up production of the candidate. Consumers, many afraid of participating in a reopened world without a vaccine, are waiting with bated breath.
But MRNA stock has already had a crazy 2020. Shares hit a low just below $18 and climbed as high as $56. Counting Thursday’s intraday rally, they’re resting near $54 now. Can they go higher, or is it too late for new investors to get in on the action?
InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper says there’s still more room to run, which is whyhe’s recommending Moderna stock now. He says unprecedented demand for a coronavirus vaccine and the confidence a successful treatment will bring to the market give shares “plenty” of upside potential.
[Thursday, May 7, 1:35 p.m.]Contributed byMatt McCall
We are down to just 24 hours.
That’s when I’m releasing my newest cryptocurrency buy recommendation.
You don’t want to be late to position yourself.
The cryptocurrency Halvening event is set to occur just one week from now.
The last time this event occurred, little-known cryptocurrencies saw extraordinary gains, like…
• Reddcoin, which grew 72,400%.
• Neo, which rose 134,453%.
• And Ripple, which shot up 43,448%.
History has shown the biggest gains in crypto investing goes to those who move earliest.
That’s why I’m urging you to go over my buy recommendation the moment it goes live. That’s less than 24 hours from now.
The best part about crypto investing is that a small stake, just $500 to $1,000, can potentially grow into five or six figures if invested correctly. My newest buy recommendation tomorrow can help kickstart your crypto investing journey.
If you want to be one of the first to receive my newest crypto buy recommendation and research…
Claim your spot here.
[Thursday, May 7, 1:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Many consumers (myself included) miss the experience of picking up an iced caramel macchiato fromStarbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX). No, iced coffee drinks are not by any means essential. But Starbucks and its peer coffee chains are a symbol of American culture. In particular, Starbucks is a brand deeply embedded in daily life.
That’s whyInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall thinksStarbucks is among the strongest restaurant stocks. Customers are intensely loyal to the Seattle-based chain. Today, he wrote that while SBUX stock has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus — like all other food names — it’s used this time to pivot.
AsThe Washington Postreported Tuesday,Starbucks is set to reopen 85% of its stores by tomorrowwith mobile ordering, contactless payment and curbside pick-up options. Previously, many stores without drive-thru windows were closed.
These reopenings, and Starbucks’ quick pivot to safer service, is a testament to its strength. As McCall writes, that should make SBUX stock a buy now.
Shares are up 3.5% in intraday trading.
[Thursday, May 7, 1:10 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In perhaps a sign of these bizarre times, consumers are panic buyingPeloton(NASDAQ:PTON) bikes. Yes, these bikes come with a $2,000-plus price tag. But they also represent a certain quality — and a luxury brand — forathletes unable to hit the gym.
After its 2019 initial public offering, many investors scoffed at Peloton. Who was buying luxury bikes? To make matters worse, a poorly planned holiday commercial spurred widespread outrage. Now, though, it looks like Peloton is making a comeback.
As reported by the team atMorning Brew,Peloton’s revenue climbed 66% and hit $525 million. That definitely beat analyst expectations. On top of that, it added 1.1 million users to its digital fitness platform, where it offers virtual classes alongside its equipment.
InvestorPlace’sChris Markoch has long been rallying behindfitness stocks for our new at-home world. In early April he listed PTON shares as some of the top names to buy. At the time, Markoch argued that social distancing was forcing people to change their habits — and more consumers were choosing to get fit with Peloton.
Even once social distancing ends, many fitness buffs will see gyms as scary germ factories. That should bode well for Peloton’s continued success in 2020 and beyond.
One thing to watch: AsMorning Brewhighlights, Peloton has halted deliveries of its treadmill. This product typically retails for $4,295 and istoo big for safer delivery optionsthe company is using for its signature bike. Will a return of treadmill sales further boost PTON?
[Thursday, May 7, 11:35 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Yes, our world currently revolves around toilet paper, face masks and all sorts of disinfecting products. But beneath the surface, megatrends in tech like 5G and artificial intelligence are still evolving. In fact, after the pandemic, we will rely on these new technologies for innovations in critical areas like healthcare and communications.
But recognizing the hype in these technologies poses a risk to investors. Not all companies engaging with AI are stocks you want in your portfolio. So then how do you sort through the noise to profit?
InvestorPlaceanalyst Neil George is all about findingsolid, profitable opportunities. Within the 5G space, he looks at software companies, data center companies and even a finance company at the heart of Silicon Valley startups.
Here are the10 AI stocks he’s recommending now:
• Vanguard Information Technology ETF(NYSEARCA:VGT)
• AT&T(NYSE:T)
• Verizon(NYSE:VZ)
• Samsung(OTCMKTS:SSNLF)
• Ericsson(NASDAQ:ERIC)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Digital Realty Trust(NYSE:DLR)
• Corporate Office Properties(NYSE:OFC)
• Hercules Capital(NYSE:HTGC)
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
[Thursday, May 7, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Another 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, more than analysts expected from Thursday’s report. However, it seems that investors are mostly shrugging off this weekly gloom.
It’s safe to say the major indices are — stocks are well in the green Thursday morning. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened up for the day. Plus, with this morning’s open, the Nasdaq Composite has erased its 2020 loss.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.33%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.12%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.35%
[Wednesday, May 6, 4:38 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
There’s a particular type of optimistic investor that loves Chinese electric vehicle makerNio(NYSE:NIO). The company represents massive potential — but it hasn’t had an easy journey. It has faced cash crunches, high levels of criticism and a lot of market doubt. Shares rest now just above $3.60.
But part of its struggle has been universal. In the first quarter, car sales were deeply impacted as the novel coronavirus kept people inside. That’s why the company’s April results had Nio stock gain 10.4% in the stock market today.
AsInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, thecompany delivered 3,155 vehicles in April. That’s up more than 100% from March. And, it’s also a great testament to China’s economic recovery.
According to TipRanks, Nio stock has been racking up hold and sell ratings. But today’s report could be just what the company needs to gain new investor favor. Bank of America analyst Ming-Hsun Lee gave it a “buy” rating today and a$5 price target. That alone gave investors hope.
So, is it a buy now?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote Monday that Nio has the potential for“HUGE”gains. That’s because he sees the electric vehicle market, especially in China, set for a massive boom.
[Wednesday, May 6, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Earlier this morning, bulls seemed set to have a good day. More and more states are jumping on board the reopening bandwagon, and nations around the world are doing the same. But with the exception of theNasdaq Composite, stocks shed their gains over the course of the day.
Investors have a lot to consider, including the health risks associated with reopening. Retailers are struggling with bankruptcy and further stimulus funding seems far away. Perhaps it’s not all that surprising theS&P 500andDow Jones Industrial Averagecouldn’t stay in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.7%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.91%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.51%
[Wednesday, May 6, 3:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
WhenInvestorPlace’sLarry Ramer recommendedthree top solar stocksin February 2020, he likely had no idea the novel coronavirus was about to sweep the world. It’s also likely that he didn’t predict the ensuing pandemic would throw Russia into an oil price war with Saudi Arabia. But boy, this year has been a doozy.
In March and April, renewable energy seemed doomed. With crude oil at rock-bottom prices, there just was less appeal for alternate sources. AsBloomberg’sAnthony Di Paola writes,cheap crude used to deter investments in renewable energy, particularly in nations dependent on oil sales.
But May 2020 is showing that things are changing. Di Paola writes that countries in the Middle East are surprisingly moving forward with renewable energy projects. Saudi Arabia is pushing to drastically up its renewable capacity by 2030, and in April took the next steps in selecting solar projects.
In the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are moving forward with building solar plants after receiving “record-low” bids. So, it seems like solar power is still hot.
For investors who want to get ahead of the rebound, here are Ramer’s three picks:
• JinkoSolar(NYSE:JKS)
• SunPower(NASDAQ:SPWR)
• Daqo New Energy(NYSE:DQ)
On another positive note, shares of all three companies are climbing in the stock market today.
[Wednesday, May 6, 3:22 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In many ways,Disney’s(NYSE:DIS) earnings report was a disaster for the company. It reported a 58% drop in operating income for its parks and cruises segment — one of its most iconic. Overall, Disney’s earnings per share came in at 60 cents, missing expectations for 89 cents. And it’ssuspending its dividend for the first half of the year.
That’s all bad news. But there’s a silver lining boosting DIS stock in the market today.
CNBC’sJessica Bursztynsky writes that its Disney+ streaming service now has54.1 million subscribers. That’s up from 33.5 million at the end of March.
Yes, the streaming service certainly isn’t driving the bulk of Disney’s revenue. And yes, critics are right in saying Disney is fundamentally associated with Cinderella’s castle, not a living room couch. But the quick success of Disney+ highlights the power of the company, and whatInvestorPlace’sChris Markoch sees as the crux of its comeback story.
Even as a serious bull, Markoch isn’t denying that Disney faces some serious challenges. However, he’s confident that at least a handful of curious consumers will return to Florida and California parks as soon as they reopen. That’s why he says with some faith, trust, pixie dust and hand sanitizer,DIS stock is a buy right now.
Here’s a final note:Disneyland’s Shanghai locationwill begin reopening May 11. Investors should keep a close eye on that process.
[Wednesday, May 6, 2:48 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
If you’ve checked the financial news in the last few days, you’ve likely seen some doom-and-gloom headlines about Warren Buffett’s annualBerkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) meeting. Some investors are focusing on a“tone shift.”Buffett is known for being incredibly pro-America and incredibly optimistic. But this time around he isn’t buying stocks.
InvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn wrote today thatBuffett’s cash hoarding is representative of deeper economic troubles in America. The Federal Reserve has stepped in to save demand, but Americans aren’t spending money. Frankly, Blankenhorn writes, many don’t have money to spend.
Buffett also sold airline stocks — some of his more noteworthy investments. He also is hinting at another market correction, with whatInvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth describes as a less-confident approach than during the Great Recession.
If the Oracle of Omaha isn’t buying, isn’t that a terrible sign? While there are certainly problems in today’s market, including the income inequality Blankenhorn highlights, Buffett’s virtual meeting wasn’t a destruction of the bull case.
In fact, Ashworth writes thatmany of Berkshire Hathaway’s businesses are doing well. Some are even increasing headcounts in the midst of a pandemic, which is a comforting sign of their health.
From a sentiment perspective, Buffett isn’t suddenly betting against America. He’s merely cautioning investors that it’s impossible to predict tomorrow, or even next month, as the novel coronavirus continues to affect the world.
Beyond that, Buffett needs what you could call an elephant-sized deal to profit. He has $125 billion to work with — throwing money into the market better be worth his time.
So what’s the takeaway? The 89-year-old Buffett is being cautious, and he’s looking for better values to step in and buy. That doesn’t mean it’s time to cash out, because you certainly won’t end up with his $125 billion cash pile. You’re better sticking it out in the market.
[Wednesday, May 6, 2:06 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Yesterday, we reported thatCapital One(NYSE:COF) will keep the majority of its employees working from home until September. To many experts, that’s far from an irrational move.
EvenBerkshire Hathaway’s(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) Warren Buffett is speaking up about remote work. According toInvestorPlace’sIan Cooper, the Oracle of Omaha sees the pandemic making permanent changes to office life.
In other words, many Americans who began working from home because of the novel coronavirus will not return to traditional offices just because lockdown protocols are lifting.
Tech stocks that play into telework — and specifically teleconferencing — have been some of this year’s biggest winners. But should you throw your money behind any old videoconferencing name?
Cooper doesn’t think so. Instead, he sees thesethree stocks as the top plays in the space now:
• Zoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM)
• Slack Technologies(NYSE:WORK)
• RingCentral(NYSE:RNG)
[Wednesday, May 6, 12:55 p.m.]Contributed byNicholas Stern
Bitcoin is hovering around $9,200 at the moment. It’s up over 11% in the past week and over 30% in the past month.
There’s a buzz in the air, and many in the industry are pointing to bitcoin’s halving as one reason generating the recent excitement and price action.
Indeed, searches for “bitcoin halving” on Google have increased exponentially in recent weeks.
Source: InvestorPlace
More and more people are clamoring to figure out what’s behind this change to bitcoin’s mining reward and why it could lead to higher prices.
If you’re not familiar with the halving (or halvening), basically, it happens about every four years when the supply of new bitcoin coming on the market gets cut in half. The idea is if the supply drops at a time when demand is likely to increase, prices can skyrocket. Well, that day is coming quick!
Investors who know their stuff about bitcoin, likeInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall, have been talking about it for months.Matt recently held a special event that gives folks what they need to know right nowto take advantage of this historic opportunity.
The most important thing to remember at this point is that while the halving is just days away, it’s not too late.
According toCoinDesk, recent research by asset manager Bitwise shows that a portfolio balanced with bitcoin can add value, even when prices are historically high.
The research shows a traditional portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds that made room for 2.5% in bitcoin in January 2014 would have increased returns from 26% to nearly 45% by March 31, 2020.
Returns still increased even when bitcoin was added at its to-date all-time high of $20,000 in December 2017, and then saw a substantial pullback.
The bottom line is that while bitcoin is volatile, it’s also not tightly correlated to other assets. That gives bitcoin a leg up for investors seeking to more profitably balance risk and reward in their portfolios.
But that’s not all.
See, while bitcoin’s rise has been impressive, many of the other crypto assets known as altcoins have been doing much better. Altcoins are really where the action’s at these days.
Matt lays out what’s going on with altcoins as the halving approaches, and why their rise should quickly surpass bitcoin’s.Check it out.
[Wednesday, May 6, 12:11 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In a new note to clients, UBS warned that “sitting in cash is not the answer.” What prompted such an announcement? Well, in the last eight weeks, investors have been piling intomoney market funds, a specific type of mutual fund that primarily holds cash and other highly liquid assets.
Plus, in the same time period, the amount of cash on the sidelines has leapt $1 trillion to a total of $4.7 trillion. During the entire 2008 financial crisis, that figure increased by less than $500 billion.
It’s clear that the stock market just seems too volatile some days. But one of the biggest takeaways from the Great Recession is that investors who got out of the market and stayed out are some of this decade’s biggest financial losers. That’s why it’s important to park your cash somewhere it will make you money.
So where should you park it? UBS recommends using the novel coronavirus as an opportunity to selectively buycyclical stocks, defensive stocks and other long-term winners. According to the analysts, this strategy helps minimize risk and volatility while still putting your money to work.
The firm also recommendsstocks that are set to benefit from Covid-19, like plays in telemedicine and health tech, fintech, e-commerce, automation and the so-called food revolution.
[Wednesday, May 6, 11:40 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The world changed in March 2020, and so did the stock market. Names that were solid in January looked laughable. Stocks that no one was thinking about likeClorox(NYSE:CLX) andAllied Healthcare Products(NASDAQ:AHPI)suddenly were flying high.
Behind this shake up was the global supply chain. Clorox products were hot because of their disinfectant power, but also because Clorox wipes were impossible to find. Allied Healthcare Products gained popularity as consumers — and healthcare professionals — struggled to find personal protective equipment (PPE).
Now, it seems that those areas of the supply chain are starting to settle into a new normal. ButGOBankingRates’Gabrielle Olya writes that it’s time to prepare for the next phase of panic buying. With that will come new hot stocks. Here are thecategories she thinks will be in high demand soon:
• Laptop exports have decreased, and more Americans are working from home.InvestorPlace’sTom Taulli writes thatMicrosoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) is agreat stock to buy thanks to its Surface laptops.
• Generic drug exports are also at risk thanks to stay-at-home orders in India.InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto wrote thatTeva Pharmaceuticals(NYSE:TEVA) is a top healthcare play now as consumers beginstocking up on generic and over-the-counter drugs.
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) already warned shareholders that its iPhone supply chain may face disruptions.InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier seesinnovation pushing AAPL shares higherfor years to come.
• Are you picking up a bad habit in quarantine? Unfortunately, a vape shortage is just around the corner, writes Olya. That’s because China is a lead manufacturer of vaping products. Want to profit from this trend? Look toTurning Point Brands(NYSE:TPB), anotherpick from Josh Enomoto.
• The next thing flying off the shelves is likely to be cans of diet soda.Coca-Cola(NYSE:KO) in particular makes its low-calorie options in China. ButInvestorPlace’sDana Blankenhorn is confident that KO shares — and thecompany’s dividend— will survive the pandemic.
[Wednesday, May 6, 10:42 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
When everything in the market seems upside down, it’s nice to know what the experts are doing. It’s also nice to get a sense for what the experts are thinking.
According to John Rogers, the co-CEO and chief investment officer at Ariel Investments, there’s no doubt that the pandemic-driven downturn is “stunning” and “wrenching.” But he’s not panicking. That should help calm individual investors’ nerves.
Like other famous value investors,Rogers is looking for discounts in hard-hit, iconic brands. On his buy list areMadison Square Garden Entertainment(NYSE:MSGE),Vail Resorts(NYSE:MTN) andRoyal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL).
It’s good to know Rogers is looking for stocks to buy now. But, he does have a word of caution. He says as concerns about a second wave of the novel coronavirus swirl, the return to normal may be slower than expected.
[Wednesday, May 6, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors are really clamoring for states to reopen — and they’re driving the market higher on Wednesday morning. By the end of this week, several states will have started to lift lockdown measures.
As the market prices in higher levels of consumer spending and reopened businesses, will Wednesday see major gains? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
With that in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.56%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.53%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.73%
[Wednesday, May 6, 8:41 a.m.]Contributed byJessica Loder
As more and more people are stuck home, their thoughts turn toward learning something new. AndInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango sees that as just one of many reasonsChegg(NYSE:CHGG) could be going to $200.
“It increasingly appears that Chegg istaking over the education world,” wrote Lango. “… over the past few years, Chegg has created a strong but niche on-demand connected learning platform which some, but not many, high school and college students use.”
And the proof is in the pudding — or in this case, the earnings report. Not only was its revenue up 35% for the first quarter, but its subscriber numbers were up by about the same. And with social distancing and closed schools still the order of the day for much of the U.S. (historically Chegg’s biggest market), more people may find their way to one of the company’s programs in Q2.
Now, that tailwind won’t last forever. Eventually we’ll get back to some semblance of normal, and many students will go back to learning in a physical school. But Lango sees the company enjoying a higher profile going forward that will lead to more growth. “Thanks to Covid-19, students and academic institutions across the world are pivoting towards online learning platforms. Those platforms have a lot to offer. Consequently, even once physical school resumes, many of those students and institutions will continue to use online learning tools as necessary supplements.”
Chegg would have to do a lot right to get to that $200 target, but it’s already well on its way.
[Tuesday, May 5, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Is the White House phasing out its highly watched virus task force? Willmeat shortagesdestroy the U.S. food supply chain? And what didTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk reallyname his son?
Boy, those are some big questions. In all seriousness, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed the day in the green. But they shed gains in the last hour of trading, perhaps as headlines became too overwhelming.
There’s a lot to watch in the market these days, particularly as states continue the push to reopen. Don’t blink, you could miss a massive move.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.9%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.56%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.13%
[Tuesday, May 5, 3:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
With all the uncertainty in the market — and in the broader world — now may seem like the perfect time to sit back, bite your nails and count your cash. ButInvestorPlace’sDavid Moadel has a different idea.
On Tuesday, he shared an argument for taking some big risks in the face of the pandemic. Why? Big risks often mean big potential rewards.
Don’t worry. He’s not recommending stocks from unproven companies. Instead, he’s looking atstocks that have long histories and represent hard-hit industries. Here’s Moadel’s list:
• Las Vegas Sands(NYSE:LVS)
• Chipotle Mexican Grill(NYSE:CMG)
• Simon Property Group(NYSE:SPG)
[Tuesday, May 5, 3:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
We’ve written that hygiene habits are likely to change for good, and trends like telework and telemedicine will stick around — and accelerate. But Wells Fargo analysts are also honing in on another trend gaining permanence thanks to the novel coronavirus.
Before the pandemic, consumers were prone to eating out. Now, forced to eat at home more often, certain food stocks are seeing sales spike. Wells Fargo doesn’t think that trend will immediately reverse.
Here arethree food stocks to put in your cart now(subscription required):
• Mondelez(NASDAQ:MDLZ)
• Nomad Foods(NYSE:NOMD)
• Simply Good Foods(NASDAQ:SMPL)
[Tuesday, May 5, 3:00 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
On Tuesday afternoon,Capital One(NYSE:COF) announced that the majority of its almost 50,000 employees would continueworking from home through September. Shares are lagging the market on an otherwise up day.
Investors shouldn’t be surprised by the news.Axios’Erica Pandey writes that remote work is sticking — more than50% of American employees are now working from home. That’s up from just 4% before the pandemic.
For some businesses, that’s bad news. As we’ve previously reported, office spaces are likely to change permanently, and continued remote work could harm companies that benefit from urbanization (like luxury apartment REITs). Instead of fretting, though, look for ways to profit from the new normal.
InvestorPlacespoke with Vidyanand Choudhary, a professor and senior associate dean of information systems at the University of California’s Irvine campus. Here’s what he says:
“The need for social distancing and therefore some type of telework will continue for the next year or two. As such, it may lead to a culture shift where working from home becomes the new normal. Longer term, working from home may become more acceptable even after the end of this crisis.”
So what stocks should you buy to benefit from this culture shift?InvestorPlace’sChris Markoch has a few ideas. He’s recommendingCisco(NASDAQ:CSCO),Zoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM) andMicrosoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) as thetop stocks to buy for remote work.InvestorPlace’sTom Taulli agrees. He just wrote thatMSFT stock will continue to benefit from teleworking momentum.
[Tuesday, May 5, 2:21 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Who would have guessed in January that the whole market would be so excited about a potential vaccine? It’s clear things are just radically different. On Tuesday,Pfizer(NYSE:PFE) andBioNTech(NASDAQ:BNTX) are taking their turn in the spotlight.
This rally comes after the duo announced they had given their first U.S. volunteers a dose of a novel coronavirus vaccine candidate.
According toBioPharma Dive’sJonathan Gardner, the companies have already completed dosing in a German study. Now, they will run a U.S. trial across four sites, testing the vaccine to determine if it’s safe and if it can stimulate an immune response to the virus.
Data from the trials will be ready in late May or June. As Gardner writes, Pfizer is preparing to deliver“millions of doses”by the end of 2020. Boy, that’s exciting. PFE stock is up 3% and BNTX stock is up almost 8% in intraday trading.
InvestorPlace’sTodd Shriber is bullish on Pfizer stock for many reasons — he sees it as a long-term investment with potential beyond the coronavirus. That’s why he wrote at the end of April that itsdrug pipeline and cash balance make it a compelling buy right now.
[Tuesday, May 5, 2:14 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
States are reopening, but that doesn’t mean everything is returning to normal. Americans have learned a lot about hygiene and viruses over the last few weeks, and those lessons will stick. Plus, the earliest phases of reopening require strict adherence to social distancing guidelines.
So what does that mean for the economy? AsInvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto writes, it means that some retailers will see the novel coronavirus as a catastrophe. Others will see it as a massive opportunity.InvestorPlacespoke with Thomas Gilbert, an associate professor of finance and business economics at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business. From Gilbert:
“My sense is that innovation is increasing and will increase rapidly in all domains touching ‘remote, distance, cyber, virtual, artificial, automated, etc.’ Online retailing was only 10% of total retailing prior to the virus and I would not be surprised if the new normal will be far far higher, like 50%.”
With that in mind, investors need to find the companies set to benefit from this lasting shift to online retailing. Here arenine online retail stocks Enomoto is watching now:
• Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)
• Wayfair(NYSE:W)
• Etsy(NASDAQ:ETSY)
• Shopify(NYSE:SHOP)
• Home Depot(NYSE:HD)
• Kroger(NYSE:KR)
• Target(NYSE:TGT)
• Best Buy(NYSE:BBY)
• Domino’s Pizza(NYSE:DPZ)
[Tuesday, May 5, 11:51 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
President Donald Trump long ago waged a war against China’sHuawei, a company otherwise set to dominate the 5G rollout. Now, thanks to the novel coronavirus, that war is once again front and center. There are two emerging ways to play this anti-Huawei sentiment.
First, some big tech names made even bigger news this morning. With support from the federal government, 30 firms launched theOpen RAN Policy Coalition.
According toAxios’Margaret Harding McGill, thecoalition supports a software-driven approach to 5G. In other words, these companies would like to see 5G move away from network hardware. Why? This avoids trapping countries between Huawei and more expensive options, likeNokia(NYSE:NOK) andEricsson(NASDAQ:ERIC).
So who’s leading the coalition? Big names likeInternational Business Machines(NYSE:IBM),Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) andAT&T(NYSE:T) unsurprisingly are involved.Dish Network(NASDAQ:DISH) isset to build a new nationwide wireless network, bringing the smaller company also to the front of the race.
OK, so what’s the other play?
InvestorPlace’sIan Bezek wrote this morning that he, too, thinks the future of 5G includes a shift away from Huawei. Buthe likes ERIC stock. According to Harding McGill, Bezek isn’t alone. U.S. Attorney General William Barr supports Ericcson and Nokia.
Regardless of what plan wins, 5G stocks are sure to be hot. They represent a big tech investment in a post-pandemic world.
[Tuesday, May 5, 11:25 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
I’ve spent an unprecedented amount of time at home, and I’ve become quite familiar with what I don’t like about my apartment. In other words, my to-do list is loaded with small cleaning and organizational tasks. Oh, and I’m looking to buy some nightstands.
Apparently, I’m not alone. AsCNBC’sLauren Thomas reported this morning,Wayfair’s(NYSE:W)first-quarter sales were up 20% year-over-year. According to CEO Niraj Shah, consumers are “disproportionately” investing in home improvement while states remain in lockdown.
That all sounds good. ButInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall added someshocking contextto that first-quarter sales figure. Wayfair shares are up 700% from their March lows. That’s crazy. It’s obvious that investors who already got in are happy Tuesday. But is there a chance for new buyers to profit?
InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He included Wayfair on a list of15 tightly wound stocks with “pop” potential. According to Lango, as the company scales, huge revenue growth will translate to big profit growth. If you believe in the future of e-commerce, that sounds like a safe bet.
Plus, Wayfair is a pick inInvestorPlace.com’sBest Stocks for 2020 contest. Long before the pandemic hit,The Motley Fool’sJason Moser identified it as a top company cashing in on future retail trends.
I can’t imagine ever going to a brick-and-mortar store to buy those nightstands I want. And the numbers show many consumers are in the same boat. Don’t miss out on this high-flying opportunity.
[Tuesday, May 5, 10:11 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors have dumped everything — even solid tech stocks — during 2020’s market selloff. Why? The pandemic wrought by the novel coronavirus is hard to predict, and it’s having far-reaching effects.
InvestorPlace’sIan Bezek has a wake-up call for investors. Tech stocks will be some of the best buys in the new world, and they’re also profiting right now. That’s why he thinks it’s time to start buying up shares.
Still not convinced? Look at howZoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM) became a hot stock seemingly overnight. Companies that react and thrive through the pandemic are ones you want to hold for the long run.
Here are theseven tech stocks Bezek is watching now:
• Ericcson(NASDAQ:ERIC)
• Palo Alto Networks(NYSE:PANW)
• Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)
• Slack Technologies(NYSE:WORK)
• Avalara(NYSE:AVLR)
• Broadridge Financial Solutions(NYSE:BR)
• Roper Technologies(NYSE:ROP)
[Tuesday, May 5, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s a rather conflicting time in the markets. Yes, states are continuing to reopen. Even hard-hit California will see lockdown restrictions begin easing this Friday, and states like Georgia and Florida are pushing for a true return to normal.
But experts are still sounding the alarm on the novel coronavirus. According toThe New York Times, the U.S. is still seeing an increase of25,000 new cases per dayand 1,000 new deaths per day. President Donald Trump revised his outlook on the pandemic over the weekend,noting that 100,000 Americans could die.
As investors try to find balance, it appears that bulls are leading the way Tuesday morning. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening well in the green.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.04%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.94%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.08%
[Monday, May 4, 4:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
According to Goldman Sachs analysts, the embattled energy sector is clinging to some rays of hope yet. On Monday, Neil Mehta raised his price target onConocoPhillips(NYSE:COP) to $51 andnamed it one of the firm’s “conviction” buys.
AsInvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Mehta believes that energy stocks are approaching the bottom. With that in mind, he thinks ConocoPhillips is the top energy play. Why? The Goldman Sachs analyst says that COP stock has underperformed relative to larger U.S. names. It’s also closely tied to Brent, the international benchmark for crude oil.
One thing to note —Chevron(NYSE:CVX)previously held this glorious title. According to Kenwell, Goldman Sachs still lists CVX as a “buy,” but it’s moving on to better things with COP stock.
[Monday, May 4, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Bulls are working hard to start this week on a strong foot. Stocks struggled most of Monday after opening down, but the major indices crept into the green at the end of the day.
There’s a lot ahead this week — including key earnings results and the non-farm payroll report. Investors are sure to get a closer look at exactly how the pandemic is affecting the economy, and how promises of reopening are turning things around.
With that in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall closed in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.42%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.11%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.23%
[Monday, May 4, 3:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s been a rough couple of days for investors. President Donald Trump rekindled trade tensions with China. Southern states — leading the push to reopen — areseeing increases in deaths and new casesof the novel coronavirus. All in all, uncertainty has returned to the market and stocks are in the red.
But according toTipRank’sMaya Sasson, biotech stocks are looking very attractive right now. That’s because the most-recent market downturn is creating better entry points in some top names.
Here arethree cheap biotech stocks under $10Sasson is watching now:
• Aptinyx(NASDAQ:APTX)
• Viking Therapeutics(NASDAQ:VKTX)
• Mersana Therapeutics(NASDAQ:MRSN)
[Monday, May 4, 3:21 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
If you spend even a fraction of the time I do online shopping, then you’re probably familiar with the “buy now, pay later” services fromAfterpay(OTCMKTS:AFTPY). If not, then you’re probably familiar with its competitorsKlarnaandSezzle. If you haven’t heard of any of those three, then perhaps I engage too heavily in retail therapy.
The short story is that Afterpay and its peers are racking up partnerships with retailers. Instead of paying $32 for a makeup product fromFenty Beauty, you can makefour interest-free installments of $8with Afterpay. While that might seem a tad unnecessary, the appeal is in higher-cost items.
And according toRetail Brew, thepandemic has brought renewed interest in buy now, pay later services. It’s hard to sell shoppers on $100 clothing during an economic crisis, but four installments of $25 is much easier to stomach.
Plus, more brands are embracing Afterpay. Just last week, popular lounge brand Richer Poorer — found at retailers likeUrban Outfitters(NASDAQ:URBN) — partnered with Afterpay.
That’s a lot to like. But wait, there’s more. In news that has AFTPY stock climbing 13% in intraday trading,Tencent(OTCMKTS:TCEHY) disclosed a5% stake in Afterpay. According to press releases, this relationship will bring fintech and online advertising services to the smaller firm.
It’s no secret that retail as we know it is dying. Afterpay stock is the perfect way to invest in the retail of tomorrow. Don’t discount this opportunity.
[Monday, May 4, 2:52 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s been a sad couple of weeks for sports fans. In the past, a weekend would bring highly anticipated games — and lots of revenue for the underlying companies. Now, you’re lucky to find amarble raceor a turtle derby on ESPN. How the mighty have fallen.
But many in the investing world are confident that live sports aren’t a thing of the past. In fact,Barron’sNicholas Jasinski is placing his bet ontwo sports stocks to buy now.
According to Jasinski,Madison Square Garden Entertainment(NYSE:MSGE) andMadison Square Garden Sports(NYSE:MSGS) are top rebound plays. The former is centered around the Madison Square Garden arena. The latter is a play on the arena’s sports teams, the Knicks and the Rangers. It’s definitely an interesting situation.
So what makes MSGE and MSGS worthy investments? For one, an empty arena is still an arena. In other words, it represents valuable real estate. And now that the teams are separately valued from the arena, there’s a big catalyst — scarcity.
Each major sports league has a certain number of teams. That means there’s “scarcity value.” Jasinski writes that the Knicks and Rangers are worth $4.6 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively. MSGS then allows investors to get in on that big value.
Essentially, as Jasinski writes, these are plays on the economy reopening. And in my opinion, it seems pretty unlikely that marble races will be enough to satisfy consumers for years to come. Get ready for the (eventual) return of big league sports with MSGE and MSGS now.
[Monday, May 4, 1:50 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investing in stocks that are safer than government bonds — typically considered among the safest investments — definitely sounds appealing. That’s why analysts at Credit Suisse are rounding up new “gold standard” stocks to buy now.
So what is the new gold standard? According to analyst Andrew Garthwaite, these stocks are comparable to theG7 countriesin terms of creditworthiness. They also have higher dividend yields than sovereign bonds and have either “outperform” or “neutral” ratings.
Here are theseven names analysts are watching(subscription required):
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)
• CME Group(NASDAQ:CME)
• Johnson & Johnson(NYSE:JNJ)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Procter & Gamble(NYSE:PG)
• Visa(NYSE:V)
• Walmart(NYSE:WMT)
[Monday, May 4, 1:36 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
All eyes were on the Big Tech leaders —Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL),Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN),Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL),Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) andNetflix(NASDAQ:NFLX) — last week. This group’sfirst-quarter earnings moved the market, and drew crazy amounts of attention as a means for evaluating the pandemic’s damage.
But the team atMorning Brewthinks that these leaders are set to fall off their pedestals. A weekend edition of the newsletter suggests that this group will get disrupted “either by natural industry evolution or alien invasion.”
All joking aside, perhaps such a shake-up is a long time coming. But which companies would take their spots? And how will the novel coronavirus influence Big Tech hegemony?
Here aresix publicly traded companiesMorning Brewis watching:
• Salesforce(NYSE:CRM)
• Zoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM)
• Slack(NYSE:WORK)
• PayPal(NASDAQ:PYPL)
• Square(NYSE:SQ)
• International Business Machines(NYSE:IBM)
There’s a bonus play, too. PrivateEpic Games— home toFortnite— is also a pandemic winner. While youcan’t invest through traditional markets,Tencent(OTCMKTS:TCEHY) holds a 40% stake.
[Monday, May 4, 12:35 p.m.]Contributed byAndrew Taylor
Battered cruise ship operatorCarnival(NYSE:CCL) announced today that itplans to resume limited cruise serviceson Aug. 1. Adventurous travelers will be able to book travel with Carnival Cruise Lines for ships departing from Galveston, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Port Canaveral, Florida starting that date.
Only by filling cabins will Carnival start driving revenue and recovery, so the announcement that the company will start setting sail is an important milestone in the company’s return.
Last week, in an article titled,“Carnival Will Trend Higher With Strong Liquidity,”InvestorPlace’sFaisal Humayun announced that, “I believe the stock has more upside from oversold levels.” Humayun does an elegant job describing why Carnival’s recent steps to shore up credit and liquidity make it a stock to buy. Having visibility into the return of active cruising before the end of the summer certainly supports that case.
Also last week,InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango highlights Carnival as one of his30 Consumer Stocks to Buy Once the Coronavirus Pandemic Passes.
Carnival stock is an intriguing possibility for the risk-loving investor with a tolerance for loss. Given that the company has now provided more visibility to the return of operations, investors seeking massive returns won’t have much longer to wait before getting in.
[Monday, May 4, 12:18 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
As states begin reopening around the United States,Salesforce(NYSE:CRM) is positioning itself to be a winning company. On Monday, it released reopening-specific tools, including a new Work.com dashboard. This solution allows businesses to track readiness across various locations and monitor employee health. CRM stock is up 2.5% in intraday trading on the news.
FromSalesforce President and COO Bret Taylor:
“Every company and community in the world is focusing on how to safely reopen and get to a new normal. WithWork.com, we’re bringing together powerful new technology, our partners and network of experts to help organizations reopen and recover from this crisis while putting employee and visitor health and safety first.”
According toAxios’Ina Fried, the solutions will cost between $5 and $50 per user. Salesforce is also offering contract tracing, shift management and other emergency response tools.
But as Fried writes, perhaps the most important — and most upside-generating — element of this announcement is that these tools makeSalesforce a leader in pandemic-specific tech.
Companies likeZoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM) andSlack(NYSE:WORK) have seen existing platforms benefit from new trends. But Salesforce’s Work.com goes beyond that — tackling the pandemic’s next phase.
So is it time to buy CRM stock?InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote in early April that Goldman Sachs was hot on the name. Lango thinks that companies learned a big lesson — it’s time to turn digital. That meansSalesforce will benefit from increased IT spendingand see a big rebound when the economy does recover.
[Monday, May 4, 11:45 a.m.]Contributed byMatt McCall
The last time bitcoin traded for $3 was nearly ten years ago.
The days of extraordinary 10,000% bitcoin gains in just a short time period are likely over.
But there’s alittle-known cryptoI’m extremely bullish about right now.
This cryptocurrency applies real-world applications to the world of blockchain, which makes its growth potential extraordinary.
It’s probably the most practical and beneficial blockchain token in existence today.
The best part is, you can invest in a single token for less than $4 right.
I believe this crypto will see serious gains from current price levels. That’s why I recently added it to myUltimate Cryptomodel portfolio.
But you can’t delay if you want to position yourself.
The crypto Halvening event is set to take place just days from now, on May 13.
Cryptocurrencies have historically grown after the past two Halvening events in 2012 and 2016.
So don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Look over the full details of this $3 crypto before the Halvening occurs.
Click here to learn how you can find out the name and ticker symbol.
[Monday, May 4, 11:18 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s no secret that grocery stores are hot right now. It also seems that more and more people are opting for curbside pick-up and grocery delivery options, as fears of the novel coronavirus climb. There’s finally data to back that up — and it makes grocery store stocks look even better.
According toFood Logistics,online grocery sales hit $5.3 billion in April, up 37% from the prior month. That’s huge, but perhaps not all that surprising. What it does mean is that grocery stores pivoting to in-demand options are set to be winners.
So which stocks should you buy?InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto has a few ideas. He recently listedKroger(NYSE:KR) as one of histop food stocks to buy. Enomoto writes that as social distancing continues, Kroger is set to be a winner because of itseasy delivery and pick-up options.
For the same reason, he likesSprout Farmers Market(NASDAQ:SFM), a smaller chain.
Enomoto has one important caveat. He cautions investors against “blindly” buying food stocks just because they’re a hot idea. Instead, search out names with successful alternate sales options. These grocery stocks look to be certain winners in our new world.
[Monday, May 4, 10:40 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Who doesn’t love good news about the novel coronavirus? On Monday, as uncertainty drags the broader market down,Roche(OTCMKTS:RHHBY) stock is climbing 3.2% in intraday trading.
Over the weekend, the Swiss company announced it had receivedU.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency approval for its antibody test. And boy, these tests are in high demand. Unlike tests for the virus itself, antibody tests can tell whether or not an individual has been exposed to the virus at all. In other words, they can tell if asymptomatic individuals have already contracted Covid-19.
Antibody tests seem to be the key to safely reopening the economy, and determining who has immunity. Roche, like test makerAbbott Laboratories(NYSE:ABT), is benefiting from positive results.
With that in mind, don’t discount the opportunity in Roche stock. The company has promised to make its antibody test available in early May, and to produce the tests in “the high double-digit millions” each month starting in June.
[Monday, May 4, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Just how bad will the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus be? That question — and fears of the answer — is driving stocks down Monday morning. To be fair, stocks were already struggling Friday as President Donald Trump threatened to escalate trade tensions with China.
Oh, there’s some pessimism elsewhere in the investing world too. Investors carefully scrutinized Warren Buffett’s annual meeting forBerkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) stock holders over the weekend. What’s the result? While he reiterated his case for long-term optimism, some arereading between the lines. What will the near term look like?
With these questions circulating, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all starting Monday in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.71%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.97%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.52%
[Friday, May 1, 4:32 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell reported in his daily column that investors had a rather neutral response toApple’s(NASDAQ:AAPL) Thursday earnings report. Apple beat expectations for earnings and revenue, and its Services unit was once again a star. But thecompany’s future is just a little too uncertain.
However, that uncertainty isn’t stopping JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee from being bullish on AAPL stock. On Friday, he named it one of the firm’s top stocks to buy andraised his price target from $335 to $350. He has an “overweight” rating on the stock.
So what’s there to like? Chatterjee cites higher-than-expected demand for the iPhone 11, improving revenue forecasts for 2020 and the company’s strong ties to work-from-home and online learning trends.
According to TipRanks, the average 12-month price target on AAPL stock is just over $320. That implies 10% upside from the current share price.
[Friday, May 1, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Breaking news from President Donald Trump that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvedGilead Sciences’(NASDAQ:GILD)remdesivir for emergency usewasn’t enough for stocks to close Friday in the green. Perhaps that’s because earlier news from Trump was still rocking the market. That’s right, going into pre-market trading, investors were fearing a return of the U.S.-China trade war.
Elsewhere in the investing world, the market was digesting earnings from Big Tech. States continue to reopen and retailers roll out new hygiene strategies. It seems Friday simply brought too many headlines after a solid month for stocks.
With all that in mind, theS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall ended the week on a sour note.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 2.79%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 2.53%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 3.20%
[Friday, May 1, 3:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Asstates begin reopening, Goldman Sachs fund manager Katie Koch is hunting for companies ready to bounce. In this search, she’s moving past mega-cap tech stocks that have been stable in early 2020. Instead, she wants to find stocks that have been less “resilient” — meaning they will see more upside.
So where is she looking for these return-to-work plays? She’s focusing on companies with strong balance sheets, and names attached to growth opportunities.
Although she didn’t list any specific stocks, here are afew areas she’s watching:
• As more Americans return to work, Koch is looking for childcare, catering and small business solutions providers, such as companies that specialize in payment solutions.
• “Select” travel and restaurant stocks will benefit early on as the economy reopens. Look for standout companies in the hospitality space.
• Koch says that one result of the pandemic is that more Americans are living life online. Because of that, she’s looking for stocks to buy that specialize in data gathering and 5G.
[Friday, May 1, 2:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Not all Americans are content to binge-watch TV shows and make loaves of sourdough bread. On Friday,Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk made it clear he was ready for stay-at-home orders to end — and quick. In a mid-day social media rampage, he discussed selling all of his homes, tweeted lyrics to the “Star Spangled Banner” and shared that girlfriend Grimes — whose baby is due Monday — is mad at him.
But in perhaps themost concerning post, he wrote “Tesla stock price is too high [in my opinion].” And it turns out a CEO’s opinion is pretty powerful. TSLA stock is down 9.1% in intraday trading.
So is it time for investors to ditch Tesla as the pandemic takes Musk to the brink? According toInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango, no. Lango writes that investors need to see the forest through the trees. Musk’s antics are part of what makes TSLA such a high-interest stock.
Yes, it wasn’t the smartest move on the CEO’s part. But Lango is convinced the company’s fundamentals will keep driving it higher. His modeling evenshows a 2020 price target above $800. At $710, shares are at an attractive discount now.
[Friday, May 1, 2:14 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
The retail apocalypse is coming, and there will be many victims.InvestorPlacecontributors have long listedMacy’s(NYSE:M) as one of the first to fall. With a current share price near $5.40 and a subpar e-commerce presence, there’s certainly a lot to critique.
But Friday’sRetail Brewnewsletteroffers some background to support a contrarian perspective. Is it perhaps time to start buying M stock? When mall operatorSimon Property Group(NYSE:SPG) announced that it would begin reopening its properties, shares rebounded. Macy’s is now following in Simon Property’s footsteps.
On Tuesday, CEO Jeff Gennette said the company had no plan to reopen. On Thursday, the company pivoted, and announced plans to begin reopening almost 800 locations in the coming weeks. Shares are still down 7.6% in intraday trading.
It’s not clear that Macy’s will win — or even survive — the gloom in the retail sector. But Gennette’s plan shows the retailer is working toward victory. To start, Macy’s is downsizing. Its online sales were “better than expected” in March, which perhaps could bring an improved e-commerce experience to the department store.
All in all, it’s like too early to say if Macy’s is a stock to buy. But, investors shouldn’t count it out of the fight just yet.
[Friday, May 1, 1:33 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
As we’ve previously reported, biotech stocks are facing a key dilemma.Gilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) is garnering much of the market’s attention with its standout drug remdesivir. Good news about remdesivir lifts the entire market, and bad news can bring it to its knees.
Not all companies are facing the same good fortune. Others that haven’t jumped into the novel coronavirus race are having to suspend trials and are seeing pharmaceutical sales drop. It’s hard to sell injectable cancer drugs when many cancer patients are delaying treatment.
Does this mean the biotech sector is one to avoid indefinitely?
New reporting fromThe New York Timeshighlights a key reason investors should still be bullish. According to Carl Zimmer,researchers are now studying existing drugs— not just antivirals — to see if they’re effective against Covid-19. Apre-print study cites compoundspurchased fromSigma Labs(NASDAQ:SGLB) andThermo Fisher Scientific(NYSE:TMO). However, many of these compounds are manufactured by other pharmaceutical companies.
That means the broader biotech sector isn’t out of the race. While experts are hopeful about remdesivir, there may be other effective treatments. Keep an eye out for further study results and look for winners in the space.
[Friday, May 1, 12:48 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Over the last two months, analysts have been jumping on board Beijing-basedJD.com(NASDAQ:JD) with buy ratings and lofty price targets. Although some investors soured on Chinese stocks in the early days of the novel coronavirus, it’s clear things are changing.
E-commerce companies like JD and rivalAlibaba(NYSE:BABA) are outperforming the broader market. Plus, China’s economy is leading the race to reopen. Perhaps that’s why so many analysts are yelling “buy.”
InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango agrees with that sentiment. He writes that while decreased consumer spending weighed on JD stock, it’s clear retail sales are starting to rebound. That’s why he ranked it as one of thetop five Chinese stocks to buy now.
Still not sure? There’s another major catalyst coming for JD shares.Axios’Dan Primack wrote earlier this week thatJD “confidentially” filed for a Hong Kong stock listing, following in Alibaba’s footsteps. If completed, the sale could raise $2 billion. That’s a big deal — particularly as it competes for market share with BABA andAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN).
If you’re tempted, get in now. Lango said the company will be firing on all cylinders again before the end of 2020. You don’t want to miss out.
[Friday, May 1, 12:07 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Everyone wants to stock up on groceries, but no one wants to face crowds — and germs — in stores. That’s why delivery services likeInstacartand curb-side offerings from big grocery stores have gained so much popularity.Walmart(NYSE:WMT) stock has been one of the winners from this madness, but after a Thursday announcement it looks even more appealing.
The Verge’sJay Peters reported thatWalmart is launching Express Delivery, a service that will deliver groceries and other essential items in two hours or less. The big-box retailer has been piloting the service, and will ramp it up to 1,000 locations in early May. In the coming weeks, it will ramp further to 2,000 locations.
This seems like a dream. For $10, consumers can stay safe at home, order groceries and know they’ll be delivered with Walmart’s brand-name guarantee. No wonder WMT stock is in the green on an otherwise tough day of trading.
InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto is bullish on the name, too. He wrote Friday that unlike many specialty retailers,Walmart is likely to survive and thriveafter the pandemic because it’s a one-stop shop.
As long as it performs well during the holiday quarter, Enomoto thinks it is one of the top 10Dow Jones Industrial Averagestocks to buy.
[Friday, May 1, 11:47 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Clorox(NYSE:CLX) stock has been a serious winner in 2020. Its products have been in high demand as Americans look to disinfectant every surface in sight. But analysts haven’t been hot on the name, pouring on sell and hold ratings ahead of its quarterly earnings report.
But boy did Clorox prove the bears wrong. AsBarron’sAlexandra Scaggs wrote,sales increased 15% year-over-year, and earnings per share were up 31%. And unlike many other companies, Clorox actuallyincreasedits guidance for its fiscal year (which ends June 30). It expects annuals sales to grow between 4% and 6%.
On that news, CLX stock is up 4.5% in intraday trading.
So is it time to buy Clorox stock?InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto thinks so. He wrote this morning that it was one of thenine best dividend stocks to buyfor all investors. Even if the pandemic eases in the near future and demand drops, Enomoto thinks a second wave of the virus will be a major catalyst.
From Enomoto:
“It’s possible that shares will come down as it appears we have reached the peak of this crisis. But according to infectious disease experts, it’s possible that asecond wave of coronaviruscould hit us. Therefore, CLX stock may have a longer upside pathway. That’s not great for our collective health but it’s potentially profitable news if you’re looking for dividend stocks to buy.”
[Friday, May 1, 11:19 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlace’sTyler Craig is looking to profit now. He’s found three stocks that, once winning, are now facing weakness. But he’s not despairing. Instead, he’s identifiedthree bullish-leaning tradesto make some serious money.
Here are the three stocks he’s looking at right now:
• Walmart(NYSE:WMT)
• Eli Lilly(NYSE:LLY)
• Domino’s Pizza(NYSE:DPZ)
[Friday, May 1, 11:07 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Moderna(NASDAQ:MRNA) is looking to be Friday’s silver lining. Shares are shooting higher — to the tune of 5.8% — in intraday trading.
Why? Earlier in the morning, Moderna announced it reached a deal withLonza(OTCMKTS:LZAGY) toaccelerate manufacturing of its vaccine candidatefor the novel coronavirus.
The experimental vaccine, mRNA-1273 is in early-stage clinical trials right now. But investors are excited at the potential — the deal would produce 1 billion doses a year.
So is it time to buy?InvestorPlace’sIan Cooper thinks so. He wrote yesterday thatMRNA stock was a top vaccine play. Cooper particularly likes that the company just received $483 million in federal funding. Shares are flirting with $50 now, but he thinks they could hit $55 again soon.
[Friday, May 1, 10:25 a.m.]Contributed byNicholas Stern
We’re just days away from bitcoin’s halvening in May and the cryptocurrency markets are bouncing. In the past month, while theS&P 500rose about 11%, bitcoin soared 44.5%.
There are a lot of explanations as to why people are jumping into cryptos at the moment, but nothing serves as a clearer catalyst than bitcoin’s halvening.
If you’re not familiar with the halvening, in a nutshell, it happens about every four years when the supply of new bitcoin coming on the market gets cut in half. If the supply drops at a time when demand is likely to increase, prices can soar.
Investors who know their stuff about bitcoin, likeInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall, have been talking about the halvening for months.Matt just held a special event that gives folks what they need to know right nowto take advantage of this historic opportunity.
Wealthy investors looking to diversify their portfolios at a time of unprecedented volatility and money printing certainly aren’t waiting. The number of people building positions of 10,000 bitcoins or more for an expected price catapult has reached the highest level since Aug. 2, 2019, according toCoinDesk.For reference, 10,000 bitcoins are worth over $89 million at the moment.
Plus, there’s more activity on bitcoin’s network in general. An analysis by blockchain data firmGlassnodeand @Unfolded found the bitcoin network has grown nearly 25% within the last year.
Folks’ awareness of bitcoin’s strengths as a scarce store of value, a sort of digital gold if you will, is growing. Only 21 million will ever be created.
That scarcity is behind a common metric used to value bitcoin known as stock-to-flow. It’s basically the ratio of the current bitcoin supply to the flow of new production, which again will drop in half in a matter of days.
PerGlassnode, bitcoin’s historic price has tracked the stock-to-flow ratio. It’s doing that right now. If the trend continues, we could see bitcoin surpassing $95,000 by mid-2021. That’d represent a 963% increase within a year or so.
And while bitcoin’s rise has been impressive, many of the other crypto assets known as altcoins have been doing much better. Altcoins are really where the action’s at these days.
Matt lays out what’s going on with altcoins in the run up to the halvening, and why their rise should quickly surpass bitcoin’s.Check it out.
[Friday, May 1, 10:13 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier is still findinggrowth opportunitiesin the current market. Heck, he even found seven dividend stocks that still offer stable payouts.
He wrote Friday morning that we won’t see normalcy for quite some time, even after the economy reopens. That’s why he says it’s important to find long-term buys, not “sexy” stocks that are volatile along with the market.
Here are the seven top dividend stocks he’s recommending:
• Easterly Government Properties(NYSE:DEA)
• Frontline(NYSE:FRO)
• Carlyle Group(NYSE:CG)
• Unum Group(NYSE:UNM)
• Huntsman(NYSE:HUN)
• Dominion Energy(NYSE:D)
• Xerox(NYSE:XRX)
[Friday, May 1, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Oh, the U.S.-China trade war. Remember when that was the sole driver of the market? Well, after a Thursday briefing, President Donald Trump isthreatening new tariffs against China. Why? He says the novel coronavirus has “eclipsed” his phase-one trade deal in terms of priority.
Investors didn’t like that surprise. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all sinking Friday, opening deep in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 1.90%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 1.77%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.28%
[Thursday, April 30, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
This morning, investors learned that 3.8 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. As they processed that the pandemic-driven total now tops 30 million, stocks opened the day in the red.
Plus, news thatnovel coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surpassed 1 millionisn’t helping matters. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall are closing down on Thursday.
• The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.94%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.23%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.28%
[Thursday, April 30, 3:41 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
According toThe Food Institute,packaged food companies got a bit of a first-quarter surprise. As Americans continue to spend less on dining out, snack purchases are growing. Initially, many companies thought panic buying — what many called “hoarding” — would stop. But data shows that packs of Oreos and bags of Tostitos are flying off the shelves.
This elevated buying could have long-term impacts.PepsiCo(NASDAQ:PEP) CFO Hugh Johnston said that supply-chain levels could change for good, so that the company had more inventory on hand. He also thinksconsumers are regaining loyalty toward bigger brands. That makes PEP stock look extra appealing now.
InvestorPlace’sNicolas Chahine agrees. He wrote today thatthere’s clearly an “appetite” for Pepsiafter its first-quarter earnings report.
So, what other big brands will benefit from snacking? Here are three more food stocks to watch:
• Hershey(NYSE:HSY)
• Mondelez(NASDAQ:MDLZ)
• Coca-Cola(NYSE:KO)
[Thursday, April 30, 3:15 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Gilead Sciences’(NASDAQ:GILD) remdesivir has the market wrapped around its finger — or, its clinical trial results. Last week, it brought the market down when the World Health Organization leaked not-so-good data from suspended Chinese trials. Yesterday, remdesivir was a market cure. It broadly rallied stocks after a U.S. trial met its primary endpoint in treating patients with the novel coronavirus.
In the vaccine world,Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO) andModerna(NASDAQ:MRNA) take most of the spotlight.
ButBioPharma Dive’sBen Fidler highlights that pandemic underdogAstraZeneca(NYSE:AZN) has a ton of potential. On Thursday, the pharmaceutical giantannounced a partnership with Oxford University. Together, researchers will further work on a coronavirus vaccine.
As Fidler writes, the Oxford study started earlier than many others. It already began human testing, and could begin late-stage tests in mid-2020. That’s huge news.
And investors like what they are hearing. AZN stock is up 2.8% in intraday trading, on a day when the major indices are down.
[Thursday, April 30, 2:47 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wait, dividends are still a thing? Despite the far-reaching impacts of the novel coronavirus, some companies are still set to pay out quarterly dividends. And some companies have high-yield dividends — paying out more than theS&P 500’s2% yield.
So which dividend stocks should be on your radar? According toCNBCand FactSet, here are20 stocks Wall Street can’t seem to get enough of(subscription required).
• Alexandria Real Estate Equities(NYSE:ARE)
• AES(NYSE:AES)
• Diamondback Energy(NASDAQ:FANG)
• Prologis(NYSE:PLD)
• NRG Energy(NYSE:NRG)
• FirstEnergy(NYSE:FE)
• Mondelez(NASDAQ:MDLZ)
• Williams Companies(NYSE:WMB)
• Baker Hughes(NYSE:BKR)
• DuPont de Nemours(NYSE:DD)
• Marathon Petroleum(NYSE:MPC)
• Pioneer Natural Resources(NYSE:PXD)
• Arthur J. Gallagher(NYSE:AJD)
• Tyson Foods(NYSE:TSN)
• BlackRock(NYSE:BLK)
• Valero Energy(NYSE:VOL)
• Chevron(NYSE:CVX)
• Synchrony Financial(NYSE:SYF)
• Weyerhaeuser Company(NYSE:WY)
[Thursday, April 30, 2:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Millennials are in a tricky spot right now. AsVicereported in early April, approximatelyone third of younger workers had lost their jobs. At the same time, many experts are saying that getting into the market during this coronavirus-driven dip will have life-changing economic impacts.
So how should younger investors view stocks right now? According toInvestorPlace’sLaura Hoy, millennials are going to have “the last laugh” in the stock market today. That’s because they have the most time to benefit from the market selloff.
But baby boomers — who likely have more stashed in retirement savings accounts — have less time to reap gains from post-pandemic rally. Hard-hit older investors will be forced to make stressful investment decisions.
So where should millennials start? Hoy hasthree recommendations:
• Chevron(NYSE:CVX)
• Ralph Lauren(NYSE:RL)
• Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL)
[Thursday, April 30, 1:50 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Biotech stocks are experiencing the novel coronavirus in many interesting ways. First-quarter earnings reports show that some drug sales are down, and companies are feeling the heat from clinical trial delays. But research firm CFRA is bullish on the broader healthcare sector.
Why? The firm’s analysts believe Covid-19 is strengthening the long-term picture. Companies are rushing to develop new drugs and vaccines, and many are embracing innovative technology. This should all pay off in the years after the pandemic.
With that in mind, here aresix healthcare stocks CFRA is recommending now:
• Owens & Minor(NYSE:OMI)
• Quest Diagnostics(NYSE:DGX)
• Amgen(NASDAQ:AMGN)
• BioMarin Pharmaceutical(NASDAQ:BMRN)
• Stryker(NYSE:SYK)
• Boston Scientific(NYSE:BSX)
[Thursday, April 30, 11:32 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It may seem odd to recommend a sports betting stock at a time when no live sports events are happening. But that’s exactly what Morgan Stanley analyst Thomas Allen did on Wednesday. He said his firm is going “all in” with DraftKings, which trades as aDiamond Eagle Acquisition Corporation(NASDAQ:DEAC).
Allen has an “overweight” rating on the stock and a $23 price target. Shares of DEAC are trading Thursday near $17.50.
So how does Allen explain his recommendation? Even though live sporting events are almost nonexistent, he sees the virtual NFL draft as a victory for sports betting. Shares spiked over the three-day event, as consumers showed “pent-up” demand for gambling opportunities.
From Allen, viaCNBC(subscription required):
“In our view, DraftKings deserves a premium as an almost pure play on US sports betting and iGaming, in contrast to peers that either have brick-and-mortar or [international] regulatory risk.”
InvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth agrees. At the beginning of March, he wrote that recent IPO DraftKings was atop stock to buy as the market entered bear territory. If anyone can survive a sports betting world without live events, he argues it’s DraftKings.
The market seems to agree. Shares are up 2.2% in intraday trading.
[Thursday, April 30, 10:40 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
You’re probably tired of hearing all about toilet paper and disinfecting products. But the constant hype and supersized demand has madeeight consumer stocks serious winners in 2020.
According toMorningstar’sSusan Dziubinski, these companies have strong-but-cheap brands. Additionally, they are all benefiting from current shopping trends (think cleaning products and comfort food). Yes, some of today’s hottest companies will soon go back out of style. But Dziubinski thinks these are all stocks to buy for the long term.
Here are the eight names she’s recommending:
• Anheuser-Busch InBev(NYSE:BUD)
• Coca-Cola(NYSE:KO)
• Hostess Brands(NASDAQ:TWNK)
• Kellogg(NYSE:K)
• Molson Coors(NYSE:TAP)
• Reckitt Benckiser(OTCMKTS:RBGLY)
• Kraft Heinz(NASDAQ:KHC)
• Unilever(NYSE:UN, NYSE:UL)
[Thursday, April 30, 10:15 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Based on how the market reacted to good news fromGilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) yesterday about its remdesivir, imagine the rally when a vaccine is declared to be a winner.
That’s whyInvestorPlace’sIan Cooper has identifiedthree top vaccine stocksfor investors to consider now. He’s inspired by all the efforts going toward fighting the virus — and he thinks these vaccine stocks will seriously benefit:
• Inovio Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ:INO)
• Moderna(NASDAQ:MRNA)
• BioNTech(NASDAQ:BNTX)
[Thursday, April 30, 9:31 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Wednesday’s optimism is struggling to hold in the stock market today. Right before market open, investors learned that another3.8 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits. Will sentiment shift during the day’s trading?
It’s hard to say. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeare all opening in the red.
• The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.86%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 1.24%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.24%
[Wednesday, April 29, 4:35 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In his daily column,InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell wrote that one analyst is particularly bullish onNetflix(NASDAQ:NFLX) stock.Loop Capital’s Alan Gould reiterated his “buy” rating, assigning a new price target of $500. That implies more than 20% upside from its current price.
Netflix added 15.8 million subscribers — although it only anticipated adding 8.5 million. That’s a huge surprise. Why else does Gould like the name? He thinksNetflix continues to have the largest amount of streaming contentand ongoing production, and that after 2020, it should be able to add 30 million subscribers per year. Plus, he thinks it could be cash-flow positive by 2022.
Gould isn’t alone.InvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall wrote yesterday that investors should buy NFLX stock as its long-term growth “remains in motion.”
From McCall:
“Even in a severe downturn, households are more likely to ‘cut the cord’ (cable) than get rid of relatively inexpensive Netflix. If anything, this company will thrive, not merely survive, in the coming years. A great hedge against recession, and on the winning side of the streaming megatrend, consider NFLX stock a buy.”
[Wednesday, April 29, 4:01 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Gilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) brought a sense of hope to the market today that is working wonders. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert,says its remdesivir looks promising. Investors drove stocks higher on the thought of a safe reopening — and an effective five-day treatment. GILD stock closed up by 5.7%.
Elsewhere in the market, the Federal Reservepromised to keep interest rates near 0%until economic activity truly rebounds. It looks like investors shrugged off this morning’s GDP figure.
Small-cap stocks had a great day, as theRussell 200closed higher by more than 5%. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositealso are closing in the green.
• The S&P 500 closed higher by 2.66%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.19%
• The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 3.57%
[Wednesday, April 29, 3:42 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Video games providea chance to escape reality. They also are a really effective means of killing time. As a pandemic rages across the world, it’s not surprising then thatrecord numbers of consumersare embracing a variety of games.
Before Covid-19, the future viability of consoles was in question. Now,InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango writes thatNintendo(OTCMKTS:NTDOY) keeps selling out of its Switch console. He also argues that thecoming launch of the Switch 2 should have investors excitedheaded into 2021.
Why all the buzz around Nintendo? Well,Animal Crossing: New Horizonshas consumers hooked.The Atlantic’sIan Bogost even wrote that in a pandemic-driven world, thegame offers a new political imagining. There are no losers, he writes, and players aren’t focused on making a living. No wonder the Switch is flying off shelves.
InvestorPlace’sChris Tyler is adding to Lango’s recommendation. He likesElectronic Arts(NASDAQ:EA),Take-Two Interactive(NASDAQ:TTWO) andZynga(NASDAQ:ZNGA) for many of the same reasons.
Whether you’re a die-hard Star Wars fan or a lover of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Tyler writes that thesevideo game stocks to buy are certainly winners now. You don’t want to miss out.
[Wednesday, April 29, 2:45 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Starbucks(NASDAQ:SBUX) broadly disappointed investors when it reported first-quarter earnings. But CEO Kevin Johnson thinks a“gravitational pull”and consumers’ desire for a “daily uplift” will help the coffee chain return to normal.
For investors, betting on a gravitational pull sounds pretty speculative. ButInvestorPlaceanalyst Matt McCall doesn’t see it that way.
Instead, he sees apost-earnings dip as the perfect time to buy shares. He believes Starbucks will get back on track soon, especially since the company had a front-row seat to China’s recovery from Covid-19. That experience is sure to be useful as the U.S. begins to reopen.
From McCall:
“Very few companies are immune to the impacts of the coronavirus and Starbucks is no exception. But with decades of growth and experience, this leading consumer brand is not one to bail on after a few quarters of non-company-specific issues.”
[Wednesday, April 29, 2:24 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Gyms may be closed, but Americans are still working out. And according to analysts at BTIG, consumers still want to dress the part of the gym buff. That’s why the firm is initiatingNike(NYSE:NKE) andLululemon(NASDAQ:LULU) with “buy” ratings.
From BTIG, via CNBC (subscription required):
“[W]e focus on companies with sturdy balance sheets that will allow them to survive the volatility that will likely continue throughout the rest of the year. Cash flow security is paramount to surviving this pandemic with the fewest scars. Also, these companies have robust and flexible supply chains that can handle and accommodate sharp changes in order patterns with little threat to their own cash flow needs.”
InvestorPlace’sChris Markoch is also hot on NKE and LULU. In fact, herecently recommended both stocks, along withPeloton(NASDAQ:PTON) andFitbit(NYSE:FIT). Markoch writes that as many states prepare for longer-lasting lockdowns, these fitness stocks have a lot of room to “run.”
[Wednesday, April 29, 2:04 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
If you’re anything like me, high-flyingBeyond Meat(NASDAQ:BYND) flew right off your radar when the novel coronavirus struck the U.S. Chances are many Americans forgot about plant-based burgers and breakfast sandwiches, opting to stock up on toilet paper and chicken breasts.
But not all investing experts made the same mistake.InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango wrote yesterday thatplant-based meat is the future, and he’s still bullish on BYND stock. In fact, he models that shares will hit $300 by 2029. That’s triple their current price.
There’s also a more pandemic-focused catalyst. AsKiplinger’sKyle Woodley writes, meat shortages around the U.S. — driven by Covid-19 plant closures — are makingplant-based alternatives increasingly popular. Nielsen reports that year-over-year sales of plant-based meat are up 265%.
It seems like Americans are catching on to a key fact: In an emergency, plant-based diets are much easier to sustain. That’s whydoomsday preppers have long opted to eat off the Earth, even recommending dandelions and other edible plants.
Granted, while grocery stores remain open, most Americans aren’t choosing to stomach their local weeds. Instead, they’re buying Beyond Meat’s plant-based products. That’s a huge catalyst for BYND stock. It’s time to buy shares now before they triple.
[Wednesday, April 29, 1:25 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Chances are, you have TV on in the background while you’re reading this. That’s OK — viewership is up 33% year-over-year as Americans are largely stuck at home.
Whether you’re binge-watchingThe Walking Dead, planning home-improvement projects with HGTV or aimlessly flipping through regional channels, you’re helping media companies profit.
That’s whyInvestorPlace’sMark Hake writes there aresix media stocks you should be buying now:
• AMC Networks(NASDAQ:AMCX)
• ViacomCBS(NASDAQ:VIAC, NASDAQ:VIACA)
• Discovery(NASDAQ:DISCA, NASDAQ:DISCK)
• Gray Television(NYSE:GTN)
• E.W. Scripps(NASDAQ:SSP)
• Nexstar Media Group(NASDAQ:NXST)
[Wednesday, April 29, 1:07 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
According to Spotify, every day now looks (and feels) like the weekend. More consumers than ever are streaming music and podcasts — and that’s great news for SPOT stock. Shares are up 12.4% in intraday trading.
Barron’sCallum Keown writes that Spotify’s first-quarter revenue climbed 22% andglobal premium subscribers jumped 31% to 130 million. Although the company initially feared less commuters would mean lower revenue, it’s now clear Spotify will survive the coronavirus crisis intact.
That’s whyInvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Lango recently wrote that SPOT stock was one of30 top consumer stocks to buy. At the time, he argued that Spotify was a great investment because consumer spending on entertainment was increasing. His one worry? Lango mentioned that as less Americans went to gyms and commuted to work, shares faced a tough headwind.
Well, Spotify proved him (and many others) wrong. Don’t miss out on shares now.
[Wednesday, April 29, 12:43 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s no secret that retailers have underperformed the broader market in 2020, as stay-at-home orders and lockdowns forced many to close. But as wereported yesterday, some retailers are starting to see light at the other end of the tunnel.
U.S. mall operatorSimon Property Group(NYSE:SPG) announced Tuesday that it would begin reopening 49 of its properties. The real estate investment trust is following in the footsteps of many southern states leading the push to reopen.
According to Bank of America analysts,four retail stocks will particularly benefit(subscription required). The firm’s buy list includesBurlington Stores(NYSE:BURL),Ross Stores(NASDAQ:ROST),Five Below(NASDAQ:FIVE) andTJX Companies(NYSE:TJX).
Analyst Lorraine Hutchinson said these are stocks to buy because they are in off-mall locations and lack e-commerce presences. This means they will rally the most as states reopen.
BURL, ROST, FIVE and TJX stock are all up more than 4% in intraday trading.
[Wednesday, April 29, 12:21 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlace’sJosh Enomoto has a wake-up call for investors. Thenovel coronavirusis changing life as we know it, and some of these drastic shifts won’t reverse. With that in mind, how should investors plan to profit from the world’s new normal?
Well, Enomoto is looking atnine quirky stocks to buythat capitalize on post-pandemic trends:
• Coupa Software(NASDAQ:COUP)
• Glu Mobile(NASDAQ:GLUU)
• Axon Enterprise(NASDAQ:AAXN)
• Match Group(NASDAQ:MTCH)
• Turning Point Brands(NYSE:TPB)
• Champignon Brands(OTCMKTS:SHRMF)
• MindMed(OTCMKTS:MMEDF)
• Carvana(NYSE:CVNA)
• RCI Hospitality(NASDAQ:RICK)
[Wednesday, April 29, 11:53 a.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
On Wednesday morning,Gilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) released news that has the market soaring. GILD stock itself is up 5.7% in intraday trading.
Gilead’s remdesivir has long been a leading candidate in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Remdesivir is an antiviral medication, originally developed as a potential treatment for the Ebola virus. On Wednesday, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported thatremdesivir helped patients recover more quicklythan standard care.
In other words, the drug met its primary endpoint in the study.
In a separate press release from Gilead, the company reported thatfive-day and 10-day doses of remdesivir have similar outcomesin terms of patient status. More results from this study — which did not include a comparison group — will be released in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks.
