Tag: Crypto

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Crypto Videos

The Best Cryptocurrencies To GPU Mine In 2020 – Part 2

https://youtu.be/RdyRpQaqF1k

https://youtu.be/RdyRpQaqF1k

Best Cryptocurrencies to GPU mine in 2020 – part 2

 

Part 2 of the series will continue with listing cryptocurrencies worth mining with your GPU in 2020. Once again, the cryptocurrencies listed in the guide are a personal choice, and you will have to do your research and choose your favorite cryptocurrencies to mine.

Monero (XMR)


Monero is one of the most unusual cryptocurrencies as it pioneered the era of privacy and private money itself when it comes to the crypto industry. Monero is an open-source private cryptocurrency that is aimed towards people who want to transact funds and messages privately. The ability to be completely private gives Monero a serious use case, as well as a probable long life in the world of crypto. On top of that, Monero recently got included by many wallets. Value miners, which mine cryptocurrencies solely based on their use case and future potential (rather than current profitability), are certainly considering XMR as their cryptocurrency of choice.
Monero is based on the CryptoNightV8 proof of work algorithm. It generates 3.38 XMRs per block, which occurs every 2 minutes.
Recommended GPUs for XMR mining are NVIDIA cards as well as AMD cards.

Ubiq (UBQ)


Ubiq is a decentralized platform that is used for hosting smart contracts and DApps, just like Ethereum. It is another fork of the Ethereum network itself. However, Ubiq markets itself as stable as well as a bug-free version of Ethereum. Ubiq’s main advantage is its ease of use. It can be complicated for developers to build their projects on a dynamic platform such as Ethereum, as it is continuously evolving.
Ubiq has tweaked its proof of work algorithm from Ethash to Ubqhash. It is also mineable using GPUs, but it has a few differences from its original algorithm. Its block time is 1.25 minutes, while its block reward is 7 UBQ per block. One thing to note is that Ubiq’s profitability is less than the profitability of ETH & ETC.
Recommended GPUs for UBQ mining are NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards.

Bitcoin Diamond (BCD)


Bitcoin Diamond yet another Bitcoin hard fork. It came to life in November of 2017 with the intent to overcome the so-called shortcomings of Bitcoin. The shortcomings addressed by BCD were Bitcoin’s lack of privacy and its slow transaction confirmation, amongst other things. BCD has increased its total supply from 21 million to 210 million, which in turn increased its block reward ten times than that of BTC. Bitcoin Diamond mining has a block reward of 125 BCD, released approximately every 8 minutes.
NVIDIA, as well as AMD cards, are recommended GPUs for BCD mining.

Aion (AION)


The Aion Network is a blockchain project that addresses problems that DApps of today face. These problems include scalability, privacy, as well as interoperability. AION uses a proof of work algorithm called Equihash, which is well-suitable for GPU mining. This cryptocurrency has the lowest block timing of all the cryptos mentioned here. Its block timing is a staggering 10 seconds. The Equihash algorithm releases 1.5 AION as its block reward each block. This block speed allows miners to expect their rewards much faster, which is useful in some cases.
AION is also quite a popular choice amongst miners who mine cryptocurrencies that they expect will increase in value in the future.
NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards are recommended GPUs for AION mining.

Energi (NRG)

Energi is, without a doubt, one of the most profitable cryptocurrencies minable with GPU. While this one is not the most popular choice for value-driven miners, it is for the miners guided by current profitability. If you don’t care about the use case of the cryptocurrency and are optimizing rigs to mine the most profitable currencies at this very moment, Energi is one of the best, if not the best choice for you.
Energi miners can expect 2.28 NRG approximately every 1 minute.
As with every cryptocurrency so far, recommended GPUs for NRG mining are NVIDIA and AMD.

Conclusion

This was the part 2/3 of the “Best cryptocurrencies to mine in 2020” series. Mine with caution and always take into consideration both the future value of a cryptocurrency as well as its current profitability.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 12 – Bitcoin mining owned by China, Market in the Red for the 3rd Consecutive Day

The cryptocurrency market’s price dropped yet again today, making this the third consecutive red day ina row. Most cryptocurrencies were in the red, with average 24-hour price drops of 1-3%. Bitcoin’s dropped 1.39% of its value in the past 24 hours. Its price is currently $7,143. Meanwhile, Ethereum dropped by 3.85%, while XRP fell 1.5%.

The cryptocurrency market’s price dropped yet again today, making this the third consecutive red day ina row. Most cryptocurrencies were in the red, with average 24-hour price drops of 1-3%. Bitcoin’s dropped 1.39% of its value in the past 24 hours. Its price is currently $7,143. Meanwhile, Ethereum dropped by 3.85%, while XRP fell 1.5%.

The cryptocurrency market’s price dropped yet again today, making this the third consecutive red day ina row. Most cryptocurrencies were in the red, with average 24-hour price drops of 1-3%. Bitcoin’s dropped 1.39% of its value in the past 24 hours. Its price is currently $7,143. Meanwhile, Ethereum dropped by 3.85%, while XRP fell 1.5%.

The cryptocurrency that saw most gains in the past 24 hours was Waves, with gains of 16.89%. On the other hand, the crypto that lost the most was the Matic Network, which lost 12.39% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance increased slightly, as its price went down just marginally less than the market. Its dominance is currently 66.52%, which represents an increase of 0.22% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market’s market cap continues its downtrend for the third consecutive day. Its total value is $194.82 billion at the time of writing. This represents a decrease of $2.93 to yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Chinese Bitcoin miners were always a force to reckon with. They are currently responsible for controlling around two-thirds of the global hash rate. China’s Sichuan province alone accounts for over 50% of the global hash rate.

Bitmain as well as Canaan Creative are the top mining chip suppliers in China. Bitmain appears to be on track to monopolize China’s crypto mining market as a whole. Many reports claim Bitmain to be the hardware supplier for 75% of the world market.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin has lost some of its value in the past 24 hours yet again. Unlike yesterday, there were no key level breakings. Its price is currently trading between the 38.2% Fib retracement of $7,314 and 23.6% Fib retracement of $7,000. Bitcoin’s volatility peaked when its price went from $7,300 to $7,070 and then back to normal, all in one 4-hour candle.


Bitcoin’s volume is currently average, while its RSI value is just barely keeping itself out of the oversold territory.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,314                                           1: $7,000

2: $7,415                                           2: $6,640

3: $7,565                                           3: $6,505

Ethereum

We compared Ethereum and Bitcoin yesterday and discovered that even though the price drops matched, Ethereum did better as it didn’t break any support levels. The situation has turned around, and Ethereum is now the one that broke the key support, while Bitcoin traded in a range. After following the downtrend, Ethereum went under the $144.1 support level without much fight. After falling below it, it tried to come back but failed.


Ethereum’s volume is at a reasonably healthy level compared to the previous days. Its RSI almost hit the oversold territory but is currently on the upswing.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $144.1                                             1: $133.5

2: $150.5                                            2: $128.9

3: $155.8

Ripple

XRP was following the market today, which means that its price also went down. It is currently trading between the 38.2% Fib line of $0.222 and 50% Fib retracement line of 0.2182. XRP had a hard time staying above the $0.222 key level for a couple of days now. That battle was now lost, with this level becoming resistance as XRP fell under.


XRP’s volume is average when compared to the daily volume throughout the week. Its RSI value is currently around 36.5 and is trending towards oversold.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.222                                            1: $0.2182

2: $0.2267                                          2: $0.2145

3: $0.234                                            3: $0.2092

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

How Exactly Does Blockchain Work?

Anyone who’s heard of cryptocurrency has most probably heard of blockchain. If you ask most people, they’ll tell you blockchain is cool. But they probably won’t tell you much beyond that. That’s because not everyone understands how blockchain works.

Anyone who’s heard of cryptocurrency has most probably heard of blockchain. If you ask most people, they’ll tell you blockchain is cool. But they probably won’t tell you much beyond that. That’s because not everyone understands how blockchain works.

Anyone who’s heard of cryptocurrency has most probably heard of blockchain. If you ask most people, they’ll tell you blockchain is cool. But they probably won’t tell you much beyond that. That’s because not everyone understands how blockchain works.

Not that it’s a hopelessly complicated concept. On the contrary. It’s just a groundbreaking technology with many firsts that might take some getting used to. In this article, we break down what’s blockchain, its history, how it works, and the properties that make it so revolutionary.

What is Blockchain?

The concept of blockchain is credited to computer scientist Stuart Haber and physicist W.Scott Stornetta. In a 1991 white paper, the two wrote a white paper that proposed the idea of time stamping and using private key signatures (based on cryptography) on submitted data.

This idea inspired the work of many other computer scientists and cryptography enthusiasts – leading to the creation of the first blockchain application – Bitcoin.  

‘Blockchain’ can be defined in several ways. Some people may understand it as a literal chain of blocks – though not in the real sense of those words. Others would understand it as a decentralized digital diary or ledger. (Decentralized means everyone can have access, and no single authority makes the rules.)

Both are correct. In this context, ‘block’ is essentially transaction data stored on a ‘chain,’ which is the public database. Every block in the blockchain contains several digital pieces of information, which we’ll detail below:

☑️ Information about transactions including date, time, and the amount of cryptocurrency in the transaction

☑️ Information about the participants of transactions, i.e., a digital signature (not their real name)

☑️ Distinct information that distinguishes it from other blocks, known as a ‘hash.’ (a hash is a string of letters and numbers generated by a ‘hash function.’ A hash function is a mathematical function that converts random letters and letters into an encrypted text of fixed length.)

A single block on the blockchain can only store up to 1MB of data. Depending on the size of transactions, a block can hold a few thousand transactions.

How Blockchain Works

When a block is validated (that is, the transactions in a block are verified), it is recorded on the blockchain. But for a block to be added on the blockchain, four things must happen: 

A transaction must take place.  

That transaction must be verified. After you pay for goods in a store with crypto or you send cryptocurrency to your loved one, that transaction must be confirmed as accurate and legitimate. Unlike with other public records of information like Wikipedia or your local library where there’s someone in charge of verifying new data entries, the blockchain relies on a network of computers for that task.

Verifying means checking if the transaction is as you said it was, in regards to the details of the purchase, time, amount, and participants. 

The transaction must be stored in a block. After a transaction has been confirmed as legitimate, it gets the approval to join a block where there are many others like it.

The block is given a unique identifier called a hash. Once all transactions of a block have been verified, it’s given a distinctive code that will differentiate it from all other blocks on the blockchain. Then, that block is added to the blockchain. 

When a block is added to the blockchain – it becomes a public matter of record available for anyone to see. A quick look at Bitcoin’s blockchain, for instance, will show you traction data along with the info about when (“Time”), where (“Height”) who (“Miner”) added the block to the blockchain. 

The blockchain network is maintained by network participants. These participants are also called nodes and is composed of a myriad of interconnected computers spread across the globe. Every node has a copy of the blockchain, and all participants are equal in authority. 

Therefore, blockchain transactions take place within a global, peer-to-peer network. Its peer-to-peer characteristic makes it decentralized, borderless, and censorship-resistant. (Censorship resistant means anyone can interact with the blockchain on the same terms as anyone else, and no one person can singly modify the content on the blockchain.)

A central part of many blockchains – including Bitcoin, is mining, which relies on computers to run a series of hashing algorithms to “mine” or process the most recent block. Each blockchain uses a different type of hashing algorithm. For example, Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm. ‘SHA’ stands for Secure Hash Algorithm. The SHA-256 takes an input of alphanumeric characters of any length and converts it to an output of 64 characters (256 bits). 

Once a block is mined, the miner broadcasts it to all miners (nodes) in the network. They then confirm its validity before adding to it to their copy of the blockchain. They will also include the hash from the previous block onto the new block – hence the name blockchain. 

The model of producing new blocks by running a series of hashing algorithms is called Proof of Work (PoW). PoW is the model used by Bitcoin, the first application of blockchain and the world’s first cryptocurrency. PoW, however, uses extremely high computing power and hence, electricity – leading to the development of other models meant to improve on it – for example, Proof of Stake (PoS). 

The Principles of Blockchain

Blockchain has three main inherent characteristics that have made it such a revolutionary technology. These characteristics are as follows:

  • Decentralization
  • Transparency
  • Immutability 

Decentralization 

On a blockchain, each participant in the network has access to the whole blockchain. No one participant has control over or regulates its information. Also, every participant can validate the records on the chain.

You can also transact directly with other users on the blockchain – send money, receive money, etc. without an intermediary.

In the same way, the blockchain is also architecturally decentralized such that there’s no one single or even several points of failure. For an attacker to gain control of the blockchain, they would have to gain control of more than half (at least 51%) of the network – which is almost impossible.

Transparency

Blockchain technology came with an unprecedented level of transparency. If speaking from a cryptocurrency viewpoint, for example, all transactions are recorded on the blockchain and identified by the owner’s public address. In cryptocurrency, this is what is referred to as pseudonymity, i.e., while their public address is open information, their real identity is not disclosed.

In real-world blockchain applications, for instance, the supply chain, every single step of the process is available for all to see. This introduces transparency never before seen in the world.

Immutability

In the context of blockchain, immutability means that once something has been recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be changed or altered.

Blockchain achieves this via a cryptographic hash function – which is taking an alphanumeric input of any length and giving it an output of a fixed length.

The immutability of blockchains means it can be applied to many situations to encourage accountability when people know that they can’t manipulate information or accounts.   

Conclusion

The technology behind cryptocurrencies is interesting and revolutionary. It’s decentralized, transparent, and immutable nature is what makes it so unique. It’s what has made Bitcoin a household name and pushed cryptocurrencies to the fore. The next time you’re talking about blockchain, hopefully, you’ll be doing so with much more confidence.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 11 – NIKE patents blockchain-based system for their business, crypto markets in the slight red

The crypto market is consolidating and trying to find a price to stabilize. Most cryptocurrencies did end up in the red. However, the losses were quite negligible. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s fell by 0.84%. Its price is $7,238 at the moment of writing. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.7%, while XRP fell 0.09%.

The crypto market is consolidating and trying to find a price to stabilize. Most cryptocurrencies did end up in the red. However, the losses were quite negligible. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s fell by 0.84%. Its price is $7,238 at the moment of writing. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.7%, while XRP fell 0.09%.

The crypto market is consolidating and trying to find a price to stabilize. Most cryptocurrencies did end up in the red. However, the losses were quite negligible. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s fell by 0.84%. Its price is $7,238 at the moment of writing. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.7%, while XRP fell 0.09%.

The biggest daily crypto gainer for the largest market cap cryptos is MINDOL, with gains of 67.83%. On the other hand, the biggest daily crypto loser is EDUCare, which lost 9.55% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance fell slightly in the past 24 hours. Its dominance sits at 66.3% at the time of writing. This value represents a decrease of 0.26% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market’s market cap fell slightly in the past 24 hours. Its total value is currently $197.75 billion. This represents a decrease of $1.71 billion when compared to yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Another good indicator of blockchain’s popularity is the number of companies trying to utilize it’s potential. Nike recently became one of these companies as they patented shoes that are tokenized as a non-fungible token. This tokenization will work on the Ethereum blockchain.

The patent thoroughly describes a digital asset for footwear as well as ways to use it. The document explained how Ethereum’s ERC721 or ERC1155 tokens are used to authenticate and transact a physical shoe.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin had another small price drop in the past 24 hours. Even though the drop seems negligable, its price actually fell under another support line. The price was consolidating between the $7,415 resistance and $7,314 Fib retracement line yesterday. However, the $7,314 line got broken and turned resistance. Bitcoin’s next support level would be $7,000.


Bitcoin’s volume was on an upswing during the price drop but normalized quite fast at lower levels. Its RSI value fell and is now very close to the oversold levels.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,314                                           1: $7,000

2: $7,415                                           2: $6,640

3: $7,565                                           3: $6,505

Ethereum

Ethereum had almost the same red candle that moved the market down slightly as Bitcoin. However, its price recovered a bit better, and Ethereum created a few small green candles.

On top of that, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap didn’t break any support levels. Its price now trades between the $150.5 key resistance and $144.1 critical support level. After the price drop, the support level got tested and held up quite well.


Ethereum’s volume is at a reasonably normal level compared to the previous days. Its RSI almost hit the oversold territory but is currently on the upswing.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $150.5                                             1: $144.1

2: $155.8                                            2: $133.5

3: $161.1                                            3: $128.9

Ripple

XRP’s chart is looking like it’s having an identity crisis, as bulls and bears are constantly fighting. As stated before, it’s underwhelming to say that XRP just broke its uptrend. Rather, the price drop looks like a downtrend. Still, there is good news for XRP after all. After its price dropped below $0.222, which was the next key support and the 38.2% Fib retracement line, bulls rallied and brought the price above it. That way, the $0.222 level still acts as an immediate support level.


XRP’s volume is currently extremely low, while it’s RSI value is closer to the bottom half of the range. No key levels changed as XRP didn’t break any of them.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2267                                          1: $0.222

2: $0.234                                            2: $0.2182

3: $0.2351                                          3: $0.2145

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 10 – JP Morgan launching its blockchain network in 2020

The crypto market has its first red day after a green weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the red. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price decreased by 1.76%. It is now trading for $7,353. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.43%, while XRP fell 2%.

The crypto market has its first red day after a green weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the red. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price decreased by 1.76%. It is now trading for $7,353. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.43%, while XRP fell 2%.

The crypto market has its first red day after a green weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the red. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price decreased by 1.76%. It is now trading for $7,353. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 0.43%, while XRP fell 2%.

The biggest top100 crypto gainer for today is Chainlink, with gains of 10.85%. On the other hand, the cryptocurrency that lost the most today was Matic Network, which lost 50.4% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance stayed at the almost exact place when compared to where it was yesterday. Its dominance is currently 66.56%, which represents an increase of 0.03% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market’s market capitalization dropped in the past 24 hours. The market cap is currently at roughly $199.46 billion. This value represents an increase of $4.7 billion against the value it had on yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

JPMorgan announced the launch of its blockchain-based payment network for the Japanese market in early 2020. The payment network is based on JPMorgan’s in-house blockchain platform, Quorum. The Interbank Information Network (IIN) wants to improve payment transactions as well as data sharing between banks.

Bloomberg’s report says that over 80 Japanese banks have a serious intent to join the platform. Out of the 365 total members that announced to join the platform, over 20% are Japanese banks.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

After a great weekend, Bitcoin came back to almost the exact same spot it was in before it. The biggest cryptocurrency managed to lost its gains and fall under the $7,415 resistance, which is now turned support. The price is now consolidating between the $7,415 resistance and $7,314 Fib retracement line which is now acting as support. The immediate support line got tested twice, but held up both times.


Bitcoin’s volume spiked during the price drop but is now normalizing at lower levels. Its RSI levels fell down from being close-to overbought and normalized as well.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,415                                           1: $7,314

2: $7,565                                           2: $7,240

3: $7,828                                           3: $7,120

Ethereum

Ethereum followed Bitcoin once again, which became almost a daily occurrence whenever big moves happen. Ethereum bulls stepped in and brought the price above the resistance of $150.5 over the weekend. After that happened, Ethereum immediately had a small level retesting, but the real test was ahead (as we reported yesterday). As the bears gathered and pulled the price down, the $150.5 resistance did not hold up, and Ethereum went under it.


Ethereum’s volume is currently really low relative to the previous days. Its RSI is in the middle of the value range.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $150.5                                             1: $144.1

2: $155.8                                            2: $133.5

3: $161.1                                            3: $128.9

Ripple

It’s underwhelming to say that XRP broke its uptrend. After a whole week of a steady increase in price, it dropped significantly and lost around 40% of its gains from the whole uptrend move. After a sudden burst towards the upside on Dec 8, the price reached $0.234 but quickly started falling due to bulls not having enough buying pressure. The downward-facing move continued, and XRP’s price dropped from $0.234 all the way down to $0.222. However, this key level held up, and the price stabilized, at least for the time being.


There was no volume increase when this price-drop happened, which is quite interesting. XRP’s RSI value also returned to the bottom half of the range.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2267                                          1: $0.222

2: $0.234                                            2: $0.2182

3: $0.2351                                          3: $0.2145

Categories
Crypto Videos

Calculate Crypto mining profitability – Is Mining Still Worth It?

https://youtu.be/ZFdJd04OLOc

https://youtu.be/ZFdJd04OLOc

 

Crypto mining profitability guide

If anyone is serious about cryptocurrency mining, they’ll have to learn how to maximize their equipment and their invested resources. Not knowing which equipment is profitable and how to optimize its use may end up with you having a negative balance. On top of that, not knowing the mining profitability of your rig might make you spend a lot more money without a cause or overestimate your earnings. This guide will try to show how to calculate the profitability of your mining setup as well as which tools to use to increase your profits.


Factors affecting mining profits

Many factors influence the outcome of a person’s mining profitability. The most significant factor are undoubtedly the cryptocurrency’s price, mining algorithm, the hardware that a person utilizes to mine crypto as well as the total hash rate of the network.

Choosing a cryptocurrency to mine

Mining cryptocurrencies involves solving complex mathematical algorithms by utilizing computational power. There are many consensus algorithms out there, but we will list the most popular ones.

SHA-256 consensus algorithm

The SHA-256 algorithm uses brute computational power to process the cryptographic equations. Bitcoin was easily mined with the CPUs and GPU cards that are used in regular PCs before it was popular. However, as the years progressed, and the market matured, mining hardware ended up evolving to keep up with the increasing mining difficulty. At the moment, Bitcoin is mined purely by using ASIC miners.


Scrypt consensus algorithm

The scrypt consensus algorithm uses a substantial amount of RAM as well as parallel processing to generate cryptocurrencies. This means that you can use GPUs to mine them instead of CPU, which is required for the SHA-256. Scrypt-based ASICs are quite unpopular at the moment, which brings the mining difficulty at a lower level than what it currently is with Bitcoin.

Mining profitability calculators

Many websites can be used to calculate the mining profitability for a specific coin. They take into account the mining equipment you use, power consumption, electricity cost as well as and other details. More straightforward calculators with fewer factors are available for free, but so are much more advanced ones, with features such as:

Hash rate,
Power consumption,
Power cost,
Mining difficulty,
Block reward,
Cryptocurrency price in USD.

Mining profitability can be calculated for various time-frames: hourly, daily, monthly as well as yearly.

Conclusion

Mining is a great way to earn cryptocurrencies passively. On the other hand, you need to take various factors that can affect mining profitability into consideration. Having an accurate prediction about all of the factors can be quite tricky, especially when some factors are out of your control. Be careful and do all of the calculations before investing in cryptocurrency mining gear.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency Market Volatility Part 2 – Liquidity & manipulation

https://youtu.be/okv2-YqHMUk

https://youtu.be/okv2-YqHMUk

Crypto market volatility – part 2

 

Last time we talked about what volatility is and how it is maturing in the crypto markets. We also talked about bad press and fraudulent activity that envelops the industry. Now, we will continue talking about what affects volatility and go more in-depth.

Market size VS. volatility 

The cryptocurrency market has received a great deal of attention from both profit-seeking traders and technology supporters. However, the market as a whole is still quite young and not as big as it can be. If we take a further look at its size, it cannot even be compared to traditional markets. It is a fact that the market size does affect volatility significantly.
Small markets allow smaller investors to influence the price both ways in a greater way. Broader markets, on the other hand, handle bigger market orders with ease and without much of a price impact. However, the overall size of the crypto market on top of overleveraging greatly affected its volatility.


Liquidity is directly tied to the market size as well as market order size. Liquidity can be defined as the ease or difficulty of buying or selling an asset on a specific market at a certain price. Liquidity is often directly tied to the market volume, as more market makers provide bigger liquidity. If more people traded cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrencies would be more stable price-wise. However, the crypto market in its current state is not as liquid as it should be to support large market orders or possible market manipulations that occur. If we take a look at the altcoins market individually, we can come to the conclusion that they are tiny when compared to the Bitcoin’s market, let alone the individual fiat currency markets. Low liquidity markets often suffer from sudden and aggressive fluctuations in prices.

Market manipulation VS. volatility

When talking about liquidity problems of the crypto market, one has to mention the market manipulation that occurs. There is a way to influence the price and sway it in the desired direction by controlling the market sentiment. Traders with large enough capital can utilize such a strategy to influence the cryptocurrency market. This is colloquially called “spoofing.”
Spoofing is basically listing a big buy or sell order with no intention of it going through. Its sole purpose is to show up on the market order panel as a “wall” of buyers or sellers. This alone will affect the market sentiment in the short term, which is just enough time for the profits to be made. This way, the whales can guide the price whichever way they want. When the market participants acknowledge the large-sized position, the price moves the opposite way. As soon as the move in the other direction starts, the order is taken down.

Speculation VS. volatility

As the crypto market is still immature, and investors have no real price to anchor to, the market is mostly driven by speculation. Typically, we can determine the value of an asset by its utility and adoption (and various other factors), but crypto markets are currently not operating that way. Speculation is the main thing that extends the trend up or down. Therefore, the only way to invest in any cryptocurrency is to speculatively bet on its future use cases, adoption, and traction.
Markets guided by speculation are, in every single case, recorded so far, volatile by nature.

Lack of institutional investors VS. volatility

A survey done by Fidelity Investments shows that 22% of surveyed institutional investors already purchased cryptocurrency in some quantity. If this survey can be translated to the institutional interest as a whole, crypto markets can be proud to show a remarkable increase from near-zero institutional investment in 2016 to the current numbers. However, the funds invested by the institutional investors are negligible compared to how much they invest in traditional markets.
Even though institutions are increasingly more interested in crypto, lack of proper guidelines, and transaction mediums such as ETF’s made it harder for them to get ahold of a large amount of cryptocurrencies. As time passes, institutions will undoubtedly dip their toes in cryptocurrency markets on a larger scale.
As the market lacks institutional investors, price stability is lacking, as well. Institutions are often using trading algorithms to perform trades for them, which in turn increase the liquidity as well as the stability of the markets.


Misconceptions on volatility catalysts

Many little things influence the crypto market volatility. No one can calculate the impact of any single factor. However, we often see some misconceptions when talking about which factors do have an effect on the market. Some factors are portrayed as much more significant just because they are eye-catching.
One such factor is the lack of regulation and how it affects the volatility of the markets.

Lack of regulation VS. volatility

The crypto market is not regulated by any government or institution. However, this lack of regulation does not affect the volatility of the market itself. People often connect high volatility with the lack of regulation, which is not correct. Cryptocurrency markets are self-regulated by the consensus. They require no government regulation to operate efficiently. However, they could use the government’s approval, which will probably never happen as crypto can be considered a direct competitor to fiat currencies.
Is market volatility even that good?
After understanding which factors affect the volatility of the cryptocurrency markets, people are mostly unsure whether increased volatility is a good thing after all. Volatility represents different things to different kinds of investors. We can look at it from two major standpoints:

The trader’s perspective.
The investor’s perspective.

The trader’s standpoint says that the volatility is quite good as long as the markets are liquid enough. The level of volatility considered useful varies depending on the person’s risk tolerance. A risk-averse individual would avoid high-volatility trades as they value stable investments more. However, cryptocurrency traders are considered to be risk-takers in most cases.