Both news items have investors cheering. AndInvestorPlacecontributors have long been telling readers to buy GILD stock. Just last week,InvestorPlaceMarkets Analyst Luke Langorecommended buying shares even as they sunk on bad news. At the time, leaked World Health Organization documents indicated remdesivir wasn’t effective in China-based trials.
Now, GILD stock is certainly one to buy. Its star drug has the potential to reopen the economy and protect the world from what has been a life-changing pandemic.
[Wednesday, April 29, 11:26 a.m.]Contributed byMatt McCall
The cryptocurrency “Halvening” event will occur in the middle of May…
Which is just days from now.
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But more importantly, it will sendcertain altcoinssoaring higher than most people imagine possible.
The last time the Halvening event occurred four years ago, these extraordinary gains were seen in the altcoin market:
• Verge shot up 1,362,400%.
• Reddcoin soared 72,400%.
• And NEO rose 134,453%.
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[Wednesday, April 29, 9:31 a.m]Contributed bySarah Smith
Investors are gearing up for a good today, even as they learnGDP contracted by 4.8% in the first quarter. Perhaps that’s just not surprising — even though it came in worse than estimates.
Regardless, there’s a lot of green in the major indices today. TheS&P 500,Dow Jones Industrial Averageand theNasdaq Compositeall opened solidly higher.
• The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.92%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.5%
• The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 2.15%
[Tuesday, April 28, 3:40 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
It’s no secret that crude oil storage — or the lack thereof — is driving the market. Last week, panic over the supply-demand imbalance sent crude oil prices negative. Stocks went tumbling, too.
But as research firm CFRA points out, there are winners in this chaos. Companies that are well-positioned in terms of storage capacity should see their stocks gain.
FromCFRA analyst Stewart Glickman, viaCNBC(subscription required):
“Firms with available storage space are going to fetch strong pricing, given too many producers are seeking places to shelve unneeded crude.”
So who are the winners? West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude, is trading at $13 for June delivery. But later months are trading at higher prices, which incentivizes storage. With this logic, companies with the most storage space win.
Plains All American(NYSE:PAA) andNuStar(NYSE:NS) each have 10%-12% of the country’s storage capacity. Glickman is also hot onPhillips 66(NYSE:PSX). Phillips 66 is most known for being in the refiner business, but it has 5.5% of U.S. storage capacity.
InvestorPlace’sWill Ashworth agreed with Glickman at the end of March. He included PSX stock on his list of the top10 best value stocks to own for 2020. Ashworth says it’s simply a triple threat.
As oil continues to be in focus, keep an eye on these three stocks.
[Tuesday, April 28, 1:51 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
Smithfield Foods’CEO warned of devastating impacts to the supply chain when his company was forced to close a pork plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Over the weekend,Tyson Foods(NYSE:TSN) took out afull-page ad inThe New York Times, declaring that meat plant closures were “breaking” the supply chain in the United States.
Certainly these CEOs were not the only ones worried about the U.S. supply chain. Higher prices for meat — and grocery store shortages — had many consumers afraid.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump hinted at a major response to the meat problem. According toBloomberg, he’s planning to use the Defense Production Act tokeep meat-processing plants open. Because plants have closed as workers contracted Covid-19, the government would issue them additional personal protective equipment.
Prior to this announcement, estimates showed that as much as 80% of the country’s meat production could shut down. The Sioux Falls plant alone accounted for 5% of U.S. pork.
Investors like the news. TSN stock is up 6.4% in intraday trading, andJBS(OTCMKTS:JBSAY) stock is up 5.2% on the day.
[Monday, April 27, 4:55 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
InvestorPlaceanalyst Louis Navellier is fed up with the pandemic pseudoscience. Conspiracy theorists are claiming exposure to 5G radiation weakens the body’s immune system, making people more susceptible to the novel coronavirus.
But as Navellier writes, there’s no real science to that. And there’s definitely no science behind peopleburning down 5G cellular towers in Europe.
Pseudoscientists conveniently don’t take the time to explain that there’s two types of radiation — ionizing and non-ionizing. 5G technology relies on non-ionizing radiation. It can’t hurt you.
With that in mind, investors should get serious about major opportunities in 5G ahead, like Navellier’sfavorite company in the space. This pick relies on radio-frequency technology and is set to profit off of every aspect of 5G.
So, don’t listen to the conspiracy theorists. Stay inside, stay safe. And if you’re ready to learn more about opportunities in 5G, read the rest of Navellier’s thoughtshere.
[Monday, April 27, 4:38 p.m.]Contributed bySarah Smith
In his daily column,InvestorPlace’sBret Kenwell highlighted aserious catalystforGilead Sciences(NASDAQ:GILD) stock. On Monday, Japanese news siteKyodoreported that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set tofast track approval for remdesivir. A different official said Monday remdesivir could be in use as early as next month to treat Covid-19.
Despite the good news, GILD stock closed higher by only 0.33% on Monday. For investors, remdesivir is still a critical treatment to watch, as trials are underway around the world.
Reutersreported Friday thatkey results from a U.S. trialcould come as early as mid-May, and preliminary results could come sooner. This trial, led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, began in February.
Coronavirus competitorRegeneron(NASDAQ:REGN) didn’t have the same fate today. Along withSanofi(NYSE:SNY), the company announced that its Kevzara failed to show clinical benefits in Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials. REGN stock closed down by 3.3% on the day.
The postInvesting During Coronavirus: Buy Gilead Stock on New Remdesivir Pricing Estimatesappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Investing During Coronavirus: Stocks Close Lower Ahead of Further Vote Counting: The post Investing During Coronavirus: Stocks Close Lower Ahead of Further Vote Counting appeared first on InvestorPlace . InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips seven hotel stocks he’s recommending now : Marriott International (NASDAQ: MAR ) Hilton Worldwide (NYSE: HLT ) Wynn Resources (NASDAQ: WYNN ) MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM ) Hyatt Hotels (NYSE: H ) Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE: RCL ) InterContinental Hotels (NYSE: IHG ) Upcoming Gaming IPOs Are Reason for Bullish Cheer [Wednesday, June 3, 11:57 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Gaming has been an escape — and a means of killing newfound time — since the novel coronavirus first began disrupting daily life. Console sales spiked, game sales spiked and the number of people playing online games at any one point hit record highs. Even mobile games found success, and companies like Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA ) racked up buy recommendations. Now, Axios’ Dan Primack has some exciting news in the IPO world. Remember, this week marked a major return to initial public offerings — and the biggest debut year to date. According to Primack, two companies are prepping for IPOs , and their businesses center on mobile and casual gaming. South Korea’s DoubleDown Interactive filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission to raise on Tuesday to raise up to $100 million . DoubleDown develops and publishes mobile and web-based games, including DoubleDown Casino , DoubleDown Fort Knox and Ellen’s Road to Riches . According to Renaissance Capital, the company averages 3 million players per month and brought in $281 million in revenue in the last year. One key thing to note here is how popular the digital world of gambling has become amid the pandemic. Just today, InvestorPlace’s Mark Hake shared his bullish take on Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) — and one of his key areas of interest was its online offerings . Story continues The other key IPO to watch is Playtika . The company is based in Israel, but is owned currently by a Chinese investment group. Like DoubleDown, it produces casino-themed mobile games, and runs apps for poker and solitaire. According to Reuters , the IPO could raise as much as $1 billion . Wayfair Stock Is Still a Buy as E-Commerce Dominates [Wednesday, June 3, 10:39 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The novel coronavirus is accelerating adoption of e-commerce. Brick-and-mortar retailers are the biggest losers, and those with strong digital presence are winners. Americans took time in lockdown to embrace home-improvement projects, and a number of stocks standout as a result. Wayfair (NYSE: W ), which we’ve recommended in this blog before, is up 100% in 2020 and 700% since March. No, that isn’t a typo, and the massive rally doesn’t mean that it’s time to sell Wayfair stock. In fact, Piper Sandler analyst Peter Keith is confident shares will keep climbing. According to Barron’s Eric Savitz, the analyst is so confident that he just raised his price target from $220 to $225 . Shares currently trade for just under $190. A big part of Keith’s argument is simply that more consumers are now comfortable with online shopping for various products, including furniture and other home goods. They’ve realized how convenient Wayfair is, so they’ll keep using the site as they tackle home-improvement projects. One key point of evidence for this is that in May, even as states began reopening, Wayfair’s sales did not decelerate. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto agrees, acknowledging that to many his “buy” recommendation on Wayfair sounds contrarian. He wrote late last week that Wayfair is likely to benefit from three big catalysts , including growth in the real estate market, an improving unemployment landscape and the strength of big cities. In other words, the panic filling the headlines isn’t the full story. According to Savitz, there’s one more timely catalyst. As protests across the U.S. continue to result in damage to brick-and-mortar retailers , companies with an online focus such as Wayfair will benefit. 4 Silver Stocks to Buy for Pandemic Portfolio Protection [Wednesday, June 3, 10:17 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We often report in this blog about the power of gold stocks, writing just yesterday about extraordinary gains that are soon to come. But InvestorPlace’s Tezcan Gecgil is encouraging investors not to forget about the power of silver stocks, too. Yesterday, Gecgil wrote that just like gold, silver can be a powerful portfolio hedge. Some hold the physical metal, others clutch onto silver stocks as fears of inflation rise. Right now, silver is underperforming, and it’s particularly cheap relative to gold. But Gecgil — and many others on Wall Street — believe a rally in silver stocks is just around the corner. If you agree with Gecgil, or are perhaps just a fan of that scout song, here are the four silver stocks she’s recommending now : Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL ) Mag Silver (NYSEMKT: MAG ) Silvercorp Metals (NYSEMKT: SVM ) Global X Silver Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: SIL ) Stocks Open Higher Wednesday Despite Continued Protests [Wednesday, June 3, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Nope, nothing has changed. Stocks continued their rally Wednesday morning, and so did protests across the United States. Helicopters and additional military units are now present in Washington, D.C. Investors still don’t seem to care as they chase the reopening rebound. Those bulls were rewarded this morning with an estimate-beating private payroll report from ADP. Economists predicted that U.S. employers would cut 9 million private payrolls in May, but the number instead came in just below 2.8 million . That’s strikingly better than the almost 20 million private payrolls cut in April. It looks like nothing can shake the rally today — or perhaps for the rest of the week. The S&P 500 , the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite once again opened in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.69% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.84% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.59% Stocks Close Higher Tuesday on Curious Optimism [Tuesday, June 2, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Stocks once again closed higher, on what only can be called curious optimism. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, in talking with different market strategists, concluded that investors must not be worried about ongoing protests across the U.S. and the potential for a second wave of the novel coronavirus. Why? As Heritage Capital CIO Paul Schatz said, investors simply believe it all won’t hurt the stock market. For now, it’s too early to tell if those confident investors are right. At the same time, some economic indicators are continuing to trend higher. Four companies are prepping for initial public offerings this week, including one IPO that will be the largest year to date. As we reported this morning, a key manufacturing index is trending higher. Plus, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits each week has been dropping. It’s an uneasy balancing act, but the bulls are winning. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 , the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.82% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.05% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.59% Buy Home Depot and Lowe’s Stock as DIY Spirit Grows [Tuesday, June 2, 3:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There’s something about spending endless hours at home that provokes the do-it-yourself mentality. Perhaps it’s the frustration that grows from staring at unsavory parts of a home or garden, or maybe an urge to introduce creativity to time in quarantine. Regardless, DIY spirit is growing, and Home Depot (NYSE: HD ) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW ) stock are benefiting. Commenting on this trend, InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn took a look at both home-improvement stocks . His conclusion was that Home Depot is more popular with contractors, making its business slightly riskier. On the other hand, he sees Lowe’s as better suited for the curious homeowner. First-quarter sales at both companies were up despite the novel coronavirus. At the time, Blankenhorn cautioned that although each offers a dividend and relatively stable business, a prolonged recession would be damaging to the duo. Now, summer is here and all U.S. states are taking steps to reopen. That bodes well for the home-improvement stocks here. Consumers that began projects in quarantine will face inspiration from warm weather on weekends, and many white-collar workers will remain at home for weeks and months to come. Plus, as non-essential businesses get the green light to reopen, contractors and other home-improvement businesses will resume work. Reporting from Retail Dive’s Tatiana Walk-Morris also should bring investors some excitement. In mid-May, Apptopia data showed that downloads of Home Depot and Lowe’s apps were through the roof. Digital sales, in turn, spiked for both companies . This shows that the home-improvement retailers are quickly pivoting to consumer preference. Today, Walk-Morris shared even more exciting news. Lowe’s is rolling out an augmented reality tool for home-improvement professionals . That way, if consumers don’t feel comfortable opening their homes just yet, important business can continue through virtual design appointments. This keeps professionals and homeowners safe, and speaks highlight of Lowe’s innovative abilities. It’s clear that Home Depot and Lowe’s are far from boring investments, and they both offer big potential here. Download the apps, start planning and stay safe. 6 Gambling Stocks to Buy as Las Vegas Reopens [Tuesday, June 2, 3:16 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Over the last several weeks, much of the conversation around casinos has been focused on the hypothetical. Some investors have developed theories about big rebounds when casinos and race tracks reopen. Others have flocked to online betting plays and League of Legends tournaments . Now though, there’s no longer a need to be hypothetical. The Las Vegas Strip reopens Thursday, June 4. According to CNN’s Matt Villano, Las Vegas will likely still be an escape for tourists, but it will look different. Nightclubs and spas will broadly remain closed, and some large events aren’t returning anytime soon. However, hotels and casinos are reopening — with a few adjustments. Now that there’s a plan in place, investors have a chance to buy gambling stocks for a more concrete reopening rebound. That’s why InvestorPlace’s David Moadel is recommending gambling stocks now. In his first set of recommendations , he acknowledges that these are speculative plays — just like the games themselves. But they’re beaten-down and ready to shoot higher. Yesterday, he added one more stock to his “buy” list. According to Moadel, MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM ) is “mangled” but worthy of investor attention right now . That’s because with Las Vegas reopening, it’s only a matter of time before Wall Street hops on the gambling bandwagon. When it does, these names will be big winners. Here are the six stocks he’s recommending now: Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS ) Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR ) Esports Entertainment (NASDAQ: GMBL ) Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD ) Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM ) Buy CVS Stock on News of Autonomous Delivery Program [Tuesday, June 2, 2:45 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There are many reasons to like CVS Health (NYSE: CVS ) amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Some locations offer testing, and all carry critical over-the-counter medications and essential goods. As InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn often highlights, its pharmacy business is top notch . Recent news makes that case even clearer, as CVS moves into robotic prescription delivery. In a May 28 press release, robotics company Nuro announced it had entered into a partnership with CVS to pilot autonomous prescription delivery . Granted, this is small scale to start. Three zip codes near Houston will participate in the program. CVS already offers home delivery of prescriptions , but moving into the realm of autonomous delivery is exciting and holds great potential. To start, customers can request their prescriptions for autonomous delivery, and Nuro’s fleet of self-driving Prius vehicles will do the job. Eventually, Nuro will swap the Prius fleet out for its unique R2 robot . Both Nuro and CVS note the importance of increasing prescription accessibility and convenience — and the novel coronavirus certainly plays into that. In a blog post about the partnership , the Nuro team wrote that such a move can help protect vulnerable people, such as the elderly, as well as simply ensure more Americans can remain safe at home. That doesn’t mean this partnership will lose its luster as the coronavirus fades, however. If CVS manages to expand its autonomous delivery offerings to more cities, expect it to gain popularity. Americans love convenience, and it doesn’t get more convenient than this. The company is already known for its continued innovation, and it’s also a solid investment. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto recently wrote that CVS is a top “boring stock” to buy . But nothing about robotic delivery is boring. Whether you agree with Enomoto and appreciate CVS for its reliable pharmacy and health offerings, or you’re bullish on its autonomous delivery moves, it’s safe to say CVS stock is a buy here. Inpixon Stock Climbs on Contact Tracing Promise [Tuesday, June 2, 2:00 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Airplanes and cruise ships are two different forms of transportation that involve a lot of passengers in close-knit quarters. For operators, that means finding ways to reassure customers that traveling is safe, and that the novel coronavirus is not an increased threat on the seas or in the sky. Inpixon (NASDAQ: INPX ) CEO Nadir Ali excited investors today with the proposition that his company could play a big role in restoring travel demand. Inpixon is a so-called indoor intelligence company . Before the pandemic, it’s customers were shopping malls, big government offices and hospitals. Inpixon creates indoor maps, helps detect the locations of indoor gusts and provides analysis on indoor data. Now, it’s looking to become relevant in pandemic-focused contact tracing. On May 12, Inpixon announced its Workplace Readiness Dashboards — a solution designed to help companies reopen. One of the key features of this announcement is that it will help business track the density of certain “zones.” Once a company knows one zone is hotter than another, it can take steps to spread out patrons and keep things safe. That’s big news in itself, but Ali told USA Today that Inpixon is specifically looking to work with hotels, airlines and cruise ships as they welcome travelers back. That’s even bigger news. From Ali: “If a certain deck is turning yellow to red, maybe [someone] needs to go make sure [it isn’t too crowded]. … If, God forbid, a patient starts developing symptoms or has come down with COVID-19 or some other virus or flu or something, [the cruise line] could also [ask if] that person can identify themselves,” he explained.” This announcement is sure to be met with privacy concerns, as Inpixon would rely on information from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cell signals . But for investors, it’s another boost of confidence that battered names like Carnival (NYSE: CCL ) and American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ) are potentially profitable investments now. In turn, that makes Inpixon a worthy investment. Investors agree. Shares are up more than 10% in intraday trading today. 4 Fitness Stocks to Buy as Americans Start Running [Tuesday, June 2, 1:24 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Fitness has been a hotly debated topic amid the novel coronavirus. Some consumers want gyms open now. Others accept that at-home workouts are different, but just as effective. Major operator Gold’s Gym filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection . In all this chaos, running is gaining popularity. According to Yahoo Finance reporter Myles Udland, Americans feel more comfortable with solitary fitness options now — marking a shift from group fitness classes and crowded gyms. Private companies that focus on helping athletes train and track their runs are booming. Downloads of the Strava app are up 222% year-over-year. What does this mean for investors? Udland suggests buying companies that are benefiting — and others that are likely to start benefiting — from an increase in running. A top contender is Nike (NYSE: NKE ). The company’s clothing and shoes have an intense following, and the Nike Training Club app saw a year-over-year download spike of 510%. Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS ) and Deckers Outdoor (NYSE: DECK ) are other potential fitness winners for investors to watch. There’s another company not on Udland’s list that is still worth a buy here. According to Barron’s Teresa Rivas, Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU ) could see its market capitalization hit $50 billion . Rivas cites research from analyst John Kernan who has a “buy” rating and $311 price target on the stock. Similar to Nike, Lululemon has a strong following. Its athleisure is popular at home and at the gym, and the company’s e-commerce options are boosting digital sales. Plus, it doesn’t rely on other retailers for its sales, which helps as brick-and-mortar retail continues to suffer. So, next time you suit up for a run, consider the brands and apps you rep. Your favorite shoes — and whatever your favorite fitness influencer is recommending — are likely to be great investing opportunities. Don’t Miss an Extraordinary Opportunity in Gold Now [Tuesday, June 2, 11:57 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Barron’s Steven Sears shared gripping words with readers today. “As America burns, gold shines.” His commentary was literal, as protests in the U.S. periodically erupt into flames. Stocks have largely brushed off the unrest, even as President Donald Trump suggests further militarizing the country’s response . That doesn’t mean investors aren’t worried, though, as gold begins to rise. Gold’s attraction now is not surprising, as it’s often known as a “crisis” or “safe-haven” investment. The metal similarly drew attention after the U.S. military killed Iran’s Qasem Soleimani and during the peak of the novel coronavirus crisis. Some see gold as the perfect way to hedge a portfolio for times of chaos. If markets begin to crumble, those who hold physical gold have their wealth in their hands. Others simply view it as a hedge against inflation . As the Federal Reserve continues with an unprecedented bond-buying program, many investors have expressed fear over post-pandemic inflation rates. Regardless of the reasoning, InvestorPlace analyst Eric Fry is bullish on gold and is encouraging investors to act now . He wrote this morning that Warren Buffett sees the metal as “lifeless” and “uncivilized,” but that’s not stopping him — or any of the rich people buying and hoarding gold now. In fact, Fry warns that those who take Buffett’s advice will miss out on extraordinary gains as gold shoots higher . To conclude, Sears has one smart strategy to profit now. He recommends buying the September $165 call for the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: GLD ) now. If GLD moves above $171, he says the call purchase will begin to generate profits. 8 Battery Stocks to Buy for Post-Pandemic Innovation [Tuesday, June 2, 10:45 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Remember when Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA ) high-tech Cybertruck was enough to create a media frenzy ? The novel coronavirus has disrupted so much of daily life, and these innovations weren’t exceptions. 5G. Artificial intelligence. Electric vehicles. They’ve fallen by the wayside, but they’ll be back soon. According to InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto, we actually need this next-generation technology to move forward from the pandemic. And this pivot back to tech is already happening, as evidenced by growing work-from-home solutions and even creative new forms of entertainment. For investors, this means battery stocks are hot names to buy now. Enomoto wrote today that these battery stocks will quite literally power the future. He mostly looks at the coveted lithium-ion battery, but he’s not ruling out potential found in alkaline batteries and even a tech retailer. Clearly, you don’t want to miss out. Here’s are the eight battery stocks Enomoto is recommending now : Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (NYSE: SQM ) Albemarle (NYSE: ALB ) Energizer (NYSE: ENR ) Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ) Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH ) Panasonic (OTCMKTS: PCRFY ) Murata Manufacturing (OTCMKTS: MRAAF ) American Battery Metals Corp (OTCMKTS: ABML ) Stocks Open Higher Tuesday as the Rally Continues [Tuesday, June 2, 9:39 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Protests over George Floyd, who Minneapolis police killed last week, continue around the U.S. and the world. President Donald Trump has continued to up the stakes. At the same time, many fear that these mass gatherings will result in a second wave of the novel coronavirus hitting America sooner than expected. In short, there’s no clear reason for stocks to be rallying. Alas, stocks opened higher Tuesday as the rally continues. Perhaps investors are inspired by the Institute of Supply Management’s update to its manufacturing index. It hit 43.1 in May , and anything above 42.8 marks that the economy is not in a recession. The report seems to be an unlikely catalyst, but these days, it’s hard to tell for sure. What will today bring? For now, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.33% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.57% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.11% 7 Unique Travel Stocks to Buy for Domestic Reopening [Monday, June 1, 4:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Viral accounts of Memorial Day weekend travel prove that consumers are much more confident about reopening than previously expected. Packed beaches and pools show the power of pent-up demand. In fact, even air travel and cruise demand are rebounding after Americans spent months at home. With this in mind, InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier is giving the all-clear signal to look for growth opportunities right now . He’s looking at travel stocks in particular, but not just at any name in the space. For instance, he’s focusing on domestic travel, because many international destinations remain on lockdown and are not accessible to American tourists right now. Another part of his argument ties in social distancing. He wrote today that consumers are more likely to pick travel destinations that have adult-friendly entertainment, like casinos and race tracks. Plus, bigger casinos are better, because they allow gamblers to space out more to feel safe. Here are the top out-of-the-box travel stocks Navellier is recommending now : Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) Newgioco Group (NASDAQ: NWGI ) Churchill Downs (NASDAQ: CHDN ) Golden Entertainment (NASDAQ: GDEN ) Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR) Eldorado Resort s (NASDAQ: ERI ) Scientific Games (NASDAQ: SGMS ) Stocks Close Higher Despite Growing Tensions [Monday, June 1, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As trading wraps up on Monday, it’s unclear what caused stocks to reverse course and head higher. Protests continue across the U.S. and President Donald Trump is still stoking tensions with a call to governors to “dominate” the situation in their individual states. Perhaps, as Axios’ Dion Rabouin wrote this morning, this stock market rally is just too tough to beat . It sure looks like it, as the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.38% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.36% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.66% Buy Eli Lilly Stock as It Begins Key Coronavirus Drug Trials [Monday, June 1, 3:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY ) shares are up slightly Monday on news the company has begun human trials of its antibody drug for the novel coronavirus. Unlike other drugs in trial — including Gilead Sciences’ (NASDAQ: GILD ) remdesivir — Eli Lilly’s drug was developed specifically for this virus. In many ways, these human trials are a “milestone” in the race against the pandemic , according to Stat News’ Matthew Herper. AbCellera developed the drug, and now Eli Lilly will work to test and manufacture it. Chief Science Officer Daniel Skavronsky said that the company could potentially have hundreds of thousands or millions of doses ready by the end of 2020. For now, this early trial is just to test the safety of LY-CoV555. According to Herper, 32 individuals will receive different doses of the drug. According to the company’s press release, results from this trial should come at the end of June . From there, Eli Lilly will begin testing the drug in non-hospitalized coronavirus patients. But what’s perhaps a bigger catalyst is the preventive angle of LY-CoV555. What does this mean? Well, vaccines are often not ideal for certain vulnerable populations, making vaccine candidates potentially unhelpful to a very at-risk group. Eli Lilly hopes that its drug — which targets a broad antibody found in patients — could be preventive and protect these populations. Not only does this give it an edge against drug-making peers, it also represents a big catalyst for the stock if the drug is successful in clinical trials. Keep a close eye on LLY stock. Big things could be headed its way. 5 Micro-Cap Stocks to Buy for Big Gains Now [Monday, June 1, 2:50 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith When searching for stocks to profit off of the novel coronavirus, it’s likely big-name companies are some of the top recommendations. Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) and Costco (NASDAQ: COST ) have a lot of brand power, and shares didn’t disappoint in the earliest weeks of stay-at-home orders and panic buying. Now, though, InvestorPlace’s Thomas Niel is looking to micro-cap stocks for pandemic gains. There’s a lot of volatility in the market, and it’s not unheard of these days to see a stock gain 300%-plus in a single day of trading. That’s why micro-cap names that are high risk and high reward hold so much potential. Niel makes one thing very clear. When pursuing these micro-cap opportunities, investors shouldn’t be betting the ranch. Here’s where he’s looking now : Century Casinos (NASDAQ: CNTY ) Funko (NASDAQ: FNKO ) Hexo (NYSE: HEXO ) iBio (NYSEMKT: IBIO ) Mesa Air Group (NASDAQ: MESA ) Gilead Stock Falls Despite New Remdesivir Results [Monday, June 1, 1:50 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) seems to have fallen completely out of favor with investors, but the company is still pushing ahead. On Monday, it announced new results about remdesivir, its novel coronavirus treatment that has received emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For some reason, GILD stock is down 3% in intraday trading. The study showed that patients with “moderate” cases of Covid-19 that received a five-day course of remdesivir were 65% more likely to have their condition improve than those patients receiving standard treatment. Gilead focused on “moderate” cases, using a scale of severity ranging from not hospitalized to requiring extensive care. According to BioPharma Dive’s Jacob Bell, this is important because it shows which patients are likely to benefit from such a treatment . Bell also cited Piper Sandler analyst Tyler Van Buren, who believes the five-day remdesivir treatment should be used in all hospitalized patients. So why is remdesivir not sending GILD shares higher today? Perhaps investors are tired of the back-and-forth results. Or, perhaps it’s because, as InvestorPlace’s Larry Ramer wrote today, many are worried about whether or not Gilead will be able to meaningful profit from remdesivir sales. Ramer isn’t giving up on GILD stock, and he doesn’t think other investors should either. He wrote this morning that many nations continue to expand approval of the drug, and results are still promising. Plus, unlike the naysayers, Ramer believes remdesivir will “move the needle” for Gilead , making it a stock to buy now. This Week’s IPO Stocks Should Give Bulls Some Hope [Monday, June 1, 1:17 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In perhaps the most striking sign that the economy and the stock market are at odds, this week is set to be the biggest IPO week since early February. Unemployment numbers are still climbing and tensions are rising in the U.S. At the same time though, four companies are pushing forward with IPOs as the stock market continues to trend higher. This morning, Axios’ Dion Rabouin wrote that a “pandemic and protests can’t stop the stock market.” In a separate morning release, Axios’ Dan Primack commented that this week’s planned initial public offerings are a symbol of the market’s “decoupling” from the economy . However, Primack also pointed out that economists are quick to say real-time economic realities are not good market indicators. So, while many are doubting the legitimacy of this rally, it’s clear that market sentiment has shifted in a big way. A few weeks ago, IPOs were far from almost everyone’s mind. Now, we’ll have four noteworthy public debuts in one week. What’s on the docket for this week? According to Renaissance Capital, Warner Music Group , which will trade on the Nasdaq Exchange under ticker WMG, will be the largest IPO thus far in 2020 . The record label plans to raise $1.7 billion. Shares will be priced between $23 and $26 . This week will also see software-as-a-service provider ZoomInfo debut as ZI, immuno-oncology company Legend Biotech debut as LEGN and biotech Pliant Therapeutics debut as PLRX. Aytu BioScience Stock Climbs on New Coronavirus Test [Monday, June 1, 12:28 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Although many Americans are regaining confidence and returning to pre-pandemic routines, testing hasn’t lost importance. For the last several weeks, many have speculated that antibody tests — those that specifically test for antibodies that indicate past infection — could allow big offices and schools to reopen. Why? Scientists believe the presence of these antibodies could mean immunity from the virus. Clearly, that’s created a lot of demand for these novel coronavirus tests. Riding out the catalyst today is Aytu BioScience (NASDAQ: AYTU ). Shares are up over 6% in intraday trading. According to the company’s early morning press release, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Aytu’s antibody test emergency-use authorization . The company has already ramped up production of its COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette, and has 1.4 million test kits now available at its San Diego warehouse. One warning: Shares trade for less than $2, even after the morning’s rally. With that in mind, be cautious, but keep an open mind. H.C. Wainwright analyst Vernon Bernadino set a price target of $3 today along with a “buy” rating . That’s more than 100% upside from the current price. 7 Fitness Stocks to Buy for Some Post-Pandemic Muscle [Monday, June 1, 10:50 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Under stay-at-home orders, Americans purchased comfortable athletic wear and at-home workout equipment. Some were even panic-buying luxury gear while their beloved gyms and fitness studios were closed to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. But now, states are reopening, and that means these gyms and studios are reopening too. In some states, gyms were among the first businesses to reopen among growing demand. In others, they will be some of the last. Regardless, the world of fitness will perhaps be permanently changed by the pandemic. After one gym in Atlanta reopened in early May, patrons reported they didn’t feel safe without everyone wearing masks. According to The Wall Street Journal , the compromise was a four-hour period where masks were mandatory . The Atlantic’s Michael Owen speculated on what this post-pandemic world of fitness will look like. Reduced capacity for group fitness classes. Latex gloves for weightlifting. Pre-booked workout windows. In other words, things will be different. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek is bullish on a specific group of fitness stocks for the new normal. Instead of rushing to invest in gyms that have yet to fully reopen, he’s looking at athletic wear and at-home fitness companies that are likely to retain many new consumers. Plus, he’s looking at diet-focused brands that will gain popularity as Americans leave quarantine. Here are the seven stocks he thinks you should buy now : Nike (NYSE: NKE ) Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON ) Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU ) Under Armour (NYSE: UA , NYSE: UAA ) BellRing Brands (NYSE: BRBR ) Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL ) Fitbit (NYSE: FIT ) Stocks Open Lower Monday on U.S. Unrest [Monday, June 1, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Stock futures held up until just before the opening bell, when they dropped further into the red. Protests over the death of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police last week, dominated much of the news this weekend. Target (NYSE: TGT ) has temporarily closed or adjusted hours at more than 200 stores. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) is changing some delivery routes . Elsewhere in the corporate world, companies are publishing statements of support for Floyd’s family and the Black Lives Matter movement. Although U.S.-China trade tensions have taken a backseat, matters are still escalating. This morning, Bloomberg reported that the nation has asked its top state-run agricultural companies to halt purchases of U.S. agriculture products including soybeans. Many take this as a sign that the phase-one trade deal remains in jeopardy. The stock market demonstrated resiliency last week, but it’s unclear what today will bring. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened in the red Monday. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.26% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.33% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.24% Stocks Turn Positive on Trump’s Trade Comments [Friday, May 29, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Bulls didn’t achieve a monumental victory in the stock market today, but they at least pulled off a turnaround. President Donald Trump’s scheduled comments on U.S.-China relations weren’t as bad as expected. He did say the U.S. would move to end special trade treatment toward Hong Kong . However, investors are cheering because he didn’t abandon the existing phase-one trade deal. Elsewhere in the market, Twitter (NYSE: TWTR ) continued its fall, and social media peer Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) joined it in the red. Who knows what Trump’s latest attack on the platforms will bring next week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average failed to turn things around, but the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are headed into the weekend in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.48% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.07% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.29% GlaxoSmithKline Stock Is a Buy on CRISPR Partnership [Friday, May 29, 2:02 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Many investors have likely heard about the CRISPR gene-editing technique, especially in association with next-generation healthcare or red-hot biotech stocks. As OneZero writer Emily Mullin put it on Wednesday, the novel coronavirus is giving this science a much more realistic end goal — test kits. Inspired by at-home pregnancy tests — relatively simple to use for the average consumer — a handful of companies, public and private, are working to make a CRISPR-based coronavirus test. Such a test would beat the costs and inconvenience associated with lab testing, and could deliver results in less than hour. Notable cons include the potential for test misinterpretation. For investors, one exciting entrant into this space is pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK ). The company is already working on a vaccine candidate for the coronavirus, but through a partnership with Mammoth Biosciences , it’s also working on a 20-minute test kit. According to FierceBiotech’s Conor Hale, the test would require an at-home nasal swab and would be sold over the counter. The duo’s offering would greatly improve the accessibility of these diagnostic tools, and using the CRISPR gene-editing technique would ensure more reliable results. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already granted Sherlock Biosciences emergency-use authorization for a similar test . However, Sherlock’s is not designed for at-home use and requires lab equipment. So-called “designer babies” and next-gen cancer cures may seem far away, but CRISPR’s use in combating the coronavirus is quite tangible. Getting into a partnership like GSK’s and Mammoth’s sounds like a win-win opportunity for investors. 9 Cheap Stocks to Buy for Pandemic Rebound Potential [Friday, May 29, 1:32 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There has always been something magical about cheap stocks, and the novel coronavirus makes their appeal even brighter. Why? Even stalwart companies have struggled, which means that solid stocks are now available at discount prices. Plus, some riskier names now come with bigger rebound potential. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto recommended nine cheap stocks today. He argues that his list would benefit from both a V-shaped and a prolonged recovery, because regardless of the timeline, his picks are headed up. So what exactly are his picks? Enomoto is looking to the world of vice, as he thinks pent-up demand will drive a rebound in beer sales and strip club visits. Plus, he’s betting on psychedelic drugs (for medicinal use) and a handful of more recognizable and respectable companies. Here are the nine cheap stocks he thinks you should buy now : AT&T (NYSE: T ) Altria Group (NYSE: MO ) RCI Hospitality (NASDAQ: RICK ) Molson Coors Beverage (NYSE: TAP ) Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD ) Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY ) Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG ) ViacomCBS (NASDAQ: VIAC ) Champignon Brands (OTCMKTS: SHRMF ) Sonoma Pharmaceuticals Soars on Disinfectant Approval [Friday, May 29, 12:09 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Has anyone found any Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) disinfectant products yet? It seems like whenever I look, shelves are still empty. In other words, virus-fighting disinfectants are still in high demand, and that bodes well for California-based Sonoma Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SNOA ). Shares are up more than 150% in intraday trading on news that Sonoma’s Nanocyn disinfectant and sanitizer product received approval from Australia’s Register of Therapeutic Goods. This approval means that Sonoma can now market its disinfectant as a virucidal agent specifically against the novel coronavirus. Hello, Clorox-esque rally! Sonoma works with MicroSafe Group , a Dubai-based biomedical company, to produce its Nanocyn product. This means that in Australia, the product will be sold under the Nanocyn brand. In Europe and the Middle East, it will be sold as a MicroSafe product. MicroSafe CEO Safa Qadumi said that this disinfectant is important for more than one reason. It has a 30-second kill time for viruses, and it’s not toxic. That combination is “landmark” according to Qadumi. It’s also landmark for Sonoma Pharmaceuticals stock, which could continue to benefit from a spike in sales. Now that it’s able to market its product specifically with Covid-19 in mind, look for consumers to stock up on Nanocyn soon. Buy Shopify Stock for Its New Pandemic-Driven Solutions [Friday, May 29, 11:18 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Some, like InvestorPlace’s Joel Baglole, think Shopify (NYSE: SHOP ) is running out of growth potential . To be fair, shares are up almost 90% year-to-date and trade at an astronomical forward price-earnings ratio. But investors shouldn’t knock SHOP stock here. In fact, its new e-commerce solutions shows Shopify knows exactly what to do moving forward. To start, Shopify is a partner in Facebook’s (NASDAQ: FB ) much-hyped Facebook Shops rollout . As Baglole writes, it’s not the only e-commerce partner that Facebook has tapped. But Shopify will still get access to Facebook’s 2.6 billion monthly active users as businesses begin selling products directly through social media platforms. Shopify is also recognizing the needs of small and medium-sized business owners, especially as the novel coronavirus continues to decimate and shift the retail landscape. Its new Shopify Balance will help shop owners track their expenses and make payments . Cards associated with the plan will earn rewards on business expenses. Plus, a new local delivery program will allow merchants to define “local” areas and set special delivery rates within those areas. This will certainly help small businesses get creative. But perhaps the most exciting new offering is Shopify Pay Installments. Similar to offerings from Klarna and Afterpay (OTCMKTS: AFTPY ) — a company we previously praised in this blog — Shopify Pay Installments embraces “buy now, pay later.” This service was gaining serious popularity with retailers and shoppers before the pandemic, but as Retail Dive’s Tatiana Walk-Morris wrote, it’s even more of a logical move now . Buy now, pay later solutions make even high-priced purchases seem a bit more reasonable. Plus, as consumers continue to struggle financially, every dollar saved in the short term really does matter. Shopify has tapped into a key market, and giving its customers Pay Installments should seriously pay off. With that in mind, make sure to give SHOP stock a chance as it gains further e-commerce dominance. 7 Vaccine Stocks to Buy as the Research Race Heats Up [Friday, May 29, 10:49 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The 1950s and 1960s had the Space Race. In 2020, investors now have the “coronavirus vaccine race” as companies big and small work to develop, manufacture and market a potential cure for the novel coronavirus. To date, there are over 100 candidates in various stages of development and clinical trial. Each company in the running has big potential. A vaccine will bring a safer reopening, a return to the “normal” so many Americans miss. Plus, it would represent just how far technology has come as researchers work to develop the vaccine in record time. President Donald Trump is even calling a U.S. initiative Operation Warp Speed , demonstrating his intentions to quickly vaccinate the U.S. population. In a field with more than 100 candidates, how do you start betting on the winner? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango is rallying behind what he sees as the top seven vaccine stocks. These companies will benefit from their ability to scale production quickly. Here’s a look at the seven stocks he’s recommending now : Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) Inovio (NASDAQ: INO ) Dynavax (NASDAQ: DVAX ) Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) Sorrento (NASDAQ: SRNE ) Arcturus (NASDAQ: ARCT ) iBio (NYSEMKT: IBIO ) Stocks Open Lower Friday on Rising U.S.-China Tensions [Friday, May 29, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s almost the weekend, but investors are getting a rough start in the stock market today. Tech stocks are still struggling, and things aren’t necessarily looking up. President Donald Trump plans on holding a press conference later in the day to discuss how his administration wants to move forward with China. His administration is pushing back on Beijing’s relationship with Hong Kong, but threats of sanctions, tariffs and limited visas could spell disaster for Silicon Valley. Plus, Trump is once again taking aim at social media companies after Twitter (NYSE: TWTR ) applied new fact-checking and censorship protocols to a handful of the president’s tweets. TWTR shares opened down after tumbling 4.5% on Thursday. Will weekend enthusiasts be able to pull of a rally by the end of the day? It seems unlikely now, but you never know what is possible. In the meantime, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.21% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.52% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.46% These 6 Companies Will Be Winners After the Pandemic [Thursday, May 28, 4:34 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It should be abundantly clear that the novel coronavirus has changed “normal” life, and that some of these changes will be permanent in nature. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we are moving to a future devoid of human contact and in-person work. Instead, I’m recognizing that the pandemic is accelerating certain megatrends, and making many consumers familiar with new trends like e-commerce. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch today recommended six companies that stand to be winners for the next decade. He wrote that these companies have stood out since the market-wide selloff in March, and their underlying trends will continue to accelerate in the future. His list covers big trends. E-commerce. Telemedicine. Contactless payments. Fintech. We’ve seen how restaurants quickly abandoned cash for in-app payment experiences. Doctors closed non-essential offices in favor of telehealth offerings. Brick-and-mortar retailers have lost out to e-commerce sites. Those trends won’t reverse, they’ll simply accelerate. To invest for the next decade, here are Markoch’s six recommendations : PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Square (NYSE: SQ ) Shopify (NYSE: SHOP ) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Verizon (NYSE: VZ ) Teladoc Health (NYSE: TDOC ) 6 European Stocks to Buy for an EU Bailout Plan [Thursday, May 28, 4:12 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In an effort to bail out more tourism-dependent countries, the European Union just unveiled a $2 trillion stimulus proposal . The plan combines over $800 billion in recovery funds with a $1.2 trillion budget for the next seven years. European stocks rose on the news, but some EU member nations are already pushing against it. Germany and France, among the EU’s wealthiest nations, have been better able to inject cash into struggling companies. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, Greece, which gets much of its revenue from tourism, faces major economic pain and lacks necessary resources to address it. As with any big-ticket bill, the proposed stimulus is controversial. To start, it would include the issuance of common eurozone debt. Repayments would begin in 2028, and according to The Wall Street Journal , would be funded through bloc-wide taxes and member-state contributions. The potential “bad guys” in this news have been dubbed the Frugal Four — Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria. According to the team at Morning Brew , these northern states are “spooked” at the thought of taking on so much debt on behalf of struggling economies. Investors should prepare for weeks of debate and changes to the proposal, as all 27 nations must agree. All the debate isn’t preventing a rally in European stocks. Just like how the CARES Act brought hope for the hardest-hit industries, companies in Europe are feeling relief this week . Car maker Renault (OTCMKTS: RNSLY ) is up 30% in the last five trading days. Airlines Ryanair (OTCMKTS: RYAAY ) and Lufthansa (OTCMKTS: DLAKY ) are up 11% and 19%, respectively. Just like in the United States, banks have been some of the losers . That means on a bailout-driven rally, they’re likely to be some of the winners. Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN ) is up 9% in the last five trading days. Societe Generale (OTCMKTS: SCGLY ) and BNP Paribas (OTCMKTS: BNPQY ) are up 13% and 20%, respectively. These six stocks are just a start, but they represent investment opportunities on the lessons learned in the U.S. Keep an eye on players in other hard-hit industries, and make sure to tune into the inevitable EU drama over the next few weeks. Stocks Cut Gains Thursday as U.S. Death Toll Rises [Thursday, May 28, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Today’s rally was just too good to be true. Stocks reversed course, heading into the red, although the S&P 500 remains above the key 3,000 level. So, what happened in the stock market today? Investors cheered on good news from Novartis (NYSE: NVS ) and Arca Biopharma (NASDAQ: ABIO ) about novel coronavirus treatments. However, an update that the death toll in the United States has now surpassed 100,000 is disheartening. Plus, investors learned this morning that 2.1 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Every step forward is met with two steps back these days. Unfortunately, the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite just couldn’t hold onto their early morning gains. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.21% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.58% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.46% Is Amazon Stock a Buy on Pending Zoox Deal? [Thursday, May 28, 3:13 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) is, without a doubt, one of the biggest winners amid the novel coronavirus. The company continues to benefit from its e-commerce dominance, its Whole Foods grocery chain and its streaming entertainment library. New moves into the video game world are also drawing praise from investors. And, as The Wall Street Journal reported this week, Amazon is also making another move into the world of self-driving vehicles. Cara Lombardo and Tim Higgins wrote on Tuesday that Amazon was allegedly in talks to acquire Zoox , a company working on the hardware and software for robot taxis . The duo wrote that after struggling to attract necessary financing, the startup has been struggling. A sale to Amazon could prolong its ideas, and potentially give Amazon an edge in the next-generation car world. Although the deal has not been confirmed, many predict Amazon would pay no more than $3.2 billion for Zoox. Barron’s Eric Savitz likes the rumors, noting that Amazon could become a leader in the ride-hailing market , knocking out Uber (NYSE: UBER ) and Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT ). Sure, those two companies have had a bit of a duopoly, but they aren’t holding up well in the face of a pandemic. This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into the vehicle realm . It has previously invested in electric truck maker Rivian and Aurora Innovations , a company behind other self-driving tech. With this in mind, some see Amazon’s interest in Zoox as an even more cunning move. Axios’ Joann Muller wrote yesterday that if anything, Amazon is seeking to improve its logistics offerings as e-commerce demand skyrockets. It is already working with Rivian and Aurora to produce 100,000 electric delivery trucks, and as Muller wrote, it could tap Zoox’s hardware and software to add self-driving or other high-tech features to this plan. Competition in e-commerce is heating up and Amazon clearly wants to maintain its dominance. It’s not at risk yet, but continuing innovation is key. A purchase of Zoox could one day translate to even more profits for Amazon shareholders. 4 Stocks to Buy for Prolonged Social Distancing [Thursday, May 28, 3:00 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Pictures of Brooklyn’s Domino Park — where sunbathers relax in chalk circles spaced six feet apart — may seem like a city art experiment. Instead, it’s a sign of the times, as Americans yearn for time in the summer sun while still maintaining expert-recommended social distancing protocols. It’s also a sign of how states are struggling to strike a balance between reopening their economies and protecting concerned consumers. This push for balance is what inspired InvestorPlace’s Laura Hoy to make four stock recommendations today. Drawing on advice from University of Texas at Austin’s Brad Gold , she argues that the best stocks to buy are ones that will benefit both from reopening and social distancing. It sounds like a tough ask, but her recommendations deliver just that. The stocks on her list combine work-from-home trends, reopening restaurants and staple American businesses. Without further ado, here are Hoy’s four recommendations : Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX ) 3M (NYSE: MMM ) Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX ) Arca Biopharma Stock Is a Unique Coronavirus Play [Thursday, May 28, 2:41 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There’s no sense burying the big news. Arca Biopharma (NASDAQ: ABIO ) stock is up 340% in intraday trading. Yep, you read that right. Shares opened yesterday below $4 and now trade above $15. This is truly spectacular price action — but there’s good reason for the leap. Many biotech and pharmaceutical companies have chosen to fight the novel coronavirus through test kits, vaccines and antiviral drugs. We have Gilead’s (NASDAQ: GILD ) remdesivir and Abbott Laboratories’ (NYSE: ABT ) test kits and over 100 vaccines in the race. But Arca Biopharma is offering something new to the market with its symptom-focused treatment. To start, Covid-19 typically presents as an infection in the upper portion of the respiratory tract. But, as investors have surely seen in the news, the outbreak comes with a whole host of symptoms. Children are getting blisters on their feet , pregnant women are reporting unique side effects and other patients are seeing far-reaching impacts on various organs. One complaint is a coagulopathy — an inability to form blood clots — specific to Covid-19. It’s not entirely clear what the association is , or why it’s happening in so many patients. But, researchers do know that the presence of this coagulopathy is linked to increase risk of death in Covid-19 patients . That’s where Arca Biopharma comes in. The company announced that it is developing its AB201 as a treatment for this coagulopathy . One good thing is that the treatment has already been studied for safety and efficacy for other conditions, including Ebola, so it may be able to go through a more rapid process. In its Thursday press release, the company says it hopes to move to Phase 2b and Phase 3 trials by the second half of the year. Keep a close eye on ABIO stock. One of the most attention-grabbing details of this virus is the various ways in which it impacts human life. As companies like Arca Biopharma work to treat unpredictable symptoms, there’s certainly profits to be made. Novartis Stock Climbs After Jumping Into the Vaccine Race [Thursday, May 28, 2:13 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Novartis (NYSE: NVS ) may have divested its vaccine business to GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK ) in 2015, but that doesn’t mean the pharmaceutical giant is prepared to sit this fight out. In fact, it dove into the race to develop a novel coronavirus vaccine on Thursday through a partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear . So how exactly does this partnership work? Novartis is contributing through its AveXis gene therapy unit. This unit is already familiar with a specific type of gene therapy delivery tool, known as adeno-associated virus (ADV). The Massachusetts hospital group has already begun developing and researching a vaccine that used this same tool. Its AAVCOVID is in preclinical trials, and could move to Phase 1 human trials by the second half of 2020. Apparently investors still have an appetite for new vaccine stocks. Despite the fact that there are more than 100 other candidates, 30 of which use this same type of vaccine technology , NVS shares are up almost 3% Thursday in intraday trading. Why? BioPharma Dive’s Jonathan Gardner wrote today that one particular area of interest is the hospital’s early move to partner with Novartis’ AveXis . The gene therapy unit will be particularly helpful in commercial manufacturing and distribution, which shows that there’s a high level of confidence about the vaccine. In a time where a vaccine is in sky-high demand, such a bold move is likely exactly what investors are looking for. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, big rewards will come to the vaccine winner. Novartis has a big reputation and a lot of power behind its name. As the race heats up, it’s certainly a contender to watch. 10 Coronavirus Stocks to Buy to Invest Like Jim Cramer [Thursday, May 28, 1:30 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith CNBC’s Jim Cramer has been working since late April on his “Cramer Covid-19 Index.” Just as the name suggests, the TV analyst has been perfecting a portfolio of stocks that are set to outperform the broader market. There are 100 stocks in this index, and Cramer picked each one for an economy he describes as “reeling” amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Now that March’s selloff is mostly in the rear-view mirror and economic reports are trending higher, some are calling for a V-shaped — or quick — recovery. But Cramer thinks it’s too soon to give up on what he’s calling “recession stocks.” That’s why, as MarketWatch’s Shawn Langlois wrote yesterday, the analyst is making some changes to the portfolio. He sold stocks like Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR ), Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT ) and Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ). These stocks have been hot, but Cramer is looking for even more defensive names. If you want to invest like Cramer, here are 10 stocks he just added to his Covid-19 index : DataDog (NASDAQ: DDOG ) Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK ) Twilio (NYSE: TWLO ) Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY ) Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX ) Chegg (NYSE: CHGG ) Target (NYSE: TGT ) S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI ) Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW ) Emergent (NYSE: EBS ) 7 Gun Stocks to Buy to Protect Yourself From the Virus [Thursday, May 28, 11:07 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto wrote this morning, the novel coronavirus is creating a wave of fear and scapegoating. In turn, this has caused firearm sales to go through the roof. Sure, Enomoto acknowledges that he’s a bit of a cynic, but he’s likely not wrong. More consumers buying guns means more revenue for the gun manufacturers and retailers. That’s some easy math. No, this isn’t like gun-toting southerners threatening to shoot into hurricanes to drive them off. In fact, as Enomoto writes, nothing about this investing opportunity is particularly warm and fuzzy in nature. Many Asian Americans have become victims of pandemic-related racial violence , as some falsely believe individuals are to blame for the outbreak. In response, many Asian Americans are buying firearms. To Enomoto, that represents a growing customer base and a growing investing thesis. If you want to follow his lead, here are seven gun stocks he’s recommending investors buy now : American Outdoor Brands (NASDAQ: AOBC ) Sturm Ruger (NYSE: RGR ) Vista Outdoor (NYSE: VSTO ) Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN) Sportsman’s Warehouse (NASDAQ: SPWH ) Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AAXN ) Big 5 Sporting Goods (NASDAQ: BGFV ) Pizza Stocks Offer Cheesy Returns Amid the Pandemic [Thursday, May 28, 10:35 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As consumers have abandoned healthy eating in favor of comfort foods, pizza has become a serious winner. I mean, who doesn’t love pizza? That thinking is why Longbow analyst Alton Stump set new “buy” ratings on Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ ) and Papa John’s (NASDAQ: PZZA ) today. Domino’s reported first-quarter figures on April 23, but since then, it’s seen a “material” spike in business. As Barron’s Teresa Rivas wrote yesterday, comparable-store sales were up 20.9% in May compared to a 7.1% increase in April. No wonder Stump is so bullish on pizza stocks. Based on Domino’s recent report, Stump is confident that DPZ stock will continue to benefit from the novel coronavirus. DPZ stock trades hands near $370, and Stump raised his 12-month price target to $441. Papa John’s is a smaller operator, and Rivas says many investors are worried about its longer-term potential. Whereas Domino’s is likely to push through even as states reopen and dine-in restaurant options return, Papa John’s might lose its spark. That’s not stopping Stump, though. PZZA stock currently trades at $77, and the Longbow analyst things it could hit $95 in a year . Pizza is warm, cheesy goodness nicely packed up in a cardboard box. Woes related to the coronavirus will persist for a long time, and pizza will be there to comfort consumers. If I were you, I wouldn’t bet against pizza stocks. Stocks Open Higher Thursday Despite Jobless Report [Thursday, May 28, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith This week’s rally is looking pretty tough. Investors learned that 2.1 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week , bringing the total to over 40 million. But the mass selling hasn’t started yet. Sure, 2.1 million is a lot better than 6.9 million. Is this “victory” cause for more stock market gains on Thursday? The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher on Thursday, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite wasn’t so lucky. Earnings from HP (NYSE: HPQ ) missed estimates, and investors are wary as U.S.-China trade tensions rise once again. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.35% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.74% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.15% Stocks Close Higher Wednesday Despite Trade Troubles [Wednesday, May 27, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Nothing could stop Wednesday’s rally, not even renewed trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Hong Kong was “no longer autonomous” from China, raising concerns about its special trade status and broader U.S.-China relations. A handful of tech companies stumbled on the news. However, Pompeo’s comments didn’t turn stocks negative. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed well in the green Wednesday. Now it’s just time to wait and see if the SpaceX launch goes as planned. The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.48% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.21% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.77% Goldman Sachs: Look for Companies With ‘Sticky’ Sales [Wednesday, May 27, 3:49 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Since early March, investors have largely been interested in so-called coronavirus stocks. Grocery stores, makers of comfort foods and take-out focused restaurants were among the winners. Now, as states move forward with reopening plans, Goldman Sachs is highlighting that not all of these winners will remain relevant. So, what stocks are worth holding onto — or buying — now? In a new note to clients, the firm examined the household penetration of several key consumer products. Based on this research, analysts concluded that most of these demand spikes will be temporary. However, two winners will be hard seltzer and sanitizer (subscription required). What a combo. Why seltzer and sanitizer? Goldman thinks these products have a certain stickiness to them. Consumers who started buying them will likely continue, as they’ve become part of everyday life. With that in mind, Boston Beer Company (NYSE: SAM ) and Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG ) are likely long-term winners according to the analysts. That makes sense. InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall is a fan of SAM stock, writing in mid-May that even a pandemic can’t bring it down . Boston Beer’s Truly seltzer has become a consumer favorite, and the company is also embracing innovation. It’s turning expired beer into hand sanitizer . And InvestorPlace analyst Neil George is a big fan of PG stock. He wrote that it’s one of the best long-term stocks for investors to buy and hold . After shares stalled out, he’s pleased to see the company focusing more on shareholders. Plus, a dividend yield of 2.8% is juicy compared to the S&P 500 . 2 Stocks to Buy to Profit From the $32 Billion Resale Market [Wednesday, May 27, 3:22 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Retailers are struggling, but many experts believe the online resale market is booming. Robb Report’s Jemima Sissons wrote last week that consumers are “detoxing” luxury wardrobes , posting them on online resale platforms. Others are looking for the right luxury accessories (think designer silk scarves) for pandemic living. For individual consumers, this trend represents a great way to make a little bit of money back, or to swap out one luxury item for another. Vestiaire Collective reported a 44% increase of new listings in the last month as work-from-home lounge items and sub-$500 goods drew interest. But there’s also a way for investors to benefit from the online resale market — which some say is worth $32 billion. The first entry point is The RealReal (NASDAQ: REAL ). A recent IPO stock, The RealReal is the first publicly traded online resale platform. Its luxury focus has similarly brought it success amid the viral outbreak. In mid-May, it hosted a designer mask sale to support frontline workers. The RealReal hasn’t been immune from the novel coronavirus , but it’s up almost 40% in the last month. Wealthy customers will soon regain confidence, and that will translate to big rewards for the company. New reporting from Business Insider’s Hayley Peterson highlights a second investment opportunity in this resale market. Walmart (NYSE: WMT ) just announced a partnership with ThredUp . Today, Walmart began selling used clothing, footwear and handbags on the resale platform . Walmart customers get free shipping on $35-plus orders and free returns — two perks not previously available on ThredUp. Whether you opt for familiar Walmart or newcomer The Real Real, the investing opportunity is solid, and the pandemic is only accelerating things. Freshpet and Chewy Are Unique E-Commerce Plays Now [Wednesday, May 27, 2:42 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith No matter how smart Fido and Mr. Mittens are, they can’t fully grasp the consequences of the novel coronavirus. For many pets, the pandemic simply means beloved owners are now stuck at home. These pets also represent one constant as Americans face a series of changes: Dogs and cats still need to eat. Humans grasp that grocery stores aren’t exactly the safest places right now. Pets don’t care about Instacart and strategic shopping trips. They’re simply hungry for food and treats. As consumers balance their care-giving duties with personal health, Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT ) and Chewy (NYSE: CHWY ) have become hot stocks. In fact, Supermarket News reported that 83% of consumers surveyed now will buy pet products online , although they previously would have opted for the in-store experience. That bodes really well for Freshpet and Chewy stock. Freshpet bills itself as the future of pet food . Ingredients include locally sourced chicken, cranberries and spinach. Shoppers can get it delivered through Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), Instacart and Target’s (NYSE: TGT ) Shipt. According to CNBC , Freshpet even caught Jim Cramer’s attention as a great way way to beat the S&P 500 in 2020. The story with Chewy is similar. Instead of trekking to the grocery store or pet store, shoppers can get food, treats, toys and clothing for the pets delivered right to their door in a signature blue box. Talk about brand recognition. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto is bullish on Chewy, especially for younger investors. He wrote earlier in May that while Chewy’s operations aren’t always ideal (it struggled initially to meet the spike in demand), investors who get in now will certainly reap rewards . As Freshpet and Chewy continue to rack up analyst praise (subscription required), there’s no denying that they represent the future of pet food. Trust me, your furry friends will appreciate these investments. Is It Time to Buy AT&T Stock as HBO Max Launches? [Wednesday, May 27, 1:49 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Today marked the long-awaited launch of AT&T’s (NYSE: T ) HBO Max streaming service. For a $14.99 a month customers get access to 10,000 hours of existing TV shows and movies. Top titles include Friends , Rick and Morty and the DC films like Wonder Woman . Is this the catalyst AT&T stock has been waiting for? To be fair, the launch has its critics . HBO Max’s price tag comes slightly higher than other offerings from Disney (NYSE: DIS ) and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ). But AT&T has certainly stocked the service with an impressive content library. As TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha writes, another downside is the lack of original content on the platform . A reboot of Friends should debut later on, but there’s nothing like the The Mandalorian to immediately excite fans. But HBO Max should also benefit from all the new eyeballs the streaming world has attracted. Many states are rushing to reopen, but plenty of consumers will opt to stay at home. Plus, many businesses won’t get the green light to reopen for weeks or months to come. InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango doesn’t think it’s a tough question. He’s confident that HBO Max will be a “mega growth catalyst” for AT&T . He wrote last week that its “treasure chest” of content will rival that of Disney+ and help AT&T weather the economic crisis. Disney+ certainly found success amid the pandemic, as has music streaming platform Spotify (NYSE: SPOT ). It’s too early to tell if HBO Max will attract the necessary customers, but the future looks bright. Buy AT&T stock now to ride out this mega growth catalyst, and binge-watch Friends while you wait for the big gains to come. 5 Stocks to Buy for a Slightly Less Global World [Wednesday, May 27, 1:19 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The novel coronavirus created the perfect geopolitical storm. President Donald Trump, and several other world leaders, have blamed China for allowing the outbreak to infect the rest of the world. Tensions between the U.S. and China are back on the rise after a phase-one trade deal fell by the wayside . International travel has broadly come to a standstill, and many borders are closed . Experts don’t think this trend will entirely reverse. In a new note to clients, Bank of America’s Kathryn McDonald and Joseph Quinlan wrote that the pandemic won’t create new trends, but accelerate trends that were already in motion, like what they term “de-globalization.” In the note, the duo writes that this “de-globalization” trend means the U.S. will move its key manufacturing back within its borders. Next-generation technology will come from domestic factories, not from China. McDonald and Quinlan emphasize that a combination of re-shoring and localization was already gaining traction. The pandemic is just making it more attractive. So how can investors profit in this return back to America? InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto predicted that pockets of geopolitical instability, some fueled by U.S.-China tensions, would rattle the lithium market. With that in mind, he recommended Sociedad Quimica y Minera (NYSE: SQM ), Orocobre (OTCMKTS: OROCF ), Power Metals (OTCMKTS: PWRMF ) and Galaxy Resources (OTCMKTS: GALXF ). According to Enomoto, these companies don’t source their lithium from China, which makes them much safer investments for 2020 and beyond . Axios’ Miriam Kramer and Alison Snyder wrote that the space industry is another critical one to watch . For the last decade, U.S. astronauts have relied on Russia to get to space. Today’s SpaceX launch changes that. They question — will this bring about a new era of cooperation, or “Great Power” competition? Without the U.S. as a customer, Russia could turn to China for business. Although SpaceX is a private company, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) is a unique beneficiary of this de-globalization. According to Barron’s Al Root, each SpaceX success turns into a branding opportunity for Tesla , and potential gains for TSLA stock. There are countless other opportunities for this de-globalization trend. Look for industries most likely to return to the U.S. (Bank of America names robotics, critical pharmaceutical goods and automation). StoneCo Stock Surges on Recent Fintech Success [Wednesday, May 27, 12:46 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There are many reasons to like fintech stocks right now. For many investors, these newer, tech-focused players are free from traditional financial stocks’ bad reputation. Plus, these companies represent the future of payment, often providing cashless solutions perfect for novel coronavirus concerns. But most conversations about cashless payments — or about fintech in general — stop after mentions of Square (NYSE: SQ ) and PayPal ( PYPL ). Today, Brazil-based StoneCo (NASDAQ: STNE ) is looking to spend some quality time in the spotlight. Shares are up more than 27% in intraday trading. To be fair, StoneCo already made waves in 2018 when Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ) Warren Buffett purchased a sizable stake. But what attracted Buffett back then, and why does it matter now? StoneCo’s founders sought to take advantage of the growing trend toward cashless payments in Brazil. Its solutions help merchants with in-store, mobile and online payments. And emerging markets like Brazil are both hard-hit by the pandemic and also racing to adopt electronic payments . Buffett saw the potential back then, and many investors have since followed in his footsteps. STNE stock struggled amid the outbreak, but has since climbed off its lows. Shares are now down just 15% for the year after touching a 55% loss in April. On Tuesday afternoon, the company reported earnings that unfortunately missed estimates. Total revenue of $134 million was up 33% year-over-year, but EPS of 11 cents fell 1 cent from 2019. Behind Wednesday’s rally is a year-over-year total payment volume increase of 42.1% . Investors, like InvestorPlace’s Chris Lau, have long been pounding the table on STNE stock . The pandemic shook the market’s confidence in StoneCo’s potential, but this increase in total payment volume seems to indicate that there’s a rebound in payments coming in Brazil. As more consumers start spending money, more of those consumers will end up using one of StoneCo’s solutions. You don’t want to miss out. Target Stock May Be the Perfect Pandemic Buy [Wednesday, May 27, 11:27 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith With a market capitalization of $57 billion, Target (NYSE: TGT ) is just a fraction of the size of Walmart (NYSE: WMT ). But the smaller retailer has developed an intensely brand-loyal following. And thanks to the novel coronavirus, it looks like it’s about to hit the “target” with shareholders. Target is doing a lot of things right. It combines fashionable apparel with convenient snack items, affordable-but-trendy home goods with healthcare products. Online sales grew by 141% in the first quarter as consumers flocked to its website for a mix of essential and non-essential purchases. In the grocery world, Target’s Shipt business is also paying off. Since March, the same-day grocery delivery service has seen its customers double. But according to Supply Chain Dive’s Jeff Wells, there’s another exciting grocery catalyst rolling out. Before the pandemic, Target was testing adding fresh groceries and alcohol to its curbside Drive Up program . After temporarily halting the pilot to focus on keeping employees safe, the program is back. Sure, COO John Mulligan isn’t sure when the pilot will expand, but he’s optimistic that sooner, rather than later, customers will be ordering milk along with their school supplies and bathing suits for curbside pickup. As the pandemic continues to accelerate curbside offerings, look for Target to become even more of a one-stop shop for consumers. Target is also heating things up elsewhere in the retail world. On May 21 it announced shoppers would be able to purchase products directly through its Instagram page . After initially entering your shipping and payment information, it will be a two-click process. As Retail Dive’s Tatiana Walk-Morris wrote, this is a great move for Target as in-app purchases gain traction. From the comfort of your couch or bed you can “shop” an image and order what you see. No wonder InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango loves TGT stock so much . With a 2.2% dividend yield and seemingly never-ending retail innovations, it’s the perfect buy to “beat” the pandemic. 7 Cheap Stocks to Buy for Pandemic-Free Power [Wednesday, May 27, 10:39 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We’ve fallen into quite the rhythm with the market. We get bad news — say, we find out there’s been a spike in novel coronavirus cases. As a result, stocks broadly drop. Then, we get good news — say, a vaccine company has entered a new trial or produced desirable results. Stocks shoot up en masse. Sure, there are exceptions to this madness. Some companies completely avoided the market-wide selloff in March. Video conferencing plays and providers of personal protective equipment have made a fortune. But what are investors to do with the rest of the madness? According to InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier, this conundrum is why cheap stocks are appealing. Small-cap companies, often without a ton of guaranteed revenue, move more on their own potential than with the broader market. In other words, their operations matter just as much — if not more — than their quarterly reports. Boy, doesn’t that sound nice? Navellier’s recommendation is part of a big market promise. Buy a few shares for $3 or $4 each and then rake in massive returns, months or years down the line. If you’re intrigued, here are his seven recommendations now : Kadmon Holdings (NYSE: KDMN ) ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN ) Silvercorp Metals (NYSEMKT: SVM ) Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG ) Iamgold (NYSE: IAG ) United Microelectronics (NYSE: UMC ) Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN ) Stocks Open Higher Wednesday as Reopening Continues [Wednesday, May 27, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It seems like nothing can shake the rally this week. Stocks opened higher again on Wednesday despite President Donald Trump’s stirring of U.S.-China trade tensions . Perhaps helping keep the markets nice and green is a European bailout package and yesterday’s victory in travel stocks. What will the rest of Wednesday bring? As Trump circles in on China, will we see a repeat of recent market panic? Or, will it be smooth sailing once again? For now, the bulls are winning. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all snug in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.93% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.41% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.17% 25 Stocks to Buy for a Major Wave of Reopening [Tuesday, May 26, 4:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One thing we’ve covered in this blog is the power of reopening. Many consumers are itching to return to hair salons, retailers and restaurants after months of staying inside. InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango has long been bullish on this “pent-up demand” catalyst. A quick glance at social media this weekend should have confirmed this catalyst is real. Americans flocked to the beaches , many without face masks, and visited friends and family. Public health experts are quick to warn against this behavior , but it means money is flowing a little bit more freely. Lango is confident that this pent-up demand is strong, and that it’s going to make another group of stocks victorious in 2020. He calls this the shift from “staying at home” to “getting out of the house.” With this in mind, he recommended 25 stocks to buy for this trend today. Here’s a look at the first 10 names on his list: McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD ) Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) Dine Brands (NYSE: DIN ) Darden (NYSE: DRI ) Dave & Buster’s (NASDAQ: PLAY ) Six Flags (NYSE: SIX ) SeaWorld (NYSE: SEAS ) Cedar Fair (NYSE: FUN ) Disney (NYSE: DIS ) Planet Fitness (NYSE: PLNT ) Stocks Close Higher Tuesday on Hints of ‘Normal’ [Tuesday, May 26, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Dare I ask, is this the return to normal investors have been waiting for? The S&P 500 played the flirt, crossing the 3,000 level for the first time since March 5. Traders returned to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after weeks of working from home. Plus, vaccine news kept stocks steady and offered hope to even the most beaten-down of sectors. It was a good day in the stock market, to say the least. Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) and Merck (NYSE: MRK ) made waves with their vaccine news, and travel stocks got a bit of a boost. Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ), American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) all closed higher by more than 10%. As investors cling to this optimism, the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed in the green Tuesday. The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.23% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.17% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.17% There’s Still Bullish Magic Behind Disney Stock [Tuesday, May 26, 3:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Disney (NYSE: DIS ) is a company with perhaps unrivaled brand loyalty. Consumers drop serious money to attend its theme parks, and spend weeks obsessing over new releases from its Star Wars and Marvel franchises. Unfortunately, even Disney hasn’t been immune from the novel coronavirus. That less-than-magical reality is why InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall has been siding with the skeptics on DIS stock. Until theme parks, movie theaters and resort properties reopen at full capacity, it will be missing out on much-needed revenue. However, McCall sees a bull case for shares near $90 . Sure, that implies a steep drop from its current share price. But hear me out. McCall’s argument makes a lot of sense, especially as he recognizes the value in different catalysts for Disney. For example, he sees “problem child” ESPN becoming a winner in the new normal. Why? Who knows when live audiences will return to sporting events. With that in mind, expect ESPN to log record audiences. A quick trip to ESPN’s website shows another reason to like it. According to writer Ramona Shelburne, Disney is considering hosting the NBA as it wraps up its season in late July . Its Orlando property would allow a return to game play while still limiting dangerous exposure to the virus. This news makes McCall’s recommendation sound even more logical. He wrote that a recent NASCAR race drew 6.3 million virtual fans. Can you imagine what a virtual NBA season, hosted on Disney property, would look like? Whether you support DIS stock at $90, or near its current price of $122, there’s a lot to like. The road to recovery won’t be perfect, but Mickey Mouse is set to steer the company through the tough times ahead. Barron’s: 15 Stocks to Buy for Big Growth at Value Prices [Tuesday, May 26, 2:16 p.m. Contributed by Sarah Smith To some investors, the novel coronavirus has likely made the split between growth stocks and value stocks feel silly. A lot of solid companies now have “value” prices, and pending rebounds make a lot of beaten-down companies look like “growth” stories. But as Barron’s Nicholas Jasinski wrote today, there’s more for investors to consider. That’s why Barron’s pulled together 15 stocks that have value prices — with forward price-earnings ratios below 15. Stocks on this list also are expected to grow their earnings per share by 10% each year for the next half decade. That’s a tall order, but it’s not impossible. Just like the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” it’s important to find the exact fit. Here are 15 stocks to consider for investments that fit “just right”: AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV ) Albemarle (NYSE: ALB ) Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALXN ) Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT ) Ameriprise Financial (NYSE: AMP ) Anthem (NYSE: ANTM ) Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO ) Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY ) CBRE Group (NYSE: CBRE ) Cigna (NYSE: CI ) Centene (NYSE: CNC ) Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE: COG ) Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB ) Lam Research (NASDAQ: LRCX ) Universal Health Services (NYSE: UHS ) Affluent Customers Make Williams-Sonoma Stock a Buy [Tuesday, May 26, 2:09 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The current angle on retail is grim. Brick-and-mortar shops were closed, and more than 38 million consumers now find themselves unemployed. Americans face mounting economic pressure, and anxiety is limiting their spending, particularly on non-essential items. One thing this narrative doesn’t include is a simple-but-important fact. Rich people are still shopping like rich people. That’s why Telsey Advisory analyst Cristina Fernandez upgraded Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM ) stock to “outperform” from “market perform.” She also slapped an $80 price target on shares, which currently trade hands near $70. In a note to clients, she wrote that there were three reasons Williams-Sonoma would benefit from the novel coronavirus (subscription required). According to the analyst, the company is already succeeding in increasing its online sales. Plus, its target demographic is affluent customers with over $100,000 in household income. This makes Williams-Sonoma’s home and kitchen products even more attractive to consumers now. Sure, Williams-Sonoma sounds like an unlikely winner, but the numbers are there. Just as wealthier consumers are stocking up on at-home workout gear like Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON ) bikes, it’s clear nice kitchen gear is at the top of many shopping lists. Shares are up 4.1% in intraday trading on the upgrade. Keep a close eye on WSM and its luxury peers. 7 Travel Stocks to Buy as the World Returns to Normal [Tuesday, May 26, 12:53 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Depending on where in the U.S. you live, beaches, lakes and public parks looked almost “normal” over the long weekend . Americans flocked to sunbathe as public health experts continue to warn of the dangers the novel coronavirus presents. For investors, consumers’ willingness to return the world of leisure bodes well for travel stocks. There’s also data to back this up. Axios’ Dion Rabouin reported this morning that air travel demand is “significantly” rebounding. Transportation Security Administration data shows that as lockdowns continue to ease, more passengers are boarding flights. Before the pandemic, roughly 2 million people were screened at airports each day. At the lows, less than 90,000 people were going through those checkpoints . But things are changing. As Rabouin writes, the TSA screened approximately 350,000 people on Friday, May 22 . There’s another catalyst helping travel stocks. On Monday, Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) announced it was ready to begin early trials of its coronavirus vaccine. That has NVAX shares up in intraday trading, but it’s also boosting airline and cruise stocks. Why? In theory, consumers will feel a whole lot safer about travel if they’ve received a vaccine. Travel demand is surging, with or without a vaccine. With that in mind, travel stocks picked by InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth are worth another look. He made these recommendations in late April, but he argued they were the top picks as consumers returned to the seas and sky. Here are his seven recommendations : Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL ) Southwest Air Lines (NYSE: LUV ) LVMH (OTCMKTS: LVMUY ) Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL ) Hilton Hotels (NYSE: HLT ) MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM ) Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG ) Novavax’s Vaccine Trial News Is Leading the Market Higher [Tuesday, May 26, 11:29 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Once again, investors are rejoicing on news that an effective vaccine may be just around the corner. Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) announced yesterday that it was beginning early trials of its NVX‑CoV2373 vaccine for the novel coronavirus in Australia . Shares are up almost 14% in intraday trading. There’s a lot to like here. Very early animal trials found that low doses of the vaccine worked. The human trials, which began today, should yield results by July. As Novavax ramps up production of the vaccine through funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the company could have 100 million doses ready in 2020 and 1.5 billion doses ready in 2021. And, as a MarketWatch report noted, Novavax’s vaccine candidate is slightly different than others under investigation. It is a recombinant vaccine, which means that it targets a very specific part of the virus. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, these vaccines typically trigger a stronger immune response . Based on Tuesday’s rally, investors like what they see. A vaccine means that even the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, like travel, become more viable. That’s why analysts on Wall Street have a strong buy consensus rating on shares . Today, B. Riley analyst Mayank Mamtani set the highest price target yet, putting shares at $53. Merck Stock Climbs on New Plan to Fight the Coronavirus [Tuesday, May 26, 11:02 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Merck (NYSE: MRK ) came ready for its moment in the spotlight with a three-prong plan to fight the novel coronavirus. As Barron’s Josh Nathan-Kazis wrote, Merck was late to the race , as its big pharmaceutical peers rolled out vaccine and treatment collaborations. However, CEO Ken Frazier said Merck has just been waiting for the right moment, and a proven platform to build a vaccine on. In a Tuesday press release, the company announced it is working on two vaccines and one antiviral treatment . One vaccine comes through its acquisition of Themis Bioscience , another through a partnership with IAVI . Lastly, Merck is partnering with Ridgeback Bio on an oral antiviral treatment. According to Frazier, Merck has a lot going for it in this fight. The company has experience developing vaccines and other treatments for HIV and Ebola. Is Wall Street buying it? MRK shares are up 1.9% in intraday trading, slightly less than the S&P 500 . But Mizuho Securities analyst Mara Goldstein upped her price target on shares to $100 this morning. Shares currently trade hands for less than $78. Merck is a solid company working on three solid solutions. As this race heats up, look for the company to become a true leader. Stocks Open Higher Tuesday on Vaccine Optimism [Tuesday, May 26, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Boy, it looks like all investors needed was a long weekend to turn things around. The major indices are ready to start the week on the right foot, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average adds 600 points. To be fair, there’s also a lot of vaccine optimism in the market. Merck (NYSE: MRK ) and Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) both are making on progress on solutions for the novel coronavirus . Combined, that news is more than enough to counter the World Health Organization’s move to stop trials of hydroxychloroquine . There’s a lot to like. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are also starting Tuesday deep in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 2.22% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 2.51% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.86% 10 Stocks to Buy to Invest Like Oakmark’s Bill Nygren [Friday, May 22, 3:31 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Hopefully we’ve established in this blog that in times of uncertainty, it helps to follow the experts. If nothing else, their pandemic stock picks are a source of inspiration. That’s why value investor Bill Nygren’s top 10 holdings are worth a close look. Nygren is the manager of the Oakmark Fund (NASDAQ: OAKMX ), and he hasn’t exactly had a great year so far. However, after selling American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ) and picking up some stay-at-home stocks, his fund’s top holdings are a good playbook for the current market. According to Nygren, it’s important not to get too caught up in the short term. That’s why he’s focusing on companies with strong balance sheets, lots of cash and pandemic-proof businesses. Apparently, that’s not too tall of an order. Here’s a look at his top holdings now (subscription required): Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA ) Citigroup (NYSE: C ) Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW ) State Street (NYSE: STT ) Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF ) TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL ) 2 Stocks to Buy as ‘Coronavirus Branding’ Gains Traction [Friday, May 22, 2:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Early on in this pandemic, we saw how easily the novel coronavirus could destroy a company’s reputation. Cruise operators like Carnival (NYSE: CCL ) and Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL ) instantly became associated with the evils of the virus. Instead of luxurious pools and fruity cocktails, picture panicked passengers trapped in the middle of the ocean. It’s a public relations nightmare. Granted, these companies are also facing no-cruise orders and major cash crunches. But the public relations element does matter. When ships start sailing again, Carnival and Royal Caribbean must convince consumers it’s safe to board. That’s why, as Axios’ Felix Felix Salmon wrote, some hard-hit companies are turning to marketing to change their image . It’s a simple formula. Pick a disinfectant company, form a partnership with a research hospital and create a “safe” brand. If a business wants to survive in this new normal, it must convince consumers it’s safe to engage with its products and services. So, what companies are doing this well? According to Salmon, United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) and Hilton (NYSE: HLT ) are leading the pack. In this name-dropping exercise, United Airlines has United CleanPlus . It’s distributing Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) products at its airports and working with the Cleveland Clinic to keep passengers safe. Hilton is following the exact same formula. The hotel chain is partnering with Reckitt Benckiser (OTCMKTS: RBGLY ), the maker of Lysol. It’s also consulting with the Mayo Clinic to keep hotel travelers as safe as can be. It’s a marketing scheme that likely makes your skin crawl, but it could be a winning strategy. We already knew that Clorox and Reckitt Benckiser were top buys, and their products are in high demand. The next logical move may just be to invest in companies that make reopening feel safer. That’s exactly why Morgan Stanley’s Brian Pfeifler is bullish on traditional travel names now. Airbnb properties and other short-term rentals won’t feel as “safe” as regularly cleaned hotels with brand power and luxury status . I’ll take my complimentary Clorox wipes now, and recommend you do the same. RBC: Rewards Outweigh the Risks With Boeing Stock [Friday, May 22, 1:34 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Boeing (NYSE: BA ) has been suffering for a long time. Last year, its 737 Max plane was behind two fatal accidents, and investigators keep digging up more flaws. Then, the novel coronavirus effectively wiped out air travel, and in turn wiped out Boeing’s business. Is it time to sell BA stock and move on? Not so fast. RBC Capital analyst Michael Eisen made waves Thursday when he gave shares an “outperform” rating and a $164 price target . According to Eisen, the rewards with this investment outweigh the risks. Boy did his client note make waves in the market. It’s been a long time since Wall Street showed Boeing any love, so shares were up 4% on the day. And Eisen really did show BA stock some love. He thinks the Federal Aviation Administration will give the 737 Max the green light in the third quarter, and predicted that passenger demand will see double-digit growth for several years, propelling shares higher. It’s 57% year-to-date loss makes these optimism a little hard to believe, but InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth agrees. He wrote last week that Boeing is one of the top stocks to buy if you’re betting on America . Why? Institutions — not to mention the U.S. federal government — are stepping up to support Boeing. At this point, it’s simply too big to fail. Curbside Offerings Make Best Buy Stock a Winner Now [Friday, May 22, 11:40 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Pardon the pun, but Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ) stock may truly be one of the best equities to buy right now. Before the pandemic, the consumer electronics supplier was an icon of brick-and-mortar retail, and all of the struggles associated with it. A quick pivot to curbside sales changed everything. Now, analysts are calling Best Buy stock a “winner” and an “e-commerce play.” Behind the noise is its May 21 earnings report, which unsurprisingly showed a drop in overall domestic revenue. But way more important is its domestic online revenue, which increased more than 155%. Why? In the middle of the fiscal first quarter, CEO Corie Barry pivoted the company to exclusively curbside operations . As Barry said, even without a single customer in its stores, the move helped preserve sales. That’s why Retail Dive’s Ben Unglesbee wrote Thursday that Best Buy is set to emerge as a “winner.” The quick pivot, combined with consumers’ positive reaction to curbside sales, shows that it’s innovative. It doesn’t hurt that e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) saw its delivery times increase. For many shoppers, curbside pick-up is just more convenient. Plus, consumer electronics suddenly became hot-button items. Video game consoles were flying off the shelves in the first quarter as Americans found themselves bored at home. Work-from-home accessories like webcams are also in high demand. Some will surely say that this is only a short-term, unsustainable rally. However, Wall Street doesn’t agree with that argument. Oppenheimer analyst Brian Nagel gave BBY stock a $105 price target , implying more than 30% upside. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto also recently jumped on the Best Buy bandwagon, pointing out its market dominance in the consumer electronics and appliance segments. If nothing else, Best Best stock is a feel-good buy. Start betting on this old-school retailer’s comeback story, because you don’t want to miss out. 3 Restaurant Stocks to Buy as Diners Return [Friday, May 22, 10:46 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Restaurants are in a tricky position, but according to President Donald Trump, things could be changing. At a May 18 meeting with top industry executives, he said Moderna’s (NASDAQ: MRNA ) early success, among other novel coronavirus breakthroughs, could get diners back in their seats soon . With that in mind, InvestorPlace’s Tezcan Gecgil rounded up three top restaurant stocks . She’s confident, but she’s looking at at least a two-year timeframe for returns. In other words, these stocks present great opportunities, but you likely won’t see share prices double overnight. Although the names on her list have struggled, she’s confident their size and brand power will help them persevere. Here’s what she’s recommending now: Denny’s (NASDAQ: D ENN ) McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD ) Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) Stocks Open Lower on U.S.-China Fears [Friday, May 22, 9:49 a.m.] Contributed by Jessica Loder What a way to start the day before a long weekend. The Nasdaq , S&P 500 and Dow Jones were all in the red during the overnight hours, and the opening bell hasn’t changed that trend. It seems like a big part of the nerves comes from fear that the U.S. and China could start butting heads again. According to Yahoo Finance, Thursday saw “senators introducing a bipartisan bill that would sanction Chinese officials and organizations who enforce newly introduced security measures in Hong Kong . This came a day after the Senate passed a bill that would make it more difficult for Chinese companies to list on U.S. stock exchanges.” That may explain why big-name Chinese companies like Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) and JD.com (NASDAQ: JD ) both opening deep in the red on Friday. Will we see a turnaround? Only the bulls can know that. The S&P 500 is currently down by 0.39% The Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently down by 0.47% The Nasdaq Composite is currently down by 0.32% Wedbush: Royal Caribbean Stock Is the Best Cruise Buy [Thursday, May 21, 4:41 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It may not be time to board cruise ships yet, but according to Wedbush analyst James Hardiman, it’s time to start buying Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL ) stock. As InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Hardiman said Royal Caribbean was the strongest of its peers . From his note to clients: “We would argue that RCL had the best momentum headed into the pandemic and see no reason this will not be the case coming out of the pandemic.” The analyst gave RCL shares an “outperform” rating and a $63 price target. So what should investors make of all that? To start, the rest of Wall Street agrees. Shares are considered a “moderate buy” and have an average 12-month price target just over $60. That implies almost 40% upside. Even InvestorPlace’s Mark Hake agrees. After writing that Royal Caribbean was approaching “failure,” Hake changed his mind. Now he writes investors should see the current price as a discounted opportunity to get in on a rebound story. Chances are, pent-up demand will get customers back on board sooner than we may think. Stocks Close Lower Thursday After Morning Jobless Report [Thursday, May 21, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It looks like the bulls just couldn’t shake this morning’s doom and gloom. News that 2.4 million more Americans had filed for unemployment benefits temporarily shook the optimism from the market. What else moved the market today? AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN ) received more than $1 billion of funding for its novel coronavirus vaccine. Plus, every state in the U.S. is moving forward with some part of a three-phase reopening plan. Will tomorrow bring a rally as we head into the long weekend? For now, one thing is clear. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed the day in the red. The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.78% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.41% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.97% Don’t Miss Out on 2 New ‘Accelerated Income Generators’ [Thursday, May 21, 3:31 p.m.] Contributed by Andrew Taylor Last night, investing legend Louis Navellier revealed his Accelerated Income Project for the very first time… And it was incredible. He showed folks how he uses his advanced, high-speed computer system to target the safest, most-lucrative income opportunities on the market. One of the past investments it found produced a payout yield of 209% in seven months… Another generated 88% in four months… And a third produced 169% in just over a year. Those are just three of dozens of examples. And the curious thing is these gains didn’t come from options, bonds, dividends or any of the other traditional investments folks think of when it comes to earning income. They came from a special type of investment Louis calls “accelerated income generators…” Which can hand you an incredible amount of hold-in-your-hand cash in no time. And as Louis was doing research for his new income project, he found a way to target them left and right… In fact, he just targeted two more not too long ago… And in a few hours he’ll officially add them to his Accelerated Income Project “buy list.” You can learn how to access Louis’ two brand-new recommendations — and all of his new income research — by going here . JD.com Stock Is a True E-Commerce Winner [Thursday, May 21, 1:40 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s true that many e-commerce companies are winning in the face of the novel coronavirus, but perhaps none is as strong as JD.com (NASDAQ: JD ). The Chinese company quickly adapted as the outbreak hit its home country, and has now emerged victorious. According to Supply Chain Dive’s Emma Cosgrove, JD.com’s operating costs hit an all-time low this quarter . In other words, high demand and cost-cutting measures combined to fight added operating costs from the pandemic. American rival Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) faces a different reality as it anticipates dedicating its entire Q2 operating profit to cover new delivery expenses. So what is working for JD? According to the company, in-house logistics and innovations like delivery drones helped it in its early fight against the coronavirus. Plus, the e-commerce giant’s new grocery offering sourced local produce, countering supply-chain disruptions at larger food suppliers. Shares are up almost 50% year-to-date, and analysts keep sending JD stock love in the form of buy ratings . InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango even said it was one the top 15 stocks to buy in 2020 . Why? He thinks the company is well-equipped to navigate any logistics challenges and will benefit from the growing popularity of e-commerce in China. JD.com is doing something right, and it’s paying off. Look for operating costs to keep falling, especially as pandemic-driven expenses disappear. JD stock is an excellent investment for an e-commerce future. 7 Stocks to Buy Now With Strong Balance Sheets [Thursday, May 21, 1:05 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s a nerve-wracking time to be an investor. On one hand, billionaires like Warren Buffett and David Tepper aren’t buying up stocks . The unemployment figures keeps climbing — now it’s above 38 million. Plus, even big companies are facing a cash crunch as the novel coronavirus weighs on their operations. On the other hand, vaccine developers like Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) have the potential to send the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by 3% in a day. Some solid companies now have more reasonable share prices and make great buy-the-dip candidates. How is an investor supposed to balance all of the chaos and make decisions? InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth has a great solution. Don’t run from the markets and cash out, but also focus your money on companies with strong balance sheets. These companies have the cash to weather even a prolonged downturn, but you’ll still benefit from rebound action. Here are seven stocks he’s recommending now : Visa (NYSE: V ) Nike (NYSE: NKE ) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD ) Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) AstraZeneca Stock Climbs After Receiving Vaccine Funding [Thursday, May 21, 11:39 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Another day, another vaccine developer making big moves in the market. After Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) and Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) got some time in the spotlight this week, it’s AstraZeneca’s (NYSE: AZN ) turn. Shares are are up a modest 2.9% in intraday trading. In an early morning press release AstraZeneca shared it had received $1 billion from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority . This funding comes as part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed designed to ramp up production and distribution of vaccines for the novel coronavirus. According to the Trump administration, the private-public partnership will combine AZN’s vaccine success with the U.S. government’s ability to scale manufacturing. This deal should ultimately make 30 million doses of the vaccine available by September . Additionally, AstraZeneca said today that in partnership with the University of Oxford, it will still have 400 million doses ready at some point in the fall. Through its work with university researchers, it also nabbed $79 million from the United Kingdom’s government. Will this private-public partnership be the model for vaccine development moving forward? It sounds like a win for investors, as it brings confidence that Americans will be first in line to receive vaccines. Now all we need is for a vaccine to work. 2 Restaurant Stocks to Buy as Grocery Prices Rise [Thursday, May 21, 11:17 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One of the big themes of 2020 so far is that restaurant stocks are out, and grocery store stocks are in. However, that trend may be about to reverse as grocery prices rise. According to CNBC’s Thomas Franck, meat and eggs led prices higher by 2.6% in April . That’s the biggest one-month jump since 1974. More Americans are cooking meals at home, and panic over the novel coronavirus hasn’t subsided. That means plenty of shoppers are still focused on “stocking up” and demand for key groceries is high. At the same time, we’ve previously reported in this blog on a host of supply-chain issues. Together, these catalysts are combing to raise prices at a very inopportune time. For Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan, this inflation is a good sign things are turning around for restaurants. The analyst believes that while delivery and pick-up options have somewhat helped restaurants, they aren’t making up for dine-in demand. If groceries become less accessible, that will change. That’s why, as Barron’s Teresa Rivas writes, Setyan is bullish on two particular restaurant stocks . He likes Jack in the Box (NASDAQ: JACK ) and Texas Roadhouse (NASDAQ: TXRH ). According to Setyan, JACK stock will benefit from the chain’s popularity among burger lovers. And because Texas Roadhouse is seen as a “value’ restaurant, TXRH stock should also get a nice boost. Setyan gave each stock an “outperform” rating. He has a 12-month price target of $80 on JACK and $73 on TXRH. If anything, it’s a great way for investors to profit from an otherwise gloomy reality. 10 Stocks to Buy to Invest Like Hedge Fund Pros [Thursday, May 21, 10:28 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Are you hungry for a hot dog? I sure am, especially as the weather heats up. It turns out, hedge funds are also hungry for hot dogs, but not the BBQ treat. In the hedge fund world, hot dogs are top-owned stocks outperforming the S&P 500 . Right now, these standout names matter even more, because hedge funds are known for riding out volatility better than most individual investors. So why should individual investors care? It’s true that hedge funds aren’t particularly accessible . Individuals must be “accredited” — in other words, they must be worth a lot of money — to participate. Well, a recent survey of 342 hedge funds just shed some light on their favorite stocks. As the novel coronavirus disrupts the market, following in the footsteps of these volatility pros isn’t a bad idea. Here is a list of the 10 top-owned stocks now (subscription required): Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Allergan (NYSE: AGN ) Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS ) Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) Visa (NYSE: V ) Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR ) Stocks Sink Thursday as the Jobless Total Climbs [Thursday, May 21, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We’ve seen this before, but it still hurts. Investors learned this morning that another 2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits . That means over 38 million people lost their jobs as a result of the novel coronavirus. It’s jarring to say the least. Let’s digest this a bit more. Stock futures headed into the red on the news, despite the fact jobless claims are declining. That’s likely because as states reopen, investors were hoping for an even smaller figure today. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened lower this morning. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.07% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.12% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.02% Is It Time to Buy Penn National Stock as Casinos Reopen? [Wednesday, May 20, 4:34 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) made some investors happy on Wednesday. Shares of the popular stock closed higher by almost 13% on news it was reopening casinos in Mississippi . As we’ve previously reported in this blog, PENN and its gambling peers have been high-flying equities as investors bet on a big recovery for the industry. InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell included Penn National as one of the top movers in the stock market today . As Kenwell wrote, it got approval to reopen 10 casinos. Five locations in Louisiana reopened on Monday, and 5 in Mississippi will reopen tomorrow. It’s not a lot, but any return to normal is worthy of praise. With that in mind, many InvestorPlace contributors are bullish on the name. Nicolas Chahine wrote that the rally can take shares 35% higher . Laura Hoy wrote that while there’s risk in the space, Penn National is the best play . There’s one more thing to note. JPMorgan analyst Joseph Greff just reiterated his “buy” rating on PENN stock today . Although his 12-month price target of $28 doesn’t imply much upside, it’s still nice to know Wall Street is rooting for the company too. Stocks Close Higher Wednesday, Reversing Earlier Losses [Wednesday, May 20, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wow, bulls are clearly the winners on Wednesday. It seems like after Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) betrayed investors’ trust on Tuesday, confidence and optimism are back in the market. So, what happened on Wednesday? Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) released its own vaccine news, the Federal Reserve warned of long-lasting impacts to the economy and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) hit new highs. There’s a lot to rally behind, but there are still lurking threats from the novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization reported that new cases jumped a record amount across the world in the last 24 hours. The major indices are ignoring that for now at least, as the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.67% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.52% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 2.08% Plug Into Coronavirus Potential With Spotify Stock [Wednesday, May 20, 3:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Spotify (NYSE: SPOT ) is another unlikely winner in our new world. At the start of state-wide lockdowns, many experts predicted shares would tumble. That’s because many streamers use commute and gym to listen to music and podcasts. Instead, Spotify actually saw user growth. More consumers started plugging in while lounging around the house, and especially while cooking. Some, like InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango, doubt Spotify stock’s potential. Lango wrote last week that any reason for a rally has come and gone . News today may change that. Joe Rogan is famous in the podcast world. His Joe Rogan Experience is popular on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Alphabet’s (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) streaming platforms. Now, Spotify gets the exclusive rights. Each month, there are approximately 190 million downloads of the Joe Rogan Experience . And according to the Wall Street Journal , this deal values it at $100 million . This is a big win for Spotify, and it now has even more solid footing in the fight against Apple and YouTube. But according to the team at Morning Brew , there’s even more to like between the lines . Part of the rights deal includes video — something new to the Spotify podcast world. Apparently, consumers are shifting to video streaming over audio streaming in lockdown , and Spotify wants to embrace that. When the Joe Rogan Experience debuts on Spotify in September, the full video podcasts will be available. As Spotify strengthens its lead in this popular media niche, especially as it lines up with pandemic behavior shifts, expect it to be a long-term winner. Barclays: 8 Stocks to Buy for the Next Pandemic Rebound [Wednesday, May 20, 2:38 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Stocks tumbled hard, and then some names seriously rebounded. Investors who missed out on those early quarantine rallies in companies like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI ) are probably kicking themselves. But, Barclays analysts think there’s reason to be optimistic. Investors piled into e-commerce and video game companies, but some hard-hit sectors still haven’t felt any love. Getting in now will create ample room to profit. As reopening plans progress, Barclays believes ride-hailing names, travel companies and digital advertising plays are likely to rebound the most (subscription required). With that in mind, they’re recommending eight stocks now for bold investors. Here’s the list: Uber (NYSE: UBER ) Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT ) Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG ) Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE ) TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP ) Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) Snap (NYSE: SNAP ) Is Penny Stock Phunware Set to Be a Coronavirus Winner? [Wednesday, May 20, 2:09 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith I’ll start with the basics here. Phunware (NASDAQ: PHUN ) is a tiny company that specializes in fully integrated software. Right now, its mobile-first solutions for healthcare businesses are driving a lot of investor attention. After announcing a partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE ) today, shares are up 195%. Granted, shares are up 195% and still trade at $1.97. HPE has a healthcare unit, and now that unit will have access to Phunware’s full suite of pandemic offerings. As a “full-stack” company , Phunware’s software helps with customer engagement, management and monetization. So what exactly are these pandemic offerings? It can send mobile messages en masse, alerting patients of novel coronavirus test sites, appointment options and nearby confirmed cases. Phunware also promises to facilitate virtual visits , provide a patient portal and manage prescription refills. It truly manages the whole mobile medical experience. For investors, it looks like the small company’s top-notch portfolio and the weight of its new partner are driving the excitement. Phunware’s penny-stock status is definitely reason for concern, but if it continues to expand its reach with relevant products, it could be a big winner. Hungry for Some Profit? Buy Blue Apron Stock Now. [Wednesday, May 20, 1:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Let’s take stock of the food situation real quick. You can brave a grocery store, or if you’re lucky, get in an order with a delivery service like Instacart . You can order delivery and pick-up from several restaurants, and companies like Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB ) facilitate that process. As a consumer, thinking outside of the box opens your lockdown-approved food options. As an investor, these options represent major potential. No, I’m not talking about eating with mannequins at reopened restaurants . I’m talking about meal delivery companies like Blue Apron (NYSE: APRN ). Blue Apron has received a lot of criticism since its IPO. Sure, the idea sounded promising, but the demand just wasn’t there. Consumers signed up for meal kits and then canceled subscriptions. But now that grocery shopping is considered dangerous and eating out is limited, Blue Apron is a winner. According to The New York Times’ David Gelles, Blue Apron is seeing meaningful improvements. CEO Linda Kozlowski said the company saw a 27% increase in demand in early April . New customers came rushing for meal kits, and old customers returned or increased their plans. Kozlowski’s comments highlighted two other key details. At the start of the lockdowns, Blue Apron actually cut advertising spending, and still saw a flock of new customers. To me, that’s proof it’s a household name, even if households weren’t all ordering before. Additionally, as it sources ingredients from smaller companies, Kozlowski maintains that supply-chain impacts have been minimal. Is it time to buy a stock that once was a joke on Wall Street? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote in early May that while Blue Apron will certainly see some churn, many of its new customers will stick around . The long-term impacts of the pandemic are so unknown that a meal kit may be the comfort households need. One more thing to note. Privately held Thrive Market is another winner in this meal-kit revolution. The company specializes in healthy foods and eco-friendly cleaning products . Although the timeline is unclear, CEO Nick Green is prepping the company for an IPO. 7 Stocks to Buy for a Contact-Tracing Future [Wednesday, May 20, 12:57 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In February, many Americans likely had never heard of social distancing. Now, that phrase, and the guidelines associated with it, dominates our collective vocabulary. Is “contact tracing” set to do the same? If so, investors ought to get in now to profit. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contact tracing is a key part of the path toward recovery from the novel coronavirus . If an individual tests positive, healthcare workers will identify all other individuals they were in contact with. From there, those individuals are informed of the situation and given preventive steps. Some — if not all — would be called in for testing. In theory, all contact tracing requires is a little bit of old-fashioned sleuthing. Patients must be honest, and then healthcare workers can dig through the rest. But many that have Big Tech leanings are proposing a different solution. Countries like South Korea and Singapore used tech to digitally track and map all confirmed cases . Some in the U.S. want to do the same, and Big Tech is stepping up with the offerings . Right now, concerns around privacy are dominating the conversation. Regardless, you don’t want to miss out. InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch pushed through the controversy and rounded up the top seven stocks involved in contact tracing . These make solid buys in an area of public health innovation. Here’s his list: Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) Tencent Holdings (OTCMKTS: TCEHY ) SAP SE (NYSE: SAP ) Deutsche Telekom (OTCMKTS: DTEGY ) Conduent (NASDAQ: CNDT ) Inovio Pharmaceuticals Stock Climbs on Early Vaccine Win [Wednesday, May 20, 12:27 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Just two days after Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) moved the market with a novel coronavirus vaccine update, Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) is looking to do the same. An early morning press release has shares up about 9% in intraday trading. It’s not as big as some of the recent swings we’ve seen, but perhaps investors are wary after scientists questioned the veracity of Moderna’s report yesterday. According to the release, Inovio has published its preclinical findings in a peer-reviewed journal, Nature Communications . This data shows that its INO-4800 vaccine successfully generated antibodies for the coronavirus in mice and guinea pigs, its animal test group. So, what are the next steps? Reuters’ Deena Beasley wrote this morning that Inovio began Phase 1 human trials in April. This early round of study is designed to show whether a vaccine is safe, and whether it can trigger an immune response. Inovio anticipates releasing data from that study in June . From there, Inovio is targeting Phase 2 and 3 trial start dates in July or August. The company has been a leader in the fight against the coronavirus, but as InvestorPlace’ s Mark Hake wrote this morning, it lacks the manufacturing power of its larger rivals . Plus, it is choosing to pursue an innovative-but-challenging approach to vaccine design. Regardless of the challenges, InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier is bullish on INO stock. He wrote yesterday that investors should add it to their high-growth biotech holdings , and that its potential goes way beyond the coronavirus. Keep a close eye on the stock. Its June report is likely to move the market, in one direction or another, and good vaccine news would mean great things for shareholders. 5 Telemedicine Stocks to Buy as This Megatrend Ramps Up [Wednesday, May 20, 11:35 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There are many reasons that the adoption of telemedicine has so quickly accelerated. It’s simply convenient, taking out the time and hassle associated with doctor’s appointments. And as the novel coronavirus has made clear, it’s a whole lot safer. Many non-essential practices closed offices, rushing to adopt new telemedicine solutions. Plus, Americans were encouraged to consider virtual appointments even when offices were open to be considerate to fellow patients and doctors. InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall has long been bullish on telemedicine and other similar tech “megatrends.” He’s been recommending industry leader Teladoc (NYSE: DOC ) for more than two years. Now, he’s also highlighting Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ), as the two tech giants move into telemedicine and other healthcare offerings. It’s fair to ask if this trend will slow down once more offices reopen and pandemic fears subside. But, McCall doesn’t think so. As he wrote this week, the pandemic kicked telemedicine into “overdrive.” Before the coronavirus massively disrupted healthcare, many consumers likely associated telemedicine with simple appointments. Perhaps they thought it was an option for the common cold or a quick prescription refill — not a real substitute for in-person appointments. Now, The New York Times describes how patients are receiving virtual physical therapy and routine care for chronic health conditions. Others are turning to telemedicine platforms for abortion and cancer care . In just a few short weeks, telemedicine has stepped up as a pretty good mirror for in-person offerings. Sure, doctors still need physical appointments for many conditions, and we’re definitely not headed to a telemedicine-only world. But the convenience and capability of telemedicine is now burned in consumers’ minds, and doctors are embracing the tech like never before. That certainly sounds like “overdrive” to me. InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper has two more standout telemedicine plays . He recently recommended CVS Health (NYSE: CVS ) and Anthem (NYSE: ANTM ), as the two traditional companies embrace virtual offerings — and bring brand recognition to the online space. Buy Verizon Stock for its Attractive BlueJeans Acquisition [Wednesday, May 20, 11:00 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Verizon (NYSE: VZ ) just fast-tracked its acquisition of BlueJeans, and its future is looking bright. No, it didn’t just get a well-fitting pair of jeans. For less than $500 million it snapped up the smaller video conferencing company, hoping to add to its own offerings. VZ announced the deal in mid-April , as video conferencing picked up a loyal following. BlueJeans is a business-to-business video conferencing provider, and it’s certainly smaller than rival Zoom Video (NASDAQ: ZM ). One plus is that’s enterprise-focused, as opposed to Zoom that has welcomed schools, companies and bored individuals alike. That should translate to more paying customers. In a quick turnaround, Verizon announced that the deal closed Monday, and investors should be paying attention. Not only is video conferencing hot right now, the BlueJeans deal makes VZ attractive for the long term. Its clients are often in the telemedicine or online learning worlds . Plus, Verizon is a leader in the growing 5G trend. The novel coronavirus is certainly going to disrupt work, healthcare and education for the foreseeable future, and it could have a permanent impact. With that in mind, Verizon’s tech offerings just got a lot more attractive. Need more convincing? InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto wrote that Verizon stock is one of the top so-called coronavirus stocks to buy now . Wireless services, and the rest of Verizon’s tech, are becoming even more important in our new world. 2 Digital Advertising Stocks to Buy for a Virtual Election [Wednesday, May 20, 10:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s hard to think about the upcoming presidential election when so much of day-to-day life is still driven by the novel coronavirus. But, as we remain at home, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are going head to head. For two digital advertising stars, this could been a big revenue boost. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, it’s a tough time to be in the digital ad business. Big clients — like those in the travel and leisure world — are pulling way back on spending. For Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ), a virtual campaign trail could help fill that revenue gap . Initial projects called for campaign spending to hit $6 billion, but according to Axios’ Sara Fischer, that figure will be closer to $6.7 billion. At least $2 billion will go exclusively to online video campaigns. Without the usual in-person events that mark a ramping up of campaigning, these online ads will become increasingly important in determining November’s outcome. Facebook and Alphabet are the biggest names in the digital advertising space, and Fischer writes that they will see most of the inflow. On Monday, InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote that FB stock is a buy on the next dip . Although advertising is under pressure, it’s not “falling apart.” We’re living in a world of mail-in ballots and social media advertising. Don’t miss out on big companies leading that world. Stocks Open Higher Wednesday as Moderna Slumps [Wednesday, May 20, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors haven’t forgiven Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) on Wednesday, but stocks are still opening in the green. With a report still clouding its early results, the vaccine maker opened down after dropping 10% in Tuesday trading. However, another vaccine maker is bringing hope to Wall Street today. Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) reported that its vaccine candidate produced antibodies for the novel coronavirus in guinea pigs and mice . Sure, it’s not humans, but it’s still an exciting step. Shares of INO were up almost 15% in pre-market trading. Will Inovio’s victory be enough to sustain a rally in the stock market today? Let’s wait and see. Until then, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are all ready for success. The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.27% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.25% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.35% Big Tech Turns Up the Heat With Big Retail Deals [Tuesday, May 19, 4:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Oh, the retail apocalypse. Brick-and-mortar retailers continue to dig their own graves, especially as the novel coronavirus weighs on shopping. On Tuesday, it looks like Pier 1 (OTCMKTS: PIRRQ ) will become the next big name filing for bankruptcy — and potentially, liquidation. But as InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Big Tech is upping the stakes in retail. Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) announced a new Shops feature that will allow businesses to set up “storefronts” on Facebook and Instagram. Kenwell said eventually, Facebook will allow product sales through Messenger , Instagram Direct and WhatsApp. Elsewhere in the tech world rumors are swirling that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) is looking to acquire J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP ). The latter just filed for bankruptcy, and Amazon sees the deal as a way to beef up its e-commerce apparel offerings. Oh, the irony. Amazon killed the department stores, and now is seeking to acquire them. InvestorPlace analyst Eric Fry wrote today that it’s important to get on the right side of the technochasm , the tech-fueled split between the “haves” and the “have nots.” It’s clear companies like Amazon and Facebook have what it takes to profit. Dying retailers like Pier 1 and J.C. Penney do not. Investors agree. FB shares were up 1.7% in the stock market today, while AMZN shares added about 1%. Stocks Slip Tuesday on Moderna Vaccine Concerns [Tuesday, May 19, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Yesterday, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) took the entire stock market higher when it announced its early trials showed promising results. On Tuesday, doubts over the company’s report took stocks down. According to reporting from Stat News’ Helen Branswell, several scientists are questioning Moderna’s report , claiming it didn’t provide enough context. Other experts that Branswell spoke with said it was odd the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases did not comment on the findings. Plus, Moderna does not have a history of publishing its findings in peer-reviewed journals. Even tech stocks couldn’t hold up as that report shoved away yesterday’s optimism. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed Tuesday in the red. The S&P 500 closed lower by 1.05% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.59% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.54% Is the Vroom IPO a Way to Play Coronavirus Car Trends? [Tuesday, May 19, 3:31 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Yesterday, online car marketplace Vroom filed for a listing on the Nasdaq Exchange under the ticker VRM. It’s surprising to see a company push forward with initial public offering plans, especially as many have opted for delays amid the novel coronavirus. Critics, or perhaps simply realists, have pointed out that Vroom is not profitable. It also hasn’t been immune to the pandemic, as car sales dropped and the company furloughed one-third of its employees. As Axios’ Kia Kokalitcheva writes, demand has returned to pre-crisis levels , but sales now come with lower profits for Vroom. Perhaps what’s most interesting is the coronavirus-driven market potential. As we reported yesterday, there’s reason to believe that consumers will opt to purchase cars instead of taking public transportation. With that in mind, traditional automakers like General Motors (NYSE: GM ) and Ford (NYSE: F ) saw a rally on Monday. There’s another angle to Vroom that could be a big post-IPO catalyst. Car buyers simply find the car they want on Vroom’s website , supply necessary paperwork and complete financing through partner banks. Then, Vroom delivers the car to the buyer — no face-to-face contact necessary — and gives a seven-day test drive window. Will this contactless shopping truly be the future for car sales? If you’re not ready to rally behind an IPO stock, InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier has a better option for you. Just this morning he recommended Carvana (NYSE: CVNA ), for very similar reasons. He wrote that in a post-pandemic world, he expects shoppers to use Carvana for its contactless buying experience . Whether it be Vroom or Carvana, you don’t want to miss out. 5 Sin Stocks to Buy Now for Post-Pandemic Partying [Tuesday, May 19, 3:03 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In many ways, the novel coronavirus is making Americans more socially responsible. Consumers are choosing to prepare more of their own meals, using allotted time outdoors to exercise and washing their hands — a lot. But InvestorPlace’s Thomas Niel is convinced that once lockdowns ease, many will take the opportunity to party. As Niel writes, it’s been surprisingly hard to “sin” in quarantine. Alcohol stocks are hurt by the decline in on-premise sales, although it’s now easier than ever to get beer, wine and liquor delivered straight to your door . Some fear drops in cannabis demand are on the way as consumers move away from non-essential purchases. Oh, and it’s hard to spend money at a casino when all of the casinos are closed. What’s beautiful to investors in this world of vice is that while consumers are on lockdown, they’re building up demand. When things reopen, that pent-up demand will turn into big spending. That’s why Niel is betting on a big rebound — and a bigger party for shareholders. Here are the five sin stocks he’s recommending now : Altria Group (NYSE: MO ) Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ ) Diageo (NYSE: DEO ) MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM ) Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP ) Dynavax Stock Soars as Investors Await Vaccine Update [Tuesday, May 19, 2:32 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Dynavax Technologies (NASDAQ: DVAX ), a small biopharmaceutical company, is soaring Tuesday. Shares shot up over 40% at one point in after-hours trading, and are hovering at 20% gains right now. So what exactly is driving this rally? The company specializes in vaccines, and has entered the race to develop a candidate for the novel coronavirus. But, Dynavax isn’t working alone. Since early March, it has announced partnerships with the University of Queensland , the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations , Valneva , Sinovac Biotech and Clover Biopharmaceuticals . These companies bring their own skills and technology, and Dynavax offers its adjuvant , which it uses in a hepatitis B vaccine. Such an adjuvant should increase the effectiveness of the vaccine. Through CEPI, Dynavax has even offered its adjuvant to any other companies that could improve their candidates. DVAX stock is up almost 80% in the last month. Yesterday, the company really got investors excited. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions, it said it plans to provide an update on these partnerships today. Dynavax said in this filing it anticipates at least one of its partners will move into a Phase 1 vaccine trial by July . Keep a close eye on the news, and the company’s investor relations page . Any update on its partnerships could mean big gains both today and in the long term. Buy ShiftPixy Stock as U.S. Restaurants Reopen [Tuesday, May 19, 1:44 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Restaurants around the country are struggling as dine-in options remain very limited, if not completely prohibited. Demand for take-out and delivery services is there, but consumers are eating more at home and spending less on non-essential items. As a result, at least 8 million restaurant workers in the United States have been laid off or furloughed. But what happens when restaurants reopen? Do the employees all come rushing back? Those questions have largely been left out of the conversation. That is, until today. ShiftPixy (NASDAQ: PIXY ), a gig employment platform, is climbing 90% in intraday trading because its solutions aim to answer those questions. The small-cap company just entered a new partnership with an operator of Del Taco (NASDAQ: TACO ) restaurants in New Mexico. Those locations will now use ShiftPixy’s solutions to “combat” the novel coronavirus’ impact on the restaurant industry . One solution allows native delivery . Although services like Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB ) and DoorDash help keep the lights on, their steep commissions seriously hurt restaurants. With ShiftPixy, restaurants can more easily manage their own in-house delivery, to save money on commissions and create better relationships with consumers. Another solution helps restaurants get their workers back once they reopen, and also helps part-time restaurant workers find shifts . Known as a human capital management tool, ShiftPixy is working to better organize gig employees as restaurants around the country fight through the chaos. It’s clear investors like the potential here, especially as the solutions address a very real problem. Keep a close eye on PIXY stock. If the company keeps picking up customers, good things are surely in store. 10 Stocks to Buy to Invest Like Stanley Druckenmiller [Tuesday, May 19, 1:20 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith When the market is thrown into chaos, it’s nice to know how the biggest players in the investing world are handling things. Stanley Druckenmiller, like many ordinary, individual investors, is loading up on stay-at-home stocks. His Duquesne Family Office opened new positions in high-flying tech companies, and closed positions in big bank stocks, Snap (NYSE: SNAP ), Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO ) and FedEx (NYSE: FDX ). Remember, Druckenmiller is most known for his work with George Soros, and his previous firm, Duquesne Capital. He’s had a rough couple of years as his fund underperformed the S&P 500 . But, he’s known for quick trades and is worth almost $5 billion. As the famous investor eyes stocks that benefit from the novel coronavirus, he’s also quick to criticize the market. He recently told CNBC that he doesn’t like how the market looks here, citing a “bad” risk-reward balance. In that context, his pandemic plays make a lot more sense. So, if you want to invest like Druckenmiller, this is your chance. Here are his top 10 holdings right now (subscription required): Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Barrick Gold (NYSE: GOLD ) Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI ) Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) 6 Stocks to Buy as the Coronavirus Changes Medicine [Tuesday, May 19, 12:24 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith For many Americans, the novel coronavirus is ushering in a new understanding of public health. Consumers are wearing face masks, washing their hands and following new social distancing protocols. At the same time, the pandemic is highlighting just how much the medical world has changed — and will continue to change in the months and years to come. Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) developed its vaccine candidate in just three hours. Now, President Donald Trump is ramping up Operation Warp Speed to “deploy” a vaccine across the U.S. by January 2021. And months before most investors caught on to the outbreak, Canada’s BlueDot used an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm to spot a “flu-like outbreak” in China. According to Axios’ Bryan Walsh, this scientific innovation is just the beginning . As consumers continue to demand next-generation healthcare before the next pandemic, Walsh predicts that gene-editing tech will proliferate, healthcare will merge more with AI and a whole host of other biotech innovations will capture investor and consumer attention. So, how can you profit from this trend? InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper rounded up his favorite gene-editing stocks in March, commenting on the excitement this revolution holds. Doctors are touting the potential to reverse blindness and cure HIV, all by “hacking” a patient’s genes. With this in mind, Cooper recommends CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP ), Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT ) and Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NTLA ). Plus, InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall has long been bullish on this futuristic healthcare . Back in September he highlighted Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN ) and Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH ). The former offers genome sequencing products, while the latter specializes in liquid biopsies. If you’re not sure about all this gene-editing hype, there’s an even easier way to get in on the trend. Ever since Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) signed a deal with Orangetheory Fitness , McCall has been excited about the Apple Watch’s potential . As consumers opt for health-tracking devices, look for those device makers to seriously profit from all the data. The future of healthcare will be a whole lot more connected, and hopefully a whole lot more profitable, for the sector’s earliest investors. 10 Lithium Stocks to Buy for Post-Pandemic Innovation [Tuesday, May 19, 11:00 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Innovation drives the market, even in times of chaos. Companies that are embracing remote-work and telemedicine solutions are thriving, while companies stuck in the days of brick-and-mortar retail are just inches away from bankruptcy filings. But there’s a more speculative, and potentially more rewarding, sector of innovation out there right now. Lithium is a key commodity used in electronics, and it’s really gaining attention thanks to electric vehicles. This year hasn’t been kind to lithium stocks, especially as supply-demand imbalances and the U.S.-China trade war tanked the lithium market . That might all be about to change. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto is keeping a close eye on geopolitics, and he’s tracking a storm brewing between the United States and China. With an election approaching, Enomoto predicts President Donald Trump will do just about anything to get back in the White House, including pulling away from that country’s lithium supply. That’s bad news for some companies, but not for the 10 lithium stocks Enomoto is recommending. He’s looking at countries that rely on lithium supplies in Canada, Australia, Argentina and Chile. According to Enomoto, lithium-based tech is the future. As mining strategies improve and prices stabilize, these stocks could seriously shoot for the stars. Here are his 10 buy recommendations now : Albemarle (NYSE: ALB ) Sociedad Quimica y Minera (NYSE: SQM ) Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) Orocobre (OTCMKTS: OROCF ) Livent (NYSE: LTHM ) Power Metals (OTCMKTS: PWRMF ) Lithium Americas (NYSE: LAC ) Galaxy Resources (OTCMKTS: GALXF ) American Battery Metals (OTCMKTS: ABML ) Pilbara (OTCMKTS: PILBF ) Nancy Lazar: Middle America Is the New Emerging Market [Tuesday, May 19, 10:37 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Nancy Lazar consistently ranks as one of the top economists on Wall Street. She’s racked up accolades from institutional investors, and she’s considered one of the most influential women in U.S. finance . Clearly, she knows what she’s talking about. And in a new interview with Barron’s Leslie Norton, Lazar talked about how the novel coronavirus is bringing a “regime change” that favors stockpickers. Although she initially downplayed the threat of the pandemic, she quickly adjusted her models and is ready to pick post-crisis winners. Lazar has identified several key themes for stockpickers. The first is that as a result of the virus, the era of China dominating economic growth is over. In other words, it’s no longer the “top” emerging market. Instead, Lazar thinks Middle America — literally, the center of the United States — is the next key region. With that in mind, she’s looking for companies headquartered in that region. No, Middle America isn’t the sexiest region. Investors tend to gravitate toward Silicon Valley’s tech offerings, or New York’s bustling finance and startup names. But Lazar has been bullish on Middle America for almost a decade . She’s been confident that one day, manufacturers will return en masse. Plus, as investment dollars flow to the region, smaller companies will be delightful acquisition targets. One more takeaway. Lazar, like many others, believes consumer trends are likely to change permanently. She’s primarily betting on companies in technology, healthcare and consumer staples categories, as spending shifts to new trends. So, pull out a map, start doing some research and get betting on Middle America. Stocks Open Slightly Lower Tuesday After Massive Rally [Tuesday, May 19, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Phew. It looks like bulls are taking a bit of a rest Tuesday morning, after a simply amazing rally in the market on Monday. This break comes as Walmart (NYSE: WMT ) and Home Depot (NYSE: HD ) report earnings. Plus, investors learned that construction — specifically of single-family homes — dropped 25.4% in April . There should still be some optimism today, but there’s nothing like Moderna’s (NASDAQ: MRNA ) victory so far to lift shares. Are we in store for another rally, or a calm day of trading? Looks like we’ll have to wait and see. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened slightly lower Tuesday. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.22% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.32% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.09 Buy Gilead Stock as the European Union Fast Tracks Sales [Monday, May 18, 4:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It seems as if the entire stock market forgot about Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) in the blink of an eye. Instead, headlines about Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) and Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRNE ) capture investor attention for a day or two at a time. However, InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell highlighted another major victory for Gilead in his daily column . The European Union is racing to fast track sales of remdesivir , its proposed treatment for the novel coronavirus. The European Medicines Agency has already issued compassionate-use authorization, similar to emergency-use designations granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. However, despite a lack of more conclusive data, demand for remdesivir is rising. To appease that demand, the EMA is looking to issue a “conditional marketing authorisation” — which would allow sales of the drug for one year within the EU, even without all the data. GILD stock didn’t feel the effects of this victory, instead falling by 2% on the day. However, InvestorPlace’s Larry Ramer thinks it’s the perfect time to buy . He wrote on Thursday that good news, including pending action in the EU, is a clear upside catalyst. With this in mind, investors should buy shares before the masses catch on to their potential. Dow Adds 900+ Points as Investor Optimism Returns [Monday, May 18, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The sun may not be shining outside my apartment window, but a quick look at the stock market makes the day seem bright. That’s thanks to comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, vaccine updates from Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) and a nice spike in crude oil prices. Moderna was certainly a big winner, closing higher by 20%. Peer vaccine makers Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) and Vir Biotechnology (NASDAQ: VIR ) also soared on the day. Plus, Moderna’s big update even sent consumers stocks like TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP ) higher as investors anticipate what a safe and effective vaccine could mean. It’s safe to say it was a good day in the markets. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite each saw gains of more than 2.4%. The S&P 500 closed higher by 3.15% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 3.85% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 2.44% 5 Bank Stocks to Buy on a Federal Reserve Rally [Monday, May 18, 3:16 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Bank stocks are struggling in 2020, but investors likely are missing the bigger picture. On one hand, cruise operators and movie theater companies are down hard, but that’s because lockdowns and social distancing measures directly impact their business. On the other hand, many experts argue that bank stocks are only suffering because of 2008 flashbacks. Granted, there’s more to the picture than that. Barron’s Carleton English wrote today that bank profits will continue to be weak , and some dividends are at risk. The big banks already moved away from buyback programs to preserve cash. Those words of warning aren’t stopping investors on Monday. Comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell have given renewed confidence to the market, and bank stocks are winning big. Powell clarified that he doesn’t see another Great Depression on the horizon , although the downturn in the market will still be “sharp.” So, what should investors do? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango maintains that it’s most important to remember 2020 isn’t a repeat of 2008. The financial system is in a better place this time around, and banks face much more regulation than they did in the previous crisis. Lango has been bullish on the big banks throughout the novel coronavirus-induced downturn. Just last week he recommended buying shares now to benefit from a post-pandemic rebound. Here are the five names he thinks you should buy : Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM ) Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC ) Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ) Citigroup (NYSE: C ) FedEx Stock Gains as it Tries to Hit Amazon Where it Hurts [Monday, May 18, 2:49 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) has, without a doubt, been one of the biggest winners in the locked-down world. Consumers are turning to it’s e-commerce site for essentials and impulse purchases, and the company is also benefiting from grocery store, video game and streaming trends. However, rival FedEx (NYSE: FDX ) is no longer playing around. One of the biggest consumer complaints about Amazon is that its one-day and two-day shipping guarantees have fallen by the wayside as it struggles to keep up with demand. Seeing an opening, FedEx just announced a partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) that has shares up 10% in intraday trading. According to Bloomberg’s Thomas Black and Dina Bass, the deal will combine Microsoft’s cloud services with FedEx’s shipping expertise . FedEx will get better data on potential delays, and be able to reroute packages as needed to keep shoppers happy. At the same time, Microsoft’s Azure nabs a win, taking a potential customer from Amazon’s AWS. Plus, FedEx Surround won’t cost consumers any extra. The pilot program is set to launch in summer 2020, and could mean big things for a company struggling to keep up with the pocketbook of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. It’s hard to say if this is a winning proposition in the long term, but it sure sounds good. Keep a close eye on this partnership, and consider picking up FedEx shares here. Buy Spirit Airlines Stock for the Future of Air Travel [Monday, May 18, 2:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Budget airlines, or low-cost carriers, had a bad rap before the novel coronavirus decimated air travel. Consumers criticized added baggage fees, delayed flights and destinations that weren’t exactly close to hub cities. But Barron’s Darren Fonda writes that these carriers are “leading the pack” in recovery. In fact, everything that drew criticism before the pandemic could become a catalyst in the new world. For one, consumers may be more willing to spend extra on anything associated with “safety,” like social distancing seats. Business travel is typically associated with Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ), but leisure travel is likely to rebound first. Just think about all the companies already promoting “WFH forever” models. Plus, these budget airlines have leaner operations, as Fonda writes. That could mean it’s easier for them to sustain the added costs of social distancing, like removing middle seats. With this reality in mind, Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE ) is set to be a major post-crisis winner. Shares are up 25% in intraday trading, as new figures from the Transportation Security Administration show travel was down 91% year-over-year for the week ending May 15 . That sounds horrible, but it’s an improvement from earlier 96% year-over-year drops. It’s always nice to know that Wall Street agrees with investors. Evercore ISI analyst Duane Pfennigwerth raised his 12-month price target on shares to $12 , and set a “buy” rating today. With a share price just below $10, don’t miss out on some rebound-driven upside in SAVE stock. 7 Stocks to Buy as Electronic Payments Gain Traction [Monday, May 18, 1:54 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Some future-minded individuals are predicting a complete end to cash payments. Sure, that sounds pretty radical, but it’s unfolding as I write this. Paper money has been targeted as a risky medium — businesses have moved away from accepting cash to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Heck, I even paid online for an individual McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD ) milkshake this weekend. It is likely that cash will return, but the pandemic is certainly accelerating the adoption of electronic payment options. That’s why some like InvestorPlace’s Chris Lau see stocks in this space as some of the hottest buys right now. Lau wrote today that it’s clear consumers are getting more comfortable with electronic payments. Plus, businesses are increasingly embracing these platforms as they struggle to keep their doors open. In all, this is a big win for the payments companies. Plus, in a post-pandemic world, we won’t all stop whipping out our phones to make payments. With that in mind, here are seven stocks Lau is recommending now : PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Square (NYSE: SQ ) Visa (NYSE: V ) Mastercard (NYSE: MA ) American Express (NYSE: AXP ) Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP ) Global Payments (NYSE: GPN ) Gear Up and Start Buying Stock in the Big Three Automakers [Monday, May 18, 1:21 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s been a rough year so far for carmakers. Consumer spending dropped, demand dropped and state lockdowns forced production to come to a halt. Year-to-date performances for General Motors (NYSE: GM ), Ford (NYSE: F ) and Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU ) are ugly. That’s all changing, and it’s evident in the share prices. GM stock is up more than 10% in intraday trading, and Ford and FCAU shares are up around 8%. Why? Plants are reopening. According to reporting from Morning Brew , Monday marked massive reopenings at plants across the U.S. Yes, they will be operating at reduced capacity for the near future, and workers will take new safety precautions. A total of 133,000 employees will be back to work by the end of the week. Granted, renewed production doesn’t mean renewed demand. But, it’s a big step in the right direction. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, the future of transportation could be headed back toward vehicles. Subways, bus systems and ride-hailing services have become symbols of outbreak. Plus, InvestorPlace’s Joel Baglole wrote last week that investors would be wrong to ignore the upside potential in Ford stock . Ford and its peers have some cash, and reopenings are underway. If it can get through 2020 and tackle projects like electric vehicles, it’s set for massive gains. Investors should get ready for a rebound, and keep an eye out for new sales figures. As more consumers return to work, it will be important to know how many opt for new cars instead of getting on the train. 8 Vaccine Stocks to Buy for Operation Warp Speed [Monday, May 18, 12:58 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Vaccine stocks are heating up the stock market today, especially after Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) shared its first results from human trials. But there’s an even bigger catalyst lurking behind some of the top names in the race to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. On Friday, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched Operation Warp Speed , something the president has likened to the Manhattan Project. As the name suggests, this is a mission to produce and distribute an effective vaccine across the U.S. with “warp speed” — or by January 2021. As part of the operation, Trump is even calling for the deployment of military trucks and planes, as well as individual soldiers to administer vaccines when the time comes. There are 14 vaccines in the study , and eventually researchers will narrow it to eight, and then even lower. It’s not clear exactly which vaccines are on the short list, but investors could make some informed guesses. InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper is obviously hot on Moderna , but he also recently recommended Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX ), thanks to its vaccine partnership with Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ). Beyond that, The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Loftus added Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ), Sanofi (NYSE: SNY ) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN ) to the list of companies farther along in the race . GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK ), another big-name pharmaceutical, is collaborating with Sanofi to scale up production. Remember, there are over 100 candidates out there. This list of vaccine stocks combines big pharmaceutical power with manufacturing capability and a little bit of clinical-stage innovation. May the best vaccine — and the most diligent investors — win. Are You Investing in 5G’s $56 Trillion Upgrade All Wrong? [Monday, May 18, 12:15 p.m.] Contributed by Nicholas Stern It’s no exaggeration to say the breakthroughs made possible by 5G will dwarf the economic impact of the internet. The next generation of mobility will increase download speeds by 100x. If you’ve experienced any janky or lost connections recently, you’ll appreciate the upgrade. But 5G means a lot more than faster smart phones. It makes possible breakthroughs that were previously the stuff of sci-fi fantasy. I’m talking about self-driving cars, remote robotic surgeries, virtual and augmented reality, billions of connected devices known as the internet of things (IOT), telehealth, smart cities and factories, and more. Add it all up and you’re looking at technological innovations worth more than $56 trillion . And if anything, Covid-19 has only accelerated 5G’s importance for the future. When your health or your job are literally on the line, faster connections at home become not just a nice feature to have, they turn into a necessity. The same goes for the factory floor. Indeed, the manufacturing sector has been at the forefront of 5G’s rollout. According to TechRepublic , wireless connections in factories will grow even faster than fixed-line connections from 2019 to 2030, reaching over 5 million 5G connections by 2025. Nearly three-quarters of managers and plant directors surveyed by ABI Research said they planned on upgrading their communications networks in the next two years, with more than half saying 4G and 5G are necessary to meeting that goal. Getting ahead of the trend, Federated Wireless has joined with Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Web Services and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Azure to offer connectivity-as-a-service for businesses setting up 4G and 5G networks for IOT tools. Again, a post-pandemic world will demand faster, more efficient supply chains and production lines informed with data fed by countless connected sensors. 5G connectivity will enable this shift. Years from now, we’ll look back at the creation of 5G the way we look back at the buildout of America’s railroads. More importantly, it’s setting up the best chance many people will ever get to make small investments and turn them into life-changing wealth. But most people are going about it the wrong way. It’s why InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall recently let people know about a 5G wealth-building opportunity that could be 20 to 30 times larger than the buildout. Click here to learn more . Jerome Powell Says Market Won’t See a ‘Great Depression’ [Monday, May 18, 11:40 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Last week, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell issued a warning about the economy , and stocks tumbled. This week, it looks like he’s trying to soften that blow. A quick look at the major indices shows that it’s working. On Sunday, a 60 Minutes interview with Powell brought a little more clarity to his warning. He maintains that we certainly aren’t looking at a V-shaped economy recovery — and that the downturn will be very “sharp.” But he also made clear that the United States isn’t going to see another Great Depression . Why? Before the market downturn, Powell argues that the financial system and the economy were in good shape. Downward pressures are coming from the novel coronavirus, an external factor. Although he’s still not rushing toward negative interest rates, he says the Federal Reserve has massive potential through its lending programs to keep the economy from depression. Powell is also pushing for legislators to up stimulus spending. From the interview : “In the long run, and even in the medium run, you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy. This economy will recover. It may take a while. It may take a period of time. It could stretch through the end of next year.” 5 Gambling Stocks to Buy for a Post-Pandemic Jackpot [Monday, May 18, 11:11 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Live sporting events are mostly on hiatus, and casinos around the world remain closed. That should mean instant death for gambling stocks. Instead, these names are sparkling in the spotlight because of their major rebound potential. Sure, they face serious headwinds right now, and it’s not clear when those issues will truly fade. But consumers’ urge to gamble hasn’t disappeared. Recent reporting from The Guardian indicates that frequent gamblers are actually betting more as they’re stuck at home. As these individuals turn to higher-stakes online casino games and slot machines, it’s clear gambling won’t disappear in a post-pandemic world. When casinos and sports events return, casual gamblers will similarly return to the pastime. Frequent gamblers will make the switch back to in-person bets. This reality is exactly what has InvestorPlace’s David Moadel hot on top gambling stocks now. He wrote this morning that in preparation for a rebound, investors should seek out stocks in the sector with big turnaround potential. Here are five stocks he’s recommending right now : Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS ) Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR ) Esports Entertainment (NASDAQ: GMBL ) Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD ) Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) Moderna Stock Climbs 25% on Early Trial Results [Monday, May 18, 10:44 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors were in a rough spot after last week. It seemed like the novel coronavirus was destined to weigh on the economy for months to come, and state reopening plans lost their luster. That all changed Monday morning when Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) reported its mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate showed promising early results. Moderna has been testing its vaccine in eight healthy volunteers . Key takeaways from early results are that the vaccine is safe and successfully triggers an immune response. Now, the company is preparing to ramp human trials to deliver a final vaccine as quickly as possible. Further rounds of study will include two doses of the vaccine, and examine their effects on different age groups. According to its Monday press release, Phase 3 trials could begin as early as July. As we’ve reported in this blog, a vaccine winner will see serious share-price victory. That’s because many see a vaccine as the key to safely and wholly reopening the United States. With that in mind, MRNA stock is up more than 20% in intraday trading. Although shares have gained more than 320% in 2020, InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper still thinks it’s a buy. He wrote Thursday that it’s one of the top biotech stocks to buy right now . Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, even called Moderna’s vaccine technology “quite impressive.” Stocks Surge Higher Monday on Vaccine News [Monday, May 18, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Friday’s rally was unexpected, but it’s carrying over to quite a robust open in the stock market on Monday. News that Moderna’s (NASDAQ: MRNA ) vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus showed promise in early trials is seriously shaking things up. And that shake up is needed after a gloomy week of trading. After several experts, including Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, called for longer-lasting misery, vaccine optimism looks like the perfect cure. With that in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened well in the green on Monday. The S&P 500 opened higher by 2.47% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 2.92% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.71% Microsoft Looks to Be a Return-to-Work Winner [Friday, May 15, 4:30 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In case you’ve been living under a rock, the novel coronavirus is changing everything. We went from rushing to work each morning in crowded offices or kitchens or brick-and-mortar retailers to record layoffs and a lot of working from home. In that noise, work-from-home solutions like Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Teams and Zoom Video (NASDAQ: ZM ) became winners. Now, states are reopening, and many Americans are pushing to reopen businesses. Microsoft is ready to make that pivot, aligning itself as a return-to-work stock. Today, along with UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH ), it announced ProtectWell. According to InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell, this was some of the biggest news in the stock market today . ProtectWell is both an app and a set of workplace protocols to help companies transition back to the office. Unlike proposals from competitors, this app doesn’t involve any contract tracing technology. What it does feature is screening for the novel coronavirus and privacy-focused testing options. Microsoft and UnitedHealth are big players in their respective industries, and together they should have a lot of power. MSFT shares outperformed the market today, closing higher by 1.5%. Stocks Flip Morning Losses to Close Friday in the Green [Friday, May 15, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The stock market looked pretty grim this morning. Retail sales fell 16.4% in April — a record move for that figure. Earlier this week investors heard cautionary tales from famed David Tepper and Federal Reserve Board Chair James Powell. Oh, and yesterday we learned 2.98 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. But it’s almost the weekend. That means investors did their best to turn things around, getting the S&P 500 into positive territory on the day. The move higher comes as Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRNE ) closed higher by 160%. No, that’s not a typo. Fortunately, things were similarly rosy for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite . Everyone’s ready for Saturday and nobody wants to get the party started on a bad note. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.39% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.25% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.79% In These ‘Trying Times’ Sprout Social Stock Is a Top Buy [Friday, May 15, 3:42 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We’ve all seen the emails. “Company XYZ is here for you in these trying times.” Cute graphics, comforting messages and all sorts of discounted products are making the rounds on branded social media pages. Businesses are working to find themes that resonate with consumers , and ways to capture spending even as it falls at record pace. According to InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango, that’s exactly why Sprout Social (NASDAQ: SPT ) stock is a buy right now, and for the next 10 years . No, it’s not a platform for vegans or tree-hugging millennials. It’s a social media management company, and it’s the best of its kind. Plus, as Lango writes, brands and consumers are grasping onto the digital world as the physical world continues to face pandemic disruptions. SPT stock is up 44% year-to-date, and it just saw its revenue grow 31% year-over-year. Those aren’t numbers to roll your eyes at. So what’s the deal? Brands essentially have to hop on the social media bandwagon to reach potential customers. Now, they really need to be social media savvy. Some brands are even upping their spending on social media campaigns at a time when the digital advertising world seems bleak. As more companies opt for social media management, Sprout will win. In the next decade, Lango anticipates 450% upside. Barclays: Buy PG&E Stock As It Preps to Exit Bankruptcy [Friday, May 15, 2:22 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith PG&E (NYSE: PCG ) filed for bankruptcy protections in early 2019. It faced enormous costs after its equipment caused devastating wildfires in California. Shares have dropped over 70% in the last two years, although they are in the green for 2020. The company’s fortunes could be changing, and Barclays analysts like its trajectory . If PG&E can exit bankruptcy by June 30, it could participate in a California-based fund to compensate victims of the wildfires. It has been at odds with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Utility Dive reported in November 2019 that California mayors wanted to turn the company into a public utility . Analyst Eric Beaumont thinks this June 30 deadline is reasonable. That’s why he upped his rating to “overweight” from “equal weight” and set a $15 price target. Shares currently trade near $11. One big question moving forward is how PG&E will raise the cash it needs. But the firm thinks it won’t have to sell more than $9 billion in new shares to reorganize. From there, as Beaumont and his peers expect utilities to improve later in 2020, the future looks brighter. 5 Virtual Reality Stocks to Buy for the Next Virus [Friday, May 15, 1:56 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith On one hand, there’s surely no one out there eager to start thinking about the next major viral outbreak. On the other hand, investors would be smart to get ahead. Virologists predict animals currently carry 750,000 diseases with the power to infect humans . Planning for the next pandemic will help you profit. Attention-grabbing articles from Axios , The Atlantic and The New York Times have speculated our next pandemic will be made better by virtual and augmented reality. Kaitlyn Tiffany writes that augmented-reality filters on Instagram are allowing for a certain digital communal experience made impossible in the physical world by social distancing. Ina Fried writes that virtual-reality headsets will make remote work and learning easier , and more engaging, the next time around. Why aren’t these technologies more relevant now, as the novel coronavirus continues to change life? Kevin Roose writes that in many ways, the tech just isn’t ready . What is ready is expensive, or cumbersome or it has been out of stock for weeks. That’s why companies, and investors, should prepare for the next pandemic. On Thursday, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) announced its purchase of NextVR , a strong indication future products will lean more toward this futuristic technology . In fact, InvestorPlace’s Brad Moon wrote in February that Apple was one of the top five stocks to buy to cash in on this trend. At the time, he wrote that combined revenue from AR and VR products is set to hit $571.2 billion by 2025 . Although Apple is known for existing tech like iPhones and Air Pods, Moon argues that these industry leaders have the power to win in the future. Why? They’ll buy up NextVR and other small firms, and use their market dominance to keep winning. Here are four other stocks Moon thinks could be AR and VR winners : Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Sony (NYSE: SNE ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) 7 Gold Stocks to Buy to Protect Your Portfolio [Friday, May 15, 1:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith March was a bad month in the markets, and then April saw stocks rocket higher. Against their better judgement, many experts were likely hoping for a V-shaped recovery. Unfortunately, that seems like “wishful thinking” now, writes InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier. We’re just two weeks into May, and things are looking a little rough. Retail sales are still dropping, and Americans are still filing for unemployment benefits. Plus, states’ reopening plans aren’t smooth sailing. With this in mind, Navellier is recommending gold stocks now. He likes that gold has historically been a top portfolio hedge, and that the current gold supply is lower than usual. While demand continues to rise, you certainly wouldn’t be a fool to follow suit and buy some gold shares now. Here are Navellier’s seven recommendations : Eldorado Gold (NYSE: EGO ) Iamgold (NYSE: IAG ) Harmony Gold (NYSE: HMY ) Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY ) B2Gold (NYSEMKT: BTG ) Drdgold (NYSE: DRD ) Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC ) Tesla Stock Is a Buy as Elon Musk Wins Once Again [Friday, May 15, 1:00 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s just as easy to hate Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk as it is to love him. He has fearlessly led his electric vehicle company to rousing success, but he also uses social media much like a diary. One day, he’s worried about the TSLA stock price being too high , the next he’s fighting with legislators from Alameda County — home to his Tesla plant. In what should have been a stock-driving win, Musk got his way. After threatening to reopen the plant without approval, and challenging police to arrest him first, he got that approval. Now, he just has to ensure certain safety protocol are in place . TSLA stock is up almost 91% year-to-date, but Musk’s recent victory hasn’t triggered a rally. In fact, shares are down in intraday trading on Friday. Is this a sign it’s time to cash out and run? InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell doesn’t think so. He wrote that of all automotive stocks, Tesla may be the only one to buy now . Yes, its margins are thin, it’s in a capital-intensive business and it’s cyclical. But even in a pandemic Tesla’s shareholders love the company and its leader. Perhaps that loyalty is all it needs for success. 5 Stocks to Buy for Post-Pandemic Mental Health Demand [Friday, May 15, 12:13 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Some pandemic investing opportunities feel like victory — like vaccine or treatment stocks. Purchasing shares of a company that could soon have a life-saving drug on its hands is the ultimate win-win scenario. Another pandemic-driven investing opportunity, based on new reporting from Axios’ Miriam Kramer, doesn’t have that same effect. Yesterday Kramer discussed how the coronavirus was triggering a “crisis” in American mental health . At the end of April, 28% of Americans reported worsening mental health . All this time at home, for some, translates to heightened incidents of sexual and domestic abuse. For others, social distancing policies and stay-at-home orders have amplified conditions like depression and anxiety. These are sobering thoughts, and Kramer questions how the healthcare system will respond after the pandemic. Will we see a rush toward therapy and prescription drugs? And how long will that rush last? InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto recently made stock recommendations with that question in mind, especially as he anticipates more Americans seeking traditional and non-traditional treatment. Enomoto opted for a “quirky” focus, encouraging investors to buy Champignon Brands (OTCMKTS: SHRMF ) and MindMed (OTCMKTS: MMEDF ). These companies represent the cutting-edge research happening in the mental health world. Champignon specializes in psychedelic drugs with a therapeutic focus , researching ketamine and medicinal mushrooms. Similarly, MindMed focuses on the mental health benefits from psychedelics. But it’s even more likely Americans will seek out traditional mental healthcare. That’s why Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC ) looks like a good play, especially as it has been quick to add a variety of medical professionals to its platform. And as Kramer predicts we’ll see an increase in depression and anxiety diagnoses, traditional drugmakers are also a good bet. Consider Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY ) — the makers of Prozac, Zoloft and Xanax. Together, these five stocks represent a solid bet on growing demand, and a combination of current and future treatment options. Don’t Miss the Bullish Opportunity in Applied DNA Stock [Friday, May 15, 11:18 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Yesterday, it appeared another novel coronavirus superstar was emerging. Applied DNA Sciences (NASDAQ: APDN ) shot from a May 13 closing price of $8.89 to close yesterday at $15.21. Why? It received emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its test kit. But Thursday’s share-price victory didn’t last long. APDN stock is now down 20% in intraday trading, perhaps as news from Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRNE ) takes center stage. What’s more likely is that investors panicked over the company’s earnings call Thursday evening. As not all aspects of Applied DNA’s business qualify as essential in New York, it has seen significant year-over-year drops in revenue, and its net loss also widened by 10%. Investors shouldn’t be so quick to discount this opportunity. As we previously reported in this blog, there are three types of test kits. This new offerings from Applied DNA is a true diagnostic test — the type of test many consider to be the most expensive and least accessible. And according to CEO Jim Hayward, APDN’s test has several advantages over other tests with emergency-use authorization . From Hayward: “Regarding the economics of our COVID-19 diagnostic test, we expect the test to be profitable starting at day 1. We have been careful in choosing our kit components, and have worked closely with our domestic supply chain partners to develop safeguards for continued supply of necessary reagents. We’ve made sure that the manufacturing process for our test kit is as simple as possible, allowing the company to scale with demand.” Yesterday’s price action reflects a common narrative in our new normal. Looking to the future, remember that testing will continue to ramp. With that in mind, APDN and its test-kit peers could very well be lucrative stocks to buy. Sorrento Therapeutics Stock Soars on Coronavirus News [Friday, May 15, 10:41 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wow. Shares of Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRNE ) are almost 90% higher in intraday trading. It’s not even noon yet! This impressive climb, unsurprisingly, comes on the back of novel coronavirus news. On Friday, the California-based biotech company said that an antibody it’s been developing was successful in blocking the virus, at least in a lab setting. After four days of incubation, it blocked the virus 100% of the time. As TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington writes, this news is so inspiring because the antibody could form the basis for a drug cocktail used to treat Covid-19 . Sorrento, like many others in the race to develop a treatment, is worried that the virus could mutate, making it hard to pin down an effective drug. If later-stage trials find the same results, this antibody will be the first in Sorrento’s planned cocktail. It will then use its COVI-SHIELD technology to incorporate several more antibodies , aiming to address fears of mutation. According to a May 8 press release, Sorrento is hoping to develop three antibodies. Keep a close eye on SRNE stock. While Sorrento isn’t exactly a household name, any company able to deliver a safe and effective treatment will win big. And for today, it’s a reason to be a bullish, especially after a gloomy start to trading. Stocks Plummet Friday on Grim Retail Sales Report [Friday, May 15, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It would be easy to imagine that Americans are filling their hours at home with online shopping — and certainly, there is some of that going on. But 36.5 million people have filed for unemployment benefits, and fears of a long-lasting recession are curtailing consumer spending. Investors got a shocking look at consumer spending levels Friday morning. Retail sales in April fell by 16.4% , worse than the drop in March. Economists were predicting a drop of 12.3% — so it’s safe to say Friday’s surprise really is hurting the market. Stock futures promptly flipped, after a positive close Thursday. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all are opening deep in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.94% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.87% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 1.15% Analysts Are Jumping on the Cisco Stock Bandwagon [Thursday, May 14, 4:37 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO ) reported fiscal third-quarter earnings on Wednesday and analysts loved the results. As InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote in his daily column on the stock market, analysts hopped on board the company’s bandwagon with buy ratings and higher price targets. Revenue of $12 billion represented an 8% year-over-year decrease, while earnings per share of 79 cents increased 1% year-over-year . In a normal quarter these results may not be so rousing, but in this new normal, slight revenue and earnings beats had Wall Street cheering. Here’s the short list of analysts hopping on board (note that shares closed May 14 at $43.85): Barclays analyst Tim Long set a $50 price target. Citigroup analyst Jim Suva set a $48 price target. Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold set a $49 price target. JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee set a $50 price target. UBS analyst John Roy set a $51 price target. So, are you ready to follow this list of analysts and buy CSCO stock? InvestorPlace’s Brad Moon is. He wrote at the end of April that accelerated work-from-home trends make Cisco a hot stock , particularly as it’s home to Webex and Duo Security, two solutions made increasingly popular by the novel coronavirus. Stocks Reverse Course to Close Thursday in the Green [Thursday, May 14, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Are investors getting ready for the weekend, or what? News that 2.98 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits, combined with Wednesday’s comments from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, had stocks down hard this morning. In early afternoon trading, that all changed. As we wrote this morning, with so much uncertainty, such a rally is hard to rule out. Crude oil prices are also up on the day, which could be helping drive the market turnaround. Perhaps investors are just looking to end the week on a better note. Regardless of the reason, it’s a nice relief after several rough days of trading. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed Thursday in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.15% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 1.62% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.91% The Bull Case for Beyond Meat Stock Is Getting Meatier [Thursday, May 14, 3:13 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We previously reported in this blog that Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND ) was getting a serious boost from the novel coronavirus. Consumers were embracing a doomsday prepper mindset and stocking up on plant-based alternatives as grocery stores run out of chicken and beef. This growth story looks even juicier now. Just take a look at all the catalysts the company has working in its favor, as shares are up almost 80% year-to-date. On top of the prepper angle, Beyond Meat moved into China through a partnership with Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) at the tail end of April. Now, consumers there can order plant-based beef spicy and sour wrap . It’s long been true that China is the hottest growth market, so this move could bring big things to the leading plant-based meat company. But what is perhaps the biggest catalyst for BYND stock is also the gloomiest. As The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Chin reported earlier in May, sales more than doubled in the past quarter as consumers stocked up in panic. Where’s this interest coming from? It seems like each day we learn more about devastating meat shortages and virus outbreaks at U.S. meat processors. Beyond Meat isn’t free from criticism, as some investors feel that it has climbed too high, too fast. And others point out that while it is doubling sales, the plant-based meat doesn’t truly rival the traditional meat market . However, it’s undeniable that Beyond Meat represents something big. As it moves into China’s reopening economy and helps patch the hole in the food supply chain caused by meat shortages, investors should certainly consider BYND stock now. Credit Suisse: Buy CVS Stock for Its Aetna Acquisition [Thursday, May 14, 2:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors have focused on CVS Health (NYSE: CVS ) this year, particularly as it sells critical health supplies and over-the-counter medicines. In other words, it’s a convenient stop in pandemic shopping. InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn has long been hot on the name, writing in late March about its makeover plans and its decision to offer tests for the novel coronavirus . But Blankenhorn wasn’t convinced CVS was simply a coronavirus play. He wrote at the time it was a “winner beyond the coronavirus pandemic,” particularly as it moved into managed care with its Aetna acquisition. Today, Wall Street is backing up that argument. Credit Suisse analyst Erin Wright boosted CVS stock to a “buy” rating, maintaining a $75 price target. Shares currently trade near $62. According to Wright, CVS is a defensive business. But most attractive is its entry — through Aetna — into the world of Medicare Advantage (subscription required). As the analyst wrote, Medicare Advantage is a fast-growing business. What is MA? It’s where a private health insurer provides Medicare benefits. Blankenhorn writes that CVS’ entry into this space is what differentiates it from Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA ) and makes it a competitor with UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH ). InvestorPlace’s Mark Hake writes that this deal has also made CVS more of a go-to pharmacy, and CVS has recorded some notable changes in its prescription filling . While the pandemic has thrust CVS to the forefront of consumer thought, the stock is likely to be a winner in a whole new era of healthcare. 12 Stocks to Buy for Better-Than-Expected Earnings [Thursday, May 14, 2:10 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Goldman Sachs derivatives strategist John Marshall has a wake-up call for investors. In a post-pandemic world, historical earnings won’t be accurate predictors of future earnings. But when will Wall Street catch up with this reality? According to Barron’s Steven Sears, Marshall’s message isn’t cause for panic. Instead, see it as an opportunity to profit. If Wall Street continues to underappreciate newly powerful companies, investors who see through low estimates can score big. Still don’t get it? Just think about all of the trends that the novel coronavirus is accelerating. Just a few weeks ago, Wall Street wasn’t nearly as hot on work-from-home plays or consumer staples. How then will analysts be able to accurately predict earnings when things settle? The Goldman strategist takes it a bit further, listing 12 stocks he thinks are buys now . He argues that these names are all set to beat estimates in a big way. Here’s what he’s watching: Allstate (NYSE: ALL ) Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS ) Baxter International (NYSE: BAX ) Iqvia Holdings (NYSE: IQV ) Boeing (NYSE: BA ) Parker-Hannifin (NYSE: PH ) United Rentals (NYSE: URI ) Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR ) Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ: PTON ) T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS ) Twitter (NYSE: TWTR ) Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC ) 5 High-Quality Stocks to Buy Under $10 [Thursday, May 14, 1:46 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors always love cheap stocks — and can you blame them? Imagine buying shares for $2, $3 or even $5 and watching them skyrocket to $10, $20 or even $50. That would be a huge win, and it’s why we look for cheap stocks under $10 each week . During a pandemic, it’s not surprising that cheap stocks are even more popular. A market-wide selloff earlier in March created a lot of discount buys. However, the selloff also proved that some stocks simply aren’t resilient enough for a turbulent market. So how do you know which cheap stocks actually have any potential? That’s where InvestorPlace’s David Moadel comes in. Today, he rounded up five high-quality companies with cheap share prices . Here’s what he’s watching now: Nokia (NYSE: NOK ) Nio (NYSE: NIO ) Esports Entertainment Group (NASDAQ: GMBL ) U.S. Energy (NASDAQ: USEG ) U.S. Auto Parts Network (NASDAQ: PRTS ) Follow the Insiders and Buy Harley-Davidson Stock [Thursday, May 14, 12:57 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s often a good sign when a company’s insiders start buying up shares. Fidelity’s Peter Lynch has made that idea famous. He said that insiders could sell shares for any reason. But there’s only one reason he said insiders would buy shares — they think the price will go up . With that time-tested advice in mind, let’s turn to Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG ) stock. As InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek wrote in late April, HOG shares could certainly benefit from additional stimulus money . It’s an iconic company that almost all consumers are familiar with. It also has a particular level of brand loyalty. Unfortunately, though, most consumers probably aren’t buying motorcycles during the novel coronavirus pandemic. “Fun” purchases like Harley-Davidson’s bikes have been put on the back burner in favor of essentials like health supplies and food. And that honestly makes sense. For HOG stock, that logic has made 2020 an ugly year. Shares are down about 50% year-to-date. Clearly the motorcycle company faces quite a few hurdles. But those hurdles aren’t stopping CEO Jochen Zeitz from giving investors a bullish angle. He officially became CEO on May 7, and on May 8 he spent $2.1 million for almost 98,000 shares . That’s the first insider purchase Harley-Davidson has seen since 2017. There’s always more than a simple purchase to consider when evaluating insider buying, but Argus Research analyst David Coleman likes what he sees. He upped his rating on HOG stock to “buy” and gave it a $30 price target. Shares currently trade just below $19. As Barron’s Bill Alpert writes, Coleman likes Harley-Davidson because he’s confident its strategic plan will help it survive the crisis . Once it does, he says the company’s fortunes will rebound next year to hit $4.1 billion in sales and earnings per share of $3.35. There’s nothing like riding off into the sunset with a nice purchase of Harley-Davidson stock. Europe’s Big Reason to Be Bullish on Travel Stocks [Thursday, May 14, 11:21 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith According to the team from Morning Brew , the European summer vacation could be a reality this summer, depending on your country of origin and your desired destination. That’s right, in an effort to salvage tourism-dependent economies, the European Union rolled out its plan to allow summer travel on Wednesday. Health and safety measures are a priority, and it’s not clear whether all EU countries will hop on board the plan. For now, it looks like Austria and Germany plan to partially reopen their shared border tomorrow . Other countries are slated to follow suit over the coming weeks. Greece, another country devastated economically, supports allowing travel between EU countries starting June 15 , as long as there is a plan to test travelers for the novel coronavirus in place. As Morning Brew highlights, the plan will likely only allow European travel for EU countries. Travelers from places like the United States may not be allowed, at least for a few more weeks. But this bold move could be exactly what investors are looking for. InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth wrote at the end of April that travel stocks had been some of the worst performers in 2020. That makes a ton of sense. Cruise ships became a symbol of mass outbreak, and air travel fell to rock-bottom levels. It’s hard to backpack through Europe when you’re under a stay-at-home order that bans non-essential movement. But Ashworth was surprisingly bullish on travel stocks, even then. He wrote that over the next decade, top names in the sector should see massive gains. Investors who get in at cheap prices will see handsome rewards. In other words, buying a battered travel stock now could help you pay for your European vacation when lockdowns fully lift. Here’s a look at seven travel stocks Ashworth is recommending now : Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL ) Southwest Air Lines (NYSE: LUV ) LVMH (OTCMKTS: LVMUY ) Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL ) Hilton Hotels (NYSE: HLT ) MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM ) Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG ) 6 Vanguard ETFs to Buy to Weather the Coronavirus Storm [Thursday, May 14, 10:22 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace analyst Neil George has been surviving — and thriving — in market crises since 1987. Through his work, he’s navigated the dot-com crash, the SARS outbreak in China and the Great Recession. Now, he’s using his skills to help investors survive the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus. He often looks at individual stocks and bonds, but today he took a deep dive into Vanguard ETFs. According to George, the Vanguard fund family is one of the best. And the sectors he chose ETFs from are perfect to help investors actually profit despite the chaos. That’s one of the fundamental things he looks for in his Profitable Investing model portfolios. So if you’re looking to invest in solid ETFs through a qualified retirement account, or you just like the opportunities that these funds present, Neil George has your back. He’s looking at sectors like utilities, and even real estate investment trusts, to find opportunity. Here are six Vanguard ETFs that he’s recommending now : High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSEARCA: VYM ) Real Estate ETF (NYSEARCA: VNQ ) Utilities ETF (NYSEARCA: VPU ) Information Technology ETF (NYSEARCA: VGT ) Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF (NASDAQ: VCIT ) Tax-Exempt Bond ETF (NYSEARCA: VTEB ) Buy Cloud Computing Stocks to Survive the Recession [Thursday, May 14, 10:01 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Don’t let fears about the state of the economy keep you from profiting now. Instead, look to areas with big growth potential that are supported by massive, accelerating trends. InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier is doing just that — and he’s recommending cloud computing stocks right now. He wrote yesterday that cloud computing stocks are perfect recession-proof plays “hiding in plain sight.” How often do you think about the technology behind the TikTok videos you watch, the video calls you schedule or the photos you share to keep in touch with your friends? Well, it’s time you start thinking. As the novel coronavirus has thrust so much of our world online, cloud computing technology is increasingly important. Plus, Navellier writes that this trend is only accelerating. Just look at how successful companies like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) are. So where should you look? Navellier has been recommending ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW ) in his Growth Investor portfolio since July 2018, and it’s since gained 100%. Clearly you don’t want to miss out on this cloud computing trend. Read more of Navellier’s thoughts on this technology, and what’s coming next, here . Stocks Slip Thursday on New Jobless Reports [Thursday, May 14, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Is it really Thursday again already? Looks like it. And it also looks like it has been a couple of rough days for the market. This morning, investors learned that another 2.98 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits , bringing the novel coronavirus total above 36 million. This number hasn’t always had a market-moving impact, but stocks are slipping lower Thursday. Perhaps that’s because investors weren’t done digesting comments yesterday from Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell and legendary investors like Stanley Druckenmiller and David Tepper . With as much uncertainty in the world as there is, Thursday could still see a rally. But for now, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 1% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.99% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.84% Dow Gives Back 500+ Points on Renewed Virus Fears [Wednesday, May 13, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wednesday’s trading was yet another example of just how divided the nation is over the novel coronavirus — and how unpredictable the stock market is. States continue to reopen, and headlines cheered Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ welcoming of professionals sports . This gives fans, networks and hard-hit teams something to look forward to. At the same time, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell targeted “premature” reopenings with warnings of suffering and long-term pain. One day the market focuses on the positives, like the return of professionals sports. The next day, fears over the novel coronavirus dominate. Wednesday saw the latter. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed deep in the red. The S&P 500 closed lower by 1.75% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 2.17% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 1.55% Investors Support Sanofi Stock on U.S. Vaccine Promise [Wednesday, May 13, 3:46 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Paris-based Sanofi (NYSE: SNY ) isn’t rocketing higher in the market Wednesday, but it is outperforming the major indices. Shares are down just 0.2% in intraday trading, while the S&P 500 is down 2.2%. It turns out investors are always willing to play a game of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” What do I mean? Well, the United States was the first country to fund Sanofi’s vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus. Now partnered with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK ), it hopes to produce at least 600 million doses each year. According to a Bloomberg report, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson is disappointed with the lack of support from European nations , driving his Wednesday announcement. Perhaps to spark some funding competition, he shared that the U.S. is currently entitled to the largest pre-order of doses. Granted, the U.S. may only beat out other countries by a few days or a few weeks. Keep a close eye on Sanofi shares. It’s likely broader market influences, like early comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, are keeping the announcement from having a better effect. Tomorrow could bring more gains as Sanofi ups its bullish appeal amid the pandemic. Buy PepsiCo Stock As Snacks Go Direct to Consumers [Wednesday, May 13, 2:32 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One theme that we have reported on frequently in this column is the power of snack foods amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. Consumers are stocking up on Oreo cookies with as much aggression as they’re hoarding meat or face masks. That’s meant good things for food stocks with a strong grocery store hook. For investors, it has been a chance to profit on easy, family friendly business models. Now, PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP ) is looking to get in on the snack surge. According to reporting from Retail Brew , the company is rolling out two direct-to-consumer channels to embrace “blanket fort life.” Through Snacks.com and PantryShop.com, shoppers can buy both snack and drink bundles and individual Frito Lay chip products. This makes a lot of sense, and it shows PepsiCo’s ability to innovate quickly. While grocery store snacks are hot, the company missed out on e-commerce opportunities. If consumers plan on social distancing for several more weeks, it’s likely they’ll be more comfortable buying comfort food online. Plus, as we reported earlier today, PepsiCo is taking big moves in the digital advertising space, even as it backs away from long-standing network campaigns . The company was the first to get in on a new partnership between The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD ) and TikTok, reaching consumers in the Asia-Pacific region with a chip-focused campaign . It’s important for companies like PepsiCo to have direct reach to consumers, both through e-commerce and innovative advertising. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto wrote yesterday that PEP is one of the top stocks benefitting from virus tailwinds . Why? Cheap, comforting snacks like soda and chips are often recession-resistant and should continue to benefit in 2020 and beyond. 12 Stocks to Buy That Could Be Takeover Targets [Wednesday, May 13, 2:11 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith At the beginning of the pandemic, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a temporary ban on big corporate mergers . Their logic? Mergers serve to boost the economic power of large corporations while smaller players suffer the effects of the outbreak. Undeterred by the proposal, rumors of a tie-up between Uber (NYSE: UBER ) and Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB ) began swirling yesterday. Many investors think a deal would make sense — it would help consolidate the food delivery industry, and help Uber as its ride-hailing business suffers. But this deal represents a lot. For one, it stands in stark contrast to several deals that failed as a result of the novel coronavirus . The Uber-Grubhub opportunity also is a reminder to investors that takeover bids can be great buying opportunities. With that in mind, Barron’s compiled a list of 12 other stocks to watch for potential takeovers . Here’s what you should be watching now: Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ: STLD ) L Brands (NYSE: LB ) Moog (NYSE: MOG.A ) Yelp (NYSE: YELP ) Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY ) Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK ) Pure Storage (NYSE: PTSG ) II-VI (NASDAQ: IIVI ) Corteva (NYSE: CTVA ) Reliance Steel (NYSE: RS ) Flowserve (NYSE: FLS ) Woodward (NASDAQ: WWD ) EverQuote Stock Is Set to Be a Coronavirus Winner [Wednesday, May 13, 1:54 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One thing that is undeniably true is that the novel coronavirus made the online world much more appealing. Heck, I even convinced my grandmother to try out a Zoom Video (NASDAQ: ZM ) call a few weekends ago, and she loved it. Now she’s a videoconferencing pro. Consumers are turning to online shopping for essentials, groceries and even hair products while salons remain closed in many states. But InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango is bullish on another sector that’s headed to the web. Data suggests that insurance companies — long driven by in-person policy sales — are embracing an online model. According to Canadian Underwriter , this trend started before the pandemic. Insurance markets think Generation Z shoppers will prefer online policy sales because online shopping is associated with brand loyalty, refunds and accessible product information. Lango thinks EverQuote (NASDAQ: EVER ) stock is set to seriously benefit from this trend, especially as the pandemic forces consumers to turn online for all sorts of purchases. His new modeling estimates a share price over $100 within just a few years , and earnings per share of $3 by 2025. So what exactly is EverQuote? Like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) brought shopping online and Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE ) brought the travel industry online, Lango sees EverQuote leading the way for insurance. That’s because it’s a top online marketplace for insurance policies. Need another reason to be bullish on EverQuote stock? Its first-quarter earnings showed revenue up 56% year-over-year and the company raised its full-year guidance . That’s impressive. Don’t Ignore the Hidden Potential in Gilead’s Generics Plan [Wednesday, May 13, 1:20 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Have investors soured on Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) stock? Over the last few weeks it has been a market leader. Good news for its novel coronavirus candidate remdesivir drove whole indices up. Bad news took them down, hard. But now Gilead can’t seem to win back favor. On Wednesday, Gilead announced that it now has five licensing agreements with generic drug manufacturers. When I heard the news, I assumed this would have GILD shares higher in intraday trading. These manufacturing agreements will allow remdesivir to reach 127 countries , including many low-income and middle-income nations. Plus, plans to scale up manufacturing to that degree seem like a bullish indication of remdesivir’s potential. Instead, Gilead is down with the market, to the tune of 0.4%. According to BioPharma Dive’s Jacob Bell, some of the concern comes from advocacy groups like Public Citizen , which question how many low-income individuals these agreements will help. These groups say half the world’s population lives outside of the included countries. This is an extremely valid point, but is it the sole reason investors aren’t cheering the news? While advocacy groups help shape the philanthropic reach of remdesivir, don’t ignore the bullish messaging here. Investors also shouldn’t ignore the potential coming to generic drug makers. If remdesivir gets the green light, Mylan (NASDAQ: MYL ), Hetero Labs , Jubilant Life Sciences and Ferozsons Laboratories stand to benefit from associations with the life-saving drug. InvestorPlace’s Larry Ramer agrees. He wrote today that GILD stock is set to prove the bears wrong , and that it’s time to see the blockbuster potential in remdesivir. Despite Gilead’s choice to donate thousands of doses, he still sees a chance for $3.4 billion in sales in 2020. A coronavirus cure and $3.4 billion? That’s not something to scoff at. Buy The Trade Desk Stock for Its TikTok Partnership [Wednesday, May 13, 12:36 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One of my favorite quarantine habits involves getting comfy, grabbing my tablet and watching hours of short videos on TikTok. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a social media platform from China’s ByteDance . It features short-form video content, often with dance challenges, short comedy bits or cute pets. TikTok is taking the world by storm. The Verge’s Ashley Carman reported in April that the platform surpassed 2 billion downloads , and much of its growth came in the first quarter as people were stuck at home. It is simply an inspiring growth story. Some experts warn that ByteDance is threatening the dominance of rival Tencent (OTCMKTS: TCEHY ) which similarly invests in social media, online gaming and entertainment. And while ByteDance remains private, there is speculation an IPO is just around the corner. If you still don’t get TikTok’s potential, take this reporting from Axios’ Shane Shavitsky. Tweens and teens on the app have a lot of sway in “vaulting” songs to the top of the Billboard charts . Just this week, Doja Cat’s “Say So” earned a No. 1 ranking, after a 17-year-old user created a viral dance. This business model is so solid that Pitchfork’s Alphonse Pierre says Drake’s “Toosie Slide” was a calculated move to succeed on TikTok . Now, hopefully you see what I mean. For individual investors, there’s a great way to buy into this massive opportunity. The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD ) — which is a success story in its own right — recently launched a partnership with TikTok to get ad clients easy access to the platform. The new offering launched in Thailand, led by a campaign from PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP ). Just like connected TV boosts the success of TTD stock, TikTok should be a major catalyst. TikTok users have a lot of consumer power, and The Trade Desk is a great play on the future of digital advertising. That’s why InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango says TTD stock is one of the top stocks to invest in for a “post-coronavirus whipsaw.” With a new partnership under its belt, it’s too good to ignore here. 7 Stocks to Buy That Have Strong Upside Potential [Wednesday, May 13, 11:41 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Just a few weeks ago, finding a stock that was in the green year-to-date was like winning the lottery. Now, though, the S&P 500 is far off its 2020 lows, and many stocks are flaunting eye-grabbing gains. Does that mean there are no more bargain opportunities for bottom-fishing investors? No. InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek wrote today that if investors don’t see bargains right now, they’re not looking in the right place. Almost 100 companies in the S&P 500 are still down more than 40%. Talk about opportunity. With that in mind, here are seven stocks he’s recommending now : Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD ) Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) General Electric (NYSE: GE ) Altria (NYSE: MO ) Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN ) Boston Properties (NYSE: BXP ) Sysco (NYSE: SYY ) Bill Miller: A Vaccine Will Trigger an Airline Stock Rally [Wednesday, May 13, 11:10 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Airline stocks have had a rough year, and investors like Warren Buffett are kissing the sector goodbye. Many predict that demand will suffer in the long term, especially as consumers adopt new attitudes toward hygiene and remote work. But Bill Miller, the legendary investor behind Miller Value Partners , has a strong counter to that argument. He sees a bet against airlines as a bet against the development of a novel coronavirus vaccine (subscription required): “If you don’t own the airlines, then you’re making a bet against the vaccine. People love flying and don’t worry about catching polio or smallpox, if there is a vaccine. … If there is a vaccine, that will eliminate all the issues people have about flying and these [stocks] will come back very, very quickly.” Plus, Miller thinks all the bad news about air travel is already priced into airline stocks. That’s why he is maintaining stakes in Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ), United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) and American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ). To be fair, he doesn’t snub Buffett for making a decision to sell. He just sees a great opportunity for value investors in the sky. Just this morning, InvestorPlace’s Chris Lau wrote in agreement. He says that although airline stocks are a bit of a gamble, American Airlines has a huge margin of safety. Lau thinks AAL stock has 80% of upside ahead . That’s a great reason to pick up shares now. Don’t Miss Out on the Sportsbook ‘Gold Rush’ [Wednesday, May 13, 10:49 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Let’s get a few things straight. Live sports are on a hiatus, at least for the most part, and ESPN is left to broadcast game reruns and marble races. As Axios’ Kendall Baker writes, even when live sports do return, America will see a “no-fans era” in stadiums. The data backs that up. A recent poll found that only 24% of respondents are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to attend a live game as soon as restrictions are lifted. Why? Americans want a vaccine for the novel coronavirus first. Those combined points paint a pretty awful picture for the sports world. But at the same time, sportsbook companies — companies that accept bets in retail locations or online — are forging ahead. DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG ) stock has been incredibly hot in recent weeks, and it’s up 4% in intraday trading. Turns out famous investor George Soros is also bullish on the company . DraftKings, FanDuel and Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) are racing to attract bettors despite the lack of live sports. And to an extent, it’s working. The companies saw a record number of wagers for the NFL virtual draft in April, and MarketWatch’s Weston Blasi writes that virtual NASCAR races and League of Legends games are upping the stakes . This odd reality makes DKNG and PENN surprising pandemic options for investors to consider. DKNG shares are up 156% year-to-date, while PENN shares are down 30%. Is either stock a good buy now? InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall thinks the long-term picture is extremely bullish for DraftKings, so if you’ve already bought shares then you’re in luck. If you’re still on the sidelines, he recommends waiting for a pullback — it’s clear DKNG has already climbed pretty far in 2020. McCall feels similarly about Penn National Gaming, which has a stake in Barstool Sports. It’s a long-term winner, but the road ahead could be tough as casinos reopen. In short, sportsbook operators are surprisingly resilient amid a pandemic. DKNG and PENN represent entry to a huge market opportunity, and they’ll be stocks to buy on a near-term pullback, if not now. Stocks Cut Morning Gains After Fed Remarks [Wednesday, May 13, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Stock futures were trending higher Wednesday, at least until Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave some prepared remarks on the state of the economy. Unsurprisingly, Powell doesn’t see everything as rosy, and in fact cited several key points that could make full economic recovery take even longer. As for his buddies on Capitol Hill, Powell is urging for more fiscal support. He calls out those with “the power to tax and spend” to help boost the economy, even if such measures would be costly. His remarks also come as Republicans and Democrats continue to debate another round of stimulus funding. His message wasn’t apocalyptic, but no one likes thinking about a long recovery. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all dramatically flipped into the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 2.05% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.41% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 2.06% Snap Up Uber and Grubhub Stock if the Rumors Are True [Tuesday, May 12, 4:37 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell touched on news that had the stock market in an uproar Tuesday in his daily column. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Cara Lombardo, Uber (NYSE: UBER ) is looking to take over food delivery competitor Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB ) in an all-stock deal. Grubhub has not confirmed or denied the rumors, but shares closed higher by 29% today. This comes as consumers turn en masse to restaurant delivery, as dine-in options remain closed in almost all states. Plus, Uber has seen a massive decline in its main ride-hailing business, leading it to focus more heavily on its Uber Eats. Boy, that’s some news. Kenwell wrote that such a deal wouldn’t be surprising . Grubhub executives also hinted that consolidation in the food delivery industry “makes sense.” InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango loves the sound of this deal. He wrote that Grubhub stock is now a “scorching-hot buy” on the rumors. If the deal goes through — which Lango thinks it will — both Uber and Grubhub are stocks to buy. Stocks Close Lower Tuesday Despite Morning Push [Tuesday, May 12, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith This morning, we reported that investors were seemingly ignoring warnings from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. But perhaps that changed, as stocks reversed course and headed lower. Even Vice President Mike Pence will now isolate himself , as his spokeswoman tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Across the U.S. businesses continue to reopen. A big problem is the lack of agreement. President Donald Trump, state governors, CEOs and public health experts can’t seem to form a unified plan. If Fauci’s warnings hold true , states rushing to reopen could be in for “suffering” in the near future. With that in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all headed into the red to close the day. The S&P 500 closed lower by 2.05% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.89% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 2.06% Tilray Stock Looks Like a Buy as It Navigates the Pandemic [Tuesday, May 12, 3:32 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Canada’s cannabis darling Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY ) has had a rough year, just like many other cannabis stocks. Shares are down more than 55% year-to-date, and 85% over the last 12 months. Many investors were hoping a Monday night earnings report would turn things around. Unfortunately, shares are down 7.5% in intraday trading. But not all investing experts are selling Tilray stock. MarketWatch’s Max Cherney wrote Tuesday that the novel coronavirus has not actually hurt the company’s operations. And, digging through the results, there may even be room for optimism. For the first time ever, Tilray saw higher sales of medical cannabis abroad than at home in Canada . Overall, the pot producer did see sales increases in March and April over January and February. Many experts predict consumers will turn to marijuana while they are stuck at home. Despite these results, or perhaps because of them, InvestorPlace’s Nicolas Chahine remains bullish on Tilray stock. He wrote today that shares will once again surpass $11 , although the road ahead isn’t easy. What’s driving his argument? He sees higher international sales as a sign Tilray is expanding. The pandemic is keeping this success under the radar, but it’s not something to ignore. As Chahine writes, look for new legislation in the U.S. and abroad. Anything that can help Tilray move forward is a good sign for cannabis bulls, and for Tilray stock. 4 Stocks to Buy With Major Fund Manager Support [Tuesday, May 12, 3:08 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith One great way to get stock ideas is through looking at what top fund managers are buying. That’s exactly what Morningstar’s Susan Dziubinski did, working with managers from Diamond Hill and Dodge & Cox to discover which consumer stocks are trending right now. Like some of Dziubinski’s other picks, her four-stock list focuses on consumer plays . Two names on her list focus on the increasing popularity of snack foods while consumers are stuck at home. Another is a bet on a rebound in the travel industry. What they all have in common is that fund managers are buying up shares. Here are the four names Dziubinski is watching now: Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH ) Kellogg (NYSE: K ) Mondelez (NASDAQ: MDLZ ) Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG ) 7 Tech Stocks to Buy That Go Beyond Videoconferencing [Tuesday, May 12, 2:46 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Tech stocks have been making waves recently, but as InvestorPlace’s Chris Lau writes, investors have mostly focused on stocks benefiting from remote work trends. Overlooking other tech megatrends, though, could mean forgoing serious profits. Lau is bullish on big trends like artificial intelligence and 5G — and for good reason. Although the novel coronavirus has dampened international hype around those trends, they aren’t going anywhere. In fact, the pandemic is likely accelerating these trends. Ignoring them is a great way to lose money. InvestorPlace also spoke with Dirk Hackbarth, a professor of finance at Boston University. One thing Hackbarth highlighted is that while American companies have historically led these megatrends, it’s time for investors to take Chinese companies seriously. That’s especially true as China’s economy appears to be rebounding faster. From Hackbarth : “To the extent that China’s economy may rebound before the U.S. reaches its trough this year, it will provide another advantage for Chinese firms, such as Alibaba and Baidu, to better compete with the likes of Microsoft and Alphabet.” So, while you’re looking for the latest opportunity in videoconferencing, make sure to keep an open mind. Other tech trends, especially led by Chinese companies, represent major potential. Here are seven tech stocks Lau is watching now : Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Intel (NASDAQ: INTC ) Logitech (NASDAQ: LOGI ) Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) Buy Fastenal Stock for Protective Equipment Potential [Tuesday, May 12, 2:13 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Fastenal (NASDAQ: FAST ) is likely not a stock that investors think about everyday. The company distributes safety equipment, fasteners and other industrial products as part of the wholesale supply chain. Its clients include construction businesses, food processors and local governments. Thanks to the novel coronavirus, Fastenal is getting its time in the spotlight . Sales of its safety equipment were up 120% year-over-year in April, and FAST stock is up about 7% for the year. CFO Holden Lewis said that “surges” in safety equipment sales were certainly responsible for its performance. According to Industrial Distribution , these safety equipment sales are changing the game , especially as sales of its fastener products continue to hurt. Fastenal saw 11,000 accounts make safety purchases in April that had not made similar purchases since October 2019. But beyond the headlines, there’s a bigger opportunity. Fastenal is an otherwise boring company that doesn’t usually hold conference calls for its sales numbers. Lewis’ insight into the sales is important. He says one customer bought “back-to-work” kits for employees, filled with masks, temperature gauges and hand sanitizer. This is the new normal, and Fastenal is set to win. More companies will ramp orders of safety equipment as they bring employees back to work, and similar kits will be making the rounds at all sorts of factories. Plus, once those factories reopen, sales of Fastenal’s other products should gradually return to normal. 5 Streaming Stocks to Buy as Social Distancing Continues [Tuesday, May 12, 1:26 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Americans are entering a new normal, and they have an intense fear of germs. That fact, along with a series of recent reports, bodes well for streaming stocks. Consumers ramped up their TV watching early on, but as they continue to stay at home, their new streaming accounts and favorite shows won’t disappear. Plus, cord-cutting trends are only accelerating. Research firm MoffettNathanson reported that as pay TV subscriptions fell by 1.8 million in the first quarter, the state of cable TV returned to levels not seen since 1995. Clearly, as consumers up their TV time, they’re not choosing new cable packages. Granted, MoffettNathanson’s report also includes businesses and restaurants that have canceled cable subscriptions. But other reporting from Axios’ Sara Fischer backs up the case for streaming stocks. She writes that traditional TV companies are also struggling to move forward with the fall season . It’s hard for networks to sell marketers if they don’t know what shows they can realistically produce. On the other hand, streaming platforms benefit from deep archives of fan-favorite shows. With this in mind, consider streaming stocks a great way to play a phased economy reopening. That’s one of the reasons InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango is so bullish on the space. He recently wrote that the novel coronavirus is accelerating the shift from traditional TV to streaming TV at record pace. Here are five names he recommended at the end of April : Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) Disney (NYSE: DIS ) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) AT&T (NYSE: T ) Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU ) Novavax Stock Soars 60% on Vaccine Funding [Tuesday, May 12, 12:45 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) got up on the right side of the bed this morning. In an early press release, the vaccine specialist announced it had received an additional $384 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). This money will help the company in its fight to develop a novel coronavirus vaccine. Earlier in 2020, it received $4 million from the same group. Boy, investors like what they see. NVAX stock is up 68% in intraday trading, surpassing $40 per share. Although the funding itself is exciting, it’s likely the market is cheering the company’s plan to ramp toward “100 million doses” by the end of 2020. According to the press release, the funding will allow early stage clinical trials to begin in Australia. Top-line results from Phase I studies should be ready in July. As previously mentioned, another portion of the money will go toward scaling up manufacturing capacity in 2020 and 2021. Barron’s Josh Nathan-Kazis adds in some important context. He writes that Novavax is relatively far along in its studies for a coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, it faces fierce competition from more well-established companies . Novavax has no approved products on the market, although it is currently developing a vaccine for the common flu. Shares are up over 800% so far for 2020, and analysts have a 12-month price target just over $42 . After today’s move, that doesn’t imply very much upside. However, it’s obvious investors will reward any company that brings a successful vaccine to market. With that in mind, don’t discount the bullish opportunity in NVAX stock. Plus, a vaccine will open the doors to a truly safe reopening, and perhaps a return to the pre-pandemic way of life. Wedbush: Buy Apple Stock as iPhone 12 Draws Near [Tuesday, May 12, 12:08 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Sure, “fears for a Nightmare on Elm Street ” quarter influenced Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL ) March results. But at the same time, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives sees the company’s service business as “Teflon-like.” That’s a pretty nice comparison. In a new note to clients, Ives turned up the heat on Apple. He gave shares an “outperform” rating and bumped his price target from $335 to $350. With a current share price near $318, that implies 10% of upside. So what happened to turn Apple from a nightmare to a stock to buy? According to Ives, the thesis revolves around the iPhone 12. The analyst writes that approximately 350 million iPhones are in the company’s upgrade window, and supply chain experts in Asia are confident about iPhone momentum in 2020 and 2021. But this forecast doesn’t even take into consideration a fall 2020 launch of the new phones. Ives writes that his firm sees a 10%-15% chance Apple releases the phones on schedule. A $350 price target is pretty comforting, especially given that outlook. InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango agrees. He wrote Friday that Apple is one of the best ways to invest in 5G , as consumers will need 5G devices to benefit from the trend. With or without new models in 2020, it’s nice to know analysts are still bullish on AAPL shares. Whenever the iPhone 12 debuts, be ready for a rally. Is Jeff Bezos’ Movie Theater Move a Chance for Bulls? [Tuesday, May 12, 10:55 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Rumors swirled faster yesterday in the investing world than in lines for a Marvel movie premier. That’s because the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail reported on a potential acquisition of AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC ) by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ). The former company is a shell of its former self. Movie theaters remain closed in many states even as phase-one reopening plans go into motion. Plus, movie studios have had to delay production work, and therefore big release dates. These last few weeks have been an absolute nightmare for the industry. But the latter company is a true winner, even amid the novel coronavirus. It seems like nothing can stop Amazon, and it allegedly wants to up its stake in the entertainment world. InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth questions just how comfortable consumers will be if Bezos successfully extends his reach. Sure, the rumors raise a handful of ethical questions. But yesterday investors seemed to like the news as AMC stock shot up 30% . It’s back on the move today, up almost 7% in intraday trading. So, is a huge opportunity for investors, or is it too good to be true? Ashworth isn’t confident Amazon will come to AMC’s rescue . He also isn’t confident that AMC insiders would even approve such a deal. Similarly, InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango thinks it’s not worth chasing AMC stock here. But, he does see opportunity. He writes that Amazon should “absolutely” buy AMC . If it does, expect the deal to add long-term growth tailwinds to an already impressive company. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the headlines. Any official acknowledgement of the deal could change things. 7 Dividend Stocks to Buy if You’re Searching for Income [Tuesday, May 12, 10:23 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith This year has no doubt been a rough one for dividend investors. We’ve reported in this blog on the trials many companies face, choosing to slash or suspend dividends in order to better survive the pandemic. In short, income investing looks bleak. Even Disney (NYSE: DIS ) made the move to halt its dividend for the first half of 2020 . If Mickey Mouse can’t deliver, then what company can? Well, InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek has the answer. Bezek doesn’t disagree that dividend stocks look rough now. But he does have some advice — look for simply the best blue-chip stocks that have solid histories of dividend payouts. These companies are most likely to maintain their dividends even in the midst of chaos. Phew, that’s reassuring. Here are the seven dividend stocks he’s recommending now : Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) Public Storage (NYSE: PSA ) General Dynamics (NYSE: GD ) PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP ) Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL ) Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK ) Stocks Open Higher Despite Fauci’s Virus Warnings [Tuesday, May 12, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease expert, will testify today as states continue reopening. He warns that a premature move could cause “needless suffering and death.” But Fauci is at odds with President Donald Trump and the broader market sentiment. As states reopen, businesses reopen. Furloughed employees return to work. It sounds so simple, right? On Tuesday morning, it appears so. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.37% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.46% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.78% Buy Carnival Stock As Consumers Come Cruising Back [Monday, May 11, 4:40 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Over the last few weeks, this blog has provided investors several reasons to be bullish on Carnival (NYSE: CCL ) stock. We’ve looked at insider buying and the company’s plan to return to cruising this summer. Now, InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell has an even better reason to buy shares . It turns out that consumers really are ready to start cruising again. In the three-day period after Carnival announced its summer plans, bookings rose 600% compared to the previous three-day period . How’s that for pent-up demand? Granted, Carnival isn’t reopening all ports at once. It currently is eyeing summer departures from Florida and Texas, but that’s better than nothing. As Kenwell writes, cruises won’t look the same. Carnival and its peers need approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If they acquire that, they’ll also be looking at some new health guidelines. He says travelers should anticipate health screenings, no self-serve buffets and restricted occupancy in some areas. Passengers may have to provide medical notes proving they’re not at increased risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. Still need some convincing? InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper wrote that now is the perfect time to buy CCL shares . He’s confident that 2021 will see renewed momentum. Plus, he likes votes of confidence from Wall Street. UBS analyst Robin Farley says Carnival is the strongest in its sector. Stocks Struggle Monday as Virus Uncertainty Reigns [Monday, May 11, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Boris Johnson is pushing for businesses to reopen in the United Kingdom. The United States continues to see a wave of phased reopenings. But South Korea just saw a spike in new novel coronavirus cases, as did China’s Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak . Many in the U.S. are still waiting for their $1,200 stimulus checks. Democrats and Republicans are bickering over a fourth wave of stimulus payments — and representatives of the former party are hoping to aid hard-hit states . Elsewhere in the pandemic-driven investing world, attention is on companies like Quidel (NASDAQ: QDEL ), set to ramp production of new test kits. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk is threatening to move the company unless his California plant is allowed to reopen. With all this in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are in rocky territory at the start of the week. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.01% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.45% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.78% Is It Time to Start Buying Car Stocks? [Monday, May 11, 3:45 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith New reporting from The New York Times shows the light at the end of the tunnel may be getting closer. According to a Monday report from AutoNation (NYSE: AN ), car sales began to rebound in April. CEO Mike Jackson said that the “automotive recovery is underway” as consumers remain eager to purchase new vehicles amid easing lockdowns. No, that’s not exactly what many experts predicted. It seemed likely that car sales would keep falling. Unemployment figures are still on the rise, and consumer spending is hurting as a result. But there are other things working in favor of car sales. For one, public transit is likely to lose even some loyal riders as employees return to their daily commutes. In early April, Axios’ Kim Hart wrote that public transit was on a “death spiral” as consumers worried about heightened infection risk. After 9/11 rocked New York City, it took six years for subway ridership to return to pre-crisis levels. Jackson agrees that this growing fear of public transit is partially responsible for the rebound in car sales. At the end of April, sales were off by only 20%. At the start of that same month, they were off by 50%. Shares of AN stock are up almost 4% in intraday trading, in what has otherwise been a rough day for stocks. On a similar note, Ford (NYSE: F ), General Motors (NYSE: GM ), Toyota (NYSE: TM ) and Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU ) are planning for near-term returns to production. California-based Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) is finding some high-ranking support in its push to reopen early . Bullish investors should keep a close on eye on AutoNation and this group of automakers. As states reopen, we should get more data on public transit use. If consumers delay their return to subways and bus systems, car sales could spike. Bullish on Cryptocurrencies? Here’s a New Way to Invest. [Monday, May 11, 2:57 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Today is a big day in the cryptocurrency world. After lots of waiting, it’s finally the day of bitcoin’s (CCC: BTC ) halvening, or halving. This event has had InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall pounding the table for weeks. Why? If demand for bitcoin is high at the time of the halving, prices could soar. But there’s another reason for crypto bulls to celebrate today. According to an early morning press release, investors can now trade physically delivered futures contracts for ether (CCC: ETH ). This news makes Chicago’s ErisX the first U.S.-based exchange to allow such trades. So what does this all mean? Ether refers to the tokens behind ethereum, a specific use of blockchain technology. Ether tokens enable operations on the ethereum blockchain platform. Bitcoin is certainly the most well-known crypto, but many factors, including the novel coronavirus, have sparked a growing interest in other cryptocurrencies. That’s why ErisX has been pushing for a license to offer more regulated investment products. Previously, the exchange operated a live spot market for ether and other digital currencies. Now, individual and institutional investors can participate via physically delivered futures contracts . When these contracts expire, investors will actually receive ether tokens, and can use these contracts to build a position in the currency. ErisX has a similar offering for bitcoin futures. The biggest takeaway is that now investors have direct access to ether through traditional commodities markets. Another popular investment option has been the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (OTCMKTS: ETHE ) which tracks the price movement of ether , but does not lead to ownership of tokens. 3 Airline Stocks to Buy That Will Survive the Turbulence [Monday, May 11, 2:09 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith When Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ) announced he was selling his stake in several major airlines , investors panicked. The Oracle of Omaha is a legend. He can practically see the future, and he sees value even in hard-hit sectors. What does it mean when he doesn’t see rebound value in the airlines? According to InvestorPlace’s David Moadel, it’s not exactly the red flag many investors fear. In fact, Moadel thinks that individual investors shouldn’t follow in Buffett’s footsteps. He thinks three of the major airlines are actually ready to fly high once the novel coronavirus eases. Here are the stocks he’s recommending now : Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ) American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ) United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) Quidel Stock Looks to Be Monday’s Coronavirus Winner [Monday, May 11, 1:19 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Today California-based Quidel (NASDAQ: QDEL ) is looking to go from zero to hero. Yep, you guessed it. The daily victory comes on news related to the novel coronavirus. Over the weekend, the company received emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new type of test. This antigen test detects proteins associated with the virus , requires just a nasal swab and generates results within minutes. Shares of QDEL stock are up 30% in intraday trading as a result. There’s a lot to like here. One positive is the quick turnaround. Other tests have longer wait times, although offerings from Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT ) feature 5-minute and 15-minute results. The faster people get their results, the sooner they can self-isolate or get the treatment they need. Quidel’s test is also the first antigen test to receive such approval. Other tests look for either antibodies or genetic material associated with the virus. Although antibody testing has become a hot topic, critics point to its flaws. Many of the marketed tests generate a significant amount of false-positive results . According to NPR’s Jason Slotkin these antigen tests will also be cheaper and more accessible . One flaw is that they are not as sensitive (meaning they can trigger false-negative results ) as the harder-to-come-by PCR tests that look for the virus’ genetic material. Shoving aside scientific details, investors are happy. Quidel’s high-flying shares are likely to stay hot as states ramp up testing in efforts to safely reopen. Buy Berkshire Hathaway Stock Now at a Discount Price [Monday, May 11, 12:12 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Warren Buffett made waves at his annual meeting for Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ). As we reported last week in this blog, some investors took his commentary to be a sign of distress. Remember, it’s not that easy for someone with more than $100 billion in cash to find meaningful value in the stock market. However, individual investors can now find value in Berkshire Hathaway stock. According to Barron’s Andrew Bary, UBS analyst Brian Meredith has a “buy” rating on BRK.B stock . His 12-month price target of $233 is equivalent to $349,500 on BRK.A shares. That’s over $100,000 of upside. So, why buy now? Berkshire’s book value is falling, representing a chance to purchase shares at a discount. It now trades at about 1.1 times book — down from a recent average of 1.4 times. Yes, it’s important to note that Buffett doesn’t like focusing on the company’s book value. He’s long said that it doesn’t accurately reflect the underlying values of his businesses — he thinks Berkshire’s intrinsic value is much higher. Despite Buffett’s preferences, the book value is hard to ignore now. InvestorPlace’s Wayne Duggan agrees, citing Whitney Tilson in his argument. Tilson sees Berkshire Hathaway as the “best retirement stock in the market.” With a lower-than-average price-book ratio and Tilson’s glowing endorsement , Berkshire shares look too good to pass up. Bill Ackman Is Hot on Restaurant Brands International Stock [Monday, May 11, 11:02 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Bill Ackman, the famed investor behind Pershing Square , is turning up the heat on Restaurant Brands International (NYSE: QSR ). His firm has held a 5% stake since 2012, but a recent move has Pershing Square upping its stake to 7% — and filing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission form 13D signaling activist intent. According to CNBC’s Kenneth Squire, Restaurant Brands International is a typical investment for Ackman. It offers predictable growth and solid cash flows. Plus, since its Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes brands operate with franchise models, it has very low capital expenditures. This means that while other restaurants face a long road to recovery, QSR stock should bounce back with greater ease. As InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn wrote in early April, its franchisees are dealing with the brunt of the novel coronavirus . Yes, shareholders face a year-to-date loss of 20%. But Blankenhorn believes this is an opportunity to pick up more shares. TipRank’s Maya Sasson agrees. She wrote in late April that with extremely well-known brands, QSR stock is ready for double-digit growth by the end of 2020 . Stocks Open Lower as States Take the Reopening Plunge [Monday, May 11, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wait, what? Last week, it seemed like all Wall Street wanted was for more states and businesses to reopen. Now, though, headlines proclaim that investor “jitters” are behind Monday morning’s gloomy stock market open. Public health officials continue to warn of the risks associated with premature reopening, and South Korea just reported a spike in novel coronavirus cases . As is the new normal, there’s just too much going on to put everything nicely in balance. As states continue to push forward with phase-one reopenings, there will be a lot to watch. For now, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.79% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.87% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.65% Disney Stock Bulls See More Reasons to Buy [Friday, May 7, 4:37 p.m.] Contributed by Jessica Loder In Bret Kenwell’s stock market wrap-up today , he put the spotlight on Disney (NYSE: DIS ). The headlines have been pretty rough for DIS stock lately, but things seem to be taking a turn for the better. Investors and fans alike had been worried that even once things began to reopen, theme parks and major sporting events – places known for massive crowds — might not pick up where they left off. Would the visitors be too worried about Covid-19 to want to brave the crowds, even with precautions? But then Shanghai Disney started selling tickets to their reopening on May 11, and those tickets sold out “in minutes.” Sure it’s opening at 30% capacity, but still – it sold out in minutes . Apparently, there is plenty of demand, and that bodes well for when the rest of Disney’s theme parks reopen. Not only that, but while the big-name locations are closed until further notice, on May 20 some of the stores are opening in Disney Springs , a shopping area at Walt Disney World. Rosenblatt sees these moves as positives, as earlier openings mean more revenue. Analyst Bernie McTernan wrote “If the timeline for reopening Downtown Disney in Shanghai and the Shanghai Disneyland is similar for Disney Springs and Disney World it suggests Disney World would reopen July 22nd , 41 days ahead of our current forecast.” Flip Open the Paper and Buy New York Times Stock [Friday, May 8, 4:16 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investing in a newspaper, in this economy? That seems a bit outrageous. But according to new reporting from The Wall Street Journal , New York Times (NYSE: NYT ) didn’t have that bad of a first quarter. In fact, the company reported its biggest quarterly increase in digital subscriptions ever , which also helped to push up revenue. The New York Times gained 587,000 new digital subscribers , likely as consumers race to find accurate information about the novel coronavirus. What is gloomy is the company’s outlook for the current quarter — with predictions for advertising revenue to fall as much as 55%. This problem by no means is unique to The New York Times . Ad-dependent companies all through the investing ecosystem are hurting. So what does this mean? Well, the paper is attracting new subscribers when it matters most, even though consumer spending is dropping. Plus, it’s likely many investors will price in falling ad revenue in advance. When ad spending rebounds, NYT stock should benefit along with its peers. But there’s an even more bullish case to be made here. After the report, CFRA analyst Tuna Amobi upgraded shares to a “buy” rating with a $38 price target. It’s not drastic, but it is a good sign. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto has been bullish on NYT stock since January 2020 — and his catalyst goes beyond the pandemic. As many investing experts predict that President Donald Trump will retake the White House in November , Enomoto thinks The New York Times will see heightened readership as the election approaches . It’s no secret that Trump and the press don’t always get along, which should mean more drama, more subscribers and more share price returns for investors. Deutsche Bank: General Motors Is Wall Street’s New Darling [Friday, May 8, 3:36 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Until Wednesday, the only good news in the automotive world seemed to be the birth of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk’s son. That all changed when General Motors (NYSE: GM ) reported first-quarter results that had the analyst community cheering. Granted, it’s a rough world for traditional carmakers. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, General Motors and its competitors — Ford (NYSE: F ) and Toyota (NYSE: TM ) — have seen sales slump in a big way as the novel coronavirus impacts consumer spending. Regardless, Wednesday’s earnings report had GM stock up 3%. That’s because adjusted earnings per share of 62 cents seriously beat expectations for 33 cents. General Motors also beat on revenue expectations. This surprise had Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner “re-upgrade” GM stock to a “buy” rating , just a month after downgrading it to a “hold.” Although shares are still down almost 40% for the year, Rosner thinks they’ve priced in any more bad news. He also interprets the first-quarter results as a sign that cost-cutting measures are working in General Motor’s favor. From Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Rosner: “GM’s strong [first-quarter] performance and forward-looking outlook … demonstrate the benefit from its proactive actions to transform the business, right size its costs and boost profitability.” Here’s one more fun note. According to TipRanks, 80% of analysts covering GM stock think it’s a buy now . The average 12-month price target is $31.11, implying almost 40% of upside. 4 Top Gold Stocks to Buy Now [Friday, May 8, 1:22 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Not too long ago, Bank of America analyst Michael Widmer set an 18-month price target of $3,000 on gold . With that hike he had one catchy message: “The Fed can’t print gold.” Widmer’s words likely resonate with a lot of investors. As we’ve previously reported in this blog, the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented actions to fight the economic effects of the novel coronavirus have some worried about inflation after the pandemic. And on Thursday, famed investor Paul Tudor Jones made headlines when he admitted to purchasing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. Clearly, inflation risk is top of mind. But gold is the original hedge. One chief executive in the space is calling it a “self-funded insurance policy” as demand for the shiny metal climbs. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch rounded up four gold stocks for investors to consider now. Just as with other hot trends, Markoch cautions against buying into the hype. His recommendations are not speculative — they’re quality plays. Here are the four stocks he’s recommending now : Barrick Gold (NYSE: GOLD ) Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM ) Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM ) Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: GDX ) It’s Time to Buy Some Small-Cap Stocks [Friday, May 8, 12:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The novel coronavirus has shed light on several different stock buying strategies. Many experts are recommending that investors buying solid large-cap stocks at discount prices. For example, before the market rebound, leading names like Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) were at crazy low prices. Unfortunately, other investors are staying out of the stock market entirely and focusing on cash. According to the American Association of Individual Investors, regardless of your strategy, it’s important not to forget small-cap stocks when making pandemic purchases . Why? These smaller names tend to outperform their larger peers after extreme market action. This phenomenon is known as reversion to the mean . As AAII Journal editor Charles Rotblut writes, reversion to the mean is like a rubber band. When stretched, it snaps back, and sometimes it snaps back fiercely. Small-cap stocks have been stretched to record-cheap prices. If they snap “fiercely” higher, you don’t want to miss out. So, where should you start? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango has 10 recommendations : Cardlytics (NASDAQ: CDLX ) Inseego (NASDAQ: INSG ) Nio (NYSE: NIO ) Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG ) Stitch Fix (NASDAQ: SFIX ) Tabula Rasa Healthcare (NASDAQ: TRHC ) Health Catalyst (NASDAQ: HCAT ) InMode (NASDAQ: INMD ) LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN ) Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR ) 2 Unconventional Airline Stocks to Buy Now [Friday, May 8, 11:27 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In just a few weeks, the novel coronavirus decimated air travel. International borders were closed, airlines stopped serving major hubs and passengers simply stopped flying. But as CNBC’s Leslie Josephs writes, much of the conversation has focused on passenger airlines. Now, big names like Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ), American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) are once in again in the news as they ramp up cargo-only flights . Some investors like what they see, and think this pivot shows their comeback potential. Josephs points out two other airline stocks that aren’t getting as much love — but they really deserve it. Cargo operator Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (NASDAQ: AAWW ) is up 40% for the year. That’s way better than the passenger carriers. Shares of Air Transport Services Group (NASDAQ: ATSG ) are down for the year, but its revenue is way up. It’s certainly not a bad idea for the traditional passenger carriers to break into the cargo space, but Atlas and ATSG have just been doing it longer. Plus, AAWW and ATSG benefit from partnerships with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) — they’re both contracted to fly for the e-commerce giant . With that in mind, these unconventional airline stocks deserve a second look. If anything, the pandemic is accelerating e-commerce, and that trend isn’t likely to reverse. 3 Stocks to Buy That Are Long-Term Coronavirus Winners [Friday, May 8, 10:50 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors have seriously profited from stocks the novel coronavirus is making more relevant. Clorox (NYSE: CLX ), Alpha Pro Tech (NYSEMKT: APT ) and Costco (NASDAQ: COST ) are all great buys while consumers focus on bulk grocery orders, face masks and disinfecting products. But in an interview with Investor’s Business Daily, Andrew Horowitz of “The Disciplined Investor” highlighted three stocks investors should be looking to buy now. These move beyond the first phase of the pandemic — focusing instead on the crisis’ long-term impacts. For example, one stock he recommends is a play on funeral and cremation services. Another company he likes produces high-tech temperature scanners. As states move to reopen, all sorts of venues are likely to implement some sort of temperature check. Earlier in May, investors learned that Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG ) would begin reopening its mall properties with optional temperature checks for shoppers, and mandatory checks for employees. So, without further ado, here are Horowitz’s long-term coronavirus winners: Flir Systems (NASDAQ: FLIR ) Service Corporation International (NYSE: SCI ) Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV ) Stocks Trying to End the Week on a High Note [Friday, May 8, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Jessica Loder The Nasdaq moved back into the green on the year yesterday, and last night the U.S. federal government signaled that a new trade war with China may be off the table . Traders seem to be taking that optimism into Friday. The one big sour note is the April unemployment report, released at 8:30 this morning. The report included a loss of 20.5 million jobs in April, and an unemployment rate of 14.7%. But the plummeting employment rate isn’t exactly new, and the troubling numbers may have already been priced in. Whatever the reason, stocks are in the green Friday morning. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened up for the day. The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.06% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.32% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.7% The Best Thing Happening During These ‘Worst of Times’ [Thursday, May 7, 4:55 p.m.] Contributed by Andrew Taylor During times of great volatility, investors often cling to what they’re familiar with … including the stocks of companies they know best. Fear and conventional wisdom push people to the biggest brands. But what if I told you that America’s top stock picker — a man with 40 recommendations that have gained at least 1,000% in his career — believes that America’s most popular brand is a “must sell” right now? That’s exactly what Eric Fry is saying … This giant of the past was doomed with or without the fear of a pandemic. Eric believes it’s one of 25 big-name stocks that are going to experience hard times, even if a coronavirus cure is found tomorrow. And, remember, Eric is the legendary trader that accurately predicted the collapse of more than 70 stocks. That includes Cisco (fell 75% in a year after his prediction), Tyco (fell 74% in the year after his prediction) and Countrywide Financial (fell 87% in the two years after his prediction). Instead, Eric believes anyone with money in the market should focus on four companies that are in position right now to help people capture huge market gains. You probably haven’t heard of a single one of these firms… But you will. Get the facts for yourself and be one of the first to learn more about the four stocks you should buy right now … as well as the 25 companies you should sell immediately, on our website, here . Tune in to this video presentation now, while it is still available, and Eric will reveal what he believes will be his next 1,000% winner. The name, the ticker symbol and why it’s such a screaming buy — it’s all in Eric’s presentation and FREE to view. Just keep in mind, this valuable information won’t be up on our website forever. Fastly and Twilio Are Set to Be Coronavirus Winners [Thursday, May 7, 4:42 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell highlighted two serious winners in his daily column today. Twilio (NYSE: TWLO ), a cloud communications platform, saw its shares close higher by 40%. That’s largely thanks to its stellar second-quarter guidance. Analysts were calling for estimates of $323.4 million, but Twilio’s management is changing the game. They expect revenue between $365 million and $370 million — remember, most companies are reducing or withdrawing guidance completely. Thursday’s second winner was cloud computing services provider Fastly (NYSE: FSLY ). Shares similarly skyrocketed, closing higher by 46%. After the company hiked its full-year outlook, Kenwell writes it’s refreshing to see that the novel coronavirus isn’t hurting all companies. A word of caution about chasing the rally here: InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango sees a 2024 price target of $140 for Twilio shares . After today, they’re at $170. With this in mind, follow InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall’s advice and pick up TWLO on the next dip . Stocks Close Higher Thursday Ahead of Payroll Report [Thursday, May 7, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As we near the end of the week, it’s time for a little déjà vu. What does that mean? Well, it’s yet another Thursday marked by a grim economic report. This morning, we learned that another 3.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, and the major indices don’t seem to care. Also, investors once again find themselves in a predicament ahead of the U.S. Department of Labor’s monthly non-farm payrolls report. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said this report could be one of the worst ever . That’s comforting! At the same time, this weekend will mark the beginning of several states’ reopening plans. On Friday, 85% of Starbucks’ (NASDAQ: SBUX ) stores should be open, and it will be a little easier for consumers to get their daily coffee fix. In other words, there’s a cognitive dissonance in the market. At market close Thursday, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite were well in the green. Will that hold tomorrow morning? The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.15% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.89% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.41% 7 Cryptocurrencies to Buy for the Bitcoin Halvening [Thursday, May 7, 3:34 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Today, famed investor Paul Tudor Jones made headlines when he announced he was buying bitcoin. According to Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker, this makes him one of the first big names to do so. And Schatzker’s argument is pretty convincing — he sees cryptos as similar to gold in the 1970s , a great hedge against inflation. As the Federal Reserve has stepped up its role to fight the economic effects of the novel coronavirus, many experts are worried what unprecedented central bank actions could mean for inflation. That’s why bitcoin — and smaller cryptocurrencies known as altcoins — have been gaining a lot of traction. Cornell University’s William Cong told InvestorPlace that one of the biggest attractions of cryptocurrencies is that they are decentralized — they’re not linked to the Fed. From Cong: “Existing currency valuation models do not quite take into consideration decentralization — a potentially distinguishing feature of cryptocurrencies.” But this decentralization is not the only reason cryptos are hot right now. Bitcoin’s next halvening is just around the corner, and prices have been known to skyrocket after these events. That’s why InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall is gearing up to share a new crypto recommendation in less than 24 hours. It’s also why InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango is bullish on cryptocurrencies. Ahead of the halvening, he’s recommending that investors buy these seven coins : Bitcoin (CCC: BTC ) Zcash (CCC: ZEC ) Ripple (CCC: XEC ) Basic Attention Token (CCC: BAT ) Chainlink (CCC: LINK ) Synthetix Network Token (CCC: SNX ) DxChain Token (CCC: DX ) 3 Stocks to Buy for a Long-Lasting Bear Market [Thursday, May 7, 3:06 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Each week, some pretty staggering economic figures have hit the market. Just this morning investors learned that another 3.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. A few days prior, a new report from ADP shows that 20.2 million private jobs were lost in the month of April . With that in mind, those calling for a long-lasting bear market, like InvestorPlace’s Laura Hoy, don’t seem irrational. An important note is that Hoy isn’t cashing out — she’s recommending stocks best fit to weather tough times. InvestorPlace also spoke with Scott Baier, Clemson University’s economics department chair, about what economic recovery will look like. He sees a lot riding on the second quarter. “The keys to the market in Q2 will depend on the progress that is made in our ability to respond to the health threats posed by COVID-19. If [we] are successful at flattening the curve and if state and federal governments have succeeded in making progress the market should begin to bounce back. Similarly, if the fiscal and monetary policies are able to provide support for business to remain open and retain their employees, the market is likely to bounce back in Q2.” Taking Baier’s words to heart, Hoy says that investors should be looking now for stocks that would benefit from economic recovery, but that also could sustain a longer bear market . Here are the names on her list: CVS Health (NYSE: CVS ) Dominion Energy (NYSE: D ) 3M (NYSE: MMM ) Bernstein: 4 Better Work-From-Home Stocks to Buy [Thursday, May 7, 2:42 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Bernstein analysts aren’t strangers to the fact that Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) has been a popular pandemic play. But they also know that many investors missed out on the first wave of work-from-home stocks. Today, a new note to clients brings some good news. As companies like Capital One (NYSE: COF ) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) plan to keep most employees at home for several more months, the remote work trend isn’t going anywhere. So where should investors look? Analysts Zane Chrane and Mark Moerdler are recommending “secondary beneficiaries” to Zoom’s surge. For instance, companies that provide support to its video conferencing service. Here are four work-from-home stocks they’re recommending now (subscription required): Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX ) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Oracle (NYSE: ORCL ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) 2 Mobile Gaming Stocks to Buy Now [Thursday, May 7, 2:30 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We’ve written often in this blog about video game stocks, but for good reason. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Sony (NYSE: SNE ) both plan to launch new consoles in 2020, and beyond that, the novel coronavirus is rapidly increasing the popularity of video games. A perfect piece of evidence is Nintendo (OTCMKTS: NTDOY ). Its Switch console is flying off shelves — almost impossible to find. Much of that demand is thanks to the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons , released just in time for stay-at-home orders. But, yesterday’s earnings report from Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA ) is proof that demand for mobile gaming is just as high. Remember Words With Friends and Farmville ? Apparently many consumers still do. Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau told Axios that the pandemic is driving consumers back to familiar games . On that note, Zynga had a stellar earnings report, beating its own estimates. According to Barron’s Eric Savitz, Zynga predicted revenue of $385 million . Instead, it reported $404 million — up a whopping 42% year-over-year. No wonder many InvestorPlace writers, including analyst Matt McCall, have been pounding the table on ZNGA stock . But there’s a second winner elsewhere in the mobile gaming world. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto recently recommended Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU ), the maker of branded games like one for Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Enomoto says the biggest appeal of Glu’s game is that they’re cheaper than consoles , and the games associated with consoles. While it seems like the entire industry is hot, don’t count out mobile gaming stocks now. Is There Still Time to Buy Moderna Stock? [Thursday, May 7, 2:10 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Another day, another pharmaceutical darling. Today it’s shares of Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) that are shooting higher in the market — to the tune of 10.5%. That’s because the company is testing a vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus, and once again it’s upping the ante. According to reporting from BioPharma Dive’s Ned Pagliarulo, Moderna already had an “exceptionally ambitious clinical development plan” for its candidate. On Thursday, though, Moderna released even more ambitious news. As the vaccine candidate works through Phase 1 trials, Moderna is prepping to launch late-stage trials by this summer. As Pagliarulo highlights, just 10 days ago Moderna said it would start those same trials in the fall. Investors love the ambition. Even without conclusive data, Moderna is ramping up production of the candidate. Consumers, many afraid of participating in a reopened world without a vaccine, are waiting with bated breath. But MRNA stock has already had a crazy 2020. Shares hit a low just below $18 and climbed as high as $56. Counting Thursday’s intraday rally, they’re resting near $54 now. Can they go higher, or is it too late for new investors to get in on the action? InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper says there’s still more room to run, which is why he’s recommending Moderna stock now . He says unprecedented demand for a coronavirus vaccine and the confidence a successful treatment will bring to the market give shares “plenty” of upside potential. My Newest Crypto Pick Is Live in 24 Hours [Thursday, May 7, 1:35 p.m.] Contributed by Matt McCall We are down to just 24 hours. That’s when I’m releasing my newest cryptocurrency buy recommendation. You don’t want to be late to position yourself. The cryptocurrency Halvening event is set to occur just one week from now. The last time this event occurred, little-known cryptocurrencies saw extraordinary gains, like… Reddcoin, which grew 72,400%. Neo, which rose 134,453%. And Ripple, which shot up 43,448%. History has shown the biggest gains in crypto investing goes to those who move earliest. That’s why I’m urging you to go over my buy recommendation the moment it goes live. That’s less than 24 hours from now. The best part about crypto investing is that a small stake, just $500 to $1,000, can potentially grow into five or six figures if invested correctly. My newest buy recommendation tomorrow can help kickstart your crypto investing journey. If you want to be one of the first to receive my newest crypto buy recommendation and research… Claim your spot here . Starbucks Stock Is a Buy as Coffee Cravings Intensify [Thursday, May 7, 1:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Many consumers (myself included) miss the experience of picking up an iced caramel macchiato from Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ). No, iced coffee drinks are not by any means essential. But Starbucks and its peer coffee chains are a symbol of American culture. In particular, Starbucks is a brand deeply embedded in daily life. That’s why InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall thinks Starbucks is among the strongest restaurant stocks . Customers are intensely loyal to the Seattle-based chain. Today, he wrote that while SBUX stock has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus — like all other food names — it’s used this time to pivot. As The Washington Post reported Tuesday, Starbucks is set to reopen 85% of its stores by tomorrow with mobile ordering, contactless payment and curbside pick-up options. Previously, many stores without drive-thru windows were closed. These reopenings, and Starbucks’ quick pivot to safer service, is a testament to its strength. As McCall writes, that should make SBUX stock a buy now. Shares are up 3.5% in intraday trading. Buy Peloton Stock as Consumers Panic Buy Peloton Bikes [Thursday, May 7, 1:10 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In perhaps a sign of these bizarre times, consumers are panic buying Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON ) bikes. Yes, these bikes come with a $2,000-plus price tag. But they also represent a certain quality — and a luxury brand — for athletes unable to hit the gym . After its 2019 initial public offering, many investors scoffed at Peloton. Who was buying luxury bikes? To make matters worse, a poorly planned holiday commercial spurred widespread outrage. Now, though, it looks like Peloton is making a comeback. As reported by the team at Morning Brew , Peloton’s revenue climbed 66% and hit $525 million . That definitely beat analyst expectations. On top of that, it added 1.1 million users to its digital fitness platform, where it offers virtual classes alongside its equipment. InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch has long been rallying behind fitness stocks for our new at-home world . In early April he listed PTON shares as some of the top names to buy. At the time, Markoch argued that social distancing was forcing people to change their habits — and more consumers were choosing to get fit with Peloton. Even once social distancing ends, many fitness buffs will see gyms as scary germ factories. That should bode well for Peloton’s continued success in 2020 and beyond. One thing to watch: As Morning Brew highlights, Peloton has halted deliveries of its treadmill. This product typically retails for $4,295 and is too big for safer delivery options the company is using for its signature bike. Will a return of treadmill sales further boost PTON? 10 AI Stocks to Buy for Solid Income Now [Thursday, May 7, 11:35 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Yes, our world currently revolves around toilet paper, face masks and all sorts of disinfecting products. But beneath the surface, megatrends in tech like 5G and artificial intelligence are still evolving. In fact, after the pandemic, we will rely on these new technologies for innovations in critical areas like healthcare and communications. But recognizing the hype in these technologies poses a risk to investors. Not all companies engaging with AI are stocks you want in your portfolio. So then how do you sort through the noise to profit? InvestorPlace analyst Neil George is all about finding solid, profitable opportunities . Within the 5G space, he looks at software companies, data center companies and even a finance company at the heart of Silicon Valley startups. Here are the 10 AI stocks he’s recommending now : Vanguard Information Technology ETF (NYSEARCA: VGT ) AT&T (NYSE: T ) Verizon (NYSE: VZ ) Samsung (OTCMKTS: SSNLF ) Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR ) Corporate Office Properties (NYSE: OFC ) Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC ) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Stocks Open Higher Despite Unemployment Figure [Thursday, May 7, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Another 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, more than analysts expected from Thursday’s report. However, it seems that investors are mostly shrugging off this weekly gloom. It’s safe to say the major indices are — stocks are well in the green Thursday morning. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened up for the day. Plus, with this morning’s open, the Nasdaq Composite has erased its 2020 loss. The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.33% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.12% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.35% Nio Stock Soars on April Delivery Figures [Wednesday, May 6, 4:38 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith There’s a particular type of optimistic investor that loves Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio (NYSE: NIO ). The company represents massive potential — but it hasn’t had an easy journey. It has faced cash crunches, high levels of criticism and a lot of market doubt. Shares rest now just above $3.60. But part of its struggle has been universal. In the first quarter, car sales were deeply impacted as the novel coronavirus kept people inside. That’s why the company’s April results had Nio stock gain 10.4% in the stock market today. As InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, the company delivered 3,155 vehicles in April . That’s up more than 100% from March. And, it’s also a great testament to China’s economic recovery. According to TipRanks, Nio stock has been racking up hold and sell ratings. But today’s report could be just what the company needs to gain new investor favor. Bank of America analyst Ming-Hsun Lee gave it a “buy” rating today and a $5 price target . That alone gave investors hope. So, is it a buy now? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote Monday that Nio has the potential for “HUGE” gains. That’s because he sees the electric vehicle market, especially in China, set for a massive boom. Stocks Reverse Course Wednesday, Shedding Gains [Wednesday, May 6, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Earlier this morning, bulls seemed set to have a good day. More and more states are jumping on board the reopening bandwagon, and nations around the world are doing the same. But with the exception of the Nasdaq Composite , stocks shed their gains over the course of the day. Investors have a lot to consider, including the health risks associated with reopening. Retailers are struggling with bankruptcy and further stimulus funding seems far away. Perhaps it’s not all that surprising the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average couldn’t stay in the green. The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.7% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.91% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.51% 3 Solar Stocks to Buy as Renewable Energy Regains Interest [Wednesday, May 6, 3:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith When InvestorPlace’s Larry Ramer recommended three top solar stocks in February 2020, he likely had no idea the novel coronavirus was about to sweep the world. It’s also likely that he didn’t predict the ensuing pandemic would throw Russia into an oil price war with Saudi Arabia. But boy, this year has been a doozy. In March and April, renewable energy seemed doomed. With crude oil at rock-bottom prices, there just was less appeal for alternate sources. As Bloomberg’s Anthony Di Paola writes, cheap crude used to deter investments in renewable energy , particularly in nations dependent on oil sales. But May 2020 is showing that things are changing. Di Paola writes that countries in the Middle East are surprisingly moving forward with renewable energy projects. Saudi Arabia is pushing to drastically up its renewable capacity by 2030, and in April took the next steps in selecting solar projects. In the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are moving forward with building solar plants after receiving “record-low” bids. So, it seems like solar power is still hot. For investors who want to get ahead of the rebound, here are Ramer’s three picks: JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS ) SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR ) Daqo New Energy (NYSE: DQ ) On another positive note, shares of all three companies are climbing in the stock market today. Did Disney Stock Just Start Its Comeback Story? [Wednesday, May 6, 3:22 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In many ways, Disney’s (NYSE: DIS ) earnings report was a disaster for the company. It reported a 58% drop in operating income for its parks and cruises segment — one of its most iconic. Overall, Disney’s earnings per share came in at 60 cents, missing expectations for 89 cents. And it’s suspending its dividend for the first half of the year . That’s all bad news. But there’s a silver lining boosting DIS stock in the market today. CNBC’s Jessica Bursztynsky writes that its Disney+ streaming service now has 54.1 million subscribers . That’s up from 33.5 million at the end of March. Yes, the streaming service certainly isn’t driving the bulk of Disney’s revenue. And yes, critics are right in saying Disney is fundamentally associated with Cinderella’s castle, not a living room couch. But the quick success of Disney+ highlights the power of the company, and what InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch sees as the crux of its comeback story. Even as a serious bull, Markoch isn’t denying that Disney faces some serious challenges. However, he’s confident that at least a handful of curious consumers will return to Florida and California parks as soon as they reopen. That’s why he says with some faith, trust, pixie dust and hand sanitizer, DIS stock is a buy right now . Here’s a final note: Disneyland’s Shanghai location will begin reopening May 11. Investors should keep a close eye on that process. Here’s the Bull Case From Warren Buffett’s Annual Meeting [Wednesday, May 6, 2:48 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith If you’ve checked the financial news in the last few days, you’ve likely seen some doom-and-gloom headlines about Warren Buffett’s annual Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ) meeting. Some investors are focusing on a “tone shift.” Buffett is known for being incredibly pro-America and incredibly optimistic. But this time around he isn’t buying stocks. InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn wrote today that Buffett’s cash hoarding is representative of deeper economic troubles in America . The Federal Reserve has stepped in to save demand, but Americans aren’t spending money. Frankly, Blankenhorn writes, many don’t have money to spend. Buffett also sold airline stocks — some of his more noteworthy investments. He also is hinting at another market correction, with what InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth describes as a less-confident approach than during the Great Recession. If the Oracle of Omaha isn’t buying, isn’t that a terrible sign? While there are certainly problems in today’s market, including the income inequality Blankenhorn highlights, Buffett’s virtual meeting wasn’t a destruction of the bull case. In fact, Ashworth writes that many of Berkshire Hathaway’s businesses are doing well . Some are even increasing headcounts in the midst of a pandemic, which is a comforting sign of their health. From a sentiment perspective, Buffett isn’t suddenly betting against America. He’s merely cautioning investors that it’s impossible to predict tomorrow, or even next month, as the novel coronavirus continues to affect the world. Beyond that, Buffett needs what you could call an elephant-sized deal to profit. He has $125 billion to work with — throwing money into the market better be worth his time. So what’s the takeaway? The 89-year-old Buffett is being cautious, and he’s looking for better values to step in and buy. That doesn’t mean it’s time to cash out, because you certainly won’t end up with his $125 billion cash pile. You’re better sticking it out in the market. 