An investor, however, might consider volatility as a bad thing when it reaches a certain threshold, which is extremely low when compared to one of the retail traders. An investor wants to preserve their wealth rather than turning a quick profit. Also, investors are mostly here in the long run because they support the underlying technology.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrencies are a fairly young asset class, and its concepts are already revolutionizing the world we are living in. However, until full adoption happens, the cryptocurrency markets remain volatile.

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Top Tips to Secure Your Bitcoin against Theft

Bitcoin inspires all sorts of motivations – from noble ones to less noble ones. It’s an asset class that’s targeted by scammers at an incredibly high rate. Each year, individuals and crypto exchanges lose millions of dollars to such theft.

Bitcoin inspires all sorts of motivations – from noble ones to less noble ones. It’s an asset class that’s targeted by scammers at an incredibly high rate. Each year, individuals and crypto exchanges lose millions of dollars to such theft.

Bitcoin inspires all sorts of motivations – from noble ones to less noble ones. It’s an asset class that’s targeted by scammers at an incredibly high rate. Each year, individuals and crypto exchanges lose millions of dollars to such theft.

But that doesn’t mean Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies are a security nightmare. It all really depends on how careful you are – and the measures you take to secure your Bitcoin assets. Let’s look at some easy steps you can take to protect your holdings.

Use Long and Complex Passwords

The keywords here are ‘long’ and ‘complicated.’ Even if your password is complicated enough, it’s still an easier hack than a long and complex one. For instance, a hacker would more quickly guess “pas$w0rd” than they would “Hell0Thi$isMyPas$Word”. Also, a single uppercase letter is not enough to cushion you against hacking. At the very least, make sure your wallet and account passwords meet these criteria:

  • Have lowercase letters and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols
  • Have at least 40 characters or more.
  • Is not in obvious sequences, for example, 12345 or abcdef
  • Is not a common word or obvious character replacements
  • Is not in repeated letters/numbers or keyboard patterns like “444”, “ttt” or “cvbnm”

Now, the longer and stronger password is, the harder it is to remember. There are a few resources you can use to prevent this from happening, including a password management software or secure offline storage, like an encrypted USB drive.  Also, remember never to use the same password for more than one account. A single security breach could result in a hacker getting access to all your funds.

Enable a 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) On All Your Crypto Accounts

With a 2FA, you’re required to use two authentication factors to verify your identity. One identifier is your password, and the other could be a phone call, a biometric factor, etc. That said, you need to watch out for 2FA’s that are still vulnerable – e.g., phone calls or text messages. Hackers have devised a new trick of calling up phone companies and successfully impersonating customers, which makes a phone call or text message 2FA insecure. Instead, you could enable a 2FA via:

An authenticator app, like Google authenticator –which automatically generates 2FA codes for your account every 30 seconds, and is entirely free,

or:

A universal second factor (U2F), which is like an encrypted USB that you can insert into your device as a form of 2FA. Some trusted U2F’s include FIDO and YubiKey.

Enable IP and Wallet Whitelisting

Whitelisting is a security feature that allows you to create a list of trusted IP addresses that can interact with your funds.  Ensure your crypto exchange has these security settings:

  • IP whitelisting – which allows only authorized users to use your IP address to authorize trades, sending of crypto, or paying for things through your exchange account.
  • Wallet whitelisting – in which you share with the exchange your wallet’s public key. After that, only you will be able to withdraw funds from the exchange to your private wallet.

It’s worth noting that not all exchanges have enabled whitelisting options, so make sure to ascertain that before you sign up for any wallet.

Use a Reliable VPN on Public WiFi

Public WiFi connections in restaurants, hotels, airports, etc. are an easy target for hackers.

If you must access your crypto account on a public network, it’s highly advisable to use a reputable Virtual Private Network (VPN) such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Tunnel Bear, or VyprVPN. This precaution will prevent your account login information, i.e., passwords, private key, and recovery phrases from being intercepted. A VPN is an extra layer of encryption that will also conceal your identity, location, and IP address.

Separate Your Trading Funds from Your Savings

If you’re a regular trader, separate your trading funds from the rest of your funds. Keep the rest of your funds in a cold storage, e.g., a hardware wallet or a paper wallet.

This precaution is essential because storing all your funds on your exchange renders them vulnerable to hacking, phishing attacks, etc. There are many stories of hackers successfully getting away with lump sums of crypto from crypto exchanges – so be careful.

Back-Up Your Backup

Backing up your back-up means having a second line of defense in case you forget your account or wallet details.

You can do this by first encrypting a flash drive and then adding a text file of information on all your passwords, private keys, and seed phrases. To encrypt a flash drive, simply right click on the drive in your “My Computer” window and select “encrypt,” follow the instructions, and set up a password.

The second step is storing the flash drives in separate and safe places, like a safe deposit box. For an added layer of security, you could even split your private key into two flash drives, i.e., one half in one drive and the other in a second drive. That way, even if someone manages to get hold of one flash drive, they can’t access your crypto. Make sure you don’t forget the passwords, however.

Encrypt a “Digital Will”

Treat your crypto holdings like any other asset – you need to ensure they go to your beneficiaries when you’re gone. But, leaving a will for your crypto assets for your loved ones requires a bit more planning than that for traditional assets. So how do you go about it? While you will eventually have to talk to an estate planning lawyer, you can get started with the following steps:

  • Ensure your beneficiary knows the location of at least one of your encrypted flash drives.
  • Ensure they have the password to decrypt it
  • Include in the flash drive a “digital will” – a file that lets them know how exactly to access your Bitcoin.

Some people may find it challenging to understand how to handle cryptocurrency. To make it easier for your inheritor(s), try writing down the instructions in a manner that a crypto novice would understand. Let details include how to access your wallet, exchanging of cryptos to traditional currency, etc.

Don’t Brag About Your Holdings

Finally, when it comes to cryptocurrency, discretion is key. You’re much safer that way. There are a lot of people who have been targeted in extortion to ransom attacks. Often, these people were known traders, investors, or just people who couldn’t keep quiet about their hoard.

One common ploy is for extortionists to offer to buy crypto at a price way higher than the market price, and suggest a face to face meeting. Once the person arrives, they ambush them and strong-arm them into transferring the funds without payment.

It’s better to remain tight-lipped about your crypto holdings. And just to be extra safe, consider splitting your cryptos into more than one wallet to mitigate the risks of any such occasion.

Just like you would take steps to protect your other valuables – you should (and even more so) take steps to protect your cryptocurrency. Securing your crypto shouldn’t be a daunting task. Follow this guide and get started on safer interaction with your cryptocurrency today. Also, remember to do more grounded research on best practices to secure your crypto – and you’ll be good to go.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 9 – Microsoft announcing its blockchain business expansion, Cryptocurrency markets in the green over the weekend

The crypto market has had quite a solid weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the green both in the past 24 hours as well as over the weekend. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.82% and is now trading at the price of $7,534. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.45%, while XRP went up 1.72%.

The crypto market has had quite a solid weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the green both in the past 24 hours as well as over the weekend. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.82% and is now trading at the price of $7,534. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.45%, while XRP went up 1.72%.

The crypto market has had quite a solid weekend. Most cryptocurrencies ended up in the green both in the past 24 hours as well as over the weekend. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.82% and is now trading at the price of $7,534. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.45%, while XRP went up 1.72%.

The biggest gainer from the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap for today is Energi, with gains of 23.15% on the day. The biggest loser of the day was EDUCare, which lost 8.15% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance stayed at the same value when compared to where it was at on Friday. Its dominance is currently 66.53%, which represents an increase of 0.09% from Friday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market increased its total market capitalization over the weekend. The market cap is currently sitting at $204.19 billion. This value represents an increase of $3.11 billion against the value it had on Friday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s blockchain-based cloud service, posted an announcement of their new tokenization and blockchain data management services.

This news were posted on the official Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure also announced their non-fungible blockchain tokens called “Azure Heroes”, which are aimed at rewarding its developer community.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin has had an amazing weekend if we look at it from a price perspective. The biggest cryptocurrency managed to rally its bulls and break its $7,415 resistance to the upside. The price got retested on Sunday, but the now-turned resistance level held up and managed to keep Bitcoin’s price above.


Bitcoin is currently decreasing in volume, with its RSI levels dangerously close to the overbought territory. However, the short-term outlook is still slightly bullish.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,565                                           1: $7,415

2: $7,828                                           2: $7,240

3: $8,000                                           3: $7,120

Ethereum

Ethereum has followed Bitcoin’s bull rally and gained value yet again. After a long struggle and indecisiveness of whether ETH will go up above $150.5 or below $144, bulls stepped in and brought the price above the resistance. Ethereum had a small level retesting, which the resistance held up. However, the real test of the newly formed resistance might be ahead.


Ethereum is, just like Bitcoin, slowly dropping in volume while its RSI is approaching overbought levels.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $155.8                                             1: $150.5

2: $161.1                                            2: $144.1

3: $163.4                                            3: $133.5

Ripple

XRP is on a short-term bull run. It was the best performing cryptocurrency out of the top 3 cryptos for a solid week. XRP had a great weekend as well, managing to pass several resistance levels. After passing above the $0.222 level, its price continued upwards and passed the $0.2267 level as well. It even attempted to get above the $0.234 price level, but this is where it got stopped. Its price is currently on a small downturn, which may indicate a retest of $0.2267 level to determine its strength as a resistance level.


XRP’s volume is much higher when compared to its value before the weekend. It is, however, dropping just like the rest of the top3 cryptocurrencies. Its RSI almost touched the overbought territory, but bounced back and is now in a small downtrend.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.234                                            1: $0.2267

2: $0.2351                                          2: $0.222

3: $0.242                                            3: $0.2185

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency Market Volatility Part 1 – The Future Of Crypto

https://youtu.be/CaiQFg_5BIo

https://youtu.be/CaiQFg_5BIo

 

Cryptocurrency market volatility – part 1

The cryptocurrency market as a whole is known for being volatile from its very conception. The past couple of years have undoubtedly been a rough ride for millions of investors, but things are starting to look better. While some people managed to make their fortune investing in cryptocurrencies, many had lost large sums in the bubble that burst at the beginning of 2018, which is when the bear market started.
However, Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, are not made to be volatile, but for the reason of fulfilling their purpose. Certain cryptocurrencies were created to provide specific utility to its users, while others are designed to be digital money and to compete with fiat currencies directly. To understand why cryptocurrencies are volatile, we first have to understand the factors surrounding the industry.


What is volatility?

Traditional finance defines volatility as the fluctuation of an asset’s price in a particular time period. An asset is volatile if its price is rising or falling constantly and aggressively. The cryptocurrency market is a definition of a really volatile market, as the extreme fluctuations add and remove billions of dollars worth of market capitalization to and from the market every single day.

Adoption and market maturity VS. volatility

Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, in general, is a relatively new concept when compared to other well-established traditional asset classes. A cryptocurrency must have a large user base to fulfill its role. The larger the user base of an asset, the less volatile and safer it will be. People have to learn how cryptocurrencies work and how using them will change the world. Only after fully grasping the concept of cryptocurrencies they become less volatile. As more people start using cryptocurrencies, prices will even out, and volatility will decrease to a point where the fluctuations will be so small that they will not matter.


One thing to note is that an average cryptocurrency investor is not a financial expert by any means. This makes concepts such as “FOMO” and “FUD” an even more significant factor than they are in the traditional markets.
Speaking about adoption brings us to the maturity of the cryptocurrency market. A young market backed by a brand new technology will, by nature, be more volatile than the already well-established traditional markets. Cryptocurrencies are going through an “infancy” period that is very similar to the one that the internet-based companies had to go through in the 1990s. New technologies require time to get perfected. They also have a high probability of failing.


Bad press VS. volatility

News reports, whether positive or negative, can easily affect the crypto volatility. With an average investor being relatively uneducated of how the markets work, each wrong portrayal of cryptocurrencies can spark a new wave of “FUD.”
News reports such as ones about hacking incidents, certain countries declaring stances on crypto as well as people with questionable past being tied to the industry instill a negative reputation of cryptocurrency markets in the minds of people. At the moment, cryptocurrencies are incredibly vulnerable to all the bad press and news, while they rarely react to the good news. News portals are often catering to the short attention spans of their millennial readers by writing outrageous (and often fake) biased texts.

Fraudulent activity VS. volatility

Cryptocurrencies have been a place where fraudulent activities occur more often than with other markets without any doubt. The crypto market has mostly seen two types of such activities:

Ponzi schemes in crypto markets

Ponzi schemes are a not-so-rare occurrence in markets governed by greed, and the crypto market is no different. Whenever people that lack knowledge of the markets try to get rich quickly, Ponzi schemes appear.

Ponzi schemes are a form of fraud where the company promises quick and substantial returns to the first investors by paying them the money from investors that come to the project later. The most famous Ponzi scheme in the crypto market is the notorious Bitconnect. Their “high-yield investment program” promised high returns to all of their investors. They used their native BCC token to pay out their old investors. Seeing high yield and great payouts automatically attracted the new investors. Bitconnect was undoubtedly not the only Ponzi scheme organization in the market. Many have successfully attempted to defraud people of their cryptocurrency holdings by creating “high-yield investment programs.”

Crypto market security breaches

Markets gain in volatility when an aggressive event strikes the space, and cryptocurrencies are no different. There have several occasions where security breaches, as well as hacks, caused extreme volatility spikes. None of these hacks happened to the cryptocurrencies specifically, but rather to the exchanges that stored them. One good example of increased volatility is the infamous Mt. Gox hack. This hack caused the biggest cryptocurrency exchange at that time to close their doors made 850,000 Bitcoin “vanish.” Later on, 200,000 Bitcoin were somehow found and retrieved, and are now handled by a trustee who sells them as he pleases. This trustee was one of the main reasons for increased volatility as he reportedly sold Bitcoin on the open market rather than over-the-counter as should be done with such quantities of cryptocurrencies.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 6 – Cryptocurrencies will replace FIAT by 2030

We can see that the crypto market did not have many currencies move significantly in the past 24 hours. However, most of the market ended up in the green. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.52% and is now trading at the price of $7,402. Meanwhile, Ethereum managed to gain 1.48%, while XRP gained 2.54%.

We can see that the crypto market did not have many currencies move significantly in the past 24 hours. However, most of the market ended up in the green. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.52% and is now trading at the price of $7,402. Meanwhile, Ethereum managed to gain 1.48%, while XRP gained 2.54%.

We can see that the crypto market did not have many currencies move significantly in the past 24 hours. However, most of the market ended up in the green. If we look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price went up 0.52% and is now trading at the price of $7,402. Meanwhile, Ethereum managed to gain 1.48%, while XRP gained 2.54%.

The biggest gainer amongst the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap for today is HedgeTrade, which managed to gain 48.72% on the day. The biggest loser of the day was iExec RLC, which lost 5.69% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance decreased a tiny amount as the market managed to gain a bit more in value than what Bitcoin gained. Its dominance is currently 66.44%, which represents a decrease of 0.3% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market managed to increase in total market capitalization yet again. As the individual cryptocurrency values increased, so did the overall market cap. The market cap is sitting at $201.08 billion at the moment of writing. This value represents an increase of $2.16 billion against yesterday’s value.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Deutsche Bank researched how cryptocurrencies will do in 2030. They concluded that the demand for alternative currencies will rise and that digital currencies will eventually replace cash. This research was done for the “Imagine 2030” report.

Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid pointed out that crypto has solutions for many challenges the existing fiat system has encountered in recent years. On top of that, he said that crypto  itself poses one of the problems fiat has at the moment. He then said that people’s heightened demand for dematerialized means of payment and anonymity could possible bring more people to cryptocurrencies.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin spent the whole day trying to pass its key resistance line of $7,415. almost every 4 hour candle managed to break the price but ultimately ended up below the line. If bulls don’t step up their game, Bitcoin’s price will remain under the key resistance level for the time being. If it happens, we could see a spike in volume followed by a sudden upward-faced spike.


Bitcoin’s volume is slightly lower than yesterday, while its RSI is slowly going towards overbought. This could indicate that bulls have a limited time when they can make a strong push to the upside before being crushed by the bears coming to the market.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,415                                           1: $7,240

2: $8,000                                           2: $7,120

3: $8,425                                           3: $6,620

Ethereum

Ethereum is on the other side of the coin when compared to Bitcoin. While Bitcoin is trying to push above its resistance, Ethereum is trying to save its price from falling below its support. Ethereum moved back to the $147 line, and it is still unsure whether the price will stay above it or whether it will drop further down. However, Ethereum has many small support points that ended up being well-respected by the market.


 

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $156.8                                             1: $144.1

2: $161.1                                            2: $133.5

3: $163.4                                            3: $127

Ripple

XRP spent the past few days rallying its bulls, which resulted in a major attempt to the upside yesterday and another one today. While today’s move was not so explosive, it was much healthier. The 0.02267 resistance was strong again, and XRP failed to reach above it, but it did make some daily gains nevertheless. The green 38.2% Fib retracement line ended up being well-respected by the market, and the price managed to consolidate near it. However, it is unknown whether this line will play any role in the short future as XRP is moving down at the moment of writing.


XRP’s volume is much higher when compared to the previous days. Its RSI slowly gained momentum to the upside until the consolidation phase, where it settled down a bit.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.222                                            1: $0.2185

2: $0.2267                                          2: $0.214

3: $0.234                                            3: $0.209

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency fundamental analysis part 3 – Finding Fundamental Sources

https://youtu.be/ywoi6gA0bBE

https://youtu.be/ywoi6gA0bBE


Crypto fundamental analysis part 3 – project analysis

Cryptocurrency projects aren’t like traditional companies, both in terms of how they operate and how they are analyzed. As people don’t have as much data to sift through as you would with traditional stock investments and not everything is straightforward as it is with the financial reports.
Since crypto is still a new industry, it is highly speculative. However, there are several factors to look out for when analyzing an investment that can help decide whether a cryptocurrency is potentially a good moneymaker or not:

 

  • Target market
  • Competitor comparison
  • Team
  • Roadmap
  • Partnerships
  • Demand, token economics, and utility
  • Status and active users
  • Whitepaper
  • Community and reviews
  • Price history and age
  • Liquidity
  • Regulation

Target market

Every product has a market that they are trying to target. This means you should consider market size when trying to assess the fundamentals of a project. A broader market is, however, not always better. Large markets could already be over-saturated with possible solutions to the same problem. This would, in turn, decrease the likelihood of adoption. Niche markets are, on the other hand, small but could be highly receptive to a new solution to a problem.

Competition

Competition is extremely significant in any industry. It could be used to gauge the effectiveness of a cryptocurrency project. If we take a look at how many competitors a project has and how does it compare to the competition, we can conclude the possibility of the project succeeding in the market. Cross-checking with competitors can highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of a project. That can, in turn, suggest whether this project is likely to beat its competitors in the long-term.
Evaluating the level of competition and deciding whether a project is in good standing relative to the rest rather than just in absolute terms is essential. If a product is unique, it could mean that it is tapping into an unsaturated market or a non-existing one.

Team

Successful products always have great teams behind them. Looking at the team and the advisory board can tell you a lot about the project and how it will be managed.
When examining the project team, check who they are, where they are from, what’s their work history, etc. If a team with a good experience behind them runs the project, that’s definitely a good sign.

Roadmap

Crypto projects often have roadmaps that signify how fast their development will be. They show what upcoming plans they have and how they will move the project forward. Roadmaps can show how long it will take until a project becomes tradable, which is extremely important.
However, watch out for roadmaps that are too ambitious. Missed deadlines bring negative hype around the projects, making it a lousy investment in no time.

Partnerships

When assessing cryptocurrency projects, partnerships are essential for assigning the value of the project. They are more important for determining the validity of the project than the possible outcome of the partnership. However, make sure to understand the details of the partnership before passing judgment, as not all partnerships are created equal.
Demand, token economics, and utility
Price and value are, as with any tradable asset, driven by supply and demand. Theoretically speaking, the larger the demand, the higher the price. In cryptocurrencies, the demand is controlled by token economics and utility.
Looking into the token economics, which is the economy based around the token, can tell us many things. The token should have a use-case within its ecosystem to create sufficient demand. However, its other factors should be investigated, as well. Token supply, emission, and distribution are some of the factors that should influence the decision of whether to invest in a project.

Status

Not all cryptocurrency projects start on a level playing field. Newer projects have far less market traction while established credible projects with their names recognized by the community are much safer investments.
A high number of users that use the cryptocurrency in question is definitely contributing to its value.

Whitepaper

Whitepapers outline the purpose of the project. They are technical documents that have every single detail about the project in them. It is advisable to read the whitepaper thoroughly before investing in any project.
Community and reviews
A community that stands behind a project is a crucial factor in the fundamental analysis of crypto projects. Reading real user reviews can tell you a lot about how the cryptocurrency stands in the market and what are its strengths and weaknesses.

Price history and age

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies currently on the market, and it is safe to say that most cryptocurrencies come and go. If a project has established its name for a long time and has consistently maintained value relative to other cryptocurrencies, it might potentially be a good investment. However, substantial returns may instead come from smaller, and relatively unknown cryptocurrencies that breakout and become mainstream rather than from already established projects.

Liquidity

How often is the cryptocurrency traded, and how easy it is to exchange it for other cryptocurrencies without experiencing slippage? If a particular cryptocurrency generates lots of interest, lots of trading will happen. This could potentially mean that a token is in high demand.

Regulation

A project’s approach to regulation matters greatly in this day and age. If a project does not adhere to certain laws and regulations, that could have negative effects on the price in the future, even if one might not agree that cryptocurrencies should be regulated.


Conclusion

Fundamental analysis can be tricky when it comes to cryptocurrencies. There are many factors to consider and look at, and most of them are entirely subjective. However, with enough projects analyzed, you can compare results and see which projects stand out as viable investments.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency fundamental analysis part 2 – Finding Fundamental Sources

https://youtu.be/h7lkNqM573U

https://youtu.be/h7lkNqM573U

Crypto fundamental analysis part 2 – Early-stage ICO analysis

While investing in a particular project, one does not have to follow the crowd to be successful. During times when the market is not in the best position for investing (when the whole cryptocurrency market seems to be losing value), people do not want to diversify as much. The ICO market has fewer investors. Most crypto investors are now either Bitcoin maximalists or have a compact portfolio of cryptocurrencies. When it comes to ICOs, they mostly follow the crowd and the hype, or they don’t invest at all. There are, however, many factors that need to be included in the analysis of ICOs before an investment is made. ICO projects need to be looked at from every single perspective available ( and that includes token economics, team, social media, website SEO optimization…), but what happens when an ICO is in the early stages, and most of the information is not available?


Early-stage ICOs

Investing in the early stages of an ICO might be the way to acquire the best bonuses. However, it also brings enormous risks, as the conclusive analysis is usually impossible to do due to the missing data. So how can investors determine whether a project is worth investing?

Project Idea

– Every ICO has to start with a good idea. The problem a project is trying to solve is the lifeline of their project, and what it is based on. The potential acceptance of a project idea can always be determined, no matter how, when we analyze the ICO project.
Team – it’s what makes the idea transform from vision to reality. When looking at early-stage ICOs, this feature becomes even more critical. We have too little data to work with, and that makes the team one thing we can thoroughly inspect. Both the team and the advisory board need to be impeccable for the project to be eligible for investment this early on.

Roadmap

– This factor has less value than the first two but is used to estimate the time frame of the investment.
Potential social media coverage – As the project is still early in development, this part will probably be non-existent. However, some reviewers can be pretty quick when it comes to discovering new and promising projects. Of course, the more people are eager to invest in the project as early as possible, the better the chances it has of succeeding as far as price goes.

The X factor

– Something that will make other people want to invest in this project. This X factor often comes in the form of an idea (or a part of it) or their monetization plan, which makes the project particularly interesting.
If you haven’t noticed, token economics and market traction weren’t mentioned anywhere in the list of important factors here. This is because we are looking at a potential gem project way too early for them to have these. Most projects post their token economics way later, while the market traction will be non-existent when we investigate projects this early on.


Conclusion

Early-stage ICOs can be potential moneymaking opportunities and can bring you amazing returns. On the other hand, we are operating with insufficient data in the ICO analysis, which inherently brings more risk. This lack of data means that compromising on any of the factors analyzed might cost you your investment. It is advisable to pick only the best of the best ICOs when it comes to investing this early on. Another good way of being sure of the project’s possibility of success it just keeping an eye on it and waiting for the data to present itself naturally. This will make the investment safer and the analysis more conclusive.

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency Dangers – The Beginner’s Guide

https://youtu.be/pgaFpXu0nFU

https://youtu.be/pgaFpXu0nFU

 

Cryptocurrency dangers – beginner’s guide

Many people see the amazing returns cryptocurrencies can bring and decide to invest their life savings or take out a loan. DO NOT do this. The volatility of the cryptocurrency market can slaughter you your investments, meaning that your life savings or loan would be gone. You can lose all your money by investing more than you are willing to spend on things you don’t understand properly. No one should fall into the trap, thinking this is a “get rich quick scheme,” as it is exactly the opposite of that.


It took years for early Bitcoin investors to gain big returns, increasing from a few pennies to where it is now. With how young this technology is, people should invest only when they see the true potential of crypto in the long-term.

Cryptocurrency hype factor

Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of hype with them. The simple explanation of why would be because most people do not know what they’re investing in and would rather listen to the crowd.
As the crowd is a quick decider on the cryptocurrency trend, prices either skyrocket or plummet. Taking out loans or investing life savings in such investments would be unreasonable. Even though the hype factor has diminished as the technology is maturing, there are still more than just traces of it on the market.

One should be informed and armed with knowledge before jumping on the hype-train. This would significantly reduce the investment risk. Most importantly, this way of thinking would position your investments to be aimed towards the long-term fundamentals of the technology. There are plenty of opportunities to make enormous profits in the cryptocurrency market. All the investors should have is patience as well as wisdom to acquire the right knowledge before investing. The worst thing that can happen is to be the person that invests based on the current hype without researching the project first. If the project seems too complex, then you should seek answers. The cryptocurrency community is filled with individuals that will be more than willing to simplify things and help you understand each and every concept that is important to certain projects.

Ponzi schemes and HYIP’s

One of the most important skills that you absolutely must possess is the ability to identify cryptocurrencies with solid fundamentals. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies available, which make people overlook the fundamentals, and make investment decisions based on the hype for some reason. There is, however, one thing that can be worse than investing in a project that is more hyped up than it should be, and that is scam projects. There are numerous of Ponzi schemes as well as HYIP’s (high yield investment program) on the current market, though the number of such projects greatly reduced in the past year.

To clarify, a high-yield investment program (or HYIP for short) is a type of Ponzi scheme where investors get promised an unsustainably high return on investment by paying previous investors with the money invested by new investors. Investing in such programs is extremely good until it is not. At some point, these projects simply vanish, keeping all your money as theirs. No matter how appealing the returns sound, no one should invest in such projects.