3 Teleconferencing Stocks to Buy Now [Wednesday, May 6, 2:06 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Yesterday, we reported that Capital One (NYSE: COF ) will keep the majority of its employees working from home until September. To many experts, that’s far from an irrational move. Even Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ) Warren Buffett is speaking up about remote work. According to InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper, the Oracle of Omaha sees the pandemic making permanent changes to office life. In other words, many Americans who began working from home because of the novel coronavirus will not return to traditional offices just because lockdown protocols are lifting. Tech stocks that play into telework — and specifically teleconferencing — have been some of this year’s biggest winners. But should you throw your money behind any old videoconferencing name? Cooper doesn’t think so. Instead, he sees these three stocks as the top plays in the space now : Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) Slack Technologies (NYSE: WORK ) RingCentral (NYSE: RNG ) The Buzz Behind Bitcoin’s Price Surge [Wednesday, May 6, 12:55 p.m.] Contributed by Nicholas Stern Bitcoin is hovering around $9,200 at the moment. It’s up over 11% in the past week and over 30% in the past month. There’s a buzz in the air, and many in the industry are pointing to bitcoin’s halving as one reason generating the recent excitement and price action. Indeed, searches for “bitcoin halving” on Google have increased exponentially in recent weeks. Source: InvestorPlace More and more people are clamoring to figure out what’s behind this change to bitcoin’s mining reward and why it could lead to higher prices. If you’re not familiar with the halving (or halvening), basically, it happens about every four years when the supply of new bitcoin coming on the market gets cut in half. The idea is if the supply drops at a time when demand is likely to increase, prices can skyrocket. Well, that day is coming quick! Investors who know their stuff about bitcoin, like InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall, have been talking about it for months. Matt recently held a special event that gives folks what they need to know right now to take advantage of this historic opportunity. The most important thing to remember at this point is that while the halving is just days away, it’s not too late. According to CoinDesk , recent research by asset manager Bitwise shows that a portfolio balanced with bitcoin can add value, even when prices are historically high. The research shows a traditional portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds that made room for 2.5% in bitcoin in January 2014 would have increased returns from 26% to nearly 45% by March 31, 2020. Returns still increased even when bitcoin was added at its to-date all-time high of $20,000 in December 2017, and then saw a substantial pullback. The bottom line is that while bitcoin is volatile, it’s also not tightly correlated to other assets. That gives bitcoin a leg up for investors seeking to more profitably balance risk and reward in their portfolios. But that’s not all. See, while bitcoin’s rise has been impressive, many of the other crypto assets known as altcoins have been doing much better. Altcoins are really where the action’s at these days. Matt lays out what’s going on with altcoins as the halving approaches, and why their rise should quickly surpass bitcoin’s. Check it out . UBS: Hiding in Cash Is Not the Answer [Wednesday, May 6, 12:11 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In a new note to clients, UBS warned that “sitting in cash is not the answer.” What prompted such an announcement? Well, in the last eight weeks, investors have been piling into money market funds , a specific type of mutual fund that primarily holds cash and other highly liquid assets. Plus, in the same time period, the amount of cash on the sidelines has leapt $1 trillion to a total of $4.7 trillion. During the entire 2008 financial crisis, that figure increased by less than $500 billion. It’s clear that the stock market just seems too volatile some days. But one of the biggest takeaways from the Great Recession is that investors who got out of the market and stayed out are some of this decade’s biggest financial losers. That’s why it’s important to park your cash somewhere it will make you money. So where should you park it? UBS recommends using the novel coronavirus as an opportunity to selectively buy cyclical stocks, defensive stocks and other long-term winners . According to the analysts, this strategy helps minimize risk and volatility while still putting your money to work. The firm also recommends stocks that are set to benefit from Covid-19 , like plays in telemedicine and health tech, fintech, e-commerce, automation and the so-called food revolution. Look to the Supply Chain for the Next Stocks to Buy [Wednesday, May 6, 11:40 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The world changed in March 2020, and so did the stock market. Names that were solid in January looked laughable. Stocks that no one was thinking about like Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) and Allied Healthcare Products (NASDAQ: AHPI) suddenly were flying high. Behind this shake up was the global supply chain. Clorox products were hot because of their disinfectant power, but also because Clorox wipes were impossible to find. Allied Healthcare Products gained popularity as consumers — and healthcare professionals — struggled to find personal protective equipment (PPE). Now, it seems that those areas of the supply chain are starting to settle into a new normal. But GOBankingRates’ Gabrielle Olya writes that it’s time to prepare for the next phase of panic buying. With that will come new hot stocks. Here are the categories she thinks will be in high demand soon : Laptop exports have decreased, and more Americans are working from home. InvestorPlace’s Tom Taulli writes that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) is a great stock to buy thanks to its Surface laptops . Generic drug exports are also at risk thanks to stay-at-home orders in India. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto wrote that Teva Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: TEVA ) is a top healthcare play now as consumers begin stocking up on generic and over-the-counter drugs . Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) already warned shareholders that its iPhone supply chain may face disruptions. InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier sees innovation pushing AAPL shares higher for years to come. Are you picking up a bad habit in quarantine? Unfortunately, a vape shortage is just around the corner, writes Olya. That’s because China is a lead manufacturer of vaping products. Want to profit from this trend? Look to Turning Point Brands (NYSE: TPB ), another pick from Josh Enomoto . The next thing flying off the shelves is likely to be cans of diet soda. Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) in particular makes its low-calorie options in China. But InvestorPlace’s Dana Blankenhorn is confident that KO shares — and the company’s dividend — will survive the pandemic. Ariel Investments Is Buying Iconic Stocks on the Dip [Wednesday, May 6, 10:42 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith When everything in the market seems upside down, it’s nice to know what the experts are doing. It’s also nice to get a sense for what the experts are thinking. According to John Rogers, the co-CEO and chief investment officer at Ariel Investments, there’s no doubt that the pandemic-driven downturn is “stunning” and “wrenching.” But he’s not panicking. That should help calm individual investors’ nerves. Like other famous value investors, Rogers is looking for discounts in hard-hit, iconic brands . On his buy list are Madison Square Garden Entertainment (NYSE: MSGE ), Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN ) and Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL ). It’s good to know Rogers is looking for stocks to buy now. But, he does have a word of caution. He says as concerns about a second wave of the novel coronavirus swirl, the return to normal may be slower than expected. Stocks Open Higher Wednesday [Wednesday, May 6, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors are really clamoring for states to reopen — and they’re driving the market higher on Wednesday morning. By the end of this week, several states will have started to lift lockdown measures. As the market prices in higher levels of consumer spending and reopened businesses, will Wednesday see major gains? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. With that in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 0.56% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.53% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 0.73% Learn More About Chegg Before it Goes to $200 [Wednesday, May 6, 8:41 a.m.] Contributed by Jessica Loder As more and more people are stuck home, their thoughts turn toward learning something new. And InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango sees that as just one of many reasons Chegg (NYSE: CHGG ) could be going to $200. “It increasingly appears that Chegg is taking over the education world ,” wrote Lango. “… over the past few years, Chegg has created a strong but niche on-demand connected learning platform which some, but not many, high school and college students use.” And the proof is in the pudding — or in this case, the earnings report. Not only was its revenue up 35% for the first quarter, but its subscriber numbers were up by about the same. And with social distancing and closed schools still the order of the day for much of the U.S. (historically Chegg’s biggest market), more people may find their way to one of the company’s programs in Q2. Now, that tailwind won’t last forever. Eventually we’ll get back to some semblance of normal, and many students will go back to learning in a physical school. But Lango sees the company enjoying a higher profile going forward that will lead to more growth. “Thanks to Covid-19, students and academic institutions across the world are pivoting towards online learning platforms. Those platforms have a lot to offer. Consequently, even once physical school resumes, many of those students and institutions will continue to use online learning tools as necessary supplements.” Chegg would have to do a lot right to get to that $200 target, but it’s already well on its way. Stocks Close Slightly Higher Tuesday After Cutting Gains [Tuesday, May 5, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Is the White House phasing out its highly watched virus task force? Will meat shortages destroy the U.S. food supply chain? And what did Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk really name his son ? Boy, those are some big questions. In all seriousness, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed the day in the green. But they shed gains in the last hour of trading, perhaps as headlines became too overwhelming. There’s a lot to watch in the market these days, particularly as states continue the push to reopen. Don’t blink, you could miss a massive move. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.9% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.56% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.13% 3 Stocks to Buy With Big Risks and Big Rewards [Tuesday, May 5, 3:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith With all the uncertainty in the market — and in the broader world — now may seem like the perfect time to sit back, bite your nails and count your cash. But InvestorPlace’s David Moadel has a different idea. On Tuesday, he shared an argument for taking some big risks in the face of the pandemic. Why? Big risks often mean big potential rewards. Don’t worry. He’s not recommending stocks from unproven companies. Instead, he’s looking at stocks that have long histories and represent hard-hit industries . Here’s Moadel’s list: Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS ) Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG ) Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG ) Wells Fargo: 3 Food Stocks to Put in Your Shopping Cart [Tuesday, May 5, 3:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith We’ve written that hygiene habits are likely to change for good, and trends like telework and telemedicine will stick around — and accelerate. But Wells Fargo analysts are also honing in on another trend gaining permanence thanks to the novel coronavirus. Before the pandemic, consumers were prone to eating out. Now, forced to eat at home more often, certain food stocks are seeing sales spike. Wells Fargo doesn’t think that trend will immediately reverse. Here are three food stocks to put in your cart now (subscription required): Mondelez (NASDAQ: MDLZ ) Nomad Foods (NYSE: NOMD ) Simply Good Foods (NASDAQ: SMPL ) 3 Telework Stocks to Buy as Companies Stay Remote [Tuesday, May 5, 3:00 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith On Tuesday afternoon, Capital One (NYSE: COF ) announced that the majority of its almost 50,000 employees would continue working from home through September . Shares are lagging the market on an otherwise up day. Investors shouldn’t be surprised by the news. Axios’ Erica Pandey writes that remote work is sticking — more than 50% of American employees are now working from home . That’s up from just 4% before the pandemic. For some businesses, that’s bad news. As we’ve previously reported, office spaces are likely to change permanently, and continued remote work could harm companies that benefit from urbanization (like luxury apartment REITs). Instead of fretting, though, look for ways to profit from the new normal. InvestorPlace spoke with Vidyanand Choudhary, a professor and senior associate dean of information systems at the University of California’s Irvine campus. Here’s what he says: “The need for social distancing and therefore some type of telework will continue for the next year or two. As such, it may lead to a culture shift where working from home becomes the new normal. Longer term, working from home may become more acceptable even after the end of this crisis.” So what stocks should you buy to benefit from this culture shift? InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch has a few ideas. He’s recommending Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO ), Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) as the top stocks to buy for remote work . InvestorPlace’s Tom Taulli agrees. He just wrote that MSFT stock will continue to benefit from teleworking momentum . Pfizer and BioNTech Stock Are Rocketing Higher Tuesday [Tuesday, May 5, 2:21 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Who would have guessed in January that the whole market would be so excited about a potential vaccine? It’s clear things are just radically different. On Tuesday, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX ) are taking their turn in the spotlight. This rally comes after the duo announced they had given their first U.S. volunteers a dose of a novel coronavirus vaccine candidate. According to BioPharma Dive’s Jonathan Gardner, the companies have already completed dosing in a German study. Now, they will run a U.S. trial across four sites, testing the vaccine to determine if it’s safe and if it can stimulate an immune response to the virus. Data from the trials will be ready in late May or June. As Gardner writes, Pfizer is preparing to deliver “millions of doses” by the end of 2020. Boy, that’s exciting. PFE stock is up 3% and BNTX stock is up almost 8% in intraday trading. InvestorPlace’s Todd Shriber is bullish on Pfizer stock for many reasons — he sees it as a long-term investment with potential beyond the coronavirus. That’s why he wrote at the end of April that its drug pipeline and cash balance make it a compelling buy right now . 9 Online Retail Stocks to Buy as Social Distancing Continues [Tuesday, May 5, 2:14 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith States are reopening, but that doesn’t mean everything is returning to normal. Americans have learned a lot about hygiene and viruses over the last few weeks, and those lessons will stick. Plus, the earliest phases of reopening require strict adherence to social distancing guidelines. So what does that mean for the economy? As InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto writes, it means that some retailers will see the novel coronavirus as a catastrophe. Others will see it as a massive opportunity. InvestorPlace spoke with Thomas Gilbert, an associate professor of finance and business economics at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business. From Gilbert: “My sense is that innovation is increasing and will increase rapidly in all domains touching ‘remote, distance, cyber, virtual, artificial, automated, etc.’ Online retailing was only 10% of total retailing prior to the virus and I would not be surprised if the new normal will be far far higher, like 50%.” With that in mind, investors need to find the companies set to benefit from this lasting shift to online retailing. Here are nine online retail stocks Enomoto is watching now : Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Wayfair (NYSE: W ) Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY ) Shopify (NYSE: SHOP ) Home Depot (NYSE: HD ) Kroger (NYSE: KR ) Target (NYSE: TGT ) Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ) Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ ) 5G Stocks Lead the Market Charge Tuesday [Tuesday, May 5, 11:51 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith President Donald Trump long ago waged a war against China’s Huawei , a company otherwise set to dominate the 5G rollout. Now, thanks to the novel coronavirus, that war is once again front and center. There are two emerging ways to play this anti-Huawei sentiment. First, some big tech names made even bigger news this morning. With support from the federal government, 30 firms launched the Open RAN Policy Coalition . According to Axios’ Margaret Harding McGill, the coalition supports a software-driven approach to 5G . In other words, these companies would like to see 5G move away from network hardware. Why? This avoids trapping countries between Huawei and more expensive options, like Nokia (NYSE: NOK ) and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC ). So who’s leading the coalition? Big names like International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM ), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and AT&T (NYSE: T ) unsurprisingly are involved. Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH ) is set to build a new nationwide wireless network , bringing the smaller company also to the front of the race. OK, so what’s the other play? InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek wrote this morning that he, too, thinks the future of 5G includes a shift away from Huawei. But he likes ERIC stock . According to Harding McGill, Bezek isn’t alone. U.S. Attorney General William Barr supports Ericcson and Nokia. Regardless of what plan wins, 5G stocks are sure to be hot. They represent a big tech investment in a post-pandemic world. Wayfair Stock Is an Unlikely Coronavirus Winner [Tuesday, May 5, 11:25 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith I’ve spent an unprecedented amount of time at home, and I’ve become quite familiar with what I don’t like about my apartment. In other words, my to-do list is loaded with small cleaning and organizational tasks. Oh, and I’m looking to buy some nightstands. Apparently, I’m not alone. As CNBC’s Lauren Thomas reported this morning, Wayfair’s (NYSE: W ) first-quarter sales were up 20% year-over-year . According to CEO Niraj Shah, consumers are “disproportionately” investing in home improvement while states remain in lockdown. That all sounds good. But InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall added some shocking context to that first-quarter sales figure. Wayfair shares are up 700% from their March lows. That’s crazy. It’s obvious that investors who already got in are happy Tuesday. But is there a chance for new buyers to profit? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He included Wayfair on a list of 15 tightly wound stocks with “pop” potential . According to Lango, as the company scales, huge revenue growth will translate to big profit growth. If you believe in the future of e-commerce, that sounds like a safe bet. Plus, Wayfair is a pick in InvestorPlace.com’s Best Stocks for 2020 contest . Long before the pandemic hit, The Motley Fool’s Jason Moser identified it as a top company cashing in on future retail trends. I can’t imagine ever going to a brick-and-mortar store to buy those nightstands I want. And the numbers show many consumers are in the same boat. Don’t miss out on this high-flying opportunity. 7 Tech Stocks to Buy to Profit from the Pandemic [Tuesday, May 5, 10:11 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors have dumped everything — even solid tech stocks — during 2020’s market selloff. Why? The pandemic wrought by the novel coronavirus is hard to predict, and it’s having far-reaching effects. InvestorPlace’s Ian Bezek has a wake-up call for investors. Tech stocks will be some of the best buys in the new world, and they’re also profiting right now. That’s why he thinks it’s time to start buying up shares. Still not convinced? Look at how Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) became a hot stock seemingly overnight. Companies that react and thrive through the pandemic are ones you want to hold for the long run. Here are the seven tech stocks Bezek is watching now : Ericcson (NASDAQ: ERIC ) Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW ) Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) Slack Technologies (NYSE: WORK ) Avalara (NYSE: AVLR ) Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR ) Roper Technologies (NYSE: ROP ) Stocks Open Higher Tuesday as States Continue to Open [Tuesday, May 5, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s a rather conflicting time in the markets. Yes, states are continuing to reopen. Even hard-hit California will see lockdown restrictions begin easing this Friday, and states like Georgia and Florida are pushing for a true return to normal. But experts are still sounding the alarm on the novel coronavirus. According to The New York Times , the U.S. is still seeing an increase of 25,000 new cases per day and 1,000 new deaths per day. President Donald Trump revised his outlook on the pandemic over the weekend, noting that 100,000 Americans could die . As investors try to find balance, it appears that bulls are leading the way Tuesday morning. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening well in the green. The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.04% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 0.94% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 1.08% Goldman Sachs: ConocoPhillips Stock Is a ‘Conviction Buy’ [Monday, May 4, 4:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith According to Goldman Sachs analysts, the embattled energy sector is clinging to some rays of hope yet. On Monday, Neil Mehta raised his price target on ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP ) to $51 and named it one of the firm’s “conviction” buys . As InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote in his daily column, Mehta believes that energy stocks are approaching the bottom. With that in mind, he thinks ConocoPhillips is the top energy play. Why? The Goldman Sachs analyst says that COP stock has underperformed relative to larger U.S. names. It’s also closely tied to Brent, the international benchmark for crude oil. One thing to note — Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) previously held this glorious title . According to Kenwell, Goldman Sachs still lists CVX as a “buy,” but it’s moving on to better things with COP stock. Stocks Close Slightly Higher After Tough Trading [Monday, May 4, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Bulls are working hard to start this week on a strong foot. Stocks struggled most of Monday after opening down, but the major indices crept into the green at the end of the day. There’s a lot ahead this week — including key earnings results and the non-farm payroll report. Investors are sure to get a closer look at exactly how the pandemic is affecting the economy, and how promises of reopening are turning things around. With that in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all closed in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.42% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 0.11% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.23% 3 Biotech Stocks to Buy for a Market Rebound [Monday, May 4, 3:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s been a rough couple of days for investors. President Donald Trump rekindled trade tensions with China. Southern states — leading the push to reopen — are seeing increases in deaths and new cases of the novel coronavirus. All in all, uncertainty has returned to the market and stocks are in the red. But according to TipRank’s Maya Sasson, biotech stocks are looking very attractive right now. That’s because the most-recent market downturn is creating better entry points in some top names. Here are three cheap biotech stocks under $10 Sasson is watching now: Aptinyx (NASDAQ: APTX ) Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX ) Mersana Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MRSN ) Afterpay Stock Is a Top Play on the Future of Retail [Monday, May 4, 3:21 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith If you spend even a fraction of the time I do online shopping, then you’re probably familiar with the “buy now, pay later” services from Afterpay (OTCMKTS: AFTPY ). If not, then you’re probably familiar with its competitors Klarna and Sezzle . If you haven’t heard of any of those three, then perhaps I engage too heavily in retail therapy. The short story is that Afterpay and its peers are racking up partnerships with retailers. Instead of paying $32 for a makeup product from Fenty Beauty , you can make four interest-free installments of $8 with Afterpay. While that might seem a tad unnecessary, the appeal is in higher-cost items. And according to Retail Brew , the pandemic has brought renewed interest in buy now, pay later services . It’s hard to sell shoppers on $100 clothing during an economic crisis, but four installments of $25 is much easier to stomach. Plus, more brands are embracing Afterpay. Just last week, popular lounge brand Richer Poorer — found at retailers like Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ: URBN ) — partnered with Afterpay. That’s a lot to like. But wait, there’s more. In news that has AFTPY stock climbing 13% in intraday trading, Tencent (OTCMKTS: TCEHY ) disclosed a 5% stake in Afterpay . According to press releases, this relationship will bring fintech and online advertising services to the smaller firm. It’s no secret that retail as we know it is dying. Afterpay stock is the perfect way to invest in the retail of tomorrow. Don’t discount this opportunity. 2 Stocks to Buy for the Return of Live Sports [Monday, May 4, 2:52 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s been a sad couple of weeks for sports fans. In the past, a weekend would bring highly anticipated games — and lots of revenue for the underlying companies. Now, you’re lucky to find a marble race or a turtle derby on ESPN. How the mighty have fallen. But many in the investing world are confident that live sports aren’t a thing of the past. In fact, Barron’s Nicholas Jasinski is placing his bet on two sports stocks to buy now . According to Jasinski, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (NYSE: MSGE ) and Madison Square Garden Sports (NYSE: MSGS ) are top rebound plays. The former is centered around the Madison Square Garden arena. The latter is a play on the arena’s sports teams, the Knicks and the Rangers. It’s definitely an interesting situation. So what makes MSGE and MSGS worthy investments? For one, an empty arena is still an arena. In other words, it represents valuable real estate. And now that the teams are separately valued from the arena, there’s a big catalyst — scarcity. Each major sports league has a certain number of teams. That means there’s “scarcity value.” Jasinski writes that the Knicks and Rangers are worth $4.6 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively. MSGS then allows investors to get in on that big value. Essentially, as Jasinski writes, these are plays on the economy reopening. And in my opinion, it seems pretty unlikely that marble races will be enough to satisfy consumers for years to come. Get ready for the (eventual) return of big league sports with MSGE and MSGS now. Credit Suisse: 7 Gold Standard Stocks to Buy Now [Monday, May 4, 1:50 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investing in stocks that are safer than government bonds — typically considered among the safest investments — definitely sounds appealing. That’s why analysts at Credit Suisse are rounding up new “gold standard” stocks to buy now. So what is the new gold standard? According to analyst Andrew Garthwaite, these stocks are comparable to the G7 countries in terms of creditworthiness. They also have higher dividend yields than sovereign bonds and have either “outperform” or “neutral” ratings. Here are the seven names analysts are watching (subscription required): Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) CME Group (NASDAQ: CME ) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG ) Visa (NYSE: V ) Walmart (NYSE: WMT ) 6 New ‘Big Tech’ Contenders to Buy for the New World [Monday, May 4, 1:36 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith All eyes were on the Big Tech leaders — Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) — last week. This group’s first-quarter earnings moved the market , and drew crazy amounts of attention as a means for evaluating the pandemic’s damage. But the team at Morning Brew thinks that these leaders are set to fall off their pedestals. A weekend edition of the newsletter suggests that this group will get disrupted “either by natural industry evolution or alien invasion.” All joking aside, perhaps such a shake-up is a long time coming. But which companies would take their spots? And how will the novel coronavirus influence Big Tech hegemony? Here are six publicly traded companies Morning Brew is watching : Salesforce (NYSE: CRM ) Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) Slack (NYSE: WORK ) PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Square (NYSE: SQ ) International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM ) There’s a bonus play, too. Private Epic Games — home to Fortnite — is also a pandemic winner. While you can’t invest through traditional markets , Tencent (OTCMKTS: TCEHY ) holds a 40% stake. Carnival Announces Return of Cruises: Buy CCL Stock [Monday, May 4, 12:35 p.m.] Contributed by Andrew Taylor Battered cruise ship operator Carnival (NYSE: CCL ) announced today that it plans to resume limited cruise services on Aug. 1. Adventurous travelers will be able to book travel with Carnival Cruise Lines for ships departing from Galveston, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Port Canaveral, Florida starting that date. Only by filling cabins will Carnival start driving revenue and recovery, so the announcement that the company will start setting sail is an important milestone in the company’s return. Last week, in an article titled, “Carnival Will Trend Higher With Strong Liquidity,” InvestorPlace’s Faisal Humayun announced that, “I believe the stock has more upside from oversold levels.” Humayun does an elegant job describing why Carnival’s recent steps to shore up credit and liquidity make it a stock to buy. Having visibility into the return of active cruising before the end of the summer certainly supports that case. Also last week, InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango highlights Carnival as one of his 30 Consumer Stocks to Buy Once the Coronavirus Pandemic Passes . Carnival stock is an intriguing possibility for the risk-loving investor with a tolerance for loss. Given that the company has now provided more visibility to the return of operations, investors seeking massive returns won’t have much longer to wait before getting in. Buy Salesforce Stock for Its Economic Reopening Solutions [Monday, May 4, 12:18 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As states begin reopening around the United States, Salesforce (NYSE: CRM ) is positioning itself to be a winning company. On Monday, it released reopening-specific tools, including a new Work.com dashboard. This solution allows businesses to track readiness across various locations and monitor employee health. CRM stock is up 2.5% in intraday trading on the news. From Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor : “Every company and community in the world is focusing on how to safely reopen and get to a new normal. With Work.com , we’re bringing together powerful new technology, our partners and network of experts to help organizations reopen and recover from this crisis while putting employee and visitor health and safety first.” According to Axios’ Ina Fried, the solutions will cost between $5 and $50 per user. Salesforce is also offering contract tracing, shift management and other emergency response tools. But as Fried writes, perhaps the most important — and most upside-generating — element of this announcement is that these tools make Salesforce a leader in pandemic-specific tech . Companies like Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ: ZM ) and Slack (NYSE: WORK ) have seen existing platforms benefit from new trends. But Salesforce’s Work.com goes beyond that — tackling the pandemic’s next phase. So is it time to buy CRM stock? InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango thinks so. He wrote in early April that Goldman Sachs was hot on the name. Lango thinks that companies learned a big lesson — it’s time to turn digital. That means Salesforce will benefit from increased IT spending and see a big rebound when the economy does recover. $3 Crypto Could Jump After May 13 [Monday, May 4, 11:45 a.m.] Contributed by Matt McCall The last time bitcoin traded for $3 was nearly ten years ago. The days of extraordinary 10,000% bitcoin gains in just a short time period are likely over. But there’s a little-known crypto I’m extremely bullish about right now. This cryptocurrency applies real-world applications to the world of blockchain, which makes its growth potential extraordinary. It’s probably the most practical and beneficial blockchain token in existence today. The best part is, you can invest in a single token for less than $4 right. I believe this crypto will see serious gains from current price levels. That’s why I recently added it to my Ultimate Crypto model portfolio. But you can’t delay if you want to position yourself. The crypto Halvening event is set to take place just days from now, on May 13. Cryptocurrencies have historically grown after the past two Halvening events in 2012 and 2016. So don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Look over the full details of this $3 crypto before the Halvening occurs. Click here to learn how you can find out the name and ticker symbol . Don’t Blindly Buy Food Stocks, But Focus on Grocery Plays [Monday, May 4, 11:18 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s no secret that grocery stores are hot right now. It also seems that more and more people are opting for curbside pick-up and grocery delivery options, as fears of the novel coronavirus climb. There’s finally data to back that up — and it makes grocery store stocks look even better. According to Food Logistics , online grocery sales hit $5.3 billion in April , up 37% from the prior month. That’s huge, but perhaps not all that surprising. What it does mean is that grocery stores pivoting to in-demand options are set to be winners. So which stocks should you buy? InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto has a few ideas. He recently listed Kroger (NYSE: KR ) as one of his top food stocks to buy . Enomoto writes that as social distancing continues, Kroger is set to be a winner because of its easy delivery and pick-up options . For the same reason, he likes Sprout Farmers Market (NASDAQ: SFM ), a smaller chain. Enomoto has one important caveat. He cautions investors against “blindly” buying food stocks just because they’re a hot idea. Instead, search out names with successful alternate sales options. These grocery stocks look to be certain winners in our new world. Roche Stock Is Popping Higher on New Antibody Test [Monday, May 4, 10:40 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Who doesn’t love good news about the novel coronavirus? On Monday, as uncertainty drags the broader market down, Roche (OTCMKTS: RHHBY ) stock is climbing 3.2% in intraday trading. Over the weekend, the Swiss company announced it had received U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency approval for its antibody test . And boy, these tests are in high demand. Unlike tests for the virus itself, antibody tests can tell whether or not an individual has been exposed to the virus at all. In other words, they can tell if asymptomatic individuals have already contracted Covid-19. Antibody tests seem to be the key to safely reopening the economy, and determining who has immunity. Roche, like test maker Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT ), is benefiting from positive results. With that in mind, don’t discount the opportunity in Roche stock. The company has promised to make its antibody test available in early May, and to produce the tests in “the high double-digit millions” each month starting in June. Stocks Sink Monday as Virus Uncertainty Returns [Monday, May 4, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Just how bad will the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus be? That question — and fears of the answer — is driving stocks down Monday morning. To be fair, stocks were already struggling Friday as President Donald Trump threatened to escalate trade tensions with China. Oh, there’s some pessimism elsewhere in the investing world too. Investors carefully scrutinized Warren Buffett’s annual meeting for Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ) stock holders over the weekend. What’s the result? While he reiterated his case for long-term optimism, some are reading between the lines . What will the near term look like? With these questions circulating, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all starting Monday in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.71% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 0.97% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.52% JPMorgan: Apple Is One of the Top Stocks to Buy [Friday, May 1, 4:32 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell reported in his daily column that investors had a rather neutral response to Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL ) Thursday earnings report. Apple beat expectations for earnings and revenue, and its Services unit was once again a star. But the company’s future is just a little too uncertain . However, that uncertainty isn’t stopping JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee from being bullish on AAPL stock. On Friday, he named it one of the firm’s top stocks to buy and raised his price target from $335 to $350 . He has an “overweight” rating on the stock. So what’s there to like? Chatterjee cites higher-than-expected demand for the iPhone 11, improving revenue forecasts for 2020 and the company’s strong ties to work-from-home and online learning trends. According to TipRanks, the average 12-month price target on AAPL stock is just over $320. That implies 10% upside from the current share price. Dow Jones Drops 600 Points on Friday’s Mixed News [Friday, May 1, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Breaking news from President Donald Trump that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gilead Sciences’ (NASDAQ: GILD ) remdesivir for emergency use wasn’t enough for stocks to close Friday in the green. Perhaps that’s because earlier news from Trump was still rocking the market. That’s right, going into pre-market trading, investors were fearing a return of the U.S.-China trade war. Elsewhere in the investing world, the market was digesting earnings from Big Tech. States continue to reopen and retailers roll out new hygiene strategies. It seems Friday simply brought too many headlines after a solid month for stocks. With all that in mind, the S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all ended the week on a sour note. The S&P 500 closed lower by 2.79% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 2.53% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 3.20% Goldman Sachs Is Looking for Return-to-Work Stocks [Friday, May 1, 3:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As states begin reopening , Goldman Sachs fund manager Katie Koch is hunting for companies ready to bounce. In this search, she’s moving past mega-cap tech stocks that have been stable in early 2020. Instead, she wants to find stocks that have been less “resilient” — meaning they will see more upside. So where is she looking for these return-to-work plays? She’s focusing on companies with strong balance sheets, and names attached to growth opportunities. Although she didn’t list any specific stocks, here are a few areas she’s watching : As more Americans return to work, Koch is looking for childcare, catering and small business solutions providers, such as companies that specialize in payment solutions. “Select” travel and restaurant stocks will benefit early on as the economy reopens. Look for standout companies in the hospitality space. Koch says that one result of the pandemic is that more Americans are living life online. Because of that, she’s looking for stocks to buy that specialize in data gathering and 5G. Stocks to Buy: Tesla Will Drive High Again on Fundamentals [Friday, May 1, 2:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Not all Americans are content to binge-watch TV shows and make loaves of sourdough bread. On Friday, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk made it clear he was ready for stay-at-home orders to end — and quick. In a mid-day social media rampage, he discussed selling all of his homes, tweeted lyrics to the “Star Spangled Banner” and shared that girlfriend Grimes — whose baby is due Monday — is mad at him. But in perhaps the most concerning post , he wrote “Tesla stock price is too high [in my opinion].” And it turns out a CEO’s opinion is pretty powerful. TSLA stock is down 9.1% in intraday trading. So is it time for investors to ditch Tesla as the pandemic takes Musk to the brink? According to InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango, no. Lango writes that investors need to see the forest through the trees. Musk’s antics are part of what makes TSLA such a high-interest stock. Yes, it wasn’t the smartest move on the CEO’s part. But Lango is convinced the company’s fundamentals will keep driving it higher. His modeling even shows a 2020 price target above $800 . At $710, shares are at an attractive discount now. Is It Time to Buy Beaten-Down Macy’s Stock? [Friday, May 1, 2:14 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith The retail apocalypse is coming, and there will be many victims. InvestorPlace contributors have long listed Macy’s (NYSE: M ) as one of the first to fall. With a current share price near $5.40 and a subpar e-commerce presence, there’s certainly a lot to critique. But Friday’s Retail Brew newsletter offers some background to support a contrarian perspective . Is it perhaps time to start buying M stock? When mall operator Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG ) announced that it would begin reopening its properties, shares rebounded. Macy’s is now following in Simon Property’s footsteps. On Tuesday, CEO Jeff Gennette said the company had no plan to reopen. On Thursday, the company pivoted, and announced plans to begin reopening almost 800 locations in the coming weeks. Shares are still down 7.6% in intraday trading. It’s not clear that Macy’s will win — or even survive — the gloom in the retail sector. But Gennette’s plan shows the retailer is working toward victory. To start, Macy’s is downsizing. Its online sales were “better than expected” in March, which perhaps could bring an improved e-commerce experience to the department store. All in all, it’s like too early to say if Macy’s is a stock to buy. But, investors shouldn’t count it out of the fight just yet. Here’s a Reason to Be Bullish on Biotech Stocks [Friday, May 1, 1:33 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith As we’ve previously reported, biotech stocks are facing a key dilemma. Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) is garnering much of the market’s attention with its standout drug remdesivir. Good news about remdesivir lifts the entire market, and bad news can bring it to its knees. Not all companies are facing the same good fortune. Others that haven’t jumped into the novel coronavirus race are having to suspend trials and are seeing pharmaceutical sales drop. It’s hard to sell injectable cancer drugs when many cancer patients are delaying treatment. Does this mean the biotech sector is one to avoid indefinitely? New reporting from The New York Times highlights a key reason investors should still be bullish. According to Carl Zimmer, researchers are now studying existing drugs — not just antivirals — to see if they’re effective against Covid-19. A pre-print study cites compounds purchased from Sigma Labs (NASDAQ: SGLB ) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO ). However, many of these compounds are manufactured by other pharmaceutical companies. That means the broader biotech sector isn’t out of the race. While experts are hopeful about remdesivir, there may be other effective treatments. Keep an eye out for further study results and look for winners in the space. Analysts Agree: JD.com Stock Is a Top Pandemic Buy [Friday, May 1, 12:48 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Over the last two months, analysts have been jumping on board Beijing-based JD.com (NASDAQ: JD ) with buy ratings and lofty price targets. Although some investors soured on Chinese stocks in the early days of the novel coronavirus, it’s clear things are changing. E-commerce companies like JD and rival Alibaba (NYSE: BABA ) are outperforming the broader market. Plus, China’s economy is leading the race to reopen. Perhaps that’s why so many analysts are yelling “buy.” InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango agrees with that sentiment. He writes that while decreased consumer spending weighed on JD stock, it’s clear retail sales are starting to rebound. That’s why he ranked it as one of the top five Chinese stocks to buy now . Still not sure? There’s another major catalyst coming for JD shares. Axios’ Dan Primack wrote earlier this week that JD “confidentially” filed for a Hong Kong stock listing , following in Alibaba’s footsteps. If completed, the sale could raise $2 billion. That’s a big deal — particularly as it competes for market share with BABA and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ). If you’re tempted, get in now. Lango said the company will be firing on all cylinders again before the end of 2020. You don’t want to miss out. Walmart Stock: Buy Shares on New Grocery Delivery Service [Friday, May 1, 12:07 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Everyone wants to stock up on groceries, but no one wants to face crowds — and germs — in stores. That’s why delivery services like Instacart and curb-side offerings from big grocery stores have gained so much popularity. Walmart (NYSE: WMT ) stock has been one of the winners from this madness, but after a Thursday announcement it looks even more appealing. The Verge’s Jay Peters reported that Walmart is launching Express Delivery , a service that will deliver groceries and other essential items in two hours or less. The big-box retailer has been piloting the service, and will ramp it up to 1,000 locations in early May. In the coming weeks, it will ramp further to 2,000 locations. This seems like a dream. For $10, consumers can stay safe at home, order groceries and know they’ll be delivered with Walmart’s brand-name guarantee. No wonder WMT stock is in the green on an otherwise tough day of trading. InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto is bullish on the name, too. He wrote Friday that unlike many specialty retailers, Walmart is likely to survive and thrive after the pandemic because it’s a one-stop shop. As long as it performs well during the holiday quarter, Enomoto thinks it is one of the top 10 Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks to buy. Buy Clorox Stock on Stellar Earnings [Friday, May 1, 11:47 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Clorox (NYSE: CLX ) stock has been a serious winner in 2020. Its products have been in high demand as Americans look to disinfectant every surface in sight. But analysts haven’t been hot on the name, pouring on sell and hold ratings ahead of its quarterly earnings report. But boy did Clorox prove the bears wrong. As Barron’s Alexandra Scaggs wrote, sales increased 15% year-over-year , and earnings per share were up 31%. And unlike many other companies, Clorox actually increased its guidance for its fiscal year (which ends June 30). It expects annuals sales to grow between 4% and 6%. On that news, CLX stock is up 4.5% in intraday trading. So is it time to buy Clorox stock? InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto thinks so. He wrote this morning that it was one of the nine best dividend stocks to buy for all investors. Even if the pandemic eases in the near future and demand drops, Enomoto thinks a second wave of the virus will be a major catalyst. From Enomoto: “It’s possible that shares will come down as it appears we have reached the peak of this crisis. But according to infectious disease experts, it’s possible that a second wave of coronavirus could hit us. Therefore, CLX stock may have a longer upside pathway. That’s not great for our collective health but it’s potentially profitable news if you’re looking for dividend stocks to buy.” 3 Stocks Traders Can Seriously Profit from Right Now [Friday, May 1, 11:19 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace’s Tyler Craig is looking to profit now. He’s found three stocks that, once winning, are now facing weakness. But he’s not despairing. Instead, he’s identified three bullish-leaning trades to make some serious money. Here are the three stocks he’s looking at right now: Walmart (NYSE: WMT ) Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY ) Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ ) Moderna Stock Shoots Higher on Vaccine News [Friday, May 1, 11:07 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) is looking to be Friday’s silver lining. Shares are shooting higher — to the tune of 5.8% — in intraday trading. Why? Earlier in the morning, Moderna announced it reached a deal with Lonza (OTCMKTS: LZAGY ) to accelerate manufacturing of its vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus. The experimental vaccine, mRNA-1273 is in early-stage clinical trials right now. But investors are excited at the potential — the deal would produce 1 billion doses a year. So is it time to buy? InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper thinks so. He wrote yesterday that MRNA stock was a top vaccine play . Cooper particularly likes that the company just received $483 million in federal funding. Shares are flirting with $50 now, but he thinks they could hit $55 again soon. The Big Catalyst Behind Bitcoin’s Rise [Friday, May 1, 10:25 a.m.] Contributed by Nicholas Stern We’re just days away from bitcoin’s halvening in May and the cryptocurrency markets are bouncing. In the past month, while the S&P 500 rose about 11%, bitcoin soared 44.5%. There are a lot of explanations as to why people are jumping into cryptos at the moment, but nothing serves as a clearer catalyst than bitcoin’s halvening. If you’re not familiar with the halvening, in a nutshell, it happens about every four years when the supply of new bitcoin coming on the market gets cut in half. If the supply drops at a time when demand is likely to increase, prices can soar. Investors who know their stuff about bitcoin, like InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall, have been talking about the halvening for months. Matt just held a special event that gives folks what they need to know right now to take advantage of this historic opportunity. Wealthy investors looking to diversify their portfolios at a time of unprecedented volatility and money printing certainly aren’t waiting. The number of people building positions of 10,000 bitcoins or more for an expected price catapult has reached the highest level since Aug. 2, 2019, according to CoinDesk . For reference, 10,000 bitcoins are worth over $89 million at the moment. Plus, there’s more activity on bitcoin’s network in general. An analysis by blockchain data firm Glassnode and @Unfolded found the bitcoin network has grown nearly 25% within the last year. Folks’ awareness of bitcoin’s strengths as a scarce store of value, a sort of digital gold if you will, is growing. Only 21 million will ever be created. That scarcity is behind a common metric used to value bitcoin known as stock-to-flow. It’s basically the ratio of the current bitcoin supply to the flow of new production, which again will drop in half in a matter of days. Per Glassnode , bitcoin’s historic price has tracked the stock-to-flow ratio. It’s doing that right now. If the trend continues, we could see bitcoin surpassing $95,000 by mid-2021. That’d represent a 963% increase within a year or so. And while bitcoin’s rise has been impressive, many of the other crypto assets known as altcoins have been doing much better. Altcoins are really where the action’s at these days. Matt lays out what’s going on with altcoins in the run up to the halvening, and why their rise should quickly surpass bitcoin’s. Check it out . 7 Dividend Stocks to Buy for the Long Term [Friday, May 1, 10:13 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier is still finding growth opportunities in the current market. Heck, he even found seven dividend stocks that still offer stable payouts. He wrote Friday morning that we won’t see normalcy for quite some time, even after the economy reopens. That’s why he says it’s important to find long-term buys, not “sexy” stocks that are volatile along with the market. Here are the seven top dividend stocks he’s recommending: Easterly Government Properties (NYSE: DEA ) Frontline (NYSE: FRO ) Carlyle Group (NYSE: CG ) Unum Group (NYSE: UNM ) Huntsman (NYSE: HUN ) Dominion Energy (NYSE: D ) Xerox (NYSE: XRX ) Stocks Sink Friday Morning as Trump Threatens Tariffs [Friday, May 1, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Oh, the U.S.-China trade war. Remember when that was the sole driver of the market? Well, after a Thursday briefing, President Donald Trump is threatening new tariffs against China . Why? He says the novel coronavirus has “eclipsed” his phase-one trade deal in terms of priority. Investors didn’t like that surprise. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all sinking Friday, opening deep in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 1.90% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 1.77% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.28% Stocks Fail to Rally After Thursday’s Jobless Report [Thursday, April 30, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith This morning, investors learned that 3.8 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. As they processed that the pandemic-driven total now tops 30 million, stocks opened the day in the red. Plus, news that novel coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surpassed 1 million isn’t helping matters. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all are closing down on Thursday. The S&P 500 closed lower by 0.94% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 1.23% The Nasdaq Composite closed lower by 0.28% 4 Food Stocks to Buy as At-Home Snacking Grows [Thursday, April 30, 3:41 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith According to The Food Institute , packaged food companies got a bit of a first-quarter surprise . As Americans continue to spend less on dining out, snack purchases are growing. Initially, many companies thought panic buying — what many called “hoarding” — would stop. But data shows that packs of Oreos and bags of Tostitos are flying off the shelves. This elevated buying could have long-term impacts. PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP ) CFO Hugh Johnston said that supply-chain levels could change for good, so that the company had more inventory on hand. He also thinks consumers are regaining loyalty toward bigger brands . That makes PEP stock look extra appealing now. InvestorPlace’s Nicolas Chahine agrees. He wrote today that there’s clearly an “appetite” for Pepsi after its first-quarter earnings report. So, what other big brands will benefit from snacking? Here are three more food stocks to watch: Hershey (NYSE: HSY ) Mondelez (NASDAQ: MDLZ ) Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) AstraZeneca Stock Is Gaining on Coronavirus News [Thursday, April 30, 3:15 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Gilead Sciences’ (NASDAQ: GILD ) remdesivir has the market wrapped around its finger — or, its clinical trial results. Last week, it brought the market down when the World Health Organization leaked not-so-good data from suspended Chinese trials. Yesterday, remdesivir was a market cure. It broadly rallied stocks after a U.S. trial met its primary endpoint in treating patients with the novel coronavirus. In the vaccine world, Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) and Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) take most of the spotlight. But BioPharma Dive’s Ben Fidler highlights that pandemic underdog AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN ) has a ton of potential. On Thursday, the pharmaceutical giant announced a partnership with Oxford University . Together, researchers will further work on a coronavirus vaccine. As Fidler writes, the Oxford study started earlier than many others. It already began human testing, and could begin late-stage tests in mid-2020. That’s huge news. And investors like what they are hearing. AZN stock is up 2.8% in intraday trading, on a day when the major indices are down. Wall Street’s 20 Favorite Dividend Stocks to Buy [Thursday, April 30, 2:47 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wait, dividends are still a thing? Despite the far-reaching impacts of the novel coronavirus, some companies are still set to pay out quarterly dividends. And some companies have high-yield dividends — paying out more than the S&P 500’s 2% yield. So which dividend stocks should be on your radar? According to CNBC and FactSet, here are 20 stocks Wall Street can’t seem to get enough of (subscription required). Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE: ARE ) AES (NYSE: AES ) Diamondback Energy (NASDAQ: FANG ) Prologis (NYSE: PLD ) NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG ) FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE ) Mondelez (NASDAQ: MDLZ ) Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB ) Baker Hughes (NYSE: BKR ) DuPont de Nemours (NYSE: DD ) Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC ) Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD ) Arthur J. Gallagher (NYSE: AJD ) Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) BlackRock (NYSE: BLK ) Valero Energy (NYSE: VOL ) Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF ) Weyerhaeuser Company (NYSE: WY ) 3 Stocks Millennials Should Be Buying Right Now [Thursday, April 30, 2:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Millennials are in a tricky spot right now. As Vice reported in early April, approximately one third of younger workers had lost their jobs . At the same time, many experts are saying that getting into the market during this coronavirus-driven dip will have life-changing economic impacts. So how should younger investors view stocks right now? According to InvestorPlace’s Laura Hoy, millennials are going to have “the last laugh” in the stock market today. That’s because they have the most time to benefit from the market selloff. But baby boomers — who likely have more stashed in retirement savings accounts — have less time to reap gains from post-pandemic rally. Hard-hit older investors will be forced to make stressful investment decisions. So where should millennials start? Hoy has three recommendations : Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL ) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ) 6 Healthcare Stocks to Buy as Biotech Soars [Thursday, April 30, 1:50 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Biotech stocks are experiencing the novel coronavirus in many interesting ways. First-quarter earnings reports show that some drug sales are down, and companies are feeling the heat from clinical trial delays. But research firm CFRA is bullish on the broader healthcare sector. Why? The firm’s analysts believe Covid-19 is strengthening the long-term picture. Companies are rushing to develop new drugs and vaccines, and many are embracing innovative technology. This should all pay off in the years after the pandemic. With that in mind, here are six healthcare stocks CFRA is recommending now : Owens & Minor (NYSE: OMI ) Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX ) Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: BMRN ) Stryker (NYSE: SYK ) Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX ) Morgan Stanley: Buy DraftKings Stock on Pent-Up Demand [Thursday, April 30, 11:32 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It may seem odd to recommend a sports betting stock at a time when no live sports events are happening. But that’s exactly what Morgan Stanley analyst Thomas Allen did on Wednesday. He said his firm is going “all in” with DraftKings, which trades as a Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ: DEAC ). Allen has an “overweight” rating on the stock and a $23 price target. Shares of DEAC are trading Thursday near $17.50. So how does Allen explain his recommendation? Even though live sporting events are almost nonexistent, he sees the virtual NFL draft as a victory for sports betting. Shares spiked over the three-day event, as consumers showed “pent-up” demand for gambling opportunities. From Allen , via CNBC (subscription required): “In our view, DraftKings deserves a premium as an almost pure play on US sports betting and iGaming, in contrast to peers that either have brick-and-mortar or [international] regulatory risk.” InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth agrees. At the beginning of March, he wrote that recent IPO DraftKings was a top stock to buy as the market entered bear territory . If anyone can survive a sports betting world without live events, he argues it’s DraftKings. The market seems to agree. Shares are up 2.2% in intraday trading. 8 Consumer Stocks to Buy with Strong Brands [Thursday, April 30, 10:40 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith You’re probably tired of hearing all about toilet paper and disinfecting products. But the constant hype and supersized demand has made eight consumer stocks serious winners in 2020 . According to Morningstar’s Susan Dziubinski, these companies have strong-but-cheap brands. Additionally, they are all benefiting from current shopping trends (think cleaning products and comfort food). Yes, some of today’s hottest companies will soon go back out of style. But Dziubinski thinks these are all stocks to buy for the long term. Here are the eight names she’s recommending: Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD ) Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) Hostess Brands (NASDAQ: TWNK ) Kellogg (NYSE: K ) Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP ) Reckitt Benckiser (OTCMKTS: RBGLY ) Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC ) Unilever (NYSE: UN , NYSE: UL ) 3 Vaccine Stocks to Buy on Coronavirus Hopes [Thursday, April 30, 10:15 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Based on how the market reacted to good news from Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) yesterday about its remdesivir, imagine the rally when a vaccine is declared to be a winner. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Ian Cooper has identified three top vaccine stocks for investors to consider now. He’s inspired by all the efforts going toward fighting the virus — and he thinks these vaccine stocks will seriously benefit: Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO ) Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ) BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX ) Stocks Open Lower Thursday on Jobless Report [Thursday, April 30, 9:31 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Wednesday’s optimism is struggling to hold in the stock market today. Right before market open, investors learned that another 3.8 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits . Will sentiment shift during the day’s trading? It’s hard to say. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite are all opening in the red. The S&P 500 opened lower by 0.86% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower by 1.24% The Nasdaq Composite opened lower by 0.24% Loop Capital: Buy Netflix Stock on Subscriber Growth [Wednesday, April 29, 4:35 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In his daily column, InvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell wrote that one analyst is particularly bullish on Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) stock. Loop Capital’s Alan Gould reiterated his “buy” rating , assigning a new price target of $500. That implies more than 20% upside from its current price. Netflix added 15.8 million subscribers — although it only anticipated adding 8.5 million. That’s a huge surprise. Why else does Gould like the name? He thinks Netflix continues to have the largest amount of streaming content and ongoing production, and that after 2020, it should be able to add 30 million subscribers per year. Plus, he thinks it could be cash-flow positive by 2022. Gould isn’t alone. InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall wrote yesterday that investors should buy NFLX stock as its long-term growth “remains in motion.” From McCall : “Even in a severe downturn, households are more likely to ‘cut the cord’ (cable) than get rid of relatively inexpensive Netflix. If anything, this company will thrive, not merely survive, in the coming years. A great hedge against recession, and on the winning side of the streaming megatrend, consider NFLX stock a buy.” Stocks Close Higher Wednesday on Gilead’s Success [Wednesday, April 29, 4:01 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) brought a sense of hope to the market today that is working wonders. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, says its remdesivir looks promising . Investors drove stocks higher on the thought of a safe reopening — and an effective five-day treatment. GILD stock closed up by 5.7%. Elsewhere in the market, the Federal Reserve promised to keep interest rates near 0% until economic activity truly rebounds. It looks like investors shrugged off this morning’s GDP figure. Small-cap stocks had a great day, as the Russell 200 closed higher by more than 5%. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite also are closing in the green. The S&P 500 closed higher by 2.66% The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 2.19% The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 3.57% 4 Epic Video Game Stocks to Buy in 2020 [Wednesday, April 29, 3:42 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Video games provide a chance to escape reality . They also are a really effective means of killing time. As a pandemic rages across the world, it’s not surprising then that record numbers of consumers are embracing a variety of games. Before Covid-19, the future viability of consoles was in question. Now, InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango writes that Nintendo (OTCMKTS: NTDOY ) keeps selling out of its Switch console. He also argues that the coming launch of the Switch 2 should have investors excited headed into 2021. Why all the buzz around Nintendo? Well, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has consumers hooked. The Atlantic’s Ian Bogost even wrote that in a pandemic-driven world, the game offers a new political imagining . There are no losers, he writes, and players aren’t focused on making a living. No wonder the Switch is flying off shelves. InvestorPlace’s Chris Tyler is adding to Lango’s recommendation. He likes Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA ), Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO ) and Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA ) for many of the same reasons. Whether you’re a die-hard Star Wars fan or a lover of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Tyler writes that these video game stocks to buy are certainly winners now . You don’t want to miss out. Jolt Your Portfolio Now with Starbucks Stock [Wednesday, April 29, 2:45 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) broadly disappointed investors when it reported first-quarter earnings. But CEO Kevin Johnson thinks a “gravitational pull” and consumers’ desire for a “daily uplift” will help the coffee chain return to normal. For investors, betting on a gravitational pull sounds pretty speculative. But InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall doesn’t see it that way. Instead, he sees a post-earnings dip as the perfect time to buy shares . He believes Starbucks will get back on track soon, especially since the company had a front-row seat to China’s recovery from Covid-19. That experience is sure to be useful as the U.S. begins to reopen. From McCall: “Very few companies are immune to the impacts of the coronavirus and Starbucks is no exception. But with decades of growth and experience, this leading consumer brand is not one to bail on after a few quarters of non-company-specific issues.” 2 Fitness Stocks to Buy with Solid Balance Sheets [Wednesday, April 29, 2:24 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Gyms may be closed, but Americans are still working out. And according to analysts at BTIG, consumers still want to dress the part of the gym buff. That’s why the firm is initiating Nike (NYSE: NKE ) and Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU ) with “buy” ratings. From BTIG , via CNBC (subscription required): “[W]e focus on companies with sturdy balance sheets that will allow them to survive the volatility that will likely continue throughout the rest of the year. Cash flow security is paramount to surviving this pandemic with the fewest scars. Also, these companies have robust and flexible supply chains that can handle and accommodate sharp changes in order patterns with little threat to their own cash flow needs.” InvestorPlace’s Chris Markoch is also hot on NKE and LULU. In fact, he recently recommended both stocks , along with Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON ) and Fitbit (NYSE: FIT ). Markoch writes that as many states prepare for longer-lasting lockdowns, these fitness stocks have a lot of room to “run.” Beyond Meat Stock Gets a Boost from Pandemic Preppers [Wednesday, April 29, 2:04 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith If you’re anything like me, high-flying Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND ) flew right off your radar when the novel coronavirus struck the U.S. Chances are many Americans forgot about plant-based burgers and breakfast sandwiches, opting to stock up on toilet paper and chicken breasts. But not all investing experts made the same mistake. InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango wrote yesterday that plant-based meat is the future , and he’s still bullish on BYND stock. In fact, he models that shares will hit $300 by 2029. That’s triple their current price. There’s also a more pandemic-focused catalyst. As Kiplinger’s Kyle Woodley writes, meat shortages around the U.S. — driven by Covid-19 plant closures — are making plant-based alternatives increasingly popular . Nielsen reports that year-over-year sales of plant-based meat are up 265%. It seems like Americans are catching on to a key fact: In an emergency, plant-based diets are much easier to sustain. That’s why doomsday preppers have long opted to eat off the Earth , even recommending dandelions and other edible plants. Granted, while grocery stores remain open, most Americans aren’t choosing to stomach their local weeds. Instead, they’re buying Beyond Meat’s plant-based products. That’s a huge catalyst for BYND stock. It’s time to buy shares now before they triple. 6 Media Stocks to Buy While You’re Stuck at Home [Wednesday, April 29, 1:25 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Chances are, you have TV on in the background while you’re reading this. That’s OK — viewership is up 33% year-over-year as Americans are largely stuck at home. Whether you’re binge-watching The Walking Dead , planning home-improvement projects with HGTV or aimlessly flipping through regional channels, you’re helping media companies profit. That’s why InvestorPlace’s Mark Hake writes there are six media stocks you should be buying now : AMC Networks (NASDAQ: AMCX ) ViacomCBS (NASDAQ: VIAC , NASDAQ: VIACA ) Discovery (NASDAQ: DISCA , NASDAQ: DISCK ) Gray Television (NYSE: GTN ) E.W. Scripps (NASDAQ: SSP ) Nexstar Media Group (NASDAQ: NXST ) Buy Spotify Stock on Record-Breaking Streaming [Wednesday, April 29, 1:07 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith According to Spotify, every day now looks (and feels) like the weekend. More consumers than ever are streaming music and podcasts — and that’s great news for SPOT stock. Shares are up 12.4% in intraday trading. Barron’s Callum Keown writes that Spotify’s first-quarter revenue climbed 22% and global premium subscribers jumped 31% to 130 million . Although the company initially feared less commuters would mean lower revenue, it’s now clear Spotify will survive the coronavirus crisis intact. That’s why InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango recently wrote that SPOT stock was one of 30 top consumer stocks to buy . At the time, he argued that Spotify was a great investment because consumer spending on entertainment was increasing. His one worry? Lango mentioned that as less Americans went to gyms and commuted to work, shares faced a tough headwind. Well, Spotify proved him (and many others) wrong. Don’t miss out on shares now. 4 Retail Stocks to Buy Now as States Reopen [Wednesday, April 29, 12:43 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s no secret that retailers have underperformed the broader market in 2020, as stay-at-home orders and lockdowns forced many to close. But as we reported yesterday , some retailers are starting to see light at the other end of the tunnel. U.S. mall operator Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG ) announced Tuesday that it would begin reopening 49 of its properties. The real estate investment trust is following in the footsteps of many southern states leading the push to reopen. According to Bank of America analysts, four retail stocks will particularly benefit (subscription required). The firm’s buy list includes Burlington Stores (NYSE: BURL ), Ross Stores (NASDAQ: ROST ), Five Below (NASDAQ: FIVE ) and TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX ). Analyst Lorraine Hutchinson said these are stocks to buy because they are in off-mall locations and lack e-commerce presences. This means they will rally the most as states reopen. BURL, ROST, FIVE and TJX stock are all up more than 4% in intraday trading. 9 Stocks to Buy for the Post-Pandemic World [Wednesday, April 29, 12:21 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace’s Josh Enomoto has a wake-up call for investors. The novel coronavirus is changing life as we know it, and some of these drastic shifts won’t reverse. With that in mind, how should investors plan to profit from the world’s new normal? Well, Enomoto is looking at nine quirky stocks to buy that capitalize on post-pandemic trends: Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP ) Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU ) Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AAXN ) Match Group (NASDAQ: MTCH ) Turning Point Brands (NYSE: TPB ) Champignon Brands (OTCMKTS: SHRMF ) MindMed (OTCMKTS: MMEDF ) Carvana (NYSE: CVNA ) RCI Hospitality (NASDAQ: RICK ) Buy Gilead Stock on Clinical Trial News [Wednesday, April 29, 11:53 a.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith On Wednesday morning, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) released news that has the market soaring. GILD stock itself is up 5.7% in intraday trading. Gilead’s remdesivir has long been a leading candidate in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Remdesivir is an antiviral medication, originally developed as a potential treatment for the Ebola virus. On Wednesday, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported that remdesivir helped patients recover more quickly than standard care. In other words, the drug met its primary endpoint in the study. In a separate press release from Gilead, the company reported that five-day and 10-day doses of remdesivir have similar outcomes in terms of patient status. More results from this study — which did not include a comparison group — will be released in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks. Both news items have investors cheering. And InvestorPlace contributors have long been telling readers to buy GILD stock. Just last week, InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Luke Lango recommended buying shares even as they sunk on bad news . At the time, leaked World Health Organization documents indicated remdesivir wasn’t effective in China-based trials. Now, GILD stock is certainly one to buy. Its star drug has the potential to reopen the economy and protect the world from what has been a life-changing pandemic. Someone Watching Tonight Could Become a Millionaire [Wednesday, April 29, 11:26 a.m.] Contributed by Matt McCall The cryptocurrency “Halvening” event will occur in the middle of May… Which is just days from now. This special situation will cut the amount of new bitcoins in HALF overnight. But more importantly, it will send certain altcoins soaring higher than most people imagine possible. The last time the Halvening event occurred four years ago, these extraordinary gains were seen in the altcoin market: Verge shot up 1,362,400%. Reddcoin soared 72,400%. And NEO rose 134,453%. You must discover how to position yourself before this historic event takes place — and the biggest profits are made. That’s why I’m making it easier than ever to join my Ultimate Crypto research service … and discover the full cryptocurrency model portfolio we’ve created. For tonight only… I’m giving all my readers an instant $2,000 savings off the normal Ultimate Crypto rate. This means we’re cutting the price in more than half. But this is important: This $2,000 discount is only available tonight. To discover the full details, all you have to do is attend our online event, the 2020 Crypto Millionaire Summit . It all happens tonight, April 29, at 7 p.m. ET. You don’t want to miss this… Click here to reserve your spot for free . Stocks Open Higher Even as GDP Contracts [Wednesday, April 29, 9:31 a.m] Contributed by Sarah Smith Investors are gearing up for a good today, even as they learn GDP contracted by 4.8% in the first quarter . Perhaps that’s just not surprising — even though it came in worse than estimates. Regardless, there’s a lot of green in the major indices today. The S&P 500 , Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite all opened solidly higher. The S&P 500 opened higher by 1.92% The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher by 1.5% The Nasdaq Composite opened higher by 2.15% 3 Stocks That Will Benefit from Oil Storage Demand [Tuesday, April 28, 3:40 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith It’s no secret that crude oil storage — or the lack thereof — is driving the market. Last week, panic over the supply-demand imbalance sent crude oil prices negative. Stocks went tumbling, too. But as research firm CFRA points out, there are winners in this chaos. Companies that are well-positioned in terms of storage capacity should see their stocks gain. From CFRA analyst Stewart Glickman , via CNBC (subscription required): “Firms with available storage space are going to fetch strong pricing, given too many producers are seeking places to shelve unneeded crude.” So who are the winners? West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude, is trading at $13 for June delivery. But later months are trading at higher prices, which incentivizes storage. With this logic, companies with the most storage space win. Plains All American (NYSE: PAA ) and NuStar (NYSE: NS ) each have 10%-12% of the country’s storage capacity. Glickman is also hot on Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX ). Phillips 66 is most known for being in the refiner business, but it has 5.5% of U.S. storage capacity. InvestorPlace’s Will Ashworth agreed with Glickman at the end of March. He included PSX stock on his list of the top 10 best value stocks to own for 2020 . Ashworth says it’s simply a triple threat. As oil continues to be in focus, keep an eye on these three stocks. Meat Stocks Are Climbing on Trump’s Plan [Tuesday, April 28, 1:51 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith Smithfield Foods’ CEO warned of devastating impacts to the supply chain when his company was forced to close a pork plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Over the weekend, Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) took out a full-page ad in The New York Times , declaring that meat plant closures were “breaking” the supply chain in the United States. Certainly these CEOs were not the only ones worried about the U.S. supply chain. Higher prices for meat — and grocery store shortages — had many consumers afraid. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump hinted at a major response to the meat problem. According to Bloomberg , he’s planning to use the Defense Production Act to keep meat-processing plants open . Because plants have closed as workers contracted Covid-19, the government would issue them additional personal protective equipment. Prior to this announcement, estimates showed that as much as 80% of the country’s meat production could shut down. The Sioux Falls plant alone accounted for 5% of U.S. pork. Investors like the news. TSN stock is up 6.4% in intraday trading, and JBS (OTCMKTS: JBSAY ) stock is up 5.2% on the day. Ignore the Pandemic Pseudoscience and Buy 5G Stocks [Monday, April 27, 4:55 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith InvestorPlace analyst Louis Navellier is fed up with the pandemic pseudoscience. Conspiracy theorists are claiming exposure to 5G radiation weakens the body’s immune system, making people more susceptible to the novel coronavirus. But as Navellier writes, there’s no real science to that. And there’s definitely no science behind people burning down 5G cellular towers in Europe . Pseudoscientists conveniently don’t take the time to explain that there’s two types of radiation — ionizing and non-ionizing. 5G technology relies on non-ionizing radiation. It can’t hurt you. With that in mind, investors should get serious about major opportunities in 5G ahead, like Navellier’s favorite company in the space . This pick relies on radio-frequency technology and is set to profit off of every aspect of 5G. So, don’t listen to the conspiracy theorists. Stay inside, stay safe. And if you’re ready to learn more about opportunities in 5G, read the rest of Navellier’s thoughts here . Japan’s Plan to Approve Remdesivir Is a Catalyst for Gilead [Monday, April 27, 4:38 p.m.] Contributed by Sarah Smith In his daily column, I nvestorPlace’s Bret Kenwell highlighted a serious catalyst for Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD ) stock. On Monday, Japanese news site Kyodo reported that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to fast track approval for remdesivir . A different official said Monday remdesivir could be in use as early as next month to treat Covid-19. Despite the good news, GILD stock closed higher by only 0.33% on Monday. For investors, remdesivir is still a critical treatment to watch, as trials are underway around the world. Reuters reported Friday that key results from a U.S. trial could come as early as mid-May, and preliminary results could come sooner. This trial, led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, began in February. Coronavirus competitor Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN ) didn’t have the same fate today. Along with Sanofi (NYSE: SNY ), the company announced that its Kevzara failed to show clinical benefits in Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials. REGN stock closed down by 3.3% on the day. The post Investing During Coronavirus: Buy Gilead Stock on New Remdesivir Pricing Estimates appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Stock market news live updates: Stocks take a breather amid election drama; October jobs data helps: Stocks were flat Friday as investors took a pause after a four-day rally and continued to await election results from key states. However, the three major indices posted strong weekly gains. The S&P 500 closed out the week higher by more than 7%, as tech stocks and health-care shares advanced strongly. The advance marked the indexs best since mid-April. The Nasdaq outperformed with a weekly gain of about 9%, and the Dow increased by 6.9%. Better-than-expected jobs data helped to curb Fridays losses. The Labor Department reported that the economy created 638,000 jobs last month, more than the 580,000 expected, while upwardly revising Septembers data to 672,000. Fridays jobs report also saw upward revisions to the last couple months worth of payrolls a sign that soaring new COVID-19 infections arent yet preventing new jobs from being created. Meanwhile, shares of Square ( SQ ) surged to a record high on Friday after more than doubling its quarterly sales amid strong demand for its digital financial service transactions during the pandemic, and posting its first quarter in which Bitcoin revenue topped $1 billion. Shares of Uber ( UBER ) pared losses from the overnight session to close higher after the company reported that gross bookings for its unprofitable food delivery business outpaced those of its core ride-hailing unit for a second straight quarter. And shares of Peloton ( PTON ) ticked down after the company warned of rising supply chain costs and extended delivery delays, offsetting strong third-quarter sales and guidance for the current quarter. The election remained the key focal point for Wall Street. As of Friday morning and three days after Election Day, several key states including Pennsylvania , Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina had yet to be called in favor of either candidate. Both candidates still have at least one path to victory depending on the outcome of the states still outstanding. Vice President Joe Biden had 264 electoral votes and President Donald Trump had 214, according to the Associated Presss tally as of Friday afternoon. Candidates require 270 electoral votes to be named the winner of the election. Story continues States called for Trump: Ky., W. Va., S.C., Ala., Miss., Tenn., Okla., Ark., Ind., N.D., S.D., Wyo., La., Neb. (4 of 5 electoral votes), Kan., Mo., Idaho, Utah, Ohio, Iowa, Mont., Fla., Texas States called for Biden: Vt., Va., Conn., Del., Ill., Md., Mass., N.J., R.I., N.Y., N.M., D.C., Colo., N.H., Calif., Ore., Wash., Hawaii, Minn., Ariz., Maine (3 of 4 electoral votes), Wis., Mich. A win for Biden has been viewed as increasingly likely, given the candidate would need to capture just one more of the outstanding battleground states to take the White House. He said in a press conference Thursday afternoon that he had no doubt that when the counting is completed, he and Senator Kamala Harris will be declared the winners. Trump, however, doubled down on his calls to stop the count, after his campaign sued in several states to challenge the ballot counting process. A judge in Michigan denied Trumps effort to suspend the voting tabulation process in that state on Thursday. Despite some of the uncertainty still surrounding the election, stocks rallied strongly again in the immediate aftermath of Election Day. According to a number of analysts, traders ascribed more importance to the fact that a divided government was set to be the most likely outcome of the elections, in which no single party would control each of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Under that scenario, major policy changes would be unlikely to get advanced. This machine that is the market seems to have reacted fairly well to the situation that were currently in, and that seems to be this perception that well have a divided Washington, which will mean probably no to low regulatory issues for the Big Tech firms, [and] the corporate tax issue will perhaps fall to the wayside, Sylvia Jablonski, Direxion Managing Director, told Yahoo Finance. And perhaps theres fiscal stimulus that comes in. Whether its a smaller number than we hoped for, itll probably still come, she added. 4:03 p.m. ET: S&P 500 posts best week since April as post-election rally powers tech, health-care stocks higher Heres where the markets settled at the end of regular trading on Friday. S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -0.98 points (-0.03%) to 3,509.47 Dow ( ^DJI ) : -66.78 points (-0.24%) to 28,323.40 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : +4.3 points (+0.4%) to 11,895.23 12:58 p.m. ET: Stocks hold lower as session rolls on; election outcome hangs in balance as Biden pulls ahead in key states The three major indices held lower Friday afternoon, pausing their rally from the past four days. The health-care and information technology sectors outperformed in the S&P 500, while energy and financials lagged. A more than 2% jump in shares of Dow component Johnson & Johnson was offset by declines across most of the other components, as shares of American Express and UnitedHealth Group led the drop. Here were the main moves in markets, as of 12:58 p.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -2.4 points (-0.07%) to 3,508.05 Dow ( ^DJI ) : -66.86 points (-0.24%) to 28,323.32 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -13.36 points (-0.11%) to 11,877.87 Crude ( CL=F ) : -$1.55 (-4.00%) to $37.24 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ) : +$5.80 (+0.3%) to $1,952.60 per ounce 10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : +4.4 bps to yield 0.822% 10:20 a.m. ET: Heres what economists are saying about the October jobs report Many economists underscored the unexpected strength of the October jobs report, with private payroll growth actually accelerating from September. A drop in government employment, largely due to a drop in temporary 2020 Census worker positions, weighed on the headline increase in non-farm payrolls. Still, increasing new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. present a potential downside risk to the labor market heading into the winter months. Heres what some economists had to say about the October payrolls report, based on notes and emails sent to Yahoo Finance. Overall it is a good outcome reaffirming the economy's strong momentum heading into 4Q. However, we have to remember that there are still 10.1mn fewer people in work than February. Moreover, with daily COVID cases rising above 100k yesterday there is a real threat that what is happening in Europe right now soon heads this side of the Atlantic ... Should bars and restaurants be forced to close again those improvements seen in leisure/hospitality employment will swiftly reverse. James Knightley, chief international economist for ING Much of the strength in recent months has likely been due to CARES Act spending, which is now fading. The ongoing surge in COVID cases also cautions against extrapolating from the strength. Jim OSullivan, chief U.S. macro strategist for TD Securities We expect the labor market recovery to continue over the remainder of this year, but the decline in unemployment will be very gradual. The lagged effects of fiscal support provided through the CARES act are fading at a time when COVID cases are surging. Without additional support, the resurgence of the pandemic will deal yet another blow to businesses in high-touch service sectors, which are already struggling to recover from the first shock. Some of these firms may never recover, leaving a large number of people out of a job for an extended period. Robard Williams, Moodys Investor Services senior vice president We expect the goods sector and retailing to continue strengthening, but the outlook for leisure and hospitality is now deteriorating rapidly as COVID infections and hospitalizations soar ... If recent trends in the Homebase numbers continue, it would be reasonable to expect November payrolls to fall outright. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics 9:37 a.m. ET: Stocks fall after four-day rally; Election results in focus Here were the main moves in markets, as of 9:37 a.m. ET: S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : -15.25 points (0.43%) to 3,495.20 Dow ( ^DJI ) : -114.89 points (-0.4%) to 28,275.29 Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : -89.02 points (-0.75%) to 11,803.67 Crude ( CL=F ) : -$0.76 (-1.96%) to $38.03 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ) : +$7.60 (+0.39%) to $1,954.40 per ounce 10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : +4.9 bps to yield 0.827% 9:25 a.m. ET: Biden overtakes Trump in Georgia, Pennsylvania with vote counting still under way: AP Biden has overtaken Trump in the battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania based on tabulations so far in these states, according to the Associated Press. Biden would capture enough electoral votes to win the presidency if he were to be declared the winner of either of these states. Both races, however, are still too early to call given that votes are still being counted. And Bidens edge remains razor thin in both states: Bidens lead in Pennsylvania is by just under 6,000 votes, and by just over 1,000 votes in Georgia. Trump won both Georgia and Pennsylvania during the 2016 presidential election, and he prematurely and falsely declared victory in the latter earlier this week. 8:30 a.m. ET: Jobs data beat expectations; unemployment tumbles The U.S. labor market continues to show resilience , as October nonfarm payrolls rise by a better-than-expected 638,000 during the month. Even more importantly, the unemployment rate tumbled to 6.9%, an encouraging sign that the economy continues to recover even as new COVID-19 infections soar to new heights. Futures are pointing to a softer open after a breathtaking rally this week, but the downside is likely to be contained by the stronger jobs data. 7:20 a.m. ET Friday: Stocks point to a lower open after four straight days of gains Here were the main moves in markets, as of 7:20 a.m. ET Friday: S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) : 3,484.5, down 20.25 points or 0.58% Dow futures ( YM=F ) : 28,179.00, down 118 points or 0.42% Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 11,983.00, down 93.5 points or 0.77% Crude ( CL=F ) : -$1.18 (-3.04%) to $37.61 a barrel Gold ( GC=F ) : +$9.40 (+0.48%) to $1,956.20 per ounce 10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : -0.3 bps to yield 0.775% 6:19 p.m. ET Thursday: Stock futures flat after rally Here were the main moves in markets, as of 6:19 p.m. ET Wednesday S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) : 3,506.00, up 1.25 points or 0.04% Dow futures ( YM=F ) : 28,308.00, up 11 points or 0.04% Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 12,071.5, down 5 points or 0.04% A combination picture shows U.S. President Donald Trump pumping his fist during a campaign event at Capital Region International Airport in Lansing, Michigan, U.S. October 27, 2020, and Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden making a fist during a drive-in campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Brian Snyder/File Photos Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , and reddit . Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news For tutorials and information on investing and trading stocks, check out Cashay
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 2175.47, 2286.41, 2407.88, 2488.55, 2515.35, 2511.81, 2686.81, 2863.20, 2732.16, 2805.62, 2823.81, 2947.71, 2958.11, 2659.63, 2717.02, 2506.37, 2464.58, 2518.56, 2655.88, 2548.29, 2589.60, 2721.79, 2689.10, 2705.41, 2744.91, 2608.72, 2589.41, 2478.45, 2552.45, 2574.79, 2539.32, 2480.84, 2434.55, 2506.47, 2564.06, 2601.64, 2601.99, 2608.56, 2518.66, 2571.34, 2518.44, 2372.56, 2337.79, 2398.84, 2357.90, 2233.34, 1998.86, 1929.82, 2228.41, 2318.88, 2273.43, 2817.60, 2667.76, 2810.12, 2730.40, 2754.86, 2576.48, 2529.45, 2671.78, 2809.01, 2726.45, 2757.18, 2875.34, 2718.26, 2710.67, 2804.73, 2895.89, 3252.91, 3213.94, 3378.94, 3419.94, 3342.47, 3381.28, 3650.62, 3884.71, 4073.26, 4325.13, 4181.93, 4376.63, 4331.69, 4160.62, 4193.70, 4087.66, 4001.74, 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88.