The most famous Ponzi scheme cryptocurrency market has seen was Bitconnect. This organization promised investors fixed daily returns in return for investing in their project by buying their cryptocurrency. After working for a couple of months and paying people from their new customers, Bitconnect started to generate extreme amounts of hype. People promoted it willingly and were able to make insane returns – on paper. Almost no one managed to pull their funds out of the company before it got shut down in January 2018.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrency investors should watch out as there are many dangers in this unregulated field. There is a potential to make great returns, but to also lose a lot of money. One should be careful and wise when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies, both regarding the size of the investment and the projects they invest in. Don’t be led by hype and other people’s opinions, but rather form your own.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 5 – France and Virgin Islands developing digital currencies, cryptos in the green

We can see a mix of green and red in the crypto market in the past 24 hours. Bulls rallied and attempted a price surge with Bitcoin, which most cryptocurrencies followed. However, bears prevailed, and cryptos stayed in the same place they were a day ago. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 1.83% and is now trading at the price of $7,334. Ethereum managed to gain 0.03% of its value on the day. XRP gained 1.06%.

We can see a mix of green and red in the crypto market in the past 24 hours. Bulls rallied and attempted a price surge with Bitcoin, which most cryptocurrencies followed. However, bears prevailed, and cryptos stayed in the same place they were a day ago. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 1.83% and is now trading at the price of $7,334. Ethereum managed to gain 0.03% of its value on the day. XRP gained 1.06%.

We can see a mix of green and red in the crypto market in the past 24 hours. Bulls rallied and attempted a price surge with Bitcoin, which most cryptocurrencies followed. However, bears prevailed, and cryptos stayed in the same place they were a day ago. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 1.83% and is now trading at the price of $7,334. Ethereum managed to gain 0.03% of its value on the day. XRP gained 1.06%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Enjin Coin, which managed to gain 30.79% on the day. The biggest loser of the day was MINDOL, which lost 33.29% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has increased slightly, as its price increase was that occurred in the market was bigger for Bitcoin. On top of that, Bitcoin kept more of the move than the other cryptos did. Its dominance is currently 66.74%, which represents an increase of 0.31% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market managed to increase in total market capitalization due to the overall slight price increase. Its market cap is sitting at $197.92 billion at the moment of writing. This value represents an increase of around $2.9 billion when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

More and more countries are getting officially interested in cryptocurrency and the concept of digitalization. Even though most of them are talking about digital currencies rather than cryptocurrencies (and the distinction should be made), this is a good sign of crypto acceptance.

A blockchain startup called LIFELabs, along with the British Virgin Islands, is developing a cryptocurrency that will act as a digital currency that will be sovereignly used on the island territory. This digital currency will be a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of the US dollar on a 1:1 ratio.

On top of that, The central bank of France will pilot a central bank digital currency for its financial institutions. This digital Euro pilot would happen in 2020. This news was announced by the governor of the Bank of France.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin had bulls rallying and attempting to break its immediate resistance whole day. At one point, its price moved past the $7,415 resistance and reached $7,780. However, that move did not last long as the bull pressure wasn’t as strong. Bitcoin’s price remains under the key resistance level for the time being. There were a couple of other attempts of breaking the line, but they were far weaker and far less significant.


Bitcoin’s volume increased significantly during the big spike, which brought Bitcoin to $7,780. However, even though we can say that the volume is elevated when compared with yesterday’s volume, it is still on the decline when we look at it in the past 24 hours.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $7,415                                           1: $7,240

2: $8,000                                           2: $7,120

3: $8,425                                           3: $6,620

Ethereum

Ethereum suffers the same fate as Bitcoin does. It managed to fall below its $147 zone, but this bull rally wanted to put the price above it. The price shot to $155 at one point, but could not hold up. This move ended quickly, and Ethereum moved back below the key resistance. Its price is now at the very $147 line, and bulls seem to be quite strong, so we might see another solid attempt of moving upward.


Ethereum’s price is currently in limbo, and its short-term support lines are unknown, but this information might not be as important as the bulls are currently in play.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                             1: $144.5

2: $178.6                                            2: $127

3: $185

Ripple

XRP spent the day rallying its bulls, which resulted in a major attempt to the upside. XRP’s price reached $0.227 but, as with most cryptocurrencies today, fell as the bull pressure wasn’t as strong as it needed to be. Some of the value was preserved, and XRP is currently trading in a range between the 50% and 61.8% Fib retracement green line.


XRP’s volume is elevated when compared to the previous days. Its RSI is slowly gaining momentum to the upside.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.2185                                          1: $0.214

2: $0.222                                            2: 0.209

3: $0.2267                                          3: $0.202

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency fundamental analysis part 1 – Finding Fundamental Sources

https://youtu.be/iqUX1LiRNtw

https://youtu.be/iqUX1LiRNtw

Crypto fundamental analysis part 1 – Finding Sources

Navigating the world of cryptocurrencies can be very difficult for a beginner due to the vast usage of tech jargon, as well as concepts that will almost certainly confuse you. Add to that the relative infancy of the technology, it can be extremely difficult even to find structured resources to learn from.
Importance of doing analysis by yourself
For traditional investments such as stocks, fundamental analysis requires you to evaluate the financial health and viability of a certain company according to its financial statements. If the numbers look good, it can be said with confidence that the company has good fundamentals. However, performing fundamental analysis for cryptocurrencies is quite different in every regard. There are no financial statements to evaluate, and everything has to do with the importance of the technology as well as the acceptance of the general public.


What’s different?

Cryptocurrencies are not companies. They are rather representations of value or assets within a certain network. The viability of a certain cryptocurrency is not based on it generating revenue, but rather directly on the community participation as users, miners, and developers.
The cryptocurrency space is still a young industry, which means that almost all of the cryptocurrencies are in development stages rather than finished products. Due to this, most cryptocurrencies have limited uses cases in the real world. This makes it even harder to perform fundamental analysis.

Fundamental analysis of cryptocurrencies must be performed differently than what’s traditionally done with stocks or other asset classes. It’s more important to engage in research to assess the viability and potential of the coins rather than what they are doing at the moment. A good understanding of a cryptocurrency’s fundamentals allows you to form opinions and stances, which are quite a rare occurrence in the world of cryptocurrencies.

How to find the right information

As an old saying goes: Knowledge is power. To assess a coin, we have to know where to get the information from first. Obtaining information about a cryptocurrency can be done in a couple of different ways:
Reading the whitepaper;
Checking out the cryptocurrency’s channels and blogs;
Checking out the cryptocurrency’s forums.

1. Cryptocurrency’s whitepaper

A whitepaper represents a detailed idea proposed by the development team. It outlines the purpose and mechanics of the cryptocurrency itself. A whitepaper represents the main source of evaluating the fundamentals of the coin. When performing fundamental analysis, you should always read the cryptocurrency’s whitepaper.
One thing that many people find as a drawback is the sheer technicality of the whitepaper itself. You have to understand quite a few concepts, mostly regarding finance and cyber-security, to read through the whitepaper easier.

2. Cryptocurrency’s channels and blogs

Channels and blogs represent the official and main channels of communication between the core development team and the general public. To do the fundamental analysis, you should take time to join a cryptocurrency’s Slack, Telegram, or Discord channel and see what the topics are there. Also, this is the place to ask questions and get more info on the project.
These channels are places where you can track the code updates that affect how a cryptocurrency is developing.

3. Cryptocurrency’s Community Forums

Forums are a great way to understand the cryptocurrency projects as well as the audience that follows it. This way, you can see the sentiments surrounding the project even better. This is also a great place to find simplified definitions of certain concepts as the community is usually well-informed.


The diversity of thoughts and different perspectives are never a bad thing as well, as they allow you to grasp the mechanics of the coin far better. If you’re not familiar with the technical jargon, many cryptocurrency projects have their “ELI5” articles on the forums. These articles try to “Explain it to me like I’m five years old,” which helps people that are not so much into cyber-security and programming in general.
The usual forums to look at would be Reddit, Bitcointalk, and Steemit.

Conclusion

All of the information about cryptocurrency projects is available online, and so are the opinions of other people. However, one should take time and investigate each potential investment by themselves as putting money on the line based on other people’s opinions is not a good investment strategy.

Categories
Forex Videos

Free Forex Course Part 3 of 3 – Into The Hardcore Of Technical Analysis

https://youtu.be/0qdFcQCLD2Q

https://youtu.be/0qdFcQCLD2Q

Into the Hardcore of Technical Analysis – Session three

In this session, we will continue with the moving average, convergence, divergence, or MACD indicator, as seen in example ‘A,’ this time we are looking at a USDJPY chart with a 5-minute time frame.

Example A

We have color-coded our MACD, which consists of a histogram, as denoted by the green and red stripes, which move above and below the 0-axis, which is also known as the centerline. And also two moving averages, which also move above and below 0-axis. Some MACD indicators do not support two MA’s, preferring a single MA, but they are supported in our version. The basic idea is that when the histogram has formed a peak and then moves towards the 0-axis, followed by the two moving averages crossing over and also moving towards the 0-axis, this gives a trader an indication that a pair is about to reserve direction. Traders also use this to gauge convergence and divergence, which also helps them to establish if the market is running out of steam and about to reverse.
In positions 1, 2, and 3, we can see that the moving averages of the MACD mimic, or converge with the 13 and 26 period moving averages around the price action. This is a clear indication that the MACD is in sync and, therefore, reliable at this stage.

Example B


In example ‘B’ of the same chart, we will take a look at divergence in closer detail. At position 1, the price action is moving lower at area ‘a,’ and the MACD histogram is keeping in pace with it at area ‘b.’ Price action then continues to move lower under both sets of moving averages; in itself, an indication of a bearish continuation, and again we see a low at area ‘c’ which coincides with a lower peak on the histogram at area ‘d.’ Everything is working in unison at this stage. However, at position 2, price action begins to flatten out at area ‘e,’ and although this coincides with area ‘f’ on the MACD histogram, the second push lower in price action at area ‘g’ is not matched at area ‘h’ on the histogram. This is now an area of divergence, where the indicators are moving away from one another, and tells traders that the push lower is fading and may be about to reverse. And which it clearly does, subsequently.

Example C


Traders also look for divergence in the moving averages of the price action chart and in MACD, as per example ‘c,’ because they also constantly throw up areas of divergence which traders need to constantly monitor for clues as to trend continuation and slowdowns and reversals.

Example D


Example ‘d’ is another area of divergence that traders keep an eye out for, as we can see in positions 1 and 2, where price action remains above its own set of moving averages, but where the histogram falls below its own moving averages. This can often signal that price action may be about to pull back.

Example E


In example e, we can see that the overall activity of the MACD is above the 0 axis, and this is When studying your charts, keep a keen eye open for areas when the histogram and its MA’s cross above or below the 0-axis, as many traders often use this as a signal to enter the market The MACD is also useful in telling traders about momentum. It does this by depicting how far the histogram and moving averages are away from the 0-axis. The further the distance, the greater the momentum.

Example F


In example ‘f,’ we return to our daily time frame chart of the EURUSD pair. And where we look at another favorite indicator, the Bollinger bands. This indicator is placed over the price chart and consists of a moving average, together with an upper and lower band. These bands are based on a statistical two standard deviations from the mean price. As standard deviations are a measurement of volatility, the bands adjust themselves to volatility in the markets, depending on the current volume.
When markets become more volatile, the bands widen, and when the markets are consolidating or less volatile, the bands begin to contract and move closer to the average price.
It is estimated that over 90% of price action will remain within the Bollinger bands. Therefore traders look for opportunities to go short or long in order to bring the price action back within the Bollinger bands. They are also trying to gauge when price action will begin to pick up, and thus force the bands open and this will result in extra volatility.

Tools that can help a trader to depict reversals in price action to coincide with the Bollinger bands would be momentum indicators, and stochastics, which shows when the market is overbought and oversold. When these tools combine together, they can be very powerful in a trader’s armory,
supportive of the overall trend, which is bullish.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

What Are The Real-Life Applications Of Cryptos?

The word Bitcoin first came to light a decade ago when Satoshi Nakamoto mailed cryptography nerds a technical white paper of what he called the new electronic cash system.” A decade later, it has become a household name, a pioneer in what seems like the next technology-inspired global revolution. The cryptocurrency itself and its anchor blockchain technology are now household names. But questions still abound about what Bitcoin really is and its real-life applications.

The word Bitcoin first came to light a decade ago when Satoshi Nakamoto mailed cryptography nerds a technical white paper of what he called the new electronic cash system.” A decade later, it has become a household name, a pioneer in what seems like the next technology-inspired global revolution. The cryptocurrency itself and its anchor blockchain technology are now household names. But questions still abound about what Bitcoin really is and its real-life applications.

The word Bitcoin first came to light a decade ago when Satoshi Nakamoto mailed cryptography nerds a technical white paper of what he called the new electronic cash system.” A decade later, it has become a household name, a pioneer in what seems like the next technology-inspired global revolution. The cryptocurrency itself and its anchor blockchain technology are now household names. But questions still abound about what Bitcoin really is and its real-life applications.

Chances are you are either familiar with the term Bitcoin or have interacted with this crypto technology at one point. You probably heard the interesting but cautionary tale about a cryptography nerd that paid for two Pizzas with 10,000 BTC just about the time the digital currency was gaining momentum.

Today, one Bitcoin is valued over $7,500, and at one time, it hit the highs of $20,000. The once worthless digital coin has now become a major topic in the global finance arena. Central bank heads and governments are rushing to tame the coin that they consider a threat to the government-controlled currencies. Some like China have banned Bitcoin use within its borders.

Note that while these political and policy challenges have contributed significantly to Bitcoin price volatilities, they have done little to negate its penetration into the global economy. And in this guide, we will be looking at some of the real-life applications of the Bitcoin digital currency. Here are a few:

Purchasing food and property:

You, too, can use bitcoin to pay for Pizza. Unlike in 2010, however, you don’t need 10,000 BTC to pay for it. The massive Bitcoin popularity has seen several fast food companies innovate their payment systems to include Bitcoin. The move has also seen the birth and adoption of the Pizzaforcoin technology that processes Bitcoin and 50 other cryptocurrency payments in the fast foods industry.

The bitcoin revolution has spread way beyond the fast-food industry and into the global eCommerce industry. Here, the ever-increasing number of online shops like Overstock and Microsoft will ship different products and process your Bitcoin payment option. Propy.com – an international real estate company – has started accepting Bitcoin payments whileMyCOINreality.com is also advertising homes that you can purchase using Bitcoins.

Inventive middlemen like Gyft are also making it possible for you to buy from popular eCommerce stores like Amazon and Target that don’t accept Bitcoin payments via the digital currency – albeit indirectly. To achieve this, Gyft helps you convert your bitcoins to gift cards that you can use to shop.

Paying for social and professional services

People around the world are also using bitcoin to pay for social/ entertainment and professional services. One of the online industries most impacted by bitcoin payments is the sports betting and casino industry that has grown tenfold since the launch of bitcoin. The primary driver of the explosive growth witnessed here is the fact that most of these bitcoin processing companies support anonymous betting, deposits, and withdrawals.

Traditional online casinos were highly regulated, taxed, and limited to the nationality of members that they can accept in their casino. Bitcoin casinos don’t report your winnings to the tax authorities, aren’t bound to a specific jurisdiction, and will process registration for individuals from virtually any part of the world.

Interestingly, you can also use Bitcoins to settle payments for different professional services. Lucerne University – a vocational art and science institute – in Sweden was among the first to process bitcoin payments for tuition. Ever since King’s College in New York, Cumbria University in the UK, and the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin have since started accepting Bitcoins. Law firms, hospitals, and accountancy firms have also joined the bandwagon.

Salary payment:

Japan has, on several occasions, and different global platforms been hailed for having the most progressive cryptocurrency laws. Here, bitcoin and a handful of other cryptocurrencies are accepted as a legal property that can be used in place of fiat currencies in monetary transactions throughout the country.

New Zealand would, however, make history as the first country to okay the payment of salaries, goods, and services and adequately regulate the bitcoin taxation process. Here, companies get to pay their employee salaries and goods and services via bitcoin while obeying the different tax laws like the Pay As You Earn (P.A.Y.E) deductions and other withholding taxes.

Alternative to inflation-stricken global currencies:

In Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto saw the solution to all the inherent limitations of the fiat currencies, chief among them inflation. The inflation menace in almost every instance caused by having too much money in circulation, which effectively translates to a loss of the currency’s value. To arrest this and make Bitcoin inflation-proof, Satoshi limited the number of Bitcoins that will ever be created to 21 million coins.

All over the world, failed and failing nations like Zimbabwe and Venezuela have been witnessing cases of hyperinflation that make their currencies worthless. At the peak of inflation in Zimbabwe, for instance, saw the country’s inflation hit over 200 million percent. In Venezuela, inflation towers way above 10 million percent, and nothing seems to work – not even the devaluation of their Bolívar currency. The situation in the country is so dire that residents are using the bolivar notes to makes bags for sale in and outside the country.

In both of these countries, the tech-savvy and much of the elite class have already turned to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of preserving their cash. While the rest of the country turns to the US Dollar and currencies of neighboring countries, this elite class has turned to bitcoin transactions. In Harare, Zimbabwe, for instance, there has been installed several cryptocurrency ATMs for Bitcoin and Litecoin aimed at providing the citizenry with highly reliable and trustworthy financial exchanges.

Sending cash home:

There is a staggering number of expatriates working all over the world. And they all have one common problem – finding a secure, efficient, and cost-effective means of sending cash home. Most avoid banks primarily because of their exorbitant fees, and also due to the heat, most of the institutions turn their way in the form of scrutiny by the host country governments. But they also don’t want to risk their cash by trusting these rather unconventional, unreliable, and equally pricey online payment methods.

Most of these individuals have, therefore, turned to bitcoins. The only time most of these will have to interact with their host country’s financial institutions is when converting their cash to bitcoins. Sending cash home in the form of bitcoins has gained track in recent years because the transfers are free. International bitcoin transfers are also safer and instantaneous, unlike bank transfers that often take as much as five days before the cash reflects on the home country’s bank accounts.

Trade and digital asset investments:

The global perception of Bitcoin and blockchain technology has tremendously improved, as evidenced by favorable bitcoin policies in most economies. However, most of these countries are yet to acknowledge the digital currency as a legal tender. Crypto operations have thus been left on the fringes of unregulated online trade. It, therefore, would be right to say that crypto trade on exchanges accounts for the largest form of crypto application in real life. In most cases, the traders on these platforms seek to exploit the highly volatile nature of digital currencies by profiting from their regular price fluctuations.

When Bitcoin first premiered in these crypto exchanges, it was valued at no more than a few cents. The forces of demand and supply would, however, see it skyrocket and hit $20,000 at its peak in early 2018. Today, one BTC is valued at over $7,500. Either of these figures and valuations represent thousands of percentage value growth in a short ten years.

Investment analysts have gone on to label it the best performing investment product, overtaking the traditionally hailed real estate and money markets. There also is a general feeling that all factors held constant; Bitcoin’s value will continue to soar. This has the in effect, created the next most popular form of real-life application of this coin – Bitcoin investments.

Unlike bitcoin trade, where traders buy the coin with the intent of selling it as soon it reports a small percentage jump in price, investment refers to a long term buy and hold strategy. Bitcoin investors will, in this case, buy and hold on the coin for the longest time with the intention of drawing maximal profits from its long term and consistent value growth.

Pay for travel and accommodation:

Apparently, you can book for your local or international air flight or accommodation and pay with Bitcoins. Travel companies like Cheapair.com make it possible for you to purchase air tickets and make accommodation bookings that you pay with Bitcoins. They will also connect you with cruises, tour guides, and even international cruises that accept bitcoin payments.

Donate to charity:

If you are passionate about charity and would like to donate to charitable courses, you don’t necessarily need to go through the troubles of converting your bitcoins to fiat currencies. The world isn’t short of not-for-profit organizations that accept bitcoin and other crypto donations. The most popular today, include The Water Project that builds clean water solutions in Sub Saharan Africa using pooled funds, Common Collections that donates pooled Bitcoins to refugees and underprivileged global communities, and even Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks that advocates for more transparency from governments and corporations by leaking what they consider classified information.

Buying and selling art

For the longest time, the art industry was dominated by the super-rich, who used art as a store of value. The landscape is, however, changing and transforming into a more welcoming niche where virtually anyone can buy and sell art. But did you know that you can now initiate art transactions using Bitcoin? Companies like Bitpremier.com have already created an online platform that connects art sellers and buyers willing to transact using Bitcoin.

Paying for VPN or domain name:

Different internet companies are also alive to the use of Bitcoin and, therefore, accept bitcoin payments for various services. NameCheap, a domain registration company, will, for instance, let you buy and renew the domain name for your blog or website via bitcoins. And if you are trying to avoid trackers and keep your online activities private, Express VPN lets you subscribe for their premium services with bitcoins.

Pay for monthly bills:

Your post payphone service provider is also keen on digitizing their payment systems. AT&T, for instance, started accepting Bitcoins as a payment method for users seeking to settle their phone bills.

Conclusion

A decade ago, Bitcoin was no more than an idea on a technical white paper that only cryptography nerds could decipher. And when the online community started appreciating its monetary value, 10,000 BTC could only buy two Pizza. Ten years later, it has become the center of attention for financial institutions, governments, and central bank heads that consider it a threat to the traditional banking and financial systems. Countries like China have banned its use within its borders, while others like the United States have resorted to suppressing its influence in the country. However, none of these strategies has stood in the way of bitcoin morphing into a globally accepted digital currency.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 3 – Lightning Network implementation: Main Upgrade on Bitfinex

Bitcoin and the crypto market did not move much in the past 24 hours. However, the overall market did end up gaining some value. Most cryptocurrencies did end up being in the slightly green, but the majority of the moves were not significant. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 0.63% and is now trading at the price of $7,289. Ethereum managed to increase 1.37% on the day. XRP gained 0.36%.

Bitcoin and the crypto market did not move much in the past 24 hours. However, the overall market did end up gaining some value. Most cryptocurrencies did end up being in the slightly green, but the majority of the moves were not significant. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 0.63% and is now trading at the price of $7,289. Ethereum managed to increase 1.37% on the day. XRP gained 0.36%.

Bitcoin and the crypto market did not move much in the past 24 hours. However, the overall market did end up gaining some value. Most cryptocurrencies did end up being in the slightly green, but the majority of the moves were not significant. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went up 0.63% and is now trading at the price of $7,289. Ethereum managed to increase 1.37% on the day. XRP gained 0.36%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Synthetix Network, with a gain of 21.73% on the day. The biggest loser of the day was Silverway, which lost 13.97% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has pretty much stayed on the level it was at the past weekend. Its dominance is currently 65.99%, which represents a drop of 0.1% from yesterday’s value.

The cryptocurrency market is at the same place as yesterday, with a market capitalization of $198.65 billion. This value represents an increase of around $0.75 billion when compared to the value it had before the weekend.

What happened in the past 24 hours

The good news about Bitfinex started circling the news outlets in the past couple of hours. This cryptocurrency exchange revealed the first of two major upgrades it has plans to implement in the short future. The platform’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, announced that the platform would support BTC transactions on the Lightning network. He announced this on twitter on Dec 2.

A move like supporting lightning transactions is a new concept for a major cryptocurrency exchange. However, if everything works as planned, this improvement might be incredible for Bitcoin users. They could benefit from instant transactions and will pay almost zero fees for transactions via Lightning.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

There was not much movement when it comes to Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. The price movements were quite insignificant and the price itself is almost at the same spot it was at when we checked it last time. After breaking its $7,415 support line to the downside, Bitcoin is now trading just below it. This key support has now turned resistance and might be extremely hard to break, especially with this volume.


Bitcoin’s volume is currently lower than where it was during the weekend, as well as when compared to its values from yesterday. As for the RSI value, the line is slowly falling towards oversold levels again. The key level of $7,415 has moved to the upside.

Key levels to the upside Key levels to the downside

1: $7,415 1: $6,620

2: $8,000

3: $8,425

Ethereum

Ethereum also had a pretty uneventful day today. After its struggle to declare its price as above or below the support zone ended during the weekend, everything stabilized Ethereum, which is now consolidating. Its price is now contained within the support zone, which can be seen on the chart, with the immediate resistance of 153.5 and immediate support of 147 being the boundaries.


With Ethereum’s RSI being pretty stable, as we saw no movement from it in the past 24 hours, the volume did end up dropping when compared to yesterday’s value.

Key levels to the upside Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8 1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

Ripple

XRP spent the weekend following Bitcoin in price, which it did today as well. After its rally was not strong enough to break the $0.235 resistance, XRP could not establish any form of immediate support. Its price, however, is responding to the Fibonacci retracements from the small bullish move that started on Nov 25. While these lines are not strong in terms of support and resistance, we can see that Ripple’s price did respond quite well to almost every level of the green Fib retracement.


Key levels to the upside Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235 1: $0.202

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

Breaking Down SegWit – A step by step guide

SegWit is one admittedly complex concept in the blockchain world. Most crypto veterans probably still have no idea what it is or what it’s really about. And for those just

SegWit is one admittedly complex concept in the blockchain world. Most crypto veterans probably still have no idea what it is or what it’s really about. And for those just

SegWit is one admittedly complex concept in the blockchain world. Most crypto veterans probably still have no idea what it is or what it’s really about. And for those just now entering the blockchain sphere – it can be confusing even to begin wrapping your head around it.

Whichever the case, it’s essential to get it right – especially if you’re planning to interact with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin.

The good thing is we help you take care of this in this article. So let’s discover what SegWit is, how it came to be, what it holds for the crypto market place, and more.

What is SegWit?

Segwit is the name given to a Bitcoin protocol upgrade developed in 2015 and implemented in August. 23, 2017. It was designed as a solution to the scalability of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with a similar model, like Litecoin.

Bitcoin confirms a new block every 10 minutes, with each block only able to hold a certain number of transactions. Bitcoin’s block size is only 1MB – and this limits the number of transactions that can be confirmed for every block. As a result, the Bitcoin blockchain only processes an average of about seven transactions per second (TPS). This pales in comparison to other payment systems like Visa and PayPal, which handles 1700 TPS and 193 TPS, respectively.

SegWit’s bright idea is to increase the block size on the blockchain by removing digital signatures from transactions. When certain parts of a transaction are removed, it frees up space for more transaction throughput on the chain.

Segregate here means to separate, and witnesses are the signatures. So, SegWit is shorthand for “segregated witness,” which means to separate signatures from transaction data.

The SegWit idea originated with Bitcoin developer Pieter Wuille and was developed by him together with other developers, resulting in it being implemented as a soft fork in 2017 on the Bitcoin network. This upgrade brought a number of benefits for the blockchain network – including improving transaction speeds and increasing block capacity. It also solves the so-called transaction malleability issue – which we’ll discuss below, right after we deconstruct the ‘soft fork.’

What Is A Soft Fork?

Any software needs updates to improve its functionality or fix performance issues. In the cryptocurrency world, such updates or changes are known as forks.

A soft fork is a blockchain update that doesn’t split the chain into two.