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[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2017-08-27]
Volume: 1537459968, RSI (14-day): 70.01, 50-day EMA: 3443.75, 200-day EMA: 2310.83
[Wider Market Context]
None available.
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) Stock Could Fall Much Harder: The hype appears to be wearing off forAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMD). Despite a string of positive news events and favorable media coverage, AMD stock has stalled out. In fact, the stock recently reversed course after hitting $15 again and has since fallen 20%. AMD stock previously topped out at $15 in February, and it is looking like a bearish technical double top for the shares at this point.
Source:Matthew Rutledge via Flickr
Why has AMD’s rally stalled out? It starts with earnings, reported late last month. The numbers beat expectations and led shares to rally above $15. But within a couple days, shares fell back under $14 and have continued downward since then.
AMD turned the corner in one positive way with this latest release. The company put in a positive EPS figure. As a reminder, AMD hasn’t earned a full-year accounting profit since 2011, and it rarely breaks even on a quarterly basis either. So Q2’s positive two cents of EPS is an encouraging sign. And AMD’s positive update to forward guidance didn’t hurt either.
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That said, it’s hardly sufficient to support the current AMD stock price. Annualize AMD’s quarter and they’d make a dime of earnings for the year, leaving the stock at a more than 100x PE ratio. Analysts have AMD at a 40x forward price-earnings ratio.
That is based on the assumption that earnings will pick up significantly heading into 2018. But this optimism may be misplaced, as we’ll see in a minute. And if earnings don’t pick up, there is little else that would support AMD’s stock, given its weak balance sheet and lack of a technological moat.
Despite the strong earnings report, not all observers reacted favorably. Barclays’ analyst, for example, didn’t change their outlook following last quarter’s release. Barclays decided to stick with their underperform rating and $9 AMD stock price target. The analyst suggested that AMD’s strong earnings result came primarily from the cryptocurrency mining boom, rather than its improved CPU chips.
And that’s a real problem since most of the bull run in AMD stock was based on the idea that AMD was finally ready to pull ahead of its chief rivalIntel Corporation(NASDAQ:INTC) in CPU chips.
However, the general consensus from various benchmarking tests is that Ryzen is merely on par with Intel’s latest chipset. And given the Intel has another next-generation set of processors on the way, Ryzen’s ability to merely pull even with Intel for a few quarters isn’t that inspiring.
AMD has moved the needle a bit in terms of market share. After years of steady erosion, AMD’s market performance is up slightly. Between 2008 and 2012 (data source), AMD’s share of the market held steady around 29%.
From 2012, this steadily eroded and recently fell below 20%. From its nadir at 18% last year, AMD has now moved back to 22.4%. That’s some improvement, but hardly a return to the 40%+ market share AMD had prior to 2006 when its chips were truly competitive with Intel.
In graphic cards, AMD also failed to live up to expectations. The Vega isn’t a bad offering by any means. But after so much R&D and positive talk, investors were hoping that the Vega would compete withNvidia Corporation’s(NASDAQ:NVDA) GeForce GTX 1080 TI.
Now to be fair, the Vega can more than keep up with the ordinary 1080. That will be enough for many consumers. However, Vega is unlikely to make nearly as many inroads into the high end of the market as analysts had forecast.
Next Page
If AMD’s new product launches aren’t going that strongly, what drove this quarter’s better than expected results? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to say exactly, since AMD doesn’t break out its revenues in great detail. However, Barclays suggests – and evidently many investors agree – that the strong sales may be a result of the current cryptocurrency boom.
Since March of this year, Ethereum has run up from $15 per coin to as high as $400 recently. Even after a correction, Ethereum has held its ground and now trades at $320, up 3,000% year-to-date.
This has, predictably enough, set off a fresh graphics boom. Mining organizations are rushing to buy the latest GPUs that are optimized for crypto-mining. With Ethereum prices currently so high, it has created a powerful tailwind for this type of demand.
However, it likely won’t last. When the price of something goes up 25x in a year, it tends to experience a serious correction, if not an outright bust, sooner or later. AMD CEO Lisa Su is well aware of this. In AMD’s latest conference call, she stated that: “I also think that we want to be cognizant of the fact that some of the graphics demand that we see might be temporal. So we’re not counting on that staying through the full year. We’ll see what happens. Frankly, I think we’ll see what happens with the whole mining stuff.”
She’s right to sound a cautious note on mining demand. But it’s terrible news for AMD stock. The market’s reaction to last quarter’s seemingly positive earnings shows exactly why.
It’s really disappointing for long-time AMD bulls that the company could only put up two cents of EPS in a quarter with exciting new product launchesanda mining boom. Past mining booms have quickly faded, with cards purchased to mine Bitcoin and Litecoin quickly ending up on the second-hand market once mining profitability declined.
And there is little evidence that AMD’s new product launches elsewhere have finally lifted the company into a sustainable competitive position. Yes, its market share has advanced slightly. But that’s a far cry from having a competitive moat that will ensure ongoing profits.
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This technological race continues to be a treadmill, and both Intel and Nvidia have far more resources to make sure they win the R&D battles going forward. With AMD stock appearing to have double-topped at $15 recently, shares could move sharply lower next quarter if earnings disappoint even slightly.
At the time of this writing, Ian Bezek owned INTC stock. He had no positions in any of the other aforementioned securities. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek.
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The postAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) Stock Could Fall Much Harderappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) Stock Could Fall Much Harder: The hype appears to be wearing off for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD ). Despite a string of positive news events and favorable media coverage, AMD stock has stalled out. In fact, the stock recently reversed course after hitting $15 again and has since fallen 20%. AMD stock previously topped out at $15 in February, and it is looking like a bearish technical double top for the shares at this point. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) Stock Could Fall Much Harder Source: Matthew Rutledge via Flickr Why has AMD’s rally stalled out? It starts with earnings, reported late last month. The numbers beat expectations and led shares to rally above $15. But within a couple days, shares fell back under $14 and have continued downward since then. Earnings: Just Not Good Enough AMD turned the corner in one positive way with this latest release. The company put in a positive EPS figure. As a reminder, AMD hasn’t earned a full-year accounting profit since 2011, and it rarely breaks even on a quarterly basis either. So Q2’s positive two cents of EPS is an encouraging sign. And AMD’s positive update to forward guidance didn’t hurt either. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Stocks to Buy With a $2,000 Start That said, it’s hardly sufficient to support the current AMD stock price. Annualize AMD’s quarter and they’d make a dime of earnings for the year, leaving the stock at a more than 100x PE ratio. Analysts have AMD at a 40x forward price-earnings ratio. That is based on the assumption that earnings will pick up significantly heading into 2018. But this optimism may be misplaced, as we’ll see in a minute. And if earnings don’t pick up, there is little else that would support AMD’s stock, given its weak balance sheet and lack of a technological moat. Next-Generation Sales Don’t Seem That Strong Despite the strong earnings report, not all observers reacted favorably. Barclays’ analyst, for example, didn’t change their outlook following last quarter’s release. Barclays decided to stick with their underperform rating and $9 AMD stock price target. The analyst suggested that AMD’s strong earnings result came primarily from the cryptocurrency mining boom, rather than its improved CPU chips. And that’s a real problem since most of the bull run in AMD stock was based on the idea that AMD was finally ready to pull ahead of its chief rival Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC ) in CPU chips. However, the general consensus from various benchmarking tests is that Ryzen is merely on par with Intel’s latest chipset. And given the Intel has another next-generation set of processors on the way, Ryzen’s ability to merely pull even with Intel for a few quarters isn’t that inspiring. Story continues AMD has moved the needle a bit in terms of market share. After years of steady erosion, AMD’s market performance is up slightly. Between 2008 and 2012 ( data source ), AMD’s share of the market held steady around 29%. From 2012, this steadily eroded and recently fell below 20%. From its nadir at 18% last year, AMD has now moved back to 22.4%. That’s some improvement, but hardly a return to the 40%+ market share AMD had prior to 2006 when its chips were truly competitive with Intel. In graphic cards, AMD also failed to live up to expectations. The Vega isn’t a bad offering by any means. But after so much R&D and positive talk, investors were hoping that the Vega would compete with Nvidia Corporation’s (NASDAQ: NVDA ) GeForce GTX 1080 TI. Now to be fair, the Vega can more than keep up with the ordinary 1080. That will be enough for many consumers. However, Vega is unlikely to make nearly as many inroads into the high end of the market as analysts had forecast. Next Page Mining Boom May Fade If AMD’s new product launches aren’t going that strongly, what drove this quarter’s better than expected results? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to say exactly, since AMD doesn’t break out its revenues in great detail. However, Barclays suggests – and evidently many investors agree – that the strong sales may be a result of the current cryptocurrency boom. Since March of this year, Ethereum has run up from $15 per coin to as high as $400 recently. Even after a correction, Ethereum has held its ground and now trades at $320, up 3,000% year-to-date. This has, predictably enough, set off a fresh graphics boom. Mining organizations are rushing to buy the latest GPUs that are optimized for crypto-mining. With Ethereum prices currently so high, it has created a powerful tailwind for this type of demand. However, it likely won’t last. When the price of something goes up 25x in a year, it tends to experience a serious correction, if not an outright bust, sooner or later. AMD CEO Lisa Su is well aware of this. In AMD’s latest conference call, she stated that: “I also think that we want to be cognizant of the fact that some of the graphics demand that we see might be temporal. So we’re not counting on that staying through the full year. We’ll see what happens. Frankly, I think we’ll see what happens with the whole mining stuff.” AMD Stock Heading Lower For Now She’s right to sound a cautious note on mining demand. But it’s terrible news for AMD stock. The market’s reaction to last quarter’s seemingly positive earnings shows exactly why. It’s really disappointing for long-time AMD bulls that the company could only put up two cents of EPS in a quarter with exciting new product launches and a mining boom. Past mining booms have quickly faded, with cards purchased to mine Bitcoin and Litecoin quickly ending up on the second-hand market once mining profitability declined. And there is little evidence that AMD’s new product launches elsewhere have finally lifted the company into a sustainable competitive position. Yes, its market share has advanced slightly. But that’s a far cry from having a competitive moat that will ensure ongoing profits. 3 Back-to-School Tips to Teach Your Teen Responsibility This technological race continues to be a treadmill, and both Intel and Nvidia have far more resources to make sure they win the R&D battles going forward. With AMD stock appearing to have double-topped at $15 recently, shares could move sharply lower next quarter if earnings disappoint even slightly. At the time of this writing, Ian Bezek owned INTC stock. He had no positions in any of the other aforementioned securities. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek. More From InvestorPlace 10 Stocks That Every 20-Year-Old Should Buy 3 Steps to Successfully Renting Your First Apartment 4 Ways Back-to-School Retail Will Never Be the Same The post Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) Stock Could Fall Much Harder appeared first on InvestorPlace . View comments || NHS trust hit by cyber attack cancels operations and asks patients not to come to hospital 'unless it is essential': Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Scotland, is among those affected: Getty Images Scotland’s third-largest NHS trust is appealing for patients not to attend hospital unless it is “essential” amid an ongoing cyber attack. Operations and appointments have been cancelled by NHS Lanarkshire and people are being warned they could be turned away, but a spokesperson insisted there were “no concerns around emergency treatments”. It is the second time the trust has been affected by malware within months, having been one of the worst-affected trusts during the global WannaCry ransomware attack in May. Officials did not confirm the type of virus affecting systems but announced IT difficulties affecting hospitals and GP practices starting on Friday afternoon. "We have detected some incidences of malware,” chief executive Calum Campbell said. "We took immediate action to prevent this spreading while we carried out further investigations. "We are now putting in place a solution from our IT security provider. "While the issue is being resolved our staff have been working hard to minimise the impact on patients and we apologise to anyone who has been affected." The trust is responsible for the care of more than 650,000 people living in North and South Lanarkshire in Scotland, running three general hospitals and numerous GP surgeries, dentists, pharmacists and other services. As of Saturday morning, the trust described the entire IT system as “down” and put out an emergency phone number for staff to use over the bank holiday weekend. Dr Jane Burns, medical director for NHS Lanarkshire’s acute division, asked patients not to attend hospitals “unless it is essential”. "If you do turn up at A&E and do not require emergency care you may be sent away from the department or you may experience a lengthy wait,” she added. "Emergency care will still be provided for those who do require to be seen." The health board's estate includes Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, Monklands Hospital in Airdrie and Wishaw General Hospital. Story continues Staff unable to use email systems or access appointments have been directing the public to the NHS Lanarkshire Facebook page for further information The cyber attack appears to be more isolated than the global WannaCry attack in May, which hit NHS trusts across the UK and sparked urgent reviews of outdated systems, protections and staff training after equipment was disabled, patients turned away and ambulances diverted. WannaCry, which affected more than 150 countries, spread through outdated Microsoft Windows software and caused automated messages appear on thousands of computers telling users their data had been encrypted and would be released in exchange for a Bitcoin payment. The unprecedented cyber attack is not believed to have directly targeted the NHS, but Britain’s health service has previously been hit by viruses and The Independent revealed that Isis-linked hackers compromised some NHS websites last year. Ben Gummer, the former cabinet office minister who lost his seat in May, warned at the time that “large quantities of sensitive data” held by the NHS was a target. “No longer the stuff of spy thrillers and action movies, cyber attacks are a reality and they are happening now,” he said in October. “Our adversaries are varied: organised criminal groups, ‘hactivists’, untrained teenagers and foreign states. “Attacks can cause economic damage, erode public trust in online services and by enabling fraud do real harm to individuals, their property and their privacy.” Analysts have sounded intensifying warnings over the threat posed by cyber attacks targeting critical infrastructure, like public health, electricity, water supplies, telecommunications, banking and transport. Irish energy networks were targeted by hackers in a “spear phishing” attack last month, while the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and Scottish Parliament have also been hit. A recent report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warned of the growing threat of cyber attacks and threats to the West’s use of satellites in space. Enemies could take out military and civilian communications and navigation systems, the report said, or target the UK’s economy and crucial IT infrastructure causing chaos and panic, it said. “In any major future conflict, an important part of the battle will be threats to the UK’s critical national infrastructure from hostile cyber operations,” RUSI’s report concluded. “The cyber threat spectrum is not only relevant to defence but to government as a whole, especially to critical national infrastructure and the broader economy.” || NHS trust hit by cyber attack cancels operations and asks patients not to come to hospital 'unless it is essential': Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Scotland, is among those affected: Getty Images Scotland’s third-largest NHS trust is appealing for patients not to attend hospital unless it is “essential” amid an ongoing cyber attack. Operations and appointments have been cancelled by NHS Lanarkshire and people are being warned they could be turned away, but a spokesperson insisted there were “no concerns around emergency treatments”. It is the second time the trust has been affected by malware within months, having been one of the worst-affected trusts during the global WannaCry ransomware attack in May. Officials did not confirm the type of virus affecting systems but announced IT difficulties affecting hospitals and GP practices starting on Friday afternoon. "We have detected some incidences of malware,” chief executive Calum Campbell said. "We took immediate action to prevent this spreading while we carried out further investigations. "We are now putting in place a solution from our IT security provider. "While the issue is being resolved our staff have been working hard to minimise the impact on patients and we apologise to anyone who has been affected." The trust is responsible for the care of more than 650,000 people living in North and South Lanarkshire in Scotland, running three general hospitals and numerous GP surgeries, dentists, pharmacists and other services. As of Saturday morning, the trust described the entire IT system as “down” and put out an emergency phone number for staff to use over the bank holiday weekend. Dr Jane Burns, medical director for NHS Lanarkshire’s acute division, asked patients not to attend hospitals “unless it is essential”. "If you do turn up at A&E and do not require emergency care you may be sent away from the department or you may experience a lengthy wait,” she added. "Emergency care will still be provided for those who do require to be seen." The health board's estate includes Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, Monklands Hospital in Airdrie and Wishaw General Hospital. Story continues Staff unable to use email systems or access appointments have been directing the public to the NHS Lanarkshire Facebook page for further information The cyber attack appears to be more isolated than the global WannaCry attack in May, which hit NHS trusts across the UK and sparked urgent reviews of outdated systems, protections and staff training after equipment was disabled, patients turned away and ambulances diverted. WannaCry, which affected more than 150 countries, spread through outdated Microsoft Windows software and caused automated messages appear on thousands of computers telling users their data had been encrypted and would be released in exchange for a Bitcoin payment. The unprecedented cyber attack is not believed to have directly targeted the NHS, but Britain’s health service has previously been hit by viruses and The Independent revealed that Isis-linked hackers compromised some NHS websites last year. Ben Gummer, the former cabinet office minister who lost his seat in May, warned at the time that “large quantities of sensitive data” held by the NHS was a target. “No longer the stuff of spy thrillers and action movies, cyber attacks are a reality and they are happening now,” he said in October. “Our adversaries are varied: organised criminal groups, ‘hactivists’, untrained teenagers and foreign states. “Attacks can cause economic damage, erode public trust in online services and by enabling fraud do real harm to individuals, their property and their privacy.” Analysts have sounded intensifying warnings over the threat posed by cyber attacks targeting critical infrastructure, like public health, electricity, water supplies, telecommunications, banking and transport. Irish energy networks were targeted by hackers in a “spear phishing” attack last month, while the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and Scottish Parliament have also been hit. A recent report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warned of the growing threat of cyber attacks and threats to the West’s use of satellites in space. Enemies could take out military and civilian communications and navigation systems, the report said, or target the UK’s economy and crucial IT infrastructure causing chaos and panic, it said. “In any major future conflict, an important part of the battle will be threats to the UK’s critical national infrastructure from hostile cyber operations,” RUSI’s report concluded. “The cyber threat spectrum is not only relevant to defence but to government as a whole, especially to critical national infrastructure and the broader economy.” || Ripple Surged 70% to Become the Third Most Valuable Digital Currency After Bitcoin and Ethereum: It is the age of cryptocurrencies and ICOs and we have been hearing news about the surge in Bitcoin prices and the flexibility of Ethereum. But on August 22nd, a cryptocurrency named Ripple hogged all the headlines as it rose 44% in one day and 70% in a matter of few days. Many people may not have heard what Ripple is but it is soon likely to become one of the most used currencies in the financial world with many banks and other financial institutions adopting it and moving towards using the underlying technology of Ripple.
On a base note, the Ripple currency is used to send and receive payments. So, as can be seen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, Ripple has a solid fundamental that is underlying it and the use is also something that is very important in the financial world. It can be used by individuals to exchange money irrespective of where their banks are and this helps to move the funds around, all across the world. It uses a technology called interledger protocol where the money never exchanges hands but both the send and the receiver has access to it through a secure digital channel, with all records of the transactions in it, and this makes it a very secure transaction channel.
Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today
Since the technology is very secure and it helps the institutions involved to save a lot of money, many banks have begun to adopt this technology. By last count, 12 banks have been using this. Apart from the bank, Google has also been one of the first backers of Ripple as it realised the potential involved. Since then, we have seen many venture capitalists also beginning to back Ripple.
So from the above, it is pretty clear that Ripple is on pretty solid footing. The team working on the currency is also very well known and also highly respected as well. With such good fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before the fundamentals show through and the potential is realised and the currency begins to move up and this could probably be that time. The traders and the investors certainly believe so and that is why we have been seeing the prices surge over the last few days.
The main interest for buying Ripple has come from South Korea. Of late, this country has become the center of trading as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned and it has been the leading buyer whenever there has been a surge in the prices of bitcoin and ethereum and even in the case of Ripple, a major part of the volume came from this country. Another fundamental reason for the South Koreans to show interest in Ripple are rumors that a major bank in that country, Kakao Bank could be preparing to adopt Ripple technology. This has not yet been confirmed by the bank.
Another rumor that is doing the rounds is that Ripple may expand to China and may even target that country as part of its major push. This is understandable given the fact that the Ripple technology helps in secure financial transactions at low cost and hence would be very useful in countries with large and fragmented population. That is why China and India would be very interested in using this technology as banks and other financial institutions in these countries, which have a large of their citizens outside the country and spread far and wide in the world, could use the Ripple technology to handle financial payments at very low cost. There is also another rumor that says that Alibaba, the tech and e-commerce giant, could be using Ripple technology for handling payments. Nothing has been confirmed as yet but it does speak volumes of the technology and the potential involved in Ripple.
Considering these developments, it is likely that the Chinese may also start showing interest in Ripple and this could drive the prices even higher. All this shows the interest generated in Ripple at the moment and this could be the fundamental driver for the price rise, right now. And the move into new markets is only going to increase the demand for Ripple in the short and medium term and hence, it is no wonder that its trading volumes are surging.
The Best and Safest Way to Buy and Sell Bitcoins
Virtual currency is becoming more popular by the minute. It’s starting to seem that everyone wants in, yet it isn’t always so easy to get crypto currencies.Coinmamaallows you to purchase Bitcoin through credit card or cash in sizes that will suit your needs!Click Here for More Info
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Still Waiting for a Catalyst to Trigger a Breakout over $1307.00
• Gold forecast for the week of August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis
• Gold Price Forecast August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis
• U.S. Stocks Boosted by “Dovish” Yellen, Tax Reform Speculation
• Gold Price Prediction for August 28, 2017
• Commodities Daily Forecast – August 25, 2017 || Ripple Surged 70% to Become the Third Most Valuable Digital Currency After Bitcoin and Ethereum: It is the age of cryptocurrencies and ICOs and we have been hearing news about the surge in Bitcoin prices and the flexibility of Ethereum. But on August 22 nd , a cryptocurrency named Ripple hogged all the headlines as it rose 44% in one day and 70% in a matter of few days. Many people may not have heard what Ripple is but it is soon likely to become one of the most used currencies in the financial world with many banks and other financial institutions adopting it and moving towards using the underlying technology of Ripple. On a base note, the Ripple currency is used to send and receive payments. So, as can be seen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, Ripple has a solid fundamental that is underlying it and the use is also something that is very important in the financial world. It can be used by individuals to exchange money irrespective of where their banks are and this helps to move the funds around, all across the world. It uses a technology called interledger protocol where the money never exchanges hands but both the send and the receiver has access to it through a secure digital channel, with all records of the transactions in it, and this makes it a very secure transaction channel. Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today Ripple Aids Financial Payments Since the technology is very secure and it helps the institutions involved to save a lot of money, many banks have begun to adopt this technology. By last count, 12 banks have been using this. Apart from the bank, Google has also been one of the first backers of Ripple as it realised the potential involved. Since then, we have seen many venture capitalists also beginning to back Ripple. So from the above, it is pretty clear that Ripple is on pretty solid footing. The team working on the currency is also very well known and also highly respected as well. With such good fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before the fundamentals show through and the potential is realised and the currency begins to move up and this could probably be that time. The traders and the investors certainly believe so and that is why we have been seeing the prices surge over the last few days. Story continues South Korea Loves Ripple The main interest for buying Ripple has come from South Korea. Of late, this country has become the center of trading as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned and it has been the leading buyer whenever there has been a surge in the prices of bitcoin and ethereum and even in the case of Ripple, a major part of the volume came from this country. Another fundamental reason for the South Koreans to show interest in Ripple are rumors that a major bank in that country, Kakao Bank could be preparing to adopt Ripple technology. This has not yet been confirmed by the bank. Expansion Into China Another rumor that is doing the rounds is that Ripple may expand to China and may even target that country as part of its major push. This is understandable given the fact that the Ripple technology helps in secure financial transactions at low cost and hence would be very useful in countries with large and fragmented population. That is why China and India would be very interested in using this technology as banks and other financial institutions in these countries, which have a large of their citizens outside the country and spread far and wide in the world, could use the Ripple technology to handle financial payments at very low cost. There is also another rumor that says that Alibaba, the tech and e-commerce giant, could be using Ripple technology for handling payments. Nothing has been confirmed as yet but it does speak volumes of the technology and the potential involved in Ripple. Considering these developments, it is likely that the Chinese may also start showing interest in Ripple and this could drive the prices even higher. All this shows the interest generated in Ripple at the moment and this could be the fundamental driver for the price rise, right now. And the move into new markets is only going to increase the demand for Ripple in the short and medium term and hence, it is no wonder that its trading volumes are surging. The Best and Safest Way to Buy and Sell Bitcoins Virtual currency is becoming more popular by the minute. It’s starting to seem that everyone wants in, yet it isn’t always so easy to get crypto currencies. Coinmama allows you to purchase Bitcoin through credit card or cash in sizes that will suit your needs! Click Here for More Info This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Still Waiting for a Catalyst to Trigger a Breakout over $1307.00 Gold forecast for the week of August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis Gold Price Forecast August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis U.S. Stocks Boosted by “Dovish” Yellen, Tax Reform Speculation Gold Price Prediction for August 28, 2017 Commodities Daily Forecast – August 25, 2017 || Ripple Surged 70% to Become the Third Most Valuable Digital Currency After Bitcoin and Ethereum: It is the age of cryptocurrencies and ICOs and we have been hearing news about the surge in Bitcoin prices and the flexibility of Ethereum. But on August 22nd, a cryptocurrency named Ripple hogged all the headlines as it rose 44% in one day and 70% in a matter of few days. Many people may not have heard what Ripple is but it is soon likely to become one of the most used currencies in the financial world with many banks and other financial institutions adopting it and moving towards using the underlying technology of Ripple.
On a base note, the Ripple currency is used to send and receive payments. So, as can be seen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, Ripple has a solid fundamental that is underlying it and the use is also something that is very important in the financial world. It can be used by individuals to exchange money irrespective of where their banks are and this helps to move the funds around, all across the world. It uses a technology called interledger protocol where the money never exchanges hands but both the send and the receiver has access to it through a secure digital channel, with all records of the transactions in it, and this makes it a very secure transaction channel.
Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today
Since the technology is very secure and it helps the institutions involved to save a lot of money, many banks have begun to adopt this technology. By last count, 12 banks have been using this. Apart from the bank, Google has also been one of the first backers of Ripple as it realised the potential involved. Since then, we have seen many venture capitalists also beginning to back Ripple.
So from the above, it is pretty clear that Ripple is on pretty solid footing. The team working on the currency is also very well known and also highly respected as well. With such good fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before the fundamentals show through and the potential is realised and the currency begins to move up and this could probably be that time. The traders and the investors certainly believe so and that is why we have been seeing the prices surge over the last few days.
The main interest for buying Ripple has come from South Korea. Of late, this country has become the center of trading as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned and it has been the leading buyer whenever there has been a surge in the prices of bitcoin and ethereum and even in the case of Ripple, a major part of the volume came from this country. Another fundamental reason for the South Koreans to show interest in Ripple are rumors that a major bank in that country, Kakao Bank could be preparing to adopt Ripple technology. This has not yet been confirmed by the bank.
Another rumor that is doing the rounds is that Ripple may expand to China and may even target that country as part of its major push. This is understandable given the fact that the Ripple technology helps in secure financial transactions at low cost and hence would be very useful in countries with large and fragmented population. That is why China and India would be very interested in using this technology as banks and other financial institutions in these countries, which have a large of their citizens outside the country and spread far and wide in the world, could use the Ripple technology to handle financial payments at very low cost. There is also another rumor that says that Alibaba, the tech and e-commerce giant, could be using Ripple technology for handling payments. Nothing has been confirmed as yet but it does speak volumes of the technology and the potential involved in Ripple.
Considering these developments, it is likely that the Chinese may also start showing interest in Ripple and this could drive the prices even higher. All this shows the interest generated in Ripple at the moment and this could be the fundamental driver for the price rise, right now. And the move into new markets is only going to increase the demand for Ripple in the short and medium term and hence, it is no wonder that its trading volumes are surging.
The Best and Safest Way to Buy and Sell Bitcoins
Virtual currency is becoming more popular by the minute. It’s starting to seem that everyone wants in, yet it isn’t always so easy to get crypto currencies.Coinmamaallows you to purchase Bitcoin through credit card or cash in sizes that will suit your needs!Click Here for More Info
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Still Waiting for a Catalyst to Trigger a Breakout over $1307.00
• Gold forecast for the week of August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis
• Gold Price Forecast August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis
• U.S. Stocks Boosted by “Dovish” Yellen, Tax Reform Speculation
• Gold Price Prediction for August 28, 2017
• Commodities Daily Forecast – August 25, 2017 || Top 5 things that moved markets this past week: Investing.com – Take a peek at the top 5 things that rocked U.S. markets this week.
The euro made a late dash to the top
EUR/USD surged to session highs in late trade Friday, following a speech by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi at Jackson Hole.
As was widely expected, Draghi offered little in the way of clues about the European Central Bank’s plan to reduce its ultra-loose monetary policy measures but he did, however, highlight the trend of growing global economic growth.
In a speech titled “Sustaining openness in a dynamic global economy”, Draghi said the global recovery is firming up, suggesting that growth has been “visible for some years”, particularly in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Bitcoin back with a bang, nearly
Bitcoin resume its rally, following a poor to start to the week, when it fell to a nearly two-week low of $3,600 amid fears of a correction.
The slump in bitcoin, however, was short lived as the cryptocurrency rallied close to its all-time high of $4,489.1 on Friday, leaving many a trader talking up the prospect of the digital currency hitting $5,000.
There was no such luck for Bitcoin’s rival, Bitcoin Cash, as the newly created cryptocurrency fell from its recent peak of $935.50 to trade just above $600.
Yellen dented rate hike hopes
Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen avoided talking about monetary policy in a speech at Jackson Hole on Friday, denting expectations of a third rate hike later this year, pressuring the dollar to slump to a three-week low against its rivals.
It what could be Yellen’s last ever speech as Fed chair at the Jackson Hole symposium – as President Donald Trump has not indicated whether he will reappoint her – the Fed chief warned that any rollback of post-crisis regulations should be “modest” to ensure the safety of the financial system.
Crude oil kicked up bearish storm to post 4th weekly loss
Crude oil futures slumped to a fourth weekly loss, despite settling higher on Friday, on the back of concerns that Hurricane Harvey could disrupt refinery activity, reducing demand for crude oil.
Government weather agencies said Harvey became a Category 3 storm as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico with winds reaching 120 mph (193 kph).
Traders anticipated lower demand for crude oil, the primary input at refineries amid expectations that the storm could create flooding and power cuts, leading to disruption at refineries.
Gold tried to close above $1,300 but ultimately failed
Despite the drop in investor expectations of a rate hike later this year, and ongoing turmoil in Washington, gold futures struggled to close above $1,300.
The yellow metal looked set to breach the key level earlier in the week, following an uptick in US political uncertainty, after President Donald Trump threatened to ‘close down’ the government in order to secure funds for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Towards the tail end of the week, however, U.S. political uncertainty eased somewhat amid renewed hopes for tax reform, after chief economic advisor Gary Cohn said that president will make a major push on tax reform over coming weeks.
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Microsoft discontinues original Xbox One || Top 5 things that moved markets this past week: What will next week bring? Investing.com – Take a peek at the top 5 things that rocked U.S. markets this week. The euro made a late dash to the top EUR/USD surged to session highs in late trade Friday, following a speech by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi at Jackson Hole. As was widely expected, Draghi offered little in the way of clues about the European Central Bank’s plan to reduce its ultra-loose monetary policy measures but he did, however, highlight the trend of growing global economic growth. In a speech titled “Sustaining openness in a dynamic global economy”, Draghi said the global recovery is firming up, suggesting that growth has been “visible for some years”, particularly in the US, Europe, and Japan. Bitcoin back with a bang, nearly Bitcoin resume its rally, following a poor to start to the week, when it fell to a nearly two-week low of $3,600 amid fears of a correction. The slump in bitcoin, however, was short lived as the cryptocurrency rallied close to its all-time high of $4,489.1 on Friday, leaving many a trader talking up the prospect of the digital currency hitting $5,000. There was no such luck for Bitcoin’s rival, Bitcoin Cash, as the newly created cryptocurrency fell from its recent peak of $935.50 to trade just above $600. Yellen dented rate hike hopes Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen avoided talking about monetary policy in a speech at Jackson Hole on Friday, denting expectations of a third rate hike later this year, pressuring the dollar to slump to a three-week low against its rivals. It what could be Yellen’s last ever speech as Fed chair at the Jackson Hole symposium – as President Donald Trump has not indicated whether he will reappoint her – the Fed chief warned that any rollback of post-crisis regulations should be “modest” to ensure the safety of the financial system. Crude oil kicked up bearish storm to post 4th weekly loss Crude oil futures slumped to a fourth weekly loss, despite settling higher on Friday, on the back of concerns that Hurricane Harvey could disrupt refinery activity, reducing demand for crude oil. Story continues Government weather agencies said Harvey became a Category 3 storm as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico with winds reaching 120 mph (193 kph). Traders anticipated lower demand for crude oil, the primary input at refineries amid expectations that the storm could create flooding and power cuts, leading to disruption at refineries. Gold tried to close above $1,300 but ultimately failed Despite the drop in investor expectations of a rate hike later this year, and ongoing turmoil in Washington, gold futures struggled to close above $1,300. The yellow metal looked set to breach the key level earlier in the week, following an uptick in US political uncertainty, after President Donald Trump threatened to ‘close down’ the government in order to secure funds for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Towards the tail end of the week, however, U.S. political uncertainty eased somewhat amid renewed hopes for tax reform, after chief economic advisor Gary Cohn said that president will make a major push on tax reform over coming weeks. Related Articles Peru stocks higher at close of trade; S&P Lima General up 0.28% Weekly ETF Gainers / Losers Microsoft discontinues original Xbox One || Factbox: U.S. arrests of Russian cyber criminals hit record high: MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. action against suspected Russian cyber criminals has surged to a record high this year despite efforts by President Donald Trump to improve ties with Moscow. The United States has arrested or indicted seven Russians on U.S. cyber crime charges in 2017. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year. Below is a breakdown of the arrests and indictments so far this year: STANISLAV LISOV Arrested in Spain on Jan. 13, aged 32. Lisov, also known by hacker names "Black" and "Blackf", according to court documents, is accused of creating the "NeverQuest" banking trojan which targeted customers of financial institutions around the world and caused millions of dollars of damage. A Spanish court agreed to extradite Lisov to the United States in early August, where he faces up to 35 years in prison. Lisov's lawyer opposed the extradition, arguing that the allegations and evidence against him were too vague, that the United States did not have jurisdiction over any of the alleged crimes. IGOR SUSHCHIN Indicted on March 15, aged 43. One of two officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) charged by the United States in March with masterminding the 2014 theft of up to 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government criminally charged Russian spies for cyber offences. Reuters was unable to reach Sushchin for comment. DMITRY DOKUCHAYEV Indicted on March 15, aged 33. The second FSB officer indicted in the Yahoo hack and Sushchin's subordinate. Allegedly a former hacker who stole and sold credit card details under the online alias "Forb", Dokuchayev was one of four men detained on mysterious treason charges by Russian authorities in late 2016. He is currently being held in Moscow. Reuters was unable to reach Dokuchayev for comment. ALEXEI BELAN Indicted on March 15, aged 29. One of two hackers accused of working with Sushchin and Dokuchayev to break into Yahoo email servers and steal data from up to 500 million user accounts. Belan has spent years on the FBI's most-wanted list for crimes. He was arrested in Europe in June 2013 but escaped to Russia before he could be extradited to the United States. Reuters was unable to reach Belan for comment. Story continues PETER LEVASHOV Arrested in Spain on April 7, aged 36. A spammer accused by U.S. prosecutors of operating a botnet, or network, of tens of thousands of infected computers used by cyber criminals to pump out spam emails. Levashov has been accused of using the botnet for a multitude of criminal schemes, such as stock fraud, online credential phishing attempts and the distribution of malware, including ransomware. He is being held in Spain awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 52 years in jail. He denies the charges against him. YURY MARTYSHEV Arrested in Latvia on April 26, aged 35 Accused of helping run a service that let cyber criminals test-drive malware before attacking victims. His extradition to the United States was denounced by the Russian government as "another case of kidnapping of a Russian citizen by the US authorities." Martyshev denies the charges against him, according to Russian media reports. ALEXANDER VINNIK Arrested in Greece on July 25, aged 37 Vinnik is accused of laundering at least $4 billion in criminal funds through the BTC-e crytpo-currency exchange since 2011. This is alleged to be part of a scheme to facilitate crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking. U.S. authorities also linked him to the failure of Mt. Gox, a Japan-based bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after being hacked. He is being held in Greece awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 55 years in jail. He denies the charges against him, according to Greek media reports. (Reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow and Erich Auchard in Frankfurt, Editing by Timothy Heritage) || Russian hackers feel the heat as Trump seeks warmer Moscow ties: By Jack Stubbs and Joseph Menn MOSCOW/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Alexander Vinnik was arrested on money-laundering charges at a Greek hotel in late July, the status of his Jabber secure online messaging account was set to "away". "He often takes some time to reply, so at first I didn't think anything of it," said one person who knew the Russian as an administrator of a digital currency exchange which U.S. prosecutors say was used to launder criminal funds. "Then when I saw his picture on the news, I knew he would be 'away' for a long time," said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. Justice Department says Vinnik facilitated crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking by laundering at least $4 billion through BTC-e -- an exchange used to trade bitcoin and other digital currencies -- since 2011. The 37-year-old faces up to 55 years in prison if extradited to the United States. He denies the allegations against him, according to Greek media reports, and BTC-e has said he never worked for the exchange. Reuters was unable to reach BTC-e or a lawyer representing Vinnik for comment. Vinnik is now one of seven Russians arrested or indicted on U.S. cyber crime charges this year. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year, according to a Reuters review of U.S. Justice Department filings, Russian government statements and sources briefed on the matter. The increase to a record level shows that although President Donald Trump is trying to improve relations with Moscow, the United States has not shied away from pursuing Russians suspected of cyber crime. The prosecutions coincide with intensified scrutiny of Russian hackers since U.S. intelligence officials determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election using cyber warfare methods to help Trump. The Kremlin has denied accusations it interfered in elections in the United States or elsewhere. But U.S. opposition lawmakers have questioned whether Trump is willing to respond forcefully to Moscow over its actions in cyberspace, and the White House has avoided publicly accusing Russia over recent politically-motivated hacking attacks.. Alarmed by Trump's proposal to create a joint U.S.-Russia cyber security unit, U.S. lawmakers have also drawn up a draft bill that would require him to notify lawmakers before he does so. Four U.S. federal law enforcement officials, who discussed the recent arrests with Reuters on condition of anonymity, said there had been no centralized effort to step up action against Russian cyber criminals under Trump. Story continues The increase in the number of arrests stemmed from breakthroughs made in investigations before last year's election, two of them said. The FBI referred all questions to the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department said it did not track arrests or indictments by nationality and declined further comment. RUSSIAN HACKERS RATTLED Some U.S. officials, however, acknowledged that individual agents may now be more motivated to move against Russian cyber criminals following the election hacking scandal. Russian hackers are active at all levels of cyber crime, from small-time thefts of online banking details, to taking down the computer networks of multi-national companies and government departments. John Carlin, who until last October ran the national security division of the U.S. Justice Department as assistant attorney general, said resources had already been moving towards pursuing Russian nationals before the 2016 election. But he added: "Their outrageous activity to undermine the integrity of our election, like they did in western Europe before and have done since, can only have added fuel to the fire." According to interviews with five people who knew the men arrested this year -- all of whom declined to be named for fear of prosecution -- the arrests have shaken the Russian cyber crime community. "Now they are arresting even those who had a super indirect, not even direct connection to what they call influencing their election," said one who knew Vinnik by his online moniker WME. Used to operating across borders with relative impunity, Russian cyber criminals are now worried the prosecutions will lead to further arrests or harm their operations. They are cutting back on trips abroad that were once seen as a calculated risk because of the risk of arrest and extradition, but are now viewed as increasingly foolhardy. "We have monitored criminals discussing the aftermath (of the arrests) ... and it is clear they are concerned about two things," said Ilya Sachkov, head of cyber security firm Group-IB, whose Threat Intelligence unit specializes in monitoring and tracking the Russian-speaking cyber crime community. "First, what the arrested members potentially know about them, but second and more importantly, a disruption in their ability to make money." One of those arrested this year was Peter Levashov, charged by U.S. prosecutors with operating one of the world's largest botnets, or networks, of infected computers used by cyber criminals. He denies the charges. Levashov allegedly used the botnet to pump out spam emails for a multitude of criminal schemes, such as stock fraud, online credential phishing attempts and the distribution of malware, including ransomware. A person who knew Levashov by his online identity Severa said his arrest in particular had rattled underground cyber criminal circles because he was so well known. "People read the news of course and see guys they know getting busted," the person said. "Once is bad, this many times is scary." (Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in SAN FRANCISCO, Eric Auchard in FRANKFURT, and Karolina Tagaris in ATHENS; Editing by Timothy Heritage) View comments || Factbox: U.S. arrests of Russian cyber criminals hit record high: MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. action against suspected Russian cyber criminals has surged to a record high this year despite efforts by President Donald Trump to improve ties with Moscow. The United States has arrested or indicted seven Russians on U.S. cyber crime charges in 2017. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year. Below is a breakdown of the arrests and indictments so far this year: STANISLAV LISOV Arrested in Spain on Jan. 13, aged 32. Lisov, also known by hacker names "Black" and "Blackf", according to court documents, is accused of creating the "NeverQuest" banking trojan which targeted customers of financial institutions around the world and caused millions of dollars of damage. A Spanish court agreed to extradite Lisov to the United States in early August, where he faces up to 35 years in prison. Lisov's lawyer opposed the extradition, arguing that the allegations and evidence against him were too vague, that the United States did not have jurisdiction over any of the alleged crimes. IGOR SUSHCHIN Indicted on March 15, aged 43. One of two officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) charged by the United States in March with masterminding the 2014 theft of up to 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government criminally charged Russian spies for cyber offences. Reuters was unable to reach Sushchin for comment. DMITRY DOKUCHAYEV Indicted on March 15, aged 33. The second FSB officer indicted in the Yahoo hack and Sushchin's subordinate. Allegedly a former hacker who stole and sold credit card details under the online alias "Forb", Dokuchayev was one of four men detained on mysterious treason charges by Russian authorities in late 2016. He is currently being held in Moscow. Reuters was unable to reach Dokuchayev for comment. ALEXEI BELAN Indicted on March 15, aged 29. One of two hackers accused of working with Sushchin and Dokuchayev to break into Yahoo email servers and steal data from up to 500 million user accounts. Belan has spent years on the FBI's most-wanted list for crimes. He was arrested in Europe in June 2013 but escaped to Russia before he could be extradited to the United States. Reuters was unable to reach Belan for comment. Story continues PETER LEVASHOV Arrested in Spain on April 7, aged 36. A spammer accused by U.S. prosecutors of operating a botnet, or network, of tens of thousands of infected computers used by cyber criminals to pump out spam emails. Levashov has been accused of using the botnet for a multitude of criminal schemes, such as stock fraud, online credential phishing attempts and the distribution of malware, including ransomware. He is being held in Spain awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 52 years in jail. He denies the charges against him. YURY MARTYSHEV Arrested in Latvia on April 26, aged 35 Accused of helping run a service that let cyber criminals test-drive malware before attacking victims. His extradition to the United States was denounced by the Russian government as "another case of kidnapping of a Russian citizen by the US authorities." Martyshev denies the charges against him, according to Russian media reports. ALEXANDER VINNIK Arrested in Greece on July 25, aged 37 Vinnik is accused of laundering at least $4 billion in criminal funds through the BTC-e crytpo-currency exchange since 2011. This is alleged to be part of a scheme to facilitate crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking. U.S. authorities also linked him to the failure of Mt. Gox, a Japan-based bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after being hacked. He is being held in Greece awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 55 years in jail. He denies the charges against him, according to Greek media reports. (Reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow and Erich Auchard in Frankfurt, Editing by Timothy Heritage) || Russian hackers feel the heat as Trump seeks warmer Moscow ties: By Jack Stubbs and Joseph Menn MOSCOW/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Alexander Vinnik was arrested on money-laundering charges at a Greek hotel in late July, the status of his Jabber secure online messaging account was set to "away". "He often takes some time to reply, so at first I didn't think anything of it," said one person who knew the Russian as an administrator of a digital currency exchange which U.S. prosecutors say was used to launder criminal funds. "Then when I saw his picture on the news, I knew he would be 'away' for a long time," said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. Justice Department says Vinnik facilitated crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking by laundering at least $4 billion through BTC-e -- an exchange used to trade bitcoin and other digital currencies -- since 2011. The 37-year-old faces up to 55 years in prison if extradited to the United States. He denies the allegations against him, according to Greek media reports, and BTC-e has said he never worked for the exchange. Reuters was unable to reach BTC-e or a lawyer representing Vinnik for comment. Vinnik is now one of seven Russians arrested or indicted on U.S. cyber crime charges this year. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year, according to a Reuters review of U.S. Justice Department filings, Russian government statements and sources briefed on the matter. The increase to a record level shows that although President Donald Trump is trying to improve relations with Moscow, the United States has not shied away from pursuing Russians suspected of cyber crime. The prosecutions coincide with intensified scrutiny of Russian hackers since U.S. intelligence officials determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election using cyber warfare methods to help Trump. The Kremlin has denied accusations it interfered in elections in the United States or elsewhere. But U.S. opposition lawmakers have questioned whether Trump is willing to respond forcefully to Moscow over its actions in cyberspace, and the White House has avoided publicly accusing Russia over recent politically-motivated hacking attacks.. Alarmed by Trump's proposal to create a joint U.S.-Russia cyber security unit, U.S. lawmakers have also drawn up a draft bill that would require him to notify lawmakers before he does so. Four U.S. federal law enforcement officials, who discussed the recent arrests with Reuters on condition of anonymity, said there had been no centralized effort to step up action against Russian cyber criminals under Trump. Story continues The increase in the number of arrests stemmed from breakthroughs made in investigations before last year's election, two of them said. The FBI referred all questions to the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department said it did not track arrests or indictments by nationality and declined further comment. RUSSIAN HACKERS RATTLED Some U.S. officials, however, acknowledged that individual agents may now be more motivated to move against Russian cyber criminals following the election hacking scandal. Russian hackers are active at all levels of cyber crime, from small-time thefts of online banking details, to taking down the computer networks of multi-national companies and government departments. John Carlin, who until last October ran the national security division of the U.S. Justice Department as assistant attorney general, said resources had already been moving towards pursuing Russian nationals before the 2016 election. But he added: "Their outrageous activity to undermine the integrity of our election, like they did in western Europe before and have done since, can only have added fuel to the fire." According to interviews with five people who knew the men arrested this year -- all of whom declined to be named for fear of prosecution -- the arrests have shaken the Russian cyber crime community. "Now they are arresting even those who had a super indirect, not even direct connection to what they call influencing their election," said one who knew Vinnik by his online moniker WME. Used to operating across borders with relative impunity, Russian cyber criminals are now worried the prosecutions will lead to further arrests or harm their operations. They are cutting back on trips abroad that were once seen as a calculated risk because of the risk of arrest and extradition, but are now viewed as increasingly foolhardy. "We have monitored criminals discussing the aftermath (of the arrests) ... and it is clear they are concerned about two things," said Ilya Sachkov, head of cyber security firm Group-IB, whose Threat Intelligence unit specializes in monitoring and tracking the Russian-speaking cyber crime community. "First, what the arrested members potentially know about them, but second and more importantly, a disruption in their ability to make money." One of those arrested this year was Peter Levashov, charged by U.S. prosecutors with operating one of the world's largest botnets, or networks, of infected computers used by cyber criminals. He denies the charges. Levashov allegedly used the botnet to pump out spam emails for a multitude of criminal schemes, such as stock fraud, online credential phishing attempts and the distribution of malware, including ransomware. A person who knew Levashov by his online identity Severa said his arrest in particular had rattled underground cyber criminal circles because he was so well known. "People read the news of course and see guys they know getting busted," the person said. "Once is bad, this many times is scary." (Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in SAN FRANCISCO, Eric Auchard in FRANKFURT, and Karolina Tagaris in ATHENS; Editing by Timothy Heritage) View comments || Pogue YouTube Transcripts Tips: Believe it or not, YouTube creates a written transcript for every single video. Just click More and Transcript and boom! What’s cool is that you can use this feature as a great way to create free transcripts of your own recordings. Go to the video manager, click Edit Subtitles, pick a language, and look — now you can either upload a script you’ve already written, or you can say, do your best to create it automatically— and then you can edit it. You can watch the video and type as you go. YouTube even pauses the video as you type. Super-thoughtful — and super-secret! Adapted from “ Pogue’s Basics: Tech ” (Flatiron Press), by David Pogue . More from David Pogue: Ossia thinks it’s licked the problems with through-the-air charging Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked Is through-the-air charging a hoax? Pogue’s Basics: The secret Start menu in Windows 10 The pizza-making robots that want to change the world Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels Marty Cooper, inventor of the cellphone: The next step is implantables The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update How a one-of-a-kind business has kept 5,000 kitchens out of landfills Google’s Nest Cam IQ recognizes burglars’ faces—for a steep price The 4 people Steve Jobs handpicked to review the iPhone reflect 10 years later Study: A smartwatch app can detect the heart condition hiding in millions of Americans Now I get it: Bitcoin David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com . On Twitter, he’s @pogue . On email, he’s [email protected]. You can read all his articles here , or you can sign up to get his columns by email . || Pogue's Basics: YouTube transcripts: Believe it or not, YouTube creates a written transcript for every single video. Just click More and Transcript and boom!
What’s cool is that you can use this feature as a great way to create free transcripts of yourownrecordings.
Go to the video manager, click Edit Subtitles, pick a language, and look — now you can either upload a script you’ve already written, or you can say, do your best to create it automatically— and then you can edit it. You can watch the video and type as you go. YouTube even pauses the video as you type.
Super-thoughtful — and super-secret!
Adapted from “Pogue’s Basics: Tech” (Flatiron Press), byDavid Pogue.
More from David Pogue:
Ossia thinks it’s licked the problems with through-the-air charging
Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-bakedIs through-the-air charging a hoax?
Pogue’s Basics: The secret Start menu in Windows 10
The pizza-making robots that want to change the world
Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels
Marty Cooper, inventor of the cellphone: The next step is implantables
The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update
How a one-of-a-kind business has kept 5,000 kitchens out of landfills
Google’s Nest Cam IQ recognizes burglars’ faces—for a steep price
The 4 people Steve Jobs handpicked to review the iPhone reflect 10 years later
Study: A smartwatch app can detect the heart condition hiding in millions of Americans
Now I get it: Bitcoin
David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app
The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers
David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’sdavidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s@pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. You canread all his articles here, or you can sign up toget his columns by email. || How Waffle House's hurricane response team prepares for disaster: One of the ways the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) measures hurricane damage is by the Waffle House Index. Waffle House, a popular 24-hour fast food chain in the Southeast, has a unique ability to operate solely on gas if necessary, so a closed Waffle House is often tantamount to disaster.
And while we won’t know yet how Hurricane Harvey will fare on the index, the attitude at Waffle Houses across Texas has been calm. The company’s staff has been preparing for months.
“We have our own special disaster teams and generators waiting to be shipped,” said one Waffle House employee in Galveston, Tex. “We’re open up until the city makes us close, probably later on tonight. As soon as it’s over we’ll be right back open.”
Waffle House’s resiliency is a great source of satisfaction for people. The Galveston employee told Yahoo Finance proudly, “When nothing else is open I’m going to tell you the Waffle House is open.”
Over the years, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate noticed this phenomenon following hurricane damage and developed the Waffle House Index. “Green” is full menu, “yellow” is partial menu, and “red” means there may be no Waffle House left.
“Waffle House stays on when the wind’s blowing—they never close,” Philip Strouse, FEMA’s Private Sector Liaison,told Yahoo Finance last year. “They have a small footprint, they’re easy, and if these little stores are going out when it only takes a few people to staff … that’s bad.”
Hurricane preparation for many can be a scramble, but for Waffle House, it’s a game of chess with military-style strategy and execution. Before a storm hits, and even before hurricane season, the company makes storm checklists for each location, meets with local authorities, and educates new employees, though many have been through 15 hurricanes.
“We’ve already done all that,” Waffle House’s director of external affairs Pat Warner told Yahoo Finance. “Right now we’re getting jump teams ready.”
A Waffle House jump team consists of a small team of restaurant operators from outside the hurricane zone. These employees swoop in at the first possible moment after a storm to restore service and get things open. Typically after a storm, demand for food is high and functioning restaurants are in low supply, and things get extremely busy.
“There’s a jump team outside of Nashville ready to go on Sunday. Jump teams are [also] ready in Louisiana,” said Warner. “Then we can deploy from the main office some teams that may or may not go depending on severity.”
One of the reasons why these jump teams are the key to the chain’s success is because employees may not be able to work if they’re dealing with their own hurricane damage.
“It does help to bring operators from outside so it relieves [local employees] so they can focus on family,,” said Warner. “They don’t have to worry about their restaurant at the same time.”
During Hurricane Katrina, Warner said Waffle House worked beyond its restaurants to provide temporary lodging for its workers, putting tarps on employees’ roofs and shipping in hard-to-find essentials like diapers and formula.
On a day like Friday, when a hurricane is coming, Warner said the Waffle House team gets its jump teams into position to prepare for the worst.
“We’re on call, loading up our command center,” he said. ”Whether we roll or not we don’t know; we want to get together just in case.”
Waffle House doesn’t really operate in Corpus Christi, where the hurricane is expected to hit the hardest, but the flood-prone Galveston and Houston areas are filled with around 20 Waffle Houses.