In other words, a soft fork is an upgrade that is backward compatible with the previous software. A soft fork does not need nodes in the network to upgrade so as to follow the same network since all blocks on the ‘new’ blockchain follows the same consensus rules (a set of rules that all nodes usually enforce to validate a block and its transactions). In other words, a soft fork is backward compatible because old nodes will still recognize the new blocks on the upgraded blockchain.

A soft fork requires a majority of miners (nodes) to activate it so that it becomes operational. SegWit is one such type of a soft fork – it’s compatible with the old version of the Bitcoin blockchain.

What is Transaction Malleability, and Why is Fixing it Important?

Transaction malleability is a flaw in Bitcoin’s code that allowed bad actors to potentially change transaction signatures. Changing here means altering the unique ID of every Bitcoin transaction before it’s verified on the network. 

If someone tampers with a transaction signature, it could cause a transaction between two parties to be corrupted. Now, we know records on the Bitcoin blockchain are immutable, i.e., they can never be changed or altered. This resulted in invalid transactions being stored forever on the blockchain.

Signatures are the only way a transactions’ unique ID can be modified. SegWit came along and removed the need for a signature to be on a transaction. Even if someone alters the signature, the unique ID remains the same. The signature will still be checked, but this time not when calculating a transaction’s fingerprint, or identifier.  

SegWit’s Implementation Issues

After SegWit went live, its implementation was anything but immediate. Even today, the protocol is yet to be fully adopted by network participants. This is due to several reasons – including the different motivations of different users on the network. It’s also because it’s not mandatory, and some participants are okay with the original Bitcoin protocol.

Another reason is that there are different participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem playing various roles – so implementation of any new protocol is not exactly automatic. For example, the Bitcoin network relies heavily on wallets in which users will store their private and public addresses.

There are also crypto exchanges and other players in the ecosystem who need to upgrade their systems and hence ‘facilitate’ any changes in the network. For an upgrade to be adopted, all these organizations need to embrace it, and this doesn’t always pan out favorably.

A new software update would change the way transactions are carried out on the network. This might be good news for Bitcoin believers – but not necessarily for corporate interests. Consider, for example, the investment in billions of some of these companies. There is high motivation to maintain the status quo and not ‘rock the boat.’

There is also the question of wallets that were not able to support the protocol immediately. It took a while before some of the most widely used wallets – like Trezor and Wallet, could enable it.

There’s also the issue of miners. SegWit was designed to go live if a supermajority of miners signaled support for it. However, the larger portion of the miner community refused to activate the protocol. This is because SegWit was incompatible with a mining optimization software known as AsicBoost that they were using.

The miners’ refusal led to an interesting showdown. Bitcoin enthusiasts rallied around an idea called User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) – which meant they would activate the protocol on their own Bitcoin nodes if miners did not. The UASF would have split the Bitcoin network into two – one with SegWit and another without. The resulting outcome was not going to be favorable for anyone – which is probably why a few days before the UASF ‘deadline’, miners caved in and activated the protocol.

SegWit’s Adoption Challenges and Current Status

SegWit’s “backward-compatible” status, i.e., ensuring network participants who haven’t upgraded to it can coexist with those who have, means some participants have not been in too much of a hurry to adopt it.

Most Bitcoin-businesses, as well, would rather focus on customer acquisition than implementing not such necessary technologies. Rusty Russell, a blockchain developer at the blockchain company Blockstream, echoed this to the crypto news website Coindesk in 2018. He said that the priority for startups was “optimizing for growth and not implementing cool new tech.”

Implementing SegWit is also quite an involving task – both time-wise and financially. Founder of the crypto exchange Gemini, Tyler Winklevoss owned to this in a Reddit Q&A earlier this year. He said retrofitting wallets to accommodate SegWit was a “very tricky procedure” that required designing “a new hot wallet from the ground up.”

Nevertheless, SegWit has, over time, gained traction, thanks to Bitcoin increasing in value and a subsequent increase in transaction fees. For this, users are more inclined to use efficient, SegWit-enabled solutions. Businesses have noticed this shift and are now being forced to adapt.

For instance, in October of 2019, Bitcoin Segwit had reached usage rates of 56.82%, and Litecoin Segwit had hit 75%. These are encouraging figures that point to increased adoption of the protocol in the future.

Pros of SegWit

Solves the issue of transaction malleability

Facilitates faster transactions on the blockchain since waiting time is reduced 

Makes bitcoin transactions cheaper – faster transactions mean lower transaction fees

Helps Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies achieve better scalability

Reduces the size of each individual transaction 

Helps new and exciting developments like the lightning network

Cons of SegWit

SegWit’s idea relies on eliminating some data off the blockchain. Some Bitcoiners believe keeping data off the blockchain is in itself a failure – like admitting the bitcoin model can’t stand on its ‘own feet.’

Miners now get lesser transaction fees for every individual transaction

SegWit’s implementation is a complex process that wallets have to do on their own. Some may not have enough resources to do it or may not get it right the first time

The implementation means more resources being used overall – owing to the increase in block capacity, transactions, bandwidth, and so on

The off-chain containing signature data will need to be maintained by miners as well. Unlike the blockchain where they get block rewards and a fraction of transaction fees, there is no reward for maintaining SegWit

Some in the Bitcoin community believe it’s a short term fix to a long term problem. They argue that it doesn’t really solve the scalability problem and that only changes to the blockchain size and changing how transactions are processed on the blockchain will really help Bitcoin to scale

The protocol has caused divisions in the Bitcoin community, leading to ‘forking wars,’ with the hard fork Bitcoin Cash resulting out of this

Conclusion

SegWit is a fundamental change to the Bitcoin ecosystem and one that sets the stage for further upgrades down the road. Removing the need to include identifying information on transactions on-chain brings several benefits such as more and faster transactions, fixing the thorny malleable transactions issue, and more.

But despite it being a promising, innovative solution – its adoption has been rather slow. Some people welcome it as an improvement to the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, while others think it highlights Bitcoin’s shortcomings. However, recent statistics show a marked improvement – something encouraging for its proponents. And from the current trend – its adoption looks set to go only forward. Let’s wait for what the future holds for both camps.

Categories
Forex Videos

Free Forex Course Part 1 of 3 – Into The Hardcore Of Technical Analysis

https://youtu.be/KHyT2HUht2Y

 
Into the Hardcore of Technical Analysis
One of the most common mistakes new traders make is to overload their screens with technical indicators. And where they were

https://youtu.be/KHyT2HUht2Y

 
Into the Hardcore of Technical Analysis
One of the most common mistakes new traders make is to overload their screens with technical indicators. And where they were

 

Into the Hardcore of Technical Analysis

One of the most common mistakes new traders make is to overload their screens with technical indicators. And where they were looking for signals, they end up clogging up the screens with indicators. The problem with having too many is that they often send conflicting messages. This means that they cannot see the wood for the trees!.

There are literally dozens of technical indicators available to traders nowadays, including leading and lagging indicators. An example of a lagging indicator would be a moving average, and an example of a leading one would be price action itself. Some indicators tend to identify opportunities in range-bound markets; others identify opportunities in trending markets.

Leading indicators, including price action, work especially well during periods of sideways market movements.

In a sideways moving market, lagging indicators are almost useless because the market has no clear direction. They can often provide random indications. None of these indicators can make valid predictions about future market movements. Because some indicators are lagging – which is to say they show where the market’s historical price action – the higher the time frame, the more laggy the indicator.
When developing a successful trading strategy, it is wise to use a combination of price action and technical analysis. This is because technical analysis does outline some very good statistical observations in the market. As such, price action will often trade very uniquely around technical areas of interest and can reveal indications of future price movements.

 

Example A


In example A, which is a 1-hour time frame of the USDCAD pair, we have a host of information already on the chart as provided by price action in the form of our favored Japanese candlesticks, the blue moving average indicator, and some comments and lines we have drawn onto our chart.
We can see that on the left of the chart, that price action attempted to break above our area of resistance on three occasions. Where we see the ‘triple top’ failed attempt to break above the area of resistance, and where subsequently bulls threw the towel in, and bears gained the stronghold, as denoted by our engulfing bearish candle.
The moving average offered very little guidance during this period of sideways trading activity. However, when price action fails to break through and remain below the support level after a few occasions, price action then starts to trend upwards, and this is where the moving average becomes more useful.
In this chart alone, we have areas of support and resistance, increases in volume, and trend lines, which are all critical components of technical analysis.

Example B


In example B, we return to our chart; however, this time, we have added a momentum indicator which shows the location of the close relative to the high-low range over a set period of time. In this case, the last 14 candles which are displayed on the chart as an average line.

Example C


In example C, we can see that momentum was falling lower when price action hit our triple top area of resistance at position 1. Therefore, the momentum indicator was a red flag for buyers and an opportunity for sellers at this point. When an indicator fails to keep up with price action, such as in this setup, it is known as divergence.

Example D


Example D shows another very widely used indicator: the stochastic oscillator. The basic premise is that when the two moving averages move above the key 80 level, an asset is said to be overbought, and when they move below the key 20 level, an asset is said to be oversold.

Example E


We return to these charts, in example E, where we have cleared away some of the clutter. If we draw a line from position 1 to position 2, we can see that our stochastic has breached the 80-line, showing that price action is overbought, and we see a pullback in price action. At position 3, where our momentum indicator was running out of steam at this point, we also see our stochastic is overbought at position 4, and subsequently, we see price action retreat lower in the form of our engulfing candlestick.

Divergence is also commonly observed when using the stochastic oscillator. We can see that position A to position B is an area of being oversold, and while price action moves higher, it is followed by a sharp move lower at position C. But the overall movement of our stochastics at point D is higher than our low at point B, showing divergence between the indicator and price action and warning traders that bearish price action is running out of steam, and where the subsequent move is higher.
Not every trade is exactly the same, and therefore no matter how many times you use a successful setup, it will not produce winning trades 100% of the time.

Categories
Crypto Guides

What Is Adaptive Scaling In Cryptocurrency & How Is It Achieved?

Introduction
One of the most important motives behind the invention of cryptocurrencies is that they should have the ability to be an alternative financial system. That is, we, the users

Introduction
One of the most important motives behind the invention of cryptocurrencies is that they should have the ability to be an alternative financial system. That is, we, the users

Introduction

One of the most important motives behind the invention of cryptocurrencies is that they should have the ability to be an alternative financial system. That is, we, the users, should be able to use them just like how the fiat currencies are being used today, but with many more features and ease. While this thought is very ambitious, the journey has already begun with Bitcoin. The total market capitalization of all the cryptocurrencies combined is around $200 BN as of Dec 2019. 66.4% of this comes from Bitcoin alone.

No matter how many cryptocurrencies have come, the craze for Bitcoin didn’t decrease. As this craze was not anticipated during the inception of Bitcoin, the network had to endure scaling issues, i.e., the number of transactions processed per second. New age cryptos are handling scaling issues by incorporating advanced consensus algorithms. But the Bitcoin network wants to stick to the POW as 18 million Bitcoins are already mined out of the permissible 21 million.

Hence it is essential to make some changes to the Bitcoin network to increase its scalability. In this article, let’s see a couple of techniques that have been incorporated in the Bitcoin network to tackle this issue.

SegWit

SegWit stands for the segregation of witnesses. It is a protocol upgrade that changes the way data is stored in the blockchain network. SegWit was first implemented in Litecoin in May 2017, and later, very shortly, it is also implemented in the Bitcoin network by August 2017. Although the primary intention of this protocol is to fix a bug, the side benefit has taken much more significant importance. When the Bitcoin network started, each block size was limited to only 1 MB. As a result, only seven transactions were processed per second, which limits the potential of Bitcoin in the day to day transactions.

The signatures alone occupy 70% of this 1 MB data in the block. Hence it was proposed to eliminate the signature in the block and increase the number of transactions. By doing this, the number of transactions processed per second is increased while keeping the block size constant. This upgrade also enabled technologists to develop a second layer on the Bitcoin network, which allows smart contract functionality. It is named as the lightning network; let’s understand this concept in detail.

Lightning Network

Lightning network is essentially a system of smart contracts built as a second layer on top of the Bitcoin network. This network allows people to send/receive payments instantaneously with way lower transaction fees by keeping them off the main network.

Working

First and foremost, a payment channel must be set up using a multi-signature wallet. All the involved parties can access this wallet with their respective Private keys. The wallet address is then saved in the public blockchain network. The corresponding parties can make Bitcoin deposits to this wallet.

Once this is done, the parties involved can conduct an unlimited number of transactions without ever touching the main blockchain network. Every time the parties involved conduct a transaction, the balance sheet gets updated with the amounts each party holding.

Though the block size of the Bitcoin network has been increased to further cope up with the scaling issues, these were the two most favorable measures taken at the time when needed to make Bitcoin desirable for day to day transactions. We hope you understood the concept of adaptive scaling in a blockchain network. Stay tuned for more interesting crypto content. Cheers!

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Dec 2 – Bitcoin declines over the weekend, alts follow

The cryptocurrency market did not have a particularly interesting weekend. While the prices did not move significantly, the price drop that occurred managed to put some cryptos under their support

The cryptocurrency market did not have a particularly interesting weekend. While the prices did not move significantly, the price drop that occurred managed to put some cryptos under their support

The cryptocurrency market did not have a particularly interesting weekend. While the prices did not move significantly, the price drop that occurred managed to put some cryptos under their support lines. Most cryptocurrencies did end up being in the slight red. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down 0.43% and is now trading at the price of $7,252. Ethereum was in the slightly green, gaining 0.09% on the day. XRP lost 0.07%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is VeChain, with a gain of 22.52% on the day. The biggest loser of the day was Synthetix Network, which lost 13.07% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has pretty much stayed on the level it was at the past weekend. Its dominance is currently 66.09%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $197.90 billion, which represents a decrease of around $6.2 billion when compared to the value it had before the weekend.

What happened in the past 24 hours

The weekend passed without any big news that could shake the market and push it either way. However, the crypto industry is never without any news.

A man was named Virgil Griffith was arrested and accused of delivering information on using crypto and blockchain technology to North Korea, therefor helping them evade sanctions. He was arrested on Thursday at the Los Angeles International Airport. Griffith was set to appear in federal court on Friday, where more information on the topic will be uncovered.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin has had a slight price drop over the weekend. However, that slight drop was not insignificant. Bitcoin broke its $7,415 support line and is now trading just below it. This key support has now turned resistance.


Bitcoin’s volume is currently lower than where it was at during the weekend. As for the RSI value, the line is slowly falling towards oversold levels again. The key level of $7,415 has moved to the upside.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $7,415                                           1: $6,620

2: $8,000

3: $8,425                                

Ethereum

Ethereum’s struggle to declare its price as above or below the support zone ended during the weekend. The price followed Bitcoin and went down, but stayed contained within the support zone. The top of the zone now acts as resistance while the bottom acts as support.


With Ethereum’s RSI being pretty stable as well as a bit lower volume, Ethereum seems like its price will be staying within those bounds for some time.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

XRP spent the weekend following Bitcoin in price. After failing to break its $0.235 resistance, which would be good key support, XRP started dropping in price. It did not establish any immediate support lines, and even though it looks quite stable at the moment, it is in limbo as its first key support level is $0.202. As it seems that XRP will not reach $0.235 anytime soon, it will have to find support at lower prices or create some form of support at levels near where it currently is.


Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                           1:  $0.202

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

Is The Lightning Network Bitcoin’s Cure-All?

Scalability was always a thorny issue for Bitcoin since day one. When Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the cryptocurrency, the very first comment by James MacDonald featured this comment “We very

Scalability was always a thorny issue for Bitcoin since day one. When Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the cryptocurrency, the very first comment by James MacDonald featured this comment “We very

Scalability was always a thorny issue for Bitcoin since day one. When Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the cryptocurrency, the very first comment by James MacDonald featured this comment “We very much need such a system, but it does not seem to scale to the required size.” A decade later, scalability is a concern that the Bitcoin and other mainstream cryptocurrencies have to grapple with.

What exactly is scalability? Well, Bitcoin has only ever been capable of processing an average of 7 transactions per second (TPS). This was okay at the beginning, but as the cryptocurrency gained more use and acceptance, congestion on the network increased. As a result, transactions took longer to be processed, and transaction fees went up.

If Bitcoin has any hopes of becoming a fully viable alternative to current payment systems – let alone the ‘world’s currency’ – as many Bitcoin believers envision, it will need to solve the current salability issues it faces.

To put this into perspective, compare Bitcoin’s current meager 7 TPS and Visa’s average of 1700. In the face of this dismal scalability potential for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency’s enthusiasts have been hard at work reimagining the system and how it can be improved. There is one proposal that has caught the attention of the Bitcoin community and one which holds potential. This is the Lightning Network.

What is the Lightning Network?

The Lightning Network (LN) is based on this premise: there’s really no need to record every single transaction on the blockchain. As such, LN is a second layer technology on Bitcoin’s blockchain that allows two users to use a micropayment channel between each other – with the hopes to scale Bitcoin’s transaction processing.

By removing transactions from the main blockchain, LN is expected to remove the backlog of transactions and reduce or get rid of transaction fees altogether. It will drastically speed up transactions, positioning Bitcoin for everyday use.

How Does the Lightning Network Work?

The Lightning Network comprises an off-chain layer on Bitcoin’s blockchain. It features multiple payment channels that allow two parties to open a payment channel and conduct transactions between them. Two users can open a payment channel that will allow them to shift funds back and forth between their wallets.

These transactions are processed differently from the standard transactions on the main blockchain, being only updated there once the two parties open and close a channel.

To open a payment channel, the two users need to set up a multi-signature wallet and deposit some funds into it. This is the first transaction, and it’s called the funding transaction. Funds stored in the multi-signature wallet can only be accessed upon both (or more) parties providing their private keys. This means a party can only access and/or spend the funds with the consent of the other.  

The two users can conduct unlimited transactions between themselves without having to let in the main blockchain on their activities. This approach considerably scales up transactions’ speed since they don’t need to be approved by all nodes on the blockchain network.

The private channels between parties combine to form a web of lightning nodes that can channel activity among themselves. This web, or network, is the Lightning network.

The ingenuity of the Lightning Network is that once it achieves mainstream acceptance, users will not have to open a new channel to interact with others. They will be able to transact with ‘new’ users via existing channels – that is, channels with users with whom they already have a relationship. The network will execute this by automatically finding the shortest path.

Finally, the Lightning Network is being tested for another exciting feature – the ability to conduct cross-chain transactions of crypto swaps – that is, being able to exchange one crypto to another. This may render crypto exchanges – as we know them, obsolete.

Will You Pay Fees for Using the Lightning Network?

Yes, users will be required to pay fees on the Lightning Network. The fees will comprise routing charges for routing transaction details between lightning nodes, plus Bitcoin’s transaction fees to open and close payment channels.

At the moment, there are zero fees on the network owing to very few lightning nodes. However, if the project succeeds, charges are set to increase, but only slightly. In any case, if the fees became too expensive, a user has the option to move back to the main blockchain.

Implementations of the Lightning Network

The concept of LN was first proposed by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015. Currently, there are four major teams developing the concept.

Each is operating on the BOLT specification – which allows them to connect with each other as a unified network rather than separate groups competing with each other. The BOLT specification has been developed by the blockchain technology companies Block stream, ACINQ, and Lightning Labs – to allow each company’s products to interact with the others. These are the implementations and groups behind LN’s current exploration:

1. C-Lightning

C-Lightning is being developed by Blockstream. It’s coded in the C programming language and is created to only operate on Linux, with the possibility to run on Mac if you modify some coding and parameters.

This implementation supports lightweight nodes that you can run from the computer chip Raspberry Pi, allowing you to connect with other users without necessarily being online. As such, people can more conveniently adopt and contribute to the LN.

C-Lightning also features a wallet that lets you manage funds, whether online or offline.

Another exciting feature of C-Lightning is you can transact anonymously over the TOR network, so you don’t have to worry about privacy issues.

2. Éclair

Éclair is being developed by ACINQ, a French company. It’s very much like C-Lightning, with the only differences being in the coding and user interface. You can operate Éclair on Windows and also with the Raspberry Pi acting as the network node.

Éclair also has a mobile wallet for Android that you can use as a regular Bitcoin wallet and the Lightning Network for cheap and instant transactions. However, it’s advisable to not send large amounts of crypto on the wallet as its development, just like the Lightning Network, is yet to go mainstream.

Éclair is also compatible with C-lightning and Ind, another LN implementation that we’ll look at next. This means users can connect with another user(s) on either network.

3. Lightning Network Daemon (LND)

LND is under development by Lightning Labs. It’s written in the Golang programming language and can run on Linux and Windows. It’s compatible with both C-Lightning and Éclair as well as the Litecoin Lightning Network.

LND also features a desktop wallet that allows users to open a payment channel and shift funds between each other.

4.Lit

Lit is being developed by the Massachusetts University of Technology under their Digital Currency Initiative. Lit functions fairly the same as the other LN implementations, except it’s designed to support all SegWit coins as well, including those that may be developed in the future.

However, Lit does not support interoperability with the other LN implementations since it supports more coins than indicated by the BOLT specification.

MIT is currently developing a solution known as LitBox that will allow users to conduct transactions without needing to be connected to the internet.

Lit is also currently developing a multi-hop routing channel, the lack of which has made it lag behind other LN implementations. Since Lit is being developed by a small, non-commercial-driven team, its progress is slow, and at the moment, it has little real-world utility.

Benefits of the Lightning Network ;

The Lightning Network is still actively in development. The concept looks great on paper, but whether it will work as envisioned remains speculative at this point. If the network were to succeed, Bitcoin users can expect several upsides coming with it. Here are some of them:

Faster transaction speed. You can expect transactions to be much faster, thanks to the elimination of the need for validation of all nodes in the network. Also, this will be a massive step for cryptocurrencies’ ability to compete with the current financial set up in payment processing.

Transaction fees. LN developers and enthusiasts are banking on the network to contribute to the reduction or elimination of transaction fees, as transactions will be chiefly taking place outside of the main blockchain.

LN may prove suitable for micropayments – like paying for coffee, drinks, shopping, and so on. This is because it has an ideal environ for the transfer of small currency values. Also, it will allow for transactions to take place between devices without the need for human intervention, which reduces error and saves time.

Scalability. This is the most anticipated solution of the LN – which is touted to potentially facilitate at least 1 million transactions per second.

Atomic swaps. Provided that two blockchains feature the same cryptographic hash function (and most do), users will be able to send funds from one blockchain to another without the need for an intermediary. This is not just cheaper, but faster.

Security and Anonymity. The LN technology might be the thing to finally bring true anonymity to cryptocurrency. The majority of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin itself, are pseudonymous – meaning you can conduct transactions without revealing your identity, but transactions can still be traced back to you. LN will enable transactions to take place off-chain, making them impossible to trace.

Problems with the Lightning Network

The lightning network is a technology that’s still being explored. As such, it still experiencing ‘teething’ problems. The following are some of them.

Lightning networks are meant to be decentralized, like the blockchains, they aim to improve. However, they could instead lead to a centralized network that characterizes the traditional banking system in which banks and other financial organizations regulate transactions. Influential businesses will have more open connections than other users, resulting in their lightning nodes being centralized hubs on the network. And failure at such a hub could feasibly crash the network.

LN does not really solve the transaction fee problem. Bitcoin fees will undoubtedly rise in the future, Lightning Network or not. If these fees increase, LN will be rendered obsolete as it would become cheaper to transact on the main blockchain. Thaddeus Dryja admits as much: “Bitcoin’s transaction fees could go up again and hinder the lightning network’s adoption among merchants.”

Lightning network nodes are required to be connected to the internet at all times to facilitate transactions. This renders them vulnerable to hacks and thefts. Also, offline storage, which is the safest for cryptocurrencies, is not possible on a lightning network.

Going offline would present a new set of problems for the Lightning Network, like the Fraudulent Channel Close. The fraudulent channel close means one party could easily close a payment channel and take crypto funds for themselves when the other is away. Although there’s a given window of time when the other party could contest the closing of a channel, it could expire if either party is offline too long.

The “centralized” inclination of the lightning network means funds are concentrated in specific nodes within the network. In a scenario when such a node went offline, it could lead to a downtime of the entire network, cutting off user’s access to their funds.

To open and close a payment channel, you need to do so on the main Bitcoin blockchain. This requires manual work and yet more fees.

When is the Lightning Network Coming?

The cryptoverse is eagerly awaiting this groundbreaking technology to fully come into form. It’s worth noting the concept targeted Bitcoin at first, but it’s currently being explored for more cryptocurrencies, including Zcash, Litecoin, Stellar, Ether, Ripple, and more.

So far, Bitcoin has been tested on Éclair and LND networks with success. It’s also a good sign that the Lightning Network’s specifications have been published. This means developers can apply the rules and implement LN in their preferred programming languages.

Still, the technology is very much in its nascent stages. As of now, the average user cannot really send and receive payments via the network. Moreover, the implementations are still being dogged by bugs – leading developers to warn users not to send real money over the network – yet.

It’s important to note that the technology’s code is very complex and requires rigorous proofing. If the Bitcoin community, and indeed the whole world, is to adopt the technology, it must prove to be safe, reliable, and a veritable upgrade from the blockchain.

Currently, there is no official launch date for the Lightning Network, with each implementation taking a different approach. With that, experts predict that the network may take from several months to two years before going live.

Conclusion

The Lightning Network sounds exciting. It has the potential to improve Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market as we know it. Think instant payments, anonymity, and reduced fees – LN could herald a new beginning for the crypto ecosystem.

However, Bitcoin and crypto fans have a while to wait before the technology can really live up to its promise. It also remains to be seen whether it will live to the promise, to begin with. We can only wait to see what exciting developments and updates the implementations have in store.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Statistical Arbitrage In Cryptocurrencies – How To Profit!

https://youtu.be/-3TfzFT4Vj8

 
Statistical Arbitrage in Cryptocurrencies
Statistical Arbitrage is a specific approach to trading many major quantitative hedge funds use at the moment. It was pioneered by Morgan Stanley

https://youtu.be/-3TfzFT4Vj8

 
Statistical Arbitrage in Cryptocurrencies
Statistical Arbitrage is a specific approach to trading many major quantitative hedge funds use at the moment. It was pioneered by Morgan Stanley

 

Statistical Arbitrage in Cryptocurrencies

Statistical Arbitrage is a specific approach to trading many major quantitative hedge funds use at the moment. It was pioneered by Morgan Stanley, one of the biggest investment banks during the 1980s, and it is still improving. Statistical Arbitrage is a trading strategy approach that uses mean-reversion models. This trading strategy is almost exclusively used for short-term financial decisions and not for regular investing. Assets are being kept in this portfolio anywhere from a few seconds to a few days.
Statistical Arbitrage strategies are supported by many mathematical, computational, and trading platforms that help with their usage. These strategies are heavily quantitative by nature. They involve data mining, statistical methods, as well as the use of automated trading systems, better known as bots.


How Statistical Arbitrage came to be

The most basic form of Statistical Arbitrage is trading two assets, and it’s a type of strategy which exploits a relationship between the mispricing of the assets involved.
The Statistical Arbitrage model was first tested by pairing up two stocks in the same field. When one stock outperforms the other, the underperforming stock is bought while the outperforming stock is sold. This strategy tries to maximize profit potential while minimizing risk. The whole premise was that the underperforming stock would rise in value and catch up with the outperforming stock, therefore making a profit while doing so.
Statistical Arbitrage Requirements
For this model to work, the paired assets are required to have a high correlation, cointegration, or any other common factor characteristics. To find asset pairs that work together, people have used various statistical tools and methods.

Cointegration in Statistical Arbitrage

A popular way to mathematically model a mean-reverting relationship between two assets is to use cointegration. Michael Patrick Murray explained cointegration in a funny and relatable way in his paper, “A drunk and her dog.”
A drunk person walks out of a bar at 4 AM. His path would be quite random, or at least highly unpredictable. We could say the same about a path taken by a dog roaming around without a leash. However, let’s see what happens if the dunk person walks the dog around in the park. In this scenario, the randomness of their path does not change, but their cointegration does. The dog and the human will stay within a certain distance of each other, no matter how random their path is. The dog might wander off at some point, but will eventually return towards its owner once its name is called.
In this scenario, the path of the dog and the drunk person are clearly cointegrated.
Statistical Arbitrage in Cryptocurrencies
When taking cryptocurrencies into consideration, a few examples of how simple Statistical Arbitrage could be used in the cryptocurrency market come to mind:


Ethereum and Ethereum Classic – Ethereum Classic is a semi-recent fork of Ethereum, which by itself makes these two cryptocurrencies extremely correlated as they fight for the same market. Aside from recent Ethereum upgrades, Ethereum Classic is basically a version of Ethereum that forked off because the founding community did not agree on the decision to roll back the blockchain to refund the victims of the DAO hack.

Tron and EOS – Tron and EOS are direct competitors as well as for cryptocurrencies with a fairly large market capitalization, which means they might be correlated in some way. Both of these projects launched their main-nets around the same time as well as turned their tokens away from the ERC-20 standard so they could have a blockchain of their own.
Monero and Zcash – Monero and ZCash are currently the most popular privacy coins (excluding Dash, which is not fully a privacy coin as it has the option to bet completely transparent). Both of these cryptocurrencies target the same market (people interested in anonymous transactions), and both are considered to have top-of-the-chain privacy features. None of these two cryptocurrencies had an ICO, which is another thing that puts them into the same category.

Conclusion

Statistical arbitrage can certainly be another potentially profitable trading strategy when trading cryptocurrencies. People that like to look at things from a more fundamental perspective while still trading assets in the short-term would find this strategy quite useful.

Categories
Crypto Videos

How To Find Your Lost Cryptocurrencies – Recover Lost Or Stolen Crypto

 

How to Find your Lost Cryptocurrencies

 

The cryptocurrency industry has been a place where cases of theft and fraud, lost coins and lost private keys are a daily occurrence. A new breed of business is taking shape in the virtual cryptocurrency world because of these factors. Individuals, as well as companies, are trying to re-obtain such lost coins, private keys, and forgotten passwords.

Where do cryptocurrencies get lost?

Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm based in New York City, reports that around 20% of all Bitcoin is now missing. The most common issue that leads to lost crypto is the individuals losing access to their cryptocurrency wallets by merely forgetting the seed.
Since cryptocurrencies work in a decentralized ecosystem, there is no central authority that can re-issue the key to the original crypto owners. It is the sole responsibility of the individual to keep their private key safe and secure. Most individuals tend to forget or misplace this private key, rendering their wallets inaccessible.
There are, of course, other cases of lost cryptocurrencies that are attributed to scams, hacks, and thefts.

Who are the cryptocurrency hunters?

With so much Bitcoin being lost over the years, a new breed of digital entities and individuals, called crypto hunters, is emerging to help with recovering the lost and stolen wallet keys. These crypto hunters work with both cryptocurrency holders as well as the law enforcement agencies to search and rescue these assets.
Crypto hunters resort to anything and everything at their disposal to accomplish the task. That includes the use of modern supercomputers to attempt cracking private keys or even using mental practices such as hypnotherapy on the wallet holders to help them remember their lost cryptocurrency wallet private key.

Crypto hunters that offer their services online typically require only the basic details such as the last remembered private key as well as some basic private information. A few technology enthusiasts are even attempting to do the do-it-yourself (DIY) approach, making programs that test tens of millions of password combinations.
Crypto hunters also offer their services to track down the cryptocurrency thieves and scammers. They work with law agencies to identify where the stolen coins may have been transferred and to find out who did the transfers.

How much do crypto hunters charge?

The majority of such crypto hunting services charge their fees in cryptocurrencies. Prices vary greatly and depend on the success rate. Both computer-based recovery service providers and crypto-hypnotists charge an upfront fixed cost as well as a percentage of the recovered funds. This percentage usually varies from 5 to 10 percent.


Conclusion

While a lot of online services claim to offer help in recovering lost crypto funds for a fee, care should be taken to ensure that one deals with an authentic crypto hunter that is knowledgeable enough to perform the task. The process of re-obtaining the funds usually requires revealing a few key details to the service providers, which may cause misuse of the details. It is advisable to deal with only those crypto hunters that operate in the real-world with verified identity, rather than trusting the flashing ads in the online world full of scammers with no verified identity.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 29 –

The cryptocurrency market spent the past 24 hours in consolidation. Most cryptocurrencies did end up slightly in the red, but there were no significant moves that could be noticed. If

The cryptocurrency market spent the past 24 hours in consolidation. Most cryptocurrencies did end up slightly in the red, but there were no significant moves that could be noticed. If

The cryptocurrency market spent the past 24 hours in consolidation. Most cryptocurrencies did end up slightly in the red, but there were no significant moves that could be noticed. If we take a look at today’s prices, Bitcoin went down 0.46%, and it is now trading at $7,488. Ethereum lost 0.83%, while XRP went up 0.02%.

 

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Algorand, with a gain of 22.92% on the day. The biggest losers of the day were Silverway and Bytecoin, which lost 9.95% and 8.99% of their value, respectively.

Bitcoin’s dominance has pretty much stayed on yesterday’s level as the whole market consolidated. Its dominance is currently 66.32%, which represents a decrease of 0.2% when compared to the value it had 24 hours ago.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $204.14 billion, which is pretty much in the same place when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

The federal parliament of Germany made a bill draft that would allow banks to deal with cryptocurrency. The banks would be able to become custodians and merchants of crypto in 2020 if this bill passes.

This move could represent a grand milestone when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption. When we look at it from a theoretical perspective, this would make cryptocurrency as liquid as cash in Germany.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin has entered another consolidation phase after the move up it had the day before. After the bulls pushed Bitcoin above $7,415, it pretty much stayed at the price level.


Bitcoin’s volume dropped when compared to yesterday’s values, while RSI stayed on the same level.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1:  $8,000                                          1: $7,415

2: $8,425                                           2: $6,620

3: $8,640                                

Ethereum

Ethereum’s struggle to declare its price to be above or below the support top-line continues.  Ethereum held almost all of its gains from the price increase but did not manage to form any stable immediate support level as Bitcoin did. That being said, Ethereum has many key levels, so there will be no problems for it to form a support level when the time comes.


Ethereum’s RSI is now approaching overbought territory, while its volume has decreased heavily after the move has ended. Today’s volume is almost at the same levels it was yesterday.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

XRP spent the past 24 hours slowly approaching its immediate resistance line in attempts to pass it and form a support line there. As there are no clear, immediate support levels below $0.235, XRP seems to be reaching above this key level so it could form support around it.


XRP’s RSI is slowly increasing while its volume is declining slightly.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                           1:  $0.202

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

NANO vs. BAT: The coins to watch in 2019 and beyond

Are you considering investing in cryptocurrencies? Read on to understand just why NANO and BAT should form part of your portfolio.

The meteoric rise of digital assets over the past

Are you considering investing in cryptocurrencies? Read on to understand just why NANO and BAT should form part of your portfolio.

The meteoric rise of digital assets over the past

Are you considering investing in cryptocurrencies? Read on to understand just why NANO and BAT should form part of your portfolio.

The meteoric rise of digital assets over the past couple of years has often revolved around the top cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, LiteCoin, Dash, etc. With thousands of other cryptocurrencies still trading in the market today, you would be ill-advised to think only the most popular coins that you already know about the matter.

The best thing about the creation of tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies when blockchain technology was at its peak, was the variety. Almost every asset that reached the market brought unique features, offered differing options to users and investors, and aimed to dominate the blockchain space by making the world a better place. While not every crypto asset made it this far, in this post, we will be comparing two of the most promising tokens for investment in 2019 and beyond.

Why NANO and BAT stand out

Nano and BAT are relatively comparable by market cap. At the time of writing of this report, Nano was priced at $0.909 with a market cap of $121.16 Million and a supply of 133.25 Million while BAT was priced at $0.266 with a market cap of $361.00 Million and supply of 1.36 Billion. However, from a utility perspective, the two assets vary significantly because they were both created to serve fundamentally different purposes in the market.

If you are looking to find the better of the two tokens – perhaps one that best suits your investment profile, you have come to the right place. In this post, we will compare the two assets based on what each brings to the market, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the investment opportunities each has to offer. 

Both Nano and BAT have stood strong even in the face of a massive cryptocurrency wipeout that began in early 2018 and killed over 70 percent of all the cryptocurrencies that once traded in the global market. Given that the two have commendable technical specifications and strong development teams and present impressive utility to users, they both offer great investment opportunities.

The basics of Basic Attention Token (BAT)

The world today is run by advertisers. Look at Google. Facebook, too, while it sells itself as a social platform, it mines people’s data to stay rich. Basic Attention Utility, or simply BAT, is a token that was created as a genuine utility to deal with the ills that individuals and businesses in the world of digital advertising have to put up with today.

The creators of this cryptocurrency were inspired by the need to address numerous problems that plague both consumers and publishers in the industry. The biggest of these issues being the economics and organizational dynamics imbalance that benefits only a few players in the industry at the expense of many stakeholders.

In what the creators of BAT call “electronic pollution” in their Whitepaper, individuals are subjected to unnecessary inconvenience and high costs whenever they attempt to make any headway in the digital advertising arena. These inconveniences and costs often come in the form of high data costs, long load times of content, device battery drainage, privacy breaches, and malvertisements (ads that spread malware to users).

Mobile users, in particular, are the worst hit by electronic pollution served by the corporations dominating the advertising space. As user privacy continues to become a major issue of discussion, advertisers are relentlessly pushing the envelope coming up with shrewd ways to harvest user data and often use it against them. Cases of user data and device batteries drained by ads have been so prevalent in the past that many users have resorted to using ad-blocking software.

How BAT works

When users are so fed up with ads that they resort to blocking them, it hurts the publishers, gives the industry a bad name, and prevents legitimate advertisers from generating income even from the remaining ad-viewing users. Before the launch of BAT, the creators of this ad-focused token first created the Brave browser that is open-source and focused on user privacy. It was designed to block off invasive ads and browser trackers as well as accurately measure the user’s attention anonymously in an effort to reward publishers and users what they truly deserve.

The BAT token came soon after the Brave browser, and it runs on the Ethereum blockchain platform. Derived from the user’s attention or ‘mental engagement,’ it makes the users just “targets” for advertisers, but also active players in the advertising and publishing economy by granting them access to a portion of the advertising budget in BAT. Users can purchase content for their friends and even donate to publishers and content providers using BAT. This is how BAT has been able to promote an equitable and fair exchange of value.

Why BAT?

The BAT price has shot up by 150% from its lowest in December 2018 to its current 0.2616. It has never been able to get back to its peak price of $0.86, attained in January 2018. The token’s current market cap is $365 million, with a $65.90 million trading volume as of November 18, 2019. This places it at the 29th spot in the cryptocurrency market.

BAT is most attractive to investors and users who value online content or understand the stakes in the digital advertising world. These are:

☑️ Advertisers: The BAT incentivizes advertisers to integrate the coin in their list of ads. This enables them to receive specific data and a range of analytics regarding their ads and the users they target. Since users’ systems are equipped with attention measurement tools and machine learning algorithms that extract clear and precise advertising and content data, advertisers get deep insights into how their ads are doing and what they need to do to get better returns.

☑️ Publishers: Content creators and publishers are hugely incentivized to create content of greater value, and to expand their publishing platforms to reach wider audiences and earn more. Better still, publishers and advertisers get accurate user feedback when they hand-pick ads they like to see or are relevant to them. Some of the top publishers who currently accept BAT and work with its platform tools are Vimeo, Vice, and The Washington Post.

☑️ Users: If you would like to hop on to the BAT wagon, you can download and use the Brave Browser. You can then interact with the platform and use BAT tokens in a give-to-receive scheme. When you view ads, you get compensated with a certain amount of BAT tokens for your time. You can accumulate and choose what to do with these tokens – from making payments to gifting publishers.

What is Nano?

Unlike BAT that runs on the Ethereum blockchain platform, Nano is a standalone cryptocurrency. It was developed as an alternative to fiat currencies and to bring crypto into the daily lives of ordinary people. However, unlike Bitcoin, Nano is designed to carry out transactions much faster with a more seamless, faster, and flexible Direct Acrylic Graph (DAG) platform.

Nano was launched as RailBlocks (XRB) in December 2014 and is defined as a ‘trustless, feeless, and low latency’ crypto token developed especially to deal with various issues that have held the cryptocurrency industry back, primarily the weaknesses plaguing Bitcoin. Yes, it is accurate to say that the Nano was created as an antidote to the blockchain platform in general, and Bitcoin specifically.

One of the main reasons why many crypto investment reviewers consider Nano a good investment is what happened after the 2018 crypto crash. This was a result of many factors, but many governments banning cryptocurrencies was one of the greatest contributors. The crash was the biggest and first-ever ‘filter’ of the cryptocurrency market that filtered out the chaff from the grains.

This was a strange time when the prices of digital assets massively inflated across the board and then suddenly crashed. While many cryptos did not recover after this, the Nano recovered, and by September of 2018, its price had stabilized. To this moment, the coin is in a good position, gradually growing and showing signs of maintaining it.

How the Nano works

The Nano works using a very simple principle: It stores the data of incoming and outgoing transactions in individual designated blocks of an account, a kind of personal blockchain for the account holder. The main advantage of this setup is that the account balance is securely, quickly and conveniently updated after each transaction. The network does very little work in the process, and this explains why this platform runs smoothly and uses minimal power to process transactions.

The general concept of the Nano cryptocurrency is focus on scalability. The underlying layer that provides security for the platform comes second. The team that developed it succeeded in all fronts – necessitating fee-less transactions while providing all the benefits that dominant cryptos such as Bitcoin have to offer.

To make their coin a better alternative to Bitcoin, the creators of Nano designed it to use a hybrid consensus that combines Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithms. This combination is aptly named ‘delegated Proof-of-Stake, and it solves three of Bitcoin’s biggest problems in the following ways:

☑️ Nano is scalable: Bitcoin’s biggest problem is that it is very limited and not scalable. Each block in its chain is limited to holding 1 megabyte of data, and one block of transactions can be mined only once every 10 minutes. This limits the Bitcoin network’s speed to a maximum of 7 transactions per second.

☑️ Low latency: The average confirmation time for a transaction on the Bitcoin network is 164 minutes! Nano uses novel architecture dubbed ‘block-lattice,’ which assigns every individual their own blockchain or ‘account-chain’ rather than just a single chain for all transactions on the platform.

☑️ Power efficiency: One of the excuses that some governments use to restrict and even outrightly ban Bitcoin is the fact that mining it uses a lot of electricity. The latest statistics show that the Bitcoin network uses approximately 79.79 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power every year. The Nano platform promises to solve this power problem as it is more power-efficient compared to the blockchain network.

Nano Performance

Nano boasts of a market cap of 122 million and a unit price of $0.919 as of November 18th, 2019. Its trading volume of 3 million and availability supply of 133 million places it on the 45th slot on the global cryptocurrency ranking, way below that of BAT.

The most attractive feature that Nano presents is its development team, which has proven its commitment to creating a project that will save cryptocurrencies even from governments. The team is constantly engaging the cypherpunk community and has previously been described to be “notoriously active” and “very communicative with the community – both on the Telegram and Discord channels,” according to the Cryptorated magazine. 

In summation…

If you are looking to invest in an asset that has demonstrated that the future of payments is crypto, and addresses the core issues that even Bitcoin is still grappling with, then Nano is your go-to asset. The trying times of early cryptos and cryptocurrencies crash of 2018 were the most trying time for both BAT and Nano, but they both survived and are thriving relative to the performance of other assets on the market.

Therefore, as you consider either of the two coins, consider which one best suits your profile, what returns you expect out of your investment, and, more importantly, weigh the opportunities based on how far in the future you look forward to earning your returns.

Categories
Crypto Videos

High Frequency Trading in Cryptocurrencies – Can Normal Traders Utilise This Groundbreaking Strategy

https://youtu.be/pc8vSUAJNyY

 
High-Frequency Trading in Cryptocurrencies
High-frequency trading, also known as HFT, is a relatively new method of trading. It takes advantage of powerful computer programs that can transact

https://youtu.be/pc8vSUAJNyY

 
High-Frequency Trading in Cryptocurrencies
High-frequency trading, also known as HFT, is a relatively new method of trading. It takes advantage of powerful computer programs that can transact

 

High-Frequency Trading in Cryptocurrencies

High-frequency trading, also known as HFT, is a relatively new method of trading. It takes advantage of powerful computer programs that can transact a large number of orders in a time-span no human could succeed to do manually. The trading strategy is called high-frequency because the transactions are done in fractions of a second, and the sheer number of transactions can reach thousands per hour. High-frequency trading uses extremely complex proprietary algorithms to analyze various markets and determine which trades are worth taking and which are not.

One important thing that these systems strive to perfect is fast execution speeds. As these trades are performed at such high speeds, traders with the fastest execution speed will be significantly more profitable than ones that can’t execute their orders as fast.
The history of High-Frequency Trading
High-frequency trading is a fairly new trading strategy. In fact, several things needed to happen in order for it to even be considered as a trading strategy. The first one was, of course, the advancement of technology. The other was when exchanges started to offer incentives for companies to become liquidity providers.
The New York Stock Exchange’s group of liquidity providers is called Supplemental Liquidity Providers. This group was created after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 as a response to the investors showing major concern regarding liquidity. This group’s job is to create and add competition and liquidity for the existing quotes on the aforementioned exchange. The New York Stock Exchange, as an incentive to liquidity providers, pays a fee for providing liquidity. Even though the fee is extremely small (a fraction of a $ cent), high-frequency traders transact millions of times per day. As a result, the fees pile up and bring in large profits.

High-Frequency Trading in Cryptocurrencies

A handful of cryptocurrency exchanges are currently incentivizing high-frequency traders to use this trading strategy. Huobi, based in Singapore, and ErisX, based in Chicago, have separately started to offer colocation. Colocation enables a client’s server to be placed in the same facility or cloud as the exchange’s server. This would allow for execution speeds up to a hundred times faster than what was available before. This essentially gives these traders an edge over the rest of the market. Gemini was, however, the first big crypto company to offer colocation at a popular data center in the New York area. On top of that, it plans to expand its positions to a second site in Chicago.


These exchanges’ moves are a sign that high-frequency trading is something they are planning to approve as a viable trading strategy on their platform. They are doing this for a simple reason; cryptocurrency space has an enormous amount of exchanges, and crypto beginners usually choose to trade on an exchange with the highest liquidity. That’s why crypto exchanges are allowing and encouraging this controversial practice to slowly enter the crypto sphere. While “trading bots” have been present in crypto since the days of Mt. Gox, colocation takes algorithmic trading to a whole another level.
Pros and Cons of High-Frequency Trading
Pros of High-Frequency Trading
High-frequency trading provides two major benefits:

It improves market liquidity.
It removes bid-ask spreads.

By transacting millions of times throughout the day, high-frequency trading helps increase liquidity and remove bid-ask spreads that would otherwise be too small. This was even tested by adding fees on HFT, which resulted in bid-ask spreads increasing.
Another upside of high-frequency trading is that it removes the need for manual trading at big companies, therefore reducing labor and labor education costs dramatically. Once the algorithm is programmed, the operators only interfere with the system is when they notice an error.

Cons of High-Frequency Trading

High-frequency has also had some criticism on its back due to its downsides. What has been listed as a benefit can also be considered a downside in this case. High-frequency trading has almost completely replaced humans for mathematical models and algorithms to make decisions. Decisions of whether to buy or sell happen in milliseconds and due to the similarity of models between companies, the market swings upwards or downwards without any particular fundamental reason.
May 6, 2010, has shown us how the unexplained swings could shake the markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its largest intraday point drop ever in just 10 minutes by declining 1,000 points. The price plummeted and rose back up again 20 minutes later. A government investigation found out that the reason for this crash was a massive order that triggered a sell-off.

Another downside to high-frequency trading is from the perspective of retail traders and companies that do not have the capital to position their servers near the trading mainframe. As a result, the big companies with well-developed high-frequency trading systems now profit at the expense of the “little guys.”
Another major concern about high-frequency trading is the type of liquidity it provides. The liquidity produced by this type of algorithmic trading is momentary and is also called “ghost liquidity.” This means that high-frequency trading provides liquidity that is available to the market for an extremely short amount of time. This way of providing liquidity, in most cases, prevents traders from actually using the liquidity provided.

Recommendations

Since High-Frequency Trading is a relatively new concept, information on it is quite scarce. On top of that, trading algorithms and models used by the large companies are kept a secret in order to remain as profitable as possible.
However, there are some quite interesting pieces on high-frequency trading worth reading. Anyone who is interested in reading about algorithms and high-frequency trading should take a look at:

Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading (Álvaro Cartea, Sebastian Jaimungal, José Penalva) – This book first explains how market microstructure works. After that, it focuses on using various tools from stochastic analysis to solve problems such as optimal liquidation or optimal acquisition problems. The book also discusses some HFT strategies that can be used by anyone and everyone.

High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems (Irene Aldridge) – This book focuses on high-frequency trading strategies and models. It also shows proper and appropriate ways of backtesting these strategies and analyzing their performance over time. The book also sheds light on how high-frequency trading is used in a business scenario.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 28 – Another bull rally despite China crypto-business crackdown

The cryptocurrency market had another great day. After a day of consolidation that the industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite bullish. Most cryptos ended up in

The cryptocurrency market had another great day. After a day of consolidation that the industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite bullish. Most cryptos ended up in

The cryptocurrency market had another great day. After a day of consolidation that the industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite bullish. Most cryptos ended up in the green, and some of them even broke their old key levels. If we take a look at today’s prices, Bitcoin went up %4.84, and it is now trading at $7,484. Ethereum gained 3.12%, while XRP went up 3.13%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Siacoin, with an explosive gain of 33.82% on the day. The biggest losers of the day were Silverway and Molecular Future, which lost 14.83% and 4.84% of their value, respectively.

 

The most recent jump in price was disproportional when we take into consideration all cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s dominance has increased more than 0.5% when compared to the value it had yesterday as it gained more value than the rest of cryptocurrencies. Its dominance is currently 66.52%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $203.87 billion, which represents a significant increase when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

China is showing its teeth with its latest crypto-crackdown. As reported, at least five local exchanges had to stop their operations or announce that they will no longer serve domestic users this month. Chinese regulators issued a series of warnings and notices as part of a cleanup of cryptocurrency trading.

The latest wave of shutdowns and restrictions in the crypto industry represent the biggest cleanup of the sector since September 2017.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin did not spend much time consolidating its price as the bulls seemed to have made a decision to move the price up. After consolidating above 7,000, the bulls pushed Bitcoin above $7,415. This move was successful and Bitcoin has now made this key level its support.


Bitcoin’s volume was on the levels it was at during the sell-offs, which happened a few days ago. Its RSI level is currently more near overbought than near oversold territory.

 

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1:  $8,000                                          1: $7,415

2: $8,425                                           2: $6,620

3: $8,640                                

Ethereum

Ethereum bulls also had their run but left Ethereum right on the key level of $153. Ethereum is now trying to decide whether its price will stay above this line or below it. However, whether the price ends up above or below $153, the bullish move was successful as this key level was not the only one that the price passed to the upside.


Ethereum’s RSI is now approaching overbought territory, while its volume has decreased heavily after the move has ended.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

XRP was another cryptocurrency that had a bull rally in the past 24 hours. However, its price is still not stable enough that we can say that this move was completely successful. After consolidating at around $0.21, XRP’s price shot up to $0.227 it is now trading at. However, with no key resistance levels broken and no real support levels formed, this move hasn’t brought XRP out of the limbo yet.


XRP’s RSI is slowly increasing while its volume is declining slightly.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                           1:  $0.202

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Solving Blockchain’s Scaling Problem

Blockchain was conceptualized the first time in 2008 with the launch of Bitcoin. However, it took almost a decade to be fully appreciated as an invaluable public ledger with the

Blockchain was conceptualized the first time in 2008 with the launch of Bitcoin. However, it took almost a decade to be fully appreciated as an invaluable public ledger with the

Blockchain was conceptualized the first time in 2008 with the launch of Bitcoin. However, it took almost a decade to be fully appreciated as an invaluable public ledger with the potential to disrupt virtually every modern industry. That was the year when the price of Bitcoin got close to $19,900 from a low of $978 at the start of the year, and Ethereum went above $850 from just over $8. At its peak value, Bitcoin’s market cap stood at $320 billion – higher than the total value of all M3 UK currency in circulation. This was before the infamous 2018 cryptocurrency crash of January 2018.

Predictably, the massive cryptocurrency explosion was followed by a big crash, from which many cryptocurrencies that had successfully launched ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) never recovered. During the preceding explosion, blockchain technology was hyped as the most revolutionary since the internet, and many industries started figuring how it could work for them. From transportation and health industries to banking and voting, the promises and claims that the new technology brought may have set people’s expectations a bit too high too fast.

While famous investors, economists, and even finance professionals warned that the rapid rise of the cryptocurrency prices was a bubble that would ultimately burst, a world driven by vague expectations and hunger for profit failed to listen. Most people read the most subtle signs they wanted to see – such as the listing of bitcoin futures by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in December 2017 as a stamp of approval that Bitcoin and cryptos, in general, were ripe for investment.

Weaknesses of blockchain come to light

The rise in the popularity of blockchain and the rapid adoption of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies brought blockchain’s most significant problem to light: it is expensive and can barely work on a large scale. When Bitcoin’s price soared to almost $20,000, its network quickly became overloaded, transactions took as long as a day to confirm, and transaction fees shot up to as much as $60 per transaction.

The world may not have been wrong to believe that blockchains presented a massive opportunity for the human race, but it was at this point that many started having doubts about whether Bitcoin was the currency of the future.

The blockchain technology was introduced to the world just at the right time when we were dealing with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. However, in its current state, it cannot deliver on these promises on a global scale because it has one glaring weakness: it just cannot scale.

To see why this is such a concern, it is necessary to understand how blockchain works.