“We’re all waiting to see what he’s gonna do after he comes on shore,” Warner said, referring to Harvey. “Right now it looks like we may have a Category 3… so we’re anticipating some damage to the restaurants.”
Like any restaurant, Waffle House needs food, employees, a safe location, and energy. In the planning process before a hurricane, Waffle House works with food distributor U.S. Foods (USFD) to make sure its shelves are stocked and its locations are prepared for possible supply-chain issues. The jump teams supply the labor.
The other elements can be more tricky, but Waffle House’s planning accounts for construction teams that are ready to go in if there are significant structural damage and power issues.
“Is it structurally safe, that’s number one,” said Warner. “If there’s even a doubt we’re not gonna open. After that it’s what utilities are there. This is all in our storm checklist, and we review it all the time.”
Energy-wise, not that much is needed, though food safety and IT professionals in the field are available to be dispatched quickly to locations to get things safe and online.
“If we have gas for the grills, we can open,” said Warner. “We tailor the menu for what we can cook. Obviously, without electricity we’re not gonna have waffles, but we can bring in water and porta potties. If we don’t have electricity we can bring in generators. We’ve had some cases that before the generator came, we were there with candle light.”
Getting a restaurant operational requires working closely with various federal and local agencies, so Waffle House’s response team keeps in close contact with FEMA and others.
“It’s nice to have that support too because we need information,” said Warner. “When’s the power gonna come back on? What about the water? It’s good to get that info quick to the folks in the field.”
Katrina, not surprisingly, was the biggest storm Waffle House has dealt with. While not as bad, last year’s Hurricane Matthew spanned five states up and down the I-95 corridor, a vast area in which to respond. “We had over 200 people on jump teams that were spread out,” said Warner.
After each storm, the company analyzes its own response to improve its disaster deployment. “We learn something from every storm,” said Warner. “The prep gets you there and each storm is gonna be different. The flooding, the damage — there’s a lot of variables, then afterwards we take a step back.”
All of the complexity of the response prompts a question: Why? Part of it is because they can. With a somewhat simple menu and needs, they can do things others can’t. But Warner noted that the reputation that led former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate to create the Waffle House Index as a disaster indicator has given them a level of pride. It has also pressured them to double down on their efforts.
“It’s a mixed blessing to be recognized,” said Warner. “Now we have to live up to it.”
—
Ethan Wolff-Mannis a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter@ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it [email protected].
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How ringless spam voicemails became a partisan issue || How Waffle House opens so fast after a hurricane: One of the ways the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) measures hurricane damage is by the Waffle House Index. Waffle House, a popular 24-hour fast food chain in the Southeast, has a unique ability to operate solely on gas if necessary, so a closed Waffle House is often tantamount to disaster. And while we won’t know yet how Hurricane Harvey will fare on the index, the attitude at Waffle Houses across Texas has been calm. The company’s staff has been preparing for months. “We have our own special disaster teams and generators waiting to be shipped,” said one Waffle House employee in Galveston, Tex. “We’re open up until the city makes us close, probably later on tonight. As soon as it’s over we’ll be right back open.” A sign is all that’s left of this Waffle House on the beach in Gulfport, Miss., Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Phil Coale) Waffle House’s resiliency is a great source of satisfaction for people. The Galveston employee told Yahoo Finance proudly, “When nothing else is open I’m going to tell you the Waffle House is open.” Over the years, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate noticed this phenomenon following hurricane damage and developed the Waffle House Index. “Green” is full menu, “yellow” is partial menu, and “red” means there may be no Waffle House left. “Waffle House stays on when the wind’s blowing—they never close,” Philip Strouse, FEMA’s Private Sector Liaison, told Yahoo Finance last year . “They have a small footprint, they’re easy, and if these little stores are going out when it only takes a few people to staff … that’s bad.” Preparing ‘jump teams’ Hurricane preparation for many can be a scramble, but for Waffle House, it’s a game of chess with military-style strategy and execution. Before a storm hits, and even before hurricane season, the company makes storm checklists for each location, meets with local authorities, and educates new employees, though many have been through 15 hurricanes. “We’ve already done all that,” Waffle House’s director of external affairs Pat Warner told Yahoo Finance. “Right now we’re getting jump teams ready.” Story continues Waffle House server Tootie serves customers at a packed restaurant after residents spent two days cooped up due to an ice storm in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, February 13, 2014. (Reuters) A Waffle House jump team consists of a small team of restaurant operators from outside the hurricane zone. These employees swoop in at the first possible moment after a storm to restore service and get things open. Typically after a storm, demand for food is high and functioning restaurants are in low supply, and things get extremely busy. “There’s a jump team outside of Nashville ready to go on Sunday. Jump teams are [also] ready in Louisiana,” said Warner. “Then we can deploy from the main office some teams that may or may not go depending on severity.” One of the reasons why these jump teams are the key to the chain’s success is because employees may not be able to work if they’re dealing with their own hurricane damage. “It does help to bring operators from outside so it relieves [local employees] so they can focus on family,,” said Warner. “They don’t have to worry about their restaurant at the same time.” During Hurricane Katrina, Warner said Waffle House worked beyond its restaurants to provide temporary lodging for its workers, putting tarps on employees’ roofs and shipping in hard-to-find essentials like diapers and formula. The day of the impact On a day like Friday, when a hurricane is coming, Warner said the Waffle House team gets its jump teams into position to prepare for the worst. “We’re on call, loading up our command center,” he said. ”Whether we roll or not we don’t know; we want to get together just in case.” Waffle House doesn’t really operate in Corpus Christi, where the hurricane is expected to hit the hardest, but the flood-prone Galveston and Houston areas are filled with around 20 Waffle Houses. A door sign is seen at a closed Waffle House restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, U.S., October 7, 2016. (Reuters) “We’re all waiting to see what he’s gonna do after he comes on shore,” Warner said, referring to Harvey. “Right now it looks like we may have a Category 3… so we’re anticipating some damage to the restaurants.” What a Waffle House needs to open Like any restaurant, Waffle House needs food, employees, a safe location, and energy. In the planning process before a hurricane, Waffle House works with food distributor U.S. Foods ( USFD ) to make sure its shelves are stocked and its locations are prepared for possible supply-chain issues. The jump teams supply the labor. The other elements can be more tricky, but Waffle House’s planning accounts for construction teams that are ready to go in if there are significant structural damage and power issues. “Is it structurally safe, that’s number one,” said Warner. “If there’s even a doubt we’re not gonna open. After that it’s what utilities are there. This is all in our storm checklist, and we review it all the time.” Energy-wise, not that much is needed, though food safety and IT professionals in the field are available to be dispatched quickly to locations to get things safe and online. “If we have gas for the grills, we can open,” said Warner. “We tailor the menu for what we can cook. Obviously, without electricity we’re not gonna have waffles, but we can bring in water and porta potties. If we don’t have electricity we can bring in generators. We’ve had some cases that before the generator came, we were there with candle light.” A Waffle House location after Hurricane Katrina Biloxi, Mississippi. (Wikimedia Commons) Getting a restaurant operational requires working closely with various federal and local agencies, so Waffle House’s response team keeps in close contact with FEMA and others. “It’s nice to have that support too because we need information,” said Warner. “When’s the power gonna come back on? What about the water? It’s good to get that info quick to the folks in the field.” Practice makes perfect Katrina, not surprisingly, was the biggest storm Waffle House has dealt with. While not as bad, last year’s Hurricane Matthew spanned five states up and down the I-95 corridor, a vast area in which to respond. “We had over 200 people on jump teams that were spread out,” said Warner. After each storm, the company analyzes its own response to improve its disaster deployment. “We learn something from every storm,” said Warner. “The prep gets you there and each storm is gonna be different. The flooding, the damage — there’s a lot of variables, then afterwards we take a step back.” All of the complexity of the response prompts a question: Why? Part of it is because they can. With a somewhat simple menu and needs, they can do things others can’t. But Warner noted that the reputation that led former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate to create the Waffle House Index as a disaster indicator has given them a level of pride. It has also pressured them to double down on their efforts. “It’s a mixed blessing to be recognized,” said Warner. “Now we have to live up to it.” — Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann . Got a tip? Send it to [email protected] . Read More: What Bitcoin needs to do to become real currency Trump weighs slashing one of the most popular tax deductions Big banks are going after Venmo and Venmo is winning 73% of Android users are less likely to switch to iPhone due to headphone jack ‘Market FOMO’ has millennials putting cash into the stock market Sometimes fake holidays like ‘National Ice Cream Day’ actually work A robot lawyer can fight your parking tickets and much more Consumer watchdog is making it easier for consumers to sue banks How ringless spam voicemails became a partisan issue || Does Bitcoin Have a Mining Monopoly Problem?: During bitcoin’s early days, anyone could “mine” it using their home computer. But as the price of digital currency climbed towards $100 in 2013 (it’s now over $4,000), professional mining groups with specialized computer chips emerged. Today, these groups, or pools--nearly all based in China--have become concentrated and now dominate the production of new bitcoins.
This phenomenon is not new, but an article inQuartzthis week shows how pervasive it is. The article looks at a company called Bitmain, which became a powerhouse by developing ASIC chips used just for bitcoin mining:
Bitmain may now be the most influential company in the bitcoin economy by virtue of the sheer amount of processing power, or hash rate, that it controls. Its mining pools, Antpool and BTC.com, account for28.9% of all the processing poweron the global bitcoin network.
The piece, which describes Bitmain’s plans to move into artificial intelligence, profiles the company’s co-founder Jihan Wu, a controversial figure in the bitcoin world--in part over allegations he manipulates the crypto-currency for his own ends. This includes the recent schism that saw bitcoin’s blockchain (the record of all transactions) split in two, creating a new currency called “Bitcoin Cash.”
Critics of Bitmain suspect that Wu was behind the recent, somewhat related split of bitcoin called thebitcoin-cash hard fork.That split was supported by a miner in Shenzhen named ViaBTC--which happened to be a company that Bitmain has invested in.
If the allegation is true (for the record, Wu denies them), it suggests bitcoin is vulnerable to market manipulation not just by traders who hold large stores of bitcoin, but also by miners like Bitmain.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune's technology newsletter.
One of those who holds this view is the CTO of the cyrptocurrency consulting firm Blockstream, Samson Mow, who recently wrotean editorialforFortunequestioning the viability of Bitcoin Cash. He believes Wu is engaging in shenanigans to secretly undermine the integrity of bitcoin.
“Jihan does have a lot of control for now, and much of that is simply due to mining centralization. As Bitmain is so vertically integrated, from selling ASICs, to operating mining farms, to running mining pools, he can prevent network upgrade and attempt to hijack the Bitcoin brand with things like [Bitcoin cash],” Mow said by email.
Such concerns over mining monopolies, and their ability to promote “forks” in the core bitcoin software, are typically regarded as philosophical feuds within the bitcoin community. But the real world market implications may also give pause for ordinary bitcoin buyers--many of whom are likely unaware of the emergence of mining cabals that are able to sway the future of bitcoin.
Mow, though, believes that whatever influence Jihan and other large miners may exert is only short-term and that the decision by bitcoin users to implement projects like SegWit (a plan to improve the efficiency of bitcoin’s blockchain) show bitcoin remains fundamentally democratic.
This is part ofFortune'snew initiative,The Ledger,a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. For more onThe Ledger,click here.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• The Latest Use for Bitcoin? Fighting Sex Trafficking
• Burger King Now Has Its Own Cryptocurrency--the 'Whoppercoin'--in Russia
• Digital Currency Ripple Soars 70% Overnight
• Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble
• This Country May Launch Its Own Virtual Currency || Does Bitcoin Have a Mining Monopoly Problem?: During bitcoin’s early days, anyone could “mine” it using their home computer. But as the price of digital currency climbed towards $100 in 2013 (it’s now over $4,000), professional mining groups with specialized computer chips emerged. Today, these groups, or pools--nearly all based in China--have become concentrated and now dominate the production of new bitcoins. This phenomenon is not new, but an article in Quartz this week shows how pervasive it is. The article looks at a company called Bitmain, which became a powerhouse by developing ASIC chips used just for bitcoin mining: Bitmain may now be the most influential company in the bitcoin economy by virtue of the sheer amount of processing power, or hash rate, that it controls. Its mining pools, Antpool and BTC.com, account for 28.9% of all the processing power on the global bitcoin network. The piece, which describes Bitmain’s plans to move into artificial intelligence, profiles the company’s co-founder Jihan Wu, a controversial figure in the bitcoin world--in part over allegations he manipulates the crypto-currency for his own ends. This includes the recent schism that saw bitcoin’s blockchain (the record of all transactions) split in two, creating a new currency called “Bitcoin Cash.” Critics of Bitmain suspect that Wu was behind the recent, somewhat related split of bitcoin called the bitcoin-cash hard fork. That split was supported by a miner in Shenzhen named ViaBTC--which happened to be a company that Bitmain has invested in. If the allegation is true (for the record, Wu denies them), it suggests bitcoin is vulnerable to market manipulation not just by traders who hold large stores of bitcoin, but also by miners like Bitmain. Get Data Sheet , Fortune's technology newsletter. One of those who holds this view is the CTO of the cyrptocurrency consulting firm Blockstream, Samson Mow, who recently wrote an editorial for Fortune questioning the viability of Bitcoin Cash. He believes Wu is engaging in shenanigans to secretly undermine the integrity of bitcoin. Story continues “Jihan does have a lot of control for now, and much of that is simply due to mining centralization. As Bitmain is so vertically integrated, from selling ASICs, to operating mining farms, to running mining pools, he can prevent network upgrade and attempt to hijack the Bitcoin brand with things like [Bitcoin cash],” Mow said by email. Such concerns over mining monopolies, and their ability to promote “forks” in the core bitcoin software, are typically regarded as philosophical feuds within the bitcoin community. But the real world market implications may also give pause for ordinary bitcoin buyers--many of whom are likely unaware of the emergence of mining cabals that are able to sway the future of bitcoin. Mow, though, believes that whatever influence Jihan and other large miners may exert is only short-term and that the decision by bitcoin users to implement projects like SegWit (a plan to improve the efficiency of bitcoin’s blockchain) show bitcoin remains fundamentally democratic. This is part of Fortune's new initiative, The Ledger, a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. For more on The Ledger, click here . See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com The Latest Use for Bitcoin? Fighting Sex Trafficking Burger King Now Has Its Own Cryptocurrency--the 'Whoppercoin'--in Russia Digital Currency Ripple Soars 70% Overnight Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble This Country May Launch Its Own Virtual Currency || Does Bitcoin Have a Mining Monopoly Problem?: During bitcoin’s early days, anyone could “mine” it using their home computer. But as the price of digital currency climbed towards $100 in 2013 (it’s now over $4,000), professional mining groups with specialized computer chips emerged. Today, these groups, or pools--nearly all based in China--have become concentrated and now dominate the production of new bitcoins.
This phenomenon is not new, but an article inQuartzthis week shows how pervasive it is. The article looks at a company called Bitmain, which became a powerhouse by developing ASIC chips used just for bitcoin mining:
Bitmain may now be the most influential company in the bitcoin economy by virtue of the sheer amount of processing power, or hash rate, that it controls. Its mining pools, Antpool and BTC.com, account for28.9% of all the processing poweron the global bitcoin network.
The piece, which describes Bitmain’s plans to move into artificial intelligence, profiles the company’s co-founder Jihan Wu, a controversial figure in the bitcoin world--in part over allegations he manipulates the crypto-currency for his own ends. This includes the recent schism that saw bitcoin’s blockchain (the record of all transactions) split in two, creating a new currency called “Bitcoin Cash.”
Critics of Bitmain suspect that Wu was behind the recent, somewhat related split of bitcoin called thebitcoin-cash hard fork.That split was supported by a miner in Shenzhen named ViaBTC--which happened to be a company that Bitmain has invested in.
If the allegation is true (for the record, Wu denies them), it suggests bitcoin is vulnerable to market manipulation not just by traders who hold large stores of bitcoin, but also by miners like Bitmain.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune's technology newsletter.
One of those who holds this view is the CTO of the cyrptocurrency consulting firm Blockstream, Samson Mow, who recently wrotean editorialforFortunequestioning the viability of Bitcoin Cash. He believes Wu is engaging in shenanigans to secretly undermine the integrity of bitcoin.
“Jihan does have a lot of control for now, and much of that is simply due to mining centralization. As Bitmain is so vertically integrated, from selling ASICs, to operating mining farms, to running mining pools, he can prevent network upgrade and attempt to hijack the Bitcoin brand with things like [Bitcoin cash],” Mow said by email.
Such concerns over mining monopolies, and their ability to promote “forks” in the core bitcoin software, are typically regarded as philosophical feuds within the bitcoin community. But the real world market implications may also give pause for ordinary bitcoin buyers--many of whom are likely unaware of the emergence of mining cabals that are able to sway the future of bitcoin.
Mow, though, believes that whatever influence Jihan and other large miners may exert is only short-term and that the decision by bitcoin users to implement projects like SegWit (a plan to improve the efficiency of bitcoin’s blockchain) show bitcoin remains fundamentally democratic.
This is part ofFortune'snew initiative,The Ledger,a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. For more onThe Ledger,click here.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• The Latest Use for Bitcoin? Fighting Sex Trafficking
• Burger King Now Has Its Own Cryptocurrency--the 'Whoppercoin'--in Russia
• Digital Currency Ripple Soars 70% Overnight
• Mark Cuban Backs Cryptocurrency Fund After Saying Bitcoin Is a Bubble
• This Country May Launch Its Own Virtual Currency
[Social Media Buzz]
08/27 22:00 Crypto currency sentiment analysis.
BTC : Positive
BCC : Neutral
ETH : Positive
ETC : Positive
https://goo.gl/5hp6Cz #BTC || Aug 28, 2017 00:00:00 UTC | 4,394.50$ | 3,676.90€ | 3,405.10£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/4yMdFXY7E4 || #Bitcoin 0.10%
Ultima: R$ 14830.02 Alta: R$ 14850.07 Baixa: R$ 14650.00
Fonte: Foxbit || bull 08/28 03:30～06:00
↑XMR_NXT: 112.704%
↑BTC_SC: 109.884%
↑USDT_NXT: 109.487%
↑BTC_NXT: 108.748%
↑BTC_PASC: 106.801%
↑BTC_NOTE: 106.749% || BTC Real Time Price...
|
4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45, 35350.19, 37337.54, 39406.94, 39995.91, 40008.42, 42235.55, 41626.20, 39974.89, 39201.95, 38152.98, 39747.50, 40869.55, 42816.50, 44555.80, 43798.12, 46365.40, 45585.03, 45593.64, 44428.29, 47793.32, 47096.95, 47047.00, 46004.48, 44695.36, 44801.19, 46717.58, 49339.18, 48905.49, 49321.65, 49546.15, 47706.12, 48960.79, 46942.22, 49058.67, 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54, 46811.13, 46091.39, 46391.42, 44883.91, 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54, 41564.36, 43790.89, 48116.94, 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-10-14]
Volume: 36615791366, RSI (14-day): 68.34, 50-day EMA: 48564.36, 200-day EMA: 43412.63
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1796.70, Gold RSI: 60.27
Oil Price: 81.31, Oil RSI: 74.15
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Crypto regulation is ‘matter of urgency’, says Bank of England: After the Bank of England (BoE) Deputy Governor Sam Woods warned tougher new rules for preventing British banks from building up extensive exposure to crypto assets were needed, senior BoE official Jon Cunliffe has now called for rapid regulation of cryptocurrencies. Cunliffe labelled the whole cryptocurrency sector a “financial stability concern”. “Risks in these areas are not the direct responsibility of financial stability authorities and do not normally pose risks to the financial system as a whole,” he warned. “But they can be a trigger for destabilising market corrections.” At the annual banking and financial conference SIBOS , Cunliffe reiterated Woods’ words about the rules, which would require banks to hold capital in reserve equal to their Bitcoin exposure, to act as a prevention for the majority of lenders from participating in the crypto space. “Regulators internationally and in many jurisdictions have begun the work – it needs to be pursued as a matter of urgency,” said Cunliffe before adding that it may not seem like a huge jump since the global financial system is worth approximately $250tn. However, he then pointed to the 2008 financial crash, saying it was generated by the subprime market which had a far smaller market capitalisation than crypto. Regulation needed for governments to manage crypto Cryptoassets have grown by approximately 200% in 2021, from just under $800bn to $2.3tn today. Cunliffe admittedly said that crypto assets “offer a prospect of radical improvements in financial services”, but cautioned that the “bulk of these assets have no intrinsic value and are vulnerable to major price corrections”. “When something in the financial system is growing very fast, and growing in largely unregulated space, financial stability authorities have to sit up and take notice,” he cautioned. Even though the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) recently declared that cryptocurrencies “pose limited risk to UK financial stability”, in its last report, the IMF also cautioned that while the risks posed by crypto are “not yet systemic”, the situation should be “closely monitored” by governments. Story continues The IMF also added that governments have, as of yet, only introduced “inadequate operational and regulatory frameworks” to manage digital assets. Charles Kerrigan, a FinTech partner with the law firm CMS said Cunliffe was right about his warnings to urgently fix this issue and make regulators catch up with technological innovation in the crypto space. “Innovation in crypto is the fruit of years of work by some of the most talented engineers on the planet,” Kerrigan noted . “The industry is not by and large against regulation. But this technological revolution won’t wait for the regulators.” || Crypto regulation is ‘matter of urgency’, says Bank of England: After the Bank of England (BoE) Deputy Governor Sam Woods warned tougher new rules for preventing British banks from building up extensive exposure to crypto assets were needed, senior BoE official Jon Cunliffe has now called for rapid regulation of cryptocurrencies. Cunliffe labelled the whole cryptocurrency sector a “financial stability concern”. “Risks in these areas are not the direct responsibility of financial stability authorities and do not normally pose risks to the financial system as a whole,” he warned. “But they can be a trigger for destabilising market corrections.” At the annual banking and financial conference SIBOS , Cunliffe reiterated Woods’ words about the rules, which would require banks to hold capital in reserve equal to their Bitcoin exposure, to act as a prevention for the majority of lenders from participating in the crypto space. “Regulators internationally and in many jurisdictions have begun the work – it needs to be pursued as a matter of urgency,” said Cunliffe before adding that it may not seem like a huge jump since the global financial system is worth approximately $250tn. However, he then pointed to the 2008 financial crash, saying it was generated by the subprime market which had a far smaller market capitalisation than crypto. Regulation needed for governments to manage crypto Cryptoassets have grown by approximately 200% in 2021, from just under $800bn to $2.3tn today. Cunliffe admittedly said that crypto assets “offer a prospect of radical improvements in financial services”, but cautioned that the “bulk of these assets have no intrinsic value and are vulnerable to major price corrections”. “When something in the financial system is growing very fast, and growing in largely unregulated space, financial stability authorities have to sit up and take notice,” he cautioned. Even though the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) recently declared that cryptocurrencies “pose limited risk to UK financial stability”, in its last report, the IMF also cautioned that while the risks posed by crypto are “not yet systemic”, the situation should be “closely monitored” by governments. Story continues The IMF also added that governments have, as of yet, only introduced “inadequate operational and regulatory frameworks” to manage digital assets. Charles Kerrigan, a FinTech partner with the law firm CMS said Cunliffe was right about his warnings to urgently fix this issue and make regulators catch up with technological innovation in the crypto space. “Innovation in crypto is the fruit of years of work by some of the most talented engineers on the planet,” Kerrigan noted . “The industry is not by and large against regulation. But this technological revolution won’t wait for the regulators.” || The CanCoin ($CANNA) Welcomes Heini Beretta, Digital Asset Entrepreneur to its Advisory Board: STOCKHOLM, Oct. 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) –– The CanCoin ($CANNA), a cannabis token designed to resolve market issues and enable monetization for the legal cannabis market, today announced that Swiss entrepreneur and investor Heini Beretta who specialises in digital assets and has 23 years’ experience in global capital markets, with 8 years in the decentralised finance industry, has joined its advisory board, adding financial market and digital asset expertise. Heini Beretta began his career in 1998 in the City of London working in exotic equity derivatives for Chase Manhattan (now JPMorgan). Heini has extensive experience working with complex financial instruments and hedge funds. Most recently Heini was a senior advisor to a prominent Swiss family office investment group. In 2013, Heini discerned the asymmetric opportunities brought about by Bitcoin and opened his first trading account then. He is currently a member of the Crypto Valley Association in Zug in north central Switzerland and is involved in various digital provenance projects. “With Heini Beretta expertise in the decentralised finance industry (DeFi) and his extensive network of commercial and investor contacts globally, the CanCoin project team is looking forward to accelerating its go-to-market strategies which have already commenced. We believe there will be speedy acceptance by the community and investors of the legal cannabis ecosystem, as the response so far after just a few weeks of marketing since minting CANNA has been very positive” said Daniel Daboczy, CEO at The CanCoin. The CanCoin project was designed to resolve central-market problems such as a lack of transparency, poor tracking of the supply chain, distrust in monitoring systems in both products and patients, and the reluctance of financial institutions to service the European cannabis market. To resolve the prime issue, the CanCoin project uses blockchain technology to streamline processes, setting standards for financial access, opportunity and trust throughout the legal cannabis economic system. Story continues “I am thrilled to be a part of the CanCoin project. As a leader in blockchain provenance solutions for physical commodities and trade-finance applications, I believe my experience in practical blockchain implementation within decentralised finance will value-add to both the legal cannabis ecosystem as well as the CanCoin project movement.” said Heini Beretta, the recently-appointed advisor to The CanCoin project. “Trust and privacy is an important element for consumers and businesses alike. With the integration of blockchain technology with product provenance and financial process, we believe there will be more acceptance from the payment services industry to transact within the legal cannabis ecosystem.” The CanCoin was developed by Technicorum Holdings, a Singapore- and Stockholm-based DeFi advisory group specializing in digital assets like KingSwap, together with European crowdfunding experts Daniel Daboczy, and David Bonnier and Amaury de Poret, the co-founders and investment managers at Enexis AB, one of the first investment companies focused on the cannabis sector. Technicorum, considered to be one of the world’s foremost ICO/IDO advisors, brings to bear its trusted expertise in managing DeFi projects, while David Bonnier and Amaury de Poret provide access to their diverse portfolio of cannabis opportunities in the European market, along with market expertise. Daniel Daboczy, founder of a company that was the fastest-growing equity-crowdfunding platform in Europe and CEO at Technicorum Holdings, brings with him his crowdfunding and marketing expertise, to connect investors and entrepreneurs and help with project management of the IDO (initial DEX offering), and also in solutions development. The CanCoin listed its $CANNA token on KingSwap and PancakeSwap DEXes (decentralised exchanges) on October 12th, 2021. Please visit www.thecancoin.com for more information. ABOUT THE CANCOIN The CanCoin is a cannabis token that was developed to combat frictional losses and to effect monetization in the growing legalised European cannabis market. Supported by the investment and management teams at Technicorum Holdings and Enexis AB, as well as Daniel Daboczy, The CanCoin resolves key market challenges through using blockchain, along with NFT and DeFi elements. The CanCoin streamlines payments and processing, inventory management, patient monitoring, medical cannabis cards, and allows tracking from seed to shelf. Please visit www.thecancoin.com for more information. ABOUT THE TECHNICORUM GROUP The Technicorum Group consists of several subsidiaries, some of which are regulated and specialize in various industries in the field of digital assets, DeFi, etc. and is mainly responsible for the KingSwap project, with numerous reference projects, including more than 100 ICOs (initial coin offerings) completed over the last 4 years, through its subsidiaries. CONTACT: Transform Group [email protected] || The CanCoin ($CANNA) Welcomes Heini Beretta, Digital Asset Entrepreneur to its Advisory Board: STOCKHOLM, Oct. 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) –– The CanCoin ($CANNA), a cannabis token designed to resolve market issues and enable monetization for the legal cannabis market, today announced that Swiss entrepreneur and investor Heini Beretta who specialises in digital assets and has 23 years’ experience in global capital markets, with 8 years in the decentralised finance industry, has joined its advisory board, adding financial market and digital asset expertise. Heini Beretta began his career in 1998 in the City of London working in exotic equity derivatives for Chase Manhattan (now JPMorgan). Heini has extensive experience working with complex financial instruments and hedge funds. Most recently Heini was a senior advisor to a prominent Swiss family office investment group. In 2013, Heini discerned the asymmetric opportunities brought about by Bitcoin and opened his first trading account then. He is currently a member of the Crypto Valley Association in Zug in north central Switzerland and is involved in various digital provenance projects. “With Heini Beretta expertise in the decentralised finance industry (DeFi) and his extensive network of commercial and investor contacts globally, the CanCoin project team is looking forward to accelerating its go-to-market strategies which have already commenced. We believe there will be speedy acceptance by the community and investors of the legal cannabis ecosystem, as the response so far after just a few weeks of marketing since minting CANNA has been very positive” said Daniel Daboczy, CEO at The CanCoin. The CanCoin project was designed to resolve central-market problems such as a lack of transparency, poor tracking of the supply chain, distrust in monitoring systems in both products and patients, and the reluctance of financial institutions to service the European cannabis market. To resolve the prime issue, the CanCoin project uses blockchain technology to streamline processes, setting standards for financial access, opportunity and trust throughout the legal cannabis economic system. Story continues “I am thrilled to be a part of the CanCoin project. As a leader in blockchain provenance solutions for physical commodities and trade-finance applications, I believe my experience in practical blockchain implementation within decentralised finance will value-add to both the legal cannabis ecosystem as well as the CanCoin project movement.” said Heini Beretta, the recently-appointed advisor to The CanCoin project. “Trust and privacy is an important element for consumers and businesses alike. With the integration of blockchain technology with product provenance and financial process, we believe there will be more acceptance from the payment services industry to transact within the legal cannabis ecosystem.” The CanCoin was developed by Technicorum Holdings, a Singapore- and Stockholm-based DeFi advisory group specializing in digital assets like KingSwap, together with European crowdfunding experts Daniel Daboczy, and David Bonnier and Amaury de Poret, the co-founders and investment managers at Enexis AB, one of the first investment companies focused on the cannabis sector. Technicorum, considered to be one of the world’s foremost ICO/IDO advisors, brings to bear its trusted expertise in managing DeFi projects, while David Bonnier and Amaury de Poret provide access to their diverse portfolio of cannabis opportunities in the European market, along with market expertise. Daniel Daboczy, founder of a company that was the fastest-growing equity-crowdfunding platform in Europe and CEO at Technicorum Holdings, brings with him his crowdfunding and marketing expertise, to connect investors and entrepreneurs and help with project management of the IDO (initial DEX offering), and also in solutions development. The CanCoin listed its $CANNA token on KingSwap and PancakeSwap DEXes (decentralised exchanges) on October 12th, 2021. Please visit www.thecancoin.com for more information. ABOUT THE CANCOIN The CanCoin is a cannabis token that was developed to combat frictional losses and to effect monetization in the growing legalised European cannabis market. Supported by the investment and management teams at Technicorum Holdings and Enexis AB, as well as Daniel Daboczy, The CanCoin resolves key market challenges through using blockchain, along with NFT and DeFi elements. The CanCoin streamlines payments and processing, inventory management, patient monitoring, medical cannabis cards, and allows tracking from seed to shelf. Please visit www.thecancoin.com for more information. ABOUT THE TECHNICORUM GROUP The Technicorum Group consists of several subsidiaries, some of which are regulated and specialize in various industries in the field of digital assets, DeFi, etc. and is mainly responsible for the KingSwap project, with numerous reference projects, including more than 100 ICOs (initial coin offerings) completed over the last 4 years, through its subsidiaries. CONTACT: Transform Group [email protected] || Binance Launches Biggest Growth Fund in Crypto History How Could It Impact Blockchain Industry?: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto Crypto exchange Binance has announced the launch of a $1 billion fund to push the adoption of not only the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, but the whole blockchain industry . See: 7 Best Blockchain Stocks To Buy Right Now Learn: Bitcoins Blockchain Activity, Rising Network Adoption Might Signal Bull Cross Its time to accelerate #BinanceSmartChains journey towards scaling and mass adoption. Were announcing the biggest growth fund in the history of crypto the $1 billion fund to push the adoption of not only BSC but the whole blockchain industry, Binance tweeted. Its time to accelerate #BinanceSmartChain s journey towards scaling and mass adoption Were announcing the biggest growth fund in the history of crypto the $1 billion fund to push the adoption of not only BSC but the whole blockchain industry. https://t.co/lkTHmp8fRm Binance Smart Chain (@BinanceChain) October 12, 2021 The fund is categorized into four different groups, each aiming at different challenges and goals, according to a statement on Binances website. A total of $100 million funds is reserved for talent development which includes mentoring developer communities, educating new crypto investors , providing academic scholarships to universities, running boot camps, and supporting R&D on cutting-edge blockchain innovations around cryptography, multi-party computing (MPC), high-performance consensus protocols, cross-chain & multi-chain infrastructure, RegTech & Deep Analytics, and more. We want to raise a generation of crypto-native professionals that will spread across the industry and push blockchain adoption forward, according to the announcement. Related: SEC Chair Genslers 49 Proposed Regulations Draw Ire of Hedge Fund Managers, Brokers and More Story continues A $100 million liquidity initiative will run multiple programs to encourage participation from traditional financial markets and crypto. This will be targeted to developing compliant relationships between investors and evolving emerging digital asset markets, the statement says. Additionally, $300 million are set aside for a builder and incubation program, to conduct regional and global hackathons, as well as incubate 100 innovative Decentralized applications (dApps) and infrastructure provides building on top of BSC who will receive mentoring from top venture capital and technical support from the BSC core community. Finally, $500 million will be set aside for an investment program to accelerate mainstream adoption and to bring disruption to financial infrastructures, according to the statement. Binance says that the fund will be used to grow decentralized computing, gaming, metaverse, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and financial services, which will not be limited to BSC but also support all the blockchain infra. With collaborations from industry-leading organizations, the investment fund will target scaling blockchain technology for real-life use cases and will bridge the gap between crypto-blockchain and the current technical-financial sectors, according to the statement. Conversely: As JPMorgan CEO Slams Bitcoin as Worthless, Bank of America Argues Digital Assets Too Large to Ignore Explore: What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021? The exchange launched the Binance Smart Chain on Mainnet in September 2020, activating the parallel blockchain to Binance Chain that will enable the creation of smart contracts and the staking mechanism for BNB, according to a statement. With the $1 billion initiative, our focus will be widened to building cross-chain and multi-chain infrastructures integrated with different types of blockchains , Gwendolyn Regina, investment director of the BSC Accelerator Fund, told Bloomberg. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Dont Know About Social Security 8 Ways Homeowners Can Save $1000s Every Year 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021 How Long $500K Will Last in Retirement in Each State Last updated: October 13, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Binance Launches Biggest Growth Fund in Crypto History How Could It Impact Blockchain Industry? || Binance Launches ‘Biggest Growth Fund in Crypto History’ — How Could It Impact Blockchain Industry?: Crypto exchange Binance has announced the launch of a $1 billion fund to push the adoption of not only the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, butthe whole blockchain industry.
See:7 Best Blockchain Stocks To Buy Right NowLearn:Bitcoin’s Blockchain Activity, Rising Network Adoption Might Signal Bull Cross
“It’s time to accelerate #BinanceSmartChain’s journey towards scaling and mass adoption. We’re announcing the biggest growth fund in the history of crypto — the $1 billion fund to push the adoption of not only BSC but the whole blockchain industry,” Binance tweeted.
The fund is categorized into four different groups, each aiming at different challenges and goals, according to a statement on Binance’s website.
A total of $100 million funds is reserved for talent development which includes mentoring developer communities,educating new crypto investors, providing academic scholarships to universities, running boot camps, and supporting R&D on cutting-edge blockchain innovations around cryptography, multi-party computing (MPC), high-performance consensus protocols, cross-chain & multi-chain infrastructure, RegTech & Deep Analytics, and more.
“We want to raise a generation of crypto-native professionals that will spread across the industry and push blockchain adoption forward,” according to the announcement.
Related:SEC Chair Gensler’s 49 Proposed Regulations Draw Ire of Hedge Fund Managers, Brokers and More
A $100 million liquidity initiative will run multiple programs to encourage participation from traditional financial markets and crypto. “This will be targeted to developing compliant relationships between investors and evolving emerging digital asset markets,” the statement says.
Additionally, $300 million are set aside for a builder and incubation program, to conduct regional and global hackathons, as well as incubate 100 innovative Decentralized applications (dApps) and infrastructure provides building on top of BSC who will receive mentoring from top venture capital and technical support from the BSC core community.
Finally, $500 million will be set aside for an investment program “to accelerate mainstream adoption and to bring disruption to financial infrastructures,” according to the statement. Binance says that the fund will be used to grow decentralized computing, gaming, metaverse, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and financial services, which will not be limited to BSC but also support all the blockchain infra.
“With collaborations from industry-leading organizations, the investment fund will target scaling blockchain technology for real-life use cases and will bridge the gap between crypto-blockchain and the current technical-financial sectors,” according to the statement.
Conversely:As JPMorgan CEO Slams Bitcoin as ‘Worthless,’ Bank of America Argues Digital Assets ‘Too Large to Ignore’Explore:What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021?
The exchange launched the Binance Smart Chain on Mainnet in September 2020, activating the parallel blockchain to Binance Chain that will enable the creation of smart contracts and the staking mechanism for BNB, according to a statement.
“With the $1 billion initiative, our focus will be widened to building cross-chain and multi-chain infrastructuresintegrated with different types of blockchains,” Gwendolyn Regina, investment director of the BSC Accelerator Fund, told Bloomberg.
More From GOBankingRates
• 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security
• 8 Ways Homeowners Can Save $1000s Every Year
• 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021
• How Long $500K Will Last in Retirement in Each State
Last updated: October 13, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Binance Launches ‘Biggest Growth Fund in Crypto History’ — How Could It Impact Blockchain Industry? || Stock Market Today: Inflation Data, Fed Minutes Fail to Budge Dow Much: Printing press printing U.S. dollars Getty Images Investors bored by a drought of news earlier this week had their prayers answered Wednesday with a mess of headlines – yet none of it really gave the market much impetus. Today's early headline was September's CPI reading, which showed a 5.4% year-over-year in consumer prices that was slightly hotter than the 5.3% expected. SEE MORE The 25 Cheapest U.S. Cities to Live In “Some of the transitory components are already moderating, such as airlines, apparels, and used autos. Disruptions due to supply chains not being able to keep up with the spike in demand may take longer but will eventually be fixed,” says Anu Gaggar, Global Investment Strategist for Commonwealth Financial Network. “However, higher rents and wages could prove to be stickier and eat into corporate margins.” BofA Global Research similarly warns about non-transitory risks. "While one month does not make a trend, this is an early signal of stronger persistent inflation pressures materializing, ultimately supporting continued above-target inflation over the medium term," a team of BofA economists says. Later Wednesday, minutes of the Sept. 21-22 Federal Reserve meeting showed that it could begin a "gradual tapering process" starting as early as mid-November and ending by mid-2022. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. “In our view, the bar to get moving on asset purchase tapering is very low for the Fed, and in terms of the likely composition of tapering, there appears to be considerable agreement,” says Bob Miller, BlackRock’s head of Americas Fundamental Fixed Income. “Indeed, we already had the impression in July that the reduction in Treasury securities and MBS would occur at the same time, and assuming a November to June 2022 tapering timeline, this would imply a $15 billion reduction in the purchase pace per month, or a faster meeting-by-meeting adjustment schedule.” Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered a marginal loss to 34,377. The S&P 500 fared a bit better, up 0.3% to 4,363, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.7% higher to 14,571. SEE MORE All 30 Dow Jones Stocks Ranked: The Pros Weigh In Financials (-0.6%) were Wednesday's worst sector. The Dow's performance was hampered by declines in components American Express ( AXP , -3.5%), Visa ( V , -0.7%) and JPMorgan Chase ( JPM , -2.6%) – the latter of which fell despite announcing Street-beating revenues and profits to kick off the Q3 earnings season . "JPM's pullback today in the face of a fairly positive earnings report does not suggest optimism for banks reporting through the remainder of this week," says David Keller, chief market strategist at StockCharts.com. Speaking to the charts, Keller adds, "After peaking just above $170, the stock has now rotated below $165 yet again, completing a 'failed breakout' pattern that implies a lack of investor confidence. I would expect further backing and filling for stocks like JPM before any further upside is likely." Stock chart of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) StockCharts.com Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 climbed 0.3% to 2,241. BlackRock ( BLK , +3.8%) shares enjoyed a post-earnings lift today. In the third quarter, the world's largest asset manager – with $9.46 trillion in assets under management – reported earnings of $10.95 per share on $5 billion in revenues. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings per share of $9.35 on $4.9 billion in revenues. CFRA analyst Catherine Seifert kept her Strong Buy rating on BlackRock: "Despite some tough year-to-year comparisons, we view BLK as a best-in-class asset manager with above-peer growth and profitability metrics set to support the shares' above-peer valuation," she says. Delta Air Lines ( DAL , -5.8%) was also in focus after earnings. While the airline reported higher-than-expected adjusted profits of 30 cents per share on $9.15 billion in revenues, its results were still below 2019 levels. DAL also warned that higher fuel costs could weigh on its bottom line in the current quarter. Nevertheless, CFRA analyst Colin Scarola maintained his Strong Buy rating on Delta. "The current stock sell-off is hyperfocused on today's challenges (high oil prices and limited business and international travel), but investors will be better served to think about a year from now, by which time we expect lower fuel prices and a near full recovery for business/international," he wrote in a note. U.S. crude futures shed 0.2% to end at $80.44 per barrel, snapping a five-day winning streak. Gold futures gained 2% to settle at $1,794.70 an ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined 6.8% to 18.50. Bitcoin prices firmed up by 3.6% to $57,272.90. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) stock chart for 101321 YCharts What's in Your 401(k)? If you're like many workplace savers, you might have checked what funds you were holding once, and only once – when you started contributing to your 401(k) and set your initial allocations. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 If that sounds like you, consider taking a fresh look, for any number of reasons. Your investment goals might have changed. You might be due for a rebalancing. Or you simply might understand your investment options better now. Importantly, you don't have to go it alone. Kiplinger has begun its annual look at the market's most popular 401(k) funds – a list of 100 products that are commonly found in company 401(k) plans nationwide. And naturally, we've started this year's exploration with one of the most popular names among thrifty investors: Vanguard. Vanguard funds account for a whopping one-third of the 401(k) world's top products, so chances are your plan offers up at least a couple of its funds. We look at each of the fund provider's actively managed and target-date products that rank in the 100 most popular 401(k) funds , rating them Buy, Hold or Sell – and explaining what you get out of each one. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like 10 Best Stocks for Rising Interest Rates How Big of a Threat Does Inflation Pose to Your Retirement? HSA Contribution Limits and Other Requirements || Stock Market Today: Inflation Data, Fed Minutes Fail to Budge Dow Much: Printing press printing U.S. dollars Getty Images Investors bored by a drought of news earlier this week had their prayers answered Wednesday with a mess of headlines – yet none of it really gave the market much impetus. Today's early headline was September's CPI reading, which showed a 5.4% year-over-year in consumer prices that was slightly hotter than the 5.3% expected. SEE MORE The 25 Cheapest U.S. Cities to Live In “Some of the transitory components are already moderating, such as airlines, apparels, and used autos. Disruptions due to supply chains not being able to keep up with the spike in demand may take longer but will eventually be fixed,” says Anu Gaggar, Global Investment Strategist for Commonwealth Financial Network. “However, higher rents and wages could prove to be stickier and eat into corporate margins.” BofA Global Research similarly warns about non-transitory risks. "While one month does not make a trend, this is an early signal of stronger persistent inflation pressures materializing, ultimately supporting continued above-target inflation over the medium term," a team of BofA economists says. Later Wednesday, minutes of the Sept. 21-22 Federal Reserve meeting showed that it could begin a "gradual tapering process" starting as early as mid-November and ending by mid-2022. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. “In our view, the bar to get moving on asset purchase tapering is very low for the Fed, and in terms of the likely composition of tapering, there appears to be considerable agreement,” says Bob Miller, BlackRock’s head of Americas Fundamental Fixed Income. “Indeed, we already had the impression in July that the reduction in Treasury securities and MBS would occur at the same time, and assuming a November to June 2022 tapering timeline, this would imply a $15 billion reduction in the purchase pace per month, or a faster meeting-by-meeting adjustment schedule.” Story continues The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered a marginal loss to 34,377. The S&P 500 fared a bit better, up 0.3% to 4,363, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.7% higher to 14,571. SEE MORE All 30 Dow Jones Stocks Ranked: The Pros Weigh In Financials (-0.6%) were Wednesday's worst sector. The Dow's performance was hampered by declines in components American Express ( AXP , -3.5%), Visa ( V , -0.7%) and JPMorgan Chase ( JPM , -2.6%) – the latter of which fell despite announcing Street-beating revenues and profits to kick off the Q3 earnings season . "JPM's pullback today in the face of a fairly positive earnings report does not suggest optimism for banks reporting through the remainder of this week," says David Keller, chief market strategist at StockCharts.com. Speaking to the charts, Keller adds, "After peaking just above $170, the stock has now rotated below $165 yet again, completing a 'failed breakout' pattern that implies a lack of investor confidence. I would expect further backing and filling for stocks like JPM before any further upside is likely." Stock chart of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) StockCharts.com Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 climbed 0.3% to 2,241. BlackRock ( BLK , +3.8%) shares enjoyed a post-earnings lift today. In the third quarter, the world's largest asset manager – with $9.46 trillion in assets under management – reported earnings of $10.95 per share on $5 billion in revenues. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings per share of $9.35 on $4.9 billion in revenues. CFRA analyst Catherine Seifert kept her Strong Buy rating on BlackRock: "Despite some tough year-to-year comparisons, we view BLK as a best-in-class asset manager with above-peer growth and profitability metrics set to support the shares' above-peer valuation," she says. Delta Air Lines ( DAL , -5.8%) was also in focus after earnings. While the airline reported higher-than-expected adjusted profits of 30 cents per share on $9.15 billion in revenues, its results were still below 2019 levels. DAL also warned that higher fuel costs could weigh on its bottom line in the current quarter. Nevertheless, CFRA analyst Colin Scarola maintained his Strong Buy rating on Delta. "The current stock sell-off is hyperfocused on today's challenges (high oil prices and limited business and international travel), but investors will be better served to think about a year from now, by which time we expect lower fuel prices and a near full recovery for business/international," he wrote in a note. U.S. crude futures shed 0.2% to end at $80.44 per barrel, snapping a five-day winning streak. Gold futures gained 2% to settle at $1,794.70 an ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) declined 6.8% to 18.50. Bitcoin prices firmed up by 3.6% to $57,272.90. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) stock chart for 101321 YCharts What's in Your 401(k)? If you're like many workplace savers, you might have checked what funds you were holding once, and only once – when you started contributing to your 401(k) and set your initial allocations. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 If that sounds like you, consider taking a fresh look, for any number of reasons. Your investment goals might have changed. You might be due for a rebalancing. Or you simply might understand your investment options better now. Importantly, you don't have to go it alone. Kiplinger has begun its annual look at the market's most popular 401(k) funds – a list of 100 products that are commonly found in company 401(k) plans nationwide. And naturally, we've started this year's exploration with one of the most popular names among thrifty investors: Vanguard. Vanguard funds account for a whopping one-third of the 401(k) world's top products, so chances are your plan offers up at least a couple of its funds. We look at each of the fund provider's actively managed and target-date products that rank in the 100 most popular 401(k) funds , rating them Buy, Hold or Sell – and explaining what you get out of each one. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like 10 Best Stocks for Rising Interest Rates How Big of a Threat Does Inflation Pose to Your Retirement? HSA Contribution Limits and Other Requirements || Crypto Pop-Up Exchanges on the Rise as Retail Investing Grows in Popularity: In a sign of the times, reflecting last year’s rise of retail investors and increased crypto interest , entrepreneurs are taking notice. There’s a new crop of crypto exchanges appearing, but these are of the brick-and-mortar variety. Discover: What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021? Learn More: Competitor Investing Platform to Robinhood Adds Crypto Trading Capabilities Coin Nerds , for example, founded in 2018, is a Canadian-owned and operated crypto exchange serving customers both in-person and online. The company is soon coming stateside, as it is in the process “of an expansion into Miami,” Adam Hack, CEO and founder of Coin Nerds, told GOBankingRates. “We plan on opening one store in Miami, FL in the first phase, which will be Q1 2022, at which point we will observe market demand and utilization,” Hack said. Hack explained that Coin Nerds was founded “with the idea that individuals from all walks of life should be able to participate in the digital asset economy, without the steep learning curve.” Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto Related: As JPMorgan CEO Slams Bitcoin as ‘Worthless,’ Bank of America Argues Digital Assets ‘Too Large to Ignore’ “Being tech savvy is not a requirement for our customers; this is in our view the best possible method to introduce an overwhelming amount of people into the digital asset ecosystem in a comfortable, familiar and trustworthy environment,” Hack continued. “We do this all while instilling trust and confidence in digital markets; no longer do customers need to be on the fence due to unfamiliarity or afraid of losing their digital assets when they use Coin Nerds as their exchange.” Customers can register online and use online bill payments, e-transfers or wire transfers to get crypto, or, they can also buy crypto in person instantly at one of its physical locations using cash, debit or credit cards, according to its website. Canadian dollars can be traded for cryptos including Bitcoin, Ethereum, DASH, Bitcoin Cash, USDC, USDT and Dogecoin.. The exchanges charge fees range from 0.99% to 5% for each transaction, Hack clarified. “We’re not your average cryptocurrency exchange. We don’t ask you to keep cryptocurrency in an online wallet with us, and you don’t have to be an expert on the subject (but if you are, that’s cool too!),” the company says on its website. “We offer a different way to exchange Canadian dollars for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It’s a customer-centric approach that means we put you first.” See: Social Media Platform Rides Retail Investor Surge, Promises ‘Democratization of Knowledge’ Learn More: Competitor Investing Platform to Robinhood Adds Crypto Trading Capabilities Story continues According to Coin Nerds, it’s “all about helping you buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in whatever way is most comfortable for you.” “We believe that cryptocurrencies are the way of the future , and more importantly, that nobody who wants to participate in the revolution should be left behind,” the company said. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security The Best Cash Back Credit Card Right Now 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021 How Long $500K Will Last in Retirement in Each State Last updated: October 13, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Crypto Pop-Up Exchanges on the Rise as Retail Investing Grows in Popularity View comments || Crypto Pop-Up Exchanges on the Rise as Retail Investing Grows in Popularity: In a sign of the times, reflecting last year’s rise of retail investors and increased crypto interest , entrepreneurs are taking notice. There’s a new crop of crypto exchanges appearing, but these are of the brick-and-mortar variety. Discover: What Is the Next Big Cryptocurrency To Explode in 2021? Learn More: Competitor Investing Platform to Robinhood Adds Crypto Trading Capabilities Coin Nerds , for example, founded in 2018, is a Canadian-owned and operated crypto exchange serving customers both in-person and online. The company is soon coming stateside, as it is in the process “of an expansion into Miami,” Adam Hack, CEO and founder of Coin Nerds, told GOBankingRates. “We plan on opening one store in Miami, FL in the first phase, which will be Q1 2022, at which point we will observe market demand and utilization,” Hack said. Hack explained that Coin Nerds was founded “with the idea that individuals from all walks of life should be able to participate in the digital asset economy, without the steep learning curve.” Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto Related: As JPMorgan CEO Slams Bitcoin as ‘Worthless,’ Bank of America Argues Digital Assets ‘Too Large to Ignore’ “Being tech savvy is not a requirement for our customers; this is in our view the best possible method to introduce an overwhelming amount of people into the digital asset ecosystem in a comfortable, familiar and trustworthy environment,” Hack continued. “We do this all while instilling trust and confidence in digital markets; no longer do customers need to be on the fence due to unfamiliarity or afraid of losing their digital assets when they use Coin Nerds as their exchange.” Customers can register online and use online bill payments, e-transfers or wire transfers to get crypto, or, they can also buy crypto in person instantly at one of its physical locations using cash, debit or credit cards, according to its website. Canadian dollars can be traded for cryptos including Bitcoin, Ethereum, DASH, Bitcoin Cash, USDC, USDT and Dogecoin.. The exchanges charge fees range from 0.99% to 5% for each transaction, Hack clarified. “We’re not your average cryptocurrency exchange. We don’t ask you to keep cryptocurrency in an online wallet with us, and you don’t have to be an expert on the subject (but if you are, that’s cool too!),” the company says on its website. “We offer a different way to exchange Canadian dollars for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It’s a customer-centric approach that means we put you first.” See: Social Media Platform Rides Retail Investor Surge, Promises ‘Democratization of Knowledge’ Learn More: Competitor Investing Platform to Robinhood Adds Crypto Trading Capabilities Story continues According to Coin Nerds, it’s “all about helping you buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in whatever way is most comfortable for you.” “We believe that cryptocurrencies are the way of the future , and more importantly, that nobody who wants to participate in the revolution should be left behind,” the company said. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security The Best Cash Back Credit Card Right Now 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021 How Long $500K Will Last in Retirement in Each State Last updated: October 13, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Crypto Pop-Up Exchanges on the Rise as Retail Investing Grows in Popularity View comments || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Recovering Faster Than Equities as Buyers Remain Active: Bitcoin returned above $56,000 on Wednesday after trading in a tight range over the past few days. The cryptocurrency’s price is up about 3% over the past 24 hours compared to a 1% rise in ether over the same period.
The recovery in cryptocurrencies over the past week has decoupled from equity markets, with bitcoin squarely in the lead with a near 18% price rise for the month to date. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down about 4% from an all-time high in September, albeit with less or a roller coaster in price volatility than cryptocurrencies.
For now, analysts are monitoring blockchain data, which points to continued upside for bitcoin. “Despite China’s crypto ban, it seems miners, including those who were in China, are holding BTC in mining wallets,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, wrote in a blogpost, referring to the decline in miner outflows, which tends to be a bullish price indicator.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $57,387, +3.9%
• Ether (ETH): $3,528, +1.5%
• S&P 500: +0.3%
• Gold: $1,791, +1.8%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.544%
Bitcoin is currently about 10% away from an all-time price high around $63,000, marking a sharp recovery from a near 50% drawdown (percentage decline from peak to trough) two months ago. The speed of bitcoin’s price recovery is far greater than the S&P 500, which produced negative returns over the past three months compared to a near 70% rise in BTC over the same period.
However, over the long term, the chart below shows bitcoin’s drawdowns tend to be more severe than for equities. This is mainly due to the cryptocurrency’s higher volatility, which can accelerate price moves.
Days of extreme price volatility during market downturns may be behind us because traders are increasingly using stablecoins or fiat currencies as collateral to trade futures contracts – an obligation to buy or sell the underlying at a later date at an agreed-upon price, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbolewrotein the Wednesday edition of the “First Mover”newsletter.
Since May, the percentage of coin-margined futures contracts’ open interest has been on a decline and recently fell below 50%, according to Glassnode data quoted by Delphi Digital. Meanwhile, the percentage of the dollar- or stablecoin-margined open interest is ticking higher, as shown in the chart below. Open interest refers to the number of futures contracts traded but not squared off with an offsetting position.
On a related note, the 30-day volatility of bitcoin and ether declined over the past few months but remains elevated given the recent price rally across cryptocurrencies. The S&P 500 Index also experienced a brief rise in volatility around the end of September.
• Polkadot sets date for hotly anticipated parachain auctions:Polkadot’s parachain auction process will kick off next month on Nov. 11,reported CoinDesk’s Ian Allison. The process will decide which project will be allocated slots for building on the Polkadot network. The last technical steps to complete before launching parachains on Polkadot were the finalization of parachain disputes and Polkadot’s full code audit, both of which have now been completed, according to Polkadot founder Robert Habermeier.
• Solana’s Phantom adds safety rails after scammers drain wallets:Solana-based digital wallet Phantom has shored up its cyber defenses after weeks of user-reported scams that drained victims’ crypto token balances,reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. The wallet, analogous to Ethereum’s Metamask, exiled its “auto-approve” transaction feature to the back of the app, an Oct. 7 blog post said. It also cleaned up the transaction preview user interface and said an anti-phishing website blocker is slated for future rollout.
• Global finance watchdog says $133B stablecoin sector remains niche:A Financial Stability Board (FSB) survey has found that stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets, are currently not being used at a significant scale for mainstream payments,reported CoinDesk’s Sandali Handagama. The finding was mentioned Wednesday in an FSB progress report for enhancing cross-border payments. “From a policy perspective, there is value in assessing whether and how the use of well-designed global [stablecoins] could enhance cross-border payments. An action to that extent has been added,” the report said.
• US Claims Bitcoin Mining Crown Following China Crackdown
• Andreessen Horowitz Plans to Meet With Washington Policymakers Over Web 3: Report
• Ethereum’s Latest Progress Toward Proof-of-Stake
• Visa Launching NFT Program to Support Digital Artists
Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Polkadot (DOT): +23.8%
• Stellar (XLM): +8.0%
Notable losers:
• Filecoin (FIL): -2.3% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Recovering Faster Than Equities as Buyers Remain Active: Bitcoin returned above $56,000 on Wednesday after trading in a tight range over the past few days. The cryptocurrency’s price is up about 3% over the past 24 hours compared to a 1% rise in ether over the same period. The recovery in cryptocurrencies over the past week has decoupled from equity markets, with bitcoin squarely in the lead with a near 18% price rise for the month to date. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down about 4% from an all-time high in September, albeit with less or a roller coaster in price volatility than cryptocurrencies. For now, analysts are monitoring blockchain data, which points to continued upside for bitcoin. “Despite China’s crypto ban, it seems miners, including those who were in China, are holding BTC in mining wallets,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, wrote in a blogpost, referring to the decline in miner outflows, which tends to be a bullish price indicator. Latest prices Bitcoin (BTC): $57,387, +3.9% Ether (ETH): $3,528, +1.5% S&P 500: +0.3% Gold: $1,791, +1.8% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.544% Closing in on the high Bitcoin is currently about 10% away from an all-time price high around $63,000, marking a sharp recovery from a near 50% drawdown (percentage decline from peak to trough) two months ago. The speed of bitcoin’s price recovery is far greater than the S&P 500, which produced negative returns over the past three months compared to a near 70% rise in BTC over the same period. However, over the long term, the chart below shows bitcoin’s drawdowns tend to be more severe than for equities. This is mainly due to the cryptocurrency’s higher volatility, which can accelerate price moves. Less crypto price volatility ahead Days of extreme price volatility during market downturns may be behind us because traders are increasingly using stablecoins or fiat currencies as collateral to trade futures contracts – an obligation to buy or sell the underlying at a later date at an agreed-upon price, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole wrote in the Wednesday edition of the “First Mover” newsletter . Story continues Since May, the percentage of coin-margined futures contracts’ open interest has been on a decline and recently fell below 50%, according to Glassnode data quoted by Delphi Digital. Meanwhile, the percentage of the dollar- or stablecoin-margined open interest is ticking higher, as shown in the chart below. Open interest refers to the number of futures contracts traded but not squared off with an offsetting position. On a related note, the 30-day volatility of bitcoin and ether declined over the past few months but remains elevated given the recent price rally across cryptocurrencies. The S&P 500 Index also experienced a brief rise in volatility around the end of September. Altcoin roundup Polkadot sets date for hotly anticipated parachain auctions: Polkadot’s parachain auction process will kick off next month on Nov. 11, reported CoinDesk’s Ian Allison . The process will decide which project will be allocated slots for building on the Polkadot network. The last technical steps to complete before launching parachains on Polkadot were the finalization of parachain disputes and Polkadot’s full code audit, both of which have now been completed, according to Polkadot founder Robert Habermeier. Solana’s Phantom adds safety rails after scammers drain wallets: Solana-based digital wallet Phantom has shored up its cyber defenses after weeks of user-reported scams that drained victims’ crypto token balances, reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson . The wallet, analogous to Ethereum’s Metamask, exiled its “auto-approve” transaction feature to the back of the app, an Oct. 7 blog post said. It also cleaned up the transaction preview user interface and said an anti-phishing website blocker is slated for future rollout. Global finance watchdog says $133B stablecoin sector remains niche: A Financial Stability Board (FSB) survey has found that stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets, are currently not being used at a significant scale for mainstream payments, reported CoinDesk’s Sandali Handagama . The finding was mentioned Wednesday in an FSB progress report for enhancing cross-border payments. “From a policy perspective, there is value in assessing whether and how the use of well-designed global [stablecoins] could enhance cross-border payments. An action to that extent has been added,” the report said. Relevant news US Claims Bitcoin Mining Crown Following China Crackdown Andreessen Horowitz Plans to Meet With Washington Policymakers Over Web 3: Report Ethereum’s Latest Progress Toward Proof-of-Stake Visa Launching NFT Program to Support Digital Artists Other markets Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): Polkadot (DOT): +23.8% Stellar (XLM): +8.0% Notable losers: Filecoin (FIL): -2.3% || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Recovering Faster Than Equities as Buyers Remain Active: Bitcoin returned above $56,000 on Wednesday after trading in a tight range over the past few days. The cryptocurrency’s price is up about 3% over the past 24 hours compared to a 1% rise in ether over the same period.
The recovery in cryptocurrencies over the past week has decoupled from equity markets, with bitcoin squarely in the lead with a near 18% price rise for the month to date. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down about 4% from an all-time high in September, albeit with less or a roller coaster in price volatility than cryptocurrencies.
For now, analysts are monitoring blockchain data, which points to continued upside for bitcoin. “Despite China’s crypto ban, it seems miners, including those who were in China, are holding BTC in mining wallets,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, wrote in a blogpost, referring to the decline in miner outflows, which tends to be a bullish price indicator.
• Bitcoin (BTC): $57,387, +3.9%
• Ether (ETH): $3,528, +1.5%
• S&P 500: +0.3%
• Gold: $1,791, +1.8%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.544%
Bitcoin is currently about 10% away from an all-time price high around $63,000, marking a sharp recovery from a near 50% drawdown (percentage decline from peak to trough) two months ago. The speed of bitcoin’s price recovery is far greater than the S&P 500, which produced negative returns over the past three months compared to a near 70% rise in BTC over the same period.
However, over the long term, the chart below shows bitcoin’s drawdowns tend to be more severe than for equities. This is mainly due to the cryptocurrency’s higher volatility, which can accelerate price moves.
Days of extreme price volatility during market downturns may be behind us because traders are increasingly using stablecoins or fiat currencies as collateral to trade futures contracts – an obligation to buy or sell the underlying at a later date at an agreed-upon price, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbolewrotein the Wednesday edition of the “First Mover”newsletter.
Since May, the percentage of coin-margined futures contracts’ open interest has been on a decline and recently fell below 50%, according to Glassnode data quoted by Delphi Digital. Meanwhile, the percentage of the dollar- or stablecoin-margined open interest is ticking higher, as shown in the chart below. Open interest refers to the number of futures contracts traded but not squared off with an offsetting position.
On a related note, the 30-day volatility of bitcoin and ether declined over the past few months but remains elevated given the recent price rally across cryptocurrencies. The S&P 500 Index also experienced a brief rise in volatility around the end of September.
• Polkadot sets date for hotly anticipated parachain auctions:Polkadot’s parachain auction process will kick off next month on Nov. 11,reported CoinDesk’s Ian Allison. The process will decide which project will be allocated slots for building on the Polkadot network. The last technical steps to complete before launching parachains on Polkadot were the finalization of parachain disputes and Polkadot’s full code audit, both of which have now been completed, according to Polkadot founder Robert Habermeier.
• Solana’s Phantom adds safety rails after scammers drain wallets:Solana-based digital wallet Phantom has shored up its cyber defenses after weeks of user-reported scams that drained victims’ crypto token balances,reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. The wallet, analogous to Ethereum’s Metamask, exiled its “auto-approve” transaction feature to the back of the app, an Oct. 7 blog post said. It also cleaned up the transaction preview user interface and said an anti-phishing website blocker is slated for future rollout.
• Global finance watchdog says $133B stablecoin sector remains niche:A Financial Stability Board (FSB) survey has found that stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets, are currently not being used at a significant scale for mainstream payments,reported CoinDesk’s Sandali Handagama. The finding was mentioned Wednesday in an FSB progress report for enhancing cross-border payments. “From a policy perspective, there is value in assessing whether and how the use of well-designed global [stablecoins] could enhance cross-border payments. An action to that extent has been added,” the report said.
• US Claims Bitcoin Mining Crown Following China Crackdown
• Andreessen Horowitz Plans to Meet With Washington Policymakers Over Web 3: Report
• Ethereum’s Latest Progress Toward Proof-of-Stake
• Visa Launching NFT Program to Support Digital Artists
Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.
Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• Polkadot (DOT): +23.8%
• Stellar (XLM): +8.0%
Notable losers:
• Filecoin (FIL): -2.3% || The Memecoin Flippening: Here's What It Would Take For Shiba Inu To Overtake Dogecoin: Now that Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB ) became a top 20 cryptocurrency with a market cap of $11.1 billion, many are starting to ask themselves what it will take for it to overtake its older brother Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE ). What Happened: According to CoinMarketCap data , if Shiba Inu were to overtake Dogecoin's market capitalization of $29.3 billion, it would need to reach a price of $0.0000743. At such a price, SHIB’s circulating supply of 394 trillion would result in a market cap higher than that of Dogecoin, placing it among the top 10 coins. For this to occur, its price would have to increase by 165.5%. Such a price would also be an increase of 91.5% over its May all-time high of $0.0000388. See Also: IS SHIBA INU (SHIB) A GOOD INVESTMENT? Still, such an increase is not off the table considering Shiba Inu's 331% growth in the last 30 days. Still, since Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are strictly correlated, it would most probably take a much more significant upturn than just 165.5% for SHIB to reach its older brother's market cap. Hopes for Shiba Inu to overtake Dogecoin are growing, with social media data showing the former is growing significantly more popular — at least among Twitter users. Earlier this month, popular crypto influencer CryptosRUs suggested Shiba Inu is superior to Dogecoin due to the abundance of use cases and the way the coin was distributed. He said that 1 quadrillion Shiba Inu coins were created, with its team members having to buy it like everyone else and half of the supply gifted to Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH ) co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who destroyed most his holdings. Shiba Inu is also apparently stepping up its game even further now with a recent partnership with crypto payment processor NOWPayments to allow its SHIB, LEASH and BONE tokens while also destroying a portion of the tokens — permanently decreasing their supply. Recent reports suggest Shiba Inu recently saw a day in which its daily trading volume was two times that reported by Dogecoin over the same length of time. Story continues See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Shiba Inu's Twitter Popularity Wins On Dogecoin, Bitcoin And Ethereum The Doge Fight: Shiba Inu Beats Dogecoin's Volume Two Times Over © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Memecoin Flippening: Here's What It Would Take For Shiba Inu To Overtake Dogecoin: Now thatShiba Inu(CRYPTO:SHIB) became a top 20 cryptocurrency with a market cap of $11.1 billion, many are starting to ask themselves what it will take for it to overtake its older brotherDogecoin(CRYPTO:DOGE).
What Happened:According to CoinMarketCapdata, if Shiba Inu were to overtake Dogecoin's market capitalization of $29.3 billion, it would need to reach a price of $0.0000743.
At such a price, SHIB’s circulating supply of 394 trillion would result in a market cap higher than that of Dogecoin, placing it among the top 10 coins. For this to occur, its price would have to increase by 165.5%. Such a price would also be an increase of 91.5% over its May all-time high of $0.0000388.
See Also:IS SHIBA INU (SHIB) A GOOD INVESTMENT?
Still, such an increase is not off the table considering Shiba Inu's 331% growth in the last 30 days. Still, since Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are strictly correlated, it would most probably take a much more significant upturn than just 165.5% for SHIB to reach its older brother's market cap.
Hopes for Shiba Inu to overtake Dogecoin are growing, with social media data showing the former is growing significantly more popular — at least among Twitter users. Earlier this month, popular crypto influencer CryptosRUssuggestedShiba Inu is superior to Dogecoin due to the abundance of use cases and the way the coin was distributed. He said that 1 quadrillion Shiba Inu coins were created, with its team members having to buy it like everyone else and half of the supply gifted toEthereum(CRYPTO:ETH) co-founderVitalik Buterin,who destroyed most his holdings.