Blockchain is basically a list of ‘blocks’ of ordered data, in the case of cryptocurrency transactions, ‘chained’ together as a linked list. The blocks, once added to the chain, cannot be modified, which means that the list is add-only. There are specific rules that are followed before a block of data is added to the chain known as ‘consensus algorithm.’ In the case of Bitcoin, it is Proof-of-Work (PoW), while Ethereum is presently switching to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Due to this nature, blockchain has no single point of failure or control, its data cannot be altered, and the trail of changes made on the platform can be easily audited and verified. However, these benefits do come at a cost because blockchain is slow, and its immutable database has a very high redundancy rate. This is what makes it very expensive to use and virtually impossible to scale to a global scale.

Blockchain’s need to scale

The evolution of the entire blockchain ecosystem has been rapid over the past couple of years. The widespread implementation of blockchain systems for public use has been a significant vote of approval that the world is ready for it. However, the increasing adoption of these systems has brought to light the need for better design or alternatives.

The consequences of the increase in the number of daily transactions on a blockchain network have shown that block difficulty increases, thus increasing the average computational power required to mine a block of transactions. This translates to increased electricity consumption.

Another problem that prevents blockchain from scaling is that an increase in the number of transactions increases the size of the blockchain, making it harder to set up new nodes on the network to help in maintaining the complete blockchain network and to process and verify transactions. Therefore, the systems get not only slower and more expensive, but also unsustainable for such use cases as making regular small payments.

Potential solutions for blockchain scaling

There are numerous real-world uses of blockchain that have shown just how necessary the technology is for the future of humanity. Aside from payment processing and money transfer, it can also be used in monitoring supply chains, digital identification, digital voting, data sharing, tax regulation, and compliance, weapons tracking, and equity trading, among others.

One area that shows great promise and has accelerated the need for blockchain to scale is dApp or distributed apps that run on the blockchain network.

Over the past year, many developments have been proposed to resolve the platform’s scalability problems  – even implemented in some industries. So far, it shows great promise.

Here are some of the most sustainable ideas that blockchain platforms can implement to scale

☑️ Increasing the number of transactions in a block

A blockchain network would scale better when the number of transactions in a block is increased. This can be achieved by either increasing the block size or compressing individual transactions.

Bitcoin’s block size is limited to 1 megabyte. There was a lot of controversy in 2010 through 2015 on whether this size should be altered to accommodate more transactions to help the network scale.

Blockchains can also implement more efficient hashing algorithms that better compress the data to be added to the block. Algorithms that generate shorter signatures would go a long way to reduce the size of the block, and using better data structures to organize transactions may not only reduce the size of the block but also improve the privacy of its content.

☑️ Increasing the frequency in which blocks are added to the chain

The Bitcoin network adds a block of transactions every 10 minutes, while Ethereum does so in about 7 seconds. This duration is a function of the block difficulty level in a Proof-of-Work consensus. Since the frequency in which a new block is added to the chain significantly affects its transaction rate (TPS), reducing this time would significantly increase the network speed and reduce delays.

However, this rate of adding block cannot be arbitrary. Increasing the frequency would mean an increase in the block orphan rate (the rate at which mined blocks are not added to the blockchain due to competition) and an increase in the network bandwidth.

A change of such magnitude would require a hard fork of an existing blockchain platform. Since this is not backward compatible, it would not work for Bitcoin, Ethererum, or other established blockchain systems.

☑️ Implementing alternative communication layers between nodes

There is constant communication between nodes on a blockchain platform depending on the protocol it implements. For instance, in the Bitcoin network, transaction information is sent twice: the first time is in the broadcasting phase of the transaction, and then after the block is mined.

The Lightning Network is an excellent example of a second layer payment protocol that runs on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. It enables faster transaction speeds between nodes by opening a payment channel that commits funding transactions to the underlying layer without broadcasting to it until the final version of the transaction is executed. This is presently touted as the best solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem.

☑️ Adopting better consensus and verification methods

At the time of writing this post, Ethereum is in the process of switching its consensus mechanism from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to mitigate its scaling problem. Bitcoin uses the oldest yet most difficult to scale PoW. PoS is not only sustainable in power consumption but also results in higher block addition frequency to the blockchain and, ultimately, better scaling platforms.

Other than the blockchain consensus, a blockchain platform can scale better when better storage architecture that saves space is implemented. Blockchain takes up a lot of storage space because each node is required to have the whole blockchain state in order to verify new blocks. Since the size of the block increases with time, the platform would scale better if nodes could only store parts of the chain required to verify current blocks.

Bottom line

Different blockchain platforms have implemented various strategies in an effort to make their platforms scale better. The bottom line, however, remains that blockchain’s scalability problem persists as no solution has proven to be effective without compromising any of the top features that make blockchain a transparent, secure, and truly decentralized ledger system. However, considering how far the world has come in developing this new technology, we remain optimistic that there will come a solution that will finally make a global-wide blockchain system practical and seamless.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Will Cryptocurrency Replace Fiat? – Which Crypto Will Be Dominant?

https://youtu.be/HLUrFWkdBto

 
Can any cryptocurrency replace fiat?
The cryptocurrency community tried to predict how digital currencies will someday take over the world and stand on the spot of fiat

https://youtu.be/HLUrFWkdBto

 
Can any cryptocurrency replace fiat?
The cryptocurrency community tried to predict how digital currencies will someday take over the world and stand on the spot of fiat

 

Can any cryptocurrency replace fiat?

The cryptocurrency community tried to predict how digital currencies will someday take over the world and stand on the spot of fiat currencies. However, there are several problems that the industry has to tackle before becoming mainstream. Some economists view cryptocurrencies with quite a bit of disdain. Even though some traditional financial institutions pointed out the importance of the concept of blockchain technology and even announced working on developing or adopting something similar, only a few have made any suggestion that they will adopt cryptocurrencies at the expense of fiat money.


Even though cryptocurrencies have a long way to go before being considered mainstream, some obvious signs show various cryptocurrencies are making it in the traditional business space.
When talking about any cryptocurrency taking over fiat, we have to think about which one would be the best replacement for the traditional financial system.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the one cryptocurrency that remains most likely to become mainstream and get adopted by the world on a large scale. While there is no single authoritative list of companies that accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Coin Telegraph suggests that over 54 major companies currently accept one or more cryptocurrencies. Out of the 54 companies, just two don’t accept Bitcoin.
Looking at this statistic, Bitcoin easily outpaces all other cryptocurrencies at the moment.


Altcoins

Altcoins are cryptocurrencies that are alternative to Bitcoin. They tend to see lower levels of acceptance among major companies, as fewer companies want to take such a risk. Coin Telegraph suggests that, when compared with the 52 major companies that accept Bitcoin at the moment, only 25 accept Litecoin, 13 accept Ethereum, 14 accept Bitcoin cash, 15 accept Dogecoin and 12 accept Monero.
However, these 52 companies reported by Coin Telegraph are not the only ones that accept cryptocurrencies. UseBitcoin is a directory that lists over 5,000 businesses and retailers, with nearly all of them accepting Bitcoin. On the other hand, the large majority of these companies don’t accept other cryptocurrencies.
More and more businesses are accepting cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin or are even developing their own ones. Cryptocurrencies are witnessing wider acceptance as the years go by. Places that have accepted only Bitcoin in the past started accepting Litecoin, Ethereum, or some other cryptocurrency. On top of that, there are even ATMs that offer cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. That being said, Bitcoin is still dominant in the cryptocurrency space.
In the end, it’s difficult to guess if cryptocurrencies will get mainstream and if they will, which will able to break into it most decisively. Bitcoin has the advantage of the biggest name and largest market cap cryptocurrencies, as well as being the first one to break into the market. However, altcoins continue to grow in popularity against Bitcoin, even when we take into consideration the bear market.
At the moment, no cryptocurrency has effectively become mainstream and overtaken fiat in any aspect in any part of the world.

Conclusion

There is a possibility that cryptocurrencies may one day take over the role of money from fiat currencies. However, the obstacles they face at the moment, such as widespread adoption, regulation, and such, are extending the horizon enough for the analysts to be unable to predict the future outcome.
One thing is certain, and that is that cryptocurrencies are a groundbreaking technology.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 27 – Crypto markets consolidating as adoption rises

After an explosive gain cryptocurrency industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite stagnant in price. Many cryptocurrencies just tried to consolidate and form respect towards support/resistance lines.

After an explosive gain cryptocurrency industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite stagnant in price. Many cryptocurrencies just tried to consolidate and form respect towards support/resistance lines.

After an explosive gain cryptocurrency industry had yesterday, the past 24 hours have been quite stagnant in price. Many cryptocurrencies just tried to consolidate and form respect towards support/resistance lines. If we take a look at today’s prices, Bitcoin went down2.15%, and it is now trading at $7,107. Ethereum lost 1.5%, while XRP went down 1..51%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is LINA, with 67.55% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was Digitex Futures, which lost 8.10% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has stayed on virtually the same spot when compared to its value from the past 24 hours. Its dominance now sits at 65.94%.

Note: At the moment of this publication, Bitcoin drops below $6,900 on the news of a $50 million hack of Ethereum in the Korean exchange Upbit. All cryptos are currently losing their close supports.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $1195.19 billion, which represents a significant increase (around $9 billion) when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Even though the price doesn’t show it, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are slowly getting more and more adoption. A cryptocurrency-friendly travel booking platform has partnered with the online travel agency giant Booking.com therefor making cryptocurrencies available to people using Booking.com. This deal will allow Travala users to book their accommodation listed on Booking.com with cryptocurrencies.

While this is a great thing, there are no changes to Booking.com as a platform, so this info will impact just the Travala platform users.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

After yesterday, when Bitcoin bulls rallied and managed to pull the price back above the $7,000 threshold, Bitcoin started consolidating. Once the price even pushed to break its key level of $7,415 but failed to do so, Bitcoin has been on a slight decline, but contained within two key levels.


Bitcoin’s volume started to drop after the failed attempt to break $7,415. Its RSI level broke the oversold territory once the movement up started.

 

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1:  $7,415                                        1: $6,620

2: $8,000

3: $8,425                                

Ethereum

Ethereum had a terrible weekend as well as its price plummeted almost $50. After the big drop, it rallied back up along with most cryptocurrencies. However, unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum did not manage to stay contained within its “safe zone.” It is now trading at around $145, which is just below the support zone, which now turned resistance.


Ethereum’s RSI is now above the oversold territory, while its volume has decreased heavily when compared to the past couple of days.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

XRP has not yet decided on what price to anchor to, meaning its s support levels are still unclear. Its price seems to be consolidating as well, which means that support and resistance lines will be revealed soon. XRP did not break any resistance levels and stayed in the price limbo that it was at after the bear move. Its price is now somewhere around $0.219.


XRP’s RSI barely moved above the oversold territory, while its volume is still on very high levels.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                           1:  still unclear

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Forex Daily Topic Forex Stop-loss & argets

Masteting Stop-Loss setting: How about using Kase Dev-Stops?

The stop-loss setting is a crucial component to the long-term success of a forex and crypto trader. The market forces cannot be adapted to the wishes of traders. Successful traders

The stop-loss setting is a crucial component to the long-term success of a forex and crypto trader. The market forces cannot be adapted to the wishes of traders. Successful traders

The stop-loss setting is a crucial component to the long-term success of a forex and crypto trader. The market forces cannot be adapted to the wishes of traders. Successful traders must accept that fact instead of fighting it for the sake of being right. “What cannot be cannot be, and, furthermore, it is impossible,” said some time ago, a well-known politician in a phrase that did not pretend to be comical. But it states a clear fact: Fight against the markets is like Don Quixote fighting Windmills.

In previous articles, we explained John Sweeney’s MAE method, and also average true range-based stop-loss settings. In this article, we are going to talk about Cynthia Kase’s Dev-Stops.

Cynthia Kase is a well-known and successful futures trader, speaker, and author of several books on trading and technical analysis. She conceded high importance to stop settings. Cynthia says something undeniable to most of us, Technical literature has mostly focused on entries, and almost nothing on entries besides some words on stop-loss or trailing stops. She says that this is like teaching how to drive a car but without explaining where the brake pedal and how to press it.

In her book “Trading with the Odds,” she explains that this situation is mostly due to greed and fear. Traders don’t like to lose, and most of them don’t know when to get out of a trade. Also, she explains that fear of losing causes people to hang on their losses in the hope the market will turn and recover them. Another explanation for this situation is that the beginning of technical analysis was on the stock market, and no company wants its stock downgraded from buy to hold or, worse, to sell. As opposed to Forex, only a handful of people make money shorting stocks, so exits are much less critical on the stock market.

Stops based on fear and greed

Most traders want to squeeze out the most of a trade. Therefore, they decided to use the highest possible leverage. To reduce the dollar risk, they desire to put it as close as possible to the entry-level. But, as said earlier, using obvious levels of support/resistance and set the stop order just two or three pips below is absurd. Better send your money directly to the charity, since they will make much better use of it than the institution that is going to collect your hard-earned money for free.

Risk is imposed by the market

The critical point is not to impose our conditions on the market, but read what the market is telling us in terms of Risk. In trading, Risk is proportional to volatility. Your dollar risk is the amount the price can move against you in a given interval, times your position size.

Volatility is measured using the Range and also by the standard deviation of prices on an annualized basis. One standard deviation of the price holds 68$ of all the potential price movement if we assume prices are dispersed in a gaussian distribution. That means that a price that goes against a trade by one standard deviation it will encompass 34% of the observations (the other 34% would go in the direction of your trade). The problem with using volatility is that a yearly measurement of the price variations does not help with sudden short-term volatility changes. That’s the reason for using ATR instead.

The concept of the threshold of Uncertainty

A trade is a bet on a market trend. We think a particular trend is in place. Ideally, the direction is a straight line between one initial level and a final level. If we think of the short-term price wiggles as random noise, we adapt our trade by placing our stops far enough away from the trend mean to include noise. The magnitude of the noise means we don’t want to exit at the minimum turn against the trade. The trader needs to devise a way to follow the trend while getting out when it ends. 

 The Kase Dev Stops

Using a fixed multiplier for the True Range is an initial approximation. In our article of true range, we used a fixed 2X multiplier to set our stop order away from the market noise. Kase’s Dev Stop uses what she calls the skew of the volatility, the measure at which a range can spike in the opposite direction as a multiplier of the range measure. That makes the Dev-stop an adaptative trailing stop. Dev Stops is a well-known indicator in TradingView. Also, it is available for downloading at the MQL5.com site for your Metatrader workstation. 

Chart 1 – Kase Dev-Stops in a GBPUSD 4H chart.

We can see in Chart 1 that four lines follow the price action. The first one is the mean line and the 1, 2, and 3 standard deviation (SD) lines of a two-bar reversal. As we can see, the 3rd standard deviation is seldom touched, being the 2-SD the conservative method, and the 1-SD the preferred aggressive method. In the case of using 1SD, it is advisable for a reentry plan, or create mental stops that would trigger if the close happens below the 1SD Dev-stop line.

As it should be the norm when learning a new method, it is strongly advisable to backtest it first to assess which SD line works better with your particular asset and objectives. Also, after backtesting your optimal solution, it is prudent to trade it using a demo account. There we could also assess the costs and benefits of the method by adding the brokerage costs.

Reference: Trading with the Odds, Cynthia A. Kase. 1996, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

 

Categories
Crypto Videos

Wall Street VS Cryptocurrencies – Battle Of The Titans

https://youtu.be/M2FAc8Gi8co

 
Wall Street VS. Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency investors believed that institutional investors might be the key to Bitcoin’s next bull run for quite a long time. It was a

https://youtu.be/M2FAc8Gi8co

 
Wall Street VS. Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency investors believed that institutional investors might be the key to Bitcoin’s next bull run for quite a long time. It was a

 

Wall Street VS. Cryptocurrencies


Cryptocurrency investors believed that institutional investors might be the key to Bitcoin’s next bull run for quite a long time. It was a well-known fact that people wished that Wall Street entered the markets as an eager investor, ready to pump money into the young and perspective market. However, that projection misses the mark in two ways:
Wall Street is already investing in the cryptocurrency market while the general public doesn’t know about it;
The last thing Wall Street wants is to “pump” the cryptocurrency market with its capital.
Institutional finance is deeply invested in the cryptocurrency market. However, the fact is also that Wall Street is slowly killing cryptocurrency with the way they do business.

Why is Wall Street killing cryptocurrencies?

Before explaining why Wall Street is killing crypto markets, we need to understand the meaning behind hypothecation. Hypothecation is when a firm that owns equity shares in a company signs those shares away to a lender as collateral.
These shares are not settled physically but rather written as certificates of ownership. This makes these certificates easier to pass along as an ‘IOU.’ This fact opens up a lot of space for speculation as well as manipulation of the crypto markets.


Why is the cryptocurrency market different?

Almost all of the major cryptocurrencies are traded on centralized exchanges, even though they claim to rely on a hard-coded Proof of Work or Proof of Stake consensus algorithms. If a Bitcoin can be rehypothecated many times as brokers and exchanges trade debt and collateral, no one knows who the real custodian of the coins is at the end of the day. In this case, multiple parties own the cryptocurrencies, and no one does. Either all of the parties involved have access to the private key, or no one does.
It’s unclear who owns the Bitcoin because the collateral chain is so long in the case of a hard fork or a broker going bankrupt. When it comes to cryptocurrencies and other ledger-based assets, this complex model of transient ownership simply doesn’t work.


Wall Street steps in

There was a time when Bitcoin was traded exclusively on fiat exchanges. This meant that users could only buy or sell it for fiat on these exchanges. There was no way to short-sell Bitcoin, and there was no option to trade Bitcoin futures or derivatives. All purchases were settled purely in Bitcoin, while that is not the case at the moment. Bitcoin’s limited supply and deflationary nature made it easy for people to calculate the supply and demand and form a market price based on that.
Wall Street’s introduction of Bitcoin futures to its own brokers and exchanges reduced its volatility as these contracts allowed investors to speculate on Bitcoin’s downside and upside. This move balanced the market and made it just as profitable to suppress Bitcoin just as it was to let Bitcoin rise in price. On top of that, the high-frequency trading bots started to trade on the crypto markets, which further reduces their volatility. Sophisticated bot programs like those employed by Wall Street can still be extremely profitable in low-volatility environments.

Why is Bitcoin ETF so beneficial?

The Futures Industry Association (FIA) is a powerful financial trade entity that has a significant influence on the global financial markets. People mostly think that the FIA is responsible for the consecutive delays and rejections of the many Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have been proposed in the past couple of years.
A Bitcoin ETF would represent a success for the cryptocurrency investors for two main reasons:
ETFs are actually settled in an underlying asset, meaning that there would be less influence created by the cryptocurrency derivatives market;
This feature would create a more simple way of integrating cryptocurrency markets with traditional financial markets via brokers. Bitcoin would become more accessible to retail investors that don’t want to create their own wallets. That could build a bridge that will ensure mass adoption.
Bitcoin ETFs have been mostly flat-out denied, and this includes the ETF proposal from the famous Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss as well as many more.
The rejections and delays were mostly not described wall, which indicates that Wall Street may want the cryptocurrency market to die before it infiltrates the global consumer market. Even though there are multiple avenues for profit in crypto for Wall Street, the threat to the financial world order as we know it cannot be put aside. Wall Street seems to recognize this and want to stop it in its tracks or adapt the technology while keeping its place in the financial world.


Conclusion

Even though Cryptocurrencies are a promising new technology that ensures financial stability once it reaches mass adoption, it would represent the end of the financial world as we know it. Many financial institutions are cautious or defensive towards this market as they can’t predict the future well enough to see themselves in it. For this reason, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies face great resistance ahead.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 26 – Bitcoin bounces back above $7,000, Thailand dipping their toes in crypto in 2020

The cryptocurrency bulls came to help relieve the downward pressure bears were causing. The past 24 hours were pretty explosive to the upside, as most cryptocurrencies ended up being in

The cryptocurrency bulls came to help relieve the downward pressure bears were causing. The past 24 hours were pretty explosive to the upside, as most cryptocurrencies ended up being in

The cryptocurrency bulls came to help relieve the downward pressure bears were causing. The past 24 hours were pretty explosive to the upside, as most cryptocurrencies ended up being in major green positions. If we take a look at today’s prices, Bitcoin went up 6.13%, and it is now trading at $7,140. Ethereum gained 5.26%, while XRP went up 3.34%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Storeum, with 351.19% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was Luna, which lost 8.88% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has increased just slightly when compared to the past 24 hours, as Bitcoin had a bigger upward leap than most of the cryptocurrencies. Its dominance now sits at 66%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $1195.19 billion, which represents a significant increase (around $9 billion) when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Lawmakers in Thailand are planning reforms of their cryptocurrency laws as they are concerned about Thailand’s competitiveness in the crypto space. Thailand’s regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will reconsider its policy on cryptocurrencies in 2020.

The reason for the revision lies in poor uptake of the certification and licensing scheme by cryptocurrency businesses, which resulted in fewer such businesses emerging. Since the cryptocurrency policy came into power last year, only five companies made it through the certification process. Out of of those five, just two have launched.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s crash below $7,000 was certainly not something that cryptocurrency investors around the world liked seeing. However, the crypto bulls rallied and managed to pull the price back above the $7,000 threshold. Bitcoin’s price even pushed to break its key level of $7,415, but failed to do so. It’s currently contained within a range between these two key levels.


Bitcoin’s volume his still quite high, and the moves are explosive even when ranging between levels. Its RSI level broke the oversold territory once the movement up started.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1:  $7,415                                        1: $6,620

2: $8,000

3: $8,425                                

Ethereum

Ethereum had a terrible weekend as well as its price plummeted almost $50. Following the pattern of Bitcoin, Ethereum now rose up and stabilized in its first support area while even attempting to break above it. That, however, did not happen, and Ethereum is now trading barely above or barely below the $146.7.


Ethereum’s RSI is now above the oversold territory, while its volume is currently above the daily average of the past week.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

We said that XRP is maybe the biggest loser of the most recent bear move as its support levels are still unclear. It too ended up being in the green today, but the moves were far less pronounced. XRP did not break any resistance levels and stayed in the price limbo that it was at after the bear move. Its price is now somewhere around $0.219


XRP’s RSI barely moved above the oversold territory while its volume is invariably high.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                           1:  still unclear

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Crypto Videos

Bitcoin The Biggest Enemy Of Cryptocurrency Success

https://youtu.be/SheLhGdKSQI
For the cryptocurrency skeptics

Ever since its inception over a decade ago, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, in general, had quite a big group of skeptics declaring the

https://youtu.be/SheLhGdKSQI
For the cryptocurrency skeptics

Ever since its inception over a decade ago, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, in general, had quite a big group of skeptics declaring the

For the cryptocurrency skeptics

Ever since its inception over a decade ago, Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, in general, had quite a big group of skeptics declaring the market dead or directed towards obsolescence. Ten years later, Bitcoin is worth four figures, while the crypto sector as a whole is stabilizing and maturing.
However, cryptocurrencies still can’t seem to break into the mainstream and start getting used as they were intended. Very few merchants accept cryptocurrency payments, and even those that do immediately exchange their holdings to fiat currencies.

Argument against cryptocurrencies

There are currently several thousand cryptocurrencies on the market. This can be considered a sign of the success of the market as a whole. However, these numbers can be deceptive. According to a CNBC report, over 800 cryptocurrencies are essentially dead and worth less than a single penny. When we take those out, the vast majority are not relevant or popular. Not to mention reports of various scams and fraud that happened and are still happening in the ICO market.
Other cryptocurrencies aside, the chief troublemaker in the industry is, according to skeptics, none other than Bitcoin itself. After reaching stratospheric heights of $20,000 in December 2017, Bitcoin price started falling in January, which started a lengthy bear market. On top of that, the value of crypto transactions fell by nearly 75% during the second quarter of 2018 when compared to the first quarter.
This lack of acceptance, both in the investment and retail arena, can partially be attributed to the US SEC’s denial of over a dozen ETF filings. On top of it, the regulators are trying to protect their respective fiat currencies, which brings Bitcoin and the crypto market to another obstacle – regulation.


Argument for cryptocurrencies

While it is true that Bitcoin prices crashed in early 2018, the market seems to be maturing, and the volatility, which was one of the main problems, is gradually fading. While this is bad news for speculators, it is excellent news for both institutional and retail investors, as well as for people who want to use cryptocurrencies as a payment method.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, in general, are starting to receive more and more attention for their utility rather than price movements. While merchants still remain wary of cryptocurrencies, banks and other corporations already started employing them.
While many are advocating the idea that Bitcoin and the crypto market are mainstream, the sector is determined to prove them wrong. While cryptocurrencies may still not be a standard payment method, the technology, as well as the idea behind cryptocurrencies, is quickly becoming extremely popular in different sectors and industries. As companies continue to fix their problems by introducing their infrastructure to a new frictionless solution to old problems with blockchain, cryptocurrency will strive.


The Bottom Line

Even though the market is divided on whether the cryptocurrency market is going to fail or not, the market has continued to plug along and thrive. Although prices have fluctuated wildly, the sector is maturing and stabilizing.
As more companies discover uses for cryptocurrency and blockchain, and more users accept them as a way to simplify their lives, they will remain at a top spot when it comes to technological improvements. On top of that, at one point, if the concept gets fully adopted, we can expect cryptocurrencies to integrate itself in all ways of life. Coins and tokens may come and go as most projects are not resilient enough to survive the harsh market conditions. Still, the idea and the concept behind cryptocurrencies will undoubtedly thrive and get more respect as time passes.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 25 – Bitcoin under $7,000, Whales moving their funds

The cryptocurrency market had a terrible weekend as most major cryptocurrencies are buried in the red. Most top cryptocurrencies ended up losing over 5% of their value in the past

The cryptocurrency market had a terrible weekend as most major cryptocurrencies are buried in the red. Most top cryptocurrencies ended up losing over 5% of their value in the past

The cryptocurrency market had a terrible weekend as most major cryptocurrencies are buried in the red. Most top cryptocurrencies ended up losing over 5% of their value in the past 24 hours. If we take a look at today’s prices, Bitcoin went down 9.09%, and it is now trading at $6,611. Ethereum lost 11.2%, while XRP went down 10.07%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Storeum, with 332.34% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was Maker, which lost 19.17% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance has not changed much when compared to its value before the weekend, even though its price dropped significantly. Its dominance now sits at 65.63%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $186.58 billion, which represents a significant decrease when compared to the value it had yesterday as well as before the weekend.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Cryptocurrency markets suffered a considerable decrease in value as traditional markets flatlined. On top of that,  a cryptocurrency whale has just moved 44,000 BTC from one address to another, signifying a possible preparation for a sale.

This hefty movement was detected by Twitter-based transaction monitor called whale_alert. Bitcoin’s miners included the transaction in block #605230.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s price drop below $7,000 can be percieved as crushing to some investors. However, the price support of $6,620 held up quite well against the major bear pressure. This key support level dates all the way back from 2018.


Bitcoin’s volume has increased significantly as the bears took over the market. Its RSI level is far in the oversold territory at the moment.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1:  $7,415                                        1: $6,620

2: $8,000

3: $8,425                                

Ethereum

Ethereum had a terrible day, as well. Its price went all the way down to $135. Its resistance levels are now quite unclear, but major support awaits at the $127 line. This represents a significant decrease in price from the $170 levels it was at just before the weekend.


Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                            1: $127

2: $178.6

3: $185

XRP

XRP’s is maybe the biggest loser of this bear market as its support levels are still unclear. Its price now hovers around $0.21, which seems to hold up well at the moment. XRP needs to establish support levels at the moment in order for it to consolidate in a healthy way.


XRP’s RSI reached oversold levels while its volume is invariably high.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.235                                       1:  still unclear

2: $0.245

3: $0.266

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

9 Best Cryptocurrency Wallets in 2019

Unlike fiat money, cryptocurrencies do not have a central authority or a designated place where you can safely keep them. But just like with real money, you need to store

Unlike fiat money, cryptocurrencies do not have a central authority or a designated place where you can safely keep them. But just like with real money, you need to store

Unlike fiat money, cryptocurrencies do not have a central authority or a designated place where you can safely keep them. But just like with real money, you need to store your crypto funds somewhere safe and secure.

Cryptocurrency wallets are the answer to the “how do I interact with my crypto coins safely?” question. A cryptocurrency wallet lets you trade, store, buy, sell, and swap cryptocurrencies in a safe way.

It can be difficult identifying the crypto wallet that suits your personality and needs. Whether you’re the laid back guy or girl that likes to check into cryptoverse once a week, the savvy trader who’s always on top of the market, or the HODLer, we have compiled a list of the top cryptocurrency wallets that are reputable, secure, and convenient to help you navigate the crypto world as safely and rewardingly as possible.

We based our criteria on supported cryptos, security, recovery options, and more. Read on for the top 9 cryptocurrency wallets in the market today.

Top Cryptocurrency Wallets

Ledger Nano X

Ledger Nano X is the latest hardware wallet offered by crypto solutions company, Ledger. The wallet won the “Consumers Innovation Honoree Award” during its launch – stirring the attention of crypto enthusiasts. 

The wallet’s screen is designed to display all the details of your transactions at once. It has two buttons, which will control the entire operation of the hardware wallet. The Nano X is also Bluetooth enabled, enabling you to pair it with your iPhone or Android and check your balance, send and receive crypto, and add accounts – all with a few taps on your phone. 

Ledger Nano X has an in-built rechargeable battery, so you don’t have to worry about tagging along the USB cable everywhere with you. It will also allow you to store up to 22 coins and ERC-20 tokens with its live version and is compatible with other crypto wallets ranging from MyCrypto, MyEtherWallet, Magnum Wallet, Yoroi Wallet, AdaLite, Trinity, Galleon, OWallet, LisKish and more. 

As of November 2019, Nano X supports a cool 1338 crypto assets, from the most popular ones like Bitcoin, Tether, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, Cardano, to other less known ones like Pundi, Quant, Aeternity, RHOC, CA, and so on.

The device is equipped with a state-of-the-art security chip – the CC EAL5+ – making it nearly impossible for your cryptos to be stolen. 

Ledger Nano X allows users to connect it via two ways: USB and Bluetooth. Currently, it’s compatible with 64-bit computers (Windows+, macOS, and Linux), as well as iOS 9+ and Android 7+. 

Also, Nano X allows you to recover your crypto account even if you lose your device. Its 24-word recovery phrase, a.k.a seed phrase, is a list of words that stores all the info you need to recover your wallet.

Ledger Nano S

Listing two wallets from the same company might seem an overkill, but Ledger’s products deserve space on this list simply because they both go toe to toe with the best in the market.

Ledger Nano S is the older sibling to Nano X but has qualities that help it maintain its revered place in the wallet market.

Nano S’ screen lets you see everything at a go, with two buttons that let you control it. Your wallet is protected with a secure chip always locked by a pin code. That and its offline status secures your private key from prying eyes and internet vulnerabilities.

Customers can choose from either matte black, saffron yellow, lagoon blue, transparent, and jade green colors. Nano S can support 1100+ cryptocurrencies and tokens, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Bitcoin Gold, Litecoin, Waves, Ark, Stealth, Horizen, and more.

Just like Nano X, Nano S is compatible with other crypto wallets such as Yoroi, MyCrypto, MyEtherWallet, Fairy Wallet, Beryllium, VeForge Vault, OWallwt, Neo Wallet, Kin Laboratory, and more.

You can connect Ledger Nano S to the computer via a USB 2.0 port, and the system is compatible with 64-bits computers (Windows 8+, Mac 10.8+) and Linux. It’s also compatible with Android 7+ smartphones.

The wallet doesn’t need to be charged – it uses your PC’s power when you plug it in.

KeepKey

Launched in 2015, KeepKey is one of the most recognizable crypto wallets. The wallet uses advanced security technology to protect your funds from theft and hacks. Even if someone gets hold of your wallet and installed it in a modified software that’s not designed by KeepKey, the device wouldn’t let them proceed.

Part of the reason KeepKey is popular is that it’s embedded with a cryptocurrency exchange – ShapeShift – making it possible to trade crypto coins and tokens right on the device. 

KeepKey supports 12, 18, and 24 recovery phrases to enable you to recover your cryptos in case the device is spoiled, stolen, or lost.

KeepKey wallet supports eight cryptocurrencies – namely Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin gold, DASH, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Digibyte. It can also host 46 ERC-20 tokens, including Decentraland, Edgeless, FisrtBlood, Gnosis, District0X, Dai, CyberMiles, and more. Also, users can interact with 1000 more cryptos via KeepKey and MyEtherWallet integration.

KeepKey is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and you will find the KeepKey Client app on either of the platforms via Google Chrome. iPhone and Android users can access KeepKey by installing the MyCelium app available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store. If you want to use a phone to operate KeepKey, you have to connect to your phone using an OTG adapter cable.

Exodus

Exodus wallet is a desktop and mobile wallet that gives users the whole crypto experience – from sending to loved ones to paying for things to HODLing to trading right within the software. It has a simple design that even beginner traders will find it extremely easy to navigate. Its versatile design with real-time display of digital assets; and a customizable portfolio that allows you to change themes, background color, and other features has endeared it to the crypto community.

As of November 2010, the wallet supports 102+ crypto coins and tokens, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, plus other little known ones like Genesis Vision, Salt, Otum, Leopring, Aragon, Storj, Decred, TrueUSD and more.

Exodus is a perfect option for users who trade regularly or want to trade on the go. It’s also very convenient to log in to your account and pay for things. And if you lose access to your assets, it provides the option of a seed phrase that will generate your wallet address and private keys.

The wallet doesn’t store any of your information online – including your passcodes and private keys. This is a good thing because it keeps your crypto safe from hackers, but it also means it’s your sole responsibility to protect your account.

Being a software wallet, you don’t need extra hardware like OTG or USB cables to access your wallet. All you need to do is install it on Windows, Linux, or Mac and get to interact with crypto in no time.

CoolWalletS

CoolWalletS is a hardware mobile cold storage introduced in 2016 by the Taiwanese company CoolBitX. With the mobile wallet, you can store, swap, send, and receive crypto at the single touch of a button. The wallet is integrated with Binance DEX and Changelly crypto exchanges, so you never miss any trading opportunity. 

If you’re looking for a discreet (which is a no-brainer when it comes to your private keys), portable, lightweight, and sleekly designed wallet, the CoolWalletS is your go-to option. The wallet is ‘cool’ enough to look exactly like a credit card – so no one will be the wiser to the fact that you’re transacting with a crypto wallet. 

CoolWallet utilizes a high-end security solution – Secure Element (SE) to store your private keys – making it virtually impossible for your coins to be stolen. The secure element is also capable of verifying if your device has been tampered with- by verifying its integrity. CoolWallwet also uses passcodes, a touch ID, and a 2+1 factor authentication (with facial recognition) – which in our opinion sums up to pretty foolproof security. 

On top of that, CoolWalletS is waterproof, shockproof, and temperature resistant – meaning you can get away with quite a lot with your wallet still intact.

The wallet provides support for Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Horizen, ICX, stable coins, and ERC20 tokens, with BitDegree, Formosa Financial, Metal, Cortex, USD Dollar, JoyToken and others. 

CoolWallet utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to facilitate connection to your smartphone or tablet. Currently, it supports iOS 9.1+, and Android 5.0+, with at least the BLE version of 4.0. 

Indacoin

Indacoin is a mobile-based crypto wallet offered provided by UK-based Indacoin Limited, the company that runs the Indacoin crypto exchange. Launched in 2013, the wallet allows users to instantly buy crypto with the use of their credit or debit card. As well, you can exchange and manage cryptocurrency from right within the wallet with the use of a single app. However, the wallet does not support selling crypto as of now.

Russia and Turkey users can use Indacoin to withdraw crypto to a debit or credit card. Users from other countries only have the option of crypto-based withdrawals.

The wallet features an intuitive and easy to use interface that makes it stress-free to buy, receive, swap, or trade crypto on the go. The wallet provides support for 100+ cryptocurrencies, including big hitters like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, Litecoin, Binance as well as other less dominant ones like IOTA, Bumbacoin, Chesscoin, CondenSate and so on. 

To ensure users’ safety, Indacoin only accepts 3D-secured cards like MasterCard and SecureCode and Visa Verified. Indacoin also does not store your card details – a move that protects your personal data. Purchases are also verified via a verification code sent via SMS to your phone. 

Indacoin is available for Android 4.1+ and iOS 9.0 and later versions. 

Trezor 

Trezor is almost an instantly recognizable name in nearly every crypto setting. That’s because it was the first-ever wallet to store crypto offline, and it has so far maintained the reputation of being one the most secure hardware wallet out there. Trezor is available in two models: Trezor One and Trezor Model T. The difference between the two models is Model T lets you control it via a touchscreen while One uses two physical buttons.

Both models let you view the status of your transactions on the display. You don’t need a battery to power them since they will be powered by your PC when you plug them in.

Trezor supports 1000+ coins, with big-timers like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Stellar, EOS, DASH, ZCash, Monero and also others you probably haven’t heard of, like Seele, Revain, FunFair, GNY, Unobtanium, Fusin, Tael, Ruff, Numerai, Insolar, Polis, DADI and so on.

The wallet is also compatible with other crypto wallets, including Exodus, Magnum, Bloks.io, AdaLite, and Yoroi.

Trezor provides the option of creating a seed phrase that protects your private key in the event of theft, loss, and destruction. It supports BIP39 phrases – which it doesn’t store nor remember. This way, even if someone gets their hands on your wallet, your account remains safe. As a further protective measure, Trezor’s hardware case is ultrasonically welded in such a way that it cannot be restored after breakage. 

The device is compatible with both computers and smartphones. If you have Windows 7 and later versions, macOS 10.11+, Linux, and Android, you can get Trezor and try it out.

Guarda

Guarda is a non-custodial web, desktop, mobile, and Chrome Extension wallet that allows you to buy, sell, receive, send, and store crypto. Introduced in 2017, the wallet is one of the few that allows so many functionalities for crypto in ‘one roof.’

The web and desktop wallets can be used on any device running on Windows, Linux, or macOS, while the mobile-based wallet allows Android and iOS users anywhere, anytime. Its inbuilt crypto purchase function lets you buy crypto using both crypto and fiat currencies. Besides, it features an exchange that lets you effortlessly swap coins from one currency to the other.

All Guarda’s wallets are non-custodial – meaning you are entirely in charge of your addresses and private keys. Also, your personal information is not out there in the hands of a third party, and you won’t be subjected to intrusive Know Your Customer procedures.

Guarda requires you to save a backup file each time you create or import a wallet. You get logged out of the account if there’s no activity for a particular period. All backups are secured through the cutting edge Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), so your sensitive data is always safe and secure. What’s more, you can configure the mobile version wallet to require Touch ID/Face ID unlock.

You can even import private keys From Guarda’s own wallets or other exchange, desktop, or web-based wallets. There’s also a dedicated menu that lets you connect to Ledger Nano S and view your transactions on the Nano S wallet on Guarda. 

You can create your own ERC20 tokens via the wallet’s Guarda Token Generator – another exciting functionality of this wallet.

Guarda supports over 40 major blockchains and 10,000+ tokens. Household names like Bitcoin, Ethereum, DASH, Litecoin make the list. So do other little known ones like Groestlcoin, ReddCoin, Maker, Gulden, Expanse, Gemini dollar, and so on.

Coinbase

Coinbase wallet is an app wallet provided by the crypto exchange Coinbase that offers your state of the art security for your crypto. With Coinbase, you can store tokens bought from other exchanges or Initial Coin Offering events. Users can also interact with Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps) on its DApp browser.

Cooinbase is a separate product from the exchange – meaning you don’t have to have an account on the exchange to access and use the wallet. Anyone from anywhere with any IOS or Android device can download and install it.

It’s important to distinguish between the Coinbase wallet and the exchange wallet on Coinbase.com. The exchange wallet will store your private keys on Coinbase’s servers, while the wallet app lets you store your private keys on your device. Also, with the app, you can easily move cryptocurrency from its existing wallet apps like Metamask, MyEtherWallet, and others.

With Coinbase Wallet, your private keys are secured with Secure Enclave – a high-end security feature that enables your wallet to remain intact even if it were hacked. On top of that, the wallet employs biometric technology to prevent unauthorized success.

Another remarkable feature by the wallet is always keeping you up to speed with the current price of cryptos in your local currency. Over 100 fiat currencies are supported – including EUR, GBP, USD, AUD, and CAD.

Currently, the Coinbase wallet lets you manage Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and all ERC-20 tokens. You can also store cats, monsters, art, and even ERC721 digital collectibles all in one beautiful gallery.

The wallet lets you back up your private keys on Google Drive and iCloud. Some people are skeptical about how safe those options are, but with a strong, unique password and multiple-factor authentication, we think they can be considered safe.

You can operate the wallet on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch as long as the device supports version 11.0 or later versions. For Android devices, you need to have at least the 6.0 version or later versions. The Coinbase wallet app is available for download on Google Play and iOS App Store. 

Conclusion

If you’re serious about crypto, you need to get a safe, secure, and robust crypto wallet. Each of these options provides one of the best experiences possible of interacting with crypto. Of course, you should get the wallet that best suits your needs, your personality, and how regularly you interact with crypto. Also, ensure to buy your wallet directly from the company’s website, just to stay safe. 

Categories
Crypto Videos

How To Manage Your Cryptocurrency Assets – The Best Sources Available

https://youtu.be/QKEE9auMAMs

Cryptocurrency asset management potential
As the internet became more and more popular, it started revolutionizing not only communication but online investing as well. By using the internet, many

https://youtu.be/QKEE9auMAMs

Cryptocurrency asset management potential
As the internet became more and more popular, it started revolutionizing not only communication but online investing as well. By using the internet, many


Cryptocurrency asset management potential

As the internet became more and more popular, it started revolutionizing not only communication but online investing as well. By using the internet, many people could break down the informational and execution barriers that they were facing before. This brought an overwhelming amount of trading applications to the market. This gave an opportunity for a wider range of investors the ability to participate in financial markets with greater execution speed and reduced fees.


Cryptocurrency asset management

New milestones have been met as the UK-based robo-advisor, and online wealth manager Nutmeg surpassed GBP 1 billion in funds under management. On the other hand, such centralized execution and advice are used less in cryptocurrency trading. Cryptocurrency asset management tools are entering the market intending to assist retail investors that want to explore the market. Companies that create such tools have a clear incentive, which is to operate in a perspective market that started to stabilize.

Simplified cryptocurrency management

The process of purchasing cryptocurrencies is still harder than buying regular tradable equities, even in this day. As cryptocurrencies keep attracting new users, the need for straightforward tools designed to manage crypto portfolios is increasing.

Traditionally, new traders must first find a wallet that accepts the cryptocurrencies they wish to trade, and then find a way to buy that cryptocurrency. This is usually done via exchanges that require completing a multifaceted and lengthy verification process. Any form of diversification can mean using more than one wallet or exchange. While it is doable, this process is quite complex and presents a big barrier to entry for many new market participants.


As a result, companies are introducing a tool that was previously only used in traditional asset management, which will help people manage their cryptocurrency portfolios more easily. Instead of having to manage multiple accounts and wallets, cryptocurrency asset management platforms are there to help their users consolidate their diversified portfolios.
This concept is still rather new as most traders still manage their investments through their wallets. However, several platforms have established themselves on the market as asset management tools worth using.
Picking the right asset management tool
Even though the cryptocurrency market has an enormous number of exchanges active, the combination of cryptocurrencies they offer is not a comprehensive list. This poses a challenge for new investors, as exchanges are not compatible with all wallets, which can lead to certain complications when trying to manage a diverse array of assets.

Cryptocurrency asset management platforms

Seek to simplify the process without resorting to a third party to handle users’ investment. Some platform’s tools help its users manage multiple portfolios concurrently. On top of that, they allow for automatic syncing, so users’ trades and purchases will always be updated centrally.
Others provide more traditional asset management tools, such as allowing users to create their asset groups as well as combinations according to their liking and risk-aversion.


Centralization

One important thing to note is the centralized nature of these platforms. Most cryptocurrency asset management platforms are completely centralized, which means that the simplicity and ease of access is just one side of the coin.
Most of these platforms do not offer private keys to the “wallets” to their users, meaning that the funds are not under complete control of the users.

Simplicity is the key to success

Ultimately, the cryptocurrency market will only succeed if the barrier to enter the market is small or non-existent. Cryptocurrency asset management tools offer traders a simple and easy way to enter the market as well as manage their investments.

Categories
Crypto Videos

Tether & Its Controversies – Is Your Money At Risk?

https://youtu.be/Dgxi9lC6QyA

Tether and its controversies
Before talking about how does Tether work, we have to know what it is.
Tether is a blockchain-based stable cryptocurrency backed in fiat currency.

https://youtu.be/Dgxi9lC6QyA

Tether and its controversies
Before talking about how does Tether work, we have to know what it is.
Tether is a blockchain-based stable cryptocurrency backed in fiat currency.


Tether and its controversies

Before talking about how does Tether work, we have to know what it is.
Tether is a blockchain-based stable cryptocurrency backed in fiat currency. Tether is backed by the US Dollar, which is all held in a designated bank account. Tether tokens are traded under the USDT ticker symbol.

Tether was first launched under a different name. It was called RealCoin when it first came out in July 2014. However, it was quickly renamed to Tether in November by Tether Ltd. Tether Ltd. is the company that maintains the reserve amounts of fiat currency. Tether started trading in February 2015.


In-depth explanation

Tether is the leader of the new type of cryptocurrencies called stablecoins. Stablecoins are created to keep cryptocurrency valuations stable, as most cryptocurrencies fluctuate too much in price to be considered viable currencies. Low volatility would allow stablecoins to be used as a medium of exchange rather than as a medium of speculative investments.
There are many forms of stablecoins, and Tether specifically belongs to fiat-backed stablecoins. As previously said, the US Dollar backs each Tether token in circulation. Tether was created to build the bridge between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. It is supposed to offer stability, transparency, and minimal transaction charges to its users. Tether is pegged against the US Dollar and maintains a 1-1 ratio in terms of value and price. However, there is no guarantee whatsoever provided by Tether Ltd. that users can exchange their Tether tokens for US dollars.

According to CryptoCompare data cited by The Wall Street Journal, somewhere around 80% of all Bitcoin trading is currently done in Tether. If this is true, Tether would be considered a major source of liquidity for Bitcoin as well as the cryptocurrency market in general.


Controversies on Tether

Tether was known for its controversies throughout its history. It allegedly got hacked for $31 million worth of Tether tokens, which made the company fork the coin to create a rollback. This event happened in November 2017.

This is not the end of controversies with Tether. Another controversy happened as the audit that was created to ensure that the fiat reserve is maintained never took place. Instead, Tether announced it was parting ways with the firm that was supposed to audit them. Right after that happened, Tether was issued a subpoena by financial regulators. This event happened in January 2018.


In April 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the parent company of Tether Ltd. as well as the operator of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex of hiding tremendous losses from its investors. Allegedly, Tether hid a loss of $850 million from its investors.

Tether has always been a center of attention when it comes to controversies. Many people are still insecure about whether it is backed by fiat currency or not. As there is no real evidence of whether the fiat funds exist, no one can say for sure. However, Tether remained a stable cryptocurrency for quite some time. So far, it has been a safe haven for traders and investors that want to move their funds away from volatile cryptocurrencies when the bear market approaches, without actually exchanging the cryptocurrencies for fiat. This way, they are avoiding various exchange and transaction fees.

Tether token is transacted on many popular cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binanace, BitFinex, and Kraken.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 22 – Crypto market crashes as China allegedly shuts down Binance Shanghai office in a crackdown

The cryptocurrency market had a major crash today. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the significant red. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down

The cryptocurrency market had a major crash today. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the significant red. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down

The cryptocurrency market had a major crash today. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the significant red. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down 0.6.51%, and it is now trading at $7,577. Ethereum lost 8.01%, while XRP went down 3.62%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is MMO Coin, with 104.8% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was DxChain Token, which lost 40.09% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance decreased by around 0.4% when compared to yesterday’s value. Its dominance now sits at 65.58%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $208.21 billion, which represents a significant decrease when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

Chinese authorities have reportedly shut down Binance’s Shanghai offices. Binance is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Citing unnamed local sources, The Block announced that the local police raided Binance’s Shanghai offices and shut them down. Binance has around 50-100 employees working in Shanghai.

Binance has not yet responded to any requests for comment at the moment.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin had a significant crash today. Its price managed to break down under $8,000 and even test the big $7,415 key support level. As that level managed to hold the bears off for now, Bitcoin is now trading just above it.


Bitcoin’s volume increased as the move down progressed. Its RSI level is extremely low and is sitting in the oversold territory for some time now. It currently has a value of 13.6.

The key level of $8,000 passed to the upside, while the major key level to the downside is not $7,415.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $8,000                                           1: $7,415

2: $8,425

3: $8,640                                   

Ethereum

Ethereum also broke its immediate resistance in the past 24 hours. After spending the day trading just below its immediate resistance of 178.6, Ethereum’s price slipped down and made its way towards below the $163.5 line. The price managed to stabilize above the green support area and is now trading close to $160.


The only major change in key levels is that the key level of $167.9 moved to the upside.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: 178.6                                             1: $167.8

2: $185

3: $193.5

XRP

XRP’s ranging movements stopped today, as the price crashed down. Its price fell below its key support level of $0.245, which made XRP unstable as bears took over the market. Even though it fell all the way down to $0,236, XRP managed to recover slightly and is now trading just under its $0,245 support level. If, however, bulls do not manage to cross over it, XRP may attempt to break down the $0.235 support key level.


The key levels of $0.245 moved to the upside, while the key level of $0.235 is added to the downside levels.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.245                                           1:  $0.235

2: $0.266

3: $0.285

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

A Simple Guide to Cold and Hot Wallets

Cryptocurrency wallets are software or devices that allow users to send, receive, and store cryptocurrency.  Most cryptocurrencies have designed their own wallets, e.g., Bitcoin has the Bitcoin wallet, Ethereum has

Cryptocurrency wallets are software or devices that allow users to send, receive, and store cryptocurrency.  Most cryptocurrencies have designed their own wallets, e.g., Bitcoin has the Bitcoin wallet, Ethereum has

Cryptocurrency wallets are software or devices that allow users to send, receive, and store cryptocurrency.  Most cryptocurrencies have designed their own wallets, e.g., Bitcoin has the Bitcoin wallet, Ethereum has the Ethereum Wallet, and Litecoin has Litecoin-QT. However, there are some companies that design third-party wallets that allow you to store more than one type of cryptocurrency. If you want to interact with any cryptocurrency, i.e., sending, storing, and spending, a cryptocurrency wallet is necessary.

There are two broad categories of wallets: hot and cold wallets. In this explainer, we delve into what makes a wallet hot or cold, the pros and cons of each, and how to stay safe when handling crypto – whether you’re using a hot or cold wallet.

What Are Hot and Cold Storage Wallets?

The terms hot and cold wallets are used to describe the medium that is storing a cryptocurrency. Hot wallets are purely online-based, while cold wallets are offline-based. In other words, hot wallets are connected to the internet, while cold wallets are not.

A hot wallet is hosted online through platforms that offer these storage services. A user entrusts their public and private keys to the platform, which then secures and manages it for them.  Many hot wallets are free – all you need to do is sign up and start using the service. It’s advisable not to store huge amounts of cryptocurrencies in a hot wallet – they are vulnerable to hacking. Also, you should research intensively before committing to one type of hot wallet. This is due to the following reasons:

☑️ Some hot wallet providers are not providers at all – they are scam projects looking to rip off oblivious users

☑️ Different hot wallet providers provide different user interface experience

☑️ Some hot wallets are designed to work in tandem with other apps or to support only certain cryptocurrencies

☑️ Different hot wallet providers have varying levels of expertise, commitment to safety and security, and different end goals

☑️ Some hot wallet providers are willing to continuously upgrade their model to keep up with changing hacking tricks, while others are not

Cold wallets are considered the safest crypt wallets because they are immune to cyber-attacks and other on line hazards.

Just like with hot wallets, you should consider the following factors before committing to any cold wallet:

☑️ The wallet shouldn’t be too hard to use – choose a wallet that doesn’t need a lot of practice before you can get it right

☑️ The wallet should be convenient – while all cold wallets are more suitable for long term storage and HODLing, some provide more convenience in terms of size, being discreet, etc.

Types of Hot Wallets

Hot wallets fall mainly into two categories: cloud-based wallets and multi-signature wallets. What sets these categories apart is the number of keys that control the crypto account.

Cloud wallets store cryptocurrencies using any device that has an internet connection, including a smartphone or computer.

Multi-signature wallets, also known as multi-sig wallets, are wallets that require more than one key in order for the transaction to proceed. This makes it difficult for hackers to access the information or execute a brute force attack on the wallet (which is guessing multiple private keys until you find the right one.)

A multi-sig wallet may, for example, issue three private keys: one held by the host, the other by the user, and the other one by a third trusted party.

Types of Cold Wallets

There are two types of cold wallets, and these are hardware and paper wallets.

Hardware wallets are physical devices that keep your private keys on a hardware device with the look and functionality of a USB device. Some developers provide hardware devices that are compatible with several web interfaces, but not interacting with the internet at all. In the same way, hardware devices let you conduct online transactions without having your private key interact with the internet whatsoever.

Paper wallets, on the other hand, are generated by printing out your private key and storing it offline. A software program creates them offline and is then deleted afterward to erase any trace of the key.

Cold or Hot Wallets?

New crypto users often ask themselves this question: Which is better, cold, or hot wallets? Well, that depends on your needs.

If you’re going to be interacting with your crypto often, e.g., by active trading or paying for things regularly, then it’s best to operate an easy-to-access hot wallet. However, it’s highly recommended that you don’t keep large sums of crypto in a hot wallet since if it gets hacked, you will lose all your cryptos. In other words, store small sum, for-daily-use cryptos online, and keep the rest in cold storage.

In terms of security, cold wallets win hands down. They are safe from viruses, hacking, and other types of malware. Some developers even design them in such a manner that even if you plug them in a computer that has malware, it remains unscathed. However, cold wallets are susceptible to getting lost, a fire, water, or theft. The lesson here is to keep your cold wallet in a secure, private place safe from prying eyes, fire, water, and wear and tear.

As we’ve so far mentioned in this article, hot wallets are susceptible to internet hazards like hacking, phishing, scamming, and so on. Online wallet providers may put in place the most stringent security measures, but even that has been known to fail. The most foolproof measure to secure your online-based cryptos may be insurance. Some sites like Coinbase and Binance have insured their clients’ crypto assets in case of loss or theft, which is reassuring.

Based on this information, the decision to use hot or cold storage is entirely yours. However, you should first know the advantages and disadvantages of each type of wallet before deciding upon either. Here are the perks of hot and cold wallets together with their cons.

Pros and cons of hot and cold wallets

Pros of Hot Wallets

Most of them are free

They offer quick access to your cryptocurrency

They are easy to use

Cons of Hot Wallets

They are susceptible to cyber fraud and cannot guarantee full safety

Your funds can be permanently lost in the hands of your wallet provider.

Pros of Cold Wallets

They are secure and robust methods of storing crypto assets long-term

They are immune from cyber fraud

You don’t entrust them to a third party – you are in full control of your funds

Cons of Cold Wallets

They can be expensive, depending on the model

They are not ideal for day-to-day use or for making micropayments

They are susceptible to loss, theft or external damage

They are not convenient for trading purposes

Best Practices for Keeping Your Wallet Secure 

Whether you settle on a hot or cold wallet, you can save yourself a lot of heartache by taking some safety precautions:

  • Keep as little cryptocurrency as possible in the wallet that you use frequently
  • Use applications such as Google Authenticator to enhance security for your online wallet
  • Disable any automatic updates for your hot wallet
  • Don’t access your hot wallet via public Wi-Fi
  • Enable multiple-factor authentication for your wallet
  • Backup your wallet and keep the backups in several safe locations
  • Update your software regularly

Conclusion

If you’re looking to invest, trade, or make transactions using cryptocurrency, a crypto wallet is essential. A good wallet can be the difference between safely keeping your coins and losing them. The most important thing to remember is that hot or cold; your wallet’s safety largely depends on you. Also, remember to take your time and go over the available options before deciding to settle on any particular wallet.

Categories
Crypto Videos

What Happens After An ICO? – Get Rich Quick Or Scam

https://youtu.be/8lGywGdgjLw

What happens after an ICO
Initial coin offerings became an extremely popular subject as people saw the crowdfunding and profit-making potential is brought to the market. Companies create

https://youtu.be/8lGywGdgjLw

What happens after an ICO
Initial coin offerings became an extremely popular subject as people saw the crowdfunding and profit-making potential is brought to the market. Companies create


What happens after an ICO

Initial coin offerings became an extremely popular subject as people saw the crowdfunding and profit-making potential is brought to the market. Companies create an ICO where they sell their tokens in exchange for funds. On the other hand, investors give their funds to the ICO project as they believe that it will solve a certain problem or simply bring a profit. The creation of ICOs meant that companies could finance a project based on just the idea.

ICO stages

ICOs usually have more than one stage. The first one is private and inaccessible to the public in most cases. It is available only to the big investors and companies that are willing to support the project. They get special deals as well as bonuses depending on the support they are willing to provide, and the amount of money they are willing to invest.

The Pre-ICO stage is next in line. In this stage, early investors get a chance to acquire the biggest bonuses available to the public. After that, the regular ICO can be divided into a few stages, with each one giving different bonuses, depending on the time of investing (the earlier, the bigger the bonus), and/or based on the amount invested (which is rarely the case).


ICO caps

Most ICOs have soft and hard caps to measure the funds required for their projects. The soft cap is the minimum amount of investment required to be acquired to even start the project. If the ICO doesn’t manage to get enough starting capital, they shut down the project and return the money to the investors.
Hard cap, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of the soft cap and represents the maximum amount of money an ICO needs. If reached before the offering is finished, the ICO stops as all the required funds are acquired, and no more funds are needed. The best project ideas tend to sell all of their available tokens in a matter of minutes.

ICO aftermath

After a project finishes crowdfunding through an ICO, the second stage of a project starts. The acquired funds are used to pay for project development or improvement (if the project had any form of a product before the ICO), marketing, and branding the idea that the ICO was based on in the first place.
The first move is, in most cases, to list the token on as many exchanges. By doing this, projects quickly enable profit-making from their tokens as the invested funds grow in market value, turning profits for the investors and making them happy, as well as making a profit to the project managers and developers, so they can have more funds to work with.
Buying into an ICO is much like investing in a company through a stock market. The main distinction is that a company that is listed on a stock market is most likely well-developed already, while an ICO represents an investment into an idea.
That idea is described in a whitepaper. When time is added to the equation, we get a roadmap for the project. The roadmap includes the project’s schedule of improvements, public and official launching of the product, and major exchange listings of their coin or token. If the project wants to be successful, they have to keep up with their timeline, or the investors will not be satisfied, therefor reducing the market price of the coin or token they bought.


ICO regulation

Many countries have decided to take a look at ICOs, how they operate, and how they should be regulated after the 2017 ICO craze. Many of the ICOs were just money grabs or scams while others were decent projects with good visions, but unable to deliver on their vision properly.
Even though the whole idea of cryptocurrency is based on decentralization, regulation can be a good thing, especially in the ICO sphere. Some countries, like China and the USA, have made strict regulatory actions towards ICO. However, both of these countries are now easing up on regulation and trying to come up with a solution on how to utilize ICOs.

KYC – know your customer

KYC laws were introduced in 2001 in the USA as part of the Patriot Act, which was passed after 9/11 to provide a variety of means to deter terrorist behavior. The section of the Act that pertained specifically to financial transactions added requirements and enforcement policies to the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 that had thus far regulated banks and other institutions.
There are many fully legal reasons to invest in an ICO, ranging from belief in the utility of a new piece of cryptocurrency infrastructure to speculation on a coin’s rising value. Outside of these legal motivations, there are also illegal practices such as laundering fiat currency through ICO projects. Unfortunately, the ongoing lack of regulatory clarity and regulation means that people who wish to invest in a project for its intrinsic utility to disrupt established industries for the better feel they risk being treated as money launderers.
This is why the KYC system is what all of the ICO investors usually have to go through to be able to invest in an ICO. KYC is completed by submitting your information (name, address, country of origin) and then providing one or more documents to prove the information provided.

Final word

Investing in ICOs can be highly lucrative, but only if the investment is well thought out, and the project is successful. Much time has to pass until an ICO proves its worth, so investors need to have a lot of patience. The roadmap is the holy grail of investors and should be considered as such by the developers, too, for the sheer positive thinking in the times of waiting for the project to come to life.

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Bitcoin’s Thirst for Power: Why it Uses a Quarter Percent of the World’s Electricity?

If you thought the report by Nature.com a few days ago that it takes more energy to mine Bitcoin than mining gold of similar value was the most surprising thing

If you thought the report by Nature.com a few days ago that it takes more energy to mine Bitcoin than mining gold of similar value was the most surprising thing

If you thought the report by Nature.com a few days ago that it takes more energy to mine Bitcoin than mining gold of similar value was the most surprising thing you read about Bitcoin this week, you’re in for another surprise!

The amount of power Bitcoin mining consumes has been a growing concern over the years, but it has reached a point where it is plainly alarming. Today, it is estimated that Bitcoin consumes as much as a quarter percent of the world’s electricity supply, according to a tweet posted by James Todaro, the Managing Partner at Blocktown Capital and Columbia University Alumni.

James points out that humanity is justified to devote such a significant amount of resources to an asset because of how important it is to our future. If anything, he implies, Bitcoin as a technology asset is here to stay, and such assets as rat poison, tulips, beanie babies, and others that have already disappeared cannot be compared with Bitcoin.

Why Bitcoin is so power-hungry

You already know that Bitcoin runs on a blockchain network. You probably also know that at the core of its network is the Proof-of-Work consensus, a protocol that requires work in terms of data processing by a computer that takes time in order to validate blocks. Miners, a term that refers to the owners of computers that do the processing work, are rewarded with a certain amount of Bitcoins for every block validated.

Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work consensus verifies the legitimacy of each block of blockchain transactions added to the chain using complex mathematical processes that uses the computer’s processing capabilities. In the early days of Bitcoin, mining was an easier process that required very little processing power. This is why anyone with a half-decent computer could use it to mine the coins back in the day.

With time, as the Bitcoin network scaled and grew in size, it demanded more processing power to validate blocks of transactions. This meant that the more powerful computers aptly known as ‘rigs’ had to enter the mining scene to meet the platform’s thirst for processing power. Mining Bitcoin became expensive because these powerful machines are not only expensive to acquire, but also use up a lot of electricity. It requires tremendous processing power to validate blocks of transactions in the shortest time possible.

How much power is 0.25% of the global supply?

Current statistics on the Digiconomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index show that Bitcoin mining uses as much as 79.79 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually, which is comparable to the amount of power consumed by Belgium estimated to be 82.1 TWh and higher than that of the Philippines which stands at 78.3 TWh annually.

Going by Digiconomist estimates, the amount of power the Bitcoin network gobbles up is in the upwards of $3.66 billion, but it generates revenue estimated to be $5.72 billion, a cost percentage of 63.9%. This is a lot of investment in a single asset, especially since the global adoption of the Bitcoin is still relatively low. While more people are appreciating and embracing cryptocurrency, and in particular Bitcoin, the uptake is generally gradual. It is estimated that it may take as long as 24 years for half of the global population to start using Bitcoin for regular payments.

While these figures may look scary, it is important to note that the Bitcoin technology platform has merit and is expected to ultimately grow to become the world’s primary form of payment. Considering that Television, the world’s most power-hungry electronic device now used in most households, uses as much as 8% of the total global electricity, Bitcoin’s 0.25% is not a figure to worry about at this point.

Effects on the environment

Bitcoin mining uses electricity that is not always harvested from renewable sources. If the figures on the Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index are anything to go by, the Bitcoin mining industry has a carbon footprint of 34.73 metric tonnes (MT) of carbon dioxide (CO2), a figure comparable to the carbon footprint of Denmark. It also produces as much as 10.62-kilo tonnes (KT) of electronic waste that is made up of discarded electronic devices that rarely ever make it back to recyclers.

In many ways, Bitcoin is like gold. It cannot be arbitrarily created, and its supply is limited. It was easy for the Nature magazine to compare Bitcoin mining to gold mining, not just because of the amount of resources it requires, but also because it takes increasingly greater effort as more of it is mined. Since the supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million, it will get to a point when miners will have unlocked all the available supply, unless its original protocol is altered to allow for more.

Presently, about 18 million Bitcoins have been mined, leaving just under 3 million left to be mined. It will cost more in terms of electricity consumption to mine the remaining quantity compared to what has already been mined. As such, it is expected that Bitcoin mining rigs will continue to demand more power until the last coin is mined sometime in the year 2140 if the bitcoin network protocol remains unchanged between now and then.

Conclusion

In 2015, Adam Hayes published a paper titled “A Cost of Production Model for Bitcoin,” in which he compares the production of Bitcoin to a competitive market where the miners “produce until their marginal costs equal their marginal product.” Since the marginal costs, in this case, is electricity costs (once the initial costs of equipment and infrastructure have been settled), he concludes that the costs of electricity will determine the future of Bitcoin mining.

It is expected that within a few months to years, Bitcoin will need as much as 1% or more of the total global electricity supply. However, all this will happen only if the energy does not become prohibitively expensive as to cost more than the miners will earn from the Bitcoins they mine.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 20 – KPMG values Bitcoin-based companies less this year, Cryptocurrency markets in consolidation

The cryptocurrency market was mainly consolidating in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies gained and lost values that were not significant enough to cover. If we take a look at

The cryptocurrency market was mainly consolidating in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies gained and lost values that were not significant enough to cover. If we take a look at

The cryptocurrency market was mainly consolidating in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies gained and lost values that were not significant enough to cover. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down 0.45%, and it is now trading at $8,113. Ethereum lost 0.25%, while XRP gained 1.65%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is Crypterium, with 21.06% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was Aurora, which lost 9.37% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance remained at the pretty much the same place from the last time we checked the markets. Its dominance now sits at 65.87%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $224.9 billion, which represents a slight decrease when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

There was no big fundamental news that could impact the market positively or negatively today. Small price movements showed that no technical or fundamental indicators gave any signals.

Big Four auditing firm KPMG released its 2019 Fintech100 ranking. KPMG lists the top100 fintech firms in the world each year. This year, the list saw a drop in Bitcoin and crypto-related companies.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin had a pretty slow day in the past 24 hours. After yesterday’s price drop, the price stabilized above $8,000 resistance line. This support key level seems to have been respected as bulls started to buy Bitcoin at this price point and stopped bears from taking over completely.


Bitcoin’s volume is continuing to gradually decrease from the big drop in price. Its RSI level is in the oversold territory for some time now.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $8,640                                           1: $8,425

2: $8,820                                           2: $8,000

3: $9,120                                         

Ethereum

As Ethereum broke another support key level, it is currently stuck in a price limbo. The price broke the $178.6 key support level and is currently trading just below it. There are currently no attempts of Ethereum going back above this key level.


The key level of $178.6 moved to the upside as the price went below it. It is likely that Ethereum won’t manage to go above this level in the short future as its volume and bull presence, in general, are not there.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: 178.6                                             1: $167.8

2: $185

3: $193.5

XRP

XRP had quite a turbulent day. Its price fell to its key support level of $0.245, but bulls kicked in and kept the price above it. XRP is currently trading in the middle of the range, stuck between the 0.245 support line and the 0.266 resistance line.


The key levels still remain the same as they were as XRP didn’t pass any key levels up or down.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.266                                           1: $0.245

2: $0.285

3: $0.31

Categories
Crypto Guides

Understanding Public Keys & Private Keys and Their Working

Introduction
Blockchains use public and private key cryptography to perform transactions in a cryptocurrency network. Public keys are generally widely known and used for identification of the person while private

Introduction
Blockchains use public and private key cryptography to perform transactions in a cryptocurrency network. Public keys are generally widely known and used for identification of the person while private

Introduction

Blockchains use public and private key cryptography to perform transactions in a cryptocurrency network. Public keys are generally widely known and used for identification of the person while private keys are secret keys, which is known only to the person who owns it. Private keys must be kept as secret as they are used for authentication of a transaction.

The Difference

Both public and private keys are a part of the asymmetric encryption of cryptography. The fundamental difference between these two is that the former is used for data encryption and the latter for decryption. Simply said, the Public key converts the message to an unreadable format whereas the Private key decrypts that message and converts it back to the original message. Hence, once the message is encrypted, it can never be decrypted without the help of the private key.

Both private and public keys are large integer numbers represented with a combination of numbers and alphabets. Since we understood the concept of public and private keys now, let us see how they are used in the crypto networks.

How does Public and Private key Cryptography work?

We know that digital wallets are used for sending and receiving cryptocurrencies. Digital wallets are not traditional wallets that store money in a digital format, but they store only public and private keys of the owner of the wallet. Private keys are used to sign the transaction through which the cryptos are transferred digitally. This digital signature is used to confirm the transaction was indeed send by the user who claims to have done the transaction, and no one can alter the same once the transaction is issued.

If someone were to have your private key, they could easily send the money from your wallet to their wallet by verifying the private key. Hence private keys are to be kept a secret from others. This is why it is said if the private key is lost, you lose all your money unless you have a technique to regenerate the private key and transfer it to a replica of your wallet or a new one.

The public key is generated using the private key and some additional information using cryptographic algorithms. This public key is widely known to all the people so that the transactions can be done. One may question if the public key is generated from a private key, can’t we reverse engineer and generate the private key from the public key? The answer is NO. The generation of keys is only one way, but the reverse is not possible since we are using asymmetric cryptographic encryption techniques designed by the National Security Agency of the USA.

Thus, using a combination of public and private keys, one can send and receive the money in digital wallets. Using a public key, one can easily decrypt the digital signature of the user signed using the private key.

Bottom Line

This is how transferring of digital currencies generally works. To end it with a simple example, if Nick wants to send some money say in Bitcoins/Ethereum/Litecoin etc. using his hardware wallet ‘Ledger Nano S’ or any online wallet like Coinbase, what should he actually do? He accesses his private key from the wallet and digitally sign the transaction, and this transaction is sent to the blockchain network. This transaction is verified using the public key to validate if the transaction is indeed being done by the wallet that it is being said, and thus the transaction is successful.

We hope you got a clear idea of what Public and Private keys are. In the upcoming articles, let’s discuss what crypto wallets are and their types. Cheers!

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency Trading Strategies – How To Make Money Using A Small Starting Balance

https://youtu.be/-EjMXfQTDVw
Viable cryptocurrency trading strategies
 
“How can traders potentially profit from the cryptocurrency markets without risking too much money, and what are the profitable strategies for the current market

https://youtu.be/-EjMXfQTDVw
Viable cryptocurrency trading strategies
 
“How can traders potentially profit from the cryptocurrency markets without risking too much money, and what are the profitable strategies for the current market

Viable cryptocurrency trading strategies
 

“How can traders potentially profit from the cryptocurrency markets without risking too much money, and what are the profitable strategies for the current market?”

Whether the market is moving up or down, there is an opportunity for profit! Cryptocurrencies have been the most volatile tradable asset class in decades, which makes them the most sought after place for traders, as it offers the most opportunity. However, trading brings its risks along with the opportunities. So how can we overcome these risks and make sure the odds are in our favor when trading, even in the bear market we are in currently?

Strategy #1 Heikin Ashi and MA crossover


With the cryptocurrency market mostly being in a downtrend since 2017, we have to take a look at some good strategies for trending markets (whichever way they go). This strategy includes Heikin Ashi as well as slow and fast-moving average crossovers to create an entry point, a profit target as well as a stop-loss. It is suitable for automation as well as beginner traders, as it’s quite easy to pick up.
Heikin Ashi is a version of a chart similar to a candlestick chart. The main difference is that the Heikin Ashi “candles” are averaged out. When used along with moving average crossovers, it can be quite effective in catching upwards and downwards moving trends.

Setup

Heikin Ashi chart 13-21 Simple moving average (fast)

100 Simple moving average (slow)

This strategy marks an entry when the fast SMA crosses the slow SMA, and 2-3 Heikin Ashi candles in a row are in green. For short-selling, the entry should be when the slow SMA crosses the fast SMA, and 2-3 most recent Heikin Ashi candles are red.
The profit target is when (in case of a long position) a few HA candles in a row are red. In the case of a short position, the profit target is when a few HA candles in a row are green.
Stop-loss is a great prevention tool when it comes to preserving capital. When using this strategy, the stop loss should be the latest swing low for a long trade and the latest swing high for a short trade.
Caution: This strategy works extremely well in trending markets, but does poorly in ranging swings.

Strategy #2


Fib retracements, volume, and oscillators
The second strategy is quite the opposite of our first one: it works great in ranging markets, and poorly in uptrends/downtrends.
Using Fibonacci retracements, we can establish potential previous move reversal points. Combining the previous support and resistance levels makes it easy to predict support and resistance points that the price will react to. This is where volume and oscillators come into play. Oscillators such as RSI or Stochastic can tell us when to expect a reversal and are mostly used as confirmation indicators.
The entry points in this strategy should be breakouts to the upside or downside from the resistance/support levels followed by a spike in volume as well as a confirmation from the indicators. Stop-loss should be placed just on the other side of the support/resistance level that was used as an entry point.
Leveraging your position can be an amazing addition to this strategy, and is even considered necessary, as ranging moves are usually not big. This means that the movements are more predictable, and when supplemented with a medium to high leverage, can be an amazing profit-making strategy.

Utilizing leverage trading

Using leverage as a tool to increase the potential profits has been used by both institutions as well as retail traders for decades. It is a great tool to enhance potentially profitable trades. Many traders are arguing that it’s a fast way to lose all your money. However, if used properly, each of the trades taken will have a bigger upside than the downside. If that’s taken into consideration, leverage is an amazing way to increase profits, and start trading with as little money as possible!
If the market makes a 1% move, you will get only 1% profit without leverage. However, with the leverage of up to 1:100 that trading platforms are currently offering, that 1% move can turn into a 100% gain.
With that being said, people should be careful when using leverage as cryptocurrency markets are extremely volatile and unpredictable. The amount of leverage used should correspond to the level of risk a trader is willing to take.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Nov 19 – Cryptocurrency ATM taxation as a possibility

The cryptocurrency market took a small price blow in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the red due to no significant buying volume coming into the

The cryptocurrency market took a small price blow in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the red due to no significant buying volume coming into the

The cryptocurrency market took a small price blow in the past 24 hours. Most cryptocurrencies ended up being in the red due to no significant buying volume coming into the markets. If we take a look at the past 24 hours, Bitcoin went down 2.96%, and it is now trading at $8,187. Ethereum gained 2.68%, while XRP went down 2.55%.

Of the top100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the biggest gainer is MMO coin, with 1,083.20% daily gain. The biggest loser of the day was ZB, which lost 13.72% of its value.

Bitcoin’s dominance remained at the same place from the last time we checked the markets. Its dominance now sits at 65.75%.

The cryptocurrency market as a whole now has a market capitalization of $229.89 billion, which represents a slight decrease when compared to the value it had yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

A senior agency official announced that criminal investigators at the IRS were focused on implementing taxation on users of cryptocurrency kiosks and ATMs.

“If you can walk in, put cash in and get Bitcoin out, obviously we’re interested potentially in the person using the kiosk and what the source of the funds is, but also in the operators of the kiosks.” – said the IRS criminal investigation chief John Fort.

_______________________________________________________________________

Technical analysis

_______________________________________________________________________

Bitcoin

Bitcoin had yet another failed attempt at going past the $8,640 resistance. At one point, the volume increased and everything pointed to Bitcoin crossing the resistance. However, that did not happen and Bitcoin’s price started to fall down as the bears kicked in. Its price went all the way down to $8,000 but quickly rose up to $8,150, which is the price Bitcoin is currently at.


Bitcoin’s volume has been gradually increasing during the day as the attempt to pass the resistance started to happen. However, the most significant volume increase was the candle where Bitcoin fell from $8,430 to $8,005.

The critical level of $8,000 has been added as the price respected this support line.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $8,640                                           1: $8,425

2: $8,820                                           2: $8,000

3: $9,120                                         

Ethereum

Ethereum broke another support key level. The price anchored to the $178.6 key support level and seemed to have stabilized there. However, today’s bear presence brought its price down just below $178.6. Ethereum is still struggling to decide whether the price will remain above this line or end up below it.


The key level of $178.6 moved to the upside as the price went below it.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: 178.6                                             1: $167.8

2: $185

3: $193.5

XRP

XRP is currently stuck in a price limbo. As it fell below its major support of $0.266, it had no clear support lines to anchor to for a couple of days now. With the first major key support level being $0.245, XRP is now roaming freely between this level and the $0.266 level, which now became resistance. XRP had quite of a red day in the past 24 hours, falling all the way down to $0.242 but quickly returning to its range and now trading at $0.252.


The key levels remain the same as they were before the weekend as XRP didn’t pass any key levels up or down.

Key levels to the upside                   Key levels to the downside

1: $0.266                                           1: $0.245

2: $0.285

3: $0.31

Categories
Crypto Videos

Cryptocurrency Day Trading Vs Swing Trading – Which is best for you?

https://youtu.be/iEQkBNBSyE8
Cryptocurrency Day trading vs. Swing trading
Cryptocurrency trading is becoming more and more popular as new people enter the markets. Depending on how risk-averse they are, traders are

https://youtu.be/iEQkBNBSyE8
Cryptocurrency Day trading vs. Swing trading
Cryptocurrency trading is becoming more and more popular as new people enter the markets. Depending on how risk-averse they are, traders are

Cryptocurrency Day trading vs. Swing trading

Cryptocurrency trading is becoming more and more popular as new people enter the markets. Depending on how risk-averse they are, traders are more prone to day trade or swing trade. First off, we need to know the difference between the two.
Day trading is trading where the long or short position is done within one day. Day traders usually stick to this rule relentlessly, regardless of the outcome of the trade. On the other hand, swing trading is and tries to take into account market swings and lasts longer than day trading. The positions can last several days, weeks, or even months. Anything more than a few months, and the trade can be considered an investment.
Many people are struggling to choose between day trading and swing trading and can’t decide which one is better for them. This article will try to explain the differences between the two.


Day trading

Being a day trader is not for everyone, as it brings a lot of risks with its profit potential. Day traders enter short trades with a high win/loss ratio and hope for the trade to be profitable within the trading day. In the case of cryptocurrencies, day traders are people that hold their positions up to 24 hours, as the markets never stop. These traders often utilize leverage to make their profit potential even higher.
Day trading, more than any other form of trading, requires extreme accuracy and quick decision-making when it comes to sizing as well as the timing of the entry, exits, and stop-losses. This form of trading relies much more on the technical overview of the cryptocurrency as opposed to longer time-frame trading, which has a much more fundamental approach. For this trading strategy to work properly, the trades need to be extremely precise and calculated. Day trading can be superior to swing trading in terms of profit, but only if the trader is analytical and can handle stress well.


Day trading also requires constant analysis and knowledge of the markets and their correlations. Cryptocurrency markets are never asleep, so the amount of information a day trader has to process is huge. Day trading is a lot more demanding in terms of time spent on strategizing when compared to swing trading. However, it can be a fulfilling full-time job.
Day trading cryptocurrency markets can be extremely lucrative because of the constant fluctuations of the market. On top of that, there are no set times when a trader must operate, so anyone can trade at any time.

Swing trading

Unlike day traders, swing traders hold their positions for longer than a day. They are usually more patient and fundamentally driven. They require less time to trade, but more time to analyze the markets. These trades have a bigger profit potential due to the duration of the trade, but there are fewer trading opportunities as opposed to day trading.
Swing trading requires less technical analysis skills, but it is more demanding in terms of fundamental research and knowledge of macroeconomics. The entry points are not intended to be micro-managed and don’t have to be as precise. On top of that, the timing is not as crucial as with day trading since the moves swing traders are aiming to catch are larger. The important thing with swing trading is to determine the trend and trade with it.
As swing trading doesn’t take as much time as day trading, it can be a fun and profitable part-time job. However, traders need to understand the importance of stop-losses as the cryptocurrency market does not sleep while they do. If stop-losses are not utilized properly, one might lose most of the trading portfolio while they sleep. This vulnerability has to be countered with a strategy that involves various defensive measures.

Conclusion

Depending on the trader’s personality, ability to tolerate stress, people pick day trading or swing trading. Highly analytical people that have time to do the research and don’t like holding their positions would be a perfect fit for day traders.
On the other hand, people who like trading based mostly on fundamentals and think that chart analysis is pointless, boring, or not as important as fundamental analysis, are a good fit for swing traders.
Either way, both trading strategies can be profitable as long as the traders utilize all of the tools that can minimize their risk and increase their profit potential.