Shiba Inu is alsoapparentlystepping up its game even further now with a recent partnership with crypto payment processor NOWPayments to allow its SHIB, LEASH and BONE tokens while also destroying a portion of the tokens — permanently decreasing their supply. Recentreportssuggest Shiba Inu recently saw a day in which its daily trading volume was two times that reported by Dogecoin over the same length of time.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Shiba Inu's Twitter Popularity Wins On Dogecoin, Bitcoin And Ethereum
• The Doge Fight: Shiba Inu Beats Dogecoin's Volume Two Times Over
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The 'man who broke the Bank of England' finally likes Bitcoin — here are 3 easy ways to hop on: The 'man who broke the Bank of England' finally likes Bitcoin — here are 3 easy ways to hop on Bitcoin is rallying again, and this time it’s in large part to billionaire financier George Soros’ endorsement. Dawn Fitzpatrick, CEO and chief executive officer of Soros Fund Management, told Bloomberg last week that Soros’ family office owns “some coins, but not a lot.” The news sent the price of Bitcoin up nearly 10% to around $55,000. Known as "the man who broke the Bank of England," Soros bet against the British pound in 1992 and made more than $1 billion. So it’s no surprise that his crypto endorsement was applauded by investors — particularly because he described Bitcoin as a "typical bubble" back in 2018. There are many ways to play the Bitcoin boom, including owning the coins like Soros. But remember: cryptocurrencies are highly volatile. If you don’t like that kind of roller coaster ride, there are companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market. Some of them might be worth pouncing on with your spare change . Coinbase Global (COIN) rarrarorro/Shutterstock If you’ve ever bought Bitcoin from an exchange, you’ll know that there’s typically a transaction fee involved. And these transaction fees quickly add up. That’s where Coinbase found its opportunity. As the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., it earns a transaction fee every time someone buys or sells cryptocurrency on its exchange. In Q2 of 2021, Coinbase’s retail monthly transacting users grew 44% sequentially to 8.8 million. It earned $1.9 billion in transaction revenue and over $100 million in subscription and services revenue. To be sure, Coinbase shares currently trade at nearly $250 apiece. But you can get a piece of the company using a popular stock trading app that allows you to buy fractions of shares with as much money as you are willing to spend. Square (SQ) Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock Digital payments technologist Square has seen its shares skyrocket more than 280% over the past two years. And crypto has plenty to do with it. Square’s Cash App enabled users to buy Bitcoin in late 2017. It now also allows users to send and receive Bitcoin without paying any transaction fees. Story continues Cash App brought in a whopping $2.7 billion of Bitcoin revenue in Q2 of 2021, which more than tripled year-over-year. Its Bitcoin gross profit totaled $55 million, also up substantially from a year ago. And don’t forget: In October 2020, Square put around 1% of its total assets in Bitcoin which, as we know now, has since increased dramatically in value. Tesla (TSLA) mundissima/Shutterstock Tesla was responsible for one of the biggest pieces of crypto-related news earlier this year: In an SEC filing from February, the electric car giant revealed that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. And in July, Elon Musk tweeted that his company owned close to 42,000 Bitcoins. A holding of that size means that when the price of Bitcoin moves, Tesla shares are likely to follow suit. While the stock market has been sluggish since the beginning of September, Tesla’s share price has been trending up and is now at over $800 again. Of course, if you're still on the fence about jumping fully into the electric vehicle space, some investing apps will give you a free share in automakers like Ford and GM — who are steadily increasing their EV lineups — just for signing up . Secret asset of the super-rich At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that stocks — just like cryptocurrencies — don’t always go up. If you want to invest in something that has virtually no correlation to the stock market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset — fine art. Investing in fine art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich like Soros. But with a new investing platform , you can invest in iconic artworks too. On average, contemporary artworks appreciate in value by 14% per year, easily topping the average returns of 9.5% you’d see with the S&P 500. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || The 'man who broke the Bank of England' finally likes Bitcoin — here are 3 easy ways to hop on: Bitcoin is rallying again, and this time it’s in large part to billionaire financier George Soros’ endorsement.
Dawn Fitzpatrick, CEO and chief executive officer of Soros Fund Management, told Bloomberg last week that Soros’ family office owns “some coins, but not a lot.”
The news sent the price of Bitcoin up nearly 10% to around $55,000.
Known as "the man who broke the Bank of England," Soros bet against the British pound in 1992 and made more than $1 billion. So it’s no surprise that his crypto endorsement was applauded by investors — particularly because he described Bitcoin as a "typical bubble" back in 2018.
There are many ways to play the Bitcoin boom, including owning the coins like Soros.
But remember: cryptocurrencies are highly volatile.
If you don’t like that kind of roller coaster ride, there are companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market. Some of them might be worth pouncing on withyour spare change.
If you’ve ever bought Bitcoin from an exchange, you’ll know that there’s typically a transaction fee involved. And these transaction fees quickly add up.
That’s where Coinbase found its opportunity.
As the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., it earns a transaction fee every time someone buys or sells cryptocurrency on its exchange.
In Q2 of 2021, Coinbase’s retail monthly transacting users grew 44% sequentially to 8.8 million. It earned $1.9 billion in transaction revenue and over $100 million in subscription and services revenue.
To be sure, Coinbase shares currently trade at nearly $250 apiece. But you can get a piece of the company using a popular stock trading app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you are willing to spend.
Digital payments technologist Square has seen its shares skyrocket more than 280% over the past two years. And crypto has plenty to do with it.
Square’s Cash App enabled users to buy Bitcoin in late 2017. It now also allows users to send and receive Bitcoin without paying any transaction fees.
Cash App brought in a whopping $2.7 billion of Bitcoin revenue in Q2 of 2021, which more than tripled year-over-year. Its Bitcoin gross profit totaled $55 million, also up substantially from a year ago.
And don’t forget: In October 2020, Square put around 1% of its total assets in Bitcoin which, as we know now, has since increased dramatically in value.
Tesla was responsible for one of the biggest pieces of crypto-related news earlier this year: In an SEC filing from February, the electric car giant revealed that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin.
And in July, Elon Musk tweeted that his company owned close to 42,000 Bitcoins.
A holding of that size means that when the price of Bitcoin moves, Tesla shares are likely to follow suit.
While the stock market has been sluggish since the beginning of September, Tesla’s share price has been trending up and is now at over $800 again.
Of course, if you're still on the fence about jumping fully into the electric vehicle space, some investing apps will give you a free share in automakers like Ford and GM — who are steadily increasing their EV lineups — justfor signing up.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that stocks — just like cryptocurrencies — don’t always go up.
If you want to invest in something that has virtually no correlation to the stock market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset — fine art.
Investing in fine art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich like Soros.
But with anew investing platform, you can invest in iconic artworks too.
On average, contemporary artworksappreciate in valueby 14% per year, easily topping the average returns of 9.5% you’d see with the S&P 500.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || The 'man who broke the Bank of England' finally likes Bitcoin — here are 3 easy ways to hop on: Bitcoin is rallying again, and this time it’s in large part to billionaire financier George Soros’ endorsement.
Dawn Fitzpatrick, CEO and chief executive officer of Soros Fund Management, told Bloomberg last week that Soros’ family office owns “some coins, but not a lot.”
The news sent the price of Bitcoin up nearly 10% to around $55,000.
Known as "the man who broke the Bank of England," Soros bet against the British pound in 1992 and made more than $1 billion. So it’s no surprise that his crypto endorsement was applauded by investors — particularly because he described Bitcoin as a "typical bubble" back in 2018.
There are many ways to play the Bitcoin boom, including owning the coins like Soros.
But remember: cryptocurrencies are highly volatile.
If you don’t like that kind of roller coaster ride, there are companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market. Some of them might be worth pouncing on withyour spare change.
If you’ve ever bought Bitcoin from an exchange, you’ll know that there’s typically a transaction fee involved. And these transaction fees quickly add up.
That’s where Coinbase found its opportunity.
As the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., it earns a transaction fee every time someone buys or sells cryptocurrency on its exchange.
In Q2 of 2021, Coinbase’s retail monthly transacting users grew 44% sequentially to 8.8 million. It earned $1.9 billion in transaction revenue and over $100 million in subscription and services revenue.
To be sure, Coinbase shares currently trade at nearly $250 apiece. But you can get a piece of the company using a popular stock trading app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you are willing to spend.
Digital payments technologist Square has seen its shares skyrocket more than 280% over the past two years. And crypto has plenty to do with it.
Square’s Cash App enabled users to buy Bitcoin in late 2017. It now also allows users to send and receive Bitcoin without paying any transaction fees.
Cash App brought in a whopping $2.7 billion of Bitcoin revenue in Q2 of 2021, which more than tripled year-over-year. Its Bitcoin gross profit totaled $55 million, also up substantially from a year ago.
And don’t forget: In October 2020, Square put around 1% of its total assets in Bitcoin which, as we know now, has since increased dramatically in value.
Tesla was responsible for one of the biggest pieces of crypto-related news earlier this year: In an SEC filing from February, the electric car giant revealed that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin.
And in July, Elon Musk tweeted that his company owned close to 42,000 Bitcoins.
A holding of that size means that when the price of Bitcoin moves, Tesla shares are likely to follow suit.
While the stock market has been sluggish since the beginning of September, Tesla’s share price has been trending up and is now at over $800 again.
Of course, if you're still on the fence about jumping fully into the electric vehicle space, some investing apps will give you a free share in automakers like Ford and GM — who are steadily increasing their EV lineups — justfor signing up.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that stocks — just like cryptocurrencies — don’t always go up.
If you want to invest in something that has virtually no correlation to the stock market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset — fine art.
Investing in fine art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich like Soros.
But with anew investing platform, you can invest in iconic artworks too.
On average, contemporary artworksappreciate in valueby 14% per year, easily topping the average returns of 9.5% you’d see with the S&P 500.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || Stronghold Digital Sets IPO Price at $16-$18 a Share: Stronghold Digital, the bitcoin mining company that converts coal waste into power for its operations, plans to raise between $94 million and $106 million in an initial public offering , according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Existing shareholders – including Q Power, which is controlled by the company’s co-chairmen, Greg Beard and Bill Spence – will hold 87% of the total voting shares outstanding. Stronghold operates 3,000 miners, with a hashrate capacity of about 185 petahash per second. It plans to bring its total hashrate capacity to more than 2,100 PH/s by December and to more than 8,000 PH/s by December 2022. B. Riley Securities and Cowen are acting as joint book-running managers. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. is serving as lead manager, and D.A. Davidson & Co., Compass Point and Northland Capital Markets are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering. The company intends to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker “SDIG.” The miner’s operations are powered through the reclamation of coal refuse sites across Pennsylvania. The company removes coal waste from piles and burns it in an “emissions-controlled manner” at its facilities. The environmental impact of crypto mining has been at the forefront of investors’ concerns because the industry requires a large amount of energy to power its operations. Another miner, Gryphon Digital Mining, which is going public through the reverse takeover of Sphere 3D, said it’s planning to create “the world’s largest fully integrated pure play bitcoin miner with zero carbon footprint.” Read more: Stronghold Digital Mining Raises $105M to Turn Waste Coal Into Bitcoin UPDATE (OCT 13, 15:03): Replaces photo. || Stronghold Digital Sets IPO Price at $16-$18 a Share: Stronghold Digital, the bitcoin mining company that converts coal waste into power for its operations, plans to raise between $94 million and $106 million in aninitial public offering, according to afilingwith the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• Existing shareholders – including Q Power, which is controlled by the company’s co-chairmen, Greg Beard and Bill Spence – will hold 87% of the total voting shares outstanding.
• Stronghold operates 3,000 miners, with a hashrate capacity of about 185 petahash per second. It plans to bring its total hashrate capacity to more than 2,100 PH/s by December and to more than 8,000 PH/s by December 2022.
• B. Riley Securities and Cowen are acting as joint book-running managers. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. is serving as lead manager, and D.A. Davidson & Co., Compass Point and Northland Capital Markets are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering.
• The company intends to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker “SDIG.”
• The miner’s operations arepoweredthrough the reclamation of coal refuse sites across Pennsylvania. The company removes coal waste from piles and burns it in an “emissions-controlled manner” at its facilities.
• The environmental impact of crypto mining has been at the forefront of investors’ concerns because the industry requires a large amount of energy to power its operations.
• Another miner, Gryphon Digital Mining, which is goingpublicthrough the reverse takeover of Sphere 3D, said it’s planning tocreate“the world’s largest fully integrated pure play bitcoin miner with zero carbon footprint.”
Read more:Stronghold Digital Mining Raises $105M to Turn Waste Coal Into Bitcoin
UPDATE (OCT 13, 15:03):Replaces photo.
[Social Media Buzz]
None available.
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61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17, 60692.27, 61393.62, 60930.84
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Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 607.16, 606.97, 605.98, 609.87, 609.23, 608.31, 597.15, 596.30, 602.84, 602.62, 600.83, 608.04, 606.17, 604.73, 605.69, 609.73, 613.98, 610.89, 612.13, 610.20, 612.51, 613.02, 617.12, 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07, 653.76, 657.59, 678.30, 688.31, 689.65, 714.48, 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27, 715.53, 716.41, 705.05, 702.03, 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2016-12-13]
Volume: 81645600, RSI (14-day): 65.52, 50-day EMA: 730.55, 200-day EMA: 636.21
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1156.70, Gold RSI: 28.22
Oil Price: 52.98, Oil RSI: 64.86
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago. Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month. Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India. The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Most Popular ETFs Of The Year: In the ETF world, the rich get richer. The biggest funds by assets typically attract the largest flows each year. In that regard, 2016 was no exception. The smallest ETF to make the top 10 inflows list for the year has an impressive $16.9 billion in assets, according to FactSet. The other ETFs on the list are much larger still. Together, these 10 ETFs took in $87.1 billion of fresh investor money in the year-to-date period ending Dec. 6. To put that in context, total flows into all ETFs so far this year have been $225 billion. There's still another three weeks left to go in the year, so the final numbers could change (we'll publish the official figures once they're released). But if there's any conclusion to be reached from these numbers, it's that investors still favor plain-vanilla index ETFs over their more complex counterparts―whether it be smart-beta funds , active funds or otherwise. Investors Embrace S&P 500 ETFs Indeed, for all this year's hype about "smart beta," it's "dumb beta" that investors wanted. In particular, when it comes to U.S. equities, investors plowed billions into S&P 500 ETFs . Three out of the top four funds on the flows list track the venerable large-cap index, including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) , the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) and the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VOO) ―all with inflows of more than $10.7 billion. The only other U.S.-focused equity fund to make the cut was the broader Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI) , but its year-to-date flows of $5.2 billion were less than half that of the three S&P 500 funds. Emerging Market Comeback In a year that featured concerns about China and "Brexit," it's no wonder investors preferred U.S. equities. Even so, a trio of international equity ETFs also showed up in the top 10. The Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA) , which tracks developed-market stocks outside the U.S., had inflows of $8.8 billion in the year-to-date period. Story continues At the same time, two low-cost emerging market ETFs—the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) and the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) —made an appearance on the list, with inflows of $8.8 billion, and $6.5 billion, respectively. GLD Falls Down The Ranks Meanwhile, three nonequity ETFs found themselves on the list. The iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) took in $10.9 billion so far this year. AGG provides exposure to the market of U.S. investment-grade bonds, weighted by market value. The iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP) was another popular bond fund, with inflows of $6.6 billion. TIP holds Treasury inflation-protected securities, a type of U.S. government bond that protects investors in a rising-rate environment. The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is another inflation-hedge in the top 10. The physically backed gold ETF was at the top of the flows leader board for much of the year, but fell down the ranks rapidly in the weeks following Donald Trump's victory at the polls. A post-election spike in interest rates and the U.S. dollar led GLD to lose some of its luster. Incidentally, GLD is the most expensive ETF on the top inflows list, with an expense ratio of 0.40%. All the other funds in the top 10 have an expense ratio of 0.20% or less. Flows For Jan. 1 to Dec, 6, 2016 Ticker Fund Net Flows* SPY SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust 11,329.80 IVV iShares Core S&P 500 ETF 11,250.62 AGG iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF 10,910.56 VOO Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund 10,743.41 GLD SPDR Gold Trust 9,076.08 VEA Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF 8,814.22 VWO Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF 6,698.77 TIP iShares TIPS Bond ETF 6,562.40 IEMG iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF 6,498.14 VTI Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund 5,236.37 *Net Flows in USD Million Contact Sumit Roy at [email protected] Recommended Stories Friday Hot Reads: 2016 A Vintage Year For Bitcoin Thursday Hot Reads: These ETFs Generate Capital Gains For ETFs, Fixed Income Matters More Than Smart Beta ETF Innovation A Tough Sell In 2016 Tuesday Hot Reads: Millennials Play With ETF Fire Permalink | © Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Most Popular ETFs Of The Year: In the ETF world, the rich get richer. The biggest funds by assets typically attract the largest flows each year. In that regard, 2016 was no exception.
The smallest ETF to make the top 10 inflows list for the year has an impressive $16.9 billion in assets, according to FactSet. The other ETFs on the list are much larger still.
Together, these 10 ETFs took in $87.1 billion of fresh investor money in the year-to-date period ending Dec. 6. To put that in context, total flows into all ETFs so far this year have been $225 billion.
There's still another three weeks left to go in the year, so the final numbers could change (we'll publish the official figures once they're released). But if there's any conclusion to be reached from these numbers, it's that investors still favor plain-vanilla index ETFs over their more complex counterparts―whether it besmart-beta funds,active fundsor otherwise.
Investors Embrace S&P 500 ETFs
Indeed, for all this year's hype about "smart beta," it's "dumb beta" that investors wanted. In particular, when it comes to U.S. equities, investors plowed billions intoS&P 500 ETFs. Three out of the top four funds on the flows list track the venerable large-cap index, including theSPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), theiShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)and theVanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VOO)―all with inflows of more than $10.7 billion.
The only other U.S.-focused equity fund to make the cut was the broaderVanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI), but its year-to-date flows of $5.2 billion were less than half that of the three S&P 500 funds.
Emerging Market Comeback
In a year that featured concerns about China and "Brexit," it's no wonder investors preferred U.S. equities. Even so, a trio ofinternational equity ETFsalso showed up in the top 10. TheVanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA), which tracks developed-market stocks outside the U.S., had inflows of $8.8 billion in the year-to-date period.
At the same time, two low-cost emerging market ETFs—theVanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)and theiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG)—made an appearance on the list, with inflows of $8.8 billion, and $6.5 billion, respectively.
GLD Falls Down The RanksMeanwhile, three nonequity ETFs found themselves on the list. TheiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)took in $10.9 billion so far this year. AGG provides exposure to the market of U.S. investment-grade bonds, weighted by market value.
TheiShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)was another popular bond fund, with inflows of $6.6 billion. TIP holds Treasury inflation-protected securities, a type of U.S. government bond that protects investors in a rising-rate environment.
TheSPDR Gold Trust (GLD)is another inflation-hedge in the top 10. The physically backed gold ETF was at the top of the flows leader board for much of the year, but fell down the ranks rapidly in the weeks following Donald Trump's victory at the polls. A post-election spike in interest rates and the U.S. dollar led GLD to lose some of its luster.
Incidentally, GLD is the most expensive ETF on the top inflows list, with an expense ratio of 0.40%. All the other funds in the top 10 have an expense ratio of 0.20% or less.
Flows For Jan. 1 to Dec, 6, 2016
[{"Ticker": "SPY", "Fund": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Net Flows*": "11,329.80"}, {"Ticker": "IVV", "Fund": "iShares Core S&P 500 ETF", "Net Flows*": "11,250.62"}, {"Ticker": "AGG", "Fund": "iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "10,910.56"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Fund": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "10,743.41"}, {"Ticker": "GLD", "Fund": "SPDR Gold Trust", "Net Flows*": "9,076.08"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "8,814.22"}, {"Ticker": "VWO", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,698.77"}, {"Ticker": "TIP", "Fund": "iShares TIPS Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,562.40"}, {"Ticker": "IEMG", "Fund": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,498.14"}, {"Ticker": "VTI", "Fund": "Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "5,236.37"}, {"Ticker": "*Net Flows in USD Million", "Fund": "", "Net Flows*": ""}]
Contact Sumit Roy [email protected]
Recommended Stories
• Friday Hot Reads: 2016 A Vintage Year For Bitcoin
• Thursday Hot Reads: These ETFs Generate Capital Gains
• For ETFs, Fixed Income Matters More Than Smart Beta
• ETF Innovation A Tough Sell In 2016
• Tuesday Hot Reads: Millennials Play With ETF Fire
Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || Expanded gift card and loyalty features could boost Apple Pay: (BI Intelligence)
This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, pleaseclick here.
Apple Pay users will be able toadd gift cardsand a wider selection of loyalty programs following a partnership between the tech giant and Blackhawk Network, a gift and prepaid card firm.
The partnership will allow customers to “store, manage, and make payments” with gift and loyalty cards from Blackhawk partners, which include Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot.
Partnering with Blackhawk will improve upon a feature that’s already one of Apple Pay’s most popular. As it currently stands, Apple Pay’s loyalty support is limited. But just a few months after Apple Pay added loyalty in that limited capacity, proprietary store and loyalty cards made up 25% of the cards loaded into the wallet, according to data fromFirst Annapolis.
For context, that’s nearly as much as the share held by debit cards, which are the most popular payment method among US adults. Blackhawk’s vast partnership network could further extend that percentage and in turn help Apple capitalize on pent-up demand for store and loyalty offerings in-wallet.
And that could lift Apple Pay in two key areas.
• It could increase adoption of the wallet overall. Apple Pay adoption has stagnated just below a quarter of eligible users, which means the wallet needs to look for new ways to draw in users. Loyalty could be one such solution. Nearlya quarterof adults with mobile phones want to organize, track, and store loyalty and rewards points on their phones. And53%of nonusers would start using mobile payments if they were offered these types of opportunities, which could drive new customers to the wallet.
• And among existing users, it could help increase engagement. Adding a vast loyalty network to Apple Pay could give users incentives to pay with the wallet in more locations, because they want to capture the benefits that loyalty cards can provide. More frequent spending could help drive up habit formation, which could increase payment volume and drive up usage across the board.
Mobile payments are becoming more popular thanks to services such as Apple Pay, but they still face some high barriers, such as consumers' continued loyalty to traditional payment methods and fragmented acceptance among merchants. But as loyalty programs are integrated and more consumers rely on their mobile wallets for other features like in-app payments, adoption and usage will surge over the next few years.
BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compileda detailed report on mobile paymentsthat forecasts the growth of in-store mobile payments in the U.S., analyzes the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, and addresses the barriers holding mobile payments back as well as the benefits that will propel adoption.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
• In our latest US in-store mobile payments forecast, we find that volume will reach $75 billion this year. We expect volume to pick up significantly by 2020, reaching $503 billion. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80% between 2015 and 2020.
• Consumer interest is the primary barrier to mobile payments adoption. Surveys indicate that the issue is less the mobile wallet itself and more that people remain loyal to traditional payment methods and show little enthusiasm for picking up new habits.
• Integrated loyalty programs and other add-on features will be key to mobile wallets taking off. Consumers are showing interest in wallets with integrated loyalty programs. Other potential add-ons, like in-app, in-browser, and P2P payments, will also start fueling adoption. This strategy has been proved successful in China with platforms like WeChat and Alipay.
In full, the report:
• Forecasts the growth of US in-store mobile payments volume and users through 2020.
• Measures mobile wallet user engagement by forecasting mobile payments' share of their annual retail spending.
• Reviews the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.
• Addresses the key barriers that are preventing mobile in-store payments from taking off.
• Identifies the growth drivers that will ultimately carve a path for mainstream adoption.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:
1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >>START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >>BUY THE REPORT
The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of how mobile payments are rapidly evolving.
More From Business Insider
• Apple pushes further in mapping and location technology
• Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined
• THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem || Expanded gift card and loyalty features could boost Apple Pay: Distortion of Apple Pay (BI Intelligence) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . Apple Pay users will be able to add gift cards and a wider selection of loyalty programs following a partnership between the tech giant and Blackhawk Network, a gift and prepaid card firm. The partnership will allow customers to “store, manage, and make payments” with gift and loyalty cards from Blackhawk partners, which include Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. Partnering with Blackhawk will improve upon a feature that’s already one of Apple Pay’s most popular. As it currently stands, Apple Pay’s loyalty support is limited. But just a few months after Apple Pay added loyalty in that limited capacity, proprietary store and loyalty cards made up 25% of the cards loaded into the wallet, according to data from First Annapolis . For context, that’s nearly as much as the share held by debit cards, which are the most popular payment method among US adults. Blackhawk’s vast partnership network could further extend that percentage and in turn help Apple capitalize on pent-up demand for store and loyalty offerings in-wallet. And that could lift Apple Pay in two key areas. It could increase adoption of the wallet overall. Apple Pay adoption has stagnated just below a quarter of eligible users, which means the wallet needs to look for new ways to draw in users. Loyalty could be one such solution. Nearly a quarter of adults with mobile phones want to organize, track, and store loyalty and rewards points on their phones. And 53% of nonusers would start using mobile payments if they were offered these types of opportunities, which could drive new customers to the wallet. And among existing users, it could help increase engagement. Adding a vast loyalty network to Apple Pay could give users incentives to pay with the wallet in more locations, because they want to capture the benefits that loyalty cards can provide. More frequent spending could help drive up habit formation, which could increase payment volume and drive up usage across the board. Mobile payments are becoming more popular thanks to services such as Apple Pay, but they still face some high barriers, such as consumers' continued loyalty to traditional payment methods and fragmented acceptance among merchants. But as loyalty programs are integrated and more consumers rely on their mobile wallets for other features like in-app payments, adoption and usage will surge over the next few years. BI Intelligence , Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on mobile payments that forecasts the growth of in-store mobile payments in the U.S., analyzes the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, and addresses the barriers holding mobile payments back as well as the benefits that will propel adoption. Story continues Here are some key takeaways from the report: In our latest US in-store mobile payments forecast, we find that volume will reach $75 billion this year. We expect volume to pick up significantly by 2020, reaching $503 billion. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80% between 2015 and 2020. Consumer interest is the primary barrier to mobile payments adoption. Surveys indicate that the issue is less the mobile wallet itself and more that people remain loyal to traditional payment methods and show little enthusiasm for picking up new habits. Integrated loyalty programs and other add-on features will be key to mobile wallets taking off. Consumers are showing interest in wallets with integrated loyalty programs. Other potential add-ons, like in-app, in-browser, and P2P payments, will also start fueling adoption. This strategy has been proved successful in China with platforms like WeChat and Alipay. In full, the report: Forecasts the growth of US in-store mobile payments volume and users through 2020. Measures mobile wallet user engagement by forecasting mobile payments' share of their annual retail spending. Reviews the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Addresses the key barriers that are preventing mobile in-store payments from taking off. Identifies the growth drivers that will ultimately carve a path for mainstream adoption. To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options: Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of how mobile payments are rapidly evolving. More From Business Insider Apple pushes further in mapping and location technology Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem View comments || Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trump’s ‘spending binge’ and dollar rally: The price of Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)could hit more than $2,000 in 2017 driven by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may introduce economic stimulus policies, which could send inflation soaring and propel the dollar to record highs, a report from Saxo Bank claims.
Bitcoin is currently trading around $754.51, according to CoinDesk data. A handle of over $2,000 would represent 165 percent appreciation.
During his election campaign Trump has talked about an increase in fiscal spending. Saxo Bank's note said that this could increase the roughly $20 trillion of U.S. national debt and triple the current budget deficit from approximately $600 billion to $1.2-1.8 trillion, or some 6-10 percent of the country's current $18.6 trillion economy.
As a result, the economy will grow and inflation will "sky rocket", forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a faster pace and causing the U.S. dollar "to hit the moon".
When inflation rises the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to bring it under control. This causes the dollar to appreciate because it would be seen as an attractive currency for foreign investors.
"This creates a domino effect in emerging markets and China in particular, leading people globally to look for alternative forms of currencies and payment systems not tied to central banks that have exhausted monetary policies or crony governments that are in full financial repression mode nor transaction systems that are long overdue for a revolution," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note.
Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency would benefit from this "chaos", he added, as emerging market countries look to move away from "being tied" to the monetary policy of the U.S. and banking system.
"If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept Bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see Bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the blockchain's decentralized system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally," Jakobsen said.
Blockchain is the underlying technology of bitcoin which records every transaction using the digital currency so that it can't be tampered with. There is also a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins. This in theory would cause price appreciation of the asset over a long period of time.
Jakobsen's comments were in his annual "Outrageous Predictions" note and the economist says that his views are not the official outlook for Saxo Bank. Instead they are an attempt to "get you to think out of the box" with the aim of "provoking conversation".
But Bitcoin advocates say that the slower appreciation of the dollar against the yuan in comparison to bitcoin against the dollar shows that the $2,000 handle is not unrealistic. The dollar has risen 3.3 percent against the yuan(Exchange: CNY=)in the last three months while bitcoin has gone up 20.7 percent in the same time period.
Bobby Lee, chief executive at bitcoin exchange BTC China, compared the current situation of cryptocurrencies to the advent of digital cameras. He said that it is a "new asset class" with long-term potential.
"It's the advent of digital currency and with bitcoin there is bound to be more in circulation value in the coming years," Lee told CNBC by phone. The amount of bitcoin in circulation is valued at around $12.1 billion.
More From CNBC
• 9 iconic mobile phones people want to see make a comeback
• Kim Dotcom extradition ruling: Prosecutors acted in ‘illegal’ way, lawyer says
• Mark Cuban: Basic income ‘the worst possible response’ to job losses from robots || Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trump’s ‘spending binge’ and dollar rally: The price of Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)could hit more than $2,000 in 2017 driven by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may introduce economic stimulus policies, which could send inflation soaring and propel the dollar to record highs, a report from Saxo Bank claims.
Bitcoin is currently trading around $754.51, according to CoinDesk data. A handle of over $2,000 would represent 165 percent appreciation.
During his election campaign Trump has talked about an increase in fiscal spending. Saxo Bank's note said that this could increase the roughly $20 trillion of U.S. national debt and triple the current budget deficit from approximately $600 billion to $1.2-1.8 trillion, or some 6-10 percent of the country's current $18.6 trillion economy.
As a result, the economy will grow and inflation will "sky rocket", forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a faster pace and causing the U.S. dollar "to hit the moon".
When inflation rises the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to bring it under control. This causes the dollar to appreciate because it would be seen as an attractive currency for foreign investors.
"This creates a domino effect in emerging markets and China in particular, leading people globally to look for alternative forms of currencies and payment systems not tied to central banks that have exhausted monetary policies or crony governments that are in full financial repression mode nor transaction systems that are long overdue for a revolution," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note.
Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency would benefit from this "chaos", he added, as emerging market countries look to move away from "being tied" to the monetary policy of the U.S. and banking system.
"If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept Bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see Bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the blockchain's decentralized system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally," Jakobsen said.
Blockchain is the underlying technology of bitcoin which records every transaction using the digital currency so that it can't be tampered with. There is also a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins. This in theory would cause price appreciation of the asset over a long period of time.
Jakobsen's comments were in his annual "Outrageous Predictions" note and the economist says that his views are not the official outlook for Saxo Bank. Instead they are an attempt to "get you to think out of the box" with the aim of "provoking conversation".
But Bitcoin advocates say that the slower appreciation of the dollar against the yuan in comparison to bitcoin against the dollar shows that the $2,000 handle is not unrealistic. The dollar has risen 3.3 percent against the yuan(Exchange: CNY=)in the last three months while bitcoin has gone up 20.7 percent in the same time period.
Bobby Lee, chief executive at bitcoin exchange BTC China, compared the current situation of cryptocurrencies to the advent of digital cameras. He said that it is a "new asset class" with long-term potential.
"It's the advent of digital currency and with bitcoin there is bound to be more in circulation value in the coming years," Lee told CNBC by phone. The amount of bitcoin in circulation is valued at around $12.1 billion.
More From CNBC
• 9 iconic mobile phones people want to see make a comeback
• Kim Dotcom extradition ruling: Prosecutors acted in ‘illegal’ way, lawyer says
• Mark Cuban: Basic income ‘the worst possible response’ to job losses from robots || Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trumps spending binge and dollar rally: The price of Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) could hit more than $2,000 in 2017 driven by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may introduce economic stimulus policies, which could send inflation soaring and propel the dollar to record highs, a report from Saxo Bank claims. Bitcoin is currently trading around $754.51, according to CoinDesk data. A handle of over $2,000 would represent 165 percent appreciation. During his election campaign Trump has talked about an increase in fiscal spending. Saxo Bank's note said that this could increase the roughly $20 trillion of U.S. national debt and triple the current budget deficit from approximately $600 billion to $1.2-1.8 trillion, or some 6-10 percent of the country's current $18.6 trillion economy. As a result, the economy will grow and inflation will "sky rocket", forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a faster pace and causing the U.S. dollar "to hit the moon". When inflation rises the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to bring it under control. This causes the dollar to appreciate because it would be seen as an attractive currency for foreign investors. "This creates a domino effect in emerging markets and China in particular, leading people globally to look for alternative forms of currencies and payment systems not tied to central banks that have exhausted monetary policies or crony governments that are in full financial repression mode nor transaction systems that are long overdue for a revolution," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note. Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency would benefit from this "chaos", he added, as emerging market countries look to move away from "being tied" to the monetary policy of the U.S. and banking system. "If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept Bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see Bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the blockchain's decentralized system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally," Jakobsen said. Story continues Blockchain is the underlying technology of bitcoin which records every transaction using the digital currency so that it can't be tampered with. There is also a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins. This in theory would cause price appreciation of the asset over a long period of time. Jakobsen's comments were in his annual "Outrageous Predictions" note and the economist says that his views are not the official outlook for Saxo Bank. Instead they are an attempt to "get you to think out of the box" with the aim of "provoking conversation". Bitcoin rise realistic But Bitcoin advocates say that the slower appreciation of the dollar against the yuan in comparison to bitcoin against the dollar shows that the $2,000 handle is not unrealistic. The dollar has risen 3.3 percent against the yuan (Exchange: CNY=) in the last three months while bitcoin has gone up 20.7 percent in the same time period. Bobby Lee, chief executive at bitcoin exchange BTC China, compared the current situation of cryptocurrencies to the advent of digital cameras. He said that it is a "new asset class" with long-term potential. "It's the advent of digital currency and with bitcoin there is bound to be more in circulation value in the coming years," Lee told CNBC by phone. The amount of bitcoin in circulation is valued at around $12.1 billion. More From CNBC 9 iconic mobile phones people want to see make a comeback Kim Dotcom extradition ruling: Prosecutors acted in illegal way, lawyer says Mark Cuban: Basic income the worst possible response to job losses from robots
[Social Media Buzz]
現在の価格は 89791円(http://blockchain.info )です。前回比は0円(0.00%)です。http://konvert.in/currency/1-bitcoin-to-japanese-yen … #ビットコイン #bitcoin via @konvertin || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-12-13 03:00 pic.twitter.com/PzLerN9Q2c || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-12-13 16:00 pic.twitter.com/VzHQiGOmul || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZA...
|
781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53, 792.71, 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98
|
Given the historical Bitcoin prices from the last 90 days, predict the next 10 daily closing prices. The historical prices are: 58346.65, 58313.64, 57523.42, 54529.14, 54738.95, 52774.27, 51704.16, 55137.31, 55973.51, 55950.75, 57750.20, 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95, 58245.00, 59793.23, 60204.96, 59893.45, 63503.46, 63109.70, 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18, 55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40, 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22, 39294.20, 38436.97, 35697.61, 34616.07, 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12, 36702.60, 37334.40, 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06.
|
[Bitcoin Technical Analysis for 2021-06-16]
Volume: 39211635100, RSI (14-day): 48.15, 50-day EMA: 42353.97, 200-day EMA: 40951.72
[Wider Market Context]
Gold Price: 1859.50, Gold RSI: 48.01
Oil Price: 72.15, Oil RSI: 72.73
[Recent News (last 7 days)]
MicroStrategy Announces $1B Stock Offering With Plans To Buy More Bitcoin With Proceeds: What Happened: Shares of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR ) surged over 15% on Monday after the company said it would sell $1 billion worth of its shares over time. According to an SEC filing , the company plans to use some of the proceeds from the sale of its Class A common stock to acquire even more Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). However, the filing stated that MicroStrategy was yet to determine the amount of net proceeds to be used specifically for any particular purpose. “As a result, management will retain broad discretion over the allocation of the net proceeds of any offering," said the company in the filing. MicroStrategy Launches “At the Market” Securities Offering for Flexibility to Sell Up to $1 billion of its Class A Common Stock Over Time $MSTR https://t.co/qouK8pFmBF — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) June 14, 2021 Why It Matters: The announcement of this stock offering comes just after the company completed a $500 million junk bond sale for the purpose of acquiring even more Bitcoin. At the time of writing, MicroStrategy held as much as 92,079 bitcoins in a newly formed subsidiary called “MacroStategy LLC.” Read also: Elon Musk Has No Role At Bitcoin Mining Council, Say Founding Members The company’s CEO Michael Saylor is widely regarded as one of the most bullish Bitcoin proponents in the industry and is believed to have persuaded Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk to buy Bitcoin. Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline - from one rocket scientist to another. — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 20, 2020 “If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor,” said Saylor to Musk on Twitter . Story continues See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Square Invests Million To Build Solar-Powered Bitcoin Mine With Blockstream: Here's What You Need To Know Bitcoin Miami Conference Disappoints Crypto Community As Bitcoin Drops Below ,000 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || MicroStrategy Announces $1B Stock Offering With Plans To Buy More Bitcoin With Proceeds: What Happened: Shares of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR ) surged over 15% on Monday after the company said it would sell $1 billion worth of its shares over time. According to an SEC filing , the company plans to use some of the proceeds from the sale of its Class A common stock to acquire even more Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). However, the filing stated that MicroStrategy was yet to determine the amount of net proceeds to be used specifically for any particular purpose. “As a result, management will retain broad discretion over the allocation of the net proceeds of any offering," said the company in the filing. MicroStrategy Launches “At the Market” Securities Offering for Flexibility to Sell Up to $1 billion of its Class A Common Stock Over Time $MSTR https://t.co/qouK8pFmBF — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) June 14, 2021 Why It Matters: The announcement of this stock offering comes just after the company completed a $500 million junk bond sale for the purpose of acquiring even more Bitcoin. At the time of writing, MicroStrategy held as much as 92,079 bitcoins in a newly formed subsidiary called “MacroStategy LLC.” Read also: Elon Musk Has No Role At Bitcoin Mining Council, Say Founding Members The company’s CEO Michael Saylor is widely regarded as one of the most bullish Bitcoin proponents in the industry and is believed to have persuaded Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk to buy Bitcoin. Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline - from one rocket scientist to another. — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 20, 2020 “If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor,” said Saylor to Musk on Twitter . Story continues See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Square Invests Million To Build Solar-Powered Bitcoin Mine With Blockstream: Here's What You Need To Know Bitcoin Miami Conference Disappoints Crypto Community As Bitcoin Drops Below ,000 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || MicroStrategy Announces $1B Stock Offering With Plans To Buy More Bitcoin With Proceeds: What Happened: Shares of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR ) surged over 15% on Monday after the company said it would sell $1 billion worth of its shares over time. According to an SEC filing , the company plans to use some of the proceeds from the sale of its Class A common stock to acquire even more Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). However, the filing stated that MicroStrategy was yet to determine the amount of net proceeds to be used specifically for any particular purpose. “As a result, management will retain broad discretion over the allocation of the net proceeds of any offering," said the company in the filing. MicroStrategy Launches “At the Market” Securities Offering for Flexibility to Sell Up to $1 billion of its Class A Common Stock Over Time $MSTR https://t.co/qouK8pFmBF — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) June 14, 2021 Why It Matters: The announcement of this stock offering comes just after the company completed a $500 million junk bond sale for the purpose of acquiring even more Bitcoin. At the time of writing, MicroStrategy held as much as 92,079 bitcoins in a newly formed subsidiary called “MacroStategy LLC.” Read also: Elon Musk Has No Role At Bitcoin Mining Council, Say Founding Members The company’s CEO Michael Saylor is widely regarded as one of the most bullish Bitcoin proponents in the industry and is believed to have persuaded Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk to buy Bitcoin. Yes. I have purchased over $1.3 billion in #BTC in past months & would be happy to share my playbook with you offline - from one rocket scientist to another. — Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 20, 2020 “If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor,” said Saylor to Musk on Twitter . Story continues See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Square Invests Million To Build Solar-Powered Bitcoin Mine With Blockstream: Here's What You Need To Know Bitcoin Miami Conference Disappoints Crypto Community As Bitcoin Drops Below ,000 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus For June 16, 2021: Quote To Start The Day:"[By] Labor Day, I'll be very disappointed if people haven't found their way into the office and then we'll have a different kind of conversation.”
Source:James Gorman
One Big Thing In Fintech:The most fundamental problem in financial services is that people don’t know how to use money to make themselves happy. This problem unites consumers demographically and socioeconomically in a way that almost nothing else does.
Financial services providers have everything they need to solve this problem.
The question is who will build it?
Source:Fintech Takes
Other Key Fintech Developments:
• B9taps$1.7M for fintech platform.
• Featureon Market Moves platform.
• Significant BTC codeimprovement.
• Liti hastokenizedlitigation finance.
• dYdXaddeda new $65M Series C.
• Exchanges look toacceleratecloud.
• Wisegearsup to launch its listing.
• Fintech Clipraisesa $250M round.
• NYDIG, FSfilefor MS bitcoin fund.
• CreditNinja parentbuysUtah bank.
• BlackRockaddedAladdin features.
• OVTLYRhelpinginvestors prepare.
• Sequoia isinvestingin Pennylane.
• Bakkt hasimprovedasset transfers.
• Umeeraisesto be cross-chain hub.
• EBANXcloses$430M investment.
• BoEapplying‘tough love’ to fintech.
• Bloomba tostreamlineunderwriting.
• I2cgrowsVisa fintech membership.
• White Clayreceivesfintech award.
• Bitwisecompletesa $70M Series B.
• Persistence haslaunchedpSTAKE.
• Thumbtackclosesa $275M round.
• Alloyaddedto platform capabilities.
Watch Out For This:Apple has announced a forthcoming update to its Wallet app that will allow you to use your iPhone as digital identification in select US airports. The company showed how you’ll be able to scan your driver’s license or state ID in participating US states, which will then be encrypted and stored in the iPhone’s secure enclave. The company says it’s working with the TSA to enable the iPhone to be used as identification at airport security checkpoints.
Source:Verge
Interesting Reads:
• Wixexpandsin-house capabilities.
• Analysis: Bubblesmakinghistory.
• TikTok starsventureinto marketing.
• House isinvestigatinginsurrection.
• Amazon’s relentless workerchurn.
• White Houseeyesdomestic terror.
• EU and USagreedon plane trade.
• Research firm takesaimat betting.
• Risingstarsin light of cheap debt.
• Pandemic isdestroyingretirement.
Market Moving Headline:[T]he FOMC will likely not change its forward guidance on interest rates or asset purchases. That’s according to Moody’s which noted: “The statement will likely strengthen the FOMC’s assessment of the acceleration in inflation and possibly mention the central bank has the tools to address inflation if needed. This would be an effort to keep long-term inflation expectations in check.”
Source:Physik Invest
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• TikTok Stars Josh Richards And Griffin Johnson Venture Into Gen Z Marketing
• Quick Pitch: Meet Market Moves, A Platform For Actionable Market Insights
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech Focus For June 16, 2021: Fintech Header Quote To Start The Day: "[By] Labor Day, I'll be very disappointed if people haven't found their way into the office and then we'll have a different kind of conversation.” Source: James Gorman One Big Thing In Fintech: The most fundamental problem in financial services is that people don’t know how to use money to make themselves happy. This problem unites consumers demographically and socioeconomically in a way that almost nothing else does. Financial services providers have everything they need to solve this problem. The question is who will build it? Source: Fintech Takes Other Key Fintech Developments: B9 taps $1.7M for fintech platform. Feature on Market Moves platform. Significant BTC code improvement . Liti has tokenized litigation finance. dYdX added a new $65M Series C. Exchanges look to accelerate cloud. Wise gears up to launch its listing. Fintech Clip raises a $250M round. NYDIG, FS file for MS bitcoin fund. CreditNinja parent buys Utah bank. BlackRock added Aladdin features. OVTLYR helping investors prepare. Sequoia is investing in Pennylane. Bakkt has improved asset transfers. Umee raises to be cross-chain hub. EBANX closes $430M investment. BoE applying ‘tough love’ to fintech. Bloomba to streamline underwriting. I2c grows Visa fintech membership. White Clay receives fintech award. Bitwise completes a $70M Series B. Persistence has launched pSTAKE. Thumbtack closes a $275M round. Alloy added to platform capabilities. Watch Out For This: Apple has announced a forthcoming update to its Wallet app that will allow you to use your iPhone as digital identification in select US airports. The company showed how you’ll be able to scan your driver’s license or state ID in participating US states, which will then be encrypted and stored in the iPhone’s secure enclave. The company says it’s working with the TSA to enable the iPhone to be used as identification at airport security checkpoints. Source: Verge Interesting Reads: Wix expands in-house capabilities. Analysis: Bubbles making history. TikTok stars venture into marketing. House is investigating insurrection. Amazon’s relentless worker churn . White House eyes domestic terror. EU and US agreed on plane trade. Research firm takes aim at betting. Rising stars in light of cheap debt. Pandemic is destroying retirement. Story continues Market Moving Headline: [T]he FOMC will likely not change its forward guidance on interest rates or asset purchases. That’s according to Moody’s which noted: “The statement will likely strengthen the FOMC’s assessment of the acceleration in inflation and possibly mention the central bank has the tools to address inflation if needed. This would be an effort to keep long-term inflation expectations in check.” Source: Physik Invest See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga TikTok Stars Josh Richards And Griffin Johnson Venture Into Gen Z Marketing Quick Pitch: Meet Market Moves, A Platform For Actionable Market Insights © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Free Cryptocurrency Promos Going on Right Now: Looking to get into cryptocurrency but don’t want to risk your own money? We’ve compiled the best cryptocurrency deals going on right now, so you can start earning free cryptocurrency today. Even if you’re already invested in crypto, earningfree cryptocurrencyas a signup bonus is as good as it gets.
Voyager Exchange
Voyageris a leading cryptocurrency platform that’s available via mobile app and desktop. The platform has dozens of cryptocurrencies to choose from, and if you sign up today you can get $25 of free Bitcoin once you deposit $100 on the platform –– that’s a guaranteed return of 25% right off the bat!
If you aren’t ready to be exposed to the volatility of cryptocurrency, Voyager is a great option to earn passive income. The platform has high-interest savings accounts that yield 10% annual interest on stablecoins (cryptocurrency pegged to $1). If you’re looking to accumulate more cryptocurrency without continuing to invest more capital, Voyager also allows you to earn up to 7.5% annual interest on your Bitcoin holdings!
Coinbase Earn
Unlike most sign-up bonuses,Coinbase Earndoesn’t require you to deposit funds to receive your bonus. Instead, Coinbase will pay you to learn about different cryptocurrencies. The platform has educational videos about altcoins, and once you’ve completed the video you’ll be asked a question regarding the cryptocurrency you just learned about.
Get the question right and Coinbase will pay you in the cryptocurrency you just learned about. Didn’t quite catch everything in the video? That’s ok, Coinbasse gives you unlimited tries to answer quiz questions, so you’ll be able to get free crypto either way.
eToro Crypto
eTorohas one the largest signup bonuses out of any promotions going on in the cryptocurrency industry right now. However, there’s a caveat: you’ll need to deposit $5,000 onto the platform to be eligible for the bonus. eToro is offering a $250 signup bonus for doing so, making it worth the minimum deposit if you have the capital available.
*Offer valid for US residents only
Celsius Network
Celsius Networkis a dedicated lending platform for cryptocurrency-backed loans. As an investor, you’re able to leverage your cryptocurrency using the platform if you so desire. If you’re risk-averse, then this probably isn’t for you.
Luckily, Celsius has kept risk-averse investors in mind too. Users can deposit cryptocurrency and stablecoins into interest-bearing accounts, allowing them to earn extra cryptocurrency off of their investments. If you deposit $1,000 or more in cryptocurrency, you’ll get $10 in free bitcoin for signing up.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Benzinga Shorts: Buying Dogecoin
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Free Cryptocurrency Promos Going on Right Now: Looking to get into cryptocurrency but don’t want to risk your own money? We’ve compiled the best cryptocurrency deals going on right now, so you can start earning free cryptocurrency today. Even if you’re already invested in crypto, earning free cryptocurrency as a signup bonus is as good as it gets. Voyager Exchange Voyager is a leading cryptocurrency platform that’s available via mobile app and desktop. The platform has dozens of cryptocurrencies to choose from, and if you sign up today you can get $25 of free Bitcoin once you deposit $100 on the platform –– that’s a guaranteed return of 25% right off the bat! If you aren’t ready to be exposed to the volatility of cryptocurrency, Voyager is a great option to earn passive income. The platform has high-interest savings accounts that yield 10% annual interest on stablecoins (cryptocurrency pegged to $1). If you’re looking to accumulate more cryptocurrency without continuing to invest more capital, Voyager also allows you to earn up to 7.5% annual interest on your Bitcoin holdings! Coinbase Earn Unlike most sign-up bonuses, Coinbase Earn doesn’t require you to deposit funds to receive your bonus. Instead, Coinbase will pay you to learn about different cryptocurrencies. The platform has educational videos about altcoins, and once you’ve completed the video you’ll be asked a question regarding the cryptocurrency you just learned about. Get the question right and Coinbase will pay you in the cryptocurrency you just learned about. Didn’t quite catch everything in the video? That’s ok, Coinbasse gives you unlimited tries to answer quiz questions, so you’ll be able to get free crypto either way. eToro Crypto eToro has one the largest signup bonuses out of any promotions going on in the cryptocurrency industry right now. However, there’s a caveat: you’ll need to deposit $5,000 onto the platform to be eligible for the bonus. eToro is offering a $250 signup bonus for doing so, making it worth the minimum deposit if you have the capital available. Story continues *Offer valid for US residents only Celsius Network Celsius Network is a dedicated lending platform for cryptocurrency-backed loans. As an investor, you’re able to leverage your cryptocurrency using the platform if you so desire. If you’re risk-averse, then this probably isn’t for you. Luckily, Celsius has kept risk-averse investors in mind too. Users can deposit cryptocurrency and stablecoins into interest-bearing accounts, allowing them to earn extra cryptocurrency off of their investments. If you deposit $1,000 or more in cryptocurrency, you’ll get $10 in free bitcoin for signing up. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Benzinga Shorts: Buying Dogecoin © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: Buying Dogecoin: If you still haven’t heard of Dogecoin, you probably live under a rock. After hype driven by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dogecoin surged to over $0.69 per coin, giving this meme currency a market capitalization of over $75 billion. Thanks to new listings from Coinbase and Gemini, Dogecoin has become easy to aquire. Here’s how you can buy DOGE today. Making an account with a cryptocurrency exchange that supports Dogecoin is necessary for investing in DOGE. Luckily, Coinbase has listed Dogecoin, and that’s the easiest way for most investors to get into this doggy-themed cryptocurrency. If you don’t already have a Coinbase account, you can make one in minutes on your smartphone or desktop. If you don’t have a Coinbase account, there are plenty of other ways to get into DOGE. Robinhood offers Dogecoin, but the platform doesn’t have a dedicated cryptocurrency wallet, so you won’t be able to send or receive Dogecoin on Robinhood. A few other places you can buy Dogecoin today are Gemini , WeBull and Binance . Binance is unique in that you can trade Dogecoin against its Bitcoin pair, making it easy to track your portfolio against BTC. At a market capitalization of over $40 billion, Dogecoin is seen as overvalued by most investors. However, these same investors said Gamestop was overvalued at $25. At the end of the day, Dogecoin’s price is rooted in speculation, so only invest money you’re willing to lose. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Ethereum Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: Buying Dogecoin: If you still haven’t heard of Dogecoin, you probably live under a rock. After hype driven by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dogecoin surged to over $0.69 per coin, giving this meme currency a market capitalization of over $75 billion. Thanks to new listings from Coinbase and Gemini, Dogecoin has become easy to aquire. Here’s how you canbuy DOGEtoday.
Making an account with a cryptocurrency exchange that supports Dogecoin is necessary for investing in DOGE. Luckily, Coinbase has listed Dogecoin, and that’s the easiest way for most investors to get into this doggy-themed cryptocurrency. If you don’t already have a Coinbase account, you can make one in minutes on your smartphone or desktop.
If you don’t have aCoinbaseaccount, there are plenty of other ways to get into DOGE. Robinhood offers Dogecoin, but the platform doesn’t have a dedicated cryptocurrency wallet, so you won’t be able to send or receive Dogecoin on Robinhood.
A few other places you can buy Dogecoin today areGemini,WeBullandBinance. Binance is unique in that you can trade Dogecoin against its Bitcoin pair, making it easy to track your portfolio against BTC.
At a market capitalization of over $40 billion, Dogecoin is seen as overvalued by most investors. However, these same investors said Gamestop was overvalued at $25. At the end of the day, Dogecoin’s price is rooted in speculation, so only invest money you’re willing to lose.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Ethereum
• Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Ethereum: With the popularity of cryptocurrencies reaching an all-time high in 2021, many traditional investors are beginning to flock to the space in search of the extreme volatility they scorned for so long.
With the advent of the GameStop and AMC short squeezes, this volatility has been normalized and retail investors are turning to DeFi cryptocurrencies like Ethereum,Uniswap,AAVEandPolygonto get their fix for high percentage returns.
Ethereum is a global computer powered by a decentralized network of individuals. These individuals dedicate their precious computing resources to the network in order to earn the network fees, paid by developers who crave access to a decentralized network.
A decentralized network is powerful because there is no central authority or entity that needs to be trusted. By decentralizing the trust across a network of incentivized participants, the global computer can facilitate a new world of peer-to-peer finance over the internet.
Ethereum enables anonymous loans, market making and exchanges to execute via code, which scales much better than human bankers (and makes less mistakes too). From Vitalik Buterin to Mark Cuban, DeFi on Ethereum has been dubbed the future.
The best part? Ethereum is currently trading around $2,500, well below its May peak of $4384, giving retail investors a second chance before the rest of the bull run continues.
Buying Ethereum is simple. You likely already have a PayPal, Venmo or CashApp which all now support purchasing Ethereum.
It should be noted that if you are truly interested in the DeFi ecosystem, you’ll want to purchase Ethereum from an exchange such asCoinbaseorGeminithat offers you the ability to send your Ethereum to your own crypto wallet. Controlling your own wallet is important if you want to lend, borrow or earn interest on your Ethereum. It is also best practice for security purposes.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Ethereum: With the popularity of cryptocurrencies reaching an all-time high in 2021, many traditional investors are beginning to flock to the space in search of the extreme volatility they scorned for so long. With the advent of the GameStop and AMC short squeezes, this volatility has been normalized and retail investors are turning to DeFi cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Uniswap , AAVE and Polygon to get their fix for high percentage returns. Ethereum is a global computer powered by a decentralized network of individuals. These individuals dedicate their precious computing resources to the network in order to earn the network fees, paid by developers who crave access to a decentralized network. A decentralized network is powerful because there is no central authority or entity that needs to be trusted. By decentralizing the trust across a network of incentivized participants, the global computer can facilitate a new world of peer-to-peer finance over the internet. Ethereum enables anonymous loans, market making and exchanges to execute via code, which scales much better than human bankers (and makes less mistakes too). From Vitalik Buterin to Mark Cuban, DeFi on Ethereum has been dubbed the future. The best part? Ethereum is currently trading around $2,500, well below its May peak of $4384, giving retail investors a second chance before the rest of the bull run continues. Buying Ethereum is simple. You likely already have a PayPal, Venmo or CashApp which all now support purchasing Ethereum. It should be noted that if you are truly interested in the DeFi ecosystem, you’ll want to purchase Ethereum from an exchange such as Coinbase or Gemini that offers you the ability to send your Ethereum to your own crypto wallet. Controlling your own wallet is important if you want to lend, borrow or earn interest on your Ethereum. It is also best practice for security purposes. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin: With over half of the USD supply printed in the last year, it's hard to argue against Bitcoin’s permanently transparent inflation strategy. Unlike the US dollar which can be printed to infinity and beyond, there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.
Additionally, now thatBitcoinis legal tender in El Salvador it’s difficult to argue that it’s not legitimate money. If you haven’t purchased Bitcoin by now, May’s crash may be your second (and perhaps last) chance to get in at a good price this market cycle.
Warren Buffet was quoted as saying, “When there’s blood in the streets, you buy”. The long-term Bitcoin holders have been listening, and here’s how you can too.
While many newcomers to crypto were scared off by May’s price correction, long-term Bitcoin holders began net accumulation for the first time in 2021.
Bitcoin’s 3 previous market cycles had double peaks, and this data suggests that long-term, experienced investors believe we are currently in another accumulation phase.
If you are already set up with PayPal, Venmo or CashApp you can purchase Bitcoin directly from them. Although best practice is to buy through an exchange likeCoinbaseorGeminiwhere you can send it off the platform to a cryptocurrency wallet for safekeeping.
Making a Coinbase or Gemini account as a US citizen is incredibly easy and can be done in 5 minutes once you have the proper information ready to go. For tax purposes, the U.S. requires your SSN, drivers license and personal information to begin trading. Coinbase and Gemini will ask for this information when setting up your account.
Once you’ve proved your identity, you’re ready to add a bank account and purchase Bitcoin!
Side note: Coinbase and Gemini both use Plaid to connect to your bank account, which might exclude smaller local banks.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• California Approves 0M Boost To Help Regulate Struggling Cannabis Industry
• Tesla And Biogen Lead The SPY Lower Tuesday
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin: With over half of the USD supply printed in the last year, it's hard to argue against Bitcoin’s permanently transparent inflation strategy. Unlike the US dollar which can be printed to infinity and beyond, there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin. Additionally, now that Bitcoin is legal tender in El Salvador it’s difficult to argue that it’s not legitimate money. If you haven’t purchased Bitcoin by now, May’s crash may be your second (and perhaps last) chance to get in at a good price this market cycle. Warren Buffet was quoted as saying, “When there’s blood in the streets, you buy”. The long-term Bitcoin holders have been listening, and here’s how you can too. While many newcomers to crypto were scared off by May’s price correction, long-term Bitcoin holders began net accumulation for the first time in 2021. Bitcoin’s 3 previous market cycles had double peaks, and this data suggests that long-term, experienced investors believe we are currently in another accumulation phase. If you are already set up with PayPal, Venmo or CashApp you can purchase Bitcoin directly from them. Although best practice is to buy through an exchange like Coinbase or Gemini where you can send it off the platform to a cryptocurrency wallet for safekeeping. Making a Coinbase or Gemini account as a US citizen is incredibly easy and can be done in 5 minutes once you have the proper information ready to go. For tax purposes, the U.S. requires your SSN, drivers license and personal information to begin trading. Coinbase and Gemini will ask for this information when setting up your account. Once you’ve proved your identity, you’re ready to add a bank account and purchase Bitcoin! Side note: Coinbase and Gemini both use Plaid to connect to your bank account, which might exclude smaller local banks. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga California Approves 0M Boost To Help Regulate Struggling Cannabis Industry Tesla And Biogen Lead The SPY Lower Tuesday © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Benzinga Shorts: How to Buy Bitcoin: With over half of the USD supply printed in the last year, it's hard to argue against Bitcoin’s permanently transparent inflation strategy. Unlike the US dollar which can be printed to infinity and beyond, there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.
Additionally, now thatBitcoinis legal tender in El Salvador it’s difficult to argue that it’s not legitimate money. If you haven’t purchased Bitcoin by now, May’s crash may be your second (and perhaps last) chance to get in at a good price this market cycle.
Warren Buffet was quoted as saying, “When there’s blood in the streets, you buy”. The long-term Bitcoin holders have been listening, and here’s how you can too.
While many newcomers to crypto were scared off by May’s price correction, long-term Bitcoin holders began net accumulation for the first time in 2021.
Bitcoin’s 3 previous market cycles had double peaks, and this data suggests that long-term, experienced investors believe we are currently in another accumulation phase.
If you are already set up with PayPal, Venmo or CashApp you can purchase Bitcoin directly from them. Although best practice is to buy through an exchange likeCoinbaseorGeminiwhere you can send it off the platform to a cryptocurrency wallet for safekeeping.
Making a Coinbase or Gemini account as a US citizen is incredibly easy and can be done in 5 minutes once you have the proper information ready to go. For tax purposes, the U.S. requires your SSN, drivers license and personal information to begin trading. Coinbase and Gemini will ask for this information when setting up your account.
Once you’ve proved your identity, you’re ready to add a bank account and purchase Bitcoin!
Side note: Coinbase and Gemini both use Plaid to connect to your bank account, which might exclude smaller local banks.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• California Approves 0M Boost To Help Regulate Struggling Cannabis Industry
• Tesla And Biogen Lead The SPY Lower Tuesday
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Dogecoin is the ‘bad boy of crypto’: Analyst: Unlike other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Litecoin (LTC-USD), Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) has no legitimate use and was created as a joke, Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Engines, told Yahoo Finance Live.
“I am strongly opposed to Dogecoin, Doggy-coin, because it was invented as a joke,” Edelman said. “It was not serious. It has no legitimate use-case. It is not something that I think is doing the crypto community any good in its efforts to generate credibility and legitimacy in the financial marketplace, or approval by the SEC.”
"Doggy-coin, which is the other pronunciation for this, misspelling of the word doggy, D-O-G-E, is the bad boy of crypto," he added.
The cryptocurrencywas invented as an alternative to bitcoin back in 2013by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the latter of which would later leave the project. The name derives from the “Doge” internet meme, a surrealist trend that featured a popular photo of a Shiba Inu.
Dogecoin has beena highly speculative asset, at times experiencing 20%-30% volatility daily. Edelman said that it may come dangerously close to fraud territory. Dogecoin essentially is a victim of a “pump and dump scheme,” he said, by extremely wealthy individuals like Elon Musk.
The cryptocurrency has received criticism in the pastfor having no underlying value; some analysts have called it a bubble in light of the 2021 run that saw Dogecoin multiply100 times over in value. Yet startups and investors have raised millions of dollars for Dogecoin funds.
“[Dogecoin is] creating the environment for people to do crazy things in crazy chat rooms, and creating a bump and dump environment of people who are trying to get rich quick,” Edelman said. “So there's a big difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin and jokes like Doggy-coin.”
Outside of Dogecoin, Edelman said other cryptocurrencies can be promising. “I'm actually more excited about Ethereum than I am about bitcoin, although I'm bullish on both,” he said. “And there's a whole variety of others. But I would say if you're just getting started, bitcoin and Ethereum are about 80% of the market. That's plenty. So just go ahead and do those.”
The price of Bitcoinfell almost 37% in May, and remains down 38%from the mid-April peak. Bitcoin’s price increased yesterday after Elon Musk announced Tesla wouldresume accepting Bitcoin transactionswhen the cryptocurrency becomes more environmentally-friendly.
Meanwhile, Ethereum began the year ata price of under $800and currently stands at over $2,500. This past May, it reached anall-time high of over $4,100.
Edelman recommended using funds like Grayscale (GBTC), Osprey (OBTC), and Bitwise (BITW) to help with investing in cryptocurrencies. “These funds are readily available if you're an accredited investor, investments such as SkyBridge, that allow you to invest in it the way you invest in any kind of mutual fund or ETF,” he said.
Edelman, who disclosed that he is an investor in Bitwise, also noted that the fund offers a top 10 crypto index fund that could be useful to potential investors.
More from Ihsaan:
Electric aircraft company Vertical Aerospace plans to go public
Only 20% of Americans familiar with NFTs, 4 million have used: Survey
Bitcoin to tumble further: oddsmakers bet on drop to $10K
Read the latest cryptocurrency and bitcoin news from Yahoo Finance
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit || Dogecoin is the ‘bad boy of crypto’: Analyst: Unlike other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and Litecoin ( LTC-USD ), Dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ) has no legitimate use and was created as a joke, Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Engines, told Yahoo Finance Live. “I am strongly opposed to Dogecoin, Doggy-coin, because it was invented as a joke,” Edelman said. “It was not serious. It has no legitimate use-case. It is not something that I think is doing the crypto community any good in its efforts to generate credibility and legitimacy in the financial marketplace, or approval by the SEC.” "Doggy-coin, which is the other pronunciation for this, misspelling of the word doggy, D-O-G-E, is the bad boy of crypto," he added. The cryptocurrency was invented as an alternative to bitcoin back in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the latter of which would later leave the project. The name derives from the “Doge” internet meme, a surrealist trend that featured a popular photo of a Shiba Inu. Dogecoin has been a highly speculative asset , at times experiencing 20%-30% volatility daily. Edelman said that it may come dangerously close to fraud territory. Dogecoin essentially is a victim of a “pump and dump scheme,” he said, by extremely wealthy individuals like Elon Musk. The cryptocurrency has received criticism in the past for having no underlying value ; some analysts have called it a bubble in light of the 2021 run that saw Dogecoin multiply 100 times over in value . Yet startups and investors have raised millions of dollars for Dogecoin funds. “[Dogecoin is] creating the environment for people to do crazy things in crazy chat rooms, and creating a bump and dump environment of people who are trying to get rich quick,” Edelman said. “So there's a big difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin and jokes like Doggy-coin.” Bullish on bitcoin and Ethereum Outside of Dogecoin, Edelman said other cryptocurrencies can be promising. “I'm actually more excited about Ethereum than I am about bitcoin, although I'm bullish on both,” he said. “And there's a whole variety of others. But I would say if you're just getting started, bitcoin and Ethereum are about 80% of the market. That's plenty. So just go ahead and do those.” The price of Bitcoin fell almost 37% in May, and remains down 38% from the mid-April peak. Bitcoin’s price increased yesterday after Elon Musk announced Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin transactions when the cryptocurrency becomes more environmentally-friendly. Meanwhile, Ethereum began the year at a price of under $800 and currently stands at over $2,500. This past May, it reached an all-time high of over $4,100 . Story continues Edelman recommended using funds like Grayscale ( GBTC ), Osprey ( OBTC ), and Bitwise ( BITW ) to help with investing in cryptocurrencies. “These funds are readily available if you're an accredited investor, investments such as SkyBridge, that allow you to invest in it the way you invest in any kind of mutual fund or ETF,” he said. Edelman, who disclosed that he is an investor in Bitwise, also noted that the fund offers a top 10 crypto index fund that could be useful to potential investors. More from Ihsaan: Electric aircraft company Vertical Aerospace plans to go public Only 20% of Americans familiar with NFTs, 4 million have used: Survey Bitcoin to tumble further: oddsmakers bet on drop to $10K Read the latest cryptocurrency and bitcoin news from Yahoo Finance Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit View comments || Open Positions in Bitcoin Futures Rise to 1-Month High: Outstandingbitcoinfutures contracts have climbed to a one-month high, suggesting a rebound of speculative activity surrounding the cryptocurrency after a string of positive headlines that appear to have stabilized the market.
The aggregated dollar value of open interest – bitcoin futures contracts traded but not settled – has climbed to $13.1 billion, the highest since May 19, data fromSkewshows. For the past month, open interest mostly stood in the range of $10.5 billion to $13 billion.
Related:Bitcoin Upside Fades; Lower Support at $34K
Source: Skew
Open interest is usually seen as a measure of market activity. Higher open interest means more open contracts, or additional money flowing into the market.
“The crypto market is coming back to life,” the Norwegian analysis firm Arcane Research wrote Tuesday in a report.
However, the value of open interest is still less than half of the $27.4 billion peak reached in mid-April, when the bitcoinpricereached a record high near $65,000.
Related:Bitcoin Enters Wait-and-See Phase Ahead of Fed Statement
The largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading around $40,600 as of press time.
• Stripe Co-Founder Is ‘Enthusiastic’ About Bitcoin, 3 Years After Ending Its Support
• Market Wrap: Attempts to Push Bitcoin Above $40K Stall || Open Positions in Bitcoin Futures Rise to 1-Month High: Outstanding bitcoin futures contracts have climbed to a one-month high, suggesting a rebound of speculative activity surrounding the cryptocurrency after a string of positive headlines that appear to have stabilized the market. The aggregated dollar value of open interest – bitcoin futures contracts traded but not settled – has climbed to $13.1 billion, the highest since May 19, data from Skew shows. For the past month, open interest mostly stood in the range of $10.5 billion to $13 billion. Related: Bitcoin Upside Fades; Lower Support at $34K Source: Skew Open interest is usually seen as a measure of market activity. Higher open interest means more open contracts, or additional money flowing into the market. “The crypto market is coming back to life,” the Norwegian analysis firm Arcane Research wrote Tuesday in a report. However, the value of open interest is still less than half of the $27.4 billion peak reached in mid-April, when the bitcoin price reached a record high near $65,000. Related: Bitcoin Enters Wait-and-See Phase Ahead of Fed Statement The largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading around $40,600 as of press time. Related Stories Stripe Co-Founder Is ‘Enthusiastic’ About Bitcoin, 3 Years After Ending Its Support Market Wrap: Attempts to Push Bitcoin Above $40K Stall || Open Positions in Bitcoin Futures Rise to 1-Month High: Outstandingbitcoinfutures contracts have climbed to a one-month high, suggesting a rebound of speculative activity surrounding the cryptocurrency after a string of positive headlines that appear to have stabilized the market.
The aggregated dollar value of open interest – bitcoin futures contracts traded but not settled – has climbed to $13.1 billion, the highest since May 19, data fromSkewshows. For the past month, open interest mostly stood in the range of $10.5 billion to $13 billion.
Related:Bitcoin Upside Fades; Lower Support at $34K
Source: Skew
Open interest is usually seen as a measure of market activity. Higher open interest means more open contracts, or additional money flowing into the market.
“The crypto market is coming back to life,” the Norwegian analysis firm Arcane Research wrote Tuesday in a report.
However, the value of open interest is still less than half of the $27.4 billion peak reached in mid-April, when the bitcoinpricereached a record high near $65,000.
Related:Bitcoin Enters Wait-and-See Phase Ahead of Fed Statement
The largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading around $40,600 as of press time.
• Stripe Co-Founder Is ‘Enthusiastic’ About Bitcoin, 3 Years After Ending Its Support
• Market Wrap: Attempts to Push Bitcoin Above $40K Stall || House Democrats Form Cryptocurrency Working Group: U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) announced in a virtual hearing with the FinTech Task Force discussing central bank digital currencies (CBDDs) that she is forming a group of Democratic House members to tackle growing concerns about cryptocurrency. Waters, chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the group will work to engage with regulators and experts to do a deep dive on this poorly understood and minimally regulated industry. In a hearing last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed a similar sentiment toward the crypto industry, referring to it as a Wild West in need of regulation. Related: State of Crypto: Congressional Hearings Are Ramping Up Pressure for regulation comes on the heels of demand for a central bank digital currency backed by the Federal Reserve, which Warren said would drive out bogus digital private money. Waters has long been critical of cryptocurrency and its unregulated nature, and last months cyberattacks against Colonial Pipeline, which paid a ransom in bitcoin , sparked new discussions about regulating crypto. Related Stories Chinas Xiongan New Area Begins Using Digital Yuan for Salary Payments BlockFi Retail Account Balance Increased Fivefold in Past Year, CEO Says The Empire Strikes Back: Inflation Hits 5% While Elizabeth Warren Goes After Bitcoin
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38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28
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